Our Father, we are indeed very grateful for this fellowship of giving and of receiving that you have given to us in these hours together. And we now look to you for added grace that this final session will not be a winding down, but a being carried forward to a wonderful conclusion of our hours together. May your Holy Spirit rest upon the one who seeks to handle your word and upon those who seek to receive it, that together we may corporately be very conscious that you are in our midst. Lord, come to us in our need and meet with us, we plead, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Now we come, ladies, to the third and final message in this conference. on the theme of the Christian woman's distinctive griefs and consolations. And we've dealt with the Christian woman's distinctive griefs and consolations in conjunction with true conversion. Secondly, in connection with singleness and widowhood. And now in this third session, we're going to deal with the griefs and consolations of a divided marriage, and of foolish or wayward children." Now, in a real sense, this final message is two distinct mini-sermons on two subjects. But rather than omit one or the other and seek to give a more fulsome treatment to one or the other, I decided in trying to think over what the representation of experience would be when we gathered, I believe that I've made a right decision in bringing two mini-sermons in one sermon, at least touching upon both of these major categories of concern to not a few of you sitting here this afternoon. So we're going to take up, first of all, the distinctive griefs and consolations in connection with the divided marriage. And then, secondly, the distinctive griefs and consolations in connection with foolish children or wayward children. First of all, then, the distinctive griefs and consolations in connection with a divided marriage. Now, first of all, in taking up this subject, we must understand what I mean by the term a divided marriage. I'm referring to a marriage in which you as a Christian woman are united in marriage covenant to a man who makes no profession of being a Christian or, listen carefully now, a man who in spite of his profession to be a Christian does not live, think, or conduct himself as a Christian in the marital and in the domestic relationships. He's a man who is spoken of in Titus 1.16. They profess to know God, but in their works, they deny Him. Or in 2 Timothy 3.5, they have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. And if I were to ask for a show of hands, I believe there would be not a few of you who, within this definition, are indeed living in a setting of a divided marriage. You have a husband who either makes no profession of being a Christian, or a husband who, in spite of his profession, does not manifest that he is living as a Christian. Now, if this is your state, most likely you are in it for one of three reasons. Some of you have come into that state because God's grace is distinguishing and discriminating grace. And by that, I simply mean this. You and your husband were far from God, from the gospel, from truth when you got married. Neither of you were professing Christians. And by one means or another, God in his sovereign mercy made hold of you as the woman in that relationship. And his grace, with respect to your household, has been discriminating grace. The Lord Jesus has brought you into a divided marriage. For he does not always save the husband when he saves the wife. This is exactly the situation that Paul understands exists at Corinth when in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 12 to 17, He gives specific directions to Christian spouses who have non-Christian spouses, most likely because when the Gospel came to Corinth, it manifested itself as a discriminating Gospel. The Lord Jesus brought the sword of division by saving the wife or the husband and not saving the spouse. Now, some of you are in that situation. You have a divided marriage because of distinguishing, discriminating grace. Others of you are in such a marriage because of the hypocrisy of your husband. When you courted or dated or whatever you call what you did before you walked down an aisle and you allowed him to put a ring on your finger, you thought and he professed to be a Christian. Perhaps he knew the only way he could get you was to make that profession. And he did a very good job of convincing those who were around him that he was the real deal. If he had not, you would not have married him. Hopefully you would not have consented to marry him. So you are in a divided marriage, not because of God's distinguishing grace, but because of the wretched hypocrisy of that man that you're stuck with. And then thirdly, some of you are in that condition because of ignorant, or willful disobedience to the clear command of the Bible, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Second Corinthians 6 14. And you were either ignorant as a baby Christian that you were forbidden to marry a nonbeliever and there was no wise, godly, loving pastor or mature believers around you to put their arm around you and warn you. So you were ignorantly Disobedient. You were disobedient. You had a Bible. And from that standpoint, you were inexcusable not going to your Bible, asking your newfound Lord and Savior, Lord Jesus, are you pleased with my relationship to John, to Harry? Should I marry him? And surely, the Lord Jesus, as your newfound Shepherd, would have guided you into those biblical portions that would have dispelled your ignorance and would have persuaded you, you should not marry him. So your disobedience was ignorant disobedience. Disobedience, but ignorant disobedience. But for some of you, I fear, and here perhaps we could have a show of hands and it would be very revealing, your disobedience