–B.N. Rundell  (Journey to Jeopardy)

       “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent.  Has He said, and will He not do?  Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

                         –Numbers 23:19(NKJV)
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When I was a principal and to a lesser degree a classroom teacher, I heard every excuse in the book.  When asking a student why they did such and such, they would come up with all kinds of reasons, none of them really the truth.  On some students, you get to know who, I would use an honor system.  They would promise never to do “it” again.  I would take them at their word, but I told them that if they broke our trust that I would come down even harder on them.

               “When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools.  Pay what you have vowed–better not to vow than to vow and not pay.  Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error.  Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the works of your hands?”
                            –Ecclesiastes 5:4-6 (NKJV)

       Make a commitment and keep it.  People have a tendency to make vows that are shallow and superficial.  “Lord, if you help me out of this, I’ll become…” and God knows that the person isn’t going to keep that vow.  But I wonder. . . isn’t that a form of bribery, a form of manipulation?  God doesn’t bargain with us, oh, it may seem that He does at times, but when he helps us out of trouble it is not because we have promised something; it is because He is our heavenly Father.  We must not attempt to bribe God with vows.  In other words, do not play games with God!
       How many times have you told God, “I’ll never do it again, I promise”?  Then two days later you are back on your knees praying the same prayer.  That does not negate the original vow.  Some hang their heads and let the situation destroy them and drive them into despair.  “I’m no good, I keeping breaking my promise.”  That does not do away with the original promise.  Get up and keep the vow.  Strive over and over if need be, but do it.  I see only two places in the Bible where a vow can be broken.  The father can negate a vow by a daughter, and the husband the wife.
       Don’t decide now, then deny later.  Don’t go to God with flimsy excuses–Ooops!  My mercy, I hear the cry over and over and it is a cop-out:  “I’m only human.”  Or often we say, “I made a mistake,” or “I didn’t realize what I was doing.”  At least those are honest attempts at the truth.  Don’t say, “the devil made me do it,” for Satan can only tempt, he cannot force you to do anything; it is by choice.
       God does not ignore or overlook our decisions–we are accountable.  Yes, for sure He will forgive if we truly repent, but a person with a repentant heart does not come before God with excuses.  We don’t say to him regarding the truth, “Cross my heart and hope to die.  Stick a needle in my eye.”  Is that sincerity, or trying to pull the wool over God’s eyes?
       This all goes back to understanding who God is.  There is so much talk of “relationship” that too often we forget that He is the Almighty God, the Creator of the universe.  Fear has left our ranks, but that is the first steps to gaining wisdom and knowing Him.  Don’t play foolish games with God.  Paul said, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11, NKJV)  There are too many people playing Peter Pan in their spiritual lives.  Listen!  A warrior doesn’t play games!  The battle rages, he is serious about life and eternity.  Walter Kaiser writes, “Men must learn that their first order of business is to fear God.”

                         –Lou Bradshaw  (Rubio:  the Man)

       “Learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.”

                         –Isaiah 1:17 (NKJV)
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                    “And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of…Samson…who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions.”
                                   –Hebrews 11:32-33 (NKJV)

