Clough Judges Lesson 13

Judges 13-16

 

Tonight we begin the last judge.  The remaining chapters after chapter 16, after the story of Samson or the Samson cycle continues from chapters 13-16 and then chapter 17 and following is an analysis of the society as a whole from the standpoint of God’s rule.  All of the judges that have been spoken of so far have been an attempt in the flowing analysis of this book to analyze the upper class, the aristocracy, to show the principle that God-inspired God directed-leaders cannot redeem a nation that is on negative volition.  No matter how great they may be, they themselves will find themselves pulled down to the level of the society.  There’s no way around it.  So therefore, this section of the book of Judges is the closing section, the last judge that’s mentioned. 

 

Chronologically this chapter actually occurs inside the book of Samuel, so you have an overlap beginning here between the book of 1 Samuel and the last part of the book of Judges.  Samson is living at the same time as Samuel.  Their lives overlap and there’s a chronological coupling between these two books.  The intervening chapters, chapter 17 and following, the remainder of the book, are just sort of a parenthesis to describe the overall condition of the society. 

 

But in Judges 13:1 we read, “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.”  It’s this forty year marker that establishes the chronology.  “…the LORD delivered Israel into the hand of the Philistines from a forty year period.”  Let’s look at this a moment.  That’s a forty year time interval; Samson is born during the Philistine captivity.  Samson, as a young man, starts to rule in Israel and rules for twenty years and by the end of his rule they are still under the oppression of the Philistines.  Therefore Samson’s rule falls within this forty year period.  The rule of the Philistines does not come to an end until the seventh chapter of 1 Samuel.  So this forty year period is what brings the book up against the beginning part of 1 Samuel and this is how these two books are linked. 

 

Immediately this should clue you that there’s something unusual about this judge because in ever other case that we have studied the judge fits into this three-part cycle: first apostasy, then chastening, and then you have a repentance or confession of sin, and as a result you have deliverance.  There’s that three-cycle stage thing that we’ve seen over and over again in this book.  And when the judge comes to the ground where he begins to judge, this marks the period of the deliverance, but the interesting thing about it is that this particular judge does not deliver.  And it illustrates an interesting principle, because in verse 1, “the children of Israel did evil…the LORD delivered them,” see the first part of verse 1 is the first part of the cycle, apostasy.  The second part of the cycle, “the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years,” that’s the second part of the cycle.  Now usually you read and have read in the book of Judges, you notice that after this it’s always traditional with the author of the book of Judges to put in the next step, which is what.  After Israel is sold into oppression what always to you read, so far, in the book of Judges?  You always read that the nation groaned, or the nation cried out to God for mercy.  Look here, you won’t find it.  And at this point in the last rule of the Judge the nation does not cry to God. 

 

So Samson is faced with a problem; he is a judge, the last one mentioned, and things have gotten so bad in his day that the people won’t even confess their sin, and as a result this man does not deliver the nation.  There is no deliverance apart from confession of sin; absolutely none and you are not going to see deliverance until we get to the 7th chapter of Samuel, because in the 6th chapter you have confession.  So for forty years, an entire generation, refuses to confess their sin and God refuses to remove discipline. 

 

Now the story of why this last judge is so unique and why Samson’s rule is so different from the others hinges on this one point—there’s no confession of sin on the part of the nation, and everything we’ll read here is shaped by the lack of confession of sin.  Samson is raised up to do a superior thing and we’ll see how this works as we go down through these verses, but just keep that in mind, there’s no confession at this point. 

 

Judges 13:1b, “and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines,” and we have to get some background on the Philistines, who they were, where they came from.  Here’s Palestine, the Nile delta over here, and you have the Philistines apparently coming from Egypt or at least from some place where the Egyptians came from because in Genesis 10 they are related to Ham through Mizraim, in other words, they are related to the Egyptians.  They settle on the coast, by the way, they’re not Greek.  Every once in a while somebody gets the fanciful idea that the Philistines are related to the Greeks…well if they are they’re related back quite a ways; they’re probably related culturally but they’re not racially.  The Bible clearly indicates they’re Hamitic [can’t understand word] Indo-Europeans.  So you have them set up some colonies right in this area.  They are already there in Genesis 20.

 

Turn to Genesis 20, we have to get a history of these people to understand why the formed such a peculiar threat, a threat that is not relieved for many, many years, a threat that persists over and over against he nation.  In Genesis 20, Abraham, back in 2000 BC, goes to a king by the name of Abimelech, the king of Gerar.  Abimelech is a Philistine.  So the Philistines are in power, in the land in the days of Abraham, and you’ll notice this is the one who tried to pull the thing off with his wife, passing Sarah off as his sister and so on, and Abimelech spots it, but nevertheless Abimelech is gracious about it, and by the way, Abimelech gets clobbered before he realizes it, in verse 17, “So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bore children.  [18] For God has completely closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.” 

 

In Genesis 21:22 it goes on and describes the Philistine colony further and it shows that in this whole thing, in verses 22 and following, “And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phicol, the chief captain of his host, spoke unto Abraham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest.”  Now watch verse 22, that is very important.  That begins to set the tone of the nation of Philistia.  Nations have lives as individuals have lives and nations have a corporate structure in history, and to study a nation you have to study its exposure to the Word of God.  At this point it is very obvious that the early Philistines knew the Word of God.  And it is very obvious here that they recognized Elohim, and therefore they have had a clear declaration and a clear revelation of this God.  This nation has been exposed to the Word of God.  “God is with thee in all that thou doest.  They recognized the Abrahamic Covenant, so there’s a clear relationship to the Word of God at this point.  Whether they have personally believed or not is another story but at this point they know the score.

