All right. Good morning, brethren. Let's be going to Judges chapter
14. Judges 14. Now this chapter, let me give
you an overview because we're not going to read every verse. It's 20 verses. And there's a
lot going on here. But basically, Samson sees a
woman, a Philistine woman, a woman who's a Gentile of an uncircumcised
people. And he sees her and he likes
her. And he wants to marry her. And he asks his parents to get
her for him, to arrange this marriage. And as he's going down
to the town of Philistine or where they are, A lion, a roaring
lion comes out to meet him and he rips this lion apart like
it's nothing. It was compared to being a baby
goat. He just rips it apart like it's nothing and he doesn't tell
his parents about it. And then as he's going back again,
this time to consummate the marriage, have a feast and bring that marriage
together with this woman that he set his heart on. he turns
aside he sees the lion again and this time it's all rotten
it's just a carcass and inside is a swarm of bees and honey
and he takes honey and he takes some eats some with his hands
and he gives some to his parents and they don't know anything
about this they don't know anything about the lion or where he got
this honey now when he gets there he prepares a feast that was
the custom to make a feast at the marriage and 30 companions
are given to Samson, and these would be Philistine men as well. And Samson decides he's going
to give these men a riddle, and if they can't tell him the riddle,
they'll have to give him 30 sheets, it says, which means shirts and
some apparel, a garment each. And if they do solve it, then
he would give them the apparel and the shirts. And we know that
this woman, she ultimately is threatened by the Philistines. Her people threaten her and say,
what'd you do? You brought us here to be taken
advantage of by this guy? And so she gets the mystery of
this riddle told to her, and she goes and tells her people.
And they tell Samson, and Samson has to give them the garments. And he kills, in his wrath and
anger, he kills 30 men in Ashkelon and other Philistines and gives
them the garments. And ultimately the woman is given
to another man anyway. That sounds like a crazy, hard
to understand story. And yet, I tell you, the gospel
is here. We see pictures of the gospel. We see pictures of the bride
of Christ and who he has chosen and who he marries. And in this
riddle, we have the gospel, the mystery of the gospel. which
is revealed by the Bride of Christ to all the people. It's published
to all the people. And those who come and hear and
confess Christ of the Gospel, He clothes them with His righteous
garment. That's what's revealed here in
this passage. As absurd as it seems, that's
what's revealed in this passage. Now, these Philistines themselves,
as far as I know, they don't know the gospel. They're not
the children of God, but we see the picture of it. We see the
type of it manifested, revealed to you, to whom the Lord loves,
to whom the Lord gathers and calls to himself and makes known. the mystery of the gospel revealed
to us in the face of Jesus Christ. So I titled this message, The
Riddle Revealed. The Riddle Revealed. Now, first,
let's look at a few things about the Bride of Christ. And we're
going to see pictures of us, who we are that believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, pictured in this bride. When we read of Samson's
bride-to-be, we think, this is a horrible woman. This is an
awful woman. Why? Why would Samson set his
heart on the daughter of these unclean, uncircumcised Philistines? They're a polluted people. She's
a horrible woman. And yet in this woman We see
what we are. If we're honest with ourselves,
we see why would the Lord love me? Why would he set his heart
on me? I am uncircumcised of heart. I have a polluted mouth. an unclean mouth of an unclean
person, there's nothing about me that God should set his heart
on me and his love on me and save me for himself." And so
that's what we see here. In verse 3, the first thing we
see is that she pleased Samson well. Samson loved her. So verse three, then his father
and his mother said unto him, is there never a woman among
the daughters of thy brethren or among all my people that thou
goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And so they're wondering,
what are you doing, Samson? Are there not people among our
people that you can marry? You have to go for this daughter
of the Philistines, this polluted people? And Samson said unto
his father, Get her for me, for she pleaseth me well." She pleases
me. I want her because I want her.
