I want to open up with an article I came across a couple weeks ago. This is a true story, surprisingly, about a man and his pet hippo named Humphrey. Humphrey the hippo. In 2011, a man was killed by his 1.2 ton pet hippopotamus named Humphrey after repeated warnings that it was a wild animal that could never be tamed. The man's savage body was found submerged in the river where years earlier the hippo had been rescued from a flood. It grew too big for the people who adopted it and it was bought by the man at the age of five months, becoming his pet on his 400 acre farm and learning to swim with humans. Yeah. Quote, Humphrey is like a son to me. He's just like a human, says the owner. There's a relationship between me and Humphrey that some people just don't seem to understand. They think you can only have a relationship with dogs, cats, domestic animals, but I have a relationship with the most dangerous animal in Africa. But the owner's wife expressed misgivings concerning Humphrey. It was reported earlier that year that a 52-year-old man and his seven-year-old grandson spent two hours in a tree after being chased by Humphrey while canoeing on the river that passes through the farm. Humphrey was also blamed for killing several cattle belonging to the owner's business partner, and the animal frequently broke out of its enclosure and chased golfers around a local golf club. But despite all this, the owner still regards the hippo as a quote, lovable and gentle giant. This is a picture of a man who is just consumed with self-confidence. Despite all the warnings he has received, despite the fact that he had literally the most dangerous animal in Africa as a pet, he had such reliance on his wisdom and his strength and his own ability that he thought he could keep this pet and not ever be affected by it. And we saw how that turned out for him. The story we look at today is very similar to this. Go ahead and turn to Judges chapter 16. And we're going to see a prime example of what it looks like whenever someone does not take heed lest he falls. If you think back to your VBS days, many of you are probably familiar with the story of Samson and Delilah. And we are going to be looking at the three scenes leading to Samson's redemption. The three scenes leading to Samson's redemption. And my goal is to show how even the strongest of us, even the most godliest of Christians, the second we allow just the smallest of Delilah's into our life, how catastrophic that can be on the Christian life. And rather than just read straight through this chapter, we're going to be reading through it as we preach through it, just to save some time. Some background information you need to know as we preach through this book is you have to read the book of Judges in light of the book of Joshua. This is just a continuation of that book. All throughout Joshua, the big theme is God is delivering his people into the promised land. He's delivering the Canaanites and Jebusites and all those people up for deliverance, for judgment for his people. And they are going to take back the promised land. But all throughout the book of Joshua, you see God's people become sloppy. because the clear command God gave them all throughout Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua is that they were to slaughter everything that breathed of the people that were being delivered to them. Anything that breathed, they had to slaughter. They had to devote to complete destruction. The Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Hittites, all these people. And all throughout the book, you see them just, they become lenient. There are several who they choose to spare, essentially. And what that leads to is, as we look in Judges, is they fall into the same ideology that these people fell in, because they didn't listen to God. And every time, as you look through Judges, that you see a new judge emerge, you see God's people go back into oppression and be judged, you see this constant escalation in the degree of unfaithfulness. They become more and more heinous. They become more and more engulfed in their sins. And we're at the point in the book where we are at the final judge, which is Samson, who is just as depraved as these people are. And the interesting thing about this story of Samson is every episode of God's people relapsing back into idolatry starts the same way. It starts with God's people falling into idolatry, then them crying out for God for mercy, and then God raises a judge up. You see something different in Samson's story, because in the beginning of his story, you never see God's people call out to him. They're at a point where they're so calloused, where they're okay with being oppressed. They have no regrets over their idolatry. They are content with being slaves to the Philistines. And Samson's no different, honestly. And when we think of a judge, we often think of someone with a fancy robe and a gavel that decides if you're guilty or innocent. But a judge in this book, it's someone who God had risen up with the purpose of delivering God's people from oppression. It was someone who he essentially consecrated. And as we look at the beginning of Samson's story, which is in chapter 