Mothers in the Bible

Father, we thank you that it's not about me. It's not about us. It's about Jesus, and it's about the Bible, and you've honored your word above all your holy name.

And Father, I just pray that on this day, on Mother's Day, as the world calls it, that you would speak to us through this topic about Jesus, about salvation, about prayer, and that you would reach out through your Holy Spirit, because I can do nothing, and that you would speak to my heart and to our hearts and be an encouragement and a challenge. And I just pray that you'll be present and that Jesus will be glorified in his name. Amen.

So we're going to look at this slightly systematically, but there is no way, this is a broad topic of getting all the different things in about mothers, and I'm not going to attempt that. Just a little angle that we're going to give this morning. But by definition, if you just ask a child, what is a mother? They'll say it's a woman.

Those that have brains will say it's a woman that has a child by birth or by adoption. Now, the definition is broader than that. A mother is one, not just that, who has a child, but one who gives life, nurtures, protects, and sustains, is what the dictionary says.

One who gives life, nurtures, protects, and sustains. And that's important in its usage in the Bible, because if you go to the Bible, you have the literal and the metaphorical use of the word mother. You have Eve is the mother of all living.

That's Genesis 3 verse 20. But then you have Deborah, who is a mother in Israel, Judges 5 verse 7. And then 2 Samuel 20 verse 19, you have a metaphorical use of this word where there's a city called a mother in Israel, not because little babies are coming out the door, but because of the fact that this city gives life, nurtures, protects, and sustains the surrounding area. And so that definition of a mother is actually used in the Bible of a city, because that's what a mother is.

She nurtures, she gives life, she protects, she sustains. It's not just that she has babies. And the Bible clearly has so many examples of almost every part of what it is to become a mother.

And I'd like to just give a few examples. I can't give all the verses, but every stage of becoming a mother is in the Bible multiple times. We have before conception.

God talks of little children in Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 1 verse 5. And actually says, God says, I know beforehand. God knew me before I was conceived. And God knows beforehand, in His secret place, what we're going to be.

So God knows about that baby that's going to be in the mother before it's conceived. And the Bible talks of conception. And there are many, many verses on conception.

But the moment a baby appears in the mother, as that little dot. But Ruth 4 verse 13, Genesis 29, 31, 1 Samuel 1 verse 5, and go on the list. These verses in front of me on my piece of paper, I've selected them out of the many verses on conception.

Because these have words like, the Lord gave conception. Words like, the Lord closed fast the wombs of the house of Abimelech. And many such similar phrases.

In other words, the Bible clearly says in many different verses that God is the one who's there doing a work when a little baby is conceived in a mother's womb. And God decides when it's not going to happen. The Bible talks of miscarriage.

Exodus 23, 26, Isaiah 9 verse 14, Job 3 verse 16, Ecclesiastes 6 verse 3. Sorry for the long list. But those specific verses use words like this, cast their young, a miscarrying womb, an untimely birth. Now, those of you know the story of Adoniram Judson.

He intended to be a missionary to India, got to India. His paper did not work. He's from America by the way.

He wasn't the first missionary to natives in another land that was George Leslie, an emancipated slave. But he was one of the first missionaries from America to foreign lands. And he came to India, they rejected him because of paperwork.

And with his wife, he went on a ship to another country. And on the way, his wife had a, not a miscarriage, but a stillborn child, Burma. And when he got off that ship, he said, I did not, I had doubts about whether God called me.

I felt the most miserable man on earth, him and his wife. And he felt like he should never have come. Jerusalem's mother had a stillborn child.

Many people over here probably have had miscarriages. It is quite common. I remember the first miscarriage we had, I don't want to go into details, but I didn't expect a miscarriage.

That never happens to people like me. And so I just remember waking up in the middle of the night, someone was tugging at me and without going into too many details, my wife's face was totally white. And she looked at me and she said, I think I've lost a baby.

Then we had a second miscarriage. And we went to the doctor and the doctor said, no, you haven't had a miscarriage. You've had a miscarriage of twins.

