Ex 8. Moses Receives His True Identity, Purpose and Destiny
“Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the Lord (Angel-YHWH) appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, ‘I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up…” (Exodus 3:1-3 Amplification added.)
Yet One More Appearance of the Living Word of God
We saw in an earlier Genesis meditation (No. 21 ‘Yeshua Visits Abraham’) that in Genesis chapter 18, God’s living Word appeared in human form to Abraham at Mamre. The Word interacted and communicated with Abraham, His Covenant friend, and imparted an identity, purpose and destiny to him that he could have never thought up for himself (See Genesis 12; 15; 17). And in Genesis 21 He spoke to Hagar and rescued her and Ishmael from certain death in the wilderness and gave them a future. Then in Genesis 26:23-25, He did the same for Isaac and then for Jacob (Genesis 28, 32 & 35). He gave Jacob the awesome revelation of the ‘ladder’ or ‘stairway’ by which God’s Kingdom in Heaven was opened to men on Earth. He blessed Jacob and renewed the Covenant of Abraham and Isaac with him. And He also communicated with Joseph in a series of dreams (Genesis 37) and accompanied him in Egypt, every step of the way through his ordeal and into his awesome future true identity, purpose and destiny.
Each time God’s Word appeared to someone He imparted a new identity, purpose and destiny to that person. So if you know He has called you to be His disciple…then know also that He is with you to replace your original identity, purpose and destiny as well.
So, in Exodus, the Lord did that for Moses, appearing to him in yet another form…from within a fire…but not a natural fire. This fire did not consume the host bush in which it was abiding. It was a self-sustaining fire…not of this world. It needed no external fuel, nothing from any created thing by which to sustain its own life the way natural, earthly fire does. This was the Heavenly Fire of God’s living Word. The Word is the one that creates and sustains and provides for the world. So He has no need of His own creation. Creation needs Him. So He does not consume, exploit or destroy what he creates. On the contrary, He provides for and sustains every created thing and prolongs its existence.
Throughout his years of tending sheep in the wilderness, Moses had undoubtedly seen bushes consumed by fires that ignited by spontaneous combustion or by lightning. But this Fire truly stunned him and captured his full attention. And as He gaped at it in bewildered amazement, God’s Word spoke to him from within the flames. The translation says, “…God called to him from the midst of the bush…” So it wasn’t a created angel. It was God, the Creator that got his attention. And later, when Moses wrote the account of that visit in Hebrew, he used that unique Hebrew ‘s’michut’ word- combination we discussed in Genesis meditation no. 21, that is only used to express a divine appearance:
מַלְאַךְ יְהֹוָה or, ‘Angel-YHWH’.
Moses applied God’s Personal Name to the One who spoke to him from within the flames, thus revealing that Moses knew he had been in the presence of God at that time. And he was inspired to add these words in his account. “…“Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5) And in the book of Joshua (5:15) the Holy Spirit uses the exact same phrase when Joshua was confronted by ‘a man holding a drawn sword in his hand’ (5:13) This is telling us that Almighty God, through His living Word, is appearing to these men, first in the form of a supernatural Fire, and then, once again, in the form of a Man who is ready to lead Israel into the Land of Promise…to face the inevitable spiritual and physical warfare with the powers of Darkness that was surely going to take place once they entered the land (and which is still taking place there, even to this day).
“When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ He said also, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” (Exodus 3:4-6 Emphasis added.)
God’s living Word is the only way by and through which men can know Almighty God Himself. No one can see the Father’s face directly and survive (Exodus 33:20, 23). So to Moses and Joshua, with whom God wished to speak and interact, He sent His Son…His living Word. Through Him God can connect with human beings, personally, intimately and directly. By the Power of His Holy Spirit, God sends His Word, who is one with Him and contains all of His fullness…to carry out His will. So the living Word now confronts Moses. He is real, living and fruitfully active…the very one that earlier interacted with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, now interacts with Moses. And remember, in that day, there still was no written Word of God in existence. These Fathers of the Faith only knew God’s living Word. And obviously, He was more than enough.
