Sermon series: Learning From The Saints The Aints

Subject: Samson, A Bright Beginning and a Sad Ending.

Judges 13:1-5
"Again the Israelites did what was evil in the Lord's sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines, who kept them in subjection for forty years.
In those days, a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant, and they had no children.
The angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah's wife and said, "Even though you have been unable to have children, you will soon become pregnant and give birth to a son.
You must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink or eat any forbidden food.
You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and his hair must never be cut. For he will be dedicated to God, as a Nazirite from birth. He will rescue Israel from the Philistines."

Lesson

It is a riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma. In a speech broadcast October 1, 1939 that's how Sir Winston Churchill described the actions of the Russians in his day. But what he said about Russian actions could be applied to Samson, the last of the judges, for his behavior is "a riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma."
Samson was unpredictable and undependable because he was double-minded, and "a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8).
Bold before men, Samson was weak before women and couldn't resist telling them his secrets. Empowered by the Spirit of God, he yielded his body to the appetites of the flesh. Called to declare war on the Philistines, he fraternized with the enemy and even tried to marry a Philistine woman. He fought the Lord's battles by day and disobeyed the Lord's commandments by night.
Given the name Samson, which means "Sunny," he ended up in the darkness, blinded by the very enemy he was supposed to conquer.
In Judges 13-14, we're introduced to Sunny and his parents, and we see the light flickering as Samson plays with sin. In Judges 15-16, the light goes out and Samson dies a martyr under the ruins of a heathen temple, a sad end to a promising life.
Samson judged Israel "in the days of the Philistines" which was from 1095 B.C. to the end of 1055 B.C.

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There is no evidence given in the text that Israel cried out to God for deliverance at any time during the forty years of Philistine domination. Unlike most of the previous judges, Samson didn’t deliver his people from foreign domination but he began the work of deliverance that others would finish. As a powerful and unpredictable hero, Samson frightened and troubled the Philistines and kept them from devastating Israel as the other invading nations had done. But it would take the prayers of Samuel and the conquest of David to finish the job that Samson started and give Israel complete victory over the Philistines.
The fact that Samson’s birth was announced by the Angel of the Lord is noteworthy. Samson was unique in this that he was placed in the select company of Isaac. John the Baptist much later was highly honored by being announced by the angel Gabriel, but he ranks only as an angel. The One who came to Samson’s mother was the Second Person of the Godhead in preincarnate form!
Central to the Angel’s message was the indication that Samson should be a Nazarite, "even from the womb," meaning the complete duration of his life. God made provision for a Nazarite form of life in the law (Numbers 6:1-8).
This form of life normally was entered into only for a short time. The person would take the vow of the Nazarite and then drink no form of strong drink, consume nothing made from the product of the vine, refrain from cutting his hair, and make sure never to come near a dead body. At the same time he was to realize that these outward actions only represented an expected inner dedication of life.
There was good reason for God’s imposing this life-requirement on Samson. Samson was to be highly honored by entrustment with a continual miracle of life. He would be endowed with greater strength than any other man. To put it so, he would be living a miracle all the time he lived. This meant that God was extending to Samson, a high privilege, but at the same time a heavy responsibility. He would have the responsibility to refuse temptation to use this strength for his own honor or to further selfish ends; he would have to remain humble and recognize that his unique gift was to be used for the glory of God.
Only a few of Samson’s great feats are recorded in the Book of Judges: killing the lion bare-handed (14:5-6); slaying thirty Philistines (v. 19); catching 300 foxes (or jackals) and tying torches to their tails

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(15:3-5); breaking bonds (15:14; 16:9, 12, 14); slaying 1,000 men with the jawbone of a donkey (15:15); carrying off the Gaza city gate (16:3); and destroying the Philistine building (v. 30). Judges 16:24 indicates that he had done many more feats than those listed above, feats that had aggravated the Philistine people.
As you ponder the record of Samson’s life, you get the impression that he was a fun-loving fellow with a good sense of humor; and that he was a loner; unlike previous judges. He never "rallied the troops" and tried to unite Israel in throwing off the Philistine yoke.
According to Hebrews 11:32, Samson was a man of faith, but he certainly wasn’t a faithful man! He was unfaithful to his parents’ teaching, his Nazarite vow, and the laws of the Lord. It didn’t take long for Samson to lose almost everything the Lord had given him, except his great strength and he finally lost that as well!
The first time Samson was to use this strength, as recorded in the text, would be at his marriage to a Philistine girl, when he may have been twenty years old.
The Lord had given Samson a godly heritage and he had been raised to honor the Lord; but when Samson fell in love, he wouldn’t listen to his parents when they warned him. "One day when Samson was in Timnah, he noticed a certain Philistine woman. When he returned home, he told his father and mother, "I want to marry a young Philistine woman I saw in Timnah."
His father and mother objected strenuously, "Isn’t there one woman in our tribe or among all the Israelites you could marry? Why must you go to the pagan Philistines to find a wife?"
"But Samson told his father, "Get her for me. She is the one I want." His father and mother didn’t realize the Lord was at work in this, creating an opportunity to disrupt the Philistines, who ruled over Israel at that time."
When Samson and his parents went down to Timnah to make arrangements for the marriage, it appears that Samson left the main road (and his parents) and went on a detour into the vineyards; and there a lion attacked him. A vineyard was a dangerous place for a man who was not supposed to have anything to do with grapes. The Holy Spirit gave Samson power to defeat the enemy, but Samson persisted on his path of disobedience into enemy territory and an unlawful wedding. Some weeks later, when Samson returned to claim his bride, he once again turned aside

