Okay, we're in the judges 14 Great discussion We talked about the birth and the Nazirite vow, which was actually placed upon Samson. He didn't make the vow. It was placed upon him. So now we're going in after those events. And I'm going to read probably the first, well, not probably. I'm going to read the first nine verses. And then if somebody could take over from 10 to 20, I would appreciate it. So starting off in verse 1, Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Then he came up and told his father and mother, I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah, now get her for me as my wife. 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 take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? But Samson said to his father, get her for me. She is right in my eyes. Something to be heard. His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. And at that time, the Philistines ruled over Israel. Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah. And they came to a vineyard of Timnah, 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. Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in Samson's eyes. After some days, he returned to take her, 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 an lion. His father went down to the woman. And Samson prepared a feast there, for that was the customary thing for young men to do. When the people saw him, they brought 30 companions, wedding attendants, to be with him. Then Samson said to them, let me now ask your riddle. If you can tell me what it is within the seven days of the feast and solve it, then I will give you 30 linen tunics and 30 changes of clothing. But if you are unable to tell me, then you shall give me 30 linen tunics and 30 changes of clothing. And they said to him, ask your riddle so that we may hear it. So he said to them, out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet. and they could not solve the riddle in three days. Then on the fourth day, they said to Samson's wife, persuade your husband to tell us the riddle or we will burn you and your father's household with fire. Have you invited us to make us poor? Is this not true? So Samson's wife wept before him and said, you only hate me. You do not love me. You have asked my countrymen a riddle. and have not told to me. And he said to her, listen, I have not told my father or my mother. So should I tell you? However, Samson's wife wept before him seven days while their feast lasted. And on the seventh day, he told her because she pressed him so hard. Then she told the riddle to her countrymen. So the men of the city said to Samson on the seventh day before sundown, What is sweeter than honey, what is stronger than a lion? And he said to them, if you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed 30 of them and took their gear and gave changes of clothes to those who had explained the riddle. And his anger burned. And he went up to his father's house. But Samson's wife was given to his companion, who had been his friend. Very nice story, huh? Well, we start off with a marriage. I wish I'd take any marriage advice from any of that. Well, we started out with, hey, I want that. Yeah, let's talk about that. What comes out in chapter 14? What are some of the key points that you heard from that and you've read from that? Well, I'd say this is the first sin that we see Samson committing, or at least that is recorded for us to observe. And we'll start to see a pattern of how he continues to sin and do what is right in his own eyes. What is that sin? that he would take a wife apart from the people of Israel, that he would marry into the Philistines. Is that a sin? According to the law of Moses, against his prescribed... They weren't supposed to take wives from the surrounding people. Well, what I find with this is, and there's probably A bunch of stuff left out, but what's in his mind when he says, I want her because she's pleasing to my eyes. There you go. Must have been attractive, maybe, I guess. No. Maybe. What was pleasing to you, Samson? And that is his idea of selecting a wife. Do we have issues with that? Wow. I mean, we see things all the time that we think we want, because we think they're going to get arrested. Yeah. They're not. That's true. Yeah. Like, I mean, what does it say? We're going, I'm thinking of 1 John, chapter 2. What do you mean? No, we talked about that last night. Anyway, it's fresh on my mind. Go for it. I could be wrong. I probably am. No, go for it. Separate from the world, do not love the things of the world. We suggest that was a more worldly decision rather than guided and directed by the teachings of Yahweh God. And talked about the lust of the eyes. the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. I myself have issues with that sometimes. Sometimes things of this world entice me, and I keep on wanting that, you know, financial. Can we ever have enough money? That could be an enticement. Lust of the flesh. Maybe not always sexual. It could be laziness. I just want to rest. Now, I'm not saying rest is bad, but if you go