Samson: A Divine Wake-Up Call - [Judges 13-16]

There are issues that the church at large is debating. I mean, we see everything from Calvinism to Arminianism being debated, but bigger issues than that.

I mean, we have people being kind of adopted into the family as Christians, told that they're

Christians, and yet they are heretics. They're people who deny the Trinity.

My question for you, and maybe you guys can help me out a little bit, is there a single issue right now that's being debated in the church where we can say that the church is moving in a biblical direction as a whole?

Can you see the church moving in a biblical direction, or does it seem like the church is becoming more and more like the world?

Is there an issue where the church is actually becoming more and more biblical, more tied to the text?

I don't see any hands.

Several years ago, there was an article in the LA Times talking about the largest

Presbyterian denomination, which is the United States Presbyterian Church. And they had a little debate about salvation.

I mean, we're not debating small issues these days. These are big issues, and they're easy to read in Scripture and to come to the right conclusion.

But listen to this. They concluded with this. We need to restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ, nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith.

What? The grace of God is not necessarily restricted to those people who profess

Christ. And even those people who profess Christ, well, maybe they're saved, and maybe they're not.

And they say this then. Grace, love, and communion belong to God and are not ours to determine.

What does that sound like? I'm going to tell you exactly what it sounds like. It sounds like some other religion.

It doesn't sound like Christianity. People today, and we see this more and more with regard to homosexual marriage.

We see it with regard to women preachers. Whatever the issue is, the water is getting muddier and muddier, and the issues are becoming murkier and murkier.

People want to compromise. They want to have what

I like to call theological wiggle room. They want to be able to kind of become more like the world, more accepting, less biblical, less strident, more loving, more kind, more gentle.

But the Bible, you know, people say a lot of times, well, you know, you guys are so black and white, especially when it comes to No Compromise Radio.

You guys are so black and white. What happened to all the shades of gray? And I'm sorry, but when you come to Scripture, you don't find a lot of shades of gray.

When issues are addressed, they're not left, well, you know, you can either do this or that, or anything in the middle is in between.

It's fine. Anything in between is fine. The Bible from beginning to end is a story of God, or the story of God and his revelation, his word, and it is uncompromising.

And what we see frequently, especially in the Old Testament, but even in the New Testament, is God's faithfulness kind of held up, and then it's the backdrop against which we see the unfaithfulness of his people.

So with that, I'd like you to open up your Bibles to Judges chapter 13.

Judges 13. And we're going to move through four chapters of Judges tonight, and we're going to look at the life of a man whose life provides,

I think, one of the greatest examples of the grace of God in all of Scripture. I want you to see tonight that God uses earthen vessels, fallen, broken, flawed vessels to accomplish heavenly purposes.

Tonight we're going to see three graces of God's work in the life of Samson.

First, his establishing grace. Secondly, we're going to see his preserving grace.

And then finally, we're going to see God's saving grace in the life of Samson. I say, you know what?

I want to see, I think one of the first Old Testament sermons I ever heard, and I won't tell you who taught it, but it was called, guess what?

Dare to be a Daniel. I'm like, I have never heard dare to be a

Samson. I've never heard dare to be a Gideon or a Jephthah. Why is that? And that's why

I'm drawn to these men in the Judges, because these are flawed characters. But we're going to see tonight that God uses them in spite of their flaws, and in particular,

Samson. So we're going to look first at God's establishing grace in chapter 13.

Now, what do I mean by establishing grace? Well, first of all, he didn't have to do anything. God could have just left the situation as it was.

He had no obligation to do anything. But God did intervene, and why?

Because his people, Israel, were in a precarious situation that they didn't even recognize themselves.

In fact, I call this the people asleep. They were asleep, spiritually asleep, like I think much of the church today is.

Let's look at chapter 13, verse 1. Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the

Lord, so that the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines forty years.

The cycle of Israel during the days of the Judges was this. They would commit apostasy, that is, that they would worship idols, worship false gods.

God would then put someone in charge of them. He would oppress them with another nation, and then

Israel would cry out to God for relief, and then he would deliver them. That was the cycle, and it happened over and over again.

