Sermon Transcript:

I can sense the disappointment this morning, knowing all of you were expecting Riptide the shark to deliver the sermon this morning, but instead you get Pastor Chris, so please bear with me. This morning, we continue through the book of Judges, with the continuation of the story of Samson. 

Background & Relevance: For the last couple of weeks, Pastor Kevin has walked us through the last main judge of Israel in Judges. In chapters 13 & 14, we see an Angel of the Lord come to Manoah’s wife, who was barren, to prophesy the birth of Samson. This next judge would be a Nazarite from birth and would be required to obey certain restrictions as a Nazarite: Abstain from alcohol; Don’t let hair grow long; and Avoid contact with death. When Samson gets older, we see immediately his betrayal of these vows and laws of Israel, when he marries a Philistine woman, eats honey out of the carcass of a lion, and kills 30 Philistines.

• This week’s sermon and next, we will see both Samson’s success and failure as a judge for Israel. Through all of the chaos, we will see God’s providential hand working on behalf of Samson and Israel. 

Main Point: God’s providential love works through the lives of broken people to establish His will.

1. Samson seeks to be with his wife. Realizes she was given to his best man. He retaliates after losing his wife. Samson burns their fields with foxes lit on fire. The Philistines respond by burning his wife and father-in-law. Samson vows to retaliate again.
2. The Philistines seek retaliation against Samson and approach Judah. Judah (military leaders) succumb to their slavery under the Philistines and bind Samson. Samson retaliates once more.
3. God uses broken Samson to judge Philistine. Samson calls upon the Lord, only for the purpose of being refreshed. God by His grace revives Samson.

Transition:

• Samson’s rejection and retaliation (v.1-8)

Explanation: Only a few days after the events of Samson’s wedding celebration, the riddle, and tirade, he returns to visit his wife at Timnah with a young goat to celebrate.  What he didn’t realize is that things have changed. His decisions just a few days ago brought upon consequences that he didn’t think existed. 

Judges 15:1-2, “1 After some days, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a young goat. And he said, “I will go in to my wife in the chamber.” But her father would not allow him to go in. 2 And her father said, “I really thought that you utterly hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.”

• Samson’s former wife now, has been given to Samson’s best man. Her father, after seeing Samson’s response after his wife betrayed him, may have also acted out of fear, that Samson would again act in revenge. He thought that Samson utterly hated her. The father probably realized that he acted in haste to give his daughter to the best man. This is why he offers his younger daughter in marriage to Samson. You would think maybe Samson would receive the consolation prize, right?
• No! Samson wants nothing to do with it. The woman that he saw, a Philistine, looked good in his eyes. And after the wedding preparation and feast had been celebrated, she was given to someone else, his best man, nonetheless. Instead, he seeks retaliation against the Philistines as a whole.

Judges 15:3, “3 And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines, when I do them harm.”

• He seeks retaliation, but no longer wants the blame for his actions. He feels vindication in what he’s about to do, but he can’t control his passions. Look at what he does.

Judges 15:4-5, “4 So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. 5 And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.”

• Samson’s thirst for revenge gets the best of him. He gathers 300 foxes or jackals. Both would have been in this region and both would have had longer tails to tie together. Then he tied a torch to the tails and let them loose. The burning of the fields or “standing corn” was a common form of retaliation in the ancient world. 
• Remember, this is the time of wheat harvest, so the storage of food was plentiful for the Philistines. Samson knew exactly what he was doing to get revenge.
• The result: Not only was Samson utterly cruel of animals, but the most consequential part was the destruction of the Philistines’ source of food. Samson hit them where it would hurt most.

Application: So far, in chapters 14 and early on in 15, we have seen a loose cannon in Samson. A cowboy in the wild west. A gunslinger willing to wield his power and strength on a whim. Here we see the danger of what happens when the flesh takes hold. Samson is a chosen vessel for God’s glory, yet he’s a sinner, controlled by the passions of his flesh. His lustful eyes for women, his breaking of the vows as a Nazarite, and his greedy desire for possessions are all examples of this.

• While we may not have the desire to tie the tails of foxes together and set a corn field ablaze, if you are in Christ, your fleshly passions and desires will seek to gain a foothold over your life. And they will eventually lead to greater sin if we allow them to control us. Whether it is pride, sexual fulfillment, control, dominance, or the tangible things we can get our hands on to “medicate”, the devil seeks to hone on these temptations to destroy our testimony in Christ, to destroy our marriages, and our church. Satan whispers lies of fulfillment in someone other than our spouse. Satan tells us that if we fight fire with fire in revenge, we will be vindicated of someone’s sin toward us. He tells lies to us so that we accept sin and abandon our faith to feel good for a moment. To feel safe and comfortable. A momentary pleasure pales in comparison to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Romans 7:21-25, “21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

• We all deal with and struggle with this in various ways. What’s most important is our identity in Christ. Will we carry around the dead body of the old man/woman in Christ, or will we remember that Jesus has delivered our body of death through Jesus Christ?

