Judges chapter 14 and verse 1. And Samson went down to Timnath
and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.
And he came up and told his father and his mother and said, I have
seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.
Now therefore get her for me to wife. Then his father and
his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the
daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou
goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said
unto his father, Get her for me, for she pleaseth me well. But his father and his mother
knew not that it was of the Lord, that he sought an occasion against
the Philistines, for at that time the Philistines had dominion
over Israel. Then went Samson down, and his
father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of
Timnath, and behold a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit
of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would
have rent a kid. And he had nothing in his hand,
but he told not his father or his mother what he had done.
And he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson
well. And after a time he returned
to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. And behold, there was a swarm
of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion. And he took thereof
in his hands and went on eating, and came to his father and mother,
and he gave them, and they did eat. But he told not them that
he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion. So his
father went down unto the woman, and Samson made there a feast,
for so used the young men to do. And it came to pass, when
they saw him, that they brought thirty companions to be with
him. And Samson said unto them, I
will now put forth a riddle unto you. If ye can certainly declare
it me within the seven days of the feast and find it out, then
I will give you 30 sheets and 30 change of garments. Those sheets were probably shirts,
what we call shirts. I will give you 30 sheets and
30 change of garments. But if ye cannot declare it me,
then shall ye give me thirty sheets and thirty change of garments.'
And they said unto him, Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear
it. And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat,
and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not
in three days expound the riddle. And it came to pass on the seventh
day, let me just say that's probably the Sabbath day. That's probably
what that seventh day means there. It would be the fourth day of
this feast. It came to pass on the seventh
day that they said unto Samson's wife, entice thy husband that
he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's
house with fire. Have ye called us to take that
we have? Is it not so? And Samson's wife
wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest
me not. Thou hast put forth a riddle
unto the children of my people, and hast not told it me. And he said unto her, Behold,
I have not told it my father, nor my mother, and shall I tell
it thee? And she wept before him the seven
days, while their feast lasted. And it came to pass on the seventh
day that he told her, because she lay sore upon him, and she
told the riddle to the children of her people. And the men of
the city said unto him on the seventh day, before the sun went
down, What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion? And he said unto them, If ye
had not ploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.
And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to
Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil,
and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and
he went up to his father's house. but Samson's wife was given to
his companion whom he had used as his friend. Amen. May the Lord bless this reading
to us. So this passage contains an account
of Samson marrying a Philistine woman, killing a lion and the
story of the swarm of the honeybees, setting a riddle to the people
who came to the wedding, being deceived by his wife and her
friends, and then Samson's anger and the start of a campaign of
fierce retribution against the Philistines. And just as we begin
to think about this man, Samson, I want to say two things, establish
two things that I think are important if we're properly going to understand
the story of Samson. The first one is this, that the
spirit of the Lord came upon Samson. The spirit of the Lord
coming upon someone is used in the Old Testament to describe
the means by which the Lord enabled and empowered individuals to
perform great works or to accomplish mighty acts. And indeed you'll
remember perhaps that we've already mentioned that the Spirit of
the Lord came upon several of the judges. We're explicitly
told that Othniel and Gideon and Jephthah and now Samson experienced
this coming of the Spirit of the Lord upon them. And it's
also true of the Lord Jesus in the New Testament. And in fact
what we find is that that Spirit of the Lord coming upon these
Old Testament characters, these judges in the Old Testament and
others, was a picture of the Spirit of the Lord being given
to the Lord Jesus Christ for the accomplishment of his great
task at the cross. And in the New Testament, we
see a picture We discover that the Lord, when he read the book
of Isaiah in the synagogue at the beginning of his ministry,
it's in Luke chapter 4, he says this, he reads these words, he
says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal
the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and the recovering of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. These were all the great tasks. This was the work of salvation,
the work of redemption, the work of deliverance that the Lord
Jesus Christ was going to perform. And he says, that the Spirit
of the Lord is upon me. We're told that in the synagogue
there was silence when the Lord read that passage out and then
he said, this day these things have been done in, or accomplished
in thy sight. So this was the Lord Jesus taking
to himself these Old Testament prophecies that he was indeed
the Messiah. Of course we've been reading
about that in Isaiah in our main sermons as well. But by this
spirit, Samson had great strength but he also had wisdom and he
had discernment and he had vision because the Lord was with him
and he knew that he had been called to a judicial role in
Israel. before it was revealed to others.
