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This is East from West, discovering God's amazing grace through the teaching of His Word. Monday through Wednesday is our New Testament study, Thursday is an Old Testament book, and Friday is our Q &A.
We continue our Old Testament study today with Pastor Gate.
Thank you, Becky. Open your Bible with me to the book of Judges, the seventh book of the Bible. Now, this program, of course, was previously known as When We Understand the Text. We changed it to East from West this week, but all of the old What Episodes are still in our feed, over 250 episodes.
And if you've missed anything in our study of the book of Judges, we're focusing on an Old Testament book on Thursday. So if you've missed anything in Judges, you can go back and catch some of the old episodes.
We've also got studies in Colossians, Philippians, the book of Romans. Back at Christmas, we did a study through the genealogy of Christ. There was a study through the parable of the sower. All of that is still there.
It was always intended from the very beginning that the name of this program was going to be East from West. That's always what I wanted to call it. There's a reason why we instead made it an extension of the ministry When We Understand the Text.
Kind of a long story, but ultimately we decided with some of the changes that we wanted to make, like adding music to the end of the program, which now you can hear a hymn or in some original songs will pop in there as well.
We decided to make the podcast its own identity. When We Understand the Text still exists as the video ministry, and you can find all those videos, over 120 videos addressing a range of different Bible topics when you go to www .utt .com and we add a new video every week.
Thank you for subscribing to East from West. Thank you for putting up with us as we have made some of those changes. And please let your friends know about the Bible teaching that we offer here. Judges chapter 13 is where we are today.
And we are going to begin in on the story of Samson. Judges chapter 13 starting in verse 1. 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.
Remember the pattern that we have seen throughout the book of Judges, where Israel would fall away from God and start worshiping the false gods of the Canaanites. God would turn them over into the hands of their enemies, a different oppressor every time.
And then Israel would cry out to God in anguish. God would have mercy upon them and he would send to them a judge, who would also be a military commander and would lead Israel against their enemies and would overthrow them successfully.
So then Israel would experience a period of peace. But they would become complacent and once again fall away from God and worship false gods, doing what is evil in the sight of God. And he would again punish them by turning them over into the hands of an oppressor.
And so thus the cycle has continued on and on. Here we've got Samson is going to be the judge that will rise up and deliver Israel. But while every other judge has been a military commander, Samson is going to be a superpower in and of himself.
He's not going to command Israel and lead them against the Philistines. He's going to take on the Philistines by himself. A super strong man was Samson. But Samson's strength came not from himself. It was the power of God in him.
And we'll see that as we go through this story. We're going to split up the story of Samson between this week and next week. Though Samson was committed to a Nazarite vow, it had nothing to do with his long hair.
His strength had nothing to do with his long hair, which is typically what we think of Samson. He had long hair, so he was super strong. Can anybody ever be that strong again? No. It was the power of God that was in Samson giving him that strength.
As we will see, when he finally had his hair cut at the hands of a Philistine barber, the strength of the Lord left him because it was the final straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, to borrow the expression.
Samson had broken every other part of his vow, and his hair was like the last thing he had. So once his hair was cut, he had broken every commandment and also every aspect of the Nazarite vow, and the Lord was no longer with him, giving him his strength, and the Philistines were able to overthrow him at that point.
But we see the super strength of this guy, and he just keeps getting stronger as the story goes. So let's continue on here. There was a certain man of Zorah, as it says in verse 2, 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 born 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 Nazarite 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 Nazarite 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 again.
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 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, 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 from 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 his wife than 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 in our hands or shown us all these things or now announced to us such things as these.
She made more sense than her husband did. 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 Mahanadan between Zorah and Eshter.
All right, let's go back through chapter 13 here and talk about what we have been reading. So Samson was to be committed to a Nazarite vow, and we read the stipulations of the Nazarite vow in Numbers chapter 6.
However, that vow was something that a person entered into voluntarily. Samson is being committed to that vow from before his birth. And, of course, it is the Lord that is committing him to that vow, speaking through this angel that has spoken to Manoah and his wife.
Now, there are some different interpretations as to who the angel of the Lord is. The most common interpretation is that it's just an angel, but there are some that would say that the angel of the Lord is actually a Christophany, meaning that this is an appearance of Christ prior to the incarnation when he was born the God-man from the Virgin Mary.
So this could be a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ through the angel of the Lord. And some popular teachers that would teach such a viewpoint include John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul. I don't necessarily hold that viewpoint, though.
