I invite you to open your Bibles in the book of Judges, chapter 13. It's page 247 in your pew Bible. 247. You're gonna read chapter 13. And we are beginning. an Advent series. This is the first sermon of the Advent series that we will be preaching for the next few Sundays. The story and the narrative of Samson. And this might be a little bit confusing, right? Why would anyone in the world preach a Christmas series, an Advent series, And judges, specifically, are about sensing. What is the connection here? What do those two things, those two events, have to do with each other? When we think about Christmas, when we think about, specifically, the Christmas season, we are forced to think about two main things. And actually, to think about the two Advents. We look back to the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, right? And he became a man and was born into this world, the incarnation. But we also have to look forward to his second coming, the second advent. And we, as believers in the 21st century, we are placed in the midst, in the middle of those two events, right? We can look back to one and look forward to the other. What is happening here with the narrative of Samson, and actually with all narratives of the Old Testament, is that they are one step back. They are looking forward to actually the first advent. So they have this promise of Genesis 3.15 that a descendant of the woman will come and crush the head of the serpent. So they are in this expectation. So many times in the scriptures when we read about someone who is being born from the woman and the people of Israel, they have this expectation that this man will be the savior. And in one way or another, this is exactly what is happening here in the narrative of Samson. And Samson, he is a type of Christ. He's a figure of Christ. What does that mean? It means that he and his life and his work as a judge to the people of Israel, he's predicting something about the Lord. He's teaching us something about the Lord Jesus Christ who is to come. So when we look at Simpson, not so much for his person or his personality, not so much for him as an individual, but him as a judge, as a savior, the things that he has done when he received the Spirit powerfully are to remind us or to point forward to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's what I want you to think about, that although we are talking about Samson, that we will go through the narrative of Samson, we're really talking about the Savior that he represents, and that he illustrates for us in this story. So give ears now to the reading of God's holy word. I'm gonna read the whole chapter. And then we're gonna see four main points for this message. This message is titled, Yahweh's Deliverance, The Birth of a Savior. And what I mean by Yahweh, it is how the Bible translates, how it's actually translated in our Bible as Lord with all capital letters. This is how they call a God in Hebrew, Yahweh. And Lord, it's the same thing. So we're going to see this, first of all, Yahweh's grace. Secondly, Yahweh's chosen method. Third, Yahweh's transformative encounter. And fourth, Yahweh's self-revelation. So let's read the story, and I ask you for you to pay close attention as we read. Again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years. A certain man of Zorah named Manoah from the clan of the Danites had a wife who was sterile and remained childless. The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink, and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazarite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin to deliver the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines. Then the woman went to her husband and told him, A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I didn't ask him where he came from, and he didn't tell me his name. But he said to me, You will conceive and give birth to a son. Now then, drink no wine or other fermented drink, and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazarite of God from birth until the day of his death. Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, O Lord, I beg you, let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born. God heard Manoah and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was out in the field. But her husband Manoah was not with her. The woman hurried to tell her husband, he's here, the man who appeared to me the other day. Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he said, are you the one who talked to my wife? I am, he said. So Manoah asked him, When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule for the boy's life and work? The angel of the Lord answered, Your wife must do all that I have told her. She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, nor drink any wine or other fermented drink, nor eat anything unclean. She must do everything I have commanded her. Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, We would like you to stay until we prepare a young goat for you. The angel of the Lord replied, Even though you detain me, I will not eat any of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord. Manoah did not realize that he was the angel of the Lord. Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the Lord, What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true? He replied, Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding. Then Manoah took a young goat together with the grain offering and sacrificed it on a rock to the Lord. And the Lord did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched. As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground. When the angel of the Lord did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that he was the angel of the Lord. We are doomed to die, he said to his wife. We have seen God. But his wife answered, if the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burned offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or not told us this. The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him. And the spirit of the Lord began to steer him while he was in Mahana-den between Zorah and Eshtoel. So