 

Again, in Genesis 26 you read about the Philistines, same king, king Abimelech, in Isaac’s day.  Genesis 26:6, “And Isaac dwelt in Gerar; [7] And the men of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister,” he hasn’t learned anything from his father, but nevertheless, they recognize that this woman is not his sister and Abimelech, in verse 11, “charged all his people, saying, He that touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.”  Again a recognition by this Philistine king of the workings of the Abrahamic Covenant.  Now you watch what happens in the history of the Philistines.  Chapter one in the national history of Philistia, they know the Word of God; they have exposure to the Word of God.  Evidently, however, this nation as a nation rejects and they go on negative volition toward the Word of God.

 

The next time you encounter them in God’s Word is Exodus 13 and here the national character has been transformed, still called Philistines, still part of the same racial stock, but spiritually they are undergoing a transformation into monsters.  And this happens on an individual basis; this happens on a national basis.  When a person hears the Word of God and understands the Word of God and rejects the Word of God, that individual turns into a monster.  Examples in our history: Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev memorized the entire New Testament; he knew the issue, and he was the one who was the murderer of Cossacks, he murdered millions of them, and he was in charge of it.  So was Stalin, Stalin knew the issue, Karl Marx knew the issue, these men were not heathen who never heard; they were people who had a very clear understanding of the gospel and therefore they were judged by their [can’t understand words] sort of like Pharaoh.  God hardens their hearts and here we’re going to see a case where God hardens the heart of a national entity that has been exposed to the Word of God, has turned its back to the Word of God and now they are going to be demonized. 

 

In Exodus 13:17, “And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.”  In other words, the Philistines by this time have a tremendous warlike machine and they are not at all friendly, like Abimelech was; they do not recognize the workings of the Abrahamic Covenant, there’s no compromise of the Philistines.

 

Turn to Exodus 23:31 and you can see how the Philistine nation grew and grew to a position of maximum power.  God is speaking about the boundaries of the nation Israel and He says, “And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines,” that’s the Mediterranean.  In other words by this time the Philistines have fleets, their navy entirely dominates the Mediterranean.  So here in Exodus 23:31 you have the Philistines now in charge of this whole land area, they have a vast empire at sea and they are a very powerful people.

 

So we see two things; first we see a nation that was exposed to the Word of God, that experienced the reign of a king that personally spoke to a believer, probably was witnessed to by that believer, we know he was witnessed to because he knew the Abrahamic Covenant, and not only this but the ruler proclaimed the principles of the Word over his kingdom.  Abimelech did this when he prevented people from becoming anti-Semitic.  However, in ensuing generations, four or five generations later, the Philistine nation takes upon itself an anti-Semitic policy of rebelling and rejecting the Jew.

 

Now we come down to this time of Judges 13 and from this point forward you are going to find the Philistines have a system that results from myths.  In other words you have this sequence; man goes on negative volition or an early community goes on negative volition, this opens that community up to false teaching; the result is that demon aided myths begin to control the thinking of that particular cultural entity and so you have them try to establish some sort of kingship and this form of kingship is an imitation of the reign of Christ.  Therefore you can find an apostasy or antichrist character to all ancient kingships.  They are impersonations of the reign of Christ and they are satanically caused.  Demons aid the development of myth; demons therefore are working in Philistia.  Philistia has gone on negative volition, they had their chance to hear the Word of God, they had a time when they could have believed and become believers in that dispensation and gone on.  There was no reason why they couldn’t except they refused and as a result they were damned by God and so God therefore worked it around so they would become demonized.  As a result of this, from the workings of the myth you have two things that come out of Philistia, and it is these two things that is of great concern with God in Judges 13. 

 

Two of the policies that Philistia used against the Jew, because remember now they are a demon influenced community and therefore they adopt the policy and the attitudes of the demons behind these myths.  The first policy the advocate was ecumenical religion.  The second policy they used was disarmament.  Does that sound familiar?  The two always go together.  The National Council and the World Council are always for disarmament.  Do you realize why?  Because disarmament is a sign that the people who are involved it have nothing worth fighting for.  They see absolutely no issue to fight for, in other words they have blurred the issues.  So people who in for ecumenical religions, the loss of absolutes, are always people, therefore, that will disarm because was is an antithesis, war is a struggle between two causes that involves commitment and a person who is ecumenical, a person who has no concept of absolutes, right and wrong, are going to obviously be suckered for disarmament because there’s no issue worth fighting for.  So disarmament and ecumenical religion go together. 

 

You say how do I get this out of the Bible.  Disarmament as a policy of the Philistines is evident in the first chapters of Samuel, when Israel tries to go to war and it specifically says in the text of 1 Samuel they were disarmed by the Philistines.  When David tried to gather an army together he couldn’t get any swords; the Philistines had completely taken them away.  I pointed this out earlier with a judge called Shamgar.  When he went to work with the Philistines he just took an ox goad, about 15 feet long, six inches in diameter and he just rammed it right through their gut.  He said if you’re not going to give me swords then I’ll use this and after he’d pinned about 300 of them with it, they got the point…no pun intended.  So this was the weapon systems that were used, cruel and brutal, but they are a result of disarmament. 

 

How do I know the Philistine policy was ecumenical?  Because again in the first chapters of Samuel what they try to do is they get a hold of the Ark in 1 Samuel 4, the Ark of Jehovah, and they say listen, we need every god in our pantheon so they had Dagon, and they had Beth-Dagon or the house of Dagon.  So they had this great house, this temple that you call a pantheon, and they we need some more gods so let’s bring in some more idols; we’ll bring in the Ark of the Lord.  So they joined the Ark of the Lord with Dagon; to show you God’s attitude toward ecumenicalism, in the morning they all walk in the temple and they find Dagon flat on his flat face, smashed and the Ark of the Lord is just sitting there.  Then if that wasn’t enough, every place where they took the Ark of the Lord everybody had an epidemic.  So it’s God simply showing you in the first few chapters of Samuel His attitude to ecumenicalism.  He’s not going to be stuffed in some theologian’s pantheon; He refuses any competitors.  God is a jealous God and He will not accept other gods.  So therefore they got the point and they finally got rid of the Ark; they very graciously put it on an ox cart and said to the oxen essentially, you just get up on the road and take it, they sent a note to David saying come get the thing, just take it out of our hands.  So ecumenical was a characteristic policy of the Philistines.  Disarmament was a characteristic policy of the Philistines.

