Come with me to Judges chapter
13. Judges chapter 13. We're going to read the first
24 verses, and then we're going to look at a few things together.
Judges chapter 13. And the children of Israel did
evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered
them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. And there was a
certain man of Zorah, the family of the Danites, whose name was
Manoah. And his wife was barren, and
bare not. And the angel of the Lord appeared
unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren,
and barest not, but thou shalt conceive, and barest son. Now
therefore beware, I pray thee, that drink not wine, nor strong
drink, and eat not any unclean thing. For lo, thou shalt conceive,
and barest son, and no razor shall come on his head, For the
child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb, and he shall
begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of
God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an
angel of God, very terrible. But I asked him not whence he
was, neither told he me his name. But he said unto me, Behold,
thou shalt conceive and bear a son, now drink No strong wine
nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing, for the child
shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb to the day of his
death. Then Manoah entreated the Lord and said, O my Lord,
let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us
and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be
born. And God hearkened to the voice
of Manoah. He's got to be a believer, because
God wouldn't answer him. He entreated the Lord. So just
remember that. Before we get too hard on old
Manoah. And God hearkened to the voice
of Manoah, and the angel of God came again unto the woman as
she sat in the field, but Manoah her husband was not with her.
And the woman made haste, and ran, and showed her husband,
and said unto him, Behold the man that appeared unto me, that
came unto me the other day. And Manoah arose, and went after
his wife, and came to the man, and said unto him, Art thou the
man that speakest unto the woman? And he said, I am. Well, there's
a clue right there who this is. And Manoah said, Now let thy
words come to pass. How shall we order the child,
and how shall we do unto him? And the angel of the Lord said
unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman, let her beware.
She may not eat of anything that cometh of a vine, neither let
her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing. All
that I commanded her, let her observe. And Manoah said unto
the angel of the Lord, I pray thee, let us detain thee until
we shall have made ready a kid for thee. And the angel of the
Lord said unto Manoah, Thou shalt detain me, I will not eat of
thy bread, And if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer
it unto the Lord. For Manoah knew not that he was
an angel of the Lord. And Manoah said unto the angel
of the Lord, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to
pass, we may do thee honor? And the angel of the Lord said
unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret? And that in the margin is wonderful.
There is our second clue as to who this angel is. So Manoah
took a kid with a meat offering and offered it upon the rock
unto the Lord, and the angel did wondrously, and Manoah and
his wife looked on. For it came to pass, when the
flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel
of the Lord descended 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
to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the Lord.
And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because
we have seen God. Now isn't that what he says?
No man shall see me and live. And what he says in the Old Testament.
We've seen God, and we're going to die. Now let's look at what
his wife says. She does have no name. But that
doesn't matter. We're insignificant. That doesn't
matter. But his wife said unto him, if
the Lord were pleased to kill us. One, he would not have received
a burnt offering and meat offering at our hands. Two, neither would
he have showed us all these things. And three, nor would at this
time have told us such things as these. And verse 24, the woman
bare a son and called his name Samson. And the child grew and
the Lord blessed him. Now, verse 23 is going to be
our main text. These three things that the woman
in faith told her weaker faith husband. We're going to look
at this wonderful and astonishing promises that she mentioned that
she believed what was going to take place. But I want us to
glean what we will, looking at the whole thing and looking at
the first part of the... anything before verse 23. First
thing I noticed, these are just things that we can think about,
we can muse upon. This woman's faith, it aided
or it helped her husband. It helped him in his time of
unbelief or weak faith. Isn't what Genesis chapter 2
and verse 18, isn't that what Eve was called? Help me. Help me. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter
4. Ecclesiastes chapter 4. Verse 9 and 10. Ecclesiastes
chapter 4, verse 9 and 10. Two are better than one because
they have a good reward for their labor. This is what I want to
look at. If they fall, if one fall, the one will lift up his
fellow. Now, I will tell you, and I'm
not going to embarrass my wife. That's true. That is so true. We've been married 35 years?
