If you would open up your Bibles to Judges chapter 13, 14, 15, and 16.
It's on page 251 of your Pew Bible.
And as you're turning there, I just want to remind you,
last spring, 2023, Lake Mead in Nevada,
the water levels dropped to an all-time low.
And it was a result of this long, intense drought.
And as those life-giving waters receded, skeletons got exposed.
Dead bodies started showing up.
There was a gruesomeness to that drought.
Now, the book of Judges is like a long, intense, spiritual drought.
God's people, Israel, chronically, repeatedly rejecting God for the gods and values of the Canaanite nations they were living among.
And as a result, the reservoir of holiness among this people just started drying up.
It started to recede.
And they were becoming more and more like the people that they were living among.
Worldliness, Canaanization, is when Christians forget who their Jesus is,
and they start living like the non-Christians around them.
Instead of standing out, they blend in.
Worldliness is toxic to the church.
It's harmful.
It's a spiritual drought.
Brothers and sisters, there's no life in becoming like the world.
There's no life in that.
It's a spiritual drought.
The Lord Jesus calls us to be full of grace, self-controlled in this present age.
And what we see in this passage of Scripture is a man who is impulsive.
He sees and takes again and again and again.
It's the M.O. of worldliness.
And as the book of Judges, as we've seen it progress, or maybe better said, digress,
each judge has represented a new low in Israel's reservoir of holiness.
There to be holy as God is holy.
Othniel, Ehud, Barak, Gideon, Abimelech, if you want to name them among the judges.
Jephthah.
It's the reservoir of holiness receding and exposing sin.
And now we find ourselves in the last of the judges, the low watermark of the book of Judges.
Samson.
Now, if you grew up in Sunday school, you have learned that Samson is a hero of the faith.
He is a bulking beast of a man.
A hero of the faith.
He's in Hebrews 11.
He does exercise faith after he's humbled and his eyes are gouged out.
But even then, what you're going to see, it's mixed.
It's a mixed thing.
What we see in Samson is a deeply flawed, profoundly compromised, and a poster child of
Canaanization, of worldliness.
And he represents Israel.
Israel has been Canaanized.
Their refusal to repent of their sin and continually go back to God, God, or the gods of the nations again and again.
Well, it brought them to a point in this drought that is just difficult to see.
Hey, do you know what it's like to be in a spiritual drought, personally?
Maybe you've been Canaanized.
Maybe you've bought into the world's thinking and values and ways of being.
Are you prone to do what's right in your own eyes without reference to God?
This morning, we're going to look at this text.
I want to help you to see three major characters in this text.
And then after we walk through it, I want to help you make some connections.
I want to highlight some things.
And then we're going to apply it to our lives today.
Okay.
So let's look at this text.
Let's dig into it.
What I want to help you understand right out of the gate is that Judges 13, 14, 15, and 16, it rolls out like this.
Chapter 13 is about Samson's parents.
Chapter 14, 15, and 16 are the life and times of Samson.
And it culminates in this situation with this woman named Delilah.
Samson kind of shares his secrets with her.
She hands him over.
He has his hair cut, his eyes gouged out.
He ends up in Gaza in the Temple of Dagon.
And he has his hands and he brings down the house.
You're going to see it's a big disappointment.
Three characters.
Character number one is Manoah, Samson's dad, and his unnamed mom.
In chapter 13, verse 1, we are reminded of the cycle.
We've seen this again and again.
And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of God.
They do evil and then God hands them over to an oppressor.
Remember this time in verse 1, it's the Philistines for 40 years.
And typically in that cycle, what happens next is God's people will cry out.
It doesn't happen in this account.
And then after they cry out, God raises up a deliverer, and that deliverer brings peace to the land.
That doesn't happen in this account.
And do you know why it doesn't happen in this account?
Because the cycle is falling apart because Israel is being Canaanized.
In fact, they're becoming more and more like the people around them.
In verses 2 through 25, we're introduced to Samson's parents.
Manoah's dad and his unnamed mom.
