on this morning. Amen. And He always will be. I appreciate the faithfulness of our God. Amen. Alright, if you have your Bibles, let's turn to the book of 2 Samuel this morning. The book of 2 Samuel will be in chapter number 21. And we begin last week looking at faithfulness as our theme for the month of May. And this morning I want to continue that thought, but in light of Mother's Day, as we honor our mothers today for God blessing us with them. and them being a tremendous part of the church. I looked up here this morning and saw, I don't know how many, maybe 30 or more mothers standing across the stage, and what a blessing that is. Amen. I appreciate all the work. A lot of times the mothers' work, the ladies' work is done behind the scenes, but it's still very vital and very important. And if you'll just be honest, men, this morning, if you've got a godly wife, we could not be nor do what we're able to do without them. God gave Eve, or Adam, Eve in the garden as a helpmeet. And the two became one. And I believe that's the way the marriage ought to be. And as we serve the Lord, we serve together as one. Amen? And God uses that. This morning I want to look at a particular mother in the Bible that may not be very familiar to you, but what a tremendous mother she was. And she was probably in one of the hardest places of any mother that you read about in the Scripture. And we want to look at the life of Rizpah this morning. She was one of Saul's concubines and how God has given us a tremendous example here. So I want to begin reading in 2 Samuel 21 in verse 1. Let's read down through verse number 14. And if you're able to stand together today, let's stand together in reverence of God's Word and read these verses and then let's pray and let's ask the Lord to meet with us here today in His house. 2 Samuel chapter 21, verse number 1. The Bible said, Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year. And David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered, Is it for Saul? It is for Saul and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. And the king called the Gibeonites and said unto them, Now the Gibeonites were not the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites. And the children of Israel had sworn unto them, and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah. Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And wherewith shall I make this atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord? And the Gibeonites said unto him, We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house, neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel. And he said, What ye shall say, that will I do for you. And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coast of Israel, let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did choose. And the king said, I will give them. But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because the Lord's oath was between them, between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul. Now let me stop right there just a minute. This is a different message. But Mephibosheth is being spared from this judgment because of the grace that he found in 2 Samuel chapter 9. Because he was scooted up under the table of grace, he's going to miss out on what we're about to read about. Now we're going to read about another Mephibosheth in verse 8, but this is a different one. Verse 8 said, But the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Ai, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, the five sons of Michael, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Barzillai, the Methoilite. 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 the harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of the barley harvest. And Rizvah the daughter of Ahai took sackcloth and spread it for her upon the rock. from the beginning of the 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. And it was told David that Rizvah the daughter of Ahaiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh-gilead, which had stolen them from the street of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa. And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son, and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged. And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin, in Zelah, in the sepulcher of Kish his father. And they performed all that the king commanded, and after that God was entreated for the land. Let's go to the Lord in prayer this morning. Fathers, I bow before You. I thank You for this great day that You've given us to worship You. I thank You for the songs that have encouraged us and stirred our hearts this morning. Lord, I thank You for the time of prayer and the time of Sunday school. And Lord, I thank You for this great Mother's Day that You've given us once again to honor our mothers. Lord, I ask today that You would use us to speak to the heart of these dear mothers that are in this church today Lord, I realize we're living in a society that so downgrades the place of the mother and the great blessing that she is in the home. But I pray this morning, God, You would encourage our mothers that are here, and for those young ladies that are among us this morning that are not mothers yet, And one day we'll be. God, I pray that You'd use the message this morning to place some truths in their heart. God, that they might be the mothers someday that You'd have them to be. Lord, someone rightly said, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. God, help us this morning to worship You. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen. Thank God for the reading of His Word. Now, I want to notice Rizpah in our text this morning and preach on this thought just for a little while on Rizpah, the model mother. Rizpah, the model mother. Now, you might already be thinking in your mind, what a strange passage of Scripture about a mother that sat by five dead sons And how could God have ever blessed in that? Or how could God have used that? Well, we're going to see as we get in our text this morning what a great mother that Rizpah was. Now leading up to this, and we've read in the Scripture this morning, you find out that these seven men, five of them being sons of Michael, two of them being sons of Rizvah, she had two sons, not five, that were hanging here, and these that were judged because of the sin of their father Saul were in a bad situation in the nation of Israel. We find that as we open up chapter 21 that there's been three years of famine upon the people of God because of the sins of Saul. As you look through this chapter, you see a great truth in the Bible about generational sin. And that's a totally different message, but if somebody doesn't break the chain of sin in generations, then it continues on and on. And many times, the sons and even the grandchildren of the father or the grandfather have to pay the price for the sin that they committed. We know that Saul was a disobedient king and a disobedient man. You remember back in the book of Joshua how that Joshua made a league with the Gibeonites. They came and they acted as if they were from afar and they had molded bread and clouded shoes, and they deceived Joshua. But nevertheless, he blessed them and brought them in under the protection of the nation of Israel. And because of that, they were under a protection order all the days of the nation of Israel. Now Saul had become zealous as he went to deliver the Israelites, and had laid his hand upon the Gibeonites. And in doing so, he had transgressed the Word of God and the protection order that had come from Joshua. So you find now in 2 Samuel 21, near the end of the life of David, you find now that these Gibeonites have come to require payment for that sin. And in doing so, David realized that to bless the nation of Israel, he was going to have to pay for that. In the Old Testament economy, it was an eye for an eye. and a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life. So as David began to question the Gibeonites and ask them what they would require, they told him that they needed seven sons from Saul's lineage to pay the price. So we find that happened. Now, when we get into verse number 10, I want to begin looking at what Rizpah did in this situation. These seven sons were taken up. She had no power to stop it. Two of them hers, five of them the sons of Michael. She had no power to put it off. She couldn't do anything about it. No doubt she would have willingly given her life to keep her own sons from going to the tree and being hung. But nevertheless it happened. Now here she is. She's in a bad place. If you study the name of Rizvah, it means alive coal. She had great passion for her children, even though physically speaking her sons were deceased. their bodies were hanging on that tree and their life was no longer with them. Yet you find how Rizpah conducted herself was a great testimony of a model mother. And I want to look at verses 10 down through verse 14 and give you the message this morning on Rizpah, the model mother. Now notice with me, if you will, in verse number 10, we find her prayer. Now, before I get into that, you may say, why would anybody set by these dead sons and do what Rizvah did? Well, we see in our text that Rizvah's sons were physically dead. But I want to remind you this morning, if you have children, mothers, and they're not saved, they're spiritually dead. And when they come into this world, they don't come into this world being born again. They come into this world as sinners. And then there's a day and an hour in their life, between them and God, when God begins to deal with their heart, and they reach that knowledge of accountability, and they realize that they're lost. And then from that time until they get saved, if they were to die without God, without salvation, and the free pardon of sin, then they would die and go to hell. And I realize we don't like to think about that, especially with our own children. But the fact of the matter is they're lost until they get saved. and they're dead in their trespasses and in their sin. Now, I understand that little babies that have not reached the age of accountability, there's grace that covers that, we know that. And I really don't even like to say the age of accountability. There's no specific age. There are those that think, well, twelve years old, that's not the case. There are some that understand the gospel at four and five years old, and their hearts are convicted and they get saved. There are some that go on into teenage years before the light turns on in their heart, But nevertheless, Rizvah had two sons that were hanging here that were dead. You find now in verse 10, we begin to see what she did about these that were dead. We find first of all her prayer. Notice what the Bible said. The Bible said in Rizvah, the daughter of Ahiah took sackcloth and spread it for her upon the rock. Now anytime you see sackcloth in the Word of God, it is a point of repentance. The sackcloth was made out of goat's hair in Bible days. It was real coarse and rough, and it was not comfortable. And many times, those that were humiliating themselves and humbling themselves would put on the sackcloth and the ashes upon their head as a sign of repentance and a sign of prayer and communion with God. And I find this morning that Red Spinel is in a hard place. Remember, her name is Alive Coal. She has a great passion for her children. Even though they're dead, she still loves them. She remembers the day that they were born. She remembers how she cuddled them and swaddled them and took care of them and raised these boys up. She remembers them as young boys and going through all the stages of life. And her heart is broken over the deadness of her sons. And can I tell you this morning, mother, the greatest burden you can have on your heart is that