Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Let us pray as we prepare to
read God's word this evening. And now
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again, our Lord, as we
come to you with your own words that
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you have spoken. I pray tonight
that as I read these words and seek
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to expose it them to your people, that you would keep me safe within
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the bounds of Orthodoxy, and help
me, Lord, to give your word
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in such a way that is true
and right, but also that would speak.
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Because your word pierce its Lord,
it divides even between soul and spirit.
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And God, we pray that you
would illuminate it to us tonight.
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For Lord, we are as those
in the dark searching for a light.
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But God, you can enlighten us
to your precious Holy Spirit, who can
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give to us the understanding that we
need. And so I pray as your
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words read and as your word is
exposited, that it would in truth be
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done, and Lord, that your
son Jesus Christ would be exalted. And
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Lord, we also pray God that
your gospel may be known. For we
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pray these things now in Christ name. Amen, we come to the fifteen
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chapter of Judges. Tonight we are
trying to finish the Sampson story. I
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have one more sermon next week in
the evening. And so I'm hoping that
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I can finish it, because we'll
have one more chapter after tonight. But
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here Judges fifteen, beginning with verse
one, here is God's word. After
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some days, at the time of
wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his
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wife with a young goat, and
he said, I will go into my
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wife in the chamber. But her
father would not allow him to go in.
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And her father said, I really
thought that you utterly hated her,
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So I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful
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than she? Please take her instead. And Sampson said to them, this
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time I shall be innocent in regard
to the Philistines when I do them harm.
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So Samson went and caught three hundred
foxes and took torches, and he
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turned them tail to tail and put
a torch between each pair of tails.
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And when he had set fire to
the torches, he let the foxes go
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into the standing grain to the Philistines
and set fire to the stack grain and
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the standing grain, as well as
the olive orchards. Then the Philistines said,
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who has done this? And they
said Samson, the son in law
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of the tim Knight, because he
has taken his wife and given her to
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his companion. And the Philistines came
up and burned her and her father with
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fire. And Samson said to them, if this is what you do,
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I swear I will be avenged on
you, and after that I will quit.
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And he struck them hip and thigh
with a great blow. And he
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went down and stayed in the cleft
of the rock of Edam. Then the
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Philistines came up and encamped in Judah
and made a raid on Lehigh. And
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the men of Judah said, why
have you come up against us? They
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said, we've come up to bind
Samson, to do to him as he
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did us. And three thousand men
of Judo went down to the cleft of
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the rock of Edam and said to
Samson, do you not know the Philistines
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are rulers over us? What thenness
this you have done to us? And
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he said to them, as they
did to me, so I have done
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to them. And they said to
him, we have come down to bind
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you that we may give you into
the hands of the Philistines. Sampson said
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to them, swear to me that
you'll not attack me yourselves they said to
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him, no, will only bind
you and give you into their hands,
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will surely not kill you. So
they bound him with two new ropes and
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brought him up from the rock.
When he came to Lee I, the
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philistines came shouting to meet him,
and the spirit of the Lord rushed upon
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him, and the ropes were on
his arms. He became as flax has
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caught fire, and his bonds melted
off his hands. And he found a
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fresh jaw bone of a donkey,
and he put his hand and took it,
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and with it he struck one thousand
men. And Sampson said, with
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the jaw bone of a donkey,
heaps upon heaps, With the jaw bone
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of a donkey, have I struck
down a thousand men. As soon as
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he had finished speaking, he threw
away the jaw bone out of his hand.
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And that place was called ramath Lehi. And he was very thirsty,
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and he called on the Lord and
said, you've granted this great salvation by
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the hand of your servant, And
shall I now die of thirst and fall
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into the hands of the uncircumcised.
And God split open a hollow place that
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isn't lehigh, and water came out
from it, and when he drank,
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his spirit returned and he revived.
Therefore the name of it is called an
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Hakhor. It is at Lehi to
this day. And he judged Israel in
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the days of the Philistines twenty years. Thus, when the reading of God's
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word, you may be seated.
