That georgia today. Yeah, I think I think only so, yeah. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Glad to see you here today. And those of you online, those of you online wondering why there was music playing and it was going early. That's because Nathan told me what to do, and I wanted to make sure it worked early. So I played you a song, and indeed it worked. Welcome, everybody, as we come to the very last of the Samson narrative. Judges, chapter 16, verses 29 through 31. And we'll take a little bit of look at all this. I have enjoyed walking through and learning a little bit about Samson. Hope you have, too. And let's get right over here to judges, chapter 16, verse 20. We'll start with 29. Actually, there's 28. But let me lead us in a word of prayer. Father, thanks for your watch. Care over us for the blessings that are ours today, for the beautiful morning that is ours here in Taos, and for those who join us both here in house and online. And pray you'd encourage us all through the word in Jesus name, amen. Okay, judges 16. Last time we left off with Samson called unto the Lord and said, o Lord God, remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me. I pray Thee only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. We talked about that a little bit last week that the Hebrew says, I may 1 time be avenged for my eye. It's a little different. Hebrew, go back to last week if you want to see that. But there's a possibility he's asking a revenge for one eye, not two. But that was last week's lesson. So we go to verse 29, this week's lesson. And well, how about that? My little slider doesn't work, but I think I can type it. Verse 29. There we go. Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood and on which it was borne up, one with his right hand and the other with his left. Fairly, we know this verse because we've seen it in all the pictures, right? But when you look at it, it is a little bit kind of interesting. It points out to the reader the architectural weakness, the Achilles heel in this. And these are these two middle pillars upon which the house stood. The word house there, by the way, does not necessarily mean temple. I bring that up because last week I mentioned I don't know if it was a civic building or a temple or what it was, but that's a word that can be used for a common house. It can be used for, like, the house of David. We're going to see it in the next verse. Samson's house, the house of Samson. It can be used for a temple, the house of the Lord. It's a broad word, just like the word house would be in our English language. So here's the weakness. The two middle pillars. It's a little bit hard for us to understand how you have two middle pillars. I think it's because we are used to Grecoroman architecture. And Greco Roman architecture typically would have like the Parthenon would have pillars all the way around. And there aren't really two pillars that hold the thing up. Even, I suppose, in, say, the parthenon. If you were to take out the pillars on the corners, there's still enough other pillars to hold it up. So everything doesn't rest on two pillars. And it's almost hard. I wanted to check with an architect this week, but I didn't to see could you design a building that would allow 3000 people on a rooftop that is supported by two pillars. If there's any architects out there, you can tell us. But I can tell you what I did find is that in a number of places in that area, the area of the Philistines, they have found archaeological remains that indeed have two pillars. It seems to be in that time period in that location, a place that was given. And so I gave some of these here to you. Tell Gassiel. Tell Niknai in ancient Ekron. They are there. And tell Gazil there's number of them mentioned there that you can look on. Interestingly. What we never have in the pictures and what maybe only modern archaeology has helped us discover is that these two pillars, they would be in the arm span of a man. They were fairly close together. But we actually believe that from what we've seen in architecture, all we have is the foundations. And we think there probably were wooden pillars on a stone foundation. Every picture I've ever seen has stone pillars that he knocked down. Now and they also think that those pillars, only the weight of the building was holding them down. So he could knock them off, knock them out and the house comes tumbling down. There's what we got. So however that is, I think it would be kind of interesting to get architects and engineers together and say okay, design a building that would operate like this and figure it out. But there it is. Two pillars upon which the house stood and on which it was born up. So it says that twice the house stood, it was born up. And then it says one on his right hand, the other on his left hand. Again, kind of giving the image these are close enough together that you get right hand and left hand that are there together. And so, of course, again, you know how the story is going to end. 