Let's open tonight's service
with hymn number 29 from the Spiral Gospel Hymns hymnal, number
29. Let's all stand together. I was lost and did not know it,
rushing madly to my end. But my God, whose rigid mercy
would not let me die in sin, Hallelujah, God has saved me,
Saved me by His sovereign grace. Jesus died, the Spirit called
me, I am saved by sovereign grace. ? Chosen by my heavenly Father
? ? And redeemed by Jesus' blood ? ? I am justified, forgiven,
and accepted by my God ? ? Hallelujah, God has saved me, saved me, my
God ? by his sovereign grace. Jesus died, the Spirit called
me, I am saved by sovereign grace. But the Spirit came in power,
Gave me life, and set me free. He revealed my blessed Savior,
And created faith in me. Hallelujah, God has saved me,
Saved me by His sovereign grace. Jesus died, the Spirit called
me, I am saved by sovereign grace. God has saved me and will keep
me by the power of His grace. He will guide, guard, and protect
me till I see my Savior's face. Hallelujah! God has saved me, Saved me by
His sovereign grace. Jesus died, the Spirit called
me, I am saved by sovereign grace. Please be seated. We're going to be reading from
John chapter five. If you'd like to open your Bibles
there with me, John chapter five. That was a good hymn. If we are saved,
it'll only be by sovereign grace. You know, other than celebrating
the new birth in a public baptism, The second thing that thrills
my soul as a pastor more than anything else when we get together
is when a new baby comes to their very first service. It just excites
me to think about the future life of that child. And Kanan
James Hardman is here with us tonight for the first time. I'm
so very thankful. Pray the Lord will make this
the first of many, many times where he'll be sitting under
the gospel. RG was supposed to have an AFib
shock treatment done today. And when they got in with the
catheter, they saw something that they decided they would
not do the shock treatment. So they sent him home with some
medication. Or going to send him home in
the morning with some medication. His pneumonia is now under control,
so thankful for that. You have your Bibles open to
John chapter 5. Let me just add one word more.
I told Todd as he was driving back Sunday that I was so thankful
I wasn't here Sunday morning to add one single word to what
we had an opportunity to hear. Anything I would have had to
say would have been taken away from what we heard. The Lord
gave him two wonderful messages and I'm so, so thankful for that. John chapter five, verse one,
and after this, there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up
to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by
the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue
Bethesda, translated house of mercy. Having five porches, five
is the number in the scripture for grace. In these lay a great multitude
of impotent folk, a blind halt, withered, waiting for the moving
of the water. Now, the spiritual application
of this passage is that the water is a picture of the washing of
the water of God's word. The word of God is referred to
as water. And the angel is the one that
stirs the water. And our hope is to get to the pool The waters
being stirred for an angel went down at certain seasons into
the pool and troubled the water. Whosoever then first after the
trouble into the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever
disease he had. And a certain man was there which
had an infirmity thirty and eight years. And when Jesus saw him
lie and knew that he had been now a long time in that case,
he saith unto him, "'Wilt thou be made whole?' That's a good
question. "'Wilt thou be made whole?' And
the impotent man answered and said, "'Sir, I have no man when
the water is troubled "'to put me into the pool, but while I
am coming, "'another steppeth down before me.' And Jesus saith
unto him, "'Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.' And immediately
the man was made whole. and took up his bed and walked. And on the same day was the Sabbath. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you for the opportunity and blessing of gathering together here tonight. And we pray that The water of
your word will be stirred and our hearts will be stirred and
Lord that you would speak to us and that we would hear you
declare, rise, take up thy bed and walk. Lord, our heart's desire
by your grace and by your spirit is that we'd be made whole. We
thank you for the wholeness that we have in Christ and we pray
that he would be lifted up tonight and that we would Look to him
in faith and find our wholeness, our righteousness, our justification,
our sanctification, all that you require, that we would find
it all in him. Father, we thank you for little
Cain and James and pray your hand of blessing to be upon him
and pray, Lord, that you would, in the fullness of time, that
you would open his heart and Give him ears to hear the things
that he's exposed to now, Lord, that you would cause him to believe
on Christ and have life eternal. We pray for RG and Lord for those
that are sick and pray for your hand of healing to be upon them
and strengthen them and return them to us. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. number 352 in your hardback timbrel,
352. Let's all stand together. Jesus, lover of my soul, let
me to thy bosom fly. While the nearer waters roll,
while the tempest still is high, hide me, O my Savior, hide. ? Till the storm of life is past