your children would be saved. The greatest thing you could pray every single day of your life was that your dead children, dead in trespasses and sin, would call upon the name of the Lord and be saved before it's too late. And you'll find her prayer. Notice a couple of things about it in verse 10. Number one, I notice it was not comfortable. And here she was, she was sitting on a rock, and that's not comfortable within itself, but she laid out this sackcloth upon this rock to place herself upon. And we're going to find out as we go through these verses, she spent a good length of time there. And as she was on that sackcloth, I see this prayer, this supplication, no doubt, that she is illustrating here and how it was not a comfortable thing to be upon. And I want to remind you this morning, ladies, that praying for your children is not a comfortable thing. Praying for your children is not something that is easy. It's not something that comes in just a natural way. We have to fight our flesh to bow our heads and burden and pray and ask God to save our children. I'm reminded of John Wesley, the great Methodist preacher, and also his brother Charles Wesley and how their mother, Susanna, I believe she had 17 or 19 children, and she failed not each day to pray individually with and for her children. And you say, well, I don't have time to pray for my children. Well, tell her that when you get to heaven. Amen? Get her to explain to you how she did it with about four times as many children as most of us and not all the modern conveniences that we have. But she understood something. She understood that there had to be a labor in prayer. And if I can encourage you mothers this morning to do anything for your children, it would be to stay in a constant state of prayer for them that they would not only get saved, but then after they get saved they would walk with God and be used for God's glory and for God's honor. and you find her sackcloth, it was not comfortable. Notice something else, it was not comely, it was not a beautiful thing. If you look at sackcloth itself, it was ugly to the world. Most of the time it was made out of black goat's hair, brown goat's hair, and it was just an ugly looking piece of cloth that nobody wanted. It would not have met the fashion standards of this day. It would not have been something that anybody really wanted to purchase or have. It was something that was not comely. And can I remind you, in our society that we live, to be a godly mother is not a comely thing to our society. It's not a popular thing. It's not a beautiful thing in our society. We live in such a twisted, perverted society in America that has so degraded the place of the mother, and so tore down the sanctity of the mother in the home, and perverted it, and just made mockery of it on our television shows, and in our media, and in our schoolhouses, and it's just like the mother seems not to be honored anymore. And let me tell you something this morning, there's no greater love than a mother's love outside the love of God. There's a burden, you mothers know what I'm talking about, there's a burden, there's a closeness, there's a love that comes forth from the heart of a mother that is greater than anything on this earth. Amen? And you find here she was, she was in a place that was not comfortable, she was in a place that was not comely. If some of the modern day ladies of that day had come by the rock there, they would have looked up and said, hey Rispa, what are you doing there? This is not where you need to be. This is not the hip place. This is not the cool place. Hey, come with us, all of us. We're going down and we're going to do some fun things. Get off of that rock. Get off of that place of prayer and come down here and live with us. It's so sickening. We live in a society where mothers forget that they're mothers. And sometimes mothers get up in their 30's and 40's and 50's and somehow or another they have a problem between their ears and they think they're 16 and 17 again. Amen? And they fail to remember that God has placed a life or multiple lives into their hands to use them to try to nurture them and point them toward the saving grace of God. I want to tell you this morning, mothers, and you know it already, if you've been a mother for a while, a Christian mother, you understand it's not comely to this world. You understand this world doesn't understand why you do what you do. The world's mentality, I think a lot of mothers in our day, the world, mothers, and the world's mentality is to have children just to say that you have children. They'll have children, they'll shove them off in daycare just a few weeks old, and they'll never have anything to do with them in their life. Now listen, I understand there are some mothers that are in situations that can't help that. There are single mothers out there. There are those that are in areas where they can't help do that. But God didn't give you those children for somebody else to raise. Amen? God gave you those children that you might be the mother to them, that you might impart some things in their heart that nothing or nobody else can take the place of. You see, Risbeau was in a place that was not comely. And I know the pressure on mothers today. I understand the pressure on godly mothers that are at home, and maybe you don't have all the finer things of the world, and the fancy cars, and the fancy houses, because you've not sold yourself out to the work world. I want to commend you this morning, mothers. If you're at home raising those children, trying to make ends meet, you stay with it. There'll be a payoff one of these days. It may be hard now. It may not be calmly now. Some of those ungodly mothers may look down their nose at you. But I'll tell you, one of these days, you'll be resting in the goodness of God while they're pulling their hair out because their kids have turned into hellions and running up and down this nation