Judg 15

Devotion 1 of 1: Judg 15

The chaotic life of Samson continues in this chapter. After his wedding to a Philistine woman in chapter 14, Samson angrily left her for a while because she betrayed him by telling her people the answer to his riddle. In v.1-2, he returns to see her again but finds out her father has given her to another man!
Once more, Samson is enraged! This time he catches 300 foxes, sets their tails on fire, lets them loose and burns up the Philistines’ grain fields, vineyards and olive groves (v.4-5). The Philistines are infuriated and burn Samson’s wife and her father to death (v.6). Predictably, this triggers an angry reaction in Samson, and he attacks the Philistines with a great slaughter (v.7-8). His life is a perpetual cycle of anger and revenge!
In the final episode in this chapter, the Philistines send an army to capture Samson (v.9-10). To avoid war, 3,000 men of Judah arrest Samson and hand him over to the enemy (v.11-12). Samson submits to them, but as soon as he is handed over, he breaks his bonds, grabs a jawbone of a donkey and massacres 1000 Philistines with it (v.14-15)! Once more, the cycle of anger and revenge is repeated!
Samson judged Israel for 20 years, but he never led the army of Israel to victory over the Philistines. Rather, his rule was a series of individual grudge matches against the Philistines, which never resulted in a national victory.
The lesson we learn from Samson is that although he had a wonderful calling to lead Israel and a mighty gift of power, he never rose above petty personal fights against the enemy because he didn’t mature spiritually! Let’s rise up to fulfill our calling of leading Japan to a national revival by growing up to be like Jesus!

JOHN 1: Free sharing!
Jesus’ group of 12 disciples was formed by one inviting another. We see Andrew began to follow Jesus when his mentor, John the Baptist, introduced Jesus to him as “The Lamb of God” (v.35-40). Then Andrew invited his brother, Peter, and Peter joined Jesus’ band, too (v.41-42).
Jesus then directly invited Philip (v.43), and right away Philip found Nathanael and invited him (v.45). Nathanael was skeptical that anything good could come from Nazareth (v.46), so when Philip brought him, Jesus spoke a special word of knowledge to Nathanael about his character and how he was under the fig tree when Philip called him (v.47-48). This shocked Nathanael and he called Jesus the Son of God and King of Israel (v.49)!
Let’s invite people to meet Jesus at SI! Let’s believe Jesus will speak to their heart and show that He is the Son of God and King of the Universe! Let’s form the Jesus Band of the endtime! O God, begin Your endtime work now! Form us into Your endtime harvest laborers, we pray!