Turn with me in your Bibles to Judges chapter 13, Judges chapter 13 in the Pew Bibles, it's on page 270, Judges 13, the birth of Samson, it's listed there. So we will read the entire chapter here, Judges chapter 13. 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. 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 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 the 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. And Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said to him, Are you the man who spoke to the woman? And he said, I am. And Manoah said, Then, 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 any wine or strong drink or eat anything unclean. 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, 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 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 at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announce 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 Mahanedan between Zorah and Eshtaol. Be in the world, but not of the world. You might think that that's a Bible verse somewhere. But it isn't actually a Bible verse, but it is a helpful phrase that we often use as we think about the Christian life. It encapsulates what we can find in other places. For example, 1 John 2, 15-17 talks about this dynamic. It says, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. And in our lives, we're very involved in the world, and rightly so. We work alongside our neighbors, using our talents to serve. We enjoy various pleasures, fine food, good entertainment. We're concerned about governments, good governments, sound economic, environmental policies. So many things. And yet in all of those activities, we're called to be different. As Christians, our motivations, our purposes, our priorities, our hopes, they're all to be different from that of the world. And that is the struggle. How can it be that we're so intimately involved in the world without being absorbed by it? chasing after its wants and its desires. And ancient Israel faced that same struggle in their own way. They were continually following the nations round about, adopting their values and even their gods. And in the book of Judges, we see this pattern played out again and again and again. And it goes from bad to even worse. But we also see a God who is relentless in his pursuit of Israel, as he is with us. He will not let Israel go astray so far that he cannot pull them back. And he does the same for us. He will not let us be absorbed by this world. And so as we think on our text tonight, our title, it comes from a phrase in verse 5 there, where the angel of the Lord tells the woman that her son will do what? He shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines. And so as we think on this text tonight, we're going to use that as our focus. And we're going to have our three points on this begin to save. This phrase, it actually only occurs here in the whole Bible. But we'll have these three points. We're going to look at the type of salvation. It talks about beginning to save. What did they need to be saved from? The method of salvation. How was God going to bring this about? And then finally, the cost of salvation. So the type of salvation, the method of salvation, and the cost. And so first, the type of salvation. What are they being saved from? The book of Judges, as it sets out in the beginning, it says there's going to be this pattern, this cycle that we call the Judges cycle. Israel, what do they do? they? They go after these other gods. They turn and they apostatize. And so what does God do? He sends oppression. He sends a foreign ruler over them. And in that oppression, Israel comes and they turn and they cry out to God in their distress. And then God raises up the judges, the various Savior figures, to deliver Israel, and then there is rest. Rest for the land until the judge dies, and it all starts over again. And as the introduction says, it starts over again, and it gets worse. It keeps going down and down. And the author shows us that by actually breaking his own cycle. If you read the book of Judges, you read through and you get to Gideon. And after Gideon, there's no more rest. We've lost that last part of the Judges cycle. And now with Samson, we find out we're only going to begin to save. We're not actually going to have full salvation. But I want us to focus, especially as we think of the nature of this salvation, on something else that's missing. Look there in verse 1, and the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. There's that apostasy. So what did God do? He gave them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years. There's that oppression, here the longest oppression. And then we're missing a step. What should be there? You've heard the phrase, the silence is deafening. What is not said can often speak volumes. What's missing? The cry. Israel. Israel crying out to their God to help them in this oppression. They're under these foreigners and yet they don't cry out to God. Israel's real problem during the time of the judges has never been Moabites or Midianites or Amalekites or any of those other nations. Their real problem has always been their sin. Those nations were just God's punishment. And so in those times of oppression, Israel would realize their sinful ways, remember they needed God, and cry out to Him. But not this time. In chapter 13, with the Philistines, all we hear is silence. Israel seems content with their slavery. They would rather serve the Philistines than the Lord. And later on, in chapter 15, when Samson actually starts to fight with the Philistines, Israel gets mad at him. Chapter 15, verse 12, it says, Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etom and said to Samson, Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us? Stop. Stop what you're doing. Israel has forgotten how to pray or that they even need to pray. They're so blinded by their sin that they don't see their misery. They don't see the misery they're in. The world has so captured them with its cares and concerns, its idols, its pleasures, that they've blocked their mind to that ultimate reality of a creator God to whom they must give account. And many commentators rightly point out that we can see this almost in miniature with Samson's parents. Again, there's a normal pattern that we have for a birth announcement to a barren woman. We find that in a number of places. But there's something missing in this one. We never hear of Manoah and his wife crying out to God in their barrenness. They, like Israel, have forgotten to pray. But it's actually Samson himself where we get explored most fully Israel's problem. And it's set up in this Nazarite calling that God places on him. A Nazarite was somebody marked out as holy like the priest was marked out as holy. And both of them, the Nazarite and the priests, they had special rules that they needed to keep