Judges No.6 The Strong Man who became a Clown

Tonight's reading is from the Book of Judges, chapter 16. One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her.

The people of Gaza were told, Samson is here. So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying at dawn we'll kill him.

But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate together with the two posts and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.

Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sarek, whose name was Delilah. The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, see if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so that we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you 1100 shekels of silver.

So Delilah said to Samson, tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued. Samson answered her, if anyone ties me with seven fresh thongs that have not been dried, I'll become as weak as any other man. Then the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh thongs that had not been dried, and she tied him with them.

With men hidden in the room, she called to him, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. But he snapped the thongs as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. So the secret of his strength was not discovered.

Then Delilah said to Samson, you have made a fool of me. You lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied.

He said, if anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I'll become as weak as any other man. So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them. Then with men hidden in the room, she called to him, Samson, the Philistines are upon you.

But he snapped the ropes off his arms as if they were threads. Delilah then said to Samson, until now you have been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied.

He replied, if you weave the seven braids of my head into the fabric on the loom and tighten it with the pin, I'll become as weak as any other man. So while he was sleeping, Delilah took the seven braids of his head, wove them into the fabric and tightened it with the pin. Again she called to him, Samson, the Philistines are upon you.

He awoke from his sleep and pulled up the pin and the loom with the fabric. Then she said to him, how can you say I love you when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength. With such nagging, she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death.

So he told her everything. No razor has ever been used on my head, he said, because I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me and I would become as weak as any other man.

When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, come back once more, he has told me everything. So the rulers of the Philistines returned with silver in their hands. Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair and so began to subdue him and his strength left him.

Then she called, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. He awoke from his sleep and thought, I'll go out as before and shake myself free. But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer great sacrifice to Dagon, their God, and to celebrate, saying, our God has delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands. When the people saw him, they praised their God, saying, our God has delivered our enemy into our hands, the one who laid waste our land and multiplied our slain. While they were in high spirits, they shouted, bring out Samson to entertain us.

So they called Samson out of the prison and he performed for them. When they stood him among the pillars, Samson said to the servant who held his hand, put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple so that I may lean against them. Now the temple was crowded with men and women.

All the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about 3,000 men and women watching Samson perform. Then Samson prayed to the Lord, O sovereign Lord, remember me, O God, please strengthen me just once more and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes. Then Samson reached towards the two central pillars on which the temple stood, bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other.

Samson said, let me die with the Philistines. Then he pushed with all his might and down came the temple, on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.

Then his brothers and his father's whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtiol in the tomb of Mena'ah, his father. He had led Israel 20 years.

Be free from sin Lead me to the cross of Jesus From the guilt, the power, the pain Lead me to the cross of Jesus There's no other way No price that I could pay Simply to the cross I cling This is all I need This is all I plead That his blood was shed for me How can I know peace within? Lead me to the cross of Jesus Sing a song of joy again Lead me to the cross of Jesus Flowing from above All forgiving love From the Father's heart to me What a gift of grace His own righteousness Clothing me in purity How can I live day by day? Lead me to the cross of Jesus Following his narrow way Lead me to the cross of Jesus Jesus, I see in you All that is holy And Jesus, I see in you The Father's glory And so I'll worship none but you I'll worship none but you Jesus, I have found in you Complete forgiveness And Jesus, I have found in you Love without limit And so I'll love no one but you And let me read to you two verses from Judges. I'd be glad if you'd turn to them. The first is in the thirteenth chapter.

And here's good news. Well, it is good news if you have a child, especially if you've been trying for a child for some time and you have not received one. Verse five, a revelation to a fairly elderly woman and her husband.

Because you will conceive and give birth to a son, no razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazarite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines. Now let's go to chapter sixteen. And here's a tragic verse.

Same person referred to but many years on. While they, the Philistines, were in high spirits, they shouted, Bring out Samson to entertain us. So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them.

The man who was destined to be the deliverer of Israel, bring out Samson to entertain us, the champion who became a clown. My friend R.T. Kendall, when he first came to this country from North America, preached a series of addresses which were subsequently published. The addresses were from the character of Jonah.

