The Philistines laid hold on him, and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison-house.
Therein is the gospel because all of us have sinned, all of us have come short of the glory of God, all of us have failed God, all of us have found ourselves trapped thinking that there's no way out. But God is gracious and even though we have failed Him, He will not fail us and even though we have forsaken Him, if we will just turn back unto Him, He will be merciful and gracious.On a boring job there's plenty of time to think and I imagine Samson did a lot of thinking as he was pushing that post around. Thinking of what a fool he had been, going back and reliving the mistakes and thinking, "If I'd only done this. If I'd only done that. If I'd stayed out of Sorek. If I'd only walked away from Delilah. If I'd only, if I'd only" and living in those reflections of the past. Man, once mighty and powerful now shuffling with uncertain gate because he can't even see where he's going anymore. Brought down to the bottom but many times God has to bring us to the bottom so we'll look up and he began to look up.And I'm certain that as his hair began to grow again he felt within his heart, "God I'm gonna renew my consecration. I'm gonna renew my vow. But God what can you do with me now. Lord, what I have and what's left here is yours. I'm gonna give my life to you such as it is." Never can he achieve or attain what he could have, the full potential of his being, but Lord, at least you can have what's left, the broken shell.So the Philistines were having a huge gala party. They had gathered in the temple of their god, the god Dagon, people were on the roof crowded around the place. Someone got the brilliant idea, "Let's bring that guy Samson that used to give us such a bad time. Bring him into the arena so we can see him shuffling around in his blinded condition. Let him stumble around, trip him and all and just so we can have a big laugh at the clumsiness of him now that he cannot see."And so they hurried down into the prison and they brought Samson from the prison into the temple and as he came in the laughs and the hoorahs went up as the people began to mock him and to jeer him and to make fun of him as he tried to make his way around the room in a strange place not able to see. One would put his foot out in front of Samson and Samson would trip and fall and everybody would roar and howl with laughter. That man who was such a nemesis is now so weakened and it delighted them.Samson said, "O God, once more, just once more God. All I ask is once more. Let the anointing of your spirit come upon my life."David the psalmist, messing around also lost that sense of God's spirit. After his sin with Bathsheba and after the death of his child, David repented and his repentance is given to us in the fifty-first psalm. And one of the pertinent prayers of David in the fifty-first psalm when he is asking God to cleanse him and according to God's mercy blot out his transgression. One of the pertinent verses there he said, "And return thy Holy Spirit unto me." O God again let me sense your presence, let me again sense your power. This was Samson's prayer, "Lord once more I want to know your power in my life. And Lord I don't want to live, I have nothing to live for now. Let me die with the Philistines." His prayer unto God.He said to the young boy who was leading him around, "Take me over to the pillars that hold this place up." And the little boy innocently led him over to the pillars that held up the temple. He took hold in his right arm and left arm the two key pillars holding up the building. He said, "God I want the Philistines to be avenged for the eyes that they put out." And by faith he began to pull and the Spirit of God came upon Samson and he pulled those pillars together. The temple of the god Dagon fell with the Philistines packed into it and three thousand of them were crushed to death. And Samson laid dead under the crushed Philistines. God's grace allowed him to once more experience the power of God and he went out in the greatest victory of his life.Jesus, in the New Testament said something that was very interesting in regards to his disciples, he said, "Ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt has lost its savor it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under the foot of man." Samson probably is a good illustration of this sort of allegory of Jesus, for God had chosen Samson to be the saving salt of Israel but because of the weakness of his flesh he lost his savor and he ended up crushed beneath the Philistines.The sad story of Samson is being repeated however over and over as we see men with wasted potentials. God has endowed people with talents, abilities and they waste them because of the weaknesses of their own flesh. They never achieve, they never attain that full glory and power that God wants their lives to be. Wasted potential is the story of so many people. The tragic biography, wasted, his life was wasted. He could have done so much for God, he could have been such a power for God's kingdom, he could have been so influential in bringing others to the Lord but his life was wasted. He was destroyed by the weakness of his own flesh "