Am I Too Far Gone for God? Samson’s Redemption Story: Judges 16:23-31

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Welcome to the Bible Guys. We sincerely welcome you.

Yes, we are so grateful that you decided to keep

coming back every.

Day, and we're sincere about it.

We are sincere.

So today we're in a launch into well, no, actually

we're doing we're finishing up the story of Samson.

For your presence and your time with us today, we

are truly thankful.

Yes, yes, However, we have a segment beforehand and Desiree

is giving us today.

And it's called this is a cool one.

It's mailbags, Mailbags. There you go, and this is from Laurens.

It's a cool one. So Hi Lauren, Hi Lauren.

So Lauren says, what's something you've learned about yourself through

a hobby or activity that you didn't expect to Do

You have hobbies?

Chris, h hobbies? I mean, like, like golf is a hobby, right?

Is that? Is that a hobby?

I don't know it?

Yeah, I think so. I think so.

So golf is your hobby?

Yeah, but like in.

Terms of like rock collecting or you know, gun shooting

or uh, collecting collecting stamps. No, I don't really have

much of that.

I am.

I am into experiences more than I am like individual

type things. So like, you know, we're big on family

game night, which is happening you know tomorrow night.

By the way, you.

Know, we we do we like family game.

Yeah, we do games all the time. We're into experiences,

you know, we have we have. We're pretty simple family.

So like, for instance, in a couple of weeks, we're

going up north and we're going to our favorite place,

which is the Pirate's Cove pop up place up in Patowski.

And uh, my daughter, is.

Your favorite place well like on the planet when you

die and they and they cremate you. You know, you're envisioning

that they would put your ashes out at pirates to

just sprinkle your ashes at the nineteenth.

No, I was saying, my favorite our favorite place to

go in potas in Potoski.

I heard it that this is your favorite place in

the world.

So that's probably where I said it. Okay, so but

we're going to be doing that. But we're simple people,

so like so I so my daughter Sarah actually said

she goes. I think that place is actually in my

top three places that sort of define my childhood.

And I was like, wow, you know so, I.

Mean it's a pretty great place.

It's pretty great place. We love it.

That might be where you're spending eternity.

In fired Okay, so what have you learned to another

day it's like pirates, what what have you learned through? Then,

because we were asking about hobby, a hobby or activity,

I immediately that you didn't explen I have an answer.

I thought that doing things would cure me of my

fear of heights, but it is not at all.

Oh like ropes, courses or.

Well, I have jumped out of three airplanes, so I've

gone I've gone skydi having three times. I've done parasailing twice.

And I'm talking about the maximum amount like one thousand,

two hundred feet in the air of parasaling. And by

the way, that's not straight up, that's that's like that's

that's back end up, right. But it's so unbelievably high.

I mean, you're you're ten times higher than the hotels, right,

I mean, so you're you're you're pretty much up there.

You know, I've gone up to Just last week, I

went to one hundred and second story of the one

World Trade Center.

I've gone up in little.

Planes, I've done bungee jumping, I've done rock climbing, and

I still am absolutely terrified of heights. I keep on

doing stuff because it's thrilling, which is why.

Maybe not really afraid of heights. Maybe maybe you love

the rush of being afraid of heights.

I think in early on I was doing it to

overcome my fear of heights. But like, for instance, I'll

give you an example. So we did go up north

to Potowski and there's a Have you ever been to

that place where there's like a glass bridge you can

go see the trees?

I know about it. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I've

been there.

But turn and you go there and you watch all

the trees turn colors. Well we did that last year

and there's like a section of the bridge that's glass

and it's really high, and I just freaked out. I

was just holding onto the edges. I couldn't move. And

my youngest daughter, who is dating a pilot of a

plane and they go up in these little planes all

the time, she looks at me and she goes, Dad,

are you kidding me?

Right now?

You can't walk on this bridge. You've you've jumped out

of airplanes, and I'm like, I'm just terrified, and it's

really not that scary, right, and yet I'm terrified.

Well that's what you learned, is that you didn't overcome

your fears. That's correct, you just indulge in them. Yes, yeah,

Well that's very very enlightening, super exciting.

Well remember when you said you went balloon riding. Yeah,

hot air balloon. Yeah, I wonder if I can handle that.

It's really incredible, incredibly peaceful.

Yeah, I just wonder if I can handle it.

Yeah.

I So I like to hunt right, white tailed deer,

pretty much anything, but I enjoy hunting. But for a

kid with ADHD, it was really weird to find out

that I can sit in the woods for five hours

without moving, right, and that there's there's something very cathartic

about being in nature for me that just calms me down,

because there's no place else in my life that I

can just be in a place for, you know, five

hours without moving or talking or doing anything. But when

I get out in the woods, it's just a surprise

to me that I can can sit there. I have

a lot of focus, a lot of clarity.

