Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 8, 2026 | Judges - Samson Part 1: God Employs Some Real Jerks (get over it)

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March 8, 2026 | Judges - Samson Part 1: God Employs Some Real Jerks (get over it) · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I get to talk to you about heroes, and one person that we often consider a hero, whose name is Samson.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: When nine through 13-year-olds were asked who's your hero, it was nice to know that no over half of them pointed to either a parent or a coach or a relative as their greatest hero in life.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, behind that, about one out of three, mentioned an athletic person.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, after the Olympics, everybody's talking about Elizabeth, or they're talking about the hockey team and so forth.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: You get down to about 15% and it's pop stars.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, if you ask kids, they'll oftentimes say Caitlin Clark or Patrick Mahomes.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And in Christian circles, oftentimes, if you've asked young people to go to Sunday school who's your hero, they'll say, I like Samson.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about heroes today, and we're going to talk about how Samson was sort of an anti-hero, because as you know, going through judges, we're on a downward trajectory.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: The point is we're getting to the place where every man does that which is right in his own eyes, and it's going to get really, really dark.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the last judge mentioned in this book, in chapters 13 through 16, is someone that maybe we have idolized, but who is going to be pictured to us as, if I could say it nicely, a doofus.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about him.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Judges chapter 13, Samson.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have to do, I get to do chapters 13 and 14 today.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 13 is going to be really quick.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But Samson is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, in a sense.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: He has a miracle birth.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's God's choice, and he seems to be a sure hero.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: The chapter starts, the Israelites again did what was evil in the Lord's sight.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you can sort of hear God saying, like, again, again, they did what was evil in the Lord's sight, in Yahweh's sight.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So Yahweh handed them over to the Philistines 40 years.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is about 1150 BC in archaeology.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: The Iron Age has begun.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the Philistines who have come from Crete on ships and live on the Mediterranean coast have the most power because they have entered the Iron Age now.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: They have iron chariot wheels, they have iron swords, and those things cut right through the Bronze Age shields and swords of the Israelites.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the Israelites cannot compete.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the Philistines are the strong people because of iron there.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so they hold sway for 40 years, and that's a public tragedy that Israel has once again turned away from God.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's a private tragedy that follows in verse 2.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was a certain man from a small town named Zorah in the tribal region of Dan, whose name was Manoah.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: His wife was unable to conceive and had no children.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's a private grief and a tragedy for some of you and some people we know.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: In general, in our society, people's first response would be, oh, well, that's okay.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: In Israelite society in the Old and New Testament, so when you think of Hannah in the Old Testament, Elizabeth, Zechariah's wife, Jesus' uncle in the New Testament, and also Rebecca and Rachel, and on and on.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: You realize this was a major tragedy in the Old Testament.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Last week, remember Jeff's daughter went out with her girlfriends and they bewailed for three months what?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not the fact that she was about to die, but the fact that she would never be able to get married and have children, because that is what gave, in a sense, gave you worth in the Old Testament if you were a girl.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So this is an absolute horrible tragedy.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: But then an angel of the Lord, this tragedy gets flipped around by a miracle.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: An angel of the Lord, and by the way, we're gonna find out later in this chapter in a verse I won't read, that this is the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is God Himself.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: You ever wondered what Jesus was doing?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for millions of years, he wasn't sitting around or going to Cancun.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus was actually working and coming down to earth as uh as an angel, angel of the Lord, and he cared for us even before he came down to earth.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when he came down and he took care of poor people and he healed women and children and so forth.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Notice he comes down here and he shows compassion.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Lord, the angel of the Lord, appeared to the woman and he said to her, Although you're unable to conceive and give birth to a son, you must never cut his hair.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um you're going to give birth, he says.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: You must never cut his hair, because the boy will be a Nazarite to God from birth, and he will, another key word, begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now you hear about Nazarites and the Nazirite vow starting in the book of Numbers, and there are four or five Nazirites in the Bible, people who have taken this vow.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: You could take the vow for six months or a year or a couple of years.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they did it for a lifetime.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Samuel in the next book of the Bible, first Samuel, uh, he was a Nazirite.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: You find that John the Baptist was a Nazirite in the New Testament, and also James, the brother of Jesus, was a Nazirite.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But the angel goes, so your son, the son you're gonna have, he's gonna be a Nazirite from his birth to his death.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then you read the story.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this guy, okay, yeah, he may kind of honor the don't cut the hair thing, but but the wine grapes, no fruit of the grape, no grape juice, no wine, which is a real tragedy, by the way, if you're living in that time.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a big deal.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And no dead bodies, not talking about animal dead bodies here, you're talking about, it says in numbers, you cannot go to the funeral of your own parents or grandparents.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be near a dead body.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Any hands of people who think Samson honored this one?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was remember, he was a bull who carried his China shop around with him.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he was slaughtering people all the time.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: This guy hadn't spent more time around dead bodies than a mortician.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that did not follow.