G-TRAX Devo's-Real People, Real Faith: Samson

The story of Samson can be found in Judges 13 and 14. Samson, like Gideon, lived during a time when judges ruled in Israel. This is long before Israel was ruled by kings like Saul, David and Solomon. During the time of the judges, Israel didn't have a king to rule over them so they had to rely on these judges to keep them in line. During this time, God would raise up men, and sometimes women, to challenge the Jews to come back to God and to help destroy their enemies. If you've read the Old Testament all the way through, you know that the Israelites would spend a lot of time rebelling against God. When they rebelled, God would "spank" them by sending other nations to conquer them. This usually involved a lot of bloodshed and other ugly stuff. After they had endured a lot of pain under the control of these other nations, they would cry out to God and ask for His forgiveness and ask to be rescued from their misery. God would then rise up a deliverer, sort of like Moses, that would help deliver them from their enemies. The book of Judges in the Old Testament is full of these Deliverers or Judges. Samson was just one of them.