Samson: The Birth of a Biblical Superhero

Show Notes

Episode 489: 
In this episode, we delve into the sixth cycle of disobedience in the Book of Judges, focusing on the birth and early life of Samson as described in Judges 13. We discuss the recurring theme of the Israelites doing evil in the Lord's sight and the subsequent oppression by the Philistines for 40 years. We highlight the miraculous announcement of Samson's birth to Manoah and his wife by the angel of the Lord, drawing parallels to other significant biblical birth announcements. 

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bob Guys. We are jumping into the life of Samson. That's right, this is gonna be a fun one. Yeah, we guy. We ended with Gideon and there was some really cool stuff between get in and here. Sure between Judges thirteen you can summarize that. But before we get to that, we have a great segment for you. Committed to deliver to you the best of the. News, only the finest news sources. Yes, for those of you that are new listeners, our longtime listeners, you know you know that we bring you valuable information and these are what kind of story would this be? This kind of story is like a human interest story. Yes, yes, And here's the title from The Babylon Bat. So the Babylon b is our favorite news sources satire, Yes, website, and the headline is I'm almost ready, says wife, letting husband know he has time to watch at least one entire Lord of the Rings film. It's so funny. Okay, So it goes Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Local woman Sarah Donaldson informed her husband Jeremy that she was almost ready to leave, alerting him that he had time to watch at least one extended edition Lord of the Rings movie. Well, I guess I'll start with Fellowship, said mister Donalds, settling down on the couch. She's at least dressed, so may not make it through the two towers. We'll see. According to sources, Frodo had made it to Mordor on at least one previous occasion when Missus Donaldson announced her husband that she was almost ready. While her use of the phrase be right there appears to be correlated to a typical feature length film, Missus Donaldson's almost being ready consistently lands in a Lord of the Rings territory. After learning that his wife was almost ready to go out to dinner, mister Donaldson began deciding what to go ahead and eat at home. No way, I can wait until we get to the restaurant, mister Donaldson said, I could make a lasagna from scratch, or maybe smoke a brisket. I could probably teach myself to make dumplings. It's gonna be a bet. At publishing time, Missus Donaldson had updated her husband that she just needed to use the bathroom and then she'd be ready to go, helpfully notifying him that he could probably finish the two towers. Oh goodness, gracious, that is so good. Smoke a brisket takes like twelve hours, so good. Or teach himself how to make a lasagna from scratch or dumplings. That's really funny. Is it that way at your house? Because because you have two daughters, you know what. My wife is actually excuse me, my wife is actually really good at this, like in other words, like she's not this way she if she says I'm gonna be ready, she's ready. My daughter Sarah was an offender, but not nearly as much as the offense of my youngest daughter, Tory, a toy daughter. My wife has her name typed into the phone, and I'm not even kidding. She used to add a turtle, like an icon of a turtle at the end of her name on the text every time that she made us lad somewhere, And I think it's now like if you look up Lizz's phone and pull up Tory's contact, it says Tory's ARBA. And I think there's like thirty two turtles, and it's sort of a thing between them, right, she would just keep on adding a turtle, adding a turtle. But then what she likes to do is she likes to send it to toy And then, you know, have you ever had the text being read to you like Stey reads the text? It says from Torri's arba turtle turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle. It's hilarious. And so anyway, so they go back and forth on the whole thing. So Tory is a great offender. Yeah, I have right now, my son, my middle son, and his wife moved back from Virginia, and so they're staying with us for a while. And so I have my wife, my daughter in law, and my daughter who's twenty who still lives with us at home. And I can't get anywhere unless we have to leave the day before. So where we're trying to go, we have to prepare to leave the day before because it just takes so long. And I'm one of those, you know, to leave on time. I was late coming to the studio today, right, and that drives me nuts. I'm rarely ever late on my own accord, Right, somebody's making me late. That's I'm not a victim, and I don't play the victim. But if I'm late, it's usually somebody else that makes me late, not always, but ninety nine percent of time, and it drives me nuts. I just lose my mind over I thought we said we were leaving at five. We are It's five forty, right, you know. So I think that the women in my life measure time from like the beginning of the hour to fifty nine. So if we say five, it's five zero zero to five ninety five nine. That's kind of how they measure time. And it drives me crazy. You know, do well in the countries that you visit? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, perfectly fine. What they mean is to ish two ish two or three ish is perfect Yep. It's just it drives me crazy. So I can really appreciate that those of. You don't travel abroad as much as Jeff, which is probably everybody. There's a lot of countries that he goes to and that I've been at where they say, uh yeah, if they say be ready at two, you better you better go to the trip immediately releasing being on time for anything. Oh yeah, we talk about Africa. Time we talk about Cuba time. Cuba does the same thing, the same thing. They just say, Cuba is Cuba. That's what they say. And it's just you. Just wait, just wait. Yep. So they say be on time of two. If you're in the bus of two waiting on everybody, you'll be waiting. One of my African friends, I'm always, you know, looking at my watch. I'm always trying to hustle people along. We said too, let's leave it too, and he always laughs at me and he says. Time. We have time right, So there's train Americans and Africans. You keep time right and we have time. Yes, they have time to do whatever they want. We can do whatever we want. That's really good. So, hey, that was very useful. And again I know that our listeners are appreciative and riveted of the important information that we bring them. And so if if you're a lady and you have some men in your life that are waiting for you, just understand the pain that we feel over it. Right. That's that's that's that's helping out the men on our podcast and feel are the men that are listening to podcasts. That's almost all men feel pain. In this area. That's right. So hey, it's not like men are the only ones. Women are the only ones that are late though, just typical guys. Guys can can do the same. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Perennially late men. Do you know any perennially late men? Are you? Are you hinting at something? Jeff, what are you hinting at something? No? No, I am a person that has not necessarily had a reputation for being on time. It's because you squeeze a lot into your day. That's partly thank you that Chad. Chad asman our executive pastor. Yes, he's that way. He's like, okay, I had to leave and leave in seven minutes. Let me go ahead and balance the budget. Real quick, right, So he's always just squeezing one more thing out of the day. I will definitely say that is me. Yeah, it's not. It's not that he's lollygagging, right right. It's not that he's curling his hair one more time. It's not that he's trying on one more outfit, right, It's that he's, you know, squeezing in one more thing to do. But I am different than Chad in that he will choose to do something absolutely productive. I may choose to do something not. Nine more holes, right, exactly right. I'd be like, let me watch one more video, right, yeah, But either way, I'm choosing to do something. Okay, So we are pivoting. That was a rivoting segment. I'm sure we are pivoting now into the life of Samson. He's a real life superhero in the Bible, and, as you think of comic book type superheroes, deeply flawed person. At the same time, God used him in a great way prior to him. There's several other judges. There's an incredible story. For those of you that are Bible readers, you need to read the rest of the story of Gideon. Gideon makes a few mistakes, he does some stuff. It winds up costing all kinds of crazy stuff. He has seventy one sons. Yeah, that's crazy, and the one. Son kills sixty nine of the others and pulls off a coup and it's just it's crazy, right, So read the story of Gideon. The rest of that story. There's some others in there. There's an incredibly difficult story of a guy named Jeffa in there that winds up becoming a great judge of Israel. It's just. Just some really neat stories. But the next highlight, guy, he's going to be several chapters here in the Book of Judges is Samson. And so since we're kind of in the highlights rather than verse by verse, yeah, we jump into the life of Samson. Yeah, we can go back and read jet in another series down the road. That's right when we go verse by verse through the Old Testament, which we haven't done yet. So we're gonna jump to Judges chapter thirteen, and I'm just gonna read the first twenty five verses. And this is just the beginning of the life of Samson. It says again, Oh, hey, the Israelites did evil on the Lord's site. Wow, it seems to be a theme where thirteen chapters in. It seems like this has come up thirteen times. Yeah, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines, who oppressed them for forty years. In those days, a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zora. His wife was unable to become pregnant and they had no children. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Manoa's wife and said, even though you've been unable to have children, you will soon become pregnant and give birth to a son. So be careful. You must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink, or eat any forbidden food. You'll become pregnant, give birth to a son, and his hair must never be cut, for he will be dedicated the God as a Nazarite. From birth he will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines. The woman ran and told her husband a man of God appeared to me. He looked like one of God's angels, terrifying to see. I didn't ask where he was from, and he didn't tell me his name, but he told me you would become pregnant and give birth to a son. He must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink, nor eat any forbidden food, for your son will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from the moment of his birth until the day of his death. Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, saying, Lord, please let the man of God come back to us again and give us more instructions about this son who was to be born. God answered Manoah's prayer, and the angela God appeared once again to his wife as she was sitting in the field, but her husband, Manoah, was not with her, so she quickly ran and told her husband, the man who appeared to me the other day is here again. Manoah ran back with his wife and asked, are you the man who spoke to my wife the other day? Yes, he replied, I am so. Manoah asked him, when your words come true, what kind of rules should govern the boy's life and work. The Angel Lord replied, be sure your wife follows the instructions I gave. She must not eat grapes or raisins, drink wine or any other alcoholic drink, or eat any forbidden food. Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, please stay here until we can prepare a young goat for you to eat. I will stay the Angel the Lord replied, but I will not eat anything. However, you may prepare a burnt offering as a sacrifice to the Lord. Manoah didn't realize it was the Angel of the Lord. Then Manoah asked the Angel of the Lord, what is your name? For when all this comes true, we want to honor you. Why do you ask my name? The Angel of the Lord replied, it is too wonderful for you to understand. Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord. And as Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did an amazing thing. As the flames from the altar shot up toward the sky, the Angel Lord ascended in the fire. When Manoa and his wife saw this, they fell with their faces to the ground. The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Manoa finally realized it was the Angel of the Lord, and he said to his wife, we will certainly die, for we've seen God. But his wife said, if the Lord were going to kill us, he wouldn't have been accepted our burnt offering and green offering. He wouldn't have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these miracles. When her son was born, she named him Samson, and the Lord blessed him as he grew up and the spirit of the Lord began to stir him. While he lived in Mahanna Dan, which is located between the towns of Zorah and Eschtahl MM hmm, there you go. Thank you. That's what he was. That's my thing. I always say, there you go after we're done. And so I was resisting it in that moment and you threw it in. So yeah, so pretty crazy. I mean, just the uh announcements. Uh, you know, there's not been too many announcements think about it in the Bible that are like this, you know, I mean think about the even you know, even John the Baptist. Uh. You know, there was a there's a miraculous announcement there too, you know in in the temple. Uh, you know, there was there's obviously a miraculous announcement to Mary for Jesus. Abraham was told and his wife Sarah that they were going to have a baby right by the angel. And would this be the only other one? Hannah with Samuel, yep, you're right about that, yep, Samuel, yep. And then you have Mary, Mary who the mother of Jesus. I said that already. Oh okay, I wasn't paying attention. I rarely paid so many marriage I was like, I was like, oh, he's about to pull out another Mary and Elizabeth Elizabeth yeah mentioned that one. So but other than that, I would say, uh, this is it. I mean, you know, this is an incredible thing. And you know, I find it interesting how the man immediately comes to the conclusion we're going to die because we've seen God. And then the woman has the reasoning. You know, she's like, well, technically he wouldn't have accepted our burnt offering, so surely you know he's he's not going to kill us because so she she has the she has the level headedness, right, And I like that. I just like the fact that, you know, the man is supposed to be the protector of things. We're doomed, right, you know, And then the woman's like, no, we're good. It also shows that opposites do really attract a lot of times, right in a married situation like this, one of them is highly emotional, the other one's logical, you know, and and we balance each other out and there's a benefit there. So yeah, that's pretty great. And so so yeah, what stands out to you? And well, I was gonna let's just go to the beginning of it. So here we are. This is the sixth cycle of disobedience during the in the Book of Judges, So from Joshua up to Samson it's. How many years? How many years do we have these Joshua Samson? Holy yoh, there's gotta be what a couple hundred right, let. Me find it. I was just looking at it a minute ago. In that list of judges that we have here in the Okay, so ath Neil is forty years. E hud Is is eighty years. It doesn't mention how long Sham went, but that's one twenty. Deborah was forty, so that's one sixty. Oh yeah, Gideon is forty, that's two hundred. Tola is twenty three, Jaiir is twenty two, so that's forty five more So that's what did I say? Two hundred and forty five? Then? And then six for Jephtha and seven for Yeah. So you've got about another twenty five years. So you're tooking tongue two hundred and fifty years, two hundred and seventy years to Samson. And during this time they have thought, they have these six times where they go on this it's a cycle. So this is the sixth cycle. They ignore God, they go back to worshiping idols. God sends judgment and it's the Midianites or the Amalekites or somebody. Now it's going to be the Philistines. Then they're under oppression for a period of time. Here with the Philistines, it's forty years of oppress, and then then there's been two hundred in something years, two hundred and seventy