So Judges chapter 16, and we'll read from verse one.
Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went
in unto her. And it was told the Gazites,
saying, Samson is come hither. and they compassed him in, and
laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were
quiet all the night, saying, In the morning, when it is day,
we shall kill him. And Samson lay till midnight,
and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the
city, and the two posts, and went away with them bar and all,
and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top
of a hill that is before Hebron. Amen. May God bless to us this
short reading from his word. In some respects, this is a difficult
passage to address. Sometimes when you come to a
portion of the Word of God, it's as if the message just flows
easily from it. And we find words of encouragement
and we find words of help and words of direction and words
of comfort. And we see clearly the Lord Jesus
Christ in it. and we find our hearts warmed
and our spirits blessed in considering it. But I don't have any pleasure
in highlighting the faults of these heroes of the past. And yet we are being told in
this passage that the men of faith, men and women of faith
in times gone by were just men and women like us, men and women
of like passions, men and women that were fallible, men and women
who were sinners, and men and women who did what they should
not have done when they should have known better. And that's
the picture that we have here of Samson today. We have no pleasure
in raking over and highlighting these failings of human sinful
people. This is a weakness that Samson
had. And yet we know that the entire
Word of God, the whole of Scripture, As Paul says to Timothy, all
scripture is given by inspiration of God. All scripture is profitable
to us. So even when we are reading about
the shame of some of these people, there is a blessing in it for
us. It's profitable for doctrine.
It's profitable for reproof. It is profitable for correction. And there is doctrine in this
passage. And there is proof, reproof in this passage. And there is correction in this
passage. Because we are all men and women
of like passions. And these like passions cause
us to be tempted. And Samson was tempted. He went
down to Gaza. He went down to this city of
the Philistines and I don't know why he was there. I don't know
why he went to Gaza. Indeed, while it may well have
been quite a long period of time since we have turned the chapter
from chapter 15, where he slew all those Philistines and no
doubt became absolutely abhorrent, was hated by the Philistines,
having taken so many of their men and slew them with that ass's
jawbone. Now he was going to the very
heart of their strongest city, right into the very lion's mouth,
as it were. Why was he there? I don't know.
We're not told that, therefore we will not speculate. But he was there. And we're told
that when he was there, that he went into a house Now, it
may be that he was simply looking for somewhere to stay, that he
wasn't particularly looking for this lady that he went into. But what we do know is that when
he saw her, he was tempted. When he saw her, he was enticed. And the passions of the sinful
man arose. We said, with reference to the
fact that the scriptures are for reproof and for correction,
let us read these passages and let us be corrected and let us
be reproved by them, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly
furnished unto all good works. Oh, that God this morning, Oh,
that the Lord Jesus Christ might take his word and might apply
it to our hearts and our souls. That we might be blessed in the
truth of this revelation to us. It's been placed here, it's been
recorded. People like you and me have been
reading about Samson's downfall. for thousands of years? What if they took our lives and
wrote it in a book and put our name on it and gave it to our
children and our children's children and our children's children's
children for a hundred generations? This is Samson, but this is us. This is us, we are all sinners
when God in his holiness looks upon us and oh that the Holy
Spirit would take these verses, take these words and apply them
to our hearts and show us the need that we have to find forgiveness
in the sight of God through Jesus Christ. That the Holy Ghost might
touch our hearts and our minds, that he might make us wise unto
salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus. We said with respect to the reference
from Timothy that we might be equipped, that we might be furnished,
that we might be prepared. You see, we are told about these
incidents in the lives of these men and women of the past, that
we might be prepared and equipped for the times of challenges and
temptations that we will feel, that we will still feel. And
it may be this or it may be something else. But there is a weakness
in the flesh that we all need to know about, a weakness in
our bodies, a weakness in our minds that makes us susceptible
to the temptations of the devil and the attractions of this world. Well, the scripture speaks about
the pleasures of sin. It's pleasant, it's pleasing,
it's desirable, sin, very often. That's why people do it, that's
why people enjoy it. And yet there is a warning in
