Turn to Judges chapter 13. We've been looking at Hebrews,
the book of Hebrews, and chapter 11 is the instruction from the
Lord Jesus Christ by his spirit to his church to live upon him
by faith. And he extols faith because faith
extols Christ. I read this interesting quote. It says, in every saint, there
is always to be found something reprehensible. Nevertheless,
although faith may be imperfect and incomplete, it does not cease
to be approved by God. It is not the perfection of our
faith that God honors, but the perfection of Christ, the one
we believe. God approves faith even when
it is displayed through the weakness of our flawed personalities,
because faith looks to Christ. It is not our faith that gives
us acceptance with God, but Jesus Christ, the one we believe, the
object of our faith. I hope you understand that. I
think that this to me has been a lifelong learning process,
and I think I'm going to continue learning it till the day I depart
from this life. That it's all about Christ and
faith is the gift from God to see Him, to see this, to see
His work. The Old Testament contains many
accounts of men of faith and God's working in their lives.
But if you could somehow to a little child or a dying person distill
the entire Bible. I was with Jimmy this last week
and I was holding my Bible and he wanted to look at it so I
laid it on his lap and he said, there's billions of pages or
something like that. I couldn't help but agree with
him. Yes, there's more than I can take in. It's bigger than I can
handle. Jesus made the smallest of passages
seem so deep that we realize that we really don't know very
much at all, do we? He said, that God proved the
resurrection when he spoke to Moses out of the bush, when he
said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is not
the God of the dead, but the God of the living. Now that one
passage of scripture, I would never, nor anyone else that I
believe, could have understood it, but it was the mind of the
Spirit expressed by the Lord Jesus Christ. So what is the
Bible about? I would say this, and I believe
with all my heart, this is the truth of Scripture. If we understand
the Gospel, if we understand the message of the Gospel, then
we understand all things. We understand all of God's message
throughout all of Scripture. And that's why you find in the
New Testament, as I read at the introduction of last week's message,
throughout the New Testament, you would find statements like
this, from the angel to those two women at the tomb. The Lord
Jesus Christ is not here. Why do you seek the living among
the dead? Don't you know that he must suffer
these things and rise again the third day? It's that must. And then Jesus told the two on
the road to Emmaus, ought not Christ to have suffered? And
then he expounded to them out of all the scriptures. And he
told it again to his disciples when he was in the upper room.
It must be, it was necessary. And so we read it in Hebrews
chapter two, that it seemed good to God our Father to make the
captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings. And Peter
said in first Peter one, that those saints of old, those prophets
of old, They were prophesying by the Spirit of Christ that
was in them, and they themselves searched diligently to find out
what the Spirit of Christ did speak of when he spoke of the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. And
this was the big message of Scripture. In Luke chapter 9, in verse 31,
it shows us that Jesus is on the mountain of transfiguration,
the disciples are sleepy, they're slumbering, really. And Moses
and Elijah appear. Moses. Moses wrote the first
five books. When the Bible speaks of Moses,
it's a synonym for all of the law of God. And Elijah, Elijah
was the greatest prophet until John the Baptist. And he's a
symbol of all the Old Testament prophecies. And these two, God's
law and God's prophets, met there with Christ. And do you know
what they spoke of? They spoke of the decease which
he would accomplish at Jerusalem. Now that's all of the law and
the prophets. So I say it again, if we understand the gospel,
which is the message of God concerning his son, how by himself he purged
our sins and took his place, his rightful place at the right
hand of the throne of the majesty on high. When we understand the
gospel, what Christ accomplished by his death and in his resurrection,
then we understand all things. That's why the Apostle John spoke
of this in 1 John 2. He said, you know all things.
You don't need anyone to teach you because you know Christ and
him crucified. The one seated on heaven's throne,
ruling over all things to bring his people to himself. And so
I say that by introduction so that when we look at the Old
Testament scriptures, we don't have to apologize to our conscience
when we look for Christ in them. In fact, we don't have to apologize
to anybody. We shouldn't feel backward about
this. We should eagerly and hungrily,
and as those who are thirsty, look for the fountain of living
waters out of the scripture. Because that's what the scripture
is about. And it's so wonderful to hear it. No matter how many
times we hear it, it's so wonderful. And that desire and that satisfaction
that comes from hearing about the Lord Jesus Christ from scripture,
That is the gift of God, as we're going to see here in a minute.
