It Is Written

A Mother in Israel

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: John Bradshaw

Series Code: IIW

01:30 [Theme music]
01:40 [Theme music]
01:49 >>John: This is It Is Written.
01:51 I'm John Bradshaw. Thanks for joining me.
01:53 There's a special day that comes around once every year:
01:58 Mother's Day.
01:59 None of us would be here without our mother.
02:01 It's not a stretch at all to say that every person on Earth
02:04 owes his or her existence to his or her mother.
02:08 Obviously, the same could be said about your father,
02:10 but we'll say that on another day.
02:12 I think I can say with absolute certainty
02:14 that I have the world's best mother
02:16 with the possible exception of your mother, of course.
02:19 Any woman who could have endured raising my four brothers and I,
02:21 and our two sisters,
02:23 who I'm sure were angels and were never a problem,
02:25 is obviously a special person on the strength of that alone.
02:28 But the fact that I'm able to say
02:30 that I have a wonderful mother is a blessing in itself.
02:33 Thankfully, most people can say that.
02:35 Not all, but certainly most.
02:38 Childbirth and child-raising and nurture and a mother's love
02:42 are not accidents, despite what some may say about
02:45 Darwinian evolution and the randomness of life.
02:48 God specifically designed that we have mothers.
02:50 And part of that is because a mother, and a mother's love,
02:54 show us an important part of the character of God.
02:57 Now, the Bible presents God as decidedly male;
03:00 I'm not suggesting otherwise.
03:02 But in God we see a father's love and a mother's love.
03:06 The Bible says in Isaiah 49:15:
03:09 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
03:11 And not have compassion on the son of her womb?
03:14 Surely they may forget,
03:16 Yet I will not forget you.
03:19 The love of God is compared to the love of a mother, except,
03:22 of course, God says his love exceeds a mother's love.
03:26 Which is quite a thing.
03:27 In Matthew 23:37, Jesus said:
03:30 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets
03:33 and stones those who are sent to her!
03:35 How often I wanted to gather your children together,
03:37 as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,
03:40 but you were not willing!
03:42 What the Bible is making clear
03:44 is that a mother's love reveals something powerful
03:46 about the love of God,
03:48 and that makes the role of a mother incredibly important.
03:52 Now, when you think of mothers in the Bible,
03:55 who comes to mind?
03:56 I would guess the obvious candidates would be Mary,
03:59 the mother of Jesus, and then, well, who?
04:02 You might say Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.
04:05 You could think about Jochebed, the mother of Moses;
04:07 now, there's a story.
04:09 Timothy's mother, Eunice,
04:10 and his grandmother Lois
04:11 are both mentioned by name by Paul in the Bible
04:15 because of their great faith.
04:17 Sarah was the mother of Isaac, so she was special.
04:20 Rebekah was told she'd be the mother of thousands of millions,
04:23 which is a great honor.
04:24 And then, think about the Shunammite woman,
04:28 the one promised a son by Elisha.
04:30 The boy spends a day in the field helping his father,
04:33 and ends up with something that would most likely
04:35 be a heat stroke, and he dies. The child dies!
04:40 So what does Mom do?
04:42 Mom gets a servant; they grab a donkey.
04:44 She tells him to ride as fast as he can to Elisha at Mt. Carmel.
04:49 When she gets there, she dismisses Gehazi,
04:51 Elisha's servant.
04:53 She charges into Elisha's presence,
04:54 basically rebukes him for promising her a son
04:56 in the first place, and says to him,
04:58 "Didn't I say, 'Don't deceive me'?"
05:01 When Elisha tells the servant to go and check on the boy,
05:03 the mother says she's not having any of it.
05:05 She says to Elisha, "I'm not going anywhere without you."
05:09 What could Elisha do?
05:10 When Gehazi gets back,
05:12 Elisha goes himself to the woman's house.
05:15 And the boy?
05:16 Well, the boy is brought back to life.
05:19 The mother receives her son again.
05:22 There could simply have been a funeral.
05:24 But this mother wouldn't take no for an answer.
05:27 This was her child.
05:30 What she did for her little boy was,
05:32 was responsible for the little boy coming back to life.
05:35 She saved his life.
05:37 Mothers are heroes, really.
05:40 The modern idea of a hero is usually pretty hollow;
05:43 but mothers truly are heroes.
05:45 Heroines, if you'd rather.
05:47 Most of the time, the heroism goes unnoticed.
05:50 Up all night with sick children, and who ever knows about it?
