Themes of the Bible: Strength (Judges 16)

 

Themes of the Bible: Strength (Judges 16)

This week, we are going to be in Judges 16, which is the story of Samson. This is the first time I’ve ever given a sermon on Samson, and I’m very excited about it. You have no idea how cool it is to do a sermon about a guy that you’ve been compared to your whole life. It’s just neat to talk about a guy with physical characteristics that are similar to your own. I say this the same morning that I struggled to open a pop tart. So, that’s this week. Next week we will be in 1 Samuel 17, the account of David and Goliath, if any of you are pre-reading those chapters for homework. Now, I know most of us are familiar with the story of Samson and Delilah but hopefully this week I can illuminate this a little bit, because I remember when I first heard this story as a kid, probably from a kid’ Bible story book, but I remember reading about this story and thinking to myself, ‘was Samson the dumbest person on the face of the planet?’ That’s honestly what you think. Like, after the first time that you wake up and she’s done to you what you told her would render you weak, how do you not know that you can’t trust this woman? Why does he keep going back? Anyway, hopefully we’ll answer that a little bit today.

So, this is in the book of Judges. I don’t know how familiar you are with the book of Judges, but a couple things just to establish the background of what the judges are. I know we have an American idea of what a judge is and so we constantly apply what we know about our society to what theirs was, and in this case, it’s two totally different things. First of all, when did all this take place? What is our timeline here? I’m not going back to the very beginning with Jacob and his 12 sons and all of that, but we know from last week that Moses was the deliverer who leads the children of Israel out of Egypt, and then when Moses dies on Mount Nebo, there’s an obvious successor. Joshua had been with him since the time of the Exodus, he was his right-hand man, so there’s no question that Joshua is the one to take over for Moses. Nobody questions that. Then, eventually you’ll have the monarchy over Israel where you’ve got God’s chosen kings you’ve got Saul and then David and then Solomon, and so on. So, it’s the time in between when Joshua dies, but before the rise of the monarchy. That is the time of the judges, and as you read the book of Judges, if you read the entire book, you’re going to realize a couple things. Number one; this is a profoundly evil time in the history of the people of Israel. A lot of bad stuff goes down in this time period. And secondly, you’re going to realize that there are a lot of parallels from the time of the judges for Israel to the time that we’re living in today. Let me give you an example. If you flip one more chapter, into the 17th chapter of Judges, you would read this in verse 6. This is the overarching motif of the entire book. “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” I mean, that’s kind of where we are today, right? We’ve got a king of sorts, but everybody does what’s right in their own eyes. In our culture, we all make up truth for ourselves, we all make up right and wrong for ourselves, and nobody can tell us any differently. It’s called subjective moral reasoning, and that’s the spirit of the age. And it’s exactly what was going on there. And, when I say that it’s a profoundly evil time in the history of Israel, there is a pattern. These people of Israel are locked in this pattern of sinfulness. They have nobody leading them in the proper direction towards the throne of God, towards the heart of God, and so this is the cycle and it repeats itself over and over in the book of judges. The people of God will fall into sin and corruption, and because of that, God will wake them up by allowing an oppressor to come in and take over Israel to subjugate Israel and after a period of subjugation and oppression, the people will decide “well, maybe we weren’t that bad off with God after all?’ and they’ll cry out to God for deliverance, God will take pity on them and will raise up a judge and then that judge will lead the people back to a time of restoration and peace. Then they’ll be all good for a while and then after a while they will fall into sin and corruption, and everyone will reject God and do what is right in their own eyes. We know what Proverbs 14:12 tells us, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”

