Manoah’s Wife and Her Excellent Argument

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"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
He at this time ha ve told us such things as these." Judges 13:22,23.

The first remark arising out of the story of Manoah and his wife is
this–that oftentimes we pray for blessings which will make us tremble
when we receive them. Manoah had asked that he might see the Angel and
he saw Him–in answer to His request the Wonderful One condescended to
reveal Himself a second time, but the consequence was that the good man
was filled with astonishment and dismay. And turning to His wife, he
exclaimed, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God."

Brothers and Sisters, do we always know what we are asking for when we
pray? We are imploring an undoubted blessing and yet if we knew the way
in which such blessing must necessarily come, we would, perhaps,
hesitate before we pressed our case. You have been entreating very much
for growth in holiness. Do you know, Brother, that in almost every
case, that means increased affliction? We do not make much progress in
the Divine life except when the Lord is pleased to try us in the
furnace and purge us with many fires. Do you desire the mercy on that
condition? Are you willing to take it as God pleases to send it, and to
say, "Lord, if spiritual growth implies trial. If it signifies a long
sickness of body. If it means deep depression of soul. If it entails
the loss of property. If it involves the taking away of my dearest
friends, yet I make no reserve, but include in the prayer all that is
necessary to the good end. When I say, sanctify me wholly, spirit, soul
and body, I leave the process to Your discretion."

Suppose you really knew all that it would bring upon you, would you not
pray, at any rate, with more solemn tones? I hope you would not
hesitate, but, counting all the cost, would still desire to be
delivered from sin. But, at any rate, you would put up your petition
with deliberation, weighing every syllable, and then, when the answer
came, you would not be so astonished at its peculiar form. Often and
often the blessing which we so eagerly implored is the occasion of the
suffering which we deplore. We do not know God's methods. This is the
Lord's way of answering prayer for faith and Grace. He comes with rods
of chastisement and makes us smart for our follies, for thus, alone,
can He deliver our childish spirits from us.

He comes with sharp plowshares and tears up the soil, for thus, only,
can we be made to yield Him a harvest. He comes with hot irons and
burns us to the heart. And when we inquire, "Why all this?" the answer
comes to us, "This is what you asked for. This is the way in which the
Lord answers your requests." Perhaps, at this moment, the fainting
feeling that some of you are now experiencing, which makes you fear
that you will surely die, may be accounted for by your own prayers! I
should like you to look at your present sorrows in that light, and say,
"After all, I can see that now my God has given me exactly what I
sought at His hands. I asked to see the Angel and I have seen Him, and
now it is that my spirit is cast down within me."

A second remark is this–Very frequently deep prostration of spirit is
the forerunner of some remarkable blessing. It was to Manoah and to his
wife the highest conceivable joy of life, the climax of their ambition,
that they should be the parents of a son by whom the Lord should begin
to deliver Israel. Joy filled them–inexpressible joy–at the thought
of it! But, at the time when the good news was first communicated,
Manoah, at least, was made so heavy in spirit that he said, "We shall
surely die, for we have seen God." Take it as a general rule that dull
skies foretell a shower of mercy. Expect sweet favor when you
experience sharp affliction.

Do you not remember, concerning the Apostles, that they feared as they
entered into the cloud on Mount Tabor? And yet it was in that cloud
that they saw their Master transfigured! And you and I have had many a
fear about the cloud we were entering, although there we were to see
more of Christ and His Glory than we had ever beheld before. The cloud
which you fear makes the external wall of that secret chamber where the
Lord reveals Himself! Before you can carry Samson in your arms, Manoah,
you must be made to say, "We shall surely die." Before the minister
shall preach the Word of God to thousands, he must be emptied and made
to tremble under a sense of inability.

Before the Sunday school teacher shall bring her girls to Christ, she
shall be led to see how weak and insufficient she is. I believe that
whenever the Lord is about to use us in His household, He takes us like
a dish and wipes us right out and sets us on the shelf–and then
afterwards He takes us down and puts thereon His own heavenly meat,
with which to fill the souls of others. There must, as a rule, be an
emptying, a turning upside down and a putting on one side before the
very greatest blessing comes. Manoah felt that he must die and yet he
could not die, for he was to be the father of Samson, the deliverer of
Israel and the terror of Philistia!

