Samson’s War (Part B)

Do you have a great victory like this, and then to quickly be tested in the faith? No sooner had the Israelites come through the Red Sea than they were faced with hunger and thirst and they began bad-mouthing Moses, as we just read.

Elijah's great victory on Mount Carmel to end the drought, and then to run to the gates of the city and to beat the chariot, and then to be chased into the wilderness at the threat of a contract being put out on his life by Jezebel. And that's a lesson for us in scripture, to have a great victory, be careful, don't let your guards down. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Rick is currently teaching through the book of Judges.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will continue his study called Samson's War in Judges chapter 15. The Philistines knew how to use Goliath. Well, it didn't work in the end, but they had Samson. That would have been the match of the century, right? Samson versus Goliath.

One bing, boom, that would have been it. But anyway, that's how it went with David. So, he could have benefited from these 3,000 troops if he were a leader, to lead them into action against the Philistines and teach them a lesson, and that would have ended the rule, but the story does not come out that way. And the Jews feel like, well, we're sparing ourselves because these people are going to come in and kill us, so we'd rather hand over Samson. It's expedient for the nation that one suffer, as the words of Caiaphas that said over Christ. Of course, he prophesied, we're told that year, even though he did not know it. But instead of seeing Samson as a deliverer, as they should have, they considered him a troublemaker. He rocked the boat.

He just can't let sleeping dogs lie. We're doing all right. Yeah, we have to eat barley more than we get to eat wheat because of the Philistines, but that's okay. You develop, your palate begins to, you know, enjoy it after a while.

Put a little olive in there. I don't know. Such an enigma.

Was he really? Again, that's part of the enigma. Is he difficult to understand or is he very easy to understand? Is it just simply, he's just selfish.

The answer to everything he does wrong. Or is it more complex than that? And he said to Samson, do you not know that the Philistines rule over us?

What would Joshua and Caleb say about that? The church is also, today, is there a church that's just too awful to attend? Sure, there are.

Of course, somebody attends them nonetheless, so they wouldn't be in existence. But you have to ask if, you know, as an individual, am I too troublesome to work with? You know, there are people that just can't work in the ministry because they can't work with others.

They refuse to work with others. Fortunately, we don't see a lot of that, but you do see it from time to time. You know, someone says, well, we do it this way and they don't want to do it that way. And they don't, and they make a mess and if someone says, can you not do it that way because this way, and they get all offended. We would have been better off if they just didn't show up then. So it's nice when you have people that just go, aye aye, okay, that's all you want to do?

I can do that. You're not asking me to, you know, do something too difficult. You have to look at some of that in the story of Samson. Why is this Samson's war?

Why aren't the people in this too? And I think those are some of the factors. Well, it says that here in verse 11 at the bottom, as they did to me, so I have done to them. That's his motto. That was the cycle of vengeance that he introduced into the land. His eye for an eye approach.

Well, that's what you get. You know, if you're familiar with Fiddler on the Roof or Ritavia says when someone says to eye for eyes is, you know, by that, we'll all be blind and toothless. An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

And he's right. The law was not given, that motto of the law, that rule of law was given to the leaders to understand that they had to exercise just decisions and not play favorites. It was never intended to be permission for individual vendettas.

You did me wrong, now I'm going to do you wrong. Well, verse 12, but they said to him, we have come down to arrest you that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines. Then Samson said to them, swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves. Well, speaking about these men from Judah that have come to arrest him, you think of Peter. At least Peter drew his sword and swung it. He didn't just say, oh well, they're here to arrest you.

I mean, Peter, you got to love him. You just not attack him too much. You know, before you touch my Lord, I'm going to chop your head off.

It was his approach. And Christ essentially says, I really don't need this kind of help. So they reasoned that it's better for Samson to go to war or to jail than for them to go to war.

Maybe they were right. It says then Samson said to them, swear to me that you will not kill me. This was actually kind of noble of Samson. He didn't have to go with these guys.

As strong as he was, he probably could have outran all of them very easily. But he likely makes this request because he does not want to kill any of his own people. Because he's saying, I'm not going into anybody's hands. Nobody's going to kill Samson today, Philistine or not. And so he says, listen, if you're going to try to kill me, I'm going to hurt you.

