The book of Exodus chapter three
is a really, really instructive passage of scripture because
what we see here, and I'm gonna do two messages from this chapter. What we see here is God in grace
and love and mercy revealing himself to one of his children,
a man named Moses. And that's what happens when
God brings his sheep, when Christ brings his sheep into the fold
at the appointed time. Paul said it this way in Galatians
1, when it pleased the Lord to reveal his son in me, he brings
them under the gospel and he reveals himself. Salvation is
by revelation from God. The natural man will never find
it on his own. but God must reveal himself sovereignly
and powerfully to us in Christ. And the first portion of this
chapter has to do with God revealing himself to Moses in the burning
bush. And I've entitled the lesson
Christ in the Burning Bush because that's exactly what's happening
here. Now you have to understand about Moses, and if you read
the life of Moses through the book of Exodus, and of course
this is after Joseph had died, and you remember as the years
progressed, another pharaoh came to the throne of Egypt, one who
did not know Joseph. It's kind of hard to understand
how a pharaoh might come and not even have heard of Joseph,
because Joseph was so instrumental not only in the salvation, the
physical salvation of his own people, the Hebrew people, his
own family, but also the Egyptians and other countries around. So
it's hard to imagine this, but this is all in the providence
of God, you understand. And you know, this Pharaoh, whoever
he was, he came to power and he didn't know Joseph. And he
noticed that the Hebrews were multiplying and he feared that
they might outnumber the Egyptians and take over or whatever, I
don't know what all was going through his mind, but he's the
one who put the Hebrew people in the bondage of slavery. And
you know the story of how Moses, how when Pharaoh made a decree
that all the firstborn of the Hebrews, the firstborn males
be killed, Moses' mother put him in an ark made of, what was
it made of? Reeds, yeah, what was his name?
Bullrushes, yeah, I put him in the bullrushes in the Ark made
of reeds. And he came up on the shore where
Pharaoh's daughter found him and pulled him out of the water
and raised him as her son. So here Moses was raised in the
household of Pharaoh, a prince of Egypt, you might say. But
what we're going to see as we look through the scriptures here,
especially this chapter and others, that Moses is often a type of
Christ in a lot of different ways. Moses was a prophet. Christ is the great single prophet. Moses prophesied of him. Moses
was a mediator. We'll see that in this passage.
Moses was a deliverer. And of course, Moses' role in
all this pertained to the physical nation of what would later be
called Israel, the Hebrew children. Let my people go. You know the
story, how Moses went and went back after this and faced Pharaoh
down and said, let my people go. And of course we know Christ,
in that he's a type of Christ. Christ is our prophet, our priest,
our king. Christ is our deliverer. Christ
is our mediator. And so Moses often is a type
of Christ. But now one thing we need to
see about Moses is from this point on he is always, providentially
he's always been a servant of Christ, even when he didn't know
it. Now that's the way it is with all of us because what are
we before we're born again? We're lost sheep. There's two
kinds of sheep. There's lost sheep and there's
saved sheep. Born again sheep you might say.
And so even in our lives as lost people, we are serving the greater
providence and purpose of God even when we didn't know it,
even when we were in our minds enemies by wicked works. And yet unreconciled in our minds
to God, God was reconciled to us in Christ all along. He chose
us in Christ before the foundation of the world, gave us to him.