Let me offer a third remark, which is this–great faith is, in many
instances, subject to fits. What great faith Manoah had! His wife was
barren, yet when she was told by the Angel that she should bear a
child, he believed it, although no heavenly messenger had come to him
personally! He so believed it that he did not want to see the Man of
God a second time to be told that it would be so, but only to be
informed how to bring up the child! That was all. "Well might he be the
father of strong Samson, that had such a strong faith," says old Bishop
Hall. He had a strong faith, indeed, and yet here he is saying in
alarm, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God."

Do not judge a man by any solitary word or act, for if you do, you will
surely mistake him. Cowards are occasionally brave, and the bravest men
are sometimes cowards. And there are men who would be worse cowards,
practically, if they were a little less cowardly than they are. A man
may be too much a coward to confess that he is timid. Trembling Manoah
was so outspoken, honest and sincere that he expressed his feelings
which a more political person might have concealed. Though fully
believing what had been spoken from God, yet, at the same time, this
doubt was on him as the result of his belief in tradition–"We shall
surely die, because we have seen God."

Once again, another remark is that it is a great mercy to have a
Christian companion to go to for counsel and comfort whenever your soul
is depressed. Manoah had married a wonderful wife. She was the better
one of the two in sound judgment. She was the weaker vessel by nature,
but she was the stronger Believer and probably that was why the Angel
was sent to her, for angels are best pleased to speak with those who
have faith–and if they have the pick of their company–and the wife
has more faith than the husband, they will visit the wife sooner than
her spouse, for they love to take God's messages to those who will
receive them with confidence. She was evidently full of faith and so,
when her husband tremblingly said, "We shall surely die," she did not
believe in such a mistrustful inference.

Moreover, though they say that women cannot reason, yet here was a
woman whose arguments were logical and overwhelming! Certain it is that
women's perceptions are generally far clearer than men's reasonings.
They look, at once, into a Truth of God while we are hunting for our
glasses! Their instincts are generally as safe as our reasonings and,
therefore, when they have, in addition, a clear logical mind, they make
the wisest of counselors. Well, Manoah's wife not only had clear
perceptions, but she had first-rate reasoning faculties. She argued,
according to the language of the text, that it was not possible that
God should kill them after what they had seen and heard!

Oh that every man had such a prudent, gracious wife as Manoah had! Oh
that whenever a man is cast down, a Christian Brother or Sister stands
ready to cheer him with some reminder of the Lord's past goodness, or
with some gracious promise from the Divine Word! It may happen to be
the husband who cheers the wife and in such a case it is equally
beautiful. We have known a Christian Sister to be very nervous and very
often depressed and troubled–what a mercy to her to have a Christian
husband whose strength of faith can encourage her to smile away her
griefs by resting in the everlasting faithfulness and goodness of the
Lord!

If God the Holy Spirit shall help us, we will take up the argument of
Manoah's wife and see whether it will, also, comfort our hearts. She
had three strings to her bow, good woman. One was–The Lord does not
mean to kill us, because He has accepted our sacrifices. The second and
third were–He does not mean to kill us, or else He would not, as at
this time, have told us such gracious things as these. So the three
strings to her bow were accepted sacrifices, gracious

revelations, and precious promises. Let us dwell upon each of them.
And, first, accepted sacrifices. I will suppose that I am addressing a
Brother who is sadly tried, terribly cast down and, who, therefore, has
begun to lament–

"The Lord has quite forsaken me. My God will be gracious no more."

Brother, is that possible? Has not God of old accepted, on your behalf,
the offering of His Son, Jesus Christ? You have believed in Jesus, dear
Friend. You do not believe in Him now? Lay your hand on your heart and
put the question solemnly to yourself, "Do you believe on the Son of
God?" You are able to say, "Yes, Lord, notwithstanding all my
unhappiness, I do believe in You and rest the stress and weight of my
soul's interests on Your power to save." Well, then, you have God's own
Word, recorded in His own infallible Bible, assuring you that Jesus
Christ was accepted of God on your behalf, for He laid down His life
for as many as believe in Him, that they might never perish!

He stood as their Surety and suffered as their Substitute! Is it
possible that this should be a lie and that, after all, they may be
cast away? The argument of Manoah's wife was just this–"Did we not put
the slain goat on the rock and as we put it there was it not consumed?
It was consumed instead of us! We shall not die, for the victim has
been consumed! The fire will not burn us–it has spent itself upon the
sacrifice! Did you not see it go up in smoke and see the Angel ascend
with it? The fire is gone–it cannot fall on us to destroy us." This
being interpreted into the Gospel is just this–Have we not seen the
Lord Jesus Christ fastened to the Cross? Have we not beheld Him in
extreme agonies?