34. Only one time that I remember, we had both fallen together. And it was a rough, rough time. But by God's grace, every other
situation, that's only one time in 34 years of marriage, every
other time I've been down, She's been up, she's been down, I've
been up. And what I mean by that is not
smiley and just all the world's, you know, no, what I'm saying,
what I mean, I'm talking spiritually, she would share a scripture with
me or read Spurgeon or feel hot or clean something that she had
listened to a message and just share something. Invaluable,
invaluable. She sends me a scripture verse
a day on the text. Now, I'll be driving, and I'll
pull it up, and undoubtedly, there's a phrase or a portion
of scripture that I needed to hear. This woman's faith, and
we know faith is a gift of God. It's not something that you can
pull it out of your back pocket. My point is, It's a blessing. A blessing. Now, I'll step back. What about
the church? This group here. It's the same
thing. We're not all Christian soldiers
walking by faith and battling. Apollyon is like in the book
of Pilgrim's Progress where we pull out the sword and we pull
out the shield. Well, he got knocked down one
time, and then Christian was there to help Pilgrim. I was giving Scott a hard time.
He invited me over here, and I just thought, I know Scott.
I know that old rascal. I said, did you tell everybody?
Oh, yeah. And Joanne, she's surprised to
see me. He said, well, I texted. I said,
Scott, did you not call? I understand that's the day we
live in, but there's nothing like gathering together. Something may have happened from
last Sunday to this Sunday that you didn't know anything about.
And if the person wants to tell you and let you know that you
may pray for, not just gossip, not to be the first to know because
we have all that tendency, oh, I want to be the first to know
about the situation, drives me crazy, or name dropping. No,
it's just encourage one another. Just like this woman did to her
husband. We have the privilege, the right,
by blood, to encourage one another. I ought to write or text or call,
you know, Levi, and I ought to do that more. But I say, I guess
I'll back off. I've got to be careful. But no,
as believers, there's no borders. There's no boundaries. And there's
no local ecclesia, local church. There's just Greek, Scythian,
there's just brethren. But I saw that. This woman's
faith aided. She was a helpmeet. And that's
what we should be to one another. Ecclesiastes, if one falls, the
other one's there to help. The second thing, It's for you
parents. Now, nobody's got any rotten
tomatoes, so I'm safe on that. Everything's back there. Just
an observation. Look at verses 8 and 12. Verses
8. Then Manoah entreated the Lord and said, O my Lord, let
the man of God which Thou didst send come again to us and teach
us what we should do unto the child that shall be born. Verse
12. And Manoah, now let Thy words
come to pass. How shall we order? How shall
we order the child And how shall we do unto Him? Parents, are you raising your children
into fear and the admonition of the Lord? I'm not going to
say a whole lot more than that. Are you praying with them? Are
you setting some time aside? Or are they just getting the
gospel when they get here. If they are, we're failing. If you're not, there's no teaching,
and I know our backgrounds, our backgrounds are really rigid
from our past religious background. Religious, it's strict. I'm not
talking about that. I'm talking about when you come
home, and you see your wife, and you give her a smooch, and
you hug her and everything, and the kids are there, you do that,
it's just love. I mean, no, it's set up a time,
but we need to set times aside for things like that. I'd come
home, and Melinda was a stay-at-home mom for a while, and every time
I'd come home, it kills me, it just tears me up. A little blonde
hair just like Vivian, just about the same size. She'd be sitting
there, because Melinda would say, Daddy's coming home. And
she would open the front door, and we had a screening door,
and she'd just sit there, plastered, waiting for Daddy to come over.
And then as soon as I'd come up, she'd start pounding on it. She
was happy to see me. And I love that. It actually
made me get rid of my motorcycle because I got killed two times
coming home one day. And I came home, I saw her, and
I said, nope. I just parked it and sold it. Because I want to
see her grow up. I want to see what happens. But
we would spend evenings with her. We would read scripture
too. I'd always pray when she was
small, I don't know how old, I'd go... I remember that scripture. Let not the sun go down on your
wrath. If she did something, she got disciplined, we'd never
let her go to bed angry. Always hugged, told her we loved
her. And then this was not Mrs. White,
and she knew what she did wrong. It's like... How... How shall we order? Because I
guarantee you, the world, it's got glitter, it's got stuff,
it's got things that they, who are of the flesh, they love.
