Dr. Manny Arango (0:00)

Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey family. We used church candy for our new church plant the Garden, and the response blew me and my team away. At our new church plant the Garden, we ran simple invite ads through none other than church candy, and hundreds of people responded. Seriously. People who had never even heard of us, who had never met me or heard me preach. They saw an ad on Facebook or Instagram. They showed up to a launch party or launch team training. Some of them have joined our team. Here's the best part. A good amount of them have started giving and tithing, which means the ads have paid for themselves. Our church plant is growing, and it's because we chose the right partner. We didn't have to figure out marketing strategies or spend hours tinkering with ad settings. Church candy handled it all and it worked. You might not be planting a church, but if you're a pastor who wants to see more new faces on Sunday. And by the way, I've never met a pastor who doesn't want to see more new faces on Sunday. It's time to check them out. How about you go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a discovery call, Let their team show you what's possible when the right people hear about your church. We've got the strongest man in the Bible today. We got Samson. Really, really interesting character. Judges 13 to 16. I gotta dive right in because we got a lot of content to cover. Samson is a massive figure. He is absolutely the worst judge in the entire book agendas. He's got a lot of might, not a lot of morals. This dude is a terrible judge. I mean, doesn't do a lick of leading that leads. Nobody does. No leading. At least with Jephthah, he led a group of scoundrels. You know, like the Bible lets us know, hey, man, you know, gift come without repentance. He was leading scoundrels, you know, but at least he was leading Samson can't even lead himself. He can't even lead scoundrels. He leads nobody. He doesn't lead Israel. He. I mean, the dude is a total and absolute failure. So let's start with the top of the story. The context clue is this is the worst judge. And then after today's content, we're going to get even worse stories. But this is the worst it's going to get for the actual judges. That's our context. A lot of nerdy nuggets for the day. Okay, here we go. Samson's name is actually a Canaanite name, so this is already really bad. When. But his parents are Israelites. They are so enmeshed into Canaanite culture that his name actually means Boy of the Sun. And obviously, in most pagan cultures, the sun is a God. So they are so pagan that they name their son after the son. Boy of the Sun. He had a hippie name before there were even hippies. God's not in his name. You know. You know when you hear a Jewish name because it ends with L, right? Like J. L, Samuel Emmanuel. Or it starts with L like Elijah or Elisha or Eliab. Right? Like, it either ends with L or starts with L because L is the word for God. Nope. This man's name is Boy of the Sun. So the failure of Samson's life and leadership begins with the failure of Samson's parents. An angel of the Lord appears to the mom, tells the mom that the boy needs to be a Nazarite, no razor on his head, dedicated to God from the womb, that he'll deliver the people of Israel from the hands of the Philistines. No wine, no fermented drink, so on and so forth. The woman goes to her husband and tell him, like, I need you to hear here what Samson's mother says. She does not say that an angel spoke to her. She says, a man of God came to me. He looked like an angel, very awesome. I didn't ask where he came from, and he didn't tell me his name. But he said to me, you will become pregnant, have a son now, then drink. No wine, no fermented drink, don't eat anything unclean. Because the boy will be a Nazarite of God from the womb until the day of his death. The dad. Praise the Lord. Pardon your servant, Lord, I beg you. Let the man of God you sent come back to teach us how to bring up the boy. Because the mom doesn't know what she's talking about. She can't even repeat back what the angel said. God heard. Manoah, the father, the angel of the Lord, came again to the woman while she was out in the field. But her husband, Manoah, was not with her. The woman heard to tell her husband, he's here, the man who appeared to me the other day. Manoah got up and followed him. When he came to the man, he said, are you the man who talked to my wife? I am. So Manoah asked him, when your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule? This is a great question. Fantastic question. What is to be the rule that governs the boy's life and work? Phenomenal question. Here in verse 12, the angel of the Lord answered, your wife must do all I have told her. Crickets. Crickets. Like I'm not repeating myself. Your wife needs to do everything I told her the other day. She must not eat anything that comes with a grapevine, Nor drink any wine or fermented drink, Nor eat anything unclean. She must do everything I have commanded her. No added clarity here. You know why? Because they should already know. Because the angel said, Nazarite. But do these parents know what Nazarites are? Probably not in, given Samson's activity. It's pretty clear that Samson doesn't know what a Nazarite is. Because Samson breaks his Nazarite vow all the time. So now they try to get the angel to eat some stuff. I love this verse 17. Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the lord, what is your name? So that we may honor you when the word comes true. The angel replied, why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding. This angel does not want to deal with these people. Okay. Then Manoah took a young goat together with the grain offering and sacrifice it on a rock to the Lord. And the Lord made an amazing thing. While Manoah and his wife watched as the flame blazed up from from the altar toward heaven. The angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah's wife fell with their faces to the ground. When the angel of the lord did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the Lord. It takes this long for them to realize who or what is talking to them. We are doomed to die. He said to his wife, we have seen God. But his wife answered, if the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hand. Nor shown us all these things or now or now told us this. The woman gave birth to a boy, named him Shim Sham Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him. And the spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he was in Manehadan. Okay, so these parents are a problem. They. They don't know how to raise their son in the fear and the admonition of the Lord. And we're continuing to get a downward spiral. So at least with this story, we get a call from God. Okay, With Jephthah, there's zero call from the Lord. At least with Samson, God calls his parents, God blesses them, does a miraculous birth, but now he's off trying to marry a Philistine woman. At the top of chapter 14, and here's where it says verse 5. Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and his mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring towards him. Wait a second. Imagine if you know. Let's say you live in the Dallas DFW area and you recognize me and I'm in the parking lot at a strip club. You wouldn't necessarily accuse me of anything, but you'd probably be suspicious. You'd be like, now what is Pastor Mandy doing in the parking lot of that strip club? Now, it could be I got car trouble and it's the only place I could park. It could be that somebody in that strip club needs Jesus to save their life. Who knows what's happening? I'm not saying I've sinned, but strip clubs are a place I actively avoid. That is the truth. If you are a Nazarite, riddle me this, Samson. Why are you near a vineyard? You're a Nazarite. You can't drink alcohol. You can't have fermented drink. You can't have grapes. You can't have grape juice. You can't have nothing from the vine. You can't have anything that is made in a vineyard. Why are you near vineyards? Suddenly a young lion came roaring at him. Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him, so that he tore the lion apart. Great. Now, sometime later, he went back to marry the girl. By the way, I love this He. He wants to marry the girl. Verse 7. Then he went down and talked to the woman, and he liked her. I'm glad he decided to marry her before even liking her. Very, very interesting. Turn aside to look at the lion's carcass, and he saw a swarm of bees and some honey. He scooped out the honey with his hands and ate as he went along. When he rejoined his parents, he gave them some, and they too ate. This is Genesis 3. He gave them some, and they too ate. This is Adam and Eve. She ate and gave him some, and he ate too. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion's carcass. Why didn't he tell them? He didn't tell them because he's not supposed to eat anything that comes from a dead carcass. He's a Nazarite. Already my man's in a vineyard. He's eating stuff that comes from a dead animal. This is not good. Now verse 10. The Father went down to see the woman. And there Samson held a feast. Drinking. When the Bible says feast, that means drinking. By the way. There is no feast in the Old Testament where alcohol is not a part of it. When the people saw him, they chose 30 men to be his companions. So this Samson don't even got friends. Okay? So he needs the Philistines to give him some companions for his wedding. The wedding is an absolute disaster. He tells a riddle. The Philistines can't figure out the riddle. So they go to his soon to be wife, his fiance, and they're getting her to get the answer to the riddle. It says this. On the seventh day, Samson finally told her because she continued to press him. She in turn explained the riddle to her people. This is a preview of things to come. In the exact same way that Delilah is able to extract information from Samson, this first wife is extracting information from Samson. They understand the riddle. And what is Samson's response? If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle. So the man calls his wife a heifer. On their wedding day, great spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. He went down to ashkelon, struck down 30 of their men, stripped them of everything