Faith's Unending Legacy (Hebrews 11:32) | Worship Service

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Vision through the physician heals the sick. The lost he came to save For me his precious blood he shed. For me his life he Jesus died. And that is his command. And what will keep us to the end. The law which we stand.

Christ our hope in love. Who stands up against night Unto the shore. Christ our hope at their seat.

You can sign up for all kinds of things available for you. And second, the Reformation Conference, which the sign-up sheet is not out there at that table. That is online, so you can go to the website and register there.

It's a free conference. We're going to take up an offering to cover the cost of the food and give the speaker an honorarium for him coming and being here. But you'll need to sign up and register at the website and let us know at least who is coming.

Psalm 46: God Our Refuge and Strength

Please turn, if you will, to Psalms. To Psalm number 46. Psalm number 46. We're going to read together this entire psalm. The pre-script says it is for the choir director, a psalm of the sons of Korah, set to Alamoth, a song.

Psalm 46. When you find your place, will you please stand with me as we read? God is our refuge and strength, very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the dwelling places of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She will not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered.

He raised his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Come, behold the works of the Lord, who has wrought desolations in the earth. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth.

He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two. He burns the chariots with fire. Cease striving and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Let's pray together.

Our Father, you are our stronghold and our refuge, our strong tower. And while the nations rage around us, and while the peoples plot a vain thing, while there is so much turmoil and so much unrest, we can simply trust you and wait upon your good and sovereign purposes.

We know that you will be exalted in this earth and you will be glorified amongst the nations. And we know that even now during this day of grace, you are calling out your elect from every tribe and tongue and kindred on the face of this earth.

And you are doing so for the good of your people and for the eternal glory of your great name. So we pray that you would continue to do so, that you would give grace and strength to those who serve in the foreign mission fields, to serve you with earnestness and grace, to do so with theological clarity and accuracy, to be bold and courageous and fearless in proclaiming and defending your word.

We pray that you would be honored and glorified by calling people to yourself all over this world even today. As you have drawn us together here today to worship you and to praise your great name, we pray that you would do a work of grace in our hearts and in our lives, that you would draw us together and unite our hearts in faith and love and unity in fellowship one with another around what Christ has done and what he has accomplished through his death on the cross on behalf of all those whom you have called to yourself.

We pray that you would fill our hearts with love and affection for Christ our Lord, that we may see in him the glory of our triune God manifested in the flesh, that we may worship and adore you and that you would send your spirit to be our comforter and our encourager and our strength today, that you would be honored and glorified through our worship.

We pray that you would do this for the greatness of your own name and the glory of your name and for the advance of your eternal kingdom, we pray in the name of Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Lamentations 3: Great Is Your Faithfulness

Where sinners stray, their filthy rags for his righteousness applied. Mercy cleansing every stain, now rushing o 'er us like a flood. There the wretched and vilest ones stand adopted through his blood.

Mount of grace, to thee we plead, from the law hath set us free. Once and for all, our calories yield, in love and justice shall agree. Praise the Lord, the price is paid, the curse defeated by the Lamb.

We who once were slaves by birth, sons and daughters, now we stand. O well of joy, is thine to drink, for my Lord has conquered death. Victorious, forever born, the ancient foe is laid to rest. Alleluia, Christ is King, alive and reigning on the throne.

Our tongues employ with hymns of praise, glory be to God of old. Alleluia, Christ is King, alive and reigns employed with hymns of praise. Glory be to God of old. Our tongues employ with hymns of praise, glory be to God of old.

In Lamentations, our reading comes from today, chapter three, verses 22 and 24. The loving kindness of Yahweh indeed never cease, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.

Yahweh is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will wait for him. We're gonna end our music service this morning by singing God Moves in a Mysterious Way.

Mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Depicts many treasure designs and works his song. To see eyes, to see your smiling face, mystery, his grace, to see with his hand, his work, his own interpreter, to see, give us eyes to see, eyes to see, his grace with mystery.

You may be seated.

Prayer for Illumination and Hebrews 11:32–38

Sorry, will you join me in prayer now? Our Father, we have asked that you would give us eyes to see your smiling face in the mystery of providence. We have asked that you would be glorified here through our service, and now we are asking that you would be honored and glorified through the study and meditation upon your word.