So, how are we ordering that? Thirdly,
I think it's interesting that the weaker vessel, the woman,
which the scripture says that, And I'm emphasizing that because
of my past bondage. You're all past bondage. If it
wasn't for this woman, this guy would be... We're dying, we're
dead, we're dead. The weaker vessel is here the
stronger in faith. And our Lord marked a similar
instance in Matthew 15 when He said, Woman, great is thy faith.
You remember that woman, Syrophoenician woman? My daughter's sick. My daughter's sick. Lord, help
her." He said, I'm not sent but to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel. Lord, she kept on. Importunity, kept on, kept on.
Lord, she's sick. And he goes, I'm not sent, you know, dog.
He said, I'm not sent, you know, but you're a dog. And now she said, yeah, Lord,
you're right. I'm a dog. But even what she
said, the dogs eat of the crumbs. left under the table. And he
said, woman, great is thy faith. But we think faith is, if you
look at that text, and I encourage you to look at Matthew 15, verses
21 through 28. I mean, in time, not necessarily
now. Look at what's going on there. That whole situation,
Christ says, great is thy faith. So faith has components. And
one of them is, absolutely, we're dogs. Do you hear people talk
about that in religion today and otherwise? No. That's because it takes faith.
That's because faith is a gift of God. And faith comes by hearing.
They're not hearing it. So I blame the preachers. That's
where the problem is. She called him Lord, and in that
text it says she worshipped him, which is what they do here. Faith
has got these components. It acknowledges self as nothing. It acknowledges him as everything. The source, like we saw this
morning, of rejoicing. And that he can take care of
our needs. That woman with the issue of
blood, she'd gone, like we do, she'd gone in many positions.
Got a good, got a good benefit plan. I'm making use of this
to do this, do that. Oh, you need a little extra money.
I got that. I got that. And then she finally bankrupt.
Got nothing. She grew worse, it says. And then she says, saw
Christ. If I could just touch the hem
of his garment. And that's just like us. We'll go to our friends,
unbelieving friends, unbelieving neighbors, unbelieving parents
to try to make remedy the situation when it's always Christ, only
Christ. all the time. So that's the third
thing I noticed. Without faith it's impossible
to please God. And the last thing which I've
made comment verses 18 and 20, this angel was none other than
Christ. Was none other than Christ. Look with me at verse 19. So Manoah took a kid and a meat
offering and offered upon the rock unto the Lord and the angel
did wondrously Other than his names of I am and that name secret
is wonderful, which that's the name of Christ. So we know that's
him by those two examples. But his wife looked on in verse
29, it came to pass when the flame went up towards heaven
from off the altar that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame.
So not only is Christ our sacrifice, but He's the bearer of the sacrifice. He Himself. Father, where is
the Lamb? The Lord will provide Himself
a sacrifice. Did you see how it's written there? Again, this
is a scripture. It's Holy Spirit inspired. It's
without error. These words are here on purpose.
For it came to pass that when the flame went up, from heaven
off the altar that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame
of the altar." In the flame. Moses, there's a burning bush.
The bush is on fire, but not consumed. Wow, isn't that a picture
of the gospel? Isn't that a picture of Christ's
substitutionary work for us? So, He's not only our sacrifice,
but He It makes that odor of sweet sacrifice to God. Now, for the meat of our lesson,
let's look with me at this woman's faith and how she trusted in
Christ, in type, for peace of heart and soul. Her husband said,
we're going to die. She's like, no, we're not. One, his wife said unto him,
we're not going to die. If the Lord were pleased to kill
us, one, he would not have received a bird offering and a meat offering
at our hands. One, we will not die for God
would not have received the offering. Where is Christ right now? At
the right hand of the majesty on high. So that tells me that
God has received the offering. Do we realize that the only thing
between us and death, us and hell, us and an offended God,
is the offering. When it comes down to it, the
only thing between me and death is Christ. You think of it that way? It
makes God horrible. It makes God terrible. And He
is. Our God is a consuming fire.
