Judges Week 9 • Judges 14-16

Show Notes

Sunday, November 15th • Beau Bradberry

"Then Samson called to the Lord and said, 'O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.'" — Judges 16:28

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Beau Bradberry

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Thanks for listening.

Good morning.

Glad that you guys are with us here on campus and joining us online.

So you just saw three beautiful, wonderful families that call Willow Ridge Church home

come over your screen.

And just to fill you guys in, we had our Baby Steps celebration this weekend and had our

recognition of those families during our 930 service where we had the opportunity to bring

them up on stage and pray for them.

And so what is Baby Steps?

If you're not used to that or haven't heard that around here, it's the process that we

go through with parents as they commit to discipling their kids and to understand that they have

been given the primary responsibility to do that.

While God blesses us with a congregation and a church home to come alongside them and to

do that, God puts that ultimate responsibility on them.

And so we sit down with them.

We talk to them about what that means.

And then yesterday evening, we had a time of celebration where they got to come with their

friends and family and closest loved ones.

And these parents got to share a letter with them and to their child about their commitment

to discipling them.

And then we got to pray over them.

And so I know you probably recognize those faces.

You probably recognize some of those families.

And so I'm going to task you at home and you here this morning with the exact same thing

that I tasked that 930 crowd with, which is this, as the parents, they committed to the

discipleship process of these kids.

And what we commit to as a result of that, as their church family, is to commit to walk

alongside of them in the discipleship process.

And so whether you know those families or not, be praying for them, engaging with them,

and encouraging them as they commit these children to the Lord.

If you've got your Bibles with you this morning, go ahead and open up Judges chapter 14.

Now, if you're one of our children's ministry workers, you'll know this from being in the

last service, but over there serving.

I got a long way to go, a short time to get there.

I'm not sure that I achieved that short time to get there last service.

But we're going to basically cover Judges 14, Judges 15, and Judges 16 this morning as we

look at the life of Samson.

So Samson is a guy with some struggles, all right?

Samson is going to struggle with pride.

Samson's going to struggle with his mouth.

Samson's going to struggle with anger.

But Samson, the root of a lot of this, right, is going to come from Samson's lust of women.

So there's going to be a couple of side notes that we have that I want to give you guys,

okay?

And side note number one is this.

The story of Samson is proof that God gives us good things and we turn them into being sinful,

right?

So Samson is given by God a desire for women, which is good.

And what Samson does is he steps outside of the boundaries that God has defined for that.

And so what should be a good thing is turned into lust.

And so it's like what we're coaching our kids right on right now with Emma and Grayson, right?

Like there's going to become a certain point in time, if not already, where Emma's going to see a guy

and be attracted to him, where Grayson's going to see a girl and be attracted to her.

And when we navigate through the realm of what God has given us, we acknowledge that that's good,

right?

As painful it is for me to say that as a dad, right?

That's a good thing.

But when we step outside of that, we step into sin, we step into lust.

And it's what we're going to see with Samson.

And so Samson's, what's going to take place in his life at the very beginning of chapter 14

is the Philistines have taken over and they have God's people.

And Samson is going to see a Philistine woman,

look at her and in his pride and in his arrogance, say to his parents, go and get her for me.

All right, ladies, how would you have liked that that's your encounter with your husband?

I see a head shaking now already, right?

But that's what happens.

That's what takes place.

He looks at his mom and his dad.

He's like, I like her.

Go get her for me.

Look at verse three of chapter 14.

A couple things that I want to point out from this verse, all right?

Samson says to his parents, I want her.

They say, I'm not sure that's a good idea.

Now, here's where this passage has been taken and twisted.

What Samson's parents are dealing with is not a difference in cultures.

What Samson's parents are dealing with is not a difference in race.

What they're dealing with is a faith matter, okay?

This passage of Scripture has been taken and manipulated and forced to turn this into a race thing, okay?

This is not saying, hey, Samson, she's from a different race.

You and her should not be together.

What they're dealing with is Samson.

She's not one of God's people.

You're of different faith.

And so because of that, you should not be with her.

And just continuing to kind of chase a side point since I'm not as bound as I was in the first service.

