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Now in Judges chapter 13 we begin the story of Samson, and Samson is probably the most famous of all the Judges in the book of Judges, and he's really the most notable judge. He's probably the most important judge in the book of Judges, and the reason I say that is a few different things. First of all, flip over to Genesis 49, keep your finger there in Judges, but just flip over to Genesis 49 because I say that for the reason that first of all there are four chapters in the book of Judges dedicated to Samson, which is more than any other judge. So it's a very long and in-depth story in the book of Judges. Secondly, he's the last judge that we go through as we go through the book of Judges. And then thirdly, it's interesting because if you look at Genesis 49 where the sons of Jacob are being blessed, it says in verse 16, Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent, by the way, an adder in the path that biteth the horse-heels so that his rider shall fall backward. I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord. It's interesting that Dan is singled out as being a tribe that would judge, and of course Samson is the judge that is from the tribe of Dan, and he's the one who gets the most scripture dedicated to him in the book of Judges. So back to Judges chapter 13, not only that, Samson actually pictures Christ in a lot of ways. Many different ways that he pictures Christ, and I'll go through those a little bit later in the sermon, but one of the first ways that he pictures Christ is that his birth is miraculous and his birth is announced by an angel. Just like Jesus Christ's birth was of course of a virgin, it was miraculous and it was announced by an angel. Now you say, well how could Samson have anything to do with picturing Jesus Christ? I mean Samson committed a lot of sin in his life. But here's the thing, all throughout the Old Testament we have all these pictures of Jesus Christ in various prophets and men of God, and all of these men had faults. All of them had sin. None of them is a perfect picture of Christ because they all have sin and we know Jesus Christ was without sin. But that doesn't change the fact that Joseph represents Christ, that King David represents Christ, that Solomon represents Christ. And so all throughout the Old Testament, there's always a foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ, his life, his ministry, the Gospel, his death, burial, and resurrection. And we see that actually a lot in the book of Judges with Samson and I'll show you those as we come to them in the story. First of all, his birth is miraculous. It was announced by an angel, but look at verse 1 of chapter 13 there. It says, The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was Baron, and Baronot. Now all throughout the book of Judges, there's this pattern where the children of Israel do wickedly. They commit sin, they get away from worshiping God, they get away from following his commandments and his laws, and when they go into sin, God always allows one of the neighboring nations to come in and invade them and put them into bondage. And turning away from the Lord is constantly bringing them into bondage. And that's exactly what the Bible teaches in the New Testament, that if we live a life of sin, we're going to be brought into bondage. And we see that played out over and over again in the book of Judges, that they lose their freedom, they're put in bondage, they're suffering the consequences of their sin, and then God will raise up a man to deliver them. And then that man will turn the people back to the Lord, and he will deliver them from their enemies, and then they'll start doing well for a while. They'll worship the Lord for a while. Maybe 10, 20, 30, 40 years go by, but then they forget about it. And then they go back to the same old ways, and it's just this constant back and forth between they're serving God, they're not serving God, they're serving God, they're not serving God, and so on and so forth. That's the pattern that we see in the book of Judges. The men that God raised up throughout the book of Judges were men like Othniel, men like Ehud, men like Barak, men like Gideon. And usually these men would be raised up as a leader, and the children of Israel would rally behind them and they would defeat their enemies. But what's interesting about Samson is that the people never rally behind him. He's just one guy. I mean, he just, he fights the enemies and eventually he's going to destroy the Philistines single-handedly one man, without anybody rallying behind him, ever. That's what's unique about Samson amongst the Judges. Which again, it kind of pictures the Lord Jesus Christ, because if you think about it, Jesus was rejected of Israel also. And just like they didn't accept Samson, they didn't accept him. But this angel comes and tells Samson's parents, Manoah and his wife, he tells them that even though the wife is barren, she's going to conceive and she's going to have this son, and that they're supposed to take special care of this son. The Bible says in verse 4, Now therefore, where I pray thee, and drink not wine, nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing, for lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come on his head. For the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. Now I want you to take note of this. In verse 1, it says that the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines. What are the last two words of verse 1 there? 40 years. So how long were they delivered into the hands of the Philistines? 40 years, right? And then it's interesting because it is said unto his parents that this child that's born, this is before he's even born, he's going to begin to deliver the children of Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. And then later on in the book, God's going to tell us that he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines 20 years. So that kind of gives you an idea of how old Samson was when these events start happening. Because if you think about it, if he judged Israel for 20 years, his birth is being announced at the beginning of their captivity to the Philistines. That means that he basically goes out to get married and begins doing his thing at around 19 years of age, if you think about it. Does everybody understand why I say that? Because if they were enslaved to them for 40 years, Samson delivers them at the very end of his life, which is at the end of a 20 year period. That goes to show that he was probably about 19 when he gets married and begins to fight the Philistines, okay? But if you look down, if you would, let's jump forward to chapter 14 where we get into the meat of the story. In fact, go to chapter 13 verse 24, it says, 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 Eshtael. Chapter 14 verse 1, And Samson went down to Timnath and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up and told his father and his mother and said, I've seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines, now therefore get her for me to wife. Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, among all thy people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me, for she pleaseth me well. But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against the Philistines, for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel. Now, this is a pretty interesting story because of the fact that we know that Samson here should not have been marrying a heathen girl. Because right away here we see that Samson goes out and he sees a woman of the Philistines and he says, I want to marry this woman of the Philistines. I want to marry this heathen girl. Now that's something that God had specifically told them not to do. Now go if you would to Deuteronomy chapter 7, the 5th book of the Bible, Deuteronomy chapter 7. And there's a few different ways to interpret this, I'm going to give them all to you and tell you what I believe is going on in this story. But go to Deuteronomy chapter number 7, it says in verse 1, When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land which thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Ammonites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou. And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them. Thou shalt not, thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them. Watch verse 3, Neither shalt thou make marriages with them. Thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son, for they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods, so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. So God specifically tells them not to intermingle with the heathen nations around them, and specifically not to intermarry with them. Now flip over to Joshua, the next book after Deuteronomy, Joshua 23, and we'll see something similar here in Joshua 23. Joshua 23, I'm going to start reading in verse number 7 of Joshua 23. The Bible reads in Joshua 23, 7, that ye come not among those nations, these that remain amongst you, neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow yourselves unto them, but cleave unto the Lord your God as ye have done unto this day. For the Lord hath driven out from before you great nations and strong, but as for you, no man hath been able to stand before you unto this day. One man of you shall chase a thousand, for the Lord your God he it is that fighteth for you as he hath promised. And of course that prophecy is fulfilled in Samson, if you think about it, because he defeated a thousand men at one point. It says in verse 11, take heed therefore unto yourselves that ye love the Lord your God. Else if ye do in any wise, go back and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and shall make marriages with them, and go in unto them, and they to you know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you, but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you. Now flip over just a few pages to Judges 3. So what we saw in both of those scriptures was, don't marry the people of these lands. Don't intermingle with these heathen nations. They're worshipping other gods, they're living a wicked life, you don't want to be yoked up with that, and so you need to stay away from these people, they will be a thorn in your side. And by the way, that still stands in the New Testament when the Bible says, be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Now obviously we're not in a physical nation of Israel, surrounded by heathen nations, we're not in that Old Testament situation, but in the New Testament we are believers, we are the saints, we are the holy nation, and we are not to intermingle with the unsaved by way of marriage. That's why if you're a young person, the most important thing about who you marry is that they are saved, is that they believe on Jesus Christ, that you marry someone who's a Christian. That is the number one most important criteria. You shouldn't even date someone that's not a Christian, because you shouldn't even get emotionally involved with someone that's not a Christian in that way, because you might be tempted to foolishly marry the unsaved. And God makes that clear in the New Testament also. But look at Judges 3, it says in verse 1, continuing what we just read in Deuteronomy and Joshua, Now these are the nations which the Lord left to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel has not known all the wars of Canaan, only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof, namely five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians, and the Hivites that dwell in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baalhermon unto the entering inn of Hamath. It says in verse 4, They were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord, which he had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. And the children of Israel dwelt amongst the Canaanites, Hittites and Amorites, and Perizzites and Hivites and Jebusites, watch verse 6, and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods, and the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgot the Lord their God, and served Balaam and the groves, therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and on and on. So all of the problems started, that's the very beginning of the book of Judges. All of the problems started when they started intermarrying with the heathen. All of their problems started by the Israelites marrying the Canaanites, marrying the Philistines, marrying these nations that the Lord had left around them to prove them. That's what caused them to go astray and to go after other gods, and to be judged by God. So it's interesting, go back to Judges 14 now, that basically the whole story of Samson starts with him going down and taking a wife of the Philistines. Now, there are a few different ways to interpret this. First of all, some people have said, well, you know, it was God's will for him to do this, or God wanted him to do this, because he's doing it to fulfill God's plan, maybe as a picture. Kind of like Hosea was told to take a wife of whoredoms, to picture the whoredoms of the children of Israel. Maybe Samson's going down and marrying a Philistine because it's symbolic of the fact that that's what the nation of Israel has done. They've intermarried and God's going to use this to eventually defeat the Philistines. That's one way of looking at it. Now if you look at verse 4, it says, but his father and his mother knew not that it was of the Lord. So that's an important phrase there, that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against the Philistines, for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel. So another way that you could look at this is to say, well, it wasn't of the Lord that he married a heathen girl. It wasn't of the Lord that he would marry this Philistine that he was specifically told not to marry, but it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against the Philistines. And if you take that interpretation, you're basically saying that Samson is going down there and he's going to marry this Philistine girl and he has already premeditated the fact that he's going to go down there and he's going to start trouble with the Philistines. Which if you look at chapter 13, it says in verse 25, the spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtael. And then in verse 1 of chapter 14 it says, and Samson went down to Timnath and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. And what's interesting is that if you understand the geography as you study the Bible, often you'll see the phrase from Dan to Beersheba. And the reason why is that those are the two extremes of the nation. Dan is the furthest north point and Beersheba is the furthest southern point. And if you know where the Philistines are, they're in the south. The Philistines are on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the south, what we know today as the Gaza Strip. That's one of the lords of the Philistines, Gaza. So therefore, he had to make a point to go all the way from Dan down to the land of the Philistines to find this woman that he's going to marry. Why did he do it? Why is he even leaving Dan? Why is he even going down to the land of the Philistines? Because he wanted to defeat the Philistines. He wanted to free his people. Maybe his parents had even told him that prophecy. Because remember, the angel told his parents he's going to deliver the children of Israel from the Philistines. Maybe he'd even been told, son, this is what the angel has said you're going to do. The spirit of the Lord has been moving him up in Dan, up where he's living, and he heads down to the Philistines. So if you take that interpretation, what you're basically saying is that God had put in his heart to seek an occasion against the Philistines, but that basically he's just going about it