Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Glad to see everybody on a beautiful Sunday morning. As Hope just said, it's God's country, right? This is my favorite time of year. The days are so nice and the nights are crisp and cool. The days are perfect, just like it was supposed to be last month. But anyway, welcome everybody. Let's get to we'll save all the announcements and introductions and everything for the next service, but let's come in and study a little more of Samson, Samson and Delilah. And I noticed that's twice in a row I've made that mistake. This is Samson and Delilah, part three. Your outline says part two. The outline is correct, the title is wrong. And we'll pick up in Judges, chapter 16, verse 18 here in just a moment. But first, let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, as we have journeyed through the story of Samson and Delilah, or Samson's life altogether, we have learned so much that is true just about human nature and about human life. And we just pray that as we continue this this morning, we would see not only the providence of God, but also the grace of God and the weakness of man sometimes even here, and that it would help us in our own decisions that we make. We ask this in Jesus name, amen. And we come studying the biblical narrative. Boy, that's big. Can you read the print there? There we go. Let's now get to Judges, chapter 16. And we pick up in verse 18 where we left off a week ago. And in this little journey we have been this is our third week. Now in Judges, chapter 16, we met Samson. First of all, in verses one through three, he was introduced or he had a thing, we'll call it he had a thing with a woman from Timneth. And I put something forward to say I kind of suspect that might be Delilah. She just wasn't named yet. Can't really prove that. The Bible doesn't say that. But he ended up getting upset and tore off the gates of the city of Gaza. And we will get to that. That comes back around today. Nathan, I hear that little thing going again there. I don't know if you hear that or not, but we're trying to diagnose a hummingbird in the system. Oh. But anyway, then in verse four of chapter 16, we meet Delilah by name, maybe a different person. It says she's from the valley of Surrek. We don't really know where the Valley of Surrek is. At the end of today, he's going to end up back in Gaza. And that must be kind of close to all that. Incidentally, all this is on the news today because of Gaza and Hamas and what today they might call the Palestinians, which was named after the Philistines. So it's amazing how some things never change. Incidentally, I should say the modern day Philistines are not related whatsoever. To the ancient. The modern day Palestinians are not related whatsoever to the ancient Philistines other than the Romans gave them the name because they knew the Jews didn't like that. So that's the only connection. We could go into that modern stuff later, but let's dig in and see. Now, we've had three times already. The third time was not a charm. The third time was another fake. We come into the fourth time where Delilah says, hey, tell me, Samson, what the secret of your strength is so that I can tie you up and give you to the Philistines. Now, why would a man be so stupid as to say, oh, yeah, sure, I'll tell you. Well, for three times, he was only moderately stupid. I'll say moderately stupid because he didn't pack his bags and run. That would have been the smart thing to do. Rather, he played with it. He didn't tell her the truth. He played with it and she came back crying. Each time you've mocked me. You don't love me. Your heart is not with me. And eventually it got to him. The very first time we were introduced to Delilah in verse four, it tells us that Samson loved her. So what is it? All fair and love and war? This is a complicated relationship that's going on. Delilah I played with last week. What were her motives? I've decided this week I can't find anything good about Delilah. She is completely motivated by probably money. We'll get there here in a little. So she's told him three times. One time it was Willows WIFS, as it was called in the King James. Tie me up with Willows. I'll not be able to break free. He broke free. Tie me up with seven new ropes, I'll not be able to break free. He broke free. Weave my hair, the seven locks of my hair into a loom, I'll not be able to break free. He broke free. Now it comes to the fourth time, and actually we had the fourth time last week. The fourth time, obviously, was cut my hair. I have been a Nazarite and my hair has never been cut. If you cut it, I will lose my strength. We stopped there to see what happened. I know you've been sitting on the edge of your seat all week long wondering how this was going to turn out. Well, here we go. When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, come up this once, for he has showed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought money in her hand. A couple of things I think we should point out here. Delilah saw all that he had told her in his heart. This is mentioned