[MUSIC PLAYING] Calvary Church is
dedicated to doctrine and we want you to
experience a life change that comes from knowing God's word
and applying it to your life. So we explain the
Bible, verse by verse, every chapter, every book. This is Expound. We are in the Book of Judges
and we're studying a guy by the name of Samson. Now get this, about one
fifth of the entire book of Judges centers around
this very unique and flawed individual named Samson. Chapter 13 of Judges
14, 15, and 16 talk about this
very unusual judge who was consecrated by
his parents from a baby. In fact, it was really
a miraculous sort of an announcement
about his birth. His parents dedicated
him to the Lord. But then things got weird in his
life because of his priorities. He was dedicated to God as I
mentioned, from an early age, but Samson had a weakness. In fact, I call him a
He-Man with a she weakness. He was a very strong
individual, he was like the Superman
of the Old Testament, a Superman in muscles but
a super wimp in morals. He was very compromised
when it came to the flesh. Now one of the
things it shows us is that you might have all
the natural advantages in life and spiritual privilege in
life, Samson had both of those, and still it is not a
guarantee of spiritual success. God could set you up
for success and yet, you could be a failure
by your own choices. That's what we see
when we look at Samuel. Now a little bit of a recap
because we began last time we looked at part of
his life in chapter 13. In chapter 13, we
discover that he was to be a nazirite from his
childhood, his whole life, a lifelong nazirite. Refresh your memory
the Book of Numbers, chapter 6 talks about
the vow of a nazirite, that a man or a woman could take
a vow, a vow of consecration to the Lord and it was
something voluntary, didn't have to do it. But if you just said,
Lord, I want my life to be spent solely for your
purpose and your glory. I want to hear your voice,
I give myself to you. That would be a very
special vow called the vow of a nazirite,
a vow of separation, whereby a few things
were mandated. Number one, you couldn't touch
wine or the fruit of the vine. You couldn't be in vineyards. You couldn't eat grapes. You couldn't eat raisins. You couldn't drink wine. Wine was the symbol of joy. So the idea is I'm
not going to derive my joy from natural means. I'm going to derive my joy
from supernatural means. My joy is coming from the Lord,
not from a bottle of wine. Second, he could not cut his
hair during the time of the vow and when the vow was done. He would shave his
hair it would be burned with a
sacrifice, that was a sign of voluntary humiliation. And then third, he couldn't
be around a corpse, couldn't touch a dead body
and because of defilement. So even if his parents
died, he couldn't touch it or be a part of the funeral set
up which would be very, very difficult choice to make. Now according to the Jewish
Mishnah, a nazirite vow could last about 100 days. Typically however, it was
about a month period of time. Very rarely do we
have individuals who are life long nazirite. Samson is one of them, I think
John the Baptist is another. Some people try to say Jesus
is a third but push that aside, we definitely know Samson
was dedicated from his youth. So that's where we left
it off in chapter 13. In chapter 14, it
begins our story here. Now Samson went down
to Timna, this is down in the southwestern part of
Judah of the nation of Israel and he saw a woman. Now, just keep that
in mind because this is sort of his typical
MO, he sees a woman and it's like va, va, va, voom. It's like I'm all
about what she's about. He is a man who
is driven by lust. This is lust at first sight. He sees a woman. He likes the woman. He wants the woman. He gets the woman. There's no restraint
with this guy. So he sees a woman, of the
daughters of the Philistines. So they're not-- she's
not an Israelite. She is a pagan girl. So she does not share the same
worldview or value system. So he went up and told his
father and mother saying-- now listen, here's
the son coming to dad, instead of saying, dad I
submit myself to your will because that's what
we do in Israel. Rather than that, he went up
and told his father and mother saying, I've seen a woman
in Timna of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore, get
her for me as a wife. Go get that woman. I want her. Now typically parents
did set up the marriage for their children. It was an arranged situation. Parents would meet
with other parents. Boys and girls
would tie the knot or make the pledge based
upon their parents' decision. And typically you would pay
a bride price, the male, the male family
would pay a dowry of sorts, a dowry
I've told you before is like alimony in advance. In case the husband dumps the
wife, the father of the bride would have this nest egg paid
to him so that he could then give it to her if something
happened in that relationship. So he says, get her
for me as a wife. Now get this, these are
the first recorded words in the Bible that Samson
ever speaks and it's a command to his
parents in a very kind of disrespectful, gruff way,
to satisfy his own fleshly desires. The first time he speaks this is
what he said, I like what I see and I want what I want. Unfortunately, a lot of guys,
a lot of men, like Samson, are driven by the
same set of values. It's only what they look at
and they're attracted by it. I've seen guys look at girls
and go, I think I'm in love. Well you don't even know,
you've never even met her. You have a look at her. So it's not really love. But he is seeing
something but the Bible says, beauty is
passing, yet a woman who fears the Lord
shall be praised. So we are told yes
we make choices to some degree on the
outward physical appearance, it's what attracts people,
but if you don't go deeper than that, the relationship
is obviously very shallow and is doomed for failure. It's not going to last. So he is driven by that. He wants what he wants. Now listen to his mom and dad. This is a very sensible
