All right, well we get to continue our series in Hebrews chapter 11. So why don't you turn there to Hebrews chapter 11. I'm going to read a passage or a few verses out of that chapter. And then Pastor Mike is going to bring the word for us today. So chapter 11 of Hebrews beginning at verse 32. Actually I'll read verse 1 and then I'll jump to verse 32. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. Verse 32. And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, and put foreign armies to flight. Pastor Mike. Thank you Brent. Good evening. I'm glad at least two of you showed up. I was afraid that when they announced I was preaching tonight that it was gonna be an empty house, but I'm glad you're here. So we're gonna continue in our series, our evening series, Extraordinary God. In the beginning of that it says, what, ordinary people, I think. Ordinary people, extraordinary God. And so we're gonna talk about the extraordinary God tonight, and I have a phrase that I want you to look at. right here, it says, God uses unlikely people. He uses flawed people. He uses failing people. He uses sinful people, because if he didn't, he wouldn't have any people to use. Amen? And that's a saying that John MacArthur likes to say, and so I tagged it up there, and I went ahead and gave him credit for that. It's such a great statement, and we're gonna talk about that a little bit tonight. Brent just read, so I won't read that whole passage again, but did you catch the key phrase in our passage tonight? You're saying, no, I didn't know there was a key phrase. Yeah, there is. We're made strong. out of weakness. And so we're going to talk about that tonight. And that's down there in verse 34. And so I want to draw your attention to that simple little phrase tucked in the middle of that verse, made strong out of weakness, because only when we see God for who He is, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, and we see who we are, wretched, vile sinners, can we fully understand mercy and grace? And so I hope tonight will be an encouragement to you. I hope that as we walk away from here, you look at yourselves and you think, wow, God can use even me. And so I hope that's an encouragement as we go forward. So, Gideon and Samson. Many others could be included in the verses that we just mentioned in Hebrews 11, but God mentions Gideon and Samson in particular. There they are. Can you tell I work with kids? So there's Gideon with a little G on his chest, and there's our Samson. But God mentions Gideon and Samson in particular. They're stories of weakness and strength. Gideon goes from weakness to strength, and Samson goes from strength to weakness. But in both cases, they are used by God to protect his people, to fulfill his covenant with Israel. They're not role models, to be sure. They were very unlikely heroes, to say the least. And yet, they're used by God in spite of themselves. So tonight, we're going to see also God, the real hero, History is his story. I'm sure you've heard that. With Gideon and Samson in particular, we see God's mercy, his grace, his patience, his kindness towards undeserving sinners. And we see our unchanging God who shows the same mercy, grace, patience, and kindness when dealing with us. And I hope tonight, like I said, I hope you can see yourselves in the shortcomings of the Old Testament Israel, but also in Gideon and Samson. And I hope you see the same God with the same character keeping his promise of a savior and redemption for us. My intention tonight is to encourage you that because of God, we can be strong. And only when we realize that we are weak can that truly happen. We cannot accomplish any of this on our own. And if we are to be used by God, it must be through his enabling and through his power. So we need a little bit of background. And we're not really going to get into the story of Gideon right away, because it takes a little bit of background for you to fully understand that. Both these men, Gideon and Samson, are identified in the Bible as judges. The story about them is in the book that's called Judges, and that's where we're gonna spend our time tonight. But these aren't judges in the way that you might think of judges. When we think of judges, we think of a courtroom. We think of the argument going back and forth, and the lawyers, and the jury, and the judge handing out a verdict, and things like that. That's not the way that we need to think of the word judges here. The word judge in the Hebrew, in its most simplest translation is, does anybody know? Deliverer. The word judges simply means deliverer, and that's what judges were. They delivered the people of God. They protected the people of God. They protected the nation of Israel. And so that's how we are to look at that word tonight. And as I often tell the kids in children's church and in Sunday school, You don't have to look very far on the pages of scripture to see Jesus. All through the Bible, you see Jesus. And here's another example in the book of Judges where we see our Redeemer, we see our Savior, the Judges. You can see a picture of that there. And so as we're going through this tonight, I also want you to think about that. And so, it is in our passage tonight we see God sending deliverers to make sure His promise to Israel and ultimately to the world is fulfilled. So, in Judges, in the Old Testament, in the history of Israel, after the time of Moses, after the time of Joshua who led the people of Israel into the promised land, after all that, the four centuries plus captivity in Egypt, before the reign of the kings, before Saul, David, Solomon, and then the divided kingdom, in that window right there, in that period between Joshua and Saul, is a period that the Bible identifies as the period of the judges. And as I mentioned earlier, the translation of judges, deliverer, So the kind of judge that we're talking about here is someone who was chosen by God to protect, to preserve, and to deliver or rescue Israel from its enemies. And when the nation of Israel went into the land of Canaan, it was occupied. It had been promised to them by God, but it was occupied by many of these different nations. And I'm going to just read this section right here, because I think this is important, and I want you to understand this. In order for them to survive in that land, they would have to be delivered from the power of these resident enemies. So the judges aren't legal experts. They aren't lawyers who were elevated because they were better than the rest. They were known for their military feats. They were known for their ability to, by the power of God, conquer and protect. Conquer the enemies and protect the people of Israel. That is the way we are to understand the judges. They are saviors. They are deliverers. They are warriors. They do some governing and some leading and some directing, but more like the general of an army than any politician or monarch. They have leadership over the troops at the point of conflict, at the point of protection, at the point of battle. They are not national judges as if appointed to rule the nation in some way. They are simply men, and in one case a woman, who are used by God to ensure the preservation of Israel. God made a promise to preserve His nation and through that nation to bless the world and through that nation to bring the seed who would be the Messiah. God made that promise. God will fulfill that promise even through the history of an apostate, unbelieving nation. God keeps His word. The story of the judges is a story of God's protection of a very wicked, sinful people, the people of Israel. But God keeps His promise. The covenant formula, obedience brings blessing and disobedience brings curse, is suspended here. When God intervenes, it is consistently in spite of rather than because of what people deserve. And to that, I can only say amen because that's our story too. The good news is this, if God keeps his promise to preserve the people of Israel who are ungodly, who are disobedient, who are rebellious, we can be certain that God will keep his promise to those who are his own redeemed, who are faithful, and who are obedient to him. So we need just a little bit of background in order to fully appreciate the book of Judges. Let's look at the history then. Judges then is the story of God's faithfulness to promises made to Abraham about the preservation