Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you can turn with me in
the Bible, and then I will pray.
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But we're going to look beginning at
Judges thirteen one, and we'll be
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going through Judges fourteen four. Judges
thirteen one will be going through Judges fourteen
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four. Let's pray, Lord,
as we come to your word. Now
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again we do ask one more time
that you would illuminate it to us,
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that you would make it clear that's
your word would be a lamp onto our
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feet and light into our path.
That's your word would direct us and guide
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us. And Lord, as we
look at a very very complicated and tragic
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figure this evening, that it may
exhort us to watch over our own lives
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and to make sure that we are
not ruled by things that we should not
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be ruled by. But Lord,
tonight, as we look at your word,
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help us also to see your overruling
providence and how you work all things
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out according to the cons of your
will. And so Lord, we thank
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you for your word, and again
we ask you to bless it, and
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Lord to illuminate it to us,
for we prayed in Christ name. Amen.
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Judges chapter beginning with verse one year
is God's word and the people of
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Israel again did what was evil in
the side of the Lord. So the
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Lord gave them into the hand of
the Philistines for forty years. It was
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a certain man of Zorah of the
tribe of Danites, whose name was Manoah,
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and his wife was barren and had
no children. And the Angel of
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the Lord appeared to the woman and
said to her, behold, you are
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barren and have not had, have
not born children. But you shall conceive
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and bear a son. Therefore,
be careful and drink no wine or strong.
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Drink and eat nothing unclean. For
behold you shall conceive and bear a
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son. No razors shall come upon
his head, for the child shall be
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in nasright to God from his womb, from the womb, and he shall
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begin to save Israel from the hand
of the Philistines. Then a woman came
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and told her husband. A man
of God came to me, And his
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appearance was like the appearance of an
angel of God, very awesome. I
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did not ask him maria is from, And he did not tell me his
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name. But he said to me, behold, you shall conceive in Paris
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son. So then drink no wine
or strong, drink and eat nothing unclean.
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For the child shall be in Nazareth
to God from the womb to the
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day of his death. Then Manoah
prayed to the Lord and said, Oh
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Lord, please let the man of
God whom he sent, come again to
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us and teach us what we are
to do with the child who will be
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born. And God listened to the
voice of Manoah, and the Angel of
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God came again to the woman as
she sat in a field. But Minoah,
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her husband, was not with her. So the woman ran quickly and
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told her husband, behold the man
who came to me the other day as
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appeared to me. And Minoah arose
and went after his wife and came to
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the man and said to him,
are you the man who spoke to this
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woman? And he said I am. And Minoah said, now, when
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your words come true, what is
to be the child's manner of life?
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And what is his mission? And
the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah,
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of all that I said to the
woman, let her be careful.
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She may not eat of anything that
comes from the vine. Neither let her
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drink wine or strong drink, or
eat any unclean thing. All that I
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commanded her, let her observe.
Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord,
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please let us detain you and prepare
a young goat for you. And
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the Angel of the Lord said to
Minoah, if you detain me, I
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will not eat of your food.
But if you prepare a burnt offering,
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then offer it to the Lord.
For Minoah did not know that he was
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the Angel of the Lord. And
Minoah said to the Angel of the Lord,
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what is your name? So when
your words come true, we may
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honor you. And the Angel of
the Lord said to him, why do
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you ask my name? Seeing it's
wonderful. So Manoah took the young goat
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with the great offering and offered it
on the rock to the Lord, to
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the one who works wonders. And
Manoah and his wife were watching. And
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when the flame went up towards Heaven
from the altar, the Angel of the
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Lord went up in the flame of
the altar. Now mino and his wife
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were watching, and they fell on
their faces to the ground. The Angel
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of the Lord appeared, uh no
more to Manoah and to his wife.
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Then Minoah knew that he was the
Angel of the Lord. And Minoah said
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to his wife, we shall surely
die, for we have seen God.
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But his wife said to him,
if the Lord had meant to kill us,
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he would not have accepted it.
