Well, in our expository series of the book of Hebrews, we have come in chapter 11, the great hall of faith chapter. To verse 32, where the writer just groups together a bunch of names since he's running out of time to give a brief description of each one, When he says, And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, And Bayrak. And Samson. And Jephthah.
also of David and Samuel, and the prophets. who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises. stop the mouths of lions, and so forth. And so in working through what God has given us, In His word, in the book of Hebrews, We are now focusing upon the man Sampson. And how God used him.
for God's purposes. and how God used him to to bring deliverance to the people of Israel. Samson is certainly a surprising inclusion in the Hall of Faith. At least it seems like that to us. Samson, in our minds, is not usually remembered primarily for his faith.
He's remembered for his strength. His gullibility. His moral failures, but not usually his faith. And yet God includes him among the heroes of faith. And though he was immature, no question about it, no no no.
Matter that he was selfish, there's no question about that. No matter that he was, in fact, very much controlled by his fleshly desires, and again, no question about that. He was a true believer. And that's what God wants us to know. He was, therefore, a saint in the biblical sense of that term.
The weak And though flawed, He nevertheless was a true child of the living God. And by faith, he achieved great exploits for God. And that teaches us, and this is not the only example of it here, and so God intends for us to learn the lesson that. Imperfect faith is none the less faith. And God honors faith.
Faith honors God. And God honors faith. And so that takes us back again to the Old Testament. to understand this important lesson about the life of Samson.
Now, with four chapters on the life of Samson, I'm going to have to summarize. It wouldn't be hard at all to have four sermons, at least, on the life of Samson, one for each of these four chapters. But we're not going to do that. We're going to... Package them all, roll them all into one message.
But looking at the Old Testament narrative in these four chapters, if we gave each of the four chapters a one-word title, I think this would be a suitable title. Chapter 13 His birth. CHAPTER fourteen HIS MARIAGE Chapter 15, His Revenge. Chapter 16, His Destruction. His birth.
Judges thirteen, one. Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD. And the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years. We're beginning to Get the cycle here. It's repeated, isn't it, over and over and over.
God delivers his people. Stand tall and fly straight for a while, and then they begin to degenerate back into sin, and particularly into. idol worship and God brings chastening upon them in the form of foreign oppression and then when they cry out to him for help he mercifully delivers them. He sends someone who can lead them into deliverance. He sends them a series of judges, as they are called, to judge his people for these times.
of oppression and times of relief. And Samson turns out to be one of these God-appointed judges. We have seen previous to today that Sometimes the oppression has come from the Mesopotamians way far to the east.
Sometimes from the Moabites a little less far to the east.
Sometimes from Canaanites, which is a word that would describe everybody who was not of Israel in the land of Canaan, but particularly. Many of those who lived in the northern parts of Israel, as we saw last Sunday, But now the fullest teams. And we will read more about Philistine oppression than anybody else, because their oppression continues on, on, on throughout the book of Judges, into the life of David. In fact, really, it wasn't until David, the great warrior king, delivered Israel from the Philistines that finally, Their power over Israel was completely broken, and that took. the course of several hundred years before the Philistines were no longer able to oppress God's people.
But they are oppressing them now as an act of judgment of God upon Israel. They oppressed them, we are told, for forty years. But in chapter one, deliverance is announced. We are told that an angel of God comes to Manoah's wife. who turns later to be the mother of Samson.
and announces to her that she is going to have A son. And she the angel tells Uh Manoa's wife. That this son is going to be a Nazarite from his birth. throughout the remainder of his life. Of course, you have to understand something about the Nazarite vow that's found in the Old Testament, and there are a number of people who took this vow.
Most people who took it took it for a prescribed period of time, for a certain number of weeks or months and brought the vow to an end. But in Samson's case, he was to live the life of a Nazarite from the day of his birth to the day of his death. And what does that mean?
Well, there are three main elements, probably some other things, but three main elements. that constitute the stipulations of the Nazarite vow. A person under a Nazarite vow, number one, is not to eat any product of the vine. Not to drink wine. But not even Grapes.
or raisins or Any product of the vine that is prohibited to a Nazarite. Number two, a Nazarite must never touch a dead body.
