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The Incredible Life, Adventures and Near Tragedy of Samson

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The Incredible Life, Adventures and Near Tragedy of Samson

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The Incredible Life, Adventures and Near Tragedy of Samson

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What are the key lessons that we should learn from Samson's life? These lessons can impact every one of us today, young and old, as we look at our lives in the context of the plan of God and the purpose that God is working out.

Transcript

 

How is it that a man whose life involves pride, womanizing and dereliction of duty, how can such a person be considered in what we might call the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11? I am talking about Samson.  If you took the time to read the title on your Announcement Bulletin on the sermon you will see that it is a rather long one.  I told my son this morning – my son called me from Indianapolis and I told him the title of the sermon and he said, are you sure that will fit on a CD label? The incredible life, adventures and near tragedy of Samson. 

Samson is one of those stories from the book of Judges that is fascinating. I chose to speak on this topic here and I think it is the first time I've really ever given a full sermon on Samson in all my years of giving sermons.  Looking at it, a well-known story, there is a lot brought out in the scriptures and a lot to think about.  We all know the story of Samson but what we may not know are some of the key lessons that we might learn from his life.  Lessons that can impact every one of us today, young and old, as we look at our lives in the context of the plan of God and the purpose that God is working out.

Samson's life is a story told in four chapters.  Perhaps you could look at it as a story told in four acts in the book of Judges.  In many ways our lives are stories that are told with differing acts that involve changes of scenes, growth, development, a bit of conflict and ultimately as in every good story, a resolution.  And in the story of Samson there is an interesting resolution for us all to ponder and to think about.

If you will, please turn over to Judges 13 and we are going to look at the highlights of his life.  I won't be able to read all the verses in this. We will hit some of the highlights as we move quickly through the story of Samson, which again as I've said, is well known to us but again to review it and to look at it in a fresh light can be instructive.

Judges 13 tells the story in the midst of a time of evil in this land of Israel.  Judges 13:1 has a very familiar refrain when the curtain rises.

Judges 13:1 Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

Perhaps a time of testing, a time of trial, as forty seems to be a number that fits that often times in the scriptures. This particular episode is forty years, into the hands of the dreadful Philistines, that group of people that we find throughout the book of Judges and on in to the book Samuel ending probably about the time of Saul and David with the story of Goliath. A people that they just couldn't get rid of and they lorded it over Israel at various times because of their sins, because of the way they acted toward God and that is exactly what happened here.  The Philistines are this people who, in a sense kind of kept Israel from fully expanding and developing themselves in this period of time. 

The Israelites did not drive out the Philistines or all the other gentile nations that God had told them to do when they came into the land and in the story here of Samson we're plunged right into the midst of the story of the tribe of Dan which is of all the tribes of Israel one of the most interesting. A tribe that grew into a clan here that seemed a bit restless and are always associated here, especially in Judges, with a little bit of activity that just doesn't measure up to what is expected.  In fact, as you know the story of Dan, they seem to disappear from their inheritance and we read about the tribes in the book of Revelation and we find Dan is not mentioned.  We can speculate as to why, but when you look at their story as told here in Judges you see that they were just dialed in a little different it seems, than the other tribes of Israel.

It is into this tribe that Samson is born and he is introduced here in a familiar story as his parents are named and the family here, and the mother is a childless mother; a very, very great problem in this day and age and an angel of the Lord appears to her in Judges 13:3 and announces that she is going to have a son. She is told in:

V.4Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean.

V.5For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son.  And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines."

So, Samson's mother gets some really good pre-natal advice way ahead of their time.  Don't drink alcohol when you are pregnant, as every pregnant lady is told by a good responsible obstetrician today. Forgo during that period because of the complications that could arise for the fetus.  Well, Samson had a good start.  Just from that one point alone but he also had a good start in that he was designated in the womb and set aside, much as we see other individuals in scripture in that way, set aside for a very special purpose and it is said that he is to be a Nazirite to God from the womb. 

The aspects of a Nazirite vow are quite interesting.  Not a razor was to be upon one's head during the time of the vow; they did not drink alcohol; they didn't and could not touch unclean foods or bodies during that time of the Nazirite vow would have been taken, and Samson's life, it appears that he was under at least aspects of that at least legally for all of his life.  Whether or not he lived by that is another question but it is what was over his life and guided his life, all of his life.

It is interesting to think about a life guided by a vow, a solemn pledge to God.  Now we would not typically do a Nazirite vow in the church today for a number of reasons but to just think about making a commitment to God.  We do that when we are baptized; we do that when we marry and we might, a person might choose in some part of their life, to make a promise to God about how they will live, something they will do and that's between us and God should a person choose to do that but I don't think any of us could typically fulfill completely a Nazirite vow today because there is no temple, there is no priesthood, that would have been involved in ending it.

