Join me if you would tonight
in the Judges, the book of Judges chapter 13, Judges chapter 13
and verse one really illustrates a mess, a mess we're in. One verse of scripture illustrates
what a mess we are in by nature. It says, in the children of Israel,
now, I just have to say this again, the children of Israel
had a special position or place with God. And he demonstrated
to them things he never showed any other nation. He blessed
them in ways that he never blessed another nation. He illustrated
to them the blessing he was going to give to the church, but much
of the blessings to them was physical blessings. He supplied
water, he supplied food, he supplied sandals, he supplied clothing,
he supplied light, he supplied darkness, he supplied leaders,
he supplied everything. And yet, given the opportunity,
We find that that never meant anything to those people that
he never worked with personally by giving them the new birth.
It didn't change them. Now, if fear put people into
the kingdom, by reading about Israel should put everybody in
the kingdom, but it doesn't. Fear never put anybody into the
kingdom. It's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance.
So here in this verse of scripture, in verse one, it's a terrible
mess. So the children of Israel did
evil again in the sight of the Lord. I think it's twice in this
book we find that they did what was right in their own eyes. So they felt this was right at
the expense of fellowship with God. Every man did what was right
in his own eyes. And the Lord delivered them into
the hand of the Philistines 40 years." Now, this is not what
they had during the 31 years with four judges. It's not what
they had with 40 years with Gideon. There was peace in the land,
but it just can't help but for us to realize that those folks,
even though they were at peace physically, they had no peace
spiritually or they would not be following after those false
gods. If they had God, they would not
need these gods. There are a couple of passages
I want to read in regards or with regards to verse one that
sort of sets the stage again and really means a great deal
when we get to verses two and three of this chapter. So if
you would turn with me to one of those places we often go to,
Psalm 14. Would you turn with me to Psalm
14? Now, we've often said this is God's commentary on the mess.
This isn't David's commentary. This is not Gideon's commentary. It's not our commentary. This
is God's commentary on the mess, the ruin by the fall. This is
God's commentary on it. So if you'll turn with me to
the Psalms, and Psalm 14. Now oftentimes verse one is quoted,
but verses two and three really bring out the commentary about
God on what he sees in this world, what he saw in verse one. of
Judges chapter 13. Here it tells us, the Lord looked
down from heaven upon the children of men. Now this is an illustration. It's something for us to comprehend.
God didn't have to look down from anywhere. On his throne,
he knew all about this. Their wickedness in their heart
was only evil continual. That's what he had to say just
before he commissioned Noah to build an ark. So he says here,
the Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see
if there were any that did understand and seek God. The religious world
of today would all raise their hand, well I'm doing that, I'm
doing that, I'm doing that. But they fail to read the next
verse, because in verse 3, they are all gone aside. There is
not one that is born into this world that is seeking God by
nature. They are all gone aside. They
are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Now, we're either going to believe
that or we're not. If you believe it, it's going to take care of
a lot of other issues that we have. Ruined by the fall is an
issue. And we find it in Judges chapter
13 in verse one. It's ruined by the fall. Israel
was ruined by the fall. Even though God paid particular
attention to them as a nation, they were ruined by the fall.
And it's no wonder that in the book of Acts, or excuse me, book
of Hebrews, we read that these all died in unbelief. Because
the name Israel, the name Abraham isn't enough, being related to
those. All right, now this passage of
scripture is over in the book of Romans chapter 3. If you join
me over there, we find that the Apostle Paul, many, many years
after that was written in the book of Acts, was called on by
the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brought it to
his attention. The Holy Spirit caused him to
write about this verse of Scripture. He wrote about it because the
Holy Spirit impressed him to do so. He delivered the message. And we would find out that the
Apostle Paul would say himself that he's just a reporter. That's
all he's doing. He's reporting the message. So
here in the book of Romans chapter three, Romans chapter three,
verse nine, Romans chapter three and verse nine, what then? Are
we better than they? No, in no wise, for we have before
proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all are all under
sin. Now, he goes on to tell us, this
is what that means. They're all under sin. Now, it
isn't just a mild infraction. It is a death knell. It is death. And, you know, most of the time
we're in discussion about the gospel, it really boils down
to how dead is a person. Now, if they have some ability,
then they're not dead. If there's no ability, they're
dead. And that's what the Bible teaches
us about it. So it goes on to say here, as
it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There are no exceptions to that
rule. No exceptions to that rule. There
is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
And I will emphasize again, there is no exceptions to that rule.