Has not the fire of God consumed Him? Have we not seen Him rising, as
it were, from that sacred fire in the Resurrection and the Ascension to
go into Glory? Because the fire of Jehovah's wrath had spent itself on
Him, we shall not die. He has died instead of us! It cannot be that the
Lord has made Him suffer, the Just for the unjust, and now will make
the Believer suffer, too! It cannot be that Christ loved His Church and
gave Himself for it and that, now, the Church must perish, also! It
cannot be that the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all and now
will lay our iniquity on us, too! It were not consistent with justice!
It would make the vicarious sacrifice of Christ to be nullified, a
superfluity of cruelty which achieved nothing!

The Atonement cannot be made of no effect–the very supposition would
be blasphemy! O, look, my Soul! Look to the redeemer's Cross and as you
see how God accepts Christ, be filled with content! Hear how the, "It
is finished!" of Jesus on earth is echoed from the Throne of God,
Himself, as He raises up His Son from the dead and bestows glory upon
Him! Hear this, I say, and as you hear, attend to the power of this
argument–If the Lord had been pleased to kill us, He would not have
accepted His Son for us! If He meant us to die, would He have put Him
to death, too? How can it be? The sacrifice of Jesus must effectually
prevent the destruction of those for whom He offered up Himself as a
Sacrifice!

Jesus, dying for sinners, and yet the sinners denied mercy?!
Inconceivable and impossible! My Soul, whatever your inward feelings
and the tumult of your thoughts, the accepted Sacrifice shows that God
is not pleased to kill you! But, if you notice, in the case of Manoah,
they had offered a burnt sacrifice and a meat offering, too. Well, now,
in addition to the great, grand sacrifice of Christ, which is our
trust, we, dear Brothers and Sisters, have offered other sacrifices to
God. And in consequence of His acceptance of such sacrifice we cannot
imagine that He intends to destroy us. First, let me conduct your
thoughts back to the offering of prayer which you have presented. I
will speak for myself.

I recall now, running over my diary mentally, full many an instance in
which I have sought the Lord in prayer and He has most graciously heard
me. I am as sure that my requests have been heard as ever Manoah could
have been sure that his sacrifice was consumed upon the rock! May I not
infer from this that the Lord does not mean to destroy me? You know
that it had been so with you, dear Brother. You are down in the dumps,
today. You are beginning to raise many questions about Divine love. But
there have been times–you know there have–when you have sought the
Lord and He has heard you.

You can say, "This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and delivered
him from all his fears." Perhaps you have not jotted down the fact in a
book, but your memory holds the indelible record. Your soul has made
her personal boast in the Lord concerning His fidelity to His promise
in helping His people in the hour of need–for you have happily proved
it in your own case. Now, Brother, if the Lord had been pleased to kill
you, would He have heard your prayers? If He had meant to cast you out,
after all, would He have heard you so many times? If He had sought a
quarrel against you He might have had cause for that quarrel many years
ago and have said to you, "When you make many prayers I will not

hear." But since He has listened to your cries and tears–and many a
time answered your petitions–He cannot intend to kill you.

Again, you brought to Him, years ago, not only your prayers but
yourself. You gave yourself over to Christ–body, soul, spirit, all
your goods, all your hours, all your talents, every faculty, and every
possible acquirement–and you said, "Lord, I am not my own, but I am
bought with a price." Now, at that time did not the Lord accept you?
You have at this very moment a lively recollection of the sweet sense
of acceptance you had at that time. Though you are at this time sorely
troubled, yet you would not wish to withdraw from the consecration
which you then made, but on the contrary you declare–

"Hgh Heaven, that heard the solemn vow,

That vow renewed shall daily hear,

Till, in life's latest hour, I bow,

And bless in death a bond so dear." Now, would the Lord have accepted
the offering of yourself to Him if He meant to destroy you? Would He
have let you say, "I am Your servant and the son of Your handmaid: You
have loosed my bond?" Would He have permitted you to declare, as you
can boldly assert tonight, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord
Jesus," delighting to remember the time of your Baptism into Him,
whereby your body washed with His pure body, was declared to be the
Lord's forever– would He enable you to feel a joy in the very mark of
your consecration, as well as in the consecration itself–if He meant
to slay you? Oh, surely not! He does not let a man give himself up to
Him and then cast him away! That cannot be!

