The True Judge: How Samson’s Story Points to Jesus Christ

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] Praying along with us. So let's first pray with the children, allow them to be dismissed to children's church. Let's pray.
[00:00:07] The Heavenly Father, we come before you once again, thanking you for the children that you bring to our church.
[00:00:14] Lord, you reminded us that we have to become as a little child if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven.
[00:00:21] And so, Lord, as we see these children go to Children's Church, we pray that you would bless them and bless those that teach them and minister to them.
[00:00:30] Lord, may they be encouraged.
[00:00:33] May their hearts be filled with joy and peace that comes through knowing your Son, Jesus Christ.
[00:00:40] Help those that minister to them and in the nursery as well.
[00:00:43] And Lord, may you be glorified in all that takes place in Children's Church this day.
[00:00:49] and we pray along with the children the prayer you taught us to pray saying our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
[00:01:04] give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory
[00:01:21] forever. Amen. Amen. Children can be dismissed to Children's Church at this time, those who would like to go or their parents take them. And of course, children are always welcome to stay here as well. Today's a special message about Samson. And someone asked if you grew your hair long for
[00:01:42] this message pastor ed but the message the hair has been cut so he will come humble right very nice very nice all right well let's take some time uh before the message in prayer before
[00:01:58] the lord i'll give you some time to pray silently right where you are and they will join together corporately the heavenly father we come before you praising you and worshiping you father son and holy spirit we rejoice that we can be in your house this day lord god we thank you that we
[00:02:40] marvel how the whole world observes a seven-day week which of course harkens back to the way you created things so that we might uh have this seventh day and now the first day through the
[00:02:52] rising of your son jesus to mark as one in seven to rest and to worship you and to serve and to ponder on what you've done for us in your creation and especially in the new creation of your Son,
[00:03:05] Christ Jesus. We come before you praising you, glorifying you, and longing, Lord God, that your glory and praise might fill the White House and the palaces and the residents of kings and prime ministers and presidents and parliaments all throughout this earth. And we know, Lord God,
[00:03:25] one day everything will, everything that has breath, give you praise, both in heaven, in earth, and under the earth. And so we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:03:39] May that day come to pass quickly, Lord God. May you get the glory, honor, and praise. But may it be so here this day as we come before you, Lord God. We do pray for our nation. We pray, Lord,
[00:03:50] for our president and vice president, for his cabinet, for the Supreme Court and the Congress, the Senate. Lord, we pray for all of them. Most of all, that they would come to know your Son,
[00:04:01] Jesus Christ, that they would know the basis and the foundation of our republic, which is your word. Lord, that they would remember your words that tell us to love our neighbor as ourself, that tell us to overcome evil with good, and tell us, Lord, that all truth is based in you,
[00:04:20] who define truth your son jesus christ the way the truth and the life thank you lord for blessing us as a nation and yet we know there are many ills and many problems and challenges that we face
[00:04:33] but we know and believe and affirm and pray that lord with your reviving work with your converting work in the hearts and minds of men and women and children in this land lord god that we might
[00:04:45] uh once again once again be a nation that largely confesses you and is a light to the world may it be so lord god for your glory and for the blessing of the whole earth lord we come before you uh
[00:04:59] praying for these on our prayer list we do pray continue to pray for our sister peggy for your healing we rejoice that letty is home and eating peggy's food so we know he's doing well lord we
[00:05:11] praise you, but pray that you would continue to heal and strengthen him and that they would both be back here with us soon. Lord, others on our prayer list, we thank you for answering many
[00:05:23] prayers and others that you're in the process of answering. We think of Darlene for your healing for her leg and foot and for your comfort for her in this time where she's unable to join us.
[00:05:37] We pray, Lord God, for my children, my wife, as sickness has been in the house.
[00:05:42] But, Lord, we thank you that you are taking sickness away from us and bringing healing.
[00:05:47] And I praise you that I'm able to be here, feeling well by your grace, and able to minister and also to be blessed by the message that you're going to give us soon through your servant, Pastor Andy.
[00:06:00] Lord, we come before you asking that you help us to have ears to hear.
[00:06:06] Lord, that all that is spoken here would be from your spirit, through your word and through the lips of Pastor Andy this day, that we would have ears to hear, that we'd have hearts ready to receive.
[00:06:22] Lord, we pray for your reviving work.
[00:06:24] We pray for your saving work.
[00:06:26] Lord, we pray that you would be present as we gather together in your name of your son, Jesus, that your spirit would work in our hearts, that you would, Lord, work in us a unity of the spirit.
[00:06:39] Lord, that is any spirit in this place that is contrary to your spirit, that would be bound, it would be rendered helpless and have no place here today, but that you alone would be glorified.
[00:06:50] May we listen attentively to your word, and Lord, may we grow thereby, For we're reminded, faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the Word of God.
[00:06:59] And you call us to walk by faith.
[00:07:01] We know we're saved by faith because of the love of your Son, Jesus Christ, and your love for us in giving him for us.
[00:07:09] So, Lord, we come before you now in the spirit of your Son, Christ Jesus, asking you to help us to have ears to hear and help us, Lord, to rejoice in your Word.
[00:07:20] bless pastor andy anoint him as he brings the message and give him lord that clarity of speech and wisdom that you will use to pierce our hearts that we might receive and grow thereby and be more
[00:07:37] conformed to the image of your son this very day in whose name we pray and lord uh by whose spirit we worship, glorify, and honor you.
[00:07:48] Amen.
[00:07:51] Pastor Dan.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:07:54] Me and your Bibles to Judges 13.
[00:08:04] We are going to be looking at Samson, but there are a good many things in dealing with Samson.
[00:08:13] One is in looking at the angel of the Lord and how this is the Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament.
