Turn with me again, if you would,
to Judges chapter 13. I had intended to move on to
Judges chapter 14 tonight, but I got to thinking about what
the Lord told Manoah's wife in the beginning of this chapter.
In verse 4, the pre-incarnate Lord, in the form of the angel,
told her, Now therefore, beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine
nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing, for lo, thou
shalt conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come on his
head, for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the
womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the
Philistines. Now the word Nazarite means separate,
separate or separated. And what a wonderful thing to
be separated by the Lord for the Lord. Every God called child
is. The name Samson actually means
his service. separated unto His service. And so are we, all believers,
separated unto the Lord's service. And how marvelous is the thought
of the words of Paul, who wrote what we read just a moment ago,
but it pleased God, who separated me, who set me off my boundary. from my mother's womb and called
me by His grace. And He did so to reveal His Son
in me. And that's what makes being separated
such a wonderful thing is that by doing so, He reveals Christ
to us. God's placed boundaries around
His people and He saved them by His mercy and grace. Now,
there are different kinds of Nazarites in the Bible. We'll
talk more about that in a moment. But generally speaking, a Nazarite
was one who was separated unto the Lord, and the vow of a Nazarite
was only for the Jews, not for the Gentiles. And what a picture
that is, that only the true people of God are separated unto the
Lord, by the Lord. And it certainly didn't have
anything to do with their work, with their will or their merit
that they were separated and are saved. In Israel, there were
basically three categories of men said to have been separated
unto the Lord's service. The priest, prophets, and the
Nazarites. Now the priest office was hereditary. In other words, They must come
from the house of Aaron and from the tribe of Levi. And these
priests were separated to offer sacrifice unto the Lord, to burn
incense and to bless the people. The prophet's office was not
hereditary. God's prophets were each one
called individually by God and separated to deliver the people
of God the word of the Lord. That's how God spoke in times
past through the prophets. but in these last days through
the prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Nazarites, their office
was neither hereditary like the priest or by divine call like
the prophets. In most cases, it was by their
own act or the act of their parents. And in Numbers chapter six is
where we first hear about the vow of a Nazarite. And that's
what I titled this message, the vow of a Nazirite. Any man or woman could separate
themselves by the Nazirite's vow. And that word vow, as you
know, means promise. They made promises unto the Lord.
And Numbers chapter six deals with the consecration and the
law concerning the Nazirite. And as I just said a moment ago,
there were different kinds of Nazarites in the Bible. In the
Old Testament, Samuel, the prophet, was a Nazarite. Samuel, God's
prophet, was a Nazarite from birth. Samuel remained a Nazarite
all the days of his life. As you remember, Hannah, his
mother, dedicated him unto the Lord and to the service of God. And he was a Nazirite. In the
New Testament, John the Baptist was a Nazirite. But to the majority
of people, even the most casual reader of the Bible, the most
famous Nazirite of all was Samson. And most every young boy has
heard the story of Samson's strength, which was thought to lie in the
length of his hair. But in truth, the strength of
Samson lie in the Lord, whom he vowed and consecrated himself
and dedicated himself to obey. Accompanied with Samson's great
feats of strength, we'll read time and time again that these
wonderful accomplishments of his strength, we'll read the
words, and the spirit of the Lord came upon him. It was not
the hair, it wasn't the abstinence of alcohol or anything else vowed
by Samson the Nazarite, it was by the Spirit of God. The only
power any of us possess is the power that God gives us. That's
what the Lord told Pilate. Pilate said, I've got power,
and the Lord said, you don't have any power at all, but that
which the Lord in heaven give you from above. To those who
believe in Christ, it says, to them gave he power to become
the sons of God. We have no power only, but that,
power that God gives us. We were made willing to trust
Christ in the day of what is power. Anyone in Israel could
vow the Nazarite vow and they could do so either for a day,
they could do so for a week, a year, or for the length of
their life. And this was a vow the men and
women in Israel made themselves with a couple of exceptions.
Manoah's wife here, as we read, was instructed of the Lord to
be a Nazarite during the time of her pregnancy. And as I said,
Hannah vowed Samuel to be a Nazarite, but Samson and John the Baptist
were chosen and appointed by the Lord to be Nazarites before
they were born. and in that they're different.