Some of us, dear Friends, can remember how, growing out of this last
sacrifice, there have been others. The Lord has accepted our offerings
at other times, too, for our works, faith and labors of love have been
acknowledged by His Spirit. There are some of you, I am pleased to
remember, whom God has blessed to the conversion of little children
whom you brought to the Savior. And there are others on earth whom you
can look upon with great joy because God was pleased to make you the
instrument of their conviction and their conversion. Some of you, I
perceive, are ministers of the Gospel. Others of you preach on the
corners of the streets and there have been times in your lives–I am
sure that you wish they were 10 times as many–in which God has been
pleased to succeed your efforts so that hearts have yielded to the sway
of Jesus.

Now, you do not put any trust in those things, nor do you claim any
merit for having served your Master, but still, I think they may be
thrown in as a matter of consolation and you may ask, "If the Lord had
meant to destroy me, would He have enabled he to preach His Gospel?
Would He have helped me to weep over men's souls? Would He have enabled
me to gather those dear children like lambs to His bosom? Would He have
granted me my longing desire to bear fruit in His vineyard if He did
not mean to bless me?"

Now, the second argument was that they had received gracious
revelations. "If the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not have
showed us all these things." Now, what has the Lord shown you, my dear
Brothers and Sisters? I will mention one or two things. First, the Lord
has shown you, perhaps, years ago, or possibly at this moment He is
showing you for the first time–your sin. What a sight that was when we
first had it! Some of you never saw your sins, but your sins are there
all the same. In an old house, perhaps, there is a cellar into which
nobody goes and no light ever comes in. You live in the house
comfortably enough, not knowing what is there. But one day you take a
candle and go down the steps. You open that moldy door and when it is
opened, dear Me!

What a damp, pestilential smell! How foul the floor is! All sorts of
living creatures hop away from under your feet! There are growths on
the very walls–a heap of roots in the corner, sending out those long
yellow growths which look like the fingers of death. And there is a
spider–and there are a hundred more–of such a size as cannot be grown
except in such horrible places! You get out as quickly as ever you can!
You do not like the looks of it. Now, the candle did not make that
cellar bad–the candle did not make it filthy! No, the candle only
showed what there was. And then you get the carpenter to take down that
shutter which you could not open anyway, for it had not been opened for
years.

And when the daylight comes in, it seems more horrible than it did by
candlelight! And you wonder, indeed, however you did go across it with
all those dreadful things all around you and you cannot be satisfied to
live upstairs now till that cellar downstairs has been perfectly
cleansed! That is just like our heart–it is full of sin–but we do not
know it. It is a den of unclean birds, a menagerie of everything that
is fearful, fierce and furious–a little Hell stocked with devils! Such
is our nature. Such is our heart.

Now, the Lord showed me mine years ago, as He did some of you, and the
result of the sight of one's heart is horrible. Well does Dr. Young
say, "God spares all eyes but His own, that fearful sight, a naked
human heart." Nobody ever did see all his heart as it really is. You
have only seen a part, but when seen, it is so horrible that it is
enough to drive a man out of his senses to see the evil of his nature!
Now, let us gather some honey out of this dead lion. Brothers and
Sisters, if the Lord had meant to destroy us, He would not have shown
us our sin because we were happy enough, previously, were we not? In
our own poor way we were content and if He did not mean to pardon us,
it was not like the Lord to show us our sin and to torment us before
our time, unless He meant to take it away!

We were swine, but we were satisfied enough with the husks we ate–so
why not let us remain swine? What was the good of letting us see our
filthiness if He did not intend to take it away? It never can be
possible that God sets Himself studiously to torture the human mind by
making it conscious of its evil, if He never intends to supply a
remedy. Oh no! A deep sense of sin will not save you, but it is a
pledge that there is something begun in your soul which may lead to
salvation! That deep sense of sin does as good as say, "The Lord is
laying bare the disease that He may cure it. He is letting you see the
foulness of that underground cellar of your corruption because He means
to cleanse it for you."

But He has shown us more than this, for He has made us see the
hollowness and emptiness of the world. There are some here present,
who, at one time, were very gratified with the pleasures and amusements
of the world. The theater was a great delight to them. The ballroom
afforded them supreme satisfaction. To be able to dress just after
their own fancy and to spend money on their own whims were the very
acme of delight! But there came a time when across all these the soul
perceived a mysterious handwriting which, being interpreted, ran
thus–"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

These very people went to the same amusements, but they seemed so dull
and stupid that they came away saying, "We do not care a bit for them.
The joys are all gone. What seemed gold turns out to be gilt. And what
we thought marble was only white paint. The varnish is cracked, the
tinsel is faded, the coloring has vanished. Mirth laughs like an idiot
and pleasure grins like madness." We have heard the words, "Vanity of
vanities; all is vanity," sounding in our hearts, and now do you think
that if the Lord had meant to kill us, He would have taught us this?
Why, no! He would have said, "Leave them alone, they are given unto
idols. They are only going to have one world in which they can
rejoice–let them enjoy it."

