Message Transcript
Good evening, beloved. Good evening. To judges, we turn.
Judges chapter 15. You have your copy of God's Word? Pick it up. Let's be on our way.
We have a bit to cover here. As we begin to set the stage and look into the person in the ministry of Samson, a man renowned for his strength physically and perhaps his weakness morally. When you have found your place in Judges chapter 15, I will ask you to look towards the end of that chapter in verses 17 through 19 as our particular text that we will be reading.
And when you found your place there in Judges 15, 17 through 19, please stand for the reading of God's Word. Judges chapter 15 verses 17 through 19. Hear the word of the Lord.
And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand and called that place Ramathleh. And he was sore athirst and called on the Lord and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant. And now shall I die for thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? But God claimed a hollow place that was in the jaw.
And there came water thereout. And when he had drunk, his spirit came again. And he revived.
Wherefore he called the name thereof En-Hekor, which is in Lehi unto this day. Amen. Please remain standing as we seek His face once more.
Precious Father, Lord, we look to You now at this hour in the reading of Your Word, and we ask that in the preaching of it You would grant great grace, Lord, that we may have understanding of it. Lord, that we would hear and see the truth of Your Word. The Spirit would illuminate it to our mind.
And Lord, we would know from where our true strength doth come. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated. As we were looking at last time, please do not forget the backdrop of the scene upon which we are entering into today, this evening. This is the seventh time now, judges, accounts that Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord.
And it's out from that darkness. Now, 40 years of Philistine captivity, Philistine oppression, Philistine-induced pain, that we now arrive at this moment where God has come in the face of the angel of the Lord to Manoah and promised a child that His wife would conceive. And it wouldn't just be conceiving any old child.
It would be a Nazarite. It would be a child that from the womb would be separated unto the service of God. And He would come with all the necessary stipulations that come with a Nazarite.
Not to be near the dead or to touch the dead. Not to partake of the fruit of the vine. No grape, no raisin, no wine, no partaking of any kind.
He was to have His hair grown out and to keep it grown out all the days of what would normally be a vow only to be sacrificed at the end of the tenure along with a sacrifice. But this one was interesting. Rather than a voluntary vow, He was set aside from the womb as one appointed by God unto this station.
And here, the parents sought godly wisdom, sought God's ways, prayers from a needy heart. And it is out from this provision we come to one of fame in one sense, infamy in another, Samson. Samson's name literally means little son.
Not son of a father, little son as in the big bright thing in the sky. A couple things to keep in mind as you reflect on Samson because there's all sorts of moral confusion throughout every step of Samson's tenure as a judge. These three points, I think, will help keep our thinking on the guardrails.
One, do not forget, as we pointed out as a Nazarite, how set aside Samson was from the womb. He was prepared. He was by design to be consecrated unto the Lord.
And therefore, by reason of consecration, it should stand to reason, he is to be one in active communion with the Lord. That's the very point of the Nazarite vow. It's not just a different habit of behavior, but it is one who has separated himself unto God, communing with God, consecrated unto God.
And yet, despite this designation, despite this design, where we should expect one walking in close proximity with God, walking near to the ways of God, near to the heart of God, what we find is a stark contrast and distinction to that concept. What we find is one not walking with God and walking in His ways, but rather, Samson lives as one particularly rebellious. He lives as one particularly disobedient, particularly lust-filled and self-seeking.
And it's amazing, if you take a step back and think of that, this pattern really fits the nation of Israel as a whole. Were they not a chosen people, an appointed people from the womb, a nation of priests to serve their God, to be a chastening rod to the nations, to represent the laws of God and the customs of God and the ways of God to the pagan world around them, and yet, despite all this, they are particularly rebellious, disobedient and self-serving people? In this way, Samson is very much a picture of the nation into which he's born, in the time in which he's born. But one last thing I want you to keep in mind as well.
Please remember, he is a judge. You go, okay, it's not very profound. Well, it is in this sense.