because of their special status. And Numbers 6, and you can read that later, it records those rules for somebody who's taking a temporary Nazarite vow. And there's three main things. You abstain from wine and anything related to grapes. You do not cut your hair, but let it grow during this time of your vow. And you're not allowed to become unclean by being in the presence of touching a human corpse. And these restrictions, especially the one about the uncleanness with the corpse, they're very similar to what we find for the high priest in Israel. And we could say that there's also parallels. There's actually, it uses the same word. For the Nazarite's hair, that one thing that he does, he grows out his hair. His hair is what marks him out as holy, in very much parallel to the high priest wears a headband that says, Holy to the Lord. So this hair is that Nazarite's headband saying that he is holy to the Lord. Now, Samson as a Nazarite is a little bit unique. He doesn't have a choice. He didn't make this vow. Instead, God placed it upon him from the womb, and there's no time limit to it. Other Nazarites, they would take it for a time, and then there was a way that they would return to normal. But Samson, this is for life. And so in that, he's even more like a priest, because a priest didn't choose. A priest was born into it. And we could say there's probably also a modification. His Nazarite calling will probably involve a lot of dead bodies. And if we read, right, and we look at what's said here, we see that that's the one requirement not listed. and so God has specially fitted his Nazarite calling for what he's going to do. Now, what's important about that is to see that the priests, and here in parallel the Nazarites, they are actually set up as models for Israel. If you remember, Israel at Sinai was said that they are going to be a priestly nation. And they see in miniature what their calling is as they look on the priest that God sets up. And so we have the same thing here with this Nazarite. Samson being consecrated as a Nazarite from the womb. That sets him up as this type, this picture of Israel. Israel who was called to be holy. Israel who had these special rules that they needed to keep. And one of those, and it's brought up with Samson here, all of Israel had those dietary laws. They could not eat what was unclean. And so Samson is set up, and so that's what we should see as we go on. And what we see with Samson is a picture of what Israel's doing. And so we read on, if we read just a few verses into chapter 14, we see that Samson, this one holy to the Lord, blessed by the Lord, called to this life obedience, we see in what he does Israel's problem because his first act is not to go and rally the troops to go fight the Philistines, it's instead to go tell his parents that he saw a cute Philistine girl down the street and he wants to marry her. He wants to intermarry with the Philistines, not fight with them. And it's because, he says, she's good in his eyes. And if we read on, we see that he violates these rules surrounding his Nazarite calling, eating what's unclean, drinking wine, and finally removing that sign of holiness from his head as he gives away the secret and has his hair cut. And as we see and we read, we see that Samson's main problem is he cannot stay away from the Philistine women. He's so blinded by his lust that he cannot see their lies, the dangers that he's facing. And ironically, it's not until he's physically blinded that he begins to see more clearly and to understand. And so as we reflect on that, what type of salvation did Israel need? They needed not so much salvation from the Philistine oppression, but they needed salvation from Philistine absorption. They were so comfortable with their idols, seeking friendship with the world. Israel needed to be shown that they needed salvation. which we have to admit is too often true of us also. Even more than that, the Israelites, or even more than the Israelites, our danger is not so often oppression from the world, but being sucked into it. We adopt its values, its pleasures, its goals. We go about our daily lives and we forget about the creator of heaven and earth, to whom all men must give account. If we're not daily crying out for God's mercy and forgiveness, as we see in that prayer Jesus taught us to pray, we've become blind to our own sinfulness and misery. So what's the method? How is God going to separate his people from the world? Well, if God's going to use Samson to begin to save Israel, how does he do it? Well, in brief, God uses Samson to start a fight. And if you know the story, Samson's pretty good at it. Israel's being absorbed by these Philistines. So God uses Samson to put enmity between them. And we should think of Genesis 3.15. I will put enmity between your seed, that of the serpent, and the woman's seed. God is going to use Samson to put that enmity there. But I want you to notice something else about this. As we read Judges 13, you may have noticed we hear about Samson in three different messages. This message that comes from the angel of the Lord to the woman. It's recorded there. And then the woman tells this message to Manoah, her husband. And then Manoah prays that the angel come back. And then the angel tells Manoah again. But they weren't all the same. It was only in the first occurrence that we read the phrase that Samson would begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines. The woman doesn't repeat it to her husband, and the angel of the Lord doesn't tell it to him, even though he specifically asks about what this boy's mission would be. It seems that the woman hides, conceals, Samson's future from her husband. And I would argue, even from Samson himself. And one other way that we see it is in Samson's name. And it's not so much what it is, but again, what it isn't. Usually a child, especially in an announcement like this, is given a name that has a significance, that ties into something crucial, important. And so in many ways we would expect a name of salvation for this son to be born. But the woman instead gives him the name Samson, which seems to be related to the word for the son, the S-U-N son. And the son was often viewed as a god by Israel's neighbor. And thus, she's not only hiding his true purpose in that, maybe even alluding to Israel's problem with this name. Now, certainly we know that Manoah and later Samson, they know about the Nazarite status, and Samson connects his strength with his hair that marks him off as holy. And yet, if you read the narrative, no one, including Samson, seemed to view him as this savior of Israel, this one who's going to begin to save Israel. As we mentioned earlier, the Israelites, they're actually mad at Samson when he starts these fights with the Philistines. And they even bind him and hand him over to the Philistine. And you think of Samson. He never organizes an army. He never rallies the