[00:08:22] and kind of looking at the verification for that and then seeing how the miraculous birth that Samson had and what the Lord's plan was in that and even looking at Samson's mistakes that he made,
[00:08:44] look at our lives in how we follow the Lord and then in kind of bringing all of that together and of seeing how Samson points to Christ and how we are to follow the Lord Jesus.
[00:09:00] So in Judges 13, it says, And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.
[00:09:20] And there was a certain man of Zorah of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and bare not.
[00:09:30] And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren and barest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a son.
[00:09:42] Now therefore, beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine, nor strong drink, nor eat anything unclean.
[00:09:52] For lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb.
[00:10:04] And he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
[00:10:09] Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible.
[00:10:20] But I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name.
[00:10:28] And he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and now drink no wine, nor strong drink, nor eat anything unclean, for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.
[00:10:44] Then Manoah entreated the Lord and said, O my Lord, let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.
[00:10:59] And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat in the field.
[00:11:08] But Manoah, her husband, was not with her.
[00:11:11] And the woman made haste and ran and showed her husband and said unto him, Behold, the man hath appeared unto me that came unto me the other day.
[00:11:22] And Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said unto him, Are thou the man that speakest unto the woman?
[00:11:31] And he said, I am.
[00:11:33] And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass.
[00:11:37] how shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him?
[00:11:43] And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman, let her beware.
[00:11:50] She may not eat anything that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat anything, nor eat any unclean thing.
[00:12:01] All that I commanded her, let her observe.
[00:12:06] And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, I pray thee, let us detain thee until we shall have made ready a kid for thee.
[00:12:14] And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread.
[00:12:21] And if thou will offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the Lord.
[00:12:25] For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the Lord.
[00:12:32] And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, what is thy name that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honor and the angel of the Lord said unto him why askest thou thus after my name seeing it is secret so Manoah took a kid
[00:12:52] with a meat offering and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord and the angel did wondrously and And Manoah and his wife looked on.
[00:13:01] For it came to pass when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar.
[00:13:11] And Manoah and his wife looked on it and fell on their faces to the ground.
[00:13:15] But the angel of the Lord did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife.
[00:13:21] Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the Lord.
[00:13:25] and Manoah said unto his wife we shall surely die because we have seen God but his wife said unto him if the Lord were pleased to kill us he would have not received a burnt offering and a meat
[00:13:40] offering at our hands neither would he have showed us all these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these. And the woman bare a son and called his name Samson. And the child
[00:13:57] grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtoal. All right, so we have this amazing story of the Lord appearing to
[00:14:16] Samson's mother and to his father Manoah. And at first, in how, you know, in how the language reads, it says, you know, an angel of the Lord. But then at the end, when the angel ascends in
[00:14:36] the fire that is coming up from the offering, they say, we're going to die because we have seen God. And so we know that this is God himself. We know from other places, bless you, we know from
[00:14:52] other places in the Old Testament that this was Christ himself. This was Christ's work as the mediator and in representing his people and as the work of the Savior for his people. In coming to them and coming on their level and showing them the truth and the love and the salvation
[00:15:19] of God and calling his people back to himself.
[00:15:24] And so this is an amazing story of how God enters human history and enters our level to reveal himself to us.
[00:15:37] And the thing is, what does this mean for us?
[00:15:40] how does God do this for us and how should it change us because this story is not just for the Old Testament it's not just for in the time of the judges it is for us now
[00:15:56] because it shows us in how Christ came as the angel of the Lord and as he did many times in the Old Testament it shows how he is God with us, right?
[00:16:13] He does not leave us unto our own means to save ourselves, but he is directing us on how we follow him and how we live and how he wants to bring ultimate blessing and his purposes for our lives.
[00:16:30] I mean, just the first little gleaming that you can get out of that, it's like if you're sitting here this morning and you think that your life is your own, well, you are completely wrong. It is God's, His and His totally. And the issue that we have
[00:16:46] is our struggle between not realizing that and trying to do things our own way, trying to do things by our own wisdom, our own reason, our own ordering of things. And it's like this wrestling
[00:17:00] with God. In fact, we're even going to look at that because that helps us to understand that the angel of the Lord was Christ in him wrestling with Jacob. All of this is a picture of how
[00:17:14] we are with God and how he appears to us even in our weakness and even in our thick-headedness and shows us who he is and that he wants us to follow him. So looking at a few things here in
[00:17:32] 13, and then we'll dive into the angel of the Lord. So in the time of the judges, this was a very unusual and difficult time in Israel's history. They had come into the promised land.
[00:17:49] They were supposed to take over the whole promised land in the land of Canaan to drive out all the inhabitants that live there in a total and complete way, but they only did a partial job of it. And so
[00:18:07] the Lord tells them, once they kind of give up on their mission in this, he says, well, you know what? I'm not going to drive them out anymore because you did not obey my voice. And so therefore
[00:18:20] these people are going to, some of them are going to remain there and they are going to be a snare to you. Their idols will be a snare to you. And you and some of you will want to worship their
[00:18:33] idols instead of me, and you will have a choice. Are you going to follow me, or are you going to follow the dictates of your own heart and do what pleases you? Because if you do that, there will be
[00:18:45] judgment. And we see this cycle in Judges as the people would do what pleased them, would worship idols would not follow God, would indulge themselves, and God would hand them over to these other nations to be oppressed by them. The people would cry out. They wouldn't necessarily
[00:19:07] completely repent, as we see in the Hebrew word for there, but they would cry out in their misery and their groaning, and God in his mercy would still send a deliverer, a savior, a judge,
[00:19:23] who would lead the Israelites and would defeat those enemies and there would be peace for a while.
