well good morning everybody and welcome back i hope that you have come back it is august 31st 2020 i don't know what was going on friday um some have suggested it was the equipment that i was using i think it might have had something to do with The hurricane that came through, because not only did I have issues on here, I couldn't even upload the thing to Sermon Audio. We'll take that back. I could upload it to Sermon Audio, but they were experiencing technical difficulties and couldn't even process it once I got the information to them. So hopefully, that will not take place again today. It is good to be back with you all Monday morning, August 31, 7 AM, where I am. And boy, it's a rainy, cloudy day. fitting end to the end of August for us. I can't remember, I've only been here a few years, but it has been such a wet month. I don't know what it's been like where you are, but not complaining about the rain, mind you. It does make riding a motorcycle tricky, but nevertheless I enjoy the fact that the Lord is providing and it is so green out here. Speaking of that, I'm not going to get the lawn mowed today, but that's alright. So, it's good to be back with you. I hope that you have all had an excellent weekend and that you have an exciting week ahead. Now, let's go ahead and get started today. Hopefully you went back and eventually listened to the audio from sermonaudio.com because the audio was good, even though the video was all messed up. But, if you recall, maybe you at least remember the start of it last week, we got to the incredible, larger-than-life story of Samson taking on the Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. And the King James is more accurate here. I'll just say the jawbone of an ass because an ass and a donkey are two different things in the scripture, right? The ass, it's kind of like a large donkey, like a mammoth donkey, okay? I don't know if you've ever seen one of those before, but a mammoth donkey is the size of a small horse, okay? So this is not Nestor here, just waddling around, not something the size of a Shetland pony. This is a large animal. And so Samson grabs the jawbone and he takes on the Philistines, but more on that later. Where we come to today is at the end of the story. Now, where we left off last time, he had just named that place, let's see, in Judges chapter 15, he had just named the place Ramath-Lehi, right? Okay, and Ramath-Lehi means Jawbone Hill. and it's obvious as to why he named it Jawbone Hill. Samson was brought there by the tribe of Judah. He was bound in new ropes so they were extra strong. He broke his ropes and then he grabbed the jawbone of an ass, right? Okay, and then he started taking on the Philistines. But the key there, of course, in all of that is in verse 14. It says, the Spirit of the Lord came on him in power, right? And he grabbed this jawbone and he killed a thousand Philistines. A thousand with a jawbone. And then he gives this little riddle. Remember, Samson's quick, y'all. He's quick. He is not just muscle, okay? He is brains and brawn. And this tricky little pun here, with a donkey's jawbone, I have made donkeys of them. This is the sanitized version. With an ass's jawbone, I have made asses of them. And yes, that connotation was there even 3,000 or so years ago. With a donkey's jawbone, I have killed 1,000 men. Amazing stuff. But where we come to today, it's fascinating because Samson is this tricky guy, right? He's this combination of the one who has been filled with the spirit of the Lord, yet at the same time, he doesn't respect his parents. He seems to be very brash in his decisions. Remember what happened with his wife? He found this Philistine woman and he told his father, go get her for me. As if a child in a grocery store said, I want this chocolate bar and I want it now. And his parents tried to dissuade him from this. His parents didn't do too good of a job. But if Samson was my son, anyway. I would like to think I'd still do the right thing, but nevertheless, parents try to dissuade him. They said, isn't there a woman among your relatives? No. Well, isn't there a woman in the entire nation of Israel that you could go after? And Samson said, simply, get her for me. And so they did this. So that's the Samson we're dealing with. He feeds them honey out of a carcass, which wasn't kosher. That's the Samson that we're dealing with. He violates his own vow by messing around with this lion carcass. That's the Samson we're dealing with, yet at the same time, we're also dealing with the Samson that the spirit of the Lord came on him in power. We see it at the end of chapter 14, chapter 14, verse 19. The spirit of the Lord came upon him in power. He went to Ashkelon, struck down 30 of their men, stripping them of their belongings and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. Okay, remember back in chapter 14, it was the small things. What's 30 men with the nation of Philistia? Well, it was the beginning of something big, okay? So we see the Spirit of the Lord came on them there. Fast forward to chapter 15. We see yet again the Spirit of the Lord. Chapter 15, verse 14. As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting, the Spirit of the Lord came on him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax. and the bindings dropped from his hands, and then he killed a thousand of them, y'all. The spirit of the Lord was with Samson. And what a curious thing that is. Because it seems like Samson really couldn't care too much about the spirit of the Lord, or the Lord himself, to pay any mind to the Lord, because it seems like he's just living his life however he wants. But the Lord is using him. And to that end, what happens