Judges 15:1-5 But after a while, in the time of wheat
harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat, and said, “I will go in to
my wife in her room.” But her father did not let him enter. Her father said, “I really thought that
you hated her intensely; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger
sister more beautiful than she? Please let her be yours instead.” Samson then said to them, “This time I
shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm.” Samson went and caught three hundred
foxes, and took torches, and turned the
foxes tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails.
When he had set fire to the torches, he released the foxes into the standing
grain of the Philistines, thus burning up both the shocks and the standing
grain, along with the vineyards and
groves.
A
Magazine ran a contest for the best excuse for not doing homework. The entry
that won was from a little boy and went like this: "I went on a hot air
balloon ride and we were going to crash because there was too much weight in
the basket. So
I threw my homework out and it saved our lives."
We are looking at Samson’s life and considering the dangers of “rationalization.”
We saw that one dangerous mindset that comes when we try to
rationalize our wrongs is we try to justify our actions.
Second,
when we rationalize we have no real context for our actions. Samson states:
“I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines when I
do them harm.”
The
Philistines did not do this to Samson, his father in-law did. He is about to
destroy all of the grain and crops for what one man did. Remember, I realize
God is allowing this and using it, but that does not get Samson off the hook
for his actions. When we rationalize we do not place our actions in the context
of reality, instead we supply a context that helps us deafen our conscience to
the truth. In other words, “I am going to sin, because someone sinned against me!” We alone are responsible for
our actions, no matter what anyone else does.
Consider
what Pilate did with Christ:
John 19 &
Matt 27 Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him…Pilate came out again and said
to them, “Behold, I am bringing Him out to you so that you may know that I find
no guilt in Him…So when the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried
out saying, “Crucify, crucify!” Pilate said to them, “Take Him yourselves and
crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him…As a result of this Pilate made efforts
to release Him…When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing,
but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in
front of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this Man’s blood; see to that
yourselves…So he then handed
Him over to them to be crucified.
Pilate
knew Jesus did not deserve any punishment, yet he kept moving to a context that
would allow him to pacify the crowd. First he had Jesus scourged hoping that
would settle the issue. When that did not work every attempt he made after to
release Jesus did not work, so he changed the context by washing his hands and
trying to make it look like the Jews had the power to do this. However, the
reality is no one but Pilate that day could decide whether Jesus would be
crucified or not. That is the real context and by avoiding it, Pilate doomed
himself for eternity by participating in the killing of the Lord Jesus Christ.
King Saul was
sent by the Lord to judge a very evil group that even sacrificed their
children. God wanted this cancer on the human anatomy removed. However, Saul
did not obey completely and when confronted he tried to manipulate the context:
1 Samuel 15:20–22
“But I did obey the Lord,” Saul
insisted. “I carried out the mission he gave me. I brought back King Agag, but
I destroyed everyone else. Then my troops brought in the best of the
sheep, goats, cattle, and plunder to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” But Samuel replied, “What is more
pleasing to the Lord: your burnt
offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is
better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.
The third
mindset of rationalization is where we experience its final outcome; it has no
basis in reality. This is summed up in Samson’s statement found in verse 11 of this chapter:
Judges 15:11 So
3,000 men of Judah went down to get Samson at the cave in the rock of Etam.
They said to Samson, “Don’t you realize the Philistines rule over us? What are
you doing to us?” But Samson replied, “I only did to them what they did to
me.”
That really has no basis in reality. They did some
terrible things to Samson, but his actions destroyed their food and he took
many of their lives. Samson was motivated by vengeance, and we do not know if
he understood the Lord was using him to break the bondage the Philistines had
over Israel.
Later in their history, the Lord had to deal with
Israel harshly due to this mindset. She acted liked she had done nothing wrong
and complained about the troubles she was going through, but God used the
prophets to bring her back to reality.
Jeremiah 13:22–25
You may ask yourself, “Why is all this happening to me?” It is because of your
many sins! That is why you have been stripped and raped by invading armies. Can
an Ethiopian change the color of his skin? Can a leopard take away its spots?
Neither can you start doing good, for you have always done evil. “I will
scatter you like chaff that is blown away by the desert winds. This is your
allotment, the portion I have assigned to you,” says the Lord, “for you have forgotten me, putting
your trust in false gods.
Malachi 1:6–7 The
Lord of Heaven’s Armies says to
the priests: “A son honors his father, and a servant respects his master. If I
am your father and master, where are the honor and respect I deserve? You have
shown contempt for my name! “But you ask, ‘How have we ever shown contempt for
your name?’ “You have shown contempt by offering defiled sacrifices on my
altar. “Then you ask, ‘How have we defiled the sacrifices?’ “You defile them by
saying the altar of the Lord
deserves no respect.
Malachi 2:17 You
have wearied the Lord with your
words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. You have wearied him by saying that
all who do evil are good in the Lord’s
sight, and he is pleased with them. You have wearied him by asking, “Where is
the God of justice?”
Malachi 3:8, 13
“Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me! “But you ask, ‘What do you mean?
When did we ever cheat you?’ “You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings
due to me…“You have said terrible things about me,” says the Lord. “But you say, ‘What do you mean?
What have we said against you?’
A
Diagnosis of “Excusiosis”
1. People who keep making them never run
out of them.
2. People who keep making them expect you
to keep accepting them.
3. People who keep making them seldom
improve themselves.
Meditation: When you do something that someone else questions, how do you handle that? Give an explanation first and then consider their point or vice-versa? Do you ever move ahead even though you doubt your decision? Why? Is that moving in faith? How should we finish this statement: If I doubt, _______!
How important is a clear conscience before God to you?