[00:19:31] Then that judge would die and they'd start the same thing over and over.
[00:19:35] And what the book of Judges points to us, if you didn't realize, I mean, some of y'all might not have ever even cracked the book of Judges.
[00:19:44] What it shows us is that the salvation that is there in a human sense is temporary.
[00:19:52] and it points to the need of an ultimate deliverer who is the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:20:01] Is it any amazement or wonder that he shows up to show them that he is the true judge and the true deliverer?
[00:20:12] By the way, what are the three offices of Christ?
[00:20:15] Does anybody know?
[00:20:18] A priest, he is prophet, and he is king.
[00:20:22] Okay, king is similar to a judge here.
[00:20:25] All right, so Jesus is prophet, priest, and king.
[00:20:29] So he is the ultimate king, the ultimate deliverer.
[00:20:33] If you're ever wanting to have guidance in your life for what you're supposed to do or how you're supposed to live or what the purpose of your life is, you go to the king because he will show you.
[00:20:45] All right, so as we see in the beginning of chapter 13, it says the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines 40 years.
[00:21:00] All right, so then it kind of takes you to the tribe of Dan, which was more in the north.
[00:21:06] And there is a man and a woman there, and the woman is barren.
[00:21:11] Now, God does amazing things in the Old Testament and in the working to redeem his people through barren women.
[00:21:22] Why does he do that?
[00:21:24] Because a woman can't make herself pregnant on her own if she's not able to, right?
[00:21:30] There is a sense of hopelessness.
[00:21:32] There is a sense of despair.
[00:21:36] And it's like something else and someone else has to help me if I'm to get pregnant.
[00:21:41] If a couple is to have children.
[00:21:44] And so God's like, I'm glad that you asked that.
[00:21:48] I'm glad that you have come to me and crying out to me because I'm the only one who can help you.
[00:21:54] And so he shows up.
[00:21:56] Some of the other barren women that we see in the Bible are first, I think, starts out with Sarah.
[00:22:04] Then there is Rebecca and Rachel and Hannah and kind of the list goes on.
[00:22:13] But certainly Samson's mother was in that category.
[00:22:17] And you even see, even though there's Elizabeth in the New Testament, which was John the Baptist's mother.
[00:22:23] That was a miracle birth.
[00:22:25] And even though with Mary, the mother, the earthly mother of Jesus, she was not barren, but it was a miracle birth because she was a virgin.
[00:22:39] And it is the eternal Son of God who is appearing here as the angel of the Lord, becoming man and entering into human history as a man.
[00:22:50] the only way that we are saved, the only way that we could be saved.
[00:22:55] And why do you think that is?
[00:22:58] Because we, as fallen sinful people, can never be good enough to obey God's law.
[00:23:05] Never, ever, ever.
[00:23:07] We're just not able to because of sin, because of sin within us, no matter how hard we want to.
[00:23:14] So Christ had to become human so that he could live perfectly in our place and thereby have the right and the ability to die for our sins so that we might be forgiven and saved.
[00:23:30] All right, so Samson's mother was barren and the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her, Behold now thou art barren and barest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a son.
[00:23:45] And then the angel of the Lord gives her all of this list of things that, that it's like, well, this is what the child is to do and to not do.
[00:23:55] And says that, that, that the child should be a Nazarite unto God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
[00:24:07] All right, so he is a Nazarite in the womb, dedicated to God for his whole life.
[00:24:15] Now, if you, if we're not necessarily going to look there, but if you were to look at number six you would see the Nazarite vow and the thing that stands out there is that generally
[00:24:25] speaking a Nazarite vow was a short-term thing it was a vow that you made and where you dedicated yourself to God you you did not drink wine you did not have any fruit of the vine you couldn't
[00:24:37] even eat raisins because it comes from the vine when the angel of the Lord later on when he appears to Samson's parents again, says he's not to eat of the fruit of the vine. Couldn't have
[00:24:51] grapes, couldn't have raisins, was not to cut his hair, was not to be around to eat anything unclean, to not be around anything that dies, to not eat anything that does die, which we're going to see Samson does. Samson broke his Nazarite vow a lot. And in number six, if you're
[00:25:16] going through a short-term time and you break the vow, you got to start over. So anyway, we'll get to that with Samson here. But it is very interesting that he was dedicated as a Nazarite for his whole
[00:25:32] life to be pure before God. So essentially this Nazarite vow shows how we are to ultimately follow God, right? And we are to dedicate ourselves to him. But the problem is because of our sin,
[00:25:48] we're not able to do it perfectly. So the thing is, kind of give you a little glimpse of where we're going. You know, Samson did a lot of things that were not cool as a judge and as a leader in
[00:26:01] Israel and as someone who was a Nazarite. However, we're not able to be totally pure before God either, right? No matter where we are in life, until we get to heaven and we are trusting in
[00:26:16] the Lord Jesus Christ and repenting of our sins in his name, it is only at that time that we will be able to not sin. I praise God. I'm looking forward to that time. All right. So, I'll be a
[00:26:33] Nazarite from the womb and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
[00:26:39] now that is very interesting in how that wording is there because maybe it sounds similar to something else that was in the New Testament sounds something similar to in Matthew chapter 1 when an angel shows up and tells Joseph
[00:26:59] that Mary is going to be with child as a virgin so let's look at that in Matthew chapter 1 verse 18 it says now the birth of jesus christ was on this wise when as his mother mary was espoused to
[00:27:25] joseph before they came together she was found to be with child through the holy ghost then joseph her husband being a just man and not willing to make her a public example was minded to put her
[00:27:40] away privily but when he thought on these things behold the angel of the lord now this right here was a regular angel okay uh the angel of the lord appeared unto him in a dream saying joseph thou
