196 - Heroes - Samson: Self Absorbed But Finally Gets it [B]

Hebrews Lesson 196    April 29, 2010

^NKJ Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

Alright, we are in our study in Hebrews; but rather than turning there because we will just briefly touch that, go ahead and open your Bibles to Judges 13.  Last time we only made it through the one judge, Jephthah, and this time we will go forward to the next one that's mentioned in our passage there in Hebrews 11:32, which is Samson. 

Just so you are reminded about the passage that we're studying in Hebrews 11:32 we read:

^NKJ Hebrews 11:32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets:

So he's continuing and wrapping up his lengthy session where he's been focusing on how each of these individuals that he's been using in Hebrew 11 provide an illustration for those who have trusted God at key points – trusted in a promise. I always remind you it's not just faith because the Bible doesn't know faith in faith. That's that sort of a modern New Age mystical concept that we just sort of have faith. 

Sometimes you'll hear people say, "Just believe." 

Believe what? Just believe anything? Well, we can't believe just anything. We believe what is in the Word of God. So it's always faith in something in God's Word. The second element though is always a part of faith, and that is the object of faith, what we believe. But the two go together. In a phrase like this, it is not just the act of trusting but it is the whole act of trusting in a promise of God. 

We come down to of the last 2 verses of the chapter. Just sort of a preview of coming attractions so you know where we're headed. 

As the writer summarizes he says:

^NKJ Hebrews 11:39 And all these,

That's all these individuals. 

having obtained a good testimony through faith,

They had their faith in trusting God. At some point in their life it provides an evidence, a witness (in the angelic conflict), both before man and before the angels.

did not receive the promise,

That is the key phrase right there. This is what unpacks and helps us to properly interpret all of Hebrews 11. They didn't receive the promise. It's not talking about the fact that each of these individuals is a mature believer or great and wonderful examples of spiritual maturity and great and wonderful examples of spiritual life. It is that they believed the promise.

And what was the promise? The promise was related to (generally speaking) the deliverance of a Messiah, but specifically, especially once it narrows down and focuses from Abraham on, it's that promise that God made to Abraham to give the land to Israel because all of the examples from verse 8 on Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and then Joshua, Rahab and then the 4 that are listed here in verse 32 are all the focus. They trusted in the promise and they didn't receive it. What the writer is trying to do is he's talking to this group of Jewish believers who were about to just give up and throw it all away and go back into the first century Judaism and give up on their belief in Jesus as the Messiah, because nothing's happened. 

"We haven't received the promise. He hasn't come back. He hasn't returned. I thought He was going to return."

What the writer is illustrating is the fact that they didn't receive the promise yet they persevered. They endured and God has then provided something better for us. That's verse 40. What has happened is that people have misunderstood in some way what the writer of Hebrews is saying about these men.

We tend to glorify this passage as the great passage, the Hall of Faith passage in Hebrews and that these are great, mature believers. But when we go back and we start looking at some of them, particularly some of those in verse 32 and their spiritual life and how they're described back in the book of Judges, is that they weren't very mature believers. They were just a couple of steps above being just rank pagans and basically thinking and operating just like Canaanites. But even though they all very paganized (worldly in their thinking) nevertheless they still had a basic understanding of the promise of God and they trusted God in terms that promise in a critical situation for the history of Israel in the Old Testament. We have to understand that in that context.

^NKJ Hebrews 11:32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak

We studied that. 

and Samson and Jephthah,

We have studied Jephthah. Tonight we'll finish up with Samson, then next week David and Samuel and the prophets. 

also of David and Samuel and the prophets:

When we get there will have to paint an even broader brush stroke or we'll be here forever.

Then there's a summary of what these men did, and others. The prophets just summarize Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Haggai, Joel all the way down through Malachi.

Through faith these individuals trusted God's promise for Israel. 

^NKJ Hebrews 11:33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,

^NKJ Hebrews 11:34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.

^NKJ Hebrews 11:35 Women received their dead raised to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection

As you read through this list, they have different circumstances, different situations, but what undergirds all of it is the basic promise that is the foundation of all is that promise God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: the promise of the Abrahamic Covenant, the promise that God would give the land to Israel and that he would bring a Messiah and that the Messiah would deliver the nation in Israel and establish a kingdom. 