The idea of a man living a life consecrated by a vow to God within the confines or the strictness of a Nazirite vow is interesting to think about and it is especially with Samson as to what exactly he was born into and the type of parents, and the thinking and the feeling that they were given before his birth about the type of person he would be, and how he would serve God and begin to be used in some way to break the yoke of the hand of the Philistines upon them, the dreaded Philistine yoke and problems.  One of the things the Philistines did was they kept the art of metallurgy away from Israel for a period of time and they couldn't even have proper implements to till the ground, much less instruments of war unless they got it from the Philistines for a period of time.  That is how strong the control was in certain ways of the Philistines over the various tribes of Israel, and points out part of the problem here.

So this vow, the nature of the people of Dan that they were a part of - if some of the stories and legends about the tribe of Dan are true as they develop down through the centuries, the Danites, and certainly just from what we read about some of the things that they did in the scriptures, they were a warring people.  They were a bit cranky at times I guess is a way to put it.  They were rough around the edges and when we look at the story of Samson we can see that in many ways but certainly in the war-like nature and character that he had and that he was able to accomplish.

At the actual birth of Samson, it says:

V.24 – So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.

It is almost language that we will find later in the gospels talking about Jesus.  Of course He was announced in advance of His birth to Mary and we have a very thin slice of a verse that tells us about a long period of time of Christ's life, that He grew and the Lord blessed Him and He found favor with God.  Well, Samson grew and God blessed him as well.

Now the next verse is interesting.  It says:

V.25And the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon him at Mahaneh Dan between Sorah and Eshtaol. 

It is an interesting statement made about Samson and without a lot of the details, but you begin to see God working upon him by His Spirit and this is what is at the heart and center of the essence of Samson, his strength and the nature of what he was able to do within Israel at the time with his life.  It was by and through the Spirit of God, that very power. 

It moved upon him and it is interesting, one of the commentaries, I believe it was the Expositors I was looking at, brings out the point that this verb, moving, moving upon him, is the same verb that is used when in the story of Pharaoh, the Pharaoh at the time of Joseph who had the dreams that he had to bring Joseph in to interpret, he was troubled if you remember, as the account there in Genesis says.  Pharaoh had a dream and it genuinely shook him.  He woke and he couldn't get it out of his mind; he was troubled by it and he called all of his advisors; the same with Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2.  He had this dream of an image and he too was troubled, so much so as you know, certain dreams that we have we may remember for a while.  We wonder about it and they rather may be vivid and sometimes we might have a troubling dream.  In this case, the same word here about the way the Spirit of God moved upon Samson is the same as in those others but it is used here in connection with God's Spirit moving upon Samson to do good things. 

I think there is the lesson for us.  As God's Spirit moved Samson, it can move us and it will move us.  We begin to see at the very beginning of Samson's life how that he was moved in a very powerful manner by God to do big things and to engage his life in something bigger than he was. 

Samson had every advantage as a young man as this chapter tells us.  His birth was predicted by an angel; my birth wasn't predicted by an angel.  I don't know about yours but my mother didn't know that.  She just, you know, got pregnant.  As I've said there are only a few cases of this in advance of somebody being known from the womb.  Jeremiah is another and certainly Christ, but to be known from the womb - that is a good beginning.  He had godly parents who loved him greatly and were godly in as they knew God and understood Him at the time.  He was dedicated through a Nazirite vow to God from his birth and he experienced the power of God's Spirit moving upon him as a young man. Despite the favorable factors as we know, Samson's life begins to unfold in various ways but at every point of his success, every high point of his life, it is at a time when he is moved by the Spirit of God.  And it is as if, we could put it another way: the word began to be moved in this way and it moved him to do some great works and profound stirrings to action.

Here is what I would like to give you: one key thought, the first key. The first of five key thoughts I will give you through this sermon here, and this is key thought number one. 

What we see here as Samson grows and God blesses him is that God was working with him in his youth and God works with us in our youth.  God works with us as well and moves upon us and a young person in God's church today should never underestimate what God can begin to do with them, as He begins to move in your life.  And in a sense as I explained, the word means it is an emotional stirring, it doesn't always have to be connected with a troubling dream or anything like that, but an emotion, a feeling of faith can be very strong.  A feeling of wanting to obey God, wanting to please God, wanting to learn more about God, to know who He is. To have those stirrings, emotionally and thoughtfully in one's youth as one becomes aware should not be neglected and treated lightly in your youth because this is the time that we see it happening with Samson and we should not underestimate when we might be moved to good works, or moved to comprehend and to understand God and to desire a relationship with Him because as the scriptures tell us, a young person through their exposure to the church, to the word of God, to the scripture, through a parents teaching, through a parents example, through their own actions or through a friend - and they are beginning to want to draw near to God and to understand the God of the Bible, is something that God can act upon and move in His time and His way.

