Opening Scripture Reading: Luke 1:26-38
Dear people of God, I invite you to open your Bibles to Luke chapter 1 for our New Testament reading, verses 26 through 38:
“In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ And Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’ And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.”
The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Opening Prayer
Let’s go before God in prayer:
“Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you one more time this morning because we love you, because we want to hear your voice, because we want to be convicted of our sins. We want to be comforted by your grace and your power. O Lord, we ask for the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds and hearts, to open our eyes to see wonderful things in your law. Help us, O Lord, to grasp the wonders of this gospel and help us not only to understand with our minds and hearts but to practice them in our lives with our hands. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.”
You may be seated.
The Birth of Samson
I invite you to open the Bible to the book of Judges, chapter 13. I’m going to read about the birth narrative of Samson, a very well-known character of the Bible. Kids, you probably know him well for his strength, for his hair—big hair—and all those stories you read in the books. Today we’re going to read from the Scriptures the birth narrative of Samson and try to understand how God used this man and the promise of his birth as a deliverer to save His people from oppression. So let’s give attention to the Word of God, chapter 13 of Judges, the story of Samson:
“And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years. There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children. And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, ‘Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.’ Then the woman came and told her husband, ‘A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of an angel of God, very awesome. I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name, but he said to me, “Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.”’ Then Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.’ And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her. So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, ‘Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.’ And Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said to him, ‘Are you the man who spoke to this woman?’ And he said, ‘I am.’ And Manoah said, ‘Now when your words come true, what is to be the child’s manner of life, and what is his mission?’ And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, ‘Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful. She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. All that I commanded her let her observe.’ Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, ‘Please let us detain you and prepare a young goat for you.’ And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, ‘If you detain me, I will not eat of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.’ (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.) And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, ‘What is your name, so that, when your words come true, 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 on the rock to the Lord, précise to the one who works wonders, and Manoah and his wife were watching. And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar. Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground. The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. And Manoah said to his wife, ‘We shall surely die, for we have seen God.’ But his wife said to him, ‘If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.’ And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson. And the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.”
Israel’s Decline in Judges
Dear congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are in the midst, actually at the end, of the book of Judges. This book, in many ways, is a very obscure book. It is a morally obscure book because of what is happening here in the life of the people of God in the promised land. We read, basically at the end of the book of Judges, that the people did what was right in their own eyes. It says repeatedly by the end of the book that they had no more the standard of the law to live their daily lives. They were doing exactly what they wanted to do, what their hearts wanted to do—not very different from what we have today in this country and many countries in this world. People do not do the law of God, do not love the law of God. They are a law unto themselves. They love their desires. They love what they want to do apart from God. And this is what was happening here at this point in time in the life of the people of God.
But how did they end up in this situation? If we go back to chapter 2 of Judges, we will see a little bit of context of why the people were doing what was right in their own eyes and wrong in the sight of the Lord. In chapter 2, verses 8 and 10, we read the following: “And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.” What was happening here in the promised land? The people simply forgot about the Lord. The next generation after Joshua and the victorious Israelites who conquered the land by God’s promises and by God’s grace—they failed to pass to the next generation the works of the Lord, His wonders, His promises, His grace, His law. And the next generation, just like that, did not know the Lord.
And basically, what we have here is a twofold problem that causes this failure in passing to the next generation the message of the gospel:
- Syncretism: This is a hard word, so let me explain. Syncretism is when the people of God were marrying the people of the land, people who worshiped other gods. This mixes religions, and the next generation becomes mixed in this sense. This was a very important concern to God before they came into the promised land. He told them over and over again, “Do not marry the people of the land.” It was not a racial or ethnic issue—it was a worship issue. Because God said, “If you marry them, you will be idolaters like them. You’ll worship their gods instead of worshiping me.”
- Failure in Parenting: Following this problem of syncretism is the failure in parenting. How could it be that the next generation—your son, your grandson—would not know anything about the Lord? Because the people of God were not taking seriously their call as parents to disciple their children in the ways of God.
This twofold problem causes a pattern to occur in the book of Judges.
