Good morning. My name is Matthew Capone, and I'm the pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church,
and it's my joy to bring God's word to you today.
A special welcome if you are new or visiting with us. We're glad that you're here.
And we're glad that you're here not because we're trying to fill seats,
but because we're following Jesus together as one community.
And as we follow Jesus together, we become convinced that there's no one so good.
They don't need God's grace, and no one so bad that they can't have it,
which is why we come back week after week to hear what God has to say to us in his word.
This morning, we're continuing our series in the book of Judges.
I will note, if you've been with us for a while, you know that we alternate between preaching books from the Old Testament
and books from the New Testament. Judges is 21 chapters, and we're now in chapter 15,
which means we're getting close to the end.
So I'll just tell you, when we end Judges, we are then going to turn to the New Testament,
and we're going to jump into the book of Romans.
But we're not in Romans yet. We're in Judges.
And you'll remember that Judges is about a number of things.
It is about the need for constant renewal and revival among God's people.
It's about the need for a faithful and true king,
a king who can do what no human can do, which is to change the hearts of men.
And it's about the power of spirit-filled leadership.
And it's about God's mercy to hard-hearted people, people like you and me.
This week, we're picking up again the story of Samson, which I believe is the longest story in the book.
And last week, we saw that while Samson is a mess, God is still at work.
Samson continues to be a mess this week,
but we'll turn from just Samson's individual problems to the problems of the nation of Israel,
and we'll see close up the danger of compromise.
With that, I invite you to turn with me to Judges chapter 15.
You can turn in your Bible.
You can turn on your phone.
You can turn in your worship guide.
No matter where you turn, remember that this is God's word.
And God tells us that his word is more precious than gold, even the finest gold.
And it's sweeter than honey, even honey that comes straight from the honeycomb.
And so that's why we read now Judges chapter 15, starting at verse 1.
After some days at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a young goat.
And he said, I will go into my wife in the chamber.
But her father would not allow him to go in.
And her father said, I really thought that you utterly hated her.
So I gave her to your companion.
Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she?
Please take her instead.
And Samson said to them, this time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm.
So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches.
And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails.
And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines.
And set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.
Then the Philistines said, who has done this?
And they said, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.
And the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire.
And Samson said to them, if this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged on you.
And after that, I will quit.
And he struck them hip and thigh with a great blow.
And he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Edom.
Verse 9.
Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and made a raid on Lehi.
And the men of Judah said, why have you come up against us?
They said, we have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.
Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Edom and said to Samson,
do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us?
What then is this that you have done to us?
And he said to them, as they did to me, so I have done to them.
Verse 12.
And they said to him, we have come down to bind you that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.
And Samson said to them, swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.
They said to him, no, we will only bind you and give you into their hands.
We will surely not kill you.
So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.
When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him.
Then the spirit of the Lord rushed upon him and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire.
And his bonds melted off his hands.
And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey and put out his hand and took it.
And with it he struck one thousand men.
And Samson said, with the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps.
With the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men.
As soon as he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand.
And that place was called Ramath-Lehi.
Verse 18.
And he 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 I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?
And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi and water came out from it.
And when he drank, his spirit returned and he revived.
Therefore the name of it was called En-Hakor.
It is at Lehi to this day.
And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
I invite you to pray with me as we come to this portion of God's word.
Our Father in heaven, we do thank you again that you've given us your word,
that you instruct us, that you teach us, that you lead us and guide us.
And we ask that you would do that this morning.
That you would use this passage in the book of Judges
to warn us and to encourage us.
Most of all, you would use it to show us Jesus.
That we would see again that his grace is greater than our sin.
That you're faithful even when we're faithless.
We ask that we would see him as more beautiful and glorious
and loving and powerful than we ever knew.
And we ask all of these things in his mighty name.
Amen.
Like a good drama, like any good drama,
the author of Judges left us last time with a real cliffhanger.
If you remember the end of chapter 14, the very last verse,
we were told this,
Samson's wife was given to his companion
who had been his best man.
Okay, not just someone else.
It's not just that there's another man with Samson's wife.
No, we're told it is his best man.
The reason being, the verse before,
Samson leaves in anger.
You may remember that he had this competition
with the people of his wife
and they had this bet, this riddle they were supposed to solve
and they threatened his wife.
So she revealed the answer to the riddle.
And so Samson is filled with rage,
goes to town on the Philistines.
What is very clear though,
is that he and this woman are in fact married.
She is not his girlfriend.
She is not his fiance.
She is his wife.
And so his father-in-law has no business doing what he did.
He is completely out of line,
having handed her off to another man.
That sets the stage for our drama here in chapter 15.