in the wrong way, by marrying a heathen girl, which is something that he's never supposed to do according to the commandments of God, and so forth. And it says, for at that time, the Philistines had dominion over Israel at the end of verse 4. So that's another interpretation you could take, and then also you could just say, well, what he did was just wrong, but God basically used it for his glory. But the thing about that is that it says that it was of the Lord. Of the Lord is talking about the source of where this came from. It was of the Lord, it was from the Lord. But if you read the verse carefully, it says it was from the Lord that he sought an occasion against the Philistines. It doesn't say it was of the Lord for him to marry a heathen girl. Now if we follow Samson's life here, we know that the result of him marrying this heathen girl is tragedy and heartache in his own life. Think about it. I mean, did it go, was this a great marriage? No. You know how long this marriage lasts? Seven days. Now, you know, I've seen some marriages end pretty quickly, but seven days is pretty quick for a marriage to end. I mean, he goes down there, he's going to marry this girl. Seven days later is a big fight, he ends up heading back to the land of Israel, then after he cools down, he comes back to get his wife, and he gets there, she's been given unto another man. She's married to another man, his wife. So how would you like to find a girl that pleases you very well, you find this beautiful woman that you want to be married to, you get married to her, you're married to her for seven days, and by the way, she made him miserable during those seven days. And we'll see why in a moment. Then seven days later, you're split up from your wife, and then when you come back, she's married to another man. Okay, then next thing you know, she's being burned with fire. So this is not a happy love story. So what does that show us? That shows us that when we disobey God's commandments, it's not going to end well. You know, you might think, oh, I know what I'm doing, and you know, I know godly, Christian, young people who grow up in church, grow up with the things of God, and yet they go up and they date or marry unsaved people. That happens all the time. And it's a very foolish thing. And they think, oh yeah, I know what I'm doing, I'll be fine, but you know what? Samson wasn't fine. And whenever we see people that disregard God's commandments, it always ends badly. So even though God's going to use this to start a fight between Samson and the Philistines, even though, look, God could have used something else. I mean, look, did Samson have it in his heart? Hey, I need to fight the Philistines. I want to defeat the Philistines. That came from God, but he's going about it in the wrong way. See God gave him a lot of blessings. The Bible says in chapter 13, verse number 24, at the end of the verse, it says the Lord blessed him. Now one of the ways that the Lord blessed Samson is that he actually gave him supernatural strength. Now you say, why did God give Samson supernatural strength? Well perhaps the reason is because he's a one man army. I mean, nobody will get on board with him. You know, he's up in Dan, the spirit of God's moving him, he wants to start something with the Philistines, he can't get anybody behind him. So he's got to do it on his own. So I guess that's why God had to give him superhuman strength so that he could fight on his own. Now here's the first time that we're exposed to Samson's superhuman strength. Look at verse 5 of chapter 14. Then went Samson down and his father and his mother to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath, and behold a young lion roared against him. So you got a picture back then, you know, people are traveling on foot a lot. They're walking, they're running, they're traveling on foot, and as he's on foot he's faced with a young lion. Now can you imagine just being out walking by yourself and you're faced with a young lion? I mean, a lion will tear you apart, right? And so he faces this lion that could tear him apart, and look what it says in verse 6, and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand, but he told not his father or his mother what he had done. So he basically has no weapon, he's unarmed, he's facing this lion, and the spirit of the Lord comes mightily upon him. When this lion attacks him, he basically grabs it and literally just tears it in half. Okay now can you imagine taking an animal and just basically maybe grabbing one of its legs and just tearing off its leg? You know, I would take a lot of strength, you know, especially if you're dealing with an animal like a lion. But he just rents this thing, he just tears this thing open. Now if you had done that, you'd think it was pretty cool, right? So therefore, he thought it was pretty cool too. So let me tell you what he did. So he tears this lion in half, right, and he just leaves it there. So then he goes down, and he did that on the way down to go see this, you know, Philistine girl that he has in mind. So he goes down and he sees the Philistine girl, it says at the end of verse 7 that she pleased Samson well. Look at verse 8, after a time he returned to take her, meaning he's going back down to actually go to the wedding now, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. Because I mean look, if you tore a lion up, you'd go back and just check out the carcass, right, just to see if it was still there. So he wants to go back, you know, and return to see this thing. So he goes and looks at it, and look what happened at the end of verse 8. And behold there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion. So he tore this lion in half. The lion carcass is sitting there, and by the time he gets back, some bees have made their home in this thing. You know, because bees, I'm not an expert on bees, but I know that bees, for some reason sometimes they like meat or rotting flesh. So somehow they've turned this thing into a beehive, this carcass. Now if you remember, Samson is supposed to stay away from anything that's unclean. Even his mother was told, don't eat anything unclean while you're pregnant. And the children of Israel in the Mosaic Law are frequently told, you know, don't touch a dead body, it's unclean. You know, it's just good sanitation. I mean, a dead body that's been rotting for weeks or however long is not something you want to touch. Now, it's definitely not something that you want to eat out of, okay? Now honey is very good for you, but not when it's coming from the carcass of a dead lion. That could be unsanitary, and I know that honey kills a lot of germs, I get that, but still not a good idea to eat it. So look what it says in verse 9, he took thereof in his hands and went on eating. So he's chowing down on the honey that he got out of the carcass of this dead lion, and it says he came to his father and mother and he gave them and they did eat, but he told them not that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion. I'm sure mom would have really appreciated that if she would have known. Oh by the way, that honey you're enjoying? Yeah, it came out of a dead body, okay? So anyway, he gives them that. So for sake of time, let me just quickly tell you the story of chapter 14. He gets down to the land of the Philistines and in the land of the Philistines they had a custom of having a seven day wedding feast. Now your pre-trib friends will try to tell you, oh this is the Jewish wedding ceremony. Never in the Bible, never. Any time in the Bible you see them getting married it's a one day thing except for this Philistine wedding. We see the heathen doing this type of wedding that goes on for seven days. So this Philistine wedding ceremony is a seven day feast and it's a pretty big deal because actually you say, well how many groomsmen are you going to have? How many bridesmaids? Well he pretty much has 30 groomsmen, so this is a pretty