He knew that it was God's purpose to punish and to destroy Israel's
enemies, the Philistines, by him. So that's the first thing
that I want us to keep remembering about this story. That the Spirit
of the Lord was upon this man and that he knew that he had
a judicial role. He was the avenger of the people
of God in Israel. The second thing that we need
to remember about Samson is this. In that capacity, he looked for
opportunities to be offended by the Philistines. That might
sound a little bit odd, but he looked for opportunities to pick
a fight with the Philistines. He looked for a reason to bring
that vengeance, to bring that punishment, to bring that terror
upon them. I mention this because Samson's
actions are to be seen in the context of God's judgement against
the Philistines. God's judgment. Samson was the
vehicle. Samson was the means. Samson
was the tool. We would probably say the weapon
in the hand of God to bring about his vengeance on the Philistines
for troubling and harming the Lord's little ones within the
nation Israel. And we often find, so that's
the two points that I wanted to note, but just to move on
a little. We often find with these Old Testament characters
that there are parallels and pictures of the Lord's dealings
with sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ's sinner. This is the
type that we keep on talking about. And we might wonder, as
did Samson's parents, about the wisdom of Samson having anything
to do with the Philistines at all, given that this was his
position, given that this was his role. And yet, we sometimes
find that the Lord Jesus Christ is to be perceived in a similar
kind of way. Because in order to win his bride,
in order to gather his people, in order to judge sin in his
body, the Lord Jesus Christ had to come into the world, had to
come amongst sinners, had to make himself come from the glory,
come from the place of blessing into a wicked environment, into
this world. And he took our flesh on himself. The wisdom of God's gospel is
that the Lord Jesus Christ came to us when we were lost and helpless
in order to open up the way of salvation and life. Samson's
fight with this young lion reminds us that the Lord Jesus Christ
has fought for us against the devil, who goes about, as Peter
tells us, like a hungry lion, roaring and seeking whom he may
devour. and the sweetness from the honeybees
that he was able to collect from the lion's carcass some time
later, speaks of the fact that we have grace from out of the
lion's carcass. sin and the corruption that was
the corpse of this animal. There is a blessedness comes
from the Lord even out of the troubles and the afflictions
of this life. Despite all the pain and the
loss of Adam's sin, the Lord has brought forth sweetness and
good for it for the people of his choice. And then there was
the riddle that Samson set that couldn't be solved without cheating. And the young men threatened
Samson's new wife and her family if she did not get the answer
from him. By devious means, they gained
the answer. Lord Jesus, he speaks of thieves
and robbers who act deviously. They try to enter the sheepfold
by not using the door but by climbing up another way. This
was just a riddle. But when it comes to spiritual
matters, there is only one way to please God, and that is by
coming humbly to the door of the sheepfold by faith and seeking
mercy from the Lord. These men were too proud to accept
defeat, even on the simple thing of a riddle. And so they tried
to deceive Samson and to mock and to ruin him. And it seems
as if these men had won because Samson was obliged to go and
get these suits of clothes for them. Maybe you look around in
the world, maybe you look around in your life, maybe you look
around in your acquaintances and you think to yourself, you
know, these people that don't have any faith, these people
that don't have any desire to follow the Lord or any calling
to be part of a fellowship or to worship, they seem to be getting
on well. They seem to be succeeding, they
seem to be prospering in this world. And those who seek to
honour and follow the Lord, well, they seem to get left behind.
But the truth is, some only appear to prosper, and they do so only
at the cost of others. These 30 men, they were very
proud in their new suits and they went about strutting about
in their new suits, all very happy that they'd won this incident,
they'd won this prize. But it had cost another 30 men
their lives. And some people live their whole
lives trying to come out on top but never having any thought
about the Lord Jesus. The Lord says in Matthew chapter
6, He knows that you have need of food and drink and clothes. but seek first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added
unto you. So may the Lord enable us to
get our priorities right in this life and to seek first his kingdom
and a proper entrance into it by the door that is the Lord
Jesus. who tells us no man or woman
or boy or girl comes to the father but by me. I want to make one
final little point and then we're done today. Let us remember what
we said at the beginning The story of Samson is the history
of God's judgment upon the enemies of his people, the church. These
Philistines mocked Samson. But God isn't mocked. There is
judgment coming for all who sin against God. But we know too
by the message of salvation in the gospel, that there is mercy
and forgiveness to be found in coming humbly to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Like Samson, the Lord Jesus Christ
is strong to save. And just like Samson who gave
honey to his parents to sweeten their journey, the Lord Jesus
Christ will graciously share the blessings of his victories
with his people on their journey through life. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us. Amen.