Gooding, David: 18 - Contending for the Faith

Come now, gentlemen, to the study of the last major judge in the Book of Judges. The most famous, perhaps, and the best known of all the judges in the Book of Judges. Yet while he is perhaps the best known, our study of him this morning will be attended with a good deal of difficulty and some danger. His faults are so lurid and glaring, and his defeat so ignominious, that we might be in danger of subconsciously feeling that we are certainly better than he was. Danger of forgetting humility and congratulating ourselves on our superiority. Forgetting the injunction of Holy Scripture, let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall. Our study should surely produce in us an awareness of the need for humility. There will be also the other danger, to it- to which I am particularly exposed, of coming to an excessively uncharitable judgment upon Samson. Certainly, by this time in the book, we are in a period of grievous decline. We noticed in one of our early sessions, whereas the secret of victory in the case of the first judge was his wife, Samson's wives, if that is the name to use, were the secret of his utter failure. We We notice noticed last night how Jephthah used the fords to slaughter his brethren. Ehud, the earlier judge, had taken the fords and slaughtered those who came over. But then on that occasion, those who came over were the enemy. Jephthah slaughtered those who came over the thorns, who could not pronounce the word Shibboleth exactly with his accent in the way he thought proper. But the people who thus failed his test were not enemies of the people of God. They were the people of God. Sure enough, they were exasperatingly difficult people of God. There are that kind around. And once more, as they had done with Gideon, they came provoking Jephthah with their stupid complaints that he hadn't consulted them. Moreover, they went further than they had done with Gideon, and they abused Jephthah, told him he had no right to be there and was only a fugitive and didn't really belong, and he should get going where he really belonged. There was a great deal of fault on the part of the Ephraimites, shocking fault. They were nonetheless the people of God and not enemies. Jethar, who had been such a magnificent, uh, contender in his arguments based on history and based on the holy records that already existed, when he smote, so to speak, in his arguments, the enemy. Now turn to slaughtering the people of God. We are in a period of decline. That is evident as we study this last major judge. And you will see that again by the fact that whereas deliverers were raised up to deliver the people of God from those who oppressed them. By the time Samson died, in spite of all his spiritual fireworks, he had not delivered the people of God from their servitude to the Philistines, but himself died a captive in the hands of the enemy. That much, then I say, is evident. And we must face the sorry story. Lest we should come to an uncharitable judgment of this man, let us remind ourselves at this juncture that he was, for all his faults, a man of faith. That is the Holy Spirit's verdict delivered to us centuries later in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter eleven. If I were to see my name in that outstanding list of men, my little head could bear, scarce bear the swelling that would take place. Though I do nurture a hope that the God who was so generous, when he came finally to assess the significance and value of Samson's life and ministry, and called him a man of faith, will be able to be similarly generous to me when he comes to assess my life. Would to God he will be able to find at least something that will justify him in saying he was a man of faith. We must, however, avoid the contrary danger. With all the charity in the world, we shall have to perceive that a good endowment of spiritual gift and power is not the same thing necessarily as godliness and grace. We would be mistaken to imagine that spiritual gift and power are necessarily a guarantee that the man who possesses them is a godly and holy and gracious man. If we needed a further warning, we could take it from the New Testament and from the experience of the Corinthian church. No other church was like them in the superabundance of spiritual gift that they possessed, and no other church came near them for their carnality, immorality, strife, division, criticism, and so forth. It is a mistake to suppose that those whom God uses from time to time with spiritual power are necessarily exemplars and models of holiness and grace. Nor must we suppose that because God used Solomon, that God approved of all the methods that Solomon used, that's, that's because God used Samson, God approved of all the methods that Samson employed. That is another error into which people sometimes fall. Look how God has used so and so, they say. Then God must have approved that the methods that so and so employed. That is a fallacy. You can see that by contemplating how God has used you, gentlemen. When God uses you by his grace, don't suppose that means that he's giving you a bill of clean health and approving of everything you do. We are all imperfect servants at the best. God uses us, sometimes in spite of ourselves. And when we come in for the field of our service, we do well to listen to the injunction of our Lord. Say, said our Lord, we are unprofitable servants. Nonetheless, our powers of discernment, or because of this very thing, our powers of discernment and judgment will be put to the test as we consider Samson's life and ministry. Widely different views have been held, widely different judgments formed by spiritual and godly men in the assessment of the significance of his deeds. Take, for instance, the incident with the lion. When a lion roared against Samson, and the Holy Spirit came upon him, and he rent the lion, lion in pieces, subsequently found a swarm of bees had made honey in the lion's inside, and he took it and gave it to his parents. What shall we learn from it? Say some, this is a prototype, nothing less than our blessed Lord himself, and