of his people Israel. The book of Joshua ends with the Israelites entering the promised land and pledging to the Lord to do everything that the Lord asks of them. You're familiar with the passage Joshua chapter 24? And verse 15, where he says, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your father served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, what did he say? We will serve the Lord, right? And Joshua made that great proclamation. And he goes on and has a little discourse with the people. And at the end of that, in verse 24, and the people said to Joshua, the Lord our God, we will serve in his voice, we will obey. So they're saying, that's what we're gonna do. We're going to be faithful people to God who's brought us out of captivity through these 40 years in the wilderness, and now we're going into the promised land, and we're gonna serve the Lord. And they make that proclamation. So here's the word from the Lord to those people as they stand right there, they're poised, they're ready to go into the promised land, and Deuteronomy 30, verses 15 through 18 says this, and you don't have to turn these, because I'm just gonna kind of buzz through them. verses 15 through 18 see I have set before you today life and good death and evil if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today by loving the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by keeping his commandments in his statutes in his rules then you shall live and multiply and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it But if your heart turns away and you will not hear but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess." So at the very point where they're going into the land, they're given this warning, right? They're given this warning, and initially they come back with the response that we just read in Joshua 24. They say, We will serve the Lord. And the good news is this. At the beginning of Judges, apparently they did that. So turn to Judges. We're going to go to the first parts of the chapter, then we're going to get into Gideon in a minute in chapter 6. But chapter 2, verse 7. and the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. So apparently they did that. That generation of Joshua, all that generation that saw what God did, the generation that saw the miracles, in the wandering in the wilderness. And the entrance into the land, and they served the Lord faithfully, but that generation died off and another generation took their spot. And the next generation committed the ultimate evil in God's sight. The next generation began to worship idols. And there were idols everywhere in the land of Canaan, which is why God had instructed them, what? When you go into the land, defeat the enemy, remove the enemy, get rid of the enemy, because the idols were there. And in verse 19 of that Joshua passage, Joshua told them, he said, your Lord God is a jealous God. And God said, I don't want you even looking at these other idols, get rid of the people and serve me only. Judges 2, 10 through 13. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Verse 11, the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Verse 12, they abandoned the Lord. Further down, they went after other gods and bowed down to them. Verse 13, they abandoned the Lord. Judges 2.14. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies. So God's judgment was upon them. See, because sin doesn't go unpunished, because God is a holy God, and God has to punish sin, God does punish sin. And so they received the punishment for that sin. And there's a cycle that happens. And so the book of Judges then records what happens over a period of 350 years of living side by side with these idolaters. And the book of Judges records centuries of Israel's repeated failure to obey God or to honor God. And it's the old adage in history. repeating itself, generation after generation after generation. To put it simply, it was a cycle that went like this, rebellion, punishment, deliverance, rebellion, punishment, deliverance. And in the book of Judges, as we see and read the subsequent chapters, we see that that happens seven times. Over and over and over again, Israel falls away. And then they're punished. and then they repent, and then God delivers them, and then they fall away. and then they're punished, and then they repent, and then God delivers them, and it's my story, and it's your story. And it's because we're flesh. It's because we haven't been glorified yet. And so we can look at what's happening there, and we can say, oh my, that's me. And we can look at that same God who deals with them, and we can look at that same God who deals with us, and hopefully, as we go tonight, You'll be convicted, but also encouraged that God can use weakness. So God keeps his promises. And in Judges 2.16, we see these three words that I love in Judges 2.16. Then the Lord, so who comes to the rescue? The hero of the story, right? Then the Lord raised up judges who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. And he keeps his promises by his grace and by his mercy. Judges 2.18, if you look a little further down, it says, for the Lord was moved to pity. Aren't you glad tonight that our Lord has pity on sinners? I am. He was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. But let's keep reading. Verse 19, but whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. they did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and here we go again. And so comes the punishment again until they cry out in some kind of penitence for a deliverer. One cycle after another, a time of peace brought by the deliverer. Then a new generation rises, forgets the Lord, becomes idolatrous, and the whole story of punishment is repeated. So during those four centuries, there's 14 judges. They don't rule the nation. They're not political leaders. We talked about that. They're more like generals. But they are at the point of conflict and they are there to deliver Israel. And so he raised up the judges when he wanted to rescue Israel. And he rescued Israel from the surrounding nations. So these were human deliverers the Lord raised up to maintain his covenant faithfulness with Abraham so that the Jews weren't completely wiped out. It's an act of faithfulness. It's an act of grace as well as an act of compassion. especially against this backdrop of Israel's gross sin and immorality and compromise and idolatry. So God keeps His promises in spite of Israel's sin. And I'm not gonna take you through all these verses. I think you can see the point in the outline there. Nope, we don't. Click it one more, TJ. All those verses there. But basically, every one of those verses, and that's the cycles of this sin, all the way through Judges, it starts with this phrase. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. and then it goes on in the next verse. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord until the next chapter. And all of these stories, and the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. And then there's a wrap-up. In Judges 21-25, the very last verse of the book of Judges, and I know this is a lot of background, but I'm getting there. In the very last verse in Judges 21-25, in those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Who was supposed to be their king? God. It was supposed to be a theocracy. In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. So it's a sad commentary on the time of judges. It's a bizarre time when the nation of Israel was in chaos. So you might say why would God allow this to happen because it was supposed to be a theocracy. God was the reigning king, God was the rightful king, and had they obeyed God, they would have had the blessing God had promised in Deuteronomy 30, verse 16, you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land, but they didn't do that. So it was chaos, it was bizarre, there was complex scenarios of weird behavior and conduct. And two of the men among the 14 judges are Gideon and Samson. These are men with faults and flaws for sure. Remember our list at the beginning? Unlikely, flawed, failing, sinful. They wouldn't have been accepted for leadership by any committee. They would have failed that for sure. Gideon was too weak to be of any use. Samson was too strong to be of any use. Gideon didn't believe he could accomplish anything, and Samson believed he could accomplish anything. Neither of those kinds of people make very good leaders, and yet God puts them in the Bible to show us His own character. So let's begin with Gideon. God uses weak, cowardly Gideon to accomplish His will. And some of you are saying, wait a second, weak and cowardly? He was a valiant warrior. He was weak, and he was a coward, and we're gonna find that tonight. So there was rest for 40 years. Judges 5.31. So may all your enemies perish, O Lord, but your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might. And the land had rest for forty years." That was under the judge Deborah and Barak. And then Judges 6-1. The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. Look at Judges 6-2. and the hand of Midian overpowered Israel. 