Exodus chapter three. I've titled
our lesson this morning, the gospel of the burning bush. The
whole story of the gospel is given to us in this story of
our God speaking to Moses out of the burning bush. Here's the
first point of the gospel that we see at the burning bush is
God's holy Exodus three verse one. 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 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 was not
consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn
aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. 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. And he
said, here am I. And he said, draw not nigh hither,
put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I'm the God
of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon
God. Now you remember, you know the story of Moses. 40 years
prior to this day, Moses had fled Egypt in shame. The first
40 years of Moses' life, he spent as a prince in Egypt. The next
40 years, he spent as a shepherd for his father-in-law. The last
40 years, he spent leading Israel out of Egypt through the wilderness
to the promised land. 40 years ago, Moses had fled
Egypt in shame. You remember what happened. He
tried to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt by his own
might. Now, he did reject being Pharaoh's son, didn't he? He
identified with the people of God. He esteemed the reproach
of Christ's greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. But
he tried to deliver Israel on his own, and he failed. He failed
because he tried to do it in his own strength. Now, 40 years
has passed. Here he is on the backside of
the desert, come up to the mountain of God. He's keeping sheep that
belong to his father-in-law. Moses thinks he's retired, doesn't
he? He thinks this is it, you know,
I've got this life here, this is what... Moses hasn't retired. Moses is just getting ready to
get started. Because after 40 years, Moses thinks, I don't
have any talents left. I don't have any ability left.
I'm not the same man who had all those talents down in Egypt.
They're all gone. I'm used up. That's good. Now that God's taken the starch
out of his flesh, now God will use him. And Moses, he's keeping
these sheep, and he sees this bush. It's on fire, but it's
not being consumed. Well, that's strange. He goes
to see what's going on. As he approaches it, it's the
Lord Jesus Christ speaking to him from this burning bush. You
remember our Lord told the Pharisees, He's the one who spoke to Moses
from the burning bush. Before Abraham was, I am. He took that name, verse 14,
and God said unto Moses, I am that I am. You tell my people,
I am has sent you. Well, our Lord told the Pharisee,
that's who I am, that's my name. This is Christ speaking to Moses
from the burning bush. And it's always important to
take note of this. The scripture shows us this all
through the scriptures. The Lord Jesus Christ is God. This is Christ speaking, but
the scripture says God spoke to Moses, doesn't it? From the
burning bush. Well, it says that because God and the Lord Jesus
are one and the same. The Lord Jesus Christ is God. It's not like he's God. Our savior
is God. And I'll show you why that's
important here at the end of the lesson. But the angel of
the Lord is Christ. An angel is a messenger, and
Christ is the messenger of God. In Christ, the message gave Moses
the message of the gospel, the word of preach. And this is the
message that all of God's servants preach. And that message always
begins here. God's holy. God is holy. God tells Moses, now don't come
any nearer until you take off your shoes. Now this is not telling
us don't come close to God, don't draw close to God, that's not
teaching us at all. David said it's good for me to
draw near to God, didn't he? But only in a mediator, not in
ourself, always and only in Christ. What this is teaching us is not
that we can't come near to God, it's telling us do come near
to God, but what this is teaching is God's holy. When you come,
you come reverently. This ground is holy because God
who is holy is there. So always approach Almighty God
reverently. He's holy. And in this day, the
day Moses lived, or yeah, Moses lived here, he's taking off your
shoes was a sign of respect and humility, submission. In our
day, we would take off our hat. You got a hat on, you tip your
hat to a lady. You have your hat on, they begin
to play the national anthem, you take your hat off. as a sign
of respect, as a sign of submission to what the authority that that
flag represents. Well, Moses took off his shoes
as a show of respect and submission to God. And God's holy, that's
the first thing he tells Moses, God's holy. That's God's chief
attribute. Everything God does is done in
holiness. When God shows mercy to his people,
it's done in holiness. He doesn't bypass his law, he
doesn't ignore his law, it's done in holiness. God loves his
people, but now it's a holy love. He doesn't love them by ignoring
their sin, it's a holy love. And when God condemns sin, it's
done in holiness. It's right. God's so holy, he
can't even look on sin. Of course God's gonna punish
sin. Now we need to get this notion out of our head that God
is somehow more pleased with us than he is with everybody
else. He's more pleased with us because we're different, because
we're special, because we have the right doctrine and they don't.
