Gooding, David: 14 - Samson and the Philistines

Let us now read from the book of Judges and chapter thirteen. Judges thirteen verse one. And the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines Forty years. And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and bare not. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her, Behold, now thou art barren and bearest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a son. Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing. For lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son, no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb. And he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. And so we come to the seventh and the last oppression recorded in the book of Judges. Its deliverer is Samson. Though whether it is altogether correct to describe him as the deliverer, I'm not quite sure. But I shall have to be careful about how I describe and how I speak of Samson. I find him an enmatic, an enigmatic figure. But I notice that in Hebrews eleven, the Holy Spirit's verdict on him is that he was a man of faith. That impresses me much with the gracious generosity of God. I can only hope that if the Holy Spirit comes to sum up my life, he might accord me the same generosity as he gave to Samson. As I proceed, you will readily perceive that I need your help in coming to a just estimate of Samson's character and work. Some of you have learned about Samson since you were in Sunday school. I never went to Sunday school. Some of you may well have a far more generous estimate and interpretation of his deeds than I shall appear to have in my talk, and I sincerely ask for your help in the unders- true understanding of Samson's character, life, and work. But first of all, we ought to spend time reconnoitering the enemy that at this time oppressed Israel. And they were the Philistines. They were the people who gave their name to the country, so that in the ancient world it became known as Philistia, then among the Romans as Palestina, and to this very present time is called Palestine, much to the annoyance, of course, of the Israelis. The Philistines were the Sea Peoples, it would appear, SEA people. They probably came from Minoan, uh, Crete, and were, uh, products of the Minoan civilization. The The common epithet given by the Holy Spirit of God in talking about Philistines is they were the uncircumcised Philistines. They were in the land, but they were not of that people to whom God had covenanted to give the land to Abraham and to his seed. Moreover, they did not carry the mark of that special covenant given by God to Abram's physical descendants. They were not circumcised. If we look deeper than that, we could remember, perhaps, Paul's description of true circumcision, the reality which the outward, uh, ceremony pointed to eventually. We are the circumcision, he says, who have no confidence in the flesh, but worship in the Spirit of God. We shall meet again with the Philistines, uh, this contrast between man as fleshly man, man whose confidence is in the flesh, be it in man's physical powers or his mental abilities, man's brawn and his brain, man's confidence in the flesh. We might help ourselves to picture Philistines in our mind if we move forward in thought to the early chapters of first Samuel, you will remember because of the failure of the priesthood, the ark was brought out to battle as though it were some magical box to help the Israelite armies against the Philistines, and God allowed the ark to be taken to teach Israel that you couldn't play ducks and drakes with morality and suppose that because you had this box, God would somehow magically come and defend you from your enemies. God allowed the ark to be taken, but it was his ark on which, on the wings of the cherubim, Jehovah sat enthroned. So when the Philistines took it, they put it in the house of Dagon, their god. And when they came the next morning, Dagon, their god, was fallen over. Now that is a disaster. When you spent time and money and energy and thought and aesthetic discernment on making a beautiful god. He falls over. What are you to do if your god falls over? So the Philistines got their brains are working on it, and their brawn, and they hoisted Dagon their god up and sat him on his pedestal and bowed down to his majesty. You'll see, as Isaiah would in centuries later, uh, deride idolatry. It is man's trust in man's product. When they came the next morning, d- poor old Dagon was not only fallen over, but his head was off and his hands were off. Poor Dagon. I suppose the Philistines did it again, used their brains, their heads were still on at the moment, and their hands, which were still on, and by human brain and brawn, they put the god back and put his head on, I suppose, and his hands on. Man's actual dependence, worship of man, or as the Bible will put it, the flesh. It was the Philistines that produced that gigantic man, Goliath, who for a little while troubled, uh, the Israelites. Let me turn aside from my study just to record for you the context of Goliath and what happened, because it illustrates not only what the Philistines were, but how easy it is for believers in God to fall into Philistine way of thinking. With the breakdown of the Le- Litific- Levitical system, as we shall later see today, with the breakdown of the priesthood in the early chapters of Samuel, and then with the eventual breakdown of the system of judges, when S- Samuel's sons were corrupt. The people of Israel as a whole had had enough of the whole business, and they came to Samuel and demanded that he make them a king like the rest of the nations. A hereditary monarchy, so that, as Samuel later pointed out to them, when their enemies came against them and oppressed them, they wouldn't have to have ad hoc