 All right, we're back in the book of Judges this evening, at Judges chapter 15, if you'll turn there with me. Judges chapter 15. And tonight we're gonna look at verses one through 20. I think we'll get through this chapter. This text really does go together. So we'll work through these verses. We're in narrative, Old Testament narrative now, so things tend to move along a bit in the book. So we're gonna cover chapter 15 verses one through 20. Sermon's entitled, no one can restrain his hand. Speaking of God Almighty in his sovereign power over all things whatsoever that come to pass, no one can restrain his hand. And we see that exemplified here in the example of Samson and the circumstances surrounding Samson's deliverance of the children of Israel, and especially tonight in Judges chapter 15. So let's read the text together and we'll pray and consider God's word. Judges chapter 15, beginning in verse one. After a while, in the time of the wheat harvest, it happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat and he said, let me go into my wife, into her room. But her father would not permit him to go in. Her father said, I really thought you thoroughly hated her. Therefore I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please take her instead. And Samson said to them, this time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harmed them. And Samson went and caught 300 foxes and he took torches, turned the fox's tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. When he'd set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, then burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and the olive groves. Then the Philistines said, who has done this? And they answered Samson, the son-in-law of the Tim Knight because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion. So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. Samson said to them, since you would do a thing like this, I will surely take revenge on you and after that I will cease. So he attacked them, hip and thigh, with a great slaughter. Then he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Itam. Now the Philistines went up and camped in Judah and deployed themselves against Lehi. And the men of Judah said, why have you come up against us? So they answered, we have come up to arrest Samson to do to him as he is done to us. Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Itam and said to Samson, do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? What is this you have done to us? And he said to them, as they did to me, so I have done to them. But they said to him, we have come down to arrest you that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves. So they spoke to him saying, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand, but we will surely not kill you. And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock. When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has burned with fire and his bonds broke loose from his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it and killed a thousand men with it. And Samson said, with the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps with the jawbone of a donkey, I've slain a thousand men. And so it was when he finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone from his hand and called that place Ramath Lehi. Then he became very thirsty. So he cried out to the Lord instead, you have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised. So God split the hollow place that is in Lehi and water came out and he drank and his spirit returned and he revived. Therefore he called its name and Hakkor, which is in Lehi to this day. And he judged Israel 20 years in the days of the Philistines. This is the word of God, amen. Amen, let's pray and then we'll consider our texts together tonight. Father in heaven, thank you for your word. Lord, we acknowledge it as the very word of the living God. Thank you, Lord, that you've revealed yourself to us in these ways. And we know this is not the testimony of mere men. It's ultimate author is the spirit of God and we are grateful, Lord, that you've chosen to reveal yourself in these ways. Help us to learn from these texts. Help us to take those lessons to heart. Help us to turn to you in faith and live for you more fervently. And I pray, Lord, as always, that if there's anyone here unconverted, Lord, that you would do a saving work in their heart, Lord, that you would turn them from sin to the savior that they might be saved. We love you, we thank you for the blessings that you've poured out on this church. Thank you for those that were baptized today. I'm just so grateful to you, Lord, for the work that you've done here, that you continue to do. I pray, Lord, please continue to glorify your own name in continuing that work among us. And may the Lord Jesus Christ, may his name be blessed. We love you, we thank you for this time together in Jesus' name. Amen. No one can restrain his hand, Judges 15 verses one through 20. The title of our sermon, if you recognize those words, comes from the words of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter four. And if you remember the account of Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel, he says, God does according to