Let's turn in our Bibles to Judges
chapter 13. Judges chapter 13. We were talking during the break
and was reminded of how it is the gospel preacher's responsibility
is to speak comfort to God's people. Be of good cheer. I believe God. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.
Speak ye comfortably unto Jerusalem. Tell them their warfare is accomplished. Their iniquity has been put away. They've been saved by the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope that we will leave here
Now, I have no interest in speaking a false hope to the unbeliever. Someone has said we comfort the
believer and we discomfort the unbeliever. The gospel does that. I hope that it will have that
effect. But I hope that as believers,
we will be able to leave here with some hope and comfort of
our salvation. Judges chapter 13, Manoah and his wife, the woman,
had been given a promise from God that they would bring, that
Manoah's wife would bear a child. She was barren, but that she
was going to be given a child and that this child would be
a Nazarite. We know that this child becomes
Samson, a beautiful type of the Lord Jesus Christ that we'll
get into in the next couple of weeks. But after having seen
the Lord, after having seen the Lord, Manoah is convinced that
God's gonna kill him. And this is often the case in
the scriptures. You remember in Isaiah chapter
six, when in the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah said, I saw
the Lord. I saw him. He was high and lifted
up. His train filled the temple.
The seraphim flew over him and they cried, holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled with
his glory. And Isaiah said, woe is me. I'm
undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. I
live among a people of unclean lips. Mine eyes have seen the
King, the Lord of glory. Surely I'm going to die. One of the seraphims took tongs
and went to the altar and got one of those hot coals off the
altar and touched Isaiah's lips with that hot coal and told him,
your sins have been purged. You're not gonna die. You're
not gonna die. That's the only hope we have.
To stand in the presence of a holy God, we would be killed. Not just physically, but spiritually. In the day in which you sin,
you shall surely die. Death is the penalty for sin.
And there's no, there's no exceptions to it. No exemptions. We, we
can't appeal for a, a lesser charge. We can't say, well, Lord,
you know, but maybe it doesn't have to be eternal death. No,
that is the penalty for sin. And so when a man stands or finds
himself standing in the presence of a Holy God, If he doesn't
have that hot coal from off the altar, if he doesn't have an
advocate with the father, if he doesn't have a sacrifice that
is acceptable to God, then no man, the Lord told Moses on Mount
Sinai, can see me and live. He must die. He must die. And that's what Manoah thought.
Men go through life thinking that they will be able to stand
in the presence of God. and that they will pass the muster,
that they will not be judged and condemned to hell. Most men
would reason that if there is a hell, surely it's not for someone
like me. Surely God wouldn't send me there. If you've ever stood in the presence
of a holy God, you will come to the same conclusion Manoah
came to. You will come to the same conclusion that Isaiah came
to. You will say, mine eyes have seen the king. Surely I'm a dead
man. Surely I'm worthy of hell. Surely if God gives me what I
deserve, that's where I'm gonna go. That's exactly what Manoah... See, this is not the natural
response of The unbeliever is it? Unbelievers don't believe
that about themselves. I'm asking you a simple question.
Do you believe left to yourself that you are hell deserving?
That if God gave you what you deserve, that you would go to
hell. Do you believe that about yourself? If God's made you to
be a sinner, You see, that's the problem. Most men aren't
sinners, are they? Why? Because they have done what
the Lord said men would do by nature. You thought that I was
altogether such a one as yourself. They have brought God down from
his holy throne and they have made him to be like themselves. And so they've reasoned a way
to reconcile with him through their works or through their
helps or through some other means. And they do not believe. Manoah
saw the Lord and he said to his wife, we're going to die. We're
going to die. And the answer that his wife
gave to her husband is a good answer. It's the answer that
you and I need to hear. And it is the proof of our salvation. That's what I want us to leave
here with this morning, proof of our salvation. Not proof in
anything that we've done, not proof in anything that we're
looking to in our own lives. We're not gonna stand before
a holy God and say, oh Lord, we've done many wonderful works
in thy name. No, when the Lord does commend
his people on the day of judgment, and when he does say to them,
I was hungry and you fed me, and I was naked and you clothed
me, and I was in prison and you visited me, and I was a stranger
and you took me in, what do the believers say? Lord, when did
we do that? When did we see you like that?
We've not taken no, we're just unprofitable servants, in that
you did it to the least of these, my brethren, you've done it unto
me. The Lord rewards His children, but they're not looking for that
reward based on something that they've done. They're looking
for that reward based on what He has done. This is the word
of hope. Men have a false notion of God.
