By Bob Mendelsohn
Given in Moscow, Russia
10 June 2014
I remember the story of a
young executive on his first day on the new job. He approached the boss’ office
and knocked.
“Come in, son,” the boss told
him.
“Sir, do you have any advise
for me today?” he asked uncomfortably.
“Sure, make good choices.”
“Great, thanks for that,
boss.” And towards the door he stepped.
“Excuse me, boss, how do I
make good choices?”
“Experience,” boomed the
boss, now writing notes on his notepad.
“Great, thanks for that,
boss.” And again the young executive stepped towards the door.
“One more thing, boss, how do
I get that experience?”
The boss looked up from his
paper and said, “Bad decisions.”
Today we meet another judge
in the book of Judges by the name of Samson. His story is told over four
chapters, 13-16. We will take two days to unpack his tale. We are introduced to
the setting as is common in Judges with the words in 13.1: “Israel…evil…
Philistines rules over …40 years.” Typical of the situation in the continual
story. The pattern is clear. The continual bad decisions and bad choices of the
people of Israel are summarized in the last verse of Judges. Let’s look at that
one:
In
those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own
eyes. (Judg. 21.25)
This summary of the condition
of the Jewish people is so sad, like I said when we started, it almost makes
one depressed or anti-Semitic or something.
But remember our pattern, God listens to our cries, and delivers us,
even when we don’t deserve it. So it will be in this case, in chapter 13, that
God will make a barren woman, the wife of Manoah, to bear a child and he will
deliver Israel. I’m so glad to know that no matter our condition in 1933 or in
1994 or in 2014, that God will bring His word to fulfillment, and will make
things happen according to His will. His will is to keep Israel. He that keeps
Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. (Psalm 121)
The angel of the Lord appears
to the wife, not to the husband, and not to them together. He says to the woman
about her diet:
Now
therefore, be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean
thing.
OK, so she is to avoid certain foods
and drinks for a reason. (.5) tells us:
For
behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come
upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite (Numbers 6) to God from the
womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”
If you were not a Bible reader, and
only reading this story as if Pushkin wrote it, you would think this child
would be a hero from his youth. He is to avoid certain foods and drinks, and
razors, and fight against the enemies of the Jews, in this case, the
Philistines. Maybe he would be a powerful and strong boy. And if you were
writing such a story, you might include some dangers like monsters or big and
powerful human enemies, rocks falling, ships being tossed in the rough winds,
and then the little hero would conquer everyone, and like in Hollywood, they
would all ‘live happily ever after.’
That’s not the case in the tale
before us, however. His Hebrew name is from the root SHEMESH meaning
‘sun.’ You would think his parents Manoah and the unnamed wife would have named
him something like “Keeper of the vow” or “Son of Nazir” since the only thing
the angel of the Lord told them was that he would be a Nazirite, and had a few
regulations on him that they were strictly told to maintain.
The story in chapter 13 is
very detailed and I guess that someone close to Samson wrote it. The repetition
of the visitation by the angel of the Lord and the exact language over and over
makes me think this. So the angel visits both mother and father and details
Samson’s diet and commitments. Then Manoah wants to have a special dinner for
the visitor (.15), but the visitor declines. The angel recommends that Manoah
offer an offering to the Lord (.16). Manoah still isn’t sure, and wants to know
the visitor’s name. Again the angel declines but says something which makes
people think he is Jesus. The angel says, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is
wonderful.” (.18) The Hebrew word for wonderful is of course pela, the same
word used in Isaiah 9.6
“For
a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will
rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty
God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”
The human born to the virgin
(Is. 7.14) who is ‘given to us’ in chapter 9 of Isaiah will be called Pela, El
gibor, and Sar Shalom. All great titles for God or Messiah. So when the angel
here in Judges says why do you ask my name since it is ‘pela’, some folks think
he’s indicating that he is an appearance of the Son of God before He came to
earth. They call this a ‘theophany’ or “Christophany’ in theological circles. I
personally don’t believe this is Yeshua, for many reasons, but if people
believe that, it won’t hurt them.
So in verse 19, Manoah does
what the angel told him, and offers both a grain and goat offering on a rock.
Usually he should have gone to the Tabernacle down in Shiloh, but perhaps for
speed or for urgency or for compliance or…we really don’t know why, he chooses
to do it locally.