That's what the writer of Hebrews is doing. He speaks of the fact that by faith they would subdue kingdoms, work righteousness, obtain promises and stop the mouths of lions. Starting with the last one first we are reminded of how God stopped the mouths of lions with Daniel. Daniel 6:22 when Daniel was in the lion's den, he replied to the king when the king came the next morning and said that God had sent his angel and shut the lion's mouth. 

Then we also have the example moving backward in history of David that when David came to the King Saul offering his services to go up to battle against Goliath, Saul said, "Well, you're just a kid. What qualifies you to go fight this giant Goliath?"

David said, "Well, here's my resume."

^NKJ 1 Samuel 17:34 But David said to Saul, "Your servant used to keep his father's sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock,

So he phrases in the circumstance that whenever this happened because that was part of his job as a shepherd was to protect the sheep and so there would be various animals, various marauding animals that would come to try to destroy the sheep. They were lions and bears that would come. David then describes what he did. Now he's trusting the Lord to protect him in the midst of that. 

There's an application here for your job that no matter when you're facing in your job whatever those obstacles may be whether they are intellectual or physical that God is the one who gives us victory in those battles.

David says that whenever a lion or bear came..

^NKJ 1 Samuel 17:35 I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth;

Now remember all he has is a slingshot and a staff. He doesn't have a sword. He doesn't have a Uzi. He doesn't have any modern weaponry. He has just those two things and a short club. 

He said. "Whenever this would happen I would go out and strike it and deliver" – literally it's he would pull the lamb out of the lion's mouth. 

Now I don't know about you but I've tried to get things out of the dog's mouth before and it's not a real pleasant thing. But to try to take a lamb out of a lion's mouth indicates that you have a tremendous amount of physical skill and ability and that you've got a lot of courage and trust in the Lord. 

and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it.

Can you just imagine that? Grabbing that lion by its beard with one hand and a club with the other hand and you kill the lion. That's what David did it on more than one occasion.

caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it.

^NKJ 1 Samuel 17:36 "Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God."

So he had quite a resume. By the time he was seventeen or eighteen years old he was fairly tough, and he had lot of confidence in his ability.

Now the other person that killed a lion is Samson. I want you to turn, and we'll look over Samson's career tonight. That is covered in the Judges 13, 14, 15 and 16. Samson is one of those individuals. The story of Sampson is one that is often told. 

I remember when my mother had a copy Hulbert's Stories of the Bible. Some of you may remember that. That was a great publication of Bible stories to be read to children that was in print for many years, and she would read that. You read some of these stories and accurate as they are, the emphasis is always on just what tremendous spiritual heroes they were. But that is not really what the writer of Judges is pointing out. In fact he really doesn't point out that Samson was that great of a hero. He really point out that Samson was pretty much of a loser, that Samson was a complete failure. What is important is to read the context of the book of Judges, and you see this negative trajectory among these great leaders so that at the beginning of the story when the Israelites are confronting an armed Canaanite defense, then God would raise up a judge like Othniel. Othniel had a godly wife named Achsah. Othniel gives complete victory. He raises up his men and they go out into battle and they destroy the enemy forces. The judge is the hero. The judge is the great deliverer. The judge is the good guy. 

But by the time you get down to the end of the book of Judges, the story is not about the battle. The story doesn't focus on the Lord's deliverance. There's no battle; there's no deliverance. The focal point is all about Samson and his sins. The writer is just goes through one personal episode after another. Samson as a judge never calls up an army. He never goes to battle against the Philistines. He's too concerned with chasing the daughters of the Philistines than to go to battle against the Philistines. The only time he does anything bad to the Philistines is when they get in the way of his chasing their daughters and they start laying traps for him. It becomes a matter of a personal vendetta that God uses of course to stir up the antagonism with the Philistines. But he is not a man who is trusting in God at those points to get him the victory. 

The focus shifts from the judge being the good guy and the deliverer to Samson. Samson is really the problem. The deliverer has become a problem because he is carnal. He is self-absorbed, he has no self-restraint, and he is just in love with his own lust pattern. 

