Samson - Part 1
Notes
Transcript
We consecrate different objects for special jobs
Tooth brush - consecrated for cleaning my mouth!
Toilet bruch, set apart fot cleaning the toilet.
Both are brushes, but they are exclusively reserved for one job, and you can’t mix them up!
If i use my toothbrush on something other than my mouth, i would need to purge it of any uncleaness. It would need to to be especially cleaned, probably with boiling water, maybe some antiseptic mouthwash. Something to make sure that it is perfectly clean again so that it can be restored to it’s proper purpose.
Just as tooth brushes are consecrated or set apart for the service of cleaning our teeth, God’s people should be set apart for serving Him!
Intro
Intro
Highly Structured account
The Chief Judge in power/ability, chief judge in unfaithfulness.
Structure:
Two segments climaxing with killing a bunch of people and the phrase “Samson Judges Israel 20 years”.
Each segment has 5 feats of strength each, totaling 10.
The spirit of God ruches on Samson 3 times, but only in the first section of the feats.
But, lastly this is a Story of One man and 4 Women - 2 women in the first half, two in the second half. So there are kind of 4 episodes, not all of equal length, but structurally interesting.
There is:
The Mother
The Wife
The Prostitute
The Seductress
So to recap:
Samson’s story is
2 big sections
5 feats of strength in each
2 key women in each
For the ease of preaching through this passage in manageable sections, I am basically going to talk about the first two women today (ch 13-14). The episode of the wife continues into Ch 15, so we’ll cover 1.5 episodes today, and 2.5 episode next week!
Episode 1: The Barren Mother
Episode 1: The Barren Mother
Opening the stage for this first episode is a familiar refrain. As you read Judges you hear this time and again:
Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.
The Cycle: Turn away from God, God gives them over, they turn back to God, God delivers them.
We know that we’re deep in the downward spiral of Judges because
Longest oppression yet!
There is no cry for deliverance! Yet God will not forsake his people!
Then the scene is set with where we are and we’re introduce to two people who are key players in this earlier part of Samson's life.
A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth.
Now the barren woman is a familiar motif in the Bible. Barren meaning that their wombs were barren, they could not have children. If you were reading from the start of the Bible til this chapter here, you would have already heard about barren Sarah, barren Rebekah, and barren Rachel. And there are at least two more to follow, barren Hannah and barren Elizabeth.
What’s the significance of bareness? Well we’re used to barrenness because we live in an age where two key things that undermine our view of having children. We have the advent of contraception and we have godless ideology of the world. Most Christians believe that there is a limited place for the use of certain contraceptives, but put this technological innovation together with a God-hating world and we live in a day and age where marriage and having children do not go hand in hand in most people’s mind. In God’s design these two things should be inseparable, yet it is not uncommon to hear about couples who choose not to have children, or unmarried people trying to have children. So the couple who can’t have children ends up being presumed to be choosing childlessness, unless you get to talk to them and find out otherwise.
I’m not going to delve into the depths of this topic here, but in order to help you understand the passage, I need you to see that having babies is intentionally directly connected to marriage in God’s design. To be married should also mean the expectation that it will produce the fruit of children. You may have been deceived by modern propaganda, so I appreciate that not everyone gets that. But at the very least I’m sure you can understand that this is the worldview of the ancient Israelite, like Manoah and his Wife.
And if you can get that straight in your mind, you can appreciate that for each of the barren women of the Bible, they are in a grave situation of physical brokeness. They will each feel as through there is something wrong with their marriage. They will wonder if they have done something to incur God’s displeasure. Is He punishing me for something? Each of them will feel a dreadful possibility of not being able to continue their family line, of not having a lasting legacy, of not having security in their elder years. They will have a yearning for something they cannot fulfill. God designed women’s bodies to be able to grow babies, so when a woman cannot have a baby she will often feel like she is less woman, or that there is a key part of her life that is missing.