years of freedom as the judges rise up. So we didn't count was the number of years that the oppression would happen. Sometimes twenty years, sometimes fifteen years, sometimes forty years of oppression. So this is one hundreds and hundreds of years of this cycle of back and forth and back and forth. It's dozens probably of generations. We honor God, we dishonor God, we honor God, we dishonor God, honor God, blessing, peace, dishonor God, cursing and oppression from the enemies of God. So here we are, we're on the sixth version of that, and it starts off that generation dies and again the Israelites did evil on the Lord's site, and they keep going back to the same gods. They keep going back to Bail and Astra, and so the Philistines come up and they oppress them for forty years. Now the Philistines were all along the coast of what you think of modern day Israel now, particularly Gaza is where the Philistines were Palestinians being now that same area, and then up the coast almost all the way to Tel Aviv, that whole area, and they outnumbered Israel. They were a warrior culture, whereas Israel was more of a pastoral you know, animals and farming kind of a culture. The Philistines were warrior and they had a tech. They had technology. They could make weapons out of iron, so they knew the secret of iron making and the Israelites did not yet. So they had a technological advantage and numerical advantage, and then they had a cultural advantage, that is that they're warriors, and so they just rough up Israel all the time. And so they're pleading, oh, God, do something, and God decides he's going to do something, but he's going to do it through a baby. So his promise to set them free, it's going to take about twenty years to develop, right, right, one man, it's going to rise up, that's right. And you know what is interesting about this whole thing is when you were talking about, you know, this is the sixth cycle. I was thinking of all the movies in my mind and that funny on my mind goes there, but like like you saw War of the World's where you know, like uh, Keanu Reeves ends up being the all knowing being who watches the earth through generations. Mankind has followed the same pattern for years, right, talking about destroying the earth for the technology and and uh and all all these different uh you know uh movies where there's where there's an observation of humanity that brings you outside of your own timeline and uh and and it's it's exactly one of those moments right where there's not too many times where somebody can say, Okay, let's take a look at the pattern of humanity over two hundred years. You know, I guess there's great thinkers that maybe perhaps do that more often than than I do. Well, my family does, what do you mean? So this just this conversation just happened in my uh my wife on Sunday wanted to go up to Port Austin, which is at the top of the Thumb of Michigan. And so we went up there and went fooled around the water and on the pier, went to dinner. It was great but all, my son and his wife, and my daughter and her boyfriend. We all get in my wife's suv. We go up, and on the way up, my son started talking about it seems like humanity keeps doing the same thing over and over and over again. And then he said, you know the rise in the father Roman empire. Here we are. We're on the down side of our empire, very likely the American empire. And then he said, you know, I wonder what it's going to be like at the end. And I said, well, Jesus said, at the end, it's going to be just like the days of Noah. He goes, what were the days of Noah? Like I said, I was eating and drinking, being in marriage, getting married all the time, not thinking about God at all. Every man did what was right in his own eyes, and they only thought of evil continually. And my son goes, well, that's today's culture, right, Literally, the theme of today's culture is you bu every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Is the phrase right, you be? It's the same they only think evil continually. You think of the incredible evil in the world around us, just you know, don't but you know how how full of evil, just the Internet is and and all the crazy stuff happened in the world. We just go we humanity, We have clever phones. But beyond that, we're the same as they were, right, right, we go on there. We just keep repeating the same things over and over and over again. And just to be clear, you don't necessarily mean evil as in like malicious intent to kill. You say, you're you're wickedness. Yeah, you're lumping in everything that is not of God. Yeah, yeah, right, that's right. So not evil as in people might picture, you know, pitchforks and serial killy. It doesn't have to be that, although that's happening a lot too. There's a lot of But anything that is contrary to God's way would be evil, right, And they only thought of sinful things continuously, right, right, that that's that's the main culture. Now, even in that day, there were some who didn't. There was no in his family, right, they found favor in the eyes of God. Right. And so there are some who who even in this culture the Bible talks about, you know, there's a remnant there are some who say, no, we want to go God's way. But the generality of culture is everybody does whatever's right in their own eyes, and they only think of sinful things continuously. It is what the Bible says. Yeah, yeah, so we keep repeating it over and over and over again. So when we point this out in the Days of the Judges, we're acknowledging it's