Happy mother's day to all you mothers -- and to all you "about to be mothers." No, --"Mother's Day" is not of biblical origin. There's neither command for it or an example for it in all the Bible. But, there are lots of good teachings there for and about mothers, and we'll be considering some of them, so don't go away.
What a joy I have to welcome you to our program of Bible study In Search of the Lord's Way to become a Christian and to be a Christian and to live like one. Oh yes, friend, The Bible is the inspired, the eternal, the living --and the all-sufficient word of God. If it's really in the Bible, we have no choice but to believe it. If it’s not in the Bible, well it isn't worthy of anyone's trust. We're so glad you have joined us.
This is a national --well were not even saying international television and radio program and not be exaggerating at all. And because it is, it's difficult sometimes for us (well for even those of us who work with it from day to day) to realize it's also a local program. But it is, and we work with local churches of Christ in communities just like yours, in which we may not be currently sponsored so that they can have the program to preach the word of God in their neighborhoods, too. You may want to contact us about that.
Our address is In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Or if you'd like to e-mail us; our address is searchtv@searchtv.com. Or you may use our toll-free telephone number. It's 1-800-321-8633. Ken Helterbrand is going to lead us now as we sing, then I'll be back for Bible reading and prayer.
We are going to reading today from the book of Ephesians chapter 6 and the first 3 verses. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with promise: that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” With that reading now, let’s go to God in prayer. Holy Father we are so thankful to you for the revelation of your divine will in the bible. And we are so thankful that in it we can learn that from the very beginning it was in your plan to propagate the people upon the earth with motherhood. This is a blessing to each of us and I pray today, Lord, that everyone has as good a mother, as I had. And I pray, also, that you will bless them and be with them. Help them to be obedient children and youth. And let them be blessed with their mothers presence and advice and counsel and teaching throughout their lives. In the lovely name of Jesus, we pray, Amen.
This is Mothers' Day, so, we're giving today's program the title simply --Mother's Day. Although it isn't a religious holiday with biblical command or example, it's right and it’s good that we have such a day to honor our mothers. We're taught in both the Old Testament in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 16 and in the New Testament in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 2 to honor our fathers and our mothers. It's right, too, because there is no mere human being more deserving of such tribute than a good mother.
Mothers Day began in 1907 when Miss Anne Jarvis, whose mother had died a year earlier, had a few of her friends over to honor her memory. The next year and the years following, with the help of various religious groups and other organizations, the idea spread enthusiastically, and in 1914 the U.S. Congress gave the day national sanction. And that's why we do it. It's a good old American custom, friend. We've been doing it almost a whole century now. One day of every year is set aside for remembering and paying tribute to our "Mothers." From time immemorial motherhood has been esteemed a sacred blessing. Children are a gift from God. Psalm 127:3 expresses it so well. It says, "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward."
From as far back as, well, only the eleventh chapter of Genesis, I believe, in the case (before God changed their names) Abraham's wife, Sarah, a barren woman felt she was deprived of the Lord of the gift of motherhood. Of course, if you're familiar with the Bible, you know Sarah was miraculously blessed in her old age to have a son, whom she and Abraham named, Isaac.
Other women of God were barren for awhile and were later blessed with a child or with children, also. As a matter of fact, it was so with Isaac's wife Rebekah. Genesis 25:21 says, "Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived." Well, she was blessed with twins, Esau and Jacob if you remember.
If you read and study your Bibles you know that Moses was the great lawgiver and deliverer of the children of Israel in the Old Testament period. In a time of universal famine, God had taken His people into Egypt to preserve their lineage. But there arose a king over Egypt who was hostile toward them and he made them serve with rigor, he enslaved them. He was so afraid that they would multiply to such great numbers, that they would become mightier than the Egyptians and overthrow their government. Well, he became so angered, and so doubtful and skeptical that he ordered the killing of all the male children of the Hebrew women at the time of their birth.
It was during this time that by God's providence Moses was born to a woman of the family of Levi, who seeing that he was a goodly child, she hid him for awhile. But she could no longer hide him, and she prepared a small craft of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and pitch, and put the child in it and laid it among the flags by the river's brink. And she "planted" Moses' sister nearby to witness what happened.
