Now, the story of Samson, beginning
in Judges chapter 13, and I thought, well, you know, I'm just gonna
kinda survey a little bit of Samson's life, because the story
of Samson is one of the most glaring examples in the scripture,
that the salvation of sinners is totally, 100% by grace, not
conditioned on us. but conditioned on Christ alone.
Because if you look at Samson, you know, God saves us, his chosen
people, from our sins in spite of those, when I say in spite
of those sins, I'm not saying that God doesn't take care of
the matter of sin, he does. I love that Psalm, I didn't cite
it here, but where it says, the Lord hath not dealt with us after
our sins. And what that shows is this,
it doesn't say the Lord hath not dealt with our sins because
he did deal with our sins on the cross as they were imputed
to Christ. And Christ died for those sins
and put away those sins and established justice, righteousness for us. So he dealt with our sins in
Christ, but he didn't deal with us after our sins in an eternal
way. Sometimes the Lord, according
to His sovereign will, deals with us after our sins in a temporal
way. Samson's a good example of that.
We're gonna talk about the consequences of sin. Now, we can't say that
whenever, even as believers, If we make bad choices, sinful
choices, like Samson did, like men like David did, or like Lot
did, and we do that, we can't say that we always suffer even
temporal consequences, but sometimes we do. But thank God we don't
suffer the eternal consequences of sin. That's eternal death
and damnation. But Samson, he's a contradiction. There used to be a song I sang
about a guy who said, he's a walking contradiction, partly truth and
partly fiction. And that's the way Samson was.
He's listed, along with Gideon and others of the judges, in
Hebrews 11, in the Hall of Faith. And the beginning of his life
was a miracle birth, that's what you'll find in Judges 13. And
we'll see, that's one way he's a type of Christ. Samson's mother
was barren. She couldn't have children. But
the angel of the Lord, Christ himself, came down and told her,
says, you're gonna have a child. And he's gonna be dedicated to
the Lord. He's gonna take a Nazarite vow. We'll talk about that in
just a minute. But here's the point. Our whole salvation, all
the way from the new birth to final glory, is all of the Lord
and all conditioned on Him. And at no time, not even one
second of our lives can we say, now it's up to me to keep this
thing going. Now I'm gonna talk about that
in the main message when I talk about the call to persevere.
The Bible says we're to persevere in the faith, we're to continue,
we're to set our minds and our hearts to continue in the faith. But the only reason, the only
way we can do that is by the power and goodness and grace
of God in Christ who preserves us. And sometimes we'll be up,
sometimes we'll be down. But here, when you look at Samson, as I said, we can see in his
life that God saves people who don't deserve salvation. Samson
didn't deserve it, but now here's the thing we ought to think of.
Neither do I deserve it. I ought to see this, this fact
of salvation by grace based upon the righteousness of Christ,
I ought to see that just as glaringly in myself as I do when I read
about Samson and all the things he did wrong. To me, that's what
the Lord shows us, that I'm no different. in the essence of
my person and what I deserve. I'm no different than Samson.
Now there's a lot of things Samson did that I haven't done and I
hope I never do. But I'm just, I'm no more deserving
of the salvation and the blessings and the benefits of it than Samson. Because I'm a sinner saved by
grace. And that's why we ought to thank
God every day that we're blessed. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. If God charged us with our sins,
where would we be? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's leg? Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputed righteousness without works. I see that in myself just
as much I see it when I read these verses here, these chapters
here in Judges about this man, Samson. Now chapter 13 records
Samson's birth. And then it goes on in chapter
14, 15, 16, it records his life as a judge. He was a judge in
Israel. This is the time of the judges.
And remember these judges now, they weren't law court judges. They were mighty people, men,
and there was one woman, Deborah, and they were heroes, deliverers. to help Israel through this period
of time. And then lastly, it records Samson's
tragic death, but also it's a triumphant death. And it's hard to see it
that way, but that's what it is. It's very tragic, but it
was also triumphant. And so, We see his great feats
of strength when the Spirit of God came upon him. And in this
sense, now every true believer, I believe even in the Old Testament,
the Holy Spirit resides within every true believer. I don't
believe that's a New Testament phenomenon. I believe it was
Old Testament, New Testament, they're born again. But for specific
purposes, for God to act in this world amongst his people, There
were special powers and presences of the Holy Spirit that would
come and go. And so you're gonna see times
in here when Samson, when he acted, when the Holy Spirit,
I'm trying to find it here, when the Spirit of God came upon him.