 

Now this should ring a bell with you from the history that I’ve already given.  It should show why at Judges 13 we face a new era because up to this time how has Satan tried to persecute Israel?  God in His sovereignty has allowed Satan to persecute but what were the methods that Satan used?  It was always physical power; it was always servitude and slavery but now Satan is changing his tactics, the Philistines don’t come in with a great army and subjugate the people, they are very gentlemanly about it and they make friends; we’ll see more and more evidence of this later on, we only get to chapters 13 and 14 tonight but next week in chapters 15 and 16 you’ll see that they so charmed the population that when Samson wants to start a war he can’t get anybody to join him, because the Philistines are master diplomats.  And they’ve got everyone on their side.  Why start a war, let’s sit around and dialogue about this thing, we don’t want to start a hassle about it, let’s just all live together. 

 

So this is the approach that the Philistines used and notice which approach was the most successful?  Ecumenicalism; it always is.  Ecumenical approach plus disarmament left Israel completely prostrate and as a result, this is why in Judges 13:1 you don’t read a thing about Israel confessing their sins.  Why can’t they confess their sins?  Because you can’t confess sin unless the issues are clear and the issues can’t be clear if there is no framework of absolute truth.  And there can’t be a framework of absolute truth if it’s been destroyed by ecumenical religion.  Don’t you see the cause effect?  Satan has a beautiful device here that he’s using through the Philistines.  Through ecumenical religion he destroys the antithesis, that is the difference between good and evil.  He wipes that completely out, as a result the people don’t confess their sin, it all goes together, and as a result they’re not delivered. 

 

All right, put yourself for a moment by your imagination on God’s throne, what are you going to do in this situation, when faced with this kind of a problem?  You’ve got a problem where your nation, that is your elect, that you will never let go, you won’t dump them because you’ve already promised to redeem, so you can’t let them go, and yet here the nation is, on negative volition toward you, but so washed out with ecumenical religion that they don’t even know they’re on negative volition.  They have no sense of a choice, they have no sense of right and wrong, and if they have no sense of right and wrong they can’t rebound, they can’t confess.  And you, as God, can’t restore them unless they confess.  So what would you do in that kind of a situation?  If you have a mass of people that didn’t recognize the issue, that you were committed to deliver but you couldn’t deliver them until they did recognize the issue, what would you have to do?  You’d have to make the issue clear. 

So Samson’s ministry is going to be a professional trouble-maker.  The nearest approach if you have gone to the movies recently and seen the movie Patton, remember that great scene where he calls on the phone and he says, at the end of World War II, he says if you will give me just four to six weeks I’ll have a war started with the Russian blank, blank, blank, and make it look like they started it.  Patton actually was trying to perform like Samson, because that is Samson’s role in this section.  His job is to start a war, that’s the whole point of his ministry.  His ministry is to do nothing else.  His ministry is not to deliver the nation.  Samson is to be God’s trouble-maker.  When Samson gets through everybody is supposed to be at everyone’s throats.  He is supposed to irritate, he is supposed to stir up and he’s supposed to lead the nation into a war.  He has to get a war started with the Philistines; that is Samson’s job and that is his ministry as unto the Lord. 

 

That may strike you as very, very strange but in a day when there is no issue, in a day when ecumenicalism prevails; no one can make a decision.  There is a paralysis of decisions and if there is a paralysis of decision the only way of restoring it is to start a conflict because it’s only when you have a conflict that you have issues once again clarified.  So Samson’s job is to be God’s goon.  He is to go around and start fights and he is going to; he does a very excellent job. When Samson gets through the Philistines can’t stand the Jews, and that’s his job; the Jews can’t stand the Philistines either, so his job is to irritate.  So now we’re going to cover the first two chapters of his ministry and we’ll deal with chapters 15 and 16 next time.  But get the big picture; Samson is a professional troublemaker.  His role is not to deliver because deliverance cannot precede confession.  And therefore he has to stir up the pot and get everything boiling hot before he can come to the point of confession.

 

So here’s what it looks like, and here’s the way it’s going to work in history.  You start out with the Philistines; that’s ecumenical religion.  As a result of the Philistines God puts Samson here.  Samson’s job is then to start a war; as a result of Samson, another man comes in and takes over later, Samuel, and he finishes the war at the battle of Mizpah.  So the battle of Mizpah actually is the final battle of this war but it all starts with one man.  And another characteristic of the ministry of Samson is that he has no army.  Up to now every judge has had an army.  Every judge has been able to gather people out for himself into a private army.  Samson is unable to do this; Samson is a lone wolf.  Samson single-handedly has to start a war.  So you’ll see these two characteristics, there’s no national confession, there’s a blending in, an acceptance of Philistine ecumenical religion and then you have this one man, Samson who goes around irritating everyone.  In fact it gets so bad that by the last two chapters, chapters 15 and 16 that the Jews take Samson, bind him and send him back to the Philistines because they can’t stand him either.  So nobody wants him; when he gets through the Philistines can’t stand him and the Jews stand him.  He’s just irritated them both that much.  His job is to be a professional irritator and he does a very good job.  So let’s start in and watch how he does it.

 

Judges 13:2, “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.”  Now to show you where this is located, last week we dealt with Jephthah; Jephthah’s ministry was on the east side of Jordan.  Samson’s ministry is down near Philistia and there used to be a tribe of Dan occupying about that location; however by this time the Danites could not bump the Philistines out.  In fact, the Danites were reduced to great subjugation, and the Danites evidently picked up a very bad mental trait, ecumenicalism, and some of them couldn’t take it any longer so they settled up in a place way up in the north; so they migrated and left a few refugee camps.  Samson, as a boy, grew up in one of these refugee camps in the south.  But the main body had migrated northward and settled up there, but up there they were the ones that became apostate.  They were the first group in Israel to go to idolatry.  So the Danites, apparently by their connection to the Philistines were deeply wounded for the rest of their historical history at this point.

