That would take all day. Yes. Yeah. So that wasn't just really up or one around his favorites. Yes. Wonder. Yeah. It's for you. Judge Grinder. No, I didn't. Good morning. Good to see you all. And you all online as we come together for what have we got? Samson the 10th session here in Samson and Delilah. Well, this is part two of Samson and Delilah 10th session of Samson altogether as we've come to get to know this judge of Israel for 20 years. I should look, I know we had some 40 year judges, but I should put them in order and see where Samson ranks in terms of time spent as a judge. I don't know, but I'll look that up. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, on this October 1 morning, we're grateful to come into this place and worship the Lord through the Lord's supper later in our service and here through the study of God's word. And just pray that it would be a blessing to us that we would get it right, that we would be gracious and understand our holy history a little more through this. We ask it in Jesus name, amen. And now we come to Judges, the 6th chapter, 16th chapter. Excuse me. And we're going to begin with verse ten. Last week we met Samson and Delilah and, well, we had met Samson before. Everything's out of place. It's taken me a while to locate myself, but we had met Samson and Delilah. Remember, we met the woman, woman of the night in judges 16 one through three, where he decided to carry off the gates of the city and she was not named. But it was suspicious that maybe that woman is Delilah, I'm still not sure, but maybe we met her then. And then he falls in love with her in verse four. If it's the same woman, he falls in love with her in verse four. And what we looked at last week is that Delilah last time, it's been two weeks because of the prophecy conference. But what we looked at last time was that Delilah was enticed to entice. She was encouraged to find out the source of Samson's strength, and she seems to fairly quickly go for it. I still don't know if I totally want to throw Delilah under the bus just in case I meet her someday or if there should be some degree of grace with her. We're trying to feel all that out. There's certainly nothing positive that you could immediately get out of the story from Delilah. But let's pick up so she had had the first session, and that is of enticing Samson. That is, if you tie me with what? Seven? I believe it was seven green widths, that is, switches willows tied together, then you'll not be able then I'll have the strength of a normal man. That was through one through nine. We pick up now in verse ten. That didn't work. And so Delilah said unto Samson, behold, thou hast mocked me and told me lies. Now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound. So, failing in her first attempt, she comes at attempt number two to uncover the secret of Samson's strength. And in working on this attempt to uncover, she takes what appears to me to be a more manipulative direction here in I don't know, maybe I'm reading between the lines, and that's always kind of dangerous in what's actually there. But it appears to me that she is turning on the tears. And the ladies in the room might not appreciate it, but the men have no clue what to do when the tears come. And it sometimes does appear to those of us men that there's this little switch inside of a woman that is able to turn on, and all of a sudden it starts flowing, and the man's like, I don't know what to do here. Now, I don't know if that's the case or not, but it appears that she comes here with thou hast mocked me and told me lies. Now, I do sense a bit it does not take a rocket science, a theological rocket scientist to get here, but I do sense a bit of irony here. Thou hast mocked me and told me lies comes from the one who is mocking Samson and telling him lies. This is the case of what is it when you point at someone, you got three fingers pointing back. She certainly is mocking him in the sense that she is feigning love, I guess, in order to get what she wants. And she is clearly not only has she told him lies, but she is going to tell him lies. She is working at this. So you kind of want to say here, okay, Delilah, you get the Academy Award for mockery and lying. The Actress of the Year award goes to Delilah because it appears very much to be an act, and she must be a pretty good actress. Tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound. Now, if you go back up to verse four. Verse four six. Verse six. If you go back up to verse six. What is interesting here is that she doesn't appear to be subtle anywhere through let's jump back here to verse six. Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth and wherein thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. That's not subtle. How can I get you bound to afflict thee? She wasn't subtle from the beginning. You jump down here now to verse ten and she comes back to it. I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound. So once again I want to ruin you. That's what I'm here for. I want to ruin you. There's going to be a lot, I think, in this session of Samson and Delilah in which we could do a study of human psyche, of human relations I hate to get into psycho babble too much, but I wonder sometimes if a woman can't come to a man and say, hello, sir, I want to destroy you. And he says, oh, well, gladly. And she's not even subtle about it. And the man has a hook in his nose, and she drags it, and he knows it, and she knows it. And yet the scene continues that seems to kind of be happening here. So I want to know wherewith thou mightest be bound. That doesn't appear to be like a commentary by the narrator telling us what's happening behind the scenes. It looks like her mouth is moving, and she's just saying this. So there is the scene on act two of the scene. He said unto her, if they bind me fast with new ropes that were never occupied, then I shall be weak and be as another man. Okay, so he is playing the mockery and deception, too, no doubt about it. He is not telling her the you know, I don't know. I kind of want to say to Samson, well, I want to say to Samson, run, don't walk, get out while the Gitton's good. But he does not do that, not doing that. There's a part of me that says, well, at least you lied and didn't tell her the truth, because telling her the truth is going to get you in, you and your nation in all sorts of trouble. But of course, I and the rest of you have read the story already, and we know exactly what happens, that this is this downward spiral. So anyway, he tells her, he said, if they bind me fast with new ropes, I suspect there is something with new ropes that new ropes that have never been occupied. I suspect that that has a little more mysticism power to it than what we might take. Obviously, we would probably just take it in the sense of new ropes are better than old ropes for binding things up. If you want something bound really well, get a new rope instead of an old rope. And it could be as simple as that. But with Judaism, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't true with the gods of the Philistines as well, that which is new, that which is the first fruit, so to speak, there might be some religious, cultic, mystical idea to this that it can't be old ropes won't hold me, but new ropes will hold me. That there's some sort of sacred idea behind this. Whether that is true or not, I suppose that we will never know. But bind me fast with new ropes never occupied, then shall I be weak and be as another man. I think literally, the Hebrew says, and be as one man. So giving the idea that his strength goes beyond the strength of one man, which obviously we have seen. And if he wanted to put this in something very down to Earth. Maybe he'd be I'd be like any old man. That's what would happen. So, as you know, Delilah therefore took the ropes and bound him therewith and said unto him, the philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there were liars in weight. A little bit of play on word there, right? Because there were liars who were lying. Whichever way you want to take that. There were liars in wait abiding in the chamber, and he break them from off his arms like a thread. Clearly not a problem. Just like the willows they went like flax that had been burned. A thread of flax that had been burned. And now he just breaks them off his arms like a thread. This isn't getting anywhere now. The liars in wait. This is the second time that they have been here. This says that this is obviously very well planned. Of all the people coming together to make this plan. You know, I suppose if we had an interview with Samson after the fact, he would say there was more than handwriting on the wall. There was every sign that a guy could get, and yet I didn't take it. And for whatever reason, we'll talk maybe about some of the motives that might have led him to go down this path later. But nonetheless, he mocked her and lied to her, no doubt about it, and it did not work. And Delilah said unto Samson, hitherto hast thou mocked me and told me lies? Tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said to her, if thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web. Well, at least he's getting more creative, right? And he's also inching ever more closely to the truth, because the truth does lie in his hair, as we know, the hair being the sign of the Nazarite Vow. And it was really the Nazarite Vow that was a part of the strength there. It would be interesting. I don't know that this could be studied, because there's not that much about the Nazarite Vow in the scripture. But if we were able to go into more history, if we could find some documentation on the Nazarite Vow, I wonder if there was not at least the idea that the person who takes the Nazarite Vow is going to receive strength from God. Whether it be physical strength or leadership strength or spiritual strength that the vow brings you strength. And this is why people would do it. I don't know that that's the case, but certainly you would see it here. And so it's getting close, I think, in terms of psychology as well. We could also say that once you break a certain ethical or moral boundary, it gets easier to do it the next time. And the next time, and this is what's happening to Samson is that for 20 years, it appears, of