Life Lessons: Samson
Text: Judges 13-16
Intro
Good morning Real Life… My name is Curtis and I’m the Connections Pastor here.
Before we get going I just want to give a shoot out to all who helped at VBS this past week! We had a great time learning about some sports, and about King David. We had a ton of kids and so many volunteers. I think we got a picture you all can check out… But thank you to all who served! I hear the word on the street is the gaga ball was the best sport out there…
Today we are continuing our Lesson in the Life of series where we’ve been looking at various OT characters lives and seeing what we can learn from them.
Now I’m not that old, but I am old enough to remember when these (show picture of flannel graph) were cutting edge technology when it came to telling Bible stories. These were the hight of creativity of the time.
And many of the stories that we have been looking in the series I have memories of them being played out on these boards. If you grew up in church you probably have many memories of this too…
As a kid I remember Sunday school teachers acting out all these stories of the OT. But as I got older and went to Bible college, starting studying the Bible for myself, and now working in the Church for the past 6 or so years. I’ve come to realize is those sweet old Sunday School teachers left out BIG portions of those stories. Specifically the R and X rated portions.
I’ve been told that the OT is boring… I can see how you’d say that when you read through the book of Numbers. But just thumb threw some of the stories of the OT and you will see people sinning in spectacular ways. I mean they put us to shame. Story after story of people, a lot of times God’s people, doing things that if you just mentioned at the dinner table your mom would wash your mouth out with soap.
And maybe most shocking of all is that a lot of these sins were committed by people that you grew up thinking were these good Bible heroes. And it can be disconcerting to see some of the mistakes these people have made.
What we hope to do in this series is to learn some life lessons from what each of these people what they did well and what they failed at... But what we also hope to do is to look at the real main character of each these stories, which is God. Rather than viewing Moses, Abraham, Esther, and all the others as the main characters we want to see how God is ultimately directing their story…
We aren’t looking at perfect people that got it all right. We are looking at real people, with real problems, that did some things right and did a lot of things wrong. But despite all that God still had a plan for them. And I think that’s something we can relate too, right?
Too often we look at the Bible like it’s full of perfect people… But it’s not they are normal people just like us… And that’s who God uses to tell his story… Normal people like you and me.
So that’s what we want to do with this series. We want to re-examine many of these stories that we know and see what we can learn from their lives, what life lessons they can teach us. And then we want to look at Jesus for our ultimate example.
Tension
And today we are going to look at a story found in the book of Judges and this story is warning of sorts. A cautionary tale of how not to live. But also as we look at this story we need to look at it with the lens of what God can do even with someone that will not cooperate.
So we are going to take a look today at this guy named Samson. If you want to follow along today we are going to be covering a lot of territory in the book of Judges, from Judges 13-16.
This book isn’t for the faint of heart. If these book where made into a movie it would most certainly be a strong R for obnoxious violence, crude language, and a lot of sex… Just flip through and read some of the headings on the chapters of this book and that will make you blush.
This book takes place about 1000 years before Jesus and throughout this book we see a pattern. Throughout Judges we see people start to do what is right in their own eyes. Which is often opposite of what God says is right… Maybe that sounds kind of familiar to you. But what happens in this narrative is the people do what they want for awhile but then they start suffering the consequences of their actions. So they run back to God and ask for forgiveness because things aren’t working out for them.
And God because he’s different then me. He’s gracious and faithful, unlike me… so he saves them again, and again and again. And he does this by raising up judges to save the people from the people that are enslaving them.
So where we are going to pick up the story it’s the Philistines that are giving them a hard time. You probably know the Philistines from the story of David and Goliath because the Goliath was a Philistine, but this takes place long before that story. This oppression from the Philistines has been going on for about 40 years. So God decided he’s going to raise up a judge to deal with them and Samson was that guy.
Now we’ve heard bits and pieces of this story. When you hear Samson the next name you think of is… Delilah. But what I want to talk about to talk about today is the parts of the story they didn’t teach in Sunday school. I want to look at the parts that they didn’t make flannel graph pieces for. And I want to see what we can learn from his life.
