Episode Transcript
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are a little difficult for some of
us, isn't it? Well, as
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we prepare to come to God's word, I would like to first of all
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pray that God would illuminate his word
to US tonight. Let's pray, and
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now, God, we can again
come to your word. And Lord,
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again your word is life, your
word is light, even in passages like
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we read tonight, which are again
difficult passages and don't necessarily seem to exalt
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your people and God. In many
ways they are far from you. But
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Lord, yet through our reading that
we are reminded and we are exhorted in
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our own hearts and lives that we
may not fall into the same kind of
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things that they fell into. And
Lord, we'll see tonight a judge who,
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throughout his life, will show himself
to be a very flawed individual.
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But, Lord, at the same
time time he points to one who was
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without flaw, who was a judge
magnificent, who was a judge who does
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everything right. And Lord, even
in a time when Israel would do everything
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that was right in their eyes,
Lord, help us to do what is
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right in your eyes. And now
we ask your blessing upon the word.
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Illuminate it to us. For we
praying Christ's name. Amen. So we're
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looking at chapter twelve and then we'll
be looking at the first part of chapter
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thirteen, and so beginning with judges, Chapter One or chapter twelve, verse
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one. Here is God's word.
The men of Ephraim were called to arms
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and they crossed the ZEF on and
said to Jeff Thah, why did you
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cross over to fight against the AMMONITES
and did not call us to go with
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you? We will burn your house, over you with fire. And Jeffa
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said to them I and my people
had a great dispute with the ammonites and
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when I called you, you did
not save me from their hand. And
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when I saw that you would not
save me, I took my life in
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my hand and crossed over against the
Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into
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my hand. Why, then,
have you come up to me this day
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to fight against me? Then Jeff
the gathered all the men of Gilead and
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fought with Ephraim. And the men
of gileads struck Ephraim because they said you
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are fugitives of Efrom, you Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim and Manassa,
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and the Gileadites captured the fords of
the Jordan against the EPHREMITES and when
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any of the fugitives of Efrem said, let me go over, the men
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of Gilead said to him, are
you an Ephremite? When he said no,
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they said to him then say Shibboleth, and he said Sibilath, for
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he could not pronounce it right.
Then they see seized him and slaughtered him
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at the fords of the Jordans.
At that time forty two thousand of the
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EPHROMITES fell. Jeff the judged Israel
six years. Then Jeff the, the
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Gileadite, died and was buried in
his city in Gilead. After him,
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Ibsen of Bethlehem judged Israel. He
had thirty sons and thirty daughters he gave
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in marriage outside his clan and thirty
daughters he brought in from outside for his
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sons, and he judged Israel seven
years. Then Ibsen died and was buried
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at Bethlehem. After him, Elon
a Zebuln nite judged Israel, and he
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judged Israel ten years. Then Elon
a Zebul knite died and was buried at
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Ajalon, in the land of Zebulon. After him, Abden the son of
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Hilll the periadite, judged Israel.
He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who
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rode on seventy donkeys, and he
judged Israel eight years. Then Abden,
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the son of Hilel the periadnite,
died and was buried at Pirathon, in
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the land of Ephraim, in the
hill country of the Amalekites, and the
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people of Israel again did what was
evil inside of the Lord, as the
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Lord gave them to the hands of
the Philistines for forty years. There was
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a certain man of Zorah and the
time of Danites, whose name was Matt
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Manoah, and his wife was barren
and she had no children, and the
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angel of the Lord appeared to the
woman and said to her, behold,
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you are barren and have not born
children, but you shall conceive and bear
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a son. Therefore, be careful
and drink no wine or strong drink and
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eat nothing unclean, for behold,
you shall conceive and bear a son.
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No razors shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazarite
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to God from the womb, and
he shall begin to save Israel from the
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hand of the Philistines. Then the
woman came and told her husband. A
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man of God came to me and
his appearance was like the appearance of the
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Angel of God, very awesome.
I did not ask him where he was
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from and he didn't tell me his
name, but he said to me,
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behold, you shall conceive and bear
a son. So then, drink no
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wine or strong drink and eat nothing
unclean, for the child shall be a
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Nazarite to God from the womb to
the day of his death. Thus will
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end the reading of God's word.
