Amen, Exodus chapter number three here, we continue with Moses and this is of course
the famous story of Moses at the burning bush.
The Bible reads in verse number one, now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law,
the priest of Midian, he led the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the
mountain of God, even to Horeb.
The first thing I want to point out here is that Moses for 40 years, from the time that
he is 40 years old to the time that he is 80 years old, is keeping the flock of Jethro,
his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.
Now if you think about what he's going to do after this, he's going to go back to Egypt,
confront Pharaoh and he's going to lead the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt
and he's going to be their shepherd as it were, he's going to be their pastor, he's
going to be their leader for the next 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
And so God has him preparing for this work or he at least finds him faithfully doing
his job during that 40 year interim so that he comes to him and says, I'm going to send
you to Egypt and so you can bring my people out of Egypt.
And so one of the main things that we can learn here is that if we are faithful wherever
God has us, whatever position we're in, God is going to give us bigger opportunities.
You see the Bible says that he that is faithful in that which is least is also faithful in
that which is great.
And if you will not be faithful in another man's things, the Bible says, then who's going
to give you your own, right?
And if you can't be faithful with a little bit, you're not going to be faithful with
a lot.
A lot of people think, well, you know, if I had a bigger opportunity, I would do a better
job.
But the reason that I'm just not working that hard is because my job isn't really that important.
Or, you know, someday I'll have my own business or my own gig.
But here's the thing.
Now you have to do your best for someone else first before you can own your own business
doing electrical or plumbing or whatever.
You know, first you work for someone else.
And first you're faithful with another man's and then you actually could have your own
gig.
When it comes to spiritual things, when it comes to being a pastor, you know, long before
you're a pastor, you're a faithful church member, you're a blessing to someone else's
church and then eventually God might allow you to lead someday.
But first you've got to be a follower for a long time.
And so Moses here is taking care of someone else's flock.
This is not his own flock.
He's not a wealthy man that owns his own business and has his own gig.
But no, he's working for his father-in-law and he is faithful and the Bible describes
him in Hebrews chapter 11 and later in the book of Exodus as a faithful man.
He was faithful in all his house.
He's reliable, he's trustworthy, he does what he's supposed to do.
And so even when it's just taking care of Jethro's flock, he treats it like it's important
and therefore God can use him for something bigger.
Okay.
A lot of women say, well, you know, I'd be a great wife.
It's just, you know, my husband, you know, but if I, if I had a godly husband, then I'd
be a godly wife.
No, you wouldn't.
Because if you're a godly wife right now, then you'll be a godly wife with a godly husband.
But if you're, you say, well, my husband is worldly, he's unsaved, whatever.
But look, if you're a poor wife unto him, it's just cause you're a poor wife and you
need to fix it.
You need to change.
You need to improve.
You need to get right with God.
Don't say my opportunity isn't the right opportunity.
Okay.
Because no matter how small the job that we're given or the position that we have, any job
that's worth doing is worth doing right.
And so we need to take every opportunity that we're given seriously.
Whatever your situation, I don't care, you know, what the menial task that you have at
work or whatever low paying job you have, you know, if God looks down from heaven and
sees you doing a good job at that low paying job, God's going to give you something better.
You know, if God sees you faithfully serving the local church, he could open up more opportunities
for you to serve God that you haven't even thought about or that you haven't even imagined.
Okay.
And if you, let's say, are married to a guy that's not very Christian or he's not very
godly, but if God looks down and sees you being faithful and being a godly wife and
being the best wife that you can possibly be, whether you feel like he's fulfilling
his role or not, you know what?
God could do a work in your husband's life and maybe improve that situation for you anyway.
But you've always just got to be faithful with where you are and do with the opportunities
that you've been given.
Okay.
And so that's what Moses is doing.
He's just faithfully plugging away, nothing glamorous, nothing big, but he's doing a good
job.
God shows up and appears unto him in the burning bush.
It says in verse two, 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.
So you know, he sees a bush burning off in the distance, which isn't really that out
of the ordinary, but then he wonders because it just keeps burning.
You know, time goes by and it's just burning, burning, burning, and the bush is not being
consumed.
And so he wants to take a closer look to see why.
And when he shows up, it says in verse four, the Lord saw that he turned aside to see God
called unto him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses.
And he said, here am I.
Now what you have to understand is that the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament is
sometimes actually referring to God himself or more specifically the Lord Jesus Christ.
Okay.
And there are lots of Old Testament appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now how do we know this?
You know, because it might seem a little strange, like how could Jesus Christ appear in the
Old Testament, right?
Because he hasn't been born yet in Bethlehem's manger.
So how can he make these bodily appearances in the Old Testament?
But yet he does.
Because for example, we have the famous story in Genesis chapters 18 and 19 about the destruction
of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And in that story, there are three men who show up at Abraham's tent door in the heat
of the day.
And those three men are revealed to be the Lord and two of his angels.
The two of the angels are sent off to go to Sodom and Gomorrah.
And of course we know the story there where the two angels go there and the men of the
city seek to assault them.
But then Abraham is left talking alone to the Lord, Jehovah, capital L, capital O, capital
R, capital D. And so that's a bodily appearance of the Lord where the Lord actually appears
to Abraham in human form in Genesis chapter 18.
That one's pretty clear.
Then later on in the book of Genesis, you have Jacob wrestling with the angel of the
Lord.
