Judges: Soul Nourishment Beyond Our Resources

Well, welcome back to the soap opera of the book of Judges.

I mean, it's the kind of scripture readings you hear at church, and you're like, uh, yeah, that's why I quit going to church, maybe, or I don't even read that book of the Bible.

That can be our reactions very easily.

I mean, Samson's life is certainly uh it's a soap opera.

I mean, it's a series of foolishness and uh bad decision making, yet, in that, God's purposes are not being thwarted, his sovereignty is not being threatened.

Last week we saw how his decision making, he went and he married a woman from the people group enslaving his people.

So just get that in your mind.

This guy goes and marries his enemy, basically, is the setup.

Then he gets angry.

Remember this?

He gets angry at those people.

He kills 30 of his wife's people's people, 30 of them, and then he's angry at all of them, and so he storms off and he leaves.

And so that's the storyline, the setup here, where in Judges 15 he comes back thinking everything's gonna get smoothed over with a goat.

Um, let's read verses 1 through 6 again, just to have them fresh in our memory, and then we'll uh chat about how this could possibly have something to do with our life.

Judges 15, 1 through 6.

After some days at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a young goat, and he said, I will go into my wife in the chamber.

Don't you love how he just shows up with that assurance?

I got a goat.

You know, I killed 30 of you, but I'm back and I'm coming in.

But her father, and going into the chamber means exactly what you think.

Okay, by the way, that's what that means.

But her father would not let him to go in, and her father said, I really thought you utterly hated her.

So I gave her to your companion.

Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she, please take her instead.

And Samson said to them, This time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm.

Now that is Samson's opinion there about what he's gonna go do, because he's definitely acting out of a lot of rage and anger here, as we'll see.

Verse 4.

So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches.

I don't know how you do that.

Like I'm I I was just thinking about it this week.

Don't even know how long that takes, right?

How long does that take?

A couple weeks?

A couple days?

I have no idea.

But I'm assuming it wasn't like just in the afternoon, right?

Like, so this is like rage building in him.

And he takes some torches and he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each tail.

So he's tying them all up, torch, two tails, tied them all up.

And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain as well as the olive orchards.

Then the Philistines said, Who's done this?

And they said, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.

And the Philistines came up, so their reaction to this, his reaction to what happened, now their reaction to what he did, they come up and they they burned her.

The bride.

She didn't do anything wrong, right?

Like in this story, if you're thinking about this series of events, burned her and her father with fire.

And we all responded with the word of the Lord, thanks be to God, to this story.

Right?

Like this is VBS quality material for our children.

All right, here's point number one: loving others is facilitated by self-awareness and confession of our faults and sin.

Loving others is facilitated by self-awareness and confession of our faults and sin.

Samson shows up with a goat.

He's abandoned his wife, he's killed 30 of her people, shows up with a goat.

Right?

So he's trying to buy them off.

There's no record of an apology.

Right?

We don't get the full conversation here, but there's no record.

Seems like if if that happened, that would be an important thing to include in the text.

The thing that's included is a payoff.

Like I'm the show up and I'm gonna bring a goat, I'm gonna bring something worth something.

And then when he can't have his wife, because she already got passed on to be married to another guy and have a relationship there, his response is not anything to do with maybe he messed up.

Maybe he shouldn't have killed the 30 people.

Like just maybe.

I don't know.

Like, right, just maybe he shouldn't have abandoned his wife.

Like, none of that.

No, he just rages and he burns their fields.

So he'd rather burn people's lives down than face his own mistakes.

All right, I mean, there's a reason why Jesus teaches us in Matthew 7, verse 5, you hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye.

Matthew 7:5

And then you will see clearly, just take the speck out of your brother's eye.

And all the people in this story as we see it unfold.

Samson to the Philistines, the Philistine back to Samson, the Philistines over to the people in Judah, Judah back to Samson, then Samson back to the Philistines.

I mean, all of this is like people abreacting to things being done to them, and then instead of having any measure of self-awareness of what they could possibly have contributed to the pain, they just go and act revenge again.

And what Jesus teaches us is start with yourself, right?

Like I need to start with myself, I need to start with my heart before I go start picking apart anybody else's.

But of course, you know the problem with that.

Because I know the problem with it.

It's hard.

That's the problem with it, right?

It's just hard.

And so so often what we do, and it's a psychological term, it's called transference.

