Judges chapter 15, the book of
Judges chapter 15. And we'll read from verse one. We're going to continue with
the story of Samson this morning. But it came to pass within a
while, after in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited
his wife with a kid. And he said, I will go into my
wife, into the chamber. But her father would not suffer
him to go in. And 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. And Samson said concerning them,
now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though
I do them a displeasure. And Samson went and caught 300
foxes and took firebrands and turned tail to tail and put a
firebrand in the midst between two tails. And when he had set
the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of
the Philistines and burnt up both the shocks and also the
standing corn with the vineyards and olives. Then the Philistines
said, who hath done this? And they answered, Samson. the
son-in-law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife and given
her to his companion. And the Philistines came up and
burnt her and her father with fire. And Samson said unto them,
though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and
after that I will cease. and he smote them hip and thigh
with a great slaughter, and he went down and dwelt in the top
of the rock Itam. Then the Philistines went up
and pitched in Judah and spread themselves in Lehi. And the men
of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered,
To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done
to us. Then three thousand men of Judah
went to the top of the rock, Etah, and said to Samson, Knowest
thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? What is this
that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As they
did unto me, so have I done unto them. And they said unto him,
we are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into
the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, swear
unto me that ye will not fall upon me yourselves. And they
spake unto him saying, no, but we will bind thee fast and deliver
thee into their hand, but surely we will not kill thee. and they
bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock. And when he came unto Lehi, the
Philistines shouted against him, and the Spirit of the Lord came
mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became
as flax that was burnt with fire. and his bands loosed from off
his hands, and he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth
his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. And
Samson said, with the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps,
with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men. And it came to
pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away
the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramathleh. And he was sore athirst, and
called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance
into the hand of thy servant, and now shall I die for thirst,
and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised. But God clave
an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout. And when he had drunk, his spirit
came again, and he revived. Wherefore he called the name
thereof in Hachoreh, which is in Lehi, unto this day. And he judged Israel in the days
of the Philistines twenty years. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Last week we spoke about three
particular characteristics of this man, Samson. Firstly, we noted that he was
a man of faith. He's mentioned in Hebrews chapter
13, that account of the faithful in the Hebrews is in the New
Testament, it's an account of the faithful in the Old Testament. And it says of him there that
the world was not worthy of Samson, such was the character of the
man. We also reminded ourselves that
he was a Nazirite. He had a vow placed upon him. And so far as often, the Nazirites
were people who took a particular vow for a certain period of time.
But Samson was peculiar in that sense. He had that vow of the
Nazirite placed on him as a newborn. And he is known as a Nazirite
all his life. And we saw how that in itself
was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was Jesus of Nazareth. And the word is the same, or
it comes from the same root. It means a branch. We saw that
because of this faith, because of his trust in God, that the
Spirit of the Lord often came upon him. And when it did, it
came upon him with great might, with a superhuman strength. I guess some of us are familiar
with seeing, I don't know, Hollywood movies about people who have
got great strength and they can do amazing things. Well, that's
not original. Samson was the man, Samson was
