Good morning. Pastor Tim needed a few extra days to explain to his wife some of his comments from last week. So he asked me if I would cover for today. If you would open your Bibles to Judges 13. Judges 13, we're going to be spending a lot of time in Raise your hand if you have never heard the story of Samson. Everybody here has heard the story of Samson. That's one of those odd little stories that I know for many years I looked at almost like it's a child's story. I never really looked at how does the life of Samson apply to my life. It really is more than just a child's story, and it's what we're going to look at today. We're going to look at the life of Samson, and we're going to consider its message and relevance for our lives here at Tree of Life Church. We find the story in the book of Judges, and he is the last judge or deliverer mentioned in the book. And it's also the longest story in the Book of Judges. Most of the other stories are just one or two chapters long. This one's four. And at this, a little background, at this point, what has happened is Israel has entered the Promised Land, but they had not eliminated the pagan occupants, as God had told them to do. God's people began to drift from their high calling. They had been called, anointed to be a people of God. And they start drifting away from their high calling. And so God turns them over in their sin to other nations. And eventually, the people begin to cry out in distress. And they repent from their sins. They ask for help. And God sends a deliverer, a judge, to help them. Judges 13, chapter 1. Now, the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines forty years. Again, the Israelites forgot their calling. Again, they did evil in the sight of the Lord. The Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines. The Philistines were a warlike seafaring people initially from the island of Crete, and they left that place to take over Egypt. Didn't work. They attempted to invade Egypt, didn't quite work, Egyptians were a little too strong for them, so they end up settling on the southern coast of Canaan. They had always been and remained a seafaring and warlike people. And this was prior to the arrival of the Israelites. God told Israel to eliminate all the people in Canaan, including the Philistines. But they did not do it. And now God uses the Philistines to punish Israel. And he gives Israel into the hands of the Philistines. Forty years. Israel is now a conquered people. They're slaves in their own land. They are not free. They're hiding. They're fearful every day. They have no real freedom. And it is in this situation that our story of Samson begins. There was one family, one man and his wife, Manoah, of the tribe of Dan. Dan is located, or was located, just above Judah. just a little bit north and on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and an angel came to Manoah's wife and then later to Manoah himself. And this angel is speaking to them and they ask, what is your name? And the angel says, my name is Wonderful. Have you heard that term used before? Yes. This was an appearance of Jesus to Manoah and his wife. What an astounding thought. God presenting himself to Manoah and his wife. And he delivers and gives them a message of hope that they would give birth to a son. They had been childless. They're going to give birth to a son. And their son would begin to deliver Israel from the hands of Philistines. Judges 13.5, this angel says, For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come upon his head. For the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines. A Nazirite. Scripture in Deuteronomy tells us that a Nazirite vow did not have to be something for a lifetime. You could do it for a short period of time, but you were not to shave your head, you were to abstain from anything unplanned, and you were to take no alcoholic beverages. It was a vow that one was to make. And the whole idea is that this person would be set aside. He was set aside for the purposes of God. So here we have this angel telling the parents, your son is going to be a Nazirite, this very special person who's going to be set aside for the purposes of God. There are other examples of people who took Nazirite vows, Samuel, I believe John the Baptist, I believe even Paul in the New Testament where it says that he went and shaved his head, I believe he had taken a Nazirite vow. He wanted to rededicate, refocus himself on the things of the Lord. He had a mission. At the tail end of that verse, verse 5, it said, He shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines. The difference with Samson though was, in verse 7, again he says, Behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son. He shall not drink wine or strong drink nor eat any unclean thing, for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God." Now look how many days or months or years this will be. From the womb to the day of his death. Here was to be a man set aside for the things of God his entire life. From his birth to his death. Is this concept important? Well, the story of Samson takes four chapters in the book of Judges. One chapter, chapter 13, is dedicated just to explaining about Samson's birth. His miraculous birth, his miraculous dedication from the Lord or to the Lord. So Samson is born and The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, he grows up, and Scripture says that the Lord blessed him. But Samson's first words, the very first words out of Samson's mouth, tell volumes about the man. We find that in chapter 14, verses 1 and 2. Then Samson went down to Timnah and saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. So he came back and told his father and mother. Here are Samson's first recorded words. I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore, get her for me as a wife. I saw. Here's a man that was dedicated to the Lord, set aside, yet looking at the world with his physical eyes. The