This is a result of the Fall. Because sin and death and corruption have entered the world, now we sometimes have sickness, sometimes we have deformities, sometimes we have something wrong in our physiology that prevents us from fulfilling the wonderful and beautiful mandate to multiply. This is part of Laura’s and my journey - under God’s providence we were “barren” for 10 years. We went through all of the questions and sorrow and trying to come to grips with this aspect of God’s will for us. Now this was a temporary trial for us, in time God has blessed us with children, but I want you know that it is not always temporary. There are many stories, including these barren women in the Bible, for whom infertility is a prelude to God doing something amazing, yet that is not always the case. For some it is a permanent thing. God is good, even in the midst of that trial. God has his purposes in whatever you’re facing now, and that includes the trials that we face around having children. God is with you, caring for you and bringing together a wonderful future, even if it is through infertility, through singleness when we wish to be married with kids, through the loss of unborn children, through disabled children. There are many ways that having children can be affected by the corruption of the world, and while there may be some upsides, we can acknowledge the pain. The Lord is with his people, to comfort them and guide them through these difficulties. Jesus said:
English Standard Version Chapter 5
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
It is hard from a pulpit to talk about these matters in a way that addresses the many aspects of our experience and choices. I don’t know who may be afflicted particularly by these matters. If this topic has opened up wounds for you, and you would like help dressing them with the salve of the Gospel, then come talk to me after the service or during the week.
Coming back to Manoah and his wife, we don’t know how long they were barren, but I’m sure you can now see that the situation they were in was not good. They would have been expecting to have no children. They would have prayed and mourned and tried to accept their fate.
Yet, in this case, God was going to use their barrenness for a special episode in salvation history. Suffering is never wasted by God. This trial was for a purpose.
God “breaks in” and takes that which is barren, and fills it with life. Like the way he took the formless earth in creation and brought life to it. God sends an angel to announce the good news to this couple, starting with the nameless wife:
The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son.
Here a special son is announced! Who will it be?
Things have gotten pretty bad, Israel is in a terrible state. They’re under 40 years of oppression. The curse from the Fall of humanity is well known to all.
Yet here is this announcement of a special son. Who will it be? The signs point to him being something amazing, from a barren woman, and announced by angels?
The angel explains:
Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”
This child will be a Nazerite! But what’s more, he will begin to save Israel. Good news!
What’s a Nazerite?
What’s a Nazerite?
Not a Nazerene! - lets get that straight.
See Numbers chapter 6.
A Nazirite...
Couldn’t drink alcohol or any grape products,
had to grow their hair (not allowed to cut it),
couldn’t touch dead bodies,
If you failed to keep the restrictions, you had to shave your head and start again.
Could be men or women. Voluntary act of worship and devotion to God.
It was usually a vow that someone would make to God, and then they would abide become a nazirite for the duration of the vow. Once the vow was fulfilled, then they would do some special sacrifices at it would all be over.
What would they vow? We don’t know. Possibly a time for thanksgiving to God, possibly to seek some deliverance from God.
Nazirite come from the Hebrew word “to separate” - so Nazirites would separate themselves from some common things as a sign of their separation to God for their vow.
The strange thing about Samson is that he was going to be a lifelong Nazirite. He was going to be seperated and dedicated to the LORD all the days of his life! Even in the womb, his mother was to abide by the stipulations on His behalf!
All God’s people should be holy, they should all be consecrated to the LORD, but Samson was going to be an extra special representative of being dedicated to God.
He looks like he’s on track to be the greatest hero Israel had ever seen. Who knows, maybe he will be the one to end the curse of Genesis 3 by crushing Satan’s head?
Miraculous Conception
Miraculous Conception
Samson's parents certainly thought this was strange. What follows next in the text is a series of discussions between Manoah, his wife and, the angel.
The angel delivers the message directly to the wife, (they’re not sure if this a man or angel)
the wife tells her husband (mostly)
The husband asks God to send the "man” again
God sends the angel again. He visits the wife first, then she goes to get Manoah. He asks, what is the child’s mission?
The angels basically says, listen to what I told your wife before.
This leads us to suspect that either she hadn’t shared the whole message, or that he didn’t believe her. Perhaps Manoah just really wanted greater understanding. Either way, the angel doesn’t really give any more information.
Manoah tries to show hospitality, but the angels says he won’t eat. Instead he says:
The angel of the Lord replied, “Even though you detain me, I will not eat any of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord.” (Manoah did not realize that it was the angel of the Lord.)
So he prepared the offering:
Then Manoah took a young goat, together with the grain offering, and sacrificed it on a rock to the Lord. And the Lord did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched: As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground.
Interesting insertion there - offered to the Lord who works wonders. A sign of things to come.
Manoah and wife are scared because they realise they’ve been conversing with an angle, not just a prophet. He must have looked rather normal, even though he looked “very awesome”. Manoah freaks out because he thinks he may have see God!
