to turn back with me, if you
would, to the Book of Judges, Chapter 13. The Book of Judges,
Chapter 13. I want to speak this morning
upon Manoah's wife and her argument. Manoah's wife and her argument. There are many special lessons
that I think that we can learn from the study of this a story. I was greatly affected and impressed
by this a few weeks back as I meditated upon it and the Lord seemed to
lead me to it, back to it this week. And so I felt that the
Lord had a message here for us. I want to read verse 6 and then
I'll skip over and I will read the beginning with the 19th verse. Verse 6, 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. And in verse 19, so Manoah took
a kid with a meat offering and offered it up on 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 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
to his wife than 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. 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 He, as at this time,
have told us such things as these." Now this morning, at the outset,
I would like to suggest to you about four truths that stand
out on the surface of this story. to my own heart, four truths
that you will not have difficulty finding them here as we look
at the Word of God this morning. And then we'll get into the argument
of Menoah's wife and see what possible blessing and comfort
this argument could be for us this morning, those of us who
are in Christ Jesus, those of us who believe in the dear Savior's
name. Now this morning, the first thing
that I'd like to suggest to you is that I see in this story that
we sometimes, like Manoia, we pray for blessings which will
make us tremble when we receive them. Now you remember here that
in verse 8, that Menoia entreated the Lord, and said, O my Lord,
let the man of God, which doubted sin, come again unto us, and
teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born. And God hearkened unto the voice
of Menoia, and the angel of God came again unto the woman as
she sat in the field, but Menoia her husband was not with her.
Now we see then that Benoist asked God after his wife had
told him the story of how that the angel that had a countenance
of the man of God who came to her had a countenance that was
very terrible, a countenance like an angel of God. He said,
well, Lord, let him come again, let him come again that we shall
He taught what we shall do unto the child that will be born,
how we're to raise the child, how we're to feed the child,
how we're to take care of the child. And then we see that the
angel came God hearkening to the voice of Menoia, the angel
of God came again unto his wife in the field. And then we see
that after all things transpired that the story gives us, we see
in the end that Menoia, as he was on his face before the Lord,
on his face on the ground, that he said, we shall surely die
because we've seen God. In other words, he asked that
the angel appear, and then after the angel appeared, he was fearful,
fell on his face, and said, we're surely going to die because we've
seen God. So we see that when we pray for
things, many, many times, when they actually come, they make
us tremble. Beloved, let me say to you at
the very outset this morning that when we see God, when we
see the hand of God, when we're touched by the hand of God, when
God draws near, when the Lord works, when it's evident that
God has come and that the finger of God has touched us and been
among us, it is a very terrible thing. God does terrible things
in righteousness. And it's no small matter for
God to come and for God to speak and for God to say something
to you. It's no small matter. It'll make
you tremble. It will astonish your heart.
It'll make you fearful. for God to draw near, because
God is not a man. God is holy, Christ holy, and
His voice is the voice of majesty. His voice is the voice that spoke
the world into existence, that made it out of nothing. His voice
is the voice of power, and for God to speak, for God to come
near, even in the person of an angel, is a terrible terrible
thing. Manoah had asked that he might
see the angel, and he saw him. He saw the angel of God. And the consequence was that
he was filled with astonishment and with dismay, and he turning
to his wife said, we'll surely die, we'll surely die, because
we have seen God. Now, brother, sister, do we always
know what it is that we're asking for when we pray? Do we always
know? Are we conscious when we begin
to pray? We are imploring God for a blessing,
undoubtedly. We ask God for many things day
by day. We're conscious that God is a
giving God. we are conscious that god has
everything we need and a whole lot more besides we're conscious
that god opens his hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing
we know that the silver and gold belongs to god we know that all
of the treasures of the world are in the hands of god they
belong to him and so we're coming to him and we're imploring god
all the time for blessings and yet if we knew the way in which
such a blessing must necessarily come, we would perhaps hesitate
before we pressed the prayer before God very hard. We would
hesitate if we knew what was going to come when the blessing
came, what trials might come with it. You've been asking God
for a closer walk with the Lord, maybe. Say, Lord, I want to walk
closer to You. Maybe you've asked for growth
in grace. Maybe you've asked for more holiness
of life. Maybe you've asked to be more
spiritual minded. Maybe you've asked that you might
be able to trust in the Lord more than ever before in your
life. Do you know that in almost every
case, whenever somebody prays that way, it means increased
affliction. It means increased trial. It means difficulty. It means
to be tried in the furnace and purified with many fires. When one begins to cry out to
God, Oh God, make me everything that a resurrected enthroned
Christ could possibly make me. It means that you're going into
the furnace. It means you're going to be purified,
and God is going to come and deal with you. Do you want the
blessing under that condition? Do you want it? Do you really
want it? Will you press the issue with
God, make me holy, make me Lord to be what you want me to be?
