"Samson, Honey from a Lion (Samson Part 1)" - Pastor Doug Batchelor

and welcome i want to wish each of you a blessed sabbath we're very glad for any visitors that may be here today that you're worshiping with us here at granite bay if i were to ask you who in the bible do you think of if i were to talk about the smartest person who's ever lived who would that be solomon if i was to ask you to tell me in the bible who is the person that had the greatest patience in suffering who would that be job if i were to ask you to name somebody in the bible that had the the most loving apostle who would that be john most of you said john and if i were to say who in the bible was the physically strongest who would that be did i hear a kid say hercules no actually the story of hercules probably was taken from the true story the legend of hercules was taken from the true story of samson who predated the myth i believe but samson is the one people think of when they think of who is the physically strongest man who ever lived and we're going to be talking in the next couple of presentations about samson and what we can learn about walking the christian walk about our savior and what other lessons the lord might have for us and his word from that you'll find the story of samson in the book of judges if you go to the book of judges chapter 13 samson is the last of the judges mentioned now some believe that samuel is among the judges but you don't get to samuel till you get to the book of samuel but in the book of judges samson is the last judge that is mentioned most scholars believe there were approximately 12 judges and um four chapters in the book of judges are dedicated just to samson a very interesting character and it even was foretold in the book of genesis when jacob was blessing his sons it told us that from the tribe of dan which is where samson came from it said dan will judge his people as one of the tribes of israel matter of fact the name dan means judge and the name daniel means my god is judge or uh my god is jehovah i'm sorry jehovah is my judge or elohim is my judge and so samson was from the tribe of dan now if you turn in your bibles to the book of judges we're just going to read it and i believe there's things that god wants to say to you today that i know nothing about i believe that there's inherent power of the word of god that as i read through this story the lord is going to speak to different people maybe in different ways because there's power in the word of god to do that amen chapter 13 judges verse 1 again the children of israel did evil in the sight of the lord there are about seven apostasies mentioned in the book of judges this is the seventh of them and the lord delivered them into the hand of the philistines for forty years a little later we'll be talking about how long did samson live samson died young because the last act of his life was a great attack on the philistines we believe broke some of the control of the philistines at least for a while or their oppression and it happened after 40 years he did not live very long now there was a certain man from zorah of the family of the danites whose name was manoa and his wife was barren and had no children you have about seven times in the bible where it talks about women that were barren now you know some people today by choice they say look we just decided not to have children and and uh for whatever reason uh some just feel like well you know i just don't have a burden for it i don't think i'm cut out for it i don't think my husband can handle it i don't think we can deal with it economically i look at what's happening in the world today and there's a lot of reasons a person might say well we're just choosing not to have children there are still people today who would love to have children and they have trouble conceiving and fortunately there are other options in bible times if you didn't have children it was considered a curse of god because if god said be fruitful multiply and you couldn't multiply you thought well what did i do wrong and your children were your social security if you had no children to take care of you or in your old age you could be destitute you have of course sarah was barren all three patriarchs wives abraham isaac jacob all of their wives were barren sarah had trouble conceiving and rebecca and rachel you have the shunamite woman you have hannah you have elizabeth in the new testament and then you have this unnamed woman she's simply called manoa's wife she's mentioned several times but it never tells us her name and so it says here he has his wife that is barren and had no children and the angel of the lord appeared to the woman and said unto her indeed now you are barren and you've borne no children but you will conceive and bear a son now therefore please be careful not to drink wine or any similar that means strong drink and do not eat anything unclean for behold you will conceive and bear a son and no razor shall come upon his head for the child shall be a nazarite to god from the womb and he will begin to deliver israel out of the hand of the philistines ultimately the deliverance from the philistines was pretty much complete by king david but the oppression was broken off quite a bit by samson now it's significant when in the bible an angel appears to announce the birth of a boy that doesn't happen that often um you know sometimes god through a prophet would tell somebody they were going to have a child but here an angel comes and it calls this person the angel of the lord and i should maybe stop at at this point and say a little bit about what names mean the name manoa means rest and so god's people were supposed to have rest through his son the name samson means sunny or bright and his name is mentioned 39 times in the bible that's quite a bit for one of the judges to be mentioned that often uh he's the only real hero from the tribe of dan that you find out about called to be a great deliverer he was a nazarite like john the baptist you know god said concerning john the baptist you're not to drink any strong drink and you can read about that in luke 1 15 for he will be great in the sight of the lord and he will need drink neither wine or strong drink he'll be filled with the holy spirit by the way it's hard to be full of wine in the holy spirit at the same time you can be full of a spirit while you're full of wine but it's not the holy spirit that's why you see those stories that say beer wine and other spirits because when you drink the beer and the wine you get the other spirits and the bible says be filled it says do not drink wine but be filled with the spirit paul said he can't contrast the two but there's more to it going on here and we're going to get to some of the instructions the angel gives but i want to i want you to notice