The judges have become progressively weaker, and the judges themselves have become progressively more sinful.

And the fruitfulness of their deliverance has become shorter term.

And so we can almost anticipate what's going to happen with this next judge who's about to come.

Progressively weaker, progressively more sinful. That's the pattern of the judges and makes for a compelling narrative.

I think why many of us are at least somewhat familiar with the story of Samson, the last judge.

Welcome to the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind as we turn our attention today to Samson.

These messages are from W. Robert Godfrey's series, The Life of Samson.

Over ten messages, Dr. Godfrey highlights vital theological lessons from Samson's life

and explores what this judge tells us

about Christian living. We'll send you this series when you give a donation of any amount

at Renewing Your Mind.org, but don't delay as this offer ends at midnight. So who was Samson,

and specifically, who were his parents?

We're going to turn to the need for Samson himself, as it's presented to us in the book of

Judges, beginning at Judges 13 verse 1. The Samson story takes up four chapters in the book, chapters 13 through 16. Of course,

we know these chapters are all added later, but still they're helpful for us today to find out

where we are and orient ourselves. And there we find the book of judges declaring in verse 1 and

the people of Israel again, and that certainly is the case, it's again.

This is the fourth or fifth or sixth time this is said in the book of judges.

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

Now that's a perfectly good translation, but in light of what's going to happen in this story

and happens in other stories in the book of judges, we might have left it just a little more

literally because literally what it says is, and the people of Israel again, did what was evil

...