No one has the ability on their own of seeking God. Now, Israel
had the ability of seeking a God, and it was a false God, and that's
exactly all we can do. We can seek a false God, and
generally, our God in religion is just like us. He is impressed
by our righteousness. He's impressed by our works.
So he's just like us. He's the parent God that we may
not have got all the strokes we wanted from our parents, but
we certainly can from God because we're doing a much better job.
There is none that understands, verse 11, there's none that seeketh
after God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. That is God's commentary on the
subject. And there is nobody that can
do good before God without the new birth. And then we are his
workmanship as the scriptures tell us. So we have a mess. This
mess is brought up time and time again in the book of Judges.
It's brought up throughout the Old Testament. It is brought
into the New Testament. It's just the way we are born
into this world. We have no interest in God. We
have an interest in a God. We don't have any interest in
the Word of God in its complete form. We are very... capable
of cherry picking. And we will cherry pick the verses
that we want to emphasize. I got a letter today, right on
the front of it says, for God so loved. That was it. Well, you know what they're headed
for. That was just a piece of trash
I threw away. for God so loved. Didn't even quote the whole verse
of scripture. So anyway, well, let's go back here to the book
of Judges now. And we find, as we did a little bit last week,
we wanna look here some more about what happened. What did
God do? How did God deal with this? Well, we found out last week,
as we look here at Judges chapter 13, verse two, that out of all
the mess, out of all of Israel that was caught up in that idol
worship, we find two people that God is going to meet face to
face. Now there's no other record in
this chapter that he met with anybody else. And it certainly
shares with us that there is a remnant according to the election
of grace. And in this case, it is much
smaller than we thought. When the Lord said, few there
be that find it, he is really emphasizing that fact here because
it's a husband and wife. And they're the only ones out
of all Israel at this time that is spoken to by the Lord himself. And here in this passage, he
is called the angel of the Lord, the messenger of the Lord, the
messenger of the covenant. So there was a certain man of
Zorah of the family of the Danites. Danites could trace their line
back to Abraham, and from Abraham, and if you're a real Danite,
you go right back to Adam and say, I fell in Adam. There's
no stopping. Danites didn't mean anything
except you could trace your line right back to the cause, the
problem. Adam fell, and in Adam all fell. In Adam all died. So we have a problem here, and
it can be traced right back to our father, Adam, and we can't
blame him because we've sinned. All right. Whose family was the
Dinah's, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was Baran and Baranah. Now it's interesting in this
verse and in the next verse that we see that these two verses
that Manoah's wife's condition is doubled. I just found that
so interesting that the Lord would emphasize that it says
there that whose wife was barren and bare not. Well, barren, that
covers the story. Bare not, that covers the story.
Well, the Lord wants us to understand without reservation that she
was barren. She had never, but she had described
as one who bareth not. This means that she could not
now nor ever have been able to bear a child. From her growing
up years, to her married years, to the years where she was now,
she could not and never had been able to bear a child. Now, it's
interesting when we go through the Bible that we find that there's
a number of people that were born in a miraculous way, somewhat
like Samson. The Lord opened her womb. And
it tells us here, going on, it says in verse three, or verse
two, it says, whose name was Manon, his wife was barren and
bare not. She has a double problem. She
can't get out of it. Her husband can't get her out
of it. There's only one that can deal with this issue. And
it goes on in verse three, and the angel of the Lord appeared
unto the woman. What outstanding blessing. You know, I hear my dear brother
Barnabas recounting him introducing Saul of Tarsus to the church.
