Let's open with a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we are glad that we can
be together today to look at your word
and to get a clearer picture.
Spirit and your written word, we are totally
blind to know you and understand you.
And your word says that if we would
boast in anything, let us not boast in
our money, our might, or our mind, but
rather that we know you and understand you.
And so I pray, Lord, that through the
worship and praise that you receive through the
reading of your word today, I just pray
you'd be lifted up and honored for who
you are, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray.
It is very much an honor to be
speaking here today.
I believe I attended a service or two
here as a little kid, a very little
kid.
If you would have told me for most
of my life that I would have been
speaking a sermon here today, I would not
have believed you.
But very much a privilege and I very
much blessed by the service so far.
You guys sing wonderfully.
And for a small community church, you have
an amazing church here.
And it was very encouraging to hear the
testimonies and everything so far.
So very glad to be here.
My grandparents, Samford and Julia, farmed just a
little bit that way across the highway.
And one of my clearest memories with my
grandfather, Samford, I used to go and stay
at the farm for about a week.
I was a city kid, grew up in
Regina, but I'd get to come out to
the farm for a week in the summers
when I was around 10 or 11 years
old.
And one stormy night, my grandpa, Samford, had
me sitting on his knee and he had
found some old Sunday school papers, I think
from the 50s, and he was reading to
me the story of David and Goliath.
And boy, I can still see it like
it was yesterday.
The papers weren't really like the ones we
have today.
They were very realistic and very graphic looking.
And as a little kid, I was just
struck sitting with my grandfather about the realities.
It was, the story was so real to
me.
And so fast forward decades, one Sunday afternoon
in Regina, I was watching VeggieTales with my
kids, and I had a flashback of sitting
in my, in the chair with my grandfather.
And I thought, what in the world am
I showing my kids?
Now, I don't mean to offend anybody if
you love VeggieTales, but I don't.
I thought, I'm teaching my kids that David
and Goliath were cucumbers and pickles.
And I got up off the couch, and
I, I did, I scooped it all up
and I chucked it in the trash.
I said, you kids can keep these videos
of Larry the Cucumber stepping on a rake
and teaching kids to put away their stuff.
I don't, you can keep that kind of
stuff, but the Bible stuff is out.
The Bible is a serious book.
We live in a pretty safe culture.
But there is a lot of real evil
in the world, and a lot of very,
a lot of real stories in the Bible.
And so, as, your said earlier, it's good
to have an encounter with Jesus.
Not who your whims might hope he is,
but who he actually is.
And as we sang that song earlier, I
hope by the end of my message, you
see him as your only, your only defense
and your righteousness.
I've always been fascinated with the Samson story.
Many years ago, when I was younger, I
cut a tree down in my backyard.
I thought I was kind of good at
that.
I wasn't.
It fell right into the roof of my
neighbor's house.
It was a good-sized tree.
And so, feeling like I was stronger than
I actually was, I put my shoulder under
the trunk of the tree and began dragging
it through the yard off my neighbor's house.
And I could feel my spine compressing as
I carried it.
No lie, I said to myself as I
was dragging the tree, time to pull a
Samson.
And I started to drag the tree across
my yard off my neighbor's roof.
Well, I didn't pull a Samson.
I pulled my back, something fierce.
Within moments, I could hardly breathe.
The tree dropped.
My wife was watching from the kitchen window
adoringly as I couldn't even breathe.
She yelled, is something wrong?
I couldn't even speak.
She had to get me in the car
and take me to the hospital.
So, if at any time during this message,
if you're ever wondering, you know, is Chad
at all like Samson?
The answer is no, I am not.
And there are some characters in the Bible
that are like that.
We hear songs that, you know, we should
be carrying five stones like David did.
And if we have faith, we can take
on the Goliaths of the world.
I used to believe that.
I don't anymore.
There are some pictures the Bible gives us.
And God's giving us a very different message.
He's telling us that we shouldn't really have,
we shouldn't have faith in ourselves, but we
should have faith in Jesus.
When David confronted Goliath, it's one of the
most amazing verses in the Bible to me.
For, I think it was 40 days, the
entire Israeli army was being taunted by Goliath
and the Philistines.
And not one of them had the courage
to go and fight that nine-foot warrior,
that descendant of the Anakims.
These were the people that the Hebrews said
made them feel like grasshoppers when they first
came into that land.
They were terrifying.
They were warriors and they knew how to
fight.
And the reward of that contest was either
life or death and slavery of the entire
peoples.
And all of Israel, all their army, everybody
was frozen in fear except David, who was
a picture of Christ.
