Grace has been defined many times
as unmerited favor, and it is. But it's so much more than that,
isn't it? It's not that we just did not merit it, we demerited
it. For the Lord to have grace towards
those who are by nature at enmity with Him, and those who by nature
hung him and killed him on Calvary's tree with their own sin. Grace. Micah said it like this, who
is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth
by the transgressions of the remnant of his heritage He retaineth
not his anger forever because he delighteth in mercy. He delighteth in mercy. Sinners
rejoice in knowing that there is a God who delights in mercy,
a God who will be gracious toward them. I've titled this message Victory
in Death. We have been looking for several
weeks now at the life of Samson and how Samson, as the strong
man, pictures for us the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, our
Nazarite. And that becomes most clear in
the way in which Samson dies. If you would like to turn with
me in your Bibles to Judges chapter 16, Judges chapter 16. I have four points to this message. You and I need a God who will
first pity us. As a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them. And someone said, well, I don't
want any pity. I do. I do. If we're to be saved, we
need a God. that will pity us. Second, we
need a God that will be blind to our sin. A God who can't see
our sin. Ah, when I see the blood, I'll
pass by thee. We need a God who will cover
our sins so sufficiently that even he cannot see them. Thirdly, We need a God who will
take the full penalty and responsibility and justice and judgment for
our sin. And fourthly, we need a God who
will defeat that final enemy, death, the grave, hell, deliver
us from death and give to us everlasting life. Let's read
these verses together. We'll begin in verse 20 and read
down through verse 30. And I'm going to try to do this
without comment, and then we'll go back and look at them. You
remember Delilah? Delilah has persuaded Samson
to tell her where the source of her strength was. And it was
in his hair, being a picture of the Lord's glory. And in verse 20, and she said,
the Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he woke out of his
sleep and said, I will go out as other times before and shake
myself. And he wist not that the Lord
was departed from him. But the Philistines took him
and put out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him
with fetters of brass. And he did grind in the prison
house. Albeit, the hair of his head
began to grow again after he was shaven. And that word after,
I will make this comment, means as when he was shaven. In other words, he doesn't just
have a stubble, he's got a full head of hair now. So he's been grinding in the
prison house for some time. 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
whereof the house standeth, and that I may lean upon them. Now
the house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the
Philistines were there. There were upon the roof, about
3,000 men and women, and behold, 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, one with his right hand and the other with his left.
And Samson said, let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed
himself with all of 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." And before we Before we look to the way in which these
verses reveal the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
I want to draw your attention to the last part of verse 20. He wists not that the Lord was
departed from him. Samson became presumptuous. Samson thought he still had the
strength and the presence of God that he had in previous encounters
with the Philistines. He wist not that the Lord had
departed from him. I'm so very thankful that we
serve a God who remembers that we're made of dust. and he doesn't
forsake us when we become presumptuous. The Lord is merciful toward his
elect children, and he allows them to fall until they find
themselves crying out for the Lord. Here's what our God says, I am
the Lord, that is my name, and I will not share my glory with
another. How presumptuous we are every day. We're all being presumptuous
right now in thinking that the next breath that we draw, we
don't even think about it. We just, we presume upon God,
don't we? If we are to be saved, he's going
to get all the glory. He said, no flesh shall glory
in my presence. And if we're going to be saved,
it will be in spite of our presumption. David prayed in Psalm 19 when
he said, keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins and let
not them have dominion over me. You see the difference between
a believer and an unbeliever is that a believer is able to
admit that they are presumptuous. When the Lord describes the false
prophets in 2 Peter 2, he says they despise government. They are presumptuous and self-willed. They are that by nature. They
presume that God is somehow obligated to save them. They presume upon
the mercies of God. Whereas David prays, Lord, let
not presumptuous sins have dominion over me. Lord, I know I'm presumptuous,
but Lord, don't let them have dominion over me. The Lord allows his children
to stumble, to fall, and to suffer the consequences of their presumption.
It's a presumption. He did that with Peter, did he
not? When Peter said to the Lord, they might deny you, but not
me. Now, Peter said that at the last
supper. Not me, Lord, I'll die for you. Three times that very
night, with cursing, he denied even knowing the Lord. The Lord
let him fall on his own presumption. And, The Lord used that to show him
his mercy, his kindness. David was presumptuous when he
numbered the children of Israel. The Lord told him not to do it.