He would have let the swine go on with their husks if He had not meant
to turn them into His children and bring them to His bosom. But He has
taught us something better than this–namely, the preciousness of
Christ! Unless we are awfully deceived–self-deceived, I mean–we have
known what it is to lose the burden of our sin at the foot of the
Cross. We have known what it is to see the suitability and
all-sufficiency of the merit of our dear Redeemer and we have rejoiced
in Him with unspeakable joy full of glory! If He had meant to destroy
us, He would not have shown us Christ!

Sometimes, also, we have strong desires after God! What pining after
communion with Him have we felt! What longings to be delivered from
sin! What yearnings to be perfect! What aspirations to be with Him in
Heaven and what desires to be like He while we are here! Now these
longings, cravings, desires, yearnings–do you think the Lord would
have put them into our hearts if He had meant to destroy us? What would
be the good of it? Would it not be tormenting us as Tantalus was
tormented? Would it not, indeed, be a superfluity of cruelty to make us
wish for what we could never have and pine after what we should never
gain? O Beloved, let us be comforted about these things! If He had
meant to kill us, He would not have shown us such things as these!

I shall have no time to dwell upon the last source of comfort, which is
what the Lord has spoken to us–many precious promises. "Nor would He
have told us such things as these." At almost anytime when a child of
God is depressed, if he goes to the Word of God and to prayer, and
looks up, he will generally get hold of some promise or other. I know I
generally do. I could not tell you, dear Brothers and Sisters, tonight,
what promise would suit your case, but the Lord always knows how to
apply the right Word at the right time. And when a promise is applied
with great power to the soul and you are enabled to plead it at the
Mercy Seat, you may say, "If the Lord had meant to kill us, He would
not have made us such a promise as this."

I have a promise that hangs up before my eyes whenever I wake every
morning and it has continued in its place for years. It is a stay to my
soul. It is this–"I will not fail you nor forsake you." Difficulties
arise, funds run short, sickness comes–but somehow or other my text
always seems to flow like a fountain–"I will not fail you nor forsake
you." If the Lord had meant to kill us, He would not have said that to
us. What is your promise, Brothers and Sisters? What have you

got a hold of? If you have not laid hold of any and feel as if none
belonged to you, yet there are such words as these, "This is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners," and you are one!

Ah, if He had meant to destroy you, He would not have spoken a text of
such a wide character on purpose to include your case! A thousand
promises go down to the lowest deep into which a heart can ever
descend. And if the Lord had meant to destroy a soul in the deeps, He
would not have sent a Gospel promise down even to that extreme. I
should like to say these two or three words to you who are unconverted,
but who are troubled in your souls. You think that God means to destroy
you. Now, dear Friend, I take it that if the Lord had meant to kill
you, He would not have sent the Gospel to you. If there had been a
purpose and a decree to destroy you, He would not have brought you
here!

Now you are sitting to hear that Jesus has died to save such as you
are! You are sitting where you are, earnestly bid to trust Him and be
saved! If the Lord had meant to slay you, I do not think He would have
sent me on such a fruitless errand as to tell you of a Christ who could
not save you! Some of you have had your lives spared very remarkably.
You have been in accidents on land or on sea–perhaps in battle and
shipwreck. You have been raised from a sickbed. If the Lord had meant
to destroy you, surely He would have let you die–but He has spared
you, and you are getting on in years–surely it is time that you
yielded to His mercy and gave yourself up into the hands of Grace. If
the Lord had meant to destroy you, surely He would not have brought you
here, for, possibly, I am addressing one who has come here, wondering
why.

All the time that he has been sitting here, he has been saying to
himself, "I do not know how I got into this place, but here I am." God
means to bless you, tonight, I trust, and He will, if you breathe this
prayer to Heaven, "Father, forgive me! I have sinned against Heaven and
before you, but for Christ's sake, forgive Me! I put my trust in Your
Son." You shall find eternal life, rejoicing in the sacrifice which God
has accepted! You shall, one of these days, rejoice in the revelations
of His love and in the promises which He gives you, and say, as we say
tonight, "If the Lord were pleased to kill us He would not have showed
us all these things!"
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