A Threefold Cord
Mothers Day, May 10th, 2026
Ecclesiastes 4:9–12
9 Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. 10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. 11 Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? 12 And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Genesis 2:21–25
21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
John 15:5
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
From the beginning of creation and before the fall of mankind, the man shall be joined to his wife and the two become ONE.
One in body, one in spirit, one in personhood, ONE.
All they do, they do best together as ONE.
They are both different, both have qualities and natural characteristics that are different one from another, complementing or even completing each other.
There is also an order to the relationship, an order that when breached, cannot attain to its perfect purpose.
Genesis 3:16
16 Unto the woman he said, …..; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
This is the ONLY aspect of the nature of the two that does not come naturally, and so the Lord God places it as a command to obey. Faithfulness in this leads to blessing, unfaithfulness is this leads to cursing the relationship.
Ephesians 5:25
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Yet another command that may surprise many, is not retained naturally over the long term. Just as the respect from wives for their husbands need to be commanded, so too the sacrificial love of men for their own wives must be commanded.
There is much here beloved, but it is safe to say that the wife is not a wife without the husband, nor the husband without the wife, the two are ONE.
Genesis 2:23
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
“And they shall be one flesh“.
“The man and his wife” “one“.
God is ONE.
and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
They were made in the image of God, man and woman are joined together to re-present God to the world.
The two are one.
Together they represent the complete nature of God.
God is ONE
and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
This is the marriage covenant, a promise, a testament that has the man die to himself and live to his wife, that has the woman die to herself and live to her husband….”And they shall be one flesh“.
Made in the image of God, God is ONE.
Genesis 1:27
“27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.“
But this unity in person, the two becoming one, does not end at their wedding, to the contrary, it continues on;
Genesis 1:28
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
“Be fruitful, and multiply…“
Just as the man is not a husband without the wife, nor can he be a father without his wife being a mother.
The world likes to give separate accolades to that which it cannot understand. They separate that which God has joined together, and while the platitude is nice and like birthdays, we like it when we are acknowledged as valuable, it exists largely to fill a void that ought never to have been there in the first place.
MOTHER ARE ALWAYS TO BE HONOURED, as are fathers and as is each and every individual each and every day.
We cannot say “this day of the year you will honour your mother, when it is over you can return to ignoring her for the next 364 days“.
Today my desire is to show you the infinite value of this miraculous union of a man and a woman, a father and a mother; how it meets with the perfect nature of God in re-presenting him, and how only with him can such a union have infinite strength and infinite value.
For a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
God Is A Father
In the Bible, God is clearly represented as having Children, the first of all his Children is ….Adam.
Luke 3 contains the genealogical record of mankind, beginning at Heli the father of Mary and turning backward through history, concluding at Adam, with that last verse saying simply, and speaking of Cainan;
Luke 3:38
38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
Paul also testifies of all of mankind as being children of God;
Acts 17:24–28
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; 26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
Mankind had sprung from God as he did through Adam and yet the Lord also personally involved in our direct creation, for the Psalmist wrote “…for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:…” (Ps 139:14).
The first time we beheld a child in our hands, the first time we had seen our own child and looked into those wonderful eyes we saw both the most wonderful and fearfully made person we had ever seen, and knew of a certainty that this child was made into our own image, yet also in the image of God.
This “threefold cord” so perfectly seen in a newborn child, a miracle of infinite potential, a person of infinite value to God and to the two people who came together.
A triune relationship was required since the time of Eve for every child born into the world.
Jeremiah 1:5
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; …. God said to Jeremiah.
a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
God IS a father, he has made the people of the world as his children and loves them all…but, rebellion was in their hearts.
Nourished Yet Rebelled
Isaiah 1:2–9
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. 4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. 5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. 7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
Sorrow fills the hearts of many mothers today.
There are two mothers who I know, with mixed feelings of this day.
They both have other small children, One mother lost her youngest child three years ago, A little girl who I was blessed to do the funeral of, but less than a year ago the youngest son of another mother died.
On mother’s day both joy in seeing their Children, but the day is diluted with tears and sorrow of those they had lost.
There are other mothers who have lost sons or daughters, but not through death, but through the means by which God had lost his children, REBELLION.
IN THIS PASSAGE WE SEE the heart of the father and a part of the natural nature of God with the characterisitcs of both mother and father contained, for GOD IS ONE.
First we see the plea of the father as his astonishment reaches to heaven;
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth:
Seeing the context of the passage is the rebellion of Children, we see the astonishment of the father nature of God make his plea as a form of astonishment to all that comes after.
Godly Fathers provide for their homes. They look to ensure their children never go without, they ensure that the mother has all she needs to nourish and bring up their children in the most comfortable and caring way, never to disturb their peace and always to find safety in the home.
If an invader where to disturb this peace, it would be the father who will risk life and limb to ensure his castle remains secure and his children undisturbed.