I like her. I love her. I love her. I want
to make her my bride. Verse 7, look there. And he went
down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson well. And so we see that Samson liked
to fellowship with her. He liked her company. He wanted
to be with her. And so, in this sense, we see
our Lord's love for His Church, for His choice of His Bride,
the Church. In Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses
6 and 7, it says, This is the Lord speaking to His people,
Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy
God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all
people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not
set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more number
than any people, for ye were the fewest of all people." And
so, when the Lord chose Israel, We see the weakness of Israel,
the littleness of Israel. And there's a lot of unflattering
things about God's people. A lot of unflattering things,
a lot of uncomely things that is just who we are. There's blots
and spots and wrinkles and blemishes. By nature, we are full of sin. It's what we are. When we're
honest, in our own minds, in our own hearts, we see what fools
we are, how unbelieving we are, how slow of heart we are to believe
all that the Lord has said in his word, through his prophets,
through his gospel. We don't believe or trust the
Lord, and yet He's very gracious to us. He's very patient. He's
long-suffering. He loves us, and He draws us
to Himself because He will be merciful and compassionate and
gracious to whom He will be merciful, compassionate, and gracious. The Lord is very kind to His
people. He says, my sheep hear my voice. He speaks to us. He speaks to
us in His Word. He speaks to us in His Gospel. He speaks to us in the company
and fellowship of the saints. He blesses our heart. He comforts
us in prayer. He draws us to himself. Even
when we're at our lowest point, even when we've been the most
foolish as any other time we've ever been, the Lord is very kind
and draws us to himself and reveals to us again his love and comfort
and patience and mercy to us. Those sinners we are, the Lord
is very gracious. He says, I know them. They hear
my voice and I know them and they follow me. They follow me. Just as Samson spoke with this
woman and she pleased him, so Christ speaks to his bride and
she hears him and follows him and is drawn again into the bosom
of his love and his warm embrace and she's comforted and provided
for again. Second, in all these flaws of
Samson's chosen bride, we are reminded and see of ourselves
what we are. What a husband we have. What
a faithful friend. What a dear and kind and generous
and patient savior we know. And he's drawn us. And in her
we see what we are. She betrayed her husband. She betrayed him. And for her
betrayal, he was the one who had to pay the debt of that riddle. He had to pay that debt. She
betrayed him, and he was responsible now to pay that debt. Isn't that
exactly what we are? Didn't we betray our God? Didn't we rebel against Him and
turn from the true and living God in the garden? And who's
responsible to pay that debt? Our husband. our husband, he
settled the debt for us when he came as our shorty, as our
mediator, and reconciled us unto holy God, putting away our debt,
blessing us, being kind to us and gracious and generous in
his love and what he's done for us. And so We see, again, another
thing, too, even the ugliness of this bride. I don't know how
pretty or ugly she was, but in comparison to others, she wasn't
as pretty. According to her own father,
who says in Judges 15, verse 2, look at that one, Judges 15,
2, her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly
hated her. Therefore, I gave her to thy
companion. Is not her younger sister fairer
than she? Take her, I pray thee, instead
of her. You know, on the outside, there
are people that look better than us. There are people who appear
more righteous. They're good. They obey the law
of God much better than we do. They do what is right more consistently,
they're kinder, more generous, more patient, say nicer things
than we do. And yet the Lord has set his
love on crooked, ruined, horrible people like this bride. Betrayers, doubters, unbelievers,
turners, traitors. We turn and the Lord is very
kind to us, though there's others that look better, that really
look better than us. And we see there the grace of
our God. We have many flaws and and many
troubles. We see this in the disciples.
We see ourselves when we look at the 11 apostles whom the Lord
loved. They scattered from him. When
things got tough, when things heated up, they scattered from
him. When he was troubled in his soul,
and he was greatly burdened by what he was about to do, he asks
his friends, pray with me for one hour. Pray with me. I'm sore, distressed." And what
did they do? They fell asleep. They went to
sleep. How many times have we tried
praying to the Lord and seeking Him only to fall asleep, to wake
up and realize what happened, or just drift off in our thoughts
and get lost, sometimes even settling on wicked, sinful, impure
thoughts at times. And yet the Lord is very gracious,
very kind to us. And so we see ourselves in the
disciples. There's David, and David betrayed
the turn from the Lord. David committed adultery, and
David murdered the woman's husband to cover his sin. We see ourselves
in the idolatry and foolishness of Solomon and the betrayal of
Peter, of his Lord, and we see what sinners we are. And yet
the Lord calls us and draws us. Isaiah said, all we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. And the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all, and our debt. was put on him, and he
settled. He paid it for his people. And
we see when he's doing that, he cries from the tree, from
that cursed tree. He calls out to the father, asking
him, be not far from me, Lord. There's trouble near, and there's
none to help me. And the father, to settle that
debt, forsook his own darling son. to let Him pay it, to bear
that burden for His people, that we, by His stripes, would be
healed, healed, that we may be comforted now by our Lord. And so we see in the flaws and
the lowliness and the uncleanness of Samson's bride, that's me,
that's me. And he says in 1 Corinthians
chapter one, you see your calling brethren, how that not many wise
men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called,
but instead God has called foolish things. He's called weak things. things that are despised, things
that are not. We're nothing in the eyes of
men. And yet that is who God is pleased
to call, the weak ones, the foolish ones, the ones who are not rich,
