Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris:
Hey, welcome to The Bible Guys. I’m Chris. This is Jeff. And we are together.

Jeff:
Together. In this place. Not together. In proximity. Yes, we’re near. We’re near. We’re close.

Chris:
And so we are about to tackle one of the most famous couples in all of history. Wow. Samson and Delilah.

Jeff:
Yeah, Samson and Delilah is not the same as Jeff and Chris. No, that’s correct. Very, very different. Very different. We’re more like Batman and Robin.

Chris:
We’re being clear when I said we’re together.

Jeff:
We’re more like Sam and Frodo.

Chris:
Right. Right. That’s right. That’s right. Uh, so, uh, before we jump into that, however, um, Desiree has a, which she is titling a passage question. I’m assuming she’s meaning the passage that we’re about to talk about. Really? Uh, she says today we’re talking about the story of Samson and Delilah. So let’s ask a fun related question. If Samson strength could be activated only by a specific, completely random song, what song would you pick and why that’s hilarious. Yes. I didn’t even read that until just now.

Jeff:
I hadn’t either.

Chris:
Okay.

Jeff:
Do you want to give it a shot? The best tough guy song. Okay. What’s yours?

Chris:
Okay. Ready? See if you can guess the next line. Ready? Romeo and Juliet.

Jeff:
I don’t know it.

Chris:
Samson and Delilah.

Jeff:
Oh, there you go. Well, so that’s how his strength is activated is that song?

Chris:
That’s what she’s saying.

Jeff:
That’s what she’s saying. So we have to pick a song. Oh, I was going to say something like Eye of the Tiger or something.

Chris:
Just because it’s cool.

Jeff:
Or the beginning of Crazy Train might be good. Back in Black would be a good one. I don’t know. The beginning of Welcome to the Jungle.

Chris:
Yeah. Welcome to the jungle. Yeah. You know, when we get to the ending part, you know, the ending where he’s, you know, in the, in the, in the Dagon’s temple, uh, I can’t imagine, you know, uh, you know, the eye of the tiger in that, in that situation.

Jeff:
But, uh, yeah, I don’t know. I can’t think of any other good themes.

Chris:
I don’t even know that the song that I sang. Romeo and Juliet.

Jeff:
You don’t know the song?

Chris:
Samson and Delilah.

Jeff:
I don’t know it. I mean, I’m like vaguely aware that those lyrics exist, but I don’t know.

Chris:
I think it’s the one where it goes, and then we kiss through fire. There you go. Late at night. I don’t know.

Jeff:
I don’t know.

Chris:
Yeah. That’s, that’s the one. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I think it’s called fire. I think.

Jeff:
Yeah. I don’t know.

Chris:
Yeah. That’s what it is.

Jeff:
So, well, that was an interesting segment.

Chris:
It was very different, wasn’t it?

Jeff:
Very.

Chris:
I got to hand it to her for being different. Yes. She’s like, Hey, if Samson’s strength could be activated by a song.

Jeff:
What kind of song? Yeah. Have you ever thought about that? Like having a theme song when you walk around and just when you walk into a room and a theme song plays.

Chris:
Only when I saw Emperor’s New Groove, when Kronk was trying to get rid of the llama and he was running through the city and he was, and then, and then all of a sudden Dana Carvey says, or no, it wasn’t Dana Carvey who played David Spade. And he played the voice of Emperor Krusko. And he goes, who sings their own theme music? He has his own theme music? And I actually thought to myself, if I had my own theme music, what would it be?

Jeff:
Yeah. What would it be?

Chris:
I honestly, I like Bad at the Bone. I know it’s so typical.

Jeff:
That’s such a good one though. I mean, that is a cool one.

Chris:
They played it when I was walking up to receive my award in college. That’s what they played.

Jeff:
They played that song, So You Won an Award in College? What is this story? How has this never come up on this podcast? One, that you won an award, and two, they played Bad to the Bone. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you didn’t win an award at college. That was the shock to me. Yes. You won it while you were in college. Oh, that’s hilarious. While you were in college.

Chris:
Wait a minute, you were shocked that I had won a collegiate award?

Jeff:
Well, no, just that I didn’t know about it. I thought you would have bragged about that by now. No, now you’re putting words in my mouth.

