Turning this evening to the book of Exodus, and especially looking at the opening verses of chapter 3. Exodus chapter 3. And I'll just read the first three verses, although we'll be referring to other verses as we make our way forward. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock in 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 the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. This episode, it's so well known, Moses at the burning bush. It's so well known, but it's so significant. It really is a spiritual turning point in both the life of Moses and also the life of the very existence of the people of Israel. Moses' life is divided into three epochs, I suppose you'd say. 40 years each. He died at the age of 120. He spent 40 years in Egypt in the court of Pharaoh as the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter. He was to spend 40 years as a shepherd, tending the sheep in the wilderness for his father-in-law, Jethro. And at this point, he is about to spend his further final 40 years leading Israel out of Egypt through the wilderness and to the very brink of the promised land of Canaan. 40 years in each little part or at least significant part of his life. The figure 40, of course, features quite frequently in the scriptures in very important events. The rain and so forth fell for 40 days and 40 nights in Noah's flood. There were 40 days before the flood receded. There were 40 days and 40 nights in which Moses was there with the Lord up on the Mount Sinai. later on recorded in the Book of Exodus. When the spies went into Canaan, they were 40 days in their journey. When Jonah went to Nineveh, he warned of 40 days before the judgment would come. Coming into the New Testament, we find that Christ had 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. and then 40 days after his resurrection, before his ascension into heaven. Significant periods in the scriptures then, that's really by the by, but 40 years in Egypt for Moses, 40 years as a shepherd, now 40 years to be commenced as the leader of Israel, the mediator between God and the people of Israel. For Israel, they had spent 400 years in Egypt. And as time went on, the experience that they had became more and more and more difficult until, as we shall see, they were in bondage and in a miserable state as slaves in that land. But again, the turning point is that now they are to be led to the land of promise And incidentally, they would arrive there 40 years after this point. So this 40 keeps recurring in the scriptural account. But at this particular juncture, the Lord comes to Moses in a flaming bush that does not burn up. And it's a signal that everything, both in the life of Moses and in the experience of Israel, everything is about to change. Now, there's a great deal to consider in a passage like this, and we're just going to confine our thoughts this evening to three main points. First of all, we notice how Moses, when he saw this flaming bush, said, I will now turn aside to see this great sight. Now those are just a few words, but they're very significant. We'll come back to that in just a moment. So that's in verse three. Then we have the words of God in verse seven and following, where the Lord speaks this message of grace and compassion of his intention concerning the people of Israel, what he is about to do for them. And then we find also that Moses has this call that comes from God in verse 10, where the Lord says to him, come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt. So those three points, Moses turning aside to see this great sight, The word of God that came in verse 7, a word of grace and intention for the future of Israel, and then Moses called by God to lead the people forth from Egypt. Verse 3 then, to begin, Moses is in the backside of the desert, where it said that there was pasture. Obviously, there must have been pasture, because a shepherd doesn't lead his sheep to where there's no pasture. But he's there, and he comes to the mountain of God, even to Horeb, sometimes referred to as Sinai, where much was to take place in the nearest, well, in the fairly near future. And then in verse two, we're told that the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. And it's generally understood there that the angel of the Lord is the son of God. It's what's known as a theophany, really, that the son of God comes in the Old Testament days, before he came as an incarnate son of God, he comes to appear at various points in the life and the experience of his people. So the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Now, when you go down to verse four, you have that understanding confirmed, really, that this is a divine appearance. When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush. So this is something very, very special. God comes to meet with Moses. Now, we're told here, in verse two and the second part, that having noticed, obviously, this strange sight, that he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Now we'll come back to the symbolism of that and the meaning of that in a few moments time. But for now, I want to speak about what we find here in verse three. Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. It's that phrase at the beginning of the verse, I will now turn aside that really should capture our attention. What he's saying there is that, I will now turn aside from every other occupation, every other responsibility, every other demand, all that preoccupies me, all that I've been doing, all that's upon my mind and heart, I will now turn aside to see this great sight. And it is a great sight. It is a strange sight. A bush that's probably some thorny shrub in the desert there. It's on fire, but it doesn't seem to disintegrate. It doesn't appear to be burnt up. Now, there are some that think that Moses was drawn to this because of curiosity, something he'd never noticed before, never seen before. I know that when I was abroad in Australia, I saw bushfires, and you could see very quickly that the bush that was on fire, well, it was there one minute, it was just black and gone the next. And here is something similar to that, but it doesn't burn up. And some people say that this is curiosity. What's happening here? Why