So in psychology, this term transference is the redirection of feelings from one person to another person.

So rather than facing your own pain, your own woundedness, confessing your sin, you transfer that frustrating emotion, perhaps guilt, perhaps woundedness, shame, you transfer it over to somebody else.

And it works for a little bit of time.

Like a really small amount of time, because it relieves you of that pain and that moment that you're feeling if you have to actually acknowledge your sin and confess your fault.

This is why you're on the highway, you're going on the expressway, you're with your sweetheart, uh, you got the fish on, you're one with the Lord, you're going to speed limit, you are headed on date night, you know, you're going to Applebee's, you're going to do that, and you are headed there, and everything is good.

It's been a great week.

I mean, great conversation with your sweetie.

And you know, and out of nowhere, a car pulls up next to you, and that one finger right up, like right at you, and you have two fingers and you're ready to give those back, right?

And you're ready to do that because that lit something in you.

And right before you do that, your sweet person says to you, and you've heard this, babe, that ain't about you.

Right?

Okay?

You know that moment.

It's the same reason you come home from work, you walk in, and your sweetheart, your sweet person there is wiping down the counters.

But they're not using like the granite spray, they're using the Myers spray.

And they're supposed to use the granite spray.

You can't believe it.

Right?

And you you tell them, I can't, you know, I've told you before, we have to use the granite spray on the granite.

Like that's what it's for.

I ordered it, I researched it, that's what it's for.

Right?

A little mini explosion, right?

You go off, you change your clothes, you come into some sanity, and you come back, and then you have to say, I'm sorry.

That wasn't about you.

Right?

Like you just took the frustration of your day, the frustration in your feeling, and then just transferred it over.

We do that all the time.

We do it all the time.

Samson sinned, but he doesn't take the log out of his own eye.

He just transfers all that frustration, anger.

He lets it become rage, and he just enacts that back onto them.

But our call to walk with the Lord and to love each other.

It is a call to more self-awareness and quicker confession.

That's how it's facilitated.

Because we're not perfect, we need the self-awareness and we need these quicker confessions in order for us to be loving each other, in order for all this abreaction between each other to die down, to be forgiven, for there to be life within a gracious framework instead of all judgment and reaction.

Not for Samson, though.

He burns their fields down.

And then the Philistines, their reaction, they move up into camp in Judah, they raid a town.

Now Judah, they're upset about what the Philistines did.

The Philistines did it because of what Samson did.

And so now Judah reacts.

They go down and they get Samson, their own family, their own family.

They don't fight back against Judah, they come back and they grab Samson.

Here's what happens in Judges 15, 10, and 11.

And the men of Judah said, Why have you come up against us?

Right?

They said that to the Philistines.

The Philistines say, We have come up to bind Samson to do to him as he did to us.

Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Edom and said to Samson, Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us?

Right?

And this would be the point where you'd say, Do you not know?

Like, do you not know that you're enslaved?

You're enslaved and you don't even care.

But they're not willing to face any of that.

No, no, no, they just turned to Sam and said, Do you not know that they're 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.

See, am I just reacting against each other?

Perpetuating pain and sin.

Here's the sobering point.

Number two.

In our lack of self-awareness and confession, we can make enemies out of those closest to us.

Right?

Judah goes down, these people, they're a family.

They're the same people group.

And they bind up their own guy.

So we should, of course, take Jesus' teaching to heart about this.

Hey, pause a little here.

Like, inspect your own heart.

And we should have the heart of Paul.

Paul doesn't seem throughout the New Testament in his writings, he doesn't seem to have a problem with self-awareness.

Like after his point of conversion and brokenness, he just, he's so safe in Jesus.

He's so safe in his relationship with God that Jesus is fully sufficient, that he is beloved, that he can be aware and ask for even more awareness.

What a sinner, what a wretched man I am, right?

It's that kind of confession.

Listen, the more you realize how deeply you are welcomed and forgiven and righteous and safe and whole you are in Jesus, that your identity is held outside of your justification for your identity, that freedom that you don't have to use other people, you don't have to use your reaction to other people to be safe or whole.

Man, the more that we can ask God, hey, show me even more of my heart.

Show me more.

We can grow in that awareness of our sin and live in confession, quicker confession to God, and quicker confession to other people.

In grace, we get to confess quicker.

My mentor always says, you'll cry more, but you will laugh more.

Now God's using all this to free these people, right?

