Exodus 3:1-6 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert… This book, do you see it? Not a leaf, not a word, not a letter of it, but has been burned ten thousand times — on parchment, papyrus, and paper; in many a language and many a land it has fed the furnace and lit the fire. It has been piled by thousands and thousands at a time in huge bonfires, and offered amid the yells of triumphant crowds, a holocaust to gods of wood and to the triple-crowned idol of the papal throne! "The bush has burned with fire." "But the bush was not consumed." This Book is ubiquitous; never a land under heaven that has it not, never a language among men that does not contain it. Paganism, I tell you, has had it trampled into dirt by beasts; popery has burnt it at the hands of the common hangman; sceptical science has branded and seared it as with hot iron; infidelity has torn it into shreds; and atheism, of the modern type, has besmeared its pages with mud and filth whose fumes are insupportable — but the bush is not consumed! Lo! the bush burned with fire. But the blessed Saviour declares that "the servant shall be as his Lord." What has been done to Him in the world, He says, shall be done to you also, Christian believer. Then the burning bush is a lively image of the Christian too. Now I desire to leave one final thought with you. Why did not the fire burn the bush? Because the Lord was in it. He had made it His temporary dwelling-place. Why did not the fire burn the Christ? Through wrath and rage of man and devil, through cross, and death, and hell, He passed unscathed. Why? Because of the Divine in Him. Because the bush of that clay temple of humanity was the tabernacle in which dwelt the Deity. Why has not the fierce, horrible, and perpetual fires of persecution and testing succeeded in destroying the Christian Church? Because God is in it. In it the tabernacle of God is with men. Christ walks amid the golden candlesticks; the Father dwells where His name is recorded, and the very life-breath of the Church is the living Spirit of God. (J. J. Wray.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. |
    |