Now, the children of Israel were warned not to touch dead bodies, but there was provision for them for cleansing, ceremonial cleansing, if they did. But an Azerite was to keep himself from touching any dead bodies for as long as he lived, and the third thing was. A Nazarite was never to cut his hair. Ever. I've tried to picture in my mind how long.
Was Samson's hair by the time this episode ends. It must have been. down nearly to his feet. I cannot imagine how long a man's hair would become if it is never cut over or a woman's for that matter, but anyone's hair would become if it is never cut over the course of twenty, thirty, forty years or more. But that Practice visibly Marked a Nazarite.
People knew who was under a Nazarite vow. by this uncut hair. And Samson certainly was identified in this way.
Well Manoah's wife runs to him and tells him what the angel of the Lord told her about this birth and. Manoah Asked her some questions to clarify what had been told and some of the questions at Manoa's Manoah has, his wife hadn't thought about, didn't she didn't ask. And so. Manoa. Praise to God that this messenger, the angel of the Lord, might come again.
And give them more information about what they are to do with the birth of this son. And I forgot to mention, but you heard me read it. But Samson's mother was barren. She had not been able to have children until this time. And so this announcement of the birth and the subsequent birth of Samson in itself was a miracle.
And we are reminded that a number of the people that God most greatly used in the Bible were born to women who, for a long time, could not have children, and therefore, when a child was born, it was a miraculous act of God. And this is yet another one of those. And so the angel of the Lord came again and Came again to the wife of Manoah, and she ran and fetched her husband, brought him. Those of you who are visiting today from the north may not know what fetch means, but that. She brought her husband.
to meet with the angel of the Lord. And so he spoke to both of them. And he gave them the information which they needed, reiterating a lot of what he had said to. Manoah's wife alone before, but now He tells both of them, And Manoah says, will you remain long enough for us to fix a meal for you? And the angel of the Lord says, Well, I'm not.
Going to eat a meal, but go ahead and fix it. It's kind of interesting.
So Manoah fixes the meal and he comes and They place it upon a rock And the angel of the Lord Causes fire to fall from heaven and to turn that prepared meal into a burnt sacrifice, an offering unto God on this rock, which became an altar of God. And then the angel of the Lord actually ascends in the smoke of the fire as he disappears into heaven. And that's when Manoah realized that this is not just A man, for sure. It's not even just an ordinary angel. This was, in fact, a theophany.
This was God Himself who had come to them in this angelic form. We would probably conclude that the form of the Theophany was, in fact, a Christophany, that this was Christ The second person of the Trinity who was speaking to them, There are indications of that in the passage, but I will not. elaborate But sure enough, in the passing of time, Manoa's wife. becomes pregnant. She delivers a son.
The son's name is Samson. and God begins to work with him as we saw in the reading earlier. And the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon him. And that phrase, the Spirit of the Lord, came upon him, it moved upon him, it came upon him mightily. Precedes almost every spectacular act of strength that Samson performed.
And in the one or two occasions where that is not specifically mentioned, because it was mentioned, is mentioned, I should say, in so many of the others, I think we can rightfully conclude. That when Samson performed a great act of strength, it's not because he was an exceptionally strong man. I don't know what Samson looked like. Did he look like a big bodybuilder with all those big muscles?
Well, he might have, but... Even the strongest bodybuilder, and we've got some bodybuilders in our congregation. I don't think any of you could have done, no matter how strong you are, no matter how many pounds you lift, how many pounds are you up to now, John, in a deadlift? A lot. A lot.
Are you up to 400? I thought so. Wow. Makes my arms weak. You couldn't do what Samson did.
What Samson did, he did in the power of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God came upon him, and he exercised supernatural strength to do these things. That's chapter 13. Chapter 14 we will entitle Marriage. It's time for Samson to be married.
And what does he do? He goes Two. The Philistines. He put his eyes fasten upon a beautiful Philistine lady. girl, we might say, still living with her father.