So last week we looked at the fifty
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excuse me, the fourteenth chapter of
Judges. We looked at the apparent wedding
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of Samson to his bride and Sampson's
riddled that he made a bet with the
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thirty companions at the feast, we
saw how Sampson's wife or wife to be,
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or whatever she ends up being in
this story, Uh finally cries and
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cries and cries, and finally,
on the last day, gets the answer
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to the riddle out of Sampson,
which she then tells to the Philistines,
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which in turn caused Sampson to go
down to Ascalon and kill thirty Philistines so
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we can get thirty changes of clothes
that he can pay his debt the bet
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that he made with those men.
And then the chapter ends with the father
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of the bride giving away the bride
again, but this time to the best
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man of Sampson instead of Samson,
which is going to lead to the events
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in our chapter tonight. Spurgeon said
about Sampson, his whole life is a
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scene of miracles and follies, and
we're going to see that in the text
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clearly tonight. So let's look at
versus one through eight. Here we have
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in verse one, we're told as
the time of the eat harvest, which
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would probably be during the time of
May, a little different perhaps than harvest,
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although you have more harvest here than
we have back where I come from,
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So maybe May is a harvest at
that time. But this is important
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to note because it's going to come
into play and what's going to happen here
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in a couple of verses down the
line. So Sampson brings a young goat
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with him, and he goes and
tells the father he's coming in. He's
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going to go into his wife and
finally have his conjugal rights and taken care
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of. But his father and law
says no, he cannot go in at
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all, and Samson learns why in
verse two, and here he's going to
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learn what we already know that the
father has given away Sampson's bride to the
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best man, and the father said
that he did that because he thought that
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Sampson hated her. Now, to
give someone's wife away in those days,
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not just talking about the law of
God, because we're dealing with Philistines here,
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but basically in any code it was
forbidden to do that. However,
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there was usually one exception, and
that is the exception of desertion. And
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so it appears that maybe Sampson's father
in law thought that Sampson, by leaving
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and not going into his wife,
had actually deserted her and had done that.
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But the father father in law offers
Sampson a deal, and everybody's making
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deals in these chapters, but he
says, why don't you take the younger
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sister instead, since she's more beautiful
anyway. So we have the old father
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in law father in law switching daughter's
trick that we find in the Bible a
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few times, and so we of
course have it earlier in Genesis when Laban
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tricks Jacob and gives Leah instead of
Rachel to him. We have that.
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We also have it later with David
and the switchy rule for Michael and Marab
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that goes on. Uh, that
doesn't seem to happen very much on our
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culture of many father in law switching
brides and giving the sister instead, but
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it seemed to happen a few times, at least at that time. So
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now Samson not only doesn't have a
bride, but he had paid a bride
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price and now that's gone. So
he had given up both his bride and
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his bride price at this time.
So the villaininous piece is the father in
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law. He's the one that's caused
all of this problem. Well, he's
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going to suffer his own fate in
this story, but he is the one
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who should be punished, and of
course he will be as well. Um
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And so by now we've learned it
isn't really a good idea to do anything
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that might ryle Sampson up. Never
seems to end well, and Sampson does
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become very angry. And now he's
determined that he's going to be justified if
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he does vengeance on the Philistines for
the loss of his bride. For a
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Philistine father has given away his own
bride. But what's the best way to
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do that. Well, Sampson does
what's probably the first thing you or I
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would think of, which is,
go find three hundred to foxes and tie
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them tail to tail and put a
torch between him. That'd be what we'd
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naturally do in that situation as well, and he does that. Now it
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is possible and maybe even likely,
that the Hebrew word for foxes, although
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it can be translated that way,
and most of the translations do translate it
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that way, it is possible to
translate it also as jackals, and that
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would seem to make more sense.