We pray also that you would give us ears to hear and hearts to obey and feet that are quick to move and to do your will. And we ask your blessing on these things and to this end that Christ may be glorified in and through us and that you would conform us to the image of your son.

So we pray that you would sanctify us by your truth and the power of your Holy Spirit through your word. We ask in Christ's name, amen. Will you please turn to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. We're going to read together from verse 32 through 38, though we're not going to be going through all of those verses this morning.

Verses 32 through 38 of Hebrews chapter 11. Verse 32, and what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection and others were tortured, not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were tempted. They were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated. Men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

We have seen that the author of Hebrews was a man very familiar with his Old Testament. He was well-read and studied in almost every section, well, we would say in every section of the Old Testament because he quotes prolifically from the Psalms and the prophets and from the law.

The author of Hebrews traffics in the nuances of Leviticus and Exodus, nuances in which you and I would get lost. He ties together some obscure passages from the Old Testament and shows their connection to the redemptive purposes of God over time.

He grasps the theological significance of various Old Testament characters and his grasp of them and their significance is quite amazing. Even men like Melchizedek, of whom scant mention is made in the Old Testament, and yet the author in chapters 6, 7, and 8 is able to mine from Melchizedek this wealth of theological and technical insight from his life, knowing the mind of the Spirit of God even in recording Melchizedek's name.

The author is able to flip back and forth from Old Testament texts, connecting dots and drawing parallels and exegeting those passages and he is so fluent in the Old Testament that as we read through Hebrews chapter 11, this list of characters that we've been looking at over the last several months, we quickly get the feeling that the author could go on almost endlessly quoting examples of faith, right?

We get the feeling that he's so fluent in his Old Testament that these characters just come to his mind and the examples of faith come to his mind so quickly that he could just continue to go on and on and exhaust paper and pen and exhaust the patience of his audience and exhaust us with examples of faith from the Old Testament.

In fact, he does say as much in verse 32, what more shall I say for time will fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel and the prophets. So he just lists these men. This is a favorite rhetorical trick of preachers,.

By the way.

They always say, well, I'm running out of time and I have a lot more to say and it's usually an indication that they've run out of things to say right about the right time. And the author does this. What should I say?

I mean, time's going to fail me. I'm at a loss for words. I could just go on listing people. But in his case, it's genuinely true. He is aware at this point that he could exhaust his readers and continue on almost indefinitely.

He could go on for forever and ever. And if he had 2 ,000 years of church history to choose from, he could probably go on and cite a whole bunch more, right? Time would fail me to tell of Spurgeon and of Calvin and of Whitefield and of Luther and of Edwards and of Knox and of Owens and of Athanasius.

Just beginning with Athanasius, you could do a series of messages. But we run out of examples. Or sorry, we would never run out of examples, but we would run out of patience and time. And that's the condition that the author is in.

What we have seen about faith at this point is more than enough for him to make his case. He has been seeking to show that the faith that distinguishes the apostate from the true believer is that the true believer has a faith that endures and perseveres to the salvation of the soul.

The apostate has a profession of faith, but not a true and genuine faith. He's made that case in chapter 10. In fact, he's made that case in all of the warning passages all the way up through the end of chapter 10.

And now he is listing out for us examples of this faith. There are those who have faith who do not shrink back to destruction, but instead they have faith to the preserving of the soul. That's chapter 10, verse 39.

Then he gives us this list of men and women who have had such a faith, a robust list. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses' parents, Joshua, Moses, Rahab, and then you get in verse 32, just this list of other names.

Up to this point, he has called out 12 witnesses to stand and testify to the reality of genuine saving faith. And each example has shown us faith from a bit of a different perspective. Each of the people in the list have certain similarities, one with another, and all of these examples have a number of things that they do not share in common.

But what they have all shown us is that faith has always been the way that men relate to God and are justified before God. Faith has always been the way and the basis of justification and salvation. Faith is that which pleases God, and faith has always been reproached by the world, but it is always rewarded by God.

