Let's open up our Bibles in Judges, chapter 14. The book of Judges, chapter 14. I'm going to read the whole chapter. Judges, chapter 14. Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, chapter 14. Samson went down to Timnah. And at Timna he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Then he came up and told his father and mother, I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timna. Now get her for me as a wife. But his father and mother said to him, is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all your people that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? But Samson said to his father, get her for me, for she is right in my eyes. His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time, the Philistines rule over Israel. Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him, roaring. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in Samson's eyes. After some days he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion and honey. He scraped it out into his hands and went on, eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them, and they ate, but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion. His father went down to the woman, and Simpson prepared a feast there, for so the young man used to do. As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. And Simpson said to them, Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is within the seven days of the feast and find it out, then I will give you 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes. But if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes.' And they said to him, Put your riddle that we might hear it. And he said to them, out of the eater came something to eat, out of the strong came something sweet. And in three days they could not solve the riddle. On the fourth day, they said to Samson's wife, entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?' And Samson's wife wept over him and said, You only hate me, and you do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is.' And he said to her, Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you? She wept before him seven days that their feast lasted. And on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her people. And the man of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, what is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? And he said to them, if you had not ploughed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him. And he went down to Ascalon, and struck down thirty men of the town, and took their spoil, and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father's house. And Samson's wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man." Let's go before our God in prayer one more time. Dear God, we ask that your Holy Spirit might enlighten our minds and our hearts to see your salvation in this riddle, in this mystery that is this chapter of Judges. Help us, O Lord, to grasp all that we will learn and to apply it into our lives. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. But we continue our series in the book of Judges in the narrative of Samson. And last time in chapter 13, we read about the narrative of his birth, how the angel of the Lord, which was God himself, the second person of the Trinity, the pre-incarnate Christ, appeared to Manoah and to his wife to promise them a deliverer. This is what we found in the chapter 13. And I didn't notice, and I didn't mention at the time, but there is an emphasis on the senses in chapter 13, actually in the whole story of Samson. Especially the sense of vision, the eyes. So if you later would read again chapter 13, you will see a lot of times words related to this sense, vision, eyes, appearance. They saw, they watched. But in chapter 13, it was in a positive sense. They were watching the angel of the Lord, the message. They wanted to see God. That's what we saw last night. And God blessed this man, Samson, at the time it was a baby in her mother's belly. And God started to steer, the Spirit of the Lord began to steer him. That's what the last verse of chapter 13 said. He was a man blessed by God. And we know also from the New Testament in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 32, that he was a man of faith. He was a man of faith. A faith in the Christ to come. Saving faith. So there is a great expectation for this promised deliverer. What is gonna be like? What is this deliverance gonna be like? They were wondering as he was growing old. But then when we come to chapter 14 and we try to connect all those things, all those dots of the New Testament saying that he has faith in Jesus Christ and that he was a blessed man by God, we still wonder how these things can be. Because there's a mess going on here, right? A mess of sin and deceitfulness. and unrighteousness, even in the life of this Deliverer of God, this man, this Nazirite, a man who was separated from his birth to be a Deliverer, to be a man of God. So, this is actually a theme that goes throughout this chapter 14, the theme of secrecy. There's a mystery involved here. There's a lot of riddles in this chapter. Not only the riddle that Samson poses to his guests in the wedding feast, but this whole chapter is filled with riddle, with a mystery. And this is what we're trying to find out. What is this mystery? How to solve it? If indeed we can solve this mystery. In verses 1 to 4, we see, first of all, Samson as a grown man, and verse 1 says that he went down to Timnah. And if you notice, there's a lot of went-downs in this narrative. At least four, actually five in verse 1, and then in verse 5, verse 7, verse 10, and verse 19 again. He went down, he went down, he went down. And although I believe that there is a geographical reason for this, right, I don't think that it is in vain that the inspired writer of this book wrote that he went down so many times. Because this is what we are seeing here, so many sins. We are seeing Samson, instead of pursuing righteousness, instead of pursuing to