The power of our example toward that should never be underestimated.  Whether you are parents, whether you are a friend in school and you represent the truth, you represent God, His church. As you are in College, in High School, in Middle School, with your friends at work, in whatever part of your life you may find yourself, don't underestimate the power of your example - to be noticed and seen by someone else and by your desire to say no to an activity or to an action, or to promote godliness by your faith and your way of life, God can work on that and if you are ever moved to that point through your exposure to the word of God, understand that that can be God's Spirit moving upon you and moving you to do something.

I look back on my youth and I didn't see this at the time necessarily.  I looked back on it several years later and could identify key spots in my youth where I felt that I was moved by the Spirit of God, and even before I was baptized.  I have been a part of the Church; my mother was a member of the Church and I can identify certain moments where I was moved to do something and I knew that I needed to act righteously.  I needed to do this or to do that or not do this in some cases and do what was right in other cases.  And I did and I'm profoundly glad that I did and I look back now and I realize that that was God's Spirit moving on my conscience, moving my actions because of what I had been exposed to, or I had heard in sermons or I had seen in the example of others in the church that were my mentors in that day and that period, and I needed to do something, finally, in some cases.  Get off the fence.

So God's Spirit moves upon us in different ways and that is what was happening here with Samson. It was when God's Spirit came upon him and moved him to heroic feats that God was with him in using him to judge and to begin to break the hold of the Philistines upon Israel as the story is told here. 

Now let's go on to Judges 14.  This is the second chapter or if you will, the second act as it unfolds here, as he is now an adult.  And this is what I determined or called Samson's first period of idiocy. 

Judges 14:1 Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. 

There had been strict instructions by God to the Israelites as to make sure your children marry within the clans or the tribes, within the faith, we would say.  Don't go after these other gods and these people because they will be drawn away.  Well, what does Samson do?  He goes down and he sees a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines.

V.2So he went up and told his father and mother, saying, "I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife."

That's what he wanted and so they were given orders to make arrangements for her to be his wife. 

Now here is where we need to stop and think for a minute about what's taking place not just in Samson's life, but among the Israelites.  When you go back into Joshua: they conquered the land and you are told that the tribes or the gentile nations that were already there, they were to be in a sense rooted out but they weren't.  God says, look they've got high places; they are centers of religious worship.  Get rid of them!  Don't let them stay in the land. Very often these places were kind of on the hilltops and they were called the high places and you have to stop and think about what that means.

I was thinking about this a few months ago in reading a part of that and I realized, well of course!  There is a reason to put these places on the high places because in Israel, as the Israelites settled, they kept kind of to some of the lower lands and if they didn't root out all of these pagan shrines and places of worship on the high spots, they were going to be seen for a long way off by the Israelites.  And you know what they would see, if you were an Israelite toiling away in the low land and low valleys and you look up at about dark and you see one of these pagan high places?  You'd see lights, bright lights, and in the ancient world a big bright light was a draw. It was a beacon.  And if you look long enough and listen very carefully, you will probably hear music because along with their pagan festivities there will be bands playing. Rock bands, heavy metal bands, country bands, contra bands, no!  Music.

And you know what else would be up there?  Food - because they would be having a good time and a part of the festivity would be lots of food and there will be something else there, a fourth item.  What do you think that would be?  Sex - because every pagan rite was done through fertility rights, sexual activity.  Why do you think the Israelite boys would want to go to the hills and to those high places?  Why do you think God said, don't let them stay around?  Because you had lights, you had music, you had food and you had sex.  It was Vegas!  It was Las Vegas in their day.  If you've ever gone through the desert at night and you crested a hill and you've seen Vegas lying out in the desert below, you'll understand exactly. It is lit up out in the middle of darkness and it is a draw and that is what was drawing Samson down to Timnah and a woman and it was beginning to draw him away.

Well, you look at the story here back in Judges 14 – he wanted a wife and he made a decision.  Now his parents weren't happy but he insisted.  Now there were consequences to that as the story goes on to show.  If you look at:

V.4 – it says: 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. 

Now that is an intriguing thought that is put here into the story to explain not just Samson's decision but how it fit within the larger context of what God was doing.  One thing to always remember, whether it is in this story but any other story of the intrigued and the sometimes perplexing situations, we ask, well, why did God allow this to happen and why did a good person do this and why did it work out?  God is sovereign.  His sovereignty, His purpose and His plan is overarching everything, even our decisions, and He can use even the bad decisions to continue to further His purpose and His will among His people as we see in many examples in the scripture and we see it right here because Samson was making a personal choice as so often we do.  We want, in this case, a wife from someone completely alien of our culture or our life style and certainly one's faith, and the parents couldn't see as it was put in here, that this even worked toward God's end and toward His purpose because He was going to work and allow that to seek an occasion against the Philistines. 