Not only did the couple offer
things to God, but the angel did ‘wonders’ (.19) Again a variant of the word
“pela” And again I don’t know what wonders he performed, but together with his
disappearance into the flames of the offering, it was enough to convince Manoah
and his wife that this was an angelic visitation. (.21) They bowed low (.20)
and Manoah got scared. He thought, “If that was God, then we are doomed. No one
can see God and live.” (.22). She replied that this was silly logic. If God
wanted to kill them, why would he have told them about the baby, and why would
he have accepted our burnt offering? (.23). She is very convincing and the next
thing we see is the baby’s birth and the activity of the Spirit of God. Notice
the phrase at the end of .24, “The Lord blessed him.” I don’t think this is
used of any other judge in the Bible. Again we can only guess what this might
mean, but whatever the details of this blessing, it’s clear that it’s a
positive thing. You know many of you ask me to bless you before a sortie or if
you are unwell, or in various situations of life. And I’m happy to do that. I
think we can all agree that however blessing works out, it’s a good thing. So
the child was experiencing a good life in his home in the tribal region of Dan.
Only note this, the land of Dan is in two places in the Bible. Originally they
were to live to the west of Judah in what we today call the Gaza Strip. But
since they couldn’t defeat the enemies there, Dan moved up north to the Golan
region. These scenes with Samson however, take place in the original location
about 20 miles west of Jerusalem.
Then look how chapter 13
ends. The Spirit of the Lord is stirring Samson. It could also be translated as
troubling Samson.
Chapter 14 begins with his
first view of a woman from Philistia and although the story seems to say Samson
has a plan to use her, I wonder if he was actually falling to the trap which
would eventually knock him to his own death. And yet, he is listed in Hebrews
11, in the short list of 4 judges from this book who were men of faith. So his
cleverness here in chapter 14 probably is accurate. Sometimes our very
strengths are what get us in trouble. We don’t know how weak we really are, and
thus lean on our own strengths instead of on the Lord.
Oswald Chambers said this, "We are apt to say, “It is not at all likely that having been through the
greatest crisis of my life I would now turn back to the things of the
world.” Do not try to predict where the temptation will come; it is the
least likely thing that is the real danger. It is in the aftermath of a great
spiritual event that the least likely things begin to have an effect.
They may not be forceful and dominant, but they are there. And if you
are not careful to be forewarned, they will trip you. You have remained
true to God under great and intense trials— now beware of the
undercurrent. Do not be abnormally examining your inner self, looking
forward with dread, but stay alert; keep your memory sharp before God.
Unguarded strength is actually a double weakness, because that is where
the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength. The
Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak
ones."
Samson convinces his parents
to go to Timnah in Philistia (not far from their home) to get a woman whom he
has seen to be his wife. On their way, a young lion approaches and without so
much as a stick, Samson captures and rips the lion into pieces and kills it.
(.5-6) How did he do it? By the power of the Holy Spirit! (.6)
They make it into Timnah and
the story collapses into a short chapter, but probably lasted months. The key
is the 7-day period of the riddle (.14) and the wedding festival. Samson was to
marry this woman, but the day before the wedding (day 6), he submits to her
tears and tells her the solution to the riddle. She mocks him, submits the
answer to the boys of town, Samson gets really angry and goes to kill 30
others, take their garments and pays off his wager with the men of Timnah.
Samson’s fiancé marries his best man, and of Samson we read,
And
his anger burned, and he went up to his father’s house. (14.19)
Samson is a man of faith, to
be sure, and filled at times with the Holy Spirit. What we learn of him today
and tomorrow will guard our hearts and guard our bodies and guard our spirits
so we can continue to be men and women of faith as well.
Anger doesn’t work the
righteousness of God. Lust doesn’t work out God’s purposes. False alliances
will not help anyone. Samson had a duty to honor God as a Nazirite and stay
away from vineyards and from foreign women and their food. He failed over and
over, yet God calls him a man of faith.
I’m so glad God wants our
hearts and not our perfections. We are not perfect. We do commit sin. I’m not
excusing that, but the reality is here. We fall short of God’s standards, and
YET, He loves us and wants us to draw on His grace and forgiveness, amen? Our response to what He tells us, via an
angel or via the Scripture or from wherever our instructions come, will determine
our future. Like the young executive, make good choices. Choose
well, and you will do well, Amen?
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