In Exodus 3, we'll look at the
first six verses tonight. And let's look at verse one together
now. It says, 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. We've seen Moses typify the Lord
Jesus Christ in so many ways already. And here, he is keeping
the flock. And we've seen already that he
had a shepherd's heart all along from God, defending his brother
in Egypt. And this flock, even when he
was a stranger. In chapter 2, verses 16 through
19, it tells how that He met those ladies at the well and
they had their father's flock with them. And that he defended
them against some other shepherds that had driven them away from
the well. And it says that he defended,
stood up for them and drew water and watered their sheep. Our Lord Jesus is pictured here. This is Throughout the scriptures,
King David also typified Christ in this. Listen to this. First
Samuel 1734, David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's
sheep. And there came a lion and a bear
and took a lamb out of the flock. And I went out after him and
smote him and delivered it out of his mouth. And when he arose
against me, I caught him by his beard and smote him and slew
him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised
Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the
armies of the living God." We see this glorious theme throughout
the Word of God, both Old Testament and New. King David said, the
Lord is my shepherd, and because he is, I shall not want. I love to think of the Lord Jesus
Christ as the good shepherd. He said, I give my life for the
sheep. He describes himself in that
parable, Luke chapter 15, when one of his sheep goes astray,
he left the ninety and nine and went after that sheep and found
it and laid it upon his shoulders and brought it home rejoicing. And so here in Moses, we see
Christ, our great shepherd of the sheep, And we hear Christ's
own voice from the bush too, don't we? As the voice of a shepherd
in effect saying, I've heard the cry of my sheep. Isn't that
what he said to Moses? As we read further in this chapter,
he says, my sheep are in trouble. My sheep need my help. And I
have a message for you to deliver to Pharaoh. Let my sheep go. Let them go. Now Moses came to the mountain
of God and in verse two it says 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 was burned with fire and the
bush was not consumed. The angel of the Lord appeared
unto him. Now when we think of the word
angel we usually Think of a created angel, a celestial being that
was created by God that serves his will and he uses to accomplish
his purposes in this earth, that he gives them charge over his
sheep to protect them and guide them and encourage them. And those are God's angels. But this word here is messenger.
And the word angel doesn't always refer in the scripture to a created
being. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
that's given this name here. And he's referred to as the angel
of the Lord in several places in the word of God. Remember
in Genesis chapter 16, when Hagar, Sarah's handmaid, had fled from
the house of Abraham and Sarah. Sarah said to Abraham, now that
she's born a child and I cannot, then I'm hateful in her eyes. And Sarah dealt harshly with
her and she left, she fled. with her child, and the angel
of the Lord, it says, found her by a fountain of water. And that
angel or messenger said to her, and you can look it up in Genesis
16 later if you'd like to, that angel of the Lord said, I will
multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered
for multitude. A created angel can't say that,
can't follow up on it. And when Abraham was in Mount
Moriah, and he stretched forth the knife to slay his son, God
said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and
offer him as a burnt offering to me on Mount Moriah. And he's
up there with that knife raised about to slay his son on Mount
Moriah. And listen to what happened then. Genesis 22, 11, and the
angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven. The angel,
the messenger of the Lord. What did he say? Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. And he
said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything
unto him. For now I know that you fear
God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only
son, from me. That's the angel speaking. That's
the Lord Jesus Christ, that's not a created angel saying that.
You haven't withheld your only son from me. And this same word
is used in Malachi 3.1. Listen to this prophecy. Behold,
I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before
me. Now we know who that, that's
John the Baptist, isn't it? He sent a messenger to prepare He
said, I'm a voice of one crying in the wilderness saying, prepare
you the way of the Lord. But let me read on in Malachi
3, 1. And the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple.
And he did, didn't he? Even the messenger of the covenant
whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts. He'll send a forerunner, and
then the messenger of the covenant will come into his temple. That's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that same word messenger
there is the same word angel in Exodus 3. So we know who's
speaking here. We know it from what he said,
but it's important to see this in this word angel, that we not
think of that word as we commonly do, but that's the messenger
of the covenant. Now notice something else in
our text in Exodus 3, 2. It says the angel of the Lord
appeared unto him. That's what God does. He appears
unto sinners. And this is how you'll see him. If you ever hear from God, if
you ever meet God, if you ever see God, it will be when he appears
unto you. When he shows himself. We do
not, we cannot take for granted that God will ever do this, that
he will ever do this. We desire it. We desire his presence. We seek it. We ask for it. We pray. I ask you to pray. And
every year before our conference, I say, pray for the conference
that the Lord will be with us. He doesn't have to be with us.
But wait, Chris, he said where two or three are gathered in
my name, there I'll be in the midst of them. That's right.