serious wedding. He's given 30 companions. He doesn't even know these guys, but these guys are going to be his companions. They're probably friends of her family. So he gets down to this wedding and he's got these 30 companions and remember, if you take what I believe Judges 14 means in verse 4, which I think is pretty clear, that Samson wanted to look for an occasion against the Philistines. He basically goes down there and he says, I've got a riddle for you. And he says, I'm going to put forth this riddle and he says, if you cannot figure out the riddle you're going to give me 30 changes of raiment, 30 changes of clothing. You know, clothing was pretty expensive back then because there were no machines to make clothing. Everything's handmade. So you'll give me 30 changes of raiment and if I give you the riddle and you figure out the riddle, then I'll give you all 30 changes of raiment. So he'll give them each one, or they'll each give him one, giving him 30 changes of raiment. So they agree to this bet and they say, okay, put forth the riddle. So he gives them the riddle and he basically, let me find my place here in chapter 14. I want to get the wording right. It says in verse 14, he said unto them, out of the eater, this is the riddle, out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness. So his riddle has to do with him tearing open that lion and how the bees had made a beehive out of it and there was honey inside of it. So they couldn't figure out the riddle. It didn't make any sense to them. They couldn't figure out what it meant. So they go to his wife and they tell her, you're going to tell us the answer to that riddle. You're going to find out what it is and if you don't, we're going to kill you and your whole family. Nice people. This is what you get into when you get into gambling, by the way. You start getting into gambling, it's this type of elements. We're going to burn you and your father's house with fire if you don't figure out what this riddle means. So for the whole seven days of the wedding feast, you know, he's a newlywed, he's just trying to enjoy his new wife, he's just trying to enjoy marriage and his wife is just nagging him from day one. I mean it already started, just nagging him every night to tell him the riddle and he won't tell her and she just keeps bugging him. She's crying, she's upset, she's begging him to tell what the riddle is. Finally she wears him down. He's like, look, I haven't even told my mom and dad and she's just like, you don't even love me. You won't tell me what the riddle is. So then finally he's like, okay, you know, and he tells her. And then of course she goes and tells them. So then on the final day of the feast, at the deadline, they expound the riddle. And they say, you know, what is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? You know, and they expound the riddle. Well, of course he knows that they've cheated. So he says in verse number 18, look down at Judges 14 and 18, and the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down, what is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion? And he said unto them, if he had not plowed with my heifer, he had not found out my riddle. I'm sure his wife appreciates being referred to as his heifer. But anyway, so look what he does. So now Samson's got to pay up, right? He just lost the bet. He owes them 30 changes of raiment. Well, he doesn't have 30 changes of raiment. So look what it says in verse 19, the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he went down to Ashkelon and slew 30 men of them and took their spoil and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle and his anger was kindled and he went up to his father's house. But Samson's wife was given to his companion whom he had used as his friend. So Samson goes out and just kills 30 Philistines and takes their clothes and brings them and says okay, here are the 30 changes of raiment. Now it doesn't seem that anybody knows what he did. He seems to have gotten away with it. It's funny, when I was a kid I saw the Hollywood movie of Samson and Delilah. Who saw that? It's really old. It's from like what, the 60s? And you know, Hollywood movies, they don't rely on them for biblical accuracy. First of all, I wouldn't even watch them, but they always, I don't know why they do this, but they always change so many. They change so many things about the story. The story's not even close to being the same story. And sometimes it seems they just change things for the sake of changing them. So if you're relying on the Ten Commandments and Charlton Heston to teach you about Moses, you've got a lot of wrong doctrine because you've got to go to the Bible. I remember when I saw the Samson and Delilah movie as a kid, Victor Mature is the name of the actor that plays Samson. And he basically, he doesn't kill the 30 people in the movie. He just like jumps them and takes their clothes off them. And they're just left in like an undergarment, like a tunic. I mean, it's so stupid, you know what I mean? But they just, they ruin the whole story, they change the whole story. But in this story, I mean, it clearly says he slew 30 men. I mean, he goes down there and he kills 30 of the Philistines, takes their garments and gives it unto these guys. And he's mad, he's angry, he's infuriated. And you know what, he's even mad at his wife. So he just leaves his wife there and goes back to Dan, goes back to his father's house in a rage, in anger. Well of course it cools off in verse 1 of chapter 15, it says, it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid and he said, I will go into my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in. And her father said, I verily thought that thou had stutterly hated her, therefore I gave her to thy companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Take her, I pray thee, instead of her. And Samson said concerning them, now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure. So basically now Samson is saying, you know what, well this just gives me an excuse to just kill more Philistines, you know, just to battle the Philistines more. So here's what he ends up doing. He decides to get revenge on the Philistines. He's angry now because they've taken his wife and given her to someone else. So he basically takes a bunch, he catches 300 foxes, okay, and what he does, he takes these foxes and he ties their tails together and he lights their tails on fire. Okay, kids, don't try this at home, okay? This is cruelty to animals, alright? But he takes these foxes and he basically catches them, he ties their tails together, lights them on fire, and releases them into the crops of the Philistines. Then he goes and catches a couple more, ties them together, you know. And he goes through this process and he's just basically just burning down their harvest. I mean this is their food supply. This is their wealth and he's just burning it up. And he's doing it 150 times. I mean he's burning up a lot of crops, he's destroying a lot of their property. And in verse 6 it says, then said the Philistines, who had done this? And they answered Sampson, the son of the law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up and burnt her and her father with fire. So she shouldn't have told the riddle, right, because either way she gets burnt with fire in her father's house. So it says in verse 7, and Sampson said unto them, though you have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that all cease. So Sampson's still not satisfied. He's already killed 30 Philistines, he's already lit all their fields on fire. They've burned his ex-wife and her father with fire. And he says, well I'm still not done. I'm still not satisfied. So in verse 8 it says he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Eton. So we don't really know how many men he killed, but he just goes down there and again, just one man, just fighting against the Philistines and just kills a bunch