The Pattern of Judges: Sin, Oppression, Cry, Deliverance
So if you follow along with me, we’re going to read some verses from chapters 3 through 10, and I want to show you this pattern—what is happening here. There’s a pattern of four steps that happens over and over again because the people were doing what was right in their own eyes:
- The people did what was wrong in the eyes of the Lord—they start to worship other gods.
- God sends them oppressors to oppress the people.
- The people cry out to the Lord.
- God sends a deliverer.
Look with me at chapter 3, verse 7: “And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.” This is step one. Then verse 8: “Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of the king of Mesopotamia.” Step two. Verse 9: “But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel.” Step three and four.
Again, we see this in chapter 4: “And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” Verse 2: “And the Lord sold them into the hand of the king of Canaan.” Verse 3: “Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help.” Verse 4: Now Deborah, the deliverer, comes.
Skip to chapter 6, verse 1: “The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years.” Verse 6: “And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord.” From verse 11 on, we have the story of Gideon, the deliverer.
Then in chapter 10, verse 6: “The people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.” Verse 7: “So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the Ammonites.” Verse 10: “And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord.” And in chapter 11, we see the story of Jephthah, the deliverer that God provided.
The Grace of Yahweh (Judges 13:1-2)
But when we come to chapter 13, the birth narrative of Samson, we see that there’s something different here in this pattern. And this will point to the grace of Yahweh. Look with me at verses 1 and 2 and try to find those four steps here: “And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years. And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites…” Do you notice something missing here? The pattern from chapter 3 up to chapter 13 with four steps is broken. What’s missing? We have the people of Israel doing what was wrong in God’s eyes. We have God sending oppressors to them, but there’s no cry out to the Lord. The people of God did not cry out to the Lord—it skips right to the promise of the deliverer.
What is happening here is that this pattern of sin occurring over and over again in the life of the people of God made them have no sensitivity anymore for their sins. At this point, they did not feel that they had a need for a Savior. This is what happens when we give in to our sins—we keep sinning over and over again in the same ways that eventually we sense we don’t need a Savior, that we are okay with our sins. The people were at peace with their sins, living their lives, going through the motions under this pattern of oppression, and they were used to being oppressed by their enemies. This is exactly what sin does to us—it oppresses us. And sometimes, if you’re not watchful, we can just live in peace with our sins.
But you may ask, how does this point to the grace of God, to the grace of Yahweh? The answer is simple: because God sends to them the promise of a Savior, even when they do not cry out for help. This is what our gracious God does—He sends salvation. He brings forth the Savior and salvation to His people, even when we don’t feel like we need it. That’s the experience of everyone here who is a believer. We were not crying out for the Lord. We were not looking for Him. We were not searching for Him. And He came with His Spirit and transformed our hearts. This is the work of God’s free grace. Even when we don’t feel like we need Him, He comes anyway. He brings the promise. He brings forth salvation into our lives. These people didn’t deserve this salvation—they didn’t deserve a deliverer. They were okay with their sins. They wanted to be left there. But this is not the heart of God toward His people—He sends a deliverer anyway.
The Manner of Deliverance (Judges 13:2-7)
Secondly, we see from verses 2 through 7 how God delivers His people—the manner of His deliverance. There’s this announcement, right? This messenger of the Lord—later we find out it is God Himself, the pre-incarnate form of the Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity—comes to announce the promise of a Savior. This is one reason I read Luke chapter 1 as the New Testament reading—there are many connections here between this deliverer, Samson, and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the only birth narrative we have in the book of Judges about a judge coming to deliver the people of God. There’s something unique about this narrative, about Samson himself, that points to the grace of Jesus Christ and to the Messiah Himself.
But how does God deliver His people? What is the manner of His deliverance? He brings this promise. He sends this announcement to this woman. And the way He does this is by sending Himself. The salvation comes through Him and by Him, but He is the one who comes down to earth and communicates this. The manner in which God saves His people is by sending Himself. This is the message of the gospel: We sinned against God in Adam, our federal head. Someone needs to come to make things right before God. But no man can do this because we are now corrupt with our sins. So this deliverer must be a man—because it was a man who sinned against God—but he needs to be perfect. He needs to endure the punishment for our sins and obey the law completely and perfectly. There’s only one way salvation can be accomplished: through a God-man. This is what is happening here as a picture of what is to come years later.