Now that's favoritism. We show favoritism, not God. God doesn't show favoritism because
God's not like men. We show favoritism to our loved
ones, not God. because God's holy. When he loves
his people, it's done in holiness. We can overlook the faults of
our loved ones, not God, because God's holy. Men are willing to
pervert judgment and not condemn the guilty if there are loved
ones, not God. God's holy. God will never accept
us as we are in Adam because God's holy. Now here's the second
point of the gospel to Burning Bush. First, God's holy. Second, men are sinners. All
men are sinners. Moses could not approach God
on that holy ground without a mediator because Moses and all men are
sinners. Look at the end of verse six.
And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God. Moses, who talked to God as his
friend, could not look on the face of God because Moses is
a sinner and God's holy. You remember those angels that
Isaiah saw flying around the throne of God? They had six wings. And as they flew around the throne
of God, what did they cry? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
of hosts. And with two of those wings,
they flew around that throne. two of them that covered their
feet, and with two of them that covered their face, those angels
who had never sinned would look on God who's holy. Well, if the
angels covered their face, Moses hid his face because he's a sinner. He could not look on God. And it's not gonna be too long,
God's gonna show this to Moses. He's gonna tell Moses, no man
can see my face and live. because God's God and we're dust. God's God and we're lost in sin. All of us are. Two weeks ago,
we looked at the fall of man in the garden. And when Adam
sinned, Adam fell all the way from righteous, all the way to
the bottom. He fell all the way to sin. And Adam became nothing but sin.
He became nothing but guilt and perversity and death. And that's
important to you and me because Adam is the representative of
the whole human race. What Adam did, you and I did.
When Adam fell, we all fell in him. And we all fell from righteousness
all the way to the bottom. We fell all the way to being
nothing but sin and guilt and perversity and death. And we
don't have the capacity to improve ourselves even the slightest
bit. Let's improve ourselves to make
ourselves holy. We cannot make ourselves righteous
by keeping the law. Doesn't the scriptures teach
us that? All the law does is act as a mirror to keep pointing
out our sin, to keep pointing out our failure. We can't make
ourselves righteous through religious ceremony, you know, all the different
things that men... Because what does scripture say
about man's religion? God said, man's religion is an
abomination. Man's religion is a stench in
my nostrils. Can't make ourselves righteous
that way. Now, we might be able to fool each other. We might
be able to fool other sinful men, but we can never fool God
because He's holy. Well, this is a problem, isn't
it? God's holy, we're sinners. What can be done about this situation? We know God can't change, God's
holy. Men can't change, we're sinners.
Is there a way men can be brought back to God? There is. Now there's a way. But now, in
order for that to happen, God's gonna have to do something for
us that we cannot do for ourselves. And what God does for his people
is not fix us up. God doesn't repair the flesh
and strengthen up the flesh and make the flesh into something
he can accept. No, the flesh is flesh. It'll never be anything
but flesh. God's gonna start over. He's gonna start over with
the birth of a new man from a different seed, and they're gonna be born
in the image of his son. And that's the third point of
the gospel of the burning bush. Salvation's in Christ. Look at
verse seven. And the Lord said, I've surely
seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and I've
heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know
their sorrows, and I've come down to deliver them out of the
hand of the Egyptians. and to bring them up out of that
land into a good land and a large, onto a land flowing with milk
and honey, under the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites
and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. This is the third point of the
gospel of the burning bush, salvation's in Christ. Christ is going to
do something for somebody, isn't he? He said, I'm gonna do something
for my people. for my people. He's not going
to do something to make something possible. Maybe for all men,
he's going to do something for his people and he's going to
do something for his people because God's a covenant. God member
up here, back up here in verse six. Moreover, he said, I'm the
God of my father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and
the God of Jacob. God is a covenant. God made a
promise to Abraham, way back there, before Abraham had any
children, God made a promise to Abraham. He said, Abraham,
your seed's gonna possess this land that you're in. Abraham
never owned any of it, but the plot he could bury Sarah on.