Foxes are basically solitary animals. Rounding up
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three hundred foxes could take a while. Jackals a little easier because they are
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a pack animal. But no matter
what kind of animal they are, it's
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got to be a little difficult in
our mind. I tried thinking about it
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to figure out how Sampson went about
doing this. How do you end up
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catching three hundred foxes or jackals?
I don't I don't know the procedure he
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did it. We're not told that. We don't no, But he goes
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ahead, ties them tail to tail, and puts a torch between them,
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and then sends them off into the
wheat fields of the Philistines. And of
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course the jackals or foxes would be
in confusion because if some other uh fox
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or jackal tied to them, and
so they don't know what to do.
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So they're gonna run like crazy and
go into all kinds of places and into
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the wheat fields and set the wheat
fields on fire. And not only the
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wheat fields, but the stacked grain
is also going to be on fire because
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they're gonna go there. And they
were told that even extends into the orchards,
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and some versions say the vineyards as
well, and so there's going to
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be widespread destruction. Now it's possible
that the Philistines don't exactly know what's happening
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when this starts, because the animals
might not have been visible as to what
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was going on in the grains,
so they might not have been seen at
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and they might just wonder what is
taking place. But this is what's going
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on. So again, this act
Sampson is going to cause the Philistines to
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want to retaliate, and this will
begin the conflict. I guess it doesn't
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begin it. We've already had things
that begin it. But this will start
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the conflict that's going to spiral out
of control at this point, and it
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starts by them carrying out a threat
they had previously made concerning Sampson's wife and
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her father. So they go and
they burned Sampson's wife and her father with
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fire, which they threatened to do
to her back a chapter earlier when they
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didn't know the answer to Samson's riddle, and so they asked her to get
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it and said if she didn't get
it, they were going to burn her
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and her father with fire. Now
we learned here it would have been better
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for her at that point to go
to Samson and say, hey, these
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guys are threatening me, and they're
tell saying they're gonna kill me and my
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father if I don't tell him the
answer to your riddle. And if they
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had done that is likely that Sampson
would went out and finished with those thirty
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companions right then and there. But
she didn't, and she ends up by
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disobeying and not following through with her
husband suffering the same punishment that she stole
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the riddle answer from in order to
avoid. So we see this so um
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this again, this punishment of adultery
in the Book of Leviticus is again is
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given it can be fire, that
they can be burnt by fire. We
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see this in Leviticus twenty one nine. And the daughter of any priest,
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if she profanes herself by wharrn profanes
her father, she shall be burned with
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fire. We have an example in
Genesis. About three months later, Judah
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was told, tam Are, your
daughter in law has been immoral. We
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know who she has been immoral with, uh Judah doesn't know at this time.
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Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality, and Judah said, bring her
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out and let her be burnt.
The point is that this was the normal
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punishment at this time, and so
in response to that in verse seven,
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Samson retaliates, and he says,
I'm just going to do one active retaliation
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and that will be the end of
it. He vows to quit after that,
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and so he smites the Philistines with
the great slaughter. But we're not
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told how many he kills. We
don't know how many it is. The
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s V says he struck them hip
and thigh with the great blow. The
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King James says, a great slaughter
that they did, and then Sampson goes
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down. I told you last week
that that phrase has found several times seven
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times concerning Sampson. He goes down
to the rock of Faedom, and we
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don't know where this rock is it. It's not there's a couple of other
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rocks of Edom, but it's not
those because of the location. But we're
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not exactly sure where that particular um
rock is, so we just have to
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kind of guess at that. So
we look at versus nine to fifteen.
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In verse nine, the Philistines are
going to another place. We don't exactly
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know where that slow get it either, but it is interesting to note the
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name of the place. The name
of the place is Lehigh. Well what
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does Lehi mean? Lehi means hill
of the jawbone, so you can see
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that that was aptly named at this
point. So in verse ten, the
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men of jude are confused. They
don't understand why are the Philistines coming against
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them. They haven't done anything.
Why should they be wanting to fight them?