He gets so wormed into the affairs of the Philistines that you can almost forget he's a judge, rose up to destroy them. He's not supposed to be making league with and marrying them and participating in their festivals. He's literally sent by God.
He should be avenging God's ways, avenging the Lord's people upon God's foes. He should be destroying Philistines. He should be destroying Philistines and liberating Israel.
That's his call, freeing them. And how odd the whole narrative gets when he kind of ends up in this back-to-back soap opera, if you will, of affairs, rather than destroying the Philistines, getting so close to them that it actually adds a lot of confusion as to the nature of his relationship with them. And I've noticed, as I've read, some of the commentators even seem to kind of slip into his harshness with the Philippines at the Philippines.
Poor Philippines. The Philistines at various points. But just remember, he is a judge.
He rose up for their destruction and the liberation of Israel. And that will help keep our mind, hopefully your mind anyway, on track. Just pray for me.
Chapter 14 gets us right where we left off into looking right at Samson. We will just sprint over Judges 14 so we have some backstory. 15 is really where we want to be this evening.
Chapter 14, however, the book of Judges jumps ahead. We don't have any accounting of his childhood. It goes right to a Samson in the strength of his young age looking to find a wife, in search of a wife.
And very quickly, we learn a lot about Samson's character as a judge. You see there, his eye is not upon any of the daughters of Israel as they ought to be, but it's wandering outside the camp and he's looking towards the Philistines. And the very attitude with which he begins to look says a lot about his rebelliousness against God because we see it automatic in rebelliousness against his own parents.
It says there in verse 2, he tells his father and his mother, I've seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. Now, therefore, get her for me to wife. Wow, okay.
Here's the judge who's going to be the leading magistrate in Israel. And we see he has no honor whatsoever for his parents. And it's undersigned here, it digs in in verse 3. Then his father and his mother said unto him, and keep in mind, you will see something of their attitude and behavior shine through and we've already seen a little bit of it and they're seeking the Lord's face for how to raise this young man up.
But we see their perspective of the Philistines here because they're going to say unto their son Samson, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren or among all thy people that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? They're rightfully disgusted. And Samson said unto his father, listen to how repentant and teachable this attitude is. He says, get her for me to his father, for she pleaseth me well.
You need to have no better view of how a young person views God than by the way they treat and talk to and view the authority of their parents. And here this is as clear as can be. Now, mom and dad at this point seem to roll over and do the bidding of their son.
That's also some indicator on how things have been going to this point. You don't end up with a spoiled adult unless you've raised up a spoiled child. We certainly see the evidence of it here.
So, apparently defeated in argument, they go and they help him find this Philistine wife. Now, let's just move really quickly across chapter 14. We see this attitude on display, and side note, this is not a one-time occurrence.
You're seeing something of a habit of Samson's attitude and issue, we'll call it a problem, with Philistine women in general. Verse 6 brings us to the lion and to the power that is in display here. As a young lion comes and meets them in the way, and don't be surprised in the way of disobedience, you meet with lions in the way.
But here is this young lion that has roared against him, and according to the call of Samson as a judge, we see the Spirit of the Lord come mightily upon him. Now, here we get some incredible insight into the nature of the Lord's work through this judge. We see that at the very last verse of the previous chapter 25, it said the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan, but it was vague, the Scripture didn't give us as to what nature that was, but the Lord gives it to us here in a pretty profound display, where this man grabs hold of this young lion, rips him in half like a baby goat, and he had nothing in his hands, he simply grabbed it, tore it apart, and we see something of the unusual nature of the moment even for Samuel, Samson, excuse me, I actually got Samuel confused with Samson earlier, and now I've done just the opposite here.
But he rips it in half, he says nothing to his parents, and after a time he returns, and as he returns in the way, there's enough time gone by that the carcass either should have been decayed or gone, but oddly enough it seems to have dried out, and a bee colony goes in and makes honey within the carcass of the lion. Now this is odd enough, this is odd behavior for bees, this is not where you'd normally find them setting up camp. Commentators rightfully pull out that there's a hidden typology here.
