Manna For Mothers

“Manna for Mothers”

Proverbs 31:1-31

Pro 31:30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

Mother’s Day is a bittersweet time for many of us. If your mother is in this service you ought to thank God for the opportunity to worship together and to spend time in each other’s company. There are many of us who must spend this separated from our mother, either because she has already passed on or like Sis. Judy and I and others present here this morning, are separated by geography though not separated in our hearts. As I have gotten older myself I’ve thought a great deal about my mother and the kind of life she had and what she tried to do for me to the best of her ability. I’ve come to realize that I learned far more from her than I thought. I am told that I look like my dad but my mother put her mark on me in a lot of other ways. Like Solomon’s mother, my mom was my teacher and mom’s you are a teacher too. You may think that you don’t have much in common with the “wife of a king” but you do, more than you know. Notice that Solomon, (King Lemuel) was taught by his mother. The fact that he mentions this may sound a bit odd since King David was his father but I can assure that for the overwhelming majority of us, mother has been and is still the most influential person in our lives. There is just something special about our mothers, a special and unique relationship like no other on earth. The special nature of this relationship is emphasized in verse 2 where the queen mother refers to him as “…my son, the son of my womb, and …the son of my vows.” A literal translation of this verse would go something like: “son of my body, my dear beloved son, the answer to my prayers!” The fact that Bathsheba had already lost one child made the birth of Solomon all the more special in the eyes of his mother. When she prayed for a son she made vows to the Lord and so Solomon was the “…son of her vows…” Coverdale Solomon mentions several areas of life that his mother gave him instructions in.

I. Your teachings

ILL - 'A mighty power and stronger

Man from his throne has hurled,

For the hand that rocks the cradle

Is the hand that rules the world.'

~ William Ross Wallace

ILL - 'The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom.' ~ Henry Ward Beecher

a. Women

Who should know more about women than a woman? Bathsheba (Solomon’s mother) had seen firsthand the consequences of bad decision making where the opposite sex was concerned.

Proverbs 6:23 For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:

24 To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.

25 Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.

26 For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.

27 Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?

28 Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?

29 So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.

b. Wine

Proverbs 23:29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?

30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.

31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.

32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.

33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.

34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.

35 They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.

c. Wrong

Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

This woman recognizes that her son must “learn to do well…” You don’t have to teach a child to lie, they must learn not too! You don’t have to teach them to steal, they must learn not too! Character building and helping your children to “…do well…” This would also include but be limited to learning how to treat others, especially those who are less fortunate like the orphan, the stranger, the widow etc.