Like Samson's foolishness, all these people's fools.

He's orchestrating all this to free his people.

So our lack of wisdom and our foolishness, or anybody else's, it does not thwart God's purposes for his people.

That's not a threat.

We don't have to worry about that.

But this story does go on.

Samson gets handed over to the Philistines.

He's tied up, he breaks free.

When he breaks free, he grabs a fresh jawbone, which means it would be a big old bone with a bunch of sharp teeth.

That's what that means.

And then he goes Rambo, right?

First blood, part two, Rambo.

He's going through and he is mowing people down.

A thousand men is what it says.

So this story's giving us a big God working in foolishness and rage and sin and hurt and pain.

So we can trust in what God is doing.

At the same time, we can learn from these people's foolishness.

Hopefully we can.

Hopefully, we can learn from our own foolishness.

So a little pastoral preaching conjecture here.

It seems like Samson has a couple of idols at play in his heart.

So here at our church, this is how we tend to word idolatry of the heart.

For Samson, it seems like we have some romance or sex idolatry.

We definitely kind of saw it in the way in which he wanted this first wife of his.

His eye was pleased.

I want her, it doesn't matter the repercussions, and then later we're going to see it in the next chapter as well.

So romance or sex idolatry would work like this.

If I don't have him, if I don't have her, I don't have it, I won't be okay, I won't be enough.

Seems like Samson might have a little power idolatry, which would say something like, if I don't have power or influence, I won't be okay or enough.

Now, of course, Judah is not innocent either, these people.

They seem to be operating under some sort of comfort or safety idolatry, right?

They don't want to disturb the status quo.

Yeah, we're enslaved, but but you know, it's set, everything's stable.

Comfort and safety idolatry says something like if I don't have that comfort, that safety, that quality of life, I won't be okay or I'm not enough.

Now we all have our own.

Like none of maybe neither of those or any of those connect with you, but something does.

Like we we play that sentence out, and that's a sentence of idolatry.

Like, if I don't have that, then I won't be okay.

Then I'm not enough.

And the gospel's the reverse is God saying, I make you enough.

I deem you enough.

I make you whole, that you can have an identity secure in me and my love for you.

You don't have to go trying to get this love from other places.

Point number three is this idols in our hearts are always toxic lies, empty promises, and dry wells.

So Samson mows down these thousand men.

After he mows them down, he kills them in Judges 15, 17.

He calls that place.

That place becomes known as Ramathi, which means height of the jawbone.

So hold on to that.

Height of the jawbone, that's the name of this place.

He just wiped out all these people, height of the jawbone.

Right?

Like, like I did this.

This is the height of me.

This is the height of my abilities.

And then something changes.

Verse 18.

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, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?

He's a little dramatic.

I mean, I mean, he just wiped out a thousand people, but there's something in this moment where he's at the end of himself.

And at the end of himself, he's realizing, I need, I need more than me.

Verse 19, and God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it.

And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived.

Therefore the name of it was called Enhakar.

It is at Lehi to this day.

And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines 20 years.

So first we have the place called Height of Jawbone.

It's this imagery for us of what we can do.

Like our abilities.

And we can do stuff.

Like you can do stuff.

I know, I know a lot of y'all.

Like y'all are talented, smart people.

You can get some stuff done, right?

You can swing a jawbone, right?

You know what I'm saying?

Like you wake up in the morning, you're like, I'm gonna get some stuff done today.

I'll check it off the list.

Like we can do that.

But even then, you're gonna get the end of it, and there's still heart and soul issues that your abilities and your performance and your achievement can't settle.

And that's good news.

If you're 15 or you're 50, if you're like a new Christian or you remember Petra, like it's good news.

It's good news for us.

Some of you remember Petra.

You had a little flashback.

This summer a friend of mine went and he climbed one of the Teton Peaks.

And because he's a stud and he's really skilled, he flew into Jackson Hole, he hitchhiked to the trailhead, and then he hiked up above tree line all in one day from Atlanta.

Okay, which meant he woke up in the middle of the night spitting up blood, but he doesn't care.

He's a stud.

He's skilled, he spits the blood up, wakes up super early, he hikes up to the top of the peak, he's on his way down, and because he's just so confident in himself over time, he runs out of food.

He didn't bring enough.

He's like, uh, I'll figure it out.

He runs out of water.

He also forgot the to pack his pump.