Almost as soon as they were delivered, they would start worshiping other gods. Notice in verse 1 again that it says, the sons of Israel again, noting that this wasn't the first time, again did evil in the sight of the

Lord. What's the whole theme of this book of Judges? Every man did as they saw fit, as they thought was right in their own eyes.

I mean, this is kind of, this is the world we live in, is the world of Judges, right? Everybody just does their own thing.

Everybody does what, well, that works for you. And this is the world that the Judges lived in. And so Israel does evil in the sight of the

Lord, which is a very nice way of saying that they were worshiping idols. So while we should be seeing

Israel since they're, as we walk through the story here, we should see them if the first step is apostasy, worshiping idols, and the second step is oppression, that's where they should be.

But it's a little bit different. It says here that he handed them into, or he put them into the hands of the Philistines 40 years, but they're not crying for relief.

They're not struggling. Why? Because the Philistines, unlike the other nations that God used to bring

Israel to repentance, the Philistines were using different weaponry. And the

Israelites were pretty happy with the way things were going. You could say that they were fat, dumb, and happy, and I think that's a fine way of putting it.

They were happy. They were content. Things were going well. They didn't have any financial care.

They weren't in a crunch. Now, before we go any further, I'd like to introduce our villains, the

Philistines. During the time of Samson, they were

Israel's major enemy, and they would be for many generations.

But even if Israel didn't recognize the threat that the Philistines posed, they were a threat.

Who were they? They were a group of people who came from some islands near Greece and then moved to Israel around 1200

BC. They eventually occupied the southern coastal plain of Israel, some of the best land that there was, the most fertile, choicest land in all of Israel.

In fact, they basically chased the Israelites out of that area. Now, the Philistines possessed some technology and weaponry that was superior to the

Israelites. The Israelites had bronze weapons. The Philistines had iron weapons.

What happens when iron and bronze meet? I mean, the Bronze Age, for those of you who don't know, came first, and then the

Iron Age. Why? Because iron was better than bronze and would, in fact, break the bronze.

But it's interesting because the Philistines didn't say, we're going to invade these guys, we're going to defeat their armies, we're going to enslave them.

That's not what they did. Instead, they were using intermarriage, trade.

They were just kind of, you know, let's all just get along. That was their approach.

And it was working. It was working. And it was because of the Philistines' nonviolent method of controlling

Israel that Israel did not cry out. It's kind of the Stockholm Syndrome, right? You get taken hostage and after a while you just identify with your captor.

And they were perfectly content. Again, if the cycle is apostasy, oppression, cry for relief, and deliverance, they're in apostasy, but they don't feel the oppression, so they're not crying for relief.

Nevertheless, the Philistines were God's chosen means to chasten His people for their sinfulness.

The result of this idolatry of going after other gods, of being unfaithful to the Lord, was that God put them into the hands, the covenant

God of Israel, Yod -Heh -Vav -Heh, LORD, all caps, put them into the hands of the

Philistines for 40 years. But they weren't complaining. They were happy. They were oblivious to the threat of really ceasing to exist as a people.

What happens if you intermarry, if the Jews are told, first of all, not to marry with other people, and they start intermarrying with the

Philistines? What's going to happen? Well, over a period of time, they're going to stop being

Jewish. They're going to stop having that unique nature that they had. They're going to stop obeying any of the tenets of the law, and they're going to stop being

Jews altogether. Okay, so first, that's

God's people asleep. They're in danger. They don't recognize it. They're perfectly satisfied by the things of this world.

The second aspect of God's establishing grace is God's prophetic announcements. So now we're going to see one of the most amazing birth announcements ever.

In fact, if it weren't for Jesus and maybe one or two others, this would be the best in all the

Bible. But Israel's in a spiritual coma. I mean, they are out. They just don't have any cares in the world.

But God is determined to awaken them. He is going to give them a divine wake -up call.

He's going to give them a double shot of espresso. A lot of caffeine coming their way right now.

Again, they were in bondage for 40 years. And Samson is born about halfway through this, about 20 years into it.