And when he's done wrestling with the angel of the Lord, he names the place, Penuel, which
means face of God.
And he says, I've seen God face to face and my life was preserved, okay?
Now look at this example in verse number five, it says, he said, draw not nigh hither, put
off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place where on thou standest is holy ground.
So keep your finger there and flip over to Joshua chapter number five, Joshua chapter
number five.
And we're going to see something that's strikingly similar here where the Lord appears unto Joshua
who is the successor of Moses, who by the way, also before Joshua became a great leader,
he's a great follower.
He's faithful as Moses' helper, as Moses' servant, and then eventually he's put in that
top leadership position.
But look at Joshua chapter number five, it says in verse 13, and it came to pass when
Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, there stood a
man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.
And Joshua went unto him and said unto him, art thou for us or for our adversaries?
And he said, nay.
Now that was not really a yes or no question, was it?
Are you for us or are you for our enemies?
He's just no.
Because it's not that he is for Joshua or against Joshua, it's that he's the boss.
And so he says, nay, but as the captain of the host of the Lord am I now come.
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship and said unto him, what sayeth
my Lord unto his servant and the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, loose
thy shoe from off thy foot for the place whereon thou standest is holy and Joshua did so.
So again, strikingly similar language because in both cases we're dealing with God actually
coming in human form, which is an Old Testament appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not the father because no man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the father, he had declared him, but no
man has ever seen God the father at any time.
Obviously the Holy Spirit is not who we're talking about.
We're not talking about the father, the part of God that is a man, right?
The person of the Godhead that is man is the second person, right?
The son of God, Jesus Christ making an Old Testament appearance.
And again, this shouldn't surprise us because furthermore we have in Daniel chapter three
verse 25, the fourth man in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, his form
was like the son of God.
So we have the son of God appearing in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
You say, how is this possible?
This is because Jesus Christ as God can transcend limitations of time and be outside of time.
Right?
Just as God, the father is God.
Well guess what?
Jesus is God as well.
The Holy Spirit is God, right?
These three are one.
And so although there are three persons, they make up one God.
And so Jesus has the attributes of God.
And so therefore Jesus Christ transcends time.
That's why even when he's talking to Nicodemus in John chapter three, he says, no man hath
ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man, which is
in heaven as he's talking to Nicodemus because he can transcend those types of limitations
as God.
So he's appearing in the Old Testament even before his birth, you know, in our timeline
as it were of just normal time passing for us as humans.
But Jesus Christ appears in the Old Testament.
That's how God can make these bodily appearances in the Old Testament, like where he wrestles
with Jacob, like where he meets with Abraham in Genesis 18 and 19 and, uh, like in the
fiery furnace.
And so we see here with Joshua chapter five, that he is the captain of the Lord's host.
And he says, loose thy shoe from off that foot for the place where on thou standest
is Holy.
What makes that place Holy where he needs to remove his shoes?
Well, it's because of the person that he is confronted with that the place is Holy.
So a lot of people think that there's something special about certain geographic places in
this world and they'll even make pilgrimages and go to a certain place because they want
to kind of, I guess, just get some of that holiness to kind of rub off on them.
So they want to go there.
And you know, I've been to a couple of these places, like I went to Palestine and I went
to Bethlehem and I checked out the place where Jesus was baptized and you know what?
I did not tingle whatsoever because those places, they, you know, they're neat to look
at, but you know, there's really nothing special spiritually about those places and you've
got a lot of hocus pocus types that'll go to these places and they want to kiss everything
and touch everything and just kind of like feel that, you know, look, if that's what
you're looking for, maybe you just need to go to Sedona and get some crystals and hit
the sweat lodge or whatever.
But that's not Christianity because Christianity is about God being everywhere and we know
God through his word and it's not about going to some temple or pilgrimage or shrine or
being in a place.
And here's the proof because Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb where the burning bush story takes
place.
The Bible says is in Arabia.
It's like, Oh, the promised land, the Holy land, Canaan, Israel, Palestine, right.
But hold on a second.
That Mount Sinai Galatians tells us is in Arabia.
Not in Canaan, it's not in the promised land.
It's in Arabia.
Okay.
So what's so special about Arabia?
Nothing.
Okay.
But yet that's a place that was holy because God's presence was there because that's where
God met with Moses.
And so anywhere that God meets with us is holy ground.
It doesn't matter whether you're in Israel or Egypt or the United States of America.
That's not even the point.
It's just about meeting with the word of God, right?
And so it doesn't matter this place where he says, put off your shoes from my feet.
They're not at Mount Sinai in Joshua chapter five.
Yeah.
Now they are in the promise.
Now they are in Canaan, ready to invade Jericho.
And that's a totally different location than Mount Sinai.
Very far apart.
But what is the similarity?
Similarity is that he's talking to the same person, the captain of the Lord's host, which
is the Lord Jesus Christ called in the new Testament, the captain of our salvation.
So back to Exodus chapter number three, he comes to the burning bush.
The Lord speaks to him out of the midst of the burning bush.
It's not that God is appearing as a burning bush, okay?
It's that the angel of the Lord appears on him in a flame of fire out of the midst of
the bush.
Okay?
So he's just at the bush.
The bush is not God.
God doesn't show up as a bush, okay?
Because a lot of people, I've heard people say like, oh well God could show up in all
these different forms because, you know, he showed up as a burning bush, he showed up
as a, you know, and a lot of times people will end up with a weird doctrine like that.