The Lord hath appeared to him in the way. And that made all
the difference. Now, to Ananias, who went there
and baptized him, when God said, when the Lord said, he is a chosen
vessel, that made all the difference in the world. And that's just
the way it is. If you believe in free and sovereign
grace, when God comes to you and shares with you the word
of God about him choosing out of all peoples, a people for
himself, we say hallelujah. Because without that, there would
be no children. We'd be barren to our dead. dead,
dead, die life. So we have here, there is no
child born. And in fact, if it hadn't been,
if it wasn't for the grace of God, this woman would never have
had a child. It said there in verse three,
behold now, thou art barren and barest not. So she's reminded. of her condition. Now, she probably
doesn't have to be reminded, but she is reminded. The angel
of the Lord reminds her that she is barren and bear us not. And then he goes on with some
wonderful news for this woman. Now, we want to say here that
the only way that she could ever bear a child is because of God's
work in her. And you know, as we think about
this from a physical standpoint, that's the absolute truth. But
from a spiritual standpoint, that's the absolute truth. There
will be no life, there will be no children if there is not a
God that resurrects people out of the dead. And we know that
God promised in Christ to present many sons. He's going to do that. It's already happened. And it's
happening to this day. But if it hadn't been for that,
nobody would ever be born into the kingdom of God. So there
are a number of great men born to barren women. And I would
like to look at these very quickly as we go through. If you'll turn
with me to the book of Genesis chapter 11. Genesis chapter 11. Did you know that Isaac was born
of a woman that was barren? Wow, what a man Isaac was, you
know, he's one of the patriarchs. Over here in the book of Genesis
chapter 11, Genesis chapter 11, I have found five women mentioned
in the Bible that were barren and bore children in a supernatural
way, beyond the ability of natural man. It was God. And you know, it just reminds
us every time that we look at these births that it is necessary
to have the new birth given to us by God before we breathe a
spiritual breath. God breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life and man became a living soul. There in the book
of Genesis with regard to Adam. So here in the book of Genesis
chapter 11 and verse 29, join me here in Genesis chapter 11,
verse 29, the scripture shares this. Abram and Nahor took them wives. The name of Abram's wife was
Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, and the daughter
of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iskan. But
Sarai was barren. She had no child. Now she is in the same condition
that we find the woman. Now I have to say that with regard
to Samson's mother because that's the only word we have to describe
her. She is the woman. She is Manoah's wife. And he
appeared unto the woman. And I was asked today, what does
that mean? Well, it takes us right back
to the book of Genesis where it says the woman shall bear
the seed that shall destroy Satan. And then we find the Lord Jesus
speaking about his own mother. He never called her mom, that
we have record of. We have him speaking of, woman,
what hast thou to do with me before my time? They're turning
the water to wine, and Jesus simply said, whatever he says,
do it. And then we find him speaking from the cross. Well, in these
two verses, we have that Sarah was barren and had no child.
Travel with me, if you would, a little distance in the book
of Genesis to Genesis chapter 16, verses one and two. Genesis
chapter 16 and verse one and two. Some people in the scripture
and in our lives try to circumvent God. And Abram and Sarah tried
to circumvent God. I can't help but think that they
probably were sincere. And you know, when people say,
oh, they're sincere, well, we can be sincerely wrong too. I'm glad that when we read in
the book of Hebrews chapter 11 and read about God's view of
this whole situation, both Sarah and Abraham are mentioned as
those who had faith. In the Old Testament here, we
find, oh my gosh. Well, now in the book of Genesis
chapter 16, verse one, and Sarai, Abram's wife, bear him no children. And she had a handmaid, an Egyptian,
whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, behold
now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. What does that
mean? She understood why she didn't
have children. The Lord, and that's Jehovah, hath restrained
me from bearing. I pray thee, go unto my maid,
it may be that I may obtain children by her." And Abram hearkened
unto the voice of Sarah. As we travel through this, we
find that she had no children. She understood who had restrained
her womb from having children. And then in Genesis chapter 17,
would you travel there with me? Genesis chapter 17, and in Genesis
chapter 17, verse 15. Genesis chapter 17, verse 15. Here we have God, but God. And God said unto Abraham, As
for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her Sarai, but Sarah
shall be her name be. And I will bless her, and give
thee a son also of her. Yea, I will bless her, and she
shall be the mother of nations, kings of people shall be of her. And in verse 19, and God said,
Sarah, thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shall
call his name Isaac. And I will establish my covenant
with him for an everlasting covenant and with his seed after him.
