We're going to be opening your Bibles, please, to the book of Judges. The book of Judges tonight, we're going to be in the 16th chapter here in a few minutes, in the book of Judges. The book of Judges, we're going to meet a man by the name of Manoah for some reason. The Lord has not chosen to give Manoah and his wife, whose name we do not know, children. They've been praying for children and nothing has happened. The book of Judges, especially in this chapter, you're going to find it is a very male chauvinist kind of passage of Scripture when you really look at it. because Mrs. Manoah is out in the field, and as she's out in the field, the angel of the Lord appears to her and says, listen, you're gonna have a son. God's gonna deliver you a boy, and he's gonna be a special boy set apart from me from the time of his birth. He's gonna bring about the beginning of the end of the oppression of the Philistines, because the children of Israel were going through this process in the book of Judges where God would raise up an oppressor that would oppress them, and then when they would get right with God, God would send a judge to deliver them, And then they would go right back into their idol worship and another oppressor would show up because every man would do that which was right in his own eyes. But the angel says he's gonna bring about the beginning of the end of the oppression of the Philistines. He's gonna be set apart from the time of his birth. He's never going to touch a dead body. He's never gonna drink of the fruit of the vine and he's never going to cut his hair. He is going to be a Nazarite set apart with the Nazaritic vow. Mrs. Minoa runs and tells Minoa, guess what? Great news! The angel of the Lord appeared unto me, and we're going to have a son. And Mr. Minoa said, well, I'd like to get some more details. By the way, if you want the details, you want to ask my wife, not me. I can tell you where I'm going to be. I can tell you all of that about my itinerary and all that kind of stuff and how much things cost and how far I've got to drive on any given day. But if you want the real details, you better check with my wife, not with me. I'm going to miss the big details. But Mr. Manoah said, well, I wish I could talk to that angel. I'd get the scoop from him. So the next day, Mrs. Manoah is out in the field. And as she's standing there, the angel of the Lord appears to her again. And Mrs. Manoah says, Hold on, let me go get my husband. She runs and she gets Manoah. And Manoah comes back all brazen and everything. And he says, well, I'm afraid I'm gonna need some more information. And the angel said, no, you don't. He said, well, give me your name so that when we have this son, we can be thankful for you. He said, you don't need to know my name either. It's a secret. So Mr. Manoah realized that Mrs. Manoah had gotten all the details correctly. They have a son, and by now most of you have figured out their son is a young man whose name is Samson. Samson is set apart from the time of his birth to bring about the beginning of the end of the oppression of the Philistines. We find Samson in chapter 15. He's coming to his parents and he tells them, Mom and Dad, I've fallen in love with a woman of Timnath. At this time, Timnath was the second or third largest city of the Philistine Empire. In other words, he's fallen in love with an oppressor of his own people. The people that he's supposed to bring about the end of their oppression, he's fallen in love with one of them. His parents actually ask him, can't you find one girl in all the nation of Israel that you can fall in love with? And he gives them that answer, oh mom, oh dad, you don't know how much I love her. Mom and dad give him approval and so he goes to Timnath and on the way up to Timnath, a couple of things have happened. A lion jumped out to grab him and he grabbed the lion by the jaw and ripped him in twain from the head to the tail, right down the middle. And so left the lion laying there, he goes on up and what most people didn't know is that he'd stopped by a little place called Jared's on his way over to Timnath. He got up there to Timnath, he opened up that little velvet box with that ring in it. He got down on one knee and he said, young lady from Timnath, would you please marry me? And she said, oh, yes, I will. It might've been a pretty big diamond, I don't know. But the truth of the matter is, she agreed. And then Sampson did the smartest thing that the man ever did in his entire life until the moments before his death. He got out of town. He's already proposed there's going to be a wedding. Samson doesn't need to have anything to do with the wedding. I say it all the time when I preach to teenagers, no teenage boy ever sits around and dreams of his wedding. Girls dream of their wedding their whole life. On the few times that I've done a marriage or a wedding ceremony, I always tell the groom, you get a wife, she gets a wedding. It's not your wedding, it's her wedding. She's been thinking about it her whole life. When we got married almost 40 years ago, I would say to my wife, well, we ought to have Donny sing at our wedding. And my wife would say something like this, almost exactly like this, she would go, uh-huh. Now I quickly learned that uh-huh means no, it's not happening. That person's not singing our wedding. She had this thing planned out to the very most minute detail of