But no, no, it's that God is just showing up in the midst of a flame of fire and it
just seemed that the bush was on fire, but the bush is really not on fire.
You know, we call it the burning bush, but really it's the non-burning bush, if you really
think about it.
It's really not a burning bush.
That's kind of the whole point.
But I still like to call it the burning bush, so let's not change.
But it says in Exodus chapter three in verse number six, moreover he said, I'm 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.
Because again, in the Old Testament there's the thing of, well, if you see God face-to-face
you're going to die.
But then Jacob's like, well, I've seen God face-to-face and yet I've lived.
And there's this kind of confusion amongst some of the people of the Old Testament and
it's because they don't understand the Trinity.
That isn't really revealed clearly until the New Testament.
And so that's why on one hand you can't see God face-to-face talking about God the Father,
but you can look upon Jesus Christ who is called the messenger of the Lord of hosts
or the angel of the Lord in Malachi, for example, where it's clearly talking about Jesus and
calls him the messenger or angel of the Lord.
And so he's afraid to look at him, but notice how God identifies himself.
He says, I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
Here's one thing that I like about that is that God identifies himself by his people.
And what an honor for the God of the universe to say, well, I'm Abraham's God, I'm Isaac's
God, I'm Jacob's God.
You know, it's sort of like if you went to school and maybe your sibling has always gone
to that school.
So then you're just kind of forever just known as, oh, you're so-and-so's brother, you're
so-and-so's sister.
You kind of want to have your own existence, but no, you're so-and-so's brother or you're
so-and-so's kid or so-and-so's whatever.
But you know, God here, he doesn't mind being Abraham's God, Isaac's God, Jacob's God.
And you know, the Bible tells in the book of Hebrews that when it comes to God's people,
that he's not ashamed to call them brethren.
Now stop and think about how stupid it is for you as a Christian in 2022 to be ashamed
of the Lord when he's not even ashamed of you.
And who's more embarrassing, you or the Lord?
Okay.
If anything, God should be ashamed of us because he is so much greater than us in every possible
way.
And think about how absurd it is for me to be like, oh, well, you know, yeah, I mean,
I guess I'm a Christian, yeah.
I mean, is that how you want God to be about you?
Like, well, I mean, yeah, I guess I guess Pastor Anderson is, you know, I guess he's
on my team or whatever, you know, I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, according to John
3 16, I guess he, yeah, I mean, I got to claim this guy.
I got to own this guy.
I mean, is that how I want God to feel about me?
But you know what?
The good news is God's not ashamed of us.
But if we're ashamed of him, then he says, I will be ashamed of you.
You know, if you're ashamed of me in this evil and adulterous generation, you know,
then I'll be ashamed of you, he said, if that's how you're going to be.
And so it's really just a testament to God's love and respect for his people that he'll
call himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
And you know what, if he's willing to claim us, then we should be willing to claim him.
And if anything, you know, who's got something to be embarrassed about are the atheists and
agnostics and the Buddhists and the Hindus.
Let them be ashamed.
Let the Muslims be ashamed.
But let the redeemed of the Lord say so we should always be ready to own the fact that
we are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And to just say, hey, I believe the Bible is the word of God.
I believe that Jesus died on the cross and that he bodily rose again from the dead.
I believe that God created this earth and not beat around the bush and be like, well,
you know, I don't know if I don't really believe everything or well, you know, I was raised
Christian and I'm a Christian.
So don't be ashamed of God's word.
And you know what, not only just in general being ashamed of the word of God, I'm not
ashamed of any of the specific things that the Bible says.
There's not some specific verse that I'm kind of like, oh, you know, hope people don't find
out about that one because God had some weird commandments, you know, in the Pentateuch
little harsh, a little extreme.
You know, I don't want people to, to hear about that and, and, and for me to have to
admit, you know, that's why when people ask me, do you believe yes, I do.
It's always sad to see some pastor interviewed and he's like, well, you know, it's just like,
yes, yes, yes, I believe this.
Just, just keep it simple instead of like, well, you know, you got to understand things
were different back then, you know, no man, we need to just, we need to just praise the
Lord and praise his word and not be ashamed of Jesus Christ in an adulterous generation,
in an evil generation.
And you know, you shouldn't be ashamed of our church either, by the way, because you
know, our church is a great church.
Uh, we're doing great things for God.
There's no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed about our church.
Yeah, but you know, you preach some stuff that's in the Bible that bothered people.
Well, so what?
And so he says that he's the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob says
in verse seven, the Lord said, I've 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'm come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out
of that land, unto a good land and a large unto a land of flowing with milk and honey
and the place of the Canaanites and Hittites and the Amorites and the Parisites and the
Hivites and the Jebusites.
So again, here we see that not only is God willing to be identified with his people,
but he actually loves and cares about his people and he sees the things that they're
going through and wants to bless them and wants to help them out and get them out of
Egypt.
Now, therefore, behold the cry of the children of Israel.
Verse nine is come up unto me and I've also seen the oppression where with the Egyptians
oppressed them.
Then now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth my people,
the children of Israel out of Egypt.
And Moses said unto God, who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and that I should bring forth
the children of Israel out of Egypt.
And so of course, Moses is a very humble man.
He's very meek and he's just a little bit shocked that he would be picked for this job
because he's just out there doing a humble job, shepherding sheep.
It's not even his own business.
He's keeping the sheep of his father in law.