overboard and it becomes laziness, then it is bad. What are some other things that we might have issues with on lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life? Maybe just one. Food? Samson falls into that later, too. Yeah. I'd say we often do things and mask it with something good, but it really is rooted in pride. OK. Such as? Like, why do you want to? Take a leadership position. Well, I just want to serve. Or I just want to use my talents and abilities to serve others. Really? Is that why you want to do it? Or do you just want to be seen by others? I was called out on that right before I retired by a certain guy by the name of Sean Harris. I went to lunch with him. I was telling him I had issues with my ex-wife getting married again and having a 17-year-old son. And my daughter was 13 years old. And I'm going to Fort Sam Houston a long ways away. And I said, I had issues. And he said, well, why do you want to? We talked about it. And he said, you know, there are some orders you don't have to take. You have 22 years in the Army. You can retire if you want. And he said, why do you want to stay in? I said, I'm getting looked at for full colonel this year. And he said, and he brought that up to, why do you want to be a full colonel? And I had to think about that. And because my pride, I wanted to retire as a full colonel. Not because I'm serving other people. It's so I could have that eagle on my, on my side. One that I see often here at Fort Bragg, enlisted and officer, is, oh, I just want to be in special operations. I just want to, oh, why? Why do you want to do that? That's the wrong reason to be in it. Well, because I love getting shot at. Said nobody. Right? I mean, I can relate to what he's saying. I think what happens with just the generalization, I suppose, is that we, and obviously it's not everybody, but people make decisions without really thinking them through. It's just like what I'm thinking with Samson here, right? He sees her, she's pleasing to his eyes, whether it's a sexual thing or not, or she's just an attractive woman, and he wants her. But all these other things are let down, but that's his decision. I want it, and I want it now. And we're like that. I mean, when you think about how, you know, everything's fast these days. Communication, you know, everything. And so I would think that there's got to be more things about thoughtfulness and the heart. That's kind of where I'm looking. Yeah, and in this, as we're talking, we get into that tension. Because if we look at when he goes, talks to his parents, what does it say? They did not know that, what? Well, the unevenness? No, no. This is talking about? Give me that woman. Oh, the woman, okay. So, I know we're well into application here, but I'm looking at verse four and verse five of chapter 14, and verse four is very interesting. I had never seen this before. His father and mother did know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. That begs the question, Was God seeking an opportunity against the Philistines, or was Samson seeking an opportunity against the Philistines? If it's Samson, it kind of changes the entire way we look at this story. The way I was reading it and the studies, this was from the Lord. because the Lord was seeking an opportunity to go against the Philistines. Why does God need an opportunity for anyone? Mike, I have a question from your statement. So what are you supposing, then? If it's from God, then the purpose of Samson selecting her was because she wasn't an Israelite? Perhaps he was using it as, I mean, Maybe a bridge? I don't know, but I'm just saying it does kind of change the way we interpret the story and the way we look at it. That maybe, you know, we generally, we look at all these things that he's done that are clear violations of Jewish law, and we're like, hey, this is, he's kind of the antithetical, he's kind of the antithetical hero here. He's kind of the antihero. But it looks more, it looks like, okay, he kind of, You know, whether, you know, maybe it's the spirit of God speaking to him that, yeah, go get a wife from the Philistines. Maybe in Samson's mind, this is how I'm going to infiltrate the Philistines and start to wage a war against them of some sort. So that was just there in verse four, an interpretive question, because was it, why does God need an opportunity against anyone? Can't he make his own opportunities? And... Would the response not be that he did? He used Samson to do it? And the same question could be, why does God need us to tell the gospel to people? Can't he do it himself? That is the way he chose. And it is by us proclaiming the gospel I would say it is by grace that he elects to partner with us, in a sense, by giving us the opportunity to proclaim the gospel or attack the Philistines. Because you're right, he could do it all himself. He doesn't need a single human person in all of history to do anything for him. He could have somehow figured out how to get Jesus to die without Judas. needed. That's air quotes. You needed Judas to get the ball rolling. Yeah. And sometimes we