[MUSIC PLAYING] Calvary Church is
dedicated to doctrine. And we want you to
experience a life change that comes from knowing God's word
and applying it to your life. So we explain the
Bible verse by verse, every chapter, every book. This is Expound. Turn in your Bibles, please,
to the Book of Judges 12. Judges 12, we continue
the story of a character by the name of Jephthah. What a guy. The gangsta from Gilead,
that's what I'll call him. The guy was a warrior. He was trained to fight people. And he had people
gather around him to help fight the
battles that were written about previously in this book. Now he was an illegitimate
child, we discovered. So his brothers gave
him a hard time, dissed him most of his life. And all of the angst that he
grew up with because of that, we can only imagine. Eventually, he left town
and went way up north to a little town called Tob-- T-O-B. Is it a little cold in here? Is it OK? Is the temp OK? OK. So he went up north. Now when he fled-- and he had been
marginalized by his brothers and by his countrymen--
eventually, they got a hold of him and
said, look, Jephthah, we'd really love you
to come back to town. We're really sorry for
the way we treated you. And if you come back and
fight against our enemies, we'll make you the guy
in charge of all of us. And he goes, wait a minute. You guys never liked
me, wanted me gone. I left. Now you want me back. And he goes, yeah,
we want you back because there is this
group called the Ammonites. And they're too strong for
us and we need somebody as just sort of a crazy warrior. And you fit the bill. And so we see that
he was able to defeat the enemy, the Ammonites,
those on the eastern side of the Jordan River. In modern day Jordan, Amman, we
said the city of Amman, Jordan, today hails back
to the ancient area and place of the Ammonites. So he came back and did it. But when he was about
to go into the battle, he made this stupid vow. We saw that last week as well. He said, you know, Lord,
I'm telling You now-- I'm making this vow to You
now-- that when I come back from the battle, if You give
me victory, whatever first comes out of my
house I will give to You as a burnt offering. It's the stupidest thing
a guy could ever say. But he said it. And it is one of the
mysteries of the Bible. We don't know why he said it. Except, as I explained last
week, he was half Canaanite. And part of the pagan religions,
often generals would do that. They would offer people as a
burnt sacrifice to their pagan god. And so we can automatically
see that Jephthah had lowered the ideal God
of the universe, Jahweh, the only true and living
God, and brought Him down to the level of a
Canaanite deity. So he doesn't have a
healthy view of God. He's not really walking in
the fellowship with the God of the Bible that we know. He is still working off
of an ancient paradigm. And again, we
mentioned last week, we don't know what
he was expecting when he made that
vow, what he thought would come out of his house. Maybe a cat that he never
liked and this is a good way to get rid of that
cat or a calf that he didn't get care, an animal, or
a mother-in-law, or his wife. We don't know. But his daughter came out. And there's dispute as
to what happened to that, but probably he went
through with that grisly vow just to show how low the
country had sunk at that time. That was in the
previous chapters. Now, we're not
done with Jephthah but we're about to
be in this chapter. We discover that
Jephthah has enemies in a lot of different places. Jephthah had enemies
in his own home. His brothers marginalized
him, wanted him gone, pushed him out. Then he had enemies in
the nation next to him. The Ammonites were
the national enemies. Now we discover
that there's a tribe of Israel that wants to kill
him, called the Ephraimites. These are among
the people of God. So he has enemies in the home. He has enemies abroad. And he has enemies in the
fellowship, you might say, the fellowship of
God's own people. In the Book of
Galatians, it talks about the works of the flesh
versus the fruit of the Spirit. And Paul said the works
of the flesh are evident. And he lists several things
that are the works of the flesh. See if you can relate
to any of these-- contentions is one of them. That's divisions between people. People have something
against somebody else. These are social sins. They can happen in churches. They can happen in families. They can happen in societies. Contentions, also jealousies,
and outbursts of wrath. Contentions, jealousies,
and outbursts of wrath. There's an interesting
story about a little boy who was driving down the
street with his mother. And as they were driving,
the little boy said, you know, mom, when I'm
with dad and he's driving, we see way more idiots
on the road than whenever I drive with you. [LAUGHTER] Now, that gave insight
to that man's wife of what kind of a driver
and what kind of an example that her husband is
being to her son. Outbursts of wrath,
contentions, maybe even jealousies because
the guy in front got in and pulled
in front of you. Now I share that scripture
because that is what we see happening in Chapter 12-- contentions, jealousies,
and outbursts of wrath. The Ephraimites have
been holding a grudge. And I mean for a long time. For like 50 years they've
been holding grudges. Somebody once said the heaviest
thing you can carry around is a pack of grudges. And they've been carrying
this grudge for over 50 years. You may remember that
when Gideon fought the Midianites and
the men of Ephraim heard that Gideon had done that
and that he won the battle, the Ephraimites came
and they were angry. And the reason
they were angry is because Gideon went to
battle against the enemy but did not inform
the Ephraimites and the Ephraimites were
unable to help in the battle. So they got in a tizzy,