set of parents here. Then his father and
mother said to him, is there no woman among the
daughters of your brethren or among all my people,
that you must go and get a wife from the
uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said to his
father, get her for me, for she pleases me well. Samson's parents knew at least
in part the Old Testament law. They would have
naturally understood at least in part Deuteronomy
chapter 7, where God said, when you get a husband or
a wife for your children make sure that they are
children of the Lord, that they are from
the people of God, that they are not pagan peoples,
that you will not take them because they're going to draw
your children's heart away from the Lord. So keep in mind, Manoah and his
wife, the parents of Samson, had that miraculous vision
of the angel of the Lord, who said, your son is
going to be special and they were all excited
and they trusted in the Lord and they had great dreams of
this boy being used of God. Now he grows up, and I just got
to say their dreams are dashed. When he says there's
a pagan girl. I want her. Go get her for me. Don't give me any lip. This boy is not doing
well as he's starting out. But watch this, but verse four
his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord. Now that's strange to read. It's a weird thing to
read that he, the Lord, was seeking an occasion to
move against the Philistines for at that time the Philistines
had dominion over Israel. It's a difficult
text to unravel, but I can only
explain it this way, God did not approve
of this marriage. This was God's disapproval. He had already said that
in Deuteronomy seven. It's plain, it's
clear, God did not want that to happen but
there's a lot of things God gives not want to happen
that he permits to happen. For example the Bible
says God is not willing that any should perish but that
all should come to repentance. But I have a question
for you, do all people repent and go to heaven? No. God wants them to go to
heaven, that's his will but they make choices
against God's approval but God permits people
to make certain choices. So yes, the Lord wanted to
move against the Philistines. The Lord wanted to raise
up Samson as a judge but Samson driven by his lust,
forces God to overrule Samson. Now here's the principle, if you
will not let God rule over you God will overrule you. Now the best thing to do is
to let God rule over you. Do his bidding. Be his man. Be his woman. Be used of God. He'll use you in a very
powerful way if you let him. But if you harden your
heart, sin against God, God can still do what he
wants in your life but you're going to
suffer ultimately as God overrules you to
get something accomplished that he wants done. The Bible says even the wrath
of man will praise the Lord. So this is God's sovereignty,
this is God's providence but this man Samson is not
following God's heartbeat. And it's going to
cost him influence. It's going to cost him his life. He's going to have a very
short life and a short ministry and basically end up taking
vengeance for personal use though the Lord will overrule
it and affect his will. So Samson verse five
went down to Timna with his father
and mother and came to the vineyards of
Timna Uh-oh, what's a nazirite doing in vineyards? If you're a nazirite you take
a vow, no wine, no grapes, no raisins, nothing
to do with vineyards or the fruit of the vine. He doesn't care. He's been separated
to God but there's no real consecration of his
own life and his own will. So he didn't care. He has no boundaries. He has no restraints. Now to his surprise a young
lion came roaring against him. Well I guess that would
be a surprise wouldn't it? You're out walking around
picking a few grapes and a lion comes
out and attacks you. And verse six, the spirit of
the Lord came mightily upon him and he tore the lion apart
as one would have torn apart a young goat. In those days and in
that part of the world goats were killed by
people in a number of ways. One of the ways they
could easily do it is simply grab the hind legs
and pull in opposite directions and literally tear it apart. It was a very easy thing to do. The muscles give
way, the fatty tissue gives way, the viscera
gives way and so it's not an uncommon thing to grab a goat
if you want to kill it and eat it, just to pull
it by its hind legs and its life will be
drained out very shortly. So in that manner Samson
was able to defeat the lion probably by pulling one hind leg
in one hand, one in the other and pulling it apart. And so he did it like you
would kill a young goat. Though he had nothing
in his hand but he did not tell his father or
his mother what he had done. So they're probably
out together, he's wandering in the vineyard,
maybe they're down the road a little bit, a lion
comes attacks him. He kills it and then he
meets up with mom and dad. I'm telling you this,
if I kill a lion in a vineyard, first
thing I'm going to do is tell my mom and dad. Can you believe it? A lion came after
me and I killed it. Any kid would do that. But he's very tight
lipped about it. He doesn't say anything at all. Doesn't brag, doesn't
want to talk about it. He just does it. I am sure he was a little bit
shocked at the strength he had. He may have looked down at his
hands afterward and went wow, can you believe I did that? How did I do that? Maybe he's coming to
terms with the fact that he has this
incredible strength. It says the spirit of the
Lord came upon him mightily, he tore the lion
apart as one would have torn apart a
young goat, though he had nothing in his hand. He did not tell his father or
his mother what he had done. Now the way the Hebrew reads
in the text could be rendered like this, a lion came
to leap upon Samson but the Holy Spirit
leaped upon Samson or came upon Samson is the
English translation here. The lion wanted to leap upon
Samson but the spirit of God was leaping upon