Chris:
Well, cause you know what college I went to. How could that college honor you? So no, no, I was, I was working, I was in college.

Jeff:
It was a job award.

Chris:
It was a job. I was, I was number one in the company and the whole nation in that particular month. And, uh, I was there with 800 of the top people across the country. And, uh, and, and it was, it was excellent. So they would, You know they’d say the whole crowd would say number seven and they’d say number seven is you know Jill Miller number six and they counted down and then finally they would say They would say he’d say number one as in and then the whole crowd would say nobody does it better Nobody does it better than Chris So I stand up all the lights go out a spotlight goes on me and they go back to the ball And I walk up, as I’m walking up to receive my award. And then they drew a $1,000 award. At the end of the night, there was only one. And I was the guy that made the most money in the place. And everybody had one entry, and I won the $1,000. Everybody was like, boo! Because I had made the most money that day. But then they dropped the lights again and played Bad to the Bone.

Jeff:
So you’ve had Bad to the Bone twice walking up on stage in front of almost a thousand people.

Chris:
And I thought to myself, that’s my theme music.

Jeff:
Here you are 30 years later going, I want to relive that experience. If I had a theme song, that would be it. It has to be. Okay. Well, now we know. So if you ever see Chris and just pull up on iTunes, Bad to the Bone, when you walk up to him and it’ll make him feel like the man he’s always wanted to be.

Chris:
Like the man he’s always wanted to be.

Jeff:
Is that right?

Chris:
The man that I am, Jeff.

Jeff:
The man that I am. Well, good. Well, talking about tough guys. It’s a segue. Totally bad to the bone people. Yes. Samson now is a judge. Everything that we’ve read up to this point, it was not while he was actually the official judge of Israel. Verse 20 of the chapter we read yesterday, he judges Israel for 20 years. And then we moved to chapter 16 and this is kind of, we’re sprinting to the end now.

Chris:
Yeah, and the first three verses sort of stand alone before we get into Samson and Delilah. There’s like an incident where Samson carries away the gates of Gaza.

Jeff:
Yeah, and he seems to have a woman problem a little bit, doesn’t he? A little bit. Yeah. So in the previous stories, we’ve read this, but then now it says, one day Samson went to the Philistine town of Gaza and spent the night with a prostitute. Word soon spread that Samson was there, so the men of Gaza gathered together and waited all night at the town gates. And they kept quiet during the night, saying to themselves, when the light of morning comes, we’ll kill him. But Samson stayed in bed only until midnight. Then he got up, took hold of the doors of the town, including the two posts, lifted them up, bar and all. He put them on his shoulders and carried them all the way to the top of the hill across from Hebron. Right.

Chris:
What a random, what a random series of events there.

Jeff:
Crazy. Yep. And then in verse four, it says sometime later, Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Valley of Sorek. The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, entice Samson to tell you what makes him so strong and how he can be overpowered and tied up securely. Then each of us will give you 1100 pieces of silver. So Delilah said to Samson, please tell me what makes you so strong and what it would take to tie you up securely. Samson replied, if I were tied up with seven new bow strings that have not yet been dried, I’d become as weak as anyone else. So the Philistine rulers brought Delilah seven new bow strings and she tied Samson up with them. She’d hidden some men in one of the inner rooms of her house and she cried out, Samson, the Philistines have come to capture you. But Samson snapped the bow strings as a piece of string snaps when it’s burned by a fire. So the secret of his strength was not discovered. Afterward, Delilah said to him, you’ve been making fun of me and telling me lies. Now, please tell me how you can be tied up securely. Samson replied, if I were tied up with brand new ropes that had never been used, I would become as weak as anyone else. So Delilah took new ropes and tied him up with them. And the men were hiding in the inner room as before. And again, Delilah cried out, Samson, the Philistines have come to capture you. But Samson snapped the ropes from his arms as if they were a thread. Then Delilah said, you’ve been making fun of me and telling me lies. Now tell me how you can be tied up securely. Samson replied, if you were to weave the seven braids of my hair into the fabric of your loom and tighten it with the loom shuttle, I would become as weak as anyone else. So while he slept, Delilah wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric, and then she tightened it with the loom shuttle. Again, she cried out, Samson, the Philistines have come to capture you. But Samson woke up, pulled back the loom shuttle and yanked his hair away from the loom and the fabric. Then Delilah pouted, how can you tell me I love you when you don’t share your secrets with me? You’ve made fun of me three times now and you still haven’t told me what makes you so strong. She tormented him with her nagging day after day until he was sick to death of it. Finally, Samson shared his secret with her. My hair has never been cut, he confessed, for I was dedicated to God as a Nazarite from birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me and I would become as weak as anyone else. Delilah realized he had finally told her the truth, so she sent for the Philistine rulers. Come back one more time, she said, for he has finally told me his secret. So the Philistine rulers returned with the money in their hands, and Delilah lulled Samson to sleep with his head in her lap, and then she called in a man to shave off the seven locks of his hair. In this way she began to bring him down, and his strength left him. Then she cried out, Samson, the Philistines have come to capture you. When he woke up, he thought I will do as before and shake myself free. But he didn’t realize the Lord had left him. So the Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes. And they took him to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze chains and forced to grind grain in the prison. But before long, his hair began to grow back. Is that where we end?