Philistines. God gave strict rules and commands about marriage. And nowhere in those was marriage outside of the people of Israel allowed. And this isn't just any other nation outside of Israel. This is their enemy. They're oppressors. And here's Samson. What does he do? He just sees with his eyes. He desires. He wants this woman for his wife. And he asks his parents, I want her. Please go get her for me. There was a certain process that was involved in those days where the parents would be involved in the engagement and wedding process. So he gets engaged to a Philistine, to the enemy. And as his parents and him are walking to the engagement, Samson was separated, I don't know, either ahead of them or behind them. A lion comes roaring out of the woods. It's a young lion and it's prying, and attacks Samson. And with his bare hands, Samson fights this lion, and instead he just rips the thing apart. The strength of the Lord is upon him. He rips this line apart and throws it off to the side of the trail, the road, and continues on. Well, he does get engaged. And sometime later, usually the engagement process lasted months up to a year or two. We don't know how long this one lasted, but sometime later, he's returning And once again, he's not right with his mother and father. He's on that same road and he looks off to the side and he sees the carcass of the lion that he had killed and inside of it is a beehive. And so he takes some of the honey and shares some of that honey with his mother and father. They get to the bride's house and there's a huge party, a festival, seven days. this giant wedding. And typically during this time, the groom would have his friends, lots of friends around him. Well, Samson didn't have a lot of friends amongst the Philistines, so they found some for him. And they brought 30 men and they said, here, these are going to be your friends. And so they joined him in the party. Well, a couple of days into the party, he said, I'm going to give you a riddle. And if you figure out what the riddle means, I'll give each one of you a brand new set of clothes. But if you don't, then each one of you will owe me a set of clothes." And they say, okay, that sounds good. By the way, this was a fairly common practice in the Middle East at that time. Researching this, I found lots of other examples of this, not just this one here in the Bible. Lots of other examples of these riddles that would be given. The riddle that Samson gives is, out of the eater, something to eat. Out of the strong, something sweet. Now you know what that is now. But these 30 men sure had no idea. They were clueless. Three days they pondered and thought, what could this possibly mean? Then they got mad. You know, someone came and got them and brought them to this party. And now they're going to have to owe this guy a set of clothes? So they go to Samson's wife and they tell her, listen, we're mad. What are you doing to us, making us pay for these clothes? If you don't find out the answer to this riddle, we're going to burn you and your father. We're going to kill you. And so Samson's wife begins to beg Samson, please tell me the answer to the riddle. Please. day after day, probably several times in each day. The last day of the wedding festivities, he can't take it any longer. He tells his wife the answer. And she in turn tells the 30 men. The 30 men go to Samson and say, well, what's stronger than a lion? And let's see, what's sweeter than honey? They're so wise. Well, Samson sees right through it. He just got through telling his wife and they come and they're telling him. In anger, he leaves the party, travels south to Ashkelon, another Philistine city. And in Ashkelon, he goes and kills 30 men, rips their clothes off of them. And in anger, marches back and throws him down at the feet of his 30 friends. He's furious at his wife, tells her, I'm leaving you. His wife's father, thinking that, well, Samson meant it, he's out of here. In time, he gives Samson's wife to somebody else. Time passes. And Samson wants to come back to his wife. He goes back to find that she's been given in marriage to somebody else now. Once again, rage sets in. Now, this isn't one of those things where just spur of the moment, because this time he goes out and catches 300 foxes. Now, this isn't one of those things where it's just spur of the moment. It takes a while to catch 300 foxes. He gets 300 foxes, then he takes them and he puts them in pairs, ties their tails together, puts a torch between their tails, lights the torches on fire, and sets them free in the crops, in the vineyards of the Philistines. Now, this is serious stuff now for the Philistines. They're not just mad because they lost something. I mean, they lost their food supply. They lost what they were counting on to eat day after day. Samson really hit them, hit them hard. The Philistines, they're asking, who did this? And they're told Samson did it. So, why? Well, because his wife was given away to another man. So the Philistines, first they go and kill the father and the wife. And then some of them go to attack Samson. Well, actually, I don't know if they went to attack him. Samson heard about it anyway. All it says is that there was a slaughter. He was upset at the whole thing. And he slaughtered a number of them. He knows that he's not popular with Philistines now. So he goes to live in the rocks of Judah. He's hiding out. The Philistines march after him. They want him. Now imagine, you live in Judah. Things are fairly quiet over there. You're not in the center of the Philistine occupation as much as the people in Dan. And you've got this huge Philistine army entering your land. So they find out, why are you here? They're told, we want Samson. So now, the people in Judah have heard about Samson. So they gather a few men, 3,000, to go after Samson. They say something amazing. It's one of those things from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. They say to