twice in the verse. And so the text tells us he laid his heart bare. And then Delilah goes and says he laid his heart bare. This time is the truth. She, it seems instinctively new. He's not lying to me this time. He has really come forth and this is the answer. I don't know. It seems to me that if Delilah had an ounce of humanity within her, she might just say, Samson, we're in big trouble. Could we sneak out by the night? Let's make it back to your home because there are men out to get you. Because here is a man who does really talk about vulnerability. Now, I hate to use stupid so many times in the same presentation, but my grandson is not here. But he was a little stupid in becoming so vulnerable. He should have been suspicious by now. Does take advanced degree in psychology to realize I don't think this is going to end well. But anyway, he's in love and he goes with it. So he lays out all his heart, he becomes very vulnerable. I always feel a little uncomfortable with getting too much application and psycho babble here, but there's a lot of psychology in the Samson story all the way through. And let's just recognize here, when someone is willing to become vulnerable with us, we should not take advantage of that. We should not be a Delilah here on this one. So he really does lay out his heart, his secret, everything is put forth. And yet she sent and called the Lords of the Philistines. There's not an ounce of humanity in that. She's just like, Ah, bingo, chaching, I got it. Got the goods. And she has them on speed dial and calls the Lords of the Philistines saying come up this once. He has showed me all his heart. Then the Lords of the Philistines came up to her and here's where I want to bring for a moment. And they brought money in their hand. They've got it, they've got the goods to pay her. Now, last week we talked and John brought this up Thursday morning in Men's breakfast and reminded me but last week we talked about what the motives of Delilah were, why was she going through all of this? And I failed to mention money last week, even though I think earlier in the passage it does talk about there's a little inference anyway, or if not outright testimony that hey, you get us the secret, we'll give you the money. We speculated that maybe she was motivated by a fear of the Philistines because we remember his first fiance, how her family had the house burned and died in all of that. So she might be afraid of the Lords of the Philistines. Again, that could be underneath. But it looks like what she wants is the money here because this is what comes here. And so however much money it is, in fact, I think it's mentioned earlier in the chapter, it does tell us what how many pieces of silver it is. She wants 1100. Thank you 1100 pieces of silver. Oh, from each person. That's correct. So I don't know, I'll use the term a little bit differently than it's normally used. But here, ladies and gentlemen, we have the first biblical gold digger. She is after the cash and she is going for it. And now they come unto her and brought money in their hand. She is now a rich woman. I am going to go back sometime and I have not done it to the Cecil B. DeMille 1949 Samson and Delilah movie and see what all they have. Do they have this in there and figure that out? But anyway, she made him sleep upon her knees and she called for a man and she caused him to shave off his seven locks of his head and she began to afflict him. I'm going to make that a little smaller where I can get that there. She caused him to shave off the seven locks of her head and she began to afflict him and his strength went from him. Now, what we've got is obviously I think it's just a fairly cut and dried verse, literally cut verse here on the shaving of the head. It did get me interested, just incidentally, by the way, in case you get intrigued like this. I'm sometimes like hallie our three year old granddaughter, who has a hard time keeping us one track mind and going all the way through to the end. You should go for a walk with her sometime. A quarter of a mile will take half a you know, always these little side jaunts. And what about this and that? Well, I began to think when did they invent scissors, when did they invent razors? Here specifically, she caused him to shave off that is, she caused him that's the barber, the hairstylist to cut off to shave the seven locks of her hair. And I discovered that both scissors and razors go back almost as long as known history of mankind, at least 4000 years. They've found ancient scissors and ancient razors. So I guess it's not high tech anyway. You just take a piece of metal and sharpen the edge of it and put two of them together and you have scissors, right? So get it right on a razor and you have a razor. So that appears to be not a thing that would not just, I would say, be almost a household item even here some 3500 years ago. So going back to Mesopotamia, Babylon, Samaria, there's ancient archaeological evidence of scissors and razors. So here they are. They bring out the scissors and the razors, they cut off the seven locks of her hair. She