Have your way, Lord, with me? Will you press that before God?
Now if spiritual growth implies trial, if it signifies a long
sickness of body, if it means deep depression of soul, if it
entails the loss of property, if it involves the taking away
of my dearest friends, do we want the blessing? Do we want
the blessing? Would we take the blessing at
that expense? Is that what we'd be willing
to do? When I say sanctify me wholly, sanctify me in spirit,
body, and soul, I must leave the process. that I must leave the process
with you. God will choose your... He will choose your cross. God will choose your burden. God will choose the process by
which you become His, and He chooses His people in the furnace
of affliction. They're chosen in trial and difficulty. God purifies His people. It's like the old colored lady
said, I want religion, I've told you this before, but I dread
the process. I dread the process. There is
a process. And you begin to pray, and you
begin to cry to God. And then, when the blessing comes,
you will tremble. I suppose you really knew all
that what you're asking for would rain upon you. Would you continue
to pray for it as fervently as you are now? Would you continue?
Well, we ought to desire to be rid of our sin. We ought to desire
to be rid of our sins. Often the blessing which we used
to so eagerly pray for is the occasion of the suffering that
we now deplore in our lives. Hear me? Hear me carefully. I'm
telling you that the blessing that we used to seek after, that
we used to cry after, that we used to go from one chair to
the other, to the other, to the other, praying on our knees before
the Lord, going around the room seeking God and crying with all
of our hearts, That very blessing maybe has brought upon us the
very trials now that we deplore, the very afflictions, the very
suffering that we now would like to maybe get rid of. Now then,
we do not know God's methods beforehand. We do not know. Noah, he just didn't know what
this would entail. all-out send this man of god
back i want to talk to him i want to i want him to stand before
me i want to know i want to see oh yes oh yes but the next time
we see minnoy he'll be on his face on the ground saying we're
going to die we're going to die all right we listen we cannot
set god's ways he does not choose to follow our ways, even as John
Newton confessed to have done when he asked that he might grow
in grace. Some of you might have seen this before, but let me
read it to you. John Newton said that, he said, I hope that in
some favored hour, at once he'd answer my request, and by his
love's constraining power, subdue my sins and give me rest. Instead of this, he made me feel
the hidden evils of my heart and let the angry powers of hell
assault my soul in every part. Yea, more! With his own hand
he seemed intent to aggravate my woe, crossed all the fair
designs I schemed, and blasted my gorge and laid me low. You see, that's what happened
with John Newton when he asked God that he might grow in grace.
And so you see, beloved, we're foolish sometimes when we begin
to pray. This is the Lord's way of answering
prayer for faith and grace. This is what you ask for when
you ask for an egg. The Lord doesn't give you a scorpion.
He gives you what you ask for. You say, Lord, I want to be right. And so the Lord begins to correct
us, you see. And sometimes that involves a
whole lot more than we understood at the beginning. This is what
you ask for. This is the way in which the
Lord answers your request. Perhaps at this very moment,
the fainting feeling that some of us are experiencing, which
makes you fear that you'll surely die, may be accounted for by
your own prayers in past months and years. You know, some of
the prayers that we've prayed in the last few years, maybe
we haven't, maybe we forgot them. But you know God hadn't forgot
our prayers. You know that? You know the Lord puts your tears
in a bottle? You know the Lord remembers your prayers, and he's
not forgetful as you are. the Lord remembers them. And
so maybe this morning, maybe this morning, if we feel faint,
maybe we're like Minoy, maybe we ask for something and God
give it. Or maybe He's about to give it
and we're trembling because of it. After all, I can see that
now my God has given to me exactly what I saw at His hands, Minoy
would say. The angel came. Did we ask to
see the angel? He said, I asked to see the angel,
and I have seen him. I have seen him. And now it is
that my spirit is cast down, and I believe that God's gonna
kill me. I believe he's gonna kill me.