Chris:
That is it. Yeah. Because the next week is tomorrow.

Jeff:
She pushed us all the way through to the end of the chapter.

Chris:
Uh, no, no, we can save that for tomorrow.

Jeff:
Okay. Let’s save that for tomorrow. We’re saving it for tomorrow.

Chris:
Yeah. Okay. So, so, uh, yeah, cause I mean, there’s plenty to talk about here. Sure. Right. So, um, it doesn’t say that Delilah was a Philistine, does it? At the very beginning, it says she lived in the Valley of Sorek. So are we to assume because she lived in the Valley of Sorek that, because, you know, that was Philistine territory. Right. Right. So, you know, it was right near the coast, near Canaan. You know, yeah. It says here in the Life Application Study Bible, I was looking for it, but it doesn’t say that Delilah was actually a Philistine. I’m assuming she was. But it does say this. This is insightful. The Philistines were ruled by five rulers, not just one. Each ruler ruled from a different city. Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath, or Gaza. Each of these cities were important center of trade and commerce. Given Delilah’s character, it is little wonder that she betrayed Samson when these rich and powerful men paid her a personal visit. So when they each promised her 1,100 pieces of silver, we’re talking about 5,500 pieces of silver. Right. Which is a fortune.

Jeff:
Yeah. I don’t even know how much that would be. Well, I mean, 28 pounds is 1100 shekels.

Chris:
I mean, are we to assume that, uh, this is the same amount of money that, you know, Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Is this the same, you know, except this is 1100.

Jeff:
Yeah.

Chris:
That’s quite a big difference, right? That’s quite a big difference. They had to been different weights because that’s crazy.

Jeff:
Let me look it up while you’re doing this.

Chris:
So we’re assuming that… I’ve always believed that Delilah was a Philistine, but I really can’t find any… I think it’s likely.

Jeff:
I mean, she lives in the Philistine region.

Chris:
A person’s greatest accomplishment will be helping others accomplish great things. Likewise, a person’s greatest failure may be preventing others from achieving greatness. Delilah played a mirror role in Samson’s life, but her effect was devastating, for she influenced him to betray his calling from God. So Delilah is a person who valued money more than relationships, betrayed people who trusted her. She was definitely persistent. she tormented him and nagged him all day long. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s something here we can learn from.

Jeff:
He wanted to die. Yes. Her nagging made him want to die. So I just looked it up with today’s prices of, of silver, it would have been roughly 50, $51,000 is what they offered her.

Chris:
Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s not as much as I would have thought. Yeah. But, but still, if somebody offered you 50 grand today, uh, and you were not- To betray you?

Jeff:
Well, you were not a- To discover what your strength was?

Chris:
You were not a man of moral character.

Jeff:
Dude, it wouldn’t take 50 grand.

Chris:
You’d do it for fun. I’m going to see you take this guy down. But here’s the most confusing thing about this entire passage. And that is, why did Samson continue to toy with her? And I think the reason is because of his character. He was arrogant. Oh, absolutely. He absolutely thought that he was invincible.

Jeff:
Yeah.

