150: Josh Wallace - Exhortation: The Gates of the Enemy

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Welcome to Good Christadelphian Talks. I'm Levi. And I'm Chris. And I'm Brian. Thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post a new episode at the start of each week with a short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you're about to listen to.

2. 0:33

   And now, let's talk more about this week's talk. Hello, everyone. It is James Dill again, guest hosting for GCT. In July, this is our third week, and we are continuing our series with new speakers to the podcast. This week, it is brother Josh Wallace from down here in Australia. He does have an Australian accent, unlike me.

3. 1:10

   And he gave this exhortation during COVID-19 first lockdown. And it's on Samson under the theme, The Gate of the Enemy. Now, I was there for this talk online, and I remember poking Charlotte next to me and saying, I've got to listen to this talk again. There was just so much there. And it's kind of like Jason Hensley's talk from number 138 that he gave on David and Goliath.

4. 1:37

   Going back through an old story that you think you know, and then you hear it again, and you can't unhear it. You can't unsee it, and you just think, wow. Josh is always an amazing expositor when he talks. He brings a huge amount of context and history into explaining exactly what's going on here and why.

5. 1:54

   And he really gets into Samson's mind and his strength in this famous story. And maybe he provides us a little context about Samson, what he might have been thinking about his Nazarite vow, about his hair. And it's just a really great talk. He provides some insights that are particularly helpful that helped me understand why maybe Samson really should be in Hebrews 11, despite having such a bad reputation.

6. 2:21

   It honestly is probably the only talk I ever heard in Samson's life that actually makes sense of the kind of irrational decision-making that sometimes we read, and particularly in this event. Now, I'm not going to spoil it, but man, the first, the second, and then the third major biblical connections just hit you.

7. 2:40

   You're going to be blown away. It's a real ripper of an exhortation, as they say down here, and I hope that you all enjoy it as much as I did. This is Josh Wallace on the Gate of the Enemy. Good morning, brothers and sisters. It's wonderful to be with you, even if only in this current format.

8. 3:01

   We have one of the intriguing characters in the Old Testament before us to consider this morning. This man, Samson, who I'm sure all of us are familiar with to some extent. He was born in miraculous circumstances to a barren woman. And in the Old Testament, of course, this makes him the archetypal hero-deliverer figure raised up to save his people.

9. 3:27

   And we well know that whenever he was minded to engage with the enemy, God was prepared to seize him with power. And in such moments, Samson became capable of enormous strength and fighting ability. And yet a warrior was only to be one aspect of his life. You'll also remember, I'm sure, that he was intended to be a Nazarite from his mother's womb.

10. 3:53

    In other words, his life was intended to be an example of careful living, a life in which he sort of exemplified, as it were, this spirit of holiness to Yahweh. And to that end, there was to be external and internal aspects to his life that marked him out as being unique, as being different.

11. 4:16

    He was not to cut his hair, of course, is probably the most famous one. He was also not to drink wine. He was not to have any contact with death. These were the stipulations concerning the Nazarite vow under the law. And so these were external constraints, if you like, upon his life, which were intended to call attention to a deeper reality, an inner holiness.

12. 4:43

    And yet Samson is probably most famous for the obvious struggle that we know that he had with living up to his calling. And really the backdrop for this personal struggle was the struggle that his own tribe, the tribe of Dan, had had in obtaining their tribal inheritance in the land. Dan was originally meant to be a tribe with an inheritance bordering Judah in the south with a lovely piece of real estate stretching all the way to the coast.

13. 5:16

    And yet whilst all the other tribes had managed to assert their identity and find a degree of settlement in the land, his tribe had been unable to do so. Because just south of Dan's allotted inheritance was Philistine territory. And the Philistines, if nothing else, were tenacious about holding on to their land and culture.

14. 5:48

    And rather than give way to the tribe of Dan, they forced the tribe of Dan back into the hill country of their inheritance. And they did so to such a point that most of the tribe of Dan just gave up. They said, this is just too hard. And they left the area. Most of them left the area completely, marched all the way up north to find a piece of land elsewhere.

15. 6:14

    And we can discern that Samson's family was one of the few of the tribe of Dan that remained. And so Samson lived this restless life where he was frustrated at the predicament of his tribe, frustrated that Dan wasn't helped by the other tribes to take their territory. And he became personally frustrated because he was caught in his own life between having a spirit which wanted to attack and destroy and evict the enemy.

