Samson – Strong, Shallow, Self-willed (Part C)

Peter says, A warning to Samson as he walked the wrong way, on the wrong path, in the wrong place. I believe yes.

Absolutely. And now here's Pastor Rick in Judges, Chapter 14, with the conclusion of his message called, Samson was not sober-minded. He was drunk with self. And yet, Peter says, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, that's Satan, the word Satan means adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. So he means business.

That's what he's saying. He's looking to devour you. He's not looking to play a game of Parcheesi with you or something.

He's looking to take you out. So did God send the lion as a warning to Samson as he walked the wrong way, on the wrong path, in the wrong place? I believe yes.

Absolutely. I mean, there's other reasons why the lion, you know, now it's going to be the first time we see his strength in action. And the Holy Spirit gave Samson the power to defeat this enemy, you could say. That is very much part of the story. Samson's strength was not his own, and which is going to be brought out when Delilah is done with him. And Samson remained, in spite of his goof-ups, his sin, his disobedience and silliness and shallowness and self-will, he still remained a consumer of God's blessings.

That is part of this moment. He doesn't belong in the vineyard. He's not supposed to be on the path to Timna.

He should be with his parents. He's not doing any of those things, and yet God still gives him strength to beat down a lion. See, this makes us robust in the face of trouble in life. It's supposed to encourage us.

Or you could, I mean, for years I'd read this section, be terrified. But I've, you know, gotten out as, yes, God was with this man. I want to be an instrument for the Lord and not abuse that. I don't want to get away with half of what Samson got away with and stop it there before it gets really bad.

I want to always get it right. Verse 6, And the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand, but he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. Well, from the bottom of the verse up, the fact that Mom and Dad did not know this was happening reinforces that he separated from them, or else they would have been their witnesses of the whole thing. And the Spirit of Yahweh came upon him mightily. There are only a few great feats of Samson listed for us, as I alluded to earlier.

There were more things that he had accomplished. I'll read that verse in a moment, but let's just review some of them. Well, he's killing a lion with his bare hands. We'll let it sit in.

Okay. So, and the part about it is a man would tear a goat, I've never done that. I don't even eat goat. But maybe those of you who like goat know what that means.

Anyway, it says, and you know, if you're into animal, you know, I'm not into cruelty to anything, except ticks. But, I mean, it's hard, you know, just to picture the whole thing. Josephus says he ripped his throat out, but Josephus is not writing scripture for us. Some commentators try to say, well, he struck a fatal blow, but it says he tore it apart.

Well, I don't know what it means. Whatever it is, it's bloody, it's gory, and well, back to what I was saying. He kills a lion with his bare hands. He slays 30 Philistines in this chapter, we'll get to that. He catches 300 foxes or jackals, it could have been, and put torches connected to their tails, which is amazing. How much time did it take to catch 300 of them, to fingerprint them, to weigh them? No, I'm kidding.

He's not with the Wildlife Society. He broke the bonds that, you know, ooh, Samson, the Philistines are coming, which really gets a goofy story. He slays a thousand men with a jawbone over a donkey, carries the gates of Gaza up the hill. I can't wait to get to that one.

Talk about a practical joke, but he's serious. I mean, imagine taking someone, picking up someone's pickup truck, and walking, you know, a mile up a hill, and then flipping it over, it's amazing the strength this man had. And of course, the end, he topples the building of the Philistines. But Judges 16 says, the destroyer of our land, the Philistines speaking about him, the destroyer of our land, and the one who multiplied our dead. So there were likely very more battles than what we have recorded just in these four chapters. But by the time we get to chapter 16, Samson has fallen so far from God that we no longer read about the Spirit of God coming upon him.

And that again, there's another message. God is saying, yeah, my spirit is with him, he's struggling, well, he's in the early stages of his, you know, shallowness, I'm giving him space to get it together. And it just gets worse with Samson until finally God has to depart from him. It says, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though nothing was in his hand. He had quite a heated argument with this lion and won. I don't know that there's, I will say this, not only had he been given strength, but you had to have had speed and timing to take out a lion.

I mean, what if he was strong, but he moved like a sloth? I mean, it would have been it. Lesson, not enough to have the gift.

There must be ancillary, you know, items that go with it. Say you have the gift of discernment. You can smell a rat.

