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Vengeance is Mine - Judges 15
A sermon preached by Ian Garrett

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‘Live and let live.’ I wonder how many of us were brought up on that very British philosophy? And applied to the right matters, it’s a good one – eg, matters of taste. I like coffee; if you don’t, let’s live and let live.

But that philosophy fails if you try to make it the ruling philosophy of your society. So, for example, our government is pushing an agenda of ‘equality and diversity’ – the theory being that all beliefs and lifestyle choices are equal, that society as a whole should make no judgements about what to promote and not to promote, and that each individual should have freedom not only to hold their beliefs, but also to live them out exactly as they want to. ‘Live and let live.’

But what happens, eg, when a Christian registrar called Lillian Ladele is ordered to perform civil partnerships – or be sacked? She said she couldn’t, because of her beliefs; she recently lost her case for religious discrimination, and now plans to pursue it to the supreme court. You see, in that situation, there’s a pro-gay agenda – which doesn’t want to live with Lillian Ladele, but to rule her (and indeed, the rest of us). And if she’d treated it as a case of live and let live – do what they want me to – it would actually have become a case of live and let rule.

Or take an example closer to home. A few years back, one of our students discovered that his rugby team had just got sponsorship from the strip club in town, and that he’d be advertising it on his shirt every time he played. And, like Lillian Ladele, he took his courage in his hands and told them that, as a Christian, he couldn’t. They both saw that in those situations, to live and let live was actually going to become a case of live and let rule – of becoming ruled by a philosophy or standard totally opposed to the rule of the Lord Jesus – which a Christian cannot do. Because a Christian is someone who’s saying, ‘Jesus is my rightful ruler.’ And sooner or later, that spells conflict. Which is why in the Bible, among other things, the Christian life is described as a fight.

Which brings us back to our series in Judges, and to the last of the twelve judges, Samson, having the fight of his life. So would you turn with me to Judges 13. And my title tonight is ‘The fight of your life’.

Let’s do some revision. God has brought his OT people, Israel, into the land of Canaan. And his plan was for them to be a model to the rest of the world of what it looks like to live under God’s rule – a model of the kingdom of God. And that’s partly why the Lord told them to displace the Canaanites who were already living there – because he knew that if they simply moved in among them they’d compromise with Canaanite beliefs and turn away from him. Which is, in fact, what happened: they failed to displace the various people groups in Canaan – and as a judgement on their disobedience, God let those people groups overrun and rule them. So look down to Judges 13, v1, where Samson’s story begins. 13.1:

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines [one of those people groups] for forty years.

So that live and let live actually became live and let rule. Now in chapter 13, we saw God announce his plan for Samson to begin to rescue Israel from being under the Philistines. Then last week, we saw how that plan swings into action in the most unlikely way. Samson – who’s supposed to be committed to the Lord’s rule in his own life – goes totally against it in choosing to marry a non-Israelite: to his parents’ horror he says he wants a Philistine as his wife. So now look over to chapter 14, v4 – the key verse of the entire story of Samson:

His parents did not know that this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.

So it’s not that the Lord made or forced him take this step of disobedience, but that he allowed it as part of his plan. And the rest of chapter 14 describes the wedding that never was: at the eleventh hour, Samson falls out with his prospective Philistine in-laws and friends, picks a fight which leaves some of them dead, and then storms off to his home town. And, assuming that’s the end of that, Samson’s prospective father-in-law gives his fiancée to another man.

So let’s pick it up at chapter 15, v1:

¹Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, "I'm going to my wife's room." But her father would not let him go in.
²"I was so sure you thoroughly hated her," he said, "that I gave her to your friend. Isn't her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead."
³Samson said to them, "This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them." ⁴So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails, ⁵lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.
⁶When the Philistines asked, "Who did this?" they were told, "Samson, the Timnite's son-in-law, because his wife was given to his friend."
So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.
⁷Samson said to them, "Since you've acted like this, I won't stop until I get my revenge on you." ⁸He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam. (vv1-8)

So he torches their harvest in a way the RSPCA would certainly prosecute and then kills we don’t know how many in revenge. Which begs the question, ‘Does the Bible approve of this? And if not, why isn’t the story littered with editorial brackets saying, ‘By the way, this was wrong, but the Lord used it’?’

Well, the answer is: no, the Bible doesn’t approve of this: both Old and New Testament (NT) teach that we should react to being wronged by seeking justice, not personal revenge –and that justice should be proportionate, not disproportionate. But the author of Judges doesn’t spell that out, any more than he spells out that Samson’s proposed marriage was against God’s law. Because he expects us to know that. He assumes we’ve read from Genesis 1, through the law, and have arrived in Judges able to work out what God approves and disapproves of without having to be told.