of the Philistines, and we don't know exactly how many. And keep in mind, just to remember the story here, the Philistines are basically a foreign enemy that has invaded and taken over the nation of Israel and is ruling over the nation of Israel. Does everybody understand that? The Philistines are taking away Israel's wealth, they're ruling over them, they've lost their freedom to the Philistines, they've been delivered in their hands. And Samson wants to free his people from the Philistines, but he's going about it in a very misguided way. He's not going about it in the right way. But he just hates the Philistines and wants to fight them. So then it says in verse 9, then the Philistines went up and pitched in Judah and spread themselves in Lehi. And the men of Judah said, why are you come up against us? And they answered, to bind Samson are we come up, to do as he had done to us. So what we see here is that now the entire Philistine army has come to Israel and pitched against Israel. So you've got to put yourself in Israel's shoes, they don't know what's going on. They don't know about Samson's personal beef with the Philistines. So what happens is all of a sudden this giant Philistine army just comes into Israel and Israel's like, what are you guys doing? Why are you invading us? We're already in submission to you, we're already enslaved to you. Why are you coming up against us? And they say, well we're here for Samson. They want the children of Israel to deliver Samson over to them. They're saying, give us Samson or we're going to fight you, we're going to invade you, we're going to kill you unless you extradite unto us Samson. It says in verse 11, then 3,000 men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam. And the rock Etam is where Samson is hiding out. After he killed all those Philistines, he's hiding out in the wilderness in this rock Etam. And they said to Samson, knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? What is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, as they did unto me, so have I done unto them. And they said unto him, we are 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 yourself. And what we see here is that instead of rallying behind Samson, they basically want to just turn Samson over to the enemy. They don't want Samson to be their leader, they don't want to fight with Samson against the Philistines. They're just saying, look, the Philistines rule over us, we don't want freedom, we don't want to defeat the Philistines, we're just going to turn you over to them. And then he says, well just promise me that you won't kill me yourselves. And they say, we promise, all we're going to do, we're going to tie you up, we're going to bind you, and we're just going to turn you over to the Philistines. And he says, okay. So they tie him up. And again, more imagery, more symbolism of Jesus Christ, you know, basically that the children of Israel delivered him up unto the heathen, the Romans, to kill, right? Remember they delivered him bound unto Pilate, you know? So again, more symbolism there of Jesus. So he's turned over to the Philistines, and when he's turned over to the Philistines, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, and he just rips through the ropes that they've tied him up with. Because again, God has given Samson superhuman strength when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him. He rips the cords off his hands like they're just nothing. And it says in verse 15, because he doesn't have a weapon, I mean he's bound, right? So he rips the cords off, but he's still surrounded by all these troops, he's surrounded by all the Philistines, he's surrounded by the enemy, he has no weapon, so he's just looking for something to just grab and just start fighting. And it says he found, in verse 15, a new jawbone of an ass. I mean of all things to use as a weapon. Basically there's just a bone, just a jawbone of an ass, an ass is a donkey, okay? Just this jawbone of an ass, he just picks it up and I mean he's just going to use it as a club, or just as a weapon. So it's not exactly a broadsword, not exactly a fantastic weapon, but he grabs the jawbone of an ass and says, he took it and he slew a thousand men therewith. So he's fighting these guys and he kills a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass. You say, well how can one guy kill a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass? You say, I don't believe that. Well first of all, I believe it because it's in the Bible. I believe the Bible is God's word. It actually is possible for one person to kill a thousand people because of the fact, if you understand that, let's say they were out in an open field. Let's say they're out in a valley somewhere, obviously one guy can't fight against a thousand men because they're basically all going to just surround him. They can attack him from all sides at once and get him. But if you remember, he's dwelling up in a rocky mountain. He's up in the Mount Etum. That's where they're bringing him down bound from. So think about it. If you ever go hiking in the mountains, if you're ever walking down a trail on a mountain, it's not a big, it's never a big wide trail, is it? I mean, if you go hiking in the mountains, the pathways are always narrow and you're basically kind of usually on the edge of a cliff or maybe you're kind of just on a little path between rocks and you're kind of winding your way through. So if you're in that kind of an environment, that kind of a rocky, craggy mountainous environment, it would make sense that if you're on a narrow path or if you're on the side of a mountain or if you're between a bunch of rocks, where only one guy could get to you at a time. Where basically you could only fight off just one or two guys at a time and that's obviously the situation here. So they're coming after him one after another and he's just destroying them with the jawbone of an ass. The miraculous part is not that one guy could defeat a thousand in that environment, but that he would not become fatigued, that he would have the strength. First of all, he's stronger than any one of those thousand guys and number two, that he has the strength and the endurance to keep fighting because under normal circumstances, you're going to become fatigued after you've slain, no matter how good of a fighter you are, after you've slain 20, 30 guys, you're going to become fatigued. You're going to get tired. He just keeps going. He just keeps battling. But when he's done, after he's done with this battle, then it hits him once the adrenaline wears off and the spirit of the Lord wears off. Then he basically is just collapsing with exhaustion when this is done and then he prays to God because he has no water, he doesn't have any food, he doesn't have any water, and so God basically miraculously causes water to come forth from the inside of the jawbone. There's a hollow place in the jaw that had a little bit of water in it that God miraculously allowed to basically keep him alive. It says in verse 19, but God clave a 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, Enhekori, which is in Lehi unto this day. It's interesting, verse 20, where it falls in the story. It says, and he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines 20 years. If you look at the beginning of chapter 16, it starts with what word? Then. Which is a time element, right? So it says at the end of chapter 15, he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines 20 years, then went Samson to Gaza and saw there in Harlot and went into the earth. If you go to the end of chapter 16, verse 31, it says he judged Israel 20 years at the end of verse 31 there. Now it makes sense at the end of a judge's life, just to give you the overview, you know, hey he judged Israel 20 years, this was a 20 year thing. But it's interesting that it makes the same statement at the end of chapter 15. And I think the reason why is just to