(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

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Like, well, I'm just doing to him what he did to me, and then they ask, well, okay, what do you have to say? Well, I'm just going to do to them what they did to me. Well, we're just doing to him what he did to us, and it just kind of just escalates back and forth. I mean, both sides have wronged each other a few different ways, and so it just keeps escalating. It keeps building up. You know, it's the exact opposite of the golden rule that we talked about recently on a Sunday. The golden rule is, therefore, all things whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets. In our more modern vernacular, it's basically do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do to others what you want them to do to you, not what they actually did to you. So this rule is, whatever people do to me, I'm going to do it back, and then I'm going to take it further. You know, what they did to me, I pay it back, but I see what you did there, and I'm going to raise you and do more, okay? And then if you do that, it just keeps escalating. The golden rule says, you know what, even if people treat me badly, I'm going to overcome evil with good. I'm going to love my enemies. I'm going to bless those that curse me. I'm going to pray for those that despitefully use me and persecute me. Now obviously, if we actually get this passage in context, we know that it's of the Lord that he seeks an occasion with the Philistines, because the Philistines are the bad guys, and he's going to deliver Israel from the Philistines. But we can still, when we see this dynamic though, we can learn a lesson here about how feuds can escalate, and we don't want to get in these kind of escalating feuds with people. Overcome evil with good, especially, you don't want to get in feuds with people in your neighborhood, because you live there. You have to live there, especially if you own your home. You don't want to get in a fight with your neighbors. You should try as hard as you can. The Bible says, as much as lieth in you, if it be possible, dwell at peace with all men. You should really try to have peace with your neighbors. And look, sometimes your neighbors are going to do things that irritate you, but you don't have to just right every wrong and pay them back. Their dog took a dump on my yard, so I'm going to go take a dump on their yard, and yet will I be avenged of them. You're putting turds all over their yard, and it's still not enough. But I'm serious. You know, the neighbors are getting a little bit loud. They play their music a little bit loud. And obviously, I understand there are certain situations where you have to deal with things, and you don't want to let things get too out of control. But at the same time, though, sometimes it's better to just kind of put in some earplugs and go to sleep and just be at peace with all men. Because getting in fights with people all the time, just picking a fight, being a Karen all over the neighborhood, just righting every wrong, you know, you make the wrong enemies, and it can just keep escalating and getting worse. And sometimes it's better just to... You know, the Bible talks about passing over a transgression. Charity covers a multitude of sins, right? If you have love in your heart, if you have charity in your heart, that covers a multitude of sins. You pass over a transgression sometimes. You pass over the matter. You overcome evil with good. And you know, I already told this story before, but you know, we had somebody in our neighborhood, in our old neighborhood, that hated us and persecuted us. And you know, one time she got drunk and just kind of like collapsed in the driveway drunk or something. And so my wife kind of checked in on her and helped her out and then baked her a batch of cookies the next day and came by and dropped her off a batch of cookies. Problem solved. So this person who had kind of tormented us and persecuted us and given us trouble, you know, a batch of cookies goes a long way to just make a peace offering. You know, I remember there was this guy at work that just had it in for me for no reason. I mean, he kind of had it in for everybody. He was just kind of a pain. And you know, I remember I just... I bought the guy... He was especially a jerk to me one morning and just really just told me off for no reason. And at lunchtime, I just walked up and just put a cold soda next to his lunch and said, here, I got this for you. Enjoy. After that, that guy was so... I was the only person he was nice to after that because this guy was such a jerk, but he was never rude to me ever again. I mean, that's the best $1.99 that I ever spent in my life. You know, here's a guy that I'm constantly working with, constantly giving me trouble, constantly giving me a bad time. And you say, well, that sounds easy. You know what? It's not the $1.99 that's the hard part. We've all got a buck 99 laying around. It's pride that would prevent you from doing that. Why is it hard to walk over to that guy who mistreated you, was rude to you and told you off and give him the soda for $1.99? It's not the $1.99. It's the fact that it takes some humility to when you're the one who was done wrong. You didn't do anything wrong. You don't owe him anything. He owes me. But yet you just humbly say, you know what, here, let me be nice to you. And that's what the Bible means when it says overcome evil with good. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. If your enemy hungers, feed him. If he thirsts, give him to drink. And the Bible says you'll heap coals of fire on his head. Sounds great. But then it says be not overcome of evil, overcome evil with good. A lot of people that are your enemies today will be your friends tomorrow if you overcome evil with good. You can actually have friendships with those people. Especially when you're a kid. People that are your enemies will later turn out to be your friends. I had this nemesis when I was in junior high. This kid and I just did not get along, constantly fighting and everything, just hated each other. But then years later I showed up at this church where I didn't know anybody and he was the only person I knew. And all of a sudden it's like, hey, buddy, old pal. And then we were friends because things change. When we were 12, we were enemies. When we were 17, now we're friends. So just don't repay evil for evil. Don't always just respond in kind and you're going to right every wrong and you're all justice and you're all wrath and you're all vengeance. You know what? Vengeance belongs to the Lord. If God feels like somebody really needs to be punished, he'll deal with that. He's not going to let anybody off the hook. He doesn't accidentally let people get away with things. He pays people back and if anything, we can overcome evil with good and then once that person's our friend, make intercession for them that God would forgive them for anything that they did wrong to us in the past and let it go and move forward. Grace. Here's what the Bible says in James, mercy rejoiceth against judgment. Mercy rejoiceth against judgment. So if we can overcome evil with good, that's better than seeing. What would you rather see? Would you rather see your enemies repent and treat you well and become your friends or would you just kind of rather see them wiped out? You'd rather that they change. That's better. It's better for you. It's better for them. It's better for everybody. It's better for the world. Samson here, this is not a good example of conflict resolution. He is doing this because he doesn't really want to resolve the conflict. He just wants to kill a bunch of Philistines and he's just coming up with excuse after excuse. It really doesn't make any sense after the girl and her dad have both been burned and he's already burned down all these fields and destroyed all this property to say, let me do a little more. Let me now kill the messenger, you know, let me just kill some random Philistines. Then I'll stop. Then I'll cease. Doesn't really make a lot of sense, does it? So obviously when we understand the Bible, we want to understand on multiple levels, get as many lessons from it as we can, learn as much as we can. So I'm going to do to them what they did to me. We're going to do to him what he did to us. Verse 12, and they said in him, we're come down to bind thee that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, swear unto me that you will not fall upon me yourselves. And they spake unto him saying, no, but we will bind thee fast and deliver thee into their hand, but surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords and brought him up from the rock. Now Samson doesn't want to fight against his own people. He doesn't want to fight against his own Israelites, but he somehow knows that even if they bind him and deliver him over to the Philistines, that he's not going to be killed by the Philistines. And this is because, and we've already seen some examples of this, but this is because Samson has been gifted with superhuman strength. Obviously the things that he does in this chapter, the things that he does in the next chapter are not humanly possible. A human being could not do these things. The things that he did in the previous chapter, in chapter 14, 15, 16, he's doing things that are not humanly possible. But the Bible tells us that the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him and he becomes endued with this superhuman strength. And that's what Samson's famous for, right? I mean, if anybody knows anything about Samson, even though our society is being very de-Christianized where a lot of people have never even heard these stories, but usually if you said, hey, if you ever heard of Samson, they would say, yeah, he's a strong man. The man in the Bible with the superhuman strength, because remember he ripped the lion in half and even just the ability to catch all these foxes and to just fight a whole bunch of Philistines at the same time and be able to kill a bunch of people and do all these things. Later he's going to rip the gate of a wall off, you know, like a city wall with a gate. He rips it off its hinges and, you know, he does all these things. And of course at the end of the story, spoiler alert, but he, you know, he of course brings down the entire house by ripping apart the two pillars upon which the house is built. And so Samson has this superhuman strength. The whole point of chapter 16 is that the Philistines are trying to figure out how does he have this superhuman strength. It's not