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[0:00] Go ahead and open your Bibles to Judges chapter 15.

[0:15] ! Tonight we're going to take the entire chapter, which is quite a bit, but I think we'll make it.! And we're not going anywhere, right? Don't have plans tonight? Okay.

[0:30] Let me go ahead and read the chapter. After a while, in the time of wheat harvest, it happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat.

[0:42] 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 that you thoroughly hated her.

[0:54] Therefore, I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please, take her instead. And Samson said unto them, This time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harm them.

[1:09] Then Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.

[1:20] When he had 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.

[1:34] Then the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.

[1:45] So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. Samson said to them, Since you would do this thing, do a thing like this, I will surely take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.

[2:00] So he attacked them, hip and thigh, with a great slaughter. Then he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Edom.

[2:12] Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah and deployed themselves against Lechi. That's really how that's pronounced, Lechi. And the men of Judah said, Why have you come up against us?

[2:25] So they answered, We have come up to arrest Samson, to do to him as he has done to us. Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Edom and said to Samson, Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us?

[2:42] 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.

[2:56] Then Samson said to them, Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves. So they spoke to him, saying, No, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand, but we will surely not kill you.

[3:12] And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock. When he came to Lechi, the Philistines came shouting against him.

[3:23] Then 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.

[3:35] He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, and took it, and killed a thousand men with it. Then Samson said, With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey, I have slain a thousand men.

[3:52] And so it was, when he had finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone from his hand and called that place Ramoth-le-hi. Then 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.

[4:15] So God split the hollow place that is in Lechi, and water came out, and he drank, and his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore he called its name An-hachor, which is in Lechi to this day.

[4:31] And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines. All right, so there is chapter 15. And so let's get to it. Now at this point, and I've kind of mentioned this kind of in passing a few times, or have mentioned this aspect of the story of Samson without really going into much depth or detail, but at this point in the story of Samson, the plot, the story of Samson, the plot should be taking shape.

[5:04] And what I mean is, instead of focusing on Samson and what he is doing, we really should be focusing on God and what he is doing. Really focusing on Samson, what he's not doing.

[5:17] You know, what we think he should be doing. But we shouldn't be focusing on Samson as much as we should be focusing upon God and what God is doing here.

[5:28] This is what we really need to discover. If we're going to glean from the story of Samson, anything of benefit to us, anything that really highlights the nature and character of God, then we need to be focusing upon what God is doing here, rather than what Samson is doing.

[5:45] And we really have to look, because it's not on the surface. We need to look in behind at the things that Samson is doing, the things Samson is not doing, and what he should be doing.

[5:56] And looking in behind his great feats of strength and seeing what God is doing. Now, if we focus on Samson, then we shall only see his failings.

[6:08] And we do see that, don't we? His failings. In fact, he's a miserable failure in the sense that we would measure that. We see a man who has been called of God to be a judge, a man who has been gifted by God, extraordinarily gifted by God, empowered by God with extraordinary strength and so forth.

[6:35] And yet, he is a man who seems oblivious to all of that. I mean, you do get that sense from the story, don't you? That Sam's just going his own way. You know, he's just doing his thing.

[6:47] And he's kind of oblivious to his purpose and what God is doing in his life and why God is doing these things in his life, oblivious to it. And he's living, seemingly, under the complete mastery of his sinful flesh.

[7:01] I mean, that's what we see. If we focus upon Samson, Samson uses his strength to do only what Samson wants to do for himself.

[7:13] And I think you would agree with me that that is really pretty much the sense of it. That's what we see in his life. But the focus should be on what God is doing here through Samson.

[7:29] And, you know, here's the bottom line. God has no problem using imperfect people to accomplish his purposes. I mean, all the judges were imperfect people.

[7:42] Some of them more, some of them less, but all imperfect. And so God has no problem using sinful, fleshly people to accomplish his purpose.

[7:54] After all, he uses us, doesn't he? He uses us. And so when you take your eyes off of Samson and begin to see the hand of God and the purpose of God, then his purposes begin to come into focus.

[8:16] If you will look at the story from that perspective. And so what is God's purpose here in Samson's life? Well, it is to judge the Philistines.

[8:29] To judge them. And to deliver Israel from their oppression. I mean, that's his purpose. With all the judges. At every stage of a movement of the book of Judges.