24 And because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strongholds. 25 For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east would come up against them. 26 They devoured the produce of their land. They would come like locusts in number. They laid waste the land as they came in. And then verse six, Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel, what? Cried out for help to the Lord. So for seven years they were bordered by the Midianites, by the Amalekites, and for seven years they had this constant threat, this constant terrorizing. So they would go out in public and they would grow their crops and all this, and the Midianites would swoop in and take everything they owned and leave, and they would kill the people. And they lived in this constant, constant fear for seven years. And they would end up going up into the mountains and going into the caves and hiding because of the enemy. And this daily harassing had gone on for seven years. And finally, verse six, they cry out for help. So they cried to the Lord. And I can't help but to see myself in Israel here. And when I think, why did God put up with all of that? I'm forced to think, why does God put up with me? But I'm glad that he does. And it's because of his character, not mine. And it's because of his grace, not my merit. You know, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not of your own doing. It's the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. So Gideon was a weak coward who God chose to use to display his own greatness, and we're gonna look at that. So they cry out to the Lord, and then look at verse 11. Now the Lord, now the angel of the Lord came. That's an answer, right? They cry out to the Lord, and the angel of the Lord came. So straight from the top, straight from the top. And he sat under the terraminth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the, I can't say this, the Abazrite, I can never get that, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press to hide it from the Midian. So the angel of the Lord comes, and where does he find Gideon? Look at this, he's in a wine press beating out wheat. You don't beat wheat in a wine press, okay? You go up on top of the hill and you take the wheat and you throw it up in the air and the wind drives all the chaff away and then you get what's left over, right? And Gideon's hiding down inside this pit in the wine press trying to win a wheat, or maybe he's picking it out by hand, it doesn't really say, but he's down in the wine press. He's a coward. He's down in there doing the impossible because you can't do it that way. And he's doing it in order to save it from the Midianites. They're such terrorists that he doesn't even want to do his work out in public where he can be seen or be raided. And they're going to steal his wheat. So he goes down in this wine press and tries to do it. Now, whenever you see the appearance of the angel of the Lord, because it says the angel of the Lord came, in the Old Testament, he appears as a man. And he is identified by the author here as the angel of the Lord. But Gideon would have just seen him as a man. So all of a sudden, this man appears in his wine press. And the Bible doesn't really let us into Gideon's mind when he's first talking to the angel of the Lord, but he seems to be confused as to who he's talking to. We know he doesn't recognize the angel of the Lord for being God because he's not absolutely shocked out of his mind. He doesn't fall to the ground begging for his life, which he would have done if God was standing there, right? So he carries on a conversation with him. Verse 12. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. Aren't you a valiant warrior? You're down here in the winepress winnowing wheat. Winnowing wheat. Good job. You know, man of valor. And so it's actually kind of nice to know that the angel of the Lord has some sarcasm there when he's talking to Gideon. And Gideon said to him, verse 13, please, sir, because he's a man, right, to Gideon, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian. Gideon totally ignores what the man, what God told him. He doesn't get it. He says, if the Lord's with us, why is all this happening? Where are the miracles? If the Lord is with us, something isn't quite right here. In verse 14, and the Lord turned to him and said, go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Do not I send you? So see, God doesn't even really answer Gideon's concerns. God has no need to justify himself as to why the people of Israel have experienced what they have. He simply tells Gideon his desire. He again mentions Gideon's might, and then he adds that Gideon will be successful because he's the one that's sending him. And so he said to him, please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, here's his perspective on himself. My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, so my clan's the weakest, and guess what? I'm the weakest guy in the clan. That's what he says. He says, not only am I in the weakest clan, but I'm the weak link. I'm that guy. So that's his perspective on himself. Gideon, he's not a man with a big faith. He's not a valiant warrior. He's not a noble leader. He's not a great soldier. He's a man of weakness. He's hiding in a wine press. And he's saying, I'm the weak guy. And the Lord said to him, but I will be with you and you shall strike the Midianites as one man. So the angel of the Lord called him the man of valor. And I don't think it's, it may not even been sarcastic. That's just me reading into that. But for sure, he's stating what Gideon is going to be. He's stating what Gideon is going to be, right? So he calls him a man of valor. And this is how God used the judges. He came upon them. He empowered them for a certain task. And so the doubting coward demands a sign. If it's really you, God, show me a sign. Look at 17. And he said to him, if now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speaks to me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you." And he said, I will stay. So what does Gideon do? He goes and he knocks around in the kitchen for a while, and he prepares a goat, and he prepares soup, and he makes some unleavened bread. And I don't know how long he's in there, but he's keeping the Lord waiting, right? And he's begging around in the kitchen, and he finally prepares this meal, and he brings it out. And the angel of the Lord says, okay, now put the meat on the rock, put the bread on the rock, and pour the soup over it. Cause there's nothing quite as nice as soggy unleavened bread, right? And he pours it all on the rock. And then it says the angel of the Lord took his staff and touched it. And what happens? It gets incinerated, right? It consumes with fire. And then, and then, and then this man disappears on Gideon. Wow. Right? So then, what is Gideon? Then, verse 22, finally, then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. Smart guy. And Gideon said, alas, oh Lord God, for now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. Verse 23. But the Lord said to him, so he must've come back, but the Lord said to him, peace be to you, do not fear, you shall not die. And why did he tell Gideon, peace be to you, you shall not fear, or don't fear, you're not gonna die? Because Gideon finally realizes he's in the presence of the Lord. He's in the presence of the Lord. And whenever anybody has a vision of God, the fear is that they will die. It was true of Isaiah. It was true of Gideon. It was true of John on the island of Patmos. It's always the fear of any sinner. When the sinner sees God, he knows God sees him. And that's the trauma of holiness. If I see God in all his glory, he sees me in all of my sin. I'm not going to survive this. And so he's told, peace be with you, do not fear, you're not gonna die. That night the Lord said to him, take your father's bull and the second bull, seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal, and he goes on to describe this, and basically the Lord says, okay, now that you know who I am, I want you to go into town, and I want you to rip down the statue or the altar to Baal, and by the way, then you're gonna build a new altar, and you're gonna sacrifice a bull on it. This is, he's talking to the coward, remember? But he says to go do that. So what does Gideon do? He took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. Right, he got his buddies together and they chest bumped and they talked smack, but read on. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night. So Gideon, he's gonna do it, but he's afraid to do it in the daytime, so he gets his buddies together and they go at night. So they sneak in at night and they do this. And when the men of the town, verse 28, rose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, right? And then they go and they say, who did this? And they figure it out that it's Gideon. So then they go and they say, well, let's go get Gideon and let's bring him out here and let's kill him. And Gideon's father, who by the way was a Baal worshiper, How's that for somebody being used by God? His dad was a Baal worshiper, okay? But his dad says, no, no, no, no, no. If Baal's a God, he can take care of himself. If anybody touches Gideon, he's gonna be put to death by morning. And so they named him Jeroboam, Gideon's Jeroboam, which is contender with Baal. So Gideon's name becomes that. Apparently nobody had ever tried to beat up the altar of Baal in the town center before because they were impressed that Gideon had done that. Look at verse 33. Now all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east came together and they crossed the Jordan and encamped in the valley of Jezreel. There's a slide I want you to look at If you'll recognize that, that's kind of the Holy Land in the north. There's Galilee. I kind of tried to highlight it with yellow. That's the Jordan River, and this is the Jezreel Valley right there. And so I wanted you to see where this was happening. So the Medianites and the Amalekites, they come across the Jordan and they go up in there to the Jezreel Valley. Our next point is God supernaturally equipped Gideon for the task. Verse 34, and this is a turning point. But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the, there's their name again, Abba's rites were called out to follow him. And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they too were called out to follow him. And he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they went up to meet them. So the Spirit of God comes upon Gideon, supernaturally empowers him to be the warrior of God. Now he's starting to take on responsibility and leadership. And so he says, we need to fight. And 32,000 men respond from all over Judah. and Gideon's still afraid. Then verse 36, then Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, behold, I am laying a fleece. And so he goes through this test and you know the fleece test, right? He lays the fleece out and he says, make it wet on the fleece and dry on the ground. And so God does that. God does that. It's dry all over the ground and the fleece is so wet that he wrings it out and he puts all that water into a bowl. And then he says, excuse me, God, can I talk a little bit more? One more test, please? Because I really want to be sure of this. This time I'm going to reverse the test and why don't you make the fleece dry and the ground wet and that'll show me. And so the Bible says that God consented to that. And God did so that night, and this is verse 40, and it was dry in the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew, okay? So let me show you another slide, back to the slides. Go ahead and click that, TJ. Can you see those? I can't tell. Keep going. So right there where it says Inharad, that small circle, and then above that is Mora. So right across from, there's a valley right there, and you're going to see that they're camped right next to each other, okay? So then, Jeroboam, that is Gideon, and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Harad, that's that lower circle. And the camp of Midian was north of them by the hill of Morah in the valley. Okay, the Lord said to Gideon, the people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me saying, my own hand has saved me. So what does God say? 32,000 is too many. You've got too many soldiers. If you win, you're going to assume it's because you have 32,000. You're going to take the glory for yourself, and you're going to say, look what I did. And so now, therefore, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, whoever is fearful and trembling, let him go home. And how many people left? 22,000 of the people returned. 22,000 people left, right? There's only 10,000 remaining. Really strange strategy for winning a battle. limit the troops and go to war. But our God is in control of this. So Gideon would have been helped if he remembered the words of Moses. Look what he told the Israelites back in Deuteronomy 20 verse 1. He says, When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, don't be afraid, for the Lord your God is with you. verse 4 of Judges 7. And the Lord said to Gideon, the people are still too many. Okay, remember he's talking to the coward. And now the coward is down to 10,000 people. And God says, Gideon, still too many. Okay, still too many. So Look at versus well, I have I put these pictures in here because I think it just helps did you go to these pictures? So now he's saying there's two next one. He says there's too many. There's Maura. Okay, that was across the valley There's Mount Tabor and Nazareth just for just for some point of contact on this side of the valley Is this spring that they were camped at? Okay Gideon and his army go ahead to the next slide So there's more away over there. Okay, and on this side is is the spring keep going one more Chris have you been there? Yeah, okay. So this is coming out of the rock there, and then it kind of flows down into the valley, and there's a little creek. Keep going, TJ. So there's that where the water is. It comes down the creek. This is where they lapped up the water, okay? I think this is so cool. So there's the creek. Now, obviously, this is modern times, okay? But it goes down, and there's a swimming pool or something. There's some kind of park down there. But then it goes out across that valley, and then on the other side is Mora. So this is where they were at. They were at this creek, right? So this is what happens at this creek. So let's see, verses five and six. So he brought the people down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, everyone who lapsed the water with his tongue as a dog laps, he shall set by himself. Likewise, everyone who kneels down to drink. And the number of those who lapped putting their hands to their mouths was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink. Now you say, what's the significance of that? And people debate and say, well, the real soldiers did this and that, and that proved that they were real soldiers. Yeah, but see, God didn't care about that. It's God's victory. So I have no idea what the significance is. I don't think there is any. I just think the point is that God chose that to say, you know what? I'm going to take you from 10,000 down to 300, because I really want you to know that your strategies aren't winning this battle. It's me. It's your God. And so the coward is looking at that, and he's looking at the 300 in verse Verse seven, and the Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 men who leapt, I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go, every man to his home. By the 300 men, I will save you. So the people took provisions in their hands and their trumpets, and he sent all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, but retained the 300 men, and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley. So now the coward has an army of 300, the weak man. 300. Is that the next slide? There you go. I want you to see