Explanation: Speaking of fighting fire with fire like Samson has pursued here, what happens after Samson committed this arson? News got out quickly of Samson’s actions against the Philistines. Like a child who claimed to have not taken the last cookie out of the jar but had the evidence of those final crumbs of that cookie on his shirt, the Philistines had a pretty good hunch on who would have destroyed their harvest. 

• First, they were aware of Samson’s marriage. They would have heard about Samson’s marriage and the riddle that he brought to the companions of the wedding. They were certainly aware about Samson striking down 30 men in Ashkelon. After they investigate, they pay Samson’s father-in-law a visit with ill intentions.

Judges 15:6, “6 Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” And the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire.”

• What’s most appalling here, is the same vengeance that the Philistines show here against Samson’s father-in-law and daughter is the same retribution that Samson showed against the Philistines. Samson and the Philistines were not much different. A sign of the decline of both Samson and Israel.

Judges 15:7-8, “7 And Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged on you, and after that I will quit.” 8 And he struck them hip and thigh with a great blow, and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.”

• Samson, after hearing the news about his father-in-law and wife, vows to respond back with retaliation one last time. He vows to take it upon himself to pay back what was taken from him. The obscurity of Samson striking them hip and thigh leaves this part unclear. Maybe it was a giant wrestling match. Or maybe Samson left a bloody pile of legs and thighs in another outburst of anger. Who knows exactly, but what we do know is that he escapes to hide in a nearby cave at the rock of Etam. 

Transition: Surely, the Philistines won’t let Samson, a Nazarite from the tribe of Dan, cause this damage and leave him untouched.

• Judah, Samson & Israel (v.9-17)

Explanation: In one of the most important sections of this chapter, we see just how far the nation of Israel has fallen. For the nation of Israel, they are under rule of the Philistines. While they are under the rule of the Philistines, there seems to be a kind of peace. Specifically for the tribe of Judah, they had no part in the actions of Samson. God though, working through the actions of Samson, has now allowed conflict with not only Samson, but Judah as well. However, Judah doesn’t want anything to do with the Philistines.

Judges 15:9-11, “9 Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and made a raid on Lehi. 10 And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.” 11 Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so have I done to them.”

• The Philistines come to Judah to get Samson, but Judah is more concerned about keeping the peace than they are about confronting their enemies. Instead of taking a stand for Israel, they send 3,000 men to get Samson.
• Why is this significant? Judah is prophesied and blessed by Jacob in Genesis 49 to be the military leaders of Israel. They should never have been under the rule of another nation, at least so easily.  They are also the tribe in which the Davidic covenant would come to fulfillment. Israel would receive a king, and after the Kingship of David, the King of kings.

Genesis 49:8-12, “8 Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father's sons shall bow down before you. 9 Judah is a lion's cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him? 10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. 11 Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. 12 His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.”

• When you get to the end of Genesis, you discover that even though God was working through Jacob’s son, Joseph, it was ultimately Judah in which the scepter should not depart. The scepter representing a long staff with an ornamental head which represented royal authority.
• David would ultimately be the king that Israel was waiting for, but we know that Jesus is the final King, through the line of Judah, through the line of David. 
• Thus, we find that Judah should not have submitted to the Philistines, but the tribe and nation as a whole has descended so far down. They forgot their blessing and are willing to deliver their own brother to the enemy Philistines.

Judges 15:12-13, “12 And they said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” 13 They said to him, “No; we will only bind you and give you into their hands. We will surely not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.”

• Israel and Samson have gone to a new low. The Lord appears to Manoah’s wife and tells her that a child of promise will come to be a deliverer of Israel. Unfortunately, this deliverer has not lived up to the standards of what we’d expect when he was promised by the angel of the Lord in Judges 13. 
• The nation, after compromising time after time with pagan customs and practice, has demonstrated their inability to trust God. This is evident when the deliverer that came to save Israel was rejected by his own people and delivered to the Gentiles.
• Samson is bound by rope by the tribe of Judah. What happens next?

Judges 15:14-17, “14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. 15 And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men. 16 And Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men.” 17 As soon as he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand. And that place was called Ramath-lehi.”

• Samson, who knew a conflict was about to come, is filled with the Spirit of the Lord. Like it is mentioned in previous verses, the Spirit rushes upon Samson and the ropes that bound him were snapped. “They melted off his hands.” He randomly finds and grabs the fresh jawbone of a donkey, meaning his weapon of choice was ready and strong enough to endure a large battle. Remember though, Samson is not supposed to be in contact with dead animals as a Nazarite. At this point, Samson has no desire to keep his Nazarite vows. 
• After the total carnage that God delivered through Samson with a jawbone, the battle ends with a little medley, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men.” Both Samson and the Philistines strike one another.

Illustration: Like the old Atari game Pong, Samson and the Philistines keep trading blows. The blows bounce back and forth as the little 16-bit ball hits back and forth on the paddles. Samson kills 30 Philistines to pay back a debt, his father-in-law gives his daughter to another man, Samson then sets fire to the Philistine crops, the Philistines set fire to Samson’s father-in-law and wife, and Samson kills 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. 

