[Darris McNeely] Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our Beyond Today Bible study here
in Cincinnati, at the home office of the United Church of God. Glad to see all of you out here tonight. And I would also like to welcome those who
are online watching tonight live wherever you may be, and those who will be watching
this later when it is archived on the web, welcome. We are beginning a new Bible study series
tonight with the Beyond Today. We're going to the Judges. We're going to cover several of the eminent
Judges that are mentioned in the Book by the name of the Judges, and tonight we're going
to start with Samson. Since I think I drew the long straw and got
to go first, I got to choose who I wanted to talk about and I just like Samson. So we're going to go through Samson tonight. But before we get into that, let's go ahead
and ask God's blessing on the Bible study, so if you all will bow your heads, and you
can remain seated, I'll ask God's blessings. Our God and our Father, we thank You for this
evening, the opportunity that we have to gather here in this Bible study. We ask Your blessing and Your guidance upon
the teaching of Your Word and lessons that we can learn not only the historical, biblical
story of, in this case, Samson during a period of the Judges, but also the application for
it in our own lives as we strive to live righteously in our own world, in our own time. So, Father, we ask for Your guidance here,
and Your blessing upon the hearing, the teaching that this video, this Bible study goes out
and is heard later, it will bear fruit, that Your Spirit would magnify what is accomplished
and what is said in the preaching the gospel. So we pray for Your blessing, we ask Your
direction, we thank You and ask it all in Christ's holy name, Amen. All right. “The Judges,” and tonight we're going
to be talking about “Samson Battling the Gates of Hell." Why did I choose that subtitle for the larger
title of this series? Well, we will see as we get into it. Let me preface just a little bit. This is where we'll wind up, so maybe we can
at least know a little bit about where we are going. The book of Judges is a history. It's an ancient history of a time that we
might think we don't know a whole lot about in the Bible record, but we do know a lot
about some of the individuals and the characters. It was a time that predated the monarchy of
Saul of David and Solomon. It was after the time of the conquest of the
land, but it is a story of God ruling over His people through key individuals that were
called Judges. And while it is an ancient story, each one
of those stories is very, very relevant to something about our lives today that we should
understand. And my choosing this one in terms of Samson
being the pre-eminent warrior really, of all the Judges in, the story here of this book,
Samson gets a lot of good press in our modern world. There's just recently been released a new
movie made by an evangelical group but it's being run in theaters. I see that it's in our local theater here
in Milford called Samson, a remake of one. The original was done, there was one done
back in 1950s one of those sandals and robe type of biblical epics that Hollywood was
famous for at that time. They've just done a new one and I don't know
too much about it other than it follows the story. I've just seen the trailer, but I haven't
seen the movie. I may be the only one that would think this,
but actually studying and getting into the story is a whole lot better than the movie. The movie can be generate a lot of interest
and, you know, techniques and computer-generated images and everything, but for me, it's kind
of digging into the backstory and understanding what was really taking place, and bringing
it forward into our time, to me is really helpful. And in this case, Samson was battling against
the gates of hell and the people called the Philistines that he had to deal with and frankly
that Israel had to deal with. And there's several lessons for us to learn
as we deal with our own Philistines and in our lives. I could have just as well put another subtitle
on there and maybe if I give this again, or work into a sermon maybe I'll do that. Have you killed any Philistines lately? And that really brings it down to us. We'll see why as we go along. So let's jump into the story. Samson's story is told in three chapters,
Judges 14, 15, and 16. And we're not going to be able to read through
all the words here. I'm going to just hit on selections and kind
of hit the high points of the story as we go through this here tonight, and draw some
pertinent lessons here. It is in the time of the Judges. Now, this period of the Judges as I said,
kind of is in that period between Moses and Joshua. The conquest of the land after the exodus
by the children of Israel under Joshua, Joshua and his generation die off. And there's a period of about all 325 years
after the conquest of the promised land under Joshua during which these matters take place
until we come up to the time let's say of Saul and David and Solomon of the United Monarchy
there. So there's this period where there's no king. Moses and Joshua in that generation has died,
and we're not into the other larger than life figures, let's say, of King David. There are a period during which these Judges,
these individuals rise up and have sway and rule over parts, if not all, of the tribes
that are scattered throughout the land that has been conquered. We step up a little bit further back and look
at the larger context of what's happening in the neighborhood around the land, or the
promised land to be called the Land of Israel. Egypt is no longer a power. The Exodus has really dropped Egypt down several
notches with the death of the firstborn, with the destruction of part of the army of Pharaoh
and a lot of things that happened there in the time of the Exodus. So Egypt is no longer just point having a