 

Judges 13:2 speaks of this infertile woman, and like Sarah, like Hannah and like Mary, we have the same familiar story, of a woman who was infertile and the father and the mother get together and they pray for a child.  And this pattern happens so often in Scripture and the outcome of this pattern is always the same in that the man and the wife will go before the Lord in prayer about the thing and God will bless them with a particular son who He has called to do a particular thing.  I suspect from the way this pattern recurs again and again in Scripture it apparently is the means that God uses to cause the parents to appreciate their children and to dedicate them to the Lord.  In other words, it’s an educational device for the parents.  You see this time and time again with key personnel in the Bible.

 

So in Judges 13:3, “And the angel of the LORD appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bear not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son.”  Now the angel of the Lord is the preincarnate Jesus Christ.  We saw how, when the Abrahamic Covenant begins to function, you have the angel of the Lord begin.  The angel of the Lord is the mediator or the angel of the covenant, Jesus Christ is the One who is going to mediate and make effective this covenant in history.  And He begins to show up on the scene, He shows up on the scene back in Joshua’s day and here he shows on the scene to this woman.  And so “the LORD appeared unto the woman,” and this is again the same kind of thing we see with Hannah, it’s the same kind of thing that you see with Mary, and that is the angel of the Lord always goes to the woman.

 

Now it appears here we’ve got a violation of the second divine institution.  Divine institution number two, marriage, places the man in charge of the family.  But it’s interesting, when this happens in Scripture God always goes to the woman and bypasses her husband.  Why is this?  There’s apparent disregard for the husband’s position.  Apparently this is related back to Genesis 3:15 where the seed of the woman, which will be the antitype of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.  The woman has her particular place in history and when it comes down to her particular function, that is to bring God’s seed into the world, she and she alone is responsible.  Therefore God, the angel of the Lord here goes to the woman and announces this, independently of her husband. 

 

This is the same thing that you pick up in the later New Testament epistles where the woman shall be saved or delivered in childbearing.  That is her unique position as a woman.  This is mirrored in the Passover ceremony where the Jewish woman to this day always lights the candle first.  Her husband can’t do a thing until the woman brings the light into the world.  So the unique role of the woman down through history, and this is the center, by the way, of women’s rights.  This is the high position.  The woman must be the one who brings the light into the world.  She is the one whom God goes to, not the man and we have this principle here.  “The angel of the LORD appeared to the woman, and said unto her, Look, you now are barren,” literally, “you have been barren, and you bear not, but you will conceive, and bear a son. 

 

I want to check the words “conceive” and “bear a son” because these particular verbs in the original Hebrew have the connotation of imminence, and when you come to the word “Now” in verse 4 there’s an immediate red flag.  This is the way you have in the Hebrew language of calling your attention, right this instant something is happening.

 

Judges 13:4, “Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing,” I don’t know what’s happened here in the King James Version but in the original Hebrew it says at this point, “you are now pregnant,” verse 5, the verse break is different in the original language, the first part of verse 5 is part of verse 4 in the original test.  “For thou shalt conceive and bear a son,” is not “thou shalt conceive.”  It says, “Behold, you have conceived; in other words, the angel of the Lord comes and announces her conception, that right this moment, when she thinks she can’t conceive she is pregnant.  And this is interesting because the angel gives her a set of prenatal instructions.  It’s interesting that when God has a special child ready to be born, He sends Jesus Christ in preincarnate form, the angel of the Lord, and He is the gynecologist here and He’s giving the woman detailed instructions on her diet and how she is to take care of this baby that’s going to be born. 

 

And it’s very interesting, He comes the moment that she has conceived, the day that she has conceived He’s there and He begins giving her instructions, which illustrates the principle of Psalm 139 and that is that even though the human spirit does not enter until the time of physical birth, so in the technical sense the unborn child is not a child, he is not nephesh, he is not life, you can’t murder the unborn child because he’s not alive to be murdered, but from the point of conception forward in time Psalm 139 shows the principle that God is building the house for the human spirit and therefore while the nine months has nothing to do with nephesh, because the child is not life until he breathes, which means he’s physiologically independent from his mother, until that point he does not have a human spirit.  No person in the womb is a person. 

 

There’s no such thing as a child who is a living child inside the mother; this is shown in Hebrews 10 when Christ, at the point of Mary’s physical delivery says, “A body thou hast prepared for Me.”  So the incarnation does not occur at conception, the incarnation occurs at physical birth.  So all this nine months have nothing to do with nephesh, the human spirit isn’t there but there is something that’s very important and that is that the temple, the days that are recorded, Psalm 139 says, the days that are recorded are being woven into this physical body and so the Bible places a tremendous emphasis on this period of time for a woman.  It’s very interesting, you see a lot of this in Scripture and this is one of the central passages in the Old Testament, where when conception begins immediately God’s instructions start. 

 

So in Judges 13:4 he begins, “Now, you, beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing, For lo, thou shalt conceive,” literally, “thou hast conceived,” you are pregnant, [5] “and you will bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazirite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”  Now there’s a lot in verse 5 and what he’s saying here is that this child has been elected to be a Nazirite.  The word Nazirite, there’s some problem, the Nazirite has a ministry before the Lord given in Numbers 6 and it basically has three points to it.  First of all it is a temporary vow, so the Nazirite here, this is an unusual kind of Nazirite vow. 

 

But the Nazirite vow has, point one, no wine.  Wine is a symbol in the Bible for natural pleasure and by abstaining from wine totally the Nazirite is saying my pleasure is the Lord; it’s sort of the Old Testament Ephesians 5:18, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit.  So the Nazirite is saying that my source of joy is my consecration to God.  I do not need natural stimulants to get a kick out of life; my kick out of life is my spiritual relationship with the Lord.  That was one thing the Nazirite would declare.  By the way, it shows you something; if this is something special it must mean the rest of them did use wine. 