Please be seated. Well, last week
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we looked at the majority of the
Jeff the story, including his famous tragic
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vow, and tonight we'll be looking
at the end of the Jeff the story,
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and then we'll be looking at three
relatively, in fact, I'd say,
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very unknown judges, and then I
will finish with an intro to the
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story of Samson. So we'll begin
with verses one through seven, Chapter Twelve.
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In verse one may seem like Deja
Vu all over again. We saw
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the same thing earlier with Ephraim uh
the, only that time it was with
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Giddeon, you might remember, back
in Chapter Eight, and just like that
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time. Ephraim is now upset with
the judge of Israel that they didn't call
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them up to go to battle against
the enemy, in this case Jeff,
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against the AMMONITES. But it seems
like they're even angrier this time than they
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were last time with Giddey, and
it said they accused him fiercely, but
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here with Jeff the they go right
to we're gonna burn your house over you
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with fire, not we're going to
take it to court and we're waiting for
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an apology, just we're going to
burn your house over you with fire.
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Barry Webb suggests that this sentence,
with the mention of home and fire,
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may have been especially upsetting to jeff
after having just sacrificed his daughter at his
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home. You might remember back with
Gideon that Gideon showed great negotiation skills when
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he was pacifying EPH him in this, in that case, when they were
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doing at the same time. But
now we have jeff who, I told
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you last week was a fantastic and
we looked at it, he was a
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great uh negotiator. He was really
able to do great things with that.
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But now he doesn't even try,
he doesn't even attempt negotiation. He simply
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says, listen, guys, in
reality this is all your fault anyway,
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and you didn't come when you could
have come, and my life is in
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danger and now you're upset with me
for no good reason. And so he
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doesn't try to negotiate at all.
He just simply addresses the fault to where
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it rightly belongs. And so the
response is basically saying there will be blood,
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there is going to be a war
from that point on, and so
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it's clear negotiations aren't going to happen
now. As the course of Jeff is
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it a good course or is it
a bad course? Is he doing the
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right thing or the wrong thing?
Well, here again the commentators are greatly
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divided on that particular subject. Something
that he should have tried negotiation, at
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least as getting did with Ephraim,
and maybe he could have averted a war.
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And then he would have followed proverb
seventeen fourteen that says the beginning of
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strife is like letting out water,
so quit before the coral breaks out.
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So maybe he should have done that. Others are of the opinion, Hey,
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it's time to treat the yet,
to treat those Pesky Efromtes uh and
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kind of give them a dose of
what they really deserve at this time,
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so that they think that Jeff is
doing the right it seems. It seems
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like the Afromtes are a bunch of
cry babies. When they could go to
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war, they don't, and then
they say, Oh, you didn't call
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us and now we're mad at you
because you didn't call us. So Uh.
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So it seems here a little different, and there is a difference between
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f from and Gideon and the fact
that when, when Gideon, excuse me
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from Jeff and Gideon, when Gideon
tried uh to make the negotiations with from,
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there was still an enemy to be
conquered and so there was need of
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no warfare in Israel at that time. But now the enemies are conquered and
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they're basically at peace. So now, Jeff that can pursue a different course
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at this time. So in verse
four, Jeff From Jeff the disregards the
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most uh famous blunder in history.
Never start a land or in Asia,
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and Jeff actually starts a land war
in UH in Asia, and in this
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case it is partly apparently due to
Efraim's taunting of Jeff's army now. I
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was thinking about this when I was
a young boy, and then I thought
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about this and I don't even know
what this means, but uh, people,
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is a taunt in those days.
Some of you are old enough to
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remember this. Your mother, your
mother wears combat boots. I don't know.
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Some of you can maybe remember that. I don't even know what that
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meant. I don't I'm not even
sure what that was supposed to to say,
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but that was a taunt that people
did. But here the taunt is,
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uh, they're saying you are fugitives
of of from you Gileadites, and
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you are. So, basically,
you're not even real efremites like you ought
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to be, because the territory of
Gilead was there. But but you're not
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even a part of us, you're
just fugitives. Now that's going to come
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back to haunt them in a moment. Here and once again in verse five,
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we see that war in those days
is if you really wanted to win
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a war, the important thing was
to control the water supply, and this
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we saw earlier, uh, in
the book of judges as well, and
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now we're going to see it again. Gideon had commanded remember the affirmtes when
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they went to battle with Gideon.