lot of influence up in this part of the world. There was a pharaoh about this time by the
name of Ramesses II, he tried to make Egypt great again but he failed. In fact, they lost all of their possessions
up in this area and up into the area of Asia. The Assyrian Empire which is one we read about
later in the in the story of the Old Testament has not yet come together. They haven't taken center stage, so they are
kind of a weak, scattered area up to the north, and no one has even heard of Babylon at this
point and time, all right? So those great powers to come are not players
in the story. In fact, there is no world power to threaten
Israel. And that's by God's design. God brought Israel into the land and, kind
of, put him in a cocoon to be able to develop according to His purpose and His plan that
He laid out before them to be a kingdom of priests, a people modeling His way of life,
living under the covenant, and He protected them by kind of creating buffers with the
lesser the powers all around them, and they're in a protective cocoon, but they are in a
period of, let's say, semi-independent. You've got 12 tribes, no one leader, and the
only cohesion that you have in the story here at this time are the priesthood. There's a central religious shrine inside
a place called Shiloh, not Jerusalem, Jerusalem is still a Jebusite city in just a dusty little
village. The tabernacle is at a place called Shiloh,
and that's where the priesthood operates, and that's where the tribes gather every season
to keep the Holy Days in the spring, in the summer, in the fall. And that's the one area of unity that they
have. If we look at Judges 3, we will see that after
the conquest, the inhabitants of the land, many of them were overcome, but not all of
them were driven out. In Judges 3 tells us that there were certain
nations left which God allowed and wanted that he might test Israel by them, that is
all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan. So there were certain nations that were left,
Hittites and the ones who were going to deal with in the story of Samson, there's a group
called the Philistines. They were left in the land, and they were
there to test Israel. It goes on in verse 3 here to say that there
were “five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, Sidonians, and the Hivites
who dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal and Hermon through the entrance of Hamath.” So there were the Philistines as the period
and the grouping of individuals that were going to focus on at this particular time. If we look at the Philistines and understand
something, then we have a background to get into the story of Samson. Of all the peoples, the other tribes, the
other nations that were left in the land to test Israel, the Philistines in the story
seem the most of formidable. They're the ones that are actually very, very
interesting. They were people who settled on the coastal
region of the land. They have five major cities and centers that
are mentioned. They had a place called Gaza, which, when
you hear the news today about the Gaza Strip in Israel and the Palestinians that are holed
up there launching rocket attacks, digging tunnels out to plague the state of Israel. It's the same Gaza, same area, Ashkelon and
Ashdod and Ekron and Gath. If you remember Gath because it's always associated
with the giant named Goliath that comes on the scene later in the story during the time
of David and Saul. David slays Goliath, but he is this giant
among many we've seen from this area of Gath. Now, one of the things about the Philistines
to understand, when you look at the history of this group of people, they really don't
know exactly where they came from, but they do know that they came into the land of what
we will call Israel. They came there about the same time that the
tribes were coming in under Joshua. The tribes came in from the east, and the
Philistines came some field from the south and settled in the coastal area of the land. Israel eventually settled in the higher levels
of Galilee and the lands between Galilee running down toward Jerusalem and Judea. And the land, if you understand the geography,
kind of slopes to the west toward the Mediterranean down some low hills into a coastal plain area. And so that coastal plain that the Philistines
had their cities, and their region that they occupied. It was along that region as well that the
Philistines had interaction with people's coming down and up from Egypt and down from
Asia. If you look at the map that we have up here
you will see a little bit about that. The green is the area settled known as the
land of Canaan, and you see the Dead Sea there toward the bottom, which is kind of the larger
body of water, the Mediterranean Ocean off to the left. Egypt is down in the lower left-hand corner,
and it stretches all the way up to the upper right-hand area then disappears up into Asia. But the green represents essentially the land
that was to be given to the tribes but remember God left certain other nations there to test
Israel. And it is along that coastal area that we
see the area that was settled by the Philistines. And this particular map shows a little bit
more detail of that. These are actually NASA-generated, topographical
maps that are taken off of the satellite imagery. And if you will see that along the coastal
area there that darker shaded area, the area closer to the coast is essentially the Philistine
area. And all that to the right is what was settled
by the 12 tribes of Israel during the time of Joshua. And so, this is kind of a setting for the
story here that is told in Judges, and the Philistines are occupying this land off to
the left, that darker region right there in their areas. Now, Israel settled up in the higher elevations
of the land. One of the things you should note if you would
just look at the… you see the tribes that come down there, Manasseh, and Ephraim all
