The Strong Weak Man

We do not want to be seen as different than other people. We don't want to be seen as set apart. I mean, the worst thing, I think, for American Christians, the absolute worst thing we can imagine is someone thinking we're weird or peculiar or not like everybody else. But don't you know? You've been called to not be like everybody else. It's a glorious thing that you've been called by God. But have you forgotten? Have you forgotten your calling? Are you apathetic about being one of God's own? This is a way that spiritual apathy becomes for us like prison without bars. We're trapped.

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Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that there's nothing like your word. This is a book that when we open it, it reads us. We pray today as we open your word, as we look at this difficult passage and this difficult story about a difficult man. Lord, help us both to see ourselves and rightly see Jesus and have hope and feel your call and respond appropriately to you. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

We're going to be in the book of Judges again today in sections of chapters 13, 14, and 15. We're skipping over a lot of sections. I encourage you to go back and read all of these chapters later. I am trying to get us through with Judges by Christmas time, and I'm a little behind here.

Judges 13

The Israelites again did what was evil in the Lord's sight. So the Lord handed them over to the Philistines forty years. There was a certain man from Zorah from the family of Dan whose name was Manoah. His wife was unable to conceive and had no children. The angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, "Although you're unable to conceive and have no children, you will conceive and give birth to a son. Now please be careful not to drink wine or beer or to eat anything unclean, for indeed you will conceive and give birth to a son. You must never cut his hair because the boy will be a Nazarite to God from birth, and he will begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines." — Judges 13

That's the birth narrative of Samson.

Judges 14

Samson went down to Timna and saw a young Philistine woman there. He went back and told his father and his mother, "I have seen a young Philistine woman in Timnah. Now get her for me as a wife." But his father and mother said to him, "Can't you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines for a wife?" But Samson told his father, "Get her for me. She's the right one for me." — Judges 14

Now his father and mother did not know that this was from the Lord who wanted the Philistines to provide an opportunity for confrontation. At the time, the Philistines were ruling Israel.

Samson went down to Timna with his father and mother and came to the vineyard of Timna. Suddenly, a young lion came roaring at him and the spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat but he did not tell his father and mother what he had done. — Judges 14

Then he went back and spoke to the woman because she seemed right to Samson.

Then later in that chapter, the spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him and he went down to Ashkelon and killed 30 of their men, the Philistines. He stripped them and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. In a rage, Samson returned to his father's house and his wife was given to one of the men who had accompanied him. — Judges 14

Judges 15

Then 3,000 of the men of Judah went to the cave at the Rock of Etam and they said to Samson, "Don't you realize the Philistines rule us? What have you done to us?" "I have done to them what they did to me," he answered. They said to him, "We've come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines." Then Samson said, "Swear to me that you won't yourselves kill me." "No," they said, "we won't kill you, but we will tie you up securely and hand you over to them." So they tied him up with two new ropes and led him away from the rock. When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him shouting. The spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms and wrists became like burnt flax and fell off. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey reaching out his hand and took it and killed a thousand men with it. — Judges 15:11-15

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Let's test this morning some of your American mythology. So, let's see what you remember from maybe apocryphal versions of American myths. Who was the person in American history who could not tell a lie?

George Washington.

Very good. Who chopped down the cherry tree?

Right.

All kinds of things about Washington. He had wooden teeth. He didn't. He could throw a silver dollar across the Potomac River. Guys, that's a mile. That's not happening.

Similarly, we need to test out some of our cartoonish ideas about the Bible. And maybe in the book of Judges, there's no more cartoonish character that many people have from storybook bibles or from growing up in Sunday school than this man, Samson.

I'll put up a couple pictures here. We'll go through some of these. This is what you see from storybook bibles. Samson is a muscle-bound hulk of a man. He's ripped. Look at those abs. Swashbuckler Samson. And there he is with Delilah.

I think that one of our mistaken notions about Samson is that he looks strong. The Philistines ask him in the next chapter over and over again, "What is the secret to your strength?" Which nobody would have asked if it was obvious that this guy works out every day and is on steroids. Rather, I think that Samson probably looked like this—skinny, super skinny.