So this living, personal, interactive relationship with God’s living Word is what the written Word is meant to make us aware of and lead us into. God introduces His chosen ones…to His living Word so that they can become His true disciples! He introduces Him to us personally – the very same living Word that the fathers of the Faith knew! And now, thanks to the gift of the Holy Spirit, we too can know and interact with Him, in an even deeper living, personal and intimately interactive way than they did! This is the significance of our ‘Marching Orders’ listed elsewhere on this website. We are to take them to heart and allow our Master to teach us to live them out.
“So the Jews said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM!’ Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.” (John 8:57-59 Emphasis added.)
So God’s living Word appears to the man chosen to begin writing in human words, what He had, in Person, revealed and done to, in, and through the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. The living Word personally interacted with the fathers in the past. Now He was doing the same with the chosen future chronicler of those awesome revelations. In time, He would reveal even more of Himself to Moses. And this same living Word of God, when He appeared to Israel in the first century, kept trying to get this interactive union started with the Israelites of His day. Many did enter into it. Tens of thousands accepted and served Him. But most of Israel refused to believe and accept His claims. And so to them, He said:
“You search the Scriptures (that Moses wrote) because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have Life. I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I (God’s Living Word) have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another (rabbinical teacher like yourselves) comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me! But if you do not believe his writings (that reveal Me), how will you believe My words (when I speak to you in Person, even as I once spoke to him)?” (John 5:39-47 Amplification and emphasis added.)
So chapter 3 of Exodus gives us yet another appearance and revelation of God’s living Word…the same living Word that later, in the apostolic portions of Scripture, would become flesh and appear as Israel’s Messiah – Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth. This is why Yeshua told His Israelite contemporaries ‘point blank’ that He and Moses knew each other personally and that Moses was commissioned by His Father to write down the revelation He had once given to the early fathers. So, in other words, Yeshua claimed that Moses, just like the fathers of the Faith before him, had been His disciple! Yeshua was the living Word that had appeared to the earlier fathers! And so although many Israelites believed and embraced Him as their Messiah, most were not able to recognize Him for what He really was to Abraham…and still is to us…God revealing Himself, in human form.
Many Israelites since the days of Moses have not understood his written Torah in a way that would prepare, predispose and align them properly with God’s living Word. So they were not able to recognize and accept their Messiah when He came. Moses had foretold Him and promised that He would come. But when God actually sent and revealed His Son to them, they couldn’t put the written Word together with the living Word. That was a sign of their ‘decapitation,’ which is a state of a practical disconnection from God’s living creative Word, even when you happen to be very religious!
“Just as many were astonished at you, My people, so His appearance was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men. Thus He will sprinkle many nations; kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; for what had not been told them they will see, and what they had not heard they will understand…
…He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we (Israelites) did not esteem Him.” (Isaiah 52:14-15; 53:3 (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Throughout Israel’s history and that of Christendom, very religious but yet decapitated people continually fail to see the connection between the written Torah of Moses and God’s living, creative Word, Yeshua. The written Word reveals Yeshua, who is the living Word. And Yeshua, the living Word, is here to fulfill everything Moses and the prophets wrote about Him. Many people of each generation fail to recognize and acknowledge the awesome Living Word that the Spirit-inspired Israelite prophets, wisdom writers and apostles knew and were inspired to write about. They were commissioned by God to make everyone aware of Him so that all men could abide in His living Presence and so He could be enthroned over every heart, soul, will and life. All humans are created to be the Word’s obedient disciples. So God took great pains to reveal Him and make sure everyone would know and submit to Him. But the Serpent continues to blind and keep people in his rebellious Darkness by twisting, distorting and eliminating God’s living and written Word and separating Yeshua, the risen Messiah, from their minds, hearts and lives.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:1-5 Emphasis added.)