something first let's get through reading the account here that you first find in chapter 13. it says raises to come upon his head he's going to be at nazarite so the woman verse 6 i'm in judges 13 6 the woman came and told her husband saying a man of god came to me and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of god very awesome but i did not ask him where he was from and he did not tell me his name but he says this was a supernatural visit he made a prophecy and he disappears and he said behold you will conceive and bear a son now drink no wine or similar drink or eat anything unclean for the child will be a nazarite to god from the womb to the day of his death then noah prayed to the lord and said oh lord please let the man of god who you have sent come to us again and teach us what we are to do for the child who will be born so the man he's thinking i would i want to make sure i do this right i don't want to mess up he said was this a message from the lord or did some kook appear and talk to my wife he wasn't sure what had happened and so he prayed he says lord and there's a lot of apostasy in the land but manoa was still faithful he said let me see the man of god again and the lord listened to the voice of manoa and the angel of god came to the woman again as she was sitting in the field but manoa her husband was not with her then the woman she said to him stay here she ran in haste and took her husband and said to him look the man of god who came to me the other day he now appeared to me so manoa rose and he followed his wife and when he came to the man he said are you the man who spoke to the woman he said i am and manoa said now let your words come to pass what will be the boy's rule of life in his work so the angel of the lord said to manoah of all that i said to the woman let her be careful she may not eat anything that comes from the vine notice he says pretty much the same thing nor may she drink wine or similar drink or eat anything unclean all that i've commanded her let her observe and the manoa says to the angel of the lord please let us detain you and we will prepare a young goat for you and the angel of the lord said to manoah though you detain me i might stay but i'm not going to eat your food but if you offer a burnt offering you must offer to the lord for manoa did not know he was the angel of the lord now who was this angel you know many believe this is what you call a christophany there are times in the old testament where jesus prior to his incarnation appeared to man and sometimes he's referred to as the angel of the lord now when gabriel appears he tells his name and gabriel appears to daniel's i'm gabriel appears to mary says i'm gabriel here he says this is the angel of the lord. for one thing is he does make the statement if you look in verse 11 he says are you the man he says i am well whenever you hear an angel say i am that makes you wonder and some other things take place so read on here and see what you think then the angels manoa says to the angel what is your name that when your words come to pass we may honor you and the angel of the lord said to him why do you ask after my name seeing it is wonderful now do you remember where it says and his name shall be called wonderful counselor isaiah 9 6 the mighty god the everlasting father the prince of peace something else i want you to notice that happens here so manoa took the young goat with a grain offering and he offered it on a rock they're out there in the field there's a rock and they make this a offering a fire and the angel of the lord did a wondrous thing while manoa and his wife looked on it happened that as the flame went up towards heaven from the altar the angel of the lord ascended in the flame on the altar he went up in it as though he were part of the offering and when manoa and his wife saw it they fell on the ground with to their faces and when the angel of the lord appeared no more to manoa and his wife than manoa knew that he was the angel of the lord and manoah said to his wife we will surely die because we have seen god so what are they saying they saw they said we have seen god you know the bible tells us that you look in ephesians 5 2 walk in love as christ has also loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to god for a sweet smelling aroma it's interesting that this angel goes into the offering smoke the aroma as it ascends and he ascends with it because it's christ that makes our offerings appealing to the lord and acceptable and he says we will surely die because we have seen god well the woman was able to reason with him and say uh if the lord intended to kill us i'm in verse 23 he wouldn't have accepted a burnt offering in a great offering from our hands nor would he have shown us these things that all have to do with a child at this time and which makes sense and so as with the promise the woman bore a son and called his name samson and the child grew and the lord blessed him it tells us that about jesus he the child grew you're going to find as we go on and we talk about samson that in spite of his failures he's a type of christ you'll see a number of people in the bible that are types of christ like david is a clear analogy in his life of jesus but david you know had a couple of obvious failures it doesn't mean that there weren't areas where they were a type of christ and you'll find that that's also true in the story of samson and so it says that he would be spirit-filled and the spirit of the lord began to move upon him and mayonnaise dan between zora and eshdol so just backing up a little bit and reviewing some interesting things that happen here's a young man who's chosen from his birth you notice how often god raises someone up during times of great adversity when was moses chosen time of great oppression and adversity and uh you'll see people like daniel comes at times of great adversity and oppression elijah time of great adversity and oppression prophets of god are being persecuted jesus the romans were ruling the world a time of great oppression so samson during this time of national oppression the people are praying to god god answers the prayer by raising someone up and usually these people that god has raised up during times of oppression to deliver his people are types of christ flawed though they may be on the human side you'll see things in there for one thing a promised son a supernatural visitation of the angel that's given something like ishmael and isaac and john the baptist someone said great men are born for times of great oppression and now the instruction that the angel gives have you ever wondered before well samson's strong because he was just bigger than everyone else and he was real beefy muscles just hard as a rock or was it nothing to do with that and i've heard theories all over