He was the one that finished the deliverance
that God told Samson to start.
And that's an amazing verse.
It says that David ran to confront Goliath.
So, if during my message you feel uncomfortable
putting yourself in the shoes of some of
these men, you don't have to.
Some of these pictures in the Bible, like
David and Samson, are pictures of Christ that
we should look to as our our judge,
our king, our deliverer.
Not so much to emulate, but to be
glad the Lord is on our side.
It's fitting that I'm speaking on Samson today
in this area, I think.
I come from a family on my dad's
side.
There were some fairly tough scrapper-type guys.
I have an uncle that was pretty strong
himself.
And I loved, like most of you guys,
I think, hearing stories of feats of strength.
Now, one of your neighbors in this vicinity
came out to our farm many years ago.
He actually picked up a four-wheel drive
truck of ours that was loaded with firewood
with a topper on it and big mudder
tires, and he grabbed the back bumper and
picked it two feet up off the ground.
That's impressive.
My dad had a big round bale in
the yard that he had put some logging
chains around, and he was trying to rip
it out of the ice with a tractor,
and the tractor couldn't budge it.
And so this neighbor of yours said, let
me try, and he wrapped his arms around
the bale and stuck his huge fingers into
it, and he ripped it out of the
ground.
And my dad said, you could hear the
ice cracking 15-20 feet out around the
bale.
There are some strong people in the area,
but there are none like the man we're
going to read about today.
It was about 20 years ago, I was
in my basement reading the story of Samson,
and I came across one verse in particular
that made zero sense to me.
It was one of the craziest verses in
the Bible, and it was from that moment
for the next year, all I did was
read the story of Samson.
We're going to get to that verse in
a little bit, but about a year after
that study of Samson began, one night, I
think I can share this because we're in
a Pentecostal church, I felt the Holy Spirit
fill me up to a point that it
actually scared me, and I began to see
things in this story all over the place
that I'd never seen before.
So I'd like to share some of them
with you today.
As Wally mentioned, I've given a couple sermons
on Samson in the last 20 years or
so.
My view of Samson is very contrary to
what the popular view out there is.
If you do a search on the internet
on what kind of guy Samson was, you
might be surprised, you might not.
I don't know what what you guys think
of this man, but I'd like to read
to you what a few people, a few
theologians, thought of Samson when I researched it.
One theologian said that God had a purpose
for Samson.
He wanted Samson to rescue his people, but
Samson became a complete failure.
He should have brought honor to a holy
God, instead his evil life brought dishonor to
a holy God.
Another man said that Hebrews 11.32 states,
what more shall I say, time would fail
me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, and
Jephthah, David and Samuel also, and of the
prophets.
He said it is strange to me that
Samson is included in the Hall of Faith.
It doesn't seem to me that Samson rates
up there with Abraham, David, Noah, and so
forth.
It seems to me that Samson is not
a person of faith because he broke all
three commands given to him by God as
a Nazarene.
The first time I spoke on Samson, the
church I was attending a little over 20
years ago, they were doing a series on
the great men of faith in Hebrews 11,
and so I asked them, is anyone speaking
on Samson?
And they said to me, of course not.
And I said, would you mind if I
did?
And so that was the first time I
spoke on Samson.
And I'll never forget the one deacon, as
I was heading up, he told me that
Samson didn't even belong in Hebrews 11.
And over the years, as I've shared my
view of Samson, all I have come across
is anger, antagonism, raised voices, how dare you
even imply that Samson was a righteous man,
that he was a type of Christ, or
that he belongs really in Hebrews 11.
But I can be kind of scrappy too,
and I like to stand up for Samson
because he deserves it.
Years ago I came across a sermon from
one of my favorite Christian writers, a fellow
that most of you have probably heard on
the radio, we emailed back and forth quite
a bit, arguing, debating about Samson.
He wrote of Samson in a sermon that
he was one of the saddest stories in
all the Bible, a wasted opportunity, a life
of compromise and worldliness, a miserable failure, a
negative example of what a child should be.
God turned his great defeat into victory, and
he asked why was he such a failure
as a person and as a son.
Not very flattering words, are they?
It seems that the consensus among the majority
is that Samson was a man of little
faith, or worse yet, not a man of
faith at all.
A man that failed for most of his
life, somehow managed to repent in the end,
thus squeaking into Hebrews 11 by the skin
of his teeth.
But something is not right, for it was
God, of course, that placed Samson among the
giants of faith, and he listed him by
name no less.
And with God, there are no mistakes.