began to afflict him and strength went from him that she began to afflict him with. Probably though the words are not here the other three times the words are Samson, the Philistines are coming. So probably that same kind of thing. Samson. The Philistines are coming. And she oh, it does say that. Verse 20. Excuse me. She said, the philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep and said, let's catch this part right here. I will go out as at other times before and shake myself. Here is an example of well, let's catch the next phrase there. He wisps not that the Lord was departed from him. It's an example of what do you call it, self deception when you think when you've so deluded yourself. Is that the word that you can't see reality? Once again, someday I'm going to go back on the Samson story. And this is so unlike me. I just normally teach the scripture, but someday I'm going to go back and say, here's all the things you can learn about humanity from the Samson story, because there is so much humanity in this story. And here is a guy who has convinced himself he's invincible. And that when we look at Samson, we say, oh, my goodness, how can you not get it? Shame on you. And yet I think that it's a pretty common thing to convince ourselves we are invincible. We tell ourselves a few times, and it doesn't take very long. Remember, who is Hitler's right hand man who invented the term the big lie? You repeat it enough times, and it becomes true. Was that Goebbel's. Yes. Just say, oh, yes, Pastor. That's it. But anyway, he just verbalized it. Well, the truth is we can lie to ourselves enough that we eventually begin believing our lie. And he was sort of living in this fantasy land, probably as a means of escape from the pressures of life and of public living for 20 years he was living there. And so I like the way the King James puts it, because it's poetic. He wisps not that the Lord was departed from him. That is, he didn't know it. Wist, by the way, is the past tense of wit. Wit is only used today when we're referring to really intellectual humor, sort of subtle intellectual humor. But if you say he's very witty, you say intellectually, he's sharp, and he can put these little things together and make humor out of it that nobody else could do. That's wit. But wit used to be used in a much broader mean just meant knowledge. Knowledge. Sometimes in the scripture or even in legal documents, it'll say to wit, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That is, to know. Here's what you should know about this. Here's the information. Here's the parentheses so you could translate it. He knew not that the Lord was departed from him. Again, I don't know. It would be kind of fun if we were to put ourselves in Papua New Guinea or something and find somebody who didn't know this story and bring it up to verse verse 19, verse the word in verse 20. Bring it up through verse 19 and then ask them to predict how it's going to end? My guess is they would predict it decently. Well, they would say, she got him, he's going down. And indeed, that's exactly what happened. So Samson is the only guy that seems to be missing out on this. So he's got this self deception here. As he says, I will go out, as at other times before and shake myself. You know, did he laid his heart bare? He told her, if you cut my hair, the strength will go out from me. Did he not believe it? Because here he comes. You know, I'll just go out before. Did he not think she would do it? He doesn't know his hair is cut, obviously. So is he not aware, in that sense thinking, surely she wouldn't do that to me. What's going on in his mind? Honestly, it's kind of hard to tell. And if I were a psychologist and Samson were here the day before and asking for some advice, I would say, forget whatever's going on in your mind. Let me tell you what's happening. That woman is going to get you, and you need to get out of here right now. Oh, but she loves me. Forget about it. Get out of here, because what's going on in your mind? I think Samson has gone down this rabbit hole so deeply that he can't figure it out. Incidentally, again, let me just say, when we or someone we know gets down in that rabbit hole, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep there's, it's very hard to logically convince them out. You sometimes almost have to take them by the hand and say, get in the car. We're moving. We're doing whatever it is. And that's all free. You can do whatever you want. Lucy charged $0.05. Nathan, I think my mouse oh, there it goes. No, I can't. Scroll. Nathan, bring me up to verse 21 if you can do it. The Philistines took him and put out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza. I'll stop right there, because as far as I can get on that screen, there's four things in this verse that the Philistines did. One, they put out his eyes. That appears to be a common punishment in the ancient Middle Eastern world. When you got a prisoner, especially a prisoner of note or of value, you would gouge out their eyes. This is more than we would want to do anyway. I honestly do not