The one is still alive. And that one was Glenn. But the Bible talks of those who caused the young miscarrying wombs and untimely births.

The Bible talks of before conception, at conception, miscarriages. It talks of events during pregnancies. There's at least three in the Bible.

The leaping in the womb, Luke 1 verse 41, the struggling twins in the womb, Genesis 23, verse 25 is 22. And even the bones being formed in the womb by God, Ecclesiastes 11 verse 5. And then it talks of birth. And one amazing verse is John 16 verse 21.

I want to read it to you guys. A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow. But as soon as she has delivered her the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, basically, for joy that this child is born.

How beautiful. But you know, I sometimes see that with mothers and fathers who have a child that's rebellious. I don't know if any of you have ever had a child like that.

My children are still small. A lot of people remember the bad stuff. But often a mother, if that child is just willing to repent and turn to God, the pain is forgotten.

Because my child has been born of God. So beautiful. And the Bible also talks of false births.

Isaiah 26 verse 17 to 18. It's a horrible term. It talks of we have been with child.

We have been in pain. But instead of that, we brought forth wind. Now, when I was younger, I thought that was funny.

But people tell me it's not funny. Ultimately speaking, the false births do happen in the Bible, too. The Bible talks of every aspect of this.

And then, even after the birth, we have learning the first words. Now, we say, father, mother, mommy, daddy. In the old Hebrew, they'd say, em and av.

Em, av. That's basically what they said in the Old Testament. And we read of this in the Bible.

Isaiah 8 verse 4, before the child shall have knowledge to cry, my father, my mother. The Bible talks of weaning. It talks of feeding a child, a mother feeding a child, of dryness as a curse, basically, when you can't feed the child.

And Genesis 21 verse 8, we have a weaning party. How many of you have had a weaning party? Were they in the Bible at least once? And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a big feast.

Yay. The same day that Isaac was weaned. It's a big occasion in the time of the patriarchs.

And so, you've got this process. You've got this process that God knows about you before you're born in a mother, basically, before you are in the mother's womb. And God knows about the moment of conception that makes someone a mother.

And then God knows about the bones being formed. And God knows about the birth. And God talks about a child learning mommy, daddy, and talks about different stages after that.

And during this process, it is possible, the Bible says, for there to become a connection, a mother-child connection that is very unique. It's not that the father doesn't have a connection with that child, but the Bible talks on several occasions of this mother-child connection. Now, my wife has nine siblings that are alive, the ones that didn't die.

But you can pray for her nephew in hospital right now that he doesn't die. He was rushed off to ICU, a little child, on oxygen, etc. And they're trying to keep him alive.

But anyway, my mother-in-law was sickly at one stage. And so, she couldn't look after her newborn baby. And she actually kind of asked Jerusalem to look after that child.

And so, Jerusalem looked after the child. And that meant through the nights, having the baby next to you for a few years. And obviously, the mother was a mother, but Jerusalem was standing in as a second mother.

And my wife loves all her brothers and sisters equally. But there's something of a connection with that child. He's a man now.

You don't say anything wrong about that child. Because that's the connection. And you don't even have to be a mother to have the mother connection sometimes.

It's an interesting thing. There's a child that I'm going, I'm flying on Tuesday this week up to Wisconsin to a funeral. And I'll be preaching next Sunday three times instead of the elder.

His son, 18 years of age, died last week. And there was someone, especially his child, also looked after that child. And the mother and father loved that child.

But this other person was distraught like a mother when that child died. In the Bible, we read of this mother-child connection. Solomon was very wise.

He used this connection. He saw two women come and say, this is my child. And he didn't know which one was the mother.

And so he put a test. And he said, well, let's split the child in half. And we're going to take, and then you both can get half.

And the one lady said, sure, that's great. But the other lady said, rather give the child to her. And Solomon knew through the mother-child connection, this is the mother.

In the Bible, we have Hannah. And Hannah obviously gives her child to God. And this involves giving the child to the temple.

And Hannah gives Samuel to the temple. But she's got a mother-child connection. And we read something of this in the Bible.

