True story. I've told you that when I'm getting to do one of these characters, they kind of roll around in my head for quite a while. Last time when I was done with my talk, I walked into the house, laid down my Bible, and said out loud, and you can do that when you live alone. Nobody will lock you up. I said out loud, goodbye, John the Baptist. Hello, Samson. Yoder, what in the Sam Hill were you thinking? No, I just didn't know if I wanted him rolling around in my mind for weeks. But, and I did toy around with the idea of maybe picking somebody different because I knew I could do that. But I stuck with him because I think there's some very important principles from the life of Samson that we can learn from his life. So Samson, here we go. Let's pray. Father, I am so grateful for your word. And I thank you that every word is there for our growth. And I thank you for putting the lives of these people in your word. Hebrews tells us that we are to learn from them. So that is my prayer today, that we would learn from the life of Samson. Lord, I just pray that the Holy Spirit would be our teacher, that you would do a work in our hearts and our lives. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Samson's story is found in Judges chapters 13 through 16. Judges is a rough book, it really is. There are some pretty ugly things that happened during this time period. The people had rejected God as their leader and there was no king yet, so God would raise up a judge to rule for a while. And the Israelite people were in a constant lifestyle of being overcome by their enemies because of their disobedience to God. And then God would raise up a judge to deliver them from those enemies for a while. But then because of their disobedience, they would go back down into being oppressed by an enemy. And this was just the cycle that they were in, all the way through judges. There were 12 judges in all. Samson was the last one. And the last verse in Judges pretty much sums up the book very well. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. So let me read to you Judges chapter 13, verses 1 through 5. Again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years. A certain man of Zorah named Manoah from the clan of the Danites had a wife who was sterile and remained childless. The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, you are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink, and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines. So Samson is to be called a Nazirite from birth. We find the instructions for being a Nazirite in Numbers chapter 6. Here are the main points of being a Nazirite. It could be either a man or a woman, And they would take this vow for a certain amount of time when they wanted to be separate to God for a specific purpose. The rules of that time were no strong drink, no touching of a dead body, and no haircuts. So Judges tells us here that Samson was to be a Nazirite from birth. His period of time for this vow was his whole life. And we will go on from here to see that he didn't have very much regard for his calling, and we'll get into that a little bit later. But first, I want to take a shot here at his parents. You know, gals, my prayer has been that this talk would be very practical in a lot of ways, especially for those of you that are in the spot of raising kids right now. I know that's not easy. And I've heard some of you say here often at my table and other tables that you would like some advice in raising your kids. And I assume that that meant spiritual advice. So Samson gives us a chance to do that. Now, if your kids are already out of the house, or you don't have children, don't close your ears, because there's things for all of us here. There's lessons to be learned. But I do want to really try to help you that are raising kids, too. So back to Samson's parents. We're going to jump over to Chapter 14. On your own, you can read Chapter 13. It's the details about his birth. I'm not going to hit every detail of the story. I'm just picking out points in the story that work on the principles that I want to focus on. I'll be reading Judges chapter 14, verses 1 through 3. It says, Samson went down to Timnah and saw there a young Philistine woman. When he returned, he said to his father and mother, I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife. His father and mother replied, isn't there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife? But Samson said to his father, get her for me. She's the right one for me. Now, pardon me. And I've told God that if I'm wrong about this, I will apologize to Samson and his parents when I get to heaven. But I really believe that Samson was a spoiled brat. I really do. You see things in his story that, you know, he gave easily into his passions, whatever he wanted, he was going to get. And when he didn't get his way, he got angry. And I mean, just the way he spoke to his parents. I mean, can you imagine if you had your kid in a store and they just say, get that for me? You know, and that's what he said to his parents, not I'd really like this girl, would you please look into it, you know, just get her for me, you know. And then his parents reply, I mean, pretty wishy-washy, you know, just, oh, isn't there a girl in our family that you would like, you