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bless you. Can we bow our head and close our eyes and let us pray? Lord, we praise you. We glorify your name. We acknowledge that you are the king of kings and the lord of lords. You are a God who provides. You're a God who give all things that we need in our life even the eternal life. Lord, give us wisdom today as we hear your word. Open our eyes in our minds that we will be able to understand what you want to say to us. Talk to us Lord God that we be able to see our life as we listen to your word
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and be able to a life according to your will. We praise you. We glorify your name in Jesus name we pray. Amen. We are going to through a series of three messages about the life of Samson and I'm sure you have already heard the first of the series last Sunday, the birth of Samson. Today we are going to hear the second part of the life of his life, the rise of Samson. But before we move on to the main topic, I would like to give you a little background about this story so we could understand theation of the message today.
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Whenever we hear the name Samson of the Bible, what is the first thing that comes out into our mind? We think of superhero, right? Maybe maybe we think of the super strength or his long hair. We also think of Delila, >> a woman who brought Samson down. In fact if the life of Samson was a story, it would compete that of anything Shakespeare wrote. Unfortunately, Samson's life is a tragic hero amazing deeds are overshadowed by disastrous failures in life. Overpowered by the by the spirit, Samson was called with the
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purpose and yet live a life dominated. by the flesh. You know, to understand Samson's time, we must understand we must understand the time of judges in Israel. If you remember, God had chosen Israel as his nation, brought them out of his slavery in Egypt, has given them his law to live by, and placed them in the promised land. They were expected to live like his people to be holy because God is holy into the prom land under the leadership of Joshua but after Josed things began to head into a downfire
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very fast to see what the book of is all about from chapter 1 summarizes into this last the says in judges 21:25, "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. You know this verse summarizes the whole period that the book of judges covers. The book is a 300ye history of what happens when a nation depends on its own sense of morality rather than of gods. The book is a record of Israel's dark ages. Joshua had even before there was a king to lead God's people to what's right.
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And so they did what's what was the right in their own eyes. So it was so depressing situation in the life of the Israelites with their soci where their society was filled with murder, filled with rape, idolatry, homosexuality, betrayal, deceat, fornication, adultery, divorce in all kinds of wickedness. The Israelites who are God's people who have done what was right most of the time during Joshua's time now have walk away from God doing what was right in their own eyes. So God punishes his people for their
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sins. In the book of judges we see the cycle of sin of the Israelites. The cycle of sin, servitude, supplication, salvation and security. You see, Israel would sin. follow up idols and reject God. So God would raise up people around them toess them and make them slaves. They would cry out to God and he would raise up a judge or deliverer to save them. Then there would be a time of peace and after the judge died Israel would go back to sinning and the cycle would repeat. To deliver Israel from oppression. God
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would raise up a judge which was basically a military or a civil leader who would defeat the enemy and led the people for a period of time. There is where we come to Samson as one of the judges called by God. Israel have been through this cycle time and time again. That's why it says inudes 131 this time is against God again and let thees rule over andess them for 40 years and surprisingly this time they did not out to God to deliver them. They never complain. They were contented being slaves to the Philistines. You see, in
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the past, Israel can feel the suffering of their from their oppressor and they cry out to God for help. But now their enslavement is virtually unconscious because its nature is that of cultural accommodation. The Israelites do not grown and resist their captors now because they have completely accepted and adapted to the values and customs of the of the Philistines even in worshipping their idols. There is absolutely no conflict at all between the Philistines and the Israelites. But God was to faithful to them.
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He is faithful to his promise that he will bless his chosen nation and to keep that promise he took the initiative to deliver them from their oppressor and he chson he chson to do so you know god plan a special life for god visited par and wife the angel tell them will a son. This couple was under old age and they have been childless for many years. The angel told the couple that the boy will be special for the Lord. This was not just an ordinary normal life or call of living a normal life but a special
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one to God that is in this two factors. One Samson has to be dedicated to God as a Nazarite for his entire life. You see a naite is a person consecrated to the service of God and there is a special bow to put restriction in his life. You will see the list of rules to conform in Numbers chapter 6:es 1 to 12. And this include that the food that Samson must eat that's one that he will not cut his hair with erasor nor to be near to a dead body. So Samson has to follow all the bows he has made to the Lord.