God was moving Israel ultimately into a key position within the world at that time and it didn't happen during Samson's age, his period.  He died; that generation passed. Ultimately, a few years later under David and then Solomon, Israel did come together and get their act together for a period of time and they did ultimately, for a brief period, became that bright shiny nation on a hill, of a godly nation worshipping God, ultimately reaching a high point during Solomon's time and then after his death it kind of went downhill.  But God's purpose was to eventually accomplish that.  Originally when He brought them out of Egypt He was going to take them in a more direct path toward that end but because of their sin, they took a number of detours.  But again, God's sovereignty and God's purpose always stands regardless of individual decisions that may be made at various times even among key individuals like Samson here, who was a judge.  Samson had a role to play and God was going to accomplish His larger purpose in this case among the Philistines in spite of the minor miss steps that other humans took. As I said, Samson's story is a story within a larger story. 

And you know He uses us too in the midst of a larger story.  Our lives make sense when we keep them set in the larger context of God's great purpose that He is working out.  We should always remember that and count it a great joy that God has revealed to us the purpose He is working out in this world and the purpose of human life and who He is, and why the church is as it is, and the truth that we are called to live within this age is, and focus on the positive aspects of that as it is set in the context of God's greater plan.  It is when we loose sight of that, that we sometimes make decisions that causes us to go on detours and five years, ten years, twenty years later, we may veer back onto the right path.  But our lives are set within a larger plan. 

I have lived my life like that from an early age.  I know many of you have and again those decisions are important to be understood when you are young, when you are young, and when we keep that in mind we understand that in our individual story, in the context of a larger story of God's plan, and it makes sense and it has purpose and it keeps us moving toward God and toward His Kingdom.  Neither Samson nor his parents understood all of that at that particular time and the large imprint that they were making.  There were consequences to Samson's choice.  There were always consequences and God doesn't hide that.  Twice in this chapter, Judges 14, you see the Spirit of the Lord coming upon Samson.  He kills a lion; a tremendous feat of strength that he does almost as a side-thought. As he veers off the path he encounters a lion, kills him, and that story winds around later then with the honey there and that is an example of Samson violating his Nazirite vow because he wasn't suppose to touch a dead corpse but it is all part of the persona that he is weaving. 

V.19 – We see him moved here again by the spirit of the Lord: Then the spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave the changes of clothing to those who had explained the riddle.  So his anger was aroused, and he went back up to his father's house.

V.20And Samson's wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.

The whole story here is: he doesn't really wind up with the woman that he wanted.  He gets tricked and jerked around and yet God's Spirit is still upon him, came upon him mightily, and he went and did what he did here. It was in anger and it was for his own purpose in one sense and yet God's Spirit was upon him and in the course of the riddle that he tells, you see an interesting aspect of Samson's personality, that he was a woody guy.  Sharp brain, very good intellect and how he weaves this around here but at the end of the chapter it is a failed relationship.  Did he learn?  Well, we have to read on to see. 

In Judges 15 we see revenge, retaliation and anger in this third chapter, this third act of the story of Samson.  His short fuse becomes an instrument where 1000 Philistines are killed as he charges them with a jawbone of an ass.  When you look at this story here, he wanted to go down and in Judges 15:1 he visits his wife and he is told by her father that she had been given to someone else and so he gets angry.  He gathers up 300 foxes in Judges 15:4 and turns them into flaming torches and sends them out amongst the grain fields, the corn -

Judges 15:5 When he had set the torches on fire, he let die foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

One of the things you should understand - this fantastic story in itself - how he got 300 foxes together, tied them in to 150 flaming battalions and - I don't know.  He was a very sharp character to get that done.  But he sends them out and it, basically, when you start destroying olive groves you're destroying years and years of work.  Olive trees take a long time to grow; vineyards - and they produce for a long, long period of time and if you destroy that you strike a blow economically and this is what this incident was and it should be understood in that context of an individual who destroyed, not destroyed completely, but he struck a blow at a critical moment to the Philistine economy.  And that is one of the ways by which God was beginning to work on the Philistine's to break their power and ultimately their hold because that crippled, it didn't destroy them, but it did cripple them for a period of time. 

In 2008, the United States and other western nations went through a crippling financial near meltdown. It didn't destroy us.  We bounced back but it did hurt and it did impact the United States in ways that are still playing out.  It is how things work economically at times and the Philistine economy was not put under, but it was cripple at this particular time. So, they wanted to know who did it and they were told that it was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite and he attacks them (Judges 15:8) "hip and thigh".  I love that phrase in Judges:  hip and thigh.  Whatever that means.  I just love it.  He slayed them hip and thigh with a great slaughter

Then he goes off and goes into a kind of a solitary mode into the cliff of a rock for a period of time.  The Philistines pursue him. They come up and they deploy themselves against him and an interesting scenario develops here in the remainder of these verses because some of his fellow Israelites, men of Judah,

Judges 15:10 And the men of Judah said, "Why have you come up against us?" So they (the Philistines) answered, "We have come up to arrest Samson, to do to him as he has done to us."

