You can turn back to Judges 14, and I'm going to touch on several things tonight, Lord willing. Remember, we are still in Hebrews 11. In Hebrews 11, it's almost like we've forgotten we were there, but we've been going through Hebrews.

In Hebrews 11, in verse 32, and what shall I more say for the time would fill me to tell of Gideon we looked at him and of Barak we looked at him and of Samson and we're looking at him we looked at him last week and this week and there's so much so much in here i have read myself full i hope i can preach myself in Because I know I read myself, oh, I couldn't take any more from all that I've been reading.

And not only that, but just what the Lord has just been giving to me out of these chapters. And one of the interesting things and encouraging things is these men mentioned in that hall of faith are such flawed men. They're just such flawed men. Samson goes into a harlot, goes down to marry a Philistine woman, and yet he's mentioned here as a man of faith.

And when I was looking at this, and I thought about that, and I thought, wow, God saves sinners, and God uses sinners like me and you, and He calls us men and women of faith. I don't feel like it. Do you feel like it? Feel like I've stumbled and fallen or so much unbelief? But yet, we do believe. We do believe.

Now, we have in chapter 13 the birth announcement of a Deliverer named Samson. Remember, Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord again. As we read that whenever Gideon was looking at Gideon and Beric, again, Israel is always doing evil in the sight of the Lord, AGAIN! It just feels like, that just fits me, it's always again. I sinned again. There's not a day goes by that we don't sin. There's not a minute goes by that we don't have a thought go through our mind. That's just a sinful thought and we just Lord forgive me that

But they had did evil again and The Lord handed him over to the Philistine for 40 years For 40 years the Philistines dominated them And then God who's a God of mercy He never forgets us, He never forgets us. I'll never leave you nor forsake you. That's a promise. It may seem like it at times, but we have His Word on it. I will never leave you, I'll never forsake you.

So for 40 years they are under the thumb of the Philistines, but now God is going to deliver them. And it's interesting in this one, they don't ask God to deliver them. The Lord is merciful. He's merciful. He delivers us so many times without us asking. And He's going to raise up a deliverer, Samson. And we're going to see tonight a comparison between Samson and our Lord.

And the title, I'm about to forget to give you the title, Jesus Christ the Better Samson. He's the Better Samson. Now in verse 14 we see Samson taken away from the Philistines. He kills a young lion with his bare hands. It says there's nothing in his hands, it makes, you know, there's no fillers in the Word of God. There's no fillers in the Word of God, that's written on purpose. Because He is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He by Himself put away our sins.

But He kills this young lion with His bare hands. He gets honey out of the carcass of the lion. He puts forth a riddle concerning the lion and the honey. And the men force His wife to get the riddle from Him. The men give Him the riddle but they don't listen. Here's something, they give Him the riddle. But they don't understand that riddle. You know how many people claim to believe the gospel, but they don't understand the gospel. They don't understand it at all. So they give him the riddle that he kills 30 men and gives their clothes to the men who declared the riddle. And then verse chapter 15, he's turned over to the Philistines by his brethren. He defeats the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. And then in chapter 16 he goes into the house of a harlot. Men of the city try to trap him and he carries the gate to the city to the top of the hill. He meets Delilah and she gets him to confess where he gets his strength from. It's his consecration to God. His hair was a symbol of his consecration. There was no power in his hair, but it was a symbol of his consecration.

And the Philistines captured him and they put his eyes out. They make sport of him, they ridicule him, they mock him. And he has a lad to place his hands on the two main pillars of the building and he prays and he asks God, did this one more time, one more time let me, let me Be avenged for my eyes. And he, and there's, there's like, I think it was 3000. I'd have to go back and read it, but I think it was like 3000 of the Lords of the Philistines, the Lords. It's important. These are the heads. These are the Lords. These are the, the, they represent our enemies, Satan and our enemies. and he pushes those pillars apart and he kills more in his death than he did in his life. That is basically a summary of those chapters.

