The Weak Strong Man

Blessed are the meek. The meek are those who know the source of their strength. The meek are those who don't confuse gifting with fruit. The meek are those who give their heart to the Lord because the meek say, "I need help" and know that. That's a life. That's the anti-Samson life. That's a life with God in the middle. I need help.

CTK Sermons is a ministry of Christ the King Presbyterian Church. 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.

Have a seat. I know it is cold in here. We've talked about that already. It just makes me excited for our move at the end of this month to Temple Baptist Church right across town on Wake Forest Road where we're doing a lot of our holiday services and you will not be able to spread out. You'll have to sit beside each other and snuggle up. So pews mean something different for our congregation. We've never been in a church building in my tenure with pews and it's going to be a new thing for us.

I want to thank the congregation personally. Many of you know this has been a hard week for our family as Susan lost her mom this week, and we've grieved as a family. I just want to thank many of you who've reached out with notes and posts responding to her posts on social media. Thank you for your care for us and your concern for us. Next week we'll be away at her mom's funeral, and I'm really thankful for Elliot Grudem who's going to fill in for me next week. He was senior pastor here before me, and you're in capable hands. Thank you for your care for our family.

Now I'm going to turn our attention to God's word. We are getting close to the end of the book of Judges. We're in Judges chapter 16 today, and I'm going to read for us and invite you to follow along on the screen behind me. We're going to be in Judges 16 verses 4 through 5 and then 15 through 31. If you'll give your attention to God's word, here's the story—the second part of Samson.

After this, he, Samson, loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Seduce him and see where his great strength lies and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him. And we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver." — Judges 16:4-5

So Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me where your great strength lies and how you may be bound that one could subdue you." There are three episodes where she tries to trick him. And then finally, in verse 15:

And she, that is Delilah, said to Samson, "How can you say to me 'I love you' when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times and have not told me where your great strength lies." And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. And he told her all his heart and said to her, "A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me and I shall become weak and be like any other man." — Judges 16:15-17

When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines saying, "Come up again, for he has told me all his heart." Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. And she made him sleep on her knees and she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him and his strength left him. And she said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" and he woke from his sleep and said, "I will go out as at other times and shake myself free." But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

The Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison. But the hair of his head began to grow again after he had been shaved.

A little editorial comment right here. This is where you should hear it.

And now the words of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon, their king, and to rejoice and said, "Our god has given Samson, our enemy, into our hand." And when the people saw him, they praised their god, for they said, "Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country who has killed many of us." — Judges 16:23-24

And when their hearts were merry, they said, "Call Samson that he may entertain us." So they called Samson out of prison and he entered. He entertained them. They made him stand between the pillars. And Samson said to the young man who held him by the hand, "Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests that I may lean against them."

Now the house was filled with men and women and all the lords of the Philistines were there. And on the roof there were 3,000 men and women who looked on while Samson entertained. — Judges 16:27-28

Then Samson called out to the Lord and said, "Oh Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, oh God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes." And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and 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 all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life. Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah, his father, and he had judged Israel twenty years. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

You know, there's a movie in 2024 that was snubbed for an Oscar called "Iron Claw." It was the story about the real life professional wrestling family, the Van Eycks, who dominated professional wrestling for many years. And it starred Jeremy Allen White and Zach Efron—really cut, really built—a whole family of all these young wrestlers who were incredibly strong on the outside, and yet this is what the movie's about: incredibly weak on the inside, incredibly fragile people on the inside. And the main character of this passage we read today, the story of Samson, could be said very similarly. He's a man who is very strong on the outside and yet really weak on the inside.

Now I think part of my job when I preach on the Old Testament to people who've grown up in the church is to distinguish the cartoonish views you may have of particular Bible characters from reality. So in order to do that, I'm going to re-introduce the name of how you say his name in Hebrew, which is the funnest name in the Bible to pronounce anyway. Shimshan is how you say Samson in Hebrew. Can you say that with me? Shimshan? Okay. So we're going to call him Shimshan for this sermon because I want to separate those two things. And I want to look at this morning with you about Shimshan's story under several headings: first, the antihero; second, the broken hero; and finally, the true hero. And I want to give a nod this morning to Paige Brown's teaching on this, which I listened to, which gave me a couple of the illustrations I'm going to use this morning.