got all angry at Gideon. Why didn't you invite us, man? We're mad at you. We're going to get you. And Gideon, far from Jephthah,
Gideon was diplomatic. Gideon basically
said, hey, man, you got to understand that
the gleaning of Ephraim are much better and much more
than the vintage of Abiezer. And what he meant
by that is, yeah, I may have killed an army
of only 135,000 people, but you killed two dudes. And what you did was
way more than what I did because the two dudes that
you killed were the leaders. So we have this whole
harvest, this whole vintage, that we took care of but you
managed to get the leaders. So in a very diplomatic way,
he complimented the Ephraimites and it settled them down. 50 years later, the Ephraim
arts Ephraimites are back and they're angry again. This time they're
not angry Gideon. Gideon is long gone. But they're angry at
Jephthah because Jephthah fought against
one of the enemies and didn't ask the
Ephraimites along. So they really
want to fight, man. They want to Scrap So 12:1-- "Then
the men of Ephraim gathered together, crossed
over towards Zaphon and said to Jephthah,
'Why did you cross over to fight the people of Ammon and
did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house down
on you with fire.'" Wow. Would you say that's
an overreaction? These guys really
are troublemakers. Now they're supposedly
the people of God. They're one of the
tribes of Israel. And they're coming to
another fellow brother Israelite saying, You
didn't bring us in on this. We're jealous. We're angry. We're contentious. Here's our outburst of wrath. We're going to burn your
house and your family down. Now that's a trial. Some of you are upset because
you've gone through a trial lately. You're mad at your boss
because he fired you. This guy is facing real fire. Like we're going to
burn your house down. This is a real trial. So now he's going to respond. But he does not respond like
the diplomat that Gideon was. This guy's a scrapper, too. He's a fighter. So Jephthah this said to
them, "My people and I were in a great struggle
with the people of Ammon. And when I called
you, you did not deliver me out of their hands." I did ask for you guys. You must not have got the memo
because you didn't respond, but I did invite you. "So when I saw that you
would not deliver me, I took my life in my
hands and crossed over against the people
of Ammon and the Lord delivered them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me
this day to fight against me?" Now please, again, get
the picture of this. You have an Israelite fighting
and other fellow Israelite. About to get into
a civil war, and it will break out into that. The real enemy, the
Ammonites, have been defeated. But there are other
real enemies around them who want to destroy
them as a nation. But they're busy
fighting each other. And I sometimes
feel that Christians fight the wrong enemy. We fight each other rather than
fighting Satan and his minions, and the ideologies, and the
principalities, and the powers. But we get so myopic that we
turn our swords on one another. According to Jesus,
unity in the church proves the veracity of
the message of the church, proves the message
of the gospel. When Jesus prayed for
future believers in John 17, you remember how He prayed. He prayed for His
disciples, but He said, I pray not
only for these alone but all of those
who will believe in Me through their word that
they may be one as We are one, that the world may
believe that You sent Me. So unity is a proof
of the veracity of the message of the gospel. The unity of the people of
Israel is at stake here. It was the Puritan by the
name of Thomas Manton who said division in the church
breeds atheism in the world. When we are divided, when
we take our swords out to fight each other
and destroy each other and the world looks at
that-- and by the way, they're looking. They're watching. We live before watchful eyes. When they see anger, and
they see contentions, and jealousies, and
outbursts of wrath, the thinking atheist,
the thinking agnostic, the thinking
unbeliever says, why would I ever want to
join a group like that? They hate each other. They can't stand each other. They're fighting each other. If that's what it means to be
the people of God, I'm all set. I don't need that. "Now Jephthah gathered
together all the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim." There it is. There is the civil war. "And the men of Gilead defeated
Ephraim because they said, you Gileadites are
fugitives of Ephraim." You guys are just rejects, man. You're outcasts. You're good for nothing. You're losers, a
bunch of losers. "You are fugitives of
Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Mannassites." So it got personal. And he took matters into his
own hands, once again fought against them. The Gileadites seized the
fords of the Jordan--" that is the Jordan River, the
crossing areas of the Jordan up north-- "before the Ephraimites arrived. And when any Ephraimite
who escaped said, let me cross over, the men
of Gilead would say to him, 'Are you an Ephraimite?' And if he said, 'No," then
they would say to him, "Then say 'Shibboleth' for he
could not pronounce it right. And he would say
'Sibboleth' for he could not pronounce it right. Then they would take
him and kill him at the fords of the Jordan. There fell at that time
42,000 Ephraimites." They were able to identify
the men of Ephraim by a colloquial
mispronunciation. They knew they couldn't
say a certain word the way it should be pronounced
in the Hebrew. In the Hebrew language,
there is a letter called the Shin, the Shin
or the Sheen, as they say. It looks to us like a W,
but it's pronounced Sh. There is another letter in
Hebrew that's called Samekh. And Samekh is the S
pronunciation, not the Sh, sheen, pronunciation. So they knew that
