From His Heart

Speaker 1

Today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, he'll explain the miracle of the burning bush and the answer to the burning question.

Speaker 2

God sees, God knows, and God cares. He's a God of compassion. The word compassion, two words, means calm with and passion, suffering to suffer with. When you have compassion, you suffer with another person.

And one of the greatest definitions I've ever heard of compassion as it relates to God, to us, is this: God says, "I feel your hurt in my heart." God has compassion for his people.

Speaker 1

The book of Exodus is a book of rescue, where God delivers his people who were enslaved in Egypt for centuries. Today, Pastor Jeff begins a powerful series on the book of Exodus called Faithful and True, introducing the one and only God. And it'll remind us that we serve a God who is able and who always keeps his word. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. Thank you for joining us today.

Listen, do you struggle with feeling inadequate and unworthy? Moses certainly did, but God chose him just the same to deliver his people from Egypt. We can learn a lot about God and ourselves from this encounter with Yahweh at the burning bush. And that's the theme of this message from Pastor Jeff.

This is the first lesson in the series, Faithful and True: Introducing the One and Only God. Now, we'll be airing this series for the next three weeks, and you can get the entire series in the format of your choice for your gift to Promise Heart this month. When you go to promisheart.org right now, open your Bible to Exodus, chapter three. Here's Pastor Jeff to begin describing the burning bush and the burning question.

Speaker 2

Hey, we're starting a series today, a brand new series on the book of Exodus. The book of Exodus is a book of rescue. It's a book of God coming to his people who had been enslaved in Egypt, enslaved by the bad guys, so to speak. And God reveals himself to his people and to Egypt as the God who is faithful and true, the one and only God. You know, in Egypt, they had lots of gods. They had the sun God. They had the God of the Nile. They worshipped frogs. They had the frog God. Some of the names of God were Anubis, Isis, Osiris, Ra, Amun Ra, and then Pharaoh, who fancied himself a God, the son of Amun Ra. Amun Ra was the God over all the gods. And they were enslaving God's people.

Now, God's people ended up in Egypt when there was a famine in the land. Joseph got sold into slavery in Egypt, and God delivered Joseph and made him the number two man in all of Egypt. Joseph told his dad, Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, "Hey, bring everybody, because we will provide. I am. God has put me in a place of provision, and I'll provide for you and your little ones." And so the whole family came. All of Israel came to Egypt. They flourished in Egypt, in the land of Goshen. But then Joseph dies, and there is another Pharaoh who comes to the throne. The Bible says he did not know Joseph. So they look at all these Jews and say, "Hey, these guys, if they turn against us, it could be a problem." So they enslave them. The Bible says they were mistreated and enslaved for 400 years.

Now Moses was born. Pharaoh had already given the decree, "Hey, if any Hebrew boys are born, you kill them." But they saved Moses because he was a beautiful child. They put him in a basket, remember? Then Pharaoh's daughter finds him. She names him Moses because "I drew him out of the Nile. I drew him out of the waters." Moses grows up as a prince in Egypt. He sees that an Egyptian was treating a Hebrew harshly. The Bible says he looks this way and he looks that way. He didn't look up. But when he saw the coast was clear, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. The matter became known, and when Moses was 40, he had to leave Egypt. He had to hightail it out of Egypt. He goes to Midian, marries a girl, and he's working as a shepherd for his father-in-law, Jethro.

He's on the backside of nowhere for 40 years, going nowhere, doing nothing. It says in Exodus, chapter 3, verse 1, "Now, Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law." He's 80 years old and he doesn't even have his own flock. He's pasturing the flock for his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Horeb and Sinai are the same place. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight. Why the bush is not burned up?"

When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses." He said, "Here I am." Then he said, "Do not come near here. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He also said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters. For I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. And now behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to me. Furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."

Such an important passage of scripture. Now, what do we learn about God from this passage of scripture? Five important discoveries that we see in Exodus, chapter 3. Discovery number one: God is a holy God. He is a holy God. So Moses is pasturing the flock at Horeb, the desert region of Sinai. You know, it's not a fun place. It's not a vacationing spot. It's just rocks and sand and dirt, and it's a miserable looking place. So he's trying to find pasture for the sheep, and he's going to the west side of Horeb. All of a sudden, now you have these bushes. They're kind of like trees. They're acacia bushes or acacia trees, and they dot the landscape there in the Sinai Desert.

