Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 15, 2026 | Judges - Samson Part 2: God's Power in Your Weakness

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March 15, 2026 | Judges - Samson Part 2: God's Power in Your Weakness · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to welcome you, especially if you're new.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: We are rolling through our series in Judges, and uh really today, sort of a part two, we're gonna be wrapping up the story of Samson in Judges 15 through 16.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you were here with us last week when Jim went through the first part of Samson's life, um it is uh scandalous, it is messy, it is um, you know, uh filled with wild events, because Samson, arguably the most famous or popular judge, um, is uh also one of the least disciplined.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And as we look at the end of his life today and we see how this superhuman strength that he has, this gift that came from the Lord, uh, ultimately how it comes to an end, we're gonna be asking this question, which is the same question the Philistines were asking of Samson.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Where does your great strength come from?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Samson, there's something about you that is impossible to explain outside of the supernatural.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so, where does your great strength come from?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna ask that question.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna turn it on ourselves once we wrap up his story and see how God's great power can show up in our lives, even like in Samson's, when things are not going the way that we would expect them to.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So as you turn in your Bibles to chapter 15 of Judges, um, I will say that there's a there's a number of stories here that I'm gonna be summarizing for you until we get to the main part uh of Samson's life in chapter 16 that we'll spend most of our time on.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and a lot of these stories, they're just they're they're much of the same color in that they describe a man who is um uh isn't fully living out his his promise to God and is struggling to find his place and gets himself into a lot of trouble, but also like just smokes the Philistines anytime he comes in touch with anytime he touches them.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So this first one here, uh in verses one through eight of chapter 15, I'm calling the flaming foxes.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you were here last week, you might remember that Samson got married, okay?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then he had a terrible uh wedding party, um terrible ceremony, and ended up leaving for a very long time.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, at the beginning of chapter 15, Samson comes back with a goat, much like a modern-day box of chocolates, uh, to try and make peace and to make sure that everything is okay.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody that he encounters, specifically his, we assume to be his ex-wife and his ex-father-in-law, are like, What are you doing here?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you left for a really, really long time, and now you're coming back.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And Samson apparently thought that everything would be okay.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, ex-father-in-law isn't having any of it, and he's like, No, you can't be with him.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I I gave her away in marriage to one of your groomsmen, okay?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Samson is so upset that he gathers uh hundreds of foxes, or jackals, more likely, and uh ties their tails together, puts a torch in between them, lights the torch, and then sets them free into the uh the olive groves and the vineyards and the grain fields of Timnah, which is the Philistine city where he's at, and completely destroys the entire city's food production and uh ruins all of their um agriculture.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who among us, right, has not in anger done something like this, okay?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: You've gathered foxes, I'm sure, but Samson is rash, okay?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: He is um vengeful, and he uh takes takes vengeance, takes revenge upon the Philistines.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the Philistines are upset, and they, sadly, they um take their revenge upon Samson's ex-wife and ex-father-in-law by killing them.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Samson won't have that either, and so then he goes against them in battle, and you'll see in your Bibles that we get very little descriptions of how that battle went, other than he tore them limb from limb, okay?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, barehanded, Samson destroys this group of people, the Philistines.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it also marks a little bit of a turning point in the story because from this point on, basically, Samson can't be allowed to live.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's too much trouble, he's too much of a danger.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you start to see schemes now from the Philistines and how they can uh capture him, contain him, and ultimately kill him.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: In verses 9 through 16, um, the Philistines take action by uh mounting a military operation into Israelite territory.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Samson has gone back home, and the Philistines gather this army essentially to go out and fight Samson.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they're terrified of him because he is the strongest person they've ever seen in their life, and he is unbeatable in battle.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so they go to the tribe of Judah, the Israelite tribe of Judah, and they say, Hey, uh, would you guys just hand over Samson to us so that we don't have to do it ourselves?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Judah, who I'm stretching your memory here, but at the beginning of the book of Judges, there was one tribe that God said uh would be the tribe that should lead Israel in battle against their enemies.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was Judah.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now Judah, they kind of go belly up, and instead they go to Samson, they're like, hey, would you put these handcuffs on and um become a prisoner of the Philistines willingly?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in their sort of cowardice here, right, they don't see Samson and what he's doing as an um an opportunity to fight against the Philistines.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, they they see him as kind of a problem to get rid of.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, it would be easier for us to live as slaves under the Philistines rather than fight for our freedom with you.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, anyhow, Samson goes with him.