[00:27:54] son of david fear not to take unto thee mary thy wife for that which is conceived in her is of the holy ghost and she shall bring forth a son and shall call his name jesus for he shall save his
[00:28:07] people from their sins you see how that's similar samson was to begin to deliver his people from the hand of the philistines and jesus was to deliver his people from their sins so even before samson
[00:28:23] is born he is pointing to christ in the sense of of this this work to deliver his people and samson did it imperfectly but christ does it perfectly and in totality there are there are a couple other
[00:28:38] things in Samson's life that point to Jesus even in the midst of him not following God and being an example as he should. But like I said, that is what the whole book of Judges is, is pointing to
[00:28:56] Christ. We need a better leader. We need a better Savior and a better deliverer, one who's not going to die and one who is going to follow god completely as we are supposed to and that is only
[00:29:11] christ all right so verse 6 of judges 13 then the woman came and told her husband saying the man of god came unto me and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of god very terrible that
[00:29:28] also means awesome very awesome very wonderful but i asked him not whence he was neither told he me his name but he said unto me behold thou shalt conceive and bear a son now drink no wine
[00:29:46] nor strong drink nor eat anything unclean for the child should be a nazarite to god from the wound to the day of his death then manoah asked god saying can can you come again can you send that
[00:29:59] man? Can you send that angel again? And you know what? God listens. I mean, that's not point number one, but that is like a main point to us. When you call out to the Lord and you are sincere in
[00:30:12] asking him for his help, he hears you. If you are praying in the name of Jesus, if you are repenting of your sins, if in your heart you are wanting to obey God and to follow him, even though we
[00:30:27] might not be doing it all as we should if you are sincerely coming to god and you are resting in him alone he hears and he will move i mean we see that right here by the fact that the lord jesus shows
[00:30:43] up again and so um in verse nine and god hearkened to the voice of manoah and the angel of god came again unto the woman as she sat in the field but manoah her husband was not with her and so she
[00:31:00] tells the angel hey can you hold on just a second or at least you know there might be something of that she runs and gets her husband and comes back and then you know he he has his list okay okay can
[00:31:11] you tell me about this keep talking about this keep talking about this and here's the god of the whole universe and he is just so patient with manoa i mean if if you know the lord forbid but
[00:31:23] but but if i were the lord in his place i'd be like look man you know you're really wasting my time here. I've already told her what she has to do, but God is not like that. And so when Manoah
[00:31:37] says, are you the man that speaketh unto this woman? And he says, I am. And Manoah said, now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child and what shall we do unto him? And the Lord
[00:31:50] says, of all that I spake unto the woman, let her beware, goes through the list again. And so the man's like, you know, Manoah's like, well, we have to do something here. You know, we have to
[00:32:02] make a burnt offering to you or to the Lord here. And the angel says something very interesting.
[00:32:10] He says, though you detain me, I will not eat of your food because the offering was really to him as the Lord Jesus. And so he prepared, Manoah prepares the offering. He lights it on the rock
[00:32:26] and the offering is being offered and it says that the angel of the Lord, the Lord Jesus, ascended in the smoke and disappeared.
[00:32:40] Now that might sound a little far-fetched, but what we have is Samson's parents' reaction.
[00:32:48] We have Manoah who is like, we're going to die, this is it.
[00:32:53] I mean, it's like this proves that this happened.
[00:32:55] And his wife calmly and wisely says, well, you know, I don't think that the Lord wants to kill us because he wouldn't have come the second time and he wouldn't have told us all these things.
[00:33:09] But we do know from Exodus 33 that the Lord says, no man shall see my face and live, right?
[00:33:18] The Lord Jesus didn't show up as in his total God form.
[00:33:24] He showed up as the angel of the Lord.
[00:33:26] Again, he is acting as the intercessor and the mediator between God and us.
[00:33:33] That's why he shows up as the angel of the Lord.
[00:33:36] He is prefiguring how he is going to come as the mediator as a man.
[00:33:42] In fact, there are the other places in the Old Testament that show Christ appearing.
[00:33:48] In some of those cases, he is shown as a man.
[00:33:53] Other places, as an angel.
[00:33:55] Other places, he shows up as a man, and they call him an angel of the Lord.
[00:33:59] It is completely amazing and very fascinating in how our God condescends to us.
[00:34:11] It's like he is constantly saying, come to me, follow me, trust me.
[00:34:18] He's saying, don't trust yourselves.
[00:34:20] Don't trust your own heart.
[00:34:23] Trust me.
[00:34:23] And I will show you how you are to live and what your heart is really trying to tell you because God has made us to follow him in an ultimate sense.
[00:34:39] And so before the angel disappears, before Christ disappears, he asked him his name.
[00:34:48] And he says, why do you ask my name?
[00:34:49] It is secret or it is wonderful or it is beyond comprehension.
[00:34:55] Now, is this the only place in the Old Testament where it says this?
[00:35:00] No.
[00:35:01] It says in Genesis 32, where a man appears with Jacob and wrestles with him all night.
[00:35:14] And the man who shows up in the strength of a man is not able to overcome Jacob because he is a strong guy.
[00:35:23] But this is the Lord Jesus coming as a man.
[00:35:28] to wrestle with him and so when when when they're wrestling all night and you know they're uh they are not like one is not able to to get the clear advantage over the other and the sun is coming up
[00:35:47] the lord jesus reaches reaches up and touches jacob's hip and dislocates it so he can't wrestle anymore. And so Jacob knows, I mean, one, he figures out this man coming and wrestling with him in this weird thing. He's like, okay, this might be God, but I'm not real sure.