13, we see that it opens up with God's people living under oppression from the Philistines for 40 years. And when you look at Samson, his story starts off in chapter 13 with the angel of the Lord talking to his father Manoah and his wife, saying that even though you're barren, you're gonna bear a son who's gonna deliver my people. The angel of the Lord, and keep in mind, that is actually Jesus pre-incarnate. Jesus himself is telling Manoah, your son is gonna be the very person who delivers my people out of their impression. And because of that, Jesus wants Samson to take the Nazarite vow. If you remember back in Numbers chapter six, there are three stipulations for anyone who wanted to take this vow, which, by the way, was typically voluntary. You were never forced to take this vow. The stipulations were that you cannot drink alcohol, you can't drink anything with grape, you cannot touch a dead animal, you can't touch any dead corpses. And then the final stipulation is that you cannot let a razor touch your hair. And all throughout Samson's life, as we read chapters 13, 14, and 15, we see this constant pattern of disunfaithfulness. where it starts off with him seeing a beautiful, forbidden Philistine woman that even though he was forbidden from intermarrying with, he wanted what he couldn't have, so he married her. Following that, he comes across a dead lion with honey in it, which by the way, he was not supposed to touch a dead animal, according to the vow. So not only does he eat out of the honey, but he gives it to his parents, making them unclean. So he's committed a double sin at this point. And then out of all the weapons that Samson could have possibly used to kill the thousand Philistines, what does he use? He uses the jawbone of a dead donkey. He has no reverence for God's law. He has a very low view of it. And that's the pattern you see all throughout his life. And that leads us to the first scene of Samson's redemption. Scene 1, Samson and the Gezi prostitute. Look at verses 1-3 of chapter 16 and we're going to see Samson's time in Geza. Samson went to Geza, and there he saw a prostitute. and he went into her. The Gazites were told, Samson has come here, and they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, let us wait till the light of the morning, then we will kill him. But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the city and the two posts and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron. So Geza, this is essentially the chief stronghold for the Philistines. This is the stronghold of strongholds for these guys. This is where most of their strength is gonna lie. And you see Samson do something interesting. He goes into this place, marches right in, broad daylight, and you don't see him with the motive of delivering God's people. You don't see him wanting to deliver his people from the Philistines. You see him sleep with a prostitute. And there's this temptation where we read this and we're just thinking, we're not even three verses in and prostitution's already in the mix. What's going on with this guy? But you have to remember, there's three chapters of unfaithfulness preceding this. See, his sin of prostitution didn't start that way. It started with just little quote-unquote sins. Touching dead animals, using jawbones of donkeys to kill people. And what we see from that is that sin is never stagnant. It's always escalating. And it always starts off the same way, just like it did for Samson. It doesn't start with prostitution. It starts with a low view of God's law. That's how we always fall into those, quote-unquote, bigger sins. And so, he sleeps with this prostitute. He has this one-night stand, and the Gazites hear word that he's in their chief stronghold. And so they decide, rather than just rush in head first and be reckless, they want to be cautious. They saw how many thousands of men this guy has killed. So they set an ambush, they're laying all night just to stake out the place, and their plan is to jump Samson as he leaves. But at midnight, Samson decides to do something different that they weren't expecting. He wakes up at midnight and he steals the gate. This sounds like what a frat boy would do in college. So he steals the gate, and keep in mind, what does a gate symbolize? What is the purpose of a gate for his fortress? It's protection. The purpose of a gate is it's a symbol of strength. It's defense against enemies. And so essentially, what Samson is doing, he's just mocking these people. He's just trying to show them how little their defenses are compared to his strength. So he takes the gate and he puts it on his shoulder. There's no telling how many thousands of pounds this gate was, because this was the gate of gates. This was the gates of Gaza itself. And so he puts on his shoulders and he walks all the way to the hill in front of Hebron, which this was probably like a 40-mile hike. God blessed him. He sent the Holy Spirit. This was a miracle that he was able to do this. But there's something interesting about his mentality. Because he approaches this gate, he pulls it up, and there's never any second guessing on if God's gonna bless him as he does this. You see a man who literally just slept