(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

We'll be right back. Yeah, that's the end of the program. Thank you. You know what? I can hear it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good evening everyone. Welcome to our service this night here at Faith Forward Baptist Church. It's really good to see you all here on this Wednesday night. If you would please take your seats and take your hymnals. should find one close by please turn him to him number 349 the comforter has come number 349 349 let's sing it on that first verse Oh spread the tidings round wherever man is found let's sing it out nice alone on that first verse together number 349 Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Thank you for the opportunity to be here today I play the abreast everyone that's here and bless everyone that's watching from home and please bless our song worship it's in Christ name I pray amen amen him number 220 Jesus is all the world to me number 220 number 220 Jesus is all the world to me my life my joy my all number 220 singing out on this first verse all together number 220 no other one can cheer me so when I am sad he makes me glad my friend Jesus is all the world to me my friend and try to Oh he's my friend Jesus is all the world to me and true to him of me Oh how could I this friend deny when he's so true to me following him I know I'm right he watches over me day and night following him by day and night he's my friend Jesus is all the world to me I want no better friend I trust him now I'll trust him when life's leading we shall end beautiful life with such a friend beautiful life that has no end eternal life eternal joy he's my friend all right this time we'll go through our announcements if you don't bulletin put up your hand nice and high we'll get to you with one on the inside we have our service time sunday mornings at 10 30 is our preaching service sunday nights at six wednesday nights at seven is our bible study you know we were going to be in judges chapter 12 tonight but actually we're going to skip judges chapter 12 because of the fact that i i realized it's such a short chapter and i just preached an entire sermon on judges 12 like three months ago so i kind of stole my own thunder so i if the series feels incomplete to you you can go home and listen to that sermon that i did back in october it was called i think shibboleth and so it's such a short chapter and since i just preached on it uh we're just going to move on to judges chapter 13 tonight so hopefully you didn't have your heart set on anything so anyway uh cross the page or below that we've got the soul winning times salvations baptisms across the page we've got the coffee and donuts coming this sunday morning at 10 am and if your birthday or anniversary has not already been included in the bulletin and you'd like it to be please email the church so that we can have that on file and then thank you to those who participated in the small town soul winning trip to globe 11 soul winners five salvations there's a trip to safford coming up actually this friday morning they're leaving on friday morning coming back saturday evening anybody's welcome to come even if you just want to come as a silent partner if you're new or something because we have plenty of talkers but just make sure that you sign up over here uh oh did we move it okay so this is the new hub it looks like for those small town trips so you can sign up over here and if you have any questions talk to brother raymond up here tall blonde guy in the front row and then uh below that i'm sorry is that racist to say that because you you can't describe people anymore right dr seuss has been cancelled now apparently because this is what i kid you not i read this article dr seuss was cancelled because it showed asians wearing a conical hat eating with chopsticks out of a bowl now last time i checked that's what asians do they wear cone-shaped hats and they eat with chopsticks out of a bowl and last i checked there's nothing wrong with a conical hat or chopsticks or eating out of a bowl so what's the issue but we're living in an insane society and if you think that that's normal you need to get your head examined if you think it's normal for people to be offended by that that's stupid and ridiculous okay asians wear pointy hats okay mexicans wear sombreros you know what do white people wear cowboy hats berets baseball caps you know fanny yeah yeah we wear fanny packs okay it's like so what what's the big deal get over yourself it's so dumb anyway i just had to get that off my chest that has nothing to do with the sermon so i had to put it in the announcements but it's just so ridiculous just the thin skinned and and it's like it almost seems racist to be offended by it like you're saying there's something wrong with that pointy hat or something it's like how dare you insult asians by showing them in a pointy hat those pointy hats are kind of cool you know so what it's the big deal you can't appropriate any other cultures yeah so it's like how am i if i can't appropriate these other cultures how am i going to be less white because coca-cola had a training for their people on like being less white but then it's like i'm gonna be like this void because if i because if i if i lose my whiteness but then i can't put on the pointy hat or do these other things then it's like i'm gonna be just like left without a culture you know i'm gonna be like the man without a country anyway i i gotta move on from that but i went on i went on amazon those those dr seuss books were like fifteen hundred dollars now the ones that were banned they were selling them some were like two grand for these but i downloaded pdfs of all of them so my kids can know the truth all right so on the back don't be so sensitive man okay on the back the weekly singing classes have resumed every sunday at 5 p.m keep praying for our ladies that are expecting and uh other upcoming events there that are listed that's about it for announcements let's go and count up the soul winning from the last few days going back to monday anything from monday got it got it okay anything else from monday what about tuesday anything from tuesday all right okay and then anything else from tuesday what about wednesday you got one for the corbin anything else from today all right keep up the great work on soul winning and with that let's sing our next song come lead us all right we're gonna sing psalm 150 you should find an insert of that psalm in your hymnals if you don't have one please raise your hand and we'll get to you with one and we'll sing it out psalm 150 praise be the lord praise him praise him with him everything and then please turn to him number 338 338 holy ghost with light divine if you know it please sing it out if you don't let's learn it together number 338 holy ghost with light divine shine upon this heart of mine number 338 is long my soul oh my oh cast down every is all right this time we'll pass our offering plates around as the plates go around let's turn our bible to judges chapter 13 judges chapter 13 as we always do we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number one follow along silently with brother hessar as he reads judges chapter 13 starting in verse number one judges 13 and the bible reads and the children of israel did evil again in the sight of the lord and the lord delivered them into the hands of the philistines 40 years and there was a certain man of zorah of the family of the danites whose name was manoah and his wife was barren and bear not and the angel of the lord appeared unto the woman and said unto her behold now thou art barren and bear us not but thou shalt conceive and bear a son now therefore beware i pray thee and drink not wine nor strong drink and eat not any unclean thing for lo thou shalt conceive and bear a son and no razor shall come on his head for the child shall be a nazirite unto god from the womb and he shall begin to deliver israel out of the hand of the philistines then the woman came and told her husband saying a man of god came unto me and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of god very terrible but i asked him not whence he was neither told me his name but he said unto me behold thou shalt conceive and bear a son and now drink no wine nor strong drink neither eat any unclean thing for the child shall be a nazirite to god from the womb to the day of his death then manoah and treated the lord and said oh my lord let the man of god which thou did sin come again unto us and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born and god harken to the voice of manoah and the angel of god came again unto the woman as she sat in the field but manoah her husband was not with her and the woman made haste and ran and showed her husband and said unto him behold the man hath appeared unto me that came unto me the other day and manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said unto him art thou the man that speaks to the woman and he said i am and manoah said now let thy words come to pass how shall we order the child and how shall we do unto him and the angel of the lord said unto manoah of all that i said unto the woman let her beware she may not eat of anything that cometh of the