But not today. Not today's message. Oh, that's
kind of the Old Testament. God's somehow different. Well,
that just completely smacks of His immutability. It challenges
that. And I've said it time and time
again, one of the books that I would recommend for anybody
is just that little bitty, it's a whole lot that thick, Pinks,
The Attributes of God. It's not The Sovereignty of God,
that's a good book too, but The Attributes of God. It's got like
20 something attributes and all he does is go one after the other
and he's got a ton of scriptures. That book was used by God to
show me a lot more about God than I ever thought. I was raised
Methodist. That's not who God is. That's
not who the preacher said he was. The only thing between me
and death is a sacrifice. So, do we realize that? If we
have tasted that the Lord is gracious to us, we must admit
this truth, this life, this is substitution. We as enlightened,
blood-bought sinners know that if God rejects the sacrifice,
He must, for justice sake, reject us as well. He says, we're not
going to die because we both saw. We both saw. He accepted
it. He accepted the sacrifice. Oh
my. Bless God. There is remission
of sins by the shedding of blood. Hebrews 9. For He by Himself
paid our debt and we are set free. Plus, He is now even at
the Father's right hand in glory. Hebrews 9 verse 11 through 14. We now know, and it tells us
so in this book, this unerring book, that God has accepted up
Christ and this ransom was for life, life for life. He has accepted
it. We understand that. We know that.
And look at verse 20. Came to pass, the flame went
up toward heaven from off the altar that the angel of the Lord
ascended in the flame of the altar. And Menorah's wife looked on
it and fell on their faces to the ground. This fire sending
up, it shows God's wrath being meted out. That's what this flame
represents. God's, He's angry. He cannot
compromise His justice. That's why Christ came. To honor
His justice and to substitute. Now look at the beautiful thing
is God's wrath, and I never thought about it this way. The flame went up towards heaven.
The flame went up towards heaven. The two believers, one weaker
than the other, are standing there watching it. She said,
no, we're not going to die because he received the offering. The
flame represented his wrath, his anger for sin. But also the
flame went up and didn't consume me. Elisha and the prophets, those
false prophets, what happened? The fire went down. and wiped them out. The flame went up to heaven.
It didn't come my way. It wasn't more deflected, it
was meted out. It was drawn away from elect
sinners. We do not have to face God's
judgment against sin. Christ took it for us and from
us. That's what she's saying. She
said, if He were pleased to kill us, one, He would not have received
a burnt offering. Get that satisfied. Get that
thought reconciled in your heart. We're ambassadors for Christ
as though God did beseech you by us. Be reconciled to God.
There's no reconciliation without blood. Christ is at the right hand of
the Father. He received, he successfully redeemed sinners unto himself. He took it from us and for us.
Her second argument of faith, she said, We will not surely
die, for we would not have shown us such things. Turn to 1 Samuel
3. Why is this important? We'll
see here in a minute. 1 Samuel 3. And verse 1. 1 Samuel 3 verse 1, and the child
Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli, and the word of the
Lord was precious in those days because there was no open vision. What did they just see? They
just saw an open vision. They were precious. There was no open vision in those
days. He's not going to kill us because he received the sacrifice.
He received Christ. If He was going to kill us, why
would He have shown us such things, such grand and wonderful truths
as this, when there's no open vision? God has spoken to us
through His Son, the sacrifice. And we can now boldly approach
the throne of grace, Hebrews 4.16. We don't do it enough. We have every right as children
of the Son the children of the Father, to go and lay our petitions
before Him. He has shown us through the Word. Would our benevolent, compassionate,
and tender God have shown us from His Word such exceeding
great and precious promises? Would He have shown us the mystery
of His Godhead? Would He have shown us the wonder
of free, sovereign grace only to abandon us His dear children,
he won't do it. Now, I know Isaiah 49 says. Would
you would a mother abandon her sucking child? Yeah. Well, what
is it was he says? Yeah, you would. That's how depraved
we are. But what's he saying the very
next thing? I won't. I've got you written. He's another place, he says,
where the apple of his eye, the apple, that's the most tender.