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's what the angel says.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a Nazirite, because the view is, you know, if only we can have a warrior priest, a Nazirite in charge, Israel will come back to God.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Ha ha ha.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he will begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Notice begin.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's not gonna complete the job.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is 1100 BC.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Who do you think completed the job?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Who completed the job of doing away with the Philistines?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it would be someone maybe who killed uh, you know, the hero of the Philistines, whose name was Goliath.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: What was his name?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, David was the second king of Israel.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: The first king was Saul.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Saul had a lot in common, by the way, with Samson when you look at it, half a dozen things, including the fact the Philistines made fun of both Samson and then later made fun of Saul in their temples and so forth.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that that uh uh in their in their war against the Philistines, in losing to the Philistines, both Samson and Saul become suicides and take their own lives.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But David is the one who followed Saul, and David conquered the great hero of the Philistines, and then later in his rule, he conquered the Philistines totally.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, but Samson's supposed to start this process.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Silver said, we'll just jump to the end of the chapter.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson, which was a great name back then.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: It means Sonny, one so true.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, it's a great name, right?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sonny, wouldn't you like to be named Sonny?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it means.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not S-O, S-U.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: The boy grew, and the Lord blessed him.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then, the last words, the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the very next words, so Samson's miracle birth, divine choice, a sure hero, right?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Then the very next words, what did the spirit of the Lord stir him to do?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Samson went down to Timnah.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hold it, Samson.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Timnah is across the line, it's over in Philistine territory.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know you only live an hour away.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know it's only four miles, it's an easy walk.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: But but why are you going down to enemy territory, to pagan territory, to a place where no one worships the true God?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's because you're so strong, you don't care?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody, you know, you're very comfortable.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Samson, isn't it?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it Samson because that's where the cool people live?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's Hollywood.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is that because, you know, the Philistine women are famous in the Middle East for using eyeshadow and lipstick and being good looking?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, their pottery is the latest, they live modern lives and so forth.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is that maybe why you're going?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is that because, you know, they have long eyelashes and you and you got a thing for Philistine women?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he goes down to Timnah and he sees, his eyes are going to be really significant in this story.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: He sees a young Philistine woman there.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he went back and he told his father and his mother, I've seen a young Philistine woman in Timnah.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now get her for me as a wife.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: What a way to talk to them.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so the very first thing out of Samson's mouth, we see that his first move is to not fall off the pedestal.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: He literally jumps off the pedestal.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's reckless, irresponsible in where he goes.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's impulsive, infatuation, maybe lust.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's demanding.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I bet he was always a handful.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is probably 16 years old at this point in his life, maybe 17.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing he was, I'm guessing he was what you'd call a strong-willed child.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I say that.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was reminded in first service of the woman who went down into the library, a Christian woman.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Went down to the library and she was looking for the book, Strong Willed Child.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: She took her a year and a half.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think the little girl was 20 months old, to be exact.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so she took her, I shouldn't tell.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm going to tell it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: So she goes down to the library and she asks the, she looks around and she goes to the librarian, she says, I can't find there's this book by Dobson called The Strong Willed Child.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And would you look it up?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And they look it up and say, Well, we used to have the book, but we don't have that book anymore.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: But, says the librarian, I can order it for you.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: We can get it from another library.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get it here just, you know, later this week.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I just have to fill out this form.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So they're filling out the form.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: The woman's standing at the counter, and her daughter, the year and a half-year-old, is running around and she's banging into those machines and so forth, and then you know, and interfering with the people who are trying to check out books and so forth.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the mother calls her little girl who doesn't listen, then calls her again and grabs her and pulls her over and holds her by the counter, and the girl drops to the floor and throws a major screaming tantrum right there.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: At which point the librarian leans over and goes, Would you like me to put a rush on this?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, I'm sorry, but that I that I think is that I think is what we've got when we've got when we got Samson.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have someone who's demanding, who's impulsive, who's reckless, and who says, Philistine is the girl for me.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I just thought that was pretty cool.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So first girlfriend was named Phyllis, so I kind of like that.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but notice this his father and his mother do what they should do, because the book of Deuteronomy says, do not let your children marry.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let them marry out of the faith.