THE OLD VS THE NEW

The Old vs The New

When Gary asked me to preach today, I thought, "What Word can I bring today that could refresh you?"  Then Tuesday morning I woke up with this thought:  Why not show how some of the moms in the Bible would look in modern days!

So I have chosen these unique women, so unique we don’t even know their names, but we know they are moms.  The first is a well known mom in Exodus 2.

About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married. 2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months. 3 But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. 4 The baby’s sister then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him. 5 Soon Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, and her attendants walked along the riverbank. When the princess saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it for her. 6 When the princess opened it, she saw the baby. The little boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This must be one of the Hebrew children,” she said. 7 Then the baby’s sister approached the princess. “Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” she asked. 8 “Yes, do!” the princess replied. So the girl went and called the baby’s mother.9 “Take this baby and nurse him for me,” the princess told the baby’s mother. “I will pay you for your help.” So the woman took her baby home and nursed him. 10 Later, when the boy was older, his mother brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her own son. The princess named him Moses, for she explained, “I lifted him out of the water.”

As I thought of Moses’s mother I immediately thought of the modern day rescuer who, like Miriam and her mother hid people to deliver them from a modern day Pharaoh.  Her name was Corrie Ten Boon.   Corrie ten Boom (15 April 1892 – 15 April 1983) was a Dutch Christian and a watchmaker. She, with her father and sister, hid Jews from the Nazis in her home during the Holocaust. She believed God would want her to. They were caught, arrested and sent to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp.  In her biography, The Hiding Place, she recounts the story of her family's efforts to find hope in God while they were imprisoned at the concentration camp. It is a fascinating story and if you have not read it, during these days when you are in your home, read this fascinating and life-changing book.

The next mother that I thought of was Samson mom.  The story of Samson is found in Judges 13,14,15.  There was a couple who had not been able to have a child and an angel of the Lord appeared to the wife and told her that she was going to have a son and he would be set apart unto the Lord and he was to have no strong drink and eat a special diet and he would be the Lord’s all the days of his life.  So she ran and told her husband what had taken place and he said, “Lord, if this is really to be, appear once again,” and the angel appeared again, to the wife- I might add- and verified what he had spoken the first time and the husband and wife offered a burnt offering which was customary in those days.  In due time the son was born and the spirit of the Lord was upon him and they named him Samson.  Now Samson had great strength which was gained through his long hair, because it had been a specific instruction from God that no razor was to touch his head.  God’s plan was to use Samson to deliver Israel from the Philistines. Samson had some weaknesses in his life, but, as you read his story you see his mother several times, even when Samson is a grown man, trying to speak into his life and giving him good and godly advice. Later in life he reveals the source of his strength to a woman who divulges that secret, which results in his fall and capture. While the Philistines laughed at his fall, his hair began to grow, and so did his strength. They tied him to the pillars of their temple where they continued to mock him.  He looked to heaven one last time and asked God to let him die with the Philistines and pulled his hands together and brought the temple down on top of himself and the Philistines.  The last sentence about his life reads , “So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life.”

Samson’s modern-day mom’s name was Peggy Jackson Beamer and she was a muralist. She painted murals.  She had other children, but also only one son.  She too, had felt that her son was a gift from God and had a special call on his life.  He had attended Christian school from elementary to high school and attended Wheaton College where he met Lisa Brosious who would become his wife.  I’m sure he had some weaknesses, although we don’t know what they were.  He worked for the Sony Corporation and on one fateful day September 11, 2001, he got on a plane from Newark to San Francisco.  United Flight 93 was scheduled to depart at 8:00am, but the Boeing 757 did not depart until 42 minutes later due to runway traffic delays. 4 minutes later, AA Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower. 17 minutes later, at 9:03 am, as UNITED Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower, United 93 was climbing to cruising altitude, heading west over New Jersey and into Pennsylvania. At 9:25 am, Flight 93 was above eastern Ohio, and its pilot radioed Cleveland controllers to inquire about an alert that had been flashed on his cockpit computer screen to "beware of cockpit intrusion." Three minutes later, Cleveland controllers could hear screams over the cockpit's open microphone. Moments later, hijackers took over the plane's controls, disengaged the autopilot, and told passengers, "Keep seated, we have a bomb on board." Peggy Jackson Beamer’s only son, Todd, and the other passengers were herded into the back of the plane. Within six minutes, the plane changed course and was heading for Washington, D.C. Several of the passengers made phone calls to loved ones, who informed them of the two planes that had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City and the third into Pentagon in Arlington, Va.  Beamer tried to place a credit card call through a phone located on the back of a plane seat, but was routed to a customer-service representative, who passed him on to GTE air-phone supervisor Lisa Jefferson. With FBI agents listening in on their call, Beamer informed Jefferson that hijackers had taken over United 93 and that one passenger had been killed. He also stated that two of the hijackers had knives, and that one appeared to have a bomb strapped around his waist. When the hijackers veered the plane sharply south, Beamer exclaimed, "We're going down! We're going down right now. Beamer told Jefferson that the group was planning to "jump on" the hijackers and fly the plane into the ground before the hijackers' plan could be followed through. Beamer recited the Lord’s Prayer and the Psalm 23 with Jefferson, prompting others to join in. Beamer requested of Jefferson, "If I don't make it, please call my family and let them know how much I love them.  And in his dying, this man whom this mother had believed God for, touched more lives than in all his living.

Have you noticed how great mothers and desperate mothers seem to look a lot alike?

The next Biblical mother is found in 1 King 17. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 9 “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks; and he called to her and said, “Please get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink.” 11 As she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.” 12 But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.” 13 Then Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go, do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. 14 For thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth.’” 15 So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The bowl of flour was not exhausted nor did the jar of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke through Elijah.

This incredible mother believed God with her last cake.  The widow was willing to trust God with her last bit and say, “You know what? It’s all God’s anyway!” Like Job said when he lost everything, “THE LORD GIVES, THE LORD TAKES AWAY, BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.”  The widow was determined to trust God to the end. 

So you want to know who this modern incredible mom is?  It’s you!  But you have to write the ending to the story. Maybe your last cake is a your recent diagnosis, your husband who has cancer, your child who is sick, the job that you lost, your last $50, your marriage that’s falling apart, a failed relationship, your———,  fill in the blank, what is your last cake?

 The thing is that YOU are the widow, YOU are the ONE in need, YOU are the one who has to risk it ALL in order to find EVERYTHING. In reality, we risk very little to find His EVERYTHING.

Years ago there was a gospel song that said,

I lost it all to find everything

I died a pauper to be born a king

When I learned how to lose

I found out how to win

Oh I lost it all, to find everything

But look at what this amazing mother did:

1. She trusted God:  v. 13 Then Elijah said to her, “Do not fear”

2. She obeyed God: v. 15 So she went and did

3. She walked it out: v. 15 she and he and her household ate for many days.

God never said, it would be easy, but He did say it would be blessed.

So, for this mother’s day, what amazing ending do you want to write to your story? You want to know what?  All the stories of all the amazing Christians that I know have several things in common:

(I changed pronouns from female to neutral, on purpose!)

1. A desperate Christian

2. A great Trial

3. A Faithful God

4. A tenacious Faith!

5. An unconquerable Saint!

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!