In 2 through 7, an angel of the Lord, a real personal, physical manifestation of God,
shows up to Samson's mom before he's born.
And the angel of the Lord tells her that she's going to have a baby.
She's been barren.
And that she's going to have to be very careful with what she eats and what she drinks
because her boy is going to be a Nazarite.
You see that in verse 5?
Now, when you hear Nazarite, don't think Nazareth.
Nazareth is a place.
That's where Jesus grew up.
A Nazarite is a kind of holiness vow.
We can see it in Numbers chapter 6.
And here's what a Nazarite vow is.
It's one of Israel's people, they could make a voluntary Nazarite vow for a season.
And what they would do is they were not allowed to drink alcohol.
They couldn't touch corpses.
And they couldn't get haircuts.
And so those three things are what comprised a Nazarite vow.
The design for it was so that there would be a consecrated season of holiness.
And so a Nazarite would be like holy of holy among God's people for a season.
And so what's going on here is that the angel of the Lord is telling Samson's wife,
you got a holy one coming.
And it builds our expectations.
Well, Samson's mom tells Samson's dad, Manoah, what the angel of the Lord tells her.
And what I want you to see is their response.
In verses 8 through 23, we see the response of this couple to this angel of the Lord.
Look at verse 8.
Then Manoah prayed to the Lord.
So Manoah's wife tells Manoah what has happened, this angel of the Lord.
And Manoah, his first response is prayer.
This is a welcomed, welcomed kind of event in the book of Judges.
And look what he prays.
Oh, Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us.
Not only is he praying, but he's asking that the angel of the Lord would come back and teach them.
Oh, this is good.
This is kind of a posture of humility, a posture towards God, a wanting to understand things.
And it doesn't stop there.
The angel of the Lord does come back.
And Manoah, look what he says to him.
Verse 12.
Now, when your words come true.
Now, when we have this baby boy.
When your words come true.
Do you see what's happening there?
This angel of the Lord is speaking.
And Manoah and his wife are believing.
We see it again in verse 17.
Manoah doesn't recognize the angel of the Lord.
So he says, what is your name?
So that when your words come true, we may honor you.
So there's this posture of prayer, of being willing to be taught, of wanting to be taught, of believing in God's word, of wanting to honor this one with this news.
This is looking good.
This is kind of like we haven't really seen this recently in the book of Judges.
So, this Canaanized land, maybe there is some reservoir of holiness.
In verse 16, Manoah and his wife are like, hey, come eat with us.
And the angel of the Lord is like, I don't eat your food.
Offer it up as an offering to the Lord.
And when they offer up this meal to the Lord, they light it up.
There's this flame.
In verse 20, look what happens.
And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar.
Now Manoah and his wife were watching.
They were watching.
And they fell on their faces to the ground.
Awe.
Reverence.
Amazement.
Worship.
This is good.
This parents of Samson.
He's going to have this wonder child.
This miracle baby.
They seem to be tender towards the Lord.
But it's not all perfect because in verse 16, Manoah doesn't seem to recognize the angel of the Lord.
So, that kind of gets at this kind of like dullness, spiritual dullness.
And they actually name him Samson, which most scholars think is a reference to a sun god.
S-U-N, God.
So, there's still kind of like this Canaanized dimension to it.
But by and large, they are responding in humility and godwardness to the angel of the Lord.
And we're left thinking that Samson's mom was obedient.
She didn't eat things or drink things inappropriate to having this child.
It's an instructive for us because God delights in humility.
This is the one to whom I will look.
He was humble, contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.
And we're seeing that in Samson's parents.
So, what about this wonder boy?
So, Manoah, his parents, that's kind of character.
Character's one.
The second character we get to see now is Samson himself.
And of all the judges, Samson is the most profoundly self-centered.
Hey, ladies!
He's a womanizer.
Chapter 14, 1 through 3.
He goes down to Timnah in Philistia.
He sees this Philistine babe.
And he demands his parents hook him up.
I'm marrying her.