And I say that by way of introduction because we're talking here about
Samson. Samson. When I was a child, I
don't know if all kids were so much enamored like I was with
heroes, but I loved to hear about and watch stories. I just couldn't
get enough of Whether it was Superman or or Samson or whoever
it was Daniel and the lion's den whoever it was I just David
and Goliath those things were very I just loved it. I could just sit there and listen
to it all day Read it again how Jonathan climbed up that hill
with his armor-bearer and he said Yeah, who can tell God is
not restrained to save by many or few and then they killed all
the Philistines when they got to the top of that plateau Amazing. And all these conquests of God's
people are amazing. But Samson was especially intriguing
to my young mind because it seemed like he had absolutely no limit
to his strength. And his enemies also thought
that, too. So when we look at this man,
we're going to see that. And I know that when you conjure
up in your imagination a picture of Samson, what do you see? You
see this guy. He's probably one of these bodybuilders.
He's got rock-hard shoulders and muscles and everything. He's
ripped, right? I don't think he looked like
that. In fact, I'm sure he didn't look like that. Why? Well, because the Philistines
didn't recognize him as this man with exceeding strength until
after he demonstrated it by the conquests. I think he looked
like an ordinary man. I'm positive that he did. In
fact, he must, because in Isaiah 52, Isaiah 53, speaking of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and he was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ,
listen to these words in Isaiah 53. The Lord himself said this
of his son in our nature. He said, he shall grow up before
him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. Unexpected. There's nothing, there was no
fertile ground here for him to come up. It was dry and he was
a tender plant. And then it says, he has no form
nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. In fact, he's despised and
rejected of men, a man of sorrow. So the Lord Jesus Christ didn't
look like a savior. No, he looked like a man afflicted.
A man ordinary and probably in a crowd, you wouldn't have recognized
him from the others. When we see pictures of Jesus
which are sinful, when you see them, there's somehow this glow
around his head. No, there was no glow around
his head. He was a man who came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He appeared to have all of the
same weaknesses and afflictions, even more so than everybody else. So they didn't see his strength
until what? Until he spoke. until he said
what he said, and then they were floored. And so we see this in
Samson. But in Hebrews chapter 11 in
verse 32, it speaks of Samson as a man of faith. So not only
in Samson are we going to see the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb
of God, remember that's the theme of all of scripture. I picked
up a book when I was about 17 years old and it has that, that
just the title of the book was enough. The theme of scripture,
the Lamb of God. Thank you for that. The title
itself conveyed the entire message that was necessary to set me
straight. The Lamb of God. It's not about speaking in tongues.
It's not about doing miracles. It's not about getting financial
gain or having high esteem in a religious circle or even in
the worldly things. It's not about us at all. It's
about the Lamb of God. And so we see this in Samson,
first of all. But in Hebrews chapter 11, what
we see is that he was a man of faith, a man of faith, an ordinary
man of faith. So in these two now, we're going
to see something dramatic and amazing, that God takes an ordinary
man like me and you. In fact, when we read about him,
we wonder he might even be worse than us, but an ordinary man
like me and you, and gives him his spirit, and he believes God,
and acts according to the movings of God's spirit in faith, and
he accomplishes these things, and in the circumstances of his
life, in the works that he does, an ordinary man acting out of
faith is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this says a
lot to us. God took an ordinary man like
you and I, and He gave him this gift of faith in Christ. And
through that gift of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, he became
a testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. Fantastic, isn't it? There was nothing about Samson
intrinsically, but it was what God did even before his birth. So we pick it up in Judges chapter
13. The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the
Lord. And the Lord delivered them into
the hand of the Philistines forty years. So, why were their enemies
coming upon them? Because the Lord delivered them
into the hands of their enemies. And why? Because they did evil
again in the sight of the Lord. This helps us understand the
whole context, doesn't it? Who are the people of the Lord?