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to fight against his fellow countrymen, so he puts the ropes around his arms, and uh it looks like he is uh bound up, and he when he gets to the Philistines, it says the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes fell away from his hands like they were fire, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: They just fell away.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's so strong.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then apparently, let's talk about being resourceful here.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: There is the fresh carcass of a donkey nearby, and he picks up its jawbone and slaughters the entire Philistine army that came to fight against him.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So he aptly names this place Jawbone Hill.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um and once again, right, uh, no matter the scheme that goes against Samson, um he is undefeated in battle.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But Samson is just like any other man in one sense, in that he has the same needs, and so he gets really thirsty.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes to a cave, he kind of hides out in this cave after Jawbone Hill, the events here, exhausted.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a couple things that happen in this story, several things that happen in this story that gives us an inner look inside Samson's heart, okay?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Who he is, what his fears are.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Inside this cave, he prays to God for the first time.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, this prayer is for his life to be saved because he um he is so weary, he needs a drink so bad that he says he's gonna die without one.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So he begs for water.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: But beyond thirst, he reveals his greatest fear.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: He says it would be to fall into the hands of the uncircumcised.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that might sound weird to you, but what he's saying here is his greatest fear in life is to be taken as captive by the Philistines, right?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not to die in battle, it's not to, you know, any of the things that we might presume about him, but his greatest fear in life is to be taken captive, to fall into the hands of the Philistines.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: We also see, though, during this prayer that whether for the first time or he's just saying it after a long time, Samson recognizes his role as the servant of the Lord.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really special language that he's using there, right?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's he means something in particular.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: He knows that God has given him this role and this function.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And though he hasn't said it yet, he hasn't talked about the gift of strength that the Lord has given to him, it's at least that he sees how God has positioned him with an ability to fight against the Philistines.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's supposed to be a thorn in their side.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And his statement comes at a fitting time because this victory at Jawbone Hill was so complete, uh so lopsided, that essentially the Philistines uh leave Israel alone for 20 years.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, we don't want to deal with that.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: That guy with a donkey's jawbone, that guy takes out our armies, right?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: With steel and so, or with iron.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh they're terrified of Israel, who has Samson representing them.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so you'll see, again, if you're following along in your Bible there, that we hear Samson began to deliver Israel.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: He was their judge for 20 years.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so uh if you've been with us through our series in judges, that statement that this person uh delivered or judged Israel for X number of years is pretty common, right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: It comes after the at the end of everybody's story, and typically it's the end of the story, right?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It sums up a life of greatness and service to the Lord most of the time.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: But you've also noticed, if you've been with us the last few weeks, that a lot of the more recent judges, they have extra stories that come after that part, right?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing is true with Samson.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So Samson judged Israel for 20 years.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the judging, though, it's he doesn't deliver Israel.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Samson is the first judge who doesn't like throw off the yoke of the oppressor.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: He just kind of keeps them safe.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: It won't be until David, King David, comes along that the Philistines are truly driven out of there.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, um Samson's story isn't finished here.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: After his great prayer, there's a gap in time.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of commentators think it's about 20 years or so, because it jumps really to the end of his life or close to it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: In chapter 16, we have one more story that we'll look at.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Really short one, um, where Samson he decides to make his way, again, presumably this is about 20 years later.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: He decides to make his way to Gaza, which is the capital of the Philistine country, sort of area region.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Gaza, he's going into the belly of the beast here.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know why, it doesn't say why he went to Gaza, but while he was there, it says he saw and slept with a prostitute.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's somebody who informs on Samson, whose weakness is Philistine women.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they inform on him, and all the Philistines are like, ooh, we can trap him, we can capture him, right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is our opportunity.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's finally left home base and he's come over here, and so they set this trap.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: They say, okay, we're gonna wait for him.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's busy currently, and when he wakes up and leaves in the morning, right, we are gonna be ready for him.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have our army gathered, we're gonna take him by force.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's only one place he can leave, it's through the city gates, and so we're gonna be waiting for him on the other side.