So, I don't want to take up too
much time today.
I guess the the main things I'd like
to try and show is that Samson was
a great man of faith, and that he
was also one of the greatest types, or
Old Testament foreshadows, of Christ that there is.
I don't think there are too many men
that foreshadowed both advents of the Lord better
than Samson.
He is constantly foreshadowing and typing both the
first and second coming of our Lord.
We'll start in chapter 13, And the children
of Israel did evil again in the sight
of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them
into the hands of the Philistines for forty
years.
Now, I just got open by saying, to
understand Samson, you need to understand the calling
that God put on this man's life from
before he was even born, and we're gonna
get to that right away.
When Moses had brought Israel out of Egypt,
there's an interesting verse in Genesis that said
that God actually took the Hebrews around the
long way, so that they would not see
the Philistine people, and be scared of the
prospect of war, and want to go back.
The Philistines were pretty nasty people, and so
in verse 5 here, when his birth is
announced by the angel to Samson's barren mum.
By the way, I'm fascinated with types.
If you notice, many of the great deliverers
in the Old Testament had mothers that couldn't
have children.
I don't know if there's a right or
wrong answer for this, but I believe this
is God foreshadowing the virgin birth in the
Old Testament.
Many of these great men of God, these
great deliverers, God had to come and personally
intervene, so that they could be born.
Just a little side note there, and Samson,
just like Isaac, and Samuel, and John the
Baptist, and a few others, is in that
group.
So, I'm assuming most of you know the
story, I'm not going to read it all,
I'm just going to try and cruise along
a little quicker, and there's just a few
kind of main points I'd like to touch
on at the end, but Samson is one
of very few people whose birth was actually
announced from heaven by an angel.
When Gabriel came and announced to Mary that
was quite a big deal, that she was
going to have a son.
Well, an angel came from heaven and announced
that Samson was going to be born to
her, and the angel told Samson's mom that
this child was going to be a Nazarite
from the day of his conception and to
the day of his death.
One of very few men that had to
take on the Nazarite vow through the entire
course of their life.
The Nazarite vow was not an easy thing
to do.
As you know, you couldn't cut your hair,
which I believe was a sign of submission.
You weren't to be around a dead body,
and I think some people get this kind
of mixed up because theologians like to blame
Samson for being around the carcass of a
lion that came to kill him.
It's absolutely ridiculous, I hate to say it.
I'll try and be gracious, but for all
those that think Samson was an undisciplined failure
and train wreck of a life, the most
gracious way I can say this is that
you're wrong.
He was not.
A Nazarite vow for your entire life was
a very difficult thing.
Not only could you not have wine or
strong drink, you couldn't eat anything off the
vine either.
There were not Olive Gardens and 7-Elevens
and a lot of choices in those days
of what you could eat or drink, and
so if you lived in those days and
couldn't eat or drink anything off the vine,
you lived a pretty sparse life in that
way, and he did throughout his entire life.
So nothing from the vine, which might suggest
purity as well as abstinence, just not being
able to partake in all the blessings and
joys of life, it made life tough.
Submission, not cutting your hair, and not being
around dead people.
You can read of the vow in Numbers
chapter 6 where it's explained, and when the
vow came to an end, the one who
took on himself the Nazarite vow was to
cut his hair and then offer up a
sacrifice.
So the angel comes to Samson's mother, says
you're gonna have a son, and verse 5
says that he will be a Nazarite unto
God from the womb, and he shall begin
to deliver Israel out of the hand of
the Philistines.
Many people criticize Samson for not finishing what
God told him to do, but God didn't
tell him to finish it.
That's that was going to be David's job.
God said that Samson was to begin this
deliverance.
So they have the baby, and Samson begins
to grow.
They call this name Samson.
The child grew, and the Lord blessed him.
Verse 25 of chapter 13, and the Spirit
of the Lord began to move him at
times in the camp of Dan between Zorah
and Eshphel.
As you know, Samson was from the tribe
of Dan, a word that was prophesied of
the tribe of Dan.
There was a few prophecies that came from
Moses and Jacob, and it said that Dan
would be a judge of his people, and
as you know, Samson became one of the
judges of Israel.
I believe he was the last, if you
don't count Samuel.
It was prophesied of the tribe of Dan
that he would be like a serpent on
the way, biting the hooves of the horses,
and I think it was Moses' prophecy that
said Dan would be like a young lion,
and Samson, I think very fittingly, portrays both
those things, as you'll see.
Verse 14 begins with talking about Samson going
down to Timnath to take of himself a
wife of the Philistines, or a Gentile.