[00:36:07] So we asked him, he says, and then the man says, let go of me. And Jacob says, I won't let you go unless you bless me. And he says, what is your name? And that's where he changes his name from
[00:36:17] Jacob to Israel, which means you have struggled with God and have overcome through God's help.
[00:36:26] And so Jacob asked the man, says, what is your name?
[00:36:28] And he says, why do you ask me my name?
[00:36:32] And he blesses him there.
[00:36:35] And so Jacob says, he says, I have seen God face to face.
[00:36:40] So, I mean, that's just one thing of how we know that this is Christ.
[00:36:47] Another place that is in the book of Judges is when the Lord appears to Gideon.
[00:36:55] and he appears to him again as the angel of the Lord.
[00:37:00] And it is the Lord speaking to Gideon.
[00:37:05] And so it is another amazing thing.
[00:37:08] Gideon goes to offer him a sacrifice and the angel of the Lord disappears.
[00:37:17] And Gideon is like, I've seen God, I'm going to die.
[00:37:20] And then it's like the Lord speaks to him and says, you know, peace be with you, you are not going to die. And so I could go on and on with those things, but there are so, so many places in the Old Testament that show in how Christ came. I
[00:37:38] mean, even when the Lord appeared to Moses on the burning bush, it was the angel of the Lord in the bush, and it was God who talked to Moses. We serve a great God. We serve a compassionate
[00:37:56] God, one who loves you and one who wants you to follow him. But a couple other things that before we get into Samson's life that we see here in the book of Judges that I want you to see
[00:38:10] is that, you know, the Lord just doesn't tiptoe up behind you and say, you know, please follow me, please obey me. And, you know, like if you happen to mess up and do things how you want to do,
[00:38:26] well that's okay I'm still here I still love you no he is not like that he is compassionate he is loving but he is also one that will tell us I make the rules and you are to follow me but he puts
[00:38:44] another step in that he comes to us and he gives himself to us and that is part of what I want you to see. But if you look at Judges 2, see, now this is Christ appearing again. This is after the
[00:39:08] conquest. This is after Joshua has died. And there is a little bit more of the conquest that they have to do. And the people have not, the different tribes have not totally driven the people of the
[00:39:23] land out. In chapter 2 verse 1, an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt. I have brought you unto the land which I swear unto your fathers.
[00:39:38] And I said, I will never break my covenant with you and you shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land. Ye shall throw down their altars, but ye have not obeyed my voice.
[00:39:49] why have you done this?
[00:39:52] Wherefore I also said I will not drive them out from before you but they shall be as thorns in your sides and their gods shall be a snare unto you.
[00:40:03] See when God was having his people come into the land of Canaan and exterminate really the people there drive them out totally conquer it it was not because he was mean it was because he knew
[00:40:18] that their gods would be a snare to them and that that would be a temptation for them to worship other gods.
[00:40:24] And what is the first commandment?
[00:40:26] You shall have no other gods before me.
[00:40:30] It's him and him alone.
[00:40:36] In verse four, it came to pass when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto the children of Israel that the people lifted up their voice and wept and they called the name of that place Bochim
[00:40:47] and they sacrificed there unto the Lord, which means weeping if you look also in Judges 6 so this is the angel of the Lord showing up there in chapter 2 and saying you are to follow me
[00:41:01] and obey me and you have not done it but then he comes we see where the children of Israel have again done evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord hands them over to Midian
[00:41:19] and they were greatly oppressed says that I guess we'll just start reading in verse 1 The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of Midian seven years.
[00:41:33] And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel, and because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains and caves and strongholds.
[00:41:42] And so it was when Israel had sown that Midian came up, and the Amalekites and the children of the east even came up against them, and they encamped against them and destroyed the increase of the land.
[00:41:54] They destroyed the crops.
[00:41:56] till thou came unto Gaza and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ass.
[00:42:05] And so it says they came up like grasshoppers and completely just obliterated any kind of produce or wealth or food or animals that Israel had.
[00:42:17] And it says in verse 8, that the Lord sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, so he is sending a man to proclaim the word of God.
[00:42:27] He says, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you forth out of the house of bondage, and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians
[00:42:36] and out of the hand of all that oppressed you and drave them out before you and gave you their land.
[00:42:43] And I said unto you, I am the Lord your God.
[00:42:46] Fear not the God of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell, but ye have not obeyed my voice.
[00:42:54] See, God is calling them to account.
[00:42:58] God does come to us to help us and to minister to us and to lead us in our lives, but he still wants obedience.
[00:43:09] See, if a person is not obeying God, is walking outside of the will of God, is doing as in the theme of Judges, where it says that in those days of Israel, there was no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
[00:43:27] And so if people do what is right in their own eyes, the Lord is saying, repent, come to me, I will forgive you, I will have mercy upon you, and you will have peace, and you will have blessing like you have never known.
[00:43:44] But we have to do it God's way and not our way, and that is what we are seeing here in the book of Judges.
[00:43:49] And it is the story I told you about when the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon.
[00:43:54] And it happens right after the prophet comes and proclaims the word of God.
[00:44:01] The Lord shows up.
[00:44:02] Same thing happens in chapter 13.
[00:44:08] Okay, so now we get into Samson's life a little bit.
[00:44:15] So we're going to be, I'm just going to talk about a few things from chapters 14 to 16.
[00:44:21] We're not going to read the whole chapter.
[00:44:24] So when I gave Emilio the scripture I was going to be using, his first thing was he says pastor andy this is really a lot and that's like well i'm not reading all of that all right but when you look at judges 14 to 16 you see a little bit about samson that he
[00:44:43] was not the usual deliverer or judge that you even see in the book of judges before him so he was a Nazirite from birth as we said he couldn't cut his hair so you know he's this uh you know
[00:44:59] you can imagine him as this Fabio looking guy you know he's he he's built you know he he's a handsome fellow and you know he he he had he had problems he had problems with the ladies
[00:45:11] because he did what was right in his own eyes maybe not all the time but in some of the time He followed the dictates of his own heart.