But there’s more in the way God uses to bring forth salvation to His people. Notice who He’s using here: a barren woman. She’s not only barren but also anonymous—we don’t know her name. Just like the people of Israel in this time of obscurity, she’s an obscure woman. We don’t know much about her other than she’s Manoah’s wife. This shows something about how God works salvation in His people. Although He sent Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, and He is now incarnate in heaven, He uses you and me to bring salvation to His people—to those who do not believe, to those who are lost. He uses us in our weakness, in our frailty, just like He used this woman here.
It’s a pattern we see throughout the Scriptures: a barren woman and an angel coming to give the news that she will bear a son who will bring salvation to the people. We see this with Sarah, with Rebekah and Rachel, with Hannah (the mother of Samuel), with Manoah’s wife, and later with Mary and Elizabeth. God is showing us that He uses you and me to accomplish salvation in this world. Isn’t that a marvelous thing? That we are part of the work of salvation in the lives of others—when we preach the gospel, when we disciple someone, when we read the Bible even to our children. This is how God uses His people to bring salvation—despite us, in spite of who we are, in spite of our weaknesses. We don’t have anything to offer God. We’re like a barren woman who cannot have children. But God gives us fruit and uses us to bring salvation. This was true at that point in time, and it is so today.
Results of Encountering Yahweh (Judges 13:8-14)
Thirdly, we see in verses 8 through 14 the results of this encounter with Yahweh. This God Himself comes to this couple, and even though they do not know who this person is at first, they will find out later. Something happens in their lives—something changes. When we have an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, with God, our lives change. Look at verse 8: “Then Manoah prayed to the Lord.” It doesn’t seem like much, but the Hebrew word here is forceful—not just prayer, but to entreat, to supplicate, to plead before the Lord. A people who were forgetful about God, who didn’t even care about the Lord anymore, now have a man praying to God. This encounter with this messenger—even though they did not yet know it was God Himself—brings results to their spiritual lives. It should be the same in our lives as well.
Prayer is one example. I know it’s hard to find someone satisfied with their own prayer life—there’s always room to grow. But prayer is an aspect of the children of God. Men and women transformed by God are men and women of prayer—supplicating, bringing their needs before the Lord, talking to Him, communing with Him, worshiping Him. Notice also the content of Manoah’s prayer, at the end of verse 8: “Teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.” And in verse 12: “What is to be the child’s manner of life, and what is his mission?” At the beginning of the chapter, the people of God were a failure in parenting. Now it’s the very concern of Manoah: “What shall I teach this child? How can I raise this child to accomplish his mission?” This is the concern of a seemingly transformed Manoah after this encounter with the Lord—something that was not important to the people of God now is very important. Now it’s his mission, and he cannot let this man go until he knows exactly how to please God and do what God wants in the life of his child. This is transformation—not in all the people of God here, but in this couple. They’re concerned now to do God’s will.
The Self-Revelation of Yahweh (Judges 13:15-23)
Fourth and lastly, in verses 15 to 23, we see God revealing Himself—the self-revelation of Yahweh. The angel of the Lord appeared to the woman first, then the man wants Him to appear again. He prays, shows his concern, and then He comes again. Something intriguing happens here—little by little, this messenger of the Lord is showing them His character, revealing Himself to this couple. A side application: There is no way we will search for God, ask Him to come, ask to do His will, and He will not answer positively. Everyone who seeks the Lord will find Him. Everyone who knocks at His door will have it opened. This is what’s happening here—they are knocking at the door of this messenger, wanting to know more about the mission of this deliverer, questioning Him about who He is. And He, little by little, gives hints of His divine nature.
Look at verse 17: “And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, ‘What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?’” It’s a common thing—if you’ve been given a gift, you want to say thank you, to honor the person. But there’s more here. In our society today, asking someone’s name means attaching a name to a face for identification. But in those days, asking someone’s name meant asking their character—who they really are, their being. This is where the self-revelation of Yahweh starts. This chat between Manoah and the angel of the Lord is very similar to Genesis chapter 32, where Jacob wrestles with a mysterious man all night and asks, “What is your name?”—the same words: “Who are you? What a marvelous character are you? You are not common.” The same conversation, and the same answer.