The people called the children of Israel here. Who were the
people of Samson? They were a people who did evil
again in the sight of the Lord. And so what follows here is all
about this. Now I say this to draw attention
to it because Samson in his life, in his life is going to show
us this, I think this is the message of these chapters, chapter
13, 14, 15, and 16. Judges, again, if you understand
the gospel. then when we read this historical
account and the acts that came here and all that God said and
the people and their actions, look through the gospel back
to this. So that when you read the Old
Testament, the clouds and the shadows that point forward will
appear in much clearer light. And we know that we have to find
the explanation of them in the New Testament. So the children
of Israel did evil again. These were the same people that
Samson was of, but Samson was given here by God. He was given to them for this
reason, to deliver them out of the hand of their enemies. Now
they were under the hand of their enemies for their sin, but God
sent a man, Samson, to deliver them out of the hand of their
enemies. What does that tell you? We were under the control,
the dominion, the bondage of our enemies because of our sin,
and God sent a savior to deliver us from our enemies, right? Now this is the whole summary
of what happens in Samson's life. And what you'll see here in Samson's
life, and I have to summarize some of these things because
of the length of this material, that he loved a woman, a harlot,
and another woman. It seemed like he had an insatiable
desire for these women. And immediately you need to jump
to the New Testament to get the explanation of this. Who loved
a sinful woman? Was it not the Lord Jesus Christ?
Wasn't he accused of eating and drinking with publicans and harlots,
sinful people, tax collectors? He was. And didn't he come into
the world for this purpose, to save sinners? Did he not say
himself, I come to seek and to save that which was lost? so
that the Lord Jesus Christ was most vulnerable when his enemies,
it seemed to be to the ordinary people, most vulnerable when
his enemies accused him, for example, what are you going to
do with this harlot we've set down around here in the midst
of us? She was taken in adultery in the very act. Moses said,
stoner, what are you gonna do? And so he was always on trial
for his love for his people. And in Ephesians 5, 25, what
does it say? Christ loved the church and gave
himself for it. So in the life of Samson, what
we see here is that these sinful people whose enemies were against
them at God's hand, delivering them into the hand of their enemies,
They were the people compared to the woman in each of these
cases. And the Lord Jesus Christ himself
came into the world to save that woman. That people, given to
him by his father to be his bride, who would come to him and all
of his enemies would oppose that marriage, would oppose her, and
try to get to him through her. And so that helps us understand
this. The gospel tells us Christ died for the ungodly when they
were without strength, when they were sinful, when in their minds
and by their wicked works they were enemies of God and God's
justice God Himself, as Rommel mentioned, His wrath and His
justice was against us, and yet that justice was satisfied and
His wrath appeased in the Lord Jesus Christ, the death of His
only Son. Okay, so now we get some kind
of a gospel overlay on top of these words here. Let's look
at them. In Judges chapter 13, the next verse in verse 2, there
was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose
name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and bare not. So Manoah's
wife didn't have any children. She couldn't have any children.
She was absolutely incapable of having children. And the angel
of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said to her, Behold
now, thou art barren and barest not. but thou shalt conceive
and bear a son. 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, the
enemies of God's people. So this is God speaking about
the son who would be born to Manoah and his wife. She was
unable to have children. She had never had children. But
the angel came to her and said, you're going to have a son, and
your son is going to deliver the children of Israel, or at
least begin to deliver them out of the hand of the Philistines.
Now, in all of the Old Testament foreshadows or types of Christ,
those pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ in Scripture, in which
we look at and we see him, And we're amazed that God, even from
the beginning, had set forth in his purpose and in his will
to send his son into the world. We see here in this type and
in this picture, we see things, but they're not perfect types.
