A Tale of two Mothers

Mothers are the most powerful and influential class of persons upon the face of the earth.

the problem in America is that we’re like a ship lost at sea without a rudder, without a compass, on a dark and stormy night. The anchor is gone. What is the anchor? What holds the home? It is motherhood.

There is a war against motherhood in America; the result—immorality, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, juvenile delinquency—all of this can be traced back to the homicide of the home that comes by the neglect of motherhood. It is true that the head of the home is the father, but it is equally true that the heart of the home is the mother.

Some of the greatest men on this earth had a good mother and no father and some of the worst men on this earth had a bad mother or no mother.

The Job of Motherhood takes a back seat to no profession on earth.

The artificial lures fishermen use look so phony, it astonishes me that any fish would fall for them: shiny metallic and gaudy plastic, hot pink and neon colors in stripes and spots.

Satan knows what he can use to dazzle and distract me. After more than 10 years of introducing myself as “just a housewife,” my enemy dangled before me the lure of a “real job” with a paycheck and prestige. To boost my flagging self-esteem, I snapped at the bait and signed a contract before prayerfully considering the consequences to our family life. Within a few months, I knew I had made a mistake. Early morning meetings forced me to leave the house while my children were still asleep. Afternoon conferences that dragged on and on turned them into latchkey kids.The demands of the job did not line up with my talents and interests. As the work pressures and the laundry piled up, I missed my daily quiet times with the Lord, my friends at Bible study, and my daughter’s Mother’s Day program at school.When my contract expired a year later, I gratefully resigned. I had learned a hard lesson: not to be distracted by fancy lures that make me forget the things that really matter.

I want to preach a sermon about a Mother that had a bad start but she had a wonderful finish and no matter where you are on your journey of motherhood you can finish well. IT is not about how you start but about how you finish.

This story applies to all of us not just mothers because we have all made mistakes in life and you will see that God is the God of second chances and if you are still breathing you can finish well.

In the previous verses Solomon asked God for wisdom

And now, O LORD my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.

And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.

Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?

And the first use of his wisdom to show the nation he had wisdom was to help a poor mother with her mistakes and her troubles

Gods heart of wisdom is two help a poor mother with her mistakes.

Women often say God does not understand what I am going through He shows us here his wisdom his understanding does understand a women and what she is going through and he has a remedy for her trials.

Here In the beginning his wisdom was to discern between Good and bad between a good mother and a bad mother.

Her Choices were Wrong

There is no such thing as a perfect Mother everyone makes mistakes. Everyone's a sinner not everyone was raised in Sunday school.

Both of these Mothers the good one and the bad one made mistakes.

Making mistakes does not mean you are a bad mother.

Wrong Profession

Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.

They were women that sold their bodies for money maybe it was a situation that they convinced themselves it was the only way to survive.

And if there is any profession that you could get into that would be sure to be the wrong one and be incompatible with mother hood it would be that one.

Wrong pals

And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house.

And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house.

Work is not the best place to choose your friends.

They choose the wrong companions.

They went through everything together they worked together they lived together they

They supported one another.

At the end of the day it was just them after the customers had gone.

They went through nine months of pregnancy together.

They were the only ones there when their children were born.

They delivered each others children.

They cared for each other.

If there was any one that was close it was them.

IF you would have asked them who their friends were they would have said this woman she is the only one that is there for me.

But she choose the wrong pals

It is important who your friends are and because they go through a lot with you does not mean they have the best interest of you or your kids

Wrong partner

She was not good at choosing men

When men she choose were just after one thing they did not stick around after they got what they were looking for.

They did not have her best interest at heart

They just used her for sinful purposes

And left her to fend for herself

Over and over again she thought this one will be different but alas they were all the same.

It was not that there were not any good men in Gods kingdom it is she was just looking in all of the wrong places

And she found out that you can not get love by giving yourself away.

Wrong practices

And this woman's child died in the night; because she overlaid it.

And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.

And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.

She was not even good at mothering

Perhaps she did not have a mother to teach her

She was a co sleeper

And if you ever been to a parenting class they warn you do not sleep with your child get up put it back in the crib when you are done feeding it because you might accidentally smother your child.

When she had her child she probably cried said I don't even know how to be a good mom I do not know how to change the babies diapers.

I have seen women cry so discouraged because they did not know what to do and when they found out they were making a mistake they just cried.

Listen there are no perfect mothers they all make mistakes

Some of those mistakes are related to sin and lifestyle choices

Some of them are related ignorance,

Some of them are related to bad judgment.