vine neither let her drink wine or strong drink nor eat any unclean thing all that i commanded her let her observe and manoah said unto the angel of the lord i pray thee let us detain thee until we shall have made ready a kid for thee and the angel of the lord said unto manoah though thou detain me i will not eat of thy bread and if thou wilt offer a burn offering thou must offer it unto the lord for manoah knew not that he was an angel of the lord and manoah said unto the angel of the lord what is thy name that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honor and the angel of the lord said unto him why askest thou thus after my name seeing it is secret so manoah took a kid with a meat offering and offered it upon a rock unto the lord and the angel did wondrously and manoah and his wife looked on for it came to pass when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar that the angel of the lord ascended in the flame of the altar and manoah and his wife looked on it and fell on their faces to the ground but the angel of the lord did no more appear unto manoah and to his wife then manoah knew that he was an angel of the lord and manoah said unto his wife we shall surely die because we have seen god but his wife said unto 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 and the woman bare a son and called his name samson and the child grew and the lord blessed him and the spirit of the lord began to move him at times in the camp of dan between zora and eshtol dear lord thank you for bringing us to church tonight i pray father that you teach us lessons from the the origin story of samson and his parents interaction i pray father phyllis phil pastor answering with your holy spirit and phyllis with understanding from the scriptures in jesus name we pray amen we are starting out a new section here in the book of judges we're kind of getting back to the pattern a little bit of children of israel did evil on the side of the lord and god's going to raise up a judge but this is actually going to be the last judge that we hear about in the book of judges and this is the one that really has the longest story because it's going to cover chapters 13 14 15 16 so we have four chapters if you include this one although of course this one is mainly about samson's parents but samson is sort of the quintessential judge you know when you think of the judges in the book of judges samson is the big one you know he's the most famous and he's the most representative of the of the time period and so it's a very important bible story also there are a lot of connections between samson and the lord jesus christ even though obviously samson's a very flawed character he still represents and pictures jesus in a lot of ways and if you think about it every single person in the old testament who pictures jesus is a sinful flawed person because every person on this planet is a sinful flawed person except jesus himself and so obviously anybody who represents jesus is never going to be a perfect representation of jesus but samson is a powerful representation of jesus and we're going to see that in the coming chapters so it's it's a very deep story there's a lot going on there's a lot of really interesting things it's it's a lot of people's one of their favorite bible stories because it's such a cool story as we go through this so chapter 13 just sort of introduces the samson saga talking about his parents here and it starts out in verse number one it says and the children of israel did evil again in the sight of the lord and the lord delivered them into the hand of the philistines 40 years and there was a certain man of zorah of the family of the danites whose name was manoa and his wife was barren and bear not and and what i mentioned a moment ago about samson sort of being the the quintessential judge or the kind of the culmination of the book of judges if you remember the word dan literally means judge and when joe when uh excuse me jacob is blessing his children on his deathbed you know he blesses dan as the one who's going to judge because that's what his name means judge and then the main judge comes from where you know he comes from dan he's of the tribe of dan and the bible says that this woman is barren and bear not at the end of verse two obviously that seems a little redundant but the bible is really driving in the point hey this woman's really barren all right it's it's it's to a point where they're pretty sure you know she's not going to have a baby and then it says in verse three and the angel of the lord appeared under the woman and senator behold now thou art barren and bear us not but thou shalt conceive and bear a son now therefore beware i pray thee and drink not wine nor strong drink and eat not any unclean thing for lo thou shall conceive and bear a son and no razor shall come on his head for the child shall be a nazirite unto god from the womb and he shall begin to deliver israel out of the hand of the philistines now one of the things that i want to point out right away here is just the the radical difference in god's expectation versus what samson actually lives up to you know god really wants him to be very holy i mean he's got a very holy start you know this is pretty rare this isn't the norm of just oh every woman who's pregnant well you know make sure that you know you don't mess any of this up he's going to be a nazirite from his mother's womb this is actually extraordinary in fact this is the only person in the entire bible who is like this where he's a nazirite from his mother's womb okay so this is very extraordinary and what is the nazirite it's a picture of being separated consecrated and holy before god so god is prescribing for this child a lot of holiness you know he's saying he wants the mother to be totally holy and not to touch any wine or strong drink not to eat any unclean thing he's going to be a nazirite from his mother's womb but then when you think about the life of samson holiness is not really the word that would pop into your mind about samson because he's such a flawed character who sins so much so one of the things we see here is just the colossal difference between god's expectation and the reality of human beings but you know what that's that's life you know god demands holiness from us but yet we've all sinned and come short of the glory of god but thankfully god can still use us anyway now that doesn't mean we want to live our lives like samson though because samson ends up suffering a lot and ending his life terribly because of his sins so we don't want to end up like samson but we see here a picture of the fact that god's expectation is way higher than the reality of man and and our sinful nature now let's learn more about what it means to be a nazirite okay because like i said this is unique to samson that he's going to be this lifelong nazirite go back to numbers chapter six typically being a nazirite is something that is temporary okay this is not something that you would be born to do it's not something that you would do for a very long period of time it's something that you would do just temporarily and this is described in numbers chapter six and we want to make sure that we don't confuse the word nazirite with the word nazarene all right these are two totally different words now jesus christ was raised in the city of nazareth we know he was born in bethlehem then he lived in egypt for a few years and then he came back and was brought up in galilee in the city of nazareth and that fulfilled a prophecy that jesus would be called the nazarene okay the nazarene and this is where you'll see in scripture where you'll see the word branch in all capitals you know behold my servant the branch right so that's what nazarene means that's kind of the nazarene prophecy is my servant the branch but we don't want to mix this up with nazirite a lot of people get this wrong they say well jesus was a nazirite wrong jesus was a nazarene which simply means that he's fulfilling that branch prophecy number one and number two that he is raised in a city called nazareth okay it'd be like if if someone said that they were a phoenician right because they live in phoenix it doesn't mean the same thing as like an ancient phoenician or something you know that's something completely different it'd actually be more like mixing up phoenician with phoenician with a v or something you know these are two different words they might sound the same but they're not the same thing they're totally different okay now you say well i think jesus was a nazirite here's the thing about the nazirite the nazirite is not allowed to drink wine but not only that he's not even allowed to eat a grape he's not even allowed to eat a raisin he's not even allowed to eat anything off the grape plant he can't even eat grape nut cereal okay he can't nothing to do with the grape he can't even do a grape jolly rancher okay nothing so and now with that he's not allowed to approach any dead body now what did jesus do did jesus drink wine yes did jesus approach a dead body multiple times jesus approached a dead body there were times when he laid hands on a dead body and raised it back to life how could he do that if he were a nazirite he can't he wouldn't be drinking wine