If the Lord Were Pleased to Kill Us

Judges 13, let's turn over there
again, let's see what the Lord says here, let's see what we
can find out that might be of some help to us personally. Now
the people of Israel, here's the background, the people of
Israel did commit, did continue, did add to the evil before the
Lord in the sight of God, and he delivered them into the hands
of the Philistines. Forty years. But there was a
man named Manoah whose wife had never had a child. How old they
were, I'm not sure. But they never had any children.
And one day the angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah's wife
and told her that she would bear a son. This son would be named
Samson. And that her son would be a Nazarite. special person unto the Lord,
under a special covenant, with special vows and requirements,
and that this man Samson would deliver Israel from the hand
of the Philistine. Well, she ran and told her husband
what had transpired, and Manoah began to pray. He entreated the
Lord in verse 8 and said, Lord, let the man of God which thou
didst send come again to us. Manoah thought it was a prophet
who had appeared to his wife. Now actually, the one who had
appeared unto his wife, we believe this is true, was actually the
Lord Jesus Christ himself, the angel of the Lord. These appearances
in the Old Testament of the angel of the Lord, I'm not totally
positive about this particular time, but most of the time, the
appearances of the angel of the Lord was none other than Christ
himself. And we'll see that in just a
moment, the possibility of that. But he thought it was a prophet.
So he asked the Lord to send the man back who had appeared
to his wife. And what he was saying was that
this man of God might teach us. Manoah never had a son, never
had any children. And this man had told his wife
that she was going to have a special son. Not just a child, but a
special child. It was like the announcement
to Zechariah about John the Baptist and the announcement to Joseph
about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. This announcement was
that your son is going to be somebody special. He's going
to deliver Israel from the Philistine. And Manoah wanted some instructions
about how to bring this boy up. rules and discipline and things
of this nature. He didn't doubt the birth of
the boy. That wasn't what he was questioning.
He wanted some more information. All the angel of the Lord had
said to his wife was that what she was to do, she was not to
drink wine, nor liquor, nor eat forbidden meat. And so he prayed
that the man would come back, which he did. He came back and
appeared. God sent him back. The angel
of the Lord appeared again to Manoah's wife, and she ran and
called her husband. And he came down to where the
angel of the Lord was, and the angel of the Lord repeated his
prophecy and repeated the promise. And Manoah asked him to stay
and eat with him. And he said, well, if you fix
anything, I shall not, if you detain me, I shall not eat, but
you offer an offering a kid upon the rock, a lamb, you offer a
sacrifice, a blood sacrifice, offer it to the Lord. So Manoah
did just exactly what he said. He got the kid and he slew it,
he put it on the altar, he set the fire, he offered the blood,
he burned the carcass, and as the smoke from the offering from
the altar ascended up toward heaven, the angel of the Lord
moved right into this sacrifice, right into the burnt offering,
and ascended up. That's what it says in verse
20. Look at 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." This is one of the most convincing
parts of the whole story, that this angel of the Lord is Christ,
because he actually entered into the sacrifice. You have here
a picture of our Lord's sacrifice. The Lord provided himself an
offering and Christ entered right into that sacrifice and just
went up with the flame from the altar to heaven. I don't believe
that an ordinary angel would have tampered with that sacrifice,
would have entered into it, would have had any part of it at all.