the man. And I don't think that he looked
like, I've forgotten his name, is it David Bannon or something
like that? I don't think that he looked
like the Incredible Hulk. I think he just had a power placed
upon him, a might given to him that he was able to do amazing
feats of strength and valour. What that tells me is that the
Holy Spirit, when it comes upon an individual and gives him a
task, it gives him the equipment, it gives him the ability to do
that which falls to him. Sometimes we think, oh I could
never do that, I could never do that, I would never be able
to do that. The Holy Spirit had to come upon
Samson before he was equipped and enabled to do the things
that he did. And when it did, like Peter and
the other apostles in the day of Pentecost, there was a boldness
and an authority came upon them as they preached and declared
the gospel of Jesus Christ. We also discovered not only was
he a man of faith, but he was a judge in Israel. And that was
a divinely appointed office. He was a leader. He was a reformer,
he was a defender, and he was a deliverer of the people of
God. He brought the evidence of God's
faithfulness to the people despite their sin. These were days following
the time of Moses and Joshua and before the establishment
of the monarchy in Israel. These were days of lawlessness
and we're told that men would do whatever was right in their
own eyes and so Men fell into wickedness. Men and women were
doing whatever they thought they wanted to do. There was no rule
and there was no law. So the Lord into those situations
sent men and women, we discover when we look at the judges. And
this was a period that covered around about 350 years. somewhere
between 300 and 400 years. And there were, we're told, 12
judges that are listed. And then we also discovered that
if you count Eli and Samuel and one or two others from other
portions of scripture, that there might have been as many as 15
or 16. But principally there were 12 judges given to Israel
during this time. Some of their lives were overlapping. They were judging Israel in different
areas, different regions of the country at the same time, and
some of them came one after the other. But Samson was right at
the end of that list of judges. They included people like Ehud
and Gideon, and the lady that is mentioned, Deborah, she and
Barak were also judges in Israel. We discovered also that not only
was Samson a man of faith and not only was Samson a judge in
Israel, but he was also a picture. He was a type of the Lord Jesus. And that typology, that picture
is on many different levels. There's many ways in which Samson's
life gives us little glimpses, little insights into the life
and person and character and accomplishments of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He had a holy, dedicated life,
as did the Lord. And whether it's the small incidents
or the significant accomplishments of Samson's life, And we're going
to think about a few of those today. We do well always to be
looking beyond the man, beyond Samson, to see the Lord Jesus. I'm dwelling on Samson at the
moment because I'm using him as it were like a stepping stone.
We used to take the children down to the river and they would
love to play on the stepping stones that took them across
the river. Some of our rivers back in England
are not as big as your rivers here, so you can hop from stone
to stone and get across. And that's what we're doing.
We're using Samson as a stepping stone to get across. to see,
to meet, to be with the Lord Jesus. And so we use his life
as it's designed to be used in scripture, just as Peter did
in the life of David and in Joel, to show that these things are
speaking about Christ. And they're not coincidences.
It's not a coincidence that, for example, and we're going
to touch on this later, Samson thirsted He thirsted because
when the Lord Jesus Christ was on the cross, he declared, I
thirst. So we see something in the picture
and the contrast and the comparison between these two things that
speak to us of spiritual matters. There are parallels, there are
correspondences that are designed in scripture to illuminate and
to teach us and to lead us into truth. so that people of faith
read a story like this and they don't just think it's like an
interesting piece of history, like something you would read
in a novel or watch in a movie, but it speaks to them of holy
things and glorious things and divine things, things of God
and things of Christ. So then, in the days of Samson,
and now today with a view To the Lord Jesus Christ, we see
this as a picture of God's everlasting salvation for his people. Did
Samson distress his enemies? Yes, and so did the Lord Jesus
Christ. Did Samson defend his people?