he wouldn't be laying hands on a dead body that is just plain wrong and people will try to use this to say that jesus had long hair because of course there's no scripture about jesus having long hair the bible teaches that it's a shame for a man to have long hair but that if a woman have long hair it's a glory unto her but then they say well of course he had long hair because he's a nazirite but that is not scriptural because then why is he drinking wine and why is he touching a dead body he's not a nazirite it's just a mix up of those two words nazirite nazarene two totally different words now let's look at numbers chapter 6 here it says in verse 1 and the lord spake unto moses saying speak unto the children of israel and and say unto them when either man or woman now the first thing i want to point out is that being a nazirite could be for a man or a woman even a woman could go through this process even a woman could do this now for the whole rest of the chapter it's just going to say he his him and so that's why we kind of get this in our minds of only being men but in reality according to the first verse here it could be a man or a woman god just doesn't feel the need to keep saying like he or she because he's not this overly politically correct weirdo from 2021 that's really worried about pronouns okay so basically he just uses the he as a universal he here you know just like just like the bible says you know as many as received him to them gave you power to become the sons of god even in the belief on his name that applies to women too right obviously when you have a mixed group you use the masculine gender it's sort of like when you're speaking spanish right and if it's a group let's say you have all men you say nosotros and then if it's if it's all women they'd say nosotras but if it's a mixture it's nosotros right and even if it's like 20 women and one man it's nosotros okay so god uses a masculine pronoun a lot of times but he's just referring to mankind in general and he's referring to either or that's the pronoun that he uses so it starts out by saying that this could be a man or a woman that could separate themselves to vow a vow of an azerite and notice the key here about being an azerite to separate themselves unto the lord and again the word holy literally means sanctified set apart and so separating yourself is a type of holiness it says in verse three he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink and shall drink no vinegar of wine or vinegar of strong drink neither shall you drink any liquor of grapes and liquor there just means liquid it's saying any liquid that comes from grapes whatsoever it's not necessarily referring to booze nor eat moist grapes or dried so like i said he can't even eat raisins okay so this is not an alcohol thing it's not just saying no alcohol that's not what's going on here it's no grape no raisin no juice no fruit juice no no apple cider vinegar you know it's just saying you know nothing from a grape and i know apple cider vinegar doesn't come from grapes but whatever the grape equivalent of that would be is what it's saying don't do it the vinegar of the wine okay and so it says here that all the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is made of the vine tree from the kernels even to the husk all the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head until the days be fulfilled in the which he separated himself unto the lord he shall be holy and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow notice it doesn't even say years it doesn't say the years of his separation it says the days of his separation and if we're measuring things in days that kind of gives us an idea of the length of time right because you can measure in decades years months weeks days or hours right these are all time measurements and you would choose the one that's appropriate well apparently here the appropriate measurement is in days so this is probably less than a year or else you'd probably switch to months at that point or or even years if it were to go way longer than that the fact that we're using days as a measure tells us this is probably a pretty short time and and the time can vary there's not a set time this is something someone could do for a few weeks or this is something that someone could do for a few months six months eight months obviously it's it's it's some considerable amount of time because it talks about at the end of verse five shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow so if you think about any kind of considerable growth on your hair it's going to take about you know two months probably so between the days and the the considerable growth i would venture to guess that this is something that you would do for a matter of months but probably less than a year so it's probably just a few months is what you would expect here but it could be different lengths i'm sure some of them went longer than that some of them went shorter than that because it's an open-ended deal it's a set time that you vow to do this thing okay and then it says all the days that he separated himself on the lord he shall come out no dead body so this is what i mean about samson being an extraordinary case because he's a nazirite from his mother's womb he's going to do this lifelong now think about this let's say that and obviously this is not a new testament thing this is not something that we would ever do it's wrong to do it because it's part of the rituals of the old covenant that are done away in christ but in the old testament let's say i were back at that time and i'm in the old testament and i say okay i am going to do this nazirite vow and i'm doing it for the whole year of 2020 because it's such a messed up year anyway i might as well be i'm going to be pretty separated anyway because of the virus so let's say i wanted to do this well here's the thing if i just if i just let my hair grow if i started out with like a normal man's length hair and then i just let that hair grow it's not really going to get super duper long in a year you know because it kind of takes years to really grow really long hair i mean it's you know and i realize different people's hair grows different amounts but you know sometimes i get busy and forget about it and i'll go six weeks without getting a haircut and it it doesn't it's still pretty darn short okay so you know these nazarites are not a bunch of long hairs walking around because their hair is going to get longer they're letting the locks of the hair grow but it's not really going to get super long whereas samsung's hair did get super long because samsung is doing this for life okay so that's the difference i mean samsung's growing his hair and growing his hair and growing his hair and obviously different people's hair gets different lengths it does max out at a certain length depending on who you are but i mean his hair was definitely long i i've had some people you know come up with a theory that said they don't believe samsung had long hair because it just bothers them so much for a man to have long hair which i'm bothered by men having long hair too amen because the bible says it's a shame for a man to have long hair so i'm totally against men having long hair if you have long hair get a haircut and if you're a woman with short hair grow it out because god want and by the way this is more important in 2021 than it's ever been this is not the time to back off on that doctrine when we're in this crazy gender bending weirdo society if there was ever a time when we need men to get a haircut and women to grow out their hair it's now please save our nation see i don't understand what's the big deal there's a bunch of transvestites running around be feminine ladies be masculine men let's be distinct in our gender more than ever we need that okay so look i get it but but here's what you have to understand there are things in the bible that are exceptions and that's what this is this is a rare exception is what this is where god specifically tells someone to do something that is far out of the ordinary like i said nazarite lifelong that's a an extraordinary thing that's unique to samson this is a one-time deal these other guys yeah they're letting their hair grow out a bit but it's not going to get super long they're going to get a haircut when it's all said and done whereas samson's hair did get long and and here's how they try to kind of change this because they they just they have such an issue with a man of god whose hair grew long but here's the thing about that is that they they're claiming well no razor shall come upon his head but he can still get a haircut just no razor to come upon his head but what does the bible say at the end of verse five about the nazarite it says he shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow does that sound like he's going to keep getting a haircut and just not shave it no i mean it just says he's not going to let the locks of his head i mean he's going to let the locks of his head grow you know locks are basically like when you when you take hair and and take it in and divide it into like a clump right and later on if you remember samson's hair is going to be divided into seven locks and it's going to be