Burnt offering and a grain offering at
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our hands, or shown us all
these things, or now announced to us
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such things as these. And the
woman bore a son and called his name
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Samson. And the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him, and
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the spirit of the Lord began to
stir, began to stir him in Mohanna
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declin between Zorah and est Sampson went
down to Timna. And at Timna he
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saw one of the daughters of the
Philistines. And he came up and told
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his father and mother, I saw
one of the daughters of the Philistines at
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Timna. Now get her from my
wife. But his father and mother said
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to him, is there not yet
a woman among the daughters of your relatives,
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among all your people, that you
must go take a wife from the
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circumcised Philistines. But Sampson said to
his father, get her for me,
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for she is right in my eyes. His father and mother did not know
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that it was from the Lord,
for he was seeking an opportunity against the
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Philistines, and at that time the
Philistines ruled over Israel. Thus ends the
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reading of God's word please be seated. So we are looking at the story
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of perhaps the most famous judge of
all the judges of Israel. I was
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asked tonight by Heather whether I was
going to be able to finish the Sampson
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story before we departed Tucson, and
I responded, I'm not entirely sure.
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I think I can, but then
once I get into a tech sometimes I
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find out I'm going to spend a
lot more time than I thought. And
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I haven't planned out these next three
weeks as to exactly what will be done.
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But it is certainly a very famous
story. I'm sure most of us,
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even the children here, no thing
about the story of Samson. It's
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not the story that we sometimes thought
we knew from Sunday School, but it
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is a story that we are at
least somewhat familiar with. I want to
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start by covering some verses that I
actually dealt with last week, but I
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want to go back and touch on
a couple of things. One or two
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may one. I think one is
a repetitive thing and the others are different
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but I do want to touch on
them. Uh. First of all,
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let me point out the interesting thing
and I did I do think I mentioned,
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is maybe not that even though we
are told that Israel again does evil
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in the side of the Lord,
and the Lord delivers them into the hands
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of the Philistines, we are not
told anywhere in this account that they cried
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to the Lord for deliverance, that
to ask God to deliver them from the
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Philistines. Barry Webb on his chapter
on Samson, I think I mentioned this.
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He called the chapter title the Savior
that No one asked for? That
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was that Sampson. In another book
that he wrote on Judges, he said,
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the people showed little sign of even
wanting to be rescued. And it
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seems when you read the story,
it seems to us that not only did
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they really not I mean they fought
against Sampson, they were seemed to be
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against Sampson. They were more than
willing to give up Sampson so that they
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could live in peace with the Philistines. And so we have this very very
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complicated time that is going on uh
in Israel. And even it tells us
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in our text that Sampson will begin
to deliver Israel from the Philistines. You
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know from your Bible history and and
from Love Samuel and kings and chronicles,
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that Israel does not get completely delivered
from the Philistines and judges, it will
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have to wait and tell. Another
judge by the name of Samuel arises,
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and after that to other kings by
the name of Saul, and David will
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come. In verse two we note
that Samson again is the only judge that
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we know of that comes from the
tribe of Dan. And in the beginning
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of the Book of Judges, we
found that Dan had been forced out of
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the land which was their inheritance.
They were not able to live in their
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inherited land, and uh in Judges
wanted says, the Amorrds pressed the people
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of Dan back into the hill country, for they did not allow them to
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come down to the plane. The
Amorords persisted in dwelling in Mount Harris,
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in Angelon and in shall Being,
but the hand of the House of Joseph
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rested heavily on them, and they
became subject to force labor. So Dan
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wasn't even able to keep their land
that had been allotted onto them. Judges
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eighteen one says, and in those
days the tribe of the people of Dan
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was seeking for itself and inheritance to
dwell in for and tell them no inheritance
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among the tribes of Israel had fallen
to them. Well, there had been
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inheritance, but they didn't keep it, and so they didn't have it.
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There's also the curious fact that you
may be aware of that when we have
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the listing of the tribes and Revelation
chapter seven, there is no mention of
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the tribe of Dan. It's always
difficult because they're trying to list in these
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various places the twelve tribes of Israel, the problem being that there's thirteen of
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them, so they always have to
leave one out. Uh, And it's
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different in different listings. But in
Revelation seven, Dan is left out.
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And uh why that is? I
will leave that for you to discover or
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figure it out, and then come
and tell me so I'll know. Uh.
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But anyway, they're not there.