Truth
Samson’s story takes place in Judges 13-16… There’s a lot to cover so I’m going to show you some of the texts from Judges and summarize the rest. But I would encourage you to go read these later.
Samson was a unique individual, he was a nazarite. A nazarite was someone who took a vow from Numbers 6 to abstain from certain things. Most people that took a Nazarite vow would do so for a period of time. But from birth Samson was told he had to follow this his whole life. And his parents were told of this before he was born. And we are going to see he wasn’t very good at it.
This vow was interesting it involved abstaining from:
1. Alcohol
Or anything with grapes or raisins.
2. No shaving or cutting hair
3. Can’t touch a dead body
I had a few friends in college that took a Nazarite vow their freshman year just to see how it was. It didn’t last that long… Once their girlfriends started complaining about their unkept hair…
The purpose of this vow was to show that you were devoted to God. You might do it for a few weeks, few months, maybe a year. But for Samson it was his whole life. And you have to imagine that Samson, who didn’t choice this life, got a little frustrated right? I mean growing up playing baseball going to catch a fly ball but then his long hair got in the way and he dropped it… At a wedding all his friends drinking wine having a good time and he’s left in the corner… You can imagine that if you are Samson you’d be a little bit upset over having to be so different then all the other kids.
But he is also born with a mission, we see that in Judges 13:5 “he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines”… That’s a big mission… How is one person supposed to accomplish that? The answer is he’s not going to accomplish that by his own power. He will accomplish that by God’s power.
And we see this start to happen early on in Samson’s life…
And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson. And the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him… Judges 13:24-25
That word stir literally means to motivate him to action. God was working in Samson’s life to motivate him to action. And we will see this over and over again.. You’ve probably heard the story that Samson’s power was in his hair… Which is true in one sense. We will see that played out at the end of the story. But ultimately we see in this verse that Samson’s power came from God.
But this is where to problems start because it wasn’t only the spirit of God motivating Samson to action…Women also were a main motivator in his life…
The very first thing we see Samson do in his life. Is go into a philistine town, enemy territory, and he spots a woman who he thinks is very attractive. So he marches home and goes straight to his parents and he demands his parents to go get her for him, because he says she’s super hot and I want to marry her. It says something like that in Hebrew…
His parents argue… And say but God commanded us to not marry outside our nation. Plus it’s just unwise to literally sleep with the enemy… But Samson reveals the mission statement for his life when he is arguing with his father. But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is What? Right in who’s eyes? right in my eyes.” Judges 14:3
And you probably remember that this was what Israel did. They kept doing what was right in their eyes, rather than Gods. And they would suffer the consequences for their actions and then they would go running back to God.
Samson is supposed to be different. He’s supposed to live distinctive among the Israelites. But he’s doing the same thing that they were doing. And that’s what gets God’s people into trouble all the time…
Let’s pause for a minute in this story… If we are honest this is many of our mission statements in our lives. We do what is right in our own eyes. We do what we want, when we want, and we live under this delusion that that is the best way to live. That’s the American dream.. Until we learn the hard way that’s actually a terrible way to live and our eyes get opened… And Samson, much like us is going to have to learn the hard way.
So Samson gets his way and the marriage gets arranged and the party is going to last 7 days. Which is very normal in this culture. And so Samson goes back into the Philistine town to make plans for the wedding. And on his way there he walks through a vineyard… Now remember that he’s a nazarite, he’s not supposed to be anywhere near that.
But there he is… And while he’s walking through the vineyard he gets attacked by a lion…
And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring.6 Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces I love this next phrase as if it’s a normal occurrence in ones life… as one tears a young goat. Judges 14:5-6
You know… Common things… Everyone years up young goats for their backyard summer parties right?
If you were to sit down and study Samson’s life you’d find about 10 supernatural feats that Samson. But we often don’t pay attention that it is by the power of the HS that he does these things. So growing up I always pictured him like Arnold Sawartzeager in his prime (Show Picture, leave up until next picture) and I think that’s the picture many of us have.
But let me ask you, what would show more clearly that God was working through him? If he looked like that, maybe this… (Show Picture Barney Fife). That I think is more evident that people around would say yeah something else is giving that dude power. Because that dude right there would get killed by a goat, he wouldn’t rip one up…
Obviously that’s a joke and I cannot prove that. But picture him this way for the rest of the story. Because we see time and time again that Samson is not acting by his own power, but by Gods.