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Violation of this calling will play an important part in the life of Samson and will lead to the downfall of his life. So a bow was just a list of rules to conform but it was an outward expression of an inward dedication to God. Number two, apart from being a Nazarite, God called him to deliver Israel from the Philistines. We see that the Philistines is settled and living normal lives in the Israelite territory. They rule the Israelites at this time as mentioned in Judges 14:4 and judges 1511. You see we cannot exaggerate the danger
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to Israel during this time. The Israelites were on the brink of extension. with a couple of generations they could have been completely integrated into theilist nation a nation that is idol soon was called by god to deliver the chosen nation out fromines and samson grew according to god's plan says in verse on judges 1324 to 25 you see samson's name in original Hebrew word is shimson from the term shimes omagen meaning wall and protector or from the word shimes which means his name for shadow the man he would
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become a mighty son who would shield and people gre up the lord bless him body and mind for something and extraordinary. Now after such a remarkable way of growing up under the blessing of the Lord I am sure with great expectations we want to know the details of Samson's vocation how will this promise deliverer who has been consecrated to the Lord to bring about the salvation of Israel unforun life is one of contradiction He was a man of great physical strength yet displayed great moral weakness.
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He continually broke the rules of Nazarite but God came upon him many times giving him strength to fight the now how can it be that God used even sinful man to accomplish his will this is what we're going to see in the life of Samson and the title of the message is the rise of Samson empowered by the spirit to achieve God's purpose. But dominated by the flesh in fighting the Philistines. First, let us see Samson's life as dominated by the flesh to fight the Philistines. You see, in the next verses, let us see the stages
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of life that Samson live opposite to what the Lord has called him to do. Let's see first the marriage chapter 14 of the book of judges tells us that when Samson grew up he said I saw a woman inna one of the daughters of the Philistines now therefore get her for me as a wife. When Samson decided to marry a Philistine woman in Timna it was a violation of being a Nazarete. You see, according to the law, according to God's law, Israelite cannot enter Mary with foreigners. This was not because God promoted
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racism, no. But because by marrying this pagance, they would turn the hearts of God's people away from God. You see the biblical prohibition was not against interracial marriages but against interfate marriages. The main issue was that such marriages weaken a believer's loyalty to God because of idolatry. And that was what happened with the Israelites as it says in Judges 3:6. And they took their daughters for themselves as wives and gave their own daughters to their sons and serve their
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gods. You see, even apostle Paul the appeal to believers who are single and planning to get married not to enter into a binding partnership with those who do not worship true and living God. So even says in Corinthians 6:14, "Do not be bound together with unbelievers for what partnership have righteousness and lowness or what fellowship has light with darkness or what harmony has Christ with bilal or what has a believer in common with unbeliever or what agreement has the temple of God with idols for we are the temple of the
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living God just as God said I will dwell in them and walk among them and I will be their God. and they shall be my people. You say the word bound together in other translation it says y it refers to several kinds of binding relationship but at least it would mean marriage which is the most binding of all human relationship. You see if we understand this verse it might probably lead us to conclude that the Bible is concerned about the unbelieving spouse will try to convert the believer. Some of you may say this is not a
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problem to me. I can marry him or because he or she completely respects my faith and I will allow me to total freedom to practice it. But remember the context of each of this text is not other formal religion but idolatry. Idolatry is displacing a true and living God by worshing images. When you don't share faith with your spouse there's a great pressure to adapt to that by pusing God more to the sideline of your life. You are in an intimate relationship with someone who does not understand what the very motivation of
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everything should be in that is together to worship and serve a true God. However, we should also remember as Paul insist as Paul insist that a Christian who is married to a nonch seek divorce from him or her but should actively seek to build a good marriage. Now let's go with the samstons ridle. Now the time has come for the wedding. In order to understand this we need to know a little bit about the marriage custom of Samson's day. Basically it is started with agreement to be married. The agreement called a betrotal
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was usually arranged by the parents. The betrotal period lasted anywhere from 6 months to 1 year. And then at the end of which there was a 7day wedding feast at the end of the feast the marriage was consumated that is the basic picture behind judges 14 on the first day of the stth day wedding feast samson began by offering a ridle to the 30 Philistine groomsmen. It was a kind of friendly battle ofs. It was very common in those days. The ribil the ridle involved the honey that Samson took from the carcass of the
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lion that he had killed. The riddle went this way. Out of the eater came something to eat and out of the strong came something sweet. No doubt the ridle announced with the great and with amusement but there was a cutson offered a bet along with the 30 gr had 7 days told the if they did would give them 30 linen gs of could not the The days pass but the grooms could not figure it out. By theth day the grooms were getting nervous so they approach bride and made her offer could not refuse. What is your wife's strategy when she
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wants something from you? What is your strategy? Does she nag or bother you up intensely to the point of crying hard until she gets what she wants? For 3 days, Samson's bride cried and pleaded with him to tell her the ridle. Finally the 7th day came and just before sandown he told the secret why did you wait 3 days and then finally tell her because on the evening of the 7th day the marriage will be consumated and that's what Samson was waiting for. He became a man driven entirely by his
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flesh. And at this point the l of the flesh overshadowed his good sense of keeping the secret of the ridle and then he revealed it to his wife. See the little episode is almost over. The grooms men know the secret of the ridle and they came to Samson. At the last moment with the answer heed was filled with sarcasm. As it says in Judges 148, if you have not plowed with my hipper, you would not have found out my rhyth. See now, Samson has lost the bet before the sun went down, before the marriage will be consumated,
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he has to find 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes. What did he do to pay the bet? It says in judges 14:19 to 20, here is the solution. He went down to Askalon, struck down 30 of their men, stripped them of their belongings, and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. What Samson did was killing 30 Philistines to pay off his bet. It also mean that he had to touch their dead bodies in order to get their clothes. A clear violation of the bow. You see was angry because he has been
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publicly humiliated betrayed by his bride and embarrassed by the grooms men. But if we analyze analy this earlier action if you are going to analyze what was there to be angry about he was the one who went to Philistine territory in the first place he was the one who picked out the girl he was the one who decided to marry her he was the one who thought up the riddle he is the one who made the bet is the one who named the priz was the only One who knew the secret is the one who gave the secret away.
