Samson Part 02

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How Do We Kill Sin? (No Quarter Part 3)

How Do We Kill Sin? (No Quarter Part 3)

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14 this morning, good morning.
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And Mike, how about opening us up with a word? That's great.
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Father, we are thankful that you brought us into your house this morning.
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We pray, Lord, that you would be with us.
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We pray that your Holy Spirit would teach us and use our brother, Andy, as he opens your word.
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We pray that our hearts would be ready to receive that which you prepared for us.
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We pray that your word would find its place in our heart and it would not only add knowledge to our head, but it would bring strengthening to our spirit.
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It would be conformed to the image of your son, our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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Okay, so Judges 14, and what we'll do is we'll read the whole chapter, and then we'll just make some comments concerning what we read.
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So, Judges 14.
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Now, Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines.
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So he went up and told his father and mother, saying, I've seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines.
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Now, therefore, get her for me as a wife.
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Then his father and his mother said to him, is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren or among all my people that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said to his father, get her for me, for she pleases me well.
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But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord that he was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines, for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.
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So Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah.
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Now, to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against them.
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And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand.
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But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.
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Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson well.
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After some time, when he returned to get her, he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion.
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He took some of it in his hands and went along eating.
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When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them.
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And they also ate, but he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion.
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And his father and his mother went down to the woman and Samson gave a feast there for young men used to do so.
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And it was so when they saw him that they brought 30 companions to be with him.
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And Samson said to them, let me pose a riddle to you.
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If you can correctly solve and explain it to me within the seven days of the feast, I will give you 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothing.
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But if you cannot explain it to me, then you shall give me 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothing.
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And they said to impose your riddle that we may hear it.
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So he said to them, out of the eater came something to eat and out of the strong came something sweet.
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Now, for three days, they could not explain the riddle.
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So it came to pass on the seventh day that they said to Samson's wife, entice your husband that he may explain the riddle to us or else we will burn you and your father's house would fire.
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Have you invited us in order to take what is ours? Is that not so? And Samson's wife wept on him and said, you only hate me.
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You do not love me.
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You pose the riddle to the sons of my people but you have not explained it to me.
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And he said to her, look, I've not explained it to my father and my mother.
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So should I explain it to you? Now, she had wept on him for seven days while their feast lasted.
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And it happened on the seventh day that he told her because she pressed him so much.
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She explained the riddle to the sons of the people.
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So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, what is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? And he said to them, if you had not plowed with my heifer you would have not solved my riddle.
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Huh? That's what it says.
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Oh, I used to say that.
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I used to say that about my wife.
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I used to say, man, you're my heifer.
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It didn't go over well, by the way.
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Let me finish the text.
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Verse 19.
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Then the spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily and he went down to Ascalon and killed 30 of their men, took their apparel and gave the changes of clothing to those who had explained the riddle.
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So his anger was aroused and he went back up to his father's house.
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And Samson's wife was given to his companion who had been his best man.
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So that's the text.
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I will say this.
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I've been to many weddings and some of them have been very interesting.
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The weddings that I've attended, but I don't think I've ever attended a wedding where at the last minute, the best man got to get the bride.
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Something we'll talk about a little bit later.
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Anyway.
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So let's just, some thoughts.
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And on the board, I'm gonna break it down three different ways.
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Just try to kind of form a little structure out.
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So verses one through four, we'll look at what's going on behind the scene.
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And then verses six through 15, setting of the scene.
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And then 16 through 20, the outworking of the scene.
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And I think it's important to state at the beginning, as Brother Mike brought up last week, and I agree with him that this is the last judge.
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This is the last of the judges before God will bring up and raise up Samuel.
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And just so you understand it, after the account of Samson, which runs through chapter 16, I believe the book then reverts to an earlier time.
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As we get into chapter 17 and the rest of the book, I think what we're going to see is what took place earlier rather than after Samson.
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And actually, and many that I have kind of looked to to help understand some of the things, they're all the way back almost to the time when Joshua first died.
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And even perhaps before the beginning of Athanel, if you remember, he was the first judge.
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So this really is the ending of the judges.
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Samson is the final judge.
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And then, as I said, the remainder of the book will go back to earlier times in the book of Judges before even God raised the judge up.
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And one of the interesting things you'll see as we go through the rest of the book of Judges, it'll constantly remind us that there was no king in Israel.