normal. It's not natural. It's not just that he's a really strong guy. It's a non-human thing. It's supernatural strength. He's not just a really buff dude. He's doing things that no human being could actually do unless they had some kind of a special power or superhuman strength. And so he knows this. The Israelites don't realize this because he's been doing all of this violent stuff down in the land of the Philistines. So they haven't really seen Samson in action because he's been doing it. He's been killing all the people down in the Philistines and, and, and he didn't tell anybody about ripping apart that lion anyway, except his wife. And then she told everybody that that's, that was her downfall. So he tells them, look, I just don't want you to kill me yourself because I don't want to have to fight you guys. He knew he could beat them, but he's like, I don't want to fight you guys. So just promise me, swear to me that you're not going to fall upon me yourself, that you're not going to kill me yourself. And they said, no, no, no, we're, but we're going to bind you fast. I mean, we're not going to loosen the handcuffs for you or something. We're going to bind you fast. So they get two brand new cords. They tie him up doubly tight and they're going to deliver him over to the Philistines. But of course, with his superhuman strength, when the time comes, he ends up just ripping this thing from his hands as if it's nothing. So let's get to that point here. It says in verse number 13, and they spake on him saying, no, but we will bind the fast. Fast doesn't mean quick. Fast means tight, right? Like fasten your seat belt. We will bind thee fast and deliver thee into their hand. But surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords and brought him up from the rock. And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him. So get the picture here. You've got the Israelites coming. They're bringing Samson. Samson is bound. He's tied up and they're bringing him. And the Philistines, from a distance, before they come together, they're already shouting insults at Phyllis. Everybody's mad because everybody's been hurt by this guy. Either a buddy's been killed or their field's been burned down. I mean, he has really made a lot of people mad. So they're yelling out, cursing him as they get closer. And when this takes place, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him and he ends up loosing his hands. In verse 14, the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him halfway through. And the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire. I mean, it might as well just be thread or something. He just rips it off like it's nothing. And his bands loosed from off his hands. But he's not armed. He has no weapon. So he seeks for whatever weapon he can get a hold of, whatever he can grab. And it says that he found a new jawbone of an ass. Now, have you ever been out in the wilderness and just found these perfect skulls and perfect skeletons? Who knows what I'm talking about? And you'll just find a beast like that. And a lot of people decorate their yards with it in Arizona, right? They'll have the different skulls and things in the front yard. It's an Arizona thing. But he finds something like this. Sometimes you'll just find this kind of just... It's already been picked clean and eaten by scavengers, decomposed, but the bone is in a really good condition. So this jawbone of an ass is like that because when an animal gets killed, if an ass gets killed and wild animals, they might carry different pieces of it to different places. So this is just the jawbone of an ass, right? I mean, it's a very unlikely weapon to do effective battle with. But I think that's the whole point is just that it's just something random that you wouldn't really think of as a killer weapon. He doesn't pull out Excalibur here, okay? He pulls out the jawbone of an ass and it says he put forth his hand and took it and slew a thousand men there with. You say, how could this possibly happen? Well, number one, first of all, mortal man isn't going to be able to do this without some kind of a supernatural strength. And here's the thing. If you think about what does it mean to have supernatural strength, there's another aspect of strength that we might not necessarily think about which is endurance, okay? You know, for example, if I've been lifting a lot of weights, you know, as I obviously have been, you know, no, I'm just kidding. I haven't. But, you know, if I've lifted a lot of weights and I'm in shape, not only am I going to be able to max out with a huge amount of weight on the bench press, but I could also put a lower amount of weight on the bar and just really crank out a lot of reps. You know, I might be able to put some, you know, Brother Segura's weightlifting programs are pretty wild where he'll be doing like a hundred reps and stuff. He has some strange ideas about weightlifting, but sometimes he'll be doing a hundred reps of everything. Am I right? He'll be doing 80 reps and stuff. And here's the thing. That's another type of strength, strength, endurance, balance, speed. These things are all related. I mean, look at a really fast runner and typically they've got a lot of muscle, right? Because speed, explosiveness, strength, endurance, these things