Samson – The Blinded Champion (Part B)

There's never a shortage of blasphemers against Christ. Pray to God there's never a shortage of Christians to meet these things head on. Satan, of course, he is the author of the fake gods, but men are the publishers. They're the ones that are, they're like the newsies. They're out there getting the word out on street corners, making these false opinions about God available.

Satan's goal, and he's achieved it, has been to flood the earth with lies about the true God. 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. Samson, the Blinded Champion, is the title of Pastor Rick's message. He'll be teaching in Judges chapter 16. So again, some time since his betrayal with Delilah, to Dargan their god. This is his temple, and we'll get that in verse 28. That's where they're going to meet. Now this temple was sort of an arena. It was large enough to hold probably 7,000 people, so 6 or 7,000 people. We know that because 3,000 of them were on the roof.

That leaves those down below on the first floor. This name, Dargan, is a disputed name by theological linguist, linguistic experts. The Hebrew root is fish, but the Arabic is grain. So is he the god of the sea, because the Philistines were people of the sea, or were they worshipping him as a god who provided grain, which is in line with most other peoples of the world that worship idols. They worship the creature that gives them the life, the worship of the sun, you know, the Mayans and the Incas, the same, you know, worshiping those things that produced for them, the mountains, the hills, from where the rains would come.

I think it is the god of grain. I think it's symbolic also in the story because Samson set fire to their grain fields, perhaps mocking their god. Either way, they would have connected it that they got him now, the one who stole their grain, hit their economy very hard, as well as their military. If this guy didn't get stopped, the Philistines would have been reduced to a marginal people and eventually gone, which did happen to them, just not in Samson's lifetime. So Dagon, their god, is his temple that they're going to, and it says here, and to rejoice, of course, over the conquest of Samson.

The Jews would later rejoice over the conquest of Haman, just saying. And they said, our god has delivered into our hands Samson our enemy. There's never a shortage of fake gods. There's never a shortage of wrong views about the true god. There's never a shortage of blasphemers against Christ. Pray to God there's never a shortage of Christians to meet these things head on. Satan, of course, he is the author of the fake gods, but men are the publishers.

They're the ones that are, they're like the newsies. They're out there getting the word out on street corners, making these false opinions about God available. Satan's goal, and he's achieved it, has been to flood the earth with lies about the true God.

This, of course, gives some people an excuse, in the same way you can, who can tell? Who can tell who is God and who is not? All these junk gods out there. You know, I can't believe there's only one God.

You probably may have heard that line. I can't believe there's only one way to God. Who's to say that another person's God is false and another one is real?

They all can't be false, things like that. Dave Hunt responds to this, especially the, you know, who's to say that one is false and another is not? Why can't they all be gods? Dave Hunt says, if there is more than one God, then who is in charge? It's typical Dave Hunt style. Again, wouldn't it be God that he would raise up a Dave Hunt or an A. W. Tozier before the final call?

He continues Dave Hunt. He says, if one God is stronger or has more authority than the others, then none of the rest of the gods can really be God. That's what the Greeks and the Romans got wrong. If he's a god, by definition, he's omnipotent. Or else he's not a god.

He's a bench warmer or something. He's a created being, but he's not God. The definition, and this is where we come in when we, when someone says, oh my God, well, what is your God? Tell me about your God.

Because I perceive he's a doofus. And then I'll tell you about my God. And we're supposed to say to them, listen, by definition, a god is omnipotent and not to be messed with. And to use his name for every stupid thing that comes in your sight is not honoring any kind of omnipotent, all-powerful, self-existent, holy and righteous being. And so these little things count to the Christian church. That's why we are students of the Old Testament as well as the New Testament is God's word to us.

It's interesting how, well, did I finish the Dave, no, it's one other thing. He says, so if one God is stronger or has more authority than the others, then none of the rest of the gods can really be God, so we are back to monotheism, end quote. It comes right back to, it's only one God. The Trinity is not three gods. This is some of the difficulties the apostles had to face in writing the New Testament, is presenting the Trinity without sending this message to a polytheistic world that we Christians have three gods. And so it is veiled, but it is there nonetheless. And when you are born again, the veil comes up enough, not all the way, because we're not capable of fully understanding everything there is to understand about God, and even that much is too much.