Samson, Samson, don't you know that the Philistines are our rulers? They're our kings. Now, who is the king of Israel? God, God Almighty. They say, don't you know the Philistines are rulers? They're our kings. Samson says, if you promise not to kill me, I'll let you bind me up and take me to the Philistines. So they do. They take him, the people from Judah leave, and Samson, amongst these Philistines, breaks his bonds as if they're nothing. He picks up the jawbone of a donkey and begins to swing it, fighting the Philistines. It must have been an amazing sight. Here are armed soldiers with swords and clubs, probably shields, and this one man with the jawbone of a donkey at war with each other. The result? Samson killed 1,000 of them. 1,000 Philistines died that day. The power of God had come down upon Samson and given him supernatural strength. You know, typically we think of this big, huge man, but Samson might have looked like me. We just don't know. Might have been a thin little guy. We have no idea. What was important was that it was the strength of God working in him that enabled him to do these incredible feats. So does Samson praise God after this? No, he throws down the jawbone. He's thirsty, he's tired, and he tells God, You have allowed me this, only that I should now die of thirst. God, in his mercy, creates a spring of water for his servant. Merciful God. And he drinks. Samson doesn't learn, though. He sees with the eye the world. He sees another woman, this time in Gaza. Gaza was a little bit south of Dan. And he's with her in this city and the Philistines find out about it. The Philistines decide, we're going to get him. We're going to surround the city and the following day we're going to enter in and take him. So they surround the city. At midnight, Samson gets up and he goes to the city gates of Gaza. And he rips the city gates out. Now, the gates were huge and heavy. But he doesn't just take the gates, he takes the bars too. And not just the bars, the posts that the gate was attached to. The whole kit and caboodle. He lifts them up on his shoulders and walks off. And he walks. And he walks. And he walks. He walks to Hebron. 40 miles away. 40 miles. If you're not quite sure where that's at, Gaza is right on the coast and Hebron is more than halfway to the Dead Sea. I imagine, if you walked straight on through, it's 40 miles as a straight line distance as a crow flies. you know, hills and valleys and everything, probably took him somewhere in the area of 14 hours or so to walk from Gaza to Hebron. If he did it all in one day, then he probably got there 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Now think about it, the gates, well a city, the walls were to protect the city, right? What's the weakest part of the city? The gates. So, here comes Samson walking through Hebron with the gates to Gaza, the enemy of Israel. Can you imagine the party that must have been going on in Hebron as Samson walked through? And then he takes the gates and he sets them on the hill opposite of Hebron so the people can just look out and see the gates sitting there. It was an insult to their enemy, an insult to the Philistines. The Philistines are getting really upset about this time. He's killing them, he's mocking them, and he's encouraging his own people. But unfortunately, Samson has a problem. He's still locked into the world. Once again, he looks with his eyes. He sees a woman. Her name is Delilah. And the Philistines, once again, they find out Samson is with this woman Delilah. So all the rulers of the Philistines go to Delilah and they talk to her. We've gotten the bigwigs now, the kings, the rulers of the Philistines. And they go to her and they tell her, we will give you money if you will tell us the strength, find out the source of the strength of Samson. How much money? Well, the going rate for a human life at that time was about 20, 30 pieces of silver. You could buy a slave, you could own somebody for about that price. They tell her, we will give you 1,100 pieces of silver each. Each ruler. How bad do these guys want Samson? Really bad. They're basically, today's day and age, it's basically like saying, listen, you give me this information, I will make you a billionaire on the spot. 1100 pieces of silver from each one of the rulers. She begs Samson to reveal the source of his strength. Once again, day after day, he starts getting tired of it and he tells her, Okay, if you bind me with seven cords that have not been dried yet, then I will be just like any other man. So if he falls asleep, she binds him. She tells the rulers, be ready, have some men ready to pounce upon him. She tells him, as Samson sleeps, she says, Samson, awake, the Philistines are upon you. And he jumps up, snaps the cords. Delilah begins to cry. You're lying to me. Please tell me. If you love me, you'll tell me the source of your strength. Well, if you bind me with ropes that have never been used before, then I'll be like any other man. So once again, she binds him. She has the strongman waiting. He's asleep. She says, Samson, awake! The Philistines are upon you. And the cords snap, like weak string. It happens again, this time he tells her, if you weave my hair into your loom. She has very long hair, that must have been an interesting sight. She says, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. He wakes again, loom and all, shakes himself free of the loom. She knows she's been deceived again. Judges 16, 16. It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him that his soul was annoyed to death. He could not take it any longer. Annoyed to death. He tells her, The source of my strength is my hair. If you cut my hair, I'll be like any other man. So, that night, he goes to sleep, and she has someone come in and cut his hair. She says, Samson, arise, the Philistines are upon you. And it becomes obvious that he has become as any other man. The Philistines seize him. They gouge out his eyes. They