There's never a type of the Lord Jesus Christ's scripture that's
a perfect type, except he himself. He's the only one who could actually
fulfill all that he would do, and so here,
when it says he began to, would begin to deliver Israel, the
Lord Jesus Christ did not only begin to deliver Israel, but
he was sent to, what, save his people from their sins, and he
did it. It is finished. So, even though,
don't be disappointed in the fact that when we read about
someone who represents the Lord Jesus Christ, that is not a perfect
representation. because that glory, that preeminence
is reserved for him. But here the angel of the Lord
appears to the wife or the mother, the mother-to-be of Samson. And
she tells him that when he's born from the womb, he's going
to be consecrated as holy to the Lord. And it says, and we're
going to read on a little bit more, what that means is in Numbers
chapter 6, he talks about, I think it's Numbers 21 verse 6, he talks
about this vow of a Nazirite. And in the law, God had set it
up so that a person taking this vow, called the vow of a Nazirite,
they would be consecrated to God through that vow, and they
would do these different things, and one of them was they would
never cut their hair, and they wouldn't shave their head, they
wouldn't eat anything that grew of the grape vine, they wouldn't
drink wine or strong drink. And they wouldn't touch any dead
thing. They wouldn't eat any unclean thing. That was the vow
of the Nazarite. And as long as they had this
vow upon them, they were holy to God. Now here, Samson, from
his womb, is going to be dedicated to God in this way. Okay? And the angel of the Lord says
this. In verse 6, Then the woman came and told her husband, saying,
A man of God came to me, and his countenance was like the
countenance of an angel of God, very terrible. But I asked him
not whence he was, neither told he me his name. But he said to
me, behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son, and now drink
no wine, nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing, for the
child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day
of his death. Now, in Numbers, when he spoke
about the Nazarite and the vow, people could enter into this
vow, they could set themselves aside for a time, and then they
could exit that vow. They could fulfill it, and then
they could leave that. But here, Samson, God said, from his womb
to his death, he was dedicated and holy to God. Now, how did this happen? God
did this. God predestinated him to this. God ordained him to this. He
chose him to this. And for the purpose of what?
To begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines. who was ordained,
who was sent of God, who was ordained and set aside by God
to save his people from their sins, but the Lord Jesus Christ.
And how did we come to know that? Well, not only through scripture,
but in time, the angel appeared first to Zacharias about Elizabeth,
And then to Mary and to Joseph, announcing Christ's incarnation,
that God was going to send his son into the world, and he would
save his people from their sins. Emmanuel, God with us. And so
here we see the announcement of his birth. He was a man chosen
by God and sent by God. He wasn't sent because he didn't
exist before he was born, but he was ordained before he was
born to be a man to deliver his people from their enemies, Samson,
which the Lord Jesus Christ actually did. And then in verse eight,
Manoah asks, he says, then Manoah entreated the Lord and said,
oh my Lord, In fact, it says here he entreated Jehovah, and
he said, oh my Lord, he's calling him Lord because the Lord Jehovah,
God, is his Lord, he acknowledges that. He said, let the man of
God which thou didst send come again unto us and teach us what
we shall do unto the child that shall be born. And God hearkened
to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again unto
the woman as she sat in the field, But Manoah, her husband, was
not with her. And the woman made haste, and ran, and showed her
husband, and said to him, Behold, the man hath appeared to me,
that came unto me the other day. And Manoah arose, and went after
his wife, and came to the man, and said to him, Art thou the
man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am. And Manoah
said, Now let thy words come to pass. That's a way of saying,
Manoah believed the words. he believed what his wife had
told him, he believed the man, because the man now is speaking
to him, this angel, the one, angel in scripture means the
messenger, not necessarily an angel in the proper sense. We're
going to see that this one sent from God, the messenger sent
from God here is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. appearing
before his incarnation in the form of a man, in the form of
a messenger. He was the messenger. He is the
word of God. So Manoah said, now let thy words come to pass,
indicating that he believed God, believed the word concerning
Samson. How shall we order the child? How shall we do to him?
And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, he's basically repeating
it, of all that I said unto the woman, let her beware. She may
not eat of anything that cometh of the vine, neither let her
drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing. All that
I command her, let her observe. And Manoah said unto the angel
of the Lord, I pray thee, let us detain thee until we have
made ready a kid for thee. A kid, meaning a baby lamb or
a baby goat. And the angel of the Lord said
unto Manoah, Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread.