Now this story of Samson is well-known. It is a very well-known story. It is one of those Bible stories children learn early in the Bible class. You know David and Goliath and they can tell you about Samson. This is one of those Bible stories they learn early. I have no doubt in most religious circles it's misrepresented, it's misinterpreted. Most people think of Samson as a strong man, a strong man. I tell you what, he was only strong when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. You notice every time he did something powerful, it was when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. Without the Spirit of God, we're weak. We can't do it. What can we do? We're weak as water.

Most think of him as a lion killer. That's how the children think of him. Samson, he rips apart this lion. One who carried the city gates up to the top of the hill. But this is not a story about superhuman strength. It's not. It's a story that gives us a shadow of a much greater one to come. THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE GREATER SAMSON, THE GREATER DELIVERER. SAMSON IN ALL HIS STRENGTH AND IN SPITE OF ALL HIS FLAWS, HE POINTS US TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. GOD USED THESE FLAWED TYPES AND EXAMPLES TO POINT US TO CHRIST, AND WE CAN SEE CHRIST IN THIS. THE DELIVERER WHO IS MIGHTY TO SAVE, NOT IN BODILY STRENGTH, BUT IN WORD.

in word he says to a devil come out do we read anywhere where the devil says i don't think so we don't read that do we every time every time he said come out they came out and then one on one uh there to the gatherings they said uh Would you let us go over to those swine? Don't cast us out of the country." They knew who their Lord was. They may not bow to Him willingly, but they bowed to Him. Because everybody is going to bow to Him, and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Whether they like it or not, they are going to ask Him if they can go here, or do this, or do that. He's Lord.

Our Lord is mighty in word, He's mighty in holiness and love, and He's mighty in power. He said, ALL POWER IS GIVEN TO ME IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. ALL POWER! What a mighty Savior God has given us! All power is in His hands. He can tell a sickness to leave if it so please Him, if it serve His eternal glory and our good. HE CAN STOP WHATEVER TROUBLE I'M IN OR WHATEVER TROUBLE I HAVE, HE CAN STOP IT RIGHT NOW WITH JUST A WORD, JUST A WORD. HE SAYS COME AND THEY COME, HE SAYS GO AND THEY GO. THERE'S NO CHECK ON HIS WORD. YOU CAN CHECK MY WORD, YOU CAN PUT A CHECK ON IT, YOU CAN STOP IT, BUT NOT HIS, NOT HIS. ALL POWERS GIVEN TO HIM IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.

Now let me make some comparisons here, then answer a few hard questions. First of all, both births foretold by an angel, both of them. Samson, an angel, announced to Manoah, his wife, that they were going to have a son. She was barren and bare not. I mean she could not bear, she had a problem, she could not have children, for whatever reason she couldn't do it. But the Lord said, you're going to have a child, because life's of God. And if God says you're going to have a child, you're going to have a child. He can remove that barrenness, God can do it. What's impossible with men is possible with God. And this child is going to be a DELIVERER! He is going to BEGIN, he says, to BEGIN to deliver Israel. This is not just any child, this is a SPECIAL CHILD! Gabriel announced the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ to Mary, who was a virgin. She said, How can I? I don't know a man. He said, The Holy Spirit is going to come upon thee and overshadow thee, and that holy thing It's going to be born from you. I'm paraphrasing. It's going to be born. It's going to be the Son of God. The Son of God.

Both births are by divine power. Both were announced and both serve God's eternal purpose. One was a type and the other fulfilled the type. Secondly, both set apart from birth. Both of them set apart. Samson was born as a Nazirite, consecrated to God for a special purpose, to deliver Israel from the Philistines. Christ, He is the true and perfect Holy One, consecrated to God, not from the womb, but from eternity, from eternity.