Now, Samson, like I said, is I think
a great type of Christ.
In verse 2, well let's just read the
first few verses in 14, and Samson went
down to Timnath and saw a woman in
Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines, and
he came up and told his father and
mother and said, I've seen a woman in
Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines, now
therefore get her for me a wife.
Then his father and his mother said unto
him, Is there never a woman among the
daughters of thy brethren, or among all my
people, that thou goest to take a wife
of the uncircumcised Philistines?
And Samson said unto his father, Get her
for me, for she pleases me well.
But his father and his mother knew not
that it was of the Lord that he
sought an occasion against the Philistines, for at
that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.
Some of these theologians criticize Samson for doing
this.
The text clearly says it was of the
Lord.
It talks about the spirit moving Samson.
Samson had a very unique calling of God.
I don't think anyone in this room has
a calling of God to deliver Israel from
his enemies.
And one of the most fascinating things about
Samson, as you'll see as we read on,
is there is only one person in the
entire Bible that foreshadows the delivering work that
Christ would one day do.
When we read in the Gospels, right before
Jesus went to the cross, we read that
the Old Testament was referenced, and it said
when the shepherd is struck, the sheep will
scatter.
If you read in Leviticus 16, it says
that on the day of atonement, when the
deliverance was going to happen, only one man
in all of Israel was allowed to work,
and that was the high priest.
In Samson, you have an incredible picture of
the aloneness in which the Lord was going
to deliver his people.
Samson is the only guy in the entire
Bible that has a calling from God that
is so insanely difficult and dangerous and terrifying,
and there is not one mention in Judges
13 to 16 of a single soul offering
one iota of help to Samson.
You talked about the twister that came through
last week that seemingly God held up out
of the way, and you talked about the
community coming together.
Samson had no community coming together to help
him ever.
There is no mention.
There is only mention of his people hindering
and opposing him every step of the way,
and in that way, Samson is a very
clear picture of our Lord.
What the Lord had to do, he had
to do alone.
So on the way to the wedding, as
you know, Samson walking through the vineyard on
the way to Timnath, a young lion, not
a cub, but a full-strength lion attacks
Samson, and it says that Samson ripped this
lion apart like he would a little goat,
and it said that he had nothing in
his hands.
That's another thing that is very, very peculiar
and particular about Samson.
Never once in all of his wars, his
battles, his anything, does he ever once use
a conventional weapon of war.
God wants to see the uniqueness of this
man.
He's not one that we are to imitate,
but we are to look to as a
great deliverer.
Never once does he use a conventional weapon
of war.
When the lion comes upon him, he rips
it apart with his bare hands.
So Samson meets his wife.
It's also fascinating that Samson didn't even tell
his dad.
Like, they're walking.
I mean, mom and dad must have been
a little ways away.
How many of you men in your prime,
if a lion had attacked you between Tribune
and Lake Delma, would have ripped it apart
with your bare hands and not even told
your dad?
This guy had some humility, I think.
So when the wedding begins, Samson puts forth
a riddle, because as we read, it was
of the Lord to start to agitate and
make things happen with Israel's enemies.
And so Samson puts forth a riddle.
Out of the eater, something to eat.
Out of the strong, something sweet, because on
his way back to the wedding, as you
know, there were bees in the carcass making
honey.
And we won't stay here long, but I
think it's a pretty interesting picture, even if
it's not exact, of the Deliverer of Israel
taking for himself a Gentile bride.
I don't know if any of you are
Hebrews, but Ephesians 2 says those of us
that were once afar off were brought nigh
through Christ.
We are the wild shoot that it talks
about in Romans 9 to 11.
I think this is a picture of the
Deliverer of Israel going after a Gentile bride,
not just a Hebrew one.
And there was dislike from his parents, but
it was of the Lord.
And at the wedding, a riddle goes out.
Now our New Testament Gospels are filled with
parables that people couldn't understand unless the Lord
or his people explain them.
And it's kind of fascinating to me that
Samson gives a riddle, and it's not until
the Philistines threaten the bride, the Gentile bride,
that she gives the answer to the riddle.
And what do they receive as a reward?
New garments.
And that's what the Bible says you wear
when you enter the kingdom of God, new
garments.
It's pretty interesting all these parallels that there
are in the Samson story.
But Samson, as I said, shows both advents
of the Lord.
He is both against the enemies of God's
people and for God's people at the same
time.
And so to get these new garments, he
goes out and kills 30 Philistine men and
takes their garments to give them as a
prize.