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 at his death were more than he had slown all his life. I'll finish the verse there for us. There's no surprise here because everybody knows the story of Samson, right and his prayer. Let me die with the Philistines. That is almost it's probably going too far to say that is a repentance or a sacrifice. But he certainly is not asking for anything outside of victory over the Philistines. He's not asking for any personal privilege out of it. Let me die with the Philistines. So I would say, and I think most Jewish commentaries would agree that there's a little bit of hope here that Samson recognizes the error of his ways and he comes and says, let me be the sacrifice here in order to get back into a right standing with the law. And so let me die with the Philistines. He bowed himself with all his might. That's kind of an interesting term. It literally means to bow, to bend over with all of his might. There's some disagreement both among theologians and Hebrew scholars and artists on whether he pushed or he pulled. You can see the artwork going both ways and you can find preachers that go both ways on it. Most Christian preachers have him pushing but a lot of Jewish commentators have him with an arm around and pulling them in. And they get that from that word bowed. It's kind of a strange word for push, but honestly, I think it can go both ways. As you bow down, you can push. As you bow down, you can pull. We don't know if he pushed or he pulled, but the house came tumbling down. He bowed with all his might. The house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were therein. And of course, earlier in the passage we knew that there were 3000 that were at least on the roof. And it tells us the dead which he slew at his death were more than in his life. The house fell and a lot of people died. It doesn't actually tell us that all the people died, just that there were a lot of dead people. And however many that is, we could go back and look. We had a thousand people at one point that Samson had killed. There are other times it just mentions various large numbers but doesn't actually tell us the words or the numbers. Excuse me. Verse 31. Then his brethren and all the house of his father there's that word house again. His brethren and all the house of his father came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zora and Eshtel in the burying place of manoah, his father. And he judged Israel 20 years, by the way. This took place in Gaza, the city of Gaza, which today is called Gaza City, which is now much bigger than it used to be, Gaza Strip. And I think the reason they've never found this temple is because it was built upon modern and many other Gaza cities were built upon it. They are currently doing some archaeological digging there. Thank you for getting that joke. They are going down to a lower level know, I suspect that ancient Gaza from Samson's time will never be discovered. And that is because there's just been too much building on it and too much war on top of it. And if it wasn't already ground to pieces, it will be ground to pieces. There's just not going to be enough there to go on, I suspect, anyway. But he died, his brethren and all at the house of his family came down. This is the first time we have been made aware that his father was dead. The burying place of Manoah, his father. We don't know anything about his death, or his mother for that matter, although she's not mentioned here. We see here his brethren, assuming that means literally his brothers, his siblings, and I suspect probably does, but it wouldn't have to. He's got some extended family. But what I note here is that even after Samson's big boo boo, even after he messed up, he's well respected, he's going to get a proper burial. They are not going to say, well, good riddance his brothers and his father. And the house of his father came down, took him up, brought him, buried him between Zohar and Ashtale. There is a place, by the way, that you can go that has a traditional burial site of Samson. There's a monument there and kind of a tomb that has been built there. Whether or not that's it or not it's in the right location, we know that. I would say it's more of a commemorative spot for the burial of Samson, who is well revered, really, in Judaism and I would suspect mostly around the world today. So he comes, he gets a proper Jewish burial, I would say. And then this little word here that he judged Israel 20 years. This is the second time we are made aware that he had judged Israel 20 years. Remember that judging Israel was not a political position, really. It was not an elected position. It was not an appointed position. It was just a position of moral authority. He was the one that when he talks, people listen. And they did that not only because he had defeated the enemy on so many, or kept the enemy at bay, I think we should say, didn't completely defeat the Philistines, but they had had 40 years of oppression by the Philistines. And he was the guy that sort of drew a line in the sand and said, you're not going to oppress us anymore. And he stopped the bullying of