In the book of Judges from chapters
13 through to 16 we read of the promise of the birth of Samson
made to Manoah and his wife of the great strength he would have
and the deliverance to Israel that he would bring. We read
the accounts of him as he grows up as he fights the Philistines
and then as he makes strange alliances with the Philistines
and takes a woman of the Philistines called Delilah and marries her
and how ultimately she brings about his death. And in the end,
at the end of chapter 16, we read of that great death which
he dies in which he stands between the pillars of the house of the
Lord of the Philistines and pushes the pillars down and brings the
building to collapse down upon both him and all the people.
And he saves the Israelites from the Philistines in that one act.
But he gives up his own life in so doing. And in chapter 16
and verse 6, We read of how Delilah seeks to find out Samson's great
strength and the secret behind it, that it might be taken away. We read there, And Delilah said
to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth,
and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. Tell me,
I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith
thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. Wherein did Samson's great strength
lie? Was it in him or was it in his
God? Wherein was his strength? Samson is presented to us in
this book of Judges as a wonderful picture of Christ and his gospel
and the power and might of Christ in his gospel in laying down
his life for his people and in destroying their enemies in his
death that he might save them from their enemies whilst at
the same time dying himself. The promises of Samson's birth
made to Manoah and his wife are very reflective of the promises
made in the New Testament of the birth of Christ. A deliverer
is promised to them and strict instructions are given to his
mother to abstain from strong wine and unclean things and that
this child should be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day
of his death. He should be set apart for God's
work. and no razor should come upon
his head. And the angel comes to meet them
and to tell them of these things. And Manoah is greatly fearful
of this angel. And they are shown a great sign
of not only how Samson should come to his end but of that which
is pictured in Samson's death of that one of which he is a
picture of Christ the Saviour. There is this great sign given
to Manoah and his wife of that sacrifice, that one sacrifice
to come. In which, in the sign it is said
that the angel ascended in the flame of the altar. The angel
did wondrously. Manoah and his wife looked on
upon the altar as that altar as that sacrifice was offered
up. And they saw that the angel did wondrously. And they were
greatly fearful. And it's a picture of that altar
upon which Christ, the angel of the Lord, was sacrificed.
That altar of death at Calvary's cross when Christ laid down his
life for sinners. For sinners like you and me,
guilty sinners deserving of the wrath of God. But sinners whom
he loved. sinners whom he loved with such
a love that he would lay down his own life and take the judgment
of God against their sins upon himself that he might deliver
them from their sins deliver them from their enemies deliver
them from the wrath and the judgment of God against them take them
through death into eternal life take them through the fires of
death into eternal glory Christ at the cross did wondrously and
in that sacrifice which Manoah and his wife beheld the angel
of the Lord in type and figure of Christ's death and coming
did wondrously and Manoah and his wife looked on and fell on
their faces to the ground And Manoah said unto his wife, we
shall surely die because we have seen God. But his wife said unto
him, if the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have
received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands. Neither would he have shown us
all these things, nor would, as at this time, have told us
such things as these. And the woman bare a son, and
called his name Samson, And the child grew and the Lord blessed
him. And the spirit of the Lord began
to move him at times in the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtio. No, the Lord did not mean to
slay them. He showed them the gospel. And he gave them a son as a figure
of that son whom he would give unto his people. the one eternal
Son of God whom God would give to his people, promise to his
people as their Saviour. Samson was given to Manoah and
his wife and the children of Israel at that time as a figure
of that Deliverer to come, Christ their Saviour. God did not mean
to destroy Manoah and his wife. He's a God who saves. A God who
has a people, who loves a people and is determined to save that
people. Though they are guilty, though
they deserve to be slain, though they deserve to be killed, though
they deserve to be judged, God loves a guilty people. A guilty people like you and
I. And in his gospel he comes to
save that people in the person of Jesus Christ. of whom Samson
with his great strength is a figure. Do you know that Saviour, that
Deliverer Christ? Do you know His great strength
to save, His great and mighty power to deliver from sin? Wherein
did Samson's great strength lie? Wherein is Christ's great strength? When was Samson born? When did
he enter this world? Into what sort of scene did he
come? He's born as recorded in this
book of Judges, at a time in Israel's history when the nation
of Israel was in huge rebellion and huge compromise, when it
failed utterly. God had delivered Israel out
of Egypt by Moses. He'd brought Israel into the
promised land by Joshua. But the accounts in Judges are
of their days in that land, which is presented to us as a picture
of the journeying of God's people through this world, of our pilgrimage. Israel here are seen as believers,
those who know salvation but those who journey through this
world and those who know trials and temptations, those who know
the flesh within them warring against the Spirit of God within
them, those who know what it is to fail And the record in
the book of Judges is one of utter failure on Israel's part
and one of a constant reminder that they only stand in Christ,
in God, in their Saviour. That left to themselves they
are nothing. That left to themselves they
indulge in every sin and idolatry which is presented before them.