He's been just kind of doing his own thing for the last 40 years, mining his own business.
So he's kind of saying, why me?
You know, why would I be the one?
And this is a good sign because a lot of the great leaders in the Bible are kind of reluctant
leaders.
And typically when you have a guy who just, he has to be in the ministry, he has to be
a pastor, he'll do anything to get ordained.
You know, it's usually a bad sign because of the fact that a lot of people want to go
into the ministry for the wrong reasons.
And so they're just kind of hell bent on being in the ministry.
When Moses is an example of a guy who says, you know, eventually that he'll do it, but
God has to kind of twist his arm a little bit because he's content just serving God
in a more humble capacity.
And we should all be content to just serve God in whatever the capacity, even if it's
a humble position.
And so he says, well, who am I?
And then the answer to that in verse 12, he said, certainly I will be with thee.
So we don't really have to be someone great in order to be greatly used by God.
We just have to be willing and available.
And if God's with us, then who can be against us?
So we just need to have God on our side and then that will make us a powerful person.
Even if in our own strength, we're not a big deal.
So he says, certainly I will be with thee and this should be a token unto thee that
I've sent thee.
When thou has brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
Now again, what is so special about this mountain?
The answer is absolutely nothing is special about this mountain.
This mountain is meaningless.
Now you might be tempted to think because in verse number one, it says that he came
to the mountain of God, even to Horeb, but you have to understand is that that's when
the book of Exodus is being written.
When the book of Exodus is being written, looking back, it's like, that's the mountain
of God.
It's not the mountain of God until Moses meets with God there at the burning bush.
So we have to understand is that God is not some pagan deity that's associated with a
certain mountain or something.
He's the God of this river.
He's this canyon God.
He's this forest God.
That's not how God is.
This mountain is not a special mountain.
It becomes special because of this.
Where am I getting that?
First of all, we have to understand that when it refers to as the mountain of God in verse
one, that's retrospectively when the book of Exodus is being written because at that
time it's considered the mountain of God because that's where Moses got the 10 commandments
for crying out loud.
But at the time of this writing, it's just a mountain.
It says in verse one that he led the flock to the backside of the desert.
This is just out in some middle of nowhere, Moses is just leading his sheep around and
comes to a mountain.
Now how do I know that this mountain was not special?
Because there's a token in verse 12 that God sent Moses because Moses is like, who am I?
But then God says in verse 12, certainly I will be with thee and this shall be a token
unto thee that I've sent thee.
Now what does he mean when he says this shall be a token unto thee that I've sent thee?
Basically he's saying like, this is going to be a sign that I sent you, okay?
The sign that I've chosen you, that I'm sending you, that it's going to be you Moses.
So like remember Gideon was always asking for a sign and it's like, okay, the fleece
is going to be wet or it's going to be dry.
You know, Moses is being offered by God a token or a sign of what?
Of the fact that I have sent you Moses.
What's the token?
What is the sign?
The sign is that when thou has brought forth the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God
upon this mountain.
So the sign that I've sent you is that basically you're going to go to Egypt and you're going
to lead this nation of millions of people out of the land of Egypt and you are going
to bring them to this random mountain out in the middle of nowhere.
Basically it's like you're bringing them to your backyard.
You're going to go bring the nation out of Egypt and before you go to the promised land
you're going to bring them basically to your stomping ground.
You're going to bring them to where you are, happen to be, with the flock, you know, which
is kind of like special to Moses because it'd be like, you know, if you think about it,
you know, Moses is from this area right now, this is where he lives, this is where he's
working and it's like well you're going to bring the people here to serve me.
Basically it's like God is building this program around where Moses happens to be and that's
the sign that he's going to use Moses that we're going to bring people to your area.
Does that make sense?
Because otherwise verse 12 wouldn't really make any sense, would it?
Because why would it be a sign that you're going to serve God on this mountain?
Well because it's basically this is Moses' area where he shepherds his flock, that's
where God's going to bring the people.
So again this goes back to what I was saying earlier about Arabia's holy ground versus
Canaan's holy ground, it doesn't matter, it's where God meets with you, that's holy ground.
And so the fact that God meets with Moses at the burning bush and then the fact that
later God is going to meet with all the children of Israel at Mount Sinai and the same commandments
are going to be delivered at Sinai, now all of a sudden Mount Sinai has significance.
But you know if I were to go today to Mount Sinai it wouldn't really matter.
I wouldn't have some special experience by being at Mount Sinai because this is no longer
a thing on God's program, right?
Now first of all no one can quite agree on what the real Mount Sinai is.
The one that most people believe is Mount Sinai I do not believe is the correct Mount
Sinai because it's not in Arabia, you know, and it's not on the other side of the Red
Sea necessarily.
And so you know I believe that the one in Arabia, the kind of secondary location is
probably the real one, but honestly I'm not going to go to either spot because I don't
really care because it's just a mountain.
You know I could show up at that mountain, maybe I could see a little burnt spot or something
and say hey this is maybe where God smoked some people when they worshiped the golden
calf, maybe God torched a guy near here or something.
I mean it's quaint, it's interesting, it's kind of fun, but it's not, you know where
I can have a spiritual experience is right here in Tempe, Arizona and I can save the
money on the flight, I can save the money on the trip, I don't have to crawl on my knees
for two miles or something making the sign of the cross to go touch a burnt spot at Mount
Sinai.