16. 6:46

    And yet acutely aware of another part of his life which was in fact drawn to the enemy. And particularly their women. And so he is presented in the record as almost the epitome of this tortured soul at war with himself, wanting to be a Nazirite. Understanding that holiness was what he was called to.

17. 7:14

    And yet at the same time, knowing that he harbored within himself this tension, these competing desires, if you like, which would at times see him being seized by the spirit of the Lord. And yet at other times would see him take that walk on the wild side, so to speak. Only to later wake up to himself and get back in the fight once again.

18. 7:40

    Now, this morning, I don't want to deal with Samson's whole life story. And there's much in chapter 16 which would engage us for quite a few hours, I'm sure. But I do want to use one little episode of his life as a bit of a springboard to lead us into thinking about our life in Christ.

19. 8:01

    And hopefully, of course, being able to help us draw some encouragement together this morning as we remember our Lord. Now, in Judges chapter 16, which we read, we've got this curious little incident that perhaps shows the dichotomy in Samson's life as much, if not more, than any other episode in his life. And I'm talking about just the first three verses of Judges chapter 16 that takes place in Gaza.

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    Now, we should just note that by this time in the record, Samson has had numerous encounters with the Philistines, which has resulted in significant Philistine loss of life. He's a wanted man. But, of course, every effort to take him has failed on account of the superhuman strength that he's been given. And it probably should also be noted that he'd be a hard character to kind of miss on the street.

21. 9:00

    I mean, his hair would be legendary. Where are you going to go to sort of disguise yourself? And yet here he is in chapter 16, verse 1, in Gaza, which is one of the main five cities of Philistia. But it's interesting to note that it's a royal city, but it's the furthest from the border of Israel.

22. 9:23

    It's way down south. And it's almost as if Samson has gone as far as he could from his geographic and his spiritual home. And perhaps he's done that to specifically seek out the Philistine nightlife, which he does in verse 1. Verse 1, Samson went to Gaza and there he saw a prostitute and he went into her.

23. 9:47

    The Gazites were told Samson has come here. So he's evidently here in the grip of a spirit which is contrary to all that his life was intended to be about. And the news of that fact that he's in the city reaches the Philistine. Someone informs on him. Samson's here. And so verse 2 goes on to say that they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city.

24. 10:19

    They kept quiet all night saying, let us wait till the light of the morning. Then we will kill him. So Samson, it seems, is initially unaware of the danger that he's in. I mean, he's in grave danger in all sorts of ways. But he now has a physical enemy that's rushing around outside coordinating men and resources to ambush him when he leaves.

25. 10:45

    Now, the city of Gaza is fortified. It's surrounded by high walls. There's guards everywhere. And the gates, which, you know, they've dug up many of these Philistine cities, actually. And they've got a really good understanding of what these gates were like. These gates were not just one big door. The gates were complex structures.

26. 11:06

    Complex structures of alcoves, watchpoints and fortifications that are heavily guarded. And at that night, at any night, the gates shut. No one's coming in. Certainly no one's going out. But verse 3 says, Samson lay till midnight. And there's the first complication to the Philistine clan. The assumption has been that he wouldn't leave until the morning.

27. 11:37

    But at midnight, he arose. His enemies counted on him being there all night and probably being slow, lethargic and complacent as he left. Easy bait for ambush. But no, he gets up at midnight. And verse 3 says, he took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two post and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.

28. 12:05

    Now, as I said before, these doors, the doors of the gate are no ordinary doors. We're told by those who know that the gates of ancient cities were often studded with nails and covered with metal to prevent them being burnt during an attack. And the weight of the metal reinforcement was likely to be greater than the timber itself.

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    And this crossbar was probably a strong iron or wooden crossbar, which would have been attached to the post by a lock. And Samson tears up the posts with the barred gates attached to them and puts the whole mass upon his back and just walks out of Gaza with it. Now, let's just stop and think about this.

30. 12:53

    How was it that he could do this? If we just cast our eye back on chapter 14 and 15 and we compare to the other times when Samson was suddenly seized by great strength, there's this phrase that's repeatedly used. And we're going to see that it's absent here in chapter 16. And that's raised all sorts of questions by people who have looked at these passages.