Well, you have to know how to administer that because the people that don't have the discernment don't see what you're seeing. And you just start a fight and everybody just turn against you. Paul said, I told you this was going to happen. We should have stayed in this harbor. But no, you the sailors. You all had to come.

Well, look at us now. So part of the lesson is that yes, he had all this strength, but he also had some timing and coordination and he was able to exercise the gift as he did. Like so many of us, he had the hands to do the job.

What about the heart? He says, but he did not tell his mother or father. Again, apparently no one knew of his strength. And he comes out unscathed. It's not like he shows up at Timna and he's got all these scratch marks. Probably didn't have a tear on his shirt.

He just like didn't get touched. He knew how to keep a secret for a while because the parents, they didn't know about the lion. They will eventually.

So will everybody else. We know the wife and the riddle. Of course, he held a secret for a while. And Delilah, of course, he told her the secret too. So he held secrets only for a while.

Not a good way to be. Secrets need to go into a vault. And as the pastors know, you know, we don't tell. And a lot of folks get a little frustrated with that.

You don't want to get in that habit. Private information is private information. That's the end of it. Verse 7, then he went down and talked with the woman and she pleased Samson well. Well, we're going to bookmark this because he does not learn his lesson. As I mentioned, he heads to Gaza and there finds our harlot and then Delilah.

He's not learning lessons because he's too self-impressed because he thinks he's above these things. Verse 8, after some time when he returned to get her, he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion and behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion. Well, maybe you've had the privilege of shooting something and leaving it and coming back later and the buzzards have picked that thing clean.

And this, I think, it says after some time. My point, you're trying to get a visual on what this carcass looked like. Well, at least it's mummified. I mean, it's just dried up. But it's probably just the bones.

You know, the rib cage and the beads have made a nice little place for themselves there. Sweet as honey. Yeah, I know.

At my age, I shouldn't be doing that. Anyway. But here's Samson. He says after some time he returned to get her and turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. Here he is again turning to the right or to the left but not going straight. Once again, he's going the wrong way. He's returning to the scene of pride. He wants to see, yep, I did that. Did he really have to?

I mean, what was he expecting to find? Well, we have to read it because it applies to it. If we were in 1 John, chapter 216, we'd be referencing Samson. But now we're in Samson. Those judges were going to reference 1 John. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, let me go down to Timna, for she pleases me. The lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And so he wanted the wrong woman, the lust of the eyes when he saw her. He walked through the wrong field, the lust of the flesh as he's munching on those grapes. I mean, come on, if he came out of a vineyard as a Nazarite, you know, wiping the grape juice off his chin, and says, no, I didn't have any. Who would believe him? Why didn't you go the other route?

Why the vineyard? And he went back to this warped victory. And it was a warped victory because he should not have been there.

And that's the pride. I talked about the lion, and he says, behold, behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion. Did he say to himself, this is approved by God because the honey's coming out, this is, you know, God's approval, is that an omen? I don't think he cared one way. I think he was just so self-minded that he just felt he was an exception to these things. Verse 9, he took some of it in his hands and went along eating. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them. They also ate, but he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion.

They want to emphasize that nobody knows the secret because it's going to be part of the story. But now he's a Nazarite. And all the commentators, well, he's violating the Nazarite. I shouldn't say all of them, and I shouldn't sound like I'm better than them because I don't agree with them. I don't agree with them.

I'm not better than them, but I don't agree with most of them. The Nazarite was not supposed to touch a dead human body. If it was food, he couldn't eat meat. And there's no prohibition on Samson eating meat or preparing a meal.

So he's not breaking any law, as far as I know, of the Jewish law for the Nazarite by scooping the honey, or if he's even making contact with whatever's left of the lion. But that's just, many of your study Bibles might have that, and you can submit them to my desk for correction. I'm kidding. It has to be said, those guys are great. Most study Bibles, they're just amazing. But none of them get it all right. For that, you've got to come here. It's hard.

It's so much information. Nobody, I just can't say it. Most people can't get it all right, okay? Nobody can get it all right. You're going to find that just, you know, hey, he missed that one. He's a really good guy, too, and he got that one wrong.

So, pride. But anyway, I think there's no problem him touching a dead animal. If the animal died of natural causes, and you touched it, and you weren't even a Nazarite, well, you were ceremonially unclean. You just couldn't go down to the temple and participate. So, you know, we're not, I learned my first time through Leviticus, you know what, I'm not under the law. I'm not trying to memorize Jewish law. It's too far removed to know everything.