these passages for the men and women of faith and for men and
women and boys and girls who have eyes to see. There seems
to be little doubt in my mind in the reading of this passage
that sin and moral weakness is to be discovered here in Samson's
actions. Such weakness in one so strong. This man who could judicially
slay 3,000 of God's enemies, and yet he cannot deny the lustful
temptations and passions of his own flesh. You see, we think
that we're strong. We think that we're able. We
think that the Lord is being pleased to use us. And then the
next thing we discover, we're flat on our faces. And we don't know how we got
there. So there's lessons in this. Scripture
says, certainly it's in another context, but I think we can apply
the phrase equally to this situation. How are the mighty fallen in
the midst of the battle? That's exactly what happened
to Samson. Those verses were quoted with
respect to Saul. It's a little bit later in the
history of Israel. But we could take them and we
could apply them to Samson here. How are the mighty fallen in
the midst of the battle? There are lessons here for us
all. And let us thank God that the Holy Spirit, in setting these
things out, in showing us Samson's failures, as well as his feats,
is teaching us and directing us and guiding us and warning
us about the challenges and the temptations that are in the world
around about us. My approach this morning is to
take Samson's experience and to draw from it some pictures
for our soul's good. It is not my intention to dwell
too much upon the incident per se and to in any way darken this
great man's reputation beyond what scripture has told us, but
to throw light rather upon the fitness of the Lord Jesus Christ
to be our only saviour and deliverer. What do I mean by that? Well,
what I mean is simply this. Samson showed himself to be unfit
to be our saviour and deliverer. And thereby, he emphasised the
fitness of the Lord Jesus Christ to do that job. Darkness. The darkness of the night enhances
the brightness of the stars. We've been looking out the last
few nights. I think that it's just turned a new moon again. And that means that the sky is
darker than it normally is when the moon is larger or it is risen. And we've been looking out and
we've been seeing the bright stars. If you see Venus on, well,
it has to be the morning really, I guess. But if you see the morning
star Venus, coming up just before the sun rises on a night when
there is no moon. It's so bright, it's almost like
a flashlight in the sky. And why is that? Because it's
so dark around about it. And that's what we see in the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. This dark world emphasises the
brightness of our morning star, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
lives of men and women in their sin and in their blackness emphasises
the purity, the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ as that only
one who was fit to take our place and be our representative. The Lord Jesus Christ redeemed
his people from their sins, and it is to him that our view will
be turned this morning. So here's the first thing I want
to say with respect to this man, Samson, and the situation we
find him in here. It says, Samson was a very evil
man, but he was insufficient for the
task of delivering his people. I don't know whether you remember
with me when we first read about Samson, or at least we first
read about Samson's parents. Remember Manoah and his wife,
how that they were told by the angel of the Lord, whom we thought
to be the Lord Jesus Christ himself, that this child would be born?
Samson was a child of promise, but we read in chapter 13, a
couple of chapters before, and verse five, that the child shall
be a Nazarite unto God from the womb. So he was to be dedicated
to God. He was to be set apart to God
from the womb. And he shall begin to deliver
Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. Did you notice that
little word begin in there? Did it seem odd to you at the
time when we read it? It did to me. It did to me. Because I'm thinking to myself,
why would you put begin in there? Why would he just deliver his
people from the Philistines? Well, because he didn't. He didn't. He couldn't. He was an able man,
and there are many able people in this world. He could begin
this task, but he couldn't bring it to its end. He couldn't bring
it to a completion. And if not Samson, who could? Who could deliver his people? Samson began the task, obviously
God was with him. He became a picture of one who
himself was unable to do the full task, but who pointed towards
someone who could. A sinful man can't deliver his
people from their sin. He can't even deliver himself
from his own sin. It had to be someone who had
no sin. And therefore we are being shown
in this passage that Samson wasn't the man. Samson wasn't the Messiah. Samson wasn't the promised one.
Samson was a picture of that one, but in himself, in his flesh,
he was just a sinner like you and me. He needed a deliverer. He needed a saviour. As you and
I need a deliverer and a saviour today. He had great faith. We're told that the world was
not worthy of him. Such was his faith. He had great
strength. He was able to do great feats.