Christ is our surety, our substitute, our redeemer. But we didn't know
it until God providentially brought us under the gospel, till the
shepherd found us and brought us into the fold under the preaching
of the gospel and gave us eyes to see and ears that revealed
himself to us. And so Moses was always a servant
of Christ, but as we read through, go through some of the events
of the book of Exodus, we see that Moses was always a servant
of Christ. And in the New Testament, Moses
is often used to represent the old covenant law. Sometimes when
it just refers to Moses, it's talking about the law. God gave
the law to Moses because it was through Moses that God gave the
law to Israel. And so we always have to remember
two things about Moses. Number one, he was a sinner saved
by grace through the blood of Christ, who was yet to come and
shed his blood, but always sure and certain to do so. Moses'
righteousness before God was not the law that he represented. Think about that. Moses' forgiveness,
Moses' salvation was not based upon his law keeping, even though
God through him gave the law to Israel. And so Moses was a
sinner saved by grace, not by works of law. And he pointed
to Christ, and I've got a list of scriptures. Here's the second
thing. Moses was a true believer, born again by the Spirit and
brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for all salvation,
all forgiveness, all righteousness, all eternal life. And I've got
a few scriptures there that prove that. You know how Christ, And
I love that passage in John chapter 5 where he told the Pharisees,
you do search the scriptures for in them you think you have
eternal life. They are they which testify of me. And of course,
one of their human defenses against those accusations that would
show them to be lost in their sins was we keep the law of Moses. Remember, I've always told you,
it seemed like the lost Israelites had three grounds upon which
they would claim salvation. Number one was their physical
connection to Abraham. And we've seen that Christ told
them, that'll do you no good. And then their circumcision,
which connected them with Abraham, we be circumcised. And then they
claimed to keep the law of Moses. But in John 5, he said, listen,
Moses will be your judge. The very law that you claim to
keep will condemn you. That's what he said. He said,
Moses wrote of me. And you remember after the resurrection,
right before he ascended into glory, he set the disciples down
and he taught them out of the books of Moses, out of the law
and the prophets, the things concerning himself and what he
would accomplish in his death unto sin for his people to establish
the righteousness that we need for God to justify us. So Moses
was a sinner saved by grace, he was a believer, born again
by the Holy Spirit, and again, we see in his history, look at
verse one of chapter three. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro,
his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock
to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God,
even to Horeb, and that Horeb is the same as Sinai. Now Moses,
as I said, he was born, he was raised in the house of Pharaoh,
was a prince of Egypt. And you know the story about
how he killed an Egyptian and had to flee into the desert.
And he was there about 40 years. So here's the prince of Egypt,
now a shepherd. And what a humbling experience,
a shepherd. Well, that's a type of Christ,
isn't it? Christ, the Prince of Peace, the Son of God, the
Royal House of God Almighty, descended to this earth as our
shepherd, the shepherd of the sheep. The good shepherd gives
his life for the sheep. The good shepherd who keeps his
sheep, who saves his sheep, who protects his sheep, will bring
us unto glory. Christ, and here's Moses, leading
his flock to the mountain of God. Now that's the place where
God would reveal himself, where God would reveal himself to Moses
in God's glory. And I thought about this, Christ
leads his sheep to where God dwells in his glory as both a
just God and a savior. And there's a mountain involved
there, the Mount Calvary, where God, where God established through
the blood of his son, the ground of our salvation, Mount Calvary. God reveals himself in his glory. And what God's going to do here
is reveal himself to Moses in the burning bush. Now look at
verse two. It says, and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him
in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. And he looked
and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. Now the angel of the Lord here,
I believe, is a pre-incarnate visitation of Christ. Anytime
you see that, you know, the angel of the Lord, we've seen it in
several passages and we'll see it again. Christ himself appearing
to his people. And the word Lord there, you'll
notice in your King James versions, you'll see the word Lord with
all capitals. And what that is, that's the
same word that we in our English language have come to pronounce
Jehovah. Now you need to understand something.
In the Hebrew tongue, in the Hebrew literature and all, this
was a name that was not pronounced at all. And if you spelled it
out, it's with that, like Yahweh, what is it, Y-H-W-H? And it was
not pronounced, it's a name they wouldn't say. It was a name that
they thought so sacred they wouldn't speak it. And there was no vowels
in it at all. And then it came to, I guess
through just different studies and different place, it came
to be Yahweh or Yehovah, and now it's Jehovah. And the reason
I thought about that, and I'm stating this, you know Jehovah's
Witnesses? I had one out here cutting our grass years ago one
time, and I stepped out and he wanted to preach to me. And he
said, you better learn God's name. And I said, well, I know
God's name. He's got many names in scripture.
