Exodus 3 - The Burning Bush (Bible Study)

How's everyone doing? Good. Before we begin, I just want to go through this. This is something new. We normally don't have the whiteboard out. Unless you know all of this already, you're probably not going to get it just once through.

Might not get it twice through, but we're going to go over it now, and then we'll do it again later on when we're in the middle of the study, OK? And I apologize to Mark and Charlie. You probably can't see this all that well.

OK, you can get a picture after. So Exodus 3 is what we're going to be looking at. And we're going to be, the main focus of Exodus 3 is the personal name of God, which we say the Lord, but it's also rendered as Jehovah, or more commonly these days, Yahweh.

And the technical term for it is the, as you can see, how do you pronounce this? Who wants to give a? Tetragrammaton. Hey, all right. Tetragrammaton. How many of you have played Tetris? I'm surprised it's that many.

Tetris, all the blocks, there's how many blocks? Four, right? So tetra means four. Grammaton, that basically means letters. So the four letters, and what are the four letters? Yod. Y-H, we're doing it in English, Marcus.

We're not going that deep tonight. Y-H-W-H. And in Exodus 3, this is the name that God gives I am, who I am. Right. So I am is the tetragrammaton, the four letters Y-H-W-H. But the Jews just rendered this Lord.

They didn't want to use God's name. They were afraid to use it in vain, so they just swapped it out with Lord. And in our English translations, it's capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. So how many of you this is familiar to?

At least that part is. OK, just about everybody. So Lord in all capitals is this name I am, Y-H-W-H, which is either Jehovah. Most scholars think that that's incorrect, but that's what they used to think.

Now they think it's Yahweh, and of course, you can sort of see how it would sound that way. But they had to add vowels because you can't pronounce this with all consonants. So what they did is they basically took the vowels from the other use of Lord with lowercase O-R-D, which is Adonai in Hebrew, which means master.

They took the vowels from Adonai and inserted them into Y-H-W-H. That gave them Jehovah, and it goes through the languages. I mean, if that doesn't make sense to you, there's a big, long story behind this.

So just so you're kind of used to this whole thing. And then God, G-O-D, is Elohim. So all right, with all of that said, let's pray, and then we will listen to Exodus chapter 3. Lord, as we look at this chapter in your word, help us to understand the gravity of your name.

As Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord's prayer, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. So Lord, may we keep your name holy. And Lord, if we're going to use your name, we should be talking about you.

We should use it with great reverence. And when we hear others throwing it around, because some just don't really realize it or know better, when they throw around your name, help us to see that as an opportunity to tell them about the holiness of your name.

And we ask all these things in Christ's name. Amen. All right, Exodus chapter 3.

The flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush.

And behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said,.

I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.

So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush,.

Moses, here I am. Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet for the place where you stand is holy ground. 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 upon God.

I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know of their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

Now, therefore, Bill, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

I will certainly do it, and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.

Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, what is his name?

Shall I say? I am who I have been to the children of Israel. I am has sent me to you. Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord 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 to all generations of the children of Israel together, and say to them, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob appeared to me saying, I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt, and I have said I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites to a land flowing with milk and honey.

Then he and the elders of Egypt shall say to him, he may sacrifice to the Lord our God, but I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all of my wonders, which I will do in its midst.

And after that, he will let people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it shall be when he dwells near her house, articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters.

So you shall plunder the Egyptians.

Moses in Midian and the Burning Bush

All right, we ended chapter two last week with Moses in the land of Midian. And who knows where Midian is today? What land is that? Probably close to Jordan. Jordan? Okay, you're close. It's Saudi Arabia.

So very close. So Moses was in the land of Midian. He had to flee Egypt. Remember when he encountered the Egyptian who was beating the Hebrew, and Moses said, I don't think so, not on my watch. And he kills the Egyptian, buries him in the sand.

Pharaoh finds out about it, so Moses has to flee for his life. So now he's living in the land of Midian with his new wife, Zipporah, who is the daughter of Jethro. And we read in verse one of chapter three, it says, now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.

And he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush. So he looked and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.

Then Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn. So I just want to briefly address one thing before we move on. The fact that Jethro is said to be the priest of Midian.

So back then during the patriarchal period, as it's often called, the head of the home or the head of the family was often the priest. And of course, the Midianites descended from Abraham and his second wife, Keturah.

So they would have had a knowledge of the true God. So there's no reason to think that Jethro isn't the priest of the one true God. Later on, we see Jethro giving Moses advice in the ministry. So I was thinking about this.

You know, there's the Levitical priesthood. Obviously that's not a thing yet. There's the priesthood of Melchizedek. So my thought was, what priesthood did Jethro hold? And I don't know that there's an answer for that.

Is there, does anyone have an answer?

Son of the grandson of, you talked about this last week or the week before.

Yeah, so he was a descendant of Abraham. But he knows who God is, that's the point. I like asking questions where there's not really an answer. That's an easy way to stump people.

So Is there a priesthood following after Aaron?

Right, Aaron, so that's the Levitical priesthood, but that hasn't been instituted yet. So it can't be that, we know that for sure. All right, moving on. So let's remember one thing, that God at this point has not really revealed that much about himself.

But all that starts to change here in chapter three and moving forward with the giving of the law. We call this, or the term for it is progressive revelation. So basically as the Bible goes on, people learn more and more and more about God.

Jesus, of course, gave us the most clear representation of who God was. And this leads us to the next thing. It says that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses. Now, who do we believe the angel of the Lord is?

Are we 100 sure about it? I would say 99%. I would say 99. So who do we believe the angel of the Lord is? The Lord, Jesus. Okay, the Lord, yeah. Yeah, he is the Lord. We believe it's a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ.

And as we keep reading, that's going to become more clear because we see that it's actually God speaking to Moses. So first it's the angel of the Lord, then it's God. Well, it's like, well, which is it?

Well, it's both. And of course, in the New Testament, Christ will identify himself as, well, he's called the Lord and he identifies himself by this name, I am, or Jehovah, or Yahweh. We'll get to that at the end.

Any questions or comments so far? No, all right. So before we read further, what about the location of this event? I don't know if I didn't know or I just never thought about it, but where is he? Moses comes to what mountain?

Mount Horeb. Mount Horeb. Okay, so the Hebrew word translated Horeb simply means desert, but it's a mountain in the desert. And we believe this mountain, or I say we believe, I just, this just dawned on me today.

Am I the only one? What mountain is this? Mount Horeb, we know that.

Sinai. Yeah, it's Mount Sinai. Russ. I did a little looking at this myself. Okay, good. A while ago. And it came to the conclusion, it depends on which way you come to the mountain. Okay. What the name is.

All right. Interesting. Or at least that's the way I interpret what I read.

Okay, yeah, and I believe, and it's gonna become clear, I think, that Mount Horeb is Mount Sinai. So that just kind of dawned on me today. So I'm always learning, I guess. But there are some people who will question that.

All right, just like there are some people today who question the location of Mount Sinai. I think there's one in Egypt, and then there's one in Saudi Arabia. And they dispute on which one is the real Mount Sinai.

But in the book of Deuteronomy, there are many places where Mount Horeb is said to be the place where God gave the covenant. And we know that was Mount Sinai. All right, and we understand why it's called the mountain of God.

Okay, he experiences God at the burning bush at this place. God comes down, gives him the 10 commandments. This is a very important site, the mountain of God. So Moses sees this bush off in the distance burning with fire.

And the thing that stands out is it's not consumed. Now, there's a few verses that immediately popped into my mind. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 29, the Bible says, for our God is a consuming fire. This is just the way my mind works.

I read something and I try to associate it with other verses. So our God is a consuming fire. But then in Lamentations 3 .22, it says, through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed. So those verses popped into my head.

And while studying for this, God and how he interacts with men, he makes covenants, which is an act of grace. God does not have to do that. But when he makes a covenant with sinful man, he does it because of his grace and his mercy, his loving kindness.

Because of that, man is not consumed. So can you make a parallel between the bush not being consumed and we are not being consumed? I guess that's what I'm trying to do. Later at Mount Sinai, when God comes down again, you remember what he does again?

He does it with fire. So the mountain is on fire. We'll get to that eventually. And the Israelites, like Moses, are afraid. So if I can put it this way, in these things, in the burning bush, you can see what God is capable of.

You can see what God can do. But because of his mercy, he doesn't do it. We are not consumed.

The bush is not consumed. And if it wasn't for his grace, we would be consumed. Absolutely.

Positively. Because our God is a consuming fire. Right.

Russ. I was gonna say, he also manifested himself as a pillar of fire during the... At night. Yeah. During the fleeing from Egypt. Absolutely. Absolutely. Good. Any other questions or comments?

All right. So Moses approaches the bush. Look at verse four. So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. So the angel of the Lord, we see, we can put this two and two together.

The angel of the Lord is the visible manifestation of God. Because he's seeing something, and it's the angel of the Lord and it's God. So here's another question. I don't know if there's one right answer.

Is this a Christophany or a Theophany? What's the difference? Christophany is Christ. Okay. Christophany is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. A Theophany is a visible manifestation of God.

So which do you think this is? What? Theophany. A Theophany. Okay. Yeah, I would agree with that. In Christ, yes. Christ is God. So I don't know that there's a wrong answer to that, but.

Christ said, if he who has seen me has seen the Father. Right, right.

So Moses responds in verse five. He says, here I am. Then he said, the Lord said, do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet for the place where you stand is holy ground. Moreover, 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 upon God. I have one more, I have a lot of questions tonight for you guys. Why was the ground holy? He says it's holy ground. Why, what made the ground holy?

Okay, God's presence sanctified the ground.

All this talk of fire, I think I want some kind of insulator between my feet and the ground.

Why does Moses have to take off his sandals? Because one thing that is being made clear from this moment on, all throughout the Old Testament, it's brought out in the priesthood, in the rituals, all the things the people had to do.

We see that God is communicating something, that he is holy and that God is unapproachable. Okay, I want you to have that fixed in your mind. At this moment and throughout the Old Testament, God is portraying himself as a God who is unapproachable.

That's the picture of God in the Old Testament. He's unapproachable. For those who could approach God, Moses does that to an extent. It was only certain people at certain times, and they had to go through certain preparations.

So that's the picture of God that we get. With the fire, Moses is afraid. Later on at Mount Sinai, the children of Israel are afraid. Remember the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah chapter six, when he sees a vision of the Lord high and lifted up, what does he say?

He's afraid. He says, woe is me for I am undone. So that's the picture we get of God. He's unapproachable. In the New Testament, God is approachable through Christ to where this fearful God is now our heavenly father.

Now, before we move on, that whole concept can be very distorted. As I'm sure some of you know, don't get the idea and don't say that I said this, God is the mean one, and Jesus is kind of the softer side of God.

That's not true. Who sent Christ in the first place? God the Father. God the Father sent him. So God is gracious. Christ is gracious. God has wrath. Christ has wrath. So don't ever get the idea, or the even worse concept that people say, the God of the Old Testament is da-da-da-da-da, and then the God as if they're two different gods.

So we don't wanna make any of those errors. But God is unapproachable in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the veil in the temple is rent top to bottom. So now there's this access that was not there before, and it's only there in Christ.

Yes? We're told to come boldly into his showroom. Right, yep. But my concept of that is that I'm going to be flat on my face.

Yeah, yeah. You ever hear people say, you know, when I get to heaven, I'm gonna ask God a few things. I don't know. I don't think that's gonna happen. But we see God's mercy and compassion in verse seven.

I don't want to paint the wrong idea or the wrong picture here. Verse seven, and the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

So the Lord goes on to promise that he will deliver the children of Israel, and he will bring them into the land that he promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And what does he call that land? Flowing with milk and honey.

A land flowing with milk and honey, which means what? Rich. Right, there's. Supplies every need to know how. Makes me want some ice cream. That's okay. Later, after. But he tells Moses, the Lord tells Moses, I'm gonna deliver them, but you're gonna do it.

I'm choosing you. You're the man. You're going to do this. Verse 10, come now therefore, and 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 that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. This I think is a reasonable question. Perhaps Moses years ago, 40 years ago plus, he was a prince in Pharaoh's court and maybe he was in some position to say something to Pharaoh, but for the past 40 years, what's he been doing?

Yeah, he's some shepherd out in the wilderness and the new Pharaoh doesn't know him from Adam. So this whole idea that I'm, you're gonna send me to the most powerful man on earth to tell him to let my people go, he hasn't got that far yet.

But Moses is like, this is, I can't do this. And I think that's reasonable. However, what does the Lord say to him in verse 12? And this is all a child of God ever needs to hear this. God says, I will certainly be with you.

Does that sound familiar? Who is the Lord said this to before in Genesis? I know he said this to Isaac. Joshua. Okay, he says that he's gonna say it a lot of times to a lot of people. He does say it to Joshua.

But the last person we saw that he said this to was Jacob. Jacob was at a point in his life where he really needed some encouragement and the Lord told him, I will be with you. And that's all he needed to hear.

And that should be all Moses needs to hear, but he's gonna protest this some more. All right, did I see another hand?

Jim. One of the phrases that are common in scripture is do not fear. And when you look up that phrase, find that it's used 365 times. Did you go through and count? No, I just took strong six hours.

All right, that works too.

But it's do not fear for every day of the year.

Good, well, that's an easy way to remember that. Amen. Amen. All right, so in verse 12, we're gonna see that Mount Horeb is Mount Sinai. Verse 12, and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God. What? On this mountain. So I think that pretty much settles the question that Mount Horeb is Mount Sinai. Verse 13, then Moses said to God, indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, what is his name?

What shall I say to them? And this is the name of the Lord that is given. And we're gonna spend the remainder of our time on this. Look at verse 14. And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus, you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you.

So let's remember that God has many names, all right? Just like Jesus has many names or titles. For Christ, there's what? Something like 300 different names. And no, I did not go through and count and check all of them, but I've read it somewhere.

And I've checked most of them.

But what are some of the names of Christ? Lily of the Valley, and those kind of things.

Yeah, Jesus, obviously, and then Christ is a title. One, Prince of Peace, Mighty God, the Good Shepherd, Emmanuel, the Door, the Branch, the Word. Okay, we could go on all night. But there's many names of God also.

So God has many names. But the two primary names for God, and this is where we get into the whiteboard here, are God, G-O-D, which the word in Hebrew is Elohim. That's the plural form. And then L-E-L, singular.

And then there's compounds of El Shaddai and all the rest. So there's God, and then there is Lord, right? These are the two primary names of God, God and Lord. And as you see, there's the capital O-R-D, and then the capital L, lowercase, O-R-D.

There's one other question. Turn to Exodus chapter six. Have you ever studied the scripture? You come to something and like, oh yeah, I know the answer to this. I know what this is about. But then there's this little thought in the back of your mind.

It's like, I better double-check that. And sometimes when you double-check, you realize, oh yeah, that's not quite right. So this is why we always need to continue reading our Bible, studying our Bible.

Never come to the place where you think you got it all figured out, because I promise you, you don't. Exodus six, verses two and three. It says, and God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord, all capital letters, right?

I appear to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name Lord, I was not known to them. Again, notice capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. And if you have the King James version of the Bible, it says, but by my name Jehovah, I was not known to them.

So if you read that, it certainly sounds like God is saying, Abraham didn't know my name, Jehovah. I mean, isn't that what it sounds like he's saying? What's the problem? Many problems. Remember in Genesis 22, the Lord tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

And we know the story, it doesn't end up happening. He finds the ram caught in the thicket and he names that place, what? Jehovah-Jireh. So how can Abraham not know this name, but he named the place Jehovah-Jireh?

So this is one of those passages in the Bible that the skeptics and the critics are gonna say what? It's a contradiction and it is kind of a conundrum and we'll look at potential answer solution for that.

But let's go through this again. Notice it's the name, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. What name of God is this? Lord means what? You tell me. Jehovah, Yahweh. These are the two accepted names.

So God is Elohim, Lord, all capital, Jehovah, and Yahweh. And then Lord, lowercase O-R-D, let me stand in front of it so you can't look. The lowercase O-R-D is what? Adonai.

Adonai, so you guys are good. But the Jews do use Adonai often or Hashem, the name. In place of the Y-H-W-H, they use Adonai often too, or Adon.

So verse 14 again, look at it. And God said to Moses, here's my name, I am who I am. You ever thought, well, what does that mean? It's kind of a strange response. If you're reading it for the first time or the first time you did read it, you're gonna stop and say, well, what is that?

Is that even an answer? Okay, I'm seeing a few hands. So Russ. Self-existent one. Okay, good, good. Not I was, not I will be, just I am. So this is the eternal, self-existent, immutable God. He's always been, always will be, never changes.

So that's the meaning between, or the meaning of I am. Jim, did you have something to add to that?

Self-existent from eternity past, present, and future. Amen, yes.

So you say, well, okay, what about these two terms, Jehovah and Yahweh, which is it? Well, the difficulty is that you're taking a Hebrew word, and Hebrew is an ancient language that was a dead language for a time in that people didn't speak it as their everyday language.

And Hebrew, this name, I am, the Jews, as I said, they would not use this name. So over time, they forgot how to pronounce it because nobody was pronouncing it. So at some point, this name was lost, but you still have the Y-H-W-H.

We know that much. And what are they in? Yod, Teh, B 'Av, Teh. All right, good. See, this is the providence of God that he wore that shirt tonight. Is that what that is? You could say yes, and we wouldn't know, probably.

And it has the, well, they're all consonants, but just. Hebrew just has consonants at the beginning, but they add vowels now, and that's what the little dots and so forth are.

All right, so just go through this again. This is called the Tetragrammaton, which means the four letters. Y-H-W-H, I-N. And why did they just insert Lord instead of this? What was the reason?

Because it was such a holy phrase. They didn't want to use it in vain because of, what is it, the sixth commandment? Third commandment, right.

Unless you're Roman Catholic, then it's the second commandment, but that's another story for another day. All right, so Jehovah Yahweh, they got Jehovah. This was popular. This is what most people thought 100 years ago, right?

You had the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Jehovah's Witnesses will make a really big deal. This is the true name of God. And the tendency for some Christians is to not want to use it because they're afraid people are gonna think we're Jehovah's Witnesses or something, don't worry about that.

But most scholars today do not think that that is correct. They believe the proper pronunciation is Yahweh, but again, you have to insert vowels to be able to pronounce it. Bottom line is we're not 100 sure.

And I would just caution you. There's some people, they want to make a big deal. Like if you don't pronounce the name just right, then you don't really have the power of God. People will do this with the name of Jesus that you need to call him Yeshua.

So if you're calling him Jesus, you're not spiritual, you don't have the power of God, you have to say Yeshua. Or then there's people say, no, that's wrong, it's Yahshua. And that might be totally new for some of you, but there are people out there that make a very, very big deal about this stuff.

And I would just say, I don't think there's any way to be 100 sure. And by the way, we speak English, so I'm not too worried about other languages anyways. But all right, now this question of chapter six and chapter three, it sounds like that this is a new thing.

And Abraham knew me as God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah or Yahweh, I was not known to them. And yet Abraham used the name Yahweh or Jehovah. I wanna read a comment by John MacArthur. He says, listen closely now, this is his solution to this problem.

Since the name Yahweh was spoken before the flood and later by the patriarchs, the special significance of Yahweh unknown to them, but to be known by their descendants must arise from what God would reveal of himself in keeping the covenant and in redeeming Israel.

That's John MacArthur's solution to this. You got that? I don't, I don't know. To me, this is still kind of, doesn't really answer the questions in my mind. If somebody totally got that, you explain it to the rest of us.

Okay, we're gonna have to look into that. Someone comes up with a better answer, more simple answer, come talk to me during the week. So before we close, as far as this name, I Am, again, verses that pop into your head, what should pop into your head?

I Am. When Jesus said, when the soldiers asked him, and he said, I Am, and they fell, they fell backwards.

Okay, right, yeah, and in the gospel of John, there are the eight I Am statements. I thought it was seven. Of Christ, I believe it's eight. Okay, is that, can I get a witness, eight? Dennis seems to agree.

And then in John 8, 58, Jesus takes this most holy name of God, I Am, and then he applies it to himself. He says, most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am. And then what happened next? The Jews took up stones to stone him.

Why, because they knew exactly what he was saying. He was saying, I Am, I Am the great I Am. I Am your God. I Am the God of Israel. So let's end with this. As for the book of Exodus, we know that God was going to make himself known in a very personal way to Moses and the children of Israel.

That's partially, I think, what this name is all about. And no one, up until this time, maybe they did know the name, but they're going to learn a lot more about the Lord when he gives the law through Moses.

So, you know, that's sort of my best explanation. They know the name, but they don't really know all that goes along with it. And then verse 15, moreover, God said to Moses, thus, you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord 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 to all generations. And then verse 20, so I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders, which I will do in its midst. And after that, he, that is Pharaoh, will let you go.