I believe that's what he's gonna do. Now then, the second thing
I notice, that's the first thing I notice, is many, many times
the things we ask for, when they come, gonna make us tremble.
Now the second thing I notice is that very frequently that
deep prostration of spirit is the forerunner of some remarkable
blessing. It was to Manoah and to his wife
the highest conceivable joy of life. It was the climax of their
ambitions that they should be the parents of a son by whom
the Lord shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the
Philistines. Joy filled them, inexpressible
joy at the thought they were going to have a child, a son,
and God was going to bless him, and God was going to own him,
and God was going to use him. But when the news first came
Manoah was shook up, and it was a great trial, because as we
said before, he ended up on his face crying, God's gonna kill
me. Take it as a general rule, beloved,
that dull skies foretell a shower of mercy. Expect the favor of
God when you as a child of God experience affliction. Expect that God is very near
to bestow favor upon you. When God's wagons, Spurgeon said
this, he said, when God's wagons are loaded down with blessings, and the rumbling horridly, you'll
think that the death cart is coming for you before the Lord's
wagons with his blessings get to you. I thought that was mighty
good. I've heard there'll be wheels.
I've heard them wheels, and I'm hearing those wheels. I'm hearing
them all the time. And I believe that blessing is
surely coming. Now, man, you remember concerning
the apostles. that when they were up on Mount
Tabor, they entered into the cloud. There in Matthew 17, in
verses 5-8, they entered into the cloud, and in that cloud,
when they entered in, and when the voice of the Lord came to
them, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,
you remember that they feared, and they fell down on their face,
and they were afraid. Beloved, many, many times, the
cloud that we enter into, now, when they entered into that cloud,
they saw the Master transfigured. And you and I have fear about
the clouds that we're entering. But therein we shall see more
of Christ and His glory than we ever beheld before. Enter
into the cloud. Enter into the cloud. The poet
said, Look not behind for that which
thou hast lost to find, be it of earth or heaven. He said,
but look to God for more, for better than you had before. He
said, and trebles shall be given. Look to God for more. Don't look
behind for what you've lost to find, but look to God. All that enter at the open door
in trouble shall be given. God will bless his people. And
so don't worry about those clouds. You're going to see more of the
glory of God than what you ever saw before. You're going to see
the hand of the Lord, the blessing of God. Trials always come before
comforts. like John the Baptist with his
rough garment before Jesus, the consolation of Israel. So that's
the second thing I see here, is that often in times when we're
deeply prostrated in depression and despondency, it's just a
forerunner of God's favor and God's blessing, some remarkable
blessing, the Lord is going to give. Now the third thing I see
here that I glean from this story is, and let me offer this to
you, that even great faith is in many instances subject to
fits. Even great faith is subject to
fits. Menoia had faith. His wife was barren, they hadn't
been able to have any children. Yet when she was told by the
angel that she should bear a child, he believed it, although he wasn't
there. She came and told him what the
angel said to her, and he believed it. He believed it. And so he
sought to seek the angel that he might know something more
about how they should rear the child and what they should do
about the child. He so believed it that he wanted
to be informed better how to bring up the child so they would
make a mistake. He had faith, yet here he is
saying in alarm, we shall surely die because we've seen God. we're going to die even though
I've witnessed all of this and heard everything that angel said
we're going to die we're not going to live we'll never see
this come to pass it won't ever happen we're not going to live
long enough to have any child we're not going to live long
enough to have to know how to raise a child we're going to
die that is a fit of unbelief is what that is at faith I don't
question that. Beloved, do not judge any man
or woman by one word or by any act. You'll make a mistake if
you do. Let me tell you why. Cowards are occasionally brave,
and the bravest men are sometimes cowards. And, O trembling Menoia,
though fully believing what had been spoken from God, yet at
the same time he was full of unbelief, we shall surely die."
Now this is common among the characters of Scripture. These
fits of unbelief, I mean, are common. Abraham, you remember,
he denied his wife, said she's my sister. wouldn't say she's
my wife, because if he was to say she's my wife, then they'd
have put him to death, because they wanted his wife. But he
said, boy, she's my sister. And the Lord, of course, you
know the story, the Lord delivered him. But Abraham had a bit of
unbelief. and he would look out more for
his hide than he did for his wife. More concerned about his
own hide than he was for her. Elijah, he slew the prophets
of Baal. Very bravely slew the prophets
of Baal. Yet he flees from the face of
Jezebel and he sits down under one of the desert junipers and
cries, let me die, I'm no better than my fathers. Let me die. He's just slaying 400 of the
prophets of Baal. And then one woman put him to
flight and he sat down and said, just let me die. I'm no better
than my fathers before me. I'm nothing and just let me die.