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And they didn't really have it appears
at this time any weapons or any
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army that they could even fight against
the Philistines. So they're wondering, why
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are you doing this? Why why
are you coming up against us? And
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they said, well, it's because
of Sampson. He's been doing bad things
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and we want to get him,
and we're coming down to get him to
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do what we can to him.
So again, retaliation after retaliation, and
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so in verse eleven, for the
first time that we know of in the
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history of Samson, Israel actually mounts
an army and its weapons. They haven't
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had them up to now. And
what is the purpose of this great army
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to deliver one of their own onto
the Philistines? Not a good reason to
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get an army together. And so
they asked Sampson why he has to do
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the slaughter and Sampson replies the same
way the Philistines did, and he said,
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I did to them. I want
to do to them what they did
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to me. Well, for those
of you that have kids or head kids,
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do you ever remember that when they
come in and Johnny hit me,
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well, Billy hit me first,
No, Johnny hit me before. It's
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always the finger pointing of what else
is going on here? Right? Who's
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the one that started this? And
and I'm I'm retaliating, but yeah,
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but that was because they retaliated against
you. But yeah, I retaliated against
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them, and going back and back
in this in this whole point. But
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it's really amazing to see the lack
of faith that Judah. Judah who started
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out pretty well, very well in
the Book of Judges chapter one with their
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judge Ano and and that the way
they were able to conquer. And we
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see such good things out of Judah
in the very beginning. But now they
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have come down basically to become slaves. They have decided they would rather live
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at peace with the world than to
be able to and be able to worship
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idols than they have deliverance from their
enemies. So what we have here is
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there's so many low points in the
Book of Judges, it's really hard to
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pick one. But if you want
to pick one, this would be a
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good one to pick. They want
to now here they're so far from God
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that they are willing to sell their
own deliverer that God has given to them
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in order that they can stay living
at peace with the Philistines and worshiping their
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idols. And so we see a
terrible lack of faith. In verse twelve.
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Maybe we have the first noble deed
of Samson. Up to this point,
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it seems like everything Sampson has done
has been out of purse sal revenge,
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and so we gotta color everything through
that. But here it seems like
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we have actually a noble deed.
Sampson said, go ahead and bind me.
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It's all right, Just don't kill
me yourself, but deliver me to
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the Philistines. In other words,
he's willing to give himself up in order
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to save his fellow countrymen. And
so we see this noble act. And
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so they go ahead and they bind
him with new ropes and prepare to give
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him to the Philistines in verse thirteen, and so in verse fourteen, the
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Philistines are coming, and they come
with a great shout and a great battle
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cry. And once again the spirit
of God, which is a secret of
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Sampson's strength, The spirit of God
comes upon Sampson. And now he goes
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off and does this great strength,
great slaughter by his great strength. But
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to do it again, Now we
just had noble deeds, And now again
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we look at something that makes us
shake our head. What does he use
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a jawbone of a donkey, not
even a one that's been around for a
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while and just laying in the desert. But he's going to use a fresh
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jaw bone, which means again,
what is he doing doing the one thing
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he's told in his vow He should
never do touch the carcass of a dead
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animal, and he does that once
again. By doing that, he couldn't
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take a course, an old one
that would be brittle and not fit for
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his use. But again he breaks
his vow in doing that, he kills
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a thousand Philistines, probably around number
just you know, probably not exactly a
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thousand. But we don't even read
here of any of the men of Judy,
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even helping. It appears that everything
that he's done here, all the
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slaughter that has done, is done
by Samson. So we look at the
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last five verses of the chapter,
Versus sixteen through twenty. Here again once
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more Sam's And although he appears to
be kind of a I don't know one
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of these all broad, no brains
kind of guy. But yet when remember
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when he when he gave the answer
to the riddle and talked about the riddle,
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all of those things, he used
poetry, which seems to indicate he's
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a man of distinction in some way. And and so once again now in
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in this chapter, he goes back
to poetry to talk about what he has
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done. And the poetry revolves around
the fact that in the Hebrew, the
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word for donkey and the word for
heaps have the same three consonants. There
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were basically no vowels in the Hebrew
language. The mass rights came in later
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and pointed the consonants, but there
were basically no vowels, and so the
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word for donkey was calm or and
the word for heaps uh is basically has
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the same three consonants that we would
have in English. They would be K,
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M, and R. And so
he is using poetry to do this.