the Philistines, so to speak. And so he had given them 20 years of, as far as we know, relative peace. And the people were under a theocracy and they were under their own local. Each man did what it was right in his own sight. So they didn't really have a government, he didn't have a cabinet and know, meet together for legislative affairs and that kind of thing in judging Israel. In fact, I don't even know if he ever made a judgment in terms of, hey, Samson, we got a problem here in the local community and we can't figure it out. What are we going to do? That he made a judgment like that, but he certainly was one who had a moral authority. So that indeed, when things came up, they did no doubt look to him. And when strength was needed or strategy was needed, he gave it. And he shows himself one of physical might, one of spiritual might, and one of intellectual might that we have seen. And he comes, and he had done that for 20 years, and they gave him a proper burial. Now, that concludes the life of Samson. But we still have more time, and therefore, let's have some concluding thoughts on the life of Samson, I think. Let's talk Samson in Scripture. First of all, he is a little bit unique in Scripture. One, he's in the period of the judges. The period of the judges is almost wholly known from the Book of Judges. Outside of the Book of Judges, we know very little. There's the Book of Ruth that gives that little vignette there that takes place in the Book of Judges. Of course, there's first Samuel. That up until about first Samuel. Chapter eight is a period of the judges, and then they get King Saul. But for the most part, we've got the Book of Judges. And in the Book of Judges, he holds more real estate in terms of page, what do you call it, line inches. It holds more space than any other judge, which is a little bit surprising. Gideon comes in second, but Gideon's got about half as much space as Samson's got. Samson's got chapters 13 through 16 of the Book of Judges, and his story is pretty detailed. And even on Gideon, if you read the chapters on Gideon, those chapters are interspersed with some other things that are going on. It's not really fully about Gideon. So Samson wins the prize in terms of if you had to name the Book of Judges based upon the guy who gets the most territory in it, it would be the Book of Samson. So obviously there's more in it. Deborah and Barack are in there. They get two chapters, I think, Deborah and Barack. But when you look at that, an entire chapter is Deborah singing a song. And it's about a lot of previous history that goes through there. So Samson is unique in that particular role in what he gets there. But the only other time Samson is mentioned, I would even say alluded to I couldn't find any place in scripture anyway where I would say, well, his name wasn't mentioned. But that's talking about Samson. The only other place that I saw that Samson was mentioned is a pretty good place to be mentioned. Remember Hebrews chapter eleven, the hall of Faith, as it's called, and it says, what shall I more say, for time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barack, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets. Now that's just a passing remark in Hebrews chapter eleven. But once again, if you can just have a passing remark of your name in the Bible, hebrews chapter eleven is perhaps the best place to be put there, the hall of faith, as we call it. So Samson is not disregarded, he's put there in the hall of faith. And if you say, well, yeah, but it was just a passing remark, it was. But look also at King David right there. King David just got a passing remark and Samuel himself just got a passing remark, as well as Gideon and Barack and Jephthah, some of the others that are in other verses there. So that is Samson in the Scripture, 313, 1415, four chapters, excuse me, four chapters and one passing reference is what you have of Samson. And yet I would propose to you that Samson certainly would have to be in, I guess we would call it the second tier of biblical influence. Obviously on the first tier you're going to put people like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, maybe Elijah, Isaiah, some of these Jesus, obviously, Peter, Paul, John, some of these first tier biblical influencers, if you will. But if you go to the second tier of people to say, hey, once you get past the beginner's class and learning these people, samson's going to have to be included to understand what goes on. And then if you were to, I don't know how you could gauge this, but I think if you were to say, let's take the biblical characters who have influenced general society, judeo Christian society more than anyone else, samson's going to have to be in that list. Samson is all over in general society, as I said at the beginning of this series 13 weeks ago, that I doubt you could go many places at all, at least in the western world. And people don't know who Samson is. And they could, I think just the average man on the street, again in the western world could pretty much kind of tell you the story of Samson. They