get a picture in the life of Samson, you know he's about 19 years old, say, based on the 40 year figure, and he could have been a little younger, maybe he was 18, but you know he's probably 19 years old, he's a fully grown adult man, but he's young. When he goes down, sees the Philistine woman, marries the Philistine, burns the fields, kills 30 men, slaughters a bunch of other Philistines, gets arrested, kills a thousand Philistine troops, he does all this when he's young, then it seems like he laid low for about 20 years, that's the way it seems. Because it's like, okay, he did all these exploits kind of back to back, because all the action in chapters 14 and 15 seems to be happening in a pretty short period of time. You know, he goes down, he sees the girl, he marries the girl, he has the wedding, he fights the Philistines, kills 30, gets the garments, he releases the foxes, he burns down the fields, he fights more Philistines, he gets in this battle, so it seems like after this, there's just a period that's recorded at the end of chapter 15 that he just judged Israel 20 years. So basically at this point it seems like he's just staying in his land, probably staying in Dan, staying far away from the Philistines, and he's judging the Israelites during that time. And you say, well what does it mean that he judged them? Basically he's looked at as a leader where they'll go to him and seek counsel from him. You know, if you look at the judges, that's what they were, someone that they would go to and learn the Bible, understand truths of God's word as far as resolving a dispute between two people. So like we go to a judge today, right? If people disagree, he's going to make a decision about who's right and who's wrong. So look at chapter 16 verse 1. It says, then, and I believe the then is referring to after the 20 year period that he judged Israel, so now he's probably about 39 years old, based on that reckoning of numbers. He's about 39 years old. He went to Geza, which is the land of the Philistines, and saw there a harlot and went in under her. What's he even doing in Geza again? My opinion is that he's spoiling for a fight. You know, he's been laying low for a while and he's ready to go back down and he's spoiling for a fight. You say, well why was he up there for 20 years? You know, probably just disillusioned. His own people are binding him and turning him over to the enemy, nobody wants to get behind him, nobody wants to fight the Philistines, nobody wants to do anything. So he's just up and dead. But then he goes down to Geza, probably spoiling for a fight, whatever, or maybe he just really liked those Philistine women, I don't know, but he goes down there and he sees there a harlot and went in under her. Now question, is that a godly thing to do? No. What's a harlot? A prostitute. So I mean he goes down to Geza, he goes to the land of the Philistines, and he sees this prostitute and goes in under her. Well, somebody sees him down there and recognizes him, and it was told to Geza, it's saying Samson has come hither and they compassed him in and laid weight 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 the hill that is before Hebron. So when he goes to this prostitute, this harlot, they say, you know what? We're going to lock him in. So these cities had walls around them with gates and they would lock the gates at night. So basically they say, we've got him. I mean he's here, he went into this prostitute, we saw him, let's just lock up the gate of the city, we've got him trapped, and in the morning we're going to kill him. So they lock the whole city down. He gets up at midnight, he goes to the gate and just basically rips the doors of the gate off their hinges and carries it and takes it with him. So basically, in the morning, not only is Samson gone, the whole door is gone that was on the gate. Now it's funny also, we talk about Hollywood movies, they change things. In the Hollywood movie, Samson looks like a bodybuilder. He's like this huge muscular guy, I mean just big guy. And when I was a kid, that's how all the storybooks showed him. They showed him as just a big, giant, muscular bodybuilder, just bulging muscles. But in reality, that's probably not how Samson looked. And the reason I say that is because obviously his strength was superhuman, but the Philistines, when they look at him they say, we can't figure out why he's so strong. And they get Delilah to tell them what the source of the strength is. Now if he looked like an Arnold Schwarzenegger, they might just say, well he's just a really tough guy, he's just a really strong guy. But remember, did his strength come from bodybuilding? His strength actually came only from the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him. And later, when his hair is shaven, and the Spirit of the Lord departs from him, he doesn't have the strength anymore. Now if he had giant muscles, wouldn't he still be strong? You know, whether his hair has been cut or not, whether the Spirit of the Lord departs or not. He probably was a guy of just average build. I'm not saying he was a complete skinny little dweeb, but he was probably of average build. But God had infused him with supernatural strength when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him. Now comes the final act in Samson's life. It says in verse 4, And it came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. Now look, do you see a pattern with this guy? I mean this guy's got a problem. First of all, he goes and wants to marry this heathen girl. Bad idea. And it's always because he saw them. I mean he just sees them and lust takes over with him. Because he goes down to the Philistines, I think in chapter 14, you know he's going down to the Philistines basically because he wants to fight the Philistines. Maybe he's just checking things out, doing a little recon, whatever. But he sees this woman and he says, well wait a minute, maybe I can marry this woman. Maybe this is going to get my foot in the door or whatever. He marries this woman that's a heathen that he wasn't supposed to marry. He's going into a prostitute that he saw. Again, something that he shouldn't be doing. Obviously this is a weakness for him with the lust of the eyes. Wouldn't you say that Samson has that problem in his life? Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh. Women are his weakness. So he goes in and he loves this woman Delilah. No mention that he marries her, but you can see that he's physically involved with her like he was with the harlot, like he has been as a pattern with him. And basically the Philistines, they come to Delilah and they say, if you can figure out the secret to Samson's great strength, if you can, you know, he just ripped the doors off our gate, you know, 20 years ago he basically slaughtered thousands of us single-handedly, in a few different incidents. If you can figure this out, we'll give you 1100 pieces of silver. Now I don't know how big those pieces were, but even if they were one ounce, how much is an ounce of silver today? You know, 20 bucks or so, and historically it's been worth more than that. It's artificially, the price of silver has been brought down artificially, but that's another story. So it should be worth about $50 an ounce. So, you know, 1100 pieces of silver, you know, if it's $50 an ounce, approximately, right? Somebody do the math on that. How much is that? What? Anybody? No? Nobody wants to do this math? $55,000? Okay, so that's, you know, that's a lot of money, right? So is that right? Do I need to double check your math, or can I trust you? What? Alright. I'm going to trust you, alright? So $55,000, approximately, they're going to give unto her, and the pieces might have been bigger than that. I mean, that's just if it was a one ounce piece. If it was a bigger piece than that, it could have been more than that, but probably at least that much money. So she keeps bugging him, and he keeps lying to her. He tells