long enough for delilah to weave it into a loom so you're not going to be able to do that with short hair it would have to be very long in order for her to weave it into this loom and he's got seven locks suffering the locks of the hair of his head to grow long so you know just accept it just deal with it okay samson is told and his parents are told not to get a haircut it's out of the ordinary it's strange but here's the thing god told a lot of other people to do a lot of other strange things that we shouldn't go out and do sometimes there's an extraordinary command that's given but you don't want to say oh well i'm going to do that too like for example hosea is told to marry a prostitute do you think that that's god's will for your life young people like well i just i'm just like hosea you know so i'm going to go out and find a prostitute and marry her you're an idiot okay that's not god's not telling you to do that or like for example what about when god specifically tells them to make a brazen serpent and put it on a pole and then they have to look at that in order to be healed of their snake bites when god clearly said not to make a a graven image or a molten image but yet they're told make a graven image because it was an exception it was for a specific purpose and then here's the thing after that purpose is over then they keep it around and start worshiping it and then the king of israel has to go no you know king of judah and he trashes it because he's like this is ridiculous you guys are worshiping this thing that's not what it was for it wasn't meant to be worshipped and so there are exceptions there are people who are asked to do extraordinary things you know normally the bible says that the servants of the lord should be clean and it says touch not the unclean thing and in the old testament they have all these really strict laws about sanitation and cleanliness but then you've got ezekiel being told to eat bread with dung on it that's not clean now look should we eat feces no that was something that was unique that was and you say well why though why would they have to do these things because everything that they have to do ends up being symbolic you know isaiah is told to strip down naked and there are all these strange things that people do they're kind of a one-time thing you don't just be like hey i just want to have like an isaiah kind of ministry or something no you don't understand that there are certain specific situations where people are asked to do things that are out of the ordinary like isaac's going to go naked and barefoot because it was symbolic and and you know ezekiel has to eat excrement and you know hosiah is told to marry a prostitute there's just strange wild things that these people do they're all symbolic and and this nazarite vow has a lot of symbolism about being separated and being holy but then samson being the lifelong nazarite he has his own set of symbolism why is it that samson's hair you know needed to grow long or why did he need to grow his hair long like that like what what could that possibly symbolize well you know everything in the old testament is virtually all pointing us toward christ in some way it's some kind of a different angle of the gospel or some kind of a an allegory the bible is very deep okay and so if we think about samson as a picture of christ and you know at the end of his life when he dies he's got his arms stretched out between the pillars which pictures the cross he's sacrificing his life to save israel and so forth so he's basically dying for them and and there's all kinds of symbol we'll get to that when the time comes but here's the thing about it though if you think about it one of the aspects of the crucifixion of christ or one of the aspects of uh you know christ suffering is the shame that he endured you know the bible says that jesus endured the cross despising the shame so he had to go through shame he had to endure shame and suffer that and here's the thing having long hair is a picture of what shame because the bible says it is a shame for a man to have long hair you know jesus christ is pictured by that serpent on the pole because the bible says as moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up and just as they looked at that serpent and were healed you know if you look to jesus you'll be healed and and if you look to jesus you'll be saved like the hymn goes in the hymnal look and live and so you know all of these things are symbolic and they might seem strange or unusual on their face but as you study the bible as a whole it all fits together and it all makes sense and it creates all these beautiful pictures and symbols that you really have to just keep reading and learning the bible for it all to click and for it to all make sense to you and for you to understand it and you also have to be saved you know to understand scripture but there are a lot of things in the bible that even after you're saved it's going to take you a really long time to understand and you're never going to understand everything i don't understand everything because the bible is just so deep that no human could know all of it because it'll take a whole lifetime just to scratch the surface so as we study the story of samson you know we don't need to change the story because something about it bothers us you know we need to just go with the story as is and just understand that god does not want us to have long hair that is not god's will for us to have long hair but it was god's will for this one particular individual this extraordinary case to have long hair because he's trying to picture something very specific through samson and so it's just part of the program that god has for samson but the big thing that we want to understand is that with the nazarite vow is that it's a separation thing it's a holiness thing now you say why would anyone do this because this is a volunteer thing people are volunteering to do this and and i've scratched my head about this many times you know what's the point why volunteer to do this well you know the bible says that if you do this basically you get a special blessing from god you'll be blessed if you do this you know this is just this is a ritual that you go through it's optional only certain people are going to do it and you go through this song and dance and then at the end of it you shave off your hair you watch you get washed and you do an animal sacrifice and you go through everything and then it's over and then you and then you can eat all the grapes and raisins that you want when it's over but you say what's the point you know god has all of these rituals going on in the old testament you could really ask the same question about any of them what's the point in sacrificing a lamb what's the point in sacrificing a ram what's the point in pouring out a drink offering to the lord just seems like you're just dumping out your drink right what's the point in the whole burnt offering what's the point in you know the high priest wearing all this strange clothing and going through all this what's the point of baptism in the new testament i mean what what is the point of getting dunked underwater in the new testament i mean it's not like you're taking a bath or getting clean there's no soap sometimes the water is not even warm and you know at our church it is you know we take care of you all right now no we've done a few ice water baptisms but we mainly do it we usually have it nice and warm for you but the point is it's not it's not like well you got to take a bath you know what we take a lot of showers and baths in our lives we don't need baptism is a one-time thing it's not about getting your body clean is it so what's the point why are we even doing it what is the and of course most of us already know the answer to why we're doing it it's symbolic it's a picture it's an outward profession of faith it's a picture of the death burial and resurrection of christ well guess what all this old testament stuff is the same way so whether it's a nazirite vow whether it's an animal sacrifice whether it's the tabernacle the incense you name it all of this stuff is picturing heavenly things now we don't have a lot of this in the new testament we have very little of this in the new testament we only have a few things that are like this in the new testament but back then they had a lot more things like this so i wouldn't worry too much about the why because the why is simply just to go through the motions of this in order for all of these pictures to be painted you know in leviticus numbers euteronomy and it's all very deep and it all points us to the gospel it all points us to jesus and different aspects of christ this represents separation and holiness and and like i said when it's over they they cut off their hair they give an animal sacrifice and so forth so let's go back if you would to judges chapter 13 with that in mind now that we have a little bit of that background on what it means to be a nazirite so again this is god prescribing holiness for samson don't touch a dead body you're gonna be like a nazirite where you're super separated your your light years from from uh drinking or getting drunk because you're you're not even drinking grape juice you're not