Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.     1 Corinthians 10:12 NKJV

Lately, I find myself going down rabbit holes when I study my Bible. But I guess that’s okay because it just means I want to learn more. Unfortunately, we are told in Deuteronomy 29:29, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

God gives us through His word all we need to know to live an obedient life of faith in Him. There are plenty of things we may never know or that may be revealed to us in heaven.

As I studied Samson in the book of Judges, chapters 13-16, I find it interesting that God blessed this barren couple with a child that He intended to raise up to be a judge in Israel for 20 years. He made them promise to raise him as a Nazarite, one of the rules of the Nazirite vow was that he never cut his hair.

Samson’s strength was in his hair due to the Spirit of the Lord. Samson disobeyed his parents. He disregarded his Nazirite vows and defiled himself. He failed to heed God’s warnings. He was disobedient to God’s word. He let his lust for women control him rather than being led by the Lord.

And finally, we see that he is prideful and arrogant because he has always had the Spirit of the Lord come upon him in battle and for this reason, he has always been victorious.

Warren Wiersbe likened this to the scandals of various ministers that we have seen in our day. It seems as though some people who are called by God misuse their God-given power and it results in their downfall as our Scripture passage says.

Jesus said in John 10:10 that the thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy and that He came to give us life and that we may have life more abundantly.

The devil doesn’t necessarily want us to die, he’d rather use us for his benefit. He can do this if he can kill our joy, steal our peace, and destroy our witness.

We certainly saw this with Samson. Samson did things his way even if he sinned. He seemed to believe he was invincible even as he disobeyed the very God that gave him his strength.

We know that sin does not go unpunished and Samson surely suffered a tragic end. And after studying his life, I just couldn’t help but wonder if he went to heaven. He is mentioned in Hebrews 11:32 as being a man of faith.

He seems to have repented in prison, but was that enough?

Jesus said in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” He goes on to say in verse 23, I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

Samson habitually disobeyed God. It was almost as if he thought that because God had raised him up to be judge he could do as he pleased and God would just overlook his sin. But this is not the case as our Scripture passage tells us. Samson thought he was standing tall, but he took a mighty fall.

I close with this, I have come to accept that it’s not meant for us to know another person’s eternal destination. We are not to worry about whether or not someone else made it to heaven, we are to seek the Lord with all our heart, strive for His righteousness, and trust and obey Him as best we can. God is faithful, we can trust Him to do His part. He is also a God of justice who does not leave sin unpunished.

The only way we will know if Samson made it to heaven is to get there ourselves and look for him. Let’s work on that.

Have a great day!