I want to say this.

If you were here, right, or you're watching online, and you're dating, and you're a Christian, and they're not, that's not what God has for you.

This is not what God's plan is for you.

We could go in about talking about equally yoked, but we see here in this, but Samson looked at his dad and said, get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.

You know, the theme that we've seen every single week with Israel is that Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

We see it as a whole nation that is poured out on them as a result of that.

But in this passage of Scripture, we see all the way down to the individual heart, phrased a little bit differently, but communicating the same thing.

Samson says, uh-uh, Dad, I know what I want.

I know what's good in my eyes, and it's her, so get her for me.

Samson wants what Samson wants.

He set the standard for his life.

He knows what he feels.

He knows what he desires, and that's what he's pursuing after.

And so many times in our lives, what we make our decisions on of the things that we pursue in our own lives are the exact same thing of what Samson did.

And we think as we're walking down that path, everything is made clear to us.

Finally, I know.

Finally, I understand.

My heart is leading me.

It's telling me that this is what I want.

And we think we see clearly, but we don't see clearly at all.

And instead, what we're looking through is through the fog of sin.

Right?

In the fog of sin, we think we know where we're headed.

We think we know the choices that we're making.

So what does it mean to see clearly?

Because when we're seeing clearly, that's how God's driving us toward.

When we see clearly, what that means is we're no longer looking by our standards.

We're no longer looking by our feelings or by our desires.

To see clearly means that we see through faith.

So even though it might not be what I want, it might not be what I feel, it might even be what I know or what I choose, I see through trust.

And that's so hard for us.

It's easy for us, and we will.

And we're going to pick on Samson today.

Right?

Because he messes up time and time again.

But as we see that, I ask you to look at this and examine it for your own life.

Samson's like, oh, it's what I want.

It's what I like.

It's what I need.

It appeals to me.

It makes sense to me.

But he's not seeing clearly.

He's looking through sin.

You see, Samson is looking through a lens of being impulsive.

Right?

He sees what he wants, and immediately he makes the decision.

It's interesting.

You don't even find out her name.

You don't know anything about her or why, because Samson doesn't either.

Right?

And he sees her, and he knows that he wants her because he's living in the impulsive moment.

Now, I want to be honest with you.

I understand this aspect of Samson's life.

I'll never forget.

I met my wife on December, I believe.

I know our first date was December 15th that I actually asked her out on a date.

But I met her on a blind date at church, I think on December 7th, 2002.

Right?

We met at church, the nerdiest Christian first date you could ever possibly imagine.

We met at a Christmas cantata.

Right?

At First Baptist Church of North Augusta.

And the friend that had set us up told me, she said, Bo, she's going to park at the back

parking lot.

And when, at First Baptist North Augusta, you'd come in through the entrance there.

And then there was a stairwell, it's kind of a circular stairwell that would work its

way down to the bottom.

And she said, just wait there, and she'll come and you'll get to meet her and all those

things.

And so I'll never forget, I got there and I was waiting.

And let me, I'd never been on a blind date before.

Not one blind date in my life.

And those are awful, right?

The moments of leading up to them, like, what is this going to be like?

Joan's pointing at Lenny, like, yeah, I met him too right there, right?

So you're nervous.

And so I'm standing there, and I'll be honest with you, I don't know that I've ever confessed

this publicly, other than here this morning.

I'm seeing single ladies come in, and I'm going, please don't be her.

Right?

Okay.

Just, no, no.

And then I saw this blonde-haired beauty come in.

Black pants, black, white, and gray sweater.

And she comes walking toward the stairs, right?

We're supposed to meet at the bottom of them.

I'm like, ooh, this might be her.

Right?

Please be her.

And she's moving her way down the stairs.

And as she's getting closer, like, she's just getting hotter as she's moving down, right?

She gets down to the bottom of the stairs, and she says, Bo?

And I said, Aaron?

And she's like, yeah.

I was like, whoo, okay, good, right?

I get it.

He saw.

And it was good to his eye.

But in that moment, right, blown away by her beauty, I wasn't willing to go, uh-uh, mom, dad, go get her.