are all connected. People who train in weights, they kind of understand that these things all go together. You know, the ability here to kill a thousand people, the remarkable thing about this is the endurance to just keep fighting for the amount of time that it would take to kill 100 people. I mean, this is going to take a lot of, this is going to take hours, I mean, this is going to take all day. It's going to take a lot of time. Now the way that this would actually work is in a basically a very narrow impasse because if you remember, he's dwelling up in the rock Etom and anybody who's ever hiked in the mountains at all knows that when you hike in the mountains, the way trails work in the mountains, you don't just walk straight up a mountain like, you know, that's not how it works. You don't just walk up a mountain. You know, you kind of, you go up the mountain like this and typically the way trails work on mountains is that you've got a cliff on one side and a cliff on the other. You know, you've basically got a steep part below you and a steep part above you and you've got the little flat part that you're using as a trail. You know, like for example, just to bring up a popular hike that we've done a bunch of times, like on that Barnhart Canyon hike, that's how it is and we're constantly, you know, making sure that the kids aren't getting too close to the edge because it's a really steep on this side. And so you're kind of between a rock and a hard place. You've got the steep side above you and the steep side below you. Well, if you think about it, you're not going to be able to surround somebody in a situation like that. It's not like the Philistines can just come at him from all sides and double, triple, quadruple team him, but basically they're going to have to face him one or two people at a time, if you think about it, or maybe even just one at a time, depending on how narrow of an impasse this is. You know, so let's, even if it's eight feet wide or whatever. And here's the thing, people who are defending against a giant army will often pick a place like this to fight. You know, one thing that would come to mind, of course, is the famous battle in the history of ancient Greece of Thermopylae, right? So the Battle of Thermopylae, you have this innumerable multitude coming from the Persians and the Greeks have a very small band. And the Greeks, you know, the legendary 300 Spartans, there are actually several hundred other people there backing them up that don't get remembered. But anyway, you know, you've got the Greeks that are just severely outnumbered. And the only reason that they eventually all get killed is because this other Greek guy tells the Persians about a secret pathway through the mountains so that they can come around the back. Because if they only were coming from the front, the Greeks probably could have just held them off indefinitely or just, it would have turned out somewhat differently. But they ended up getting surrounded and all getting slaughtered down to the last man. But the point is, they were able to do a lot of damage to the Persians. They were able to kill a lot of Persians because of the fact that they were in a very narrow place that they had picked specifically because it was a very narrow place to where Persia couldn't really take advantage of their massive numbers because they can only advance so many troops at a time. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Because it's a narrow way. You know, like, for example, if we take this aisle and, you know, this is a cliff and this is a rock face and it's this wide and it's like, okay, come at me, right? And here's the thing, even if they try to retreat, he could just start moving forward and just running them over. And remember, he's got the superhuman strength that's going to give him the endurance to just keep going and just keep, and he's just bashing, he's just cracking skulls with this jawbone of an ass. And maybe even some people, he's just, maybe he's just pushing off a cliff. You know, he just hits them once and this, ah, who knows? He's cracking skulls and bodies are piling up because at the end he says heaps upon heaps. I mean, there's piles of bodies by the time he's done, you know, whether at the bottom of a ravine or, you know, at the sides of where he's, you know, so again, I'm just using my imagination here. Obviously the Bible's not giving this kind of detail. I'm just using my imagination to kind of figure out what does this look like? You know, Samson killing a thousand, yeah, a thousand Philistines. Now remember, how many, how many of the Israelites came with Samson? The Bible just told us, right, a few verses earlier. It says in verse number 11, then 3,000 men of Judah went up to the top of the rock Etah. And you say, well, maybe, maybe some of those 3,000 men of Judah, maybe some of those 3,000 men of Judah were, were helping out. Maybe they had his back. But the thing is when Samson's done slaughtering the Philistines, he has no supplies and he has no water and he's scared that he's going to die of thirst. So clearly he's been left behind. Clearly he moves forward and assaults the Philistines and, you know, in the process of these many hours of slaying a thousand men, I don't even think that the men of Judah even stuck around to