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February 12, 2006 Mural Worthey Great Texts from Exodus--#1 Introduction: “The
Burning Bush” In our study on Wednesday
evenings on abortion, we noted Exodus 1—Pharaoh’s command to slay the Hebrew
male babies at birth. This could be
called “subtle infanticide”; that is, the killing of children made to look like
something else. Pharaoh wanted, at
first, for the mothers to think that their children were just stillborn. Afterwards, he became bolder when his command
was disobeyed. He commanded the nation
to destroy the male babies by casting them into the You will recall that Jesus
was born under similar circumstances.
Herod gave an order to slay the children of Near the end of Moses’ life
as a shepherd for Jethro (or Reuel), his father-in-law, God appeared to Moses
in Midian. The angel of the Lord
appeared to Moses out of the flames of a burning bush. (Exodus 3:2.)
This is a great text in Exodus and constitutes the call of Moses to his
great work for God. What does this event
in Old Testament history mean? Unusual Appearances of God This seems to be a strange
way for God to talk to man. Why not
appear to him some other way? Life in a
desert watching flocks would be rather a mundane existence with sameness and
severity. Then this day out of forty
years of struggling to exist, the angel of Jehovah (3:3) appeared to Moses in a
burning thorn bush. One thing for
certain is that it would have been impressive.
It would be hard to ignore something like that. Man often needs impressive things to happen
to divert his attention from the routine matters of life. Moses would need to be for sure that God
called him for this mission. After this
Moses would never have thought, “I wonder if God really did call me to do
this?” This doubt would have been
forever removed. God really did call him
to go to Pharaoh and demand that Pharaoh release the Hebrews. Other unusual appearances (epiphanies—divine appearances in
Scripture) of God are: 1) The angel of Jehovah wrestled
with Jacob at the brook Jabbok until the break of day. (Gen. 32:22-32.) The place was called Peniel which means the face
of God. This was a turning point in
the life of Jacob. The next day, he met
Esau. Jacob needed to know whether God
had indeed chosen him instead of Esau the older brother. 2) The angel of Jehovah
appeared to Elijah in a special way and at a critical time in his life. Jezebel and the prophets of Baal were
opposing Elijah mightily. Elijah went
into a cave and asked God to take his life.
God told him to get out of the cave and stand on the mountain. While standing on the mountain, God sent a
strong wind which broke the rocks of the mountain, but God was not in the
wind. He then sent an earthquake, but
God was not in the earthquake. He sent a
fire, but God was not in the fire. God
came to him in a “still small voice.” (1
Kings 19:12, KJV; or low whisper, NIV) 3) After Elijah, the great
prophet of God, Elisha took the mantle of Elijah and continued his work. But Elisha wanted to know if God was with him
as he was with Elijah. And he demanded a
double measure of the Spirit of God upon him.
This successor was allowed to see a strange event—the taking up of
Elijah into heaven. As the two men
walked together and talked, a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and
took Elijah away. Elisha cried out, “My
father, my father, the chariot of 4) God guided the nation of Some lessons from these appearances 1) There are many such
unusual appearances of the angel of Jehovah in the Bible. There are so many that they are not unusual
or exceptional at all, but they are rather the norm for God. When God appeared unto men, they knew
it. All doubts were removed. 2) The appearances were not
for personal experiences of individual salvation. The appearances were made for the greater
good of all men. They involved the work
of prophets and apostles for the redemption of mankind. 3) They served as temporary
measures until the coming of Jesus Christ.
God spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, but has spoken
in these last days by his Son. (Heb.
1:1-3.) God spoke in sundry times and
divers ways. The final great appearance
of God among men came in the Virgin birth of Jesus Christ into this world. The first covenant began by Moses at the
burning bush and ended with the coming of Jesus Christ. 4) Doubters, to whom God has
not appeared, may question these appearances, but those to whom God appeared
could not question what happened. It was
for their benefit primarily, not ours.
