The WOFOYO Podcast
The WOFOYO Podcast
Samson, Strength, And The Cost Of Compromise
A man can lift a city gate and still miss the clearest red flags. We return to Samson’s story and trace the razor-thin line between God-given power and self-made compromise, moving from Gaza’s gates to Delilah’s lap to the pillars of Dagon’s house. Along the way, we confront the slow drift that happens when confidence in our gifts blinds us to danger, and we wrestle with how grace and consequence can coexist without cancelling each other out.
We unpack the pattern: playful lies turn into real vulnerability, betrayal follows close trust, and the strongest person in the room becomes the most captive. Yet under the noise of Philistine celebration, a quiet detail changes everything—Samson’s hair begins to grow. That image anchors the episode as we explore what calling looks like after failure, how humility reframes strength, and why Samson’s final prayer—“Let me finish the mission”—is a model for repentance that prioritizes purpose over comfort.
From there, we widen the lens with Paul’s teaching on grace, law, and the power of the resurrection. Rules help diagnose, but grace restores; leadership without discernment defaults to checklists, while spiritual wisdom weighs intent, context, and the path to restoration. We talk accountability that builds rather than breaks, correction that protects love, and the hard truth that forgiveness doesn’t erase every consequence. If you’ve compromised, there’s still a way forward: let your heart return, ask for strength, and finish the mission God entrusted to you.
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Hey everybody, welcome to another WoeFoyo podcast with C Dub and Bones. In our last episode, we were talking about some different things that popped out in the account of Samson, how they're pertinent today, and how Samson would have been a good NCO. And we are going to continue the account of Samson in this episode. So without any further ado, let's get in the word for ourselves. Woe FOYO. And there he saw a prostitute. And he went into her. Samson would have made a good NCO.
SPEAKER_01:He made a hell of a staff, Sergeant.
SPEAKER_02:I remember a meme somewhere out there tonight, an E2 is proposing to an exotic dancer he just met. Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah. Saint it. I wasn't there when he proposed, but I I was there when they bought him back.
SPEAKER_01:I'm in love.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. What's your middle name? B A Q. Verse 2. The Gazites were told, Samson has come here. They surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, Let us wait till the light of the morning, then we will kill him. They're trying to ambush him on the walk of shame. That's what they're trying to do. Literally. But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts and pulled them up bar and all, and he put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.
SPEAKER_03:That's an incredible feat of strength.
SPEAKER_01:It is.
SPEAKER_02:After this, I'm sorry, it's just a great visual. Oh, yeah. But there are some people that think that the that the parts of the legends of Hercules in the Greek uh mythology were based on Samson. But these stories are carried down and they kind of went over there.
SPEAKER_03:Well, see, this is this is midnight, the middle of the night, when he's supposed to be spent.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03:And he's still strong as an ox.
SPEAKER_01:Feeling a little frog, you might lift up the gates of the city. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. Seemed like the th, but what was the old thing? Why did you do that? Seemed like the thing to do at the time. According to the legends, Hercules also uh domesticated the women of the Isle of Lesbia. That's a very Samson thing, too. He would have done that as well. Just saying, loved his women, man did he love women. Verse 4 After this he loved a woman in the valley of Sorak, whose name was Delilah, and the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, Seduce him and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him. And we will each give you a thousand pieces of silver. So Delilah said to Samson, Please tell me where your great strength lies, how you might be bound, that one could subdue you.
SPEAKER_01:Don't get into bondage. Don't get into bondage to sin. Don't get into bondage to your girlfriend.
SPEAKER_02:It's never going to end well. So Samson said to her, They bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, then I shall become weak and like any other man. Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she bound them with them. Now she had men lying in ambush in an inner chamber, and she said to him, The Philistines are upon you, Samson. But he snapped the bowstrings as a thread of flag snaps when it touches the fire, so the secret of the strength was not known.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, when you when you it's like it's like when you kick somebody in the nuts and they don't go down or they don't flinch. That's a red flag.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. But the fact that she got the very thing that you that you said would would weaken you. Yeah. This is when you take the role playing a little too far, folks. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want to be playing them games. But that should have been a red flag. But sometimes you can be a little bit too confident in your anointing. Or sometimes it's just people don't know that it's from the Lord, your flaws, and all. And he's using you for a purpose. Then Delilah said to Samson, this is verse 10 Behold, you have mocked me and told me lies. Please tell me how you might be bound. And he said to her, If you go to the kitchen and make me a sandwich, then I will lose my strength. I'm kidding, folks. I'm just saying, if they're going to be playing this game, I would have thought of some better lies to tell.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, sir. Fried bologna sandwich. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh verse 11, and he said to her, If they bind me with the new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak like any other man. So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, The Philistines are upon you, Samson, and the men lying in ambush were in an inner chamber, but he snapped off the ropes of his arms like a thread. Then Delilah said to Samson, Until now you have mocked me and told me lies, tell me how you might be bound. He said to her, If ye weave the seven locks of my head with a web and fasten it tight with a pen, when he says with a web, basically this is like a loom, is what other translations say a spinning loom. Then I shall become weak and be like any other man. And while he slept, so I uh now just want to say something.
