Beginning With Moses & the Prophets
Meeting The Great I AM
Part 2 - The Bush On Fire That Wouldn't Burn Out, or
Are You Holy Enough to Approach The Holy God?
Exodus 3: 1 - 9
Introduction
The powers of evil come down upon England with intention to destroy creation & reduce man to machine - There’s a small band of virtuous men & women that stand against these forces of evil but they’re powerless to resist - Towards the end one says “No power that is merely earthly will serve against this Hideous Strength - One of the companions then replies, “Then let's all to prayers.”
No it’s not the Matrix, this is C.S. Lewis’ “The Hideous Strength” the last book of his space trilogy.
How does this tie into Exodus? Well; We left Moses in Midian & it seems that 40 years have gone by between verses 22 & 23; 40 years of harsh unspeakable suffering.
The Israelites must have felt abandoned by God during those 40 years. One would probably say often, “they didn’t have a prayer” But you know what? That is all they had.
the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out, and their cry for help because of [their] bondage rose up to God.
The people sighed, they cried, they groaned. These words described the intense grief, the bitter distress & their painful agony. David cried out “Heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God, For to You I pray. (Ps. 5:2)
Also we find in the book of Esther. Let me read in part from chapter 3: 8, 12-13 & 4: 1-3 -- 8 Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, "There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not to the king's profit to tolerate them. ... 12 Then the king's scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and an edict, according to all that Haman commanded, was written to the king's satraps and to the governors over all the provinces and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script and every people in its own language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king's signet ring. 13 Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with instruction to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.
4: 1 When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry. 2 He went up to the entrance of the king's gate, for no one was allowed to enter the king's gate clothed in sackcloth. 3 And in every province, wherever the king's command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.
God is not mentioned by name in Esther, but the reader does end knowing that God heard their groaning, weeping.
Believers sometimes are in situations where the only thing they can do is cry out to God. Maybe you find yourself where all you can do is groan - that too can be a prayer is it is provided in faith and not in rebellious anger.
We are told in Romans 8:26 “. . . the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for [us] with groanings too deep for words;
Now, God takes center stage
and Moses steps aside - God is ready to deliver His people from bondage. He is going to act in history for their salvation - God hears, remembers, sees & knows.
Psalm 34:15 says, The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are [open] to their cry.
God sees & hears - when he sees & hears He remembers. Thankfully He remembers the covenant of grace, His unbreakable promise of salvation. He remembers to free us from the slavery to sin; a Son to keep the Law for His people & a Lamb to take the punishment for our sins.
God knew the Israelites; He knew everything about them & He knows our situation in all its desperate need. He sees; He hears our prayers even when they are just groanings. He remembers, then He answers our prayers. Maybe not how we want or expect, but in a way that brings Him glory.
The Bush on Fire that Wouldn’t Burn Out
Well, God’s answer to the cries of Israel began in the wilderness faraway where Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro - in chapter 2 we were introduced to Jethro where he was called Reuel. Now it’s possible that his father-in-law went by both names. Jethro means “his excellency”, and Reuel means “friend of God”. In any case, throughout Exodus he is called Jethro.
While tending to the flock we’re told he comes to Horeb, the mountain of God. If you remember Cecil B D’Mills movie, charlton Heston is in the tent with Zipporah and he looks outside and sees lighting and hears thunder on a far mountain & Zipporah says to him, that’s the Mountain of God. Well, Horeb is also known as Mount Sinai, it is the mountain where God will later give Moses the Law, ten Ten Commandments. The location is really not known & Scripture doesn’t give its exact location. Hebrew & Christian scholars have argued as to its whereabouts.
In 1 Kings 19:8 it says Elijah, arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. This implies that its location was known then.
Today some say it’s in Saudi Arabia - A mountain in the southwestern part has the top black because, as it is said God came down with fire. At the base there is an altar and rocks or stones which are the warning markers put up to keep the Israelite from getting too close. (19:23) - "The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for You warned us, saying, 'Set bounds about the mountain and consecrate it.'"