31. 13:22

    So just for example, you remember where he tore the line in pieces? Judges chapter 14, verse 6. It says there, Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the line in pieces as one tears a young goat. Oh, yeah, as one tears a young goat.

32. 13:43

    We know all about that, don't we? What a feat! We'll look at verse 19. Again, another occasion where he's at war with the men of Ashkelon, another Philistine town. Verse 19, it says, And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, struck down 30 men of the town, etc., etc.

33. 14:08

    Come through to chapter 15 and verse 14. Then, when Samson came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that had caught fire, and the bombs melted off his hands. So there it is.

34. 14:31

    The Spirit of the Lord rushes upon Samson, up until this point in the record, when he's about to be seized by this sudden superhuman strength. And yet that phrase isn't used in verse 3. It just says he lifted those gates, bar and all, and yet there's no question that this is superhuman strength.

35. 14:59

    So why is it? Is it because the Spirit of the Lord is not with him here? Well, as I said, it clearly is, in some sense, because how could Samson have done that without God's strength? And yet we do know that Samson has just been in the grip of a far different spirit.

36. 15:22

    But one of the interesting questions that is posed about this record is why suddenly, laying there at midnight, has Samson's strength not left him for good? Especially what he's been up to. We see later in chapter 16 that his strength left him, and that might be the reason why we think there's an obvious reason why Samson's strength hasn't left him here in chapter 16, verse 3.

37. 15:50

    And that's because we know that his strength was linked to his hair. He lost his strength when he lost his hair. But I think there's more to it than that. You see, the hair was a symbol of Samson's Nazarite vow. But as Samson grew older, he would have come to understand that he would have come to understand that Nazarite vow, what it was all about, and why it was that his hair was the length it was.

38. 16:26

    And if you think about it, the long hair would then become a symbol of Samson's desire to remain a Nazarite. Every teen boy gets to mid-teens and decides to shape the hair the way that they want to. Trust me on that. But see, Samson got to a point where he decided that, yes, he wanted to keep it.

39. 16:58

    And I would see that as an indication that he was sympathetic to that vow. In other words, he wanted to be a Nazarite. He was one with that objective. And if we think about it, if he hadn't have wanted to be a Nazarite anymore, if his sympathy was no longer with the concept of holiness to God, he could have shaved it off any time he wanted to.

40. 17:25

    If all he wanted was the glitz and the glamour and the nightlife of Gaza and the Philistine cities, he could have shaved his head and he made it so that no one would recognise him as Samson the Nazarite at all. And yet for all his struggles, he hadn't done that. And I see that as Samson clinging to that understanding of who he was, who he was meant to be.

41. 17:54

    And although at times he looked for all the world like he was living in betrayal of his mother's vows and his spiritual destiny, on some level I see him as holding on to it. And remember this, when he finally does lose his strength, we've got a man who's given up. We've got a man at the end of chapter 16, or not quite the end, but the end of his period with Delilah, that has relinquished any ambitions for something better, something more.

42. 18:30

    It's almost as if he allowed Delilah to cut his hair because he realised or he thought to himself, who am I kidding? I can't be a Nazarite. Look at my life. Cut it. You might as well. And so with that in mind, what's really happening here at midnight in Gaza? Well, a decision was made to get up.

43. 18:59

    A decision was made to get out. A decision was made to leave the enemy city, to go somewhere, somewhere else. And how easy it would have been if he was no longer interested in God to just lie there and think, what's the point? I'm not who I really should be. I'm a constant failure.

44. 19:19

    Who am I kidding? The gate's going to be shut, probably shut on me now in more ways than one. And as if you're going to be able to get out of the city. God's not going to help you, not now. Give up Samson. But you see, his complex desires that he'd had earlier, now satiated, his perspective returns.

45. 19:42

    And maybe I'm reading between the lines a bit, but I see Samson laying there thinking, what are you doing? Who are you? Get out of here. And maybe that's why suddenly God's with him again. And his strength is effective. And it seems to me that what we've got is Samson coming to his senses.

46. 20:02

    There's spiritual fight in this Nazarite yet. And I want to show you something which, to me, reinforces the idea that this is Samson's mindset here. Because it's in the detail of what he actually does next. Look what he does with those gates. Verse 3. He puts them on his shoulders. And he carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.