his leadership and the previous years of his life, he has been faithful, but now that barrier has come down. And with that barrier coming down, it gets easier and easier and easier it appears. So he comes again, dangerously close. If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web, it appears that he had his hair, his extensive hair. I don't know, braided or ponytailed or whatever you would say. What's the word for dreadlocks? There we go. There was some kind of weaving already in his hair, braiding of his hair. Jody, you're a hairdresser. You ever did seven locks in a guy's hair? Oh, okay. It's happened to me once back when I had long hair. I used to keep it in seven locks. So the seven locks of his hair, incidentally, I've been reading a book. I always say reading a book, and I seldom read a book. I listen to books, audiobooks. So I've been reading a book I just finished. It called four years in the rockies. The adventures of Isaac P. Rose. And it was in the early 18 hundreds. I wanted to read it because it had a lot about Kit Carson in there, and I thought, well, that would be interesting to hear, a little Talsh and Kit Carson. And it was a guy who spent isaac P. Rose, who spent four years in the Rockies in the 1830s. Anyway, he talked about an Indian chief who, it was said had 14ft of hair. I don't know if that's possible, although I do know that Isaac P. Rose once saw him and said the legend was true. That's how long his hair was, because the guy let it out. So I'm thinking to weave hair in a web or in a loom, which we'll talk about here in a moment, you got to have a lot of can't. I don't even think 2ft of hair. You can't get it in the loom very well. So he's got a lot of hair. How long is that? I looked on the Internet today, and the longest I could find was a man in India who has 7ft of hair. But whatever this is, long hair going on here obviously has not been cut all of his life. But if you weave it into the web, many of us here went on Thursday to Ortega's Weavery and saw a little demonstration of the loom there. And it is the I got to get my terminology right. The warp and the weft. The warp and the weft. The warp is the undergirding. The weft is what weaves through. I'm curious to know with his hair, was it the warp or the weft? I'm kind of thinking it's the warp. If you think of a loom, all those little strings that get tied around the bar and they slowly unravel so that you can put the weft through there. I'm thinking his was the long ones if you put it in there. And the reason I say that has to do with the next verse, but we'll see. So anyway, put them on the web. Now you might just say weave it together, but it's not really that. The wording that's used in Hebrew is definitely put it into a loom. So a loom of some sort. You weave my hair in this loom. He certainly is getting creative here. I can't imagine that anyone would ever think to do this. And so the frustrated Philistines, not Filipinos, but Philistines have to be saying, sounds good enough to me. Let's try it. And so they go for it. She fastened it with the pin. Now that's the reason I'm voting for warp instead of weft. Because in the weft that goes back and forth through the warp, you don't really fasten that to anything. And doing seven through there, you would end up having to cut it. But if you've got seven of the weft, then that wouldn't happen. Plus they go down onto the pin. So she fastened it to the pin and said to him, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awakened out of asleep and went away with the pin of the beam and with the web. Looks to me like he is now carrying the loom with him on his however many feet of hair he's got going here. And now he brings this up. Clearly not normal activity. Clearly he sleeps well. Clearly she is determined as well as the others. And also, I think, continues with the sort of mystical idea that we've had before, that there's a secret. And to find out the secret is what he's working on. And yet again getting very close. It has something to do with the hair. Now I know. So someday I guess I'll ask Samson, how long did you go around carrying the loom on your head? Were you able to just undo this? Did you go down to Jody the hairdresser and say, I got a little tangle. Jody, could you take care of this and get the loom off? What's up with that story there? I don't know, but I'll take it at face value. So, okay, it didn't work. Samson. The Philistines are coming. She said unto him, how canst thou say I love thee with thine heart is not with me? Oh, now she brings out the big one. You say you love me, but your heart is not there. By this time, Samson's got to be in love, because he's not going to stop. He's not going to say, look lady, three times you have tried to trap me so that I would be handed over to the enemy. And you're talking about love. So the only explanation I can give is, Samson must have loved her. He must have loved her enough that he honestly didn't care that she was manipulative. He didn't care that she was lying to him three times. Now, granted, he lied three times as well. I guess it takes two to tango. And he just seems blind in this whole thing as it