And in the preface to the book, he concluded with a very striking sentence, which I think I can understand. He said this, I am Jonah. There is a sense in which I think I could say of myself.

Maybe by personal confession, I'm also embracing a number of people in my congregation this evening. I am Samson. For here is a man whose life was studded with missed opportunity.

When the rubber hit the road, he wasn't able to steer properly. When he was needed, he was proven to be utterly unreliable. It's not that he didn't have glorious opportunities.

Some of you never had my advantage. You never had good Christian parents. Others of you identify with my background.

And you perhaps turn the gaze inwardly, and you think of all that perhaps you might have been, but never became. Maybe some of you friends are getting on a little in years, and you think of the wasted opportunities. And so you'll know what I mean when I say, I feel I am Samson.

The Apostle Paul was a great pastor. And he had many a heartbreak. But maybe one of the most cutting things that ever happened to him was the way that some Christians, some men and women that he'd led to the Lord, failed to continue to come to maturity.

And so he writes to a group of churches in the area of Galatia. And he said, you started well. Who cut in on you? Who hindered you? There was so much potential.

I thought so highly. I planned so ambitiously. But look at you now.

I preach as Samson to Samsons. And as I said the other Sunday morning, if you find yourself at the tabernacle as a failure, then be at home. Because there's only one common denominator that runs through this church.

Well, perhaps that's too minimal a statement. Maybe there are several common denominators, but amongst them there is this one. We are a collection of people who in certain areas have failed.

Do you know anything about the word Palestine? Well, if you look at the back of most Bibles, you will find that in the map that is shown depicting the journeys of our Lord, the land of Israel is called Palestine. Actually, Palestine is a derivative from the word Philistine. And on the coast of the Promised Land were five cities inhabited by these fierce and somewhat pagan tribes of people.

And they had moved from their cities and they'd occupied the hinterland and they'd called it their own. The Hebrews who had been for so long in Egypt now have been back in the Promised Land for some time, but they've been unable to repossess what belonged to them as far as the will of God was concerned. And there was need for someone to lead them against the Philistines.

In fact, you could say that there never was a time in the history of Israel when she needed good quality leaders as she did during the period that we now refer to as the Judges. The task for Samson and his ilk was to lead the people against the enemies of God. You have heard me say so many times from this pulpit that the earth is the Lord's.

Sometimes we look into the Old Testament and we see it too literalistically and we don't allow the New Testament to expand on the promises. And when God stopped Abraham in his tracks when he was maybe a relatively young man and promised him all the stars of heaven as being sort of indicative of his seed and the pebbles or the grains of sand on the beach, the Lord was not just thinking in terms of the people who would flow from his loins, the Jews. He was thinking of them, but he went beyond them.

He was thinking in terms of every man, every woman born of Adam who would have a similar faith to that of Abraham. And he was not just thinking of the Promised Land as being the inheritance of Abraham. He was thinking of the whole world for the whole world belongs to God.

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. One of my favorite texts of Scripture. But do you know what's happened to our world? The Philistines have moved in.

There are those who operate not in the name of God but in the name of the evil one. They have no rights apart from squatter's rights. And the call today is for men and women like Samson to put their hand to the plow and to do the task of spreading the gospel of the Lord Jesus.

Adam and Eve were given a charge at the beginning of time. Go forth and multiply the rich, lovely language of the Old Testament, the Authorized Version, which has beautiful expressions for referring to the most intimate of processes. And when our blessed Lord leaves the earth after completing His ministry, He gives a like charge spiritually to His disciples.

He says, go into all the world and make disciples. In other words, as Adam is told to multiply, so men and women who follow the Lord Jesus are to penetrate the globe and possess the world for Him. There is a need for men and women to dedicate themselves as Samson was dedicated in the service of God.

Isn't it interesting that when you run your hand through the pages of the New Testament, you find injunction after injunction telling Christian people to be strong. Here is the Apostle Paul in the 15th chapter and the first verse of the Roman Epistle. We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak.