And as for Ishmael, I have heard, or verse 21, but my covenant
will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee
at this set time next year. So he has promised her that she's
gonna have a child, and we know by what the scripture has to
say, her age. She's been barren all her life. She has not bore a child all
her life. She hasn't even had stillborn
children. She's just not been able to have a child. And here
she is, well along in years, And the Lord said, you're going
to have a son. Now here, it says she laughed
in her heart. In the book of Hebrews, thank
God, as he looked at it, she had faith. That's the way we
want to look at things. God looks at us through Christ
as one who has faith. All right, so here we have Sarah
conceived and bear Abraham a son. And chapter 21, oh, let's stop
at chapter 18 for just a moment, 18 verse 11. Now Abraham and Sarah were old
and well-stricken in age, and it ceased to be with Sarah after
the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed within
herself, saying, After I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure, my
lord being old also? I think she's ninety and he's
a hundred, something like that. And then, traveling just a little
further, if we go to chapter 21, verses one through three. Chapter 21, verses one through
three. Now this is the first account that I can find in the
Bible about a barren woman burying a son by promise. Now this is
a special son. This is a son that really represents,
in fact it says he is the son of the covenant. It is in Isaac
thy seed shall be found, blessed. So in the book of Genesis, chapter
21, verses one, two, and three, we read this. And the Lord visited
Sarah as he said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. Now, I'm so thankful that when
it comes to salvation, the same thing happens, that God visits
and God gives, just like he promised. All that the Father giveth me
shall come unto me, and he that cometh unto me I will in no wise
cast out. I lay down my life for the sheep. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. I'm so thankful that in time
Sometime in the lifetime appointed by God, in the lifetime of every
one of his lost sheep, he will come to them. He will appear
to them and they shall have life. It says there, the Lord did unto
Sarah as he had spoken. And Sarah conceived and bare
Abraham a son in his old age as the set time which God had
spoken to him. At the appropriate time, God
always brings his children into the world. His lost children
are born and made alive at the appropriate time, at the right
time, at the purpose time, Saul of Tarsus. Now his life before
that time was very unhealthy for the church, but at that time,
the appointed time, when it pleased God. So it goes on here, and
Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom
Sarah bare to him, Isaac. Now remember when Abraham was
called on to take this boy, this young man up on Mount Moriah
and offer him, you take thy son, your only son. He is the only
son of promise. He is the only son. This is the
son that Sarah bear and not the son of Hagar. And remember Lauren's
lessons on that from the book of Galatians, we are of Sarah. We're of Mount Zion. We're from above. All right.
Well, in Genesis chapter 25, We have another one that's in
this direct line, Genesis chapter 25, another of those special
births that God gave to someone who is barren and left to ourself,
we'll go through this life barren. We cannot produce children, we
cannot produce life in us. I just wish, well, it's impossible. You cannot convince someone who
believes something against their belief without God intervening.
But if it was just known and understood a little bit about
what we read here, that it would be an impossibility for anybody
to ever get involved in soul winning. Now it might be gospel
preaching. It might be gospel teaching.
It might be declaring the gospel. But soul winning is in the hands
of a much higher power. That is in the hands of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God must do the work. He must
produce the child. So here in the book of Genesis
chapter 25, beginning with verse 20. Genesis chapter 25, verse
20. Isaac was 40 years old when he
took Rebekah to wife and the daughter of Bethiel, the Syrian,
of Padamaram, the sister of Laban, the Syrian. And Isaac entreated
the Lord for his wife because she was barren. And the Lord
was entreated of him. You know, some people would say,
see, God changed his mind. No, he had this plan all along.
He did get an entreatment out of Isaac over this issue. He
prayed, okay? The Lord was entreated of him
and Rebekah, his wife, conceived. Now, what a blessing. Here we
have a woman again, that is Baran. And we're gonna have Jacob born
of this woman, Jacob and Esau. And we hear way down there in
the book of Malachi, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
And the apostle Paul brings this into the New Testament, into
the book of Romans. So Isaac produced Jacob and Jacob is the
heir according to promise. And it is through him that Jesus
Christ came into this world. Well, we could go through, we
find Samuel. The other day we read a little
bit about prayer and we found out that Hannah, she could not
have children. And her counterpart, the first
wife, or the second wife, the other wife, had lots of children,
and she kept going, ha ha ha ha ha, I'm better than you are,
I'm better than you are. And then the Lord gave her a
child, and we know him as Samuel. Now the Lord opened up her womb,
and you know what? We have him mentioned. He is
mentioned as being with Eli. He is mentioned as the writers
of 1 and 2 Samuel. He is the last of the judges.