He is not doing this, as a lot
of people say, selfishly or fleshly or whatever.
He's the judge of Israel.
Samson is Israel's government, and he's fulfilling a
calling that God gave him, and that is
to bring his people out from under the
domination of the Philistines.
And so when they find out that Samson
slew 30 of their men for these garments,
they come back, and while Samson's gone, it
says they burned Samson's wife and father-in
-law with fire.
And so the story starts to get interesting.
The father in law pleads with Samson and
says, you know, at first I gave your
wife away.
I thought you hated her.
Can you not take her younger sister, for
she is fair.
And Samson said, concerning them, now shall I
be more blameless than the Philistines, though I
do them a displeasure.
He went and caught 300 foxes, put firebrands
in their tails, and sent them out into
the Philistine cornfields to burn them down.
So I'm always fascinated with pictures of Samson.
You watch strongman competitions Samson could move too,
like he was not one of these muscle
men that couldn't even, you know, touch his
hands behind his back.
This guy could fly.
Catching 300 foxes, tying their tails together, amazing.
So the first thing he does is strikes
out again at the Philistines for taking his
wife, burns their crops down.
So when they ask who did this, they
hear that it is Samson, the son-in
-law of the Timnite.
And so because of that, they come and
burn Samson's wife and father-in-law to
fire.
Samson says, though you have done this, yet
will I be avenged of you, and after
that I will cease.
It is so easy to read verses in
the Bible as just something small and carry
on.
As I was walking down the grid road
by Josh and Julia's last night, I just
pictured myself like Samson, walking out with no
weapon in my hand, and declaring that I
am about to go and deal the Philistines
another deadly blow.
I'm gonna smite them hip and thigh with
a great slaughter.
Absolute chaotic slaughter.
One man army, no weapons, fulfilling God's call
to deliver Israel.
Amazing.
This guy was absolutely fearless, and every time
that he goes out to do what I
call him to do as a deliverer, the
spirit of the Lord comes upon Samson and
gives him great might.
So after he does that, Samson goes down
to, it says, the Rock of Edom, and
there the Philistines find Samson, and a thousand
Philistines come to the men of Judah, and
they demand that Samson be handed over to
them.
So 3,000 men of Judah come down
and get Samson, and they said, we're binding
you and handing you over to the Philistines.
Now this, again, is such an amazing foreshadow
of what is coming a thousand years later,
because as they bind Samson with these cords,
they said, we are handing you over to
the Gentile enemy that wants to torture and
put you to death.
And they asked Samson, why are you doing
this to us?
The Philistines blamed everything that was going on
in Samson, and that's always how it goes.
But these strong men of Judah come and
bind their deliverer and hand him over, and
Samson says the most fascinating things to these
men of Judah.
He says, I'll let you do that as
long as you make a promise to me
that you don't kill me yourself.
I think it's a picture of what happened
at the cross, because Jesus allows his own
people to bind him and hand him over
to the Gentiles to be mocked, tortured, and
put to death.
And at this rock of Edom, at this
instant, Samson gives such an amazing clear picture
of both the grace and justice of our
Lord, both the first and second advent, both
the Lamb and the Lion, because as Samson
is being marched forward, bound with ropes, with
3,000 of his own people, handing him
over to the enemy to be put to
death, he then comes face to face with
a thousand armed Philistines that it said lay
out a war cry when they see him
bound and they're ready to kill him.
But now we see the second advent of
the Lord coming out, and it says that
the spear of the Lord came upon Samson,
and he snaps the ropes like they're burnt
flax, and he reaches down and picks up
a very unconventional weapon of war, a jawbone
of an ass, and he proceeds to cut
down a thousand armed men with a jawbone.
I don't know if you're familiar with Joshua
23.10, but after Joshua brought the Hebrews
into the promised land, and they'd begun the
conquest that wasn't finished yet, they were supposed
to finish it.
As a matter of fact, before Joshua even
died, he rebuked the people of Israel for
not going out and finishing the work that
God gave them to do, this work that
Samson is now busying himself with doing.
But in Joshua 23.10, Joshua told the
people, one of you will chase a thousand,
because it is the Lord that fights for
you.
Amazing.
That one guy that Joshua was talking about,
I believe, was Samson, because he cut down
a thousand men.
In verse 16, it says that Samson went
to visit a harlot, in 16 verse 1,
in the city of Gaza.
Now, right after that, he goes to see
Delilah, and it said that he loved this
lady Delilah, who was from the valley of
Sorek.
