Mighty Counselor

Let's pray, Father God, thank you for these precious children. Help us

in our generation to love them, to be obedient as parents to your will,

that we can model Christ to these precious generation, and may they end

their time rise to greatness, to be deliverers in Israel as Samson was,

but a far better and moral character in Jesus name Amen okay. In one

of Sir Arthur Conandol's short stories, the arrogant Sherlock Holmes once told us less

than Stellar's sidekick Watson, that I am a brain Watson. The rest of

me is a mere appendix. That's kind of arrogant, isn't it. I

am a brain Watson, the rest of me is a mere appendix. We

would all like to be geniuses. How many of you like to be genius?

Go on? All right, yes, both hands go up, But

how many of you have to admit the fact that we're probably not really super

geniuses around here? No hands go up? A few or humble the rest

of your striving for greatness. We'd all like to be geniuses, like Sherlock

Holmes thought he was in the story, if we only had our chance at

it. So we take those vitamins to prop up our intellect. We do

what we can to get ahead. But the fact is that we're all rather

ordinary people without God in their lives. In fact, we're less than ordinary,

often without God in their lives, because the best of us are not

that smart at all compared to angels, compared to God, to compared to

unfallen beings in other worlds. So we need some help to get along in

life. Manoah in the Bible, Samson's father wasn't the brightest boy on the

block in his time, and he was definitely no Sherlock Holmes to boot.

In fact, Manoah wasn't bright at all. You read the story, it's

very apparent he couldn't even remember what his wife told him when the Angel the

Lord spoke to him. Manoah's name in Hebrew comes from the word for rest

quiet. If you take the M out of his name, which is at

the front to his name Manoah at the beginning, and you look at the

last part, it's very similar to Noah. In fact, it's the same

Manoah Manoah, and Manoah's the Noah part at the end, and Hebrew means

rest. It comes from new Ah rest God gave Noah. That name means

rest because for Noah the land would rest from the curse of kin. But

the M is the key part of his name. The M in front of

the Noah and Manoah's name is a participular mean amm, a participular M,

and it suggests the verbal idea of someone who just keeps on resting. Manoah's

name literally means keep on resting. Now what do we call that when someone

just keeps on resting? You know what it means? Lazy? I heard

the word. So Manoah's name literally means keep on resting. It means he

was lazy, boring, unfocused, perhaps dissipated or scar added or idol and

the like. So here is the man who lived in the time of the

Judges who was flat out lazy. Manoah was a young man who couldn't even

get to the square one in his life because he wasn't particularly good at putting

round pegs in square holes and he probably thought you cooked, and so he

was working on the wrong things, slow to get things done. He's not

particularly stellar, and why would God Almighty and Heaven care about this man?

No momentum and pretty much no manhood. In him is what you find in

the story's context. The story suggests that Manoah wasn't exceptional in his intellectual or

his physical capacities. He was a bland kind of guy. We might call

Minoah in our time, a nonstellar bump on the log kind of guy without

much promise or much hope for a future life of success. The man who

was named keep on Resting lazy. Now I ask you the question this morning.

Does God care about bump on the log kind of people in this world

who don't seem to be all that special to it or bright? Does He

care about people like this de ordinary people that would normally be left out of

the story of the planet salvation? They matter to him? We find the

Manoah's in the middle of a drama that affects the future of the world.

Does God care for Minoah's of our time? Yes, he does, and

that is good because in some ways we're all Minoah's compared to heavenly beings and

God. That means we need a divine counselor in our lives to show us

the way because we are not spiritually smart. The fact is, we're not

altogether smart at every time of our life, and we may be less than

smart all of our life. We need the mighty counselor The story starts in

Judges thirteen, verse one. Take your bibles and open it, or I

have the verse on the screen. It says in the people of Israel again

did was eve on the side of the Lord, and the Lord gave them

into the hand of the Philistines for forty years. And there was a certain

man of Zarah, the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah,

and his wife was barren and had no children. That's the way the story

of Sampson is introduced. The Bible says, the people of Israel here did

what was evil, And the keyword is again, the keyword again, again

and again. I mean, they did what was right, but then they

went right back to being bad people. And they spent forty years, just

like they'd spent forty years in the desert coming out of Egypt. They spent

forty more years oppressed by the Philistines because they disobeyed God like we do and

