Exodus Going With God 7
Exodus 2:1-4 A Mother Goes All The Way
What is a mother? When asked that question these are some of the answers given by elementary school-age children
Why did God make mothers?
1. She's the only one who knows where the Scotch Tape is.
2. Think about it. It was the best way to get more people.
3. Mostly to clean the house.
4. To help us out of there when we were getting born.
How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic, plus super powers, and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.
Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
1. We are related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's moms like me.
What ingredients are mothers made of?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string. I think.
What kind of little girl was your mom?
1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.
Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because Dad is such a goofball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than Dad.
What does your mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't have spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.
What's the difference between moms and grandmas?
1. About 30 years.
2. You can always count on grandmothers for candy. Sometimes moms don't even have bread on them.
Describe the world's greatest mom?
1. She would be able to make broccoli taste like ice cream.
2. The greatest mom in the world wouldn't make me kiss my fat aunts.
3. She'd always be smiling and keep her opinions to herself.
Is anything about your mom perfect?
1. Her teeth are perfect, but she bought them from the dentist.
2. Her casserole recipes. But we hate them.
3. Just her children.
What would it take to make your mom perfect?
1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd dye it, maybe blue.
If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my mom smarter, then she would know my sister did it and not me. - From GCFL.net: The Good, Clean Funnies List
Children may not be the best source for what makes a mother, so lets go to the ultimate source of wisdom and knowledge, the Bible. Turn to Exodus chapter 2
A Mother Bears Her Child - Exodus 2:1-2
1 And there went a man (Amram) of the house of Levi, and took to wife (Jochebed) a daughter of Levi. 2 And the woman conceived, and bare a son:
Jochebed Bears Moses
Jochebed is not named in the story of Moses’ birth and in the adventure of his being a fugitive and an outlaw even before he was old enough to walk or talk. We know her name from
Exodus 6:20 and Numbers 26:59 And the name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.
We don’t have too many girls named after Jochebed, like we do Mary, Ruth or Elizabeth. Her name is not common in the scriptures, but I’m glad we know it because there is more to her name than just the way it sounds. Jochebed’s name means “The Lord Is Glory.”
Now we don’t have names like that anymore, we don’t care what a name means only what it sounds like. For awhile everyone wanted a unique name for their children. Celebrities are goofy in most situations but they are certifiably insane when it comes to naming their kids. Here are a few examples.
A certain famous singer named her child, Diezel Ky, she named his brother Denim. What about Kal-El, yes that is the name of superman before he came to earth. Buddy Bear, Bluebell Madonna, Fifibelle and Apple are names not nicknames that celebrities have actually written down on children's birth certificates.
If you don't like those may you'll like Tu, first name, Morrow second name. One child is named North, another Sunday and one was named Jermajesty. And Nevaeh is pretty cool it is actually ‘Heaven’ spelt backwards.
But in the Old Testament names were given that almost always acknowledged or praised God. And Jochebed would live up to the name her parents gave her. Jochebed’s actions as a mother and protector of Moses would show “The Lord is Glory!”
The Maternal Instinct
It goes without saying that a mother is a woman who has had a child. The first woman that God created was named Eve, her name is the Hebrew word Hawwa or Chavvah which means “life-giver.”
There is no greater gift that God has given to his highest creation than the ability to bear a child. In the old testament, having a child was the epitome of womanhood. This is why the gift of childbirth in old age such as Sarah in Genesis and Elizabeth in the Gospel, was such a blessing.
Though there is no sin or shame if a woman or a couple cannot bear children, but there is always a blessing when they can. This is part of the design of God for man and woman. One of the reasons He put man and woman together in marriage.
Genesis 1:27-28 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 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.