So yes, of course there is deep sinfulness beneath what Samson is doing here. But the Lord is using it to begin some resistance to the Philistines among his people who’ve become a tragic, passive case of live and let rule. And Samson, if you like, typifies two things. On the one hand, he typifies what Israel is like – namely, deeply sinful and compromised. And that’s embodied at the start of chapter 14 in his desire quite literally to jump into bed with the Philistines – at least, with one of them. But on the other hand, he typifies – albeit deeply sinfully – what Israel should be – namely, a people who want to see the rule of God established and who are prepared, where necessary, to fight for that.

Now how does all this apply to NT believers? It seems worlds away from us, doesn’t it? But are we to think of ourselves as, in some way, in a fight? Well, the NT says, ‘Yes, but not a fight of the same kind as then.’ You see, Israel’s time in the promised land was a temporary and imperfect model of the kingdom of God that the Lord Jesus will finally bring about when he comes again. And the model had to be in a real place, so it involved that kind of fight – for territory. But that was a ‘one-off’. How the kingdom of God spreads now is not territorially, but evangelistically – as the gospel reaches more people, and as they hear that Jesus is their rightful King, accept the forgiveness he paid for on the cross, and give their lives over to his rule.

So if you do that, what kind of ‘fight’ does the NT say you enter into? Well, there’s what you might call the ‘internal fight’ to deepen the Lord’s rule in our own lives and resist our sinful desires. So in 1 Corinthians 9:26-27, Paul says,

²⁶…I do not fight like a man beating the air… ²⁷but I discipline my body and keep it under control.

But then there’s what you might call the ‘external fight’ – to see the Lord’s rule spread to the lives of others. Now, proactively, that involves spreading the gospel. So in 2 Corinthians 10, Paul, again, says,

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. (2 Corinthians 10.4)

So, eg, at the Christianity Explored Taster nights, what ‘weapons’ (in inverted commas) did we use? Well, knives and forks (on the food, that is – not on the guests). And Mark’s gospel. And friendship. And prayer.

But then, reactively, the external fight also involves resisting the world around us – when that’s necessary. And it’s necessary when the world gets into the church and adulterates the message of the Bible. That’s why, in the face of false teachers, Paul writes to Timothy,

Fight the good fight of the faith. (1 Timothy 6.12)

But resisting the world is also necessary when it either commands us to do what God forbids, or forbids us to do what God commands. Or when it tries to pressurise us in those directions.

So if you wouldn’t yet call yourself a Christian, you need to know that if you do accept Jesus as your rightful ruler, it will involve entering a fight in that sense. There is a cost. But I’d add that the Christian life, albeit harder, is definitely better. And I’d add that the cost of not accepting Christ, and ultimately facing him as your Judge as an unforgiven rebel, is unthinkably bigger.

But then for those who would call ourselves Christians, maybe we’re perplexed by our experience – perplexed at the inner conflict with sin that we never really felt before turning to Christ; and perplexed at the way people have reacted negatively to our faith. Well, be encouraged: that’s the normal Christian life. It’s a fight. Just think of those nature programs on TV, following salmon back upstream to their spawning grounds, as they’re jumping waterfalls and getting knocked back again and again. And imagine David Attenborough could interview one of them underwater. And he says, ‘That looks pretty hard going.’ And the salmon says, ‘It is.’ And he says, ‘So how are you feeling?’ And the salmon says, ‘To be honest, like I’m in a bit of a fight.’ And he says, ‘Doesn’t that ever make you doubt your direction?’ And the salmon says, ‘Absolutely not: if the current’s against me, I know I’m going the right way.’

And the same is true of a Christian. And if you’re experiencing no internal conflict with sin and no external conflict with the world, it calls into question whether you really are a Christian – because no fight may very well mean no faith.

So, by the end of v8, Samson is holed up at the rock of Etam. Read on, vv9-11:

⁹The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi. ¹⁰The men of Judah asked, "Why have you come to fight us?"
"We have come to take Samson prisoner," they answered, "to do to him as he did to us."
¹¹Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, "Don't you realise that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?"