Now let's just think about this for most of us.

For most of us, we're going to hike a mountain peak.

Like we're reviewing that list like ten times over, right?

But he's so set in his abilities.

Like, he doesn't even have his pump.

He's running out of food, he's hiking back down.

He already peaked, which shows you like he can get some stuff done.

Like the guy has the guy has some chops, he can swing a jawbone.

He's hiking his way back down, he's run out of his own water, he doesn't have a pump, he's out of food, he's just dying of thirst, his day's getting a little long.

So finally he gives in, he drinks from like just a stream, a creek, which of course gives him diarrhea.

Sorry, too much information, but that's just what happened.

He comes limping in to the to the ranch there at the valley.

He comes limping in in need of clean water.

All right, so the point is, even in all he can do, and he can do a lot, that's pretty impressive.

That's impressive to me at least.

I can't do that.

But even in all he can do, even all Samson can do, he still needed something beyond himself.

See, we need and have a source of nourishment for our souls beyond our resources, for our identities beyond our resources, for our forgiveness, for our righteousness.

We can just imagine Samson here at the end of all his rage.

All that rage is, he's at the end of it.

And he was using that to feel like he was enough.

But he's at the end of it now.

All he has left is thirst.

And then God splits open a hollow place and provides water.

Point number four, we live in a land of dry cisterns, but God nourishes our souls.

So the place that we once call height of jawbone becomes called in Hakor, which means spring of the one calling.

Isn't that a cool little thing hidden in the text for us?

That's like one of those little nuggets, right?

Like the same place.

It started out being called height of jawbone.

Look what I did, look what I can do, and then it is renamed Spring of the One Calling.

I received an email from a friend of mine, not like one of you, like I'm like, no, what not?

It could be, like, it could be, but it's not.

It really isn't.

But it might sound like it, because it might kind of associate with you.

But it's not you.

He's from out of state.

He emailed me and he said, could be one of you, but it's not.

It's not you.

It could be.

Because when you hear it, you might be like, that sounds like it.

Great job.

Loving spouse.

Four kids.

Leader in the church.

And then in of his email, it says, My soul is bone.

Dry.

If you're like me, it has been.

It has been me.

Right?

Not me today.

Might be me next week.

Might be you next week.

We can get some stuff done.

We can swing a jawbone.

But eventually we get to the end of ourselves.

Eventually we end up at the place that has to be renamed.

Spring of the one calling.

In Jeremiah chapter 2, this prophet he speaks for God to a forgetful.

Jeremiah 2 · chapter mention

And rebellious people.

Listen to this imagery, thinking about the imagery already built up for us in Judges.

Jeremiah speaking to this people of Israel.

Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils.

They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

And that's all that our idols and our hearts are.

Just broken cisterns, right?

Toxic lies, empty promises.

Now listen to the imagery that the prophet Isaiah gives to his people during his time.

And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong.

And you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.

I think this is why we associate with the woman in John chapter 4 who's thirsty.

John 4 · chapter mention

You remember what Jesus says to her?

Jesus says, John 4, 13 and 14, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty.

The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

And of course, Jesus was talking about himself, his work for them, his love for them.

God is our eternal fount.

We won't be perfect.

We're more like Samson than we want to become aware of or confess.

Like we have that in us.

To Abriact like that, to transfer, to not face our pain, to not face our sin.

We have that in us.

Yet in Jesus, God sees us as fully as beloved.

In Jesus, we're fully forgiven.

In Jesus, we're fully righteous.

In Jesus, we have an identity that is so safe, so secure.

We're so free from having to justify with what's going on in the world or going on in our worlds, that we can live in greater awareness and greater confession.

And life won't be perfect, right?

Won't even close, won't even be close to perfect, but we will have a spring of water in us.

The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God who lives in us and who will never leave and is always for us.

My brothers and sisters, we live in a scorched land with empty promises, but you shall be like a well-watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for this story.

That in Samson's foolishness we are reminded of our own foolishness.

How many idols we entertain in our hearts that bring temporary relief, but they never heal, they never satisfy.

Forgive us for all the ways that we continually do this, for all the ways that we wander or forget or rebel.

Thank you that you never give up on us.

Thank you that in Jesus we are fully forgiven and fully righteous.

That you are for us and you love us.

Help us to live in greater faith today, and that we might honor you with our hearts and our lives.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.