Remember, those who bear the reproach of faith receive the reward of faith. That has been our theme all the way through chapter 11. But verse 32 marks a change in pattern, and what follows is not a selective list chronologically given of more characters from the Old Testament.

In fact, you're going to see that he breaks his chronological pattern here. But instead, in verse 32, we just get this list of names, six of them specifically, and then a group of people whom he just calls the prophets.

In verse 33 -34, we have an example of great feats of triumph that have been effected by faith. Effected, not affected, but effected by faith. And then in verses 35 -38, a list of great tribulations and trials that are endured by faith.

So a list of men in verse 32 versus 33 -35 is a list of triumphs affected by faith or caused by faith, we might say, done by faith. And then in verses 35 -38, a list of trials and tribulations that are endured by faith.

And if we were going to do all of this in one Sunday, which we're not, that would be my three-point outline. But we don't have a three-point outline today. Instead, I have two points, which I'll give you here in just a moment because we're going to be looking at verse 32.

Now, arriving at verse 32 presents me with something of a challenge that I've been kind of wrestling with for a number of weeks. And thankfully, early in the week, this week, I figured out how I want to approach this.

How do you tackle verse 32? Up to this point, every character has received from us a commensurate, a commensurate, I should say, to their mention in Hebrews, a commensurate amount of focus and attention as we've gone back into the Old Testament to look at their story and kind of connect it to the points that the author is making in Hebrews.

So if somebody's mentioned just one time in one verse, we might go back into the Old Testament, spend one Sunday there, connect it to Hebrews chapter 11 in the next Sunday, and then characters that are mentioned in multiple verses, we've taken more time to go back and to study them.

So we've dove, dove-dived? We've gone as deep with each of those characters as is necessary to kind of find out what the author of Hebrews is meaning by his mention of them and his treatment of them.

But now we get to these seven, six people and one group of people, and the question remains, what do we do? How do I tackle these? Because you know that I could give a biographical series on a couple of these guys, David and Samuel.

You could spend one Sunday on, two Sundays actually on Gideon and a Sunday on Barak, three or four Sundays on Samson, a Sunday on Jephthah, eight, 10 Sundays on David, five, six Sundays on Samuel. And right now I recognize that there are two groups of people forming in this congregation.

There are those who in your mind.

Are thinking,.

Oh please, please, please go that deeply into the Old Testament and take that number of Sundays on each of these characters. And I'm not going to ask you, the five of you who are thinking that, to raise your hand because then nobody is going to want to have fellowship dinner with you.

They're going to think.

You should be in your own group.

Sitting off in a corner doing something special. And then there is everybody else who is here who is thinking, oh please, please don't do that. Just give us the amount of detail that is commensurate with the mention in Hebrews.

And you will be relieved to find out that I'm not going to do a biographical series on these. And instead we are going to, since the author just gives us the list and since he gives us this list in sort of a rapid fire way, we're going to cover this in a rapid fire way.

At least rapid fire compared to other things that we do. So verse 32 is going to occupy us for today. Now, here are the two questions that we want to answer. First, what can we learn about faith from this list as a whole?

So we're going to tackle the list as a whole and say, what does this collection of people tell us about faith? Because the author, obviously, he is not connecting them to individual accomplishments and things in their lives.

He's just simply giving us the names. Now he's going to move on and give us a list of things that people did in faith. Some of them are connected to folks in this list. Some of them are not, as you'll see in a moment.

So his goal is not to get us to focus on the people with a specific example, but simply to give us this list of men who have done great things by faith. So the first question we have to answer is, what do we learn about faith from the list as it is?

The second thing we have to answer is, what do we learn about faith from each one of these examples? And we obviously have to tackle it in a very rapid fashion. So let's tackle the first question. What can we learn about faith from the list?

I want you to just notice a couple of general observations from verse 32. First, notice that the author breaks his chronological pattern. These are not in a strict chronological order. Now, I have argued that up to this point, up through verse 31, all of the examples of faith have been in a chronological order.

But the author breaks that now. There is a pattern here, but it's not chronological. In fact, if we were to take this chronologically, then Barak would be before Gideon. Look at verse 32. Barak would be before Gideon.