Samson and enabled him to have this strength. And now I like that rendering. I like that wording and I
bring it up to your attention because I think there's
a principle here. No matter what
comes at you in life if first the Holy
Spirit comes upon you, you can stand up to anything. You can stand up to
anyone or anything as long as the Holy
Spirit comes on you, restrains you, works
in, on, and through you. You've got his power. The power of the spirit of God. Then, verse seven, he went
down and talked with the woman and she pleased Samson well. So this guy is a
walking conundrum. spirit of God comes on him, lust
at first sight, love the chick, want the chick, but the
spirit of God makes me strong. It's just a weird combination. Could have been much better
but this is what you got. After some time when
he returned to get her, he turned aside to see the
carcass of the young lion and behold a swarm
of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion. Now this is a guy thing. It's like hey, look at that lion
I killed, look at that carcass. Huh, there's like bees in it. That's cool, I'm going
to go check it out. Guys do that. I don't know why, but
they just do that. But keep in mind,
he's a nazirite. They're not to touch a carcass. You get defiled by touching an
animal or a human that is dead. He goes right up to the
carcass, sticks his hand in it, grabs the honey, licks
it off his fingers. He's going to give
some to his mom and dad for them to have
a lick I suppose. He took some with his hands,
verse nine, went along eating and he came to his father and
mother and gave some to them and they also ate but
he did not tell them that he had taken the honey
out of the carcass of the lion. So his father went
down to the woman and Samson gave a feast
there for the young men used to do so. This is sort of like
the wedding feast, this is the bachelor
party you might say, except she's going
to be there as well. The Hebrew word for feast
means a drinking feast. Again, what is Samson,
what is he consecrated as? A nazirite. And nazirites were to
stay away from drink. But again, he's violating
every part of the nazirite vow repeatedly in his life so far. And it was so when they saw
him that they brought him 30 companions to be with him. These are Philistine companions. Interesting he doesn't have
any of his Christian friends you might say or godly
friends or Israelite friends. He's all alone. He's isolated. He doesn't have
a support system. Yes, his dad's going to be there
but he's a kind of a wimpy dad, do whatever my son wants. He has no infrastructure
to support him in his value system. He just has pagans
around him at this feast. And it was so, verse
11, when they saw him that they brought 30
companions to be with him and then Samson said to them,
let me pose a riddle to you, if you can correctly
solve and explain it to me within seven days
of the feast, that's how long these marriage
feasts last, seven days. The seventh day is
when the relationship would be consummated
between husband and wife. Then I will give you
30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothing. But if you cannot explain it
to me then you shall give me 30 linen garments and 30
changes of clothing. And they said to him, deal. Pose your riddle
that we may hear it. So he said to them, out of the
eater came something to eat. Out of the strong
came something sweet. Now for three days they
could not explain the riddle. Now we know what it means
because we've read the story, it's about the honey in
the carcass of the lion. The strong, the
beast, the sweet. It came to pass on the seventh
day, last day of the feast, that they said to Samson's wife,
entice your husband that he may explain the riddle to us
or else we will burn you and your father's
house with fire. Nice friends, right? Have you invited us in
order to take what is ours, is that not so? Then Samson's wife wept on him
and said, you only hate me, you do not love me. You opposed a riddle to
the sons of my people but you have not
explained it to me. And he said to her, look,
I have not explained it to my father or my mother. So why should I
explain it to you? Now she wept on him the seven
days while their feast lasted. It happened on the seventh day
that he told her because she pressed him so much. Then she explained the riddle
to the sons of her people. So this marriage is, can we
say, not off to a good start. Things are not
working out very well. The Bible says that a man is
to leave his father and mother, cleave into his wife, the
two shall become one flesh. He's about to be one flesh
with this pagan girl. There's no trust at all. There's nothing in common
spiritually between them. But it says that she pressed
him every single day. So he finally gives in. There's a verse of scripture
in Proverbs 27 that says, the continual dripping
on a rainy day and a contentious
woman are alike. Trying to restrain her is
like grasping the wind. So he finally just said enough,
you're pestering me every day, you're whining every day. I'll tell you what it means. So the men of the
city, verse 18, said to him on the seventh
day before the sun went down, what is sweeter than honey and
what is stronger than a lion? And he said to
them, if you had not plowed with my heifer you would
not have solved my riddle. Now first of all,
that's not a nice thing to say about your wife, to call
her a cow, basically a heifer. If you hadn't plowed
with my heifer. That's obviously an
agricultural term, you have taken my animal
that pulls the plow and you have taken liberty with
that animal that pulls a plow and you have gotten ahead
of the game with that. So using that analogy
if you wouldn't have plowed with my heifer
or messed with my wife or intruded in this you would
not have solved my riddle. Then the spirit of the
Lord came upon him mightily and he went down to
Ashkelon, Ashkelon is 23 miles to the southwest
along the sea coast. It was an ancient port. It was one of the cities that