the place if you saw samson did he look stronger than other people was there something different about him physically well when delilah starts to give him a hard time she says what is the secret of your strength and you would think that if he had great big old schwarzenegger muscles that the secret of his strength would have been obvious he was big muscles but there's something else they didn't understand but then again if there was nothing physical about the strength of samson the why did the angel come and go to such great lengths to tell the mother be very careful in your prenatal care because god is going to do something extraordinary with this baby and you need to take care of yourself does that make sense so there may have been some physical advantage in there you know i think it's interesting that um it says that the child in the book patriarchs and prophets speaking on this subject the child will be affected by the good or evil in the habits of the mother speaking of prenatal in particular she must herself be controlled by principle and must practice temperance and self-denial if she would seek the welfare of her child unwise advisors will urge upon the mother the necessity of gravity gratifying every wish and impulse wake up in the middle of the night and i said you know i want a mayonnaise and chocolate milkshake and and oh yeah if that's if you're craving it you must need it whatever you crave you ever heard that before that's that's mush that idea just because you crave something that you're supposed to have it and um no there's you get especially be careful and because the practice of the parents father and mother affect the children you'll read that in the same chapter by the way such teaching is false and mischievous the mother is by the command of god himself placed under the most solemn obligation to exercise self-control so what the angel said to the wife of minnow is just not for the wife of the manoa but every expecting mother and father need to realize their habits and health are reproduced in the children and they got to be careful they've learned now you know dna is a very interesting science and they're learning more and more from it our family gave me an ancestry test um and i sent it in right after christmas they gave it to me for christmas i just got the results this week and as i suspected i am more jewish than anything sorry guys but they they've learned something you know what i thought was interesting my family everyone in my family said yeah yeah we're part indian party indian part indian and we you know i asked my dad my uncles oh yeah yeah yeah well i kept waiting to find out how much indian i was and said i had no native american but it said i had asian and i looked up on the chart what that meant and it meant from bangladesh sri lanka or india i thought oh they just got it messed up somebody back there said yeah we're part indian and we thought that meant american indian no i'm part india india it's only one percent anyway but dna they've discovered that your dna is not the same from the time you're born to when you die your dna changes through your life by your lifestyle behavior exposure your diet it will alter your dna your dna can actually be altered and so what you're doing affects your dna that will then be reproduced in your children because we've heard before that sometimes a parent's habits can be inherited some things can actually be inherited tendencies so you want to be careful take care of your health because you may pass it on to the third or fourth generation you gotta take care of yourself let me give you another one from page five six two there are few who realize as they should how much their habits of diet have to do with the health and character and usefulness in this world and their eternal destiny the appetite should ever be in subjection to the moral and intellectual powers the body should be servant to the mind and not the mind to the body and so not only was it going to affect samson but the mother was told you guys need to practice temperance and self-control and the child is going to be consecrated to god so it says here that he would be a nazarite what is a nazarite turn in your bible to the book of numbers chapter six and uh there's some interesting information here and i'm not going to read at all but you need to understand this to understand something about samson and to understand something about where he kind of meandered a little bit and the lord spoke to moses i'm in number six verse one speak to the children of israel and say to them when either a man or a woman consecrates an offering to take the vow of a nazarite to separate himself to the lord he shall separate himself from wine and similar or strong drink he shall drink neither vinegar made from wine or vinegar made from similar drink neither shall he drink any grape juice meaning fresh new wine or eat fresh grapes or raisins all the days of his separation he will eat nothing that is produced from the grapevine he was supposed to stay out of the vineyard and that comes up later from this from the seed from grape seeds to the skin all the days of his vow the separation no razor will come upon his head until the days are fulfilled to the lord he shall be holy and he'll let the locks of his hair grow all the day that he separates himself to the lord he shall not go near a dead body he will not make himself unclean for his father or for his mother for his sister when they die because he is separated to god meaning even if your family member died father and mother you are not to touch their body i mean if someone dies you have to care for the body they did for jesus but you know biblically when you touch a dead body you're unclean until sundown you're supposed to wash and that's just good sanitation rules but if you are nazarite it didn't matter if it was your father your mother your brother your sister you are to be fully consecrated to god and didn't jesus say he that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and so it was saying that the nazirite was to be fully consecrated to god there was to be no risk that his mind was going to be affected by the wrong spirit he is not supposed to drink wine or strong drink or anything of the sort and so this was the nazarite valve now with that in mind we're going to delve into the second part of what happens in the next chapter and you read in judges chapter 13 i'll read the last couple verses here so she had a son his name was samson child drew the lord blessed him you know his name is sunny and he was happy and they were happy they thought they were there and they had this beautiful child he probably looked like a very healthy specimen and you read on you find out that samson sort of he was bright he had a way with words he was witty he liked to do plays on words as