And if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it
unto the Lord. For Manoah knew not that he was
an angel of the Lord. So he wanted to offer it to this
angel, but he said, no, you gotta offer it to the Lord. And Manoah
said unto the angel of the Lord, what is thy name, that when thy
sayings come to pass, we may do thee honor? And the angel
of the Lord said to him, why askest thou me after my name,
seeing it is, and in the King James Version it says secret,
but in the margin it says wonderful. which is the same word as used
in Isaiah 9.6. He shall be called, how does
it say, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his
name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Wonderful was his name. Seeing it is wonderful, verse
18. Now in verse 19, so Manoah took
a kid, according to the instruction now of the angel, who is Christ,
he took a kid with a meat offering, meaning some kind of bread, and
he offered it upon a rock to the Lord. So he laid these things
on the rock, and the angel did wondrously. Manoah and his wife
looked on, for it came to pass when the flame went up toward
heaven from the altar, the altar meaning the rock. He didn't make
the altar, he just laid the sacrifice on that altar, that rock. that
the angel of the Lord did what? He ascended in the flame of the
altar, and Manoah and his wife looked on and fell on their faces
to the ground, but the angel of the Lord did no more appear
to Manoah and to his wife than Manoah knew that he was an angel
of the Lord. Now think about the Lord Jesus
Christ. What did he do? He came into the world. He is
the word of God. He came into the world. He took
on flesh and blood. He was made like to his brethren.
He was made a servant. He was made in the form and the
likeness of sinful flesh. And it was in that nature that
he did the will of God. He obeyed even unto death. But
what was the obedience that he rendered God? It was his obedience
unto death. That obedience of his entire
life that culminated in his death. That was that submission of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And here what we have is the
angel, when the flame arises out of the rock, it went up toward
heaven, that the angel of the Lord entered into that flame
in the smoke and he himself ascended up to heaven. So in this we see
the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ in a figure. He himself
offered himself to God for our sins, didn't he? And he was accepted. And so let's read on. So it says
here, in verse 21, I'll read it again. But the angel of the
Lord did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah
knew that he was an angel of the Lord. And Manoah said to
his wife, Manoah was of weaker faith than his wife, notice.
Manoah said to his wife, we shall surely die because we've seen
God. That was true. They hadn't seen
God in the sense where they had seen God and therefore couldn't
no longer live, because no man can see God and live, according
to Moses. But his wife reasons with him, and here's really the
part I want us to focus on for today. But his wife said to him,
if the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received
a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands. That's the first
point. Here's the second point. Neither
would he have showed us all these things, and here's the third
point, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these. Okay? So Manoah was very concerned
that having seen the Lord Jesus Christ in his pre-incarnate form,
having seen in him God himself, as the Lord Jesus Christ is the
revelation of God, that he would die and his wife would die. But
his wife says, no, no, no, no. Let's think about this for a
minute. And here what we see is a very fundamental and important
principle. That God expects us to reason
from scripture and draw the conclusion that God has given so that we
would be comforted and have confidence before him As Ramel was pointing
out this morning, if God so loved us in the past, and He doesn't
change, and He doesn't take back His gifts, His word is never
recalled, He's never regretful that He gave that promise, then
He loves us even now, and He shall love us for all eternity,
and that love is known to us in the gift of His Son, as the
propitiation for our sins. And so here, Manoah's wife is
reasoning, now wait a minute, husband, or yeah, Manoah, wait
a minute, if God were pleased to kill us, because God does
what pleases Him, and certainly killing a sinner is within the
scope of what seems good to God in justice, yet here, she's reaching
through that, what they owe, what they deserved, to find grace
and to find God's character, his glory in this. She says,
he would not have received, it says in verse 23, he would not
have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands. God would never offer up his
son for us and then not receive us, would he? You see what he's
saying here? God would not impute the sins
of his people to his son and then hold us accountable for
those same sins, would he? God would not require the death
of his son in vain, would he? If Christ died for us in order
to justify us from our sins, then we are justified, aren't
we? You see, she's reasoning according to the Spirit of God,
and that's called faith, according to what God has said. And so
we also do the same things, and God does this all the time in
His Word. And I mentioned one about the resurrection a moment
ago, but I like this one too. In Romans 8.32, he says, For
if God did not spare His own Son, but delivered him up for
us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? If he gave his son and delivered
him up for us, he therefore shall surely freely give us all things.
