We began looking at the life of Samson last time we were in the book of Judges, and so tonight we're going to pick up where we left off, and the remaining chapters, 14 through 16, that deal with the life of Samson can be divided into two sections, kind of geographically. Chapters 14 and 15, most of what happens to Samson revolve around the city of Timnah, and then in chapter 16, it's the city of Gaza. both Philistine areas. So tonight we're going to look at the Temna section, the Temna chapters of Samson's life, and the next time we'll take a look at chapter 16, the familiar story of Samson and Delilah, which takes place in Gaza. And as we've done in the past with some of these longer narratives, we're not going to read all both chapters here tonight up front. We'll read good portions of them through the course of the sermon. But to begin, I do want to read the first four verses of chapter 14. So if you'd turn with me to Judges 14. Let's begin with just verses 1-4. Samson went down to Timnah. And at Timna 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 Timna. Now get her for me as my wife. 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." Let's pray together. God, You are sovereign in the affairs of men. I pray that you'd help us to see that sovereignty in Samson's life tonight. Help us to see your sovereign control in our own lives. And may this awareness of divine providence produce in us, your church, may it produce courage and comfort and perseverance and even joy. And we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. You can be seated. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, question number 11, says, what are God's works of providence? And the answer is God's works of providence are His most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions. One of the overarching themes of Judges 14 and 15 is the providence of God. God is always at work, sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes behind the scenes in less obvious ways, but He is always at work and nothing can stop Him. In the course of Judges 14 and 15, there are many things that try to derail the purposes of God, the plans of God, but in the end, those things fail and God has His way. So tonight, we're going to take a look at some of those things that try to run counter to providence. They try to go against the decrees of God, and we're going to see how all of these things fail in the end, and God has His way. It's my hope that in the course of seeing how futile these things are, we as God's people will gain renewed confidence in the power and purposes of God. As I was studying and thinking about Judges 14 and 15 this past week, the thought came to me that Proverbs 19, 21 would make a great subtitle to this sermon. It says, Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. We see this even in the opening verses that we just read. Samson is already showing signs of foolishness in his life by wanting to marry outside of the covenant community. He's living by sight, not by faith. He's willing to break the law of God in order to gratify his own lust, and his parents are beside themselves about it. Remember, they were told last time by the angel of the Lord that their boy was going to be special. He was going to be set apart for God's purposes, and yet here he's making a boneheaded decision to marry a Philistine woman. He's crawling in bed with the enemy. That's not supposed to happen. His parents are thinking, why is God letting this happen? Well, verse 4 tells us why God is allowing this. It says, it was from the Lord, for He was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. And that statement, verse 4, needs to become the lens through which we read the rest of this narrative about Samson. God has a purpose. That purpose is to judge the enemies of His people, the Philistines. And so everything that transpires throughout the rest of Samson's life is a means to that end. A means to the end of God judging the Philistines. Now, perhaps it's easy to sit here in a church service and affirm the sovereignty of God, the power of providence, the reality of divine purpose behind everything. But what about when our child starts dating an unbeliever? What then? Or when liberal activists start having unbelievable success in turning the tide of culture? Or when the church begins to grow increasingly compromising in its standards and apathetic to the things of God. What happens when trouble comes down the pike? It's a lot harder, isn't it, at that point to say, I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Sovereign One, to believe that God is in control. It's a lot more difficult in the face of adversity and opposition to stake our faith and our lives on the belief that God is in control, that His sovereignty really is uncontested. Well, as we walk through Judges 14 and 15, we're going to see that God's purposes indeed do march on in the face of adversity, in the face of opposition, even in the face of unbelief. God's purposes are always accomplished. So first of all then, our story shows us that even when we sin, God's purposes are accomplished. Even when a Christian is struggling with personal sin in his life, God's purposes are not thwarted. Look with me at verses 5 and 6 of chapter 14. Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Temna, and they came to the vineyards of Temna. And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. but he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. So Samson's adventure begins with this odd occurrence of this lion attacking him out of the blue. What's going on here? Well, this is the first occurrence of something that's going to happen over and over and over again in the course of Samson's life. And that something is the Spirit of God rushing upon this man, giving him supernatural strength to accomplish some amazing, miraculous, physical feat. God is preparing Samson for his life's calling. He is to be a deliverer of Israel And that deliverance is to take the form of physically defeating the enemies of God's people, even against great odds. I think this first incident with the lion is in some ways intended to be a sign for Samson. God is saying, Samson, look what I can do through you. If I can give you enough strength to kill a lion, I can do even greater things than this. I can use you to kill Philistines. If I can deliver you from a wild beast, I can certainly use you to deliver Israel from her oppressors." I think sometimes when God is getting ready to use us in some way, He often will do this. He'll prepare us by giving us a small taste of His power in us. And that taste of divine power ought to motivate us. It ought to build up our faith, our confidence in the ability of God through us. There's an account in the life of David that's strikingly similar to Samson's account with the lion. In 1 Samuel 17, Goliath, another Philistine, was defying God. He was taunting the army of Israel. When David comes upon the scene, he can't believe that there's not a soul in Israel that's willing to take on this blasphemer. So David himself volunteers. Now, David at this point was just a young shepherd boy. He had no military experience. How could he hope to have victory against such a well-trained, seasoned soldier, especially one who's a giant? So when King Saul questioned David, here's what David said. He says, your servant used to keep sheep for his father, and when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God." And David said, "'The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.'" You see, God had tested and prepared David by proving his strength, God's strength in David. He had proven his own strength in a lesser situation so that when the time came for David to put it all on the line for God's honor, he wouldn't waver. God often gives us small deliverances so that we'll rely on Him when the big deliverances come. But notice how Samson responds. He didn't respond like David did. Listen to how he responds to what should have been his preparation for service, verses 7 through 9. After some days he returned to take her, that's his Philistine wife, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion and honey. He scraped it out into his hands and went on eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion." Now, in our last message, we learned that Samson was a Nazirite, and we learned what a Nazirite vow entailed. Number six is very clear about the requirements of a Nazirite. And one of those requirements is absolutely no contact with dead things. Remember that? Even if a Nazirite comes into contact with the deceased body of his own parent, it nullifies his vow. He has to start all over again. So God is very serious about this. So when Samson returns to this carcass of a lion and begins to eat out of its body with his hands, this is an outrageous breaking of the Nazirite vow. And not only does he defile himself by touching the dead animal, he defiles his parents by secretly sharing some of this honey with them. And I think the fact that he refuses to tell his parents where it came from indicates conscious guilt on the part of Samson. He knows that what he's doing is wrong. Another aspect of the Nazarite vow involved total abstinence from wine. And again, we see failure on Samson's part. Look at verse 10. His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do." Now, the word feast is an innocent enough word in English, but the Hebrew word is mishta, and it refers to fruit of the vine. It means a drinking party. It was not just a feast. It was not just a party. It was a drinking party. Samson was indulging in a seven-day drinking fest with his Drinking buddies. He's breaking his Nazirite vow of abstinence. So in the first ten verses, we've seen God give Samson this wonderful opportunity to prepare himself for service, and yet Samson responds in rebellion. He pursues marriage to a pagan woman against the counsel of his parents. He intentionally comes into gross contact with a dead animal, and he indulges in drunkenness. I mean, the only thing left for him to do to break every Nazirite vow is cut his hair. And we know where this is heading, don't we? Because eventually he does that as well. God sets Samson apart and gives him opportunity to prepare himself for the work of delivering Israel, and yet Samson responds in disobedience at every point. Now, I want to fast forward to verse 19. It says, "'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.'" Now what's going on here? This is the next time that God's Spirit rushes upon Samson. At this drinking party that Samson had held, He had wagered 30 expensive changes of clothing that his drinking buddies couldn't solve this riddle. You can solve this riddle by the end of the week. I'll give you 30 changes of clothing. If you can't, you owe me 30 changes of clothing. Well, the drinking buddies threatened Sam's new bride. She ends up manipulating him into telling her the answer to this riddle. So the drinking buddies win the wager, and Samson's mad. He's angry. So he goes to the next town. He kills 30 men. He takes their clothing and pays off his bet. Samson had intentions that were leading him into all sorts of terrible decisions. But again, we go back to verse 4. Behind it all, God is seeking out an opportunity against the Philistines. And so in the end, in spite of Samson's disobedience, in spite of his stupid decisions that he's making one after another after another, God has His way. Thirty Philistines lose their lives. And so we see that God's purposes are not contingent upon the obedience and compliance of His people. In fact, God's opportunity against the Philistines came about as a result of Samson's disobedience. Now, this doesn't mean that we should be okay with disobedience. We shouldn't. Things, no doubt, would have gone better for Samson had he obeyed the Lord. But the point is