 

Another one—no hair cut, which by the way must imply they did have hair cuts.  People had long hair by our standards; obviously they didn’t walk around with crew cuts in Israel.  The men wore long hair but it was the hair that was clipped off basically at the top of the neck; you can see this on archeological frescoes and so on.  The men had long hair by our standards but the women had real long long hair and so the difference between the sexes was clearly evident and this is what the Bible is teaching about the length of hair, 1 Corinthians 10 and so on.  It’s not talking about absolute length, it’s simply talking about relative link, that the sexual character­istics will be clear, the issue will be clear in that area so hair length is one of those things.  And we wouldn’t have the problem today if the ladies had longer hair they wouldn’t be fussing about the men’s hair.  But no razor here in verse 5 is talking about no hair cuts; they’re not supposed to have any hair cuts.  And this apparently, and I haven’t been able to track this down, hair seemed to be a symbol of strength but I can’t pin it down as much as I’d like to that’s all I’ll say about hair. 

 

The third requirement was that they were to approach no dead body; and this was a thing that no priest could perform either.  In other words, they were to be as pure as the priest.  So these were the three central obligations that one would take upon himself in a Nazirite vow.  Samson, however, was to be a super Nazirite, he was to perform this all his life.  That’s why it says in verse 5 “the child shall be a Nazirite unto God from the womb.”  And it’s interesting that God prepares the mother in verse 4 by restricting her diet.  Now if you study medicine and you study physiology it might be interesting to figure out if that might be related to the fact that in doing so, her abstinence from the thing she wouldn’t affect his body so that when he was born his body wouldn’t have been polluted by anything that would come to him through the mother’s body.  Whether that’s true or not I don’t know but it is interesting that the mother here is instructed in the diet and she’s to begin the diet immediately.  At the point of conception the mother is to begin this special diet.  The hair cut doesn’t apply to her but that is to be applied to her child, obviously after he is born. 

 

And notice the end of verse 5, “And he shall begin to deliver,” now that is a completely different picture from everything we’ve ever had in the book of Judges up to this point.  Every other judged delivered; he never started something and didn’t finish it, but Samson is going to start something and he is not going to finish it.  Why?  I gave you the principle; he can’t.  You can’t have deliverance before confession; you can’t have restoration to fellowship with the Lord nationally or individually until a confession of sin is made and since Samson is not going to progress up to the point where the nation with him will confess, therefore his job will never be finished.  But his job is to lead up to that situation that will cause confession.  In other words, he is to start a war, he is to be a war monger, he is to be a professional goon, a professional trouble­maker and get things so agitated and irritated that by the time this man’s life is finished the issues will be clear and people will be agitated enough to decide one way or the.  That’s Samson’s job, and this is what it means, “he will begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”

 

Judges 13:6, “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,” now the word “terrible” probably denotes to you something like Frankenstein; the word “terrible” here doesn’t mean a Frankensteinian face.  What it means is there is something awesome about this man, she says I looked into his face and there’s just something that’s awesome about this thing.  This is a word that’s related to the Hebrew word fear, there’s just something that strikes fear into my hear when I look at that man’s face, and so she says it was like an angel of God, very terrible, “but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name.

 

Judges 13:7, “But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son,” actually again, “thou hast conceived, and you will bear a son, and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.  [8] 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.”  Now it’s interesting this father’s reaction at this point.  It’s a legitimate reaction, he wants instruction, he realizes, both he and his wife are believers and they want instructions on rearing their child.   

 

And so in Judges 13:9, “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,” but notice who He comes to; He comes to the woman; there’s something goes on in this text, there’s an emphasis over and over that he will come to the man but he always comes to the husband through the wife.  Now this is exactly reverse to usually how marriage is treated in the Scripture.  And the fact that it’s so reverse to what is normally there I think is a red flag to say now look at this, look at this, there’s a principle here.  And this principle is that God is giving something for which the woman has the calling above the man at this point.  The woman is put into her position and this is her position throughout the Word of God, that she and she alone has this particular ministry, and in this connection the woman is higher than the man before God.  God comes to the man but He does it through the woman.  And so He comes to the woman.

 

Judges 13:10, “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.  [11] And Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him,” by the way, doesn’t this remind you a lot of the resurrection of Christ; remember who came to the tomb and actually led the disciples and told them; it’s a woman wasn’t it.  “Art thou the man who spoke unto the woman?  And he said, I am.”

 

Judges 13:12, “And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass.”  Now verse 12 is all fowled up; honestly, I don’t know how they can do this.  “How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him?”  It has nothing to do with that at all.  The particular words here are words which mean rights and responsibilities.  “What is his judgment,” literally.  Now the judgment used in this context means his rights, what are his rights?  And the second one, “What are his works?”  We translate that rights and responsibility.  So the father requests from God, he says all right God, you have put this child in my family, I am the father of this family, now I want to know what is this child’s rights and responsibilities.  This kid is obviously something special, he is somebody that you have set aside, and I want to as a parent know how to deal with it.  By the way, he doesn’t go down to the local child development center and say here’s a Nazirite, now you take him over at two so he will be especially trained by the state and he will develop into a wonderful scintillating personality by the time he is twelve.  He doesn’t do that at all.  The parent requests the understanding from the Lord.  And this, by the way, is an application; any parent can request this from the Lord.  You have a right to request the same thing for your children, it’s your right as a believer, and here it just comes out that this is a special case, but this verse is a very interesting one for parents because it’s a very legitimate prayer request.  What are his responsibilities and what are his rights.  So this is a very, very interesting verse and it should be a matter of concern…[tape turns]

 

 

Judges 13:13, “And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware.”  In other words, the angel says…this reply is essentially saying you follow out the Nazirite oath, you know what it means to be a Nazirite and you just follow those instructions.  And notice again, he makes the husband go to the woman; the wife has been given this second set of instructions, and he says if you want to know what the rights and responsibilities of this child are, go ask your wife and it’s one of those odd cases where the woman is doing the instructing, she tells her husband about this thing.  And he repeats it just to make sure everyone gets it clear, [14] “She may not eat of any thing that cometh of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing: all that I commanded her let her observe.”