the Philistines occupied. I told you before
that there were five Philistine cities,
Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, Gaza, and Ekron. Those are the five cities
principally in that area that the Philistines
had as a stronghold and controlled
that whole region. So he goes down to
Ashkelon several miles away because what
he's about to do he does not want to get
back to the wedding feast where he's at. He can go do damage
and they will not be able to hear about
it for some time. So he goes all the
way down to Ashkelon, killed 30 of their men
and took their apparel and gave the changes
of clothing to those who explained the riddle. That was the deal. I'll give you 30
changes of clothing but then I'm going
to go kill guys to get it and give it to you
to make good on the deal. So his anger was aroused
and he went back up to his father's house. And Samson's wife was
given to his companion who had been his best man. So Samson does not even stay
around for the full seven days, does not consummate the
marriage with his wife. He's angry. He leaves. He goes down and
kills Philistines, that's something God wanted to
do because they were oppressing Israel. But the manner in which he
did it was not a godly manner. So he leaves, dad,
dad of the bride thinks he didn't want
this woman as his wife so I'm going to just
give her to the best man. Samson didn't know
about that till now. And after a while in the
time of the wheat harvest it happened that Samson visited
his wife with a young goat. So he's bringing a gift to her. Now most guys would give
flowers or chocolate or I don't know, a new
iPhone or something but oh no, not Samson, he's so
romantic, he brings her a goat. A nice new little goat. Of course, according
to that time period that was something cool. So he gives her a young goat
and he said to the father, let me go into my
wife, into her room but her father would
not permit him to go in. There's something probably
you should know about this. There was an arrangement,
a certain kind of a marriage at that time
in antiquity, and by the way, it still exists in certain
tribes of Palestinian Arabs, it's called the sadika
marriage and that is a marriage arrangement
believe it or not, where the bride stays at
home with her parents, especially under the
protection of her father and the groom periodically
comes to visit his wife in the home of her parents. It's a strange setup,
but it is not unusual. It goes way, way
back in antiquity. We see an example of that
here in this pagan culture, which he is assimilated to. Verse two, her
father said, I really thought that you
thoroughly hated her and therefore I gave
her to your companion. So things go from bad to worse. His wife deceived him, he
told the riddle to her. She snitched, the Philistines
found out about it, he goes kills a bunch
of their friends and now finds out that
his wife isn't his wife, that the best man has his wife. And so listen to how wonderful
this father is, her father said I really thought that
you thoroughly hated her, therefore I gave her
to your companion. Is not her younger sister
better than she is? Please take her instead. How would you like to
be raised by that guy? Here's dad, doesn't even care
about his daughters and says, you know, actually
my younger daughter's prettier than she is. You can have her. I would not want to be
either one of those two young ladies in that home. And Samson said
to them, this time I shall be blameless regarding
the Philistines if I harm them. In other words, all
the brakes are off, no holds barred,
whatever I do I am justified in doing
because of this, the way you've treated me. Then Samson went and caught 300
foxes, literally jackals, took torches turned the
fox tail to tail, put the torch between
each pair of the tails and when he set
the torches on fire he let the 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 the olive grove. So three principal
agricultural crops of which the Philistines were
known for, it was their staple, it was their economy,
was ruined by doing this. Samson, yes the spirit of
God is coming upon him, yes God is overruling
him, but all of this is driven by a selfish
sense of revenge. He's not doing this because
God tells him to do it. He's not doing this
for the glory of God. This is all out of
personal vengeance. There are people who
are driven by anger and they justify their
anger because the way people treat them. And sometimes Christians do
that and they'll even say, well, I have a godly
reason to be angry. And sometimes we do. But the Bible says we're
to be angry and sin not. There's a way to vent
and express anger without letting it
turn to sinful wrath like what we see here. And by the way,
the Book of James tells us that the wrath
of man or the anger of man does not work the
righteousness of God. Yes, God is overruling
him but it's much better if God rules over you, including
your emotional temperament. Then the Philistines
said who has done this? And they answered Samson,
the son-in-law of the Timnite because he has taken his wife
and given her to his companion. So the Philistines came up
and burned her and her father with fire. Remember they threatened
to do that at the feast now they followed through with
it because their vineyards, their olive groves were touched. And Samson said to them, since
you would do a thing like this, I will surely take
revenge on you and after that I will cease. So he attacked them hip and
thigh with a great slaughter. And then he went down
and dwelt in the cleft of the Rock of Etam. Now the Philistines went
up, encamped in Judah, and deployed themselves
against Lehi. And the men of Judah said, why
have you come up against us? So they answered, we have
come up to arrest Samson, to do to him as
he has done to us. Then get this, 3,000 men of
Judah, these are Israelites now, these are God's
people, 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft
of the Rock of Etam and said to Samson, do you not