was willful. You wanted him so badly that you persuaded yourself you would win him. He would eventually come to Christ. And you stuck your finger in your ears and regarded everyone an enemy who tried to warn you, Mary, don't marry Harry. You have no business marrying him. He is not a professing Christian. If he is a professing Christian, he doesn't validate it by his life. Stay clear of him. But you went ahead anyway. And you're now sitting here in a divided marriage. not because of distinguishing grace that reached in and caused the division, not because of the hypocrisy of the man you're married to, but because of ignorant or willful disobedience to the clear word of God. However, regardless of how you got into that condition, you're in it. And being in it, the word of God is clear that you are not out of it, except for one of three reasons. God takes his life, Romans 7, verses 1 and 2. You know the law, Paul says, that a woman is bound to her husband so long as he lives. And only if he dies is she released and free from the law of her husband. Or, secondly, there is resolute desertion. 1 Corinthians 7 and verse 13 clearly addresses this. The unbeliever finally says, I can't hack it. living with this woman with all of her Christ business and religious business and the way she orders her life, I want out and I'm splitting. And there is willful, resolute desertion. The Bible is clear. The believer is not bound. In other words, in that context, bound means bound to the marriage covenant. You are free to be released by divorce. And then thirdly, by sexual infidelity. Matthew 19 and verse 9, whosoever puts away his wife except for sexual infidelity and marries another commits adultery. And he that marries her that is put away commits adultery. You have biblical warrant, not command, but biblical warrant to put away a spouse who is committed to a course of sexual infidelity. So apart from death, resolute desertion, sexual infidelity, you're stuck with it. You're committed. If you are a woman determined to obey God, you're not going to find some preacher that will say, well, there is emotional infidelity, and there is psychological. You won't listen to that nonsense. You'll say, I'm in it, and I'm in it until God releases me. And I trust that's your disposition. to use the biblical analogy, you are stuck with an unequal yoke. Now having defined what I mean by a divided marriage, I want in the second place to now address the distinctive griefs of an unequal marriage. And there are two categories of those griefs. Category number one is the grief arising from how you got into that marriage. Some of you experience deep grief in your divided marriage, and if you analyze your grief, it is rooted in how you got into that divided marriage. For some of you, you live daily with the fruit of being ignorantly or willfully disobedient to the clear teaching of the Word of God. Jeremiah 2 and verse 19 is a text that though it's painful for me to quote it to some of you ladies, it's the truth. And remember what I said last night, the man who loves you most is the one who tells you the most truth about yourself. In Jeremiah 2 19, God says to his sinning people, Judah, your own wickedness shall correct you and your own backsliding shall reprove you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and a bitter that you have forsaken the Lord your God. And some of you women live with the grief of the bitterness of soul of knowing that all the other griefs that attend upon your divided marriage have as their greatest grief that you're in that mess because you chose, willfully or ignorantly. to be disobedient to the Word of God. Like my older godly sister says, Albert, we make decisions and we live with the consequences. And some of you live daily with the grief of the knowledge this is the evil and the bitter fruit of my forsaking the clear teaching of the Word of God. But then there is the grief arising from discovering that your husband is really not who he seemed to be when you consented to marry him. With good conscience, you believed he was the real deal, only to find at some point in your marriage there was not the interest in the things of God. There was not the commitment to the church of God. There was not the commitment to read the word and to pray together. And everything that were little pointers to the validity of his profession, one by one, they all dropped off. And now he's showing himself to be what he really is. He's someone who, though he professed, there is no reality. And you live with that grief. the distinctive grief of the unequal marriage, grief arising from how you got into that marriage, the grief arising from the discovery of what your husband really is, and the grief arising from the reality that God's grace is discriminating. And when Paul faces that in Romans 9 and realizes that he's the exception among his Jewish fellow men, that God has shown distinguishing grace by saving him. He says, I have great sorrow and heaviness of heart for my kinsmen, my brethren, according to the flesh. And even though he submits to God's absolute sovereignty, he feels pain in it. And if God has been pleased to lay hold of you and not yet lay hold of your husband, that's a source of grief. You could wish yourself at times a curse from Christ that God's grace might come to him in its power and in its glory. So those are the griefs arising from how you got into this divided marriage. But then the second major category are the griefs connected with living in such a marriage. And here I want to identify three such griefs. There is the grief of a multifaceted incompatibility. The grief of a multifaceted incompatibility. When the apostle gives that directive in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, he asks a series of rhetorical questions. What fellowship