That's what you learn a lot of peace.

Yeah, now do you get You get a lot accomplished

and you're thinking like.

You think through things.

Yeah.

Yeah, I really have a lot of clarity when I'm

out in the woods. Sometimes, depending on where I'm hunting

and whether or not there's a lot of deer stuff,

I'll take a New Testament with me, and I've had

I don't know, probably ten hunting seasons where I just

read through the New Testament during the three or four

day period that I was hunting or whatever. So that's nice.

But then even if I don't bring something to read,

which I normally don't, I mean, out of all my seasons,

maybe I've done that ten times. But just sitting and thinking,

it's really amazing how sort out the thoughts, and I

feel like I have more clarity sitting in the woods

than I have clarity anywhere else in my life the

whole rest of the year.

Wow.

Yeah, that's pretty incredible.

Yea, it's kind of a weird, weird thing. I don't

know why.

Yeah, well, you know, I mean it is pretty clear

based on books that we've read and studies that have

been done that people are wired, you know, to feel

even connected to God. That's a spiritual pathways nature.

Yeah.

Right, so there's something about our relationship with this planet.

So when I remember going to I don't know as

a seminary class, I think and they said we were

created for relationships.

And they said there's three relationships.

And I thought, what three? And and and this. This

professor said, our relationship with God is primary our relationship

with others. And I'm thinking, okay, that's those That's the

Great Commandment, right, So what the heck is he going

to say? And he said in our relationship with this planet?

And I thought, what, how could you include that? And

he said, well, think about it. He goes, you think

it's by accident that we breathe in oxygen and breathe

out carbon dioxide and the trees breathe in carbon dioxide

and breathe out oxygen. He said, you think you think

that's an accident. He goes, God created us to have

a relationship with this planet. Things grow from the ground

that we plant, that we eat. He started just going

on and on and on and on, and I started

thinking to myself, Ah, that is correct.

And then I thought to myself, as.

Well, that's probably why there's some sort of a thing

inside where And I'm not a nature person, but even

I cried at a sunrise, right, so there's something inside

that connects us, I think, to the planet and to God,

the creator of the planet.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I do have a very strong sense that men were

Humanity was not made to live in concrete grids, in

houses where you push the button and the door comes

up and you just drive into the garage and close

it and go in and pull the blinds and right,

I have a very strong sense that that is not

a natural state for humanity. And I think that over time,

then our offices, our computers, our screens, are the way

we build our homes and our little communities and all

these things are not natural, and I think that they

ultimately build up a lot of stress. I think that nature,

for me anyways, releases.

A lot of stress.

So a hike, a climb, sitting in the trees, you know,

hunting in the woods, whatever, those those things are very

very cathartic, and I feel like I recenter, uh when

when I'm out there here.

So it's a big learning for me.

Well side note, I'm boring and started a sentence right.

Side note, Sitting in the woods for five hours sometimes

and doing absolutely nothing as a high extrovert sounds like

the worst thing ever.

Yeah, but we went over.

To start time.

Yes, well this isn't a super complex chunk, that's true,

And so we're finishing up the life of Samson. If

you remember yesterday, if you were with us on the podcast,

Delilah finally gets word out of Samson is to where

his strength lies. He still hasn't cut his hair, and

so she cuts his hair. Philistines come in, they arrest him.

He stands up, not knowing that the spirit of God

had left him. They wind up gouging out his eyes

and putting him in prison. But then the Bible says,

before long his hair began to grow back, which is

kind of a hint as what was coming the dom

dun dundom.

That's that's where we ended, Dun dun dun. There you go.

So then it continues. It says the Philistine rulers held

a great festival, offering sacrifices and praising their God Daygon.

They said, our God has given us victory over our

enemy Samson. When the people saw him, they praised their God, saying,

our God has delivered our enemy to us. The one

who killed so many of us is now in our power.

Half drunk by Now, the people demanded ring out Samson

so he can amuse us. And so he was brought

from the prison to amuse them, and they had him

stand between the pillars supporting the roof. Samson said to

the young servant who was leading him by the hand,

place my hands against the pillars that hold up the temple.

I want to rest against them. Now the people were

completely filled. Now the temple was completely filled with people.

All the Philistine rulers were there, and there were about

three thousand men and women on the roof who were

watching as Samson amuse them. Then Samson prayed to the Lord, Sovereign.

