And when she pressed him day after day with her words and urged him, he was vexed to death. – Judges 16:16, Amplified Bible

Every time I read it, I have the same thought: what in the world was Samson thinking?!

Judges 16 tells the tragic story of Samson and Delilah. At first, the tragedy appears to be Samson’s death, but that is not the real tragedy of the story. The real tragedy lay not in Samson’s death but in the reason why he died. The reason? He was a slave to sin.

Three times through trickery, Delilah attempted to rob Samson of his strength in order to help her countrymen imprison Samson. On those three occasions, Samson returned Delilah’s trickery upon her, lying to her as to what the true source of his strength was. But, after continual badgering, Delilah finally wore Samson down. He finally gave away the secret of his strength, even though he knew that Delilah would use her newfound knowledge to destroy him.

Although it’s easy to point at Samson and say, “Thou fool,” we would be wise to recognize that while our index fingers point at him, our other three fingers are pointing back at us! Every one of us at some point (for some of us, that point is now) has had (or does have) a “Delilah,” or a besetting sin, in our lives. We love that sin dearly, and we won’t give it up, even though we know it’s not good for us. We justify holding on to the temptation by telling ourselves that we can control it, that we are strong enough to limit just how far we’ll go. But, after we’ve exposed ourselves enough to it, the sin controls us, and we are destroyed. We may even get to the point, like Samson, where we can see the destruction coming. But, like Samson, we are such slaves to the sin we love that we willingly ignore the obvious until the obvious finally overtakes us..

Whatever sin it is that you think you have under control, think again. It is slowly consuming you and, eventually, it will consume you in total. If the strongest man in history couldn’t defeat his besetting sin, then neither can you. The only one who can defeat that sin is the strongest Being in all of eternity, God Almighty.

Before your besetting sin overtakes you, ask God to overtake it instead. Upon your request, He will do just that, and then the destruction will not come upon you, whom God loves, but upon the sin, which God hates.