That's the reasoning of the gospel. That's what God says. And he
goes on and he says, who is he that condemns us? It's Christ
that died. And if Christ died, then we cannot
be condemned because he died to justify us. And so this reasoning
of Manoah is perfectly given to us here in order to comfort
us as Manoah. We're doubtful and we wonder
how we could ever be in the presence of God and live. And you know
that feeling. I know I've had these, I put
no stock in dreams, okay? But I've had these dreams, like
I have all sorts of crazy, dumb dreams, where I imagined that
the Lord Jesus Christ came again and I was speechless. I didn't
know what to say. Well, we need to reason from
the gospel. Wake up out of your dream and consider the fact that
what God has done for you in giving his son. We're not to
have this, what would we call it, this caviling fear, this
cringing fear. We're to have a reverence and
an admiration and love for God that he would do this for us.
Love is of God. That's why he says later, we
love him because he first loved us and gave his son for us. Okay,
that's the first thing she points out to her husband. That should
have been enough, but she goes on, she says, neither would he
have showed us all these things. He wouldn't have showed these
things to us. It's enough that Christ died for us, but he also
showed it to us. He himself, Paul put it this
way to the Galatians in Galatians chapter 3. Let me read that to
you because it'll tie in later. We won't get to it today, but
it will tie in later in the account of Samson. In Galatians 3, oh foolish Galatians
who have bewitched you as if you're under a spell. that you
should not obey the truth, which means to believe that gospel
given to you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently
set forth, crucified among you. It's as if he were crucified
right before you in the preaching of the gospel. He was set forth
before you. And here she says, would he have
done this if he accepted the offering at our hand and showed
us all these things? gave Christ for us and received
him again, but he showed them to us. And what did he do when
he showed them to us? He gave us faith. He gave us
faith. In the revelation of Christ in
the gospel, he attends that message by his Spirit with faith in Christ.
We see it. And we're persuaded of it. And
with glad embrace we lay hold on Him. All my salvation is accomplished
and resides in Him. My righteousness, even the righteousness
of God, is in Him. And my standing before God is
all in Him. And being in Him is all sufficient. It's enough to give me everlasting
life according to the justice of God and the righteousness
of God. And God has given me this faith. He's shown it to
me. Would he have shown us this, all these things? Would he have
offered up his son and received him and given us this faith so
that we would, in that faith, how do we come? We come by the
blood of Jesus. Remember, Having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. So we
come with faith, as it were, with the sacrifice God has already
offered and accepted for us. And that's that confidence we
have. That's the way we come. That's the way we worship. That's
the way we know God. In the third thing she says,
nor would as at this time have told us such things as these. Again, this is the message, this
is the way we believe. God speaks from his word concerning
his son and his death on the cross and the salvation he accomplished
in that death for sinful people. And there we just sit and look. The Lord has shown it to us.
He told it to us, and now we believe Him. God has done it.
We're the recipients of this saving grace. Amazing grace,
isn't it? Aren't you thankful for this
woman? It is humbling, isn't it, as husbands, to have your
wives tell you things that you didn't know? Oh yeah, I didn't
realize that. You're so smart. We shouldn't be surprised. because
there's nothing, there's not a whit difference between us.
In fact, I think, I'll just show you this little thing. I think
God has made the husbands the head of the home and their wives
in order to humble them because they certainly aren't really
more excellent in any way when it comes to things like that.
A lot of times God does that to humble us. Remember the Lord
Jesus Christ himself came, I didn't come to be ministered unto, husbands,
but to serve, to minister and to give my life a ransom for
many. And so we see that here. So now
I could go on and I want to really, I really would like to go further
here, but I'm afraid we're gonna run out of time. But let me just
give you a little bit of a summary as we look at this next part
in Judges chapter 14. Remember, Manoah was to be dedicated,
consecrated to God from the womb to his death, right? In Judges
chapter 14, notice what happens. And Samson went down to Timnath
and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.
And here we begin to see the character of Samson's life. And
I'm going to take a different approach to what I've heard here
on these verses. When we read about Samson, I
remember even as a child, when I would hear about Samson, you
know what I thought? Oh, I'm disappointed in you.
Why did you do that? You were so capable. Oh man,
you did it again? I can't believe it. And ah, the
end of your life. What did you, you could have
made so much, you could have done so much more. But that's
not the, I don't think that's what God's teaching here through
Samson. Remember, Samson was consecrated to God from the womb
to his death. And as a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, he was a man of faith whose life was a picture
of Christ. Okay, I say that with the greatest
emphasis in order so that we might think about this ourselves.