He didn't own any of it. Isaac didn't own any of it. Jacob
didn't own any of it. But God made a promise to Abraham,
your seed's gonna possess this land. And he confirmed that promise. He confirmed that covenant to
Isaac and to Jacob. And this is what we know about
God. God always keeps his word. If God promised it, it's as good
as done. Well, here we are, all these
years later, Jacob's descendants are down there in Egypt. Remember,
they went down to Egypt, there were just 70 of them, and they
went down there with nothing. They went down there starving
to death. They went down there because they didn't have any bread. But
lo and behold, Joseph, was king in Egypt, and he said, you come
here, I'll give you bread, I'll feed you and your little ones.
Well, 400 years after Jacob went down to Egypt, his children are
slaves. The Egyptians have made them
slaves. That's a picture of us, sinners, bound in sin. Those children of Israel couldn't
make themselves free. They're slaves, just like a sinner. I don't care who tells you to
make a decision for Jesus. You may as well get that out
of your head. You can't do it. Any more than these slaves could
decide, you know, I'm gonna go free. I'm gonna do what I want
to do today. No, you're not. You're a slave. And there are days I get up and
think, I'm just not going to sin today. I'm going to make
it down the stairs because I can't make that decision. My flesh
is a slave to sin. It can't do anything but sin.
They just couldn't decide not to be a slave anymore. Somebody
stronger than them made that decision for them. The Egyptians
were the mightiest people on earth. They decided you're going
to be a slave and that's what they were. Somebody else made
that decision for them. Just like we can't decide not
to be a slave to sin anymore. Somebody else made that decision
for us. Adam made that decision for us
and condemned us all to death. Condemned us all to being a slave
to sin and he gave us his nature. That's a nature of sin. Our nature
can't do anything but sin. Well, then could you tell me
how can I go free? Yes, I can. God's word tells
us. How do we go free? He gives us
I think these are all verbs. Five verbs, that's what I'm gonna
call them, verbs that describe the work of Christ for his people
and in his people. See, heard, know, come down,
and bring up. Five verbs. First, what is the
work that Christ does for his people? Well, it begins with
him. I've seen the affliction of my people. Verse seven, the
Lord says, I have surely seen the affliction of my people.
God sees the affliction of his people because his eyes never
been off his people. He always sees his people. And
when the father sees his people, he always sees them where? In
Christ. He sees us always in one of two
representatives, doesn't he? Either in Adam or in Christ.
And God sees his people in his son. So he sees him in love.
He sees them in covenant mercies. God saw his elect before anything
was created. He saw him in Christ, the lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. God saw his elect
when they fell in Adam, but they weren't destroyed because God
saw him first in Christ. God saw his elect before they
were ever formed in the belly. Now what God told Jeremiah, Jeremiah,
before I formed you in the belly, I knew you. We just had this
week of Bible school, and I look in the morning, all these little
souls sitting there. I knew them when they were born.
Could be God knew them before I formed you in the belly, I
knew you. God saw us after we were born. He saw us in our own
rebellion. He saw us lost in sin. He saw
us dead in sin. He saw us being tortured by sin. He saw the law beating us like
a cruel taskmaster, like a cruel schoolmaster, just constantly
whipping us, constantly beating us. God saw his elect as sheep
going astray and he knew just what to do. That's why God sent
a good shepherd to get them. I've seen the affliction of my
people. The second word is heard. God's heard the cries of his
people. He said, I've seen the affliction of my people which
are in Egypt and I've heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters. Now God's ear is not heavy that
it can't hear. You cry to him, he hears. But this word heard
is more than just to perceive a sound. This word heard means
to hear, and regard. He listens carefully. He cares
about the cries of his people. God hears the cries of his children,
just like you hear the cries of your children. When you hear
your child crying, you care, don't you? It reaches your heart.
