I'm struck with this story of Solomon. He was a very young man when this happened. According to Jewish tradition, Solomon is around 12 or 13 years old. We tend to not think of him that way, do we? Solomon reigned 40 years, but according to Jewish tradition, he's around 52 when he died. He did not live to the age of his father, who was 70 years old when he died. So he dies as a relatively young man. But think of it. Here he is. His throne is in jeopardy. It's not unlikely at all that his older brothers, particularly one, Adonijah, would replace him. Instead of his being the king, Adonijah would be the king. He is a very young man. And here he is, now king. And as king, he goes and he seeks the face of God, probably a beardless youth, just made a son of the law, bar mitzvah, a son of the commandment. And he goes to the high place and he seeks the face of God. And this is what he prays for. He said, Lord, I'm incompetent. Have you ever thought about the greatest test for a president of the United States is to confess that he's incompetent? The greatest test for a governor of the state is to confess that he's incompetent. The greatest test for a mayor is to confess his own incompetency. or a senator, or a congressman, or a judge, or anyone else for that matter. In many ways, no matter what we do in life, no matter how educated we may perceive ourselves to be and how well trained, We have to come to grips with a basic sense of our own inadequacy, and until we do that, we will never experience the power of God in our lives, for that's what we need. And I'm struck with Solomon's prayer in verse 7, page 388. I am a little child, he says, I do not know how to go out or come in. I'm incompetent. I don't know how to do this job. I don't know how to do this job. That has tended to be my prayer before I preach. on a regular basis. I understand that I am incompetent. That doesn't mean that I don't have training. It doesn't mean that I don't study. It doesn't mean that I don't prepare. But it means this, that without the supernatural blessing of Almighty God, you will never get the blessing from me, because there's no blessing to be found in me. The blessing is in Jesus. And it's only when we come to grips with our own lack of wisdom that we then can, in humility, ask God for wisdom, and He will always give it. St. James tells us, if any of you lacks wisdom, let that person ask of God who gives to all liberally, generously, and it will be given him. Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a great fall. But God gives grace to the humble while He resists the proud. I'm struck as we read this story of Solomon, this very young man, this man who might not even yet be a teenager as he replaces his father as king over Israel and Judah. And he prays for wisdom. The first example of wisdom has to do with Mother's Day. Think about it. It's interesting, isn't it, that the incident that is cited by the Holy Spirit as an example of supernatural wisdom is that a perhaps preteen boy with no chin whiskers understands the very nature of a woman and of a mother in particular. Look at the story that we have. Immediately, After Solomon returns, he is given his first test. In fact, it's the one test that's recorded in Scripture. What is Solomon's test? Solomon is asked for wisdom and God has promised to give him the wisdom of God. God gives him that wisdom and immediately he's confronted with a problem. Verse 16, now two women who were harlots came to the king and stood before him. And one woman said, O my Lord, this woman and I dwell in the same house, and I gave birth while she was in the house. Then it happened the third day after I had given birth that this woman also gave birth, and we were together. No one was with us in the house except the two of us in the house, and this woman's son died in the night because she lay on him. So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while your maidservant slept, and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. And when I rose in the morning to nurse my son, there he was dead. But when I had examined him in the morning, indeed, he was not my son whom I had born. Then the other woman said, No, but the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son. And the first woman said, No, but the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son. Thus they spoke before the king. And the king said, The one says this is my son who lives? And your son is the dead one? And the other says, No, but your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one. Then the king said, Bring me a sword. So they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other. Then the woman whose son was living spoke to the king, for she yearned with compassion for her son. And she said, O my Lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him. But the other said, Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him. So the king answered and said, Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him. She is his mother. And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had rendered, and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice." What a story! I submit to you that there is a picture there of two kinds of mothers. A real mother and someone who simply