Now it's not that the Spirit of God was not in him as a believer. You know, listen, the reason
we have such a warfare within ourselves is because of the warfare
of the Spirit, that's the Holy Spirit, against our flesh. And
the Holy Spirit has given us a spirit, that means spiritual
life within, and we have a fight within. But the reason that that
flesh, our flesh, which is our sinful human nature, doesn't
overtake us is because of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
And I think about that verse in 1 John chapter three when
it talks about a believer, one who's born of God cannot sin,
meaning he cannot apostatize, he cannot totally leave Christ
because he's born of God. We have the spirit of life. We
have the third person of the Trinity residing in us. But now
there were times that the spirit would descend on these men and
women in the Old Testament and give them special powers, like
Samson's strength. You know, whenever we think of
Samson, you think of a strong man, don't you? Somebody who
killed a lion, who took the jawbone of a donkey and killed 1,000
Philistines, all that's there. And then there were times that
the Spirit of God left him, left him on his own, and he made such
bad choices. So when we see that, we're gonna
see his great feats of triumph when the Spirit of God was with
him. And then we're gonna see his great acts of sin and weaknesses
when the Spirit of God left him. And when he suffered, Samson,
he was a womanizer, he was a vengeful man, all of that. And we see how sin has its consequences
sometimes, even in God's people, because Samson suffered greatly. With all the great things that
God enabled him to do, He suffered greatly. And most of you know
the story, even from children's Bible stories about Samson. But
that could be a reminder to us all that even though, thank God,
we don't suffer even the temporal consequences of all our sins,
sometimes we do. Sometimes we make bad choices
and it comes home to roost, as they say. And the Lord preserves
us through all that, like he preserved Samson. Samson was
saved by the grace of God. Now the death of, here Samson
had, I've gotten your lesson, he had great victories against
the Philistines. Now that was the foreign invader,
the foreign nation that was bothering Israel at this time, the Philistines.
And you remember Goliath was a Philistine, you know, later
on. And it said, but ultimately, Samson, with all the great feats
of strength, he was brought down by an idolatrous Philistine woman. You know who she is, Delilah.
We always hear that Samson and Delilah. Had his hair cut. Incidentally, his strength didn't
lie in his hair. That was just a symbol of where
his strength lied, was, which was in that Nazarite vow to where
he was dedicated to the Lord. And then, whereas before Samson
defeated multitudes of Philistines, when he stood at the fire, he
was unaware later on that the Lord had departed from him, the
Holy Spirit, and he was captured by the Philistines, they gouged
out his eyes, you know the story, and how he prayed to God, give
me just one more time that I can avenge myself and avenge the
Lord God, and how they put him in the temple of Dagon. That
was their god. Samson was brought to the temple
of Dagon so that the Philistines could make fun of him and publicly
ridicule him and say, look what we've done. Look what our god
Dagon has done. And you remember the story how
Samson, they put him between those two pillars in the house
of the idol. And he prayed to the Lord. We'll
look at that in just a moment. And he brought that house down
on himself. as well as about 3,000 Philistines. So let's look at that. So when
you see all these things, when you see all the sins and the
failings and the weaknesses of Samson, you might ask the question,
how in the world can this guy be a type of Christ who never
sinned? Christ never sinned. The perfect
God-man, that's who Christ is. He was the impeccable God-man.
He had some weaknesses in the flesh because the Bible says
Christ as man, he's God in human flesh, without sin, and he had
the infirmities of the flesh, the weaknesses of a created being,
which is not referring to his deity now, but to his humanity.
And you remember how he got hungry, he wept, he suffered pain and
agony, all of that, but without sin. And he didn't deserve what
he got, except only in the sense of our sins imputed to him. So here's Christ, the God-man,
the Messiah, the mighty deliverer, who's a perfect God-man, and
the only way he was made sin was by the imputation of our
sins to him. How in the world could this Samson
typify him? Well, let me give you several
ways here. We'll look at them. Samson typified Christ in his
miraculous birth. And that's in Judges 13. This
is the story of Samson. Look at verse one, the children
of Israel did evil. And again, in the side of the
Lord, we're always, that's a common description of Israel, isn't
it? That's a good picture of us by nature. Children of Israel
did evil again in the sight of the Lord. They do it again and
again and again and again and again, don't they? We're gonna
see that when we get to the book of Ruth, how the book of Judges
closes. Said everybody did what was right
in their own eyes. Sounds like our day, doesn't
it? And then the book of Ruth opens where they're under judgment.