God repeated this after the flood to Noah and his family inn Genesis 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. Just to make sure they got the message He repeats it only 6 verses later in Genesis 9:7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
In our world however the purpose and design of God is under severe attack. Mothers are looked down upon, second class citizens, who aren’t smart enough, or have enough self-esteem to be something more than a mother. Women are no longer defined by their God designed biology but as anything the sin-sick, fallen world wants to call a woman.
For decades the feminists of this world have told young girls and anybody else who would listen that being a wife and mother is the same as being a slave. If that was not damaging enough, the activists of this day and age are trying to tell us that womanhood and manhood are both by your choice or if you don’t want to choose either then you can just be something called non-binary. Isn’t that great to be a non, a nothing instead of what God gifted and created us and especially women to be.
All of this is loudly and violently proclaimed as personal freedom, but in reality it is the worst kind of slavery. The slavery of debauchery and sin. It is the bondage that comes from rejecting God’s design for woman and the purpose of marriage.
But a mother’s role does not end with bearing a child. The real part of motherhood is next as we see so dramatically illustrated in the life of Jochebed, showing the Lord is Glory by protecting her child.
A Mother Protects Her Child - Exodus 2:2-4
and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. 3 And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. 4 And his sister stood afar off, to wit (know) what would be done to him.
Jochebed Hides Moses
Jochebed in her resourceful, fierce, protective, maternal mode defies the law of Pharoah, the law of the land and she refuses to turn over her own son that the Egyptians can kill him.
Instead of surrendering her little boy, her bright blessing from God, she hides him in their home for a long as she can. And when she can no longer hide him, she protects him by placing him in a protective ark, a small, infant sized boat and places him where he can be safe and watched. Miriam, like so many other big sisters is appointed babysitter to her little brother as he floats there in the reeds along the river bank.
Nor do I think this was a random place somewhere along the Nile. Here we see the hope and the plan of Jochebed, she put the little ark, in a place along the Nile where the royal princess of Egypt would go to bath. This may have been a ritual bathing place, or just a place of recreation but it would not have been unknown to the Hebrews for they would not be allowed to be there at the same time as royal household. Jochebed had to know this and for that reason placed her baby there. It was not an act of desperation, certainly not of abandonment. No, it was an act of hope and faith. It was something that a woman named “the Lord is Glory” would do.
Jochebed protected her child from the dangers of a world that wanted to destroy him.
The Maternal Duty
One of the most important and difficult duties of being a mother is protecting and guard your children. I’m not just talking about watching them so they don’t wander into the street or pick up a fork and insert it into an electrical outlet. Certainly, she must do that and a hundred other physical protections, but more importantly she must hide her children from the influence and danger of a world that wants to pollute them and then destroy them.
Make no mistake, the dangers of this world to a young child today is just as deadly as the Nile River was to the Hebrew children then. It may not be as quick, but the end result is the same, a child is lost, taken from their parents and destroyed by this sinful world and Satan, the god then of Egypt and still the god of this world.
That kind of protection, that kind of hiding a child can only be accomplished by a mother protecting and hiding their child in the love of Jesus Christ.
Can I give you an illustration of another mother seeking to protect her child? Its found in Mark 7:24-30
24 And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid. 25 For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: 26 -- The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. 27 But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. 28 And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. 29 And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. 30 And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.
Isn’t that a great example. It’s an illustration of a mother driven by the love of her child, refusing to walk away from the only hope her child had. She knew all her hope was in Jesus or her daughter was lost.
Mothers, keep your children under your watchful care and but even more keep them under the protection of Jesus Christ. For this world is still filled with demons that would destroy them. Yes, there are demons in this world, demons of perversion, demons of addiction, demons of cults and demons that are literal demons. Your love and guidance coupled with the Word of God and the love of Jesus is how you hide your child when they are young and protects them when they are grown and you can no longer keep them from putting forks in electrical outlets.
There is one more lesson that Jochebed has to teach us in her role of a mother. Remember that she was the mother of the greatest prophet and leader in the Old Testament as well as the mother of Aaron, its first high priest and Miriam who acted as a leader and as a Psalmist for the nation. She did this not just by having the children or even by protecting them but by teaching and training them.
