Squandered Promise

Judges 16:28-31

"Then Samson prayed to the LORD, "O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes." Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived. Then his brothers and his father's whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led Israel twenty years."

"Samson would've been a better man had he paid attention tonthe call God placed in his life. Instead, he seems to have squandered the promise of his life by living it in a self-centered, self-directed way. Ironically, the pattern of his life formed a vivid picture of Israel's own unfaithfulness during a period when it seemed incapable of resisting the allurement of foreign gods. And so a people God had set apart and called His own, the nation he intended to build up and strengthen, grew progressively weaker in the land He had promised. The life of Samson reminds us of God's faithfulness, of His ability to deliver His people regardless of the circumstances and despite their sins. It also reminds us of what can happen when we allow ourselves to become attached to things and people, however enticing, that might end in our own self-destruction."

Exodus 20:1-6

"And God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."