John Hagee - The Ideal Woman
The mind of man has stored within it no more precious memory than the memory of a godly mother. It was her voice that could conquer every childish fear. It was her gentle touch that could give confidence. It was her very presence that could make you know that you could do the undoable, because your mother was in your corner and she was pulling for you. Will you read with me, please, Proverbs 31:28 and following? "Her children rise up, and call her blessed: her husband also, he praises her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates".
Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, I pray your blessing upon this congregation. And let us see, in the text of Proverbs 31, the portrait of the ideal woman. In Jesus' name, we pray. And all of God's children said, praise the Lord.
All of God's children that are semi saved and feel like you're alive, said, praise the Lord. Alright. You may be seated. When you read this text, Proverbs 31, the portrait of the ideal woman, the ideal woman in God's opinion is, first, a mother. Proverbs 31:28 says, "Her children rise up and call her blessed". Say that with me. "Her children rise up and call her blessed". A wealthy man, wanting to honor his mother on mother's day, went to a pet shop and selected an expensive mynah bird. This mynah bird could speak three languages and cost $15,000. And so he sent it to his mother. And in the process of time, phoned his mothers, and said, "Mother, did you get the bird"? She said, "Yes". He said, "Did you enjoy the bird"? She said, "Yes, it was delicious". He said, "You ate the bird"? She said, "Yes". He said, "Mother, that bird could speak three languages". She said, "Then why didn't it speak up"?
That's an expensive lunch, it'll tell you that. When the artist of Proverbs 31 lifted his brush to paint the portrait that would embody the most winsome of women, he made that face the face of a mother. The scripture does not mention her physical beauty other than to say, "Beauty is vain". Say that with me. "Beauty is vain". It did not mention the grace of her form, nor the dimensions of her figure. It did not mention her crusades. It did not mention her clubs. It did not mention her prominence in society. But God takes the time to mention that this ideal woman is, first, a mother. When she holds the next generation to her breasts, when she rocks the baby to sleep at night, she is putting her fingerprints upon the next generation. She's leaving her footprints in the sands of time. It is true, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world".
America's future is not being determined by presidents and by politicians in Washington, D.C. It is being determined by mothers, who are teaching their children honesty, and morality, and responsibility, and integrity, and truth, and industry, and a sense of honor, and a sense of a man's word being his bond. When America's mothers teach that, America has a great future. When they stop teaching that, America will collapse from within. The ideal woman of Proverbs 31 is not ideal because she's a mother. She is ideal because she is a successful mother. Being able to biologically reproduce is nothing to be distinguished about. An animal in the forest can do that.
What you do with that baby after that baby arrives distinguishes you and your success as a mother. Not every mother is successful. They do not enrich the lives of their children. They impoverish them. They are what sociologists are now calling "Toxic parents". There is a poison within them that oozes out and destroys all that they touch. They do not bless: they curse. They abuse. They leave a sense of lovelessness and neglect in the home. They provoke their children to wrath, when indeed, Ephesians 6:4 says, "Provoke not your children to wrath, but train them up in the ways of God".
A few years ago, I performed a funeral of a mother. And as her two sons passed her casket, and they looked into that casket, if she had been stone, there would not have been less emotion. There was not tear one. There was not one sign of regret. They passed it as if they did it a thousand times every day with not a sign of emotion. Months later, I performed a funeral of an Hispanic housemaid. Those same two boys walked down the aisle, sobbing, having to be assisted by their friends. Their grief knew no limit. Their emotion was beyond my ability to describe it.
After the service, I asked them why. And they told me very candidly, "Because the maid raised us. Our mother was interested in making money. Our mother was interested in being successful. Our mother was interested in keeping up her social facade. But this dear lady was the one who came when we cried in the night. When we had a fever, she was the one who was there. When we were hungry, she was the one who fixed the meals that fed us. When we came home from school, she's the one that hugged us. When we had a problem to talk about, she's the one who talked about it with us. We loved that lady".
