The Spirit of Motherhood
By Verbal Bean

I want to talk to you about the spirit of motherhood. It may sound strange, but it has produced revivals for me, and it will for you. It will change your life, if you can understand the need of the spirit of motherhood.

“Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying, Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves. In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travelers walked through byways. The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother of Israel ” (Judges 5:1, 6, 7).

I want you to note the deplorable condition that existed in the time that Deborah is writing. Where there was once activity, the highways were unoccupied, travelers walked through byways, and villages became empty.

I understand, in the state of Texas, there is a place that the only thing remaining of what once was a very densely populated city, is one fence post. Water conditions, and other problems caused everyone to move. It’s hard to imagine this, but I’m trying to get you to picture the conditions of which Deborah was speaking.

She said these conditions existed until she arose a mother in Israel. The greatest need in your ministry, and to the saints that you’ll preach to, as a pastor or an evangelist, is the spirit of motherhood.

We know that the Old Testament is a shadow and allegory of the New Testament, we’re going to use these beautiful allegories to show the spiritual parallel that we feel is so vital.

God gave me this message many years ago, about where that trailer is now, in a little sawdust tabernacle that we had erected on this property. He told me to preach it in the churches, and I haven’t missed too many.

Some folks feel it’s bad for a preacher to preach a message over again. I would say it’s bad if you strictly depend on your outline of sermons, and don’t pray and get new ones. But, surely, if God will give you a message worth anything, it’s worth preaching other places, if the Spirit calls for it.

“And the King of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Punh: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive. And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why
have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive? And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty. And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses” (Exodus 1:15-21).

The spirit of motherhood existed in the lives of the apostles, and it exists in every life that’s fruitful and has results. If you want to be a preacher of sermons, you can be a preacher of sermons. You’ll find certain places that you’ll fit, but if you want results, what I am now telling is exactly how you get it. And there’s no way around it, there’s no promotional gimmicks, there’s no talent or personality that is so great that it will produce this. There’s only one way to have children, and that’s to have mothers. There’s no
mechanical form of hatching them out. God’s plan has never changed in the natural, it has never changed in the spiritual.

“And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her” (Psalm 87:5).

There are several groups involved in the birth of a child: the mother, the kindred, the midwife or doctor, and the friends. Generally in the birth of a child these four groups will be around, and usually with interest. But let it forever be remembered that when there’s to be any roses given away, and any compliments given, in regards to the birth of a child, it’s not going to be midwife or doctor that gets the credit. It won’t be daddy, or brothers and sisters. It won’t be the friends. It’s going to be that pale faced woman that suffered untold misery to bring that baby into this world. She gets the honor, and rightfully so.

One day of the year is set aside for Mother’s day, and there ought to be a dozen, because mother’s had to go through misery to produce a baby.

Modern techniques have taken some of the pain away, but for example’s sake in this discussion, I’m referring to natural childbirth. There isn’t any such thing as natural childbirth without pain. It was planned by God after the fall to be that way.

If nothing else is learned in this whole school, if this message could get inside of you, and start gnawing and eating on you, I would say it was worth our while. Any money you spent, and any inconvenience you’ve had with this trailer, it would be worthwhile. Naturally what is a part of your ministry, invariably is going to be a part of the people to whom you preach. If you are a shallow preacher, you will have shallow saints. If you’re deep, spiritual, and prayerful, then the church you preach to will bear those marks. They will be your epistles, known and read of all men. If you’re weak on holiness, they’ll be weak on holiness.

Let me explain what happened when God gave me this message. I’ve never been the same since. I’m so thankful that he’s allowed me to have an insight into this.

We were praying one night, in this little sawdust tabernacle, about as wide as this trailer. There was a man seeking for the Holy Ghost. As you will normally see in any church, the majority of the saints were in the back laughing and talking. There were only about three praying around this seeker. In fact, the folks in the back were making as much noise as we were, and this can be a hindrance.

I’ve had to run saints home, or take the seeker in the back room.