The Unbreakable Connection between the Living and Written Word of God
We said earlier that God’s written Word serves a purpose similar to that of a ‘dinner menu.’ A menu doesn’t draw attention to itself. So too, neither is the Bible the main attraction. It is meant to direct all attention to the living Word that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses knew…even before Scripture existed. Scripture’s goal is to lead us all back to that same personal, intimate, interactive knowledge of and relationship with Him!
“For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to (their Messiah) the Righteousness of God. For Christ is the end (goal or destination) of the Law (Torah) for righteousness to everyone who believes (on Him). For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law (Torah) shall live by that righteousness.” (Rom. 10:3-5 Amplification and emphasis added.)
Scripture aims to connect us to the One that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses knew and partook of, long before Scripture existed! He is the real Life and Strength-giving Food and Drink. Yeshua is the living Word of God, the living Fire from Heaven that is our true, real Feast that God sets before the world! And Yeshua is the one that has summoned us to follow and abide with Him at all times, as His disciples:
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:1-5 Emphasis added.)
The claims Yeshua made to His first century Israelite contemporaries were inconceivable and preposterous to most of them. What their human leaders and traditions had taught concerning the written Word of Moses did not properly pre-predispose and align them to connect with Him when He came. Nevertheless, He was, and is, the same one that once enjoyed Abraham’s hospitality at Mamre, and who appeared to Isaac at Beersheba and to Jacob and Moses in the wilderness. In the first century He returned to fulfill, in Israel’s sight, what Moses wrote about Him in the Torah. So although they were extremely religious in a soulish, fleshy way, like Cain, most of them remained decapitated from their true Head, the living Word. Their spirits were not equipped to recognize and submit to Him even though, just like that burning bush, He was standing right before them:
“Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, ‘I am the Bread that came down out of Heaven.’ They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of Heaven’?”
“Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the Bread which comes down out of Heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the Living Bread that came down out of Heaven; if anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever; and the Bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh (My incarnate, Covenant Humanity that makes Me one with you and gives you the opportunity to become one with Me).
“Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, ‘How can this man give us His flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no Life in yourselves. He who eats (becomes one with) My flesh (Covenant Representation) and drinks My blood (depends on its Authority for his salvation) has Eternal Life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food; and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the Bread which came down out of Heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats (identifies and becomes one with) this Bread will live forever.” (John 6:41-58 Amplification and emphasis added.)
Moses and the prophets wrote about Messiah
To this day, decapitated people of all races, backgrounds, religions, persuasions and regions of the world fail to make the connection between what God inspired Moses and the prophets of Israel to write about His beloved Son…the written Word…and the living Word Himself about whom all those written revelations are given. God commissioned His Son Yeshua, to become one of us…to take on our nature…to identify with us to such a profound depth that He would actually be one with us so that He could atone for us and redeem us! That is how closely our Creator abides with us and within us. The enormous number of prophecies He has already fulfilled make it easy for those with open hearts and minds to believe that by the time the end of human history arrives, He will have fulfilled every last one of those prophecies to perfection, in their proper time.
“Now He said to them, ‘These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’” (Luke 24:44-48)
He is the one who spoke to Moses from within the flames. He is the Flame that abides within all of His Creation without needing to exploit or consume it. Rather, He sustains, provides for and protects all of His Creation by redeeming and cleansing it of Sin and its deadly effects. And He is here, maintaining each of us, through the Holy Spirit for that same redemptive purpose. He was in that Flame that was abiding in the bush; and He intends to abide in each one of us in the very same way.