Because in 1 Samuel 2 verse 19, we read that every single year, she would go up with her husband to the temple, as they would go, as they commanded to do. And she brought a little coat. It wasn't the daddy that brought that coat.

It was the mommy who brought that coat. The Bible says of Moses' mother, that when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. Not that the parents, not that the husband didn't help.

But God emphasizes that this mother saw a goodly child, and she would not allow that child to die, if she could help. When Jesus looks on Jerusalem and he weeps, he doesn't talk about the rooster that looks after his little children. He said, as a hen gathereth little chicks, so I wanted to gather you to me.

In Matthew 23 verse 37. And interestingly, this mother-child connection is something that God uses actually to prove Jesus is Jesus. And I was speaking to an atheist the other day.

An atheist, me and Jerusalem have been praying for a long time. I'm not going to mention the family's name. But on Facebook, he's a friend of mine.

And so I just mentioned there, that it was wonderful that when Jesus was on the cult, basically a young donkey, that Jesus upon going on Palm Sunday into Jerusalem. Isn't it wonderful that in the Old Testament, Solomon was declared to be king, and he was put on a donkey. It's not a new thing.

And went around and was declared king in Jerusalem. The son of David was declared king through being on a donkey, Solomon. And so Jesus was declared king by being on a donkey.

And he said, well, you know what? This atheist, he said, that's easy. I could just sit in the donkey. And then I'm Jesus.

Then I'm the son of God. Then I'm king. I said, well, there's a little difference.

I said, in this case, there was a mother donkey and there was a cult, a younger donkey. And the Bible says clearly he was on the clothes on them, but it says he was on the cult, on the younger donkey. And this, it's a miracle that a young donkey that has never had a rider would go away from its mother, or even if its mother went with, would take the lead.

And Jesus could just sit calmly on it. And not just that it stayed with his mother. Either way, whatever happened there, it was a miracle.

And the beautiful thing is the Bible clearly indicates that God transcends, God transcends even the love of a mother for its child in nature. And this is beautiful. And there's this connection that when a woman has that little child in its, in its womb, and it grows and the bones are formed and the pain that it goes through, and it's born and it feeds that child.

There's this connection that's possible between mother and children. But it's very possible for that connection not to be there. And brother Justin, who I believe is in the children's meetings because he didn't want to hear a bad message.

Brother Justin, who I love, he mentioned that verse in Isaiah 49 verse 15. And I was going to go to the police station afterwards because you're not supposed to steal other people's sermons, even if you're the elder of the church. But Isaiah 49 verse 15 says this thing, and it comes out that it's possible for them not to be that connection.

Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, but I will not forget thee. Now there's terrible words that we read in 2 Timothy 3 verse 1 to 5. It talks of the end times. Sometimes people some churches believe that it was always the end times for 2,000 years.

But a lot of us believe that there's going to be an escalation of these things in the end days, just before we have the seven years and then the thousand years. And basically one of the things that's going to be terrible in the end days is going to be a lack of natural affection. And that is what we call base love.

You don't have to be a Christian to have this love. I've met women who get drunk, who will not allow their child to get drunk, and will buy bibles to read to that child because they love that child in spite of the fact that they don't love God. But we're living in a world where there's a lack of natural affection, and that natural connection between a mother and a child is becoming less and less in many people's lives.

And so you have with abortion pandemic, where people will murder their own babies in the womb across this country and across the world. In the Bible we have examples of this. There was a woman called Athaliah, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, in 2 Kings 11.

Joash was her grandson, and when her one child died that she taught to do wickedly, she literally went to kill all the seed royal, and this included her grandchildren. He has a woman who had such lack of connection between her children and grandchildren, that she tried to kill the other children, but also she tried to kill her own grandchildren. And then we have in 2 Kings 6 verse 28 to 29, some random mothers, and this is in the siege of Samaria, when Jehoram was king of Israel.

And we have this words, this woman said unto me, give me thy son that we may eat him today, and we will eat, give me thy son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. You actually read in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus of the different compounded levels of punishment that God will bring upon Israel, if they rebel against them. You have the beast, you have the plagues, you have the foreign losing to your enemies, you have all these different things.