his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, no one can restrain his hand or say to him, what have you done? Well, if you remember Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar came face to face with that reality. No one restrains God's hand. God does whatever he pleases in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. God almighty is sovereign. And on top of that, to back up divine sovereignty, you have divine omnipotence. And then God has the power to back up that sovereignty and to do whatever he pleases. God does it work in all circumstances to achieve his ends. God has decreed all things whatsoever that come to pass. He does, he works everything, all things out according to the counsel of his own will and in power, God works through circumstances to bring about those ends. Now for the believer, that's very, very comforting because God is good and God is loving toward us in Christ. He works all things together for our good in Christ Jesus. For those outside of Christ, that should be a terrifying thought. There is no escape from a living God. Our God is a consuming fire. God is at work in circumstances to accomplish our ends. I was thinking about it this morning as we were spending time in 2 Peter. Peter says in chapter three, that in the last days, scoffers are gonna come mocking, walking according to their own lusts saying, where's the promise of his coming, right? Since the beginning, since the creation, everything's happened as it always has happened and they forget the flood that God judged the world in a global deluge killing the wicked, right? And delivering his own purposes, accomplishing his own ends. God is at work and God will achieve the purposes that he has determined. Isaiah 46, God is the one who declares the end from the beginning. He doesn't merely see the ends from the beginning, he declares them from the beginning. Do you see? Arminianism. He declares the ends from the beginning. From ancient times, he declares the things that are not yet done saying, my counsel shall stand. What are the things that are not yet done? His counsel that will stand. Do you see? It's not just that he foresees those things that will come to pass. He declares everything that will come to pass. My counsel shall stand. I will do all my pleasure. It calls a bird of prey from the east. The man who executes his counsel from a far country. God says, indeed I have spoken it. I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it. I also will do it. God is not slack concerning his promises. God will bring about all that he has determined. He'll bring about the righteousness and the goodness and the blessedness that he has promised to his people. And he will bring about the eternal torment of the wicked. God will do all that he has determined to do. It is a matter for us in this life to determine which side of that you're going to be on. Will you serve the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you be forgiven of your sins? Will you be made right, justified before a holy God and go to heaven and have eternal life? Or will you live for yourself in this life, live for your sin in this life and perish eternally in hell? God offers to you the free gift, the free offer of the gospel for you to turn to Christ from sin, to saving faith in him, so that you won't perish. So we come to our text in Judges 15 this evening. God has determined judgment against the Philistines and he has determined deliverance for his people, Israel. And those two determinations, those two decrees, God is going to bring about in his power as he executes his divine will. He has determined to judge the Philistines and deliver his people through one man. And the man who is appointed is the man, Samson. So God then is at work through Samson's circumstances. Doesn't always look like that's the case. Sometimes it looks like Samson is operating entirely according to his own desires, but don't forget God is behind the scenes as it were manipulating, just overwhelming those circumstances with his own sovereignty, working them all out for his ends and no one can restrain his hand. What began as a simple lust story, I mean love story, in Timna, when Samson sees a Philistine girl, those simple circumstances have now set on fire, a burning fuse connecting a series of sovereign explosions, if you will, events that will bring about God's decreed ends. And there's simply no end to this daisy chain of explosions until his ends are accomplished and victory is won. Chapter 14, verse four sets the stage for that. When there the Bible says that God had determined to move against the Philistines. God moving against the Philistines, he will deliver his people Israel. So then events are now set in motion and no one can restrain God's hand. Each time it appears as though things will settle down and go back to normal, right? Samson wins a great victory. It looks like maybe the dust is going to settle, everything's gonna go back to normal. No, because God's not done yet. Things don't go back to normal and something sets off another chain reaction. There's another explosion leading to another explosion leading to another explosion before God finally brings about the ultimate victory. The Philistines do what the Philistines are accustomed to doing. Samson