You know all I have to do is open my Bible and get on my knees and pray to the Lord and
read my Bible and I can have a spiritual experience and communion with God right here in the back
side of the desert called Arizona, I don't need to go to the back side of the desert
of Arabia, okay?
And so you can save a flight and you can save a lot of hassle by realizing that you can
meet with God anywhere because God is the God of the whole earth, he's everywhere and
he's not far from any of us.
In him we live and breathe and have our being the Bible says and so the Word of God is nigh
us even in our mouth and in our heart, we don't need to go somewhere in order to meet
with God.
God is right here and right now in church where two or three are gathered together in
his name, here he is in the midst with us and so this is holy ground, but keep your
shoes on please.
And so he says this is the token that I've sent these specifically, he's saying when
thou has brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain, this
place right here that is just a mountain in the back side of the desert.
It's not a major landmark to most people.
Now it is.
And Moses said unto God, behold when I come unto the children of Israel and shall say
unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you and they shall say to me, what
is his name?
What shall I say unto them?
Now I really like the way that God answers this question in the next two verses because
first of all he gives a name by saying God said unto Moses, I am that I am and he said
thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am had sent me unto you.
So he gives this somewhat of a name here, but then in verse 15 he says, and God said
moreover unto Moses, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel.
And then he reiterates the same thing, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob had sent me unto you.
This is my name forever and this is my memorial unto all generations.
So remember Moses says basically that he's not quite satisfied with God being the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
He says, look, I can show up to the Israelites and tell them the God of your fathers, the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, that's not going to be good enough
for them.
You know, they, what's your name?
And basically he gives a name just by saying, well, I am that I am, which, which basically
means like I am what I am or I am who I am.
Like basically what he's saying is just that by, by identifying him as the God of Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, that's who he is.
And so even if you don't know the name Jehovah, you're still dealing with the correct God.
As long as you identify him as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,
that is apparently sufficient from God's perspective, which is why in the next verse he says, look,
when you go to them, tell them the God of Abraham.
He reiterates what he wanted to be called the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the
God of Jacob.
And then I like what he says next when he says, this is my name forever and this is
my memorial unto all generations, right?
So here's the thing about God's names is that God's names are revealed throughout history.
He doesn't always, or he doesn't, he doesn't come out with all the names at once in the
Bible, but throughout human history he reveals himself by different names.
Once a name is revealed, it never goes away.
So when God starts to be known as Jehovah, he doesn't stop being known as the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or God almighty.
And in the new Testament, when he's known as the Lord or God or Jesus, he doesn't stop
being Jehovah.
He doesn't stop being the God of Abraham, et cetera.
His names are cumulative, right?
Now keep your finger here in Exodus chapter three and go to Exodus chapter six.
Look at Exodus chapter six and it says in verse number two, and God spake unto Moses
and said unto him, I am the Lord.
And I appeared unto Abraham and Isaac and unto Jacob by the name of God almighty.
But by my name Jehovah was I not known to them.
So do you have to use this name Jehovah in order to identify the correct God?
No, because he wasn't known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by the name of Jehovah.
He was known unto them by the name of God almighty.
Okay.
That name doesn't go away all the way at the very end of the Bible in revelation.
He's called the Lord God omnipotent and God omnipotent is the same as God almighty.
That's just a new Testament rendition of that name.
Okay.
Omnipotent God, almighty God.
That's just two ways of saying the same thing because the omni means all and mighty means
powerful, right?
So or my excuse me, omnipotent, the potent means mighty.
The omni means all almighty, almighty God.
God omnipotent, same thing.
And so these names continue on and we don't want to become obsessed necessarily about
which name we use for God because all of these names are suitable for God.
And God doesn't seem like, all right, make sure you stop calling me God of Abraham and
let's get everybody on this new Jehovah program.
You don't really see that, do you?
It's just like, this is who I, this is my name forever.
The Lord God, Jehovah God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
You know, it's all appropriate as a way to identify it.
Now when it comes to salvation specifically, there is none other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved than the name of Jesus of Nazareth, right?
Jesus is the name whereby we must be saved because when it comes to salvation, it's not
enough to just believe in God.
Even if you have the correct God, it's not enough to just say, I believe in God.
I believe God exists.
Is that salvation?
No because salvation involves trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
You have to believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus to be saved.
That's what you got to believe.
It's not just like, oh, I believe in God.
No, no, no.
You got to believe in Jesus.
You have to believe in the son of God.
You have to believe that he died and was buried and rose again and you're fully trusting what
he did on the cross as your only way to heaven.
You're not trusting in your own works.
You're not trusting in a church or ritual to save you, but it's all about the finished
work of Jesus and it has to be the name Jesus when it comes to salvation.
But today you have people who obsess over this name Jehovah, don't you?
And they're called Jehovah's Witnesses.
Thankfully COVID shut them down for a couple of years, but they're back at it again.
They're out there spreading their garbage, knocking doors.
They got their little wheeled rack of pamphlets that they set up in parks and public places
and it is such a stupid and ridiculous religion and you say, well, how dare you be so disrespectful?
I'm sorry, I have no respect for liars, charlatans, cult leaders, and fraud, okay?
It's wickedness.
Let me just tell you how you could just completely just demolish the stupid false religion of
Jehovah's Witnesses in five seconds, right?
I could just walk up to a Jehovah's Witness and just hand them a Greek New Testament and
just say, here's a Greek New Testament.