this, man's failures cannot stop God's purposes. I can remember as a teenager feeling like I must be the most sinful hypocrite in the world. I was a pastor's son. I was a professing Christian. I had the reputation of being a good kid, but I knew in my heart that I loved sin way too much. I was driven, like Samson, much more by hormones than by the Holy Spirit. I, like Samson, had an unhealthy curiosity about unholy things. And I can remember thinking, there's no way God could ever work in a heart that's as black as mine. There's no way that God could ever use someone with a heart like mine to do significant kingdom work. But then I started hearing about grace. And I learned that where sin is great, grace is even greater. The blackness of my heart was no match for the grace of God. And then I heard about sovereignty. I learned that nothing can stop the purposes of God. If He wants His kingdom to flourish, and He does, my sin will not, it cannot get in the way. Not even the gates of hell can prevail against the purposes of God. And as I began to put all this together, I discovered a new longing in my heart to be on the right side of God's purposes. My sin could never thwart God's purposes, but I didn't want to just settle for staying out of God's way. I wanted to be a part of His kingdom purposes. Looking back, I think this was all just God's way of using His kindness to lead me to repentance. The knowledge that God's grace, God's purposes can even overcome my sin. was unbelievably encouraging to me as a young believer and is still encouraging to me to this day. Even when we sin, God's purposes are accomplished. I think we see this illustrated dramatically in the opening verses here of Samson's life. But secondly, we see even when our enemies intend to harm us, God's purposes are accomplished. Even when our enemies intend to harm us, God's purposes are accomplished. We come to the last verse of chapter 14 and we read Samson's wife was given to his companion who had been his best man. In the opening verses of chapter 15, we find Samson heading back to Temna. This whole wager thing had just erupted. He paid his bet. He got angry. He left. In the meantime, his father-in-law gave his wife to the best man. Well, now Samson's coming back to Temna to try to make up with his wife, not knowing what's happened. And he brings the equivalent of a dozen roses, I guess. Verse 1 says, Samson went to his wife with a young goat, and he said, I will go into my wife in the chamber. But her father would not allow him to go in. And her father said, I really thought that you utterly hated her, so I gave her to your companion. We can imagine this didn't make Samson very happy. His drinking buddies had successfully wrecked his marriage, so he decides to wreck their wheat crops and olive orchards. He catches several wild animals, probably jackals. The Hebrew word is unclear. And he ties their tails together, puts a torch there, and sends them loose in a Philistine farmland. Now, the Philistines, like all communities in this era, were agrarian cultures. They were directly dependent upon the success of their crops for survival. It's not like they could just call up China or Mexico and set up some kind of trade immediately to survive. So destroying their crops was not just some sort of practical joke on the part of Samson. No, this was a life-threatening act of revenge on the part of Samson. In response to Samson's revenge, the Philistines commit their own act of revenge. The latter half of verse 6 tells us, and the Philistines came up and burned her, his wife, and her father with fire. So now there's no hope of Samson ever getting back together with his wife. She and her father are dead. Well, this sends Samson over the edge. And so verse 8 tells us Samson's response. It says, He struck them hip and thigh with a great blow, and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Edom. to strike hip and thigh. This is a Hebrew idiom that just communicates magnitude, maybe similar to the way we would use certain phrases, making money hand over fist, a lot of it, or paying through the nose for something. To strike hip and thigh is to just really put a whooping on his enemies, is what Samson did. So Samson is having a very difficult time. His enemies are making life hard for him. But again, we've got to remember that there are bigger purposes at work behind the scenes. God is seeking opportunities and He's finding opportunities against the Philistines. No matter how hard the Philistines try to retaliate against Samson, God turns it back on them to their destruction. Folks, we need to remember that when we get all worked up about the world's hostility towards the church. The concerted efforts of God's enemies are no hindrance to the sovereign decrees of God. Our enemies cannot advance one inch beyond the purposes of God. Not only will God's plans triumph over our own personal sin, not only will God's plans triumph over the evil intentions of our enemies, notice thirdly that even when God's own people are faithless, when God's people are faithless, God's purposes are accomplished. Samson has just burned the Philistine crops and now he's on the run. He's found a place to hide in a cave, eat them, but the Philistines are in hot pursuit. 1,000 Philistine soldiers march into the land of Judah and insist that the men of Judah turn Samson over to them. And we come then to verse 11 of chapter 15, and what we find in verse 11 is just a most disappointing confession on the part of the men of Judah. Let's read this together. Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the Rock of Edom and said to Samson, Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?" Now that whole statement ought to just blow us away. The men of Judah are the chosen people of God. Their distant ancestors were the ones who were delivered from Egypt, the greatest superpower the ancient world had ever known. And they knew this. Their immediate ancestors had been delivered time and time again through miraculous interventions of Yahweh. Here they are outnumbering the enemy three to one. There's 3,000 men of Judah, there's only 1,000 Philistines, and yet we hear them settling for the most disgraceful circumstances. They've come to accept the lie that the Philistines are just meant to rule over Israelites, that the enemies of God's people are too strong to fight against. And they're rebuking Samson for stirring up trouble, for rocking the boat, for not settling for bondage like they had. They had become fully acclimated to this pagan culture and were believing the lie that they were not free. And so they go to Samson, God's chosen deliverer, and they try to impose their false belief system on him. What are you doing to us, Samson? Don't you know that the Philistines are in charge around here? God's people have become faithless, and now Samson must pay. One theologian said, it is a sad fact of Christian experience that if you are a Christian committed to growing and maturing in Jesus Christ, you will often be hindered the most by other Christians who have become accustomed and accommodated to an anemic, wishy-washy spiritual life. Isn't that true? So often, it's other Christians, it's lukewarm Christians that are the most discouraging in your pursuit of sanctification. Over the last several years, God has been dealing with my heart in regard to how I observe the Lord's Day, the Christian Sabbath. I think it all began years ago when I was in England and was visiting with an older minister there in Cambridge, and he asked me why the church in America doesn't honor the Lord's Day. The church in England at least the evangelical church, it's more part of their culture, that day's different, than it is in America. He's asking, why is that? Why do Presbyterian churches in America not honor the Lord's Day? You know, we may come to a morning worship service on Sundays, but otherwise, we often tend to treat it just like any other day of the week. We do business, we run errands, we get chores done, we neglect to return for evening worship. Not to you, because you're here. But as I've wrestled with that question, I began to realize that, you know, for me, in my personal walk, what makes Sabbath-keeping hard in America is not that the world disregards the Lord's Day. I mean, what else are they going to do? They have no interest in honoring the Lord. What makes Sabbath-keeping hard is when Christians disregard it. Because if the believers I fellowship with and worship with can excuse something away It becomes a whole lot easier for me to ignore my conscience and to excuse it away, to justify the same thing in my own spiritual walk. You know, this could apply to any sin you struggle with. For me, it's keeping the Sabbath. For you, it may be something else. If you're surrounded by professing Christians who excuse something that violates your conscience, it becomes much easier to ignore your conscience. Samson had fled the Philistines only to find himself facing a different kind of opposition. And in many ways, a more harmful opposition. He was surrounded by a covenant community that was less than spiritually hot. A covenant community that was pressuring him to lower the standard. To settle for less. To stop fighting sin. And to submit to the enemies of the Lord. I want to just stop and read a quote that I came across in my study in this last week. I think it's pertinent at this point. When I read this paragraph this past week, it just renewed my zeal to fight for personal holiness, to not settle like the men of Judah did. You know, we're not fighting Philistines, but we do wage war every day. We have different sorts of enemies. We wage war with Satan. We wage war against our own sinful flesh. We wage war against a world system that hates Christ, and sometimes we get tired of fighting that war. We justify a break, putting our weapons down, and not fighting for holiness. Listen to what Dale Ralph Davis, he's a former RTS professor, said. Now, it's long, I want you to stay with me, so I'm going to ask Ethan to put this up on the board. You can read along with me as we read this. He says, It is always a dark day in the history of Yahweh's people when they are content to allow His enemies to hold sway. Something is wrong with us when we no longer despise our true enemies. Such enmity is the gift of God. In the wake of our faithlessness, Yahweh declared He was imposing enmity between the serpent seed and the woman seed. This divisiveness, this hostility came from Yahweh. He was not going to allow even His fallen creature to cuddle up in the bosom of evil. The Maker of heaven and earth refused to walk away from Eden, shrugging His shoulders and muttering, you win some and you lose some. No, He is the stubborn God who will set all creation ablaze with holy war in order to have a seed and a people for Himself. That's why redemption is an act of violence. That's why Jesus came on a mission of violent destruction. That's why lovers of Yahweh are commanded to hate evil. Whether it is the evil and sin within us or some form of it outside us, God does not call us to negotiate with sin and evil, but to wage war on them, to nurse a holy hatred toward them in all their multicolored forms. Well, God did exactly that with Samson. He was not into negotiating with the Philistines. And so Samson, allows Himself to be captured by the men of Judah, turned over to the Philistines. But then look at verse 14. When He came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet Him. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon Him again. And the ropes that were on His arms became as flax that has caught fire, and His bonds melted off His hands. And He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey and put out His hand and took it, and with it He struck 1,000 men. God at work, behind the scenes, seeking yet another opportunity against the Philistines. And even in the face of a faithless covenant community, God's purposes stand. We come into the last episode of chapter 15. I find a very discouraged Samson. And we learn, fourthly, that even when we are full of vulnerability and doubt, God's purposes are accomplished. I read verses 18 through 20 with me. It tells us that after single-handedly defeating this army of a thousand, Samson was very thirsty. I think I would be too. And he called upon the Lord and said, You have granted this salvation, this great salvation, by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised? And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, his spirit returned and he revived. Therefore, the name of it was called En HaKoreh. It means the spring of him who called. It is at Lehi to this day. And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines, 20 years. So Samson was dying of thirst after this great battle. He had no way of providing water for himself. He was vulnerable. Not only was he physically vulnerable, he was spiritually in despair. God, you've just used me to defeat a thousand Philistines, but now you're going to just let me die of thirst? So he's in despair. He was doubting the faithfulness of God. He's doubting God's provision. He's doubting the grace of God. How often have we done the same thing? We experience God's power in some amazing, miraculous way, and on the heels of that spiritual mountaintop, we plummet headlong into a valley of doubt and despair and fear. But once again, we see God carrying out His divine purposes. It was not His purpose to let this deliverer die at this point. He provides water for Samson. He sustains His servant. He doesn't let him die. He lets him live to see another day. Even when we're vulnerable and full of doubt, God's purposes march on. His decrees cannot be changed. He is sovereign and He'll always be sovereign. He's unstoppable. Charles Spurgeon once said in a sermon, there is no attribute of God more comforting to His children than the doctrine of divine sovereignty. Have you ever thought of the doctrine of divine sovereignty as a comfort? We would think, oh, no, it's His grace, it's His love, it's His mercy. No, it's His sovereignty that is of greatest comfort to the believer. Spurgeon said, under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, Christians believe that sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that sovereignty overrules them, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children of God ought more earnestly to contend than the dominion of their Master over all creation. The kingship of God over all the works of His own hands. The throne of God and His right to sit upon that throne. So we close tonight. I want to say something that is probably obvious, but it warrants being said, I think. And it's that the unrelenting power of God's decrees, His unstoppable sovereignty in our lives, is only a source of encouragement if we delight in what God delights in. In other words, it's no consolation to know that God will have His way if in my heart I'm opposed to His way. Delighting in what God is up to may very well require at times that I embrace goals that are bigger than my immediate circumstances. Embracing the sovereignty of God, in other words, may hurt for the immediate future. You understand that God's purposes for your life are bigger than a good marriage? His purpose for your life is greater than having perfectly compliant children who make you look good in public. You understand that God's sovereign plan is more eternally significant. more far-reaching than whether or not you have a stable job, or stay healthy until you're 70, or even whether or not our entire nation collapses around us. God's purposes are bigger than all of that. They certainly encompass all of that, but they're not limited to the small little slice of life that affects us. God is big. He has goals and objectives that span a thousand years. Our life, in the grand scheme of things, is barely a blip on the radar of providence. That doesn't mean our lives are insignificant. But folks, it means God's purposes cannot be derailed by the relatively small amount of adversity in my life. His plans cannot be wrecked by the stuff that keeps me awake at night. God is in control. If I'm able to embrace that truth and truly believe that He is at work and will accomplish all that is in the best interest of His people, then when difficult things happen, when my own sinfulness gets in the way, when my enemies oppress me, when the people of God encourage me to compromise, when my own doubts get the best of me, then I'll be able to say like Joseph, you intended it for evil against me, but God intended it for good. Or to say with Job, as Doug reminded us this morning, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Samson's life was made up mostly of a list of broken vows and moral failures, of opposition from outside the church and from inside the church, and yet God's purposes were being accomplished through this man. The message of Judges 14 and 15 is that God's providential hand throughout history is unstoppable. And if that's true, then we as the people of God ought to be the most courageous, confident people in all the world. Remember Proverbs 19, many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the Lord's purposes that will stand. Let's pray together. Lord, may we find comfort and assurance and confidence in the truth that you are at work for the good of your church. and that nothing, nothing can stop your hand of providence in our lives. Lord, the next time our hearts are faced with sudden fear or panic or doubt, remind us of the story of Samson. Remind us that you're never not in control. Teach us to delight in what you're doing and to trust that it's you who's doing it. Lord, make us still. so that we can know you are God. And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.