the way down to Judah. Geographically, Israel did settle in a protected
area even from off of the main trade route. The trade route that I mentioned earlier ran
up along the coast south out of Egypt hugging the Mediterranean to the left, and then went
on up into Asia actually curved around by the Sea of Galilee one part of it, and another
went on up the coast off of the map there. This was… It was called the Via Maris, the way of the
sea. And essentially, it was the interstate highway
of the day. Caravans coming out of Asia to Egypt, coming
out of Egypt going up into Asia carrying trade were regularly going up back and forth there
when Joseph, remember the story of Joseph when he was sold into Egyptian slavery, there
was a caravan coming along on the interstate and his brothers stopped it, sold him, took
him on down into Egypt. The Philistines were right in the center of
all of this interstate traffic. And as a result, they were more influenced
by the cultures and customs of all the various Asiatic peoples, the Egyptians, Israel was
not theoretically. They were sheltered from that by being off
into the upper mountainous area of the central area of the land and somewhat more sheltered
from that commerce, and the cultural influences religion and otherwise that would have been
a part of that mix there. I said that the Philistines and the Israelites
came into the land at about the same time. That is also interesting to note. When you look at the story of God's people,
here and the story of Israel, it's important to realize that Israel, the 12 tribe grouping
descended from the 12 sons of Jacob were an interesting group of people. If you remember from the stories in Genesis
about Jacob, and his sons Judah, Simeon and Levi, Joseph, Benjamin and all the interesting
stories out of there that deal with intrigue, revenge, Simeon and Levi because their daughter,
Dinah was ravaged. They tricked this group of this other family,
this other tribe into getting circumcised. And on the eighth day, while they were laying
around recovering, they went in and killed all the men, because their sister, Dinah,
had been raped. I mean, that's kind of crazy. All right. Think about that, what type of clan does that? These peoples, you know, I mean, they sold
their brother Joseph. They sold him. What type of thinking is that going on? My point is Israel left to their own devices,
they were just as human as anyone else. And when God brought that nation together,
and these tribes and He put them in the land, they were given an opportunity, and the only
reason that they were holy, or special, was because of this covenant relationship that…
and as long as they lived according to that code, they could do pretty good. They could become a kingdom a priests. They could become a holy people. But as you know when they veered off of that,
they got into some big problems. Humanly, they were no different from the Philistines. The Philistines were just thoroughly pagan,
and they knew they were, right? At least Israel didn't have an excuse. They should have known better. And various times they sunk into some pretty
bad behavior. But the end of the story of Judges, you remember
that it was the tribe of Benjamin that went chaotic and dismembered a body and sent it
all through the tribes to make a point, "Don't mess with us." So Philistines, Israel. The Philistines thoroughly modern pagans for
the day. Israel or the tribes ruled periodically by
men and one woman called Judges who kind of kept at bay these forces of these Hittites,
these Canaanites, these Perizzites, these peoples called the Philistines, they kept
them back in the corner and away from totally overrunning Israel and pushing them out. From time to time God would raise these individuals
up, a Deborah, a Barak, an Ehud, a Jephthah, and in this case, a Samson to accomplish His
purpose and His will among the people. And so that's important to understand, God
during this time was really the king. He was their leader. Remember when they wanted a king and they
said to Samuel, "We want a King like the others." God said to Samuel, "Look, they've not rejected
you, Samuel. They have rejected Me for being king over
them." During the time of the Judges, God was their
king. As long as they lived up to that and followed
His teachings, they were okay. He promised to protect them. But it's when they failed that they had the
problems. As we know from the end of the book of Judges
21:25, “there was no king in Israel.” God was their king. But “everyone did what was right in his
own eyes.” This sums up the whole period that we are
dealing with in the Judges, “In that day there was no king” again, no central government,
“every man doing what was right in their eyes.” The Judges, very briefly, were a unique group
of gifted leaders. As I said, several men and one woman named
Deborah. They would step up at times to rally the tribes
together to a purpose, to push away the invading nation, the Philistines or others who threatened
to overrun them completely driving them and dispersing them. As we read the story, we see that God's Spirit
came upon them. They rallied the people, and they pushed these
foes back. It was when they were rallied under a charismatic
leader that we see the nation pushing literally against the gates of hell, against the gates
of those fortresses, those spiritual, or in this case physical nations that wanted to
push out these people who had no right to the land in their book. Look, land was all important and if there
were some of these nations have been there first, and it's the same story we hear today. The Arabs, the Palestinians make their present
claim against the state of Israel that they have the superior claim to the land today. The state of Israel has no right to exist. This was the same thing going on then, and
it was a contest of wills. God had a purpose that He was going to work
