In the book of Judges, God’s people desperately needed a faithful and godly leader. Today, W. Robert Godfrey discusses God’s sovereign provision for His people in seemingly uncertain times like these. Get W. Robert Godfrey’s teaching series The Life of Samson on DVD, plus lifetime digital access to the messages and study guide, for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3607/life-of-samson Meet Today’s Teacher: W. Robert Godfrey is a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow and chairman of Ligonier Ministries. He is president emeritus and professor emeritus of church history at Westminster Seminary California. He is the featured teacher for many Ligonier teaching series, including the six-part series A Survey of Church History. He is author of many books, including God’s Pattern for Creation, Reformation Sketches, and An Unexpected Journey. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Before the judges, there was great strength in Israel and then gradual spiritual weakening in Israel. And that's when God instituted the office of the judges to help the people in their spiritually declining and compromised state.
Have you read the book of Judges lately? Spending time in Old Testament books can sometimes be a challenge, as we might be less familiar with the context. But it's worth the study, because the Old Testament is not only the inspired Word of God, but it has so much to say for God's people today. You're listening to the Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham.
Today and tomorrow, W. Robert Godfrey is still with us, but we'll be introduced to Samson. You've probably heard of Samson and Delilah, but who was Samson? The messages you'll hear this week are from Dr. Godfrey's 10-part study on the life of Samson.
So go beyond the introduction to Samson and request the entire series on DVD with digital access to the messages and study guide when you give a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. Samson was the last of the 12 judges, but have you ever asked why Israel needed judges? Here's Dr. Godfrey to begin our two-day look at Samson.
Only when we see what the book of Judges is about as a whole and Samson's role in that book are we really going to be able to achieve the maximum profit out of Samson. He's one of the 12 judges. He's the last judge, and he's the judge about whom we're told the most. So clearly there's a kind of building up to Samson in the book, and so Samson is a kind of culmination of the book.
But again, when we stand back from the book of Judges as a whole, we discover something kind of intriguing, I think. And that is that the book of Judges is not just about judges. You'd think if you're going to name a book the book of Judges, it ought to be about judges from beginning to end, but it's not. Probably 25% of the book is not about judges.
So the first chapter and a half of the book of Judges, there are no judges. The institution of the office of the judge is established by God only in the middle of chapter 2 of Judges. And then even more intriguingly, after the death of Samson at the end of chapter 16 of Judges, there are four more chapters about the history of Israel when there are no judges.
And so we have to recognize that while the book of Judges is 75% about judges, the judges are only part of the story. And that story is important, as we'll see, in that before the judges, there was great strength in Israel and then gradual spiritual weakening in Israel. And that's when God instituted the office of the judges to help the people in their spiritually declining and compromised state.
And then when things have declined even further through the judges, so that by the end, Samson is no better than the people, even though he's a judge. Then we really see the mess that Israel is in after Samson dies. The stories in the last chapter of Judges may be the most disturbing in the whole Bible.
It is the kind of Bible text you're not sure you want to read to your grandchildren after dinner. It's horrifying and hideous what happens after And the text itself makes very clear the big point it's making. And the big point is this. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes because there was no king in Israel. And that's a real key to the whole meaning of the book of Judges.
The whole meaning of the book of Judges, if we want to summarize it very briefly, is the people of God need a faithful leader. And the judges failed in that leadership. The judges could not provide the leadership the people needed. The people didn't need just regional judges. The people needed a king.
And of course, if we were to extend this study into 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, what we discover is the kings didn't always do such a hot job either. And so again, when we get into the life of the kings, the people needed a king, a judge wasn't enough, then they get a king, and what do they discover with a king? Well, the kings aren't enough either. And why is that?
Because they need a perfect king, an obedient king, a faithful king, a king after God's own heart who obeys him in all things. So all of this is preparing us to see our need of King Jesus. And that's why this is so helpful. But we can't just say, now you don't need to read Judges and the historical books anymore because the only message is you need King Jesus.