know that the Philistines rule over us? What is this that you have done? And he said to them, as they did
to me, so I have done to them. And they said to him we have
come down to arrest you, that we may deliver you into
the hand of the Philistines and Samson said to them,
swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves. So they spoke to him
and they said no, but we will tie you securely
and deliver you into their hand but we will surely
not kill you and they bound him with two new ropes and
brought him up from the rock. Interesting, this
is the first time that we read that the people of
Judah or the people of Israel, God's people, got
an army together for any kind of military
purpose during this time of the judgeship of Samson. They're not doing
it at all until now. And they're not raising up
an army to attack the enemy, they're raising up an army
to attack one of their own. Which reminds me sometimes of
the church, not our church, but the Church of Jesus
Christ often attacks its own, rather than fighting the
real enemy, the devil and his minions and the
worldly value system. We want to attack our own we
want to be snarky with our own, we want to hurt people who are
brothers and sisters in Christ. And it shows a level of
compromise and worldliness. Now understand something,
the children of Israel were under the dominion
of the Philistines. And what's interesting
to me is they seem to prefer that, they
prefer a peaceful coexistence with their enemy
ruling over them and they're allowing
themselves a level of slavery rather than freedom. And I think that can
happen in any country. And I think that circumstances
right now in our world are kind of pushing
in some cases the church to that,
we prefer slavery, yeah tell us what to do,
we'll let you rule over us. We'll tell you what you
can do with our church. Rather than saying you
know what, no, we're going to serve the Lord here. We're going to do what
he wants us to do. But the children of
Judah were peacefully coexisting with the Philistines,
taking away their freedom and pushing them into
bondage into slavery. So in chapter 15 verse
14, when he came to Lehi-- now by the way, he tells them
look, don't kill me yourself, promise me that, just
deliver me to the hands of the Philistines. Now why is he saying that? He's not saying that
because he's afraid, because he knows look,
if you come against me, I have super strength, I like
tear lions apart and stuff. So if you kind of come against
me, I'm going to wipe you out and I don't want to
wipe God's people out. So OK, we're going to
bind you with two ropes. Yeah like that's
going to really help. If you know anything about
Samson's life, so what. So really it was for their
benefit, not for his benefit. So they go through with it. They came to Lehi,
the Philistines came shouting against him
and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and the
ropes that were on his arms became like flax, like
butter, just melted away. Like flax that is
burned with fire and his bonds broke
loose from his hands. He found a fresh
jawbone of a donkey. The Bible says God has
chosen the foolish things of this world to
confound the wise. The weak things of this
world to put to shame the things that are mighty. A jawbone of a donkey,
very, very crude instrument that became a weapon
of mass destruction under the power of the
spirit of God in this man. Now however, he is a
nazirite, I keep saying that. He's not to touch fresh jawbones
of donkeys last time I checked. That's like check, no jawbone
of a donkey, check, no carcass, check, no wine, check. He's doing all the things wrong. Interesting that the
author stipulates that it is a fresh
jawbone of a donkey because that would
be able to be used. A dried one would be brittle
and would break apart. So they want you to
know it was fresh. Reached out his hand and with
it he took and killed 1,000 men with it. And Samson said with the jawbone
of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey,
I have slain 1,000 men. And so it was when
he had finished speaking that he threw
the jawbone from his hand. That's a good plan, get rid
of it after you're done. And he called the name of
that place Ramath Lehi, which means hill of the jawbone or
better yet, more literally, jawbone heights. So you might look for a
home in jawbone heights. It's a nice neighborhood I hear. You may want to check
out the homes are going really cheap there right now. So Ramath Lehi, jawbone heights. He called it that. And he became very thirsty,
so he cried out to the Lord. Interesting first time we
hear him praying is now and the only other
time you're going to hear him praying is
right before he dies in that temple of
the Philistines when he takes the pillars
and brings the house down and so he cries out because
he's hungry or excuse me, he's thirsty. He needs water he's
been working up a sweat, became very thirsty. So he cried out to
the Lord and said, you have given me
this great deliverance by the hand of your servant
and now I shall die of thirst and fall into the hands
of the uncircumcised. So God split the
hollow place that is in Lehi and water
came out and he drank and his Spirit revived
or returned, he revived. Therefore, he called
its name, En Hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. En Hakkore means the
spring of the caller, or it means the gushing forth
of the one who cries out. That's the idea of it. It's named after
what happened there. And he, Samson,
judged Israel 20 years in the days of the Philistines. We have just enough time to
get through chapter 16 which ends the epic of Samson, so
that we can make a clean start next time in chapter 17. So Samson went to Gaza, Gaza is
further down on the sea coast, there's still a
place today in Israel or in the Palestinian
territory called Gaza City. And he saw harlot there
and he went into her. Number two, so he saw a wife,
said I want her, got her. And then he sees this lady
here, this girl, a harlot, a prostitute and