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He can only blame himself for the mess and nobody else. Sometimes it's happen to us, right? We do something against the will of God, make a wrong choice, got the wrong direction and when things miss up, we blame others up to the point of blaming God. You see basic problem is that he never learned to control his anger. Time and again this attitude got him into trouble. Now can we see ourselves in the life of maybe most of us cannot still relate. We say that we are Christians. We say that we have been chrans for a very long
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time. We say that we are not only nominal Christians but workers of God in his kingdom. And yet we live a life of anger, hatred, and bitterness. We are used to live to living a kind of life that we thought is just normal and acceptable to be to our society justifying our acts saying anyway I don't murder like Samson but these are the are Jesus own words in Matthew 5:21 to24 you have heard that ancient were told you shall not commit a murder and whoever commits mother shall be alliable to court but I say to you that everyone
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who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court and whoever says to his brother you're good for nothing shall be guilty before the supreme court so samson is perfect picture of a believer out of control can we now see our true in him we in front of god believer and most of all nonbeliever Almost everyone here get angry right at least once this past week it may have been minor frustrations with your spouse or being irritated with your kids it could have been a situation at work misunderstanding that led to
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conflict with fellow worker some of your husband and wives live with daily anger and heart feelings. Some of your parents and children are in constant battle of us outbor anger and abusive words. You see, think of what would happen if everyone learns to deal with his anger. Surely there will be harmony in the workplace in the home in the church in the community child abuse and divorce would be eradicated murder terrorism and war would stop now can we now look at the eyes of this person sitting beside us
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can we see can we have a look at the person sitting beside us anger is normally seen in a person's eyes can We see in the rise, surrender it to God and be relieved. Now let's see the next one. Samson burn the Philistine crops. Now burning with anger, Samson went up to his father's house. This means he woke out of the married ceremony. He was angry. He wanted nothing to do with the marriage and Samson's wife was given to a best man who had attended him at his wedding a few mon it was now the time of the
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harvest and took a goat as a gift to his bride he was married out her could come back to when he arrived at her house he said to his father I'm going to visit my wife's room but her father would not let him go why not well because was already married to somebody else then her father tried to make a deal I was so herer sister more attra active take her instead she's better looking anyway now samson was upset for two reasons. Number one he was upset because his wife was gone. Number two, he was upset
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because the father has now insulted him. So Samson paid to them said to them, "This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines. I will really harm them." So he caught 300 foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. Once he had the tails tied together, he passed the torch. to every pair of tails and lit them. Samson lit torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the philistines. So the foxes were so scared to death where they went to different directions and burn up the shocks of the
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standing grain together with the vineyards and the olive gropes. Now we need to understand that the Philistines had only three important crops as their source of living. One was set, one was olives, and the other was grapes, vineyards. Samson singlehandedly destroyed their source of everyday life. The Philistines of course they were not happy when they asked this who did this they were told that Samson has done it because his wife was given to another man so the Philistine went up and burn her and her father to death.