prayer meetings to pray, pray to God to raise up a deliverer, you see, a kind of nail-biting experience is that when a big, uh, oppressor's breathing down your neck to have to stop and have a prayer meeting, uh, do you see, and pray to God to raise up a deliverer. They suggested that they should have a deliverer already in place, do you see, in the form of an hereditary monarch who might go out and, uh, save them from their oppressors. And Samuel was upset about that. He read it as a rejection of himself. But God comforted Samuel and said, all right, Samuel, it's not you they've rejected, but me. But I'm going along with their suggestion, and I shall appoint them a king. Much to Samuel's surprise, of course. And so Samuel was sent, and he anointed Saul. The day came when Saul was to be presented to the Israelites. There they were all assembled, their great new monarch. And Samuel, in the name of God, presented him. And Saul, he was a tremendous big man, you see. He was head and shoulders above all the other men, all way big, fine, strapping. Only America equal- America could equal him, I suppose. But anyway, when the people saw him, they said, marvelous God, uh, three cheers for God. Oh, what a marvelous deliverer he's come up with. Oh, look, what a big man he is. And all went well, for a time. King of Ammon had the rough end of Saul's stick. All went well, as I say, until one day, out of the camp of the Philistines came a veritable mountain of a man, namely Goliath, with a spear like a telegraph pole. And a helmet like a trash can. And now big man Saul felt the pygmy. And skulked in his tent, dead scared. And afraid to go out to meet the big man. That's the trouble, gentlemen. If your faith is in big men, they'll work for a time until the opposition puts up a bigger man. And the Philistines were big men in that sense. The deliverer then turned out to be David. Much to Saul's consternation, he didn't understand it. David, only a youth, going out against the prize single hero combat man in the Philistine army. Seemed to them like it would seem to moderns if they put me in a ring with Cassius Clay or something. Saul tried to persuade David to use his armor. Foolish man. If David had used Saul's spear, he wouldn't have got within yards of, uh, Goliath. Goliath would have skewered him before he got anywhere near him. When Goliath saw what David had come out with, he was furious. His filist and mustache went up and down, he got red in the face. He said, you come out to me like this with a little stick in your hand, such as a man uses to drive a dog out of his back garden. Insult. David came out with a little staff, no armor. I think behind his back a sling. Anyway, Goliath hadn't seen that bit. But when David got a chance to speak, he pointed out to the giant what the issue was. It was not who was the bigger man. Goliath, he said, you have defied the armies of the living God. And it is the living God that's going to deal with you. That's why I come to you with ludicrously weak weapon. That it might be seen to all the battle is not because of man's strength or wisdom or the wonder of his weapons. Victory comes from God and from reliance upon God. God had begun to teach Israel the folly of supposing they should solve their problems by appointing big men. That remains a lesson for the church still to learn. There is a part of the New Testament devoted to the lesson, is there not? It is the early chapters of First Corinthians, where Paul explains God's motivation in using the strategy of the cross, man crucified, to smash unregenerate man trust in man's power, physical or mental. The apparently weak weapons of a crucified Savior. Done that our p- our faith might rest in the power of God. For the cross is, despite its apparent weakness, the power of God and the weakness of God. The lesson is to be learned in conversion. The lesson has to be learned in the way we run the churches. For to divide the church into cliques who are followers of particular men as big men is a way out into barrenness and defeat. These then were the Philistines. And Samson was, if we may use the term, their deliverer. But notice even as the angel of the Lord told his mother and then his father. Through Samson, God would simply begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. There was no promise that it would be completed, the job would be done. It was only a beginning. When Samson died, Israel was still under the thumb and control of the Philistines. In one sense, he hadn't done a lot, had he? But how would a man ever deliver Israel from the Philistines when he perpetually and systematically fell in love with the Philistines' girls. But let's dwell for a moment on happier things. The preparation of Samson to begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. The preparation was all on his parents' side. And a wonderful story it is, how the angel of the Lord came to them and spoke to them and told them about this coming child, and that how his mother must copy the laws of Nazariteship and drink no wine and so forth, and that the child should be a Nazarite to God from his birth. And then at the end, when they asked if they might bring out a sacrifice for him, he said, you must offer the sacrifice to God. Put it on the rock here. They lit the wood under the sacrifice, and as the flame of the sacrifice ascended to heaven, this man, this angel of the Lord, ascended up in the flame to heaven. They knew they had seen the very face of God. This was the angel of the Lord, presumably a pre-incarnation epiphany of Christ. What a wonderful experience that must have been to stand with two feet on earth and to see a man who had just been talking to you, and you had been talking to him. To see him ascend... into heaven. And know of the relationship between him and you. It