The judge has deteriorated. The life and the value system of the judge now is no different from that of the Canaanites. If you look at Samson, he really isn't any different from any of the Canaanites. That's what the writer of Hebrews is saying. Remember, the theme of the book of Judges was written to demonstrate the point that there was no king in the land. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Everyone! Leaders did what was right in their own eyes. You have these 4 or 5 key examples showing the deterioration. As time went by, they became more of relativistic, how there were more and more problems. Then you come to chapters 17 and 18 and 19 and it depicts the apostasy of the priesthood and the apostasy of the people and just how depraved they've become and how degraded they've become. They just don't seem to live any differently from the Canaanites.

The Jews (God's people) were called to be a separate distinct nation, called to be a nation of priests are not living any differently from the Canaanites they're supposedly removing from the land under God's judgment because of the fact that they're so depraved and so perverse. 

So we come to the opening part of this chapter and we're told in verse 1:

^NKJ Judges 4:1 When Ehud was dead, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD.

There's no "again" in the Hebrew. It really should read more like "the children of Israel continued to do evil in the sight of the Lord." Remember evil in the prophets whether you're talking about the Major Prophets later on or these historical books, evil is rebellion or apostasy against God. It is idolatry. It's not just that they committed this sin or that sin or this other sin. They are committing rebellion or treason against God by worshipping and going after false gods and false religions. They are adopting a completely false set of beliefs, a completely false worldview that they want to run their lives by. So we see that there is a connection between what's going on in Israel's history as the nation and Samson. There are certain parallels. So I want to point out to you about 8 parallels.

1. First of all, the nation Israel (the Israelite people) came into existence through a miraculous act of God as God brought Isaac (the child of promise) into life through the dead womb of Sarah and Abraham because they were beyond the age of having children. In the same way, Samson's birth is a miracle. His mother like the matriarchs of Israel like Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel was barren and she could not have any children. So God gives her a child. So there is a miraculous birth there. The nation is born through a miracle and Sampson is born through a miracle. 
2. Secondly, Samson is called to a distinct life of separation and service to God, which is indicated by the Nazirite vow that is imposed on him from the time that he is in the womb on through his entire life. Samson is called to this high life of separation in service to God just as the nation was called to be a kingdom of priests. They are viewed nationally as the adopted son of the YHWH.
3. Third, we see that Samson is self-centered, self-absorbed. He is more concerned with his own problems and feeding his own lust patterns; and the Israelites are just as self- centered and self-absorbed and focused on feeding their own lust patterns. This is what you see in the situation when they're coming out of Egypt. They leave Egypt and after tough times in the wilderness they start wanting to go back to Egypt, go back to slavery.  They wanted the leeks and garlics of Egypt. They complained bitterly against Moses and against God. Just as the nation is self-absorbed, so Samson is self-absorbed. 
4. Samson is drawn and attracted and lusts after foreign women, and the nation lusts after foreign gods. Samson lusts after foreign women, and the nation lusts after foreign gods. They are both unfaithful. They are both committing fortification (or adultery) in terms of immorality and unfaithfulness toward God in both aspects.
5. Samson experiences being imprisoned and being attacked and oppressed by the enemy just as the nation experienced being attacked and under the oppression of a foreign enemy. 
6. During that time that they're under oppression Israel will cry out for God's deliverance. Samson at the end of his life will cry out for YHWH to deliver him.
7. Samson is blinded by his enemies just as the nation is spiritually blind in the rebellion against God.
8. Then at the end when his hair is cut, that's really a sign that God has now abandoned him and no longer empowers him. He doesn't know it. He is functionally dead. He doesn't know what has happened. In the same way the nation when they get to that point when they are at this point they don't realize that God has departed from them. They still think that somehow they're special by their physical connection to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

So that sets the pattern. Samson is as an individual just a product of his culture, looks just like everybody else in Israel and is just more concerned about his lust pattern than serving the Lord. 