That's a fit of unbelief is what that is. Now these things do
not prove that these men had no faith. They only show that
the strongest faith is subject to a fit of unbelief now and
then, and that the best of men are only men at the best. That's what this proves. Have
you had such a fit lately? Have you had such a fit of unbelief
lately? It's bad while it lasts, isn't
it? It's very bad. It's very bad if we have them
every day. And God help us when we just have one right after
another, two or three of them a day. Fits of unbelief, God
help us. We must not make an excuse for
these fits of unbelief. We must not allow ourselves to
stay long in these fits. We've got to find a way out.
Now the fourth thing, and I want you to consider this with me
and we'll get on here, and this is a very important thing. this
war thing. And that is, it's a great mercy
to have a Christian companion to counsel and comfort your soul
when you're having these fits of unbelief. It's a great mercy. I want you to see this here.
Here's old Manoah on his face before God. The Lord's gonna
kill us. The Lord is going to kill us. We're going to die!
We've seen God and His wife. She said, 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 He at this time have told us
such things. So we see here that Menoah had
a wife, and she was the better one of the two, in sound judgment. She was a weaker vessel by nature,
but she was a stronger believer, and probably that was the reason
why the angel appeared unto her, and not unto him, is because
she would receive what he said the first time over, And her
husband might have doubted that this thing was real or that it
could come from God, he couldn't reason it out. So she was full
of faith, evidently, and so when her husband's trembling said,
we'll die, she did not believe any such thing, and so she spoke
up and said so to her husband. She told him it won't work. She
argued, according to the language of the text, that it was not
possible that God could kill them after what they had seen
and heard. It couldn't possibly happen.
It couldn't be. Now what a mercy to have a Christian
husband or wife whose faith can encourage the other to rest in
the everlasting faithfulness and goodness of Almighty God. to have somebody, oh listen to
me, how careful the young people ought to be in choosing your
partner in life. Suppose that Manoa had, suppose
that he would have had an unbelieving wife. Suppose he would have had
one of them wives, like Job's wife, who said, just curse God
and die. We're in this trouble, and oh,
we'll surely die. We will, we will, we will. You're
right, you're right, you're right. Well, Manoah's wife was a believing
woman. She was a believing woman, and
she argued out the situation to her husband, argued it out. said we can't die, we're not
going to die. God said this, God accepted the
sacrifice of our hands that we've offered and he's told us what
to do with this boy. We're not going to die. Just
settle down. Just settle yourself down. Now
then, this is so important that we see this. You know, if he
hadn't had this wife, if he hadn't had this This one that would
encourage him at this time, this one that would, as we call it,
as other old preachers have called it, scotch for him and stand
with him and prod him a little bit and help him a little bit,
then probably would fulfill his own sad prophecy and maybe end
up killing himself. I don't know what he would have
done. But he surely believed he was going to die. But she
said it can't be. And I tell you what, we ought
to try to be of some help to each other. And I tell you, you
young people, when you choose a mate in life, you pray, you
ask God, don't you wait down the road somewhere and say, well,
I'm not getting any help from my husband, I'm not getting any
help from my wife. You better start be praying about
it, pray a lot before you marry somebody, because the thing that
you need most of all is a soul partner, and you need somebody
that will encourage you when you are faced with a trial. You need somebody that'll speak
a word to you, somebody that'll look out for your soul, and somebody
that'll try to help you up the ladder and not try to drag you
down all the time and discourage your soul, but somebody that
will encourage you and be a blessing to you in your life. That's what
you need. And I pray God will be pleased
to bless all of our young people here. All of these young ladies
that are growing up, and you all are growing up, You've got
some momentous decisions to make in life, and the biggest one
you'll ever make is who you marry. That is a tremendous decision.
It is tremendous, and may God help you, because we see how
important this is. Well, I want to take up the argument
here of Menoah's wife and see if it will comfort our hearts.
And I'm not going to keep you long, but there's a couple of
things I just want to mention, and I hope the Lord will be pleased
to use these things. I wanted to talk about this.