You should listen to this in Matthew 1.21, AND SHE SHALL BRING FORTH A SON, AND THOU SHALT CALL HIS NAME JESUS, FOR HE SHALL SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM THEIR SINS." He's not going to just save people from their sins, He's going to save HIS people, a particular people, and every one of them is rotten to the core. Every one of them are sinful, wretched human beings, every one of them. Isn't that amazing that God in all His glory, in all His power and strength, He could make anything, choose anything, and He chooses a wretch like me to save. He chooses to come into this world and take my sins on Him. He chooses to do that and put them away. and bring me and a multitude of sinners to glory." I mean I can say the word glory but I have no idea how to even express it. You know I can't even express it. You know that's beyond our comprehension. You know Hollywood can make the most scariest, vile movies that you can even conceive. But they can't make one of heaven. They got you floating on a cloud playing a harp. That's all they can conceive. They can't conceive glory. They can't even come close to glory. They can make the vilest movies that you can even think of, but they can't even begin to imagine heaven. Can't even do it. It's beyond us.

But listen, here's the type. Samson's consecration foreshadows the greater consecration of the Lord Jesus Christ who was set apart in the covenant of grace before the world began. God took care of everything before He made the first thing. God's a God of order. He's a God of order. He left NOTHING out of order. He left NOTHING unchecked. God's a God of order.

Jesus, the cross, listen, Christ crucified is not a rescue attempt on the human race. It's God saving a people that He purposed to save, who didn't want to be saved. There ain't nobody here who wanted to be saved until God saved you. NOT UNTIL GOD SAVED YOU DID YOU WANT TO BE SAVED. NOT UNTIL GOD OPENED YOUR EYES COULD YOU SEE. NOT UNTIL GOD GAVE YOU LIFE THAT YOU KNEW YOU WERE DEAD. YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT.

Our Lord was consecrated, set apart, not for time, Samson was just for a time, a time and a type. Our Lord was set apart for eternity. Thirdly, both were empowered by the Holy Spirit in their work. This is such a mystery to me. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Yet Jesus Christ was a very real man. I think Scott Richardson said that he was every bit a man as if he were not God, and every bit God as if he were not a man. Yet he is one undivided person. But he did nothing by himself as a man. The Spirit of God was with him.

"The Spirit of God. It says concerning Samson that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. In His acts of deliverance, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Him. We never read of Samson being strong apart from the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him. I tell you, we need His Spirit, we need the Holy Spirit to enable us to do anything. To stand here and preach tonight. You need the Holy Spirit to enable you to understand what's being said tonight and to rejoice in it.

When our Lord was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove and remained on Him. It says in John 1.32, and John bear record saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him. It abode upon Him. As a man, He received His power by the Holy Spirit when He began His ministry. He was given the Spirit without measure. You see, we have everything in a measure. Faith, it's in a measure. Gifts, in a measure. Our Lord had nothing in a measure. He had the completeness of it. He's the perfect man. He knew no sin.

But something jumped out at me before coming out here and I just jotted this down. Over in chapter 16, verse 20, when his hair was shaved, it says the Spirit of the Lord left him. It says the Spirit of the Lord left him there, 1620. And I thought about that, I thought the Lord Jesus Christ had the Spirit without measure. How can this be a type? And then I thought of our Lord crying on the cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The Spirit of the Lord left Samson because of his sin. He told where his strength was and his head was shaved. His consecration was broken. And then it struck me. Our Lord hanging on that cross for our sins. OUR SINS, WHICH WERE MADE HIS SINS. And he cries out, MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? I can't even imagine that. I can't imagine that. OUR SINS BEING MADE HIS SINS, OUR SINS BEING LAID ON HIM, THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL. I mean, we can't even begin to imagine what that experience had to be like for absolute purity. I just can't imagine it.