Can you see why God took such pains to prepare Moses for the revelation of His living Word? Moses was the first inspired writer of Scripture! Only this depth of revelation could qualify him to write authentic Truth about our Creator and Redeemer and supply the true foundational Base upon which all fellow Jewish and non-Jewish disciples could build, align and live their lives in the future. The Torah revelation was meant to produce true Israelites, citizens of God’s Eternal Kingdom! The nation of Israel was chosen to know God with this precise, authentic accuracy so their hearts would be truly circumcised. Then they could be spiritually equipped to demonstrate and teach God’s Truth and their personal experiential authentic knowledge of His Word with the rest of the world. They were to be predisposed to recognize and enthrone their Messiah when it was time for Him to come. They were to make the connection between the Word as revealed to Moses, and the Word that would appear among them in human form as their Messiah. And making this connection is still God’s Purpose. It will never change. God will never change. But all fallen flesh will most definitely have to change.
Israel is the pilot group, the test group. Israel is like ‘the caged canary’ that miners used to take with them into the bowels of the earth when their shifts began. Israel is the living ‘gauge’ or ‘test strip’ that warns the rest of the world of the lethal demonic influences that lurk in the world for our destruction. The canary in the coal mine was the first to succumb to any poisonous, lethal gasses that lurked in the mine shafts. If the canary died, the miners were forewarned…they knew what would happen to them if, for any reason, they did not heed the warning and return to the surface as quickly as possible.
God gave Israel a similar purpose in relation to the rest of the world. And that ‘to the Jew first’ function and purpose will never change or be revoked by God, regardless of how desperately the Serpent and his hordes try to retard, divert, disfigure or prevent Israel from continuing to exist. The way in which the world responds to Israel, is the way they respond to Israel’s God. And God will judge them at the end accordingly. That is why God’s living Word uttered this very chilling warning to the Gentile world:
“But when the Son of Man comes in His Glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious Throne. All the nations (Gentiles) will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left…” (Matthew 25:31-33)
Israel is an instrument of revelation from God of His Word and of mankind’s true spiritual state before God. Therefore the world is able to learn how God responds to Israelites who reject His Word, as well as from Israelites who believe and embrace and obey Him (See Deuteronomy 28). The revelation of God’s Word is the Revelation of God Himself. Therefore, the way the decapitated world responds to God’s Chosen People and what He reveals through them about His Word, is how they respond to God’s living Word…and to the God that spoke Him to the world. So the way they respond to Israel and the Word that is revealed in her midst…is the response they are making to Almighty God Himself!
“Then the King will say to those (Gentiles) on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these (Israelite) brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:34-46 Emphasis added.
The awesome living revelation of the unbreakable Covenant union between God’s Word and His Chosen People is what began to pierce and penetrate the innermost being of Moses. Then through him, the Lord intended to pierce and penetrate the entire nation of Israel. And after doing that with the whole nation, God intended for His People to share His revelation and Lordship so that the rest of the world could be pierced, penetrated and impregnated with the Life of God’s Word as well.
So, because of the strategic importance of his God-given position and purpose, Moses received a private ‘audience’ with God’s living Word first. This happened at Horeb, the same place at which God would later reveal His Word to the entire nation (Exodus 19 & 20). And God requires the world to notice and take to heart what took place there. That’s why Moses was inspired to write the Torah. It was for the instruction and training ‘for the Jew first’ but then eventually…also for the entire human race.
The Awesome Revelation Given Through the ‘Burning Bush’
Whether we busy, over-taxed, multi-tasking modern humans know and acknowledge it or not, the fact remains that every created thing and person is just like that ‘burning bush.’ Even though we cannot ordinarily see it…the living Word that created that bush always has to remain and abide with it, to sustain and maintain it in existence. God’s Word has to do that for everything that exists in the vast cosmos of God’s physical and spiritual Creation. He creates and then He must continue to maintain and provide for all that He has created. In Him, all things hold together, from moment to moment. So God’s Word is like a ‘Vine’ that serves as the Uncreated Source of life, nourishment, protection and fruitfulness for His created ‘branches.’ If God’s Word should stop doing that for the physical universe, the molecules and atoms that compose all things would disintegrate and scatter and Creation would disappear and slip into oblivion! God’s Word abides at all times within everything God has created. The living Word is our Source of life, protection, provision and everything else. Whatever we are and do and use comes to us from Him alone.