have done. And the keyword is again and again and again. Have you

ever disobeyed God and done it again? Anybody here, Okay, so that's

us in the storyline. It was like another wilderness for them. And when

does the forty years business stop in our lives? When does God raise up

a new Moses like Sampson would become a deliverer. We got to get through

those forty years and figure out how to focus in on God. Manoah was

from a town called Zora, and Zorah tells us a lot Zora and Hebrew

means dossitists are two colored. We could use the term in our language two

faced. He came from the land the city that meant two faced. Zora

was full of hypocritical people who acted like they followed God, but they really

didn't follow God. Kind of late a seeing like Christians who act religious on

the Sabbath, but who lived like the world on the other six days of

the week and still call themselves the chosen people of God. That's the kind

of people he grew up with. Zora was from the two faced town of

Zora, full of hypocrites. Now, Manoah's claimed to fame in the text

when you read the story and you watch the context, was the fact that

his wife was barren like Sarah, and she was much smarter than him.

That's apparent. I mean, if you look at the IQ, she had

a good IQ. He had not so good an IQ, maybe a bad

IQ. She was perhaps barren because he wasn't bright enough to figure out how

to make her pregnant, or he didn't have an motivation to do it,

or both. It's implied in the storyline. In the story, the Angel

Lord goes to her, but not to him. I mean the Angel Lord

goes to her because she was more likely than him to understand, get it,

to listen, and then to act on the information. Remember the Angel

of the Lord in the Old Testament, who is the Angel of the Lord,

and the Old Testament quizzing you, I priest on this here it's Jesus

Christ, the Angel of the Lord, who is the Lord God Almighty,

the messenger of God that comes from God. Is the preexistent Christ in the

Old Testament. So when you read the Angel Lord, you need to realize

this is Jesus before he became a baby in Bethlehem. This is the pre

existent Christ interacting with this family to help them. In the Old Testament,

Christ was first God with us in angel form, before he was God with

us in human form, and he is not a created being, He is

eternal God Judges thirteen. And the Angel the Lord appeared to the woman and

said to her, behold, you are barren and have no children, but

you shall conceive and bear a son. Therefore beware Man's the first thing out

of his mouth. Therefore beware and drink no wine or strong drink and eat

nothing unclean. For lo, you shall conceive and Bearren's son. No razors

shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God

from birth, and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the

philistines. Manoah and his wife lived in the time of the Judges, when

the Bible says at the end of the Book of Judges, every man did

what was right in his own eyes because there was no king. In other

words, everybody had an idea of what was right and wrong, but nobody

got it right. You needed someone who can lead and direct and teach and

form and ignorant nation how to obey God's word. That was the time they

lived. The wisest person on her earth who does not have God as his

or her king in their lives is a fool in Heaven's eyes we God,

and so Manoah grew up in a time when it was okay to drink a

little wine here or there, like some of our church members do at times

because they think it's socially acceptable. Maybe it's elegant. Oh, I take

it a little wine because I look smart. Have you ever seen someone drinking

wine very long? They don't look smart, not knowing that wine and wisdom

do not go together in the Bible. And I could add cocaine, drugs

and other things that doesn't work. The Bible says in Proverbs twenty one,

wine is a mocker. Strong drink is a brawler. And whoever has led

us straight by it is not wise. I had a professor at Andrews,

and I'm not gonna say who it was. It was trying to argue it

was okay for us to have socially drinking experiences and all this. He had

all his philosophy wrapped around why he thought it was okay, But he never

once read Proverbs twenty verse one. Solomon was the wisest man I ever lived.

He said, wine is a mocker. It helps to deceive you.