with Israel, and he would raise up the necessary leader for a moment of time to push that plan
further down the road and keep it from being completely collapsing. And frankly, this is the story of God working
with Israel throughout Scripture, and even into the modern world. I've long personally had a feeling that even
in our modern age of the last 300 to 400 years of the history of Israel in our day that God
has periodically raised up certain leaders to preserve His peoples and to keep them from
being obliterated from off the face of the earth. That's my own personal belief that at various
times individuals, like individuals statesman, a prime minister, individuals have risen at
a particular moment in time of the story of America or Great Britain, to keep the modern
counterpoint part of this story of Israel from completely collapsing just as He did
during the time of Judges. We could look at a Churchill in our day, we
could look at a Washington more than 200 years ago, we could look at other individuals and
speculate, perhaps about that. But that would be maybe another Bible study
to do. God's purpose is always going to stand. The Judges were individuals who were going
to ensure that it kept going. So let's look briefly tonight at Samson and
his life. You can turn over to chapter 14 of Judges
and we will look at just a few of the high points. This particular map shows the region now of
that land, we'll be more concentrated, focused view of the coastal plain, the area of the
Philistines. You'll see up to the right, to the upper part
of the map, the tribal lands of Ephraim, Benjamin, Dan, Judah, the hill country, to the right
the area called the Shephelah, which is the kind of sloping region filled with ravines
canyons and hills that slope down toward the coastal plain occupied by the Philistines. And here we see the various cities and the
areas that are actually mentioned in the story of Samson in these three chapters in the book
of Judges right here. And so this is kind of the setting and it's
very interesting area in many different ways. If you look at the just up from center and
a little bit to the right you will see that the tribal allocation of the tribe of Dan. It is of the tribe of Dan from which Samson
comes. And we find that in the story here in the
beginning of chapter 14, or chapter 13, I'm sorry I'm a chapter off here, where we find
in verse 2, “There was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites,” this
man's “name was Manoah; and his wife, and she was barren they had no children." And this is the introduction to the story
of Samuel… or Samson here, this particular Judge. A barren woman a family, a husband, and wife
of the tribe of Dan. They were in this region at a time after… Most of the tribe of Dan had gone further
north. And evidently, Manoah and his wife stayed
in the original allotment in this area closer to the land of the Philistines. And so here is where we're introduced to the
family at birth, that is a miraculous birth of Samson. “An Angel of the Lord appears to the woman”
and promises that she is going to bear a son. and she is told that he will be under a special
vow. Verse 5 tells us that, "you will conceive
and bear a son… And no razor will come upon his head, for
the child should be a Nazarite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel
out of the hand of the Philistines." At that particular time. His father mother did not know that it was
of the Lord. Verse 4, "He was seeking an occasion to move
against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines had the dominion
over Israel." And so when we look at this story of his birth
and look at the family there, you look at the idea of Samson in his birth into a family
that loved him. He was separated to a Nazarite vow, which
is a very strict vow of holiness. No razor upon his head so his hair was going
to grow long. He was Samson and anyone under Nazarite vow,
they were the original hippies. And we can go all the way back to this point
and see that, and, you know, we still have the hippiedom today in some areas, but it
is what it is. He didn't have alcohol, and it was really
a separation into a code of holiness was what the Nazarite vow was all about as described
in the book of Numbers, and we even see in the book of Acts where the apostle Paul was
under Nazarite vow for a period of time. Samuel had every advantage. His birth was predicted by an angel, he had
godly parents that loved him. He was dedicated to God as a Nazarite, and
God's Spirit was with him as we are told in the Scriptures here during his youth here
in this particular period of time. But Samson, as he grew, didn't always live
up to the expectations that he had. In chapter 14, we find as it opens here that
“Samson went down to Timnah, and he saw a woman in that city of the daughters of the
Philistines.” So he went down to a Philistine City and,
he's an adult at this point, and he, his eyes, you know, maybe he was cruising through the
drive-in restaurant. And he saw this girl, this woman, this unnamed
woman and he said, "I got to have her." So he goes and tells his father and his mother
saying, "I have seen this one of the daughters of the Philistines; get her for me as a wife." And they said, "Well, look, isn't there one
here in your home among your people that you could find? Why go among the uncircumcised Philistines?" At the end of verse 3, he said to his father,
"Get her for me, for she pleases me well." But what they didn't understand is what verse
4 says, that this was of God. Even working this part out within Samson's
life. At this point, the “mother and father did
not know that it was of the Lord — that He” God, “was seeking an occasion to move
against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines had dominion
over Israel.” Now, that's a lot to wrap our minds around. We tend to think black and white terms of
righteousness, evil. Bad and good, doing it God's way, doing it