She's my wife.

But Samson, being impulsive, just made the decision for what he began to feel.

But also see this.

Samson wasn't teachable.

We don't know a lot about Samson's dad other than what we saw in the last chapter last week.

But he comes to him.

He's like, son, I'm not sure this is what you need to do.

Samson wouldn't listen.

Here's a question that we ask ourselves each other often.

We ask ourselves this question.

Do you have someone who speaks truth into your life?

So I want to ask you that.

Do you have someone, a fellow Christian, who speaks hard truth into your life?

Hopefully that answer is yes.

Now let me ask you a follow-up question.

Do you listen to him?

Do you listen to him?

Or is it a one-way conversation of them speaking and you not listening?

Because this is what we see happen in the life of Samson.

So verse 4 is going to continue.

Now I want to kind of give a preface for this before we get into verse 4.

Verse 4 is going to give us something complicated.

Verse 4 is going to give us something that we've really got to wrestle with.

But once we can kind of understand this, it'll help us move through this a little bit better.

Verse 4 says,

His father and mother did not know it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines.

At that time, the Philistines ruled over Israel.

Here's what we begin to see.

Samson's life is marked by sinful decision after sinful decision after sinful decision.

But what we see is God perfectly working in spite of the sin.

God working in spite of the sin.

Now, for those of us, this is going to bring some absolutes in our life into conflict.

So I want to look at this and say, what is true in this situation?

Is Samson in sin?

Lusting after what he is not supposed to pursue?

Yes.

Yes, he is.

This is not what is productive in his life and beneficial for him.

But is God still going to use Samson and this situation in order for God to bring himself glory?

Yes.

We see two things that are happening here.

Samson, we're going to see it time and time again in the life of Samson.

Samson making a sinful choice after a sinful choice after a sinful choice.

And God doing two things.

Using Samson for his glory in spite of the choices that he makes.

And using the choices that he makes for his glory.

And we see this.

This is at the heart of sound doctrine of Scripture.

I want you to look at the screen.

We have Acts chapter 2.

As Peter preaches and as he shares the gospel with those who led Christ to be crucified.

Who turned him over.

He says this.

Men of Israel, hear these words.

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst as you yourselves know.

So Peter goes and he says to the group that's there, you know who Jesus is.

You heard his words.

You saw how he interacted with people.

You saw his miracles.

You know the signs that spoke concerning him.

Verse 23.

This Jesus delivered up, so turned over to be crucified, according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

You, crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it is not possible for him to be held by it.

This is what we see in Samson and that there are moments in time where Jesus perfectly steps out of heaven onto this earth and lives a perfect life according to the plans of God.

And sinfully, there were men and those who rejected him, who betrayed him and had him turned over to be crucified.

Who God, as a perfect part of his plan, ordained the crucifixion of Christ so that we may have life and his sacrifice is paid for us.

So that those who sinfully committed the acts to have his turn over lived in their sin.

But God, who perfectly raised him up so that even those men could hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It doesn't make sense in our mind, but it's how God works.

Just because you and I mess up, it doesn't mean that God's plan has been ruined.

Just because Samson messes up, it doesn't mean that God's plan fails.

And it's what we're going to see time and time again in Samson.

And I want you to hear this.

This is part of grace.

This is part of us as we live our life and as we make decisions that are sinful and we make decisions that are wrong.

It doesn't mean that God's not still working in you and through you and even in the moment.

Even in that time.

Even where you find yourself.

God hasn't left you.

So Samson and his parents, they leave.

And they return to Timna, right, to get the girl that he wants.

What I want us to continue to have to set on the front of our mind is God using flawed people.

They're going to make the decisions.

They're going to make the choices.

And God's going to continue to use them.

Don't hear this.

This isn't what I'm saying.

I'm not saying that it doesn't matter what you do because God will work it out.

That's disobedience.

It's sin.

It's wrong.

What I am saying is this.

That God is bigger than you and God is bigger than me.

And that God is greater than our failures.

And likewise, God is greater than our success.

To limit God by what we can do is to have a small mind of who God is.

So they continue on the path.