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then one of the major commands is listen, I'm building a I'm building a group of people who are followed the Lord.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you must not be unequally yoked with people who don't even worship me, or people who are Canaanites.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so his father and his mother do what they should be.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: They say to her, Can't you find a young woman?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: They say it nicely, don't they?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Can't you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines for a wife?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, Why would they bring in uncircumcised?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of gross.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, two reasons.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uncircumcised is often used in the Old Testament just to mean an unbeliever, because circumcision, you remember, was the uh Abrahamic covenant, right?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: But in this case, they're literally true.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in the ancient world, the Egyptians circumcised, the Edomites circumcised, the Moabite, everybody around Israel, including of course Israel, circumcised their boy babies, you know, on the uh, you know, early on, ain't they?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but the Philistines didn't.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Philistines had come in ships from Crete and from Greece and so forth, and and they they didn't believe so they didn't circumcise.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: So this is literal as well.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: That was all extra.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I told you that.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines for a while?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: But Samson told his father, get her for me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that same line, she looks just right to me.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: His eyes.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think Samson looked like that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I found that picture and I thought that was from animated.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, I I believe that's I believe that's what he looked like.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Notice he's unspiritual.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't care for things of the Lord, he's disrespectful, and he's impetuous.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's an impulsive, immature doofus.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's the title.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's a Hebrew word, doofus.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And no, it isn't, but anyway, it fits.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And let me say here's a lesson.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: It only takes a moment to be born again, but it can take some of our kids.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I should have just said it can take some of us a lifetime to grow up.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's astounding.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us have had children, or maybe we've been children, who were born and grew up with a silver spoon in our mouth, spiritually speaking, like Samson did.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we don't follow our parents' faith.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're disrespectful.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: We walk away.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we trusted Christ when we were 12 years old.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're born again, but it can take us a lifetime to grow up.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Samson's not grown up.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Samson is juvenile, even at age 17 and immature.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that will factor in later.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: So then we move to verse 4, and now this is the most important verse in the whole chapter, and it will challenge your faith and what you believe in God, and we will find out now what you believe about the Bible.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because this verse says something you do not expect.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, his father and his mother did not know that this was from the Lord.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: What was from the Lord?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: What did the Lord stir him up to do?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was from the Lord for him to disobey, to go into Philistine territory.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord nudged him to fall in love, infatuated with a Philistine girl, to want to marry her.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is from the Lord.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Who wanted the Philistines to provide an opportunity for a confrontation?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: At that time, the Philistines were ruling Israel.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: In order to start a war to deliver Israel, Yahweh stirred Samson into this stupidity.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm going to just hit this really quick because it's theological and this is going to offend maybe some of you, and it's not going to fit your orthodox understanding of the Bible, but I'm just going to read it really quickly.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've picked just a few examples out of the Bible.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've picked all Christians who are jerks.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is not God-hardened Pharaoh type stuff.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is like what God nudged or stirred Christians to do that he did not approve.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: The headline I put here is God operates outside of our rules and expectations.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: He instigates human acts which he does not approve.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't argue with me on this.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Come back in a year and tell me why I'm wrong.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: God moved the sons of Eli.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Here's some believers, sons of the high priest.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: God moved the sons of Eli to refuse to listen to their dad's rebuke, quote, for it was the will of Yahweh to slay them, unquote.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: God provoked King Saul, his king, his chosen king, to try to kill David.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Using, God used an evil spirit.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing, God?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: God stirred up Absalom.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: God announced in 2 Samuel that he was stirring up Absalom to overthrow, to attempt to overthrow his dad David.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then God provoked Shimei to curse David as he's being kicked out of Jerusalem.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then he even incited David to take a census in order that he might punish Israel.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And now we find God's spirit stirred up the impetuous oath of Samson to fall in love with Philistine women, three of them in his story, in order to get a war started that would begin the liberation of Israel from the Philistines.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: You say, that's not the God I worship.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it may not be the God you thought you were worshiping when you worshiped.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the God of the Bible.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's a sovereign God, he does as he chooses, and sometimes he instigates human acts, which he does not sanction or approve in order to accomplish his perfect will.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll prove to you that that's an important principle for you to know.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: God employs some real jerks to fulfill his perfect plan.