So Samson plans what he needs to plan and starts heading back a few days later. And he passes by the same path and goes over to look at the lion he killed. When he approaches the carcass he notices that there is a swarm of bees around it. So he walks by and notices that the carcass is full of honey. So he dips his hand in and eats it on his way home. And all God’s people said… EW.
He’s already been teetering on the edge by walking through a vineyard, not once but twice. But now he has blatantly disregarded God’s law by touching a dead body. And not only did he touch a dead body, but he ate something from the dead body…
Samson was called to live distinctively and differently. But he says, yeah no, I’m not interested. I’m going to do what I want when I want to… He’s a hypocrite really. Remember he hasn’t told anyone what he has done. He looks one way on the outside, but his actions are totally different. Have you ever lived that way?
The story continues… The wedding is now here and Judges tells us that they had to bring in 30 men for Samson’s bridal party… Meaning Samson had no friends, they had to hire a group of guys to come and be around him. He’s a loner, he’s isolated, and he’s on his own.
Samson can’t help himself from getting in more trouble… So he makes a bet with the men. He poses a riddle to them and says look if you cannot solve this riddle over the next 7 days of this wedding feast then all 30 of you have to buy me a new suit, a new set of clothes. But if you can solve the riddle then I will buy each of you a new suit. They accept the bet and the riddle went like this…
“Out of the eater came something to eat.
Out of the strong came something sweet.” Judges 14:14
Of course they can’t figure out the riddle because it’s about Samson killing the lion and eating the honey and nobody but Samson knows about it. So after 3 days they feel foolish for not being able to solve the riddle and since they don’t really like him anyway they decide to manipulate the system.
So they go to Samson’s new wife and say hey figure out this riddle for us or we are going to go to you and your father and mother and your whole family and burn you all to death… I told you this story is rated R…
So she goes to Samson and cries to him saying you haven’t told me… How could you keep this from me? You have to tell me… He resists at first but the Bible says she cried for the rest of the party begging him to tell her… And on the LAST day he caved and told her. And she went and told the 30 men.
So they went and told him the answer…
“What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion?” Judges 14:18
And Samson with his response does not endear himself to any woman…
“If you had not plowed with my heifer,
you would not have found out my riddle.”Judges 14:18
I’m just going to move on…
Samson is not a rich guy and he can’t pay the debt that he know owes… Which think about this, it’s purely his fault. Had he held out for one more day he would have won… But Samson has no self control.
And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father's house. 14:19-20
So right off the bat what we learn about Samson is that he is vengeful and angry. Now remember God’s mission for his life… It was to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines. Which means he is going to have to fight against the Philistines. And he’s doing that… So God’s accomplishing his purposes, even in the midst of Samson’s sin… Hang onto that.
So awhile later Samson get’s lonely and he goes back to visit with his wife. This was actually a common practice during that day. When the Israelites would intermarry the Philistines. Often times the wife would stay in her homeland and live with her parents. And the husband would come visit every so often, and really the visits were only for one reason.
So again we see Samson’s true colors. He’s not interested in being a loving husband. He’s really only interested in one thing and one thing only. But when he gets to town and her father tells Samson that he has given her away to his best friend.
And this time Samson gets REALLY angry. And he does some really strange stuff. And listen, I don’t remember in Sunday school seeing flannel graph pieces for this stuff. But if you have them I would love to see this…
It’s the time of wheat harvest in this town, which has huge economic implications. It brings them a lot of their money. So what does Samson think the next logical thing for him to do in order to take his revenge? Obviously you catch 300 foxes… Which is what he did.
He caught 300 foxes, I have no idea how… He tied them tail to tail… Again I have no idea how. Look if you are a member of PETA, you are going to hate this… He sets them on fire and sets them loose in the wheat field which burns them to the ground.
So the Philistines in retaliation do what they said they were going to do originally if she didn’t help with the riddle so they burn Samson’s wife’s house down with her and her father in it. I don’t remember hearing this story in Sunday school do you?