goes. Let's jump back here to verse four, just as a reminder. And judges 16 four. It came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. I think that's one of those interpretive keys. We have to take it as Samson. Why are you being so dumb? Because he loved her. That's why he was being so dumb. Love sometimes does some dumb things, right and will climb any mountain and cross any ocean. And that's exactly what is happening here. Although he clearly is torn here on what's going on. And he's torn between his love for the Lord and his vow and his love for Delilah. And he's trying to balance both of these. There's an old hymn about this. It goes torn between two lovers feeling like a fool Remember that one? So here he is. He's obviously got some emotional turmoil going on here and what's happening, but I would say that Delilah might, too. I don't know if Delilah didn't love know on the surface, it appears she didn't. But there's one little issue. You remember the first woman that he was going to marry from Timnath? And eventually, what was the demise of that woman? Does anybody remember? She got burned. Her and her house. Her family burned in the house. The Philistines came and said, enough. You have dishonored us. And she died. That probably was known. And now she's got these possibly the very same men, but certainly the same institution, if you will, after her. And she might be thinking, I have to tread this one carefully because if I'm not careful, I am going to die. And so she's torn also between a love for Samson maybe the only place I think you could pick up a love for Samson is in the Cecil B. DeMille movie Han Samson and Delilah, in which she loves him all the way to the end, and he loves her all the way to the end. And I didn't go back and finish watching the movie, but I might. But Shelly, shall we make some popcorn and watch Samson and Delilah sometime? Maybe when it snows, because it's a three hour movie. I don't know all her motivations. I don't know all his motivations. I just know there's a lot going on here that makes this story probably more complicated than meets the eye. So here it is. Thou hast mocked me, told me lies. Now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound again. No trying to conceal it here. And why Samson doesn't just pack up and run, I don't know. He said to her, Oops jump, jump down. Let me see verse 15. She said to him, how canst thou say I love thee when thine heart is not with me? Thou hast mocked me these three times and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth. Again. Don't you want to say, Samson? Why aren't you saying thou hast tried to trick me three times, which is going to end up in my death? What's up with this? And you want my heart? But he doesn't seem to come back. At least it's not recorded in there that he comes back. And so once again, now the fourth time hast thou not told me wherein thy great strength lieth? Just a little incidental, but the pattern is so strong through the scripture that I probably ought to bring it out. In biblical numerology you can go crazy with biblical numerology stuff, but in biblical numerology, the number four is always really kind of a downfall number. You've got four in its multiples four, 4440 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, 40 days and 40 nights of the flood, 40 years in the wilderness. So here we come, the fourth time. The fourth time is very much a human weakness number. And so it brings it whether that's meant to be or just verification that this is actually not a made up story. But it fits the biblical narrative. This is one of the things in the scripture that verifies the scripture. You see, the scripture was clearly written by different people over a period of about 1500 years. And to get their stories to align, 40 authors over 1500 years, to get the stories to align in and of itself is rather difficult. But to work things in, like every time there's a fourth in some manner, that fourth has to be a very human number, a very earthy number, a very earthbound number, a negative number, a number of fall. It's so intricately woven through the scripture that I think it's yet another verification that this may have been written by 40 men, but it's got one author, and that author is God the Father. So here he comes into verse 16. There seems to be a time that passes in verses 16 and 17. It came to pass when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him so that his soul was vexed unto death. Let's stop right there's. Clearly some time that is passing here between the third and the fourth because you've got she pressed him daily. Now, is this three days, four days, five days, 30 days, 60 days, whatever, we don't know. But it's enough that she pressed him daily with her words and urged him. Do any of you have, I don't know, three year old grandchildren? If so, you can understand this verse, because a three year old will press you with their words and urge you so that you finally will relent. If you do not realize that those three year olds, as sweet as they are, might have a little Delilah in them. But she comes, pressed him daily with the words, urged him I hate to bring up