And we don't have one word about the daughters or sons of the
other wife. There is an election. There's
election according to grace. All right, Samuel is there. Another
one, we get to the New Testament. You already know him, John the
Baptist. Just let's go over there and
read verses five, six, and seven of the first chapter of the book
of Luke. So we have these five individuals. The one we haven't dealt with
up to this point is our guest in this chapter, in 13th chapter
of the book of Judges, and that's Samson. All right, turn with
me to the book of Luke, the book of Luke chapter one, the book
of Luke chapter one. Luke chapter one, verse five. This is in the days of Herod,
the king of Judea. A certain priest named Zacharias
of the course of Abiah and his wife was of the daughters of
Aaron and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous
before God. I love that. Oh my goodness. To hear that about us. righteous
before God. They have right standing. They
have been born again. They have this issue, though,
in their natural state. They have no children. And they
were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments
and ordinance of the Lord blameless. How can that happen? The blood
of Christ cleanseth us from all sin. Now, it hadn't happened
at the cross, but the promise was sufficient. God's promise
that it was going to take care of it was sufficient and he could
have it written about. And they both were righteous.
And it says there in verse seven, and they had no child because
Elizabeth was barren. And they both were now well stricken
in years. So she's barren. It doesn't mean
they didn't want to have children. It doesn't mean they didn't try
to have children. It means they couldn't have children.
And so it is with us, if it isn't for God producing life, giving
us that ability to breathe spiritually, then we will go through this
world our lifetime as this person barren can't produce. We can't
do it ourself. We need an outside influence.
So it says that no child because Elizabeth was barren and they
both were now stricken in years and it came to pass that while
he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his
course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot
was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.
I am convinced that when this man Zacharias went in there to
do what he was called on to do, he did it the best possible way
he could do it. Now, he was a sinner and he's
going to make mistakes, but he's righteous. Sin has been dealt
with. The whole multitude of the people
were praying without at the time of the incense. Now, I find that
most real prayers is quiet prayer. I don't think that they were
trying to disturb him in their prayer. I think that they were
praying quietly, silently, and there appeared unto him an angel
of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar incense. Isn't
that interesting? Because we go back to the book
of Judges chapter 13, and this is the one that's going to appear
unto Manoah and unto the woman appeared the angel of the Lord
standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when
Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the
angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is
heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou
shalt call his name John. Thou shalt call his name Isaac.
Thou shall have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his
birth." So here we have the birth of what we know as John, John
the Baptist in the New Testament, the forerunner of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So these several that we've looked at in the scriptures
share with us that there were barren, significant women, barren,
and yet the Lord blessed their womb and they had a child. It is absolutely necessary, if
anybody is ever going to be saved, that they are saved by this great
creative power that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit has, and that's the new birth. I heard today, what is
the new birth? What is the new birth? And you
know, people try to figure that out in every way they can. and
only God can give the new birth. It is a barren one giving birth. We were given birth. All right,
let's go back. We have a few minutes left. Let's
go back to the book of Judges again, chapter 13. Judges chapter
13, we have in this chapter the surrounding information with
regard to the birth of Samson. And all of this happens as the
prelude to the birth of Samson. We have Israel in a terrible
fix. They represent everybody that
is ever born and they're all following after their gods. Right
in the middle of that great mess, God has purpose to have two people
that he's going to appear unto them personally. How God works
in mysterious ways, here we have him appearing in the mess. in
that great sinful mess of all Israel falling after their own
inclinations. Well, join me again in the book
of Judges chapter 13. Judges chapter 13, and we read
here in Judges chapter 13, verse two and three again. There was
a certain man of Zorah, the family of the Danites, whose name was
Manoah, and his wife was Baran and Baranot. And the angel appeared
unto the woman, The angel appeared unto the woman. The angel of
the Lord appeared unto the woman. Notice, I believe your translation
probably has it just like mine. It's the capital letters for
Lord. The angel of Jehovah. This is pre-incarnate Christ.