And as they approach Timna, and this is going to be a piece that matters, it says that a lion approaches them.

And in verse 6 of chapter 14,

Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, being Samson, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat.

But he did not tell his father or his mother what he has done.

So he talks to the girl, affirms what he's saying, and this is what he knows that he wants.

And he is going to take her to be his wife, the story of Samson that we see unfold.

And what we see in verse 6 is he's taking step after step of walking away from the vow and the plan that God had for him.

In this, part of the Nazarite vow that he took was not to touch anything dead or he'd be unclean.

And he tiptoes in this in verse 6 and later on dives fully on.

When he returns later to take her to be his wife, he sees the carcass of the lion that he'd killed.

And in the carcass there, some bees had put a hive there, and the hive had honey in it.

And Samson, knowing what he's called to do, knowing the vow that was made, he goes in because he wants what he sees.

He wants what he wants.

He violates.

He's disobedient to God, and he takes the honey for himself.

We see the path that he continues to walk down.

So Samson prepares a feast, a feast to celebrate his love for his new wife and the Philistine guests who were there.

And we're going to see a layer of arrogance, right?

Even more so than, that's her, I want her, begin to come out of Samson.

And so he tells the guest a riddle.

And he says, look, if you're right, if you can give me the correct answer within seven days,

then I'll give you 30 sets of clothing.

But if you don't get it right, then you are going to owe me clothing as a return.

So Samson tells them this riddle.

It's a pretty good riddle, and they can't figure it out.

So they go to Samson's wife, and they tell her, what is the riddle?

What is the answer?

If you don't give us the answer, we will burn down your dad's house.

And so she cries.

She comes to Samson.

She cries and begs for days.

And on the seventh day, he tells her.

And she tells them.

And he's angry, so he must repay the debt.

He must be a man of his word, right?

He said he was going to do something, so he must do it.

Look at verse 19.

And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down 30 men of the town.

So he kills them, took their spoil, and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle.

This is key.

In hot anger, he went back to his father's house.

So Samson strikes down the Philistines so that he can get vengeance for what he feels is right.

Samson responds in sin, but it's what God is going to begin to use in order to set his people free.

As God continues to work in the flawed man, as God continues to work in the mess.

As we continue to read through and see in Samson's life, his life gets more and more dysfunctional.

It says that after Samson being gone, that Samson's wife's dad thought that he wouldn't return.

So in Scripture, it says that she's given a way to his best man.

And Samson comes back, and he finds this out, right?

And he's enraged.

Why would you ever do this?

And I must take vengeance on those who have done this to me.

So the Bible tells us that he went.

Now, I've done some redneck things in my life, but I've never done anything like this.

And he gets a bunch of foxes, and he ties their tails together, and he puts in between their tail a torch,

and sets it on fire, and sets the foxes loose.

And I don't know what that could look like, but I just feel like it's bad, and it's chaos, and it's out of control.

And they take off, and they burn down all of the grain that they've stored up.

They burn down all of their orchards that they have.

And this is the response that Samson pours out on them.

And so the Philistines, in this ping-pong match of evil back and forth, they respond, and they kill his wife, and they kill her dad.

And so Samson returns and kills many of them, and then he goes and hides.

He goes and hides himself away.

And in Judges 15, verse 11, begins to come to a head.

3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft, or the rock of Atom.

This is where Samson is hiding.

1,000 men of Judah went down to the tree, and said to Samson,

Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us?

What then is this that you have done to us?

And he said to them, As they did to me, so I have done to them.

And they said to him, We have come down to bind you, that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.

And Samson said to them, Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.

And they said to him, No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands.

We will surely not kill you.

So they bound him up with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

And so Israel, when Samson kills the Philistines, they go out to camp against him, getting ready to attack.

And Israel, and specifically the people of Judah, they go to Samson, and they say, No, no, we've got to turn you over.

Now, let's look at some things.

Samson's a bad man.

They send 3,000 men to do this.

Okay?

Everybody knows what they're dealing with when it comes to Samson.

And when we look at this, if you remember all the way back, I want to show you the depth in how Israel has fallen.