And then verses three through five,
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we noticed that the Angel of the
Lord appeared to Samson's mother, who is,
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as I mentioned, the star of
the story. There's no question about
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it. She keeps coming back again
and again. But the curious thing is
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we are never once given her name. We don't know who she is.
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So let me begin now with where
I left off last time, with verse
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six. And so Sampson's mother goes
to Sampson's father Uh to tell her about
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the visit of the angel, and
uh As or as she calls him,
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the Man of God came to her. And we see in a sense that
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all of these judges are in some
ways types of Christ and in some ways
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obviously not Uh. And we'll see
that in Samson clearly. But again,
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remember it was the Angel of the
Lord that came to the mother of Jesus
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first as well and announced that she
would have this child that would be born.
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And so here again this is prefigured
as Sampson's mother receives a visit first
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from the angel that tells her she
is going to bear a child. But
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for whatever reason, she forgets to
ask two questions that we usually ask of
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people when we get to know them
or when we first meet them. And
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those two questions are, uh,
well, what what's your name? And
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where are you from? Those are
two questions we often asked, but the
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woman we're told to not ask it
here and so in verse seven, she
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basically recounts the Minoah what we've already
been told up to this time. And
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so in verse eight, Manoah,
praise to the Lord that the same man
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of God will now appear to them
again and teach them how they should bring
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up the child, so that they
might know how they should do that.
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Certainly a very very good prayer.
That's a good prayer to prayer to God,
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God, help me to know how
to raise this child. For you
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that are in those years of childhood
and have your children still with you and
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maybe young and maybe yet to come, Uh, that you would pray that
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prayer as well, that you would
know how to bring up the child the
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right way. Those of us have
been through it know that wasn't very easy,
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and we did it the wrong way. That's about all we know.
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UM on that. So it's a
good prayer for us to do that and
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um and and so it's it's a
prayer of Minoah. Let's let the Man
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of God come back to me and
tell us how we should he's this child.
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People have various commentators and things that
waited on us and something it wasn't
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a good prayer. And so I
think it was a good prayer that Minoa
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made and some and I would just
note that, well, maybe the best
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answer is it got answered, so
it might have been a good prayer because
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he got his prayer I answered,
so it wasn't completely off base. And
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then in a calico twist, God
answers the prayer and appears again. But
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again he appears to Samson's mother and
Minoah isn't there, And so that's kind
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of an interesting way to uh to
do that. Um In our complex where
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we are living, after I've been
there a couple of weeks, I was
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able to see a bobcat walk by
our patio when I was outside, but
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my wife was not with me at
the time, and you know, she's
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been wanting to see a bobcat since
then. And there's been at least twice
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in our complex that we've been walking
and somebody has stopped us and said,
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oh, be careful, there's a
bobcat right ahead there, and or there's
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a bobcat. To bobcats, they
said, behind that tree, and but
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we we've never never seen them there
at the complex. But but she's seen
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a bob kat now, so thank
you Desert Museum. So but in verse
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ten, his wife, being a
good wife, goes and gets him and
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goes to get him. And in
verse eleven, Minoah, being a good
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husband, goes with his wife to
go see this heavenly being that is there.
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And as they come to where the
heavenly being is, Manoah asked the
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question, which seems to be quite
obvious that many of these questions are asking
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in this chapter seemed to have obvious
answers. But he says, are you
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the man of God that appeared to
my wife before? And of course it
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was the man of God. But
in verse twelve, it's one of those
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verses that really cut out set the
tone we have. We have a few
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verses and judges that give us a
clue that Manoah and his wife, whatever
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her name was, is we're very
godly people. But we have the most
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wonderful words of Manoah in verse twelve, where he says to the heavenly being,
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now when your words come true,
he doesn't say if this actually is
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going to happen, if my wife's
actually going to have a child, but
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he says, when my wife has
a child, And so he has faith.
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He's not like Zachariah who wouldn't believe
in restruct numb. He has someone
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who firmly believes that exactly what has
been said is going to happen. And
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again he asked about the upbringing of
the child and what will be the mission.
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So in verses thirteen and fourteen,
for the third time, the Man
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of God now repeats the instruction that
he has given concerning the upbringing. And
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it is important, um that in
all the stipulations that we have, they
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are incumbent upon the mother as well. And we'll also note as we go
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through the Book of Judges that Samson
will break all of them. He will
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not keep any of these parts of
his vow that he is supposed to.