She was right in his eyes, verse 3.
Verse 7, 14.
She was right in Samson's eyes.
So, he demands it.
And then, in chapter 16, verses 1 through 3, 1 through 4, Samson's back in Philistia, in Gaza.
And he sees a Philistine prostitute and goes into her.
Again, man, what is up with this Nazarite?
And if that's not enough, as you kind of work through chapter 16, he falls in love with this woman from the valley of Sorek.
Again, Philistia.
Delilah.
Falls head over and heels with her.
This man is, what we're seeing is ruled by his desires.
Unrestrained.
He's a womanizer.
And not just a womanizer.
He's breaking God's law multiple ways.
Because in Deuteronomy 7, 1 through 4, God forbids the parents of Israel from giving their sons and daughters in marriage to the sons and daughters of the nations around them.
Because they will turn their hearts away from them.
What we see here in Samson is he doesn't care.
He sees and he takes.
And he's objectifying these women.
He sees them.
He wants them.
He has them.
This isn't humble.
This isn't God word.
This is prideful.
This is selfish.
This is disobedient.
And this is Samson.
But it doesn't stop there.
We see in chapter 14, verse 5, there's this episode of Samson's heading back to Timnah to meet his Philistine babe.
He's attacked by a lion.
Rips the lion apart.
It's probably, at that moment, he's touching a corpse and he's been defiled.
Well, later he goes back to the corpse.
And you know what's happened in the corpse since he's been there?
Honey bees.
They've made a hive with honey.
He dips into that, starts eating it.
And if he wasn't defiled before, he is defiled now.
Because Nazarites aren't supposed to catch corpses.
He defiles himself.
He doesn't care.
Honey, me want, me take.
He's lacking self-control.
And he's disobedient to his parents.
When he first expressed interest in this Philistine girl in Timnah, his dad is like,
Hey, how about one of the young ladies from Israel?
Not one of these uncircumcised Philistines.
He's like, I don't care.
Get her to me.
He disregards his parents.
In verses 14, chapter 14, 6 and 9, after he kills the lion and eats of the honey and then gives his parents some of that honey, he doesn't tell them.
Again, he's not honoring his parents.
This holy man, this Nazarite, is anything but holy.
He doesn't care about people.
He objectifies women.
He disregards his parents.
There's this whole incident where he puts this riddle to a bunch of these 30 Philistine guys about kind of the honey in the lion.
And they figure it out because they objectify his wife and force her to tell them what's going on.
But Samson had bet on it.
Bet 30 changes of clothes.
And so when he loses, he goes to Ashkelon and he kills 30 Philistines, grabs their clothes, brings them back, and gives them to those 30 dudes.
He doesn't care.
There are a number of other accounts in 14, 15, and 16 in the life and times of Samson.
It's striking.
I mean, there's this incident where he kills a thousand Philistines, this chapter 15, with a jawbone of a donkey.
In verse 18, what we see is this.
And I quote.
Samson was very thirsty and he called upon the Lord and said,
You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant.
And shall now I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?
Grumble.
Doubt.
You know who's self-centered?
Samson.
There's this other accounts of his just doing incredibly selfish things.
But even in his death.
He's been handed over by Delilah to the lords of the Philistines.
He has had his hair cut.
By the way, in Numbers chapter 6, if someone breaks a Nazarite vow, they are to shave their heads.
So it's a picture of humiliation.
Repentance.
He's got his eyes gouged out.
They bring him to the house of Dagon, the god of the Philistines.
And they are just celebrating the Philistines, the victory Dagon has won over Samson and Samson's god.
And when Samson comes out to this house where there's 3,000 Philistines,
and he puts his hands on the pillars of this house, he prays.
In verse 28.
O Lord God.
Chapter 16, 28.
Please remember me.
And please strengthen me only this once, O God,
that I may be the avenged,
that Israel may be avenged,
and that you would be glorified among all the nations.
That I'd be avenged for my eyes.
Even in his death.
Can't see.
But his eyes are on himself.
There's a deliverance.