Because it's one thing to see in scripture, I was even asking
the Lord as I was preparing this, Lord, why do we have these pictures
of Christ throughout scripture? Well, first of all, because he's
the message Right? And we need to see him and seeing
him we have life. But there's another reason here
that Samson is mentioned in this catalog of faith in Hebrews 11
is that every believer, and if you can believe this, every believer
so looking to Christ exemplifies in following their master, their
master. Don't they? Don't we? When we believe Christ, What
are we doing but what our Savior already did as our captain and
our forerunner? Did not he himself, it says in
Hebrews chapter 12, looking unto Jesus, the what? The author or
captain. of our faith, the author and
finisher of our faith. He ran the full race. He finished
the course. He perfectly believed. So he
himself already ran this race of faith. So we too, we enter
into trusting God by looking to Christ and trusting him. And
in our lives, we exemplify our master. In fact, In the chapter
we just read, Judges 13, what was he called, Samson, from the
womb to his death? A Nazirite. A Nazirite unto God. And what was Jesus? It says,
he shall be called a Nazarene. Remember? He was from the city
of Nazareth. And it's the same word, same
word in scripture. It means one who is consecrated
to God. Was the Lord Jesus Christ from
his womb to his death consecrated to God? Oh yes, he was. He was
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher
than the heavens. Hebrews 7 verse 26. He was without
sin. He did no sin. He knew no sin.
The devil came and could find nothing in him. He was holy.
He sanctified himself in order that we might be sanctified by
the truth. So he definitely was that Nazarite
pictured here by Samson. But Samson in his life and all
that he did was to point us to Christ. And here we see in chapter
14, it says, Samson went down to Timnath. He saw a woman of
Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came up and
he told his father and his mother. And he said, I've seen a woman
in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore,
get her for me to wife. And his parents, then his father
and mother, said to him, is there never a woman among the daughters
of thy brethren or amongst all my people that thou goest to
take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said
to his father, get her for me, for she pleases me well. And you can see, I could hear
a modern-day preacher saying, you know, this was a great sin
of Samson. He saw this woman. She was a
Philistine of the uncircumcised. He's idolatrous people. He loved
her. He went to his mom and dad, and they warned him, don't do
this. And he bullheaded strong-willed. He did it anyway. But that's
not why God wrote the scripture, to show us our sinfulness here. No, he's portraying here the
salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ for his sinful people. Remember,
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. The book of Ephesians,
the book of Galatians, and the book of Romans, especially those
three, and others with them, Acts, and Corinthians, 1st and
2nd Corinthians, all the epistles of the apostle Paul, One of the
things you see in them, and this is a big, big theme, is what?
The mystery that was hidden in God from the foundation of the
world was what? That the body of Christ would
be made up of Jews and Gentiles. That the Gentiles, God would
save the Gentiles, that he had chosen them, actually chosen
them, Ephesians 1 verse 4, in Christ before the foundation
of the world that they should be holy and without blame before
him in love. It's true of all of his people,
but it was especially pointed when he spoke of the Gentiles
in this way. And in Ephesians, he goes on
in chapter two and say, you were alienated from the commonwealth
of Israel. You were outside of the covenants
and the promises in the world without Christ, without God.
yet you are brought in now the middle wall of partition between
us Jews and Gentiles has been removed and By the Lord Jesus
Christ and now we're all one building one body That's Ephesians
and he goes on in chapter 3 of Ephesians saying this mystery
which was hidden in God was was entrusted to me as a steward
to tell you and that the unsearchable riches of Christ and Now, when
we read this, understand that that's what he's speaking of
here. The unsearchable riches of Christ. That he would so love
a woman who was of an uncircumcised people. That describes us as
Gentiles. in our nature, all men by nature,
and that he would make a people to himself of the uncircumcised,
those who in themselves were sinful, just like it said in
verse one, they did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and
that he would love them and give himself for them in order that
he might by his own blood wash them and his word and purify
them unto himself, a glorious church. So he loved them and
he didn't hide his love. He was like a child who just
tells everything he's thinking. Really, he was what you call
ingenuous. He was sincere and forward, just
plain in his expression. He had no reason to hide it.
