Spiritual Apathy

Intro

In the midst of our sin God provided a way out, even when we didnt ask, before we were born God provided us a way to receive freedom from our sin. We where apathetic at points and we are called to respond to this message of salvation. God is at work, and sometimes we do not see it but he calls us to trust in Him and respond.

Imagine a farmer preparing his fields for planting. Long before any sprout breaks the surface, he toils in the unseen — plowing, fertilizing, and sowing seeds. To the outside observer, nothing changes at first. The ground looks barren. But beneath the surface, life is taking root. The farmer trusts that, in time, the harvest will come.

In Judges 13, Israel was under Philistine oppression for 40 years. It may have seemed like God was silent. Yet, even when His people couldn’t see it, God was preparing a deliverer. He sent an angel to announce the birth of Samson to a barren woman, showing that His plan was already in motion long before Samson would rise to confront the Philistines.

In our lives, we often face seasons where we wonder if God is at work. We pray, we wait, and sometimes we feel like nothing is happening. But just like the farmer trusts the unseen growth beneath the soil, we can trust that God is always at work behind the scenes, preparing deliverance, answers, and purpose in His perfect timing.

God’s deliverance began long before we ever were alive and God is at work in our lives. God moved sometimes to rescue the Israelite's before they even seemed to care or want to be saved. Sometimes we become apathetic and uninterested in what God wants to do in our lives. But what we learn is that God wants us to be committed to Him, to sacrifice for Him even when we do not see or understand. Instead of Apathy and complacency sacrifice and Holiness is what is called for.

We are going to see this play out in the life of Samson in the next couple weeks.

Civil war - Chapter 12

We start out in Chapter 12 which we will not spend much time in other then to see the life of the Israelite's get worse and worse. That is they where starting to drift farther and farther away from God. What we see is the beginnings of a civil war. It wasn't bad enough that the Israelite's where being held captive by their sin but they were starting to fight amongst themselves as well.

Jepthah and the Gileadites where fighting with Ephraim. Jepthah and his crew overpowered them and the Ephramites where trying to hide. Jepthah and his tribe would try and find out the others by their dialect. There was a word they could not say right. For up to 6 years this civil war between the Israelites went on as Jepthah was judging Israel. Things where not going well for them.

It was an Unnecessary war. Jealousy, envy and all sorts of evil can consume God’s people and when they do that we drift farther and farther away from God.

It went from that to Spiritual and moral degradation

self interested. Rather then living up to their responsibilities of saving Israel and helping them to live according to God the judges leading up to sampson where power hungry and self interested.

this serves as a warning for us today as well. Moving into the main chapter that we are going to go through today, we live in a culture that promotes self interest and materialism. Apthy towards God and focus on self. This is a warning that we need to move back towards God.

So we have set the stage for what was going on when Sampson

Chapter 13

Enter the original strong man, Samson. But we start first with his parents. We read in 13:1 that Israel was doing evil again in the sight of the lord. So God handed them over to the Philistines. It had been 40 years of this after the civil war that they had. It starts out with a man named Manoah and his wife who were unable to have kid for some reason.

Now something to note as we get into this is that every other time the Lord saved them from the life of servitude is because they where crying out to Him. Whether they actually meant it or not is not really what we are going to go through here. Rather the fact that they cried out in despair.

here there is no crying out in despair that we normally see. There may be nothing to this but it would appear that the Israelite's had become apathetic. 40 years they had been under the Philistines and they had not yet asked for God to save them but He was preparing someone to save them from their servitude anyways. Apathy and a lack of spiritual perception is what we are looking at here. They did not seem to care, and they seemed to have forgotten how they where to live their lives for God.

It is in this seemingly apathetic and forgetful state that we go back to the future parents of The strongman Samson. First the angel appeared to his mom, who we do not know the name of.

The familiar story of a women who cannot have kids being told she is going to have a son. All the while they think the angel is just a prophet, just a man. It has been a while since any of the Israelite's had been following the Lord. The child was going to be a Nazerite sfrom Birth.

Now some people say that the angel having to explain what a nazeritic vow entailed a few times meant that they where spiritually weak and apathetic. They should have known. This would make sense in the spiritual apathy at the time, a people that hadn't bothered really to cry out to God for 40 years as they where in slavery.

she went to tell her husband Manoah about the encounter. She knew the angel of the Lord was at least a man of God, but thought he was a prophet and not an angel. They didnt know who he was only that she was told she would conceiev a son and he would be a nazerite from birth.

It was then that Manoah prayed to God to send the man again and teach them what they should do. Well the angel already told them what they where supposed to do didn't he? He should have known, he did not need anymore signs.

He wanted to feed the angel, after all it was only polite to feed a stranger.

Manoah then asked the Visitor’s name, and he answered, “it is wonderful.” Who else in the Bible is called “Wonderful”? In Psalm 139:6, the psalmist is overwhelmed with God’s knowledge of him—his thoughts, his activities, his whereabouts, everything about him. So he says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” The angel of the Lord was telling Manoah that he would not understand him, because he is too deep, too mysterious, too incomprehensible. 

He instead said to offer the lamb as a burnt sacrifice to the Lord. This si when it finally clicked who it was they were talking to. The angel of the Lord went up in the smoke of the sacrifice.