turns our thought, doesn't it, to the ascension of our blessed Lord. And it is to be noticed that when Luke records that ascension in chapter one of his Acts of the Apostles. He emphasized the fact that the apostles actually saw him go into heaven. While he blessed them, he was taken up from him. And as they stood there, beholding him going. Now they didn't actually see him enter heaven, because the relation of heaven to this universe is a thing that surpasses our understanding anyway. We're not to jump to the conclusion that they held a pre-scientific idea of the universe and thought that if you took up vertically, like some shuttle here from the Mount of Olives and went far enough, you'd come to a door labeled heaven. Of course not. They saw him going. A real man whom they had recently felt, who had sat at their table, who had eaten some fish with them, that real man. They saw him going. After a while, a cloud received him out of their sight, and how he transferred to that other world, they did not see. But as they stood steadfastly looking into heaven, there stood by them men in white apparel, angels, and they said, why stand you looking into heaven? This same Jesus whom you saw going into heaven shall so come in like manner as you saw him go. We didn't stand and see them. So he didn't stand with the apostles and see our Lord descend with our literal eyes, but we do believe, as the hymn puts it, that mortal eyes saw his journey to the skies. It is not a parable, it is not a myth to be demythologized. This is historic fact, and all the wonder of it. How those men went to work for him then, they seen him in heaven, a real living man, and they were in touch with him by the spirit which he sent down from heaven on the day of Pentecost. That diversion, let us come to Samson himself. The preparation was really by his parents. The power of this man who ascended to him, the wonderful true mystery of it, that they could be in touch with that man in heaven. So his mother was to live abstaining from wine and so forth. Samson was never to have a razor on his head. He was to abstain from wine too. Therein would be the secret of his strength. Whatever Nazariteship symbolized, and we know now have, do not have the time to consider it. It did demand total and absolute devotion to God. No human-made tool was to come upon his hair or beard. It was to be, in that sense, virgin. No interference by human taught tool, but utterly given over to God. When the Ver- uh, Nazarite ship came to an end, if ever it did, that hair was to be cut off and offered on the altar to God. And he certainly was not to drink wine. And now we come to the facts. As far as not drinking wine was concerned, he at least trifled with it, didn't he? Almost his first escapade was to the part of Israel where they grew the richest vines you could ever meet, the Valley of Sorek. Sorek is a very strong wine. He was to be a Nazarite and not defile himself. As far as I read it, he broke the thing twice, didn't he? He not only slew a lion, that's one thing, but when he came back, the honey was in the, uh, the dead body of a lion, and he took it. That would have defiled any ordinary Israelite, let alone a Nazarite. Later on, on an occasion, being surrounded by the Philistines, he got hold of the jawbone of an ass and used that and slew the Philistines, and they really died. But as I understand it, he broke the condition of his Nazariteship. To touch a dead bone in the field would have, um, uh, defiled even an ordinary Israelite, would have demanded the ceremonies of the red heifer to cleanse him. Samson, as a Nazarite, was to keep himself especially clean. Broke the rules of his Nazariteship. And you'll say to me, and rightly so, but God used him. Yes, thank the Lord, God used him. That is in the first part of his life. He got away with breaking the rules by the grace of the Spirit of God. But he went too far. And in the second part of his life, from chapter sixteen onwards, there's no mention of the Spirit of God. Yes, God's Holy Spirit is prepared to use us, is he not, in spite of our failures and sins. I nearly said breaking of the rules. But let Samson warn us, there comes a point in which, presuming on the Holy Spirit's power, we feel free to break his law. There will come a point when the Holy Spirit will not use us again. Well, if he broke the rules of the Nazarite ship in eating honey out of the lime and using the jawbone of a dead ass. In the second phase of his life, he betrayed the secret of his strength, his Nazarite long hair, gave it away to his lady love. When the Philistines had been caught, called in to shear his hair off, Samson awoke, pulled up his head from the lap of this woman, and went to shake himself, as before. Knew not that the Lord had departed from him. You may, of course, I realize that, wish to correct me now, maybe quite severely. You will say, but how dare you say that, you preacher? Mm-hmm. When he conquered the lion, was he not a picture of our Lord who went out and assaulted the very devil who walks around as a roaring lion? Has not our Lord brought sweetness out of his conquest of the devil? As facts, I don't dispute it. You may feel that I have misinterpreted the story because the story itself would encourage us to see Samson as a prototype of our blessed Lord. And when he used the jawbone of an ass, you'll say, isn't that what he constantly does amongst us preachers? Isn't that altogether to his glory? So, brothers, I'm open to your correction. If you feel, please say it and convince me that Samson is in these things meant to be a prototype of our Lord. I want to raise, however, the question of what was the point of his spiritual escapades? What good did they do? He went down to marry, uh, ask his parents to get her, uh, him this girl, villison