What is it, how odd is it that something as powerful as a lion could be subdued by something as weak as a man? And in its death, rather than rot and decay, you have something sweet and life-giving brought forth out of it. More peculiar than honey out of a rock, you have honey brought forth out of the death of strength itself. And herein, commentators point, this is a powerful picture of Christ.
He was the mighty lion of the tribe of Judah, and who allowed himself to be overtaken and slain by mere mortal men. And in his death, we don't find decay, but we find life. And the sweetness of Christ's death is given unto each of his saints, that we may eat, and we may live, and we may have life more abundantly in him.
Now as we march through the rest of this portion, you will find very quickly there are many pictures of Christ, types of Christ, emblems of Christ, hidden in plain sight, all throughout the life and the ministry of Samson. So we have little time to expand sufficiently on each one, but I will touch on each one, and I will leave it up to you to study them out on your own as we go. But he finds his wife-to-be.
They have a wedding, a feast. There's a riddle that has something to do with the lion and the honey, followed by a betrayal, she tells. He gets upset with the Philistines and accuses them, saying, if you had not plowed with my heifer, you had not found out my riddle.
They managed by enticing his wife to tell them what the solution to the riddle was, the answer to the riddle. And he is frustrated that they have managed to plow with his own wife, who he refers to as his own heifer. Matthew Henry pointed out here at this point, Satan does this to us.
He will use that which is of our own selves, in our own being, part of us, against us. Not referring, in Matthew Henry's case, to the wife necessarily, but even to that which is even closer, our own flesh. Very often Satan doesn't use something totally alien and foreign to us, but that which is nearest to us, the traitor within, to turn us inward against ourselves.
Many often times we are authors of our own punishment against God. Temper flares. He abandons his wife of a day or two.
The father, after she is abandoned, decides to give her away to Samson's best man. That brings us to chapter 15. A whole lot happened in chapter 14.
But in 15, almost a year seems to have gone by. And it's against that backdrop that we understand the oddness of what begins to ensue. But Samson, after having a little bit of time to think about perhaps his overreaction, by a year ago, decides to go get an offering, a go-get-a-kid, and come and return to his wife.
I guess a year was long enough to think it through. Verses 1 through 3. But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid. And he said, I will go into my wife into the chamber, but her father would not suffer him to go in.
And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her, therefore I gave her to thy companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Take her, I pray thee, instead of her. And Samson said concerning her, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.
So here, what has taken place is, Samson has shown up to the surprise and the chagrin of the father. And the father is trying to figure out a way to kind of amends for the situation and offers her younger sister. John Gill points out that perhaps one of the reasons that Samuel did not go for this was that it was actually a sin and it was forbidden in the book of Leviticus chapter 18 verse 18 for a man to take his wife's sister.
I happen to think John Gill is giving Samson a little too much credit for his rationale for it. I noticed throughout reading John Gill, he was very overly gracious with Samson. And I love John Gill.
I think he's a little over gracious here. I don't see any restraint or hesitation in Samson morally throughout these parts to give occasion to it. I'm not so sure he was looking to the forbiddenness of Leviticus 18 verse 18 as his course here, but rather his own humiliation and embarrassment, rather the sense of betrayal that his wife had been given to another man.
And the rage with which he responds seems to indicate that that is the sense. Even the immediate cry in verse 3 seems to cry as one shouting, I am justified in what I am about to do. That seems to be the sentiment.
I shall be more blameless than the Philistines. He didn't say he's going to be innocent in what he's about to do. He says, I will be more blameless.
I won't be as blamable as the Philistines are clearly blamable in this circumstance. And so he sets out and marches out with fire in his heart and a willingness to set the surrounding countryside on fire. And that will be his weapon of choice here.
He's just got to round up a few hundred foxes to make it work. Verse 4 through 5 sets the display of his remarkable thinking and how he decides he's going to bring about retribution. Verses 4 through 5 reads, And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes and took firebrands and turned tail to tail and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.
And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines and burnt up both the shocks and also the standing corn with the vineyards and olives. So apparently this land is known as a land overrun with foxes. There's even a city nearby.
