“The P’lishtim asked, ‘Who did this?’ They answered, ‘Shimshon the son-in-law of the man from Timnah, because he took Shimshon’s wife and gave her to his best man.’ Then the P’lishtim came up and burned both her and her father to death.”-Judges 15:6
Oh man, things just keep going from bad to worse between Samson and the Philistines.
When the Philistine farmers investigate to find out who might have burned down their fields, they’re told it was Samson.
But it’s the details they were given afterwards that were particularly important.
They’re told the reason WHY Samson went on a mission of destruction and burned down their fields is because his father-in-law, the man from Timnah, took Samson’s wife and gave her to Samson’s best man.
Well, that was all the farmers needed to hear.
They went into a rage, went to the man’s house and burned it down with both him and his daughter inside.
When Samson heard about this brutal murder, right then on the spot, he decided he would avenge them by slaughtering some more Philistines.
We’re kinda starting to see a pattern here, aren’t we?
And not only that.
There’s also an interesting aspect of human nature being put on display.
Notice the farmers didn’t blame Samson and go after him for burning down their fields.
Instead they shifted their rage towards Samson’s father-in-law and his daughter.
Why?
Because the Philistine farmers were afraid of Samson…
Heck, even their own army couldn’t deal with Samson.
So they decided to take the cowardly route and blame the weaker party.
Now where else are we seeing this same pattern over and over again?
The answer to that question is…
…take a look at how the world deals with ISLAM.
When 9/11 occurred, who did your average American blame?
First, they blamed the government for failing to prevent the airplane atrocities.
Second, when it was confirmed that it was an extremist Islamic group that had attacked us, we still continued to blame our government.
We asked stupid questions like…“What in the world have we done to offend these Muslims that they’d want to attack us?”…
…when what we should have done was put the blame squarely where it belonged: on those bastards who crashed the airplanes into those twin towers and the pentagon.
On the day it happened, a lot of the newspapers used quotes from President Bush or other newsmakers as their headlines.
Other papers tried to do the politically correct thing and create a headline that conveyed some ridiculous maple syrupy somberness.
It was only the Examiner that captured the raw rage the American nation was feeling with their all-caps, one-word headline that simply read “BASTARDS!”.
Unfortunately this shift-the-blame attitude is also seen in the world’s perspective towards Israel.
Whenever the secular world hears about the suicide bombings that take place in Israel or about rocket attacks from Gaza being launched into civilian neighborhoods with women and children, who does the world blame?
Does the world blame those modern day Philistines who are attacking Israel?
No, they blame Israel for the attacks because it is Israel who is wrongly occupying their territory and it is Israel who has offended them.
The world takes the same attitude towards all of the Muslim nations who want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
They say it’s Israel’s fault that all these nations hate them.
And why?
Because the world is afraid of Islam just like those Philistine farmers were afraid of Samson.
If it was some country like Spain, France or Austria bad-mouthing Israel, the world would have a totally different response because those countries aren’t feared like Islam is feared.
That’s why the world shifts blame to the victim (Israel) instead of the perpetrators.
Because they know placing blame where it rightfully belongs means traveling down a road filled with difficulty and danger…
Which is also the very reason why the Israelites chose to get along with their Philistine and Canaanite neighbors instead of expelling them from the land per God’s command.
I tell you nothing good happens when we operate out of fear instead of faith.
P.S. Oh by the way, did you know that Israel is the only nation outside of the US to have a memorial honoring every victim of the 9/11 attack?
Understand how God is operating in world history and get on the right side of it man!
Over and out.
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