this. So here they are, and they're looking out across this valley. And they know that this army, which is like locusts in the land, right? Like you can't even count the camels, the Bible said, is out there somewhere. And Gideon's sitting up there with his 300 men. in verse 8. So the people took provisions in their hands and their trumpets. And he sent all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, but retained the 300 men. And the camp of Midian was below him in the valley. So the 300 men prepared for battle by grabbing their trumpets. Interesting. Verse 9. The same night the Lord said to him, Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand. But if you're afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Pura, your servant, and you shall hear what they say. And afterward, your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp." So what does God say to encourage Gideon? Yeah, just go over there and sneak into their camp. I would have been afraid. Go over there and sneak into their camp. So in order to calm Gideon's nerves, that's what he tells him. And he says, I have delivered them. It's done, the victory's yours, right? Go over there. But if you're afraid, go with your servant, go down there, you'll hear what they're talking about. And so Gideon does. And then the next verse is, you see that he goes into the camp and there's two soldiers talking. And they talk about this dream, right? And the one soldier says, guess what, I had this dream. This great big loaf of bread came rolling down the hill and knocked over my tent. And the other guy goes, it's gotta be Gideon. That's what the Bible says. Verse 14, and his comrade answered, this is no other than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp. So the whole rolling bread and knocking over the 10th thing, it's got to be Gideon, right? Verse 15, as soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped and he returned to the camp of Israel and said, arise for the Lord has given the host of Midian into our hand. So now he believes it. He absolutely believes that he's going to have the victory, right? Verse 16 and 18, and he divided the 300 men into three companies and put trumpets into the hands of all of them and empty jars with torches inside the jars. And he said to them, look at me and do likewise. When I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then blow the trumpets also on every side of the camp and shout for the Lord and for Gideon. So here's the plan, boys. We're gonna sneak attack them, okay? We're gonna suddenly shine our torches at them And then we're gonna play our horns real loud, okay? You can play whatever song you want, because it doesn't matter. The uglier, the better. Just play your trumpets. And then, we're really gonna get them, we're gonna yell at them. It's just an interesting strategy, right? But it's God. It's God's strategy. And so that's what he says we're going to do. We're going to yell the sword of the Lord in Gideon. And God receives the glory. Verses 19 through 22 describe this great scene. And I'm not going to read it because we've got a long ways to go still. But basically, They do all that and the Bible says that the Lord turned all of the enemy soldiers on themselves. And so can you imagine they see these torches and they hear the shouting and they see this and a guy who's half asleep and it's dark and he can't see and he's trying to find his sword because he hears this ruckus. He sees all these spots of light all around the camp right down in this valley and he's thinking every one of those lights represents a whole battalion and he doesn't realize it's just one guy standing there with his torch going and blowing his trumpet, right? And so they think they're being surrounded, and they think the Israelites are pouring into the camp, so they take out their swords, and all the Ammonites, they go slashing their way out to safety, and they're slashing each other, and the Lord says that he caused their swords to fall on each other, and they basically, as one, as he said, fell. And so the Lord's strategy worked, and what's the Lord's strategy? I'm just gonna take care of it for you, Gideon. So why did the plan work? The Lord said every man's sword against his companion. because that's just the way that God wanted it, right? He said, this is the way it's gonna happen. I'm gonna give the victory to you just like he promised. And the rest of Judges 7 and 8 describes the victorious pursuit of Gideon. The 300, 300 drove the Midianites out for good. 300 men. And that's how God used Gideon the judge. And then the men of Israel say to Gideon, Oh, that was neat. Be our king. And what did Gideon say? He said, no, no, no. He said, I'm not gonna be your king, for God is your king. And then we actually have a sad part of the story, which is in verses 33 and 35. As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again. And it says this, and they whored after the Baals, and they made Baal their god. And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord their God who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side. And they did not show steadfast love to the family of Gideon in return for all the good that he had done to Israel. So it's a sad end. And Israel, once again, turns to idols, just like us. We have the victory, we have the mountaintops, we experience success, and we turn to sin. But the great thing is God keeps his promises and he uses weak people. And when we're repentant and we say, God, forgive me, you know what he does? He forgives. And then he uses you all over again. Amen? Yeah. So I'm gonna grab a drink and then we're gonna get to Samson. Because my mouth is dry. So let's talk about a very strong man that became weak, Samson. Several generations go by, the cycle continues. The Lord raises up another deliverer by the name of Samson. He's also very unlikely. He's flawed, he's failing, he's sinful. And we see the story repeating again. So God used a proud, hedonistic Samson to accomplish his will. And Gideon and Samson honestly couldn't have been more opposite. Gideon was timid. He was weak. He was cowardly. Samson was brash. He was reckless. Gideon saw himself as inadequate. Samson saw himself as invincible. Some time passes. The Israelites once again are under the constant attack, this time from the Philistines. And after years of oppression by the Philistines, which is the judgment of God for their sin, and turning their back on God once again, guess who comes back? The angel of the Lord. He comes back. The pre-incarnate Christ comes to commission a new deliverer because the people are finally crying out to the Lord again. And so we have this cycle continue. So Samson was set apart by God to save Israel, and the angel of the Lord comes to the family of Manoah, that's Samson's father, comes to the family of Manoah, and he says to Manoah's wife, he says, you're gonna bear a son, but here's what I want you to do, and he says, you're not gonna drink strong drink while you're pregnant, and you're not going to touch unclean things, and when your son is born, you're gonna take the Nazarite vow found in Numbers, chapter 6 and he's not going to drink strong drink and he's not going to touch unclean things and he's not going to shave his head and Nazarite simply means to be separated or to be separated out to be separated apart and Samson was to take this vow and sometimes the Nazarite vow was for a period of time sometimes shorter than others but for Samson it was to be his entire life and so verse 24 the woman bore a son and called his name Samson and the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. And then, in Judges 14 and 16, he breaks all three parts of his vow, among other very sinful acts. In Judges 16, he hits rock bottom as he allows his head to be shaved. See, there was no restraint. He was a man who was absolutely driven by his fleshly desires, his illicit, unrestrained passion, particularly for pagan women. He had a stubborn will. He had irrational desires. He had a violent temper. He had a volatile, combustible personality. He had a complete disregard for the commandments of the Lord. And all of that combined to make Samson's life actually a legendary tragedy, right? Because we know the story of Samson. But in spite of his gross misconduct and sin, God still had a purpose for him. when he got his spiritual act together at the