So did Christ. Did Samson die in the cause of
his people? Oh, so did the Lord Jesus Christ. But more of that another day,
God willing. Today, I want to take seven similarities
between Samson and the Lord Jesus Christ, and just very briefly
show you how these similarities from chapter 16 point us to the
Saviour, Jesus Christ. The first one is this. Samson,
we are told, when he had been offended by the Philistines,
he took foxes. Who could have imagined that
he would come up with such a plan? He caught 300 foxes and he tied
their tails together and he spoiled the goods of his enemy. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
spoiled the goods of his enemy. Satan is the enemy of Christ. Satan was that one, that deceiver,
that opposer, that accuser that came against the Lord Jesus Christ. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
came to this earth during those three years of his ministry,
He spoiled Satan's house. He spoiled Satan's good. He cast
out devils. If ever there was a way for Samson
to get the attention of the Philistines, this was it. And it's certainly
an ingenious plan. He was able with these little
foxes to do much more damage than he would ever have been
able to do with just the single individual going around and trying
to cause trouble. And it was ingenious if it was
somewhat distressing to the animals. He took 300 of them. and he tied
their tails together and he put a brand, something that was flammable,
in between the tails and he set them loose in amongst the, we're
told that it was harvest time, in amongst the standing corn
and the corn that had already been cut and was drying in the
fields. And perhaps it was that he set
them running over quite a wide area. And they went into all
the fields in that region and they burned down the corn, the
shocks, the standing corn, and they even got into the vineyards
and into the olive groves. It was a very serious thing that
happened. I thought about it. I'm going
to show you something. I thought about how you would do that. and I designed my own Samson
cord. Here it is. Now I don't know
whether this is what he used or not, but this would have worked. Because you would tie that end
onto one tail, and that end onto the other tail, and then the brand would go in
there, And no matter how hard those little foxes pulled, that
brand would stay between their tails. And off they went running
into the fields. And the whole place went on fire. He spoiled the goods of the Philistines. and the Lord Jesus Christ spoiled
Satan's kingdom when he came. Often in public, often it seems
to get the attention of the people who were observing, watching. He would show that by what he
was doing, he had more power than Satan had. One of the best
examples of that that the Lord gave was in Mark chapter five
when he landed by ship on the coast of the Gadarenes and he
encountered a man there called Legion. And this man was full
of demons. He was possessed of the devil
and he was a wild man. He cut himself with stones. They couldn't calm him. He ran
naked amongst the tombs of the graveyards. and everybody was
afraid of him. And the Lord went and spoke to
him, man to man, face to face. And we are told that that man,
Legion, so distressed, so possessed, He cried out with a loud voice,
Mark chapter 5 verse 7, and said, What have I to do with thee,
Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure thee by God that
thou torment me not. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
had power even over the demons, even over the devils. and he
spoiled the goods of Satan, and he told the devils to get out
of that man, to leave him at peace and in a right mind clothed,
and a follower and a truster of the Lord Jesus Christ, a man
who was able to go back to his own family and tell them the
wonderful things of God and what the Lord Jesus Christ had done
for him. So the miracles of the Lord Jesus
showed not only his power and his authority and his compassion
to sinners, but it demonstrated the rule which he had over the
devils and the demons of his time to deliver his people. And in that way, we have a picture
of Samson and the Lord. Here's another picture that we
have. This is the second one. It's another picture that we
have of Samson as a type of Christ. He was an avenger. Samson was
an avenger. Samson promised personal retribution
upon those who burned his wife and his wife's father. And that was to be a public reckoning. That was to be a revenge that
he took publicly against the Philistines who had committed
these acts. Samson wasn't happy that his
wife had been given to somebody else. We saw that in the narrative,
in the verses that we read. But equally, he felt the personal
disgrace that had been put upon him by these Philistines. And he chose to be the avenger
and to bring retribution upon their heads. What he was saying
here was this. Actions have consequences. The
things that we do The things that are done, they have consequences
and men and women and boys and girls will be held accountable
for the things that they do. You think the Lord doesn't see?
