Tonight, I invite you to turn to Judges 15 as we continue our consideration of the book, but in particular of the Judge Samson. Judges chapter 15, as we read together the entire chapter. Hear now the Word of God. Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, I'm going to my wife's room, but her father would not let him go in. I was so sure you thoroughly hated her, he said, that I gave her to your friend. Isn't her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead. Samson said to them, this time I have a right to get even with the Philistines. I will really harm them. So he went out and caught 300 foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails, lit the torches, and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain together with the vineyards and olive groves. When the Philistines asked, who did this? They were told, Samson, the Timnite's son-in-law, because his wife was given to his friend. So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death. Samson said to them, Since you've acted like this, I won't stop until I get my revenge on you. He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Edom. The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lahey. The men of Judah asked, Why have you come to fight us? We have come to take Samson prisoner, they answered, to do to him as he did to us. Then 3,000 men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Edom and said to Samson, Don't you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us? He answered, I merely did to them what they did to me. They said to him, We've come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines. Samson said, Swear to me that you won't kill me yourselves. Agreed, they answered. We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you. So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock. As he approached Leahy, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax and the bindings dropped from his hands. Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. Then Samson said, With a donkey's jawbone, I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey's jawbone, I have killed a thousand men. When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone, and the place was called Ramoth Leahy. Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the Lord, You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised? Then God opened up the hollow place in Leahy, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned, and he revived. So the spring was called En-Hakor, and it is still there in Leahy. Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines. Beloved of the Lord, so often there is friction and hatred and enmity between people. We know that's true. We've all experienced that as well. Times when we want to get back at another for whatever reason. And we might even be tempted to look at Samson in this chapter and figure that, well, if he could fight back, so can we. Certainly, what we have here must be some sort of biblical support for revenge. Right? Wrong. You see, in this case, we need to remember some very important facts. The book of Judges is about a continuing conflict of who is going to rule over God's people. Who will be their Lord? As we know, as we've already considered, so often the enemy, as here with the Philistines, So often the enemy was ruling and lording it over God's people. You see, what we really have here is a spiritual battle. But again, that shouldn't be a surprise to us because that started in Eden. So here again with Samson, we have the battle continuing between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Samson was not really getting his own revenge. Oh, he might have been in his own mind, in his own thought process. But the reality of the situation is that he was God's avenging tool. And you see, that's proper enmity. God placed that enmity there. You see, boys and girls, there is not to be hatred and fighting between brothers and sisters, but we are called to hate and fight against sin. Samson, Jehovah's deliverer, continues to terrorize the tool of Satan, In this case, the Philistines. In connection with chapter 14, we said that not only was God beginning to deliver His people, but He was also beginning to remind His people of their need for deliverance. And to remind them of where their true loyalty must be. But we notice, sadly enough, that not only are the Philistines hard-hearted, As Samson continues to do more damage to them than they could ever think about doing to him because his strength came from the supreme owner of all strength. But God's people were hard-hearted as they reject God's deliverer. Yet our comfort, beloved, is that not even God's people can frustrate His plans. I preach to you tonight, God's deliverance continues through the betrayal of His deliverer by His people. Indeed, a long theme, I know, but I believe that it gets at the point of what this chapter teaches. And the betrayal of His deliverer is, first of all, cultivated by the enemy's injustice, by the injustice of the enemy. Now, we continue to see here how God uses sin. God uses sin, whether it be the sin of His people or the sin of His enemies. God continues to use sin in order to accomplish His plans. Little by little, event by event, the Lord makes his presence felt to the Philistines through Samson. After Samson paid his debt