In 1963, the U.S. had an atomic submarine called the Thresher. It was undergoing deep-diving trials in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Cod, when it went down and never came back up. Despite it being well-built, the water pressure on the outside was too great, and the vessel imploded—taking the entire crew down with it in that terrible disaster.

What’s odd is that at that same depth of the disaster, small fish swim around unharmed. They survive because the pressure inside their bodies is equal to the pressure on the outside.

I bring this up because I want to talk about Samson. As a child, I thought Samson was the Superman of the Old Testament. But he was promiscuous, violent, and arrogant. Yes, he won great victories, but at the expense of his own integrity.

Joseph Parker described Samson as something like an elephant in strength but a babe in weakness. You know the Sunday school stories: He ripped a lion apart with his bare hands, killed a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey, and tore the doors off the city gates and carried them on his shoulders (see Judges 14-16). At the end of his life, he stood between the two pillars of the temple of Dagon and pushed them apart, and brought the whole thing down on himself and everyone in it. He was incredibly strong yet a horrible spiritual leader. In fact, he seems to have had no spiritual values at all.

In Judges 13, the Lord had delivered Israel into the hands of the Philistines for forty years because of their sin. Then God promised a childless couple that they would have a son. The Lord said, “No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines” (v. 5). His name would be Samson.

God had great plans for him. He was to be a man of God, but he became a man of the flesh. He wanted God’s power, but not God’s rule. He was very strong but weak morally. Now, as a Nazirite, he was to live under certain restrictions: no razor on his head, no wine, and no contact with the dead.

Judges 13:24–25 says, “The child grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon him.” Note that phrase. This was the secret of Samson's strength. It was not his hair or his arms; it was the Spirit of God moving upon him. Jesus says in the New Testament, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

At key moments in Israel's history, both with judges and with kings, the Spirit of God would come upon a person to empower him to accomplish God's work. But the fact that God used him does not mean that God endorsed him. The text says the Spirit of God came upon him to accomplish a specific task, not that He was in him.

You all know the story of Samson and his Philistine women, one of them named Delilah. Every time he met one, it was lust at first sight. He never said, “I love her”; he said, “I have to have her.” Here was a man with potential, but he was weak. Why? He didn't have the power inside to counteract the pressure outside.

We have a power inside of us, and He is a Person: the Holy Spirit of God. And God promises us that He is stronger than any pressure we face on the outside.

“Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). You have a power on the inside that can withstand all the pressure on the outside. Never forget that.