You want to be wise, stay away from it. So the Angel of

the Lord, who is the Lord Jesus and the Old Testament told Minoah's wife

to get the alcohol out of her life. No amens out there. But

look, that's the word of God. I'm not making this up. This

is the Bible. The Angel of the Lord knew about fetal alcohol syndrome way

before the science was created. To describe the problem, he said, beware

drink. No wine or strong drink that moves further out. Anything that messes

with your brain, that messes with your nervous system like that, get it

out of your system. No wine, no drugs, no stimulants in your

life, ma'am. Let the Holy Spirit do that for you. Get them

out of your life right now, for your children's sake. That's what Christ

told Manoah and his wife. Jesus would say the same today to us at

the time of the end, because we need to be a generation like Daniel

that lives clean lives. At the time of the end. Beware drink,

no wine or strong drink. Now, I come from a family that's been

devastated by alcoholism. When I was a young boy, I drank at the

age of fourteen to fifteen. I technically would have qualified as an alcoholic.

It was the grace of God that delivered me when I left my hometown,

put that stuff behind me. But alcoholism took the life of my grandfather.

It devastated my brother's life. It led my younger brother into addiction in other

areas where he died by suicide. Don't tell me that fooling around with this

stuff is okay in your family system. I know from experience it's devastating.

So why not take the counsel of the Lord and benefit from it in your

life and humility? Say thank you Lord for telling me that. But that's

not all he says to him and all his wife. I mean, it

gets a little more pointed. He says, eat nothing unclean. Now,

I was noticing I was down in Tennessee where my little grandchild, Clara Joy

was born, and Bob stick those pictures on the screen right now, I

forgot to do that. Hey, I like that picture. That's my granddaughter,

Clara Joy, born about two weeks ago. She's pretty like her grandmother

and her mother. Go through another slider. So let's see what else we

got in the mix. There there's John Michael holding Clara Joy. And you

know what, my son recent years, gives me all this advice about how

to be a dad. But he's very humble right now. He just had

a baby girl. He's listening. I like that. Go to the next

picture. There's Mara and my wife. We're doing they're doating over the baby.

Diana. Just I let Diana have the whole time. I held the

baby a little. She held it the most. She earned the right.

And Joy is her middle name. And then of course there's me. I'm

holding the baby too a little bit. Next picture, we come back to

the good pictures. Thank you. Look, when you have a child in

your life, little Lily has come into your life, that's a big deal.

And so Christ cares about your child, and he cares about you.

He cares about my family a little Clara, Joy and Lily. So he

says, eat nothing unclean. What does that mean? Well, in Leviticus

eleven, you have a list of unclean animals. Have you ever read it?

He might ever read the list. It's really a list of unhealthy foods

that can wreck your health long term. So stay away from pig. Do

you realize that people who touch raw pork in these pork processing plants get sick

because of the toxicity it goes from them into their skin. It's horrible stuff.

Yet you cook it good enough, you think you'll be all right.

Well, trickin nosis is not a good thing. It's in there. Stay

away from pig rattlesnake burgers. I hope no one here is eating rattlesnake burgers,

or rat pie or rabbits, catfish, shrimp, shellfish, any other

unclean animal list Levitics eleven days. Lord said stay away from that stuff.

That means the pepperoni on the pizza, unless it's bullies and laurel where they

have beat pepperoni. Because they're Islamic. The Moslems know enough to follow Levinicus

eleven because they believe in Moses. Christians ought to follow it too, because

it's good health practice. These two simple parents needed good advice because they didn't

have a clue what to do to raise their baby. For God. In

the story, Jesus as the Angel of the Lord, tells them what to

do to have a good and healthy baby, and how to be healthy also,

and how not to blow it in their life, not to get sucked

into all that awful philistine culture around them. So God consecrated that little boy

yet to be born as a Nazarite one set apart literally from the day of

his birth. That meant little Sampson would never cut his hair for his entire

life. And some of you would say, pastor Mike, I love that

verse right there. You know I don't have to cut my hair. Well,

you have to be pretty strong to carry a load of hair all your

life. That was never cut. So he was the strongest man on earth

because you imagine what his head looked like with that hair kept growing, he

had to bundle it up, bundled up, got bigger and bigger and bigger.

I mean when he was walking through the street, you were looking like

someone to look like a massive tree his hair. But he didn't break his

neck because he was strong. We can't do that. But he would also

never touch an alcohol I mean anything to do with grapes, So he wouldn't

get near alcohol ever. And he would never touch the unclean or anything unclean

for his entire life. Would that all our children today were dedicated to God

by their parents like this, so they would stay away from drugs, from

alcohol, unclean foods, The would be none of it in the home.