When he writes to the Corinthians, he says more or less the same thing. Speaking of the ability of God to give us stamina, the 8th verse of 1 Corinthians 1, He will keep you strong to the end so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul in the reading we shared together, having done all to stand, that's what he asks of us.

In other words, you find replete in the New Testament the spiritual equivalent to the prediction that Samson would be a physically strong man. Christian people are to know muscle and sinew. Christian people are to know what it is to stare into the jaws of the devil himself and not to be afraid, but in the power of God to resist him.

Christian people are to know what it is to push the Gospel forward in pioneering situations. Christian people are called to be men and women of stamina. God wants His Samsons.

There's a need for Samsons. Samsons to behave, not like clowns, but like champions, not like fools, but as men and women into whose hearts God has distilled His wisdom. Bonhoeffer, the German to whom I made reference this morning, he said in a different context, speaking of those who will follow the Lord Jesus, Jesus calls a man to come and die, and that is the cost of discipleship.

Jesus said that unless we were prepared to take up our cross and to follow Him, then really we have no right at all to consider ourselves as amongst His friends. And so here is the clarion call of the New Testament to be bold as we move into the world and to endeavor by our life, by our example, by our prayers to repossess what belongs to God. The Samson was dedicated to the Lord for the same project, literally speaking, as far as Israel was concerned.

Samson was a Nazarite. What does that mean? We'll turn to Numbers and chapter 6, and you'll find a little bit of help there. A Nazarite was a man who had taken vows.

Oh, vows were taken for him, actually. And when he became mature, he ran with those vows, so to speak. He kept those vows.

And in the sixth chapter of Numbers, we are told a little bit about a man who will be a Nazarite. Look at verse 3, He must abstain from wine and other fermented drink. Verse 5, During the entire period of his vow of separation, no razor may be used on his head.

He must be holy. He must let the hair of his head grow long. Verse 6, Throughout the period of his separation to the Lord, he must not go near a dead body.

The Nazarite was to be a man of uncut hair, a man with an untouched bottle, a man with no unclean contact. The hair would indicate that he was different. The untouched bottle would demonstrate that he was disciplined, and the fact that he had no contact with anything that was dead would show how consecrated he was.

Now, don't you understand that in a very real sense, those of you who have trusted the Lord Jesus as Savior, you are called to follow the greatest Nazarite of all. Samson potentially was the mini-Nazarite. Jesus was the macro-Nazarite.

Our Lord Jesus was pre-eminently a strong man. He was a man who distinguished himself from all of his contemporaries. No one spoke like this man.

No one ever acted like this man. You cannot find any area of inconsistency whatsoever. And it's to that style of life that God is calling you and me.

And yet it all went wrong. So tragically, abysmally wrong for Samson. He wasn't what mum and dad wanted him to be.

He wasn't what he could have been. And instead of being a type anticipating in the Old Testament, as Joseph does, and to some degree as Daniel does, instead of being someone who prefigures our Lord Jesus, he becomes this comic, tragic character. And the only thing that you can say about Samson is that at least in the grace of God, he was able to hold on to faith.

And at the end, faith as it always does, saved him as it will save you and me. But God wants more from us, are you hearing, than the example of the tragic, comical figure of Samson. I go further.

God deserves more. And that's the problem with my life. He deserves more than what he's got.

And sometimes when I look into the mirror of his word, I marvel at his patience. And I will say, Lord, if I was you, and you were I, I could not have the longsuffering that you have. You deserve more.

Where does Samson go wrong? Where, my dear brother and sister, those of you who trust Jesus as Savior, have you, have I gone wrong? Maybe we could say that one of Samson's problems was expropriation. I mean by that, he exploited some spiritual gift that was his and used it to his own advantage. You can do that, you know.

He's a man who's unduly, unusually rather, empowered by the Holy Ghost. And he uses it on occasions in a very cavalier and very capricious way. An old writer has said, Samson's in body are not born among us in our day, but Samson's in mind are sometimes given us in their room.