This is what the apostle Paul alluded to as he spoke to some pagan intellectuals in Athens. He was revealing God’s living Word, Yeshua, to them, as the living creative, sustaining and redeeming incarnate Word of God:
“The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’” (Acts 17:24-28 Emphasis added.)
So at Horeb, God opened the spiritual eyes of Moses, to give him a fresh, unprecedented revelation of His living Word. He showed him what His Word is always doing for everything He makes and places throughout the universe. The Word sustains the entire cosmos of all inner and outer space…every molecule and atom in existence is continually sustained by The Word of God. The Word abides in all living and non-living things and keeps everything going, thanks to His incomprehensible dynamic activity. Whether we know or acknowledge Him or not, the fact remains: God’s Word is our one and only Source, our Creator, Protector and Sustainer…and if it were not for Him, our existence would shut off and we would disappear! And He, this awesome living Word of God, is the one Moses was inspired to write about. And later, that same Word became flesh and appeared among us as Yeshua of Nazareth, to fulfill everything Moses had written about Him.
So everything in Creation is just like that burning bush. Moses was allowed to ‘see’ this truth in that bush. By seeing it in the bush, he and all the rest of us can realize that it is the same with everything else…including our own spirits, souls and bodies. Even when we are totally ignorant or utterly rebellious in our rejection of God and His living Word, the fact remains that we are all ‘burning bushes’ whose ongoing existence is maintained by God’s living Word who is closer to us than we are to ourselves! We owe everything to Him, even when we foolishly remove Him from our ‘mental pictures’ and blithely assume that we’re independent agents, doing everything ourselves, for ourselves.
Truly the entire universe can rightly identify with what David, another Israelite shepherd, learned during his years of tending sheep in silent, barren wilderness expanses. He too saw that God’s living Word is closer to us all than any of us could ever imagine:
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely Goodness and Lovingkindness (Himself) will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23 Amplification and emphasis added.)
God reveals His Word through whatever form He pleases. It could be through an animal, as with Balaam (Numbers 22), a rock stairway, as with Jacob (Genesis 28), a pillar of cloud or a column of fire as with the nation of Israel (Exodus 13). Or it could be through a still, gentle breeze, as with Elijah (1 Kings 19)…or, as a human being like Yeshua, who was just like us, except for Sin (John 1). The Word creates every created form, so He can reveal Himself in and through any of His created forms. He can make Himself known in and through whatever He creates and sustains in existence from moment to moment, day to day, and year to year:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the Truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20 Emphasis added.)
“He (the living Word that sustains all things) is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all Creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15-17 Emphasis added.)
For forty years, prior to this revelation, God had stripped and pruned the worldliness and self-sufficiency from Moses in his barren wilderness exile. And now, thanks to what God’s Word taught him through this bush, he also realized that he had never been, nor would he ever be, alone or forsaken. Even from his conception and birth, this Flame, God’s living Word, had been within and around him…working to fulfill His Father’s Eternal Plan and Purpose for his life. The Word had protected him from the Pharaoh’s child-murdering troops. The Word had been with him when he floated down the Nile as a helpless, defenseless infant in a basket. The Word maintained and protected him in the Pharaoh’s palace and saw to his education and preparation and equipping…for the destiny that was now being revealed and entrusted to him. Even though, most of the time, Moses had no clue as to what was really happening, the Lord was always with him, just as He had always been with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph before him. And this is what God was also intending to teach to His Chosen People, Israel…and to every other human being He has ever or will ever, create.