Verse two, the father makes this attempt at appeasement
saying, hey, you can have another one of my daughters.
And you know what?
Actually, you're gonna get a good deal out of this.
She's actually more attractive
than the woman that you married.
So why don't we do that?
And we can just call it good.
Samson is not interested in appeasement.
He actually sees an opportunity for revenge.
And that's in fact exactly what he does
in verses four and five.
We might call this a disproportionate response.
Samson has been offended by one man.
He goes after all the Philistines.
There has been a private offense.
Samson goes on a public campaign.
He picks these 300 foxes.
He splits them into 150 pairs.
And then he goes and destroys the Philistines' food supply.
I have a problem with one man.
There's tension in one family.
You know what?
Let's wreck all men.
Let's wreck every family.
That seems like a really kind of proportion,
measured, reasonable response.
Now, it's easy for us to focus here on the grain
that he destroys.
They're not going to have anything to eat.
It's actually even worse than that.
Note in verse five,
he's not just going after the grain.
He goes after the olive orchards.
And if you're familiar with the Mediterranean,
you know that olive orchards are a big deal.
Not only are they a big deal,
they take generations to build up and cultivate.
Many olive trees survive for 500 years.
There's at least one olive tree
that's known to have been in existence for 1,500 years.
Samson is out for revenge.
Samson is out of control.
Samson chooses a response
that is wildly out of proportion
to what has happened here.
To understand the severity of what Samson's doing,
I'll remind you of something
I told you a couple years ago.
If you're familiar with Colorado gun laws,
you know that to use lethal force,
there needs to be a lethal threat.
In other words, if you are stealing my car,
I'm not allowed to shoot you
because you're not threatening my life.
Okay, so I can end up in trouble for that,
except in one circumstance.
Colorado law says you can use lethal force
if someone is attempting arson.
Why?
Because it's so destructive, right?
Because the threat of someone's life,
lethal threat is downstream of arson.
This is something, right,
that could burn up our state.
And so it makes sense
that this would be something considered so serious
that that's the one exception
where you're allowed to use lethal force.
That helps us understand
the severity of the Philistines' response here.
To wreck someone's food supply,
to destroy all their grain
and all their olive trees,
is an absolute declaration of war.
Samson has a problem with one family.
He declares war on the entire nation.
We see once again,
Samson is a mess.
Now, I don't mean to excuse
the Philistines' behavior here,
but understanding that,
their response begins to make sense.
Verse six, they say,
look, you're gonna burn our fields.
You're gonna burn our olive trees.
Guess what?
We'll burn your wife
and your father-in-law.
Even worse than that,
we're gonna take a step further.
We are going to launch an offensive against Judah.
You come after our nation.
You come after our people.
We'll come after your nation.
We'll come after your people.
What's good for the goose
is good for the gander.
Fair is fair.
And it's at this point,
we begin to see the main theme,
the main problem of this chapter.
Verse 10,
they come against the people of Judah.
And the men of Judah say,
hey, what's going on?
Why are you here?
Philistines tell them
there's one simple reason
that we're here, Samson.
Now, at this point,
if we were earlier in the book of Judges,
we would expect one thing to happen.
What should Judah do at this point?
Oh, the Philistines,
who are our oppressors,
are coming up against us to attack us.
There's only one logical answer.
Let's muster our troops.
Right?
It is time for war.
It is time for us to see God at work once again
and to throw off the shackles of our oppressors.
That's what we should expect Israel to do.
What should we expect Samson to do?
If he was like any other judge,
he would show some leadership at this point.
If you haven't noticed,
Samson is not exactly a team player.
All the other judges were.
Samson should be saying,
I will lead you, right?
I am the strong man.
I'm even stronger than Jethro.
You thought Jethro was great at war?
Wait till you see what I can do.
Israel should be uniting together
to fight the Philistines.
And they do the exact opposite.
Oh, you're here because of Samson?
I think we can clear this up.
Why don't you take him?
He's our judge.
God raised him up.
He has this incredible birth story.
But you know what?
None of that really matters.
Things are good as they are.
How about we just hand him over?
You know, we say, it's all good.
We wash our hands of this.
Once again, we have a sad and crushing disappointment.
Once again, God's people are worse than ever before.
Israel is completely upside down.
God's people should be rallying behind their judge
and fighting their enemies.
Instead, they betray their judge
and they're sympathetic to their enemies.
Notice their words in verse 11.
Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us?
That's what's stated.
What's unstated is this.
And that's the way we like it.
Don't you know these people are the ones in charge?
Why, Samson?
Why would you disrupt the status quo?
If you oppose your leader
and you befriend your enemies,
something is very wrong.
Judah is not just sick.
She is really sick.
