The Samson Syndrome

Judges 15-16

Disclaimer: The views and opinions presented herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of DoD or its Components.  Appearance of, or Ference to, any commercial products or services does not constitute DoD endorsement of those products or services. The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute DoD endorsement of the linked websites, or the information, products or services therein.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back. Welcome to Soldier for Christ Podcast, episode 26. All right, so I'm excited again. I am gonna go back to the story of Samson today. So this is Samson part two. And we are really excited about studying the life of Samson as one of the judges of Israel. The reason, of course, I picked uh Samson is that he is, as I call him, the quintessential uh soldier, really. I mean, he really has so many of the strengths and weaknesses and struggles and dilemmas that so many soldiers face, but not just soldiers, I mean people everywhere, Christians everywhere, humans everywhere. Uh, so it's important to study him. It's important to know his life, of course. Uh let me recap, too. If this is your first time listening, uh, welcome. And let me go a little bit about the background of Samson, if you haven't heard the first one. Uh so, of course, Samson was uh he lived about uh 3,000 years ago during the time of the judges. Okay, so this is before the times of the kings of Israel. Uh this is the time where there was, I call these judges kind of like chieftains or lords of Israel back in the day, and he was a judge of sorts. He was also an incredible warrior, probably actually uh with 100% a strongest man, human being who has ever lived because of his strength, of course, came from God, came from the Holy Spirit. That's what made him so supernaturally strong. So last time I talked about how Samson was predestined by the Lord himself to be a hero, a judge, and a deliverer of his people from the Philistines. And his mother and father were barren, and had no children before Samson, and the angel of the Lord appeared to them, and we believe that that was a Christophany, or Christ in the Old Testament, right there, that appeared to him, appeared to them, spoke to them, told them about the baby boy, and they named him Shimson, or Samson, which means of course beautiful and amazing, like the light, like shining like the sun. So he was a very beautiful boy, a beautiful, beautiful man, handsome man. Um of course, he was also given by God the Nazarite vow, right? So, and what was the Nazarite vow? Was three things in particular. Um, one, you could not drink any alcohol, okay, and or you know, even grapes and so forth, all fermented drinks were against the rules. Uh, you could not touch anything dead, carcasses or dead bodies, and you can never cut your hair. Okay, there were three important stipulations there. Uh, Samuel, by the way, the blessed great judge prophet as well, was also of the Nazarite, also took the Nazarite vow. It was a special vow to dedicate that person unto the Lord, to just distinctly set them aside in society and mark them as someone who was very different and dedicated to God. Okay, so now Samson, uh, we talked about, of course, how he had a great struggle with women. We're going to really talk about and expand on that today as well. Um, but the curious thing about his struggles with lust, really, uh lust of the eyes and lust of the flesh in particular, is that God used his struggles and his weaknesses for God's purposes, for God's own purposes. So it's amazing, and this is very important that we all understand that God can still use, uh uses our strengths and our abilities and our faith. That's that's always how he moves, but he can also use our weaknesses and our problems and our sufferings and our dilemmas and our setbacks and stuff too, which is wonderful because when you really understand that God, nothing in your life is really wasted, that God is, he uses every bit of you, the good and the bad and the ugly, as I say. He he can use that and he does use that part of his glory. Now he doesn't want us to be in sin. That is very being saved is not an excuse to sin. As Paul would say, what should we say then? You know, should we continue to sin? The grace may abound. He says, No, absolutely not. We we know we're saved by grace through faith, but it does not give us a license to sin. That's hearing me really good. Um do now, as I mentioned before, do Christians sin? Absolutely, Christians sin probably every day. But that does not it knowing what to do and what not to do, and still doing what you know you should not do is still a great violation of God's law. And it grieves the Holy Spirit. And you you, as a Christian, the Christians are different because Christians feel convicted about sin. Okay. Um, one of the great hallmarks of the Christian faith that you can really understand that you are truly born again, and you are a genuine Christian, is that when you do sin, and we do sin, uh you are convicted by the Holy Spirit to not repeat the offense. Okay. Unchristians do not have that kind of conviction that comes from the Spirit. So if God does convict you if you're being convicted, even