the people of Ephraim couldn't quite say
the Sh sound but they had their own way of saying it. And so they would just
say, are you an Ephraimite? Oh, no, I'm not an Ephraimites. OK. Then say this word "Shibboleth." Now "shibboleth" is a word
that means a flowing stream. Knowing that if they
were an Ephraimite, they wouldn't be
able to pronounce it, they would have more of a
modern Arabic pronunciation and say "Sibboleth." They go, he's an
Ephraimite, kill him. That was their test. It was a verbal test. They were saved by one word or
killed by one word, indicted by one word. Shibboleth, as I mentioned-- I think I mentioned it--
it means a flowing stream in Hebrew, a creek, a rivulet. So we, in our culture,
also have certain ways of enunciating and pronouncing
words in different regions. The South sounds very
different than the North. The East sounds very
different than the West. New Mexico has its own
phonetic grid as well. People that move
here notice that. So you can just tell. Oh, I can tell what
part of the country you're from by the
way you're talking. So we might have
a test like this. And we would say, "Say creek." Right? That's shibboleth,
creek, a flowing stream. Say "creek" and somebody
would go "crick." No, you didn't say right. Kill him. So that's the way
they could tell if they were an Ephraimite
because they knew the way they pronounced things. Now, here is a lesson I want
to sort of use to get there. In a similar way, you and
I are saved by one word. It says in the scriptures,
it begins in the Book of Acts and the thread follows
through to Romans, et cetera, that whoever calls on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. If you believe in your
heart that God raised Him from the dead and you confess
with your mouth the Lord Jesus, you shall be saved. We're saved by confessing that. But Jesus said, not everyone
who says, Lord, Lord will enter the
kingdom of heaven. Many will come to
Me in that day Lord, we prophesied in Your name. Lord, we cast out
demons in Your name. Lord, we did many wonderful
deeds in Your name. And I will say to
them, I never knew you. Depart from me you
workers of iniquity. Because it's not that you
can just say "Jesus is Lord," you have to have
the right accent. You have to mean
it in the heart. It has to be authentic. It has to be real. And he can tell the accent. He can tell if it's real or not. He can tell if it's
just lipping the words or if you're really one of
His, if you really know Him. We are saved by one word-- the word of faith that comes
by believing Jesus Christ is the Lord. "There fell at that time
42,000 Ephraimites." That's a sad part of this story. And verse 7, "and Jephthah
judged Israel six years. Then Jephthah, the Gileadite--"
that gangstah from Gilead-- "died and was buried in one
of the cities of Gilead." Now we come to the 10th
judge in this period, a guy by the name of Ibzan,
Ibzan the Bethlehemite. "After him, Ibzan of
Bethlehem judged Israel." Now when you think of Bethlehem,
you think of somebody else born there and that is-- Jesus. Jesus. But now let me complicate
things for you. There wasn't just one Bethlehem. There were at least
two Bethlehems. And you go, oh, man, why
did they have to do that? Well, we have Cuba, New Mexico. We have a Las Vegas over here. And when you say, I'm
going to Las Vegas, most people in America don't
think of the one just up I-25, they think of the one
over in Nevada, Nevada. So there was a
Bethlehem down in Judah where Jesus was born but there
was also a Bethlehem up north around Mount Tabor
region up in the north where these things
are taking place. Probably he was from that
area, that Bethlehem. It simply means
Bethlehem is a name that means "the House of bread"
or "the place of bread," "the bread basket,"
"the place where you grow wheat," essentially. [HEBREW] the place of bread. So "Ibzan of Bethlehem--" that
is up north-- "judged Israel. He had 30 sons and he gave
away 30 daughters in marriage and brought in 30 daughters
from elsewhere for his sons. He judged Israel
seven years then Ibzan died and was
buried at Bethlehem" It's an interesting
bit of information that he had 30 sons, that
he brought in 30 daughters, that he gave away
other children. Now what is going on here
was a diplomatic ploy. This is part of
ancient diplomacy. And it happened, not just in
ancient times in the Middle East, but over in Europe and in
England where if you're a king or you're a ruler, you
try to establish marriages between your children
and other leaders to expand your influence
and, hopefully, your control of land. So that's what the
intermarriage-- obviously, he had many wives to produce
this many children. I can't imagine one woman
pumping out this many kids. So he probably had several
wives and quite a large family and was bringing in diplomacy. But it's beautiful that idea
of expanding your influence by bringing in
children from afar. And I do think that one
of the things the church needs to think about, and
address, and look at, and add help to-- especially those
of us and hopefully it's all of us that strongly
believe in a pro-life platform. That children are
God's special creation. Life begins at conception. And we believe that. The Bible teaches that. There's no argument there. However, there are an
awful lot of mothers who bear those children who
feel isolated and detached. And the idea of the church
saying, you know, what? We'll help you. We'll even adopt your children. We'll bring in
children from afar and make them a
part of our family, because after all you and I are
adopted into the family of God, into the royal family of God. We are here by adoption. Our faith in Jesus Christ brings
us into a unique relationship. Paul the Apostle says,
we are adopted children of God having all the privileges
of natural born children, but it's by the new