would focus, of course, on Samson and Delilah and maybe that's unfortunate that that's all he's remembered for. They probably would even remember if you ask them, how did Samson die? He pushed down the temple and he was crushed in it. Samson has had a huge influence on, on our society and on our culture. And with that here, there we go, I'll put his picture back up there. He's had a huge influence on society and culture. And so I did a little cultural research and found some things for you that highlight where he is Samson in literature. Did you know John Milton wrote Samson agonist is how you pronounce it. Samson agonist. It is a closet drama. Does anyone know what a closet drama is? Not really. Okay, you will in just a moment. A closet drama is not meant to be acted. It is meant to be read. At most. In acting on a closet drama, what you would do is hear it on a radio program, that it's more the line. So people would gather together and you be Samson, you be Deborah, you be Manoa when they would read the lines rather than acting it out. And I went and looked at some of it. It's a little hard to read because it's in what would it be, the 15 hundreds. And it uses kind of some of that Shakespearean language. But John Milton, he's the guy who wrote other things. I started to say Pilgrim's Progress. And then I remembered that's not John Milton, but paradise game. Paradise lost, perhaps? Paradise lost? Yeah. So he had a huge impact on Christian theology, really, and wrote that the Riddle of Samson by Jabotinsky and the Riddle of Samson really gets into a little more of the psychological issues. And we've talked about some of those that there's a lot of the study of humanity that you can get from the life story of Samson in art. It's all over the place. Peter Paul Rubins, as a baroque artist, he did that famous work Samson and Delilah. And a lot of places, if you check this one out on the Internet, you can find that especially statuary of Samson killing the lion. That seems to be the number one thing that he gets for in art. And I didn't bring the pictures to show you, but especially in European cities, you can look up and a lot of the plaza has a fountain in the middle, and it happens to be Samson killing the lion. So that picture of Samson killing the lion again is another one that has had a testament to his legendary strength. Handel, you've heard of him, frederick Handel. He wrote an oratorio on Samson. In fact, it's called Samson. And I went and listened to a little bit of it. I didn't listen to the whole thing. I think it's about two and a half hours long. He based the words on John Milton's Samson agoniste. And it really is, if you got a couple hours, the part I listen to anyway, it's really quite interesting. You have to kind of stop and listen and see what's going on. But even if you just like the music in the background, you can kind of hear the story going through there and you've got what goes on there. Let's see. I won't jump ahead. There we go. There's even a lot of in music pop references to Samson. One of them mentioned there film and television a lot. There also in the Samson, of course, Samson and Delilah. We talked about the epic film there, 1949, and there was another one done in 2018. I must not have seen it because I don't remember it at all. But that was done. And a bunch of other little ones also for both television and for drama. Lots of documentaries out there on Samsung, whether it's history Channel stuff or it's Bible based stuff, secular stuff, whatever, a lot of that is out there. And so, again, I don't know, who do you have that has impacted more of culture than Samson? There's probably some out there like David that we're studying in a little bit certainly has had a huge cultural impact. Maybe Elijah outside of Jesus, who do you don't what's that? Moses? Yeah. I think you would have a lot of Moses in there. You're right. And probably a decent bit of Abraham. And I don't know, this would be hard for us to ever figure out, but if we were to take all the cultural references to biblical figures outside of Jesus Christ himself, probably you end up with Moses, Abraham, Paul, and then it drops off precipitously, I would guess I think of Paul because of places like St. Paul's Cathedral and whatnot. And probably in Peter also. You're going to get St. Peter's Basilica. You're going to get lots of buildings after Peter and Paul. But Samson, strangely enough, is going to be, I don't know, would he be top five? That's a guess. In cultural significance, cultural impact. And then I mentioned earlier, I started a sentence that I didn't finish, that happens sometimes that it would be very difficult to measure this. But if we were to be able to hire I don't know who does polling these days. Is Gallup still in business? If we did a Gallup poll and took a sample of 1453 people to somehow determine what biblical figure is most well known outside of Jesus himself in popular society, eddie, I suspect Samson would be right up there. There's a bunch of plays out there that have been done from melodramatic to operas. If you want to