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Welcome to our last day in our study of the book of Judges, week four, day five.
We've been learning from Samson, his example about what strong people do. And
most of his example has been because Samson did this, we don't want to do that,
we want to do the exact opposite.

But there is one final positive example in the life of Samson. The eighth thing
that strong people do, the eighth thing that you do to make sure that a weakness
doesn't become a strength in your life is this. Strong people never give up,
never give up.

Samson had every reason to give up. In chapter 16, verse 21, "Then the
Philistines seized him. They gouged out his eyes and they took him down to Gaza.

Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison.
" This picture of total failure, of total disaster. It seems like Samson had
every reason to give up, but then notice the next verse.

Verse 22 says this, "But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had
been shaved. " There is such beauty, there's such hope in this simple verse. It
expresses the fact that there is life after failure.

That renewal is a possibility, is in the plan of God. And hair is a great
picture of that renewal. It comes slowly, almost unnoticeably at first.

That's how it happens in your life too. How does this renewal begin? It begins
where the hurt is.

The hurt had come into Samson's life because he'd shaved his head. The healing
starts to come into his life at that very point. That's where God begins to grow
that hair back and his strength is going to eventually return.

It begins where the hurt is in your heart when God brings a renewal in your
life. If you're in a place in your life, or you know someone that you love
that's in a place where everything in their life, they've had a failure, they
should just give up. Whether that failure came because of a choice that they
made or somebody else made, they feel like, "I should just give up.

" When you're living that kind of life, you've got a choice. It's the same
choice really that Samson had. You look at Samson, he had a choice in this
moment to do one of two things.

You can see the first choice here in the verse we just read, verse 21. You can
grind at the millstone of your past failures. That's the first choice we can
make.

The Philistines seized him, they gouged out his eyes, they took him down to
Gaza. They bound him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the
prison. He's going around and around this grinding wheel, grinding grain out,
not able to see.

Grind at the millstone of your past failures. A lot of people do that. There's a
failure and they're grinding at that millstone.

They're going over the blame for who did it again and again and again around the
same circle again and again and again. They're grinding at the millstone through
their anger, same circle again and again, not getting any place in life, just
stuck there. They're not bound by bronze shackles, they're bound by emotional
shackles, spiritual shackles.

They're bound by the shackles of being tied to that event in their past and so
the blame keeps coming, the anger keeps coming, the regret keeps coming, the
thought keeps coming if only. And again and again and again your mind goes over
those words if only I had done it differently, if only they had done it
differently. If that happens in your life, if this happens in the life of
somebody that you love, you become a slave to your grinding disappointment, you
become a slave to your hatred toward that other person, you become a slave to
your hatred of yourself.

You don't have to make that choice. You don't have to stay there, you don't have
to live there. The same choice that Samson had is the choice that we have.

You can grind at the millstone of your past failures or you can make the second
choice. You can push out the pillars of the enemy. He chose to push out the
pillars, the lies, the hatred of the enemy.

Listen to what happens at the end of Samson's life, verse 25 in chapter 16,
"While they were in high spirits," this is the enemy, "they shouted, 'Bring out
Samson to entertain us. ' So they called Samson out of the prison and he
performed for them. When they stood him among the pillars, Samson said to the
servant who held his hand, 'Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the
temple, so I may lean against them.

'" Now, the temple was crowded with men and women, all the rulers of the
Philistines were there. And on the roof were about 3,000 men and women watching
Samson perform. And then Samson prayed to the Lord, "Sovereign Lord, remember
me.

Please God, strengthen me just once more and let me with one blow get revenge on
the Philistines for my two eyes. " And then Samson reached toward the two
central pillars on which the temple stood, bracing himself against them, his
right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. Samson said, "Let me die
with the Philistines.

" And then he pushed with all his might and down came the temple on the rulers
and all the people in it. Thus, he killed many more when he died than while he
lived. Now, in Samson's life, he decides at the end to sacrifice his life in
order to destroy the enemy.

He could have gone back to the prison, he could have still tried to live with
his hatred and his regret, but instead he pushed out the pillars of the enemy.
How do you do that? How do you fulfill the picture that we see here?

Three things. You push out the pillars of the enemy with truth, you push out the
pillars of the enemy with trust, and then with sacrificial service, with
sacrifice. First with truth.

