Why did Solomon havea weakness?

ummmm....

I think ya need to study some more. The one who had the strength was Samson, not Solomon.

 

Well, Solomon did have a weakness for the ladies too -- Just not that particular one . . .

 

With as many as Solomon had I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few Delilahs in the bunch!

 

Samson should have stayed away from bad women. Maybe if he had read proverbs...

 

The hair "thingy" had to to with Samson's obedience and dependance upon God!! Too bad he got clipped at "Hell's Barbershop!!!"

 

Samson was a Nazarite. Part of the Nazarite vow was that they were not allowed to cut their hair as long as they were under the vow.

God had told Samson's parents that he was to be a Nazarite from birth and would never be allowed to cut his hair. God promised the blessing of strength if Samson would obey and keep the vow. When Samson disobeyed, he paid the penalty for his sin by losing his strength.

I think it is a good lesson for us. "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." We need to remain faithful and know that sin has consequences, sometimes very severe.

 

Bad women



[ March 25, 2006, 10:17 AM: Message edited by: Brother Bob ]

 

EXACTLY what i would have said

 

These two special men, Solomon, and Sampson I believe can be grouped together, to show us things about ourselves, both men and women, well as showing God is no respecters of persons.

This post by way of necessity of explanation will carry us into another field of the man and the woman, showing why these to great men of God were really the same as all men, and the women are the same as all women, when we think or love anyone or anything more than God.

The Holy Spirit of God was the strength of Samson a Judge of Israel. Wisdom was Solomon’s strong point, as God gave him so much more wisdom than all others, and he was King of the 12 tribes of Israel. But even these chosen of God failed. Solomon with all of his worldly wisdom, could not overcome his sinful
Adam nature, nor could Samson in his physical strength. Regardless of how “smart” or how “strong” we are we are not strong enough to defeat Satan, or the sinful nature that is in us. We just can’t do it when we turn to our own way.

I hate to say it, but we men are not very smart, or we “love” too much. I believe Samson was just like Adam (we all are and the women are all just like “woman” in that we live in sinful bodies). Samson loved his wife, but just as the woman enticed Adam, so did the wife of Samson. They were both in error, Samson and Entice. But had the enticing woman been as my wife, or perhaps as other women or wives here, Samson would have won the bet.

Again it is so very hard for we men, in our honor, trust and love for our women, that we are to be careful to not let our desire to please our women overcome our desire to please God. But we also need to recognize for most of us so much is not riding on our shoulders, for Samson and Solomon had the weight of the nation of God nation on their shoulders. So under most circumstances we have our little squabbles and life goes on.

It is interesting that women were the downfall of these two great men chosen by God. Because of Solomon’s actions of letting some of his wives turn him to idol worship, it was impossible for one of his sons be the father of Jesus, or to sit upon the throne of David to rule all of Israel as time passed. It is through the bloodline of Mary from David, and David’s son Nathan that Jesus is born of the virgin Mary. But the blood of Jesus is the blood of God, allowing Jesus to be God and man in the flesh.

These people made “covenant” with God, and God held every one of them accountable, and dealt directly with them, and talked to them. Today God is not dealing with His nation but reconciling the world unto himself on an individual basis. He is coming back to deal further with them in His wrath. In the mean time He speaks to us through His Word.

Christian faith, ituttut

 

So would the outcome have been the same if Samson was innocently walking down the street one day and someone leaped out, clubbed him over the head, and cut his hair while he was unconscious?

 

Excellent question, but I think the same as the OP. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm going to say yes. If Samson's strength simply had to do with obedience, he would have lost it long before the snip of Delilah's scissors.

 

Get real. This man slays a thousand at one time, and somebody with a club is going to take him? You can come up with something better than that. The Holy Spirit, not the hair had the power. Terminator wouldn’t stand a chance.

Christian faith, ituttut

 

I don't think that these two stories are about love at all.

</font>[/QUOTE]Hello Scarlett O.
The incidents are of the man’s love of the woman. The wife, or a woman, is not required to love her husband, or a man.

I'm not going there brother. Well, just to say that, again, I don't believe that these men's downfalls had anything to do with love.

</font>[/QUOTE]Either could have had any they wished, and of course Solomon evidently came pretty close. And I don’t believe either would commit to a woman they hated, or liked, over a period of time. These men allowed the woman to have sway over their lives.

But what about later? Delilah was not Samson's wife. She was Philistine woman that he "fell" for. There relationship was motivated by business on Delilah's end. She was paid to discover his secret and knew he would be killed for it. And on Samson's end, it was motivated by sex. She tried to trick him three times and three times he knew that she was turning him over to be killed. He knew that she didn't love him and he apparently did not care. Why on earth not?? I think you can figure that out.