We were wrestling, and I couldn’t feel God anywhere. The seeker wasn’t doing any good, but all of a sudden somebody touched God, and that man threw his hands up, and that man began to speak with tongues.

What do you suppose happened? Immediately from the back of the building, here rushes everybody up, clapping their hands, “Oh glory to God, come on Brother, that’s wonderful!” They showed great interest in this man. One minute before they were talking about clothes, cars, homes, etc. God literally spoke to me and said, “Back up, I want to talk to you.” And I did, I backed up against the wall, and observed, and watched them make over this man.

He said, “I want to show you what’s happening.” First of all, these that rushed up here are not the mother of that child. They’re only relatives.

When the relatives come, they pick up the baby, and ooh and ah, say he looks like daddy. That’s fine and that’s good, and the baby needs that, but don’t forget the one that gets the honor. They didn’t travail, or feel pain, they’re relatives.

Even some of us that were praying with him were not the mother of the child. We were simply serving in the office of the midwife. The majority of your altar workers are midwives, not mothers, and we need really good midwives. This needs to be trained and taught in our churches. And you need to know these things to where you can transfer them. I never have believed in a preacher simply depending on saints to pray in the altar.

I’ve had to do that in revival because of physical weakness, but every preacher should have the power to pray in an altar. Evangelists that preach sermons, if he has any strength left, he ought to be in the altar exercising the power and authority that’s in his hands to pray people through.

First, because you build faith in saints, secondly, because you’re an example, and you’re teaching them.

I’ve seen ill-trained spiritual midwives that hindered the birth of a child. Some could even be comical, if it wasn’t so serious.

One evangelist told me, he had two big, strong men who hadn’t had the Holy Ghost very long. This man that was seeking was real frail. They prayed with him until they saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere, so they took turns shaking him! I mean they’d shake him until the one gave out, then the other would shake him. The evangelist said, when he got to him, they had their heads together, and they were literally fixing to stand him on his head! They said, “He’s got too much pride!” This sounds extreme, but you’d be surprised what can go on in an altar.

An evangelist or pastor needs to know how to teach people, or your revival, praying, and fasting, can be gone like that, because somebody did not know how to work in the altar. It should never be thought that an evangelist has no place to teach saints. The Scripture says that all five ministries were for the perfecting of the saints, and edifying of the body of Christ.

You might wonder what to do if you go preach to a church where the pastor objected to you preaching to his saints. Let me tell you what I did, I didn’t go. I do not have time to waste. There’s too many that’s ready to turn you loose on the saints. Not for the purpose to pick on saints, but we have the authority if we’re going to have a revival, we need the ability to lead that church into deeper things. This is no reflection on a pastor, this simply means that one man cannot perfect a church by himself.

We have some good midwives, but where is the baby coming from without a mother? I don’t care how good the altar workers are, or what kind of a church you have, or how they enjoy a new convert, your highways will be unoccupied. Your travelers will walk through the byways. The byways are the denominal churches to which many precious souls are now going, simply because there is a lack of the spirit of motherhood in the church.

We’ve got little churches dotted all over the country. I certainly do not have the greatest church, and I’m not satisfied, but they ought to be packed, while the denominal churches are filled up. A lot of times we pray just enough conviction on the friends around us, to make them go join a denominal church. They ought to pay us a certain amount from every revival we ever have. There’s no telling how many members we’ve put into denominal churches during revival. We prayed enough conviction on them to make them feel the need for God, and that’s all they knew. Nobody was there to tell them to come to this church. All they knew was the church mamma went to, or the one around the corner, so they go and join it. And we were the ones that prayed them under that conviction.

The travelers will walk through the byways. Denominal churches will grow and multiply. I don’t know how many Baptist churches there are in Houston tonight. When I first came here twenty years ago, there were two hundred, and fifty of them. We have done well to have twenty churches. What’s the problem? Can we blame the message, as much as we say that it’s to blame? I do not believe that’s it.