very end. God used him along the way to rescue Israel from Philistine oppression and aggression and ultimately to completely wipe them out. There are times in his life when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he had strength that was supernatural. And every time he had this strength that was supernatural, it was always related to the Philistines, because the Philistines are the ones that the children of Israel needed protection from. And so every time Samson had this strength, it was against the Philistines. And the story of Samson starts out showing his utter disregard for God's commandments. See, as a young man, he insisted on marrying a Philistine woman, which was forbidden by God in Deuteronomy 7. But he's gonna marry this Philistine woman because she looks good. That's what it says. Now, there's a slide here I wanna show you now. That region up there in the blue, that was where the battle took place we talked about. Just so you get an idea. So now we're down here across from the Dead Sea, west of the Dead Sea. Jerusalem's in there somewhere, and then Samson and all of his exploits take part in that circle right there. Next one, TJ, we go to Timnah. So that's Zorah where he was born. Go to the next one. Well, that was the outline. Go to the next one. Next one. There we go. Timnah. So he's going over to Timnah there. He goes down to Tim, so verses, chapter 14, verses one through three. Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah, he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Then he came up and told his father and mother. So he just saw her, right? He came up and told his father and mother, I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me. get her for me as my wife. But his father and mother said to him, is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all our people that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? But Samson said to his father, get her for me cause she's right in my eyes. Right? She looks good. She's hot. I don't know what other vernacular to use. Samson liked, he didn't even know her, but he wants her, right? Wants her for his wife. So he said, get her for me. He doesn't even know who he is. The very first encounter with Samson tells us everything that we need to know about him. He's basically hedonistic in his approach to life. He goes against his parents' counsel, and right here, if it pleased him, he's gonna get it. If it pleased him, he's gonna do it, and that's the story of his life. Verses five and six, 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. Now, I'm thinking to myself, the Bible kind of makes it seem like tearing apart a goat with your bare hands is easy, you know? Like, he tore apart the lion as if it was a little goat. I've never seen anybody tear apart a goat with their bare hands, let alone a lion. But I can tell you this, I've been to the zoo, and even with the lion behind the glass, have you ever heard the lion like roar, like a real roar? Wow, right? And I had a friend when I was at master's college, his name was J-Ro, and he was from Kenya. And he used to tell me that when you actually heard a lion roar and you knew it wasn't behind any glass, and it was even like a mile away, he said, it was scary, right? And we all know lions are fierce creatures. And so this lion comes roaring out to Samson, and what does he do? He tears it apart with his bare hands as if it was a little goat, which I really don't know what that means. But he tears it apart with his bare hands. And then it says, and he doesn't tell his father or his mother what he'd done. So I don't know where they were. They were on this trip together, I don't know. Maybe they ran on ahead, I have no idea. But he doesn't tell them what he did, okay? And then in verse seven, he went down and he talked with the woman. So he gets to Timnah, right? He goes down and he talked with the woman. And again, she was right in Samson's eyes. She was right in Samson's eyes. He thought she looked good. After some days, he returned to take her. So the betrothal period is over, he goes 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, mm-hmm, he's not supposed to be near dead things or touching dead things, right? And he sees the swarm of bees and the honey, and guess what he does? He scraped it out in his hand, and he went on eating as he went. So not only is he sinful in other ways, but he's a slob. He just scraped it out with his hands, and he's eating as he went, and he came to his father and his mother, and he gave it to them, and they ate, but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion. So he's like, hey, mom, hey, dad, have some honey. And he causes them to sin as well, right? And so he's offering them this honey. It's kind of like when you're barbecuing, and you drop the hamburger patty on the ground, and you kind of do one of these, and back on the barbecue it goes, and then you give it to one of your guests. So if any of you have ever been to my house for barbecue, you may have gotten one of those burgers. So Samson does this, and he gives this to his mom and his dad. So several months have passed. The patrol period is done. He's going down there. He wants to go down there to meet her. And this happens. Verse 10, his father went down to the woman. And Samson prepared a feast there for so the young men used to do. And that phrase right there, for so the young men used to do, it's basically saying in the manner of the Philistines, which basically is saying, oh, this feast was gonna have a lot of alcohol. because that's what the philistines did historians tell us that the philistine feasts there was just a lot of strong drink there okay and so he was preparing this as the young men used to do so samson prepared a feast in the tradition of the philistines verse 11 as soon as the people saw him they brought 30 companions to be with him now you got to sort of read into this a little bit as soon as they saw him wow We need 30 guys, okay? Because he's big and he's strong and he's a Nazirite and they kind of maybe knew his reputation. And so rather than just saying, oh, he's a good guy, we want 30 groomsmen for him. They were probably more saying, we need to make sure there's a lot of people around him at all times. Okay, so they get 30 of these young men together. Verse 12, and Samson said to them, let me now put a riddle to you. So now this is into the party, right? And I'm assuming this, but I'm assuming that they're probably a little sauced at this point. And so he's saying, let me 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'm gonna give you 30 linens of garment and 30 changes of clothes. But if you can't tell me what it is Then you're gonna give me 30 linen garments and linens of clothes and and oh, by the way, this is gonna be a riddle You can't figure out and so he tells him this riddle and he says out of the eater came something To eat out of the strong came something sweet and in three days, they couldn't solve the real. Well, no kidding Plus they were intoxicated, you know, this is a seven-day Philistine party and So in effort to embarrass them, he throws this riddle to them. And on the fourth day, verse 16, 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. Whoa. Go get him to tell us the answer or we're gonna burn you up and kill you and your father's house. So Samson's wife wept over him and said, she's only been married a little bit now, right? You hate me. You don't love me. And she goes on, you put a riddle to my people and you've not told me what it is. And Samson says, um, behold, I have not even told my father or my mother. Why should I tell you? Right? Verse 17, she wept before him for seven days. She's whining and going on and on. And on the seventh day he told her because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her people. So she cried, right? And then, and then he says, okay, okay, okay. Here's the answer. She goes, Oh, Thank you, Samson. And then she goes on, right? And she goes and she talks to the men and she tells them the answer and they come back and they respond and they say, what is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? And you know what he says to him? If you didn't conduct business with my cow, you wouldn't have come up with the answer. This is not a nice guy. Now, I'm sure that that's a phrase that means something to them back then. But to me, I