And no matter who you are we have all made mistakes in those categories

Her Consequences were Woeful 8

You know the problem with choices is they have consequences.

Her poor choices led to painful consequences.

Unstable Environment

And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house.

She lived in a Brothel a house were it was unusual to have the same people in it there were always people coming and going

There was no set bedtime

It was filthy poor unclean.

It was probably a place of high crime

I do not know if you have ever lived in and environment like that but it is no place to raise a child

When people are up late and they are partying all night and they sleeping all day

The TV is blaring

People are cursing

There is no peace no sense of stability

Home is not a haven but it is a hell hole

It is not a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of life.

There was a woman that lived a few doors down from the church sister elia knows who I am talking about Many times i would come to the door by my office on Sunday afternoon to get ready for church and she was there with a her head in her hands just weeping and sobbing.

She spoke spanish Elia would try to comfort her she did not want to go home there was no home it was a place to sleep and she had a bunch of kids by a bunch of different men.

There was no dinner time no prayer time no bible reading time.

No place to put an anchor down no protection from the storms of life.

Imagine trying to be a mother in a place like that.

Unsupportive Experience

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.

For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.

Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?

And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

She had a child there was no one to help clean and cook. While she recovered from the pain of childbirth.

She was probably a kid herself

There was no brother Mark to take a week of work to stay and bond with her and thier new child

No one to go and get the groceries.

No income

I see women walking down the road carrying groceries with their kids in tow walking down the road from Heb and walk up to a porch were the man is drinking beer with his buddies.

No one to take the child for a walk or a hike to give mom a break.

We have some good mothers in our church but thank God they are supported by Good men

I feel heart broken for them women who has to do it alone.

No one to share the burden

No one to take up for her when some one was kidnapping the kid

The authorities said I do not know your word against her nothing we can do.

No law maker no one to protect her from injustices she felt

You ever felt that way injustice and no one to help you no one to take up for her

And as sad as it was it was part of her choices that led her to this terrible place

Unfavorable Environment

And this woman's child died in the night; because she overlaid it.

And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.

And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.

What a toxic atmosphere

The problem is her child was exposed to all of that and it affect him

The people she had placed herself around now began to affect her child

Those people stole her child away from her

You have to remember the people you allow in your life do not only affect you they affect your children

And they do not have your best interest or your child's best interest at heart and if the environment is wrong it can ruin your child

It can steal your child away from you and but for the grace of God you may never get your child back.

Children are tender and innocent and they do not do well in toxic soil

They learn from their environment

Once there was a little old man. His hands trembled; when he ate he clattered the silverware distressingly, missed his mouth with the spoon as often as not, and dribbled a bit of his food on the tablecloth. Now he lived with his married son, having nowhere else to live, and his son’s wife didn’t like the arrangement.

“I can’t have this,” she said. “It interferes with my right to happiness.” So she and her husband took the old man gently but firmly by the arm and led him to the corner of the kitchen. There they set him on a stool and gave him his food in an earthenware bowl. From then on he always ate in the corner, blinking at the table with wistful eyes.

One day his hands trembled rather more than usual, and the earthenware bowl fell and broke.

“If you are a pig,” said the daughter-in-law, “you must eat out of a trough.” So they made him a little wooden trough, and he got his meals in that.

These people had a four-year-old son of whom they were very fond. One evening the young man noticed his boy playing intently with some bits of wood and asked what he was doing.

“I’m making a trough,” he said, smiling up for approval, “to feed you and Momma out of when I get big.”

The man and his wife looked at each other for a while and didn’t say anything. Then they cried a little. Then they went to the corner and took the old man by the arm and led him back to the table. They sat him in a comfortable chair and gave him his food on a plate, and from then on nobody ever scolded when he clattered or spilled or broke things.

One of Grimm’s fairy tales, this anecdote has the crudity of the old, simple days. But perhaps crudity is what we need to illustrate the naked and crude point of the fifth commandment: honor your parents, lest your children dishonor you. Or, in other words, a society that destroys the family destroys itself.

Dr. Moody tells us that there have been in the history of the world fifty-four great philosophers. In six thousand years of recorded history, only fifty-four philosophers could be called great. And we’re talking about people like Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, and others—only fifty-four great philosophers in the history of the world. Now, let me tell you something of these fifty-four great philosophers. Out of the fifty-four, forty of them believed in God.

