J. B. Phillips in his book Your God Is Too Small tells of how
he asked a group of young people to give a snap answer to the
question, "Do you think God understands radar?" They all
said no, and then they roared with laughter as they
considered how foolish their answer was. It showed that in
the back of their minds they thought of God as an old man
who lived in the past and was rather bewildered by modern
progress. Nothing is more pathetic than a mature person
with an immature concept of God. Such an adult is seldom a
dedicated Christian, or an active servant of God. More than
likely they reject God completely. They mature in all other
areas of life, but in their concept of God they remain childish.
To make things worse, they think the rest of us are
worshipping the God of their immature conception. They
think we are quite simple and unacquainted with the hard
facts of life.
These people have not rejected God, for they don't even
know Him. They have only rejected a god who doesn't exist
anyway except in their own mind. What these people need is
a true biblical concept of God. This is what we all need, for
our conception of God controls our attitudes and actions, and
it determines the measure of our devotion to Him and His
will. Is your God just a spare time God you call upon only in
emergencies? You answer that by your commitment to Him.
The person who gives his God only one hour a week of his life
has a very small God and not the God of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ.
One cannot stand in the pulpit and hand over to you an
experience of the greatness of God any more than one can
measure the horizon with a ruler. This can only come when a
person says with Moses, "I will turn aside and see this great
sight." A man has to be willing to forsake his old concepts if
he would grow in the knowledge of God as He really is. When
Martin Niemoller was in Hitler's prison he had time to think,
and he turned his thought toward God. He had to give up his
old opinions about God. He wrote, "It took me a long time to
learn that God is not the enemy of my enemies. He is not
even the enemy of His enemies." He had to give up the God
He had created in his own image, and he came to see that God
is love.
Moses needed to grow in his knowledge of God as well.
God had prepared him to lead the children of Israel out of
Egypt. The first 40 years of his life he gained the best
education possible in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but this
knowledge was not enough for the task God had for him. He
needed some good practical experience, and so God in His
providence saw that he got it, and for the next 40 years he was
a shepherd in Midian where he learned the ways of desert life.
He learned about the plants and animals, and about water
sources and hardships. Now the second 40 year training
period was over, and all Moses needed now was to meet God,
and this he did at the burning bush, which is the Damascus
Road experience of the Old Testament. We want to look at
this experience and draw from it 3 things which God does
that enlarge our concept of Him.
I. HE DEMANDS REVERENCE. v. 4-5
You will notice that God appealed to the curiosity of
Moses. Some people feel that faith and curiosity are
contradictory, but this is not so. The impulse to inquire and
learn is essential to a growing faith. God says, "Come now let
us reason together," and all of nature is a stimulus to
investigation. Curiosity is what made Watts ask why the lid
on a boiling kettle bobbed up and down? His search for an
answer led to the first workable steam engine. Curiosity is
what made Sir Alexander Fleming investigate a mold, which
led to the discovery of penicillin. Curiosity is what led
Zaccheaus climb a tree to see Jesus, which led to his
conversion. It may have killed the cat but curiosity saved him
and many others.
God wants people to investigate, but we see that when
Moses came near He stopped him and tells him to take off his
shoes. This was a sign of reverence and God demands that.
If one is going gain from his search he must come in reverence
and humility, for neither God nor His creation will reveal its
secrets to the proud and irreverent. "Moses was led through
the gates of curiosity into the sanctuary of reverence. Those
who come to God or nature in pride to force the truth from
them are courting disaster. You can count on it that those
working with atomic energy are reverent before its power,
and they are not careless and proud as if they needed no
caution in its presence. To do so would be as foolish as for a
Jewish person of old to stumble into the holy of holies.
The great men of science such as Copernicus, Newton,
Kepler, and Edison have been men of reverence in their
inquiry. Edison said, "I sit down before the law. I try to find
out how the law operates. I try to bring my mind and
mechanisms into harmony with the way things are, and the
more I obey the law, the more the law obeys me and serves my
purpose." Success in science comes through obedience just as
success in the Christian life does. This is the only way to
know God and His will. You must adjust to reality and not
try to twist reality to your proud and preconceived notions.
A proud self-sufficient tourist went through one of
Europe's famous art galleries looking at many great
masterpieces. As he was leaving he said to the custodian, "I
don't see anything so great about these paintings." The
custodian replied, "Sir, these pictures are not on trial, those
who view them are." So it is with Scripture, God and His
Word are not on trial, but you are. You must come in
reverence seeking to know God if you expect to grow. The
poet wrote, Earth is crammed with heaven,
And every common bush aflame with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.
II. HE PROMISES HIS PRESENCE. v. 11-12
Moses said, "Who am I?" Forty years before Moses felt
he could handle things and he killed an Egyptian, but now he
is more mature and humble. He wondered how a shepherd
like him could walk into the palace of Pharaoh and persuade
him to let hundreds of thousands of slaves go free. It can't be
done was his thinking, and he was right if he thought the
success of the plan depended on his eloquence and ability to
charm Pharaoh. Without the promise of God, "Certainly I
will be with you," Moses could not have succeeded. This is
the case with the Apostles as well. Without the promise of
Christ to be with them they could not have succeeded. Nor
can we, or anyone else, for we all need God's presence to be
successful. With His presence comes all the other promises.
If God wills it then it can be done. The poet has written,
Never say it can't be done,
It simply isn't true.
What you mean my son
Is it can be done,
But can't be done by you.
One of the greatest fallacies in the world is that one does
not count. All of history proves it to be a lie, and yet we believe it.