know. I just, I really think he was a spoiled brat. And I can understand why that would have been easy for them to do. I mean, they hadn't had a child. They didn't think they could have a child. And then when they finally get one, much less one that the angel said would do these incredible, wonderful things, you know, it would have been easy for them to spoil him. And I think they really did. Now, back in that day, the parents had to arrange the marriages. So what would have been wrong with the parents saying to Samson, no, Samson, we are not going to do that. God has forbidden us to marry foreign women, period. That is found in Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 1 through 3, that they were not to marry foreign women. But they just didn't seem to be able to tell this wonderful son of theirs, no. So gals, I'm telling you that as parents, there will be times when you should keep your children from doing some things that they really want to do. And there will be times when you need to make them do things that they really don't want to do. And I'm not talking about just when they're tiny. I'm talking about those teenagers. Samson was probably a teenager here. Somehow we've lost that in our society. When they get to teenagers, parents say, well, I have no control over them, and if I tell them to do something, they're going to rebel. Well, guess what? If they're not obeying you, they're rebelling already. You just let them have the control. And I'm not saying it's easy, but we have to get back. to guiding our kids in those things. And I know that there are parents out there who just like to say no just to prove that they are in control and have really no good reason for saying no. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about times when you really feel like There is an event that they want to go to that just might have an ungodly influence on your child. And it would be best if they stay away. So tell them no and tell them the reason why you are saying no. But I do ask you one thing, I beg you. Don't just say no. Replace the no with something that they will enjoy. You know, there were school events that Cecil and I were just not comfortable with our kids going to. But you would often find our house filled with girls having a slumber party. Right, Hallie? Or Jeremy camping out in the pasture with his buddies in a tent, having a fire and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows and stuff. You know, I lost sleep, but they had a lot of fun. So don't just say no. Replace it with something that would be good. Don't make your child just dread everything. Come up with something, even if it's a family weekend away. Now I need you to know that at this point I deleted about three paragraphs of stuff. that I just knew we wouldn't have time to get into if I wanted to get to my other points. This is a huge topic, you know, what you let your kids do and what you don't let them do. And I want you to know that I do not have all the answers and I don't pretend to. And all of you are going to have different ideas about that. But let me just close this part by saying that you and your husband need to be discussing these things, you need to be praying about them, and you need to be getting on the same page. It is important. It is important. You have to make those decisions. And sometimes it's rough. Sometimes it's rough. But you'll get through it. So I want to touch base here now on Judges 14.4. This verse says, his parents did not know that this was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines. For at that time, they were ruling over Israel. Now, I don't like this verse because I thought, how am I going to explain this? You know, it sounds like it was God's plan all along. But we know that God's plan is never for us to sin. So how do we justify this verse? Well, that's what good commentaries are for. And I love what Wiersbe's Bible commentary says. It says it's so much better than I could. So let me quote from him about this verse. It says, when God isn't permitted to rule in our lives, he overrules them and works out his will in spite of our decisions. Of course, we're the losers for rebelling against him, but God will accomplish his purposes either with us or in spite of us. Samson should have been going to a war instead of to a wedding. But God used this event to give Samson occasion to attack the enemy, unquote. And I thought that was good. Remember, God's purpose back in 13.5 said that he would begin deliverance from the Philistines. And it didn't say, if he kept all these vows perfectly, then I'll use him. No, God said, I'm going to use Samson. So even though he blew it a lot of times, big time, God used him in spite of himself. Now let's focus on Samson and his calling from God. Samson took very lightly what God took very seriously. Let me just illustrate that from the story of his life. Let me read Judges chapter 14 verses 7 through 9. It says, I mean 5 through 7, sorry. I thought I had the wrong verse there. It says, Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. The Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power, so that he tore the line apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done. Then he went down and talked with a woman, and he liked her." All right. Gals, this was