Now when we get into chapter 13. Here we see how God in His grace provides a deliverer. But there's one thing that we don't see here. We don't see Israel crying for deliverance. We've seen that in other times in the oppression at the beginning when God provided Othniel then later the oppression from the Midianites or the Moabites when God provided Ehud, and then the oppression from the Canaanites from the king of Hazor, and God provided the deliverance through Deborah and Barak and then later the Midianites and they cried out from their oppression for a deliverer. God sent them Gideon. 

But now we come to Samson and the Philistines and there's one thing missing at the beginning of chapter 13. There's no cry for a deliverer. There's nothing.  The Israelites are just accepting it. This has become normal. They're not crying out for a deliverer. They're not turning to God. They have decided to assimilate with the enemy.

But God is not going to let them. That's basically the role of Samson. He is a wild bull in a china closet. It is going to prevent the Israelites from calmly and peacefully intermarrying with the Philistines and losing their whole physical and spiritual identity. So God is going to provide a deliverer. 

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

^NKJ Judges 13:2 Now there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children.

So this is the tribe of Dan, which had an area in the central part of Israel, the central western part called the Shefela. It's sort of like a backward "L". The upper part is along the coast. Let's see I have a map here I think I can use. The Shefela area comes down along the coastline here and then sort of makes a hook to the right where you see the name of Dan there and then comes along here along this central area. This is pretty much the same. This area right up here is about where Tel Aviv is today. This follows the area along where the main highway runs from Tel Aviv over to Jerusalem today. That highway runs just a little bit north of this particular area and then this area here of course you have well-known names such as Gaza, Ekron, and Gath. This area here is as much of the disputed area now in the Gaza Strip. That's the area where Samson grows up, where he lives, where all of these events take place. 

This is territory that Dan never fully conquered. In fact we're told later in the next chapter that because of the fact that they never really controlled this territory that they basically gave up, sent out some scouts to go find some better place where they could go where they could find an easier enemy to defeat. 

That's when they went up to the far north and found Laish and said, "Oh yes. We can conquer them. Those people don't have any fortifications and they're not very strong" 

So they migrated to the northern part of Israel and captured the Canaanite city of Laish and they established the city of Dan. So they basically went north. This is not a tribe that has a reputation for being very spiritually strong.

So there is a man from Zorah and his name's Manoah. His wife is barren. The angel of the Lord appears to him. It strikes us as being something similar to the Lord appearing to Abraham and Sarah and later on with the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary the mother of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The angel appears to the woman and announces to her:

^NKJ Judges 13:3 And the Angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, "Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.

Notice she is addressing the woman. She doesn't come to the man. 

She says:

^NKJ Judges 13:4 "Now therefore,

 This is where she gives the instructions.

please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean.

^NKJ Judges 13:5 "For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines."

Now this is so strict that in his physical development in the womb she should not even have any wine or grape juice. This is all related to the Nazirite vow.  This was a vow that would separate or distinguish an individual as being specifically dedicated to serving God. The stipulations for the Nazirite vow are given in Numbers 6:2ff. 

Now it is important to note these characteristics because when we get into studying the life of Samson, he violates all of these. He doesn't keep any of them. 

In Numbers 6:2 and following we read:

^NKJ Numbers 6:2 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When either a man or woman consecrates an offering to take the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the LORD,

³ 'he shall separate himself from wine and similar drink;

Now notice it is a voluntary vow. But in the case of Samson it wasn't; it was imposed by God from the outside because He is going to try to teach something through Samson, which of course doesn't happen. What He is illustrating is that just as Sampson was to live separate unto God, so the Israelites were. But they don't. 

The first stipulation is he's not supposed to drink any wine or similar drink. So he's not to have any alcoholic beverage. Now this was a distinct class of individuals who took this voluntary vow in the Old Testament. It is not an indication that there is somehow something wrong with wine or with alcoholic beverages. Of course at that time you had only two kinds of alcoholic beverages. You had what the Bible translates as wine and what it translates as strong drink. Now strong drink wasn't Scotch or vodka or bourbon or anything like that because those are distilled beverages and we don't believe they had the ability to distill alcohol at that time in history. Strong drink (the Hebrew word) refers to a barley beer. The strong drink offering that you read about in the Old Testament was not wine, it was barley beer that was brought as an offering to God. So the Nazirite was to be completely separated - no wine.

he shall drink neither vinegar made from wine nor vinegar made from similar drink;

So that's what happens with the vinegar is that the wine goes sour and then that produces vinegar. But he's not to have anything to do with the vine. He can't even touch a grape it goes on to say. 

neither shall he drink any grape juice,

See it doesn't just have to do with the alcoholic part. He can't even have grape juice – no Welch's, nothing else. 

nor eat fresh grapes or raisins.