Here's the New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Please show me the word Jehovah in this book.
Please show me the word Jehovah in the New Testament and not your fake bogus New Testament
that you made yourself.
Okay, that's, that's not even a legitimate translation of the Greek that no one considers
a legitimate translation of the Greek except Jehovah's Witnesses.
Okay.
Whereas the King James Bible has been a standard translation for 400 plus years, respected
in all different circles, not just even Baptist or evangelical Christians, but you know, respected
in a multitude of circles as being a landmark translation of the Greek New Testament into
English.
And we believe that God has preserved his word for us as English speakers by allowing
us to have this perfect translation of the King James Version in our language.
And we believe, I believe that the King James Bible is the word of God without error, okay?
But imagine the stupidity of saying you have to use the word Jehovah.
You have to use that name when that name is never used in the New Testament a single time
not even once.
You could, you could get any Greek New Testament that you want.
You can read it as many times as you want.
You can take it to as many Greek experts as you want.
You can talk to all 15 million native modern Greek speakers in this world.
You could talk to any person at any institution where Greek is taught or studied and they
will all tell you the same thing, that that word does not exist in the Greek New Testament.
So there goes your stupid religion out the window in five seconds.
Because if Jesus didn't use it, and if the apostles didn't use it, if the entire New
Testament doesn't use it, then why are they telling us we have to say Jehovah and it's
all about that name Jehovah?
Really that's funny because I can't find it in my New Testament anywhere.
Because you know what the New Testament calls God?
The Lord.
Of course it's the Greek word for Lord, ochirios, but it's not Jehovah.
It's just the word for Lord.
That's why our English Bible, what does it constantly say?
The Lord.
And when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament and it comes to the name Jehovah,
guess how it puts it in the New Testament?
The Lord.
So oh, but I guess we're not supposed to say Lord, huh?
No, that's what Jesus said.
You know, that's what all the apostles said.
No, that's what every verse in the New Testament that talks about God calls him.
The Lord, God, something along those lines, it never calls him Jehovah.
What a fraud.
So if you get the New World Translation, their fake Bible, in the back of their fake Bible
that no one respects, no one uses, no one takes seriously except their cult, right?
Nobody outside of the Jehovah's witness is like, well, it's a pretty good translation,
you know?
No one, because it's a joke and they're just relying on the fact that their members don't
know because obviously the members don't speak Greek.
What blew my mind though is that the Jehovah's had like two locations in Greece.
I'm like, you're a special kind of stupid if you're a Greek Jehovah's witness.
Like you're a special kind of idiot, okay?
Because like, wow.
Because I Googled it one time, I was like, there can't be, it can't exist.
There can't be Jehovah's witnesses in Greece.
There were like two locations.
I was like, wow.
I mean, wow.
Maybe it's like a flat earth kind of a crowd that they appeal to over there.
I doubt that the congregation is growing, okay?
But here's the thing about that, is that, you know, you get their fake Bible and in
the back it has like essays and like appendices explaining their stupid false religion.
And in the back, they're like giving evidence for like, you know, using why they used Jehovah
in the New Testament, even though there's not a single Greek New Testament on the planet
that says Jehovah.
And they're showing like examples of stuff to just like snow the reader.
You know, it's like when somebody doesn't have real evidence, so they just start showing
you like all these like red herrings and things to just kind of like take your attention,
get your eye off the ball, you know?
I kid you not, they show a picture of a Hawaiian Bible from the 1800s.
I'm not kidding.
And this is like in the back of all their Bibles.
It's a picture of a Hawaiian translation from the 1800s that just some bozo Hawaiian wrote
the word Jehovah in the New Testament.
And they're like, here's historic evidence of Jehovah in the New Testament, a Hawaiian
aloha version with Jehovah in it.
Well case stinking closed.
But man, you're grasping at straws when you're pulling out like some Hawaiian 1800s Bible
and saying this is the proof that the New Testament talks about Jehovah.
It's in this Hawaiian version that nobody uses, that nobody's ever heard of.
It's just like an old picture of Hawaiian.
But here's the thing, a lot of people don't, they don't know anything about language.
They see that Hawaiian thing with Jehovah, they probably think it's a Greek New Testament.
You know what I mean?
Because like if they don't know what Greek looks like, you know, I mean, sometimes my
kids walk up to me and I'm, and I'm reading Hebrew and they're like, is that Greek or
vice versa or something?
They don't, you know, cause it's like, it's just a bunch of letters that we don't understand.
So it's all Greek to them.
Doesn't matter what language I'm reading, it's a Greek New Testament to them.
But the thing is, you know, Hawaiian, really?
Some Hawaii version from a hundred years ago or 150 years ago.
But I'm telling you, that's the stupidity of that false religion.
It's not about the name Jehovah.
If you want to make a big deal about a name, here's a name to make a big deal about.
Jesus.
Oh, and by the way, here's another word you're never going to find in the Greek New Testament.
Yeshua.
You're not going to find that either.
And when these people tell you, no, no, no, we can't say Jesus.
We have to say Yeshua.
You know what?
That's an attack on the New Testament.
Basically what they're saying is the New Testament is not the final authority.
The New Testament is, is, is got the name wrong.
They'll tell you the name.
Because they're like, well, we know that Jesus, you know, grew up speaking Aramaic or Hebrew.
And so we know that his mom didn't call him Jesus.