But then you have people weeping over their children taken away, and their children being hurt. And then you have later in the punishment, there's another generation, and they will eat their children. God said this will happen.

A generation that weeps over the loss of their children, a generation that cares more about themselves than their children. Losing that base affection. And I don't know if you know, but in 1845 to 1849, obviously you guys know there was an Irish famine, and 1.5 to 2 million people died, because they were reliant on potatoes and not on fish.

And the rest of Europe kind of survived, but they lost 1.5 million people. People would take their little children, they would not eat whatever they had. They would take any food they could give, and they would give it to their children.

Often going from port to port, is there any ship that will take my child? I can stay and die, but just take my child somewhere that my child can eat. On the Titanic when it sank, mothers were taking their life jackets off, or giving their place to their little babies and their children, because they hadn't lost, though they weren't saved many of these people. There were some Methodists, there were some saved people, many of them unsaved, but they had this natural affection, this connection with their child.

They would rather die than that their child died. They would rather starve than that their child starved. When the great famine happened in China, and over 20 million people died, they've had a few great famines.

It was said in history books that many of the mothers would let their child starve. Well, they ate. Not all of them, but many of them.

It's so possible to lose that natural affection between mother and child. And there's two reasons for this. One is dehumanization.

Selfishness is obviously the root, but how many of you know the guy called Rudolf Hoss? Obviously I'm pronouncing it wrong, but we have one German spy here that will know. But Rudolf Hoss, however you pronounce his name, was the commandant of the Holocaust in the concentration extermination camp Auschwitz. One of the most interesting things, I've watched many documentaries on this, and I don't know if they're embellished or if they're all true, if they're anti-German, but often I remember looking at this guy's life, and he would be kind to his children.

He would have cups of tea with his children. He would be pushing a string with his children. He would have a family life.

And yet he put the Jews in another category. They were less than human. You see, if his child was dying, he would give his life probably to help that child maybe.

But because he compartmentalized, because he dehumanized, because they were less than human, it didn't feel bad to kill the Jews. And so it is with children in the womb. You hear so often from people who are born babies, they say the words, when they're interviewed on YouTube, again and again and again and again, it's not a real baby, it's not alive.

They dehumanize it so it doesn't feel so bad to press that red button. That's what happened in the Nazi concentration camps. It didn't feel bad to kill the Jews because they weren't like us.

And Christians do this. I've seen many churches, unfortunately, you go to these churches, and I've been in India, Europe, Africa, America, hundreds of churches over the years, and I've seen sometimes that Christians are so kind to so many people, but there's some people they're very cruel to, and it's because they've dehumanized them. They've basically decided there's something wrong with those people, spiritually or otherwise, and so that we have the right to hurt them.

And I've often wondered that. How can some people be so kind to one group of people and so unkind to another without real cause? Because they do the same in another way. But now I'd like to look at the influence of mother.

So if we open up your Bibles, if you forget every verse I bring this morning, please do not forget this verse. It's going to be 2 Chronicles 22 verse 3. 2 Chronicles in the Old Testament, 22 verse 3. And here we read, and I'm going to look at the influence of mothers. We've looked at the fact that there's connection between a mother and child, which can be there or is sometimes not there, unfortunately.

But how do mothers influence their children? Many different ways, but sometimes unfortunately for evil. So let's read this together. 2 Chronicles 22 verse 3. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab.

Now, listen to these words. For his mother, his mother, his mother was his counselor to do evil. He has a mother that influenced her son, Ahasuerus, if I remember the correct word, name, to do evil.

Almost like Caesarea's mother. And with that in mind, the fact that a mother can influence its child for evil or good. Let's look at three kings quickly in the Bible.

One is Absalom, one is Hezekiah, one is Josiah. Now you might know that Hezekiah and Josiah is almost the exact word set of them both. I'm going to paraphrase now.

There was never a king before or afterwards like Hezekiah that so turned to the Lord. And you read almost exactly the same word, slightly differently phrased of Josiah years later. And Absalom is interesting.