But we can understand enough. Those of the world who have fake gods, they do not approach other truths this way. Only when it comes to the only true God do they kind of become very careless.

For instance, their pay stubs or their refunds, they make sure those line up with the facts as best they can. But the facts concerning God, his truth, it doesn't matter to them. And so Paul says about Satan, his work on the people who think this way, of which I was once, he says, whose mind the God of this age is blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. Can you imagine that being said about any angel that Michael is the image of God? It would be blasphemy. You see, that's that veil trinity, that veil, the deity of Christ. I mean, it's none higher than God. We know the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity because Jesus said, you know, you can go ahead and make mistakes in your speech about the Father and the Son, but if you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you can't say that about Michael or Gabriel or Moses or Paul or yourself or anyone else except God. See, these truths are woven into the scripture, and the Jehovah's Witnesses don't want to see it, the Mormons do not want to see it, and they will be held accountable for this. Even, you know, Roman Catholicism has their doctrine that really hell is empty, and this contradicts other doctrines they have, surprise, but they want to try to draw out the love of God, which reduces the commandments to God to, really it makes God a liar in that view because he's promised judgment to those who reject him, and to suggest that ultimately everybody ends up in heaven, the universal God of everyone, Father of everyone, is to make a mockery, to say that, well, Jesus did all the dying for everybody. He loves to forgive and I love to sin, Voltaire's words. I think it was Voltaire.

I don't know. The older I get, the less I read those things and I just go from memory and I mess them all up, but I get close enough to hit the bullseye in some weird way. Sunday I'm told I made a few mis-words, but that's okay, keep you on your toes. Psalm 86 verse 10, the Psalms are this, life squeezing faith out of people, that's what the Psalms are.

Some of them you catch on a good day, some of them you catch on a bad day. All of them are before the throne of God. Even Psalm 88, which does not have a happy ending, the only one, still they're before the throne of God, voicing or expressing themselves before God's throne. If the Bible were a man-made book, that would have been a good Psalm to edit out. Psalm 86 verses 8 through 10, among the gods there is none like you, O Yahweh, nor are there any works like your works. All nations whom you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name, for you are great and do wondrous things. You alone are God, which of course repulsed the peoples around the Jews, the Canaanites, because they believe, okay, your God is over there in the valley and my God's over here in the mountains and they just made room for each other.

Their chariots would have bumper stickers like co-exist made out of all the symbols of the different religions that trying to synchronize God, the righteous Jews felt that was blasphemous and that just brought anger against them as it does with the Christians. So then when we in the workplace where we find ourselves saying, no, I think that's a lie right out of hell, but they cherish that lie, we become their targets. So that Psalm says in the face of Dagon, that's what we've been discussing, the work of Satan, flooding the earth with false ideas about God. God's response to that is the church. And when the church is no longer able to do that, she is withdrawn. And Antichrist comes to power because the Holy Spirit is no longer restraining as he was.

He's still restraining, still is planet, but he is withdrawn and allowed the evil to move forward to bring in the great tribulation period. And so this has everything to do with one's God that they worship and the Philistines here, sort of a microcosm of the world today, gathering around to rejoice in the destruction of a true believer because that true believer was a threat to everything they stood for. And that's why the world persecutes us.

Jesus said the world can't persecute you because you're of the world. Well verse 24, when the people saw him, that is Samson, they praised their God for they said our God has delivered into our hands our enemy, the destroyer of our land, and the one who multiplied our dead. That's experience theology. They're saying because we've experienced a victory, our God must be right. Never mind all the other weird and wacky things about your God that cannot be proven. And so, the people saw him, they had their version of Hallelujah praise the Lord.

It was a defiled version. Samson to them was like a monster. He was a juggernaut. They couldn't stop him.