one hunk of a man. You know, I don't know about you, but I really don't know too many people that can tear a young goat apart by their bare hands, much less a lion. But Samson could do it, and he did it easily. But it was because the Spirit of God was upon him. But then we read on in verses 8 and 9. It says, sometime later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the lion's carcass. In it was a swarm of bees and some honey, which he scooped out with his hands and ate as he went along. When he rejoined his parents, he gave them some and they too ate it, but he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion's carcass." Now, remember the vows that he was to take. Part of that vow says not to touch a dead body. Now, I looked in my commentaries and I was... unclear whether that meant just a human body or whether it included a dead animal. But either way, this was wrong of Samson because according to the law, in Leviticus 11, verses 39 to 40, if an animal dies and you touch that dead carcass, you are unclean and you have to cleanse yourself. So it just seems like Samson didn't really care if he became unclean or not. And let me summarize the rest of chapter 14 for you. He's going to his wedding. This is a seven-day feast like they normally had back then. Boy, I'm glad we don't do that nowadays. That's a lot of days to keep people happy. But there's a seven-day feast. And he's given 30 companions for the week. And so Samson says to those companions, let me tell you a riddle. If you get the answer right, I will give you 30 sets of clothes. But if you can't get the answer right, you are going to give me 30 sets of clothes. So they agree to this. So Samson says to them, out of the eater, something to eat. Out of the strong, something sweet. Clever. Who would ever get that? And they couldn't. They couldn't get it. So they say to the bride, Find out the answer for us, or we are going to burn you and your father's household to death. Nice friends at the wedding, right? Yeah. So she asked Samson, and he wouldn't tell her. So verse 17 says that she cried every day through the feast. Such a fun wedding, isn't it? I mean, the bride's crying every day, and, you know, this is just going on. You know, if two of us had been at that wedding, we might have looked at that bride and had this conversation. What's wrong with her? She's having communication with her groom, issues with her groom. Well, get used to it, girl, because it's going to keep on happening. Oh, it's just crazy. So. She keeps bugging him and bugging him, crying, begging him. So on the very last day, he caves in and he tells her the answer to the riddle. She, of course, goes back and tells these guys. So they come back to Samson and say, here's the answer. And Samson is ticked. His answer to them in verse 18 is just like, wow. He says, if you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle. Now, I don't know, ladies, if your husband has ever called you his heifer. I'm pretty sure mine never did, at least not to my face. But yeah. You know what that verse means. I don't have to go there. So Samson is mad. He goes to another town. He kills 30 men in that town. He takes their clothes off of them, takes them back to the wedding, and gives them to these guys to fulfill his part of what he said he would do if they got the Riddle White. And then verse 19 says that he was burning with anger and he went back to his father's house. He went back to his daddy's house and pouted for a while. Samson's wife is then given to a friend who is at their wedding. I mean, they have a bride here. The groom is left. So the father says, okay, you can have her. So they give her to a friend. I mean, how many ways can you say bizarre? Well, later on, Samson, you know, he paid for the wedding. This is his bride, so he's cooled down now. So he says, I'm going to go back and take my wife. So he goes back with a gift of a young goat, and he wanted to go into his wife. And her dad says, sorry, Samson, I gave her to your friend. But you can have her younger sister. She's more attractive anyway. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. So again, Samson's reaction is anger. And he goes out and catches 300 foxes, which just totally blows my mind. I mean, that has to be a miracle of God because you can catch one, much less 300. Samson catches 300 foxes. It's the time of the wheat harvest. He ties their tails together and puts a burning torch in between each pair of tails and sends them through the wheat harvest. Now, 150 burning torches aren't going to do your crop very much good. Then they get really mad. And sadly, they do what they said they were going to do in the beginning. They go back to his bride's house and they burn her in her father's household. Sad story. Now there's more to his story about the revenge that he carried out on the Philistines in chapter 15, but we're just going to camp here for a little bit. I said before, and I think it's important to remember, that Samson took very lightly what God took very seriously. He wasn't concerned about touching that dead lion, didn't face him a bit, didn't tell his folks what he had done, and we'll get to the part later about his famous haircut. He took the no haircut vow lightly as well, too. He had a calling and he didn't regard his calling as very important. And gals, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you too have a calling. I have a calling. And it's an important one. And I fear, I know I do, and maybe you do, just like Samson. I'm often guilty of taking very lightly what God takes very seriously. And I do want to share some things with you here about our calling. These first three points I have to give credit to Dr. David Jeremiah. He says that our calling is, first of all, it's a holy call. That is found in 2 Timothy 1, chapter 9, or verse 9. 