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There was no king in Israel.
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And every man did what was right in his own eyes.
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And that's one of the reasons, if you think about it, why God did raise up the judges, because everybody was just running all over the place, doing what was right in their own mind.
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And it led to nothing good.
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So just something to think about as we go through this.
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Now, I also wanna say, brother Mike said this, brother Mike, and I think he used the term that Samson was a moral train wreck, right? And I think we would have to agree that Samson is a moral train wreck.
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But the thing that I think we need to keep in mind, he's God's train wreck.
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And that's important for us, that we realize as we go through this account of Samson, that although Samson is not in the main, an example of what we should do and how we should be, yet he is used by God, even as you think about it.
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In other words, I would agree he's a moral train wreck, but I would agree we're all moral train wrecks apart from God, right? We're all a mess.
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And one of the great themes behind the book of Judges is God's sovereignty in that he, in his faithfulness, and according to his promise, he will continually use even those who in many ways fall short of the calling that they've been called to do.
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And remember, as brother Mike brought up also that he was to be a Nazarite and now we'll continue to work its way out as we go through this account.
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But I think it's important for us to rest because if you think about it, Israel was a train wreck, weren't they? They continually, and remember we drew the circle of the book of Judges is that it's really circular.
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There's time of blessing, prosperity, and then there's a time of decline, and then there's a time of false worship, and then there's a time of judgment, and then there's a deliverance, and then there's blessing, and it just keeps going around and around and around.
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And in many ways, that was the nation of Israel, that they were a moral train wreck.
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And yet God, because of his mercy, again, left, brought them under the hands of judges in different ways and at different times.
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And the only other thing I'll say before we start looking at the chapter itself is if God left us alone, and I guess it just made me think about more and more, you know how the scriptures say that man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward.
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And in that sense, you and I, if it were not for God's great mercy and God's faithfulness to us, we would just, we would find ourselves in one pit and another pit and another pit and another pit.
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So I don't wanna commend some of the actions of Samson, but I think we need to be a little bit careful, you know, about throwing rocks because we all live in glass houses.
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So, and really, if you think about it, and I don't know if Brother Mike would agree, if it wasn't for the statement in Hebrews, I mean, you'd really struggle with Samson, wouldn't you? I would, and that's another interesting thing.
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And I wanted to mention this too.
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There are many characters in the Bible that God uses and God brings them to our remembrance, right? Especially Moses, David, even Aaron, and many of the characters.
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What's interesting to me is that once we get through chapter 16, guess what? Samson goes silent.
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We don't hear anything about Samson for thousands of years.
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And I think it's in part, it's because Samson's character is not really of the best of examples, right, to use.
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And again, it comes back up in Hebrews, but other than that, Samson is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible except in Judges 14, 15, 16, and in that one verse in Hebrews, which again is an important verse.
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So with that in mind, let's look a little bit at the text and think about it.
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And like I said, the first part is behind the scenes verses one through four.
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So let's just read it together.
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So, Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines.
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And he went up and told his father and mother saying, I've seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines.
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Now therefore get her for me as a wife.
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But his father and mother said to him, is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren or among all my people that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said to his father, get her for me, for she pleases me well.
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But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord that he was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines, for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.
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So just some thoughts, and if you have other thoughts to bring in, that would be great.
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But he desires to take a wife of the daughters of the Philistines and then not only does he desire to take a wife of the daughter of the Philistines, and by the way, he goes down to Timnah and Timnah would have been South and from what I understand, it wasn't too far, but he went a little bit South and that's why it says he went down, that he not only desires a wife, really that he should not have desired, but he really dishonors his parents in doing so.
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And you and I have to think about that.
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He desires the wife of the Philistines and in and of itself, that's a mess because, and there are many scriptures we could read to validate that from the Old Testament.
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I'll just read one to you out of Deuteronomy.
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When the Lord thy God shall bring you into the land where you go to possess it and cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Gergashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hittites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you.
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And when the Lord your God shall deliver you from before them, you shall smite them and utterly destroy them.
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You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them.
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Neither shall you make marriages with them.
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Your daughter shall not be given unto their sons nor their daughters shall you take for your son.
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For they will turn away your son from following me that they may serve other gods.
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And so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you and destroy you.
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And we could spend a whole lot of time, I would think, on just that thought of this.