does what Samson is accustomed to doing. Philistines act, Samson reacts. It sets off a firestorm that results in the death of more and more and more Philistines and eventually the deliverance of God's people. The Lord has sovereignly at work in Samson's circumstances to upset the status quo. The upset, the all too friendly relationship as it were between the subservient Israelite and their Philistine oppressors. So in chapter 14, Samson takes a Philistine wife for himself in the seven day drunken fest that follows. Samson decides to have some fun at the Philistines expense and so he poses a riddle that certainly no one could decipher. However, the Philistine young men threatened Samson's wife. They plow with his heifer as Samson says and Samson is forced to pay up. However, Samson decides to pay up at the expense of the Philistines and kills 30 of them at Ashkelon. So then chapter 14 ends then with Samson returning to his father's house. You think the dust is settling and everything's gonna go back to normal, leaving the Philistines, leaving his new Philistine bride behind but the victory is far from complete. The promised deliverance is far from fulfillment. Unless we think that the account of Samson, the savior has been concluded further action, a sequel so to speak is foreshadowed at the very end the closing statement of chapter 14 verse 20 and Samson's wife was given to his companion who had been his best man. That is a foreboding statement as we'll see tonight. So that will be the continuing cycle now. It will continue to cycle until the Lord has done all his decreed will. It's a pattern that we're going to see followed as we work through chapter 15. Samson will deal a decisive blow against the Philistines. The Philistines will do something incredibly ungodly. Samson will react responding in kind and this pattern will ramp up and ramp up until the iron grip of the Philistines is finally broken and Samson has finally died. On the surface, Samson is driven by his lust. He responds emotionally, right? Responds according to his fleshly desires. He reacts in anger. He's moved along by the flesh, serving his own self-interest. He's after his own agenda and there's no indication at all given in the text that Samson is acting in faith. He's just not at this point. When all the while, it is God who is at work through appointed means and through secondary causes to bring about his ultimate will, which is to judge his enemies and deliver his people. So thinking about that, who's the real hero of the story? Seems obvious. God is the real hero of the story, right? It's not Samson. It's amazing to me. We think about Hebrews chapter 11 and Samson being in the Hall of Faith. As we've said before, Hebrews chapter 11 is more about God, our great God doing great things through the faith of weak and fallible men, right? And here we see an example of that. Samson may be physically strong and he is. It's like an ox. Samson may be physically strong, but he is incredibly weak, like deplorably weak. In our account, who is the one who is strong? God is the one who is strong, right? So we pick back up then in chapter 15 verse one. Samson may have gone back to his father's house, but Samson never intended to call off the marriage. And so after some time goes by, Samson begins to remember his heifer. He begins to remember his Philistine Philly and it's spring now, love is in the air. It's the month of May. It's after the wheat harvest, right? And Samson wants his wife back. Now Samson is obviously a romantic, this Samson. Samson stops by the store, picks up a young goat. Back in the day, we would have bought a box of chocolates. So I remember, I wanna say I was in maybe second grade. Had this girl that I was interested in. She lived a couple of streets over, bought a box of chocolates. The difficulty was I had to get from my house to her house with this box of chocolates. By the time I got to her house, about half those chocolates were already eaten, right? I was a romantic, right? This would be the old testament equivalent of a box of chocolates, right? Picks up a young goat, tucks a young goat under his arm and he heads to her father's house in Timna, verse one. After a while, in the time of wheat harvest, it happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat. And he said to her father, let me go into my wife, into her room. Right, we know what he means by that. Her father would not permit him to go in. There's a problem. Samson is there to, as Paul would later say in 1 Corinthians chapter seven, Samson is there to have his own wife, all right? His father now finds himself in a really serious predicament. He knows what Samson is capable of. So her father said in verse two, I really thought that you thoroughly hated her. Therefore I gave her to your companion. In other words, Samson, listen, you abandoned her. I had no reason to think that you would ever be back. I really thought that you hated her. So I made sure that my daughter would be cared for and I gave her to your buddy. But listen, I wanna take some responsibility for what's happened, for what I've done. Is not her, look at verse two, is not her younger sister better than she? Is she not better looking than her older sister? Please take her instead. Now that's what a dad