The majority of people that pray through don’t care how many gods there are! Somebody got them conscious of their need of God. Don’t take this wrong. That doesn’t mean they don’t need to know how many gods there are, but when you get the person stirred right, all they want is God. I’ll guarantee some of you, it never crossed your minds how many gods there are. It’s not the one God message. It’s not the holiness message. I don’t believe we can hide behind the message, and say “This is what’s keeping people
out.” There are some that will never accept our message. But we have lazily thrown up a camouflage that our message is so hard, until we’ve let precious souls walk through the byways of denominal churches that would have been thrilled beyond words to have this!

Before you decide what a narrow path is, and condense your revival to that, it would do you well to read in the Book of Acts what kind of revivals they had! Jesus said,

“…Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:14).

But the same Jesus filled five thousand with the Holy Ghost in one day, and three thousand in another day. I don’t believe that broadened the path any more than He said it was. What I’m trying to show you is this, “One reclaimed, and three blessed,” that we write our reports about in somebody’s magazine, and say, “My what a great evangelist this is!” We’ve condensed our minds down to believing that’s all we can have, because of our message. We have blocked the door of thousands of hungry people.

Take the average God gives in his Bible, and apply it to Houston alone. He said there are four types of ground, and only one type is good. All right, one fourth of the seed you sow, you’ve got a promise that it will be all right. Compare that one fourth of Houston, if you could reach everybody in Houston with a testimony, track, or a sermon on the truth, and take God’s average of one fourth. Then you can figure out what a narrow path is. It’s not a hundred soul revival!

I am sick and tired that we have so long condensed God down to such little revivals. If that’s what you’re going to go out and preach, don’t tell them you went to Apostolic Minister’s Training Institute, please. If can’t enlarge your faith to believe that a
thousand soul revival is not a big revival. Whoever heard that thousand souls was a lot, compared to a million and a half?

My faith is, and I believe it’s scriptural, and I believe it’s God, that the latter day revivals shall see it as a common thing to baptize
three thousand! I believe it with all of my heart. I’ll die believing it. The days of revivals are not over, and it’s not that black and dark, and the message is not that hard! I’ll tell you what’s lacking, is the spirit of motherhood. There can be no children born without travail.

“. ..As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children” (Isaiah 66:8).

We’ve got promotions, altar workers, midwives, and friends, but_ the lacking element is the spirit of motherhood. It’s lacking in our churches and in our ministry.

What was the cry made for the ministry? Was it, “Oh Ministers, get a marvelous sermon and preach it”? Was that what the prophet | said we should do? No sir, he said,

“Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not shine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God” (Joel 2:17)?

Our churches will be scrawny, puny, lifeless, social orders, until | the preacher rises that can inspire that church to become a mother, | and the preacher himself to become one. Paul was a genuine man, | and I don’t believe he was a sissy, but he said,

“…I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

The deplorable condition existed until Deborah arose a mother in Israel. I humbly ask you to read Charles Finney’s Autobiography. It’ll change your life. He didn’t have the whole message, but he knew how to pray. I never was the same after I read the book.

For three whole days and nights in a haystack, with groanings that could not be uttered. He would come to the place of intercession, that he would say, “God of heaven, You don’t believe that I’ll come out of this haystack until You’ve answered me, do You?

The spirit of motherhood was displayed throughout the Bible. It used to be a disgrace for a woman not to bare a child. Sarah and Elizabeth were embarrassed for not having children. Hanna was in agony over not having a child. She was intoxicated with burden, because she wanted to have a baby, and it was a height of embarrassment not giving offspring to her husband.

In fact, it was such an embarrassing situation, that God made a law that if a man died, and did not have a man child to carry on his name, his wife was to be taken by his brother, and his brother was to bare children unto his name.

This is why when Isaiah looked out and saw a young man dying without any children, he thought it was such an horrible thing.

“. . . Who shall declare his generation ? for he was cut off out of the land of the living ” (Isaiah 53:8).

He was, of course, seeing Jesus Christ at the young age of thirty-three years old, taken without any descendants. Of course, Isaiah would need to go to Jamaica, and watch a thousand black hands go up, with tears wetting the front of their clothes, as they weep, to understand who would declare his generation.