listen to the story of Samson in opera, go online, you can check all that. The point is, you could spend the rest of the day on Samson in society and the influence that he has had in society. But let me tell a story. You may have heard of something that is 40, 50 years ago now, 50 years ago this year, 50 years ago this month, actually, golda Mayer was prime minister of Israel. There's a movie out about her now, by the way. It's called golda. I noticed they have it at the Taos Center for the Arts, but I'm not exactly sure when, but it's been at theaters and whatnot for those of you around, probably be very interesting. I'd like to see it, but I have not Gold of my ear. She's kind of an interesting almost as an interesting fellow, but she's an interesting lady. Those of us who are old enough can kind of remember her. She was not necessarily a stunning beauty with her cigarette in hand. And as was popular in the she was actually a socialist. She was pretty strong socialist politically. We probably wouldn't agree with her, but she became one of Israel's most respected prime ministers, really, because she accidentally became a war prime minister. She knew nothing about war. And very interesting story of her becoming prime minister, and at the time she became prime minister, and her social agenda and socialism, really, that she desired to promote in Israel. But in October of 1973 came the Yom Kippur War, and that was the war at which the Jews were all celebrating Yom Kippur. The day of Atonement, the most holy day of the year there is for the Jewish people. And so they were all off of the military bases. They were caught off guard, basically. They all went home for holiday, and when they did, there was a sudden attack, both from Egypt and from Jordan and from Syria. All of the Arab world basically came upon Israel in October of 1973, really on a particular day. And it was a little bit of retaliation for the Six Day War, which was in 1967, the Six Day War. Egypt lost its air force, basically by Israel. Syria lost the Golan Heights and its land. The West Bank became part of Israel rather than part of Jordan. That was 67. Six years later, 1973, the Arab world said, we're getting them back. And they hit in a really hard way. As a matter of fact, after a number of days of fighting, really, Israel had an existential threat. That is, there was the pretty real possibility that Israel as a modern state was not going to exist anymore. The Arabs were very much winning the war. And goldemayer the story, it's still classified, so we don't know all the details of it, but there's enough reporting on it that what we report is probably mostly true. She called Richard Nixon President of the United States. Of course. And Richard Nixon had a mother who was a Quaker, and he was a Quaker himself of sorts. But he remembered his mother telling him, stand for Israel, stay with Israel. And that influenced somewhat his own policy. But he got a call in the middle of the night from gold of my ear, and I should back up just a little bit. She had been trying to get a hold of him, and he wouldn't take the call. So she pushed a little button that opened up the Silos, knowing that the United States, with their satellites and whatnot, would see that the Silos have been opened up. Now the Silos are officially clothing manufacturing. Unofficially, we all know what's down there. They've got nuclear weapons. She opened them up, and then she gave it just long enough time that they would know. And then in the middle of the night she called Richard Nixon who answered the phone and she, it is reported, talked to him and told him that she said you remember the story of Samson? And he said yes Madam prime Minister, I remember the story of Samson. She said you remember how he died? He said yes. Goldemayer said I will do a Samson too. That is, I will push the house down. I'll die in the process, we'll die in the process, but in the end we'll protect Israeli interests and bring more down in our death than we do in our life. Well, that day Richard Nixon ordered Operation Nickelback. Operation Nickelback sent within a 32 day period 22,000 tons of war material, tanks and ammunitions and rockets and all that kind of stuff, 22,000 tons. Just one plane after another plane after another plane. I think I may be wrong on this, but I think it was the biggest military transport operation since the Berlin Airlift in when was that, early 50s, you remember? Maybe late 40s, wherever the Berlin Airlift was. Anyway, and America came to her aid and getting that war material really did turn the war. That also, by the way, is what led to the 1973 oil embargo because the Arab countries had warned Richard Nixon if you get involved, then we're cutting off your oil. Well, he did get involved and they cut off our oil. And so you youngsters can look on the 1970s oil embargo and see the long lines of people waiting to get gas because we didn't have any, which drastically changed our energy policy, I would say for the better. And our relationship with OPEC and all that kind of stuff changed really all because of