MOTHER’S DAY 2008

Pastor James J. Barker

Text: GENESIS 1:27—31; 2:21—25




INTRODUCTION:


  1. Today is “Mother’s Day.”  The United States Congress designated May 8, 1914 as a special day to honor mothers, and ever since, the second Sunday of May has been observed in honor of our mothers.
  2. Genesis 3:20 says, “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.”
  3. Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day.   Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”
  4. Then as we continue on to verse 31, we read, “And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
  5. So the creation of man came on the sixth day, along with the creation of the animals mentioned in Genesis 1:24 and 25. On the sixth day, the Bible says, “God created man.”
  6. God created man.  Man did not evolve from apes. Genesis 1:27 says, “Male and female created He them.”
  7. Many of these wicked teachings – evolution, homosexuality, polygamy, etc. can all be refuted from the earliest pages of the Bible.
  8. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”  This refutes atheism, agnosticism, polytheism, evolution, etc.
  9. When we get to Genesis chapter 2, we see that God goes back to the sixth day and gives us more detail. All we know about the other five days of creation is given in Chapter 1. But when we come to the sixth day and the creation of Adam and Eve, God gives us more details.
  10. What we have in Genesis chapter 2 is an expansion of the creation of man and woman indicated on the sixth day in Genesis chapter 1.
  11. This is all very familiar to students of the Bible.  What I would like for us to focus on this Lord’s Day (since it is also “Mother’s Day”) is the creation of woman (Genesis 2:21-24).
  12. AT Pierson said, “God’s crowning creative act was the making of woman” (The Bible and Spiritual Life).
  13. God took bone and flesh out of the side of Adam, and he fashioned the most beautiful of all his creatures – He created a woman.
  14. Only a wise and wonderful God could create such a lovely creature – with such beauty and grace beyond man’s comprehension.
  15. We can only imagine Adam’s surprise when he woke up (Genesis 2:21-23).

 

I. GOD MADE WOMAN AS A HELP MEET FOR MAN  (2:18).

  1. You will notice a statement made seven times in the first chapter of Genesis, “And God saw that it was good” (cf. Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).
  2. Then in Genesis 2:18 we read, “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”
  3. So everything God made was good.  But man left by himself without a help meet is not good.
  4. Now I realize it is not always God’s will for a man to be married.  And I believe having no wife is better than having a bad wife.  But for most men, Genesis 2:18 is the standard.
  5. But I am not going to preach just about wives this morning. Today is not “Wives Day,” it is “Mother’s Day.”
  6. Not every man has a wife, but every person has a mother.  And today is “Mother’s Day.”
  7. Ecclesiastes 4:9-11 says, “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?”
  8. This passage can be looked at different ways, but it certainly applies to marriage.  God said in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”
  9. Man is advantaged and greatly blessed by having a wife.  Unfortunately that is not always the case in all instances, but it is certainly true when the husband and wife love God and follow the Bible.
  10. Proverbs 18:22 says, “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.”
  11. Proverbs 19:14 says, “A prudent wife is from the LORD.”
  12. Proverbs 12:4 says, “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.”
  13. Proverbs 31:10 says, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.”
  14. God created the woman to complement the man. We read in Genesis 6:19: “And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.” 
  15. God initially made everything male and female, including Adam and Eve.  In order to complete man, God said, “I will make him an help meet for him” (Genesis 2:18).

 