The Lord even sent him a commander to warn him not to do it. But
in pride, thinking that he had built some great nation, he numbered
the army and God sent a pestilence. And David was humbled. by that experience. How many
times the Lord will allow us, like a little child, trying to
dress themselves, get all wrapped up in our efforts to clothe our
nakedness until we cry out for help. That's what's happening
here with Samson. He wisps not. He didn't know. that the Spirit of God was not
with him. He was presuming that God was going to bless him. You know, a lot of things can
be, a lot of good things can be accomplished in the strength
of the flesh. You can accomplish physical health
and strength in the strength of your flesh, but here's what
God says, bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable
unto all things and have promise for this life that now is and
the life to come. Exercise might be able to be
done in the flesh, but the exercise of the soul is a work of the
spirit of God. You can educate your mind in
the strength of your flesh and learn a lot of things. But here's
what God says, the natural man cannot see. He cannot believe on Christ. Neither can he know them. Only by divine revelation know
You see, we presume because we have certain abilities in the
flesh that we're going to be able to accomplish other things
that only the Spirit of God can give us. We can make profit in this world
in the strength of our flesh, but here's what God says, what
does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his
own soul? What if we're going to gain Our
soul, Lord, that's a work of grace that you must do. A person can make certain determinations
and rededications and commit themselves to outward morality,
but outward morality will not earn you favor with God. We need a God that will pity
us. The Lord pitied Samson, even though he was presumptuous. The
Lord sent his disciples out into a storm in order to prove them. The Lord cares not that we perish. The Lord was asleep in the boat.
He was proving there. When God proves you, he's not
proving your strength or your ability. He's proving your inability. He's bringing us to once again,
acknowledge our dependence upon him. Our need for him to pity us.
When the Lord fed those 5,000 in John chapter 6, the scripture
says that he asked Philip, he said, Philip, how are we going
to feed these? And he said that in order to
prove them, for he knew what he would do. He knew he was going
to take five loaves of bread, barley bread and two small fishes
and feed those 5,000. But what was he doing? He was,
he was exposing Philip's inability to meet the need. And that's,
that's how the Lord allows us. It's why he allows us in our
presumption to fall and to falter and to show us God puts our faith
to the test. He's exposing our weakness. He's bringing us to the end of
ourselves. He's showing us our need and
our dependence upon Him. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing. How presumptuous
we become. How often you and I think, I
got this. and we put our hand to something
and it gets worse. And the Lord allows it to go
so. Until we throw up our hands and
let go of it and say, Lord, I was wrong, I was presumptuous. He
will not allow presumptuous sins to have dominion over you. The
unbeliever will live their whole life presuming upon God. The child of God will wince not. That word wince not, you see
it in verse 20. It is the word in the Hebrew,
it's the word yada. You know, when a person says
yada, yada, yada, what they're doing is they're saying in Hebrew,
I know, I know. The word yada means to know,
to know. So when a person says yada, yada,
yada, what they're saying is I know, I know, I know. Don't
bother me with any details. I got this. I got this. And he wents not that he was
doing it in the power of his own flesh and that the spirit
of God was not with him. Is this not our experience? Turn
with me to 1 Peter, 1 Peter 1. Here's what Peter learned from
his yada, yada, yada. Lord, these other disciples,
they might forsake you, but not me, not me. And God let him fall flat on
his face. And the Lord said to Peter, be of good comfort. I have prayed
for you. And when you are converted, teach
my disciples. You're going to use this experience
of you operating in the strength of your flesh and falling flat
on your face to remind the brethren of their need and dependence
upon God. You're going to come to realize
that without me, you can do nothing. Nothing. First Peter chapter
one, look at me at verse five. You are kept by the power of
God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last
time, wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need
be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the
trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold that
perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found under
praise and honor and glory at the appearing of the Lord Jesus
Christ." Not your praise, not your honor, not your glory, not
your stalwart faith that enabled you to pull yourself up and fix
it. No, to His glory. I am the Lord, that is my name,
and I will not share my glory with another. He gets all the
glory. And when we wist not that the
Spirit of God has departed from us, and we become presumptuous,
and we try to accomplish spiritual things in the strength of our
own flesh, and we say, yada, yada, yada, God's gonna let us
fall. That's the trying of your faith.
That's to bring you back to your dependence. Look at verse eight.
Whom having not seen yet you love, in whom though now you
see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the
salvation of your souls. Here's what it's all about. The
end of your faith, even the salvation of your soul. That's what it's
about. Sinners need a God who will pity
them in their presumption and will not forsake them, will not
forsake them. Second thing a sinner needs is
a God that is blind to their sin. Now, Samson here is a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ going to Calvary's cross. That's what
the pulling down of the temple of Dagon's about. And that's
what, that's what the destruction of the Philistines is about.
