Good Thursday to you my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends,
Do you sometimes look around our world and wonder if God is aware of all the misery and suffering on our planet? Do you sometimes look at the circumstances of your own life wondering if God has forgotten all about you? Do you think many in Israel feel the same today? Come with me, back to another time in Israel, very similar to what we see on our TV’s each night.
Judges 13 begins with these words: “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.” Now please understand, I am not suggesting the reason for the Hamas attack on October 7 is that Israel today is doing evil in the sight of God. That is God’s analysis to make, not mine. What I am saying is that today, as often in Israel’s past, there are grieving families in Israel due to the vicious attacks of those who hate them and who live in the area today known as the Gaza Strip, which 3000 years ago was the region occupied by enemies of Israel known as the Philistines.
In that day the Philistines were a large and vicious people occupying the coastal lands along the Mediterranean Sea with five major cities, three of whom are the same cities today: Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod! The other two were Ekron and Gath. Notice please that in Judges 13 the persecuting domination of the Philistines had already lasted 40 years!
While I presume many people were crying out for God’s help in the time of Judges 13, we have no record of that. Rather, we have the ‘initiative of God’ reaching to His suffering people through one barren woman and her husband! Sound familiar? That’s how the Christmas story begins, with Zechariah and Elizabeth, remember? (Luke 1:8-25) In this case, for reasons known only to God, the woman is not named, although her husband is identified as Manoah from the Israelite clan of Dan.
The record says: “The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, ‘you are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son…whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazarite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” (Judges 13:4,5)
Wow, can you imagine how this dear woman must have felt? No doubt she had prayed many times asking God for a child. Perhaps she and her husband had suffered personal injury or damage to their home from the attacks of the Philistines.
This unexpected visit must have been nearly overwhelming to the woman for the record says: “The woman went to her husband and told him, ‘A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I did not ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name. But he said to me, ‘you will become pregnant and have a son…the boy will be a Nazarite of God from the womb until the day of his death.’ Then Manoah prayed to the LORD: ‘pardon your servant LORD, I beg you to let the man of God you set to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.” (Judges 13:6-8)
Don’t you love that my friends? Manoah trusted that his wife had told him exactly what she had experienced, even though it probably seemed ridiculous to both of them.
Married men, may I ask, do you have that type of relationship with your wife? Does she have confidence you believe her and trust her to tell you the truth, even if it’s outrageous? I also love the prayer relationship this man had with God, as seen in the words he used. Finally, I’m deeply touched that both Manoah and his wife realized God had called them to a very unusual parenting assignment, raising up a Nazarite who would grow up to be the leader of Israel who would guide them to defeat their enemy the Philistines! Their request for God to send the angel back again to teach them how to raise this boy challenges me to wonder how many parents today are begging God for guidance in raising their children or grandchildren?
What happened next is simply astounding: “God heard Manoah and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was out in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her. The woman hurried to tell her husband, ‘He’s here! The man who appeared to me the other day!’ Manoah followed his wife. When he came to the man he asked, him, ‘When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule that governs the boy’s life and work?’ The angel of the LORD said, ‘Your wife must do all that I have told her.” (Judges 13:9-14)
Don’t you love Manoah’s statement of confidence and question for guidance? I see no doubt in Manoah’s statement. He is confident that his barren wife will miraculously become pregnant and have a son, and that they will parent a future great leader! I wonder how many parents walk the parenting journey with that level of trust in God for the help they need in guiding the development of the children God has entrusted to them?
Grandparents, would you please look seriously at the privilege God has given to us? Generation ‘Z’ (those born 2001 – 2015) is a generation far different from any before them, and our generation may be the one who is best suited to teach them, guide them, help them develop into the adults God has designed them to be. The tragedy of 9/11 launched this generation and terrorism has been an all too frequent reality all over the world for them. Family dysfunction, racial anger, mass shootings, gender confusion, the LGBTQ revolution, failed leadership, global wars, economic turmoil, COVID, technology advances including now ‘AI’ have all joined together to shape and wound a generation of kids who desperately need God.
But as they look around their world, they have no reason to believe God cares about them and few of them have adults they trust enough to love and train them up to be God honoring adults! Now think about that my friends.
I don’t know how old Manoah and his wife were, but I have a sense they may have been well beyond childbearing years, thus our age, grandparents. And yet God is entrusting them with a miracle son who will grow up to deliver Israel from the vicious Philistines! I wonder if there’s a family in Israel today like this family. Perhaps God has entrusted you and me with some grandchildren who may grow up to be very significant in the story of their part of the world!? Are you and I the adults we need to be, with the relationships with God that we need to have, so we can influence Generation Z to know God and become all God has planned for them?
I think we should pause right here for today, pray for Generation ‘Z’ and our role in helping them, and after we listen to this great song, we’ll come right back here tomorrow to see what happened with Manoah, and his wife and this angel of the LORD, at a very strategic time in Israel’s history!
Today’s Scripture is Judges 13:1-14.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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