birth that we are adopted into the family of God. So the idea of Christians
adopting children who are born, helping out those mothers. Or, if those mothers
want to raise them, the church getting behind in
helping those mothers to make that influence solid
and Christlike I think is an important component. So I love the idea that you
can expand your influence in that capacity. This week I was on a Zoom
call with a Christian leader in another city. He is a son of a very
famous evangelist. And he's been a leader
in our country for years. And I know of his
father and have served with his father
in various ways. But he told me,
he says, you know, I'm adopted by my parents. I'm not a natural born child. Now, here this guy has a
national platform himself and is influencing
people himself but it's because
when he was born, he was adopted into this family. And I just thought the power of
Christian adoption be immense. So enough said on that. But I think that's a
beautiful example here. "Then Ibzan died and
was buried in Bethlehem. After him, Elon the
Zebulunite judged Israel. And he judged Israel 10 years. And Elon the Zebulunite died
and was buried in Aijalon in the country of Zebulun." So we have Ibzan and Elon. And after him comes Abdon. Now I'm guessing that these
are names that some of you may have known were there. But most of us really aren't
familiar with these people because they're mentioned. No great accomplishment is
described by any of them. Certainly not like Gideon or
Jephthah or anything else. No other stories are attached. It just said they
came on the scene. They judged Israel. They did their job. They died. They're just kind of giving
us information of born, died, and then the next person,
almost like a place holder. So we are unfamiliar. When we talk about our favorite
characters in the Bible, we probably don't
bring up Ibzan. Oh, you know, Elon, that dude. Or Abdon, those were cool guys. We don't give them
a second thought. Most of us don't
know they're there. There's a principle in that. Just because you are out
there doing your job, doing what God called you to
do, but nobody else recognizes that, don't think that
that should diminish who you are before the Lord nor
your importance in His scheme, and plan, and kingdom. [APPLAUSE] So there is a scripture
I want to share with you. It's one of my favorites. But I like to bring it up
whenever I bring up people like this who are in the
Bible but nobody really knows about them. It says-- this is
now the last chapter of the Old Testament, the
Book of Malachi, in Chapter 3. Not the last chapter,
second to the last chapter-- Malachi 3. It's tucked away is
this little promise. "Then those who
feared the Lord spoke to one another and the Lord
listened and heard them. So a book of remembrance
was written before him for those who fear the Lord
and who meditate on His name." The Lord has a special
place to record the names of people who
love Him, who fear Him, and who speak to
others about Him. Even if nobody
knows who you are, even if you're Abdon or an Elon
or an Ibzan, or a Zebulunite, or a Bethlehemite, or all these
other -ites that nobody really knows or cares about, God knows. God cares. And God records it. And what's important
in life isn't that people know that you
did great things for the Lord or recognize that you are a very
important person in the church. What matters the most is that
one day you will hear your Lord say to you, Well done,
good and faithful servant. You've been faithful in little,
I will reward you with much. Enter into the joy of your Lord. That's what's most important. Live for that. Live for the Lord saying,
awesome, good job, because the Lord records it
and the Lord will reward it eventually. So these people are
important otherwise they wouldn't be mentioned, even
though we wouldn't necessarily give them much time
beyond just this. Verse 13, "After him Abdon, the
son of Hillel the Pirathonite." Now what is a Pirathonite? Oh, come on, it's a
guy from Pirathon, wherever the heck that is. It's probably some
little town up north, again around the
Mount Tabor region we believe, right at
the foot of the hill. Some have identified it. But he was from that region
and he judged Israel. "He had 40 sons and 30 grandsons
who rode on 70 young donkeys." OK. So let me just
refresh your memory. You remember, it was last time
or the time before when we looked at a guy by the name
of Jair, or spelled with a J, Jair, Jair, J-A-I-R,
Jair is his Hebrew name. And it says he had 30 sons
who wrote on 30 donkeys. This guy at 30 sons and a
whole bunch of grandkids, 70, and they all wrote on a donkey. So he out Jair-ed Jair. It's sort of like keeping
up with the Joneses that almost looks like. There's another thought though. Some believe that placing
children and grandchildren on donkeys wasn't just the
fact that they had money but that they had influence
because they had the money to buy the donkeys. And in effect, by putting
them on a donkey in his name is to deputize them. So that he's a judge
and he did his thing in judging Israel,
adjudicating cases in Israel, but he deputized
sons and grandsons so that order, and
peace, and rule of law could be seen throughout
the land because of them. That is an interesting thought. And I wouldn't be beyond
interpreting that way. We just don't know. So "he judged
Israel eight years. Then Abdon the son of Hillel the
Pirathonite died and was buried in Pirathon--" which he
should be because that's where he's from-- "in the land of Ephraim in the
mountains of the Amalekites." Now look at verse
1 of chapter 13. You should be used
to this song by now. You should know the tune. They keep singing this same
old song over and over again. "And again the
children of Israel did evil in the
sight of the Lord." This is the seventh cycle of
