DEAF STRENGTH

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INTRO

Good morning Church
Im Jed Church
Welcome To New Anthem
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Announcements
Celebrate baptisms - 17 people
Talk about building
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PREFACE

Today we are going to be in the book of Judges.
We are going to be taking a closer look at the story of Samson.
We are going to be jumping around a bit but don’t worry we will have all the scripture on the screen
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We pick up in Samsons story in chapter 13

READ SCRIPTURE - Judges 13:1-5

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

2 There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children. 3 And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. 4 Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, 5 for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines

PRAY

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CONTEXT

Summarize Samsons origin and call over his life
He was born set apart.
Destined to free his people.
God would bless him with strength and abilities as long as he kept this covenant with God.
The main condition being that he never cut his hair.
Samson would have been at least 40 when he died, so his hair would have been these long heavy dreadlocks.
List some of his accomplishments
Killing a lion with his bare hands and not being harmed at all
Fighting the philistine army who are all wearing armor head to toe with nothing but a donkey jaw bone
Not only would that be an embarrassing way to die, but how disrespectful to be killed by a dirty animals bone.
Escaped from Gaza and literally just chilled bc he wasn’t worried about escape
Then he ripped the gates down and carried them through there city as he escaped to show off.
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He was full of physical strength but had very little mental or spiritual strength
He was easily overcome by temptation He never seems to learn from his mistakes
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Samson was anointed and God blessed him with his strength to complete the mission God had for him.
But he got distracted because he didn’t have wisdom
Anointing doesn’t guarantee wisdom
This is why we need to be in constant prayer and communication with God
This is why my message is titled “deaf Strength.”
You see Samson was called, chosen, anointed, blessed and even destined by God.
But when Samson stopped listening for Gods voice and direction none of that mattered.
And these are the moments we see Samson make mistakes.
Samson was missing Gods wisdom.
Proverbs 4:7

he taught me and said to me,

“Let your heart hold fast my words;

keep my commandments, and live.

5  Get wisdom; get insight;

do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

6  Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;

love her, and she will guard you.

7  The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,

and whatever you get, get insight.

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You don’t start with wisdom you have to get it
None of us are born with any wisdom.
We have to be taught it or learn it through life experiences.
I wasn’t always the wisest kid growing up
I was fascinated by fire - i thought it was 1.) really cool, and 2.) Really fun.
I did a lot of really stupid things with fire until i learned some wisdom, almost always after something bad happened.
Garage fires
Napalm
Gasoline trails
I had to acquire the knowledge that these things weren't safe.
And then i needed to gain the wisdom that i shouldn’t mess around with those things.
That part often took longer.
This wisdom came in the form of thoughts, and in my case usually new fears being realized.
But the wisdom of God is a person not a thought
You get it by listening and praying to God
What happened when Samson didn’t do this?
Samson couldn’t tell the difference between good and God
He fell for temptation.
Satan is still using those same temptations,
So we need to look at this scripture and gain the wisdom from it that Samson didn’t have
So we don’t fall into the same temptations.
I have three things i want us to learn from Samson.
The first is

POINT ONE — Samson was guided by his impulse

Something that a lot of people don’t realize is that Delilah was not Samsons first wife.
look at this in chapter 14
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Impulse - Judges 14:1-3
English Standard Version (Chapter 14)
Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. 2 Then he came up and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife.” 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.”
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Samson demanded that his parents arrange a marriage with a Philistine woman, despite their objections.
This decision was impulsive and becuase of his attraction to this woman.
It went against the traditional practices of his people, who were Israelites and were typically discouraged from marrying foreigners, especially from the rival Philistine tribe.
His impulse told him she its cute so this is a good thing.
But his family and God would have said no, thats a bad idea.
But if it “seems good it must bee God right?”
NO
What can look good to us can look bad to God.
Often times God ends up accomplishing his mission despite us instead of through us.
We see this only a few verses later in chapter 14 still
At his wedding feast he gives a riddle to some of the Philistine guests and says he will give them 30 new outfits if they can answer the riddle.
After 3 days of not being able to guess it they decide to use his wife to trick him into reviling the answer
SIDE NOTE - we will see this identical situation happing later in his life. but we talk about that later
Samson realizes that they only answered it by using his wife to trick him.
So he goes out and kills 30 other Philistine men takes their outfits and give them to the men.
Samson used his God given blessing of strength to vanquish the Israelite's enemies, but in that moment he was doing it for God.
He was doing it out of anger and impulse.
Yet DESPITE Samsons poor actions, God used them to his Good.
After all of this we read that his wife was given away to his best-man.
Ouch.
Samson made a bad impulsive decision, God used it in a way for Gods good, but we see that Samson didn’t benefit from it.
This is why we need to in accordance to God instead of impulse.
If Samson had the wisdom to see the fault in what he thought was good, Gods mission would still have been fulfilled but he would have avoided this betrayal and heartbreak.
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Then there is a 20 year gap in his story.
The next time we read about Samson, again he’s not listening for Gods wisdom is in Chapter 16
Self-medicates - Judges 16:1-4
Judges 16:1–4 (ESV)
Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her. The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.” And they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him.” But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.
After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.

