Judges Talk 3 - Ch13-14 - Sampson Part One

Big idea: Sampson was the reluctant deliver, who should have been preparing the way for the king, but God in his sovereignty, his grace and patience would use his chosen person to achieve his good purposes.

Put your hand up if you heard about Sampson as a kid?
Maybe at Sunday school or scripture. Right so you get the impression that it is a fairly famous story, in fact the great Bruce Springsteen in his passionate love song, "Fire", rates Samson and Delilah as a classic love story alongside Romeo and Juliet. the fact that both of these wound up being tragedies, seems a little lost on him at that point, but it is a famous story about a famous person.

Now if the Internet has taught us anything, which is up for grabs really, but for the sake conversation let's say we have learnt something from the Internet, I think it is safe to say the one thing the Internet has told us is that just because you know something about someone famous doesn't mean it is true.
But in reality, we can't just blame the Internet for that, because people have always, and will always, believe what they want to believe, irrespective of the truth.
Let me explain what I mean, who here when they heard about Sampson as a young kid, understood that he was to be held up as something of of a hero?
You see that's what I remember as well. Sampson was held up as an hero, even the Superman of the old Testament, with all these great feats of strength.

As a comeback to look at the facts of the case as an adult, he doesn't look a whole lot like Superman does he. In fact when you look at his acts of brute strength, his petulant behaviour, and his poor sexual morality, he doesn't so much look like Superman, but more like he'd fit right in the NRL!

By the end of today's episode in particular, in chapter 14, Sampson comes off looking stupid and petulant really. By the end of today's story, you’re kind of left asking the question, did God really know what he was doing when he chose Sampson?
Why would God choose a guy, who seems so hellbent on not being whom God had called him to be?

Well before we get to that question, think we may need to just reorientate ourselves as to where we are in the book of judges.

Now over last few weeks we've looked at a selection of the judges who God raised up to deliveries people from the oppression of foreign rulers. We saw Othniel, the archetypal judge, from Caleb's stock, who married the right woman (from his own tribe) and delivered his people from their oppressors, with minimal fuss.

After that we've seen Deborah be involved in the deliverance of her people, and even Gideon finally got his act together to deliver his people, well sort of, until his enslaved his people to worship an idol again.

And now we are at Sampson the last of the 12 judges of Israel in this book, and possibly the oddest of the lot, who are in fact quite an odd bunch in themselves.

To Samson story begins in chapter 13 verse one, with the Israelites doing evil again in the eyes of the Lord.
NIB Judges 13:1
Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD,
so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines
for forty years.

This generation, the judges generation, the generation that came after Joshua's generation, were to have one goal, which was?

To complete the conquest of the land, to wipe out the inhabitants of the land, and remove their gods from the land.

And what were they doing?
anything but that weren't they?
They gave up on the conquest, they married their children, and then they worship their gods, they were in fact doing the very opposite of what God called them to do. And so God sold them into slavery, too those whom they were supposed to destroy. And when the people realise the seriousness of the situation, they called out to God, and he sent the deliverer, to rescue them from slavery and give them peace.
So while the deliverer or the judge was alive, the people followed them. But as soon as the judge was dead, the people reverted to their old ways.

what was the solution to the problem, well the author to the judges tells us at the end of the book, in the very last line, Judges 21:25, "in those days Israel had no king, everyone did as he saw fit.".

The solution to Israel's problem of Faithfulness, was to be a king, a king who would rule over them and lead them in the right way, a King who would deliver them from the hands of their enemies forever, that they may truly be who they were called to be. that God would be their God, and that Israel would be his people.

The judges, were the precursor of that King in Israel, they were to prepare the way, and to point forward to the coming king.

So that's the theme idea of the book of Judges, and today we are looking at the last of those judges, Sampson, how will he measure up?

1. who is this Sampson?

Judges 13:3 The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said,
"You are sterile and childless,
but you are going to conceive and have a son.
4 Now see to it that you drink no wine
or other fermented drink
and that you do not eat anything unclean,
5 because you will conceive and give birth to a son.
No razor may be used on his head,
because the boy is to be a Nazirite,
set apart to God from birth,
and he will begin the deliverance of Israel
from the hands of the Philistines."