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So beginning in verse fifteen, we
might be reminded of another story in Judges,
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and that is the story of Gideon, because it's very very similar what
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happens here. Manoah offers to prepare
a goat for this heavenly visitor, Um,
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which Dideon also did asked the same
question, but in Gideon's case he
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was um allowed to do that.
But in Manoah's case, Uh, the
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Angel says, no, don't.
You can prepare it, but offer it
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as a burnt offering, Uh,
don't offer it to me to eat it
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as well. And we might also
remember Abraham when he had the three heavenly
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beans come to him, and he
had a meal prepared for them, and
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in that case, the heavenly beans
partook of the meal. So kind of
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mysterious the way that all works in
these different stories. And we may be
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reminded of Hebrews thirteen two in this
case, where the writer exhorts us to
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be not forgetful to show hospitality to
strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels
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unaware. And so all of these
stories are alike in that the people show
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hospital pality to these beings who turn
out to be at the very least angels.
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I think more, and I'll mention
that in verse sixteen, the angel
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declines to eat, but says again
that um Minoah should prepare a burnt offering.
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And again you might note that at
this time the law would have said
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that sacrifices were to be offered at
the temple or where where the priests were
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it. So this is kind of
a different thing. But since it is
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being commanded by the Angel of the
Lord, it is not disobedience. For
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Minoah to do this, and so
in verse seventeen, Minoah decides to ask
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the question that his wife had not
asked, and so he wants to know
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the name of this being. So
he says, I want to know your
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name. So when these words come
true against sing, When when these words
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come true, we will know who
we should honor. And so we have
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this very intriguing response in verse eighteen, and the response in the King James
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is why askest thou thus after my
name? Seeing it is secret? But
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I do like the e s V
better here because it says, why do
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you ask my name? Seeing it
is wonderful? It's hard not to see
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Christ here. Now some might argue
it's not, but to me, it
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seems like Christ is here. This
is the word we're told in Isaiah nine
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six of the child that would be
born, the son that would be given,
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and the government would be upon a
shoulder, and his name shall be
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called wonderful counselor Mighty God, everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace. So I
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believe here what we have is another
one of those Theophanes, those pre incarnate
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appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, some would say that all that
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being means is that his name is
beyond understanding, and couldn't understand it would
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quote verse I referred to earlier this
morning and so on one thirty nine.
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Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain
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it. But somehow, and you
can leave what you would, But somehow,
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to me, this is Christ.
And my view is bolstered in a
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couple of ways in verse nineteen,
where it says that Manoah offers a sacrifice
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to the Lord or in Hebrew Yahweh, So it appears to me that that
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would indicate the being is indeed the
Lord. We also see that in Gideon
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in six two, after Gideon had
offered the food on the rock, we
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read a last, Oh, Lord
God, for now I have seen the
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Angel of the Lord face to face. In both stories, of being disappears
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after the offering, which causes them
they realize to realize that they have seen
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the Lord and because of that they
are probably going to die. And again
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this bolsters the idea that this is
Christ. They have they believe they have
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actually seen the Lord, and in
uh in this case, in Gideon's case,
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the Lord actually comforted him and said
to Gideon, peace be to you,
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dun't not fear, you shall not
die. But in Minoah's case,
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it's his wife who comforts him,
and she comforts him with great logic.
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She uses this logic on her husband. She says, if the Lord had
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meant to kill us, he wouldn't
have accepted a bird offering in our hands
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and a grain offering in our hands, and he wouldn't have shown us all
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these things, and he wouldn't have
announced all these things. In other words,
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if the Lord made a special point
to appear to us, to tell
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us we're gonna have a child and
that that's going to happen, it's highly
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unlikely he's going to kill us.
Uh. That would pretty much defeat the
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whole purpose of why he's appeared.
So I think I think she uses very
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good logic in that case. So
we're gonna go down to fourteen and look
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at the beginning of the I don't
know what to call it. We it's
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not even really a judge ship.
