Lessons In Exodus About Family Life

Family – February 2021 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Lessons In Exodus About Family Life

We encounter many rich lessons in the book of Exodus. For example, we find teaching about our state of slavery and our liberation from the power of Satan. We see God’s desire to have a place in the midst of His redeemed people, where He can dwell. There are lessons about the Lord Jesus – the person who means everything to God’s heart – presented in a great variety of pictures that have to do with the tabernacle and the instruments in and around it. We can also learn much from the songs of praise and worship and the service of the redeemed. Certainly there are many other matters in Exodus holding much instruction for us. Among them are valuable points about family life, some of which we would like to consider in this article.

The Midwives
In the first chapter we find midwives who were God-fearing and therefore deliberately disobeyed the order Pharaoh gave to kill male newborns among God’s people (v.16). Nowadays, too, we need courage in the faith. We must not give in to the demands of the world, which seeks to take our children from us. With trust in our awesome God, we are to raise rightly the children with whom He has blessed us. He far surpasses the prince of this world (consider Eph. 2:1-10).

Amram And Jochebed
Exodus 2:1 reveals an act of faith by a man about whom Scripture tells us little more. Amram was a Levite and he took a wife, Jochebed (6:20), from the same tribe. He wanted a marriage partner with whom he shared the same faith and desire to serve God, and with whom he could be one in heart and soul to lead a God-fearing family. The rest of Exodus shows how the Lord richly blessed this step of being equally yoked (consider 2 Cor. 6:14-15).

The two oldest children, Miriam and Aaron, of Amran and Jochebed were born in a relatively peaceful period. However, the days when Moses was born were filled with hostility directed toward the people of God, especially their children. This resembles our time and society. Children are gifts from God (Ps. 127:3), but they are often aborted or left to themselves because the world has managed to corrupt their parents’ reasoning, even among those who claim to be Christians.

For Miriam, Aaron and Moses, things were different. Their parents’ priority was a God-fearing family life. We see this in that the father and the mother together bore their responsibility as parents. Acts 7:20 says, “Moses ... was brought up in his father’s house” (NKJV). Exodus 2:9 talks about how his mother nursed him, and we remember how she had made an ark of bulrushes and carefully protected it with tar and pitch to keep her son safe among the reeds by the river’s bank (v.3). Later, Hebrews 11:23 shows us that the parents together made an effort to shield Moses from the influence of the one who ruled the place where they lived.

After finding Moses in the ark, Pharaoh’s daughter told Jochebed that she would give her wages to nurse the child for her (Ex. 2:5-9). But what greater wages could this mother receive than being able to raise her own boy for a time! She did not refuse Pharaoh’s daughter, thinking Moses would be a burden, that he would be taken from her after a time, or raising him would limit her time for herself. No. Jochebed saw that her child was “beautiful,” meaning he was precious to God (Heb. 11:23). Moses’ mother was not concerned for the wages offered by Pharaoh’s daughter. Instead, she knew God would reward her as she raised her child for Him.

Moses
Decades later, when Moses was old, he insisted in the face of the corrupt Pharaoh that the people, the Hebrews, should be allowed to leave to serve God. Initially, Pharaoh was willing to let the men go, then only the people without any cattle to sacrifice or to live on. But Moses did not agree to any of these proposals. Moses explained, “We will go with our young and our old; with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go, for we must hold a feast to the Lord” (Ex. 10:9).

Pharaoh’s response was one of mockery. He would not let them go with their little ones (v.10). But Moses stood firm, and God blessed his faith. As a small child, Moses had learned from his parents how precious he was to them. He knew it well and still had a clear view of it at the age of 80. Young and old belong together, and together God’s people were to serve, holding a feast to the Lord in the desert, separated from the people of the land.

In The Hebrews’ Homes
Pharaoh’s stubbornness caused one plague after another to come down on Egypt. The first plagues also affected the Israelites in Goshen, but later God made a distinction. In one plague – the ninth – thick darkness such as could be felt descended upon Egypt. For three days the Egyptians did not dare to rise from their places (vv.22-23).

It was a foretaste of the eternal darkness experienced by those who are thrown into outer darkness, in the eternal punishment. Job 10:22 talks about this as “the land as dark as darkness itself, as the shadow of death, without any order, where even the light is like darkness.” How terrifying! Yet, people choose this because they prefer the darkness to the light of God’s holy presence, which exposes them. Why? “Because their deeds are evil” (Jn. 3:19), and they do not want to give them up.