gives birth. A real mother. Look at the picture. You see the story. These are two women. There are no witnesses to this tragedy. The one woman has rolled over in the night and in the process smothered her child by accident. She does a quick swap and she puts her child in the bosom of the mother who has the living child and steals the living child. When the woman whose child was alive wakes up in the night to feed it, to her horror, she discovers that her baby is dead. But at first light, upon examination, she discovers it's not her baby at all, that someone has done something terrible. And so they seek a redress of grievances. And they go to the young king, as I say, perhaps younger than a teenager even. Here is Solomon, a beardless youth, And how can a man understand a woman? I submit to you, after this summer, 42 years of marriage, women understand men a whole lot more than men understand women. And a child king certainly doesn't understand the way of women or the way of motherhood. But the boy is given supernatural wisdom from God. Everybody recognizes it. It is striking, isn't it? This strange story. The Bible is full of strange stories. I'm often taken aback by the ignorance of people who otherwise are educated. No one is really educated who's never read through the Bible. The Bible is full of all kinds of strange stories, and this is among the strangest. Here the king, a mere youth, orders that a sword be brought. And then he says, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to cut the living baby in half and give half of the baby to each of you. Of course, the king has no intention of doing that, but he had the power to do it. He was an Oriental despot. He has that kind of absolute power. And certainly the women believed it. And what happens is that Solomon, in his radical and shocking proposal, exposes the hearts of the two women. The heart of the mother is exposed immediately. Because the mother, who is truly a mother, puts the welfare of her child above her own rights, her own needs, her own emotions. And she says, give her the child. My Lord, please, by no means kill it. But the other woman, a picture in many ways of modernity, full of bitterness, full of anger, full of spite, says, in effect, if I can't have a living baby, nobody's going to have a living baby. Kill him. What a picture. It's amazing. Solomon, the son of David, a youth, is given supernatural wisdom from God to discern between good and evil, and with his radical proposal, his deadly proposal, he exposes the heart of a mother. It is striking, isn't it? A real mother is willing to lose her rights. A real mother is willing to forget about her own needs, her own welfare, her own sense of well-being, her own sense of importance, and to put the welfare of her child ahead of herself. It is an amazing thing that the one prostitute says. Give him up. I want him to live even if my enemy raises him. Mothers choose the welfare of their babies. Contrast that with the other woman. Look at the other woman who says there in the last sentence in verse 26, page 389, but the other said, let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him. I've been preaching for some 45 years. That's a long time. that the fundamental mark of a preacher is to be a professional listener. Preachers need to be able to listen to people. They need to understand people and where they're coming from. And I have to say, as we read this story, our first reaction is to think it's pretty extreme. Surely no one, no one would go along with the king's modest proposal. No one would be that low down. No one would be that mean. But dear ones, I have to tell you, after 45 years of listening to people professionally, the world is full of people like that second woman. It's full of people who say, if I can't be happy, nobody can be happy. It's amazing the power of bitterness, even in a mother. Bitterness will kill you. Where does bitterness come from? Bitterness comes from the hurts of life that we do not allow the Lord to heal. Bitterness comes from the hurts of life that we do not allow the Lord to heal. We have a hands-off policy. And bitterness usually becomes exacerbated, amplified, and exaggerated when we have some guilt of our own thrown in with it. The second mother, The one who said, if I can't have a baby, I don't want anybody to have a baby, has some guilt. It wasn't a deliberate act. She didn't set out to murder her child. That was the last thing on her mind. But when she woke up in the night realizing that the lump under her body was not a pillow, but her baby, and discovered that his life was gone, you know she felt guilty. You know she blamed herself. You know she's overwhelmed with guilt. What can you do with guilt like that? Even though it was not a deliberate act, it was a careless act, she's overwhelmed by it. What do you do with guilt? The same thing you do with grief. You've got to bring it to the Lord. You can never have a hands-off policy. You can never handle it on your own. People say, religion is a crutch for people. Boy, I want to tell you, they're right. And I want to tell you something, if you don't have a crutch in this world, you're going to fall down. You need the Lord. You need God's grace. You need the forgiveness that God speaks, not