But what makes the announcement amazing, this birth announcement amazing, is that it is made by the pre -incarnate

Christ himself. And he shows up not once, but twice. Let's look at the text here in 13, picking it up in verses 2 to 5.

And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was

Manoah. And his wife was barren and had born no children. Then the angel of the

Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Behold now, you are barren and have born no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son.

Now therefore, be careful not to drink wine or strong drink or eat any unclean thing.

For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a

Nazarite to God from the womb, from his very conception. And he shall begin to deliver

Israel from the hands of the Philistines. So here is the picture. The picture is, Israel's happy.

They're being absorbed kind of by a giant blob known as the

Philistines. They're being absorbed. They don't get it. They're stopping to, they're ceasing to be

God's covenant special people, the ones that he had set his affections on.

They're ceasing to exist as a nation. And so God is going to send them someone. Look, it says again in verse 5,

He shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the

Philistines. Now it's interesting that when she's told she's going to give birth, that she's going to conceive, she is given the command to obey the laws of the

Nazarite, which were unique and usually, I think this is the only case here in the

Bible where a mother is given that for her child. And such a vow is normally voluntary.

I mentioned when I was preaching about John the Baptist, he was a Nazarite. He came in, that's why he came in looking all wild, because no razor had ever been on his head, he didn't comb his hair, he didn't do any of that kind of stuff.

He was specially dedicated for the Lord. Same with Samson. And there are three

Nazarite prohibitions that are outlined in Numbers chapter 6. We're not going to turn to Numbers chapter 6.

I'm just going to summarize this for you. Nazarite vow, what is it? Don't do no drinking, right?

We saw that there. No cutting of the hair, and no contact with the dead.

No contact with the dead. So this son is to be born and to be kept holy.

He's going to be so separate, so holy, fully dedicated to the Lord, so much so that this is going to start before he's even born.

As verse 7 puts it, The boy shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.

For his entire life, he is to live this Nazarite vow. Now Manoah, the father to be,

I mean, imagine the joy! You have no children, and this is a big deal in this culture to have a son, and not only do they get a child, or does this angel promise them a child, but it's going to be a boy.

Now Manoah in verses 8 to 14 prays that the man of God might return and further explain what's going on.

It's not that he doesn't believe his wife, I think he just wants to hear it for himself.

But it's interesting how little this couple understood. The man of God.

Well, obviously this was no man. But moving on, in verse 15, Manoah wants to be a polite host, so he offers his guest a meal, and then he wants to know what's going on, and so he asks the angel, this visitor, his name in verse 17.

And in verse 18, the angel of the Lord says, Why do you ask me my name, seeing it is wonderful?

What a unique thing to say. What do you want to know my name for, seeing as how it's wonderful?

The Hebrew word means marvelous or incomprehensible, as in Psalm 139 .6

where it's used, and it says such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is too high. I cannot attain to it.

It's that idea. My name, my being, because remember when we talk about a name in the

Bible, we're talking about something that encapsulates or incorporates all of a person's being.

Now what happens next removes any doubt about who this angel is, who this visitor is.

Verses 22 and 23 tell us that Manoah and his wife recognize that they have been talking to Yahweh himself.

Look at 22 of chapter 13. So Manoah said to his wife,

We shall surely die. Why? For we have seen God. He gets it.

But his wife said to him, If the Lord had desired to kill us, I mean think about it.

He was here, right? He ate that meal. He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would he have shown us all these things, nor would he have let us hear things like this at this time.

Now let's just say that you had not had a child yet, and an angel of the

Lord, the angel of the Lord, God himself you come to recognize him as, had come to you and told you you were going to have a son.

What would you name him? I don't know, but I know what I wouldn't name him, and that's what they name him.

Because they literally name him after one of the local pagan gods.

I mean these are pretty dark times in Israel when a couple gets this miraculous baby and they name him after an idol.

But he is going to begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines.

So this is God's establishing grace. He brings this couple, or he gives this couple a little boy and tells them, gives them specific instructions and says this is what

Samson is going to do for his entire life. Now we see God's preserving grace and this is going to be chapters 14 and 15.