the world's way. We kind of bifurcate this really clear and
sharp and at the time as we look at things. But this is a different story. And God… Again, you got to take a step back from it
and look at the whole scene of what is taking place. We've already been told that God left the
Philistines in the land to test Israel. God is a much larger God than we give Him
credit for at times. And while He has a law and a standard, we
see Him working in interesting ways at times in the story through individuals and their
actual deviation, if you will, from the line. Samson didn't walk the line in his life, even
though he becomes a Judge. You know, Johnny Cash had this is famous almost
a signature song, not quite, but one of his top songs, "I Walk the Line." And he said, you know, the basic life story
of the song was I'm going to walk a straight line in my life. After Johnny Cash died a few years ago someone
who knew him well was talking about Johnny Cash's life and that song, and he said, "If
you knew Johnny Cash like I knew Johnny Cash, he never walked the line." Okay? Well, Samson didn't walk the line either. But in this case in the story of Samson, God
is big enough to still weave events to accomplish His purpose, even when sin may be involved,
and with Samson, there's a lot of sin. But God's purpose is not going to be thwarted. And he wanted the woman, and so he went down
and he… it was another one of these half-baked relationships, because he winds up killing
a lion, and then he gets into kind of a party situation and he weaves a riddle out of the
killing of the lion in verse 12, and he talks about all of that as he works through this. And he winds up really not getting the woman
because her father keeps the woman from him, but in the story, we find that God is still
working with Samson, regardless. In verse 19 it tells of “the Spirit of the
Lord coming upon him mightily, and he goes down to Ashkelon and kills thirty of their
men, took their apparel, gave the changes of clothing to those who explained the riddle. And his anger was arousing, he went back to
his father's house. And Samson's wife was given to his companion,
who had been his best man.” So he wound up going through this whole episode,
killing a lion, honey, and a riddle and still not getting the girl. But the Philistines are held at bay. They are defeated in a tactical move here
by Samson. Samson had a role to play and God was going
to accomplish that purpose of His, regardless of that. His larger purpose was to inspire these missteps
of a man within the nation. Samson's story was told within a context of
a much larger story. And here's a point for you and I to learn. Our story is also part of a larger story of
God with His Church today. And our lives makes sense when we are able
to keep it within the larger context of the purpose God is bringing to pass. And our setbacks that we might fall into because
of our own decisions, or the setbacks and the trials that might happen to us because
of things beyond our control still keep us moving forward within the larger context of
God's purpose and His plan. Samson was going up against Philistines who
represented those who wanted to thwart and defeat the plan of God. You and I may not be dealing with actual Philistines
today, but again, I ask, where are they in your life? What are the Philistine influences in your
life? Those influences, those matters, those things
that we carry around with us that keep us from growing significantly as Christians from
overcoming habits, or the witnesses that might cripple us emotionally leading us to emotional
immaturity, envy, or anger, or the problems that we might struggle with and cripple us
in our life. In other words, what has dominion in your
life right now? What are the Philistines? Or does the Kingdom of God control and guide
and direct our life? Which has the larger influence where we are
right now? Think about that. Is it Christ? Or is it this world? Is it the Spirit of God, or the spirit of
this age? Going back to the story, the differences between
Israel in this period of time of the Philistines, the Israelites could very easily have said,
“There but for the grace of God, go we.” As they would have looked at the Philistines. They could have said, you know, “If we didn't
have God's grace, we didn't have God's covenant, we would be no different from them, from the
Philistines.” And that is exactly true. The difference between Israel and the other
nations is the grace of God, the Covenant, the law. Their holy way of life that they were called
to live. Samson's Nazarite vow was a type of that larger
holiness to which Israel and the tribes were called. And when they got off track from that covenant,
they reverted to the behavior just like the other nations. Every evil found among the nations would eventually
be found among Israel even down to child sacrifice under King Manasseh later on during the time
of the monarchy, if you recall, when they would deviate and strayed from God's way. The difference between righteousness and holiness
sometimes is a very, very fine line. And when we cross that line into evil or unrighteousness,
then chaos can come into our life. I want you to think about that. It's a very fine line, and we have to in a
sense walk that line. And that is the larger story that we are actually
being told and shown here in the story of Samson. Here in chapter 14, there's another point
that is made that we should focus on. Samuel goes back to… or it's actually at
the beginning of the story of the woman that he wanted here, the Philistine woman, and
what triggers his tearing a lion apart, and then later in verse 19 killing 30 men is when
the Spirit of God came upon him. In verse 6 it says, "The Spirit of Lord came
mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat,
though he had nothing in his hand. But he did not want his father or his mother
to know what he had." And again in verse 19, "The Spirit of the