The Antihero

So, yes, that is a nod to Taylor Swift, and Shimshan is anything but a hero. I mean, he embodies Taylor's lyrics here:

I should not be left to my own devices, that come with prices and vices. I end up in crisis. Tale as old as time.

And that is what we're seeing play out in Shimshan's life—his vices and devices and prices and crises. Last week, we saw five episodes. Very quickly, we walked through these five episodes where we see Shimshan, the antihero. He's a man who had a special calling from God and had zero regard for it. Had incredible gifts, had zero regard for that. Great appetites for sexuality and drink and revenge. And his story culminates in this last episode with Delilah, an episode which revealed several more things about his character.

First is this: Shimshan has no awareness of where his strength came from—the source of his strength. Now, Delilah shows zero subtlety in this passage. It is very obvious what she is up to. But the real bad guy of the story is not Delilah. It's the judge himself. It's Shimshan himself.

Now, as I said last week, there are all these pictures from storybook Bibles that look like Shimshan the Incredible Hulk. And yet if he were really outwardly, overwhelmingly strong, if he were built like the Rock, no one would be asking, "What's the secret of your strength?" They would have said, "Oh, yeah. We know it's your workout routine and your protein shakes and maybe the hormones you're on." But here's my contention: I think that Shimshan had a dad bod or was wiry or something because people looked at him and said, "There's no way this man should be that strong." And so this question—where does your strength come from—keeps coming up over and over and over again because they're asking, "How can anybody look like that be that strong?"

So Shimshan falls for Delilah, and over and over again, she tries to trap him and use him and deceive him. And it's remarkable because here's a man who cannot say no to her, but he's never said yes truly to God. We skip part of this chapter because it's very long. Three times, the Bible tells us he's asked the secret of his strength, and three different times, he gives different false answers. He says, "You know, if you tie me up with bowstrings, if then, you know, they'll be like kryptonite to me," or "if you tie me up with wet ropes," or "if you braid my hair into the loom."

And every time he gets up, he shakes it off. Right? Every time. But then, when Samson's head gets shaved, we read this tragic summary. Did you hear it?

He awoke from his sleep and thought, I will go out as before and shake myself free, but he did not know that the Lord had left him.

He doesn't know where his power came from. He doesn't know the source. All along, we've seen this is a man who's apathetic to the things of God. So why all the "Hey, Samson, the Philistines are upon you" tricks? Why all that mind games? Why does he toy with that?

I think it's because he doesn't really believe he can be beaten. He doesn't really believe it. He even tells her the secret: "Shave my head." But I don't think he really believed anything was going to happen. Because over and over, he has played with this Nazarite vow. He's touched a dead body. He's drunk alcohol. He's done all the things. And he really believes, on some level, his own press. He doesn't know that God and God's presence are the truest source of his power, his strength.

You know, there's a story about the late Muhammad Ali. One time he was flying on an airplane and he refused to put on his seat belt. The flight attendant came out and said, "Sir, you have to put on your seat belt." And he says, "Superman don't need no seat belt." She responded very quickly. I love this. She says, "Superman don't need no plane. Put on your seat belt."

Now that's funny, and it's easy to laugh at the pride and arrogance in that statement in another person. But do we see that in ourselves? As the young people like to say, we'll say this about Shimshon: He think he him. Shimshon has zero understanding of where his strength comes from—that everything is from the Lord. He tells Delilah his secret because I think he's like, "It's all me, really. It really is all me." And I wonder if we're not similar.

I find the Bible is such a mirror to me when I read it. Isn't it telling? Would you know if the Lord disappeared from your life? If he withdrew his presence from you? Shimshan is the only one who doesn't know the secret of his strength. Do you? Do you know your source?