Chris:
Right? But to have a moment of weakness and actually break down and tell her his secret meant that he really thought that either he really thought that she was trustworthy or he was just so stricken with love that he just couldn’t help himself.

Jeff:
Yeah, or lust.

Chris:
Yeah, or lust. It did say he fell in love with her.

Jeff:
Yeah. So he, yeah. But his version of love is, Hey, I see that pretty girl, get her for me. I want to marry her. Get her for me. I demand it. Right. And then he gets mad and he leaves for an extended period of time. He’s gone for quite a while. When he comes back, her father’s married her off to somebody else.

Chris:
And then says, I’m going in to see my wife.

Jeff:
Right. Right. So just incredibly self-centered. I’m not sure that this is love, like the kind of love that makes a marriage last.

Chris:
Right.

Jeff:
Selfless love. I think this is self-centered stuff. But yeah, he’s he’s not a good guy. He clearly has a woman problem You know, he’s with a hooker in Gaza Just so that’s what it says, right? She’s a prostitute. Yeah, so so he’s with a prostitute in Gaza just before the story of Delilah and right after the story of you know, them burning up his wife. So now all of these things, this is over, spread over a long, long period of time. It’s not just all, you know, bang, bang, bang, back to back to back. But still, this seems to be his pattern is that women are his weakness. His, his fiance got him to spill the beans on his little story, the same exact way Delilah did.

Chris:
Yeah. And you would think that he would have learned. Yeah.

Jeff:
Yeah. Right. So he has, he has this real weakness of giving, but when you read the story of Samson and Delilah, it almost seems like, well, if you tie me up with the bow strings and she ties him up, that doesn’t work. And then immediately she ties him up with ropes and that doesn’t work. And then she weaves his hair into a loom and that doesn’t work, but that’s not how it would have, it would have been days, right? Days in between. And the way that you know, that is, uh, she tormented him with her nagging day after day until he was sick to death of it. Right? So these are days or weeks in between, and he’s just toying with her. He’s just fooling around with her. He’s just playing with her. And, but there’s a progression, right? Well, if you use bow strings, well, that’s silly. Then, well, if you use ropes, that’s, that’s silly. But then he gets really close when he goes, well, if you tie up my hair,

Chris:
In a loom.

Jeff:
Right? And all of a sudden, now you’re thinking, ooh. You know, he started off far away. I mean, ropes can’t do anything. He’s already busted ropes in front of people time after time after time. Every time they tie him up, it doesn’t work. So he’s playing around at the beginning with something that has nothing to do with the strength that he’s already demonstrated. Like, right. But all he’s doing is hinting, well, if you use a different kind of rope, use bow strings. Oh, if you use, you know, ropes that had never been used before, whatever. And he’s playing with stuff that’s not even close. And then, but this is how sin works is you get closer and closer and closer to the devastating thing. So it’s not fun anymore, right? It’s not the intrigue, the fun. It’s not quite as dangerous as it felt before. And so now he’s hinting at his hair. And that is, he’s one step away from total failure, right? I think we do that a lot, that we get more and more and more dangerous. The longer we flirt with a sin, the more dangerous we get with it.

Chris:
That’s exactly how sin works. It’s the snowball down the hill, just slowly growing. And people actually talk about that. And you and I have had a history of people coming into our offices over the years separately and, you know, telling us stories of exactly that. You know, it started out as conversation, then it turned into harmless flirting and then it was a casual drink. And all of a sudden now my entire life is ruined. Right. And, and, and it’s because you get closer and closer and closer and, and yeah, that’s the way the sin works. And, you know, it reminds me of, what is it? A book of Psalms when it says, you know, you’re, you’re walking in the way of sinners and then you sit in the seat of the scornful. And all of a sudden, you know, You’re walking by, then you’re standing. Oh, that’s what it is. You’re walking, then you’re standing, then you’re sitting. And so it’s a progression of what it means to get closer and closer to sin. So.

Jeff:
Yeah. And then what is it? Is it James that talks about the progression of sin too, right? That, that you, you desire a thing and then you begin to do the thing, right. And it eventually leads to death. There’s that, you think about it, you start wanting it, you start wanting it. Then you start trying to find ways to get it. You get it. And eventually it wipes you out. Yeah. So this, this is his story. I mean, over and over and over again.