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Well, really, if you think of it from a New Testament perspective, the principle of being unequally yoked together, right? Unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
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And we could also bring into reality the fact of how his parents are dishonored in his actions.
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And again, good counsel for today, right? In that sense, even from a wrong thing, we could find good counsel.
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Because we could find it in the word of God that we should exhort and encourage those that are preparing for marriage, considering marriage, that based on where they are in the Lord, that they are not to be unequally yoked together because it has a whole lot of pitfalls, doesn't it? To be unequally yoked together.
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And also that as young people, as children especially, we should honor our parents.
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And that certainly carries out all the way.
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But so as we begin to see what's going on behind the scenes, Samson is just the way, I think it's just the way he says it.
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Get her for me.
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He looked at her and he liked what he saw.
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And again, is Samson driven more by his eye than by the word of God? And again, another caution for us that we need to be careful for where we let our eyes go to, even as brother Keith, if you're here Wednesday night, brought up through Proverbs chapter five, the reality of a unsanctioned woman or unbridled woman and how the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh can start a big fire.
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And so when you read this, he says that to his parents and he tells them basically, and I think what he's telling them is, mom, dad, you need to go down there and arrange this marriage for me.
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And I think it'll bear out a little bit more in the text that in those days it wasn't, it was proper for marriages to be established.
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I mean, it was, there was dowries to be paid.
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It was certainly arrangements like just as it is today, but nevertheless, the parents had to get involved in this whole idea of him going down.
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And so he tells them to go down there and get a wife for him.
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So in verse three, then his father and mother said, again, is there not a woman among the daughters of your own brethren? In other words, like Samson, what are you doing? You're going to go outside of the parameters that have been set upon us, even by God.
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And Samson's not off to a good start, is he? And you know, and that's another thing I thought about.
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Sometimes when you get off to a wrong start, it takes an awful long time to straighten out.
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And sometimes you don't, right? And how many people have gotten off to a wrong start in that sense, because of their actions, because of illicit desires, because of this and that, because of not honoring the word of God, and they wind up sometimes falling in the ditch.
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And although many times God in his mercy brings people out of the ditch, it doesn't always happen that way, right? Some people go hit the rocks and that's it, it's all over.
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But nevertheless, so I think that's what's going on here.
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He's telling his mother and father, this is what I want.
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And his father and mother now are, are they stuck in a situation? Should they have restrained him further? Should they have said, absolutely not.
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There's a lot of things to think about.
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But I think what I want to ask you to think about just for a minute is what's said in verse four, because I think this is certainly helps us understand.
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And that's why I titled this section behind the scenes.
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We have verse four, his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord that he was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines, or at that time the Philistines had dominion over them.
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Now, remember what God told his mother, as brother Mike says, Mrs.
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Menorah, that he was going to what? When Samson was born, he was going to begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines, right? Let me ask you a question.
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And I've been thinking about it and I'm not sure where I stand.
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So when it says in verse four, his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord.
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And then it says that he was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines.
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Now, I've thought about this and I've actually looked at some of the other brothers who have commented on this.
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Who is the he, okay, that what's going on is if you will, behind the scenes of an ungodly alliance and ungodly marriage is the reality of God's providence overall, right? And that certainly is one of the predominant ways in which people understand it.
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Then I was just looking to see what else people thought and some people believe that it could very well be Samson.
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That Samson, because he is been raised up and I'm sure there has been thoughts in his mind about God raising him up.
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And remember, there's a lot of time in between chapter 13 and chapter 14, unless he got married when he was three years old, right? So there's been some time in between and some believe that he means Samson and that Samson is in that sense, seeking the occasion against the Philistines.
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Now, again, I can see understanding from both sides, although I think ultimately it is God who's God is seeking the occasion.
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So let me just ask you, what would we call that? Um, we call it, would this be okay? We call this the secret will of God.
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Secret sovereignty.
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Huh? The secret sovereignty of the SS.
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Or could we call it the decree of will of God? God is behind this all.
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And so when it says that God was seeking the occasion against the Philistines, God being the ruler overall, and the reality that all of God's servants, aren't they? You know, and I always quote that verse in Job and I will continue that both the deceived and the deceiver are his.
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And even in the Psalms, it says, the wrath of man shall praise you and the remainder of wrath you will restrain.
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So there's a reality of this secret will or the decree of will of God.
