From His Heart

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The burning bush creates a burning question to ask. Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

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You might be thinking in your situation in life, well, this. This situation is horrible. It's dreadful. It's beyond hope.

Uh, God is the God over every situation. He can deliver in the worst of circumstances.

And he delivers not just to get you out of hot water, so to speak. He delivers you out of bad things to bring you into good things.

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Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, who's in his series Faithful and True. And it's based on the book of Exodus, which is really a book of rescue for God delivers his people who were enslaved in Egypt for centuries.

Do you struggle with feeling inadequate and unworthy? Moses certainly did, but God chose him just the same to deliver his people from Egypt. And we can learn a lot about God and ourselves through this encounter with Yahweh at the burning bush.

And that's the theme of our message today in the lesson entitled the Burning Bush and the Burning Question, part two. We'll be in this eight-message series for the next few weeks, so be sure to join us each day.

Know the entire series, built upon the Book of Exodus, is available in multiple formats for your support this month. You can find out more when you go to fromhisheart.org.

Now, though, open your Bible to the third chapter of the Book of Exodus. Here again is Pastor Jeff Shreve with part two of the lesson entitled the Burning Bush and the Burning Question.

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Five important discoveries that we see in Exodus, Chapter three.

**Discovery number one.** God is a holy God. He is a holy God. So Moses is pasturing the flock in Horeb, the desert region of Sinai. And so Moses sees this tree that is on fire, but it's not consumed; it's not burning up. When he gets near, he hears the voice of God. And God tells Moses, "Take your shoes off, Moses, because the place on which you're standing is holy ground." 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 can't come near to a holy God. Why? Because you're a sinful person. And Moses is 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." 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.

**Discovery number three.** He is a compassionate God. God is a compassionate God. He says in verse 7, "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 sufferings." God cares about his people. 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. 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.

**Fourthly,** God is a delivering God. A delivering God. Look what he says in verse 7: "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 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. The Lord says, "I'm gonna come and deliver my people."

Now remember this about his deliverance: He delivers from the most difficult of circumstances. "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh." The Bible says, "Is anything too difficult for me?" Is any situation too difficult for God? Of course not. Egypt is the world power in the 1400s BC when this story takes place. Nobody can hold a candle to Egypt. Nobody wants to go up against Egypt because you'd get your clock cleaned. And here you have the Hebrews, and they're enslaved by Egypt. They can't do anything to change that. How are they going to go up against Egypt?

Now, there are a lot of Hebrews because the Lord multiplied them, but they're no match for the mighty army of Egypt and the chariots of Egypt and the armory of Egypt. To think that you could be delivered, well, how is that going to happen? That can't happen. How in the world could we ever overthrow Egypt? You might be thinking in your situation in life, "Well, this situation is horrible. It's dreadful. It's beyond hope." Uh, God is the God of hope. "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." God is the God over every situation. He can deliver in the worst of circumstances.

And he delivers not just to get you out of hot water, so to speak, not just to get you out of Egypt, so to speak. He delivers to bring you into a spacious land. He delivers you out of bad things to bring you into good things. "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." You know, a land flowing with milk and honey. You gotta remember these are farmers and agricultural people. When you have a land flowing with milk, that means your herds are going to be giving birth, and there's going to be lots of milk there and lots of babies there. It's going to be a wonderful place for fertility with your flocks and herds.

It's a land flowing not only with milk but with honey. That means the bees are busy there, and it's a sweet place and a productive place. "Man, I'm bringing you into a good land. I'm not just going to take you out of Egypt, but I'm going to bring you into a good land."

Now he says in chapter three, toward the end, "I know," verse 19, "that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go except under compulsion. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my miracles, which I shall do in the midst of it. And after that, Pharaoh will let you go. And I will grant this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. And it shall be that when you go, you will not go empty-handed. But every woman shall ask of her neighbor and the woman who lives in her house articles of silver and articles of gold and clothing, and you will put them on your sons and daughters. Thus you will plunder the Egyptians."

God is not the God of barely enough. He's the God of more than enough. "Now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory." So deliverance comes in the worst of situations. Deliverance comes to bring a great blessing. And deliverance comes through a human leader. God chooses a human leader. Who is that human leader? It's Moses. Moses, the guy that doesn't even have his own flocks and herds. He's having to do his father-in-law's. He's just a kind of a hired guy for his father-in-law. Moses, the guy that thought his life was a bust, you know, 40 years just on the backside of nowhere, just being a nobody. And God chooses him.