He commanded them to do that. But
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now it's being turned around and now
Jeffa and the Gileadites are now using that
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tactic against the affirmites. And,
as they said, they the affirmtes,
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called the Gileadites fugitives. But now
we see that the affirmtes themselves become because
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the same word as used in the
Hebrew they also become renegades or fugitives.
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And again the Bible teaches us you
reap what you saw, and that's what
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they're doing. And then in verse
five and six, I think many people
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are familiar, even if they're not
really familiar with the story of judges or
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the book of judges, they're probably
somewhat familiar with what happens here in versus
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five and six. And when I
read this, you to forgive me here,
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but I am reminded of a Great
World War Two movie called the great
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escape that some of you have probably
seen. One of the stars of that
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movie is Steve McQueen, who plays
a soldier by the name of Mac and
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early in the movie he is trying
to tell the other prisoners that there's a
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practice of the German soldiers to speak
English. Two people pretending to be English
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so they can see if they would
respond in English or not. And you
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might know later on in the movie, you might remember, and hopefully not
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giving away stuff for those of you
that haven't seen it, but he's accosted
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by a German soldier and UH,
when he's leaving the German soldier, the
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German soldiers says good luck and Mac
replies thanks, and of course that's how
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he is then captured. By the
way, from what I understand, Steve
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McQueen became a believer in his their
life, and so that that's a good
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thing. But here we have a
similar trick that revolves around the problem people
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of a certain language not being able
to say a particular sound, and that's
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very common. I uh, you
know, I wouldn't do well here all
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the time in Tucson because I can't
roll in our like the Hispanic people can
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do. I just have no ability
to do that. And that's very similar
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here to the fact that the affirmytes
could not through a period of time that
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sound had kind of disappeared from them
and they could no longer say the sh
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sound, but would say, as
very similar what what happens to our Lord's
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name in Hebrew as Shua, but
comes into the Greek with not the sh
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sound but the s sound in the
middle there. And so this, this
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is very similar that they can't do
it. And so the word is Shivalath,
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which means streams or floods, and
this word is actually now come into
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the English language. This word itself
is now an English word. You can
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find it an addiction area. It
is their dictionary. Dot Com says the
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word means a custom, principle or
belief distinguishing a particular class or group of
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people, especially a long standing one, regarded as outmoded or no longer important.
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And UH. And so we have
this test and it seems to be
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a pretty effective test, because we
read a forty two thousand of the Efremites
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who are slain, and again it
shows how foolish effrom was in their complaint
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in verse seven, the reign of
Jeff this is comparatively short compared to other
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judges, only six years. The
last reference to him in verse seven caused
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him. Jeff thought the Gileadite,
which seems to indicate this is how he
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saw himself, more than identifying as
an Israelite, he identified as a Gileadite.
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And so again we're beginning to see
the divisions in Israel through these passages
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that are going to erupt towards the
end of the book, and we see
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how these things are starting. Well. We'll look at versus eight through fifteen
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next, and here we're told about
three judges that, as I've said before,
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I don't think any of us would
have remembered at all. I know
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I certainly wouldn't. And these are
very similar to chapter ten, verses one
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through five, where we read of
two other relatively unknown judges. Maybe you'll
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remember them from now on, Tolah
and Jaire, and uh again, maybe
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now you will after that sermon a
couple of weeks not that my sermon was
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great, but that we dealt with
it in in that sermon, Dr McGee
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says of these three judges here in
these verses, and I think perhaps he
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says it unfairly, that they are
practically Zeros. So he has he has
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no kind words to say for them, but they do seem to rule over
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Israel and what was a comparative time
of peace. There's no conquest spoken of
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during their time and and doesn't say
that any of them saved Israel, simply
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that they judged over Israel. So
if you look at the book of judges,
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it's very interesting because you have twelve
judges, six judges who are basically
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unknown, Shamgar, Tola, Jare, Ibsen, Ellen and Abden, and
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on the other side we have more
famous judges. We have a neo ihad,
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debrah, Gideon, Jeffah and Samson. So the first judge that has
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mentioned here is Ibsen. And in
contrast to Jeff and the chapter, who
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has no living children, Ibsen has
thirty sons and thirty daughters and he brings
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in thirty daughters from the outside for
his sons to marry and he ships out
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his thirty daughters to marry outside the
family. His term is judged um lasted
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only seven years, which is the
number of perfection, but not sure if
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it means anything in this case.