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James Moffatt translates it this way to
bring out the poetry aspect. With
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the jaw bone of an ass,
I have piled them in a mass,
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with the jaw bone of an ass, I have assailed assailants, And so
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that might be a good way to
render the Hebrew poetry. And when he
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has finished with this poem, he
throws away the jawbone and calls the place
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rama ramath lehigh, which means the
height of a jawbone. See what he
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did there, and that's uh.
That's again his good, good language skills.
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So the result of the battle in
verse eighteen is that Samson becomes very
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thirsty. I did a little research
on that this week. I was kind
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of interested if thirst was a common
result. As I told you, I
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was never in the military, never
in combat, so I have to rely
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upon others to give me information about
this. But I looked to see if
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thirst was a common result of being
in a battle, and I find a
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couple of things, uh, It
says. After the Battle of Fredericksburg in
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December of eighteen sixty two, Massachusetts
soldier Warren Freeman described the field of battle.
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He said the field was covered all
over with wounded men, groaning and
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calling for water. Some attempted to
crawl on their bodies to the riverside for
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a drop of water to relieve their
thirst. Oliver Wilcox Norton of the third
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Pennsylvania Infantry and his experience on the
day of the Battle of Hanover Courthouse,
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writes in a letter to his siblings
on June eighteen sixty two, I cannot
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tell you how I felt that day. As long as there was any prospect
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of a fight, I kept my
place in the ranks. But when we
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gave up the chase and turned back
to where blankets were left, I fell
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out to get some water and bade
my head. My tongue was swollen with
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the heat and thirst and I so
faint, I could hardly stand. And
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there are other examples, but I
thought, it's not unusual at all for
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soldiers at the end of a battle
to be stricken with great thirst. And
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so as a result of this,
since Samson, we have a first,
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and it's a good first. For
the first time in the account of Samson,
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we are going to read of Samson
actually crying out to God. We've
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been waiting for this, and finally
Samson does it here in this verse,
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and he cries out. And there
will be two times that Samson will cry
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out to the Lord that we read
about. This is one of them.
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The second one you probably know about. It's when he puts his hands on
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the pillar of the temple and cries
out to God and ask him to help
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him one more time. The first
cry that he cries to the Lord leads
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to life as he receives water.
The second cry that he cries to the
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Lord leads to death. And so
we see this cry twice in Samson's life.
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And so he says, you have
granted this salvation by the hand of
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your servant, and shall I now
die of thirst and fall into the hands
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of the uncircumcised I can't. At
that point, God opens up his eyes
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and or doesn't just open his eyes, I shouldn't say, but but he
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um, he reveals the spring,
and I can't when I read that,
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I can't help but think nobody seemed
to refer to this. But I couldn't
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help but think about Hagar in the
wilderness when she thought that her and Ishmael
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we're gonna die. And she said
that, and we read in Genesis twenty
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one that God opened her eyes and
she saw the spring, and her and
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her boy were able to live.
Some of you may think that that wasn't
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a good idea, that maybe they
should have just died in the wilderness,
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but nevertheless, God's plan was not
to be so. And so the question
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in verse nineteen where this water comes
from, because we don't can't tell from
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the Hebrew that it actually come from
the jawbone itself that Sampson had, or
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does it come to the place there
that is named the jawbone. We're not
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exactly clear on that. And and
then in verse twenty we have a statement
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that I think is a little confusing, says Samson judges Israel for twenty years.