I don't think we really know these stories. I think we think we know these stories. So this morning, in reviewing the story of Samson, I'm going to teach you to call him by the Hebrew pronunciation of his name to try to distinguish the cartoons from the real person. In Hebrew, his name is Shimshan, which is my favorite word to say in Hebrew. Say it with me. Shimshan. You know, you can impress your friends this morning with a little Hebrew.

Shimshan's story covers four chapters in the book of Judges. It's the longest of the stories about the judges, and yet it is no cartoon. This is a tragic story. This morning, I want to look at the self-destruction of this man under two headings. First, spiritual apathy is a prison without walls. And then later, we're going to see how God is a warrior God. But here's the main idea: Spiritual apathy is a prison without walls.

The Broken Cycle

We say that in a number of ways in this passage, and the first way is this: a crush on your captor.

Now we've been going through all these cycles in the book of Judges, and all the cycles seem to follow the same pattern. The people of Israel begin to go after gods of the surrounding neighbors. As they do so, the nations whose gods they begin serving oppress them. They put them in bondage. They're under some kind of power over them. The people cry out to God for deliverance. God sends a judge, and that judge is more like a tribal warlord who ends up leading the people into freedom. And then the cycle starts over.

What we've seen over and over is that God keeps sending saviors who need saving, deliverers who need delivering. The second is the incredible patience of God. The kindness of God. That's why I call this whole series the redemption cycle. Over and over, God's faithfulness. God's kindness to his people.

But notice what's missing in this passage. There's one thing critical that's missing from that normal cycle. Yes, the people go after other gods. Yes, the nations behind those gods end up oppressing them, but the people do not cry out. This alone, of all the sections of Judges, this is the last of the cycles, and this time, the people are happy being oppressed. They're not even crying out to God anymore.

It's interesting when Shimshan begins to push back on the Philistines. We read that the elders of Israel come to him and say, "What are you doing? The Philistines, they're our friends. We like this. We like things the way that they are."

This even spills over into Shimshan's own family. We read there about this miraculous birth story. There's a lot more there in chapter 13. But what's fascinating is even after the appearance of this miraculous birth and an angel that shows up and all of this that happens, they named the boy Shimshan, which is a Philistine name for the sun in the sky. Literally means "son of the sun." That's what Shimshan means. It shows us how pagan, how compromised, how spiritually apathetic Israel had become.

Are you familiar with the name Patty Hearst? Patty Hearst was the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper maker who founded the Hearst Media Empire. She was kidnapped and held for ransom in 1974. This was all that America was talking about at the time.

She was held by the Sibyanese Liberation Army and she stayed in captivity. They kept sending notes, but what was fascinating is three months after she was captured, she was caught on film holding a gun, helping out the Sibanese Liberation Army with a bank robbery. Public opinion went from lots of sympathy toward her to lots of outrage. The police couldn't figure out: is she someone who's been abducted and is a victim, or is she now part of the problem?

Patty Hearst's name has become synonymous with something called Stockholm syndrome, where a coping strategy of somebody who's been abducted is to sympathize with their captors, to join in with them, to have positive feelings toward those who are oppressing them. In many ways, this is what we see in Judges. Spiritual Stockholm Syndrome. Oppressed by the Philistines, we love them. And is this any different than us, than what we do? Idolatry, pursuing all the other good things in life becomes for us many times spiritual Stockholm syndrome. We know that there are things that are wrong that we make room for in our lives, and yet we are okay with it. We live with it. We're not crying out to God. We're not asking, "Lord, deliver me. I need help." We're like Patty Hearst on the inside. A crush on our captors spiritually.

Over all my years as a pastor, there's one phrase I can't handle when people tell me, and it's the phrase "I'm struggling with." Because a lot of times that phrase among Christians is applied to things that you're not struggling with. It's applied to things you're happy about and okay with. This phrase is added to behavior that we know is wrong and we know is destructive for us. So I hear this added to justify behavior of things you don't want to change. Things like this: "I'm struggling with sleeping with my boyfriend. I'm struggling with smoking marijuana. I'm struggling with gambling online. I'm struggling with gossip. I'm struggling with drinking too much."