In the natural, He left no descendants, but He has offspring. The Bible shows us where He got his children.

“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared ” (Hebrews 5:7).

That’s where he got his offspring. The example in every respect to us as a preacher, is in Jesus Christ, and the Bible speaks that it was the travail of His soul that brought about His descendants.

Now days, it’s no disgrace not to have children, as long as you have a poodle! One of our preachers attended a Catholic funeral, and this priest was drunk as he was conducting the service, and he literally leaned over and looked between his fingers at the audience, and said, “This man was a good man, in fact he was an altar boy, and that’s more than a lot of you can say, especially you ladies. ” Then he endeavored to teach on how important it was to have children instead of poodles. The Catholics still believe you ought to have children instead of poodles.

We are living in a preventative age. I want to use this in comparison to our spiritual existence. There was a time when an evangelist went in a place, if he didn’t have a revival, they stopped to find out why. It was an embarrassing thing. Now, if they can promote the Sunday school to a few more, that’s all that’s needed. But I’m going tell you that spiritually speaking, it’s still a disgrace not to have children.

When Rachel came to the point that she recognized that she was barren, you know what she did? She cried out to Jacob,

“… Give me children, or else I die ” (Genesis 30:1).

She wanted children so badly, she’d rather be dead than alive without children. Give me a preacher on the field that will go in a revival with a Rachel spirit. “God give me souls.” Like John Knox did when the queen wrote him a letter, and said, “John, we’re in battle with France. I want you to pray.” She made the statement that she’d rather march against the armies of the world, than to go against one of John Knox’s prayers. He went in his room and all he said was, “God give me France, or give me death.” And he wasn’t playing and God knew it. And the next morning France rose the white flag.

Give me souls or give me death. Men, if you don’t have that in you, either you haven’t been called, or your calling has not developed yet.

I’m almost afraid that I’m going to have trouble keeping you here for the rest of the school term. But stay and simmer. I wish I’d get you so stirred that I’d have to say, “No, don’t leave.”

The spirit of motherhood needs to settle in your mind forever. I don’t speak this to be exalted, but I have babies all over the country. I’m very happy that on the immortal scrolls of eternity, there are some birth certificates. On birth certificates, there’s a place where it says, “The mother of the child.” And a number of them have my name, Verbal Winston Bean. I personally know that I travailed and gave birth to souls. I knew when I was doing it. It is exactly what the Bible calls it, travail.

Naturally, we men don’t know what a woman goes through, but having heard, you have some idea. First, being with my wife giving birth to a child, she would literally, at times, seem to lose her mind, or else the pain would destroy her. Nature fixes the balance, that at a certain point in travail, she doesn’t care. Her ultimate aim is, “Let me have this baby!” There’s a point prior to having a child, she wants the husband to be around, but at that certain point, she doesn’t care if he’s living or dying.

That spirit can literally become yours as a minister, and you can also transfer it to the saints. I don’t care if it’s Verbal Bean’s church or who it is, if our altars are empty it’s because of the lack of the spirit of motherhood.

I believe in personal evangelism. I believe in every honest legal method of advertising. But you can do all of that, and if there’s no
travail in Zion, you have accomplished nothing.

On the other hand, you can have travail, and do less personal work, and still have souls, because I’ve never been desperate with God in my life, that I didn’t get results. I’ve travailed and been sore in my stomach for days, it was that intense. Strong forcible weeping and groanings. I’ve never gone there that it wasn’t hard at the moment, strenuous, yet pleasant, because I knew I was going to get results.

You can rest on the belief that when Zion travails, children will be born. You can remind God of that, and He doesn’t mind being reminded of His promises.

One night, I got so desperate because nobody was praying through. I got down between the altar and the pulpit, and said, “God it’s tonight, or daylight won’t catch me here in the morning! ” My soul was bursting within me.

I looked around after a few minutes, and two men were talking in tongues! I personally gave birth to twins that night! And it’s a thrill when you know you did it. It’s not that you want glory, but after all, don’t you feel like you’d like to do something profitable? There’s nothing you can do more profitable than give birth to children in God’s kingdom.