I heard someone ask it this way: Could a competent atheist run your life? Would anything be different? Shimshan doesn't even know that God has left him. Why did he not know that the Lord had left him? Because he never knew he was with him. All the time, he never knew. Do you?

And we're told God will never remove his spirit from his children. But do you care? Do you live as if his spirit is really present with you?

Giftedness vs. Character

Second thing: Why else is he an antihero? He's an antihero because Shimshan makes no connection between his gifting and obedience or character. There is an impulse in each of us to believe our own press at times. To think that our intelligence, or maybe your good looks, maybe it's your business acumen, your musical gifts, your athletic abilities, your ability to handle pressure when other people buckle under things, your physique and being fit into your old age, your abilities with finances. There's something in us that at times takes credit for those things.

And yet there's so much of who you are and the way that you're made that is not based on anything that you did. You didn't choose to be born into the century that you did, into the country that you did, with the genes that you've got, with the opportunities that have been handed to you. And I know there are many of us who could say, "I've had a hard life." But each of us has things that have been handed to us. And in the lineup of history, we stand at this pinnacle moment. Do we take credit for those things, or do we mistake those gifts that we've been given for some kind of maturity or fruitfulness?

Shimshan here doesn't understand that there's a difference between giftedness and fruitfulness. Tim Keller used to make this statement all the time: Those are vastly different. And there's a passage in the New Testament book of First Corinthians. It talks a lot about gifting in the middle of chapter 12 and chapter 14—both on gifting. But in between them, there's this little chapter that's about love, and it starts off this way:

If I have all kinds of gifts but haven't love, I am nothing.

If I have all the gifts and I don't care about others, what is the point? Gifts are always secondary to character, to spiritual fruit.

What should have happened in Shimshan's life is he was like, "Oh my word. All that I've received is calling me to turn to the source of my gifts and look back and understand and to give God glory and to develop these things for him." But instead, it turned him in on himself.

Gifts are always secondary. Character is first.

Finally, why else is he an antihero? Because he never gives his heart to the Lord. Over and over, there's this phrase that's repeated by Delilah. "Why won't you give me your own heart? All your heart? Tell me all your heart?" Over and over, she's asking for him to tell her all his heart, and he does.

One of the things we see in Samson's life, one of the reasons he's an antihero, is because he never gives his heart to the Lord. It's always given away to others. What about your heart? Who captures your heart? Who owns your heart? The one place we are to tell our whole heart is in prayer to the Lord. God calls us to love him with our whole heart. That's what we're designed for.

I mean, can you see it? I know these are hard stories in the book of Judges, and they're hard stories because I think for many of us, they're a mirror. This is what I find in Samson for me—a mirror of me. I get confused on gifting and character. I give my heart to anything but the Lord. The antihero, the broken hero. Samson is captured and blinded and made into a spectacle for the Philistines to laugh at.

Addressing Two Questions

But before we talk about his personal transformation, I want to answer two questions, which I know are here in the room.

Is all this killing of Philistines immoral? You know, I answered that one at the beginning of the series, but I want to remind you. You do your homework on all of these ancient Near Eastern nations, and you will find these not to be some kind of peace-loving Quakers. These were really rough, really immoral, really horrible people around Canaan—the Philistines included.

What we read in the Bible is something that theologians have called intrusion judgment. God has a right to judge the world, and it is one of the great hopes of being a Christian that one day God will bring judgment. Because we look around and we see injustice in so many forms, and there's something in us that cries out and says, "This is wrong." And God, the great judge of all the earth, will bring at the final judgment day all things to account before him. That's a great hope of being a Christian. We have an answer like, "Yes, judge. It's coming."

What Bible scholars talk about in the book of Judges is called intrusion judgment. God takes something from the future—the last judgment—and pulls it forward in time and enacts judgment on the Philistines through his people. Now, the reason the book is called the book of Judges is not because these people were specifically judges. You don't see them with gavels and robes, hearing cases. They're more like warlords, but they are delivering God's judgment. That's what's happening with the Philistines.