They help us see all kinds of particular ways in which we need King Jesus. And so that's what we're going to find, I think, in a way that's helpful and encouraging. I hope in the long run, this will be encouraging for us. And so God, in the need of his people, institutes the office of judge. Now, the word judge is perhaps not the happiest translation.
The Hebrew word is a kind of common word and sort of means decider, right? It's not a technical term. It's nothing really like a judge in a court, as we understand a judge today. It's just kind of a leader, and a leader who makes the decisions for the people. It's a rather common Hebrew word, and so we have to get out of our minds that this is some judicial activity.
It's a leader who's going to lead the people against their sins, but usually also against their enemies. Because what's been happening in Israel is that when Israel sins, God punishes his people by bringing enemies to oppress them.
And it's as if God is saying to his people, if you will ignore me, if you are going to violate my law, if you're going to embrace sin, then I'm going to show you what it's like to be controlled by sin. And I'm going to do that by bringing in pagan enemies to oppress you. And so the judges are regularly described as deliverers. They're deliverers from sin and deliverers from enemies.
That's their important function. In a real sense, they are saviors of Israel. They're not the savior. They're not the perfect savior, the complete savior, but they are pointing to the people's need of salvation. That's what's happening over and over again in the book. In particular, This book is showing us the need of a deliverer, a leader, a savior in the great period between Joshua and Saul.
Because that's the period at which there is no common leadership. Now, the ending of the book of Joshua is particularly important for setting the scene for the book of Judges. And one of the most intriguing things that Joshua says near the end of his life, and he says a number of things that sound very much like Moses at the end of his life.
is basically calling the people to faithfulness, to law keeping, warning them about the dangers of breaking the law. He particularly warns them against idolatry, the besetting sin of Israel, which is spiritual adultery against the Lord.
He warns them against intermarriage with the nations, and that will be an important warning for us to keep in mind when we come to Samson, because Samson himself fails to remember that warning. But he makes a particularly interesting statement, Joshua does, in chapter 24 of Joshua, verses 19 and 20. And Joshua says to the people, "'You are not able to serve the Lord.'"
Now, that's a really intriguing statement, isn't it? He's been laboring for chapters on how they need to serve the Lord and how to serve the Lord. And then he says, you are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.
If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you after having done you good. That's a very solemn warning. Very solemn warning. Now, what does he mean when he says, you are not able to serve the Lord? Well, he may be functioning just as a Calvinist and saying you're all totally depraved. That's perfectly possible.
It may be part of what's going on here. But I think there's something more going on here. I think he's saying, after my death, you will not be able to serve the Lord because you will not have a leader. you've had Moses, and you haven't served the Lord perfectly under Moses, but Moses kept after you. And then you've had me, Joshua's the successor of Moses, and I've kept after you.
And now the Lord's taking me away, and he's not establishing someone to rule the whole nation. He's not establishing someone to rule the whole nation. But he's going to raise up judges, one here, one there, one now, one another time. But you're not going to be able to serve the Lord. because you're not going to have a leader.
And so right from these last words of Joshua, the people of God are being prepared for the need of a king. And that's why this book is so important transitionally from the days of Moses and Joshua to the days of Saul and David, when a whole new unity and deliverance is being given to the people of God. And for all of David's sin, We're constantly told he's the man after God's own heart.
He's the man God put on the throne to lead the people. He's the sweet singer of Israel who gave to Israel her songs about God and deliverance. He's the one who is held up as the model from whom Messiah would come. Who is Messiah? He's David's son. He's great David's greater son. That's Messiah. And so this role of kingship is being highlighted through the book of Judges.
And we need to always keep that in mind. We need a king. Now, we're going to develop this a little more in the last lecture. And I don't want to give it all away. But having taught for 43 years now, I know that by the time I get to the last lecture, you'll all have forgotten this lecture. So I can mention it briefly here. Israel not only needs a king, but it needs a king from the tribe of Judah.