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And what would be the other one? What's the other main thought that we would have as far as God's, how about this? The revealed will or the preceptive will of God.
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In other words, it's really that's the way it works out, right? Is that the secret things belong to the Lord our God and what? Things revealed to who? Us and our children.
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So when you look at verse four, again, reading the first couple of verses, Samson starts out wrong.
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Then he gets his parents involved in this wrong action.
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And then his parents are in a situation, but what's behind it all is the reality that God is raising Samson up for a very specific purpose.
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And I think we've talked about this, but I will just mention it again.
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We need to understand brothers and sisters, God has a revealed will for us.
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Oh, let me ask you a question.
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Which one of these is our responsibility, by the way? So this is where we need to dwell, right? Now that doesn't mean we don't contemplate that, right? What's going on, but this is our responsibility.
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This is Samson's responsibilities to reveal the will of God.
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And that you and I should concentrate, focus on it.
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God has a revealed will, not only in his word for how we ought to conduct ourselves, but God has a revealed will.
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And that many times the actions that take place in our lives will fall more in this realm, but we're responsibility for this, right? So that you and I, did you ever just say to yourself at some point, why in the world did I do this or that? And it might not be right away.
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It's like years later or a time past, you'd look back and say, man, why did I decide that? Why did I do that? Or why didn't I do this? Or why didn't I do that? And then we could build on that, right? And then we could say, well, God is sovereign.
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And then we could go to Romans and all things work together for good to them that love God.
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But here's the reality, God is behind Samson.
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Even if Samson is not walking as he ought to, would you agree with that? That many times, would that not be characteristics of us? That there are times when we are not walking as we should.
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And yet there's God saying, you know what? That's it, you're gone.
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No, because God is faithful.
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Ultimately, God is faithful to his word, right? And he's not only faithful to his word, he's faithful to his promises for you and for me that he will not leave us nor forsake us.
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And then we can bring in the whole idea of chastening and all those things.
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But I just wanted to make that point.
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I think it is interesting that his mother and father are stuck a little bit in this situation and Samson has his mind set.
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And I don't think Samson was concerned about the revealed will of God when he decides to take a woman to the Philistines.
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And I'm not so sure he's contemplating the secret will of God.
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Samson's just doing what Samson wants to do.
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And yet God stands behind it.
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So that really is what's going on behind the scenes.
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So let's just take a moment and read from verse six to 15, because this is where we see how this, the setting begins to develop even more.
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So verse five, so Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and they came to the vineyards of Timnah.
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Now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him.
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I'm gonna suggest that his father and his mother go ahead of him.
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And if you follow the thought, and maybe you agree, maybe you don't, because when Samson comes on the lion, his father and mother are not aware of this.
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And perhaps his mother and father, having been told by Samson, go get her for me, they go ahead and kind of begin to break ground.
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And as I looked at some of it, that would have been the custom in those days where the father, particularly the father, would have went down and made contact with the woman's father and said, we need to arrange a marriage.
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And they probably would have talked about some of the details and dowries and all this other stuff.
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But then as Samson goes down with his father and mother, maybe they went together in the beginning.
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As I said, I've read that it wasn't more than maybe five or six miles south of where he was from.
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So in those days, I mean, it wasn't like, you know, a half a tank of gas.
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It took six miles at six miles, right? When was the last time you walked six miles at once? Anybody? Okay.
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So when was the last time you even thought about walking six miles anywhere? So I'm gonna suggest that they go down, his father and mother, and they come to the vineyards of Timnah, and that's where he meets this lion.
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And then to his surprise, this lion comes on him.
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And then in verse six, the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and he tore the lion apart as one would have teared apart a young goat.
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Now, just to comment on this, and I don't wanna spend time because we would take way too much time to try to distinguish or try to break out or unpack this verse in the sense that the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him.
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I mean, we could stop here and get into a big discussion about how the spirit of God worked in and on people in the Old Testament versus the New Testament, agreed? We could have a lengthy conversation about that.
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That's not what we're going to do right now.
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But interesting to me, if you read through the following three chapters, 14, 15, 16, is a number of times where it'll say the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon Samson.
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And I'll just set this out to you that there was something with the people in the Old Testament distinct from the New Testament in which the spirit of God came upon them for service for fulfilling God's purposes in that there is a distinction to be made in the New Testament from that.
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And just wanna make that point.