deliver the people of God from the Philistines, He's married with one of the Philistines, and that's what we see in this first four verses. He said that he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines, and he said, this is the one. This is the one that is right in my eyes. Now again, the theme of the senses, the eyes again in this chapter, but now negatively. Samson is saying that she is right in my eyes. He's despising God's law about marriage, right? That is still valid today, that we're supposed to look for men and women to espouse in the covenant community. And this is not about ethnicity here. It's about idolatry. Because every time God commands the people of God to marry with other believers, He brings this forth, the idolatry issue. Because if you get married with them, you'll be an idolatrous person. They will make you to follow their gods. This is a testimony of the whole Scripture. And this is what Samson wants to do. He doesn't want to be a deliverer, at least at that time, at that point of the narrative. He wants to do what is delightful to his own flesh, to his own eyes. And this is actually the refrain of the book of the Judges, right? It says many times that the people of God were doing what was right to their own eyes. And this is exactly what Samson is doing. He's trying to do what is right to his own eyes. This is the first riddle of the passage. God sent his angel. Actually, God himself went down in chapter 13 to promise a deliverer. And now, this is the deliverer that we have. A man who, instead of going against the Philistines, he's marrying with them and trying to find connections with them. How can we understand this? Well, there's a reason for that. There is an answer for this first riddle in verse 4. It says, His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for He, God, was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. God Himself was using the sins of Samson to bring forth salvation, to break the bonds of slavery, of oppression. We read in chapter 13 that the people of God were quite well with their oppressors. They were dealing in peace with them. They were okay. So much so that they even did not find the need to call for help. We saw that in chapter 13. They were okay with their sins, with their oppressors. And Samson is bringing this forth. It was not only the people, but even Samson that came out of the people, came from the people. But God is using this mysteriously to bring forth salvation to His people. Our sins cannot prevent, dear brothers and sisters, even our sins cannot prevent God to bring forth salvation, to bring forth deliverance. to bring forth His grace and His abounding, steadfast love to His sons and daughters. But then we are left with a question. Is that a license for us to sin? Because Samson is doing what is right in his own eyes. He's trying to delight in his own wishes and his own desires. And that's okay because God is working this to His salvation. So, I think I'm pretty much good with my sin. I think I can handle it. God will bring forth grace anyway. Is that the right way to think about our sins? And interestingly, for this question, the Apostle Paul already answered. He already answered this question in Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6, we are going through a series of Romans in the morning with Pastor Paul. And this exact same question is answered by the Apostle Paul here in the New Testament, Romans chapter 6 verse 1. What shall I say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might abound? And the answer is, by no means. How can we who die to sin still live in it? If you want to cling to the grace of God just to live in your sins, This is just showing the wickedness of your heart. Your heart is not regenerated. How can you live in sin? How can you live in sin if you were crucified with Christ? Apostle Paul said, this can't happen. There's something wrong here. If you want to live in your sins, if you want to indulge in your sin counting with the grace of God that will abound, there will be no hope for you. Because it means that your heart is not in Christ. Your heart is not in holiness. Your heart is not in the God of the scriptures. But your heart is in your own sins. And you want to use everything as an excuse to continue in your sins. This is not what God is teaching His people here through this this narrative. On the contrary, He's teaching us that we cannot mess up with our salvation. He's teaching us that God is sovereign even over our sins to bring forth good to us. And this is a comfort for those who struggle with sin, for those who really want to leave a life to God. This is also a comfort If we look to our friends or our relatives, our children, our grandchildren who are in a down spiral of sin, living their lives the way that they want. The text said that the father and the mother of Samson did not know that it was from the Lord because he had a reason for this. The same way for us, we don't know. about our relatives, we don't know about our spouse, our unbelieving spouse, our unbelieving children or grandchildren. The comfort for us to not despair, because God is doing something. And I'm not telling you that they will finally be Christians. I'm just telling that whatever happens will be to the glory of God. and will be to the benefit of His people. So we can rest that God is working in a mysterious way, through their sins, through our sins, to bring salvation in some sense, in some way, to His own people. Like Joseph. Remember the story of Joseph. After he spent years and years in Egypt, when he was abandoned by, forsaken by his brothers, He'd been there many years and he became a governor. And then he said to his brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, for the good of his people, for my good and for the good of the people to come. This is the grace of God being refilled that not even our sins can prevent God to bring forth salvation and deliverance. This is what happens here in the life of sins. And then in verses five