her entire wedding. She'd been thinking about it for years and years and years. And by the way, you don't really need a groom for a wedding. A mannequin could stand there that was programmed to say, I do. He's not gonna pick out the fuchsia puffy sleeve bridesmaids dresses. He's not gonna pick out the songs. He's not gonna pick out anything. And so Samson left and let all that unfold. Now he's on his way back for the three-day wedding feast there in Timnath, and he looks over on the side of the road. There's the carcass of that lion, and there's honey in the mouth of the lion. And so he stoops down and gets some honey. Some would say he may have touched the body of the lion. The Bible doesn't specifically say that. He gets up there and he's surrounded by all these Philistines, the people he's supposed to be destroying. And he decides he needs to impress them. I want you to notice that Samson's downhill goes pretty quickly. First off, he fell in love with someone of the world. Secondly, now he's trying to impress people of the world. And in his attempt to impress them, he offers them a riddle. He said, out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness. If you solve that riddle in the next three days of the wedding ceremony, I'll give each of you a brand new change of clothes. But if you can't solve the riddle, each of you will give me a brand new change of clothes. For two days, they try to come up with the secret to the riddle and they can't. So finally they go to his fiancee and they said, listen, miss fiancee, We'd like to know the secret of Samson's riddle. She said, no, I'm not going to tell you that. And then he said, well, if you don't, we'll burn your daddy's house to the ground. She said, I'll be right back. I'll get you the secret. She goes to Samson and she says, Samson, can you please tell me the secret to your riddle? And Samson basically says, once again, I told you it's a male chauvinist passage of scripture. Samson says, if I tell you, You'll tell everybody. Now, just because Samson proves to be correct here doesn't mean it was the right thing to say. But then this woman, his fiancee, becomes diabolical. She uses a tool that women have used on men for millennia now. She uses a tool that no man in the history of the world has ever been able to overcome. This man can rip a lion in half from one end to the other, but he can't handle a crying woman. I'm here to tell you, gentlemen, you can have a stack of encyclopedias this tall. You can have NASA scientists. You can have Google and Wikipedia and every place else out there that says, in this argument, you are 100% right. When she starts crying, just go ahead and apologize because you've already lost. No man can overcome a crying woman. But it's worse than that. She doesn't just cry. She pulls this number on him. As she's crying, she says, You just don't love me. Guys I'm telling you when that tool comes out of the toolbox you might as well either decide to surrender and admit you're wrong or sentence yourself to living in the doghouse for the next three years. One of those is going to happen. So Samson overcome, I mean this is a man that knocks down buildings, carries out gates, catches foxes, but this woman says you just and all of a sudden, Samson falls apart. He says, all right, what could be stronger than a lion and what could be sweeter than honey? She goes straight to the Philistines. She says, what could be stronger than a lion, what could be sweeter than honey? The Philistines come up to Samson and they say, Samson, we've solved your riddle. What could be stronger than a lion and what could be sweeter than honey? And then Samson says something that to the best of my knowledge has never been immortalized in a Hallmark card. He said, you wouldn't have figured out the riddle if you hadn't plowed with my heifer. Guys, more marital advice for you, alright? There is absolutely no context when you can tell your wife that she's a big fat cow that she's going to take it as a compliment. I remember we were driving down the road one time and my wife grew up differently than I did. I was military. I grew up all over the place. I know colloquial terms from other towns, and I had to learn the words from West Virginia. I didn't know a vacuum cleaner. I always called it a vacuum cleaner. I didn't know it was a sweeper. I didn't know that you didn't push a cart around the grocery store, you pushed a buggy. I didn't know that a remote control was called a clicker. That was a new one on me. I learned all of those. But along the way, she's learned some of the phrases that I've heard that I thought everybody knew. We're driving down the road one day, we're having a conversation, our trailer's behind us, and I said to my wife, I said, well, we're ignoring the elephant in the room. Now, that phrase means we're ignoring the most obvious of facts because no one would overlook an elephant in the room. You know how to hide an elephant? Paint his toenails and hide him in a cherry tree? You ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree? Works, don't it? All right, so anyway, back to the message. I know that's old, but I had to put it in there. I said, well, we're ignoring the elephant in the room. I just keep driving. I'm wondering why the conversation suddenly came to a stop. All of a sudden, about 10 miles down the road, I start hearing sniffles beside of me. She's crying, tears