today, if you're being convicted, then don't ignore the conviction. Okay. Uh we are convicted because we are drawn away by our evil desires and the temptations and so forth that come from the enemy. Uh and Samson is a guy that really struggled with temptation. But I also mentioned that last time uh he was known for his immense strength. Okay, his first test of strength came from the lion that attacked him through a vineyard and a vineyard on his wedding day, on his way to the way to Timnah, and he ripped the lion apart right by the jaws, actually, and just grabbed his jaws and just tore the lion apart like it was nothing to him, like it was just paper. So he had this incredible supernatural strength. Now, his wedding was an epic disaster. It it really never really transpired completely. Uh, he gave a riddle to the wedding party, to the elite young men, as the Bible says, um, and he's he suggested it if they answered the riddle correctly, and the riddle was about the lion that he had in fact killed and defeated. Out of the eater came something to eat, out of the strong came something sweet from the beehive in the lion's carcass right there. He said that he would Samson would give the elite men 30 nice linen silk uh pairs of clothing. Now they could not answer the riddle, so they uh manipulated Samson's bride and threatened her with death and her family, and she nagged and tormented Samson to give her the answer, which he did. Uh, but he was very upset that one, they they they manipulated his bride to be, and so he killed 30 men and gave the bloody clothes of those men to the men who had solved the riddle, and then his wife was given away to his best man, can you believe it? Uh, during the wedding, right there. So Samson was very hot mad about that. Now it's interesting because God used all this, I mean, marriage catastrophe, and God can use our worst, by the way, he uses our worst heartbreaks and failures. Even if you've had, and this is very important, if you have had marriage failure, divorce, and so forth, if you have been heartbroken and you've been through bad relationships, and there is, I mean, I mean, just I think like almost every soldier's been through a bad relationship at some point. Um, God can still you and he does, God can, and he does use that. Okay. Now he doesn't want you to remain there. He he's he God is always about growing us, making us better, making us more like himself. But he used Samson's catastrophe wedding for his purpose. Okay. So now we're gonna talk about the legendary battle of Samson, and we're gonna talk about one more uh terrible moment in his life before we conclude his story today. But let me pray for us. Uh, we're gonna go into the scriptures today. So let me pray. Thank you, Lord, for a wonderful day. Bless us, help us to really truly understand your scriptures, help us, Lord, to live a life of your purposes, increase our faith, help us, Lord, to stay away from sin, temptations, and evil and learn from the story of Samson. Help us to be strong and mighty like Samson, Lord, but to stay away from the lust of the eyes and flus of the flesh and the pride of life and those things that the enemy throws at us to hinder or stop or thwart your plan. But we know that all things work together, Lord, for those that love you and are called according to your purpose. So we put our trust and hope and love into you today, Jesus. And we thank you, Christ. And we pray this in your holy name in Jesus. Now we pray. Amen. Okay, so we are in the book of Judges now again, uh, chapter 15. Let's go to chapter 15, and I'm gonna start here and I'm gonna read the whole thing. So it says here later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat to present to his wife. This is the wife that he was going to marry, and he said, I'm going to my wife's room to sleep with her. But her father would not let him in. Truly, I thought you must hate her, her father explained. So I gave her in marriage to your best man. But look, her younger sister is even more beautiful than she is, so marry her instead. Samson said, This time I cannot be blamed for everything I'm going to you f do to you, Philistines. So he went out and he caught 300 foxes. Now I have no idea how he managed to catch. Foxes are incredibly fast creatures, and to catch 300 of them is incredible. He must have been Samson must have been incredibly quick. He caught 300 foxes. He tied their tails together in pairs. So he tied these foxes together, their tails together, that's incredible to me. And he fastened a torch to each pair of tails, and he lit the torches, he let the foxes run through the grain fields of the Philistines. They burned down all the grain to the ground, including the sheaves and the uncut grain, and they also destroyed their vineyards and olive groves. So what Samson did here is he creatively got very mad. He caught a bunch of foxes, he lit them on fire, he burned down their entire food supply of probably the entire all of the whole year. He burned down their wine, he burned down their olive, uh their wine grows and their olive trees. So, and olive trees take years and years to grow, and so do vineyards. So he destroyed basically their all their agricultural food supply. Pretty