Chico Alliance Church
December 1, 2002
Pastor David Welch
“Samson”
Unlikely Heroes Part Six
Introduction
We have learned some important lessons by observing the kind of people God uses to accomplish his purposes on this earth.
Mainly, they are people with some of the exact same struggles that we face and yet found themselves mightily used by God to bring significant victory for God’s kingdom.
Barak in all his reluctance courageously faced the enemy and brought about victory.
Gideon, in spite of a long list of inadequacies became a courageous warrior and leader.
God used Jephthah an illegitimate impulsive tough guy to deliver from Ammonite oppression.
We began to look at the life of a most unlikely hero; Samson who was born with every advantage but was driven by hormones.
You might sum up Samson’s life as follows: a thrilling supernatural birth, a turbulent self-indulgent life, a tragic premature end.
I. Thrilling Beginning
A. Samson’s parents in their Home town of Zorah in Dan
There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had borne no children. 13:2
Childless couple Manoah and his (unnamed) wife from the tribe of Dan
B. Angelic announcement to Manoah’s wife
You shall conceive and have a son who shall begin to deliver Israel and be a lifelong Nazirite, one specially dedicated to the Lord.
C. The wife’s conversation with Manoah
D. Manoah’s conversation with the Lord
E. The Angel visit
F. The Sacrifice and divine affirmation
This incident reinforced the identity of the one who had been speaking with them.
G. Samson’s birth
H. Samson’s call
II. Turbulent life
A. Driven by the lust of the eye
A Philistine woman catches his eye and he demands that she become his wife.
B. Blessed and protected in spite of rebellion
C. Broken vow to God
The Nazirite was not to come near a dead carcass let alone eat out of one.
Samson’s physical lust not only caused him to despise his heritage and defy his parents but to defile his body, deceive and defile his parents as well.
Unbridled lust and passion always destroys relationships, breeds deeper rebellion and selfishness and leads to ultimate ruin.
D. Bitter betrayal and broken marriage
Then his father went down to the woman; and Samson made a feast there, for the young men customarily did this. When they saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.
Then Samson said to them, "Let me now propound a riddle to you; if you will indeed tell it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen wraps and thirty changes of clothes. "But if you are unable to tell me, then you shall give me thirty linen wraps and thirty changes of clothes." And they said to him, "Propound your riddle, that we may hear it." So he said to them,
"Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet."
But they could not tell the riddle in three days.
Then it came about on the fourth day that they said to Samson’s wife, "Entice your husband, so that he will tell us the riddle, or we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us to impoverish us? Is this not so?" Samson’s wife wept before him and said, "You only hate me, and you do not love me; you have propounded a riddle to the sons of my people, and have not told it to me." And he said to her, "Behold, I have not told it to my father or mother; so should I tell you?" However she wept before him seven days while their feast lasted. And on the seventh day he told her because she pressed him so hard. She then told the riddle to the sons of her people. So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, "What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?"
And he said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, You would not have found out my riddle."
Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of them and took their spoil and gave the changes of clothes to those who told the riddle. And his anger burned, and he went up to his father’s house. But Samson’s wife was given to his companion who had been his friend. 14:10-20
What looks good form the outside isn’t always good on the inside.
Samson thought he was getting a “head turner” and ended up with a “spine grater”.
He thought he picked a winner but married a whiner.
Even though Samson was God’s choice he suffered the consequences of his own choices.
Betrayed by his wife
Conned by the cons
Controlled by rage
Defrauded by his father-in-law
Betrayed by his friend
E. Driven by revenge
But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat, and said, "I will go in to my wife in her room." But her father did not let him enter. Her father said, "I really thought that you hated her intensely; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please let her be yours instead." Samson then said to them, "This time I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm." Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned the foxes tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails. When he had set fire to the torches, he released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, thus burning up both the shocks and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and groves. Then the Philistines said, "Who did this?" And they said, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion." So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. Samson said to them, "Since you act like this, I will surely take revenge on you, but after that I will quit." He struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam. 15:1-8
God’s ultimate purpose is to reduce the Philistine rule over Israel.