sin in the Book of Judges. Seventh time we read this. "And again they did evil
in the sight of the Lord." It just keeps getting worse. Now beginning in this chapter,
Chapter 13, 14, 15, 16, we read about one of
the most famous people in all of the Old Testament,
a guy by the name of Samson. One of the judges of
Israel named Samson. A real he-man. A he-man with a she-weakness. Boy, was he weak in
the area of the flesh, when it came to
chicks, when it came to women, when it came
to looking at a woman and being enticed by her lust. And it came to destroy him. It seems like he had a pretty
good home, a great upbringing. His parents hear from God. If they had one
fault, I would say they were awfully indulgent of
this kid, kind of giving them whatever he wants, letting
him kind of be the boss and keeping up with his demands. But though he had a great
upbringing, a good home, he becomes very
promiscuous, very violent, and very arrogant. Promiscuous, violent, arrogant. And yet, the Spirit of God
moved through him mightily. It's one of the weird
conundrums of scripture. And he shows up as
one of the judges. Samson-- and you've
heard of him since you were in Sunday School. I mean, he is the Superman of
the OT, of the Old Testament. He is the Terminator of
Israel, the Transformer. I mean this guy can take
a jaw bone of a donkey and kill a whole
bunch of Philistines. He can take 300 foxes,
tie their tails together and burn fields down. He can run 38 miles
with doors on his back. He's astonishing. It is pretty amazing. As bad as he is
morally, Sampson's the guy you want
as your big brother when you're in
trouble, OK, frankly. I had a Samson in my
life, my brother Bob. I don't know if you know this or
not, but I'm one of four boys. I'm the baby of four boys. And I'm 6 foot 5. So people are, well,
you're a big baby. My brother Bob was
6 foot 8 inches. I looked up to him. Everybody looked up to him. And Bob was rough. Bob was wide shouldered,
bushy blond hair, 6 foot 8, rode an old Harley Davidson. Kind of liked the biker
look, the gang look. And whenever I was in
trouble, all I had to do was give Bob a call
and he was more than anxious to cause some trouble. And I will admit I
took advantage of that. It was like, OK, you
want to mess with me, you're going to have to
answer to Sampson over here because he's coming after you. "So the children
of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord
and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the
Philistines for--" notice this-- "40 years." This is important because it's
the longest period recorded so far of them then being
hassled by a foreign country-- 40 years. Now this is going to
continue into their future. The Philistines become
prominent from here all the way throughout the Book
of Samuel, the reign of the first king, King Saul. Even King David will be
hassling with the Philistines. So they're kind
of in it to stay. Now let me give you a
little bit of background on the Philistines, because
you've heard their name but it's about time that
you kind of understand their history and where
they fit in the Bible. The Philistines were not
Canaanites originally. They were from the West. They were from the
Aegean Sea region from the area of
Greece and Caphtor. Caphtor is the old name
for the island of Crete. So they were in the islands
around the Aegean Sea. They were a mighty seagoing
people, sea warriors. At about 1200 BC, they
decided to leave their region because it seemed they were
being forced out by invaders. So they left the Aegean
Islands and they moved to Egypt or they tried to attack Egypt. They lost. Because they lost in
Egypt, they moved just up the coast from
Egypt and settled on the sea coast of Israel. And they settled in five cities,
five cities that you know-- Ashkelon is one of them. Ashkelon is still a
city today in Israel. Ashdod still a city in Israel. Gaza, you've heard of the
Gaza Strip and Gaza City. It's still a place
over there though it is under Palestinian-- they occupy it and live in it. So Ashdod, Ashkelon,
Gaza, Gath, and Ekron, those were the five
cities of the Philistines. Because the Philistines
were really good at political organization,
they maintained a relationship of those five cities
for years, for years. And they were skilled at
metal making, metallurgy. And because they were
skilled at metallurgy, they could make
implements for plowing. They could make
implements for war. So they had the edge
literally and figuratively when it came to
fighting battles. And so they were a force
to be reckoned with. And they will be strong
in that region up until the time of
David when David will defeat Goliath
the Philistine giant and put the Philistines at bay. But it will take a while. They were not a Semitic
people, by the way. History tells us that they
were tall and Hellenic looking or fair skinned and kind of
Greek looking but in a fairer skinned type of a way. But they didn't look like
the people of Canaan. So they come in. They settle in the land. And 10 times the whole region
of southern Israel is called-- 10 times in the Bible it's
called Philistia, Philistia. I want you to know
that named Philistia because the Greek term for
Philistia is Palestine. Now Palestine was never a word. It was a Greek word. So the Greeks would
talk about Palestinians and they meant Philistines. And after the Philistines
were taken out of the country and it became Israel, nobody
talked about the Philistines again. We don't know. I can't find a Philistine today. They don't exist that we
know of in a pure way. However, when the Romans came
in and took over the land at the time of the New
Testament, and the temple was destroyed in 70 AD. At about 135 AD, an
emperor, a Roman emperor, by the name of Hadrian-- because he knew a little bit
about the history of Judea-- he decided, just
sort of as a way to just rub their noses