       Samson, whose name means “sunny” or “bright” judged Israel for twenty years.  He was the only judge where it is said that the Lord blessed him (13:24).  I can only imagine what his young life was like.  What exploits did he do before we read about him wanting a wife from among the Philistines?  The people did not accept him as a deliverer, or was it because he could not rally the people to him?  Joseph Parker said that he was “an elephant in strength, a babe in weakness.”  No one could stand against him, yet he was helpless as a baby when it came to women.
       He was born into a time when Israel was in the process of losing its identity.  They were satisfied with not being bothered by the rules of the priests, and the priests were not doing their job by taking spiritual leadership.  One could easily make the cry:  “Where was the leadership in Israel?”
       From Judges 14:1-2, it is easy to see that he was easily infatuated.  “He saw…”  Hubba-hubba, that’s the girl for me.  He forgot or didn’t care that the people of Israel were forbidden to intermarry with the inhabitants of Canaan. (Deuteronomy 7:3-4).  He knew he was to be separate for every step he took his hair would remind him, but did he not care, or did he think he was above the commands of the Lord?  Gary Inrig writes about Samson, “He was a self-confessed spiritual anarchist, a man who had adopted the social values of his pagan contemporaries.”  In other words, he fit right in with the rest of Israel at the time.
       It was a shame that God’s people adopted that view.  “Leave me alone, we’re satisfied.  Don’t cause us any problems.”  My, my isn’t that similar to the situation we see today?  If a preacher gets up to preach the pure word of God they are criticized.  Compromise, have some love, don’t cause problems.  Standards have changed since the Bible was written.  Ha, maybe standards of society have changed, but God’s Word remains firm.
       Samson’s parents try to dissuade him from marrying the Philistine woman, but he wouldn’t listen.  Makes me think of how many people will not listen to the direction of God’s Word.  However, there is a perplexing verse (at least to me).  Verse 4 states, “But his mother and father did not know that it was of the LORD…”  Was God moving against His own words?  The rest of the verse indicates only that “He was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines…”(NKJV)  Some way in Samson’s disobedience God was going to use it to bring judgment upon the Philistines.
       In the midst of Samson seeking a wife, sometime on the trip he was attacked by a lion.  “And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart…” (14:6, NKJV).  We have to be careful about using analogies too freely, but I think of the verse from 1 Peter, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (5:8, NKJV)  I do not believe we have it in our means to rip the “lion” apart like Samson, but we do have the spiritual strength to stand against him.  He is ready to attack, just like the lion that attacked Samson, and just like Samson the Holy Spirit will come mightily upon us.
       One more thought about this portion of Samson’s life.  In this chapter he “went down” was mentioned five times.  From this point on we see the downward trend of Samson’s life.  A man used mightily by the Spirit, yet squandered his resources.  Wiersbe says that he “was a man of faith, but he certainly wasn’t a faithful man.”  What would have been his life had he learned the lesson of Paul who said, “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” (1 Corinthians 9:27, NKJV)

                    –Louis L’Amour  (Conagher)

       “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

                    –Psalm 46:1 (NKJV)
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Psalm 86, and we see that David is having another one of his “episodes.”  He is concerned over his plight as his enemies are after him.  David many times seems to be down in the mully-grubs of life, but at least he had sense enough to recognize that the Lord was his refuge.  Read these words of David, maybe even read them aloud.  When I read them I think Spurgeon might have said it best, “The best of men need mercy and appeal to mercy, yea to nothing else but mercy.”  David needs God, longs for God.

          1 — Bow down Your ear, O LORD, hear me; for I am poor and needy.
          2 — Preserve my life, for I am holy; You are my God; save Your servant who trusts in You!
          3 — Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I cry to You all day long.
          4 — Rejoice the soul of Your servant, for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
          5 — For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.
          6 — Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications.
          7 — In the day of my trouble I will call upon You, for You will answer me.
          8 — Among the gods, there is none like You, O Lord; nor are there any works like Your works.
          9 — All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name.
        10 — For You are great, and do wondrous things; You alone are God.   (NKJV)

       When I first read this I question, David is poor and needy?  But there may be more to what I see written.  This may have been a time when he was running from Saul and hiding in the caves.  Or it could have been when Absalom had taken over the throne and David had to flee.  Perhaps David understood the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the poor in spirit and all that he really needs is God as Paul writes in Philippians.  Max Anders writes, “Mercy is the deep heart feeling of benevolence that God has for his own, especially in their troubles.”
       Verse 2 sees David crying out to God.  He cries, “I am holy.”  Understand that this means that David is separated unto the Lord, that he is devoted to God.  It also indicates that he is faithful.  He is not claiming that he is sinless, but that he is committed.  He trusts in the Lord despite difficulties, troubles, battles, and attacks both physical and spiritual.  In other words, he looks to God because he is faithful and he knows that God is faithful.
       No matter what happens in his life, David proclaims that he will trust God.  How simple a statement, yet how true–it is that simple trust that gets us through the difficulties of life.  He knows that God is ready to forgive.  He understands that happiness is in the Lord and serving HIm.  When he falls, he will cry out knowing and trusting that God is there to help him.  I like verse 7, “In the day of trouble,” or as the NLT puts it, “whenever trouble strikes,” God will be there to answer me.  We always have hope and we should never lose trust.  The great preacher F.B. Meyer wrote, “You have fallen a hundred times and are ashamed to come to God again; it seems too much to expect that He will receive you again.  But He will, for He is ready to forgive.”  If you find yourself in the situation that Meyer is speaking of raise your voice to God, lift up your head, and trust in Him
       One further note, David is not being repetitive by using “Lord” over and over again.  Notice that sometimes the word is capitalized, that is Yahweh.  When lower case it is Adonai, meaning “master” or “lord.”  David understands his position before God.

                    “O use me, Lord, use even me,
                    Just as Thou wilt, and when, and where;
                    Until Thy blessed face I see,
                    Thy rest, Thy joy, Thy glory share.”
                              –Frances R. Havergal