he went into her, that is he had sexual
relations with her. When the Gazites were
told Samson has come here, they surrounded the place
and lay in wait for him all night at the
gate of the city. They were quiet all night
saying in the morning, when it's daylight we're
going to kill him. And Samson lay
low until midnight and then he arose
at midnight, took hold of the doors of the gate
of the city, wooden doors, large ones, and the two
gate posts, pulled them up, bar and all, put them
on his shoulders, carried them to the top of
the hill that faces Hebron. Now Hebron is
about 37 miles away and people get in their minds
that he's got these huge gates and he's running 37 miles. Perhaps, spirit of
God can make a person, allow a person to do
anything, but it is most often seen as the hill just outside
of Gaza that faces Hebron. It is identified today as a
little area called El Montar. And it is a hill that is right
outside the area of Gaza, it faces toward the east,
that's probably what happened, but why did he do it? What's the deal of putting
gates on your shoulders and running up a hill? He wanted to show the Gazites
that they were vulnerable. He can take their
protection away, this is no big deal for him. They think we're
going to kill him. He goes you know what, I'm going
to take your protection away, remove the gate of the city, so
you're more vulnerable than you think you are. Now afterwards it happened,
now here it is again, this is typical,
afterward it happened that he loved a woman
in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. Here it is again,
third time a chick is mentioned with this guy. It says he loved her. I think it would be better
translated he lusted for her. There's no indication
that he ever even met her or had a conversation with her. He just saw someone. Now Delilah is a Semitic
term that means devotee, somebody devoted to something. And because her
name means devotee, it is thought that she
was a temple prostitute for the temple of
Dagon, for the pagan worship of the Philistines. So said he loved her
in the valley of Sorek, her name was Delilah. And the Lords of the Philistines
came 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 1,100
pieces of silver. Something to make a note
of, third time Samson is drawn in by a beautiful girl. Satan knows exactly how to
bait the hook in your life. He knows what you're
vulnerable to, what you're impressionable with. And so what he does is he
uses things to entice you. In the Book of James
it says, each man is tempted when he is drawn away
by his own lust and enticed. The word entice in Greek
means to bait a hook. So you take a worm or you take
bait and you put it on the hook and what are you doing? You are concealing the
sharpest point of the hook. So the little fishy goes
wow, you're so kind, you've provided a wonderful
meal for me today. Thank you for this worm. But the hook is concealed. So Bathsheba was that for David. David saw a beautiful
girl named Bathsheba. She was the bait but
underneath was the hook. Once he bit of that he would
bring misery to his family. He would ruin relationships
with his children. A couple of them would die. There would be a
plague on the land. There would be destruction
in his own household. That's what Satan
does, he hides the hook and he makes the bait
really attractive. And he knows exactly in
your life where you are weak and exactly what bait to use. Does that with him. So they come up, the
Philistines come up with a plan, so verse six, Delilah
says to Samson, please tell me where
your great strength lies. I'm going to kind of have
a little affect with her, because I'm sure she's
just pouring it on, being really sweet and
really sensual with her. And says, please tell me
where your great strength lies and with what you may
be bound to afflict you. She's coming right
out and saying, we want to tie you
up and hurt you. And Samson said to her, if they
bind me with seven fresh bow strings not yet dry,
then I shall become weak like any other man. A bow string was a
piece of gut or viscera from an animal that
was pulled, dried. And that's what they used
to put on their bows. Here's what Samson is
doing he's toying with it. He's playing with it. He's allowing the
temptation each time to get closer and
closer and closer. Instead of just saying,
get out of here, woman. You're not going to do that. I see what's happening. He doesn't close the
door, he keeps it open. So you give your life to
Christ, you were a partier. Your friends call you up and
they go hey, we got a keg, man. We're having a party
tonight, COVID's over now. Let's say that happens. Come on over to our house. And you go no, I'm kind of
tired, I've had a long day and I just want to stay at home. You know what's going to happen? You kept the door open. They're going to call you
back sometime in the future and put that hook
out there again and you may be in
a time of weakness and you may succumb to it. I'm saying close the door. Tell them this, no,
you know what, I've given my life to Jesus Christ. I love him and I've decided
to fully live for him and I don't even want
to do that anymore. I guarantee you if you put
it like that, they're not going to call you back. You close the door. He is keeping the
door wide open. He's basically saying,
I'm going to sail so close to the lake
of fire I'm going to let the sails of
my boat get singed. So he's going to sail
very, very close. So verse eight, the
lords of the Philistines brought up to her
seven fresh bow strings not yet dried and she
bound him with them. Now there were men lying in wait
staying with her in the room. And she said to them, the
Philistines are upon you Samson, but he broke
the bow strings as a strand of yarn breaks
when it touches the fire. So the secret of his
strength was not yet known. Now this keeps
going and they keep going through this
cat and mouse game. I'm going to take
you down to verse 15, she says it again, tell me
where your great strength lies. You've mocked me all