you'll see later and you know he'd come into the room and he was he had friends and he could be the life of the party and he'd pose a riddle to everybody and and he would just brighten everything his name was sunny and you probably all know some people like that they come in a room and they just brighten the room and we also all know some people that the room brightens when they leave right but he was the other kind so then you go to chapter 14 and the story begins to change now samson went down to timnah well samson's growing up you know he got to be a teenager and he's an only child as far as we know and he maybe made some local friends and he said you know fire just go four miles down the hill even though philistines oppressed them they saw him every day they traded with them he probably spoke the language as you'll see and through constant exchange and making friends with some of the teenagers of the philistines he one day his eyes saw a young phyllis and girl and he thought wow she is really pretty and look at the sparkle and the personality and what a beautiful girl i find myself so attracted so he went down he saw a woman in timna of the daughters of the philistines the samson's not that old yet because you'll read later it says he judges for 20 years that hasn't happened yet it comes later and he's probably in his late teens early 20s when this happens comes to his father and his mother and he says i've seen a woman in timna of the daughters of the philistines now therefore get her for me as a wife you have to talk to your parents your parents would contract with the other parents there would be a dow rearranged and they'd have a marriage well the last thing in the world that samson's parents want was for him they they know god's called him this is god's child he's going to do great things for the lord's people why in the world would he marry a philistine haven't we always told him that he's been called by the lord that god has a special plan for his life why would you want to marry the enemy in doing that and his father and his mother said to him is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren or among my people look if if you can't find one among the israelites or even among the tribe of dan that you would go get a wife from the uncircumcised philistines now i won't take this too far there were other tribes around israel you had the you had the moabites you had the ammonites they were all related to lot they practiced circumcision they're he's basically saying you know if you're going to marry outside the faith at least mary someone that was related to abraham that believes in jehovah but you're going to the uncircumcised philistines and that was they thought the worst thing that could happen well simpson was samson was strong-minded and he was persuasive and and his answer was to his mother and father get her for me for she pleaseth me well here he starts to sound like a real musclehead doesn't he his logic was i just really want her he couldn't argue with them except to say i want what i want get her for me and maybe they had spoiled him a little bit because you know they knew god had a big plan and he was strong-minded and he was kind of used to pushing them around well you know not only is he making mistake in finding a wife among the philistines he's making another very big mistake it has to do with commandment number five do you know what that one is i knew your father and mother you're not saying the last half that your days may be long upon the land which the lord thy god gives you paul says this is the first commandment with promise honor your father and your mother and who picked the wife for isaac abraham actually picked a servant who picked the wife but they listened to the parents and you know karen and i in about a month are going to india parents are still involved in helping arrange weddings there to this day and i know some of the young people here that are listening to my voice are thinking oh come on pastor doc i would never trust my parents to tell me who i'm supposed to marry i might end up with someone like them right well i'll tell you it's it's a good idea to listen to the counsel of your parents because they know you and they know something about what you need and uh at least get their counsel so he's not honoring his father and mother what was the promise that your days may be long upon the land samson died young you do not honor your father and mother your days will not be long now you may think this is very simplistic but there's people in the world that are very honoring of their elders the japanese they also are the longest living people in the world okay the longest life span i think god keeps his promises and so get her for me she pleases me well i want her he thought he was in love and he didn't know that he was just in heat which happens with a lot of young people what does the bible say about these forbidden unions let me read you now friends i don't do this very often but i'm going to hit it and if you're going to hit it hit it hard and you don't have to mess around anymore i don't know when i'm going to get another chance so take a deep breath believers should not marry unbelievers hebrews should not marry philistines it's the same thing in the eyes of heaven judges chapter 14 verse one and two he said i've seen a woman get her for me parents say why would you do that genesis chapter 24 so abram said to his oldest servant of his house that ruled over all he had please take your hand and put it under my thigh and i'll make you swear by the lord god of heaven the god of earth that you will not take a wife from my son from the daughters of the canaanites among who might well it might be convenient it might be a local girl but if she doesn't believe in jehovah don't take her for isaac that was prominent in the that was very inconvenient to have to go cross country to find a girl that believed in the same god and bring her back but abraham said it's worth it whatever you've got to do promise me vow to me not going to marry one of the local girls what was a grief of heart for isaac and rebecca that esau married a couple of local girls and when esau saw how much it broke his parents heart then he took a couple of additional girls that were related to ishmael but uh that was so important in the bible but wait there's more get your credit card out look with me in deuteronomy chapter 7. i have only begun when the lord your god brings you into the land which you go out to possess and you cast out many nations before you they hittite and the gergescite and the ammonite and the canaanite and the parasite and the highlight and the jebusites seven nations greater and mightier than you and when the lord your god delivers them over to you you shall conquer and utterly destroy them you will make no