Um and and he has listed as being
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from Beth Leham. You might say, Oh, I know Beth lhamp no,
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you don't. Uh, you don't
know beslime. You know Beth Leham,
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but it's not this Beth Lehem.
Uh, it's not one that.
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This is an obscure town in the
territory of Zebulon Barry Webb says, only
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the most dedicated Bible reader would know
that that this Bethlehem even existed, and
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I can tell you I didn't know
that it existed. So it's since greatest
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success seems to be that he's good
at arranging marriages for all of his children,
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and the fact that he has thirty
sons and thirty daughters probably raises some
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questions in our mind. First would
be, how do you work that out?
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Thirty of one and thirty of the
other? How do you do that?
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I mean it's easier if you got
two or four, six or something
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like that, but or, you
know, if you don't count the way
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the Brady Bunch did it to get, you know, the three girls and
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the three boys, it's but but
how did he how did he do that?
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How did he end up with exactly
thirty of each? And secondly,
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you can say, well, how
did he even have that many children?
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That's a lot of children. It
certainly is, and we have come to
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the conclusion, I think, that
he must have had more than one wife,
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unless he had a wife who had
fifteen sets of quadruple it's which to
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me seems a little doubtful. And
again we have a father of sixty coming
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after a judge who has no children
whatsoever. The S V says of his
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daughters he gave in marriage outside the
clan. That's the E S V being
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a little bit more expansive than the
text, because all the Hebrew words says
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is outside, that they married outside, but doesn't say really outside what.
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We don't know exactly what they were
outside. How far did he go?
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Outside the tribe, outside of Israel? Where did he go? Um,
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but if it was outside of his
tribe, where we can try to put
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the best spin on this and say, well, maybe he was trying,
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by Mary intermarried like this, to
get the tribes of Israel together and unifying
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them and all of their divisions.
But that's speculation. The second judge mentioned
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is Elon, and here again Dr
Mc Geese says about this about versus eleven
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and twelve. These two verses tell
us all we need to know about Ellen.
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He did nothing. He didn't even
have a large family. All he
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did was twiddle his thumbs. I
don't know how he knows that, but
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but that's what he said. But
I think that's a little unfair. Again,
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we're at least totally comes from the
tribe of Zebulon. Zebulon didn't start
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well in the book of judges.
You might remember that they didn't drive out
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the inhabitants. They were supposed to
have kittron or the inhabitants of Nalo.
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So the Canaanites lived among them and
they actually became subject to forced labor.
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But later in chapter five of judges, when we read of the battle with
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Debra and Barrick, we find out
that Zebulon receives high praise in the song
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of Zeb the song of Deborah,
when she says that they risked their lives
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to death. So they come out
better in the later chapters than they're doing
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the earliest one. And then in
verses thirteen through fifteen we have the third
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judge and he is named Abdum now
here. I do kind of like what
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Dr McGee says. He says Abden
did nothing but out Jayr Jayer, if
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you remember Jay or, he had
the sons that wrote on the donkeys,
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if you remember that, Um and
so he out Jayres, Jayres, because
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because he has seventy that right on
donkeys, he said to be the son
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of Hill l the Pirathonite, which
were told in Verse Fifteen, was in
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the territory of I fram. So
it seems as if he might have been
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an eframite actually, which is a
turnaround from what we had earlier in this
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chapter, where the framites were slain. And why, it says, in
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the hill country of the AMALEKITES is
a mystery to most reading, because we
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don't know why the amalekites would be
mentioned. They're basically always the enemy of
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Israel. But again, Jare had
thirty sons, but Abden had forty sons
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and thirty grandsons, and they all
rode donkeys. Now, after I preached
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on Jaire, elder has sent me
a postcard with four donkeys on it.