flowing down her cheeks. I'm like, what? What did I do? What's wrong? I'm sorry. Immediately, by the way, once they start crying, you better just say you're sorry you lost, right? What did I do? I'm sorry, honey, and she said, You called me an elephant. Do you know for 20 years now, every time somebody uses that term in a news broadcast or an interview, I say, see honey, I didn't make it up. I wasn't talking to you. Samson says, you wouldn't have figured it out if you hadn't plowed with my heifer. He goes out and he murders 30 men so he can take their clothes off of them and pay his gambling debt. You notice that? Samson fell in love with a woman of Timnath. Then he gambled with the people from Timnath. Then he murdered people to pay his gambling debt in Timnath. This is one of God's children. He storms out and goes home. leaves the aisle cloth there, and leaves the unity candle up in the front, and leaves the fuchsia dress, puffy-sleeved bridesmaids' dresses, and all his groomsmen standing there. Amazing thing happens while he's gone, because the dad looks around and says, listen, we've got everything here we need for a wedding. The only thing we're missing is a groom, and all we need is someone that can say, I do. And he looks at the man that stood as Samson's friend, basically his best man, and says, you wanna marry my daughter? And he said, sure. And they said, you just got to say, I do. And it was over. Samson, after a while, comes back, knocks on what he thinks is his father-in-law's door. His father-in-law opens the door and says, hey, Samson, good to see you. How can I help you? He said, well, I came to get my wife. And he said, oh, no, she married the man that stood as your friend. She married your best man. And then he said this, what kind of dad would say this? But she's got a younger sister, even prettier than she is, and you can have her. What kind of culture are we talking about here? Samson isn't happy with that, so he goes out and he catches, you think of the speed and the strength and the dexterity it's gonna take, he catches 300 foxes, he ties their tails together, 150 groups of two, puts firebrands between their tails and sends them running, and they burn the whole town of Timnath to the ground. All the shocks of corn, all the olive trees, everything is gone. The people of Timnath get upset and they come after Samson with the army. And Samson kills 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. After he has performed this great victory, he says to the Lord, he says, Lord, I want a great victory for you or you can let me die of thirst. And then God sends water out of the jawbone. The next time we see Samson, he is carrying the gates of the city to the top of a hill outside of the town so he can hide the fact that he spent the night with the lady of the evening. Next time we meet Samson, he has quote unquote fallen in love again. This time with a woman by the name of Delilah, an interesting piece of trivia. Delilah is the only woman in Samson's life whose name we know. We don't know his mother's name. We don't know his first fiance's name, but we know the name of Delilah. They have a relationship based upon lies and betrayal. That's all they have. And Delilah says to Samson, listen, big guy, won't you tell me the secret to your strength? And Samson says, well, it's simple. You buy me with seven green widths that have not been dried and I'll lose my strength. He falls asleep. She ties him up with seven green widths. She wakes him up and says, Samson, the Philistines are here. He breaks the widths and goes out ready to battle. She said, Samson, you lied to me. Why did you lie to me? Tell me the truth of your strength. And he said, well, you got to bind me fast with new ropes and then I'll lose my strength. She goes to Lowe's and buys some new ropes and she comes back. He falls asleep. She ties him up. She wakes him up and says, Samson, the Philistines are here. He breaks the ropes and goes. She says, Samson, you lied to me again. What's the secret to your strength? He said, you have to weave the seven locks of my hair in a web. Samson falls to sleep and she weaves the seven locks of his hair in a web. Does it not seem to anybody else in the auditorium that Samson was the soundest sleeper in the history of mankind? He's woke up tied up twice and now he wakes up with his hair braided. You have to sleep pretty soundly to sleep through that. She says, Samson, the Philistines are here and he's ready to go out into battle. But then Delilah's had enough. Delilah uses another tool. And ladies, I will tell you this. Every woman in this room will admit that at least once in your life you have used the occasional tear to win an argument. But no woman will ever admit that they've done what I'm going to describe now. Men, by the way, call it something different than women. For instance, when we're in our trailer, our trailer's a good size trailer, but if everything is put away, it's very comfortable. But I have a tendency of kicking my shoes off wherever they are. And so I'll have a pair of shoes here and a pair of shoes there and a pair of shoes there. And my wife will say to me, sweetheart, would you please pick up your shoes?" And I will say, oh yes, honey, I'll get them. And then not get them. And then a couple hours later, she'll say, you know, I just tripped over a pair of your shoes. Would you please pick them up? And I'll