When I got this wrong, I didn't understand Gesher. How many of you have heard of the Gesherites? Okay. I understood that David had married a princess of Gesher.

That I understood. But I didn't realize when I went into deeper recently that there was actually two tribes of Gesher. There was one in the south, which David attacked when he was among the Philistines.

And he basically destroyed all of them wherever he came. So they couldn't send messengers back. And there was a northern kingdom of Gesher.

And that was the one he got a princess from. And they were Aramean was the kingdom. And they were a very small Aramean kingdom.

And above them was these very big Aramean kingdoms. And he basically, if you look at the picture, why did David while he was in Hebron, why did he have a wife of this little kingdom of Gesher? Well, the answer would be that if you have a princess of Aramean kingdom, the other Aramean kingdoms might not attack you. And so it was for political reasons.

But was this a godly nation? If you go back in archaeology and you come to the capital of that Aramean city, then you'll find that there was a big golden, not golden, but there was a big horrible calf that they used to worship. They were pagan worshippers. And David took a wife from this city.

And the child that came out of that relationship was a man called Absalom. Now the Bible doesn't say that Absalom was evil because his mother came from a nation that was pagan worshippers. But we know that he had a connection with that nation.

When he ran away, when he'd killed Amnon, where did he run to? The king of Gesher. He went to granddaddy. Because through his mother, he had a family connection with them that was strong enough that he could run away there.

And so in my opinion, he has a guy called Absalom. One of the reasons we understand why he became evil was he had a mother from a pagan background. But now let's look at Hezekiah and Josiah.

Because Hezekiah is interesting. Hezekiah's father Ahaz was an evil man. The Bible talks of him as bad as the kings of Israel.

How did he become so godly when his father was so ungodly? Well in Jewish tradition, which is not always right, Abijah means, that's his mother, means Jehovah is my father. The Bible says she was the daughter of Zechariah, not the prophet. The most likely candidate is Zechariah in Isaiah 8 verse 2, which was known as a faithful witness.

And we know something about this lady. Her name means Jehovah is my father. And we know that in the Bible, sometimes a name does not define who you are.

Some people had wonderful names and they turn out bad. But we do know one thing. When you name your child, you generally name it according to what you want that child to be.

And so we know that this girl's father and mother probably wanted her to be appraised to Jehovah. And so she came at least from a godly family. And she married Ahaz.

And how they did it with their kings in those days, and this explains why so many godly kings had ungodly children, is the king was going to war and he was doing state business. He hardly spent any time bringing up his own children, even the godly ones. This is how the Jews did it.

This is how all the nations did it. And so the fathers were not bringing up their children. And so many times the children were brought up by the mothers and by the servants.

And that's why so many turned out to be ungodly or godly. He has a child that turned out godly. Hezekiah's mother, I believe, had an influence on him.

And the same with Josiah's mother. Josiah's mother's name means darling of Jehovah. And she got to take care of him from eight years old.

He was king from eight years of age. And it's highly likely that his mother had a big influence in his life. That's how they did it in those days.

The darling of Jehovah. And before he even had the Old Testament scriptures, which you find in the temple, he knew enough of God to destroy the idols and to start turning to the Lord. So yeah, you have a mother, a pagan mother, she brings forth Absalom.

Yeah, you have a pagan dad, but possibly a godly woman, Abijah, and a godly woman, Jedidah. And out comes the two godliest kings since David. That's wonderful.

Now, God prophesies many babies. I don't know how many of you know that, but babies are so important to God that he tells prophecies. There's a baby coming.

And it's not just one. It's not just Jesus Christ, by the way. God, before these babies are born, prophesies that Isaac is going to be born, that Samson is going to be born before his birth, that Samuel is going to be born, that Josiah is going to be born hundreds of years before his birth he was prophesied, and that John the Baptist is going to be born, and that Jesus is going to be born.

So it didn't actually make Jesus unique in that he was prophesied beforehand. There are several babies in the Bible that God said there's a baby coming. Praise the Lord.