girl, for a wife. And his godly parents said, ta ta, ta, ta, ta. It's not for a believer to marry an unconverted woman like that. Well, that's what they would have said, said if they'd been moderns. They knew not, says the historian, it was of the Lord, for the Lord sought occasion against the Philistines. So now, gentlemen, you have another problem to explain to me, you see. How could it be of the Lord to do what the Israelites on entering Canaan had been strictly forbidden by the Lord to do? Was it not the case with the first deliverer that the people had got un- into oppression by marrying the girls of the Gentiles around them and taking their sons for husbands for their daughters. And therefore they came under oppression and needed to be delivered. And God changed his mind or something and said it's time to relax that. It was of the Lord that Samson should go and marry a Philistine girl, contrary to what earlier had been told the people. You can see my little mind grappling, can't you, with the problem, and you have an explanation, surely. Anyway, what did good did it do? Well, he went down and had a, a, a, a, a, a wedding and a, a wedding breakfast, or what are you, whatever you have, you see. And at this, with all the young bo- young chaps present, he proposed a riddle. Now, riddles in the lack of television were one of the standard means of entertaining yourselves and your guests in the early days. You'll see, even the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon and, you know, delighted in the riddles he propounded. It was an intellectual exercise, was, were riddles, you see. And he propounded them a riddle and backed it home with a bet. You see, if you can understand my riddle, I'll give you thirty changes of raiment. If you can't, you'll give me thirty changes of raiments. And that was expensive stuff. Don't know whether Christians should bet, should they? Should they bet? They wager? So he proposed the riddle, you see. Out of the strong came forth sweetness and so forth. They couldn't guess it. How on earth could they? What was he doing? Preaching the gospel or something? Or was he saying, you see, we Israelites, God has shown us a lot of secrets. You couldn't possibly understand them. This is one of them. You can't understand it. Of course you can't. Let me show our superiority of knowledge. We've got riddles you don't understand. Was that it or something? Was it just a game? What was the point of it? Do tell me, you see how I struggle. They found a way around at getting out his secret. They enticed his lady love. And as the price of sheer indulgence. He explained his riddle. Or because he hoped the girl would get converted or something? Well, of course not. They discovered the meaning of his riddle. Now he had to give them thirty raiments, little suits. I went down to another place, and now I have to be careful, you see. You see my struggles, don't you? Spirit of the Lord came upon him. He slaughtered thirty young Philistines, took their garments, and thus paid the bet he'd lost at the wedding. Do tell me, gentlemen, you see how I struggle. What was the point of it? I come up with one suggestion to my own mind. It was but the beginning of deliverance. The Holy Spirit points it out. It wasn't the full deliverance. Full deliverance of the Philistines would not come until King David. Even Saul could not deliver the people from the Philistines. But this was a beginning. Yes, the Spirit of God was real. It did move Samson and began to make a distinction between uncircumcised Philistines, whose gods were but deification of human brain and brawn, and Israelites who were in touch with the power of the living God, somehow or other. That was the big issue between them. And at least, Samson's power and the secret of it. How did he get such power when apparently he was not a giant like Goliath was, but an ordinary chap, and moreover wore long hair like a woman and so looked a bit effeminate. There was some real power behind him. The Israelites claimed it was the spirit of God. That was an initial distinction. That distinction, it seems to me, was worth making. And if we transpose it into a major key, so to speak, and come once more to one Corinthians and its early chapters, where Paul is keen to do this, is to teach the Corinthians, let no man boast in man. Quoting Jeremiah, let not the strong man boast glory, put his confidence in his strength. Let not the rich man put his confidence in his riches. Let not the wise man put his confidence in his wisdom. But he who has confidence, he that glories, let him glory in the Lord. Which exhortation he follows in chapter two by explaining how the wonderful things of God are revealed to us. He is given us not the spirit of the world, for the rulers of this world, if they had known, would not have crucified the Lord of glory, but they didn't know, ignoramus as they were. But the things which eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, God has, not will one day, God has revealed to us, them to us by his spirit. For the spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God, and we have received the spirit of God that we might understand the things that are freely given to us of God. The lesson taught to the believers in Corinth are highly intellectual town as well as commercial, to distinguish between the wisdom of this world and its strength and its wealth and reliance upon the Holy Spirit of God on the other side. It is a vastly important, basic, fundamental distinction. We do not despise the brains God has given us, or the strength, or the wealth, or the riches. It's a question where our basic confidence is. And the cross of Christ for us makes the fundamental change, what appears to be weakness to men and folly. We have proved to be the power and the wisdom of God. And