causing nothing but grief on their heart. You stay with it, mothers, even though it's not calmly. You stay in that place of prayer. You stay in that place of supplication with God. You stay faithful to raising those children, and God will reward your efforts. Amen? You find her prayer here. It was a labor of love. Notice something else in verse 10. Verse 10 is a rich verse. In verse number 10, I find her place. Look where she was at. She was not just any place. The Bible said she took the sackcloth. And she spread it for her wear up on the rock. Amen? This rock is a type of none other than Christ. This Mother Rispa was in a hard place. She was alive cold. That's what her name means. She had a passion to do what she could. And she said, what I'm going to do is take this sackcloth. It's not popular. It's not comfortable. I'm going to lay it out on the rock. And I'm going to get on that sackcloth, she said. And I'm going to stay on the rock. Amen? Mothers, I want to say to you this morning, amen, to the mothers, stay on the rock, amen? Stay with Christ. Stay with the church. Stay with the Bible. Stay with serving Jesus. And God will bring a fruit of reward into your life through your children. Notice what the Bible goes on to teach us here about her place. I notice two things about the rock. Number one, it was solid. Amen? Now, you can raise your children on the whims of this world, and you can teach your boys and girls to run with the fashion crowd, and with the in crowd, and the cheerleading crowd, you know, the football crowd and all the big crowd like that if you want to, but I'm telling you, if you'll teach them how to stay on the rock, if you'll teach them how to pray, amen, if you'll teach them how to read the Bible, if you'll teach your mothers by your own example how to come down to the house of God and worship God and live a holy and a clean life, I'm going to tell you what God will do. God will take your life, and He'll impart some of your life into the heart of that child, and you'll raise them up on the solid rock, and then one day they'll stand on the very same rock that you raised them on. I'm going to tell you, children are a product of their environment. And there's a lot of young people this morning, they didn't stand a snowball's chance you know where because they didn't have a mother that loved God or a daddy that loved God. Amen? They didn't have somebody to surrender their life. If you're not going to give your life to your children, don't have them. Amen? If you're not going to give your life to point them toward God, don't bring them into this world, turn them loose and let them go to hell. If you're going to do right by them, live for them. Raise them up on the rock of Christ. Amen? And you'll never be sorry for it. Notice this rock. This rock is interesting. It's a solid place, but here's something else. And I think you mothers could say amen to this if you've been a mother for a while, a Christian mother. It's a solitary place. Now, I'm a daddy. We have nine children, but I'm not a mother. And I don't know what it means to be a mother. The only thing I know about a mother is watching my wife be a mother to our children. But I'm going to tell you, being a mother is a solitary place. There are burdens that a godly mother carries that nobody else understands. There are nights when a godly mother is troubled in her heart, when the daddy's not troubled and he's fast asleep. There's days when fear comes upon the heart of a godly mother that us men know nothing about. There's a lot of times it'll happen. I'll say, honey, it'll be alright. That's my famous words for everything. It'll be alright. It'll be alright, even if it sounds like it ain't, I'll say it'll be alright. Try to kind of keep it positive, amen? But there's times I've watched my wife and other mothers in this church, they love your children, I've watched you be burdened and you get in a solitary place. If you notice the Bible teaches us, Rizba didn't have any visitors on the rock. She didn't have anybody come by and say, Rizba, you're doing good, stay with it, stay on that rock, God will bless you. She didn't have that, amen? Rizvah was in a solitary place. And mothers, sometimes it's lonely in the solitary place. It's lonely carrying the burden of being a mother. The husband gets up and goes to work and gets some of the things off his mind. But day after day, you're carrying the load of being the mother and the keeper of the home. And it's 24-7, 365 days a year. It never lets up. It's a solitary place where you're at. I told somebody one time, I said, I'm not man enough to be a mother, amen? I'm not. Because it's a solitary load, but thank God, Rizbo was willing to sit in this solitary place. When everybody else may have been having a good time, Rizbo said, I'm going to stay here. I've got two sons that are dead. I've got two sons that need some kind of intercession. And I'm going to stay on this rock. And you're going to see how it paid off here in just a few minutes. Notice her prayer. Notice her place. Ladies, stay on the rock as a godly mother. Number three, I want you to notice her persistence. This amazes me. I'm going to tell you this morning, if this was not in the Bible, I'd have a hard time believing it. If this was not wrote down in the holy pages of God's Word, if I read this somewhere else, I'd say there's no way that this dear lady did what she did. But I want you to notice her persistence this morning. Mothers, I want to remind you, many of you already know it, being a mother, sometimes just being persistent. It's just getting up every morning, putting one foot in front of another. Getting up the next day, putting one foot in front of another. Getting up the next day, doing what you know is right. Sometimes you think it's not going to work. Sometimes you look at your children and you think they're never going to turn out good, or something's going to go wrong, or the world's going to