? ? Safe into the haven guide ? ? O receive my soul at last
? ? Other refuge have I none ? ? Hangs my helpless soul upon
thee ? Thee I'll leave, be not alone, still support and comfort
me. All my trust on Thee is stayed,
all my help from Thee I bring. Cover my defenseless head with
the shadow of Thy wing. Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
more than all in Thee I find. Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
heal the sick and lead the blind. Just and holy is thy name. I am all unrighteousness. False and full of sin I am, Thou
art full of truth and grace. Plenteous grace with Thee is
found, Grace to cover all my sin. that the healing streams
abound, they can keep me pure within. Thou of life, the fountain heart,
freely let me take of Thee. Let's open our Bibles together
to Judges chapter 14, Judges 14. I've titled this message, Christ's
Love for His Bride, Christ's Love for His Bride. And by way
of introduction, I'd like to quote a very familiar verse from
Ephesians chapter five, verse 24, where the Lord says, husbands,
love your wives also, even as Christ loved the church. Now,
usually when we hear that verse, it's either at a wedding or it
is quoted in order to lay the responsibility of love and leadership
on the shoulders of the husbands. And certainly it does that. But
I want us to focus our attention on the second part of that verse.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and
gave himself for it. The evidence of his love for
his church is that he laid down his life for his bride. Greater love hath no man than
this, that he lay down his life for his friend. And a love of
the Lord said, I no longer call you my servants, I call you my
friend. What a beautiful relationship a husband and wife have when
they're friends, when they're friends. They're able to communicate
together and fellowship together as friends. And that's the union
that Christ has with his bride, for God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever shall believe
upon him shall not perish but have everlasting life. This is
the evidence of hearing his love, not that we love God, but that
he loved us and gave his son as a propitiation for our sins.
This passage in Ephesians chapter five closes with that truth. This is a great mystery concerning
Christ and his church. So, yes, husbands love your wives,
but you know what? If the Lord is pleased to show
us how much he loves us, our love for him and our love for
one another will come as the result of that. So tonight I
want us to look at Christ's love for his bride. That passage in
Ephesians chapter five goes on to say, no man ever hated his
own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it. As the body of Christ, the Lord
nourishes and cherishes his bride, for we are members of his body
and of his flesh and of his bone. Now, the story of Samson is a
picture of Christ and his bride. Judges chapter 13 ends with the
birth of Samson. And you'll read with me verses
24 and 25 of chapter 13. And the woman bear a son and
called his name Samson. And the child grew and the Lord
blessed him. And the spirit of the Lord began to move him at
times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Esther. Now that's all we know about
the childhood of Samson. He was born and he grew. He grew in in wisdom and God blessed him. Here we have another picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ other than that example or that experience
that we have recorded of him at 12 years old. The only thing else we know about
the childhood of the Lord Jesus Christ is that he increased in
wisdom and in stature with man And with God, with God of a man,
he increased in wisdom and in stature. Now the childhood, the
whole life of the Lord Jesus Christ in his incarnation, God
being made flesh is shrouded in secrecy and mystery. How could
we possibly comprehend what it means for God to be made in the
likeness of sinful flesh? And yet we have him. We have
omnipotence, the one who possesses in and of himself all power,
having to learn to walk. How can we, how can we begin
to comprehend what that means? Or omniscience, the one who possesses
all understanding and all knowledge, having to learn to talk. Yep, that's what we have. He grew in wisdom and in stature
with God and with man. The eternal I am growing in stature. We can't begin to comprehend
what this means. We believe it. Wisdom itself. The Lord Jesus
Christ is called wisdom. He's He's the personification
of wisdom in the Proverbs, and then the Lord tells us that God
has made him to be our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification,
and our redemption. All of our wisdom is in him,
and yet he had to grow in wisdom and in stature with God and with
man. With all of these judges, we
are encouraged to understand them in light of the gospel and
see them as types of the Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter 14,
Samson goes down to Timnath and saw a woman in Timnath of the
daughters of the Philistines. And he came up and told his father
and his mother and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the
daughters of the Philistines. Now, therefore, get her for me
to wife. Then his father and his mother
said to him, is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren
or among all my people that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised
Philistines? And Samson said to his father,