What do I mean by preserving grace? It's pretty basic. Basically, that Samson deserved at almost every moment throughout the next two chapters to die for what he did.

But God preserved him. God was merciful to him. Samson was called to be a judge and he might be arguably the worst judge in all of this book here.

But a judge, I think we need to understand what a judge is. Because when we think of a judge, we think of somebody corrupt but sitting behind the bench and making wrong decisions.

No, that's not what we think. We tend to think of a lawyer who's graduated to be a judge and rules on matters of law and that kind of thing.

But that's not what we're talking about. These were not robed men and women. There are female judges as well.

These are not robed individuals sitting there looking at case law and sorting things out.

In the ancient Eastern culture, ruling and judging are intimately connected. So much so that often judging would occupy much of a king's time.

And so a judge isn't necessarily a judge in the way we think of him.

In fact, really what they were here were God's, to just throw in a movie illustration, even though I hate movie illustrations,

Avengers. I'm not really making it a movie illustration. I'm just saying that's the title. That would be the right way of, you know, how would that be?

Instead of the book of the judges, the book of the Avengers. Why? Because God used these judges to avenge his people, to avenge his name.

He brings in the opposition. He brings in the people that are going to oppress Israel. And then he brings in the

Avengers to drive them away at the appropriate time when Israel has repented.

But Samson is really an interesting choice as we're going to see. He's more a reflection of the people of Israel than he was a reformer of them.

But God used Samson as a wedge, a preserving wedge.

He drove the two peoples, the Israelites and the Philistines apart using

Samson. And we get some insight into Samson's character in chapter 14, verses 1 and 2.

Good insight into his character, actually. Then Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the

Philistines. So he came back and told his father and mother, I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the

Philistines. Now, therefore, get her for me as a wife.

Now, obviously, Samson saw more than one Philistine woman. But that's not the point here.

The point is he saw one that attracted him and he politely asked his parents for permission to court her?

No. He commanded his parents to arrange a wedding with her. This is all wrong.

Why is it all wrong? Well, first of all, it's wrong for Israelites to be marrying outside of the covenant. I mean, again, if we think back to what

Samson was supposed to be doing, he's supposed to be the beginning of friction between the Israelites and the

Philistines. So he's going to start that by marrying a Philistine. Good call.

Second problem is he's going to honor his mother and father, the only commandment with a promise, by doing what?

By ordering them around? By telling them to violate the commands of God by arranging a marriage with this

Philistine woman? So our first snapshot of Samson is that he is a lustful, proud, and selfish man.

And sadly, in those two verses, I think we have a pretty accurate portrait of him. We also get some insight into his parents' faith.

We look at verse 3. Then his father and mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all our people that you go to take a wife from the uncircumcised

Philistines? Why do I say that gives us some insights into his parents?

Well, because it's what they don't do. Listen, if you're a parent and you have a child who comes to you and wants to pursue somebody in marriage, do you just kind of give them the,

Have you ever considered marrying somebody who's a Christian? And that's basically what they said.

Well, wait a minute. Have you ever thought about marrying a nice Jewish girl and settling down? They didn't say,

That's wrong. You're not going to do that. They didn't try to put him in his place. They didn't even remind him of the words of the

Lord who told him that he was to be this beginning of the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the

Philistines. They didn't do any of that. Now, it might have been a waste of their time.

They might have just been spitting into the wind.

They might have just been wasting their energy trying to do this, right? But that's their obligation.

They're parents. They needed to do that. But they didn't. And again, verse 3,

She looks good to me. That's exactly what we would expect from a man of the world, but not from a judge, not from a

Nazarite, not from one who was set apart from the womb to begin to deliver his people.

But it all comes down to this. If you look at the life of Samson as it's portrayed in Scripture, the focus,

I mean, it's just like one big giant funnel, like a laser beam just pointing down at verse 4 of chapter 14.