His wife is the reasonable one - she assures him: (i’m paraphrasing) Why would God show himself to us, promise a baby, the accept our offering then kill us?”
Samson parents then await the arrival of the baby. Sure enough:
The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him, and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Samson’s mother was the barren one, but God opened the womb to send a special child who would begin to deliver Israel from 40 years of oppression. He was set apart from conception for God. He had a special job to do. God used a chosen woman to bring this to pass.
The Lord’s Spirit was stirring in Samson as He grew.
This episode has primed us to expect an amazing life dedicated to God.
So with high expectations we move into Episode 2 - the Wife.
Episode 2: The Sabotaging Wife
Episode 2: The Sabotaging Wife
Like the rest of Judges, our hopes of true faithfulness and full salvation quickly turn to ash. The very next verse dashes all our hopes:
Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. 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.”
Israel is the set-apart people of God. They have been perpetually warned not to marry or mix with the pagan nations around them. Over the course of Judges the people of Israel have become less and less set-apart. It is getting harder and harder to tell them apart from the other nations because they keep compromising their faith.
Now their special chosen one, their messiah-figure Samson is hanging out in enemy territory, and not only that, trying to marry the enemy!
Israelites were not supposed to marry unbelieving foreigners. And not only was this a bad choice in general, it was the very people presently oppressing Israel.
Psalm 1 says:
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
From this opening scene in Samson’ ministry we have a clear indication, that while this was a chosen deliver of God, and God’s spirit was with him, this was a foolish man. Samson was fraternizing with the enemy in a unhealthy way. This is not just the incidentals of life, he was trying to mix God’s people with God’s enemies. Syncretism embodied. Foolishness writ large.
Samson's Parent rightly counsel against this:
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.” 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.
Samson pushes for this bad choice. If not outright sinful (the prohibition was against Canaanites), it is certainly very foolish. This is exemplified by the fact that he didn’t honour His mother and father and listen to their wise counsel. Proverbs has several admonitions to listen to both our father and mother, but Samson was bent on doing “what was right in his own eyes”
He is like most young men, very focused on girls, and has trouble directing his good desires to a godly direction. At the least we should be thankful that he wants to marry, and not just hook-up. But unfortunately, even this good aspect will soon fall by the wayside.
He does not have a care for What God wants, but God is working through Samson none-the less. This path Samson was on was “from the Lord”
Does this make God the author of sin and foolishness? No. Well summarized here: "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: (Eph. 1:11, Rom. 11:33, Heb. 6:17, Rom. 9:15,18) yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, (James 1:13,17, 1 John 1:5) nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; ..." (WCF 3.1). God ordains everything that happens, none of it is outside his sovereign oversight, yet he does not cause sin.
God uses Samson’s foolish desires to carry out his plan, as he did for Judas many years later.
The Lion & Honey
The Lion & Honey
Aranging a marriage
Samson Killed a lion during their travels down to arrange the marriage.
Later Samson is coming that way again and he sees honey in the Lion’s carcass, so he takes some, and gives some to his parents.
Hang on, Nazirites & dead bodies? If they can’t even embrace their dead loved ones during this vow, what business does Samson have messing about with animal carcasses? Obviously there’s some proper way to deal with flesh - they’re not vegetarians, but still something not right here, and that is highlighted by the giving some of the “forbidden fruit” to his parents - echoes of Eve giving forbidden fruit to Adam?
Set up the wedding
A wedding (with lots of wine) among the vineyards. This sounds highly suspect. Is our nazirite really acting as one separated to the Lord?
The Riddle
The Riddle
Weddings take at least a week. I’m not sure the order of events, but one presumes that the union is consumated during that time.
The groom needs “companions” and samson Doesn’;t have any, so they are provided.
Samsosn connives to defraud his “companions” and makes a bet with a riddle
And Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes, but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.” And they said to him, “Put your riddle, that we may hear it.”
And he said to them,
“Out of the eater came something to eat.
Out of the strong came something sweet.”
And in three days they could not solve the riddle.
The guys can’t solve the riddle, no wonder, because it is specific to Samson
Expensive situation - clothes were big purchace.
The companions try to leverage the wife, threatening her life
On the fourth day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Coax your husband into explaining the riddle for us, or we will burn you and your father’s household to death. Did you invite us here to steal our property?”