Lord came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of their men." This is where Samson acts in a very profound
way under the influence of God's Holy Spirit. And this is when Samson was at his best. Now, these two instances show us they say
that the Spirit of the God came upon him in a mighty fashion and moved him to do something
big, killing a lion, killing 30 men. Disrupting the whatever plans, larger plans
were being worked against the people of God by the Philistines. God was using Samson against them to begin
to break the hold that they had on Israel. Now, Samuel goes on to Judge Israel for about
a 20-year period here, and ultimately he is going to break the power of the Philistines. As long as the Philistines are in this area,
Israel is never going to realize the purpose that God have for them as long as the Philistines
were there. Later in the time of David, there's another
bit of information that comes out that also applies right here. The Philistines had the patent for working
iron into instruments and swords. If an Israelite farmer wanted to buy a plow
or a sickle aside to cut his wheat, he had to go to the Philistines, because they didn't
have the technical knowledge to work on it. The Philistines had it for some reason, and
they had a monopoly on it. They bottled up that recipe, wrote it down
and they had put it under lock and key and hid it, and Israel didn't get it. And so the story goes on, but ultimately it's
not until the Philistines are pushed out of the complete picture that we see Israel begin
to have the opportunity to achieve its full potential as a people under God. That's yet to come, but what is working right
here with Samson in the story is the gradual wearing down and keeping the Philistines contained
where they were. And so as we move along into the story, we
go into chapter 15 and we see something else about Samson that helps us at least to understand
his character, and I think ultimately a key that helps us to understand something that
we must have as well. Chapter 15 talks about his further defeat
of the Philistines. It's in this chapter, he picks up the jawbone
of a donkey and kills a thousand men. And showing us that he was a man of great
passion. He goes back looking for his wife. Verse 1 of the chapter. And he's still thwarted by her father and
he's not able to get her and he goes off, he ties a bunch of foxes, 300 foxes together,
lights their tails and sends them out through the grain fields and creates great destruction
upon the harvest of the Philistines, and they come against him, and he kills a thousand
of them at this particular time, and then he makes a song or riddle out of it in verse
16 by saying, "With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, of the jawbone of a donkey
I've slain a thousand men!” “And so it was, when he had finished speaking,
he threw the jawbone from his hand, and called that place Ramath Lehi.” Now, he'd already told a riddle, and now he
shows again that he has the ability to put into a lyrical phrase his deeds and his actions. There's something of the Irish about Samson
that we should at least acknowledge. And, if that, because he's of the tribe of
Dan that, you know, is something inherent in that particular tribal gene that is still
there among the Celts of the Celtic peoples and particularly the Irish today, we might
be seeing something like that here with Samson. But there's an even deeper underlying fact. Samson kills a thousand with the jawbone of
an ass. God's Spirit moved upon him again in this
particular situation. It was God giving him this superhuman strength. He's got the long hair that ultimately is
going to shown to be the physical representation of the source, or of that power and the relationship
that he has with God when Delilah comes into the scene. But what happens here in verse 16 of chapter
15, is Samson taking credit for himself. He doesn't give full acknowledgment to God
for what has happened. He boasts of what he has done and doesn't
give God quite the credit. He said, "I have slain a thousand men!” Now, all of this is done along with the tying
up of the foxtails and all of this within the context of a great deal of passion. That's what I want you to at least take away
here of one big point, was we are looking at this man. He doesn't do things in a small way. Three hundred foxes, a thousand men with a
jawbone of an ass, you know, his lust for a woman. We can say his lust for life. He's got a great passion. While he is still under this Nazarite vow
where extensively he is to be living in a separated holy type of life, but we see that
there's a mixture of it all working here, but again, God's working through this at this
particular time. Passion, strength, zeal for at least what
he feels to be right. His version of right is what we're looking
at here with Samson. Now chapter 16 moves into the story of Delilah. And he goes into a harlot, first of all, in
chapter 16 and verse one. And down in the area of Gaza, here again,
actions working, Samson could have used a kind of a family training course, or something
like we sometimes do with our young adults in trying to help people understand the opposite
sex and how to select a husband, how to select a wife, he could have used a few 18-36 Bible
studies here, as we have here in the Cincinnati area, to at least be a little bit more discriminating
and discerning over who he spends his time with. He goes to a harlot, and he lays with her
all night, and what happens, the men of Gaza are told that he's there, and they lay and
wait for him thinking that he's going to just be completely wasted after a night of being
with a harlot, and they'll capture him then and they'll deal with Samson in the morning
while he lays low. And he does something else that's rather passionate. He gets up in the middle of the night and
he lifts the city gates on his shoulders and he carries them not across the street, not