go get her for me, for she pleases me well. But his father and his
mother knew not that it was of the Lord, that he sought an occasion
against the Philistines. And at that time, the Philistines
had dominion over Israel. Samson, like all of these judges,
pictures the Lord Jesus Christ as the deliverer of Israel. Israel is under the bondage of
the Philistines, just as you and I, apart from the Lord Jesus
Christ, are under the bondage and the curse of sin. And the
Lord Jesus Christ, well, we saw this with Samson in the previous
chapter, as the Nazarite, the anointed one, the one set apart
by God to be a special deliverer of Israel and how the Lord Jesus
Christ fulfilled all those pictures of the hair not being cut and
the wine not being drank and the not touching of dead flesh
and how the Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of those types as
the Nazarene the one who is set apart for the deliverance of
Israel. You and I are in need of a deliverer.
We're in need of a savior. And the Lord Jesus Christ fulfills
all of these pictures and all of these types that we have in
the Old Testament. I can remember in seminary that
we were taught text without a context was a pretext and would lead
to a proof text. And this little clever axiom
was being promoted by very well-educated theologians. who thought that
they understood the context of scripture. And they forbid us
to spiritualize the Bible. And for years I thought, well,
I can't do that. I've got to just stick with the context of
the verse. What they didn't know, and what
I know now, is that the Lord Jesus Christ himself is the context
of the Bible. And we're not making a pretext
out of the text by taking it to Christ. He is the sum and
the substance. He's the author and the subject
of his word. In the volume of the book, it
is written of me. The Lord told those Pharisees
in John chapter five, he said, you search the scriptures because
you think in them you have eternal life. My professors in seminary
were no different from the Pharisees of 2000 years ago. search the
scriptures, thinking they had eternal life. And the Lord said,
but these are they which testify of me. You miss the whole meaning
of the Bible if we don't see Christ. So when we look at these
Old Testament pictures, we're not going to be puffing up our
knowledge of history or something else, we're going to be humbled
as we're brought by the Word of God to see the fulfillment
of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior of Israel. That's what
he is, and that's why these scriptures are given to us. We're going
to be looking at Samson for a couple of services Sunday, and perhaps
even next Wednesday, where you know that Samson's name is synonymous
with strength and with power, and he was a physically strong
man, but he performed supernatural feats with his strength. The
very next thing that we're going to see is he comes across a lion
and the scripture says that without a weapon, with his bare hands,
he killed the lion as if it was a small kid, as if it was a baby
goat. He took this lion and killed
it. You know what that's a picture of. That's the Lord Jesus Christ
destroying that one who roars like a roaring lion seeking to
whom he may devour. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who defeated the works of the devil. We see also in the
next chapter where Samson, as a picture of Christ, took a jawbone
of an ass you know what that that ass is a picture of a beast
of burden the preacher of the gospel and takes his jawbone
and slays a thousand philistines showing us the the the the means
by which the lord is pleased to save his people through the
preaching of the gospel after that he goes down to Gaza,
city of the Philistines, and he takes the very gates off of
the city and carries them up on a hill. And we see in that
how the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world in order to tear
down the gates of hell. He said, he said, the gates of
hell shall not prevail against the gospel. I'm going to go in
and I'm going to lead captivity captive. I'm going to bring them
out. What a picture of our Lord's
successful work of saving his people. So Samson's a picture
of Christ. Here's what he's... And then
at the end of his life, you remember they tied him to the two pillars
of the Temple of Dagon. And in his last feet of strength
and power, he pulled down that temple and killed more Philistines
in his death than he killed in his life. picture of how the
Lord Jesus Christ has destroyed the works of the devil, and he
has judged the prince of this world. That's what he said when I The
Spirit of God comes who will convict the world of sin, of
righteousness, and of judgment, of sin because they believe not
on me, of righteousness because I go to my Father, and of judgment
because the prince of this world has been judged. The Lord Jesus
Christ is our strong man, performed a miraculous feat of salvation
when he judged Satan, opened up hell, and destroyed the works
of the devil and set his people free. all the military might of every
generation, all the monetary power of every wealthy person
and everything. It does not compare to the power
that the Lord has to save his people, to deliver them, to give
them faith and to enable them to believe on Christ. Samson's name translated means
like the sun. Turn with me to Judges chapter
19. Judges, I'm sorry, Psalm 19,
Psalm 19. Psalm 19. Look at verse five of Psalm 19.