Now, I don't want to deny the reality of addictions, but a lot of times that phrase is added by Christians to behaviors that they want to justify. You're not struggling? You're happy with this. You have spiritual Stockholm syndrome.

Apathy About Calling

This is why spiritual apathy is a prison with no bars. You're in love with your captor. The second way we see this: we become apathetic about our calling. You know how people look like their dogs? It's a common phrase. In Judges, the judges look like the people. And this is where we see Samson. He is just a version of Israel. He shows off for us an apathy about his own calling that reflects that of Israel with regard to their calling, and I want to put before you us with our calling.

We read this little phrase that he was a Nazarite. He was called to be a Nazarite from birth. Now, that's from the book of Numbers. It's a special designation. Anybody could be a Nazarite. It was a voluntary, temporary dedication of oneself to the Lord where you said three things: I am not going to drink alcohol for some period of time. I am not going to cut my hair for some period of time. And I am going to refrain from touching, being around a dead body for some period of time in order to give myself more fully to God. It's an expression of worship and zeal.

What's fascinating is that Samson—God calls him to be a Nazarite from birth. It wasn't temporary, and it wasn't voluntary, but the same rules applied. He was not to cut his hair. He was not to drink alcohol. He was not to touch a dead body. In many ways, this is a microcosm of Israel. Israel was likewise called to be God's chosen people from birth, and there was nothing special about them. Over and over in the Old Testament makes this point. Nothing more moral. Nothing more good. Nothing more smart about Israel than any other nation. God says, "I love you because I love you just because, but you're going to be my people."

Over and over, the history of Israel—really the Old Testament—is a history of the people forgetting their specialness. The fact that they're called by God. Do you know this about you? Are you aware? I can say this with 100% confidence this morning as a pastor before you: you are here this morning only because God is calling you. You have a calling on your life. You may think "I'm here because my family's here. I'm here because someone brought me. I'm here because I'm married to this person. I'm here because I'm the kid in the family." No. No. No. Make no mistake. There is a calling on your life. God is calling you. God has been calling you. You are in His sight, chosen and special. He is calling you for a purpose in your life. Do you know that?

I think one of the biggest problems I see often with Christians is we forget our calling. People look like their dogs. The judges look like Israel.

Samson, he's meant to be a walking billboard as a Nazarite to show off to the nation. This is what all of us are supposed to be like—dedicated to the Lord, special to him, giving ourselves to him. And yet here's this man whose whole life could be described by the phrase spiritual apathy. Because when it comes to his calling, he throws it out the window.

We'll see him in this passage in one of the episodes throwing a rager keg party, drinking a ridiculous amount of alcohol. There's a scene that we skipped over where he kills the lion, and he goes back by later and there's a bee's nest that's formed itself in the carcass of the lion. He reaches down and touches the carcass—again, don't touch dead bodies—and eats some of the honey from it. Then the next chapter, which we'll read next week, he allows his hair to be cut.

What we see is that he is so compromised. He doesn't care about his calling. He doesn't care about being a Nazarite. With Samson, we see a man who didn't want to conquer the Philistines. He wants to be one of them. He wants to be just like them.

And if we're honest—I mean, if we're really honest, not church honest but real honest—this is us as well. We do not want to be seen as different than other people. We don't want to be seen as set apart. I think the worst thing American Christians can imagine is someone thinking we're weird or peculiar or not like everybody else. But you've been called to not be like everybody else. It's a glorious thing that you've been called by God, but have you forgotten? Have you forgotten your calling? Are you apathetic about being one of God's own? This is a way that spiritual apathy becomes for us like a prison without bars. We're trapped.

Apathy About Our Appetites

The last way that we see how spiritual apathy is a prison without bars is this: we're apathetic about our appetites. Now there are six episodes in the life of Samson, and we looked through five of these really quickly in the passage. I kind of skipped over a couple of them. But one constant is this: he's a man who loves a good bender. He loves to binge. He likes everything in over-the-top quantities. He likes sexuality that way. He likes his alcohol that way, and he likes revenge that way.