He purposed to use Samson even though he had all the wrong motives for what he did.
Revenge, rage, jealousy.
Paul looked for end result he wrote to the Philippians about some preaching the gospel with bad motives.
the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, Philip. 1:17-18
F. Isolated & Betrayed by his own people
and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah, and spread out in Lehi. The men of Judah said, "Why have you come up against us?" And they said, "We have come up to bind Samson in order to do to him as he did to us." Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?" And he said to them, "As they did to me, so I have done to them." They said to him, "We have come down to bind you so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines." And Samson said to them, "Swear to me that you will not kill me." So they said to him, "No, but we will bind you fast and give you into their hands; yet surely we will not kill you." Then they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.
When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him mightily so that the ropes that were on his arms were as flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds dropped from his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out and took it and killed a thousand men with it. Then Samson said, "With the jawbone of a donkey, Heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have killed a thousand men."
There was no gratitude by the people for deliverance from Philistine harassment.
The people rejected Samson’s help.
He was left to fight his own battles.
He rejected his parents and became rejected by his own people.
Hated and hunted by his enemies and betrayed by his people.
Yet God still used Him to bring about His purposes.
G. Bitter at God
When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi. Then he became very thirsty, and he called to the LORD and said, "You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?" But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi so that water came out of it. When he drank, his strength returned and he revived. Therefore he named it En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. So he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines. 15:8-20
This was the first prayer by Samson but it was filled with resentment and demandingness.
In spite of his attitude God chose to supply his need.
Appetites drove Samson’s life.
Lust caused him to marry a daughter of the enemy.
Hunger (sweet tooth) caused him violate his Nazarite vow.
Vengeance caused him to destroy the enemy.
Pride caused him to try to deceive the bride’s family.
Now thirst causes him to rail at God.
Samson completed the lust triangle; lust of the eye, lust of the flesh and the pride of life (lust for power).
Yet God continues to use him in spite of him.
Pure grace operated all through Samson’s life.
God’s gifting and ministry through Samson didn’t change.
However, Samson’s fleshly lifestyle did affect his enjoyment of ministry.
There are times in our life that our attitude stinks and our motives are bad but God brings about eternal purposes anyway.
We realize that God accomplished something through us but we grumbled and complained all through it.
We could enjoy ministry for God but because of our attitude lose not only the joy but the reward as well.
H. Unbridled desire leading to ultimate destruction
Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her.
Samson went from occasional fraternization with the enemy to full scale interaction.
The city of Gaza was a major Philistine city.
When it was told to the Gazites, saying, "Samson has come here," they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. And they kept silent all night, saying, "Let us wait until the morning light, then we will kill him." Now Samson lay until midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts and pulled them up along with the bars; then he put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron. 16:1-3
After this it came about that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
Sorek means “choice vines”.
The text does not say specifically but it is likely that Samson had no regard for the second aspect of his vow to avoid contact with grapes.
There is now only one aspect of the Nazirite vow left for Samson to break.
The lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Entice him, and see where his great strength lies and how we may overpower him that we may bind him to afflict him. Then we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver." So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me where your great strength is and how you may be bound to afflict you." Samson said to her, "If they bind me with seven fresh cords that have not been dried, then I will become weak and be like any other man." Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh cords that had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now she had men lying in wait in an inner room. And she said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" But he snapped the cords as a string of tow snaps when it touches fire. So his strength was not discovered.
More deception, betrayal, stemming from unbridled lust.
BEcaue of his lust he chooses to live in denial and ignore the obvious.
It is not told that Delilah was a prostitute but the likelihood was high since she was willing to betray Samson for money.
Proverbs provides some cautionary advice concerning the consequences of sensual women.
With her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him.
Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter,
Or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool, until an arrow pierces through his liver;
As a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know that it will cost him his life. Proverbs 7:21-23
Then Delilah said to Samson, "Behold, you have deceived me and told me lies; now please tell me how you may be bound." He said to her, "If they bind me tightly with new ropes which have not been used, then I will become weak and be like any other man." So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" For the men were lying in wait in the inner room. But he snapped the ropes from his arms like a thread.