in it, he renamed southern Israel and Judah
Palestine, which meant Philistia or Philistia
the land of the Philistines. So when you hear
people say, well, there really is no Palestinian
people today, it's correct. It's a correct statement. There are none because
it hearkens back to the Philistines. And it was a name co-opted
by a Roman dictator who wanted to call that
region Palestine once again. But that's an older term. You'll never hear people
that live in Israel call it Palestine, they call it Israel. Unless they live in
Palestinian regions, then they don't like Israel and
they want to call it Palestine. But that's a
geopolitical debate. And we can talk about
that at another time. Wanted to give you
the background. So the Philistines
occupied it for 40 years. "Now there was a certain
man from Zorah--" that's down south-- "of the family of the Danites
whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren
and had no children." Now the tribe of Dan-- I'm saying this for
you bibliophiles, you Bible students, because
if you're a Bible student, you think of the tribe
of Dan as being up north. And you would be correct. But originally, the tribe
of Dan was not up north. It was down south by
Judah and Benjamin. That was its tribal allotment. But eventually, by Judges
18, they will migrate. The Danites, because the
Philistines were so strong, they couldn't settle the land. So they said bye-bye,
see you later. And they moved way up north
so that the tribe of Dan occupied the northern-- and it's
a beautiful part of the country that they eventually
ended up in. So we don't know if this
was before that migration or after that migration, but
they were still down south, these Danites. And it says in
verse 3, "The angel of the Lord appeared
to the woman--" doesn't give her name-- "and said to her,
"Indeed now you are barren and have
borne no children, but you shall conceive
and bear a son." So we have a couple
from the tribe of Dan. His name is Manoah. We don't know her name. Let's just call her Mrs. Manoah. They're going to have a
son by the name of Samson. But she is unable
to bear children. Now as you know, in ancient
times to be childless was quite a stigma. It was seen as a curse. It was very difficult for
infertile women in those days because their place
in that culture almost demanded for
them to have worth they had to produce children. Sarah was barren and the
Lord moved on her behalf. Elizabeth in the New Testament
barren, but John the Baptist comes from her. Samuel has a mother
by the name of Hannah. She is barren. She is at the Tabernacle
pleading before the Lord. So there is a string of
these interventions where God appears or an
angel of the Lord appears and promises
women who can't naturally conceive that they
are going to conceive. And this was a natural
conception, of course, but the angel of the
Lord said you're barren, but you're going to conceive. You're going to bear a son. "Now therefore
please be careful not to drink wine or
a similar drink--" a similar drink would
be grape juice-- "not to eat any
unclean thing, for behold you shall
conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his
head--" now we understand why in the next phrase-- "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." God's hand is on this couple. God's hand is going to be on
this corrupt, conniving guy by the name of Samson. He's called into a
life of dedication. He's going to be a Nazarite. Now you remember from
our study in Numbers 6 the vow of a Nazarite. The word [HEBREW],, in
Hebrew [HEBREW] Nazarite means to be dedicated,
to be consecrated. It was somebody who would
consecrate themselves voluntarily to the Lord
for a period of time. According to the Jewish
Mishnah, it was 100 days. Typically as history
went on, it was just for about a month, a month. Do you remember
in Acts 21, there were men in Jerusalem who
had taken a Nazarite vow and they wanted Paul to go
to the temple with them, pay the money because
it was quite costly. To underwrite you had to bring-- so first of all, you
abstain from wine. You abstain from grapes. You can't touch that
corpse, a dead body, even your own relative,
lest you get defiled. You are separated under God. And it's purely
voluntary, typically. If you just say, you know what? I want to give my life for
the next 30 days, 100 days, totally to the Lord. So as a male, what you
would do is first of all, you would shave your
head and your beard and then you'd let it grow. And you would go
through these rituals of not drinking anything,
not touching a corpse, not going to a funeral, even
if it's your dad or mom. You're dedicating yourself
wholly to the Lord, voluntarily to the Lord. At the end of that, you'd
shave your head again, hair again, beard, and you
would bring a year-old lamb. You would bring a ram
as a peace offering. And your hair would also
be burned on the altar. You would then pay the
priest some money for this. That's what happened in Acts 21. That's what Paul was doing. Every now and then--
and here's one of them-- the Lord would instruct somebody
to be a Nazarite for life, for life, from birth. So it began with Mrs. Manoah. Mrs. Manoah, you can't
have anything to drink. You can't defile yourself
because when you have a son. He's going to have
a lifelong Nazarite. He's going to be
completely dedicated to Me. So that's the idea of
growing the hair out. So let me tell you the
symbolism really quick. The reason they were
not to drink wine is because it was
sending a message. The idea of grapes or the
fruit of the vine or wine was sort of natural joy. And so it's saying my
joy is in the Lord alone. I don't derive my joy from
anything false or anything that would inebriate me. I only am joyful in the Lord. It's a dedication to Him. Number two, the idea of
growing out your hair was, in one sense,
to bear shame. There's that text