might have thought customary in those days to do, to take care of the older daughter and marry off the younger daughter to boot. Well, Samson is not appeased. Verse three, Samson said to them, this time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harm them. Samson has vengeance in mind, all right? He's going to take revenge. And this is the next in a series of explosions, right? It started with the explosion at Ashkelon, killing 30 men. And now this begins the next in a series of explosions. Verse four, Samson went out and caught 300 foxes. Now the word used there for foxes is a word that is used for both foxes and jackals. And jackals like a small dog. And there were many jackals in the ancient Near East at this time. Apparently there were lots of them around, not many foxes, foxes were more isolated. So the thought is, is that these were jackals that were very common at the time. Either way you look at it, that's a lot of jackals, right? It's a lot, 300 jackals. He took torches. He turned the foxes tail to tail and he put a torch between each pair of tails. When he set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain as well as the vineyards and olive groves. So you take a fox and you tie a torch to a single fox's tail. As you do, he runs in a straight line through the field, probably snuffing out the torches as he runs. May not do that much damage. So Samson, you know, pretty shrewd guy here, he takes two of them, ties their tails together, puts a torch between their tails. What do you get when you release two foxes with a torch between their tails? You get chaos, right? You get them running back and forth all over the place creating chaos. It's exactly what Samson wanted. Now, we read this and we say, wow, a lot of foxes and how did this all happen? This is a miraculous provision of jackals, I believe, right? And if you think about it, it's perfectly consistent with what God has already done. God empowers Samson by his spirit and Samson tears a lion like it's a young goat, right? Just tears it apart. Samson goes down and the power of the spirit kills 30 Philistines himself at Ashkelon. Ropes come off Samson's hands. His bindings come off like they're melted, right? Like takes no strength at all for Samson to break loose of his bonds. Samson kills 1,000 men with a jawbone of a donkey. Right, all of this, right? You think about the way that God is working through these circumstances. It's nothing for God to provide 300 jackals that Samson can then use to obliterate the Philistine economy here. So Samson, though, even though God is at work, Samson is acting in his own self-interest. He's acting in his own anger. This is for his own vengeance. But we have to remember, is Samson really doing all his own will? Samson is also accomplishing the will of another, the one who is sovereignly superseding over all these circumstances. Now, the Philistines, like many cultures at that time, was an agrarian society. It was the time of the grain harvest, and this standing grain, this action on the part of Samson would have crippled them, would have crippled the local economy, so to speak, would have destroyed any hope of grain stores for that year. All their hard work the year's hopes would have been utterly destroyed. Not only went through the grain fields, but also destroyed vineyards and olive groves. This caused serious damage. As you might expect, 300 jackals tied tail to tail with torches between their tails. But also, so he dealt a serious blow to the Philistines, destroying their crops. But also, who is the God Little G of the Philistines? The God Little G of the Philistines was Dagon. It was Dagon. Dagon was a crop fertility God. They trusted Dagon to bring in their crops and to provide a harvest. So this was also, it was a frontal assault against their pagan idol. Now, what does that sound like? Reminds me of Moses in Egypt, right? Moses is in Egypt. He's telling Pharaoh, let my people go. And what does God do? God sends plague after plague after plague. Could God have delivered the Israelites out of Egypt with one swipe of his pen, so to speak, with one utterance from his mouth? Yes, God chose not to do that. He decided, decreed to send 10 plagues upon the Egyptians, each plague putting down, showing to be worthless each of their gods related to those plagues. This is the same kind of thing here. This is an assault on their paganism, on their idolatry, and on their Dagon worship. Well, if you can imagine, as you can imagine, the Philistines are fired up as a result of this. They may have decided that it would be easier to take their revenge now on Samson's father-in-law rather than going after Samson himself. So that's exactly what they do. Angered by the destruction of their crops, the Philistines blame the whole event on the provocation of the father-in-law. Look at verse six. So the Philistines then said, who's done this? They answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion. So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. This is what Philistines do. The very end that she was trying to avoid by pleading with Samson back in chapter 14 to answer his riddle for her so that they didn't burn her and her father with fire ironically becomes her very end in chapter 15. No one escapes the