covenant with them no shor mercy to them nor shall you make marriages within you shall not give your daughter to their son nor take their daughter for your son for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods so the anger of the lord god will be aroused against you to destroy you suddenly that's very serious business and yet it still happens people raised in the church they say oh yeah i love the lord i gave my heart to the lord and then they start dating a pagan they start dating a philistine and in their mind they think oh man he pleases me well she pleases me well what a man what a girl i'm sure they just a few things they don't understand about jesus but i'll talk to them i'll marry them and then i'll convert them or they say i'm going to date them and i'll give them bible studies while we're dating that's a bad idea because you'll both end up influencing each other and you end up it's a siphon effect compromises are made you're getting real quiet in here some of you already did it i'm sorry you already know what i'm saying i'm talking to the next generation do you want me to tell you what the bible says if you don't like what i'm saying friends you take it up with the lord let me give you more scripture go with me to first kings 11. see all these little tabs in my bible here they're for you first kings 11 but king solomon loved many foreign women now up until this point in kings solomon was on a trajectory to heaven it says there in first kings chapter 3 solomon loved the lord walking in all the commandments of the lord he prayed and god gave him wisdom god said i'm going to bless you with wisdom and i'm going to make you rich and you're going to live long and you're going to be famous and solomon is going from good to better to best to excellent he's going like that he builds his palace he builds a temple of the lord and people are coming from around the world and the land is full of gold and and silver like stones and queen of sheba is left breathless you've heard the word breathtaking comes from the story queen esheba says there was no more breath in her when she saw and it's going like like that like that interesting thing happens just trivia at the very zenith after the queen of sheba it says in one year 666 talons of gold came to solomon mentions the number 666 and listen to what it says next but king solomon loved many foreign women what do you think happened to the kingdom then went down that was the turning point he loved many foreign women as well as a daughter of pharaoh women of the moabites and ammonites and and zydonians and hittites from all the nations whom the lord god had said to the children of israel you shall not intermarry with them nor they with you surely they will turn away your hearts after other gods it didn't happen overnight happened over years little by little says when he was old he had 700 wives boy he just went for broke 300 concubines and his wives turned away his heart it was so when solomon was old and his wives turned his heart after other gods and his heart was not loyal to the lord god didn't say he gave up on god he just compromised his faith was deluded and judgment came on the people have you read before when the sons of god genesis chapter 6 when the sons of god saw the daughters of men that they were fair they took wise of all they chose people i hear the strangest ideas people say oh you sons of god those were aliens those were those were fallen angels they intermarried with people and they had these strange giant creatures and it's not what it means at all the sons of god were the descendants of seth that were still worshiping god and offering sacrifice in the garden of eden and the bible says behold what manner of love the father has bestowed on us that we should be called sons of god and isaiah says you will be called sons and daughters of god sons of god are the ones who believe in god if you don't jesus said you're of your father the devil and so you had the sons of god saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took wives and all the bible is saying is as long as adam and eve and seth and their sons and daughters that were worshiping god were faithful to god and sacrificing to god they were not intermarrying with cain and his descendants cain remember he didn't want to offer to god the way he was told he rebelled against god but they tried to maintain a separation adam encouraged it but kane had some really good looking daughters and they said oh she pleases me well get her for me and what happened next god saw that the thoughts of men's hearts were only evil continually god repented that he made man the earth was filled with violence god said i will destroy man from the earth which i have made when did it happen when the sons of god saw the daughters of men and the daughters of men saw the sons of god when they began to enter mary they lost their distinctiveness and the curse came on them i'm not done i told you i'm going to hit it hard then we'll move on nehemiah chapter 13. nehemiah referring back to what solomon did he said this is the very last thing it mentions in the book of nehemiah in those days i saw jews who had married women of ashdod that was the philistines and ammon and moab i'm sorry that's nehemiah chapter 13 verse 23. thank you in those days i saw jews who had married women of ashdod ammon and moab and half of their children spoke the language of ashdod so what is it going to do to your children and they could not speak the language of judah but they spoke according to the language of one of the other people so i contended with them and i cursed them and i struck some of them and i pulled out their hair see i'm going easy on you compared to nehemiah and i made them swear by god saying you shall not give your daughters his wives to their sons nor take their daughters for your sons for yourself did not solomon king of israel sin by these things yet among many nations there was no king like them who was beloved of his god and god made him king over israel nevertheless pagan women caused even him to sin should we then hear of you doing this great evil and transgressing against our god by marrying pagan women i could go on and on there's several very clear statements in there and of course you get the new testament do not be this was our scripture reading do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness and what communion has light with darkness and what accord has christ with belial or what part has a believer with an unbeliever and what agreement has the temple of god with idols for you are the temple of the living god as god has said i will dwell with them and walk among them and i will be their god and they will be my people therefore come out from among them and be separate says the lord do not touch what is unclean and i will receive you