even drinking uh you're not even eating a raisin you're not even eating grapes you know you're very separate from wine which wine can picture a few different things number one it can it can obviously be a reference to alcohol but it can also just be a reference to uh wealth and luxury the whining and dining because wine is so expensive back then and it's it's considered a luxury item even grapes are kind of expensive you know so it's just kind of a luxury thing so there's a lot of uh things being pictured there so it says in verse five of judges 13 for lo thou shalt conceive and bear a son and no razor shall come up on his head for the child shall be a nazirite unto god from the womb and he shall begin to deliver israel out of the hands of the felicity so samson is supposed to be this really ultra holy guy more holy than anything we've seen in the book of judges and he turns out to be probably the most unholy of the judges he does not live up to this and of course that's because humans are sinners he particular in particular is a worse sinner than most people and uh not to say he doesn't do a lot of great things for god and and god uses him but he's got some serious flaws and again this is what we like about the bible is that has complex characters it's a very interesting book that that you can read it over and over again and it's always interesting now the bible says in verse six then the woman came and told her husband saying a man of god came unto me and his countenance was like the countenance countenance means face of an angel of god very terrible but i asked him not whence he was neither told he me his name so this guy shows up and he's he's this kind of mysterious individual because we don't know his name and we don't know where he's from which typically if you meet someone for the first time you're going to find out those pieces of information right away so this mysterious individual shows up he's the angel of the lord he appears in the woman now we have to understand the word angel in the bible is not necessarily some kind of a supernatural being or a non-human being many humans in the bible are referred to as angels when they're acting in capacity as an angel and in fact jesus is also called the messenger of the covenant and messenger and angel mean the exact same thing that's why in revelation chapter two and three when he's giving the seven letters to the churches he says to the angel of the church of Ephesus the angel of the church of Smyrna those are not you know some kind of winged uh creature the aim that's a human being and in fact that's that's mortal man who's just a human being who's just the one who brings the message at that church the messenger of the church that's why it's not as being rebuked somewhat in those letters to the seven churches and so human beings can act as messengers for god and and it can be first of all a living human being like a mortal man like myself i'm up here preaching the word of god i'm preaching the bible so i'm an angel of god in that sense or a messenger of god but i'm not an angel as in what you would think of as a cherub or a seraph or something like that that's something completely different but then also human beings after they die they could also act in this capacity as an angel and in that case there's a supernatural element there because of the fact that obviously like we see in the story here when all said and done this guy is going to like ascend up in the fire of the altar now there are two options here either this is an old testament appearance of jesus because we do have for sure old testament appearances of jesus in other places like we know for a fact in the book of joshua and you know i'm not going to go through all those old testament appearances but we have several that we know for sure where the angel of the lord is for sure an old testament appearance of jesus but then this is one of the ones where it's somewhat ambiguous you know the guy says oh i've seen the face of god i've seen the face of the lord but that's not the narrator talking that's that's this guy talking and this guy's got some some funny ideas anyway a little bit so the point is this passage is either an old testament appearance of jesus or this is another man that is somebody who's already died they've already gone to heaven basically and they're basically being sent back by god to deliver this message as an angel of the lord because obviously this guy's supernatural and he's ascending up to heaven so he's not just a guy now sometimes when the bible says an angel of the lord came it could just be mortal man like earlier in the book of judges but notice when the angel in judges chapter 2 showed up to rebuke the israelites it explains like oh he he lived in this town and then that angel of the lord came up from that city and he came up so he has a human origin on this earth he's a guy who lives in a town who shows up to preach this on the other hand is something different he doesn't tell his name and i would lean toward this being an old testament appearance of christ because the fact that he says his name is a secret you know other angels reveal their name you know gabriel reveals his name michael's name is revealed and so you know why hide it but again there's no way to know for sure so you can have an opinion about it but none of us could know that for sure and so it says here that you know this man of god came unto me his countenance was like the countenance of an angel so she's thinking you know this could be an angel i don't know is he human is he mortal is he an angel i don't know but i didn't ask you know and then it says in verse 7 but he said to me behold thou shall conceive and bear a son and now drink no wine nor strong drink neither eat any unclean thing for the child shall be a nazirite to god from the womb to the day of his death then manoah entreated the lord and said oh 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 now this is a little bit silly because he already has all the information he needs because his wife has already been instructed on what to do with child but he he wants more he's like i need more instructions you know how to raise this child this sounds really important and you know especially because he he's he's older he's never had a kid and so you know he's stressed out about it so then it says in uh verse number nine and god hearkened to the voice of manoa and the angel of god came again unto the woman as she sat in the field but manoa her husband was not with her and he's coming back the second time specifically for him and he's not there so anyway the woman made haste and ran and showed her husband and said in him behold the man that appeared unto me they came unto me the other day and manoa arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said unto him art thou the man that spake us unto the woman and he said i am and manoa and you could also say hey that's a subtle you know i am you know could be and manoa said now let thy words come to pass he's like man i hope this is for real because i would love to have a kid and manoa said now let thy words come to pass how shall we order the child and how shall we do unto him and the angel of the lord said unto manoa of all that i said unto the woman let her beware basically everything i already told you she may not eat of anything that cometh of the vine neither let her drink wine or strong drink nor eat any unclean thing all that i commanded her let her observe and manoa said unto the angel of the lord i pray thee let us detain thee until we shall have made ready a kid for thee now a kid is of course a young goat a young goat is called a kid and often in the bible this is something that would be served to guests or served at a party remember the elder brother and the prodigal son story laments that he didn't get to have a kid with his friends and have a party and it says in verse 16 and the angel of the lord said unto manoa though thou detain me i will not eat of thy bread and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering thou must offer it unto the lord for manoa knew not that he was an angel of the lord so because remember the wife didn't know for sure he still doesn't know for sure for all they know this is just a prophet or whatever that's coming to talk to them and so the angel of the lord tells him i'm not going to eat any food he's like i have time i don't mind hanging around a little bit i can wait but i'm not going to eat anything and if you want to make a sacrifice go ahead and make a sacrifice but make it under the lord of course this is one of the many examples of sacrifices that are allowed by god prescribed by god or even commanded by god that do not take place at the tabernacle because they were allowed to sacrifice outside the tabernacle there were situations where that was appropriate but the jews today don't get it and it says in um because they are they reject the lord they reject christ and if they believed in uh the father they believe in the son you know jesus said if you believe moses you'd also believe me and so they don't believe moses they don't believe him so here it says that manoa said unto the angel of the lord in verse 17 what is thy name that when thy sayings come to pass we may do