Samson, a Flawed Judge
Notes
Transcript
We are spending July looking at the character of Samson. It may be good to start with a brief recap of last week’s message:
Samson was the last in a series of 12 Judges - leaders that God raised up to deliver his people. Throughout the book of Judges, there is a pattern that emerges, God’s people rebel as they stop looking to God as their Lord and instead followed the ‘spirit of their age’ - meaning that they did what was right in their own eyes’, God rebukes them by allowing their enemies to rule over and oppress them (in other words, they face the consequences of their behavior), the consequences get so bad that the people cry out in repentance, God then hears their cries and raises up a judge to rescue them, and for the remainder of the judge’s life, the land rest as the people live in peace. The judge dies and the next generation begins to repeat the cycle: Rebel, Rebuke, Repent, Rescue and Rest. Each time Israel rebels is worse than the prior time - to the point that even the last judge is far from being a godly leader. In fact, he doesn’t even seem to be aware that he is a judge. And if it wasn’t for the miraculous story of his birth, as we heard last week, I don’t think we would have even recognized him as such.
As we begin to see in today’s reading, Samson is impulsive, he rejects instruction or counsel (like when his parents try to dissuade him from marrying a Philistine), he has no self-control - especially when it comes to his sensual desires. In other words, he is a microcosm of what Israel itself has become.
Something else is different about this last story. The people have so acclimated to being ruled by their enemies that they do not even cry out in repentance by the time we get to Samson. God is delivering a people that don’t even seem to want to be delivered.
A key verse is found in v.14
Judges 14:4 (ESV)
(the Lord) was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.
The Israelites had become so much like their oppressors - that they risked becoming completely assimilated to the Philistines and losing their distinctiveness as a people. As Michael Witlock explains,
The Message of Judges: Grace Abounding (C. Where the Judgment Is)
By the time of Samson, Israel has so accommodated herself to the world around her that she wants no rocking of the boat. Like Samson, she is willing, even eager, to marry into Philistine society. The force of 14:4 is that the two communities are so interlocked that even the Lord can find nothing to get hold of to pry them apart.
Remember, Israel was set apart and established by God. After He delivered them out of slavery, He gave them instructions through Moses on how they were to live distinctly different than the surrounding nations - they were to solely love the Lord their God and obey all His commands and He would bless them, protect them, and provide all they need. This was the Covenant He made with them. They were not to marry into other cultures - not because of race or nationality, but because they were not to marry people outside of the Covenant - because such a marriage would weaken one’s loyalty to God.
That is the same reason why Paul, in the New Testament, appeals to Christians in 2 Corinthians not to be unequally yoked to non-believers. It is hard to center your life around God, to make decisions based on His leading, live according to His purpose - when your spouse doesn’t share your beliefs.
Israelites were a people under God’s Covenant - a people of the promise. If a Philistine became a follower of Yahweh, there would be no issue. But that is not what we find in Judges. Here we see a people willingly accommodating those who oppose God. They avoided conflict by diminishing their distinctiveness and accepting the ways of life that their pagan neighbors lived.
Tim Keller describes it this way...
Judges for You (What Israel Didn’t Do)
In the past, Israel groaned and agonized under their occupations by pagan powers, because their domination was military and political. But now the people are virtually unconscious of their enslavement, because its nature is that of cultural accommodation. The Israelites do not groan and resist their “captors” now because they have completely adopted and adapted to the values, MORES and idols of the Philistines.
This should sound an alarm in our heads when we hear this. Where can we look at the church today - it all of it’s forms and expressions - and see a people that do not look all that distinctly different than their unbelieving neighbors. Where do we see the church bowing at the feet of idols in order to stay relevant or to preserve a way of life? Do we see instances of elevating personal choices and freedoms over humility and obedience to God’s Word? Do we see instances of idealizing the good old days over God’s call to right wrongs and act justly?
Judges for You (What Israel Didn’t Do)
Michael Wilcock says:“There is no such thing as harmonious co-existence between the church and the world, for where there is no conflict it is because the world has taken over.”
If we are living for Christ - the world will find us offensive - both on the left and on the right. If you don’t believe me, look how Jesus was treated as He lived out his calling.