the same in the Days of Jeff and Chris too. Right. Yeah, And there's also another sermon in there as well, which is not only about the nature of mankind and our depravity and our tendencies and everything else, but also we can probably on a micro level, look at our own lives and probably even look back and say, in this season, I serve God, and then there was this season and I certainly ran from God. Then there was this season in my life where you know, this one influence really brought me back to God that in this season I really struggled and I get away from God. And we could probably do that a lot of us who have years on us yet a little bit of you know, dust On, Yeah. I've been I've been a believer for forty five years. Okay, I got to say forty five years ago. Okay, So yeah, it's up and up and down, up and down. At eight eight eight, years old, So it's kind of up and down, up and down. Yeah. You know, you have the high moments and then the low moments, the high moments the low moments in your life, it's the same. Yeah. Yeah, my mama is thirty something years ago, so twenty one, the six thirty two, let's say thirty eight. I was thirty eight years ago for me. Yeah. So what happens then is the cycle goes back and forth, back and forth, and God decides, Okay, I'm gonna set the people of Israel free, begin the process of setting them free through this young man Samson. So he's gonna let them go another twenty years or so, you know, maybe thirty years, but he begins the process. So God is working even when people feel like they're not. And he comes to Manoa and his wife and he goes, hey, this is the Angel Lord by the way, which we've already talked about the character of the Angel Lord. That's always probably Jesus. Right, very likely, and it's a theophony. But comes and says, okay, I'm going to use your son, but there are a few things I want him to be wholly a Nazarite set apart, so we're going to be careful about what he drinks, what he eats, the things he touches, the things he wears, what he does, how he does his hair. I'm going to say some of these guidelines and make sure that he follows these. And they said okay. As a matter of fact, Manoah wanted to talk to the angel and say, hey, are there any other guidelines? How shall we raise this boy? Right? And it doesn't unpack all of it then, but we know what a Nazarite is. We know all the Nazarite requirements from the rest of the requirements in the Bible. And so what I love about Manoa and his wife because there's not a ton set about Manoa and his wife this and then there's one other one He's getting Sampson's getting married. But what I love about Manoa is Minoa is like, Hey, I want to do this the right way, and God just tell me and I'll do what you tell me to do. And as a parent, man you might not be the one that goes and tears up the gates and delivers all the people right and fights the bad guys. But as a parent, maybe the single best question you can ask is what Manoa and his wife asked, and that is tell us how to raise our child, and we'll do it that way. Oh that's God, tell us what to do, and we'll do it. And they did. They didn't cut his hair. They did keep him away from wine and raisins and anything from the from the grapevine. He didn't touch dead animals. He did manage his life the way they raised him the right way, and the Bible is going to tell us. And just meant the spirit of the Lord came on him, and. Manoa was excited about that, even before he knew that the man he was talking to was the Angel the Lord. That's exactly right, right, which means which means there was a sense. It doesn't say so, but there was a sense where he was so honored that even before he realized there was the angel he was talking to, because he said, hey, will you eat and the guy's like, no, I'm not gonna eat. He didn't know who he was talking to, but he was. He was just making a sacrifice, yeah, but he was. It was like, yes, I'm willing to do it, even though he thought it was just some prophet. Yeah, right, which which again is a little bit different. So I read this story. Just to wrap up. I read this story, and you know, we talked about the this cycle of evil and all these crazy things and how crazy our current world is. It's exactly how Manoah and his wife were living same situation. It says that Israel had rebelled against God. All Israel did evil in the Lord's sight. So Lord Hannibal with Philistines. But there's Manoah and his wife that apparently want to honor God. They're eager to discover what does God want me to do to raise my son. It's possible for you to raise a godly son and a godly daughter, even in a wicked culture in society today. But you got to do what Manoah did. And Manoah did what Moses told us to do, and that is raise them in my words right. And remember Moses said when you get up in the morning, when you lay down at night, when you walk by the way, when you sit down at dinner, when you go to sleep, he'd constantly be teaching them my words and to obey them. And this is what Manoah wants to do. You tell me what your words are, and I'll raise my son that way. And then they did. I think they did a good job raising their son up until he became an adult started making his own choices. But they did they did what God said to do. And it's possible for you to raise good, godly children in a wicked culture if you choose to go God's way and do what God's word says. So a lot of sermons in just that introductory and elecanse passage. So that's our time, and so hopefully we will see you next time on the Bibble. Guys,