and i'll be a father to you you'll be my sons and my daughters so god is telling us if you're a believer that means you've made a decision you want to go to heaven that means that your worldview jesus is the most important thing to you am i right why in the world would you think about making the most important decision in your life about marrying somebody who does not make jesus the center of their life who has not made that person a priority you know if you do that and then you not only get them you get their family the in-laws and the outlaws and you may end up with devils for your parents-in-law because these people don't know the lord and your children your priorities you'll say you know let's we're going to go to church sabbath it's a holy day and they said no it's not it's a holiday for us saturdays party day you're homeless divided you're gonna have a problem you're gonna want to pray and they're gonna say no we're gonna go pay for some counseling or we're gonna buy a book and you're gonna say we're going to church they say no we're going to the theater we're going to church we're going to the mall and we're going to eat clean food and they said no we're not and you can find yourself trying to cook two things at one time i'm telling your friends it can be rough now sometimes you find the lord and your spouse doesn't and you got a believer married to an unbeliever sometimes people backslide and while they're out of the church you get a believer marries an unbeliever and then they come back to the lord and they've got to live with the results and if you're in that situation you're married but why would you deliberately want to do that and go down to timnah and marry someone outside of your faith the devil has done more damage to dilute the effect of the gospel in the world by getting half-hearted believers who don't understand the importance of finding a life partner where jesus is first in their life so when you're considering somebody the first thing you want to know is that jesus is first for them don't even think about it he said boy but they're really good looking and they seem so smart and so they're almost a christian they act like a christian in so many other ways they're christian-like i hear all these things they're so polite and they've got christian morals they're atheists oh but they got christian morals they love humanity and i hear all these bad arguments don't do it can i get an amen it's what god says and you know what samson got what he wanted be careful what you pray for you might get it and then it was nothing but trouble this created a fork in the road for his life instead of marrying a girl from among his people he married a philistine and his whole life got off course and it started with us you watch and see god had a big plan he had more opportunity than anybody in the bible but he got of course all right let's go back here to the story of samuel and uh samson sorry and go to chapter 14. oh i'm in joshua so the parents agree and uh god was going to end up using this god can work all things together for good as an occasion against the philistines it doesn't mean samson said the right thing so samson went down to timnah with his father and his mother and he came to the vineyards of timna now what was a nazarite supposed to do and not do don't have nothing to do with grapes if you're not supposed to eat a raisin if you're not supposed to eat a grape seed if you're not supposed to drink any grape juice don't walk through a vineyard is that a good idea if you're an alcoholic don't get your apple juice at the liquor store right but he decided to take a detour through the vineyards now to his surprise a young lion came roaring against him and the spirit of the lord came mightily upon him and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat now this was the most surprised lion in the world this young lion thought oh oh man they're easy prey you got a lot of man-eaters that have happened in society you know they got a couple of lions down there in africa of savo that they ate 42 people i mean people don't run very fast tiger lion can quickly catch a human they don't put up much of a fight so this lion said huh what good fortune a human and so he sprang on samson and and he thought he was going to have a sansom burger and and samson the holy spirit came on him he did not run but he took that lion and he slap don't you want to see the video in heaven how this all happened i'm sure god's got those archives and we're gonna say lord i want this one thing i want to see it i just i think he slugged it knocked to the side and then he never pick up a cat little kitten you want to pick it up by the the fur on the back of its neck i think he knocked that thing down he took it by the fur on his back and he started to body slam that thing until it was just a bag of bones and something else didn't happen first of all this is a place where samson's like christ because what does a lion represent not always because sometimes christ is called the lion of the tribe of judah but typically it says you'll have power over the serpent and the scorpion and the lion it's like a form of evil see the devil goes around like a roaring lion and sometimes when a person was cursed they were met by a lion that killed them so he he overpowers the lion in the vineyard a vineyard is supposed to be you know a place where god plants the fig tree is church and uh but he didn't tell his mother and his father well i'd be telling everybody if i killed a lion but he thought boy this is really weird i got a lot of strengths and he went down he talked with a woman and she pleased samson well and after some time when he returned to get her so they contracted for the marriage and he finally returns for the wedding feast he turns aside he wants to go back he says was i dreaming did i really kill that line he turns back and in the weeks that have gone by the the animals had kind of hollowed out the carcass of the lion and within the rib cage it says behold a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion now you've maybe seen bees swarm before and you know they'll find a hollow log and they could even you know the cavity there this lion for whatever reason they took up residence and they had already begun making honey honey from pollinating grapes you shouldn't even be eating that if you're in nazareth and he took some of the honey in his hands and he went along eating it when he came to his father in money a big pile of comb he gave some to them and they also ate he did not tell them they had taken the honey out of the carcass of a lion why because first of all dead bodies unclean what was a nazarite supposed to do stay out of the vineyard don't touch anything dead and if you're gonna touch something dead make it a clean animal that's dead but a lion is