chapter 13, and the Lord, 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 40 years. And there was a certain
man of Zorah, the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah,
and his wife was Baran and Baranah. We don't even know her name.
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 bear a 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
bear a son, and no razor shall come on his head, for the child
shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb. And he shall begin
to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. 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 me his name. But he said unto me, Behold,
thou shalt conceive and bear a son. And now drink no wine
nor strong drink, neither eat anything unclean thing, for the
child shall be a Nazarite to 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, 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 hath 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 spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am." Now there's
your first hint to who this guy 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 the 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, though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread.
And if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it
unto the Lord. For Manoah knew not that he was
an angel of the Lord. And Manoah said unto the angel
of the Lord, what is thy name? They say, when thy sayings come
to pass, we may do the honor. And the angel of the Lord said
unto him, why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret? The marginal reading is wonderful. There's a second key to who that
is. So Manoah took a kid and a meat offering and offered it
upon a 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 towards heaven from off the altar that the angel
of the Lord also, he 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
he was an angel of the Lord. And Manoah said unto his wife,
we shall surely die because we have seen God." Now that's a
statement of faith in a sense, but it's very, very weak. It's
a statement of unbelief. But the woman, being full of
faith, said, what his wife said unto him, if the Lord were pleased
to kill us, would he 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 these. And the woman bare a son, and
of course his name was Samson. And the child grew, and the Lord
blessed him." And we'll stop there. Our main text is going to be
verse 23, but there's a few things that I noticed while we were
reading through the narrative to get to that verse 23. And
turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 4 for the first thought. Ecclesiastes
chapter 4. Now, we'll just see what it says
here. Ecclesiastes chapter 4 verses
9 and in part of verse 10, this
is what this woman This woman is, what the Bible would say,
is a helpmeet for her husband. And it goes back and forth. Two
believers united in becoming one in marriage, or however you
want to phrase it, is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Two are better
than one because they have a good reward for their labor. Now this
is the thought that I want to bring out in verse 10. For if
they fall, The One will lift up His fellow if they fall. And Manoah is struggling. He's struggling. He doesn't quite
see the end result. But his wife is there as his
helpmate, what Scripture says. And she's encouraging him. We're
going to die. And she says, no we're not. And there's three reasons why.
We'll get to that in a minute. This woman's faith is helping
Manoah's unbelief or his weak faith. But this also, I believe,
is what the church, we are a family. This is what the church, this
is what part of it means to gather together in his name. We've come
into this place, we've gathered in his name to worship him. And
we are at varying degrees of our life, we're at varying degrees
of our walk in faith, some new birth, some old birth in the
Lord, but none without trouble. None without trouble, none without
hardships. And just as the husband and wife is a beautiful picture
of being one in Christ, we're all one in Christ. And we have
the same motive, the same desire, the same glory, the desire to
glorify Him. So I just take this opportunity,
just as Two is better than one, because if one falls, then the
other can help him up. That's, it's selflessness. That is a picture of the church,
and that's why we're here. Because you may have a good friend
outside the church, and he may encourage you this and that,
but he cannot, if he doesn't know the gospel, it's not the
same thing. They don't completely understand what you're going
through. That's the first thing. The second thing, I'm going to
pick on you parents again. Verse eight, then Manoah entreated
the Lord and said, oh 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 again in verse 12,
and Manoah now, he said, let thy words come to pass, how we
should order the child and how we should do unto him. raising
up the child in the fear and the admonition of the Lord. That's
what they're going to do. Okay, Samson is set aside. He's a Nazarite. Okay, that's
different. On the other hand, it is not
different. Parents, we are asking our God how we are to raise our
children. We do that. That's what we do.
If we're believers, we ask the Lord. Now, I know They want to
do this and all different things going on that makes up a family.
We're a family unit. There's no question about that.
However, the most important thing which Mary chose is to sit at
the feet of Christ and listen to what He said. But He's asking
this person how we may order. We want to make sure that we
do what we can because one day And one of them and I know this,
one day the child is going to grow up and find somebody, marry,
and they may move away. However, we do not beat up ourselves at
all because We believe we had done, we could have done more,
we understand that, but we had done what we thought we should
do. And you know what, God is sovereign, so we leave it there.
But she had godly instruction, and she knew where she was supposed
to be, because that's where we were at. So, that's the second
thing. The third thing, and I mentioned
it, this angel is none other than Christ. In verse 18 and
verse 20, I am, and his name is secret. Wonderful. Christ
is, he's not only our sacrifice, but you notice how in verse 20,
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. Not
only is Christ our sacrifice, but he takes that sacrifice and
makes it a sweet-smelling Savior to God. The fire shows the wrath of God,
but he was in that flame. He took the wrath of God for
us. So there's the third note. And the last thing is I made
a comment, we've got weak faith going on here and strong faith.