Unclean television and media music ripped out of the home, and anything that would

compromise them, that would make the angels go outdoors, that would hold their

relationships strong with God. As a child, see the call is high for

a child who's been dead, dicated the Lord. Holy children, dedicated to

the Lord. It says, from his birth to his death, he was

God's child. So they would remember that they are special in God's eyes.

Knowing what they watched and what they read, and what they eat and their

entertainment. Their associations would matter because God is near to them. Sampson was

special. He was dedicated by God to be a deliverer for his people.

Sampson Hebrew comes from the Hebrew word shemish. Say it with me, Shemish.

It means son. So he is the son of the light, so

to speak, the son of the Son. He was to be a child

and a man who grew up to give the light to the world, a

deliverer. Delilah comes from the word la yalah in Hebrew, and la Yalah

means night. Actually it's an association, but an intentional one. Delai laft

la yalah the night. She is the daughter of the night. What got

the son of the Light in trouble was he messed around with the daughter of

the Night. The wife went back to Noah and told him what she had

seen. Verse six. Look at the story. Then the woman came and

told her husband. A man of God came to me, and his counteness

was like the countenance of the Angel of the Lord, very terrible. I

did not ask him whence he was, and he did not tell me his

name. But he said to me, behold, you shall conceive and bear

his son. So then drink no wine or strying. Drink and eat nothing

unclean, for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from birth to the

day of his death. She was very clear that he did not tell her

his name. I saw this being, but he didn't say what his name

was. She saw the Angel of the Lard. She said, he's like

the Angel the Lard. Now that, of course, Manoah. That wasn't

clicking in his not so bright brain. But she said, I didn't hear

his name. Up to this point in time, Minoah has been idle in

life, but suddenly something spiritual stirs inside of him. The man from the

two faced town of Zorah begins to pray because Heaven has just interacted with his

wife and that makes her a prophet. What does it him? Well,

he needs to figure that out. He wants to be one too. You

know, when spiritual things start happening, when people start having a relationship with

God, it gets exciting and it gets kind of enticing where you'd like to

be a part of the fun. Verse eight. Then Manoah entreated the Lord

and said, oh Lord, I pray thee let the man of God,

whom thou didst sin, come to us and teach us what we are to

do with the boy that will be born? You now what did Every parent

would pray this prayer? Then Manoah prayed to God. He was the dim

with guy. He realized that he wasn't the brightest candle in the house.

He was the lackluster, lazy fellow that knew very little. That's why the

angel of the Lord went to his wife, who could get it better than

him, who'd remember what he said. So he prayed, as the man

of the home, still, come again to us, teach us what we

are to do with the boy that will be born. Not just my wife,

me too. If you want your child to go to heaven, and

be saved. Then you need to pray this prayer in your life. Also,

you hear me, you want your child to be saved. You don't

have a relationship God, start praying for your children. There are lots of

philosopher, king theologian types out there who have these men made good ideas that

will send your children right to Hell, to the destruction at the end of

the millennium. And God wants your children to be saved. He wants you

to be saved. So humble up and pray to God to save your children.

We live in a time when experts are trying to transition children from boys

to girls and from girls to boys. Who needs this kind of experts teaching

our children. We live in a time when evil is entertainment, and the

world teaches our children on the silver screen to lose their purity, to compromise

their life with God when no one is looking, and they call it entertainment.

It models the wrong thing to our children. We live in a time

when experts write books and experts corrupt children with philosophies and ideology that come from

atheism that lead them away from God. I speak to the parents of the

church today from the word of God. We need the Bible and we need

Jesus Christ in the testimony of Jesus, the spirit of prophecy, to teach

us what we are to do to save our children, because we are all

dim wits when it comes to knowing how to save our kids. When you

pray a prayer like Manoah preyed on your knees for your children, God will

hear that prayer and you'll begin to have a direct relationship with God yourself,

because when you're praying to God, you have a relationship with God. And

God's going to work through you. No matter how immature, uninformed, skeptical

you are, He will work with you to save your children. Do you

want God to notice you in your life? Also? Yes, then start

praying for your children. Watch God Almighty speak to you in your life.