or communion have righteousness and iniquity? What communion has light with darkness? What concord or agreement has Christ with Belial? What portion has a believer with an unbeliever? What agreement does the temple of God with idols? You ask these questions and the obvious answer to all of them is none. None. None. None. None. And when you ask the question, what kind of multi-level true intimacy do I have with my husband? As an unbeliever living in this divided marriage, you have to say fundamentally at every level, none. None. None. None. None. You seek to relate selflessly to a selfish, self-centered man. You seek to relate in tenderness to an insensitive and perhaps harsh man. In God's common grace, there may be areas where he's on the same page in perspectives and the rearing of children, but often you're at loggerheads in the matters of how to deal with the children. Radically different views with respect to the Lord's Day and what kind of conduct will be permitted in your home. Radically different views on economic matters. You want to see the Lord get his portion every week. A minimum of the tithe and we're able to do so to give offerings beyond it. He has no sympathy for it. The use of the TV. All of these things. And even in the most tender, intimate aspects of your life together, he is self-centered rather than other-centered. He does not love you with the selfless love of Christ, committed to gently and tenderly meet your sexual needs. But he's like an animal that pops into bed to gratify the passions of the moment. And you live with the grief of this multi-faceted incompatibility. Very real. Even as I say the words, some of you feel like daggers are going into your heart. Then another aspect of that grief connected with living in this marriage is the supreme grief of having no spiritual communion in the most intimate of human relationships. 1 Corinthians 2.14 says, The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned. You come out of your devotional times with your heart warm and full and long to have another human being with which to bear and share the deepest joys of your heart. And there's nobody home. Nobody home. No discernment. utterly unable to relate to the things that are the source of your deepest joys and the source of your deepest griefs, that supreme grief of having no spiritual communion in the most intimate of all human relationships, the husband-wife relationship. And then there is the grief of fearing or actually seeing your children align themselves with your unconverted husband and his perspectives, his actions, his goals in life. The scripture says in First Corinthians 1533, be not deceived, evil companions corrupt good morals. And when the evil companion is your own husband and he's the one whose influence is molding your children, I can only acknowledge that I've seen that grief. I bless God that I don't know it experientially. I can only imagine It must be a grief indescribable to feel that the devil has as his closest ally to damn your children, your own husband and their father. Those, my dear sisters, in my understanding, are some of the distinctive griefs that are present in an unequal marriage. The grief arising from how you got into the marriage in its three-pronged manifestation and the grief connected with living in such a marriage with its three-pronged manifestations as well. Well then, is there any consolation? If so, what are the distinctive consolations to a Christian woman locked in a divided marriage? I've described what I mean by a divided marriage. We've identified some of the distinctive griefs of such a marriage. Now, thirdly, what are the distinctive consolations? And I want to offer you four of them. Number one, you must remember that you have a Savior who knows, who feels, and understands what it is to live in an unbelieving domestic context. Hear me carefully. You must remember that you have a Savior who knows, who feels and understands what it's like to live in an unbelieving domestic context. Now, Hebrews 4, 15 and 16 tells us that we have not a Savior who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. was in all points tented like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. And you see, the connection is this. Our ability to come boldly to receive what we need in our time of need is rooted in our confidence that the one to whom we come understands and feels with us in our need. Well, where in the Bible can I have assurance that Christ understands and feels with me in those needs arising from a divided marriage? Well, here I want just not to quote, and I've done that for the most part, just quoted text to you, given the reference. But I want you, if you have your Bibles, to turn with me to John 7 and see this with your own eyes. John chapter 7. Remember, what we're seeking to see is that Christ knows, by experience, what it is to live in an unbelieving domestic setting. Verse 2, Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of the tabernacles, was at hand. His brethren, that is, his brothers, his half-brothers, men that shared the same womb with him, his brothers therefore said to him, Depart hence! Go into Judea! Thy disciples may behold your works, which you do, for no man does anything in secret and himself is seeking to be known openly. In other words, if you're out to demonstrate that you're a messiah, isn't it about time for you to go up to Jerusalem where all the crowds are and strut your stuff? What you doing staying back here? Get with it, brother! Totally unbelieving and cynical. How do we know that? Read on. For even his brothers did not believe on Him. Think of it. They lived in that home. They had a sibling who never once blew his cork. Never once, when they were playing with the toys, was felt as if, give me, it's mine. Never once. Never once