I think it's interesting that as the scripture says, the woman
is the weaker vessel. She is definitely the weaker
vessel, but she was the stronger in faith here. So don't ever, women, believing women are not
second class citizens. I really get, it really, it gets
because of our previous situation. to somebody speaking down to
a believing woman like they don't know anything, if they have the
same grace as men, the ground is level at the cross.
I understand women are supposed to submit, and husbands are supposed
to love, and all these different things, and I understand that
out of the New Testament. But value your wife, value your
friendship, as we go back to the church situation, value whether
it's a woman or not, if they have faith, what they have to
say, if it's in faith, is valuable. So these are, as a matter of
fact, Christ made a comment in the New Testament, woman, great
is thy faith. I don't know if he made a comment with that man
at one time, but woman, great is thy faith. Now, let us see
the truths and the promises that this woman Trusted in as they
correlate to Christ the believers sacrifice the believers altar
and acceptance before a thrice. Holy God three things Noah said
we're gonna die and she said no we're not and here's why so
somebody says you're gonna die and you've got no hope based
on this the only hope that basically the only thing that we've got
between us and death is Christ and And when I read this, I thought,
wow. And that's her first thing. So she starts off with Christ,
and then she goes to the things he showed, and then he goes to
the things that he told. So if you don't start with Christ,
anything in this book, it doesn't make sense. And it may not be
for you, but if you start with Christ, if you look to him and
live, Then what he tells you and what he shows you out of
this book, it's just icing on the cake. It's just a benefit. Bless the Lord for all his benefits
towards us. Okay, so he says we're going
to die. She says we will not die or be
destroyed because for God would have not received the offering.
The enlightened, first of all, the enlightened and redeemed
soul must confess, this offering is the true thing between me
and death. It's the only thing we've got.
We, as blood-bought sinners, know that if God does not accept
or receive Christ Jesus on our behalf, we will perish under
God's fury and God's wrath. But, blessed be God, Where there
is remissions of sins, there is the sacrifice of the Great
Martyr Lamb. We don't have to turn to Hebrews
9, 22. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sins. We know that. We know that. For He, Christ by Himself, paid
our debt and is now on God's right hand in glory. Hebrews
9, 11 through 14. We know that to be so. Manoah's
wife, she knew that. She said he received the sacrifice.
That's that song that we sing, be of sin the double cure. He
laid all the wrath upon Christ and he gave us his righteousness.
You've got to have both of them. And I've said over the years,
I don't know if I've But anyway, you've got to have the lack of
the negative, but you have to have the presence of the positive.
Sin's got to be taken care of. But if sin is removed, we're
just like that strong man in the house, after it's swept and
cleaned, then devils come in and make it worse. You've got
to have sin's forgiven, but you have to have something in that
place. The new creature, the new man,
that's Christ's righteousness. God will accept us. And, she
said, would he not... If the Lord were pleased to kill
us, He would not have received the burnt offering and the meat
offering. He received it. That means satisfied. That means, when Christ cried
on the cross, it is finished. It is finished. Sin put away. Righteousness had. Now we have
a mansion in glory. We have a room prepared, prepared,
preordained, predestined for us. So as I said, the fire, we
are now, we know that we are now, that the offering was accepted
and the ransom was paid for our life. The fire, verse 20, ascending
up is God's wrath being meted out and God's wrath being turned
away from us. The fire, and the angel was in
the fire, so Christ was consumed by the fire in a sense, but it
ascended up into heaven. It didn't come and then, like
those false prophets, where that fire came down from heaven to
wipe them all out. That fire was taken away from Manoah and
his wife, and they sat there and they looked on. In verse
19, and Manoah and his wife looked on. They saw what was going on. And the fact that they were still
standing should have told Manoah something. We're not going to
die. We're not going to die. But she
saw, through the grace of God, she saw the substitute and the
fire leaving them, not consuming them. That's the beautiful picture. Secondly, her argument is, Neither
would He have showed us all these things. Now, turn to 1 Samuel
chapter 3. During this time, what's going
on? Well, first of all, the children
of Israel did evil, and He delivered them into the hand of the Philistines
40 years. 40 years of warfare, bondage,
etc., etc. But even worse than that, see,
our economy can go south pretty quick. And we could struggle,
we'd have to sell this building. All these things could happen.
I mean, they could. War. Nuclear war, Korean war. I mean,
all these things could happen. But what's worse than that? There's
something worse than that. And that's there's no vision.