A Mother Teaches Her Child - Exodus 2:7-9
Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? 8 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother. 9 And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.
Jochebed Teaches Moses
When, through the providence of God, the daughter of Pharoah found Jochebed’s son in the basket, Miriam ran forward and asked it the princess would need a nurse for the baby. The princess says yes and Moses’ older sister ran back and fetched Moses’ own mother. Isn’t the providence and power of God amazing? Isn’t the planning and prayers of a mother amazing?
This is a classic definition of irony, here wrought by God, The child of the Pharoah who was trying to kill the Hebrew children, was the one who saved the child who would one day save the nation of Israel. God used the killers to become the saviors. He must have smiled at the irony of His own handiwork.
Then above and beyond this miracle of providence, Miriam goes and fetches the actual mother of this seemingly abandoned child. Can you image what it must have been like when Miriam came bursting through the door and grabbed her mother’s arm and tells her, “God has done a marvelous thing. Come and nurse your child without fear in the house of Pharoah himself!”
Though Jochebed wasn’t allowed to name her own child, she was now a vital part of his life. She would be there in the most important years of his life to teach him, to train him and to prepare him to be the man that God intended him to be. He may have been a prince of Egypt on the outside but on the inside, Jochebed made sure he was a man of God.
Had it not been for the love, the risk, the planning, and the devotion of Jochebed, Israel would not have had their great hero and prophet Moses. The man who lead them out of slavery, brought the law down from God, gave the blueprint to build the tabernacle and launch the Hebrews into the Promised land, if it had not been for Jochebed, “the Lord is glory.”
The Maternal Duty
Many Mother’s Days ago, Johnny Hart, the cartoonist who wrote the comic strip B.C. on Mother’s day wrote in his strip.
His mother's hand so strong and warm
With tender, healing touch,
Would oft reach out to still the storms
Which troubled him too much.
His mother's hand that same sweet hand,
Although it seemed uncanny,
Could also reach out lovingly
And spank his little fanny! – Johnny Hart.
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Teaching and training a child is a task for both parents, in fact to do it fully, it requires both parents, but the teaching and training of a father is not done in the same way as the teaching from a mother. Both parents have vital, God given roles to play in bringing up their children, but a mother’s role, well, that is truly a special one.
It was that way for Timothy, when Paul was trying to encourage Timothy, he went back to the greatest influences in Timothy’s life.
2 Timothy 1:3-5 3 I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day; 4 Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy; 5 When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.
Paul is telling Timothy it was the faith taught to you by your grandmother and your mother than makes you the man that God can use.
I know it was that way in my home growing up. It was Mom Suzane, who took us to church, it was my grandma Eli Hue Minefee that gave me my first Bible. It was my Grandmother Buna George that first told me, “Kris you’re going to be a preacher one day.” Mom played every special that I and my siblings ever sang until we were grown. Grandma Minefee told me her father’s favorite hymn and had me play it for her on the harmonica at her funeral. Grandma George carried a Bible filled with notes, and poems written in the flyleaves and always had her favorite tracts tucked in the pages and covers. She would often read them to us or we’d see her reading them to herself like treasured wisdom.
When Grandma George died with lymphoma, she struggled emotionally and spiritually at the end. One time when I was there she said, “What have I ever done for the Lord?” I remember holding her hand and telling her the things that she had done for the Lord, even though to her she was only doing them for her children and grandchildren.
Conclusion
I’m just going to leave you with the example of Jochebed’s incredible, powerful, God-given love. A woman who truly lived up to her “The Lord is Glory” name through her family.
And this summary…
A Mother’s duty before God is to love her children and through that love hide and protect them under God’s providence and power. Teach and train them to be who God created them to be. And never underestimate your love and watchcare because those are often the means by which God first touches a young heart.
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