Things are not just twisted in Israel.
They are completely upside down.
This helps us understand, by the way,
what was happening in Judges chapter 14.
Remember when Samson goes out to find a Philistine wife,
his parents are so upset and distraught over it.
And we had that key verse, verse 4, where it said this,
his father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord,
for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines.
Why is the Lord seeking an opportunity against the Philistines?
Because Judah isn't.
Why does God need to use Samson to stir the pot?
Because God's people are complacent with their oppression.
Israel is okay being ruled by the Philistines.
Israel is happy for a pagan nation to be in control.
Israel is content to be ruled by sin.
So the point is this.
Things have gotten so bad that God's people now embrace oppression.
Things are so bad that they see the wrong leaders as the right leaders.
Things are so upside down that they betray their very own judge.
Remember also what was weird about chapter 14.
This was the first time Israel did not cry out for God's help.
What once they saw as wrong, they now see as normal.
And in fact, as the book of Judges goes on,
it's going to continue to go downhill.
They will embrace the pagan culture more and more.
Judah has made a devastating compromise with sin.
This brings out another element of the book of Judges,
which is that we see the way in which evil works,
the way that sin operates.
Satan loves to chip away at God's people generation by generation.
Compromise in one generation becomes apostasy in the next.
Laziness in one generation turns into abandonment in the following one.
Satan is willing to play the long game,
and at least for a moment, it seems to be working.
Remember, Judges 2, verse 19,
things got worse every generation.
Every cycle, God's people go further down.
There is compounding compromise that's happened in Israel.
Albert Einstein once said,
the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.
We might say another one of the most powerful forces in the world
is compound compromise.
Israel has given in over and over.
Israel is becoming worse and worse.
So our passage reminds us of one of the great tensions of the Christian life,
tension we already read about,
Scott read to us from John chapter 17.
And the tension is this,
that God calls his people to be in the world,
not of the world.
That's what Jesus prays for in John chapter 17.
This is on page 3 of your worship guide.
In verse 11, he just says it straightforward.
They are in the world.
He's referring to his people.
He's referring to the church.
And then he gives this prayer in verses 15 and 16.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world,
but that you keep them from the evil one.
They are not of the world,
just as I am not of the world.
Judges 15 challenges us
to examine
where are we in the world
and of the world.
Where have we made compromises with sin?
Where have the twisted parts
of our culture become normal to us?
You'll see this on page 9 of your worship guide.
It's easy for us to look at another culture
and see how a member of God's people
has sold out to the surrounding culture.
We're more unwilling to look hard
at where we might have done so.
Brings us back to one of the major themes
of the book of Judges,
the need for constant renewal
and revival among God's people.
It is our default setting
as we walk in this world
to assume that what's normal for the culture
must be normal for us.
And so we forget
what it means
the water around us that we swim in.
So we give in
to self-expression
and radical individualism,
which leads us to rampant divorce
and isolation.
We assume
that the culture's level
of consumption
is good
and right.
We believe
the good life
is made up
of materialism
and sex
and status.
We're desensitized
to the sexual images
that assault us
on social media
and in line
at the grocery store.
We adopt
the tone
and anger
of the political discourse
around us
as normal
for Christians
to take part in.
Where have we
become comfortable
with the twisted values
of the world
around us?
Where do we say
don't you know
that the Philistines
are rulers
over us
and that's
the way
we like it?
Thankfully,
Israel's betrayal
does not have
the last word
and thankfully,
God's grace
really is
greater
than our sin.
The story
does not end
with Samson
being defeated
by the Philistines.
In fact,
quite the opposite.
The 3,000 men
who should be
marching
against the Philistines
come instead
to Samson.
This is verse 11
and they bind
the sacrifice
that they're offering
for the sake
of peace.
They don't just
bind him,
by the way.
It's not simply
ropes.
They are new ropes.
This is verse 13.
And new ropes
are going to be
even tighter
than old ropes.
They're going to be
even harder
to pull apart.
They know
Samson's strong
solution
make his bonds
even stronger.
We're not going to
get tricked
or fooled.
We're not going to
give him
or bind him
in something
that he can easily
break out of.
No,
we're going to make sure
Samson,
for once,
is actually
under control.
And God
once again
pours out
his spirit
on his judge
to deliver
his people.
Verse 14
or 13.
No,
it's verse 14.
The ropes
that were on
his hands
became as
flax
that has
caught fire
and his bonds
melted off
his hands.
Why?
Because the spirit
of the Lord
rushed
upon him.
God performs
another miracle
on behalf
of Samson.
God saves
his judge
once again.
God keeps
his promise.
He will begin
to save
his people
from the Philistines.