bind him in bronze chains and they take him to prison where he pushes a millstone as a grinder where he would stand the remainder of his days. The Philistines are ecstatic. They're a great enemy. The one who had taken the gates of Gaza, the one who had was mocking them, the one who had killed thousands of them, was now their prisoner. Sometime later, the rulers got together and said, the reason we have Samson is because our great god, Dagon, gave him into our hands and we need to have a huge celebration in honor of our god. So they meet together and it's like a coliseum or courtyard had a large roof on it where the people could sit and see what was going on down below. Thousands attended. All the Philistine rulers were there. And as they're there, they asked Samson, or they called for Samson to come, that they may mock him. Samson asked God, just one last time, Please give me strength." He's recognizing God as the source of his strength. He stands between two pillars and he pushes, and as they collapse, the entire roof falls down, kills all the rulers of the Philistines and thousands of Philistines. He killed more people in that one incident than he had previously in his life. That's the end of the story of Samson. It's a strange little story. And as we consider it, you have to wonder, what are we to make of this story? How does it apply to our life? How does it apply to Tree of Life Christian Church? What would the author of Holy Scripture have us learn? First, we have to understand that the story, that Samson's life itself was a prophetical lesson for the people of Israel. It was a prophetical lesson. You see, Samson was anointed by God, set aside, set apart for the works of God. Yet he chose to look at the things of the world and it eventually brought him into bondage. So finally he cried out for help in recognizing God as the source of his strength. And God heard his prayer and used him one last time. That was the story of Israel time and time again. Israel was a nation anointed and set aside for the purposes of God. They had a high calling. Yet, they looked to the world. They always wanted to be like everybody else. They looked with their physical eyes, forgetting who they were. And so, they would... I hate to say fall into temptation. I mean, Samson practically jumped, leaped. And we see that with Israel as well. It probably wasn't something that happened right away. It's probably little by little, step by step. One small sin led to another, which led to another. That's what happened to Israel. and then bondage. They were in bondage. They forgot the source of their strength. And so, finally, Samson cries out for help. Finally, Israel would cry out for help. And God would acknowledge and deliver them. The Book of Judges is a book of the dark ages of Israel. A book of a people who had forgotten their king. Seven times the people of Israel are led astray, live lives of sin. Seven times they're brought under bondage, into bondage. Seven times they need deliverance from the Lord. And at the end of Judges, it's anarchy, because they've forgotten their King. So what is the lesson for our church? What is the lesson for each one of us as individuals? We need to consider, is the life of Samson a summary of the life of the church or of the individual today? We hope not. But we are to look at Samson's life as a warning for us today. We have an incredible privilege, my brothers and sisters. We have been anointed and set aside for the things of God, for the purposes of God. That angel came down and spoke to Manoah and his wife and told them, from the time the child was born from the womb to his death, he's a Nazarite. He's to be set aside for the things of God. We are too. Do we look to the world? were to be warned. The things of the world can seem sweet. Sweet temptation. It can be a desire to be like the rest. I think that's what happened to Samson. His tribe, the tribe of Dan, was right in the midst of where all the Philistines were at. And he got so used to seeing these things that he forgot that he was different than these people. He wanted to be like one of them. In our lives, we need to remember who we are. We need to consider the things of the world. We need to consider the temptations. We need to consider our desires to be in, or to be cool, to be like the rest. At least we too fall into bondage, fall into sin. Sin. 1 Samson was like a baited fisherman's hook. looked good, but got them. One thing we need to be careful about as Christians, as believers, is that sin sometimes may have Christian trappings. It may look Christian, but it's still sin. What do I mean by that? We can be proudful of our Christian accomplishments, but pride is of the world. It's not of God. We can think, why can't others be like me? That's pride. Look what I've done. Pride. That's just one example. There's many. We need to consider our lives carefully, in detail, to ensure that we have not become slaves to a new master. But if we do, we have to cry out. If we have fallen, we have to cry out for help. We are reminded in the story of Samson that he recognized his bondage. He recognized what had happened to him. When Delilah asked him, what is the source of your strength? How did he respond? He said, my hair. Yeah, initially he lied, but eventually he said, my hair. Was the hair the source of his strength? No. And yet, finally, as he's standing in the Colosseum, he cries to God, God, please give me strength. He recognizes that his hair was never the source of his strength. It was God all along. We are to cry out for help. We are to recognize the source of our strength. to repent from our sins. Story of Samson is also a story of deliverance. The creator of all the universe heard Samson's cry and used him. And he can do the same in each one of our lives. It may not change our physical situation. Samson stood between those columns without any eyes in chains He was never restored to where he was before. Why? His own sin created