know the medical aspects of this. How many people die from getting their eyes gouged out when you go and do this? I doubt it was done in a medical facility. I don't really know. I'm not going to look it up. It's before lunch. But surely some people must have died from this. It had to have been very painful, obviously. But it does appear to happen quite often. The first time we see it in the Bible, there's at least three times we see it in the Bible. The first time we see it in the Bible is when the children of Israel, certain of them, are unhappy with Moses, and they're know, you led us out here to a land flowing with milk and honey, but there's no milk and there's no honey. And they were upset. And then they said, and what are you going to do next? Gouge our eyes out. So it's almost like you've taken us prisoner. The next step is you get your eyes gouged out. That's what happens. This is the second time we see it. The third time we see it is when King Zedekiah of Years, many years later, after this, the last king of Judah was taken captive by the Babylonians. The Babylonians. Gouged his eyes out. It appears to be probably. Let me add one more thing before I say that there are non biblical sources that also talk about in the Middle East about gouging the eyes out. It appears to be almost a way to keep a prisoner without having to keep eyes on him. He can't very well escape by night and run away. He's going to be caught before long. So it was almost a way of lightning, the load lightning, the burden of having to care for him. So he says here, can I get verse 21 or not? Thank you. Right there is good. So number one, they put his eyes out. Number two, they brought him down to Gaza. Gaza is the capital, if you will, of the Philistine coalition. I wouldn't call it the capital of the Philistine empire because there's really not a Philistine empire. There's these various Philistine cities that all coordinate and cooperate with one another, and Gaza is the biggest of them. And so the lords of the Philistines, this is where they would gather, would be the natural place. So probably they are somewhere near Gaza, and they go down. Gaza, by the way, was the city. Today there is Gaza City, which is in the news, and there is the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip had all five of the Philistine cities. I might throw in here also that the Philistines came to what is now Israel, ancient Israel, about, let's see, after the Israelites came into the no, I got that wrong about the time of the Exodus, the Philistines also came in. This sort of caused enough disruption in the Canaanite land that this is a weird thing. The arrival of the Philistines disturbed the political situation enough that militarily, it was easier for Joshua and the Israelites to come in and conquer the land. So in that sense, the Philistines sort of helped them, but they never conquered the Philistines, and so the Philistines then became their enemy. And so now they come, and here's the Philistines at Gaza. So punishment number one, take out his eyes. Number two, they bring him to Gaza. Number three, they bound him with fetters of brass, we might say shackles. I tried to figure out if there's anything significant about it being brass. The only thing I can figure out, they had shekels of brass and shekels of iron. Both of them are alloys, but brass is a little easier to work with and it doesn't rust. So is there any symbolism in that? I don't know. Nonetheless, he's bound in fetters of brass. And then the fourth thing he did grind in the prison house, it's using the word for grinding grain. So he's working the mill. The only other two times we see grinding in the scripture, never for a prisoner, but the only other two times we see it, it is done by women. So we could surmise perhaps they're taking this heman and making him do a woman's job in that he did grind. We always picture this, and I think I might have even a little on the outline. We always picture this. And every bit of art I looked up to see how we picture it, is he's pushing a great big millstone? That might be, but he might also have had to just grind like a woman in the house would have milled the wheat. And he's having to sit there all day doing the woman's job, so to speak. And the humiliation of that, rather than pushing the great millstone around, really hard to know which one that is. I didn't study enough of my ancient milling history to know, but there it is. Anyway, so now he is there. Let's go to verse 22, Nathan. Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven. This seems to me to be a little bit of let's use the old theologian adage that is sometimes spoken of over the Old Testament. Have you ever heard the phrase the scarlet thread of redemption? The scarlet thread of redemption is the idea that beginning with Genesis 315, where they're cast out of the garden, and yet God says the seed of a woman, the child of a woman, is going to crush that serpent on the head. There's a little glimmer of hope. It's not enough to have much to go on, but there's a little bit there. And theologians have noted how that thread, they call it, of course, the Scarlet Thread, because it ends up at the cross with the blood of the cross. But how this scarlet thread kind of tied into Genesis 315 sort of weaves itself all the way through the tapestry of the Old Testament until you get to the cross. Now, here you see a little bit of this, because right there, it's in one sense just sort of a natural statement. Well, duh, you cut your hair, it grows back. For some people, we don't need to know that his hair began to grow after he was shaven. Of course it began to grow after he was shaven. That's what happens. And yet it tells us this. And again, if we were to find the five people in the world that have never heard this story and say, okay, now read up to verse 22. What do you think is going to happen? I suspect they would say, I think there's going to be a turn in the story. I think something positive is going to happen. This is one of those that says, listener, listen close, watch close. It's one of those little theatrical hints, if you will. His hair began to grow back, a scarlet thread of redemption flowing through. You see it so many times in the Scriptures that you can almost again see it foreshadowed a little bit. I've given a couple of examples in this. You've got Abraham and Sarah promised descendants, and yet they have no child, and they're thinking about Eliezer, their servant. He'll be the descendants. And the Lord says, is anything too hard for God? Well, doesn't that sort of perk you up a little bit and say, ah, I don't think we're done with this story. There's something else out there and it's going to be good. Or you've got what the Book of Esther is a good one. Mordecai and Esther, and things are looking absolutely terrible for the Jewish people, as bad as they have ever looked, and not looking so good for Esther either. And then here comes Mordecai, maybe for such a time as ah, for such a time as this is just that little phrase that says, don't stop reading this story yet, don't give up hope. There's something that is going to come and bring this about. Even you get in the New Testament, and Stephen is talking about Joseph in the Old Testament, and it puts him in prison. And as Stephen is recounting the story, he gives that little word, but God was with him. He's in prison, but don't give up yet on this. It's almost like to put it in the bumper sticker of the 70s. If this passage had a 70s bumper sticker, it would say, please be patient. God's not finished with me yet because the hair is starting to grow after he was shaven. We know, of course, that the cutting of the hair was the secret, was the end of the story. We know also that it really was the vow that was the main issue of it, and the breaking of the Nazarite vow. But here we get just a little bit of hope that comes into the story. And there I guess I would also stop and give one little word of encouragement that it is sometimes at the darkest of the night that you can catch on some little incy teensy tiny glimmer of hope. And sometimes that's worth hanging on to, grab hold of that when you can, and say, I wonder if anything could come up with this. Well, with God, nothing is impossible. Maybe there is some hope there. Maybe this can turn out good. And I suspect we could even go around this room, because most of us here are filthy Groggins. Whatever our own journeys have been, we could say, hey, let me tell you about this one time I thought, this is never going to turn out. But look at it now, and that story, whether it's someone who was in sin, someone who was in prison, someone who is in utterly poor health, someone who is mentally confused and deranged, and yet something comes later and the story becomes very good there at the end. So all of that to say, hey, don't give up hope. That reminds me of something my grandma used to say. She was born in 1909, I think, and sort of has been with the Lord a long time now. But when she was getting up in years and she lived, I want to say 94, somewhere in her 90s anyway, I remember her saying people asking about her age and how old she was and almost kind of implying you hadn't got long. Her answer was always, I still buy green bananas. So, you know, I got at least a few more days. This is kind of a green banana passage right here. The hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven. There is some hope. Verse 23. The lords of the Philistines gathered themselves together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon, their god, and to rejoice. For they said, our god hath delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hand. Okay. They come to have a celebration to their god Dagon. Obviously, they believe that Dagon, their god, had handed Samson over, had given the victory, and all is well there. And so they rejoice in that and celebrate that. Now, this gives us a little hint I wish I had more, but a little bit of hint about how long from the Samson and Delilah haircutting experience to the collapse of the Dagon temple. I'm going to put two or three things together here. One is it was long enough for his hair to begin to