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Well, you're going to have to
op the anti now, okay. And
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the fact that they rode donkeys,
as I mentioned before when I talked about
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the donkeys, probably indicates royalty because
the donkey was the regal animal at that
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time. It wasn't the war animal. If you're going to war, you
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didn't ride a donkey. If you're
going to war, you rode a horse.
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But what's the deal here? Is
Abden trying to start a family dynasty
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with all his little kings, of
all of his children. Perhaps, uh,
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but again there's so much that isn't
told to us and we have to
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just leave a lot to speculation.
But here comes a judge. I think
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you know, a judge I'm sure
you've heard about throughout your life. In
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Verse One of Chapter Thirteen we have
a phrase, first of all, that
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we're very used to hearing by now. And the children of Israel did evil
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again in the side of the Lord. Now, if you were going to
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make a guess how many times that
phrase of years in the book of judges,
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just thought of just guessing. What
was your guess? Seven? Very
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good, excellent, yes, seven
times. And this is the seventh and
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last time that we're going to read
this phrase in the book of judges.
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There will be a similar phrase that
appears later in the last part of judges.
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It appears twice. It says in
those days there was no king in
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Israel. Everyone did what was right
in his own eyes. And there's kind
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of a hint of that in the
Sampson's story because when Samson takes a woman
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to wife, it says he does
it because she was right in his eyes.
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So we can see that it is
already, beginning during the time of
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Samson. But this is even sadder
than what we've read up to this point.
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This this reference that they did evil
again, because in the other references
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we've usually read afterwards that Israel cried
out to the Lord, but this time
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we find no crying out to the
Lord by Israel. They don't ask God
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for help. In fact, Barry
Webb and his commentary entitles the chapter on
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this first one, on Samson,
the savior no one asked for. Later
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in Chapter Fifteen, in fact,
the Israelites will even try to bind Samson
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and deliver them to the Philistines,
their own deliverer, their own hero.
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They want to bind and send to
the two Philistines and give it to them
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so so the Philistines will stop bothering
them. And it's almost comical when you
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when you read that what they're trying
to do. And Israel is going to
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have their longest oppression in the book
of judges. It's going to be for
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forty years and, as I told
you on sermon on Luke, forty is
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a number of testing in the Bible
or trials, and we see that a
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lot. And so in first two
we learn about Sampson's family. We're going
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to see. He is only judge
who comes from the tribe of Dan.
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His father has a name very similar
to a more famous man we find in
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the book of Genesis by the name
of Noah. This name is Minoah,
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but it means basically identically the same
thing. The word of rest is what
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it means. And we learned that
Minoah's wife is sterile and has no children.
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Now here's an interesting thing, at
least I find kind of interesting.
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Maybe you won't, but if you
read chapter thirteen and the nine verses of
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Chapter Fourteen, the beginning of it, there is one clear star of the
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story, one one person who is
obviously the center of everything. Who is
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that, you asked? That Sampson's
mother. Well, why don't you identify
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her by name? Because the Bible
doesn't. Here we have a woman who's
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mentioned over and over again, but
we have no idea what her name is.
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And so, uh, we learned
that she is barren and and uh
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we uh I should say this if
you're paying attention, if you've been reading
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your Bible and you know what happens
up to this point, and you read
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in your Bible that a certain woman
was barren. Do you have a kind
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of an idea what might be coming
next? Pretty much follows all the time.
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If you've been paying attention, you
know that God is going to then
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give her a child. The reversal
happens in verse three. But the angel
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of the Lord appears to her,
mentions that she's barren, which she probably
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knew before that, and but then
says that she's going to produce a son.
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Warren Weirsby says when God wants to
do something really great in the world,
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he doesn't send an army, he
sends an angel. And it appears
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from things that will look at later
in the text that this angel is not
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just any angel, but it's actually
a pre incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus
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Christ, and there's evidence to that
that we'll look at Lord Willing in the
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later message. And so in verses
four and five we have another very unusual
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thing. Now there is such a
thing in the Bible called a NASA right
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vowel and it is given to us
in numbers chapter six, and it is
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a vow that is taken by by
different people. But the interesting thing was
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the NASA right vowel in numbers chapter
six was generally given for a set period
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of time. Might be a year
or two years, whatever set period of
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time. It wasn't the last forever. It was just a set period of
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time and it would be taken,
uh, sometime in a person's adult life.
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Generally. That's that's what would take
place. And here the vow is
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to continue until Sampson's death. But
even more amazing, the vowe begins at
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his conception. That's where the vowel
begins. And even right away we're gonna
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be told that Sampson's mother, who
we don't know her name again, is
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not to be drinking herself any one
line or strong drink right from conception.
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It's almost as if God considers it
a child once it's conceived. But nonetheless
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God, God, says you're not
to do that. Now, God didn't
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know everything that medical science God knew. They didn't know. God knew about
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all the things medical science would discover
at that time are in our time,
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and those things, about the dangerous
things that can happen uh that when Mother's
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Um partake of certain things during childbearing. And we have that. But here
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God does know, and of course
here he says that the mother shouldn't even
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do it from conception. That's a
strict vowe is going on right here.
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It's a very unusual one. And
she's also told that she should never cut
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his hair, just part of the
Nazareight vowel. So here we have a
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Nazareight vowel that begins at the moment
of conception and last until death. I'm
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not saying Sampson kept it all that
time, but I'm saying that that was
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what the vow was supposed to be. So it was a very special one.
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And then the last part of verse
five also contains an unusual phrase.
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00:27:11.720 --> 00:27:15.359
It doesn't say Samson Saves Israel from
the Philistines, it says he will begin
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to save Israel from the Philistines.
He's not going to be able to totally
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00:27:19.839 --> 00:27:25.440
do that. Dr Mgees says Sampson
was a beginner, uh, not a
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finisher, and it will be later
under Samuel and David that the Philistines will
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be conquered and taken care of.
But we'll leave the story there. I'M
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NOT gonna go further tonight and just
leave it right there. But let me
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make some applications, and I mentioned
this in the message but I just want
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to mention it again, and it
goes back to something I mentioned a couple
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of weeks ago. Again, and
I'm kind of repeating myself, but I
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want to say that the sad things
that are happening here are going to lead
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Israel to a great civil war and
that's a very sad thing. It's a
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very sad thing when the country has
a civil war and and and it's not
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it's not good. And it's not
just Israel killing their enemies, but we
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even see it here in our text. We saw it. It's Israel killing
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each other, and I I would
say that it's usually not true that church
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members physically kill each other, thank
the Lord, but sadly divisions do occur
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in the church and I talked about
that, like I said a couple of
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weeks ago. But what I want
to emphasize tonight is many times divisions,
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as in this text, arise from
simple misunderstandings. Such was the case at
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Corinth, where the Apostle Paul writes, because of their divisions, where people
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were gathering themselves around various leaders.
The I am of Paul, I am
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of Cephas, I am of a
Polisy, and then the very spiritual ones
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of course said, well, we're
of Christ and these misunderstandings of what the
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point was of having leaders and who
they were and how they were to be
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00:29:00.359 --> 00:29:04.519
treated allowed petty jealousy is to divide
them. That Paul would speak against.
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But this happens often in the church
and the Church I was at before I
383
00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:15.720
came here there were divisions. That
happened. A story was circulating about someone
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00:29:15.920 --> 00:29:21.319
wasn't even part of our church but
was in our overseeing session, and it
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wasn't even true. And the story
was it wasn't even about me. UH,
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00:29:25.079 --> 00:29:27.000
normally would be about me, but
it wasn't about me this time and
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00:29:27.039 --> 00:29:30.480
it was about someone else and it
wasn't a true story at all. And
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00:29:30.680 --> 00:29:34.839
people just left the church anyway.
Didn't didn't matter. And we had three
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families, and this is a small
church, where three families leave the church,
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00:29:40.640 --> 00:29:44.640
and not only that, they didn't
just leave, they left and said,
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you know, we don't want to
be a part of this church because
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of things we've heard the kind of
church. And then they said and don't
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ever contact us, our family again. I'll tell you this. If you
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ever get a message like that,
you can tell for sure who's in the
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wrong, because that isn't the way
we handle divisions. People Disobey Paul's Instructions
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in Philippians two three. Do nothing
from selfish ambition or conceit, but in
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00:30:12.079 --> 00:30:18.880
humility, count others more significant than
yourselves. That's a powerful verse and a
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very difficult verse to live out,
but that's what Paul tells us to do.
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And then, of course you'll give
us the example of Lord Jesus.
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And so God knows our inclinations,
as I mentioned. So in Christ praise
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for the church and John Seventeen he
praised Lord that they may be one,
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even as we are one and we
pray for God's unity in his body.
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Now the last thing I want to
mention to you tonight is concerning Sampson.
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There's much that I could point out
about Sampson that makes him unique among your
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judges. Sampson, like most Old
Testament characters, is a type of Christ.
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And you might say, well,
wait a minute, there's a lot
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of bad stuff in Samson. There
is, but I could say maybe I
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can't say every Bible character, but
most Bible characters in the Old Testament are
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in some ways types of Christ,
and he's not a perfect type. No
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Old Testament character ever was, no
human could ever be. But in some
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ways, in his supernatural birth,
the way God gave birth to a barren
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woman, in the angelic announcement of
his birth, in his separation onto God.
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But one thing I just want to
note tonight in closing is he was
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a mighty deliverer of all Bible characters. Truly, Samson is the mightiest of
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characters. The spirit of God would
come upon him as it came upon our
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Lord, but the spirit of God
would come upon Samson and he would do
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acts that were amazing. And of
course you know how he ends his life.
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And truly I would say to you
we serve a mighty savior. When
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he was announced in Isaiah nine,
six says, for unto us a child
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is born, unto us a son
is given doesn't sound like anything too strong.
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We don't think of a child as
being that mighty. But he says
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the government will be upon his shoulder
and his name shall be called wonderful counselor
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mighty God, everlasting father, Prince
of peace, because he is God and
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he is a mighty savior. So
jeremiahs isn't Jeremiah Seventeen. Oh Lord God,
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You have made the heavens and the
Earth by your great power and by
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your outstretched arm. Nothing. Nothing, it's too hard for you. So
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when we come to God with our
needs, we have to know that God
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is able to meet those needs,
that he is well able to do,
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in fact more than that, if
Hesi in three, twenty. Now to
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him who is able to do far
more abundantly than all we can ask or
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think, according to the power at
work within us. I could give you
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many scriptures, but I'm not going
to. But you know many of them.
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But I want you to understand whatever
your need is tonight, our God
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is well up to the task.
Our God can do it. He is
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mighty. And one last thing that
I want to say about Samson, type
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of Christ. What Samson did was
he destroyed more enemies in his death than
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his life. And that's exactly what
our Lord Jesus did. He destroyed more
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enemies in his death than he did
in his life. Colossians two fifty says
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he disarmed the rulers and authorities and
put them to open shame by troumphing over
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them in him. And so tonight
we celebrate the triumph of the Cross in
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celebrating the Lord's table, and remember
that he has slain our enemies by his
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death and that he will reign until
he has put all enemies under his feet
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and he will even destroy the last
and greatest enemy, that of death,
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and he show rain forever endeavor.
Can We pray, Lord, God,
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we thank you again for your word. And Lord, again there's there's passages
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that are, I would say,
more difficult to preach out of. But,
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Lord, yet you can use it
to speak to your people, and
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I pray that you have, and
they pray above all else we will see
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Christ and see him in this mighty
deliver you sent to Israel, who was
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just a type of the true mighty
deliverer that would come forth the mighty God
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and triumph. And Lord, we
serve a mighty God in serving you,
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and we know that there is nothing, nothing that is too difficult for you,
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and so we come to you praising
you for your great power. And
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now, Lord, as we prepare
to celebrate, as we remember the cross
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of Christ where he disarmed all our
enemies, we ask you, God,
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to bless our time of remembrance and
you being here with us, ministering to
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us, through your sacrament. We
ask Your blessing upon it in Christ's name. Amen.