ones who are naked, poor, blind, ruined in their sin. But God
calls them and He fills empty vessels with His glory, with
His Spirit, by the grace of God through His Son. And so even
in her being of an uncircumcised people, that's what we are in
our heart, right? We are uncircumcised in heart. We are filthy, unclean, polluted,
wretched vessels. fit for destruction yet God has
been pleased to fit us for his purpose of grace and to be kind
to us. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth anything nor uncircumcision but a new creature. God makes
things new that he will make new and he uses, he blesses whom
he will bless and he takes polluted vessels and makes them precious
vessels because they're sanctified, they're made holy unto the Lord,
by the Lord, for His own purpose, for His own purpose. And so,
in spite of what we are, being polluted just like this woman,
the Lord has been pleased to call you, to draw you to Himself,
to reveal faith in your heart that looks not to what you've
done, but to Christ, to Him, and what He's done for us in
mercy. And the third and the final thing that I want to say
about this chosen bride of Samson is that in reality, she was chosen
for Samson by God. God chose her for Samson. Look
at verse four. But his father and his mother
knew not that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against
the Philistines, for at that time the Philistines had dominion
over Israel. You know, we get so caught up
in fleshly things and we judge things according to the flesh
and according to a frowning providence and we think this is what God's
doing here and this is what he intends to do. But we don't know. What we do know is that everything
that the Lord does, it's for our good to them who are called
according to purpose. The purpose of your God revealed
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He makes it known. as it pleases
him. That's one thing we can be certain.
Though I don't know what he's doing, I can trust the Lord.
Job said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. We can
trust a minute. It's for our good. Our humbling,
our being brought low, our being emptied, and put on our face
with our mouth in the dust and the gravel, a teeth full of gravel,
it's for our good. If that's what the Lord pleases,
it's for our good. we see God's purpose revealed
in Christ. Second Timothy 1.9, who had saved
us and called us within holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. And so we see
this horrible choice of a bride is actually a picture of us. It's what we are by nature, in
Adam, in our sin. And yet God has been pleased
to manifest and reveal Himself to cover our sins with His own
blood, with which He purchased us and made us His own sheep,
His precious people. So you can see this is a strange
account. This is an odd account. This is a hard chapter to understand,
and yet we see the gospel, and we see the grace of God for sinners
like us, that we're just like this woman. And just like we
see that, so we come now to the riddle that Samson gave these
people. And the riddle, honestly, is
hard to understand. And all I could do last night
was frame it out with what understanding I did have, but I believe the
Lord gave revealed a few more things this morning that I found
a comfort to my heart and I think you'll find them a comfort to
your heart as as well because it shows us Christ. We see our
Lord in it. Our Lord's grace and mercy what
he's done for us. And so let's kind of go through
some verses I don't want to read them them all, but in verse 5,
that's where we see that Samson and his parents are going down
to Timnath to see this woman, to be engaged to this woman,
and we're told that a young lion roared against him. A young lion
comes out roaring against Samson, and the Spirit of the Lord came
mightily upon him, and he rent it. He tore it apart as he would
have torn apart a kid, a baby goat, just nothing in his hands.
And in his hands, he had nothing with it, he just ripped it apart,
and he told not his father and mother. He didn't tell them about
it. And then, he goes down, talks to the woman, she pleases him
well, and sometime later, after the engagement had been set,
he's now returning back there to get his bride, to marry his
bride, to have a feast, and to go through that, and to take
his bride to himself. And that's where he turns aside
to the carcass of the lion, and he sees the honey in the lion,
and he takes it and gives it to, he eats it and gives it to
his parents. And they knew nothing about it. Now, we see there in
that just the obliviousness of his parents. That's exactly what
Christ did for us. When we were entirely in darkness,
when we were yet sinners, Christ gave himself for us, for our
sin, to deliver us from death. Christ did that. Even though
we didn't know. We didn't know anything about
it. We didn't do anything to merit God's favor. We were enmity
against the true and living God until he brought the gospel to
us and delivered us from darkness and death. And in this thing
we also see our great enemy, whom the scriptures describe
as a roaring lion, seeking to devour whom he may. He goes about
as a roaring lion to destroy them. And this roaring lion comes
out and Samson destroys him. He destroys our great foe, that
one who usurped power over us, that one who had nothing over
us until we gave it to him in Adam and we were taken captive
by him and did his will and went the course of the world under
the power of the prince, the power of the air, and we were
sinners, dead in trespasses and sins. We did nothing to save
ourselves or to deliver ourselves but Christ. The Son of Promise
came and He obtained eternal redemption for us by His own
sacrifice, willingly, gladly, happily to do that for His people,
and having satisfied the debt that we owed to holy justice,
to the justice of God, having satisfied, having paid every
last farthing that we owed unto God in perfect righteousness
that we couldn't pay, Christ settled it as our surety, as
our ransom, he delivered us. And so he went into the house
of the strong man and took the spoil of his people out for himself
because he bought them. They're his people. He paid the
father for them. and there's no power, no constraint
that can hold us against the will of our God and Savior. And
so we see how that Christ, as He revealed this to us now, He's
given to us and manifest to us the sweetness of the gospel,
what He obtained for us. And wrestling our great foe,
defeating Him, destroying Him, shutting the mouth of the accuser
against us so that we're now, us who were full of spots and
blemishes, now are spotless and holy and acceptable unto the
Father, without wrinkle, without fault, before the throne of God.