even in Corinthians. Is it 1 Corinthians
11 where Paul says doesn't even nature itself
say that it's a shame for a man to have long hair? Doesn't say it's a sin, by the
way, it says, it's in one sense a shame. So the idea of I'm
going to bear shame was the idea of a Nazarite. And then not touching the dead,
you can't defile yourself. Now, I'm giving
you the background because Sampson's going to
blow it in all these areas. He's going to go
into a vineyard. He's going to touch a corpse. He's just going to
kind of free wheel his Nazarite right thing kind of
however he wants it, as you'll see in chapters ahead. But that's the idea
of a Nazarite vow. So angel of the Lord appeared
to her, told her that. Verse 6, "So the
woman came and told her husband saying, 'A
man of God came to me. And his countenance was like,
oh, he looked like an angel'" Now maybe her husband was
getting a little jealous at this. A guy showed up and
his wife's saying, man, he just looks so good,
looking like 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. Now drink no wine
or similar drink, nor 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, O, Jahweh, please let the man
of God whom You sent come--" notice this-- "to us
again and teach us what we shall do for the
child who will be born." You know, the angel
appeared to his wife. He wasn't even around. His wife says, You would not
believe who showed up today. Angel of God came. Guy was awesome. Can't tell you his name. Don't know who he was,
but he was awesome. So he goes, What, oh,
Lord, send him back. For us, I want to see him, too. So watch this. "And God listen to
the voice of Manoah. And the angel of God came
to the woman again--" again, he's not a part of it-- "for she was sitting
in the field and Manoah her husband was not with her." So he prays, Lord,
send him back to us. God sends him back to her. Now I don't want to
press this too far, but what is she doing
out in the field? What does this say she is doing? She's sitting. We don't know what
Manoah was doing. I'm guessing he was busy. He was working. But she is sitting. You remember Mary of
Bethany, Mary and Martha? Martha was working and
working and Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus. And Martha gets upset because
Mary is just sitting around, soaking it all in. And she says, Jesus,
tell Mary to get up and do a little bit of work. I'm doing it all myself. And Jesus said, I'm not
going to tell her that. She has chosen the better part. It's not going to be
taken away from her. You are worried and
distracted with many things. Mary is sitting. She has chosen the better part. This gal was sitting long
enough to watch and to listen. Sometimes we are so
busy doing things. And I feel women generally are
better at this, at perceiving spiritual things, than men are. Sorry, guys. Not always the case,
but generally I found that to be so. It's just sort of I'm painting
with a broom, I know it. I might get in
trouble, don't care. It's just something
I've noticed. "Then the woman ran in
haste and told her husband." Angel, angel, stay right there. Don't go anywhere. I'm glad you came again. But, but, but, but
hold that thought. "And said to him, 'Look, the
man just now appeared to me, the one who came to
me the other day.' So Manoah 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.' And Manoah said, 'Now let
your words come to pass. What will be the boy's rule of
life and his work?'" Now his wife told him already, but he
wants to hear directly from the angel of the Lord. What did you have in mind
for this child that you promised we're going to have? Now here's what I like-- most men, lots of men,
kind of have in mind what they want for their son. This is how I picture
my son growing up. He's going to play football
like I played football or he's going to be really
good on the golf course. My dad was a great golfer,
made all of us learn golf, wanted all of us
to be pro golfers. My brother actually
became a PGA pro, not me. But a lot of times
dads have in mind what they want for their kids. Here's a dad who says, what
do you want for my kid? You made the promise. You're going to bless us. Tell us what you have in mind. The Bible says train
up a child in the way that he should go not
in the way that you have pre-molded in your mind
how you want him to turn out. Discover what the Lord put
within him or her and let them fulfill God's plan. So he asked, "'What is it that
You have as 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 similar
drink, nor eat anything unclean. All that I commanded
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." This is Middle East hospitality. You know what? Stay right there. It's lunchtime. Do you mind? We're going to shish kebab. We want you to come
and be a part of this. "So the angel of the
Lord said to Manoah, 'Though you detain me, I
will not eat your food. But if you offer
a burnt 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 the Lord, '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 that it is Wonderful?'" Now that should set up a
little flag in your mind when you read that word,
"My name is wonderful." It happens to be the exact
same word as Isaiah 9:6. "And His name shall be
called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase
of His government, there will be no end
upon the throne of David to order and establish
it." it's that word. The angel of the Lord,
as I've told you before, is a Christophany. It's an appearance, a
pre-incarnate appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. And as the Messiah is predicted
in Isaiah 9:6 as being called "Wonderful," "'Why do you ask
My name seeing it is Wonderful?' So Manoah took the young goat
with a grain offering, offered it up on the rock to the Lord. And he did a wondrous thing
while Manoah and his wife looked on. As the flame went up toward