Elohim, Adonai, he's got many names. And I said, I know you
say Jehovah, but you know Jehovah really is not a scriptural name
as far as the quote unquote of it. It's a name we've just come
to pronounce, it's just how we say it, all right? But the significance
of this right here, however you pronounce it, is this is the
God of the covenant. This is the God who covenanted
with Abraham. This is how God's going to reveal
himself to Moses, not just as the God of creation, Elohim,
that's the plural form, you know, in beginning God created the
heavens and the earth, that's the name. And that is one of
God's name, and it's a beautiful name, and it's a name of his
majesty. Sets him apart from anyone, anything
else. But here his specific name connects
him with the covenant promises that he made to Abraham, both
in the physical deliverance of Abraham's physical seed through
Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, the Hebrew children, the Israelites,
but mainly through his promises to deliver his spiritual seed
through the Lord Jesus Christ. God's elect out of every tribe,
kindred, tongue, and nation. And in verse six down here, he
specifies it, verse six, look at that. He says, moreover, he
said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob. So you see the connection here
is the revelation of God who saves sinners by his grace through
the promise of the Messiah to come. And that's the whole issue. These are the promises of God
mainly and ultimately to save spiritual Israel by Christ. So Christ appeared to Moses in
a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. And you know fire
symbolizes God's judgment against sin and it symbolizes God's way
of purification. The Bible says in Hebrews 12
verse 29, our God is a consuming fire. That means he must punish
sin. God cannot just ignore sin or
just put it on the back burner and say let's forget it and not
deal with it. He must deal with sin. And he
must deal with sinners. Now listen to this. He must deal
with sinners to whom sin is imputed. To whom sin is charged. In other
words, if I stand before God having one sin or a million sins
charged to my account, imputed to me, then God is a consuming
fire and he must punish me with eternal damnation. So what is
our only hope? To stand before God without sin
imputed to us. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. To stand before the Lord in his
grace, in his mercy, through the propitiatory work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, that I may be found in him. not having mine own righteousness
which is of the law. You see that? And so our God
is a consuming fire. And understand, and this I believe
is one of the missing notes in today's popular false Christianity,
salvation is never accomplished or applied apart from God's justice
satisfied. Never. You say, well, if I'm
a sinner, and God must punish sin, why isn't he punishing me?
Well, if you're a sinner saved by grace, he did punish you in
the person of your surety, your substitute, your redeemer, the
Lord Jesus Christ. So salvation is based upon God
punishing and doing away with all the sins of his people in
Christ. That's what Christ was doing
on that cross. Now notice here it says the bush burned with
fire and the bush was not consumed. Well now that picture Christ
too on the cross. Again, as the Savior, the Redeemer
of his people, he was truly burned with the fire of God's judgment
for our sins charged to him and he was not consumed. Now don't
get me wrong, he did die. Christ died on that cross, it
wasn't fake. Years ago, some idiot made a
movie where he set up the death of Christ as being a hoax. He
didn't really die, and then they got him out and all. That's crazy.
That's just another way of man defaming Christ, denying God. Christ truly died for our sins,
but what happened? He didn't stay dead. He was raised
from the dead. So in that sense, he was like
this burning bush. It burned with fire, but it purged
our sins with the fire of God's wrath upon him, but he arose
from the dead. He wasn't totally consumed. He
satisfied the justice of God. He paid our debt to God's justice
in full. Righteousness was established.
and all of that for his people. So by his death, he removed the
sting of death. He conquered the grave. So he's
like the burning bush that burned with fire, but was not consumed. Now look at the next few verses.
Verse three, it says, Moses said, I will now turn aside and see
this great sight, why the bush is not burned. And so he's really
asking a question here. Why is this bush not burning?
Here's a bush burning, but it's not consumed. It's not going
down to ashes. And verse four says, and when
the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out
of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, God calls
him by name. I love that. You know what? That's how God called me. That's
how God called you all, by your name. He knows you, the Lord
knoweth them that are his. And what's the proof that he
knew us by name? Well, our names were written
in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world,
isn't that right? Moses, Moses, he said, here am I. One old preacher
said this, I can't remember who it was, it might have been somebody
like Bunyan, I'm not sure, but he said that, He said, I have
more confidence in my salvation when I read scriptures like Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm chief,
because I know my name's there. And I'll put it to you this way,
I'll use my own name. He said, I have more confidence in my
salvation than if it said in the Bible that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save Bill Parker. Now, why would I have more confidence?
Because there's other Bill Parkers. There used to be a teacher out
in Lee County where Debbie works named Bill Parker. And I used
to tease him all the time. I said, well, if I ever get your
checks, I'm all right. Could have been him. Could have
been me. We wouldn't know which Bill Parker it was. But I know this.
I'm a sinner. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. And that gives me confidence.
that Christ Jesus came and died for sinners. So he identified
Moses, Moses, and Moses said, here I, that's literally what
he's saying, here I, here am I, here I, I'm right here. In verse five, he says, and he
said, draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet
for the place wherein thou standest is holy ground. God's holy. Now
let me, Lord willing, if I live long enough, next Sunday I'm
gonna preach on this subject, on holiness, be ye holy. Every time we hear that term,
a lot of people when they hear it, they always think of moral
goodness, human morality. So be ye holy, well you've gotta
be a good moral person. Well, should we be good moral
people? Should we strive to, of course
we should. There's no argument there. There's
no teaching in the book of God's grace that gives any sinner license
to sin. Isn't that right? As believers,
we're sinners, but we're commanded to fight it in the warfare of
the flesh, not in order to be saved now, but because we already
are. Holiness has to do with separation,
separateness, uniqueness. That's what it has to do with.