to the next village, but for miles actually into the several miles away to the village
of Hebron and deposits them there. And then, almost as if while that's not enough
in verse 4, “it happened after that that he loved the woman in the Valley of Sorek,
and her name was Delilah.” The scene shifts right away off to another
situation. Now, thus far we're looking at a man who has
an extreme ability and gifts, but he doesn't always use them well. His passions and his emotions sometimes run
out of control. Nonetheless, God moves with him, upon him,
the Spirit of God moves upon him, and he does great things. At this particular point in his life he is
essentially running on fumes, and we, you know, when he finally gets wound up with Delilah,
he's running very, very low. And he's weakened spiritually and with whatever's
sense of destiny, purpose, mission is in his life. His actions reflect more on him than upon
God. And that's kind of the way we get sometimes,
which tells us that it's not always about us. Samson thought it was about him. And this is probably the lowest point of his
life when he gets mixed up with Delilah. And there's another big lesson for you and
I, that if God is ever moved us to do good things in our life, and we have accomplished
certain things with our lives in a right way through baptism, through overcoming, through
service within the Church, that's a good thing. Give God the credit. Don't take it to yourself. We can't begin to ever think that we have
done any of these matters when it comes to our own spiritual overcoming our own spiritual
growth. Never forget God called us while we were in
our sins, and never forget why we were called. Samson lost sight of all of this ultimately,
and the very passions that could have been and should have been his overriding strength,
eventually controlled him and blocked out his common sense. A story in chapter 16 of Delilah that takes
him down to this is the nadir, the bottom point of the story in Samson's life and you
know what happens. She finally convinces him to tell her the
secret of the strength. She cuts his hair. He loses it. They put his eyes out, and then ultimately
in one last moment Samson is chained to these columns in the temple of the Philistines and
they're celebrating the fact that they have now subdued their nemesis. And Samson is led to this one particular point
where he finds the weakest point of the temple, and in verse 28, he calls out to God. And this is the only part of Samson's life
where we see him calling out to God and asking for strength. All the other times, “the Spirit of the
Lord came upon him” it says, and there's no mention of him asking for it. Now, he has come to a point where he realizes,
"I've got to ask for what I was in a sense naturally given before." And in verse 28 he says, "O Lord, remember,
strengthen me I pray, this once, O God, that I may make one blow of vengeance on the Philistines
for my two eyes!” And he did that. And he braced himself and pushed against the
pillars, and everything came tumbling down and he died with the Philistines. And in one fell swoop he kind of cuts off
if not all of the head at least an arm or maybe a leg of the Philistine body and cripples
the Philistines for this period of time. And they go into a slow decline. He makes one massive blow finally with his
own life against the power of the Philistines at this particular time. We'll still hear about them later in the story
of David, but they are on a decline. Samson's life has not been completely in vain,
but he comes to a final end right there in this particular way in the role that he plays
as he comes to the end of his life. Samson's story again is a story within a larger
story. I want that to be one of our big takeaways,
and each of us are a story within a larger story of God's purpose. Your life and my life makes sense when we
keep it in that context of the larger purpose that God is bringing to pass. As we understand it today with the Church,
the building of the Church that God has called us to be a part of. When we understand that, and when we then
understand that God looks upon Samson as an individual that He used in spite of his weaknesses
to teach us a lesson in faith, that what we read in the book of Hebrews makes more sense,
because Samson is mentioned in the hall of faith that we read about in the eleventh chapter
of Hebrews. If you will turn in there and look at verse
32, in that part of the lesson, God says this, or Paul writes it. He says, "What more shall I say?" Hebrews 11:32, "For the time would fail me
to tell of Gideon and Barak, and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the
prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, and
stopped the mouths of lions.” Right there we have the story of Samson, a
man who stopped the mouth of a lion, and who subdued a kingdom. One man against the Philistine kingdom, he
was doing quite a bit. It goes on to say he “quenched the violence
of fire, they escaped the edge of the sword, and out of weakness were made strong." I always love that phrase here in Hebrews
11. When I read that part of Hebrews 11 that out
of weakness were made strong, gives me great hope for myself, and we should all take comfort
and encouragement there that no matter how weak we might feel, or be at a particular
time just like Samson was, God can make us strong. In fact. it is when we acknowledge our weakness and
we understand what we need to be on guard against in our own life, what we need to ask
God for whether it's wisdom, or whether it might be faith, then God can make us strong
out of our weakness. Many were valiant in battle and to turn to
flight the armies of the aliens. Samuel was a one-man Judge in this way. As we go through these other Judges, we will
see that they had help with armies of Israelites, with them Deborah, for instance, Gideon, and
they will do the many of the same things that we read about here, and I'm sure that Mr.
