Fresh Manna 2021

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Strong Tower Radio

Fresh Manna By Rod Thompson

Rod Thompson

Train Up a Child

Fresh manna fell to the ground as a gift from God while the Israelites were in the wilderness.

It was fresh from the ovens of heaven, baked by the master baker himself.

How the Israelites must have anticipated the taste and the smell of each morning's delivery.

Just like the Israelites, you too can now experience the taste and smell of fresh manna.

Today, you will be listening to Rod Thompson, former pastor of the Midland and Mount Pleasant Seventh-day Adventist churches of the Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventist.

Want you to open up your Bibles to Judges 13.

The title of our message today is Train Up a Child.

O loving Father, we have opened up the Word of life, and we need the Holy Spirit to guide us, to give us wisdom, to speak to our hearts and minds, draw us near to You, help us to know Your will for our lives and show us, Lord, what You would have us do.

In Judges 13, you have the story of Samson.

He was that mighty man of God who had a few character flaws.

We can probably all relate to that, can't we?

But I want you to notice something important here in Judges 13.

It says, again, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years." I'm going to pause there for a moment.

But you'll remember that as long as Moses was leading the children of Israel, there were some rebellion, but for the most part, they were following the will of God.

And then Moses died and Joshua took over and Joshua led them into the promised land.

And there were some challenges that they faced along the way, but for the most part, they were following God.

And then when Joshua died, you had the elders that were there with Joshua.

And when they all died, the book of Judges tells us that the children of Israel began to do evil in the eyes of the Lord.

They began to worship idols and move away from God, and it even goes as far as to say that everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

God had often allowed difficulty to come against Israel to try and draw them back to Himself.

He would raise up a prophet or a judge and they would follow Him for a while and then they would fall away again.

And then when the children of Israel would cry out to God, then He would raise up another judge.

2, it says, Now there was a certain man from Zorah of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and had no children.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Indeed now you are barren and have born no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.

Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink or not to eat anything unclean.

For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines." Can you imagine such a scene?

In the beginning, God had made Adam and Eve, and 1 of the first commandments that He gave them was to be fruitful and multiply." In other words, God wanted them to have children.

If we go back to Genesis 1, and we look at verse 28, it says that God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.

And that is that they would have children and they and their children would rule the earth.

Well, of course, we know that it didn't turn out that way.

But I mention this because I want you to understand that from the beginning, it was believed that children were a blessing from God.

In Psalm 127, verse 3, it says, Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord.

Now because it was believed that children were a blessing from God, if there was a woman in those days that could not have a child, if she was barren, then she was looked upon differently by the people.

There are many Old Testament stories about women who were not able to have children, and how they cried out to the Lord, and how the Lord would have mercy on them because they were often seen by the people as being under a curse of God.

They even viewed themselves as being cursed or being punished.

And so there are many stories in the Old Testament that we can look at as examples.

But God had promised Abraham that he would have a son, and through him, he would have so many descendants, it would be like trying to count the stars or count the sand of the sea.

And Sarah was because of the stigma that came along with not having children.

She wanted a child so bad, she couldn't wait on the Lord to deliver on that promise.

And so she took her handmaid, Hagar, gave it to Abraham, hoping that there would be a child, a son that she could raise upon her knee as her own.

And of course, You know, it didn't turn out that way.

Hannah was married, and she too was not able to conceive, and yet her husband was married to another woman, and she had many children.

In fact, she ridiculed, she persecuted Hannah, made her feel terrible because she couldn't have children.

She says to God, if You will give me a son, I will lend him to You for the whole of his life.

And of course, she does then conceive, and she has Samuel, and she gives him to the Lord, and he becomes a great prophet in Israel.

As you read through the Old Testament, you will find that there are many stories about women who were desiring to have children, and to have the joy of seeing their children to grow up and serve the Lord.

And now, after many years of not being able to have a child, now the wife of Manoah, she has the angel of the Lord come and visit her and tell her that she is going to have a son.

Can you imagine the joy in her heart as she's told after all of this time, now she's finally going to conceive.

Now there was a certain man from Zorah of the family of the Danites whose name was Manoah.

And his wife was barren and had no children.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Indeed, now you are barren and have born no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.

Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink and not to eat anything unclean.

For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come upon his head.

For the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." And now the angel of the Lord has come to her, and notice what she does.

Verse 6, So the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came to me, and his countenance was like the countenance of the angel of God." Very awesome.

But I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name.

And he said to me, Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son.

Now drink no wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean, for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death." of His death.

Husbands, fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, Let me ask you a question.

His wife has not been able to have a child, And now finally, she comes to you, and she says, the angel of the Lord told me, I'm going to have a son.

Would you be like Sarah when she was told that she was in her old age going to bear a son?

Would you ridicule her and tell her she's crazy?

I'd like you to notice how Manoah responds.

Then Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, O my Lord, Please let the man of God whom you sent come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the child who is to be born." In other words, Manoah is saying, Lord, how are we to raise this child?

Brothers and sisters, that's the question that all parents have, isn't it?

You have this child, and there's no owner's manual that comes with it.

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Fresh Manna By Rod Thompson

Train Up a Child

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