He might have given the orders to offer the sacrifice, but he
wouldn't have, Charlie, he wouldn't have touched it. He wouldn't
have intervened or interfered in any way with that sacrifice
because that lamb is Christ. That offering is Christ. That
blood is Christ. That sweet incense that ascends
up to the nostrils of God for guilty sinners, it puts away
our sin. Angels don't have anything to
do with that. They don't enter into that anyway. They don't
even fully understand it because they've never seen it. They don't
understand neither the grace or mercy of God nor the faith
of sinners. They talk about it and rejoice
over sinners that repent, but this angel of the Lord actually
entered into that sacrifice and ascended with the flame to heaven. And watch what happened. And
Manoah then knew that the one to whom he had been speaking
was none other than the Lord himself. And he fell down on
his face, it says. He and his wife fell on their
faces to the ground. And then Manoah in verse 22,
I want you to listen to this, here's my first point. And Manoah
said to his wife, we shall surely die, we've seen God. We're going to die. No man can
see God unless we're going to die. Now the first point I have
in this message is this, and this is comforting to me and
I hope it will be to you. Even the strongest faith And
don't deny it. The only way for us to receive
any help from the Spirit of God or any blessing from the Lord
himself is to approach God in honesty, to deal with God honestly. So many religious people rob
themselves of the presence of God, of the blessings of God,
with hypocrisy. They would dare admit it's hypocrisy,
but anything that is put on, anything that is unreal, Anything
that is the opposite of total integrity and honesty before
God in spiritual matters is hypocrisy. Now, honest people don't wind
up in hell. He says, if any man says he has no sin, he's a liar.
If we say we have no sins, we make God a liar. But if we confess
our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us. Be who you are,
be what you are, especially when you're dealing with a holy God,
when you're dealing in matters of worship, spiritual matters. This thing of put on piety and
put on holiness and put on religious airs is an abomination to God
Almighty. He despises it. God looks not
on the outward countenance but on the heart. God doesn't pay
any attention to our moaning and groaning. He pays attention
to our hearts. God doesn't pay any attention
to our outward form or ceremony. God doesn't glory in appearance.
He glories in the heart. Keep thy heart out of any of
the issues of life. The expression on your face and
the position of your body and all of these different things,
it does not impress God Almighty one bit. It may impress people.
People go for that old pious, hypocritical, religious airs.
They go for that sort of thing. You can fool the public. But
God Almighty looks right on past your pious expression and right
on past your black clothes and right on down into your black
heart. And that's what he sees. And that's the way. And this
man, this man Manoah, he believed God, he had faith. But what I'm
saying is this, even the strongest faith is mixed with unbelief. That's right. All the way through
this experience, I was looking back a moment ago, in verse 8,
when his wife told him they were going to have a son, he didn't
doubt it. He said, what he said is, he said, Lord, let the man
of God come again and teach us what we shall do to this child
that shall be born. He believed God. He knew there
was a son going to be born. And then down here in verse 12,
when the angel did come back, he said, Now how shall we alter
this child, and what shall we do for him? And then when the
angel told him to offer a kid, a sacrifice, he went right about
doing it. He was a man of faith. He believed
God. He believed the words. He believed
the promise. He offered up the sacrifice. Yet look down here
at verse 21. Then Manoah, the last line, knew
that he was an angel of the Lord. In the face of such majesty,
in the face of such an awesome display of God's power, in the
face of the presence of the living God, Manoah expressed doubts. He began to doubt. You know,
someone said this one time, and I like it so much, don't judge
any man or by one solitary word or act. We're prone to do that. We're prone to cut a man off
for one word or one act. We're prone to put a question
mark on his profession by one word or act. He said, don't do
that. If you do, you'll surely make a mistake. Sometimes cowards
are brave, and sometimes brave men are cowards. You see, don't ever make the
mistake of judging any man or woman by a solitary word or act. You'll be mistaken if you do.
Cowards sometimes are brave, and brave men sometimes are cowards. And this example ought to encourage
us. Manoah was a man of faith. He
believed God. He had found favor with God.
He had found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He was to be the
father of Samson. And God had met with him and
promised him, and he believed God. But then when he came face-to-face
with such awesome, awesome majesty, such awesome power, and he came
face-to-face with the holiness and presence of the living God,
he began to doubt. He said, God's going to kill
us? He's going to kill us? He's going to kill us. You know, Abraham
was the very father of the faithful, and yet he had his times of doubt.
Though God had led him from his father's house through the wilderness,
all these conflicts, here he is denying that Saleh was his
wife, he says, she's my sister. What did you do that for, Abraham?