do this or that. And I'm telling you, mother, just that plain, oh godly persistence of walking in the path of righteousness will make the difference in the life of your children. Notice what happens in her persistence. This is a great illustration here. In verse 10, notice the beginning of this ordeal with Rizpah. Notice what the Bible said. The Bible said that she did this now. She put the sackcloth on the rock from the beginning of the harvest until water dropped on them out of heaven. I want you to notice two things about her persistence here. First of all, here's the beginning of it. The Bible tells us it's the beginning of barley harvest. If you know anything about barley harvest, in Bible days it was the number one crop for the nation of Israel. It was probably over 50% of all their harvesting was barley harvesting. And from what I can find out from all of my studies, the barley harvest was an all-hands-on-deck situation, amen? When it was time to harvest barley, everybody got involved. Do you remember the book of Ruth? When Ruth and Naomi came back from Moab, it was the time of the beginning of the barley harvest. You find Ruth out there gleaning in the field, others gleaning in the field. So there's no doubt in my mind the majority of people, probably even the mothers, maybe they didn't have little bitty children, were involved somehow in that barley harvest. If you'll notice this morning when she began this, in this beginning it took persistence to even start doing what she was doing. You see, everybody else was involved in the most important thing of the hour, which was barley harvest. And mothers, here's how the devil will work against you. You'll be at home raising those children and Satan will come by and he'll say, life's passing you by. You're not getting any younger. He'll come by and say, look at what all these other mothers are doing. Look at the fun they're having. Look at what they're involved in. There's more important things. You need to be making money. You need to be storing up wealth. You need to be getting in on this. You need to be getting in on that. And the devil will come by and tell you, you're wasting your time with those children because everybody else is doing something else. There's no doubt that's where Rizpah was at. I wonder how many days as she sat on this rock that the adversary came by and whispered in her ear and said, everybody else is out getting barley. Everybody else is involved in the need of the hour and things that are much more important than what you're doing. Can I remind you this morning, mothers, there's nothing, nothing on planet earth worth more than you putting God into your children. I mean nothing. What price would you put on your children this morning? Well, if I was to come down through the crowd and I'd say, okay, how many of you would sell your children for a particular price? A few of you daddies might raise your hand, especially them big eaters in the house. But you mothers, you wouldn't sell your children for anything. It doesn't matter how they act or how they do. You love them and you'd give your life for them. That's exactly where Respo was at. Even though there was something very important going on in society per se, she understood that the most important place for her to be was on that rock, being persistent for those two sons that she had brought into this world. Amen? Notice the beginning. Now, look at this about her persistence. Notice the burden. Look what the Bible tells us here. The Bible said, that she sat on this rock from the beginning of harvest, which was right around April, May or so in the Jewish time. Their planting season was flipped backwards from ours. And she sat there, the Bible said this, until the water dropped upon them from out of heaven. I believe this refers to what the Bible would call the early rain. The growing season was usually from October around to March, April, May in that area. Once you got into April, May, you begin to harvest. They had a backwards growing season. The Bible speaks about the early and the latter rain. The early rain was in what we would call the fall time. And the seed was planted and it would begin to work through the winter time and then it would come up in the spring time at the time of the latter rain. So if my calculations are right, Rizpah sat on this rock for five months, mothers, five months. Through the dry season, through the hot season, through the long summer days, through the days with very little to help her or comfort her, she sat on this rock, she carried this burden for five months to two boys that were hanging in a tree. You see the tremendous persistence in this lady? Mothers, there's going to be times your persistence is going to have to outweigh what the mind thinks is sensible. Your persistence is going to have to override what society says you need to be doing. Listen, just look at society. Proof's in the pudding, amen? I've never got to preach that message. God helps me one of these days. I'm going to preach a message. Proof's in the pudding, amen? You ladies that cook, you know that ingredients matter. And whatever you put into that thing is what you're going to get when it's over. And that's the way it is raising children. Whatever you put in them is what you're going to get. You leave stuff out, don't expect to get a good product at the end. And Rizpah understood, I've got to stay here. I've got a commitment. It's not easy. Sure, she would have rather been somewhere else. Sure, in her flesh, she would have rather been in a comfortable place. But her persistence was that she's going to carry that burden for five solid months sitting up on that rock. People probably talked about her all through the town. People probably said, Rizpa's crazy. That old woman's crazy. She got out there on that rock and went crazy. And there hang her sons and she's wasting her life and wasting her time. And what she's doing is no good. That's exactly what