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And also, here's the other thing I wanted to mention.
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And I don't wanna get too far into allegories and all this, but he's not the first one.
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He's not the only one to have torn a line apart, right? Who else did that? David did it, right? And it doesn't say that the spirit of the Lord came upon David, by the way, when he tore the line.
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Kind of distinction between Samson, who's portrayed as the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the Old Testament.
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And then you get David who was, I don't think David was of the stature of Samson and yet they both tore the line and they both killed the lion.
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And I just wanna say this, as Samson conquers a lion, as David conquers a lion, I think it's important for us to see Christ in this, to some extent, because ultimately, who destroys the roaring lion? Christ, right? So there's a reality of that that we need to understand, although I think we need to be careful because we're dealing with Samson in his life.
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And yet, and I think Brother Mike brought this up.
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There are times when Samson and all the Old Testament characters in different ways portray Christ.
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It's not a one-on-one relationship, is it? Not always.
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Certainly even in the Psalms, when we read about the Messianic Psalms and we read about some of the things that are brought into the New Testament and explained by the apostles, that there are times when we need to kind of make that jump, if you will, warp speed into the New Testament and see that many of the things in the Old Testament did, in fact, represent Christ.
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Again, not a one-on-one relationship, but nevertheless, and I think that'll bear out because if you think about it, whereas we just take a minute and sort of look at the whole idea of the carcass and the lion, the carcass and the honey, and here's what I thought, and it's just my thought.
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Isn't that true of Christ? In destroying the lion, what comes out of it? The sweetness of the gospel benefits, right? So even as you think about that, I think there's some ways for us to appreciate not only from the perspective of God's word in the historical setting, but even in our own lives that Christ having conquered the lion, we now enjoy the sweetness of him conquering that lion.
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Again, you might think that's too much of a jump.
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That's up to you to decide, but I do think we need to see it.
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So then it says, then he went down and he talked with the woman and she pleased Samson well.
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So I'm gonna suggest that the father has already gone down because, again, I don't think Samson would have approached this woman.
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I don't think that would have been right, that Samson would approach this woman without there already having been some groundwork laid, that he just wouldn't go up to that woman and start talking about marriage, but that rather there has been some groundwork laid by the father and the mother, and that he goes down and he talks with a woman, and of course she pleases him well.
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And then it's interesting how verse seven ends and then verse eight, after some time.
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So in other words, there's a timeframe to be thought of.
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He goes down, let's say he went with his parents, and at some point they made a right, he made a left.
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They went down and talked to the parents.
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He made the other turn, he fights the lion, and then he talks with her, and then it almost seems as if they come home, and maybe some of the groundwork was laid.
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Remember now, in these days, betrothed periods were extended, right? I don't think they had too many of those, like they do in Las Vegas, where you can get married in three minute kind of things.
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The drive-thru marriage.
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The drive-thru, has anybody ever been married through a drive-thru marriage? I didn't think so, just thought I'd ask.
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But there was arrangements.
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There was, again, this whole idea of the dowry, this whole idea of a betrothed period.
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We certainly see that with Joseph and Mary, right? And then it's finally consummated in marriage at a later point.
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So I think what's happened is they made arrangements, at least some preliminary arrangements.
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They go back, verse eight, after some time when he returned to get her.
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In other words, I think that it was time for it to take place.
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It says, he turned aside and he saw the carcass of the lion, and behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion.
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And just to comment there, I thought it was strange that bees would set up in the carcass.
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Does anybody have a different word for carcass? Everybody's translation says carcass? So I went and looked up the original word as best I could in the Hebrew, and it really means more of a skeleton than a carcass, because I don't think the bees would have crawled inside of a dead body, a body decaying.
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And the fact is that there's been some time, if you think about it, things don't stay on the side of the road too long, but the buzzards don't get, the world just dries up.
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So I think that, as I understand it, he goes back and there's the skeleton, and the bees have taken up and built themselves a hive in the skeleton, not in just some rotten, dead flesh, and therefore he takes some of the honey and he eats it, right? In verse nine, he took some of it in his hands and he went along eating.
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And when he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they also ate, but he didn't tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion.
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And just maybe a thought about that.
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Maybe he knew that his parents would be very upset if he had taken, remember he's a Nazirite, as brother Mike brought up? He's a Nazirite, and as a Nazirite, he would not be allowed to go next to what? A dead body, right, an unclean thing.