we learn the great treasures reserved for us by our dependence upon the Spirit of God. There came a time when Samson's fellow countrymen found him an embarrassment. Going around disturbing Philistines like this. They'll get a very poor idea of us. Mm. Sometimes Christians can get embarrassed. Now I have to be careful what I say. We can certainly be embarrassed by pseudo claims to spirituality. But when it comes to real spirituality, that begins with the gospel, however religious you are, you must be born again of the Spirit of God, or else you don't even enter, let alone see, the Kingdom of God. That message can be highly embarrassing in Christendom sometimes, can it not? And sometimes preachers are advised to soft-pedal it a bit, because it is not user-friendly in the religious world. We need to make the distinction between mere Christian religion on the one hand, and the workings of the Spirit of God in new birth and in the teaching of the church and so forth thereafter. So his compatriots found him with his consent and handed him over to the Philistines, where they promised not to fight against him, and you know the result, that he broke the bands and slaughtered the Philistines. But... thus far, God had used him. The Spirit had used him, in spite of his breaking the rules of his very Nazariteship. But then, from the chapter sixteen onwards, we're told he went to Gaza. There was a harlot. He went to her. It was told the Gazites, saying, Samson has 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, let be till morning light, and we will kill him. And Samson lay till midnight and arose at midnight and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city and two pe- the two posts, plucked them up, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron. And the one thing you will not notice in that description is the phrase, several times mentioned before in the earlier time, but now no longer me- named. It doesn't say that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. He had a gift of strength. Just because we have a gift doesn't mean that every time we use the gift, it's the Spirit of God that is moving us. We can take our gifts and use them in a fleshly and a carnal way that the Holy Spirit does not and is not pleased to use. It went from bad to worse. He's falling in love with the girls of the, of the Philistines, strictly forbidden in the earlier days of the judges, proved his downfall, when for self-gratification he eventually betrayed the secret of his strength, his Nazariteship, and his utter devotion to God, put self-indulgence and personal satisfaction before loyalty to the Lord. It was his end. He rose up, shook himself, knew not that the Lord had departed from him. Sad, isn't it? They took him and put both his eyes out and put him to menial work in the prison. His hair began to grow again. He had one final victory. As he leaned upon the pillars and the house collapsed and a multitude of Philistines died. And he died with them. Perhaps he learned his lesson, that true victory comes through dying to one's selfish self-indulgence. God has not given us his gift to indulge our personal satisfaction. But now you have seen my struggles, and I don't s- propose to say more, because I'm allowed to ask you questions, according to the program here. It says, uh, he is to lecture and question. So now, gentlemen, you see my struggles, and I do call on you very, very, very sincerely. Please help me in my understanding of Samson, and if and where you see I'm completely offline and I've misjudged him harshly, please come to his defense and tell me what I should think. Uh, hands all over the place. One right in the corner over there, as far as I can see. I just ask a question with comment. I hope it's not too far forward in your question, but in chapter fourteen, his father and his mother knew not that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against the... Some suggestion in the text that the he is not the Lord, but Samson. In other words, the thing, the higher purpose of the Lord, as in thirteen five, that at this time he was beginning to deliver the Israelites, as you mentioned, that this would carry on through Saul and David and so on. And, uh, some of the commentators, Kyle Delish and those men that looked at the Hebrew part, say that the he could be Samson sought an occasion against the Philistines because they were had dominion over them. That means rather than the Lord sanctioning the marriage in that sense, Mm-hmm. it's bringing in the fact of the higher purpose of the Lord behind it. And if I may ask Larry, do you, you think that's a very good explanation? Uh, it seems to appeal to me. Yes, it appeals to you. If I were to come against you and say that Larry, my boy, um, was he Samson seeking an occasion against them? He was seeking a wife, and when they didn't give it, uh, uh, gave it to somebody else, he, uh, uh, uh, punished them severely. You think it was Samson doing it, because Samson thought this was a very good way to fulfill the Lord's objective, that he would go and marry Philistines and then find somehow, make a row with them and destroy them. You see what I mean? In the sense, in this sense, that Samson did want, at one point, to be, to be used as a deliverer from the Philistines. Yes. And it does say at that time, specifically in that verse, that the Philistines had dominion over. Oh, surely they did. He was certainly seeking a way. Yeah, Larry? To provoke them. Let me come back at you, if I may, uh, you know, thank you very much for the comment and acting, uh, uh, uh, you know, so that I can really begin to, uh, exercise my thoughts. Suppose you had a daughter, Larry, in this modern age, and that isn't perhaps a fair analogy. You had a daughter, and she says she was a believer, and she