He's not saying that, but that's probably what is happening here. Because by going to the Philistines, he's got to believe they're going to kill him. So what would be the purpose if he knew he was going to his death and he should have said, well, I'd rather die at the hands of my own countrymen than to give the enemy the satisfaction of killing me. And so in this connection, again, no record of any of the Jews dying or of Samson doing any violence to his own people. But in this connection, the great possibility of Samson flashes out. What he could have been. We know that he's a very intelligent man.

He makes riddles, he renames places. And I think that the men of Judah missed it. The men of Judah did not say, you know what, he's a noble man.

He could have resisted all of this. He just says, you guys going to hurt me? No, we're not going to hurt you. But they miss it. They're just so, their eyes are on the Philistines.

Nobody's looking up in this picture. So they spoke to him saying, no, verse 13, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand, but we will surely not kill you. And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock. Well, Samson thinks this is humorous. That comes out with Delilah. Well, if I'm bound with new ropes, I can't break them. Well, when he already did, they say he's going to taunt her with that. But what does he say at this point?

Thanks for not killing me and handing me over two killers. He has no intention of going with these men. He's going to pull them away from his people a little bit, but not out of sight of the fight that's about to take place.

Word evidently spread throughout the land of the Philistines and the Jews that Samson was invincible. And so nobody thought, though, that these old ropes would have been, you know, not as strong as the new ones was the thinking. I mean, I wonder how that all worked. Was there a hardware store on the way? Did someone say, better bring the new ropes with you?

It's always a cute little question, but. Verse 14, when he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then the spirit of Yahweh came mightily upon him and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire and his bonds broke loose from their hands.

Lehi, incidentally, means the jaw. Kind of worked out that way. Maybe it was named after these events when the historian pens the story because he lost the original name. The Philistines came shouting at him.

Big mistake. They just should have just, I don't know, taken him into the land and then let him go. The men that are coming at him, you get the feeling they're very angry.

They're shouting. Because Samson has probably killed many of their friends and family members and they hate him. And so this, a thousand men, that's an infantry battalion against one individual. So he's got one in a thousand chance.

But of course, with God, those statistics don't count. Then the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him. Strength outside of his own.

Supernatural strength. To take these ropes and just pull them off like that. I mean, you couldn't even do it easily with yarn, let alone ropes. You know, so many questions, you know, comical questions I have about these stories.

I would like to, okay, let's try it now with quarter inch steel cable. Okay, you got that one now. Verse 15, he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey reached out his hand and took it and killed a thousand men with it.

Just like that. Fresh jawbone, meaning not brittle. Perhaps the work of scavengers. Jackals would be good for the story. We don't know, but somehow there was a donkey that died not too long ago in that vicinity and old jawbone would have been too brittle and so he finds a fresh one.

Years ago, when I was in the military in Greece on the beach waiting to be picked up and taken back to ship where the food was really good. There on the beach is this jawbone next to me with the teeth still in it. It wasn't fresh, but the teeth were still in it and I presume it was the donkey's. It was long enough. Now, I had the jawbone, but I also had a 45 on my hip, so I wasn't too worried about the Philistines.

So he reached. Well, I think of that when I read the story. I remember I even took some of the teeth home. I've since lost them. I don't know.

They didn't fit, but they were huge and it was too small to be a horse and had to be a donkey and I wasn't a believer then, but when I became a believer and read the story, of course, connected the dots and I feel very special being able to share that with you. He says, thank you for not yawning. Reached out his hand and took it. He's a bit of a wild man. He can weaponize anything. He's like, I need something. He sees these thousand guys coming at him.

He says, hmm, fisticuffs is not the answer. I needed advantage. And there just so happened to be this jawbone and so instinctively he goes beast mode on everyone and killed a thousand men with it.

No other battlefield in the world like this one. The spectators, the Jewish spectators who could probably see this all taking place. Why didn't they rally to his side?

Well, first off, the Philistines and the Jews alike are anticipating his death at any moment and it never comes. They're just like, he's got to go. There's no way. Oh, man, this is getting in. They're like, we're into this like 15 minutes and still they can't make it.

He's not even coming near the guy. So as more than strength again, there's eye hand coordination, there's speed. I mean, this is a phenomenal thing. When we get to heaven, if there's a video section with documentaries on these things, this is going to be one of the first ones on the list.

