So turn with me please to Judges
chapter 16 and verse 22. Howbeit the hair of Samson's
head began to grow again after he was shaven. Then the lords
of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great
sacrifice unto Dagon, their god, and to rejoice, for they said,
Our god hath delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hand. And
when the people saw him, they praised their God, for they said,
Our God hath delivered into our hands our enemy and the destroyer
of our country, which slew many of us. And it came to pass, when
their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that
he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out
of the prison-house, and he made them sport, and they set him
between the pillars. And Samson said unto the lad
that held him by the hand, suffer me that I may feel the pillars
whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. Now
the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the
Philistines were there. And there were upon the roof
about 3,000 men and women that beheld while Samson made sport. And Samson called unto the Lord
and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen
me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once
avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took
hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and
on which it was borne up. of the one with his right hand
and of the other with his left. And Samson said, let me die with
the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all
his might, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the
people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at
his death were more than they which he slew in his life. Then
his brethren and all the house of his father came down and took
him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtoel,
in the burying place of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel
twenty years. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. The success of Delilah in obtaining
the secret of Samson's strength quickly led to this great champion
of Israel being captured and imprisoned. Samson succumbed
to Delilah's temptations. And like the fruit of the tree
in the Garden of Eden, Delilah had been pleasant to the eyes. And perhaps Delilah was the last
thing that Samson saw before the Philistines took his sight. Samson was not slain as we learned
last week, but he was placed in prison and he was made to
grind corn like an animal. Not because the Philistines needed
someone to grind corn, but in order to humiliate their prisoner
and in order to mock the children of Israel who must know of the
awful distress into which Samson had been brought. And also, this
was a way of the Philistines honouring their own gods. And what we discover in our reading
today is that the desire that the Philistines had to distress
Samson and to shame Israel, and by implication to mock the God
of Israel, led the five lords of the Philistines. So I think
I mentioned before that these lords, we talk about the five
lords of the Philistines, these were the lords of the major cities
that the Philistines dwelt in. in the stretch of land that they
had along the Mediterranean coast. So these five lords are those
that are meant when we speak about the five lords of the Philistines. And they got together and they
decided that they would host a large sacrifice, a large feast
of sacrifice for the nation's leaders and for their citizens
to thank their God, Dagon, for delivering Samson into their
hands. Interestingly enough, no mention
is made of Delilah's involvement in this matter, her deceit and
betrayal of Samson, nor indeed the bribes that were paid by
the Philistine lords in order to secure the arrest of Samson. They attributed their success
to their idol God and in doing so they directly insulted the
true God. But what we learn is that during
the celebrations the people grew merry and no doubt that would
be something to do with the wine that they consumed. This was
a great wine producing area and it had long been famous for its
vineyards. You'll remember indeed that Samson
part of his troubling of the land was that he had sent those
little foxes with their tails tied and the flames into the
vineyards of the Philistines. And so these were people who
knew how to grow their wine and no doubt to indulge in the wine
and the alcohol that they produced. During the celebrations, someone
thought that it would be a good idea to call for Samson from
the prison so that they might make fun of him in his blind,
helpless state. And he was duly brought from
the prison house to the temple and he was led by a boy. And there, in the temple of Dagon,
he was taunted and he was mocked. No doubt the people would spit
upon him and strike him. Perhaps things were thrown at
him and they would hit him and of course he wouldn't know that
anything was about to hit him. And here we see that this is
another way in which Samson was a type of the Lord Jesus because
the Lord Jesus was also brought captive into the midst of his
foes. He was mocked, he was spit upon,
he was struck. Perhaps you'll remember in Luke
chapter 22 and verse 64, we read there that when they had blindfolded
him, they struck him on the face and they asked him saying, prophesy,
who is it that smote thee? So here was Samson blinded and
being mocked and no doubt struck by his enemies and that's a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ again who was blindfolded and assaulted
by his enemies. And after some time of this happening,
Samson no doubt wearied and in many ways the focus of all the attention asked
to be led by this boy to the main pillars of the temple. Perhaps He had been in this temple
before. It seems not to have been the
first time that he had been in Gaza. Remember, it was the gates
of Gaza that he had taken away. So perhaps he had seen this temple
of Dagan in the past and he knew something of its construction
and he knew that it was borne up by these central pillars. or perhaps he had just been inspired
by the Holy Spirit to ask for this location to be sought. But
he was brought to these load-bearing pillars that supported an open
flat roof upon which many, many people were gathered to watch
the spectacle that was happening underneath. We're told that there
were 3,000 people, men and women, on the roof of this building.
