The Lord has brought Moses to
the backside of the desert. And as he is keeping the sheep
as a shepherd, and he needs to learn how to be a shepherd because
he's going to be given some two-legged sheep, some of the Lord's people
that he's going to have to shepherd and lead them through the wilderness
journey. He has many things he needs to
learn, and he has learned through the 40 years that he has been
on the backside of the desert in Median. Well, he sees this
bush that was burning, but it wasn't burned up. And I'll give
you four things here concerning the site of this bush that burned. but wasn't consumed. Number one,
it was a great sight. You'll notice in verse three,
and I didn't read verse three, but I will now, Moses, when he
sees this bush burning, Moses said, I will now turn aside and
see this great sight. This is a great sight. Why the
bush is not burned. He would never have seen this
sight if he was still in the palace of Pharaoh. if he was
still in the house of Pharaoh's daughter. He would never have
seen this sight. God takes him to an unusual,
unusual place. I mean, this isn't where you
would think that a man would see the Lord, backside of the
desert, barren, a wilderness, nothing around him but his sheep
and the thorn bushes. But this is where God ordained
for him to be. Do you sometimes feel like you're
in a wilderness? Do you sometimes feel like all
around you are thorn bushes? So this is a very unpleasant
situation. But wait a minute. If it wasn't
God's will for you to be there, you wouldn't be there. You see,
Moses is right where God would have him to be. And he sees this
great sight. He would not have seen this great
sight in any other location except this location. A great sight. I was thinking today as I was
working on this message that Moses could say the same thing
that Peter And the rest of the disciples who went with him,
Peter, James, and John, went with the Lord Jesus up on the
Mount of Transfiguration. And Peter said, it's good for
us to be here. And I'll tell you, Moses could
say, it's good for me to be here. And would to God that all of
us, all of us here, all of us who are the Lord's people, and
those of you who are watching, would to God that we could see
whatever the situation we're in, we should say, it's good
for me to be here. And the reason it's good for
me to be in whatever situation I find myself, it's where God
has put me. So it's the best place to be.
He saw a great sight. You'll be amazed at the great,
great sights God will show you when you're alone with the Lord.
He will show you some great sights. That's the first thing I see
here, a great sight. Second, this is a gracious sight. It was a revelation of the Son
of God in a thornbush. And thornbushes were very plentiful
in the desert, in the wilderness. Without that fire burning, the
thornbush looked like any other thornbush. Just like our Savior
looked, just like all the other men of Israel. He didn't have
a halo over His head. There wasn't a holy glow about
him. They said, we know who you are.
You remember in John 6 when he said, I'm the bread that came
down from heaven. They said, wait a minute, we
know who this man is. We know his father and his mother,
Joseph and Mary. We know his brothers and sisters.
And yet he says, I'm the bread come down from heaven. Don't
believe it, because we know it's family members. But to the Lord's people, we
see the Savior by faith, and it's a gracious sight. Have you
by faith beheld the Son of God as your Savior, as your Redeemer,
as that one appointed by God from old eternity? To be the
substitute for His people? Have you seen Him as your Savior? Your Redeemer? Your sacrifice for sin? And if you have, that's a gracious
sight. That's a sight only the grace
of God can give you. Because others haven't seen what
you've seen. Here's Moses out here in the
wilderness. He's in the desert. He sees this
great sight and it was a gracious sight and nobody saw it but him. Think about that. He saw what
nobody else saw. And I'm telling you, if you've
seen the glories of the Christ of God, If you've seen the wonders
of redemption by His bloody death, you have seen what most people
will never see. A gracious sight. A Savior laying down His life
to save you and then taking that life up again and going home
to glory and sending His Spirit to draw you unto himself through
the power of the new birth. Here's a great sight. Here's
a gracious sight. Number three, here's a graphic
sight. A burning bush that isn't devoured
by the fire that engulfed it. This was not imaginary. This
was not a vision. It was real and very graphic. It's full of flames. You see,
God is a consuming fire. And our Lord Jesus, in order
to save us from our sins, He had to bear our sins in His own
body on the tree. And then the wrath of God fell
on Him, the very fury of the Holy One. God is said to be a
consuming fire. And the fire of God's judgment
burnt within him. But he was not consumed. Old Calvary was very real. And
as you read of the sufferings of the Savior, certainly his
physical sufferings are graphically displayed in the Scriptures.