Then Delilah said to Samson, "Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies; tell me how you may be bound." And he said to her, "If you weave the seven locks of my hair with the web [and fasten it with a pin, then I will become weak and be like any other man." So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and wove them into the web]. And she fastened it with the pin and said to him, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" But he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin of the loom and the web.
Then she said to him, "How can you say, ’I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength is." It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death. So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, "A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak and be like any other man."
When Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, "Come up once more, for he has told me all that is in his heart." Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. She made him sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his hair. Then she began to afflict him, and his strength left him. She said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" And he awoke from his sleep and said, "I will go out as at other times and shake myself free." But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.
There comes a point when God chooses to remove His blessing.
We can grieve and quench the Spirit.
We can fall short of God’s grace for the moment and resist it and not appropriate it.
We can be disqualified from ministry. Paul disciplined his body to avoid disqualification.
We can desert the ministry as did Demas having loved this present world.
We can reject a good conscience and suffer shipwreck.
We can ignore the warnings of Hebrews not to drift, doubt, default, defect, despise and suffer greater and greater discipline of the Lord.
We can sin a sin unto death.
Samson crossed the line.
Samson ignored God’s call and special mark on his life and followed his own way too long and lost everything.
Then the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze chains, and he was a grinder in the prison. However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it was shaved off. 16:4-22
How ironic that Samson lost some of the very things he misused for selfish purposes.
He lost his eyes.
He lost his freedom.
He lost his strength.
He lost the manifested presence of God.
Be careful how you use the gifts that God has given you.
Whether it be financial resources, physical strength, beauty, talent, hormones, appetites, time, freedom.
God want us to dedicate everything to God as instruments of righteousness.
There are temporal consequences for bad choices.
Even though we may be used by God, the choice we make still have consequences.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Galatians 6:7-8
However, God is love and merciful and stands ready to bless again when we believe again.
God responds to faith.
Samson had a thrilling supernatural beginning, a turbulent self-indulgent life which led to and tragic premature end.
III. Tragic end
A. Samson’s humiliation
Now the lords of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice, for they said, "Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hands."
When the people saw him, they praised their god, for they said, "Our god has given our enemy into our hands, even the destroyer of our country, who has slain many of us."
It so happened when they were in high spirits, that they said, "Call for Samson, that he may amuse us." So they called for Samson from the prison, and he entertained them. And they made him stand between the pillars. Then Samson said to the boy who was holding his hand, "Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them." Now the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there. And about 3,000 men and women were on the roof looking on while Samson was amusing them. Judges 16:23-27
B. Samson’s humility
Then Samson called to the LORD and said, "O Lord (Master) GOD (Almighty), please remember me and please strengthen me just this time, O God, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes." 16:28
Probably for the first time, Samson called to the LORD with genuine humility recognizing his own helplessness and hopelessness apart from God.
Humility is the soil from which genuine faith grows.
God resists the proud but grants grace to the humble.
This was Samson’s defining moment of faith that, I believe, granted him a place in the Hebrews 11 hall of faith along with Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, David and Samuel.
Samson finally recognized God as Master of his life.
He addressed him as Lord God (Adonai-Master the Elohim-Almighty.)
Even though appears to still nurse an underlying desire for personal retribution, he cried out to God to act on his behalf to bring about the impossible.
Faith believes God to do what he powerfully promised and that we can’t possibly produce.
He no longer acted proudly on his own strength but called out to God for renewed strength.
No arrogant demand; only a humble request to remember him and use him once again.
Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and braced himself against them, the one with his right hand and the other with his left. And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" And he bent with all his might so that the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life. Then his brothers and all his father’s household came down, took him, brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. Thus he had judged Israel twenty years. 16:29-31
What a tragic end to such a thrilling beginning.
Samson traded vital relationship with God for temporal sensuality with women.
His life was driven by personal revenge rather than national redemption.
