Judges 13

Good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we are at Judges, Chapter 13. We're going to start at possibly one of the most, or the most famous judge, or infamous. Do you know the difference between famous and infamous? Famous is someone who's known for their fame, and infamous is someone who's just known for, just a very known character. Maybe known for like even not the good things Yeah, so like an evil famous. Well, here's we'll see if he really has that.
Let's have some coffee We'll pray and we'll get into this famous or infamous infamous character Let's pray Father we come to you this morning Lord wrestling struggling God, it's been an odd and interesting day. And Father, we pray that you would please help us to understand your word this morning. Lord, you know that we're not perfect people and that our hearts are regularly wanting to lead us astray. Father, we pray that your spirit would please work in us now. Teach us your ways in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, Judges chapter 13, and we'll just go paragraph by paragraph. Okay.
Again, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. Now, there was a certain man from Zorah of the family of the Danites. whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children. And the angel of Jehovah appeared to the woman and said to her, Indeed, now you are barren and have born no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Now, therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink and not to eat anything unclean. For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son and no razor shall come upon his head. For the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
The woman came out and told her husband, saying, Man of God, hear me. This countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God. Very awesome. But I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name. And he said to me, Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son, and drink a wine, a similar drink, and eat anything unclean.
For the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death. Then Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, O my Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the child who will be born. And God listened to the voice of Manoah.
The angel of the God came to the woman again as she was sitting in the field, but Manoah Her husband was not with her. Then the woman ran in haste and told her husband and said to him, Look, the man who came to me the other day has just now appeared to me. So Manoa arose and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he said to him, Are you the man who spoke to this woman? And he said, I am. Manoa said, Let your words come to pass. What will be the boy's rule of life and his work?
So the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, of all that I said to the woman, let her be careful. She may not eat anything that comes from the vine, nor may she drink wine or some other drink, or anything unclean. All that I command her, let her observe. Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, please, let us detain you, and we will prepare a young goat for you. And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Though you detain me, I will not eat your food.
But if you offer a bold offering, you must offer it to the Lord. For Manoah did not know he was the angel of the Lord. Then Manoah said to the angel of Jehovah, What is your name, that when your words come to pass, we may honor you? And the angel of the Lord said to him, Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?
So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it upon the rock of the Lord. And he did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his wife looked on. It happened as the flame went up toward heaven from the altar. The angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar.
When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground. When the angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that he was the angel of Jehovah. And Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die because we have seen God. But his wife said to him, If the Lord had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would he have shown us all these things, nor would he have told us such things as these at this time. The woman brought a son and called him Samson. The child grew, and the Lord blessed him. The Spirit of the Lord began to move upon him. And between Zora and Eshtor. Eshtor. Good. All right.
So we got our three questions to ask ourselves. A. What is this about?
B. What's the best for us to summon? And C. What are we called to do? All right. So what is this about? Well, at the very end, verse 21, we finally get who this is about. 24. 24. Yeah, sorry 20. Yeah, so 24 and 25 finally with the get the judge's name Samson right, but this is like his if he was a superhero, right? He would get in a comic book a whole episode devoted to his Backstory, right? So what's his backstory?
I Can't the Angel of the Lord appeared to them and he was like, you know, well first he appeared to her and he was like, he's gonna be a Nazirite and If he's a Nazirite, you can't even drink anything. Okay, so he puts he said he's gonna be a Nazirite from birth and so she needs to almost take like this female Nazirite type vow until he's born and then after that She tells his husband.
Oh, that's nice, isn't it? husband's and wife's talk. I think you've been doing well, to tell you that much. And then... I want you to not hit your glasses. And then... The father asks, okay, well, can you ask the Lord to send him again? So, the angel of the Lord comes to her again. She runs to her husband and is like, oh look, he's the same guy. And then he repeats the same thing to the husband. And then they offer up an offering to the Lord. Because they didn't know he was the Lord, the angel of the Lord at that point. And then, when they did the bon offering, he ascended up into the flame. Isn't it interesting, did you notice?
The dad wants to know, in verse 12, Manoah asks, what will be the boy's rule of life in his work? Did he ever tell him what his work was going to be? Nope. He said that he was like, well, you know, you should just listen to what I just told you. He's going to be somehow devoted to the Lord. So that's the Lord's prerogative, not his. Don't worry about that. He's going to be set apart from birth, from his life, just like his mom was going to be under this Nazirite vow for a time. That's going to be her son's life. Do you remember what the Nazirite was?
What does that mean? Like, they were almost like holy? I forget. It was something like they were. Yeah, so some people took a temporary Nazirite vow. Some people it was a lifelong one, right? So they wouldn't cut their hair. They wouldn't drink wine. There was a series of things like that. It's funny because God said, oh, which was it then? Like back then it was a discretion of man not to cut his hair. You were talking about Paul and Corinthians with long hair short hair between men and women So that's that's a different type of thing. Yeah, it's a different culture. But yeah, so The point is right that's showing yourself devoted unto the Lord Right for this particular purpose and reason.
Okay, so You're gonna walk out of here And what would you tell your mom? This is about Shouldn't drink any wine Okay, so you're gonna be a teetotaler Except I don't drink any wine. Well, that's right now. So I Said you're 13. I was like That's cuz you're 13. So you shouldn't be drinking wine right now. So I'm glad to hear you're not drinking one Okay, so you're gonna you're gonna tell mom that you're you're gonna be a prohibitionist. Okay? Well in all reality, what would you actually tell her?
Think sometimes the Lord tells us things and I or that's the prayer or reading God's word. You read something, you kind of get this feeling, and you're like, well, that doesn't make sense. Sometimes it's just like, sometimes you just need to trust the Lord. Because it all works out for the cause. Okay, so you're going to say that's kind of what your calling is? Yep. To trust the Lord with whatever He has in store for you, and you just do the next step? Okay.
Yeah, I would say this is Samson's backstory. God being gracious, giving this couple a child. God being gracious and providing for them. But I would also say probably, When it comes to see calling again, we have Matthew's gonna put his own spin on this but and he shall be called the Nazarene at the point not being that Jesus never cut his hair never drink wine because we know he did at the point being that Nazareth would be called because of the Nazarenes so he would the whole idea that Jesus is devoted unto his father not just without word signs, but All the work that his father gave for him to do.
He did. Alright, well let's go ahead and pray. Father we pray that you would please help us to do the work that you put in front of us. We pray that we would follow after you and trust in your ways. God, please give us hearts to look unto our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for the work of your salvation. And thank you for all you have done for us in Jesus' name. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. We'll see you next time. Bye.