POINT TWO — Samson turned to self-medication instead of God.

Prioritized pleasure over purpose.
Imagine - being betrayed by your wife causing you to lossing a bet and then in anger killing 30 men to settle that bet and when you get back your new father-in-law has given your wife away to your best man and you cant see her anymore
You need some help after that.
Ideally prayer, time in scripture, probably some therapy.
But instead he decides to self-medicate.
He went to this prostitue to try and fix or at least distract himself from his problems.
This choice ultimately led to his downfall
We have seen that he is often driven by impulse and desire rather than wisdom and faithfulness to his Nazirite vow.
It might seem easy to look and Samson’s actions here and think its ridiculous obviously thats not going to fix his issues, and obviously thats not what God would approve of.
But at one point or another i think we have all turned to a form of self medication.
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James 1:14

14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

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It was a long week at work so soon as I get home a need a few beers
Man life has been so stressful i just need this weed to get through the day.
Im lonely i need porn to feel something.
Right? whats your self medication?
Well its ok and its not sinning when i do ____ because of my situation?
satan will make a “solution” so easy, and put it right in front of us.
But we will always find that it never fixes anything.
Church can I share the truth with you that the only thing we NEED in our situations is JESUS!
Every life stage, trial, hardship, hurt, anything
We will never find what we are looking for in the sins of the world
We will only find it in Christ!
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That means stopping whatever we are doing
Going before God in prayer and worship and seeking HIS wisdom.
We are so easily decieved by our own desires and what looks good to us.
We need to seek Gods console and listen.
Samson wasn’t listening for any direction from God when he was hurting.
His heart was deaf and he listened only to his own desire.
This lead him to following the same trick as last time.
The philistines do the same thing with Delilah as they did with his first wife, they told her to trick him into revealing the secrete to his strength and how to defeat him.
And just like the last time samson gives this information up to his wife and she betrays him.
See satan is an old dog, and he doesn’t know any new tricks.
He has been doing the same things since the beginning and he will keep using the same lies and deceptions on us.
Then we same the downfall and consequences of his choices.
Judges 16:19-22
English Standard Version (Chapter 16)
19 She made him sleep on her knees. And she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. 20 And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him. 21 And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison. 22 But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
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“But he did not know that the Lord had left him
He didn’t sense the presence of God was gone because he never paid attention to it when it was with him.
What a sad and honestly terrifying statement.
You see Samson when he was young probably listened to God all the time.
Hearing from him, letting God guide and protect him.
But then he got comfortable. He was never defeated so relying on the blessing of God, became easier and more natural than relying on God himself.
If he really needed something he would ask God but other than that he could handle it on his own.
And slowly over time he began drifting farther and farther from God
To the point that once God was goon he couldn’t even tell. it felt like normal
That strikes fear into me.
Because that wasn’t a conscious or intentional action by Samson.
It just slowly happened by him not putting in the time to listen and be with God.
And being in church for such a long time this is something i have seen over and over.
When we first get saved, or get baptised we spend so much time in the bible, praying, never missing a Sunday
But then things slowly start to fade
And if our faith is solely based on feelings or the blessings of God and not a relationship with him we will drift from God just like Samson did.

POINT THREE — Samson only focused on Gods blessing, and never on Gods voice

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Now we come to the end of Samson’s story.
He has been captured and chained up
Beaten and his eyes cut out
The Philistines are about to sacrifice him to their god.
Judges 16:28-30

Then Samson called to the LORD and said, “O Lord GOD, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29 And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. 30 And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.

Samson called back out to God, and even though Samson had stopped listening for God
God never stopped listening for him.
God hears his prayers and in this final act Samson fulfills is calling and kills philistines than durring his life.
Here is what is so beautiful about this moment!
Foreshadows what Christ would do
Samson’s birth was foretold by an angelic being
He was born to a woman that shouldn’t have been able to have a child.
Samson sacrifices his life with his arms stretched wide
In that act he defeats the enemy
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CLOSING

Landing the plane and wrap up
So my question for you this morning is:
have you found yourself falling into these same traps and temptations as Samson?
Have you let impulse guide you?
Tried to self-medication your own problems and hurt
Stopped focusing on Gods voice?
I know at one point or another I have done all three
_________
Pray
Command and own the prayer at end
Benediction closing  
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SUMMARY

Judges 13:1-5
Proverbs 4:7
POINT ONE — Samson was guided by his impulse
Judges 14:1-3
POINT TWO — Samson turned to self-medication instead of God
Judges 16:1-4
James 1:14
Judges 16:19-22
POINT THREE — Samson only focused on Gods blessing, and never on Gods voice
Judges 16:28-30
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