So Judges chapter 16 and verse 4. And it came to pass, we're speaking
about Samson, it came to pass afterward that he loved a woman
in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. The lords of
the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, Entice
him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means
we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him,
and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of
silver. And Delilah said to Samson, Tell
me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherein
thou mightest be bound to afflict thee? And Samson said unto her,
If they bind me with seven green widths that were never dried,
then shall I be weak and be as another man. Then the lords of
the Philistines brought up to her seven green widths which
had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now there were
men lying in wait, abiding with her in the chamber, and she said
unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. and he break
the widths as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the
fire, so his strength was not known. And Delilah said unto
Samson, Behold, thou hast mocked me and told me lies. Now tell
me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said
unto her, If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were
occupied, then shall I be weak and be as another man. Delilah
therefore took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said
unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there
were lyres in weight abiding in the chamber, and he break'd
them from off his arms like a thread. And Delilah said unto Samson,
hitherto thou hast mocked me and told me lies, tell me wherewith
thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, if thou
weavest the seven locks of my head with the web, and she fastened
it with the pin, and said unto him, the Philistines be upon
thee, Samson, and he awaked out of his sleep and went away with
the pin of the beam and with the web. And she said unto him,
How canst thou say I love thee, when thine heart is not with
me? Thou hast mocked me these three
times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth. And
it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and
urged him so that his soul was vexed unto death, that he told
her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor
upon mine head, for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's
womb. If I be shaven, then my strength
will go from me, and I shall become weak and be like any other
man. When Delilah saw that he had
told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the
Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath showed
me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines
came up unto her and brought money in their hand. And she
made him sleep upon her knees, and she called for a man, and
she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head. And
she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And
she said, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke
out of his sleep and said, I will go out as at other times before
and shake myself. And he wished 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. Howbeit, the hair of his head
began to grow again after he was shaven. Amen. May God be pleased to bless to
us this reading from his word. Whenever the name of Samson is
mentioned, the name Delilah is never far behind. Samson had judged the people
of Israel for 20 years, and we don't know a thing. about what transpired during
those 20 years. Nothing is mentioned about what
he did in those 20 years. From that time when he slew all
the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, all of 20 years transpired
and we don't know what happened in that time. We don't know all
the good that he did in that time. but we know about the bad that
he did in this episode here. We know about this sin that he
committed. We know about the lust of Samson. We know about the lies of Samson. And we know about the eyes of
Samson. And I think there's a little
lesson here for us right at the very outset of today's thoughts,
that all the good that a man does and all the good that a
woman does can be largely forgotten and overshadowed by one foolish
action, one foolish mistake, and a whole lifetime of faithfulness
and uprightness and honour to the Lord can be lost. Sin is a little bit like a mouse
trap. That's an interesting analogy.
And you're the mouse. You're the mouse. And the devil
tempts and he says, look how attractive this is. Look how
pretty. Look, look, look, look how much
satisfaction, how much pleasure this would give you. Look how
desirable this is. And because of our flesh, we
find it so easy to be drawn towards those things which attract us. And we follow the passions of
our hearts and the desires of our flesh and snap. Gotcha. Just like that. Just as easy as that. That's
how sin creeps up on a man. That's how sin takes a woman.
That's how the circumstances of our life can change so quickly
because of one foolish mistake. And don't talk to me of free
will. You see, people say that men are free to follow God or
not follow God as they choose to do it. Who gave you the strength? to follow God? Who gave you the
strength to withstand temptation? Who gave you the smartness, the
intelligence to know that that was a mousetrap there? Now free
will, you look at the life of Samson. Here was a man of whom
it was said he was of such faith that the world was not worthy
of him. And yet here he is in the arms
of this Lady Delilah. Not too much is said about her,
but I don't think that any of us can have much doubt that the
way in which she acted and the things that she did and the way
in which she was motivated would suggest to us that she was really
not the person that Samson should have been spending time with.
He does not appear to have been a man who was very wise with
his choice of women and who to love. But I want to point out
one thing here that I think is important, and we're going to
return to this later. Samson loved this girl. He loved
her. That's what we're told in Scripture.