It's like, well, how do you know all that?
But even if you're right, okay, apparently that's not important.
Since God gave us 27 books that all say Jesus.
Matthew says Jesus.
Mark says Jesus.
Luke says Jesus.
All the way to revelation.
It's all Jesus.
That's what God gave us.
God didn't say, okay, here's 27 books with the name wrong.
But I'm expecting you guys to use common sense and figure out that Jesus's mom didn't name
him a Greek name.
And so you need to try to figure out what the real name was like a puzzle to solve.
No, no, no.
The Bible just says that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue should
bet.
That's good enough for me.
And this goes back to the fact that the Bible should be our final authority.
The Bible, the Bible, the Bible, as it was originally given in the Old Testament in Hebrew,
in the New Testament in Greek, it's been faithfully translated into English and into many other
languages of this world.
This is the boss.
This is the final authority.
This is the truth.
Not somebody coming along and saying, well, I know the Greek New Testament never says
Jehovah, but the Hawaiian does.
Okay, well, you know, when Jesus died on the cross, there was a sign above his head in
Hawaiian that said, this is the Kahuna of the Jews, right, because we all know Hawaiian
is a key biblical language.
We know that, you know, the Lord has greatly used Hawaiian to, you know, preserve and deliver
his word to the masses.
But again, it's just based on ignorance, you know, and that's why we need to go out.
And I'm being harsh this morning because, you know, this is our turf, amen?
So we're going to talk about how we really feel, but you know, obviously we want to go
out there with the Jehovah's Witnesses and be kinder about how we explain this.
Now if they come to my door, I'm not going to be kind to them because then they're coming
as a false prophet.
But you know, when I go out and talk to the Jehovah's Witnesses of this world, when I
knock on their door and talk to them, you know, obviously I'm going to be nice about
it and try to gently explain to them the proof that Jesus died on the cross, because they
don't believe Jesus died on the cross, the proof that he bodily rose from the dead, which
they don't believe, and explain to them that, you know, the Greek New Testament never says
Jehovah.
Why?
Because their religion is based on ignorance.
So if any Jehovah's Witness actually wants to know the truth, it should be very easy
for them to get saved.
And if they refuse to get saved, if I come to them and show them what the Bible says
about Jesus dying on the cross and about Jesus bodily rising again from the dead and show
them these things about salvation being by faith, not of works, you know, if they rejected
at that point, you know, they don't, you know, they, they must just want to go to
hell at that point.
I mean, they just, they just don't want to be saved.
There's nothing I can do at that point.
They just, they just don't care about truth.
Well, then they all might be damned to receive not the love of the truth, but had pleasure
and unrighteousness.
I don't know why they want to be a Jehovah's Witness.
I don't want to be, I don't know why, you know, the artists formerly known as Prince
want to be a Jehovah's Witness, but whatever it is, it's going to take them straight to
hell when they die because it's a lie.
You have to believe that Jesus died on the cross and that he bodily rose again from the
dead and put your faith and trust in that to be saved.
Not in a workspace, salvation, obsessing over the name Jehovah.
And the name Jehovah is not something that the Bible is demanding that we exclusively
use.
God was happy to be known as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
And in the New Testament, he's happy to be known as the Lord, right?
So we can call him God.
We can call him the Lord, the almighty, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
These names are his name forever.
They never expire.
They never stopped being his name.
That's why I'm not against the name Jehovah because it's his name forever.
But so is almighty God, his name forever.
All these names are forever because God is eternally who he is.
And at the end of the day, what he's saying when he says, I am that I am, is that whether
you call him God almighty or Jehovah, you're talking about the same God.
He still is who he is, regardless of which of those names identify him.
Now these names of God refer to the Godhead in general.
So they're referring to Father, Son and Holy Ghost, meaning that Jesus is God almighty.
Jesus is Jehovah.
Jesus is the Lord.
Also the Holy Spirit is Jehovah.
The Holy Spirit is God.
The Holy Spirit is the Lord.
The Holy Spirit is the almighty.
Because these names of God are referring to God in general, Father, Son and Holy Ghost
altogether.
But then you have a specific name, Jesus, that is specifically referring to just the
Son of God.
And that's the name whereby we must be saved because it's not enough to believe in God
to be saved.
You have to believe that Jesus is the Son of God to be saved because it's about what
Jesus did on the cross.
That's the gospel.
That's the difference, why that name stands out.
Because these other names are for God in general, Jesus is a name that is specific to the Son.
The Father's name is not Jesus, the Holy Spirit's name is not Jesus, whereas these other names
are for God in general.
Now what does he mean by this?
He says, you know, I am that I am, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am
hath sent me unto you.
This is showing us where the word or the name Jehovah derives.
The name Jehovah derives from this idea that God exists, that God, he is.
So we have this I am that I am and I am has sent me unto you.
Notice those are in all capital letters in our English Bible just because it's just emphasizing
the fact that this is like a name.
So it's going in all caps like I am, I am that I am, I am.
And the name Jehovah is derived from that state of being verb that says I am.
Basically Jehovah is more like he is, it's just a third person version of that.
And I believe that what God's getting at here is that basically he is eternally existent.
He's the beginning, he's the end, he's the first, he's the last.
He's always existed and he always will exist.
So he exists.
But not only that, but he is self existent, if you think about it.
Because no one created him.
And you say, well, you know, if God created everything who created God?