the world will say to you mothers when you get ready to sell out and give your life to raising your children and being that godly example in their life. The world will call you crazy. They do it every single day. And can I go a little farther? A good portion of the church in this hour will call you crazy. Let me tell you something this morning, if you can't encourage a mother to raise her children for God, you keep your mouth shut, amen? Don't you say, I know a lady this morning who claims to be right with God, it makes me mad every time I think about her, and she encouraged a young girl that she knew to go out and leave her children, and it busted up their marriage, and I'm going to tell you that lady is going to stand accountable for God at the judgment seat of Christ one of these days. If you can't encourage these mothers to live for God, don't you say a word to them, amen? They're doing exactly what God's put in their heart. It's a call that God has given them, and it's a very great call that will make a difference one of these days. I hope and pray God will always help me encourage mothers to stay with what God has put in their heart. Look at her persistence. I got to hurry. Not only her persistence, number four, look at this. This really caught my attention. Look at her protection. Now the world would say, Rispa, You're wasting your time fooling with these dead bodies. They're dead. What can you do with a dead body? Nobody likes to be around a dead body. I don't care how much you love somebody, when that body dies, it's not an attractive thing. It's not something you want to be around. You understand when that body dies, that body has to be buried, because we can't live with dead bodies. And here she is, and no doubt the world would have said, she's crazy. Why would you sit there and guard a body that's decaying every day, and there's no life in it, and it's not going to come back. Why would you do that? Well, notice her protection. Look at this. In verse 10, I want you to look at the birds. Look what the Bible tells us here. The Bible said this, As she sat on the rock from the beginning of the harvest until the 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. I want you to notice what Rizva did. Not only is she on the rock for five months. How many of you get a good night's sleep on a rock for five months? Amen. Just about impossible. She didn't have the conveniences of home. She probably had the very bare necessities to live and just exist on that rock for five months. But the Bible goes further to tell us day and night she kept the scavengers off of them. She kept the birds off and she kept the beasts off. I want you to look at what those birds and those beasts represent. Those birds, think about them now, they're scavengers, and those birds would attack from above. Would it not stand to reason that as those buzzards and crows and vultures and whatever they had over there in that day would circle around the bodies of those dead sons, they'd look down at those decaying carcasses and the birds would take off toward them and the first place, naturally speaking, they would land would be upon their head. Can I say to you this morning, ladies, these birds represent how Rizba fought off the attack to their minds. I'm going to tell you something this morning. Where our young people are losing it, it's in their minds. In the media, the internet generation, the video game generation, they've taken captive our young people in their minds. They get it in their mind before it ever comes out of their hands and their feet. That prodigal son, when he left the father's house and went in the far country, something affected his mind before it ever affected his hands and his feet. Amen? And you may have a child that comes to church with you three times a week, and is in your home a pretty decent child, but where is their mind this morning? And I see Rizba as those vultures began to come down and land on the heads of those two sons. I don't know what she had, but it just stands to reason she probably had a big stick there hanging up in the tree. And she runs up and she knocks those vultures down, swats them out of the way. She said, I will not let the vultures of this world get a hold of the minds of my children. Ladies, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, you better put a guard around the minds of your children, because they can sit right on a church pew and die and go to hell. They can sit right on a church pew and end up in the world, in some kind of filth of this world, if you do not guard and control and protect what goes on in their mind, through their eyes, through their ears. The mind is where the battle is at in this hour. You see, the birds represent how they attacked her mind, or their mind, their head, the thought life. Then notice the beast. The Bible said the birds by day, but the beast by night. You ever been in the woods at night before? All kinds of things come out, amen? There's all kinds of nocturnal beasts. And they come out and they begin to creep around. There's a lot of scavengers at night. And they go around looking for an easy meal. These boys were hanging in the trees as the birds came down and affected the head, the mind. I see the beasts this morning as they attack their hands and feet. It just naturally seems to be the beasts would creep out of the bushes at night. Rizpah's laying on that rock. Maybe as the sun went down in the evening and the birds roosted, maybe she got just a few minutes of rest as those birds went to their roosting place and she's sitting there and maybe she's catching just a little bit of sleep on the rock and all of a sudden she hears something in the bushes. She hears something crawling around. She hears something moving and coming and she wakes up. And she gets her attention and she's trying to look in the dark and her eyes are not focusing. All of a sudden, some kind of beast comes out on that rock. Some kind