even watch the show. I'm pretty sure they just got out of there because when the, when the battle's over, when the dust settles and the last Philistines have, have departed and fled the ones who could get away from him and there's heaps of bodies, he kind of has to celebrate this victory alone because he has nothing to drink and certainly somebody's got a water bottle if there's 3,000 men from Judah, they're gone. Everybody's gone. He's by himself. That's, that's clearly the picture that we get from the story. So it says in verse number 16 and Samson said, with the jawbone, he waxes poetic here, with the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men and it came to pass when he made an end of speaking that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand and called that place Ramoth Lehi and he was sore of thirst and called on the Lord and said, thou is given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant and now shall I die for thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised. So clearly the men of Judah are not around because number one, nobody's there to give him any water and number two, he realizes that if he dies of thirst, his body is going to be abused by the Philistines. They're going to take his body and make it into a trophy. That's what he knows is going to happen because he's saying, look, am I going to die of thirst and then fall into the hand of the Philistines? What they do to King Saul a little bit later in the Bible, when King Saul dies in Mount Gilboa, they take Saul's body, they chop his head off, they mount the head over here, they mount the body over here, they parade it around and that's what they'd love to do with Samson. So that's what he's praying to God and saying, you know, am I going to die for thirst and then fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? So he prays for help because think about it, I mean, when you've killed a thousand people, you're pretty thirsty after that. You know what I mean? I mean, he's got superhuman strength, but he still needs something to drink. He doesn't apparently have superhuman hydration. So he needs something to rehydrate, okay? He's just dying of thirst. And look, you say, well, you can go without drinking for a week and barely survive, yeah, if you're doing nothing. You could die of thirst in one day, you could die of thirst in a few hours. If you go out in the summer here and push yourself, you could be dead in two hours if you don't bring. That's why there are all these signs telling you, you've got to bring water when you go on the hike, you need at least a half gallon of water for this particular hike or whatever because the danger is real here. Samson would have died here. He's at the point of death. He really is in desperate need. He calls out to the Lord to help him. And it came to pass when he made an end of speaking, he had cast away the jawbone in verse 17. But obviously he didn't go far because it says in verse 19, but God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw and there came water there out. And when he had drunk, his spirit came again and he revived. Wherefore he called the name thereof Anhekore, which is in Lehi unto this day. So basically God performs a miracle here where this jaw has some water in it. Like in a hollow, there's a hollow place where the thing is hollow and there's water trapped in it and he's able to access this water and drink it. It's a miraculous thing. Again, not normal, but a miracle. And so he drinks it and it gives him just enough strength to be able to retreat back to Israel. And it says he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines 20 years. So apparently when he comes back to Israel, he has their respect when he comes back. And so now he's looked at as someone who's worthy of respect. He's a leader. Now what about the Philistines? Are they just going to let this go? Well, here's the thing. The Philistines are not going to face him again because he just killed a thousand people. This isn't normal. This is not natural. And so they are afraid of him. So they just kind of leave him alone for 20 years. Now later in the next chapter, chapter 16, he's going to go back to the land of the Philistines. And then when he comes down on their turf, they're going to try to figure out, you know, how can we stop this guy? And then of course, you know the story with Delilah. That's what we're going to get into next week. But it says in chapter 16, verse 1, just to kind of show you where this is going next week, in Judges chapter 16, verse 1, it says, then went Samson to Gaza and saw there in Harlot and went in under her. Now, why is he going to Gaza? This guy just likes to have a bone to pick, no pun intended, with the Philistines, okay? So he's going back down to Gaza. And this time, instead of getting married, he just goes into a harlot. And of course, we'll get into all that next week. But you know, one of the things I want to point out here is that Samson is not a role model in any way, shape, or form. He should not be a role model unto us. Because Samson is a guy who God has blessed and gifted with amazing abilities. God's got a great plan for his life. God's put this great calling on his life. What a blessing. But yet, he squanders it because he's not a godly person. He does not