No raisin bran. He can't even touch a grape vine.

⁴ 'All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, from seed to skin.

He can't touch it, can't go near it. He can't go to a vineyard.

^NKJ Numbers 6:5 'All the days of the vow of his separation no razor shall come upon his head;

So first of all, nothing to do with grapes; secondly, he can't shave his hair (shave his beard).

until the days are fulfilled for which he separated himself to the LORD, he shall be holy.

That is set apart to the service of God.

Then he shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.

^NKJ Numbers 6:6 'All the days that he separates himself to the LORD he shall not go near a dead body.

That's the third thing. He can't touch the carcass, a dead body at any kind. 

^NKJ Numbers 6:7 'He shall not make himself unclean even for his father or his mother, for his brother or his sister, when they die, because his separation to God is on his head.

When they die, he can't go near the dead body. 

This is the vow that is set up because he is going to be set apart to deliver Israel from the Philistines. 

The Angel of the Lord appears to the mother and tells her. Then she goes back and tells her husband then prays to the Lord to have the man of God, the Angel of the Lord, to come back to confirm this which is what happens. That fills out pretty much the events in the first chapter. They discover that indeed the Angel of the Lord is actually God.

Chapter 14 began to tell us about Samson and his character and it begins with his first girlfriend.

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

So he's really going where he's not supposed to go. He goes to Timnah. Now Timnah is located right here. All of these lines indicate various movements that take place during this period. But I've zeroed in on the center part of the slide so we're not going to pay attention to that. I just want to see where these things take place. Timnah is just due west of Jerusalem. You have Timnah here and Zorah here. That's another Beth Shemish is where the Ark of the Covenant returns later on in 1 Samuel. Here is Gath here. Here's Ekron and Ashkelon and Gaza down here. These are the five cities of the Philistines:  Gath, Ekron, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gaza. 

So he goes to Timnah, which is clearly Philistine territory at this point. He is checking out the young women in Timnah. He goes back home and just see the arrogance that he has and his totally lack of respect for his parents, his total lack of authority orientation. 

He comes home and he says, "Dad, I saw this woman down in Timnah. I want to marry her. You make it happen."

I mean he's not asking: is this a good idea? And this is in direct violation of Deuteronomy 7:3. Deuteronomy 7:3 prohibits the intermarriage of Israelites with the Canaanites completely. They are not to intermarry at all. They are to be separate and distinct because God understands that once a man brings a pagan woman into the house that he is going to want to please her and before long he will compromise all of his beliefs in order to have peace in the home. That's what happened with Solomon later on with his foreign wives and it happens down through the ages. This is why even in the New Testament there is a mandate that believers are not to intermarry with unbelievers because it will destroy your spiritual life. 

I always tell parents, "You have to start drilling into your kids from the time they are old enough to understand that the worst thing they'll ever do, the easiest way to mess with their life is to get involved in missionary dating, and think that they'll go out on a date with some good looking girl and somehow convince her to be saved." 

I've seen this working both ways where you have girls go out with guys, guys go out with girls and they give them the gospel. There are few exceptions but most the time what I see is sort of in the heat and the passion of courtship there is a desire to please the other person. So "Yes. I'll go to church and this is fine."

Then as soon as they get married within the first month the husband and the wife decides, "You know I'm really not that excited about the church and I'm not going to go anymore."

I can't tell you how many times I've seen that in different churches that I have been in and in different situations. Then ten or fifteen years later you have one of them coming to you as pastor saying, "How in the world? What do I do now? I'm miserable. My kids are miserable. My wife is miserable. What do I do?"