Not at the top, but it's going to be in there. I'd like to make a, that would be a good series to teach, you know, things I'd like to see. You know, David dropping Goliath, the three men in the furnace, Daniel in the lion's den. Could you look at the face of those stupid lions? Like, we eat everybody.

How come we can't? I don't get it. Just so much funny things. I mean, the fish going through the Red Sea with Moses, were the fish like looking at the turtles in there looking out? Questions, questions, questions.

So many questions. The Bible is an exciting book. Yet, God says, yeah, read it and enjoy it. Then go live it.

Okay. Anyway, the spectators, they saw this, they were anticipating the death of their champion and it does not come. Did the men of Judah feel an urge to join him? Were there anyone in their ranks saying, you know, we just can't stand here?

But that's what they did. Verse 16, then Samson said after he kills them, with the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey, I have slain a thousand men. He slays the Philistines with the jawbone of this donkey. And then it's pun time.

It's time for him to wax eloquently, to shine out with his poetry. In the name of his holy, you know, weapon, this jawbone of a donkey. His triumphant words, it's a play on the Hebrew language. It's kind of interesting. The words for donkey, the word for donkey in the Hebrew is hamor, and the word for heap is Homer.

So it's very close to each other. And so it's sort of like, I slew a slew of them. I mean, that's not close to what he said, but that's the nature of the pun that he uses. And he's, so you think he would be too tired at this point to come up with poetry. Even when I'm fresh, I don't come up with poetry. Well, he is also parched, but he gets his poetry out and it's quite remarkable. He's a well-educated man, and he comes up with these things, you know, out of the eater came something sweet. I mean, he just sees these, he's creative like this. He sees humor and irony in everything, and the irony of this, and how humiliating.

He wiped out your army with what? The jawbone of a donkey? And the old King James even makes it more embarrassing for them. Well, Judah watched and Judah listened, and Judah even wrote down the poem, but they did not join the fight, and they don't even appear to pat them on the back. Verse 17, let me pause before I read.

The reason why I, one of the few reasons why I believe that Judah's watching is because of how the narrative is given to us. It says he found a fresh jawbone, reached out his hand, verse 15, and took it and killed a thousand men with it. Then verse 16, then Samson said with the jawbone of the donkey. Then he makes this speech, and he's probably crying it out aloud. And then it goes on to say in verse 17, where we are now, this is why I think they were close enough to hear and see it all, and so it was when he had finished speaking that he threw the jawbone from his hand and called the place Ramath-li-i, Jawbone Hill.

That's what that means. It's, you know, so he's still at it. He slays them, he says, you know, I slew a slew of them.

He's still got the jawbone in his hand, and visually they can see this, and then he throws the jawbone away, and he's to Jawbone Hill. That is Samson. It was a trophy to him. Abraham would have built an altar. David would have wrote a psalm.

Daniel would have knelt down, started worshiping the Lord in front of everybody, called out to Yahweh. Samson goes poetic about what he did, and he's going to criticize God in the process while he asks God for water. I don't know if you've ever heard the song Yesterday When I Was Young. It's such a tragic song. I liked the song. I don't want it to be about me, but I find it moving. But here's one of the parts of it. It says, I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out. I never stopped to think what life was all about, and every conversation I can now recall concerned itself with me or nothing else at all.

How perfect. It describes a professional athlete that becomes so selfish, so self-centered, that they're the star. Not just an athlete, but they're notorious for this. And I thought, you know, they played this song at Mickey Mantle's funeral.

And if you know Mickey Mantle, the baseball player's life, you can see the connection, because Mickey was just, he was actually a great boy from Oklahoma, but the fame got to him. And in the latter years, he looked back and that was, I regretted it. But this was Samson, too. That every conversation he could recall concerned himself with himself for nothing at all. I do not want to be that way.

There are those that will spin every conversation to something that is about them. Verse 18, then he became very thirsty. So he cried out to Yahweh and said, you have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised.

Going from the bottom up, we can see, again, he did not want to give satisfaction to the enemy of them killing him. But he's thirsty now. Then he became very thirsty, for water but not for God. This is the first time we hear him praying.

And what's it for? To satisfy a thirst for himself, empowered by the Lord, but still the flesh was so weak. We read of God doing for Samson, but we do not read of Samson doing for God, because God is going to give him the water. Is this a praise or protest?