her all these crazy stories, oh, if you take seven green whiffs that were never dried, you know, and tie me up, and it's all, you know, and of course he just rips right through them like they're nothing. Oh, bind me with new ropes, you know, she ties them up, he rips them like they're nothing. Oh, sew my hair into the web, you know. He rips the thing up and doesn't do anything. Finally she just keeps whining and nagging and bugging him, and finally he's just okay. And he tells her about the vow, you know, or how he'd been a Nazarite from his mother's womb and how he was told that he was not supposed to have a razor come upon his head his entire life. And so what happens is he falls asleep on her knees and she cuts off his hair, you know, she shaves his head in his sleep. And then when he wakes up, she says, Samson, the Philistines be upon thee, and he thinks he's going to fight the Philistines and his strength is gone. So the Philistines easily master him, and it says in verse number 21, at the end of verse 20 it says he wished not that the Lord was departed from him, look at verse 21, but the Philistines took him and put out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with fetters of brass, and he did grind in the prison house, howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven. So he has no strength, this time they arrest him, and by the way, here's a great three point outline for a sermon, blinding, binding, grinding, alright? Because first they basically blinded him by putting out his eyes, then they binded him, they bound him, and then he's grinding with the animals. So what did they do? They punched out his eyes, now isn't it interesting that his big sin, his big problem really stemmed from his eyes, didn't it? He went down to the land of Philistines, he sees this heathen girl, he marries, he sees a harlot, you know, he sees Delilah, and he wants to look at women and lust after them and that's his downfall, so God took away his sight. God allowed him to lose his sight. You know, God will judge us for our sins, and he'll chasten and chastise us in this life for our sins. Now Samson of course went to heaven, he was a man of faith, he believed, Hebrews 11 tells us that, of course we will see Samson in heaven, but you know what, God will punish his children in this life. Once you're saved you have everlasting life, you can't lose your salvation, you're not going to go to hell, but you know what, he'll punish you in this life. And you know what, even a man like Samson, who loved God, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, he gave in to the sins of the flesh, he gave in to fornication, he gave in to whoredom. And what happened to him? God took away his ability to see, because he was using his eyesight for that which was sinful and ungodly. So he loses his eyesight, he's binded, and then it says he did grind in the prison house. So what this is is that animals back then would turn a millstone, basically an animal would be harnessed up and it would have to push with all its might to turn the wheels that would grind the wheat into flour, or other grains into flour. So he's basically given the job of an animal, where he just has to push this thing all day long and just grind like an animal as a prisoner. So the Philistines are pretty happy, I mean this is their archenemy. I mean this is a guy who has killed over a thousand of them, this is a guy they've hated and wanted dead for 20 years, they've finally got him, they've humiliated him, look they've put out his eyes, he's never going to be a threat to them again. They've bound him up, they've treated him like an animal. Now they should have had a barber go in and keep giving him a haircut, you know, because the Bible says, howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven in verse 22. And of course when his hair grows back, God's going to give him strength one last time. So they should have kept him trimmed. But verse 22 is an encouraging verse for people who've made serious mistakes in their life. Because you know what that shows us is that even after we've destroyed our lives, even after we've made huge mistakes, you know what, if you're a child of God, it's never too late for you to at least get right with God and at least be used by God. I'll tell you this. If you're saved, if you're a child of God, as long as you're on this earth, God's not through with you. I mean if you're 90 years old, if you're 90 and you say, you know what, and I've talked to a lot of 80 year olds, 90 year olds, and they just say, you know what, at this point I'm just waiting for God to take me home. I'm just waiting until God will take me home because I'm just ready to go to be with the Lord and I'm done. But you know what, if you were done, you'd already be gone. And so we need to realize that no matter how old we get, or maybe you just really mess up in your life, you just really commit a big sin or you mess up your marriage, you mess up with your family, you mess up with your finances, you mess up and maybe commit a big sin. Like look at David. I mean David committed a huge sin. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and killed Uriah. We need to realize that as long as we're on this earth, God is never through with us. Once we're saved and we're his child, he'll never be through with us. If he's through with us, he'll take us home. And until then there's always something for us to do. So even Samson, he's blown it. I mean look, he had every advantage. He's raised in a godly home, his mom's not drinking while she's pregnant, he's taught the things of the Lord, he grows up, he's given superhuman strength, the Lord blessed him the Bible says, you know, he's got every advantage and you know what he's done? He's messed it up. He's done a lot of stupid things. Why? Because of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. He's really blown it. And you know what? You've got to figure while he's grinding at that mill, he must have felt like an idiot, huh? Man, I was so stupid. I mean why did I even get involved with that girl Delilah? Why was I committing fornication with Delilah? Why did I do this? Why have I sinned against God? I should have just married an Israelite girl like my parents told me to. My parents said, look son, there's all these Israelitist women, why don't you just pick one and marry her? Why do you have to go marry some heathen girl? He's probably thinking to himself, I'm an idiot, I've messed up my life, why didn't I just marry an Israelitist woman and just, you know, God could have used me. And I think that God could have used him in a different way to deliver the people if he would have been in God's will that would have been less detrimental to his personal life. Now God's will goes forward. I mean God wanted the children of Israel to be delivered from the Philistines and that's what's going to happen at the end of the story. I mean God has promised them a deliverer, God has prophesied to Manoah and his wife that he will begin to deliver them and that the deliverer is going to be their son. And so even though Samson completely blows it, God is still going to use him to do that. It's kind of like when God said, you know, if these won't cry out, the stones will cry out. It's like when God says something, it's going to happen. When God gives a prophecy, it will come to pass. And if man doesn't cooperate, he'll just find a way to do it in spite of man. So they decide now that they're going to throw a big party, a big celebration. I mean the Philistines are happy. The news goes around the whole land of the Philistines. News gets around, we've captured Samson. And you've got to figure this is like when they captured Osama bin Laden or something. Everybody's rejoicing. This is their big national enemy. We found Samson, we've arrested him, we punched out his eyes, isn't it? So they throw a feast just to celebrate the fact that Samson has been defeated. So everybody comes. I