I really felt that the Lord was in it. First of all, the Lord
does not mean to kill us, she said, because He is accepted
Our sacrifices. What could this possibly mean
to a believer? What could it possibly mean to
somebody that's in the Lord Jesus Christ? Now, the second thing
was, he does not mean to kill us, or else he would not have
shown us all these things. First of all, a word about the
accepted sacrifice here. Now, Manoah's wife, she said,
why, the Lord has accepted the sacrifice at our hands. God doesn't
intend to kill us. Well, I suppose this morning
that, although I'm not sure about the condition of your heart,
about the condition of your situation this morning and how you stand
as you come in here, maybe you're sadly tried, maybe you're cashed
down, maybe you feel that God has quit you, that God has just
literally given up on you, that he's quit you. Like the poet
said, the Lord has forsaken me quite, my god will be gracious
no more maybe you feel that way this morning maybe you feel that
god started you down the road and now he's quit you and he
intends to kill you and send you to hell that sooner or later
you're just going to go to hell that you cannot possibly make
it that god is going to kill you and send you off to hell
now dear sister or brother is that possible that god could
be involved in your life and then he's going to kill you finally
and send you off into eternal death. You've trusted Christ.
You do believe in him now, do you not? Do you not believe on
the Lord Jesus? Ask yourself, do I believe on
the Son of God? You know, Jesus asked that question
one time. He said, dost thou believe on
the Son of God? And that's a good question you
ought to ask your soul sometime. But when the devil comes near,
And he begins to ask you a lot of questions about your life,
about your future. You ought to ask yourself, does
thou believe on the Son of God, O soul? Yes, Lord, I believe. Notwithstanding all my unhappiness,
I do believe. I believe in you. And I rest
the stress and the weight of my soul's interest on your power
to save. I rest myself in you. Well then,
If you're resting in the Lord and if you believe on Christ,
then you have his own word recorded in his own infallible book, assuring
us that Jesus Christ was accepted of God on our behalf, for he
laid down his life for those he came to save, those who believe
on him, that they might never perish. God has accepted Christ,
God has accepted his sacrifice, on our behalf. He stood as our
surety. He suffered as our substitute.
Is it possible that this should be unavailing? And that after
all, we must be killed and cast away into everlasting hell? You know, the Bible says that
God has the power not only to kill your body, but he has the
power to cast you into hell. He's got the power to do that.
Is that what's going to happen to those for whom Christ died?
The argument of Noah's wife was just this. Did we not put the
dead on the rock? Did we not slay the young goat
and put it there on the rock altar? And was it not consumed? It was consumed instead of us! It was consumed in our place.
We shall not die, for the victim died, and the victim was consumed. The fire will not burn us. The fire burnt on the altar consumed
the sacrifice, and the smoke went up, and the angel of God
went up and down in the smoke, and it was a wondrous, wondrous
sight to see, when the angel of God, taking that sweet-smelling
savor back to the throne of God, back and forth, in communion
with God, God accepted the sacrifice. It has spent itself upon the
sacrifice. It will not consume us. It was
spent on that kid. Did you not see it go up in smoke
and see the angel ascend with it? The fire is gone. And we
stand where it's already burnt. Remember the story I told you
about the wagon train and about the little boy and about how
the fire was racing toward the wagon train? And somebody got
the idea, we'll set a backfire and we'll burn off a place and
let the fire go ahead and burn off. And then they pulled the
wagons into the burn off place and the little boy said, Daddy,
is the fire gonna burn us? He said, no, we're standing sun
where the fire's already burnt. And that's exactly the message
here. We're standing where the fires already were. This being
interpreted into the gospel is just this. Have we not seen the
Lord Jesus Christ fastened to the cross in agonies extreme? Has not the fire of God consumed
Him? Has He not risen from the sacred
fire, as it were, in the resurrection and ascended into glory? He has
died instead of us. It cannot be that the Lord has
made him to suffer the just for the unjust, and now will make
the believer suffer too. It cannot be. It cannot be that
Christ loved his church and gave himself for it, and now the church
must perish also. It cannot be that the Lord has
laid on him the iniquity of Saul, and now will lay our iniquity
back on us. to suffer forth eternally. It would make the vicarious sacrifice
of Christ to have achieved nothing for that to take place. The atonement
of Christ cannot be made of none effect. The atonement of Christ
cannot be made of none effect. The very supposition would be
blaspheming. If the Lord had been pleased
to kill us, He would not have accepted His Son for us in our
place, in our room instead. If He meant us to die, would
He have put Him to death too? How can that be? Jesus dying
for sinners, and yet the sinners died. Mercy inconceivable. Inconceivable. It is impossible. My soul, whatever your inward
feelings, fears, conflicts are. The accepted sacrifice of Christ
on our behalf shows that God is not pleased to kill us and
send us to hell. God accepted Christ on our behalf. He will not He will not destroy
us. And God has been pleased to bless. God has been pleased to own.
