THROUGH THE BIBLE - Exodus 3..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. So let's read chapter 3 of the book of Exodus. I'm going to be reading from the English Standard Version of the Bible, and this is the ever-enduring, all-sufficient, perfect, never-changing Word of God.

Exodus chapter 3. Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. And he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning.

Yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, he got called to him out of the bush. Moses, Moses. And he said, Here I am.

Then he said, Do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your 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 at God. Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters and other sufferings.

And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. And now behold, the cry of the people of Israel have come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come, I will send you to Tharuf, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Tharuf and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? He said, But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that I have sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain." Then Moses said to God, If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers had sent me to you, and they ask me, what is his name? What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am. who I am.

And he said, say this to the people of Israel. I am has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, say this to the people 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 thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob has appeared to me saying, I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt. And I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey. and they will listen to your voice. And you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, the Lord, the God of the Hebrews has met with us.

And now please let us go a three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it. After that, he will let you go. And I will give these people favor in the sight of the Egyptians.

And when you go, you shall not go empty, but each woman shall ask of her neighbor and any woman who lives in her house for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing, you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters, so you shall ponder the Egyptians." Amen, beloved friend. This is the word of God. Very important chapter, the one that we have here in front of us. Somehow this is the beginning of the covenantal dealings of God with his people in the process of taking them out of Egypt into the wilderness with the promise of arriving or reaching the promised land.

And I'm saying that this is the beginning of the covenantal dealings of God with his people through Moses because in chapter one, in chapter two, we've seen the providential dealings of God in bringing about the promise that he gave to Abraham in chapter 15 when he said that the offspring of Abraham was going to be sojourners and servants in a land. So, we have in chapter 1 and chapter 2 of the book of Exodus, this providential workings of God in bringing about that reality. Last week, when we read the last verse of chapter 2, verse 24, we saw how God says to Moses what he says, that he remembers, that he hears, he listens, to the groanings of his people, and he remembers the covenant that he had given to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Here in chapter 3, beloved brethren, we have the beginning of these covenantal dealings. God with his people Israel through the person of Moses and something very particular He is going to deal God He's going to deal with Moses in a very similar way that he has dealt in the book of Genesis with Isaac or with Abraham Isaac and Jacob he's going to present himself in an appearance here at least we have three elements of these covenantal dealings of God with a person in a similar very similar sense of what happened with Abraham Isaac and Jacob we have a place, a dwelling place, as our brother taught us last week.

And Moses had departed from the presence of the covenantal people from Egypt, and he went to this land of Midian, very far away from it. But in the beginning of chapter 3, we have here Moses now moving from this Midian area or land, coming to the mountain of God. Horeb, this is a very important place. Sinai, this is the place where the Ten Commandments are going to be given to the people of Israel. So here, we have God bringing this person to this dwelling place of him, the mountain of God, similar to what he did with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And he's going to reveal himself to him in a similar sense that he did to the patriarchs. He's going to appear in this burning bush, beloved brethren. What we have in front of us is something very important. God reveals himself to Moses and he is going to give him the covenantal promise of the liberation of the people of Israel. The way that he reveals himself to Moses is very particular.

He is going to be in this burning bush, and then he's going to call with this intimate name to Moses. He's going to say, Moses, Moses, do not approach me because the land that you are there, here, is a holy land. Put thy shoes off. Do not approach this land. After that, he's going to give the promise of liberation, what he is going to do.

He's going to take the people of Israel out of Egypt into the wilderness, into the promised land. And he says that he's going to do it with mighty wonders, with great judgment. God is going to take the people out of this land. This is the covenantal promise that God has given to Moses. But beloved brethren, There is a difference in the way that God dealt with the patriarchs in the book of Genesis, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and this appearance of this revealing of God himself to Moses.

In chapter six of the book of Exodus, the Lord says to Moses that when he appeared, when he revealed himself to these three patriarchs, that he did not show his name. He did not appear himself with his name, but he has now revealed himself with his great name. Speaking of who he is, nobody like the Lord. I am, the great I am has revealed himself to Moses. And the reason why the revealing of himself to Moses, beloved brethren, is so different to the revealing of God himself to the patriarchs, is because the implications of this covenant in which God is going to enter are going to transcend the person to which the covenant is given and is going to affect the whole people.