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, whether because of his cunning, I don't know about that, um, paranoia, um, somebody tipped him off, whatever it is, Samson goes, I'm gonna leave at midnight.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so he leaves earlier than they're expecting.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes to the gates of the city.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in ancient times, you can look up pictures of this.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the gates of an ancient city are massive.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, there's huge wooden things that would represent like the main entryway for an army, for travelers, for merchants to come in and out of the city.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're set into these huge stone uh foundations.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're unbelievably heavy, fortified.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Samson goes to the gates of Gaza and uproots them, picks them up out of the ground, puts them on his back, and carries them 39 miles away to Hebron.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay arguably his greatest feat of strength in his entire life is carrying these gates.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hebron is the main city of Judah.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so he uh he goes to the hill across from Hebron, where everybody can see him, and he puts the city gates up there.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And now, was he provoking them, right?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Was he trying to get the people going?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Was he trying to incite them to war?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, like saying, come join me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Rarely does Samson have motivations that make sense to us.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but regardless, he has had this amazing feat of strength.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the city gates of Gaza are gone.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's embarrassing, it's humiliating for them.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And also, more than any other act in his life, they're asking, How is this guy so strong?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: How is he able to do this?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Each time God's spirit is empowering him to do this.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as long as Samson lives, this becomes very clear.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: There will be no peace with the enemy.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Philistines are always going to struggle against him, and he cannot be beat.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: He can't be trapped, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: He can't be tricked, he can't be, up to this point, um, he can't be taken in single combat.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: He can't, like they there's nothing that they can do.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they can't bind him, right?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that they can do that will enable them to take out this guy.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so they go to his one great weakness, Philistine women.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh here in the story in chapter 16, verse 4, is where we'll pick up, enter Delilah.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sometime later, Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah who lived in the Sorak Valley.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: So for the third time in Samson's story that we have heard, he has fallen for a Philistine woman, which is a really bad idea every single time.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's no better the third time.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: But Samson appears to have fallen more deeply for this, for Delilah, because it says, which it did not say for the first two, including his first wife, that he loves Delilah.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: He loves Delilah.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as we'll see, his love for this woman will blind him, both emotionally and physically.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the Philistine leaders went to her, there are five of them, and said, Persuade him to tell you where his great strength comes from, so we can overpower him, tie him up, and make him helpless.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Each of us will then give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um, this tactic was used against Samson in chapter uh 14, right?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: They went to his first wife and they said, Hey, would you, you know, trick him for us?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing here, only Delilah is being bribed with money.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And holy cow, this is a lot of money, all right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: The convert conversion rates from the book of Judges to 2026 aren't super accurate, but this is an absolute fortune, okay, compared to what people are paying for with pieces of silver elsewhere.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Delilah is going to be fabulous.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: She's won the lottery if she would turn over her husband, betray him, and would find out the power of his strength, the source of his strength.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, Samson, where does your great strength come from?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So Delilah said to Samson, please tell me, where does your great strength come from?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: How could someone tie you up and make you helpless?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Which just, if we're talking about being smooth, okay, being secretive, um, asking Samson hypothetically, how could somebody destroy you is maybe not the tack that you know we would think she would take.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: But nobody's ever accused Samson of being the sharpest tool in the shed.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So he doesn't, he this doesn't catch him off guard.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, huh, yeah, how would somebody do this?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens next in verses 7 through 14 is kind of a game of cat and mouse where Delilah is going to ask Samson, what is the source of your strength?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: He will give her an answer, but but not the real one.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: He'll give her fake answers, and then she will do that thing, whatever he said she needed to, or whatever he said that she would need to do in order to take away his strength.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: She'll do that thing, she'll call in the Philistines, and then Samson, because he didn't tell her the truth, will wake up, because normally they come while he's asleep, will wake up and just destroy everybody and kill all the Philistines that Delilah brought in.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, after a couple times of this happening, everybody's fed up with the situation.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Delilah is upset because he's not telling her the truth.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Philistines are upset because they keep coming, their soldiers keep coming and getting, you know, killed by Samson because he's taking them out each time.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then Samson here is getting frustrated because Delilah apparently loves to nag him and wears on him, wears on him, wears on him.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: But he loves her, he cares for Delilah.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: He is blinded emotionally by her sweet words and her persistence.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so in verse 15, Delilah says, How can you say, I love you?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: she told him, when your heart is not with me.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is the third time you have mocked me and not told me what makes your strength so great.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because she nagged him day after day and pleaded with him until she wore him out.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: He told her the whole truth, and said to her, My hair has never been cut, because I am a Nazarite to God from birth, if I am shaved, my strength will leave me, and I will become weak and be like any other man.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: So Samson reveals, right, his great truth, something he has not told anybody, presumably only his parents are aware of his vow or the source of his strength.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when Samson reveals this to Delilah, weary, in love, all of these things, seemingly not understanding why Philistine army soldiers continue to lay in wait inside the rooms of his house for him when he wakes up.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Missing all of that, Samson gives her this information.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a bigger statement than what he did after Jabon Hill, where he said, You know, Lord, I am your servant.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now we understand that Samson, and this begins to kind of color what has come up to this point in the story, the events so far, is that Samson recognizes that from birth, and in fact, nine months before that, because his Samson's mom was supposed to fulfill the Nazarite vow for him until he was born.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So he's, however old he is, plus nine months, he has been a Nazirite.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I have been this way since birth.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've been devoted to the Lord.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really special statement that he's making.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, My life has been set apart for God.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so what that begins to do is reveal how Samson might have understood his role and his relationship to the Lord up to this point.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: He has taken a vow, okay?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you weren't here last week, a Nazarite vow is something uh in the law of Moses that is typically done voluntarily, and it means that you follow all of the rules of being an Israelite, and then you voluntarily follow a few extra rules.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is that you don't cut uh your hair, one of them is that you don't um drink any fruit of the vine, and one of them is that you don't touch dead things.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Samson, though, was told that he was going to be a Nazirite, but he has kept this vow his whole life, and he understands where the source of his strength comes from.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's because of this devotion and this vow that he has made to God.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: So he reveals that to Delilah.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: The long hair of his Nazirite vow, in particular, has been the sign of this relationship with God.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: To cut it off would effectively be a rejection of this vow and separate Samson from the one thing that has defined his relationship with God so far.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Samson cuts a tragic character here because his greatest fear is to fall into the hands of the Philistines, right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: To become, as he says, like every other man.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: This tells you a little bit about his inner psyche that Samson feels if this strength is removed from him, that he will be just like every other man, and that that is such a negative thing.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to be like every other man.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: He loves the power that comes from this gift that God has given to him.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the sad part is, and the tragic thing about his story, is that Samson has never used his gift to do anything for God's kingdom that did not first benefit him personally.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: All of the situations where he fights against the Philistines have come about because he has gotten himself into trouble, right?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Typically because he has had a bad relationship, and through that, then he is the thorn in the side of the Philistines.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: But unlike other judges that have come before him, he is never a leader of armies, he is never fully accepted by his fellow Israelites, right?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like we don't get the sense that they want to follow him into battle.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: The tribe of Judah was like, Can you just go away?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: He is never able to deliver his country from the hand.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of the oppressors, despite his ability.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Samson instead chooses to sleep with the enemy instead.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so able to get away the first two times that his relationships got him into trouble.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: This third time now with Delilah is different.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: She let him fall asleep on her lap and called a man to shave off the seven braids on his head.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: In this way she made him helpless, and his strength left him.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then she cried, Samson, the Philistines are here.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: When he awoke from his sleep, he said, I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: But he did not know that the Lord had left him.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: How about that last line?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Did not know that the Lord had left him.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: When Samson woke up, like he had countless times before, believing the Lord's Spirit would once again rush upon him and deliver him from a terrible situation of his own making.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Only this time God was not with him.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine how Samson felt in that moment to go forth and think that this gift that you have misused, abused, not taken seriously for your whole life is now gone.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's taken it for granted that God would always be with him in this circumstance, and now God has said, Too much, Samson.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: You've traded my gift to you for the love of a Philistine woman.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bad trade to make.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: We get shades of Esau back in the book of Genesis trading his birthright for a bowl of soup, right?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the regret that comes with it later on.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now his greatest fear in his life is about to be realized.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles, and he was forced to grind grain in the prison, but his hair began to grow back after it had been shaved.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Again, how about that last line, right?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's some irony in the story here, which is that anytime Samson has found a woman that he uh likes, right, and gotten into trouble with her, uh, in the Hebrew it says that his eyes saw her, which is sort of different language than you would typically use, and he wanted them, right?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted this person.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So his eyes saw him.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So what he says to his parents back in chapter, is it uh 14 or 13 or 14, I can't remember, when he uh first identifies the woman he wants to marry, the Philistine woman, he says, I've seen her and she is good to me.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: She is good to my eyes.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this language of doing what is right in your own eyes, after Samson's story, will uh get attached to the nation of Israel, okay?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: That is how Israel will be described from now on, is that they are doing what is right in their own eyes.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so Samson here, in this ironic twist, the thing which got him into so much trouble has now been removed, right?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: His eyes have been gouged out.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: He is blind.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: But they brought him down to Gaza, right?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where he had, not that long ago, taken the city gates out, bound him with bronze shackles that he no longer can escape from, and he's forced to grind grain in the dungeon.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the most humiliating, um he's a slave.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most humiliating and depraving things that they could ask him to do is just trudge around all day long in the same pathway that they would put a donkey and make Samson use his life for the most menial of tasks.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it says his hair began to grow back after it had been shaved.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: It gives us hope, right?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know exactly yet what this means, but we understand the power of Samson's hair.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so for it to continue to for it to start coming back, we get butterflies who say, What's going to happen here?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: God has not left Samson after all.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now the Philistine leaders gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their God Dagon.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: They rejoiced and said, Our God has handed over our enemy Samson to us.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: When they were in good spirits, they said, Bring Samson here to entertain us.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: So they brought Samson from prison, and he entertained them.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: They had him stand between the pillars.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the scene is set.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: All the Philistine leaders and high-ranking citizens have gathered at the temple of their god Dagon.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Make note of that, right?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is not some villa, this is not some, you know, government building, this is the temple of their main god Dagon.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they are giving Dagon the credit, right, for delivering Samson over to them.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: How great is Dagon! How great.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Over and against all the other gods of the land.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: He has delivered our great enemy into our hands.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, who is really the one that delivered Samson over?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: God.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yahweh.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was only because of God that Samson has now been positioned in the heart of the Philistine, not just city and capital, but now surrounded by all of their leaders, religious, political, the wealthy elite, all of them, have now gathered here to mock and to shame Samson.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And to the man whose greatest fear was to be like every other man and to be handed over to the uncircumcised, this is absolute rock bottom.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: He has been paraded around like a circus show.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: But Samson isn't done just yet.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Samson said to the young man who was leading him by the hand, lead me where I can feel the pillars supporting the temple, so I can lean against them.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: The temple was full of men and women, all the leaders of the Philistines were there, and about three thousand men and women were on the roof watching Samson entertain them.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: He called out to the Lord, Lord, God, please remember me.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Strengthen me, God, just once more.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: With one act of vengeance, let me pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Samson took hold of the two middle pillars supporting the temple and leaned against them, one on his right and one on and the other on his left.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: He pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the leaders and all the people in it, and those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed in his life.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now for only the second time in his story, Samson cries out to God again.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: First time was back at uh after Job on the Hill.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's humiliated, he's bitter, he's vengeful, and he is determined to take out the Philistines, even if it will mean his own life.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: His appeal to God is desperate, and rightly so.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's no reason that Samson should expect from his own understanding and perspective that God would answer his prayer now.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's effective, he had kind of given up on God.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: He valued, you could say, Delilah, himself, his love for her, his strength, whatever you want.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: He has put something in the place of God.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: He valued that more than his vow to the Lord.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, he took the Lord off the top step.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: But this has also been in a microcosm, the story of the book of Judges, is Israel continuing to devalue the Lord, run away from him, worship other gods, do all of these things.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then when they're really, really, really, really in trouble, really, really in trouble, then finally, all other options being exhausted, they go before the Lord and they ask him for help.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And God, in his mercy and his grace, he answers them and he delivers them.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so Samson's story here, in many ways, he is like Israel.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: They say, Lord, I have no reason to expect that you would, but please remember me.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Strengthen me, God, one more time.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: For one last act for your kingdom, Samson is basically saying.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Fittingly, the man who spent his life among the Philistines will now die among them as well.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so God answers Samson's faith, empowering him to push over these massive stone columns, holding up the entire temple ceiling, and with that took out the entire leadership structure and upper society of the Philistines in one go.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a crippling blow to the Philistine leadership, obviously, right?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has taken out.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is sort of what you don't do, is gather all the important people in one place.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they did, and they paid for it with their lives.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Samson does not deliver Israel from the Philistines.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: That won't come, like I said, until King David, a little bit later on.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, the beginning of the end has arrived.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it says about Samson that the Lord raised him up and he began to deliver Israel from the Philistines.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yet even in this victory, in this momentary victory, right, we have a cautionary note.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Samson's singular act of suicide took out more Philistines, more of the bad guys, in this one moment than the rest of his life combined.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it's a bit of a bittersweet statement, right?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because on the one hand, you've got this great victory here.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Philistines are taken out, right?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Samson almost, he gets his vengeance.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's able to hit them really where it hurts and is able to do such a great thing.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: God is with him in this moment.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, in that same moment, we're reminded that this is greater than everything that had come before combined.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we almost asked the question, right?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh Samson, what if you had valued the gift that God had given to you?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: What if you had done more with it in your life than you did in the moment of your death?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Malcolm says in Shakespeare's Macbeth, nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is something triumphant about the death of Samson, but also bittersweet, because we recognize what could have been.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: So as we look at Samson's life here, after this moment, by the way, his family comes and takes him and buries him in the tomb of his father.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the last that we hear of him.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Though Samson does come up again in Hebrews chapter 11 as somebody who had great faith, the end of his story is leaves us with mixed emotions.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: So what can we learn from Samson here?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the first thing is that you should steward your strength for God.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Make no mistake that Samson was given a tool, his strength, so that he might do great things for God's kingdom.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: There was an expectation placed upon him.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Samson at various points in his life recognized this expectation.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I am a servant of the Lord after Jabon Hill.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: When he is blinded in between the pillars, right?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: He sees that his job is to take out the Philistines, right?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: He has been pitted against them since day one.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or I guess you could go one step back and say, when he's with Delilah and speaking to her, he says, I've been a Nazarite since I was a little child, since I was born.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is my life, and I've been given a gift in this life.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the very end of Samson's life reveals that he did not steward it well.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: He could have done more.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's no other judge in the book of Judges who receives this same kind of gift that Samson does.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Many of them have amazing abilities given by the Spirit of God, but none of them can, you know, carry the city gates 39 miles up a hill both ways, right?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a different sort of thing.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so in your life, you've been given many gifts.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Many, many gifts.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: You might not be able to carry city gates up a hill, but you can do many things for God's kingdom.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: You have abilities, talents, relationships, resources, time.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: You have so many things that God has given to you.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the temptation can be to use them for yourself, or at the very least, to just be satisfied with them and to not use them to the extent that God has given to you.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: But there's an expectation placed upon you.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is true.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Samson says, since he was born, it is not just something we arrive at when we're 45 or 65 or 85 or anything like that, that wherever you're at right now, God has given you something so that you might be able to serve his kingdom.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what we don't want to say is that we used it poorly.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for us to steward this gift?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: And what that does for our personal faith is that if we begin to understand what gifts we have been given and also who has given them to us, then it drives us forward primarily in two things.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: One is that we are growing thanksgiving, right?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can judge, I mean, I'm reading a little bit into the text here, but I think that you can judge by Samson's decision to give over his secret to Delilah that he did not fully appreciate his gift, he did not truly thank God for it, recognize its power until it was gone.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: What if we don't have to wait until our gift is gone?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: What if now, in this moment, we can thank God for it, praise him for it?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then, secondly, move into deeper obedience.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Have you considered how God has given you an ability for his glory, for his kingdom, not your kingdom and your glory?
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Samson is a reminder of what it looks like to frankly not do this as well as we should.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is that you need to let rock bottom refocus you.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: I often wonder, or I guess I did multiple times this week, what Samson was thinking with his eyes gouged out, grinding grain in a dungeon in Gaza.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: What was going through his mind about what could have been if he had made different choices?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: If he hadn't been so foolish, if he had followed God more closely, right?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: He certainly wouldn't be there.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And there's an opportunity for Samson to allow that bitterness to just carry him through for the rest of his life.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: But as we see when he's drawn up into the temple, he's not going to do that.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: There was something about that time in the dungeon and this time in front of the Philistines being mocked, this rock bottom place that he is at, there was something about that time that refocused Samson, that helped him to see clearly what he could not see beforehand.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: That his strength, the great question that all the Philistines were asking, where does your strength come from?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: That his great strength came from the Lord.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so in his moment of weakness, focused, he goes before God and asks for it one more time.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, God allowed Samson to be stripped of his power.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: God allowed Samson to be taken in chains.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: God allowed Samson to have his eyes gouged out.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: There are times where our rock bottom is out of our control.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are other times where our rock bottom is something that we have brought upon ourselves.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Samson brought this upon himself.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: He is in the dungeon because of his actions, because of everything that he had done up to that point in time, and his trust in himself rather than in God.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: But in the midst of that, in the space of humbling, we never, he never wanted in the first place, and is in fact his greatest fear, he refocused his faith on the kingdom.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so the encouragement here is that you can do that too.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: That your rock bottom, if you're in it now, maybe it's something that is coming in the future.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Or to be honest with you, maybe it's something that you experienced in the past and you never really dealt with it, processed it the way that you should.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever the reason is for why you are feeling at the bottom, like Samson, grinding grain in the dungeon, forgotten by God, which is how he feels, even though that's not true, you can use this time to refocus on the Lord.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the strength to do it, the strength to focus on God comes from him.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to find it inside yourself.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: You have to find it in your Lord.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Third and finally, and most hopefully, is that God isn't finished with you.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not by a long shot.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not by a long shot.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you are at rock bottom now, or have someone you love who is at rock bottom, and it feels hopeless.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: It feels, I'm using that word carefully, it feels like God has abandoned you.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now we know from the story, right?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: We had that great line, but Samson's hair began to grow back.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: God did not really leave Samson.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: God did not forget about him in that dungeon.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: And God was ready to answer Samson's prayer when he cried out for him.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: But what did it take, right, for Samson to have that last moment of great strength?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: In his humility, in his renewed faith, he had to reach out to God and say, Lord God, please remember me.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if for some of you, that is your prayer for your quiet time this week.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: In the feeling of being at rock bottom, you feel like you've been forgotten.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Your head is telling you that that's not true.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture is telling you that that is not true, but your heart feels something different.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: That you can find a love and affection for this prayer of Samson, saying, Lord God, please remember me.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because what you need to understand is that God has not abandoned you.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what you've done, the sins you've committed, the people that you've hurt, the poor choices that you've made, there's nothing that you can do that separates you from God's love and from his presence.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: We find out over and over and over again in Scripture that our feelings about separation from God have far more to do with us pushing him away rather than with God leaving us or abandoning us.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, what it requires to renew and restore that relationship is somebody crying out in the midst of it, Lord God, please remember me, seeking Him once again.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's a deeper truth here, and the final thing that I want to talk about, which is all of these things in Samson's life are true, certainly for Christians.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to receive a gift from God, to let a difficult time in your life refocus your faith, to allow difficulty and pain to not stop you from drawing forth into the love of God, and rather seeing him as still desiring for your use and purpose in his kingdom?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the deeper thing here that we need to get at is what does it mean if you've come this morning and you know nothing of Christ, you know nothing about God who does love you.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: You are probably also feeling distant, pushed away, separated from this love.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: And to be truthful, because of sin, we are separated from God.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have walked away from him.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we have been, we've shoved him away because of our decisions to go against his divine will.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: But God so loves the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you don't know Christ, what you need to understand is God is not finished with you either.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you've come into this church and you have never cracked open a Bible in your life, God wants to have a relationship with you.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: God wants to know you personally, and perhaps most importantly, God died so that he might have that relationship with you.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: What you need to do is cry out, Lord God, please remember me.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have been walking away, sometimes I've been running away, I am returning, and I want to trust in Jesus as my Savior.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me tell you, God is not finished with you yet.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: That is its own kind of gift to receive salvation, and it is one that you must steward well, because the life in Christ is not one momentary thing that happens.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is not something when we are born again, as Samson says, I was a Nazarite from birth, but rather something that carries forth through our entire life, where you will experience the ups and downs of life, where you will still feel at times like rock bottom, you will still feel at times like things are hard.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth that you can always go back to is the cross.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: That you have been saved by the blood of Christ, that there is nothing that you can do that will separate you from the love of God, and that no matter what you have done, no matter who you are, no matter how old or how new your relationship with Jesus is, God is not finished with you yet.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today and we thank you for the gift of your spirit that dwells within those who trust in Christ and empowers us to live out a life for your kingdom.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, Lord, we also recognize that we don't use your gift very well.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Your spirit, Lord, you dwelling within us, we don't always acknowledge that the way that we should.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we bring situations upon ourselves that uh cause pain and often cause others pain.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Help us, Lord, to see you in the midst of this, to remember that our hair is growing back.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that you have not left us, even though it might feel that way.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: And for those especially, Lord, who feel downcast this morning, I pray that they would pray this week, today, and furthermore, Lord God, I need you, please remember me.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we know this is a prayer that you are happy to answer in your grace and in your mercy.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if anybody today would make that same prayer about trusting in Christ, Lord, we also know that that is a prayer you are happy to answer.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God, for the gift of your Son Jesus.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's in his name that we pray.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before you go, quick, quick little update here message.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: Next week we have a special guest with us that we're going to continue our series in Judges.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to miss.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: The week after that is Palm Sunday.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to finish our series in Judges.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've been telling you for months now that the series of judges is going downhill in terms of uh the hard things that happen.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage you before Palm Sunday to read Judges chapters 19 through 21, especially if you have young kids.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're going to be talking about some really heavy things.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if it was made into a movie, it would be rated R.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to be saying anything that isn't in the Bible, but I just want you to be aware to make those decisions for your family so that either you can have conversations beforehand or make decisions otherwise because of the content.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, not to leave you on a ledge, but go ahead and read that.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: And either way, you'll be prepared for what's coming.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, hey, love you.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: Have a good week.