he never made a great man. There were just a few flashes of noble passion, true patriotism and heroic attainment—enough to show what might have been—and then the light was quenched. Failure is writ large over this man’s life, and as you look in the tragic failure you are inclined to give a new turn to Whittier’s words, “The saddest of all sad words are these, ‘it might have been.’”16
The reason for the failure is not far to seek. Milton says, “But thee, whose strength, while virtue was her mate, might have subdued the earth.” But virtue did not long remain the mate of strength, and so Samson subdued nothing. He did not “rule his own spirit,” and he did not rule anything. His moral principle decayed, his purity went, and his power to bless himself and his fellows was paralyzed. The man who might have lifted his people up, let them down.
Was this nothing to say to you? Can you not match that? That searching analyst of character, Alexander Whyte, says, “Samsons in body are not born among us in our day, but Samsons in mind are sometimes given us in room of them. And it is not seldom seen that our greatly gifted youths work as little deliverance for themselves and for us as Samson did for Israel.”17 You can read that in life as well as in Dr. Whyte. We all knew the youths who at school and college stood head and shoulders above the rest of us. Easily and brilliantly they came out head of the examination lists and carried off all the prizes. With them, as with Samson, the slaying of lions was as the slaying of kids. Great things were prophesied and expected of them. And for all the brilliant promise there has been no performance. They have been easily outstripped by men with fewer gifts. Many of them have not only failed, they have looked too long and longingly on the wine red in the cup, have sought too often the excitements of the card table, and well, the other can be left unsaid.
God help us to lay the lesson to heart. It is great to have great powers, but there is something greater than intellectual greatness or flashes of genius. Recall Tennyson’s knight “whose strength was as the strength of ten, because his heart was pure.”18 That is not a pretty poetic myth, it is life’s great fact. Behind your brilliant intellect keep a pure heart. Let your moral principle be sound and strong. Then your power to serve your generation will be increased tenfold. Even if you are not an intellectual giant or a greatly gifted man you will be able to help your fellows if you are a good man and true. But without humility, purity, singleness of heart, your power will be paralyzed as surely as was Samson’s.
THERE IS AN UNCONScIOUS DEGENERATION AND LOSS OF POWER
He said, “I will go out as at other times. He wist not that the Lord was departed from him.” Poor Samson! What a sorry awakening! The giant had become a weakling and without knowing it. You are not to suppose that his strength went from him in an hour because he told a woman his secret and let her shave his head. I take it that that is simply a dramatic and forcible way of telling how he degenerated and his strength left him. He had been gradually weakening, falling, departing from the spirit of his Nazarite vow. His power had been going without his knowing it and one day he awoke to find it gone.
Here again the story is true to life. This is the way strength usually goes in regards to physical strength, the invalid, after a few days illness, thinks he can rise and walk and work but finds his strength has gone. In regards to mental strength, politicians, preachers, singers, keep on after their power has gone. That is how moral strength goes too. Men smile superciliously when you suggest that trifling with wine cups, having a shilling in their fancy, sporting with Delilah may ruin them. “Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?” They know when to stop. But the question is stopping when you know you ought to. The evil you are flirting with is sapping your strength and will hand you over to slavery.
Religious strength goes this way too. We all know people who neglect the means of grace, allow the family altar to fall into ruins and the dust to gather on the Bible, and who are rather sarcastic towards earnest folk who keep these things up. They declare that they are growing broader and not weaker, and yet, we can read the story of Samson with a religious interpretation.
My friends, we cannot help the loss of physical and mental strength and there is no tragedy when they go. But we need not and ought not to lose our moral and religious energy. We can go from strength to strength. Is it not written that, though youths faint and be weary, they that wait upon God shall renew their strength?
STRENGTH MAY BE RECOVERED BY A RETURN TO FAITH
Turn now to the closing scenes of Samson’s life. I have nothing to take back of the solemn and stern words I have tried to say, but I must proclaim the gospel Samson’s closing days preach. Look at the man. “Ask for the deliverer now, and find him eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves. Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke. With his heaven-gifted strength put to the labor of a beast.” What a sorry spectacle! Sightless, a slave, ageing fast. But it is not the sorriest spectacle in that tragic life. In some respects, it is the most hopeful. Blinded by his enemies, Samson is recovering his inward sight. Never again will he look upon the dazzling sights of earth, but there is still opportunity to look upon the face of God. The lonely prison cell became a house of God, a place of prayer and penitence. In the night of his blindness Samson spoke with his God and held Him fast.
The day of his disgrace was his day of grace. The cutting of his hair was the outward sign of his inner dislocation and departure from God. In the prison, “the hair of his head began to grow again.” He got back to purity, to faith, to the spirit of his vow. He prayed, “Remember me, O Lord, just this once.” And you know the sequel. Call it a mean, petty, personal revenge if you will, I cannot join you. I have to judge this man in the light of his day, by the rude and rough laws of his time and not by Christian standards. I have to remember that the Philistines were the sworn foes of Israel’s integrity as a nation and of their faith in the One God, and that slaying Philistines was thought to be serving God. And, anyway, I have to preach the gospel that the miracle of Samson’s life may be worked in yours. His fall has not been yours, nor his temptations. But how many of us have failed to keep the vows, the purity, and the faith of other days.
Think of the vow you made at your mother’s knee, when you gave yourself to Christ and joined the church. When God delivered you from some threatening trouble. Have you allowed the enemies of God and your soul to rob you of your strength, your faith, your purity, your zeal? I am here to call you back. Back! I pray you to the old pure vows. Back! To your loyalty to God. Back! To the old sense of separation to a holy life and Divine service.
For some of you, the day is far spent and the night is at hand. For others, the sun is still high in the sky. For all of you this gospel is that if you will return to your faith, your strength will return to you. If you will pray God will bless you with his reviving grace and make his strength perfect in your weakness. Pray Samson’s prayer, “Remember me, O Lord.” Cry, “Give me back my heart, my purity, my power.” God always answers that prayer when it comes from a penitent heart, and in the abundance of the answer the failures of the past shall be swallowed up in the victories yet to be.
16. The actual quote of John Greenleaf Whittier, taken from the last two lines of the work, is: “For of all sad words of tongue or pen / The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’” This is a quote from a poem entitled “Maud Muller” (1856).
17. This is taken from Alexander Whyte’s Dictionary of Bible Characters (1901), the entry on Samson.
18. From Tennyson’s poem of 1842, “Sir Galahad.”
“GOD AND BREAD”—Ruth 1.6
(Preached twelve times including Spring Head Mission 9/20/36 and Prees Green 10/7/51; a Harvest Sermon)