Jephthah would be before Samson. And Samuel would be before David. That would be the chronological pattern. But you'll notice that, though it is not chronological, that there is a pattern there. Gideon is mentioned before Barak, Samson before Jephthah, and David before Samuel.

And these kind of pair up in that fashion in that he sort of skips one and then goes to one who came before it, and then skips one and then goes to one who came before him, then skips one and goes back to one who came before him.

So there is a pattern there. And there is also a chronological pattern if we categorize them in the offices by the offices which they held. So for instance, he does address judges first, men who served as judges or under judges, Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah were all judges.

David is a king and Samuel was a prophet. And then he moves on to the prophets. So there is a flow in Old Testament Israel's history where they were ruled and delivered by judges and then by kings. And then the office of prophet kind of comes after the kings and is attached to that and really flourishes through the rest of the kingdom age of Old Testament Israel.

So that is chronological. But you'll notice that the notable ones in this list are listed first. So Gideon is more notable than Barak. He's more well-known than Barak. Very few of you, I would bet, unless you took Miss Diane's class in judges in the recent, very few of you would be able to tell me all the significant details from Barak's life.

Likewise, Samson is more notable than Jephthah. David is more notable than Samuel or more well-known. So there is a pattern here in that he sprinkles these lesser-known figures in with greater-known figures.

In this list, in verse 32, here's another observation, the author blazes through 400 years of history. From Rahab to David, or Samuel slash David, is 400 years of history. So he's picking a group of people here that cover a long portion of Israel's history.

Some of these are well-known, others are more obscure. We might even argue that Samuel is one of the lesser-known figures, at least in terms of probably us. We're more familiar with David than we are with Samuel.

One thing to observe of all of them, a couple of things, number one, that all of them were leaders. Do you notice that? All of these men were leaders. But that's not what's mentioned here. Do you also notice that?

What's mentioned here is not that they were judges. In fact, the author does not say, oh, there were notable judges.

These men were great.

Because of the office that they held. Like Samson, who was a judge, or David, who was a king, or Samuel, who was a prophet. It's not the offices that they held that is notable or noteworthy with these men.

They were all significant kings, prophets, judges, national leaders. In their day, each one of these men's names would have been a household name. Everybody knew who Samson was. Everybody knew who David was.

Everybody in Israel knew who Samuel was. Many of them could probably identify these men just from their face, just recognize them publicly. These were all well-known men. But they're not commended here for their office.

They're not commended for their leadership ability, for their calling, their greatness before men, but for their faith. Take note of that, for their faith. What sets David apart is not the fact that he was a king.

Thousands of people have been kings. Hundreds of people in David's time were kings of other nations. That's not what sets David apart. What sets David apart is his faith. There were lots of leaders of all kinds of tribes in and around Israel in the time of the judges, but what sets Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah apart is not that they were judges, but that they were men of faith.

What the world values is the office. What the world values is the position, the calling, the reputation, the status that these men are elevated above other men. This is what the world values. God doesn't value that.

God sees faith, and that is what is the difference maker for him. He sees the faith that he grants. He sees the faith that is at work in the life of that individual. He sees the act of obedience and trust and doing what he has commanded, and that is what pleases God.

That is what is acceptable to God. That is what he delights in, is the faith and not the office. You can be the greatest of men and have not faith, and you are nothing, and you will perish everlastingly, but if you are the least of men and you have faith, you will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

That's God's economy. So these men are not elevated or not marked because they were leaders, but because they were men and women of faith. God himself is no respecter of persons. Finally, and we're going to return to this at the end, all of these men, notice it, are deeply flawed men.

You notice that?

I mean, just you read through the list,.

And you kind of,.

How did he make the list? I mean, Samson? Of all the people to fill in there from the Old Testament, you could have put Elijah there. You could have put Elisha there. There are a lot of competitors for Samson's slot on the list, and you choose a man who is renowned for his flaws.

Let's just put it that way. He is renowned for his flaws. So all of these are deeply flawed men. So now let's look at what we can learn about faith from the lives individually of these who are listed.

You'll notice that there is a list of accomplishments verses 33 to 35. You'll notice that there is a list of tribulations and trials verses 35 through 38. This list is kind of connected to the list of men in verse 32, kind of.