47. 20:32

    Now, you've got to wonder, what was he thinking? It's midnight. Tonight, these gates are enormous. He must have been hiking out of there with speed because nobody's catching him. And you would think that the sensible thing to do, once you've wrenched the gates out of their sockets, is get five metres down the road, throw them onto the ground and run for it.

48. 20:57

    He doesn't do that. He doesn't put them down. He carries them all the way to a hill outside Hebron. Hebron. Now, Hebron is about 30 kilometres south of Jerusalem. But more to the point, get this, it's 60 kilometres from Gaza to Hebron. 60 kilometres. It's also uphill all the way, pretty much. Gaza's on the coast.

49. 21:26

    It's pretty much at sea level, maybe 100 metres above, something like that. And He goes to a hill outside Hebron, which is about 1,000 metres above sea level. Why would you do that?

50. 21:39

    I want to suggest that we've got an insight into His mindset here. And this will show us, I think, that at this point in His life, despite the very real failures and problems that He's having with His spirituality, there's a light still on in there. Not all is lost with this lost boy from the camp of Dan.

51. 22:01

    And He takes those gates to Hebron. Well, what do we know of Hebron? Hebron, by this stage, is already a pretty significant city in Israel's history. It's where Abraham had lived. And just outside Hebron was a cave where Abraham and Sarah were buried. Is this where Samson's heart is? Is he thinking about his father Abraham?

52. 22:29

    Is there something in him that is wanting to get back to his roots? If we just zoom out a little bit and think about Abraham. What was it that made Abraham righteous before his God? Well, it was his faith. And you remember that Abraham's faith had reached its pinnacle in Genesis 22 with the offering of Isaac.

53. 22:55

    And the upshot of that experience, if we just make our way back to Genesis 22, the upshot of that experience was that God stayed Abraham's hand because, frankly, Isaac's sacrifice was never going to be sufficient for God's purposes. And so Abraham, caused to understand this, called that mountain, the Lord will provide. And in doing so, he did so in recognition of the fact that deliverance was needed.

54. 23:27

    But it was still future and it was going to be provided by God. And on that note, and that recognition and on that obedience that Abraham showed on that occasion, the promises were repeated to him and expanded right then and there. Promises which speak about our Lord. And let's just revisit those words.

55. 23:51

    Genesis 22, verse 15. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven. And he said, By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son. I will surely bless you. And I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.

56. 24:18

    Oh, and look at this phrase, brothers and sisters. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. And deep in enemy territory, blocked in by the gates of the enemy, Samson rips those gates out of the wall and carries them to Abraham's city.

57. 24:50

    Was there an acknowledgement there on his part? Oh, Lord. We so need that promise. We need your deliverance. We can't do this in our own strength. Lord, please fulfill the promises to the fathers. Give us victory over our enemies, the enemy within, the enemy without. Now, was it in that spirit, so acutely aware, his own so recent failings that he took those gates, the gates of his enemies to Hebron?

58. 25:31

    If that is his spirit, if that is what's on his mind, and you'll probably appreciate that I'm convinced that it is, the tremendous feat of Samson's here was not an assertion of his might and strength. It's an admission of weakness and an expression of the need to see God have the victory. The Lord will provide, said Abraham.

59. 25:59

    That's what's needed. And Samson's triumph in this verse is really his yielding to the knowledge that he's too weak to do this. We need the deliverance that only God can gift us. And it's not like Samson was unaware of the significance of being a Nazarite. He knew what obligations holiness placed upon him.

60. 26:29

    And it's not like you could have surprised him in Gaza that night and said to him, look, you know, your behavior you're doing, it's not appropriate. He knew that. He knew it keenly. So what was the issue?

61. 26:45

    Well, we can't really psychoanalyze from this distance, but we can say this. He was a man who shared our nature. You know, we know what it's like, don't we, to have a desire to do what is right, but a nature that wars against that spirit. And we live in the middle of Philistia, as it were.

62. 27:11

    We too have been called to holiness. And it's not easy, brothers and sisters, to have the tension at times within us of a nature which would go one way, and yet a spirit which would have us aspire to something more. And there are times, I'm sure, when we can be confused about who we really are.

63. 27:32

    Are we Nazarites or are we Philistines? Are we Christ's disciples? Well, yes, we are. That's what we own. That's what we want to be. That's why we come here on a Sunday. But if we are, why this attraction to the dark? Why the struggle within? To a certain extent and to certain degrees and at different times in our life, brothers and sisters, I'm sure that we can relate to this.