 

Then in Judges 13:15, “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.”  It’s funny, you read some of these commentaries and they have great discussions about whether this particular text is valid and what about this and that, whether we have the third person or the second person in the original Hebrew verb, and one of the commentators in verse 15 was known for his scholarship pointed out, and it’s sort of amusing because he’s not one to point this kind of stuff out, he pointed out that in verse 15 [can’t understand words] like our western world, you didn’t go in there and pop the vegetables into the oven, the point was that this “kid” thing literally took three or four hours.  This is much more the leisure pace of that society than our society.  Can you imagine just sitting around for somebody to cook you a meal for three or fours when you’re starved but nevertheless, this was oriental time scale here; they took three or four hours.  So he’s saying look, angel just cool it, sit down here and relax and I’ll have my wife work on some dinner for you.  And this is hospitality and he’s showing his positive volition toward the Lord in this way.

 

Judges 13:16, “And the angel of the LORD said unto Manoah, Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread,” this is interesting; there’s a reason for it.  None of these little incidents in God’s Word, the more I study this the more I see every one of these verses is loaded with an apologetic.  It turns out just at this time in history that one of the ways in which the gods were worshiped is that they were fed and in the pantheons and in the temples they would have libations, where they would take these great vats of wine, sometimes water and food and they would pour it at the feet of the gods, thinking that the gods would actually consume these, just like a person.  So isn’t it interesting that just at the time in history when God appears to the people He does exactly opposite.  See, He heightens the contrast.  God always makes black more black and white more white.  He never makes gray, He always divides in this thing.  In this sense it is true that doctrine divides, and thank God that it does; it divides truth from error.  So God always divides, God is in the dividing business.

 

So in Judges 13:16 he says, “I will not eat of your bread,” I will not be like the other gods, “and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the LORD.  For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the LORD.”  It’s kind of an interesting little test here, he wants this man not to worship him as a man, you see, he’s playing games here, in a minute you’ll see who he turns out to be, but right at this point Manoah doesn’t realize who this person is, so Manoah is so thankful to this man that he’s just about ready to either feed him, and if the man refuses him he’s going to sacrifice to him.  And the angel says huh-un, don’t sacrifice to me, you just sacrifice to the Lord. 

 

Judges 13:17, by this time I think Manoah thinks something’s odd about this angel “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?”  In other words, the angel has refused the honor of the sacrifice and so he says well then let me at least know your name. 

 

Judges 13:18, the angel of the Lord makes this very cryptic reply, “And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why do you ask me thus after my name, seeing it is secret?”  Literally in the Hebrew it’s the word for wonderful.  This is the same word, remember Handel’s Messiah, Isaiah 9:6, what is the Messiah called?  “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father.”  This is a title for God and it refers to His supernaturalness; it refers to the fact that He’s totally beyond that which man can try to imitate by any idol, or that man can try to think out completely.  This is what it means to be “wonderful.”  And it’s in the adjective form and therefore he’s not saying this is my name, he says my name is, or my nature is “Wonderful.”  So Manoah, at this point again he’s got a hint, you see, if he’s using his head, but again unfortunately one could argue that his wife was a lot sharper spiritually than he was as we go on through here.

 

Judges 13:19, “So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the LORD: and the angel did wondrously, and Manoah and his wife looked on.” and here you have the verb form of that adjective.  So right while he offers this the angel is going to do something.  What is it that the angel does?  Verse 20, “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.  And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground.”  You can imagine the expression on Manoah’s face as this guy just suddenly blends into the flame and he goes. 

 

Judges 13:21, “But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife.”  Here they are, both lying down flat in the mud; they don’t want to look at God because there’s the concept from Sinai that you can’t look upon God and all His holiness.  Now talk about putting the fear of God into someone, God did at Sinai, and from that point on they don’t want to see God; God is too holy, and they realize that.  So when they realize they’ve met God, boom, they go down, not to attention, but it’s a case in a horizontal sense with their eyeballs pointing toward the dirt.  So here they are down here in the dirt, and finally I guess they get tired of this because the angel of the Lord doesn’t appear to them any more, they don’t know what to do.  “Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD.  [22] And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.”  So they’re still lying down there, not looking, and so his wife says back to him, [23] “But his wife said unto him, If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat 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.”  So his wife said you can get up, we’re not going to lie down here in the dirt, it’s kind of silly isn’t it, God isn’t going to prophesy that I’m pregnant, that my boy is going to do certain things and kill us, that just doesn’t make sense.  So the woman here has great common sense, excellent theology.

 

Judges 13:24, “And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.”  And some of the liberal higher critics at this point have made some big hullabaloo about this name and this is why.  The Hebrew word for son is shemesh, Samson’s name is shimshown with an “n” on the end and they said that he represents some sort of mythical figure, the sun deity and so on.  Actually we do not know what this full name means; it appears to be analogous to the sun but we’re not fully sure what the name is.  But there’s no “p” in it, a good way to remember, the sun’s name in Hebrew is shemesh and Samson’s name is shimshown or Samson as it comes over because they don’t bring the “h” over in the King James translation.  So we have the boy named Samson, “and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.”