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I put get over it because some of you haven't.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you are here at this church because you were at another church.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a real Christian jerk in the pulpit or on the board.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or a Christian leader.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And fortunately, because you got some brains in your head, you didn't do like some other people did and leave the church forever.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because you had uh maybe a pastor who led you to Christ who then fell hard off the stage and committed major sin.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you decided to give up the faith.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, you you knew that that's kind of normal for sinners, and so you are here at TBC, but maybe you've had trouble getting over it.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Something that happened to you with some Christian in your life, some Christian leader or Christian pastor or something like that, and you haven't gotten over it, and you still struggle with bitterness over it.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you don't even struggle.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're just really free with your bitterness and you're angry and you know that was wrong.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm telling you this morning is an argument for you to get over it because you're not the very first person this has happened to.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: There are Christian jerks all over the place down through the years, and God has used them to accomplish his perfect plan, even though one day he will judge them for what they did.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if that's too much for you, think about it and at least gain this lesson.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Get over any bitterness you have at a Christian jerk or a bully or a manipulator.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we if you're 30 years old, you know at least one.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're 40, you've had you've come up against at least a couple.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you're 50 or 60, you've come up against a half a dozen.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you're as old as I am, 110, you've know about 50 of them, okay?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: There are Christian jerks in the world.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can you say amen?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Can you say I'm one of them?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: So because the truth is we all have our jerky moments.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're all, there's a bit of a doofus in all of us.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're too impetuous.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: We sometimes lack impulse control.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can say amen, right?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, let's keep going with this story.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's Samson may be a jerk, but God's at work.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Samson went down to Timnah, this is the second time, and he came to the vineyards of Timnah, this Philistine town.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, a young lion, famous story, suddenly a young lion came roaring at him.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: The spirit of the Lord, second time the spirit of the Lord comes on him, comes powerfully on him.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you can see the picture.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody took a picture, it looks like a little blue thing going around.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that that one makes me laugh.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: I I raised a couple goats when I was growing up.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I milked them and so forth.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I had this picture of tearing apart a young goat.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I I I couldn't I couldn't have done it.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just it just seems weird.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have the muscle.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: But he didn't tell his father or mother what he had done.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then he went and spoke to the woman.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because what?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: She looked just right to him.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Verses eight and nine.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: This lion killer with a sweet tooth.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: After some time, when he returned to marry her, a third time down to Timnah, he left the road.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: See the lion's carcass.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just like if you're driving by a golf course where there's a hole and you hit a hole in one, you're one hole in one, you're gonna once in a while stop there and go look at the hole, right?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he's killed a lion, that's a pretty big deal, you know?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you're up there with Hercules, remember, who strangled a lion, or who's that other guy who who tore a lion apart with his hind legs?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, for me, that's probably more likely than Samson pulling the mouth apart.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so he leaves to see the lion's carcass.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And listen to me, I didn't say this first service.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: God not only directs our steps, but he directs our stops.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a significant.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Stop for Samson, and I'll explain to you why.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: He leaves the road, see the lion's carcass, and there he stops because there is a swarm, that's what your Bible says, unfortunately.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: There is a swarm of bees with honey in the carcass.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Except that that's what bees are, right?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: A bee is a swarm, but that's a significant word.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's always used in the Old Testament, a swarm of bees, a sarus of bees.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: But strangely, weirdly, unlikely, it doesn't use that word.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: It uses a word that only refers to people.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a community of bees.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's an adah there.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why would it say a community of bees?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't make any sense.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why would it say that?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: It says that for a very, I think, important reason.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: You say, well, so what?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care that it uses a different Hebrew word.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you should.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let me explain why.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why does God not say a swarm of bees, but a community?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Bees are not people, are they?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: God is saying, and I'm just gonna cut to the chase, my time is short, my people, would you look at this lion carcass, the bees, the honey?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: When I brought you into Canaan, I said it was a land of milk and honey.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I promised that my superhuman strength would kill the pagan lions that roared forth to devour you.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, my people, a lion's cadaver is an unnatural host for bees who don't choose decomposing animal corpses.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: You'll never see bees in a corpse.