Moses and the Burning Bush
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 9 viewsNotes
Transcript
Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.
Threatened by Israel’s population explosion over a few hundred years, Pharaoh made the Israelites slaves of Egypt. Through God’s provision, Moses, the son of Hebrew slaves, was raised in Pharaoh’s household as his grandson. However, because of Moses’s compassion for his fellow Hebrews (and his hot temper), he killed an Egyptian slave master and then fled to the desert. Forty years later, God appeared to Moses, declaring that He had heard the cries of His people and was about to free them from their slavery. In a fantastic demonstration of His power and compassion, God showed His people that He was aware of their suffering, just as He is mindful of ours today.
Through Joseph, God took care of the Israelites during the famine. What could have been a time of devastation became a time of peace and provision. They knew God was with them. But as the years passed, the Israelites became slaves in Egypt. Even God seemed to have forgotten them.
Famed actor Alec Guinness, known to many for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars movies, recounts the story of a defining moment in his understanding of God in his autobiography, Blessings in Disguise. On location in France for the filming of Father Brown, Guinness walked several kilometers into town during a break in shooting. Not wanting to change from his costume, he remained dressed in the black robes of a Catholic priest.
Returning from town, Guinness heard a high-pitched voice call out, “Mon Père!” (My Father!). His hand was gripped tightly by an excited little boy who swung Guinness’s arm about, hopping, skipping, and jumping around. The boy chatted nonstop but never let go of him. Guinness remained silent, fearing his broken French would alert the boy to the fact that he was not a local priest or a priest.
As quickly as the boy appeared, he darted off through the hedge as they reached his home. Guinness realized that because the boy believed he was a priest—an agent of God—his presence alone comforted and cheered the boy along his journey home, even without speaking. The encounter began to change Guinness’s long-held prejudices toward the church and God, eventually leading to his faith in Christ.
Who is someone in your life who makes you feel more peaceful or cheers you up, just by being with you?
Last time, we learned how God used Joseph to bring his family to safety in Egypt. By Exodus 3, Joseph’s family had become a people enslaved by Egypt for around four centuries. Throughout the enslavement, like Guinness on that country road, God had been seemingly silent. What the little boy walking with Guinness knew that Israel and Moses had yet to learn is that even when God seems silent, He is still present. And His presence can comfort and cheer us, as it did for the little boy.
Moses became the leader of God’s people and experienced, as Guinness did, a defining moment with God of his own. Not on a country road in rural France, but on the backside of the desert, Moses discovered that God was aware of His people's suffering. And beyond that, He was present with His people even when He seemed silent and slow to act.
God is Aware
God is Aware
Exodus 3:1–7 Psalm 56:8
Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush, and he looked, and the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.”
When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him from out of the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses.”
And he said, “Here am I.”
He said, “Do not approach here. Remove your sandals from off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” Moreover He said, “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 upon God.
The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
You take account of my wandering;
put my tears in Your bottle;
are they not in Your book?
Abraham’s descendants had been in slavery for many years at this time. It is understandable that they wondered whether God knew of their plight. The burning bush experience in Moses’s life makes the point emphatically that God was absolutely aware of their suffering—and ours.
In Psalm 56 In poetic beauty, David tells us that God stores our tears in a bottle and keeps record of all our sorrows. Not only was God aware of Israel’s suffering during their slavery, He had not let a single tear or sorrow go unnoticed or unrecorded.
Psalm 56
For the Music Director. To the melody of “Silent Dove at a Distance.” A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.
Be gracious to me, O God, for man would crush me;
all day long he who battles oppresses me.
All day long my enemies would crush me,
for there are many who arrogantly battle against me.
In the day when I am afraid,
I will trust in You.
In God whose word I praise,
in God I have trusted; I will not fear.
What can mere flesh do to me?
Every day they twist my words;
all their thoughts are against me for evil.
They stir up strife, they lurk,
they watch my steps,
when they wait for my life.
Should there be deliverance for them on account of wickedness?
In Your anger cast down the peoples, O God.
You take account of my wandering;
put my tears in Your bottle;
are they not in Your book?
In the day I cry to You,
then my enemies will turn back;
this I know, that God is for me.
In God whose word I praise,
in the Lord whose word I praise,
in God I trust, I will not fear;
what can a man do to me?
Your vows are on me, O God;
I will complete them with thank offerings to You;
for You have delivered my soul from death,
even my feet from stumbling,
to walk before God
in the light of the living.
How does it make you feel to know that during times of crisis or sorrow, despite your feeling that no one is aware, God was keeping a record of every tear and sorrow?
He Is a God of Action
He Is a God of Action
Therefore, I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me. Moreover, I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.
God’s action may not have been on Israel’s preferred timetable. But God had not only recorded their suffering, but He had also planned their deliverance. It is important to note as well that although God allowed their suffering, they were and are still His people. Despite their circumstances and difficulties, God had not given up on them.
And the same is true for us. As Christians, even in our suffering, we belong to Christ Jesus. We are His; He is ours. This is a truth worth dwelling on.
Back to Israel’s story. At long last, God was acting decisively to rescue His people by appearing to Moses in the burning bush. It may have been a long time coming. But God’s deliverance was there, and it would happen no matter what.
The moment had now come for Israel’s deliverance—God was taking action.
God Is Always Present
God Is Always Present
Read Exodus 3:10–20
Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh so that you may bring forth My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this will be a sign to you, that I have sent you: When you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, all of you shall serve God on this mountain.”
Moses said to God, “I am going to the children of Israel and will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ When they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”
And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and He said, “You will say this to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
God, moreover, said to Moses, “Thus you will say to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.’
“Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, “I am indeed concerned about you and what has been done to you in Egypt. Therefore, I said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.” ’
“They shall listen to your voice, and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you must say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews has met with us. Therefore, now, let us go, we ask you, three days’ journey into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’ However, I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not even under a forceful hand. So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My wonders which I will perform in its midst, and after that he will let you go.
For a long time in Israel’s history, God had seemed silent and must have felt distant. We often experience the same thing. But as God assured Moses in verse 12, He is present. God’s presence is enough to change us even if it does not change our circumstances.
God had seen Israel’s suffering, and He was going to change their circumstances. But His presence is still the most important thing. Whether God is silent in our suffering or acting decisively to deliver us, His own presence is our greatest gift and blessing.
In their suffering, what would Israel have forfeited had they stopped believing God was with them?
Was God’s promise to be with Moses really enough? Do you feel God should have promised him more? Why or why not?
Are We Aware of God?
Are We Aware of God?
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will protect your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
whom, having not seen, you love; and in whom, though you do not see Him now, you believe and you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory,
When we are hurting, we want to ask, “Is God aware of my suffering?” The story of Moses meeting God at the burning bush answers this question with a resounding, “Yes!” But there is a question beyond that, equally important for us in our walk with God. And that question is, “In our suffering, are we aware of God?” In our pain, it is easy to point an accusing finger at God and ask if He is ignoring it all. The Bible assures us that He is not. He is compassionately keeping record of it all.
God has promised His constant presence. We can experience surpassing peace and inexpressible joy by living with a constant awareness of and embracing the truth that God is always with us.