Thomas doubted the resurrection, until Jesus appeared to him and showed
him the wounds. God does not try to
avoid criticisms of how he appeared unto men.
It does not seem to be something that He tried to avoid, but rather the
opposite. The spectacular nature of it
was to impress the one receiving the message from God. An Imperative All of the epiphanies in
Scripture involved weighty matters. God
does not appear to men in burning bushes just to chat or to see how we are feeling. He does not do it to satisfy the curiosity of
men or to appease the demands of unbelievers.
There is always an imperative mission involved. There is always a holy, divine cause. God wanted Moses to lead his
people from Egyptian bondage to the I reject the popular notion
of the three-fold nature of the will of God: 1) the sovereign will, 2) the
moral will for everyone and 3) the individual will. Two of these are questionable. The notion of the sovereign will of God comes
from the theology of John Calvin who taught that God’s sovereign will excludes
the will of man. It may appear that man
has the freedom to choose, but he does not according to the theory. The individual will of God is the most
popular today. Preachers often tell
their audiences that God has a blueprint for their lives and that they should seek
after that plan. Every detail is supposedly planned. For this reason, some look
for their “burning bush.” They desire for
God to reveal his will to them directly and personally. They sometimes suppose that God appeared to
them because of the intense desire to know his private will for their
lives. We should not assume that the
appearance of the angel of Jehovah to Moses was something like that. It was in fact altogether different. Holy Ground Moses wanted to see for
himself what was going on—a bush on fire that was not being consumed. While he sought to satisfy his curiosity, God
told him to take off his shoes from his feet.
The ground where you stand is holy ground. (Exodus 3:5.)
God revealed himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (3:6.)
Moses would have immediately recognized this identity. Moses was the fourth generation from Jacob. Some lessons: 1) Men will
never respond to God the way that they should until they acknowledge the
holiness and mystery of the presence of God among men. 2) Moses was reluctant to go and do God’s
will even after this appearance. We need
to believe in God and be convinced of his presence. If we doubt, we will not grow in the
faith. We will draw back and watch. 3) We will never crucify the lusts of the
flesh until we feel and acknowledge the holiness of God. 4) Unbelievers, instead of being filled with
wonder and awe, argue about the impossibility of a bush not being consumed with
fire. How absurd! Unbelievers talk about the impossibility of Jonah
being swallowed by a great fish and living for three days in his belly. Unbelievers mock the Virgin Birth of Jesus
Christ. The reply to all such
expressions of unbelief is—then you do not know the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob! The Reluctance of Moses Moses was living a quiet life
with his wife and son in the Midian desert.
God appeared and wanted to send him back to Moses’ reluctance is
expressed by several questions and statements: 1) Who am I that I should go to
Pharaoh and bring the children of It is understandable that
mere men are reluctant to speak for God.
We should tremble that God should send us on such missions. Actually reluctant prophets are better than
impulsive and proud ones. But we should
never draw back when God commands us to do his will. God answered each of Moses’
objections; and He has also answered each of ours as well. God told him: 1) I will be certainly be with
you. 2) Tell them that the God of your
fathers sent you to them. My name is I
AM THAT I AM. 3) If they do not believe
you, then show them some signs. Turn
your rod into a snake; put your hand into your bosom and draw it back. When it turns leprous, then put it back again
and it shall be normal again. Pour water
from the Actually, Moses was the best
man to go. He was raised in Pharaoh’s
palace. He knew the language of the
Egyptians. He had a fervent zeal to free
his people from bondage. He struck an
Egyptian forty years earlier for mistreating a fellow Hebrew. Moses was the right man to go. He is called in the Bible the meekest man on
earth. (Numbers 12:3.) This is said in context of Miriam and Aaron
speaking against Moses. His brother and
sister spoke against him because he married an Ethiopian woman. They claimed that they were prophets as well
as Moses. They did not have to listen to
him. Moses was humble when they made
these challenging statements, but God intervened and punished them. |