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[Crickets chirping] This is Glendale Presbyterian Church People Moving Power. This tape includes a selection, "Carillon," by the Westminster Bell Choir, and the reading of scripture and a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman titled,

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"The Tale of Two Wiley Women." At the conclusion of side number one of this cassette, be sure to turn immediately to side number two for the remainder of the message. This tape is copyrighted and all rights are reserved.

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Any public or commercial use, in full or in part, requires the advanced written permission of Dr. Thielman. The private use of this material for the spiritual gain of yourself or others is heartily encouraged. [Music]

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[Music] [Music] [Music] Let us continue in our worship by giving reverent attention to the reading of God's word

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as it is recorded in the book of Judges, reading a few verses from the fourteenth chapter and a few verses from the sixteenth chapter, beginning with the first verse in each chapter. "Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines.

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Then he came up and told his father and mother, 'I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.' But his father and mother said to him, 'Is there not a woman among the daughters of your kinsmen, or among all our people,

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that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?' But Samson said to his father, 'Get her for me, for she pleases me well.'" And then at the beginning of the sixteenth chapter, "Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a harlot, and he went in to her.

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The Gazites were told, 'Samson has come here.' And they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, 'Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him.' But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose

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and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that is before Hebron." And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his holy word.

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Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. The curtain goes up on Act II of the life of Samson, and we are immediately struck by the contrast to Act I.

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Act I, you will remember, ended with this magnificent affirmation, "And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson; and the boy grew, and the Lord blessed him." The word "Samson" means "child of the Son."

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And you will remember we noted last week that the rising of this son was splendid to behold. But now, the curtain goes up on Act II, and the scene is some years later. But in the very next verse of Scripture, some 50 words after the words which I have just shared with you, these words concerning Samson appear.

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Now, Samson went down to Timnah, which was a pagan Philistine city. And at Timnah, he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines, a pagan unbelieving girl. And Samson told his mother and father, "Get her for me as my wife." Just 50 words separate an affirmation of the blessing of God upon this young child, still unborn,

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and the first affirmation about the life of the young child, now a young man. And the first thing said about him is his violating the law of God by fellowship with pagans, by involvement in marital status with pagans, and his arrogance in commanding his mother and father, who had offered so much to him, commanding them, "Get her for me as my wife."

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What happened to Samson? Well, we cannot know for sure, but if you study all of the narratives concerning Samson in Scripture, if you look ahead of where we are now in the book of Judges, and ponder one after another the experiences of this man that are related there,

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it seems to me that the answer becomes clear. Samson was one possessed by his pride, his arrogance, and his conceit. There was, you see, no one who could force Samson to do anything. He was stronger than all of his peers.

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And when others would seek to argue with him or simply to lead him in the way that was right, the attitude of Samson indicates that his response would be, "You trying to tell me my coming was announced by angels." Instead of being humbled, you see, by all of the good things which God had given to him,

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Samson assumes that these things are his because of his own worth. And in that arrogance, he proceeds to destroy himself. It's the old struggle between order and ardor. Order, of course, is discipline, restraint, control.

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Ardor is enthusiasm, passion, effervescence, dynamism. Now, if you imagine order at one end of a line and ardor at the other end of that same line, it does not take a great deal of insight to understand that truly successful living is to be found in the middle between the two poles.

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For every life needs discipline and every life needs enthusiasm. Every life needs restraint and every life needs dynamism. This has been brought home to me in a very personal way in the last few weeks. You see, for 39 years, I have followed the path of ardor in my eating.

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I ate whatever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to, and as much as I wanted to. Now, for the last 26 weeks, I have been following the way of order. I have been under discipline and command and control. And the pendulum has begun to move from ardor toward order.

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It's already moved over a hundred pounds worth. And you see, what is interesting about this is that as I have moved closer to order, I have come to appreciate not only order, but also ardor. I mean that I enjoy food more now that I do not eat so much of it.