only for the deliberate things you've done, I've done, but for the things that you've allowed to happen by your own carelessness, by your own foolishness. Stupid things. Dumb things. We've all done them. Nonsense things that we say without thinking. And then we realize the consequences. We need the amazing grace of God to forgive us not only for our sins, but for the stupid things we do. And make no mistake about it. We all do stupid things. But we also need God's amazing grace to deal with grief. Because grief will kill us. It will eat us alive. It will bring illness to us. And it will make us a person that nobody wants to be around. An unpleasant, mean-spirited, angry, bitter person that people avoid at all costs. So here are two women. One who is a mother biologically, full of bitterness, that is hardened so fast because she will not deal with her sin, she will not deal with her grief, she's going to handle it herself. And the other one who truly is a mother. And I'm struck with the other woman. I'm struck with her words on page 309. There, 389, verse 26, Then the woman whose son was living spoke to the king, for she yearned with compassion for her son. I want you to see her yearning with compassion for her son is not yearning for a new car, yearning for a new dress. This isn't materialistic titillation. This is yearning for the welfare of someone else. This is not about her, it's about her child. This is not that which is pandemic in the Western world, and no more pandemic than in the United States of America, where narcissistic personality disorder is ubiquitous, and it is. This is not a narcissistic Focus on myself, my needs, my welfare. What am I getting out of this? The world revolves around me. I am all important and all consuming and all consumed with myself. I have looked into the pond and seen my reflection and must confess, I'm in love with a wonderful guy. Myself. That's not what's in view here. This isn't about her rights. This isn't about her feelings. This isn't about her needs. Her yearning is not about satisfying an inner emptiness. Her yearning here has nothing to do with her emptiness. She's willing to be empty the rest of her life because her child counts more than she counts. It's an amazing picture, isn't it? How did a boy 12 or 13 years old with no chin whiskers have wisdom like this to expose the mother from the other. It's the wisdom of God, and that's why the people fear, because they saw that the wisdom of God was in Him to administer justice. She yearned with compassion for her son. Not like, you got a puppy and I didn't. Not like, you got a present and I didn't. Not like, you got a new dress and I didn't, so I'm going to make sure I spilled mustard on it. There's no vindictiveness and self-centeredness here. There's no spite here with this mother. The mother's yearning is all about my child and his welfare. I may never see him again, but my yearning is for him. I want what's good for him. Turn with me, if you will, over to the New Testament, to the Gospel of Luke. Page 1180. Luke 2.34. It's now been 40 days since the Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth to the Lord Jesus, and she's gone with Joseph into the temple to offer the offering that was prescribed in the Law of Moses. Verse 33. And Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against." Verse 35, "'Yes, a sword will pierce your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.'" I'm struck there. I'm struck at Mary. A picture of motherhood. The Virgin Mary. Think about the conception of the Lord Jesus. For the Lord Jesus had no human father. The Lord Jesus is the result of a miracle of the Holy Spirit performed on a single cell from the body of the Virgin Mary. He is not descended from Joseph at all. Joseph is his legal father by adoption, and that genealogy is given in the Gospel of Matthew. But Mary alone is Jesus' ancestor, and her genealogy is given in the Gospel of Luke. Think about the challenge. She is a single, pregnant mother. And think of the scandal. In those days, a woman who was engaged to be married to a man who is discovered to have a child, or going to have a child, but not by the man to whom she's engaged, the penalty is death. The risk of motherhood under the old law. She's facing death. All those things, all of the difficulties that she faces, all of the trouble, the trip to Bethlehem, the flight from Herod, all of those things, But there are other things about Mary. There are other things about Jesus. I'm struck if you turn back. And this sword that's said to pierce her heart. I submit to you that to be a mother is to be exposed in a way that men are never exposed. To the piercing of the heart with a sword. My dad used to say to me, and then I caught on one day, that it meant he didn't love me that much. He said, boy, there's nothing like a mother's love. Your daddy will never love you like your mother." I thought, oh, okay. My mother told me one time that the only time she knew my father ever to cry was when his mother died. I think that there's something about a mother's love. And I think that a mother's love is that which moves people to pain. To become a mother. is to expose oneself to great pain. Think of the Virgin Mary and think of growing up, thinking of