God is holy. Now, is God morally good? Well,
God is the essence of goodness. There's none good but God. But
you know what that does? That separates him from everyone. There's nobody like God. He's
so unique. He's separate. There's nobody
you can even compare with God. These pictures that say this
is God. No, it's not God. You can't draw
a picture of God. There's no way. You might draw
a picture of an old gray haired bearded man, but that's not God.
There's none like him. He's holy. That means he's separate.
And this place was separated out for God to reveal himself
to Moses. This was true separation. And
he said, you take off your shoes. You know what that means? I'm
God and you're not Moses. This is a place of worship. You're
a servant. That's what the taking off of
the shoes meant. That would be a servant. Moses
was a servant of God. God is the creator. We're the
creature. God is the Savior, we're the
saved. God is Lord, we're his servants. That's right. Only God deserves
to be worshiped. Only God is reverend. Don't call
me reverend. Holy and reverend is his name,
and he's the only one. You see that? So that's what
this holiness is all about. And so verse six, it says, moreover,
he said, I am the God of thy father. Now here's God revealing
himself in gospel terms, the terms of grace, righteousness,
accomplished by God in the person of his son, the work of his son.
And I'm the God of thy father, the God of Abraham. That's the
first one he made this promise to, the God of Isaac and the
God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he
was afraid to look upon God. So think about this. Now Moses
asked the question, why is the bush not burning? You know the
equivalent of that question in the New Testament. Let me show
you something, I think it is, in the book of Acts, chapter
17. This was a common question whenever
The apostles or an evangelist preached the gospel of the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ. And over here in Acts 17, you
know, that's where Paul preached on Mars Hill. Let's see, I've
got it listed here. Acts chapter 17, look at verse
18. It says, then certain philosophers
of the Epicureans and the Stoics encountered him, and some say,
what will this babbler say? Others some, he seemeth to be
a setter forth of strange gods, because he preached unto them
Jesus and the resurrection. Now look down at verse 31. He says, because he hath appointed
a day, God has commanded all men everywhere to repent, because
he has appointed a day in the which he will judge the world
in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof
he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised
him from the dead. And look at verse 32. And when
they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, and
others said, we will hear thee again of this manner. They want
to hear more about this resurrection thing. And I think the equivalent
of that is what Moses was asking here. Why is the bush burning,
but it's not consumed? It's like asking, Why did, when
Christ died, how could he be risen from the dead? How come
he's not rotten in the grave like we do and reduced to dust? And of course we know that our
spirits go to be with the Lord if we're in him. And so what
does this resurrection thing mean? Well, here's what it means.
It means the sins of all of God's people have been totally purged
and put away. as far as east is from the west. Think about that now. You say,
well, you know, it don't feel like they're put away because
I have to deal with them every day. We're talking about how
God sees things here. This is God's judgment. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, who would stand? You see what we're going to.
And it means that righteousness is established because it's only
sin that demands death. Righteousness demands life. That's
what the scripture says. As sin hath reign unto death,
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. It's his righteousness imputed
to us. And that's what that resurrection means. The Bible says in Romans
4, verses 24 and 25, that we who are in Christ, who believe
in him, we are justified in God's sight. He was raised again for
or because of our justification. And that was his work alone. And notice here, God, again,
God revealing himself to Moses. That's our only hope. In order
for any sinner to know God, God must reveal himself. The Bible
teaches us that by nature and by his own efforts, man cannot
find nor will he seek the true and living God. Isn't that right?
