Wow What A Mom!

"WOW, WHAT A MOTHER"

TEXT: 2 SAMUEL 21:1-14

INTRODUCTION

Erma Bombeck writes;

For the first 4 or 5 years after I had children, I considered motherhood a temporary condition -- not a calling. It was a time of my life set aside for exhaustion and long hours. It would pass. Then one afternoon, with 3 kids in tow, I came out of a supermarket pushing a cart (with four wheels that went in opposite directions) when my toddler son got away from me. Just outside the door, he ran toward a machine holding bubble gum in a glass dome. In a voice that shattered glass he shouted, "Gimme! Gimme!" I told him I would give him what for if he didn’t stop shouting and get in the car.

As I physically tried to pry his body from around the bubble gum machine, he pulled the entire thing over. Glass and balls of bubble gum went all over the parking lot. We had now attracted a sizable crowd.

I told him he would never see a cartoon as long as he lived, and if he didn’t control his temper, he was going to be making license plates for the state.

He tried to stifle his sobs as he looked around at the staring crowd. Then he did something that I was to remember for the rest of my life. In his helpless quest for comfort, he turned to the only one he trusted his emotions with -- me. He threw his arms around my knees and held on for dear life.

I had humiliated him, chastised him, and berated him, but I was still all he had. That single incident defined my role. I was a major force in this child’s life.

Sometimes we forget how important stability is to a child. I’ve always told mine, "The easiest part of being a mother is giving birth.... the hardest part is showing up for it each day..."

Mother’s day is traditionally the day when children give something back to their mothers for all the spit they produce to wash dirty faces, all the old gum they held in their hands, all the noses they wipe, and all the bloody knees they "made well" with a kiss.

This is the day mothers are rewarded for washing all those sheets in the middle of the night, driving kids to school when they missed the bus, and enduring all the football games in the rain.

It’s appreciation day for making your children finish something they said they couldn’t do, not believing them when they said, "I hate you," and sharing their good times and their bad times.

Their cards probably won’t reflect it, but what they are trying to say is, "Thank you for showing up."

Today we want to thank all moms out there for the DIFFICULT and often thankless job they do -- Mothers are so very important... We could not of made it without them, they have provided great comfort and stability for their children through the years.. God says Honor thy Mother, and I think MOST would agree that mothers are worthy of honor. Be sure to let your mom know that she is special... That you really appreciate her.

I’ve titled today’s message, "wow! what a mother." And actually I picked the title first, and then I went looking for a mom in the Bible to preach about..... And I came across a mom that is probably not that well known -- Her name is Rizpah and we read about her in the 21st chapter of Second Samuel, she is certainly a mother worthy of honor.

Let’s do some necessary background work so we can begin our study today.

Rizpah was one of Saul’s concubines (now a concubine is simply a wife who did not bring a dowry into the marriage). And she had 2 sons by Saul. And at this time Saul is dead and David is the King....

As chapter 21 opens there is a famine in Israel, a famine that had been going on for 3 years... And David in the midst of this famine realizing that it was probably a judgment from the Lord, sought God’s face (a good thing to do I might add when we are facing famines in our own lives; be they physical, emotional or spiritual). And the Lord told David the reason for the famine, He said, "IT IS ON ACCOUNT OF SAUL AND HIS BLOOD STAINED HOUSE; IT IS BECAUSE HE PUT THE GIBEONITES TO DEATH..."

What the Lord is talking about here, is a treaty that Joshua had made with the Gibeonites, shortly after Israel had enter the promised land and defeated Jericho. In the name of the Lord Joshua swore that Israel would always protect the Gibeonites... Well 400 years later when Saul was King things changed, Saul as you know towards the end of his life was ruled by pride, self will and ungodly desires, and he therefore broke the treaty and attempted to annihilate the Gibionites... And this is way God had brought a famine on the land God’s people had broken a treaty that they had made in His name.