with a prostitute, and you never see him wondering, I wonder if God's mad at me about the prostitute. I wonder if he's actually gonna allow me to do this, to steal this gate. This is a picture of a man who, he's become numb to the Holy Spirit. He is callous, he is just engulfed in self-desire. He has this prideful, if I see something that I want, I don't care what God's law says, I'm gonna take it. And there's an application for all of us here. We look at people who we perceive God to have poured all these blessings on, all these giftings on, miraculous giftings, and we're so tempted to attribute that to the degree of godliness that they have. This morning we mentioned Judas. Think about Judas. This guy could preach, this guy could cast out demons, he could prophesy, but he was a wicked man. So be careful, when you're looking at people like Samson, who they seem like they have God's hand on them, don't assume they are godly people just because of that. And that brings us to the second scene, the main scene we're gonna be looking at today, which is Samson and Delilah, scene number two. As we look at verses four through five, we see Delilah come into the picture. Look at verses four through five with me. After this, he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lord of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, seduce him and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him and to humble him, and we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver. See, the story starts off different than it did with the prostitute. For the prostitute, it was just a one night stand, there was no emotions attached. This woman, he loves. He is consumed with his lust towards this woman. She has him wrapped around her finger. He is consumed with her. And the Hebrew, the interesting thing is the Hebrew translation for Delilah means of the night. Meaning, just her name alone should be setting off red flags for this guy. But he doesn't care, the only thing he cares about is lust. One commentator makes the note that you look at Samson's life and you see him go from a prohibited wife to a prostitute, now to a mistress. And that's exactly what we see. So word gets around to the Philistine lords that Samson and Delilah are dating and they wanted to use this to their advantage. They hate this guy. So they go up to Delilah and they say, we will give you not just 1,100 pieces of silver, we'll give you 1,100 pieces of silver each. There's five of these guys, five Philistine loads. So she is looking at a big payday, 5,500 pieces. So dollar signs are going off her head. She wants this. She could care less about Samson. So she begins her attempt to seduce him in verse six. Look at verse six through nine with me. So Delilah said to Samson, please tell me where your great strength lies and how you might be bound that one could subdue you. Samson said to her, if they bind me with seven fresh bow strings that have not been dried, then I shall become weak and be like any other man. Then the loads of the Philistines brought up to her the seven fresh bow strings that had not been dried and she bound him with them. Now she had men lying in ambush in an inner chamber, and she said to him, the Philistines are upon you, Samson. But he snapped the bow strings as a thread of flax snaps when it touches the fire, so the secret of his strength was not revealed. This encounter starts with just a devilish question that Delilah asks him. Tell me how someone may bind you that they can kill you. This is a woman that has such confidence in her capability of seduction, that has such an awareness of how influential Samson is towards her, of how much she can manipulate him that she doesn't even need to hide her motives. She can just fly out and say, I'm trying to kill you. Tell me how to do it. So she is direct and she's getting away with it and he responds with, if you want to bind me up, if you want to take away my strength, this is what you need to do. Take seven fresh bow strings that have not been dried and that's gonna do the trick. What were the bow strings made of back then? The tendons of dead animals. So he's about to break his vow all over again. He could care less at this point. And so he lies to her, and you see that he has just enough logic to know he cannot trust this woman with a secret. He's enslaved to his lust enough to keep trying to play along, but he has enough common sense to know it's gonna be bad news if I tell her where my strength lies. You see a pattern with people who have confidence in the flesh where they are more than willing to tolerate temptation. I can only imagine what was going on in Samson's head. The whole time he's realizing how she's trying to seduce him, he's probably just thinking, I've ripped lions apart. I can handle this woman. I went into Gaza in broad daylight and came out unscratched. This woman has no threat on me. I killed 1,000 men with just the jawbone of a donkey. This is a piece of cake. And the danger, is that when we have confidence in our flesh where we are more than willing to tolerate temptation, the only thing that happens is it becomes more difficult for you to resist next time it hits you. Jesus says that we should