There was nothing they could do. It was like Superman. And to see him like this brought them not only relief, but ecstasy. Samson had helped them in their false beliefs by the way he lived. He gave them sort of a, he gave them reason to believe in their lie. And we know that Nathan the prophet said that to David. You've given the enemies of the Lord grounds to blaspheme David. They're going to point their finger at Yahweh because of what you did. Verse 25, so it happened when their hearts were merry that they said call for Samson that he may perform for us.

So they called for Samson from the prison and he performed for them and they stationed him between two pillars. Were they allowed to drink at this religious festival today God? It's suggestive language so it happened when their hearts were merry.

When the Bible uses that it's usually merry with wine. And so at this time the air filled with all this excitement. They've worn out their you know, they've already socialized themselves. They've exhausted that form of the festival. Now let's bring in the entertainment. This reminds me of Revelation 11. When the two witnesses are killed they'll get up again of course. Revelation 11 10 and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them. Make merry and send gifts to one another because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. By standing for righteousness they tormented them. By not allowing them to carry on their debauchery they were tormented. Never mind what they do to others. In this world needs a righteous God.

Has one, just refuses him. They said call for Samson that he may perform for us. Comedy and entertainment from Samson. There's two different Hebrew words. I'm using the New King James and the word performed is twice said in this verse and they're two different Hebrew words both translated to perform. It's one of my problems I have with the translators. I wish they were a little bit more consistent when in making distinctions between words.

It would really help us a lot. Here is this Nazarite reduced to a sideshow. Proverbs 6 26 for by means of a harlot a man is reduced to a crust of bread. Something really nobody wants. Not what it used to be. Not what it was intended to be.

Not something to look forward to. So they called for Samson from the prison and he performed for them. The strong man, the showman.

That's what he is now. Now back to these Hebrew words. Both carry the idea of entertaining people and comedy.

A laugh. They mocked him. He reads better this way using the two words performed. Bring Samson so he can have a laugh and when he arrived he played the comedian.

That's how it's the kind of use of the word performed twice in this. And so here he is and they're just yucking it up. He is performing for them. Now maybe he's dancing. Well if there were men there with whips you could understand he would do a dance.

It would be better to do a dance than get a whip. Or he is pantomiming. He's witty. We know that. He's a sharp cookie in his head.

He's just shallow. But he is performing for them. That is what the text tells us. They again think he is harmless because they believe they've tamed him.

And they have. Were it not for God. In fact, so docile to Samson that they have assigned a lad to lead him around as a seeing lad boy. And they stationed him between the pillars.

Big mistake by God's design. The ones on the roof they have the bird's eye view. They've turned this into a makeshift theater. This will be a high body count.

Nobody knows what's coming. Samson, I believe, knows what he wants to do. Verse 26, then Samson said to the lad who led him by the hand, let me feel the pillars which support the temple so that I can lean on them.

Euphemism. Here is our eyewitness. It reads the story does as though none of the adults survive. This lad survives to tell the story. And this indicates that he lives.

The lad. Let me feel the pillars, verse 26, which support the temple so that I can lean on them. Now again, 3,000 capacity on the roof, probably 3,000, 4,000 below where the colonnades were. Samson made enough trips to Gaza to have spied out, you could say. Not with this intention, but this was likely, you know, this was the temple of Dagon.

The Jews really didn't have anything. Their temple was still a tent. So he would have observed it. Very possible because of its arena type structure that from the outside he could see, when his eyes were still with him, he could see that the structure depended on just two columns. He could have looked at that and said, you know what, look at that. Those load-bearing beams.

Take out those two columns, the whole thing falls down. He had to have had some prior knowledge. Or he's quizzing the lad, which is not likely.

What's the little lad going to know about load-bearing columns? So he's got an idea of the battlefield that he is choosing. Most generals do. And Samson is a one-man army.

He is the general of his one-man army, of course. So he says in verse 26, let me feel the pillars which support the temple so that I can lean on them. So he specifies the ones that support the temple. You would think, when you look at some of the ancient temples, you think, well, there are many pillars. And to take out two of them is not going to fell the entire temple.

You'll get a portion of it. So Samson must have again known that, no, this one is a little unique. And it's probably not all stone. It could have been wooden beams that were there, very likely. But because it's not the stone that's killing the people, it's the people falling and landing on each other and the materials of the building.