Fourthly, both raised up to deliver God's people. Both were raised up to deliver God's people. Samson raised up to BEGIN to deliver Israel from the Philistines, it says in Judges 13.5. He's going to BEGIN to deliver Israel. THE TRUE DELIVERER, CHRIST, SET FREE! He set the captives free. He set God's children free. He set them free. See, Samson began to set them free from Philistines. The Lord set us free from sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.

He set us free from Satan. Satan has no power over us. He said to that demon one time, he said, leave him and don't enter him again. Don't enter him no more. He's mine. You see, the stronger man has taken over the house and I'm his.

There was a time, and this is a scary thought if you really stop and think about it, there was a time Satan had every one of us. We were children of darkness at one time. Children of wrath by nature, even as it says in Ephesians chapter 2. But he has set us free! And he set us free from DEATH! Death has no power over us! YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DIE! YOU ARE NOT GOING TO TASTE DEATH! YOU ARE NOT GOING TO TASTE DEATH! YOU ARE GOING TO GO TO SLEEP! ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU ARE GOING TO GO TO SLEEP! AND YOU ARE GOING TO WAKE UP IN GLORY!

It's like, you know, I'm going to go to sleep over here tonight and I'm going to wake up in the morning, if the Lord doesn't take me, I'm going to wake up in the morning over there in that house and I'm going to get up. But ONE DAY! ONE DAY! We're going to go to sleep and we're going to wake up in glory. We're not going to taste death. The Lord already tasted it for us. He said, He that believes in me shall never die. We'll never experience that part of it. Just our body will be laid in the grave and that's good. I don't want to keep this body forever. It's getting old and wrinkled and hurting. My hips have been hurting me for the last few days. It must be where I was climbing those mountains in West Virginia, but it's just, it's aging. It's like you read in that song, when I'm old and gray headed, don't forsake me. He won't. He won't.

Our Lord is the true Deliverer who sets the captive free from sin, death, Satan, the curse of the law. What Samson did in part, Jesus Christ did in the whole. He did it completely. He's the only one who could cry, it's finished. It says Samson began the deliverance of Israel. Our Lord finished it. He finished it.

Fifthly, both rejected by their own people. Both rejected by their own people. The men of Judah. Now go home and read these chapters. I've read these chapters. I've read them several times and I've listened to them read several times. On my computer I can listen to it reading so I just sat there and listened to it read to me three, four, five times and I've probably read it that many times. So you go home and you read these things, but you'll see the men of Judah in chapter 15 verse 12, the Philistines come up against them and they go to Samson and they ask the Philistines why they're doing this for and they say, because of Samson. He whipped them and they're wanting to get even. And the men of Judah turn him over to the Philistines. They turn him over to the Philistines.

Our Lord was betrayed and handed over by the Jews to the Romans to be crucified. They said, If we don't do something about this man, these Romans are going to come and take us, they're going to destroy this place. But they handed Him over, but they handed Him over out of envy, they envied Him because He had a following. HE WAS GETTING A BIGGER FOLLOWING THAN THEY WERE GETTING. BUT HE WAS HANDED OVER BY HIS JEWISH BRETHREN.

BOTH ARE DELIVERED TO THEIR ENEMIES, LISTEN TO THIS, BOTH ARE DELIVERED TO THEIR ENEMIES BY THOSE THEY CAME TO SAVE. YOU AND I WERE ENEMIES IN OUR MINDS BY WICKED WORKS AND HE CAME TO SAVE US.

Sixthly, both got the victory over their enemies through death. Both got the victory through death. Now the world would look at this and say that they didn't get the victory by death. I mean that was not a victory. They don't count death as a victory. They don't count it like that, but it was a victory. It was a victory.

Samson by willingly giving himself up, he said, Lord, let me this one time, I'll die right here. Let me avenge my eyes. Let me, let me do that. He did that by faith. He asked God and God let him do it. He stretched out his arms and he pushed the pillars and he died to defeat Israel's oppressors. He died in doing that. In His death it says He killed more than in His life.

