1. We have just read a few Scriptures dealing with the parents of Moses. You will notice that their names are not mentioned.
2. However, we know from Exodus 6:20 and Numbers 26:59 that their names were Amram and Jochebed.
3. If you are familiar with the story behind the birth of Moses, you know his mother Jochebed only had him for a short time, and then she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, who raised him as her own son (Exodus 2:10).
4. But though Jochebed only had little Moses for a short time, she got him started in the right direction.
5. On this Mother's Day, listen to this tribute from another great man, who only had his mother for a short time.
6. "I did not have my mother long, but she cast over me an influence that has lasted all my life. The good effects of her early training I can never lose. If it had not been for her appreciation and her faith in me at a critical time in my experience, I should never likely have become an inventor. I was always a careless boy, and with a mother of a different caliber, I should have turned out badly. But her firmness, her sweetness, her goodness, were potent powers to keep me in the right path. My mother was the making of me. The memory of her will always be a blessing to me" -- Thomas Edison.
7. Now let us consider the influence of Moses' mother. We read in Exodus 1 that Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had issued an order to the Hebrew midwives that when a Hebrew boy was born, he should be killed immediately (Exodus 1:7-16, 22).
8. Pharaoh had his own version of "Planned Parenthood" and "reproductive freedom," etc.
9. This was the first major persecution of the Jewish people, and there have many, many others since. In fact, there has been a big rise in anti-Semitism in Europe. Benjamin Netanyahu has advised the Jews in Europe to get out.
10. The Jewish midwives were ordered to kill the babies, but these women "feared God" (Exodus 1:17-22). And one of these God-fearing women was Jochebed.
11. There is very little fear of God in America today. The Bible says, "By the fear of the LORD men depart from evil" (Proverbs 16:6).
12. Exodus 2:2 says Jochebed saw that her baby boy was "a goodly (beautiful) child" and so she hid him from the Egyptians for three months.
13. Now I suppose all mothers think their babies are goodly and beautiful, but the Bible tells us that there was something exceptionally special about little Moses.
14. Acts 7:20 says he "was exceeding fair."
15. So Jochebed hid little Moses for three months, and when she could no longer hide him, she put him in a little ark made out of bulrushes, and laid him down by the bank of the river (Exodus 2:3).
16. According to the providence of God, little Moses was discovered by Pharaoh's daughter. Little Moses cried and Pharaoh's daughter "had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children" (Exodus 2:5, 6).
17. Moses' nine-year-old sister Miriam was standing by and watching all of this. She volunteered to go and get a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby (Exodus 2:4-7).
18. Again, we see God's hand in all of this, because the nurse she brought back was Moses' mother Jochebed (2:8-10).
19. Her name means, "The LORD is honored" or "The LORD is glorious" (Scofield Study Bible).

I. THE FAITH OF JOCHEBED

1. Hebrews 11:23 says, "By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment."
2. They had faith in God, and so "they were not afraid of the king's commandment."
3. Both parents were faithful, but since this is Mothers Day, I'd like to focus on the faith of Jochebed, Moses' mother.
4. By the way, both of Moses' parents had faith in God. Both were saved by the grace of God.
5. When saved women marry unsaved men (and visa versa), oftentimes their children grow up in a godless home. “One child lost to the faith usually becomes a family lost to the faith, and not many generations later a whole community of unbelievers is set in motion because of some earlier neglect of parental duties" -- Carl Henry.
6. Perhaps Jochebed thought of how God saved Noah and his family by having Noah build an ark, and so she built a little ark for Moses. Exodus 2:3 says, "And when she could not 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 (reeds) by the river's brink."
7. Jochebed decided to put little Moses in this ark, and then trust God for His protection.
8. My daughter Rachel was married last year. The morning of her wedding I was reading Exodus 2:3 as part of my morning devotions. I was reading a devotional book by H.A. Ironside entitled, The Daily Sacrifice, and this is what H.A. Ironside said, "This was an act of real faith. The child had to be exposed to danger and possible death. The ark was, in a sense, a little picture of Christ, as was the ark of Noah. Jochebed, in type, entrusted her baby boy to the care of the Lord, when no longer able to protect him in the home. The king had commanded that all male children of the Hebrews be cast into the river. This mother put her baby in the river -- but in the ark of safety first. So we may trust our children to the care of the loving Lord as they are thrust forth upon the current of life."
9. Jochebed put little Moses in the river because she had faith in God. She believed the LORD would protect little Moses, and He did.
10. Moses was in God's hands.
11. Do you have faith, that your life is in God's hands?
12. And do you have faith, that your children's lives are in God's hands?
13. Jochebed put little Moses in the very same place where all the Hebrew baby boys were being drowned (Ex. 1:22). That took faith!
14. Normally that would be the last place a mother would choose to put her helpless little baby! But Jochebed had faith in God!