There's no vision. And that's exactly what was going
on in 1 Samuel 3. And verse 1, And the child Samuel,
ministered unto the Lord before Eli, and the word of the Lord
was precious in those days, there was no open vision." Isn't it? It's kind of like down here today
in this country, isn't it? I mean, really? It's precious? That's one thing that's precious
in those days, the word of the Lord, and we could look at what
else is precious, David Pleasure, was it four or five things? The
word of the Lord is precious to those who believe. He's precious,
but the Word is precious. Because there was no open vision.
It's like the, historically we talk about the dark ages. You
know, God was always moving. He's always had a people. But,
it wasn't as noticeable. And that's what's going on here.
They're under bondage. They're in warfare. Delivered them into
the hands of the Philistines 40 years. So all this trouble's
going on. And yet, she said, first of all,
God received a sacrifice. Secondly, He spoke to us. Every elect child of grace has
a direct link to God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. That, and I know, today it's
like, he loves everybody. No, that's resting the scriptures
to their own destruction. This is how precious the gospel
is in any day, in any age, such grand and wonderful truths, for
there was no open vision at this time. Yet God has spoken to us
through His Son, through this sacrifice, and to them, and we
may now approach the throne of grace boldly. Why would our God
show to us through this book and be kind and gracious to us
and then turn His back on us? See, this is how a believer reasons,
how he thinks when things get tough. I've written and read a lot of
Spurgeon, and he said, when the clouds are in the sky, and you
can't see the sun, you still know the sun is there. And that's
what we need to do. We need to encourage ourselves
and say, God, you've been gracious to me before, you'll be gracious
again. And that's in any situation,
whether it's physical, mainly spiritual, but physical, anything
that brings us our way. We need to see that just like
Manoah's wife, neither would he have shown us all these things
presently. Oh, this will get us through
dark and foreboding times of woe, pressure, trial, etc. He has shown us in this marvelous
book and the inspired book that Christ came to seek and to save
sinners, and I am a sinner in need of grace and truth. He came
to seek and to save sinners, Matthew. He's going to say, I'm
a sinner, and He came to save me. You just don't argue these
things. And there's an article I got
by Henry in a book that I think is fantastic. And I highlighted
it. He said, who has made us the
guardians of whatever, the truth of whatever? Because people say,
well, you've got to do this and do this and all this other kind
of stuff. And what we were talking about before church, how much knowledge
you've got to have. Are you a sinner? Do you believe
on Christ? Well, that's the word. He that
believeth on Me has everlasting life. Now we need to tell who
He is and not lie about Him. But that is the bare naked Word
of God. Not me putting a little additional
this and that on it. No. Christ came to seek and to save
sinners. Believe on the name of Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Do not doubt him, my brethren." When everything is stripped away
and we're laying on our bed full of sores like Job, what did he
say? I know the doctrine. I know my family, now he could
have questioned his wife whether she loved him or not, the Just
curse God and die. So sometimes our friends, and
even brethren, we're weak. You know what, you need to be
rethinking about what you're doing. When all comes said and
done, when we're on our back, I know my Redeemer lives. The Lord has given, and the Lord
has taken away. This is a personal, and this
is what Manoah's wife sees. I'm sure I'd have been freaked
out and he'd go, we're gonna die now. I'm sure, that's weak
faith. Obviously he had faith because
when he petitioned to the Lord and treated to the Lord, the
Lord heard him. If he was gonna kill us, why
did he receive the burnt offering and the meat offering at our
hands? Caleb, Caleb, you have to believe. The offering isn't
just going to go to the altar. Well, it's all sovereign grace.
It is. But we believe. That's not a work. That's a grace. We believe because we're the
sinners. But it's all been given to us
from before the foundation of the world. So when things get
tough and get trouble, And he starts stripping away your supposed
good works. Well, I really love my wife.
That's my wife. That's selfish. I love my children.
They're your children. That's selfish too. When you
start really questioning whether you know him or not, and believe
me, I have and you will. Why? Has He made this His Word,
and why has He made this precious to me? We're not talking about
feelings, because feelings come and feelings go, but based on
the Word of God. I sing a hymn, I see y'all come
in, and the fellowship, and the unity, and the gospel, and all
these things, why has that been so precious? Why has He made
this so precious to us? to just leave us? Has it all
been a lie? Oh, believe me, what, you know,
I don't know how many, it's been a year or so ago, I got to thinking,
I started thinking for some reason, started thinking like Stephen
Hawking, you know, like really foolish, and thinking I know
something, and I'm wise, and I started thinking, creation? Really? Does that really, I mean,
really? You know, because I'll tell somebody
an unbeliever a story, and they're looking at you like it's a fairy
tale. And then I kind of got to thinking, well, you know,
this is kind of hard to believe, obviously, because it can't be
seen. And you start questioning and doubting. And then you realize
you're nothing, absolutely nothing without Him. Sink or swim, we'll
trust in Him. The third argument she uses,
she says, nor would as at this time, which refers to the fact
that there's no vision, have told us such things as this.