his glorious victory over the devil, who stalks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And our Lord conquered him by the power of the Spirit of God, and drew from that victory all kinds of honey for the nourishment of his people. Nonsense, say other exposit. Absolute nonsense. The lion was an unclean animal. Even alive, it was an unclean animal. Now, when it was dead, for an ordinary person to touch it, it would have defiled him. How much more would it defile a man who was supposed to be a Nazarite? He should never have gone anywhere near the lion when it was dead. And so judgments differ. And you will have to have patience with me and suppress your feelings of shock, perhaps, when you hear my comments. Pray remember your duty in the question time to make your contributions and to lead us all into clearer understandings, me included. Certainly, there hangs a mystery over Samson's life. The story of his life and ministry is, broadly speaking, in three parts. There is chapter thirteen, a longish chapter with twenty five verses, given over largely to the preparation for Samson's ministry. But then, as you read it, you will observe a certain shift. The preparations were on the part of his parents, and in particular his mother, rather than on the part of Samson himself. In that story, there is a sublime and transcendental mystery. As the man of God appeared to Samson's parents, and they asked him his name. Why do you ask of my name, said he, seeing it is a secret, wonderful, mysterious, inscrutable. The angel did wondrously as he ascended in the fire and smoke of the sacrifice to glory. A great mystery. Not a prototype, really, for the angel concerned was the angel of the Lord. It was a pre-incarnate appearance of the second person of the Trinity. A great mystery, a marvelous mystery, preparing for the ministry of Samson. In the second part, which comprises chapter fourteen and fifteen, and concludes with the formal announcement in fifteen twenty, and he, Samson, judged Israel in the days of the Philistines Twenty years. In the second part, there is another secret, another mystery, namely the riddle which Samson told to the guests at his banquet. Though whether you could put this mystery, this riddle, on a par with that other sublime mystery in the first chapter, I doubt. But I'm eager to hear eventually what you say about it. In the final chapter sixteen, which likewise ends with another formal statement, verse thirty one, and he judged Israel twenty years. There is that mystery which, being divulged, proved his downfall. The secret as to where Samson's strength lay. A mystery, then, hangs over all three major parts of this story. And if you perceive that I have not rightly penetrated the mystery always, then you must forgive and help me. But this is clear, is it not? That whereas in section two God used Samson, graciously used him, in spite of his disobediences, and even in his wise providence turned those disobediences to occasions for the accomplishment of God's purpose. It is clear, isn't it, that that did not justify Samson's disobedience. Or, says the second section, there came a point when Samson's disobedience went altogether too far and landed him in disaster. Perhaps now, therefore, we ought to start, as usual, at the beginning, trying to reconnoiter the enemy. Chapter thirteen. The children of Israel aganted that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines Forty years. We have met the Philistines before as a kind of subsidiary enemy. Now we meet them as the main enemy and the sole enemy. Who were these Philistines? What was their culture? Wherein lay the fact that they became an enemy of the people of God. It is the interesting fact that throughout Old Testament, the Philistines are constantly described with the epithet uncircumcised. Now, many nations were uncircumcised, but it is the Philistines that are constantly described by that term. All nations were Gentiles outside Israel, but in on one of our studies yesterday, we heard the Holy Spirit describing certain of these nations as Gentile, emphasizing thereby what Gentile attitudes to life, what Gentile mindsets are. Now, when it comes to Philistines, Holy Spirit constantly moves the historians to record that they were the uncircumcised Philistines. Indeed, it is so characteristic of them that sometimes they are referred to simply as the uncircumcised. As for instance, in chapter fifteen and verse eighteen, says Samson in a fit of sudden despair, and now shall I die for thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised. It is a thing that haunted Saul because in his day the Philistines were predominant. He didn't wish the uncircumcised to come and abuse him when he fell on Mount Gilboa. Philistines... then were the uncircumcised, and we must ask, therefore, what circumcision stands for. I have not now the time to repeat our little study of circumcision and its significance that occurred in a previous session. We may this morning perhaps content ourselves with one particular ma- uh, remark from the prophet Jeremiah and chapter nine. Jeremiah chapter nine. Circumcision, as we know, was first the seal, the sign, the seal of the righteousness which Abraham had through faith and faith only. Righteousness that he had before he was circumcised. Circumcision was its seal. Then also became the sign of the covenant that God had made with Abraham and his seed, so says Genesis seventeen. Sign of that covenant also became the badge of all the physical descendants of Abraham. But it was meant, even in Old Testament times, to be more than an external badge. It was meant to be a symbol of uncircumcised living. And what all that means, let us discover now from Jeremiah chapter nine. Verse twenty five says, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will punish all them which are circumcised in uncircumcision. It was so terribly possible to be physically circumcised but spiritually uncircumcised, to have the outward sign of the right, to show no moral correspondence in the way you lived with the external sign. I will punish all them which are circumcised in