And probably the most outstanding one is Josiah. The closest to Jesus Christ you'll get to anybody prophesied beforehand as a baby is Josiah. You see, both Jesus and Josiah were prophesied their birth hundreds of years before it happened.

Jesus thousands of years, Josiah hundreds of years before it happened. Both were prophesied by name. It was said that there's going to be a child, his name is Josiah, hundreds of years before he was born.

Imagine him finding the Bible and reading there, oh, I'm in this thing. Because he didn't even have the Bible until he found it in the temple. Isn't that amazing? Maybe his mother told him from the stories.

And both of their many aspects of their life was foretold before. And in fact some Jews believe this is the the child of David that's coming to lead us into prosperity, almost like a messiah figure. And there was lamentation when he died.

1 Kings 13 was two talks of the prophecy that he will be called Josiah by name. There shall be a child born into the house of David, Josiah by name. Now Warren Wearsby, how many of you have ever read a book by Warren Wearsby? Okay, only one.

Anybody else? Rub your hands. Amen brother, amen. We have some Christians, yeah there's awesome.

Okay, now Warren Wearsby, I'm paraphrasing, I couldn't find the book, I didn't have time, or I was lazy, one of three. And Warren Wearsby basically said that, as I remember from years back reading this law book, he said that when there's a problem in the world that's great, God's answer is often a baby. And he gave examples.

Moses was what God sent when they were under the oppression of Egypt. Samuel was sent during the decline in Israel. Joas, Josiah, and then a little child, Emmanuel, for the sins of the world.

God's a long-term planner, he said, and he uses mothers to bring into this world answers for entire generations. Now, I'm not going to go deeply into this because we don't have time, but obviously we understand that without motherhood there would be no salvation. 1 Timothy 2 verse 15, I don't know the meaning of it, it says, notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing.

A lot of people's commentaries say it means like 10 different things, but ultimately without childbearing there would be no salvation. Because right at the beginning when God killed that animal and gave clothes to cover, in essence, the shame and sin of Adam, so that he could partake of what Jesus would do, there would have to be a little baby born thousands of years later for Adam to go to heaven. It would have to be a final thing for that to have any effect.

For any of the sacrifices in the Old Testament to have saved anybody, and for any of them to be in heaven today, tomorrow, or in eternity, there would have to be a child that would be born, a seed of the woman, not of the man. And the Bible clearly says this. We often have the seed of Abraham, the coming descendant of Abraham, we know the seed of Isaac, the seed of Jacob that's coming, we have the seed of David that's coming, we have all these different beautiful pictures of a coming child, a descendant of these different people, but there's going to be a seed of the woman.

And many people believe this is the first time in scripture where we read of the virgin birth as a picture. Because there's a woman that has a child without a man. One little thing I'd like to mention before the final section, I hope the best wine is at the end, and I hope the fireworks in America, boy, you don't get bored because you know in the end they're going to do something with those fireworks.

So I'm just hoping these last few pages are going to explode. We'll see. It's up to God.

But before we get to that little section, Mary needed Jesus. You know, we read that there was a person who said to Mary when she took her child to, when she went up to Jerusalem, and you have Simeon and so on, and it was said to her that your own heart also shall be pierced. When she stood and saw her child die, her heart was pierced.

But Mary needed Jesus. She was not sinless. I don't know if you know, many of the Catholics, many of them believe that Jesus, that Mary was sinless.

They believe that Jesus was sinless. And even though the Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, there's an Jesus. So there can also be an exception, Mary.

And a lot of them, well, they say, well, if Mary was so sinless, what about her mother? And they actually sainted Anna. She doesn't really exist, but they created this woman called Anna. And Martin Luther, how many of you have heard of Martin Luther? Put up your hand, Martin Luther.

When he was struck by lightning, he did not call to Mary. She wasn't good enough. He was so afraid.

He said, dear Saint Anna, I'll become a monk. Just don't do that again, basically. My own words.