We just have to remain with what's obvious. Verse 10, so his father went down to the woman, and Samson gave a feast there for young men used to do so. This is a wine feast, incidentally. He's supposed to be away from the grapes, and maybe, well, it's peach wine. Verse 11, and it happened when they saw him that he brought 30 companions to be with him.

Now, these are not Jews. It reads as though in verse 11 that his father hired friends because Samson couldn't keep a friend. He's just not a likable guy. He's just too into himself. These are Philistines, and they're godless, and he's mixing with the wrong crowd.

His mom and dad have become advocates and supporters, enablers, we would say. Verse 12, then Samson said to them, let me pose a riddle to you. If you can correctly solve and explain it to me within seven days of the feast, then I will give you 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothing. Sort of an icebreaker, you know, they're all just, you know, so he just said, hey, hey, how about this? And the difference between a parable and a riddle is the parable is supposed to be understood. You're supposed to get that one. Riddles are hard, and I hate them personally. You know, they're on the side of little boxes and stuff, and your little kid comes up and has a riddle, like, get away from me. I hate riddles because they're hard.

I can never get them. But he challenges their wit, and he didn't care for these men. That's clear in the story.

He cares for their women, but he doesn't care for the Philistine men. Verse 13, but if you cannot explain it to me, then you shall give me 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothing. And they said to him, pose your riddle that we may hear it. So there's this cockiness on both sides. Maybe they had a little bit too much wine in them by now. Me, I would have said no.

No, I'm bad at riddles. I'm not doing this. I'm not buying you clothes because I'm not going to get it.

Go bowling for clothing, but don't try to get it from me. Anyway, this is a lot, these 30 pieces of clothing. In those days, it's not 30 pieces for one guy, but it will be if Samson loses the bet. Verse 14, so he said to them, out of the eater came something to eat.

Out of the strong came something sweet. Now, for three days, he could not explain the riddle. Now, if this was in a cartoon form, you'd see them banging their heads on a wall. They couldn't get the riddle. And it's pretty clever. Samson's no fool.

Evidently, mom and dad got him a good education, you know, raised him up the right way. You come up with a riddle. They're not easy to make up or to answer.

They're stumped, these men, this enigma. In Scripture, the Queen of Sheba, she threw some at Solomon. He got them all right. She was so impressed. And he was impressed that she was impressed.

Daniel had skill in interpreting dreams and enigmas or riddles. It's not the first time it shows up, but it shows up the most in Judges, verse 15 now. But it came to pass on the seventh day that they said to Samson's wife, entice your husband that he may explain the riddle to us or else we will burn you and your father's house with fire.

Have you invited us in order to take what is ours? Is that not so? So they're going to pick on the woman. I mean, here she is. Yeah, she's a Philistine, but I mean, what does she have to do with this? She didn't make the riddle.

So these bullies gang up on her. And they're going to try to get to her to get to the riddle so they don't have to pay up. They should have said, no, Samson, we're just going to enjoy the night. But pride wouldn't let them do that.

Samson probably knew that going into it. But what he says, well, we will burn you and your father's house with fire. They mean they're going to kill them with fire a horrific way. We're not going to sneak you some poison. We're going to make you really go through it. And they were not fooling around.

So let's not lose sight of that. These are the types of folks that Israel was being oppressed by. Verse 16, then Samson's wife wept on him and said, you only hate me.

You do not love me. You have posed a riddle to the sons of my people, but you have not explained it to me. And he said to her, look, I have not explained it to my father or my mother, so should I explain it to you?

Well, I mean, it's almost comical. Israel, they're not married yet. He's still closer to his mom and dad. That's the idea there. But let's go to verse 17 and we'll pack it in together. Now she had wept on him the seven days while their feast lasted. And it happened on the seventh day that he told her because she pressed him so much. Then she explained the riddle to the sons of her people. So she's a kind of a, you know, quite dramatic with this. You only hate me.

You don't love me because you won't tell me a riddle. I mean, that's like, come on. But he doesn't know that her life and her family's life, her siblings, her mom is in danger.

These monsters are after them. He doesn't know the consequence to this. He could kill lions and break ropes and push down buildings, but he could not overcome the power of a woman's tears. You know, he's not the only man in history where a woman's tears act as kryptonite. And there's a voice in his ear saying, make it stop. This will happen with Delilah, too.