Well, it's too late to go back to obey Scripture. But that is your fundamental flaw. You weren't careful about who you went out with. Just because you go out with a believer doesn't mean it's going to all work out either because if you go out and get married to a carnal believer it can be equally as bad.

But he clearly is in violation of the law. He has no regard at all for God or His Word. He just wants to fulfill his own lust. His parents have no backbone, and that's why he has become so spoiled—because they have never disciplined him in all of the days he has been growing up.

So his father says, "Well, why don't you marry a good Jewish girl and stay at home?"

He gets nowhere.

Samson says, "Get her for me. She pleases me." 

You can just hear him ordering his Dad to go down to this woman. But we're told what God is doing behind the scenes. Now us so that doesn't mean he's right.  It shows that even when we're doing wrong things, God is able to – what does it say in Romans 8:28?

^NKJ Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

He's working behind the scenes to accomplish His purposes. His purpose with Samson was to keep everything stirred up. People haven't turned back to God. They haven't called for a deliverer. But God knows that if He doesn't keep up everything in a state of chaos that the people all settle down in peace and intermarry with the Philistines and they'll lose their national identity and become even more paganized. God is at work in all of this because it will create a controversy and a conflict with the Philistines. 

So Samson goes down to Timnah with his father and mother. Notice verse 5. What is the key phrase in verse 5?

^NKJ Judges 14:5 So Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother, and came to the vineyards

Came to the what? Came to the vineyards.

of Timnah.

He is not supposed to be there. He is out there with the grape vines, so he's breaching his Nazirite vow again.

Now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him.

He's attacked by a young lion. 

^NKJ Judges 14:6 And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him,

…and he became spiritually mature? Oh no, it doesn't say that, does it?

See the role of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament didn't have anything to do with the spiritual life. It had to do with enabling the leaders of Israel to accomplish the task that God gave them. 

and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand.

I don't know. I'd probably have a tough time even tearing apart a young goat. But that's the metaphor that it would easily be torn up and destroyed. 

But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.

There's an element of secrecy. He's where he shouldn't be doing what he shouldn't be doing – in the vineyards.

"Oh. I'm not going to tell them." And he kills the lion. He goes down and talks with the woman. He was real happy with her. 

^NKJ Judges 14:7 Then he went down and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well.

^NKJ Judges 14:8 After some time, when he returned to get her, he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. And behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion.

I wonder what happened with that lion. Now what's normally going to happen? Most of you have driven enough on Texas highways in your life and seen enough of bloated dead animals on the side of the road to realize that when an animal or human being dies their body produces certain gases that eventually are released and that a carcass is pretty much a moist environment. I don't want to get too gross for some you. It wasn't that long ago that you had dinner.  But it is not a dry environment. Bees don't like wet environments. They don't make honeycombs in a wet environment. So there's something that God is doing here because this carcass has hardened rather than the normal process of deterioration and turning into just a gooey mass before it all deteriorates. So it sort of hardened. Now the bees come in and they have created a hive there and honey. Enough time has gone to where were this is a nice environment for them.  There's honey in the carcass of the lion. So he goes there.

^NKJ Judges 14:9 He took some of it in his hands and went along, eating. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they also ate. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion.

I would suggest that if he got the honey out of the carcass of the animal that he got pretty close to touching the animal. I can't imagine that he would be able to pull the honey out without touching the carcass. He violates the Nazirite vow again. 

He takes it with him and he goes to see his father-in-law; but he doesn't tell anybody what he's done or where he got the honey. At the end of the chapter there is the arrangement of the marriage. The father goes to the woman. Samson has a wedding feast there which was the normative thing for them to do.  When they saw him these Philistines brought 30 companions to be with them. So he's going to pose a riddle for them. 

^NKJ Judges 14:12 Then Samson said to them, "Let me pose a riddle to you. If you can correctly solve and explain it to me within the seven days of the feast, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.

We'll go down to the Galleria and go to Niemen's – these are the finest garments of the time. We'll get you 30 changes of clothes. 

^NKJ Judges 14:13 "But if you cannot explain it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing."

He thinks he's got them beat that and he's got a sure thing here. Never bet on a sure thing. 

