Samson the Avenger

“Since you’ve acted like this, I swear that I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.”
Judges 15:7

Samson was not like Gideon. 

Every step Gideon took involved dialogue with God. Above all, Gideon wanted to be certain he was on the right path so his actions would be blessed by God. Gideon’s life was marked by humility and victory. Gideon was a servant. Most of us hope to emulate Gideon. Samson, on the other hand impetuously took matters into his own hands. If he was offended he impulsively extracted revenge. No fleece, just swift justice. A person like that could get hurt. And...Samson did.

Let’s not forget that God called them both. 

In fact, when Samson demanded to marry the Philistine woman (an unorthodox demand) his parent saw trouble coming. But...”his parents did not know that this was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.” So...even though Samson’s life appears fraught with turmoil and, arguably less effective than Gideon’s, we might remember, different mission...different method.

As believers we see a cautionary message in Samson: Samson was called by God to be an “avenger” because of the Philistine abuse of Israel. Vengance is often misinterpreted as “revenge” and Samson, himself, made this mistake in reaction to the murder of his wife.

• Revenge - is inflicting pain or harm in return for pain or harm inflicted on oneself or on those persons to which one feels loyalty. 
• Vengance - is inflicting punishment as an act of retributive justice or as a vindication of propriety.

Scripture says “Never take your own revenge but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay” (Romans 12:19). There are occasions when the Great Avenger delegates. God calls every believer to serve Him and He calls some to be His avengers. I have known a few and...they make me nervous. They are unpredictable. They are just as called as the rest of us but they serve in a far more chaotic environment, often self-made. Samson endured a lot of pain and heartache when he mistook his mission to be revenge. But, when he was “on point” his service to God was awesome to behold and effectively restored Divine justice.

Pain for pain only leads to more pain. It is the human vortex that leads to destruction. Retributive justice...at God’s direction...brings peace. We should be thankful for the avengers God has called. They need our prayers, not our criticism.

Personally, I’m thankful God didn’t call me to be an avenger. When I think about Vengance it looks too much like revenge.

Live boldly out there today...

Samson the Nazarite

Then the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son. Now therefore, be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing. “For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”  Judges 13:3-5

“Nazarite" comes from the Hebrew word נזיר nazir meaning "consecrated" or "separated". This vow required the person to:

• Abstain from wine, grapes, and eating or drinking any substance that contains any trace of grapes.
• Refrain from cutting the hair on one's head; but to allow the locks of the head's hair to grow.
• Not to become ritually impure by contact with corpses or graves, even those of family members.

Two examples of nazarites are found in scriptures; Samson and Samuel. Both were born of previously barren mothers and entered into their vows through their mothers' oaths rather than their own volition: In the first case, God sent an angel to make the vow known to the Samson’s mother. In the second case, Samuel’s mother made the vow before Samuel was even conceived, because she was barren. These vows required Samson and Samuel to live devout lives, yet in return they received extraordinary gifts: Samson possessed strength and ability in physical battle against the Philistines, while Samuel became a prophet.

Samson and Samuel are reminders that, although the Nazaritic vow was traditionally voluntary, there are times when God wants particular things done and He sets somebody apart for Himself. We can imagine the difficulty for a person in that dedicated status who wants something else. It’s like an arranged marriage. And, the outcome will be good, or bad, depending on the willingness of the Nazarite to accept this call on his/her life. For Samuel, it went well.

For Samson... not so much.

Samson reminds me of a precocious child athlete, with indescribable talent and potential...who is destined for big league stardom and accolades. Yet, never achieves those dreams because of his own immaturity and lack of discipline. Samson was never able to bridle his own passions and this led to his demise. All the promise implied by the vow was overshadowed by personal failure. Remember when he saw a young Philistine woman and said to his father and mother, “I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.” During the wedding feast his guests discovered the answer to his riddle through chicanery. Samson was so incensed by the deception that he burned with anger. He went down to Ashkelon, killed thirty of their men, stripped them of everything and gave it to those who had explained the riddle. Burning with anger, he returned to his father’s home. And, wife was given to one of his companions who had attended him at the feast.

That’s one of several examples. Even so, God faithfully used him to deliver Israel. His final act, destroying the Philistine temple along with thousands of Israel’s enemies, demonstrates God ‘ faithfulness to Samson even when the converse wasn’t always true.

This is good news. As I enter the autumn of my life I can see occasions from my past when God truly set me apart, unto Himself, to do great things. And, had I been more disciplined, unimaginably greater things may have occurred...but didn’t. Yet, as I moved closer to Him, He would once again set me apart for another purpose. He is still doing it today.

In many ways, Samson is a story of personal failure. We look at Samson and wonder what “might have been.” We look at our own lives and wonder the same thing. Please do not despair. God is not finished using us yet. Samson, though blinded and stripped of his strength, was given one final and glorious mission. It was a resounding success and, today, that’s what we remember him for. 

Live boldly out there today...

The Blessing of Israel

‘In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Genesis 22:18 - NASB

I received this email, from a friend, regarding the BDS movement against Israel. It is not mine and I do not know the author. It is worth the read...