Let's see it again. He became thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord and said, you have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant. Well, that's praise. And now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised.

That's a protest. Exodus 14, the Jews came to Moses after they were delivered from those butchering pharaohs. Then they said to Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us to bring us up out of Egypt?

And they were saying, so you freed us from one danger just to kill us with another. That's not what God is looking for. The three men that were in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, who came out with not even the smell of smoke on them, which is just another miracle baked into it, they were very grateful for God. But they also said at the very beginning that deliverance from the furnace was not required for them to be loyal to God. It's always worth reading that in Daniel, chapter 3, verse 16, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us from your hand, O king.

But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up. Oh man, I mean, you don't talk to a king like that ever in those days. I mean, Nebuchadnezzar was probably the most powerful king in all the Bible in the terms of just, he was so sovereign.

Just kill him. He could do anything he wanted. Wise men didn't tell him what his dream was, he just had them wiped out. He had power over the religious people. Usually, you know, the church, well not the church, but the religious folks and the royalty, they clash, but not with Nebuchadnezzar, and they stand up to him and they said, God doesn't have to save us for us to not worship what you're all about. Wow, we Christians should be remembering that more often in our lives. Proverbs 24. If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Yeah, but in the day of adversity, it's hard.

It's not always easy. So this indirect thank you at best, acknowledging what God did through him, soon takes a step backwards. You know, step forward, two steps backwards, and now he's suggesting that God had only done half the job in delivering him, and yet God in his mercy gives him the water.

So here we have this incredible victory that nobody saw coming. And in scripture, this is typical to have a great victory like this and then to quickly be tested in the faith. No sooner had the Israelites come through the Red Sea than they were faced with hunger and thirst and they began bad mouthing Moses, as we just read. Elijah's great victory on Mount Carmel to end the drought and then to run to the gates of the city and to beat the chariot on and then to be chased into the wilderness at the threat of a contract being put out on his life by Jezebel. And that's a lesson for us in scripture, to have a great victory, be careful.

Don't let your guards down. Verse 19. So God split the hollow place, that is Lehi, and water came out and he drank, and his spirit returned and he revived.

Therefore he called its name Ekachari, which is in Lehi to this day. So there he is again, poetry, he's naming places all over the place, Job on Hill. And now he names this, you know, Prayer Springs. You know, prayers are offered up and God answers and so he's still at it. God would have looked bad, yeah.

Samson died of thirst after he beat the Philistines. God wasn't going to let that happen, but Samson doesn't know how to even talk to the Lord, which suggests he doesn't know how to pray. Why would he not know how to pray?

Because he doesn't practice. You learn how to pray better as you go on in life, I hope we do. Although I do sometimes wonder if I'm learning. I try, I talk to God enough, but I always feel very comfortable talking to God. I know that he hears everything, and I know my place before him. Samson, you read the story, he said, do you know you're talking to Samson? He's not one of these thousand guys. When do we get to the part where Samson thanks God? We don't. And God ministers to his outer man how much, how ready God would have ministered to the inner man.

I don't want to be like this. Therefore he called the name Ekachari. Again, the spring of one calling, or prayer springs, and so the Jawbone Hill and Prayer Springs, two names that he pins onto the, he defines these places.

These dramatic names demonstrates his creativity. Verse 20, and he judged Israel 20 years in the days of the Philistines. Well he must have had more to him than just what we've read so far. For him to survive 20 years of judgeship in Israel. It does imply that he did actually lead or preside over hard decisions in the lives of the people. But he was false to his calling.

His flesh will again rear its ugly head and dominate and lead him into self-indulgence, which will end in his untimely death. Going back to the song Yesterday When I Was Young, there's another line in here that I think fits the life of Samson. The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned.

I always built a lass on weekend shifting sand. I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day, and only now I see how the years ran away. That's Samson. Spurgeon said his whole life was a series of miracles and follies. So this one man, Samson, watching this Samson's war, we look at this and see this is how not to live, how not to be the believer. And perhaps this victory though changed him a little bit, and that's why we have at the end of this chapter that he judged 20 years in the days of the Philistines, which is a remarkable accomplishment nonetheless. Well, next session we get to the end of Samson, the climactic story of Samson and Delilah. 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.