</font>[/QUOTE]Men do not stay in a constant relationship with a woman just for sex. You are trying to say the women loved these men. That is not what I said, and it isn’t the role of the woman to love a man. That is not their purpose in life.

You think like a woman, and speak without knowing the facts. ”And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah”, Judges 16:4

No doubt he was like all healthy men. That is the way we are made, otherwise existence of all humans would have ended long ago. He learned His lesson of having a wife that did not honor him, so he was not as stupid at you think.

Note the father of Samson’s wife thought Samson hated her. Evidently he did not for he went back for her. I don’t find in scripture where Samson committed adultery, and we cannot apply to we today the things that were allowed in those days. But should Samson have lived today he would be labeled a carnal Christian. I don’t believe he was any better or any worse that any of we today. He was human.

There is no honor in Samson's story and he certainly didn't trust Delilah very much or he would have told her the truth in the beginning.


</font>[/QUOTE]You sure don’t like this guy that God blessed, and I don’t know if I can blame you, for Samson blew it. I don’t know if I could have done any better, and may have done worse. There are so many things that parallel the lives of this man and Jesus, showing none are worthy except The Word that became flesh and lived among we earthlings.

I give slack for failure in this man for in the end he called upon Lord God for help, and God responded. Scripture shows us God would do this for His people, His nation i.e. if they ask He would do it for them.

Samson wasted his time, and in today’s world he would be considered a carnal Christian, to say the least. Samson was willing to bear the shame of allowing his hair to grow, for scripture shows it is shameful to do so.

As for love, I believe if you read the account again, you will find he loved her with all of his heart, else he would not have told her. He proved his love by telling her, knowing it could, and did cost him his life. This is a mistake we all make in our lives. He loved this woman more that the gift God had given him, and that gift could be taken away. Our gift today cannot be taken from us as we are in His Body, but we fail just as did Samson.

Agree, but if not for the women it would not have happened. You have just quoted what I have been saying. Is it not love that turns the heart?

Agree Solomon was no more perfect than I. He was so very wise, and we have to give him credit for Israel, God’s people had peace while he was King. As King he did what he did for the love of his people, and he loved those that pleased him. Again love as you pointed out above will turn the heart. All that could turn his heart was love. He as all others could not overcome his fallen nature. Lust always leads to idol worship.

Amen.

Who can argue with that?

Yes, but we cannot escape the fact that it was Love for other than God that turned them, and they in themselves are left helpless and continue in carnal sins.

But I say yes. Loving the sins they were in. They were in their element, yet no doubt these two God still loved. He was us and He knows our nature. His blood saved them just as we, but they did not have the joy, peace, and happiness that we today have, for they were not in The Body of Christ. They had another gospel to live by.

Christian faith, ituttut

 

Well how about if he was innocently asleep at home and someone decided to pull a prank on him and cut off his hair. If Delilah could run several practice runs where she tied him up in his sleep, someone creeping into his tent wouldn't wake him.

 

Please notice that my answer has nothing to do with salvation, but has everything to do with this Calvinist's view of the sovereignty of God.

God did not allow, nor would he allow any of your "what ifs" to happen because God had planned that Samson's sin would be the cause of great victory when he was able to regrow his hair (thus regaining his power) and destroy the Philistine lords, thus freeing Israel from their tyranny.

 

Well that ruins all the fun if we can't explore the meaning of something by imagining the outcomes of alternate scenarios.

The problem is this makes the story rather meaningless to us. The ends are important and the means are not particularly. In this case we can't blame Samson's hair loss on his sin unless we take a rather circuitous route--yeah, he wouldn't have lost if he weren't on (so far as he knew) friendly terms with Delilah, but on the other hand chastity wasn't on his list of vows. If this were a lesson about keeping vows than he should have lost his strength when he ate the honey from the hive in the dead lion (rotting carcasses are definitely unclean).

Then it doesn't look like it's his fault. If God needed him to lose his hair in order to then let him kill lots of Philistines then he would have lost it somehow (mugging, prank. . .) It was inevitable. So what's the moral? Don't be gullible? Don't be unlucky in being chosen by God to be a suicide demolitionist?

It's also kind of whacked because in this case it seems God's grace is set upon a totally arbitrary thing--whether or not Samson's hair has been cut, regardless of the intent of the hair owner.

Looking at it like this I just read the story and think, "Bummer! What rotten luck!"