disastrously bad right here. So who did this to Philistines? The man of Samson was the reply, because his father-in-law from Timnah gave Samson's wife to be married to his best man. So the Philistines went and got the woman and her father and burned them to death. Now, of course, that's gonna make Samson very mad. Things are going from bad to worse. Because you did this, Samson vowed, I won't rest until I take my revenge on you. By the way, this is interesting because can God use our anger? Yes. Can He use our righteous anger? Yes. Jesus says that those that hunger and thirst for justice or righteousness, but in a lot of cases, the the scriptural conscience there is that those that hunger and thirst to see justice, justice on this earth, to see things made right is probably the best way. God can use that. We, as Christians, we should not be happy with injustice, okay? We should not be happy when there is just blatant sin and evil and brokenness in the world. It should grieve us, okay? Not that we should take revenge and hate our enemies. I'm not saying that. But we should want to be the peacemakers and make the world better and not want and to see injustice resolved. And that's what Samson's heart is here. So it says here, so he attacked the Philistines with a great fury. He killed many of them. He went on to live then in a in a cave at the rock of Atom. The Philistines retaliate by setting up a camp in Judah and spreading out near their town in Lahi. And the men of Judah asked the Philistines, Why are you attacking us? The Philistines replied, We have come to capture Samson. We come to pay him back for what he've done, what he has done to us. So three thousand men of Judah went down to get Samson out of the cave of Epton, and they said to him, Don't you realize the Philistines rule over us? What are you doing to us? But Samson replied, I'm only doing to them what they did to me. Then the men of Judah told him, We have come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines. Now, this is interesting. This is very important. This is probably one of Samson's greatest moments of his life here. These men are his own men who have essentially just given up in their life. They believe that they are always going to be slaves to the Philistines. And this is sad because there are many that have just acquiesced and give up and given up in their life and think that I am never going to go anywhere in life. I'm never going to, God is never going to bless me. I'm never going to be successful. I'll never be married. I'll never be happy. I'll never be have peace and joy and competent me, or I'll always be addicted, or I'll always have this vice or evil and and and so forth in my life. And I and the people just give up. Okay. I want you to hear me real good. God is not a God that wants you to give up ever. He does not want you to think the enemy has power and rule over you because he does not. He does not want you to give up on addiction. Okay. He does not want you to give up on your marriage. Okay. He does not want you to give up on your life. There is way too many soldiers that commit suicide. It breaks my heart, but just one recently. He does not want you to think your life is meaningless, purpose, purposeless, or over, ever. Okay. God decides to give life and death. That is his decision. He has come to give you life and life abundantly. That's what Jesus says right here. So these men have given up. It's almost like they've just given up to their enemies here. And they've come actually to tie Samson up. He's the great hero, the one that will liberate them all. And they they just said, you know what? We're just going to give you over to the Philistines because we're, we don't want to, we don't want to make them mad. And Samson says, You're all right, but promise that you won't kill me yourselves, because he trusts the Lord. This is Samson's greatest moment. He he allows them to tie him up, knowing that he, of course, he has the strength to break the ropes immediately. And they say, they said, Here we will only tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines. They replied, We won't kill you. So they tied him up with new ropes and brought him up from the rock. Now, as Samson arrived at Lahai, the Philistines came out and they shouted in triumph, but the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon Samson. He snapped the ropes on his arms as if they were burnt strands of flax, and they fell from his wrist, and then he found the jawbone of a recently killed donkey. So he he has no weapon, nothing in his hand at all. He breaks these ropes like they're absolutely nothing. He just happens to see this donkey, this dead donkey. Now, this is again, this is a carcass. This is interesting because he was not supposed to touch dead things, right? But it he sees a dead jawbone, a carcass, and he saw he sees a jawbone of the donkey, and he decides that, hey, that's a pretty good little useful uh weapon right there. By the way, jawbones of the donkey are massive, they're really huge. And he grabs it, and like a club, he starts swinging it. So he picked it up and he killed. This is legendary, 1,000 Philistines with it. And Samson said, with the jawbone of an ass, I've piled