January: First Sabbath: Nkayi; Fourth: Auckland, Inverness, New Canaan.

February: First Sabbath: Broadstairs; Second: Dingwall; Third: Stornoway; Fourth: North Uist, Zenka.

March: First Sabbath: Larne, Sydney, Ullapool; Second: Ness, Portree, Tarbert; Third: Halkirk, Kyle of Lochalsh; Fourth: Barnoldswick; Fifth: Gisborne, Ingwenya, North Tolsta.

April: Second Sabbath: Leverburgh, Maware, Staffin; Third: Chesley, Laide; Fourth: Glasgow, Mbuma.

May: First Sabbath: Aberdeen, Grafton, London; Second: Achmore, Donsa, Kinlochbervie; Third: Edinburgh; Fourth: Chiedza.

June: First Sabbath: Farr, Perth; Second: Nkayi, Santa Fe, Shieldaig; Third: Lochcarron, Uig; Fourth: Gairloch, Raasay; Fifth: Bulawayo, Inverness.

July: First Sabbath: Beauty; Second: Bonar Bridge, Staffin; Third: Applecross, Auckland; Fourth: Cameron, Struan.

August: First Sabbath: Dingwall; Second: Leverburgh, New Canna, Somakantana; Third: Laide; Fourth: Stornoway, Tomatin, Vatten, Zenka.

September: First Sabbath: Chesley, Larne, Sydney, Ullapool; Second: Halkirk, Munaka, Portree; Third: Tarbert; Fourth: Aberdeen, Barnoldswick, North Uist; Fifth: Fort William, Ingwenya.

October: First Sabbath: Dornoch, Grafton, Lochcarron, North Tolsta; Second: Gairloch, Ness; Third: London; Fourth: Edinburgh, Gisborne, Uig, Mbuma.

November: Second Sabbath: Glasgow; Third: Wellington; Fourth: Chiedza.

December: First Sabbath: Singapore; Third: Bulawayo, Santa Fe, Tauranga.

The Free Presbyterian Magazine

Volume 118

September 2013

Number 9

God Is Good

The spiritual and moral condition of Israel during the time of the Judges was absolutely dire. Twice we are told that “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Jdg 17:6); God was ignored. Yet He did not forsake His people; in various parts of the country He raised up judges who provided leadership in repelling the tribes who had invaded Israel, as God’s instruments to chastise His people and to bring them to plead with Him for deliverance. And, no doubt, at least some of these judges also exerted a restraining influence on the people as they ruled in the fear of God.

During that time, Manoah and his wife were a childless couple in the tribe of Dan. An angel of the Lord appeared to her one day and promised her that she would have a son who, as a judge, would begin to deliver Israel from Philistine oppression. She, however, described her visitor as “a man of God”, while noting that his face was like that of an angel of God. Manoah, clearly a good man, prayed that “the man of God” would come again, to teach them how to treat the child who was to be born. His request was granted and the angel returned. He would not accept Manoah’s offer of hospitality but invited him to offer a burnt offering to the Lord. Up to this point, Manoah did not realise that he was speaking to an angel. But he was no longer in any doubt when the angel ascended to heaven in the flame of the sacrifice. In fact, Manoah and his wife “fell on their faces to the ground”; they were totally overwhelmed.

Manoah now realised that it was not merely an angel they had seen, but God Himself. In considering this incident, we must remember the words of the Saviour: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (Jn 1:18). So we must conclude that the One who visited Manoah and his wife, to declare to them an aspect of God’s mind, was in fact the Second Person of the Godhead. Thus it is clear that Samson, the child whose birth was announced to his mother, was to have an important place in the spiritual history of God’s people, in spite of his serious character flaws.

Manoah was in despair; he told his wife: “We shall surely die, because we

have seen God”. He had a clear consciousness that he was a sinner, who therefore deserved God’s wrath. He would have had the same understanding as David later expressed: “I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51:5) – from the beginning of his existence he had a sinful nature; and although, through grace, sin no longer had dominion over him, he remained a sinner. Now Manoah had seen his judge, who because of His infinite holiness “will not clear the guilty” – as He told Moses when giving His servant a unique revelation of Himself.

Manoah would also have been very conscious that he lived in a generation which deserved to have God’s wrath poured out on it. He may have remembered the words of the Lord to Moses: “Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake Me, and break My covenant which I have made with them. Then My anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?” (Deut 31:16,17).

In Manoah’s time, the Israelites as a whole were not giving their hearts to God, the true God; they were forsaking Him for false gods; in generation after generation they had been committing spiritual adultery. And God, as He had threatened, was angry; Israel was suffering “many evils and troubles”. Manoah, as an Israelite, was conscious of his people’s sin; he was convinced that, having seen the holy God, he and his wife must feel God’s wrath. “We shall surely die,” he told her, “because we have seen God” (Jdg 13:22).

Manoah’s wife too had a real understanding of sin and of its consequences, but she disagreed with her husband’s conclusion. And her reasoning was much more in line with God’s revelation. While she had no wish to reject his reasoning about sin and its consequences, she took into account also certain other factors in the situation which were highly relevant. She told him: “If the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would He have showed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these”. She was clear that God had promised them a child and, because God is always faithful to His promises, He would keep His promise to them. The child would be born, she knew, and if the child was to be born and they were to bring him up as God had directed them, they could not die until, at least, they had carried out their responsibilities to their son.

What was more, God had accepted their sacrifices. This was a sign to Manoah and his wife that their sins had been forgiven, and therefore that God

would not put them to death for their sins. Their sins were real and the consequences threatened against their sins were real, but God had shown them the way of deliverance from sin – through the provision of a substitute to suffer death in their place. That substitute was, in the first instance, the kid offered in sacrifice, but it pointed forward to the Lamb of God, who was to offer Himself as a sacrifice which would truly satisfy divine justice and open the way for sinners to be reconciled to God. So Paul could tell the Ephesian believers that Christ “hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour” (Eph 5:2) – just as, when Noah offered sacrifices after leaving the ark, “the Lord smelled a sweet savour”. What we are being told in each case is that the Lord accepted the sacrifice, and so whoever will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will “not perish, but have everlasting life”.

The sacrifice of a kid was accepted for both Manoah and his wife, but it was his wife who better understood the significance of God accepting the sacrifice. In her soul, she was anticipating David’s expression of God’s good-will to sinners: “Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee” (Ps 86:5). We too are to receive God’s testimony in His Word concerning His goodness – His willingness to do good to those who are in need. And we are in serious need as sinners. How clearly God has revealed His goodness in sending His only-begotten Son to offer Himself as a sacrifice for needy, guilty sinners!

God is good. No sinner should doubt His willingness to forgive even the chief of sinners. No one ought to minimise the seriousness of their sins or the seriousness of sin’s consequences. But, says Paul, “this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” (1 Tim 1:15). The truth about Christ coming to save even great sinners is, we are being told in this verse, reliable and it is worthy of being believed; and Christ Himself is worthy of being trusted. To refuse to do so is to go on in the serious sin of unbelief.

And Matthew Henry comments: “Let those good Christians who have had communion with God in the Word and prayer – to whom He has graciously manifested Himself, and who have had reason to think that God has accepted their works – take encouragement thence in a cloudy and dark day, [to say,] God would not have done what He has done for my soul if He had designed to forsake me and leave me to perish at last, for His work is perfect; nor will He mock His people with His favours. Learn to reason as Manoah’s wife did: If God had designed me to perish under His wrath, He would not have given me such distinguishing tokens of His favour.” He adds appropriately: “O woman, great is thy faith!” May that faith be ours!