The true importance of Mt. Horeb is the fact that it became the mountain of God. Verse 1, Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. God was there in His living burning presence - the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. 3 So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up." (Vs. 2-3).
The day for Moses more than likely began just like any other day for him. There he is minding his own business, looking over the flock; but you never know when life is going to be changed forever, especially by an encounter with the living God.
For Moses, as it many times is for us many times, it wasn’t a chance encounter because it was God’s providence that led Moses to the far side of the desert.
Note that God didn’t meet Moses where Moses was but brought Moses to the place where God was. There Moses notices a burning bush. What type was it really isn’t important - More than likely in his years in the desert Moses may have seen many bushes blaze under the desert sun.
But now it dawns on him that this bush is on fire but it’s not being burnt, consumed; it's not being burnt, not even charred; it just keeps burning, on fire.
Just like any of us, Moses’ curiosity got the best of him - This was a physical miracle that communicated spiritual truth.
Before God even told Moses who He was, God showed him who he was.Moses will later say in Deuteronomy 4:23-24, Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the LORD your God has forbidden you. 24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
God’s miraculous sign pointed to His power, revealing His complete control over creation. In Matthew 8:23-26 & Mark 4:35-41 Jesus reveals His complete control over creation, revealing His deity.
The burning bush also gave a glimpse of the brightness of His splendor - pointing to His glory. It points to His eternity * self-sufficiency. Like the burning bush His glory never dims; He is always burning bright. In the new heaven & new earth, in the New Jerusalem there will be no night for the glory of God will illuminate it, (Rev. 21:23-24).
Moses is curious, he turns to look. But there is more in that Scripture says And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. It could have been one of the many angelic beings who serve God in glory, but the Hebrew word for angel is just the word messenger, ‘malach’. In that here the angel is identified as The Angel of the Lord, then there is more here than meets the eye. The messenger didn’t see or speak for God but as God. The angel of the Lord is so closely identified with God that the burning bush is generally considered a theophany - that is a visible manifestation of the invisible God.
Since the early church, Christians have wondered if perhaps this was a revelation of God’s preincarnate Son who brings God’s saving message to humanity. Whether or not it was, one thing is for sure true: Moses was in the presence of God.
Stand Back Dude!
Moses more than likely had an idea of what God was talking about when God told him he was standing on holy ground. After all his father-in-law was a priest, a man set apart for God’s service.
God revealed His holiness in a way it hadn’t been revealed before. Something that is holy is set apart - As for God, holiness means He is set apart from everything He has made. It’s the distinction between the creator & the creature; it’s the infinite distance between His deity & our humanity.
As soon as Moses realized he was in the presence of a holy God, he realized he was an unholy man. God said to him, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. (v6).
The prophet Habakkuk says, You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, (1:13a), the reverse then is true: God is too pure for our eyes to look upon Him. When Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on His throne he exclaimed "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"
Now, man was made to gaze upon the glory of God like Adam who walked & talked with God in the garden. But because of the fall, we now have fallen into sin & because of our unholy condition it’s no longer safe to come into the presence of a holy God.
How then, can anyone survive a direct encounter with God? Easy, become holy. But Romans 3:10 says that None is righteous, no not one. So then how can one become holy? Some believe you can by keeping the law, the rules and regulations. Doing all kinds of “good”. But there isn’t anyone that has been, is, or will be capable of keeping the law and that is why God sent God the Son, born of a woman, under the law to be our Savior. He, Jesus Christ, is our holiness; He kept the law for us with perfect holiness. Then He died on the cross to take away our unholiness. He rose from the dead proving that He is God. When we, you and I believe in faith and put our trust in Christ Jesus, God accepts us as holy in His sight; as holy as Jesus Christ Himself.
As Paul write to the Colossians: He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in Him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through Him [Jesus] to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you [us believers] holy and blameless and above reproach before him, (Colossians 1:18-22).
In conclusion, the grace that God has shown through the cross enables us, all believers to approach the Holy One - Not as Moses did, hiding his face in fear, but by faith, trusting in the person & work of Christ Jesus the Lord.