SPEAKER_01:He went from flax to ropes. Now he's letting her mess with his hair, though.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01:He's he he's not being creative enough here in his things.
SPEAKER_02:He he he's letting her get close enough to an area of vulnerability without telling her yet. So that's that that's a real dangerous place to be. So while he slept, Delilah took seven locks of his head and wove them into the web, and she made them tight with a pen and said to him, The Philistines are upon you, Samson. But he awoke from his sleep, pulled away the pen, the loom, and the web. Verse 15, and 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 you have not told me where your great strength lies. And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. And he told her all his heart and said to her, A razor, a razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazarite to God from a mother's womb, and if my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man. When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up again, for he has told me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. Man, what a what a foreshadowing of Judas here.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02:What a foreshadowing. She made him sleep on her knees, and she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head, and then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. And I'm not when I say that there's a parallel here, there's a foreshadowing, there was nothing sexual, but this is someone super close to you selling you out for money. Right. That's what I mean. Don't take that the wrong way and try and make something out of it. It isn't. And she said, The Philistines are upon you, Samson. And he woke from his sleep and said, I will go out at other times and shake myself free. But he did not know that the Lord had left him. And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison. But the hair of his head began to grow back again after it had been shaved. See a couple things here. This uh bronze shackles, eye gouging. This is uh what Nebuchadnezzar did to King Zedekiah several hundred years later when he was taken to Babylon. Uh the other thing I see is if you want, we always talk about movies we had seen. You go to the original Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, uh Conan the Barbarian, when he's taken into slavery, he's over at a mill, and he's pushing the mill, and then it shows him doing that from a boy to being huge.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. So one of the things is we're wrapping up the story of Samson here. Samson's sins have found him out. He's allowed his comfort, he's allowed that thing that women have that holds so much sway over a lot of men, especially when they're younger.
SPEAKER_02:We're not going to get stupid and vulgar on the show. But he's letting that thing get him in trouble and compromise his morals.
SPEAKER_01:That's no different than Adam at the temptation.
SPEAKER_02:There's a lot of people that you know God's called you to be manly men, and you've compromised for the sake of maybe you might be saying, I'm trying to keep the marriage together. You might be saying, Well, this is just so good, I love her, but you know it ain't right, so you don't stand your ground. You know, and I'm not saying being a be a jerk or have her under your thumb at all. Not saying that.
SPEAKER_01:Just saying maintain your integrity. No matter how good she makes you feel.
SPEAKER_02:You still gotta maintain your integrity. No matter how exciting she might be, as in the case of Delilah. You know, she's role-playing, she's tying them up. This is fun, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Watch it, watch and see where it goes.
SPEAKER_02:Verse 23. And I bought up the sin theme because I'm going to bring up something else. I didn't just not finish the sentence. But Samson's sins have found him out. Verse 23. Now the lords of the Philistines are gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their God, and to rejoice, and they said, Our God has given Samson, our enemy, into our hand. And when the people saw him, they praised their God, for they said, Our God has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country who has killed many of us. And when their hearts were merry, they said, Call Samson, that he may entertain us. So they called Samson out of the prison, and he entertained them, and they made him stand between the pillars. And Samson said to the young man who held him by the hand, Let me fill the pillars on which this house rests, that I may lean against them. Now the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about three thousand men and women who looked on while Samson entertained. So this thing has an upper gallery to it. This is the advanced, this is advanced architecture for that time. Number one, to be able to fit that many people in it is something. And then to be able to have that many people who were on the roof of the place and looking down to watch. Then Samson called out to the Lord and said, Oh Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once. Oh God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes. He's not asking for a great feat here, he's acknowledging his shortcomings. Lord, one more time.
SPEAKER_01:Here's the thing where sin abounds, grace abounds much more.
SPEAKER_02:And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one, and his left hand on the other, and Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the Lord's and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life. Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zora and Eshtel in the tomb of Manoah his father, he had judged Israel twenty years.
SPEAKER_01:So goes it with Samson. I wonder if Delilah was there. Doesn't say.
