A mother's love, virtue

If there's a mother's love story in the Bible, it's with a lady named Rizpah, a concubine of King Saul. 

She wasn't just a political concubine; they had a love relationship. She was valuable to Saul and they had children together.

Saul was deposed and killed and afterward the enemies came in to humiliate him, taking Rizpah's boys and slaughtering them, says Richard Jordan.

II Samuel 21:

[8] But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite:
[9] 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.
[10] 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.

You've got to think about that. Those boys were butchered at the harvest in the fall and hung there until after harvest--weeks, months. There Rizpah's boys are, murdered, held up in public humiliation and now the birds and the animals are coming. They're bodies are decaying.

You know what momma did? She went and got a sackcloth and climbed out there on those rocks and laid that burlap sack down and said, "I'm going to sleep by my boys."

When the birds came, and the animals came, she said, "Get away! Get away!" What in the world would motivate a little woman to go out on a hillside, on a rockslide, like that and do such an act of bravery, tenacity? That's the lengths to which a mother's love will go. I say, "That's how mom loves and, friend, that's how God Himself loves you."

When you understand how much God loves you, it becomes easy to love others, and when you learn to love others the way God loves you, your behavior changes toward them and that love flows.

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Proverbs 31:10 says, [10] Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

This question is not designed to present a dilemma; it’s a challenge, a declaration: "Let me tell you how you find her because her price is far above rubies." The idea is if you have a precious stone, the longer you have it, its value goes up.

The value of a virtuous woman is the longer she lives the more her value increases. The word "virtue" means "moral excellence." It’s the outward display of wisdom.

When you try to define a word, the best way to look for a definition is to find a verse in the Bible that defines it for you, because then you know how the Bible uses the word. Sometimes a dictionary gives you six different definitions of a word and you’re not sure which one it ought to be.

I used to be puzzled about God’s idea of virtue because of this really odd verse in Luke 8: [46] And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.

What flowed out of Him? Power to heal that woman, so virtue has to do with the strength that is produced by moral excellence.

It’s not just that she’s correct, but it’s that there’s a strength; there’s an internal character of strength produced by the truth of God’s Word.

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Isaiah 33:6 says, [6] And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure.

God has this treasure chest and the way you get into it is the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It tells you what’s in the treasure chest and it’s the key that unlocks it and allows you to begin to get out of it the treasure that’s in it.

The wisdom and knowledge that’s in that treasure chest is going to be stability of the times and strength of salvation.

You look at the world we live in today—is there much stability? Everything’s turned on its head. Look at the social structure, all the stuff going on, and you say, "Doesn’t anybody have any common sense?!"

That verse tells you why. There’s no wisdom and knowledge; there’s no fear of God that lets you go into the treasure chest and bring out some understanding that would give stability to the culture you live in.

The virtuous woman is the one who understands how to have the stability and the deliverance. Where did her virtue come from? Proverbs 31:26 says, [26] She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.

Where did she get the wisdom from? Verse 30: [30] Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

You see that? She understood how to fear God. She understood how to put what God said above anything else.

The fear of God is an interesting thing. We usually think about it as running from God, but that’s a fool’s errand. How good did Adam and Eve do with that? You can run from God, but you can’t get away from Him. Jonah fled from the presence of God, but how did that work for him? David said, "If I make my bed in hell, thou art there." No matter where you go, He’s there!

The fear of God is the ability to be afraid of running from God to sin in order to alleviate your problems, rather than allow God’s word to alleviate them for you. That’s why in Ephesians 5, Paul says we’re to "submit ourselves one to another in the fear of God."

That’s why Paul says in Philippians 2 to you and me that we’re to obey God’s word "with fear and trembling." That is, "I understand that’s truth and I FEAR the results of not obeying it, because to not obey it is sin and I fear the consequences of sin and what God says they are, and I fear forsaking Him, running to sin to solve my anxieties and my difficulties."

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In Scripture, every time Jesus Christ addresses His mother, He calls her "woman." John 2:3-5, for example, relays, [3] And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.

[4] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.
[5] His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.

If you want Mary to tell you what to do, here it is. Folks, if you really wanted to give the reverence due to the mother of Christ, if you really wanted to honor her, do what she says when she speaks in the Scripture. What she says is, "Whatever He says to you, do it." That’s interesting.