There are three things we know about Sampson;
firstly, he is important after all the Lord doesn't send an angel to announce someone's birth for no reason. In fact he is the only one of the judges, where this event happens, and the whole episode of the announcement of his birth takes up three times more space than Othniel’s whole life.

So we know Samson is going to be important, not only for the Lord, but also in the sense of his purpose in the story of the judges, in short he gets plenty of column space.

Secondly, he is the one who will start the deliverance of Israel from the oppression of the Philistines.

And thirdly, he is to be a Nazarite, a person wholly devoted to the Lord. And in fact we read what it is to be a Nazarite, back in numbers chapter 6.

Numbers6:1 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,  2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the LORD,  3 he gshall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried.  4 All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.

 5 “All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the LORD, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long.

 6 “All the days that he separates himself to the LORD he shall not go near a dead body.  7 Not even for his father or for his mother, for brother or sister, if they die, shall he make himself unclean, because his separation to God is on his head.  8 All the days of his separation he is holy to the LORD.
Now Nazarite was a person who took a vow to the Lord, Sampson interestingly was one decreed by the Lord to be his for his entire life, and it was a vow of dedication to the Lord, to be an Israelite of Israelites. And this means that for the Nazarite three things were ruled out;

firstly, do not touch a dead body.
Secondly, do not touch alcoholic drinks. Which you could hardly not notice given the angel told his parents this information three times back in chapter 13 of judges.
Thirdly, do not cut your hair until your time of devotion to the Lord is over.

So Sampson, has been chosen by the Lord, and dedicated to the Lord's service as a Nazarite, it has been declared in no uncertain terms by an Angel, and then confirmed as God himself placed his spirit upon Sampson.

Judges13:24 The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson.
He grew and the LORD blessed him,
25 and the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him

Sampson was set apart, as a Nazarite, given the spirit of God, so that he may be the judge that begins the deliverance of God's people from the oppression of the Philistines

The question is, how will he go?

So as we approach the story of Samson's life, there are four things as Israelite and Nazareth, that he is not to do.

Firstly, do not marry a foreign wife.
Secondly, do not touch a dead body.
Thirdly, do not drink alcoholic drinks.
Fourthly, do not cut your hair.

I dunno about you, but to me it sounds a little ominous already!
So let's see how he goes.

Sampson story is about challenge of his obedience to God,
Samson story is one of Sampson versus his temptations,
the challenge to follow the Lord despite the hardships he will face.

2. challenge one -- Sampson versus foreign women

14:1 Samson went down to Timnah
and saw there a young Philistine woman.

So Sampson sees a young woman, now at one level is nothing unusual about that, except that the woman is a philistine and as such, not only is he not supposed to marry her, he is in fact supposed to wipe out her people. Not breed with them, so there would be more of them in the land. In fact three times we see that Sampson's eyes liked what he saw when he saw her, in verse one in verse two and V3.

She looked good to Sampson's eyes, which is not an uncommon thing for a man, but it's not a good thing if you know the old Testament. David saw Bathsheba bathing and she looked good, Eve saw the Apple and it looked good, and even in the book of judges we read, there was no king in the land, and everyone did what was good in their own eyes.

The eyes are not always to be trusted, but in this Sampson was just like his countrymen, and followed the lust of their eyes.

So so far, it isn't looking good in the foreign women challenge to Sampson.

And his parents see the folly of this idea, and try and talk some sense into him we read in V3.

3 His father and mother replied,
"Isn't there an acceptable woman among your relatives
or among all our people?
Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines
to get a wife?"

But Sampson twice rejects them, not only their advice, but also their authority really, this is hardly a good Jewish boy honouring his mother and father like Moses had told him to. And instead he demands of his parents in verse two and verse three, "get her for me".

So I think we can safely say, challenge one and foreign women is fail for Sampson.
And what about his parents and the end of V3, well we’ll get to that in a minute.

But for now we move on to challenge two.