Now, when the Lord says in verse 8, "I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians," that's good news. But when he says in verse 10, "Therefore come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt," we find out Moses is like, "Me? Me? Let's go with you, God." I like the verse, you know, eight where you do it, but now you're going to do it where I'm doing it, and I'm not able to do this.

Here's the wonderful thing about God: God likes to include us in his work, in his plan. God lets us minister with him. When I was a little kid, I say little kid, you know, probably sixth grade or something like that, I wanted to drive. I thought it was so cool. Sometimes I'd say to my dad, "Hey, Dad, can I drive?" And he would say, "Yeah, you can drive." And I'd say, "Well, okay, we'll move over." He said, "No, you can get in my lap and drive." I can still remember as a little kid getting in his lap and steering. He was there to make sure nothing crazy happened, and he was controlling the gas and the brake. But I was feeling like a big guy because I was driving, so to speak. Who was really driving? He was really driving. But he was allowing me to be a part of that.

Hey, when God delivers, he says, "I'm going to deliver through a human instrument." Moses, get ready because I'm going to use you. God is a delivering God. He's a holy God. He is the only God. He is a compassionate God. A delivering God.

**And then discovery number five.** God is the self-existent, unchangeable, all-you-need God. You say that's a mouthful. Yeah. Self-existent, unchangeable, all-you-need God. "Therefore come now," he says in verse 10, "and I will send you to Pharaoh so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt." But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?" And he said, "Certainly, I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship at this mountain."

Now, the natural question that Moses asked: When God says, "Hey, go, and I'm going to send you. I'm going to deliver, but I'm going to send you," so you go now to Pharaoh. Well, "Who am I to go to Pharaoh?" You know, that is a normal question, a natural question, but it's an irrelevant question. Who cares who you are, Moses? Why does it matter who you are, Moses? All that matters is who I am. It doesn't matter who you are because I'm not depending upon you, Moses. You're going to depend upon me. But it's the normal question, "Well, who am I to do this?" But it's a blinding question because we get so consumed with ourselves. That can be a paralyzing question because you think, "Oh, I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it."

Did you notice that God doesn't really answer his question directly? "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?" God just says, "Certainly, I will be with you." He doesn't answer the question, "Who you are." Let's talk about who you are, Moses. You are a pimple on a flea. You are a speck of dust. You are a zit. Zero. Nothing. That's who you are compared to me. God doesn't do that. He just says, "Certainly, I will be with you," and it doesn't matter who you are.

Now, object lesson: He's speaking to Moses from the burning bush. There's a blazing fire, but the bush is not consumed. Now, what God was saying is, "Moses, you see what I'm doing in this bush? It's not the bush. This is not some special bush. What I'm doing in this bush, I can do in that bush, in that bush, in that bush, in that bush. It's not the bush. It's the God in the bush." So it doesn't matter who you are if I am with you.

So Moses asks a blinding question because he gets blinded by his own insecurities and his own insignificance, thinking, "There's no way I can do this." And then he asks a second question, and that is the burning question. And that question is, "Who are you? Who are you, God?" Look at verse 13. Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What is his name? What shall I say to them?'"

Now remember, to the Hebrews, your name and your nature are the same. So when he is saying, "What is your name?" he's asking about God's nature, about God's character. You know, Jacob. They named him Jacob, which means heel grabber, because he came out of the womb second. His brother Esau was born first, and Jacob was holding onto his heel. The name Jacob means heel grabber, trickster, supplanter, con man. And that's what Jacob was. The Lord changed Jacob's name to Israel, which means prince with God. It changed Jacob's whole life when he became Israel.

And so Moses is asking the question, "God, who are you? Who are you?" And God says in verse 14, "I am who I am." And he says, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I am sent me to you.'" And God furthermore said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial name to all generations.'"

The name "I am who I am." Now the Hebrew is "Havah" (H A Y A H). That is the verb "to be." As Dwight Pentecost said, this verb "to be," it's every tense of the verb "to be," every tense is involved in that "Havah." So God is saying, he always was what he is. He always is what he was. He will always be who he was and who he is; that is God. He's the self-existent, unchangeable God. God doesn't rely on anyone or anything for life. The Bible says of Jesus, "In him was life." Jesus said, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life," everything. He's the source of everything. He is the great "I am." "I am who I am." The self-existent, unchangeable God.