It's not entirely connected to the list in verse 32, because there's not a specific one-to-one correspondence between the people on the list and the things, the triumphs that are mentioned on the list in verse 33.

Some of these descriptions in verses 33 through 38 fit more than one person on the list. For instance, in verse 33, by faith they conquered kingdoms. Who could that refer to? Look up at verse 32. It could refer to Gideon and Barak and Samson, really, as the leader of Israel, and Jephthah and David and all of those guys.

It's okay.

It could refer to all of them. Likewise, with performed acts of righteousness, escaped the edge of the sword. Did David escape the edge of the sword multiple times? He escaped the point of his spear a couple of times, didn't he?

How about escaping, or sorry, from weakness were made strong. You think, well, that specifically refers to Samson, but David was weak. David was just a wee little guy when Samson, or when Samuel anointed him as king.

He was weak, the smallest, the youngest, and seemingly the most insignificant in his father's household, and yet he was made strong. Became mighty in war, would apply to multiple, many of those men. Put foreign armies to flight, would apply to many of those men.

And some of the descriptions, some of the people are, some of the people on the list actually would fulfill more than one of these triumphs in verses 33 through 35. Some of the descriptions fit people not mentioned.

Look at verse, the end of verse 33. Shut the mouths of lions. Who does that refer to? Daniel. You were thinking of Daniel. Well, you'd be right, I think. But Daniel's not on the list, is he? So he's referring here to some triumph that was done in faith, and yet the person that we immediately think of, Daniel, is not on the list.

There's a sense in which Samson shut the mouth of a lion too, right? And David shut the mouth of a lion. Well, how about quench the power of fire? Who does that refer to? Who's the author have in mind there?

Probably Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego if we're sticking with the Old Testament. And if he means by Daniel, if he means Daniel by shutting the mouth of lions, then quenching fire probably refers to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the very same book.

You take a survey of the men listed, and you'll see that not one by one is there a correspondence for verses 33 through 35, and certainly not for verses 35 through 38. So we have a list of men and a list of accomplishments.

And this is, let me tell you, this is not what I'm going to do, is to try and draw the lines between those two columns of people. Instead, we want to look at the list as a whole. Now let's look at the list individually.

Let's look at these men, survey of them. First up, Gideon. Judges 6 through 8 tells the story of Gideon. Gideon delivered Israel from the oppressive Midianites. He followed God's command, and by following God's command of choosing 300 men out of 32 ,000 men, Gideon ensured that God would get the glory for throwing the enemy into confusion.

And you remember the story of Gideon, that he selected those 300 men on the basis of how they drank water. Not exactly something that they do at West Point today in terms of culling out all of the bad seeds in an army to get your elite fighting force.

But the point in Gideon's life was not choosing an elite fighting force, but rather demonstrating that in obedience to God, when we walk with him and obey him, that God brings the victory, that God accomplishes great things.

So Gideon, with a bunch of torches and pitchers, ended up throwing the enemy into confusion and routing an army of 135 ,000 men. So we could say that Gideon was, from weakness made strong, that he conquered kingdoms and that he put a foreign army to flight.

But is Gideon a man who was without any flaw, any moral flaw? No, he was not. Gideon's father had an altar to Baal. Now, we're not going to criticize Gideon for his father's idol worship, but Gideon was commanded by the Lord to tear down that altar and to destroy that altar and Gideon did it, but he did it at night because he was afraid of men.

He didn't want to be seen doing it.

He didn't want it to get out.

That he was the one who did it.

He wanted to obey God,.

But he feared man in his obedience to God. Not exactly the courageous man of faith that you might at first think, right? Gideon asked for a sign of the fleece.

Do you remember that?

Let the fleece be wet and the ground around it be dry and let the ground be dry, or the fleece be dry and the ground around it be wet. Whatever order that happened in, that by the way is not a method for determining God's will.

You don't put out fleeces. You've heard that used. I don't even go into that with you. It's a good book on that if you want to read up more on it. He asked for the sign of the fleece, but listen, in connection with Gideon, Gideon already knew full well what the will of God was because God had said to him, you're to do this and to do this and to do this, and Gideon in fear said, well, if it's really to be that way, then how about you give me a supernatural sign?