SPEAKER_02:That's the price. Was David forgiven? Yep. But but but there was a price, you know. So the wages of sin are death, but you know, that grace, you know, you're you're free from the wages of sin, but the consequence of sin can still come back to bite you. Uh we mentioned this before, some of the talking, you know, some of the stories we were telling about Paul and his accounts, being able to get through some of those things that he had to confess and that he had to come to terms with that he did. And he said, This is this is gonna follow me. Right. This is a this is a thorn in my flesh. Sure. That this is this is a message you're saying, I'm the least of all the saints because I persecuted the church of God. So there's gonna be the consequences, nevertheless, it doesn't mean that you can't do what God called you to do.
SPEAKER_03:Right. And I think it was interesting here with Samson there at the end. His his prayer to God was to finish the mission. Yes. You know, it wasn't to get him out of it. Uh his prayer was not for him to escape. His prayer was not for him to you know to be unbound or or to have uh you know everything restored, uh, which all those things are very selfish, really, when you stop and think of it in the grand scheme of things. Um his prayer was to, you know, you know, Lord, let me finish the mission. Um I think I think that's something God honors. Uh, you know, I think God's looking for people that are going to finish the mission.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. God honors the mission more than he will the man or a woman. Right. And here's the thing, you're seeing that there that Samson's accountable. Flaws and all, he's accountable. He's acknowledging that he rightly got the circum, you know, the consequences. Yep, that's on me. But Lord let me have vengeance for for what happened. Because there's always this tit and tat going back and forth between Samson and the Philistines. And this is the last one on his part.
SPEAKER_03:He's a very warrior-type mindset. Um, when you when you stop thinking about it, he he he really is a warrior here. Uh he's he's he's standing there really saying, just let me finish the mission. Let me let me let me get vengeance, let me let me get this stuff done, and then so be it.
SPEAKER_02:Killing is business, and business is good.
SPEAKER_03:Surely somebody else needs killing killing.
SPEAKER_02:No major pain, you killed them all. That's right. Yeah, I I just saw this though. That we're we're center bounds, grace much more bounds. You might be thinking that whatever the world you did out there, just like we thought, whatever we did, we didn't quite understand everything. Um, but that was part of the wilderness season for us was, you know, I don't know what the hell's going on at times. Lord you do, but I I sure don't get it. So until you start telling me what what to do, I guess I'll keep on going. And eventually he did, but the just take comfort in the fact that yeah, you're still called.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. If we think that that sin will somehow stop the mission, uh if sin somehow um you know stops revival, uh stops uh restoration, stops regeneration, if sin somehow stops any of that, uh hinders grace or anything like that, then we ascribe more power to sin than we do God's grace. And we know that can't be right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was I was also reading in my daily reading today over in Romans, where Paul for three or four chapters is talking about sin, dealing with sin. And you know, I think it was Romans eight. If not, it was seven.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but he was talking about Jesus, the fact that he took the sin upon himself and died and was risen, he condemned sin into his body as he took it upon himself.
SPEAKER_01:He says, Sin said he condemned it, swallowed it up.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so if we are associated with Jesus Christ, if we have that relationship, if we've invited him to live in and through us, then we are partakers of his body. Therefore, sin's dead to us, too. But we have to we have to come to an understanding of who we're in relationship with. We have to come to an understanding of what he accomplished, and you're not going to get that just from your average Sunday school lesson. Right. The the sacrifice and the significance of it. And to be fair, I'm not sure all the apostles knew.
SPEAKER_01:Uh Peter talks about, listen to our brother Paul. It's that some of his sayings are hard to understand.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So Paul has this revelation of everything, and not everything, but uh of the magnitude, though, of what Jesus accomplished at the cross.
SPEAKER_01:He he has a revelation of it. And Peter, who had been with Jesus, who is a leader, who's the first one to preach it to the Gentiles. Peter's going, what he's saying is on, but some of it's hard to understand.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Because it is that profound.
SPEAKER_02:And you get it when you're supposed to get it. You know, there's you're always going to read those scriptures, and there's going to be stuff you don't get.
SPEAKER_03:Right. There is a rightful place for Sunday school, Bible study, uh, those, those types of organized uh, you know, uh study groups and things like that. Um, but they will only take you so far uh in your understanding. It's that uh personal alone time with the Lord in the scripture, and then the time that he gives you to walk it out uh and and experience that stuff. That's where you really start to see and have some kind of inkling as to what uh Paul's trying to cue us into when it comes to grace. Um you know you know what's kind of funny about Paul is that uh for as much as the church preaches Pauline gospel or Pauline doctrine. Very much so. Um the apostle Paul talks more about grace than he does doctrine or theology. Um, he talks more about grace than he does rules. Um, but for some reason it's rules that we pick up on. Um Paul talks about grace upon grace upon grace. His main focus in his preaching was grace and uh the power of the resurrection. If if you go back and and and pay close attention, now that's not to say he's not talking about um, you know, you have some rules to follow and things like that, because he does he does put people in check. Yeah, and if you're not gonna live according to the Holy Spirit, then you're gonna live according to some rules.