heaven from the altar, it happened that the
angel of the Lord ascended in the
flame of the altar." So there was an
ascension that took place with this Mr. Wonderful. "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,
Manoah knew that He was the angel of the Lord. And Manoah said to
his wife, 'We're dead. We shall surely die
because we have seen God.'" And I like her answer. "His wife said to him, 'If
the Lord 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.'" We're dead. He's hysterical. It's interesting that
she is more logical. She goes, now wait a
minute, sweetheart. If He wanted to
kill us, why did He say we're going to have a son? If He kills us, we
can't have a son. We can't have a son. So He's told us we're
going to have a son. He's told us all these things. And you saw what He did, so
I think you're overreacting. I like it. She's just so logical. "So the woman bore a son." Just a little bit of
a note on something. You see Manoah's reaction. And Manoah is
driven by feelings. He's superstitious. And he-- uh and uh-- overreacts. And he's very, very driven by
how he feels at the moment. That's what it
appears like to me. Tuck that away, because
his son is going to be like that in spades. Kids watch what their parents
do and how they react to things. Those young eyes are watching. And young, little
Sampson is going to bear many of these marks
but in a very, very bad way. "So the woman bore a son and
called his name--" Sunny boy. [HEBREW] in Hebrew. Samson means "of the son," which
really is probably of a pagan origin because the
temple to the SUN was in Beit Shemesh which
is next door to this. And "of the sun"
probably hearkens to the worship of the sun god. So "of the son" is his name
or "sunny boy" literally. But don't let that throw
you that they would name him that because a lot of times
we name our children not Bible names, but we name them
kind of familiar names that have all sorts of origins. We just like the sound of it. So don't get too hard on
them for naming him Sampson. So named him Samson, Samson. "And the child grew and
the Lord blessed him." And here's the last
verse of this chapter. And we'll close with this verse. "And the Spirit
of the Lord began to move upon him at Mahaneh-dan
between Zorah and Eshtaol." You need to mark that verse
because his long hair was not the secret of his strength. The secret of Samson's strength
is that the Spirit of the Lord began to move on him. The long hair was simply
a badge, an emblem, an outward sign of supposedly
the inward vow that he had made, the vow of the Nazarite. So the Lord will come upon
him, like He does here, come upon him for key
times of deliverance from the Philistines. In the Old Testament,
the Holy Spirit comes upon certain people
and they're weird people. These are not
always great people. They are not always
godly people. Did you know that
Nebuchadnezzar, a pagan king, is called the
servant of the Lord? As is Cyrus, servant of
the Lord, my servant Cyrus? Far from being God's
servant, He was really God's pawn on God's chessboard. But because God moved
him the way He wanted to, he is called a
servant of the Lord. And the Spirit of
God moved Cyrus. And the Spirit of God
moved Nebuchadnezzar. And the spirit of God moved
on this leader, this judge, Samson. You're going to see in the
next couple of chapters that Samson had incredible
potential, spiritually speaking, but he
ends up pitifully. And I'll tell you why
more so next week. But we're out of time this week. Think of his name,
Samson, of the sun. He should have shown brightly. You know, the sun is a
tremendous sense of energy. In the last several
years, we have tapped into what's
called solar energy. You can take a solar
cell, point it the sun. There is an abundance of
sunshine in the Southwest. You can charge up
that solar cell. It can store energy. And it can be used. Samson was like a solar
cell on a cloudy day. He could have had so much
more spiritual energy to conquer the flesh, to
become a leader of Israel in a better, longer
capacity than he did, but he used up
all of that energy from the sun in the
wrong direction. So he's like a solar
cell on a cloudy day. He could have been so much more. Now God used him. And he goes down in history as
one of the most famous people ever. But you know how poorly he ends. He starts well. He ends very poorly. And next week we're
going to see why as we cover the
next two chapters. Father, thank You
for the ability to look at men like Jephthah,
and Ibzan, and Elon, and Abdon, as well as Samson. And Father, whether we
are known like Samson who is known more
infamously than famously, or we're not really known
because we're kind of tucked away like some of these
others, how we thank You that You notice. You recognize and
a written record is kept before You, so to speak,
so You will reward openly, not those who achieve
great things, but those who are faithful to
You in whatever You've called them to do. Lord, some here
are professionals. Some are laborers. Some are called to
full-time ministry. Some are called to
part-time ministry. Some are called
to ministry later in life, some early in life. Lord, we're Your
people and we just want to discover who You've
made us to be and faithfully serve You in that capacity. But we pray, Lord, that we
will take in all the energy from the S-O-N, from
the Son of God, who is so wonderful that it would
transform our lives inwardly, personally, as well
as that we could be used of You in our
community, in our state, and in our nation. May we be faithful to
Your calling in our lives, we ask in Jesus' name. And God's people said Amen. Let's all stand. [MUSIC PLAYING] For more resources from Calvary
Church and Skip Heitzig, visit calvarynm.church. Thank you for joining us during
this teaching in our Expound series. [MUSIC PLAYING]