we are here by the end of the book of Judges. And the book of Judges is a very obscure book. It is a morally obscure time that the people of the Lord were living at that time. And this was so because as we read over and over again in the book of Judges, actually by the end of the book, that they were doing what was right to their own eyes. They didn't have the standard of the law anymore to rule over them. They did not want to be under God's rule anymore. They did not value the laws of God anymore. And this is why they were doing what was right to their own eyes. But the question is, how did they end up in this situation? Well, a little bit of context here. If you go back to Judges chapter two, verse eight, you're gonna read about this, how they end up in this situation. In chapter two, verse eight says, Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110, and they buried him. Verse 10, after the whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. So just like this, the next generation after Joshua, they did not know the Lord anymore. And this is what caused them to do what was right to their own eyes. So truly the problem here were twofold. As you read the book of Judges, you can see this, that as God delivered them, as God brought them into the promised land, what did they do? They were mixing with the people from the land. God told them, don't do this. When you come to the promised land, you don't marry with them. And this is not a racial issue. It was not an ethics issue or an ethnicity issue, but it was issue of worship. God knew, and we know as well, that when we mix in marriage to other people, if it's not for the grace of the Lord, we will have two masters, and no one can serve two masters. You will either love one and hate the other, or the other way around. They were mixing with the people from the land. And this causes syncretism. They start to worship their gods. This is very obvious. This has happened throughout the scriptures. You see this with Solomon. We see this with people here. And we see this even today in our days. And this caused the next generation to forget about the Lord. Because the second problem with this, right, that causes people or the next generation to forget about God is not only syncretism, is not only when we marry with someone who does not love the Lord, but following this is what? The failure in parenting. How is it possible that the next generation after Joshua would know nothing about the Lord? This is a clear failure in parenting. The people in the promised land did not obey the Lord in telling the next generation about the wondrous deeds of the Lord. We see this over and over in the law of God, Deuteronomy chapter 6, how we should teach our children in the ways of the Lord every single day. Not only reading the Bible, and I would just translate here in our days, with family worship, devotions, but also talking about God and about the wondrous days of God over and over again with them. In every situation and opportunity that we have. And because they fail in parenting, The next generation did not know the Lord. And this causes them to do what was right into their own eyes. And actually, after this, after chapter two, it starts a pattern here in the book of Judges that will point, this will be the first point, the grace of Yahweh, that will culminate in the grace of Yahweh later. How so? So after this horrible thing of the next generation not knowing about the Lord, and they doing what was right to their own eyes, this caused a pattern to happen. I want you to do an exercise with me looking through the pages of Judges to see this pattern happening and how it appears also in our text. So chapter 3, for instance, if you go to verse 7, we see this pattern happening. Chapter 3, verse 7 says, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And then in verse eight says, And then thirdly, So there are four steps in this pattern that we will see throughout the book. First of all, Israel did what was evil on the side of the Lord. Secondly, God oppressed them, God sent enemies to oppress them. Third, they cry out to the Lord, and then God delivers them, sending a savior to them. We see this again in chapter four, look with me in verse one. The Israelite once again did evil in the eyes of the Lord. This is step one of this pattern. So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin. And you skip through the end of verse three, they cry out to the Lord for help. And then in verse four, Deborah is introduced as a new deliverer. If you go again to chapter six, we see the same pattern. Again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And for seven years, God gave them into the hands of the Midianites to be oppressed. And then you skip to verse six, it says that they cry out to the Lord for help. And then we see the story of Gideon. Again, this happens in chapter 10. If you skip to chapter 10, you see the same pattern. Verse 6, again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. Verse seven, he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines. And in verse 10, then the Israelites cry out to the Lord. And in chapter 11, we see Jephthah as the savior that is coming. And then we come to chapter 13. What do we read in verses one and two? Try to find or to see this pattern again. Verse one says, again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, right? One. So the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years, oppression. And then verse two, a certain man of Zorah named Manoah and so on. What is missing here? There's something missing here, right? The people did not cry out for the Lord to help them. The pattern of sin and oppression was so natural to them that they were not even feeling or sensing their need for a savior. They were in peace with their sins. They were in peace with the life that they were living in darkness, in sinful paths. They did not recognize that they needed a savior to deliver them from oppression, from sin. And this happens even with us today, right? We don't feel the sense and the need of a Savior. And that's why we do whatever is right to our own eyes. I