to nine, we see God strengthening Samson. It says that he went down to Timnah with his father and mother to get her wife. And they were going through the vineyards, which is interesting to think, at least weird to think, since Samson was a Nazirite, right? He was a man separated for a work to God. And as an Ezraite, he was prohibited to drink from the fruit of the vine. What was he doing in a vineyard? I would propose that he was being just careless about his vows. As we were seeing here, he was just doing what was right into his own eyes. going and throwing himself into temptation. And as he went there, he find a young lion. A young lion came toward him and roaring against him. This is pretty amazing what happens because the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, the text says. The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him. and said that with his bare hands he tore this lion apart, as it was a young goat. And as I read, I just wonder, how would you tore a young goat apart? It's hard, right? And he was doing with a lion, by the Spirit of the Lord. And it's interesting, if we flip our pages back to other judges from the Book of Judges, we see that the Spirit of the Lord came upon them as well. But the words that are used to the other judges are different. For Atheniel, it says that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Atheniel. For Gideon, it said that the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon for Jephthah in chapter 11 says that the spirit of the Lord was upon him But right here with sense and it says that the spirit of the Lord rushed upon him. It came mightily upon him that was the reason of His strength that was the ground of his strength. He was not strong because of his great muscles as we see in the book sometimes, right? It's kind of misleading a little bit If we read in chapter 16, it says that the Philistine didn't know where this strength came from. So it was not something apparent. It was not something apparent. He was not this huge guy with just like a Hulk. He was just a common man. A common man. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him mightily, came upon him, giving him strength. And this was a sign to Samson, a sign to Samson of what God will do through him to the Philistines when David came to fight against Goliath, he said, kind of, as long as the same line that we find here says that God was powerful to deliver him from the power of the bear and the power of the lion, He will help him with the Philistine, with Goliath. That's the same thing that is happening here. God is showing Samson. by pouring out His Spirit upon him, that he would be able to conquer the Philistines later as well. And he did this with his bare hands. No weapons at all. If you read later in 1 Samuel chapter 13 verse 17, it says that the Philistines did not allow the Israelites to have weapons. That's obvious, right? If you're oppressing a nation, if you're oppressing a people, you don't want them to get weapons. But God does not need weapons. Just the Spirit of the Lord is enough to make sense and see that He is up to something in His life, and He will do something in His life. But an interesting thing that we see here is that the Spirit of the Lord rushing upon him in verse 6 is sandwiched by the phrase that the timid woman was right in the eyes of Samson. You see this in the end of verse 3, the last sentence says, for she is right in my eyes. And then we have this description of him going to the vineyards, the Spirit of the Lord rushing upon him, and then it closes the section again in verse 7, the last sentence, she was right in Samson's eyes. You see that? It doesn't look that there's any change in Samson. He's still wanting to do what is right in his own eyes, and even so, the Spirit of the Lord come mightily upon him. What does this teach us, dear brothers and sisters? It teaches us that the Spirit of God works in us, not because of us, not because of who you are, not because of your talents, not because of your strength, but He works in you and through you despite of you, despite of your sins, despite of who you are. He doesn't need your strength. He doesn't need your righteousness, so to speak, to do something. He does something in your life and through your life, despite of you, despite of your sins. Samson seemed to be careless about his vows, about his calling. But even so, God uses him mightily, more than the other judges, to help his people, to deliver his people. This makes me think about Luke 11, verse 13, when Jesus says, ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find not, and it will be open to you. If Simpson was filled with the Holy Spirit, was empowered by the Holy Spirit, with this power, with this strength, even though he was not seeking God, he was not knocking at His door, he was not asking for the Spirit, what God can do through us if we ask Him? If we knock His door and ask for His Spirit? This is one of the most sure promises of God. Actually, I should say that every promise of God is sure. But many people said that God promised many things to us. He promised wealth, He promised health, He promised money or whatever. But God does not promise those things. God does promise a lot of things, and one of them is His Holy Spirit. If we ask Luke 11, 13, if we ask, if we knock, if we seek, He will give us His Holy Spirit. He will pour out His Holy Spirit. And my question too is, how often do you pray for this in your life? How often do you pray for more measurements of the Spirit in your life? How often do you pray that the Lord will fill you, will empower you for his ministry in this earth? Sometimes I think this is what lacks the church to get a revival. that we pray fervently and earnestly to God. Can you imagine what the prayers of the saints in the whole world could do if we pray each one of us individually every single day for more of His Holy Spirit in our lives? not even asking for the lives of others. In our own lives, if each one, Christian, believer, American, would