which is as a bridegroom. He's speaking of that ball of
fire that rises in the East and sets in the West every day. And
he says that it is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and
rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is
from the end of the heavens and his circuit is to the ends of
it. And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law,
so the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony
of God is sure, making wise the simple. So the Lord's likening
that star in the sky, the sun, to the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in Acts chapter two,
turn with me, turn to me there, if you will, Acts chapter two. Now this is Peter on the day
of Pentecost. And he says, and I will show
wonders in the heavens above and the signs in the earth beneath,
blood and fire and vapor and smoke. The sun shall be turned
to darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable
day of the Lord come. Now that's exactly what happened.
Now Peter is quoting from the prophecy of Joel. Remember they
thought that the disciples were intoxicated. And Peter said,
no, this isn't, this isn't intoxication. He said, this is, this is the
spirit of God. This is the fulfillment of the
prophecy of Joel. When the sun was darkened, Calvary's
cross, when our sin was being bore in the body of Christ and
the justice of God was being satisfied in the sun, light,
light of the gospel was darkened in order that that sun might
rise again. Matter of fact, in the very next
chapter of Acts, the scripture says then that women went early
in the morning as the sun was rising to the tomb. So as the
sun was coming up on that resurrection morning, there's a picture of
though the sun was darkened in his death, it rose in his resurrection. we have the light of the gospel
that shines now in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ in our
hearts. So Samson's very name, like the
sun, a strong man, everything about him points us to the Lord
Jesus Christ. God has given us this this glorious
revelation of Christ in so many different types and pictures.
It always comes back to him. Go back with me to our text in
Judges chapter 14. We're not making a pretext out
of this text. We're understanding this in light
of the gospel and the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the context of scripture.
It's what it's all about. Samson went down to Timnath. Now he sees a woman in Timnath
that pleases him. And he says to his mother and
his father, he said, go get her for me. She pleases me. I want her to be my wife. But notice that in order for
him to have her, he had to go down. I mentioned, I think it
was last Wednesday night, about Jonah running from the Lord when
the Lord commanded him to go and preach the gospel to the
Ninevites. And the scripture says that he
went down into Joppa, and then he went down into the ship, and
then he went down into the belly of the ship, and he ended up
going down. And you know, and that the, that disobedience and
rebellion is always a downhill spiral. That's so true, isn't
it? You've seen that enough in your
own life to know that sin always, always results in a downward
spiral. But, you know, Jonah's a picture
of Christ. He's a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the one that went down into the ship. He's the
one that was cast into the sea and went down into the belly
of the whale in order that the sailors on that ship could be
saved. That's what that's a picture
of. How far down did the Lord Jesus Christ have to go in order
to get to himself a wife? How far down did he have to go?