II. THE COURAGE OF JOCHEBED

1. Hebrews 11:23 tells us that Moses' parents "were not afraid of the king's commandment," (i.e., the commandment to kill all the Hebrew baby boys).
2. Faith produces courage. You can trace this all through Scripture.
3. Deuteronomy 31:6 says, "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."
4. Joshua 1:9 says, "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."
5. "And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee" (I Chronicles 28:20).
6. Psalm 27:14 says, "Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD."
7. Faith produces courage. Because she believed God, Jochebed courageously acted to preserve Moses' life. For three months she hid little Moses.

III. THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD

1. There are three important women in Exodus chapter 2 -- Jochebed, the mother of Moses, Miriam, the older sister of Moses, and the daughter of Pharaoh, whose name is not given to us in Scripture.
2. Interestingly, none of the names is mentioned in Exodus 2. This is because the emphasis is not on these three women (or even on little Moses) but on the unseen hand of God.
3. God in His providence was working behind the scenes. Therefore, their names are of less importance.
4. It was neither by chance nor by accident that Pharaoh's daughter went down to the river to bathe at that particular time, and at that particular spot in the river. And Pharaoh's daughter just happened to be there, etc

Away by the waters so blue
The ladies were winding their way
While Pharaoh's little daughter went down to the water
To bathe in the cool of the day
Before it was dark she opened the ark
And found the sweet babe that was there

And away by the waters so blue
The infant was lonely and sad
She took him in pity and thought him so pretty
And it made little Moses so glad
She called him her own, her beautiful son
And she sent for a nurse who was near

And away by the waters so blue
They carried that beautiful child
To his tender mother, to his sister and brothers
Little Moses looked happy and smiled
His mother so good did all that she could

To raise him and teach him with care

And away by the sea that was red
Little Moses the servant of God
While in him confided, the sea was divided
As upwards he lifted his rod
And the Jews safely crossed while Pharaoh's host
Was drowned in the waters and lost

And away on a mountain so high
The last that he ever did see
With Israel victorious, his hopes were most glorious
That soon all the Jordan be free
When his spirit did cease, he departed in peace

And rested in the heavens above  (Carter Family)

5. It was God who put it into the heart of this Egyptian princess to go down to the river at that particular time, and at that particular spot where the little ark lay amid the weeds.
6. It has been pointed out that under different circumstances, Pharaoh's daughter would be filled with indignation at the thought of a Hebrew defying her father's commandment.
7. But God pinched little Moses, and he started to cry, and rather than being filled with indignation, she was filled with compassion at the sight of the baby crying (Exodus 2:5, 6).
8. God is always behind the scenes, ordering all things for His own purposes. Nothing happens by happenstance. And nothing happens that God does not allow to happen.
9. Jeremiah 10:23 says, "O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps."
10. It has been said that big doors often swing on little hinges. Who would have thought that the little baby hidden in the ark of bulrushes would grow up to be Moses, one of the greatest men in history -- the principle figure in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
11. The man who wrote those four books, as well as the book of Genesis and some of the Psalms.
12. The man who delivered the Israelites out of Egypt. Since it was the purpose and plan of God to make Moses the leader and deliverer of His people, He could easily have sent a legion of angels to protect little Moses.
13. But God did something even greater -- God used Jochebed, Moses' mother.
14. As we consider the providence of God, think of this -- God not only sovereignly ordained that Jochebed would nurse her own baby, but she even got paid to do it (Exodus 2:7-9).
15. Not only did Moses not get drowned in the Nile River, but he grew up in luxury in Pharaoh's palace (Exodus 2:10).
16. Pharaoh thought he would wipe out the Israelites, but God overruled, and sent a great deliverer -- a man who was raised as a prince in Pharaoh's own household.

CONCLUSION:

1. Jochebed only had little Moses for a short time during his early childhood, but those are the most important years.
2. Research indicates that 50% of a child's basic attitudes are learned during the first three years of his life. This presents an awesome responsibility for parents.

I took a piece of plastic clay
And idly fashioned it one day,
And as my fingers pressed it still,
It moved and yielded at my will.

I came again when days were past;
The bit of clay was hard at last,
The form I gave it still it bore,
But I could change that form no more.

I took a piece of living clay,
And gently formed it day by day,
And molded with my power and art
A young child’s soft and yielding heart.

I came again when days were gone;
It was a man I looked upon;
That early impress still he wore,
And I could change it never more.  (Author Unknown)