Samson’s Hair Began to Grow Again

Monumental Moments

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

March 2, 2025

Samson’s Hair Began to Grow Again

Turn in your Bibles to Judges 16. In the more than 30 years that I’ve been preaching I honestly don’t think I’ve preached many messages from the book of Judges. I can relate to the author of Hebrews when he writes, ³² And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah… Heb 11:32

The four men mentioned are all found in the book of Judges but this morning I am going to find the time to tell of Samson and I’d actually like to do a series from the book of Judges before too long.

We are all familiar with the story of Samson and Delilah, but there is more to his story than what we learned in Sunday School. Samson was a complicated person. There was greatness in Samson. Very few people in the entire Bible had a miraculous birth narrative. Isaac and Samuel in the OT. John the Baptist and Jesus in the NT. But theangel of the Lord appeared to Samson’s mom and prophesied that she would bear a son and that he was to be raised a Nazarite neither drinking strong drink or cutting his hair as a sign of being devoted to God. This son, the angel promised, would begin to save Israel from their forty year oppression by the Philistines.

Samson was blessed as a young man and his heart began to be stirred by the Spirit of the Lord. When a lion attacked him, it says the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him (14:6) and he tore it apart. That was the secret of Samson’s strength. He wasn’t some muscle-bound body builder, he probably looked like any other guy, but the Spirit of God gave him supernatural strength.

The lion is one of the strongest animals on earth, roughly six times stronger than humans, with a paw swipe power of over 1400 pounds. Samson had a stronger swipe power than that. That’s why he was a one man army single-handedly killing hundreds and even thousands of Philistines by himself. Samson ruled as a leader (called a judge in the book of Judges) over Israel for twenty years. And we see in Hebrews that he was a man of faith. He was on some levels a great man in the Bible.

But Samson was also a very flawed man. Impulsive, narcissistic, bad tempered, and lacking self-control. Over and over again he put himself in dangerous situations to fulfill his carnal desires confident that his strength could always get him out of it.

Until he fell in love with Delilah.

⁴ After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. ⁵ And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Seduce him, and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him. And we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver.” Judges 16:4-5

By now the Philistines are so desperate to kill Samson they offer her a tremendous amount of money if she can get out of Samson what the secret of his great strength is. So we see a pattern of her asking what his secret was, Samson telling her something that wasn’t true, Delilah then binding him with whatever he said would weaken him, only to have him easily break his bonds.

You’d think Samson would catch on. Guys, if your wife had you sign a million dollar life insurance policy and then you began to find roller skates left at the top of the stairs and rat poison among her cooking spices after a few times you might begin to wonder. Samson knew deep inside but he was so taken with Delilah that he pushed it aside. But she wore at him and wore at him until his soul was vexed to death.

¹⁵ And she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me where your great strength lies.” ¹⁶ And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. ¹⁷ And he told her all his heart, and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.” Judges 16:15-17

Samson was strong and weak at the same time. Finally he caved and shared his heart with her. I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb and a razor has never touched my head. She knew this time he was telling her the truth.

What is about to happen is going to devastate and destroy Samson’s life. More lives, I think, are devastated by erosion than by explosion. The little wearing down day after day. The compromises, shaving some of our devotion to God off here, shaving some of our devotion to God off there. A little pride here, a little sexual immorality there, until we wake up one day to find our love for God has been completely shaved off.

¹⁸ When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up again, for he has told me all his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. ¹⁹ She made him sleep on her knees. And she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. ²⁰ And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. ²¹ And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison. Judges 16:18-21

When Delilah said “the Philistines are upon you!” he thought he’d justfight his way out of it like the other times but it says he did not know that the Lord had left him. His strength wasn’t in his hair but his uncut hair did symbolize his devotion to God so when he lost his hair, he lost his God. The Lord left him.