Now, the valley of Sorek, Samson, like the
tribe of Dan was in a buffer zone
between the Philistines and the captured land of
Israel, the valley of Sorek is right in
the middle.
We don't actually know if Delilah was Hebrew
or Philistine.
It just said that Samson loved her.
Now, Samson never married, never had a wife,
but Delilah either caught his eye, or like
the woman of Timnath, that it said Samson,
when he talked to her, she pleased him.
Everyone likes to make Samson out like he's
the most fleshly, lustful failure in the Bible.
If you take a close look at these
verses, I don't know if we can say
that with any certainty.
It said that Samson loved Delilah.
I'm more prone to think that she was
a Hebrew, because when the people of Jericho
knew that there was two spies in Rahab's
place, they didn't come and offer her 5
,500 pieces of silver.
They said, you got spies in your place,
get them out, we want these guys.
And they sealed the gate and tried to
catch them.
But they're offering a lot of money to
Delilah.
Maybe it's because she was a Hebrew, I
don't know.
The story moves quick and it doesn't say.
But regardless, Delilah is kind of a picture
of Judas, the one that betrayed the Lord
for 30 pieces of silver.
And the Delilah story is quite interesting, and
there's so much to talk about in these
things, but I don't want to go on
too long here.
But, you know, she's offered all this money,
and the Philistine lords say, get the secret
of his strength, so that we can bind
and afflict this guy and take him out.
And three different times, Delilah tries to get
the secret of Samson's strength out of him.
And each time Samson gives her an unaffectual
route to doing that, she cries out, the
Philistines are upon you.
I don't know if you've ever thought of
this, but you would have to be a
very dense person to go ahead and give
the secret after those three attempts.
And maybe what the Lord is showing through
this story of Samson is that the Lord
knew that he was going to be betrayed.
And the Lord knew what he was walking
into.
He wasn't taken by surprise.
He's not stupid.
I don't think he can be a judge
of Israel and be that dense.
I don't know.
One theologian writing of Samson said, you know,
this guy is a riddle himself.
He is a hard guy to figure out.
I agree.
And so, as you know, Samson finally tells
her the secret to his strength.
His hair is cut, which he didn't cut.
She did.
The Philistines did.
And the spirit of the Lord departed from
him for a time.
It said that his hair began to grow
back as soon as it was cut.
And as you know, Samson is then taken
to Gaza, where their god Dagon is.
And they have a feast and a celebration.
And they praise their god Dagon for delivering
Samson into their midst.
But it's very hard to checkmate the Lord.
Because as they're praising their false god Dagon,
Samson, who had his eyes gouged out, mocked,
made a fool of, just like Jesus was
blindfolded, mocked, tortured right before his death.
Samson does an amazing thing here.
It was the Philistines that led him between
the two main pillars that supported this whole
tower.
It says there was 3,000 lords of
the Philistines, men and women, on the roof
alone.
And in an incredible type, Samson asks this
young guy to help him find those pillars.
And Samson asks the Lord to one last
time give him the strength back, so he
can do his job.
And so with outstretched arms, Samson offers up
himself as a sacrifice at the end of
this Nazarene battle, at the end of his
life.
And in doing so, he takes out more
enemies of God than he did during his
life.
You know, that's what they said about Jesus
when he was born.
That Jesus was showing up for the fall
and rise of many.
We worship God during a covenant of grace,
where God is always concealing his strength, and
this anger, and this holy violence against sin
and the enemies of God.
And just because we don't see it very
often, doesn't mean it's not there.
As Larry pointed out before the service began,
Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
He does not change.
Just because the Covenant's changed, our Lord doesn't
change.
I want to go back and look at
one last verse, and then I'll wrap up.
I shared at the beginning that there was
one verse that just absolutely downfounded me when
I was reading through the Samson story, and
it's Judges 16.3. 16.1 says that
he went to see a harlot in the
city of Gaza, and he stayed there, lay
there till midnight, but in the middle of
the night he gets up, and he decides
it's time to head out.
Then when Samson to Gaza saw there a
harlot, and went in under her, and it
was told the Gazites, saying, Samson's come hither.
And they compassed him in, and laid wait
for him all night in the gate of
the city, and were quiet all the night,
saying, in the morning when it is day,
we shall kill him.
And Samson lay till midnight.
This is the verse that, like, it just
drew me into the story.
And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at
midnight, and took the doors of the gate
of the city, and the two posts, and
went away with them bar and all, bar
and all, and put them upon his shoulders,
and carried them up to the top of
a hill that is before Hebron.
Theologians all agree that this is the single
greatest feat of strength ever recorded in the
Bible.