He would have not told us such things if we were going to die,
if we were going to die in reprobation. He has told us through his truth,
through his gospel, his exceeding great and precious promises how
he thinks about his people. He delights. Matt stopped in
Proverbs chapter 8, but the very next verse, what does it say?
His delights were with the sons of men. Such a vile, corrupt, often unbelieving,
wretch, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch."
We're going to change those words, a wretch like me. And that's
why I was singing that last hymn, I just couldn't get through that
last chorus. In the arms of Jesus are 10,000
charms. And if the Lord takes me today,
if the Lord takes Melinda, whatever His real purpose is for us, what a joy it's been. What a
joy it's been. To see you young adults, to raise
these children, isn't it a little thing that could hardly roll
over or move around and now they're running around and they're kicking
balls and they're running around the church and dancing and doing
all this stuff. I hate to sound like a movie, but seize the day,
today the Lord hath made, and rejoice in what He has done,
in the fact that He's even revealed Himself to us. And Manoah's like,
the sky's falling, we're gonna die. And she's like, I've got
peace that passes all understanding, and I know this may sound weird
to you, my lovely husband, but we're not gonna die. Because
he received the offering, and that offering is pictures of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's accepted it, and the fire
went up, it didn't come down. And He's shown us wonderful things
out of His Word. And that's one thing the Israelites
did, they recounted the blessings. Don't you think? Those, Linda
and I, we've often wondered, those stones that they stacked
when they crossed over the River Jordan, remember they stacked
those stones up on one side? When they got on the other, they
stacked them on the other side? I wonder if those stones are still there.
I'd go see that. I wouldn't say, oh, I'm going to the Holy Land
and make a big deal. But the historical and the scriptural
perspective, it'd be nice to see if those things are still
there. Because the Israelites, they were really good about telling
their children and children's children, like Timothy, His mom,
Chloe, and grandmother Eunice taught him from a holy child,
or the holy scriptures from a child. They made sure that those children
knew what they had was from God's hand. They understood the grace
of God. Things not luck, and it's not
how good you are at this, how good you are at that, because
by the time everything averages out, we're just average. But
they told them the most important things. Grace of God, the sacrifice. And now He has revealed Himself
to them in how He told them. Now, I'm not saying God... He
spoke to them. He doesn't speak to us. But He speaks through
His Word. As Peter says, we have a more
sure Word of prophecy. The Scriptures, they weren't
complete then. They're complete now. We don't
need to add anything to them. He promises us of salvation by
His blood, Matthew chapter 1. He promises of comfort by his
Holy Spirit in the Gospel of John, promises to continue grace
by faith in Ephesians. He promises of help in time of
need, Hebrews, and promises of love in our hour of wantonness,
1 John, and he promises of keeping power in the season of doubt
in Jude. Oh, flee to him and find peace,
and that peace will pass all understanding through grace. But his wife told her husband,
let's walk together. Two or more are agreed they can
walk together. We've been walking together.
Don't let your unbelief, don't let your lack of faith. Come
on, come on Manoah, I love you and I wanna be with you. He's
not gonna kill us, the Lord, because he has been pleased to
receive the burnt offering and the meat offering at our hands.
Neither would he have showed us all these things Nor would
at this time, this time of no vision, would he have told us
such things, wonderful things, because his name is wonderful,
as these. Oh, and the woman bear son. It's got to be. Christ promised,
it's going to be fulfilled. That's why they do it. And the
woman bear son. You betcha. Now let me close
with reading Matthew Henry, his thoughts on this last verse,
last part of this verse. And I think this is good. Let
us learn to reason as Manoah's wife did. He's given us a mind. Faith comes by hearing, hearing
the word of God. It's got to be assimilated. We think about
these things. We chew the cud. We muse. The word muse is that,
you know, we think about these things. We don't just set it
down. We're not like that man who looks himself in the mirror
and instantly walks away and forgets. Go over the message,
take notes, whatever you need to do to help your mind because
we're all different. But go over and over and see
the testament. This is for you, for me. This
is his testament in his blood. Learn to reason as Manoah's wife
did. If God had designed me to perish
under his wrath, he would not have given such distinguishing
tokens of his favor. That's what Matthew Henry said.
And I've got underlined, distinguishing tokens of His favor. What does
that sound like? Sovereign grace. Isn't that right? I just said, that's sovereign
grace. Distinguishing tokens of His
favor. Unmerited favor. That's grace.
Sovereign grace. That sounds like sovereign grace.
And that's how He saves and that's who He is. Amen and amen. Bruce, would you close us please?