And they said to him, "Pose your riddle, that we may hear it."

So he did.

^NKJ Judges 14:14 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 could not explain the riddle.

Then they come along, and they use the intimidation ploy on his bride-to-be. They put the pressure on her to entice him to explain the riddle and that if she doesn't do this then they will threaten the family, burn their house. They're just intimidating and having a little protection racket going on here. So Samson's wife begins to weep and to cry. Most men can't handle a crying woman very well and so he gives in. He explains the riddle and then she goes and gives it to them. They answer the riddle, and he gets very angry. He recognizes that if they had not worked her then they wouldn't have solved the riddle. 

^NKJ Judges 14:19 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave the changes of clothing to those who had explained the riddle. So his anger was aroused, and he went back up to his father's house.

This isn't the work of the Holy Spirit here; it is purely selfish motivation. He goes back to his father's house. Then Samson's wife is given to another person to marry.

^NKJ Judges 15:1 After a while, in the time of wheat harvest, it happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat. And he said, "Let me go in to my wife, into her room." But her father would not permit him to go in.

When the wheat harvest came, Samson decided, "Ah. I'm going to go find my wife and see if I can patch things up." 

He goes back and finds that she has been given to somebody else. Now he's going to take revenge against the Philistines. 

^NKJ Judges 15:4 Then Samson went and caught three hundred foxes; and he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.

Now this has always intrigued me. How did he catch the three hundred foxes? That's a lot of foxes. That's a lot of work. It takes time and obviously he's empowered by the Holy Spirit to accomplish this physical task. Then he tied their tails together. I don't know if you've ever handled a wild fox, but they really don't like you messing with them very much, much less tying their tails together and then sticking a torch between their tails. Then he released them, into the what? Into the vineyard! 

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

So once again he is in a place where he's not supposed to be, in a vineyard where he can come in contact with grapes and grape vines and everything else.

But God is using him to continue to stir up the trouble with the Philistines. 

Then we have the episode, if you skip down a few more verses down to verse 11 as they have this battle seems to be developing between the men of Judah and the Philistines. 

^NKJ Judges 15:11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? What is this you have done to us?" And he said to them, "As they did to me, so I have done to them."

"You're just making it a lot worse."

Their mentality is they've already gone over to the enemy. They have just completely caved into the pressure of the enemy and they no longer want to maintain a distinct identity. So he explains what he has done, because of "what when they did to me." 

"I would say I was perfectly justified in doing what they did."

^NKJ Judges 15:12 But they said to him, "We have come down to arrest you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines." Then Samson said to them, "Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves."

He makes them swear not to kill him but to protect him; and they take it to the Philistines. When he comes he finds a fresh jawbone of a donkey. Now is the donkey alive or dead? It's dead. He is messing with another carcass again. He is in violation of the Nazirite vow. 

Have you gotten a suggestion anywhere yet that he's prayed to God, asked God's guidance or cares a little bit about God? Not at all! He is just concerned about satiating his own lust and his own anger. 

So he goes and he kills a thousand Philistines with this jawbone. God in His grace provides for him. He gets very thirsty after all this fighting and God splits the hallow place and Lehi water comes out. So God is taking care of him because even though he's in a carnality. Even though he's in rebellion God is still using them to bring about His task. 

God can still use us to do what God wants us to do either in spite of us or with our cooperation. We just miss out on the blessing and a spiritual value if God has to use us in a state of carnality. 

Then chapter 16 tells the story that we're mostly familiar with which when he goes to Gaza and goes to a prostitute there. That is his second woman that he's involved with. Then after that episode he goes down and he has an affair (falls in love) with Delilah who is the third woman.

And we know the story about how Delilah comes under pressure from the Philistines and she is going to finally put the pressure on him and convince him to tell her what the secret to his strength is. So she cuts off all of his hair. This is when God leaves him, and she betrays him to the Philistines. 

^NKJ Judges 16:21 Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza.

So all the way down to the coast, just about as far away as he could get in the Philistine territory from home. 

They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder

A worker. 

in the prison.

^NKJ Judges 16:22 However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven.

