Sermon Tone Analysis
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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).
Their cries did not go unheard.
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.
God’s answer to Israel’s cry began faraway in the wilderness...
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).
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.
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).
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.”
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.
He will show you His HOLINESS.
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).
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).
His people respond by saying, “There is no one holy like the LORD” (1 Sam.
2:2).
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).
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).
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).
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.
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.
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