And the poet said, me, if purposed to destroy for passive unfaithfulness,
would God vouchsafe to employ and still so strangely bless? If God meant to kill me and send
me to hell, would he have blessed me as he has? In my life? No, absolutely not. Absolutely
not. So the sacrifice, she argues,
has been accepted by God, and God's not going to kill us because
He's accepted the sacrifice. And Christ is our sacrifice. He is our sacrifice and God accepted
him in our room instead in place. Well, the second argument was
that they had received some revelations from God. God told them some
things. God told them. She said, God's
not going to kill us. He said, we're going to have
a son. God is not going to kill us. He told us how to raise that
boy. He told me not to drink any wine or strong drink. He
told me to beware. I'm going to live. Because God told me how to conduct
myself as I was carrying this child and as I brought him into
the world. God told me, so I'm not going
to die, I'm going to live. And you know, sometimes we have
to just say to ourselves, I'm going to lay down and die. I'm
going to get up and go. That's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to keep pushing on. I'm going to just keep on keeping
on. Whatever that involves. i've
got a i've got a reason must reason ali and who's your own
and i i'm not only down and out using it and you've got to have
that kind of attitude in this world has got people that's the
only attitude is glorifying the god this we pray lining generation
of believers they're always it's a way to get out That's not very
discouraging. That's not very encouraging.
And this kind of stuff is catching. And we've got to be careful when
we try to live out our life that we live it out to the glory of
God. Now, then what is the Lord showing
us? He showed them that they're going
to have a child and that they're going to live to raise him. And
so what has the Lord shown us? Well, I'll mention just two or
three things. And then we'll be out of here. First of all,
I thank the Lord. Now this is so important for
you to see this. You see, she said this is part
of my argument that God's not going to tell us. He showed us
some things. And I believe that one of the
strongest arguments for the fact that God does not intend to send
me to hell is that He was pleased to show me my sin. He was pleased
to show me my sin. Now what a sight that was when
we first had it. And some of you never saw your
sin, but they're there all the same. Your sin is there. You
just haven't seen it. God hasn't revealed it to you.
In an old house, let me illustrate it this way. Perhaps there is
a basement cellar, and nobody goes down there. Nobody has been
down there for years. And maybe there's some real heavy
drapes up at the windows, and there's some shutters on the
outside of the windows, and the house is dark, and maybe there's
somebody that lives in there, and they get by. There's no light
in the house, but they get by, and they never open that basement
door. But there comes a day when somebody
comes in, and they open that basement door, and they turn
on the light. And down in that basement, what a sight, what
an odor. Cobwebs, spiders, rats, what
a horrible place. Toad frogs jumping and getting
scattering and all kinds of filth. Now the light did not make the
basement dirty, it didn't make it foul, it didn't make it filthy,
it only showed that it was there. And when the heavy drapes come
off of the windows on the inside, you cannot stand to live in that
house anymore because you can see what's there. until it's
cleansed, until it's cleaned up, until something is done about
the situation. And that's the way it was when
God showed us our sin, something had to be done. And now, praise
God, because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have
been cleansed and rewet. cleansed every wit. The Lord
has made us clean. Our sins have been put away and
we're able now to live in the house. We're able to endure it.
We can live in the house because our conscience has been cleansed
by the blood of the Lord Jesus. Now, God spares, I want to say
this to you, our hearts were inconceivably sinful and wicked. Desperately wicked, the Bible
says. The word, incurably wicked. That's the meaning of the word.
But you know, listen to me now, God spares all eyes but his own. That fearful sight a naked human
heart. Bishop Hill, I believe, was and
made that statement. I read it sometime here back. God spares all eyes but his own. That fearful sight, a naked human
heart. Nobody ever did see all his heart
as it really is. And you have only seen a part.
You could not stand it if God was to shine that light down
there in that basement and you seen everything that was down
there. Pull them shutters off and them drapes and you saw it
all! You wouldn't be able to stand it. But God sees your heart
like it really is. He sees everything about it.
