With Mother’s Day being this Sunday, we are sharing our May bulletin insert below, entitled Monuments to Mothers. While reading this introduction, I would encourage you to do some self-reflection: What kind of monument are you building to your mother? More importantly, what kind of monument are you erecting to your Lord and your God? The Apostle Paul calls us “living epistles,” a kind of monument in its own right.
In reading the Decency Minute (DM) scripts which follow our bulletin insert below, one will learn the only way, by God’s grace, to build a beautiful and lasting monument to our mothers and our God (DM #1). Next, DM #2, we see examples of those building tarnished monuments that eventually fall and an example of a martyr whose monument shone, proclaiming righteousness and truth. Finally, we will read about monuments of evil, unrighteous acts that reflect shame on mothers and government, and are erected to the prince of darkness (DM #3).
Our bulletin insert can be downloaded here and shared with your church, friends, family, or even your mother. Or you can forward this email on to others where they can read or listen to Bill Johnson narrate these Decency Minutes for themselves. Thank you for helping us spread truth.
Monuments to Mothers
“Honour … thy mother.” Deut. 5:16
While mothers come in all shapes and sizes, have various temperaments, and are at different stages of spiritual maturity – from ungodly to godly – every mother knows what it is to sacrifice. From the nine months of physical aches, pains and incumbrances to the emotional ups and downs, from denying oneself habitual pleasures for the sake of the baby to normal anxieties regarding the growing life that God has made a resident of her womb, mother’s know sacrifice.
We often think of the personal sacrifice that little Katie spoke of to her teacher when asked: “If your mother made a pie and there were ten at the table: father, mother, and eight children, how much of the pie would you get?” The young girl replied, “One-ninth, teacher.” “Don’t you mean one-tenth, Katie? Don’t you know your fractions?” “Yes,” she said, “I know my fractions – but you don’t know my mother. She would say, I’ll do without – I don’t care for any tonight.”
But now I would like to direct our minds to the spiritual travail that ought to belong to godly mothers; it’s a sacrifice of time for prayer, Biblical training, application, discipline, and admonition, for these are more than mere children, they are souls which will one day occupy eternity in either Heaven or Hell. Take heed to Puritan John Flavel: “Think on this particularly, you that are mothers of children, when you find the fruit of your womb quickened within you: you bear a creature within you of more value than all this visible world – a creature upon whom, from that very moment, an eternity of happiness or misery is entailed. Therefore, it concerns you to travail as in pain for their souls before you feel the sorrows and pangs of travail for their bodies…O let your cries and prayers for them anticipate your kisses and embraces of them. If you be faithful and successful herein, then happy is the womb that bears them.” Sacrifices of love seldom seems as sacrifices at all.
Oughtn’t we to follow the examples of godly Biblical mothers like Jochebed (Moses), Hannah (Samuel), Eunice (Timothy) and her mother Lois? What if these mothers hadn’t fulfilled their God-ordained roles? What if we do not?
As Thomas Boston wrote: “Stir them up to the duties of holiness and the practice of religion. Often inculcate on them the doctrine of their sinful, miserable state by nature, and the remedy provided in Christ. Shew them the necessity of holiness, pointing out Christ to them as the fountain of sanctification. Commend [Christianity] to them, and press them to the study of it as the main thing they have to do in the world (Prov. 4:4).”
H.G. Bosch relates the account of the passing of John Phillips Brooks’ mother. That great preacher of decades gone by, together with his brothers, erected a grave marker in grateful testimony to her saintly character. On the tombstone they inscribed these precious words spoken by Christ to a Syrophoenician mother: “Oh woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” What a monument as “Her children arise up, and call her blessed…” Pr. 31:28
A monument of living flesh and blood is one which is greater than stone. John Phillips Brooks and John Wesley were both living monuments to their mothers because they were living monuments to God, their mothers’ God.
John Wesley said of his mother, Susanna: “I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians in England.” Could this be, in part, because she taught him very practically about sin and holiness?
When young John came to his mother to ask her what sin was, this was her reply: “Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish for spiritual things then it is sin for you, however, innocent it may be in itself.”
Wesley also stated, “My mother was the source from which I derived the guiding principles of my life.” Perhaps that was because his mother spoke to him plainly and with application: “There are two things to do about the Gospel – believe it and behave it.”
To put Christ, sin, faith, and holiness constantly before our children’s eyes (Duet. 6:4-9) in a practical and disciplined manner of application through our lives and the teaching of the Word, will be the foundation of a living monument to our holy God.
Let us follow the example set forth in Flavel’s words: “I remember [Augustine] writes of his mother Monica that she planted the precepts of life in his mind by her words, watered them with her tears, and nourished them with her example. A precious pattern for all mothers.”
Very few will be “larger than life” monuments to their mother and her God and very few mothers ever feel that they have been important, but let us simply be the monument that God would have us to be, in accordance with Susanna Wesley’s desire: “I am content to fill a little space if God be glorified.”
The best monument that a child can raise to a mother’s memory is that of a clean, upright, and holy life – one of prayer and true compassion – such as she would have rejoiced to see her child live. Let us be such monuments to mother and to Christ for the glory of God.
When Christians no longer hold high the inerrancy of God’s Word, we see worldly compromise creep into the church. Worship becomes entertainment and sin is rationalized.
In recent years we’ve seen that softening of sin applied to homosexuality within the church. This notion spreading through evangelical circles claims that homosexual identity is not sinful – only homosexual behavior.
One of those who has long promoted the lie that same sex attraction is not sinful is Sam Allberry, who has now has been removed from ministry after his homosexual attraction led to homosexual behavior.
However, Scripture is clear: sin is not just outward behavior, but it is also inward thoughts and desires.
Churches which muddy the water of the clarity of God’s Word, leads to accommodation with sin, rather the pursuit of holiness.
As puritan John Owen said, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”
Assassination Culture on the Left
We’ve witnessed yet another assassination attempt upon the President of the United States. From leftist comedians to leftist politicians to leftist talk show hosts, teachers, and entertainers, the calls for violence against those on the right are never-ending. Even recently, a Virginia transgender substitute teacher was arrested for plotting a mass shooting at a local school.
“Assassination culture is spreading on the left. Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump…The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response.”
Can you guess who uttered these words?
Ironically, it was Charlie Kirk, five months before he was assassinated.
Violence is NOT the answer; we desperately need God to rule and overrule!
What is Our Justice System for if it Can’t Stop Fraud?
Ways in which American taxpayers are being taken advantage of continue to be revealed.
After one independent journalist uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars of social safety net fraud perpetrated by the Somali population in Minnesota, conservative outlets were prompted to look deeper into other states.
The Daily Wire recently alleged Medicaid fraud in Ohio totaling over one billion dollars in 2024 alone, again largely by immigrants.
Ohio uses Medicaid waivers to compensate uncredentialed in-home care providers for basic homemaking chores, but Daily Wire reports that home health companies with non-native owners are taking advantage of a lack of oversite of the program.
For example, a single windowless office building housing 94 different home health companies billed taxpayers around 66 million dollars over a few years, despite appearing largely inactive.
What is our justice system for if it cannot stop this kind of fraud from happening?
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