And nobody knows if for a long time
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here nobody knows Sampson's supposed to be
a judge of Israel. We don't we
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don't know this. We're perhaps in
on it because we've read the Book of
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Judges, but it's really not clear. So it's hard to exactly explain what's
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going on here. I mean,
is this Samson ruling over Israel. It
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doesn't appear that he's ruling over Israel, but he's certainly going after the Philistines,
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and God will give him occasion to
do that. So he goes down
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in verse one to Timna, and
this was actually Timna is part of the
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inheritance that was originally in the Book
of Joshua given to Dan. So he's
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going to a part of the land
that actually he should possess. And so
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in verse two he comes to his
parents after his return from Timna, and
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he says he's found a woman in
Timna whom he wants, and so he
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wants his parents to get her for
him. In those days, the parents
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were responsible for arranging the marriage of
their children and taking care of those things.
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But there seems to be I don't
know if you pick it up,
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but I kind of pick it up. There seems to be a bit of
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a belligerent tone in Samson when he
speaks to his parents, and uh,
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and he, you know, says
get her for me in that way.
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And and so it doesn't seem to
very kindly words that he says. And
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here began Sampson's besetting sin in his
life. He doesn't seem to be able
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to control his passions, but he
is driven by his passions. And we'll
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see that again and again. In
verse three, his parents asked what I
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considered to be a very good question, which is, aren't there women here
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in our covenant community that you could
marry? Why do you have to go
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outside of our community to find a
wife. Now, it's very important we
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understand the issue here because it's still
the issue today. It's never changed.
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The issue has never changed on this. The issue isn't interracial marriage. That
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has never been an issue in the
Bible. There's no issue of that at
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all. The issue is what we'd
call inter faith marriage. That is always
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the issue. The issue is that
God's people shouldn't go outside the covenant.
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So as believers, we should not, as Paul would tell us in second
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grade and six, we should not
marry an unbeliever. That is the stipulation.
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That is what we are warned against
in the Bible. And it's always
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as I said, it's always been
that way, it's a person's faith that
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matters. And Sampson's reply is what
we'll see is a typical reply for him.
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He basically says, I really don't
care what you think, just get
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her, and that's pretty much what
he says. And the next statement he
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repeats something that also Israel will will
be said of Israel in this section he
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says, she is right in my
eyes. Later in Judges will read in
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chapter seventeen and verse six, in
those days there was no king in Israel.
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Everyone did what was right in his
own eyes. In the very last
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statement of the Book of Judges,
jud and those days there was no king
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in Israel, everyone did what was
right in his own eyes, which is
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basically the same thing of what thirt
one said, is that Israel again did
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evil in the sight of the Lord. So Samson's behavior is a judge is
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mirroring Israel's behavior as a nation.
And so by seeking to marry this woman,
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Samuel seems to be going against which
I mentioned. This is the issue
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what God had commanded in Deuteronomy seven. He said, and when the Lord
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your God gives them over to you
and you defeat them, then you may
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devote them to complete destruction. You
shall make no covenant with them, and
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show no mercy to them. You
shall not intermarry with them, giving your
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daughters to their sons, or taking
their daughters for your sons. Now some
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might say, well, wait a
minute, that's that's about the Canaanites and
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Philistines weren't part of that, and
you'd be right. But nonetheless, I
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think it's clear that the prohibition remains
true to all of these groups that are
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outside of the covenant. So verse
four gives us one of those confusing theological
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statements that we find at times in
the Bible. It says his father and
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his mother did not know it was
from the Lord, for he was seeking
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an opportunity against the Philistines. Now
I puzzled over this, and I searched
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all my different commentaries, and I
found that different commentaries had different views.
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They took different sides on exactly what
has been said in this verse, but
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they didn't even acknowledge the other views. So whatever the view they took of
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this, they they mentioned that,
but they didn't mention the other view at
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all. So I didn't find any
real convincing things on this concerning what is
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this He for he was seeking an
opportunity against the Philistines. Is that he
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the Lord? If you read the
verse carefully, it's hard to tell is
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the is the he the Lord?