SPEAKER_02:Man, you just touched on it too.
SPEAKER_03:So, but before he gets to the rules part of it, he just talks about grace and he talks about the power of the resurrection. And we've uh we've gotten away from that, uh, uh, I think to to some degree. I think we're coming back to it, but there for there for a time we got away from that. We were so rules oriented. And rules are kind of rules are kind of good for us because they give us that checklist of uh, you know, if I'm doing this, I'm doing that, and I'm good here, and I'm good there, and I'm not so good there. Um, but they also they get in the way of the relationship.
SPEAKER_01:Well, let's say you're a pastor.
SPEAKER_02:And maybe not a pastor, maybe you're some kind of assistant, maybe you're involved in some kind of uh church ministry where you have people that you're overseeing, maybe you're help. You know, this is assuming you know your people as a pastor, so not every not every place does, uh, or you're a minister, let's say you got a Sunday school, let's say you've got small groups, let's say you have some kind of class you're teaching, and you know the people that are there. If they come to you with a hard issue, it is a lot easier to revert to rules because that is something concrete. You know, it is something is very soulish, it's not carnal, but it's soulish because it's it's intellectual, you have these markers, like you said, check the box, but you can absolutely define what this is. Did I mess up? However, when you act under grace and you when you let grace act through you, these things rather than be a bunch of rules and a bunch of guidelines there, because Paul doesn't really get into the rules until you get into First Corinthians, and that's because they've misused the things of the spirit, right? Right. So so okay, you can't handle spiritual stuff yet. Let's get you into the rules because y'all are way off the deep end. So there's a place as a corrective measure, but the ideal is to be led by the spirit and be led by the word. So when you start operating and dealing in terms of grace, you could have two people do some very similar things, and the intent was totally different. One could be malicious and the other be a mistake, and is spiritually discerned, and how you deal with it. If you're not spiritually discerning things, uh, and and you're watching this, let's say you have somebody that's truly being led by the spirit. I've seen this. Um was mentioned my my pastor out in Colorado when I when I was in the army. Seen this. I've seen him give grace, and I've seen him just call some, you know, call an activity on the carpet. Real, real similar. He goes, the difference is the Holy Spirit told me you were malicious.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:You made a mistake. Now that needs to be dealt with and needs to be handled. You made a you made a mistake. So we need to restore you. You, sir, are of the devil. You know, so so what does that look like? If you're not discerning, that looks like a double standard all day long. So so so grace can look a little bit messy, but it those things, and you don't want to use that as a cop-out. There is such a thing as accountability. That's why I believe uh true brotherhood uh uh among the faithful, and and having some people that that you can call friends and brothers and sisters in Christ that are hearing from the Holy Spirit that that's important because it's real easy. Let's say maybe you're the one that messed that's messing up, and you want to say you're being super spiritual, and really you're being partial, right? And you don't feel like screwing with it, and it done got real close to getting you to being carnal, and now you want to execute those kind of judgments, it's real easy. So you you want to have people to be accountable to. Not necessarily that they keep you under your thumb, but hey, pray with me, ask the Holy Spirit, make sure we're doing this right.
SPEAKER_03:That's all you gotta do. Right. When you look at 1 Corinthians and you see where Paul starts laying down these rules and regulations and things like that, a lot of it came to fruition because the folks there in Corinth mishandled love. What it came down to. They mishandled love in some way, shape, or fashion. Um and when we get to that point, and that that comes really what that is, that's the the intent of the heart. When we're doing things, like you said, maliciously, uh with uh with malintent, uh things like that, you know, that's where that's where someone has to step in and say, you know, now um I I I appreciate you, brother. However, you know, you're just being a prick, that's all.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And so and sometimes that needs to be said. Hey everybody, thanks for listening. We hope this challenges you and causes you to grow. You can always check us out at woefolio.org or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Audible, or even check us out on YouTube. Remember, folks, if you're gonna grow, you got a woe folio. Get in the word for yourself.
SPEAKER_01:You know, because when you believe there's no consequences for your actions, that's a very dangerous place to be. You're you're not taking things very seriously. Yeah. And that was a very serious thing. So you lost your life over it. Yeah, that that's serious. That's serious. That's serious to a lot of people. Yeah, we'll probably take that out. Yeah, because I'm hoping there's better video somewhere. Oh, there is. Yeah. And well they they've released some here, I think, today. I I've seen about five of 'em. We just ended on consequences.