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.
There is a truth in the, "sweet hour of prayer," that we can have times of intimate communion with God. But there are also normal times where you may not be aware of His presence, but that doesn't mean He has left. When the lion roars, He won't let you down, He will be there for you.
3. The lion that wanted you for lunch became lunch for you and others.
Bees formed a nest there. Samson ate some of the honey, and he gave it also to his mom and dad.
Honey grows in the carcass of yesterday's trials.
Honey grows in the hallowed memory of what God has done for you.
Honey is for sharing!
He dipped his hands in honey and his mother and father did eat also.
When we make it our priority to seek first the kingdom of heaven God will see to it that we dip our hands in honey, for personal refreshment and to share with the world. Jesus in one of His post resurrection appearances says to Peter and some others who had left ministry and gone back to fishing, "children, have you any meat." (ie have you caught any fish?) They replied in the negative. It is God's intention that when the world comes knocking at our door, that we can reply in the affirmative. "Yes, I have meat." "I know what it is like to be down on your luck, but at my point of need Jesus helped me." Every child of God will have times when the lion roars, but it is only so that God may show Himself strong on our part and that we may dip our hands in the honey of answered prayer and share that testimony with the world.
In the Old Testament we read:
De 32:9 "For the LORD'S portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.
De 32:10 "He found him in a desert land, And in the howling waste of a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye.
De 32:11 "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, That hovers over its young, He spread His wings and caught them, He carried them on His pinions.
De 32:12 "The LORD alone guided him, And there was no foreign god with him.
De 32:13 "He made him ride on the high places of the earth, And he ate the produce of the field; And He made him suck honey from the rock, And oil from the flinty rock,
How many of you wished your parents did better financially so that you could have gotten an inheritance? Or if you did a bigger one?
God wants us to do good, we are His inheritance.
V. 10 describes life as we now know it: De 32:10 "He found him in a desert land, And in the howling waste of a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye.
Everything God did for them in the wilderness had one goal in mind: spiritual improvement.
We judge prayers by the quality of our answers, God judges prayers by the quality of the requests.
V. 11& 12 describes the process of being stretched for spritual growth.
Eagle stirreth up her nest.
Get out of the nest! But there are lions out there! Yes, but there is also a lion tearing anointing out there!
V. 13 He made him suck honey out of the rock.
Spiritual wilderness survival training includes a course on sucking honey out of the rock.
Rocks are hard.
Rocks are cold.
What are rocks good for? They are what you build your house on, thats what. They become part of the foundation of your spiritul house. Isn't that the very thing Samson suggested in his riddle, "Out of the Eater, came something Sweet".
Devil, I may be seeing hard places in my life right now, but God is going to cause me to suck honey out of the rock.
Lord help me to get the big picture of what is Going on here.
Close: prayer for honey to share
Spurgeon: Soldiers are made by war. You cannot train veterans or create victors except by battles. As in the wars of armies so is it in spiritual contests: men must be trained for victory over evil by combat with it. Hence " is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth" for it wilt not gall his
shoulders in after years.
Clark Tanner
Collect the spoils of your battle. Sampson was on his way down the same road when he came upon the site of the battle. The very lion that looked to kill him was now a sweet treat that would bless the man of God.
a.) Know that every battle that you win though the Lord will make you stronger and better. Every enemy you defeat will give you more confidence and more faith in God to face the next battle. It could be the very battle that you face right now that will in a short time turn in to one of your biggest blessings. Trust in the Lord and let him bless you in your valley.
Misc:
The main Bible character in this chapter is a man by the name of Sampson. His name means "like the sun." He was a Nazarite and judged Israel for some 20 years. He betrayed his Nazarite vows when he went down to Timnah. The word "Timnah" comes from a root word that means "to withhold, keep back, or hinder." It was certainly a step in the wrong direction for Sampson.
I am going to lift out the words Samson asked, when he said, "What is sweeter than honey?" (Judges 14:18). There are some things that are sweeter than honey. The sweetest honey that I know of in this life is "sourwood" honey, but there is a "heavenly honey" that will far surpass the sweetness of earthly honey. The honey I am talking about flows from the very throne of our God in heaven. Thank God for "heavenly honey."
There are two things I want to stress about honey.
First, it has a fragrance. Sourwood has a delightfully sweet fragrance to it. Two of the titles of Jesus in the Bible are: The Rose of Sharon, and also The Lily of the Valleys (Song of Sol.2:1). Both of those titles cause us to think of a sweet smell.
Secondly, it has flavor. The Bible says of our Lord, "O taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8). The Lord adds flavor to your life as does good honey to the human taste buds.
3rd it gives energy
The bees get their honey from various sources. Some of it comes from alfalfa, clover, aster, sunflower, citrus, goldenrod, wild flowers, buckwheat, sumac, yellow-poplar, basswood, sourwood, and other sources. Our heavenly honey comes from one source and it is divine. God is the source of all the sweetness that we get to enjoy in this present life. There is honey for the journey for me and for you.
I am going to try to answer the question now–though the right kind of honey is very sweet, what is better than honey? What is more satisfying and gratifying than honey to the taste?
I. God's Person Is Sweeter Than Honey
God is in a class all by himself. The Bible says in Micah 7:18, "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy." That is so unlike people. Humans develop long standing grudges and will not forgive, but not so with God. He delights in showing mercy and love.
We can make no improvements upon the person of God as He is revealed in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He is already all that He should be and will ever.
II. God's Presence Is Sweeter Than Honey
Jesus told his disciples on one occasion- "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
God's Precepts Are Sweeter Than Honey
Here is what the Psalmist said about it: "How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" (Psalms 119:103