Conquering death, killing more in his death than he ever did
in his life. Getting the victory over Satan
and over sin and over death and over hell. Turn to me to Isaiah chapter
42. Isaiah 42. This is so glorious. I don't even begin to understand
what this, how this could be. How the glorious self-existent
I am the creator and sustainer of the universe could possibly
not see something. That something could actually
be taken away from his purview. How could that be? And yet that's
exactly what the Lord's telling us here. Look at verse, look
at verse one in Isaiah chapter 42. Behold my servant looked
to Christ whom I uphold mine elect and whom my soul delighteth.
I have put my spirit upon him and he shall bring forth judgment
unto the Gentiles. Now this whole chapter is speaking,
well, Let me rephrase that. This whole book is speaking of
the Lord Jesus Christ. But here it's so clear, isn't
it? He's going to bring forth judgment. And then down in verse 18 of that same chapter,
Hear ye deaf, and look ye blind, that ye may see. Who is blind
but my servant, or deaf as my messenger that I sent? Who is
blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant? See many things, but thou observeth
not. Open in the ear, He heareth not. If we're going to be saved, our
sins must be separated from us as far as the East is from the
West, so that God can remember them no more. They must be covered
completely by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, completely
out of sight of God. They must be sewed up in a bag
and cast behind his back. These are all biblical references
to what the scripture says that what God did with our sin as
a result of what Christ did, he must bury them in the depths
of the sea. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one here being spoken
of. And he says, you that are deaf, listen, and you
that are blind, see. I love when the Pharisees came
to the Lord Jesus Christ and these well, educated, theologically
trained professionals came and they said in contempt, they said,
are you suggesting that we're blind? You remember what the Lord said
to them? If you were blind, then your sins will be forgiven you.
But because you say that you can see, therefore your sins
remain. What were they saying? Yada,
yada, yada. I know, I know, I know. I got
this. We don't need you. What do you say, child of God?
Lord, if you don't give me eyes to see, I won't be able to see. Every single time I go to God's
word, particularly if I'm preparing to stand here and preach to you,
Lord, if you don't teach me, I won't know anything. If you
don't show me the truth of the gospel, I won't be able to see
it. You say, but you've seen it so many times. Yeah, and I'll
forget everything that I've ever seen if God doesn't keep me. You see, we're always blind.
We're always deaf. Lord, you've got to unstop my
ears. I pray, I wish, I hope that every time we come to this
place that we are conscious of that. Lord, if you don't unstop
my ears, all I will hear is the voice of a man. If you don't open the eyes of
my understanding, all I will see will be men sitting about. Lord, I'm blind and I'm deaf. The Lord must become blind to
our sin. And that's exactly what happened.
That's exactly what happened. It's the glorious mystery of
substitution in Christ. The accomplishment of the atonement
when the Lord Jesus Christ put away our sin. Someone asked me this week what
I meant when I said that justified doesn't mean just if I'd never
sin. And I had an opportunity to have
a wonderful conversation with this brother and we cleared up
what I meant. To say that the word justified
means just if I'd never sinned may be a clever way to try to
define that word in the English, but it's not what the word means.
We're just taking the word and breaking it up into three syllables
and saying, well, that's what it means. That's really not what
it means. To be justified means that I stand before a holy God
with no sin. With no sin. and that God, because
of what Christ did for me on Calvary's cross, has always been
blind to my sin. Yes, in time we sin, but in eternity,
in the covenant of grace in Christ, it's not just if I'd never sinned,
I've never sinned. The righteousness of God God
made him who knew no sin to be sin that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. You see, it wasn't when Christ
was hanging on Calvary's cross, it wasn't as if he was made sin. He was made sin. He became sin. It wasn't as if he was made sin,
he became sin. And it's not as if I'm made righteous
or as if I didn't sin, I am righteous. Perfectly righteous in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Here's our hope. We have a God
who is blind to our sin. He has been so successful and
sufficient in satisfying the demands of his justice that He
has put our sin out of His sight, reconciled in the body of His
flesh through death, that He might present you holy, unblameable,
and unreprovable in His sight. How are you gonna be holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in the sight of God? He knows
our thoughts before we think them. Who is so blind as my servant? Ever seen, but not perceiving. How can this be? Because he went
to the prison house And he grinded out the wheat, the bread for
our salvation. This is what we do by nature.
