“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” – Romans 7:18
God’s people kept falling back into sexual sin during the days of the Judges, and the pattern continues to this day with the constant lure of wealth, power, success, pleasure, comfort, sex, indulgence, and pornography. These same demons are powerfully at work in our culture, continuing to seduce God’s people into evil and sin. The rise in everything from worship of the environment (as our sacred goddess Mother); to greed that worships the demon Mamon in everything from crime to skyrocketing debt; to murder of the innocents, starting with the unborn; to the mainstream acceptance of pornography, polygamy, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, transgenderism, and every other sexual deviancy, is all the work of Baal and Asherah waging spiritual warfare that manifests in our physical world.
The liberal, progressive, woke, and mainline Protestant “churches” that fly rainbow flags and celebrate tolerance, diversity, and Pride Month are filled not with the Holy Spirit but with unholy spirits. They follow the same demonic decline that we see in the book of Judges.
Regarding Samson as the final judge in the book of Judges, his behavior tragically mirrored the rest of the nation. A Bible dictionary says, “Samson’s actions parallel the actions of Israel in the book of Judges. Samson’s primary weakness was his proclivity to pursue Philistine women; one of Israel’s major faults was their inclination to worship foreign gods.”
This same Bible dictionary argues that “Samson is an example of Israel’s ‘playing the harlot after other gods’ (Judges 2:17; 8:27, 32).” He goes on to argue that Samson “embodies/personifies all that is wrong in Israel” and lists eight similarities between Samson and the nation he governs as a Judge, concluding that, “Samson demonstrates that the divinely chosen leaders were part of Israel’s problem rather than a lasting solution[.]” (1)
A powerful myth of progressivism has taken root in Western culture. Based on an evolutionary concept, the myth holds that people are basically good and getting better. Subsequently, if we encourage people to feel better about themselves, they will naturally become better people.
Morally, the Bible says the exact opposite. People are born with a sin nature imputed from Adam, and apart from such restraining forces as our conscience, painful life consequences, the legal system, police officers, soldiers, and potential death, people would spiral into evil at a rapid rate. Apart from people being saved by Jesus, filled with the restraining and renewing power of the Holy Spirit, and living under the authority of God’s Word, they get worse over time, not better.
This is plainly stated as fact for the roughly 300-year history of the book of Judges. Judges 2:18-20 says:
Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel[.]
Unlike previous scenes in Judges where the people eventually cry out to the Lord for deliverance, and He heard and answered their cries, for four decades in the days of Samson, one generation after the next was silent. God’s people had become worldly, completely settling into their addiction and oppression as, without repentance or remorse, they not only lived with the Philistines but adopted their lifestyle in sin against God.
A Biblical journal says:
Though this is the longest period of time in which Israel was under another nation, there is no record of the Israelites crying out to the Lord for deliverance as they had done in the past. Instead they seem to have been content to exist under foreign domination. Judah, which had begun the fight against the Canaanites (1:1–2), had dropped the goal of conquering the land in favor of a peaceful survival under the Philistines. (2)
Look up the following verses: Jeremiah 17:9, Psalm 51:5, and Romans 7:18. What do these verses say regarding our human nature?
1. Jay Todd, “Samson the Judge,” op. cit.
2. Michael J. Smith, “The Failure of the Family in Judges, Part 2: Samson,” Bibliotheca Sacra 162 (2005): 424.
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