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I mean, for example, that I sleep better because I'm not loaded with things to be digested. And I think that makes me at least more alert and responsible during the day in order that I can enter with enthusiasm, ardor, into the responsibilities which are mine. The last time my blood pressure was taken, it was down 12 points below what it's been for three years.

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And I think because that is so, I will be able to cope with the challenging, blood-pressure-pushing circumstances that everyone encounters in his or her life. You see, as we move toward ardor, we can enter more vigorously into-- I think I said that backwards.

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As we move toward order, we can move more dynamically into ardor. In a few weeks, I will be leaving on a difficult mission to some very troubled areas in Africa. I will be preaching in some of the world's trouble spots. It's going to be extremely strenuous.

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I'm going to have to enter into it with everything I have. And I believe that I will have more ardor when I get there because of the order of the last weeks. This is what happens or should happen in the relationship between parents and children. Parents have a tendency to move toward order, to accentuate discipline and control.

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They prune the bush in order that it might bear more fruit. The child, on the other hand, has a tendency to move toward ardor. You know how a youngster is wanting to run and play, or a young man or a young woman in their teens. They've got all kinds of hot blood running in their veins and all kinds of things that they have to do today,

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and if they're not done today, they'll never get done. Now, the proper place to be between these two extremes is in the middle. This is the reason Scripture puts us on that kind of tension. Scripture says to us on one hand, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath."

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The word "wrath" is the same word which is used to describe the rising up of the juices in a plant. You cannot stop those juices from rising. It's a natural process. So Scripture is saying, "Fathers, don't restrain your children so much that when those juices rise, they'll explode. Let them blow off naturally. Don't be too confining."

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On the other hand, Scripture also says, "Children, respect, honor, obey your parents in the Lord," which is to say that as they move in the kingdom experience, you are to move in submission to them, taking the restraint and the direction which they offer to you. And out of these two things, you see, we have the proper balance, the way things ought to be.

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But Samson had given himself totally to ardor. In his conceit, he had rejected the guidance of his parents and the guidance of his God. It's illustrated by his going down to Timnah. There he met a very wily woman.

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She ensnared him. It wasn't long until he told his parents he wanted her for his wife. They indicated that they were not willing to assist him in the project. They said, "Can't you find someone of our own faith with whom to share your life?" He said, "No."

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So because they could not lead him to right thinking, they at least would not assist him in wrong thinking. They turned away. So Samson went on on his own to establish a marriage between faith and unfaith. And that never works.

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Whenever a man and a woman try to build their marriage relationship on anything other than God, to the degree that they do that, their marriage is impoverished. Sir, if you have put your wife on a pedestal in your marital experience, if she is the goddess before whom you bow down to worship,

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and if you look at her and sing, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine," then God have mercy on you, because no woman alive is a goddess. And, madam, if you have made your whole life revolve around him, if you've put him up on a pedestal,

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if you stand before him and sing, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine," then God have mercy on you when you discover the cracks in his feet of clay. You see, no one and no thing can be put at the center of a marriage. Only God can be there.

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He is like the sun at the center of the solar system. He gives to the marriage experience warmth and light and life, and like the sun, holds the whole thing together. And when a man and a woman in marriage don't have God at the center of their marriage,

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or if they can't walk together to him in a faith which belongs to both of them, well, the results are sad to see. There are, you see, only four alternatives when faith marries unfaith. The first alternative is that both give up their faith,

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and that, of course, is a tragedy. The center falls right out of the marriage. The second alternative is that each one continues to practice his own religion or lack thereof. That means no unity.

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The marriage is crippled. It limps. The third possibility is that for matters of convenience and in name only, the one without faith assumes faith nominally, and that is all.

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This has a tendency to water down religion and to make it essentially meaningless. The fourth possibility is for the believer to convert the unbeliever, and sometimes that has happened, and I think all of us have seen it happen at one time or another.