3. challenge two -- Sampson versus dead bodies

5 Samson went down to Timnah
together with his father and mother.
As they approached the vineyards of Timnah,
suddenly a young lion came roaring towards him.
6 The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power
so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands
as he might have torn a young goat.
But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done.
7 Then he went down and talked with the woman,
and he liked her.
8 Some time later,
when he went back to marry her,
he turned aside to look at the lion's carcass.
In it was a swarm of bees and some honey,
9 which he scooped out with his hands
and ate as he went along.
When he rejoined his parents,
he gave them some,
and they too ate it.
But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion's carcass.


Throughout the whole narratives about Sampson in the book of judges, we see him undertake 10 acts of great power, and in particular three of these acts are designated in a particular sense, by the expression "the spirit of the Lord came upon him in power". Which seems to mean, that while God had made Sampson a strongman in every physical sense, there were particular acts, for which he was particularly empowered by the holy spirit, by God, to designate that God himself really was with this judge. That God really was going to use this man, to begin his deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.

And the first of these great acts of Samson in God's Power, is to destroy a lion with his bare hands. Which is no mean feat when you think about it, considering most of us would be proud to get the cat out for the night in winter without getting scratched in the process, much less kill a lion. But God demonstrates in power that Sampson will be his servant in this particular act.

Whether we can say the same about all Sampson's powerful acts, is up for grabs, and something will get to think a little bit about next week.

In v7 Sampson finally meets his woman, and what his eyes have liked, his ears like as well, and it seems like challenge one is definitely a foregone conclusion, but what about challenge two, of Sampson versus dead bodies.

Well it seems not only did his eyes, and his ears fail him, but now his taste buds to as well. Because on his way back down to marry his foreign wife, he turns aside to go a look over his great feat of strength, of killing the lion, (which is kind of dumb, knowing full well but the lion would be dead given he killed it), but this doesn't seem to bother him. In fact when he bends over to look inside, he finds wonderful sweet honey, and thinks nothing of his vow at all, but instead thinks only of his physical desires and in the process defiled himself by eating out of the dead body. Not even just touching it, but eating out of it.
And not content with that, he thumbed his nose at his parents again, by making them complicit with his Sin.

So not only did he fail the challenge, he fails in spectacular fashion, by bringing down his parents with him.

And at this point, you really do need to ask the question,
What is this guy doing?

He is supposed to be the Israelites of Israelites, resisting sin, and being dedicated totally and wholeheartedly to the Lord. And in the space of a few verses, he has essentially already written off his commitment to the Lord. Not only did he not resist the temptation, in fact he seems to do the complete opposite, he seems to plunge headlong into the sin that he is supposed to resist and be separate from.
He has all the restraint of the kamikaze pilot who has been sent as part of a peacekeeping force to the Middle East. Like that can help the problem!

So at this point, not only do you have to ask the question,
what is this guy doing?,
but at the same time, you need to ask the question,
what is God doing choosing this man?
I mean everything about this scene is wrong, Everything Samson does, bar killing the lion, is wrong.

You only need to look at Luke chapter 1 to work this out.
 11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.  12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.  13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.  14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,  15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.  16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,  17 and he will go before him kin the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

So an angel appears, and tells parents -- including a barren woman again -- that they will have a son, and he will be in Nazarite, a man dedicated to the Lord. A man who was to prepare the way for the Lord, to prepare a way for the coming of God's King, the Messiah.

And what did John do, exactly what he was told to do, as we read in the chapter 3 verse 18, "and with many other words John exhorted the people and preach the good news to them.". John was ready when the king came, John had done what the Lord had called him to, and he prepared the way of the Lord.

So what is going on with Sampson, what kind of Nazarite is he?
how is he an Israelites of Israelites,
and how, and why would God use him?

At this point, Sampson looks a lot more like Jonah, than he does like John the Baptist. He looks like a man running from God and his purposes for his life, rather than serving God with all that he has been given.

And this is unsurprisingly borne out in Sampson's third challenge.

4. challenge three -- Sampson versus drinking.

10 Now his father went down to see the woman.
And Samson made a feast there,
as was customary for bridegrooms.

Prior to Sampson's wedding, he has a feast that goes to seven days. A feast where a key component is drinking over the entire period. And while it isn’t explicit from the text, you can only gather that Sampson took part in the drinking that he was expressly commanded not to take part in.