2 Timothy 1, 9. It's a holy call. That verse says, who has saved you and called us to a holy life. The second thing he says our calling is, it's a humble call. In 1 Corinthians 1 24, it says God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and he takes the weak things, etc. It's a humble call. And then thirdly, he says it's a heavenly call. That's found in Philippians 314. And also in Hebrews three, chapter one, it says, Therefore, holy brothers who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus. Now I hope that that'll just give you something to think about and pray about as you go forward, that you have a calling. And I'd like to just give you a few verses here now, too, that tell us what we are called to. Ephesians 4, 1 through 3 says, Paul challenges us to live a life worthy of the calling we have received and tells us in following places the things that we need to do because of that calling. Romans 8, 28, and 29 says that we are called to become like Jesus Christ. That should keep us busy for a while, maybe for a lifetime. 1 Timothy 6, 12, it says we are called to lay hold of the eternal life to which we have been called. And 1 Peter 2, 21 says we are called to suffering. Well, there are more. You could do a study on that and challenge your thinking to comprehend what you have been called to and ask God, I need to ask God to help me take it as seriously as he does. Another very important principle I want us to consider is the principle of discipleship. Now that might seem out of line here in the story of Samson because you don't really see it in his life. And that's my point. Do you ever see in the story of Samson another young Israelite guy coming alongside him and saying, dude, you need to stay away from that woman? Or do you see Samson going to another young Israelite man and saying, Would you come with me here? Would you do this with me? Would you help me with this? No, he's pretty much out there all on his own. You know, David had Jonathan and Samuel. Timothy had Paul. Joshua had Moses. Moses had Aaron. You get the picture. We need each other to support each other in this journey of the Christian walk because we can encourage and help each other grow. And first of all, I want to challenge you again as parents. Your goal should be to teach your children to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Sometimes I think we think we stop when they, oh, they've accepted Christ as their Savior. Good, we're done. No, you're not. You want to teach them to be disciples of Jesus Christ. What did Jesus say in Matthew chapter 28? Therefore, go and make disciples, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Now, if you haven't started thinking of the Great Commission as your assignment with your children, start thinking that way. It's huge. You know, when I was in North Carolina, my daughter and grandson gave me a beautiful illustration of how this should be, accidentally. But while I was down there, both Silas and Cody play soccer, and it was fun to get to go to one of their games. Silas is 12. He's improved so much since he started. It's amazing. But Cody is good. He's a good soccer player. And there's another kid on his team, Antonio. The two of them really are the stars of the team, and they play well together. Antonio was gone the day I was there, unfortunately. But Cody had a really good game. And there was one point in the game where the other team had made a penalty. I'm going to have to brush up on my soccer rules, because they're getting it in large, and I know my grandmothers are going to play. But I don't know what they did. But anyway, they committed a penalty. They got a free kick. Cody's team got a free kick and Cody was the one that was going to kick it. Just before he kicked it, the coach hollered to Cody, Cody, kick it to Mason or Taylor. Those were two other young men on Cody's team. But Cody must have in his own mind think, you know, I think I can do this. I think I got this. So he kicked a free kick toward the goal. Ladies, it was a beautiful kick. I mean, it went over the outstretched arms of the goalie and low enough to go into the net. It was beautiful. And all of us that wanted that team to win were, yay, what an awesome kick. But the ref was going, no goal. And the coach, I was so thankful that Cody had a coach that realized he's coaching nine-year-olds. They're learning. So he just went over to Cody and laid his hand on his shoulder and said, Cody, That had to be an indirect kick. You couldn't be the one to kick it into the goal. That's why I told you to kick it to Mason or Taylor. Fine. Then we get in the car. John was off on a camping trip with some Marines, so it was Sherry. Sherry said to Cody, Cody, that man is your coach. I don't care if what he tells you to do makes