and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. Burning with anger, he returned to his father's home. And Samson's wife was given to one of his companions who had attended him at the feast. Again, this is a companion that Samson doesn't even know. I need you to see everything so far. Okay? Two whole chapters of the Bible have gone by. Samson has not accomplished anything for God. There's nothing that has been done for the Lord or for God's honor or to free the people of Israel or to advance the cause of the Israelites in the Philistines relationship with each other. No strategic battles, no strategic people being targeted. Nothing. Samson has done nothing for God. This man has only followed his eyes, his lust, his anger and his appetite. That is all this man has done. Chapter 15. Now he's going to go back for his wife. The dad is going to be shocked. What do you. What do you mean you're going to your wife's room? Her father wouldn't let her go in. I was so sure you hated her that I gave her to your companion. Isn't her younger sister more attractive than her, though? This is twisted. This is so twisted. Okay, so now Samson's pissed. Get this. This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines. I will really harm them. Again, this is only personal for Samson. There's nothing about this that is, I dare say, professional that feels like a military strategy. Nope, just, oh, I'm angry. So let me go ahead, be angry. And now I have a right. Okay, so he ties foxes together and burns up all their grains. He takes fox tails, ties them together and sticks torches in between them and ruins all their grain. So what do the Philistines do? They burn his wife and her dad. Next. Verse 6. So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death. Samson said to them, since you acted like this, I swear that I won't stop until I get my revenge on you. He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the Rock of Etam. Just revenge. This. This dude's just. Imagine just like a military guy, just out here just doing his own thing. No commanding officer, no leadership, no responsibility. Just a rogue anointed person. This is the most dangerous combination. A rogue anointed person. It's why as someone who genuinely believes that God has anointed me and gifted me, I have fought to stay submitted under godly leadership. Because the most dangerous thing to be is a rogue anointed person. Just out here walking, not leading anybody. Because no one's following you. No one can follow you. There's no vision, there's no strategy. Just following your flesh, following your desires, acting in vengeance, acting in anger. Now he's trying to partner with men from Judah. He gets a fresh jawbone of a donkey. Verse 15. He grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. Again, he's not supposed to touch dead things. He is. And he just. He kills a thousand men by himself. With a jawbone of an animal. He threw away the jawbone, now he's thirsty, cries out to the lord, you have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? God opened up a place for him to drink. Okay, get this. Samson led Israel for 20 years in the days of the Philistines. Now it's going to tell us how he dies. All of chapter 16 is just dedicated to how this man dies. One day Samson went to Gaza where he saw a prostitute. So now he's sleeping with prostitutes. This is just terrible, man. Gaza is also Philistine territory. Okay, so that means that the prostitute is a Philistine. Okay? Every woman he's been involved with has been a pagan, has been a Philistine. They encamp around Gaza to try to capture him. They're not able to. Why? Because Samson takes the city gate. He lifts it out of the ground and walks miles with it. And here's what's really cool. I researched this and found this out. That the gates are synonymous with strength and authority. That it's authority because that's where cases are judged. Your city elders or your town elders would judge at the gates because gates are the place of authority, judicial authority, and they're a place of strength. When a city's being besieged, you make sure that, that there's strength where at the gates, because that's where it's going to get attacked. So when Jesus says that the gates of hell won't be able to prevail, what it's saying is that the strength and the authority of Satan will not be able to overshadow or overpower the church. Now he meets a woman by the name of Delilah. The rules of the Philistines went to her and said, if you can get him to tell you the secret to his strength, will each give you 1100 shekels of silver. Now there are five rulers of the Philistines. 