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But notice this. Missionary work within marriage is missionary work on the most difficult field in all the world. There's no person harder to win than the one to whom you're married. See, what happens is as soon as you indicate that you want to win this person,

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you are indicating to them that in some way or another you consider them to be unsatisfactory, and as soon as they detect that, they begin to point out the things in you that aren't particularly satisfactory, and the results are oft times not very happy to behold. Paul says, "Do not be yoked to unbelievers."

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He doesn't say that those marriages inevitably end in explosion, because they don't. But the deck is stacked against you if you start to play the game with those cards. And that's what Samson did. Without a common faith in God, the only faith he had was faith in this woman.

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So he establishes a great marriage feast. It's described in detail in the 14th chapter. I hope you will read it this week. And he invites everyone to this feast, and as part of the entertainment, he puts to them a riddle. And he wagers a great deal on the fact that they will not be able to guess the riddle.

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And they go to work on it and are not successful. And Samson begins to believe that he has won, but he's made one mistake. He told his wife the answer to the riddle. She's approached by her Philistine friends and gives them the answer.

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And Samson loses the wagers, but loses something much more valuable. He loses his faith in his wife. And that's a very heavy price to pay. As I think about myself in terms of marriage,

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I've come to the conclusion that at least one of the reasons why I'm not married is that I have such a high view of marriage. Love, whenever it is meaningful, has a cross in it. Love, whenever it's real, has pain in it.

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And I think I have deep doubts inside myself as to whether I could bear that kind of pain. I remember in the early days of my ministry, a young couple whose marriage went on the rocks when he confessed to his wife that he had been in an adulterous relationship. I was called to the home. It was in complete disarray.

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They were facing each other like two warring armies. It was obvious that a strong hand was needed. So I sat them both down and I said, "Now, tell the whole story." And he did.

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"Is there any more to the story?" "No." "Are there any other stories to be told?" "No."

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"This is the time to get it all out. The door is open. If there's anything else, let's not ever have to go through it again. Get it all on the table now." And there was more.

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And he got it on the table. And then I turned to her. "Do you have any questions?" "When we leave this room, there will be no more time for questions.

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There must never be any more questions about this conversation at all. So if you have any questions, ask them now. Each and every one, if we sit here till tomorrow, ask the questions." And so she asked some questions.

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And he answered. And then I said to him, "Do you still love her?" And he said, "Yes." And I said to her, "Do you still love him?"

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And there was a long pause. She was climbing onto her cross, you see. And then she said, "It hurts. It really hurts.

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But I do." And then I turned to him and I said, "You must pray. You must ask God's forgiveness." And he looked at me with agony and I said, "You must pray.

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And you must pray aloud. Seek the forgiveness of God." I didn't tell him to get on his knees, but he did. And he prayed a prayer of confession that was purgative.

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He emptied himself before God. And then she prayed. And I have never heard a prayer like that in all my life. I heard and saw the cost of the cross in that prayer.

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I saw decency struggling to rise above indecency. I saw trust climbing above distrust. I saw love defeating vengeance and anger and hostility. The pain of it was evident in every word she uttered.

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It moved me to tears then. It almost takes me to that point now even to remember it. And when the prayer was done, they got up, both emotionally drained, and they faced each other.

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There were no smiles. There was no embrace. She just looked at him and said, "If we have faith in God and faith in each other, we will make it."

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And they have. But you see what it took. Faith in God and faith in each other at no matter what the cost. And Samson had neither of these faiths with this wily woman from Timba.

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Well, he had to pay everything he lost on the wagers. So he went out and he killed 30 Philistines, and he stole their clothes, and with the clothes he repaid his debts. The story is told in the 15th chapter.