any sense to you. I don't care if you don't understand why he's telling you that. I don't care if you think you know better. He is your coach. You obey what he tells you to do." And I thought, what an illustration of what parents... God is our coach, ladies. He's given us the details of what our life should be, how we should live it. And you as a parent need to tell your kids you obey no matter what, whether, like me, You know, the world will applaud them doing things differently and saying, you're doing so good on your own. But if against God's law, you know, tell them, God has his best for you. Obey it. Obey it. Obey it. And then you have to ask forgiveness, too, because Sherry said to Cody, you know, now, Cody, you're going to have to go to your coach and tell him that you're sorry for disobeying him. And this was a moment where grandma had to kind of turn her face and smile. Because, you know, in this day and age, Cody said to her, Mom, can I use your cell phone and send him a text or give him a call? And I just had to turn away because I was smiling. And Sherry goes, no, Cody, you're going to have to do this from face to face. And he did. It was hard for him, but it was a good learning lesson. So gals, teach your kids to obey God. It's so important. And please let them know that obedience to God brings happiness and joy. Don't make it seem like a downer thing. God said this, so you just better do it, and it's awful. You know, God gives us commands to give us the best life, not to... He's protecting us from things that would harm us. So that's why His commands are there. You know, I get on Twitter every day. I follow dead people. I didn't know they could tweet. I really do. It kind of strikes me funny. I don't know who puts their quotes on there, but I follow C.S. Lewis, I follow Oswald Chambers, I follow Billy Graham, and I follow A.W. Tozer. I don't know who puts their quotes on there, but somebody does. I follow some live people, too. And please, nobody follow me, because I never tweet anything. But I love to go on there every day and just get these awesome quotes from these men of God. And then I have a notebook, and I have a notebook for everything I know, Christy. But I write down in the notebook then quotes that really speak to me. And just last week, there was one that I have to share with you from Oswald Chambers. It said, simply obey God with unrestrained joy. And I just love that. Simply obey God with unrestrained joy. Just let that be our goal. And let that be your goal as you teach your kids. A great verse for you gals to use as a measuring stick for your children, and even for yourself, actually, is 2 Timothy 3.14. It says, and Paul is writing to Timothy here, and he says, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of. And first they have to learn it, so you better be on that moms and dads. But then your goal, I love that second part, is to make sure that they get to the point where they are convinced of it, where it becomes their own, not just something that you're teaching them. So as you send them out into the world, can you say that it has really become their conviction? So pray about that. You should be your child's chief mentor. Don't pawn that off on the church. Sunday school teachers, Awana leaders, Derek, our youth pastor, and his staff, they do an awesome job. But they're only there to come alongside you. So pray for wisdom in that. And challenge yourself with this question. Are they seeing in me what I want to see in them? If reading the Bible or studying or praying aren't important to you, then it's not going to be important to them. And I would also say that if you're a grandma, let the grandkids see it in you too. really surprised the other day by something. My grandson, they were there for Easter weekend. And David surprised me with something he said. When the kids are home with the grandkids, they're sleeping downstairs, and I try to get up early so I can have my quiet time before the little munchkins come up the stairs, because they're always before the parents. And I'm happy to feed them breakfast and love on them and stuff. I'm happy to do that as a grandma. So I try to get up early and have my quiet time. Well, David, came upstairs this Saturday morning, and I was at the kitchen sink. And he said, wrapped his arms around me, he said, good morning, Grandma. He goes, I bet you already read your Bible, didn't you? Because I wasn't on the living room sofa reading my Bible. And I thought, oh, he noticed. And I said, well, actually, I did. I got done before you guys got up this time. You know, so they're looking. They're seeing what you're doing. So make that a priority. Secondly, in this area of discipleship, I want to challenge us with one another, women with women and men with men. We need to do that. When I was down in North Carolina, I had a good visit with a bunch of Marines that came into John and Sherry's house. I just love talking to those guys. And knowing I was doing SAMHSA and I was talking to these guys about discipleship and how important it was for them. And I don't have time to go into all the details of our discussion, but I will just tell you that to a man, they all said in the Marine Corps, if they didn't have a group of believers to walk with, they could never walk the Christian life in