She will vex his soul to death. Just, it's nagging. This is what was happening. So I told this story before. There's this little boy and we're out where I live. And he has to go to the doctor to get this pebble out of his ear. And the doctor says, what did you do? He says, well, I stuck it in there.

Why did you do it? Well, the girls wouldn't stop singing. Do you want to build a snowman?

The little girls wouldn't stop singing it. So he took these pebbles, stuffed them in his ears. He couldn't take it anymore. He's about six years old.

I love that guy. It's just life. It's how life is. It's not over the men and women.

Forget that. It's comical. Nobody's harmed by it. So anyway, but that comes out in the story. It's biblical, man. You can say that to your wives.

It's biblical. So, because she pressed him so much. There's the nagging.

But unfortunately, his motive to abandon his position wasn't, it wasn't noble. It was just, you know, annoying me so much here. Okay, here's the riddle. And he blurts it out. Verse 18. So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, what is sweeter than honey and what is stronger than a lion?

You can just see their smug faces. And he said to them, if you had not plowed my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle. Now, it reads as though he is calling the woman a heifer.

Yeah, she's a female. I mean, that's really the only connection. The heifers weren't used for plowing. So what do you, and a heifer by definition of that age, maybe even now, is that they did not yet have a calf. So the idea of the proverb is you cheated. That's what he's saying.

And he's using the, you know, it's an agrarian society. And he just said, you cheated. But it's a nice phrase to memorize. It's one of those scripture verses that you really never need, but it's fun to memorize. Verse 19. Then the spirit of Yahweh came upon him mightily and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of their men, took their apparel and gave the changes to those who had explained the riddle. So his anger was aroused and he went back up to his father's house.

This is the first fight scene of Samson with human beings that we have. And he could avoid it. He does, actually. He's really not making payment. He's voided out the agreement.

They voided it out by cheating. This is wrath. He was infuriated at their deception and going to her. She may have at some point said, well, they're going to kill me because he still wants to marry her, just not right away.

He's pretty hot. And so he goes to Ashkelon to find, I believe, a troop garrison, and that's who he kills. And he doesn't bring back clothing. He brings back armor.

And the strength of this is in the words. He doesn't use the same word. The translators, if you have a new King James, clothing is in italics, indicating that it's been inserted by the translators. But he says he took their apparel and gave the changes.

He's giving the armor. That's the Hebrew word there. And it shows up in other sections of scripture that way.

So Samson likely attacks a garrison and takes their armor, which is part of their clothing, as I believe it was Abner told Abishai, in case one of the young men killed him, take his armor, same Hebrew word in 2 Samuel 21. I hope I made that clear. So there's some ambiguity there. It's a word play in how he does it, also, in the Hebrew. It's a rhyme.

It's a word play. But going on the strength of the different words used in verses 13, where he talks about if you lose, you pay clothing. He comes back and he doesn't, not the same Hebrew word, giving them clothing, he's giving them armor. Maybe he took weapons or whatever it is, he came back and he said, don't mess with me again.

Take this. And they would have known he had to have killed Philistine troops to get what he brought back, and they would understand he was too strong for them. So the cycle of retaliation spreads or speeds up. In verse 20, and Samson's wife was given to his companion who had been his best man. Not the best man as we would think today. He may have been sort of the lead man of the party, the bridal party. He had his duties as this hired attendee, but he doesn't carry the idea that they were friends.

And so when we read it, we read this and we say, boy, that's pretty bad. What best man would do that? Well, a low down one would do it, but this man was removed from Samson and had no allegiance to.

In fact, they were enemies. So the Lord is going to use this turn of event, the giving of the woman he's betrothed to. He's going to just ramp everything up and the Philistines are going to pay. Here's a verse that I think applies to Samson nonetheless. Psalm 32 verses 8 and 9, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with the bit and bridal, else they will not come near you. And so there the Psalmist is saying, submit. Don't be like an animal. Samson's like an animal. And just brute strength and here he demonstrates his brute strength. He's pretty hot because he goes home to mom and dad. He doesn't consummate the marriage.

He doesn't stay there. And that's what we'll pick it up in the next chapter. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Judges. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. If you'd like more information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there and we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app or just follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. That's all the time we have for today. Join us next time to continue learning more from the book of Judges right here on Cross Reference Radio.