And he says, That's who I want for my wife. And his parents. Prevail, they try to prevail upon him. They appeal to him mildly. Don't do that.
Can't you find a suitable wife among the Israelites? And he says, I want her, get her for me. And so they comply. But as the Bible tells us, they didn't realize this was a design of God in order to begin to set up this Contests, this ongoing rivalry, this ongoing conflict between Samson and the Philistines, which God was using to bring delivery to the nation of Israel. And so, infatuated with this Philistine woman, he made several trips down to her home, which wasn't far from where he lived.
And on one of those trips, a lion came out. Aldo Forrest beside the road and attacked him. There were many references to lions in the Bible. There were lions in Palestine in those days. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon Samson.
Uh mm. And he just took that old lion and ripped him in two and threw his carcass by the side of the road. Amazing. And then later, when he came down to Marry, to officially marry his wife, to take his wife. To be his bride, he stopped to look at the carcass and.
Of course, some time had passed and there had been decomposition, but in the. in the skeletal remains of the carcass.
Some bees had built a beehive and had produced honey. And so Samson took some of that honey and ate it, and he took some along with him and gave to his parents, and they ate. And the Bible says they had no idea where it came from, because apparently his mother was supposed to be keeping the same Nazarite requirements that Samson was. And Samson I don't know if she was supposed to continue keeping those. After he was born or not.
But Samson was under the Nazarite stipulations, and one of those was, don't touch a dead body. That's any dead body. Not only a human dead body, but an animal carcass. And Samson just disregarded that and took the honey and ate it and went on. He inaugurated a feast, that was customary for the group to do that.
And because he hadn't brought anybody with him, and probably wouldn't, because. Jews would not be inclined to come along to a wedding like this and put their seal of approval upon. A marriage that the scriptures forbid. The Jews weren't supposed to intermarry with the The pagan people, the idolatrous people of their land.
So he had no companions of his own, so they selected 30 young men to be his companions to represent him. In the wedding. And wedding feasts customarily lasted seven days. You find several references of that. throughout the Bible.
And so at the beginning of this wedding feast, perhaps the first night when they sat down to eat. Samson proposed the riddle.
Well, he said, I will propose a riddle. If um If you can't answer it, you owe me thirty changes of Clothing. And clothing was a lot more valuable in that day than it is in ours. Everything was made by hand. And they didn't import it from China.
Yeah. But he said, if you get the riddle, then I will be required to supply you with 30 changes of clothing, one for each of these 30 companions. And so they took up the bet. They took up the challenge. They said, go ahead.
And he proposed the riddle, didn't he? Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet. And Samson, of course, had in his mind this episode with the lion. The eater is the lion, but out of the lion, the eater came something to eat, the honey.
And out of the strong, again the lion, came something sweet, the honey. He proposed that riddle. Can you tell me what that stands for, what that means? And of course, they couldn't, they had no idea. None whatsoever.
And so They talk to his wife. And they They basically threatened her. With Delilah, there doesn't seem to be any threat involved, but with this first wife, who's not named. They threatened her. They said, if you don't tell us the riddle, if you don't get that information from him, we will kill you and your father.
Nice. Nice Felicity neighbors, right? And so She begins to work on Sampson with her Um Feminine wiles. appealing to him to tell her the riddle and Teary-eyed when he refuses to do so. If you really loved me, if you really loved me, you would do this.
She works on him and eventually he gives the riddle. And so she, of course, turned right around and told it to the men so that she wouldn't be in danger. And we read in verse 18: so the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, it's getting right down to the wire here. When the sun goes down, it'll be the eighth day. Samson will have won the riddle.
So, right just before sunset, They said, what is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? They solved the riddle. He knew exactly what they were saying. And he said these famous words, If you had not plowed with my heifer, You would not have solved My riddle.
They knew what he meant by that. That's kind of Riddle-type language, but there's no trouble figuring out what he was saying there. But then now Samson is is on the hook for thirty changes of clothing, which he doesn't have the money to acquire and he wouldn't probably be inclined to spend his money on it anyway. He probably already had a pretty expensive outlay for the seven day feast. And so, what does he do?