[8:42] But in this case, it is specifically to orchestrate a conflict between Israel and the Philistines.

[8:53] Because right now there is none. Though there should be. The Israelites are just kind of getting along with the Philistines here. They're kind of just allowing things to go as they go.

[9:07] But the Philistines are the enemies of Israel. And though Israel doesn't seem to know that. And that kind of comes out in the story. That's why I've mentioned that.

[9:18] All of this at this point in the story. Because it hasn't become as apparent as it is for us as we look here at chapter 15.

[9:29] Israel just seems to be. You know, they don't seem to know that the Philistines are their enemies. In fact, they seem to think that Samson is the enemy. Don't they?

[9:40] That Samson is the problem here. And if we focus on Samson only, we might come to the same conclusion. He's the problem. He's the troublemaker.

[9:50] He's the one who keeps stoking the fire with the Philistines. He's the one who keeps egging them on. He's the troublemaker. And he keeps destroying the Philistines.

[10:01] Keeps killing them. Shame on him. I mean, he's just doing what a judge is supposed to be doing. But Israel doesn't see that. And so, you see, God has been doing it all, hasn't he, through Samson.

[10:15] God has been masterminding the plot of the story. God is moving everything toward its climax, which, by the way, will come in the next chapter, which is the last chapter that deals with Samson.

[10:29] But it all is headed to that great showdown, that great climax in the story. And God is moving the plot of the story along to reach that point. The Philistines will be judged, and Israel will be delivered, and Samson will go down as one of the greatest judges of all.

[10:46] Amazing, isn't it? All because God is the one who's orchestrating this whole thing. And so, as we look at the events recorded in chapter 15, let's just remember to focus on what God is doing.

[11:00] Now, there are five movements in the story, five distinct movements, and I've come up with five words that start with R, all right?

[11:13] Here's the first one, Samson's rebuff. Samson's rebuffed, and he just can't handle that, you know.

[11:24] All right, so you remember what happened back in chapter 14? We got to the end of chapter 14, and all of that, you know, Samson was betrothed to this Philistine woman of Timnah.

[11:36] And so, Samson throws this big wedding feast, and really it's just a big drinking party, and the wine is flowing, and the spirits are making everybody merry. Not marrying, but merry, in a bad sort of way.

[11:51] And Samson, probably because he's drunk, and because he certainly is arrogant, guided by his own fleshly desires, he poses a riddle to the 30 Philistine men who've been invited as guests, probably friends of the family, though they don't turn out to be such good friends.

[12:08] And these guys threaten to kill the bride and her family and burn them up inside the house there if she doesn't lure out of Samson the answer to the riddle, remember?

[12:22] And so she does that. She gets the answer, tells her Philistine friends, and they give the answer to Samson, and Samson has to pay the wager. Remember, that's what we looked at last time in chapter 14.

[12:35] And so since Samson has to pay the wager, which he does not want to do, that really grates on him. And so what does he do? He goes out and kills 30 Philistines, takes their clothing, and pays the wager.

[12:50] All right, so that was last time. But Samson is so full of rage, you know, and wrath still, even after he does this terrible, brutal deed.

[13:02] He's so full of wrath that what does he do? He goes home to mom and dad. And he leaves his new bride behind. And he's never consummated that marriage.

[13:17] All right, that marriage has never been consummated. So he leaves that wife behind, goes home. And so after a while, it says here in verse 1 of chapter 15, after a while, Samson has a change of heart.

[13:32] Well, really his, you know, his fleshly desires start springing up inside of him. And he returns to the home of his bride to make amends.

[13:47] All right. And he brings her a nice present, something every woman desires, a goat. Now husbands, remember that.

[13:58] Mother's Day is coming up. A goat, I can just see that. And they say that, you know, it's good to have a goat in the front yard.

[14:09] It keeps the lawn mowed and everything. All right. Well, verse 1, look at verse 1 again. After a while, that's when Samson's wrath is subsided. In the time of wheat harvest.

[14:22] Now that's an important point there. A bit of information becomes important in the story a little bit later. And I'll bring it up again. It happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat.

[14:34] All right. Really smart guy. And he said, presumably to his parents, to her parents, let me go into my wife, into her room. That is her bedroom.

[14:46] All right. So what does Samson want to do? He wants to consummate the marriage. Now he wants to consummate the marriage. And that's really all he's really interested in. But her father would not permit him to go in.