What does
Samson do?
he finds
a jawbone
and he wrecks
the Philistines.
Verse 15.
With it
he struck
one thousand
men.
Yes.
Israel
has turned
upside down.
And yes,
Israel
opposes
their leader
and cozies
up to
their friends.
And
God
remains
faithful
to his
people.
God
continues
to keep
his promise.
God
continues
to rescue.
God
uses
Israel's
compromise
and
he uses
Samson's
anger
to accomplish
his purpose.
No matter
what,
God
still
prevails.
No matter
what,
God
is still
in control.
No matter
what,
he remains
faithful
to his
people
and his
promises.
God
rescues
his people
even when
they don't
deserve it.
Christian,
God
rescues
you
even when
you don't
deserve it,
which is
every time.
God's
grace
really is
greater
than our
sin.
God
even
after this
rescue,
Samson's
behavior
leaves much
to be
desired.
Verse 16
and 17,
we see
Samson's
version
of a
touchdown
dance.
And you
may have
noticed
verse 16
and 17,
he writes
a poem
and this
poem is
exclusively
focused on
how great
God is
in his
salvation for
his people.
Right?
You see
that?
No.
Verse 17,
with the
jawbone of
a donkey
have I
struck down
a thousand
men.
There's no
mention of
the Lord.
Samson,
even as
God shows
him great
mercy and
grace,
is completely
full of
himself.
Verse 17,
we find
out that
Samson is
the one
who invented
the process
of dropping
the mic.
Except instead
of dropping
the mic,
he tosses
the jawbone
on the
ground.
Y'all see
that?
I killed
a thousand
Philistines,
I got
a poem.
What?
Look at
Samson
now.
Then,
verse 18,
he talks
to God
with this
little
passive
aggressive
statement.
Shall I
now die
of thirst
and fall
into the
hands
of the
uncircumcised?
Just in
case it's
not clear,
that is
not the
way you
speak to
the living
God.
God has
no response,
just
provision.
Verse 19,
he gives
Samson
water.
And then
in verse
20,
God drops
the mic.
and he
judged
Israel
in the
days
of the
Philistines
20 years.
What does
it say
at the
end of
all the
other
judges'
reigns?
It says
the people
had peace
for X
number of
years.
Not so
here.
The
Philistines
are rulers
over them.
The
Philistines
continue
to be
rulers
over them.
Samson's
work
as a
judge
is
compromised
and
incomplete.
Remember
from chapter
14,
he will
begin
to save
his people
from the
Philistines.
Samson
is
the
worst
judge.
As we
come to
the end
of the
book of
Judges,
we see
two things
that are
going to
stand out
over and
over again,
and they're
this.
Israel is
dripping
with
compromise,
but God
is dripping
with grace.
Israel has
completely
lost her
way.
God
saves her
again
and again.
God
will
do
that.
The
tension
of the
book of
Judges
is this.
How can
God
do that
over and
over?
Why is
he gracious
to his
people who
have lost
the way?
Why does
he give
water to
judges who
praise
themselves
rather
than him?
God
can
God
be
just
and
merciful?
Of course,
the answer
comes in
our Lord
Jesus.
God
is able
to show
us
mercy
when we
lose the
plot
because he
showed
judgment
to Jesus
when he
was on
the cross.
God
is able
to be
present
with his
people in
their failure
and their
mess
because he
forsake
his one
and only
son.
God's
grace
is greater
than our
sin
because
Jesus'
sacrifice
paid
the price.
We
have
a great
and greater
judge.
Jesus
is the
reason
that God
can show
his
people
grace
in the
midst
of
failure.
Jesus
is the
reason
that if
we lose
the
plot,
God
is still
at work.
We need
a faithful
and true
king.
We need
a king
who can
do
what no
human
can
do
which
is to
change
the
hearts
of
men.
Samson
is a
failure.
He'll
never
be the
one
we can
rely
on.
Jesus,
the
king,
we
actually
need.
So that's
why we
started this
sermon with
this.
Great is
thy
faithfulness,
O God
my
father.
There
is no
shadow
of
turning
with
thee.
God's
grace
is
greater
than
our
sin.
If we
are
faithless,
he
remains
faithful,
for he
cannot
deny
himself.
Let's
pray.
Our
father in
heaven,
we do
praise you
and thank
you that
you are
merciful and
gracious to
us.
Even when
we live
Samson
lives,
even when
we lose
the plot,
even when
we compromise
with the
world around
us,
that you
don't give
up.
We ask
that you
would remind
us of
that truth
again,
that you
would drive
it deep
into our
hearts,
that it
would change
our lives,
our minds,
our affections.
We ask
these things
in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
I invite
you to
stand for
our