them up in mass. With the jawbone of a donkey, I've killed a thousand men. So he's bragging and boasting and he's proud. And now this is just, I wish I could have actually gone back in history and see this. This is like Samson becoming like the Hulk. You know, I think of him like the Hulk and the Avengers and so forth. He just is terrifyingly strong. He is taking this jawbone and just knocking heads off like there's nothing. There's and and and and I, you know, I would imagine the Philistines were throwing spears and swinging swords and holding clubs or whatever they were, they were attacking Samson, but nothing they could do, whether it was he was just incredibly fast, strong, or he like his skin was impenetrable. God had protected him completely, and he was just terrorizing. I mean, just in complete, complete savage right here. He just complete, just completely goes berserk, and he he takes their, he takes these Philistines he's killing, and he piles their bodies kind of on top of each other into this massive pile. And he boasts and brags about it, he's saying, with a job on a you know, ass, I piled these bodies up in mass. So he's kind of making a taunt right here, is what he's doing, right? Now, this is bad, right? Because he is now it and this is something we have to be very careful. When God gives us power and ability and strength and and or wealth or blessings and so forth, remember, hit what God gives us is not for us. What God gives us is so that we can bless others. It doesn't make if God gave me uh the knowledge and the voice and the wisdom and the faith to preach, and I only preach to myself, that does me no good at all. God gave me abilities to preach, to do this pocket, to preach to the world, right? To to boldly proclaim the gospel. Okay, that's because that's the gifts and abilities God give you. If God gave you abilities and gifts and resources, then use them for the kingdom of God, not for your own benefit. Okay. That's how pride very easily will sneak into your life, because pride is a very sneaky devil. It really is, right there. There are three things the Lord will judge your life upon when you see him face to face. Your time, how did you spend your time? You only have a limited amount of time on this earth, right? Your talents, the abilities and the strengths and so forth, I mean, that God gives you. Now, Samson had this incredible ability of strength, right? And he used it for God. But if God gives you abilities, by the way, and he gives everybody, but I'm I I will never believe when people give me the excuse, like, well, God doesn't have, I don't have any ability. God didn't give me like, no, absolutely not. God has given every human being, whether it's your intelligence, your strength, your your wisdom, that your life experiences, or whatever it is, God has given you that. I don't whether you're a great engineer, you're a poet, you're a doctor, uh, you're an athlete, whatever it is, okay. Whatever God has put in your heart, and usually you can always attach your strengths to your passions and your obsessions in life too. God has given you that for a reason, and it's to bless others and to expand his kingdom. That's very important, right there. Um, and God, okay, and the last thing that God will judge one is, of course, your your talents. I'm sorry, your your your um treasure. I said time, talent, treasure, the resources, the money, and what he has blessed you with, financially speaking, especially, because your your your money, the treasure, again, not for you, but for God's purposes. If you're a husband, love your wives. Okay, if you're a father, love your children. If you are uh in in a position of leadership, love those those people under you, and the your subordinates and so forth. If you're a wife, love your husband and children and so forth. God has blessed you. If you're single, okay, be good at being single. But God has blessed you with your time, your talent, and your treasure, and that is important that you use those correctly. But Samson here is boasting and bragging. It says in 17, when he finished his boasting, he threw away the jawbone, and the place was named Jawbone Hill, very appropriately named right there. Now, 18, it says, now Samson was very thirsty, and he cried out to the Lord, You, you, Lord. Now he's now see he changes his tune from me to you, Lord. You have accomplished, Lord, this great victory. By the strength of your sermon must I now die of thirst in the hands of these pagans. So God caused water to gush out of the hollow of the ground of Lahigh, and Samson was revived as he drank. He named that place the spring of the one who cried out, and is still in La High to this day. Samson then judged Israel for twenty years during that period where the Philistines dominated the land. So it's curious that Samson, really almost dying of thirst here. Um, God he didn't realize how how how exhausted he was after this incredible fight. He just had this incredible battle. Uh he nearly died. I think God really humbled him there because still, as a man, he was still very much human, despite his great strength. And he could have died incredibly immediately. He would have died of thirst immediately, had not God opened up the ground