Notice what it said about the midwives.

“And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive? And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women” (Exodus 1:18,19).

We are different from everybody. We don’t get members in our church like the Baptists, or even like the Assemblies of God. We are distinctively different. Everyone that gets in this must go through a distinct process of being born. That’s why you can’t hoop it up, and get anything. That’s why you can’t drum so loud you pray them through.

I was preaching for a man one time, and he came over to me while I was playing the piano, and he said, “You’re in the wrong key to pray them through. You need to get in b flat!”

That man was honestly expressing his thought. Some believe that loud or fast music will work. It can assist, but will not work if there hasn’t been somebody, somewhere, some time, travailing. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that night. It could have been a year before, or ten years before.

“Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book” (Psalm 56:8).

You may travail tonight, and it may take five years for it to come to pass, but He has the tears in a bottle. And there in His Book. We are no doubt praying people through that the old timers now in the grave, travailed over them.

God knows the mother of the child. Here comes an evangelist along, and he feels like he’s a red hot potato. “Man, I had a big revival,” when all he did was help a bunch of midwives deliver babies that somebody travailed over years ago. Or some little saint that is never made mention of, may have gone to her bedroom and went before God, and nobody ever knew a thing about it, and soaked the bedside with tears. But God has the record of who produced the child. There’s a real spirit of motherhood.

I’ve heard them say, “Boy, he’s talented. He has a real good personality.” And he could sway the audience, but is that what does it?
I’m not against a good personality. I think we ought to have kindness, and friendliness. But these are not the real things you need to produce results. God has a law in his church, like he has a law in natural birth. Forget it, there will never be one born in this church, or in anybody’s church without somebody shedding some tears somewhere, some time.

The night they all pray through, everybody’s happy, and there wasn’t a tear shed anywhere, and it looked like that’s what did it.

But God knows that somewhere in somebody’s corner there was a groaning that said, “God, give me that or let me die!”

The Bible says there are a few things that are never satisfied, and one of them is a barren womb. The church that doesn’t produce souls will be dissatisfied, and will be full of troubles. You talk about saints devouring one another. It’s when a church has a barren womb, they go to causing trouble, because it’s never satisfied. You can’t pacify a Holy Ghost church without spiritual babies. I don’t care whose home it is, if there’s trouble in that home, generally the birth of a child will momentarily solve those problems.

I’ve known of young couples having problems until a baby came, and that solved it. It does something to hold a baby that you know is a part of her and a part of you. It will bring you closer together. A cry of a new born baby in anybody’s church will solve a lot of problems.

There’s so many healing balms to praying people through, until God will curse the day that we think we should go in and have a little meeting, and not produce somebody for the kingdom of God. God forgive the thought if it ever crossed your mind, “Well, it’s not important, just so I can push the Sunday school. ” I don’t want to be satisfied to push anything, and leave out this. After all, we’re after souls. How did they get in here? By the birthing process.

God spoke a message in tongues and interpretation one place I was preaching, and this is all He said, “If I can find one to weep, I can find many to save. ” The lacking element is that one to weep.

Brethren, we’re living in a preventative age. There’s so much to prevent conception. A preacher that’s frivolous. If you’re going to
just eat after church, and have a big, laughing, high-heeled time.

Somebody told me, they went to preach a revival, but he said they didn’t have much of a revival, but we caught a lot of fish! Every night after church they went fishing. Brethren, you can’t do that and have a revival. You can’t run all over town. The Bible said, when you go into a place, abide there. That doesn’t mean you can’t get out and relax every once in a while, but I’ve found out that
if I’m going to conceive, if I’m going to have planted in my heart the kind of burden for a soul that I need to produce a soul for God’s kingdom, then I’m going to have to stay alone with God for many hours. I can’t be laughing and talking all the time.

Pastors never could understand me, and I didn’t try to be understood all that much. After all, when I come, I want you to know I’ve got a job, and I’m going to do my best. “Come go with me, Brother Bean?”