Let me ask you a question. Do you have any confidence at
all that if left to ourselves that we'll do that, that we'll
meet together in his name? Yeah, me neither. We need his
blessing. We pray that the Lord would appear
and that he would come and be with us and give us the heart
to truly meet in His name for His glory, to praise Him, to
worship Him for His sake. He promised that He'd be with
us if we do that. Now, Lord, turn us and we'll
be turned. Break us and we'll be broken.
Bring us and we'll be brought. Teach us and we'll know. Make us to lie down in your green
pastures. And shall we not pray for a special
appearing of God himself in such a way as to revive us again?
Didn't the prophet pray for that? Revive us again, oh Lord, revive
us. To stir us up to serve him better,
to cause the worship of him to be More as it ought to be. Are we not to pray for that?
Are we not to desire it? You know how that happens? God
shows himself to us. That's what happens. I've got to believe that I can
serve and worship better than I do. Don't you? Not that it's
in my ability to do so. Of course not. That's exactly
what I'm saying. But He can make it so. I must
believe that He can cause me to worship better than I do.
That my love for Christ doesn't have to be as cold as it is.
Surely not. Surely not. And so we pray, Lord,
appear to us. Meet with us. Bless us. Come
in Thy love and Thy favor and Thy blessing upon us. Psalm 102, 16, when the Lord
shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory. That's when
we're gonna be built up, when he appears in his glory. Like
Moses, we must pray, Lord, show me your glory. Do you know enough? Have you seen enough? Or do you
pray like Moses did? I can't help but think of when
the Lord appeared unto Thomas, And those disciples who gathered
together in that upper room, you know the story, I won't read
it to you again, but I'll tell you this, you know this, Thomas
went from, I will not believe, to my Lord and my God. What made the difference? There
are three words in John 20, 26 that explain perfectly the change. Then came Jesus. Now look back at our text, chapter
three of Exodus, verse two again. 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 was burned the bush burned with fire,
and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn
aside and see this great sight. That's the title of the message
tonight, this great sight. I'll turn aside to see this,
won't you? God, give us good sense to turn
aside to see this. why the bush is not burnt. And I'll say this to us tonight,
if we can see this, truly see why the bush is not burnt, we'll
leave here knowing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why
is the bush not burnt? That's what we want to know.
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. This is holy ground. This has never happened anywhere
else at any other time. that anything burned and was
not consumed. That's what fire does, it consumes
things. It consumes everything that it
burns. In so much that the word burn has come to be synonymous
with being consumed. If something is burned, it's
consumed. That's what it means, but not this. And it pictures
something else that happened nowhere else and no other time. the event of all events. Now,
we're not surprised to see fire here. We see God kindling flames
all through the Word of God, don't we? We see him sending
fire, causing fire to burn. This is not a campfire that somebody
left unattended. This is God's fire. And we see
it, as I said, often in the Old Testament, when he had had enough
of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, what did he do? He
burned them up and they were consumed. They were consumed. Can you imagine an entire city
being consumed by fire? also in Leviticus 10 1 listen
to this Leviticus 10 1 and Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took
either of them his censer and put fire therein and put incense
thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord what is strange
fire that didn't mean that there was something you know, mysterious
about the flames of themselves. It means it was fire that God
didn't command. That's what it says here. The
fire which he commanded them not. That's strange fire. And there went out fire from
the Lord. They started a fire and God started one too and devoured
them and they died before the Lord. God sent fire and consumed
them because of their wickedness, their sin. Look what happened
in 2 Kings 1, 9. Turn over there with me. 2 Kings
1, 9. Let's read this together. I want
you to see the fire of God and how that everywhere else in Scripture,
it's a consuming fire. In fact, God Himself is a consuming
fire. And we'll see that in a moment
in the Word of God. Second Kings 1.9, then the king,
this is Ahaziah, sent unto him Elijah, a captain of 50 men with
those 50 men, a captain of 50 with his 50. And he went up to
him, to Elijah, and behold, Elijah sat on the top of a hill. And
this captain spake unto him and said, Thou man of God, the king,
king Ahaziah, hath said, come now. Now man of God, the king hath
said, come down. And Elijah answered and said
to the captain of 50, if I be a man of God, then let fire come
down from heaven and consume thee and thy 50. And there came
down fire from heaven and consumed him and his 50. And again, also
he, king Ahaziah, sent unto him, Elijah, another captain of 50
with his 50. And he answered and said unto
him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, come down quickly.