He was able to encourage his people at a time when they were
depressed, when they were suppressed, when the people of the Philistines
laid heavy weights upon them and caused them great distress
in their lives. Samson was able to be an encouragement
and a comforter to them, but they needed more than that. They
needed Christ. They needed someone who was sufficient
to the task. They needed to know the Saviour.
And so Samson is a picture. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
fit advocate, is that perfect man, is that worthy substitute,
is that one who is able to stand for us, to stand in our place,
to speak on our behalf and to represent us before the Holy
God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one. We will never look to Samson,
for grace and for mercy and for deliverance and for help, but
we will look to Christ for those qualities and those gifts. If you could save yourself, I
have no doubt you would do it. If I could save you, I would
do it. but only the Lord Jesus Christ
can save a sinner. And it is therefore to Him that
we must go, and to Him that I must point you this morning. In Acts
chapter 4, verse 12, we read these words. Neither is there
salvation in any other. For there is none other name
under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved. There's no salvation in any other. Not pope or president. Not hero or heroine. Not warrior or scientist. Or intellectual or philosopher
or economist. or doctor and physician. All they can do with all their
great feats is patch up the problem. To find
deliverance for the soul, we must go to Christ alone. The gates of Gaza were pretty
impressive. When I was a little boy, We used
to get a magazine. I know how I've longed that that
magazine was still in my parents' house for a different reason,
but we used to get a magazine came in, I don't know whether
it was every week or every month, but it would arrive and it was
one of these collections that you used to get. They used to
be popular before the internet. What? And these magazines would come
in and it was a picture magazine of Bible history. And I would
look at them as a little boy, just maybe six or seven, and
turn the pages and see the pictures. Well! there was a picture of
Samson. And I have never seen anyone
that looked like this man. And he was carrying the gates
of Gaza on his shoulder. I can still see it vividly. If
I was an artist, I could paint it for you right now. And there
he was stooped over with one hand up here and the other hand
round here. And he was bent over in these
great Heavy gates were lying across the back of his shoulder
and he was making his way up the hill. And I thought it was amazing.
There was a man. There was someone to aspire to. There was someone to be like.
And I loved the story of Samson when I was young. And men, men can accomplish great
things. Men can do wonderful things and
I don't know whether it's just because they're strong or it's
because they're particularly clever or it's because they're
particularly skillful. But the world prizes those qualities
in an individual and they make them into heroes and they make
them into celebrities and they pay them a lot of money and they
become the icons of the age and we lift them up and we hold them
up and we admire them. They impress us, they amaze us
with the things that they can do. But even the strongest man's
strength can only do so much. And there's not a man and there's
not a woman in this world who can defeat death. Death is coming to us all. It's an appointment that we must
keep. It's an appointment which we
will keep, and no one can cheat it, and no one can stretch it
out a moment longer, and no one can curtail it by a second too
little. It's an appointment that God
has made for every individual on this world. But the Lord Jesus Christ defeated
death. The Lord Jesus Christ not only
began to save his people, he accomplished their salvation. He proved himself to be stronger
than Samson with the gates of Gaza. He was able to break down
the gates of hell and to bring his people liberty. and to provide
that deliverance which they needed. In Matthew 16, verse 18, we read
these words. It's the Lord Jesus Christ that's
speaking. And he says, I say also unto thee that thou art
Peter. He's speaking to his disciples
here. We read about Peter a little earlier today at the beautiful
gate. But he says, thou art Peter. And upon this rock, and he was
speaking about himself, that he is the foundation of our lives,
he is the salvation of his people. He says, upon this rock, this
Jesus of Nazareth, this Jesus, the Messiah, I will build my
church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Isn't that a lovely phrase? The gates of hell. That's death
he's talking about there. The gates of hell will not prevail
against it. Have you ever seen the gates
of hell? I have. I've seen them. They appear at the side of every
dying person. And they usher every dying person
into their grip. And they close fast on them in
a moment. And that person is trapped behind
the gates of hell. They'll never come back. Am I being fanciful? Satan contended with Michael
for the body of Moses. You know why Satan felt that
he could contend with the archangel for the body of Moses? He fought. He fought the archangel for the
body of Moses. You know why? Because it was
his. It was His. It was flesh. It was bone. It was blood. It was His. It was His possession. That's what sin did. In the day
that you eat of this fruit, you shall surely die. And the gates
of hell snap shut, and they cannot be opened, except someone who
is stronger than the gates of hell will prevail against them. And there we see one who is stronger
than Samson appearing on behalf of his people. That is the only
way that the gates of hell will ever be broken. The only way
that the gates of hell will ever be opened up is if one who is
stronger than the gates of hell, one who is stronger than Satan
himself, one who is stronger than death, can come and redeem
His people from that pit. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done. That is the amazing thing. You
know, it's not just that our souls are going to be with the
Lord. Our bodies are going to be with
the Lord. That's the whole point about
the gates of hell not prevailing against us. Our bodies are going
to heaven and our bodies and our souls will be reunited at
that trumpet call and we will arise from our graves and we
will be forever with the Lord. Christ broke the gates of hell. And he carried them away victoriously
in the midst of man's long night, in the midst of that midnight
of the soul. I don't know why Samson got up
at midnight. I don't know why he got out of
his bed at midnight. Maybe it was a guilty conscience.