It wasn't just lust. It wasn't just desire. He loved
her. And I want to return to that
passion in a little while. In 1 John 2, verse 16, we are
reminded that there is a blindness that comes
upon all men and women with regard to spiritual things. The verse
says, all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust
of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the father, but
of the world. And Samson proved that verse
to be true. He had been enticed, he had been
attracted, he had been drawn to this lady, to this girl. And now he lies in her company. In Numbers chapter 32 and verse
23, we read these words. Ye have sinned against the Lord,
and be sure your sin will find you out. There is a saying which
goes something like, there are none so blind as those who will
not see. And it takes the Lord to open
the eyes of a sinner and to show them the Lord Jesus Christ and
to show them how weak they are, how inadequate they are, how
impossible it is for them to save themselves and how they
must repent of their sins and find all of their salvation in
the Lord Jesus Christ alone. I took time to read the whole
narrative of Delilah and I read it slowly. I trust in a way that
should be understandable to most people here. The narrative is
very simple. It's straightforward. Even a
child can understand. So what I want to do this morning,
if I may, and I appreciate my time's short and I appreciate
that some of you people have got claims to catch, so I want
to just draw four simple points to your attention this morning.
To take four statements from this passage and to endeavour
to bring out some spiritual lessons for our hearts. The first one
is this. Delilah's statement, the Philistines
be upon you, is repeated several times. And I think it speaks
to us of the nature of temptation and of sin. What do I mean? Delilah said
to Samson, Samson, the Philistines be upon you. You are already too deep. in sin by the time you realise
your predicament. That's what that message tells
us. Samson, the Philistines are upon
you. What was he doing in that girl's
bedroom? What was he doing spending his
time in that lady's house? Why was he there? He was a judge
in Israel. He had responsibilities. He had a divine duty to God. He had been set apart as a servant
of God to a great task. What is he doing here? Samson,
it's too late. When the Philistines are upon
you, you're already gone. And it's something that we need
to remember too, that sin lulls a man and a woman to sleep. And in their sleep, It binds
them with ropes. It binds them with widths. It
binds them with a loom. It sends in a barber. And it's
already too late. The Philistines are upon you.
When you waken up to realise the state of your predicament,
it's already too late. And that's the nature of sin. How many people have got to that
point in their life and they've had to say, I'm sorry, I didn't
realise what was happening. And yet it happens all the time. Men sleep in the bosom of Delilah
until it is too late and the judgment of God comes upon them. And we preach the gospel, we
preach the gospel with the hope of wakening men and women up
out of their slumber. To show them that there is danger
lying, lurking at every step. To rouse them from that deadly
sleep that will take them to a lost eternity, that will take
them to hell, except God the Holy Spirit stirs up their souls
and they are bestirred from the wrath that is to come. In Ezekiel chapter 33 verse 11
we read these words. As I live, saith the Lord God,
I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked
turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil
ways, for why will you die? Why will you die? Waking up Can't
you see the danger that you're in? Can't you see that sin is
so deeply ingrained in your life that your very will is twisted
and contorted to the pursuit of evil and wickedness and lust? Can't you see that? Waken up!
The Philistines are upon you! How can we pass from this moment and that thought
by not reminding ourselves too that the way of salvation is
found in this simple fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has borne
the judgment for the sins that we have committed. We remember
how the body of the Lord was subject to the cruelty and the
viciousness and the attacks of the devil, the abuse of men,
and finally the unmitigated wrath of God upon his soul. And he suffered for the sake
of his precious people. The Philistines came upon the
Lord He felt the wrath and the judgment of God and man upon
his soul. When we come to the gospel, we
are called to look away from ourselves and see the Lord Jesus
Christ in all that he suffered. For the sake of his precious
people, surely the Philistines came upon the Lord Jesus Christ,
that he might deliver us out of the hands of our enemies. Here's another thing I want to
mention to you from these verses. It says that the soul of Samson
was vexed unto death. I think that's a very interesting
statement. We're told that this girl had
come several times with these attempts to find out where his
strength laid. And she came repeatedly and she
said to him that he had betrayed her trust. But we read at the
opening of this verse, 4, that it came to pass afterwards that
he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. And I don't want to minimise
the fact that that is what the Bible says. He loved her. And so when I come to verse 16
and I read there, it came to pass when she pressed him daily
with her words and urged him so that his soul was vexed unto
death. I find myself thinking, what? Samson's soul was vexed unto
death. I think it's a very interesting
statement. To death. A destructive dilemma had entered
into Samson's soul. Now listen carefully. This man was a Nazirite from
his birth. He was a judge in Israel. He was a man anointed of God,
a man upon whom the Spirit of God rested, a man who was empowered
mightily on numerous occasions by God the Holy Spirit, but he
was a man of flesh. He was a man subject to like
passions, such as we are. Harry Nielsen once sang, I can't
live if living is without you. I bet that's the only Sovereign
Grace sermon preached this morning where Harry Nielsen is quoted. That was Samson's situation.
