Timeless
Background Story: When Israel came into the promise land, God rose up judges to speak His words to the people and lead them in victory against their enemies.
Read Judges 13
Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines, who oppressed them for forty years.
2 In those days a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant, and they had no children. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah’s wife and said, “Even though you have been unable to have children, you will soon become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 So be careful; you must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food. 5 You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and his hair must never be cut. For he will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. He will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.”
6 The woman ran and told her husband, “A man of God appeared to me! He looked like one of God’s angels, terrifying to see. I didn’t ask where he was from, and he didn’t tell me his name. 7 But he told me, ‘You will become pregnant and give birth to a son. You must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food. For your son will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from the moment of his birth until the day of his death.’”
8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, saying, “Lord, please let the man of God come back to us again and give us more instructions about this son who is to be born.”
9 God answered Manoah’s prayer, and the angel of God appeared once again to his wife as she was sitting in the field. But her husband, Manoah, was not with her. 10 So she quickly ran and told her husband, “The man who appeared to me the other day is here again!”
11 Manoah ran back with his wife and asked, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife the other day?”
“Yes,” he replied, “I am.”
12 So Manoah asked him, “When your words come true, what kind of rules should govern the boy’s life and work?”
13 The angel of the Lord replied, “Be sure your wife follows the instructions I gave her. 14 She must not eat grapes or raisins, drink wine or any other alcoholic drink, or eat any forbidden food.”
15 Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please stay here until we can prepare a young goat for you to eat.”
16 “I will stay,” the angel of the Lord replied, “but I will not eat anything. However, you may prepare a burnt offering as a sacrifice to the Lord.” (Manoah didn’t realize it was the angel of the Lord.)
17 Then Manoah asked the angel of the Lord, “What is your name? For when all this comes true, we want to honor you.”
18 “Why do you ask my name?” the angel of the Lord replied. “It is too wonderful for you to understand.”
19 Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord. And as Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did an amazing thing. 20 As the flames from the altar shot up toward the sky, the angel of the Lord ascended in the fire. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell with their faces to the ground.
21 The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Manoah finally realized it was the angel of the Lord, 22 and he said to his wife, “We will certainly die, for we have seen God!”
23 But his wife said, “If the Lord were going to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering. He wouldn’t have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these miracles.”
24 When her son was born, she named him Samson. And the Lord blessed him as he grew up. 25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he lived in Mahaneh-dan, which is located between the towns of Zorah and Eshtaol.
Big Idea: God is timeless and eternal.
When the angel came to Manoah’s wife telling her that she would have this special son who was to be set apart to the Lord, Manoah went back to God and prayed, “Lord, please let the man of God come back to us again and give us more instructions about this son who is to be born.” As a rule follower myself, I totally appreciate and understand where Manoah was coming from. We all live better with boundaries. My dog doesn’t drive my neighbor crazy or dig up their flowers if she is inside the fence in my yard. When we play a new board game, it goes better if we read and understand the rules first. And Manoah’s world has just been rocked by this news from an angel and he feels like he needs a little more information.
As created beings, boundaries provide order and safety to our lives. But the error comes when we (created beings) try to make God (the Creator) exist within our limitations and boundaries. God is both TIMELESS and ETERNAL, “the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end” and the One “who is, who always was, and who is still to come” (Revelations 1:8). We have a yesterday, a today, and a tomorrow… but God exists in all time! And because of this, God’s long-term purposes are not always visible in the short span of a life. A great example of this is Stephen in the book of Acts. In Acts 6-8, we read about the birth of the church and that the, “number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly.” Because of the church’s growth, a man named Stephen rose up as a leader only to be arrested and stoned to death. From the observer that day, Stephen’s life might have served little purpose. But we read in chapter 8 that Stephen’s death sparked Christian persecution which caused the followers to leave Jerusalem and become, “scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.” The death of Stephen and the persecution that followed caused the church to get up and leave their place of comfort to spread the gospel all over the world.
The shortness of our life can make it hard to see how the events of today fit into the great story God is writing. And to be honest, these truths are, “too wonderful for you to understand” on this side of Heaven. Like Manoah, he didn’t get the full picture or the entire play by play. But as him and his wife got a glimpse of God’s glory, their response was appropriate as they fell to the ground in surrender. We too can offer ourselves to God’s purposes today and have faith even in life’s struggles that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
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