have such a fear for sinning that a daily part of our prayer should be for God to not even lead us into the temptation to sin. Yet we see the complete opposite for Samson as we look at his life. And so, The Philistines bring the seven bow strings to Delilah. She ties them up, and she has them hide in the inner chamber. So, same thing as we saw in the beginning of the chapter. They are being cautious. They're not going to rush into this. They want to make sure this is actually legit. So, she decides to play off a flirtatious teasing game to test them, to see if this is the truth. So, she plays a game called, The Philistines Are Here. And she cries out, the Philistines are upon you. And so he decides to play along, so he snaps the bow strings and basically says, gotcha. Now, I'm not convinced that the men ever came out to attack him. I'm convinced of this for two reasons. One, it never says that they came out. But Mo and Pony, you saw the level of caution they had when he was in their own chief stronghold. I have a hard time believing they're gonna be less cautious in any other circumstance. So they don't come out, they're hiding, and at this point Delilah's a little frustrated, so she begins her second attempt at seduction. Look at verses 10 through 12 with me. Then Delilah said to Samson, Behold, you have mocked me and told me lies. Please tell me how you might be bound. And he said to her, if they bind me with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak and be like any other men. So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, the Philistines are upon you, Samson. And the men lying in ambush were in the inner chamber, but he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread. So same thing all over again. She guilt trips him after she's been lied to. She tries again. And this time, he changes up his lie. He says, okay, I was lying about the seven bow strings. If you wanna really bind me, tie me up with some new ropes, but make sure they haven't been used. If they've been used, it's not gonna work. Tie me up with new ropes that have not been used. When you look at the last chapter, when God's people betrayed Samson and tied him up and bound him to bring him to the Philistines, what did they use? Ropes that had not been used. And so at this point, he's not, he's getting lazy with his lies. He's just recycling the same tricks he's been using in the past. And so she ties him up with the ropes. The men are hiding in the inner chamber, waiting to kill him. And she plays her same game, the Philistines are upon you. She cries out, he snaps the bow strings as, the ropes as if they're nothing, and basically says, got you again. So she is, she's growing in her frustration. She's getting more aggravated. So she gives it a third shot. Her third attempt at seduction, look at verse 13 through 14. Then Delilah said to Samson, until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me how you might be bound. And he said to her, if you weave the seven locks of my hair with the web and fasten it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak and be like any other man. So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and wove them into a web, and she made them tight with the pin and said to him, the Philistines are upon you, Samson. But he awoke from his sleep and pulled away the pin, the loom, and the web. And she said to him, how can you say I love you when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me where your strength lies. So the exact same thing all over again. She guilt trips him, she tries again, and he tells her the lie that, okay, it's not by the ropes, it's not by the bow strings, if you want to bind me, just put my hair in a thread, put a pin in it. You look at that, and now he's slipping. He's getting very sloppy with his lies. Because now he's getting closer to where he believes the source of his strength is lying. One thing we see from that is that when we have a Samson approach to dealing with our sin, where we say that it's only sin once I cross this line. It's only a matter of time before we cross it. With Samson, the line of sinning was not touching dead animals, it was not marrying Philistine women. The line, the point where he felt like he would cross it and be sinning was shaving his head. It's his own standard, basically. We see that a lot in our culture. Like, just look at how even Christians respond to pornography. Where there's this mentality that says, this stuff is this quote-unquote soft stuff, the soft pornography. This is okay to look at. This is just your human body. But this is the hard stuff. You can't look at this. This is sinful at this point. When we have mentalities that say, this stuff is okay, but this stuff is where it's sinful, at that point, you're just callousing your own heart. You're making these false categories of sin in an attempt to try to justify keeping it as a pet. Ephesians, it says, don't let there even be a hint of sexual immorality among you. The idea that there are categories of lust that are okay or acceptable, that's absurd. And what you're gonna find is that when you set this line that says, once I start looking at this stuff, this is where it's gonna get bad. Over time, you're just gonna inch closer and closer till you actually cross that line. And so she decides to weave his hair together. She buys into the lie. And she's still suspicious, so she tests him. She cries out, the Philistines are upon you. And same thing, he pulls out the pen, and says, I can't believe you fell for this a third time. So she is frustrated. She is aggravated. She is done at this point. So we are getting to the point where he is gonna cave. He's about to cross that line that he was trying so hard not to cross. Look at verse 15 through 17, and we're gonna see Samson cave in. Verse 15. And she said to him, how can you say I love you when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times and you have not told me where your great strength lies. 