[15:00] And why? Well, verse 2, her father said, I really thought that you thoroughly hated her. Thoroughly hated her. I mean, Samson did leave her at the altar. Didn't he?

[15:13] Actually, technically after the altar. They were already betrothed. In a sense, married. Just not consummated. The marriage has not been consummated. Samson did abandon her.

[15:25] I mean, even though she's a Gentile. Even though a pagan. Even though a Philistine. And an enemy of Israel. He abandoned her. And Samson did, in a fit of rage, run home to mom and dad.

[15:38] He did that. And so the father, the bride, I think rightfully assumed that Samson did not love his daughter. Indeed, he assumed the worst.

[15:48] First, he said in the negative, you know, that Samson hated her. Hated his daughter. And so the marriage, the father had the marriage annulled. That's the idea here.

[15:59] It's annulled. And he said, therefore, I gave her to thy companion, some friend of yours. And so then he offered Samson a deal. It's just interesting. The story.

[16:10] And really, it gives us a window into the heart and motivation of Samson. The father recognized something and he offered a deal.

[16:20] He said, is not her younger sister better than she? Now, that's putting it more literally. Isn't she a much better looking woman?

[16:33] More beautiful. Please take her instead. Now, obviously, that calls into question the character of this father. But the idea is, you know, that the father recognized something in Samson's character.

[16:48] Something that was very true. He knew that Samson didn't really love his daughter. He knew that Samson was only attracted to her because, well, she was a woman. And he wanted to gratify his flesh.

[17:02] And she was good looking. Even though her sister, apparently, was even better looking. So it reveals something about Samson. About his motive. About his character. About his heart. And the father was right.

[17:14] You remember back in chapter 14, verse 3. When Samson first saw her. And he came back to his parents. And he said, get her for me. He said, she pleases me well. That means, I appeal.

[17:26] You know, she's good to look at. I want her. All right. So this is Samson's rebuff. And he can't handle that. So that leads us to Samson's revenge. Samson's revenge.

[17:39] Verse 3. And Samson said to them. To her parents. This time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harm them. And this time, he said.

[17:52] This time I'll be. Implying that the last time he was unjustified. Though he certainly didn't, I think, feel that way. Now remember. And I want to keep bringing us back to this.

[18:04] God is the master of the plot here. As it unfolds. God's sovereign over the movements of life. And the occasions and situations and decisions.

[18:18] And God is sovereign over historical events. And he's moving this plot along for his own purpose. And he's taking the occasion of Samson's fleshliness.

[18:29] And his uncontrolled wrath. And he's using that as an occasion to literally inflame the Philistines. And I mean literally. Because verse 4 says. Then Samson went and caught 300 foxes.

[18:41] Or jackals. Or coyotes. And he took torches. Turned the foxes tail to tail. And put a torch between each tail.

[18:53] A pair of tails. And when he had set the torches on fire. He let the foxes go. And of course they would run for their lives. You know. They got this torch connected to them.

[19:04] And you can just imagine. They're going around in circles. Trying to get away from each other. And away from the torch. And they're going throughout the fields. And so the foxes go into the standing grain.

[19:15] Of the Philistines. Remember. It's at harvest time. So this is. This is the prime time. If you want to really do damage to a nation's economy.

[19:26] Then destroy their crops at harvest time. No time to replant. And so forth. And so they burned up both the shocks. And the standing grain.

[19:37] As well as the vineyards. And also the olive groves. A lot of damage. That's done here. And the point is. That Samson really was doing more than he knew.

[19:51] He really thought this was his idea. Well it was in a sense. His revenge. But God is using this. Samson only wanted revenge.

[20:02] But God wanted to judge the Philistines. And in the process here. God is provoking the Philistines. Provoking them. So they become more and more angry.

[20:15] And that's going to start the war. And or could. And it's going to start the conflict that really should have been there anyway. And so what Samson did. Was.

[20:27] Well really what God did through him. Was devastating to the Philistine economy. Now I really think that Samson thought that would be the end of it. I really think that every time Samson had this wrathful moment.

[20:39] And just rage. He's out of control. And he. You know. He just. Explodes. And kills. I think he thinks that.

[20:51] Well after that's over then. No consequence of that. I really think that he thought this would be the end of it. Burn up some corn fields. Wheat fields. Olive groves.