I was afraid that fellow was going to kill me. Well, God had
protected you up to that time, hadn't he? Yeah. You believe
God? Yeah. Why'd you do that? I don't know.
I just did. Elijah. Elijah went up on Mount
Carmel, and how many prophets of Baal did he tackle single-handedly? 400? Why, he stood there like a solid
rock of Gibraltar. He fought for the honor and integrity
and holiness of God. He personally ordered the death
of 350 prophets of Baal. Just a little while later you
find him running over there, running from Jezebel, one woman,
one woman. And he actually ran from her
and hid, and begged God to kill him. He said, I know better than
my father, just kill me. What about the Apostle Peter?
The Lord Jesus said, Whom do you say that I am? Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the Living God. Blessed art thou, Peter. Thou art a stone, a little stone. Upon this rock I'll build my
church. Blessed art thou, Peter. Standing there in the garden
when they came to take the Lord, Peter pulled his sword. He was
going to engage in battle the whole Roman regiment with one
sword. Here he is sitting over here
by a fire, and a little girl came to him, and she said, You're
one of the disciples. I recognize you. He cursed and
swore and said some things he ought not have said, and said,
I am not. I tell you, even the strongest faith is still the
faith of a human being. And don't ever forget it. Even
the strongest confidence and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
is still the faith of a man or a woman. And there is no perfect
faith. Our perfection is not in our
faith, it's in the object of our faith, Christ the Lord. My
hope is not in a perfect faith, my hope is in Christ. Every one
of you. This ought to encourage us. Bless
his heart. Old Manoa, he just believed and
believed and believed, but then he came to this awesome display
of God's power and His grace, and he just backed off and said,
that's not for me. I got no business here. Peter
said that to the Lord one time. You remember? He'd walked with
Christ all of his time, and one day our Lord, they were out fishing,
and the Lord told them to cast their nets over on this side,
and they cast their nets. They'd been fishing all night
and hadn't caught a blessed thing. And the Lord said, cast your
nets over here, and they did, and started dragging in the fish.
Peter said, Lord, just leave me. You've got no business here. Leave me. I'm a sinful man, and
I've got no business in your company. Just leave me. Just
leave me. Depart from me. He saw the power
of God. Now, we can play church and get
along with this so-called perfect faith. We can play church, we
can go through all our little rituals and ceremonies and prayers
and all of this stuff, but when a man really meets God and he
sees a display of God's power, and he is confronted with the
holiness and sovereignty and power of God, he'll lose all
confidence in his flesh. He sure will, all confident.
And Manoah got all set to have a son, and he thanked God for
the promise, because he thought he was dealing with a man. But
when he found out he was dealing face-to-face with God, it scared
him. It scared him. Ought to be scared. Ought to
fear the Lord. But you know something I like?
There's just something else that will help us. high and mighty,
the Lord had given Manoah an outstanding wife. That's right,
a wife who was strong in faith, a wife who knew the Lord. It
had given him a steadying hand. And the Lord, to get the power,
to get the glory, to get the honor. Sometimes we'll use the
instruments upon which we don't always put the honor that we
ought to, you know, out of the mouth of Balaam. It's not always
out of the mouth of the leader or the fellow in the position
of authority, but God sometimes speaks through even Balaam's
ass, and sometimes through a little
child and And here his wife, and women are on a much higher
scale or plane or position now than they were then. A wife just
didn't correct her husband then. She just didn't. Abraham's wife,
Sarah, called him Lord. And wives back then just didn't
have much to say, but she spoke up out like this. He said in
verse 22, We're going to die. We've seen the Lord!" But his
wife said to him, Manoah, if the Lord were pleased to kill
us, he would not have received a burnt offering. She put forth a threefold argument,
and I'm going to give you this argument tonight. And when your
confidence and faith need encouragement, when you've done business with
holiness itself, When you've had an encounter
with a living God, when you feel like you're the most unclean,
wretched, good-for-nothing, low-down, worthless, least of all the saints,
let this be an encouragement to you. He said, God's going to kill
us. We've seen the Lord. We're going to die. She said,
we are not. And she gave three reasons. Number one, the first
argument of Manoah's wife was this. They had done all that
God had commanded. They had done all that God had
commanded. We took the lamb, and we slew the lamb, and we
put the blood on the altar, and we burnt the carcass, and it
was consumed. The carcass was consumed, and
the angel of the Lord appeared in the sacrifice and ascended
up with the flame to heaven, and if God Almighty had purpose
or pleased to kill us, he would never have accepted our sacrifice. He never would have. We shall
not die because the sacrifice has died. We shall not be consumed
because the sacrifice has been consumed. Did you not see it
go up in smoke? Did you not see the angel go
up with it? And this is my argument tonight.