That's the bottom line. They don't They don't believe
that God is God. If the Lord's ever pleased to
show himself, even a glimpse of his glory, you'll know that
if he doesn't do something for you, you'll go to hell. You'll go to hell, not just for
the things that you're ashamed of. You go to hell for the best
thing you ever did. You go to hell for that. Verse 23 of Judges chapter 13,
but I'm sorry, let's begin in verse 22. And Manoah said unto
his wife, we shall surely die because we've seen God. We shall surely die because we've
seen God. You remember when Moses was on
Mount Sinai in Exodus chapter 33? And Moses said, oh, Lord,
I want to see your glory. Let me behold your face. I want
to see your glory. Moses had seen so many demonstrations
of God's power. He saw the plagues in Egypt. He saw the dividing of the Red
Sea. He saw the water come from the rock and the manifold from
heaven and all of these glorious demonstrations of God's power.
He wanted to see the Lord's face. And the Lord said to Moses, No
man can see me and live. No man can see me and live. But
there is a place near unto me. There's a cave, there's a cleft
in the rock, and I'll put you in the cleft of that rock, and
I'll cover it up with my hand, and I'll cause my goodness to
pass before thee. And you'll see my hind part,
my backside. You'll see me based on where
I've been and what I've done. And that'll be your, that'll
be the revelation of my face to you. You know, two things
about that. If we're to see the face of God,
we must die to ourselves. We must die to any hope of righteousness
that we have in and of ourselves. No man can see me and live. And
we must be hid in Christ. if we're to stand in the presence
of a holy God. Manoah said, we shall surely
die. We shall surely die. You know,
you think about that first time that statement was made, it was
made by Satan in the garden. When Satan tempted Eve to take
of the fruit that was forbidden, of her to eat of. And Eve said,
oh no, the Lord said in the day in which we eat of the tree of
the knowledge of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil,
we shall surely die. And what did Satan say? You shall
not surely die. You shall not surely die. Satan's been propagating that
lie ever since. Here's what the natural man doesn't
believe. He doesn't believe that he's
worthy of death. He doesn't believe that he's
worthy of hell. He believes the lie of Satan.
He shall not surely die. If there is a hell, it's surely
not for someone like you. I mean, look at your life. Manola said, we've seen God.
We're going to die. We're going to die. And his wife
gave him a word of hope. And that's the word of hope I
want to give you this morning. That's the comfort. That's the
peace that believers have. We shall not surely die. It's
not based on the lie of Satan. It's based on the promise of
God. But his wife said unto him, if
the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received
a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands. Neither would he
have showed us all these things, nor would, as at this time, have
told us such things as this. Truth is, we are sinners and
sin is in the presence of a holy God worthy of death. We cannot appeal for a lesser
sentence based on good behavior. Can't. Let me repeat that. You and I cannot appeal to God
on a lesser sentence than death based on good behavior. can't do it. The law is strict. God's law is rigid. It's inflexible.
That's why God wrote it on tablets of stone. It cannot be changed. God requires that law to be fulfilled. He requires it to be kept. Manoah knew that he hadn't kept
God's law. Manoah saw a glimpse of the glory
of God and the sacrifice that he had offered to the Lord. And we read previous verses and
we see that God took this burnt offering and this meat offering,
he put it on a rock and the fire came up out of the rock and consumed
the sacrifice. What a picture of the death of
Christ on Calvary's cross. how the fire came out of that
stone, just like those stone pots that we looked at Wednesday
night in Canaan, representing the law of God. The fire came
out of the law. and consume the sacrifice. And
when the Lord Jesus Christ bore the sins of his people on Calvary's
cross, the fire of God's justice and wrath came out of the law. The law saw sin on Christ. God Almighty had no choice but
to fulfill the requirements of the law, which was death, judgment,
the wrath of God. That's the burnt sacrifice. That's
the burnt offering. And then after the sacrifice
was consumed and the smoke is still billowing up towards the
heavens, the angel of the Lord, who is the Lord Jesus Christ
himself in our story, ascended into glory in that smoke. picturing how the sacrifice that
Christ made on Calvary's cross made him an acceptable advocate
for his people. God made him to be Lord over
the living and the dead because of his faithfulness to lay down
his life as a sacrifice for our sins. And then he ascended back
into glory. And then he said to We see this in Acts chapter one,
the picture here. Look at verse 19 in our text. So Manoah took a kid with a burnt
offering and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord, and the
angel did wondrously. And Manoah and his wife looked
on. That's all they could do is look.