And the Lord separated them both into his service for the duration
of their life. Now, there's some spiritual lessons
for us to learn here. Though the child of God, believers
are not Nazarites, they do make a vow to the Lord when they pledge
allegiance to Christ. God has separated them by his
gospel. They vow not to touch the unclean
thing. They separate themselves from
all who oppose Christ and His gospel. And for the most part,
a Nazarite was a man or a woman that made a personal vow, a personal
promise for a limited time. This vow the Nazarite made was
to be kept precisely according to the law and the precepts that
God gave concerning a Nazarite vow. And once the vow was made,
God expected it to be kept. Now during the time the person
vowed, they were to separate themselves under the Lord. But
yet the Bible is very clear on this. It would be better for
a man or a woman to make no vow at all than to make a vow that
went unkept and unpaid. Deuteronomy 23, 21, listen to
these words. When thou shalt vow a vow unto
the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it, for the
Lord thy God will surely require it of thee, and it would be sin
in thee. But if thou shalt forbear to
vow, it shall be no sin in thee." In other words, if you promise
God something, you best do what you promise. Ecclesiastes 5-4,
when thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for he hath
no pleasure in fools. Pay that which thou hast vowed.
Better it is that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest
vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause
thy flesh to sin. Now, I want you to turn with
me to Numbers chapter six, if you would. We'll spend a little
bit of time here. And I hope and pray that this
will be of some help to us. Numbers chapter six, look at
verse one with me. Numbers chapter six. Verse one,
and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, speak unto the children
of Israel, and say unto them, when either man or woman shall
separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves
unto the Lord. He shall separate himself from
wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine or vinegar
of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor or grapes,
nor eat moist grapes or dried. All the days of his separation
shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree from the
kernels even to the husk. All the days of the vow of his
separation, there shall no razor come upon his head until the
days be fulfilled in which he separated himself unto the Lord.
He shall be holy and shall let the locks of the hair of his
head grow. All the days that he separated
himself unto the Lord, he shall come at or not near no dead body. He shall not make himself unclean
for his father or his mother, for his brother or for his sister
when they die, because the consecration of his God is upon his head.
All the days of his separation, he is holy unto the Lord. Now the duties of a Nazirite
are not given here, but it is simply implied that the Nazirite
was to show a faithful separation and devotion to God. And during
the time of this separation, according to the precepts of
God, the law of God, the Nazirite separation was to be expressed
in three ways, as we just read. First, not given to, strong drink,
to drink anything that contained alcohol or any product that derived
from alcohol. They were to eat no fruit from
a vine. Secondly, they were not to cut
their hair for the duration of their separation. And thirdly,
they were not to have anything to do with the dead. The law forbid any in Israel
to defile themselves by touching the dead. If you were in a field
with a guy and he dropped over dead, you were defiled. To touch or be exposed to one
who was dead was considered by the law to be made unclean. And
even a priest could attend the funeral of an immediate family
member, but not a Nazarite. According to verse six and seven,
we see the Nazirite couldn't make themselves unclean to attend
the funeral of their father, mother, brother, or sister because
of this vow that they made unto God. And I suppose, even though
we're not told, this more than likely included their spouse
and any children. The vow of the Nazirite was a
strict and serious thing. It very well pictures the law
of God. It's unbending, it's inflexible, it's strict. However, it is important to understand
that the vow of the Nazarite was a voluntary vow. And I reiterate that because
a Nazarite absolutely had nothing, being a Nazarite had absolutely
nothing to do with any acceptance from God. Salvation always has,
is always and always will be of the Lord. The vow of the Nazarite
to abstain from alcohol, to refrain from cutting his hair, pledging
to have no contact with the dead spoke only to the separation
and dedication of the Nazarite's life to God, but it did not merit
acceptance with God. Nothing that we ourselves do
does. If that was the case, we, like Cain, would bring the best
of our works to God, and we'd take pride in it, and it wouldn't
be accepted. Because God accepts nothing but
the shedding of blood. If anything, the Nazarite saw
that there was no acceptance with God apart from a substitute,
a sacrifice, and an offering, as we'll see. The life of a Nazarite
was one of separation. It was one of dedication, living
in a manner that was different from the rest of the world. And
a Nazarite devoted themselves to God. And you know, people
today get the idea that these monks that live in monasteries
and live separately from the world, observing religious vows
somewhat, make themselves more holy by doing so. Men and women's
problem is not being separated from the world of sin. Men and
women's problem is being separated from the sin within us. We can never separate ourselves
and go anywhere that our desperately wicked and deceitful hearts don't
follow. So we can separate ourselves
in a closet or a monastery or somewhere like that, and the
problem's still with us. And that's the sin within. The true believer who does make
a vow unto the Lord does so simply out of sense of love, a sense
of honor, respect, and worship for the Lord who saved them by
His grace. They do so because He chose them
and He called them and He saved them by His mercy. That's why. And even then, they're not motivated
by a sense of accomplishment or reward. Their motivation comes
from the desire of being pleasing to their Lord and their Savior.
