May it please the Lord to help
us tonight as we continue our meditation in the Acts of the
Apostles, in chapter 7, and we'll consider tonight from verse 30
to verse 34. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter
7, from verse 30 to verse 34. And when 40 years were expired,
there appears to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of the
Lord, in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he wandered
at the sight, and as he drew near to behold it, the voice
of the Lord came unto him, saying, I am the God of thy fathers,
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold. Then said the Lord
to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place where
thou standest is holy ground. I have seen, I have seen the
affliction of my people which is in Egypt and I heard their
groaning and have come down to deliver them and now come I will
send thee into Egypt." As Stephen answers his accusers
We are aware that one of the points that the accusers made
was with regards to Moses and therefore we see here perhaps
in a special way that Stephen passes through some of the life
of Moses and directs them to understand how wonderful it was
that a Lord was with Moses and did appear for Moses and did
call Moses. We come this evening to the time
when Moses had been 40 years in the wilderness. He was now
80 years of age. You might think naturally, well
surely he is an old man. He was an old man. Surely he
won't be of any use. Surely he won't be able to carry
out the Lord's work. But we see in God's providence,
in God's purpose, that the time had arrived when the Lord would
now use Moses to deliver his people out of Egypt. He spent 40 years in the back
side of the desert, near to Mount Sinai or the Mount Horeb, they
both mean the same place. And we know that it was a rocky
place, a difficult terrain, sandy, not very much vegetation, not
very much water, not a comfortable place to live in. And yet you
see God had ordained that Moses should spend 40 years in that
location. And we should sometimes think
in our lives, the Lord has purposes for us. They don't always flow
out as quickly as we might anticipate. They don't always happen in the
way we would think. But they do occur. in a right
way and a right time. And there was a preparation to
be carried out in the life of Moses. And in measure, in all
of our lives, there is preparation. We may not always observe it.
We're not told really what Moses thought of those 40 years. A long time, isn't it? Think
over 40 years in our lives. Those of us who are older than
that, to look back over 40 years and to think, well, what has
God spoken to me in those 40 years? We don't really learn
very much of what God spoke to Moses in those 40 years. But
what we do know is this. He fitted and prepared him for
this great work. And in those 40 years, he'd been
changed from a person who thought he was able and the right person
to deliver Israel to the time when now he came and said he
wasn't able to. You see the Lord had worked in
his heart and annoyed him in the view of himself and brought
him right down. And how true that is in our lives. we are brought down. There is
really a continual bringing down. The Lord reveals to us more of
all of ourselves, of our own hearts. And the effect is to
bring us down in our own estimation. And instead of that, is to rise
up Christ as our only hope. Our only hope of salvation and
the one that we need to help us at all times. And so here
we read, and when forty years were expired there appears to
him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in
a flame of fire in a bush. Well we know of course that this
angel of the Lord was none less than the Lord Jesus Christ himself. We might think, well Surely Moses
should have gone back and been found worshipping the tabernacle,
or at least what was the place of worship in those days. The
tabernacle hadn't been actually raised up then, but nonetheless,
to meet with Israel. But now you see, God is in every
place. And God meets His people in every
place. And God meets His people sometimes
in very strange places. the least looked for place. And
here was Moses by Mount Sinai, that great rocky mountain. And
God came and met with him in a very particular and a very
peculiar way to demonstrate very powerfully that it was God himself
who was speaking to Moses. What did God reveal to him? Well, first of all, we read the
Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. And when Moses saw it, he wandered
at the sight, and as he drew near to behold it, the voice
of the Lord came unto him, saying, I am the God of thy fathers,
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Joseph. Jacob, rather. What a wonderful
statement that was. No doubt, was there, in Moses'
heart that Almighty God had come and was speaking out of that
burning bush. What a sight it was. The bush
wasn't consumed. No doubt it was burning fiercely. And yet there it was. It remained
in exactly the same condition. Moses must be attracted to that
sight. And he was attracted. He turned
aside and he went to see what it was. And then the Lord spoke
to him. Then Moses trembled and doth
not behold. I believe this is again a clear
indication of the presence of God when we tremble before a
holy God. When, as it were, we enter into
his presence to tremble. If we look at ourselves, how
utterly unworthy we are, how sinful we are to think that God
should come to us, that God should remember us in perhaps our lowest
state after a long time. God had come, and God spoke to
his servant Moses. And so we see Moses trembling,
and he durst not behold. And then God spoke to him, and
he said to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place
wherein thou standest is holy ground. Why was it holy ground? was holy ground because the Lord
was there. That's why it was holy ground. And the Lord comes and speaks
to us, it will be as though that place is holy ground. Not in
a physical way, but in a spiritual way. And as we look back in our
lives to perhaps an occasion when God may have come and spoken
to us, surely that place is holy ground. We look back, we remember
that occasion, the time, the very place where God came and
spoke to us and revealed himself to us. It was indeed holy ground. Moses was to stand there. He was to stand there before
Almighty God. Yes, and he was to take off his
shoes, He was just to be there. And God was to speak to him. And God was to direct him. Well,
in our lives, what a blessing if God should come and speak
to us. As we stand, as it were, on holy
ground. He was standing. And what did
God say? Then said the Lord to him, put
off thy shoes from thy feet for the place where Thou standest
at holy ground, I have seen. I have seen the affliction of
my people, which is in Egypt. And I have heard their groaning,
and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send
thee into Egypt." The appointed time had come for Moses to be
sent into Egypt. The time had come that God was
to send him. And when God sends us, then we
can be sure it will be a successful time. Because God sends, and
God directs, and indeed God goes before. And God went before Moses. What
a blessing it was. And what a blessing it may be
to us today in our lives in whatever that may mean to us today, to
know that the Lord is with us. He says, I will send thee into
Egypt. Well, the appointed time had
come, the life of Moses, the preparation of 80 years was now
behind him. And now he was ready, in God's
eyes, to deliver the ancient people of Israel, and what a
changed man was Moses. He was ready. He didn't feel
to be so, but he was ready, because God had prepared him. And that's
a blessing for us to meditate on in our lives today, to realize
that God's purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have A bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower." You know, Moses, no doubt, had
a bitter time in all those years. You may have thought, you may
have pondered upon his previous thoughts, thinking that he was
ready 40 years ago. But no, God was to work in his
heart. God didn't leave him, God didn't
forsake him in that desert place, but God was working in his heart. So to think in our lives, that
God hasn't left us. Maybe in our view, we don't see
very much evidence of God's leading and God's blessing and God's
direction. but it may be we come and say,
nevertheless, afterward. We see how our own spirits had
to be broken. We see how God had to reveal
himself as our strength, as all that we need had to be revealed
to us. We see our lives had to be dramatically
changed so that God would have all the honour and all the glory.
And so here we have this case of Moses, the Lord speaking to
him, the Lord directing him. There was no doubt it was God.
God had spoken, the bush had burnt, it wasn't burnt, it was
still burning. You see the evidence of God's
work and God's revelation. And so God comes and says, I
will send thee into Egypt. May God bless his word. Amen.