These phrases of compassion, of tenderness, she's saying.
By God's grace, through faith, the first thing is He received
the sacrifice. The fire went up, it didn't come
our way. And He wouldn't have shown us. There's no open vision. He wouldn't
have shown us. He wouldn't have shown compassion. In terms nowadays,
we understand His truth. He's revealed His Son in us,
Christ in us, the hope of glory. And that word hope is not, I
wish it happened, it's confident expectation. He has shown you
and me our vile sins, and He calls sinners to Himself. Vile and full of sin we are. I've got it right here. Bookmark
this. false and full of sin I am. Thou
art full of truth and grace. Just and holy is thy name. I
am all in righteousness. The title of that hymn is Jesus,
lover of my soul. He wouldn't have shown you how
despicable you are and made a way of escape and
provided a sacrifice and then going to abandon you. He's not
going to do it. He's not going to do it. Each
believer here, he will not abandon you. It's not our grip of him, it's
his grip of us. Believe on Christ to the rescue
of your soul. Don't doubt it, and don't doubt
Him. We do, but don't. Don't doubt
Him. The third case of her faith,
she says, will not be destroyed, will not be harmed, will not
be judged, for He would not have told us. Now she says, shown
us, told us. If God in the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ has told us His elect, Through His truth, by
His gospel, with His immutable character that He is for us,
He'll never be against us. The world, all things are yours. This is what he said, I believe
in Colossians. All things are yours. You're complete in Him.
Melinda and I, we get in these conversations of comforting one
another. We're just like the stuff that's
going on with the country and all this different stuff. But
we're like, but this is ordained. This is happening for our good. I know it's unbelievable, except
for by faith. What does that song say? Mortals are
immortal here. That's up until their work is
done. Well, I'm getting physically weak and I may die of a stroke. I'm immortal. I am. I'm immortal. The person that goes to you has
got to get through Christ in order to get to you. And if he
gets to you, didn't he get to Job? Didn't Satan? Didn't... Now, we see Manoah's wife. What
about Job's wife? Oh, she was a honey. Curse God
and die. What has he done for you? But we know the end of the story. The Lord restored. And isn't
that what salvation is? Restoring of why we were created? We were created in the image
of God and we fell. It's actually more than a restoration.
It's a new creation. It's just impossible. to think
that the God of the Bible, maybe not be the God that's being preached
today, but the God of the Bible will abandon His children. It's not going to happen. He
has promised us God, who is not man and He should
lie, His great exceeding and great precious promises. Salvation
by blood in Matthew 1. Comfort in the Holy Spirit, John
14. His promises of continued grace
by faith in Ephesians. Of help in times of need in Hebrews.
Love in our hour of need, 1 John. Of keeping power in our seasons
of doubt, Jude. On and on we could go. Oh, flee
to Him and find peace that truly passes all understanding. I love that verse, but I don't
understand what it means. But then it's like, what? I look
at this. To understand by faith that God
is not trying to do anything. He's accomplished it. Past tense. Christ is at the right hand of
the Father right now. Interceding on our behalf. This is a peace that will pass
all understanding. This is a big pillow. You don't
need a sleep number bed. You got a big pillow. Just lay
on it. Because neither slumbers nor
sleeps. I want to close by reading comment
that Matthew Henry made about this verse. Let us learn to reason as Manoah's
wife did. If God had designed me to perish,
is what she's saying, if God had designed me to perish under
his wrath, he would not have given such distinguishing tokens
of His favor. Now, I emphasize that because
when I read it, I underlined, if God had designed for me to
perish under His wrath, He would not have given such distinguishing
tokens of His favor. That's sovereign grace. That is sovereign grace. distinguishing tokens of his
favor. And we have nothing to do, but
we receive the benefits. Bless God for all of his benefits
that he's given his dear people. Amen.