You know, when God's doing wondrous things, that's all you and I
can do is look. Can't say anything, can't do anything, all we can
do is look. Look and live. Like those children of Israel
in the wilderness that were being bitten by fiery serpents. There's
a picture of us in the wilderness of this world being bitten by
the serpent of sin. And what did God tell Moses to
do? You fashion a brazen serpent, a fiery serpent, and you put
him on a pole and hold him up among the people. And anyone
who looks shall live. Looks. Oh, don't you know, you
can't try to kill the snakes on the ground and look to the
one on the pole at the same time. If you look to the one on the
pole, you gotta trust God for the ones on the ground. But isn't
that what men do? They're trying to control the
snakes on the ground, they won't look to Christ. That was the
Lord Jesus Christ, that serpent on a pole, who was made sin,
who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. Manoah and his wife could do
nothing but look. They're just standing there in
amazement, watching what God is doing. For it came to pass, verse 20,
When the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that
the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar and
Manoah and his wife looked on it and fell on their faces to
the ground. But the angel of the Lord did
no more appear to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah knew that
it was the angel of the Lord and said, we shall surely die
for we've seen God. And his wife said, No, if the
Lord intended to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted that offering.
He would not have accepted that sacrifice. God requires justice for sin.
Deuteronomy 32, verse four, all his ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity,
just and righteous is he. He requires full penalty for
sin. When God revealed his law at
Mount Sinai, the Lord instructed the children of Israel, don't
touch this mountain. If a beast in the herd somehow
gets out and touches the mountain, you kill it. You kill that beast
if he touches, that's how holy the law of God is. And you remember
shortly after that, when children of Israel in the wilderness,
God's given his law, said, you keep holy the Sabbath. You don't
work on the Sabbath. And we know what that's a picture
of. Don't add your works. to the rest that we have in the
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they caught a man
picking up sticks on the Sabbath day to make a fire so he could
cook some food. And they brought him to Moses
and Moses didn't know what to do. Moses went to the Lord and
said, what do I do? And he was just picking up a few sticks,
make a little fire, cook a meal for dinner. God said, kill him. kill him. That's how inflexible
God's law is. And they slew him there in the
wilderness. These are all pictures. You and
I will die. We will die the death. We will die the second death.
We will die the eternal death and separation from God. One
day we will see him as he is. And some Every knee will bow
and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory
of God the Father. Some will bow with a rod of His
justice, smiting the back of their knee and bringing them
to confess what they know is true. And they will die the eternal
death. Others will die now. die to their own righteousness,
seeing that the rod of justice has fallen once and for all on
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why, that's why Moses
was not to smite the rock twice. The rock was to be smitten once.
Moses, as a picture of the law, was not able to go into the promised
land because he smote the rock twice. Christ is that rock. He's
the one who provided the river of water of life. And the rod
of God's justice smote him once, once and for all. He died to
fulfill the justice of God. Genesis chapter 32. We have the story of Jacob wrestling
with his father. with the Lord Jesus Christ, the
angel of the Lord. It's a pre-incarnate appearance,
a theophany, appearance of Christ, God Almighty. You remember Jacob
wanted to know his name and the Lord wouldn't tell him his name.
He said, my name is secret, which is the same thing he told Manoah.
He said, why ask you my name? It's wonderful. My name is too
wonderful for you to know my name, but I'm gonna change your
name. And, After that event, the Lord touched Jacob's thigh
and he spent the rest of his life, he spent the rest of his
life limping, reminded of his weakness and of his dependence
upon the Lord. And he named the place Peniel. Peniel, translated, which means
the face of God. I've seen the face of God and
I've lived. Why? Because the Lord's touched
me with his grace. That's what Manoah's wife is
saying to him. He's saying to him, the Lord
wouldn't have accepted this offering, this burnt offering. He wouldn't
have accepted it. And the meat offering, the burnt
offering is a picture of the justice of God for sin. And the
meat offering is a picture of the righteousness of God. Isn't
that what the Lord Jesus said? My body is your meat indeed. And unless you eat of my body,
there's no life in you." What was he talking about? He was
talking about looking to the life of the Lord Jesus Christ
lived out in the likeness of sinful flesh as our righteousness
before God. And Manoah's wife said, if the
Lord was going to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted that offering.
He did accept the offering. He accepted the burnt offering.
