Judges 14:15-20 And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said to Samson's wife, Entice your husband, that he may declare to us the riddle… Samson is betrayed into revealing his riddle. It was a mean subterfuge, and the fraud is promptly avenged. I. THERE ARE ILLEGITIMATE WAYS OF GETTING AT DIVINE TRUTH. False prophets. Unwilling prophets, as Balaam. Mercenary attempts at obtaining a peculiar knowledge, as of Simon Magus (cf. Acts 8:9-24; Acts 19:13; Colossians 2:17, 18). II. THE ESSENTIAL MEANING OF THE TRUTH CANNOT BE THUS DISCOVERED. The Philistines only learnt the historic circumstance; they were still in outer darkness as to the evangelic significance of the parable or riddle. So it is with those who "intrude into those things which they have not seen or heard, vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds." God will deliver them over to strong delusion, and the belief of a lie. III. THIS IS FULL OF DANGER, AND WILL BE PROMPTLY AVENGED. Partly in the apparent illumination, but real ignorance, of such men; and partly in the consequences attending an incomplete or garbled gospel. Here the vengeance was both spiritual and physical. How sorry the gain that involved their fellow-countrymen in such a death! - M. Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson's wife, Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire: have ye called us to take that we have? is it not so? |
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