these times, et cetera, you're not telling me the truth. Verse 16 it came to pass
when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed
him so that his soul was vexed to death that he told her all
his heart and said to her, no razor has ever
come upon my head for I have been a nazirite
to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaven then my
strength will leave me and I shall become weak
like any other man. Again, let me remind you,
the secret of his strength does not lie in his long hair. The secret of his strength
lay in his covenant that he made with God, whereby
the spirit of God came upon him and empowered him. When he cut his hair,
he was cutting off, he was getting rid of the
public testimony of the covenant he made with God. And because of that,
he's going to lose power and lose effectiveness
and lose strength. But it's not the hair,
it's in the covenant. But he spills his heart,
he spills his guts. And this shows you something. It shows you the power of the
flesh to destroy good judgment. There's some people that
have good, clear thinking, and good judgment but
sin makes people stupid. It clouds the judgment. And I've seen typically smart,
erudite, clear thinking people get so muddled when it
comes to being tempted that the flesh destroys their
ability to make wise judgments. And so let me just play with
the fire, it looks so nice and feels so warm and pretty
soon it's out of control and it has burned
your house down. I've told you this example
before and I've even used, we have an acoustic piano
back of our platform. If you open the lid
of an acoustic piano and you push the right
pedal down at the bottom, the sustain pedal, which
means the little felt is off the strings, then
when you strike a note. It just keeps
playing, it sustains. So if you do that, if you push
the pedal down, open the lid and you sing a note into the
piano the piano will sing it back to you. Whatever note you're
singing at least one or more of the strings will catch
that note and start vibrating and you'll hear it
sung back to you. That's how temptation works. Satan comes and calls out
to you, sings out to you. And you start vibrating,
it feels good. I hear that, I like that. So what do you do? The only thing to do with
the piano is close the lid and walk away. When it comes to temptation,
close the door and walk away. But Satan keeps knocking
at my front door. Let Jesus answer it. Don't you get it. Leave it alone. Close the lid. Close the door. Samson just keeps playing and
playing and playing until now. When Delilah saw, verse 18,
that he had told all his heart, she sent and called the Lords
of the Philistines saying, come up once more for he
told me all of his heart. So the Lords of the
Philistines came up to her, brought the money in their hand. She lulled him to
sleep on her knees and called for a man
that had him shave off the locks of his head. She began to torment him
and his strength left him. Now they want to torment him. She begins the torment. She herself, this girlfriend
starts tormenting, mocking him. Then the Philistines,
then she said, verse 20, the Philistines
are upon you, Samson. So he awoke from his
sleep and he said, I will go out as before
as at other times and shake myself
free but he did not know that the Lord
had departed from him. He was under the delusion
that he could just do what he wanted to,
one day I'll shake this but I can kind of do
whatever I've always done and I know how to do this. God wasn't with
them at that time. The Philistines took him,
verse 21, put out his eyes, brought him down to Gaza,
bound him with bronze fetters and he became a grinder
in the prison, that's the job of a slave. Now that's what sin does. First sin blinds you. You don't see the
whole picture, you lose your ability to make
good, solid, clear choices, it blinds you. Second, sin binds you. It makes you captive. I can quit. I can quit any time I
want to, you're blind and you're bound
by the affliction. Third, sin grinds you and
that's Samson's state, binding, blinding, grinding. People even talk about
life, life is such a grind. Life can grind you down to
powder because you let sin in and you compromise and
you're blind to it, then you're bound by it, and
then life becomes drudgery, becomes a grind. However, verse 22,
the hair of his head began to grow again
after it had been shaven. Now the Lord's of
the Philistines gathered together to
offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their God
and to rejoice. And they said, our God has
delivered into our hands Samson our enemy. Remember what Samuel
will say to King David after he sins with Bathsheba. He said you know what,
God will forgive you but you have enabled
the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme
because of your sin. That's what's
happening here, they're saying our false
gods who don't exist gave us the victory
over God's man. They mocked him. The people saw him and they
praised their God for they said our God delivered
into our hands our enemy, the destroyer
of our land and the one who multiplied our debt. So it happened when
their hearts were merry they said, call for Samson
that he may perform for us. So they called Samson
from the prison. He performed for them. They stationed him
between the pillars and Samson said to the lad
who held him up by the hand, let me feel the pillars
which support the temple. So I can lean on them. Now the temple was
full of men and women, all the Lord's of the
Philistines were there. In fact, there were
about 3,000 men and women on the roof who watched
while Samson performed. Dagon was a God
that was depicted by a half man, half fish
motif, but he was also the God of the grain
fields, which Samson had destroyed as you recall. This was an annual
feast to Dagon. Archaeology has found remains of
the temples of the Philistines and the architecture
fits the story as a kind of a long narrow
hall, two pillars on the inside, stone bases, wood on