V.11 - So 3000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson – this is a 3000-person delegation.  Think about that.  3000 men and they go to Samson and they say do you know what this is all about, what you have done? 

V.11 - …And he said to them, "As they did to me, so I have done to them."

V. 12 - But they said to him, "We have come down to arrest you, that we may deliver you.

So Samson strikes a bargain with them and he says, turn me over to them but kind of keep the ropes kind of loose and we will go along with them. They tie him up with new ropes and bring him down from the rock and once again,

V.14 – …Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands. 

V.15 – He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it.

Probably the most famous of the stories of Samson; maybe the second most.  He kills a thousand men.  Think about it.  Three thousand men of Judah had come up to talk to Samson and we have a thousand men that are ultimately killed of the Philistines. Almost three to one but the men of Judah couldn't muster the desire, the gumption to act on their own behalf.  It took one man, Samson, to do what he did.

Now what Samson did – I don't know how he did that.  I mean a jawbone, even a big jawbone, to kill a thousand men.  That is a legion.  In the Roman period, a Roman legion was 1000 men and Samson slays a 1000 of them right here.  He reaches out and he kills a 1000 men.  I was just trying to think exactly how he would have done that and then I thought about the movie, "The three hundred" or the "Matrix", or some of these martial arts movies and you see this.  I don't know what to call it.  I went to our crack video men here yesterday to try to find out exactly what it is that type of photography is called.  I couldn't find Jamie – he was off with someone else, but you know, you see these scenes of warriors; they leap and they jump and the action just stops and they turn and suddenly they are off on the other side and this and that and maybe that is how Samson did it.  I don't know.  It was a stop action sequence of his day that allowed him to dominate the field.  The guy was a one-man Seal team.  He was a one-man Delta Force all rolled into one with what he did that day.  It is phenomenal to even stop and think about it. 

You know the Romans lost one of their crack legions in the forests of Europe in the 1st Century and it devastated them.  When the news returned to Rome that they had lost a legion to a Germanic tribe they were devastated, demoralized.  The Roman Empire didn't end at that moment but it was a major blow.  1000 Philistines to die like this at the hand of one man – it was a demoralizing blow that took place.  Again you see God working against the Philistines even through Samson here in this particular way.  He was not limited by Samson's weakness.  God's intend was to break the whole of the Philistines in that way.

It is interesting - Samson makes a boast in:
V.16 - … "With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men!"

You begin to see a little crack in his faith, in his shield of faith.  He talks about what he did.  He boasts a bit of what he has done not giving God the total credit for the power, the spiritual power that he has, and what gift and talent that he had when the spirit moved upon him.  He didn't give God fully the credit.

Now he had a time of regathering here. He became very thirsty (Judges 15:18) and he cries out to God and God hears him and provides him with the nourishment and the sustenance to regain his life at this time.  God wasn't finished with Samson.  His intend was going to be accomplished.  He was going to break the hold of the Philistines. The wrath of men, one of the Psalms says, can be used of God for His purpose and in this case that is being done.  We are told that:

V.20And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

One of the next points he may have done in that time – we are not told by the story – but he continued on and perhaps because of what had happened at this point he is then looked upon as a judge, as a figure of authority within Israel at this time, for 20 years.  He is a physically strong man; obviously a virile individual; probably quite handsome.  It is very easy to imagine a cult of Samson developing within Israel at this time during this period.  Their deliver, their hero, who killed 1000 Philistines.  What he began to do at this point – we can only speculate about, because we see his actions. There is the crack where he is beginning to reflect more upon himself that God, depending more on his own gifts and his talents than completely that of God, and if the stories began to be told and the legend of Samson grew, you can only imagine the songs that may have been written about him and sung around the fires and in the gatherings of other men around the places where people would have gathered in that day; stories that would have been told about Samson.  And they would have grown as only a legend grows over any individual no matter what they have done and in this case he would have been a very popular individual.  We can well imagine that he wrote his memoirs and they had a movie made about him during this period of time. 

He grew, he became older and when we look in on him in Judges 16 we still see that he has not learnt his lessons because he went to Gaza; the same Gaza that we read about and hear about in the news today where the Palestinians are.  It is a Palestinian enclave within Israel today – separate from Israel but kind of a force.  Still a thorn to Israel, even where Gaza exists today. 

Samson went there and he saw a harlot and he went in to her.  Another period of idiocy.  You know you're reading along in the story of Samson and you sympathize with him. You say: that's it!  Good, good on you!  And then he makes a hard left turn and he goes off and does something stupid like this and you think, oh man, haven't you learned?  He could have had a V8, Samson, but he goes and visits a harlot.  Again you see his actions reflecting more him and his desires than God's.