But now rebellion has filled the hearts of the children and he lifts his eyes in astonishment, an incomprehensible cry for the heavens and the earth to witness the madness of the rebellious child who had been provided for all their needs. Even before they asked, they were given, but now an ungrateful rebellion has taken their hearts away and the plea for a heavenly witness was lifted up;
Then we see the nature of the mother; I have nourished and brought up children
This is she, this is the motherly aspect of God that is reflected in the nature of the mother.
Nourishment, providing for all their physical needs. From their utter helplessness in the crib, to the taking of their first steps, they were fed when hungry, washed and swaddled to ensure perfect comfort as their tiny bodies would grow as they peacefully slept, with the hope of an undisturbed sleep.
Nourishment direct from the mother with all the vitamins and suplement needed to ensure strength and growth. Within this nourishment that is passed from mother to child is the imunity that has been built up in the mothers body her life long, to ensure the child has an immunue system that is ready to cope with the world as it is.
O they are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made and God, (who is one), is still active ensuring life gets its best start.
I have nourished and brought up children
She can say with confidence and certainty. As God can say, so can she.
She has prepared them for the world, their bodies ready to be clothed. Bodies resistant to all that may make them ill, for she has “nourished” them.
Fathers have toughened them to ensure they are resistant to the physical constraints of life. Bodies ready to endure the hardness that will be thrown their way.
Minds ready to work, a sense of responsibility had been placed within them from their fathers and supported also by the mother.
“No free lunch”
“No participation award”
These have been “brought up” to become responsible adults rather than lazy sloths.
Everything has been given them to ensure they have all they need to live a full life.
Gratefulness?
Naturally it would be expected. God is the most perfect of parents, and anyone may think for certain that his children being nourished and brought up directly of God, having all their needs fulfilled, ought to be grateful.
Certain their are those who are grateful. These are the cause of the parents joy.
They “hear the instruction of their father, and forsake not the law of their mother” (Prov 4:3).
Those who have children have the greatest of all opportunities for the absolute greatest of joys and blessing.
Psalm 127:3–5
3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. 4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. 5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
But this is not always how it goes….
Rebelled.
Isaiah 1:2–9
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
Several items are worthy of note through this passage that I would like you to be informed of.
Firstly that there is no more perfect parent than God. He is the father of reputation and of perfect provision. He teaches and he instructs, he leads and he guides, he rewards and he chastises and he loves more perfectly that any parent in the world can do…
And yet he has rebellious children.
It is not always true that the raising of Children, no matter how perfectly, will lead to a faithful and loving reciprocal relationship where children honour their parents their life long.
It is not always the fault of parents.
Parenting has the greatest personal rewards.
But parenting also has within it the greatest sorrows.
Parenting is the most difficult employment of all, and yet there there are few if any who believe that having no children would have been preferred. Certainly, the opposite is true, today multitudes of adults who have missed the opportunity for motherhood are in deep regret of their decisions, sold to them largely by a godless culture led by a devil who hates all created in the image of God.
Proverbs 10:1
1 The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.
Proverbs 15:20
20 A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish man despiseth his mother.
Proverbs 19:26
26 He that wasteth his father, and chaseth away his mother, is a son that causeth shame, and bringeth reproach.
Such could be said of daughters as well as sons, no doubt.
Two forms of great sorrow come upon a mother, one is the death of a child. No doubt there is no greater, sharper sorrow.
The sorrow of death is great and deep, but the sorrow of delinquency lingers long.
One has closure in that nothing can change, the other is an open wound that only hope and prayer can heal.
Today more than any other time in history we are seeing the delinquency of Children who despise and dishonour their parents through the influence of the world and of people around them.
“Rebellion” is the charter of the education system, and this is where the delinquency begins.
In neglecting the truth of God and the Bible as a whole, Christians have been caught off guard thinking the education system was a benign, well intended organisation that is there for the specific purpose of assisting to raise our Children and prepare them for the world.
But this is the exact opposite of its charter.
I have no time to bring to you the full realisation of those we have entrusted our Children to, suffice to provide a few quotations from the fathers of our modern education system that you may have some clue as to why the Bible teaches that the time shall come when;
53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. Luke 12:53
Matthew 10:36
36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. (Jesus Quoting Micah 7:6)
Now, remember the historical context. This is the late 19th century in the United States, John Dewey and his associates are devout atheists living in a strong Christian nation, when Christianity was the standard of life and living and the Bible the foundation of learning.
Every University in the United States at that time were Theological institutions. Harvard, Princston, Yale and so on. No longer!
John Dewey is known as the father of the modern education system, he tells exactly of its charter and purpose;
1897: “Education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform”
Then he defines what education actually is;
“Education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness: and the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social re construction”
He goes on;
“Every teacher should realise the dignity of his calling: that he is the social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. In this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God”
Charles Francis Potter, together with John Dewey, were one of the original signatories to the Humanist manifesto, to transform the Christian world toward the secular (Satanic) world we now live in.