But oh, how much more graphic is that hellish wrath of God
that burned within his soul! It's so graphic! But all those flames exhausted
themselves upon the Savior, and no wrath remains for His people. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. This is a great sight. It's a
gracious sight. It's a graphic sight. And the
fourth thing is, it's a glorious sight. A glorious sight. This bush, it was the very habitation
of God. so bright, so glorious. And you know how glorious it
was? Notice in verse 6, at the very end of it, And Moses hid
his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. This is a glorious
sight, and the sight of that flame, of the presence of God
in that burning bush, It was so glorious. The glory was so
bright, Moses took his coat or his cloak and covered his face. He's already fallen before the
bush. The Lord said, take off your
shoes, the ground upon which you stand is holy ground. And he's afraid. And he covers
his face such as the glory of the Son of God who was in
that bush that burned but wasn't consumed. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6 says, for
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Have you seen the glorious sight
of the Son of God living, dying, rising again,
ascending up to heaven for you? That is a most glorious sight. And when God the Spirit shows
you that, in your heart, you will, as it were, cover your
face and say, I'm not even worthy to be in his presence, and yet
look at all that he's done for me. The Lord made several tremendous
statements to Moses in this passage of scripture. Let me just call
your attention to them. First of all, he says this in
verse seven. Watch it. The Lord said, number
one, he made several, these are very encouraging words from the
burning bush. I entitled the message Encouragements
from the Burning Bush. Number one, God said in verse
seven, I have surely seen the affliction of my people. My people have been deprived
of liberty, They've been servants to the
king of Egypt. They've been in slavery, treated cruelly, harshly. And these are the very people
of God. And I'll tell you, the Lord has
seen our affliction. We become slaves to sin, servants
to the evil one. Oh, how horrible is the servitude
of a sinner to sin and Satan. Oh, we have no idea of the seriousness
of our bondage to sin and Satan. I'm telling you, the natural
man is just a slave. He's just a servant. Doesn't
even know it. And men run around saying, I'm
the master of my own fate. You're not the master. You're
never the master. You're somebody's servant. Either the servant of sin, whom
you serve, according to the cruelty of that awful master, or you're
the servant of righteousness. You're the servant of God, by
grace. God says, I've seen the affliction
of my people. I've seen their sorrow. And you know, they had forgotten
God. But God didn't forget them. I tell you, you and I, by nature,
we have forgotten God. We forgot God when we left Him
in Adam. But the Lord has never forgotten
His people. He says, I know who you are.
I've seen your affliction. And even for the people of God,
for those converted by His grace, brought to faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, We are quite often an afflicted
people, I know that. Afflictions are not a rare thing. You're not the only one to have
ever been afflicted. All of God's people down through
the years have been afflicted. Our Lord said, in this world
you shall have tribulation. Oh, I'm the only one going through
tribulation. No, you're not. All of God's
people go through tribulation. In Revelation chapter 7, John
sees this group of people, their robes have been washed white
in the blood of the Lamb. The boy cries out, who are these? These are they that came out
of great tribulation. That's what he says. And that's
not talking about seven years of tribulation or three and a
half years of tribulation if that's the part of the great
tribulation that people talk about. All of God's people down
through the years have come out of great tribulation. You will
not be exempt from tribulation. You're going to be afflicted
just like all of God's people, though we're all afflicted to
different degrees. That's up to the sovereignty
of God. The Lord says, I've seen the
affliction of my people. And He watches. He sees. In Malachi, In chapter 3, I believe,
the Lord, He sits as a refiner of His people, burning out the
dross. He sits and He watches lest the
fire of trouble and tribulation and affliction become too heated. He makes sure to turn the thermostat
up or down according to His sovereign will. You cannot be afflicted apart
from the sovereign purpose and the ongoing providence of God. But know this, the Lord says, I've surely seen
the affliction. He knows exactly what you're
going through. And we moan and groan and we'll say, nobody knows
what I'm going through. Oh, woe is me. He knows. Because you're exactly on that
path that He has ordained for you. Everybody's path is different. Everybody's afflictions are different. Let me ask this, how are we going
to ever know that the Lord is our helper in time of need if
we don't get to a time of need? He sends these things to us.