The name of the city literally means foxes. So that tells us something. It's apparently fairly easy for him and his men to gather up these three hundred foxes.
And what he does is he puts them tail to tail. He binds the tails together and between them he takes a torch and sets it on fire and one by one begins to release these. Now there's actually a really odd cruel stroke of genius in this because if you were to just simply tie it to one of the fox's tail someone pointed out it would have been the fox's behavior to immediately run down into its closest den.
And when you take a torch down into the den, it doesn't do a whole lot of damage. But when you have two foxes that have two different dens and you tie them together, it's like Amos chapter 3 verse 3. When two who are not agreed on where they should go are forced to travel together. Chaos ensues.
They are unevenly oaked and they are chaotically going all about simply agreed on one thing to escape the fire. But where to do it, they're not so sure. They run into the fields.
It's the closest thing to cover that they can find. Foxes being the erratic skittish creatures that they are. Their cunning is gone, however, and they are just running for their lives.
They run into the field. They run into the corn. They run for shelter right into the produce of the nation.
And keep in mind, this is in the time of wheat harvest. So there are plenty of locations where the Philistines have already gone through and harvested their field and they have set it aside in the shocks. Some of it's still standing.
It is time to eat. And the foxes are let loose. The grain is plenty dry.
Everything is dry and it is quite easy to set on fire. And as they go, everything begins to get burnt down. As they look up and they see foxes and fire and furious Philistines everywhere.
The Philistines are looking high and low to discover who did this and it seems they don't have to look far or think long at who's to blame. Whether that is something of the Philistines or rather Samson's reputation already with the Philistines or there's an informant, we're not exactly told. But you'll see how short-lived the mystery lives on.
Verse six through eight. Then the Philistines said, who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite. Because he had taken his wife and given her to his companion.
And the Philistines came up and look at their retribution. And burnt her and her father with fire. That was their recourse.
They seem to have thought they have done a great evil against Samson. Samson has taken his vengeance out on all of us. So they start by going to the source of the conflict in their thinking and saying, you brought this evil upon us by provoking Samson to anger.
So we're going after you because you kicked up and stirred up the hornet's nest and now we have to pay for what you've done against this man and his wife. Now if you thought that would allay Samson, he's not allayed. He is rather seemingly further incensed because whatever lack of loyalty he had to his wife in leaving her for a year, he seems to have not only expected her loyalty to him, but now he's ready to avenge her memory.
Verse seven, and Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. So rather than be brought to a place where he's appeased, he is actually further incensed. The blame is being passed in increasing escalating degrees.
The escalation ensues and now you're adding revenge on top of revenge and this thing is massively spiraling out of control. In verse eight, he goes up. It doesn't say he used any particular weapon.
It just says and he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Edom. And so you know Edom is in the province in the tribal region of Judah. So he marches in, he begins to slay and slaughter and wound and he simply marches into Judah, goes up into a high place on the rock of Edom and is there content to dwell.
The Philistines, as you can imagine, are not going to take this lying down. Now it's not a matter of a few hundred there or here, but in verse nine, armies are summoned. Verse nine, then the Philistines went up and pitched in Judah and spread themselves in Lehi.
Now keep in mind, Lehi literally means the jawbone and likely would have been named after the event that is here taking place. Verse 10, and the men of Judah said, Why are you come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us. Now the fact that they've come in and they pitched in Judah and they've spread themselves in Lehi gives us a sense that they have rank on rank.
They have thousands now here attended and in person. And you have to consider the mindset of those in the tribe of Judah. They have been under the submission and the pressure of the Philistines for 40 years.
They have not thrown off their taskmaster. They have actually, in some ways, as much as they've been able, gotten themselves comfortable in the circumstance. So they're giving tribute to the Philistines.
They're doing the Philistines' bidding. They're not raising up a revolt against them. So as they are doing whatever it is that they're responsible to do in their normal daily work, all of a sudden they look up and the Philistines are arraying themselves as in the day of battle.