And God graciously, instead of consuming Gideon with fire, gave him the sign. And then Gideon said again, okay, let's switch this around. Just want to confirm this. Give me another supernatural sign. And God graciously gave him the sign rather than consuming Gideon with fire.

That is not exactly faith. After his conquering of the Midianites, Gideon made a golden ephod, which was a religious relic that became an idol in Israel and was obviously the cause of sin and the downfall and probably the damnation of many souls because Israel worshiped that golden ephod.

And then Gideon had many wives and violated God's purpose for marriage. So man of faith in terms of what he did in obedience to the Lord and God used it, we might even say that for Gideon, his example of faith is just surrounded by other very moral, very problematic morals connected with Gideon in the rest of his life.

Next up is Beric. Beric was a military leader at the time when Deborah was a judge in Israel. By faith, God commanded, sorry, by faith, Beric obeyed God's command to fight against a Canaanite army that was led by a man named Sisera.

And he did so in obedience to that command and God granted him a victory and granted the nation of Israel deliverance from the oppression of that nation.

Through Beric.

He conquered a kingdom and he became mighty in war. Those would be the things that we could say of Beric. But his failure was this, I think this was his failure. At least, he refused to go into battle unless Deborah came with him.

Now some people think that that is actually an expression of his faith, that Beric realized Deborah was God's spokesperson at that time, that she was the leader of the nation and that he didn't want to go into battle without having God's person there with him.

But I don't think so because when he says to her, I will do this but only if you go with me, she says,.

All right,.

But you're not going to get any glory from this, rather somebody else is going to get it, a woman is going to receive glory from this. This was a Beric because of his lack of faith and lack of obedience in that regard was robbed of the blessing of receiving the glory for the battle that he would wage.

So that I think was an expression of his weakness. He was God's leader for that war and he refused to go into it without that woman by his side. He was God's man to command that army and to go and yet I think we see in Beric an example of cowardice and an unwillingness to lead as a man.

In fact, I think that that is his fatal flaw, Beric's flaw, is that he was unwilling to lead as a man and probably indicative of all the other men in Israel which is why Israel had Deborah for a judge.

When a church or a people have women for rulers, okay, a few weeks ago I thought I was going to get in trouble for or clean out the church by saying something about baptism.

Here we go,.

When a church or a nation or a group of people have women in leadership, it is always an indication that there are cowardly men who will not lead and they have abdicated that leadership and given it up to those who should not be leading in those environments.

That I think was indicative of Beric's problem. Third up, Samson. Samson is one of the most quirky of all the Old Testament characters. Every time I read of Samson, I'm just, I stand in awe of the grace of God and of the foolishness of men, all at the very same time.

By faith, Samson fought against the Philistines and used his supernatural strength for his military victories. He was a one-man war against the Philistines. In fact, one thing that's notable about all the other judges in Israel is that they led armies, they led rebellions, they led people in conquering other armies.

Samson was just one man who led a one-man assault upon an entire nation, the Philistines. He used his supernatural strength to do that. He didn't lead an army in the sense that the other people.

Led armies,.

But he would just go out and do these impulsive things that end up being judgments upon the Philistines. At the end of his life, he is noted for his trust in God when after being stripped of his strength, he prayed to God one last time.

To give him strength.

That he might slay the Philistines as he was between the two pillars of that temple of Dagon. And God gave him the strength and by faith, he from weakness was made strong and he pushed the pillars apart and brought down that entire edifice and killed more Philistines in his death than he did in his life.

And yet Samson's moral failures were notorious. His craven desire for foreign women, he was a man driven by his appetites, he cared little for God's gifts to him, he thought little of God's call upon his life, he thought little of the gifts that God had given to him and he basically squandered them.

He seemed to enjoy the battle and the war and the revenge and the fight and not necessarily the pursuit of holiness and faith which should mark a leader of the nation of Israel. He relished the conflict and gave little regard to walking in righteousness and holiness and his leadership for Samson was just a means to the gratification of his personal ends.