[00:45:27] And so it starts out in chapter 14 that he sees a woman down in Timna, which is in the area of the Philistines.
[00:45:39] And the Philistines are ruling over the Israelites at this time.
[00:45:43] And he tells his parents, he says, I've seen a woman down there.
[00:45:46] I want you to go and get her for me, for she pleases me.
[00:45:51] He says, she is good to my eyes.
[00:45:53] in him wanting to follow what he wanted to do rather than what God wanted him to do.
[00:46:00] Now, it does say, it's very interesting here, says that, of course, his parents did not agree with that and said, you know, why can't you get a woman of her own people?
[00:46:12] You know, why can't you be normal here?
[00:46:15] And so in verse 4 of chapter 14 says, But his father and mother knew not that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion after the Philistines for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.
[00:46:29] So providentially the Lord was working through Samson to confront the Philistines, but later as Samson gets, he kind of goes more and more into sin, the Lord didn't condone his sin, he just kind of worked around it
[00:46:43] to still bring his salvation that he was using Samson to deliver his people.
[00:46:51] Now, another thing with that that you have to realize is that Samson is listed in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11.
[00:47:02] So there were things that he did do right in following the Lord and in leading the people of God as a judge, just the times he messed up were very glaring.
[00:47:13] We'll read Hebrews 11 here in a little bit after we see some of these other things.
[00:47:18] And so as Samson is going down to Timnah, He sees a lion, says the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he just tore that lion apart like it was nothing.
[00:47:32] I think describes it as it was like a little goat.
[00:47:37] And so when the spirit of the Lord came on him, he was able to do great things.
[00:47:41] It's like God used him in this supernatural way.
[00:47:46] And those were the times that were good.
[00:47:49] But then when he comes back later and sees this lion, there is bees that have made a nest there and made honey and he takes some of the honey out of his dead lion, which he's going against his Nazarite vows.
[00:48:03] He gives some to his parents and doesn't tell them that it was out of a dead lion.
[00:48:09] I guess maybe he was trying to be humorous or something there.
[00:48:14] Anyhow, so I'm not going to go through everything in the story of Samson, but he ends up not being able to get this girl.
[00:48:24] and this girl's father gives this woman to somebody else.
[00:48:32] That makes Samson really mad.
[00:48:34] So then he acts in this vengeful way on the Philistines, burns down their crops.
[00:48:39] He gets like 300 foxes or 300 pears.
[00:48:46] Let's see here.
[00:48:49] He caught 300 foxes, so 150 pears.
[00:48:52] He ties their tails together and puts a little torch in there, and so they're kind of running out of the fields and they're fighting against each other, so it just burns everything down.
[00:49:01] All right, so he is essentially attacking the Philistines, but he's doing this in a spirit of revenge, which is not necessarily pleasing to the Lord, but the Lord uses it to attack the Philistines.
[00:49:16] All right, then other things happen, and there's a time where you probably heard Samson taking a donkey's jawbone.
[00:49:28] He kills a thousand men when they come after him for the foxes.
[00:49:32] It says the spirit of the Lord came upon him.
[00:49:35] He grabbed a jawbone and he struck down a thousand men at once.
[00:49:38] I mean, Samson was a tough dude.
[00:49:42] And then in another instance, when he goes and he hides out in Judah, the men of Judah come to him and says, you realize the Philistines are ruling over us, right? You're making life hard on us
[00:49:54] because they're taking it out on us. So we're here to collect the reward and we're going to deliver you over. He says just promise that you won't kill me yourself. And so they take like new rope
[00:50:06] that is still really tight and really greenish and they tie him up, they hand him over the spirit of the Lord comes upon him and he busts out of those things and he whoops up on the Philistines then.
[00:50:24] And that might be when he grabbed the jawbone.
[00:50:32] Let's see here.
[00:50:35] Yes, I believe, well, anyway.
[00:50:41] Without reading the whole thing through, I kind of got my wires crossed a little bit.
[00:50:47] But anyhow, then Samson goes and he finds a prostitute, which is not good.
[00:50:54] Then he goes and he finds another woman whose name was Delilah.
[00:50:59] There are people who will name their daughters Delilah.
[00:51:02] Hey, this is a biblical name.
[00:51:04] What are you doing?
[00:51:06] For all the girls who've been named Delilah, I'm sorry.
[00:51:12] Anyhow, Delilah tricks him, but really I think Samson allows himself to be tricked here.
[00:51:21] And he finally tells her the secret of his strength, that it is in his hair.
[00:51:27] He is a Nazirite who is devoted to God from the womb.
[00:51:33] I mean, after all these things, if you tie me with seven new robes, if you put my hair into like seven looms that you would use to weave things and all other kind of things, and he just busts out of all those
[00:51:51] and then says, if you shave my head.
[00:51:54] but he thinks, what, am I not on?
[00:52:03] Oh, I'm sorry, as I started moving around, what?
[00:52:06] I'm really sorry.
[00:52:07] Thank you.
[00:52:09] All right, so then Delilah has shavers to come in, and they shave his head.
[00:52:20] His strength leaves him.
[00:52:21] He wakes up thinking, you know, I've been told that I would lose my strength, but I'm still going to go out like I did before, but he couldn't Because it said the Lord had left him.
[00:52:32] Now, why did the Lord leave him?
[00:52:36] Because he disobeyed.
[00:52:39] Because his heart was not totally bent on following the Lord with everything that he had.
[00:52:48] Samson is a lot like us.
[00:52:52] Because we are not bent.