 

Judges 13:25, “And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.”  In other words, he and his parents live in this refugee camp with the main group of Danites having moved northward.  “And the Spirit of the LORD began to move,” you have to take that in context with the book of Judges.  This does not mean he gets holy.  When the Spirit of God moves in the Judges it means that they are given some physical indication of what they are to do.  And this simply means that this kid, as he grows, becomes fantastically strong, amazingly strong.  We’re going to see one of the feats that he does and apparently Samson himself had a tremendous physique, we’ll see this in a moment, when 30 bodyguards come to the wedding.  But Samson has a fantastic physique and at times he suddenly feels his strength coming upon him, as he reaches adolescence, and this is what that means when the Spirit comes upon him.  It means that he is feeling tremendous strength. 

 

In Judges 14:1, “And Samson went down to Timnath,” and you can’t appreciate this unless you remember the background I gave of ecumenical religions.  If you have a map in your Bible you’ll see this, but the place where Samson lives, which was given in Judges 13:2, Zorah, is five miles up the valley from Timnath.  Now Timnath is a Philistine settlement.  Zorah is a refugee settlement.  The Danites are being pushed.  But you want to notice something; there is no iron curtain between the two, there’s nothing that divides between the two.  There’s evidently perfect freedom to go, to buy, to sell, to conduct business and so on, back and forth, back and forth, etc.  So evidently here you have this ecumenicalism at work.  You see, all this works cleverly, it never draws lines, it always kind of inches up to you and say let’s have dialogue and so on.  There are no definite boundaries here.  And so he goes down to Timnath, “and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.”

 

Judges 14:2, “And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife.”  No please, no if, no going to the Lord, you just get her for me.  Now probably by this time he was bigger than his father and so he just saying, I want you to get her.  By the way, this shows you how marriages were conducted in Israel.  The parents conducted the marriage.  And this is maybe very offensive to some of you today but that’s just the way it is.  I think it was a very excellent principle.  But this also shows you that it wasn’t just a cold unromantic thing.  Marriages were conducted, the kids would get together and then they’d work on their parents; it wasn’t just marriage for convenience, they were marriages of love and attraction and this shows you one of the ways.  The children would fall in love or something and then they would go and ask the parent’s permission, and this was how it worked.  But Samson here is violating the law of God because he is not to intermarry with non-Jewish girls.  Evidently it’s the old story, you can’t date around your own circle, the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. 

 

So here we have him flirting around with these Philistine girls.  Now there’s nothing wrong with the Philistine girls under one condition, and this is the only condition that a non-Jewish girl would be admitted to the Jewish community; if she would swear allegiance to Jehovah.  We know this from the book, that little tiny book that’s popped onto the back of this one, the book of Ruth.  The book of Ruth is attached to carefully say something.  Ruth was a Moabitess; Ruth was not a Jewish girl but she was perfectly acceptable in the Jewish community because of her declaration of faith.  She said “your God will be my God and where you go I will go,” and she makes a formal declaration.  And the book of Ruth is put into the Bible to ameliorate the Pharisaic interpretation of the Law.  The Pharisees later on in history, centuries later, said no non-Jewish girl can be admitted to the community. 

 

In other words, they took the Law in its literal form without realizing that God was talking about the Moabite’s mental attitude.  A Philistine girl with a mental attitude… it’s saying this in the Law, here’s a Philistine girl and she has negative volition, ecumenical religion, her mind is full of it, and that is the girl that will not be admitted to the Israelite community.  Now he said if she will believe on Jesus Christ and she will swear allegiance and go on positive volition and flush this religious junk out of her mind and fill it with the Word of God she will be admitted along with girls like Ruth.  So the point that is being violated in verses 1-2 has nothing to do with racial prejudice; it is a religious prejudice.  It’s a prejudice all right; we’ll admit that, it’s just not racial.  The prejudice here is spiritual prejudice and is the law laid down in the New Testament.  Any young person who is a believer in Jesus Christ starts flirting around and getting involved romantically with non-Christian is asking for trouble and I can give you some gory illustrations to see the sorrow and the heartache that have come into certain homes because oh, I’ll marry him and I’ll change him afterwards…famous last words.  If the person is not a believer before marriage, don’t worry about changing him; that person is not your right man or right woman if they are an unbeliever.  Anyway, Samson goes down and he gets involved and he comes up and he orders his parents to do something about it.

 

Judges 14:3, “Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou go to take a wife of the uncircum­cised Philistines?  And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleases me well.”  So here you have a man who is consecrated as a Nazirite, and God is going to do a funny thing in this man’s ministry.  Samson ministers by his negative volition.  This is a strange one for you.  Usually you connect service with positive volition.  Well, God has picked a hard nut and it’s Samson, and so He is going to use Samson on his negative volition to minister; it’s a very unusual situation in Scripture.  But every time Samson kicks against the Lord he winds up kicking against the Philistines.  Every time Samson rejects the Word of God he winds up starting a war with the Philistines.  There’s always some fallout with the Philistines every time Samson has a fallout with the Lord, and you watch what’s going to happen. 

 

Judges 14:4, “But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD,” now that is an editorial remark introduced into the text.  This does not mean that it’s God’s direct will.  Remember, God has various wills, He has His direct will and He has His permissive will, and this is speaking of God’s permissive will.  In other words, this is an editorial remark, this was written in David’s time, this book, notice the last part of verse 4, “that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.”  Well, if “at that time” the Philistines had dominion over Israel, this time in which the book was written must be after that time.  And that must mean at least by David’s day maybe later.  So the man who is writing this and putting it all together, probably Samuel or one of the inspired prophets, he has the advantage of looking back and seeing the results of this, so he’s saying that even though this grieved his parents terribly, even though this boy is violating God’s will, nevertheless God is going to turn cursing into blessing; not for Samson but as far as the nation is concerned. 