don't need to go to church. What did I do wrong? I don't need to ask for forgiveness for those that I sinned against. I'm a pretty good person. I do this, this, and that. I'm a decent person. I'm not like other people in the world who do this, this, and that. Actually, you are doing what is right into your own eyes. And what does God's grace have to do with this? Well, basically, because even when we don't feel the need of a Savior, He sends a Savior anyway. Isn't that grace? The abounding love of God, caring for His people, even when we despise Him. And this is what Christmas is all about, right? God didn't need to send a Savior. No one was asking for a Savior. And actually, when the Savior came, He was rejected. But He sends His Son anyway to the world to save sinners. This points to the grace of our God, the grace of Yahweh. But secondly, our second point, Yahweh's chosen method, we see this in verses two through seven. How does God deliver his people? There's an announcement here, right? The angel of the Lord comes to this woman. And we know later from the text that this angel of the Lord is God himself. So the chosen method of God is to send himself to save his people. The angel of the Lord, a pre-incarnate form, we should say like this, a pre-incarnate form of the Lord Jesus Christ come to encounter with this woman to bring forth salvation, to promise her salvation. And this is a rehearsal of what we're gonna see in Christmas, actually, because the birth narrative of Samson is very, very similar to the birth narrative of Jesus Christ himself. There's some parallels here. An angel coming, saying that this boy will be separated for a specific work, right? It says here that he will be a Nazarite, someone who was consecrated to do a specific task for God, for his people. It has to be a holy person separated from a strong drink or things like this. And there's a lot of other things related to this. But there's a pattern here of this announcement on how God uses himself to announce a savior that is about to come. And there's a barren woman right here as well, right? And this is how God often works throughout his history. We see this with Sarah of Abraham. We see this with even Rebecca and Rachel. After Samson's time, we see this with Hannah, the mother of Samuel. And again, with Elizabeth and Mary with Jesus Christ as well. So every time we have this pattern of a barren woman, an angel coming with a promise, we should know that God is up to something. God is up to something towards his people. And this brings us to us and reminds us that God works through our weaknesses. Because think about this. What is the great promise of Genesis 3.15? It's related to what? To pregnancy, right? It's related to a woman who gives birth to a Savior. And who is God using here? A woman who is barren. Humanly speaking, that's impossible that the Savior will come through her. It is impossible that the Savior will come through a barren woman. But this is how God usually works. He does not need you, but He uses you in your weakness, in your failures, even sometimes in your sinfulness. And this is how God uses her here, an obscure woman. In many ways, we don't know her name. It's not, it does not tell, the narrative doesn't tell her name. And this is point something. That although she would be the instrument of salvation in some way, she would not be a savior. It's not because that God uses us to do many things that we are something, but God uses us to accomplish his will despite of who we are. And this is what is happening here. This is the method that Yahweh uses to bring forth salvation to His people. Using us as weakened vessels to do a mighty work. We see this even in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ in the beginning of Matthew chapter 1. If you go through the list of names, the only thing that you can see is sin after sin, transgression after transgression, messy lives, messy families, trouble all over the list of the names. But even so, God uses this line, these people, to bring the salvation to all the ends of the earth. But thirdly, in our text verses eight through 14, we see Yahweh's transformative encounter. In those verses we see the results of Yahweh's visitation. Although they did not know at that point that it was God himself who was visiting them, who was showing himself to them, who was promising them this, there were some results of his visitation. So Manoah's wife had this encounter with this awesome man with a different appearance. And then she comes to tell her husband, and her husband wants to receive this message again, right? But in first hand, he's the head of the household, and he prays to God. This is what we read in verse eight. Then Manoah prayed to the Lord. And although this English word here is very common for us prayer, the Hebrew is actually a forceful word. It's not only a prayer that he is entreating, he's supplicating, he's pleading before the Lord. This is the very first result in the life of Manoah, in the life of these people here, that was caused by the visitation of Yahweh. People who were pretty good with their sins, A people who were okay with their sins, in peace with their sins, now are before the throne of God of grace, pleading to Him, praying. And this is one of the signs that we can look at ourselves, look at our lives, and see whether we have this heart of prayer. And in many ways it's hard to talk about prayer because no one has a perfect life when it concerns a prayer life. I myself struggle a lot in many ways. But this is one of the signs that we have an encounter, a real encounter with the Lord Jesus. With the risen Jesus, the incarnate God. That now we have a life of prayer. We have this concern to go before the Lord in prayer and to live a life of prayer. And this is what conversion is all about because in conversion we have unity with the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a relationship now. So he speaks to us through his word and we speak back to him through prayer. If you had an encounter with the Lord, your life should be transformed in terms of prayer. But also there's something interesting here. What did he pray? So after the encounter, after the visitation, the very concern of Manoah was the very thing that the people forgot to do. Parenting, right? We've read in the beginning of the chapter. They were not passing on through the next generation the deeds of the Lord, and this is exactly what he was concerned about. This visitation brought fruits in his life. Now, all of a sudden, he is a man who prays, and he is a man who is concerned about the will of God for his son. Isn't that you, dear believer? Are you concerned with the things that God is concerned about in your life? Especially with parenting. When we talk about children, right? We have a lot of many good plans for our children. We want them to be doctors. We want them to be good physicians. We want them to be a lot of things. But what about a person who loves the Lord? My father always used to say this to me, I really don't care what you're going to do, what will be your work. What I really care is whether you will serve the Lord truly from your heart. This is what the encounter with Yahweh, this encounter with the Lord Jesus should cause us to be worried about not only parenting, not only prayer, but everything that concerns a life of piety and godliness. Because when we believe in Jesus, we have this connection, we have this union with him, he transforms our lives. And he brings forth fruits into our lives. So if you look back to your life, and your life and the things that you think, the things that you desire, the things that you long for are the same as 10 years ago, 15 years ago, you should question yourself. And before you say that this is very rude, right? Oh, you're questioning my salvation. This is a very good thing, because if you're not questioning those things, how will you be assured that you are in the right track? So those things are very important for us to examine ourselves. Have we had an encounter with this risen Christ? Because if the answer is yes, this should bear fruits in our lives. The fourth and lastly, verses 15 to 23, we see Yahweh's self-revelation. Yahweh's self-revelation. So after all this happens, they really want to identify who this man is. Manoah inquire him of the angel in verse 17, then Manoah inquire of the angel of the Lord, what is your name so that we may honor you when your word comes true, right? He just wanted to know who this person is. And when we talk about names, especially in the Old Testament, it's not only asking the name, so to speak, so you can identify this person, but it's actually asking about their character, who they are, where they come from. What is their story? They want to learn more of this person, not only its name, in order to honor them. And this passage right here is a very similar passage to what we find in Genesis chapter 32 with Jacob when he wrestles with a mysterious man as well, which actually it is another pre-incarnate form of the Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity. And they wrestle through the night. And he asks the same questions, the same pattern here. It's very interesting to see the connections. If you read later, you will find very interesting. In Genesis chapter 32, they wrestle and he asks his name the same way. And the answer is very similar as well, what we see here in verse 18. And he replied, why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding. And in both passages, after there is a blessing, after this question, after this answer, there's a blessing that we also see here in this chapter. But he answers this, my name, it is beyond understanding. Not only my name is beyond understanding, but who I am is beyond understanding. He's little by little revealing himself to this couple. And this is the first thing that he says. My name is too wonderful for you to understand. It is too incomprehensible, you cannot attain it. Sometimes this is what we want to do, right? We want to understand God logically with all our reasonable minds. We want to understand God with our brain and want to take the Bible and make it fit into our small brains of creatures, of sinful fallen creatures. How foolish this is. It is incomprehensible. That's the same word used in Psalm 139. When David says, the psalmist says that the knowledge of this God is too much for him. It is incomprehensible. God is showing himself through his attributes. That he is infinite and mighty. But not only this, he gives another hint that he is God himself, right? Because he did something wonderful. Look at the end of verse 19. So all of the sudden, we see the flames for the sacrifice and for the incense, and this man, this man with a different appearance, with a marvelous appearance, is flying through the flames without being consumed. Is that a familiar language to you? It's very similar to what we have in Exodus chapter three, another appearance of the Lord to Moses, right? In the burning bush, and the bush was not, what, consuming, being consumed. It was an appearance of the Lord. God was revealing himself through these wondrous deeds who he was. And the idea of the flaming going up is the idea of an intercession, that he was accepting the sacrifice. He was accepting what they offered to the Lord. And that makes them to have a very disturbing reaction. The end of verse 20 says, In one sense, this should be the reaction of every sinner who encounters the Lord Jesus. This is actually one of the first steps in our conversion. Because in one sense or another, when we look at God and we compare to ourselves, when we look at His law, we are very, very convicted of our sins. And this causes us to despair, to look at ourselves and to say like Isaiah, when he saw the glory of God in Isaiah chapter six, I'm undone, I'm destroyed because I'm a sinful man. This is the experience of every person who has this encounter with the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He sees himself in comparison to this God who is mighty, who is wonderful, who do wonders. And there's no way for us to look at him and to feel that we are okay. And this is what happens, they react in this way. But afterwards, there's another, a second reaction actually, specifically, that differentiates both of them. Because in the first place, both of them fell on their faces on the ground, and then they don't see him anymore. And in verse 22, Manoah gets despaired, completely despaired. He said, we are doomed to die because we have seen God. But on the other hand, look at what his wife says. So in one sense, there is desperation from the side of Manoah, and that is very understandable even in our days as we look at ourselves and to our sins before the Lord. But when we look at the reaction of Manoah's wife, there is assurance. Even when she encounters with this lure, with this pre-incarnate form of the lure, she has assurance. And this assurance lies in two specific things. First of all, revelation, and secondly, sacrifice. She said in the end of verse 23, if he would meant to kill us, He would not shown us all these things or told us this. In her mind, she's saying, well, God is revealing all those marvelous things to us. Why in the world will He kill us? That's the same with the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ as He was born in His incarnation. If He was meant to kill His people, He would not even send Him in the first place. The very fact that He is revealing His Son to you, even in this morning through the preaching of the Word, is a hint that He wants to save you. That He wishes you well. And I know there's two aspects, right? And when we think about election, there's one aspect that even the preaching of the word, it is one of the goals, it is to harden the hearts of those who don't believe or those who reject God. But this is not the focus here, right? Maybe another text, another day. But here, she's saying that because God revealed to us in such and such way, This means that He does not want to kill us. He wants to save you. That's the message of the gospel, that God sent His only Son to die for sinners, to save sinners. The very fact that we are hearing this message now is God calling your attention, God revealing Himself to you in order to save you. This is what an encounter with God should look like. Yes, that we will be despaired, but we should be assured that the gospel has been preaching to you. Many others don't have this opportunity. You are having this opportunity now, and what are you doing with this revelation? Ezekiel chapter 18, 32 says, for I take no pleasure in the death of anyone declares the sovereign Lord, repent and live. The fact that he revealed God to this world is because he wants to save people. But secondly, the assurance of Manoah's wife also comes not only because of the revelation, but also because of the sacrifice. Again in verse 23, The other thing that she is assured of in the love of God that He will not kill them, but He will save them and He will make this promise for something greater later. It's because of the sacrifice, because He accepted the sacrifice. And this is exactly what we have with the Lord Jesus Christ, that He was the sacrifice for our sins. And if we are grounded in this sacrifice, we can be 100% sure that God will accept us. It should be our assurance that the sacrifice was accepted by God so we can come to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only sacrifice that God will accept in the last day. You should not go to Him thinking that your good deeds will be acceptable to God. You should not come to God on the last day thinking that your beliefs on other gods, and because you were faithful enough to other gods and to the light that you had at that time, would be enough for you to be accepted by Him. The only way anyone can be accepted by God and will be accepted by God on the last day is through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it's the only perfect sacrifice. There should be our assurance that God will not kill us, that God will not condemn us, because he revealed himself to us and because his sacrifice is accepted by God. And this is how the birth narrative of Samson begins, right? There's only one mention to Samson in the last verse, that the woman gave birth, the last two verses, the woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him. This is all about God saving his people. The story of Samson is not about Samson. Of course, you know this, right? The whole Bible is about Christ. But when you read it, specifically this birth narrative of Samson, it is very clear that it's all about Yahweh, it's all about God. Salvation is all about Jesus as the only way for life. But he uses those instruments. People, there are floods full of sins, and we see this throughout the story of Samson. But this is to make us feel the taste. Yes, He's giving us a Savior, but this is not the ultimate Savior. This is not Jesus Christ Himself. There's someone coming that is better than Samson, that is better than Moses, that is better than David, that is better than anything. And His sacrifice will be enough for the salvation of the world. God is the one who saves. God is the one who reveals himself. God is the one who sent his son to be born as a man. He will raise Samson here to start delivering his people. But he will raise Samson to show to this people, to the people of Israel and to us today, that a better Savior is still coming. And He came already, and now we are expecting His second coming. Are you ready for this? Are you ready for the second coming of the Lord Jesus? The only way to be ready is to rely on His revelation, His sacrifice, to repent and believe in Him. There's no other way. No other way. Let us pray. O Heavenly Father, we come before You and we thank You, O Lord, for Your Word. We thank You, O Lord, for throughout the Old Testament, You gave to Your people, O Lord, many hints. Many promises that will point to the Lord Jesus Christ, that will tell us and teach us something about the Lord to come. And we now have, in the fullness of time, this Lord Jesus that He came, He was born, And he was raised from the dead for our justification, for our salvation, for our glorification. Help us, O Lord, to believe in this with all our hearts. Use your Holy Spirit to move in us and within us. In your son's name we pray, amen.