said, Dad, I want to marry this man, and who is he? He's a film star, very attractive, but not a believer at all. And you say, but wait a minute, you shouldn't, as a, as a believer, you're told that you mustn't marry, uh, a non-converted. Ah, but she said, I think the Lord is going to use me to get him converted. What would you say to that, Larry? If the suggestion, pardon? Well, it's, it's certainly a scenario that is not been my personal experience, but I have had opportunity to counsel people that way. Yes. I have greater trouble when afterwards, actually, the person has gotten saved, and people say. Yes, right. Yeah, you, yes, you, you've got my problem exactly now, you see. Yes. I understand. Yes, thank you very much. Somebody else got a hand up. It would seem that most of the things perhaps are open to one, and that is that, let's say that Samson's motive at that moment was, you know, the highest in his thinking, uh, ideal of going to find an occasion to convert the Philistines or to bring a deliver. Mm-hmm. That the bottom line is it violated a revealed principle in the word of God. Yet God, knowing that, well, we're going to do it anyway, well, and I'm not saying that this is the character at the end in sixteen, Mm-hmm. when Sam- Samson had already been disciplined of God and now should have known better and willfully, knowingly sinned. Here at the beginning, we give the man the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. And now with all the, like us, God doesn't wait till you're perfect, till I'm perfect, before God's willing to use me or use us. Mm-hmm. And so God himself in his sovereignty, not that it's him allowing it, not that it's him sending Samson to get the Philistine woman, but knowing that Samson will do it, then God, in his great mercy, can so set the stage to use Samson for his glory anyway, and in no means does that justify the failure of Samson himself. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you very much, that you. Now, uh, we got to keep our eye on the time, if you don't mind. We have another fifteen minutes, but it's a portion of our time. I can't quite see down there. You, sir? It is one story I believe in the whole Bible, but But science Samson is. is one of the hardest stories for me to believe in the Bible because he just can't get over how any man could be so stupid. You just need to counsel the saboteurs at Greenwood first. And see what happens to the guy and girl. Yes. Very good, very good. Yes. Thank you very much for that. And this good man here has a hand up. Yes. Um, one of the things that, that I don't see talked about very much is that I don't see where the parents of Samson, um, did their complete job Ooh. in raising Samson. Um, because when it became difficult for them to disagree with Samson, their son, over the marriage. They didn't step in and do what I believe a parent should do. And I'm being, I'm a parent, and I have four of my own children, and I say that, um, not that I did everything that I should do with my children, but even so, I don't see where they did what they should have done before the Lord. Yes, so that you would say part of the responsibility lies with the parents. I would say that, that the, uh... Yeah, that part of the responsibility lies with the parents and, and that the, that the, uh, parents didn't teach him well. Mm-hmm. Right. Well, now can I be selfish for a moment and ask my own problems? Um, on the way to this marriage affair, he slaughtered this lion and ate the honey and made his riddle from it. Any of you feel, as I've met commentators that do feel it, that herein Samson was a picture of the Lord who has overcome the devil and brought out of the devil, so to speak, or out of that victory, the honey of salvation for us, you see. Now, present, some of you here would feel that that is the true exposition of it, yes? You just messed up the good sermon. What do you mean I messed it up? It's one application of it. It's one application. Yes. All of the judges could be viewed in a limited way as a picture of the Lord delivering his people. Yes. Well, yes, that's that, that that's true indeed. However you look at it, it's an absolute violation of his Nazarite vow. And I have often, uh, pointed out, at least as I understand scripture, that it's a mis- very mistaken notion to think of our Lord as a Nazarite. He was not a Nazarite, he was a Nazarene. There's been a confusion in that. Even I believe in the portrayals of the Lord on earth with long hair, which seem to be exclusively to the Nazarites. Uh, and for Samson there to be portrayed as a picture of the Lord while he's in violation of the word of God, to me is a stretch. Is a stretch. Well, the distinction is made here between taking it, as you might say, as a prototype or type, and using it simply as an illustration, as a, as an application, so to speak. As long as you are careful to make that distinction in your speaking. There's another hand up here, someone. You said that, if if I'm following the train of thought, it seems to me that the incident of the slaying of the lion and then finding the honey in the carpet is what forms part of his riddle. Yes. So there's a connection between that event, the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him, and what he did with the lion, and then the riddle that he puts forth to the Philistines. And then, if, if I understood you right, you made the comment that when he put forth that riddle, what was he doing? Was that gospel? And, um, uh, i- i- is it gospel? What was the point of that whole thing? And I, it seems to me that the point of the whole thing is it was gospel. It was gospel in the sense that, well, to the Philistines, there was someone that was stronger than they were, even though physically he obviously did not derive his strength from