05:53 Not even the child in question
05:55 will even remember what was done.
05:57 Mothers of young children are up all night,
05:59 every night often, and often for months and months,
06:03 feeding their children.
06:04 I remember when our children were young;
06:05 they'd cry in the night, and we knew what it meant.
06:08 It meant Melissa was going to get out of bed
06:11 and feed the child.
06:12 Now, you say, "What about you,
06:13 John?" Me? Me? I slept.
06:17 There was no point both of us being exhausted the next day,
06:19 was there?
06:20 At two a.m. I had nothing those kids wanted.
06:24 Or at 4:30 a.m.
06:25 Or whenever it might have been.
06:27 Now, with one of them it was midnight, then two, then 4:30.
06:30 And today, who would even know?
06:32 The children don't remember.
06:35 But, you know, that's a selfless,
06:37 heroic fact that's performed every day by millions of women,
06:41 usually without anyone knowing anywhere.
06:45 Kids skin their knees; they come running to mother.
06:47 They're tired at the mall;
06:49 who picks them up and carries them around all afternoon long?
06:51 Now, I'm not trying to stereotype the situation.
06:54 I know that dads aren't entirely useless for these things.
06:57 But we know, both of us, most of the time it's Mom
07:01 who does the heavy lifting, the really important stuff,
07:04 dealing with the physical needs and the emotional needs of kids.
07:08 Shaping children into what they'll be later in life
07:11 in many cases, shaping children into followers of God
07:15 who will spend eternity in an Earth made new.
07:18 It's simply impossible to overstate the importance
07:20 of what a mother does.
07:21 Mothers are called to give of themselves, and they do,
07:26 virtually every single one of them.
07:28 Starts with pregnancy.
07:29 I'll be honest with you;
07:31 I am not sorry that that's women's work.
07:33 If men had to carry babies for 280 days,
07:36 the human race probably would have died out
07:38 thousands of years ago.
07:40 But mothers do what they do,
07:41 well, because, because that's what they do.
07:44 It's because it's what needs to be done.
07:47 When it comes to being a mother,
07:49 a mother does what a mother needs to do.
07:52 I'm going to give you an example of this from the Bible.
07:55 Now, if you're expecting it to be a neat and tidy example,
07:58 you're going to be disappointed.
08:00 What we're going to look at is the gritty reality
08:02 of life a mother doing what has to be done
08:05 simply because she's a mother.
08:07 And, well, that's what mothers do.
08:11 Back with more in just a moment.
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09:47 [Music]
09:52 >>John: This is It Is Written.
09:54 Thanks for joining me.
09:54 When you think about mothers in the Bible,
09:57 there's a list of remarkable women you might think of.
10:00 Mary, the mother of Jesus.
10:01 Elizabeth. Hannah. We could talk about Sarah, Rebekah.
10:06 There's another mother who hardly ever makes it onto
10:08 any of the lists of the great mothers in the Bible.
10:11 What she did isn't remembered by many people at all,
10:14 but she was a truly heroic mother.
10:17 Let's talk about her for a moment.
10:19 The story takes place in the Bible
10:20 in Second Samuel, chapter 20.
10:23 Israel is in a mess.
10:25 David, the king, is being forced out of Jerusalem
10:28 by his rebellious son Absalom.
10:30 And after a messy war,
10:31 Absalom is killed and David returns to reclaim his kingdom.
10:35 Except it wasn't going to be that simple.
10:39 A man named Sheba, the son of Bichri,
10:42 from the tribe of Benjamin,
10:43 and therefore someone who was sympathetic to King Saul,
10:46 who lost the kingdom to David, rebelled.
10:50 Second Samuel, chapter 20 and verse 1
10:52 sees Sheba saying this:
10:56 “We have no part in David,
10:58 Neither do we have inheritance in the son of Jesse;
11:01 Every man to his tents, O Israel!”
11:05 This wasn't looking good.
11:06 In fact, it was an absolute crisis in the making.
11:10 David feared Sheba would do more damage
11:11 to Israel than Absalom did,
11:13 and he ordered his men to pursue Sheba
11:15 and put down the insurrection.
11:17 He said to Abishai in verse 6:
11:20 “Now Sheba the son of Bichri
11:22 will do us more harm than Absalom.
11:24 Take your lord's servants and pursue him,
11:27 lest he find for himself fortified cities,
11:30 and escape us.”
11:32 But Abishai, along with his ruthless brother, Joab,
11:35 wasn't able to capture Sheba.