And there's a famine in the land. And it said, and the Lord delivered
them into the hand of the Philistines 40 years. Could you imagine that? And there was a certain man of
Zorah of the family of the Danites, that's the tribe of Dan, whose
name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and bare
not. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said
unto her, behold now thou art barren and barest not, but thou
shalt conceive and bear a son. That's a pre-incarnate visitation
of Christ. You can read on in the chapter.
And he revealed to Samson's mother that she was going to have that
miraculous birth. She also says, look here at verse four. He says, now therefore beware
I pray thee and drink not wine nor strong drink and eat not
any unclean thing for lo thou shalt conceive and bear a son
and no razor shall come on his head for the child shall be a
Nazarite unto God from the womb and he shall begin to deliver
Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. He's gonna take
the Nazarite vow. You can read about that back
in the book of Numbers and several other places. But what that was,
it was a special dedication of a person unto the Lord in which
they would separate themselves from the rest of their peers
and they would live totally for the glory of God. And one of
those things, they wouldn't cut their hair, they wouldn't drink
wine, they wouldn't eat any unclean thing. But here's the point.
Samson was a type of Christ because his birth was a miracle of God.
And so it was in the case of our Savior. God sent an angel
to reveal to Mary, who was a virgin, that she would conceive and bear
a son and he would be the Savior of sinners. Read about it in
Luke chapter one. Christ's conception and his birth
were miracles as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb
of the Virgin. He's God and man in one person. And that's an amazing thing,
what the old theologians used to call the hypostatic union.
You know what they meant by that? It was simply this, that when
Christ, when God the Son, was united to his sinless humanity,
there was no mixture or mingling of his deity and his humanity. And the reason that is, you can't
mix deity and humanity. I hear these people talking about
how when they're born again, I heard several people talk about
how, well, God creates within us a perfect divine nature. that cannot sin and cannot be
contaminated? Well, you can't, first of all,
you can't create a divine, anything that's by nature divine cannot
be created. Because if that nature is divine,
it has no beginning and no end. That's the nature of deity. And
when you're born again, God doesn't make you a little God or some
kind of a lesser God, see? And so when Christ in his deity
was united, there was no intermingling or mixture of the two, but there
was a union of the two. We can put it in feeble human
terms, we might say side by side, I don't know. But he's very much
God and he's very much man, there was no intermingling or mixture
of the two, that's the person of Christ and it's a miracle.
It's an amazing miracle. And we cannot explain it all.
And that's okay, isn't it? Isn't it okay with you if you
can't explain everything about God? What we can explain is what
God reveals to us. And so Samson was a type of Christ
in that miracle birth. That's chapter 13. Well, here's
the second thing. Samson typified Christ in this. The people he would deliver were
sinful and depraved. Look over at chapter 13, in verse
one it says again, the children of Israel did evil again in the
sight of the Lord. These weren't people who deserved
the goodness of God. Isn't that right? These weren't people who had
earned it. These were people who deserved nothing but hell.
And that's what we are. If we're gonna talk about what
I've earned and what I deserve, then we better just talk about
damnation, and that's it. Because salvation's by grace,
but God was good to these people out of his mercy because he had
a purpose for them, and that was to bring the Messiah through
this nation. But Samson was their deliverer. And God sent him a deliverer.
And he continually does that throughout their existence of
that 1500 year period of the old covenant. He kept them together.
Now they were punished. Sometimes they were scattered.
Sometimes they were put in captivity under other nations. But God
still managed in his sovereign will and providence and power
to keep them together until the appointed time. And especially
you'll notice that in the tribe of Judah. Remember when the nation
Israel was split after Solomon, 10 tribes went to the north,
and then Judah and Benjamin went to the south. And even Benjamin
and the 10 tribes to the north, they were captured and scattered
by the Assyrian army. Isaiah talks about that. And
then in the South, later on, when Jeremiah was prophet, at
the end of his prophecy, they were captured by Nebuchadnezzar
and the Babylonians. But God still kept that tribe
of Judah together because that's the tribe from whom Christ was
coming. So God works in his providence. But Samson is a type of Christ
in that the ones he would deliver were sinful people. Now Samson
was a sinner too. He didn't typify Christ that
way. Samson personally didn't tip, but as a deliverer, he was
a type of Christ. Well, Christ came into the world
to save who? Sinners, of whom we are chief. He came to call sinners to repentance.