We try to grind out our salvation in the prison house of sin, trying
to produce grain for bread while at the same time we're blind
to the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a substitute, one who
has taken our place, one who has gone to the prison house. Isaiah chapter 61 says, I have
trodden the wine press alone, and there was no man with me. He came in order to set the prisoner
free. In order to do that, he had to
be bound by our sin. It was the iron fetters of our
sin that held him to Calvary's cross. Go back with me to our text. Verse 23, and the lords of the
Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice
unto Dagon, their God, and to rejoice for he said, our God
hath delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands. Dagon means fish. And this was
the God of the Philistines, had the head and the arms of a man
and the body and the tail of a fish that was there That was
their God. And this is the temple that Samson's
going to destroy. And I thought about, you know,
this is really the God of this world, isn't it? The irreligious
practice what the Bible calls science so-called. It's amazing
to me that science by definition means knowledge and yet most
of the science that men are holding to is not knowledge, it's a theory.
It's a theory. And the theory of evolution has
one purpose. We crawled out of the ocean like
a fish and grew arms and head like a man. And the Lord's destroy, what
is the purpose of this theory of evolution? To deny God his
glory in salvation and to not have to submit to his authority.
That's all that's about. That's all it's about. But you
know what's worse than that? Is the evolution of salvation.
The evolution of salvation. Man thinking that, you know,
God did his part. Now I got to add my part, and
we're going to tie together the tail of a fish to the head of
a man, and we're going to try to make a god out of it. And so whether a person's religious,
trusting in their works and in their will for their salvation,
or whether they're looking to some theory of evolution, here's
my point. The god of Dagon is very alive
today, isn't he? He's very much alive. And yet he's the very one. What
happens when the Lord is pleased to tear down the temple of Dagon
and deliver his people? No longer do they believe in
a work of evolution, whether it
be in nature or in salvation. The Bible says suddenly he came
into his temple. This wasn't a long, drawn-out
work. This wasn't one where God did his part, now I've got to
do my part in order for it to be successful. He did his part
all by himself, suddenly. There's no evolution about salvation.
He finished the work by himself. He pulled down the pillars of
Dagon. and he set his people free. Notice in verse 22, how be it
the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven
or as it was before he was shaven. Samson had been grinding weed
and playing sport for the Philistines for some time, I assume. Bible
doesn't say, but Human hair only grows about a half an inch a
month, and now he's got a head full of it. What is that picture? It's a
picture of his resurrection, the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He was shaved on Calvary's cross. His glory was stripped to him.
He was blinded so that he could not see our sin by the covering
of his own blood. And now his hair's grown back. And he's defeated death, offered
up for our offenses, but raised again because of our justification,
being therefore justified. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Here's our hope. These Old Testament
stories are gospel stories. They're just, we're just taking
the same message of salvation and looking at it from many different
perspectives, aren't we? This is what the Lord's teaching
us. Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law,
but thanks be to God through Christ Jesus. We have victory. We have victory
through Christ Jesus. Here's what he's done. He's defeated
that final enemy, brethren. Notice in verse 24, and when
the people saw him, they praised their God, for they said, our
God hath delivered into our hands our enemy, the destroyer of our
country, which slew many of us. And they made sport of him. Is
that not what they did to the Lord Jesus when they placed a
crown of thorns on him and took a reed and smashed it into the
brow of his head, mocking him as a king? They put a purple
robe upon him, covered his face and smote him and said, prophesy
if thou be a prophet of God. And they cried to him as the
cows of Bashan surrounding around the cross, if thou be the Christ,
save thyself, come down, show us. They're making sport of the
Lord Jesus Christ while he is grinding out the bread of life
in the prison house and bringing down the temple of Dagon to deliver
his people, killing more in his death than he ever killed in
his life. Notice why they hated him. Look
at the end of verse 24. And the destroyer of our country,
which slew many of us. When the Sanhedrin got together
just before the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, after
the resuscitation of Lazarus, they said, we got to do something.
We've got to do something. If we allow this man to continue,
we will lose both our place and our nation. We're going to lose
our authority. We're going to lose our power.