the honor you know we can tell people hey this guy's a real prophet let me tell you because my wife was barren and bare not and he showed up and said she was going to have a kid and guess what she had one so we know this guy's legit so that's you know that's what he has in mind you know hey we want to honor you when when you're saying comes to pass we want to be able to tell people that you're the real deal and the angel of the lord said unto him why askest thou after my name seeing it is secret you know see you know he doesn't need these kind of accolades or glory so manoa took a kid with a meat offering and offered it upon a rock unto the lord and the angel did wondrously and when we see the word wondrous or wonder in the bible it's it's often what we would say as miraculous you know he did something miraculous here he did wondrously and manoa and his wife looked on for it came to pass when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar so you know they're offering this offering unto the lord by fire and the angel lord ascended in the flame of the altar and manoa and his wife looked on it and fell on their faces to the ground because they're just terrified so they just kind of drop on their faces to worship the lord and just kind of beg for mercy because this is so intense of a situation but the angel of the lord did no more appear to manoa and to his wife then manoa knew that he was an angel of the lord when he saw that whole shenanigans he knew it was an angel lord and manoa said unto his wife we shall surely die because we've seen god but his wife said in 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 us at this time have told us such things as these how can i have a kid if i die you know now these people are scared to death because the lord said no man shall see my face and live but you can see an angel of the lord and not die so you can see how people often take a true biblical doctrine and they go overboard on it this happens all the time my friend and you know it's it's something that i constantly have to preach it's something that i constantly have to harp on because it's just it's just how we are as human beings we like to take things overboard you know you can't see god the father's face and live you can see jesus face and live and you can see any angel of the lord in the face and live but you just can't see god the father's face and live that's what the bible teaches now if this guy knew his bible a little better he would know that but we as human beings we have a tendency to take rules and take them overboard take doctrines and go overboard and just kind of go crazy with them okay and this is an example of that and where where somebody realized okay we can't look in the face of god the father himself so even if i see an angel of the lord because he's the lord's messenger that's kind of like seeing god so i might die too that's a faulty logic that's that's taking a good thing from the bible and turning it into like superstition and an overboard doctrine what is the what is the first part of that word superstition super okay now super means over it means too much overboard it comes from the same indo-european roots as our word hyper notice the per ending there the sue and the high there that's just changed over time that's the same indo-european word there super and hyper so you can think of it a super saturated solution is something that's over saturated it's over the limit saturated and so what we see well with the word superstition and and that's why the apostle paul you're too superstitious it's too much people take fear of god and they go overboard with it they take doctrine they go overboard with it their beliefs and they go crazy with it you know let me give you some examples you know for example the bible says blot out the names of other false gods you know when you enter canan land blot out the names of the false gods you know they're gonna have their name of a false god engraved in stone in some monument or something you know when you take over that region you don't want to say bail everywhere and and marduk and kimosh and you know all these names of false gods he said blot out those names wipe you know destroy that erase that paint over that or if it's engraved you know grind it sand it get rid of it and then it says but thou not do so to the lord thy god you know reverence god's name publish god's name proclaim the name of the lord but don't you know but blot out the names of these false gods okay here's what the jews have have gone overboard with this and they they went overboard with this a long time ago they basically said you can never erase like if you're let's say you're writing something and you wrote the name of god and and you decide like i'm going to erase that sentence and do a better job but you just blotted out the name of the lord god so they could like never erase god's name or blot out god's name for any reason that's that's not what the bible's saying there friend like if you're writing it's like oh whoops i spelled it wrong gotta erase it you know and then that's why they would um uh when they make a mistake in in scripture like you know you know the maserites are copying the old testament for example you know in the in the in the year of our lord you know but even before that they were doing it but we know they're doing it like in the middle ages and stuff you know they're copying every time they would make a mistake you know they would they would they would throw the whole page in the trash they would they would get rid of the whole thing but here's the problem they didn't throw it in the trash because they're scared to throw it in the trash they're like i can't erase it i can't i can't blot anything out or you know but i can't throw it in the trash either because i wrote some of god's word on here i can't throw god's word in the trash and and you run into superstitious people like this today where they're like when their bible wears out they're afraid to throw it in the trash and they're like well you need to donate it it's falling apart why don't i donate a broken falling apart here goodwill do something with this they're just gonna throw it what in the world people say well yeah it's sacrilegious it's wrong to ever throw away your bible hey you know what that's easy for you to say because you don't read the bible much but for those of us who read it a lot we burn through a lot of bibles in our lifetime you know what i'm saying like we use bibles we use them and we take them soul waiting and we're folding them back and showing people and we're standing in the rain we're standing in acid rain and showing people like look what the bible says we get it wet hey i don't know about you i get food on it and you say oh how can you put food on it because i'm eating because i can't get enough of this book so even when i'm eating i read it sometimes so here's the thing if you use the bible you wear it out i've heard somebody say hey if your bible is falling apart your life isn't right people's bibles falling apart their life's not falling apart and so when your bible wears out you throw it away you throw it in the garbage but here's the thing the jews they're scared about this so here's the thing they they they write a whole page of scripture and then they look at it and say whoops i messed up you know because they go back and check over it oh i screwed it up so here's what they do instead of throwing it away they bury it like you'd bury a person they bury it and then and then fast forward a thousand years people dig it up and say this is the real stuff i'm serious they dig up the trash manuscripts they dig up and i realize that not all of it is because that some of it is corrupted for other reasons or other mistakes and so forth but i i'm convinced that some of these bad manuscripts could just be trash manuscripts that people were afraid to throw away of that when it comes to the old testament stuff you know it could be something that somebody's just afraid to throw in the trash so they put it in a vase and they bury it underground and then somebody digs up a vase and they find it it's like whoa this is the real version it's missing all this stuff it's like well it was the guy messed up so you see what i mean about being superstitious okay so we talked about they're afraid to ever erase his name they're afraid to throw a bible in the trash and then they took oh thou shalt make not uh thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain and then they're like hey just to make sure we don't use his name in vain let's just never say it then we know we'll never take it in vain let's just never even say it and then they they didn't say it for so long they forgot how to pronounce it because if you don't say something for hundreds of years and you don't have a tape recording you don't have a video recording you're gonna forget how to pronounce it because vowels shift and vowels change and the language change and and today nobody knows for sure how that tetragrammatons even pronounced nobody even knows they don't know and even by the time of jesus day they were already just uh calling him the lord because they wouldn't pronounce that name they didn't say that name and so they had forgotten the pronunciation