DCLM Daily Manna Friday 13 October 2023
TOPIC: God’s Unsparing Judgment
TEXT: Judges 15:1-8 (KJV)
15 But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.
2 And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her.
3 And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.
4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.
5 And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.
6 Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.
7 And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.
8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
KEY VERSE
“And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.”
(Judges 15:8)
DCLM Daily Manna Friday 13 October 2023 MESSAGE
Some people are so presumptuous. Sometimes, they think they can second-guess God and how He would exact the judgment that must necessarily come on all offenders. The result is that they minimise the judgment by understating the import of the offence. Sometimes, this is done in the vain hope that it will sway God.
God is not a man that you can twist and turn to do your will. Before now, God had allowed the Philistines to oppress and rule over the Israelites because they did not drive out all the Philistines from Canaan land. They remained that way until, in His mercy, He brought Samson to deliver them. His parents did not know that his idea to marry a Philistine woman “was of the Lord, that He sought an occasion against the Philistines”.
READ DCLM Daily Manna Wednesday 12 October 2023 – Little Things That Matter To God
After the marriage was contracted, Samson was separated for a while from his wife following a disagreement. When he returned, he was told his father-in-law had given his wife to another man, the so-called friend who had helped Samson arrange the marriage. This became an occasion for God to vent His judgment on the Philistines. He roused Samson who first set their farms on fire and destroyed their agricultural output for the year. Even after the Philistines had retaliated by killing his wife and her family, Samson, in a one-man rampage, destroyed more Philistines “with a great slaughter”.
God’s judgment does not spare any sinner and no one can ever determine how the judgment will come nor escape its long reach. Those who think they have the upper hand may be used to punish others, but afterwards they too will pay a high price for their sins and evil. The best way to avoid judgment is to turn away from sin, live righteously and follow the Lord till the end.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
Judgment for offences against God is as certain as life and death.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:
Isaiah 30-33