He was moved by the Spirit of God to do this. It wasn't a sinful
action. It may seem so in the eyes of
the law, but it was not so because as a prefiguring type of Christ,
he was acting out the will of God, which was hidden in God,
unknown to us, but was fulfilled when the Lord Jesus Christ came
and they accused him. Why do you hang with the publicans
and sinners and the harlots? Why don't you know this woman
is a harlot? Oh, he knew, he knew. Did Samson understand that
this woman was going to lead him into trouble? That she was
going to end up falling down and pleading with him, and he
was going to tell her secret, and then by that secret his enemies
would get the advantage? Oh yeah, he knew that. He knew
that. He went into this with his eyes wide open. And so he
was led by the Spirit of God in this. Look at this. He asked
his father and mother. He was submissive to them. And
they warned him, it says in verse four, but his father and mother
knew not that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against
the Philistines, for at that time the Philistines had dominion
over Israel. What was God's purpose in this?
A twofold purpose. It was to bring a people to Christ,
and that people represented by this woman of Timnath, the uncircumcised,
of the uncircumcised people. And it was also to destroy the
enemies of Israel. Samson lived his life to deliver
Israel from their enemies. Do you see the two? There is
a double effect here, a double benefit in what God gave Samson
to do in type that the Lord Jesus Christ actually fulfilled. And
with this, I'm gonna have to close here. And we'll go, we'll
pick this up next time. In Isaiah chapter 40, listen
to this. I've always turned these words over in my head, and I've
heard them preached before, but they seem to apply here, so I'm
going to apply them. Isaiah chapter 40 and verse one. He says, in Isaiah 40 verse one,
comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God, Speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. What warfare? That her iniquity
is pardoned, for she has received of the Lord's hand double for
all her sins. In all that Christ did, there
was a double benefit, a double benefit. He took away our sins,
he vanquished our enemies, he brought us to God. There's so
many doubles in this. He established our everlasting
righteousness by which He gave us everlasting life. He made
us holy. He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places. It was all His work, all because
He loved this woman, this people that He had been given by His
Father from eternity, that He might lay His life down for her.
And did you notice in Scripture, in the New Testament, in the
Gospels especially, how that the Lord Jesus Christ seemed
to have an insatiable desire to save sinners. The woman at
the well, the woman in John 8 taking in adultery, the woman who pleaded,
my daughter is grievously vexed with the devil, and he held back,
he held back until, like Joseph with his brethren, he could hold
back no more and he said, oh woman, great is thy faith. Be
it unto thee according to thy faith. And her daughter was healed
from that very moment. So the Lord Jesus Christ is our
Almighty Samson. When you read about Samson, what
do you notice about him? He didn't have anyone to help
him. No one took up, he didn't seem to have any friends to help
him, did he? No one was standing there as his armor bearer. And
he never took any tools. Come on. Let's go for it. A lion. His jaws ripped him right apart. I felt like he was nothing. And
so he had no weapons. It was just the power of what?
The spirit of God in him, doing the will of God. That will having
been accomplished and now declared is the power of God unto salvation. The wisdom of God and the power
of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And so he
didn't get any help, he didn't have any tools, and he lived
his life to deliver Israel. And the other thing you notice
about him, he was invincible. No one dared pick a fight with
Samson. They didn't know he was strong.
Like I said, he probably looked like me. But when they actually
got it, it was over because they couldn't resist his strength.
And it's exactly the same way with the Lord Jesus Christ. Could
not resist his wisdom. Satan's kingdom couldn't resist
the sword of that point of the gospel of his accomplishments
for his people. Let my people go that they may
serve me. And they all left released. What
a great picture this is of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you for the gospel told to us in so dramatic a form
that it would endear us even more to our almighty Samson.
We pray that we would learn from the failure of these women to
trust Samson against their enemies, that we would trust our Savior,
and we would find all of our salvation in Him. We wouldn't
trust another. He's the one who's got all the
strength. He's able to destroy our enemies with a single blow. And Lord, we thank you for Him
that He had such an insatiable love for His people. And He humbled
Himself in order that He might deliver them from their sins
and from Satan and his kingdom and bring them to Himself in
love and holiness. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.