Chris:
And so the lesson should have been this, Samson should just run, run away. Right. So instead of toying around with a woman who he, number one, he shouldn’t be with because, you know, his his people should not be with Philistines to begin with. And then realizing that all she’s really trying to do is, you know, find out his secret. And also having, you know, been burned in the past in the same way by his fiancée, you know, being betrayed by trusting a woman. You would think that all of those things would, you know, somehow indicate that he should run, but he doesn’t. And the reason why he doesn’t run, I believe, is because he thinks, I’m strong enough for anything. I can handle anything. I’m in control. And if you think about it, that’s exactly the reason why people who have, like, for instance, an addiction, They don’t go to, you know, they don’t walk in to celebrate recovery or AA because they’re like, I don’t have a problem. I’m in control. I could stop at any time. And people around them are like, I don’t really think that’s true. If you could have, you would have. Right. If you could have, you would have. But it’s, it’s, it’s the idea that we can handle it. We, we can handle, you know, the situation that we’re in, but you know, anybody who would have advised Samson would have said run away.

Jeff:
It’s always about him. Even when he gets victory, God gives him this ability to defeat a thousand Philistines with a jawbone of a donkey. And he goes, with the jawbone of a donkey, I’ve piled them in heaps. He didn’t do it. It was the power of God on him that did it. It literally says the power of the spirit of God came on him. But he takes the credit for it. He takes credit for the spring of water that springs up to water him. He takes credit for everything. He says, you know, I only gave to them what they did to me. It’s always about him. And that will always ruin your life. So you begin to believe that you deserve a thing. You begin to believe that life is an inconvenience to you unless you have what you want. You begin to believe that you have the ability to hold back the bad and only just seize the good. You have the right to enjoy all the good of life that you think you deserve. And it’s just when you step away from making God the center, you’re always on this same path that Samson was on here. And ultimately he does, he slips up, he tells her, which is so stupid. And then I think one of the saddest verses in the whole Bible is she cries out in verse 20, Samson, the Philistines have come to capture you. And he woke up and he thought, I will do as before and shake myself free. But he didn’t realize the Lord had left him.

Chris:
Right? That’s one of the saddest verses in the Bible. Didn’t even realize that God’s strength was not with him. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s, it’s a pretty bad day when, you know, you’re, you’re so callous and you’re separated from the power of the Holy Spirit that you, you have no clue. Yeah. Right.

Jeff:
And so what’d they do? They, they gouged out his eyes, which I think is really amazing. He goes into the Philistine territory, sees a beautiful woman, says, I want to marry her. He’s hanging out with prostitutes. He’s hanging out with Delilah, who likely was. Well, anything he sees, he wants. Anything he sees, he wants. The honey. Yeah, yeah. And the carcass. And so they gouge out his eyes and, you know, he’s lost his power. He doesn’t have his strength anymore. He’s weak. And there’s a really great note in the Life Application Study Bible. Let me read this. For those of you that are single, it says, Samson was deceived because he wanted to believe Delilah’s lies. Although he could strangle a lion, he could not smother his burning lust and see Delilah for who she really was. How can you keep your desire for love and sexual pleasure from deceiving you? You must decide, first of all, what kind of person you will love before passion takes over. Determine whether a person’s character and faith in God are as desirable as their physical appearance. That’s important. Secondly, it says, because most of the time you spend with your spouse will not involve sex, your companion’s personality, temperament, and commitment to solve problems and honor God must be as gratifying as the kisses. And then be patient. Thirdly, time and observation often reveal what is beneath the pleasant appearance and attractive touch. How many people have we seen that have these whirlwind, run into a relationship and you know, it’s just hot and heavy. That’s what it is. They get married right away and then find out they don’t have anything in common. Right. Right. And it ruins their lives. This is Samson, man. Samson doesn’t take anything because Samson hasn’t focused on his own character. He doesn’t care, care about the character of the women he’s with. Right. And it ultimately ruins his life. Wow. Yeah. That’s for the character of the people around us matter.

Chris:
There’s a lot of sermons in there. Yeah. So we will wrap up Samson’s story tomorrow, and hopefully we’ll see you then on The Bible Guys.