Verse 18: “And the angel of the Lord said to him, ‘Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?’” If they were good students of the law, they might have had a hint that this was God Himself—it’s exactly what happened in Genesis 32. He’s saying, “I am incomprehensible.” It’s the same word used in Psalm 139, where the psalmist says God’s knowledge, sovereignty, omnipresence, and omniscience are “too wonderful”—”too high, I cannot attain it.” The angel of the Lord is saying, “I am not what you think I am—I’m something more, and you cannot comprehend.”
Then in verse 19: “So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it on the rock to the Lord, to the one who works wonders.” And it follows: “When the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar.” Something weird happens—not only is His appearance awesome (as noted earlier), but now He’s in the midst of the flames, flying through the air without being consumed. This relates to Exodus 3, where God speaks to Moses in the burning bush without it being consumed. He ascends as He accepts this offering.
Their reaction, end of verse 20: “They fell on their faces to the ground.” Now they know this is not a mere man—He is God Himself. This is the reaction of every sinner who encounters God: conviction of sin. When we understand who He is—His incomprehensible character—and who we are before Him, sinners, there’s nothing more to do than fall on our faces in awe, reverence, and sometimes terror. It’s terrifying to contemplate God in His holiness and perfection when we are but sin.
But there’s more—not the only reaction. Verses 21-23 show a shift, at least in Manoah’s wife: “The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. And Manoah said to his wife, ‘We shall surely die, for we have seen God.’” We see this throughout the Old Testament—people feel they will die after such an encounter. But his wife said, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.”
Manoah’s wife is assured they will not die, not be condemned, based on two things: revelation and sacrifice. She says, “He would not have shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.” Her assurance is based on this God revealing Himself to them. How can we be sure Jesus Christ wants us to be saved? Because of the revelation of His Son. He wasn’t obligated to send a Savior after Adam’s fall, but He does anyway—through the preaching of God’s Word, the Bible, Jesus Christ Himself, His gospel. If He meant to kill all humanity, He wouldn’t reveal Jesus Christ. If you’re hearing this message today, next Sunday, and beyond, you can be sure God wants to do something in your life. I don’t deny the sovereignty of God over the preaching of the word—it’s a two-edged sword that saves and condemns—but here, she bases her assurance on this revelation.
Secondly, her assurance is based on sacrifice: “He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands.” Dear brothers and sisters, the only way God can accept you is through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have faith in Him, this sacrifice is applied to your life, and you can be 100% sure you will not be condemned. There’s no other way—only through Christ’s sacrifice can you have fellowship with the Lord forever. In the final judgment, when God asks, “Why should I let you in?” the only answer is, “I have faith in Jesus Christ. It’s because of His sacrifice that I can come in.” We can be bold and sure that because of this sacrifice, we can have eternal life.
Christ, the True Deliverer
Dear brothers and sisters, this is how the story of Samson begins—a story of sin, a story of brokenness. It doesn’t get better later—it gets hard, and you know well. But even so, it’s a picture of how God works salvation in His people and through His people, even in their brokenness, even with a broken savior like Samson. It’s all His work—not your work, not the work of another earthly savior, but the work of Jesus Christ Himself. This is an anticipation of the work of the Lord, the great Deliverer. Samson sinned against God, wasn’t fully faithful in his mission, died, and remains dead to this day. But our Savior is alive. He will come back again to make all things new and finish completely this work that began in His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. He will come again and make all things new.
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray:
“Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you again for the message of the gospel that we find here in the book of Judges. We ask, O Lord, that you might bring this message home to our hearts, that the gospel might affect our lives, that your grace, O Lord, might bring us conviction of who you are and the beauty of the gospel. Help us, O Lord, to live out this faith without being ashamed of this message, for it is your power unto salvation for everyone who believes. We rest on your sacrifice, we rest on your revelation, in and of ourselves. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.”