What are we going to do when faced with these afflictions
and infirmities? What are we going to do? Throw
up our heads and quit? Quit and moan and groan and fuss
and complain and murmur? Should it not be enough for us
to know, Thou God seest. That's what Hagar said. Hagar
said that back in Genesis. Out there sitting down, thirsty. Got run out of the house by Sarah. Abraham said, you got to leave.
Take your little boy with you. Take my son with you. And she went out and she sat
down with that little baby boy, Ishmael. Moping, spirit low. She said, thou God seest me. Tell you what, next time you
get down in the dumps, been nice if somebody said that to Robert,
Robert who wrote this song. Next time you're down in the
dumps, just remember this. There's an eye who sees everything
you're going through. Thou God seest me. And here's the second thing.
Here's another encouragement from the burning bush. In verse
seven again, he says, I have heard their cry by reason of
their taskmasters. What an indescribable blessing. He hears our cries. And you know,
in Romans chapter eight, And we don't have the time to go
into it now, but even when we can't put our feelings and our
heartaches, what we're going through, even when we can't put
our requests into words, the Spirit of God interprets to the
Father exactly what our thoughts are, what our feelings are, and
God hears our cry. His ear is always open to the
cries of His people. God said, I've heard their cry
by reason of their taskmasters. I've heard them. And He hears
you. And in His own time, He may send
relief. Get that. He may send relief,
but He will always give grace. He will always give grace. I have heard their cry. And here's another one, number
three. Here's another of the encouragements from the burning
bush. Number three, he says there in
verse seven at the end, I know their sorrows. I know their sorrows. Sometimes
when somebody's going through something, a brother or sister
in Christ, we'll say something like, I know what you're going
through with. No, you don't. No, you don't. Because everybody has different
personalities, different feelings, different experiences. You don't
really know what I'm going through because you hadn't walked in
my shoes. And I don't know what you're going through because
I haven't walked in your shoes. Everybody's unique. But there's
somebody who knows your sorrows. He knows all about it because
he sins the sorrows. I know the tender feelings of
another's heart no human sympathy can touch. But our blessed Savior, who is
himself the very, he's the Prince of Sufferers, he who led in the
path of sorrows and walked in the path of sorrows, he knows
our frame. And I like this, the psalmist
says, the Lord knows our frame. He remembers. What does he remember? That we're just dust. The Lord
knows there's nothing to us. He knows we can't stand on our
own. He knows how helpless we are.
And I'll tell you, it's a wonderful thing when we're made to know
the reality of the fact that we can't stand on our own. That's
when we'll look to the Lord. What we'll do is we'll say something
like this, I got this. I can handle this. I'll tell you, anything you handle,
you're going to mess up. That's the way we are. The Lord knows. I know their
sorrows. Now, sometimes He may, according
to His purpose, hide His face, and it may appear to us that
He has forsaken us, that He's forgotten us, causing us to cry
out, as did the psalmist, is His mercy clean, gone forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Hath he in his anger shut up his tender mercies? But even
then, I assure you, troubled child of God, the Lord is bending
over us as a tender, heavenly Father. He says, I know your sorrow.