I want to be pleasing to my Lord. I fail Him so often, so often. The problem is that in and of
ourselves, we always fall and we always fail. Well, do we give
up? No, no. The life of Samson the
Nazarite very well demonstrates and illustrates the sad truth
about falling and failing. No matter how serious we are
in our vow to serve God, we always come short of the glory of God.
And if a Nazirite had vowed to be a Nazirite for a whole year,
and on the 364th day of that year, if they broke their vow,
they had to start all over again. That's why believers are saved.
are being saved, saved, and are always saved, as we discussed
Sunday, because it doesn't have anything to do with what we did.
It has everything to do with what Christ did for us. That's
why, as we saw Sunday, Peter said, to whom coming. We came
to Christ and we continue to come to Christ. We continue to
come because we always fall and we always fail. And no matter
how hard we try, we cannot not sin for the simple fact that
sin is what we are. And I'll clarify that we don't
continue in sin, that grace may abound. Paul said, God forbid,
we don't do that. But we do fail and we fall, and
only because of the mercy and grace of Christ to those in Christ
will that grace abound, and it always does. Grace did much more
abound every single time. Some might say, well, I've not
made a voluntary Nazarite vow that must be kept. Well, you
may not have. But as professing believers,
we vowed allegiance to the Lord Jesus. And we, by God's grace,
have voluntarily separated ourselves from all which is opposed to
him. We're, as professing Christians, vowed to be not unequally yoked
with the world. Though the Nazarite could not
come into contact with one who died, I believe this is a reference
in number six to picturing the believer having continual fellowship
with the spiritually dead. We know that righteousness and
unrighteousness can have no fellowship together. We know that light
can have no communion with darkness. God said, come out from among
them and be ye separate. God said, touch not the unclean
thing and I'll receive you. Friends, this doesn't mean the
believers are rude and unsociable. Doesn't mean that at all. Doesn't
mean that we stick our nose up at folks thinking that we're
better than them. If not, by the grace of God,
there go you and I. But the child of God's not enter
into a long lasting, friendly and intimate relationship with
the spiritually dead. It'll defile you. In most cases,
we won't change their minds. We think we will, but most cases
we don't. I've seen them change the one
that tried to change them. But every true believer has been
separated. That's what I'm trying to convey.
Been consecrated and separated to the gospel by God himself. And it was God's calling that
separated every child of God to the service of the gospel
in Christ. And we don't take it lightly.
Paul said, I'm called to be an apostle. Separated unto the gospel
of God, Romans 1. The true believers have given
up any notion that they can approach God in, by, and through the works
of the law or any righteousness of their own. Our righteousness
is what? You know, filthy rags. God won't
accept it. Any thought of salvation by any
free will doing or work of our own, will do us no good because
knowing that it's God who makes us willing in the day of His
power, He gets all the glory. We can't do anything. But when
it comes to us and our sin, what is done cannot be undone. We can be forgiven of our sin,
but it can't be taken back. Now, God can put it behind His
back, And that's the only consolation that any of us have, that God
doesn't remember our sin. It is no more in His eyes. Why then do we fall and fail
so often? And what do we do when we do?
Well, like the Nazarite, we have to shave our head. Not literally. If we did, none of us would have
any hair. But Paul said in 1 Corinthians
11, stay with me, that a woman's hair was a glory to her. It was comely and beautiful,
that her hair was a covering, it was a veil. The shaving of the head pictures
the stripping of men and women's glory and self-righteousness. It's the proof of their broken
vows and the stripping of their self-righteous covering. What
hope then does a sinner have? Well, we've all broken vows.