11:37 They cornered him, but they weren't able to take him.
11:41 So what would happen?
11:43 They pursued Sheba to a city called Abel in Beth Maakah.
11:47 Sheba hid himself there.
11:49 And so Joab's men intended to force their way into the city
11:53 and destroy everything in their path
11:55 on their way to killing Sheba.
11:58 Now, it says this in verse 15:
12:02 Then they came and besieged him in Abel of Beth Maachah;
12:05 and they cast up a siege mound against the city,
12:09 and it stood by the rampart.
12:11 And all the people who were with Joab
12:12 battered the wall to throw it down.
12:15 Which is when a wise woman:
12:17 and it's interesting that the Bible calls her wise,
12:20 called out to Joab. She said:
12:22 "Please say to Joab,
12:24 'Come nearby, that I may speak with you'" [2 Samuel 20:16].
12:27 Now, that was bold.
12:29 This woman was engaging Joab, and he had proven time and again
12:32 that he wasn't anybody you would want to mess with.
12:36 So she said this to Joab:
12:39 "I am among the peaceable and faithful in Israel.
12:42 You seek to destroy a city and a mother in Israel.
12:46 Why would you swallow up the inheritance of the Lord?"
12:50 Joab protested. He said:
12:52 "That is not so. But a man from the mountains of Ephraim,
12:55 Sheba the son of Bichri by name,
12:57 has raised his hand against the king, against David.
13:01 Deliver him only and I will depart from the city."
13:06 All I want is Sheba.
13:08 If I get him, I will leave in peace.
13:10 Now, the inference is clear.
13:13 If I don't get this guy, one way or another,
13:17 I will bulldoze my way into the city and destroy whatever
13:23 and whoever gets in my way until I find Sheba and end his life.
13:28 So here's a mother in Israel.
13:30 Wise, according to the Bible.
13:33 Now, we need to keep this in mind.
13:35 Remember, this was a different time, a different era.
13:38 But this mother in Israel realized
13:40 that her life was in danger.
13:43 Her city was in jeopardy.
13:45 And therefore, her own children were facing an uncertain future.
13:51 So what do you do when you're a mother
13:54 and your children are in danger?
13:57 This mother, like most mothers would,
14:00 decided that she would do whatever she had to do.
14:03 And so she said this:
14:05 "Watch, his head will be thrown to you over the wall."
14:11 Now, that's grim, I know.
14:12 But think about what had to have gone through her mind.
14:15 This Sheba is a scoundrel. He's endangering us all.
14:19 The only way we're going to turn this thing around
14:20 is by convincing Joab that the man is dead.
14:23 And we won't be able to convince Joab of that, without proof.
14:26 And so that means...
14:29 And imagine her thinking this through,
14:31 and she realized how awful this was going to have to be.
14:34 Mothers give life. They don't take it.
14:37 For anyone to take a life,
14:38 you've got to cross some pretty significant mental
14:41 and emotional bridges.
14:43 This wasn't a warrior in Israel,
14:45 or a soldier in Israel. She was a mother in Israel.
14:49 But her people were in danger. Her children were in danger.
14:52 So what did she do?
14:54 She did what she had to, because she was a mother.
14:58 Now, notice how Second Samuel, chapter 20, verse 22 puts this:
15:04 Then the woman in her wisdom went to all the people.
15:08 So as hard as this might be to really understand,
15:11 what she did is described by God as wise.
15:16 The details aren't recorded in the Bible,
15:18 but the end result is.
15:22 And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri,
15:26 and threw it out to Joab.
15:30 We're not told how she communicated this to the people
15:32 and convinced them about what they had to do.
15:34 It might not have taken too much convincing, actually.
15:37 I don't know.
15:38 But what we do know is that by the time this episode was over,
15:42 Sheba had met with a very unfortunate end.
15:45 And after all this, Abel Meth Maakah was safe.
15:49 Joab never came inside, and the people there,
15:51 including the children, were left in peace.
15:54 Now, that was a tough call.
15:56 And very obviously I'm not recommending that anybody
15:58 think about imitating what this woman did.
16:01 But this was a desperate time,
16:02 and it called for desperate measures.
16:04 And it was a mother in Israel who was wise enough
16:07 to step forward and say, "We have to preserve our people.
16:10 We have to save our children.
16:11 And I'll do whatever needs to be done
16:13 in order to make that happen." That's what mothers do.
16:17 They nurture their children in a thousand different ways.
16:20 They give and give and give of themselves.