They went into Canaan, they dwelt in Canaan and they sought to
live peaceably with their enemies round about and wherever it suited
them they formed alliances and pacts and compromise with those
around them. They made strange alliances,
they married the strange women of the other nations even though
God had commanded them that they should not. They bowed down and
worshipped the idols of the other nations. They took unto them
strange gods and they knew not to, they knew better, they'd
been taught and yet they could not help themselves. They only resisted when God came
and took them up and lifted them up. presented the gospel to them
afresh and fought their battles for them. But this book is a
constant record of their failure and it's a constant reminder
to us as believers that our strength is not in ourselves and that
we have no ability in ourselves, no will, no strength to stand
against that sin and that power of the flesh which wars against
the spirit. We can only stand as we are in
Christ by His grace. It is only God's hand that keeps
us. It is only God's hand that delivers
us. Salvation is of God alone. Salvation is of the Lord by grace
from start to finish. And every contribution from our
hands brings misery and failure. Man by wisdom knew not God. Our wisdom, our understanding,
our ability simply tarnishes and mitigates against that which
comes from God's hands. It wars against it, the flesh
wars against the spirit. And here is a people in this
land who had gone astray from their God. They knew him, they
knew the knowledge of him. They knew his law and in types
and figures they knew the gospel and the revelation of that saviour
to come, Christ. And yet they went a whoring after
strange gods. Just like you and just like me. They had no ability to withstand,
they could not withstand temptation, except God kept them. And we
cannot stand except God keeps us. This is the miserable scene
of failure into which Samson was born, into which he was sent,
and God sent him as a judge over Israel, as a deliverer of that
people. They'd compromised and the result
of their compromise was that the Philistines were mighty in
power and Israel was at their feet and that nation of Israel
needed one to deliver them from the Philistines might. So too when Christ came into
this world he came into a world of darkness, a world which had
rebelled against him and he came under his own, his people, the
Israelites, at a time when they had so corrupted the things of
God. that it was all darkness. They
had the scriptures, they had the law, they had the prophecies,
they had the rituals of the Old Testament, the sacrifices and
the priesthood. and yet their hearts were darkened
they were devoid of understanding they thought they served God
when they served themselves they thought they saw when they were
blind and those Pharisees who thought they served God when
Christ came rejected Him and in the end crucified Him the
world was in darkness Even the professing world of religion,
even those who profess God, were blind. At such a time, at such
a time, the fullness of time, Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. And at such a time, Samson was
born in Israel. We read in the following chapters,
the great exploits of Samson, the riddles that were told, the
great strength, his great victories. With the jawbone of an ass, he
slew a thousand men, because God was with him. But like the
people around him, who had formed strange alliances,
so did Samson. He's a picture and a figure of
Christ but as a man he was a sinner like all else. And he sinned
like the people of Israel sinned. But God purposed that he should
do these things so that the picture of him as a figure of Christ
and the figure of Christ and his bride should be presented
to us. Because Samson ultimately married a daughter of the Philistines,
one called Delilah. And Delilah would bring about
his downfall. Delilah would bring about the
death of Samson. Her sins, her iniquity and her
deceit would bring about his betrayal and his death. But that death would bring about
the salvation of many. That death would deliver Israel
from the might of the lords of the Philistines. Samson slew
more in his death than he ever did in his lifetime. Samson and
Delilah are a picture of Christ and his bride. She was a philistine
as these others, godless, a rebel. And Christ's bride, his people,
those for whom he dies, those whom he saves, his bride, the
one he loves, the ones he loves, are children of wrath even as
others. If you ever come to know Christ
as your Saviour, if you ever come to know that you are one
of that people referred to as His bride, then you will confess
that you were and are by nature a child of wrath even as others. You're no different from the
world around. other than that Christ came unto
you and loved you and chose to save you and to have you as his
bride. Just as Samson came amongst those
Philistines and he loved the woman in the valley of Sorok
whose name was Delilah, he loved her and chose her. If you come
to know Christ, if you're ever to be His bride, then it's simply
because He comes to you in your state, as a sinner just as all
others, and sets His gaze upon you, and sets His love upon you,
and says you will be mine. It's not because of anything
special in you, anything you've done, it's not because you've
decided to be His, but it's because He has decided that you will
be His. he loves you if you are his but
by nature we are children of wrath as others as others and Delilah was a Philistine
an enemy of God and it's her betrayal her sins that brought
about Samson's death just as it is our betrayal and our sins
and our rebellion that brings about and brought about the death
of Christ. Christ died not for his own sins. He was perfect and pure, a lamb
spotless and without blemish. But when he went to the cross,
he bore the sins of his people in his own body on the tree.