The Philistines are so mad they decide to go to war against the Israelites. When the Israelites find out what happen they say look, we don’t like Samson either. And so they broker a deal if they turn Samson over then they won’t go to war. So the Israelites tie Samson up and leave him on a rock for the Philistines. Judges 15 tells us what happens next:
the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. 15 And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men. Judges 15:14-15
Serious this is like John Wick or 300 or something…
Again we see Samson breaking his vow by picking up a jawbone and then killing 1,000 men… And this pattern is played out over and over again. Samson does what is right in his eyes with no regard for God. He think’s he’s doing it by his strength. But the Bible makes it clear it’s by God’s strength.
So far we haven’t even seen Samson acknowledge God’s power. He seems to be always doing the wrong them, but ending up on top. But now after killing a 1000 men with a jawbone he is very thirsty… And we see him acknowledge God for the first time. Samson didn’t acknowledge God until he got to a bad place and had a real need.
And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised? Judges 15:18
This prayer probably sounds familiar. Because many of us we don’t acknowledge God in our lives until we have a bad day. And then who’s the first person we call out? Yeah.. And that’s what Samson does. And God because he’s not like me, has compassion and splits open a rock and provides water for him…
You’d think that this would be the turning point in Samson’s life… You’d think that after this he’d recognize all he’d done wrong and turn back to God but he doesn’t. He doesn’t. Instead he goes to the next town and finds a prostitute and spends the night with her.
Application
This marks a turning point in Samson’s story. If were to read the rest of the story you would notice the Bible no longer mentions that “the spirit of the lord” rushed upon him. At least not until the very end and we will get there. Here’s something we need to recognize. God is kind, he is compassionate, he is loving. But God will not be mocked. And God is not willing to let people keep rebelling against him without them feeling some of the consequences of their sinful actions.
There’s a couple more fascinating stories about Samson that I want to tell you about, but we just don’t have time…
And at this point in Samson’s story there’s a really important lesson we need to catch…. Here’s what strikes me in Samson’s story at this turning point… I am far more like Samson then I care to admit… If I were to start listing all the ways that I have done what is right in my eyes rather than God’s… We would be here all day.
If you were to just look at the problems my wife and I have had over the years the root cause of almost all of our problems have been because I did what was right in my eyes and not Gods. My life looks a lot more like Samson’s life then I care to admit.
Come on… Be honest with yourself this morning. You relate too. I’m guessing that the majority of your problems in your life are because you do what is right in your eyes far too often.
Many of our life philosophies have been to do what is right in our eyes. If it feels good, do it. But that philosophy didn’t lead us where we thought it would. It broke us. And because God is good he forgave us and restores us.
It’s at this point where Samson finds himself. And he has a choice to make, should I stop what I’m doing and follow God? Or take his forgiveness and keep doing my own thing?
And sadly for Samson, and many of us, he choose the later. Rather then live in freedom he choose to go back to his old ways that caused so much destruction.
And here’s the lesson we get from Samson’s life… You cannot expect to go back to your old ways and get new results.
This is Israelites did, this is what Samson did, and this is what many of us do. We do what is right in our own eyes. our life falls apart. We cry out to God. He saves us. And then we go right back to where we started.
Listen if you keep going back to your old ways don’t be surprised by the destruction it brings. And yeah God will forgive you… But at some point he’s going to say you know what you can’t keep using me like that. And he’s going to give you what you want, life without him. He’s going to let you feel the weight of your sin so that hopefully you will see your error and come back to him.
That’s love right? Love cannot be forced, it’s a choice, and God will never force you to love him. So if you choose to not follow him he will let you go. But He will always take you back.
Unfortunately for Samson he chooses to keep doing his own thing…
Which leads to us to the most famous part of the story. Samson’s life decisions finally catch up too him. In Judges 16 we see Samson fall in love with Delilah. But what he doesn’t know is Delilah is working with the Philistines to trap him. She’s trying to learn his weakness so that they can capture him since he’s killed so many of them.
Over the course of this chapter we see Delilah seduce Samson and then beg him to tell her his secret to his strength. And he tells her a lie to appease her, she ties him up, calls in the Philistines, Samson breaks free and kills them. We see this play out over and over again.
