He Dipped His Hands In Honey

He dipped his hands in Honey

(Note to pastor's: spurgeon has an excellent message upon this text. It is, "Hands full of Honey," no. 1703, dated January 28th, 1883. He being dead yet speaketh!) I have included at the end of this text some thoughts I collected from around the web that helped me with my message preparation.

Jud 14:5 Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring towards him.

Jud 14:6 The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done.

Jud 14:7 Then he went down and talked with the woman, and he liked her.

Jud 14:8 Some time later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the lion's carcass. In it was a swarm of bees and some honey,

Jud 14:9 which he scooped out with his hands and ate as he went along. When he rejoined his parents, he gave them some, and they too ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion's carcass.

1.Suddenly a young lion came roaring towards him.

Summer reminds us storms can spring up suddenly, and they can be very violent.

This story reminds us evil is always lurking and always looking to pounce. You are more likely to get pounced in Timnah. (Samson was attracted to a Philistine woman who lived in Timnah). When you go to the devils side of town, don't be surprised if you get attacked!

Samson was in a vineyard most likely picking and eating grapes: Jud 14:5 "Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath: and, behold, a young lion roared against him." The text says he was with mom and dad, but if you read a little further they were with him, but somehow on the trip he had gone off on his own, and was attacked by a lion. A lion isn't something you want to face alone, and yet everyone will have a day (or a few) like this on your journey.

Jesus went to the wilderness by Himself, and was tempted of the devil. David describing his time alone speaks of being attacked by enemies and abandoned by his dearest friends :

Ps 31:11 To my enemies I'm a monster; I'm ridiculed by the neighbors. My friends are horrified; they cross the street to avoid me.

Ps 31:12 They want to blot me from memory, forget me like a corpse in a grave, discard me like a broken dish in the trash.

So we see there are times friends will forsake you, family will abandon you, and to top it off you will be attacked by vicious enemies, and you will have to go through it all alone. Most times you are forsaken it is not intentional on their part, it is just that God has decided you must walk this mountain path alone. And yet you are not alone. Everyone has battles that God sees to it they must fight alone. Jehoash was a King of Israel of whom the bible says: 2Ki 12:2 And Jehoash did right in the sight of the LORD all his days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. But we read that after Jehoiada died Jehoash started serving other gods. Jehoash had a faith that only worked when others were propping him up. God doesn't want us to live on the faith of others, but He sees to it that we are challenged to believe for ourselves. One of the ways He does this is to give us trials which we must go through alone so that our faith can grow, and we don't believe because someone else says we ought to, but we have found out for ourselves God is trustworthy. When the lion sneak attacked Samson something wonderful happened:

2. When the lion came roaring the Spirit came upon him in power.

God has a remedy for the roaring lion.

The remedy isn't revealed until the lion is roaring. The Spirit of God was already in Samson but it was only the trial that brought on the awareness of that Presence.

What I am trying to say is this, just because you don't feel God, doesn't mean He isn't with you. Think of it this way, if you have an emergency generator in your home when does it kick on? When you need it, when there is a black out. Do you have to go down into your basement every day to check and see if your generator is still there? But that is what some people are doing spiritually. If they don't feel God, they think He is not there. Listen Christianity is a covenant, God doesn't leave you every five minutes. He is there for better or for worse. He is in it for the long haul.