Lord remembers me again, Oh God, please strengthen me just

one more time with one blow, let me pay back

the Philistines for the loss of my two eyes. Then

Samson put his hands on the center pillars that held

up the temple, pushing against them with both hands. He prayed,

let me die with the Philistines, and the temple crashed

down on the Philistine rulers and all the people and

so he killed more people when he died than he

had during his entire lifetime. Later, his brothers and other

relatives went down to get his body and they took

him back home and buried him between Zora and Eshtahl,

where his father Manoah was buried. Samson had judged Israel

for twenty years.

Right there you go, Yeah, there it is. And you

love that when I say that, Well, there you go.

There you go.

So I think that the redemption factor is what I

love about this. Samson has finally, you know, gotten to

the place to where he is willing to sacrifice himself.

So in the first three chap of you know, Sampson's life,

you know, in Judges, it's not the first three chapters

of Judges, but it's the last three chapters we read,

you know, we we basically demonstrated that Samson only cares

about himself, puts himself as the center, only thinks of

himself or about himself, all those different things. But now

that he's trapped and he has his eyes gouged out

and he's you know, in the Temple of Dagon, he

he says, okay, God, if you give me strength one

last time, and really, here's what he's essentially saying. He's saying,

I will sacrifice myself for the mission that.

You created me for. That's what he's saying.

Yeah, yeah, because because he knows the mission is war.

He knows the mission as a war against the Philistines.

And so he says, Okay, I'm gonna take these Philistines out,

and and if you'll just grant me this, And he

knows he doesn't deserve it, he knows that he hasn't

earned it, and and so what does he do. He

just depends on God in his mercy. And God is

in the position to where God could have definitely said nope,

in fact, you deserve to be tortured, and which obviously

that's what they were doing. They weren't giving him a

swift and quick death, right, they're putting him on display, which.

Means he's a circus clown.

Now he's a circus clown, which means which means you

better believe that their intention was probably to make him

suffer more before he died.

And so God could.

Have very well said, you know, what you've earned, Samson,

is not what you're asking. But Samson says, you know,

please God, and so what does he do. He sacrifices himself,

and it's just a beautiful picture of redemption, even in

the Old Testament, where you know God is being merciful

when he doesn't have to be merciful. And Samson then

finally learns his lesson.

Yeah, so incredible, you know with Samson. So three thousand

Philistines died that day, yes, and then he killed the

thousand with the job.

By the way, that's pretty big temple.

Yeah. Yeah, and.

He killed a thousand with a job on a donkey,

and then he killed some more. Right, But like you said,

he was built for war. As a matter of fact,

God had told his parents, Samson is going to deliver

the people. I mean, he's going to fighting into Philistines.

He's gonna be great. But what did he get forty

five hundred Philistines?

Right?

I feel like you ever you ever watched like an

NBA player or an NFL player.

Coulation back then was I know what you're I think.

I think Gideon in one battle wipes out one hundred

and one hundred and thirty five thousand guys and thirty

five thousand. So here's a man built for war. Gideon

is a coward. Yeah, here's a man built for war

and instead he's chasing skirts. He's he's indulging himself.

So he's wasted his gift in his lifetime, wasted.

He should have been Hercules, right, right, he should have

been the undefeatable, right he's he's the the undisputed undefeated champion.

That's what it should have been, he said, and he wasn't.

He kind of mailed it in. He didn't face it.

He literally has three events where he fights the bad

guys in twenty years. And so what he was built

for and what he did, and you know, you've seen

it before, I've seen I mean, I hate to say

that there's a basketball player that played and that was

drafted by Detroit a number of years ago that I

think is one of the most talented guys that ever

made it in the NBA. And I mean he's a

Hall of Famer now, but you just felt like if

he had had a killer instinct like Jordan did, maybe

or whatever, he could have been so much greater. He

get his points, he didn't really elevate the rest of

the team too much. He went on played in a

couple other teams. He had a couple of injuries, and

I just feel like when you watched that, when you

watched his career, I felt like you looked at it

and went, oh, he had so much more in him, right,

Or the guys that Olympic athletes or whatever, and you

look at you know, it's drugs that wind up messing

them up or they get into some other thing. You

think there was so much potential for greatness. They just

didn't live up to the potential. Of all the people

in the Bible who didn't live up to their potential.

I mean literally, the story we talked about before him

was Gideon, who's a coward and he has victory over

one hundred and thirty five thousand guys, and in his

entire twenty years of leading, he has three big battles

and kills less than five thousand people. But he was

built for war, and so there's just kind of this

sadness about that. So on the one side, redemption, certainly

he does more at his end than he did in

the whole rest of his life.

Also, for sure.

There's less than six thousand.

Yeah, yeah, you have this sense of this lost opportunity.

How much more could he have done for his people?