If you go all the way back to Judges chapter 1, when God chooses for himself a people who will be mobilized to fight for Israel, he chooses Judah.

And now look at where we find them.

They're not running toward the battle.

They're running before the battle begins to surrender.

Israel doesn't see that maybe God's going to use Samson like he's used the others.

Instead, they're seeing that what they want to do is to surrender what's around them.

And what we see is what worldly surrender looks like.

They didn't surrender in culture.

They didn't surrender in government.

They didn't surrender in all of the things that we see people surrender to.

They surrendered in faith.

Israel would rather be enslaved to the world than free to worship God.

They choose slavery.

And the interesting thing that happened following the emancipation of slaves in the United States

is after word was brought out.

And it didn't happen overnight, right?

It didn't happen immediately.

But more and more as the news that all men and women and children were now free from the bonds of slavery,

there was an interesting dynamic that took place in the lives of many slaves.

All they had known their whole life was bondage.

All they had known their whole life was their master who had rule over them.

And so in spite of being told you were free, in spite of being told you were not owned by him,

they continued to live the life that they lived before.

Many staying on the same plantations and surrendering themselves to the treatment of slavery.

Why?

Because it's all they knew.

And so it's what they chose.

And we look at this and we think, man, Israel's crazy.

Why would they do this?

Why would that not rally around Samson and fight?

Why would these slaves surrender themselves to the oppression that was brought upon them before

when they've been set free?

But it's the same thing that you and I do every single day.

That we wake up having been bought or freedom purchased for us by the blood of Christ.

And yet we continue to take on the yoke of slavery.

We continue to surrender ourselves in the worldly manner.

And it's what Israel does.

But God is going to continue to work.

Right?

So they take Samson to the Philistines.

When he gets there, he breaks his bonds.

He grabs the jawbone of a donkey.

Continuing to break the vow that he had committed.

And kills a thousand men with a bone.

So Samson has learned, right?

We should be able to get done with this and see what is happening in Samson's life.

And rally around.

He's learned all of these things.

He's seen the failures of wandering outside of God's plan.

He's learned his lesson in this moment.

God has revealed his faithfulness.

But chapter 16 happens.

And Samson finds himself.

He takes himself to Gaza.

And this is important.

It's the capital city of the Philistines.

Setting his people free from them, he goes and he camps in the middle of the capital city.

Look at me.

Look at who I am.

Look at what I can do as he embraces this.

And he's with a prostitute.

The depth of the sin of his life begins to build and build and build.

And in verse 4, after this, after this season of his life, he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah.

A name that's famous throughout history.

Very interesting here.

Delilah means the night.

It means darkness.

So that when Samson is with her, he is literally in bed with darkness.

The irony of the story of what we find of what God is doing.

So just like before, Samson sees her.

He likes her.

She's a Philistine.

None of these things matter.

Of what God has done, it doesn't matter.

But he wants what he wants.

And so he pursues Delilah.

Delilah is approached by the Philistine leaders.

And they want her to find out what Samson's strength is so that they can bring him down.

So that they can crush him.

And they promise her that they'll pay her.

Last week, we talked about the foreshadowing of the birth of Christ.

And we look at this again and see, right, for a few pieces of silver of what Judas did for Jesus as he betrayed him.

It's what they promised her.

And so she agrees.

So she comes, right, it's the affection of Samson's eye, of his love for her.

And she comes to him and says, look, tell me.

You can trust me.

You know me.

Tell me the source of your strength.

And so Samson says, well, look, with seven bow strings, if my wrists are bound with those, I cannot break them.

So while he's asleep, she hides the authorities in the side room and she ties him up.

And then as the authorities hide, she runs in and says, Samson, the Philistines are here.

And immediately he jumps up and he breaks the bonds which are wrapped around his wrist.

And she cries and tells him that he's mocking her, begs him again to tell her what is going on.

And he says, well, look, okay, with bow strings, it doesn't work.

But with new ropes, it does.

Ropes that have never been used.

I cannot break those in spite of all the strength that I have.

So the cycle continues again.

She hides them in the side room.

He falls asleep.

She ties him up.