16:23 They aren't paid for what they do as mothers, and they work,
16:26 more often than not, unrecognized.
16:30 They're the glue that keeps thousands of school committees
16:32 and volunteer organizations and children's groups
16:34 and sports clubs, and who knows what else, held together.
16:38 And often they don't have the time and they could be doing
16:41 other things or pursuing other interests.
16:44 Mothers do what they do because, well, because they're mothers.
16:47 That's what God has placed in their heart.
16:50 And so we recognize mothers, a day a year.
16:54 Come on, kids and dads, can't we do better than that?
16:58 Surely we can.
17:00 Along with buying flowers or cooking breakfast
17:02 or taking Mom out to dinner,
17:03 or whatever it might be on Mother's Day,
17:06 make sure that's not the only time you do something like that.
17:10 And you do it for them, why? Well, tell them why.
17:14 Because we love you, and we appreciate you,
17:18 and because we don't say thank you often enough.
17:21 ♪[Music]♪
17:27 >>Announcer: In Matthew 4:4, the Word of God says...
17:30 “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
17:33 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'”
17:37 "Every Word" is a one-minute, Bible-based daily devotional
17:40 presented by Pastor John Bradshaw,
17:42 and designed especially for busy people like you.
17:45 Look for Every Word on selected networks,
17:48 or watch it online every day on our website,
17:51 ItIsWritten.com.
17:53 Receive a daily spiritual boost.
17:55 Watch "Every Word." You'll be glad you did.
17:58 Here's a sample.
18:00 ♪[Theme music]♪
18:05 An Indian businessman wanted to buy his wife something special
18:09 for her 44th birthday.
18:10 So he bought her a $60 million luxury jet.
18:14 Not to be outdone,
18:15 his brother bought his wife an $80 million luxury boat.
18:18 So much for flowers or perfume.
18:21 Mother's Day shouldn't be all about gifts,
18:22 but it's appropriate that mothers know
18:24 how much they're appreciated.
18:26 There's no higher calling in this world than to be a mother
18:29 no greater responsibility.
18:31 Mothers should be appreciated, and not just today,
18:34 but every day.
18:35 Remember what Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:2 and 3:
18:38 “Honor your father and mother,”
18:39 which is the first commandment with promise:
18:41 “that it may be well with you
18:42 and you may live long on the earth.”
18:44 While we celebrate mothers today,
18:46 let your demonstration of appreciation be more than
18:49 a one-time event, but a matter of ongoing appreciation.
18:53 And Happy Mother's Day.
18:54 I'm John Bradshaw for It Is Written.
18:56 Let's live today by every word.
18:58 ♪[Theme music]♪
19:05 >>John: Which mother in the Bible do you aspire to be like?
19:09 Or which Bible mother do you most identify with?
19:12 What a question.
19:13 Now, that's one that will put on the pressure, isn't it?
19:15 If there's one you'd like to be like, maybe that would be Mary,
19:19 or Hannah, or who do you think?
19:22 Do you know what I think?
19:24 I think that, honestly, most mothers probably don't see
19:28 themselves as Mary,
19:30 the nearest thing we have to a perfect mother.
19:31 Although we'll come back to that in just a moment.
19:34 Most mothers most likely don't see themselves as being like
19:38 Elizabeth or Hannah, these model mothers who seem to have all the
19:42 answers and an endless supply of spiritual wisdom and obedience
19:47 and faithfulness. And that's okay, I think.
19:50 Because when you look into the Bible,
19:51 you see a lot of mothers who blew it.
19:55 Let's look at some of them.
19:56 Followers of Jesus strive for Christlike-ness.
19:59 Or at least they should. That's the aim.
20:02 Our experience as Christians ought to see more
20:04 and more of Jesus being seen in us, and less
20:07 and less about selfish selves seen in us.
20:11 But there's not a single redwood tree in the forest
20:13 that didn't start out as a tiny seedling.
20:16 And on the way from this to this,
20:18 there were a lot of tough days: hot days, freezing cold days,
20:22 strong winds that blew the tree this way and that.
20:26 And maybe, maybe even almost blew the tree over.
20:29 I've seen magnificent Sequoias up close,
20:31 and some of them have been ravaged by fire,
20:34 and they're scarred, and they're damaged.
20:36 But they're resilient.
20:38 And the experts will tell you that those fires are actually
20:40 good for the forest.
20:43 It sounds to me a little bit more like
20:45 the reality of motherhood: rough days,
20:48 good days but rough days, stormy days, scars, damage.