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: We had a dozen hives when I was growing up, Askeric Palmateer, anybody who raises bees here, bees do not cluster in any moist places, any decomposing places.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: They build in dry places.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is a miracle.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: God puts the bees here, and he has Samson look to see it.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: A lion's cadaver is a non-natural natural host for bees, and I know you know that, God says.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: But nor was rotting Canaan a fit host for you, my holy community, Israel.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: The lion is Philistia.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Look to me and trust in me, for I will kill it.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: You are my community of bees who will take over and turn this putrid land into sweetness.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that has profound application for you and for me because we live in a world of spiritual death and moral decay.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord has placed us in this world to be his noisy, active, buzzing community of bees who carry his sweetness, the sweetness of his son Jesus, the sweetness of his death and resurrection, the sweetness of his gospel far and wide.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: We are those bees.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: We are a community here at TBC.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: We are, in a sense, a swarm of bees, but that swarm was a community of bees called a community so his people would realize that there, that's me, those bees, that's who we are, that's who we're supposed to be.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we live in an idolatrous, unholy, pagan, putrid and bar environment here in Canaan and the Philistines.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: But God, with his Samsonite strength, is going to kill them all for us, and we are going to spread the sweetness of his rule everywhere in this land.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Verses 8 and 9, we continue that he scooped some honey into his hands and he ate it as he went along.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: My wife would say, that's just like you, honey.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: You dropped some ice cream on the floor yesterday and picked it up and ate it.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: So when he came, when he came to hold it, don't laugh at me.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your kid dropped peas on the floor the other day, and you picked them up and made him eat them.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: So when he came to his father and mother, he came some to them and they ate it.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Here, Dan, here, mom, it's really good.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: But he did not tell them he'd scooped the honey from the lion's carcass.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Smart move.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that means.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably got a great spiritual meaning, but I can't figure it out.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: So verses 10.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: His father went to visit with the woman, who never gets named.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Samson prepared a feast there as young men were accustomed to do when the Philistines saw him.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: They brought 30 men to accompany him.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you a riddle, Samson said to them, it's very common you find in ancient literature in those days, you know.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Toss the garter and throw out a riddle, you know, something like that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: So they're big on riddles.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: A stick.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, come on.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um so riddles are really big, and this is the second most famous one in history.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: You probably, you I'm sure you know about the Sphinx and that famous riddle that the Sphinx offered to Oedipus.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: What has walks on all fours?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or no, what is four legged or something in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs at night?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: The answer Oedipus got it was a man, right?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Baby walks on all fours in the morning.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Adult life, two, add a cane when they get old.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's three.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, but this is the second most famous riddle in history.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: You you you can hear about it in all kinds of literature.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, let me tell you a riddle.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh by the way, Samson prayed a feast.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: The Philistines brought 30 men to accompany him.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thirty.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of attendance.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you a riddle, Samson said to them.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you can explain it to me during the seven days of the feast, figure it out.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you 30 linen garments.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's expensive garment like a sheet that wraps around.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's the undergarment and 30 changes of clothes.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we're talking here wedding tuxedos.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about stuff that was really expensive, okay?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Costly.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't explain it to me, says Sonny, you must give me 30 linen garments, give me 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us your riddle, they replied.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's hear it.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: So he said to them, Out of the eater came something to eat, out of the strong came something sweet.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: So what's wrong with that riddle?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why is Samson being a jerk?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's asking a riddle that's based on personal and private information.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's not asking something that can be figured out.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the third, probably most famous riddle, Bilbo does exactly the same thing to Gollum, if you remember The Hobbit.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, guys, you need to read that book.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, where you know he says they're riddling to each other, and then what does he say to Gollum?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, What do I have in my pocket?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Gollum goes, that's unfair.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Gollum's exactly right, but because we like, you know, Bilbo, we're glad.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And God has a purpose for this riddle, too.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: God's going to use this riddle even though it's unfair.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure the first person goes, hey, the answer is vomit.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Out of the eater came something to eat.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Out of the, oh, it's not sweet.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're struggling to figure it out, and after three days they couldn't figure it out among themselves.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And on the fourth day they say to Samson's wife, so there's seven days, and then you consummate the marriage at the end of the seven days.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Seven days of feasting consummate at the end.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Samson's looking forward to the seventh day.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's never going to consummate.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: On the fourth day, they said to Samson's wife, persuade your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your family, father's family to death.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because tuxedos cost a lot of money.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Did you invite us here to rob us?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: So Samson's wife came to him weeping and said, You hate, you don't hate me, or you hate me, and you don't love me.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: You told my people the riddle haven't explained it to me.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Look, he said, I haven't even explained it to my father and mother, so why shouldn't I explain it to you?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we were told before that he didn't tell his father and mother about the lion or where the honey came from.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: So she wept the whole seven days of the feast, and at last on the seventh day he explained it to her because she nagged him to death.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then she explained it to her people.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Samson can resist anything but temptation.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, and women.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not much of a hero.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: On the seventh day, and now we have God's wedding tuxedo killer, on the seventh day before sunset, the men of the city said to him, What is sweeter than honey?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is stronger than a lion?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: They sort of pose a reverse riddle, but boy, this riddle predicts their future, doesn't it?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know what's sweeter than honey?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know what's stronger than a lion?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: What's stronger than a lion is Samson?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: What's sweeter than honey to Samson is killing Philistines, and that's exactly what's going to happen.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, today, you and I have a gospel answer to that.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: What's sweeter than honey?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: What's stronger than a lion?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: The grace of God and the love of God.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: He said to them, if you hadn't plowed with my heifer, you wouldn't have found out my riddle.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him again, and he went down to Ashkelon.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: I put down that's 25 miles away.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't about to do it in a village close by where the news would get back.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: He hikes 25 miles and killed 30 of their men.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: He stripped them and gave their clothes to those who'd explained the riddle.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: In a rage, Samson returned to his father's house, and his wife was given to his best man.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or to one of his attendants.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: What a story, huh?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, in this very act, I tell you, God's plan is working to perfection.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: The lion is going down.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: The Philistines are getting Samsonized, and that's what God wanted all along.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is He using what you and I would call fair, orthodox means to pull it across?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, we'd say you've got to tell an honest riddle.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's not going to use someone who's uh who he's nudged to fall in love with a pagan.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: All I'm telling you is that God uses jerks.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Get over it.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I also need to tell you that all of us are jerks too, am I right?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: At times.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: I dreamed I died the other night.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Heaven's gates, they opened wide and with a shining face and smile, an angel ushered me inside.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: But there, to my astonishment, were people I'd known on earth who'd fallen short in major ways and lacked all heavenly worth.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Some words of surprise came to my lips, but I never set them free, for every face showed the shock no one had expected me.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Come to grips with it, folks.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: There are Christian jerks in the world, but at times that's us, and it's the grace of God and the love of God, sweeter than honey, stronger than a lion, that has pulled us back, and God uses us anyway.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: God sometimes uses a doofus with no impulse control to achieve his plan.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: But still, let's not be doofuses.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, let's be dedicated bees carrying with us everywhere the sweet honey of heaven.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a strange lesson from a pulpit that tells you that the lesson from the Bible that day is that God uses bad people to accomplish good ends.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: But you know it's true.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: You've been influenced in your life toward God by people who you later realized lacked moral integrity.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there are times when you've lacked moral integrity, and God has used you in stunning ways.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you think, wow, why would he do that since I wasn't even walking with him the previous week?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: God sometimes uses Shreks and Dufuses and Oaths and jerks to accomplish this.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean, though, that we should be willing to act that way.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, we have a vision here.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: God says, look at the bees.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to be for me a swarm of bees, a community of bees that's so preoccupied with taking my sweetness to the world that you stop living for yourself.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Stop lusting, stop grasping, stop, you know, this reckless, rash way you have of running after the world's pleasures.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Buzz for me.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Go to the world for me.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Far and wide spread the honey of my gospel and my rule.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's bow in prayer.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we know that we are frail creatures, that we are a lot like Samson, not so strong, but certainly with his weaknesses.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we ask, Lord, that you would continue using us.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing we love more than seeing that we're able to have a positive impact on young people.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: We would love to be used to bring other people to a saving knowledge of your son.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe sometimes that that happens within 24 hours of when we have not been obedient to you.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Make us more obedient to you, Lord.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Nudge us and draw us, send your spirit to stir us toward you.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Use us as people of integrity to spread your honey everywhere in Jesus' name.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: God's people said amen.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.