You think the Lord doesn't know what it is that we do? Sometimes
we do things in secret. Sometimes we do things in the
darkness. Sometimes we do things thinking
that people don't know what we're about. But the Lord knows, and
the Lord has promised that he will hold every man and every
woman accountable for the things that they have said, for the
things that they have done, even the things that they have thought. Nothing escapes the view and
the sight of our God. And so too, the Lord Jesus Christ
is revealed to us in scripture as the avenger. He is a judge,
just as Samson was a judge in Israel, so the Lord Jesus Christ
is a judge. He is a judge of sin and he is
a judge of wickedness in men and in women. And the Lord will
repay in public retribution. There will be a holy indignation
felt by men and women in their sin. Paul says, the Lord is the
avenger. 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 6. The Lord is the avenger. And
it may well be that the Lord uses means in this world to bring
down those proud and mighty and pompous and wicked people and
bring them down into the dust and shame them and embarrass
them for the things that they do wrong. Or it might be that
people think they've got away with it. But they will discover
that whether in time or in eternity, the avenger will bring retribution
upon the heads of the wicked and the evil doer. Whether it's
in this world or whether it's in hell to come. But know this,
know this, men and women today, know this. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall
he also reap. Are you shocked that Samson killed
a thousand men? Is that something which, you know,
the world is full of this mock surprise and shock and disgust. Oh, that's a terrible thing that
that should happen. You know, this little boy or little girl
or a little family here or something. And there's a mock outrage when
something like this happens. And I'm not saying that we have
no empathy for the troubles and detrials of people, but there
are terrible things done in this world. and there will be a day
when literally millions of people are held accountable by God and
judgment will fall upon them. This is a picture of that. A
thousand seems a big number. It is nothing in comparison to
the judgment that is going to be brought upon this world very,
very soon. Here's another way in which Samson
is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was delivered bound
by his own people. That's interesting, isn't it?
The Philistines didn't go and bind him. Who bound him? 3,000
men of the tribe of Judah. The tribe of Judah was the tribe
from which the Lord Jesus Christ came. It was the tribe from which
David would come. And here were these men of Judah. 3,000 of them. And just as the Lord
Jesus Christ was taken by the high priests to Pilate bound. And he was taken to the high
priest bound and also to Pilate bound. And it shows us a picture
so degraded were these men of Judah by the Philistines that
they would rather give up their judge, their champion, their
Samson, they would rather give him up to the Philistines than
take a stand for what they knew was right and trust the Lord
for their salvation. They said to themselves, it's
better that one man should die for the nation than that we should
all die at the hands of the Philistines. So they came and they bound Samson,
3,000 men with new ropes. Supposedly these new ropes would
be tougher ropes, they would be stronger ropes, they would
be up to the task. And he was bound hand and he
was bound around his arms with two new ropes. And these men
were complicit in what they expected would be the execution and the
death of Samson. Oh, the Jews did not kill the
Lord Jesus Christ personally. They left the dirty work to Pilate
and the Romans. But Peter was quite clear in
the second chapter of Acts. He said, it was you. who by wicked
hands took and slew the Lord Jesus Christ. And you might not
have been the person that swung the hammer. You might not have
been the person that carried the spear. You maybe didn't put
the crown of thorns on his head, but you're culpable. You're responsible. He didn't let them off the hook. And in a sense, we can all recognise
that culpability. because it wasn't nails that
kept the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. It was the love that
he had for his people. In John 11, verse 50, we hear
about Caiaphas, who was the high priest in that day. He said to
the Jews, he said, nor consider that it is expedient for us that
one man should die for the people. and that the whole nation perish
not. That was exactly the logic that
these 3,000 men of Judah had used when they came to take Samson
bound to the Philistines and hand him over to be killed. Here's another way in which Samson
is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Samson was willingly
delivered into the hands of the Philistines. Do you remember
what he said? He said, are you going to kill
me? Are you going to fall on me, you 3,000 men of Judah? They
said, no, we won't do that, Samson, but we will tie you up and we
will take you bound and hand you over to the Philistines.
He said, okay, let that be the case. And the Lord Jesus Christ,
as Samson was, was willingly delivered. Samson could have,
he could have resisted. He might have taken the line.
You cowards. You betraying, deceiving cowards. And swept them away along with
the Philistines. But he didn't do that. He could
have mocked the foolishness and unbelief of his fellow countrymen,
their shameful actions. But he saw the bigger picture.
He saw the greater opportunity that this action of betrayal
afforded him. He saw this as a way, as a path
to victory. And how like our precious saviour
Samson was at that moment. anytime he could destroy his
foe, anytime he could have destroyed his captors. When they came to
take him in the garden of Gethsemane, he said to them, who are you
looking for? They said, we're looking for Jesus of Nazareth.
