Learning from Delilah: What the Traitorous Temptress Teaches us about Prayer

11/12/2018

Learning from Delilah: What the Traitorous Temptress Teaches us about Prayer

Passage of the Day:
“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 have not told me where your great strength lies.” When she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, his soul was troubled to death. He told her all his heart, and said to her, “No razor has ever come on my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me, and I will become weak, and be like any other man.”” (Judges 16:15-17 WEB)

When you saw the title of this devotional, you may have wondered, “What can I possibly learn from that evil, traitorous woman?”

If you really meditate on the text, you will realized that she did something worthy for us to emulate, except in a good way.

To give you a context about Delilah, she was a Philistine woman whom Samson (a judge who was anointed with great physical strength) fell in love with.

The lords (leaders) of the Philistines bribed her to find out the source of Samson’s great power.
Fueled by greed, Delilah proceeded to repeatedly ask Samson to tell her his best-kept secret.

In the passage of the day, we see Delilah nagging so much that Samson was annoyed to the point of death.
This woman knew how to “press-in” and “persist” - something that we need to apply when we pray.

What motivated Delilah to be so dedicated to her mission?
Her eyes were set on the reward that lay ahead of her.
She was promised a generous amount of silver in exchange for her betrayal.

“The lords of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, “Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”” (Judges 16:5 WEB)

She trusted that the lords of the Philistines would fulfill their end of the bargain so much that she didn’t give up, even when Samson lied to her three times:
She had put in the effort to arrange three ambushes for Samson and they all turned out to be failures.
Delilah had great faith in her would-be rewarders.

When we pray, do we ask with unbelief in our hearts, or are we like Delilah, who had complete faith in the sureness of her reward?

The Bible says that we must believe that God will reward us when we seek Him - whether in prayer, in studying God’s word or in service to Him. That kind of faith pleases Him.

“Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6 WEB)

Delilah bugging Samson for the answer she wanted reminds me of Jesus’ “Parable of the Widow and the Unrighteous Judge.

“He also spoke a parable to them that they must always pray, and not give up, saying, “There was a judge in a certain city who didn’t fear God, and didn’t respect man. A widow was in that city, and she often came to him, saying, ‘Defend me from my adversary!’ He wouldn’t for a while, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God, nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.’” The Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says. Won’t God avenge his chosen ones, who are crying out to him day and night, and yet he exercises patience with them? I tell you that he will avenge them quickly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”” (Luke 18:1-8 WEB)

To draw a comparison, Delilah is like the widow and Samson is like the unrighteous judge.
By repeatedly coming to him with her request, Samson eventually gave her what she wanted.

If you study the parable carefully, Jesus said that God will quickly avenge the saints who are crying out not once a day, but “day and night”!
Pray and keep on praying - don’t give up until you see what you’re believing for.

Let’s learn from Delilah, to persist in asking for what we want because we have an awesomely good God who will speedily avenge us!

Why we have to persist in prayer

However if God is so good and willing to avenge us from injustice done to us by the devil, then why do we have to keep on crying out to Him?
Wouldn’t once be enough if He truly loves us?

We can find the comforting answer in the Book of Daniel.

“In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three whole weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came meat nor wine into my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, until three whole weeks were fulfilled... He said to me, Daniel, you man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright; for am I now sent to you. When he had spoken this word to me, I stood trembling. Then he said to me, Don’t be afraid, Daniel; for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard: and I have come for your words’ sake. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; but, behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me: and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I have come to make you understand what shall happen to your people in the latter days; for the vision is yet for many days:” (Daniel 10:2-3, 11-14 WEB)

From the passage above, we see that Daniel faithfully prayed for what he wanted, yet the answer only came after 21 days.

The delay was caused by a principality: a high-level demon called “the prince of the kingdom of Persia” who fought against the archangel Gabriel to stop the answer from reaching Daniel.

The devil probably saw Daniel as a huge threat to his plans to destroy Israel so he sent a powerful demon to block the answer to Daniel's prayers.

Notice also that God sent Gabriel from the first day that Daniel started to pray.