Our Lord stretched out His arms on that cross. He stretched them out. And in doing so, when they nailed Him to that tree, when He died, HE DEFEATED SIN, SATAN, AND DEATH. HE GOT THE VICTORY. HIS DEATH IS OUR VICTORY. THROUGH HIS OWN SACRIFICIAL DEATH HE GOT THE VICTORY.

BOTH WIN THEIR GREATEST VICTORY THROUGH DEATH. ISN'T THAT AMAZING? SAMSON'S DEATH BRINGS A TEMPORARY PHYSICAL VICTORY. OUR LORD'S DEATH BRINGS ETERNAL spiritual victory.

Seventh, both deliverance came through apparent weakness. It came through apparent weakness which was not on our Lord's part. Samson, he was physically BLINDED, HUMILIATED, MOCKED, BASED SPORT OF, Yet at his lowest point, he becomes the instrument of God's power to bring down Israel's enemies.

Our Lord, listen, I thought about this, I thought, you know, Samson, we can't excuse his sins, okay? We don't excuse his sins. Going into that harlot, marrying a Philistine woman, we don't excuse those things, we don't excuse sin. Samson had a problem. I thought about this. He had a problem with his eyes. Job said, I've made a covenant with my eyes not to look upon a maid. And Samson, you know, he was taken up with some bad women. He just looked at them and I thought, this is probably why his eyes were put out. Probably so, because we don't skew sin.

But then I had to think, how does this fit our Lord? And I gotta be careful I don't try to stretch something and try to make something fit, not try to make something round go in a square hole or something. But here's what I thought of. When they took our Lord into that judgment hall, they made fun of Him, they mocked Him, they blindfolded Him. He didn't put his eyes out, but they took a blindfold and put it over his eyes. He couldn't see. They slapped him. They said, tell us who slapped you. Tell us who slapped you.

It says in 2 Corinthians, he was crucified in weakness, but raised in power. He allowed himself to be crucified. He allowed his humanity, his body, as a man, to die. He said, no man takes my life from me, I lay it down on myself. God brings salvation through what looks like defeat, but it's victory, it's victory. Out of his death comes victory. Can we not sing this? Oh grave, where's your victory? Death, where's your sting? Where's it at? Jesus Christ took it away. Our Lord took it away.

Out of His resurrection comes life. You see, Samson didn't rise. He didn't come back up out of the grave. His remains are still in the ground. But our Lord arose from the grave, and out of His resurrection comes life. I'm the resurrection and the life. You know, Jesus Christ didn't just, He doesn't just give me a new life. He is our life. If I have life, I have eternal life, I have Him. I have Him. He's not a part of my life, He is my life. He is my life.

Now let me just touch on a few hard questions, not many, just a couple of them. Samson, we have to remember this, God works all things after the counsel of His own will. He makes all things work together for our good, doesn't He? Even this situation here, which He's doing some things, you're like, as a believer, you just, what are you doing? God's hand is in this. God is ruling and overruling all things for our good. I wonder why sometimes you're allowed to do some things. God rules and overrules all things for His glory and our good.

But Samson married a Philistine woman. That was not to happen. that was not to happen. How can he be a type of Christ in this? I think this picture is Christ seeking a wife from among the Gentiles, me and you. His parents opposing his relationship is a picture of the Jews opposing Christ receiving sinners and eating with them. What was his charge? This man receives publicans and harlots. I'm glad he does or we wouldn't fit in. Oh, his parents, this is like the Jews, they were upset. You know, they said, it was like, why is he eating with publicans and sinners when he can eat with us? You know, we're a much better people here. He can eat with us. He can sit at our table. Yeah, right. They don't want this Jesus Christ of the Bible. They don't want sitting at their table.