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 of 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 room. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak like any other man. When Delilah saw that he had told her all his hurt, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, come up again, for he has told me all of his hurt. Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. Delilah starts off with, the accusation of how can you say you love me? She's manipulating his emotions. She's using his affection towards her to her advantage. And when she realizes that this last attempt is not gonna cause him to cave, she swaps her tactic. She begins nagging him hard. This dripping faucet of a woman has now become a raging fire hydrant. Day after day, she's pressing him, nagging him, saying, tell me the secret, tell me where your strength lies. And it's only a matter of time before he finally caves in. Turn back to chapter 14. As you look at his life, you see this exact same thing happen with his Philistine wife. Look at verses 16 through 17. He had just told the riddle to the Philistines, and they are trying to get the secret out of his wife. And so she's, same thing as Delilah, she's trying to manipulate him to get the truth out. So verse 16, it says, and Samson's wife wept over him and said, you only hate me. 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 or my mother. Why should I tell you? She wept before him seven days that the feast lasted. And on the seventh day he told her because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to a people. It's the exact same thing all over again. The only thing changing is the degree of consequence he's about to suffer for his actions. And so he confesses his secret to Delilah, and he finally crosses that line. When you look at Delilah, this is what temptation personified looks like. If temptation was a person, this is exactly how it would approach you. And there's this temptation we have, where we read stories like Samson, we read stories like Peter, and we almost look, just start judging them. We almost look down on them. But I would argue that every one of us in this room are more like Samson than we are different. You know, I'm convinced that if Samson was in a counseling room with you and you asked him, what was it you were really wanting from these women? What is the idol? What's the root issue? What is it that you're trying to get from these women that you're not getting from God? I guarantee you he's gonna say something like, I just want affection. I just want someone to respect me. I want affection, I want love, I wanna feel good. Maybe he may say, I just wanna escape just the frustrations in life. My question is, do we not have those same desires? Whenever you're facing someone like that, that seems to have been sucked into some heinous, deep, dark sin, the same thing that motivates them is the same thing that motivates us to sin. That should make us fearful, realizing that the only thing that's separating me from Samson is the degree of consequence we suffer for our own selfishness. That is a humbling truth. But you look at Delilah, as you look at this picture of how temptation works, When you're faced with a Delilah in your life, you have to remember, what is the actual goal of this Delilah in my life? See, it's making all these promises, but there's some arterial goal it has. For Delilah, she was, maybe not verbally, but she was promising Samson satisfaction, joy, pleasure. But what was her goal the whole time? It was money, it was his death. Sin is always promising you some kind of pleasure or some kind of joy, but you know what the goal of sin is? It's to drag you to hell. That is the only goal sin has for your life, is to ruin your life. It's to ruin your wife's life, your husband's life, your children's life. It's to destroy your marriage, to destroy your friendship, to destroy your church. Every part of your life, that is what sin is always gonna be after. And maybe you're not faced with a literal Delilah like an adulterous woman or something like that. Maybe you're just faced with the own wicked desires of your heart. Turn to Ephesians full 22. Keep your finger in Judges, but turn to Ephesians chapter full. And look at the way verse 22 frames this. To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and it's corrupt through deceitful desires. The thing that corrupts your old manner of life isn't