“No sir, that’s all right, thank you very much. I believe I’ll stay here. ”

Finally one pastor who was the nervous kind said, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Don’t you ever go anywhere?”

I wasn’t trying to be hard to deal with, or unfriendly. I don’t believe in purposely being unkind to a man. But I’ve got a job to do. If you want me to do it, leave me alone! And let me get alone with God.

If I talk all day long about everything but God, how am I going to get up in that pulpit, or get in the prayer room, and conceive a burden?

“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

Every now and then, you need to be still, and quiet. I doubt that a talkative man can do much for God. You’ll talk the anointing away to begin with. Some folks live until that service is over, then trot to the pizza house, or the hamburger joint. If you have revivals, you’ll learn to go home after church. When you’d have loved to run clear out of town. I’ve been in revivals when I’d have almost given everything I own if I could have for a little while drifted out somewhere, away from everybody. But I had to go back to that room, and take the load, and get myself in position for God to talk to me for the next night. You’ve got to learn it if you’ll accomplish anything in God. Don’t let anybody kid you.

Somebody said, “I’ll just have faith.” Where are you going to get the faith? You can’t get faith separate and apart from God’s word.

“. ..As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children” (Isaiah 66:8).

It’s going to take somebody weeping. “If I can find one to weep, I’ll find many to save.” There’s no scarcity of souls. Jesus Christ never did teach that.

“…Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest” (John 4:35).

The laborers is what was scarce. Somebody who knows how to weep before God, and stay there until they know that their prayer went through. Anybody can kneel down and say, “Good night Jesus.” But that’s not going to get it done. If you’re going to get souls, you’ll stay there until your heart is broken, and you’re crushed. And it seems like you don’t even want to live, unless you
save.

Oh God, I wish this burden would grip us! When it happens you’re going to be misunderstood. That priest thought Hanna was drunk. Now days, if you are a little different they think, “Well, what’s wrong with him?” As a young man, I had that battle so many times. I had one ultimate goal, and that was to please Him who had chosen me to be a soldier. And I love Him, and I love souls, so it’s not a drudgery, it’s a joy, when you get the burden of it. I’ve seen preachers that looked so glad when service was over. Of course, I’ve seen some I was glad they were over with, but when you’ve got the burden you need, you can’t wait until you get another chance at that soul.

I don’t believe our burden will just necessarily be a pulpit ministry. If we’ve got a burden for souls, we’ll try to win souls on you can’t have them,” that’s not loving souls. You’ll love them when the night’s the blackest, if you have the spirit of motherhood.

The real mother says, “Even though I don’t have the privilege to hold it, and nurse it to my breast, let her have it. But don’t kill it, O King.”

King Solomon looked at that woman and said,

“. . . Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof” (I Kings. 3:27).

She got to go home with her baby. She displayed the true spirit of motherhood. This is what I’ve taught saints. You’ll find churches that don’t want to grow. They want to stay small, because they stay in an honorable position as long as it’s small. A number of your smaller churches want it small. There’s two or three of them in there that don’t want it to grow, because it would challenge their position. It’s amazing to me!

Some old saint goes around criticizing a young saint saying, “Oh, they won’t last. I’ve seen him come in before!”

Well, no wonder they won’t last. They just got born, and the old saint is saying they’ll never make it. The first mistake they make, the old saint will run to the pastor, and the other saints saying, “See there? I thought this was a big revival! Here he’s done backslid!” You can mark it, and teach it. If I get a chance I drive this home. If you’re here in this church, and you’re critical of a young convert, or any saint, it tells me you’re not the mother of the child. You’ve never got a burden for them. You don’t love like a mother ought to love.

Do you believe that if you made a mistake, you’re mother would go around telling everyone about it? She’d correct you for it, and tell you it was wrong, but she doesn’t want everybody to look down on you. You’re her child. She’ll guard you.

This spirit of motherhood, if it’s in you will prevail, and it’s going to make a preacher out of you, that’ll cry when they make a mistake rather than wanting to run them off. There’s times you need to sever them from the body. If this arm would get infected, and I was trusting in doctors, and he couldn’t kill that infection, he’d amputate it. That’s the last resort. It should be the last resort for a preacher. But it’s his authority, and he’d better do it or it’ll destroy the whole body.