Indeed, it was by no mere coincidence that this was the place where the Pharaoh's daughter came to bathe. She found the child and wanted him for her own. The baby's sister, stepped forward and volunteered to find one of the Hebrew mothers to be his nurse. And who do you think she found? The best nurse a child can have is his mother, so Pharaoh's daughter commanded her, "Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages. And the woman, (Moses’ own mother) took the child," and nursed him to manhood.
Well, there are several things to be learned from this story. We'll have to hurry. First of all, "children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward." From time immemorial, godly and God-fearing women have believed that. And barren women have felt deprived of God's blessings. When God made the woman, He planned for her to be a partner with Him in the birth of children. No, --child-bearing was not a curse put on woman because of the transgression of Eve. No, not at all! She was given that roll before the transgression. And it was the pain of childbirth that came with the transgression. It was God's original design that the woman have the exalted and the lofty honor of working with God in the procreation of the human family. If you're considering an abortion, you might want to think about that, friend.
Next, the story of Moses' birth confirms what I've been saying, that, "You came not into this world when you chose or because you chose, but because God had need of you." Those were difficult days in the history of the children of Israel. God needed a Moses to lead His people out of this terrible slavery they were suffering. Dr. Batsell Barrett Baxter, for many years the speaker on the Herald of Truth television program, wrote in the very first paragraph of his autobiography, saying "In a very real sense," he said, "every person created by God has a place in His ultimate plan and each of us, as a creature possessing freedom of will, either facilitates or frustrates God's plan for his life." One of the saddest things I see where ever I go, is the lack of purpose in the lives of so very many people --even people who are said to be God's people. God has a purpose for our being here, friend, in this particular period of world history. Do you know yet what you're purpose is for being here at this time?
Well, from this story, also we learn what John Shed so succinctly said: "Simply having children, he said, doesn't make one a mother." Of course, a big, big part of being a mother is providing the loving care, and the tender training, and the careful guidance that every child needs. Moses' mother knew that, and she planned it so she could raise her own. The Pharaoh's daughter recognized it, too. She said to the Hebrew woman, "Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages." It was God who arranged it so Moses' mother would be the Hebrew woman who would be found. Godly women have always felt blessed of God in the conception and the birth of a child, and they've also felt a keen sense of responsibility to bring their children up in the proper way. It's one of the lasting joys of motherhood. Mothers get to rejoice when they see their children grow physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually to take their places in the world.
In First Samuel, the first three chapters there's the story of another very godly woman who was barren, and who prayed for a son, and it was given her. Her name was Hanna. Her husband's name was Elkanah, and the son's name was Samuel. Now you recognize Samuel as a very popular name and a familiar name in the Old Testament. Well, he came along at a very critical time in the history of God's Old Testament people. It was in the time of their transition to a kingdom. And while Samuel was opposed to the idea of a king, he was directed by the Lord to appoint Saul as the first king. And he did it.
And in the New Testament there's Elizabeth, the mother of John the baptist, of whom Jesus said, "Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women, there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist... that’s Matthew 11th chapter, verse 11. And of course, there's Mary the mother of Jesus, and then, there's the mother of Zebedee's sons, James and John who were among the thirteen men who changed the world in that first century. And when the apostle Paul thought of his young preacher friend, Timothy, he also thought of Timothy's grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice (2 Timothy 1:15).
Well, these, and other, godly women, some of whom were barren at first, were later blessed with children who became outstanding leaders of men. Their mothers were people of purpose, who instilled a sense of God's purpose in their sons. Whoever said, "The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world" was right! Wasn't he? Or she, whoever it was? You see, no child is here by accident. With more than 40 million babies having been slain in the womb since it became legal in America to kill them there, we don't really know how many Samuels or Moses or Sauls or Davids or Johns or Timothys were never born --never given the opportunity to do God's purposes. Shame on us.
In our times some women choose of themselves not to have children. I suppose they'd be called working non-mothers. They're successful career women on more-than-comfortable incomes, who seem to be happily married, but they're not mothers. Perhaps they planned to become mothers, but time passed so swiftly and so quietly that well, they didn't notice and -- now it's too late. They put other things "first." They were "successful", yes, they traveled, they saw the world, they enjoyed life and all of that, and in their senior years, widowed maybe, they're left alone, totally alone and with no one to care. I read awhile back that 85%-91% of those successful career women who decided not to have children, later thought their decision was a bad one. Now, that maybe increased, that number maybe increased, or decreased a little by now, I don’t know. (That was four or five years ago, I think.) Well certainly, there's nothing in the Bible that says that in order to be saved, and to be a Christian, and to enjoy the hope of heaven that a woman must have children. Any interpretation of First Timothy 2:15 that comes to that conclusion is a bad conclusion, my friend. However, it's still true that it's a bad decision that a woman makes not to have children --so far as this world is concerned.