It seems as the drinking went on, Samson decided to have some fun, and told a riddle to the Philistines, a challenge to goad his company and provide a little entertainment.

At this point he kind of reminds me of a mate of mine, non-Christian mate, who when he drinks, particularly when his overseas for some odd reason, decides to text me while he sitting in some dingy pub watching a football game at a time that invariably translates to 3 AM our time. And he only ever texts me when Manchester United are winning, which to me is the embodiment of all that is bad about this world, but that is probably a story for another day.

The point is, Samson like my mate, gets a skin full, thinks themselves very clever, and decides to have some sport with others, and start talking it up big.
11 When he appeared, he was given thirty companions.
12 "Let me tell you a riddle,"
Samson said to them.
"If you can give me the answer
within the seven days of the feast,
I will give you thirty linen garments
and thirty sets of clothes.
13 If you can't tell me the answer,
you must give me thirty linen garments
and thirty sets of clothes."

"Tell us your riddle,"
they said.
"Let's hear it."
14 He replied,
"Out of the eater, something to eat;
out of the strong, something sweet."
For three days they could not give the answer.

It is fairly safe to say that after a couple of days the Philistines get very tired of all this, and resort to that base solution to all problems when the brain fails, and the alcohol kicks in, violence. And so the Philistines threaten Sampson's wife.
15 On the fourth day,
they said to Samson's wife,
"Coax your husband into explaining the riddle for us,
or we will burn you and your father's household
to death.
Did you invite us here to rob us?"

And so she in desperation, resorts to the female base level equivalent of violence to resolve the situation, she turns on the waterworks and nags her husband for days.

Now it is possible to say you think Sampson is a wuss, at this point, and at one level I know what you talking about.
But there is a sense that someone crying non-stop, and whingeing at you, can just wear you down and get on your nerves, like the first night we got Emma home from hospital, and she howled for six hours nonstop until two in the morning. I would have happily severed one of my own arteries by about 1230 if I thought that was going to stop the crying, it can get you.

But I suspect Sampson's issues are not with the crying, I think the fact that he cracks the day before the wedding, shows he has more base level, alterior motives. He wasn't so much concern with the crying, but a little more concerned with the cold shoulder he would have received on his wedding night. Why else wouldn't he have waited another day and won the bet? Particularly in light of what we know about his character already in the story.
16 Then Samson's wife threw herself on him, sobbing,
"You hate me!
You don't really love me.
You've given my people a riddle,
but you haven't told me the answer."

"I haven't even explained it to my father or mother,"
he replied,
"so why should I explain it to you?"
17 She cried the whole seven days of the feast.
So on the seventh day he finally told her,
because she continued to press him.
She in turn explained the riddle to her people.

So the Philistines think they are very clever, that their violent threat has won them the day. And that's the funny thing about sin, and particularly sinful behaviour expressed in violence, the perpetrators who start it, Are usually unable, (or least unwilling) to stop and consider the consequences, and the fallout of their actions. And you have to wonder, whether the smug Philistines, envisaged from Sampson's crass reply to them, what the repercussions of them would be from Sampson actions.

But inverse 19 we learn the Philistines will not suffer just because of their behaviour against Sampson, but in fact this behaviour, was the spark to ignite Gods instruments to exact God's judgement upon the philistine people.
19 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power.
He went down to Ashkelon,
struck down thirty of their men,
stripped them of their belongings
and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle.
Burning with anger, he went up to his father's house.

Finally, despite Sampson's best attempts to stuff it up, God's Judge begins to fulfill his role, as the one sent to start the emancipation of God's people the Israelites, from the rule of their philistine overlords.

Back in v6 the spirit of the Lord came upon Sampson in power, to kill the lion as he headed towards the Philistines. He should have been obedient to his calling, and you hope looking back on his life, he would like to hit the delete button on V7-18, because in verse 19 the spirit of the Lord came upon Sampson in power again, and this time he did what he was supposed to do in the first place, even though you'd really have to question his motives.