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But we were I don't know how
we don't even know if Sampson's judge
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ship was ever even accepted by Israel. There's nothing that tells us there around
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him or that they did they did
anything to say they approved of what Sampson
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was doing. He didn't deliver Israel
from the Philistines. He began that work,
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but it would be later under Samuel
and Saul and David that the work
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of the Philistines would finally be done. And so there's more that's going to
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happen though to the Philistines, and
that will come in the next chapter.
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So we're gonna save that for a
cliffhanger. I don't want you to know
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what's going to take place here in
the next chapter, So let me make
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some applications tonight. It is interesting
in this in this account to notice,
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and I've read the account in my
life several times, as I note many
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of you have as well. But
it's interesting how much foreshadowing is found in
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this story that leads to the providence
of God. We have such amazing things
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that that takes place here. Uh
of of these things, so uh Sampson's
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wife again, they're threatened to be
burnt if they don't give the answer,
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so she gets the riddle out of
them, but they end up being burned
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anyway. In our text, Sampson
is bound with new ropes before being delivered
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to the Philistines. In the next
chapter with Delilah, when Delilah says,
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what is the secret of your great
strength, he says, if they bind
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me with new ropes that have not
been used as you'll become weak and be
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like any other man. Well,
apparently Delilah didn't know about that previous time,
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and that didn't work. But again
it is foreshadowed. And then again
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we are told in verse fourteen the
ropes around his arms became as flax that
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has caught fire and uh, and
his bonds melted off his hands. And
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again when he tells Delilah about the
same thing and says that he needs those
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new ropes. Uh. But earlier
Delilah says, he tells Delilah, if
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you is bound with seven fresh bowstrings, he will be like other men.
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But we read after she had done
this, she had men lyne an ambush
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and the inner chamber, and she
said to him, the Philistines are upon
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you, Samson. But he snapped
the bowstrings as a thread of flax snaps
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when it touches the fire. There
we have the flat flax and the fire.
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Again, we had Sampson's betrothed pleading
with him out of love to give
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him the answer to the riddle that
he had propounded in chapter fourteen. In
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chapter sixteen, we're gonna have Delilah, his his beloved, also seeking to
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get the answer out of him,
and pleading with him to give the answer
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to the riddle of his great strength. And both of them say the same
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thing. In chapter fourteen, Sampson's
wife wept over him and said, you
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only hate me. You don't love
me. You put a riddle to my
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people, and you've not told me
what it is. And he said,
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behold, I've not told my father
nor my mother. Shall I tell you?
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And she wept before him. The
seven days at their feast lasted.
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In the seventh day, he older
because she pressed him hard, and she
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told the riddle to her people.
Delilah does the same thing in chapter sixteen.
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She said, damn, how can
you say I love you when your
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heart is not with me. You've
mocked me these three times, and you
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have not told me where your great
strength lies. And when she pressed him
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hard with her words day after day
and urged him. His soul was vexed
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to death. And again I don't
know like like you, I'm sure you
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read that account and just shake your
head and go Okay. Every time you
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do this and you tell her something
low and behold, you woke up and
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you're bound with what you told her, would lose your strength. You would
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think after about three times you might
have caught onto this little deal. But
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he didn't. And uh. And
so we have this in our chapter.
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The Philistines make a raid on Lehigh, which means jawbone, and then they
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end up being killed by Sampson using
a jawbone. And so it should at
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least cause us to maybe view a
little bit the providence of God in this
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story, as all these things keep
leading to their things. I'll mention one
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other thing that's not in the Sampson
story. I mean, part of it
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is, but the other part it
found earlier in the Book of Judges when
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we read about Samson and the Foxes. And in that account you might remember
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that earlier in the Book of Judges, we had Gideon with an army of
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three hundred men that went out with
torches. Well, Sampson goes with three
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hundred jackals or foxes that he equips
with torches, and so again we have
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the same kind of thing coming.