Or is the he Samson? But every
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commentary, like I said, gave
its own opinion Jamison and Fawcett Brown says,
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literally, she is right in my
not. He's not by her beautiful
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countenance or handsome figure, but right
or fit for his purpose. So they
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take the view that it was Sampson
who was seeking an occasion against the Philistines,
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that he is using this woman as
a means of doing that. But
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Albert Barnes says his father and mother
very properly opposed Sampson's marriage with a pagan
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woman, the daughter of the oppressors
of the race, But they could not
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prevail because it was the secret purpose
of God by these means to seek occasion
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against the Philistines, in other words, to make them misconduct of the father
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of Sampson's wife, which he foresaw
the occasion of destruction to the Philistines.
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So they take the opposite view.
Warren Wearsby said Samson should have been going
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to war instead of a wedding.
But God used this event to give Samson
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occasion to attack the enemies. And
again that there's others I could quote,
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but it's not really clear. I
don't know that it matters totally. But
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we're not sure who it is that
a king this case against the Philistines.
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Is it Samson who wants it or
is it the Lord? Well, it
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is certainly the Lord for sure,
but whether Samson is referred to, that's
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that's a little difficult to understand.
Um. And so we have a similar
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statement, by the way, and
Judge or Joshua I love in twenty for
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it was the Lord's doing to harden
their hearts, that they should come against
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Israel in battle, in order that
they should be devoted to destruction and should
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receive no mercy but be destroyed,
just as the Lord commanded Moses. So
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here again we see the Lord is
hardening their heart to bring about their conquering.
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So I I tend to go with
that view that it is the Lord
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who is seeking the case. But
you can you can choose your own adventure
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there whatever, whatever you'd like.
Well, let me make some awesome applications
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as I close this evening. Samson
is certainly a complicated character. As I
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mentioned, he is a man who
does great things for Israel. But yet
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it seems every time he does something
great, he's doing it for the wrong
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reason. It seems like he's mad. It seems always like for Samson is
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always personal with him. It's always
something that he's bothered about that causes him
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to want to do it. He's
a man full of deep passions, and
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his passions always seem to get him
into trouble, but they also help him
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and lead him into delivering Israel from
the Philistines. Tim Keller says this about
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Samson, he is by far the
most flawed character in the book, a
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violent, impulsive, sexually addicted,
emotionally immature, and selfish man. Most
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disturbing of all, the spirit of
God seems to anoint and use his fits
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of peak, pride and temper.
Michael Wilcox puts it this way in his
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commentary. More than any of his
predecessors, Samson will confound our assumptions.
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His emergence is as different from that
of any of the previous judges as his
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call was different from theirs, and
the judge that emerges look scarcely like a
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judge at all. And yet when
we look at ourselves, we see a
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bunch of complicated characteristics as well.
Right, we wonder why did I do
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that thing? And we try to
think and we wonder what it was our
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mode of pure Did we really do
this out of the best intentions or the
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best motive? And we realize there's
many complications that are in us. Like
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Samson, we have our strength,
and like Samson, is our strengths that
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often get us into trouble. I
think of myself as a pretty logical individual.
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That's my own view. You're few
free to disagree with that, but
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I I think of myself as that. But yet I find that in my
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life it's often what I considered my
great logic that has gotten me into trouble
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with people. And so oftentimes are
well, we think our strength end up
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to give us a lot of trouble. And yet as we look at Samson,
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it is very possible that the thing
we think about Sampson in our minds
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that most to us seems right maybe
complete be wrong. So what are you?
400
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What are you trying to say?
Well, I think when we think
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about Samson, and I think kids, you'd have been through Sunday schooling things
402
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and you think about the pictures you've
seen the Samson. He's this guy with
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gigantic bulging biceps and triceps and quadras, whatever kind of SEPs you've got.
404
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This Sampson is this gigantic figure of
a man who just is just bulging strength.
405
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And I can remember as a child. I'm going to date myself to
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here, and I don't know if
anybody else will remember this, but when
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I was a young boy, we
used to go to the theater on Saturdays
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for the Mattenee movies on Saturday because
it would be cheap, really cheap,
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and you can get like a cheap
popcorn or something that the Mattenee movie and
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the movies in those days were always
these terrible, uh Italian movies. I'm
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not saying all Italian movies are terrible, but these were really bad. But
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they were always of like Hercules or
Sampson or one of these great figures.