The double doors, the gates of a fortified
city, most likely weighed two to three thousand
pounds, just the doors.
And there are two verses in the Bible
that I have always shared that I find
very humorous.
When you read in Acts, the story of
Ananias and Sapphira, and Ananias and Sapphira lied
to the Holy Spirit about what they gave
to the church, and the Lord killed them
both on the spot, there's a verse following
that says that the people weren't really pumped
about hanging out with the Apostles just then
and there.
I've always found that verse very humorous.
The Bible has a, God has an amazing
way of understating things.
And one of my favorite non-verses is
the verse that talks about the men that
were waiting in the gate to kill Samson.
That verse kind of disappeared when Samson ripped
the gates right off their city and carried
them away.
Pretty wild.
Now, you've all heard this story, but I
just want to share a few neat things
I found out just in the last three
weeks about Gaza and these gates.
In Joshua 11, it said that when Joshua
came into the Promised Land, into Canaan, he
started, with the Lord's blessing and spirit, started
to rout the cities of God's enemies.
Now, there was a people that I alluded
to earlier that Goliath was from, the Anakim,
the descendants of Anak, I believe was his
name, and he was an unbeatable giant of
a warrior.
What's interesting is that there was three cities
in this Philistine territory that it says in
Joshua that the Anakim were not routed out
of.
It said that there were still giants in
Ashdod, Gath, and Gaza.
And when I looked that up, all of
a sudden it started to take on a
little bit of a twist with me because
I started asking, what is Samson doing here?
Everyone likes to talk about the prostitute and
why Samson was such a failure.
But maybe, just maybe, Samson had in mind
the account of Joshua that he would have
read.
Because this is 400 years after the Hebrews
went in and took the Promised Land.
They would have had the account.
Samson would have read them.
He would have read about how Joshua and
Caleb went into Rahab's place to scout things
out and prepare for war.
Maybe that's what Samson did.
Maybe Samson went into this very fortified town
as the most wanted guy on the poster
in Gaza.
He walks into the city himself, hides out
till midnight, and then rips the very gates
off their city, carries them, they think, 38
miles on his shoulders.
It is uphill, just like our parents did.
Uphill, the one way at least, through sandy
ground, and it's said that he put the
gates on a hill overlooking Hebron.
When I first read this verse, it made
no sense to me.
Why is verse 3 just plopped in the
middle for no reason?
But I think there's a really good reason.
I think what the Lord wants us to
see through Samson, as he types the deliverer
that's coming, is that the gates of hell
are not going to prevail against the Lord
and his people.
And for all those that are trapped in
Gaza, the deliverer has ripped the gates right
off so that God's people can escape.
And then he carries them on a shoulder
to a hill outside of Hebron, firmly in
Israeli territory.
Well, when this started to come to me,
that it was a really close picture to
Jesus carrying his cross on his shoulders to
the top of the hill outside of town.
I had a friend of mine make this
picture for me.
I don't know if you can see it,
but that's Samson carrying the gates, Gaza in
the background, and I had asked my friend
to put just a silhouette picture of the
cross that Samson was looking up to.
In John chapter 10 verse 9, what did
Jesus say?
He said, I am the gate.
When Jesus laid down a perfect life on
the cross, he defeated, he defeated our enemy,
he defeated Satan, he defeated death.
They brought him there to make sport of
him, to torture him, to taunt him to
save himself, and he would not.
And when he laid down his life and
paid for all of our sins that believe
in him, he became the gate, the only
way in.
He is the Alpha and Omega.
He's the one who rips the gates off
of Gaza and sets them up to enter
heaven with.
There are very few that show the great
picture of the coming Lord the way Samson
does.
So with that vast tour through Judges 13
to 16, can we see Christ through Samson?
Absolutely.
In Exodus 15 verse 3, when the Hebrews
sang to the Lord after they were delivered
from their enemies out of Egypt, Moses sang
in 15 verse 3, the Lord is a
man of war.
The Lord is his name.
In Job 49 to 12, we read, hast
thou an arm like God, or can thou
thunder with a voice like him?
Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath, and
behold everyone that is proud, and abase him.
Look on everyone that is proud, and bring
him low, and tread down the wicked in
their place.
That's what God asked Job when he began
to question God's ability to be the righteous
judge.
In Nahum chapter 1, it says the Lord
is a jealous and avenging God.
The Lord is avenging and wrathful.
Who can stand before his indignation?
Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire.
Psalm 711, God is a righteous judge and
a God who deals indignation every day.