He runs in, breaks those one more time.

And she cries again and says, Samson, tell me what this is.

I love you.

You love me.

You can trust me.

And he said, look, I've got these seven locks of hair.

And if they're woven together with a pin, right, Samson's getting a little closer for those of you that know the story.

If they're woven together with a pin, then I'll lose all of my strength.

So once again, the same story.

She does and she does again.

And sure enough, he breaks free.

And the last time she says this to him, if you love me, you'll tell me.

The manipulation of the heart, right?

I want to say this.

We got some of our teenagers in here watching online, right?

That's never a good phrase, right?

If you love me, you will.

If you love me, you wouldn't ask, right?

If you love me, she says, impresses him day after day.

So he tells her, it's my hair.

If my hair is cut, my head is shaven.

It's never been done because of a vow made between my mom and God before I was even in the womb.

If that is taken from me, then my strength is gone.

So while he's asleep, she shaves his head.

Philistines come in.

They take him.

His strength is lost.

They gouge his eyes out.

And he's turned over.

Should be a sad ending to the story.

Samson's failed.

Everything that Samson has known.

Everything about the covenant from the beginning that we read in chapter 13.

In every moment where Samson could have made the choice to glorify God, he fails time and time again.

Samson has failed, but God hasn't.

Look down at verse 22.

Verse 22 of chapter 16 says,

But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

You're like, well, duh, that's what happens, right?

When you shave, hair grows back.

It's what happens.

It's what happens to all of us.

But it's different here for Samson.

When God gives us verse 22, it's not pointing out the obvious,

but it's a reminder that even in the failures of Samson,

that God has not and God will not fail.

Samson broke his end of the deal.

Time and time again.

We didn't get into it, but Samson broke with the vineyard, right?

To not drink of the fruit of the vine.

He had broken that.

Samson had broken the not touching anything that is ceremonially unclean.

And Samson had broken the Nazarite vow of his hair.

And every single moment he had broken it,

but God had not broken his end of the deal.

In Judges 13, 7, I want to read to you the vow that is made,

the promise and the covenant of God.

God says to Samson's mother,

Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son.

So then drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean.

Get this.

For the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.

At no point in time had God walked away from the covenant that he has made with his people.

And as we take this and look at this and apply this to our life,

what we can know is moment by moment as we break our end of the covenant,

as we do what we want to do, which is right in our own eyes,

God does not break his word.

The Nazarite vow is never to be about the faithfulness of the individual.

The Nazarite vow is all about God's faithfulness.

That's why when we come in here and we sing,

we don't sing about how good we are.

We don't sing about how faithful we are.

We don't sing about how gracious we are, how sacrificial we are.

When we come in here to sing, we sing about how good he is and how faithful he is

and how gracious he is and how perfect he is.

So when Samson is there in that cell locked in and he begins to be able to rub his head

and feel that what was once smooth now has that stubble again,

he's reminded that I know you did this and you did this and you did this and you did this,

but Samson, I'm still here.

So Samson's their prize.

He's a broken prize.

He's a beat up prize.

He literally and figuratively, right, has been blinded because of his sin.

A broken man who had enough strength to kill thousands by himself with a bone.

And he now finds himself in chains.

And so they're at their temple.

They're preparing to do sacrifices to their God.

And they say, bring out Samson.

We want to see Samson.

We want to mock this great Samson who could do all of these things,

but look what we have done to him.

And so they bring him out to be ridiculed and to be mocked.

And in chapter 16, verse 28, Samson does something.

He prays.

There's a couple instances in scripture where Samson prays,

and normally they're kind of those self-seeking prayers.

But he prays in verse 28.

It says this.

Then Samson called to the Lord and said,

On the surface, we read that prayer, and we're like, it's the same old Samson.

Samson cries out to God and says,

God, look what they have done to me.

Help me bring vengeance onto them.

Sometimes the English language fails us in our translations.

And I want to explain to you Samson's prayer.

What Samson is doing in verse 28 is he's offering a prayer of repentance.

He's broken.

He's blinded by his sin.

He's had that moment where literally his whole life has flashed before his eyes.