And it is not seldom seen that our greatly gifted youth work as little deliverance for themselves and for us as Samuel did for Israel. You may have great gifts and be able to debate with the intelligentsia at colleges and universities. You may be able to set them riddles that they cannot understand.

You may have the impact upon men and women as foxes with fiery tails had upon the Philistine harvest when Samson was so cruel. You may achieve this and you may achieve that and you may use your ingenuity and your brilliance and your intelligence, but if you compromise with the vows that your parents took for you, if you violate the instructions of the living God, if you do those things that you ought not to do and leave undone those things you ought to do, then I tell you the day will come when you will be as bald spiritually as Samson was and unable to cope with the circumstances in your own life in a tragic experience through which the Lord will call you. If it is the case that you exploit what God has given you and use it for your own advantage, then be wary, my friend, for God has His salons and He can even use the evil of a Delilah to bring you to bulk and show you the foolery of your own life as others mock and scorn you.

Not that God will take any sense of satisfaction out of your ridicule, but He will use your tragedy to bring you to your senses and to realize that all you have ever been and all that you ever should be and could be will be as a result of His grace. And when He engifts you, He wants to use what He has given. He wants you to use what He has given for His honor and for His glory.

I indict you, Samson, with a charge of expropriation. Another area in which Samson went wrong was that which I will categorize as insubordination. He married a woman he ought not to have wed.

Samson's father and mother never saw another happy day when their son gave to them the request that they should go down to the land of Philistia, chapter 14 and verse 2, and get a certain woman there for my wife. Was there, Samson, not a woman in the Hebrew tense with wide eyes and soft lips and honeyed tongue? Was there not a daughter of Sarah, a sort of twin of Rachel, a handmaiden, a helpmeet, a lover, a confident, an intercessor, who could have come alongside you? Or is it you, Samson, who will prove the exception to God's rule? Can you plow with an unmatched heifer? Can you parley with an unregenerate woman? Will not such an unequal yoke squeeze every bit of spiritual energy from you until there's nothing left? Ah yes, you understand my interrogation of Samson. It's a technique that is used to bring the stark reality of the example and also to teach to you the New Testament standard as well as the Old Testament standard in regard to relationships.

And you tell me you're a little bit narrow, aren't you? This business of not being unequally yoked, it smacks a little bit of Victorianism, you know, with two decades chalked up here. I resist your criticism. I've seen too many parents in pain.

I've heard too many broken-hearted folk tell me the tragedy of their Samson. Their boy, their girl, who went into the tents of the Philistines, so to speak, and found for themselves a partner who eventually influenced them wrongly. This is part of the indictment that I level against Samson.

And one more. What about indiscretion? Our Lord sometimes uses hard expressions, or seemingly so, when He teaches and His language is recorded accurately in the Gospels. Do you remember in the Sermon on the Mount, if memory serves me right, when He warns against allowing your pearls to be dropped in front of swine? There are confidences that belong only amongst the Christian community.

And what is this that we hear of Samson as he goes into the salon of Delilah and he plays with her for a while as she torments him as to what the secret is of his strength. He talks about ropes, and then he gets nearer the bone as he refers to his hair locks and plaiting them. And then, in a moment of utter paradoxical weakness, he allows her into the secrets that she had no right to hear.

He takes into his confidence this pagan woman. Cavalier behavior is not calculated to preserve strength. And when Samson's locks are gone, not that there's anything sacramental about his hair in terms of the hair equaling strength, but the length of hair does underline the vow that he's made to the Lord.

When those locks of hair has gone, you read one of the most tragic statements describing any man in the Old Testament. Samson who has known the infilling of the Spirit, certainly the Spirit resting upon him, does not realize that the Holy Ghost has departed. And when the Philistines set upon him and bind him, he is bereft of strength and led away, back to Gaza, the place of his reckless activity as a free man.