is this strange phenomenon taking place? Others think that there's more to it than that. that Moses has a sense of something divine in all of this. And I believe that that's probably more likely the reason that Moses is drawn to one side. A sense that God is in this somehow. This is so abnormal, this is so strange, that it's no ordinary phenomenon, not a freak of nature, but God is in this. And Moses determines, I will now turn aside to see this great sight. But whichever explanation you want to accept, the point really is this, that what Moses saw mattered more than his sheep, than his affairs, of his intentions, of his plans. I will now turn aside to see this great sight." In other words, he did not hurry on, he did not ignore what he was watching and seeing, he did not suppress his interest and pass it off as something that was just strange but is not that important, no. I will now turn aside. This is a sincere and considered resolve and he carried it out. I will now turn aside to see this great sight. And I think that those words and the conduct of Moses with this has a great lesson to teach us. He gives us a great example to us that we might be those who turn aside. In the gospel, when God begins to deal with anybody, and when our spiritual interest is first aroused, We have this concern that's suddenly born within our hearts. We are almost constrained to turn aside. We can't just go on. We can't ignore the fact and the reality of the spiritual realm. And the more that we turn aside, the more that we want to turn aside, the more we are determined to turn aside, because there are great sights to behold. All of the gospel is something that demands our attention, the sight of the Son of God in the world, the sight of the Son of God upon the cross of Calvary. How can we turn aside from that in order to pursue our ordinary lives? No, that's what happened to us. Being believers, we think back to that day when we were first convicted of our sin, And then we were given this great sight, this strange sight of the Son of God here in the world upon the cross of Calvary. Isn't it our desire, isn't it our prayer that there would be many more that turned aside to behold this great sight of Jesus upon the cross of Calvary? It's such a tragic thing that so many do not. I suspect that we can all think of one, if not many, who have been presented with this great sight of a saviour, of one who reconciles us unto God, who bore our sins upon the cross, and they're presented with the truth, it's pressed upon them from the ministry of the Word, we pray for them, we speak to them as much as we can, as impassionately as we can, and yet they go on, and they're unimpressed, and they're unconcerned. May God do a work of grace in such as go on their merry way, turning aside from the greatest sight to behold in all the world, to continue with those things that are so trivial and so passing. The sight of the Church of Jesus Christ, that it's alive even today, is a great sight to behold. How do people explain it? The Church, unlike so many other religions, is not some military organization, it's not a political power. The Church of Rome has tried to be that and still does. But the true Church of Jesus Christ leans on none of those things. and it's been oppressed, it's been persecuted, as we'll see in just a minute or two, but it's still there. In days like this, the Church of Christ is still alive. That's a great sight. Just a wonderful thing. How do you explain it? How do you explain the burning bush? How do you explain the church still living on in days like this? Well, we'll see that the answer to that, of course, is that Christ was in the burning bush and Christ is in this church. today, no matter the persecution, no matter the difficulties and hardships that the church faces. But having been brought to saving faith, beholding the great sight of Christ at Calvary, we will have surely, surely been confronted with many a great sight. And by that I mean the great spiritual truths that we begin to grasp and understand and discover as Christian life goes on. I speak for myself after many years of the experience of God and many years of preaching the Word of God, there are still so many things that leap out at you sometimes from the Word of God and you say, I never saw it like that before, I never realized that before, I never had that view of Christ as I see Him now. And it's a great sight. And the heart, the mind, the whole soul wants to leap up and say, I will now turn aside to see this great sight. I want to see it with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my understanding. In the regular use of the means of grace, this is what the Lord discovers to us. I want to encourage people as has been done from this pulpit on many occasions, to make every use of the means of grace, whether it be in the home or whether it be in the church. Hugh Latimer was a bishop in the 16th century. You may know his name, Latimer and Ridley, the Oxford martyrs put to death at the stake in the 1550s there. But he preached, and he would say something like this to his people, come, come to the word of God, come to the preaching of the word, though it be to sleep. If that's all you're coming for, still come. It may be that God will take thee napping, he said. Well, they had a sense of humor in those days, but you see what he meant. He just wanted the people to be there at the means of grace, that God may reveal something to them, that in the preaching of the word there may be a burning bush that captivates them and draws them unto Jesus Christ. You think of the Apostle Thomas, who wasn't there that first Lord's Day when Christ appeared to his disciples. Look what he missed. The great sight of Christ risen from the dead. that we can discover more and more and turn aside to see the great sights that the Lord discovers to us. There are great sights that call our attention to the Lord in special ways when God brings unusual providences in our experience when something happens. It may be something that is not welcome, it may be some trial, some sudden turn of events that pulls us down, that shatters our confidence and makes us fear and tremble and We feel driven to seek God in earnest. It's almost like a burning bush