The Burning Bush
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1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.
3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”
4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”
5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
6 And 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 at God.
7 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings,
8 and 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 broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
9 And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
Sometimes people are in such mortal danger that their only hope is to pray.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) describes such a time in his novel That Hideous Strength.
In the story the powers of evil have descended upon England with the intent to destroy creation and reduce man to a machine.
Over against the forces of evil stands a small band of virtuous men and women; yet they are powerless to resist the onslaught.
Near the end of the novel, one of them says, almost despairingly, “No power that is merely earthly will serve against the Hideous Strength.” To which one of his companions replies, “Then let us all to pray.”
It was to prayer that the children of Israel turned when they were slaves in Egypt.
For 400 years they had been under the whip, making Pharaoh’s bricks to build Pharaoh’s cities.
Eventually the situation became so desperate that “the Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God” (Exod. 2:23).
23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
Their cries did not go unheard.
8 When Jacob went into Egypt, and the Egyptians oppressed them, then your fathers cried out to the Lord and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place.
God cared about the needs of his people, and the time for their deliverance had come.
It is this great salvation that will be the story of the rest of the book of Exodus.
Whereas the first two chapters covered 400 years of tribulation, the next thirty-eight chapters describe the year of liberation, when Israel came out of Egypt.
1) To bring you from where you are, God will BRING you to WHERE He is.
1) To bring you from where you are, God will BRING you to WHERE He is.
God’s answer to Israel’s cry began faraway in the wilderness...
1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
We were introduced to Jethro back in chapter 2:18, where he was called Reuel.
Possible he had two names.
But perhaps the most likely explanation is that Jethro, which means “his excellency,” was a formal title indicating the man’s status.
In any case, he is called Jethro throughout the rest of the book.
Horeb, also known as Sinai, is the mountain where God later gave Moses the law in the form of the Ten Commandments.
It is… in all intents and purposes “the mountain of God” (Exod. 3:1).
2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.
3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”
The day had probably begun much like any other, with Moses out in the wilderness tending sheep.
He was simply minding his own business, but a person never knows when his life might be changed forever by an encounter with the living God.
Not a chance encounter, for it was God’s PROVIDENCE that led Moses to the far side of the desert.
There Moses noticed a burning bush.
Whatever kind of bush it was, the amazing thing about it was that it kept burning.
During his decades in the wilderness, Moses may have seen a burning bush blazing under the desert sun,
but it gradually dawned on him that there was something special about this particular bush.
Although it was burning, it was not burnt.
It remained on fire without being reduced to smoking embers.
It was not even charred; it just kept burning.
Here it is worth noticing that God did not meet Moses where Moses was but brought Moses to the place where God was.
The idea of God rescuing us often emphasizes with the phrase “God will meet you where you are”
While noble, it’s more than that… God comes to where you are… but not to leave you there…
You can’t rescue someone by leaving them where they are… you have to get them out!
He comes to where you are to take you to where He is...
He Brought moses to where He was
By this time Moses’ curiosity was piqued, so he went over to investigate. What he discovered was that the bush was not some kind of natural wonder but a supernatural sign.
It was a physical miracle that communicated spiritual truth.
Even before God told Moses who he was, he showed him who he was.
The burning bush revealed the very being of God.
24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
This miraculous sign pointed to God’s power by revealing his control over creation.
Who else but God has the power to make a bush burn without its being consumed?
It also pointed to God’s glory by giving a glimpse of the brightness of his splendor.
The miraculous sign pointed as well to God’s eternity and self-sufficiency.
Like the burning bush, God never runs out of fuel.
His glory never dims; his beauty never fades.
He always keeps burning bright.
This is because God does not get his energy from anyone or anything outside himself.
He is completely self-existent and self-sufficient in his eternal being. God’s Asceity.
What Moses saw in the burning bush was nothing less than “the transcendent essence and cause of the universe, on which everything depends...”
The burning bush revealed the power and the glory, the eternity and the self-sufficiency of God.
It is not surprising that there was something divine about the bush, for the Bible says that what appeared to Moses was none other than “the angel of the LORD” (Exod. 3:2).
2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.
Here is a great mystery.
The angel may have been a member of the heavenly host, one of the angelic beings who serve God in glory.
But the Hebrew word for “angel” is simply the word “messenger” (malakh).
Since this angel is identified specifically as “the angel of the LORD,” there may be more here than meets the eye.
Notice the wording of verse 4: “When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush.”
4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”
The messenger did not simply see and speak for God but as God.
Here the angel of the Lord is so closely identified with God that the burning bush is generally considered a theophany.
In other words, it was a God-appearance, a visible manifestation of the invisible God.