And v11 is one of the saddest in the book: ‘Don't you realise that the Philistines are rulers over us?’ To which you want to say to the men of Judah, ‘Hold on, we thought the Lord was your ruler – the one who loved you and redeemed you from Egypt?’ But live and let live has become live and let rule. And it’s always tragic when those who profess to be God’s people forget that, in the end, God will be the unopposed ruler and that it’s therefore always better, now, to be under his rule, whatever it costs. But look at v11 again. They say to Samson:

"Don't you realise that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?"

Ie, ‘We’ve got some peace and security [albeit at the price of living under the Philistines] – and you’re jeopardising the status quo for the rest of us.’ And it’s always tragic when those who profess to be God’s people forget that only God can give us real security, and look for it in other places and compromises, and as a result, fail to contend when they should. Well, end of v11 to v13:

¹¹…[Samson] answered, "I merely did to them what they did to me." ¹²They said to him, "We've come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines."
Samson said, "Swear to me that you won't kill me yourselves."
¹³"Agreed," they answered. "We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you." So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock.

And that’s the saddest moment of all. And you wonder, ‘Am I reading about Judah and Samson – or Judas and the Lord Jesus?’ Because the same spirit is at work in both events. Because it’s always supremely tragic when those who profess to be God’s people end up doing the work of God’s enemies for them. And, in our sinfulness, who of us can say we’ve not done that ourselves, to some extent?

Well, what does this say to us in a church increasingly invaded by the world – eg, where the bishop here in Newcastle teaches the rightness of sexual behaviour that the Bible calls sin? For many ministers, the conventional wisdom has been to get into local churches, keep your head down and just get on with spreading the gospel. But that’s meant submitting to bishops who are opposed to God’s rule expressed in his written Word. And live and let live has become live and let rule, because although the bishops have turned more and more from the Bible, there’s been little resistance from the ministers. But we can’t live and let live like that – which is why we’ve said to the bishop here that we can’t recognise him.

Now that might lead some people, like the men of Judah in v11, to say, ‘What have you done to us? Doesn’t that put us out on a limb? Doesn’t that make us vulnerable?’ But we need to remember who really gives his church security. It’s not bishops and unworthy compromises, but the Lord. ‘I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overcome it,’ said Jesus. (Matthew 16.18)

But then what does this say to us as we live in the world itself? Well, the main message is: don’t live and let rule. Don’t give in to any command to do what God forbids, or any forbidding of what God commands. Or to any pressure in those directions. And why? Because of our future certainty about the kingdom of God – because, if we’re trusting in Christ, one day we’ll look back on this life from that place of God’s unopposed rule and think how foolish it was ever to bow to the world’s rule or pressure; ever to give allegiance to what was ultimately the losing side; and ever to have done its work for it by denying the Lord and going along with it.

So, look on to v14, to end with. They tie Samson up and, vv14-17:

¹⁴As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. ¹⁵Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.
¹⁶Then Samson said,
"With a donkey's jawbone
I have made donkeys of them.
With a donkey's jawbone
I have killed a thousand men."
¹⁷When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi [which means ‘Jawbone Hill’.]

And then in v18 you get a glimpse that, despite his desperate inconsistencies, Samson had real faith, vv18-19:

¹⁸Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the LORD, "You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?" ¹⁹Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore [which means ‘Caller’s Spring’], and it is still there in Lehi.

So he attributes the victory to the Lord (as we should with any ministry success or encouragement). But then he brings his vulnerability to the Lord. Now I’ve never fought off a thousand men myself, but I’m sure it leaves you with a well-defined thirst for something long and cool. And Samson is utterly vulnerable here. It would only have taken a handful of Philistines to finish him off. But the Lord provides – provides the water, and the protection of the fact that the Philistines have fled.

And that same issue of vulnerability faces us every time we contend for the Lord. For Lillian Ladele, the registrar I mentioned, contending means her job is now vulnerable. For the student I mentioned, contending meant his place in that rugby team was vulnerable. Contending does make us vulnerable – it makes us wonder, ‘What’s going to come back at me? What do I stand to lose?’ Which is why we’ll only contend if we’re trusting the Lord. And that’s why it says in Hebrews 11 that ‘Samson, through faith, conquered kingdoms’ (Hebrews 11.32-22). Because beneath every act of obedience – especially the costly obedience of contending – lies an exercise of faith that God is going to be with us to provide for us and protect us. And v20 is the evidence of how that was true for Samson:

Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

So as he looked back, he could say, ‘I fought for the Lord and the Lord did not allow me to be the loser.’ And that’s what Christians will be able to say – however tough it got in this life – as they look back from the next. Which is why the Christian’s ultimate philosophy is not live and let live. But trust and obey. And, where necessary, fight.