pray every single day in his devotion for more of the Holy Spirit, can you imagine what God could do to this nation? A mighty, a mighty work. I'm not saying that God Depends on this to work. We just we are just seeing here in the life of the judges that God is bringing forth deliverance Even though they did not seek for God God brings forth salvation. Anyway, God bring forth his mighty deeds anyway But he uses prayers. He uses our prayers To bring forth salvation as well in those two ways, this is how God works sovereignly apart from anything, but he also uses instruments and And He says that if we pray, we will receive. And this will generate change in our lives. This is what we find in Ephesians chapter 5. That we will not fill ourselves with wine, but we fill ourselves with the Holy Spirit. So we can address one another in psalms, giving thanks to God, Being in submission to one another, wives submissive to their husbands, husbands loving their wives. Employees honoring their employers. It changes our lives, our everyday life. In verse 8, Samson came back to see the carcass. And he felt something puzzling. First of all, the very fact that we see a lion in a vineyard, it's already puzzling. But now, after he tore this lion apart, he went back and he found the dead lion open, and instead of those kind of animals that goes in the carcasses and makes it stink even more, He finds something sweet. He finds honey. That's a puzzling picture. Now, I won't try to bring forth anything from here, rather than that he, God, uses this as a providence for Samson to use this as a riddle, and we'll see this later, how God brings forth salvation through the riddle as well. But some would say that he was breaking his vowels as an Ezraite. And that's right, that if we go to Numbers chapter six, you will see, you will find that they were not allowed to touch a dead body. But interestingly, in chapter 13, when God calls Samson through his parents, he does not mention the touching of dead bodies as part of the vowel. And I believe that he does this purposefully because he was raised up to kill the Philistines. So I think that this aspect of the Nazarite vow was missing in Samson purposely, that God was allowing him to do this because although he was a Nazarite, it was a different and specific office to bring salvation through the death of the Philistines. He will fight, he will kill them. But even so, to touch that carcass, And to eat something from it would be defiling, even to, specifically to his parents as well, that he gave to them. And he didn't tell to his parents, right? Because according to the Old Testament law, if you touch a dead body from an animal or for a person, you are dirty. You cannot participate in the worship service. You are defiled. And he does that, he eat the honey, and a very similar construction to what we find in, it's very interesting, in Genesis chapter three, as the woman saw the fruit, she take the food she eat and she gave to her husband. It's the same construction that we have here for Samson. He took the honey, he eat it, and he gave to their parents. He was not only careless about himself, as we see in the first verses, but also about others. And then in verse 12, we have a wedding feast. And this is not just a wedding feast. It's a wedding drinking feast, actually. The original word wants to highlight this, that it's a drinking feast. And again, Samson was not supposed to drink wine. It was kind of like doing and making this feast to his guests, all Philistines, with a lot of drinking. It doesn't say that he drank wine. But even so, all the picture that is painting to us is that he was careless about his vows and he was pretty much in peace with the Philistines, giving a fist with them, marrying with them. And then he proposes a riddle. It was part of the weddings to propose riddles to entertainment. They have music, they have a lot of other stuff and also riddles. It was a kind of entertainment at that time. And even the way the marriages work at that time was very different, engaging as well. So although we will see the description that she was his wife, he did not take her already. He was supposed to take her after the feast, but they were already considered husband and wife. So here they are in this drinking wedding feast, seeking connection and fellowship with the Philistines, with unbelievers. and he proposes this riddle. And it's a little bit unfair because no one would ever know. It's impossible to know. It's something specific that happens to him that now he uses this as a riddle to just gain all those garments and he will be fine. But something happens. And notice the evil heart of those Philistines. It was just a feast. It was just a place to enjoy a great feast, to enjoy drinking and the fellowship of one another. And instead of just giving up or trying to find the answer to the riddle, they just press the wife. And in verse 15, they say, on the fourth day, verse 15, they said to the son's wife, entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. And by house here, he's not talking about the building, he's talking about the family. You see how evil those people were. Just a riddle, just entertainment, and they cannot help themselves to show all their evil and wickedness. And they are up to burn the wife, the bride herself, and all her family just because of this riddle, because they want to live. This is the people to which Samson was trying to attach to. And then she presses him hard and hard, and she cries all the time, and she uses this very well-known tactic from the women, you only hate me, you do not love me, right? If you're married for more than some weeks, you'll find that this is true in your life too. At some point in your life, your wife maybe used this tactic. And she uses this, and then he gives in, he gives up, he tells her. And by this, we're seeing that this strong man, not because of himself, this man of faith has a weakness. And the woman are his weakness. We see this in chapter 14. We see this also