Here's the key to understanding the life of Samson. However, his father and mother did not know that it was of the

Lord, for he was seeking an occasion. He, being God, was seeking an occasion against the

Philistines. Now, at that time, the Philistines were ruling over Israel. We already know that part.

It's just for emphasis. Samson's choice of a

Philistine woman is of the Lord. The Lord plants that idea in Samson's head.

He gives him the idea. Why? Because he knows what's going to ensue. It's not... Listen, when we look at Romans 8 .28,

we know that God uses all things for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We know that's true.

And here we have a perfect illustration of that. Samson's sinful desire,

God is going to use for His own purposes, for His good purposes. It's all of God.

This is His plan to create discomfort between Israel and the Philistines.

So let's just kind of move through the next few chapters rather quickly. In chapter 14, verses 5 and 6,

Samson is attacked by a lion. He defeats it easily, and it's interesting. How was he able to do that?

The text would tell us that the Spirit of God literally rushed upon him.

It flooded him. It was like a sudden just empowerment by the Holy Spirit.

And this happened on the way to some event in preparation for his wedding to the Philistine woman from Timnah.

And by the way, I think it's pretty fair to say, based on all of the text here, that this wedding never actually takes place.

I don't believe it did. But all the buildup, all the celebration before the wedding is taking place.

This is the betrothal engagement, and this is kind of the culmination of that. So there's this whole party going on.

But this is what happens while he's on his way there. Again, as a Nazirite, he was to leave dead things alone.

Did he do that? Absolutely not. He returns to Timnah sometime later.

He checks on the line. Now, checking on a dead line is a bizarre thing to do. Nobody sees honey in this dead line.

And what does he do? He goes and gets it. So he violates the Nazirite vow. After his father,

Manoah, makes some arrangements. A feast is prepared. The feast is referred to in verse 10. Like I said, it's some kind of pre -wedding celebration, a rehearsal dinner.

But the Hebrew word for this feast would indicate that there was some serious consumption of alcoholic beverages taking place.

In fact, one writer suggests that it may have been a seven -day drinking binge.

So in all likelihood, another part of Samson's Nazirite vow is broken. At the feast, he offers a riddle to his feasting companions as part of the wager, or he makes a wager with them, and he gives them this riddle.

And his bride -to -be is related to his dinner companions. They were probably forced to sit with him.

And nobody would want to sit with Samson. He was the Jewish guy, the big Jewish guy, the big ugly

Jewish guy. He was a massively strong man, but there was nothing attractive about him, and these would have been

Philistines that he's sitting with. But they prevail upon her eventually to get the answer from Samson for the riddle.

I'm just kind of moving along fast here. Look at verses 15 to 17 of Judges 14.

Then it came about on the fourth day that they said to Samson's wife, Entice your husband that he may tell us the riddle, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire.

Have you invited us to impoverish us? They don't want to lose this bet. Is this not so?

So what does she do? Does she stick up for her husband -to -be? Nope. And Samson's wife wept before him and said,

You only hate me, and you do not love me. You have propounded a riddle to the sons of my people, and have not told it to me.

And he said to her, Behold, I have not told it to my father or mother, so should

I tell you? However, she wept before him seven days while their feast lasted.

And it came about on the seventh day that he told her, because she pressed him so hard.

I can't take it anymore. Sure, I'll tell you. So what does she do? She then tells, in verse 17, she then told the riddle to the sons of her people.

So he loses the wager. So he gets mad at his fiancée, breaks it off, right?

Nope. He gets mad at the Philistines.

Verse 18 ends with the hard -to -understand statement, If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.

That idea of plowing with a heifer basically means, you guys played, you cheated. You went outside the rules.

You did something that was off limits. So, Samson, as we'll see, he has anger management issues.

And to work out his anger, he goes to the Philistine town of Ashkelon, and he kills 30 men. He's not really happy, but at least he's got 30 men that he's killed.

He goes home, and while he's at home, unbeknownst to Samson, the father of Samson's fiancée, we don't know his name, this

Philistine man, marries her off to someone else. So he goes home, and he's cooling off.

Maybe he watched some opera on TV, we don't know. But in chapter 15, verse 1, he returns to make amends.