His life was full of unhappy consequences as a result of unwise choices and unbridled lust.
Defied parents, broken marriage, responsible for wife and family’s death, married outside the faith, pettiness, betrayal, vengeance, anger, isolation, he was hunted, lonely, rejected by his own, lost his eyes, his freedom and his self respect.
The one chosen and empowered by God to deliver Israel from bondage, himself dies in bondage to the ones he was called to defeat.
His pursuit of the things that he thought would bring happiness cause him to lose the very things he pursued; lost sexual expression, probably food, and his pride.
Even though God used Samson, as defiled as he was, to bring about His purposes, I can’t help but wonder what God might have accomplished through Samson had he learned the lesson of humble trust at the beginning of his life.
Luke mentions that Jesus could not do many miracles in Nazareth because of their unbelief.
Someone once said that one of the things over which we will grieve when we see the whole picture is what we were in light of what we could have been had we fully surrendered to God.
One aspect of the sin circle or pattern was absent in this last cycle -- the period of rest.
The rest periods after deliverance lasted 31-80 years; with most at 40 years.
Samson judged Israel 20 years none of which provided rest.
Rest comes when we trust and obey and Samson did neither until the end.
Since the deliverance was incomplete because the deliverer was insubordinate, the Philistine threat, though restrained for the moment, continued.
The dreaded Philistines would continue to torment Israel for generations to come.
Lessons to live by
• Godly heritage does not guarantee godly living.
Trust and obedience is a daily individual choice.
Everyone is responsible for their own relationship with God.
Are you struggling with your heritage and background today?
So choose to trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.
• God uses us because of His choice and His grace not our greatness.
We must continually remember that just because we had devotions or gave money in the offering or did some good deed that God can use us more.
The reality is that he has used donkeys to bring about his purposes.
He can call rocks to praise Him and proclaim Him if he has to.
If you feel more usable because of some work of yours you don’t understand grace.
So don’t think you are so great that God has to use you to do great things.
Are you struggling today that God could never use you again because of what you have done?
Unless you have committed the sin unto death there is hope for new life.
John said to pray for those sinning and God will give them life.
Don’t think you are so awful that God can’t use you to accomplish great things.
• God in His marvelous grace indeed can, and does use unlikely people in spite of our poor life choices, but the choices of life here do affect the consequences of life here and hereafter.
Life feel like Samson’s?
It may not be too late.
You can exercise faith today.
You can come in humility and offer yourself to God as a living sacrifice.
So…
Don’t expect God to eliminate consequences of poor choices just because he uses you.
Purpose to continually seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Solomon experienced a similar conclusion as Samson.
He tried everything to fill the void in his life and found it all a vapor, vanity, meaningless.
He wrote some heart griping advice to young people today.
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them"; Eccles. 12:1
The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. vs 13-14
• Unbridled passion always hinders ministry impact and leads to deeper bondage and eventual ruin.
• Bondage to the flesh leads to bondage to the enemy.
James provides a simple chain of events in this regard.
But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. James 1:14-15
When we refuse to deny the flesh and leave our passions unbridled an enticing circumstance joins with unbridled lust and sin is conceived and eventually births a sinful offspring intended to carry on the family resemblance.
When sin is allowed to take root and grow up it brings destruction.
The point is to keep lust in check to that circumstance and lust don’t have an opportunity.
A life of sin leads to a life of bondage to the enemy.
We become slaves to those we choose to obey.
Eventually the choice is gone and we are trapped by the very thing we though validated our freedom.
Have you allowed the passions of your life to control your life?
Do you feel out of control?
So…
Walk by faith by the power of the Spirit so you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Make no provision for the flesh in regards to it’s passions but clothe yourself with Christ.
• Friendship with the enemy and his way of doing things brings bondage,
Have you become comfortable with bondage and the things of this world?
SO…
Don’t accept less than God’s full promise of freedom.
Don’t love the world or its stuff
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. 1 John 2:15-17
We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:19-20
You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:4
Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee. Draw near to God and he will draw near.