They have their sword on their sides. They're spreading themselves out. And now the terror of Judah is met with the confusion because what have we done? And naturally they begin to go out and say to them, What is this all about? Because they can't think of any reason that the Philistines would set themselves up for this.
And then they hear a name that they recognize, Samson. And we're going to do to him as he's done to us. Now the fear of them being what it is begins to go into self-preservation mode here.
11-13, Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Edom and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? What is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As they did unto me, so have I done unto them. So they're literally caught back and forth in this accusation of pointing. They started it.
No, Samson started it. No, they started it. What are we going to do to him when he did to us? No, I did to them what they did to me first.
And here's three thousand armed men of Judah standing here in the middle of this. If you really don't catch the transitions of the oddness between the communication, it's really remarkable. But keep in mind, there's another parallel here.
Whenever the Philistines found out that they had lost all their fields, notice they went to their own and blamed their own for making Samson mad. Now Judah has done the exact same thing. Now they're going to their own Samson for making the Philistines mad at them.
So there's incredible patterns of behavior here. The fingers are pointing and flying and everyone is panicking. And if you're not buried in revenge or at least buried in self-preservation, that seems to be the attitude everyone's borrowed into at this point.
So verse 12 through 13 continues, And they said unto him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, Swear unto me that you will not fall upon me yourselves. Now that's an interesting statement.
Samson doesn't laugh and say, I will throw all of you off of this mountain. Samson doesn't say anything that's even remotely aggressive towards them. He seems to contemplate the circumstances.
It's clear by this that he probably didn't know the Philistines had arrayed themselves down the rock below. He seems to receive this information in stride and simply looks to his brothers and just wants one assurance. That they themselves will not fight against him.
They will not war with him. That they, other than bind him and deliver him, that's fine. But they're not going to try and fall upon him themselves.
As we see in verse 12, they give him their word. And they spake unto him saying, No, but we will bind thee fast and deliver thee into their hand. But surely we will not kill thee.
Seems to be good enough for Samson because this mighty man of superhuman strength allows them to bind him with two new cords and brought him up from the rock. What a picture here. Three thousand men of Judah.
They're in danger. Their lives are in danger. There is the imminent threat of death by the Philistines right on their toes.
And in self-preservation, they're going to arrest the judge of Israel, the monarch of Israel, if you will, and deliver him to the Gentiles, if you will, for judgment. And though he has strength beyond strength to rip lions in half, he allows himself to be bound with two flimsy little cords that, as we will see in a moment, he could very easily break. And he does this in such a way that will deliver his people.
That is utterly remarkable. Utterly remarkable. The pattern here is as clear as we can see it.
When our blessed Christ was standing there at the precipice of having come unto his people, enabled with divine strength beyond any comprehension, far beyond Samson, he who was upholding all things by the word of his power, and his people enduring the sentence of death upon them, not understanding the nature of things. And they came, his own people, betraying him. Betrayed him.
Coming, binding him, arresting him. Not only the judge of Israel, but the judge of all the earth. Betrayed of his own countrymen.
He came unto his own, and his own received him not. And they delivered him to the pagans, to the Romans, to be judged and to be found guilty. Though he had strength beyond strength to destroy and to tear down, yet in a willing weakness he allowed himself to be crucified and put to death, that he may deliver his people from the death sentence that was upon them.
It's an amazingly visible type of Christ. And more than one commentator pulls that out beautifully at this point. And you can read right through it and almost not see the hidden pattern, the hidden emblem in plain sight, but there it is.
But we return to the actual narrative at that point of what's actually taking place. And they have bound the strong man. They have bound Samson, and they're bringing him up from the rock.
And in verse 14, when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him. They see him. Here comes this one that has killed a good number of their people and destroyed a great majority of their crops.
And what happens when they shout against him? And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. Very good. His people have done what they said they would do.
They got him, they bound him, and they delivered him. Special delivery. Here's Samson.
Here you go. Much like when the Pharisees took the Ark of the Covenant in the days of Samuel, just before Samuel. Okay, we've got the Ark of the Covenant.