I know what you're going through. Nobody else does. Not really. But He does. And it helps just to know that
He knows. If He knows all about what I'm
going through with, shouldn't that be enough for me? Because
He's my Heavenly Father. Hey, He chose me under salvation. He sent His Son to redeem me.
He sent His Spirit to draw us to Christ through the preaching
of the Gospel. Will He forsake us now? He says,
I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. I know
there's sorrows. Our sins are removed. That's
comforting. God Almighty is not going to
charge us with sin. That's comforting. His righteousness
is imputed to me. That's comforting. The Lord knows your sorrows. And look at verse 8. Here's another encouragement
from the burning bush, number 8. I'm come down to deliver them. Now that is really encouraging.
Is this not the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ? A picture
of that? And is not this the promise of
the Holy Spirit as well? And the promise of eternal salvation? I've come down to save, that's
what he says. I've come down to save, I've
come down to deliver out of the hand of the Egyptians. Oh, and
2,000 years ago, Christ came down. Why did He come down here? To deliver, to save. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. I'm come down to deliver. Oh,
bless the name of the Savior. He came to save, not to try,
not to endeavor, not to put forth an effort, not to help me save
myself. He came to deliver. What could
Israel do? Oh, there's a bunch of people.
They're numbers hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people,
but they cannot get themselves out of the mess that they're
in. But he came to save. He came
to deliver. And he says this, here's the
fifth thing. In verses 9 through 12, he says, I'll be with you. Just drop down to verse 12. He
says, certainly I will be with thee. I'll be with you. To save you, certainly. I'll be
with you to encourage you. I'll be with you to protect you.
I'll be with you to strengthen you. I'll be with you to help
you. Fear thou not, the Lord said,
for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee. Yea,
I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. Is that comforting to you? Now,
if that don't help you, I don't know what will. And then look at the last line
of verse 12. When thou hast brought forth,
he tells this to Moses, when thou hast brought forth the people
out of Egypt, ye shall serve God, ye shall worship God upon
this mountain. And they did. They did. Every promise the Lord has made
to His people, He always fulfills them. And He says this. Look, here's the eighth one.
I will bring you up out of affliction. I will bring you up out of affliction. And I've read through the rest
of this to you, so I'm not going to labor on these things, but
he purposed it. He promised it. He'll do it. Did he bring them up? Well, you
know he did. You know he did. He brought them
into a land flowing with milk and honey. And the last thing
from verses 18 through 22, and I'll take you to the 22nd verse
again. Verse 21, the last of it says,
you shall not go empty. Tell you something, we're the
richest of the rich. It says here, verse 22, but every
woman shall borrow or I said require or demand of her neighbor
and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver,
jewels of gold, and raiment, and ye shall put them upon your
sons and upon your daughters, and ye shall spoil, ye shall
take away from the Egyptians." The Lord says, you're not going
to go out empty. And I say to the people of God,
we're going to leave this world one of these days. But you're not going out empty. You've got the riches of His
grace. You've got the riches of the
mercies of Christ Jesus. It's like the Lord said to the
70 when they came back. He said, when you went out, did
you lack anything? Didn't I provide for you? And
I'll tell you, when we get to the end of life's journey, and we go home to be with the
Lord, we will honestly say in that day, we may moan, groan,
and complain in this life, and Lord, forgive us for that. But
I'll tell you what, when we enter into everlasting glory and see
the face of the Son of God, we're going to say, Lord, you did all
things well. And I'll tell you, I came out
the richest, that a man could possibly be. I have redemption through his
blood. I have the imputed righteousness
of God credited to my account. I have an intercessor. I have
a comforter. Lord, you bless me all the days
of my life. And of course, the scripture
says the former things will be passed away. We're not going
to be regretting in heaven this or that or something else. I
think we will look back, though, to some degree and we'll say,
Lord, you did all things well. And we'll bless him. We'll praise
him. And we ought to be doing that
right now. Don't you agree? I know you do. Well, let's sing
a closing song. Get your songbooks again. Let's
sing glory to his name. 489.