Well, he can still party and he does but he is entrapped and when they are told that he is there he is surrounded by men of the city and they are going to lay in wait for him but he wakes up in the middle of the night after being with the harlot and he escapes.  He lifts up the gates of the city, puts them on his back and walks with those gates about 40 miles, probably, to the hill of Hebron as it tells the story here.  This was not just a stroll across the courtyard. It was a hike, a big hike, with the big gates. Not a little garden gate you and I might have in our backyard made out of chain-link fence or any thing like that.  The gates of an ancient city were big and massive timbers and he puts them on his back and he walks 40 miles and deposits them. In this particular point he's still not focused even on God and what He did.  They endeavored to entrap him, which brings me to key thought number two:

 

If God has moved upon us at any time in our life and magnified our talents and our abilities - that is a good thing.  Whatever natural talents we might have been born with and developed and then with God's Spirit moving upon us and in us and God gifting us with certain talents and skills, whatever that may be, and we've used them in service, we've used them in teaching, we've used them in various ways to edify and to build the body of Jesus Christ, make sure we keep our eyes firmly fastened on that.  Use the gifts for God's purpose and His edification.  Never forget who He is and why He has given us what He has given; whom God is and why we have been called and why we have been given what we have been given.  Never forget that. 

Samson began to forget it at this point.  We don't know all that had led up to this.  He goes down and he gets himself involved with a harlot and then as you read on:

Judges 16:4 Afterward it happened that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.

My, my, my, Delilah! I had to go type in to YouTube and ask for the lyrics.  It is a Tom Jones song, Delilah.  I had listened to the whole song, too.  It is pretty good.  I have forgotten how good it was.  You know what the first stanza of the song is?  "I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window".  I won't try to sing it like Tom Jones but – "I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind; She was my woman; as she deceived me I watched and went out of my mind.  My, my, my, Delilah.  Why, why, why, Delilah."  Tom Jones had a pretty good hit with that back in the 60's and I think that first stanza kind of captures the spirit of what the story about Samson and Delilah then becomes in this.  He is entranced by her and she sells him out four times to find out the source of his strength and this is what makes up the bulk of this story from this point on.

V.5 – And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Entice him, and find out where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and every one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver." Quite a sum. 

Well, you know the story.  She begins to wheedle and entice him and he toys with her like a cat with a mouse, even to the point that on one occasion, if you try to imagine this, she weaves his hair into a loom and into some cloth while he was sleeping.  He must have really been – he must have tied on one the night before is all I can say to have had that happen to him without knowing what was going on.  It didn't deter him; he rips it all up and takes off as well, until finally he gives in and he tells her that it is in his hair, as you know. 

She brings the Philistines in; they buzz his hair off and you and I both know that the strength was not in his hair.  The strength was from God. The hair was merely a symbol of the strength through the Nazirite vow and his relationship with God and there were no magical powers in those dreadlocks they must have sheared off at that point in the story here.  But then he is powerless because God is not with him and he is on his own.  He is on his own. 

There is a key thought here as well:  When you look at the story of Samson and Delilah – know the character of the person that you want to marry before you fall in love.

Determine ladies, men, the character of the person that you want in a mate before you fall in love.  Don't try to make over a flawed person.  It doesn't always work.  Know what you want.

Samson, unfortunately, got himself involved with a flawed woman and there was nothing that was going to change her.  She was poison.  She enticed him and she brought him down to his downfall but he couldn't see it.  He couldn't see her character.  Four times she deceived him because perhaps Samson wanted to be deceived.  You have to try and put yourself in that story and why couldn't he see through her?  Was it blind love on his part?  Was he an old man at this point, at least old by the age that couldn't see any better?  Sometimes old men make bad decisions with woman and in this case it could have been that way. 

But it is obvious Samson wanted something strong enough and when we want something strong enough in our life, whatever it might be, a person to marry, something else, some physical bauble or some position or something, when we want it bad enough we will sometimes allow ourselves to be deceived, tricked to get it and we will fall for the lies and deceit.  It is important to be honest.  Practice integrity at every point of action in our life.

I once had a member in the church years ago where I pastored. He's a good man.  He tried hard - a very good servant within the church.  As I got to know him he told me a bit about his past life before he was called.  He was a salesman when I knew him but he had always been a salesman and he had a gift of sales and the gift with people to talk and engage people and sell whatever it was that he was selling.

One of the episodes of his life - he was a salesman - he would go from town to town and he would open up a storefront meat store.  We used to see these a lot. I don't see that anymore but you'd see adds in the paper back when we had papers and we read papers for those things, you'd see an add for a store front location of so and so's meat market and they would be selling quarters and half a beef and a whole beef if you wanted it, really cheap.  Well, it was sometimes tainted meat or it wasn't what it was purported to be and it was way over prized.  This is what he did.  He would open up a meat store and he would sell and sell and sell until he got caught; usually when he got run out of town by the Attorney General or somebody would bring suit because of deceit.  But he just packed up and went down the road to another place and opened up another storefront meat store.