If we do what seems right in our own eyes, there’s going to be one place that we end up. Our passions, our feelings, our desires, hopefully we’ve established this, that they’re not good moral guideposts for you. Just because you feel like something is right, just because you desire something, oftentimes, that’s a sign it probably isn’t right. But that’s what people were doing. So they’d fall into sin and corruption, God would allow them to be oppressed, they would decide they want to cry out to God, God would raise up a judge and he would restore them, and then not long after that the people would fall into sin and corruption and then they would be oppressed and then they would cry out to God and God would raise up a judge and they’d be delivered and then you know what happens next. . . they’d fall into sin and corruption. This this happens 12 times in the book of Judges. 12 different judges that God raises up. And by the way, the judge is not a man or a woman in a black robe who renders legal verdicts on situations. That’s our understanding, an American understanding of a judge. But in this context, a judge was a warrior, a conqueror, or a deliverer. And as you will read in this book, these people are far from perfect. They are fallible human beings with a lot of problems. They are not figures like Moses and Joshua and David that seem to be from the very beginning set apart for God. I’m not saying that Moses and Joshua and David didn’t have their problems, because they did, but these are individuals more like us. They are fallible, unlikely heroes. And that’s one of the reasons I’m drawn to the book of Judges. As evil as it is, God will show throughout this book that he is more than willing. He’s excited to use weak things to bring about his glory and I think there’s one reason that God’s super excited to use weak things and weak people. Because if it’s a weak thing that brings about this massive victory, there’s no way that weak thing is going to get the glory for it. Who will? He will. And that’s the whole point.

Ehud the judge, he’s a left-handed guy, and in those days left-handed people were kind of outcasts for reasons that I’m not going to get into, but he’s the one that reaches down on his right side and pulls out the sword and plunges it into the belly of King Eglon. It’s a great story that you really ought to read. Then you got Shamgar, he’s a judge and he uses an oxgoad to deliver the people. What an unlikely weapon that is? How are you going to deliver the nation with an oxgoad? Must be God working through you. And then, you get Deborah, who is a woman. God uses a woman judge, and in that day a woman would have been certainly not somebody you would expect to lead a nation. And in the account of Deborah, Sisera, the oppressor is fleeing from Deborah and her forces, and he goes to this tent of another woman, named Jael, and he thinks that she’s going to hide me, she’s one of my allies, and asks if he can come in and take a take a nap. So, he goes to sleep, there in her tent and he’s laying there, and while he’s sleeping Jael who was one of Deborah’s allies, goes over with a tent peg, and puts it right on his temple, and hammers it straight through. They need to make a movie out of that.

You’ve got another unknown, and when Abimelech’s on the run, and she’s up in a tower, she shoves a millstone off, and it cracks him in the head. If you want blood and guts and gore, this is your book. Remember Gideon? He wins this battle with a bunch of pitchers and trumpets. Those aren’t typical instruments of war, these are actual musical instruments and he wins the battle with trumpets. When that happens, there’s only one person that can get the glory for the win and that’s God. And by the way, speaking of Gideon as God’s champion, you need to realize that Gideon is the weakest man from the smallest tribe and the poorest family and he’s the one that God calls to deliver his people. God does this with weak things throughout the entire book of judges, and then comes Samson. Chapters 13-16 in the book of Judges. But, what you already know about Samson, is that he doesn’t fit this motif. Samson is far from a weak thing. He’s anything but weak, he’s a beast, he is strong, but here’s the first thing we can pick up on: physical strength is only one kind of strength. We can easily be misled into believing that raw physical power is a source of strength, and what you see in chapter 16 is for all of his physical strength Samson had some glaring weaknesses that would lead to his undoing. If we only look at this passage like the way its taught to kids where it was one story taken out of the bible and read on its own then you can come away with the impression that this story is about the strength of Samson, and strong people serving God.

Rather, one of the reasons why we read Judges 16 is because it’s a clear indication of the dangers and the threat that sin poses against us. Which is why you need to hold me accountable. You need to hold yourself and your own personal Bible study and prayer times accountable to this and beware of any gospel that is overbearing and heavy on encouragement and it goes overly light on the stern warning against sin and its danger. Beware of a gospel like that because it is not the full counsel of God. I would suggest to you, and maybe I’m wrong in this, but there are many of us here who are failing in the fight against daily temptation. In fact, I would suggest there are many of us that have become so used to the sin in our life that we aren’t even fighting the temptation anymore, because we think we’re fine. Judges 16 is speaking to those of us who are not winning this fight against daily temptation.

The account of Judges 16 may be familiar to many of us, the story of Samson and Delilah, but I want us to be sure that we grasp the spiritual lesson that it is saying to us, that temptation thrives for those who refuse to heed the warnings from God.