There's the difference. One gave birth, but the other was the successful mother. Not every mother is a successful mother. They provoke their children to wrath, and do not instill within them a sense of love, and a sense of well being, and a sense of you're cared about. I didn't learn to pray at the schoolhouse. I learned to pray at my house. And I know it's good to have prayer in school, but I think lots of times, it's nothing more than evangelicals who are on a guilt trip because they don't take time to pray with their children at home. Quit trying to blame the schoolhouse for everything that goes wrong in your child's life. If you sent a hoodlum to school at 8 o'clock, a hoodlum will come home at 3 o'clock. You teach them! You train them in the fear and the admonition of the Lord.
When I was a child at home, I didn't have to guess if my mother was praying. She sounded like a fire engine on a five-alarm fire. It was loud and it was effective. I came home one day from high school football practice and saw my mother washing the dishes. And her Bible was in the window, as which was her normal custom of doing, as she read and memorized large sections of scripture all the days of her life. And she was praying, and tears were running off her cheeks. And I knew she had something on her mind. And I sat down at the table, and she said, "John, I'm going over to pray for the neighbors. They have a boy that has epilepsy. And I know if I pray for that boy, God will heal that boy". I said, "Mother, don't embarrass us by going over there and praying for those folks. We don't even know them"!
That didn't slow her down. Obviously, I wasn't saved. She went out the back door. She crossed the alley. I heard the screen pop on the other side. And one minute later, I heard her taking off. She came back, and said, "God's healed that boy: I know it". I said, "I sure hope so". Shortly thereafter, that family moved. We saw the mother and the child a year later in Weingarten supermarket. And the mother ran all the way across the store, and said, "You're the lady that prayed for my son when we lived next door to you". Said, "I'm telling you that he had three seizures every day at least. And from the day you prayed for him until this day, he's not had one more seizure. And I bless you in the name of the Lord".
In the due process of time, I was saved. And when I went to the university and I heard the agnostic professor say that prayer is obsolete for a sophisticated society, I looked him in the face, and knew him to be an empty-headed fool, because my mother had taught me that prayer is real, God is real, and God answers prayer. And I'm saying to every mother in this room and those watching by television from around America, that God will heal your family: that God will defend your children: that God will protect your sons and your daughters. There's not one thing that threatens your family or threatens your marriage that God can't resolve it. Get on your knees and pull the gates of hell off at the hinge! God answers prayer and he'll answer your prayer!
Susanna Wesley had 19 children. How do you stay saved with 19 children? And she said, "I took time every day to pray for every one of that". Just think about that. She said, "The house was so full of children: the only way I could get any privacy was to take my apron and throw it over my head". You can imagine. It's like being raised in a playground. But she had two sons, Charles and John Wesley, that shook America and shook England with the power of the gospel. Susanna Wesley left her fingerprints on the generations of the world because of the power of God that she placed within her children.
What was the secret of the woman in Proverbs 31? It was no accident. Her success was planned. It was directed of God. She was a woman that feared the Lord. Look at verse 30, "A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised". Say that with me. "A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised". You don't hear that in America. We praise a woman because she looks pretty. It's called the miss America pageant. We have high school beauty pageants, junior high school beauty pageants. I've seen beauty pageants for six-year-olds. What nonsense! You're instilling in the mind of that child, how they look is the consummate reason for their sense of well being.
We praise a woman for her bridge club championship, for her golf club championship. We praise a woman for her dancing skills. We praise a woman for her industry, for her accomplishments in industry, and we'll post her picture in the newspaper. God says in Proverbs 31, I want to honor the only woman who deserves to be honored, and that woman is the woman who fears God! You won't find that in the San Antonio newspaper tomorrow or in the Saturday business section. It has never been harder to be a successful mother than now. Our society is swimming in a sewer of drugs, and alcohol, and molesters, and child abusers, and aids, abortion, and pornography, and suicide. And teenage gangs are dominating the metropolitan areas and making the cities a reign of death and brutality.
It seems to me if there were no other reason that a mother would give for becoming a Christian, it would be the responsibility of motherhood driving that mother to Jesus Christ, so that she could bring her children to the Lord. Let me tell you something, mom. You can't live a successful life reading Dr. Spock. The only way you're going to raise your children in the fear and the admonition of the Lord is to rear them within the fear of the Word of God.