And so we see how just like his parents knew nothing, we knew
nothing. But now we know the true and
living God. We know what he's done for us.
Now reading further, as we get down to verse 10, we're told
that he made a feast there, because that's what the young men used
to do. And it came to pass when they saw him that they brought
unto him companions. There were companions given.
to Samson, given to Samson. There's a people whom the Father
has given to the Lord before the foundation of the world. We were chosen of the Father
and given to our Savior. And Samson said unto them, I
will now put forth a riddle unto you. If ye can certainly declare
it to me, verse 12, within the seven days of the feast, before
the Lord wraps this whole world up, and he completes that short
work of God in the earth. Before it ends, if you find it
out, then I'll give you 30 sheets and 30 change of garments. I'll
clothe you. I'll put a garment on you. But
if you can't, if you can't solve this riddle, then you're gonna
owe me. You're gonna have to pay me the garment with your
own life. With your own life, the Lord
says. And so the riddle, verse 14, They agreed. They said, put forth thy riddle.
We'll hear it, just like Israel when the Lord gave them the law.
And they said, yep, all that you say, Lord, we'll do it. We'll
do it, because we don't know. We're ignorant of our foolishness
until the Lord makes it known. But he said unto them, out of
the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth
sweetness. And they could not, in three
days, expound the riddle. And when I read that this morning,
I thought of that verse which says, the sting of death is sin
and the strength of sin is the law. We can't know the riddle
of God. We don't know the mystery of
God. We don't understand, though God
has declared it to us and told us from the foundation of the
earth, And in the garden, we fell, and he promised the seed.
We don't know the mystery of God. We don't understand the
things of God. We go about laboring and working
and striving and spending to deliver ourselves and to redeem
ourselves and to make ourselves acceptable with God because we
don't know the mystery. We're wrong. We think we know
it, but we're wrong. We're absolutely in the dark
of the mystery of God. And so after three days, three
days, what happened in three days? Well, we know that Jonah
was in the belly of the whale for three days and nights until
he was spewed out from the whale. And he rose again and went and
declared the gospel. And we know that that picture's
Christ. Christ our Lord and Savior, the
Lord of glory, who came in the flesh, laid down His life to
put away the sins of the people. And He died, and His lifeless
body was taken off that cross and put in the grave for three
days, three nights. And then He rose from the dead,
and the Lord justified Him, declaring His glory. We see His glory,
and He was preached on in the world. And yet even when Christ
rose, did all men believe? No. No, many were in the dark. Many of the Jews saw him and
were in the dark. Just as he said in that parable
of the rich man Lazarus, neither if one should rise from the dead
will they believe. And they didn't. Much of the
world is still in darkness, though Christ has risen from the dead. Now, ultimately, we know that
the companions did hear this word. They did hear the riddle.