So there would be many more probably in the building itself. And I
don't want to start guessing, but if there were 3,000 on the
top, presumably there were as many again underneath. And that certainly soon builds
up to a large number. And there upon the pillars of
this building, Samson leaned and prayed to God this prayer. He said, O Lord God, remember
me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once. O God, that I may be at once
avenged of the Philistines of my two eyes. It's a lovely prayer
in many ways. It was short, it was direct,
it was to the point. The man laid before the Lord
the concerns of his heart and the request of his desire. And I think that we might say
several things about this prayer. We might note, for example, that
Samson asked to be remembered of God, remembered in his role
as a judge in Israel. and remembered by God for the
many blessings God had given him in the past and which no
doubt Samson remembered now and had cause to remember in recent
weeks and months in his degraded state. He asked to be remembered
and he asked to be strengthened. He asked to be strengthened one
more time. Acknowledging that his strength
wasn't in his hair but came from the Lord, so he asked the Lord
for strength. Knowing that it was God's gift
to give or indeed to withhold. and he asked to be avenged. To be avenged of his eyes, yes,
but also vengeance for the affront to Israel and to the dishonour
that had come to God. That was what the taking of his
eyes represented. They could have killed Samson
and be done with him and be rid of him but holding him as a trophy
was a mockery of the people and it was a mockery of God to have
him there in their temple and make fun of him. Samson knew
that vengeance was an attribute that God reserved for himself. God had told Moses back in Deuteronomy
chapter 32, he said, to me belongeth vengeance and recompense. So Samson was right to ask the
Lord to avenge him and to allow him to avenge the people of Israel. To me belongeth vengeance and
recompense. Their foot shall slide in due
time, for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that
shall come upon them make haste. Samson believed this, he believed
the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses, so he prayed this prayer. And we can say this too about
Samson's prayer. It was a prayer of faith. The
Lord heard it and gave Samson what he requested. And the great
man's strength returned and Samson leaned upon the pillars. He placed his right hand on one
and his left hand on the other. and he uttered a final request
to the Lord. Let me die with the Philistines. He bowed himself with might and
he pushed the pillars apart. And we read, the house fell upon
the Lords and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead
which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew
in his life. Let me mention just a couple
of lessons that we can take, a few lessons that we can take
from this history. The first one is this. Samson
held the office of judge in Israel. And this was a role in which
he was a defender and a deliverer and an avenger of God's people
in God's name. so that this act of mass slaughter
that Samson perpetrated this day was retribution for the crimes
committed by the Philistines upon the Lord's people. And in
this, we have seen Samson was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us never Imagine that the
crimes that are enacted against the Lord's little ones will go
unpunished. Not a word spoken against the
Lord's church goes unnoticed. Not an act goes unseen. However, vengeance is not ours
to dispense. The church should never take
revenge. The Lord's people should never
take revenge on their enemies because the Lord tells the church. He tells his people. Dearly beloved,
avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it
is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. So that's one lesson that we
have, that when we deal with the world, when we deal with
men and women, when we deal with people who have perhaps harmed
us and hurt us, we take that to the Lord. but we do not look
for opportunities to harm them in return. We don't look for
revenge because we know and we believe that the Lord will avenge
his people. Vengeance is mine, saith the
Lord. Second thing I want to point to today is this. Samson was also like the Lord
Jesus Christ in his death. Just as Samson stretched out
his hands to take the weight of the pillars, one in his right
hand and the other in his left, the Lord Jesus stretched out
his hands on the cross. Just as Samson willingly died
in his office as judge, the Lord Jesus Christ freely laid down
his life for his people, that he might destroy his enemies
and theirs. However, here is a difference
as well. Samson slew his enemies by his
death, but the Lord Jesus Christ died that his enemies might have
life. As always, we find the greatest
value and usefulness in these Old Testament passages, in seeing
beyond the immediate narrative, beyond the immediate history
or story, and looking for glimpses of the Saviour. Let us always
be on the lookout for the Lord Jesus Christ being typified in
these Old Testament accounts. And whenever we read scripture,
let us be looking for the Lord. That's the principal purpose
of the word of God, to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ to his
people. In death, Samson destroyed the
temple of Dagon. and Dagon's worshippers with
it. By his death, the Lord Jesus
Christ entered the strongman's house, bound him and spoiled
the whole empire of sin and Satan. And he rose victorious from the
dead to show his triumph over death and over the grave. In the very last verse of this
chapter we read that Samson's family came and recovered Samson's
body and took it to be buried in his own land beside his father. We learn that the Philistines
were not totally overthrown at this time and we shall hear of
them again. But the work of deliverance was
begun by Samson, and the Philistines were not opposed to his body
being removed. Maybe they were not altogether
aware of what had transpired that day. After all, everybody
that was involved in that incident was now dead. One final comment
that I want to make. Samson was a Nazirite by birth. It was a vow of dedication taken
to God. And the Lord Jesus Christ also
had this name given to him as one who was raised in the town
of Nazareth. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
all his life, from his birth to his death, set apart and dedicated
to the salvation and deliverance of his people. He was to be their
redeemer from the judgment of sin. Samson was a flawed man,
but he was a type of Christ, and he was a mighty man of faith
in Israel. In contrast, our Lord Jesus is
the perfect man and the mighty God. Samson lived and died to
deliver his people. The Lord Jesus Christ lived and
died and lives again and shall reign forever and ever with his
people. May God give us faith, like the
faith of Samson, to trust in Christ and in his saving work
upon the cross. Amen.