next is fascinating. In his seemingly pride, he names this place Ramath Lehi, which means Jawbone Hill, right? But then where we pick up today is where we left off. Verse 18 of Judges chapter 15 says this, because he, Samson, because he was very thirsty, he cried out to Jehovah, to the Lord, you have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised? Pause for a second. What's really going on here is the question. You know, it can't be easy work killing a thousand men. First off, you need to realize something. Beating anything to death is not easy. And I don't mean to be barbaric here, and I don't mean to be ultra-violent here, but I remember reading books when I was a kid, and I think it was Where the Red Fern Grows, and it talked about, was it Billy? I think it was Billy. Anyway, Billy caught a raccoon the old-fashioned way, You know, he put a piece of copper in a knot in a log and put horseshoe nails around it so the raccoon stuck his hand in and grabbed it and wouldn't turn it loose. And then it talks about his father going up to the raccoon and hitting it a couple of, I think it just says, and hit the raccoon and killed it. Y'all, that's an oversimplification. Animals don't want to die. And people don't want to die. And it's not that easy to beat them to death. Y'all see what this cat's doing back here? By the way, that's Boo, the 22-pound cat that does what he wants. Anyway, he's trying to distract us this morning, but we're not going to let that happen. Nevertheless, it's not easy to beat an animal to death. Don't ask me how I know, all right? Because I'm not even going there. This is the internet. I just know how real life works. And that's an animal. It's a lot harder to kill a man by beating him to death. I know that Samson is really strong, but it's not exactly like he has a war hammer here. He's got the jawbone of a fresh mule or a fresh large donkey. This is hard work that he's undertaken. And after killing 1,000 men, we don't know how long it took him, 1,000 different men, he puts the jawbone down. He has time to name the place Jawbone Hill. Is it out of pride? I don't know, but he names it this. And then he is so thirsty that he believes that he is gonna die. A really, a better way to put it is that he's gonna faint. And so the idea is simple here. If he faints, right, if he falls out from thirst, Then he mentioned something there in verse 18. He says, must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised? Now see, this is so interesting. Samson, who apparently his sexual desires would lead him to marry a Philistine woman without giving it a second thought, that would lead him to party with the Philistines from his wedding feast and so forth. Did you catch how he referred to the Philistines? He referred to them as the uncircumcised. And we're not gonna get into all of that today, but remember, one of the things that God gave his people was the sign of circumcision to, in part, set them apart from everybody else. You had the kosher law, you had the commandment, all these different, but circumcision was the sign of the covenant. And so any time that somebody talks about the uncircumcised in the Old Testament, what they're doing is they're recognizing the fact that these people are not God's people. That's almost always synonymously used with someone in the Old Testament coming to the realization that this group of people that I'm dealing with, they are not God's people. They do not love the Lord. Therefore, they are the enemies of God. And it's fascinating because if you go back and read chapter 15, Samson's doing all this stuff because originally where it all started was he tries to make up with his wife who he had left in chapter 14 and he finds out that she's married to his best man now, that his father-in-law took her and gave her to one of his attendants in the wedding. So he decides to pay the Philistines back. and he ties 300 foxes' tails together and puts a torch between them and turns them loose in the harvest and ruins the Philistines, economically speaking. Now all of this looks like Samson's own vendetta. It looks like it's just Samson being a macho man. But now he's talking about the uncircumcised ones? And he's crying out to the Lord for help? And we know that the spirit of the Lord has rushed on him? Samson belongs to the Lord, y'all. He really is the deliverer that the Lord has raised up. Because not only does he refer to them as the uncircumcised, don't let it be lost on you that Samson has cried out to the Lord for help. And don't read this the same way that you would read, for instance, Cain, or not Cain, Esau dealing with Jacob. You know, Esau comes in from the fields after hunting, And Jacob tries to get Esau to sell him his birthright. You remember what Esau did? He said, what good is my birthright to me if I die? As if he's literally going to starve to death right there. Y'all, that's not what this is. Samson is not being overly dramatic here about being thirsty. He fears that he is going to fall out. To use the old Southern expression, he's just gonna fall out. He's gonna faint. He's gonna become incapacitated and then the Philistines will have him. In essence, God's servant has cried out to him. Verse 19, then God opened up the hollow, excuse me, then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En-Hakor and it is still there in Lehi. Samson led Israel for 20 years in the days of the Philistines. Isn't it fascinating that the place was named Jawbone Hill for Samson's great defeat or great victory, but only for a few minutes, and then he was forced to rename it? And what does that mean in Hakor? It means caller's spring, or the one who calls his spring. You know, it's