that situation. But God still used him. And you know what? That's eternal. We need to look to eternity and remember that God can deliver us out of our sin right now. So if Samson could speak to our church today, if he could stand up here, what would he say? First, he would tell us, don't waste your life on the things of the world. He had seen the results of that. The world will daily beg you to join it, to give up and reveal the source of your strength. He lived in the world of the Philistines so long and looked with physical eyes at the world for so long that he thought he was part of them. He desired the things of the Philistine world. He learned a late lesson. I believe he would tell us now that we should not waste our life on the things of this world. Secondly, he would tell us, look eternally, not worldly. Look eternally. Don't waste your life like I did, he would say. Use it for eternal purposes. It reminds me of a church I worked with in Managua, Nicaragua. This church was established by ten farming families. Poor people. They became believers in Managua and As believers, they wanted to get the word out. They had such a zeal and desire. One day, one of the men said, you know, I'd like for us to start a church. But they were poor and they didn't have the money. And they lived pretty much in the middle of Managua. Everything was so expensive. And he said, he got together with these other men that were all new believers. He said, you know, why don't we do this? Why don't we save our money? collectively together and eventually we can buy some property miles away from Managua because Managua keeps growing in that direction. And we'll buy the property there and then maybe one day the city of Managua will reach our property and then we'll have a church in Managua. They saved for years and they bought the property. Each one of them took a slice of property, maybe twice the size of this stage, for themselves, for their own personal use. The rest of the property they gave to the church, about three acres. Each one of them built a small house for themselves, and they used a lot of the extra property for farming. Then they started saving money again, and they began to build a church. They were looking big. People laughed at them. You guys are so far away. They started buying brick and they would store the brick up. Their plans was for a church for 200 people. You got these 10 families out in the middle of nowhere saving brick. In time they had enough brick and cement and they built a church. Then they built a pastor's house. They started saving up their money so they could send one of their children or somebody that would be interested to go to seminary and study and learn and come back and live in that pastorate house and lead them. When I visited that church, Managua had reached their borders. These were people with an eternal vision. They're not looking for the quick fix. They weren't looking just to take care of things for the instant. No, they're looking eternally, with vision. These are people, they're still very poor, incredibly poor people. It was one of those families that I had stayed with that I had, I think I had mentioned a year or two ago, They had two bedrooms for a family of eight. Hardly any furniture. But they tried to give me a double portion of their food, and they were going to go without. They were not wasting their lives on the things of this world. They were looking eternally. I think Samson would congratulate them. If Samson could speak to our church today, he would say, don't waste your life on the things of this world. Look eternally, not worldly. Lastly, he would say, it's not too late. Live your life for God today. It doesn't matter how bad or how deep your sin is. Samson would say, look at my life. Look what happened to me. God still used me in the end. It doesn't matter. Repent. Look to God as the source of your strength. Perhaps you have fallen, not living as you should. Perhaps you harbor secret sin. Perhaps you just merely haven't been living your life as fully as you should for the things of God. It's not too late to make a change. Samson's message today in a nutshell then would be, don't waste your life on the things of this world. Look eternally to your King, and it's not too late. Repent. Make changes in your life today. May we hear Samson speak to us today and set a God-desired pattern in our lives, remembering that we have been set aside, called, redeemed through the blood of our Savior. That we would live lives of victory, that we would grow in the fruit of the Spirit, that we live our lives with an eternal perspective, rejoicing each and every day in the presence of the Lord. One of these days, Samson will stand before the king and give account of his life. And so will we. May we heed Samson's message. So on that last great day, we can hear those beautiful words. Well done, good and faithful servant, knowing that we did all that we could for his glory and his honor and in his strength. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are the source of our strength. We look to you today, Father, to forgive us should we have fallen short of your calling in our life. We look to you today, Father, remembering the anointing that you have given each one of us. We ask that you would help us, Father, to remember how special that is that we have been set aside, called to be your children. and called to do your work, a work greater and a position greater than a Nazirite, but as children of God. Father, may you be glorified and honored in our lives today and every day as we work and live for eternity in your strength. We praise you, Father, and we love you. In Jesus' precious name, Amen. This is a copyrighted product of Tree of Life Christian Church of Canoga Park, California. You are welcome to pass this message along to others as long as it is not sold and it is passed along unaltered in its entirety with source credit given to Tree of Life Christian Church.