And there he becomes the sport of the Philistines. And they laugh, this is a tragedy, not only at Samson, but they laugh at Samson's God. And I seem to hear the Apostle Paul groping back down the centuries as he warns Jewish people and Gentile people, but especially Jews, to watch how they live because their bad examples are causing the heathen to blaspheme the name of God.

This is the tragedy of Samson. And this is the tragedy of a broken Christian testimony. It's not just the clownishness.

It's not just the tragic comedy of a man who's in this situation. The knock-on effect is that this great God who had his hand upon the Samsons is now at the butt of the comic jokes of the third-rate comedians who go from one pub to another pub and they talk about this man, Samson, and this Samson's God. But we've got Samson, and our God is superior to Samson's God.

God deserves a better testimony from charismatically endowed people. Our blessed Lord Jesus, who shows us such a great example of strength and fortitude and utter integrity. He deserves better Christians than sometimes we represent here at the tab.

And I indict myself first of all. There's something awful about a champion turning into a clown. But let me go forward again and bring a word from the Apostle Paul.

Because he will also foresee situations where it seems as though utter failure has befallen parts of the human race. And he pens under the inspiration of the Spirit that remarkable statement that where sin abounds, grace has much more abounded. And here in a little prison cell in Gaza, where most of the folly that Samson engaged in was remembered.

Samson recalled the God of his youth. He remembered what he might have been and what he had become. And for Samson, the renewal of the old sanctity started to bring back the return of the old power.

This is the amazing thing about God. His long-suffering. He moves into the very place where a man has become a clown.

And the man in repentance seeks for God again. And he's given another chance. Not that his eyesight is returned, for his eyes were gouged out by those Philistines, you remember.

Some of the tragedy of your sins, some of the consequences will live on with you. God will do nothing about those. But the sin which brought about those consequences, that He can deal with.

He can restore to degree the years that the locusts have eaten. He can give you fresh opportunity. This is the wonderful thing about this God.

No failure needs to be final. For He can deal with men and women who have failed. And three thousand years dissolve in history.

And I see Samson here, and here, and here. And I look at myself, and I say, Oh God, forgive. And may the hair that grew on Samson's head, indicative of spiritual renewal, grow again on the head of each person who has let you down.

Samson was able to place his arms around the pillars that kept up the temple of Dagon. And those anti-God people were taken to face the consequences of their sin and their rebellion. And Samson leaves this world having at least done one thing.

Even though perhaps his motivation was questionable, that was for the advantage of his people. As a result, he was able to weaken the enemies of the Hebrews. My friend, this earth, which is the Lord's, requires you to live and act honorably, to recover your strength, to come to this great God, and to confess your areas of subordination, your area of expropriation, your area of indiscretion, and say, Lord, I'm sorry, but I want to start again.

By your grace, I want to know the cleansing of the blood of Jesus, the empowering of your Spirit, and I want to continue to go through this world from this moment on as a Nazarite, distinct in my lifestyle, disciplined in my habits, effective in your service. I don't want to go out as a clown. I want to go out spiritually renewed.

Father, many of us have identified ourselves with the story of Samson, and yet by your grace, faith was retained within his heart and life. He went to stand before you with not much to offer, saved us by fire, saved because of your kindliness. Lord, we thank you that it is possible for a man to be saved just on that basis.

But, Lord, we want more to offer you when we stand before you, not in terms of earning our salvation, that we realize would be a preposterous and obnoxious thought, but we want to stand before you with some achievement, something that we did that will last for time and for eternity. Lord, help us to make the correctives as your Word has been applied to our hearts. We thank you again for our Lord Jesus, who in his weakness discovered great strength, and who, when he returned to heaven, said that he would empower the weak and make them strong, strong in his strength.

Lord, give strength to people here who are finding it hard to discipline their lives in all areas which are troublesome. For those of us who have many regrets because of lost opportunities, may we have your forgiveness, and will you grant us more opportunities now, and let us be successful, and enable us to live lives which are pleasing to you. And those who have never confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior, may this night be the beginning of their spiritual recovery, as they ask forgiveness through his blood, for his sake.

Amen.