Samson

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. So that's where we're at. We're at Samson today. And I got to tell you, I had some fun. When he gave me Samson, I went, oh, yoy, yoy, which is Slovak, not Yiddish. But I hadn't studied Samson, really, just did a deep dive in Samson in years. It might be decades if I were to be honest and confess. It's like, oh, my goodness. So I got into diving and dove right into Samson and went, oh, my goodness, I forgot about all this. Holy cow. So that's what we got here. I want to share with you my rediscoveries, some new discoveries along the way. And we're going to begin with the spoiler. If you don't like spoilers, that'd be your third disappointment in a row. And we're just getting started. So let's see. Advance slide. Is it on? That's a good question. Off. On. Arrow. There we go. Easy. There we go. Samson. Death by arrogance. Success by sacrifice. That's the whole story. Samson is one Superman of a man. Samson is part of that power team. You ever see that power team that's toured the U.S.? Give me a Christian witness. They're built almost as well as I am. There are muscles everywhere. That'd be your fourth disappointment this morning. They're going to go, why do you call that built? So death by arrogance, and that's what killed Samson. What I discovered in this process, to kind of cut to the chase, is that that's what's going to kill me too. There's an arrogance, a self-sufficiency. I was looking for the right word. Openness of source. How do we describe what Samson died of? And it wasn't the roof falling in on him, although it was the roof falling in on him. It was arrogance. I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. Success by sacrifice. This is an ongoing story of Old Testament characters that have the same sort of dynamic and theme. A dynamic and theme is this. They are called by God, given gifts, and then found an opportunity to fail in those gifts, and the Lord enters that failure to bring about His vision and His mission, and that's the story of my life. It is God working in and through me. It is God working in the midst of my failures, my hurts, my sins, my weaknesses, I haven't a clue, to accomplish His word, His way, His will. It's the classic. He just wants me available. Same thing with Samson. So we're going to cut to the end of the story with Samson. Judges 16 is the end of the story. Once again, here's the spoiler. Samson called to the Lord. He said, Oh Lord, please remember me, and please strengthen me only this once, oh God, that I may be avenged on the Philistine for my two eyes. So what's happened by this time is Samson has been captured, caught, and had his eyes plucked out. The book of Judges is crazy with violence and all sorts of murderous things going on, and Samson's now there without his eyes, praying to the Lord. And he's standing in between two pillars, and he has got apparently thousands of Philistines for whom he has been performing. Now what we don't know is exactly what he was performing. Samson, mighty in the Lord, strong, muscular guy, able to slay thousands of Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey, is performing for the Philistines with his eyes plucked out. What was he doing? We don't know. The Bible doesn't say. I'm going to guess feats of strength, but it's just a guess, that they placed before him things that he was called on to do, and he would show off his big muscles. I don't know for sure. But that's where Samson is. Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one, his left hand on the other, and Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the Lords and upon the people who were in it. So here's the kicker. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life. Huh. His death was more productive than his life. Hmm. And he was a big strong dude. So let's get some general context, okay? I've already skipped to the end of the story. So if you didn't know that Samson had his eyes plucked out and died, that would be your fifth disappointment so far in this sermon. But this is the Book of Judges. I know it's kind of messy, but I wanted to give you an overview because it's a messy time. It's just full of leaders that are coming and going, and it starts after the people of God have settled in the Promised Land, but they're disorganized, they're infighting, there's quarreling, there's lack of leadership, there's issues, there's conflict, there's wars with other nations. Across the bottom you can see those are the dynasties of Egypt, beginning with Shamgar and Ehud, people that we've probably never heard of are all taking leadership positions and judges, some of them doing a wonderful job, most of them doing horrible jobs. And you can see we get to Gideon an...