What can I do? Problems are to big for any one
person to make a difference, and so I ignore the problem and
become a part of the problem. It is true that you cannot do
anymore than Moses could on his own, but could we believe
and claim the promise of God to be present with us, then we
could say with Paul, "I can do all thing through Christ who
strengthens me." When David Livingston returned to
Scotland after 16 years in Africa where he suffered 27 attacks
of African fever, had one arm rendered useless by the bite of a
lion, lived among a people whose language he did not know,
and whose attitude toward him was often hostile, he said,
"Shall I tell you what supported me through all these years of
exile? It was this, 'Lo I am with you always, even unto the
end of the world.'"
There has never been a power that has been able to
conquer a people who live and believe in the presence of God.
When Julian the Apostate was Emperor of the Roman
Empire he did all he could to destroy churches and erect idols.
Libanus, one of his friends, asked a Christian one day, "What
is your Carpenter of Nazareth doing now?" The Christian
responded, "He is making a coffin." And soon Julian was in
it and all the idols were swept away. In his dying breath
Julian cried out, "O Galilean! Thou hast conquered!" The
early church believed that there has always been success
where there has been one or more persons who believe that
God is with them, and that through them God can accomplish
His will. Moses said, "Who am I?" But that is beside the
point said God. It is not who you are but who is behind you
and with you that counts.
III. HE REVEALS HIS ESSENCE v. 13-15
To try and define God is to confine Him. Our minds
cannot fully grasp His nature. This should not surprise us,
for we cannot fully understand anything. The Psalmist cried
out, "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou
understandeth my thought afar off." But when he reverses
the process and considers God he says, "Such knowledge is
too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it." This
does not mean we must join those who think of God as a
vague blur. We cannot find out by searching, but we can
know who God is if he speaks to us, and that he has done.
Paul constantly urges us to grow in the knowledge of God,
and we can only do so by searching His revelation. Someone
said, "We can never attain a maximum love of God with only
a minimum knowledge of God."
A virtuous godly man may be ignorant of many things,
but his ignorance is not one of his virtues, nor is it the cause
of his godliness. It would be strange if God could be loved
better by being known less. What I am saying is that theology
is not just for the theologian, but it is for all believers.
Imagine telling a man who is going to drive across a field and
over a hill that he better watch out for the tree just over the
hill, and he says, "Don't talk to me about trees. I'm a
motorist and not a botanist." This is carrying specialization
too far, for that tree is not only a fact of botany, but a fact of
life. Likewise, God is not just a fact of theology, but He is the
greatest fact of life.
The first and most basic fact that God reveals here to
Moses is that He is a Person and a God of persons. Those
who know God only as He is revealed in nature come to think
of Him as a power rather than a Person. They call Him the
first cause, the unmoved mover, the cosmic organism, or the
stream of tendency. It is easy to see how they arrive at this
conclusion, for power is what nature reveals. A prominent
physicist tells us that if we had to pay for the light bill from
the sun at one penny per kilowatt, one-hundredth millionth
part of a second would cost us more than World War II.
Thank God he doesn't charge for His power. The Bible tells
us that this power has its source in a Person, and it goes
further yet and even says He can be known as a Father.
God is not a power that is unconcerned for us, but He is
a Person whom we can know by faith in Jesus Christ. The
Christian attitude to the wonders of the universe is in the
words of the hymn, "This is my Father's world." All of
reality should take on new meaning to one who knows God.
A mother rushed up the stairs as a thunderstorm broke loose
thinking her little boy would be frantic with fear, but she
found him at the window with his eyes bright with
excitement. He was shouting loudly with every clap of
thunder, "Bang it again God! Band it again!" He had no
fear of the power because he knew the Person behind the
power.
The second thing God reveals about Himself is that He is
the Eternal Present One. God never began, but always is. If
He began then whatever caused His beginning would be greater
than God. When the skeptic asks when did God
begin, he is contradicting himself and does not realize it
because of his false concept of God. He is asking when did
that which had no beginning begin? God by very definition is
without beginning. How far down is a bottomless pit?
Bottomless by very definition eliminates the possibility of
giving any meaning to the question how far down? How long
is eternity? This is asking when does that end which by
definition has no end. If you ask where was God before
creation, you are asking where was God when there wasn't
anywhere, and where was God when there wasn't any when.
You might say that you don't get it, and you are not alone, for
eternity is just not part of our experience. About all we can
say about it is that it is not time, and we cannot think a part
from time.
Eternity is ever present, but in contrast time is never
present. You might say that it is right now, but that is not so
for even in saying the word now you see the constant flow of
time. By the time you say the w the end is already past, and
when you finish the word the time you referred to is already
gone. The present is so short, and so all of life is either in the
past or the future, whereas in eternity all is present. The
present is just the hole in the needle through which the thread
of time passes for us, but for God it is where He dwells
beyond any of the limitations of time.
What God says to Moses implies many things about the
nature of God. The important thing is that we begin to see
that the God of Scripture is greater than any concept that
man has. The gods that many atheists reject are puny
concepts that have nothing to do with the God of Scripture.
We do not believe in the gods most people reject either. They
are often the product of man's imagination and not God's
revelation. On the other hand, we do not believe in the many
gods that others create in their own image. The god of the
alcoholic is liquor and they are deeply devoted to their god.
They love neither father nor mother more than it, and they
will go to any length for it. There are many such gods that
people are devoted to, but they are not the God revealed in
Scripture through Jesus. He alone is worthy of our worship
and devotion.
God taught Moses that He demands reverence, promises
His presence and reveals His essence to those who seek Him
and obey Him. Your God is not big enough if He is not this
God who revealed Himself to Moses and more completely
through His Son Jesus Christ.