[00:52:54] Am I still wrong?
[00:52:56] Oh, I'm good?
[00:52:57] Okay, great.
[00:52:58] because we are not bent on following the Lord of every decision for everything that we do.
[00:53:05] But the thing is, is that the Lord wants us to do better.
[00:53:10] He encourages us and He says, follow me, I will give you strength and grace to obey me.
[00:53:17] And the more that He forgives us, this grace, it sets up a change in us where we want to follow Him and obey Him and please Him because He is so loving and forgiving.
[00:53:29] Do you see that?
[00:53:31] But He calls us to obedience.
[00:53:39] And the Lord wants us to live for Him too so that He can work through us and proclaim His salvation through us.
[00:53:51] So while Samson was a judge and leader of Israel and we might not be a leader like Samson was, God still wants to work through us.
[00:54:01] And He can only do that as we are striving to obey Him, as we are striving to follow Him, as His Spirit works in us and works His grace to call us closer and closer to Him.
[00:54:24] Let's see if there's any other points here that I missed before I move on to the next point here.
[00:54:37] It shows us how holy Christ is, that we are to He is loving and gracious toward us but we are to remember that He is God that should help us to obey should help us to want to follow Him
[00:54:59] because that is why He came because we could not be perfect because we could not take care of our own sin and still live He came to take our sin upon Himself and to pay the penalty for it
[00:55:15] to bear the full wrath of God against sin on himself so that he would be full of forgiveness.
[00:55:26] And he calls you and me to follow him, to leave our sin behind and to follow him and to be changed by him.
[00:55:40] I had mentioned also that there are a couple other ways that Samson had pointed to Christ in things that happened when the men of Judah bound him with ropes and handed him over to the Philistines,
[00:55:54] it was like when the Jews handed Jesus over to the Romans and he was bound and tried and crucified.
[00:56:07] Not totally, but as a picture, as a pre-figure.
[00:56:12] And as Samson, we haven't even talked about when Samson died.
[00:56:16] so when they caught Samson and they put out his eyes and they put him in the temple of their God which was Dagon and they praised their God and said that our God Dagon has helped us
[00:56:32] to defeat our enemy Samson and it says Samson's hair had started to grow back and he praised one last time and he asked the guard that was there and said, can you put my hands on the foundational center post of the temple?
[00:56:51] He probably didn't say it like that.
[00:56:54] But he knew that these two pillars held up the whole temple.
[00:56:59] And he said, Lord, hear me, give me strength one more time, and let me take revenge on the Philistines.
[00:57:12] And he pushed, brought down the whole temple, and he killed, I think it was 3,000 or more in that day.
[00:57:19] He said that he killed more then of the Philistines than he did for his whole life in the time that he had judged Israel for those 20 years.
[00:57:29] And so the Lord heard his prayer because he was repenting of his sin and he was saying, I haven't done things right.
[00:57:38] I want you to forgive me.
[00:57:41] I want to be used by you.
[00:57:43] And the Lord did.
[00:57:44] And so just as Samson had pushed down the whole temple and defeated the Philistines in this great...
[00:57:58] I mean, even though he died there, it was a great victory.
[00:58:03] So Christ defeated Satan and hell and sin by His death on the cross and His resurrection.
[00:58:12] It was pointing to the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ.
[00:58:16] even through Samson's weakness.
[00:58:21] And brothers and sisters, that's where it all comes together for us is that even through our weaknesses, our shortcomings, our sin, our mistakes, God can still work through us for His glory and He still wants to.
[00:58:37] Just as the Spirit of the Lord came into Samson and strengthened him in this mighty way to do miraculous things, that is the same Spirit that lives in us as we profess Christ as our Lord and Savior.
[00:58:51] It is the same Spirit that will strengthen us to work and to live for Christ, but only as we are looking for that, only as we are submitting ourselves to Christ, only as we are confessing our sins in His name and in claiming Him and Him alone.
[00:59:07] Otherwise, it's just us relying on our strength, on our wisdom, on our direction in trying to do what is right in our own eyes.
[00:59:23] I wanted to read from Hebrews 11, verse 32 to 34, so you could see kind of the end of Samson's life was greater than all of those shortcomings and mistakes.
[00:59:38] that he made and what he actually did do for the lord says in hebrews 11 32 watch what shall i more say for the time would fail me to tell of gideon and of barack and of samson and of jephthah
[00:59:54] and of david and samuel and of the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms wrought righteousness or obtain promises, stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant
[01:00:13] in fight, and turned to flight the armies of aliens.
[01:00:21] And so Samson did believe and trust in the Lord.
[01:00:25] He was vindicated even though he made a lot of mistakes, even though he was a very unlikely judge but it shows how the angel of the Lord Christ himself is the true judge and the true king that wants to work in us too and as Hebrews 11 ends it goes
[01:00:49] into 12 this points right into to what this is saying about what we're saying about Christ and says that in Hebrews 2 or 12 1 through 2 wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great
[01:01:12] a cloud of witnesses all of the saints in the Old Testament that are mentioned in chapter 11 that spur us on to follow to follow Christ let us lay aside every weight and the sin
[01:01:24] which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured
[01:01:38] the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. That Christ is the author and the finisher of our faith. He knows what the rest of our lives are going to be as we are
[01:01:53] dedicating ourselves to God and living for Him and striving to accomplish for Him. But we have to keep our eyes on Christ. We have to say that we want to obey the Lord and His Word more than we
[01:02:08] want to satisfy ourselves. And brothers and sisters, we have to tell this to ourselves every day because otherwise we will get off the track and say, hey, I want what's going to make me feel
[01:02:24] better now. I want to do what I want to do instead of what God is calling us to do. And even as the Lord had to work around Samson's sin to accomplish God's purposes in His people.