For a few brief moments in time and space, the bush was the temple of the living God, the place of his presence on earth.
GOD BROUGHT MOSES INTO HIS TEMPLE… INTO HIS PRESENCE
More Specifically… Moses was in the presence of JESUS...
2) To bring you from where you are, God will SHOW you WHO He is.
2) To bring you from where you are, God will SHOW you WHO He is.
He will show you His HOLINESS.
He will show you His HOLINESS.
5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
Presumably, Moses already knew something about holiness.
After all, his father-in-law was a priest, a man set apart for God’s holy service.
So when God told Moses that he was standing on holy ground, Moses probably had some idea of what God was talking about.
On the other hand, this is the first time the Bible uses the word “holy” (qadosh) with reference to God.
At the burning bush God revealed his holiness in a way it had never been revealed before.
Moses was so impressed by this that later, when he wrote his famous victory hymn, he made sure to mention the divine attribute of holiness: “Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?” (Exod. 15:11).
11 “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
Holiness means separation.
Something holy is set apart.
In the case of God, holiness means that he is set apart from everything he has made.
Holiness is not simply his righteousness (although that is part of it), but also his otherness.
It is the distinction between the Creator and the creature, the infinite distance between God’s deity and our humanity.
God says, “I am God, and not man—the Holy One among you” (Hos. 11:9).
9 I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.
His people respond by saying, “There is no one holy like the LORD” (1 Sam. 2:2).
2 “There is none holy like the Lord: for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.
In case there was any doubt as to what God meant by talking about holiness, he specifically warned Moses to keep his distance: “Do not come any closer” (Exod. 3:5a).
5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
God was separating himself from Moses in order to emphasize the gap between the divine and the human.
God is transcendent in his holiness; so Moses was not allowed to subject him to close scrutiny.
Indeed, if he had taken so much as one more step in God’s direction, his very life would have been in danger.
Moses needed to stay right where he was.
He also needed to take off his sandals, because God was too holy for his shoes.
To this day in the Middle East, removing one’s sandals is a sign of respect.
They represented the dirtiness of the world...
The proper way for Moses to show his reverence for God’s holiness was to take off his sandals.
Moses understood that holy ground is dangerous territory, for the Bible says that “Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God” (Exod. 3:6b).
6 And 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 at God.
It’s a good thing he did this, because as God would later explain, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exod. 33:20).
20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
As much as Moses may have wanted to see God’s glory—a theme that will run throughout the book of Exodus—as soon as he realized that he was in the presence of a holy God, he realized that he was an unholy man.
God is too pure for our eyes to look upon him.
2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
Even the angels cover their face before God.
This is the problem with human beings.
We were made to gaze upon the glory of God—like Adam, who walked and talked with God in the garden—but we have fallen into sin.
In our unholy condition, it is no longer safe for us to come into the presence of a holy God.
But this raises a disturbing question: How will we ever survive a direct encounter with God?
The Bible teaches that at the end of history every human being who has ever lived will stand before God’s throne for judgment.
When that day comes, unless we are holy, we will be destroyed.
Some people deal with this dilemma by exaggerating their own holiness.
This is the way most false religions operate.
They assume that human beings are basically good, and that if we obey the right rules and observe the right rituals, we will be good enough for God.
The trouble is that WE ARE NOT HOLY.
Certainly we are not holy enough to stand before the Holy One, for the Bible says, “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10).
10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;
Others try to deal with this problem by minimizing God’s holiness, lowering his standards.
However, God cannot be any less holy than he is; he would have to un-God himself to do so.
Nor should we want God to be unholy.
God is “OK” with my minimal sin.
“He is ok if I disobey just this once… HE ISN’T”
It’s menial in the grande scheme of things
IF GOD IS “OK” WITH OUR SIN, THEN JESUS DIED IN VAIN.
A. W. Tozer, who has written so eloquently on the theme of God’s holiness, says,
“I tell you this: I want God to be what God is: the impeccably holy, unapproachable Holy Thing, the All-Holy One. I want Him to be and remain THE HOLY. I want His heaven to be holy and His throne to be holy. I don’t want Him to change or modify His requirements. Even if it shuts me out, I want something holy left in the universe.”
The only way for us to come into the presence of a holy God is to become holy ourselves.
This is why God sent his Son to be our Savior.
He is our holiness (1 Cor. 1:30).
We could never keep God’s law, but Jesus kept it for us with perfect holiness.
Then he died on the cross to take away all our unholiness.
Now when we trust in him, God accepts us as holy in his sight—as holy as Jesus himself
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 holy and blameless and above reproach before him,
The grace that God has shown through the cross enables us to approach the Holy One—not as Moses did, hiding his face in fear, but by faith, trusting in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
It is an awesome thing to come into the presence of the living God.