God did not set apart Israel for Israel to be absorbed into world.
Again Keller writes,
Judges for You What Israel Didn’t Do
In Samson’s Israel, God had decided to prevent his people becoming culturally indistinct, and therefore spiritually extinct. He would do so through Samson, and despite Samson. And there would be conflict!
God would mix things up. If you think God can only use good, godly people to carry out his plans - you are placing limits on God and that won’t work. God uses all things for his purposes - and what is trustworthy and true is His promises to Israel. He remains committed to the promises of the Covenant - to love them and to give them an inheritance - and to bless all people through them. So here we see the lengths he will go to ensure that His people survive. He will fulfill his promises in spite of their sin and in fact, use Samson’s own sinfulness to bring about Israel’s deliverance.
A Philistine woman catches Samson’s eye and he tells his parents - “get her for me to be my wife.” There is no way that his parents have forgotten their encounter with the mysterious angel who announced his birth. I’m sure his mom remembered the angel telling her Judges 13:5
for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”
And now their son wants to marry one? His parents even ask him “must you take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” - in other words, from one who is outside the covenant?
What does he say? “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.”
Impulsive, hard headed, stubborn…just like the people he is to deliver. Yet this was of the Lord - God was seeking a way to bring conflict.
So they head down to Timnah - along the way, Samson is attacked by a young lion and he tears it to pieces. His Nazarite vow requires him not to touch anything dead - so the proper course of action would be to go immediately to the Tabernacle for ceremonial cleaning - but no, he just continues on to point out his bride to his parents.
A few days later, they go down again, this time he makes a detour to look at the lion carcass - inside it he finds a swarm of bees and some honey - so he scoops it up and eats it, then gives some unwillingly to his parents. Again, the Nazarite vow - do not eat any unclean thing. Either Samson does not know he was set apart with this special vow - or more likely, he does not care.
But this whole scenario gives him a riddle to challenge the men of the town. “Out of the eater something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.”
He makes a wager - figuring easy money - it would be impossible for anyone to know the answer.
What seems to be a harmless challenge becomes the division the Lord desired. The wickedness of the Philistines comes to the forefront. Rather than be bested by an Israelite, they would threaten his new wife - entice your husband to give you the answer to the riddle or we will burn you and your father with fire.
Nice neighborhood.
Here we are shown the first instance of a pattern that will eventually take Samson down. The woman who “looked good to his eyes” will get him to spill the beans - for seven days she wept, saying “you don’t love me because if you did, you would give me the answer.to your riddle.
For some reason, Proverbs 27:15-16
A nagging spouse is like
the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet;
You can’t turn it off,
and you can’t get away from it.
Not that I have any idea what that is like - but I imagine it is what drove Samson to relent?
She tells the people the answer and as it is written...
And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” And he said to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.”
Samson is one classy fellow.
So what happens?
And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house. And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.
God gives Samson the superhuman strength he needs to cause division and to cause conflict. The situation only escalates. At the beginning of the next chapter, some times passes, he comes back to see his wife and finds that she has been married off to one the men in town.
And being a reasonable, calm man, Samson catches 300 foxes, ties them together in pairs and puts torches between their tails - then sets up loose in the fields of the Philistines - burning down all their crops.
We are now in a cycle of retaliation - one side acts - the other side reacts. It is going to get more violent - as we will encounter next week - but for today, I want to end with this.
It is sometimes hard to fathom where God is when wicked people are doing wicked things. Especially when we read these stories in the Bible.
We want everything to be peaceful and loving - but we need to remember that we are right in the middle of a cosmic spiritual battle. There are forces which we do not see that want nothing more than to separate us from God and to destroy us. Sometimes, we make their work easy when we take our eyes of Christ and begin to assimilate with the world.
You unfaithful people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? So whoever wants to be the world’s friend becomes God’s enemy.
God wants all of you. In exchange, the promises He has made are beyond our ability to fully appreciate. But we must work together to remain vigilant.
In his great mercy, and what Samson shows us, is that God will work through sinners, and sinful situations, to bring about our salvation and make things right.
In fact, that is exactly what he did at the cross.
Remember Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost:
this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
What sinners meant for evil, God meant for good.
Glory to God, Amen.