He was telling me about this and I said, look, how did you do this?  And he said, you know, it was easy.  People always thought they were getting a bargain.  It is easy to trick people and deceive them if they think they are getting a bargain. They thought they were going to be getting one over on me by my prices and the way I marketed it, but it was really me that was getting it over to them.  But he said, one thing I learned through all of this. He said: I could never cheat an honest man.  He said, I could never cheat an honest man and he said he quit trying.  If they were honest they probably would not come in to my store but if they were honest they could see through me and I could never deceive an honest man.

That is why it is important to be an honest person and to practice integrity because we are less prone to be deceived, thinking that we are going to get something for nothing or something for some grand bargain and it turns up to be a swindle.  What ever it might be.  It is so unfortunate when we hear of people who are swindled by scams over the Internet, over the telephone, or even in person. Even sometimes with people that they do know and trust but I've always learned that piece of advice:  I couldn't cheat an honest man. 

By this time in Samson's life he had drifted from God and he couldn't see through Delilah and it cost him ultimately his life.  As you know, his life ended on a tragic note because when you come down to the end of the story, they put his eyes out after they were able then to finally bind him and his strength was gone.  And then there came that day, that fateful day when there was this huge festival at the temple of Dagon.

Judges 16:23 Now the lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice.
They thought their god delivered their enemy into their hands.  All of their people came together; they were rejoicing; they praised the god and it happened that they said:  Bring Samson in that he may perform for us.  (Judges 16:25). So they for called Samson from the prison and he performed for them, kind of like a poor old trained bear that is toothless and had one too many episodes and is brought out to parade before a group of people that look – he must have looked pathetic at this point.

V.25 - … And they stationed him between the pillars.

V.26Then Samson said to the lad who held him by the hand, "Let me feel the pillars which support the temple, so that I can lean on them."

V.27Now the temple was full of men and women.  All the lords of the Philistines were there – about three thousand men and women on the roof watching while Samson performed.

Three thousand of the lords of the Philistines.  This was the Supreme Court, the houses of congress and the executive branch all in one building in Philistia at the time at this pagan festival.  You know the story:

V.28 – Then Samson called to the Lord, saying, "O Lord God, remember me, I pray!  Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!"

V.29And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left.

V.30Then Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it.  So the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life.

Three thousand of the elite, the rulers of Philistia, killed in this episode.  That was another major blow to the nation.  He'd killed already a thousand of their best soldiers; he had struck a blow at their economy with the vineyards and the olive trees and the standing corn with the fiery foxes; now he kills their leadership or the majority of it.  It is another blow that comes down.  Now the nation didn't collapse completely.  We still see them a few years later during the time of Saul but it is during the time of Saul and then David that the yoke of the Philistines is finally broken.  They hadbeen a crippled, declining nation because of what Samson did during this period of time.

And so Samson's life and his exploits come to an end and it is a sad story.  It is a thrilling story; it is a poignant story.  You have to ask, how much more could he have done in his own time if he had remained faithful to his vow and to God and never got sidetracked from the power of God working with him?  One of the most of the poignant evaluations a person could ever get in any type of a review, evaluation, critique, is this: You have a lot of potential.  You have a lot of potential.  It may not always be a compliment.  It may be a statement saying that you're not living up to what you could do.  You are pretty good but you could do more.  Samson was pretty good at times.  He was pretty much of an idiot at other times.  He could have done more. He didn't live up completely to his potential.  He had a great one and yet he makes it into the hall of faith.

In Hebrews 11 we find his name right there on a plate.  He subdued kingdoms and he put to flight the armies of the aliens, as the other verses go after that.  He did both of those things and his name is right there anyway.  Again God's sovereignty and God's purpose and His plan goes on.  God tells us everything about the hero's of the scriptures, even the mistakes and the sins that they made.  Samson is a larger than life character. We love him; we root for him every time we read the story; he is a strong, confident person and when the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, he did good things.

As I read through this this week and preparing for it, after I came to the end of the story, my mind was drawn to a passage in the book of John.  I would like to take you there in conclusion.

1 John 2 – This is where I drew the conclusions to Samson's story. John, in his first epistle here, has some very interesting words. Some call it poetry but I look at them as just basically instruction. He talks to all of us and I think there are lessons here to be gained by all of us, to sum up the story of Samson here.  I will read this from the New Living Translation.

1 John 2:12 I am writing to you (John says) who are God's children because your sins have been forgiven through Jesus. 

V.13I am writing to you who are mature in the faith because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning.  I am writing to you who are young in the faith because you have won your battle with the evil one.

He covers all the age groups, if you will, in these pieces here, these lines.  Then he kind of goes back to repeat:

V.14I have written to you who are God's children (and we are all God's children, no question about that) because you know the Father.