I don't think that the angel of the Lord is a Christophany. I rather believe that the angel of the Lord is Michael. In Daniel 12, verse 1, it says that Michael is the great prince who has charge of your people, speaking to Daniel.
So Michael is kind of a guardian angel that is specifically appointed to oversee Israel. And God even says to Moses in Exodus 33 that he will send his angel before Israel. And so there was a particular angel that was kind of an overseer, a watcher of Israel, and Michael was that angel.
Now, there are times when we see appearances of God in the Old Testament. In Genesis 18, when Abraham was visited by God who said to him that this time next year you will have a son, and Sarah overhears that in the tent and she laughs.
She laughs because they are beyond childbearing years, but the joke's on them, and they do end up having a son, which in good humor they named Isaac, which meant laughter. But when God appeared to Abraham under the oaks at Mamre, that was a Christophany.
That was Christ in the form of a man that appeared to Abraham. Anytime we have the appearance of God to somebody mentioned in the Old Testament, it's always the son. It's not the father because no one can see the father and live.
And we have said to us in John 1 that no one has seen the father except him who was sent from the father, and that is Jesus Christ. So anytime we have appearances of God in the Old Testament, who it is that the person is seeing is the son, Jesus Christ.
This is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. I think also of Isaiah 6, when Isaiah looks into heaven and he sees God and the train of his robe is filling the temple. Who Isaiah sees is not the father, but the son.
No one will see the father until we get to heaven. Only Christ has seen the father. Philip said to Jesus, just show us the father and we'll believe. And Jesus said to Philip, haven't you seen me? Don't you know me?
If you've seen me, then you've seen the father. So we understand who the father is through Jesus Christ, but nobody has actually laid eyes on the father until we have died and gone to be with our Lord.
And then we will see the father because we will be made to be like him, as is talked about in 1 John 3, verse 2. So these appearances of God in the Old Testament are Christophanies. But the angel of the Lord is not itself a Christophany.
It is the angel of the Lord. It is an angel that God has appointed as an overseer of Israel. Now we see God speak to Abraham. He speaks also to Jacob. There's the episode of Jacob wrestling with God. But then we don't see God really have a communicative relationship again until Moses.
And then the people of Israel reject God at Mount Sinai. So God is speaking the Ten Commandments to all of Israel. So when you read the Ten Commandments there in Exodus 20, that's all Israel that is there present at the base of Mount Sinai to hear the commandments given.
But they can't stand it. The peals of thunder and lightning and the booming voice and the awesome spectacle that is going on there. And they can't handle the voice of God. So they say to Moses, let's go back to this arrangement that we were doing before where you talk to God and then you tell us what it is that God has said.
So then Moses goes up on Mount Sinai to receive the rest of the law. Meanwhile, the Israelites down below decide to have a party and worship a golden calf. So Israel's rejection of God, they no longer get to hear from God.
And so anytime that God now speaks to Israel, it is through his angel. Just as when God first spoke to Moses through the burning bush, it was through the voice of an angel rather than him directly hearing the voice of God.
God had yet to sanctify Moses and bring him to a point where he could communicate in God that way. Eventually, it got to a point where Moses communicated with God face-to-face as any person communicates with God.
Now, not that Moses himself looked into the face of God, but that it was a voice-to-voice communication in the tent of meeting just as, you know, you and a buddy would sit down for coffee and have a conversation.
That's kind of the illustration that's being given there. Not that Moses was looking into the face of God face-to-face, but that he was speaking in a personal sort of a way just like you would speak to any person or relative or friend.
So God had to purify, had to sanctify Moses to get to that point. He didn't speak to him that directly in the very beginning when he spoke to Moses through the burning bush. But he sanctified Moses to be the representative for Israel that God meant him to be as a prophet, as one who would receive the law of God and then communicate it to Israel.
But since Israel had rejected God, they didn't get to hear from God. Abraham and Jacob and Moses heard from God. And then it's just kind of unusual that we would expect that some of these judges who were not nearly as righteous as Moses was would get to experience a Christophany, a face-to-face interaction with an appearance of God.
Rather, this is the angel of the Lord that is appearing to these individuals and is the one that was appointed the watcher of Israel, and that was specifically Michael. Now, some of the arguments that lean in the direction of saying that this angel was actually a Christophany is where the angel says, why do you ask me my name?