We have no way of knowing. We have no way of knowing how
far the Lord Jesus Christ condescended in order to be born into this
world. When Paul in the book of Timothy
is describing the mystery of godliness. He says, great is
the mystery of godliness that God was manifested in the flesh. You know, we often say that a
mystery, it doesn't mean that it's mysterious. It means that
it's hidden and that has to be revealed. But even when God reveals
the mystery to us, we only see little glimpses of it. the mystery
of godliness that God was manifested in the flesh, you and I cannot
begin to comprehend how far our strong man had to come, how far
the Son of God had to come to leave the glories of heaven and
be born in the likeness of sinful flesh, be born of a woman. become dependent upon a creature
that he had made. He came down to Timnath. Omnipotence made in the likeness or in the
weakness of human flesh. One who said, If I was hungry,
I wouldn't tell you. As a baby, cried like any other
child for its mother's breast. How can we begin to see how far
hearing is love? This is how much the Lord Jesus
Christ loved his bride. He saw a woman and she pleased
him. And he came all the way down
from glory. How the water of life could be
brought to that place where he cried in agony, his tongue cleaving
to his mouth, I thirst. How could that be? How far, how
far has he come? The creator and sustainer of
all of life, both physical and spiritual, died. How could that be? Sabbath itself, the Sabbath,
our rest. in agony, sweat drip, great drops
of blood, bearing the sins of his people. The very tree of life nailed to a tree, cursed with
all the curses of God for the sins of his people that he bore
in his body upon that tree. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
upon a tree. This is love. What is it that moved him? He
saw a woman in Timnath and he went down to her. The one who
never sleeps nor slumbers became so tired that he fell asleep
in a rickety wooden boat in the middle of a life-threatening
storm in the Sea of Galilee. This is a condescension that
you and I can't begin to comprehend. But these things tell us about
how much he loved his bride, that he was willing to do this.
He was willing to vacate his throne in glory and come into
this life, come into this world, suffer the contradiction of sinners. Everywhere he looked and everything
he saw and every word he heard, grieved his holy soul, the sin
that had infected everything in this world. The Lord Jesus Christ, omnipresence
himself, the eternal brightness of God's glory and the express
image of his person, the one who upholds all things by the
very word of his power, willingly became limited to time and space
like me and you. He came down. How far down he
came. He entered willingly into what
he had created for his creatures. and submitted himself to the
limitations of this world in order to marry his bride. He loved her that much. And the mystery of all mysteries
is that he who was without sin became sin. That was the cup that he drank
from. He did all of this. The first
cause of our salvation is the love of God. He did all of this
because of His love for His people. He saw a woman in Timnath and
He loved her and He would come down to her. Holiness could not look up for
shame, for the sins that He bore. hanging his head before his father
and crying, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The second
person of the triune God had been forsaken by his father.
This was what he didn't want to have to go through when he
prayed to the father in the garden. If there be any way this cup
can pass from me. The Lord Jesus Christ came down You know, when a great man, a
king or president or wealthy man goes out of his way in order
to show attention to some lowly peasant, everybody thinks that's
so honorable. That cannot be compared to what
the Lord Jesus Christ did when he when he left his throne in
glory and came into this world. He condescended to save sinners. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 1. Very familiar with this passage. 1 Corinthians 1. We'll begin reading in verse
27. But God, how far did he have to come down to find you? Did he not pull from the fire
a firebrand? Did he not come into the miry
clay of our sin in order to get from the bottom of the barrel?
You know, when we fall in love with a woman or a man falls in
love, they're attracted to certain things of that opposite sex that
they consider to be attractive. This person's beautiful, this
person's lovely, they've got a good personality, and they're
drawn. The Lord had to put His comeliness on
us in order for us to have any beauty at all. We were without
any form cast into the open field. But God, verse 27, hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. God hath
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things
which are despised hath God chosen, yea, the things which are not
to bring to naught the things that are. How far did he come
down in order to find you and me. No flesh or glory in his presence. God makes you to be a sinner
and he calls you to see that everything about you is nothing
but sin. You really do believe yourself
to be the chief of all sinners. You know that he had to come,
he had to come into a very dark place to get you. no flesh to glory in his presence.
But of him, God the Father, are you in Christ Jesus. God doesn't put us in Christ,
well, none of these things will be true about us. Who of God
has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. Oh, we'll glory in our strong
man. Samson, like the sun, rises in the morning and sets in the
evening. And there's not a place in the
world that's not exposed to its view and how the Lord rises in
our hearts through the darkness that he experienced on Calvary's
cross. This is how far he came. Go back with me. to chapter 14
of Judges. And Samson went down to Timnath. Now, Timnath translated means
portion, portion. And the believer is called the
Lord's portion. Zechariah chapter two, verse
12, and the Lord shall inherit Judah his portion. It's a remnant, it's his inheritance.