mean all the major lords of the Philistines are there. Look at verse 27. It says, now the house was full of men and women and all the lords of the Philistines were there. So imagine this, all the government is there. Let's say this was the United States, the Congress is there, the Senate's there, the President's there, the Supreme Court's there, all the people that run the whole government, the major generals of the military, all the lords of the Philistines are there. All of the nobility. And there were upon the roof about 3,000 men and women that beheld while Samson made sport. So basically the inside of the house is just filled with all the lords of the Philistines, all the important people, all the people who run the country, and then it seems like the roof is opened up just to whoever. There's 3,000 people that have just come just to be a spectator. They're not necessarily invited to the party, but they're allowed to be in the gallery as it were and look on, probably just random Philistines who just want to look on. And they say, let's bring out Samson and let's make him sport. Basically let's just bring him out and make fun of him. I don't know if they're throwing rotten tomatoes at him or what they're doing, but they're just making fun of him, just making a spectacle out of him. And so Samson, look at verse 26, it says, and Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth that I may lean upon them. Now this is a huge building, because it houses all the lords of the Philistines and there are 3,000 people able to be up in the galleries on the roof, basically looking in. And so Samson asked to be brought to the pillars that are holding the thing up. Supposedly two structural pillars, these two pillars that are actually, you know, if these pillars aren't there, the thing comes crashing down. Supposedly that's how these two pillars are. That's why we have, you know, you wonder why is this pillar here, you know, can we just move this, can we just get this out of our way? But actually that pillar is supposedly a structural pillar. Now I don't think if I, you know, if the Spirit Lord were to come upon me, you know, I don't think we're going to bring down the whole building with these two pillars. But anyway, these are structural pillars that are holding up the building. And if you, you know, if you take down these two pillars, it's going to produce a domino effect where the whole building comes crashing down basically. So Samson gets himself between these two pillars, it says in verse 29, Samson took hold of the two middle pillars, the two middle pillars, you got that? Upon which the house stood and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand and of the other with his left, and Samson said, let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were therein, so the dead which he slew in his death were more than they which he slew in his life. Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down and took him up and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtael in the burying place of Manoah, his father. And he judged Israel 20 years and then the story just ends there, we don't really figure out the aftermath, but it's pretty safe to say that the Philistines did not rule over the children of Israel anymore. When their whole government's dead, I mean all the nobles, all the lords of the Philistines, I mean he just destroys the whole leadership, the whole people that were oppressing the children of Israel, I mean they're gone, they're dead. The whole building just collapses and destroys them all. So what do we take away from this? What do we learn? And again, another picture of Jesus Christ, you think of Jesus on the cross, Samson has arms out like this and he's basically dying and bringing freedom to the people, bringing freedom unto his people, which obviously Jesus Christ died to set us free from the curse of sin, to make us free from the curse of sin. So basically what do we learn from the life of Samson? Well first of all, we can learn that even a good man can live a pretty messed up life if he gives in to sin. You know, I mean even a good guy, because he was a great man, I mean the spirit of the Lord is upon him, he loved the Lord, the spirit of the Lord is moving him, and we see a lot of good things about Samson, but you know what, no one is immune to sin. We don't want to think, oh man I'm so righteous, I'm so godly, I can handle it, I can handle looking at all this stuff I shouldn't look at. Okay, even a man like Samson could be brought down by the lust of the eyes, could be brought down by the lust of the flesh. So one of the biggest things we can learn from Samson is to control our eyes, and control our lust, and control the flesh, and to realize the importance of living a clean life. Another thing that we can learn though, is that you know when God wants to do something, when God has a work to do, especially when he's prophesied that it's going to happen, he's going to get it done. But if we want to be blessed in our lives, if we want our life to end well, we'd better obey and keep his commandments. Because you can say, well look, God used Samson, God used this thing with his heathen wife, God used the thing with the foxes, and God used this thing with the harlot, and God used the story with Delilah, but you know what though, I think God would much rather use us when we're obeying him and keeping his commandments and doing right. You know, Samson could have brought deliverance another way. So what I'm saying is, a lot of times we commit sin in our lives, sometimes God will still cause it to work out for his glory, but that doesn't excuse the fact that we committed sin and we're still going to suffer the repercussions of our sin. But the reason that that's encouraging is that we realize that just because we've made mistakes in our life, it doesn't mean our life is over. For example, what if you made a big sin that's kind of, it's kind of a sin that affects the rest of your life. Like let's say for example, you marry an unbeliever. You marry a non-Christian, right? Is that God's will? Absolutely not. But does that mean God's just through with you now? Does not? You blew it. You're 20 years old, you married an unbeliever, you're done. Your life's over, God can't, no. Now are you going to suffer the consequences of that sin? Sure you are, but can God still use you? Can you still do right and be used by God? Yes you can. And so remember that no matter what you do in your life, if you're saved, it's never too late to start living for God. To get up and do it right and be used by God. And you know, no matter how much you've been humiliated or destroyed, you know what, the hair of your head can begin to grow again, figuratively. No matter how shortly you've been shorn and shaven, it can still come back. And so we need to be like Samson in the sense that at least he cared, at least he wanted to do something, at least he was fired up, unlike the people around him, and he was willing to stand alone. But we need to learn also from Samson's mistakes that lust and fornication can destroy us. The Bible says, then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin, sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this story about Samson and the Bible. Help us to apply it to our lives. Help no young person here to be foolish enough to think that fornication is not a big deal. They can fornicate, they can sleep around, they can lust after women's bodies and you know what, it's not going to be a big deal. Help them to learn from the life of Samson that you know what, it is a big deal and it could bring the strongest man in the Bible to his knees and destroy him and break him down and have him die even before he's 40 years old. Lord, help us not to follow that bad example but help us to learn good things from Samson's life like being spirit-filled and fighting the Lord's battles and so forth. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.