fascinating that the Lord hasn't changed it in many ways. When we've got our mind made up about some things, the Lord can change that. That's what he did with Samson here. But the beauty of this is that the Lord heard his servant. The beauty of this is that, again, overall, when you look at Samson, it's this old paradigm of God can draw a straight line with a really crooked stick. And that ought to give us a lot of hope. It ought to give us hope because that means that he can use people like me, like you, People that don't necessarily have it all together. Because the Spirit of the Lord can rush upon anyone that belongs to the Lord. And that's such an encouragement to me. But also, what a reminder this is. It's a reminder to call on the Lord. You know, I don't know what you're facing. I know what some folks are going through. But I know this. If you are not calling on the name of the Lord, then you are taking a situation that may be bad and it's becoming much worse, or you're making it worse. Do you believe in the power of prayer? Is prayer an integral part of your personal life? You know, usually we do what we think works. I've talked about this before when I actually had a week's worth of, I guess it was two weeks worth, of daily devotionals on the importance of prayer. If you wonder whether you believe that prayer works, what's your attitude about prayer? Are you in this paradigm that we can so easily sink into where something comes up and we try every single thing possible and when we have exhausted all of our efforts we say, well, I guess all we can do now is pray. As if prayer is the fourth down play at the end of the game and you're down six points and you've got to make a 90-yard play. Well, maybe it'll work. I don't know. I guess we might as well try it. We've done everything else. Is that your attitude toward prayer, or do you call on the name of the Lord? I love Samson here for his recognition of God. It's very similar to David. Now, on Sunday mornings, we're with Saul right now. Very soon, we're gonna get to King David, but when David was pursued by Saul and all of Saul's enemies, David wrote a psalm. It's Psalm 18. He says, I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. My God is my rock in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the Lord who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death entangled me. The torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me. The snares of death confronted me in my distress. I called to the Lord. I cried to my God for help. From his temple, he heard my voice. My cry came before him into his ears." Y'all, it is one of the most amazing, wonderful things that is mentioned in the scripture. The fact that we are mere humans. That we are the created. And when we cry out to the Creator, the master and sustainer of the entire universe, He hears us and He responds to us. He is the loving shepherd that has promised we will not be in want. He's the one that takes notice of when a sparrow falls. How much more then does He know the afflictions that you and I face? Take a cue from Samson here, this puzzling, puzzling man, who half the time it just looks like he's on this Arnold Schwarzenegger-esque tear somewhere, tearing the whole world apart, but really and truly is filled with the Spirit of the Lord. Samson defies conventionality. I mean, I don't even know what to do with him, because as we're gonna see tomorrow, in chapter 16, he's gonna do more stuff but it's not gonna be the Spirit of the Lord that fills them. That's not coming for a while again. And we see that disaster ensues, just like we saw in chapter 14. But nevertheless, as for right now, what do we do with Samson? Don't just treat him like some brute, some bloodthirsty brute, because he's a servant who's been filled with the Spirit of the Lord. And then at the end of the chapter, it says Samson led Israel for 20 years. in the days of the Philistines. It's a fascinating remark there. These are referred to as the days of the Philistine because of Philistine oppression. Samson led, but what's missing is what left with Gideon. Remember I said back when we finished Gideon, when it said that Israel had peace for 40 years, or had rest, excuse me, had rest for 40 years, that stopped with Gideon. And we don't see it again for a whole long time. That's evident with Samson. Now, we're done for today. We will pick up tomorrow in chapter 16, verse 1. And this is where the wheels really start to come off of the wagon, where Samson's sinful tendencies really come back on him. It's also where he meets a girl named Delilah. And in his pride and in his arrogance and his short-sightedness, we see that disaster befalls him. Even so, the Spirit of the Lord is going to come back. And it's going to be amazing. So, keep that in mind. We'll keep on rolling tomorrow. Thank you for being with me today. Let me pray for us. Our Father, I thank you so much for this time that you have given to us, and I thank you for everybody who has joined me, whether they are here live or maybe they'll be here later. I thank you for the clear message of your word, for the necessity, the goodness of us calling out to you, for you will hear us. Thank you for being so loving, so attentive, so merciful. Thank you for hearing us. Now please go with us the rest of the day, and at the start of this new work week, I pray that you would fill us all with energy and a sense of purpose as we go about our days. And I pray these things in Christ's name, amen. Again, I'd like to thank you for being a part of this time. Lord willing, I'll be back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Until then, I hope that everybody has an excellent day.