There's a measure of faith.
But you can't help but say,
wait, wait, isn't he a,
isn't he a Nazarite?
Didn't God call him to deliver?
Why am I disappointed?
Because he's Canaanized.
He's selfish.
He's prideful.
He's the low watermark of the judges in the book of Judges.
Even in his death.
Aren't you glad that our perfect Savior,
who's accomplished a permanent salvation,
that when he went to his death,
that he wasn't self-focused.
He was selfless.
For you and for me.
When he cried out to Talistai,
it is finished.
It was for us.
Which brings me to
the third character
of the Samson account.
God.
In chapter 13,
the angel of the Lord,
this physical manifestation of God himself,
he's referenced 13 times
in chapter 13.
And this angel of the Lord
is God's manifest presence
and he's appearing to Manoah and his wife.
And can I just remind you of something?
That's not because Israel asked.
It's not because they cried out.
It's because God is gracious.
God sent the angel of the Lord
to work a deliverance
for his people.
This is a picture of God's
unmerited favor.
Of his grace.
And then there are these references
to the Spirit of the Lord
throughout this account.
In chapter 13, 25,
the Spirit of the Lord
starts to stir in a young Samson.
In chapter 14, verse 6,
the Spirit of the Lord
rushes upon Samson
and he kills that lion.
In 14, 19,
the Spirit of the Lord
rushes upon Samson
and he kills those 30 guys
from Ashkelon.
In chapter 15, verse 14,
the Spirit of the Lord
rushes upon Samson
and he kills those 1,000 Philistines
with the jawbone of a donkey.
and even implied in chapter 16,
the empowering of Samson
to take down the house,
killing 3,000.
the Spirit of the Lord
is at work in the midst
of a spiritual drought.
Despite Samson
working to bring about
his purposes.
And then there are
the answered prayers.
God answering the prayer
of Manoah,
he heard him
in chapter 13, verse 9.
Even Samson,
when he's whining
and grumbling,
I need something to drink
after killing people.
God opens up a rock.
When Samson prays,
probably the first real prayer
of his life,
of anything close to humility.
In chapter 16, 28,
God again hears
and answers Samson.
What we see
throughout these chapters
is that God is at work.
Despite the spiritual drought,
despite the worldliness
of God's people,
God is still at work.
Chapter 14, verse 4.
Samson has just gone down
to Timnah
and he has demanded
that his parents
make this Philistine woman
his wife
because she's right
in his eyes.
And in verse 4,
chapter 14, verse 4,
we read this.
His father and mother
did not know
that it was from the Lord.
For he, the Lord,
was seeking an opportunity
against the Philistines.
God is sovereign
over all things.
God is providentially
at work
accomplishing his purpose.
It is mysterious.
It is amazing.
And it should make
you have this sense
of our God
is something else.
God is so grateful
that my Savior
is not an imperfect,
selfish Savior,
but a perfect,
selfless Savior.
What's going on
in Judges 13 through 16
is that we have Israel
getting to be at its worst
in the lowest recessions.
It's even going to get lower.
Spiritual drought.
Samson,
the poster child
of Canaanization.
And yet God
is still at work.
Do you know
what kind of God this is?
You want to know his name?
Manoah asks for his name.
In verse,
let me find it for you.
13, 18.
And the angel of the Lord
said to him,
why do you ask my name?
Seeing it is wonderful.
Wonderful.
A God who works like this,
despite the worldliness
of his people,
carrying out his purposes,
is a wonderful God,
selflessly at work.
You know,
there's some things,
having seen these three characters,
Manoah,
Samson's parents,
Samson himself.
We've seen God at work
in this four chapters.
Let me kind of highlight
some things for you.
First,
there's the contrast
between Samson's parents
and Samson.
Samson's parents
are humble.
They're not perfect.
They're Godward.
They're obedient.
Samson's mom
evidently did what God required.
But Samson,
he's not humble.
He's prideful.
He insists on his own way.
He's not Godward.
He's selfish.
Disobedient.