We're going to lose our people. We're going to lose everything. Men hate Christ for the same
reason today. Oh, they don't hate the Jesus
of their imagination, but they hate the Christ of glory. They hate the successful savior
of sinners. You don't believe that. Just
share what you hear here with some of your religious friends,
and you'll find out. You'll find out that they hate
this God. Why? Because he kills them. And we love God because he's
killed us. He stripped us of our righteousness. He's caused us to see that we're
dead in our trespasses and sins. And there's nothing that we can
do. And we're completely dependent upon him for the hope of our
salvation. We love a salvation that is completely
out of our hands. One is that it is accomplished
by a God who is able to save to the uttermost. We don't want
anything to do with our salvation. But men by nature are still doing
what Adam did. They're still sewing together
fig leaves to cover up their nakedness. And Adam didn't wear
those fig leaves as undergarments when the Lord slew that lamb
and clothed him with a fleece. No, he stripped him naked. When Nicodemus came to the Lord,
he dropped his robe. And so it is with us. We're thankful that the Lord
has put us to death that we might be made alive in Christ. But the natural man
doesn't want that. He doesn't, he won't, he won't
have his righteousness taken from him. Light has come into the world,
but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds
were evil. Men don't like being told that
their righteousnesses are as filthy rags before God. They
don't wanna hear that. They don't wanna hear that all
the good things that they're doing, that they're trusting in to give
them favor with God are actually the things that are gonna send
them to hell. They don't wanna hear that. We do, don't we? We're thankful. Thankful that the Lord Jesus
Christ has stripped us of our righteousness and clothed us
in the righteousness of Christ. We have a good hope now. We had
a false hope then. They made sport of him and they
hated him because He had killed their people. Nothing's changed. The natural man, the religious
man will mock the God that we love. They will. And they hate him
because he robs them of their life. Now in closing, I want us to
look at these two pillars. We won't turn there, but you
remember the story in 1 Kings chapter 7. David had left everything
required for the construction of the temple. David being a
man of war. The Lord said, because you're
a man of war, because you're a man of blood, you will not
be able to build the temple. So David provided everything
for his son. Solomon, whose name means a man
of peace, was the one who was going to construct the temple.
What a glorious picture we see of the Lord Jesus Christ being
our man of war, shedding his blood and pulling down the temple
of Dagon to deliver his people, and then sending his Holy Spirit
on the day of Pentecost, Solomon, the man of peace, to construct
the temple of God. And that's what he's doing right
now. He's building the church of God, calling out one by one,
everyone for whom Christ died. And Solomon, the scripture says,
built that temple on two main pillars, two main pillars. These were pillars of solid brass,
27 feet tall and 18 feet in diameter. That's what the temple that Solomon
built was built on. These are the two pillars of
truth. The church, the scripture says,
is built on the pillars and the ground of the truth. And those pillars cannot be taken
down. Now, Solomon named those two
temples, those two pillars. These 27 foot tall, 18 feet in
diameter pillars, Solomon named them, these brass pillars. And
he named the first one, Jacob. And the name means he will establish. And he named the second one Boaz,
which means fleetness. He will established by a quick
work of righteousness, the building of his church. Now, in contrast to that, What
do you suppose these two pillars of the temple of Dagon represent? Well, just the opposite. Just
the opposite. He has not established salvation. He hasn't finished the work of
redemption. There's more yet to be done.
We have to put in our part in order for him to be able to build,
in order for him to be able to put us into the church. We have
to pray this prayer. We have to perform this duty. We have to whatever, fill in
the blank. Every religion has a different
qualification that man has to do in order to be accepted with
God. No, the brass pillar is called
Jachin. The brass pillar says it is established. And that pillar cannot be taken
down. The Lord Jesus Christ in his dying breath cried, it is
finished. Everything that God requires
for the building of his temple and the saving of his people
was established by the Boaz, the fleetness of his work. Listen to Malachi chapter three,
verse one. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, shall
suddenly come into his temple, even the messenger of his covenant. Salvation is not, it's not a Dagon. It's not part
man and part fish. It's not part God and part man. It's not an evolutionary process. It's not, well, you know, if
I just work hard enough all my life, then maybe, maybe in my
dying breath, you know, God will accept me. He shall suddenly
come into his temple. Fleetness, Boaz. Isaiah chapter 48, I have declared
the former things from the beginning and they went forth out of my
mouth. I did them suddenly and they came to pass. Period. That's glorious. Every other pillar that man attempts
to build his salvation on, Samson's going to pull down. He's going to pull down. He has
pulled them down. But Jacob and Boaz, those pillars
of brass, Pillars on the ground of the truth, which is what the
church is. Oh, you and I, like Samson, wist
not that the Spirit of God has departed from us. We go on in the strength of our
flesh, presuming upon God so often, but the Lord remembers
that we're made of dust, and as a father pitieth his children,
he pitieth them. that fear Him. We have a God
who grinded out in the prison house the bread of life, was
made sport of and was mocked and was hated, that He might
have His eyes gouged out and be blind to our sin. He's pulled down the temple of
Dagon and he has set the prisoner free. He did for us what we could
not do for ourselves. What a strong man, what a savior,
what a God. Our heavenly father, we pray that you would As David prayed, not take thy
Holy Spirit from us, that you would give to us the joy of thy
salvation, that you would have pity on us and remind us,
Lord, of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and give
us hope in him. For it's in his name we pray.
32 in the Spiral Hymnal. Let's stand
together. Number 32.