What was it like for the Israelites in days of the plague? Exodus 10:23 tells us, “But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings,” or “where they lived” (ESV). It does not say that the whole of the land of Goshen had light, but only in the houses of God’s people there was light. It was not that there were lamps burning in each house. Rather, it was a miracle from God who provided that light (consider Jn. 3:21).

We cannot prevent our children from discovering how deep the darkness is that rules this world, but we are able to protect them by ensuring that God’s light shines in our houses. Light drives out the darkness, and it spreads warmth. This is exactly what our children need. They need to notice how the light of God drives out the darkness which, as it were, hangs around them after being in places where little or no account is taken of God’s Word.

The Passover
We encounter a new lesson in Exodus 12: the Passover lamb. First Corinthians 5:7 shows this lamb speaks of Christ, our Passover, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8 NKJV).

The Israelites all had to take a lamb, “a lamb for a household” (Ex. 12:3). For four days, that lamb was in the house. It was selected by the father because it was “without blemish” (v.5), and this perfection no doubt became even more apparent in the four days when the children were able to admire the lamb. But the moment came when the lamb had to be slaughtered. It was most certainly very moving, especially for the children, who would easily become attached to such a sweet little lamb!

Likewise, we need the Lamb for our households. We know Christ as our Savior, but what role does the Lamb of God play in our lives and in our families? What part does the Lamb have in our contact with extended family or with friends? Do we talk and sing about Him? Are we giving Him thanks and praise? Or, do we talk about all sorts of matters of lesser importance, like the two on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24? I have to admit that I have very often fallen into this trap.

How can we ever forget what the Lord Jesus had to go through with the uncompromising judgment of the Holy God? The lamb was roasted in the fire (Ex. 12:9), for even boiling it in water was not hot enough to picture what the Lord Jesus went through as He suffered under God’s wrath for us as our Passover.

The Passover lamb was eaten with bitter herbs. This speaks of the fact that Christ had to go through unfathomably bitter suffering in being forsaken by God – not the Father (see Mt. 27:46). It is bitter to us when we remember that we were the cause of this.

When we as parents think about these things do we then not feel the desire for the Lamb to become central to our family life, thankful for what the Lord willingly went through for us? It will bring us to worship Him. This is precisely what our children need in this day when so much is self-centered. Even what is often called Christian “praise” and “worship” is nothing other than expressing our own feelings and emotions. By having the Lamb in our homes, our children will learn to understand why true Christian worship is centered on Christ – His person, His work and its value to the heart of God. Focused on Christ, our children will be spared the influence of Egypt, of this world that does not know the Lamb.

In The Remembrance
There is much more to be found in this book of the Bible about a God-fearing family life, but let us consider one last lesson from Exodus 12:26-27. There we read: “It shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ that you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice of the LORD, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’”

What a wonderful lesson we learn here about open communication in the family! This is undoubtedly a learning process. If we do not work at this from an early age by talking together about everyday things, by building a bond of trust and spending time with one another, then there will not be any openness about spiritual things either. Our children will not come to us with spiritual questions; perhaps these questions will not even arise in them.

Our children may go to spiritual brothers and sisters with questions, which is good. Yet, it is God’s intention for sufficient openness and trust to exist in the family that our sons and daughters can comfortably talk about feelings, experiences and questions of faith. We have to learn this. It is indeed a blessing for marriage and family if Christ is more often the topic of our conversation.

God delivered the households of His people, as we read. The families were liberated from Egypt by His mighty arm. Likewise, even now, it is God’s desire to save through faith “you and your household” (Acts 16:31).

As God gave these clear instructions to His people, what was the result at the end of Exodus 12:27? “The people bowed their heads and worshiped.” They were deeply impressed by God’s gracious action which had saved them from slavery in Egypt through a precious little lamb, and they worshiped God.

If we would allow what the Lord has done to influence us, would we not all then bow down on our knees in worship – as individuals, couples and families? Then we would thank God for the Lamb, whom He was willing to give, through whom He glorified Himself, and by whom He has saved us for eternity. We would be together, young and old, on Lord’s Day mornings and other times, with thankful hearts focused on the One in whom God Himself can rest.

By Erwin Luimes