The riddle - the wife was caught between her family and her husband. A place that many of us know well! But in this case it’s rather toxic - steal the answer for us so we can get out of having to give a gift. But if you don’t save us from having to give one expensive gift, we will destroy your house. Bit unfair.
So Samson tries to trick them and they try to undermine the trick. They’re in the wrong, but Samson was almost as bad.
WWhat does the wife do? She manipulates Samson into giving her the answer, so that she can passi ti along. She uses crying and sobbing, making him feel like he’s done something wrong by not sharing everything with her
And Samson’s wife wept over him and said, “You only hate me; you do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?”
Samson would eventually give in to being continually pressured:
She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted, and on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her people.
She betrayed her new husband. What a way to sabotage a family from the start! Is this any way to start a marriage?
Sins of women - I heard an anecdote the other day. There was a group of students, perhaps bible college students, who were asked by their teacher to list some of the sins of men. They had no trouble rattling off a bunch of things that are common sins of men, like anger and lust and domineering and so on. Then, the teacher asked, “What are some common sins of women?”
There was silence.
Eventually somebody piped up and said “low self-esteem”? The one "sin” they proffered was that women don’t love themselves enough!
For some reason in our cultural moment one of our taboos is the the sin of women. Now not all women are guilty of these sins, but there is a trend, a stereotype for a reason. Not all men are guilty of the sins of men, but a great many of them are likely to fall into similar sins.
We are men and women, born of in the image of God, but in two distinct sexes or genders. Because of our differences, each gender is susceptible to different sins. God dedicates space in the Bible not only to outlining the potential pitfalls for men, but women too. Here, in our passage we have a lived out example of not only Samson’s male sins, but also his Wife’s sin.
This proverb is relevant here:
For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
The manipulative woman. It is a cliche because it is based on reality! Ladies you must guard yourself against this sin. You have a huge influence on those around you, especially spouses, children and parents - you affect them and their choices! Will you be like Eve and this bride, nurturing sin and division? or like Achsah building a household with great inheritance?
As much as Samson is to blame for all the women troubles he has, that does not take away the guilt of those women who connived and manipulated and talked their way into great sin.
The wife ought to have revealed the threat to her husband, so he could either give her the out by willingly giving the answer, or by defending his new family. Secrets breed destruction. You think you’re helping by keeping a secret, and taking care of it. “They don’t need to know. I don’t want them to worry.”
By forcing Samson to provide the companions with the 30 sets of clothes, the lady was essentially stabbing herself in the foot! She was bankrupting her new household. Clothes were expensive. Thankfully Samson has a way to get a hold of the clothes to keep up his side of the bargain.
And God uses this awfuk toxic situation to land a first strike against the Philistines.
The First Strike
The First Strike
Samson is not happy
But the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he did a mighty deed of stregth.
And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house. And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.
A self serving deed - kill the guys and steal their clothes, but also part of God deliverance.
Just remember, when we talk about being filled with God’s Spirit, striking down 30 of God’s enemies in Battle is within the real of possibility!
We must consider your privilege. I do not mean privilege as the world uses it, something that you need be ashamed about. I mean the providential blessing that the Lord has endowed you with.
What has he given you? It may be that he has given you great strength of body for the deliverance and protection of others. But that is not the only way God gives gifts of strength.
Perhaps God has empowered you with great strength of mind, a powerful intellect? Perhaps he has endowed you with a ferocious boldness to defend truth? Perhaps he has filled your pockets to overflowing so that you may be generous?
But what are you using your endowments for? Are you frittering away your days in self satisfaction, self indulgent, self promotion?
You have been consecrated to the Lord in Jesus Christ! You are not your own, you were bought with a price!
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
If you belong to Jesus, you have the Spirit at work in you. Will you heed His call to faithfulness and deeds of faith or will you quash it and serve yourself? Serve you passions? Get yourself into sticky situations and then wrangle your way out of them?
You’re saved from the world, consecrated to Jesus, serve him in your body!
So what?
So what?
Samson was a foreshadow of a greater deliverer. One who:
Was announced by angels - to Mum & Dad
Was born of a unexpected conception,
Was consecrated for special service to God,
Accomplished mighty feats, like dueling with the devil in the wilderness, cast out demons, calmed the storm, fed the hungry, sparred with words the intellect of the religious leaders.
Never backed down from his mission, who followed through without compromise.
Who delivered a whole kingdom of people instead of fraternizing with the enemy.