the way that they knew they should. They needed the support of one another. It's critical. We need each other. So my question to you is, do you have that mentor that you can go to, ask questions of, seek prayer from? Each of us should be mentors and we should be mentees. You know, we never stop learning. So, you know, hopefully we're doing that in Lyft, but in other ways, we need to be mentoring, we need to be learning ourselves. Pray that we become good at both. For my Bible reading, I like to do different things. I do different versions. Anyway, this time I'm doing Max Vicado's Life Lessons Study Bible. I really like it. He gives you a section of scripture to read each day and then he has a devotional thought along with it. It takes you two years to get through and I'm fine with that. I'm in no hurry. So, but this particular day he gave a devotional thought and I thought, that works perfectly with my lesson. So I'd like to share it with you. He was at a camp in Colorado and they were, he said every Thursday all the campers and staff walk up to the top of the mountain to pass the timberline and just see this beautiful view up there on the top of the mountain. Well there was one kid who really wasn't physically inclined, you might say. Maybe you know that type of kid. Maybe you were that type of kid. I don't know. But anyway, that kid's name is Matt, and so I'll pick it up here a little bit. Max says, they all will climb the peak. For that reason, several Young Life directors caboose the end of the pack. They prod and applaud, making sure every camper crests the top, and I walked with them. One young student decided to call it quits, said he was too tired to take another step. A Young Life staffer spelled out the consequences. Can't send you down alone, friend. You turn back. We all turn back. Well, the small circle of we I realized included me. I didn't want to go back down. I had two options, miss the mountaintop or help Matt see it. This just cracks me up. He says, I coaxed him, begged him, negotiated a plan with him, 30 steps of walking, 60 seconds of resting. We inched our way at this pace for an hour. Finally, we stood within 1,000 feet of the peak, but the last stretch of trail rose up as straight as a fireman's ladder. We got serious. Two guys each took an arm. I took the rear. I placed both my hands on Matt's gluteus maximus and shoved. We all but dragged him past the timberline. And that's when we heard the applause. 400 kids on the crest of Mount Crystallite gave him a standing ovation. They whooped and hollered and slapped him on the back. And as I slumped down to rest, this thought steamrolled my way, as if from God. There it is, Max, a picture of my plan. Do all you can to push each other to the top. And what a beautiful illustration, ladies. That's what we want to do for each other, is push each other to the top. And like I said, I wanted this talk to be practical, so I want to give you Just some ideas and some resources, and you're going to be talking as a group about that at your table. This is one, when I pulled this out on Easter weekend, Kayla said, oh, I love that book. So I'm going to take it to her girls this weekend because I'm going out there. This is for little kids, if you have little kids. This is the Muffin Family Bible, picture Bible. There are, I saw these, I looked on Amazon and you can get some like for four bucks. And they're really good for little kids. This one is with sails to the wind. What it does is it tells a Bible story and it has questions at the end. And then the next day is a story about these two kids and it applies the lesson what the Bible story taught and asks questions for the kids. So it makes it very practical for kids. There's, like I said, nine different ones on Amazon. The Muffin Family Picture Bible. This one is with sails to the wind, but there's eight other titles. If you have kids ages 9 to 12, this is something when I was down at North Carolina that John and Sherry were doing as a family. They were reading Mount Loud together. It's called the Terrestria Chronicles by Ed Dunlap. There's seven books in the series and the kids were just loving it. The thing was I kept finding the boys reaching for book seven because that was the Great War. That's what they wanted to get to. It's kind of like the Chronicles of Narnia, you know, that type of thing. And Elijah's reading them now and he's loving them. He's going to be done Very soon because he keeps asking grandma give me more books. So this is the first one. There's seven in that series I got these off a CD CBD Because I plan on passing them around to my grandkids To use and then I also got Priscilla Schreier. I love her and She's a good teacher, and she has these kids' books out for that same age group, 9 to 12. It's three books in the series. I just brought the first one. This is The Prince Warriors. It talks about spiritual warfare and brings it down to the kids' level. Those are just some ideas. I know, hopefully, at your table they'll have a bunch of ideas, too, and there's always our book table out there. For Women to Women, this is a good one, A Woman's Guide to Discipling. This is by The Navigators. The Navigators are huge at discipling. So there's that one. I learned a lot from this book, Come Walk With Me, by Carol Mayhall, A Woman's