Ok, let’s dive in. Judges 16, verses 1 through 3. [Read Judges 16:1-3]. Right here you have an immediate comparison of two different things that don’t seem to be similar. On one side, you’ve got his superhuman strength who rips the door and the gates of the city out of the ground and puts them on his shoulders and walks to the top of a hill. It’s superhuman strength and yet in those same verses you saw his superhuman weaknesses; he was there to spend the night with a prostitute. So you’ve got the comparison of two things; superhuman strength and super sinful weakness. Here’s a guy who can kill lions with his bare hands, and yet it’s very apparent he can’t kill his lust. And when he fixes his lust on Delilah, it will kill him. That will be the end result of how this all plays out. Look at verses 4 through 9. [Read Judges 16:4-9].

Ok, if you didn’t pick up on this each one of them offered her 1100 shekels. So, she has offered 5500 shekels of silver for this betrayal. At that time period, the average yearly wage at that point in time was 10 shekels 10 shekels is a laborers yearly wage. For some history, the Code of Hammurabi (circa 1800 BC) sets the value of unskilled labor at approximately 10 shekels per year of work, confirmed in Israelite law by comparing Deuteronomy 15:18 with Exodus 21:32. Later, records within the Persian Empire (539–333 BC) give ranges from a minimum of 2 shekels per month for unskilled labor, to as high as 7 to 10 shekels per month in some records. So, they have offered her 5,500 shekels. Regardless of the exact value, what’s clear is that she will never have to work another day in her life. She is being offered the equivalent of a minimum wage salary for the next 230-550 years. Its over 10 million dollars by today’s standards. It’s a no-brainer for her what decision she’s going to make.

Now we marvel at Samson’s stupidity here. How can he reveal to her and how does he not know he can’t trust this woman? But thank about how we dabble in sin, always telling ourselves that we’re in complete control. I’m not going to let this get out of hand, I know that looking at pornography isn’t good, but I can handle it. If it gets to be too much, I’ll know when to stop. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t gamble my paycheck like this but if it starts to become a problem, I’ll control myself. Or, yeah, I know I shouldn’t drink, I know I got a little bit of a problem and I shouldn’t have driven last night, but I can tell when I’m starting to feel it and know what I can handle. See what we’re doing? We’re dabbling in sin when we should be running the other way. We believe in our hearts, ‘I can control it. This isn’t a problem.’ What is Samson doing? Samson may well know what they’re up to and that it’s not a good idea to stay, but he feels like he’s superhuman strong, he feels like he can handle it, and he’s got it all under control. ‘I’m strong enough. I know my limits. I know myself.’ Is this not exactly what we do with our sin? Don’t pick on Samson too much until we’ve taken inventory of our own lives in our own dealing with the sin that tempts us.

It’s no surprise, by the way that sex is what Satan uses here to trip up Samson. I heard a preacher once compare sex and the power of sex to nitroglycerin. He says to the congregation that, “some of you who have heart issues take a nitroglycerin tablet, because nitroglycerin in the right amount can heal a heart. But nitroglycerin is also what they use in a different amount to blow up bridges sex. When it’s kept in its proper context can be a wonderful obviously God-designed thing that is meant to heal and sustain marriages, build families, and all of those things, but sex outside of that context is a destructive force that will destroy lives and children and families and churches and communities.” So, nitroglycerin is what it is and he’s playing with it. For him it’s just fun right, now he’s toying with the temptation because he can handle it. Every time you get drunk, but then end up it’s okay, you lower your guard. You think, well, I survived, I slept it off, nothing bad happened. I didn’t lose my job. Every time we get away with it, it lowers our guard just a little bit more and that’s exactly what’s happening to Samson here.

He does it two more times, but he keeps coming through okay. This reinforces his false confidence that he’s got a handle on things. And then she goes for it all. Look at how this plays out. Here in verses 15 through 17. [Read Judges 16:15-17]. It’s almost as though every temptation that he gave into broke him a little bit more and a little bit more until the dam finally bursts. Each time he had a chance to walk away, and each time he chose not to. Each time he could have turned away from Delilah and turned towards the Lord, but he ignored the warnings. Do we ignore the warnings of sin in our life and live totally oblivious to the danger that is pounding on the door right in front of us? We read this and say, ‘how can you be so dumb?’ Yet, I have to wonder if someone was reading the account of my life and the times that I have fallen to sins temptations if they would not say, ‘what kind of an idiot are you? How do you not see what’s about to happen?’ So, Samson he tells her everything. And how do we know that he was oblivious to what was coming? Look at verse 20. Verse 20 is perhaps the saddest verse in this whole story. [Read Judges 16:20]. Samson didn’t know that the Lord had left. How do you not know that the Lord is not with you anymore? His heart had become so calloused, so hardened towards God’s warning that he felt no difference between when God was empowering him and when God left him. Has your heart become so callous because of the sin that you have welcomed into your life that you can’t tell the difference when the Spirit of God is with you and empowering you and when you have no connection to Him whatsoever? I don’t think Samson’s the only one that has ever dealt with this. And by the way, you saw how this ended. The Philistines seize Samson, they make him their prisoner, and they gouge out his eyes.

