Judges 14

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 105:1-7
• Hymn — O Praise the Lord, His Deeds Make Known (Psalm 105C)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Heidelberg Catechism — Lord's Day 9, Question 26
• Hymn — O God Beyond All Praising (#241)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Sermon
• Hymn — God Moves in a Mysterious Way (#256)
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

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Sermon Title: God's Secret Providence Working Through Weakness

Scripture: Judges 14

I. God's Purposes Revealed in the Small Things

A. The Spirit of the Lord rushes upon Samson to defeat the lion (Judges 14:6)

1. Samson's strength is not his own — it is the Lord's strength through his Spirit
2. The same language of the Spirit rushing is used of Saul and David as God works through them to carry out his purposes

B. The lion episode is a foreshadowing of greater acts to come

1. The lion points forward to the 30 Philistines slain at Ashkelon
2. The 30 slain Philistines point forward to the destruction of the lords of the Philistines in Judges 16
3. As Dale Ralph Davis notes, God uses smaller episodes of deliverance to show his adequacy so his people will trust him in more demanding circumstances

C. Application: The ordinary means of grace on the Lord's Day function as the Spirit's preparation for the battles of the week

1. Sunday worship is not passive — believers come as active participants to be strengthened by the Spirit
2. The Spirit rides on the word read and proclaimed, sung, prayed, and seen in the sacraments
3. The Lord's Day in the new covenant falls on the first day of the week, preparing saints for Monday through Saturday

II. God's Purposes Overcoming Weakness

A. Samson's Nazirite vows are broken in multiple ways

1. He feasts with the Philistines, almost certainly in the presence of wine
2. He eats honey from the carcass of the lion, violating the prohibition against contact with the dead
3. His greatest weakness is women — Philistine women, contradicting Deuteronomy 7 and Exodus 34

B. Samson is a living illustration of the warnings of Proverbs 5:7-14

1. The forbidden woman takes a man's honor, strength, and years
2. Samson ends blind and a laughingstock because he could not keep from the forbidden woman
3. Each believer must detect and mortify their own particular areas of weakness before those weaknesses become their ruin

C. Yet Samson appears in the Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11) — God does not merely work through weakness; he takes pleasure in working through weakness

1. Matthew 11:25 — God hides things from the wise and reveals them to little children
2. Romans 4:4-5 — faith in the one who justifies the ungodly is counted as righteousness
3. 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 — God chose the foolish, the weak, and the despised so that no human being might boast before him

D. The real question of God's greatness is not whether he overcomes material obstacles, but whether he saves wretched sinners like Samson — and like us

III. God's Purposes Accomplished in Secret

A. The Hebrew word meaning to tell occurs 14 times in this chapter, making secrecy the governing theme

1. The Lord's secret — Judges 14:4
2. Samson's secret from his parents — Judges 14:6, 9
3. The secret of the riddle
4. The Philistines' secret of learning the answer through Samson's wife

B. God's decree and his hidden providence in carrying it out

1. God's decrees are set before the foundation of the world and cannot be changed
2. God uses mysterious, hidden, providential means — even sinful and self-serving ones — to carry out those decrees
3. All four secrets in the chapter are subordinate to and governed by the one secret of the Lord in verse 4

C. Comfort for parents of wayward children

1. Manoah died without seeing how God's providence was working through his wayward son
2. Samson's life is a comfort to any parent who weeps over a child walking contrary to their upbringing
3. Acts 2:39 — the promise is for you and for your children
4. Luke 19:9 — salvation came to Zacchaeus's household; the covenant promise extends to families
5. The proper response to wayward children is to cling to God's covenant promise and pray that he make good on that promise — God is often working in accord with his promise in ways that offend our eyes, but in his hidden providence he is faithful