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I hope you will study it. And then after that he caught 300 foxes, and he tied the tails of the foxes together, and to the tails he fastened flaming torches. And then the foxes crazed with this fire, raced off into Philistine fields,

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igniting acre after acre of grain. The Philistines in reprisal began to hit out against the Jews and said they would continue to do so until Samson gave himself up. And so in the 15th chapter we read that he does give himself up,

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and they're taking him as a prisoner. He is surrounded by troops, and as they're walking along the road, he comes to a place in the sand where he sees the skeleton of a long-dead jackass. And he takes the jawbone of the jackass, and with it, using it as a weapon,

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goes into battle with the surrounding troops and kills them. And then standing there with the dust of the road on him, and the blood of the Philistine dead on him, and the sweat of the exertion on him, standing there in the midst of all the corpses and carnage, he sings a song.

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"With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass, I have slain a thousand men." It's a very sad song. Well, you see what's happened, don't you?

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Samson is using the blessings God gave him to his own selfish purpose. The strength which was Samson's was the gift of God, and Samson is here using that strength to escape from the punishment of his own misdeeds. It's a sad thing when you see someone misuse the treasures the Holy Spirit entrusts.

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You can misuse those treasures by not using your talents at all. If God gives a talent and you don't use it, that's a misuse of it. Or you can misuse your talents by taking what is good and using it for what is evil, by taking what you are to do to the glory of God and doing it for the glory of yourself,

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and that's what Samson did. Samson, who was raised a Nazarite and never to be near death, stands in the midst of those he's killed. Samson, who was never to drink alcoholic beverages,

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had just come from a feast at which he has been filled with them. Samson, who was to keep himself pure, has now sought out company with those who do not believe. Samson has profaned everything that God asks of him. And then, the last profanation, he misuses the very gift of his father God.

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I went to a church once to hear a young lady sing. She had a beautiful voice. The only difficulty was she was accompanied in the church service by an organist who believed that the excellence of her playing was directly determined by the volume of it.

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And as a result, I could hardly hear a word the girl sang. Well, there are a lot of people who, when they go to sing their solo, accompany it with so much blowing and snorting on the organ of their own pride that you don't hear the song.

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You hear instead that they're singing it not to the glory of God, but to the glory of themselves. And Samson, standing there singing his song, is praising himself. "Beware, Samson. You have sown the wind and you will reap the whirlwind. Beware any man or woman, boy or girl,

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who thinks for even one moment that they can get away with robbing God." Well, the next years of Samson's life are dark to us, but there is one last scene in this second act which we must notice before the curtain falls. It's interesting. The act began with a wily woman in Timna.

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The act closes with a wily woman in Gaza. Samson goes down to visit a prostitute. See, the act begins with disobedience, then it's covered over with Philistine blood. Now he adds to it the stink of lust.

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He goes to see a prostitute. The Gazites learn that he is in the city. And so, without making any noise, they close, bar all the gates, and set their troops in positions of command.

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They decide they will not try to take him in the darkness, but wait till the light. But in the middle of the night, Samson arises from his bed of sin and goes. He comes to the gate. He discovers it is locked. He rips it from its hinges, and carrying it over his head as an act of defiance,

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he walks out of the town to a nearby hill and casts it down. And then makes his escape good with a sneer. Oh, what the Gazites must have thought. Who will defeat Samson?

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He makes mockery of our soldiers. He confuses our strategists. He tears our walls and gates at his own will. Who will ever be able to stop Samson?

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That was the question that must have been on every Gazite mind, except one. For that wily woman, that prostitute, that harlot, she knew. She knew that the enemies had already gotten inside Samson's gates. She knew that his passions were already at war within him.

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She knew no soldier would ever defeat his soul, but that his soul was committing suicide. Others might marvel at his muscles, but she saw him groveling at her feet, pleading for her favors. And so this prostitute, like every other prostitute who thinks of those pathetic creatures who come to them to meet their needs, this prostitute thought, "Samson will defeat Samson."

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And that's a desperately important lesson, to learn that only yourself can defeat yourself. The Bible says that no man is tempted beyond his ability to endure, and that means, among other things, that when you yield to temptation, you have yielded to temptation. That means, among other things, that nothing can kill you spiritually,

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that if you die spiritually, you die by your own hand. That means you cannot point the finger at anyone and claim that they have murdered your character. That means you must pick up your own tab. That's not popular talking these days.