Sure I'm a sinner. Sure you're a sinner. And I mean
a great sinner. In the flesh no man can please
God. In the flesh dwelleth no good
thing. But have you not seen the sacrifice on Calvary's cross? Has not God sent his Son into
the world? Has not his son borne our sins
in his body on the tree? Did not his son die in our stead? He was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace laid
upon him. If God were pleased to kill us,
he would never have suffered his son to die in our place.
It cannot be that Christ loved the Church and gave himself heart
and the Church died to it. It cannot be that the Lord laid
on him our iniquity and then laid it on us. It cannot be that
by his stripes we are healed and we are not healed. It cannot
be that the just died for the unjust and the unjust die too.
It cannot be. The Lord Jesus Christ was in
Manoah's sacrifice. And the Lord Jesus Christ himself
is our sacrifice. And we are accepted in the Beloved. And when the Heavenly Father
raised his Son from the dead, he was saying in effect, I have
accepted him, I have accepted his sacrifice, I have accepted
his offering, I have accepted his atonement, and in accepting
him, I accept all whom he represented. That's so. And this is the argument
she uses. If God were pleased to kill us,
he would never have killed his son. If God were pleased to kill
us, he would never have received the sacrifice. If God were pleased
to kill us, he would never have accepted the atonement. He never
would. Turn to Romans 8, verse 32. Let
me show you this. Romans 8, verse 32. Here is scriptural
proof. Romans 8, 32. Listen to it. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him, with
Christ, freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather than is risen again, who is even at the right hand of
God, who also maketh intercession for us. Would God have done this
if he were pleased to kill us? All right, here's her second
argument. If God were pleased to kill us, look at Judges 13.23
again, he would not have received the sacrifice. Now notice this,
she bases her faith and confidence not on what she had done or what
her husband had done, but on what God had done. God accepted
the sacrifice. God accepted the offering. Now
that's my plea, and that's your plea. I once was lost, but now
I'm found, and by God's grace I'm heaven-bound. My only hope,
my only plea, is that when Christ died, he died for me. That God's
wrath was settled, was pacified in the sacrifice. That God's
justice was honored in the sacrifice. That the holy law of God was
honored and exalted in the sacrifice. If God were pleased to kill us,
he wouldn't have accepted the sacrifice. All right, notice
the next thing. Neither would he have showed us all these things. Why, she said he showed us himself
twice. Why, she said he showed us the
sacrifice. He's the one that told us to
offer the sacrifice. He's the one that said take a
lamb. That's what the angel of the
Lord himself said. The angel of the Lord said, If
you will offer a burnt offering, you must offer it unto the Lord. The angel of the Lord didn't
say, go out and run up the mountain barefooted. The angel of the
Lord didn't say, get your set of beads and count them all slowly
and say so many prayers every time you count one. The angel
of the Lord didn't say, get busy and serve the Lord, go through
the ceremony, keep the feast days, do all these things. The
angel of the Lord said, offer a sacrifice. an offering unto
the Lord. He didn't say, go out and do
good to your neighbor or come down to the church and give a
tithe. He said, offer a sacrifice unto the Lord. Now, she said,
if he's going to kill us, he never showed us that. And he
also showed us something else. He showed us himself in the sacrifice. and his approval of it and his
acceptance of it. My friends, God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto himself. Do you think if God were going
to kill us, he'd have showed us all these things? Let's go
back. First of all, God has showed us himself. Philip said, Master,
show us the Father. Christ said, He that has seen
me has seen the Father. He that has seen me has seen
the Father. God has revealed himself to us,
he said this is my son, hear ye him, this is my son in whom
I'm well pleased. God has revealed our sins to
us, what a terrible sight, but he has been pleased by his Holy