He goes a little bit further, clear down to Ashkelon, which was quite a few miles away, and he kills. 30 Philistines I'm assuming would pick out 30 that were dressed pretty nice. Kills 30 Philistines and collects their clothes and brings them back and pays off his obligation with those. And there's enough distance between Ashkelon and his present location that the men there don't know what he's done. But this is the beginning.
On this occasion, he kills thirty Philistines.
Next time, the number may not be given, but as each slaughter takes place, more and more are involved, as we see reading throughout. The history.
Well, that brings us to Judges 15. I've called this chapter revenge. Birth. Marriage Revenge. And after Samson gets over being angry, and he did, he went off in a huff after he.
fulfilled is Bet, obligation. He went back home. And Commiserated for a while, got over his. Anger, but That woman's still down there in the Philistine territory. And He's married to her.
And he wants To have A relationship with her, a marital relationship with her, so he heads down. to her home to take his wife and The father says, oh.
Sorry, we didn't think you were coming back. I gave her to your companion, to the best man in your wedding. She belongs to another man now. You can't have her. But she's got a younger sister who's more beautiful than she is.
Why don't you take her instead? And Samson is not willing to do that. And. He takes Three hundred Our Bible says foxes. But the Hebrew word could also be translated jackals.
They probably were jackals, but either way, this is quite astonishing. But jackals will be easier to catch and do this with than foxes. And so he gathers up, again in his unusual strength and ability, he gathers up 300 jackals and ties torches in their tails and turns them loose in the fields of grain, and they burn up. I don't know how many fields of grain, and also some vineyards and some olive groves. And those olive groves.
Take Those olive trees live hundreds of years. It takes a long time for an olive tree to grow to maturity enough to produce olives. I mean, you destroy grain, you can replant that and have it back in six months. You destroy a vineyard, you can replant that and have that back in two or three years. You destroy olive groves, and it's going to take, I don't know how many years before you can have those back.
And he burns up all of that. That's his revenge.
So Yeah. What do the Philistines do as they look at their smoldering fields and vineyards and Olive groves. They said, they say, why did he do this? Who did this? Who instigated this?
Of course, Samson did it. Why did he do this?
Well, it was because of his wife being given to another man.
So they go down to the Home of the of the woman And they burn up the house with the Samson's wife and father inside, kill them. In revenge for the loss of their fields.
So Samson says something like, okay. This time I shall be blameless. This this indicates he knew. That The thirty he killed before, he really didn't have a just reason for. Although again God is orchestrating even bad things, even wrong things, even sinful things, to accomplish his good purposes.
We can see that certainly in the life of Samson. But nevertheless, he says, This time I'm justified in what I do. And so he picks up a A um Jawbone of an ass, right? And No, I I'm one ahead of myself. He just Piles into a bunch of them.
We don't know how many here. We don't know what he had in his hand, if anything. And he kills a bunch of these Philistines. And then he retreats to a rocky. cave.
in a place called Lei. Lehi. and waits there and this is a place where they cannot really attack him. It's a place where to get into where he is, you can only go one man at a time. And Who's going to go through that crevice to face this man alone?
Nobody. But the Philistines have a lot of power with the Israelites, and the Israelites send. Three. thousand men to talk To Samson and say, don't you know the Philistines rule over us? And You have created a great problem for us.
We're going to suffer for this. We need to deliver you to the Philistines. And Samson agrees, and they bind him with two new ropes, and they hand him over to the Philistines. And the Philistines are carting him off, and then Samson just breaks the ropes. Reaches down, picks up the jawbone of a donkey.
And he kills a thousand Philistines.
So, first time 30, second time, a larger number, we don't know how many, third time, a thousand Philistines. die at the hands of Samson.
Now do you I don't know if you remember Maybe I didn't read this. But when the Angel of the Lord came to them. He said in verse five of chapter thirteen. To Manoah's wife, For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb.