because we're drawn to the Lord. We know that experience. When we're in trouble of one kind or another, we're drawn to him. And we want to turn aside to see what God has to say, what God is doing in the midst of all of this. There's another way in which the Lord draws our attention to himself, and it's when the Holy Spirit seems to prompt us, as Moses was drawn to the burning bush, so the Spirit of God seems to, at times, move us to turn aside from our normal routine, our normal pattern, in a very special way. Sometimes, for example, we may feel especially compelled to pray. Now, there should be very regular periods of prayer that we set aside for the Lord, whether it be in family worship or private devotions or whatever it might be. But sometimes we just sense that we must get aside to pray in a particular way, to get near to God. Turn aside when we come to that point. Don't suppress it. Don't ignore it. Don't get on with life as it were before. We have been turned aside to behold the Lord in prayer. It's possible that we may be caused to turn aside to pray specifically. Now I mention that because not long ago a dear brother in Christ was talking about his mother's experience a long time ago when he himself was rather wayward and very much in the world and determined that nothing was ever going to convert him and bring him to saving faith. And yet his mother felt surprisingly this unexpected urge to pray for her wayward son. That's not to say that she didn't always pray for him, but this sudden impulse seemed to come up in her mind and heart that she should pray for her son. And you know, within the hour, that sun was converted. Now, where did that come from? That's the Lord, isn't it? You can't deny. It's like the burning bush. And Moses said, I will turn aside. I will now turn aside to see this great sight. And when we are urged and have this compulsion that comes from within us to seek the Lord in a particular way or for a particular purpose, Don't just go on, don't suppress it, don't ignore it as though it doesn't matter, it can wait. Follow the leading of the Spirit. Only the Spirit will constrain us so to pray unto God. And when Moses did what he resolved to do, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt, And we read on in verse four, when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush. Makes you wonder, doesn't it, what would have happened if Moses had not turned aside. No word from God, no message, no overtures of grace, no call to service, but he did, and the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, and 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 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. Moses is humbled. Moses is compelled to reverence before the living God. But then the second point I want to mention or to bring to you is in verses 7 and following where the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters For I know their sorrows, and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land, unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and so on. And here we begin to understand what this burning bush meant, and the angel of the Lord, appearing to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and God, in verse 4, calling to him out of the midst of the bush. Now, the fire in scripture most often, if not always, signifies affliction. It's an emblem of suffering. You think of the extreme example of hell itself. It's described as being the lake of fire. It's described in Luke 16 by the Lord Jesus in terms of that parable where Lazarus, this rich man that has died and has been cast into hell, he calls out to Abram in Luke 16, send Lazarus send Lazarus to bring me some sort of relief, just to touch my tongue with some water, for I am tormented in this flame." So the hell seems to be very much a place of suffering. The fire is an emblem of suffering. And then you think of the sacrifices that were offered, the burnt offering, the Passover lamb that was roasted with fire. You think of the three friends in the furnace where the Lord Jesus was there, the Son of God, with them. So if fire is an emblem of suffering or affliction, you can translate that into the experience of Israel in Egypt. They were afflicted, they were suffering, they were burdened, they were in bondage. And you go on to think of not only Israel but the church through all the years, the fires of persecution. In the reign of bloody Queen Mary over 280 people were burned alive at the stake. An extreme emblem of persecution, of suffering and affliction. And you think of individual believers in the world today may not be put to death by fire, but they're put to death and they suffer greatly at the hands of wicked men and individual believers generally undergoing great trials. It's like the fires of affliction. And yet, whether you think of Israel, whether you think of the church, or whether you think of individual believers in the midst of great trial, great persecution, great suffering, yet the reality is that they are not consumed. Yes, their bodies may be consumed, but their souls are not consumed, and certainly the church is not consumed. You have this promise reiterated in, for example, Isaiah 43 and verse 2. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame Kindle upon thee. And so the fire could not consume Israel, because Christ must come out of Israel. The fire cannot consume the New Testament church, because the church is God's witness upon earth. And the fire cannot finally consume any believer, because the believer is the precious possession of the Lord. And the reason for this, as we see in this symbolism here, is that in the midst of the fire, with those who are in the fire, under the fires of affliction, the angel of the Lord was there in the midst. He is in the midst of his afflicted and suffering people. He himself knew what the fires of suffering were in an extreme way through his life and especially at Calvary and though he died, yet he was not consumed because he rose again on the third day. So from the midst of the burning bush, it's an emblem, it's a message that though the people of God in that day were in the midst of Egypt and in such terrible trouble and such painful affliction, the Lord would be with them