Watch His love affect you, and watch it affect your children through you.

Judge's thirteen nine. Go down and God, listen to the voice of Manoah.

And the Angel of God came again to the woman as she said in

the field, But Manoah, her husband was not with her, and he

said, why did he go to her again? Well, it develops and

the woman ran in haste and told her husband, Behold, the man who

came to me the other day has appeared to me. Why didn't the Angel

Lord just appear to Manoah where he was at, right where he prayed.

Why didn't he show up right there? Remember that Minoah's name means lazy and

Hebrew literally keep on resting, dear heart, It's not enough to just pray

for the Lord to come to you, because you pray to him where you're

at. You hear me, when the Lord comes for you in life,

you need to come to the Lord where he is at, because where he

is at is where you need to be. You need to act on the

fact of the sincere prayer you just prayed and come to the Lord as fast

as you can. Where the Lord can be found on his ground and not

yours, on God's terms and not yours. And so Minoah has to go

to the Lord, just like we have to go to the Lord. It

may not be where you think he is at, but go to him.

Don't question the ground that he comes to you, Ellen, it's the very

ground you need to be while the Lord can be found. Friend, come

to the Lord. In verse eleven, the less than bright, lazy kind

of guy. Minoah gets in gear for God. I like to see him

running. It was like slow motion way back, and there was a television

show I used to watch called The six Million Dollars Man. Whenever he's sped

up, he slowed down. He's moving, you know, and everything's slow

motion. He's supposed to move him super fast. Well, I don't know

of how Minoah moved, but he was probably moving super slow fast, and

it's hard for him to move fast. Minoah, the leader of the home,

follows his wife as she leads him to Christ. Men, that's okay

if you find Christ that way in your home. If your wife's more spirits

than you, follow her into relationship with God. But be the leader.

In the end, verse eleven and Manoah rose and went after his wife and

came to the man and said to him, are you the man who spoke

to this woman? And he said, I am. Now, look at

that verse he said, he didn't say, my honey, my sweetheart,

Are you the man who spoke to this woman? And he said I am.

It sounds like Tarzan and Jane kind of talk. Remember this is the

time of the judges. Notice he didn't say his wife, but this woman.

Verse twelve, and Manoah said, now, when your words come true,

what is to be the boy's manner of life? And what is he

to do? Manoah couldn't even even remember what his wife had just told him.

I think about it. That's why the Angel Lord appeared to her the

first time. Because she was a lot brighter than him. She would remember

exactly what he said. That is why the Angel Lord told him, do

what I told your wife to do. She'll remember. In other words,

the Angel Lord shows up and says, by the way, I don't expect

you to remember a thing. I told her what to do. You do

it? Letok give her thirteen. This is what happens. And the Angel

Lord said to Manoah. Of all that I said to the woman, let

her be where she may not eat of anything that comes from the vine.

Neither let her drink of wine or strong drink, or eat anything unclean.

All that I commanded her. Let her observe what's he saying here? Look,

look, guy, she knows what to do. You let her get

it done. Don't get in the way. She knows what to do.

Let her obey. And the Old Testament, the Angel the Lord is always

on the move. You know, may be that your wife or your spouse

is moving to her Christ and you're in the way. You want to save

your kids. Get out of the way. Let her do the right thing

in your life. Maybe you're the one doing the right thing. Pray that

your spouse will let you do what you need to do. Our kids are

worth it, aren't they who wants to lose our children? And the Old

Testament the Angel Lord is always on the move. But notice what Manoah,

whose name means lazy and Hebrew, asked the Angel of the Lord, what's

the hurry? He still got that problem. Look at verse fifteen. Minoah

said to the Angel of the Lord, pray, let us detain you and

prepare a kid for you. What's the hurry? Man, Let's sit down

to eat some clean goat burgers together. Let's have a goat burger party here.