Of the fourteen who did not believe in God—listen to this—all of them hated their father. It’s a very interesting thing. Every one of those great philosophers who did not believe in God hated their father.

Eight of them were preacher’s sons, and their fathers were legalistic preachers.

in London and went to the British Museum of Natural History. There is a statue of Charles Darwin in that museum Charles Darwin had a father that he hated. Charles Darwin’s father was a physician, and he was a monstrous man. He was six feet three inches tall, weighed 345 pounds. When he spoke, it was like the roar of a lion. And he had huge hairy hands. Charles Darwin was frightened to death of him. And he could never please his father. He said—and here’s a direct quote from Charles Darwin: “My father could not stand to be opposed. If opposed, he would roar at me. And he had the gift of always making people do just as he wanted them to do.”

Now Charles’ mother died when he was a little boy, when he was eight. But he wrote later on he couldn’t remember anything about his mother—not one thing about his mother! He remembered things that happened to him when he was four, five, and six years of age, but he couldn’t remember anything about his mother. But he did remember that when his mother died, he had a deep resentment to his father, because his father was a doctor, and he said, “My father was a doctor who healed others, but he let my mother die.”

Now Charles Darwin went to school. He failed in school. His father came in and bullied the teachers, and somehow he got a passing grade, and he graduated. Then, his father wanted him to go to medical school. Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, went to medical school. He couldn’t hack it in medical school. As a matter of fact, when he had his first autopsy, when they had to work on a cadaver, he fainted; he passed out. He said, “I can’t do it.” He couldn’t stand surgery. He flopped out of medical school. Then his father said, “Well, maybe you can be a preacher. You know, if you can’t do anything else, maybe you can preach.” So his father said, “Well, maybe you can be a minister,” and enrolled Charles Darwin in seminary. And Charles Darwin there in seminary was studying the Bible, his father saying, “You’re going to be a preacher.”

But there he met a biologist, a man who became a father figure to him and got him interested in biology. So he dropped out of seminary, and he began to travel. And you remember his trips. You know he went to the Indies. He went to Brazil. He went to the Galapagos Islands and so forth. He began to make pictures and drawings of biology, and he began to get this idea concerning evolution. Now actually, Charles Darwin didn’t come up with evolution. As a matter of fact, Aristotle and others had already toyed with the idea of evolution. But Charles Darwin now began to say, “Well, maybe, how can I explain all this apart from God?” And for 35 more years, he was sickly. He was hating God, hating his father, hating everybody. Finally, he wrote his books, The Descent of Man and The Origin of Species. And he effectively explained how you can have creation without a Creator, so he thought. It’s the next best guess of the mind and the man that rejects God.

who has access to your kid

choices put the kid in harm's way

There was no voice of reason

Now that was the sad part we can all Identify

We all have made bad choices

We have all felt the consequences of these choices but here is the good part

Her Contrast was Weighty 6

It was not the similarities that made her a good mother

Because up to this point there is not much of a difference between the two

You know what made her a good mother?

The one mother has a terrible tragedy happen Her child died in the night

She woke up and it was dead gone after just a few days old and it was her mistake

Perceiving what she had done, that she had overlaid her child, and it was dead; either through fear of punishment inflicted on persons thus negligent, or because of the disgrace of it, taking no more care of her child

She switched him out If I know anything about children they are not interchangeable

They are unique. I did not want to have this many children well which child do you which you did not have?

I would not get any comfort out of that

You see fixing things in the flesh does not fix anything.

Her reaction

Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.

And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house.

what made her a good mother was how she reacted to tragedy

She woke up and said this is not my child

A mother knows her child.

Marsha Kaitz, a psychology professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, did a test to see how well mothers know their babies. According to the Associated Press, the forty-six mothers chosen for the test had all given birth in the previous five to seventy-nine hours. They all had breast-fed their newborn.

Each mother was blindfolded and then asked to identify which of three sleeping babies was her own. Nearly seventy percent of the mothers correctly chose their baby. Most of the mothers said they knew their child by the texture or temperature of the infant’s hand.

This is not my Child

I have no support here

I will not try to work it out on my own I will not try to take what is not mine because of what was taken from me

I will not try to kill the kidnapper

I will go and see the king

He will take up my cause

I am in this situation of my own design

I am a sinner who has made many mistakes and a woman like me is not a women accustomed to the palace.

But the king will care he will know how to discern between good and bad SHew is a bad mother I can be a good mother

IF I get to the king I will have a chance to be the Mother I know I can be.