And he brings, I guess what must be the ancient equivalent for a dozen roses or maybe a box of chocolates, he brings the delightful, and I'm sure, ladies, this is high on your list, a baby goat.

I brought this baby goat for you. It's going to make everything better. And once he's told that his fiancée has been given to another in marriage, he goes off.

He goes and attacks more Philistines. He uses 300 foxes to burn

Philistine fields and vineyards. In fact, he causes so much chaos in verses 2 to 8 of chapter 15 that the

Philistines move militarily against the Israelites in the area. They've restrained themselves. They haven't used their military advantage, and they're like, enough.

We've had enough of this guy. We want Samson. It's like they called up the posse and said, we've got to round up this guy,

Samson. So what do they do? It's like the bad guys in the movie, right? They take other people hostage, and they say,

Samson, if you'll surrender yourself, we'll let him go. And that's exactly what happened.

Rather than rally to Samson's aid, 3 ,000 of his countrymen seize him to give him to the

Philistines. Now think about that. Rather than, you know, this isn't some kind of, what's the fortress outside of the

Dead Sea up there on the hill where all the Jews kill themselves rather than be captured? Masada.

This isn't some kind of Masada mentality where we're going to fight to the last man for Samson because we're going to stick together with our countrymen.

They're not going to do any of that. They turn them over. They're just like, you know what? We don't want anything to do with fighting these Philistines.

Here, you want Samson, you got him. We want peace and prosperity.

So they bind him and turn him over to the Philistines, and again, just as with the lion, the spirit of the

Lord rushes upon Samson. He is supernaturally empowered. What happens?

He gets free of his bonds, and he kills 1 ,000 men with the jawbone of a donkey.

What does he do then? Does he just thank the Lord for his preservation, for keeping him alive, for delivering him from the

Philistines? Not exactly. He composes a song, which

I find, you know, you're in the midst of 1 ,000 dead guys and you write yourself a little song, and names the place

Ramath -Lehi, meaning height of the jawbone. Again, the focus constantly turns to him.

Look at verse 18 in chapter 15. Then he became very thirsty. That'll happen.

Kill 1 ,000 guys with a jawbone. That'll happen. And he called to the Lord and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance by the hand of thy servant, not by your hand, by the hand of thy servant.

And now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised.

In other words, are you just going to let me die here of dehydration, and then these

Philistines are going to get my dead body? God answers his prayer, even though it seems humorous, or almost laughable that he would call himself

God's servant. But this was God's sovereign plan.

It wasn't that he was God's servant with a heartfelt attitude, but he was God's servant in the sense that God was constantly using him.

But after he prays, after he writes that little song, after God gives him some water, he renames the place

En -Ha -Kor, meaning spring of the one who cries out. Not of the one who has granted me water, not of the one who has granted me victory, but the one who cries out me.

It's always about Samson. That's his focus. So we've seen God's establishing grace,

God's preserving grace. How gracious was he to Samson over and over again? Very gracious.

And now we look at God's saving grace. After Samson has committed sin after sin, it's hardly surprising that he would visit a prostitute, which he does in chapter 16, verse 1.

But it's worse. I mean, how could it be worse than sexual sin? It's worse because this is akin to, if he was still alive,

Osama bin Laden strolling into New York City and looking around for a prostitute. Everybody knows who

Samson is. He's public enemy number one. He's just going to walk into one of their cities, walk into the town of Philistine and go to the brothel.

Well, naturally, word gets out. The Philistines surround the building that he's in. But knowing what he's done, recognizing how many of their relatives that they've lost, one might presume that they just decide, hey, you know what?

It's dark. Maybe we'll just let him sleep and we'll get him in the morning. So they lock up the city and they leave, figuring they'll get

Samson the next day. But the problem is, Samson gets up and leaves in the middle of the night. But the city gates are locked.

Well, that's no problem. He moves the city gates. And it says in 16 verse 3, it's about 40 miles that he moves them.

The city gates are no small thing. It's not like some chain -linked little cheap fence. This is a big deal that he does.