the same source that they put as the, uh, uh, source of strength. Mm-hmm. And not only then did he have a strength that wasn't, they couldn't figure out naturally. Yes. The very riddle he puts to them had a understanding, a wisdom, a secret, like later with the that they, how could they figure it out? Well, that's it. It's a problem. So I, I, I, uh, that's Henry, isn't it? I, Henry, I, I, I'll have a go at preaching from it. You see whether you approve. The, uh, the secret riddle that, uh, out of the, um, strong came forth, out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness. You'll see, my brethren, through the work of this great, uh, uh, prototype of the Lord, he brought out for the lion what was absolutely contrary to its nature. It wasn't, uh, the lion's nature to produce meat for anybody except from himself. His job was to eat it up, and you included. Nor was it any of his nature, uh, uh, as strong as it was, that he should yield up sweetness? But this is what our Lord has done in defeating the strong devil, and out of that has brought, changed the nature. I- I'm getting a bit muddled up, but I- I- I'm attempting to preach it. It was, uh, it has changed the nature and, uh, brought from, uh, the strong meat and from, uh, the strong sweetness and out of the eater meat. Would you, would you think I'm on the right lines? Yes. You would. Yes, I would say that you are, and not the Lord, but the very Spirit of God that is given to us. Yes. From the victory that the Lord Yes. in his going to glory. The man, this is all linked, as I see it, with the man that the parents saw going up to glory. Mm-hmm. And now, because of that link with that man in glory, a, a, a wealth, a power, a wisdom, a knowledge that's supernatural. That, that. Right, yes. And how far down the line would you take it? Oh, there's a hand up here. Yes, yes? Sir. To me, this is a prelude demonstration or acuteness of Samson doing this riddle. It's a prelude that he didn't learn of his own downfall. Because in the, in him doing this riddle from verse fifteen to eighteen, his wife gets involved to find out the secret of the riddle. That is a prelude that he didn't learn that was going to happen to him on his own spiritual downfall, because later on, they want to know this, uh, she, she is, uh, confronting him with the secret of his strength, which only him and the Lord knew, and she gets that secret out of him also. So she not only fooled him here, he allowed her to fool her, fool him later on to his own downfall in service of the Lord. Yeah. What you're doing, my brother, seems to me, you see, is to try and, uh, take a thought flow, a flow of thoughts through the whole thing, and not just take out one incident. So, yeah, perhaps Henry would come back, who knows, and say, okay, my dear brother, take it like that in the context originally, and there are these difficulties that you put out, practical difficulties. But if you're allowed to take the incident out of its, uh, context a moment, then it can be used as a picture of what Christ has done. He has defeated the lion, uh, and has turned the tables on Satan and brought us much joy as a result. Um. Yes. The problem I have with that is that when Jesus, um, takes on the lion, okay, he doesn't turn that lion into meat for us, and he doesn't turn anything of that Satan into something that we should eat or be a part of, and that if you turn that lion, it, the lion is supposed to re- represent Satan. We are to have no part of that meat or that Satan whatsoever. Yes, I can see the difficulty. That's why I have a problem when you say. Yes. We have another hand up here. Time is ticking away. I think one of the things that comes to mind to me, Kenny brought it up about the sovereignty of God, uh, Psalm seventy six should say, surely the wrath of man shall praise. And so in trying us to understand the sovereignty of God, it's downright impossible, but, but you get the sense that he can take everything and use it. But what I think helps me to consider, uh, Samson here is what we'll see later in David, uh, and Saul, where Saul is somewhat like Samson, one who seems to go from his own energies. But what is distinctive about David is he was a man after God's own heart. So if, if I can separate the motive of the person, what's in their heart, that helps me to see what goes on here. And so if I look at Samson, he's doing it in the flesh. If we can point to the Lord Jesus with the right attitude in his heart, then these illustrations don't explode. In other words, uh, if we can remember the Lord is perfect, where, uh, Samson and others were highly imperfect, yet we can see that their very imperfections here, he did the perfect job where they failed. Yeah? Uh, someone there in a white shirt. I just would say that, you know, clarifying things in my mind, uh, maybe you could, uh, maybe you could, uh, tell me whether I'm right or not. You believe that this particular reference is really more to establish the second event where the woman would again probe him and find his secret. That is that the writer's intention was to cite this more so to establish what happens to him in his downfall than to bring out any particular significance in the citation itself. Well, it is our good brother here who suggested that he should have learned from the first incident when his, uh, uh, the wife, uh, the girl betrayed his secret and got it out of him, not in order to get converted, but to destroy him. Eh, and he should have learned that and didn't, and went on in this whole business of, uh, marrying or having intercourse with Philistine, uh, women, you see. Um, now certainly that with me bears a lot of, uh, strength because of the earlier commands that they were not to intermarry, do you see? And because of the first oppression came about because they