[21:02] Vineyards. Just burn those up. And why not? I mean you know. Who could blame me? Look at what they did to me. And so he thought he had every right to do that. And so when it was done.

[21:13] It'd be done. But that was not the end of it. This was just the beginning. Again. What I would call a divinely orchestrated conflagration of hostilities.

[21:26] In the Philistines. With the Philistines. So what happened next? Well verse 6. Then the Philistines said. Who has done this? And they answered. Samson the son-in-law of the Timnite. Because he was taken.

[21:37] Has taken his wife. And given her to his companion. So the Philistines. And this reveals the wickedness of these pagan people. They came up and burned her and her father with fire.

[21:50] And just probably did what they had threatened to do earlier. Remember? You know. Give us the answer to the riddle. And if you don't entice your husband to do that. Then we're going to burn you up.

[22:02] You and your father in your house with fire. And so they just made good on that. And so. Tit for tat. Verse 7. Samson said to them.

[22:14] Since you would do a thing like this. I will surely take revenge on you. And after that I will cease. That is. After that. We'll be done with this. So.

[22:25] He attacked them. Hip and thigh. With a great slaughter. What else that means? Well. It's an idiom. Hip and thigh.

[22:36] And. And it just. Simply means a complete and total victory. None were left standing. He slaughtered them.

[22:47] How many? We don't really know. Though I think we could guess. It was probably the same. 30. Who were at the party. In chapter 14. Who made that original threat. They probably were the ones who carried that out.

[22:59] And so this is pure revenge. Isn't it? On the part of Samson. And if we just look at Samson. This is just pure revenge. Personal revenge. Samson.

[23:10] He. You know. He's. He's. He's. He's going to take. He's not going to put up with this kind of stuff. He's going to get even. And that was his mentality.

[23:20] And that's the mentality of a lot of people. I. Heard a story about a lady who was really sick. And she finally went to the doctor. And the doctor examined her. And. Did some tests on her. And. Finally came back.

[23:32] Said. I've got some bad news. But you have an advanced case of rabies. And immediately the woman took out a piece of paper and pencil. And she started writing feverishly on the paper. And he said. What are you doing?

[23:42] Writing your last will and testimony. And she said. No. I'm just making a list of the people I want to bite. Now that's revenge. Isn't it? So.

[23:52] We have Samson's rebuff. Samson's revenge. And then third. Samson's restraint. His restraint. Now. It is the Philistines turn again.

[24:05] It's going back and forth. You see. But. Again. This is by design. And. You know. Never mind that Samson is. You know. He's.

[24:17] He's a brutal kind of fella. Vengeful. All this. Never mind about that. His fleshliness. And his. His brutality. And. And all of that.

[24:27] Never mind about that. God is orchestrating all of this. So now we have the Philistines turn. But what they did next. In the story. Reveals. The main reason. Why God.

[24:38] Was using Samson. To. In effect. Try and start a war. To create hostilities. Between the Philistines. And the Israelites.

[24:49] Because the Israelites. At this point. They're kind of in the background. You know. They're not really. Haven't really entered into the story. Very much. Until now. Now. And the Israelites. Have really.

[25:00] Been more concerned about peace. With the pagans. Than. They were about God's commands. To rid. Their land. Of the pagans. They just.

[25:13] Kind of. Settled into. Kind of a. Peaceful. Coexistence. With. So much so. That verse 9 says. Now the Philistines. Went up. Encamped in Judah.

[25:26] And deployed themselves. Against. Lehi. Which. Is the hill country. Of Judah. That's. The region. And so.

[25:36] What the Israelites. Said. In response. To this. This really. Posture. Of war. What they said. Was very revealing. It was.

[25:47] Kind of. The final sellout. It. It. It. It. It. the blurring of the distinctions in their mind between the people of God and the people of the world.

[25:59] They had just pretty much kind of come together in a peaceful coexistence. This is what they said. They said, why have you come up against us? This is what they said to the Philistines.

[26:11] Why have you come up? They were bewildered by this. And that very question reveals their spiritual blindness, their complacency.

[26:21] They've kind of slipped into a kind of a mode of thinking that was so wrong. And so when the Philistines come and encamp against them and threaten war against them, they're mystified by that.

[26:36] You know, that there would be any conflict between them. That's a real indicator of the thinking of the Israelites during this time.