Mother has the honor of being the child's first and best teacher. I saw it on television recently: One state has made it illegal to "home school." And since "mother" is usually the teacher in the "home school," that state is not just forbidding mothers to teach their children the "three R's, "readin, writin and rithimitic," but another "three R's" "respect, and right, and responsibility." You see, there's more to being a mother than giving birth to a baby. There's a lot of teaching and training and loving to be done, and all that continues until death separates the two.
A culture such as ours, whose world view is steeped in atheistic materialism is in dire need of more mothers who can and will teach their children and instill in the hearts of their children faith in God --and God's beautiful story of creation in Genesis. Thank God for mothers who hold God and His name in reverence, --and teach such a behavior to their children. Mothers professing faith in God can not, they will not, turn the teaching and training of their precious children over to those who mock their faith and their morals.
And speaking of morals: Let's thank God for mothers who, in spite of the politically correct situation that we live, teach their children right and wrong. My friend, some things are right and some things are wrong, and they'll always be that way. Mothers Day is an annual salute to virtuous women who are good mothers of their children. It's been said that "A boy's best friend is his mother." And, it's so, if she's a good mother.
Mothers, if you are going to have the influence you want to have over your children, you need to be living the Christian life. Believe me; after all else has been said and done, there's no better way to live this life than to live it the Lord’s way. I pray today will be the day that you confess your faith in Jesus Christ as the son of the living God, and that you repent of your sin, whatever sin may be in your life, and that you will be baptized into Him as you're taught in such Scriptures as Mark chapter 16 verse 16, Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16 and others. Let us help you if we may. But, don't delay; do it now, today. May God bless America's Christian mothers.
A good mother prepares, encourages and even pushes her children to find their purpose in life. It doesn't just happen, friend. It takes a mother's love and guidance to make it happen. Solomon said of the godly mother, "Her children rise up, and call her blessed" (Proverbs 31:28). Abraham Lincoln is reported to have said, "All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother." Ralph Waldo Emerson is quoted as saying, "Men are what their mothers make them."
Booker T. Washington is one of my heroes and he once said, "In all my efforts to learn to read my mother shared fully my ambition, and sympathized with me and aided me in every way that she could. He said, Though she was totally ignorant so far as mere book knowledge was concerned, she had high ambitions for her children, and a large fund of good hard, common sense which seemed to enable her to meet and master every situation in life. If I have done anything in life, he said, worthy of attention, I feel sure that I have inherited the disposition from my mother."
Well, those words "grabbed me," because they so very aptly described my mother and her attitude toward me and my ministry, my preaching. Mother's, had I not had the encouragement and the support of my darling mother, I might never have preached these sixty-nine years and certainly I might never have even begun . My regrets are only that I never gave her the honor that was due her while she lived. Don't let that happen to you. Remember to honor your mother today. To say thank you to her. To say you’re grateful for all the sacrifices she has made and the encouragement and the teaching that she has given you.
I'm so very glad that you were with us. I pray you were blessed. We're here through the courtesy --and love and generosity --of some of your friends --and some of mine- in churches of Christ in the area of this station. I hope you'll investigate Churches of Christ more thoroughly than you have in the past. Maybe you need to do that. And if we may help you do it, please let us do so. Our address is In Search of the Lord's Way P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Our E-Mail address is Searctv@searchtv.org and our toll-free telephone number for your use is 1-800-321-8633. Visit our website, too. searchtv.org. Before I leave I want to remind you of the opportunity you have to study the bible through in a systematic way, simply by enrolling in our free bible correspondence course. You may study the bible from Genesis to Revelation in a systematic way. Each story put in it’s place and each lesson ? as you need to learn it and apply it to your own lives. And you may do it by enroll and we’ll send you the first two lessons and while you are working the second one you send us the first one and we’ll be grading it and return it to you with the third one. You’ll work all the way through. Be with us again next week, will you? God bless and keep you. We love you!
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