Today’s Sermon Notes: 8-24-2025
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The Story of Samson
A Sermon Series
“One Thing Leads to Another”
Judges 14:10-15:20
Introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjE2Kffq8Fk God intends to separate his people from the enemies of God. Like a chain reaction, we will see one thing leading to another – or at least that was the plan.
Samson’s Wife’s Betrayal Leads to Anger (vv. 10-20)
10 His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. 11 As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. 12 And Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes, 13 but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.” And they said to him, “Put your riddle, that we may hear it.” 14 And he said to them, “Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.” And in three days they could not solve the riddle. 15 On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?” 16 And Samson’s wife wept over him and said, “You only hate me; you do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?” 17 She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted, and on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her people. 18 And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” And he said to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.”
19 And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house. 20 And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.
Samson’s Anger Leads to Destruction (15:1-8)
After some days, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a young goat. And he said, “I will go in to my wife in the chamber.” But her father would not allow him to go in. 2 And her father said, “I really thought that you utterly hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.” 3 And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines, when I do them harm.”
4 So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. 5 And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards. 6 Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” And the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. 7 And Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged on you, and after that I will quit.” 8 And he struck them hip and thigh with a great blow, and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
Samson’s Destruction Leads to Victory (vv. 9-17)
9 Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and made a raid on Lehi. 10 And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.” 11 Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so have I done to them.” 12 And they said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” 13 They said to him, “No; we will only bind you and give you into their hands. We will surely not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.
Romans 12:18 “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”
14 When he came to Lehi (means jawbone), the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. 15 And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men. 16 And Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men.” 17 As soon as he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand. And that place was called Ramath-lehi. (the hill of a jawbone)
Samson’s Victory Leads the Israelites Nowhere (vv. 18-20)
18 And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it.[4] And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore; it is at Lehi to this day. 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
God gives His people gifts to lead toward something,
But if there is moral corruption the gifts do not lead to anything.
Your gifting if not an accurate gauge of your spiritual health.
Conclusion
Think about this, “This person uniquely set apart, called, and gifted for divine service – not only fraternizes with the enemy, but also seeks to live among them.”[7] The tragedy of his life was not that he never got the woman he wanted, but he never became the man God wanted him to be. Hebrews 11 is called the Hall of Faith, look at verse 32 “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—” . . . among the names like David (a man after God’s own heart) and Samuel (the boy who said, “here I am!”) is Samson – the selfish, lustful, impulsive strong man. Come back next week and let’s see if he changes.
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[1] W. Gary Phillips, Holman Old Testament Commentary, Judges, Ruth (Nashville, Tennessee; Holman Reference, 2004) 223.
[2] J Harris, C. Brown, & M. Moore, New International Biblical Commentary, Joshua, Judges, Ruth (Peabody, Massachusetts; Hendrickson Publishing, 2000) 245.
[3] J. Clinton McCann, Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Judges (Louisville, Kentucky, John Knox Press, 2002) 105.
[4] Exodus 17:1-7
[5] Timothy Keller, Judges For You (USA; The Good Book Company, 2013) 147.
[6] Daniel I Block, The New American Commentary, Judges & Ruth (Nashville, Tennessee; Broadman & Holman, 1999) 441.
[7] Block, 438.
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