justice of God. It's not accidental that that takes place. Only those who flee to Christ are safe. You're not safe any other way. And be sure God's decreed will will come to pass. The only safety we have is in Jesus Christ. There's just simply no way that she's going to avoid what God had determined would happen. You see how this action, right? This circumstance emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the sovereign will of God. He's at work through the circumstances to bring about his ends. It's just interesting how her end comes in verse six. Verse seven, Samson then said to them, since you would do a thing like this, I will surely take revenge on you and after that I will cease. It just continues to ramp up, doesn't it? One event leads to another event. The dominoes keep falling. And so he attacked them. Verse eight, hip and thigh. It's likely a wrestling term for a takedown, right? He attacked them, hip and thigh, attacked them thoroughly with a great slaughter. Then, not really on the run, maybe just wanting to stop, he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Itam. Maybe Samson was tired. He just wanted to take a rest. But Samson may think that that ends it. But the fuse that has been lit continues to burn. The dominoes continue to fall. The Philistines continue to act. Samson continues to react entirely for himself and God's will is ultimately done. Will Samson cease? No, he won't. Proximately because the Philistines won't cease. But ultimately it's because God's will is not yet accomplished. God isn't done with Samson yet. So verse nine, the Philistines then went up. They encamped in Judah. They deployed themselves against Lehi and the men of Judah said, why have you come up against us? So they answered, we've come up to arrest Samson to do to him as he is done to us. Sounds like a bunch of elementary school kids, doesn't it? Well, he did that. So then I did it, but he did it. If he's gonna do that, then I'm gonna do it, right? That's the way that essentially is working out here. Then verse 11, 3,000 men of Judah. 3,000 men of Judah. Judah is the tribe that is often the first to go into battle. Who shall I send? Send Judah, right? Judah is a tribe full of or has been traditionally full of warriors. We have 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the Rock of Etaim to join Samson in the fight against the Philistines and to win a great deliverance. It's amazing, isn't it? What do 3,000 men of Judah gather together at the Rock of Etaim to do? To have a chat with Samson. It's absolutely amazing, isn't it? They said to Samson, do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Listen, Samson, you're causing trouble for us. Don't get in the way here. What is this you've done to us? And he said to them, as they did to me, so I have done to them. Right, there's a slight distortion going on here of the golden rule. Do unto others as they have done to you. No, that's not it. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right? Samson and the Philistines, the Philistines, he's done to us as he's done to us, so we'll do to him. Samson says as they did to me, so I have done to them. The vicious cycle continues. Who ultimately wins? Ultimately, God is the one who wins, right? God is gonna ultimately win. You hear that sometimes in marriage counseling. Well, if he's gonna act that way, then that's why I did, you know, I did that because he did. Who should win in that dispute? God should win in that dispute also, right? God should win in that dispute also. What's interesting here is the response on the part of Judah. Judah doesn't gather 3,000 men to go and fight the Philistines. Judah gathers 3,000 men to go and have a chat with Samson. They're so complacent. Do you see? In their relationship with their oppressors, they're rendered weak and feckless. This is really cowardly, isn't it? Got 3,000 men of Judah. Samson isn't helping to keep the status quo. Samson is upsetting the apple cart, so they're here upset with Samson. They have been absorbed into Philistine culture, haven't they? No will to fight. It reminds me of professing so-called Christians who, for example, chide you for preaching the truth to lost sinners. Wait, hey, hey, what are you doing? What are you guys out here doing in the park? You see how offensive this is? How you're turning people off, right? All kinds of excuses. And they're taking the side of this lost world against the preaching of God's word. They are feckless, cowards, and don't listen to that. They've made themselves, friends of this world are enemies of God. Do you see? They've been absorbed in the Philistine culture, absorbed in the Philistine culture. So absorbed by the world, they become friends with the world. Becoming friends with the world, they make themselves enemies of God. The professing church today has settled into such an easy and lazy peace with this world, hasn't it? Worldliness has infiltrated the church and the church is at ease having been absorbed into the Philistine culture that we live around here. They've signed a Gideonite treaty, the professing church today, pledging to uphold everything that they should hate. They are traitors to God, traitors to the gospel. Their God is their belly. They don't want to upset the apple