He wrote;
“Humanism is a new type of religion altogether”
“Education is the most powerful ally of humanism, and every American Public School is a school of Humanism”
““What can the theistic Sunday- schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?”
Society has now fallen of a cliff as we are witnessing today. There seems to be no restraint to the degradation of our societies and no standards by which people live. Entertainments have followed suit, music, movies, games and the like is turning the world “upside down” in the most depraved of ways and parents are losing their Children.
Paul Beecher Blanshard, a leading Secualr Humanist Author summed the goal perfectly in 1976, he wrote;
“It think the most important factor leading us to a secular society has been the educational factor . Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition.”
Jesus said
Matthew 18:6
6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Bringing it together.
The sermon today was to bring understanding and also some comfort to mothers and to fathers alike.
1/ You cannot be a good mother without a father in the home. Neither can fatherhood be properly attended to without the mother and neither can be done right with the Help of the Lord who guides and instructs.
2/ God is a parent. He has Children in the most perfect sense. Both fathers and mothers have the characteristics of God, distinct and yet joined perfectly in the raising of Children.
- Mothers Nature and nourish
- Fathers provide and build.
- Mothers demonstrate unconditional love
- Fathers teach respect and honour, humility and sacrifice.
But there is much more we learn from our trials as parents.
Much more we can see respecting how our parenting relates to so perfectly to God and the distinct natures of mothers and fathers are first presented in God.
- A Perfect parent can have rebellious Children.
- God is perfect, we are not. While there is no doubt we could have done better, there are other forces also at large that are influencing such rebellion. Sadly, this is set to worsen the closer we come to the time of the Lords return.
The Character of God is represented in Fathers and Mothers.
Fathers work to inspire TRUST within their Children. It is a preparation that ought to lead them to trust in God the father when they leave the home. God help fathers who betray this trust.
Fathers are the providers of the home. There is a reason why the Bible teaches that those who do not work to provide are worse than the infidel.
Tragically, Governments today reward what God hates. They give men means to remain irresponsible. I wonder how many men would remain unemployed today if such “reward” for their sloth was no longer given them? How many would not be so choosy when they are forced on the streets?
Beloved, I was brought up to work, and I find it the most shameful thing to know that there are many who profess to be men but excuse their not working. They have little idea how badly they portray God. Worse than the infidel is an apt description in 1 Tim 5:8.
Fathers inspire confidence in their Children. Sons become strong and self aware, daughters seek no love from any other man than the one they will marry when they know how much their fathers adore them.
They lead and rule their homes well. Their wives respect them and they govern to ensure mothers have all their needs met to allow them perfect motherhood.
Fathers inspire honour because they themselves are honourable and trustworthy. They call sin, sin and punish justly.
These are Godly characterisitcs and ought to come natural to Godly men.
Mothers nurture first.
Mother sacrifice more than any people on earth. They think of themselves LAST. While Husbands are willing to give their lives for their wives, mothers are willing to give their lives for their Children.
Mothers teach what unconditional love is. The saying, “he has a face that only a mother could love” is not without precedence!
But WHEN rebellion comes, there are also the characteristics of God made manifest.
Anger is found in the heart of a Father. He rages at the disrespect and dishonour and fumes at the pain experienced by the mother. His natural ability to repair that which is broken is taken away when he knows rebellion is not his to fix.
His sadness and grief manifests in cutting off the discordant child. So it is also with the Lord.
Ungratefulness in the heart of the child who rebels, leads only to pain and deep sorrow in the heart of the mother. Grief has replaced joy. There is nothing left but to feel pain.
So it is also with God. Punishment indeed can meet with objective sin, but what is there to do when ungratefulness sets in? Feel pain.
But there is more that is displayed between them that represents the Lord.
Grace is readily apparent in the heart of the mothers. She just wants reconciliation and restoration of the relationship and is quick to give all the grace that is needed.
For fathers the virtue of God is that of Mercy. They know judgment is required and they are willing to exercise mercy when the rebellion is repented of.
The prodigals father gave his son what he sought for, knowing of a certainty the lustful heart of his boy and gave him up for dead.
Let the world have its work.
But mercy took hold when he saw his son a far off and he ran to him, “for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Lk 15:24).
Repentance in the son inspired mercy in the father.
Close:
Mothers day.
You are the most precious of all people in the world.
The times of sorrow will be recompensed and the nature of God represented in you through your sacrifice and enduring patience will be rewarded in time.
You represent God by your nature. Unconditional love, grace, nurture.
I have seen all this in my wife. I have learnt all this through my wife.
But you are not perfect without your husband to father the children. You cannot do it alone.
While the world wants mothers celebrating a separate day from fathers, we know that it takes two to become one.
But this union is yet incomplete until it becomes triune. God must be permitted to work in you both.
A threefold cord is not quickly broken
Eccles 4:12
God bless you.
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