And we don't know exactly how he did it. I mean, this is a massive feat of strength. This is one strong man.

Now, following this and recognizing the fact that he'd been trapped because of his own sin, you might think, well,

Samson's surely going to come to his own senses, come to his senses. Nope. His next move is

Delilah. And we all know, I mean, the story of Samson and Delilah, I mean, there are songs written about it, movies.

You know, this is big time. It's not really a romance, though. Look at Judges 16, verses 4 to 6.

After this, it came about that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the

Philistines came up to her and said, Entice him, and see where his great strength lies, and how we may overpower him that we may bind him to afflict him.

Then we will each give you 1 ,100 pieces of silver. Now, we don't know exactly how many lords there were, but if they're each chipping in 1 ,100 pieces of silver, this sounds like a lot of money to me.

Look at her response. Verse 6. So Delilah said to Samson, Please tell me where your great strength is and how you may be bound to afflict you.

Now, I don't know. Where I come from, that's a deal breaker right there. Tell me your weakness so that I can bind you and hand you over to my countrymen.

That just would not work. And her motivation is clear. She wants the money. It's a lot of money.

She wants the cold, hard cash. She is hired to learn his secret. She's not in love with him. She's in love with the money.

She's out for it. But in verse 4, we're told that Samson loved

Delilah. Now, that Hebrew verb can mean love, as in altruistic, kind of romantic love, or it can mean just pure lust.

Given his track record, I think I'm going with the lust. He's drawn to her like a moth to the flame.

So begins what really is kind of a game. Three times she asks for the secret of his strength.

Three times he lies. Every single time she's angered, but it just goes on.

She's becoming frustrated, but think about this. She knows, or he knows, that she's out for the money.

He knows that she's calling in her relatives to seize him, and this is her whole purpose.

He should have run, but not Samson because he knows that he can get out of anything.

He's Samson. He's the strongest guy around. He has no fear, not of death nor of sin.

And finally, in verses 16 to 18, her persistence pays off. He had one weakness, right?

It wasn't his hair. It was he couldn't stand nagging women, and he'd give them whatever they wanted. 16 to 18,

And it came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him that his soul was annoyed to death.

When are you going to take out the trash? When are you going to... I mean, he'd had it. Enough is enough.

So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, A razor has never been on my head, for I have been a

Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. Now, if he'd said a faithful Nazirite, we could have some issues here.

If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.

When Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called the lords of the

Philistines, It's time to cash in, saying, Come up once more. All these other times were false alarms, but now

I really know, because he's told me all that's in his heart. His head is shaved.

He's captured. His lustful eyes are put out. He's enslaved and put to work doing what would be considered woman's work.

He's just walking around, grinding at this mill. He's just walking around in circles like a beast.

I mean, this would be totally menial work. In fact, he's put on display for the entertainment of thousands of Philistines.

Think about it. I mean, this is the trophy, right? He'd killed them. He'd destroyed their crops.

He'd done all these things to them, and they finally had him, and they were going to enjoy it. So they put him on display, and they are having this huge party where they are worshipping their god, who's part fish and part man,

Dagon. But Samson has violated every bit of his

Nazirite vow, most of the Ten Commandments. I mean, there's, we really, it's, I would say, up to this point in the story, is there anything about Samson that we could say, well, at least he did that.

At least he did that. At least he was faithful in this, or he had that going for him. There's nothing.

There is nothing. And finally, after being shaved of his hair, being blinded, he also loses his pride, and Samson comes to repentance.

He has no claim on the god who had given him so much and had given him such great responsibility, whom he had failed so many times, and really never expressed any, not even any regret, let alone repentance for failing.

But finally, he casts himself upon the lord. Look at verse 28. Then Samson called the lord.

And this is going to sound peculiar at first, but be patient here. Oh, lord god, please remember me, and please strengthen me just this time, oh god, that I may at once be avenged of the

Philistines for my two eyes. Sounds like, again, avenger. I just want vengeance.

And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested and braced himself against them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left.

And Samson said, let me die with the Philistines. And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it.

So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life.