Episode one was his desire for a new wife, and you remember his caveman speak? "See, want. I want her. She look good." My dad will have to tell the story about my youngest sister, Laura, when she was moving into college. She moves in and her freshman roommate is there, another girl, and the girl's dad. They're moving in all the boxes and speaking to this man. He's got a really thick, old-school North Carolina accent, and he said, you know, the other father said his nickname in the family was "bring me by me"—bring me by me. And that was her use for her dad: "Dad, I need your credit card. I want you to bring me so you can buy me."

That's so much of what we see of Samson. Wife, want wife. Go get her for me here. And it only goes worse. Episode two is the big rager keg party he throws. Episode three, at his wedding, he plays a trick on the Philistines with a riddle. And when they actually solve the riddle, in order to fulfill his end of the bargain, he goes and kills an entire village full of Philistine people in order to take the clothes that he had promised and give them to the people whose riddle he resolved. Episode four, he enacts revenge on his enemies and burns all their crops. Episode five, he kills over a thousand people with the jawbone of a donkey. The whole thing is a joke because what is Samson? He is an ass of a man in every way possible.

The point is this: he's a man who is spiritually apathetic when it comes to his appetites—his appetites for alcohol, sex, revenge, pleasure. He's a man completely unbridled, completely uncontrolled, given to his own pleasure. And again, this is just like Israel and just like us.

The book of Judges has been story after story of Israel going after other gods. I want to make sure that we know this: their going after other gods was not like, nothing to do tonight on TV—let's go find some other gods to worship. This was pleasurable, deeply so. Their worship of other gods always involved sexual orgies, lots and lots of alcohol, lots and lots of unbridled giving in to your appetites. It's not just because there was no Internet back then. This was fun. It was fun and deeply pleasurable to go after other gods.

As the Bible says of fools who live for our appetites, their end is their destruction, their god is their stomach, their glory is their shame, whose mind is set on earthly things. One of the most surgical TV shows of the last few years is Black Mirror. Familiar with that TV show? It's not one that builds on itself with stories. It's different episodes that look at humans' relationships with our technology, and it's masterfully done. It's the twilight zone for this generation.

And the reason I say it's masterfully done because like your screen on your iPhone or device when it's turned off, it provides a reflection. It's a mirror back to yourself. It's a black mirror of what you're like. That's the premise of the show. Shows us that what we look at and what we pursue online is really just about what's inside of us. Our longings, our desires. And what are humans like? We love pleasure in all its forms, and we look to our technology to deliver that to us. Dopamine hits for likes on social media, online gambling, pornography, online shopping, the voyeurism that we do, the fantasy life of travel.

I ask you this: If your search history was put on the screen this morning for everyone to see, would you blush? What would it say about you? What story would it tell about what you love in this life? I think that what would be shown for all of us is that our online digital life is one about pleasure in some form or another—escape. That's what we see in Samson. God pushed to the side. Samson mentions God one time in three chapters. God might as well not even be there. And so are we. We're people who live for our appetites. Our glory is our shame. It's just another form of spiritual apathy and indifference, a big "whatever" to God.

God the Warrior

Now, here's the good news, and I bet you're ready for some good news. These are hard passages, aren't they? But what we see in this passage, again, is God who is a warrior. God who's going to battle. God who is gearing up for a fight. Does that sound odd to you? Maybe that language feels off or something you're used to—like God being gentle. The pictures of Jesus being almost weak. But this picture that we see over and over in the Bible is God is a warrior and he goes to battle here in two ways.

First, he sends the miracle baby. Samson himself, the miracle baby. This is one of those stories that echoes lots of other stories in the Bible—the miraculous birth. You read your Old Testament, you read of all these barren women: Sarah and Rachel and Rebecca and Hannah and Elizabeth and the wife of Manoah, Samson's mother. What is God up to? God seems to create here a judge this time out of almost nothing. I'm gonna make you a judge. Other times, other people identify this person as a judge. This one, God sets him apart from birth. And of course, it's a picture for us of what we're about to celebrate next month at Christmas. The coming of the Son of God into the darkness, into this world.