A lion attacks Samson and he kills it with his bare hands. You know, when they came to get our Lord, Peter took a sword out. He went to cut off that man's head and he cut off his ear. And then the Lord said, put that sword up. Put that sword up. You see, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're not carnal. He doesn't use the weapons that we have, that man made. You know what his weapon is? His word. His word, that's his weapon. THAT'S HIS WEAPON! BUT HE KILLS THIS LION WITH HIS BARE HANDS LIKE IT WAS A BABY GOAT! SATAN GOES ABOUT AS A ROARING LION, PETER SAID, SEEKING WHOM HE MAY DEVOUR. AND OUR LORD ON CALVARY'S CROSS tore him apart like he was a baby goat. Satan was never a challenge to our Lord. He was never a challenge to the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know when our Lord was anointed, when He was baptized and the Holy Spirit came upon Him, what was the first thing that happened? He went into the wilderness and He dealt with Satan. He was in there for 40 days and 40 nights. He hadn't eaten or anything. And when Satan came at him, how did he defeat him? With his word. It wasn't even a challenge. Get thee behind me, Satan. Not even a challenge. He by himself defeated Satan. He's defeated. He's defeated.

And then we got this honey out of the eater. This is a picture of the sweet victory of Christ over Satan. We get to sit here and get the sweet nectar of God's grace through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Satan cannot stop this. He can't stop it. He said to Peter, the gates of hell shall not prevail against thee. That is the gates of hell will not keep you out. If God is pleased to send the gospel somewhere, it's going. If he's pleased to send it behind the iron curtain, that curtain's coming down. This is God's world. The earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof, and they who dwell therein. This is his. And if he wants to send the gospel somewhere, if it's his will to send it somewhere, it's going there. And nobody can stop it. Nobody.

Then Samson goes into the house of a harlot. Boy, how are you going to deal with that? Well, I'm not going to excuse it. I'm not going to make an excuse for it at all. We make no excuse for sin.

Now listen here, in chapter 16, verses 1-3, He goes into the house of a harlot. You see, He sees his eye, He sees his harlot and He goes right in there. Well first of all, listen, what our Lord does and what Samson did are two different motives. Two different attitudes. One's holy. One's holy. One's righteous. And one's not.

But here's the question of questions. This hit me right when Jesus Christ came to us. Were we any better? Were we any better than the harlot? Every one of us are spiritual whores. That's the truth. That's the offense of the gospel. That's offensive. Every one of us.

And when I read this and I looked at this and I thought, this thought came to me, we were no better when Christ came to us. But Samson went in to fulfill the lust of his flesh. Christ comes in to take us and cleanse us from our sins. and make us pure in His sight. That's what He's going to do. Christ has truly come to save and deliver us.

Now this harlot She tells the men of the city, I'm sure it was her, it might not be, it might be somebody else, but tells the men of the city, and they gather around, they hide, they're gonna kill him when he comes out, they're gonna kill him. And when Samson comes out, they got the gate shut, they got him locked in. You know what he does? He takes that gate, post and all, Puts it on his shoulders and carries it to the top of the hill. Now somebody I've read said it was 20 miles. I don't know.

Our Lord took our sins to Calvary and put them all away. And you and I are not barred out of heaven now. The door is wide open. It's wide open. He took our sins away. HE CAME TO HARLOTS LIKE ME AND YOU, AND TOOK OUR SINS AWAY, AND NOW WE CAN ENTER INTO GLORY, WE CAN ENTER INTO THE PRESENCE OF GOD, HOLY, PURE, WHITE AS SNOW, AND WE KNOW OUR SINFULNESS, WE KNOW SOME OF IT, WE DON'T KNOW MUCH OF Only Christ knows the full sinfulness of those for whom He died.

To sum it all up, Samson prefigures Christ in that both have miraculous births, both set apart by God, both are empowered by the Holy Spirit, both serve as deliverers, both handed over by their own people, Both achieve victory through death and both show God's power through apparent weakness. Samson's life is an imperfect type. Christ is the perfect fulfillment of the type. Jesus Christ is the greater Samson.