want it all a certain way, but we still want our free will. And so that enters in as well. Yes. Because he doesn't work us like puppets. Sometimes he does. I mean, yeah. Could you say could you say that Paul could have refused Going to Jesus after the Damascus Road experience Yes, but required to get him to believe. Yeah. Which I think that, you know, going full circle, I think that's what's happening here. Yes. Because that's taking the students through Jonah, like, and studying out some of that stuff. Like, we look at Jonah's rebellion, and I think that is actually why the Ninevites repented. is because of what their culture had set them up, that when they see a man who comes out of a fish and tells them they're going to be destroyed, that they took it as a message from their own gods, as opposed to if he had just obeyed the first time. So I think it's very much the, yeah, I'm orchestrating all these things that God's strength will be made perfect through Samson's weakness. I was gonna say, it's kind of nice, because it's like, even when you're not following the rules or whatever, it's just going around, picking whoever he wants, that it's still gonna be used, like it's still part of the plan, it's not a mistake, like the grand scheme of things. But that's, I mean, that's the comforting aspect of those, because if you are in Christ, even when you are sinning, God's still able to do whatever it is that he wants to do. Yes. And he'll use your sin in spite of you to accomplish his will. Yes. Yeah. using Samson to get to the Philistines so that there would be a confrontation? I'm sorry, I was confused. In other words, could this be, could God be using Samson in this case to stir up some controversy with or insult the Philistines that they would confront? That's how I've always looked at it. Yeah, it seems like that's what it is. It's like it gets the ball rolling on his whole back and forth with the Philistines. It keeps going and turning into what it is in the end. Because he got his notoriety somewhere. And don't forget what was said to the people, Mennoah and his wife in 13, and I'm not quickly finding it, but where it says this is the beginning of the delivery from the Philistines. That's what Samson gives. It's the beginning of this. So God, and then it's repeated in this where it says, that the opportunity to deliver. So it's in the process of God. You were going to say something? No, I was agreeing with you. OK. Wow. Proverbs 21.1 says, the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. Yeah. And the assumption is, well, if the king's heart is such, then every other man's heart is such. Yeah. Very good. So we talked about it before. What's another sin, and also a breaking of a Nazirite vow? that Samson does in here. He touched a dead body. Okay. And even eats out of the dead body. Yeah. Tell me about that. There's pretty strict rules about, like, I mean, even if you were a Nazirite, if you didn't have a Nazirite vow, you still had all these rules about which kinds of carcasses you could touch and which you couldn't, if it was shredded or not, like, made a difference. And the lion was shredded, not only shredded, dead, and it had honey, and there's also rules about honey. So he's, like, taking all of them, And here's the thing how did that lion get shredded? Well, he did it so not only was he touching a dead body he made that body dead Number six regarding from Nazarene Valley. He wasn't even supposed to go near a dead body, let alone touch it. And it says, there is a caveat. The man dies very suddenly beside him, and he defiles his consecrated head, and he shall shave his head on the day of his cleansing. So now you've got a situation where, on the one hand, there is a way for Samson to essentially be reconsecrated, but it would involve cutting his hair, which is the source of his strength. Is it now? Well, we'll get into that later. We'll get into that. But it's kind of interesting now that later, when he does kind of, quote unquote, get re-concentrated, creative, when he's here, is she? When he's in prison, you know, he kind of does come back to. I love it. That's exactly where it's going to go when we get there. But that's good. That's good that you're thinking about it already. So there was a, it looks like there might have been It doesn't say anything doesn't doesn't say anything about it but I Did he casually walk along and grab some grapes while he was going through that? You never know. I mean, why would he not? Yeah. He's thrown every other aspect out of the window. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not allowed to do that one. If touching the deadline didn't cross the line, I don't know that grapes did. Now, here's also another thing. It says he went down to Timna with his mom and dad, and then A lion rushed upon him. He shreds him and everything like that, but he didn't tell his mom and dad. So did they run and hide or something? Yeah, taking a break. It's a long trip. Or did they go down there, but they went down there separately? Or was he out on a walk? You know what? We just don't have that in the Bible on what was happening. So is the problem that he killed the lion or that he touched the lion after it was dead? Because it seems like the killing was not the problem. Because how is he supposed to exist as a human if he's not allowed to kill meat and eat it? So obviously the touching of it once it was rotting and all that, yeah, you've crossed the line. So is it that his parents weren't tracking the whole deadline aspect of the conversation, or that he killed the lion? I think this starts to go to the foreshadowing. Yeah. Ooh. I'm using that term. Anybody else had to look at it? No. There's two things. He wasn't supposed to be close to the corpse. And the second thing is he deceived his parents by providing them Yeah? That's right. And the spirit of the Lord was upon him during all of this. All of it? Was it during all of it or during her part? I don't know. You've got to kind of discern the language. The spirit of the Lord came upon him and he tore the line apart. Okay, that's the killing part. Was the spirit of the Lord on him when he went back to the dead carcass and grabbed the honey? Well, I'm assuming when he ripped him in half, we would pronounce him dead. And therefore, the Spirit of the Lord was upon him during the slaughtering of the... But not during his walk back when he chose to get honey. Yeah, but the Nazarite vow was do not be within a certain perimeter of dead meat. There's a part of the Bible that says, draws a parallel between what he did and what Adam and Eve did. And here he's providing that to his parents. Yeah. But I was thinking of this before. If they weren't there, I think it's kind of a difference between Adam and Eve and the parents of Samson. The way I read it here, definitely the parents of Samson were separated from Samson when he went and got the honey, and they didn't know from whence he got the honey. No, I'm not saying it's directed towards the parents. It's directed towards Samson. Oh, OK. OK. I've sinned, so here, you can have some of my sin, too. And not know what it is. I kind of appreciated Manoah Sampson. Choose another woman. He's being the rightful parent, you know? I would hope so. Seems like it. Or is he a passive parent? You could probably... Sampson, don't rip me in half, but please choose another woman. And that's something else. I listened to David McManus talk about Samson. He went through judges one time. And I kind of agree with him that all the depictions we have of Samson, of being like the bodybuilder and a huge guy like that. I don't think that's true. I think he looked, and for the most part, was just like us. When does he do his mighty feats? When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him. I don't think his parents were afraid of him, that he would tear them apart. You know, I kind of see a parallel between his parents and Eli and his sons. So Eli was the high priest and his sons were taking the sacrificial meat for themselves and they were also sleeping with Some of the women that served the temple and they were doing all sorts of terrible things and their father comes and says Why are you doing this? You shouldn't be doing this And yet so he does he does kind of reprimand them in a way, but he doesn't stop them, right? and so later the Lord actually holds Eli and his sons accountable and And I kind of think, you know, maybe, I mean, this is, I think, an instruction for both fathers and mothers that, look, it's not just, especially when they're under your care, it's not good enough to just say, oh, guys, don't do that. right because because I would think that Samson's father and mother are somewhat held accountable here because they did go and try to Get that woman for Samson. Mm-hmm Yeah, and that's and I think that's that's a part on it if they would not have you know Samson's throwing this feast well For the wedding and we'll get into that next week We'll start it Judges 14 verse 10. But as a prelude to that, the parents went down with him. And basically, I'm thinking if he's throwing it, they are supporting it financially. Or go ahead. Well, it's just interesting because going back to verse 13, or excuse me, chapter 13, they know that this child has something very special about him. And so I'm not disagreeing with any of the parenting conversation we're having right now, but in their particular... Excuse me. Instance like, how do you tell your child, no, when you were told before that child was ever born, he's going to be used by the Lord in whatever he's doing. Like he's going to save us from the Philistines. And then your son comes to you and says, I want this Philistine woman. Like you're probably thinking, this is, this is where it's starting. This is how it's going to happen. Cause they're looking for deliverance from the Philistines. That brings a different perspective for me on that. We'll, we'll get into that next week. Okay, any other comments? Well that would then say that they're relying on Samson. Oh, oh, yeah. Well, the whole book of judges is this is what happens when you try to do it yourself. I miss that one. Okay.