cart, right? Listen, we just need to go along to get along. Christianity's fine. Just keep it in the four walls of your church as long as it doesn't make it out, right? We're okay as long as you do that stuff in private. We can't give in to that nonsense, that unbiblical thinking, that mentality. Do you not know, Samson, that the Philistines rule over us? Think about what you're doing. The Israelites are content in their bondage. You see, deliverance is a threat to the empty, shallow, fake peace they're enjoying. I've thought often before that we ride a fine line of maybe enjoying at times a fake peace because we're not willing to take a stand or don't take stands where we need to take stands. We don't want to upset the apple cart. We don't want to make people angry or get people riled up for quote unquote, no good reason, right? We want to maintain the status quo. And sometimes as Christians, especially in this culture in which we find ourselves, sometimes those lines are difficult to discern, but we want to uphold, take a stand for righteousness and not compromise because of a fake, shallower, empty, so-called peace that we think we're enjoying. Dale Ralph Davis says they can forsake Yahweh instantly, but would not think of being faithless to the Philistines. That is a terrible, terrible position to be in. And this is Judah, formerly a brave, faith-filled tribe of warriors. What a pathetic state of affairs this is, isn't it? Judah still under responsibility to take the land. Judah, the tribes of Israel, still under a responsibility to take the promised land. A holy hatred for the enemies of God is the grace of God. A holy hatred for those things that God hates is the grace of God. When we begin to cool in our hatred of those things that God hates, it's not a good thing that demonstrates that we're being absorbed by Philistine culture. A holy hatred for all that that God hates is a grace of God. David says, Psalm 139, God's enemies speak against him wickedly, they take his name in vain, and David says, do I not hate them, oh Lord, who hate you? This is a man after God's own heart. A man after God's own heart says, do I not hate them, oh Lord, who hate you? Do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with a perfect hatred, I count them, consider them my enemies. We should despise that which God despises, and we must cultivate a hatred for those things that God hates. We do that from his word, right? From studying his word, meditating on his word. With God, we know that his hatred is not an emotional response. We've been studying The Doctrine of God in small groups in Sunday school. We know that God does not react emotionally, he is impassable, God is immutable, he does not change. This is, however, a settled disposition toward those who hate him. It is a covenantal distinction. Jacob I've loved, Esau I have hated. It means he will not show favor to Esau. There's a covenantal distinction between those whom he favors and those whom he does not. Those who treat God as an enemy will find God treating them the very same way. And God will destroy his enemies. We're going to see what God does to the Philistines by the hand of Samson. God knows how to dispatch his enemies. Turn to Christ, right? Turn to Christ. Don't persist in being an enemy of God. It won't get you anywhere good. For many, there's no conflict with the world because they've sold out to the world. They've simply sold out. Intolerance is the cardinal sin today. Confrontation is its red-headed stepchild when, scripturally, there must be a holy intolerance. There must be holy confrontation. If in the Christian life, if in the Christian life, you're not embattled, it's because you've already given up. You've already capitulated. You're being absorbed into Philistine culture. The Christian life is a battle. A battle with a flesh, a battle with your sin, a battle for holiness, right? It's a spiritual warfare. And if you've already given up, if you're not in the battle, you're like these weak, cowardly, feckless men of Judah. Don't have the willpower. Don't have the strength. Don't have the built-in desire. Don't have the means whereby to fight. They're more upset with Samson, upsetting the apple cart. Israel here is under the domination of the Philistines. That's what this looks like. Nevertheless, verse 12, so they said to Samson, we've come down to arrest you and we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, swear to me that you'll not kill me yourselves. So they spoke to him saying, no, but we will tie you securely, deliver you into their hand, we'll let them kill you, but we surely will not kill you. And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock. Well, when he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting out against him. You can imagine the exuberance of the Philistines. They've got Samson tied up. They're delivering the enemy and the Philistines are going to rush in and they're going to win a great victory, they think. They're going to kill Samson. Then, verse 14, the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire and his bonds broke loose from his hands. He found there a fresh jaw, notice it's a fresh jaw bone, a fresh jaw bone of a duck. He's about to break his Nazarite vow again. Nevertheless, he found a fresh