God hears the cries of his children with regard. He hears those cries
in his love for his people. And he has pity for the suffering
sin's causing them. I've seen, I've heard, and I
know, for I know their sorrows. And just like heard, this word
know means more than just knowledge, something exists. I have some
vague knowledge about some scientific things somebody told me when
I was in school from a textbook. I know those things are, but
I don't know what they mean, I don't know how they work, I
don't really know anything about them. This word doesn't mean
that. This word means an acquaintance
with, and it means kinsman. Well, how can the holy God know
my sorrows like that? How can God be acquainted with
the sin that causes all my sorrow? How can God have knowledge of
me? There's just my brother and sister.
I have knowledge of them. I'm their kinsman. We come from
the same place. So I've got knowledge of things.
I'm their kinsman. You can understand that. How
can God have knowledge of me that way? How can God be my kinsman? Well, that's the fourth point,
the fourth word. Christ is acquainted with the sorrows of his people
because he became a man so he could be their kinsman. The fourth
word is come down. He says at the beginning of verse
8, I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians. How can God be acquainted with
all my sorrows? How can how can he be acquainted
with my sin like a kinsman would? Because the Lord Jesus Christ. Came down. You try to get ahold of that.
The Son of God, the light of glory, came down. He came down to become a man. Evelyn Happ says the longest
journey's ever been made. God became a man. He took on him flesh and blood. He humbled himself to take on
him a human nature. And then he went further than
that. He humbled himself to become a servant. Now he took on him,
he became a man, not the seed of Adam, or he'd have took an
Adam's nature, wouldn't he? He took on him the seed of woman.
So he wouldn't partake in Adam's nature, but the seed of woman
was a real man. And this one, speaking to Moses,
the great I Am, became a servant to deliver his people from sin.
But Christ didn't stop there. He didn't just stop at becoming
flesh. He didn't just stop at becoming
a servant. Christ went so far down, He was made sin for His people. Can you imagine how He humbled
Himself to take on your sin? Oh, He came down. Oh, he came
down. You can't be exaggerated. The
distance, we just can't comprehend the distance that Christ came
down to take the sins of his people. Did he really do that? Look at Psalm 40. What does God's
word say? Christ became guilty of the sin
of his people. He very well acquainted with
the sin and the sorrow of his people because he suffered it. He suffered and died to put that
sin away. I want you to look here in Psalm
40 what he says about that sin laid on him. For innumerable
evils have compassed me about. The iniquities of mine elect
have taken hold upon me. That's not what it says, is it? Mine iniquities have taken hold
upon me. The sin of his people became
his iniquity. It taken hold upon me so that
I'm not able to look up. They're more than the hairs of
my head. Therefore, my heart faileth me. Christ became acquainted
with the sin of his people. He became our kinsman. He very
well acquainted with our suffering because he suffered and died
for the sins of his people. He took those sins into his own
body on the tree and put him away with the blood of his sacrifice. And Christ made his people righteous
in him. He traded our sin for his righteousness. And that brings us to the fifth
word, bring up. I've come down, he says there
in verse eight, I've come down and I'm gonna bring them up out
of that land, out of Egypt unto a good land. and a large, unto
a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of the
Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites,
and the Hivites, and the Jebusites." What are all those ites doing
there in this land that's been promised Abraham? They've been
keeping it. They've been keeping it, keeping
the weeds out, keeping the fields plowed, keeping everything looking
nice. They've been building some houses and keeping them up. They've
been keeping everything ready till God's people move in. That's
what they're doing there. They're just tenants keeping
everything ready till God moves his people in. That's what they're
doing because God's going to bring his people up. He's going
to bring them out of Egypt down there and he's going to bring
them all the way up to the promised land. It's a large land. There's room there for how many
ever there were, three million, maybe more, who knows? But there's
plenty of room for them all. And it's a good land. It's gonna
supply everything they need. It's flowing. It's not gonna
be hard to get a crop there. It's flowing with everything
that they need. Everything freely supplied by
God's grace. And the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled
this picture. He brings his people up. Now
we fell all the way to the bottom in Adam, didn't we? But Christ,
the second Adam, has come to undo for his people everything
the first Adam did. He's gonna bring his people up
from sin to righteousness. He's gonna bring us up from depravity
to holiness. He brings his people up from
death to life. He brings us from the dunghill
and brings us up to set us at the king's table. sitting there,
just like Mephibosheth did, eating the king's food at the king's
table. And brethren, it's a large land. Now there are plenty of
room. There are plenty of room for
all God's people. It's a number that no man can
number, but you're not going to be elbow tight when there's
plenty of room. It's a large land. And it's a
good land. Oh, it's a good land. It's a
land flowing with God's mercy and grace to his people. It's
a good land for people who've been made good in Christ. They've
been made righteous in Christ. Now that's what Christ has done
for his people. And we see that redemption in
verse two, in this bush that burned and was not consumed.