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And perhaps he doesn't tell his, he gives them the honey, but he doesn't tell them where it came from.
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And I think it's in part because he probably knows his parents would say, I'm not eating that.
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There's no way I'm touching that, Samson.
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And maybe there's another thought, that Samson has already formed some idea of what he's gonna do when he goes to get his wife.
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And he follows out a text because he poses the riddle.
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Maybe he didn't wanna tell his mother and father because he already had it in his mind.
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Here's what I'm gonna do when I get to the wedding, I'm gonna pose this riddle.
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We only got a few minutes, so I wanna kind of move on.
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So he took some of the honey, verse 10.
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So his father went down to the woman and Samson gave a feast there for young men, he used to do so.
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All right, so it's pretty well set up.
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The wedding has been arranged and verse 11, and it was so when they saw him that they brought 30 companions to be with him.
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Now, here's an interesting thought.
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I'm trying to rush through this for time sake.
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Samson poses his riddle about the lion and the honey, right? And remember what he says to him? He says, if you guess it, I'll give you what? 30 changes of clothing for each one that was there.
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And because of what we'll see in her badgering Samson that he tells her and they discover it and all that stuff.
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But it's interesting to me as you go through the rest of this, what he does in verse 19.
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So after all that, it says the spirit of the Lord again came mightily upon him and he went down to Ascalon, which would have been one of the primary cities of the Philistines by the way.
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And he killed 30 of their men and took their apparel and gave their clothing to those who explained the riddle.
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So I wonder, I don't know for sure.
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I wonder if that was one of the common practices that the bride would be allowed to invite 30 men to come to the wedding.
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And I almost began to think and consider that maybe what Samson does, he goes from the wedding that he's at, he goes and finds another wedding.
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And he kills the 30 guys there to get the 30 garments to bring back to the first 30.
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Because if you think about it, these were linen garments.
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This wasn't, these weren't overalls, right? They weren't dirty jeans.
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These were specialties with Sunday best clothes kind of.
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And I just wonder if Samson goes from the wedding that flops to another wedding, kills those 30 guys, takes their clothes, brings them back to the first 30.
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And basically Samson's, he's got what he needs.
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Just something to think about as you go through it.
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But so verse 12, then Samson said to them, the 30 are there, let me pose a riddle.
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If you correctly explain it, I'll give you the clothes and so on.
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And so he poses the riddle to them.
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Now, it says at the end of verse 14, now for three days, they couldn't explain the riddle.
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So it came to pass on the seventh day, they said to Samson's wife, entice your husband that he may explain the riddle or we'll burn you in your father's house with fire.
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Have you invited us here in order to take what is ours? Just think about that.
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So perhaps she invited him to the wedding and now they're in danger of losing.
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I said, man, we didn't come to a wedding to lose.
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We came to the wedding to enjoy ourselves and make merry.
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And also kind of read some of the background and some people, some of the commentators say that this was a common practice, that they would, the bride would pose a riddle to add to the festivities because it goes on for seven days, this wedding feast, by the way.
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How many of us have ever been to a wedding that lasts seven days? I mean, I just couldn't.
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I like to eat the food for seven days, but I don't know if I can go to a feast for seven days.
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So anyway, just something to think about.
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And so now they're telling her, if you don't tell us, we'll burn your house down.
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And ultimately, when we get to the next chapter, it's exactly what they do, by the way.
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They burn her and her father's house.
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This doesn't turn out well for the woman of Timnah either.
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So Samson poses this riddle and then in verse 16, Samson's wife wept on him and said, you only hate me.
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You don't love me.
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You pose this riddle to the sons of my people, not explain it to me.
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And he says, look, I might even explain it to my father and mother.
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So should I explain it to you? Again, just something to think about as we go through this, that God's behind all this, even the wrong actions of people.
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Now, verse 17, she wept on him for seven days.
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And I could spend some time just thinking about this.
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I don't know why you're laughing.
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I'm not laughing.
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And I am not sticking my head in the lion's mouth.
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Don't even think about it.
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But I'll flip it around.
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So I'll make a point without making a point.
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Can you imagine being bugged by you women? Could you imagine your husband bugging you for seven days straight? Just keeps going and going and...
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Not that any of us do that kind of stuff.
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But nevertheless, we get to the point and I think Samson's just like at the end of his rope.