The mother of Proverbs 31 was a strong woman. Her strength was not physical. It was moral and spiritual. She was strong in her loyalty to God. I have known women, who were married to Godless men, who Sunday after Sunday, came to the house of God alone. Their children are neatly dressed. She is radiant. But her husband is not there. This is the forgotten woman and this is the forgotten mother. And I say this to you, father. I don't care where you are. You're on the golf course on Sunday morning. You're home reading the newspaper. You're out at the ranch, whatever you're doing.
I am praying the conviction of the Holy Spirit to fall upon you and to drive you to the house of God, so that on the Lord's day, you can sit beside your wife and your children, and by example, dictate to your children and illustrate to your children that God is more important than your golf game, and God is more important than your ranch, and God is more important than your investments. And I am praying that God will convict you until everything you do will be like living in a bed of coals until you get off your duff and get to the house of God with your wife and your children, and be the man God called you to be, by example, leading your children to the Kingdom of God!
This congregation has forgotten mothers. This congregation has them, wives, who are struggling to rear their children in the fear and the admonition of the Lord, while their husbands ignore their duty. His responsibility, he ignores. And I'm asking the Lord to change that. There are forgotten parents in America, wondering where their children are. It's a mystery to me how one man and one woman can raise six children, and those six children get to be adults, and cannot take care of that one man and one woman. I don't understand that. I went to visit a rest home to see an elderly mother living her last days on the earth. And she said, "Pastor, could you convince my son to come see me"? I said, "Where is he"? Thinking he must be on the other side of the planet, thinking maybe that he was crippled and couldn't get there, and I should go and get him a ride and bring there.
When I found out the facts, he was in good health. He lived within two miles of that rest home, and he hadn't been there in a year and a half. That's wrong! I want to tell you something: that's abuse. That's sin. The Bible says, "Honor your mother and your father". Whatever your past circumstances may have been, she is your mother, and you need to honor her for who she is! If your mother's not physically with you today, you go home and call your mother. You go home and tell your mother you love her, and you thank God for her. She's an angel from God to your life. If she's dead and gone to glory, whisper a prayer to the love of God. And I'm convinced that a loving God will see that she gets the message. Mothers are a special treasure that God gives. This woman in Proverbs 31 was not only strong, but her mouth was filled with the law of kindness.
Lady, let me tell you something. When out of your mouth comes vulgarity, when out of your mouth comes biting satire, when out of your mouth comes one nagging phrase after the other, you lose, you lose the stature and the pinnacle upon which God has placed you. Let your mouth be filled with the law of kindness. Let what comes out of your mouth bless and not curse. Let it heal and let it not destroy, because it is the will of God that the love of God be expressed through you. This woman was a homemaker. The Bible says, "In her hands, she holds and grasps the spindle". Many labor-saving devices have been created to make motherhood easier, but it's still not easy! At birth, she enters into the valley of the shadow of death to give life to that child.
Carol Burnett said, "If you men want to know what it's like to give birth to a baby, try pulling your lower lip over the back of your head". That's a pretty good analogy. I defy any man to tell me that mother is not a working woman. If you don't think so, stay home and take her place. Wash the dishes. Vacuum the rugs. Dust the furniture. Chase the little children around the house. Change their diapers. Go to the music lessons. Go to baseball practice. Go to football practice. Race home and get supper fixed in time, and be dressed like miss America with a rose in your teeth when sir galahad comes home. Get real.
The woman in Proverbs 31 was a worker. "She sets about her work vigorously. Her lamp does not go out at night". In this auditorium, there are mothers that took in sewing to feed you. In this auditorium, there are children that have been raised by mothers that swept out buildings, that picked peaches, that became housemaids, that worked like animals to break the yoke of poverty over your life. You are blessed. Your mother's industry gave you a level of living that the rest of the world envies. And the quality of your life has been born in the blood, the sweat, and the tears of your mother's industry.
When I look into the future of America, I see a dark cloud, and I see a coming storm, because there are large numbers of America's mothers who have never worked one day in their life, and they do not intend to. They have been supported by the federal government, and their children believe it is the government's responsibility to feed and clothe them. I want you to hear the Word of God. The Bible says, "The man that does not work should not eat". And that ought to be engraved over the doorpost of the health education and welfare department in Washington, D.C. Proverbs 31 says this wonderful woman was not afraid of the cold. Why? Because in the springtime, she made garments for the children that they would wear in the winter.