due to his careless riddle, he went to his father's home angry. And the last verse of chapter 14 says, And Samson's wife was given to the friend who had attended him at his wedding. And we are to think of this as his best man. His wife was given to his best man. But this news, of course, had not yet reached Samson. And therefore, having cooled off a little bit, he decides to visit his wife to make amends for any embarrassment that he may have caused her and her family. And for a peace offering, notice ladies, he doesn't bring a dozen roses, he brings a young goat. Which was the thing to do then. Only to find out that he had been betrayed. She was given to his best man. And of course, Samson didn't buy his father-in-law's reason for the trade. He was not persuaded at all by that. Instead, it's clear that he saw this as an attack against Israel. It was another demonstration of Philistine oppression and domination over Israel and a lack of respect shown for God's people. And when you wrong God's people, you wrong God. And therefore, Samson vows revenge, not against his now ex-wife and her family, but against her people, against the nation of the Philistines. In this spiritual battle that takes place on this physical earth, we see Samson hold to the rule an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And as God's agent, Samson declares his blamelessness in verse 3. This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines. I will really harm them. And harm them he did. And notice that this time Samson doesn't strike them directly by killing them. He gets them in the pocketbook. And we know that to attack a man's wallet is to attack him. It was harvest time. Some of the grain had already been cut and bundled into what the text calls shocks. Some of it was still uncut, called standing grain. But in that climate, you see, the fruit was ready to be harvested in the summer months. In other words, it was hot out and the grain and the vines and the trees were dry and brittle. and therefore the term wildfire would not have been an exaggeration in terms. Of course, we can try to speculate, but we really don't know how Samson was able to capture 300 fox and tie them together two by two with their tails and torches. But with the hand of God upon him, we don't need to be surprised at that at all. And the fires must have been great, and the loss must have been extensive. Most likely, if it was harvest time, their supplies from the year before were running low. And as the Philistines controlled Israel's livelihood, now this was an attack on their livelihood, which obviously was being grown on Israelite soil. But thus, the Lord's battle with the Philistines intensifies. It's interesting that Samson gets the credit for the massive campfire, but the blame goes to his father-in-law. Samson's father-in-law treats him unjustly, So now the Philistines mercilessly and unjustly torch his house. They murder his family. You remember that the 30 companions of Samson had threatened his wife that she and her family would burn at the stake if she did not help them with Samson's riddle. And here we can hear somewhat the echo of Jesus' words when He says, whoever seeks to save his life will lose it. See, she too was punished for her betrayal of God's Deliverer. Now, it's possible that the Philistines thought that they were doing Samson a favor by killing his wife and her family. However, they demonstrated once again their wickedness and the fact that they did not live by the two great commandments to love God above all and their neighbor as themselves. They were ruthless, they were merciless and selfish pagans. And once again, God uses their sin as a means to inflict judgment on them as a nation by the hand of Samson. Verse 7 says, Samson said to them, since you've acted like this, I won't stop until I get my revenge on you. And we are to understand him as saying that he will not quit until the Philistines have been repaid for all of their cruelty and all of their injustice. And then verse 8 says, he attacked them viciously and he slaughtered many of them. In the Hebrew, as the King James translates it, it literally says, He smote them hip and thigh. This is a Hebrew expression used to give the idea of a merciless slaughter. Now some commentators believe it means that Samson broke all of the enemy's arms and legs. We don't know that for sure. But we do know that he inflicted a painful beating and his victims suffered deaths in excruciating pain as he violently slaughtered them. Beloved, God hates sin as we said this morning. He hates sin, He hates injustice, and He punishes it severely. His enemies will one day suffer the torture of hell while His people are spared from that because Jesus Christ suffered that torture for them. And it's clear that God uses His enemies' sinful injustice as an occasion to lift His hand against them and to continue His deliverance of His oppressed people. But notice that this injustice also cultivates the soil for the betrayal of Samson from his own people. We notice in the second place that Samson's betrayal is carried out because of a lack of faith. The Philistines, of course, come looking for Samson. Most likely for two reasons. On the one hand, they want revenge. On the other hand, they need to stop him before Israel rallies around him and revolts against the Philistines. You see, he must