I wouldn't have been, wanted to be one of those 50, would
you? The king said, what? That can't even be, or he may
not have even believed the story. Or maybe he thought, well, let's
just see, you know, what is this? He sent another 50. I wouldn't
have wanted to be one of them. And Elijah answered and said
unto them, if I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven.
and consumed thee and thy fifty. And the fire of God came down
from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. And he sent again
a captain of the third fifty with his fifty. And the third
captain of fifty went up and came and fell on his knees before
Elijah. He learned something somehow
or other, didn't he? And said unto him, O man of God, I pray
thee He didn't have any orders for him. He wasn't quite so bold
as the first two. I pray thee, let my life and
the life of these 50, thy servants be precious in thy sight. How you approach God and approaching
God's prophet there, that's equivalent to approaching God. How you approach
God has a lot to do with the outcome. It has a lot to do. God has described himself in
this way, Hebrews 12, in Hebrews 12, 28, wherefore we receiving
a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we
may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Godly fear, not coming before
God presumptuously. and making demands, expecting
something. Come and ask Him for mercy. Honor
me, I pray Thee, Lord. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Let's come with godly fear. Why?
For our God is a consuming fire. God Himself is described that
way. A consuming fire. And everywhere else in the Word
of God, but in our text in Exodus 3, you'll find that He is a consuming
fire, and he is here, but that which burns there is not consumed. There's fire from God, but the
bush is not consumed, and this is the first time in God's Word,
and it's no coincidence, that the word holy is used. Why is God a consuming fire? What is consumed in God's fire? It's no coincidence here that
where there is something not consumed by God's fire, first
time the word holy is used. Everything, and this is one of
those statements, Everything and everyone that
is not holy eventually burns. Write it down and underline it. Everything and everyone that
is not holy eventually is consumed by God. God will consume them with fire. Second Thessalonians 1-7, to
you who are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall
be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. who shall be punished
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord
and from the glory of his power in flaming fire, taking vengeance. This is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this bush that burned but was not consumed is our hope. This is our gospel. This is our
good news. It's for the deliverance of God's
people that he appeared to Moses in this way. Isn't that right? We saw in our text last week
at the end of chapter two, God heard the cry of his people and
he remembered his covenant. And he said, I'm going to come
down and deliver them. That's later in chapter three.
And it's for the deliverance of his people that he appears
to Moses as a bush that burns and is not consumed. How will
God deliver his people? What is this? Why is the bush
not consumed? Moses wondered, didn't he? He
said, this is a great sight. I'm going to have to go see about
this. Why is the bush not consumed? There is one whom Isaiah described
in Isaiah 53 as a root out of a dry ground. Like this bush
on the backside of the desert, a barren, lifeless place, and
yet here's life. Here's life in a dead place. A bush. But how can something,
anything, burn and not be consumed? Well, here's the spiritual significance
of that question. How can anything or anyone burn
with the fire of God and not be consumed? There's only one
answer. Holy. You're standing on a holy ground,
Moses. Holy ground. There's never been but one thing
on this earth, physically speaking, that burned and was not consumed.
And there's only one, spiritually, that was burned with the fiery
wrath of God. The one who in vengeance, fiery
vengeance, consumes those that hate his gospel and hate his
son. And he's not consumed by the
very fire of God's wrath. In Luke 135, the angel of the
Lord answered Mary and said to her, the Holy Ghost shall come
upon you and the power of the high shall overshadow you. And
therefore also that Holy thing which shall be born of thee shall
be called the Son of God. That Holy thing. Just as surely as there has only
been one thing that has burned and not been consumed, that bush,
That's it. That's the only thing, ever,
that was burned and not consumed. There's only been one holy thing
in this earth. And it's no coincidence. In Revelation
15, 4, this question is asked, who shall not fear thee, O Lord,
and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy, thou
only. For all nations shall come and
worship before thee, for thy judgments are made manifest. Thou only art holy. Like this bush, he bore the wrath
of almighty God, And he did it. He appeared unto us to do so
for the deliverance of God's people from bondage. He came
like a dry, like a root out of dry ground, like a bush on the
backside of the desert and is holy. Take your shoes
off, Moses. Don't even come close. And this bush, like the rock
in the wilderness in Exodus 17, where it says, you'll smite the
rock and water will gush out of the rock and all the millions
of the people of Israel will drink from the water out of the
rock. And Paul said that rock was Christ. Unlike the Passover
lamb, that God said, kill the lamb and eat all of it and take
the blood and put it on the door. And when I see the blood, I'll
pass over you. And like Moses himself, here and in other places,
as the deliverer of God's people here, his champion. And like
so many, many, many things in the Old Testament, this bush
is a beautiful picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. He suffered
the wrath of the Holy God, our God, who is a consuming fire,
poured out his all-consuming wrath upon his own son. Why? Because he bore my sin in his
own body on the tree, but he was not consumed. Why? There's fire at Calvary on the
cross. There's fire. Why? Because there's
sin, my sin, laid upon him, born in his own body on the tree,
but he's not consumed. Why? Exodus 3.5. Let me read
it to you again. He said, draw not thy hither,
put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am 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. Why did he hide his face? Why
was he afraid? Because this is the Holy One,
upon whom even the angels fear to look. In Isaiah 6-1 it says,
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting
upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the
temple, and above it stood the seraphims, and each one had six
wings, and with twain he covered his face. He hid his face. Why did he do
that? And with Twain, he covered his
feet. And with Twain, he did fly. Why did they cover their faces?
