K. Lawson Younger in his commentary observes a marked difference in the story involving Samson’s life compared to the stories before him.[1] Until now, when the disciplining hand of the LORD was upon them when he allowed Israel to be oppressed by the foreign nations, the Israelites cried out and turned to the LORD. Grant it they weren’t always sincere about it, nevertheless they sought God’s help. What we find in chapter 13 is the absence of any account of the Israelites crying out or turning to the LORD for his help, for forty years.
The time of Judges was a dark period. As the story of Judges progresses, what we find is that the Israelites further degenerated. It got so bad that the people of
We need to remember that the story surrounding Samson involves this very context. People had forsaken God so completely that they would rather live in the misery than turn to God. They were so utterly apathetic about their lives. And, it is during this period of dark apathetic and rebellious time that God was on the move. When the people were paralyzed by apathy and rebellion unable to draw closer to God, it was God who was on the move to help.
1. God is always on the move.
With the typical opening in 13:1 and the notable absence of the Israelites calling out or turning to the LORD, the story narrows on to what happened before Samson was born.
From verse 2, we see how God was on the move. Manoah was Samson’s father. He was from a tribe of Dan, specifically from a city called Zorah about fifteen miles west of
Now in verse 3, we see how God was on the move. His angel appeared to her and told her this; “You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”
What happens when God’s people are so apathetic that they just aren’t interested in turning to God even under the great oppression? What happens when God’s people are so set on rebellion that they simply don’t turn to God? Left to their own apathy and rebellion the Israelites would have been absorbed into the surrounding nations’ idolatrous cultures and disappear.
What we see today is God was on the move to deliver
God was on the move and his plan involved Manoah and his wife who was sterile, childless. His plan was to miraculously open up Manoah’s wife’s womb to grant them a son. And, through this son, God was going to move in
This is really the essence of our God. Left to us alone, we will all perish in our apathy and rebellion. Left to us alone, none of us will ever seek God. Left to us alone, we would be in the predicament described in Romans 3:9-18.
There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and they way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.
All of us left to us alone… in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, we would all degenerate so completely. This is what apathy and rebellion would do to us.
Apathy sets in, rebellion sets in, heart gets cold, and we don’t want to come to God. Is there any hope? Left to us alone, we will have no hope but to shrivel away, to ebb away till there is no life; only left with the crusty, fragile, lifeless shell.
Is there any hope? Yes, there is! God is on the move! He has always been on the move. Romans 5:6-8 says, “You see, at the just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
No matter where you are, be encouraged this morning for God has always been and is now moving in your life. Are you set in apathy, rebellion, and do you feel hopeless, beaten down, dry, callous, empty, and lifeless? Is there any hope? Yes, there is always hope not because you can do something about it, but, because our God is on the move. He is compassionate, gracious, ready to rescue us, to bring us to the green pasture.
2. God is on the move to deliver and he wants to set you apart for his purpose.
Another side of our God moving to deliver his people is that he involves his people to accomplish his will.
In our story, God involved Manoah, his wife and their son to advance his move to deliver his people from the oppression. It specifically involved setting apart Samson as a Nazirite. The word Nazirite comes from the Hebrew verb that means to consecrate, to set apart.
Today, we are going to have a communion. The bread and the wine themselves are nothing special; they are ordinary bread and ordinary juice. But, what make the communion bread and the drink very special is that they are set apart, consecrated to represent Christ’s body and his blood.
In the similar way, Samson was to be set apart, to be consecrated for God’s purpose. God was on the move to deliver the apathetic and rebellious Israelites from the oppression. And, he was going to use Samson by setting him apart for this very purpose.
This setting apart, consecration was to be done through the Nazirite vow described in the book of Numbers 6. Jackie A. Naude says in a theological dictionary, “The consecration was not an ascetic separation but an expression of loyalty to God, in which forms of abstinence were illustrative rather than constitutive.”[2] Another word, the three highlighted practices of abstinences in the Nazirite vow were to demonstrate what was going on in a person’s heart. The Nazirite vow was the outward expression of the inward spiritual dedication to God.
Numbers 6 tells us that the Nazirite vow involved abstaining from wine and other fermented drink, grape juice, grapes, or raisins. Nothing that comes from the grapevine was to be eaten; the vow involved not cutting one’s hair during the period of vow; and thirdly, the vow involved abstaining from any contact with dead bodies. It gives very specific direction on what to do when suddenly someone dies in the presence of a person under the Nazirite vow.
This vow was voluntary in nature. For, Samson’s case, the vow was God’s calling upon his life. He was born with God’s purpose to deliver
Today, we the followers of Jesus Christ, by the virtue of being born again, we too are given God’s specific calling to be set apart for his purpose even before our spiritual rebirth. One of God’s purposes is reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
A phrase that describes what our church is all about is “Loving God and Loving people.” Without God’s gracious initiation, without him always on the move to deliver us, we would not be able to dream up of loving God and loving people.
God reconciling us to him is all about enabling us to be people who would love him. And, out of that love relationship with him, we are also enabled to love people in God’s way.
God moved definitively by sending his Son Jesus Christ to die in our place for our sins. God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us. Jesus sacrificed his life to pay for the penalties of our sins that is death. By his son’s death, God removes the sin barrier. By graciously and sacrificially loving us through his Son Jesus, God deal with our apathy and rebellion against him.
Once he deals with our apathy and rebellion, he creates in us new life, new inclination, new love for him. And, he can use us to be his ambassadors to point people to him, to experience his love.
Conclusions
When you come to the communion table shortly to take the bread and the wine that illustrates Christ’s body and blood, remember God is moving towards you and he enables you to move towards him by forgiving your sins. May God increase your love for him as you receive his love in Jesus Christ!
You also need to remember that God is moving towards you and enables you to move towards him so that you help others to experience what you are experiencing, moving towards God.
Would you join me now to commit ourselves to God who is always on the move?
Oh, Jesus, we thank you for removing the barrier, the sins that stand against us, by dying on the cross, taking our place to be killed for our sins.
Oh, remind us this morning how you are actively moving in our lives. We confess our apathy, our rebellion before you. Who can rescue us from our apathy, our rebellion?
As the psalmist prayed in Psalm 121:
I lift up my eyes to the hills- where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
And, we receive your affirmation as we recognize that you’ve set us apart, consecrated us for your purpose. And, so we remember as the palmist did.
He will not let your foot slip- he who watches over you will not slumber; in deed, he who watches over
In Jesus name, Amen.
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