grow. Obviously, that could be the next day. I shave every day, in case you're wondering. So I know hair can grow overnight, but for people to notice I can get by a day and you don't notice it. I've done it before. But if I go two or three or four days, you're going to start saying, what razor company went out of business? What's up there? But probably for it to become a comment. I suspect we're talking several weeks anyway, like he's getting hair now. It's coming back several weeks to maybe six, eight weeks out there. I don't know you people who have to deal with hair. How often you schedule your visit over here to the barber? How often is that? John, when you're a young man, it can be about every two weeks. About every two weeks. If you're a young man, okay. And we're probably talking two, four, six weeks. Something out there. Maybe it's starting. To get a little long, but even at that you're talking two months, three months. His hair is beginning to grow. The second thing is they are doing a celebration of the capture of Samson. Well, I don't think you would do that like ten years later. This is something if you're celebrating an event, you're going to do it fairly soon. However, I would assume there's some logistics involved here. You've got five city states, almost all with their own leadership. Can you imagine getting five city councils to agree on a date and something going to so there's a little bit of logistics going on. So we're probably not talking a week or two weeks. I'm going to guess that the whole thing of Samson milling, however he was milling and being in prison up to the fall of the Dagon Temple was probably three months, four months, something like this. I would have at least imagined it being three or four or five years. But when you put the things together on here, I don't think it's that long. I think you've got a matter of months, probably less than a year. Now. Again, the text doesn't tell us that, so it's putting a little bit of stuff together, but the various planning and the things probably you got three or four months. Now you've got this dagon, god of the Philistines. Dagon is known not only with the Philistines, but other ancient Near East cultures as well. We think that how many of you want to know what Dagon looks like? I thought you wanted to know what Dagon looks like. We don't know. If you look him up, he is is the proper term merman, not vermin. He's not a mermaid, he's a merman. Half fish, half man. That would kind of make sense with the Philistines, who were a seafaring people, did a lot of fishing and whatnot. That's what we think. We look if you look on the Internet, he's half fish, half man. The thing we don't really know is, did somebody make that up later? And it's just been propagated enough that that's what we say. There's not really enough proof to say that's what it is. But the modern understanding of ancient Dagon was half fish, half man. We don't know. He certainly appears to be related, which this is kind of an OD thing with the fish aspect, but most places we see him in ancient literature, he has to do with grain, the god of the harvest, the god of grain, which would have been very appropriate in the region. They were as well, which is a grain producing area, and Samson milling the grain and whatnot. So here you get this particular god that we don't know much about. Now they're celebrating. Our god hath delivered Samson, our enemy, to our hand. Does anybody know how the story ends? They are celebrating too quickly. Can I jump ahead? We're going to finish the story next week. Can I jump ahead, however, and say that later, under the days of King Saul, the Philistines were still there. And we'll talk about Saul a little bit in our sermon here. The Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant. They took the Ark of the Covenant and put it before Dagon, their god. And I don't know if you remember, but overnight the statue bowed down, like, fell off its pedestal. And they went in the next morning and there it was. And then they put it back up. And the next day they came in and it fell down and its head was broken off and its arms were broken off. And then they said, send that ark back to the Israelites. We don't want it anymore. So let's just say the celebration of the god Dagon turned out not to be a good thing either time we see it in the scripture. Okay, we're out of time here. I'm overtime. But that is our episode of Samson there, and we will pick that up next week and see how the story ends. We'll take a little break here and then we'll have a new sermon today, a new series. We always have a new sermon, but it'll be a new series on King David. You're going to get a little intro to King David's life and ministry. That'll be fun. Let me lead us in a prayer. Heavenly Father, thanks for the insights we get into life and the understanding we get into scripture as we spent some time in it today, we ask you to bless it in Jesus name. Amen. Thanks, everybody for being here. We'll take again a few minutes break and get started worshipping those of you online. It'll be a different broadcast. Michael?