did in- intermarry. So if you're going along that line, it becomes very difficult to justify, uh, what Samson did. On the other hand, I take the point to being made here that even where they fail, where he failed originally, God, uh, used him in spite of it. If God didn't use us, uh, uh, because we make mistakes, he wouldn't use anybody ever, do you see? So that, uh, yes, God did. There came a point when God no longer used him, and that was on this whole matter, likewise, of going into these, uh, Philistine women. But I can see the argument, yes, but in spite of all that, he failed, but our Lord, in a similar situation, has, uh, uh, uh, conquered. And you can use the less to illustrate the bigger, do you see? I would like to ask one more question before my time is out. Eh, do you approve? How do you understand that when, uh, she found out his riddle, and Samson had to pay in the form of thirty big bu- little new suits, you see, he went down somewhere or other, the spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he slaughtered thirty young men, who happened to be standing around, I suppose, and took their suits and paid the, the, the bet with them. How do you understand, gentlemen, the phrase, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he did this? If I were a hard-boiled atheist, you see, you might say, well, there's no hope for him anyway, so it's no good talking to him. Well, if I were a soft-boiled atheist then, uh, you see, and I said to you, is this what you mean by the Spirit of God? That Samson could come along to an innocent young chaps, kill them, steal their ga- garments, all in the aid of his spiritual work of mysteries. What would you say? You see, excuse my rough language, but all I'm trying to get you to say is to explain what you understand by the phrase the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. Yeah, yes, yes. I, I somehow see that in the use of spiritual ability, and I don't profess to understand it completely, but my mind goes forward even to New Testament, to Corinth, for instance, that there's some connection between the Spirit of the Lord and the individual's use of that ability. I don't know if that's clear the way I stated it, but that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, but the way that he used that. In other words, we can use our spiritual gifts in a way that... it isn't right. I'm not necessarily saying that wasn't right, but that... that's the best I, I have. Yes, in other words, uh, when it says the spirit of the Lord, it might be referring to this spiritual gift of power that he had, that it was open to him in the sense that Paul would say to the Corinthians in one Corinthians fourteen, the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. And you can't say I'm a inspired prophet here, uh, do you see, and I do this, this, this, and the other, and is by definition right because I'm an inspired prophet, uh, and you tell me to sit down and be quiet, I can't because the spirit is driving me. Uh, no, says Paul, that isn't true. The spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets, yes? I, I wonder if there's, uh, you know, my thinking, again, to your question, what do we understand by the phrase the spirit of the Lord came upon you? It's interesting that in this incident, it says the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, and I'm thinking back forward to the ark being taken, and Israel at the same time is being disciplined, yet God is still revealing his glory in that very ark with regard to the Philistines. So there's two simultaneous actions taking place, and I wonder if here, with the riddle, Samson, in his youth, is still carrying with him, in a sense, the name of that God, so that, uh, even though he has personal failure, yet God's glory is still linked with him, and God acts with regards to his own glory and his own purpose. Whereas later it seems that the progression in Samson's own personal unwillingness to submit himself personally to the discipline and the training of the Lord takes him in his life, where he now goes up to the top of the hill to grab the gates, and there it doesn't say the spirit of the Lord comes upon him, because it seems that now Samson had so indulged himself and used his privileges so completely for his own self that, well, at that point he still had the gift, but that act of tearing down those gates was nothing but sheer vengeance for himself, and nothing truly that God will glorify. Thank you. Thank you, Henry. And I now must conclude because it's time. But thank you for your discussion. The, uh, fact is surely that the story, as we can see, does show how God began to deal with the Philistine. It never promised anything more than the beginning. And certainly we can say that through Samson, the Philistines were made aware that there was a power that they couldn't grasp or understand. There was a power, and to have established that was an exceedingly important thing, granted what Philistines stood for, the confidence in man, his brain, and his brawn. They were made, they were made aware that there was a power beyond them. They set themselves to destroy it, and unfortunately, through Samson's behavior, they were able to do it for the time being. But even in the end, they were made aware that there was this power and that Israel's God was superior to Dagon, their God. It was a beginning, perhaps. It is true still to say that at the time Samson died, Israel was still under the dom- domination of the Philistines. But thank you very much for your discussion. I am delighted that I have to taken Judges with you, because now I begin to see it has stirred up great discussion and a profitable discussion. Here's hoping the discussion will go on for all the other interesting things that arise in the book of Judges.