Why was Moses afraid to look? And one seraphim cried into another
and said, holy, holy. They said what God said to Moses
from that bush. That's why he was afraid to look.
You're standing on holy ground. It was dirt just like any other
dirt, but it was holy because the Holy One was there. He was
in the presence of the Holy One. The One who burned with fire
and was not consumed. The One that that can be said
of. Holy is the Lord of hosts. The
whole earth is full of His glory. If you want to see the holiness
of God, let me ask you an honest question. If you want to see
the holiness of God, where are you going to look? Where are
you going to look? There is a place in the Old Testament
that is called by God the most holy place, the most holy place. Do you know where that was? It
was the place where only the high priest could ever go. No one else ever saw it in the
Old Testament. This is why God said to Moses,
don't come near because this doesn't concern you as far as
you having a part in it. This is between the high priest
and God. What happened on Calvary was
between our high priest and God Almighty, God the Father. And that's why no one could go
in there but the high priest. We can hear about it. He can
tell us what happened in there. We can see it from afar, but
we're not involved in this. And the most holy place is where
the high priest alone went in once a year. And let's look in
the word of God and see what happened there. Turn to Hebrews
chapter nine, verse seven. Let's read what happened in this
place. This is the most, you wanna see the holiness of God?
We're trying to find out how. How can I see? Hebrews 9, seven, but into the
second, That's the second place in the tabernacle. It was divided
into two rooms, the holy place and the most holy place, the
holy of holies. But into the second, that most
holy place, went the high priest alone once every year, not without
blood. You want to see the holiness
of God? You know where we're going, don't you? There's not
but one place to see it. They're not but one place to
see the Holy God and how a Holy God can pour out His wrath upon
man and man not be consumed. They're just one way, one place
that this can be. not without blood, which he offered
for himself, because that high priest was a sinner just like
us, and for the errors of the people, for the sins of the people.
The Holy Ghost, this signifying that the way into the holiest
of all was not yet made manifest. The veil is rent now. We go in,
in Him. We have access now into the very
presence of God, but not then. It wasn't made manifest then.
While as yet the first tabernacle was standing, which was a figure
for the time then present in which were offered both gifts
and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service
perfect as pertaining to the conscience, which stood only
in meats and drinks and diverse washings and carnal ordinances
imposed on them until the time of reformation, but Christ. Being come and high priest of
good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle,
not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood. He entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. If you're going to see God's
holiness, you're going to have to go and enter where the blood
is splashed upon the mercy seat before God. That's where God
said, I'll meet with you and I won't consume you. I'll commune
with you right there. That's the one place. And it's a person. It's our great
high priest, our great mercy seat. Our great sin offering. It's the one who is pictured
by everything in that scene. Everything. I can't explain what happened
there, but think about what happened there. There's fire because there's
sin. My sin. And yours if you're his. But he was not consumed. Why? Moses wanted to know, why is
that bush not consumed? And we know why the Lord Jesus
Christ bore the wrath of God Almighty. And I can't even say
that right. That's a fire that we'll never
feel the heat of. And can't even begin to describe.
But he was not consumed. Why? Because he's the holy son
of God. That's why. Moses, you're on holy ground.
You're in the place where the fire of God burns, but the one
upon whom that fire fell is not consumed. It's one place. And because he is not consumed,
all those in him are not consumed. Being in the Lord Jesus Christ,
I'm as holy as he is, or I'll never see God. I'll never see God unless I'm
as holy as he is. I'll be consumed like all else,
upon which God's fire burns. But in Christ, I'm able to claim
this glorious promise. Listen to it as I read it. Isaiah
43, 1, But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob,
and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed
thee. He did it with that precious
blood that we read about in Hebrews chapter 9. I have redeemed thee,
I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee, and when thou walkest through the fire, thou shall not be burned. Neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. Why not? For I am the Lord thy
God. the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. He took the fire that was due
unto me and was not consumed. He drank the cup of God's wrath
dry for me. My Savior did, the Holy One of
Israel, my Savior. And because He's my Savior, the
fire shall not kindle on me. That'll get me through another
day or two, won't you? If I had any sense at all, it'd
get me through from now on, wouldn't it? Bless God. Let's bow in prayer.