20:55 But motherhood; parenthood, for that matter,
20:56 isn't only about the moment.
20:59 It's more about the journey, the destination.
21:02 And that's what I believe we see in the Bible.
21:05 So let's take a look at a couple of case studies of mothers
21:08 and mothering in the Bible.
21:11 Did mothers in the Bible always get it right?
21:15 Well, first let's consider Sarah.
21:18 Ahh, now there's a great mother.
21:20 The mother of Isaac. The wife of Abraham, the great man of faith.
21:24 Wonderful Sarah, who lacked faith, didn't believe God,
21:29 and actually recommended to her husband that he father a child
21:32 by another woman.
21:34 And we know how that turned out.
21:36 She was then cruel to the woman in question,
21:38 and that union between her husband
21:40 and the other woman; the union she put her husband up to,
21:42 has had historically catastrophic consequences.
21:46 And Sarah lied.
21:48 You remember that? Not only did she lie, but Sarah lied to God.
21:53 She's 90 or so years old when God stops by to visit Abraham.
21:57 They prepare a meal, and the Lord says in Genesis,
22:00 chapter 18, verse 10:
22:01 "Sarah your wife shall have a son."
22:04 That's what God told Abraham.
22:06 And Sarah hears this, because she's at the door of the tent,
22:10 and she laughed to herself.
22:11 And she said to herself, am I going to have a child at my age?
22:15 And the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh?"
22:19 In Genesis, chapter 18 and verse 15, the Bible says this:
22:24 But Sarah denied it, saying I did not laugh for she was afraid
22:28 "And He said [now, that's God],
22:30 "No, but you did laugh!"
22:32 God told her off!
22:34 Sarah, this great mother, was far from perfect.
22:39 And then you've got Rebekah, encouraging Jacob
22:42 to lie to Isaac, which caused all kinds of strife,
22:44 including that she never saw her son again after he fled.
22:48 How hard must that have been?
22:50 But in spite of this failing,
22:51 in spite of these not insignificant failings,
22:54 how did it turn out?
22:55 How did it turn out for Sarah?
22:57 Sarah's one of only two women
22:59 to mentioned by name in the faith chapter, Hebrews 11.
23:02 In spite of her, her not trivial failings,
23:05 Sarah is named by God as a giant of faith. Isn't that something?
23:10 Mothers can't always get it right.
23:13 It's the toughest job in the world to master
23:15 at least that's what I think.
23:16 Mothers are nurses, doctors, counselors, psychologists.
23:20 A mother is a chef, and a tailor, and a decorator,
23:23 and an event planner, and a teacher,
23:24 and an emergency room physician, and a negotiator,
23:28 and a provider.
23:29 And you've got to balance all of that with the demands of work,
23:32 the demands of being a wife and daughter and a friend,
23:34 and a thousand other things.
23:36 And God understands that.
23:37 Sarah is in the faith hall of fame.
23:40 And she did some things that I hope you would never do.
23:43 It's a journey, isn't it?
23:44 And the question isn't how many potholes you hit along the way,
23:47 or whether or not you've had the occasional fender bender.
23:50 The question is, who do you lean on when you need support?
23:54 Who do you trust your heart to?
23:56 Who's in control of you,
23:58 even if you don't always feel as if you're in control?
24:02 You see, God is gracious,
24:04 and if anyone needs grace and help for the journey,
24:06 it's a mother,
24:07 because there's no more important job in the world.
24:10 And God knows that.
24:11 And if you're a mother, he's with you in this.
24:14 Wouldn't it be nice if all mothers were perfect
24:17 all the time? Well, they're not.
24:19 Let me give you another example,
24:20 maybe one that you're not expecting.
24:22 Let's talk about Mary, shall we?
24:26 Yes, Mary, the mother of Jesus.
24:28 I think it's fair that we bring this up.
24:31 Jesus was 12 years old.
24:34 They go to Jerusalem to observe the Passover.
24:37 Look at this with me.
24:38 It's in the gospel of Luke, in chapter 2, verses 43 and 44:
24:42 When they had finished the days, as they returned, the Boy Jesus
24:47 lingered behind in Jerusalem.
24:49 And Joseph and His mother did not know it;
24:51 but supposing Him to have been in the company,
24:54 they went a day's journey,
24:56 and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances.
25:01 Walk through this.
25:03 Somehow, Jesus is allowed to linger in Jerusalem.
25:07 He's 12 years old.
25:09 Now, sure, it might have been a safer society
25:11 then than now--might have been.