In Isaiah chapter 53, God shall divide him a portion with the
great and the spoils of war are his portion. This is Timnath,
how our Samson came down to gather to himself his portion. I got an email this week. It was a very brief email, but
they asked me, they said they're looking for a church in Apopka.
What denomination are you? What kind of hymns do you sing?
How large are you? What is your demographic? And
I wanted to answer each one of those questions. Oh, and what
do you have to offer our children? And if I had answered each one
of his questions, I would have just said, our demographic is
God's elect from every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. That's
our demographic. I didn't, I just tried to be
kind and I said to him, I quoted what the woman at the well said
when she went back down into Sychar and she said, come meet
a man who told me everything I ever did. And then I just said,
all we have is Christ. We don't have anything else.
If you don't have anything else, come, come and visit. But I've
always interested, wanted to know what our demographics, what
is the demographics of God's church? You know, when David
said, though he make it not to grow, the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ has never grown by one single soul since eternity
past, when God chose them in the covenant of grace. And it'll remain exactly the
same. Now that's the invisible church. That's the church that
you and I can't see. That's God's elect. We have the
local assembly. And there's a little difference,
a distinction to be made between the two. The local assembly has
wheat and tares made up in it, and the local assembly is fragile,
whereas the eternal church is set. No damage can be done to that
church. But here's the church is the
Lord's portion. This is portion given to him
by his heavenly father. He went down to Tempnath of the
daughters of the Philistines. You see that? Now, Philistine
means immigrant. That's what Philistine means.
And God had forbidden the children of Israel to take a wife from
seven different pagan nations. Philistines are not among those
nations. So although they were outside of Israel, they weren't
part of the forbidden nations that the children of Israel were
allowed to marry in. And so here we have a picture
of how the Lord Jesus Christ goes outside of Israel to the
Gentile nations. to call together his elect and
make them. We're the immigrants of the world.
We're the sojourners. And that's what the Philistines
were. They didn't have a particular location. They were transient
people. They moved about. And here's
Christ making that eternal condescension
from heaven to be born of a woman, born under the law, made in the
likeness of sinful flesh, to live in this world of depravity
and become the savior of his bride. His portion, his elect, Temnath,
his Philistines, Christ taking his wife from among
the Gentiles. Can't read this story without
thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ being likened to Hosea, who the
Lord told, go and take for your wife a harlot. And he went and
purchased Gomer from off the slave market after she had wasted
her life in harlotry and how That's a picture of what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done in saving his people. His love for
his bride. We see it even in David. We think of David's sin with
Bathsheba, but David saw Bathsheba and he loved her and he made
her his bride and we see it in that. That's a picture of Christ
in his church. All these things are. Boaz. Oh, Boaz saw Ruth. Naomi knew
what a man in love looked like. What did Naomi say to Ruth? Said, child, you sit right here
for that man will not rest until he settled the issue today. He
loves you. He loves you. He's going to reckon
with that kinsman redeemer and he's going to purchase you to
himself. This picture is repeated over
and over again. You know, when Isaac saw Rebecca
and fell in love with her, and when Jacob saw Rachel, all of
these glorious pictures of Christ and his church. We saw in verses 3 and 4 that Samson's parents didn't understand
what was happening, and they objected to it. And we're reminded
of what happened when the Lord told those people in Nazareth
Now, every time I read Luke chapter four, I'm just amazed. Nazareth
would have been a small village. The Lord Jesus had lived there
as a, as the son. I mean, I want to say as an exemplary
citizen, I mean, but nobody knew that it was God, but you know
that they must've, they must've had great respect for him. Everybody
had interacted with him over the years. And now he steps into
the synagogue on the Sabbath and opens up the scroll and turns
it to Isaiah chapter 61 and reads that prophecy of the Messiah. And he says, this very day, this
scripture has been fulfilled in thy sight. And they wondered
at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. Could it be?