die before the Israelites realize what they have in him. A deliverer from the Lord. And as it turns out, the Philistines probably understood better than the Israelites what Samson could do for Israel. I think maybe the same is true with Satan, huh? Satan understands, even though he doesn't believe, he understands better than mankind what Jesus Christ is as a deliverer for His people. But now once again we are given a glimpse, actually were given a good look at the snapshot of Israel's hard-heartedness and apostasy and how sad it is. The Philistines take up their positions in the territory of Judah. The text says, the men of Judah asked, why have you come to fight us? In other words, what's the matter? What have we done? Haven't we been faithful to you all these years? Have we ever given you a reason to complain against us? You know, of course, that what's ours is yours. We are here to serve you. Nothing's changed. We happen to think that this relationship is working out quite well. See, God's people didn't want to fight God's enemies. Shame on them. They were content to let sin rule over them instead of to fight the good fight. And we can almost imagine how relieved the Philistines were when they heard that they had Israel right where they wanted them, especially after they tell the men of Judah why they had come. You see, the story gets better to be sure. In favor of the Philistines. You see, the men of Judah are willing to put their lives in danger by going to get Samson for the Philistines. Oh, you want Samson? What a relief. You know, we thought that we did something wrong. Just make yourself comfortable. Help yourself to the refrigerator and wait. We'll go get Samson. We'll get him for you. Now, let's see. Well, Samson is unarmed. So, what do you think? How many of us should go get him? Oh, 3,000 of us? That should be enough. And with a sigh of relief, the Israelites armed themselves to betray God's deliverer into the hands of God's enemies. They refused to pick up arms against the enemies of God, but they quickly assembled an army to betray God's deliverer. The 3,000 men of Judah go to find Samson. And in verse 11 we read, they say to him in the second part of verse 11, Don't you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us? He answered, I merely did to them what they did to me. Don't you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? Congregation, what a confession of faithlessness. You see, in their minds, it's not God who rules them, but the Philistines. It's not God who keeps the peace for them, but the Philistines. They are content with Philistine peace. They don't want it disturbed. And their complaint against Samson is that when Samson attacked the Philistines, he attacked them because now their life was threatened. Samson, if you really want to help us, you'll try to get along with these guys. You'll try to be nice to the Philistines. You'll quit killing them. Come on. Give a little. Life is so much simpler and easier and happy when you compromise. People of God, what a demonstration of apostasy. God's people had fallen so low spiritually that they had willingly given up their rock of salvation, their source of true strength, given it up for the strength of the Philistines, which would easily be destroyed. It's only temporary. They willingly joined the enemies of God's cause and cooperate in trying to defeat and destroy the champion of the cause of Jehovah. They don't consider Samson to be their God-appointed and confirmed deliverer. He's more like an enemy. To them, Samson was ashamed to the name Israelite. We see here a conflict within Israel. Within Israel. A nation that was called to conflict with the nations of the earth. But there's conflict, enmity within Israel. God's people had completely forsaken the service of the Lord and now they had forsaken His Deliverer. And we must confess that often we are guilty of the same sin as Israel here. We become angry when someone offends us or a member of our family in some way or another. But when the precious name of Jesus is cursed or slandered or misused or abused or taken in vain, it hardly moves us. We don't even think twice about it. Is it because we're so used to it? It's so easy to become comfortable in our own sinful habits and make our standard God's standard by which we expect Him to abide instead of taking His standard for our standard by which we are to abide. It's so easy to blur the line between the things of God and the things of the world and to compromise, whether it be with our worship or our work or our relationship or our words and actions. It's so easy then to wipe out the distinct Christian life, that life of holiness that we're called to. How does that happen? When God's Word is minimized. When it's considered as not very important. When it's considered as not truly authoritative. Or when God's Word is relativized, made relative. What fits your situation fits you. What fits my situation fits me. Whatever is relative. And of course when God's commandments are applied selectively to our lives. It's interesting that in chapter 1 of Judges, Judah was the tribe that was on fire for the Lord. They were aggressive in the Lord in going up first to take the land from God's enemies. But now, now they want to take God's Deliverer and give Him to God's enemies. And in Judah's actions, we can hear the echo of the