He accepted the meat offering. And we can say with Jacob, we've
seen God. Peniel, seen the face of God
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's turn in our
Bibles to John chapter six. I want you to see something here. John chapter six. at verse 44. No man can come to me except
the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him
up at the last day. It is written in the prophets
that they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that
hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. Not
that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God. He has
seen the Father. He's speaking of himself. And
no man's seen the Father, save he that came from God. I've seen
the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on me have everlasting life. Now turn over
a few pages to John chapter 14. John 14. Verse eight. Philip saith unto
him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. And Jesus
saith unto him, have I been so long time with you, and yet hast
thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father, And how sayest thou then, show us the Father?" So
the Lord tells us, no man's seen the Father except the Son. And if you've seen the Son, you've
seen the Father. For I and the Father are one.
Whatever we're going to know about God, it's going to be revealed
to us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the revelation
of God to his people. Let me show you that. Turn with
me over to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Look with me at verse 6. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness in creation, let there be light. For the earth
was without form and void, and the darkness was upon the face
of the deep. And that's a picture of you and I spiritually. We
are without form, we're empty, darkness is nothing. God has
to say, let there be light. And so God, who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Manoah and his wife saw Christ.
God accepted the offering, and this was the hope that they had
that they weren't gonna get killed, that they weren't gonna be killed,
that God would not send them to hell. Go back with me to our text.
neither would he have showed us all these things." You see
that in verse 23? What did they show him? What
did God show them? Well, the first thing that we
see is when Manoah's wife saw the angel of the Lord. This is
nothing other than the messenger of God. The Lord Jesus Christ
is often revealed as the angel of the Lord. And in the New Testament,
in the book of Jude, he's called the Archangel Michael. And he's not only the messenger
of God, he is the message of God. He himself didn't just bring
the word of God, he is the word of God. The Word became flesh
and the Word dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. Here's what Manoah seen, Manoah
and his wife. If God was gonna kill us, he
wouldn't have accepted that burnt offering. He wouldn't have accepted
that meat offering. God did accept the offering,
not your offering and my offering, but the offering that Christ
made of himself on Calvary's cross. As the fire of God's wrath
came out of the rock of his law and consumed him. the Lord Jesus
ascended into heaven. Oh, men of Israel, why stand
you here gazing up into heaven? They were, this was exactly what
happened in Acts chapter one, when the Lord Jesus ascended
off of Mount of Olives. This same Jesus will come again
in like manner. Same one. And the Lord himself
tells us in John chapter 14, let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me, for in my Father's house
are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go and prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, so that
where I am, there you may be also. If it were not so, I would
have told you. Why would he have showed us these
things if he wasn't going to save us? If he was going to kill
us, he wouldn't have revealed these things to us. He would
not have revealed to us the sufficiency of the sacrifice that the Lord
Jesus Christ made. He would not have made us sinners. He would not have caused us to
conclude that we're dead men apart from his grace. We wouldn't
believe that about ourselves. We would still be going about
trying to establish our own righteousness. Being ignorant of the righteousness
of God would be like those Jews, not knowing that Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. He
wouldn't have showed us these things if he was gonna kill us.
He wouldn't have accepted the offering if he was gonna kill
us. He's the angel of the Lord and
his appearance, the scripture says, his countenance was very
terrible. Everything about him was glorious. That's what the word terrible
means. His appearance, his stature, his demeanor, his expression,
his voice, it was nothing less than the very voice of God. It
caused us to hear. caused us to know this is God
speaking. This is not the word of a man. This is not the opinion of a
man who tells us how... This is God Almighty. His appearance,
His countenance was very terrible. The way it always is, when the
Lord speaks, we're humbled. We're silenced. We let the potsherds
of the earth contend with the potsherds of the earth, Isaiah
said. Let those who want to debate
doctrine and theology and add their yeah buts to the gospel,
let them contend all they want. My mouth is shut. All I can say
is amen to what God has said. God is true. Every man's a liar. If the Lord had not shown him,
us, his terrible countenance, we would be like everybody else
who throws the name of Jesus around as if he was just another
man. They have no fear of God. There's no fear of God before
their eyes. And the truth of that is that
they're not looking to the sacrifice that Christ made, they're looking
to their works, thinking that somehow I can measure up. Turn with me to Romans chapter
three, I'll show you this. Romans chapter three. Verse 17, and the way of peace
have they not known? What did Manoah's wife say? If
God was gonna kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering.
He would not have accepted the meat offering. He would not have
accepted the sacrifice that Christ made for sin. And he would not
have accepted his righteousness. If God accepted him, then there's
our hope. He would not have showed us these
things. We would still be going about trying to establish our
own righteousness. We would still be making our
own sacrifices in hopes of appeasing the wrath of God. We would still
be looking to him as if he was just another man. But we now
see that the angel of the Lord's countenance is very terrible.