Application: What’s the important lesson here? Just like Judah handed over Samson to be put to death, Christ was also handed over to be put to death by His own people. Jesus was the final promised “seed” that would redeem mankind back to God. How did He do it? Jesus, who was the final deliverer for mankind, was put to death on a cross. The cross being the ultimate torture and death machine that would put an end to the Christ, or so Satan thought. A crown of thorns was smashed onto his head. Jesus was pierced hands and feet and raised onto a tree to suffer the worst death imaginable. Samson was about to suffer death by being given into the hands of the Philistines, but God intervened. Samson conquered death here, by the power of God. Jesus conquered death through His resurrection! 

• The same power that rose Jesus from the grave resides within believers. When you believe in Jesus through the gospel, the old you suffers death. You are put to death with Jesus on the cross. All of your sins, identity, and self-esteem are buried with Him and you are risen to new life. This new life is a product of a change of heart. Jesus stuffs Himself inside of you. By the power of the indwelt Holy Spirit, God has and will continue to deliver us from the sting and weight of sin and death. We can overcome life’s worst circumstances and sin through reliance on the Lord Jesus Christ. Like a game of poker, God has dealt each of us a hand. Some are more favorable on the outside looking in.
• Don’t be discouraged if you are struggling with a storm that seems impossible to weather. God intended it that way. If you are in Christ, God is at work in using these circumstances to make you holy. To cause you to fall to your knees in prayer. To remind you of His love and goodness for you and His Church. His grace and provision is sufficient, even towards those that are struggling with sin. The truth is, that we all struggle with sin. We are weak, broken, and in need of the Savior.

Explanation: A good example of this is found in the next three verses.

Judges 15:18-20, “18 And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore; it is at Lehi to this day. 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.”

• After God delivered Samson from a thousand Philistines, Samson was very thirsty. And here, we see for the first time, Samson call on God for help.
• But, nowhere do we find Samson calling out to be delivered. Nowhere do we see Israel crying out to God in anguish over their persecution. What we find here is a self-serving call to be refreshed.

Illustration: Tim Keller writes, “Now, for the first time, Samson speaks to the God who has chosen him, and empowered him. But his prayer is neither humble nor faithful: he basically demands that God help him, and complains that he doesn’t—which is remarkably clueless of him, since it is God’s Spirit which has rescued him from a lion, from a lost bet, and now a thousand Philistines. Samson uses God’s strength, but he doesn’t depend on God except when he is in extreme situations…”

• God’s grace and provision is evident here. Even though Samson is sinful and self-centered, God still provides for him at Lehi. This proves that God provides for those whom He loves. We must remember, Hebrews 11 speaks of Samson as a faithful hero of the Old Testament, yet we see a picture of God’s grace working through a weak man.
• True faith often looks weak and broken. God loves to work through the weak and despised of the world. He is not looking for those who got it together, but those who are willing to admit they are weak and need repentance. This is why Jesus is the living water from which we can drink from. Samson tasted only a glimpse of water that would revive him, but Jesus offers water that springs eternal life. 
• John 4:13-15, “13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Conclusion

Clarification: As we close this morning, I want to ask a few important questions. Why don’t we see God working through Samson for the sake of holiness? Why did He use a broken and sinful man to accomplish His will? Why does God use a seemingly wild man to cause great conflict with others? 

• We must remember what was spoken about God’s intentions for Samson.

Judges 14:3-4, “3 But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.” 4 His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.”

• God was never going to use Samson as a figurehead for holiness. He was intent on using Samson to drive a wedge between Israel and the Philistines who were ruling over them. They had grown comfortable in their newfound “slavery”. They, in their own will and strength, were never going to confront where they were as a nation. They still won’t do that moving forward, but God is going to use Samson, a personal reflection of Israel’s failure as a nation, and Israel themselves, as an example of God’s providence and grace for future generations until God would send the final deliverer in Jesus. 

• Samson’s actions in Judges 15 signify a success. It may not look like one from the surface, but God uses Samson to destroy over a thousand wicked Philistines and bring about the conflict that God’s people have avoided for too long.

Final Application: What does this mean for us? For Redeeming Grace Church in Downriver. Most of us, if not all of us, grew up in this great nation. Where we experience real freedom and privileges that have not been experienced for thousands of years. A place where we can freely get a job, raise a family, go to church on a Sunday, receive healthcare and modern advances that were not available for a long time. We can retire at 65 and live on a beach, with our feet in the sand. All seems good and peaceful. What I fear is happening though, is that we have grown too comfortable. Where everything we need is at our fingertips. We often forget about God and what He provides for us through His Son Jesus. 

• I wonder, with the state of our nation and the divide we are experiencing, is a firsthand taste of what Israel was facing during the time of Samson. Maybe, we are on the horizon of a great awakening. I am no prophet, but history tells us that great trials and tribulations bring about faithfulness and holiness in His church. 
• Will we be comfortable with the status quo in our comfort and nice homes? Or will we embrace potential future division and trouble awaiting us by the power and peace of Christ? 
• May we rest in the sufficiency of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection! May we share the truth of the gospel in love, so that more will be saved in these dark days. Let me leave you with this final verse.

1 Peter 4:12-19, “12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” 19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.”