And that led him to a Bible, which led him to salvation. But Mary needed Jesus. Mary, did you know, Mark Laurie said, did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new? And Mary in Luke 2, verse 22 to 24, went after the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses were accomplished.

They brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as it is written in the law of the Lord. Every male that opened the womb shall be holy to the Lord. And she had to offer a sacrifice, according to the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves.

Now, if you go to the Old Testament, I'm going to read this all, but in Leviticus 12, verse 6 to 8, it says when a mother has a son, she's supposed to go to the congregation. And if she's poor, she has two turtle doves to make an atonement for her. And the one is a burnt offering and the other is a sin offering.

She had to have an atonement for her sins. Mary was not sinless. She was an amazing woman, but she needed Jesus to save her.

Now, I'd like to end off with something that's very dear to my heart. What if you have a rebellious child as a mother? I'm not a mother. I cannot be an expert on this topic.

I've wept with some mothers, but I'm not an expert on this topic. There can be nothing worse. There's only one thing worse than a dead child, and that's a child that might go to hell.

I don't know if you've noticed when David lost children, he cried. But when David lost that little baby, for better or worse, he took his tears away and he stood up. And when he knew the child was dead, he didn't cry anymore.

And they asked him why. And long story short, he said, well, I can go to him, but he can't come to me. And he was implying that that little baby was in heaven, praise the Lord.

I'm going to go to that child one day, but the child can't come back to me. But there was another child of him that died, Absalom. And when Absalom died, he said something totally different.

He didn't stop crying and say, hey, I'm going to go to him, even though he can't come to me. He said, Absalom, Absalom, my son Absalom, know that I had died in thy place. There's nothing worse to a godly mother and father than knowing your son has died, or child has died, and there's a possibility that child is going to be in hell.

And that's so wonderful. That's why it's so wonderful that one day God's going to wipe away our tears, because all the tears that he's going to wipe away is for the people and family that we love that are in hell for eternity. Because heaven cannot be heaven if you feel then in eternity like you feel now about a child that might be in the flames of hell.

But he's going to wipe away those tears and death, the final enemy at the end of the thousand years will be destroyed. The Bible talks about in the future tense in that sense. Now the Bible says in Proverbs 10 verse 1 and 17 verse 25, But a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.

A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. And there's a woman in South Africa and her husband, the husband is dead of cancer. I used to know him.

She's retired. And she had three children. And one of them was my friend growing up.

And I was a Pharisee. I was not a Christian, but I was a Bible reader. And I went to church and I loved Christian things, but I wasn't saved.

And he was not good. And he went into drugs and he went into parties and he went into women and we separated because as a Pharisee, I did not believe I should associate with such sinners. And I got saved later.

And his mother and father for many years as he was on drugs and trouble with the police, you name it, was weeping and praying for him. And one day the husband on his 21st birthday party, when he was getting drunk with his friends and drugs, he came to her and he said, I can't pray anymore. I can't handle the stress of thinking of my son.

I'm just going to forget about him basically, so that I can survive emotionally. And that mother that had that baby in her womb, that gave that baby suck, that loved that child said, we are not going to stop praying. She got her husband.

She got her husband and put him down on the ground and they prayed one last time. And while they prayed, the Holy Spirit of God came and convicted of sin of righteousness and of judgment in the middle of a drunken birthday party. While the people on the ground, he came on a conviction.

He left his own party, went to his sister who was saved and said, tell me how to meet Jesus. And he was radically saved. And I preached with him quite a few times later, but that mother said, I'm not going to give up.

And God sees a prayer of a mother. There's a song, tell mother I'll be there. Many of you remember that by a guy called Charles Finmore.

And in 1987, it was written. There's, I don't know if you know all the presidents that have been killed. I might get this wrong.

I'm not, I am American, but I'm not born American. So I think it was, I think it was Garfield was one and McKinley was one. And you've got Lincoln was one and Kennedy was the other.

I think there's four that have been killed in history, but McKinley was an interesting guy. He was a Methodist. He was an evangelical guy.