Well, it's not like the Lord to show a man his sin and torment
him before his time if he did not mean to take it away. I like
that. I like that. It's not like the
Lord to turn the light on in the basement if he don't mean
to clean it up, if the Lord don't mean to cleanse it. What is the
good of letting us see our filthiness if he did not purpose to take
it away? See, that's the argument this
woman is using here. See, God showed us some things,
and it means something what God has showed us. And if God showed
you your sin, it's because he's going to take it away. A deep
sense of sin will not save you, but it's a pledge that there
is something begun in your soul which will lead to everlasting
salvation. And it's a pledge of it. A deep
sense of sin says the Lord is laying bare the disease that
he might cure it. That's what it means. Say, I
know God showed me my gift. Well, that means that he's going
to take it away. He's going to take it away. So
if the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have shown us
such things as the infamy of our nature and the horror of
our fall in Adam. He would have never shown us
that if he meant just to send us to hell. But since He's revealed
to us our nakedness and our poverty, He will clothe us with the garments
of salvation and enrich us with the riches of Him who became
poor that we through His poverty might be rich. He's going to
enrich us and clothe us. And that's why I showed you your
nakedness and your poverty. That's the reason. You've got
to reason this out. reasoned out say the lord showed
me not sales so that i would just say it alone myself and
and i'm wrong with that more and i'd be cast down the rest
of my life but it's not wrong with that there's something wrong
with that yet the lord showed you that because he's going to
call yet he showed you how poor you are so they can make you
rich he means to do it that's what it's about Number two, He's shown us more
than just our sin. He made us to see, I think, the
hollowness and the emptiness of this world. Don't you think
that too? I think He has, and I think that means something.
Now you just listen to me just a little bit. We didn't get to
preach at all last week. We may not get to preach next
week. I don't know anything about it, but you'll hear me out today.
You remember that little song we sang, My soul, this world
is not for you? I saw this vanity of vanities. All is vanity and vexation of
spirit. We heard this in our souls. I heard it keenly. I heard it
in my soul. Listen to me. The joys of this
world are all gone. They're gone. The varnish has
come off. The tinsel has faded. The colors
are all dull and gray now. I've seen it. I know something
about it. There's nothing in this vain
world that can satisfy a hungry soul. Nothing. And you can go
ahead and just keep trying and trying and trying and trying,
but there is nothing in this vain world that can satisfy a
hungry soul. Now if the Lord had consigned
us to eternal death, would he have shown me this? Would he
have shown you that? Would he have weaned your heart
away from this world if he's going to kill you and send you
to hell? He would have said, they're only going to have one
world. And so let them rejoice in it. Just let them alone. It's
kind of like that woman, and I don't set her up as an example,
but it's a good story to illustrate my point. And that is this woman,
this drunkard had a wife, good woman. And he was in the tavern,
and he was bragging on his wife. How good a wife. He said, why,
I'll bet to you, and there was 10 or 12 guys sitting around.
here around the bar and he said, I'll bet you that I can take
every one of you home at this hour of the night. It was an
ungodly hour. Take you home and tell her that
you all are hungry and you need something and she will just go
and fix a meal and she won't say one word about it. She'll
just very graciously do it. And oh, they said it won't happen,
it won't happen. And so he took them home. And
so she just He said, it'll take me a little while, I'll apologize
for that. And went in the kitchen, done, and fixed him up something
to eat, fixed him a meal, and he also sat down and ate. And
then one of the fellas said, he was so humble, he said, how
do you stand to live with a man like this? How do you stand to
do that? And she wouldn't answer him at
first. And so others joined in and said,
how can you stand this? and she said i prayed for this
man and i prayed that god would save this man and she said i
fear and i'm very fearful that god's not going to save him and
i know that this that all the happiness he's ever going to
have in this world or the next is what he finds right here in
my hand and so that's why i try to make things as good for him
as i can because he ain't going to have any in the world to come
Now, abuse, I have no use for that. I have absolutely no use
for that. And alcoholism and things of
that nature, and drug taking and things of that nature, crosses
the line as far as I'm concerned. Crosses the line. And I have
no use for that. And I'm not trying to say that.
That doesn't have any part in the illustration. The illustration
is that this world is the only world that lost sinners are going
to have. And any goodness they have will
be here. It won't be in the hereafter.
You die, you go to hell, and you suffer for all eternity.