[01:02:42] So He does in our lives as well.
[01:02:45] And even through that journey, it should show us that we need to depend on Him more, that we need to come and fall before the Lord in humility.
[01:02:56] But it shows us a great point.
[01:02:58] It shows us in Romans 8, 28 through 30, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.
[01:03:15] That all things in our lives, the good and the bad, the Lord uses to work together for good of His, of God's plan and purposes for us.
[01:03:27] For those who love God, who are called according to His purpose, as we have pledged ourselves to Christ.
[01:03:36] In verse 29, for whom He foreknew, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
[01:03:49] That in all that we do in striving to live for the Lord, it is to be conformed into the image of Jesus.
[01:03:57] We are to look more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
[01:04:01] do you feel that in your lives that you are growing to be more like Christ if not we need to commit ourselves to do that we need to be seeking his word and seeking his truth
[01:04:18] and asking for the Lord to help us to do that as we are in Romans 8 there toward the end I think we will end with verses 31 to 39 to show us what the glorious end
[01:04:39] of following Christ is.
[01:04:45] As we think of Samson and what happened with him and the fact that he died in serving the Lord, in fighting against God's enemies, but we know from Hebrews 11 that he died in faith.
[01:05:05] As we believe in Christ, as we die in faith in the Lord, says absent from the body is present with the Lord in 2 Corinthians 5.
[01:05:17] Therefore we know that in Romans 8, 31-39, what shall we say to these things?
[01:05:24] If God be for us, who can be against us?
[01:05:29] He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
[01:05:41] Who shall lay any charge or anything to the charge of God's elect?
[01:05:45] It is God that justifieth.
[01:05:47] Who is he that condemneth?
[01:05:49] It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen, who is at the right hand of God, who maketh, also maketh intercession for us.
[01:05:58] I love that in 34.
[01:06:00] It's like, if there's anyone who comes against us to condemn us, it is ultimately saying that it could only be Christ because He came and died for us and took the weight of sin on Himself
[01:06:13] and is at the right hand of God making intercession for us, for His people, so that we will live for Him, so that we will obey Him.
[01:06:23] He's like, no one can condemn you because I'm the only one who took the punishment of sin.
[01:06:31] so that I can forgive you and spur you on and make you more than what the world tells you that you can be or what we might conjure up in our own minds of what our purposes are.
[01:06:46] Verse 35, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
[01:06:50] Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
[01:06:56] Pretty much anything that is in the world that Satan can use to throw against us, to discourage us from living for Christ, of being a force for the kingdom of God, Satan will throw at us.
[01:07:12] And what the apostle Paul is telling us is that, will any of those things separate us from the love of Christ?
[01:07:18] And the answer is no, nothing, but only as we bow to Christ as our true judge, as our king.
[01:07:28] Verse 36, as it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long.
[01:07:33] We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
[01:07:36] Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
[01:07:43] For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come.
[01:07:52] So that is anything spiritual or anything physical that would come against us has no power over us, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[01:08:13] If you are in Christ, you are loved so much by Him.
[01:08:18] And He has this amazing thing that He wants for us to do in living for Him.
[01:08:24] The only question that is there is, will you yield yourself to Him?
[01:08:29] will you commit yourself so much to live for the Lord to walk with Him, to be changed by Him that we will fulfill what He has for us so many people fall short because they lose heart
[01:08:48] but yet the power of Christ is so great in Him coming to us and coming alongside of us and filling us with His Holy Spirit that we cannot and should not give up So is this a sermon to pump you up in living for Christ?
[01:09:06] Absolutely.
[01:09:08] Yes, it is.
[01:09:09] We should go out of here so charged in living for Christ that there is nothing that Satan can throw at us that will discourage us or make us take our eyes off of him.
[01:09:20] Not because Satan won't try, not because we won't ever get discouraged again, but because God is faithful.
[01:09:28] Because the power of Christ is with us as was with Samson and his parents and the angel of the Lord.
[01:09:34] He comes to us as our God and He never leaves us.
[01:09:43] He is always with us.
[01:09:45] And this is the God whom we serve both here in this blip that we call for this life but for all eternity that we will be with Him.
[01:09:55] And He wants us while we're here to bring others into the kingdom so that they will come to know this great God who loves us and whom we serve.
[01:10:06] Amen?
[01:10:08] Let's look to the Lord in prayer.
[01:10:11] Father, Lord, we do fall before you.
[01:10:15] We fall before the Lord Jesus.
[01:10:17] We thank you that he went to the cross to take our sin upon himself.
[01:10:22] And Lord, that he died and paid the penalty for it.
[01:10:27] And he rose from the dead.
[01:10:29] and he is alive forevermore and the Lord Jesus says that all who come to him will be filled with his life both now and for all eternity and Lord we ask that you would strengthen us
[01:10:45] that you would fill us with the power of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit resides in us through our profession of faith in the Lord Jesus and Lord we pray that we would commit everything in our lives
[01:10:59] to you to be used by you and to live for You and that You might do great things through us to reach people for You because at the end of the day everything that we do in our lives
[01:11:15] that is not for You will be burned up will have no recollection or meaning it is only in what we do for You it is only in the people that we bring and who have professed faith in You
[01:11:30] that will last And Lord, we thank you for your grace, for your mercy.
[01:11:38] Thank you for forgiving us of our shortcomings, of our sin, of our disobedience.
[01:11:43] And we ask that you will help us to follow you more, to love you more, and to dedicate our total selves to you.
[01:11:58] We thank you.
[01:11:59] We ask all of these things in the name of Jesus, our Savior and our God.
[01:12:04] Amen.
[01:12:04] if we could stand and sing the final