He understands the depth of his depravity

and how it has gotten him to where he is in that very moment.

And then he addresses God two different ways.

One, O Lord God, and then another, O God.

And in that, he uses two different words for God that help us understand this prayer of repentance.

And with them, he attaches two phrases to them.

And in one, he says, O God, remember me.

And this would have been the phrase that sinners and broken people use when they come before someone above them.

And please remember me says this, I don't deserve to be in your presence.

And so Samson finding himself where he is comes before in a temple of pagan worship.

Sacrifices are happening around him.

And he comes before God.

And he says, God, I don't deserve to even be in your presence.

And what we begin to see is humility in the heart of Samson.

And then he says this, strengthen me, O God.

Strengthen me, O God.

And what Samson is doing is he's asking for something that he doesn't deserve.

It's the appeal on behalf of a broken man.

It's what we do when we say, God, I know all the things that I've done.

And I know that I do not deserve your grace.

But God, save me.

God, use me for your name and for your glory.

This is the moment.

This is a moment of a man who's been gifted with things that you and I couldn't even begin to fathom.

And it's culminating in a moment where he realizes that God is still at work because God who is God.

God who is who he is.

And Samson's broken.

And he says, remember me.

And in that moment, God saw through the vow that he made.

And he remembered Samson.

And he forgave Samson.

And in his forgiveness of Samson, he strengthened him to fulfill the purpose of what she's sending to set his people free.

And so Samson placed his hands on the pillars and pressed them out so that the entire temple collapsed and everyone, including Samson, was killed.

And in that, God's people were set free.

You know, last week we looked at the birth of the promise that was made.

And here today, as we look forward in just a couple of weeks, my wife got so excited.

She found a radio station the other night that's already playing Christmas music, right?

That's what we have in the car going on.

Christmas is coming.

And we can look at this.

We can look at the life of Jesus and not see Samson, but see a better Samson, a perfect Samson.

Who gave his life so that we may have life.

Who gave his life so that we can come before God and say, remember me, forgive me, strengthen me.

Samson died.

And the story of his life ends there.

But the story of Jesus continues on.

Because three days later, the tomb was empty.

So that for your life and for mine, we may have the hope of eternity found in Christ, in Christ alone.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, I thank you for this day and this time that we could be in here.

Lord, I thank you for the life of Samson, Lord.

That even in the midst of while he's responding sinfully, pursuing the sinful desires of his heart.

Lord, you're still working and you're still moving in his life.

Lord, you're using every situation and every moment.

Lord, I know that for a lot of us, there's things that we can look at this and compare ourselves and see ourselves in.

Lord, we feel like we're incapable of being used.

Lord, that there's no way that you can work in this moment and in this time.

But what we can be reminded of, God, is that you don't leave us.

You don't forsake us.

That you are who you are.

And from the covenant that you made with Abraham, that you would redeem for yourself a people.

Lord, you spoke about a nation, but you also spoke about a holy people.

Chosen and set apart.

Given salvation.

And Christ came and he lived and he died.

And fulfilling and seeing through the covenant allow us to have life in him.

In him alone.

Not found in who we are or in our works.

But found in who he is.

And in his perfect work.

With every head bowed and every eye closed.

Samson's life is a wreck, man.

But so is mine.

So is yours.

Day after day.

Decision after decision.

Moment after moment.

God hadn't left us.

And so maybe today, maybe for the first time.

First time like Samson's first time here in scripture.

You need to say to God, remember me.

As you're humbly in his presence right now.

God, remember me.

And maybe, maybe right now you need to say, strengthen me, oh God.

Give me what I don't deserve.

Give me your grace.

Give me your forgiveness.

So that I may do what you've called me to do.

And so that I may be who you've called me to be.

Maybe you need it for the first time.

And in that experience salvation.

But maybe you're like me.

I'm saved.

I know I'm saved.

And I don't boast in myself, but I boast in the work of Christ.

But every day, every day, I need to say, oh Lord, remember me.

Strengthen me, oh God.

Strengthen me.

Jesus, we love you.

We praise you.

And it's your name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thanks again for listening to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.

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