They understood what the riddle was. and the way that they knew
it was the bride found it out. The bride found out from Samson. She learned it so that she went
and told, it says in verse 17, she told the riddle, the meaning
of the riddle to the children of her people. She told it so
that there were some there who went and told Samson what it
meant. And because they solved the riddle,
they were given garments. Verse 18 says, the men of the
city said unto him on the seventh day, before the sun went down,
before it was all over, what is sweeter than honey and what
is stronger than a lime? And he said unto them, if ye
had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle. And the Spirit of the Lord came
upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men
of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto
them, which expounded the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and
he went up to his father's house. And so in this, the honey is
the sweetness of the gospel. And it tells us of the greatness
of our Savior, what Christ has done for us, that He came, that
He destroyed the devil, that He settled and satisfied the
debt of His people. Everything we owed, He paid it
in full. Though we betrayed Him, though
we turned against Him as enemies, just like this bride, He settled
the debt for us and delivered us out of the hand of debt, out
of the grave, so that we now have obtained of Him eternal
life. We are redeemed of Christ. We
shall live with Him forever. And so he gives us this, he reveals
this to us in the preaching of the gospel and blesses us to
hear that word and to know the mystery of God revealed and made
known to us so that we know this riddle before it's all over and
before we have to pay the debt ourselves. And oh God, according
to our sins. And so the bride of Christ we
see in here, she sought her savior to know the mystery of the gospel.
God moving in her heart, turning her from darkness, giving her
a hunger and a thirst. And she cried out, Lord, help
me. I don't know what this means. I don't know what you're saying.
I'm striving and laboring and spending, and I don't know what
it means. And then one day the Lord was gracious and revealed
it to us. He's the one who gave us that
heart, that desire to know Him, and He's the one who fed us.
He gives the hunger, and He satisfies the hunger. He gives the thirst,
and He satisfies the thirst. It makes us to ask, Lord, how
can a man be justified with God? I'll tell you, by the Lord Jesus
Christ, whom I have sent. He's how you are justified with
God. And so He makes known to us what
we need to know. Just like we read in Luke 24
verse 45, Christ is the one who makes known to us the mystery
of God in the preaching of the gospel, in the giving of His
Holy Spirit, who regenerates us, who takes
the things of Christ and shows them unto us, and reveals the
fruits of the Spirit, the fruits of righteousness, faith, love,
hope, joy in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, having learned the answer
to the mystery, the bride goes and declares what God has done
for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. She makes known the mystery,
the purpose of God. from the foundation of the world,
revealed to us in Christ, so that the companions of the Lord,
those given to Him by the Father, redeemed by His grace, they too
learn of the grace of God. They come to know the mystery
of God revealed. So that they come and confess
that the Lord Jesus Christ is all their righteousness. And
they hope and they believe in their heart that God hath raised
Him from the dead. that mystery which many others
don't know and don't believe. Samson said, if you had not plowed
with my heifer, you had not found out my riddle. We didn't plow
with Christ. We were with him in his death,
burial, and resurrection. We didn't plow it with him. He
did it alone. And so we see the grace of God. which reveals to
us that mystery, making us to know and believe him by his grace
and mercy. And he gives to his people a
wedding garment. He said in that one parable,
friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? If
you don't have a wedding garment, if you're not clothed in the
righteousness of Christ, you shall not stand in the presence
of God for all eternity. But Christ gives that wedding
garment to whom he wills. by revealing faith in them, you
that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you are righteous, you
are acceptable unto the Father. We see in Revelation 6.11 that
white robes were given unto every one of them. That is the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. which He gives to those who believe
Him, who confess Him, who follow the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing
that He is their Lord and Savior. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Thou shalt receive and know the
forgiveness of God, the grace of God, revealed in the Lord
Jesus Christ. You have eternal life that believe
on Christ and look to Him and you understand the mystery of
God by the grace of God. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. So I pray You rejoice in that
gospel word here in this obscure chapter of Judges 14 and rejoice
in Christ. Thank God for him. Be glad for
what he's done for us. I pray he bless that word to
your heart's breath. Our gracious Lord, we thank you
for your grace. We thank you for revealing this
riddle to us. Though we, like this bride of
Samson, are horrible in our nature, filthy, vile sinners, ruined
sinners in the fall who cannot save ourselves. Lord, we thank
you for your grace. Lord, we thank you that though
we are enemies and betrayed you, You have been kind and merciful
to us and settled our debt. You pay the debt that we owe
to God and have put it away so that we are now clothed in your
garment of righteousness and stand before the throne of God
faultless. Lord, help us to be like this
bride and go and to declare it, publish it to all the children
of our people. And Lord, we know that you will
draw out from them those whom you've called by grace. and draw
unto yourself. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen. Yeah, one of the things I didn't
say there, if you read that chapter again later, Judges 14, you see
that everyone, how's the word, it says it there. and gave changes of garments
unto them which expounded the riddle." Verse 19. So the ones who expounded the
riddle, the ones who knew the riddle and understood it, those
are the ones that received that garment. It's in verse 19. You
can read it again later. Be brave, bless that.