We'll drink some goat milk. You know, I don't know. He's

treating the Angel of the Lord like he is his buddy or one of the

guys. That's not exactly a healthy relationship with God. Christ answers back as

the Angel of the Lord, because that's who it is. Verse sixteen,

the Angel Lord said to Manoah, if you detain me, I will not

eat of your food. But if you make a ready a burnt offering,

then offer it to the Lord. For Manoah did not know that he was

the Angel of the Lord, even though his wife had said, it looks

like he is. Didn't connect the dots. There's certain things you can figure

out because it's obvious, but Manoah couldn't figure out much of anything in the

story. Finally, he resorts to raw manipulation to get what he wants from

the Angel of the Lord, not knowing that's so he is. It was

believed in ancient times that if you knew the name of a god, you

would have power over that deity. Notice for seventeen and Minoah said to the

Angel of the Lord, what is your name? So that you're when your

words come true, we may honor you. And the Angel Lord said to

him, why do you ask my name? Seeing it is and what does

the Bible say? Wonderful? That's his name. Wonderful is an adjective.

I mean, if you know grammar a little bit. Nobody knows grammar.

Help me okay, wonderful as an adjective, and it modifies a noun,

which is a you know you know what a noun is? Okay, good.

You didn't diagram sentences when you're in high school? I had a diagram

sentences. So wonderful? What it modifies? Something wonderful? What the dim

wit man Minoah, who was naturally lazy, also wanted to know his name?

What is your name? Isaiah tells us who he is and why his

name is wonderful? Is there hope for people who can't figure out God on

their own? Is there hope for people who don't have the information, who

if they follow what they were taught, they get it wrong. Is there

hope for people like that? Wonderful? Is your name wonderful? What?

Isaiah the prophet tells us what it means? At Christmas we read this first

Isaiah ninety six. Here is the Angel of the Lord who finally becomes the

Lord, and the manger of Bethlehem who condescends and Philippians two. Though he

was in the form of God, he took the form of a servant.

A servant is an angel Hebrews one seven. He was the servant of the

Lord the Angel of the Lord. But then he condescended more in Philippians too,

and he was found in human likeness. And being found in human likeness,

he then humbled himself to death on the cross. So the verse that

we're looking at predicted the condescension of the mighty servant of the Lord, the

Angel of the Lord, who became the Baby of Bethlehem, who was God

Almighty, the second person of the Trinity before all that. For to us

a child is born, to us, a son is given, and the

government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called. What

does it say in your Bible, wonderful counselor what wonderful? What? What

does it say, wonderful counselor Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Every parent needs Jesus to become for them the wonderful counselor. He has

the answers. His word is the guide for raising godly children, because he

is the Mighty God and thus the mighty counselor. He is the one that

when we've seen him, we've seen the Father. Thus he can be called

Everlasting Father. He is the Prince of Peace, Sar shaloone. He has

all the answer, and his word is the guide for raising godly children because

Christ knows how to help us. And when you follow Jesus, not trusting

your own smarts, not trusting some philosopher king theologian type who contradicts the Bible.

And you follow the word of God and the humility you get on your

knees and you pray for your kids, Jesus Christ will interact with you to

save your kids. The Holy Spirit will come into your life. And when

you have a relationship with God, you can then help your children have a

relationship with God. Why because the Mighty God, who is the Angel of

the Lord Jesus Christ pre exists and still that role is the wonderful counselor.

We need to trust Jesus to educate us up as parents and grandparents and to

trust his word and the spirit of prophecy to do the right for our kids.

Jesus thirteen nineteen and twenty. So Manoah took the kid with the serial

offering. Now the kid here means goat children. He didn't sacrific vice a

little baby. He took the kid the goat with the silo offering and offered

up on the rock to the Lord to him who works wonders. And when

the flame went up towards Heaven from the altar, the Angel of the Lord

descended in the flame of the altar, while Manoah and his wife looked on,

and they fell on their faces to the ground. Friend, when the

Angel of the Lord is done with the smart wife and the not so smart

husband, they see the light in the fire, and they do what every

one of us should do. And we see Jesus Christ in the fiery circumstances

of our lives. We hear the word of God. It gets through to

us. They fell on their faces, and they worshiped him in fear and

respect for who he is. Not terror, but loving respect. That's what

you do. When you pray, you fall on your face. They fell

on their face. Friend, when God comes into your life and you know

that God is there and that God has wonderful for you, and that God

is in the fire and the facts of life, that He has brought a

little baby girl or boy into your life, then fall on your knees with

your face to the ground, and call on the name of the Lord to

be with you and your family, to save your family. That is how

you start getting it right in your life. Don't do it just for you.