and given him a spring of water right there. It reminds me so much of Christ, who is the water of life, okay? Living water. He's the living, he's the spring of living water that springs up in our spirit that will satisfy us forever, okay? There is water that you will you can drink that will only satisfy you temporarily, and there's the spring of life, and that's Jesus Christ that will satisfy you forever, right there. But this is an important paradox you're seeing. Don't rely on your strength. That will not save you. Your strength, your your money, however, whatever you think is important. No. Jesus alone can save your life. He alone is the water and the spring of your life that will give you eternal life. Everything else, as I've mentioned before, is temporary. It is is it is it is not it is not going to satisfy you permanently. It never. I don't care whether it's it's money, uh any kind of I mean, any kind of possession, material thing, uh, achievement of the world. Never will satisfy. Okay. Never. Christ alone can satisfy and quench your insatiable thirst. All right. Now, Samson judged the, of course, uh his and he so basically he became like the small chieftain here of the entire Israeli nation for 20 years. It's a long time. People don't realize that, but 20 years, you can retire in the military after 20 years, so a long time. And he's doing very well. So for a long time, he's doing quite well. He's judging and making, I think, rather good decisions. But 17 here. I'm sorry, 16. This is where things go awry. All right. This is where Samson uh falls apart. So let's talk about this. 16. And one day Samson went down to the Philistine town of Gaza, and he spent the night there with the prostitute. Word soon spread that Samson was there, and the men of Gaza, the Philistines, there, gathered together and they waited at all night at the town's gates. They kept quiet in the night, saying to themselves, when light of the morning comes, we will kill him. But Samson stayed in bed only until midnight, and he got up and he took hold of the doors of the town gate, including the two posts, and he lifted them up, bars and all, and he put them on his shoulders and carried them all the way to the top of the hill across the Hebron. Now, this is interesting here. Now, he has judged Israel for 20 years. And my speculation is that he thinks, again, that you know, life is good. Sometimes when we have prosperity and things are good, we have to be very careful about that. We have to be very careful when good times come. And what do I mean by that? Because Samson was so strong and so formidable and so feared, okay, that he starts to think himself that I'm I'm the man. I'm I'm I'm like the Hulk or Superman, you know, I'm impenetrable and and I can just get what I want, kind of thing. And he starts now spending his time in the wrong company, okay? He is spending his time with prostitutes. And by the way, do Christians uh commit terrible uh acts of sexual sin? Yes. By the way, God here's let me just say this God hates all sin. All sin is bad. Okay. But sexual sin, or the book of, especially in the book, if we really go into the book of Job, is a shameful sin that is like a fire that will burn down all the way to the pit of hell. What that means is that the sexual sin will destroy your life now and all take you all the way to hell if you will let it. So it may look good, talk good, feel good at the time, but it is like fire that will burn your whole life, your whole legacy, all the way down to nothing at all. And I can't stress enough how I would love you to avoid that, like the plague here. Now, Samson's getting a reputation. One, because disaster wedding two, now with prostitutes, he's getting a reputation that he has a terrible weakness, a terrible vice for women. Beautiful women, because it says here, uh verse four, sometime later Samson fell fell in love. So he's really in love. He really loves this woman with a woman named Delilah who lived in the valley of Sorak. The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, entice Samson to tell you what makes him so strong and how he can be overpowered and tied up securely. Then each of us will give you 1100 pieces of silver. It's something that the astronomical amount of money today, millions of dollars would be in this in money today. Um, so Delilah, now Delilah does not love it's so important you know that this woman um it's sad because Samson mistook sex for love. He Samson genuinely loved Delilah. He he really generally loved this woman, okay. Thinking, this is kind of sad, but thinking that she will eventually love me back, okay, if I keep, you know, being nice to her, good to her, sleeping with her, so forth. Uh, she eventually gonna love me back. He Samson really has a big heart. He's a he's a I think he's kind of a big sensitive guy, really, at the end of the day. I mean, he has a he really wants to be in love. He really wants to have a good relationship, a good marriage. But he he just know he just picks disastrous women, and it's always his vice, right? They're based really on physical attraction, not based on their character, okay, and their faith in their character, which again, big red flag. If you are single, or or you're or of course you're married, or you're or you're divorced, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Don't if you're married, stay a godly man or woman that values your spouse above your own self, honestly. Okay, God takes marriage deadly seriously. If you're single, please hear me real good. Do not marry anyone that does not love Jesus Christ first and foremost in their life. Okay, and I I I cannot stress that enough. Um, because if someone does not love God, they will not love you. God is love. It's kind of like saying it it you can't, it's like it's like you it's like having a car with no gasoline, okay? Like you can't run anywhere. You can't you can't love anyone unless you have the love of Jesus Christ in your heart. You can be infatuated with someone, you can have sex with someone, you can manipulate someone. And Samson was very easily manipulated. You can have an emotional attachment, but that's but all those things are not love. What is love? God himself is love. God's rules are love, God's standard of love, it does not change, okay? He designed marriage for one man, one woman, period. Okay, not based on sex, but based on the a vow, a covenant, actually. The covenant of marriage. So let's but let's go back into this. So Delilah said to Samson, please tell me what makes you so strong and what would it take to tie you up securely? And Samson replied, If I were tied up with seven new bowstrings that have not been dried, I would become weak like anyone else. So the Philistines rulers, the Philistine rulers brought Delilah seven new bowstrings, and she tied, now she ties, she ties Samson up with them, and she had hidden some of the men in the inner room of their house, and she cried out, Samson, the Philistines had come to capture you, but Samson snapped the bowstrings as if it was burned by fire, and he and so the secret of strength was not discovered. Now, it she this is this is so incredible. She she is the one asking what makes you strong. She's the one tying him up. She's the one secretly hiding men to kill him in her house in their house. And Samson can't figure out, or maybe he doesn't care, or maybe I don't know what's going on. He's so ignorant and and frankly just so stupid here that he's entertaining and and refusing to see the truth that this woman is the devil and wants to kill him. Okay. If you are in, by the way, a kind of relationship like this, you need to run away and and and and cut that person out of your life. Delete their number, block their whatever it is, get rid of them. Do not talk, do not go back, do not. I mean, Delilah in every way represents Satan. That's what she is. She's trying now, she may look. I'm sure Delilah was beautiful. I'm sure she looked amazing. I'm sure Samson enjoys sleeping with her, but she does not. You have to understand, she hates him. She does not love him, she is only there to kill him, just like the devil. Then afterward, Delilah said to him, You've been making fun of me and telling me lies. Now, please tell me how you can be tied up securely. Samson replied, if I was tied up with brand new ropes that have never been used, I become weak like anybody else. So Delilah took ropes and took and took new ropes, tied him up with, tied him up with them, and the men were hiding in the room as before. And Delilah cried out, Samson, the Philistines are here to capture you. But again, Samson snapped the ropes, and his arms were as if they were a new thread. And Delilah said, You're making fun of me and telling me lies. Now tell me what can what how you can be tied up securely, Samson replied, if you were to weave the seven braids of my hair into a fabric, into a loom, and tighten it into a loom shuttle, I will become weak like anybody else. So while he slept, Delilah wove seven braids of his hair to the fabric, and she tightened it with a loom shuttle, and she cried out, Samson, the Philistines are here to capture you. Again, he woke up and pulled back the loom shuttle and yanked his hair away from the loom of the fabric. So now he's getting closer and closer now to his real secret. So you see, he she is slowly breaking him down, breaking him down. And that's what the enemy does. That's what addiction is. Addiction doesn't happen right away. Okay. Evil advice that take hold and completely destroy someone's life, they start small. There are little things, okay, that start small, that grow into a cancerous thing that will burn your house down. Like even little hate. I mean, just because we all have these little things, I truly believe that we entertain, little sins, little vices. It can be little anger, a little hatred, little unforgiveness, okay? Um, little little little lust. A little, you know, a lot of guys, they don't start like watching child pornography. They start with a little lust, a little pornography here and there, and then it grows and it grows and it grows. The devil just wants to introduce little vices and sins until they they overwhelm you and they destroy you. You have to say, you have to know, by the way, if it looks wrong, it feels wrong, and you're convicted by God it's wrong, run away. Don't entertain Delilah. 