 

Judges 13:5, “Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath: and, behold, a young lion roared against him.  [6] And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid.”  And the particular expression, if you track it down in the original means that he took the hind legs, we know this from various archeological frescoes picture this, he evidently grabbed this lion by the hind legs and just ripped him open, and the guts spilled out and everything else, but that’s the way he did it.  He just grabbed the hind legs, picked this thing up and this thing shssht, like that, and this thing split right down the middle, and that’s how he handled the lion.  “…rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand,” he didn’t have any weapon or anything, he just grabbed the lion and tore it up, “but he told not his father or his mother what he had done.”  Evidently some time during this five mile walk between Timnath and the place they got separated and this happened.  By the way, why is he not telling his mother or his father?  Do you know why?  What did I tell you were the three Nazirite vows: one, no strong drink; two, no razor on the head, and three, do not touch a dead carcass.  So evidently this is a testimony to the fact that his parents obeyed the Word and even though he may have been Mr. Hercules, they probably would have laid it to him.  So he has respect for his parents here and he says well, I violated the oath but I’m not going to tell mom and dad about it.  So he doesn’t.

 

Judges 14:7, “And he went down, and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. [8] And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion.  [9] “And he took thereof in his hands,” again touching a carcass, violating his Nazirite oath, “and he went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did eat: but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion.”  A total violation of the Nazirite oath and yet nevertheless, he offers this honey to his parents.  [10] So his father went down unto the woman: and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men to do.”  Now the wedding feast lasted seven days; if you think getting married is a problem now, you should have been back then.  Seven days this thing went on.  It started out here on the first day and then they have a big party, big blast going on and this thing would last for seven days and the wedding wouldn’t be consummated until the 7th day, they’d just have one continual party, party, party, party, party.  They enjoyed themselves and it was a real social time and so forth.  This is, by the way, the party at which Jesus made the wine in John 2, same kind of thing.  So they had the party, these things were going to last seven days but you notice what happens during the seven days.

 

Judges 14:11, “And it came to pass, when they saw him,” this shows you the awesome power of Samson, here the Philistines see who this guy is that’s come into the party, “that they brought thirty companions to be with him.”  In other words, the point is you usually have one or two and they surrounded him with thirty men.  Apparently afraid of what this guy would do if he’d get a little under the table or something at the party, that they’d have to take thirty men to control him.  So they bring thirty men to kind of bring order out of the thing.  Well, Samson is going to bring order out of it but in quite a different way.

 

Judges 14:12, “And Samson said unto them, I will now put forth a riddle unto you,” and by the way, this fixes this book in history, this is what was going on in the heroic age, the age of riddles, this book is not a late book, it adequately reflects the time of history.  Samson “put forth a riddle unto you, if ye can certainly declare it me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty sheets and thirty change of garments,” “sheets” is the word for underwear, and “garments” is a word for suit, Sunday suit.  So he says if you’ll do this thing I’ll give you thirty sets of underwear and thirty suits. 

 

Judges 14:13, “But if ye cannot declare it me, then shall ye give me thirty sheets and thirty change of garments.  And they said unto him; Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it.”  So now the contest goes on, obviously they think thirty of them ought to be able to get the riddle.  Of course, the problem is going to be that maybe Samson had a little odd size suit and they’re going to have trouble trying to find it.  [14] And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness,” obviously referring to his lion episode, “And they could not in three days expound the riddle.”  So they begin to get a little agitated.  For three days during this party goes on and they meet around the room, while everybody else is having a good time and say hey, I wonder what this riddle means, what is this going on.

 

Judges 14:15, “And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson’s wife,” this is probably the Sabbath day, by the way, the seventh day, “Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father’s house with fire,” see, they were very pleasant boys, that’s how ecumenicalism always is, sweetness and light until you cross them, so you be a good girl and you get that out of your groom or we’re going to come by and have a little party at your house, “have ye called us to take that we have?  Is it not so?”  They’re kind of shook up about them having to provide thirty suits for this monster.

 

Judges 14:16, “And Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and love me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people, and hast not told it me.  And he said unto her, Behold, I have not told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell it thee?” [17] “And she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted,” you don’t love me or you’d tell me, the same old tactic, “and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she lay sore upon him: and she told the riddle to the children of her people.”  In other words finally she beat it out of him.  Samson had this weakness, by the way, it’s going to get him in trouble later on with another woman.  He can’t say no to women.

 

Judges 14:18, “And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down, What is sweeter than honey?  And what is stronger than a lion?  And he said unto them, If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.  [19] And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon,” this is where his troublemaking activities begin, it’s right in this Philistine pentapolis, a settlement of five cities and so we have him right smack in the middle of the Philistine pentapolis, “and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle.  And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father’s house.  [20] But Samson’s wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend.”  That’s his best man, they had an interesting rule in the wedding, if the groom couldn’t stand it over the seven days, he always picked a single fellow for his best man, and he inherited the bride, he just dumped her off on him if he couldn’t stand her at the end of the seven days.  His “anger was kindled and he went up to his father’s house.” 

 

Next week we’re going to find out what happens because next week Samson is going to do some more troublemaking.  Already he has murdered thirty men in the Philistine capital.  Samson’s life, if you turn to Hebrews 11:32 is a microcosm of the nation Israel because Samson’s life is characterized by two attitudes.  The first attitude is negative volition to the Word of God, the declared Word of God, and the second is a positive attitude toward intermarrying with the heathen, which is always a picture of spiritual adultery.  So in his very life he mirrors the nation at this point. 

 

In Hebrews 11:32, just to show you and to head off at the pass some people who would say oh, Samson did this, why he’s going to have relations with two more women, one of whom is a prostitute and one of whom is a spy for the Philistines, and a believer couldn’t do that and still be saved.  Of course he could.  “And what shall I more say?  For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and or Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah.”  He is listed as a believer in the New Testament.  Now why?  Because salvation is by grace.  Samson isn’t saved because of his scintillating personality’ Samson isn’t saved because of what a high moral and ethical person he is.  He is saved because deep in his heart he does have some small area of response to the will of God.  That’s what this chapter says, he has received Christ under the Old Testament dispensation and he is a believer and he does have some faith, enough to show the existence of his eternal life.  Samson is a believer and next week we’ll see the episodes of this tremendous believer and how he starts a war as part of his ministry.