Samson is probably one of the best,
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if not the best, examples in
scripture of someone who has a tremendous amount
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of gifting from God but very very
little fruit. In First Corinthians twelve through
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fourteen, Paul writes of the various
giftings that are present in the Corinthian Church,
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but when you read the rest of
the Epistle to the Corinthians, it
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seems like there was very little fruit. I'm among the church members, division
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and division again, people saying I'm
of Paul, I am of Cephis,
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I am of a polos, I
am of Christ, people dividing Paul having
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to say to them, I can't
even talk to you like spiritual people.
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I have to talk to you is
if you were carnal people taking each other
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to court instead of handling it.
Within the church, people eating food offered
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to idols without caring what effect it
might have on their weaker brothers, and
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also not being able to take in
the meat of the word, allowing blatant
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sin, the worst kind of sin
that even gentiles didn't do, allowing that
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to go on in their midst without
dealing with it, reveling during the Lord's
401
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Supper using the gifts of the spirit
in an unwarranted way. We read all
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of those things and we see a
church that might be pretty well gifted,
403
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but very, very lacking in fruits. Tim Keller says there may be regularly
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a link between impressive outer life and
a broken inner life. Some people who
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are the most vigorous and effective in
teaching, counseling, and leadership are in
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the private lives giving into temptation,
discouragement, anger, and fear. And
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he goes on to suggest that perhaps
our prayer life is a better sign of
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our spiritual health, which goes along
with the message that I gave this morning.
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But we get enamored with giftings.
We love giftings, something that all
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of us like to take advantage of
and see it. We don't necessarily value
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fruits as much we do, I
guess when perhaps the rubber finally meets the
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road, and then we do.
But how many of these gifted men in
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our world end up in terrible sin
at the end. We've seen in the
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last few years, we've seen several
very sad examples of people that I'm sure
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many of you respected, who have
fallen into great sin, and perhaps some
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that you did not respect. But
yet we're respected and looked up to by
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thousands of people, and these things
continue to happen. But fruits, they
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are more difficult to esteem and to
recognize the fruits that are in somebody's life.
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And I don't always agree with Tim
Keller, I'll tell you that right
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along, but I kind of agree
with him here that perhaps many of those
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with the most giftings, and I'm
going to come to a reason here in
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a second, that many of those
are in perhaps the worst shape in their
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personal life. Sampson had a great
victory by Slaye Philistines, but it was
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immediately followed with the testing and testing
of thirst. And there is often in
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our life, and I'm not going
to expound upon this because I'm running out
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of time, but there's often in
our life. Time is when we have
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a great victory and immediately followed by
a great trial and temptation. Elijah had
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the great victory over the profits of
Bail on Mount Carmel, and immediately afterwards
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he's running away because Jezebel wants to
kill him. Warren wears Be said,
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if triumphs aren't balanced with trials is
a danger will become proud and self confidence.
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But I want to kind of close
here tonight. I guess I have
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one more thing after this to say, but I want to stress. So
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I talked about the songs and things
we're singing tonight about the church. I
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think there's a truth here in this
chapter. Not the truth that is overtly
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stated, but this truth I get
from what is not found in these chapters.
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It is clear that Sampson is self
real, willed. We find that
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again and again. He's given to
revenge. We see that. But I
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would ask you this question, where
is the support? Where is the friend?
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Where is the person to come alongside
Samson? As Jonathan did to David
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has barnabas did to Paul, as
John did to Peter. Where's that friend?
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Anyone that Samson seems to get close
to in the end is only trying
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to destroy him and to kill him. I looked through the story again to
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see if I miss somebody that is
in that story that actually helped him in
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the closest I can find to somebody
that helps Sampson. Is the young man
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who helps Sampson to feel the pillars
of the temple that he might bring them
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down on the Philistines. Here is
a man that doesn't seem to have anyone.
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You think about it, you come
up with someone. Samson represents to
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us what I call the danger,
not just me, many call it this
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the danger of the lone ranger Christian, but even the lone ranger head Tanto.