shot his mouth off to Mary when she said, son, take out the garbage. Never once did he sin, living in that poor, large family. They had this brother, sinless, truly man. When he banged his finger, he got a purple fingernail like they did. And when he fell down in the backyard playing, he came in and needed Mary to kiss it and wipe away the dirt and put a band-aid on it. True humanity. But he never sinned. Never sinned. And yet, they were full of unbelief. Don't scratch his stuff, Jesus. Hot shot. Rabbi, go ahead, do your stuff. Why? They did not yet believe on Him. The household was marked by the cynicism of their unbelief. I say, Jesus knows what it is to live in an unbelieving domestic context. Believing that, you see the consolation this should give to you as a woman in a divided marriage? Lord Jesus, you were not married to an unbelieving wife. But you lived in the context of an unbelieving home. And even Mary and Joseph, as believers, were so limited in their understanding, they scolded him when he should have been commended in that whole incident when they found him at the temple. They scolded him. They said, don't you know we've been seeking you sorrowing? Jesus hadn't sinned. That's why he said, did you not know? Did you not know? All that's been revealed to you, Mary, about me by the angel Gabriel and Dear father, all that you know about me as you've seen me in the home and as you've seen me grow into a growing awareness of my identity, did you not know that I must be about my father's business or my father's things? So he knew the partial unbelief of the limited understanding of Mary and Joseph, the open, blatant unbelief of his unbelieving siblings. Jesus knows my sister. Jesus knows what it is to live in that setting. You can derive consolation that you have a great high priest touched with the feeling of your infirmities. Lord Jesus, help me living with this bum. Now, you don't call him a bum to his face. But you can call him that, the former Lord. If that's what he is, if he's living like a bum, then he's a bum! And the Lord won't be offended if you say, Lord, give me grace to live with this bum. Help me to treat him with honor, though he deserves no honor in himself. He's a dishonorable man. He's a navel. Look at Abigail. She lived with that churlish man-navel. Yet, she lived with him nobly. Spared his life by her wisdom and by her grace and by her backdoored insubordination. So she did. Dear women, this should be your consolation. I've got to save you. who understands, I can go again. Secondly, you must remember that you have warrant to hope and to pray that your witness may be the means of your husband's conversion. You have biblical warrant to hope and to pray, not to claim. There's a difference. There's no Bible verse that says you can claim his salvation. But there are two passages that give you grounds to hope and to pray that your very Christian life, lived consistently before him, may be the means of his conversion. And what are the two passages? First Corinthians, chapter 7, verses 12 to 16. That's the first one. But to the rest, I say not the Lord, if any brother hath an unbelieving wife, and she's content to dwell with him, let him not leave her. And the woman that has an unbelieving husband, and he is content to dwell with her, let her not leave her husband. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother. Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy. In other words, some of these Corinthians were thinking, now that I'm saved and he's not saved, then our marriage must not be legitimate. Let's dissolve it. He said, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. No, no. If your marriage were still not legitimate, even though one of you is saved and the other not saved, then your kids are not legitimate. You don't want to call your kids little bastards, do you? Well, if you don't, then don't call your marriage illegitimate. No, your marriage is a valid marriage. And because it's a valid marriage, don't take the initiative to dissolve it. If the unbelieving is pleased to dwell, what's that mean? Come in drunk every night and just flop down in the bed? Is that dwelling keeping the same address? No. Dwelling in the context means fulfilling in common grace the fundamental responsibilities of a husband or a wife. If the unbelieving be pleased to dwell, let not the believer leave. And then he goes on to say these very hopeful words. Who knows? Who knows? Verse 16. Oh, wife, whether you will save your husband or how do you know, husband, whether you shall save your wife? You don't know. But you may be the instrument of his or her salvation. And therefore, if the unbeliever is pleased to dwell, don't you take the initiative to part from the unbeliever? You may be the instrument of his or her salvation. And then first Peter three verses one and two. Some of you have already thought of these verses in like manner. You wives be in subjection to your own husbands, that even if any obey not the word, They may without a word be gained by the behavior of the wives, beholding your chaste behavior coupled with fear. These two passages, my dear women, living with unconverted husbands, you ought to quote them back to the Lord again and again and again, because they give us grounds for hope and grounds to pray that your life and your witness may be the means of their conversion. The third ground of consolation is this. You are given a clear example of a divided marriage being used of God to produce an eminent servant of God. Do you have any idea who I'm talking about? You are given in the Scriptures a clear example of a divided marriage being used of God to produce an eminent servant of God. You know who we're talking about? We're talking about Yodia. Not Yodia, I'm sorry. Grandmother Lois, Mother Eunice, and son and grandson Timothy. In Acts 16, verses 1 to 3, God describes the domestic situation out of which Timothy, Paul's son in the faith, and Paul's uniquely sympathetic, spiritual companion. He says in Philippians, I have no man like minded. Everybody seeks their own, but not Timothy. Look at his domestic situation. Act 16. One. He came also to Derby, Paul into Lystra. Behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish that believed, but his father was a Greek. The same was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him. And when we turn to 2 Timothy 1.5, we learn that that line of faith did not come through the father. He says, Unfamed faith dwells in you, Timothy, dwelt in your mother and in your grandmother, but no indication that his father was a believer. He was not only a Greek in his ethnic identity, he was an unbeliever in his spiritual identity. Yet, out of that divided marriage, God brought affinity. Now, that ought to encourage some of you women. You've got an unconverted husband. And yet, with God's blessing, you've born children. God can bring eminent servants of God out of that contact. with all of the fractured and fissured nature of such a household and the pull and the tension of you pulling one way, the husband pulling another. What can God do in all of this? He can bring out a Timothy. He can bring out a Timothy. And that ought to give you hope. It ought to give you grounds to pray and not to be dispirited and not to be discouraged. But then, fourthly, for your encouragement and consolation, you must remember the biblical instruction concerning the purpose of God in our trials and in our suffering. Suffering is part and parcel of being a true Christian. If you're not suffering, you're not a Christian. And neither are you going to be glorified when Christ comes again. Did you know that? Romans 8.16. speaks of our salvation in these very plain terms. Unmistakable language. You don't need to know a letter of Greek. Sixteen and seventeen. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, joined heirs with Christ, if, if, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be glorified with him. Suffering is part and parcel of being a true Christian. And now, we often think of suffering in terms of what we know of suffering, brethren, in the persecuted churches of China and North Korea and of Saudi Arabia and many of the countries of the Middle East and there in Indonesia. But there is a suffering that you bear as a wife in a divided marriage that is deep, that is constant, That is, at times, overwhelming. And you need to remind yourself of the divine purpose in your sufferings. Romans chapter 5, verse 3 and following is one of the texts you ought to go to again and again. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we now have access into this grace wherein we stand. And not only so, We rejoice in tribulations knowing. Knowing what? That tribulation works steadfastness. Steadfastness, approvedness. And approvedness, hope. And hope puts not a shame because the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. We cannot exult in our tribulations unless we keep before us what their purpose is. God is using our tribulations, our trials, our sufferings to perfect in us Christian character. And the more that character is perfected, the more we are confident that we are indeed the Lord's and He is fashioning us into the likeness of His Son and preparing us for glory. And therefore, we can embrace the glory preparing sufferings that come through a divided marriage, or James 1, 2 to 4, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into manifold trials, knowing that the trial of your faith works. And then James lists the things it works in us. When Paul says all things work together for good, what's the context? The context is all things are working together for what good? The good that God has ordained for us, whom He did foreknow, He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. He wants to see Jesus formed in us, and yet Jesus' sinless Hebrews 5 9 says he learned obedience by the things that he suffered and being made perfect, not morally perfect, but being made perfect as a sympathetic high priest, he became to all that obey him the author of eternal salvation. The Son of God was perfected in the crucible of suffering. This whole notion that God's going to wrap us up like Christmas presents and put a nice bow on us and hang us on a tree until Jesus comes is heretical, dear sisters. God's going to beat up on us and chisel us and hammer us because He wants to see Jesus in us. Is that what you want? It should be a great consolation to you. God has purposes through the suffering of a divided marriage purposes to make us like his son. Well, these things are far from exhausted, but I hope they give you enough to take hope. In that divided marriage, you can have this fourfold consolation. Now very quickly and more briefly, but I must give you the major perspectives, God helping me, the Christian woman's distinctive griefs and consolations in conjunction with a foolish child or with wayward children. Let me begin by describing the situation. You prayed for children in order to raise a godly seed. You rejoiced when you missed that first period. You rejoiced more when you felt that first flutter of life in your womb. You were not so rejoicing when you actually had your birth pains, but it wasn't long before you rejoiced when that little one was laid on your belly and nestled to your breast. Hmm? Say, you were a woman. No, no. But I listened to women. I listened. I listened. I listened. You rejoiced when that first tooth came through. I like what my English friends call it. They call it their peggies. When those first two little ones come here, they say, oh, they've got some peggies. They do. They look like two