Psalm 9011, who knows the power of your
anger?
According to the fear of you, so is
your wrath.
Exodus 15 and 7, in the greatness of
your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries, you send
out your fury, it consumes them like stone.
In Revelation 1915, he will tread the winepress
of the fury of the wrath of God
the Almighty.
In Revelation 6, hide us from the face
of him who is seated on the throne,
and from the wrath of the Lamb.
For the great day of the wrath has
come, and who can stand?
Isaiah 26, 21, for behold the Lord is
coming out from his place to punish the
inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.
Hebrews 10, 31, it is a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living
God.
Psalm 212 says, kiss the sun lest his
wrath be kindled but a little.
In Psalm 3712, it says, the wicked plot
against the just and gnash upon him with
his teeth.
The Lord shall laugh at him, for he
sees that his day is coming.
I don't think there's anyone in the Bible
that shows this aspect of our Lord like
Samson does, and we don't see a lot
of it because God keeps this concealed.
But one day, when he comes back, this
isn't going to be concealed anymore, and I
think we do well.
If we're going to worship God, we need
to worship him for who he is.
We see the Lord through this great Judge
Samson in some ways better than by any
other man.
Yes, we see the submissive ones waiting on
the Lord through men like Joseph, Daniel, Gideon,
and Moses, but all as these passages tell
us, there is a fiery, thunderous, violent wrath
that Jesus is bringing when he returns as
a lion, and no one in Scripture shows
this better than Samson.
So yes, the Judge who judges rightly has
already made his ruling.
Samson is in Hebrews 11, and by name.
When you read Hebrews 11, you need to
remember that there's basically two categories of the
faithful.
In the first part, we read of Gideon,
Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel, who through
faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped
the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of
fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out
of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in
fight, turned to flight the armies of the
enemies.
You have to remember, God never once promised
Samson strength.
You won't find it anywhere in the account.
God told him, begin the deliverance of your
people, and every time Samson stepped out, he
was like no other man, other than the
Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and
enabled him to do what he called him
to do as he stepped out.
Hebrews 11 goes on to say, others were
tortured not accepting deliverance.
Others had trial of cruel mocking, scourgings, yea
moreover of bonds and imprisonment.
They were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, slain with
the sword, they wandered about, being destitute, afflicted,
and tormented.
I think Samson shows both of those.
I think Paul understood the story of Samson
too.
In 2nd Timothy 4 16, Paul says at
my first answer, no man stood with me,
but all men forsook me.
I pray God that it may not be
laid to their charge, notwithstanding the Lord stood
with me, and strengthened me, that by me
the preaching might be fully known, and that
all the Gentiles might hear.
And what Paul?
And I was delivered out of the mouth
of the lion.
It sounds to me like Paul, like the
writer of Hebrews, is very familiar with the
story and faith of Samson.
Many of God's people through the ages to
a degree, usually one lesser than Samson, have
felt the loneliness of serving God alone and
being abandoned, betrayed, and hated without a cause.
But Samson stands out as the deliverer of
Israel that was completely alone as he did
the work and fulfilled his God-given calling.
He's the only one in Scripture who not
one time receives help or aid from a
single soul.
Only hindrance and opposition from his people, hatred
and violence from his enemies.
He showed grace to his people when they
didn't deserve it, and he judged the wicked
as the Lord is coming back to do.
Jesus said in Matthew 28 that all power
and authority is given unto me in heaven
and on earth.
We should be greatly encouraged to go out
and take the offensive as Samson did.
And Samson did.
The Lord has ripped the gates from the
city of destruction that bound the lost.
We need to go in faith in the
strength of the Lord and fulfill our calling
as well.
All the heavy lifting has been done.
In Isaiah 63 3 we read, I have
trodden the winepress alone and of the people
there was none with me.
For I will tread them in my anger
and trample them in my fury and their
blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments and
I will stain all my raiment.
We hear often that we should not fear
the Lord in that kind of way.
I think that's absolute nonsense.
If you've ever come close to the evil
that's in this world and what God may
or may not allow you to go through,
you should be terrified and thankful that like
the men of Judah, the Deliverer is going
to cause your sins to pass by.
In Romans, Paul tells us that the just
shall live by faith.
So put yourself in Samson's shoes.
Never once being promised strength, just setting out
to do what God gave him to do.
Samson lived by faith and not just in
the end, but his whole life was a
life of faith and maybe better than most,
Samson has shown us a picture of what
the Lord is like in his completeness, full
of grace and truth, a lamb and a
lion, a prince of peace and a man
of war.
Amen.