read it and I was just like, he just called his wife a cow. You know, I don't get this. So anyways, verse 19, and the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, okay? The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down 30 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. There's Timnag, we're gonna go down to Ashkelon. This was 23 miles away. And Samson decides, okay, I'm gonna go down there to the coast, and I'm gonna kill 30 men, and I'm gonna take their clothes, and then I'm gonna come back here. And he comes back here, and he's in a fit of rage, and he brings these 30 articles of clothing with him that he just got from killing these guys. And he comes, and I can just picture this, he just throws it at him, and then he takes off. He says, forget this, I'm outta here. And then in verse 20, look what he missed. And Samson's wife was given to his companion who had been his best man. Because he got upset and he left. Samson doesn't even know what happened there. Samson destroys the enemy of God's people. The wedding was in the spring. It's now several months later. Samson heads towards his wife's home. Reconciliation was his hope. Rage becomes his response. After some days at the time of wheat harvest, this is 15-1, Samson went to visit his wife with a young goat. And he said, I will go in to my wife in the chamber. but her father would not allow him to go in. So he comes, he shows up with a goat, and he thinks a goat is just the thing to get her into the chamber, right? And he shows up, and the father says, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, you missed it. We gave your wife to the best man." Now he's saying this to Samson. Right now you're going, uh-oh. He goes, and he says, she's got a younger sister. She's pretty. Won't you please take her? It's a complex, bizarre time. He says, take his sister. Samson says this in in verse 3 and Samson said on this time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm so basically he says okay I'm justified I'm not taking any responsibility for this and I'm gonna go beat some people up right And so verse four and five, so Samson went out, and he caught 300 foxes, and he took torches, and he turned them tail to tail, put a torch between each pair of tails, and when they had set the fire to the torches, let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchard. So he captures these kind of like jackals, they have long tails, and he tied them together in pairs. I don't know how he caught 300 of those, I don't know. All I can tell you is the spirit of the Lord was on him, and he was Samson. I didn't know 300 jackals existed in the same area all at once. But again, we're talking about God and what God can do, right? So they destroy all that, verse six. Then the Philistines said, who's done this? And they said, Samson, the son-in-law of Timnite, because he's taken his wife and given her to the commandment, and the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. What is it with these Philistines and burning people? Then they go and they take the father-in-law and the lady who was supposed to be Samson's wife, and they burn them with fire. And Samson said to them, if this is what you do, again, no responsibility of his own, if this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged on you and after that, then I'll quit. So then what does he do? He's totally out of control, no responsibility, but God uses his anger providentially to be the instrument of judgment continually on the Philistines. Verse eight, and he struck them hip and thigh with a great blow and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock at Edom. struck them hip and thigh. You know what that is? That's a colloquialism. It basically means he beat them up one side and down the other. Okay. He brutalized them. He brutalized them. Then he went down to this rock of Edom, which is right. TJ, can you click that? Keep going, keep going. Right there. So he's all over the place. He goes down to this rock at Edom. Verse 9 and 10. 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? And they said, We've come up to buy in Samson to do him as he did to us. So the Philistines have absolutely had enough. They send an army to destroy Samson. The men of Judah go out to meet the Philistines and they say, why are you here? Well, we've just come to do to Samson what he did to us. Verse 11, then 3,000 men of Judah, good idea, 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock at Edom and said to Samson, I'd take 3,000 with me too. 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 have I done to them. And they said to him, we have come down to bind you. Oh yeah, that's going to work. That we may give you into the hands of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, swear to me that you're not going to attack me yourselves. And they said to him no we 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. So Philistine the Philistines are there and Samson said I'll go. Because I think he just knew, like, I don't really have anything to worry about. I can beat them if I want to. And so I don't know if it was morbid curiosity or what, but he went with them, right? Verses 14 and 15. When he came to Leahy, 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. Wow! and he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey and put out his hand and took it and with it he struck a Thousand men so he snaps these new ropes. He faces his attackers head-on like this great big superhero, right? He picks up the nearest object lying on the ground It happens to be the jawbone of a donkey and he goes after them and with the jawbone of a donkey he kills 1,000 of them with a jawbone 1,000 with a jawbone So he gets all the bodies, he piles them up in a heap, calls the name of the place Jawbone Hill, which is what that means, and then he sings a song to himself. With a jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, and with a jawbone of a donkey, I have killed a thousand men. He's a psychopath, he's nuts. I mean, you can just see this guy covered in blood, sitting on top of this pile of a thousand dead Philistine soldiers, holding onto a donkey bone, this faraway look in his eyes, singing a song. I mean, it's a disturbing scene, honestly. But in all seriousness, that's us without grace. That's us without Christ, covered in sin, sitting on a pile of our own doing, clutching onto our own devised security, whatever it is, money, titles, things, with that faraway look of hopelessness in our eyes, singing a song about ourselves in order to distract us from the reality of who we really are. Praise God for forgiveness. 18 and 19, 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. So he recognizes that it was God who did that. And then he judged Israel for 20 years, and I'm gonna kinda skip ahead. So he judges Israel for 20 years, and 16, one, Samson went to Gaza. There was a prostitute there. He went into her. So even before we meet Delilah, he's in Gaza, and he goes after a prostitute. 16, two, the Gazites were told Samson's come. And so they hide out in front of the city, right? And they're waiting for him to come. And then Samson goes out at midnight and he takes the gates of the city. and he puts them on his shoulders and he carries them 38 miles to Hebron. And he takes these massive gates and he goes all the way, he's way down in Gizanel, and he goes all the way over there to Hebron, 38 miles away with the gates of the city on his shoulders. This guy, I mean, he's nuts, isn't he? He's a raging lunatic. This is what his passion did for him, and this is what his rage, and this is what his anger did for him. So he finally goes up to Sorek, way up there, and he goes, and we finally get to meet Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines, verse five, they come to her and said to her, seduce him. See where his strength lies. They know who he is. And by what means we may overpower him. And then you got verses six through nine, and he says, well, bind me with the bow strings. Delilah, and that doesn't work. Oh, okay. And then he says, bind me with new ropes. And that doesn't work. Okay. Oh, I know. Weave the seven locks of my hair into the web and then put a pin through it. Okay. Right? And that doesn't work. And finally, finally, she comes to him and she finally gets it out of him, right? Samson's humbled. Look at verse 16 