Samson finally turns to the truth, "O Sovereign God," he says. Here, finally at
the end, he's praying, "O Sovereign God, the truth of who God is. " You have to
replace the grinding hatred, the grinding bitterness, the grinding unforgiveness
in your life.

The enemy wants you to get caught up in with the renewing foundations of Christ.
You push out doubt with renewed faith. You recognize God's presence in your life
amidst the pain.

You recognize that Christ can bring life to a dying relationship, can bring life
in the midst of the greatest failure. He's still there. You push out doubt with
renewed faith.

He will never, never fail you. You will never be separated from his love. You
push out despair with renewed hope.

God has a future and a hope even in the midst of the failure. The failure is
true. You can't say that it was a lie, that it never happened, but it's not the
only truth of your life.

It is not even the final truth. It doesn't have to be the final truth of your
life. In fact, the final truth of your life is the eternity that God has
prepared for you in heaven.

So you push out despair with renewed hope. You focus on that hope. And you push
out apathy with renewed love.

I don't care anymore because of this failure. You push out that apathy with
renewed love. If you feel apathetic, it's most often bitterness turned inward.

But let me remind you, God still loves you. Maybe you're filled with anger. God
still loves you.

God still loves them too, those people that you might be bitter towards. You
push out apathy with renewed love. So you have truth, and then you have trust.

Samson knows the truth, sovereign God, but then he trusts the truth, he trusts
in God. You don't see in the book of Judges, you don't see Samson praying until
right here, moments before his death. I wonder how history might have been
different if he'd done that at the beginning of his ministry rather than at the
end.

Why did he have to wait until everything fell apart until he turns to God in
trust? But here, finally, at least he does stop and pray, "Oh sovereign Lord,
remember me. Think of me just this once more.

" He ends in this right place, in this place of trust. And that's how you push
out the pillars of the enemy in your life. That's how you get out of that prison
of grinding hatred in your life, grinding despair in your life.

It comes through truth, it comes through trust, but then it comes through
sacrificial service. Now in Samson's case, it was a true sacrifice. He
sacrificed his life.

You know that the Bible tells us in Romans chapter 12 that we are to be a living
sacrifice before the Lord. So you don't have to bring the temple down on your
head in order to serve God, in order to make a sacrifice. In this case, what
meant death for Samson also meant new life for other people because it released
his people from some slavery, from some enemies.

Pushing out the pillars of the enemy can mean new life for you. So who do you
need to serve? How do you need to serve?

Who does God have for you to serve? It might very well be some people who are
going through the same kind of failure that you went through. And they need
someone to love them, to serve them, to be with them.

The hope at the end of Samson's life is that God gave Samson a second chance.
Samson, the Bible tells us here, had his greatest victory at the end of his
life. And that is comforting.

I hope that's comforting to you. Maybe you feel like you've really messed up
your life. And you look at your life and you say, "How could God ever love me?

How could he use me now? My whole life I've been defeated in that particular
area. My decision to do that destroyed everything in my life.

How could God use me now? " And I say to you, don't give up. Take heart because
God never gave up on Samson and he's not going to give up on you.

God sees his plan for your life. He knows why he made you. He knows why he
formed you.

And as you get in the center of God's will, you'll discover again that he wants
to use you. He wants to work through your life even now. God was able to use
Samson in his greatest way after his greatest failure.

It's not too late. Don't give up. Let's pray together.

Our fathers, we come to the end of our study of the Book of Judges. We end with
this picture. Don't give up.

The people of Israel, as they were attacked all through these years, they had
many years of despair, many years when it looked like the enemy was going to
win. But you always brought a savior, always brought a judge to save them
nationally. And Jesus, you are our savior.

To save us personally. So there's never a reason to give up on life, to give up
on hope. Because your love for us is never going to run out.

So we come to you right now and we ask that through this study of judges, you
would put into our hearts this certainty of faith to know that no matter what
the circumstance, Jesus, you still want to be working in our lives and you still
want to be working through our lives. We put that trust in you right now. In
your name, Jesus.

Amen. Amen. Well, I want to thank you for joining us for this study of the Book
of Judges and I hope you'll stay with us next week as we go on to our next study
or you can go to drivetimedevotions.

com or download the app on your phone and do any of the studies of any of the
books of the Bible that we've done. We've done most of the books of the Bible
now. I just want to say at the end that I'm grateful.

I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful that you have a love for God's Word and a
desire to see him change your heart through his truth. We'll see you for the
next study.