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into the vineyard, this time to look at his trophy and perhaps gloat over his victory. When Samson ate the honey from the lion’s carcass, he was defiled by a dead body; and that part of his Nazarite dedication was destroyed.
Since Samson hadn’t brought any men with him to serve as "friends of the bridegroom," the Philistines rounded up thirty men to do the job for him. Since the atmosphere must have been tense at the beginning of the feast, Samson sought to liven things up by posing a riddle.
Sad to say, he constructed the riddle out of the experience of his sin! He didn’t take seriously the fact that he had violated his Nazarite vows. It’s bad enough to disobey God, but when you make a joke out of it, you’ve sunk to new depths of spiritual insensitivity. Such was the case for Samson. The riddle: "From the one who eats came something to eat; out of the strong came something sweet."
It was agreed that if the Philistine guessed the meaning, Samson would give them thirty plain linen robes and thirty fancy robes. If they failed, they must give the same to Samson. On the seventh day, they talked Samson’s wife into getting the answer and informing them the meaning. They answered: "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? Samson was angry because they had used his wife to find the answer, so he went to the town of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, took their belongings, and gave then to the men who had answered the riddle. Then Samson returned home without his wife. Her father gave her to the best man of wedding as his wife!
After some time, Samson returned to Timnah with the plan of returning with his wife, only to find she was now the wife of his best man at his wedding. In anger, he went out and caught three hundred foxes, tied their tails together in pairs, fastened a torch to each pair, lit the torches and let the foxes run through the fields of grain. Their fields burned to the ground.
Then the Philistines learned of Samson’s deed. In response, they went to the woman Samson married, and killed both her and her father. Samson in turn, killed many of the Philistines and then hid in a cave in the rock of Etam.
Three thousand men of Judah went to the cave to tie Samson up and turn him over to the Philistines. When Samson arrived in Lehi where the Philistines were encamped, they shouted in triumph. But the Spirit of the

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Lord powerfully took control of Samson, and he snapped the ropes on his arms as if they were burnt strands of flax. He picked up a donkey’s jawbone that was lying on the ground and killed a thousand Philistines with it!
Chapter 16 of Judges opens with these words: "One day Samson went to the Philistine city of Gaza and spent the night with a prostitute. When the men of the city learned that Samson was in town, they waited at the city gate to kill him."
Verse 3 says: "But Samson stayed in bed only until midnight. Then he got up, took hold of the city gates with its two posts, and lifted them, bar and all, right out of the ground. He put them on his shoulders and carried them all the way to the top of the hill across from Hebron."
The city gate was not only a protection for the city, but also the place where the officials met to transact business. To possess the gate of his enemies was a metaphor meaning "to defeat your enemies." With Samson walking off with the gates of the city, he officially had defeated his foes!
Our story continues....
"Later Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Valley of Sorek. The Valley of Sorek lay between Zorah and Timnah on the border of Judah and Philistia. Whenever Samson went into enemy territory, he "went down" both geographically and spiritually.
Along with David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah have captured the imagination of scores of writers, artists, composers, and dramatists. When Samson consorted with Delilah in the Valley of Sorek, he never dreamed that what they did together would be made into a Hollywood movie!
Scholars disagree on the meaning of Delilah’s name. Some think it means "devotee," suggesting that she may have been a temple prostitute.
Each of the Philistine leaders offered to pay Delilah a considerable sum of money if she could entice Samson and learn the source of his great strength.
They didn’t want to kill Samson. They wanted to neutralize his power, capture him, torture him, and then use him for their own purposes. Being able to exhibit and control the great champion of Israel would give the Philistines both security and stature among the nations and would certainly satisfy their egos as they humiliated the Jews. When Delilah began to probe for the secret of his strength, Samson should have been aware of his danger, and like Joseph, fled.