II. GOD CREATED THE WOMAN FOR THE MAN (GEN. 3:16).

  1. First Corinthians 11:8, 9 says, “For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man.  Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.”
  2. I realize this is contrary to the modern-day “woman’s liberation” teaching, but we need to understand that feminism and the woman’s liberation movement is from the devil.
  3. In Genesis 3:16, God said to Eve, “Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”  That has not changed.
  4. The woman’s liberation movement has produced nothing but bad fruit, such as promiscuity, adultery, broken homes, rebellious children, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, so-called “gender-neutral language,” and numerous other evils.
  5. Many people do not realize that the feminist movement was started by the communists.  A feminist historian by the name of Kate Weigand wrote in a recent book, “ideas, activists and traditions that emanated from the Communist movement of the forties and fifties continued to shape the direction of the new women’s movement of the 1960s and later.” (Red Feminism: American Communism and the Making of Women's Liberation, 2002, p. 154)
  6. Peter Marshall was a Scottish-American preacher, and served as the chaplain of the US Senate.  In 1950, Peter Marshall stood before the US Senate and said this, “The modern challenge to motherhood is the eternal challenge — that of being a godly woman. The very phrase sounds strange in our ears. We never hear it now. We hear about every other kind of women — beautiful women, smart women, sophisticated women, career woman, talented women, divorced women, but so seldom do we hear of a godly woman — or of a godly man either, for that matter.
  7. “I believe women come nearer fulfilling their God-given function in the home than anywhere else. It is a much nobler thing to be a good wife than to be Miss America. It is a greater achievement to establish a Christian home than it is to produce a second-rate novel filled with filth. It is a far, far better thing in the realm of morals to be old-fashioned than to be ultramodern. The world has enough women who know how to hold their cocktails, who have lost all their illusions and their faith. The world has enough women who know how to be smart.  It needs women who are willing to be simple. The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant. It needs some who will be brave. The world has enough women who are popular. It needs more who are pure. We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right than socially correct.”
  8. Notice that back in 1950, Peter Marshall said, “We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right than socially correct.”  Today the popular term is “politically correct.”   But we must strive to be “Biblically correct.”
  9. First Corinthians 11:3 says, “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.”
  10. Ephesians 5:22-24 says, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.  Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”
  11. Colossians 3:18 says, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.”
  12. Titus 2:5 says wives are to be, “discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”
  13. Cf. also I Peter 3:1-5.
  14. The great Baptist preacher AC Dixon said the husband is the head of the home, and the wife is the heart.  He said anything with two heads and no heart is a freak.

 

III. GOD MADE WOMEN FOR THE REPRODUCTION OF THE HUMAN RACE (GENESIS 3:20).

  1. Genesis 2:24 establishes the foundation for marriage.  It also establishes God’s boundaries for sexual behavior – one man, one woman, united in one marriage.
  2. First Corinthians 7:2 says, “Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.”
  3. Anything outside of marriage – adultery, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, polygamy, etc. – is a sinful violation of God’s design.
  4. I actually met a Mormon yesterday who defended polygamy.
  5. Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”
  6. God ordained marriage for the reproduction of the human race.
  7. Seven times in the book of Genesis we read these words, “Be fruitful, and multiply” (Gen. 1:22, 28; 8:17; 9:1, 7; 28:3; 35:11).
  8. Homosexuals are attempting to redefine the family through artificial insemination, and adoption, and forcing their perverted agenda through our court system.
  9. Our Lord quoted Genesis 2:24 in Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7.
  10. The apostle Paul quotes it in Ephesians 5:31. These Scriptures teach that marriage is a lifelong bond initiated by a covenant, making the man and wife one flesh for life with no divorce –  that is God’s original design.
  11. Malachi 2:16 says God hates divorce.
  12. And the ones who suffer the most in divorce are the children. Studies have consistently demonstrated that children in single-parent or other broken homes were at greater risk of committing criminal or delinquent acts.
  13. They are more likely to do poorly in school, to be involved in promiscuity, drugs or gang activity, etc.
  14. Whenever I perform a wedding ceremony, I say, “If done properly, marriage is the highest and happiest of all human relationships.  Marriage was given to us by our wise and heavenly Father to repress irregular affections, to support social order, and to produce children, who are to be taught the Word of God so that God’s truth and holiness can be transmitted from one generation to another.”
  15. Marriage was established by God way before all laws of human origin; it is essential for the peace and well-being of our nation.  The breakdown of marriage and the family is a definite sign that our society is falling apart.

 

CONCLUSION:


  1. Abraham Lincoln said, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
  2. John H. Starkey was a very wicked criminal. He murdered his wife, was convicted of the crime, and was eventually executed. The officials asked General William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army) to conduct Starkey’s funeral.
  3. At the funeral, Booth faced a crowd of hard, scoffing men, but his first words stopped them and held their interest. William Booth said, “John H. Starkey never had a praying mother.”


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