When you pray, be conscious of the truth that your Heavenly Father hears it immediately and has already sent angels bearing your blessing.

If the answer delays, it’s because of demonic forces that are trying to block your blessings. There is spiritual warfare going on all the time around us - we just can't see it.

Imagine if Daniel stopped praying on the 20th day.
There probably wouldn’t be a righteous basis for Gabriel to come to him.
The devil and his demons know their rights and love to exploit legal loopholes in the spiritual realm.

Not all demons are as powerful as the prince of the kingdom of Persia. Your answer will probably manifest much faster if you persist in prayer.

We shouldn’t be legalistic about praying a fixed 21 days. The learning point is to pray until the answer to your prayers manifests.

So let’s learn from Delilah, to persist in asking for what we want because we have an awesomely good God who will speedily avenge us!

To learn more about our glorious Rewarder and Righteous Judge, the Lord Jesus Christ, I highly recommend that you read my book “Sandcastles Don’t Last Forever”.

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Pinterest Pinnable Image. When we pray, do we ask with unbelief in our hearts, or are we like Delilah, who had complete faith in the sureness of her reward? This woman knew how to “press-in” and “persist” - something that we need to apply when we pray.

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5 Comments

Pinky

12/12/2018 03:15:40 am

Wow great revelation!

Milton Goh link

12/12/2018 10:27:32 am

Hi Pinky, all glory to Jesus! I was mindblown when I saw this in the text too!

Axl

6/7/2019 08:03:26 pm

No kidding.
Given your logic, maybe we should also learn the art of thinking big and a never-give-up attitude from the devil?

After all, he actually thought he can be like God and even after he was cast out of heaven, he never gave up!!

How misguided we must be to "learn" relentless prayer through an evil character? The Parable of the Widow and Unrighteous Judge is good enough for this purpose.

Maybe the lesson the draw from this story is to stay away from evil women and not married the wrong kind of person??

And I doubt Delilah did what she did because she had faith in the "sureness of the reward". I think she was just greedy. There are many people in this world who take bribes simply because of greed. I think there is no need to make it sound so glorified by couching it in Christian-sounding language.

Milton Goh

6/7/2019 08:48:19 pm

Hi Axl, blessed evening!

Jesus also distilled a spiritual truth from the dishonest steward/manager’s behavior in His parable, and taught it to others:

“He also said to his disciples, “There was a certain rich man who had a manager. An accusation was made to him that this man was wasting his possessions. He called him, and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ “The manager said within himself, ‘What will I do, seeing that my lord is taking away the management position from me? I don’t have strength to dig. I am ashamed to beg. I know what I will do, so that when I am removed from management, they may receive me into their houses.’ Calling each one of his lord’s debtors to him, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe to my lord?’ He said, ‘A hundred batos of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘How much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred cors of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ “His lord commended the dishonest manager because he had done wisely, for the children of this world are, in their own generation, wiser than the children of the light. I tell you, make for yourselves friends by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when you fail, they may receive you into the eternal tents.” (‭‭Luke‬ ‭16:1-9‬ ‭WEB‬‬)

Jesus taught about being shrewd in using your money in order to win souls for God’s kingdom.
I’m teaching about being relentless in prayer and looking to the reward.

7/7/2019 05:59:45 pm

Hi Milton,
The reason you know that Jesus was using the example of the unjust steward to teach a lesson is because He gave an explanation. He made it clear that is the point of the parable. But the Bible never says anything about the story of Samson and Delilah is teaching us about relentless prayers!

Now, if another part of the Bible talks about what you said about Delilah, I might have agreed with you, but there is none. The only thing we are sure that God recognize about Samson's story is his faith (Hebrews 11:32). But rather than talking about that, you talked about something that's not even there.

And again, it's misguided to use Delilah as an example because all she was relentless in is doing evil! That's why we don't use Hitler (I hope you don't!) as an example of strong leadership.

I think it's dangerous to go beyond what the Bible does not say. Many cults in the world do exactly that -- making the verses say what it does not.