Judges 13:1-25

As we journey through the Book of Judges, we can see that there is a significant role played by The Angel of the Lord at various times.

We took a look at the encounter with Gideon last time, and today we will explore a very familiar passage and look at Samson. As we explore this, we can see that there is a pattern that emerges here: the Israelites forsake God, begin to worship idols, and then, God allows the surrounding peoples to punish them. (By the way, the enemies are invading us here in North America as we get further and further from God.)

In Gideon’s day, it was the Midianites, but now in Samson’s time, it is the Philistines. The Jews have been oppressed by the Philistines for 40 years, we are told in Judges 13:1. God sends and tells a woman that she is going to have a son; he, Samson, would begin to deliver the people from the Philistines. Samson was not even born yet, and if we simply take a look at what was considered a man for war, he would have had to be 20 years old before he began his acts of deliverance against the Philistines. So, even with his birth, there was still a long time to be oppressed before the deliverance came.

In verse 3, The Angel of the Lord appears to a woman in the tribe of Dan, who is married to Manoah. The Angel, Jesus, as we have discovered in previous encounters, promises her that she will have a son, and then tells her how to raise him. He is to be a Nazarite from birth; he is not allowed to eat grapes, raisins, drink wine, cut his hair, be around the dead, or eat any unclean food. This dear Sister is barren, and Samson would be her first son. In verse 6, she tells her husband Manoah all that The Angel had told her, and he asks God to come and tell him as well. In verse 9, The Angel appears to Manoah’s wife again, and she runs to get him so that he can hear for himself.

In the next few verses here in Judges 13, The Angel identifies himself as God to Manoah, and we will explore that here. First, in verse 11, Manoah asks the ‘Man’ if he is the same person who spoke to his wife, and The Angel answers, ‘I am.’ Not ‘I am her.’ Not ‘Yes, it was me,’ but He specifically answers with the name for God given to us in Exodus 3. In verses 16-20, The Angel accepts a burnt offering as a sign of worship from Manoah and his wife. No mere angel will allow this; even in Revelation 22: 8-9, the angel showing John around the New Jerusalem would not allow John to bow down to him. He tells John, I am just a servant like you, and he refuses to allow John to worship him. So, this Angel in Judges allows Gideon to worship Him with a burnt offering in Judges 6:21, and He receives worship here from Manoah and his wife in Judges 13:20. Once this happens, Manoah is afraid. It would appear that up until this time, he was not convinced that this was God talking to him. But once he saw that this Angel accepted the sacrifice and went up into Heaven in the flame of the sacrifice(verse 20), then Manoah understood that this was God who spoke to them (verses 19-22).

So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it upon the rock to the Lord. And He did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his wife looked on— ²⁰ it happened as the flame went up toward heaven from the altar—the Angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar! When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground. ²¹ When the Angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He was the Angel of the Lord. ²² And Manoah said to his wife, ‘We shall surely die, because we have seen God!’”

This was a genuine fear that Manoah had; it was irrational, as his wife pointed out, but a genuine fear nonetheless. He knew that in Exodus 33:20, the Torah tells us that ‘No man can see God and live.’

Now God tells us that He spoke to Moses ‘face to face,’ in Exodus 33:11; this refers to clear and direct conversation. God tells Miriam in Numbers 12:8-10 that she should have had more reverence than to speak out against Moses because he spoke to him ‘face to face.’ Somehow, Moses had access to God that no mere man has had since. But Manoah understood that seeing God meant death.

The Angel of the Lord is God. This is Jesus, as we established in Joshua, the Commander of the Lord’s Armies. Then one more look as we explore the story here of Samson. In verse 17, Manoah asks The Angel for his name, and The Angel answers, “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?”

In Isaiah 9:6, we are told that one of the names of the Son that will be born to redeem us is ‘Wonderful.’ Jesus is Wonderful. We know the rest of the story: Samson grows up, he has a real problem with women, and while they are the eventual Achilles heel that brings his downfall, he does begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines. He kills about 3,000 of their lords and leaders when he is also killed as a temple falls on them and him. We are told that he judged Israel for 20 years.

Jesus is the central theme, the star, the main character, the subject of the ever-present God in the Old Testament. We saw Him in the Exodus and the journey through the wilderness; we saw Him with Joshua; and now, we see Him in the Book of the Judges. Jesus has been the story of the whole Bible from the very beginning. We are told in John 1 that He created everything.

Those of us Gentiles have been blessed in that we have been granted eyes to see Jesus in the Old Testament. And there are some Jews that, by the grace of God, when they take the time to read the OT, can also see Jesus; they repent and come to trust in Him as Savior. But the vast majority of Israel is still blind. One day soon, their eyes will be opened, and they will see that Jesus is the Messiah. Rejoice that you can see Jesus as your Messiah. Don’t ever take that grace for granted.

I pray that as you read through the Bible, you will be looking for Jesus, looking to see references to Him, looking for pictures of Him, descriptions of Him, and where He is there doing stuff and pushing God the Father’s agenda forward.

Jesus is God, 100% God, but it was the plan from the beginning for Him to come as a Man, 100% Man as well. This was never the ‘backup plan’; it was the ONLY plan. Jesus, the God-Man, living on Earth, experiencing life as a Man, being hurt, betrayed, hated, tempted, seeing how frail we are, experiencing hunger, fatigue, thirst and all that we go through. He had to bury Joseph and experience loss. He was poor and totally dependent on God the Father for all He needed. But all this was done for you and me; this way, Jesus can truly be an authentic Advocate for us in Heaven. He could be the authentic substitute for us on the cross and take our sin. He would rise from the dead and kill the one thing that makes all men fear, death.