[26:47] And why God needed to stir some things up here. And He did so through Samson. And they would skip down to verse 11 to see what else they said. And this time they said it to Samson.

[26:59] They said, do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Really? Really? Well, yeah.

[27:09] Well, should it have been that way? Obviously, they had accepted that. You know what this truth really ought to reveal to us? Something that is really very foreign, almost totally foreign, among many Christians in this country, in America.

[27:27] And that is that there is really no such thing as harmonious coexistence between the church and the world. There really isn't any such thing.

[27:40] I'm not saying that we, you know, that we take up arms against the world and we become violent. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about this idea that we can just kind of coexist together and be at peace.

[27:51] You know, no persecution because we kind of coalesce to the way, the thinking of the world. And in other ways, the world has become a part of us, the church.

[28:06] And so there's this peaceful, this idea of a, and it's a false idea, of a peaceful coexistence. See, where there is no conflict between the church and the world, it is because the world has taken over.

[28:22] This is where the Israelites were. And God will not let that stand. He's going to stir things up here. Shake it up a bit. And, but the Israelites, you know, they're sure going to give it their best try.

[28:37] And so the Bible says here, then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock at Etam. That's where Samson was hiding out. And did, you know, did it really take 3,000 men to capture Samson?

[28:56] Well, you know, our first thought would be, well, no, I mean, that's a little overboard. 3,000 men to capture and arrest one man? But then we kind of think ahead and read a little bit more of the story and we see Samson killing 1,000 Philistines with just the jawbone of a donkey.

[29:12] And we say, well, yeah, I guess 3,000, pretty good idea. And they said to Samson, and I'm paraphrasing, hey, dude, you upstart, we're trying to get along with these people.

[29:28] That's basically what they're saying. We're trying to get along with these pagans. And what are you trying to do to us here? You know, what are you trying to do to this peaceful arrangement?

[29:40] And Samson said, I'm within my rights. I mean, as they did to me, I'm going to do to them. And they said, we've come down to arrest you that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.

[29:54] And then Samson said to them, swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves as if they could. And I don't really think they could. And so they spoke to him saying, no, as we won't kill you, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand.

[30:14] But we will surely not kill you. Of course, the Philistines are going to kill him. That's what their design was. And so they bound him with two new ropes.

[30:26] They recognize this man has a lot of strength. And so we want some good, strong ropes. And so they bind him with these strong ropes. And they brought him up from the rock where he was hiding out.

[30:44] Now, again, the Israelites chose bondage over liberty. The Israelites chose the status quo over God's will for their lives, God's commands.

[31:02] And in reality, they chose the pagan Philistines over the very man God had chosen to lead them to victory. They should have recognized Samson, he's our man.

[31:14] They should have rallied behind him rather than rejecting him, but they wanted peace. And understand that the Israelites are guilty of maintaining peace by betraying one of their own.

[31:29] And so number four, Samson's retaliation. Samson's retaliation. Verse 14, When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him.

[31:42] I mean, they were calling for his blood. Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him. We've seen this before. So again, I would say, what was the secret to Samson's strength?

[31:55] Was it his bulging biceps? Was it his long hair? No, it was the Holy Spirit.

[32:08] The Holy Spirit. Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon Samson and the ropes, and this is really neat, the ropes, those new ropes, remember? They were on his arms, the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, that has been burned with fire.

[32:29] Flax was a fibrous kind of thread or material that was used to make clothing. All right? And, you know, it had some strength to it, but certainly not a lot of strength, but if it has been burned or charred, it becomes, I mean, brittle and no strength to it at all.

[32:52] And that's what these ropes became like, were kind of like, or appeared that way. It doesn't mean that God changed the molecular structure of these ropes so that they would just kind of fall apart and dissolve.

[33:06] That is the idea that the ropes melted, kind of melted, kind of dissolved away. It is that it appeared that way. When Samson, you know, broke his bonds, I don't think we ought to have this picture that suddenly, you know, the veins are popping out on his neck and he's pulling and he pops those things.

[33:26] No, he just, as if they were, they were like burned little threads. They, you know, gave no resistance whatsoever. That was the strength of Samson that God gave him when the Holy Spirit came upon him mightily.

[33:41] And so verse 15 says, he found a fresh or a new jawbone of a donkey. It means it wasn't an old whited bone laying out in the field.

[33:53] It was from a freshly dead donkey and so the jawbone was still very strong. And he took that, he reached out his hand and took it and killed a thousand men with it.

[34:08] Amazing. What a story. And then Samson kind of sings a little song. I mean, it's kind of like a song. It doesn't really rhyme very well, but Hebrew poetry.

[34:22] with the jawbone of a donkey heaps upon heaps with the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men. Heaps upon heaps. The body's piled up.

[34:33] I mean, he's just one man and he kills a thousand Philistines. And I can just imagine he's staying in one spot and as they come he takes all comers and he kills them with the jawbone and their bodies are just heaping up all around him.

[34:49] But did Samson do that? No. God did. Of course. We know that. And so then verse 17 and so it was when he had finished speaking that he threw the jawbone from his hand apparently his victory was total.

[35:04] There was no one left to kill. And he threw it aside and called that place Ramoth Lechi. Ramoth which means literally literally jawbone hill.

[35:15] What do you mean? I make a good movie title. Bad day at jawbone hill. Spencer Tracy play the part.

[35:26] Never mind. Alright, so Samson's rebuff his revenge his restraint his retaliation and then one more and this is interesting movement of the story Samson's reliance.

[35:41] And I mean reliance upon the Lord. And some commentators take this part of the story and interpret it negatively. But I really think that Samson is genuine here the latter part of the story.

[35:59] Though perhaps it's fleeting because he has a relapse again in chapter 16 we kind of get to the climax of the story the end of the story.

[36:10] But what Samson does here of course is uncharacteristic of the Samson we've come to know in the story his story in verse 15 then he became very thirsty I guess you would after killing a thousand Philistines you know he'd get pretty thirsty and so he cried out to the Lord right and he said and so here's the prayer of Samson and when you think about the various elements of his prayer I think you really see that he was genuinely honoring the Lord and I think he does so in four ways number one he acknowledged God's power he said you have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant he didn't take the credit for himself he knew it was God who did this he acknowledged

[37:11] God's power and that's right it was God who did this right but Samson actually acknowledged the real source of his strength and victory and this is not something we're used to hearing and reading about concerning Samson and then number two he acknowledged God's person the person of God Samson said of himself your servant your servant that is Lord I am your servant you did all of this through me your servant Lord you are the master of my life you're the master of all things you know for most of Samson's life he has been what his own master he just did whatever he wanted to do whatever he desired he went out and got it whether it's some woman or honey or out of a lion or whatever it is he's going to do it whatever he wants he's the master of his own life and that's what we've come to to see and be used to seeing about

[38:30] Samson's life but now he acknowledges the Lord as his master and then number three he acknowledged God's provision God's provision and now shall I die of thirst he said this is part of his prayer and so what he needed water he knew must come from the Lord must come from him come from the hand of God up until now Samson has been self-reliant hasn't he and then one more he acknowledged God's preeminence and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised now that's interesting because you know to this point Samson cared very little about the preeminence of the God of Israel very little about his honor marrying a

[39:31] Philistine hobnobbing with the Philistines drinking and getting drunk with the Philistines jesting and joking with the Philistines but now Samson knew that if the Philistines were to get a hold of his body he were to die of thirst there and Philistines would get a hold of the body of Samson the one who just killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey if they got a hold of him his body then they would use his death as a way to dishonor and to blaspheme the name of the Lord he had God's preeminence in mind don't let me die and let the Philistines have victory the glory so for the first time it seems Samson was more concerned about the glory of God than he was about his own glory for the first time and for the first time he prays at least according to the account of Samson's life first time he's ever really called upon the name of the Lord and he's going to do it one more time just before his death and then verse 19 says so

[40:43] God split the hollow place that is in Lake and water came out and he drank and his spirit returned and he revived therefore he called its name En Hakor which is in Lake he to this day so a great victory at Jawbone Hill and now this great experience humbling before the Lord and great provision from God at what is literally Collar Spring Collar is on the hill great victory with the jawbone of a donkey now he's kind of in the hollow valley in the cleft of the rock and God provides water and it's he names it Collar Hill Collar Spring or literally the spring of calling out the spring who called out Samson and God heard his prayer and answered his prayer where God you know did something

[41:48]  Samson's strength could never do God actually brought him to the end of himself could do it for himself God provided this all because he called out to the Lord