And this is what I want you to remember. He shall begin. to deliver Israel. out of the hand of the Philistines.
Now that language isn't used for any of the other judges. In every other case, the promise was: this judge shall deliver Israel out of the hand of the Moabites, out of the hand of the Canaanites, out of the hand. Of the Mesopotamians. But this time the language is: he shall begin. You can see.
How much stronger were the Philistines? How much greater was their hold upon them? And this is going to take a while. Samson's going to start the process, it's going to take quite a while. But he has really started.
And he slaughters 3,000. or this uh rather one thousand of them And then he is so worn out and thirsty for what he has done. He thinks he's going to die of thirst. He's a man completely given to his emotions and to the immediate situation. And Whatever he's feeling at the moment, that becomes truth to him.
I mean, there's so many things about Samson that are wrong, wrong, wrong. And this is one again.
So he says, I'm going to die of thirst if you don't supply water.
So God did supply. Water. It's exactly what he did. And um So, God, we read in verse 19 of chapter 15, split the hollow place. That is in Lehi, and water came out, and he drank.
And his spirit returned and he revived. And you look at that and you say, I don't see how God could Put his approval on the the activities of Samson.
Well, I don't know that he's putting his approval upon the sinful activities of Samson, but he is sustaining the man that he has chosen to deliver Israel or to begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines. He does miraculously give him strength to be able to do these things, or he wouldn't be able to do any of them. He does miraculously provide water for him to keep him alive and well in this situation. That is the activity of God. There's no way to deny it.
And then finally, in Judges 16. the final chapter that I have labeled destruction because It refers to two kinds of destruction. First of all, Samson's destruction of the temple of the Philistines, the temple of Dagon. along with 3,000 Philistines. but the destruction of Samson himself.
And his life And so it opens with another lustful encounter of Samson, this time in the city of Geza. He goes into a prostitute. The Philistines are watching, they're waiting for him, waiting for him to come out, and they're going to attack him. Apparently he knows they're planning to do that. And the city gates are shut, so Samson is entrapped inside.
So he just at midnight goes out and Picks up. The city gate pulling the posts out of the ground. I mean, I cannot imagine. How that much that must have weighed, how big that was. And he throws it over his back and he carries it up to a hill some distance away.
We don't know exactly how long. And he sets it up on the hill and then he goes back home. It's just incredible. What he was unable to do. by the power of God that came upon him.
And then after that, he strikes up a new romance in Philistia again, another Philistine. This one, we know her name. Her name is. Delilah. And this is a famous name in Bible.
History. Delilah. And he is Visiting Delilah night after night. And The Philistines, who want to are desperate now to deal with Samson. Entice Delilah to get to entice Samson to tell him the source, tell her the source of his strength so that they can deal with him.
so they can figure out how to capture him. And so they start playing a game. Delilah starts going through the same thing that his first wife did. weeping and saying, If you loved me, you would tell me and Samson is so gullible. We look at this gullibility and say, Samson, you idiot, you've been through this before.
Don't you know what's going to happen if you tell her? But He just succumbs to the flirtations of his wife, And He goes through a series of things. He says, well, I my my hair, if you if he said it no, he didn't start with his hair. He said if you take seven bow strings, that's made out of The guts that come out of animals, intestines out of animals, and they twist that together to make bowstrings. If you bind me with seven fresh bowstrings, That'll take away my strength.
They do it. He breaks the bow strings and Clobbers a few of them. They can't They can't Capture it.
Well, she goes back at it again. This time he says, Well, the secret is if you use new ropes, not old ones, but new ones that have never been used before.
Now, actually, When they When the Israelites bound him at Lehi, they bound him with new ropes. He snapped those off and killed a few Philistines. But anyway, he says new ropes will do it.
So they bind him with new ropes. They wake him up. And bang, he snaps the ropes and Clobber's a few more of them.
So she goes back again, appealing to him again. And this time he says, well, actually, this is the... The the secret. My hair which apparently was What should I say? Was organized into seven different locks, seven different strands.