The second question is about what really looks like Samson's suicide. And I know in a room this big that suicide has touched many lives in this room. And I want to offer to you, if I may, my own compassion this morning. If that's touched you or your family, people around you, friends—suicide is not the unforgivable sin. That's a misreading of a passage in the New Testament in the Gospels. The only unforgivable sin is not laying hold of Jesus Christ and the salvation that he offers. That's the one thing after death that will not be forgiven—not laying hold of what is life. That's the only unforgivable sin.

Samson's Greatest Moment

So back to the sermon. The downfall of Samson in this passage is gross. It's grotesque. But it is not a tragedy. It's rather his greatest moment because for the first time, even as Samson is blinded, this is the first time he actually sees anything. He rightly begins to see himself, and he rightly begins to see God. Even in being physically blinded, he rightly begins to estimate. What has been outward before—all these strengths—have actually been inward weaknesses. Now suddenly the outward weakness of being blinded, carried into captivity, becomes his strength.

Here's how we know. Very simply, he prays. This is really the first time that Samson prays in this whole book. He prays and asks for strength. For the first time, he knows where his source of strength has come from. What his hair represented—now he knows this is from the Lord. This is from the Lord. It isn't from himself. And he does the very basic, very simple, beautiful act of bowing his head and asking, "God, you are the source of all things. Give me strength yet one more time." He's weak, and he knows it.

Second, Samson is listed in Hebrews chapter 11, which is that passage in the book of Hebrews often called the hall of fame of faith or the hall of faith. He exercises faith for the first time. He acts like a judge. He acts on behalf of his people for the very first time—and last time and only time. He acts to do what God had actually put as his calling on his life: to deliver his people from the Philistines.

He's a broken hero.

And he points us then to the true hero, to the true hero. You know, it's a temptation. I find this a lot. When people open up the Old Testament, they are looking for everyone in here to be an example to follow. And it's funny to me. I've looked at Bible commentators. I've listened to other pastors preach on this passage, and they try to do backflips to try to make Samson into some good guy at the end. Some example we can emulate. You know, try to make him into a type of Christ while he was blinded at the end. Maybe that's kind of like Jesus being blindfolded or he stretched out his arms to push the pillars. It's like Jesus stretching out his arms. Don't do that. Don't cartoonify your Bibles.

One of the beautiful things in the Old Testament is that we're given the gritty of people, the real, and it's not cleaned up for you. And I know we'd like it to be. We'd like sanitized Bibles with examples to follow, but Samson is not heroic. Rather, he shows us he's a mess. He didn't die for his enemies. He died with his enemies.

The true hero of the story is not Samson. It never has been. It's been God since day one. God is still working out his purposes. God is the one since Samson's birth to his death. God is the one who's in charge of this whole story line. The truth is that God could do this with or without Samson.

Maybe the most important question is, why? Why does God choose to use somebody like Samson? Why is his story even in your Bible? It's a pay dirt question of the book of Judges because it's filled with lots of unsavory people. He's so obviously a failed person, so obviously a person of little character. Why? Why does God use Samson? Why? Because he wants to. Because God wants to. He wants to use him. God can use anybody. God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.

Now, it doesn't mean we're gonna vote for this guy to be the new pastor of our church. There are character requirements in the Bible. But the true truth of this passage is that Samson points us to a need for Jesus, to the true hero. The true hero of all these stories is God, specifically Jesus Christ. The deliverers in the book of Judges all need delivering. The saviors all need saving. All of them. All of them point us to our need for a savior.

You know, there's one other time in history where God takes judgment from eternity future and pulls it back into the past. And that's at the cross of Jesus Christ where he takes the final day of judgment and pours it out, cup of wrath poured out on his son. And Jesus willingly takes the judgment of God for human sin.