When Manoah knew he was going to be a father, to his credit,

he rose to the occasion. He ran after God, fallowing his wife

to the altar where Jesus Christ was found. For every one of us,

there's a moment in life when God reaches out to us dramatically, especially when

we have children that come into our lives. But the drama will fade,

the energy of the moment will dissipate, and your family's future will be determined

by what you do with what you remember from the wonderful Counselor who is the

Mighty God and the Prince of Peace, who has given you the word of

God. What you do with that, we'll determine your children's destiny. Verse

twenty one. The Angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and to

his wife. Then Minoah knew that he was the Angel of the Lord.

Even slow, dimwit kind of people like Manoah can finally figure it out if

they hang in there long enough to know God to hear his word in their

life. But he is still not the sharpest He's still not the sharpest tack

on the counter notice verse twenty two, and Minoah said to his wife,

we shall surely die, for we have seen God. His wife is a

little brighter than Manoah, and she knows how to connect the dots better than

he does. Look at verse twenty three. But his wife said to him,

if the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted

it burn offering a serial offering in our hands, or showing us all these

things, or announced to us such things as these. He looks at his

wife. He says, dum duh. Yeah, yeah, I guess you're

right. That makes sense, honey. Dah, yeah, h I get

it now. Yeah, you're right, smart wife, smart wife. She

says, yeah, it's better than this wife. Yeah, smart wife.

We're going to live. I'm pinching myself. It feels good. Impressive,

pretty smart, honey. I'll quit calling you this woman like I told the

Angel of the Lord. From now on, your honey, and let's go

home and have a baby for the Angel of the Lord. Sweetie, what

do you say? Verse twenty four. And the woman bore a son,

called his name Sampson, and the boy grew and I like this, and

the Lord blessed him you dedicate your children to God. What happens, the

Lord blesses them. When you obey, what happens, the Lord blesses your

children. When you forget the foolishness of the world and you accept the word

of God, the Lord blesses him. And then verse twenty five, And

the spear of the Lord began to stir in him, which means this boy

began to have a relationship with God. It stirred in him, and Mahanadan

between Zorah and Estah. Friend, if you follow the good counsel of the

Mighty Wonderful Counsel, your children will stir with a spirit of God in them.

Because you have learned to hear God's word, you have learned to obey

in your relationship with God. They will find a relationship with God. And

you will benefit eternally from that relationship with the Mighty Wonderful Counselor take his advice

in your life. Hell will be filled with fools who thought they were smarter

than the revelation of God and his word. Dear heart, we need Jesus.

It's a life and death matter. When I lost my brother a few

years ago, I can't tell you how it feels to lose a brother the

way I lost him. Pray every day not to lose my kids in any

way like that, And I covened before God. They'd never see alcohol in

my home, never see any substance like that in my house. We need

to encourage our children to stand out in this generation, to be godly children

and their generation. Let's live for Jesus the wonderful counselor they're heavenly. Father.

We're not smart people here. We don't know the truth unless the truth

speaks to us and the Bible we hear Jesus speaking. Who is the way

of the truth and the life He spoke to Manoah and his wife and the

time of the judges to help them raise their kids. Lord, we need

to hear him every day in our life. Father, I want to raise

my hand to heaven right now and say I need Jesus to renew my heart

because I'm a grandpa. Now, there's any parent out there or grandparent who

wants to raise their hand to heaven, say I need to do the same

Christ in my life so I can help my children. Raise your hand with

me. Father. You see those hands that went up. You know the

hearts that are necessarily we dedicated to you right now, Father, nothing will

make us happier than to stand on the sea of glass with our children and

our grandchildren. May this church be a place that is faithful to you.

May children learn to love the word of God, and may they be saved

in Jesus name. Amen. Amen,