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They were always the star of these
things. And of course, as a
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the young kid, you love those
stories. There weren't terrible movies to me,
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they were fantastic and wonderful. And
so it's usually some great hero like
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usually Steve Reeves. Some of you
might remember that name. At all,
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but but that that's what it looked
like. But actually the Bible gives us
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no indication Sampson looked anything like that. In fact, probably the opposite.
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And that's why I say what we
oftentimes think of Sampson might be really,
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really wrong. And and so all
of those flannel board pictures might not actually
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be the way he looked. And
why would I say that? Well,
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number one, we're not told anywhere
that he looked like that. But what
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is interesting is Delilah, remember had
to ask him all those questions about what's
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the secret of your strength? Now, if he's sitting there with these gigantic
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muscles and triceps and leg muscle and
he's got du I mean, of course
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that we know. But but if
she's looking at some nine pound weakling that's
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laying air as she's going, how
can this guy be so strong? There
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must be something because I'm not seeing
anything here, then it makes sense actually,
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And so uh, if when his
hair was cut, then why didn't
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he have the story? If his
strength was in his muscles and his hair
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was cut, why would that all
of a sudden disappear? But really we
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know it was the spirit of the
Lord that came upon Samson that gave him
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his strength, and without the spirit
of the Lord, he would be as
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other men. So again, perhaps
the thing we think we know best about
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Samson we don't really know at all. There are other things I wanted to
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say about Samson, but I want
to end by looking at the statement in
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verse four his father and mother did
not know what was from the Lord,
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for he was seeking an opportunity against
the Philistines. The amazing thing about God
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is that he can use our weaknesses, indeed, our sins, to about
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his greater glory and to bring about
his will. That's the amazing thing about
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providence. And we could look through
the Bible, we could look through history.
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We could find several examples of cases
where God uses what looks to be
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terrible sins and uses them to work
out his glory. And indeed, it
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is true that in this case it
is Samson's passions that start the ball rolling,
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but God will use it in order
to bring about his will. But
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I think there's probably one story I
can refer to that illustrates God's ability to
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do that more than any other story
that we may know, and that is
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simply the story of Christ. Dying
on the cross. Could we say there's
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ever been a greater evil in the
history of the world than when when mankind
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conspired to kill their Savior, to
kill their God. Could there be a
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worse sin than we could come up
with than that sin? Right there,
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we'd say, I think it's the
greatest evil that has ever been done in
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the history of mankind. But also
out of this comes the greatest demonstration of
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the love of God and the one
thing that made it possible for any human
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being to ever be saved. God's
power in using his providence to bring about
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his will is amazing. Acts two
twenty three, this Jesus delivered up according
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to the definite plan and fore knowledge
of God, you crucified and killed by
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the hands of lawless men. But
then a few verses later, in verse
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thirty six, this Jesus God raised
up, and of that we all are
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witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the
right hand of God, and having received
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from the Father the promise of the
Holy Spirit, he has poured out this
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that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. Man meant it for evil, as
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Joseph would say to his brothers,
you meant it for evil. Mankind.
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You meant to do it in an
evil way, But all the while our
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God was meaning it for good,
for the salvation of his people, for
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our salvation, because our Lord was
delivered by evil men and was put to
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death. Therefore we understand the most
famous verse in the Bible. For God
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so love the world that he gave
his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth
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on him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. Let's pray, Lord,
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me thank you for your providence.
We thank you that, indeed,
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as we will sing, you do
work in mysterious ways, your wonders to
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form. We thank you for what
we have learned from the story of Samson.
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And there's more to come and more
to learn. But Lord, we
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know that you can do all things
according to the counsel of your will,
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and you are able to use even
our weaknesses, our frailties, and yea,
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even our sins to bring about your
glorious will. We don't understand it,
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Lord, it is beyond our comprehension. But yet you do it,
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Lord, and we thank you for
it. And we pray God as we
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look at the cross and see there
the greatest evil ever done, that there
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might be no one that is here
that cannot say, I've been to that
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cross, and I've been to Christ, and he is my Lord and he
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is my Savior. And because of
that evil we can profess that tonight and
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say we are believers in Christ,
we are children of God. Lord,
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what a glorious thing you have done, and we praise you for it in
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Christ's name. Amen,
