Sermon

A Tenacious Mother Named Rizpah

Rizpah means ‘a glowing ember’. Tenacious means ‘persistent in adhering to, or seeking something desired; not easily pulled apart from.’   She was a mother that was glowing with a passionate desire from which she could not be pulled away.

2 Samuel 21:9-10

And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.

And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.

We can learn much about parenting from this obscure, but very powerful story in the Old Testament!!! We need to stand guard over our children’s souls with the same sacrifice and tenacity that Rizpah guarded her children’s bodies!!

Please listen to her amazing story Who’s Kidding Who (part 4) by Dr. Billy Daws

We need to be a Rizpah!!!!

 

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Decide to Discipline

1 Samuel 3:13
I have warned him continually that judgment is coming for his family,
because his sons are blaspheming God
and he hasn’t disciplined them.

Galatians 4:19
My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you,

Two year old defiance looks a lot different than 15 year old defiance.  Two year old defiance is a lot easier to deal with than 15 year old defiance.

Disciplining our children takes discipline in our own lives and it is like being in constant
labor! (Gal. 4:19)  But if we don’t do it, there are consequences – God’s judgement on our families! (1 Sam. 3:13)

Enough said.


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What does ‘train up a child’ really mean?

Train up a child in the way he should go;
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6

“Train” “. . . used in the days of Solomon to describe the action of a midwife who, soon after helping deliver a child, would dip her finger into the juice of chewed or crushed dates, reach into the mouth of the infant, and massage the gums and the palate within the mouth so as to create a sensation of sucking, a sense of taste. Then she would place the child in its mother’s arms to begin feeding from the mother’s breast. . .”  You and Your Child by Charles Swindoll

“Child” in Hebrew refers to any age from infant to young adult.

“The way he should go” is found in John 14:6: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

“Old” in Hebrew refers to when a boy is old enough to grow hair on his chin.

So – this verse simply stated  –   if you create a hunger in your child for Jesus when he is an infant until he is a young adult, then when he is a young adult, he will not depart from the Way.

Here’s an excellent sermon by my excellent husband on Proverbs 22:6 – Who’s Kidding Who?

 

 

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