And if you're a Christian, then you can say—you can look at that intrusion of judgment at that point in history—this is what Samson needed. This is what all of us needed: a savior. And we can look and say, thank the Lord. He has made provision for my sin. All of it has been paid for in full by the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. There's nothing left to pay for.

And really, in this way, this whole story shows us how we're supposed to come to God. What it means to draw near to God. The only thing we can do in our forgetting our calling—just like Samson forgot his calling—is cry out to God. The only thing we can do in our being ruled by our appetites, like Samson was ruled by his appetites, is cry out to God. The only thing we can do in our forgetting the source of our gifts, just like Samson forgot the source of his gifts, is cry out to God. The only thing we can do in our confusing gifting and spiritual fruit, just like Samson did, is cry out to God. The only thing we can do if we're giving our heart away to anybody else but the Lord is, just like Samson, cry out to God. We can't fix ourselves. We can only cry out.

This comes full circle in the Samson story. If you remember last week as we talked about the beginning of this passage, this is the one narrative in the book of Judges when the people do that. They fall the same cycle, but they forget one step. They worship other gods. They go after them. They're oppressed by them, but they never once cry out. And the book of Judges, and this story in particular, calls us and urges us and leaves us in a place of saying: Will you cry out? Will you cry out?

You know, the three most important words that maybe anybody can learn to say in their lives are these three words: "I need help." Every child knows how to say those words. There's a whole wing of people in that part of the building over there who are really fine asking for help. It's this room that has a problem, and your pastor included.

I was walking our dog. This was a couple weeks ago. I was walking by this park I normally walk by. This kid spills a bucket full of cars and screams, "I need help." And he's looking at me and I'm like, "I can't. I got the dog. The dog is going to be all over you. I can't help you." You know, but it impacted me. I went, "Yeah."

This is what all of us need. This is what I need. There's a beatitude of Jesus behind those words.

Blessed are the meek.

The meek are those who know the source of their strength. The meek are those who don't confuse gifting with fruit. The meek are those who give their heart to the Lord because the meek say, "I need help," and know that. That's a life. That's the anti-Samson life. That's a life with God in the middle.

Samson is the anti-beatitude. He's the anti-meek. But there's an opportunity for us this morning to listen to his story and go a different way.

Conclusion: Meekness as Strength

I want to conclude with this. Thanksgiving is a big weekend for football. I have a couple of football analogies for you.

I love those old football ads that used to be on TV for soup. The ads always went like this: there'd be these giant men who were offensive linemen—tough, covered in mud. But there was one person who could get that giant offensive lineman to sit down and eat his soup. Who? His mama. Mama comes out and what had been this giant tough man is suddenly meek as a lamb. "Yes, mama. I'm going to sit down and eat my soup right now." You see him sit down at the table. Why? Because mama's power is in her authority, and he submits to her authority.

A meek person is someone who bows low before God. A meek person is actually defined by their willingness to bow low before God. The biggest players on a team, the offensive linemen, are the ones who know how to get the lowest when it's time to start the play because they've got to get all that weight really low. They know that's where the leverage is and that's where the power comes from. The bigger you are, the more meek you have to be.

Blessed are the meek.

Go and do likewise.

Prayer

Father, we thank you for this story, for all these stories that point out our need—not just for a Savior one time, but for a regular place of Jesus in the center. We thank you, Lord, for this picture for us of how much we need you and the folly of a life without you. Lord, we pray that we would hear the warnings and take heed and turn our hearts toward you and submit ourselves fully to you.

Lord, as we sit here this morning, I know there are people here who need to say the words, and I pray that you would give them the strength this morning to say these words again today: "I need help." Whether that's coming to Christ for the first time, whether that's being in a place of loneliness or sin or trial or suffering—Father, we pray that we would cry out to you. Cry out to one another. Let us be a community that hears.

Father, we thank you that you always hear the cries of your children. Give us this courage this morning to turn away from the pathway of Samson and turn toward meekness and put Jesus in the center and be willing to be weak. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand and respond to God's word in song together.

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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.