He says in Malachi 3:6, "I am the Lord, I change not." God is the God who doesn't ever change. The Hebrew "Havah" (H A Y A H) is connected to the name capitalized in the New American Standard Bible. Every time you run across in the Old Testament the word "Lord" in all caps, that means that's the name. That's the name. The special name of God. It's four letters: Y H, W H. That's the memorial name of God, the personal name of God.

Now the rabbis, they called that the name. They just called it the name. You know, they never say the name. The rabbis would say, "Hey, anytime you're reading scripture and you come across the name, well, that's the unutterable name. That's the great and terrible name. We don't say that name because in the Ten Commandments it says in Exodus 20:7, 'You shall not take the name of the Lord, Yahweh, your God in vain. For the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain.'" They say, "You can't say that name. You can't mess up that name. If you mess up that name, man, you can get in trouble. God won't leave you unpunished."

So whenever you run across the name, just say "Adonai." Adonai means sovereign, means master. So they would never speak the name. Did you know they had so much respect for the name of God that it is said that it was only spoken one time a year by the high priest as he would come into the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement, with bloodshed, with fear and trepidation, and he would whisper the name "Yahweh." That's the only time they would say the name. It's the great and terrible name of God. Not terrible in the sense of it's bad; it's just a terror-producing name. That is the name. God gave that name to Moses. That is my name.

When Jesus was preaching to the Jews during his public ministry, he said in John chapter eight, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad." They said, "You're not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham?" And Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." And it was silent. I mean, it had to be silent. That's the unutterable name. You said the unutterable name, and you said it about yourself. They picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy. "How dare you claim to be the great I am?" But it wasn't blasphemy because he is the great I am.

Did you know that Bible scholars believe that the burning bush was the acacia bush? The acacia bush is a thorny bush. This is the bush that people believe was on fire. It's a bush filled with thorns. The root of that word "bush" means to prick. And that is the bush that is on fire. It's not consumed, but it's on fire. Jesus is the Great I am. The result of sin was that the ground would produce thorns and thistles. That's the curse from sin. When Jesus was tried, they wove a crown of thorns and they pressed it into his brow. It's the curse of sin being pressed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And he died for you, and he died for me. But he was not consumed. They put him in the tomb, and on the third day, he rose again from the dead.

He is the God who has conquered sin and death and hell and the grave. He is our great I am, our holy God, our only God, our compassionate God, our delivering God, our self-existent, unchangeable, all-you-need God.

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Do you right now know the safety and security that the Savior Jesus offers? It could be that today you find yourself far from God. Listen to Luke 5:32 that says, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." You see, God requires that we repent of our sin out of a sincere sorrow and then accept the free gift of God that He is offering us through Jesus, who died for our sins to make us holy and pure and worthy. He was our sacrifice so we could be in heaven with God, also holy.

When you do that, when you surrender to Him in repentance and faith, you'll be a child of God and know that you can also find out more about what this means. Practically speaking, when you go to promisheart.org, click the "Why Jesus" link, and we praise the Lord for you beginning your new and eternal journey with the Creator of the world and your Savior Jesus.

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 his encounter with Yahweh at the burning bush and many other times. As we hear in the book of Exodus that we're studying this month, Pastor Jeff is in this series to help remind you that God really does love you and that you matter.

And of course, it does matter that God is an unchangeable, holy God who is everything you will ever need and whatever situation you face. This revealing eight-message series that we're in, "Faithful and True: Introducing the One and Only God," is our gift of thanks to you this month for your support of any amount. You can get that series on DVDs to watch, CDs, USB flash drive, or immediate MP3 download to listen to when you call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go to fromhisheart.org. We appreciate you joining with us to tell the world that Jesus is Lord.

Tomorrow, Pastor Jeff will begin the next lesson in this powerful eight-lesson series to help you learn what to do when life's struggles keep coming and there's no end in sight. Join us on Wednesday when we'll again open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His Heart.

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Real truth, Real love, Real hope From His Heart.

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From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shrieve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember, no matter what, God loves you and He has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out more at fromhisheart.org.