Maybe he couldn't sleep. But he got up at midnight, and
the Lord Jesus Christ arose in the midnight of man's soul, and
he carried those gates away. He opened up that way of escape. Here's another thing I want to
point out to you about Samson's work here with respect to the
gates and the gateposts of Gaza. By taking the gate posts as well
as the gates, they couldn't be mended and they
couldn't be rehung. He took away the gate posts so
that those gates couldn't actually physically be rehung again. Now it's always a great shame
in history for the gates of a city to be destroyed. It speaks more than the physical
act. And for that reason, triumphant
armies often took the gates of the walled cities that they defeated
and carried them back to their own country. That was a thing
that the armies of the ancient peoples would do. And sometimes
they would set those gates up in the temples of their gods.
As if to say, here's another set of gates, here's another
city that we destroyed, and we're giving thanks to the deity that
we worship in their idolatry. And that's a recognised thing
that happened throughout history in the armies of this world. But it was a great shame for
a city to be left defenceless without any gates. The word Gaza
means fierce and strong. And so it's interesting here
that the gates or the city that Samson went to, and maybe this
was the whole reason for him going to Gaza, was to take the
gates of the fierce and strong city and carry them away. A mighty city, a proud, fierce
city, a strong city, was humbled, was brought low by a single individual. And the devil is fierce, and
he is strong, and he is a killer of men's souls. But there is not a city, and
there is not a kingdom, and there is not a mighty nation on the
face of this earth. that will not be humbled, that
will not be made low, that will not be brought into subjection
to the almighty Lord Jesus Christ, the judge of all the earth. So in this too, Samson is a type
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see that? Do you see that
the Old Testament histories, the Old Testament narratives,
the pictures, the types, these things are given to us. They're
designed to show God's plan and God's purpose. God's plan of
saving His people from their sin and judging the world for
its sin. It's given to us as a warning,
to forewarn us of what it is that's going to happen. There's
a hymn writer who wrote, her name was Audrey Meyer. Kingdoms
may rise, kingdoms may fall, nations refuse to hear God's
call, but the word of the Lord endureth forevermore. And it's
this word of the Lord that is given to us to warn us of the
impending judgment that is to come. Let me tell you this, in
a short time from now, in a week or two, maybe, we're going to
be going further down in Judges chapter 16, if the Lord will
grant us the time together. In a very short period of time,
The elite of Gaza were dead and buried. And they were laughing all the
way to hell. They were partying. They were
celebrating. And their judgment was coming
along the road like a big articulated truck to smash them into eternity. And they didn't care. They didn't
care. They thought they were fine.
They thought they were in a place that was good. They were blind
to the reality of the judgment that was coming to meet them. And that's what scriptures are
here for, to show us and to teach us, to forewarn us of a judgment
that is coming. This is God's call to the world. Samson took away the gates of
Gaza. He was showing these people how
vulnerable they were. He was showing them how open
they were to judgment, to violence, to an attack from an enemy. And
little did they appreciate that their enemy was Almighty God.