of night creature comes out on that rock. And where it's going to attack is in the hands and the feet. Ladies, can I say to you this morning, the birds attack the mind, the beasts attack the walk and the dedication of your children. There's all kinds of birds and all kinds of beasts that want to attack your children. Satan wants to devour your children. Satan can take your children and turn them upside down. I've seen it happen personally. I know what I'm talking about. Satan can twist your children up and mess your entire life up. Amen? I'm telling you, you've got to protect their hands, protect their feet, protect whatever comes against them to try to destroy them. I can see Rizvah's tired as she may have been and is probably hopeless as people said. She's beating down those beasts as they try to crawl up on the hands and the feet of those dead sons. She knew she had to protect them. Ladies, please protect your children this morning. I want to give you one last thing and I'm done. This is the good part of the story. Notice her power. You say, oh, it was crazy for this woman to sit on this rock five months. It was crazy for her to knock off the beast and knock off the birds and sit on that sack. What in the world did she accomplish out of that? The sons were dead. Well, she found some power, amen? And she got a higher power involved because of her dedication. And I want to remind you ladies this morning, the only way we're ever going to have godly children is by help of a higher power. The only way we're ever going to get children to get saved and serve God and walk with God and make a difference in this world, there's got to be a higher power show up on the scene. There she sat and the town probably mocked her, the world probably mocked her. People that were even her friends said, well, she's been out there way too long. She's crazy. There's something wrong with her. Notice what happens next. Verse 11 through 14. Let's look at her power and I'll finish this morning. In verse number 11, notice the king heard her. The Bible said in verse 11, it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Ahiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. Here's David sitting on his throne. Five months earlier he had given over those seven men. He had forgot about it. He hadn't thought anything about it. The land was being taken care of. God's wrath was being pulled back. The rain had started to come. Drought had ended. David's sitting there and all of a sudden the messenger comes. He said, David, you're not going to believe what's going on. David said, what's happening? So you remember that woman Rizpah about five months ago when you gave the sons of Saul over the Gibeonites? He said, yeah, I remember her. And the messenger probably said, David, she's still sitting on the rock where those sons were hanged five months ago. David probably said, what? What do you mean? You know what happened here? The king got to hear the burden of Rizpah. Mamas, mothers, if you'll live for God and do His rizvidiyah, there's a God in heaven that will hear your burden. If an earthly king like David, it was a man of war, could be touched in his heart by a concubine of his enemy Saul, and by her doing what she did, what do you think the God of heaven is going to do when He looks down and sees you doing like Rizvah? What do you think the God of heaven is going to do when you're praying, and you're persistent, and you're living right, and you're protecting, and God's watching you do the very best you can do, and work and work and work for those children, and God looks down, I'll guarantee you He'll hear exactly what's going on. The king heard. Secondly, look at this, the king helped. Look in verse number 12. Oh, this is good. The Bible said, And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son, from the men of Jabesh Gilead. It looks like that this deal with Rizvah convicted the heart of the king. So much that he goes and gets Jonathan and Saul's bones that he hadn't picked up and given a proper burial. The Bible said, Which had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had hanged them, When the Philistines had slain Saul and Gilboa, notice verse 13, and he brought up from thence the bones of Saul, the bones of Johnathan his son, and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged. See, Erezbo couldn't get those boys off those trees. You remember the Bible said, Cursed is every man that hangeth on a tree. And in the book of Deuteronomy, I believe it might be chapter 11, I didn't write the reference down, but in the book of Deuteronomy, the law was that if an individual was hanged on a tree, they were to be buried before sundown. So these boys were dead, but these boys were dishonored. These boys never got a proper burial up to this point. There was no honor brought on them. It was a shame. If anybody had walked by that place and looked up and saw those boys hanging there, it was a reminder of shame from a past generation. You see, here's Resmah, she stayed with it. Somebody said, what's the use of it? Well, the king heard, the king helped, praise God, and then the king honored. Look in verse 14, and I'll be done. And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son they buried in the country of Benjamin and Zillah, in the sepulcher of Kish his father, and they performed all that the king commanded, and after that God was entreated for the land. God commended Rizpah. God honored those boys, even though they were dead. God honored them with a proper burial because of the persistence of a godly mother. You want your children honored this morning? You want to sit back in your old age one day and watch your children serve God? You want to sit back one day with a joy in your heart and get ready to go meet the Lord with a peace in your soul, watching your children make a difference? By the way, that's what God gave His children for, amen? He gave them to us that we might raise