and the Lord was with them. And so you have this wonderful message of God's grace in verses 7 and 8 of chapter 3 here. The Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters. For I know their sorrows, and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians. You notice the four things that the Lord says there that he has done, as it were. First of all, I have surely seen the affliction of my people. I've been watching. I know exactly what's been going on. I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters. These tyrannical slave drivers that they were. I have heard their cry. Things had got so bad that the people were crying out unto God, as we find was the case there in chapter 2 and verse 23. I have heard their cry. And then at the end of the verse, I know their sorrows. I'm fully aware of everything that they're suffering, the degree of their distress, the gloominess of their lives, their sense of hopelessness and despair in bondage, and then the climax of everything at the opening part of verse 8, and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians. I have seen, I have heard, I know, I am come down. Do you know what was true for the people of Israel in that day is always been true for the people of God in every age. And the wonderful thing is that we can take it to be true for us as the church of Jesus Christ in this modern age and for every one of us in a personal sense. Things can get to such a pitch that we cry unto God perhaps as never before for the blessing of God upon the Church, for the saving of the lost, for our own trials and personal tribulations. But in every case, whatever it may be, we can know that the Lord has seen, He has heard, He knows, and He will come down to do what is right and good in His own sight, working in grace to deliver His people and to do his works of deliverance and mercy. These things are wonderfully experienced always in the life of the church and in the life of a believer. So this is the message. This is what God is going to do. The turning point for Moses when he comes to the bush is a turning point in the experience of the people of Israel in Egypt. But then it's a further turning point in the life of Moses, because having explained to Moses what's gonna happen, he's come down to deliver them out of that land, verse eight again, halfway through, into a good land. He's not just gonna leave them in limbo somewhere, but he will deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land onto a good land and a large, onto a land flowing with milk and honey. and so on. And then he says in verse 10, this wonderful plan and scheme of redemption from Israel. And perhaps Moses, when he hears this, his heart begins to leap for joy. God is going to do something. And then perhaps, like a bolt from the blue, comes this call in verse 10. Come now, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. Now, this is what we often see in the scriptures, that when God determines to work, he chooses to work through means. He doesn't need Moses any more than he needed the apostle Paul. any more than he needed the other apostles, any more than he needs the church to do his work. But he chooses to do that. And the Lord will work his deliverance through Moses. And we could think about how that he prepared Moses for all of this. He'd been elevated to royalty in Egypt. He'd been reduced, or rather promoted, to shepherding sheep in the wilderness there. Begs the question of us, What has God been preparing us for? What use have been our experiences in bygone days that the Lord will use in making us ready for the work he will have us to do? But Moses is overawed by all of this, and so he should be, and it's perfectly understandable. What a task! I'm going to send you to lead the people out. You're going to go to Pharaoh. And of course later in the chapter it gets worse because God warns him that the Pharaoh is not going to let them go. It's not going to be some easy task to perform. It's an enormous task in an enormous work and a holy work of God himself. And who is Moses to undertake that? But nevertheless, Moses has the promise in verse 12. having protested in verse 11, who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, certainly I will be with thee. And he goes on from there, and time does not allow us to consider what is yet to be, but God will be with him. God will undertake, and God will accomplish his purposes through Moses, and this is not to be viewed, of course, as some onerous task that is an impossibility. It's never that, because God calls a man into a work that God will enable that man to perform. God calls his people into those roles and avenues of service that he will enable us to undertake. It's always like that. And so Moses is called into service. Now, all of this really has got, as I try to apply this, as we've worked our way through, it begins when we turn aside. And when we turn aside, we hear wonderful messages of grace, of the purposes of God, of what the Lord is about, wonderful sights to behold, about the being of God and the works of God, and the intent of God to redeem a people, even in a world like this. And we might startle at this and say, well, that's wonderful. God is going to call a people unto himself, out of Egypt, out of bondage. And the church is going to be built, and Christ is going to be glorified. And yet suddenly the finger points at people like you and me and says, I'm going to send you into a world like that. And we say, well, who am I? What can I do? that the Lord has got a work for us to do. Daunted we may well be, but the word that comes from heaven to us, from the burning bush as it were, is that I will be with thee. Years later, 40 years later, the same word came to Joshua as he was about to lead the people across Jordan and into Canaan, as I was with Moses. so will I be with thee. As Moses knew the presence of God, so did Joshua, so did all the saints of God all through the ages. And as we turn aside and we understand the messages and the purposes of God, and we face up to the call of God to us, we can be sure that as God was with Moses and Joshua and all the saints of God, so he will be with us and through us. even in some small way, he will accomplish all his purposes of grace.