You put it all together. Some of them probably died slow deaths, trapped underneath the rubble and each other. But here's Samson. It was bad to be defeated, but he was not content with that. He did not leave it at that. In the prison house of his abusers, he wanted to get even. And this was going to give him that opportunity. To get to that place, he had to retain a defiant spirit. Defiance of his enemies in his mind allowed him to make up his mind that if I ever get a shot, I'm going to do as much harm to them as I could. Because he doesn't pray that God gives him the strength to overpower his guards.

He sort of just waits when he was considering his ways. Verse 27. Now the temple was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there, about 3,000 men and women on the roof, watching while Samson performed.

Now you catch that? Now the temple was full of men and women. That's one thought. All the lords of the Philistines were there, five of them, with their entourage.

That's another thought. About, and in my New King James verse, there is an endash between the Philistines there and about 3,000 translators picking up that this is another thought. So you have the temple full, you have the lords, and then you have about 3,000 men and women on the roof in the bleachers watching Samson perform.

Likely an atrium. There's an open space and they're surrounded, you know, and he's down in the pit like in an arena, and they can see this, a full temple where it says all the lords of the Philistines were there, all of the big shots. This is not only a target-rich environment, it is loaded with high-valued targets, and it is going to be catastrophic for the Philistines when he's finished with them.

He's going to buy enough time for the Jews to raise up a David to deal with the Philistines thoroughly. So verse 28, then Samson called to Yahweh saying, O Lord, that's Adonai, then Yahweh follows, O Lord, Yahweh, remember me, I pray, strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes. This is the second time we hear of Samson calling on the Lord. The first one was for water, and this one's for slaughter.

One of those things that works out in the language. After he slew a thousand men, he called out to the Lord for water, and God gave him water to drink. Here, he's calling on God so that he can slaughter those in revenge for taking his eyes. And so he says, saying, O Lord, remember me, I pray, strengthen me, I pray, just this once, and this is how we know that his hair was not the source of his strength because he's going to, he has to be granted this prayer, hair or no hair. He says, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines. God's going to answer this. I believe at this point he senses God's going to answer this and dispatches the lad. Well, after the last words of Samson when he says, let me die with the Philistines, the kid was scooting.

He was running for his life, I'm sure. So anyway, God's going to grant this prayer. Here in the pagan God's temple, the righteous man is praying. God is overruling the false god and granting the prayer, because of course that's what makes him God. He overrules all the others. But he says here, from my two eyes, it's unpardonable what they've done to me, still falling short of the ideal. Instead of saying, Lord, let me execute judgment to deliver your people from these oppressors, because these people were vicious. You saw what they did with his eyes. I mean, instead of just killing him, we saw what they did with his wife and her family, burning them alive to death.

These were vicious people. And so he doesn't say that I can strike a blow on the enemy. He says, no, this is from my two eyes. He's just such a self-centered guy to the end. He can't help himself. I don't think that made him all a bad guy, but he's still not the kind of guy he would have wanted to share a room on the road with, you know, if I was something. He just, he probably just made you annoyed after, why are you so vain, Samson? Everything's about you.

So, verse 29, and Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced himself against them, one on his right hand and the other on his left. Well, idiocy brought him here. His own idiocy, not a car.

I mean, what model do you drive? An idiot. Anyway, he's going to make it work for him. They've done this to me. I have a chance to strike them back. I don't think he was thinking, I'm going to kill them all. I think he was saying, I'm going to just kill as many of them as I can. The five lords of the Philistines are here. I'm going to take these guys out.

And he braced himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left. Not to mention this, now I calculated, I think, 3,000 people at about 140, 145 pounds. You've got over 400,000 pounds of people added to the structure. They're going to be coming down, breaking the next one. They need the people down below. Verse 30, I mean, just picture that, 3,000 people falling in this collapsed building.

It's probably just like a two-story building. This is, um, glad I wasn't there, kind of a thing. Verse 30, then Samson said, let me die with the Philistines. And he pushed with all his might and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it.

So the dead that were killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life. 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.