But what if he refuses you what if he won't hear you what if he says get her out of here she is crazy

I don't care I must care for my child.

I do not care how many mistakes you have made in life I don't care if you are in the situation of your own hand

You can go to the king just as you are and stand before him and he can give you another chance

We have a king that care about justice and we have a king that cares about your child more than you do

Many of you your children are in the wrong peoples hands

The wrong people are feeding them the wrong people are influencing them

The wrong people are whispering into their ear I love you. And they are not the one who should be loving them and influencing them.

Her child was in a brothel with a prostitute she was the one making decisions for him

It does not get worse than that.

Wherever you child is today whatever he is going through

You might not be able to get to to tell him you love him tyo hold him and feed him

But you can go to see the king.

When tragedy strikes do not try to king it go see the king

Her resignation

Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.

And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house.

She stood before him she submitted to him and she spoke to him

Go stand boldly before the throne of grace submit to your Lord and speak your heart to him

Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.

And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king.

And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.

Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.

He took the sword out to figure it out

You know many times if I can't figure out what is going on with the child I bring out the sword and apply it to the situation

The sword is the word of God .

She said Lord you decide give him to her is if that is what is best for the Child

She was selfless and trusted her child to a loving King

Sometimes we just have to trust our Children to the king We just want the Child to be ok Lord.

We have to join forces with The king

Her reward

Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.

Her child was restored

When I was a young lad, I heard the story of a boy who was lost in a wheat field in Alberta, Canada. The mother and daddy went out for a stroll at nighttime, and their little child followed them through the wheat field. But they were so enraptured by the beauty of the night. There was a big full moon out, and it was a chilly, clear night. The wheat looked like amber waves of golden grain. As they were walking hand in hand through the wheat field, they forgot to look for the little child and noticed they’d been separated from him. They made a mistake. The father said, “I’ll go this way.” The mother said, “I’ll go this way.” And they started going this way and that way until they forgot the place where they started from—acres and acres and acres and thousands and thousands of acres of wheat, and then they realized the tragic mistake they’d made.

The bitter Canadian night was setting in and was getting cold. One of them stayed there. The other went back to town to get help. The people in the village were alerted, and they came out. They went all over hundreds and hundreds of acres, trying to find this lost child—to no avail. Finally, someone sounded a shot, and they all came back to the rallying spot. He said, “I have an idea. We’re not cooperating. Let’s do this thing systematically. Let’s make a huge chain, a human chain. Let’s hold hands and stretch out across the wheat field. Let’s go up one side and then turn around and come down the other. We’ll cover every square foot of this place. If he’s in here, we’ll find him.”

They said, “It’s a good idea.” They joined hands. Up one side they went and turned, and down the other side, and up the other side. Finally, someone said, “I found him!” And they all hurried to the the little boy wrapped him in their arms.

Weeping for Joy . Out of the weeping one of them was heard to say, I sure am glad we joined hands together before it was too late!

Join with the king for your child before it was two late

Her king was recognized

Every time someone saw that baby heard what happened and how you got your child restored man thank the Lord for the kings wisdom.

You be a good mother and you will bring the Lord GLory

Michael Jordan’s father, James Jordan, was murdered in the summer of 1993. Before that happened, Michael said this to columnist Bob Greene:

My heroes are and were my parents.… It wasn’t that the rest of the world would necessarily think that they were heroic. But they were the adults I saw constantly, and I admired what I saw.

If you’re lucky, you grow up in a house where you can learn what kind of person you should be from your parents. And on that count, I was very lucky. It may have been the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.

To Michael Jordan, good parents meant as much to him as his incomparable basketball skill.

ILL.- Six-year-old Johnny and his four-year-old sister Suzy presented their mom with a Mother’s Day present; a small, spindly house plant. While it wasn’t the finest looking specimen, they had bought it with their own money and Mom was thrilled. She hugged and kissed her children and told them she loved them for thinking of her. Johnny said, "There was some other flowers we wanted to buy for you, Mom, but we didn’t have enough money." "Yeah," said sister Suzy, "they had a real nice bunch of flowers at the shop that we were going to buy." But I love this plant," said the happy mother. "I know, Mom," said Johnny, "but these flowers would have been perfect for you. They were in a wreath and they had a ribbon that said ’REST IN PEACE’ on it AND YOU’RE ALWAYS ASKING FOR A LITTLE PEACE SO YOU CAN REST."