Can't find him and will not. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know. But God
reveals himself. In Matthew chapter 11, there's
a passage that the Lord's speaking of. of God's sovereignty in salvation. And he says in verse 27 of Matthew
11, he says, all things are delivered unto me of my father, and no
man knoweth the son but the father, neither knoweth any man the father
save the son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal it. That's
it. And so God reveals himself. And
he tells Moses, he says, put off your shoes. This is holy
ground. This is where God's going to
reveal himself as the covenant God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he
was afraid to look upon God. Look at verse seven, Exodus three. And the Lord said, I have surely
seen the affliction of my people, which are in Egypt and have heard
their cry by reason of their taskmasters. You know the story
behind that, how Pharaoh put them to work making
bricks, some say for the pyramids, I don't know, for the buildings,
whatever it was. He said, I know their sorrows. God knows the
sorrows of his people. Christ knows our sorrows. Christ
was called the man of sorrows, wasn't he? Acquainted with grief. He knew it. He was subject to
the sinless infirmities of the flesh. He was God-man without
sin. And verse eight, he says, and
I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians
and to bring them up out of the land unto a good land and a large,
unto a land flowing, oozing, as some translations say, with
milk and honey. unto the place of the Canaanites,
the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and
the Jebusites. Now therefore behold, the cry
of the children of Israel's come unto me, and I have also seen
the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppressed them." Now
notice in all this, it was God who took the initiative, not
man. And that's the way it is in salvation. The first cause
is always God. The first, the prime mover, as
they say, is always God. If any of us seek the Lord, it's
because he has first sought us and brought us to do so. And
so what does that say? Well, it says this, that whatever
we have in salvation as to the blessings of it, even the desire
for it, we can't take any credit for it. We can't glory in ourselves
for it. It's all owing to God. I know
this, that if God had just simply let me go my own way with my
own desires in a religious way, I would be on the broad road
that leads to destruction and stayed right there and been happy
up until the time of death. Now that's so. So God took the
initiative. And his purpose is to deliver
the Hebrew children out of the Egyptian bondage. And it was
not due to any qualifications in these Hebrews or any conditions
that they might meet. Now he didn't say to Moses, now
Moses, you go down there and you tell them if they'll straighten
up and fly right, I'll get them out of there. He didn't say that. You see, it was all according
to God's unconditional promise that he had already made to a
man named Abraham. Remember, Paul deals with that
in Galatians 3. He said the law did not disannul
the promise. The promise still stands sure.
God already promised this unconditionally to these people. Well, isn't
that the way it is with our salvation? God didn't look down through
a telescope of time and foresee what you and I would do or decide,
no. He chose us before the foundation
of the world, before we'd ever done any good or evil, and gave
us to Christ. It was his sovereign purpose.
Even so, Father, it seemed good in thy sight. Now these Hebrews, they were
in a pitiful state, weren't they? They were in an awful state,
helpless to deliver themselves. Well, that's us in our bondage
to sin and to Satan and to the law. By nature, we're in such
a pitiful state. We're spiritually dead. We are
in darkness. We're in chains, spiritual chains. And we don't even know it. Think
about that. Remember the Pharisees, what
they said when Christ talked about freedom, if the Son therefore
make you free? Well, we're not in bondage. Yes,
they were. And they didn't even know it. When I was in false
religion, I thought I was free. But I wasn't. Because there was
always something conditioned on me that I had to do. At points
and times, I felt it more keenly than some others. But we were
in a pitiful state, totally unable to save ourselves. Totally unable
to even give ourselves the desire to be saved God's way. That's
why he had to give us spiritual life, a new heart. Totally unable
to work righteousness which God could justifies and give ourselves
spiritual life. But just as God promised this
nation, this physical nation, that He would freely and unconditionally
bring them up out of that land unto a good land, a large land,
a land flowing with milk and honey. God has promised that
He would bring His chosen people out of the bondage of sin and
bring us into the land of His grace, the land of salvation
with all the benefits and blessings of Christ. Blessed with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Look at verse
10. I'll hurry you. He says, come now therefore and
I will send thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth
my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt. And Moses said
unto God, well, who am I? Who I? That I should go unto
Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel
out of Egypt. What's Moses saying? He said, I'm not able to do this.
And he said, certainly I will be with thee. Moses, this isn't
about you or your strength. It's about me, God says. I'll
be with you. There's the key. And he says,
and this shall be a token unto thee, a sign that I have sent
thee when thou has brought forth the people out of Egypt, you
shall serve God upon this mountain. You know what he's telling Moses
there? Look, Moses, everything that I'm telling you to do It's
all by God's power, God's grace, God's mercy, God's promise, not
upon Moses, not upon the Hebrew children, and basically it's
already a done deal. I'm gonna bring you back here
to Sinai and you'll serve me on this mountain. It's a done
deal. So what's the key here? Moses
is the mediator. He's appointed to be the mediator
between God and the Hebrew people in their physical deliverance
from the bondage of Egypt. and later on in the covenant
that God would make with them on Sinai. Moses is the mediator.
And in that, he typifies Christ, the one mediator between God
and men, the man Christ Jesus, for our eternal salvation, our
spiritual deliverance from the bondage of sin, and our eternal
deliverance into the land of salvation, and eventually unto
glory. And it's not conditioned on us,
it's all conditioned on Christ, who is our mediator. Okay.