Now I’m not sure why Samson kept letting Delilah tie him up… Well I have one idea, but we aren’t going to go there…
But he has to know at this point that she is just with him to trap him. But he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about wisdom, he doesn’t care about what God says is best, His ONLY concern is getting what he wants. He is a slave to his lust and desires. So he keeps going back to the same trap. Knowing full well what is going to happen. But confident in his own strength to get him out.
Maybe you can relate… You know what you are doing is wrong. But you don’t care you keep going back knowing at some point you will get burned. But you are a slave to your own desires.
If you continue down that path it will destroy everything you love.
One day Samson has finally had enough of Delilah’s nagging. The Bible says Samson was sick to death of her nagging… So finally gives in and tells his secret. His power is in his hair. Samson has to know what is going to happen next… But he lets it happen. He’s a slave to his desires. He falls asleep with her, she calls the Philistines in, they shave his head. He wakes up and tries to break free… But this time God has left him and he has no power.
Does this ring a bell? It’s like Samson’s life is on repeat… Remember the first riddle we looked at? All Samson had to do was not give in and he would have been fine… But he cannot help himself. His own life is in ruins and it’s his lack of self control that’s the cause.
Up to this point Samson had broken every rule but one… he had not cut his hair. God had patiently been waiting for him to repent. But when he breaks the last rule God isn’t there to bail him out. Samson has to suffer the consequences. Why? Because God wants him to feel the weight of what he has done so that maybe, just maybe Samson will repent and come back.
The Philistines take Samson gouge his eyes out and put him into forced labor. After a while of that they bring him out at a party and chain him to his pillars as entertainment. They mock him and watch as he entertains them. Well it just so happened they chained him to pillars supporting a roof with 3000 Philistines on it. Samson, maybe for the first time, gets it and prays an honest prayer. He begs God for strength one more time. He recognizes that it was God that did everything through him. God gives him the strength and he pulls the roof down killing the 3000 Philistines and himself.
God’s purpose for Samson’s life was accomplished. But because Samson’s continued and blatant sin it was done the hard way.
That’s Samson’s life… A sad story really. A man that literally destroys everything in his life, including himself, in his pursuit of what is right in his eyes.
Yet in this story we can probably see more of ourselves then we care too. And I think this story is important because it’s a warning about what a life lived by doing what is right in our eyes will lead too.
Conclusion
Here’s a question to prayerfully consider this week…
Who are you living for?
Are you living for God or for yourself? This story we looked at is a cautionary tale of what living for yourself will lead too. So look at your life what are you living for?
There are some of you in this room that haven’t decided to follow Jesus. And you’ve been living for yourself and now you are wondering if there’s a better way to live.
And there are others of you that have been following God for awhile. But there is a still an aspect of two of your life that you haven’t turned over to God. In that area you still do what is right in your eyes.
Samson is about as far as you can get from Jesus… And you have a choice this morning. Who do you want to follow? Do you want to be like Samson and live your life doing whatever you see is right? Do whatever feels right in the moment?
Or do you want to follow Jesus and do what he says is right?
Here’s your homework this week… Take a few minutes this week and ask yourself, who am I living for? Maybe write out some of your life’s ambitions and ask yourself what do these say I’m living for? Ask yourself am I relying on my own strength to get through life (which will run dry) or am I relying on God’s strength? This week get alone with God and ask him to reveal areas in your life that you living for yourself.
The challenge for us is to admit that you know what, I’m not that strong I need Jesus in every aspect of my life. Wouldn’t it be easy to go ahead and do that now rather then wait for the destruction our sin brings?
Jesus, unlike Samson, is a totally selfless savior. He serves, he loves, he provides, and he protects. He does for us, what we could not do for ourselves. He loves you and wants good for you. So who are you living for? Who’s strength are you relying on? What parts of your life are you still doing what is right in your eyes?
You can’t keep going back to your old ways and expecting different results. Why don’t you give, whatever it is, to Jesus this morning? Spend some time this afternoon or later this week alone with God give him the areas of your life that you are still doing what is right in your eyes.
It’s never easy to do this… But Samsons life shows us the result of when we don’t do it.
Pray…