with Delilah in chapter 16. We'll see this later. He gives to her the answer. But this is the beginning of deliverance. Notice when they, in chapter, in verse 18, when they find out and they proclaim to him what is sweeter than honey, what is stronger than a lion. And then Samson answered back, if you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle. Notice the difference. In the beginning of the chapter, he was telling what he was telling about her wife or the person that she wants to get married to. She's right in my eyes. I delight in her. I want her. I'm in love with her. That's the only one. It can't be other. But now, she's calling her my Hafer. Very derogatory way. What is happening here? What is happening is that, what we find in verse 4 again, was God seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. And how so? Because after this, we find in verse 19 that the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon Him again, came upon Him mightily, and He stroked 30 men of the Philistines. And in hot anger, He went back to His Father's house. What is happening here? Is he just an angry man who just don't know how to lose? I don't believe so at least. What I believe the text is telling us is that God is doing something to deliver His people. And what is He doing? He's putting between Samson and the Philistines enmity. He's breaking the false peace that they had with their oppressors. Up until from chapter 13 up until chapter 14 verses 15 or 16, there was all peace. It was all good. They were living just fine with their oppressors. When the Holy Spirit come upon him and rushed upon him and came mightily upon him, this is one of the results. God is breaking the peace between the Israelites and the Philistines. He himself promised this in Genesis, I will put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Dear brothers and sisters, this is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. How do you know if you're a Christian? How do you know if you truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you're truly regenerated? if the Lord comes with the Holy Spirit upon you and dwelling you and bringing enmity between you and your sin? How is your life, dear friend, before your sin? Is that the same as 12 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago? What is your relationship with your sin? Are you okay with your sin? Is that just fine to live with it? Just part of your life? Part of your routine? To do this specific sin in your life? If the Spirit of the Lord is working in you, or has worked in you, the first sin that He brings is conviction of sin. That we are no longer slaves to sin. That we do not belong to sin anymore, we do not belong to Satan anymore. And we need to have a new life. This is done by the Holy Spirit in us. The Holy Spirit of the Lord disturbed the false peace in our hearts. And we are in peace with our sins. And this is what He's doing here in the life of His people with Simpson. He's disturbing the peace that they had once before that was just fine with their oppressors. Now, He is angry against them. He is angry against them. He went down, He kills them. And this is the beginning of the deliverance. It's just 30 men. But right in chapter 15 will be more. And then in chapter 16 will be more. And it's hard to understand how can God work? How can God work salvation and bring deliverance through all of this? Those men killing each other, Samson killing all those, the Philistines here and then more later and later. It's one of the mysterious ways that God brings forth salvation. He uses men. He uses His people. He uses the judge, the judges at that time specifically in this way to bring forth judgment to the Philistines. Of course, today is different. We're not in those times anymore. But we are still in a war, in a battle against our sins, against Satan, against our enemies. And we need to have the Spirit of the Lord upon us so we can hate sin, hate sin. My older daughter Elisa, when she's despair of her life, because I'm just correcting her and instructing her, she said, I just can't stop sinning. I can't, that's impossible. And what I said to her is that, I know this, but this is not what difference you from the unbelievers. It's not that whether you sin or not. It's what is your response to sin? What is your heart? Is your heart in this sin? Do you hate sin? Because even though we hate sin in this side of eternity, we will sin anyways. But what is your disposition towards the sin? This is what differentiates Christians and non-Christians. Those who have the Holy Spirit of the Lord and those who don't. If you love the Lord, if you have the Holy Spirit in you, you will hate sin and you will not live in peace with sin. And this is what God is doing here. He uses sins. He uses the Philistines. He's using here Samson trying to do what is right in his own eyes. He uses the lion. He uses the vineyard. He uses the wedding feast, the drinking feast. He uses the Philistines and the wife to bring forth salvation. This is the mysterious ways in which God works salvation. And was that the same with our Lord Jesus Christ? In chapter 2 of Acts, when Peter is preaching at the Pentecost, what did he say? He said, by the decree of God, the Son of God was crucified, but you killed Him. Your sinful actions brought this man, this holy man, to the cross. God was using even the sins of the Pharisees and the scribes and all those people and all this turmoil to bring forth salvation to his people. This is how God works. But this is not the end of the story. We will see later in chapters 15 and 16 how God carries on this salvific plan to his people at this time specifically. And we'll see this later, God willing. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You that even though we are sinners, even though sometimes we want to stray, You still use our sins to do good to us and to bring us back to You. Help us, O Lord, to hate sin and help us, O Lord, to be filled with Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.