them up and shoot them out as arrows in the hands of a mighty man, and see them make a mark somewhere for the glory of God. I'll promise you mothers, you can sit back one day and enjoy the goodness of God, which is greater than anything this world can afford, if you'll do like Rizvah did. She did the right thing and the king honored her, amen. Oh, you say her sons were dead, sure, but she went to the house knowing they got a proper burial. And in Bible days with the Jews, that was a very important thing, for them to get a proper burial. I want to leave you with this, and I'm done this morning. Rizpah was a model mother. I thank God for the mothers we have in this church. I thank God for the many examples that the Lord has given us here of godly mothers that are faithful. But I want to encourage you this morning, don't get off the track of faithfulness. Don't quit on serving godmothers. Don't quit on living right. Don't quit on pouring your life into your children. They're not raised at 13 years old, amen. They're not raised at that. That's where they really need some raising, about 13 on, amen. You hang on, ladies. Them little toddlers, that's easy. And I know it's hard for you. I'm not making a lie out of that. You say, you stay with them, preacher. I understand. Thank God for my wife. I'd stay with them as long as I could. I'm not making a lie out of that. But I'm telling you, there'll be more serious issues as they approach adulthood. You just stay with it, mothers. That's usually when the pressure gets on about those teenage years. That's a lot of times when divorce happens. That's a lot of times when mothers go haywire and they want to get out there and get that second education. I'm telling you, you better just buckle down. Nothing wrong with you working when those children are raised and they're not your responsibility. But I'm telling you, when they're at home, you better stay with it and put everything you can into them. And then one of these days, you can sit back and say, God has given victory and the King has heard my cry. Amen? You have the message this morning. I could go on and on. But here's Rizpah, a tremendous example of a godly mother. I hope and pray this morning that God will take this message, mothers, and encourage you. And if you're here today and you're not a godly mother, you know who you are, you know your heart, whatever it is, I pray you'll scoot up to the Lord today, get things right with God. If you're not saved this morning, you can't be a Rizpah if you're not saved. You've got to at least be born again and be walking with God. God spoke to your heart this morning, you mind Him. Let's stand. And Sister Lynn, if you come to the piano, please. If God spoke to your heads bowed, just a moment. God spoke to you, please do business with the Lord this morning. You say, well, I'm a lady, I'm a girl, but I'm not a mother. Maybe the young girl's here this morning. I'm not a mother yet, preacher. Well, what kind of mother you gonna be? You're going to have to start now in your teen years and young adult years being that godly young lady God wants you to be if you're going to be a godly mother. Godly mothers just don't flip a switch one night and become a godly mother. Most of the time they're godly before they become a mother. Occasionally they'll get saved later in life and God will turn things around. But young ladies, I want to challenge you this morning to come to this altar and say, God, make me a godly mother. God, make me a Rizpah. When my children do come, when I do get married, when I do have a home, God, please help me be like Rizpah. If you'll do that, God will honor you. While she plays this morning, God spoke to you. This altar is open. It's not a game raising children. I've seen a whole lot of mothers and daddies sit and weep their eyes out because they didn't do what God told them to do with their children. It's serious. I'm telling you, it's serious now. You can think it is or not, but it's serious. Raising children is not a game in this generation. Never been, but it's surely not in this generation. The powers of hell have their sights on your children. And mamas, there's times you can do things with those children that daddy or nobody else can. You better know that you're walking with God like Risba did. You better know you got the persistence she had. You better have a prayer life like she had. You better put yourself aside and protect your children like she did. If you don't, you'll be weeping one of these days. I've watched families that have had problems in their children. I've watched daddies hurt. And I know it hurts them. But I've never seen hurt like a mother that has a child that's broke her heart. Never seen a hurt like that. So much deeper in the heart of that mother. I want to help you ladies this morning. If you'll mind the Word of God. You can be that mother like Arizba. Let the Spirit of God speak to you. You may have everything right this morning. You may have everything up to par. I hope you do. But if you don't, you better ask God to help you get it right. You better ask God to give you some power and strength to do like Arizba did. I'm telling you, this thing ain't getting no easier to raise children in. You say, well, my children are saved. I can take you to a lot of saved children that didn't turn out right. Just being saved is not all it takes. It takes a persistent mama and a persistent daddy. You may be here. You may know somebody that's a single mother. I believe if they'll live right, God will bless them. I know that's not God's will to be just one parent. They may be in a situation they couldn't help it. And they can't change it. But if they'll live like Rizpah, hey, her husband was dead, Saul, he was gone. She made a difference because she is a godly mother. I hope and pray this morning this will find a lodging place in your heart. I really do. I appreciate the goodness of the Lord today. I appreciate His Word.