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After he says, I didn't even tell my mother and father about this, because I was trying to...
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Maybe he's just trying to keep it secret.
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Maybe he's trying to protect his parents.
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I don't know.
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But nevertheless, you know that Proverbs, right? Better to dwell in the corner of a housetop than in a wide house with a brawling and contentious woman.
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I didn't say that.
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That is in the word of God.
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So, all right.
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So she reaps on him.
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He tells her, explains the riddle.
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The men come back on the seventh day before the sun went down and wow, they got it.
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And then he said, as I said to you, if you hadn't plowed my heifer, which is probably...
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I don't call my wife my heifer no more.
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I don't even call her my doulos no more.
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And I used to do that.
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Huh? What'd you say? That's because you live on the roof.
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Ha ha ha.
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But so he says, look, basically you squeezed this out of my wife because she squeezed it out of me.
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Okay, here's what I'm gonna do.
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The spirit of the Lord comes mildly upon him.
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He goes there and I'm gonna suggest again, either that or he went and found a group of men sitting together in linen garments, or perhaps he goes and crashes another wedding and decides to use that as an occasion.
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Remember what we said in the beginning, God's behind all of this.
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God is raising up Samson to deliver Israel.
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This might not be what we would envision, but nevertheless, it's what God is bringing to pass.
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So the spirit of the Lord comes upon him and his anger was aroused and he goes back to his own house.
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So he must've brought the change of garment back to the 30 men.
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Here's your stuff, I'm outta here, goes back home.
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And we'll see as we get into chapter 15, his brother Mike comes next week.
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After a while, Samson comes back again.
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But nevertheless, and then it says Samson's wife was given to his companion who had been his best man.
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And that certainly is gonna play into it going forward.
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And again, I think what happened was the wedding was called off.
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That's it, we're done.
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Samson says, I'm outta here.
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But remember, if what I suggested is right, that there was this patrol period before, then they could legally have been married, but not been married, right? They could have legally been engaged, but yet not married.
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And it will come to pass because Samson was given to his companion who had been his best man.
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Then when Samson comes back, we'll see that Samson says, where's my wife? Which again, could it be that Samson thinks he has legal rights because of this period of him and the woman being engaged? And that ultimately, as I said, he's given to his best man, which I'm not even sure that we have time to consider, but nevertheless.
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So I hope that gives us at least some understanding.
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It's an interesting scenario account.
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So there's what's going on behind the scenes.
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Then there's the unfolding of the scene.
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And then the results of the scenes to this point is Samson goes and he kills 30 guys, takes their clothes, brings them back and heads home.
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And then as we get into what comes after that, ultimately he's still seeking a further occasion against the Philistines and he goes back and things get worse.
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Comments, questions, compliments, insults? I just had one.
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So whenever he basically breaks the Nazirite vow by beating him from the carcass, the spirit of the Lord is still upon him.
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Yep.
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That's just interesting to me that, he technically broke his, I mean, obviously he didn't end the vow, but he did something that was not allowed and then he still had the spirit of the Lord on him.
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Yeah, I remember the vow was.
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I would say that it comes and goes.
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It was, because every time it comes on him, it empowers him to do something.
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Don't see it through the New Testament.
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Correct.
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That the Holy Spirit is in duality all the time.
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We'll see that.
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And he made that statement.
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I did, right? Yeah.
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That the spirit of God came upon people in the Old Testament many times for service.
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And that is distinct from the possession of the spirit of God on us in the New Testament.
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Although we're filled with the spirit at times to service, to do service, but there's a pretty big dichotomy between understanding what happened before the cross and after the cross.
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But, and also remember this.
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Remember, Samson had the vow put on him, right? Cause it was told through Mrs.
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Menorah that not only would Samson be a Nazarite, but she was to be a Nazarite.
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So there's a lot of things at play, but I hope that as brother Mike says, I hope that makes us understand that.
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Cause the problem with us is that we are, we are always trying to New Testamentize the Old Testament.
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And I'm not saying that's wrong.
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I'm just saying we gotta be careful, right? And so certainly in the life of Samson.
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Okay, we gotta go.
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Ooh, very late.
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Our father, thank you for this day, Lord.
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Thank you for who you are.
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Lord, may we be living examples of what is right and what is good and what is righteous.
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Bless us in our worship in Christ's name.