They must have been long. He says if you Weave them into a loom. then my strength will be gone.
So? While he's asleep, they weave his hair into a loom. They She cries up, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. And he wakes up and shakes off the loom and clobbers a few more of them. One more time.
She's begging him again. This time he gives her full disclosure. fatal disclosure. And he says, The truth of the matter is my hair has never been cut. I'm under a Nazarite vow.
My hair has never been cut. If my hair is cut, my strength will be gone. I won't be able to do these things.
So he goes to sleep. She cuts his hair. The Philistines come in. Samson arouses himself. He doesn't know.
What has happened? He's still groggy. He tries to defend himself and he has no strength and he's captured. Shamefully humiliated. His eyes gouged out.
He's put in metal Shackles. He is taken to a prison. He is required to grind Grain. in a prison. But the day comes when the Philistines gather at the temple of their.
greatest god Dagon, in order to celebrate their victory over Samson. Dagon was One of the main gods of all of that area, even as far East is Mesopotamia, all the way to the coast where the Philistines were. Dagon in some literature is said in this idolatrous mythology. Is said to be the father of Baal. We know more about Baal.
We read about Baal quite often in the Old Testament. But Dagon is supposed to be the father of Baal, as well as the father of other gods.
So they're honoring their primary god, Dagon, in the temple that has been built in his honor. And there's a lot of them there. We read that there are 3,000 men and women on a rooftop. It must have been like a. Oh, a big balcony.
A roof cut top, and they bring Samson in to make sport of him. And they're laughing and pointing at him and saying, look at what our God Dagon did to overcome Yahweh, the God of Israel, and to. Uh, bring Samson to this situation, ha ha ha, they're just having a great time. And they're and they're fatal. Fatal flaw was elevating their pagan god Dagon above the true god of Israel.
And God doesn't deal with that lightly, and many times he has come to us. To the defense of his people in those situations when clearly they weren't. Being all that they ought to be, but that contest, that kind of contest, that dishonor, public dishonor of Yahweh. often brings God's aid. And so Samson says, I've got one.
More opportunity, and he gets the boy who's leading him to Place him against the two main pillars of the temple, and he pushes on them with all his might, and the temple comes. Crushing down, and 3,000 Philistines die. And the Bible tells us he killed more in his death than he did in his life. From thirty To a couple hundred. to a thousand And now to 3,000.
And he dies. And he's buried, interestingly, honorably, the Men of Israel come up and collect his body and the Philistines allow them to do it. There seems to have been even some respect. for this man even after all of what he did. All right, now we've got to wrap this up.
That takes us back to the New Testament text. Hebrews 11.32. What more shall I say, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson? Samson. And as we look at his name in this list, we are inclined, first of all, to focus on Samson's failures, which are many.
Samson failed to honor his parents. That was clear, clear back to that first marriage. Shame on you, Samson. Samson failed to honor God's marriage requirements to marry. A pagan Philistine was It was contrary to God's commandment.
Shame on you. Samson. Failure to respect his Nazarite vow in touching the dead bodies. We don't know if he violated the The grape. stipulation Failure to maintain sexual boundaries that God commanded.
He ignores those. And in the end here, failure to protect the hair. Requirement of his Nazarite vow, the one area of that vow that he had carefully protected all of his life. He had not let. Scissors or razor come on his hair until his dalliance with Delilah.
And we look at all of that and we say, How can a man like that Find his name. In Hebrews chapter 11, the Hall of Faith. And the only answer I can give you is Because God wanted it. God did it, and God wants us to understand something that sometimes we fail to understand. God wants us to understand more about how He operates.
And thus Samson's failures are not mentioned in Hebrews 11, but his faith is. He had faith. What is faith? Believing the promises of God and acting accordingly. His parents told him what the angel had told them about his birth and his purpose in life, that he would deliver or begin to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines, and he believed it, and he acted according to that promise.
Faith caused Samson to act in the power of God's Spirit when it came upon him. One commentator said That he believes, I think this was John Brown of Edinburgh, said he believes. That the coming of God's Spirit upon him was twofold. First of all, it imparted to him revelation, and then, secondly, gave him the power to carry it out.