He couldn't live without Delilah. He couldn't live without that
girl. a man of God. A judge in Israel
had become so engaged with this girl, so full of her charms,
so touched by her passions, so softened by her love towards
him. It appeared, at least to him,
that he was blinded before he was blinded. He was smitten with
love. And when she said to him, Samson,
you've deceived me these three times. You haven't told me. You
don't love me. You don't trust me. There's a
breach between us. Will you tell me all your heart
or not? He was faced with a dilemma.
Am I going to have this girl or not? and his soul was vexed unto death. Life would be empty without her.
The trial of being without her was too great. Dying seemed preferable
to not having his Delilah. Can you imagine that? That's
what this verse is telling us. Life under some other circumstances
he couldn't face if he didn't have the... Listen, let's not
be too critical of this man. That's what love does to people. That's what happens. This is
speaking to us with such earnestness, such honesty, that here is a
man who is so besoried, so much touched in his heart and in his
soul with this girl, that he can't see beyond himself. And
which one of us would want to say that we could handle the
situation better? Remember, this was one of those
of whom it was said the world was not worthy. He was a man
of faith. He was a hero of the faith. And
yet here he is vexed unto death. He would rather die than be without
the woman that he loved. Even although she was a devious
schemer. And I don't think that I'm pressing
this picture too far to point out again to you how much the
Lord Jesus Christ loved the church, loved his people, even when we
were devious schemers. There's pictures of the Lord
Jesus Christ in Samson's life even here. The church, sinful,
adulterous that she was, much like Delilah, brought him into
this world in order to die for her redemption. The Philistines be upon thee.
Sin just creeps up very easily. His soul was vexed unto death. He loved that girl even to the
point that he couldn't go on if he didn't have her. And here's
the third one. He wist not, he knew not that
the Lord was departed from him. Something very sad in this statement
here about the fact that the Lord had departed from
Samson and he didn't even know that that had taken place. There's
something disconcerting in that statement that the man of God
didn't know that the Lord was no longer with him. I think that the situation of
an individual is doubly dire if they think they have the Lord
with them and they don't. There's lots of people out there
who have no thought about God being with them. But there are
many people out there who think that God is with them. And maybe
there are some people in here who think that God is with them.
And they don't know that the Spirit of the Lord had departed.
Would you know? How would you know? How would
you know if the Spirit of the Lord had departed from you? The religious world is convinced
that it has God's peace. that it has God's forgiveness,
that it has God's love, that it knows something of the grace
of God. That's what religion does. It
teaches people, it tells people that they have all of these attributes,
all of these qualities of God as theirs, as their portion.
And they are going to hell. with that lie in their hand,
with that lie reverberating in their ears, that everything is
all right, everything is going to be fine. How would you know? Somebody had told you, yes, you're
saved. Yes, your sins are forgiven.
Yes, the Lord loves you. Yes, you're going to heaven.
How would you know if you weren't? That's the deception, the great
deception. It's a pitiful state and such
people have become immune to the gospel. They're too self-righteous
to see that they have a need. They're blinded by the fact that
they haven't got Christ. They imagine that all is well
with their soul. and they march in step with the
world underneath the banner of a false hope. It's like the Pharisee and the
publican that went up to the temple to pray. And one said, look at all the
blessings that God has given me, and I'm glad I'm not like
these other people. And the other said, God, be merciful
to me, a sinner. That's the man that I want to
spend time with. That's the man that I want to
know. That's the person that knows he has a need before God. In Mark chapter two, verse 17,
the Lord says, they that are whole have no need of the physician,
but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. And I wonder what went through
the mind of that man, Samson, when he stood up and it wasn't
ropes or widths or the loom that was binding his hair on this
occasion. His hair had been cut while he
slept. His hair had been cut and he
stood up and he said, I'll do what I always do. And he didn't
know that the Lord had departed from him. He didn't know. that
the Lord had departed from him. And shall we not remember that
the Father departed from the Son there on the cross? Shall we not remember that for
the sake of the salvation of the elect, that Christ was forsaken
upon the cross. There, of course, we know full
well that the Saviour was fully cognizant, fully aware that he
had been so abandoned. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? But that was the price of redemption.