Again and again and again.
This contrast
gets something done.
And here's what it gets done.
It helps us to see
how far Samson has gone.
Where this leader is.
that he's the low watermark
of the nation
representing the nation.
It's sobering.
The second highlight
is something I just mentioned.
God is at work
even in spiritual drought.
Isn't he wonderful?
Are you in a spiritual drought?
Are you shooting up prayers
that you don't think
are going through the ceiling?
God's at work.
He's bigger than that.
But what I want you to see
are the eyes.
The eyes.
It starts off in chapter 13.1.
And the people of Israel
again did what was evil
in the sight of the Lord
in God's eyes.
In 13.20.
We read of Minoah
and his wife's response
when they see
the angel of the Lord
go into the flame
and go up.
When they see that
they were watching
they fall on their faces.
The Philistines
in the house of Dagon.
They see this humiliated hero
brought out
changed and bound
head shaved off
eyes gouged out
and they think they won.
They think they won.
But
God was up to something
much different.
They don't see
what God's doing.
Samson's eyes.
Chapter 14.3.
He did what was right
in his eyes.
His own eyes.
Chapter 7.
Samson did what was right
in his eyes.
Do you know what happens
after this
in chapter 17
through 21?
Do you know what gets
repeated
in the book of Judges?
There was no king
in the land
and they did what was right
in their own eyes.
It starts with
the Samson account.
And if you turn
to the very last verse
of the book of Judges,
you will read this.
In those days,
there was no king
in Israel.
Everyone did
what was right
in their own eyes.
That,
doing what is right
in your own eyes,
is the MO,
the modus operandi
of worldliness,
of canonization.
It's living life
without any reference
to God
and not caring.
So you know
what the point
of this is?
Don't do what's right
in your own eyes,
brothers and sisters.
Don't do what's right
in your own eyes.
Do what's right
in the eyes
of your Lord.
Do what's right
in His eyes.
And it really begs
the question,
how do you do that?
This is how you do that.
You fix your eyes
upon Jesus.
And when you fix
your eyes
upon Jesus,
your heart
will change.
Your want
muscle
will shift
from wanting
what you want
according to
what you think
is right
to wanting
what God wants
and what He's revealed
in the Scriptures.
Fix your eyes
upon Jesus.
Don't do what's right
in your own eyes,
Samson.
Do what's right
in the eyes
of the Lord
by first fixing
your eyes
on Jesus.
And now let's
apply this.
members of Christ
the King Church.
When you see
a leader
like Samson
doing what's right
in his own eyes
and you realize
what's possible
of leaders
of God's people,
it should
sober us
but it makes
us resolve
as well.
Here's
what we need
to commit to
Christ the King Church.
when it comes
to leaders
in our church
whether they be
elders
or deacons,
aspiring elders,
life group leaders,
ministry directors,
let's insist
by faith
that the leaders
of Christ the King
Church
fix their eyes
on Jesus.
That they don't
do what's right
in their own eyes,
that they seek
to do what's right
in the Lord's eyes.
Let's insist
upon that
as a membership
of this church.
It's a way
of talking
about humility.
It's a way
of recognizing
men and women
who aren't in it
for themselves
but are in it
for the Lord
Jesus Christ.
That's who we want
in leadership positions
of our church.
Do you know why?
Why?
It'll protect us
against spiritual drought.
It'll lead us
into the presence
of our Lord,
not away from it.
We need to insist
in our nomination process
as we're identifying
potential leaders
being God raised up
that they're more
interested in God's plan,
God's purposes
than their own.
The second
way to apply this
is by talking
about self-control.
Samson
was anything
but self-control.
He was
such
the impulsive,
irreverent man,
the poster child
of impulsiveness,
again and again
and again.
He did what was right
in his own eyes.
He lacked
self-control.
What is self-control?
Self-control
is the ability
to say no
to something now
and to say yes
to something later.
It's a delayed
gratification.
It's the ability
to say no
to something now,
to say yes
to something later,
and the difference
between worldly
self-control
and biblical,
godly self-control
is this.