What's our hope? We look again to Christ. We keep
looking to Him. We keep coming to Him. We trust
in Him and we start all over again. And every time it's a
clean slate. Paul said, forgetting those things
that are behind. Forget them. Pressing on to those
things that are before us. What's before us? He said, the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ. Within these new
hearts God gave us in Christ, there's a desire to be pleasing
to Christ. As often as I fail, deep within
my heart, there is a desire to be pleasing to Him. No one mourns
over their sin than the one that desires to be pleasing to God
in Christ. Like Paul, how to perform that
which is good, we find not, and we fail time and time and time. Again, just like Israel did in
the book of Judges, as we've seen, there's no forgiveness
apart from an offering to the God of heaven whom we've offended.
And this is the amazing thing about our God. We fall and we
fail and we fall and we fail and we fall and we fail over
and over again. But in Christ, our offering,
our sacrifice, our sin is put away, not remembered by God.
And it's not remembered because he forgets easily like we do.
It's not remembered because it's not there. All sin, past, present,
and future is gone. And we don't justify or excuse
our sin because of that. Like sinners, we drink iniquity
like water. And we will not continue in that
sin that grace may abound, but we simply look to Christ and
live. That's what we do. When we fall,
we fail, we look to Christ, look to Christ, come to Christ. By
the deeds of the law, even the Nazarites vowed to keep the law
meant nothing because no flesh will be justified in God's sight. Why? Because we know that a man
is not justified by the works of the law or a promise that
he makes to God. It comes by the faith of Jesus
Christ. It comes by his promise to us. For by the works of the law,
no flesh, whether a Nazarite or not, shall be justified. And our flesh cannot keep the
law. Matter of fact, God gave us the
law to show us just that. The law of God exposes who and
what I am. It reveals to you and I that
we can't keep God's law and that we need one to keep it for us.
There are some needed spiritual lessons found in the study of
the Nazarite. You know, when the Nazarite failed,
they'd present themselves to the door of the sanctuary. Look
at verse nine here, number six. On the seventh day, that being
the day of completion, the day of rest, the failing Nazarite
would shave his head in humility. He had tried and he failed. He couldn't keep his vow. And
we all should know something about that. And according to
verse 10, on the eighth day, the Nazarite would bring two
turtle doves, that's what that's speaking of, or two young pigeons,
to the priest, to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
and they would be for a sin offering, a burnt offering, and they would
make atonement for him. Look at verse 12, the Nazarite
brings a lamb for a trespass offering, but that's not all.
Verse 14 says, and it was there that for the Nazarite, a lamb
of the first year was offered for a burnt offering. Secondly,
it was there that a eulam on the first year of the first year
was offered for a sin offering. And thirdly, a ram was offered
for a peace offering with the Lord. Now, who's that picture? To break a vow to God is a serious
thing. As we said in the beginning,
no vow at all is better than a broken unpaid vow. But here we find an offering
made for trespass, an offering for sin, an offering to make
us accepted, an offering to make for peace. And that's not all,
look at verse 15, along with all these things, a basket of
unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil and waters
of unleavened bread anointed with oil and their meat offering
and their drink offerings. And then in verse 16, we see
it's the high priest that brought them before the Lord. An offering
was made for the Nazarites, what? Acceptance for his sin and to
give him peace. All these offerings points to
one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. They plainly picture and typify
Him, who's our only acceptance with God, and who's the priest
that brings the offering of Himself before God. He's the offering,
He's the sacrifice, He's the priest that brings it. And we
are accepted one way, friends, and that's in Him. He's the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of his people in the world. He's
the unleavened bread anointed with the oil of the Holy Spirit.
He's the meat offering who offered his broken body in our room instead. It all comes back to him. It
all comes back to him. The length of the Nazarite's
hair before he broke the vow didn't have anything to do with
his redemption. There's no confidence or assurance
of salvation to be put in the length of the Nazarite's hair.
And when the Nazarite shaved his head, according to verse
18, he would take that hair and put it on the fire along with
the peace offering. Now, what does that mean? Well,
that beautifully represents how the believer puts no trust in
their works or their merit, but trust all to Christ as their
substitute for sin, as the sacrifice and acceptance of their offering
for peace. You see, for all our self-righteousness
is burned up in our offering of Christ alone. No matter how
short his hair was, he was still a Nazarite. He could have just
little stubs. He was still a Nazarite. And
that's the beauty of God's mercy and grace. No matter how horribly
we fail and we fall, the believer is still a believer. He's still
a child of God. And in God's sight, we stand
alone on the perfect work and righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, if you can't find peace
and comfort there, there's no peace and comfort to be found
for you. It's just that simple. Our standing before God is not
based upon anything we do or don't do, but wholly upon the
merits of Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. If my
salvation's finished by the finished work of Christ, then I did nothing
myself to be saved. It was finished. It was already
finished. And if it's finished, there's
nothing for me to add to it. If that is the case, and it is,
then my salvation cannot be lost by something that I do or don't
do. Now I know that folks have problems
with that because they say, well, that just gives men license to
sin. We don't need a license to sin.
We're pretty good at doing it on our own. And that is why I
do not want my salvation to be based on anything that I do or
offer to God. Because I'll fail every single
time. I'll always come up short. Always. All have sinned in what? Come short of the glory of God. You know, with the redeemed child
of God, it's never the person that's defiled. It's His vow
of separation that is. And because of that, we can start
all over again. We forget those things that are
behind us. We don't dwell on them. Oh, it's hard to, and it's
hard to forget. Well, you know, I know so many
folks that have issues with coming to the Lord, because they say,
I'm just too big a sinner. The Lord, I can see how He can
forgive you, but I don't see how He can forgive me. You know
what you're saying there? You're saying God is not powerful
enough and sovereign enough to save you. He can save anybody. He can do anything. He can do
what he wills. He has mercy on whom he'll have
mercy. Isn't that right? God can save sinners, and that's
what he does. A thousand upon a thousand times. We fall and fail, and He forgives. And it has nothing to do with
our vow. It has everything to do with
His vow. Our redemption doesn't have anything to do with our
success. It has everything to do with His success. Our Lord
Jesus wasn't a Nazarite. He drank wine, He touched the
dead, He raised the dead, and He Himself died. He was a Nazarene. He was Jesus of Nazareth. But
the words Nazirite and Nazarene both come from a word called
Nezer. The word Nezer means crown. This is no doubt the significance
of the Nazirite's uncut hair. It represents an unblemished
crown. Well, in and of ourselves, due
to our continued sin, our continual falling and our continual failing,
our many failures, we can't wear such a crown. And every time
it has to come off, it has to be shaved. Our Lord Jesus is
our great high priest, wears a perfect crown of righteousness. Oh, thank you, Lord, for separating
yourself into the service of your Father. Thank you for pleasing
your Father in your life and in your death so that one unworthy
such as I can wear a crown of glory. It's your crown, it's
not mine, but it's mine by my union with you, the Lord Jesus. Oh, friends, the Lord Jesus kept
His vow of sacrifice and surety and mediator and intercessor.
And He alone is the fulfiller of the law. He kept His vow. His crown wasn't
tarnished. His glory is never diminished. And He still upholds His vow
and He ever lives to make intercession for us. I believe this is the
reason that God tells us something about the vow of a Nazarite,
to encourage us when we do fail and fall, to keep coming, to
keep looking to Christ. Salvation and forgiveness is
in Him. And you and I, as spiritual Nazarites,
can never keep our vow. Never. We must shave our heads
with no sufficient covering. But it's no longer in shame that
we do. We do it to show that we put
no trust in our vow, but we put our trust in Christ, who loved
us and gave himself for us, and we start all over again. Our
failure and sin's not held against us. Christ is paid for all past,
present, and future sin. He's our heavenly substitute
and He's perfect in every single way. He can never dishonor His
vow of redemption for His people. And that's the reason that we
get to start over and over again until we leave this sin-cursed
world It's because we vowed to put all our trust in Christ who
vowed to put our sin away. And that's why we keep looking
to Him. Oh, keep looking to Christ, keep coming to Him. It's in that
that we find the true meaning of the vow of the Nazarite. Okay,
thank you.