Now, some question whether this tells us that Samson was saved at all. Well, how do we know without a doubt that he was saved?

This is what started me on this whole quest in the first place, just being fascinated with the judges, is Hebrews 11.

In verse 32, he's mentioned by name. In verse 34, he's mentioned by description of what he did.

So how is it possible that this tells us that he's saved? You've really got to read almost between the white spaces.

You have to get into the fine print. Look, first he calls out to Adonai Yahweh, O sovereign

Lord. We know Yahweh, Yod -Heh -Vav -Heh. We know that Adonai is Lord. When we put those two things together, there is an acknowledgement for the first time that God is in charge, that God is sovereign, that He is

Samson's covenant God. He acknowledges for the first time in these four chapters,

God as Lord. Samson's plea, remember me, is better understood, one man says, as act on my behalf.

I don't have the power. I am not sufficient. For the first time in his life, he says, I can't do it.

Another man says this, if anything positive comes out of Samson's life, it is due to the gracious intervention of Yahweh.

Now I'm going to stop there for just a minute. I'll continue that in a second. But think about this. I've been thinking about this a lot this week, obviously, having a new grandchild and everything.

When you look around at your life and you start taking stock and you realize, this would be true of me.

If anything positive comes out of my life, it is due to the gracious intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But Samson, back to him, the man whose birth had promised so much, is a disappointment. Nevertheless, ironically, by the exercise of his own immoral will, right, there's nothing good, inherently good about Samson, Samson serves as an agent of the

Lord's will. And by the narrator's own acknowledgement, by the writer of Judges' own acknowledgement, he accomplishes more dying than living.

Why? Because he takes out a lot of the leadership, takes out more Philistines in his death than he did in his life.

And we know that there are hundreds and hundreds that he took out during his life. But it is startling, after cataloging all of Samson's sins and his squandering of the strength and the blessings that God gave him, that he's in Hebrews 11.

That's amazing. He is only fit to be in the hall of faith for the same reason that you and I are fit for heaven, the grace of God.

That's what this whole story is about. It's an amazing testimony of the grace of God.

His unfailing sovereignty in working his purposes through such a flawed man.

Now just think for a moment about Samson's final minutes on earth. He had lived his life in pursuit of pleasure.

In fact, if we called Samson a hedonist, I think that would be fair. He pursued, he did everything he could out of a desire to make himself feel good, to solve whatever problem he had.

He just did whatever he wanted. He lived his life by emotion. He lived his life without fear.

No fear for man and no apparent fear for God. But as he stood there, chained, shackled, enduring the mocking of thousands of Philistines, Samson's broken.

Finally, regret hits him. As he ponders all of his failures, all of his sin, really there's nothing it reminds me more of than the thief on the cross.

When he says, oh Lord God, please remember me. That's an echo of the thief on the cross and please strengthen me.

Who could save a self -obsessed, dishonorable, deplorable, disobedient sinner like Samson?

Only the Lord Jesus Christ. Only the

Lord Jesus Christ from the beginning of his life, when the Lord pre -incarnate

Christ appeared to Manoah and his wife, told them about the son they were going to have, and at the very end, when he calls upon the covenant

God of Israel and asks him to help. He trusts him.

He believes in him. And that belief is reckoned to him as righteousness.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, you are a great God, sovereign over all things, loving in spite of the faithlessness of your people.

Father, even as we consider the church today, the state of it, and its willingness to compromise, its willingness to bend on issues that are of primary importance.

Father, we even look at a man like Samson and are reminded again of your long -suffering nature, of your kindness, and of your grace.

Lord, we would pray that you would be gracious to the visible church, that you would remove men from authority who are faithless, that you would bring about the faithful return of many men to the pulpit who would preach your word week in and week out, that we would see

Christ exalted and your word upheld. Father, no one ought to dare to be a

Samson, but it is encouraging to think that you could save someone like that.

You saved us, certainly no better morally than Samson, but even as Samson, we can't point to one thing that he did that was good.

And yet, heaven -bound, because of really a deathbed confession, you are gracious and loving.