Is that why he's been so special and unique among us for all these
years? Could it be that this is the
son of God? This is the Messiah? Until he interpreted the sovereignty
of the Messiah. When he said in the days of Elijah,
There were many widows in Israel during the drought and God showed
mercy on none of them except for the widow of Sarepta. And
in the days of Elisha, there were many lepers in Israel. God showed mercy on none of them
except for the leper, Naaman, the Syrian. What do we see here? We see the Lord Jesus Christ
going down into Timnath to recover his bride, to buy to himself
his portion from the Philistines. And his parents, as they objected,
so these Jews in Nazareth objected. Oh, they didn't just object.
The scripture says that when they heard these things, they
were filled with wrath and they drug him out of the city and
would have thrown him headlong off the cliff. They were ready
to murder him. You're gonna choose a bride outside
of Israel? Someone other than us? See, there's the difference,
isn't it? those who think they're worthy of salvation and those
who know they're not. Also his parents didn't understand. The Bible says in verse four,
but his father and his mother knew not that it was of the Lord.
And he sought an occasion against the Philistines. And at that
time, the Philistines had dominion over Israel. You and I are observers
of providence. That's all we are. We're just
observers of it. We can't be judge of it. We can't
analyze it. We don't know. Sometimes we see
a little bit of what God may be accomplishing through circumstances
that we would not have chosen. But more times than not, we don't
know what God's doing. Samson's mother and father didn't
know what he was doing, didn't know what God was doing. God
chose this woman out of the Philistines down in Timnath for her strong
son who was like the sun to be the husband of. in order to get
victory. And the story is going to play
out so that this woman becomes the means by which the Lord brings
salvation to Israel and destruction to the Philistines. And that's
what God's doing in his providence. All the providence of God, whatever
it is, it all leads to his glory and the salvation of his people.
That's His purpose. And we sit back and we watch
it and we wonder sometimes and we object sometimes to what's
happening. But we know by faith, we know
by faith that God is working all things together for good,
for them that love Him and those that are the called according
to His purpose. This is a picture of Christ's
love for his church, his bride. What love he has. We can't begin
to understand it. What manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of
God. Go to the Song of Solomon, chapter
four. I'll close with this. And the
Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to his bride, and he says to
her, one look from one of your eyes smites my heart. We can't comprehend that. That's
his love for us. that when you bow for a moment
and offer a sincere prayer of gratitude and praise and petition,
whatever it is, one quick look of one eye to the Lord Jesus
Christ, and he says, you've smitten my heart. That's how much he
loves his bride. Our heavenly father. Thank you for thy dear son. Thank you for unspeakable, incomprehensible
love. Lord, we thank you for the portion
of your people that lived in Timnath, the Philistines, the
immigrants. And Lord, we thank you that the
Lord Jesus Christ, when he saw his bride, was pleased with her.
and brought her to himself. We pray that you would keep us
in a place of gratitude and worship and forgive us, Lord, for our
unbelief. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. 103, let's stand together, number
103. One day when heaven was filled
with His praises, One day when sin was as black as could be,
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin. Wealth of a man, my
example is He. Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Married, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day He's coming, O glorious
day! One day they led Him up Calvary's
mountain One day they nailed Him to die on the tree Suffering
anguish, despised and rejected Bearing our sins, my Redeemer
is He Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sin far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day, He's coming, O glorious
day! One day they left Him alone in
the garden. One day He rested from suffering
three. Angels came down for His tomb
to keep vigil. Hope of the hopeless, my Savior
is He. Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day He's coming, a glorious
day. One day the grave could conceal
him no longer. One day the stone rolled away
from the door. Then He arose, over death He
had conquered, Now is ascended, my Lord evermore. Living He loved
me, dying He saved me, Buried He carried my sin far away. Rising He justified, freely forever. One day he's coming, a glorious
day. One day the trumpet will sound
for his coming. One day the skies with his glory
will shine. Wonderful day His beloved was
bringing. Glorious Savior, this Jesus is
mine. Living He loved me, dying He
saved me. Carried, He carried my sin far
away. Rising, He justifies freely forever. One day He's coming, a glorious
day.