an unclean animal so he's got an unclean carcass and an unclean animal and he gets honey from it have you ever wondered what that might mean so they went down in the womb and to to the woman and samson gave a feast there for the young men used to do so here they're having the wedding feast and the word feast there is wine banquet oh you see what's happening now samson's compromising in that area as well for so the young men used to do well he said well you know when you're in philistine by the way do you know where the word palestine comes from comes from the word philistine it's a corruption of the word philistine and so the palestinians are not philistines they're arabs it just gets very confusing so he's down there and he's acting like the philistines when he's with the philistines and he has a feast and finally said let me pose a riddle to you if you can correctly solve and explain the riddle to me within the seven days of the feast you know sometimes these wedding feasts take seven days uh you remember when jacob had the feast with rachel laban said look fulfill her seven days and then i'll also give you rachel yeah well first he was supposed to be rachel but he woke up with leah and we won't go there right now but uh anyway it was seven days at the point i wanted to make and you know it's also interesting at the end of 7 000 years the new jerusalem comes down as a bride and the day where the lord is like a thousand years you ever thought about that so let me pose a riddle to you they'll never get this he thought they'll never get this and he says if you tell it to me i'll give you 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothing that was very that was like money back then that was a lot remember when naaman went to pay for his cleansing he brought clothing if you can't explain it to me then you give me 30 linen garments that's your wedding gift to me 30 changes of clothing and they said okay you're on now he's you know what else he's doing he's gambling he's been hanging around the philistines he's drinking he's gambling he's touching dead carcasses and it all began little by little making compromises hanging out with the wrong people so for three days they could not explain their oh i didn't tell you the riddle and so he said to them out of the eater came something to eat and out of the strong came something sweet now for three days they never would have got the riddle his parents didn't even know what happened nobody knew no way anyone would ever guess that so he thinks i'm getting i'm getting a whole new wardrobe but it came to pass on the seventh day that they said to samson's wife now notice it doesn't say fiance they had they were married now several times she's called his wife so he didn't marry her and he loved her entice your husband i didn't say she loved him entice your husband that he might explain the riddle to us or else we'll burn you and your father's house with fire what are they threatening to do burner well that'd be terrible why we came to this wedding feast do you invite us here to take what's ours isn't that not so so samson's wife wept on him and said you only hate me you do not love me and she cried and she cried and after three days you know goes all the way through samson was one of the strongest guys that ever lived and he could stand up to any man but you find out that he couldn't stand up to any woman either and she's you know she's just really turning it on and the tears are pouring down and it's supposed to be a wedding feast you know she's moping around you don't really love me and he said look i've not told my mother and my father should i explain it to you that probably didn't make her feel more loved either now she wept on him seven days while the feast lasted some feast and it happened on the seventh day notice how these things happen that he told her because she she expressed so much then he explained the riddle to the uh then she explained the riddle to the sons of her people he told her he can find it in her she immediately betrays him and you know she's scared so the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down you notice when it's happening the seventh day before the sun goes down when did jesus die before the sun went down what was the first miracle of christ it's a wedding feast wine banquet was there did jesus provide garments at his crucifixion he provided his garment didn't he does jesus tell a parable about a king at a wedding feast that provides garments it has notices here so they say what is sweeter than honey and what is stronger than a lion samson now is so mad he looks at his wife he's probably looking down and he said if you had not plowed with my heifer you would not have solved my riddle now guys don't try that at home call your wife a heifer i don't think that's going to go very well but the idea being they did actually plow with heifers matter of fact there was one sacrifice in the bible where it said you this sacrifice that you're supposed to make is to be a heifer upon which there has not been a yoke and when you're out in the field a long time with the heifer there's an intimacy there and he's saying basically you spend time you were taking my wife instead of going to me directly you broke the rules so the spirit of the lord came upon him mightily and he went down to ashkelon and he killed 30 of their men and took their apparel and he gave the changes of clothing to those that explained the riddle so his anger was aroused and he went back up to his father's house he said look this is so supposed to be the honeymoon said we're marrying us but i am so mad at her that he storms back up to dan and he goes back to his father's house and samson's wife was given to his companion who had been his best man when he suddenly disappeared and she had gone through the wedding and father said well i guess we'll just know that of course he didn't tell samson and he's just trying to cool off but the best friend takes the wife now there's a number of spiritual analogies here i'm going to try to be pulling out for you but i'm going to read a little more i'm almost done and we'll stop with this segment after a while in time in chapter 15 verse 1 of the wheat harvest it happened that samson visited his wife with a young goat he starts getting lonely and he's thinking about he thought oh well maybe i was too angry and this is all over with and he gets down to his father-in-law's house and he said yeah i'm going to go see betsy whatever her name was and the father would not permit him to go in he said no he says i thought you pure purely hated her therefore i gave her to the best man some friend he was to your companion is not her younger sister better than she please take her instead sounds like what happened with laban except backwards and samson said to him this time i