of it and uh you know there you go so so we could go on and on i mean those are some some examples but you know we've got some some people that are superstitious even amongst fundamental baptists people get really superstitious about the bible like they get superstitious about the actual physical book itself when in reality it's the words that are holy it's the words that are sacred but they get superstitious about the book itself and they they freak out if you if you don't treat the book properly or you know folks that's pagan i'm sorry i don't believe in that for one second because there's nothing like that in the bible that's just that's just a made up thing of like that we have to keep a physical book somehow sacred that i you know i can't spill food on it or throw it in my backpack and go hiking or shove it in my pocket or whatever you know that's what pagans do that's like what the six do with their holy book the guru grunt sahib they buy it its own seat on the airplane literally if they travel with it it gets its own seat and in their house it gets its own room at the dinner table they they set up a chair for it at table that's nonsense okay so don't get superstitious and make an idol out of a physical book like oh you know now here's the thing you know worship worshiping i i would never say hey you're wrong you're worshiping god's word because i don't think you could ever give too much honor to god's word because the bible says that god has magnified his word above all his name so if you can worship the name of the lord that you could you know you could give reverence and venerate and worship the word of lord but not a physical book that could become an idolatry if you're actually like treating the physical book as if the physical piece of paper is divine okay but then you also have people that get superstitious about the king james version now look i'm king james only i and here's here's what i believe about the king james bible i believe the king james bible is the word of god without error that's the statement right there the king james bible is the word of god without error okay but the funny thing is even though that is a that is a very extreme statement i mean that's all the way on an extreme of saying that it's the word of god without error but you know what's funny that's not enough for some people some people would say pastor is not king james enough it's like this is the only version i use and i believe it's without error and i'll even go a step further i believe that you have everything you need as either a pastor or a layman just from this english translation right here and i do not believe it is necessary to learn greek and hebrew in order to get a deeper meaning or deeper understanding i believe that all the teachings and everything is is in this book right here you know i believe we have it in english this is what we need and i've you know i could explain all the reasons why i believe that but but here's the thing that's not enough for some people because they want to just go overboard into superstition and la la land okay into crazy town okay now look the reason why i believe in the king james bible is because i believe that it is an accurate translation of the original greek and hebrew now is the english bible inspired it's inspired but it derives its inspiration from the original it did not get inspired in the 1600s you know holy men of god didn't translate as they were moved by the holy ghost that is a false doctrine okay this is not the product of divine inspiration in the 17th century ad that is garbage that is wrong sometimes that doctrine you know is is referred to as ruckmanism because the most popular or famous proponent of that was named peter ruckman but that is a nonsensical teaching that this just fell out of the sky in the 1600s to where basically here's what people will say if this conflicts with the greek and hebrew the greek and hebrew are wrong throw out the greek and hebrew and this corrects the greek this corrects but that's what they say it's crazy that is not biblical how could this correct the book that it was literally translated from and and here's the thing when the king james translators translated the original greek and hebrew it didn't self-destruct when they were done it did it wasn't like joseph smith where the tablets got repo'd you know what i mean they they had like these golden tablets and they translate and they got repossessed this thing did not fall out of the sky it was translated and look i don't know about you but i don't believe god just preserved his word in 2021 or in 1611 or in the 1700s i believe that god preserved his word onto all generations so if god's word has been preserved under all generations wouldn't that include the 1400s and the 1500s the 1300 that'd be before the king james god's word was already out there and he said where was it it was in the traditional hebrew text and it was in the greek the traditional greek text and it had been translated into a whole bunch of other languages and there were a lot of great translations out there many of which haven't survived most books from the ancient world have not survived by the way most books from the middle ages haven't survived it's just stuff doesn't survive that's life and so we need to understand that yes we're king james only yes we believe that our english bible is accurate that it's pure and that through god's providence he knew english was going to be the biggest language in the world he knew it was going to be the most significant language especially from an evangelism point of view and so he made sure that we got a top-notch translation where 54 of the best scholars got together for six years and obviously god providentially guided and worked but look god providentially guides my life too god providentially guides your life you know sometimes i preach a sermon and somebody walks up to me and just says wow we were just talking about this this is exactly what i needed to hear i can't i brought a visitor and the sermon was perfect for them it was like wow we were talking about this in the car on the way over and then boom you preach it okay does that mean that i'm divinely inspired like the biblical authors no but but could god lead me to preach something that people need hey somebody's struggling out there with suicidal thoughts and then i preach a sermon about suicide and then they come up to me and say hey i've been struggling with this thank you for helping me thank you for telling me what i need to hear oh obviously i was led by god but that doesn't mean my sermons are divinely inspired on par with scripture it's nonsense so yeah did god have a hand in the translation of the king james of course did god have a hand in other translations throughout history yeah because god is the one who preserved his word he promised that he would preserve his word does everybody see what i'm saying but then you have people that just they take it overboard and they basically think that basically the english bible was inspired again in 1611 so that basically anything that says it differently than the way the english bible says it is wrong to them even if it agrees with the greek and hebrew so then they demand that the spanish bible sound like this they demand that a chinese bible sound like this have fun with that they want to be word for word like they say you know you can't change everlasting to eternal or you've corrupted god's word even though they both mean the exact same thing and what are we going to do when we go into spanish and there is no ever it's just aterna be the aterna that's what it's going to be every time and then what are we going to do when we look in the greek new testament and it's just one word for both eternal and everlasting what are we going to do when we go to spanish and it's just a spirito santo holy spirit there's no holy ghost english we have holy ghost holy spirit but in the original greek it's just one word english is just spicing it up by using more variety oh so now now we got to have the holy ghost in spanish phantasma santo which means like the holy ghoul or something like the other meaning of ghost like a scary ghost which is not a correct translation into spanish at all it's wrong it's not like well you're just not used to it no it's wrong it's nonsensical and by the word i mean i have like a thousand things to say right now i'm not going to because the time is ending let me just say a couple quick things you know do not become superstitious about the english bible okay some people have even said hey when words are in italics if you if you print out a copy of the bible you have to print that in italics the way the king james prints it in italics like now we have to match the font or the spelling or the punctuation or it's nonsense go look at that replica back there of the 1611 things are spelled totally different punctuation is totally different font is totally different but it's the same words it's we still have what they translated in 1611 but it's just the the font the punctuation the spellings have been updated so that it's easier to read but here's what and look if you're one that is superstitious about the italics look up first john 223 in your bible and you know what you're going