this. Now, Samsung obviously is somewhat incidental to it, but Samsung was the piece of the pie that the oratorical, or I should probably say the rhetorical device that she used to finally get what she needed. So in a way you could say Samson saved Israel in 1973. Samson to a decent degree took a long time, but brought down OPEC and OPEC's strength on the world. Samson changed American energy policy and Samson brought about this huge military activity as a rhetorical advice, some what through 3500 years after he died. The story is very well remembered. Well, let me close out with some final thoughts on Samson. Samson is a he's an interesting character. He's one we can learn from, I think. And we've tried to do this on the study. I think history has been kind to Samson in the sense that it remembered him and kept his name in the common lore. I don't think history and especially theology has been so kind to Samson as to remember him necessarily correctly. I think there's been way too much looking at Samson as just some strong brute with no brains who is constantly falling for women. I think that understanding of Samson. Is way too shallow. I think certainly he did have a woman problem by the time he got to Judges chapter 16 and some bad decisions by the time he got to Judges chapter 16. But by and large, maybe we would have to look at him as one of the moral, political, stalwart leaders, even in terms of his faithfulness to his Nazarite vow and his I was listening to some audio this week and the guy kept calling it a Nazi right vow. It's not a Nazi right vow, it's a Nazarite vow. But anyway, his faithfulness to his Nazarite vow all the way up to the end, his influence upon his nation, his influence upon world society. And if anything, if we have to look at the flaws of Samson. Which are? There, we can at least say, well, God yet again used another flawed individual and brought about a cultural icon that can give, I think, some spiritual strength and insight and significance and understanding. And so with that, we close out Samson Amen next week, just in case you're wondering. Now, through the beginning of next year, through the holiday season that is approaching, I am going to do kind of historical standalone studies that won't necessarily be biblical, but they will have influenced the biblical world and learning some of the things that are out there. Like next week, we're going to go to Constantine. We've probably all heard of Constantine. Maybe you've heard of the Edict of Milan that legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire. Constantine is another like Samson who makes impact on Christianity to this day. So we're going to look at Constantine. I haven't totally figured out who all we're going to look at. I think we're going to look at Elizabeth I. She made a huge impact on Christianity. I think we'll look at her son, King James I, who obviously made a huge impact on Christianity. So we're going to look at some people like this that yeah, you've heard of them. If you're like me, you don't know anything about them other than, yeah, Constantine declared Christianity legal. Good. So it'll be a fun history class. We'll have the final exam the Sunday before Christmas. Let me lead us in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thanks for again this story of Samson, this man who has made such an impact in society and who by the inspiration of God that was given to us to know his story in fair amount of detail. And to see him in all of his strength and all of his glory and yet also in his weakness and to see the impact that he has made in our society, really all the way up into modern military. History and economic history and political history and the cultural icon. He in so many ways is up to this day and really always has been in modern history and pray that we've been faithful in studying the scripture and understanding his life and the things we got wrong. Help us to forget them. The things we got right help us to remember them and put them into our mind. Our memory bank to service as we carry on through life. We ask it in Jesus name, amen. Thank you all those of you online. We'll start a new broadcast here in a few minutes on the life of King David. And we're going to get him anointed today. On our third week through, we'll find the first legit reference of King David in the scripture. God bless you. We'll see you all in 14 minutes. Crusaders be on your list. Oh, I would have to have the crusaders. I'm going to write that down right now. I've got a list on my thought. That would be one. That would be a hard one. Yeah, I did put it guy and negative. Yeah. Association just wanted to really somebody bought a lot across the road. Even the 2018 movie of Samson. That's the one where they had the black Sam, I think it was. Yeah, I started to say that, but I wasn't I'm not sure either. I know there was a black sample and I kind of figured that made it was the movie. I've seen the pictures of that like Samson. And I was like, this doesn't even look like Samson. Exactly. I know it wasn't depicted in the movies or anything, but.