It’s the same for you, me, and all the rest of the Master’s disciples that have been brought into God’s Eternal Covenant. God’s Word is always with each one of us, without exception. If we exist, He is with us. His Flame has always been within us and always will be. He continually sustains, provides, protects and guides us through every moment and situation, even when we’re utterly clueless and unaware of Him. This is what He came to reveal and impart to Moses and to each of His Chosen People, to Israel, His beloved chosen Bride. But it wasn’t only for their sake that He was doing it. It was to prepare them to be filled with His Radiance, so that through the obedience of their faith, He would be able to shine forth through them, to be the utterly essential, saving ‘Light to the Gentiles.’ That is why He took such pains to separate, prepare and protect His Chosen People. He did it for all the rest of Adam’s decapitated children that are scattered all across the world. And this is why God will always take great pains to maintain, sustain, protect and provide for His Chosen People:
“Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem, ‘Your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanite, your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths. No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born.
“When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’ Yes, I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you numerous like plants of the field. Then you grew up, became tall and reached the age for fine ornaments; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown. Yet you were naked and bare.
“Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love; so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. I also swore to you and entered into a Covenant with you so that you became Mine,’ declares the Lord God.” (Ezekiel 16:3-8)
God’s living Word is everywhere, in everything, all the time. He is Everything to all of us. He is ‘The Rock’ upon which our existence is based and built. As long as His chosen disciples serve as His image and likeness…and as long as He remains their true Head and Lord, they will serve as His Body. And together, the Word and His disciples can fill the Earth with His Salvation and restore Eternal Life, Love and Fullness to anyone who will repent of his or her decapitated state. The Word and His disciples can share God’s Eternal Inheritance with the rest of their human brothers and sisters, and welcome them and help them to become engrafted into God’s Covenant Family too.
God gives His disciples eyes to see
When God drew Moses into this mind-boggling revelation, the same wilderness Gateway or Portal leading into God’s Eternal Kingdom that had appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, now appeared before Moses. (See No. 18 of our Genesis Meditations, ‘The Portal in the Wilderness). And like the fathers before him, Moses pondered and considered very deeply, what God was showing him. Then he too decided to dare to pass through that Portal, or Gateway…and cross over to take hold of what lay beyond it. Thus he joined his forefathers in following God’s living Word into whatever awaited them on the other side.
This is what every Jewish and non-Jewish man and woman that God’s Word calls to discipleship can expect. One moment we will be totally oblivious to the fact that we are ‘burning bushes.’ But then suddenly, when God’s appointed time arrives, the Fire of the Word’s Presence will burst into our conscious awareness and our Master will make Himself known to us. Then He will say: “Follow Me!” And God’s Holy Spirit will begin to make Yeshua, the living Word of God, more real and alive and overwhelmingly present to us than anything else in this fallen world could ever be. Suddenly we will know that He is, and always has been, working within us, leading us to this moment. And when we realize it for the very first time, our past and our former worldly identities and priorities and agendas will explode and disappear! What once was, will fade and disappear from our awareness; and we will have no other real choice but to follow Him and to wait and see what He will do next, and what God will give to us in exchange for what we used to be…that has died.
“As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘You do not want to go away also, do you?’ Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of Eternal Life! We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God!” (John 6: 66-69 Emphasis added.)
“…For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3)
Please Don’t Miss the Point!
Moses saw and felt the reality of the burning bush experientially…in the pit of his stomach, in the ‘goose bumps’ that covered his skin, in the trembling of his body and the shocked gasps for air that this unfolding event sucked from his lungs. It wasn’t until much later that the Holy Spirit would prompt him to write down what Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and he himself had experienced with God’s living Word. But at that moment, when he was gaping at that burning bush…nothing had been written ABOUT the Word of God. The Word of God was revealing His living Presence in a most awesome, direct, living, gut-wrenching way! Moses was allowed to know Him at this spine-tingling, electric-shock, personal in-your-face level. This is what the rest of us must always remember. We dare not miss the point that underlies all of Scripture. This is not about a theory or philosophy, a set of dogmas or man-made religious institutions. This is not just another ‘World Religion’ with a dead founder. It is not a theological set of propositions or a speculative theory. It is the Presence of The Living One…it is about you and me being personally confronted by ‘The One who has been from the Beginning’!
“Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. I will establish My Covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.’
“Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, ‘As for Me, behold, My Covenant is with you…’” (Genesis 17:1-4a)
Moses had to receive this living revelation of God’s living Word first. Had this not happened, there would not have been anything for him to write about! His writings would have been mere myth and folklore. But God gave him the same level of ‘bolt of lightning revelation’ that the fathers had received so that he could understand and be transformed personally, by the same living relationship with God that they once had enjoyed. Without that, the Torah would have been just another tiresome man-made book, a work of fiction…a human hunch, or an educated guess, or some other form of idle, soulish human speculation. It might have made good reading and interesting ‘subject matter’ to help Bible study leaders speculate about ‘God.’ And it may have provided an opportunity for Sunday School children to color some cute little pictures about a burning bush. But none of that would be living revelation, nor would it serve to produce life-changing transformational changes in Sin-ravaged human beings that would actually transform and prepare them to face the living God of Abraham as they enter eternity!
What Moses wrote in the Torah was much deeper than human speculation. His writings and those of the other Israelite prophets and apostles are not like any other writing the world will ever see. Theirs is not mere speculation or literary craftsmanship. They wrote down direct, Holy Spirit-imparted revelation of the living Word of the living God. Theirs was and is a world-changing bolt of Heavenly ‘electricity’ sent straight out of eternity by God. It reveals the Uncreated Creator. It is Yeshua the Creator of all things, being presented in human words. And the one revealed in those words is the Living One that pierces through the Darkness into our time and space. He invaded the inner being of Moses, the Israelite shepherd. And through what he inspired Moses to write, He, the living Word, is able to continue to pierce, penetrate and impregnate our innermost being like nothing created could ever begin to do.
“For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ (the living Word of God). Now if any man builds on the Foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for The Day (of God’s Judgment) will show it because it is to be revealed with Fire, and the Fire itself will test (and expose) the quality of each man’s work (or the lack thereof).” (1 Corinthians 3:11-13 Amplification and emphasis added.)
After Moses received that ‘gut punch’ living revelation, he didn’t have to compose a fancy literary work in order to develop a novel idea. It wasn’t something He had to figure or contrive. He brought out from his innermost being, the God-ignited Reality of the Word that the Holy Spirit had shot into him. And the Flame of that living Word was now burning within his deepest parts. The Fire that he saw in that bush had set him ablaze too! So God’s Spirit empowered him to put that Fire into words, to articulate the Reality of this Divine Invasion. This was the Reality that suddenly interrupted and destroyed his former life. And the Holy Spirit compelled Him to put it into Hebrew words…what God’s own Word was now continually burning into his spirit and mind and will and heart and soul. This is how God transmitted to Moses what He wanted to transmit to the children of Israel, through Moses. Then the plan was, to transmit through all of Israel, what God wanted to reveal to the entire fallen, Sin-condemned world of the sons of Adam.
So God began to clear a way in the wilderness, for the arrival and ever-increasing presentation and takeover of His beloved Son, the living Word, the Omnipotent, Omnipresent Creator and Sustainer and Redeemer of the entire Universe!
“Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the Word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who followed Baal-peor, the Lord your God has destroyed them from among you. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you!
“See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the Lord our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today? Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons.” (Deuteronomy 4:1-9)
“A voice is calling: Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken!” (Isaiah 40:3-5 Emphasis added.)
We must settle for nothing less than Knowing Him!