This is great. Let's go put it in front of our statue, Dagon. We win.
Only to wake up in the morning and the hands of Dagon are thrown over the threshold. It's dropped down. Everyone's getting more or less King James' word, emeralds.
And the whole nation is suffering and afflicted, and they're in turmoil, and they've got this Ark of the Covenant, and they don't know what to do. People are dying. Good job, you got the Ark of the Covenant.
What do we do? How do we get rid of the Ark of the Covenant? Until they finally send it on its way with calves that have never been used before, and it's taken out of their midst, and the plague has stayed. Here they have Samson in their midst, and like the Ark, with it comes something of the presence of the Lord, and they are not going to be able to get their arms around what they've got. Verse 15.
This becomes the high point here in many ways of the ministry of Samson. This is one of those rare, incredible moments that we do get to see. Verse 15 through 17.
And he found a new jawbone of an ass. When it says new there, you'll see in that little side column, moist. Yes, that word new in its native connotation means this is a freshly dead donkey.
And so as he grabs hold literally of the mouth of the donkey and pulls that jawbone out, it's still carrying debris. It's not dry. It's not brittle.
It's strong. It's still got all the good minerals in it. It is ready to use.
And keep in mind, he is a Nazarite. What should he not be touching? Death. Not only has he reached into the carcass of a lion and fed his happy self, but now he's looked down and ripped off the mouth, the jawbone of a donkey.
And he looks and he goes, this is suitable. And he decides to enter into war with a rotten, bloody, nasty fist of something you and I wouldn't even want to touch. And he charges into battle.
And he puts forth his hand and he took it. And what did he do with that random object on the ground? He slew a thousand men therewith. And Samson said, with the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
And it's hard in English in verse 16. What he's done here is he has done a play on words. In modern English, we'd say he did a pun.
And every attempt I looked at and the examples commentators gave to put it into English does not sound right. It really doesn't carry over into English well. Just know that in his mind, he had a stroke of genius here.
And with a bit of poetic flair, he used the way words sound in Hebrew to stack them on top of each other. And he made a pun here for his own entertainment, if you will. And one thing to keep in mind, though, what he has done, besides the oddness of taking the jawbone of a donkey and the incredible power that's on display with a very unlikely tool to subdue no less than 1,000 men, is that he has felled the enemies of God with a very foolish means.
Interestingly enough, if you actually pause and think about this, there is one other place in the whole of the Bible that a mouth of a donkey is anywhere talked about. Let your mind wander for about two more seconds. And then I'll remind you, it was there with Balaam's donkey that the Lord opened the mouth of that donkey and that donkey spoke.
And it was the speaking from the mouth of that donkey, which the Lord had opened, unusual though it be, that restrained the madness of that carnal prophet. And from the mouth of a donkey, the Lord brought forth a more true word than what Balaam was intending to bring forth of his own will and his own strength, proving that the Lord can use anything, even the mouth of a donkey, to accomplish his purposes and to bring forth his truth in such a way where he is glorified. And here, this picture is as though to say, though the world looks on and mocks and laughs and argues and considers it strange, yet preaching an opening of the mouth and the telling of the truth of God, though it be by weak, foolish, peculiar, and unlikely tools, fragile clay and earthen vessels, nothing noble, nothing mighty, nothing wise, after the world's wisdom anyway, nothing great, yet in the hand of the Lord, it slays a thousand of his enemies.
How many times have weak and feeble men stood up frail in their own strength, opened up their mouth and testified to the truth of God's word and by it felled the Lord's enemies and of the God-haters of this world, it been the means of bringing forth the children of God, humbling the proud, breaking down the arrogant, taking the wise and the disputers of this world and turning their arguments into nothing and tearing down every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God. Incredible picture. A thousand are dead.
He has stacked them up in heaps. Verse 17, And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand and called the place Ramath-lehi. Or literally the lifting up of the jawbone, jawbone-lehi.
It could even be jawbone heights, if you will, or casting away the jawbone seems to be the idea. Verse 18, the prayer finally comes at the very end of the chapter. And he was sore athirst.
