Riches To Ruins

Mark 6:24 KJV 1900

And she went forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist.

Riches To Ruins

It is too bad that it is necessary to write upon the words of this theme.

Yet there are many homes throughout the land which should be a place of refuge, a place of pure religion, a place of restraint, which are no more than soul-destroying stations.

The home of Rebecca

We do not doubt but that Rebecca had many wonderful qualities, and that she was greatly endeared both to Jacob and to Esau.

However, we must mention Rebecca as a mother who brought untold sorrow to her son.

Early in married life Rebecca deceived her husband.

As her children grew older she taught Jacob to deceive his father, Isaac.

She not only taught him but she aided him.

In her unbelief she was not willing to trust God for the future of her favored son, so she dressed him up in a hairy coat, and told him to play the part of his brother, and to receive his father’s blessing.

Because of this deception Jacob had to flee from the wrath of his brother, Esau.

He was gone for many years and he never saw his mother again nor did she ever look again into the eyes of the son she loved.

The mother must guard her example

We saw an old man one day staggering drunk, along the street.

We will never forget as the old man staggered along a younger man, his son, said to us as he pointed to the drunkard, “Sir, that man is my father.

When I was a little lad, that father taught me to drink. May God help me and save me from following him to a drunkard’s grave.”

The home of Herodias

The name of Salome, the daughter of Herodias, is known most bible readers.

Her shameful dance is portrayed by many an unclean immoral act.

The saddest part of the story of this dancing girl, and of the death of John the Baptist, who was slain at her request, is that she acted under the instruction of her poor, sinful, erring mother.

Oh, the horrors that must overhang that woman, who has pointed her own child into the way of sin and shame!

Illustration

A mother was berating her boy for playing marbles for keeps.

The young son responded somewhat in disgust, “Mamma, don’t you play cards for keeps, when you have your club meetings?

What is the difference, anyway?”

How careful fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters need to be lest they should turn the home into a place of ruin, instead of turning it into a place of refuge.

Would it not be better for any one to have a millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the midst of the sea, than to offend one of these little ones?