Let me just point you to a particular place. Go to Exodus, the last chapter of Exodus. Because if Exodus chapter 3, beloved brethren, is the covenantal beginnings of the relationship of God with his people through Moses, then in the end of Exodus we have A bigger picture of the fulfillment of the completion of these covenantal dealings that God is starting in chapter 3. In Exodus chapter 40, in the end of the book, we are going to have a fullness or we're going to have a better glimpse and understanding of this relationship of God with his people. Verse 34, pay attention to what happens here.

Then, Exodus 40, this is the end of the book. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, or the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, the presence, the covenantal presence of God. filled the tabernacle. And Moses, the one who was seeing the burning bush in chapter three, he was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it. And the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys." Beloved brethren, when the Lord God came and visit Abraham, Moses, and Jacob. He visited them, he revealed himself, he appeared himself to them, and then he gave them promises of the things that was gonna happen.

But when the Lord appeared and revealed himself to Moses, something greater happened. Go back to Exodus. A glorious word is going to be given to us in holy scripture in verse eight. The way that the Lord is now going to deal with his people is not only on a visitation, a holy visitation, that he comes and says something and then he departs. When God came and visited his people, the Exodus generation, in verse eight, he says, I have come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians, beloved brethren.

Insufficient words in my mouth and in my heart to proclaim these truths. God came down not only to reveal himself to Moses and speak of the liberation that he was going to take the people out of the land of Egypt and bring it into the wilderness with the promise of reaching the promised land, that the angel of the Lord, which is God himself who revealed himself in the burning bush to Moses, the great I am, the one that is given this covenantal promise to him to be given to the people of Israel, he has come down to stay among his people. When the people of Israel are going through the Red Sea, The angel of the Lord is the one that sets himself in between the Egyptians between the Egyptians and the people of Israel and the angel of the Lord is going to remain among his people throughout the wilderness in the presence of his people brothers and sisters God came down to stay among his people and to have a dwelling place among them and Now the glorious thing about this is that we know that reaching and approaching the holy presence of God is not something that is given to everyone. He says to Moses, put thy shoes off because this is holy ground. You may not approach this.

Do not come near to me, given a principle that is then going to be given to the people of Israel in which The people of Israel will have to follow certain principles and certain instructions in order to approach the dwelling place of God, the immediate presence of God, but a presence, beloved brethren, that was now available for the people of Israel. The glorious thing about this, beloved brethren, is that we know that this Exodus generation is not the people for whom the fullness of the presence of God was going to be given. Because the book of Jude says that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards he destroyed those who believed not. These people, this Exodus generation, even though the Lord came down to visit them and to be among them, to be the covenantal gold, the great I am, the one that is going to take them out of Egypt into the promised land with great mighty wonders with glorious things demonstrating his power and who he is and even giving them favor in the eyes of the Egyptians this God cannot be approached by unrighteous men so then this covenant given to Moses is going to be simply a shadow and a type of the one who came and has come to be among us, to remain among us, to abide in our presence, to be the covenantal God that remains with us because we have entered the race that they did not enter because they lacked faith. grace given faith that God has given to his people is the means by which we make it into the eternal rest of Jesus Christ and then there we can enjoy the fullness of the glory of God we have access to him by grace through faith in that grace we stand and the wrath of God is not on us anymore, beloved brethren.

Here we have the beginnings of the covenantal dealings of God with his people, Moses. And remember what I've said many times, as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, that the things that had been written about, or even better, The things that took place in the Exodus generation, they happen as an example for us, for the church, that we may see the things that they did and the things that they experienced, and that we may learn of the great salvation that we have in the person of Jesus Christ, that the unapproachable God is now approachable by grace, by faith, by the Spirit of God that has united us to Christ, the one that has come down to dwell among us and to remain among us eternally, forever and ever. Amen.