Despite man's best efforts, despite his blatant sin, God's plan and God's purpose was not thwarted, but instead was enacted. God is not the author of man’s sinful behaviour, but God's sovereign hand is over all, so that his good purposes will be enacted in the end. And that is so often the story in the Bible, and particularly the old Testament.
Even through the horrendous behaviour and treatment of his brothers towards him, God brought about his sovereign purposes and good for his servant Joseph, who spoke those profoundly true words, that bring us all comfort in hard places of life, when we suffer persecution even unjustly, he says in Genesis 50:20 "you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."

Sampson is definitely no superhero, in fact he is one of the most obstinate and disobedient of the Israelite people in the old Testament. And that is the reason that God chose to use him. God is nothing if not surprising to us!

God chose to Sampson, to show his own sovereignty, power, and Grace in his world. He chose Sampson to show that he, the Lord, is sovereign in his world and none of his purposes will fail, none of man's plans can stand against God and his purposes for his creation, and for his people.

God chose Sampson because Sampson is Representative Israel, Sampson's story is Israel story.
A people set apart before the beginning of the world, to belong to the Lord, to be his treasured possession, to inhabit the land of Israel, and to live in a close relationship with him, to not be like the world around them, and do not worship after their gods.

Sampson was no more obstinate or reluctant to fulfill his role as Israel's judge and deliver, than Israel itself was obstinate and reluctant to fulfill their role as God's light into a dark and lost world.

Sampson isn't the hero of his story, despite his great acts of strength, God is the hero of the story, because the acts of strengths are truly his, he is the sovereign Lord who will deliver his people, because he is the faithful Lord, the gracious lord, the covenant Lord, who has promised that he shall be their God and they shall be his people. And even the obstinate behaviour of sinful men cannot thwart God and his sovereign and gracious promises.

So what are we to make of Sampson? Is his story one that says, we can do whatever we like, we can sin until our hearts content, and it doesn't matter because God will make it all okay and the end?
Let me suggest that is not a good option, and the Bible particularly the apostle Paul spells that out in no uncertain terms, but more than that - hang on to that thought, because we haven't finished with Samson yet and we will see how things turn out to him next week.

And so we leave Sampson this week in V20,
20 And Samson's wife was given to the friend
who had attended him at his wedding.

And deep down you suspect don't you, that this decision will not turn out well for the Philistines!
But then again we leave Sampson with only one of his Nazarite vows intact, surely he won’t get rid of his hair - will he?

So what are we to make of all this? Well one thing is certain, judges is an ugly book, about ugly times, about an ugly people.
But then our time is really so much different, in regard to our relationship with God? Life is often messy isn't it?
Sometimes we are ugly people, a little bit like Sampson. We are mixed and compromising towards God even on our good days.
The author of the book of judges, knows that the solution to Israel's problem is the coming king. Gods King, the Messiah, would rule properly over God's people. Sampson's job was to prepare the way to the arrival of God's King, like a good Nazarite, he was to prepare the way for the total defeat of the Philistines, that would be completed by the great king King David. But even the great King David was only a shadow of the things to come.

IF we go 1000 years later to another Nazarite who would come called John the Baptist, he would prepare the way for the true king, God's Messiah, Jesus the Christ. Jesus inaugurated his great kingdom, the Kingdom to which we belong, through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Jesus has begun his kingdom now, and all who have received him as their saviour and Lord partake in the kingdom now, by faith, by trusting him.

Jesus Kingdom has been inaugurated, but it has not yet been consummated, we live in the days where we await his return, when Christ returns from the right hand of God the father, when he will come to judge the “quick and the dead” -- to use the old language.
God has saved his people for a purpose, and that purpose is to prepare the way for the Kings return. And that is the challenge of Samson to us. God is sovereign, and his king will return, the question is will he find us at work when he does. Will he find us as good and faithful servants preparing the way for the return of the Lord, or will we be off, proudly and obstinately, living like the Philistines - drinking and celebrating with no idea about the judgement that is about to befall them?

 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

 11 Beloved, I urge you has sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.  12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

 1 Peter 3:15 but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you;