Judges 15

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions this morning. We are gonna talk about Samson And he's a strong dude and he's got some conquesting to do today Let's have some we got tea this morning. So we're gonna have some coffee. Maybe you got tea. We'll pray and we'll get into God's words Nation I'm actually not going to share with you at all because my sinuses have been acting up weird which is why I'm drinking a little bit of tea. Tea is an abomination.
Tea is an abomination, RL is brave. Father, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for your word. Lord, we pray that as we read, you would please help us to understand. Please teach us to walk in your ways. In Jesus' name, Amen. All right, here we go. We are at Judges chapter 15.
Okay, and then why don't you read verse 1 verse 115? after a while in the time of Weet harvest it happened that Samson is it did his wife with a Young goat and he said let me go to my home to my wife into her room, but her father would not permit him to go in. All right, so what's happened before this chapter in chapter 14 is that Samson has gotten a wife from the Philistines and he goes back home and for some reason he doesn't take his wife.
And while he's gone, you know what his wife does? Or you know what happens to his wife? Her dad gives her to another person, to his best man. Yeah, so he goes back thinking she's still his wife. He goes back and now what's her dad doing? Yep, no, but her father would not let him go in. Her father said, I really thought that you thoroughly hated her. Therefore, I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please, take her instead.
And Samson said to them, This time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harm them. Then Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes, and he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. When he had set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing green of the Philistines, and burned up both shocks and standing green, as well as vineyards and olive groves. Oh boy, could you imagine if somebody did that?
Caught some foxes, put a torch in between their tails, and let them go into Mr. Peeling's field? Caught a hundred foxes. Three hundred foxes. If they let Mr. Peeling's field burn on fire, He would get mad. Oh yeah, he'd get mad. Well, let's see what happens. Then the Philistines said, who has done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to be his companion.
So the Philistines came up and burned her with her father in the fire. Samson said to them, since you would do a thing like this, I will surely take revenge on you, and after that I will cease. So he attacked them hip and thigh with a great slaughter, and he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Atum. Now the Philistines went up and encamped in Judah, and deployed themselves against Lehi.
And the men of Judah said, Why have you come up against us? So they answered, We have come up to arrest Samson, to do to him as he has done to us. Then the three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock, Etam, and said to Samson, Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us?
What is this you have done to us? And he said to them, As they did to me, so I have done to them. But they said to him, We have come down to arrest you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines. Then Samson said to them, Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves. So they spoke to him and said, No, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand. But we will surely not kill you.' And they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock. When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came, shouting against him.
Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, took it, and killed a thousand men with it. Then Samson said, with a jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with a jawbone of a donkey, I have slain a thousand men. And so it was, when he had finished speaking, that they threw the jawbone from his hand and called the place Ramathli Hai, which means jawbone height.
Then he became very thirsty. So he cried out to the Lord and said, You have given me this great deliverance by the hand of your servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? So God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out, and he drank, and his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore he called the place in Pokhoreh, which is in Lehi to this day. And he judged Israel 27 years in the days of the Philistines. All right, so we need to ask ourselves our three questions. A, what is this? Bill. B, what's the? Summary. What are we called to do? So what do you think this is about?
Um, God gave strength. God gave Samson the strength to do what? To destroy the Philistines. Why would he destroy the Philistines? Because they bombed the house that the father and the woman were in. And his wife! Right, he was mad at them, but man, the Lord really used this to kind of push and provoke the Philistines, didn't he? and sampling could destroy them, but it's actually God's strength.
Yeah, right. So is Samson a perfect dude? Nope. Nope. Could you imagine going home without your wife? Nope. Could you imagine getting so mad that you burn down hundreds of people's fields? Nope. Could you imagine being done with that and acting like everything was okay and you just go hide away in a rock place? Nope. Nope.
What do the people of Israel do when that happens? Um... People of... Israel? Yeah, what do the people of Israel do? They have to tie Samuel's arms together. Yeah, right. It's almost like handcuffing him, maybe in front or maybe in back or something. But what's he ask them before he lets them handcuff him? Don't kill me. Are you gonna kill me? Yeah, I think he knows what's going to happen. So after the battle, after he kills a thousand of them with the jawbone of a donkey, what happens to Samson?
He's super thirsty. He's super thirsty. What does he do? Ask God to give him water. And what's the Lord do? Give him water. He breaks open the rock and there's like a spring that comes up and all of a sudden he's got water. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, so, okay, so maybe that's what this is about.
So we have Samson, he judges Israel for 27 years. Dude, you're not even, or sorry, he judged Israel 20 years, sorry, 20 years. You're not even 20 years old. Could you imagine having one judge over you for two decades? One decade, basically. Two decades, yeah, you're almost a decade, yeah, but two decades, right? Twice as long as you were alive, he judged Israel. He's just been alive for like eight decades. He's been alive for over eight decades, you're right. Yeah, and he's been an elder in the church for over 50. But anyways, here, what do you think is the best verse? What would you underline? You don't need to tell me a number, but what part of the story did you think was the best? Probably when Samson asks God for strength and the barges break like fire. Okay, yeah.
Why do you think Samson got so strong? Why do you think all these things were happening? Because God gave him a challenge. God's always testing him. Yeah, but do you think that there were sinful things and sinful people in the story? Yeah. So how can God be working through sinful things and sinful people? He can do anything. But can God sin? Nope. No? So how can God work through sinful people but not sin? Because he can't sin. He can do anything. Yeah, right. So does he still use sinful people?
Yes. And does he still get his will done even through people like Samson? Yeah. Do you think you see yourself in Samson a little bit sometimes? Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. Are you like zealous for the Lord and you trust in God? Sometimes. But sometimes are you like not so good?
Yeah, maybe when you're asking God for strength to wrestle your brother Yeah, but but we all kind of have these mixed hearts, don't we? Yeah, I think I think if we're looking at Samson we judge him too harshly We may actually find ourselves being a little bit legalistic and not judging ourselves enough Well, let's go ahead and talk about see calling. What is this? point out that we should do in our lives? Maybe sins that we should avoid? Are there confessions we need to make? Are there things we need to persevere in? Is there something that points us to Christ?
Yeah. What do you think? Seems to ask God for strength. God gave him it. All right, so rely not on your own strength, right, but ask God for strength, good. Yeah, sometimes we go through hard things and we need God. Because God can pick up a whole lot with one little finger. He certainly could. Yeah, if he had a finger, right. And Samson couldn't pick up a centimeter of it. Yeah, right, but the Lord could. Yeah, so cry out to the Lord and help.
I think that this rock is almost like Jesus. Did you know that that's what the Bible talks about, the rock at Meribah also? That when we cry out, God gives water and refreshes us and cares for us and nourishes us and loves us. This is kindness. And so similar to what happened with the Israelites in the wilderness, I think this is God showing mercy. And who does he show us mercy mostly through?
Jesus. Through Jesus, that's right. All right, you ready to pray? All right. God, we pray that you would please Use us, even though we may be sinful people, foolish, sinful. Lord, we do things that we ought not to do. We have mixed motives and mixed hearts.
But God, we pray that you would please be glorified, working in our lives and through our lives, conform us more and more to Jesus. Father, we pray that we would cry out to you when we are in need of help. Please, Lord, make us strong. May your kingdom come and your glory be done in our lives. In Jesus's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you look to God the rock of your salvation and your strength. We'll see you next time. Bye.