Moses sees this tree, this bush, on fire. Now, it's probably not the first time he saw a tree on fire, but there's something different about this. This tree is on fire, but it's not consumed; it's not burning up. The fire is blazing in the tree, but the tree is not burning up. So he says, "I have to go by and see this great sight." When he gets near, he hears the voice of God. God tells Moses, "Take your shoes off, Moses, because the place on which you're standing is holy ground." Now, Moses might have walked over that ground before, never thought twice about it, because the bush wasn't burning and there was no voice of God. The ground wasn't holy because there's something inherent in the ground. The ground was holy because God was there.

And God is a holy God. You know, if you can pick just one word to describe God, if you had to ransack the Bible and just say, "I can only come up with one word that best describes God," it's not the word love; it's the word holy. That's what the angels say at the throne of God. Isaiah, chapter six: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory." Revelation, chapter 4, verse 8 says, "And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within, and day and night they do not cease to say, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.'" God is a holy God.

Hey, you can't come near to a holy God. Why? Because you're a sinful person. Sinners can't just saunter into the presence of God. If you'll remember from the Old Testament temple, they had the outer court where people can come, and then you have the inner court where only the priests can come, and then you have the innermost court called the Holy of Holies. That is separated from everything else with a big, thick, heavy veil. The only person that could come into the Holy of Holies, that's where God's presence was, the Shekinah glory of God, was the high priest. He came in once a year, and he came with bloodshed, fear, and trepidation because you can't just saunter into the presence of God.

In the book of Samuel, 1st Samuel, the Ark of the Covenant gets taken by the Philistines, and they don't want it anymore because it's causing them to have tumors, literally, hemorrhoids. God was giving them a pain where the sun don't shine. They said, "We got to get this out of here." So they sent it back to Israel. Some people in the little town of Beth Shemesh looked in to make sure that they didn't take anything out of the Ark of the Covenant. When they did, they were struck dead. The people responded to that move of God and said, "Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?" He is separate from us. He is different from us. He is distinct from us. He is pure, and we are not. God is a holy God.

Take your shoes off. Why did the Lord want Moses to take his shoes off? In my studies, I ran across two possible reasons for this. I thought they were pretty good. Number one: Slaves never wore shoes. Moses is coming before the Lord not as his equal. You come before me as a slave, Moses, because that's what you are compared to me. You're a slave. Take your shoes off, Moses, and you assume the posture of a slave. But number two: In the ancient Near East, a sign of respect. If you were to go into someone's home, what would you do? You would take your shoes off. Your dusty sandals would be taken off, and your feet would be washed. You didn't wear shoes in the house in the ancient Near East. Moses is coming into the house of God, so to speak. He's coming into the presence of God. "Take your shoes off, Moses, because the place on which you're standing is holy ground."

God is a holy God. Second discovery: God is the only God. Look what he says in verse 6: "I am the God of your father." His father was Amram. "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. He was afraid to look at the thrice holy God of the universe. You know, at the throne of God, the angels in Isaiah, chapter six, have six wings. With two, they cover their feet. With two, they cover their face. With two, they fly. They cover their face before the throne of God because they don't want to look at the holiness of God. Moses hid his face as God told him. "I am the God, not a god." Egypt is filled with gods. God is the God, the creator God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.

Abraham had two sons: the son of the bondwoman, the Egyptian Hagar, his wife's maid, and they have Ishmael. God is not the God of Abraham and Ishmael. He's the God of Abraham, Isaac, the son of miracle birth, the son of the promise. He's not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Esau. He's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Jacob, the younger of the twins. He is the only God. The scripture says concerning the Lord, he says of Himself in Isaiah 46:9-10, "For I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is no one like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure.'" There's no one like God. God is holy. He's totally separate from everything else, and there is no other God. The gods of Egypt, little g, they're nothing, as we're going to see in the book of Exodus. Because when God brings the plagues, he brings them on the gods of Egypt, and he destroys Egypt and he destroys Pharaoh. God is a holy God. He is the only God.

Discovery number three: He is a compassionate God. God is a compassionate God. He says in verse seven, "And the Lord said, 'I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their suffering.'" God cares about his people. Now, it would be easy to think, if you are an Israelite, you're a Jew there in Egypt, and you're crying out to God because of your sufferings, and God's not answering in the way that you want him to answer, that God must not care. But that's not true. God does care. God sees, God knows, and God cares. He's a God of compassion.