Oh, that's me. And they all fell backwards into
a big pile. The Lord Jesus Christ could have
called for angels to come. You remember when we were reading
The story of Elisha, how it didn't take many angels to put an army
to flight. And the Lord could have called
a legion of angels, a thousand angels armed and ready to do
his bidding, but he never did. He went willingly to the cross
because he saw the bigger picture. He knew that the salvation and
deliverance of his people was not in the killing of these few
hundred or few thousand people that came against him with their
ropes and their spears and their torches and took him bound and
put him on the cross. No, he was winning his bride. He was winning his church. The
love for his people compelled him. Here's another way in which
Samson is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. He slew his enemies
with a jawbone. A jawbone of an ass. Can you imagine that? He wielded
it like an axe. We would use the word kudjo. I don't know whether you know
that word. It's like a club. It's the simplest
and the earliest form of a weapon. You just pick it up off the ground
and you swing it as hard as you can. And that's what Samson did. There wasn't anything premeditated
about that. It was a bludgeon of raw force,
and he came down as hard as he could. The Spirit of the Lord
came on him, it endowed him with great strength. He reached out
his hand, he picked up what was there, and he swung it with all
his might. And he slew a thousand with the
jawbone of an ass. And God is here in that picture
too. It seems as if the fact that
this was a new Jawbone is significant here because we're told that
it was a recently dead animal. That, I guess, means that it
wasn't like a hard, dried, brittle bone, but it was something that
had a degree of flexibility in it and may even still have had
some of the old rotten meat attached to it, if that's not too disgusting
to think about. But God strengthened Samson in
the midst of this. He strengthened, he enabled,
and he allowed Samson to enact and execute judgment upon these
Philistines. There was, as it were, in the
swinging of that cudgel, in the swinging of that jawbone, all
those years of oppression against the church, against Israel, a
picture of the church. And there's a lovely parallel
in that to the Lord Jesus Christ. Because just as he picked up
something that fell to his hand, something simple, something easy,
the Lord Jesus Christ uses something simple and something easy to
slay his enemies and the enemies of his people. It is the simple
preaching of the gospel. The simple preaching of the gospel. Could there be anything more
basic than a piece of bone picked up from the street? Could there
be anything more basic than simply speaking the truth as it has
been revealed to us in the gospel? There's nothing more ancient
than speaking one to another. And the Lord uses the simplicity
of speaking, or what Paul calls the foolishness of preaching. to gather his elect, to deliver
his people, to glorify his church. It was a new jawbone. It wasn't
an old jawbone, it was a new jawbone. And that tells us that
the speaker has to be new. He has to be born again. To be
a preacher of the gospel, you've got to be born again. renewed
in your soul. We're reminded of Balaam's donkey
that spoke. Even an ass can warn about God's
judgment. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2,
verse 4, my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of
man's wisdom. but in demonstration of the spirit
and power of God. You know, the church's denominations,
it doesn't matter, the media, the public, the society, it's
looking for eloquence. It's looking for a man or a woman
these days that can move you with their words, that can speak
powerfully. And that is esteemed. But that's not what God uses.
God doesn't use the... He uses the jawbone of an ass. Now, I don't want to get too
graphic here, but see that there? That's a jawbone of an ass. That's it. That's all he does.