He told the Pharisees there. He said, the whole need not a
physician. I didn't come here to save a righteous. The righteous
don't need me. You see, if you can be righteous
in yourself, you don't need Christ. That's the truth. He said, I
came to call sinners to repentance, and that's, in our sin and our
depravity and our spiritual death, we've all, just like in Samson's
day, they all, later on, they turned against him. Look over
at chapter 15. This gets into Samson's life as a judge, but
look down at verse nine. Chapter 15, it says, Then the
Philistines went up and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves
in Lehi. And the men of Judah said, why
are you come up against us? And they answered, the Philistines
were coming to bind Samson, are we come up to do to him as he
have done to us. We want vengeance on Samson because
he'd already killed many of the Philistines. Verse 11 says, then
3,000 men of Judah, Now this is 3,000 of Samson's brethren
in the flesh. Went to the top of the rock Edom
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, look at
verse 12, they said unto him, we're come down to bind thee
that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines.
They turned against Samson, they're gonna give him over. to the Philistines. He was their deliverer. He was
the only hope they had against the Philistines. And now they've
turned against him. And Samson said unto them, swear
unto me that you will not fall upon me, you yourselves. And
verse 13 says, they spake not unto him saying, no, but we will
bind thee fast and deliver thee into their hands, but surely
we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new
cords and brought him up from the rock. They handed him over
to the Philistines. Well, he's a type of Christ there.
Because isn't that what we did to the Lord Jesus, our Savior? In that which is pictured in
humanity turning against Christ, remember Acts chapter four? How
the kings of the earth, the Jews and the Gentiles, all turned
against God's holy child, Jesus. By nature, what were we? Enemies of God. alienated in
our minds by wicked works. And what did he do for us? He
delivered us from the kingdom of darkness, which we were members
of by nature in our state, natural state, into the kingdom of God's
dear Son. So just like these people turn
against their deliverer, that's what we do by nature. And that's
why we, if anything else shows us that we do not deserve salvation,
doesn't that? The very one who was sent to
deliver God's elect. And God's elect by nature are
no different than the children of wrath. That's what Ephesians
2, you hath he quickened who were dead and trespasses in,
who walked according to the prince of the power of the air. That's
us. And so, but God. in mercy, wherewith His great
love, wherewith He loved us. What kind of love is that? That's
unconditional love. What kind of love is it? That's
love that accomplishes the salvation of His people. You see, that's
what happened. And so we turned against Him,
but by the power of His cross death and the power of the Spirit,
God has delivered us through Christ. into the kingdom of his
dear son. All right, here's the third thing.
Samson typified Christ as like Christ, he was separated unto
God. Now that's that Nazarite vow. And that's what the angel
told Samson's mother, no razor shall come upon his head, for
the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb. That's
his separation. God separated him out from his
nation. to be that deliverer, and these
were all signatures and signs, the long hair, the total abstinence,
and all of that. Well, Christ was separated out
too. He was a Nazarene, and God the
Father set him apart. But you know, we look at this,
and somebody says, well, that means he couldn't drink wine
either. No, he did drink wine, he made wine. And the reason
that Samson was not to drink any strong drink is because Samson
apparently couldn't handle it. And that's why God separated
him out. And it was common in these idolatrous
practices that the Hebrew people, the Israelites, allowed and were
engaged in, that drunkenness was a part of it. And that is
sinful. So Samson was separated out from
them. Well, our Lord was separated
in other ways. Number one is person. God and
man in one person. Number two, his sinlessness. He knew no sin. He did no sin. But he was separated out from
the crowd when he was set to die. I think it's in Isaiah. I didn't cite that in your lesson,
but it talks about how he walked the winepress alone Oh, everybody
forsook him. He was separated out. You see,
it was by one offering. By one offering, Christ hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. He didn't have any
help. Now, the Spirit was with him. I'll talk to you about that
in just a moment. The Holy Spirit, but as far as his disciples,
they ran and they hid. Peter denied him three times.
