THE BURNING BUSH (Ex. 3:1-6) Throughout my early childhood I used to enjoy my Sunday School prizes which were often the stories of great missionaries like David Livingstone, Mary Slessor and Robert Moffatt. I kindof always believed from a very early age that the Lord would call me into His work full-time. I loved meeting the missionaries and seeing the slides presenting their work, It was what I wanted to do when I grew up. But, you know how it works reality kicks in. I did my O and A levels, I didn t put as much into them as I ought, took a wrong path, ended up in a backslidden state I lost my direction. I took a few jobs, - one after the other, - not really what I was wanting, but it just seemed as if working for the Lord full-time was drifting further and further away from me. One evening, out at our back gate, my father said to me, David, whatever happened to you wanting to go into the ministry? It hit me like a bolt! It was still what I wanted to do, but how could I get back there again?! It seemed such an unachievable goal. But when the Lord has a purpose for your life, - as He has for us all, - nothing will hinder His plan. He opened the door, He took me through it and that is my testimony to how He guided me into the ministry. Sometimes when it threatens to feel as if it is too much I simply remember that God called me into this work and He will equip me for all that comes my way. We look at Moses and we see him, - rightly so, - as a giant of the faith and of the Scriptures. He was truly a man of God, just and upright, faithful when all around him was faithless. He spoke with God, God spoke with Him. He knew the intimate presence of the holiness of the Lord of lords and King of kings. But before God was to bring Moses to the place of great blessing the Bible teaches us Moses was first of all brought into
2 THE WILDERNESS TO GOD Heb.11:24 tells us, By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Indeed, the Lord took him away out of the situation altogether, - God took him to another country, and another people, and another situation that was so foreign to how he had been brought up. God didn t keep him in Egypt, instead the Lord took him away out of it! He became a shepherd, - one of the lowliest jobs. It meant many hours of solitariness and loneliness in the desert with only the sheep for company. It meant long hot days and long cold nights; God took him into v.1 the backside of the desert. Why? a man who obviously had a burden for his people in captivity in Egypt. Why? a man who was so highly educated and knew the right people in the land in which he was brought up. He was the right man for the job of bringing better living conditions for the Hebrews but why did God bring him out into a desert where his education and his burden for people seemed to be so out of place? Doesn t God have a habit of working in ways we would not expect? There are so many examples throughout Scripture of this: For example, centuries later, why would He bring His people into the land of Canaan, establish them as a nation, settle them with their own capital and then to have an evil man like Nebuchadnezzar to come and reek the worst types of havoc upon them. God does truly work in mysterious ways ways that are beyond our understanding You see, when you read Ex. 3:1 very carefully yes, the Lord did take him out to the backside of the desert but rather than taking him to the desert to abandon him there, God took him through the backside of the desert in order to bring him to the mountain of God. It was simply a place he had to go through to bring him to where God really wanted him. He spent many long years in the wilderness and yes, I m sure he spent hour after hour in contemplation and meditation before God about the state of his people but I also believe it would only have been completely natural for him to search his own soul, to search out the mind of God, as to why he was stuck in the middle of nowhere, in a barren and desolate wilderness with only sheep for company. Why did God have him there?!
3 It is all so common amongst the faithful people of God that they began their service for Him in a wilderness, - Elijah, John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus, Paul. It was where God brought them in order to teach them. There is nothing wrong with a wilderness experience if it causes us to trust in God more! You see, God brought Moses, in particular, to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. If it had been left up to Moses, - brought up in a great palace of Egypt, - it would have been the easiest thing to wander about all over the place and end up nowhere. Yes, it would have, but even in the wilderness, God had His guiding hand upon His servant. God never does anything without having a reason behind it THE WILL OF GOD It was God s will that Moses would grow up a Hebrew in an Egyptian palace; it was God s will Moses would experience the trials and trauma of having to run away from Egypt and his own people it was God s will that took him to the home of Jethro and it was God s will for him to be at this place in the desert on this particular day. God never wastes His time and He makes everything to fit in to His will and purposes, Is. 64:8 now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. Moses was brought to the mountain for a life-changing meeting with Almighty God that would bring a new direction to his life and to that of his enslaved people. Isn t it very noticeable here that God often calls busy people, Gideon was threshing grain (Judges 6) Samuel was serving in the Tabernacle (I Sam. 3) David was caring for sheep (I Sam. 17:20) Elisha was ploughing in the field (I Kgs. 19:19-21) Four of the apostles were called when they were mending their nets (Mk. 1:16-20) Matthew was called when he was collecting taxes (Mt. 9:9). It is a general principle that if God s people are slack and slovenly you find that He doesn t use them very much. His Word has nothing good to say about laziness or slackness. Moses was neither lazy nor slack. He had a burden in his heart for the people of God, and the Lord took him to a very special place in the wilderness where He would meet him face to face.
