Samson and the Three Angel's Messages

 

As we have discussed earlier in our series on Samson, he is both a man of history and he is a type of Christ – the All Powerful Deliverer that would come to save all mankind. So as we study Samson we must remember that Scripture tells many stories in one story if we will but look at it and compare Scripture with Scripture (Isaiah 28:9-10; II Timothy 3:15-17).

 

In Judges 16:5-15 Delilah tempts Samson to tell her the secret of his strength. During these three interchanges Delilah has a formula seeking for success – she pleads to get an answer from Samson regarding the source of his strength, he tells her a falsehood, and she puts the falsehood to the test, and then tells Samson that his greatest fear is upon him and he wakes up from sleep and breaks away from the shackles that she attempts to place upon Samson. As we have discussed in other studies on Samson, he does not seem to grasp the idea that he is in danger since he has put his faith in his strength, not in Jesus, the Creator and Giver of his strength.

 

Now since Samson is a type of Christ we would expect to see this series of temptations presented to Jesus and we indeed see it in Matthew 4:1-11 and Satan seeks to lead Jesus to wrong conclusions by presenting temptations that had worked on all other men, including Adam and Samson. Yet we find that Jesus stood true, and He succeeded where all other men had failed.

 

The next step in this study is that there is another series of three that Jesus’ people must face. For not only is Samson a type of Christ, but he is also a type of Jesus’ church. So if this is true we ought to see a series of three temptations in the Bible for the church. We see this very thing in Revelation 16:13-14. These temptations come out of the mouths of three unclean spirits coming out of the mouth of the dragon (Revelation 12:7-9 – Satan and Revelation 13:2-4,11 – Pagan Rome “Thus while the dragon, primarily, represents Satan, it is in a secondary sense a symbol of Pagan Rome.” The Great Controversy pages 438) out of the mouth of the Beast (the Roman Catholic Church of Revelation 13:1-10; The Great Controversy pages 439, 443) and the mouth of the False Prophet (the Protestants of America uniting with the state to form an image to the Papacy – Revelation 13:14-18 The Great Controversy page 445).  These three “frogs” are to send out messages to all of the world, including God’s true church with the intent to draw them into a relationship with the whore of Revelation 17 so that they may drink of her cup filled with the errors of her abominations and the filthiness of her fornications Revelation 17:1-5). And when they are full of chaos and error they will end up in the great battle of Armageddon promised in Revelation 16:14.

 

But in God’s Word God has made provision for everyone to be protected from the signs and lying wonders of Satan (II Thessalonians 2:9-10). The solution to being protected is to have the Truth and to love the Truth (II Thessalonians 2:10-15). How God wants to protect us is by the truths of His counter message to those of the 3 frogs. Jesus answered every temptation by Satan with the Word of God. God wants His church to answer the deceptions of the three frogs with the truths of the three angel’s messages of Revelation 14:1-12. The summary issues of these three messages is that God loves us, He wants us to remember His gospel, His Judgment, and His laws, and to be willing to accept them by faith in Him.

 

In Samson’s case he took his eyes off of his God and he stumbled and fell. Jesus did not stumble or fall, and God wants His last day church to learn from the lessons of Samson and Jesus and to stand firmly upon the Word of God and all of the truths in His Word as summarized in the three angels messages of Revelation 14:1-12 and to stand fully in the Faith of Jesus, just as Jesus stood in the faith of His Father. It is our opportunity to walk firmly in Jesus that all may see the power of Jesus manifested in His last church, just as we will see that Samson also stood faithful in the end.