Because that's his job was to deliver the people, right,

His job was to bring peace to the people. How

much more could he done for the people if it

hadn't been about him, Because let's be honest, the thousands

that he killed before this were about him. It was

never about his people, right, right. That's just sad when

leaders decided to live for themselves.

Instead of for their people.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's just a missed opportunity for sure.

And there's a part of me that tries to picture,

you know, like him standing between these two pillars. So

this temple that must have held three thousand people at least,

that those must have been two really close pillars in

order for him to use just the length of his

arms to push for them to you know, breaky number one,

they had to have been right next to each other.

And then they had been very tall. They must have

been like the center pillar right in the very center

of this really tall roof, I would imagine, right, because

they would have had to have been load bearing, right.

And then obviously he must have known doesn't say that

he know was guessing, So he must have either seen

the Temple of Dagone or you know, or known about

it but anyway, I try to picture it in my mind,

and I try to picture you know, Samson knowing where

he is, and maybe perhaps when he was put there,

he started thinking like, okay, this is it.

I've got a chance.

There's a temple in.

Luxe or Egypt, and maybe you've seen it like on

shows or something, and there's these giant pillars that used

to have a huge roof on it. There's like this hall,

it's the hypostyle at Hypostyle Hall or something. But these

giant pillars there, I'm telling you, they're like this big

a round. They're all carved with hieroglyphics, and I can

almost reach between the pillars. Right, So you had was

this these clusters of pillars and it's just really kind

of mystical. There would have been torches hanging and kind

of walking around, but you know, so you'd have aisles,

but then the pillars. There'd be rows of pillars and

I could almost, not quite but almost reach them. And

when I was in there, I was thinking, this is

what Sampson.

Right.

So there was a big probably an arch or some

kind of a big open space between the clusters of pillars.

But if you had been able to get by either

set of these clusters of pillars. If you get between

two of them, knock them down, it probably would have

called caused a cascading thing. So when I was in there,

I thought, oh, I bet that's very similar to you know,

just a little bit closer, and a big.

Guy could have well he could have touched a big guy, right, yeah.

What if he was six ' six right, right, and

he had an eighty inch wing span instead of seventy

one inch wing span or whatever, he probably could have

done it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is a lot of strength, by

the way. Yeah, yeah, So you know, just to be

stationary and pushed like that. Well, you know, here's another

thing in here, and that is uh the people at Dagon.

Wasn't Dagon. Uh you know what I started speaking before

I realized.

Yeah, Dagon was a wasn't But no, this I am right.

Isn't Dagon the one where you sacrifice children?

I know?

Oh that was Molk, Yeah it was Dagummaya. Dagon was

often depicted as a fish or as grain or as

like a fish animal kind of a mix.

Yeah.

Uh, and he was a fertility and agriculture kind of

a god.

Okay, well, I'll tell you what. I definitely think that

Samson is a great character. He's probably the closest thing

that we have to an actual superhero in the Bible

because he was blessed with super strength, right. Uh. And

yet it's kind of sad when we get to the

end of his life looking at it.

So there's a really powerful note. I think we can

end with this.

There's a couple of notes about Samson in the Life

Application Study. Bible says Samson the Mighty Warrior became a slave.

Rather than kill him, the Philistines preferred to humiliate him

by gouging out his eyes and making him grind grain.

Samson now had plenty of time to wonder if Delilah's

charms were worth spending the rest of his life in humiliation.

That's rough, Yeah, that is rough. Although God did not

completely abandon Samson, he did allow Samson's decisions to stand,

and the consequences of his decision followed.

Naturally.

We may choose to be close to God or to

go our own way, but there are consequences resulting from

our choice. And Samson didn't choose to be captured, but

he chose to be with Delilah. And he could not

escape the consequences of his decision, so blind didn't without

stringth Sampson was taken to Gaza, where he would spend

the rest of his short life. Gazza was one of

the five capitals of Philistines, known for its many wells.

Goza was also a vital stop along the way along

a great caravan route that connected Egypt to the south

with Aram to the north. If Philistines probably showed off

their prize captive, right, so this would have been one

of those bring him out, showing him off to many

dignitaries passing through. And it's interesting because Gaza is where

Samson had demonstrated strength by tearing up the things right,

and God brought him back there and said, okay, you

always took all the credit. So in the place where

he took all the credit, now he's finally giving credit

to God at the end. And so there's something special

about that. There's a redemptive component. Even as God allowed

the consequences of his decisions to stand, God still allowed

him to have an impact and do some of what

God had designed him to do.

Okay, So I guess that part of the sermon is

is never too late, right, never too late. Do something

for God today, Yes, even with a life wasted supposedly

writing air quotes.

Yeah.

So okay, well that is our time, so we will

see you next time, hopefully on the Bible.

Guys,