-bulletin note from February 17, 2013
I came to the account of Samson in my Bible reading Friday morning, and again, couldn’t help shaking my head at this survey of the life of a judge in Israel. But there is in the account a good lesson in the testimony of his mother and father. His parents demonstrated their trust in God in their response to the visit of the angel of the Lord who told them they would be having a son who would be raised up to deliver Israel from the Philistines. Generations later, Zacharias, when visited by the angel announcing the coming birth of John the Baptist to him and his wife, doubted the word of God given by the angel. Manoah and his wife responded differently, with unquestioning trust in the word of God by this angel. Their concern was to get instruction from God on how he wanted them to raise this coming son. Manoah’s wife was visited first. After she told Manoah of the angel’s message, he prayed. Judges 13:8 “Then Manoah intreated the LORD, and said, O my Lord, let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.” Samson’s parents followed the instruction given them in rearing their son, and the destructive decisions he made later in his life were his, not theirs. The most important message God has for us in this is to trust God and trust his word, without doubting and questioning him. When God uses your reading of his Word, or the preaching of his Word to reprove, rebuke, correct, instruct in righteousness, or exhort, (2Tim 4:2) respond in trusting and obeying his Word. The outcome is not the ultimate concern; our faithfulness to trust God and obey his Word is. “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey!”