troops. Instead, he's motivated by one thing. Personal revenge as he fights with the Philistines. Even his dying wish is that God will give him strength one last time so he might be avenged on his enemies for his two eyes. No, it's in the narrative, it's God. Who's the one beginning? It's God who's using Samson to begin to save. God sent to his people who weren't looking for salvation a deliverer that didn't know he was beginning to save. All Samson wants to do, if we look at the beginning of chapter 14, all he wants to do is turn his back on everything that's unique about his consecration and join the world as he marries a good-looking Philistine girl. But God didn't let him. God would not let him or Israel away from his relentless grace. No, instead God uses even Samson's sinful actions as the occasion for his plan of salvation. Samson's marriage begins this whole chain of events that create the conflict and hostility that we then find between Israel and the Philistines. God was beginning to save his people, and he was using Samson to pick this fight to create this enmity. And it's only through this conflict that we finally get someone who cries out to the Lord. As we see this shift in Samson himself, never where we would really want him to be. But we have him crying out in dependence, twice in his ministry upon God. Crying out that we still don't see of Israel, what Israel needs to realize. And as we think of this, I'm often asked what my favorite book is of the Bible, and I often say Judges. And one of the reasons is because we see here so clearly that God's love, it can come to his people when they're the most unlovable. And with Samson, we see that he can use his people even when they're the most unusable. Samson and Israel, they needed a rude awakening. Sometimes we likewise need such a rude awakening. It may be painful, but it's necessary. Samson was chasing the pleasures of the world, and we can so easily follow the same path. Ease, prosperity in this life can cause us to forget God, Depend on our idols of money, health, prestige, until God in some hardship, some conflict, calls him back to himself so that we cry out to him. Now, the cost of salvation. What was the cost of this salvation? And we can think about this first by the question of why the woman, why did she hide that Samson was going to begin to save? And so look with me at verse 5. That's where we have the angel speaking to the woman. And so near the end there, you get, 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. And then look down at verse 7, and you get the same phrasing, right? It's near the end there. So this is the woman telling her husband, For the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb. That's the same, but then this is different. To the day of his death. What does it mean for someone to begin to save? I think the woman understood it. And she puts it here in these ominous words. How do you begin to save? I'd argue in this context, it's basically a death sentence. Samson may lay the groundwork for a future salvation from the Philistines, but he's not going to see it. He's going to die in the process. I think that's what we should understand in this woman's ominous telling to her husband. Why does she withhold this from her husband, Minoan, even Samson herself? I think she's scared of what it implies. Why would God give the gift of the son to a barren woman just to take him away again in death? All of the other judges, they lived through their battles. They saved Israel. Why is only her son going to begin to save? As we think on that, we must remember that God was not requiring anything of her. that he would not himself undergo to an even greater degree. And as we think on that, we need to ask that question of, who's this angel of the Lord that brings this message? This one who tells the woman that Samson will begin to save. Manoah wants to know his name. He says, it's wonderful. It's too wonderful for you. And then they give a sacrifice. And what does the angel of the Lord do? He goes up in the flame. Where else have we heard of an angel and the Lord and a flame? Exodus 3, verse 2. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him, Moses, in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Manoah rightly professes they have seen God. and this angel of the Lord, as we find him in Scripture, he's identified with the Lord. He can speak with the authority of the Lord, and yet he can be this one who's sent. And thus, many have often identified him with the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. And so when the angel of the Lord, God the Son, proclaimed that Samson would begin to save, he knew what it would cost himself. Because he was not only promising something about Samson. For if there is a beginning, there will be a completion. Now at the level of the Philistines, commentators point to Samuel or David as the one who finished saving Israel from the Philistines. But as we said, the Philistines were not Israel's real problem. Instead, there was to be another miraculous birth. One to be announced in the same manner, this time to a virgin. And it's said of the Son to be born, and notice, notice here the parallels. Matthew 1, 21, And you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Here is one that will not only begin to save, but will finally and ultimately save. And it's not hidden, revealed in his very name. But again, what's the cost? Again, it's a death sentence. This salvation will require going to the cross, enduring the curse for sin on behalf of his people. And some have even argued that Matthew, in his description of Jesus, is alluding back to Judges 13, to Samson's birth announcement. And some have even suggested that the statement that, as he moves to Nazareth, They say it was spoken, right, it was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophets that he might be called or he will be called a Nazarene, Matthew 2.23. Some connect that with Samson's Nazarite vow, tying the two together. And certainly there are parallels. Jesus, like Samson, he came to a nation that didn't recognize it needed the salvation he was providing. And Jesus, like Samson, he was handed over by his own people to foreigners. And Jesus, like Samson, accomplished the most in his death. And so it's clear that the God who placed this call on Samson, requiring his death to begin to save his people, he became incarnate and bore that ultimate death for Samson and for us, completing that salvation. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your promises that are all yes and amen in Jesus Christ, and may we turn and think on them, and may they spur us on in this life in rejoicing, in thankfulness, and may you continue by your spirit and through your word and through your church to keep us as your people in this world, but not of this world. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. For more information, visit www.fema.org