Because it is wonderful. But we know that angels were very fearful creatures as well. Anytime an angel appeared, they had to say what? Fear not, right? Because he was frightening. His appearance was very scary.
Daniel even described an appearance that was like lightning when Gabriel appeared to him. So an angel was still a very fearful thing. And because they had experienced a supernatural appearance, Manoah and his wife, they were very fearful and thought that God was going to strike them down.
So anyway, these are just some of the arguments that I am providing here for the angel of the Lord being an angel, a specific angel, one that was appointed a watcher of Israel, but who himself is not a Christophany or an appearance of Christ, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ.
Though we do see Christophanies occur in the Old Testament, the angel of the Lord is not one of them. At least that's the position that I hold. OK, let's continue on here into chapter 14. We'll read a few things about Samson here.
Samson went down to Timnah. So here he is, a young man going down to Timnah. And at Timnah, he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Then he came up and told his father and mother, I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah.
Now get her for me as my wife. But his father and mother said to him, is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all the people that you must go take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?
But Samson said to his father, get her for me, for she is right in my eyes. In other words, Samson's going, she's a good looking woman. You have not seen this girl. Go get her and then you'll understand.
Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward them roaring. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him. And although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat.
But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in Samson's eyes. Still looked good to him. After some days he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion.
And behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey was there. He scraped it out into his hands and went on eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them, and they ate.
But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion. His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.
And Samson said to them, Let me now tell a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is within the seven days of the feast and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.
But if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes. And they said to him, Put your riddle, that we may hear it. And he said to them, Out of the eater came something to eat.
Out of the strong came something sweet. And in three days they could not solve the riddle. On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you in your father's house with fire.
Have you invited us here to impoverish us? Boy, if that's convincing. Yeah, sure. Let me go ask him what the riddle is, since you've threatened my life. And Samson's wife wept over him and said, You only hate me.
You do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is. And he said to her, Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother. And shall I tell you? She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted.
And on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him hard. And then she told the riddle to her people. And the men of the city came to him on the seventh day before the sun went down. What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion? And he said to them, If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle. There's a nice thing to say about your wife, being very sarcastic. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle.
In hot anger he went back to his father's house, and Samson's wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man. Yeah, pretty dark story that we're seeing here in the life of Samson. But you see that his strength here, when he struck down these thirty men, when he struck down the lion, it was the Spirit of God that rushed upon him and gave him his strength.
And this was something that Samson did not understand. He was a very arrogant, very proud man, thought his strength was in himself and did not come from God. But we need to understand even as believers, as Christians, that the strength that we have comes not from ourselves, but comes from God.
We just finished up a study in the book of Romans, and at the very end of Romans, Paul said, Now to him who is able to strengthen you, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. It is God who gives us strength.
You know the verse in Philippians 4, where it says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. In Ephesians chapter 3, Paul prays for strength for the Ephesians. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God, that we would even understand God and know his word is a gift of God.
It is his strength that has been given to us to know these things. So let us give glory to God. Let us not repeat the errors of Samson, the errors that he made in taking all the glory upon himself and boasting in himself and thinking much of himself because of his strength, but the strength that we have, even the strength to believe in God and do the things that he has called us to do, to rejoice in God through many trials, to seek God for wisdom as we have read about in James the past couple of days.
All of this comes from the Lord. So let us give glory to the immortal, invisible God for his strength and his greatness. Let us pray. Dear God, I pray that we would be filled with the knowledge of your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to you, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
May we be strengthened with all power according to your glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to God the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints of light.
We've been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of your beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And it's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Mortal, invisible, God only wise, Enlightened, accessible, hid from our eyes,.
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, Almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise. Resting, unhastening, and silent as light,. Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might,. Thy justice like mountains high soaring above, Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.
All life thou givest to both great and small,. In all life thou livest the true life of all. We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,. And wither and perish, but not changeth thee. Earth of glory, pure Father of light,.
Thine angels adore thee, availing their sight. All praise we would render, O help us to see,. Tis only the splendor of light, hide and be. Tis only the splendor of light, hide and be.
This has been East from West with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you would like to support this ministry, visit our website eastfromwest .org and click on the gift tab at the top of the page. All gifts go directly to our church to support local and international missions and more of the Bible teaching like you just heard.
You can also send a gift in the mail to First Southern Baptist Church, 1220 West 8th Street, Junction City, Kansas 66441. On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, thanking you for listening to East from West, discovering God's amazing grace through the teaching of His Word.
God bless.