the passage, but remember the proverb that says, better to live in the corner of an attic than with a nagging wife. That's a little paraphrase there he's got himself. He would have been better off to move to the corner of an attic here and he did not move to the corner of an attic. He kept listening and she pressed him daily, she urged him so that his soul was vexed unto death. That's a little bit of a what do you call it, a euphemism there or a paraphrase. The literal translation would be his soul was short to die. His soul was short to die. That phrase is used a couple of times. Well, not that phrase exactly, but getting close to that phrase is used a couple of times. One Rebecca, when she is not having children and she begins to get upset with herself and with the Lord and with Isaac, she says, Genesis 27 46, what good shall my life be to me? It doesn't use the exact same words there but it gives the same idea that hey, my soul is vexed unto death. Then there was Elijah, remember Elijah went before Jezebel and before Ahab and then he was on the run and he gets down into the desert and he says in one Kings 19 four, he says, Lord, why don't you just take my life? Again, not the same words, but my soul is vexed unto death. Now Rebecca and Elijah are on the good side of people here and to a certain degree Samson is as well, which know you can eventually get worn down to where you don't really care. I think that this answers the question of why Samson doesn't run, why he doesn't get out of there. His soul was vexed unto death. I'll put this a little more lightly. He's come to the point of saying I don't care, I don't care what happens, I've thrown in the towel, I'm done with this, I'm finished. And whatever the outcome may be, it doesn't care. He is in a sense committing certainly political suicide, national suicide in a sense he's just totally worn on it vexed unto death and shows really the war within that was his. And here he gave up the war right here. And you could from this point on and I at one point was going to stop the lesson right here but I thought I had I knew I had room for one more verse on the paper. You could predict the outcome of the story from here if his soul is vexed unto death. Nah, it's over. There really is a lot to what would you call it? A spree decor? Is that the word? Is that how the French would say it? The emotional state of an individual or of a group that determines whether this thing is going to win or lose. And all things being equal and sometimes the spree decor obviously or emotional strength is not going to win an unwinnable battle. But you can't win a winnable battle if you don't have that. I think it ought to say as we kind of think about this why Samson? Why as what you want to say all the way through this story, what's going on here? I think that it ought to be a warning to us. One, as I mentioned earlier, the first time you get out of the fence is scary. And then it gets easier from there and you just keep going and going and going. And all of a sudden that becomes commonplace to you and the conviction goes away, the guilt goes away, the worry goes away. You begin to think yourself invincible, whatever it is. That's one aspect of it. But another aspect that again, ought to come in and be a part of our own thinking and our own lives and our own psyche and emotional stability is that we can only take so much. And here's Samson, who has lived for 20 years in the public eye, maybe longer than that because he was judged for 20 years. But prior to that, everybody knew Samson and he was the guy that did the gates and all that kind of stuff and the foxes and all the stories we've learned was prior to the 20 years. So here's a guy who's lived in the public eye. I think that more than probably any of us will ever know and probably more than any of us want to know there is an unbelievable pressure about living in the public eye. Some people seem to do okay with it. Let me give you an example to our British friends. Pardon if there's any angst here, but you got William and Harry. One of them handled it well. One of them did not handle it well. But to be in the public eye with all that tremendous pressure that everything you say and do can and will be used against you and mostly will be used against you, that weighs on a guy after a while. Which, incidentally, I think that's one of the reasons why our founding fathers I think they kind of recognized this and basically believed in the citizen government that you go you do your duty for a little while, and then you go back home. That's what you do rather than staying there until you die in office. And there's a time to retire, there's a time to go home because you become entitled, you lose your focus. And maybe this is what's happening to Samson is he should have term limited out. He needed to at least take a vacation, go out and get some sun. Samson go down to the beach somewhere and leave all this behind. I think however you do it, this emotional exhaustion that Samson seems to have, I think is something that we have to watch for in our own lives and we have to watch for in others around just we can't necessarily help everybody around