Petty, Mr. Myers as they go through their parts of these Judges will probably turn here
to this same passage, because it fits and it helps us to understand what was taking
place. When the Spirit of God moved Samson, he was
strong enough to move a kingdom. He moved against it, he weakened it, if not
completely destroying it. He at least crippled it. God was near Samson and he sensed it. And he certainly sensed it in the last chapter
of his life. And it did give him a confidence at a time. We have God's Spirit. We have a confidence in that power of God's
Spirit within us. Do we live with that belief that God is, that
we are His people, and that the power of the Spirit of God is in us? It says the Spirit of the Lord moved Samson
at various times. How has the Spirit of God moved you? When Samson lived like he did, with a move
and motivated by the Spirit of God, he subdued a kingdom, the kingdom of the Philistines. Matthew 16:18, Jesus made the statement about
the purpose of His Church. He said, "I say to you that you are Peter,
and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hades” or hell “shall not
prevail against it." This verse is a starting point to understand
the vision Jesus Christ has for His Church. It is to crash the gates of the grave, the
gates of hell. It's an offensive position. I've explained that in other times in the
past. So it's an offensive position. Samuel crashed against the gates of hell in
his own day. Not Samuel but Samson. He crashed the gates of the Philistines, the
hell, the forces working against the nation of Israel. And Samson, I think, brethren, and here's
the point, we have a story of tension that we all face as we live in today's world, and
we are not of the world, but we live within the world. We are part of the Church of God. Christ's Body is being built to stand against
the gates of hell, to lift those gates off, and like Samson, carry them away and neuter
the city of Gaza as he did by taking those gates, we are to crash against the gates of
hell in our own lives, and knock them down. Samson knocked down the gates of a city, and
then ultimately that of a pagan temple. And out of weakness, he was made strong. Now, every day you and I face our Philistines. What are they? And I asked again, have you killed any of
them lately? Because that's what we have to do. We have our own Philistines in our life. At times they will push against us, and we
have to rise up and fight back. Christ made another statement that fits this. On another time Christ said, "The kingdom
of God suffers violence and the violent take it by force." I want you to think about this. To overcome some sins, to make sometimes real
spiritual progress where we reach to another level of maturity, another level of peace
of mind, another level of confidence, another level of faith in our life, may require you
and I to rise up like a Samson with a passion, a fierceness, with an emotion like Samson
had against his Philistines. We have to do that against our Philistines. And frankly, some sins, some parts of our
life, some moves, some ruts that we're stuck in year after year will not be dealt with
unless we take a little bit of the life of Samson and apply it. But we have the extra help of God's Spirit
within us, and we have that power. Frankly, we need to be a little bit like Samson. Not chasing after women or men, but the passion,
the emotion, the power, the conviction. When he was pushed, he rose up against the
Philistines. When our Philistines come with us, when we
finally recognize that we've got to do a little bit more if it is fasting a bit more often,
if it is laboring in prayer for weeks or months perhaps at a concentrated frontal assault,
I think sometimes God is looking to see just how passionate we are with what Philistine
part of our life is repressing us, to give us that extra help to crash that gate in our
life, and to achieve another level of spiritual maturity and spiritual growth. To me, that's a big takeaway from the life
of Samson. It's a good story, makes a good couple of
movies. But my big takeaway, that sometimes I need
to be a bit more like Samson and maybe you do as well when it comes to the energy, the
force, the conviction, and the passion that it took for him to kill a thousand men, to
kill our thousand Philistines we've got to be able to have that going and working in
our life. That's Samson, that's our introduction to
the book of Judges. To me, it's, you know, one of the more convicting
stories to look at. We'll go through the others and we'll study
them as well. But think about Samson and let that begin
to carry you into a period of preparation for the upcoming Passover and Days of Unleavened
Bread. How many Philistines have you killed lately? That'll be it. We will be having our next Bible study, and
in probably I think it's three weeks we're going to be heading off to Southern California. We'll be there two weeks. The Beyond Today crew for our next round of
public appearances campaigns. We're going to be in San Diego, Los Angeles,
Redlands, and Garden Grove church areas in Southern California. So it'll be three weeks before we have our
next Bible study here. So we'll see you at that time, and be safe
as you drive home tonight.