In Jesus, by Jesus, and through Jesus, we have Hope; we have the promise that death is a door and not a destination. For those of us that have this hope, we need to be constantly rejoicing, and for those that don’t have this hope, you need to repent and humble yourself under the promise and the person of Jesus. He is the Hope for this life and the next.

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

Joshua 5:13-15

“And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, ‘Are You for us or for our adversaries?’ ¹⁴ So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, ‘What does my Lord say to His servant?’¹⁵ Then the Commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.”

I have been away recovering from hip replacement surgery. I had been suffering for 6 years, and especially in the last 6 or 7 months, I have been in pain all day and even at night. The recovery will also have its pain involved, but in time, that pain will diminish and go away. I had become accustomed to the pain of a busted hip and learned to manage it. But if I wanted to stop being limited by the pain in my hip, then I needed to endure the surgery. There would be pain to heal, or I could stay with the pain to be limited.

The Christian life is much like this; we all have things in our life that we have become accustomed to, but to make changes, there has to be a bit of pain. Too many of us do not want to do the pain of change, and as such, we don’t make any changes in this life.

As we continue our journey, seeing Jesus in the Old Testament, we are now out of the wilderness and in the Promised Land. Moses and Aaron are dead, and Joshua is the new leader. They are stationed outside of Jericho, and God is about to give Joshua very strange instructions. Joshua has an encounter with Jesus here just outside of Jericho. Joshua looked up and sees a man; he goes to Him and asks Him, ‘Are You for us or for our adversaries?’ Jesus answers him, and we can see some amazing things and learn things about Jesus.

Like Moses, Joshua needed to have his ‘Jesus’ encounter. Joshua needed to have his faith in God for himself. He could not rely on Moses’ relationship with God. All too often, our children and even those in our churches rely on the relationship with God through their parents or leaders. Too many have not had their own encounters with God. Well, Joshua was about to begin his own journey as the leader, and he needed to have an encounter with Jesus.

Jesus’ answer to Joshua is that He is the Commander of the Army of the Lord. We can go to Revelation 19:11 and read there as Jesus comes from heaven and leads the army of the Lord. He is coming to kill those who are in the process of attacking Israel. So, we can logically come to the conclusion that the Commander of the Army of the Lord is Jesus. We see that He has his sword drawn.

When we go back to Revelation 19:17-21,

“Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, ‘Come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.’

And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh.”

We see here that Jesus kills a lot of people, millions in fact, and when we see the prophecy from Ezekiel 39: 12-14, we see there are so many dead that it takes 7 months to bury the dead.

“For seven months the house of Israel shall be burying them so that they may cleanse the land. Indeed, all the people of the land shall bury them. And it shall be their renown on the day that I shall be glorified, says the Lord God. They shall separate men who continually pass through the land to bury the passengers, even those who remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it. After the end of seven months, they shall search.”

Too many modern churches have taken the 33 or so years that Jesus lived on Earth as a Man, and they form the entire person of Jesus. This has led to a feminization of the Lord; in too many cases, He has been stripped of his manliness. This ‘meek Jesus’ that many churches promote has led to a lack of strong men in the local churches.

Jesus is a Man’s man. He is a warrior, a dangerous soldier who carries a sword. Yes, he becomes the meek and lowly Saviour and died for us. But this was a ‘blip’ in the existence of Jesus. He, the God, Jesus, the Second One of the God-Head, is the Commander, the General, the Chief Warrior of Heaven.

There has been a deliberate effort to feminize Christian men and to make Biblical, mental and physical strength a curse as opposed to a blessing. We, in the power of the Holy Spirit, need to find the balance between being meek, lowly and humble, yet being strong defenders of the Word, the local church that Jesus died for, and our families.

In Exodus 3, God tells Moses to take off his shoes because the place where Jesus is standing is Holy Ground. And so, Joshua, like Moses, takes off his shoes. Please notice that this Commander of the Army of the Lord allows Joshua to worship Him. ‘Regular’ angels will not allow this; true angels of the Lord will immediately stop you if you try to worship them (see Revelation 22:9).

Joshua immediately asked, “What does my Lord say to His Servant?” Jesus is to be obeyed; we should want to know what He wants us to do. In our case, we have the written and preserved scriptures to help us to know what God wants us to do. But the point is that once we see our Lord, the Commander, High and Lifted up, like what we see here and in Isaiah 6, our first response should be what do you want me to do? Obedience is the highest form of worship.

Well, Jesus, the Commander, was about to tell Joshua how to defeat Jericho. The instructions would sound like gibberish to a man of war: walk around the city 6 times and be quiet, then on the seventh day, walk around 7 times and shout. Not only was it weird, but it violated the Sabbath day; the army would be marching on the seventh day and fighting in the seventh day. But if the Man he was talking to was truly God, truly the Commander, then His instructions needed to be obeyed. This victory would set the tone for the next 5 years of war to take the Promised Land. Obedience was not negotiable.

By the way, manly men are obedient to the Lord. So, be strong, stand up, our God is a Man of War, according to Exodus 15:3. He expects His men to be strong, courageous, obedient, biblically literate, and faithful; these are the traits of strong men. He wants all of us to be obedient; this is the true form of worship. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario