Life to the Dead

Well, again, greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and another opportunity for us as a body to come together as one, as a body in the

Lord Jesus Christ, and sing out his praises, and to, once again, encounter the living

God by the living Word of God, by Jesus Christ, who is himself the very

Word of God. So I ask you this morning, as we prepare ourselves, to hear the Word of God proclaimed and preached to you.

Are you ready to encounter the living God? I mean, this very morning, this very moment, as the living

Word from men with feet of clay has been and, God willing, in a moment, again, will be declared to you, the very living

Word, the powerful and active Word of God, given to us by the living

God, not the God who was, not the God who will be, the God who is and always was and ever will be, are you ready to encounter the living

God? God willing, you are. We are going to preach this morning from Exodus 3, one through 14.

I'm not in a series, so obviously, I drew that out as a subject, which I, God willing, according to his spirit, got sort of excited about.

So if I ask you, are you ready to encounter the living God this moment, and in the few moments to come, and in the rest of the worship of this day,

I can tell you that Moses, who we're going to encounter in a moment, was not. We're gonna come to Moses in Exodus 3, which

I'll read in a moment, and he had in mind only the trifling details of his vocation, his concerns in the world.

He was tending his father -in -law's sheep, and he was, as it were, his chief shepherd. And he had taken his sheep, and you will hear about this in a moment, he had taken them far from their usual paths, and he was a long way from his home, which was, at that time, in a land called

Midian, and as we'll read in a moment, he comes to Mount Horeb, the mountain of the

Lord. And we're gonna spend just a moment before I read to get ourselves caught up in this book of Exodus.

We're gonna be in chapter three, and so we're gonna fly very quickly in just a few sentences to get ourselves to this point.

In Exodus chapter one, Egypt gets a new king who knew not Joseph, and he sees this people

Israel who's growing and growing as two things. On the one hand, he sees them as a threat, a threat should they ally themselves with Egypt's enemies, and then they'd be overwhelmed from within.

He sees them also as a resource, as forced labor, as slaves, which he did, and he enslaved them, and so began the four centuries of slavery that was prophesied by the

Lord to Abraham back in Genesis 15. So that's chapter one. In chapter two,

Moses is born. His sister Miriam rescues him from Pharaoh's order to kill the

Israelite male children, where Pharaoh prophesies forward, if you will, to the bloodthirsty

Herod and his slaughter of every male, if only he could include Jesus among those slaughtered.

Moses becomes a prince of Egypt. He's raised in that way. One day sees an Egyptian taskmaster abusing a

Hebrew slave and kills him, and next he tries to intervene between two Hebrews who are fighting each other, and one of them says to him, do you mean to kill me as you kill the

Egyptian? So knowing that the murder was committed and known, he flees to Midian.

He marries Zipporah, daughter to Jethro, the Midianite priest. He becomes his chief shepherd, and so began his four decades of exile from Egypt.

So that's the quick summary. That's going to get us to Exodus chapter three, verses one through 14, where begins the redemption of God's people, and this redemption of God's people begins to unfold with one of the best known of all theophanies in the

Bible, a theophany being an appearance of God in history. The God of the living comes to bring life to the dead, and he reveals himself to Moses in what we're going to read in just a moment, and if you would now please stand for that reading.

Exodus chapter three, and verses one through 14. 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, and 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 had turned aside to see, God 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'm 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.

I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey to the place of the

Canaanites, the Hivites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the

Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh 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 Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? He said, but I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to 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 has 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 bless the reading of this word. Now it's proclamation. Please be seated. And let us once again go to this living

God and pray his help in the preaching and the hearing of this word. Heavenly Father, again we come to you, the living

God, with before us your living word, given to us to draw us ever closer to the image of our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So Father, we pray that you would once again accomplish that in us by your spirit and by the hearing of this holy and good and living and powerful word that you have given us.

And they all be done decently, orderly, and in a way that brings glory to your name and none other.

For we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. So we have this marvelous appearance of God.

This flame in the midst of a bush and this bush that is not consumed by the flame that catches

Moses' attention and he goes to see this great sight, why this bush is not consumed.

And this is where we're really gonna focus our time. We're gonna leave a lot of details on the table as it were because I want to focus in upon this appearance of God and what it means to us.

Do you see this symbolism in God's appearance? A flame in the midst of a bush that is engulfed by the flame and yet not consumed by the flame.

There's symbolism there. There's purpose in God's appearance. He heard the groanings of his people.

They were dead in their slavery to Egypt. They were not a nation. They were simply this mass of people working for the

Egyptians, working as slaves, and God had come for a purpose, the purpose being to keep his word of life, which he had given to Abraham centuries before to redeem this very people from that very nation.

There's purpose in this appearance and there's also assurance to the people he's going to redeem in the name that is revealed,

Yahweh, a name that was not known by those who first heard the promise of this very event, the exodus, which is the redemption of his people.

So there's symbolism in this bush that has a flame in the midst of it but is not consumed by the flame.

There's purpose in God's appearance in what he reveals to Moses because he's going to redeem his people according to his own word.

And there's assurance given in that name, that name Yahweh, to assure the people that he will indeed accomplish his purpose.

So let's dig into this. Let us see what is really happening here in Exodus chapter three, this wonderful, well -known appearance of God in the burning bush.

What was meant by the theophany? Theophany, appearance of God, Theo, God, phany, which is where we get phanero or from phanero, meaning appearance.

So this appearance of God, what's meant by the theophany of the burning bush? More properly, we should actually call it a

Christophany. A Christophany, an appearance of Christ, the pre -incarnate

Christ, the eternal second person of the Trinity, the Son of God. The angel of the

Lord who speaks without reference to any outside authority, who declares

God's purposes in the first person is none other than this God the Son, Jesus Christ, prior to his incarnation.

So the symbolism of the burning bush, what is it? I mean, it's been variously understood and you can read through the commentators and there's a lot of really good theories and understandings of what it really represents.

Some say that it represented Israel in the fire of their slavery, the cauldron in which they slaved for the

Egyptians. And here they are slaving away and yet not consumed by this fire of slavery.

Others saw it as holiest, as flame speaks of holiness and cleansing.

Still others saw the flame as the coming judgment against Egypt. There's a lot of theories.

But Moses is about to hear this name. This name, Yahweh, I am.

And we're gonna come to that in a few moments. He appeared to Moses in the flame in the midst of the bush and the two things are distinct.

That's the first thing we have to realize here. The two are distinct. There's the flame and there's the bush that is in the midst of the flame or the flame in the midst of the bush, excuse me.

That the flame burned without consuming the bush has to do with this name, this name,

Yahweh. This name Yahweh, which means I am. Like Yahweh himself, the flame existed because of itself and depended on nothing outside of itself to keep itself going.

So why is there this flame in the midst of this bush and Moses sees it from whatever distance he was and he can see right away that the bush is not being consumed by the flame.

What does this have to do with what is being revealed in those 14 verses I read to you in just a moment ago?

Well, like Yahweh, like I am, the flame existed because of itself and it didn't need the fuel of the bush to sustain itself.

The flame simply was, like Yahweh, who simply is.

You know, they say that perpetual motion is the holy grail of physics, but according to the law of thermodynamics, of which

I am no expert, energy cannot be created or destroyed and according to that idea, then, perpetual motion, this holy grail of physics is impossible.

Well, God stands further above perpetual motion as, for example, a

Mount Everest might stand above its first grain of sand at its lowest level of its foundation, infinitely further than that.

You see, energy must be found. You get wood, you get oil, you get uranium, and then it has to be put to use to make heat or to do work, as they call it.

Yahweh, this Lord who appeared to Moses in this bush, like the flame that existed independent of the environment in which it appeared,

Yahweh is, he just is. He is, he was, he is to come.

He never was not. Now, remember, I call this a Christophany, an appearance of the pre -incarnate

Christ who always was and always will be and is to come.

You think of the ancient heretic Arius who said that there was a time when the sun was not.

Wrong, no, the church gathered together and fought against that, and they finally got him to admit that this was really the implication of his theology and his doctrine that he was spreading.

There never was a time when God was not, and that includes Father, Son, Spirit, the one true and living

God. God just is, and God depends on nothing or anyone outside of himself.

And I think this is the significance of this flame in the midst of the bush and the bush not being consumed.

The flame, which is the appearance of God, does not need the bush to sustain itself.

He doesn't need food, he doesn't need rest, he doesn't need nutrition, he doesn't need anything.

He is Yahweh. This is the revelation here. He just is.

He said to Moses, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

Not a separate God for each of those three patriarchs. He is the one and only and true and living

God who revealed himself to each of those in turn. He revealed himself to them.

You know, it's a miracle of grace that the Lord reveals himself to anyone. You know,

Romans 1, verse 18 and following speaks of God's revelation of himself and his very nature by the testimony of what he has made.

By creation, by nature itself. You can look and see that God is holy and that the creation is ordered.

And he's a God to whom you must reach out and seek to know better and to see his holiness and the need for repentance.

That's all in the testimony of nature, what he has made. But that's what we call natural revelation.

A sort of passive communication, which if you consider it with sanity, it will drive you, it will drive men, according to what

Paul says in Acts chapter 17, to grope, as it were, after Jesus Christ. To seek repentance and faith and eternal life in him.

Drive men to grope after Jesus. Drive men to pray to the Lord that he would further reveal himself.

Reveal himself to me personally. Because you see, any revelation of God to anyone is a wonder of grace.

It's a miracle of God's goodness and his holiness and his great purposes, his eternal purposes, in Jesus Christ, his son.

Jesus Christ said in Matthew 11, 27, all things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.

That sounds very theoretical in one sense, doesn't it? Just this idea that God could potentially reveal himself to you?

But the apostle Paul makes this very personal, makes this very individual. In Galatians chapter one, verse 16, he writes of God, who was pleased to reveal his son to me.

So know this, as we consider this revelation of Yahweh to Moses and this beginning of redemption of the people of Israel and the keeping of God's promise, know this, that if you know

God by faith in his son, Jesus Christ, it was not of your own doing. Listen, you didn't figure out that there's a

God out there. Now, you're accountable for it by looking at the stars and the trees and nature and all that he has made.

You are accountable to know that there's a God, and as I said a moment ago, quoting Paul from Acts 17, you need to grope after him, to seek him, to plead with him that he would reveal himself to you further.

But if you know Jesus Christ, if you love God because of your faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ, by grace you've been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God.

What's the gift of God? Not the grace, that's his nature. The faith that he gives you is the gift of God.

You didn't figure it out yourself. Any more than Moses here at the burning bush figured anything out, he was attracted to it.

God drew him to it, as God draws you to his son and gives you faith to believe in his son.

If you know God by faith in his son, it was not your own doing, it was not my own doing.

God willing, it could be through the preaching by a mere man like myself or Pastor Brian or Pastor Connolly, and yet, who gets the glory?

Who gets the praise? Jesus Christ and none other, because only by him can this have occurred.

If you believe in Christ's atoning death and his resurrection, it's by God's grace showered down upon you personally, the son of God, a

God who is pleased to reveal his son to you. There's purpose in the

Christophany of the burning bush. Listen to this again from verse seven. God says,

I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters.

I know their sufferings and I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and then the list of all those ites who are going to be displaced by them.

And then he goes on in verse nine. Behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me and I've seen the oppression with which the

Egyptians oppressed them. Come, I'll send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

There's purpose here. Redemption, promises kept, promises kept by Yahweh who needs no power outside of himself to energize himself in order to keep his word.

The one who is and always was and ever shall be will keep his word.

Redemption, promises kept and fulfilled. Life to the dead and freedom to the oppressed.

God had seen, he was aware, nothing of their suffering had escaped his notice. Now sometimes

God is perceived as a distant, disinterested, disengaged, uninvolved deity.

One who put wheels in motion, set the laws in place, and then kind of spun it all, got it all going and sat back to see what might happen.

And he's looking down upon this people who is not really Israel yet.

They will become Israel through this redemption that will ensue. And he's looking down upon them and he sees something and he says, oh, that poor man, he died of heat stroke and exhaustion because of the cruelty of his taskmasters.

And over there, that skin torn open by the taskmaster's lash, oh, that must have hurt too bad.

I wonder if they'll ever get themselves out of this mess because I put them there and let's see how they redeem themselves.

Nothing could be further from the truth of God, though he is sometimes perceived that way.

Sometimes even worshiped in that way, it's almost blasphemous because God is so personal and God is so close to his people.

It's nothing like that at all. He says this, he says, I have heard their cry. I've heard their cry, their groanings, their bitterness of spirit, the bitterness of their souls like the martyrs in Revelation chapter six.

Those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne, they cried out with a loud voice, oh, sovereign

Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

Then they're each given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

You see, God doesn't just hear the groanings of his people.

He cares about that for which we groan. He's deeply concerned about our suffering.

He cares about your suffering, not as a distant God who cares because he's just curious to see how you're gonna figure it out and get yourself out of whatever mess you got yourself into.

No, he cares in a deep and personal and individual way.

He says he heard the groanings of his people. And it reminds me of what

Paul writes in Acts, not Acts, excuse me, Romans 8 26. Just this one verse, let me read this to you.

The apostle Paul writes, likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness. Was there ever a people weaker, more helpless, more need of help than Israel in Egypt?

So the spirit helps us, we, the church, you, the saint, the believer in Jesus Christ, he helps us in our weakness.

For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Why does God hear you? Why does God hear these groanings and these sufferings about which he cares so much?

Because the spirit of God and this wonder of grace, this miracle of God's mercy brings your groanings to the throne itself.

And as the apostle Paul writes in Romans 8 26, it's as if all we can do is say, ah, and we can't even verbalize or articulate how hard it is, whatever it is you're going through.

And yet know this, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that gift of faith that God gave,

God willing to everyone in this room, and God willing if you don't know him before you leave this place, you will be groping after him and seeking after him.

That's the level of care he has, that he by his own spirit takes that groan from within that cannot even be articulated.

You can't verbalize it. You can't make a sensible sentence out of it. And yet God by his spirit does exactly that.

God told Moses, he heard the groanings of his people. Paul tells the church that the spirit hears and translates, if you will, your groanings.

Not a far off distant God, personal God, makes known to you personally, individually, his son,

Jesus Christ, and gives you personally, individually, the resonance of his spirit.

No, he says, I've heard their cry. He heard their groanings.

We can stop for just a moment and again allude to something the apostle Paul asked in Romans 3.

What advantage then has the Jew? Well, in this case, much in every way. They knew that they were miserable.

They knew that they had something to groan about. If they had lost their collective memory of who God is, they had held onto some trace memory that he is and that he does hear because they were groaning to him.

They're groaning out, they're calling out in their misery. And now they're going to hear from Moses that God heard and God cares and God has come to do something about it.

God doesn't just hear, he doesn't just watch. One of my favorite texts when

I have the honor of preaching at memorials is John chapter 11, when

Jesus goes to Lazarus' funeral. I'm not gonna preach that whole sermon as an excursus within this sermon, just to tell you this, that God cares so much about things that happen to us here like death, that he did something about it.

He just doesn't watch it happen and say, oh, that's too bad. He does something about it. He sent his son, Jesus Christ to die because of death, if you will, and to have a resurrection so that we can know that death has been overcome and that the victory is

Jesus Christ and we will follow in that train of victory one day. He says,

I know their sufferings. He's seen and he's heard the groanings.

Okay, so he's omniscient, he's omnipresent, he knows all things, but then he says, I know their suffering.

To know in the Hebrew can have an intellectual aspect. I know and I understand the facts of the matter. Okay, so like a lawyer, like a scientist, like an accountant, but to know in Hebrew, especially when the word is used in the context of a relationship as it is here,

I know their suffering, it speaks of intimacy. Often speaks of the intimacy of a man and a woman, of deep concern.

It speaks of someone whose relationship with another is so deep and so intimate and so committed that they actually enter into the other's experiences.

So God says, I've seen, I've heard. Okay, now he says,

I know. It's as if he's saying here, I have entered into that suffering.

I've entered into the misery. I know what they're going through. Now, who was speaking to Moses when

God said, I know their suffering? I said a moment ago, it was a Christophany. An appearance of the pre -incarnate

Jesus Christ. It's Jesus who spoke to Moses. It's Jesus who as God became man.

It's he, it's Jesus who as man suffered everything that mankind suffers, that you suffer, that I suffer, that all the world suffers.

It's Jesus Christ who can say, I know their suffering. Now, this is centuries before he became man.

His incarnation was yet to come. And yet, there was never a moment in all eternity when

Jesus Christ was not going to become man and experience and know our sufferings and our joys and the pleasure of good food like at the wedding at Cana and the sorrow of losing someone close like the funeral in John chapter 11.

It's Jesus speaking to Moses here. It's Jesus who, when he became man, was tempted in every way that we are, every way that you are, yet was without sin.

He felt the sting of rejection and he felt the sting of the Roman lash. He laughed with guests at a wedding and he wept at a funeral.

It's Jesus from the bush who said to Moses, I know their suffering.

And it's Jesus Christ, the same Jesus Christ who says to you,

I know your suffering. Not just aware of your suffering, he does something about it.

He sent Jesus because of our suffering. Our suffering under the law of sin and death which has ruled ever since Adam's sin brought death.

Our suffering in our estrangement from God because of our sin. As the prophet said, your sins have hidden his face from you.

He experienced himself all the misery in the world because of sin, yet never sinned. And then all the misery we deserve because of our sin.

He who never sinned faced God's judgment and faced God's wrath because of our sin.

Everything that God holds against you and me properly holds against us. Jesus Christ bore in his own body as he hung on the cross.

When Jesus says, I know, he speaks as God who became man and entered fully into our experience.

My experience, your experience. Moses needed something more than just a link to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob though.

He needed something more. He knew he was gonna be asked, who is he? Who's this God that you met with? They'd been slave for four centuries.

So when they asked me, what is his name? What shall I say to them? And we've covered the symbolism of this theophany and the purpose behind it.

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. I am, that's where we get

Yahweh. Sometimes written out as Jehovah. It's not so much a name as it is a state of being.

God, as I've said, just is. He just is. Like the flame that had no need of the bush for fuel,

God just exists. Yahweh is not so much a title, it's a statement of authority.

You know, a few weeks ago in Sunday school, Pastor Brian taught on this name, on Yahweh.

And I really do commend this study to you, just as, well, they've all been very good. But there's one particular one on Yahweh I really commend you to get a hold of.

Talk to James at the sound booth, see if you can get the recording of it. Talk to Brian and get the notes that he put out because here's the important thing he brought out, it was really exciting to hear.

It was really exciting to hear this. One of the things he brought out was how easily the scriptures, Old Testament and New Testament alike, how easily they attribute this name,

Yahweh, I am that I am, I am who I am, he who is and was and is yet to come, how easily it takes this one name, this title of authority, this state of being,

Yahweh, and attributes it so naturally and easily to each member of the

Holy Trinity. Old Testament and New Testament alike, you gotta get the notes if you missed that. The Father is

Yahweh, the Son, Jesus Christ, is Yahweh, and this really got me excited because I didn't really, hadn't known this before,

I have to admit it. The Spirit of God is also Yahweh.

Yahweh. Why did God reveal himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? As we read in Exodus chapter six, which we're not gonna go to, but he says, by my name,

El Shaddai, I was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They didn't know me as Yahweh. They knew me as El Shaddai, as God Almighty.

That name evokes something wonderful. It's infinite power. It's power that accomplishes his own holy will.

That's how they knew him. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew him as El Shaddai. Now with the name

Yahweh, he's come to keep the word that he, when he revealed himself as El Shaddai to the patriarchs,

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he's come to keep that word, and he reveals himself as Yahweh.

He's come to make a nation out of a rabble, a holy people out of a bunch of slaves, a peculiar treasure out of the least of all peoples.

What has he come for? What's he really doing here?

Brethren, he's giving life to the dead. You could read Ezekiel chapter 37, the valley of dry bones, and he commands the spirit of God to go and raise up those bones and put flesh on them, put sinews on them, put muscles in them, and he raises up that graveyard and gives it life, revives a nation.

This is what he's doing. He, Yahweh, will do this. He, Yahweh, who needs nothing outside of himself to accomplish his own will, will do this.

He doesn't, as I said a moment ago, he doesn't need fuel. He doesn't need food. He doesn't need calories.

He doesn't need exercise or sleep. He just is, and he is all -powerful, and his word will never change.

Yahweh will do it. Moses will use his staff as an instrument. Aaron will speak for him, but to God alone will be the glory.

So why this name? Why now? Because Yahweh is the self -existence of God. It's what

Jesus said in chapter five, verse 26 of John's Gospel. For as the Father has life in himself, is this not what we've been saying?

Life in himself, is that not the name itself, Yahweh? Life in himself? So he has granted the

Son also to have life in himself. I believe that's one of the texts from that Sunday school I referred to before.

To have life in himself is something only God has. It's something that Jesus has, something that the

Spirit has, and something that the Father has. Only Yahweh can make a claim like that. So why now?

I think it was so that when Israel looked at Moses, who had spent 40 years in exile, running from these same

Egyptians who held them in slavery, when they looked back on 400 years of servitude, when they saw themselves owned by the most powerful nation on earth, when they saw all that, they would be able to look beyond their circumstance, to have their eyes of faith descaled, as it were, to see the redemption promised by Yahweh, who needs no assistance to accomplish his will.

Yahweh, whose power is beyond our imagination, and he is simply because he is.

Yahweh, whose word depends on nothing except this, that he gave it. As the

Apostle Paul would write, it is impossible that God should lie. It is impossible that God should give a word and not keep that word.

It is impossible that all the promises of God could be other than amen and yes in Jesus Christ, his son.

What God promises he will do. Hebrews 6 .13 says, for when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater than himself, to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, surely

I will bless you and multiply you. Abraham knew him as God Almighty. Now this people would know him as Yahweh, not two gods, nor two purposes, one true

God who gives assurance to his people. Yahweh will keep his word because he cannot lie by giving a promise that he won't keep.

And that is able to do this is in that name, Yahweh, whose existence, whose purpose, whose power, whose holiness is in and of himself.

Well, that's the symbolism. That's the purpose. That's the assurance of this great

Christophany. We could argue one of the best, if not the best known of all theophanies, appearances of God.

So it only remains to ask ourselves, what's the ultimate and true meaning of the Christophany of Exodus chapter three, verses one through 14?

What does it ultimately tell us? What does it ultimately teach us? Well, simply this, new life to the dead by the power of the resurrection.

Israel was a mass of slaves. They were not a nation. Exodus three, one through 14, and especially verse six,

I'm the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob is about the resurrection.

And I say this with complete confidence. I say this with ultimate authority, which is the word of God and the word of God and quoting

Jesus Christ himself. It was he who spoke from the midst of the bush of the new life by the resurrection.

Now to see this, turn to Matthew chapter 22 in your Bibles. I'll read this to you, but I'd like you to read along.

Matthew 22, I'm gonna read from verse 23. The same day,

Sadducees came to him, who say there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, teacher,

Moses said, if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.

Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died and having no offspring left his wife to his brother.

So to the second and third down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died.

In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife shall she be? For they all had her.

That's a clever trap in the intricacies of which we're going to leave behind. But that's the setup here.

In verse 29, we read this, but Jesus answered them, you are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.

For in the resurrection, they shall neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. See, they didn't know the scriptures or the

God of the scriptures. Let's go on, verse 31. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God?

Now you're gonna recognize verse 32 here in Matthew 22. You're gonna recognize it as Exodus chapter three, verse six, which is exactly what

Jesus is quoting where he says, have you not read what was said to you by God? I am the God of Abraham and the

God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Who's Jesus quoting here?

Don't say God. He's quoting himself. So you can say God, yes, that would be absolutely true, but let's get a little more detailed.

He's quoting himself. What he told Moses century before from the burning bush.

God the Son, the eternal second person of the Holy Trinity is the one who spoke to Moses. And what does he say? The very word of God, what does he say is proven by what he said to Moses in Exodus chapter three, verse six.

I don't know how to make that not a rhetorical question. I'd love to hear everybody shout it out. What is proven by Exodus chapter three, verse six?

And the class said, the resurrection. I used to be an elementary school teacher as a substitute.

I loved the elementary kids. And I used to have to say that. I'd give the question and I just taught them the answer.

And I'd say, and the class said, and they look at me, oh, are we supposed to say something? Yes, give me the answer.

What's proven by Exodus chapter three, verse six? And the class said, the resurrection. See, I didn't make that up and I'm not being clever with the scripture.

I'm simply quoting our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He's not the

God of the dead, but of the living. And how is he the God of the living? By the resurrection. What's being prophesied in Israel being brought from the death of slavery and made into a nation, a nation of priests before God who will worship him on that mountain?

The resurrection. It's the power of the resurrection that's going to accomplish this. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they all died.

Scripture records each one's final breath and yet the resurrection. They live now in the presence of Christ awaiting the resurrection of their bodies, the great foundation of the faith.

So where was Israel's hope? Well, they didn't have the vocabulary, but Jesus says that verse six of Exodus three, coming just before he tells

Moses his purpose of redeeming Israel is all about the resurrection. You know,

Yahweh says to the prophet Malachi, I, the Lord, do not change.

We worship the same God, the same Jesus Christ who spoke to Moses is the focus of our worship here today.

And his working is very much the same. Ephesians chapter two.

Let me just read to you these verses. We will close in a moment. Ephesians chapter two, beginning at verse one.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

Can we just said dead in trespass and sin, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places.

Do you hear the resurrection? How were you brought from dead in trespass and sin to alive in Christ?

The resurrection, by the resurrection. Raised us up with him, seated us with him in the heavenly places so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in the kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you've been saved through faith and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Exodus 3 .6

is about the resurrection. Israel is gonna be brought from the death of slavery and into nationhood before God by the power of the resurrection.

We, a nation, a holy people, according to 1 Peter chapter two, by the same power, the

God of the living, not the dead, by the power of the resurrection by which he raised his son

Jesus Christ from the dead. It's the power by which he gave you faith to believe in that son and to believe that we will follow in a resurrection like his.

Exodus 3 .6 is about what? The resurrection. Israel, dead in their slavery, came into nationhood by the resurrection.

You like them, unless God should reveal his son to you and give you life, new life, give you real life, by the resurrection you would be dead in trespass, in sin and eternal misery.

Israel groaned under the weight of their burdens. You might not even know you have a burden. Like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, you're weighed down with a sack of sin that can only be deposited in one place, the foot of the cross, and that by one means, by faith in him who hung there on that cross and paid for those very sins, which comes to you by one means, and one means only,

God's grace to sinners by which he reveals his son and by the resurrection gives eternal life.

If you cry out to him, scripture says he will by no means turn you away. He who said, I know their suffering,

I know your suffering, he knows your suffering and he will raise you up, if only you will believe and call out to this

God of the living. Amen? Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day that you've given us once again and for the appearance of Christ to Moses and all that it means to us this day and how consistent are your workings.

Oh, Father, that we might believe all the more in the resurrection and not doubt. To believe that you raised your son,

Jesus Christ from the dead and we will follow in a resurrection like his. Lord, may that be our hope.

May that be our bulwark against all that we face in this world and may you,

Father, receive all the glory as we do all things to the honor of your name. In Jesus' name, amen.