Now, what does that say to you? What alarms does that set off? It should remind you that a bozo from Benjamin can never be a good king. That's Saul. Saul is the bozo from Benjamin. I'm How does Judges begin? It begins showing the leadership of the tribe of Judah in faithfulness, opposing the enemies of God. So Judah is highlighted as the faithful leader at the beginning of the book of Judges.
And then, after the death of Samson, we find the spotlight turning to the tribe of Benjamin. And what we see is the growing sinfulness, horror, gross behavior of the people of Benjamin, particularly the people of Benjamin from the city of Gibeah. Never in the whole history of Israel has anything so vile happened as what happened in the city of Gibeah. And who was born in Gibeah? Saul.
It's like this whole book is written so that when we read later in the history of God's people that the people wanted Saul as king, Saul of Gibeah, Saul of Benjamin, everyone would cry out, "'No, not anybody from there! How can you be so stupid?' And so, in a certain sense, the book of Judges is a tract for the house of David.
I'm pretty sure its final form was written in David's day, or at least under the successors of David. This is all a way of saying, you don't want Benjamin, you don't want Saul, you want Judah, and you want David. But of course, It's a political tract from the hand of God. It's God saying, it's David and it's Judah that are the tribe that I choose.
God had already prophesied about that through Jacob, talking about the rulership of Judah. God has known what he's doing always. We can always come back to that as a settled, confident point we can make. God knows what he's doing, and what he's doing through this book is showing us how much Israel needs not only a king, but needs a king from Judah, and specifically needs David of Judah to be king.
And so it's wonderful to see this big context. You know, sometimes I think we get the idea that books in the Bible are just one book next to another. They don't make a lot of difference how you read them. But, you know, there's a reason that Judges comes between Joshua and Ruth. you know, what's the book of Ruth all about? Well, it's about the family of David and how he gets born.
And so here we are. God is preparing us for this lesson and preparing us particularly through what he is doing in the various judges culminating in Samson. Now, I thought it might be useful just to pause a minute and look at the way this is sort of the pattern that God does things throughout the Bible.
And I think we see that in the Psalms, and I want to read just a little bit from a couple of Psalms, because I think what we see, first of all, is the pattern that God has to deal with of Israel's ups and downs. And then we see the promise God makes to his people of salvation. And then we see the person designated who's going to bring that promise to fulfillment.
So if we look at Psalm 85, let me read the first seven verses there, because here you get this sense of Israel's ups and downs spiritually. And the psalmist writes, Psalm 85, Lord, you were favorable to your land. You restored the fortunes of Jacob. Now, if the fortunes of Jacob were restored, they had to have gone downhill, right? So here's an up. You were favorable because there'd been a down.
You forgave the iniquity of your people. You covered all their sins. You withdrew all your wrath. You turned from your hot anger. So that's looking back. There was an up, there was a down, now there's an up. And now the prayer is, restore us again, O Lord. There's another down. Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away our indignation toward us. Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. So here's sort of the pattern, you know, spiritually up, spiritually down, spiritually up, spiritually down, praying that they might go up again. are according to God's steadfast love, according to his covenant love.
Remember us, O Lord. Don't abandon us in our sin. Deliver us. And so we see this up and down in Israel. And one of the important questions, I think, for us as New Testament readers of the Old Testament, does that up and down apply to us? Or is the life of the church of Jesus Christ just always up, up, up?
Well, if you're tempted to think that the life of the church of Jesus Christ is always up, up, up, I have a series on church history to commend to you. No, the history of the church has just been sort of constant ups and downs, hasn't it? But we see that already in the New Testament, don't we? Look at Paul's letter to the Corinthians.