That was what had to happen. That one had to come under as
a substitute, as a surety, as one who stood in the place of
another. He had to come under that very judgment of being abandoned
by God. And in those moments of separation
upon the cross, in those hours of darkness, the Lord Jesus Christ
took upon Himself the weight of the sin and the guilt and
the iniquity of His people, and He carried the price of that. He carried the weight of that
sin, that burden. And we have no idea what the
soul of our blessed Lord endured through His life in the garden,
on the cross, and especially in those hours of darkness. My
prayer this morning, my hope, is that this gospel, this gospel
of Jesus Christ the Substitute, Jesus Christ, the only way of
salvation, will rouse you from your lethargy, will quicken you
from that spiritually dead state that you are in. will show that
there is a way of salvation to you and enable you to lay hold
upon that and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. God forbid that
you arrive someday at the gates of hell imagining that you are
one of the Lord's people when you are not. This is a matter
upon which you must not, you cannot be mistaken. Matthew 7, 23 says, and then
will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me ye that
work in equity. Now I feel these words are challenging
and I know that they are and I don't apologise for them. For
I can't make any assumptions about your soul. But I'm glad that I can end on
a positive note. And here's the fourth point.
The hair of his head began to grow again. Samson had betrayed
the Lord. Samson betrayed the Lord in this
episode of his life. Samson chose Delilah over Christ. Samson stumbled in his faith
and he fell into sin. But I am glad to be able to tell
you this morning that he fell in Christ and he did not fall
away from Christ. Though he forgot the Lord, the
Lord did not forget him. And he's not forgotten you. He's not forgotten you. There is a way back. There is
that gate, that beautiful gate, that opens to those who come,
repenting of sin and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and
in the power of his blood. What a sad state Samson was brought
to. It speaks here about five stages
of torment that they imposed upon that man. Verse 21, the
Philistines took him. They put out his eyes. They brought
him down to Gaza, the strongest city that they had. They bound
him with fetters of brass. That's in plural, fetters of
brass. They wrapped chains around him. And he did grind in the prison
house. They got him, they mocked him
even in his strengthlessness. Is that a word? They mocked him
and they made him push the beam of the grinding stones to mill
out the flour in the midst of the prison because he had the
reputation of being strong and mighty. But time passed. and his hair began to grow. His strength returned. And the
strength wasn't in his hair. The strength was in his faith. He began to realise, he began
to commune with God again. He saw the error of his way,
he saw the mistakes that he made, and he saw that there was a way
back. I say this, Samson's trials led
him back to Christ. What torment he faced when his
eyes were taken. What torment he faced when he
was bound in chains and made to grind at the millstone in
the prison. What mockery he endured. And yet in the midst of his trials,
as a true child of God, as one of the elect of God, as one of
those for whom Christ died, as one of those for whom the precious
blood of Jesus Christ had been shed, God the Holy Spirit returned
to this man and caused him to lean once again upon God and
not upon his own strength. So I say this to you, there is
hope, there is hope. You say, he's chained, he's blind,
he's laboring, he's mocked. No good can come of this. What
good can come out of these circumstances in my life? What benefits are
there to be had in all of this trial that I'm facing? Samson's
case was hopeless. No, it wasn't. And nor is your
case hopeless. God's ways are not our ways.
God's purposes are beyond us. And Samson would rise again. All you've suffered, all the
experiences that have brought you to this place, to this moment,
to this church, to this gospel, to this Christ, it will be worth
it all. if you find Christ and if you
go on in the strength of God in your life. In the loneliness
of the prison cell, his hair began to grow. Despite the darkness
of his sightless eyes, his hair began to grow. As the tormentors
kicked him and punched him and prodded them with their sticks,
his hair grew longer and his faith returned because God was
not finished with Samson yet. And I pray this morning that
God is not finished with you. I pray that you will find faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that you will see him
suffering for you, dying for you, and find in him the peace
that passes understanding and the joy of the Lord. I'm done. I'm done. Titus 3 verse 7 says this, that
being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according
to the hope of eternal life. And one last sentence and then
these people are going to disappear in a cloud of dust. I wonder
what happened to Delilah. What happened to Delilah? I hope she was happy with the
money. I hope it eased her conscience. I hope it bought her a friend. Maybe we can adapt for the sake
of Delilah this final verse. What has a woman profited if
she shall gain the whole world and lose her own soul? What shall
a woman give in exchange for her soul. Amen. May God bless these thoughts
to us this morning.