will be blameless regarding the philistines if i harm them and samson went out and he caught 300 foxes he didn't do it all in one day and if you read some of the ancient accounts of israel during the time especially the hills around judah it was a lot more for forested there were rabbits and and small varmints and foxes were numerous run their foxholes everywhere so the idea that he caught 300 foxes in that country at that time is not really that amazing he didn't do it all in one day but he would catch these foxes if he says i am going to destroy the philistines it's called slash and burn if you destroy their food source i'm going to subjugate them economically and you get these foxes in these traps you know and i used to make traps they're really easy it's just a little door that shuts when they go in to get something shuts down and latches and they can't get out made these little cages he caught these foxes and he'd take maybe two a night and he did it or do it for a night he'd take the foxes he'd go to the edge of one of these philistine fields or maybe go out in the middle of it he'd like this brand filled with pitch on fire have it tied to two fox's tails you ever seen how fox runs that'll make a straight line you get two foxes together it is just crazy zigzag and these foxes trailing something burning would already be scared i know the animal rights people don't like this message and now it wasn't yeah four things and they go rip snorting all around through these fields and they're just the fields are just going up in flames and at first they thought it was a fluke but then day after day their fields are burning and notice it said it was during wheat harvest and it decimated them economically and they're saying who did this said who has done this verse six of chapter 15 and someone answered samson the son-in-law of the tim knight because he had taken his wife and given her to his companion and the philistines thought well that is pretty bad take a guy's wife and give it to his friend and so the philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire you know if she had been loyal to her husband he would have protected her but instead she sold out and the very thing she feared came upon her isn't that sad and you know what that also broke samson's heart and when he heard about this it says since you would do this thing i will surely take revenge on you and afterward i will cease you've heard this expression before so he goes in among the philistines and i don't know if he's roaming through their towns and it says he attacked them hip and thigh if you want to be frustrated go to your commentary and figure out what hypnosis meant because i found just about every commentator says something different lots of interesting they don't know if that means samson went out and he with his hip and i kicked them all like jiu-jitsu or something or does it mean that he took a club and he clubbed them on their hip and thigh and they're not sure and what that means and and uh sometimes i think it means he hit them high and low but anyway it says whatever it was he went among the philistines and he caused a great slaughter and then he went down and he dwelt in the cleft of the rock of eden now samson's feeling pretty lonely his parents are upset because he wouldn't listen to them he doesn't want to endanger his parents now that he's become a marked man with a philistine so he said if i go home they're in danger he's lost his wife and he has no friends and he's up dwelling in a rock by himself it's kind of interesting it says he's dwelling in the cleft of the rock have you seen that somewhere before where did moses finally see god he was in the cleft of the rock and you know um it was at that time that uh i think he had something of a revelation but we're gonna save that for next week i just wanted to highlight here when he decided not to do what he knew god wanted him to do and he forsook the guidance of his parents his believing parents and he thought that he could compromise with the enemy everything started going sideways you wonder how much trouble we brought into our lives because we thought well i know the bible says this but i don't have to follow that that closely and now he's living in a cave all by himself but that even in itself is a sign that god's going to speak to him there you know i'd like to sing with you there's a song talks about that he hideth my soul it's 5 20 in your hymnals oh wait a second disregard that you can stay there what does honey from a lion mean i just realized the name of the sermon title hunting from a lion i didn't tell you what that means you what happened since you asked me what did that riddle mean i've got honey from a lion honey is something good the bible says eat honey it is good don't eat too much it's something that should be taken marriage is good but you're not to get your pleasure and you're not to get your marriage from that which is unclean so that's one thing that's kind of a philosophical look at it but then there's something else that is even maybe spiritual and i know there's a little speculating going on here the word of god is compared to honey the word is sweeter than honey to the and it is from a slain lion jesus is sometimes called the lion of the tribe of judah that he gets his honey in a vineyard samson falls in love with the lost you know jesus he had love for the lost in the end samson lays down his life because of that so i think there's some interesting spiritual analogies here about this honey from the lion and samson made a big mistake of trying to get that which was sweet from that which was forbidden and then you've also even got the spiritual side okay now you can stand up we're going to sing i want to they'll add that little bit of teaching in there we're going to say yes 520 in your [Music] hymnal is jesus my lord a wonderful savior to me [Music] behind [Music] that shadows [Music] with his is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] thirsty [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is loving father there are so many lessons we learned from the story in the life of samson a story of your great mercy your patience great opportunity there are also warnings that you have there for us to not make the same mistakes he made lord i pray that you'll give us wisdom how to apply these things to our lives and we can be more like jesus because of it i pray your blessing in each person in their hearts and minds help us to be filled with your spirit and that supernatural strength that is offered through jesus and we thank you we pray for your blessing through this sabbath day in christ's name amen

Channel: Aaron

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Id: QeIUcZ6cJSc

Length: 65min 33sec (3933 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 18 2018