4 The Bible plainly teaches that no believer is not called into the work of the Lord, every believer has a specific task for God to do. It may not seem as important as what someone else is called to but that to which God calls each of us, we shall all give account before the throne. You don t know what it is that God calls you to? Has God never laid some work in the church upon your heart for you to pray about, for you to perhaps do? Has He never opened up a door of opportunity for you to witness for Him? Beyond any shadow of a doubt, yes, He has. Even the person on their deathbed who has come to know Christ as Saviour and Lord has the responsibility in their last remaining hours to testify before family and friends to God s saving grace. God doesn t need to call you to another country and another people, it is the will of God that we serve Him where He has us. Sometimes He might take us no further than the familiar places that we have been born and brought up in but where He does lead us is the place He has for us to serve Him. Notice something else here in the will of God. What was one of Moses last things he did in Egypt? He killed a man, - no matter how you look at it, it wasn t a very gracious thing to do. But how does the Bible describe him in Num. 12:3? How had the Lord developed him as a person useable in His service? Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. Surely much of this work by God on developing the character of Moses was done in the wilderness. He was content because that was the place God would have him be. For all Moses knew, he could have ended his days working as a lowly shepherd, having made little impact and being remembered for nothing. But, the Lord had great plans for His servant and it was the will of God for Moses to be in that place that day in the backside of the desert because there God wonderfully met with him THE WONDER OF GOD There was nothing really spectacular about a bush going on fire in the wilderness, - it happened all the time. It was hot, dry and dusty. But what was spectacular was the fact that this bush kept burning and didn t burn out. Moses was fascinated, A flame of fire was burning out of the midst of the bush, and it kept burning, Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
5 Isn t it tremendous that God can take something ordinary and insignificant and turn it into a miracle! That was what He was about to do with Moses. Some commentators have taken this bush to be symbolic of the nation of Israel. Israel has been called out to be God s own special people, they have been persecuted but the flame has not burnt it. They are still here today, - God has kept them when it seems they should have been finished a long time ago. Some commentators see it as the Church; again, neither persecution nor error nor schism nor liberalism has quenched its fire. But here in the immediate context we see the fire burning brightly in the midst of the bush look at it like this: Moses was like that thorny bush, God chooses the weak and despised things of the world to confound the wise; Moses was in the middle of the desert, - dry, barren just like all the rest of the terrain; but that day, God came by the power of the Holy Spirit and He lit a fire in that bush that kept on burning! This man who was despised in Egypt would return to confound the wise of that land. Yes, I don t believe it is stretching things too much to see the Trinity of the Godhead here, - there is God the Father, there is the flame depicting the Holy Spirit, and you have the pre-incarnate Christ, the angel of the LORD. As Moses stood there in the desert he was in the company of the eternal and almighty God. Surely this is the great miracle here, - God came to find His man even in the desolateness of the wilderness. Matthew Henry wrote, Moses saw more of God in a desert than ever he had seen in Pharaoh's court. This was indeed an extraordinary manifestation of the Divine presence and glory. Moses curiosity caused him to turn aside and God graciously and effectually spoke simply Moses, Moses. God called him by name. On another similar occasion, when Joshua was met by the captain of the host of the Lord (Josh. 5:14) we read, Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 15 And the captain of the LORD'S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. This was holy ground Moses was standing on. He had to take off his sandals, - it is a privilege to come before God, we must respond to that privilege with reverence. Taking off the sandals in those days was a token of respect and submission.
6 And God spoke to Him and his attention was totally captured. God said, v.6 I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. This was God s signature. Notice the tense, I am, not I was or I used to be but I am. Firstly, notice He is the everlasting God Who never changes and secondly, notice He is not the God of the dead; Jesus quoted the Scriptures, Mt. 22:32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; Lk. 20:37 Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. You see here we learn, Phil. 1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. As we try to peer into this most holy of moments we can clearly see the solemn impression this meeting with God had upon Moses, v.6 Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. Many Christians today do not treat the presence of God as they ought; it is wrong to come before Him shodilly; preparation must be made; He is the holy God before Whom all the angels in Heaven bow. Moses hid his face he wasn t afraid of the burning bush until he realised God was in it. And yes, even though God spoke to him and said, I am the God of thy father, we recognise here that Moses approached the presence of God on God s terms, in holy reverent and Godly fear. Conclusion I hadn t intended to be so long this evening but I believe it is so important to study this first meeting God had with Moses. Remember it was God Who had his parents place Moses in the basket in the River Nile, it was God Who had the Pharaoh s daughter come along at the right time, it was God Who was in control of every second of Moses life right down to this meeting with him in the wilderness. This meeting with God was etched in the eternal calendar. Believer, God loves you, - He has always loved you, - He brought about the circumstances whereby you would believe in Him and be saved He brought you to the place in your wilderness where He met you and called you by name. His holiness was in conflict with your sinfulness and yet, through the blood of Christ on the cross, He made you His child, He adopted you into His family. Look at this story of Moses again this evening before you put your head on the pillow; Christ died for your sins, He called you with the same power in His voice that He called Moses, you are a servant of the Most High God. May He be glorified in what we say and what we do.