say, yeah, I'll get them. And then she says, if you loved me, you'd pick up your shoes. If you had any respect for me and the way I keep this trailer clean, you would pick up your shoes. Why don't you pick up your shoes? I'd appreciate if you'd pick up your shoes. Can you please pick up your shoes? I've been asking you for three days. Would you please pick up your shoes? Men, help me out. Don't be afraid because your wife is sitting next to you. What do we call that? I heard somebody say it, nagging. That's what we call it. That's not what women call it. They call it reminding. By the way, ladies, let me give you a principle here. If a man tells you he's gonna do something, he's gonna do it. He doesn't need you to remind him every three months. Delilah was a world champion of nagging, was she not? There are a couple of verses in the word of God that describe nagging. One of them that comes to my mind, it is better to dwell in the corner of a rooftop than in a wide house with a contentious woman. But the other verse, the all time life verse for every woman who believes in nagging is found in Judges chapter 16 and verse 16, talking about Delilah, it says this, and it came to pass, that she pressed him daily with her words and urged him so that his soul was vexed unto death. That's nagging. And you know what Samson said? I will pick my shoes up. No, that's a different story. I'm sorry, I went back to that. Samson said, all right, here's the secret to my strength. If you shave my head, I'll lose my strength. Samson falls asleep. She calls for a man of the Philistines and shaves Samson's head. Now from that moment on, there's no humor left in Samson's life. From that moment on, Samson's life is on a downhill slide, so rapid and so devastating that it's hard to even describe. The Philistines come in and now a strengthless Samson can do nothing. And so they bind him with fetters of brass. They take him back to Gaza, that city that's still in the news to this very day. They take red hot pokers and they stick them in his eye sockets and put out Samson's eyes. Then they grind him in the prison house, they bind him in the prison house so he can grind. That's a job left for a donkey or an ox. All it is is walking around in circles to keep the grinder grinding the corn. And not only have they done all of this to him, but they put him in a public place where everybody can walk by and see him. Samson's life has been completely ruined. Most people would say Samson's life is literally over at this point in time. He has no strength. He has no sight. He has no friends. He has no family. He is bruised, bound and battered and beaten. He is blinded. He is unusable and unuseful. There he is. The Philistines decide to have a banquet, a party, if you will. They call all the lords of the Philistines and they come to this one place, the temple of Dagon, after drinking and drinking and becoming happy and singing songs like praise Dagon, from whom all blessings flow. Thank you, Dagon, for saving our souls. One of the drunk Philistines says, I got an idea. It'd be funny if we went and got Samson, the destroyer of our country who slew many of us. If we got Samson, we brought him out in front of us all and we had him make sport. We watched him walk around and stumble and feel around in his blindness so we could laugh at this once great champion and give more glory to Dagon. Samson says to the lad that's leading him, he says, suffer me then I fill the two middle pillars. The lad puts his hands on the two middle pillars and there with the Philistines singing praise, this man who was supposed to bring about the beginning of the end of the oppression of the Philistines has brought joy to the Philistines. This man that was supposed to be a victor for Almighty God has brought more glory to Dagon than he ever brought to Jehovah. He stands there between those pillars and does something that he's only done one other time in Scripture in the 20 years that he judged the nation of Israel. Samson's gonna pray. The only other prayer he offered is when he said to the Lord, you're gonna let me die of thirst after winning this battle with the jawbone. but this time Samson's really gonna pray. And I want you to look with me tonight at the last prayer of Samson. The last few moments before his life is going to come to an end. And notice what the Bible says. Notice what happens with Samson. We're gonna begin reading in 21 just for the background. But the Philistines took him and cut out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza, bound him with fetters of brass and he did grind in the prison house. Albeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven. Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together, for to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their God, and to rejoice. For they said, Our God hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand. When the people saw him, they praised their God. For they said, Our God hath delivered into our hands our enemy, and the destroyer of our country, which slew many of us. And it came to pass, when the hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house. And he made them sport, and they set him between the pillars. And Samson said to the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me, that I may fill the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. Now the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there. And there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women that beheld while Samson made sport. Samson called unto the Lord and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray Thee. And strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand and the other with his left. He's continuing his prayer here, and Samson said, let me die with the Philistines. The last words he said. And he bowed himself with all his might, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life. Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down and took him, brought him up, and buried him between Zor and Eshdol in the burying place of Noah's father. And he judged Israel twenty years. I want you to look at this man with me for just a moment, and I want you to just pretend, if you will, I hate to use that term, that when you came in tonight, we handed you a little device where you were allowed to vote yes or no. And I want to ask you this question, would you have answered Samson's prayer? I will be honest with you. Most of the things that Samson said, I would have said no. If I had the privilege of giving any counsel to my wonderful, holy, omnipotent, omniscient Heavenly Father, I would have said, don't answer that one. Don't answer this one, and don't answer this one, and don't answer this one. And maybe you'd agree with me. but I want you to look at God's response to the last prayer of Samson. Let's have a word of prayer. Lord and Father, we thank you for this evening. We thank you for our time. Lord, we pray that you'll bless the message. Help us to see your truth. In Jesus' name, amen. The first words out of Samson's mouth as he stands there between the two middle pillars. Oh Lord, remember me. Remember me. Have you ever gotten so far away from Almighty God that you think that maybe he's forgotten you? See, God's not the one that's supposed to do the remembering. We're supposed to be the ones that do the remembering. Ecclesiastes 12 and verse one. Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I had no pleasure in them. It's me that I'm supposed to remember, Almighty God. I'm supposed to keep him at the center point of my focus. But he asks Almighty God, he's standing between the pillars, he's listening to the cries of the people of Philistia. Can you imagine standing on the portals of heaven right there waiting to see what God is going to do as the praises to Dagon rise up in your ears? As you start hearing them say, oh, look what our God did. Our God defeated the champion of their God. Our God is better than Jehovah. Dagon has defeated our enemy and the destroyer of our country. And they begin to praise and sing glory to Dagon. And I'm here to tell you, at this moment, Samson looks up, who's made an absolute mess of his life. He is not standing there because God turned his back on him. He's standing there because he turned his back on God. Samson looks up to heaven with his blinded eyes and say, hey! Remember me? I would have given the dad answer, wouldn't you? Samson, you made your bed, now you gotta lie in it. You made this mess, now you gotta clean it up. You got here on your own without me, that's how you're gonna stand there. That's what I would have said. I can't be more transparent than that. I would have said, remember you? No way, Samson. You forgot God. Why should God remember you? But watch me. Maybe some of you would have agreed with me. Matter of fact, I believe most of you would have agreed with me if you're actually honest and not trying to be pious and self-righteous. No, I would have wanted to answer Samson's prayer because I'm so gracious. No, no, no. But see, Samson wasn't praying to me or you. Samson was praying to the second chance, the third chance, the 10th chance, the 50th chance, the gracious and the merciful God, Jehovah. And Almighty God looks down from heaven and says, Samson, I don't have to remember you. I never forgot you. I never lost sight of you. I never stopped loving you. Samson continues, if you'd have answered the first prayer, yes, You won't answer this part, yes. Oh, Lord God, remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me, I pray Thee. Here's a little thing we fail to point out a lot about Samson. Samson never did one single feat of strength in his entire life up until now just for the glory of God. Every feat of strength he ever performed when the Lord came upon him had a selfish motive when the lion jumped out It was self-preservation when he killed the 30 Philistines It was to pay a gambling debt when he caught the foxes and put firebrands between their tails It was to get revenge on his father-in-law When he carried the gates of the city out of the city to the top of the mountain It was to hide his is his own indiscretion everything that Samson has ever done in the power of God He did it for his own glory and his own self-preservation. And now, he says, strengthen me. If we went over and grabbed all those first through fifth graders, and we asked them one question, asked them, just tell me one thing about Samson, they're all gonna say he was strong, or they're gonna say he had muscles, or he did feats of strength, or something like that. The one thing that God has given Samson in abundance is God's strength. And now that he has wasted it, now that he has used it for all the wrong reasons, now he says, oh hey, by the way, can I have some more