Samson knew not only his physical father but he knew God in his time and in his way as a young man and as God's Spirit moved upon him as we've read.

V.14 - … I have written to you who are mature in the faith because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning.  I have written to you who are young in the faith because you are strong.  (And here is why you are strong, he says - my words.) God's word lives in your hearts, and you have won your battle with the evil one.

V.15Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.

V.16For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions.  These are not from the Father, but are from this world.

V.17And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave.  But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever. 

Key thought number four:  Samson could not escape the gravitational pull of his world, the Philistine pagan world.  He kept going down and finding a woman.  He went first to try and marry her; secondly, just to spend a night with a harlot; third, with one who just used him and ate him up and spat him out; and all the other things that we are not even told about that he may have done as well.  He couldn't escape the allure, the lights, the music, the food, the sex of his world.  It all passed away and he passed away with it even while he did good things.  The bright lights and the culture attracted him almost like a moth to a light.

Every one of us should ask at various times: what part of this world today pulls us into sin?  What part of it catches our attention? What part of it are we not able to see is passing away and it's glorying will fade very, very quickly.  Every one of us has to ask ourselves that question at various times to make sure that we are not being caught up in that. 

Key thought number five:  It's what is said in 1 John 2:14 – very, very beautiful phrase.

V.14 - ... God's word lives in your hearts, and you have won your battle with the evil one.

That's the thought that I leave with us because God's word live in our hearts.  Does this Bible live in our hearts to the point where we win the battles with the evil one? 

Samson subdued a kingdom and he put his enemies to flight.  He did so at the times that he was confident God was near him as the Spirit of the Lord moved upon him and he did mighty things.

You and I are not called to put to flight the armies of the aliens and likely is not to subdue physical kingdoms but we are called to subdue the power of a spiritual kingdom in our minds and in our lives that is there and that is attacking and is relentless and is always pressing against us with that tension.  The only way we will overcome that is by this word being strong and living in our hearts.  The only way Christ overcame Satan and his temptations in Matthew 4 was by quoting scripture.  Every time he quoted scripture He overcame the evil one and it is an example for us.

This word must live within us.  Do we live with a confidence that God's power is in us, that it moves us and are we strong in that confident power?  In other words, do we live like we believe who we are: the people of God, a chosen people, a part of the elect, a Christian, a child of God?  Do we believe that?

Every time a speaker, a minister, an individual designated to teach in a Bible Study, a teen Bible Study, a sermonette, a sermon – when we get up, do we believe?  Do we speak as if we believe that?  And then do we hear whatever we are taught at any given time and moment, do we hear it as if it is the word of God, the instruction from the Bible for us, that we believe who we are and we live our lives that we believe that?  Without hypocrisy, without this world robbing us of our strength, like it did with Samson. 

We can and we can do even greater and mightier works than Samson in the spiritual realm. If God's word lives in our hearts we can win the battles, the spiritual evil that is around us, seeking an ever-deeper relationship with God through His Spirit.

We have every opportunity today to live and to allow the word to live in our hearts.  It is a phenomenal time with the knowledge explosion that we have and the availability of the word of God; the instruction, the explanations that can come and be a part of it and what we are able to do in the Church with all of the tools that God has given us to not only preach the Gospel, but to teach, to help people understand these words and to, as they choose, to whatever level they are in a particular point in their live, to develop a relationship with God.

It is a good thing. It is a good thing that we are all a part of whether we are here at ABC learning day in and day out and having the Bible read to us every day, those of you who have been here in this particular audience – it is a number of us.  When the Word of God is expounded in the classes of Ambassador Bible Centre, that is a good thing. To be read the book of James, the book of Matthew, one of the Prophets to be explained and to hear that, and for those who have the opportunity in this building, to put it together in written or televised form and send it out on the internet or on Television and in print and have it magnified far beyond our small numbers and power and resources that we have been given. That is a good thing. 

Every day as one of my good friends says, good things happen in many, many places around the world in the United Church of God.  I am glad, as you are, to be a part of that.  That doesn't limit God to work wherever He may be working and in any other venue that He chooses in His sovereignty and in His time as well.  What we have been given and what we are a part of is a good thing and to the degree that that energizes and moves us and God's word lives in us in that way, then we can win and we will win the challenges, the difficulties and the battles, and we will prevail and we can be used of God. 

And in some way and in some fashion God will write our names not necessarily in a chapter of the book of Hebrews but He will write out names in something even beyond that if we win that battle.  He will write our names in the book of Life. 

Comments

  • babsie
    Thank you for a wonderful sermon! It is so encouraging to know that even though Samson had his up periods of obedience but also his disobedient times, God wrote him into the hall of faith in Hebrews 11! God is so merciful and ever so patience with us all!
  • mickymicky002
    What a fascinating sermon. I hope I would be able to bring what I have learned here with me and face my future with a bit more faith, a bit more confidence and a bit more wisdom.
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