It's who you do it for.
Worldly self-control
is a dependence
on yourself
and you're saying
no to something
now to say yes
to something later
for your own sake,
according to your own eyes.
Biblical,
godly self-control
is when you say
no to something
now
and to say yes
to something later
for the glory
of your god
because of his eyes
for his name's sake
not your own.
This has bearing
in things like
sexual desires,
entertainment choices,
how you speak,
how you manage
your anger,
your eating,
your driving,
your sleeping,
your kind of
workaholism
or your thoughtfulness.
It has bearing
with it all.
In fact,
in the book of Titus,
one of the qualifications
for an elder,
chapter 1, verse 8,
is to be self-controlled.
A man who demonstrates this.
And then in chapter 2,
verses 1 through 6,
the whole church
is called to it.
Would you turn
in your Bibles
to Titus chapter 2?
I want you to see this.
Paul is writing
to Titus
who is planting
this church
in Crete
and he tells Titus
when it comes
to the older men
of the church,
they're to be
sober-minded,
dignified,
self-controlled
among other things.
Chapter 3,
he says,
instruct the older women
likewise
to be a number
of different things.
They are to teach
the younger women
and one of the things
they're to teach
the younger women
is to be self-controlled.
So not only
younger women
to be self-controlled,
but the older women
must be self-controlled
to teach them
to be self-controlled.
So right now,
we've got older men
to be self-controlled,
older women
to be self-controlled,
younger women
to be self-controlled,
and then we land
in verse 6.
The only thing
he says to younger men
is that they need
to be self-controlled.
unto the glory of Jesus.
Not doing what's right in their own eyes,
doing what's right in the eyes of the Lord.
Being able to say no to sin now
or to lesser things now
in order to say yes to the glory of Jesus then.
A church full.
And then we see in 2.11 how
for the grace of God has appeared
bringing salvation for all people
training us to renounce ungodliness
and worldly passions
and to live self-controlled, upright
and godly lives in the present age.
Brothers and sisters,
we're to be self-controlled.
You know what that does?
It's a preventative against worldliness.
Of not becoming like the world.
When we are trusting God's grace
and God's grace is training us
to say no to ungodliness
and to say yes to Jesus.
There's another application of this
for men in the room.
Stop objectifying women.
Stop.
Stop making women,
whether physically or digitally,
the objects of your lust.
You need to say no to that.
And say yes to better things.
God has grace for you, brothers.
And when we start treating women
with dignity,
we start creating a culture
more and more in our church
where both men and women thrive.
The final application is
fix your eyes on Jesus,
brothers and sisters.
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
I've been singing a song this morning.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face.
And the things of earth
will grow strangely dim
in the light of His glory and grace.
worldliness is a spiritual drought
that evaporates godliness
among God's people.
We see it in Samson.
Are you in a spiritual drought?
Because of your own worldliness,
God is at work.
God's bigger than your worldliness.
God is at work.
Turn your eyes to Him.
Stop doing what's right
in your own eyes.
Start doing what's right
in His eyes.
So if you are a Christian
and you are experiencing
the drought of worldliness,
fix your eyes upon Jesus
and find a wellspring of life
for your soul.
Fill the reservoir.
And if you're a non-Christian
in the room,
you're brittle,
you're empty,
Jesus will make you full
and resilient.
The world can't give you life,
but Jesus is the way,
the truth,
and the life.
Do you know what?
There's another way
you can talk about.
Stop doing what's right
in your own eyes
and start doing
what's right
in the Lord's eyes.
There's another way
to say it.
Do you know how it goes?
Walk by faith,
not by sight.
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
Let's pray.
God in heaven,
Father,
would you pour out
your Spirit upon us?
Move upon us
thank you for your Holy Spirit.
And God,
would you make us
self-controlled,
upright in this present age?
Not doing what's right
in our own eyes,
but striving more and more
to do what's right
in your eyes
because you are so worth it.
And it's your name we pray.
Amen.