The world is going on today, and maybe you're going on today,
and you're thinking that things are all right. You're pretty
balanced. You've got as good a chance as
anyone else, better than most. And there's a juggernaut coming
along the road to meet you, a judgment coming along the road to meet
you, and you won't be warned. The gates of Gaza are our warning. They were the warnings to the
Philistines. Where will you hide on that day
of judgment? Where can sinners find refuge
in that day of judgment? If they will not have Christ,
who are they going to lean upon? Who are they going to flee to?
Who are they going to look to? Gaza should have been warned.
It should have been wary. If this man can pick up our gates
and walk away with them in the very middle of a trap that we
have set to kill him, what else can he do? But if the Gazaans wouldn't be
warned, what about you? What about me? Will you be warned? There is a great and terrible
day of the Lord coming. And where will you hide if you
don't know Christ? Here's my third and last point.
By carrying away these gates, Samson made a show of power. He demonstrated his power. I
don't know because it's not clear from the passage just how far
he carried those gates. We're told that he carried them
to the top of a hill that is before Hebron. Hebron was 20
miles away from Gaza. So even if he carried it halfway
there to the top of a hill that you could see from Hebron and
you could see from Gaza, it was still 10 miles that he carried
those things. Uphill. And he made a show of his strength.
And in Colossians 2, verse 15, we discover that having spoiled
principalities and powers, the Lord Jesus Christ, in his resurrection
from the grave, in his beating down, in his opening up those
gates of hell, made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them. When the Lord Jesus Christ rose
from the dead. Do you know that the graves of
many of the old saints that were in Jerusalem were also opened
and that those old saints walked around in the streets of Jerusalem? when the Lord Jesus Christ rose
from the dead. I don't hear that mentioned very
often, so I kinda like to mention it a lot. So if you hear me mentioning
it from time to time, that's why it intrigues me. It intrigues
me. What must the people have thought
when they saw these old saints walking around in the town, in
the city? The Lord Jesus Christ himself
rose from the dead. They had put a cordon of soldiers
around it. They had sealed it and set a
guard around it. And he rose from the dead. They
put a stone up against it. And he rose from the dead. And
he ascended into heaven. And he was witnessed in doing
so by hundreds of people. and he left us the gospel to
confirm the testimony. And we rejoice that we serve
a risen Christ. We serve one who has won the
battle, who is victorious, and one who has triumphed over his
enemies, the principalities and powers of this world. We can rejoice today because
we have this message of a saviour who has been successful and who
has accomplished all that he was required to do and that he
desired to do. And this gospel that we have
been given, this message of salvation and deliverance, it is not just
for us. It is for all men and women.
It is a message that we are to preach to everyone. a message
which we carry to the world. It is to call others to repentance
as we have been called to repentance. It is to call others to salvation
as we have found in Christ our salvation. It is to show that
He is the Deliverer, not of a few, but of the many. And it is to
demonstrate His glory. This is not a questionable or
doubtful matter. The evidence is in. How will
you escape if you neglect so great salvation? We're pretty much done. Samson
is set before us as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ in scripture. but his faults and his failures
attest that he is only a picture. He's not the real deal. He wasn't
the deliverer. He could begin that process in
picture form, but he couldn't accomplish it. He was inadequate. He was insufficient to fully
deliver his people, but not so Christ. Everything that the Lord
Jesus Christ has done has been successful to the redemption
of his church and his people. He came to save his people from
their sins. He came to give forgiveness to
people like you and like me. He came to save us and he came
to build his church and the very gates of hell will not prevail
against us. Death itself falls before him. So I've shown you Samson, but
I want you to see Christ. I want you to look beyond the
picture. I want you to see God. And I
want you to see him for yourself. I want you to trust in Christ.
Samson was a sinner, just like you and just like me. And he needed grace and he needed
the blood of the substitute. He needed the precious blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ to cleanse him from his sins. He was a judge
and a champion in Israel. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
our mighty champion over sin. His life was a picture of forgiveness. But in the Lord Jesus Christ,
we find true forgiveness. We find grace from God. and we find peace with God. Samson knew that grace and peace
and mercy. I wonder if you do. I trust it
is the case. May the Lord bless these words
to us. Amen.