This is pre-incarnate Christ. Christ coming in a physical form
before His birth of the Virgin Mary. This is Him appearing and
speaking. And it tells us here that the
angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her,
Behold now thou art barren, and bearest not, but thou shalt conceive
and bearest son. The promise is made. God has
purposed it. He's going to carry it out. Now,
that is an interesting thing to look into the scriptures about
where the angel of the Lord appeared. You know, Moses, we follow Moses,
and we find out that he left Egypt a wanted man. He left Egypt not on a pleasant
trip, but he ran for his life. And we find Moses gets married
and is a herder of sheep, the backside of the desert for his
father-in-law. And out there in that strange
place, out there in that desert, out there where he's herding
the sheep for his father-in-law, the angel of the Lord appears
unto him. It is not at a religious site. It is not at some temple. It is out there and there is
a bush that will not be consumed and out of it, the angel of the
Lord appeared unto Moses. We're gonna look at that passage
of scripture for just a moment over there in the book of Exodus chapter three, Exodus
chapter three. in Exodus chapter three, and
this appearance happens a number of times in the scripture, and
then, as I mentioned with regard to Saul of Tarsus, I am convinced
it is necessary for the angel of the covenant, the angel of
the Lord, to appear to everyone that he gives the new birth to.
We're going to recognize Him as the Savior like we've never
seen Him before. We're going to recognize Him
as the hope as we've never hoped before. He is going to be the
one that takes all of our thoughts about God away and gives us the
truth about God. He's going to take away all our
idols and give us the true Lord Jesus Christ. So here in the
book of Exodus chapter three, there in verse two, verse one,
it says, and Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law and
the priest of Midian and led the flock to the backside of
the desert. Is there any such place today? Where did the Lord find you?
the back side of the desert, wherever it was, a place where
there's no bread, a place where there's no grazing. Lodibar, that's where the Lord
finds us. That's as far as we can get,
is Lodibar. Well, it goes here, and he led
the flock to the back side of the desert. You know where he
leads them? He leads them out there where they're gonna spend
40 years. around Sinai, the mountain of
God, even Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared
unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush. And
he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush
was not consumed. And Moses said, I'll turn aside
and see this great side, why the bush is not burnt. You know,
the Lord has to do something to attract us to him. He's unattractive
by himself. We find that in the book of Isaiah. There's no form nor commonness.
What would we be interested in going over there for? But he
attracted Moses by this fire. And he is a consuming fire. Fire
brings warmth, fire gives us light. So many things we could
say about that. And the Lord saw that he turned
aside to see and God called unto him out of the midst of the bush.
So if you ever have any question about who Jehovah is, you can
just go to this verse of scriptures. Well, he's God. God called him
out of that bush. It's God. What did Stephen, not
Stephen, what did Thomas say when he looked at his Lord? My
Lord and my God. And he's speaking that face to
face with the Lord Jesus Christ. My Lord and my God, he's God.
So God spoke out of that bush and said, Moses, Moses, and he
said, fear him not. So the angel of the Lord, that's
who's appearing unto the woman. that's who is going to appear
unto Manoah. That is the one, the only way
that they're ever gonna have that son, Samson, who's going
to be a judge of Israel and kick out those Philistines that's
been there for 40 years. So here we have a laid out plan
by almighty God and how he's going to bring that son into
this world through a barren woman and the angel of the Lord appears
unto her and says, you're going to have a son. Well, I'm thankful
he says the same thing about his family. God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are gonna have the whole family
assembled in glory around their feet, and they're all in great
chorus going to say, worthy is the Lamb that was slain. Not
one will be not there, and not one too many will be there. It
will be the exact number, a number that no man can number, but a
number that he knows. So here we have the angel of
the Lord. There are several other times that we find this mentioned
in the Old as well as the New Testament. We just read one of
those over there in the book of Luke, Zacharias, the angel
appeared unto him, the angel appeared unto Mary, the angel
appeared unto Joseph, the angel appeared unto Paul and said,
fear not for I have much people in this city. So it's this messenger
of the covenant. This is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, we'll stop there and pick this up with verse 4, Lord willing,
next time as we go ahead and see God's wonderful miracle of
life. And it is a picture, a type of
the new birth, and it is something God did that they couldn't do,
and the new birth is something God does that we can't do. All
right, we'll stop there for tonight and we'll pick this up, Lord
willing.