So every time Samson performed one of these amazing feats of strength, he was. acting in accordance with the word of God that had come to him. God said, Pick up the gate and the posts of the city of Geza and carry it up to the hill, and then gave him the enabling power to do it. Samson believed, Samson obeyed, Samson acted, Samson. exercised God-honoring faith.
Samson exercised faith in accomplishing His divinely appointed assignment, his main assignment, which was to be the deliverer of his people from the Philistines. And in the end, what did he do? His faith. Caused him to be willing to lay down his life for God. He was willing to do that.
It'd be pretty hard to match our faith above that, wouldn't it? That's impressive faith.
Now quickly points to ponder and I'll have to cover them very quickly. Number one is the consequences of sin, even though. Samson was A vessel appointed by God for a special purpose. Even though he was a Nazarite, even though he was a judge in Israel, even though he was a mighty deliverer, he did not escape the consequences of his sin. When he sinned, those sins caused him.
Grief, there was consequence to pay because of his sin. Samson never enjoyed a good marriage and a stable home life because of his sexual. Proclivities. Samson lived his whole life in danger and turmoil. It was not a peaceful life that Samson lived, and a lot of that he brought upon himself because of sin.
And in the end, Samson was blinded. and became a slave. And came to an early death. Why? Because of the consequences of his sin.
He brought all that on himself. And I just simply want to remind you folks. That principle way of God working with people hasn't changed from that day to this day. As mighty a king as David was, he paid great consequences for his sin. is mighty Preachers in our own generation have preached the Word of God powerfully.
How many of them have been? dishonored at the end of their life because of sin, which they didn't deal with and they had to suffer the consequences of it. It's shameful. It's sad. It's pathetic, but that's the way it is.
And it'll be the same way for you. And the same way for me. Let's believe that. and ask God to help us to avoid. disobeying him.
But in addition to the consequences of sin, there's the power of faith. Samson had many failures, but he believed God. Samson had many failures, but he acted according to divine revelation. And because of that, by his faith, he performed impossible achievements. That could only Be done.
By the power of God, in response to believing faith. And so may we. I haven't been called upon to pick up the gates of the city and carry it to the top of a hill, and neither of you. But there's plenty in God's word that his people are called upon to do, and we know what our assignments are. And our excuses, but I can't do that, won't fly.
We are to believe God, trust his word, and go forth in obedience, trusting him to enable us. And when we do, he will, and we will accomplish great things for God. And when we fail to believe him, we will fail. May we learn. What faith can do.
It can do impossible things. And finally, we need to consider the mercy of God. to forgive transgressions. In Sampson's case they are a lot. But In all of our lives there are plenty.
How grateful we are That there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. Where sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. Where would I be? Where would you be? Without the vicarious death of Jesus Christ as a substitute on the cross on my behalf.
Where would we be if God wasn't a pardoning God? Who is a pardoning God like thee? And who has grace so rich and free? Where would we be without that? Where would we be without the promise that if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, where would we be without the mercy? of God. to deliver his people. from our sins. Even Deliver us from oppressions that are self-inflicted, as they were in Samson's case, but God delivered him from them.
That ought to be a great encouragement. There's nobody here. who has lived a perfect life. The church isn't made up A perfect Saints who live perfect lives all their lives. A church is made up of wretched sinners who have sinned all of our lives but have come to To the God-ordained place of pardon, namely the cross of Jesus Christ, and embraced that death and that resurrection and that sacrifice.
on our behalf and embrace that as our only Only remedy for sin. It's not Christ plus our works. It's not Christ plus our church membership. It's not Christ plus anything else. It's Christ and Him alone.
Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And oh, how good it is to embrace that because there's not a one of us here who even come close to the kind of life that would be required to earn eternal life in heaven. Thank God. Thank God. For his mercy.
Thank God for his grace. Shall we pray? Father, Teach us. Thy truth. Teach us.
Thy ways. Teach us. the way of salvation in Christ. As we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