And so if God meant to send us to hell, he wouldn't have weaned
us into this world. No. He would have said, let the
swine go on with their husk. if he had not meant to turn them
into children of God and bring them home. I believe that's what
he's up to when he winds us away and shows us the hollowness and
the emptiness of this world. He has taught us that something
better than this is coming for the children of God. He's taught
us that. He's revealed that to us. Now
then, there's one other thing, and I'm done. Namely, this. He's taught us the preciousness
of Christ, the preciousness of the Lord Jesus. Now, unless I'm
awfully deceived, I mean self-deceived, I believe, and I mean to say
that I believe that I've lost the burden of my natural guilt
and my sin. at the foot of the cross, that
I lost it. I believe God took it off my
back many years ago. I believe He did. And I don't
mean I'm not still a sinner, because I am very much a sinner.
And there's evidence of that every day, and there's not anybody
here questioning that a minute. Some of you know more about it
than others do. But anyway, I'm a sinner. That's
what I am. But the burden and the guilt
of it, I've lost it at the foot of the cross, and we've known
what it is to see the suitability and the all-sufficiency of the
merit of our dear Redeemer, and we have rejoiced in Him with
joy unspeakable and full of glory when we didn't have anything
else to rejoice in. We rejoiced in Christ. and we
rejoice in Him today. If He meant to bring me to ruin
and send me to hell, He would have never shown me His loveless
Son. He would have never shown me the preciousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the suitability of Him, His work, His merit,
and the sufficiency, the all-sufficiency of the Son of God. He'd have
never made it known. Now listen to me. If God ever
brings your dear soul to see Christ, See Him in the Word. See Him in the Bible. Hear Him
in the preaching. Hear His Word, if He ever does
that. That's because He means for you
to be with Him in eternity. He means for you to be at last
home with Him in glory. Now then, there's longs that
God, strong desires that God put in our hearts after Himself.
These strong desires God would never have put in us. I believe that Manoah and his
wife wanted a child. I believe they wanted that boy.
They wanted that boy. They wanted to raise that boy.
They wanted to be involved in the purpose of God for Israel.
They wanted to be involved! And you know the Lord put strong
desires in our hearts. and those strong desires for
communion with Him, longing to be delivered from sin and self,
longing, yearning to be perfect in this life, desiring to be
like Him while we're right here in this world, wanting to be
like Christ. Those are the desires the Lord
has put in the hearts of these people. give you these desires, these
longings, if he had meant to kill you and
send you to hell. You say, well, I'm not able to
do what I want to do. I have the desire. I'm not able
to do everything I want to do. Well, that's true. But the desire
is there. God put it there. And what that
means is, if you'll study it out and argue it out, that God's
going to fulfill that desire in you. He may not do it here
on this side, but He is going to fulfill all your spiritual
desires. He'll do it. If not here, He'll
do it in heaven. He'll do it, I'm telling you.
He put it there, and he's gonna fulfill it. And that is an argument
against all of this being defeated, and saying I'm never gonna amount
to anything, and all this and that. I'm sorry? Well, how's
the rest of your kinfolk? Well, I suppose they're as sorry
as you are. Listen, we might as well give
it up. Quit talking that way and acting that way. God said
some things to us. Let's believe it. Argue it out
with our own souls and get up and shine for the glory of God
and for the praise of Christ. Believe what the Word of God
says. Argue it out. Well, I just happen to believe
that Manoa's wife was a good woman. I believe she's a good
woman. Don't you think she was? I believe
she's a good woman. I believe she had a good head
on her. I believe she had a good spiritual head on her shoulders. I think that God gave her to
her husband. That's what I think. I think
that God blessed them and that she was a help to him. And this
argument is a good argument. It's a good argument for all
God's people. Father, in the name of Jesus, bless us, encourage
us, strengthen us, go with us. And Father, we commit to you
the week and the day, even this afternoon before you. We don't
know how to spend it as we ought maybe. And Lord, we don't know
what to do about many things in our lives. So many, many things
that we need help with. and we need your hand to come
and to deliver us. So bless us and strengthen us
and go before us in the coming week. Work out and solve all
of the problems, Lord, that we're faced with and that we're dealing
with and may you enable us to stay ourselves on you, on your
precious word. How wonderful it's been just
to be able to get into this atmosphere this morning and to have this
fellowship with your people through the Word and to have this blessing
that you've given us in this service today. Thank you, Lord.
Thank you in Jesus' dear name. Amen.