little peggies. Then they take that first step. Then they say that first word. And then you were grieved the first time they reared back and said a roaring no. And you knew that there was good Adamic stuff in them and that you did not have the perfect little child. But all through this, you began to sense the awesome responsibility and privilege to mold and to shape that child. You loved it, cherished it, disciplined it, trained it, washed it, fed it, cared for it, evangelized it, spoke of Jesus, spoke of the gospel, prayed with that child. And at one time or another, you were greatly encouraged. They spoke of Jesus in such a natural way. Their whole orientation was Jesus this, and Jesus that, and Jesus the other. And you said, surely, surely, surely, surely God has done a work of grace in him, in her. But you watched. You waited. You prayed. You continued to fulfill your God-given responsibilities. And then, As their own independent identity began to emerge and they began to be conscious of who they were as a budding young man or woman with independent judgment and will and decisions to be made, either suddenly or gradually, it became evident that your God was not their freely chosen God. That your Savior was not their desired Savior. that your Lord was not their Lord. That the people of God who were precious to you were not precious to them. The church that was the center and hub of your spiritual life and maturation and outreach to a lost community was not the company that they desired. And then, by one degree or another, they became what the Bible calls the foolish sons. The foolish daughter. The wayward child. The wayward daughter. And at this point, it's crucial that you have a biblical understanding of the Bible's definition of the foolish child. It has nothing to do with intellectual capacity. I want you to turn to Proverbs chapter 1 for just a moment. This is so crucial if we're to think biblically. And all right feeling begins with right thinking. Proverbs 1, verses 7 and 8, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of your father and forsake not the law of your mother. What is the foolish son or daughter in this passage? It's the one who has been exposed to divine wisdom, the fear of the Lord, and all that that involves. All of the truths that cluster around who God is and who we are, and what our responsibilities and obligations are to Him, and how we can know Him in and through Christ, and how we are to walk before Him according to His Word. That's the fear of the Lord that is the essence of wisdom. That who's the fool? The one who is being exposed to that despises it, turns away from it in the language of verse 8, refuses to hear the instruction of his father, and willfully forsakes the law of his mother. And you read later on in this very chapter, chapter 1, where the fool is further described in those very words. of one who turns away from the light and truth and instruction of his father and his mother and what happens to them. Verse 32, for the backsliding of the simple shall slay them and the careless eve of fools shall destroy them. Who is the fool? The one who has turned away from all of that nurture and all of that divine wisdom that you so patiently and prayerfully and lovingly sought to impart. That's the foolish son and the foolish daughter. Now then, having described the efforts to produce a wise son and a wise daughter, and what it is to find before you the foolish son, the foolish daughter, the wayward child, what's the result? Two verses that speak to you mothers who know by experience. Proverbs 10 and verse 1. A wise son makes a glad father. But a foolish son, by way of analogy, the foolish daughter, is the heaviness of his mother. The heaviness of his mother. A weight upon her soul, day and night. Whatever her joys, whatever her delights, the knowledge that the one she carried in her womb, and nursed at her breast, tucked into bed, and prayed with, and washed the clothes, and washed the face, and scrubbed off the dirt from the skin knee, and all that her mothering was poured into, has apparently all come to naught. And it makes her a heavy-hearted woman. Proverbs 17 and verse 25. Proverbs 17 and verse 25, a foolish son is a grief to his mother and father and bitterness, bitterness to her that bare her. The very word bitterness is what Job uses in his destitute state. And he speaks of the bitterness of his soul. And childless Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, in verse 10, she prays in the bitterness of her soul as she feels the weight of her barrenness. And the mother wonders, is it all for nothing? All the discomfort of pregnancy and the trauma of birthing this child. the interrupted nights while nursing and caring for this one in his or her sickness, the sacrifices to provide a God-centered education, all the prayers, all the pleadings, is it all for naught? Bitterness, heaviness. I had one of the most grievous manifestations of that while my wife lay on what was her deathbed. that hospital bed ordered by hospice on which she lay for the last two months of her life in our bedroom. And just before, about one month before she crossed the river, she lay on that bed with my unconverted daughter there, and I was there. And I saw her with tears, her voice faint, for she was weakening so, saying, oh, Bethy, your heart does not belong. to the devil, and it's covered with scabs. But God says, if you seek me with all your heart, you'll find me. And in the heaviness and the bitterness of a soul nearing death, pleading with an unconverted daughter to seek the Lord. I know what these verses mean, not only as a father, but I witnessed it in a mother. That grief is deep. It's poignant. At times, it's indescribable. Are there any consolations for those mothers sitting here this afternoon with this kind of