just desires, it's deceitful desires. There is some desire that we all have for whether it's pride or lust or frustration, anger, fear, whatever our desires are of our heart. It's always promising some sort of relief, but the reality is that's the last thing it's gonna give us. And as we look at Delilah, we see that she has a specific tactic in mind. Her tactic is always gonna start by trying to seduce you to interact with these selfish desires. Proverbs chapter five, verse three, says, for the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil. But in the end, she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps lead down to the grave. That's how our desires work. That's how sin works, is it's dripping honey. You look at it and it's irresistible. It's promising joy, pleasure. It's almost too, you could barely resist it. The language it's using, it's oil, it's smooth. But the whole time, it's leading you straight to hell. And what the devil does is when your desires, when sin, when the adulterous man or woman in your life can't seduce you, you know what his tactic is? To start nagging you day after day, the same way Delilah did. To start throwing every degree of temptation, every opportunity to sin at you until you cave. That's why it's so dangerous to tolerate sins in your life, because they're just going to keep coming at you until you cave. There's so often this mentality that people have that say, as long as I don't act on the sexual lust, I'm okay. As long as I just keep it in my head, that's fine. No one's gonna be affected. I would warn you, the danger in that is as you dwell on those fantasies, as you're constantly meditating on those wicked desires, the thing you're doing is you're just increasing the desire to act on that. When the devil knows that you have a desire to sin, what's he gonna do? He's gonna try to find every opportunity to allow you to act on that sin. And after you spend years drilling on those desires, what's gonna happen is the devil is gonna eventually give you an opportunity, and you strengthen that desire for self to a point where it outweighs your desire to serve God, and you are always gonna cave. That's the danger of meditating on these selfish desires and these temptations we have. And as we see Samson find the cave, Delilah jumps on the opportunity to betray him. Turn back to Judges chapter 16 and look at verse 18. Verse 18. It says, when Delilus saw that he had told her all of his heart, she sent and called the loads of the Philistines, saying, come up again, for he has told me all of his heart. Then the loads of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their lands. She made him sleep on her knees, and she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. And she said, the Philistines are upon you, Samson. And he awoke from his sleep and said, I will go out as other times and shake myself free. But he did not know that the Lord had left him. At this point, after Samson had told her all of his heart, Delilah's woman's intuition is kicking, and she knows this is the truth. So she goes ahead and calls the Philistine lords to come and bring the money. So she finally gets her payday. She has Samson's sleep on her lap. And as he is sleeping, she calls the man to shave his head. And one last time she decides to play the Philistines are upon you game. And the whole time he's thinking this is gonna be just like last time. And he does not realize that the Lord had left him. That is the scariest verse in this chapter. Is that he didn't even know that the Lord left him. That's a good reminder for all of us that God's patience has a limit. Now what I'm not saying is that a Christian can lose their salvation. I'm saying that when a Christian lives in sin over and over again, God may be patient for a time, but eventually he's gonna rip out the rod. He's gonna chastise you. And it's always gonna hurt. And the amazing thing is that Samson, he judged Israel for 20 years. He lived this life of touching dead animals, of living for self, of living for the lust of his flesh, for 20 years. And God was patient with him the whole time. And not only was God patient for him, God continued to bless him. He gave him the strength to lift up these gates. He gave him the strength to kill all these men. But the whole time, Samson is just presuming upon this. Rather than using this as an opportunity to repent, to see God's graciousness, He assumes that God's favor is never gonna leave him. And he finally reaps what he sows in verse 21 when Samson's captured. Look at verse 21. 