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This is a time when we try to trade the word "sin" for the word "maladjustment." It is our way, you see, to seek to deal with it with a few pills, by cleaning up a slum here or there, by giving ourselves to our psychiatrist to untwist what we've twisted. We can't blame it on environment, you see.

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Lilies will grow on manure heaps. There are always those who rise above environment, and if others can rise above environment or circumstance or heredity, then you can rise too. And if you do not rise, then that's what's happened.

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You have chosen not to rise. Shakespeare had it right. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars. It is in ourselves.

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Behold Samson. I did what I did in the tents of my father because my father was trying to rule my life. There's nothing wrong with that. I went down to that city and married that woman because any man ought to have the right to pick his own wife.

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Who's going to say there's anything wrong with that? I murdered those Philistines because they hit me first, and any man has the right to hit back those who hit him. You know, an eye for an eye.

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There's nothing wrong with that. And I went where I wanted to go, even to that prostitute, because a man has to work out his drives, doesn't he? Nothing wrong with that.

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There was, you see, by Samson's definition, nothing wrong with the way Samson led his life, yet Samson, in every moment of his life, was destroying himself. That whore in Gaza knew it. Samson will defeat Samson.

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Samson was not wrong in Zorak. Samson was not wrong in Timnah. Samson was not wrong in Leahy. Samson was not wrong in Gaza.

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Samson would say he was not wrong when he was in the arms of Delilah in Zorak again. Samson would never say that Samson was wrong. And so to his other sins, he adds the sin of deceit. Behold Samson.

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Behold Bruce. Behold all those who can kill themselves in the Spirit. So we must look beyond ourselves to a Savior. We must remember that this book testifies that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,

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and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and our salvation. Once we get hold of the truth that ourselves only destroy ourselves, then the only hope is to go beyond ourselves to that one who can save us from ourselves, and that one is Christ Jesus.

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Am I communicating that? Is that getting across? If I'm only communicating it, that's not enough. Seventy eye, ear, nose, and throat men got together at a banquet in Palm Springs some months ago.

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One of these doctors got a fishbone in his throat, started to suffocate. Instantly, every other doctor in the room was aware of what was happening. The truth of the situation was communicated instantaneously. And while they were looking for an instrument with which to make the necessary incision for a tracheotomy

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in order that he might live, while they were looking for it, the man died. Seventy men in the room who could have performed the surgery, and the man died. They knew what they needed to know. Communication.

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But they weren't able to do what they knew had to be done. Beyond communication must come action. And action means motivation. It is not enough if you sit there this morning and say to yourself,

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"I know what I am doing to myself." If that's what you're saying, everyone in this room knows that. The deciding point is, knowing it, what are you going to do about it? Sit there, wrapped in the arms of self, sneered at by an old gray whore from Gaza

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who says, "You will die by your own hand." Or Jesus Christ, who stands waiting to wash it all away and to give you the strength to become everything God wants you to be. I plead with you in his name to turn away from darkness into light,

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away from night toward the dawn. I ask you for the very sake of your own soul not to be Samson, but to so give yourself to the Savior that you can say, "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me."

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And the curtain on act two comes down. That's the way it is, you know, in life. The curtain always comes down. Every act comes to its end.

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What will be the end of your act? Let us pray. O God, our Father, save us from ourselves. Save us from doing to ourselves awful things.

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Give us the power in these very moments to offer ourselves to Christ. If we have done it before, then let us do it again. If we have never done it before, then we must do it now. Praying, "Christ Jesus, come into my heart. I have sinned against thee.

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My sin is my sin, my fault, my own fault. Become my Lord. Lead me to those who will lead me to thee and make me new that the end of my act might be glorious with the radiance of thy Son.

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And the love of God the Father, the peace of Christ the Son, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be and abide with you all." ♪ Enjoy, Jesus, with us. ♪ [ sense ofshire towards the end ]