and 17. And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. And he told her all his heart and said to her, a razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazarite to God from my mother's womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me and I shall become weak and be like any other man. He finally gives in. Verses 18 and 20 through 20 is the story there, but I want to point out one thing and you all know the story But look at down in verse 20 and she said the Philistines are upon you Samson and he awoke from his sleep and said I will go out as at any other time and shake myself free, but he did not know that the Lord had left him and The Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with bronze shackles, and he ground at the mill in the prison. Samson was so completely blinded by his own condition, he didn't know that the Lord had departed from him. Long blinded by might, long blinded by arrogance, long blinded by lust, he's now blinded by his captors. They gouge out his eyes, they put him in shackles, they make him grind in the mill. And then we have a little bit of foreshadow in verses 22, his hair began to grow back. In verses 23 and 24, the Lord of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their God, and to rejoice. And they said, our God has given Samson, our enemy, into our hand. And when the people saw him, they praised their God. for they said our God has given our enemy into our hand the ravage of our country who has killed many of us and they want to make sport of him right and they want to laugh at him so they bring him out and in verse 25 when their hearts were married they said call Samson that he may entertain us so they called Samson out of the prison and he entertained them they made him stand between two pillars And so he says, they say, go get him, let's bring him out and let's laugh at him. And he asks the young man who's drawing him out, what seems like a small courtesy since he's blind, and he says, could you put me in a place between the two central pillars so I can steady myself? Right now archaeologists will tell you these two central pillars, the whole weight of the roof transferred down these pillars and into the foundation. And the walls were drawn in as well to the roof and down into these pillars and into the foundation. So we know, I mean, we know the story too, but we know why Samson asked to be placed there, right? Verse 27, now the house was full of men and women, and the lords of the Philistines, God's enemies, were there. And on the roof there was about 3,000 men and women who looked on while Samson entertained. He wasn't dancing, he wasn't singing, he wasn't doing anything. The entertainment was simply this, there's that guy that keeps destroying us, and he's just standing there, but he's blind, and he's weak, and he's in shackles, and he's no more valuable to us than any other piece of livestock that we can find to tie up to the post and grind around the mill. And that's what Samson is to us now. He's livestock. Isn't that neat? Ha, ha, ha. And they're pointing and they're laughing. And all the Philistines are there. Then Samson called to the Lord and said, in verse 28, O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes. And in one climactic, self-sacrificing, heroic act, Samson called to the Lord, saying, Oh Lord God, remember me. I'm broken, I'm repenting, I'm humbled. Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, oh God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes. See, personal vengeance was always an issue with Samson. And even in this great moment, he couldn't completely get away from that vengeance, but he also had something else on his heart. Something else moved him, and that was that he was willing to give his life to protect his people from their deadly enemies. And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on one, his left hand on the other. And Samson said, let me die with the Philistines. Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. See, God heard his prayer. God heard his prayer and in a flash of divine energy, supernatural strength poured into his body. And with one hand on each column, he began to push. The columns began to crack and pop and move off their foundation and become dislodged. Can you imagine the look in the Philistines' eyes as they are realizing what is going to happen? Samson felt God's power once again, and in an explosion of unimaginable power, he dislodged the columns, they buckled, they were pulverized under the weight, the massive structure crushed everyone, all 3,000 were killed, more than he had slain in his whole life, according to verse 30 there. Samson died broken and humbled and repentant. He died for the cause of his God. God had said, remove the Philistines, remove them from the land. Samson had done what the nation of Israel had failed to do. And in a final act of faith, he cries out to God to be an instrument by which he can do the will of God and destroy the enemies of God. And God hears his prayer. And in his death, he entered into God's presence, and that's grace in the life of somebody who hasn't even served him that well. So two men, very different from one another, yet very similar, in that they are both used by God in spite of their sinful humanity. One is weak and becomes strong. The other, strong, becomes weak. And we need to understand tonight that God uses all kinds of people. He uses the weak, and makes them strong. He uses the strong and makes them weak and then strong again. He uses the humble. He uses the fearful. He uses the timid. He uses the cowardly. He even uses the arrogant and the mighty. When in repentance, through faith, they accomplish great things. We started with the Hebrews 11, 34, where it said, they were made strong out of weakness. And we look at ourselves, and we look at our own lives, and we wonder, can God use us in our weakness? Absolutely, you know why? He doesn't have any other people to use. We're it. We are it. Look at the Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 12, eight and nine, and I'll close with this. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. Talking about his thorn in the flesh. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. And the application is this, the application for tonight is only when we see ourselves as weak and for who we truly are, utterly dependent on God for grace and mercy and forgiveness and strength to live righteously, that we can be made strong in the Lord. Gideon was weak enough to become strong in the Lord. Samson was too strong to really be everything God wanted him to be, but his greatest act of strength came out of his weakness. And then the Apostle Paul ends that previous verse with this. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. And I pray that that's an encouragement to you tonight. I pray that you, when you see yourself for who you truly are, like I do, I know me. I don't like me a lot. I mean, I'm okay with me, but I don't, I don't like my sin. And I see this weak person, but I see that God can use me even in my weakness as he does these characters in the Bible. And as he did the apostle Paul and through our weakness, we can be strong because when we think we're strong, then we're weak. So just keep that in mind. Let's pray. God, thank you for the testimony of your grace in the life of Gideon and Samson. Thank you for the reminder that you are not looking for perfect people because there are none. You're looking for those who are broken and weak, that they may be strong in you. We thank you that you are a faithful God, that you protect your people, and that you keep your covenant. You've kept your covenant to preserve Israel, You have made a covenant in Christ to save and redeem us, those that believe in you, and you will continue to keep that covenant as well. We thank you that you are a faithful God, and may we be encouraged by these words of yours, even with our own flaws, failures, and sin. God, we pray that you would be made strong through our weakness. Amen. This message has been brought to you by the Santa Rosa Bible Church. Our purpose is to lift up the Lord by living out the word, loving one another, and leading others to Christ. Be sure to visit us on the web at www.srbible.org or come visit us in person at 4575 Badger Road, Santa Rosa, California 95409. You can also give us a call at 707 538-2385.