Now this doesn't mean that there's something magical about the hair. It is simply that as his hair begins to grow and while it grows he has some time to reflect upon what his divine mission was and what his Nazirite vow was all about. This is where you see Sampson (although the text doesn't bring it out) beginning to refocus on God's mission for him.

So the people have this huge party. They have a great sacrifice to Dagon. They want Sampson brought out so that they can gloat and so they can torture him and ridicule him.

^NKJ Judges 16:25 So it happened, when their hearts were merry, that they said, "Call for Samson, that he may perform for us." So they called for Samson from the prison, and he performed for them. And they stationed him between the pillars.

It is at this point that Samson who is blind remember says:

^NKJ Judges 16:26 Then Samson said to the lad who held him by the hand, "Let me feel the pillars which support the temple, so that I can lean on them."

^NKJ Judges 16:27 Now the temple was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there -- about three thousand men and women on the roof watching while Samson performed.

It's a full house, standing room only and the roof is fully occupied, the original nosebleed section. 

^NKJ Judges 16:28 Then Samson called to the LORD, saying, "O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray!

At this point he calls upon him the right name (Lord God) emphasizing the covenant relationship that God had with Israel.

Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!"

What's he concerned about? Is he concerned about the glory of God? Is he concerned about delivering Israel, protecting them? No, he is concerned …

"These guys poked out my eyes and just give me strength one more time so I can have my vengeance because they poked out my eyes."

He is still self-absorbed just like Israel. When Samson dies here, Israel is still under the oppression of the Philistines. They don't become delivered from the Philistines until David comes along. So they're still under the oppression of the Philistines. He hasn't completely passed the task. But God in His grace still provides him strength because God's plan is to keep the trouble going between the Philistines and the Israelites. He's not answering the prayer because Samson is now in fellowship and Samson is now got everything figured out. He answers Samson's prayer because it fits His plan to do so, and He gives strength to Samson.

^NKJ Judges 16:29 And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left.

So the whole temple and all the people on top of it all collapsed.

^NKJ Judges 16:30 Then Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life.

But he never raises an army. He never delivers to people from the Philistines. He never goes into any of his conflicts with the Philistines in the name of the Lord. He never shows any understanding about the Lord and His plan except for his prayer.

Now when we're young immature believers we prayed a lot of things that were wrong; but we were basically focused on the right thing in some sense. We prayed selfish prayers and other things of that nature. This is that one little time when Samson gets it right. Now does that mean it was 100% right? No. But he gets is basically right, and he trusts God to be the one. He knows that God is the one who gives him the power to defeat the Philistines. So that is what takes place and that closes things out.

Now what you don't know unless you do all the chronology work is that there is another deliverer that was born about ten years after Samson and his name is Samuel. Samuel by this time is beginning to serve in the temple of God up in Judea, up in the hill country where the Tabernacle was being stored. He is serving under the high priest of Levi, and it is through Samuel who will anoint David that the ultimate deliverance will come. 

But the people aren't ready to be delivered yet. So there's no deliverance. The people are still in carnality. They end in the book of Judges in carnality. They end in disobedience to God. They're still under the oppression of the Philistines, and yet God at the same time that He's stirring up all this trouble with Samson is stirring up or bringing about the ultimate deliverance, which is going to be through Samuel.

We'll come back next time and look at the last pair of Hebrews 11:32 which focuses on Samuel and David. It is through Samuel and David that God delivers the nation from the oppression of the Philistines.

I've always thought –I taught Samuel years ago and maybe one day I'll go back another ten years or so and re-teach 1 and 2 Samuel. But I always thought it ought to be called The Gospel According to Samuel, because it starts off with the people in prison under the tyranny of the Philistines, and spiritually incapable, spiritually impotent. Yet at the end of Samuel, they're in their golden age and David and Solomon. It comes through the kingship of David, which is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. It foreshadows the basic principle we see all the way through Scripture, that if man is left to his own resources he just destroys everything because of sin, and it's only by complete dependence on God that we are delivered from the oppression of sin (slavery to sin), and it is only through Lord Jesus Christ that we have real happiness and that we have any real hope.

Let's bow our heads in closing prayer.