1. Judges: The Series July 13 The God who does the impossible – 13.1-25
May 11 The roots of Israel’s unfaithfulness – 1:1-3:11
May 18 Unusual and unexpected deliverance – 3:12-5:31
May 25 The reluctant leader who eventually trusts God –
June 15 Success and failure often go together –
June 22 God is both Saviour and Judge – 8:29-9:56
June 29 Failing to see what God is really like –
July 13 The God who does the impossible –
July 20 How can womanising Samson be God’s saviour? –
July 27 The depths of Israel’s unfaithfulness –
6th of 9 services.
12th and final judge – Samson.
Open your Bibles to Judges 13.

2. 5. Salvation through chosen judge 4. The people cry out (repentance)
1. The people rebel
7. The judge dies
2. God is angry
The Judges’ cycle
3. Oppression by enemies
6. A Period of peace
Can we go round the cycle together?
Note that Samson’s story has two exceptions:
The people didn’t cry out! – a very important point. Should come at Vs 2 …. But doesn’t.
There wasn’t complete peace from the Philistines until David’s reign (about 100 years later) – 2 Sam 8:1.
5. Salvation through chosen judge
4. The people cry out (repentance)

3. The Judges’ Timeline 1350 BC 1300 BC 1250 BC 1200 BC 1150 BC 1100 BC
Othniel
Ehud & Shamgar
Deborah Barak
Gideon
Tola Jair
Jephthah
Ibzan
Elon
Abdon
Samson
The Judges’ Timeline
Period 1
Period 2
Period 3
Period 4
Period 5
Period 6
As we said before, Samson was about 100 years before David.
In between, which main Bible characters can you think of?
(Samuel and Saul, with Ruth and Boaz a little earlier in the Judges period).
So about 3,100 years ago.

4. The New Enemy Israel had a new enemy (Vs 1, the Philistines).
Times had changed.
Most of the previous enemies we’ve read about have been neighbouring people, also circumcised, like Israelites, and sometimes closely related.
For example, last week we thought about how Jephthah fought the Ammonites (Judges 10-12). Ammon and Moab were the two sons of Lot.

5. Philistine Territory
The Philistines were a different kind of people, who came by sea and occupied the costal plains.
They had 5 city states; Ekron, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Gaza.
They were a tough opponents and Samson didn’t lead Israel to victory over them at all. He only worried and bothered them.
Vs 5 only promises that Samson would:
‘take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines’. Or
‘begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines’.
This confrontation would rumble on for the best part of a century, with Samson, then Samuel, Saul and Jonathan and finally David, who finally subdued them about a hundred years later (2 Sam 8:1).

6. What are our new enemies?
What are the latest enemies to attack us recently: individually and as a fellowship?
What are the latest enemies that have us in their sights?

7. Similar Birth Narratives?
Before we look at the story in any more detail, which other Bible stories does this remind you of?
Birth narratives of a) Abraham and Sarah, b) Hannah and Elkanah (Samuel’s parents in 1 Sam 1) and c) Zechariah and Elizabeth (John the Baptist’s parents in Luke 1).
Also Jesus’ birth story (though with some differences)…

8. Similarities with Jesus’ birth …
1) Both humanly impossible
2) Both announced by an angel
3) Both times the angel appeared to the woman
4) Both promised sons were to be Israel’s ruler and rescuer
Samson, like all the other judges, was a deeply flawed saviour.
As such he points forward to a better saviour still to come.
Samson only began to save Israel from the Philistines, Jesus completely saves the whole world from their sins.
Those who believe in him.
Have you believed in him?
Samson points forward to Jesus

9. Nazirites Vs 4-5 make it clear that Samson is to be a Nazirite.
What’s a Nazirite?
And what is a Nazirite Vow?
Numbers 6 describes the Nazirite vow.
Nazirite comes from the Hebrew word, Nazir, to set apart.

10. Key points for Nazirites
1) Voluntary
2) Temporary
3) Hair not to be cut
4) Not to touch any dead body/thing
5) Not to enjoy the fruit of the vine
6) Holy to the Lord
Before we show them on the screen, can we draw out 6 standard components of the Nazirite vow? (Pause)
From Numbers 6 it seems that Samson was a very strange sort of Nazirite because he didn’t fulfil any of the above conditions!!
He was a deeply flawed ‘holy man’, and points very strongly towards the genuinely holy ‘set apart’ servant of God, Jesus, still to come. More of that next week.

11. Key lessons for us today …
Nazirite Vow
The God of the Impossible
Unconscious Enslavement
What lessons are there for us to draw today?
I want to make three applications, though there are many more.

12. Key lessons for us today …
Nazirite Vow
Is God calling you to make a vow like a Nazirite vow?
Maybe he’s calling you to a special period of service?
Maybe God is calling to full time Christian ministry, either home or abroad?
Are you ready to obey his call?

13. Key lessons for us today …
2) The God of the Impossible
There may be things that God calls us to, as individuals or as a church together, that are humanly speaking impossible.
5 new younger couples.
A youth pastor in the next two years.
A church without borders.
People becoming Christians and growing as Christians.
Our God is the God of the impossible – this is how he ensures that all the glory goes to him, not us.
If Manoah and his wife could have conceived naturally, this story wouldn’t even be in the Bible.
What impossible thing is God calling you to, us to at this time?

14. Key lessons for us today …
3) Unconscious Enslavement
Have we got into the state that the Israelites were in in Samson’s day?
We said before that in Vs 2 we were expecting the people to cry out. But actually they didn’t. They seemed to have accepted defeat!
If we need confirmation of this, look at Judges 15:11, when Samson started to annoy the Philistines. 3,000 men from Judah went to complain to Samson,  ‘Don’t you realise that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?’
They had accepted domination by their enemies. Maybe we have started to do the same today, as Christians dominated by our secular society.
Secondly, Have we got into the state that the Israelites were in in Samson’s day?
We said before that in Vs 2 we were expecting the people to cry out. But actually they didn’t. They seemed to have accepted defeat!
If we need confirmation of this, look at Judges 15:11, when Samson started to annoy the Philistines. 3,000 men from Judah went to complain to Samson,  ‘Don’t you realise that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?’
They had accepted domination by their enemies. Maybe we have started to do the same today, as Christians dominated by our secular society.

15. Unconscious Enslavement
Financial Enslavement
Relational Enslavement
Peer Enslavement
Technological Enslavement
Attitude Enslavement
Cultural Enslavement

16. Unconscious Enslavement
How have I been enslaved recently, not by the Philistines, but by the godless culture around me, without me even noticing?
What about us as a church?
Let’s pause for a moment to reflect.