uncircumcision, Egypt and Judah and Edom and the children of Ammon and Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair pulled, dwell in the wilderness. For all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart. What is it to be uncircumcised in heart? Therefore, what is it to be the opposite, circumcised in heart? Let us go back a verse or two to the context to see what these things signify. Thus saith the Lord, says verse twenty three, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, saith the Lord. This is a key passage in God's word and states a fundamental principle that will be repeated many times over in the New Testament. Let not the rich man, wise man glory in his wisdom, says Paul, quoting this verse in one Corinthians at the end of chapter one. Nor let the, uh, rich man glory in his riches, or the mighty man glory in his might. The word glory means not merely to boast in a vain sense, but to put his confidence in. It is a fatal tendency of human beings, if they should happen to be wise, that they are not merely thankful to God for the wisdom he has given them, but to put their absolute confidence in their own wisdom, instead of leaving and putting their confidence in the Lord. It is a fatal tendency of the rich. Gentlemen, surely you have often observed it. Not, uh, to be content to be thankful for to the Lord for the riches he has given them, but to put their confidence in riches. It is a similar tendency for the mighty. Not to be content to thank God for the strength he has given them, and to continue to depend on the Lord, but to go and put their altar, their absolute, their fundamental confidence in their own strength. And what men will do in secular affairs, they will do in spiritual affairs. They will put thems- their confidence in their flesh, in their ability to attain to righteousness by their own efforts, sometimes their own efforts to keep God's law. And it is a serious and fundamental flaw. It is an acting of a lie. That we who are creatures of God, contingent creatures, as the philosophers would say. To think that we are independent beings so that we can safely put our confidence in ourselves. That is a fundamental mistake, a fundamental misinterpretation of the significance of being human. The wisest of us, the strongest of us, the mightiest of us are only creatures. We have nothing but what we receive. We did not make the universe. We did not make our own powers. We did not create our own wisdom. And the riches we amass, we never could have amassed unless God had put them there and given us the ability to amass them. Common sense ought to show us that the secret of our being is utter dependence upon the Lord. Why? Consider, gentlemen, the situation you are in. Careful when you go out tonight, outside on the patio here, about the almost infinite chasm that lies beneath your head. What do you mean beneath my head? I'm standing the right way up, am I not? Well, what is the right way up in this universe? Be careful, it's only the skin of your feet or the leather on your boots that's standing on Earth. The rest of you is poking out into a space that is, who knows, vast, if not infinite. Is it your power that keeps you on the place and stops you falling into the hole, disappearing into some black hole somewhere? Tiny little thing you are. Did you manufacture the air that you breathe? As for the light that you need, and this is necessity to maintain your life, as to well as needing it for seeing how to go about your daily tasks. Gentlemen, you don't control that either. The light is not in you, as our Lord observed. It isn't even in your planet. God has put it ninety million miles outside your planet. And whether you are ready for it or not, you're rationed for the amount of light you get every day, aren't you? Or only perceive the lighting system that God has devised for our planet. Rationed more or less to twelve hours of light every day, aren't you? Whether you're ready or not, the old planet twizzles you out into the dark. There's nothing you ab- can do about it, and you're- until you're twizzled back into the light the next morning. What weak creatures we are, as somebody says. We are so weak that once every twenty four hours we have to take ourselves and put ourselves on a shelf in the dark to recover for eight hours. What folly it would be to put our confidence in ourselves. Or, as the Bible would put it, summing up the whole thing in one word, to put our confidence in the flesh. It is, in fact, in the kindness of God that he determines that no flesh should boast in his presence. No flesh may put its confidence in itself, in the presence of Almighty God. But even as it is written, from in Jeremiah, that is, he who has confidence and exalts in that confidence, let him make sure that his confidence is in the Lord. And that is what circumcision was meant to, uh, symbolize. Cutting off of the flesh. End of man's folly in putting his confidence in himself and his own abilities. His deliberate transference of his confidence and put it in the Lord. We learn that lesson at the very entry into salvation, do we not? The justification is not by works, it is by faith. Faith in the sense of utter dependence upon God. If that then is what, um, circumcision was all about, pray meet the Philistines. A very cultured society. But they were uncircumcised. Typically Gentile in that respect. You will see by the history that God has given us of them in Judges, later on in the book of Samuel, that Philistines were men who were distinctly uncomfortable in the presence of supernatural strength. They were uncircumcised men. Their confidence in themselves. They had a religion, but a religion that was simply a deification of their own brains and brawn. When introduced into the presence of genuine supernatural power of God, they felt not- they not only felt uncomfortable, they tried to learn its secret, not so that they might themselves enjoy that supernatural power, but so that they might bring it down to their own level, control it, and then destroy it. They were the Philistines. Let us break our study here and consider them further later on.