But here's another thought on that. God the Father set his
son apart before the foundation of the world to be the surety
and the savior of his people. That's why Paul talked about
salvation that was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. That's amazing, isn't it? Well, here's the fourth thing.
Samson typified Christ when he defeated the enemies of Israel.
He acted in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of the
Lord began to move Samson. The Spirit of the Lord came mighty
upon him. Several times through these chapters,
it talks about that, these verses. And that was the same of Christ.
The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit descended upon him. You
remember that? When he was at his baptism, the
Spirit of God descended upon him like a dove and the Father
spoke from heaven, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well
pleased. The Bible speaks of Jesus being
full of the Holy Ghost, led by the Spirit. He had the Spirit
without measure. He returned in the power of the
Spirit. He said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. So he had
the full measure of the Holy Spirit. Now in Samson, the Spirit
came and went, but not on Christ. And then fifthly, Samson typified
Christ as he was mighty to overcome his enemies. Samson was a strong man. But
even as strong as he was, the feats that he accomplished in
defeating the Philistines had to be of the Lord. I mean, you
think about it. Over there in chapter 15, and
look at verse 15. It says, and he found a new jawbone
of an ass and put forth his hand and took it and slew a thousand
men therewith. The only weapon he had was an
old dead donkey. He got the jawbone and slew a
thousand people. Now as strong as Samson was,
that had to be of the Lord, right? There was no doubt that this
deliverance and this defeat of the Philistines was of God. And that's the way our salvation
is. It's all of God. But Christ, you know, think about
this one. Samson took a dead bone and slew
a thousand. Christ hanged upon a dead piece
of wood, a cross, and he slew all of the enemies of his people.
He slew sin, Satan, the curse of the law, and he provided every
means to bring us unto himself. That's what he did by one offering
again. He's the mighty conqueror. He's the mighty deliverer. And
He overcome all of our enemies. The flesh, He's overcome it.
The world, He said, be of good cheer. I've overcome the world.
And our sins, which are so much against us, cannot be charged
to us because He took them to the cross and shed His blood
as the full payment of all our sins. And so what do we have? We have righteousness imputed
to us. and therefore we cannot be defeated.
Here's the sixth thing. Samson typified Christ as he
was mocked and abused by his enemies and his own people. Now
this may be the same as number two, but I think I wanted to
mark this out because Christ, when he was put on trial, he
was mocked, he was derided, he was whipped, he was falsely accused. They put a crown of thorns on
his head and we took him to the crawl. And that's a specific
thing. Samson had to undergo that too.
His people mocked him. And certainly the Philistines
mocked him when they put him in the house of Dagon and they
brought him out publicly and they were talking about, look
at what our God's done to their deliverer. And I think about
Christ hanging on that cross. Here's a man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief. That's who he is, despised, rejected
of men. And yet in that death, he conquered
all his enemies. That brings us to the last one.
Samson typified Christ as he destroyed more enemies by his
death than he ever did in his life. Look over it, Judges 16. And you can read all this whole
story. It's just interesting. Here's Samson, brought out to
be publicly ridiculed As they're praising their idol, Dagon, Samson,
he'd been, they cut his hair, they gouged his eyes out, and
they put him to work in prison. He was grinding out grain in
prison, that's what he was doing. And then they put him out there,
and then look at Judges 16, look at verse 30. Samson said, let
me die with the Philistines. When I read that, I thought about
us. By nature, what are we? Philistines, we've always been
God's elect, God's people. But as we're born into this world,
into that sinful state, we're no better off than the Philistines.
And it says, 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. Some say about 3,000 Philistines died there, but Samson died with
them. And that reminds me of Christ,
who died and slew all of our enemies, and we died with him
as our deliverer. When he died, we died. When he was buried, we were buried.
When he arose again, we arose again. So by his death has been
the death of death, as old John Owen used to say, the death of
death and the death of Christ. What an enemy. He's robbed, 1
Corinthians 15, Christ has robbed death of its sting, he's robbed
the grave of its terrors, he's robbed sin of its power to condemn,
and Satan, his authority, any authority Satan had is gone over
his people. And so if Samson was a mighty
deliverer of his people in a limited way, Christ is the mighty deliverer
of his people in an eternal way. And that's how Samson typifies
Christ.