The word compassion, two words: it means "calm with" and "passion," to suffer with. When you have compassion, you suffer with another person. One of the greatest definitions I've ever heard of compassion as it relates to God and us is this: God says, "I feel your hurt in my heart." God has compassion for his people. "I have surely seen the sufferings of my people," the Lord says. You know, in Exodus 34, when Moses, actually verse 33, when Moses said, "Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, show me your glory. I want to see your glory." He says, "Well, Moses, I'll show you the backside of my glory. No one can see my face and live. It'd be like looking into the face of a million blazing suns. You can't do that. It'll just consume you. But I'll let you see the edges of my glory. I'll let you see the backside of my glory."

So Moses, the next day, Exodus 34, goes, and God puts him in the cleft of the rock, covers him there in his hand, and passes by. The Lord declares, and his name is his nature. He says, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious." That's the first thing he says about himself. Once he introduces himself as the only God, the Lord, the Lord God, "I'm it, and I'm compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth." God is a compassionate God.

Have you ever thought why God says in verse four, "Moses, Moses"? Why does God repeat his name? Now, if you remember the movie "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston, God speaks very slowly. Do you remember that? "Moses, Moses." Like a record player that's turned too low or something. It's like, really God? I mean, why do you talk like that? I don't think God talks like that. But God did repeat his name. You have other times in Scripture where the Lord repeats someone's name. Little Samuel in the book of 1 Samuel, "Samuel, Samuel," repeats his name. The Lord in the New Testament repeated Martha's name. Remember Martha, who was worried and bothered about so many things? The Lord said, "Martha, Martha." The Lord said to Peter, "Simon, Simon." The Lord said to Saul on the road to Damascus, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" He says, "Who are you, Lord?" "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."

Why the double name? What does that signify? Well, it doesn't tell us per se, but I think it fits along with compassion. When God says Moses' name twice, he's saying, "Moses, Moses, I know you. I know who you are. I know everything about you. I know that your life has been derailed. I know that you had big plans that you thought maybe you were gonna deliver Israel when you were a young man, in your 20s, 30s, before you got to 40. But then what happened when you were 40? You had to flee Egypt. Now you've been living for four decades on the backside of nowhere, taking care of your father-in-law's sheep. You thought you were a somebody for the first 40 years of your life, and now you know that you're a nobody. Moses, I know about you, and I have compassion."

Not just for my people in Egypt. I have compassion for you. Hey, God knows everything about me. He knows everything about you. He knows what you did last night. He knows what you did last week. He knows what you did last summer. He knows everything about you, and he still cares for you. He still loves you. Some of you cried yourself to sleep last night. You said, "Does God care about me?" He cares about you. The Bible says, "Cast all your cares upon him." Why? Because he cares for you. It matters to him concerning you. "I have surely seen the affliction of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries." God is a compassionate God.

Fourthly, God is a delivering God. A delivering God. Look what he says. He says, "I've surely seen the affliction of my people," verse 7, "who are in Egypt and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters. For I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them up from the land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite." All the ites lived in the land, and God says, "That's where we're going." He's a delivering God, and the Lord says, "I'm going to come and deliver my people."

Now remember this about his deliverance: He delivers from the most difficult of circumstances.

Speaker 1

You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve today and the message entitled "The Burning Bush and the Burning Question." It's from his series "Faithful and True," introducing the one and only God. The title of this powerful series describing God's character ought to be a description of Christians as well. The series is from the book of Exodus, which is a book of rescue—God coming to deliver his people enslaved in Egypt for centuries.

In this great and miraculous deliverance, God reveals himself as faithful and true, the one and only God. In Exodus 5:2, Pharaoh asked this question, "Who is the Lord Yahweh, that I should obey his voice?" God answers that question in a resounding, unforgettable fashion. This powerful series on the Exodus from Egypt reminds us afresh that we serve a God who is able and who always keeps his word.

This series is also our special gift of thanks to you for your support to From His Heart this month of any amount. It includes eight messages in the format of your choice that'll empower your faith and animate your testimony to a lost and hurting world. To get your copy of "Faithful and True: Introducing the One and Only God," call 866-40-BIBLE (that's 866-40-BIBLE) or go online to fromhisheart.org. Make your gift of any amount, and we'll send you the series as our thanks for joining with us to share God's good news of Christ to a world that is desperate for unchanging truth.

Again, call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org. God bless you!

Well, thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nels, inviting you to be with us tomorrow when Pastor Jeff will continue the message, "The Burning Bush and the Burning Question," from his "Faithful and True" series. We trust you'll join us then when we'll open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His Heart.

From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world. Remember, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more at fromhisheart.org.