Beloved fellow disciples…this is the very same revelation that must hit us too. We too must be electrified and pierced, penetrated and impregnated by the Holy Spirit with the very same Life of God’s Eternal, Living Word! Nothing short of knowing Him like that will qualify and equip us to fulfill our God-given tasks! Take another look at our ‘Marching Orders.’ Notice that they are about interactive, personal interchanges with the living Word at all times. The risen Lord Yeshua has become one with us. So it is imperative that we respond and allow the Holy Spirit to do whatever it takes to make sure that we become one with Him to the same degree and on that same electrifying Person-to-person level! Only that level of responsive union and interaction with Him on our part can enable our Master to impact the rest of the world…through us…with His world-changing Presence and Dynamic Activity. We must become just as much one with Him, as He has already become one with us in God’s Eternal Covenant. Then He will be made flesh on the Earth again and again and again…in you and in me and in all of us. God commands us to create and prepare a way for Him in the wilderness of our own hearts. The Creator of all things is here to fulfill the Eternal Commission of His Father, to redeem and restore and finish to Perfection everything the Serpent has so maliciously and viciously tried to destroy.
God’s living Word is here to overcome the Serpent’s Evil with His Eternal Spirit-imparted GOOD! And He chose you, me and all the rest of us, to serve as His points of entry and ongoing bases of operation. It’s not enough if we merely settle for knowing a lot of stuff ABOUT Him. It’s not enough to study stuff about Him in universities, colleges, synagogues and church buildings. It’s not enough to listen to sermons or lectures or to read scads of books, or to spend hours trying to intellectually dissect Bible texts. That can be helpful, but it must never be allowed to come between the Lord Himself and us. Stuff about our Lord will never be a substitute for actually being one with THE LIVING LORD, THE WORD OF GOD HIMSELF!
If you heard our Master call you into His personal service, and you decided to obey and follow Him, then get ready to be invaded and pierced and overwhelmed by His awesome Majesty and Authority…just as the fathers of the Faith before you were overwhelmed. Prepare your hard, stony, self-centered, Sin-desiring heart to be pierced, penetrated, broken and impregnated and ‘tamed’ with the Eternal Life and Activity that can only come from the Living Word of God Himself. Prepare to become His ‘burning bush’ in your own right. Gear your mind to see and honor His Flaming Presence as you become aware of Him abiding in every man, woman, child, animal, organic growth and inanimate object you encounter. Honor and serve Him as you learn to discern His abiding Presence in all things. Honor and serve Him as He maintains, protects and provides for each and every created thing that relies on Him for its continued existence. He is here and there and everywhere. He is in you and all around you…to create, maintain, supply, protect and redeem everything you experience as you journey through God’s temporal Creation.
“What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:27-28)
The world of men all around you is for the most part blind and deaf to His Presence and Reality and non-stop Activity. But His disciples dare not share in that decapitated, disconnected state of non-awareness or share the Head-less perspectives of this fallen world. Disciples must be fully connected, totally aware, and always interacting with…HIM!
So ask the Holy Spirit to open your spiritual eyes, ears and heart of hearts. Ask Him to do whatever must be done to create or restore or cleanse and clear out all the resistance and opposition remaining in you that would impede or clog the connection between you and your Creator and Sustainer. Join the awesome Exodus on which Almighty God has to lead each of His chosen ones. Prepare to die to your former living death state of decapitation. Allow your Lord and Master to take over within you so that His abiding Presence can make you fully alive and keep you connected to Almighty God Himself!
“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into ALL the Truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me; for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you!” (John 16:12-15 Emphasis added.)
The enormous gap that has developed historically between the Torah of Moses and the Messiah of Israel has been erroneously maintained for centuries and generations. But now, in the Last Days, that gap must be closed. The two severed portions of the Lord’s Testimony must be healed and restored back to ‘seamless garment’ integrity and wholeness. And we must all (Jews and non-Jews alike) be brought back into one new, fully integrated, Spirit-empowered Man…under the Headship of our Messiah, Yeshua. There is only so much time left for us to repent and obey. So do it now!
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff, and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,’ says the Lord of hosts.
“‘Remember the law (Torah) of Moses My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” (Malachi, chapter 4 Emphasis added.)