This glorying in hardness, destroying, and being hard is not God’s plan. I’m a hard preacher, they tell me. I preach it straight, but I do it because I love them. It’s not because I enjoy it. On the other hand, I’ve heard them, and you’d think they were hunting deer, trying to get the biggest trophy. “Bless God, I’m going to see how many I can tear up.” That doesn’t sound like a mother.

If my baby had a horrible disease, I wouldn’t say, “Bless God, I’m going to see how hard I can be on that child, because it’s got that
disease. ” I love that child more then than at any other time. I’m going to care for him. The spirit of motherhood is reflected in your ministry.

If you’re a mechanical preacher, collecting tithes, or you’re a hireling, it’ll show. If you have the spirit of motherhood it’ll show.
If I had a choice of being the greatest preacher that ever preached, or interceding for souls, I’d say “Give me that intercession, I love that more!” You can preach good sermons, and they’ll come up and say, “Brother that was a gem tonight!” What did that do to have someone brag on you?

But when you’ve been alone, and the tears have run down your cheeks, and you’ve done without food, and cried to God with a Rachel spirit. Then all of a sudden you see someone come to the altar, and pray through. Maybe the one you were travailing for.

“A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for that a man is born into the world ” (John 16:21).

My wife tells me she doesn’t remember hurting. When that baby was in her arms, she suddenly forgot that she had a pain in her body. “My baby’s here!” The rewards of intercession! Send that spirit among us! Grab for it, pray for it, beg God for it, and don’t stop until you get it! I promise you that if you preach, and it’s mixed with the spirit of motherhood, they’ll detect it. People can tell when you care for them. They can tell when you’re trying to be harsh, without compassion. Some of the hardest messages I’ve preached, I called them every name in the book. I preached, “You rebels, come on up here!” That bunch still loves me. They knew that I was doing what I was, because I wanted to help them.

If the spirit of motherhood is there, you’ll correct the baby, but you’ll also love, and care for it.

Our highways will be unoccupied, and our altars will be empty. They’ll join other churches until somebody latches hold of God and says, “Souls or death.” I challenge you to try it. The next time you go preach, get alone with God, and ask God to give you that kind of burden, and don’t stop until you’ve got it. And then, if you don’t produce souls, I’ll take back everything I’ve said.

But if you’re light-hearted, you can’t conceive. Being lighthearted will prevent conception. This is one reason why a young man has to be very careful in a revival, or wherever he goes, not to have a girlfriend at every port. How can I get a burden, when I’m going out every night, while I’m there in revival. Don’t tell me you can sit there in a car with that girl, and eat, drink, and laugh, and continue to carry the burden you need to carry. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with a normal courtship. But keep it to a minimum. I never allowed myself courtship during revival. It would affect me.

It was after revival before I’d let myself to become involved in a courtship. Men, you’re in a battle. You’re a soldier. Can a man on the battlefield come home every time he wants? You’d better believe he can’t. And you’re as much a soldier, even more so, than the man in Vietnam tonight. You’re fighting a more serious battle.

There are many things to prevent you from having a birth. Don’t let them, because this is more important than anything else.

Are you thinking about the next car you’re going to buy? Men, cars don’t mean that much to a preacher that’s consecrated. Houses don’t mean that much to a preacher that’s consecrated. I believe you need a nice car, home, and clothes, but they don’t mean that much to you if you’re consecrated. I’m not teaching you to be sloppy, but your life won’t be built around the next deal you make on a car.

I’ve heard preachers talk about boats and cars, and I have both. But you can live in an orbit. And I wonder some times if you’re not simply making a living out of preaching. We’re not called to make a living out of preaching. We’re called to produce results.

God, send us the spirit of motherhood! Don’t be a friend or a relative that will simply cuddle the baby. Let it be somewhere in the records, that you’ve got a birth certificate with a name on there, that you gave birth to that child!