Some time ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the Muslim World to boycott anything and everything that originates with the Jewish people. In response, Meyer M. Treinkman, a pharmacist, out of the kindness of his heart, offered to assist them in their boycott as follows: “Any Muslim who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by a Jew, Dr. Ehrlich. He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. If a Muslim suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner. A Muslim who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube. Should he suffer with a toothache, he must not use Novocaine, a discovery of the Jews, Widal and Weil. If a Muslim has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of research by Minkowsky, a Jew. If one has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege. Muslims with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate. Arabs must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew. Should a Muslim child get Diphtheria, he must refrain from the “Schick" reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick. Muslims should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, work of Jewish Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram. They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk. Muslims must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman, invented the wonder drug against this killing disease. Muslim doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict, or the lung specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts. In short, good and loyal Muslims properly and fittingly should remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott.”

Oh, and by the way, don't call for a doctor on your cell phone because the cell phone was invented in Israel by Jewish engineer  Martin "

Meanwhile I ask, what medical contributions to the world have the Muslims made? The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population.They have received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
     1988 - Najib Mahfooz
Peace:
    1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
    1990 - Elias James Corey
    1994 - Yaser Arafat:
    1999 - Ahmed Zewai
Economics: (zero)
Physics: (zero)
Medicine:
    1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
    1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: SEVEN

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
    1910 - Paul Heyse
    1927 - Henri Bergson
    1958 - Boris Pasternak
    1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
    1966 - Nelly Sachs
    1976 - Saul Bellow
    1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
    1981 - Elias Canetti
    1987 - Joseph Brodsky
    1991 - Nadine Gordimer
World Peace:
    1911 - Alfred Fried
    1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
    1968 - Rene Cassin
    1973 - Henry Kissinger
    1978 - Menachem Begin
    1986 - Elie Wiesel
    1994 - Shimon Peres
    1994 - Yitzhak Rabin
Physics:
    1905 - Adolph Von Baeye
    1906 - Henri Moissan
    1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
    1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
    1910 - Otto Wallach
    1915 - Richard Willstaetter
    1918 - Fritz Haber
    1921 - Albert Einstein
    1922 - Niels Bohr
    1925 - James Franck
    1925 - Gustav Hertz
    1943 - Gustav Stern
    1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
    1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
    1952 - Felix Bloch
    1954 - Max Born
    1958 - Igor Tamm
    1959 - Emilio Segre
    1960 - Donald A. Glaser
    1961 - Robert Hofstadter
    1961 - Melvin Calvin
    1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
    1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
    1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
    1965 - Julian Schwinger
    1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
    1971 - Dennis Gabor
    1972 - William Howard Stein
    1973 - Brian David Josephson
    1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
    1976 - Burton Richter
    1977 - Ilya Prigogine
    1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
    1978 - Peter L Kapitza
    1979 - Stephen Weinberg
    1979 - Sheldon Glashow
    1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
    1980 - Paul Berg
    1980 - Walter Gilbert
    1981 - Roald Hoffmann
    1982 - Aaron Klug
    1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
    1985 - Jerome Karle
    1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
    1988 - Robert Huber
    1988 - Leon Lederman
    1988 - Melvin Schwartz
    1988 - Jack Steinberger
    1989 - Sidney Altman
    1990 - Jerome Friedman
    1992 - Rudolph Marcus
    1995 - Martin Perl
    2000 - Alan J. Heeger
Economics:
    1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
    1971 - Simon Kuznets
    1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
    1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
    1976 - Milton Friedman.  
    1978 - Herbert A. Simon.  
    1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
    1985 - Franco Modigliani
    1987 - Robert M. Solow
    1990 - Harry Markowitz
    1990 - Merton Miller
    1992 - Gary Becker
    1993 - Robert Fogel
Medicine:
    1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
    1908 - Paul Erlich
    1914 - Robert Barany
    1922 - Otto Meyerhof
    1930 - Karl Landsteiner
    1931 - Otto Warburg
    1936 - Otto Loewi
    1944 - Joseph Erlanger
    1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
    1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
    1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
    1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
    1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman
    1953 - Hans Krebs
    1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
    1958 - Joshua Lederberg
    1959 - Arthur Kornberg
    1964 - Konrad Bloch
    1965 - Francois Jacob
    1965 - Andre Lwoff
    1967 - George Wald
    1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
    1969 - Salvador Luria
    1970 - Julius Axelrod
    1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
    1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
    1975 - Howard Martin Temin
    1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
    1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
    1978 - Daniel Nathans
    1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
    1984 - Cesar Milstein
    1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
    1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
    1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
    1988 - Gertrude Elion
    1989 - Harold Varmus
    1991 - Erwin Neher
    1991 - Bert Sakmann
    1993 - Richard J. Roberts
    1993 - Phillip Sharp
    1994 - Alfred Gilman
    1995 - Edward B. Lewis
    1996- Lu RoseIacovino

TOTAL: 129!

The Jews are NOT promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church.. There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people. The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.  Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems. Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel 's part, the following two sentences really say it all: “If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel." Benjamin Netanyahu.

General Eisenhower warned us. It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.He did this because he said in words to this effect: “Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history someone will get up and say that this never happened.” Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. It is now more than 65 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets. This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world. How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States?