words of Caiaphas, the high priest, with regard to Jesus. Over a thousand years later, as John records these words of Caiaphas, It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish. People of God, without faith, God's Deliverer is seen as the enemy. And God's people are blinded to the truth. There's a problem when God's people no longer despise the sinfulness of their true enemies. There's a problem when God's people no longer see them as their enemies and when they are no longer shocked by the sin and wickedness of the world. You see, the enmity that exists between good and evil is really the gift of God. God placed that enmity there for a reason already in the beginning. God placed that enmity there to remind you and I of how much He hates sin and of how much you and I are to hate sin and of how much we need a Savior and that indeed He alone provides the only Savior. Already in the garden, the Lord's fallen creature was not to cuddle up in the bosom of evil. The Maker of heaven and earth refused to turn His back and walk away from Eden, shrugging his shoulders and muttering, well, you know, you win some and you lose some. And that enmity is no more clearly revealed than in Christ's redemption of His people. And His people are called not to negotiate with sin, but to wage war on it. The Word of God commands us to fight the good fight, to put on the full armor of God. Well, the 3,000, completely blinded to the work of the Lord through Samson, they go off to get him, and in verse 12 we read, they said to him, we've come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines. And of course, they knew what Samson could do, so they too must have been relieved that after a little bit of negotiation regarding the rules of fair play, Samson willingly lets them tie him up and take him away. But again, do you hear the echo of Calvary here? The soldiers, armed and dangerous, come to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest Jesus, but much to their surprise, he willingly goes with them. Samson was betrayed, bound, and led as a lamb to the slaughter, foreshadowing Christ's betrayal, binding and delivering to be crucified by those he came to save. Samson clearly stands in the shadow of the cross of Christ as he points to the one rejected by men. But God's grace is evident in that with Samson, he sends a physical deliverer when his people didn't know they needed it, nor did they want it. But also he sent a spiritual deliverer, Jesus Christ, again, when he wasn't wanted. When his people didn't even realize they needed him. And praise God, he did, because if God waited until we asked for a deliverer, beloved, it would never happen. The words of that great hymn must ring loud and clear, "'Tis not that I did choose thee, for, Lord, that could not be. This heart would still refuse thee, hadst thou not chosen me." Because of their lack of faith in the Lord's deliverance, the men of Judah betray the deliverer. Yet, God is in control as this betrayal is crowned by the Lord's sustaining power. This is the beauty of it. God orchestrates all of this. Each and every attack upon the Philistines is orchestrated by God. Yet, we must understand that when they betrayed Samson, they really betrayed God. When they rejected Samson, they rejected God. The same God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. but now they were once again content with being in bondage. And we can imagine the laughter of Satan as Samson is bound and brought to the Philistines. We can imagine that laughter drowned out by the laughter of God. This must have been one of those instances Psalm 2 talks about when it says, the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, But he who sits in the heavens shall laugh. And as Samson is brought to the Philistine camp, they shout. And boys and girls, remember the lion that attacked Samson? The people shout. They roar like the lion. And then what? They die like the lion. Verses 14 and 15. As he approached Leahy, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax and the bindings dropped from his hands. Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. You see, by the power of the Holy Spirit of God, the new ropes literally, as the Hebrew says, melted from off his hands. Like fire melts the wax of a candle, or like warm water melts an ice cube, boys and girls. They melted from off his hands by the heat of the Holy Spirit. And Samson proceeds to demolish the Philistines, who you know were the proud owners of the most sophisticated and the latest in iron weaponry. And Samson defeats them with nothing more than a set of donkey dentures. And you see, with the jawbone of a beast of burden, Samson kills a thousand enemies of God, a most unlikely weapon, Just like the cross of Jesus. A most unlikely weapon to secure such a great salvation. But in Samson's case, we know that the real weapon was the hand of God guiding that jawbone. Again, God overrules sin. Sin cannot prevail. It will not prevail. The wicked will be eternally defeated. His sustaining power gives Samson the strength to do what no other mere man ever did. We read Samson's jingle in verse 16, With a donkey's jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey's jawbone I have killed a thousand men. Some translations say something to the effect, With a donkey's jawbone heap upon heap. It's hard to understand