When Moses met God in the burning bush, he was not simply gaining new information about God—he was encountering God himself—God in all his greatness.
Moses was meeting the glorious God, who blazes with splendor.
He was meeting the eternal God, who is sufficient unto himself.
He was meeting the holy God, who is perfect in his purity.
One would not expect such a great and glorious God to have the slightest interest in mere mortals, especially mortal failures like Moses.
Yet the holy God of the burning bush has an unbreakable love for his unholy people, and he revealed himself to Moses in order to maintain his personal, saving relationship with the children of Israel.
He will show you His LOVE.
He will show you His LOVE.
We began to see God’s concern for his people at the end of chapter 2, where four verbs were used to describe his divine activity.
God heard the groans of his people;
he remembered his covenant with Abraham;
he saw the Israelites in their slavery;
and he knew about all their needs.
These words are repeated in Exodus 3. Obviously God remembered his covenant, because he identified himself as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” (Exod. 3:6a).
6 And 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 at God.
7 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings,
8 and 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 broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
God’s relationship with his people is so close, his love for them is so intense, that he specifically identifies the children of Israel as “my people.”
In case there is any doubt as to whether God knows what is happening to them, he repeats himself in verse 9:
9 And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
When God’s people suffer, they sometimes wonder whether God even cares.
But the story of Israel in Egypt is a dramatic example of what is always the case: God knows exactly what his people are going through.
He is well aware of what is happening to us.
He sees our suffering.
He also cares about it, which is why he responds to our cries for help.
God is full of pity and compassion for the people he loves.
What he said to the children of Israel he says to every one of his children: “I am concerned about your suffering.”
God’s relationship with his people is personal because the true and living God is a personal God who knows his people in a personal way.
Notice that when God first called to Moses, he called him by name: “Moses! Moses!” (Exod. 3:4).
Exchanging names is one of the first steps in establishing a relationship, but here there was no need for Moses to tell God who he was.
God already knew who Moses was—not to mention where he was and what he was doing.
The holy and glorious God has personal and intimate knowledge of each one of his children. When he decides to come and save us, he calls us by name.
The way God rescued Israel from Egypt is the way God always rescues his people.
The exodus is not simply past history but present reality.
The God who revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush is the same God we serve today.
Whenever and wherever we worship him, we are standing on holy ground, praising the God of Abraham and crying out to him for salvation.
The exodus from Egypt reveals the pattern of salvation in Christ. So whatever God did for Moses has direct relevance for the Christian.
John Calvin wrote:
We again, instead of supposing that the matter has no reference to us, should reflect that the bondage of Israel in Egypt was a type of that spiritual bondage, in the fetters of which we are all bound, until the heavenly avenger delivers us by the power of his own arm, and transports us into his free kingdom. Therefore, as in old times, when he would gather together the scattered Israelites to the worship of his name, he rescued them from the intolerable tyranny of Pharaoh, so all who profess him now are delivered from the fatal tyranny of the devil, of which that of Egypt was only a type.
Israel’s bondage is a picture of our slavery to sin.
Until you come to God in faith, you are living in the Egypt of our sin, enslaved by its passions and desires.
Just as the children of Israel were under Pharaoh’s whip, you are under the devil’s spell.
Therefore, you are in as great a need of salvation as were the children of Israel.
If you are to be rescued, God will have to stoop down to save us.
This is exactly what God has done in Jesus Christ.
Jesus came down from Heaven to lift us up to glory.
It is through Jesus that we enter into a personal saving relationship with God, in which we are saved from the power of sin,
the terror of Satan,
and an eternity of death.
We are also saved to something: Heaven is our promised land, the place of God’s abundant and eternal blessing.
What Moses experienced at the burning bush teaches us about God and the way of his salvation.
It is also a great encouragement to prayer.
The God who promised to come down and save the Israelites has the power to save us.
All we need to do is cry out to him for deliverance.
In his sermon on this text,
Charles Spurgeon pleaded with his congregation:
“Sinner, tell God your misery even now, and he will hear your story. He is willing to listen, even to that sad and wretched tale of yours about your multiplied transgressions, your hardness of heart, your rejections of Christ. Tell him all, for he will hear it. Tell him what it is you want,—what large mercy,—what great forgiveness; just lay your whole case before him. Do not hesitate for a single moment; he will hear it, he will be attentive to the voice of your cry.”
If you open your hearts to offer such a prayer, the same God who met Moses at the burning bush—the holy God of glory, the God who has entered into a loving, personal relationship with his people through Jesus Christ—will come down and save you.