Spirit to show us our sins. He has been pleased to reveal
to us the Lamb of God. John the Baptist, the special
forerunner of Christ, stood there one day and pointed to Christ
and said, Behold, look! The whole world, look! Here is
the Lamb of God! When God sent him down here in
the manger, he put a star right over that manger and directed
the whole world to that spot. He sent angels down here to announce,
Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which
is Christ the Lord. He sent Elijah and Moses, the
prophets and the law, down here to talk with Christ on the Mount
of Transfiguration. Christ said, John the Baptist
bore witness of me, the Father bore witness of me, the Scriptures
bear witness of me, the works that I do bear witness of me.
And God has revealed to us Christ as our sacrifice. And then he
raised him from the dead. And he sent an angel down here
to announce, he's not here, he's risen. And then he took him to
glory, and he sent an angel down here to say, This same Jesus
which is taken up from you shall so come in like manner. I say
the same thing that Manoah's wife said. If God were pleased
to destroy us, he wouldn't have showed us all these things. He never would have. Would God
have showed us these things? Would God have given us a desire
to know Christ? Would God have given us confidence
in Christ? Would God have given us faith
in Christ? Would God have given us love
for Christ if he were going to destroy us? Nonsense. Nonsense. And then the third,
the third argument she uses. He said, we're going to die.
We've seen God. She said, no, we're not either.
Well, how can you be so sure? I know this. If God were pleased
to kill us, he would never have accepted that sacrifice. And I'll tell you another thing,
she said, if God were pleased to kill us, he'd have never showed
us what he showed us. He showed us the Lamb, and he
showed us his acceptance of the Lamb, and he showed us his identification
with the Lamb. He was right in that sacrifice,
went up right with it. And then she said, another reason,
nor, verse 23, the last line, nor would he at this time have
told us that we were going to have a son. God told us. That's
precious promises. Would God have made these promises
to us if he had no intention of fulfilling them? The word
of God to Manoah and his wife was this, you're going to have
a son. He's going to be a special son. He's going to deliver Israel
from captivity. His name shall be Samson. You
shall raise him this way." Would God have made those promises
if God had not been pleased to keep them? And my friends, turn
to Romans 4. When we are depressed, and when
we're blue, and when we're in despair, and when we have doubts
and fears, And when we're not certain about our relationship
with God, and when we are exposed to His power and majesty and
holiness and greatness, let's don't start running back to see
how many good deeds we've done. Let's don't start running back
to see if we've had the right experience and if we've kept
the right days and if we've done all these different things. Let's
look to these things right here. Would God be pleased to kill
us? If God were pleased to give,
would he have sent his Son to die for us? Would he have accepted
the sacrifice? Would he have showed us Christ?
Would he have said, look to the Lamb of God, look to the cross?
And would he have promised us eternal life? I don't believe
so. Romans chapter 4, Abraham didn't
either, he believed God. He staggered not, Romans 4 verse
20, Abraham staggered not. at the promises of God through
unbelief. And what is it that causes unbelief? It's not doubting God's ability,
is it? It's not doubting God's power,
is it? It's not doubting God's fidelity,
is it? Or integrity. What is it that
causes you to die. You know what it is? It's an
attack of the F-L-E-S-H. That's what does it. You know
when your doubts come? Your doubts come when you're
especially exposed to some glory or some power, some revelation
of his majesty, some revelation of his glory, some great revelation
of his word, some great act or power of God, right? Or your
doubts come at a time when you are overcome with a fleshly trial
or temptation, when you grow angry, when you find yourself
saying things you shouldn't have said, doing things you shouldn't
have done, thinking things you shouldn't have thought. Flesh.