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. If we don't have a willingness to pluck out the eye that causes us to sin, God is not above gouging it out for us. And the irony is that Samson's, this chapter starts with Samson sleeping with a prostitute in Gaza, living for the flesh. And now as we reach the end of it, where does he end up? He ends up back at the same place in Gaza. But this time he's a prisoner. That is how sin works. But as we look at verse 22, we see a glimmer of hope. Look at verse 22. But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. That's so mindful is that God hasn't fully left him. God is still at work, there's still hope. God has not left his people. And that leads us to the final scene of Samson's redemption, which is we see God's mercy. Scene number three, we see Samson redeemed by God. And this opens up with the Philistines worshiping the false God. Look at verse 23 through 24. Now the loads 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, and the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us." These are people who, they have more devotion to their false god than Samson ever had to Yahweh. You look at these people, they are worshiping God, they are being grateful, they are thanking, they're praising, they're offering sacrifices. You never see Samson do any of that for Yahweh. There's only one time you actually see Samson cry out to God, and that's when he was saying, give me a drink of water, I just killed a thousand men. And these people are praising their God because of what Samson's sin has led them to. And we need to remember that when we fall into sin, we run the risk of justifying false worship to outsiders. Because, I mean, the whole time we're people who say that God is the one who's satisfied. What do people think when we start going to their gods for worship? When I was in college and I was an unbeliever, I had this crippling fear that people would come evangelize me. And the reason I feared that was I knew enough of the gospel to know that every time I turned down an opportunity to repent, I was more culpable. So I would always think of ways to shut down conversations if they ever became evangelistic. And this is what I always kept in my back pocket if someone came up to me evangelizing me. If you were a man and you came up to me and said, you need to forsake your idols because they're never gonna satisfy you. You need to repent and trust in Jesus, the only one who can truly satisfy you. My first question would always be, when was the last time you looked at pornography? Because you're saying that my gods can't satisfy you. or anyone for that matter, but you keep going back to my same gods to satisfy yourself. Why should I turn from them? If someone was to ask you that question, how would you respond? Would you be able to, with a clear conscience, be able to say, I truly trust that Jesus is the only one who can satisfy? And as we look at verse 25, we see Samson's humiliation. Look at verse 25 through 27. And when their hearts were merry, they said, call Samson, that he may entertain us. So they called Samson out of prison, and he entertained them. They made him stand between the pillars. And Samson said to the young man who held him by the hand, let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them. Now the house was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there. And on the roof, there were about 3,000 men and women who looked on while Samson entertained. Samson is in a room filled with 3,000 of his enemies who are just drunk and laughing at him and mocking him. There is a whole nother degree of shame here. It's one thing if you are in this situation and the thing they are mocking you about, the thing they are ridiculing you about is your faithfulness to Christ. It's a whole nother thing if it's because of your own sin. That's a whole nother degree of shame there. And as we look at verse 28, we see Samson is finally redeemed. Look at verse 28 through 30. Then Samson called to the Lord and said, O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once. O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for one of my two eyes. And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them. his right hand on one and his left hand on the other. And Samson said, let me die with the Philistines. Then he bowed with all of his strength and the house fell down on the Lord's upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed during his life. So Samson begins with just laying out this desperate plea for God to help him. Radical change from how he was, all throughout the other chapters. At this point, every degree of an ounce of pride and self-sufficiency God has ripped from him. And God's remedy for fixing his pride issue was to gouge out his eyes, to make him a prisoner of his enemies, to have him mocked in front of 3,000 God-haters. Oftentimes, if we struggle with pride, if we struggle with this Samson invincibility complex that we often are tempted to have, this is God's remedy for us, is he humbles us, he breaks us. And so Samson brings the house down. He takes both pillars, he kills all 3,000 men and all five Philistine lords. He had delivered God's people out of this 40-year-long oppression from the Philistines. And it was a new record for Samson. He killed more through his death than he ever did during his lifetime. You look at this, and as unfaithful as Samson is, he's actually a type of Christ. When you look at Samson's story, there's all these similarities between him and Christ. Like, for instance, they both had a supernatural birth. They'd both been given a mission to deliver God's people. They were both betrayed by their own people and now it was through their deaths that God's people were delivered. You look at this and you see Christ. And as you look at the final verse, verse 31, you see his funeral. Look at verse 31. Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Ishtael. In the tomb of Manoah, his father, he had judged Israel for 20 years. So Samson's story has come to a conclusion. His 20-year judging has ended, and God has used him to deliver his people out of oppression. So what are some final lessons we can take from this? One big lesson is that you need to remember there's a huge difference between being unfaithful and being faithless. You look at Hebrews 11, guess who is alongside David and the prophets in the hall of faith? It's this guy who just slept with a prostitute. This guy is in the hall of faith itself. You look at his entire life, despite how unfaithful he was, he had tremendous amounts of faith. In fact, you look at Abraham and Moses and all these guys, there were times when they were doubting, when they were scared. You never once see Samson doubting or scared. He had a supernatural amount of faith. The issue, though, is where was all of his love directed towards? Himself. He had no love for God. It was always towards self. Whenever we have faith, but it's not driven by a love for God, we're no different from Samson. 1 Corinthians 13.2 says, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but I have not love, I am nothing. You can have faith that can throw mountains in the ocean, but if you don't have a love for God, you're no different from Samson. The other lesson we can take is that God can use even our own sin for our good and for his glory. This is a huge, this gives so much hope for people who are being chastised. There may be some of you here who you are being chastised right now for some sin you've committed. But the amazing thing is if you have repented, if you are a child of God, rather than God condemning you for that sin, the very sin that Jesus died for, he uses the sufferings that it causes to make you look more like his son. God gives purpose to even your chastisements, even to your sin. But the last thing we see is that you need a greater redeemer. You can have 1,000 Samsons, 1,000 Solomons. You can have the strongest men, the strongest, the wisest men, whatever. That's not enough to deliver you from sin. You need a greater Redeemer, which is Christ. You need a Redeemer that rather than being in prison for his sin, he frees sinners from being imprisoned. You need a Redeemer that rather than having his eyes gouged out, he gives sight to sinners. you need a edema that, rather than being buried in the tomb of his father, is resurrected and seated alongside his father. And this is the great message I have for everyone in this room, especially those who are not believing, is that you are under oppression that's worse than any Philistine can oppress you with. You are under an oppression from Satan. You are oppressed by your own wicked desires. There is no escape, and this isn't just a 40-year-long endeavor. This is for all eternity. But the good news is that God, because He is so merciful, sent His only Son, even though you, just like the Israelites, even though you never cried out for deliverance, even though you never cried out for God to deliver you, God sent His only Son. to live the perfect life and to die the death on the cross where he paid for every last one of his sins. On that last day, there would not be a sin where it was left unpaid for. And the only thing God commands you to do is to believe in Jesus, to believe in what he's done. Rather than try and rely on your own strength, your own wisdom, your own atonements for your sin, your own sacrifices, trust in the sacrifice of Jesus. And if you do that, then you have redemption. You are for all eternity redeemed and delivered from the oppression that Satan can do. It doesn't matter how hard he tries, you are once and for all cleared, where you're gonna have eternal life. And that's the gospel we all need to believe in. So here's the conclusion. We saw a prime example of just how dangerous a Delilah is and the strongest of men. If there's a Delilah in your life, are you gonna do something about it? Let's close in prayer. Father, thank you for sending us a redeemer that's greater than any Samson can offer. Jesus, we thank you for living the life that we fail to live in. Father, we come before you and we apologize just for our apathy towards our sin, towards our tolerance, towards the Delilas of the world. Father, we are truly sorry for just how often we are self-sufficient and how strong we are in our own eyes. I ask that you give us all eyes and humility to deal with the sins in our life. I ask that you help us to not give reason to the world to worship their idols. Help us to live lives where people see just how sufficient you are, just how joyous you are, to see how you offer something that no idol in this world can offer. Father, I pray that you protect us. I pray that you protect us from all the temptations of the world. Lead us not into it. But Father, most importantly, I pray that not only do you give us all faith, but give us a supernatural love for Christ that drives that faith. Help us not to be Samsons. Help us to be like Josiah, where we have hearts that are fully committed to you rather than ourselves. We ask this in your son's name, amen.