25:13 I had a whole lot more freedom at 12
25:15 than either of my children had.
25:17 Times have changed.
25:18 But even so, the Bible says Joseph
25:22 and Jesus' mother did not know it.
25:25 They didn't know Jesus had remained behind in Jerusalem.
25:29 How do you not know?
25:30 They supposed he was in the company,
25:32 the group of people traveling together.
25:34 They supposed?
25:35 A mother supposes that her mother is in the group,
25:38 but she doesn't know?
25:40 They traveled for a whole day, and they didn't know Jesus
25:43 was not with them.
25:45 And they didn't find him for three days.
25:47 Who had been taking care of him? Who fed him?
25:50 Who tucked him in at night?
25:52 Who prayed with him before he went to sleep?
25:55 Not his parents. Not his mother, Mary.
25:58 Instead, Mary supposed that Jesus was in the group.
26:03 And she supposed wrong.
26:07 Now, I don't want you to stone me for saying this,
26:09 but you could easily say that Mary was negligent.
26:13 If this happened in a modern-day society,
26:15 she and Joseph would most likely get a visit
26:18 from Child Protective Services. She lost her son.
26:22 You could say that she was careless.
26:24 It's not like he snuck off.
26:26 Mary and Joseph left Jerusalem without making sure they knew
26:29 where their boy was.
26:30 So, I say this to say this: If you're not perfect, well,
26:35 the truth is, not even Mary was always perfect.
26:38 I hate to put it like that,
26:40 as she was obviously an incredible mother.
26:42 Don't get me wrong.
26:43 She was blessed among women, chosen by God,
26:45 raised her son in Nazareth, and he still turned out perfectly.
26:49 But, you know, mistakes happen.
26:51 That's not to say they're okay,
26:53 but it is to say that we are human.
26:57 Mothers are human too.
26:58 In spite of Sarah lying to God, in spite of Rebekah
27:01 messing up her family,
27:02 in spite of Mary losing Jesus for three days,
27:05 it turned out well enough. You see, love makes the difference.
27:09 And love is what affects a child most.
27:11 If you can love your child and lean on God,
27:13 then that's what you need to be a truly great mother.
27:16 God's grace makes the difference.
27:18 And if you're a mother who's ever make a mistake,
27:21 I want you to remember today that God is gracious,
27:23 and God cares, and God loves mothers.
27:27 And God's with you, and God knows a mother's heart.
27:34 There are hundreds,
27:34 even thousands of promises in the Bible,
27:37 all made by God to be a blessing and an encouragement for you.
27:41 Receive today's free offer.
27:43 It's "Promises of Peace."
27:46 Be blessed by the promises of God.
27:48 To receive "Promises of Peace," call us at
27:51 800-253-3000,
27:53 or visit us online at
27:55 ItIsWritten.com.
27:56 Also, you can write to us at the address on your screen,
27:59 and receive our free offer,
28:02 "Promises of Peace."
28:04 Thanks for remembering that It Is Written
28:07 is a faith-based ministry.
28:08 And your support makes it possible for us to share
28:11 God's good news with the entire world.
28:15 Your tax-deductible gift
28:16 can be sent to the address on your screen,
28:18 or through our website at
28:20 ItIsWritten.com.
28:22 Thank you for your continued prayerful support.
28:25 Again, our toll-free number is
28:27 800-253-3000,
28:30 and our web address is
28:31 www.ItIsWritten.com
28:36 >>John: Let's take a moment to pray together.
28:39 Our Father in Heaven,
28:40 I thank you that in your infinite wisdom
28:42 you gave all of us a mother.
28:44 I not only thank you,
28:45 but I praise you for your perfect plan.
28:48 I want to pray especially for mothers,
28:51 that they would know your presence,
28:53 that they would know how much you appreciate them.
28:56 I pray that they would be appreciated,
28:58 and that they be given great grace for that most important
29:02 job in the whole world,
29:04 that blessed role of being a mother.
29:07 It's a role full of joys, but it has its challenges, Lord.
29:10 You know that.
29:11 But with you, the challenge of even motherhood
29:14 is not too great.
29:15 Bless and keep us all, I pray.
29:19 And we thank you in Jesus' name.
29:23 Amen.
29:25 Thank you so much for joining us today.
29:27 I'm looking forward to seeing you again next time.
29:29 Until then, remember:
29:31 "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone
29:35 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
29:41 ♪[Theme music]♪

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Revised 2017-05-03