Now, when you read about them gouging out his eyes, does it set off any kind of alarm in your mind about another time in scripture where eyes being gouged out came up? When studying for these messages, I’m on the lookout for the New Testament correlation, so is there anything in the New Testament that this reminds you of? Well, let me remind you of something that would be said about a thousand years later, on a Galilean hillside, as the Son of God stood there giving a sermon. He said, “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” What is Jesus saying here? He is saying, that if your eyes are causing you to sin, gouge them out and get rid of them. Because as valuable as your eyes are, it doesn’t come close to the value of your soul. Your soul is so much more valuable. Be willing to part with anything, no matter how important you think it is, if it’s leading you towards sin.

What happened in this passage? In what we see as this horrible moment for Samson, his utter humiliation, the ugly consequence of the rampant sin in his life, yet do you not see the shades of God’s protection and God’s care and God’s grace in this moment? If Samson’s soul mattered more than anything else, might God have allowed his eyes to be gouged out to protect something far more important than his pride and his eyesight? I’m serious when I say this, that sin has consequences. But often, what does God do? He uses the consequences of our sin to show his grace to us, and to save us from something so much worse. Samson’s eyes kept leading him into temptation. Remember the root causes of sin? The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Samson had it in excess, and so, what does God do? God allows him to lose those things that were leading him into sin. So, what did Samson find without eyes? Samson found that the removal of his eyes allowed him to see God more clearly than he ever had before. I think there’s a lesson there for us. It seems harsh, but God’s discipline for us it cuts to the source of our sin and when it does it is meant to save us from something far worse. That’s what I’m seeing here in the story of Samson. Samson’s arrogance led to a humiliating defeat for him, and they make a mockery of him, they disable him. God allowed it so that he would become what: a humbled, divine weapon to bring victory to God’s people.

Ok, to wrap it up. Remember what we said was the entire theme of the book of Judges? That God uses weak things, and we started off with Samson saying that Samson is anything but weak. You might say, ‘Well, God isn’t using a weak thing, he’s using a strong man, a brute to take on the Philistines.’ There’s no showing off of God’s power there. That’s the way it started, Samson was doing everything under his own strength, and it’s what led him to this point. Samson was so strong his whole life, until right now. As he’s been made a mockery, his eyes have been gouged from his head, and now look at this, verses 25 through 30. [Read Judges 16:25-30]. Look at that line, the end of verse 30, “So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life.”

 

At Samson’s weakest, that’s when God uses him to strike the blow. The entire theme of the book of Judges is God using weak things, and you say, ‘well, Samson was a strong man.’ But, not when God delivered the final blow. That he did when Samson was at his weakest, and it was God’s discipline that turned things around for Samson. You saw where he was in verse 20, ‘but he did not know that the Lord had left him’ and where did God turn his life around? In verse 28 while enslaved, humiliated, and chained.  

Look at what the writer of Hebrews says, Hebrews 11:32-34, “And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.”

Here is a guy whose sin had left him in a place where he didn’t even know when God was with him and when he wasn’t, but because of God’s discipline, He brought Samson to the point where his name would be mentioned with the great champions of God whose faith conquered kingdoms. I would suggest to you that God’s goodness is unimaginable, even in his discipline of us. It’s all born out of love. Love to save us from an end that we don’t want for ourselves, and he certainly doesn’t want for us either. So, I don’t know if you’re dabbling in temptation, if you’re dabbling in sin and you’re under the impression that you’ve got it under control but let Samson’s story be of stern warning to you that you don’t. So, turn from sin and temptation, and embrace the kingdom of God today.

Let’s pray.