Jesus and the experience. You think she always had great warm feelings? Do you remember the time when Jesus was beginning to perform miracles everywhere? And he's in a house, and he's teaching people, and he's doing miracles. And word has reached his mother, and his brothers, and his sisters. And his mother gets his brothers and sisters together, because the relatives said, you know, he's lost his mind. He's lost his mind. And so Mary, with her other children, goes to the house, and she seeks to get Jesus. And he won't come out. And he makes this remark. when they tell him, Lord, your mother's here. And he says, who's my mother and who are my brothers? Look at it with me, if you will. Page 1126, Matthew chapter 12 and verse 46. While he was still talking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and brothers stood outside seeking to speak with him. Then one said to him, Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak with you. And he answered and said to the one who told him, Who is my mother and who are my brothers? And he stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said, Here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Think that was a sword thrust? Sword thrust. Think about the implications of what Jesus has just said. He's saying that spiritual unity transcends family. And He's recognizing the people who are there wanting to know and do the will of God as being closer to Him than the woman who gave birth to Him." Do you see it? Do you think that was a sword that pierced her heart? I think it pierced her heart. I think it pierced her heart. Jesus hurt His mother. Think about it. Do you remember when Jesus is 12 years old, and it's His first Passover, and He goes with the family up to Jerusalem? And he lingers behind, and his parents, his stepfather Joseph and his mother Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mary, travel back to Nazareth. And when they are away from Jerusalem, it dawns on them, where is he? They thought he was with his cousins, but he's not, and they return to Jerusalem. And they look all over for him, and then they find him in the temple. And he has the great rabbis amazed at his learning. And his mother said, son, you've hurt us terribly. You know, your father and I have been terribly worried about you. And he said, don't you know I have to be about my father's business? I think that was a sword thrust. Was it sinful? No. Jesus is telling her the truth. And He's telling her the truth in such a way that she will come to grips with her own need of Him. Because it's very apparent as we look at the account in the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, with Jesus' words, that she's not a disciple at this point. She doesn't really believe in Jesus at this point. She knows He was conceived by the miracle of the Holy Spirit, She knows that great things were said about Him, but she hasn't yet become a disciple. Verse 48, He answered and said to the one who told Him, Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, Here are my mother and my brothers. Now, as we read on the gospel accounts and as we read on in the book of Acts, we discover that Mary became a believer in Christ as her Lord and her Savior. And his brothers did as well. In fact, two epistles in the New Testament are written by half-brothers of Jesus. The epistle of James, James the just. He's not one of the early disciples. He's the brother of Jesus. He's the son of Mary. and Joseph, but not of Mary alone, and his brother Jude." So those two epistles, the epistle of Jude and the epistle of James, are written by other children of Mary, in that case, Mary and Joseph. But they didn't believe in Jesus at that time. Are you here as a parent of a teenager and you worry about your child? Are you here with a child that's 12 years old and he's showing some independence? Does it cause you some grief? The Blessed Virgin Mary understands her 12-year-old son stayed in Jerusalem to be about his father's business, and that wasn't Joseph's. And here he is at the beginning of the success of his ministry. And you go there because you want him to come home. Come home, Jesus. Mama's got some chicken soup for you. Let me feed you a nice meal. You'll be all right. You're just tired. You're too busy. You need to come home and let Mama get you some rest and sleep and get you fixed up." And Jesus again is saying, in effect, I've got work to do. If you want to be close to Me, you've got to come to be My disciple. But I submit to you, the greatest sword piercing of a mother is at a hill called Calvary. The love of a mother for a son is profoundly exhibited at the foot of a cross. There, the Blessed Virgin Mary stands at the foot of a cross. There, her child, the Lord Jesus Christ, her firstborn son, has been crowned with a crown of thorns. His back has been opened up by a cat o' nine tails, by rods and whips. He's stripped naked. And he's nailed alive to a cross and hung up to be mocked and ridiculed. Clumps of hair from his head and clumps of his beard have been jerked out by an angry mob. And as people go by, they spit in his face. They mock him and jeer him and curse at him. I submit to you, that is an experience of motherhood that is profound as well. A sword pierces her heart. But I want you to look with me at one other passage in the New Testament. Turn over to Matthew chapter 23 for a moment. A mother's love, we see it in one prostitute and not another. We see it in the prostitute who chooses to give up her rights, her right to her child, who chooses to live in an emptiness inside of herself, never seeing her child perhaps again, but knowing that she made the right decision because she gave up her child so he could live. But we see the picture of a mother, strangely, in verse 37 of Matthew 23 in Jesus. Page 1141. Matthew 23 verse 37. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, how often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." I want you to see in this illustration, Jesus compares himself to a mother. In this case, a mother bird. Why does the hen gather the bitties under her wings? There's a shadow across the yard, and that shadow is of a hawk crossing. the face of the sun. And the mother bird quickly calls her biddies, and they run, and she spreads out her wings and her feathers to gather her biddies in and put them underneath herself. That's a mother's love. That's a willingness to let the hawk get her that her children would live. It's putting her children ahead of herself. Mother's Day honors that. Mother's Day honors hens. It honors the whole concept of motherhood that's there in creation. If even a bird is willing to die that her young might live, it's a picture of the power of mother's love. And it's striking to me that Jesus uses the picture of a mother's love to describe His desire to minister to the people of Jerusalem. The leaders are keeping him from talking to the people of Jerusalem. And he said, I want to gather the children of Jerusalem, but you, the leaders, you're not willing. Isn't that a picture of the love of God? The picture of a hen in a barnyard, summoning her biddies to come and get under her wings? It's a picture of a willingness to die that someone else might live. It's the picture of the prostitute who is the first great wisdom test of the boy King Solomon. I'm willing to give my child up because that's in my child's best interest. And it's the picture that's exhibited not only in the sword thrust that goes into Mary's heart at the cross, but it's the picture of the love of God and Jesus Christ on the cross. What more fitting picture of the love of God than that of a mother suffering for her children? Jesus hanging on the cross is like a mother dying for her young. That picture's for you and me, something like what my father was saying when he said, Son, nobody will ever love you like your mother. Because your mother loves you when you're bad and when you're good. Your mother loves you when you brought great shame on the family as well as when you brought honor. Well, I want to tell you there is a greater love than a mother's love. I want to tell you that that greater love is the love of Jesus for you. Saint Augustine said, he loves each of us as if there were only one of us. What does that mean? What Augustine was getting at is this, if you were the only person in the entire universe and you were caught in the misery of your own sin, Jesus would still have come to die just for you. That's the love of Jesus. It's greater than a mother's love. We honor mothers today, but the love of a mother pales into insignificance in the fact that Almighty God, without ceasing to be God, became a real human being just like you and me, lived a sinless life, and then died as our substitute. in a terribly painful, anguished, shameful death. I commend motherhood, but I commend the mothering love of God in Jesus Christ as the greatest of all love, and pray that you know Him. May we pray. Lord, we thank you for our mothers who gave us life, who loved us, In the case of some people here, our mothers loved us so much that they were willing to sign over their rights to us so that we would have a better life with someone else. We thank You for our mothers who wept with us when we hurt ourselves or were ashamed or embarrassed or were in pain. We thank You, Lord. I thank You for my mother when I was a drunken bum getting up in the middle of the night and looking down the hallway and seeing my mother on her knees. It was the tears and prayers of my mother, like those of St. Monica for St. Augustine, that watered the path of repentance for me. Lord, thank you for our mothers. But thank you for your love in Jesus Christ that is like that of a mother hen summoning her biddies to be protected under her wings and being willing to die for them. Thank you for that picture of love. Lord, thank you for Jesus. For greater love has no one than this, that he lays down his life for his friends. And you have called us your friends. Give us then, Lord, not to be like that harlot who rolled over and killed her own baby, and would never allow you to forgive her sin, would never allow you to remove her guilt, would never allow you to lift her grief and heal her pain. But give us, Lord, to be people with all of our shame, all of our guilt, all of our hurt, to come to you and to know that you can lift it, you can heal it, you can cleanse it, wash it away and forgive it, and that we can go out of here at peace. I pray, Lord, that we would all know that. In Jesus' name, Amen.