follow the laws of the Lord. He's not righteous in the way he lives his life. Because we see him gambling. We see him with a harlot. Harlot's a prostitute. He's with a harlot. He wants to marry an unbeliever. We see him just being vindictive and unrighteous. And it's just, God uses him to defeat the Philistines and deliver the people of Israel. But remember, we've got to keep this in the context of the bigger picture of the book of Judges. The book of Judges is a train wreck from beginning to end. It's supposed to be a train wreck. That's the whole point of the book. It's showing you how things can go wrong. It's showing you how God's law is perfect. The Torah, the law of the Lord is perfect, right? The first five books. That's all perfect. But then, he shows how Israel just does not follow it. It doesn't work. It's a big failure. It's a total train wreck. And that's why we just see all of these bad examples of bad leadership and the children of Israel worshipping other gods and everything's going bad. And that's why we have this statement that's going to keep coming up starting after the story of Samson that there was no king in Israel in those days and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Because you have to understand, God's original intent was the system of the judges, not a king. God did not give them a king. Moses was not a king. Joshua was not a king. They're not really supposed to have a king. God is their king. It's supposed to be this theocracy where God is the king. But then by the time we get to 1 Samuel, what are we doing in 1 Samuel? We're anointing a king. So how do we get from the law of Moses and this better system that does not include a king, this very minimal government that they have under the Mosaic law, how do we get from that to all of a sudden we need a king? Well God basically shows us about 400 years of what it's like not having a king. So that by the time we get through the book of Judges, we're saying like, yeah, having a king is not the best thing. It's not ideal. But, you know, this judge thing isn't really working either. And so it's kind of time to try something new in that sense. So that's kind of the purpose of the book of Judges. It's showing us that when there's no king, things go bad. Of course, things go bad with a king as well. And then that's why eventually we need Jesus Christ. And that's the whole point. So keep that in mind. We've got to be careful when reading the book of Judges. You can get a lot of false doctrine from the book of Judges if you take it as some kind of an ideal. If you take the book of Judges as like a handbook for, yeah, this is how to do it kids. This is how to live your life. This is how to be a man of God. Be like Jephthah. Be like Samson. Be like Gideon. You don't really want to be just like any of these people because even though God uses them in a great way, these are men who are very flawed characters and these are very bad situations. And so, you know, but people, they love to turn to the book of the Judges to get false doctrine like, well, look at Deborah, you know, and then it's like, let's put a woman in charge. Let's put a woman behind the pulpit. They don't understand that this is just a series of train wrecks in the book of Judges. And the Samson story is kind of the coup de grace, you know, the final train wreck of all train wrecks of leadership, right? And then the book of Judges only gets weirder after that. Well, because we enter, after chapter 16, we enter a new phase where we're not dealing with individual judges anymore. We just give it some really wild stuff. So it's definitely a very entertaining book. So if you're having trouble reading your Bible, kids, well, dig into the book of Judges. Just don't try this at home. Amen. All right. Let's bow our heads in that word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the book of Judges, Lord, and thank you for all the good examples in the Bible, but thank you for also some bad examples of how to not get along with people, how to get involved in endless feuds that never stop and that just result in harm on both sides, how to take gifts from God and squander and waste them, and ultimately how to ruin a perfectly good life as we see that Samson in the next chapter is going to completely ruin his life, Lord. Help us to learn from these examples. Help us to take the good and take the bad examples and learn from both and bless us now as we go our separate ways. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen. Let's take your hymnals, please, and turn to hymn number 126. Anywhere with Jesus, number 126, 126. Anywhere with Jesus, I can safely go. Sing it out on this verse. Anywhere with Jesus, I can safely go. Anywhere he leads me in this world below. Anywhere without him, nearest joys would fade. Anywhere with Jesus, I am not afraid. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere with Jesus, I am not afraid. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere with Jesus, I am not afraid. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere with Jesus, I am not afraid. Anywhere with Jesus, I am not afraid. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere with Jesus, I am not afraid. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know. Anywhere, anywhere, fear I cannot know.