And we're brought to bow before him and to die to ourselves and
to give up any hope of trying to earn favor with God by our
own works. And that stands in contrast to
what the Lord's telling us here. Look at verse 17. And the way
of peace they have not known, there's no fear of God before
their eyes. Now we know that what things
soever the law saith, that saith to them that are under the law,
that every mouth may be stopped and that all the world may become
guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For by
the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of
God without the laws manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe that there
is no difference for all of sin, it comes short of the glory of
God. being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be the propitiation
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness,
that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus." Where's Bostein then? There's no Bostein. Manoah's wife said, honey, if
God was going to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted that burnt
offering. He wouldn't have accepted that meat offering. He would
not have showed us these things. We would not have seen the fire
come out of the rock. and consume the sacrifice. We
would not have seen the angel of the Lord ascend into heaven
and take his rightful place at the right hand of God. We would
not have seen the terrible countenance of this angel. We would not have
been brought to the end of ourselves. We would still be trusting in
our righteousness for the hope of our salvation. The fact that
he showed us these things is evidence. that he's not going
to kill us. All they could do was look on.
When it comes to the sacrifice for sin, all faith can do is
look. It's all it can do. Can't do
anything else. Just look. Look and live. I show you this verse. Turn with
me to Psalm 40. Psalm 40, you have to see this.
This is wonderful. David is writing in Psalm 40
prophetically as type of Christ. David, the Lord
Jesus Christ, the son of David. So look what David says in Psalm
40 at verse 12. For innumerable evils have come
past me about, mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that
I am not able to look up. That's the Lord Jesus Christ
on Calvary's cross, bearing the sins of God's people, saying,
I can't look up. When the Lord Jesus Christ cried,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He didn't raise
his head and his eyes into heaven and speak it with complaint. No, he bowed his head when he
was saying that. Scripture says right here, I
can't look up. My iniquities have overcome me. He's calling
our sin his sin, burying them in his body so that he cannot
look up. You and I are able to look up.
We can look right into the throne of grace. We can come boldly
before the throne of grace, knowing that God Almighty accepted the
sacrifice The fire came out of the rock. Christ has ascended
into glory. He's shown us what we are and
he's shown us who he is. Now we can come before the throne
of grace with boldness and find grace to help in our time of
need. The Lord said, calm, calm. I bore that shame. I put away
that sin. You don't have to worry about
God killing you anymore. The Lord killed his son. It pleased God to bruise him. The Lord Jesus Christ bore that. He wouldn't have told us these
things He wouldn't have told us that we were gonna have a
child and that this child was gonna be a Nazirite. You see, they believed God. It
goes back to what we saw in Acts chapter 27, isn't it? All these
two messages just, that was the same message. Same message. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done. Paul said, be of good cheer,
I believe God. We have no other evidence. They
had the promise of God and you and I, that's what we have, the
promise of God. I'll never leave you nor forsake
you. I go and prepare a place for you. He's not gonna lose
a single one of his sheep. He'd made himself a sacrifice
for sin once and for all to the Father. It is finished. It is finished. He is the surety for his elect
people. He's the sin bearer. He's the
sacrifice for sin. He's the one that God is pleased
with. And Manoah's wife is saying to
me and you, God's not gonna kill you. If he was, he wouldn't have
accepted that sacrifice. He wouldn't have shown you these
things. And he would not have said to you what he has said
to you. He said, well, how do I know these promises are from
me? How do I, I know what God has said, but how do I know they're
from me? Because you believe them. That's it. Faith. Faith is the
evidence of things hoped for. That's it. I can do nothing but just believe
God. I can do nothing but look, can
do nothing but believe God. I believe that the Bible is the
word of God. I believe that these 66 books
written over 1500 years by 40 different penmen is nothing less
than the inspired word of God. I believe God. Got no place else
to go. God has shut me up. His countenance
to me is terrible. I just believe God. That's the
evidence. Honey, God was gonna kill us. He wouldn't have accepted this
sacrifice. He wouldn't have shown us how terrible his countenance
is and how sinful we are. He wouldn't have caused us to
believe what he has said. We wouldn't be putting our hope
in Christ. We'd be going about trying to establish our own righteousness. There's the proof of our salvation. The only proof we have. What wonderful, sure proof it
is. All other proof is a false hope. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for your Word. Thank you for your Son. Thank
you for the sacrifice for sin. Thank you for the hope of salvation.
Thank you for faith, your Holy Spirit. Thank you for forgiveness. Thank you for accepting the sacrifice
that Christ made. and the hope that you give us
in knowing that we shall not surely die. For it's in Christ's name we
pray, amen. 268, let's stand together, number
268.