1100 shekels of silver by itself is a life changing money, like millions of dollars, like hitting the lottery. She's going to get 1100 shekels of silver times 5. Now the text says that Samson loves her. It never says that she loves him. She may be a prostitute, we don't know. We obviously know that Samson frequents prostitutes. And now we have this whole situation with Delilah. Is Samson walking according to purpose? Is he doing anything intentionally? Is he leading anybody? Is he, does he have any followers? No, he's just doing his own thing. He is the absolute, one worst judge. Here's another interesting thing. The text never says that his hair is the source of his strength. The text actually never says that. The text just said that it's a sign of the Nazarite vow to not ever shave your hair. The text doesn't say that his strength resides in his hair, which shows you how much Samson just does not know. I would say that his hair is like my wedding ring. Now there's times when me and my wife may argue, we may disagree, but there's never been a time where I've taken off my wedding ring and threw it at her and been like, I'm done with this. Okay? The reason that I think the Lord departs from Samson when Samson cuts his hair off is because it's the equivalent of me taking off my wedding ring and throwing it at my wife in the middle of an argument and saying, I'm tired of this. It is a sign. It's a symbol that carries a lot of weight. And so the hair is not where his strength is. Where has his strength always come from? Yahweh, the spirit of the Lord would come upon him. The Lord. And when the Bible says that his hair gets cut off, it doesn't say that his strength leaves him. It says that the Lord leaves him. So the secret to his strength was not his hair. It was the Lord. Now, believing that hair could give you strength is a very, very, very pagan worldview. That's not very Christian or Judeo Christian or biblical. What would be a very Judeo Christian or biblical worldview is that God gives power. So God can empower a staff man. God can empower the Urim and the Thummim. God can empower anything. But God doesn't need any of these things. And our focus isn't really on the thing that God uses or empowers, but our focus is on the one who does the empowering. God is the one that does the empowering. So the answer to the question, what is the secret to your strength? Should have been Yahweh. The Lord, my God. God is the secret to my strength. But because Samson doesn't even know God, he's like, oh, my hair. And I think that God honors what we actually think sometimes. And so because the hair is such a synonymous sign of being a Nazarite, I think God goes, yeah, that's the last straw. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold, literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books a Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we Wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. Okay. Verse 28, last one of the last verses that we get. Then Samson prayed to the Lord. Get this prayer he's got. Has his eyes gouged out? He's in the temple of Dagon. He's a court jester. Then Samson prayed to the Lord. Sovereign Lord, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines from my two eyes. He's still back at revenge. There is no God. Let me display your glory, God. Let me finally fulfill my purpose. Nope. God, let me get revenge on my two eyes. And what happens? The Lord gives him strength. It doesn't say that his hair had fully grown back. Act. The only thing that we get is jump up six verses to verse 22. But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. So his hair is not the source of his strength. God had always been the source of his strength. He killed more when he died than when he lived. Then his brothers didn't even know he had brothers. Then his brothers and his father's whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him in the tomb of Manoah, his father. He had led Israel 20 years. And again, just like the prior cycle. No rest. Israel doesn't experience any rest as a result of Samson being the leader. And if anything, Samson being from the tribe of Dan actually, and failing to lead in any real capacity is what I would believe is what's going to snowball into the next section of the Book of Judges. All right, this closes the section of the Book of Judges also. Sorry. Let me give a timeless truth. Just because God uses someone doesn't mean God endorses them. Just because God uses people does not mean that God approves of how they live their life. God will use anybody. First Corinthians, chapter 9, verse 27, says this. This is what Paul writes. I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I preach to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. God will let people preach even if they're disqualified and even if they've disqualified themselves. So God's use of people is not his endorsement of people. God uses Nebuchadnezzar. God uses wicked people all the time. Just because God uses people doesn't mean he endorses people. And Samson is a clear failure of leadership. All right, this is the end of this whole section of the book. In the next five chapters. We're going to get into two stories that just, I mean, display how sad and how morally corrupt the nation of Israel had become. And we'll get there as we embark on our reading tomorrow. So we're turning the corner out of the cycle of the judges and into two stories that are probably the most depressing stories in all the Bible. We'll read them together tomorrow. I love you guys. I'm proud of you. I'll see you right here for day 146 tomorrow. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebibledepartment. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.