You know, I saw somebody say, well, if the Baker breaks, bakes bread, who bakes the Baker?
So you know, the Baker bakes the bread, but nobody baked the Baker.
The Baker doesn't get baked.
The Baker does the baking, okay?
The Creator does the creating.
Who created him?
No one, because he is eternally self existent.
He has always existed and always will exist.
You say, well, every everything gets created.
Well, no, no, only things that are of the flesh that are of our world.
But obviously, God transcends our world since he created the world.
He must transcend the world and be outside.
If he created the universe, he must have an existence outside of this universe.
He transcends the universe.
And so he is eternally self existent.
And whatever name you call him, as long as you're referring to the correct God, then
he is who he is.
But you know, if I said, well, the God of the Philistines, now we're talking about a
different God.
If we said the God of the Quran, we're talking about a different God.
If we said, you know, the God of Mormonism, we're talking about a different God.
Why?
Because God is known also by his followers.
You know, if we say the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, we got
the correct God.
But you know, if we said the God of Pharaoh, you got the wrong God.
Just like if we said God of the Mormons, you got the wrong God of the Jews.
Wrong God, because Jews, Judaism, that's a religion that rejects Jesus.
And if you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father.
You know, so today's Jews, their God is the wrong God.
Okay, now you could still say the God of Israel, as long as you're talking about the guy in
the Bible named Israel or the Old Testament nation of Israel.
But the God of that country over there is the wrong God.
Okay, the God of the Hindus is the wrong God, the God of the Buddhist is the wrong God.
You need the God of Christians, the God of the Bible, and that's how we often identify
him, isn't it?
We say the God of the Bible.
Is that an appropriate label?
Yeah, the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham.
The God that saved Christians worship is the correct God.
Okay.
And so just to quickly wrap up here.
He says that he's going to send them there and he says in verse 19, and I'm sure that
the king of Egypt will not let you go.
So he's like, all right, Moses, you're going to go down there and you're going to tell
them let my people go.
Here's the bad news.
I'm already sure that he's not going to let them go.
This isn't going to work.
And you know, think about what Moses said a minute ago.
He's like, he's like, what do you know, what if they don't believe me?
It's like, well, I'll tell you one guy that's not going to believe you is Pharaoh.
He's not going to let you go.
And I'll stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all my wonders, which I will do in the
midst thereof.
And after that he will let you go.
And I'll give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians and it should come to pass
that when you go, you should not go empty, but every woman shall borrow of her neighbor
and of her earth that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver and jewels of gold and Raymond,
you shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters and you shall spoil the Egyptians.
You say, well that, you know, is that stealing?
Well, first of all, number one, they've been enslaved and exploited for free labor, but
number two, they borrow the stuff because they tell Pharaoh, we're going to go worship
God three days journey in the wilderness.
So they borrow the stuff.
But then what happens?
Pharaoh sends his army to go kill them, to go defeat them, to go fight them or re-enslave
them or whatever.
You know, he's going to kill some and re-enslave the rest or whatever.
And so at that point, well, you know, I'm not going to return my library book anymore
if the librarian's coming after me with a machine gun or whatever.
You know, I might just keep that book and stay away from that library and you can't
really say that, well you didn't return your book or whatever.
So I think that that's part of why this is justifiable is that situation.
And God's just using this to pay them back for the fact that they've been working for
free for 400 plus years and so now they're going to walk away with the goods, they're
going to spoil the Egyptians because of how this works out or they say we're going three
days journey, they borrow the stuff, Pharaoh goes after them, they keep the library books
and they move on.
So just to kind of tie this all together real quick is that, you know, Moses, he's faithfully
doing his thing for 40 years taking care of somebody else's business.
He's doing right, he's serving God, he's doing right by his father-in-law.
God sees him and decides to use him in a magnificent way to be the deliverer of Israel.
God also sees the Egyptians and what they're doing to the Israelites and he sees the Israelites
suffering at the hand of the Egyptians and all that work that they're doing for free,
they end up actually ultimately getting paid because they spoil the Egyptians, right?
And so all that to say this, God is all powerful.
He's omnipresent, he's omnipotent, he sees everything, he knows everything and so whatever
you're doing in life, do your best and you say, well I don't think I'm going to get compensated.
I don't think I'm going to get paid, you know, or I'm not getting paid for this part.
You know, go the extra mile, go above and beyond, do extra because whatever God sees
you doing, he makes sure that you get paid.
He made sure Moses got a better position because he was faithful in the one that he had.
He made sure that the Israelites got paid even though they work for free.
God is the almighty, all powerful, all knowing, all seeing and so do your best and God's always
going to make sure that things work out for you.
And if you're a godly person like Moses, you're going to get taken care of and if you're Israelites
that are worshiping God, you're going to be taken care of.
Let's probably have a word of prayer.
Father we thank you so much for your word Lord and for this powerful chapter about the
burning bush and this meeting with Moses, Lord, help us to be like Moses where we're
faithful in all our house and help us to do a good job at whatever we do whenever we go
to work or serving you out soul winning or in the ministry or preaching.
Whatever we do, whether it's mowing lawns or cleaning or whatever we do, Lord, help
us to always do our best because you're always watching, Lord.
And Lord, help us to go out and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost of this
world like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons and the Roman Catholics and other
groups that have been deceived by false religion, Lord.
Help us to teach them the truth and bring them into the flock and in Jesus name we pray,
Amen.