strength? By the way, don't we see that all the time? We see moms and dads that didn't raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, the children that God gave them, that now are at an altar praying, God, please give my kids back to me. We've seen people that use their money on riotous living instead of giving it to Almighty God, and now they're asking people to pray because they don't know where their next meal's coming from. What I'm saying is, sometimes God gives us something in abundance and we waste it, and we're always expecting God to give it to us again. That's what Samson's saying here. Oh, give me strength one more time. See, Samson should have asked for strength when his eyes started wandering toward Delilah. He should have asked for strength before he left the city, the country of Israel, to go into the land of the Philistines. He should have asked for strength when God made him the judge of Israel. But he hasn't asked for strength during these times. He only asked for strength now, when he's ruined everything. Standing there bald and beaten and battered. Standing there useless and used up. Standing there and now, he says, think of the audacity it would take. Not just, Lord, remember me, but, Lord, strengthen me. What my response would have been? Why, Samson? You got a gambling debt you need to pay? Why, Samson? Want to put some revenge on somebody? Why, Samson, you want to preserve yourself for a while? I would have said no. Samson, I might remember you, but strengthen you as you're sitting there listening to the drunken Philistines that are supposed to be the ones he's to destroy. Hear them laughing and singing and praising Dagon. Once again, I say it, Samson has brought more glory to Dagon than he ever brought to Jehovah. I would have said no. I think some of you would have agreed with me. I think we'd be pushing the button that says no. But see, God wasn't praying to us. The Lord's strength is always available. God says, my strength's still there, Samson. He was praying to Jehovah. The merciful, gracious God, Jehovah, who isn't just the second chance. If He expects us to forgive 70 times 7, how many times, how many chances does He give us? Don't you think it's an amazing miracle, an amazing biblical truth that none of us have used up all of our chances yet? And the Lord says, Samson, my strength was always there. I can put my strength on you whether you have sight in your eyes or hair on your head. I can put my strength on you no matter what mess you've made in your life. Look at this, number one, Samson says, Lord, remember me. Number two, Lord, strengthen me. But then, theologically, Samson says something a little different, doesn't he? And strengthen me, O God, only this once, that I may be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. Remember me, strengthen me, and now avenge me. Samson's right about this though, isn't he? The Lord said in Exodus chapter 17, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. At least Samson's right when he gets here. Avenge me, he says. Let me ask you a question. Did the Philistines wait quietly in the dark until God fell asleep and then put out Samson's eyes? No, he never sleeps and he never slumbers. Oh, maybe they caught him unaware when he wasn't looking and put out Samson's eyes. No, the eyes of the Lord in every place, beholding the evil and the good. So the point is, the Philistines couldn't have taken Samson's eyes unless God let them take Samson's eyes. Remember, even Satan himself couldn't touch Job without God's permission, could he? So when Samson asked the Lord to avenge him of his two eyes, and God was the one that allowed the Philistines to take out his two eyes, that's kind of a messed up prayer, isn't it? By the way, God has done that for generations. He raised up people to be oppressors to the nation of Israel. He purposely raised them up. But I want to point something out. He never let them get by with it after Israel got right. But now here's Samson, Lord avenge me. Lord, they took my eyes, I'd like to have them back. If you look at the life of Samson, you'll find out there's one thing that Samson never gave God. He never surrendered his eyes. He was always looking around for the next woman of the Philistines. His eyes never belonged to Almighty God. And here's the scary thing about this story. Sometimes God takes away what we refuse to give him. God has taken the eyes from Samson's head. And I'll point this out. You find Samson praying more as a blind man than you saw him pray as a seeing man. See, Samson saw God better in his blindness than he ever saw him when he had sight in his eyes. God took away what Samson was refusing to give him. And now Samson says, we need to get them back for what you allowed them to do. Doesn't make sense, Samson. God allowed them to take it, but watch this, God's not gonna allow them to get by with it. Would you have wanted to avenge, Samson? Would you have been standing there on the portals of heaven hitting the yes button on your little pad? Or would you have said no? You lost your eyes because you needed to lose your eyes. Oh, I might remember you. I might even give you strength. But to give you vengeance for something that God has allowed? I wouldn't have done that. Especially while you're hearing them praise Dagon. Especially while you're seeing them drinking and having a merry heart and laughing at your judge as he