He uses the jawbone of an ass. in order to slay the enemies
of God and to bring his people to himself. Jonathan Edwards
was considered one of the finest preachers that the United States
ever produced. But I tell you this, that a simple
country preacher with the spirit of God and the power of God upon
him is able to speak to the hearts and souls of needy men and women
and bring the gospel of salvation to their hearts. Here's another
reason, another way in which Samson was like the Lord Jesus
Christ. He thirsted. I mentioned this
already, but Samson thirsted. and he prayed for refreshment. In verse 18, he said he was so
rethursed and he called on the Lord and said, thou hast given
this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant, and now
shall I die for thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised. Here's a direct link to the Lord
Jesus Christ on the cross. Amidst all his labouring, Amidst
all his contending, in that great battle that he fought, he thirsted. Who am I speaking about? Samson
or the Lord? They both thirsted in that moment
of their greatest contention and their greatest battle. They
tried to give the Lord wine mixed with vinegar. but he wouldn't
drink it because that wasn't the thirst that he had. What
took the Lord Jesus Christ to the cross was a thirst for the
souls of his people. That was what drove him. That
was what motivated him. He thirsted for the souls and
the salvation of his own. These were the travail of his
heart. These were those for whom his
heart broke. Psalm 143 verse 6 says, I stretch
forth my hands unto thee. My soul thirsteth after thee
as a thirsty land. Selah. Some of you, I guess,
know a little bit about the need for moisture on a land in a time
of drought when all the crops are beginning to dry up and shrivel
up and there's a crying out of the land for moisture, for rain. And that was what the Lord was
like. He cried out like a thirsty land for the souls of his people
and the salvation of his bride. And how blessed we are to have
a thirst after the Lord Jesus Christ. To be hungry and thirsty
after the Lord, rather than to have a thirst after the things
of this world. To have a desire to soak up the
gospel, to drink in the waters of life and to be refreshed by
the very showers of life which come from heaven's open windows.
And here's the seventh picture that I have of Samson for us
today. Having drunk the water that was provided for him, that
old champion of the faith, that judge in Israel, that faithful
one of God, of whom this world was not worthy, he was revived. He was revived. And the Lord
Jesus Christ, having gone to battle for his people, He was
revived and raised from the dead. The Lord was refreshed as Samson
was refreshed. The Lord was restored as Samson
was restored. Water came from the jaw where
it had been cast down. The word lehi means jaw. So there is a little doubt or
uncertainty, perhaps doubt is the wrong word, but whether or
not the water physically came out of the jaw or physically
came out of the ground where the jaw landed when he cast it
down, because both words mean the same thing. So whether we
see the water gushing forth as it were from a fountain where
the jaw landed or actually out of the jaw itself, it really
doesn't matter. It had the effect of reviving
Samson. The Lord Jesus Christ was revived
by the power of God. He was raised from the dead.
He'd done his battle. He'd taken the victory. He'd
been wearied by the fight. but he was revived and raised
up from the dead. Samson, we're told, judged Israel
for 20 years and he served his people well. And Christ will
reign for 20 millennia and his reign will just be beginning.
Here's a couple of points by way of application and then we're
done. Remember this. the Lord's people have an avenger. So we can be at peace. We don't
need to react angrily to the things that go on around about
us, because the Lord has said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. Secondly, there is instruction
here in the way in which Samson spoke to the Lord in verse 18,
which I want you to take note of and to think about. We're
told that Samson was sore of thirst and he called on the Lord
and said, thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand
of thy servant and now shall I die for thirst and fall into
the hand of the uncircumcised. Do you see what Samson had done
there? He went to God and he said, look God, you have done
so many wonderful things for me. Are you going to now let
me fall on this little thing that I need a drink? I've just
slain a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass and
I'm going to die of thirst. So what is that teaching us?
It teaches us to go to God regularly on the basis of the blessings
that he has already given us. We take the blessings of God
back to him. We go back to God and say, God,
you've given me Christ. Are you going to withhold this
from me? And he will help us day by day. He will sustain us
and he will preserve us. He will supply that refreshment
that we need. And here's another thing. Know
that the Lord will supply these good things for his weary people
in this weary land. And finally, judgment and grace,
death and life are in the hands of our God. That's something
for us to remember. They both flow from God. God is not answerable to any.
God is not accountable to any. God does his will in the armies
of heaven and upon earth according to that which pleases him. Life and death come from him.
Who else will we go to? Where else will we go? You have
the words of eternal life. We go to the Lord Jesus Christ
and we trust Him. May our Heavenly Father be pleased
to grant us views of the Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed Saviour
in these incidents and from the history of Samson, the Judge
of Israel. Amen.