to see in first john 223 half the verse is in italics half of the verse fully half of the verse in first john 223 is in italics so don't tell me the italics are inspired by god the italicized words are inspired by god every word in the king james bible is god's word but but certain things are italicized certain things aren't you know what whoever you know what let me just tell you right now and you know if you don't like this maybe you're one of these superstitious types but let me tell you something the the italicization in the king james bible is not consistent with reality it's poorly italicized and if i printed a bible i wouldn't italicize anything okay and you say how could you say that it's a god of italics okay well then explain to me why first john 223 is half in italics can you explain that because i can explain it i'll tell you right now it's because the bozo who was putting things in italics thought that that half of the verse might not be authentic now look does anybody think he's right no he's wrong the verse is authentic everything in the bible is authentic and guess what putting it in italics makes no sense i mean look it up in your bible feel free to look it up while i've talked to you look up first john two three is anybody looking at it and seeing that i'm telling the truth oh thou of little faith blessed are they that have not seen and yet i believe no i'm just kidding but anyway you look it up and you got the but in brackets what is that what is that and then you've got it in italics and it's just look folks if you're going to start worrying about the font and the the capitalization and the punctuation and the spelling you're going to have a real hard time translating the bible into japanese how are you going to make things upper and lower case oh i forgot greek and hebrew don't have upper and lower case letters now obviously i know the modern language does but at that time the lower case had not been invented yet when the new testament was written it was all in it was written in all caps caps lock was just left on the whole thing so the the point is you don't want to get these crazy views and look there was a whole conference like this what a year or two ago over in crazy town florida where they had this big conference about how like they did look you want to talk about going overboard they said if you change the th to an s you've corrupted god's word like like cometh to comes they said that's a corruption of god's word wow have fun translating the bible into swahili with that it you know it's it well other languages you can do whatever you want with it but in in english it's got to be exactly like that makes no sense it's absurd it's ludicrous okay and not only that but they want to impose this on other languages and when you try to prove to them that not everything in the king james is literal word for word from the greek because that's not how translations work they just they just go like buh and they just they just they're just like a reality denier like like flat earth level mentality i told one of these guys i said right here here's an example i pulled out a greek new testament i showed him i said this is not literal i broke it down to him and showed him and he's just like well that greek's wrong and i said yeah except this is what every greek new testament on the planet says well then they're all wrong and i said so what was the king james translated from well it's probably just something we don't have anymore that makes no sense and then other people say oh they translate from other languages and the king james is 100 from the hebrew in the old testament 100 from the greek in the new testament they were not allowed to translate from latin or anything else they looked at latin for ideas but it's none of it there's not one verse in this book translated that's not translated from the original languages period okay and by the way this this ruckmanite view that that exalts the translation over the original there's nothing new under the sun in fact i can name a gigantic religion of ruckmanites to you it's called the roman catholic church because did you know that the official bible of the roman catholic church is not the original greek and hebrew what's the official bible of the roman catholic church nope the latin vulgate that is their final authority in all matters of faith and practice the latin vulgate and to them that is above the greek and hebrew that is their final authority period and by the way in the early days of the roman catholic church they had the old testament in the greek septuagint translation and their favorite saint saint augustine believed that the greek septuagint was superior to the original hebrew and jerome got in a fight with him about it and jerome said no we got to translate the vulgate from the original hebrew and augustin's like no let's translate it from the greek because it's the translation they're putting the translation above the original and you have today people saying don't translate the original greek and hebrew only translate the king james it's the same mentality it makes no sense now look i'm glad that we have this awesome perfect translation in english but don't talk trash about the original languages because we need to use those to translate into other languages and cut out the middleman and we go straight over it's going to make more sense you know i i mean i was just i was just reading in the greek new testament a couple days ago and i was reading second john and he says you know uh i i trust to come unto you i'm mixing it up i'm sorry but he says you know i trust uh to come and see you that we may speak face to face that our joy may be full right so when when john says that we may speak face to face in the original greek it says that we may speak mouth to mouth now look obviously that means the exact same thing you're not missing anything it's like well we gotta go back to the greek it's actually mouth to mouth is there any difference between saying we're going to speak face to face and we're going to speak mouth to mouth i'll tell you the difference one of them sounds way better than the other and it's the one that the king james went with but you don't sit there and tell me that that's a literal word for word translation because a literal word for word translation would be i'm going to speak to you mouth to mouth buddy but it sounds weird so they change you know and there are lots i could go on with example after example or like when jesus is on the cross and the thieves that are crucified with him cast the same in his teeth there's no teeth in the original greek but you get the exact same meaning when you translate you translate the meaning you don't just go literal word for word and if you did that into asian languages it would be wild it would be bizarre anyway i'm totally out of time but we what we learn from this is that some people they get superstitious they take a good doctrine overboard we don't want to be like that you know we do we want to be separated amen we want to be separated you know god wants holiness god wants separation that's what the chapter is about that's what being an azerite's about being different than the world separated holy set apart god has a strict standard even when he knows you're not going to live up to it he still lays down a strict standard he wants us to try to hit that standard amen we don't hit it necessarily but it is the standard but can holiness and separation be taken overboard all good doctrines and good teachings can be taken overboard to where you get so holy and so separated what about you say well i'm for modest clothing on women okay but do the muslims take it a little too far do you think you take modesty overboard yeah you could take modest clothing overboard i i'm for modesty but it can go anything can go overboard so be holy be separated be king james but don't just go into the realm of craziness or absurdity where you're just taking good things overboard and ruining them because you're being superstitious let's bow our heads up word of prayer father we thank you so much for your word lord and we thank you so much for uh our church and we thank you for the opportunity to read this book of uh judges specifically lord and help us to learn from these characters and and lord when we read the book of judges we really have to think because uh people are making a lot of mistakes in these books they they do some good things they do some bad things lord give us wisdom in the coming weeks help us to properly interpret these stories and compare scripture with scripture to know exactly what uh you have for us in these chapters in jesus name we pray amen men take your hymnals please will be dismissed and singing 297 297 close to the number 297 let's sing it on that first verse now my everlasting portion more than friend or life to me number 297 sing it on this first version all along walk with me close to me close to me close to me come for me walk with me close to me close to me close to me close to me only let me walk with me lead me through the veil of shadows bear me your last dimple sea then the gate of life eternal may i enter lord with thee close to me close to me close to me and the gate of life eternal may i answer lord with you you