really what it's supposed to say, but it sounds as if Samson is tooting his own horn. And some think that he was speaking directly to the 3,000 men of Judah who no doubt witnessed at least some of this massacre as if to say to them, well, this was done. Look at these heaps. Look at these piles of dead Philistines. And this was done, no thanks to you. We don't know, of course, whether Samson was doing that or not. But in the final verses of this chapter, we do see the hand of God remind Samson of his source of strength and bring forth a confession of faith from him. Water, we know, is a symbol of life. One cannot survive without it. God miraculously provided water for His people on two other occasions, as here again. But ultimately, this again points toward Jesus Christ, the living water. And Samson, by the grace of God, confesses that God's work has been accomplished by God's power. And just as Moses reminded God that if He wiped out the Israelites in the desert, the nations of the earth would scoff and say that while He could deliver them from Egypt, but he could not take care of them in the desert. In the same way, Samson's prayer was a prayer of faith that God's enemies would not be able to say, well, his God gave him strength to kill heaps of Philistines, but he couldn't preserve Samson's life. Samson was brought to confess that apart from God, even he couldn't do anything. You see, with God, all things are possible, but without Him, man is nothing. And beloved, as we think of Jesus Christ, the living water, whoever drinks of Him will never thirst again. You know, we don't read that all of this that has taken place, we don't read that it changed Israel's mind in any way. We don't read that they took a different attitude towards Samson. We don't read that they took arms, took up arms against the Philistines. We don't read that they turned back to the only, the one and only sovereign ruler. We know the Philistines continued to rule. Yet the last verse reminds us that Samson judged Israel for 20 years and he was such a constant reminder of God's strength that as we will continue to see, the Philistines kept on looking for a way to get him. But God's people give a pitiful picture here. They didn't want to fight. Compromise was comfortable. They did not want to fight the good fight. They did not want the struggle of Christian discipleship. They didn't want trouble from God's enemies. The way of sin looked better and easier and safer. And do you know what, beloved? In this life, it always does. There is a cost to discipleship. The Bible says all those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. And the price of Christian discipleship is a cross. Jesus said, Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. The Israelites were blind. They didn't see the need for deliverance and therefore they didn't want it. But God in His grace overruled their sinful attempts to stop His work and He brought them relief. Beloved, today sin is watered down. It's nuanced. It's always blamed on someone else. It's always someone else's fault. But sin needs to be preached boldly once again. For this very reason. Because how will you know that you are in desperate need of salvation if you don't know that you have that sinful disease unto death? Do you know it? Is the joy of the Lord your strength? Because by His grace you understand His full and free salvation. sinful man tried with all of his might to get rid of Jesus and his deliverance but God in his grace accomplished redemption for his people completely it is finished and again praise God that he did and may it be that we would live in the joy of that victory that we would give allegiance to the one to the one who rules with absolute power and authority because life is only truly found in his holiness Jesus is clear about those for whom he died he says therefore whoever confesses me before men him I will also confess before my father who is in heaven but whoever denies me before men him I will also deny before my father who is in heaven see beloved the word of God is clear whoever is not for God is against him yet only Jesus Christ and his precious bride will stand firm on the last day. And therefore, are you for Him or are you against Him? Amen. Shall we pray? Father, as we continue our study of the book of Judges, sometimes it's so difficult to see indeed what it is you have to teach to your people. We become disheartened as we read about your people, in this case tonight, who rejected not only you, but rejected the delivery you sent to deliver them. Your people who were content to live in bondage to sin and evil and in oppression of the enemy. But Father, we thank you and praise you that apart from any merit of ours, apart from any desire of ours, apart from any begging of ours, you sent deliverance for our sin full and free. As our Lord Jesus Christ took upon himself the sins of all of his people, ours included, and therefore we have life and have it abundantly. And Father, may we indeed live boldly as we enjoy the blessings of this life. May we live boldly as a people of God, boldly before the face of the world, boldly before Your throne of grace. Looking forward to that day when Christ and His bride are delivered, when Christ delivers His bride to the Father forever and ever. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray these things. Amen.