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Then Samson did another thing to get revenge on the Philistines. He said, "Since you acted like this, I won't stop until I get my revenge on you." So Samson was extremely angry man at this point. By the way, did you notice that what was happening here? If you notice what was happening here, can you see the cycle of reveng there cycle of the do somethinges something only time getting more and more serious and more and more brutal and more and more We try to seek reveng for the wrong to
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us. When we sit in motion of ending cycle of violence the only way to get out of the cycle of violence is not to seek reveng in the first place. As long as we want to get even, we're going to a more serious and life threereatening situation. Can you still follow me? >> Amen. >> Are you still there? >> Okay. You see, almost everyone is here is driving a car. Yes, we are all driving a car. Amen. Amen. >> Okay. Do you remember when someone cuts your lane or suddenly slows down in
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front of you while driving in the past lane? Can you remember? We can easily get angry, right? And we want to get even. What do we normally do? We speed up and do the same thing until we get into a car chase and put our life into a threatening situation. Have you been in this kind of situation before or most of the time? Oftentimes we try to justify this kind of reaction as something normal to all drivers. But is provocation and pride pleasing unto the Lord? You know, whenever I'm in that kind of
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situation, my wife will always remind me this words. Why do you have to do that? Be patient. Ar you a pastor? You see what I do is I slow down on a slow lane until I cannot see the other car again. But now look what happened here. Samson said to them, I won't stop until I get my reveng on you. That's why in verse 8 he struck them rotlessly with a great slaughter. Do you know what Samson did at this point? His anger has consumed him. When he kills them, he rips them apart. Hip and tie. In the next verses, the Philistines were
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looking for Samson. 3000 men from Judah went down to the rock ofam to look for it took 3000 men to make them feel safe going down to see one of their own men Samson 3000 so the Israelites were scared to death of the Philistines they were so frightened that they approached Samson asking him to surrender. So they were to accustom to the status c of being ruled by the Philistines and they agreed that they will not kill Samson and they will just bind him and give him into the hands of the Philistines.
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And what happened next? Samson killed 1000 Philistines. So here he comes Samson his hands bound with two new ropes walking toward the Philistines in as he approached the Philistines came toward him shouting they were thinking they had finally got Samson suddenly the ropes dropped from his hand samson found a fresh jobone of a donkey. Fresh means donkey that has not been dead very long. He pick it up strip of the skin anded into the Philistines. The Bible says he killed 1000 men with the Joe bone of a
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and you may ask how did he do it? Well, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe he took a rope and tied it on the end of the one of the end of the jubil and tied the other end around his wrest and swang it over his head. You could do some serious damage that way. And then eventually it's all over. The Philistines have leaving the ble the battlefield lit dead bodies. That's the life of Samson. dominated by the fles in fighting for the Philistines but in spite of being dominated by the fles
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god still empowered Samson by his spirit to achieve his purpose. You see when I was studying the life of Samson one intriging questions keep bothering me. How can God evidently use such blood sinful person to get his work done? We expect that God will use people who are good and godly, people with the right beliefs and with right behavior to do his to do his will to do his plan. Have you noticed that when Samson went to kill and when he t the lion into hs we the spirit of the lord came upon him
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might this was mentiones that even though was going against godf his purpose you seeon could have chosen a different part to take he can fulfill the mission to set for him in a way that would still be pleasing with the god but in spite of Being impulsive and making pleasing to God, he make irrational decisions. God continue to work to him to get the best of him in order to achieve his purpose. Church, listen to this. God's plan of delivering his chosen nation from the Philistines is clearly shown in this crucial verse.
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It says in Judges 14:4, however his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord for he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. Now at the time the Philistines were ruling over Israel. say that it was of the Lord for he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. This is the key to understanding the whole story of God uses the very weakness of Samson his mingling with Philistines, his sexual craving, his benct and temper to bring about confrontation between the two nations.
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Samson's weaknesses became a blood feud that leads to more and more conflict and finally the division the separation between these two nations that is so desperately needed as Israelites are almost integrated in the life of the Philistines. If you have noticed everyone in the story was acting out of his own ungodly character, right? Samson in his impulsive selfishness, the Philistine woman in her manipulatedness, the Philistine men in their violent threats and so on. They were all responsible for what they
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did. But God work it all together for a good purpose. He arrang things so that all the character sinful deed work out to separate this two nation and Israel will be free and will be identified again as a chosen nation of God. And during this conflicts, during this conflict God is just supernaturally supplying Samson a superhuman strength, a superhuman physical strength for the plan to work. achose do you think god is condoning the sins ofson god is just still got the consquences of actions in the last stages of life
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god unconditionally comm toen prom is sitation godful to his promes that he not only fulfills them in spite of their sin but even through their sins he uses their own selffulness to bring about deliverance church please remember this god's purpose for our lives is way greater than our biggest mistakes god's purpose for our lives is way greater than our biggest mistakes. We might have gone through this kind of situation or we might be at present in a similar situation. Time and again, we may be committing big
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mistakes in our lives. But we must realize that each problem and trial we face bring lessons that we need to learn. Even if don't understand it is very sure that will come to a point in our lives that all things will make sense during this lifetime or in the life to come. We can gain comfort from the fact that God can use negative situations for our betterment. Though we might suffer, we are suffering for a purpose. Every trial we face in this life is used by God. our need to rule in kingd learn andar thequ that suff
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but more that godent him goyle time no areing God is complete control Satan is rolling this world God is ultimately in charge. God bless us all. Can we bow our head and let's pray.