And he was sore athirst. Here is this man that had been greatly strengthened of God, greatly and mightily enabled beyond all human reason, so empowered by the Spirit to tear down and to subdue as the judge of Israel the enemies of the Lord, to destroy the Philistines even with the jawbone of a donkey. And after he had demonstrated strength, demonstrated power, he very suddenly and very quickly felt his humanity.
He felt the weakness of his humanity. And he was made to thirst. And at this, very strange words erupt.
Not strange in that they should be strange coming out of the mouth of an Israelite. Not strange because they should sound strange coming out of the mouth of a Nazarite. Not strange that they should be strange for any creature to call upon God.
But hitherto we have not heard words like this come out of Samuel's mouth. He called on the Lord. You could almost put in parentheses.
Finally, the one whose life was to be in communion with God has gone so far. Being strengthened of God and only now calling upon the Lord. And what does he say? This is beautiful.
He gives the glory to God. Samson! Samson! Gives the glory to God. He says, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant.
Of thy servant. And now shall I die for thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? Okay, Samson. Now they're the uncircumcised.
A picture of divine strength mixed with human weakness. And essentially what is the cry of this picture of divine strength mixed with human weakness? The cry is, I thirst. I thirst.
Where does your mind go then, dear child of God? Oh, how our Savior very God, very God, all-powerful, far more strength than Samuel could ever know in weakness, was crucified and made to cry out upon that tree, that cruel cross, where he was betrayed by his people. And offered up, lifted up between heaven and earth, alienated from man, wrath poured out by God, made to feel the burden and the weight of all the things which tempt us, yet without sin. Tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin.
Weariness in the boat and made to sleep. The son of man having nowhere to lay his head. Beaten and bruised and battered and tired, stricken, smitten, afflicted of God.
He was made to feel all of human weakness. So much of that was grabbed hold of when he cried out, I thirst. But what's amazing here, for Samson's sake, going back to the man before us, is that the Lord had great pity upon him.
And what was given to him in the hour he cried out. Verse 19, But God claimed a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout. And when he had drunk, the Spirit came again, and he revived.
He revived. Therefore he called the name thereof, Enhichor, which is in Leahy unto this day. Literally the well of him that called.
The Lord opened a hollow. That word hollow, if you look at that word interestingly, I found in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It was translated 200 years before Christ as the Lord opened a trauma.
He opened a gash. And from that wound in the rock, that wounded rock, did flow water and life. I found it remarkable how often in the picture and in the life of Samuel, there are so many pictures of Christ sprinkled and scattered all throughout.
Amazingly, unlike Samuel our Christ, divine weakness and human strength did it with absolute moral perfection. He suffered. He was brought into weakness.
The captain of our salvation was made perfect through weakness. He suffered in pain. And interestingly, this chapter ends with the odd placement of this fact.
And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines 20 years. Now normally when that statement is made in the life of a judge, it's given at the end of his life. Here, it's given here while the story of Samson goes on.
So that is both very interestingly and seemingly significant for the points that have been made thus far. It's not the end of Samson's ministry, but it does seem to be the end of something pictured there. Just a few thoughts as we take a look at this myriad, very dramatic, constantly changing drama of redemptive history.
One thing I want you to keep in mind, there've been, sometimes we come across those attempted children's books and we see Samson looking like something off of a superhero movie with muscles bigger than his head, a band around his head, long hair is probably the only thing accurate, looks like something off of wrestling. But look at the text. He was not some muscular bodybuilder.
His strength wasn't carnal, it was spiritual. He would have walked around like any other Israelite. It was only when the Spirit of the Lord moved upon him did these extraordinary feats of strength suddenly and spontaneously and powerfully demonstrate themselves well, well, well, well beyond what human muscle could possibly do.
He's going to, in the next chapter, pick up the gates of the city and march up a hill with them. You can have all the muscle fiber in the world you want, you're not doing that. This is not human physical carnal strength.