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But passion had gripped him, sin had anesthetized him, and he was unable to act rationally.
It is unlikely that the Philistines who hid in her chamber revealed themselves each time Samson escaped his bonds, because then he would have known that Delilah had set a trap for him. Her cry "The Philistines are upon you!" was the signal for the spies to be alert; but when they saw that Samson was free, they remained in hiding.
Delilah had to keep working on Samson or she would have lost the money and perhaps her life. Remember what the Philistines had done to his first wife!
If Samson had stopped visiting, he would have kept his hair and his power, but he kept going back, and each time she implored him to reveal his secret.
Being wise to the ways of sin, during the fourth visit, Delilah knew that he had finally told her the truth. Since the Philistine "hit squad" had quit coming after the third fiasco, Delilah summoned them quickly, and they at once again hid in her chamber.
When Delilah’s shout awakened Samson, he thought it was another trick and that he could handle the situation as before. But he was wrong.
When he lost his long hair, the Lord left him; and he was as weak as other men. His power was from the Lord, not from his hair; but the hair was the sign of his Nazarite vow. The Spirit who had come upon him with such power had now departed from him!
That which had brought the change in Samson’s life, to fall so low before this natural weakness of passion, could only have been a serious decline in his sense of dedication to God. Somehow Samson had lost out in his relation with the One in heaven who daily empowered him. His dedication to his lifelong Nazarite vow had been lost! So the natural weakness that had been there all the while could now raise its vile head and impose its terrible influence.
Few passions are stronger than those of sex, and, with Samson’s strength of spiritual commitment lost for combat, the passions gained the battleground of his life, and Samson fell into the dregs of sin. Samson’s resultant conduct in the clutches of the scheming, ruthless Delilah gives a graphic commentary on the power of passion to control and ruin a man.
Proverbs 5 is very clear on the matter!
"My son, pay attention to my wisdom: listen carefully to my wise counsel. Then you will learn to be discreet and will store up knowledge.

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The lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But the result is as bitter as poison, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. For she does not care about the path to life. She staggers down a crooked trail and doesn’t even realize where it leads.
So now, my sons, listen to me. Never stray from what I am about to say: Run for life! Don’t go near the door of her house! If you do, you will lose your honor and hand over to merciless people everything you have achieved in life. Strangers will obtain your wealth, and someone else will enjoy the fruit of your labor. Afterward, you will groan in anguish when disease consumes your body, and you will say, "How I hated discipline! If only I had not demanded my own way! Oh, why didn’t I listen to my teacher? Why didn’t I pay attention to those who gave me instruction? I have come to the brink of utter ruin, and now I must face public disgrace." (Proverbs 5:1-l4)
And Proverbs 7:3-27 continues the warning! "I was looking out the window of my house one day and saw a simpleminded young man who lacked common sense. He was crossing the street near the house of an immoral woman. He was strolling down the path by her house at twilight, as the day was fading, as the dark of night set in. The woman approached him, dressed seductively and sly of heart. She was the brash, rebellious type who never stays at home. She is often seen in the streets and markets, soliciting at every corner. She threw her arms around him and kissed him, and with a brazen look she said: "I’ve offered my sacrifices and just finished my vows. It’s you I was looking for! I came out to find you, and here you are! My bed is spread with colored sheets of finest linen imported from Egypt. I’ve perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let’s drink our fill of love until morning. Let’s enjoy each other’s caresses, for my husband is not home. He’s away on a long trip. He has taken a wallet full of money with him, and he won’t return until later in the month.
So she seduced him with her pretty speech. With her flattery she enticed him. He followed her at once, like an ox going to the slaughter, or like a trapped stag, awaiting the arrow that would pierce its heart. He was like a bird flying into a snare, little knowing it would cost him his life!" (Proverbs 7:3-23)

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Back to Samson! The Philistines easily overpowered Samson and finally had their way with him. They put out his eyes, bound him, and took him to Gaza where he toiled at the grinding mill, doing work usually assigned to slaves, women, or donkeys. The harm that resulted from Samson's sin would have been serious enough if it had involved only the sad plight into which it brought him. But it involved also the loss of his ability to do the assigned work of God! He had been endowed with strength: that he might find "occasions" against the enemy, but now that endowment was gone. God's program, to divert their attention from that direction until a full deliverance from the Philistines could be entrusted to the people, was now brought to a halt.
Samson's hair began to grow again while he spent his days and weeks in the grinding mill.
Then...
"The Philistine leaders held a great festival. Offering sacrifices and praising their god, Dagon. They said. "Our god has given us victory over our enemy Samson!"
When the people saw him they praised their god, saying, "Our God has delivered our enemy to us!" The one who killed so many of us is now in our power!"
Half drunk by now, the people demanded, "Bring out Samson so he can perform for us! So he was brought from the prison and made to stand at the center of the temple between the two pillars supporting the roof. Samson said to the servant who was leading him by the hand. "Place my hand against the two pillars. I want to rest them." The temple was completely filled with people. All the Philistine leaders were there, and there were about three thousand on the roof who were watching Samson and making fun of him.
Then Samson prayed to the Lord, "Sovereign Lord, remember me again. O God, please strengthen me one more time so that I may pay back the Philistines for the loss of my eyes." Then Samson put his hands on the center pillars of the temple and pushed against them with all his might. "Let me die with the Philistines he prayed." And the temple crashed down on the Philistine leaders and all the people. So he killed more people when he died than he had during his entire lifetime."
We only live life once! Every moment and every day are opportunities of good or evil. God's plan for using our life can be quickly altered by our actions. And for Samson, his bright beginning ended in a pile of rubble. He chose evil and shame and disgrace resulted! God help us to take life more seriously and live to make it count for eternity.