Mother, wintertime is coming for your children. There is a springtime when they are with you. But there will come the day when they're going to leave you. Did you know when your child starts to school that you've spent 70% of the spare hours that you're going to have with them, and then when they leave home for college, that's greatly reduced? And they probably will never come home again to live in your home. What are you doing in the springtime of your life? Don't face the future with fear. Make good use of the springtime. Train up your child in the way it should go, and when it is older, it will not depart from it.
The day will come when your son may go to war. You can't go with them but God can! The day will come when you will send your daughter up the aisle of the church to be married. You can't go on the honeymoon with them. I know some of you would like to, but you can't. What you have put in them is now what's going to come out. When you send your child to a secular humanist college, every fiber of their faith is going to be challenged to the root. And if all you've given them is a happy clappy substance, happy clappy something that has no substance, their faith will collapse in the springtime while they are there. Placed within their heart, their soul, their mind and their body, the solid rock, Christ Jesus, so that in the day of the storm, they shall stand and not be confounded and you will not be embarrassed.
You can't go with them. You can't go with them. But the teaching that you have engraved on their hearts will never leave them. The God you gave them to will guide them. The angels of the Lord will take charge over them, and no harm will come to them, because the angels of God are with them day and night. I want every mother in this audience to stand, and I want to pray for you right where you are, every mother that's here. Can we bow our heads together?
Heavenly Father, look from the balconies of heaven into this congregation. And I pray a supernatural blessing on these mothers. I pray, Lord, that you would give them strength for the journey, and the wisdom of Solomon to rear their children in the fear and the admonition of the Lord. I ask you, God, that you would give them godly conviction to stand strong in a humanistic society. I ask you, Lord, that you would give them your grace: and that everything that they put their hands to shall prosper: and that out of their mouths shall come the law of kindness: and that industry, and integrity, and morality may come forth from them and be built into their children.
I pray, Father, for every forgotten mother in this room, for those whose husbands have abandoned them, for those who, day after day, struggle to live a godly life without any encouragement, Father, I pray your anointing upon them today. I pray for every mother lingering in rest homes: that you would give them your joy and your peace. I pray for abused mothers that are standing in this room, for those that have been physically violated by their husbands. I pray, God, that you would convict that husband and strengthen that mother. I pray for mothers who are single parents: that you would give them joy, and peace, and strength, and direction: and that you would send some godly man to fill that void in their lives.
I praise you, Father, for the joy in my own life, having known a godly mother that instructed me in the ways of the Lord. Most of all, the beautiful things that you give us on this planet come by twos, or threes, or maybe dozens, or by hundreds. We give a dozen roses. There are hundreds of stars in the night sky. There are two brothers and there are three sisters. There are aunts and uncles and cousins, but there's only one mother. And I pray, Lord, that we can honor her and esteem her, because she is the woman of Proverbs 31 whom God says fears the Lord and her value is far above the value of great rubies, in Jesus' name.
I pray, Father, for every forgotten mother in this room, for those whose husbands have abandoned them, for those who, day after day, struggle to live a godly life without any encouragement, Father, I pray your anointing upon them today. I pray for every mother lingering in rest homes: that you would give them your joy and your peace. I pray for abused mothers that are standing in this room, for those that have been physically violated by their husbands. I pray, God, that you would convict that husband and strengthen that mother. I pray for mothers who are single parents: that you would give them joy, and peace, and strength, and direction: and that you would send some godly man to fill that void in their lives.
I praise you, Father, for the joy in my own life, having known a godly mother that instructed me in the ways of the Lord. Most of all, the beautiful things that you give us on this planet come by twos, or threes, or maybe dozens, or by hundreds. We give a dozen roses. There are hundreds of stars in the night sky. There are two brothers and there are three sisters. There are aunts and uncles and cousins, but there's only one mother. And I pray, Lord, that we can honor her and esteem her, because she is the woman of Proverbs 31 whom God says fears the Lord and her value is far above the value of great rubies, in Jesus' name.