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It's someone. But I think how
Sampson could have used someone that really
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loved him, that really cared for
him. He didn't make the best decisions,
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He did a wrong a lot of
wrong stuff. But if someone could
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have just come alongside him and consoled
him and encouraged him and praised him when
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he did what he did. But
it appears that nobody ever does that.
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Even when he delivers his own people, they don't care. In fact,
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they're mad at him for doing it. And I think, what a lonely
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life Samson must have must have led. One of my favorite scriptures through the
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years has been Ecclesiastes chapter four,
Versus nine through twelve. If one can
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have favorite scriptures, this is one
of mine. Says two are better than
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one, because they have a good
reward for the toil. For if they
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fall, one will lift up his
fellow. But woe to him who is
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alone when he falls and doesn't have
another to lift him up again. If
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two lie together, they keep warm, But how can one keep warm alone?
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And though a man might prevail against
one who is alone, two will
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withstand him. And a threefold chord
is not quickly broken. I am guessing
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that some of you, maybe all
of you, like me, have seen
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people fall in the church, friends, church members that were church mates with
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us, that have fallen. But
we think, did they ever have somebody
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to come alongside him and to help
him in the struggle that they were facing?
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Did we even know the struggle?
How many times is the pastor as
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I come across people that tell us
things that I think I never even knew.
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I never had a clue this was
going on. And these things take
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place. But there is strength when
people come together, when they pray together,
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when they support each other. I
wonder how many of these gifted men
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that have fallen might not have fallen
if someone had come alongside them and prayed
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and they confess together some one three
one through three says behold how good and
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pleasant it is when brothers dwelling unity. It's like the precious soil on the
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head, running down on the beard, on the beard of aar and running
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down on the collar of his robes. It's like the do of herman which
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falls on the mountains of Eyon.
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing
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life forevermore. It's a lonely place
for many people. I said, of
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many of those gifts a man,
although we think we'll multitudes adore them,
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and they do, but yet has
found out often that those men are some
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of the loneliest men in the world. We all need someone, and more
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than one, hopefully that can help
us to our struggles. It's a danger.
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It's a danger for us to confess
to some what might be our sins.
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I don't want anybody to know those. But when you can come together
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and pray one with another, as
I mentioned this morning about prayer, there
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is strength in that. And the
last thing I'll just say tonight and then
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we'll close before we take the Lord's
table is again we see Samson not a
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perfect type of our Lord, but
he is the type of our Lord.
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Like Samson, Christ was bound Like
Samson, our Savior won a great victory
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over his enemies, the ones that
he was delivered over to. Like Sampson,
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our Savior cried out I thirst and
like Sampson, the enemies who delivered
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our lord to our enemies. Yet
he won the battle to deliver us.
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And so our Savior has won the
final battle. He has won the victory
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over our enemies, and we have
him. It's good to have others,
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but never forget we have a friend
who sticks closer than a brother. If
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we have come to the cross and
found Christ, he will be there with
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us. He will help us,
and he can lead us to those that
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00:38:34.079 --> 00:38:39.119
we can bond together with and find
strength in unity. Let's pray, Lord,
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you thank you for your word.
We thank you for the good things
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and the bad things, because that's
what our life is made up of.
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We see good and then we see
bad, and we see it around us,
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and then we see it in our
own lives, and we see things
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that we commend ourselves with, and
then we see things that we condemn ourselves
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with. So Lord, help us
to be more even help us, Lord,
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for those that might be lonely to
night, for those that are struggling.
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With battles that they really wished there
was someone who came alongside them.
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Lord, lead them to someone that
can help them and strengthen them in their
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hour of need. Lord, we
all need the unity of the brothers and
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sisters to come together and to help
us. For you designed the Church for
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just such a purpose. And so
Lord, we pray that you would help
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us and guide us and use this
church and bind the ties that we're going
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to sing about in a moment,
bind those ties even closer together. We
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pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