Well, I'm not saved. Yeah, well, if your salvation
depends on what you do, then you're not saved. You never have
been. You're not now, and you never have been, and probably
never will be, unless God reveals Christ to you. That's when these
doubts occur. Peter's doubts came when he saw
the power of God in his own weakness. And I'll say this to you. If you can actually encounter
God Almighty in his holiness and not doubt that something
Because I tell you, when Job saw the Lord, he said, I hate
myself. When Isaiah saw the Lord, he
said, I'm a man of unclean lip. When John saw the Lord on Patmos,
he fell as a dead man. When Daniel saw the Lord, he
said, my beauty melted into corruption. And you mean to tell me that
you've seen God in his holiness and you don't put a question
mark on yourself? Oh, yes, you will. Yes, you will. And but Abraham didn't stagger,
he was strong in faith, in verse 21, and he was fully persuaded
that what God had promised, God was able to perform. That's the
basis of faith. If your faith is in your integrity
to hold out, you're going to fall. And what's more, God will
see that you fall. Because he's going to get the
glory. But if your faith, Abraham's faith, was not in himself, he
believed that what God had promised, God could perform. Now look at
the next verse. And therefore that was imputed
to him for righteousness. This is what Manoah's wife said.
Wait a minute now, Manoah, we're not going to die. God has made
some promises concerning us, and God's going to keep those
promises. Because God cannot lie. Now verse
23, now, it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed
to him, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed. Watch it
now, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from
the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again
for our justification. No, God's not going to destroy
me. No, sir, he's not. And when these doubts and fears
come, I'm going to do what Manoah's wife did. I'm going to base my
assurance and confidence not on, but, Lord, I made a profession,
I made a decision, I'm a preacher, I'm this. No, sir, I'm going
to say, now, wait a minute. I expect these doubts and fears
because there's no perfect faith and the strongest faith. I look
back at Abraham and Manoah and Paul and Peter and all these
fellows, and I see moments of weakness and doubting. And I'm going to say what Manoah's
wife said, I'm going to say now, if God were pleased to kill me
and send me to hell, he would never have sent his son to die
in my place. He never would have. He never
would have accepted the sacrifice. He never would have permitted
the son to be seated at his right hand, the man, Christ Jesus.
That's who's there, a man. the God-man at God's right hand.
God never would have done that if he'd been placed to destroy
us. Secondly, he never would have showed us what he showed
us. He has shown us he was in Christ. He has shown us the way
to God. He has shown us our sins. He
has shown us the world's vanity. He has shown us the sufficiency
of Christ. He has brought us to believe
on his Son. And thirdly, if God were placed
to kill us, destroy us, damn us, he'd have never made these
promises. coming to me and I'll give you rest. Oh, everyone that
thirsteth, come to the water and drink, and out of your belly
shall flow rivers of living water." He'd have never promised that.
Why, he said to Paul, there's an inheritance reserved for you
in heaven laid up undefiled, that fadeth not away, and that's
my word. You have my word for it. If I
go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive
you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also. You have
my word on that. And I'd rather have a promise
from God than a performance from a man, because the promise of
God is more certain. He cannot lie. Father, for thy
word we give thee thanks. for this example from scripture,
how comforting, how assuring, how blessed it is, how good to
have been here, because we believe thou hast spoken to us, encouraged
us. We pray thy blessings on all
who have heard the message tonight, make it effectual to the heart,
in doing what we cannot do for one another nor for ourselves.
May Thy Holy Spirit beget faith and life. In His name we pray. Amen.

If the Lord Were Pleased to Kill Us

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If the Lord Were Pleased to Kill Us

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