a heavy and a bitter heart? Bless God there are, and I want to give you quickly five of them. Five of them. Number one. The first consolation is rooted in having a sound biblical theology concerning the moral responsibility of the foolish son or daughter. Dear ladies, listen to me. If you need to stand up and suck in a couple of lungs full of fresh air to get some fresh oxygen to your brain, don't miss this. There is a doctrine that is tyrannical floating through the evangelical church. That the presence of a foolish son or daughter is a mirror on a failure of a mother or father. That is wicked, unbiblical teaching. It's torturous. And the first consolation I would offer you is that which is rooted in having a sound, biblical theology concerning the moral responsibility of the foolish son or daughter. The teaching that a wayward child is always the telltale index of parental failure is not biblical. Ah, but does not the Bible say in Proverbs 22.6, train up a child in the way he shall go. And when he's old, he'll not depart from it. Yes, it does say that. But the same author said, the foolish son or daughter is responsible for his or her folly. Proverbs 1 says, my son, listen to me. Don't be a fool. If you become a fool, you'll bear the consequences of being a fool. And your folly is your responsibility, not your parents. People have tried to bully me with that doctrine. I said, turn to Isaiah chapter 1. What does God Himself say? Jehovah the Father of His people Israel, listen to Isaiah 1, verses 2 and 3. Dear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for Jehovah the Lord has spoken. I, God, have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his owner in the ass, his master's crib. But Israel does not know. My people does not consider. Was there ever a more perfect parent than God? I ask you, could anyone find fault in God's parenting of his people Israel? No. He says, I've brought them up. They've rebelled against me. And the rebellion lies at their feet, not mine. Dear ladies, get hold of that. Were you a perfect parent? No. Nor was I. But did you seek by the grace of God and the help of the Spirit to parent according to the light of the Word? Not as prayerful as you should have been, but prayerfully in dependence upon God and upon His grace? Yes, remember, the foolish son or daughter is such by definition that they have had God be nurtured and they have refused and rejected it and they stand accountable to God for their refusal and for their rejection. And your consolation will come when you get hold of that biblical doctrine of the accountability of the foolish son or daughter and you don't go around crippled with false guilt that somewhere I'm responsible for what they have become. No, you are not. You need that biblical theology embedded in your soul. But then the second consolation is this. That's distinct consolation number one. And I've got to find my notes here, get them sorted out. Here we are. Distinct consolation number two. It is the consolation of divine forgiveness if there was clear parental failure. The consolation of divine forgiveness if there were clear parental failure. What am I referring to? Proverbs 29, 15. Proverbs 29 and verse 15 is in the Bible. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself causes shame to his mother. And it may be that you left your child to himself or herself. Maybe you were ignorant of the biblical doctrine of the responsibility of parental training by admonition and the prayerful, wise, judicious, Principled use of the rod. You left the child to himself, to herself. And now you experience this. They now cause shame to you. They cause grief. They cause heaviness. What do you do? God nowhere says parental failure is the unpardonable sin. You don't need to go around carrying the load of unresolved guilt for your parental failure. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, including maternal, parental failure. Ask God's forgiveness and go to the blood of cleansing and plead God's promise If you're able, gather these children and say, look, some of the choices you've made and the patterns of your life, I'm responsible. I indulge you. I did not discipline. I did not train you. I left you to yourself. I've asked God's forgiveness. Will you forgive me? And having done that, my dear sister, God expects no more. If they're out of your hands and out of your home, All you can do is confess your failure to God and to them, and then magnify the grace of God by getting up from that confession and pressing on with a heart free of crippling guilt. That's consolation number two, that there is forgiveness in the case of parental failure. Consolation number three is that Jesus himself takes responsibility for dividing families. Did you know that Jesus himself takes responsibility for dividing families? This has been no little consolation to me as I live with some of the grief of a divided family. Matthew 10 and verse 34. Do not think that I came to send peace on the earth. I did not come to send peace, but a sword. And the verb is translated in other places to cast. I came to cast the sword into households. I came to set a man against his father, the daughter against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be those of his own household. And Jesus said, when it's true, I take responsibility. I did it. I did it. You've got children who, if you were worldly, You went with the flow of all the things that the parents of their friends and their companions have. You'd be the best thing in the world since sliced bread. But the division is there because of your allegiance to Christ. He goes on to say, he that loves father and mother more than me, not worthy of me. He that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. You know why your kids have rebelled and kicked the