He loved the Sermon on the Mount and he loved his family. And when he was running for governor, I think it was of Ohio, forgive me with my American history, I'm trying to pick my brain. I think it was Ohio.

He literally would not go around holding big rallies to become the governor because his wife was sick. And he said, my wife's more important. So he would stand on the steps outside his house.

And a few people would hear him and they voted him in as governor. And then he became president. And when he became president, his mother was sickly and he loved his wife and he loved his mother.

And he actually sent a telegram to him. Now this is embellished slightly. Some secular people say the story is half true.

All the Christians say it is true. We do not know who's right. But the embellished version of the story is that he sent a telegram to his mother in a train waiting for when she would die and saying, tell mother I'll be there.

When he heard that she'd come to the end, he got in the train, they sent them off. And he just in time arrived at his mother, held her as she died. And this got into the newspaper.

Someone read it in the same year, 1897, same year became president. And out of it came the song, tell mother I'll be there. And many, many people in churches across America had mothers that were praying for them.

When I was but a little child, how well I recollect, how I would grieve my mother with my folly and neglect. And now that she has gone to heaven, I miss her tender care. O Savior, tell my mother I'll be there.

Tell mother I'll be there in answer to her prayer. O tell my darling mother I'll be there. When I was in South Africa, when I was in South Africa, I went around in a big circle preaching as best I could with other stuff we had to do.

And long story short, there was a young guy at Christian camps. And this guy was so fun to be around. I liked him, he liked me.

He made me look good when we were playing sport together. He had a sense of humor, intellect, you name it. Everybody loved him.

And he seemed to love Christian camps. And a few years later, I came to church and I preached. And I saw the family, I recognized the parents of my friend.

And I walked up to them and I said, how is, and I mentioned his name, Dean. And the father stiffened up and the son or the mother burst into tears. And she said, my son is in the far country.

My son is in the far country. Fast forward several years, I come to America, I'm stuck here. I go back this year.

I meet my cousin's wife. And she said, you know, and she mentioned the guy's name. He's been saved.

He's been saved. Praise the Lord. I told that woman I'd pray for her son too, not that it matters.

I traveled a thousand miles up to another place and they traveled over an hour and a half to come hear me preach at a little church. They were sitting the mother and father. And I said, how did it happen? She said, my son went into the world, into the far country.

He joined the army, not saying that's terrible, but he joined the army. He went on drugs and drink and woman. He was so in trouble that he would be in jail.

And I had no influence in his life. I had no influence in his life, but I could travel all the way to every place he went through prayer. Do you know, when you cannot speak to your child because your child despises you, you can still be wherever they are through prayer, mother.

And there came a day when her phone rang, she answered the phone and it was her son. And her son said, mommy, give me the name of that guy. That, that one preacher, wasn't me by the way, some preacher down there that I know that I trust because he was real.

He wasn't like the other Christian, many of the other Christians. He actually had a relationship with God. I could see it as a druggie.

And he literally phoned that guy, got radically saved and he's been already discharged from the army. But before he got on honorably discharged, he brought many of his fellow soldiers to that same church. Many of them have been saved over 20 of them seem to be in radically slave.

And those, that prayer of a mother for her child has led to the salvation of many. I just want to read you one little quick thing. And this is the end.

This is my mother. She wrote this yesterday. Today we honor mothers, their sacrifice and care, their unseen toils and hidden tasks, their touch seen everywhere, their sobbing prayers for children, their firm hand on God's word, their smiles hiding much sorrow.

Trust not to be disturbed. Dear father, I want to thank you that you gave a special mother connection for that child and mother that you formed before the child was even in the womb, that you were part of the conception, that you built the bones in the child's body as it was growing in the womb, that you were there at the birth Lord and allowed that. And father, father, I want to thank you for mothers.

And I want to ask for every single one of your Lord, that you would encourage them. The devil hates us and hates Jesus. And I just want to ask that you would encourage every mother and that you would remind them, even when their child has left the home and maybe won't even speak to them about Christian stuff, that they can follow that child everywhere it goes through prayers.

And there's a God in heaven who cares even more than a mother could care. And I pray this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.