This is something else. This is the strength that comes from God and God alone. And Samson has enjoyed that strength for a long time.
He has enjoyed the benefits of that strength, the empowerments of that strength, though he does not, or the vast majority other than maybe a moment of weakness there where he's brought weak enough to actually know from where his strength really does come from the majority of the time Samson lives enjoying and receiving the strength of God without acknowledging from where his strength comes from. The Lord took the man that he had made very strong. God made Samson very strong and he took this very strong man that he had made and he made him after one of his greatest feats of strength to feel very weak.
And reminded him of where Samson's strength truly came from. And what did that weakness do to this very strong man? It brought him for the first time in the biblical account to true communion with God. Oh, after Elijah had seen the fire fall and he was at the zenith of his strength on that mountaintop, only made to flee, trembling in weakness before the threatenings of that Queen Jezebel.
Hiding out on the back side of the wilderness, faint with weariness. But what did he have there on the back side of that wilderness? He had communion with God. And there, in that weakness, the true strength of Elijah was found.
Like Paul, how often did Paul tell us he was so concerned that even after he had waxed strong, after he had been great, after he himself had preached, he was concerned lest afterward he himself should be a castaway. But what does it say of Paul? Due to the abundance of the revelation given to him, there was a thorn in the flesh and a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him lest he should be exalted above measure. What was God working in the Apostle Paul's life? Weakness.
And what did that weakness produce in the Apostle Paul? Communion. As we've shown in Colossians, Paul, the grace that worked in him, worked in him mightily. Mightily.
Paul was strong in the Spirit. What was that act of weakness God was working into the life of the Apostle Paul doing? Was it taking away from the strength that he had given the Apostle Paul? No, no, no. It was bringing him into communion that Paul might know from where his strength comes that he may be strengthened the more for the work.
Samson did not realize his strength was not in himself most of the time. Samson did not realize that his strength came to him by being set aside unto the Lord. We say the strength of Samson was in his long hair.
Tangentially, yes. But that's really not the core. If you understand what a Nazarite is.
Hair's not long for the sake of being long. Hair being long is to represent neglect of self spent in communion with God. That was to be the source of his strength.
Set aside. Separate consecrated unto the Lord. There's only two prayers ever recorded in the life of Samson.
Both of them were recorded after the Lord worked great weakness into him. And dear brothers and sisters, do not be shocked. Regardless of how gifted you are, regardless of how strong you may be in spiritual things.
Some of you. There's there's brothers and sisters in this room. I greatly love and respect for the strength I know God has given you.
Do not be surprised that God actively is working weakness into your life. That he may bring you again and again to the end of yourself. That you might commune with him and draw strength from him.
Second Corinthians 1210. Again, here Paul. He says, therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake.
For when I am weak, then I am strong. Lord help us if we be strong in the flesh and weak in the spirit. But even if he should make us strong in spirit, we have need of a great many weaknesses to be worked in us that we may be brought to him again the fount from where all spiritual strength comes.
Take that to heart dear saint. Learn to bless, to praise, and to thank the living God for those very weaknesses he is working in you and that very often times we are praying would go away. Because it is very often times the very means by which our greatest spiritual blessings come.
And with that, this is the pinnacle and the highest point and mountain of Samson's ministry. Next time, we will look at his lowest point and the valley of death of his ministry. Let us pray.
Father in heaven, oh Lord, teach us Lord from the heart truly with conviction to say, thank you Lord for that weakness you work in us. That brings us to an end of self, that brings us to an acknowledgement of you, that brings us to that point where we see clearly lest we forget and we fall into the lie of the flesh that somehow our strengths and our abilities and our gifts lie with us. Lord, teach us to decrease that you may increase and that in weakness we would be made strong.
In Christ's name, Amen. Not a passage that we often or perhaps even ever turn to for benediction but may the things that we have just heard come to light in this passage. It is Paul's word from 2nd Corinthians.
He said, For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Paul then says something utterly not intuitive for us.
Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in mine infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in necessities in persecutions for Christ's sake. When I am weak then am I strong.
Amen.