He stood as their substitute and he died because of their
rebellion and their betrayal. And just as Samson's death brought
about his greatest victory, so Christ's death, brought about
by our sins, if we are his, brought about his greatest victory. We may ask, why did Samson take
a strange wife if he's a picture of Christ? Wasn't this wrong?
Well, of course it was, but as I said, It's a picture of Christ coming
unto a people who were rebellious, sinners just as others, and loving
them despite their sin, despite their rebellion, despite what
we are, though we don't deserve it. Christ loves his own. Christ loves his own. And he
loves his own even unto the end. Even to that day, which took
him to the cross. Even though in loving them, he
should have to suffer for them, he should have to die for them.
Even though his desire to have them as his bride meant he must
die, yet he loved them. He would not let that turn him
from them. But the Philistines, seeing that
Delilah had been chosen by Samson their enemy. Their foe, the one
who had such great strength against them, the one whom they could
not withstand, saw in Delilah's union with Samson an opportunity. They saw an opportunity to get
at Samson through Delilah, and to discover his great strength
through her, and to set his great strength at naught. So they came
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. So they bribed
her, and they bribed her with pieces of silver, which reminds
us of the betrayal of Christ and how Judas was bribed by the
enemies of Christ with pieces of silver and he betrayed Christ
but when Christ was slain and Judas realised what he had done
he realised that that silver was of nothing worth and he threw
it down and he hung himself Yet the enemies of Christ will
come and seek to get at him through his people. And the Philistines
came and sought to get at Samson through Delilah. Through Delilah. Show us his strength. Set it
at naught. And Delilah seduced by the money
and the wealth and the pleasure which they presented to her.
was willing to betray her own husband and willing to discover
his strength and willing to tempt him and willing to set the Philistines
upon him. The world around us today does
the same with Christ and his people. They hate Christ, of
whom Samson is the figure. and they hate the strength and
the power of Christ and the rule and authority which he has in
this world as God and they seek to set it at nought and seek
to set his influence at nought that they may live and have their
pleasure without the guilt of feeling that God is against them
they will not bow down the knee to worship him and they wish
to set him and his testimony at nought so they beguile those
who speak of him and they come alongside those who testify of
Christ they come to his bride and they seek to set his strength
at nought through her they seek to cause her to compromise they
seek to cause her to not speak of him They seek to cause her
influence in declaring his great might and power in this world
at nought. They try to attack Christ through
his bride, the church. And if they can set the testimony
and power of the church at nought, they can, as it were, set Christ
at nought. They are like the Philistines
with Delilah. And they come alongside and say,
we're in. is Samson's strength. Wherein
is your Samson's strength? How may we prevail against him,
that we may bind Christ to afflict him? How may we set him at naught? And by their cunning devices
and wily ways, they bring the influence of the professing church
to nothing, that the power of Christ might be set at naught. in this world wherein is thy
strength thrice over Delilah tries to get this out of Samson
and thrice over he fools her yet she tries to set the Philistines
upon him in the end he opens up his heart under her in the
end he declares his heart under his bride and tells her all his
heart and when she knows it bring about his death. His hair,
when cut short, would take away his strength. Well his hair is
his glory. And the strength of Christ is
his glory. And the power and might of Christ
is that which adorns him and which glorifies him. And if the
world can, through the church, take away the power and strength
of Christ, they can set his influence at naught. And the power and
the strength of Christ is his gospel. that which glorifies
him, that which makes known his power. I am not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ, says Paul, for it is the power of God unto
salvation. That's his strength. It's his
gospel which adorns him. It's his gospel in which his
glory is made known, of which the hair of Samson is a figure. We read elsewhere that the hair
of a woman is her glory. The hair is the glory of Samson,
his long hair. Cut it short, and that's his
glory and his strength and his power set at nought. And cut
Christ's glory short. Cut away that which adorns him
and glorifies him, in which his power is made known, and you
set him at nought. His glory is in his gospel. His power is in that gospel,
in the preaching of that gospel, that gospel that declares who
he is, why he came, why he was born like Samson to be a deliverer
of his people, and how through his death he laid down his life
for that people, to take away their sins and to bring them
in as righteous before a holy god that's his glory that he
loved them to the end that he laid down his life for them that
he would save them through his death and if you take away the
preaching of that message if you quench it if you compromise
it if you destroy it you take away his power so the philistines
through Delilah, took away the strength of Samson. His hair was shaved short and
he was captured and he was put in the prison and then he was
led from the prison house into the house of the Philistines
where they would watch him and make sport with him and have
fun at his expense. And they set him between two
pillars But what they had not counted on was the fact that
his hair would grow again. As verse 22 tells us, how be
it the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven,
his strength came back as his hair grew back and his glory
was restored. And with that renewed strength
he would destroy more of those Philistines through his death
when he pushed down the pillars of their house than he had ever
destroyed of them in his lifetime. And it's just the same with Christ
and his gospel. You cannot quench it, you cannot
take it away. Though the world will seek to
cause the church to compromise, though they'll seek to cause
followers of Christ to compromise in every way that they can by
urging them to keep quiet, by causing them to seek a quiet
life, by causing them to be distracted by the cares of this world and
the entertainments and riches of this world, by causing the
people of God to be taken up with this, that and the other
to the expense of the bold declaration of Christ and his gospel. Though
the world through the church will seek to quench the power
of God in the gospel and seek to cut away at the hair That
hair grows again and that strength is restored and that power of
the gospel cannot be stopped. It cannot be. His enemies may
seek to cut it off. They may seek to silence the
gospel, but they cannot, it always, as it were, grows back. God will
always send another messenger, another preacher with his gospel.
Though they slew the prophets of old, God always had another
prophet to send. And though they slew the apostles
and preachers of the gospel in the New Testament, though they
stoned Stephen to death, Paul who looked on and had him stoned
was saved by Christ through the same gospel which Stephen declared
under him and would later be sent forth as a mighty preacher
of that gospel that hair grew back and that power restored
that strength was restored and it went forth mightily to the
four corners of this earth and though throughout history the
world has martyred preachers of the gospel and though they
have sought to come in as it were in our day and age as a
Trojan horse in the midst of the professing church and to
bring in all sorts of idolatry inside the churches and to lead
the people away from the true gospel such that most places
which once professed Christ and his gospel now preach another
gospel which has no power to save and though the people are
deluded and led astray and though the professing church has no
power to stand against the evils which have come in in our land
Nevertheless, Christ still reigns. Nevertheless, he is still on
high and nevertheless he still sends forth his gospel and he
raises up a preacher here and a preacher there and that gospel,
that strength goes forth in power and will save those for whom
he died. It cannot be cut away. It cannot
be taken away. It cannot be put down. No matter
what men may do, We live in a day and an age, particularly in this
nation and in the Western world, where all the laws upon which
these nations were founded, upon which Britain and America were
founded, are being undone. righteous laws, they're being
completely set at naught and evil is being set up as good
and good is being decried as evil and the evil has come in
like a flood and that which professes to be the church in our land,
the church of England and others, that which has has the visible
presence in the land and its leaders, have got nothing to
say in response to these evils which have come in. Though the
word of God that they profess to believe speaks candidly against
these things, they do not quote it, they do not believe it, they
have thrown it aside in their compromise with the nations around
them. They are like the Israelites
at the time here, they are powerless. they have no gospel their hair
has been shorn and the philistines have come in like a flood but
the strength is in the gospel and though they are without it
and though they have turned their backs upon it. God has not and
his people have not and he sent forth those who are his, who
will stand up and who will declare Christ and his power in the midst
of this evil age. And there is nothing that the
world can do around to stop it. The Philistines could not stop
Samson's hair growing back and though they thought they'd got
their greatest victory, his their great enemy, They had him in
the midst, there they are rejoicing. Their hearts were merry, they
said, call for Samson that he may make a sport. And they called
him in and set him before the pillars. They praised their God. They said, our God have delivered
into our hands our enemy. and the destroyer of our country
which slew many of us. Oh, they rejoiced, and they bowed
down their knees to their idol Dagon, and they thought they
had the victory over Samson, just as the world around thinks
they've had the victory over Christ. He was slain, he was
crucified. And that troublous people who
have testified for him up to this day, they're all but silenced. We don't have to suffer their
going on about their, tiresome Christianity and their morals
and their righteousness and their sin and their judgment to come
we don't have to listen to it anymore let us eat drink and
be merry and they think Christ and his people have been done
away with but they haven't their hair grows back the gospel goes
forth and God will save every last one for whom Christ died
this message continues to be preached and thank God and praise
God that it does because it's the only way of being spared
the destruction that the philistines had at this time and which the
nations around about have coming upon their heads sooner than
they think. God will roll up this world like
a scroll he will burn it up with fire and the wicked nations round
about who stand in rebellion against his son against the Christ
will be thrown into everlasting judgment You too if you go to
your grave in rebellion against him, everlasting judgment is
our lot if we hate God and his son the Lord Jesus Christ. That
son Christ will as it were stand in our presence between the two
pillars and push those pillars over and the house will come
down upon our backs and destroy us all. But if we are his, if
we have heard his gospel, If we have heard His voice, if we
have lain in the grave as the dead in that hour, that hour
when the voice of the Son of God will sound and when our dead
ears by the grace of God are made to hear the voice of the
Son of God crying in the wilderness unto our souls, If in that hour
He passes by us in our dead state, in our helpless lost state, in
the ruin of our sin, and looks unto us as we in fear see the
judgment coming upon us. If He comes by our way and looks
upon us in love and says unto us, Son, thy sins be forgiven
thee. Because I loved you before I
made this world. And I loved you before you were
put upon it. I loved you before you were born.
I loved you before you came forth from the womb doing good or evil. I loved you when you hated me. I loved you when you rejected
me. I loved you when you despised
the hearing of my gospel and counted it a weariness. I loved
you when you came into the meetings. and shook your heads and wanted
to escape I loved you if he comes that way and speaks unto us in
this way and says unto us and I loved you on that day that
hour when they took me to a cross in a place called Golgotha and
nailed me to that cross and lifted me up in the midday sun as Samson
was set between the pillars and when the judgment and wrath of
God was poured out upon me as I took your sins upon me and
as I was made to be your sin and God slew me and judged me
and put me to death instead of you and I died loving you and because
I died I took away your sins and because I rose again I rose
again with you in righteousness and because of that son thy sins
be forgiven thee you are mine You are my bride, I love you
and you will be with me forever. And like Samson, he stood between
the pillars and he pushed the pillars down and the pillars
fell upon his head and destroyed him. But they destroyed all his
enemies. and they destroyed if we are
His all our enemies, our sin, the judgment against us, the
world around us, the evil one, the devil, the temptation, everything
which would set us against God, everything which would keep us
from God, everything which would keep us from righteousness and
salvation and eternal glory, He destroyed them all and He
died and His enemies died with Him. and his victory was greater
in his death than ever in his lifetime before. He brought in
a great victory by his mighty strength, the consequence of
which if he comes to us in his gospel and speaks in such a way
to us is that we in him today have everlasting life and we
rise with him from the grave and we will go to be with him
in eternal glory and we will live and reign with him forevermore
And today his Gospel goes forth in power throughout this world,
throughout this world of Philistines, who seek to discover his strength
and set it at naught, seek to quench the Gospel, seek to shave
the head, and yet they cannot because it grows back and it
continues to go forth because God yet has his people to be
saved. He has a sheep there and a sheep
there. He has a few here and a few there
and as long as this world goes on, as long as the time of judgment
to come is held back, as long as the days continue to come,
as long as the sun rises in the morning it's because God has
a sheep here and a sheep there, maybe you Maybe this world has
not come to an end yet because you and someone else have yet
to hear this gospel and yet to believe. And maybe this is the
day and the hour when you will hear that strength, that power
of the gospel in Christ and Christ alone. And you will hear his
voice. And you will say unto him, wherein
lieeth thy great strength? Because you seek to set it at
naught. and he will say unto you, it
is in my gospel, because I loved you and I gave myself for you,
that you might be mine. Be not unbelieving, but believe
unto eternal life and the saving of your soul. Come forth and
live. Amen.