15. It says Delilah pouted. She gave him a look. Okay. Samson was such a sucker for the just the looks. How can you tell me that you love me when you don't share your secrets with me? You made fun of me three times now. You still haven't told me what makes you so strong. She tormented him with her nagging day after day until he was sick to death. But just like his wedding, finally, Samson shared his secret with her. My hair has never been cut, he confessed. For I was dedicated to God as a Nazareth from my birth, and my head was shaved, my strength would leave me, and I become weak as anyone else. Now he reveals his true covenant in nature, and Delilah realized that he finally she had finally told her the truth. So he sent the Philistine rules, come back one more time. He's finally told me a secret. So Samson's so I'm sorry, so the Philistine rules came, returned with the money in their hands, and Delilah lulled Samson asleep with his head in her lap, and she called in a man to shave off the seven locks of his hair in a way she began and in this way she began to bring him down, and his strength left him. So now his strength is gone. And when she cried out, Samson, the Philistines had come to capture you, he woke up and thought, I will do as I have done before and shake myself free. But he did not realize the Lord had left him. By the way, you can lose your anointing. You can lose God's blessing and favor. You can lose God's protection in your life when you entertain sin in your life. This is the reason why I have seen great chaplains and pastors and men and women of God lose everything and have their whole lives completely destroyed and their legacy gone because of sin that burned down their entire house. Okay. Now, it doesn't mean this is the wonderful thing about the Lord, this is interesting, and this is amazing to me, that mankind can forgive for not forgive you and just abandon you and never get over it. And but God is such a gracious, loving, merciful God that we, even though we absolutely grieve him and break his heart and grieve his Holy Spirit, and he can and he will and can punish us, he will never stop loving us. Very important you know that. So he always God always loved Samson, always had a plan for his life here, but Samson is going to pay a heavy price. Okay, you're gonna be disciplined by the Lord should you decide not to cut the sin out of your life. So it says 21. The Philistines captured him, gouged out his eyes, took him to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze chains and was forced to grind grain in prison. But before long his hair began to grow back. So what's interesting here is that Samson was captured and the Philistines plucked out his eyeballs. Pretty nasty, pretty painful. But this is very important because Jesus says in a hyperbole statement, if your eye causes you to see it, even if your good eye, even if your right eye causes you a sin, then he says, Gouge it out. Samson has eyes, both his eyes gouged out. He says, It is better for you to go to heaven, you know, with no eyes or missing an eye, than go to hell with two good eyes, right? He what Jesus is saying here, he's saying you have to do everything you can to remove sin from your life. Now, he's not saying this is a hyperbole. That means that that's an exaggeration. He's not saying to physically cut your eyes out, because a blind people can still lust, you know, in their mind. He's saying, though, don't entertain Delilah, don't entertain sin. Don't go to the place of sin. Don't don't look at it, don't, don't flirt with it, don't smell it, whatever. Don't, don't, don't, don't touch it. Okay. Samson had to lose his eyes so he could see clearly. He the his eyes were the greatest weakness he possessed. God had to remove his greatest weakness, and he had to force him, he had to slow his life down and put him in prison for a long time, grinding grain around and around in a circle for, I think for years of his life. And you better believe that Samson probably thought about Delilah and all his mistakes and probably wished every single day he could take back what he had told her. But God wanted him to know that was wrong. And you gotta do things my way. God will slow you down. By the way, if you're loved by God and he disciplines you, don't lose heart, he disciplines the ones he loves. He will make you grind grain and slow you down so you can finally listen to him. Now, finally, it says here 23, the Philistine rulers had a great festival and offered sacrifice, praising their God Dagon, and they said, Our God has given us victory over our enemy Samson. So when the people saw him, they praised their God, saying, Our God has delivered our enemy to us, the one who has killed so many of us, is now in our power. Half drunk by now, the people demanded, Bring out Samson so he can amuse us. So he was brought from the prison to amuse them, and he and they had him stand between the pillars supporting the roof, this huge Colosseum kind of roof area. And Samson said to the young servant, there was a young boy who was leading him by the hand, because he's blind, he said, Place my hands against the pillars that hold up this temple. I want to rest against them. Now the temple was completely filled with people, and the Philistine rulers were there, and there were about 3,000 men and