wanders and stumbles around in his darkness. Imagine as they sing, thank you, Dagon. Dagon is a wonderful God. I'd have said no. But God didn't. Samson says, number one, remember me. Number two, strengthen me. Number three, avenge me. He grabs the two middle pillars and then he finishes his prayer with this way, let me die with the Philistines. I will point one thing out about Samson's prayer. It's a pretty good prayer, isn't it? Who's gonna defeat the Philistines? Is there an army waiting to attack the Philistines because now they're drunken because they've been so merry? Is the children of Israel, are they there with armor and swords and spears on the hillside ready to attack? Who's going to defeat the Philistines? See, Samson, when he prayed, avenge me of the Philistines, avenge me of my two eyes, he just believed that because he prayed it, God was going to do it. You and I should all learn to pray that way, shouldn't we? But he says, let me die with the Philistines. You know, Samson doesn't say, let me go home. He doesn't say, am I going to die of thirst now that I've won this great victory for you? He doesn't say, let me go back and judge the nation of Israel for 20 more years. He doesn't say, let me go back and see my brothers and my sister and my family. Let me go back to Israel and serve you, Lord. He doesn't ask for a second chance. What he says is, let me die with the Philistines. This is the first time in all of the life of Samson that Samson is completely surrendered. It's the first time that Samson isn't worried about Samson. He's just worried about God getting the victory. He says, Lord, if I have to die right here, right here between these pillars, as long as you get the victory, it's just fine. Samson says, take me. I wouldn't have wanted Samson. Nobody wants defective merchandise. I remember one year for Christmas when we were stationed in New Jersey, Fort Monmouth, I got three Christmas presents. The first two I opened were broken in the box. The third Christmas present I got as a third grader was a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle. Yes, the lamest present that any third grader has ever gotten in his life. Because everything else was broken, my sister was playing with her toys, I sat down at the dining room table, I dumped out the box. There were 263 pieces in my 500-piece jigsaw puzzle. Guess what we did the next morning? We took everything back, because nobody wants defective merchandise. Isn't that what Samson is offering here? I mean, we're sitting here and we're saying, well, Samson, I sure wish you'd have done that 20 years ago. We're saying things like this, you saw all the things that Samson did, all the great feats of strength he exhibited, but what could he have done if he had said, let me die with the Philistines 20 years ago? How many chapters of our Bible would be dedicated to Samson? How many stories would be in our Bible storybooks about Samson? If Samson had just surrendered 20 years ago, that's what you and I say, and now here he is, blinded and broken and battered and used up and useless, and now for the first time, not young, virile Samson, not young, mighty Samson, broken Samson says, hey, here, you can have me. I'll serve you now. I'm willing to die for you now. I'm willing to die in the battle now. See, if I have access to decide who gets to answer a prayer and who gets their prayer answered and who doesn't, I'm trying to tell the Lord, go find someone else. Go find a young guy that can still see. Go find another young family who doesn't have any children and bless them with children. Go and get someone else, Lord. He's not worth the time. Oh, give him his strength. Let him be avenged. But I don't want him. By the way, isn't that the devil's lie? There is something that you can give God because this is what people will say. Well, I can't offer the Lord much. I'm not the smartest person in the room. I don't have any money. I don't have any great physical characteristics or anything like that. I'm not talented. But you know, you can give God something that the most wealthy, most talented and most intelligent person on this planet could never give him. You. Oh, Brother Harper, wait a minute. I'm old now. I don't have much time left. You've got more time than Samson. Oh, I'm physically run down. I don't have much left to offer the Lord. You got more than Samson. Samson's got five minutes left to live. And he says, here, Lord, you can have me. Let me die with the Philistines. I'm all yours. I don't even want to go home. I just want you to win the victory. I want you to stop them praising Dagon. I want you to stop them giving glory to a false God. Let me die. First time in his life. And Almighty God looks down and says, that's all I ever wanted from you. God doesn't want you to give him the wealth of someone else or the life of someone else. We're real good at that, aren't we? I mean, I'm more than willing to surrender everything you have to God. But God wants us to give it all to him. Here, Lord, you get the victory. I'll die right here. I'm going to serve you now for the first time in my life, every minute that I have left. That's what Samson says. Samson pushes those two middle pillars. The building collapses. You might have a Bible that says above the story there, Samson kills 3000. No, no. There were 3000 on the roof and there were people inside. Samson killed thousands upon thousands of Philistines. They come and they take Samson back to the bearing place of Manoah's father. That's the end of Samson, sort of. There's a little editorial that God offers. God doesn't just throw words in just so we go, wow. Notice what it said. Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house was born and on which it was born up. of the one with his right hand and the other with his left. And Samson said, let me die with the Philistines. He bode himself with all his might. And the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were therein. Now look at this. So the dead, which he slew at his death, are more than they which he slew in his life. You know what that means? Number one, remember me. Number two, strengthen me. Number three, avenge me. Number four, take me. Number five, reward me. You know what that means? That little phrase right there, that God has added to the end of the life of Samson. The dead that he slew in his death were more than they which he slew in his life. That means, that although you and I, if we're down here, and we have them both standing up on the platform, on one side we have young, virile, muscular Samson with his whole life in front of him, on the other side we have the beaten, battered, bruised, and blinded old Samson standing there chained up in fetters of brass having everybody laugh at him. On one side, we see the Samson that could have brought so much glory to God. On the other side, we see the Samson that has brought glory to Dagon. And if we had to choose, if we got to vote right now, every one of us, without exception, would choose this Samson right here. We would say, boy, look at the potential he has. Look what he can do for Almighty God. Look how great a warrior he could possibly be. And we disregard the old person over here, the person that doesn't have anything seemingly to offer. We don't want Him. We join with everybody else and says, no, I don't want Him. He brought glory to Dagon. We'd have chosen Him. But that phrase tells us something different. The dead which He slew in His death were more than they which He slew in His life. That means that Almighty God took this broken, blinded, battered, beaten Samson, this one that's grinding in the prison house, this one that's brought glory to Dagon, He took him and five minutes, five minutes, Samson was surrendered. Five minutes, Samson had given everything to God. Five minutes, Samson said, I don't even want to go home. I want to die with you, Lord. I want to die in this victory. God took that Samson and did more to him than that Samson did in 20 years. Don't tell me your time is up to serve Almighty God. Don't tell me you're on the back of back 40. Don't tell me you're just gonna sit back and wait for Almighty God to take you home. Just say, Lord, here, take me. I don't know what I have left to offer. I don't know how many years. I don't know how much money. I don't know how much talent. I don't know how much intelligence I have. But Lord, it's all yours. You can have it and just watch what only God can do what you gave him. Our vote doesn't matter, but God's does. God said this Samson right here, he surrendered five minutes of his life. We would have wrung our hands, wouldn't we? Just think what he could have done, but God didn't. God said, five minutes, that's enough. I'm going to do something great with you in five minutes. I'm going to eclipse everything you ever did with a half surrendered heart in five minutes. What I'm trying to tell you is this, Christian, there's not a single person in this auditorium, not anybody up here, not anybody down here, that you've exhausted all your chances. There's not a single person that if you said, all right, Lord, I'm going to quit holding on. I'm going to let you have everything. I'm going to let you have it before you have to take it from me. It's sad that God had to take Samson's eyes to get his attention. But as the song sang, Just a few moments ago, there'll not be one blind man in Hallelujah Square. And for all of eternity, we'll remember Samson as the temple crushing Samson, the Philistine defeating Samson. In the last five minutes of his life, he fulfills what God called him to do before he was even born, to bring about the beginning of the end of the oppression of the Philistines. The simple truth is, I wouldn't have been willing to answer Samson's prayers. But I'm glad that I serve a God that was. And I'm glad that I serve a God that when I've made a mess, He doesn't tell me to clean it up. He helps me. He'll use you more than anyone ever thought possible. One more thing and we're done. If you saw that Samson defeat several thousand Philistines, you'd have said, makes sense, young, virile, muscular Samson. But when you see this Samson in his blindness defeat all of those Philistines, you say, he didn't do it, God did. Let's have every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around. The Lord and heavenly Father, we thank you for this evening. We thank you for our time together. Father, we thank you for the privilege of being in your house again. Father, we ask now that you bless this invitation. More than a dozen hands, maybe more than that, went up saying, I'm giving God everything tonight. I want you to help them to step out, whether they're in the balcony or down on the main floor. Make their way down to this old-fashioned altar. Have your will and your way in Jesus' name.