jaw bone of a donkey. He reached out his hand and took it and killed a thousand men with it. Flesh still hanging off of it. The teeth still in it. Who's responsible for breaking the ropes? Spirit of God. Do you see? Who's responsible for ending the lives of those wicked Philistines? The spirit at work through Samson. Picks up the jaw bone of a donkey and with it kills a thousand men. Samson said, he's the poet now. He's a romantic. With the jaw bone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps with the jaw bone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men. Little different than the song of Deborah, isn't it? Remember that? God isn't even mentioned here. God isn't mentioned. Samson claims all the credit for himself, doesn't he? Amazing victory. Amazing victory, no recognition that it was God who won the victory and it was God who won the victory. Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. The Lord is going to break Samson. That breaking is coming. But the Lord accomplishes a great victory through this man. There's a word play in the Hebrew. The word for donkey in verse 16 and the word for heap are spelled the same. They're spelled the same. It might have been pronounced a little differently. Spelled the same and he's essentially calling them in verse 16 a piled up heap of donkeys. Right, it's a little crude. The rhyme then. With the jaw bone of a donkey, donkeys upon donkeys. With the jaw bone of a donkey, I have slain a thousand men. So it was verse 17 that when he finished speaking that he threw the jaw bone from his hand and called that place Ramath Lehi. Jawbone Hill. Jawbone Hill, that's a good biblical name for a son. Jawbone Hill. That's apparently not a reference to the geography of this place in verse 17, but a reference to the mound of Philistine corpses that Samson had piled up in that place. Then for the first time, Samson actually finally cries out to the Lord. Maybe Samson begins to realize that he actually needs the Lord. And so in verse 18, he became very thirsty. So he cried out to the Lord and said, you have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? His prayer sounds, in verse 18, sounds insolent, sounds demanding. Once again, he sounds self-serving, pandering to God for his own needs. No thanksgiving, no concern for the glory of God. And yet, what does God do? God answers the prayer of Samson. God is so gracious, so patient. God answers this prideful, self-serving donkey of a man. Verse 19, so then God split the hollow place that is in Lehi. Water came out and he drank. His spirit returned, he revived. Therefore, he called its name Enhakor, the spring of the caller, which is in Lehi today. He called, God answered. Interesting, even the spring of, not, it doesn't call the spring God provides. Doesn't call the spring God delivered or God won, calls it the spring of the one who calls. Even names the spring essentially, names it after himself. And he judged Israel, verse 20, 20 years in the days of the Philistines. No reference here to rest for the land. And notice verse 20, it was the days of the Philistines, not the days of Israel. What are we to think so far about this account? Samson is a fallen and sinful man. He's not the prototypical savior that we're looking for. Our author here puts all the warts out in plain sight and it's almost as if to say, God is the real hero. God doesn't only accomplish his ends through us, God accomplishes his ends in spite of us. And he will accomplish all his good pleasure. God accomplishes his ends even when we act like Samson. God accomplishes all his good pleasure even when we act like Philistines. When you act like Samson, when you act like Philistines though, if you're here, if you're his, then there is a breaking coming. There is a fall that is coming. If not, if you're not his, then you are his enemy and there is a judgment coming. God knows how to reserve the unjust for judgment and to deliver the righteous and God accomplishes all his good plans and purposes. Trust in the Lord, amen, amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, you give us every good reason to trust you completely, to entrust ourselves to you. I pray that we all, Lord, would do that in faith, would trust our great God and savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has delivered us from death, delivered us from sin, delivered us from the power of Satan, conveyed us into out of the kingdom of darkness, into the kingdom of light. And we praise you and thank you for that great deliverance that you've provided through the great savior, the one to whom Samson merely points. And we're grateful, Lord, for you condescending in mercy and grace to save and to deliver when we are so undeserving. I pray, Lord, that you'd help us to discern well the worldliness and godlessness of this age and this culture in which we live, that we might not find ourselves being absorbed into the culture as Judah was, and becoming feckless or cowardly compromisers, help us to stand strong in faith, to stand without compromising, to uphold your word, your truth in this evil and perverse generation, and help us to faithfully, Lord, preach the gospel that sinners might be converted to Christ. It's for his sake and in his name that we pray these things, amen.