What is Christmas? What is the Christmas story but God saying, "No more. I am so sick of the cycles of death and destruction, and the pinnacle of my creation, humanity itself—you sitting here this morning—I am so passionate about. I love so much. I can't stand it." And he sends the miracle baby and the light comes into the darkness. This is what we celebrate. Christmas is not a holiday about gifts for us. It's about the gift. It's about God not leaving us alone. God coming after us. God coming into enemy occupied territory to rescue us. Of course, hallelujah. Amen. Lots of Christmas carols coming.

But do you know that's not just a one-time thing in the Bible? God is picking a fight with our idols. This is the other good news of this passage. Maybe the most important verse of the whole section was one we read here. Let's put this up on the screen.

Now, his father and mother didn't know that this was from the Lord who wanted the Philistines to provide an opportunity for confrontation. At that time, the Philistines were ruling Israel. — Judges 14:4

What does that mean? God's picking a fight. Samson doesn't know it but the instigator in this passage is none other than the Lord of glory who's like, "I am not okay with you being in love with your captors, with your idols. I'm picking a fight. I'm coming after them." You know, God is going to war against their Stockholm syndrome? They're in love with their captors. You know, as I said, Samson would rather be a Philistine than be the people's deliverer. He'd rather sleep with them.

But you know this about your life too? God is going to war in your life against your idols, against the things that you love. He's picking a fight with the stuff that you love more than him. He's stirring it up.

Do you want to know why you can't truly be happy with a life that is partly in name to God and then is about all those other things? Because God has designed you to delight and know the fullest. He doesn't want to give you junk food. He wants to give you himself.

You know, the reason you can't be happy with worshiping comfort or security or pleasure or material things or experiences or relationships or success or beauty or intelligence or power is that God is a warrior. He's picking a fight.

There's a quote that people apply regularly to conversion. It's from the church fathers, Saint Augustine. He said this:

God, you made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.

People like, "Oh yeah. Great quote about conversion. That's why people are restless. They're looking for God." But do you know that this is what God's doing in every life all the time? Of people who are believers in Jesus, God wants all of you.

When you struggle, it's a good thing when God is disrupting your life. When things are not working out for you to get the idols that you want. When life doesn't seem to be adding up in all this way. In some weird way this morning, I want you to be really encouraged because God is so passionate about his people. He loves us so much. He's coming after us. He won't settle for spiritual apathy. Spiritual apathy is a prison with no bars.

The Prison With No Bars

Let me close with this. In fourteenth century Belgium, there was once a duke named Raynald the Third. Raynald was the ruler of the kingdom, but he was a very large man. In fact, his nickname was Crassus, which is Latin for fat.

After a particularly violent quarrel with his younger brother Edward, Edward decided he would overthrow this man. There was a long series of battles, and Edward captured his older brother, Raynald the Third, and imprisoned him in a very unique way in Newkirk Castle. He took him into a room and had the mason come in. The mason designed the doors to fit a skinny person and designed the windows to fit a skinny person. And he said to his older brother, Raynald, "You may leave anytime you want to. You're free to go. There's no bars on any of these doors. No one is entrapping you here. No one is keeping you here."

And every day, Edward had a sumptuous meal set inside the room. For ten years, Raynald never came out. His brother died in battle. He finally was set free, but he was so unhealthy. He lived less than a year.

Brothers and sisters, what are you hungry for? Only the Lord of glory has what we're looking for. His invitation through this weird story of Samson is to be people who give ourselves wholly to the Lord so that we might experience the fullness of his joy. Don't be stuck in spiritual apathy.

Let's go to the word together in prayer. Father, we thank you that there's no hero except for Jesus. We pray, Father, Lord, this is a challenging passage. We find ourselves over and over reflected in these pages of our spiritual battle apathy, loving our idols, our captors, having no sense of our calling, no sense of controlling our appetites. Lord, we live for everything but you. Capture our hearts today, Father.

I pray for those who are here who've never known you and those who have known you for maybe their whole life, Father, that we would find our hearts' greatest desires met and joy in Jesus. Father, help us to let go of lesser things so we might walk out of the prison with no bars and come to you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Would you stand and sing and respond to God's word together? Thank you for listening to our CTK Raleigh sermons podcast. CTK is a community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful relationships, and committed to redemptive work in Raleigh. If you have questions about our sermon content or about our church in general, please visit our website at ctkraleigh.org.