us, but we can help ourselves. And one of the things we ought to realize. Is when we are emotionally exhausted. That is not the time to make big decisions. That is not the time to reveal your secrets. Sometimes it's better to go to bed. There is that marriage advice never go to bed angry. My advice is go to bed angry. Tomorrow will be a new day and it will seem so much better. Things are so much clearer after a night of sleep. Forget about it. Don't try to stay up till 02:00 a.m. Working it out, because one of you is going to have to dial 911. I'm not big on making personal application necessarily, but this one just shouts out take care of yourself. If you find yourself emotionally exhausted, just walk away. Just quit. Just go somewhere, just rest, take a walk, do whatever. And that's where Samson seems to be. And so, verse 17 and we'll stop here and we'll pick up on it next week and complete the story. He told her all his heart and said unto her, there hath not come a razor upon my head. Mine head. By the way, do you know why in English it says Mine head instead of my head? One is Mine is a direct object that's mine. And two is the letter H, was not pronounced in Middle English, and still is not sometimes for those who have humility or are humble. And so mine, mine ed is the way they would have said it. Now you know there's not a razor come upon my head, for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb. If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me and I shall become weak and be like any other man. Now, the key really? I don't think it's so much the hair, though. The hair is the symbol of it. The key is right there. I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb and the hair is related to the Nazarite Vow. So if I break the Nazarite Vow, I will be as any other man. Strangely enough, it seems like Samson had not broken the Nazarite Vow up to this point because he still has his strength. If our logic is correct, Samson's strength comes from his Nazarite Vow. Samson is still strong, therefore Samson has not broken his Nazarite Vow. If all that's correct, then odly enough, we have to say Samson was a Nazarite all the way from his mother's womb up to this point. How that all works in our mind, I would say we have to reconcile the story to that fact rather than undo the Nazarite Vow earlier. It looks like he has been faithful unto his Nazarite Vow up to here. Now, maybe you could argue he thinks he's been faithful to his Nazarite Vow, but nonetheless, he does have the strength and he does obviously give away the secret. And that is if I break my Nazarite Vow and the sign of it being broken or the sign of the Nazarite Vow coming to an end. We even see this with the Apostle Paul, most likely with a little footnote that I don't have time for. But when the Apostle Paul shaves his head at Centuria and goes back to Jerusalem, the shaving of the head was the sign, I'm done with the Nazarite Vow. I'm out of the Nazarite Vow now. So here he's coming and he's saying, I'm done. And my strength will go from me. I shall become weak and be like any other man. Now, if you are reading this story for the first time, I wonder how long you would have to search the Western world to find somebody who doesn't know the end of the story. It's kind of an iconic cultural story, but if you could find somebody who didn't know this story, you would have to say for both sides here, there's a lot of anticipation. No wonder Cecil B. DeMille made a good movie out of it, because it really does. If you don't know the end of it, kind of keeps you on the edge of your seat for both parties. For Delilah and the Know, is the fourth time a charm? Is this one going to work? For Samson? As he edges closer, what's going to happen? And now, as only Hollywood would do, we put up the sign that says continued next week. So come back for part three of Samson and Delilah next week and we'll pick up with verse verse 18. Let me lead us in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we see so much humanity in Samson and Delilah in the story here, and we pray that those easy personal reflections and lessons that we could pull off of this, we would take to heart and strengthen our soul and our walk with you. And be careful of walking away from the things that we should not walk away from, and turning and running from the things that we should give us the insight and the strength and the ability to do this because of the consequences that are involved for ourselves and so many. And thank you for recording the story of Samson and Delilah and the end we know. And yet there's so much more about it in the history of Israel that we look forward to learning in the next week or so. We ask this in Jesus name, amen. I think that I know we've got at least two more sessions on Samson, maybe three, depending on what I do. And then we will move into a new series there next. We also start a new series. That's for the worship service. I'll announce that later. You already know what it is. Anyway, God bless you. Those of you online will start back here in just a few minutes. Those of you here, we'll start back here in just a few minutes. God bless.