top, that supported the entire upper
level, the roof. It wouldn't be up to
code today guaranteed, you have a lot of people on
top, it's a recipe for failure, which happened. A Dagon, the statue
would be between or is right in the
middle of the room. Samson who's blind, asked to
be taken to those two pillars and then Samson called
to the Lord saying, here's his final
prayer, oh, Lord God remember me I pray,
strengthen me, I pray just this once, oh,
God that I may with one blow take vengeance on the
Philistines for my two eyes. Lord, just one more
time answer my prayer. Just fill me with
strength one more time that I can kill these guys and
take out vengeance on them. And Samson took hold of the
two middle pillars which supported the temple,
he braced himself against them, one in his
right, the other in his left and Samson said, let me
die with the Philistines and he pushed with
all of his might and the temple fell on the
Lords and all the people who are in it. So the dead that he
killed at his death were more than he
killed in his life. And his brothers and all
of his father's household came down, took him, brought
him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol. Areas that still exist
today, we can show you if you come on a tour to
Israel exactly where this is in the Philistine country. And the tomb of
his father Manoah he had judged Israel 20 years. Moral of the story,
sin is a tyrant. Sin is the great destroyer. It enslaves people. Jesus talked about
Satan, said he has come for nothing
else other than to kill, to steal, and to destroy. Satan, the enemy
of our souls wants to kill, steal, and
destroy everything that God wants to
build in your life. With Samson we learn that
the loss of separation brings the loss of
power and influence. He was to be
separated, nazirite, the idea of being
separated from the world and separated under God, but
when you lose being separated, when you lose your
holiness to the Lord, you also lose your power and
it eventuates in your ruin. Back in 1963, the United
States sent a submarine under the Arctic
Circle below the ice, it's called the
Thresher submarine, they said it can withstand
depth and pressure, it was designed for that but
it got a little bit too deep and the hull of
the submarine was unable to withstand the
pressure at that depth and the submarine, the
Thresher submarine imploded and the crew was lost. It was 1963. So the pressure on
the outside could not be sustained by the
pressure that they had built in from the inside. People died. Lives were lost. Lives were ruined. The secret would
have been to have the equal amount of
pressure on the inside as the pressure on the outside. Did you know that there are
little fish that can even go deeper than that
Thresher submarine, their skin is so thin and so you
would think, easy to destroy. And yet it can go
deeper because it's designed by God to have pressure
on the inside that gives them power to sustain the pressure
coming from the outside. Only when the Holy Spirit
of God fills your life, sustains your life,
empowers your life, gives you the adequate
pressure from within, can you stand the
pressure of this world. Samson did not submit
to the spirit of God, yes the spirit of
God came upon him, but he could have
been so much more. Father, as we close tonight
we think of our own lives and we think of what you want
to do in us and through us. You have us alive
for such a time as this in this world to be
your instruments for your glory. You said we are to
submit ourselves to you, surrender our bodies as living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable which is our reasonable service. You promise Lord that we
could be powerful instruments in your hands, foolish
things, yes, weak things, yes, empowered by God nonetheless. We pray father that your spirit
would so control us, enable us, that the pressures
on the outside would not cause us to
implode in our own lives. That we would be strong by your
spirit for your glory and I pray for anybody who's a part
of this cast, this telecast, broadcast, radio cast,
net cast, whatever it is, who doesn't personally
know you or needs to recommit their lives to you. [MUSIC PLAYING] That they would turn
to you and become an instrument of the
living God in this world. It could be that
you've strayed away from God, followed
your own path, you've been taken down by
the lust of your own flesh. Some form of addiction,
some relationship that has been
unhealthy and ungodly. You've lost power,
you've lost presence, you've lost influence. I want you to know you can
stop doing what you're doing and not wait till it's
too late and have kind of one flash of
glory like Samson but your whole life can
be used for his glory. But you need to stop
and turn to him. And if you want to do
that if you've never done that or if you need
to come back to him, you just say this to him,
Lord, here I am, take me. I turn my life over to
you or I come back to you, fill me with your spirit
use me, empower me. I believe Jesus died for me. I believe you rose from the
dead and I turn from my sin. I turn from my
own personal glory I turn from following my way
and I turn to follow your way. Fill me with your spirit,
empower me by your spirit. Let me know the presence of
the spirit of God within me to withstand the pressure that
is outside me in Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Listen if you made some
kind of a commitment to God, first time, second
time, whatever it is, if you did that, text the word
saved S-A-V-E-D to this phone number, 505-509-5433. Somebody will make
contact with you or if you're on our website,
calvarynm.church, just click on the little button
that says Know God, Know God and you'll be again contacted. Somebody is waiting for you
to make contact with you and to pray with you. God bless you. For more resources from
Calvary Church and Skip Heitzig visit calvarynm.church. Thank you for joining us during
this teaching in our Expound series.