traces? Because you wouldn't cave in out of a sentimental love for them. You said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. These are the standards of my Lord Jesus, and I will not compromise them. And they've reacted in their unregenerate, rebellious hearts. Take comfort. The Lord Jesus takes responsibility for dividing households. There, on the face of the text, be comforted, my dear sister, in the Lord Jesus. He takes the responsibility. And then consolation number four. The consolation of hoping and praying that the last chapters will be radically different from the present chapters. The consolation of hoping and praying that the last chapters in their lives will be different from the present chapters. What God says to Timothy to encourage him in the ministry, he says to all parents of wayward children, 2 Timothy 2, 24 to 26, the servant of the Lord must not strive. Timothy, don't ever think it's a matter of your will and your arguments against their will and their arguments. No, no, but be gentle to all apt to teach in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves. If God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgement of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him unto his will. Timothy, remember, it's not your brains against their brains and your emotions against theirs. It's the powers of darkness against the powers of the kingdom of God. It's King Jesus with all of his mighty power. Timothy, pray on, teach on patiently, lovingly, praying, hoping that God himself will break in and transform them. The encouragement and promises in conjunction with persistent prayer assume there's the length of time. Does it? Do they not? Luke 11, the parable of the importunate widow who troubles that judge. I'm sorry, Luke 18, though he will not respond because he fears God and has any concern for her. Yet he says by her continual coming, she's going to bruise me. Shall not God avenge his own elect which cry unto him day and night? And then Luke 11, the friend who comes at midnight, knocks on the door. I can't cut out. I got my kids in bed with me. He knocks, he knocks, though he will not rise because he's his friend, yet because of his shameless insistence, he will arise and give him as much as he needs. And I say unto you, ask, keep on asking and it shall be given. Keep on seeking and you shall find. Keep on knocking. It shall be opened unto you. Never forget Monica, mother of the great Augustine. She prayed, she prayed, and when Augustine seemed to be at his worst, she continued to pray until her prayers were answered. Be encouraged in the hope that the last chapters will be radically different from the present. And fifthly, and finally, as the consolation, it's the consolation of knowing that your experience with wayward children or a wayward child is equipping you to minister to others in the same condition. You should be encouraged. Whatever God is doing in my life in the way of suffering, He always has in view what He wants to do through me in the lives of others who are in a similar way of suffering. 2 Corinthians 1, verses 3 to 6, Paul blesses the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation. Why? In order that we may be able to comfort others by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. And then he goes on to say, if we are brought into trials, it is for your sake. My dear sister, you've got to think beyond the present grief to you. And think of other grieving sisters out there, and those that will yet grieve. And who best to draw near and say, ah, my sister, let me sit down for 15 minutes and open up to you some of the consolations of God's grace. What do you know about it? This is what I know about it. And then you're able, out of the crucible of your own experience of God's consolations, to minister to one another. Well, that's what I wanted to say. You've been very patient at this time of the day. As I said, I really was giving you too many sermons, but feeling that these subjects could not be omitted one or the other. I trust God will bring them home with freshness and power to each one of your hearts. And those of you living in the divided marriage and all of the peculiar griefs will go away with fresh consolation and hope that in this very situation I can live to the glory of God and those of you living with the grief and pain of a foolish son or daughter or foolish sons and daughters, you too will take this fivefold consolation and know something of God's refreshing grace in the midst of it. May the Lord be pleased to write these things upon our hearts. Let's pray together. Our Father, we're so thankful for your word, your word that is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway, your word that anticipates all of the needs of your people in all of the varied strands of their lives and addresses us at every point. We thank you for that. And Father, will you not take these things we've considered today, things that are very painful for not a few of these dear women, And will you not write them upon their hearts in such a way that they will leave this place with fresh hope and encouragement and confidence in grace, confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is with them in the suffering of the divided marriage, in the heaviness and the bitterness of the wayward child? Oh, God, may the devil not be able to encompass them with heaviness and oppressiveness that they are robbed of their Christian joy and the validity of their testimony to others. But, O Lord, in the midst of the things that left to themselves would crush them and break them, may they be able to say with the Apostle, always sorrow, yet always rejoicing. We pray that you would do these things for the glory of our Savior and for the good of each one of our souls. We ask in his worthy name. Amen.