It's always such an encouragement to me that I'm not a Corinthian. I'm bad, but maybe not that bad. What a mess the Corinthians are in, having heard the Apostle Paul himself preach to them and convert them, and then down they go, and Paul writes to them, and they come sort of back up. But it reminds us that just because Christ has come, it doesn't mean that his people all of a
that there's never going to be any spiritual up or down again. And certainly the letters to the seven churches in the book of the Revelation make the same point, don't they? That churches sometimes are better and sometimes are worse. Now, we mustn't be hyper-Calvinists and assume we're always worse, but there's ups and downs, and that's important to bear in mind because it means everything.
we may need to be a repentant people. We need to see our own sin. We need to turn to the Lord and plead the way the psalmist pleads here in Psalm 85 so powerfully. Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. You know, you look at Europe today, you look at parts of America today, and you say,
Don't they need to pray like this? I'm struck again as a historian, I always have a strange look at things, but I can't help but think Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, the great Puritan foundations of America, where some of the purest religion in the history of mankind was practiced.
Colonies founded to be a light on a hill to the rest of the world so that they might know Jesus Christ. The errand into the wilderness so that God's word could be followed. And now, in many of those places, the most unchristian parts of the country. And where is the pleading that the Lord would send His Spirit?
You know, I think a really important moment for us as Christians in our time is we not allow ourselves to be angry culture warriors. but we become prayerful, loving, concerned people that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ might be known far and wide. Because that's all that's really going to change things. We have to plead, as the psalmist is showing us how to plead for that.
And what's encouraging then is he shows us in this pattern where the solution will be. Verse 8, "'Let me hear what God the Lord will speak.'" For he will speak peace to his people, to his saints. But let them not turn back to folly. The word of grace is never a word that says, okay, you're now forgiven, so it's fine with me if you live any way you want. That is not the way the Lord operates.
He never operates that way. The Lord said, I'm willing to forgive you your sins, but you need to recognize they're sins. And sins are folly, and folly leads to disaster. And that's why our Reformed tradition has been equally adamant in saying we must get justification right and God's free grace, but we must also get sanctification right, that we need to pursue holiness. God is holy.
If we want to know Him, we need to pursue holiness. And so this altar calls us to that. And then the wonderful promise, steadfast love and faithfulness meet, verse 10 of Psalm 85. Righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs up from the ground and righteousness looks down from the sky. That's what's promised. Peace is going to come.
Faithfulness is going to come, and it's going to be linked to righteousness. God's going to accomplish that for His people. And how does He accomplish that? Well, I think we're told that over in Psalm 80, which is a very similar psalm to Psalm 85 in terms of the pattern of ups and downs. But in verse 15, God speaks very personally to Israel. He says, this is Psalm 80, 14 and 15.
Turn again, O Lord of hosts. Look down from heaven and see. Have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted. He's talked about how Israel was a vine dug up in Egypt and brought to the promised land and planted there. Have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted. For the son whom you made strong... for yourself. Israel is God's son. Israel is God's firstborn.
He's concerned about that people as his child. And then he goes on, intriguingly, verse 17, "...but let your right hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man, whom you have made strong for yourself." So the son, Israel, the son is only going to be saved when God raises up the son of man, the man of his right hand, the man who will be strong. This is the pattern.
God raises up strong men throughout the Old Testament, but none of them strong enough. It's only Jesus as he comes who is strong enough to bind the strong man who's been the ruler of this world. And so the Psalter is showing us this pattern, this hope, this direction, and who is the strong man that we're going to look at?
Who is the strong man that God is raising up here at the end of the list of judges in the book of Judges? It's Samson. And it's a good point to close here, that Samson we usually think of in the first place as what? As a strong man.
That was W. Robert Godfrey, the chairman of Ligonier Ministries, introducing us to the concept of judges in Israel and the arrival of Samson. Hearing judges describe their time as everyone doing what was right in their own eyes sadly sounds like a fitting description of today as well.
So I appreciate Dr. Godfrey's reminder that in response, we should become prayerful, loving, and concerned people, that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ might be known far and wide. If you'd like to go deeper in your study of the life of Samson, you can request this series from W. Robert Godfrey when you give a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343.
To thank you for your donation in support of Renewing Your Mind and the global outreach of Ligonier Ministries, we'll send you the 10-part series on DVD and we'll also give you lifetime digital access to all the messages and the study guide. This study will not only introduce you to Samson, but will help you better understand the book of Judges and some of the history of Israel.
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