This is how God saves his people. The angel of the Lord appeared
unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush. And
he looked and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush
was not consumed. Now I think it's interesting,
this sitting in a great big tree that Moses could see from way
off. This bush just happened to be
on the little trail that Moses was going along as he led those
sheep. It's just a little bush. And that word that they used
there, it means a bramble bush. It's a thorny bush. It's just
a little thing, just like almost like some of the writers say
it looked like a tumbleweed. And that ought to burn up so
quickly? It's so dry and there's nothing there. But you know why
that bush was not consumed? Because Christ was in the bush.
He was in the midst of the bush. That little bush is Christ, the
root out of a dry ground. He didn't look like much to all
those Pharisees and the people that watched him grow up. He
didn't look like much. We know him. We know his father and mother. That's a carpenter's son. He's
nothing. He didn't go past second grade.
We know him. He's a root out of the dry ground.
Didn't look like much, did he? And that bush was set on fire. It was set on fire by God. Moses
didn't start the fire then. It was already on fire when Moses
saw it. God set that bush on fire. That bush was burning under
the fiery wrath of God's wrath against sin. Scripture says that
God in His holiness is a consuming fire. A consuming fire. And why wasn't the bush consumed?
If our God's a consuming fire, why wasn't the bush consumed?
Because Christ was in the bush. This bush is a picture of Christ,
the root out of dry ground, who suffered and died as a substitute
for his elect. Christ died because God made
him to be guilty of the sin of his people. He died bearing the
curse of our sin. That's what the thorn bush represents.
Thorns grow on this earth, why? Because God cursed the ground
for Adam's sake. Christ died bearing the curse of his people.
Now, he was made sin. But he never sinned. Christ was
made sin, but he remained holy. He's the sinless sacrifice. Remember
I told you I'm going to show you why it's important our Savior
is God? Our Savior must be God because he's holy. We must have
a sinless sacrifice. And the fire of God's wrath against
the sin of his people was poured out in unmitigated fury upon
our substitute, upon Christ our substitute. But he was not consumed
because he's the sinless sacrifice. And the fire of God's wrath burned.
I mean, it burned in all of its hotness. He didn't, God, the
father didn't hold one thing back because that was his son.
He poured all of it out upon his son. And that fire burned
until the sin laid on Christ was purged. When the sin's gone,
the fire went out. When the sin's gone, no more
reason for the fire to burn. But Christ, our sacrifice, remained.
We're gonna look to Passover this morning. Whatever was left
till morning, they burned with fire till it was consumed. That
lamb could be consumed, not our lamb. He was not consumed. Christ, the sacrifice, remained,
and he died. But he was raised again. And
he ascended back to glory. And you know what he's doing
there right now? He's making intercession for his people.
And he's preparing a place for his people. Because there's coming
a day, he's gonna bring you up. He's gonna bring you up. Or he's
brought you up. He's given you life. He's given
you spiritual life. Are you still trapped in a slave's
body? Still trapped in a body of death, a body of sin? That's
not gonna last very much longer. One day he's gonna bring you
up, bring you up to glory, to be with him eternally. I wanna pray Lord hasten the
day, but he'll do it in his time only. I would imagine that the
children of Israel frequently cried when they were making bricks
without straw, Lord hasten the day. But in the day of God's
time, They went up. They went up in one night. All
right. Well, I hope the Lord bless that
too. We won't get started on the message if I get too near.