The Philistines rush upon him, gouging out his eyes, shackling him in chains, and making him do hard labor day in and day out. Sin is merciless. The devil has no mercy in him so he shows no mercy. Jesus said the devil comes to rob, kill, and destroy. In other words, Satan’s only talent is to devastate and destroy. And that’s what he does to Samson. The Lord has left him, all that’s left is a pitiless enemy.

When Hamas took hostages on Oct. 7^th of 2023 I remember seeing photos of the Bibas mother and her two little sons and hoped with everyone else that they’d be released alive. Last week Hamas released the bodies of the Biba’s and celebrated the deaths of a mother, a four year old and a 9 month old. It boggles the mind how anyone could be so cruel.

Sin is cruel. It presents as fun, harmless, healthy even. But like a venomous snake waiting to strike, it’s only goal is to ruin and devastate lives. Samson’s life was ruined and devastated – irreversibly so. Gouged out eyes don’t heal. He would never get back what he lost. Talk about regret.

The thing is, all the times he got away with it lulled him into thinking he’d always get away with it. We need to be afraid when we get away with sin. I saw a man lose his ministry, his reputation, and eventually his marriage because he began to look at things online he shouldn’t have. For over a year he got away with it. No one knew. But then the trap sprung and twenty five years later as far as I know his life hasn’t recovered.

Someone gets away with driving intoxicated. Once, twice, three times, years. But all it takes is that one time when someone is killed or they are imprisoned and there’s no reversing it. That harmless flirtation at the office, that habit of looking at porn, that stealing from the company, and you get away with it every time. Until you don’t. And the damage is irreversible.

Samson played with fire again and again but boy when it burned him, it burned his life to the ground.

We never know when that temptation, that compromise, or that sin will be the one that devastates our lives and the lives of those around us. Like Samson, we might get away with something again and again and we start to think that we got away with it then, we’ll get away with it now. The consequences Samson faced were irreversible – nothing could ever give him his eyesight or his life back. Sometimes the consequences of sin – especially serious sin that we deliberately flirt with over and over – is irreversible. God will forgive and He can redeem our fallenness for His glory but that doesn’t mean that we don’t live with the consequences for the rest of our life. It doesn’t mean that we don’t live with the regret. With the “what ifs” and “if onlys” for the rest of our life.

Samson started out well, but his carnal desires got the best of him and he finished poorly. Life is measured more by how we finish than how we start. Let’s ask God for strength to resist compromise and grace to finish well.

But God’s not done with Samson. Verse 22 has this hopeful observation:

²² But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

He’s blind, humiliated, chained, doing forced labor like a mule, head shaved. It must have hurt to be mocked and gloated over by his enemies. But God was working in Samson’s heart and Samson’s hair began to grow again.

God is the God who redeems broken things, broken people, written off people, flawed people. Samson’s hair began to grow again.

²³ Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to rejoice, and they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.” ²⁴ And when the people saw him, they praised their god. For they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.” ²⁵ And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, that he may entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he entertained them. They made him stand between the pillars. ²⁶ And Samson said to the young man who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them.” ²⁷ Now the house was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about 3,000 men and women, who looked on while Samson entertained. Judges 16:23-27

The Philistines loved the idea that their god Dagon was stronger than Yahweh. Their god beat the Jewish God! So they had church worshiping Dagon and the main entertainment was Samson. What they didn’t know was Samson’s hair began to grow again…and something had happened in Samson’s heart. Gone was the arrogant, reckless, self-reliant Samson, replaced by a humbled and weakened man who remembered who it was who gave him his strength. Samson asks God for one more miracle:

²⁸ Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.” ²⁹ And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. ³⁰ And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.Judges 16:28-30

Samson’s purpose in life was bigger than just a warning to us. It’s also an encouragement that when we turn to the Lord, when we humble ourselves before the Lord, He is a merciful and gracious God who hears us. Isa. 66:2 says

But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word. Isa. 66:2

Samson’s hair began to grow again. There’s always hope, no matter how low life may take us there’s always hope. Even when it’s the consequences of our own bad choices, there’s always hope. God is the God of all hope!

¹³ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Rom. 15:13