The boy was born and the Lord’s blessing was on Him. But what is a Nazeritic vow anyways?

Numbers 6:1-21 deal with the requirements in being a Nazirite. The word Nazirite comes from a Hebrew verb which means “to separate” or “to consecrate.” The ideas of separation (vv. 1-8, 12, 13) and consecration (vv. 9, 11, 18, 19) are built into the word Nazirite. Throughout the period of his vow, the life of a Nazirite involves separation from three things: first, wine and grapes: everything from the grapevine, including wine, strong drink, vinegar made from wine, and grapes; second, cutting of hair on his head: his hair should be long; third, dead body or animal: touching or being near the dead will make him unclean.

Who can take the Nazirite vow? Any Israelite, man or woman, who wants to devote his or her life to God, can be a Nazirite. And Nazirite vows were usually for only a period of time.

Samson was a Nazirite from birth. Although the angel of the Lord did not say he would be a Nazirite for life, the woman said he will be “to the day of his death.” Samson was God’s gift to his childless parents and to Israel. As a judge in Israel, God gave him extraordinary physical strength, as long as his hair was uncut. So in this way, he began to save Israel.

John the Baptist

There was another Nazerite that we can read about, though not specifically stated as a nazerite he lived like one.

Luke 1:15 CSB

15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord and will never drink wine or beer. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb.

He was a faithful Nazerite till the day he died, or at least he lived like it. His best animal sacrifices will never be sufficient to atone for his own sins, much less for the sins of others. What Israel needed, then, was a Nazirite who would fulfill all his vows perfectly all his life. He would then qualify as our perfect Nazirite, the perfect one who would be our sacrifice. He would be a once-for-all offering for all the sins of all God’s chosen people.

It all points to Jesus, the one true judge though not a Nazerite from birth, he was none the less set apart from birth to die for our sin. The judges, the Kings, the prophets, the vow to seperate oneself to God for His glory all points to Jesus wh owould die once for all people.

So What?

Samson is chosen by God before birth to Judge the Israelite’s and save them. But the crazy thing is that God rescues them even though they do not ask or seem to care. they seemed to be fine where they were at, or at least had resigned themselves to it anyways. It seems like APathy was affecting their lives.

Are we spiritually apathetic?

Instead of apathy and and a lack of spiritual perception running our lives we need allow our lives to be run by God. affecting our lives and how we live for God in the world around us? How unresponsive are we to the commands of God?

How many people these days are unresponsive to the word of God or the commands of God. God is gracious and forgiving towards us even though we do not deserve it but this will not last forever. What this starts to turn into as we become less perceptive to the word of God is a lack of faith and what we see it turn into a need for personal verification every time God calls us to do something. We just want more and more signs, more and more miracles when really God is calling us to have complete faith in Him.

Judges/Ruth, Revised Edition Attitude Check

When pastors and churches succumb to administering God’s people as if it were just one more multinational corporation in the modern world, there should be no surprise when there is so little interest in the Bible and biblical theology.

Church Growth and evangelism also will not happen with spiritual apathy. That is because we are just content where we are at instead of seeking to follow the will of God. We just stop caring to see God move. Church unity suffers because of this me first attitude.

Fortunately God is a God of grace and forgiveness. God had begun to save the Israelites even when they didnt ask for it. The offer for forgiveness from our apathy and selfishness is there from Jesus, even though we do not deserve it.

so then what is called for is to be

Set Apart for God

We are not all called to take a nazeritic vow. I mean I had a wicked mullet at one point in my life, though not many pictures can be found of that. We can learn from the vow that Samson and John the Baptist live by.

Abstaining from the fruit of the vine can represent commitment to a sacrificial life.

We are called to be set apart and to sacrifice for the glory of God. We are called to live a life of Holiness. We are called to set apart the temptations and the things of the world and sacrifice for the glory of God. Suffering and sacrifice come from a life lived for Jesus.

Jesus left his glorious pleasures in heaven to live a life of suffering on this earth. He was willing to do this in order for you to enjoy the glorious blessings of heaven. Are you willing to suffer for a little while looking forward to the glories that await us?

Letting God determine when to cut your hair and end the vow shows that we to can trust in God and His will for our lives.

When bad things happen in your lives, do you still trust God that he will use even sufferings and temptations to shape your character; that he will “work all things for your good”? Are you still able to pray, “Your will be done”? Are you still able to rest in God’s mercy, like Jesus in his hour of temptation, “not my will, but yours, be done”? Are you still able to trustfully declare that “nothing can separate you from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord”? Are you still able to claim that “not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven” 

Commitment to fleeing from sin.

the love of the pleasures of this world is enmity against God, so you are not to love worldly things. The Nazirite life is a life of separation; so is your life as a believer in Christ. The Nazirite life is a life of distinction; so is your life as a believer in Christ a life that does not look like the life of unbelievers around you.

One of the saddest realities in today’s churches is that the lifestyle and attitudes of those in the church are not different from those outside the church. Jesus himself said in his priestly prayer in the Garden that you are “in the world… but not of the world” 

Instead of being spiritually apathetic and constipated we are called to commitment to God and being set apart for Him. But the amazing thing is that God can forgive us for our laziness and apathy. But it will take work to get out life back on track. Instead let us work at comitting our lives completley to God and His glory.