64. 27:58

    And if we just go to Galatians chapter 5, Paul speaks frankly, doesn't he, about this struggle that we also face. This struggle to be seized, as it were, by God's spirit, to allow that to be the chief influencer in our life. Verse 16 of Galatians chapter 5, But I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

65. 28:27

    For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. These are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. So Paul says, quite frankly, look, you've got these opposing forces within. There is a war and it's a challenge.

66. 28:46

    He says, but look, if you're led by the spirit, verse 18, you're not under the law. Works the flesh. He says they're evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. These are things which Samson recognized. Samson experienced and knew.

67. 29:15

    And Paul says, I warn you, as I warned you before, those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. So there's a very clear instruction for those of us who are the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ to be wary of such things and to eschew such things. But we do that by embracing other things.

68. 29:38

    The fruit of the spirit, verse 22, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit, he says.

69. 30:10

    So we're to strive for victory over the darker side, as it were, of our nature, these works of the flesh. And we are called and we must in measure be successful. And yet I think it's also important for us to note that the victory is not and cannot ultimately be ours, not in the ultimate sense.

70. 30:35

    We, too, have need of a savior that would possess the gate of our enemies, rip it out of the ground and carry it for us to a place of fellowship with God. And really, that's what we have in symbol on the table before us, a man who was the ultimate deliverer. And see, our Lord managed to live a life, everything and more of what a Nazarite life was supposed to be.

71. 31:09

    This is his victory. He never succumbed to temptation. He was victorious where all others have failed. And it meant that he was able to take on the biggest enemy of all, our enemy, the enemy of sin and death. And look at what our Lord himself said in Matthew chapter 16. Interesting that he should use this language here.

72. 31:37

    He's responding to Simon Peter's declaration of faith in verse 15, where Simon Peter replies to him. He says, you are the Christ. You're the Messiah, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, verse 17. Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven.

73. 32:03

    And I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock, I will build my church or my ecclesia and the gates of hell. The gates of the grave shall not prevail against it. Brothers and sisters, if that declaration of faith that was Peter's, if that confession of faith is actively working in you and I, that Jesus is the Messiah, that he's the son of the living God, the gates of the enemy, the gates of hell cannot keep you in Gaza.

74. 32:38

    Jesus has been victorious. And he's telling us, I've got those gates. I control those gates. They will never, ever lock you in. And if we just come to Revelation chapter one, we see the victorious, triumphant Jesus in glory declaring this. In verse 17 of Revelation chapter one. Verse 17. When I, John, saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead, but he laid his right hand on me.

75. 33:23

    Fear not. I am the first and the last and I am the living one. And look how he describes himself in verse 18. I'm the living one. I died and I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys. I have the keys of death and Hades. I've got the keys to those gates.

76. 33:46

    They're far worse than the gates of Gaza. Those are gates, brothers and sisters, that threaten to close in on us all and do close in on many of us temporarily. And that's the key. Temporarily. The gates of the grave. The gates of the grave. Yawn open for all those who have sinned. And yet, the greater than Samson, the greater than any, has got the keys to those gates.

77. 34:19

    He has possessed the gates of our enemy. Conscious of the victory that has been won. We too, brothers and sisters, despite our own weakness, can resume our walk with confidence. Not confidence in our strength. Not that we can smash open those gates or lift them off the hinges ourselves. That's trying to do things through works and works alone.

78. 34:50

    No, our victory is on the basis that the Lord has already done it. And we can respond to his victory by never giving up. Never losing our sense of identity and clinging on to it. Despite the fact that our own nature can get us down at times. Our sense of identity as disciples of Jesus and as sons of God remains, brothers and sisters.

79. 35:19

    And we can go forward in confidence, determined to trust in the strength of his victory and God's willingness to forgive us in him. And so, brothers and sisters, I hope that those words and those thoughts using the little incident in Judges 16 can act as a springboard to help us now to think about our own life and our own responsibility before our Lord.

80. 35:47

    And the gratitude that we can experience and feel now as we take these emblems in that victory that he is so ably and definitively won for each of us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. please share it with someone who you think might enjoy it as well. For show notes on the talk you just listened to, visit our show page at anchor.fm slash GCT or check the show notes section of your podcast player.

81. 36:43

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82. 37:01

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