Personal Guide to Knowing God and Mentoring Others. And then there's Tony Evans 2, Kingdom Woman. He's a good author. So those are just a few. Look for them. And if you're not sure whether they're good or not, I know that's always an issue. If you feel like you're strong enough that you can figure that out, that's great. But if you need some help, I know pastors or spiritual leaders here would help with that. So we need to finish up with Samson, chapter 16. I don't think I need to refresh your memory about the story of him with Delilah. That's a very famous story. They make movies about it all the time and everything. And he was having this relationship with his harlot, and because she was promised money, she kept bugging Samson to tell him where his great strength came from. Each time he told her something that wasn't true, she would do it to him, and the Philistines would be there to capture him, and it didn't work. But finally, just like before, with enough pleading and pouting from this woman, he tells her about cutting his hair. What was he thinking? I mean, ladies, what do you think he was thinking? He had to know she was going to do that. She did everything else. Why in the world? I asked the Marines that down there, and they just kind of looked at each other. He wasn't thinking. You know, but we don't know for sure, but apparently Samson had gotten pretty, apparently Samson had gotten pretty self-confident because Judges 16 verse 20 says that he woke up and thought, I will just go out as before and shake myself free. But then a very sad verse, the end of that verse, he did not know that the Lord had left him. You know, he had begun to think it's all about me. I'm okay. I'm this big, strong guy. I can handle it. It doesn't matter if I break my vow. Well, the Philistines gouged his eyes out and he became a grinder in the prison. pretty humiliating for this big strong guy. And then verse 23 says that they were, the Philistines were gathered for this great sacrifice to their God and to celebrate, they were partying. And when they're doing that, they say, bring out Samson that he can entertain us. Now, I don't know what he had to do to entertain them. But you can imagine that it would have been pretty humiliating for him. And over 3,000 people laughing at him, jeering at him. But it also says that his hair had started to grow. And he is eventually put between two pillars of the temple, and he prays. And this is the first time you see Samson praying. And in verse 28, he says, oh, sovereign Lord, remember me. And I just love that. Right there, he's asking for repentance. He's repenting. to God of all his sins. Remember the thief on the cross? When the thief said to Jesus, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom, he was repenting. Samson is doing the same thing. He is repenting. And then he says, please strengthen me just once more. Let me get vengeance on the Philistines. He asked for strength to take them down. And in verse 30, he asked God to let him die with the Philistines. Now that's interesting to me because he's just about ready to bring this huge temple down with 3,000 people. You wouldn't think he would have to ask God to please let me die with the Philistines, but I think it shows that Samson had finally fully surrendered. I think he realized that, you know, if God wanted me to live through this, he can do anything. He would make me live, but I would ask God that you would just let me die. And he did die. He had fully surrendered. And at the end of Judges, it says, then his brothers and his father's whole family went down to get him and they buried him. Now, that word brothers, I really think Samson was an only child. That word brothers, I looked it up in my Keyword Study Bible. In the Hebrew, it just is a general word for kinsmen or relatives or brothers or whatever. So anyway, somebody in his family came and got him and buried him. You know, and gals, at one time when I was studying this, tears came to my eyes because I thought to myself, you know, I think I would have given up on him. I think I would have written him off as a wasted life. But God never gives up on us, and I'm so glad he doesn't. So if you ever have a child that is not walking with the Lord, never give up, as long as they have breath. God is ready, just like that father and the prodigal son, to open his arms and welcome anybody back. So we must not give up on people. We just need to keep praying that they will turn back to the Lord. Samson is mentioned in Hebrews 11 as a man of faith. I mean, it's amazing what he can do. when God is given in control. So we have a faithful, patient God. So gals, just be diligent as parents. Consider your calling and be determined to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Let's be disciples, let's be mentors, especially of our children, but let's come along each other as well, alongside each other as well, and keep praying for those that we think are lost causes. God just might not be done with them yet. So let's pray. Father, I just pray that you would use your word in our lives. Thank you for it again. Thank you for the life of Samson. I just pray that you would bless our discussion and help it to be pleasing to you. Help us to learn from this, Lord. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.