women on the roof who were watching Samson as who were watching as Samson amused them. So they were mocking and laughing and jeering, and this was kind of like the devil's moment here of saying, you know, I've got I've beaten your servant and shaming uh Samson, and it was a very hard, bad day here. But it says 28, when Sam, then Samson prayed to the Lord. Now, this is probably the most earnest prayer. And God wants, by the way, if we pray to the Lord, our prayers have to be from the heart. They can't be silly, stupid prayers that just say, you know, God just bless me and just, you know, help me just be great. He wants prayers of the heart. What I mean by that is that prayers that really cost us something. Prayers that are true faith, prayers of true faith and true integrity in matters of the heart, deep emotional, spiritual connection of the heart. He prays, he says, Sovereign Lord, remember me again. Oh God, please strengthen me just one more time. With one blow, let me pay back the Philistines for the loss of my two eyes. Then Samson put his hands against the two center pillars that held up the temple, pushing them with both of his bound hands, he prayed, Let me die with the Philistines. And the temple crashed down on the Philistine rulers and all the people. So he killed more people when he died than he had during his entire lifetime. So he pushed these amazing huge pillars, he brought down the house. Thousands died. He killed more, actually, he says, in that time than he had in his entire lifetime. But he died in a very tragic way. And I and I, you know, I kind of get sad about it because Samson died in a brutal way. Really, like some say like he almost, it was almost like a line of suicide, right? Knowing that he would die. But but I don't think I wouldn't call it suicide myself. I would call it more of a self-life self-sacrifice at the end here. But he was desperate for God just to bless him and give him his strength again, knowing that he had failed so miserably. God did bless him. And the amazing thing about this is God is so merciful and graceful. He did bless him. He did give his strength back again. Samson was able to bring down the house. He was able to have a great resounding victory. It cost him everything, cost him his life. And it says later his brothers and relatives went down to get his body. They took him back home. They buried him between Zora and Ashkeloth and his father Manoah, where his father Manoah was buried. And Samson had judged Israel for 20 years. So here's what I want to get here's what I absolutely have to make sure you understand from the life of Samson. One, your strength comes from the Lord. Okay, it's not your own. The God, the abilities and talents, and strengths that God gives you is from him. It is to be it is to be used to bless others and to be used for his kingdom. So you need to be the salt and the light and to preach and to love and to forgive. And even use your physical talents and strengths and abilities and knowledge and everything for him, for his benefit, not boast in your own strength. Okay, because God will humble you. One. That's number one. Two, be careful who you give your heart away, because once you get your heart away, you don't get it back. It's a big deal. Guard your heart, the Bible says. Guard your heart above all else. Okay, and guard your eyes. Samson had to lose his eyes so he could finally see the truth. The lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh is what typically gets most soldiers, but also most people. And pride as well. They're all bad, they're all power, terrible temptations. But guard your eyes. Be careful what you listen to, what you watch, what you give your time and attention, and especially who you love, okay? Just because someone looks beautiful and talks sweet doesn't mean they love you. And and run away. If anyone does not love Jesus Christ first, they cannot, cannot love you effectively. It's just not possible. Okay. It has to be God-centered love first and foremost. And three, God never stops loving you. His love is unconditional, his mercy is unconditional, his grace is forever. Samson had to learn a hard lesson, and he and he did go out of God's favor, but never out of God's love. Okay. So if you have been through the ringer and you have been through a lot in life, know that the Lord has never given up on you, and everything you have done in your life will always be used for his glory and his purposes. I hope the story of Samson has really blessed you. God bless you. I really look forward to talking to you every time with this podcast. We will go, we will transition next time. I'm going to finish the book of Revelation, but thank you. Let me pray for you. Let me close out. Thank you, Lord, for a wonderful day. Thank you for teaching us about the life of Samson. Bless us continuously, Lord. Help us to run away from sin, temptations, and evil, and to be just centered, our faith to be centered on you. And love you with all our hearts and soul and strength. And love others, Lord, as you've called us to be loved like ourselves. We give you all the ongoing praise in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. God bless you. Thank you. Talk to you next time. Bye bye.