The Burning Bush
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.” — Ex. ni. 2.
For His various pupils that great Teacher, the Holy Spirit, has different methods of training, and their education is carried on in widely different seminaries. In the case, however, of those who are destined to head mighty moral revolutions, we find that a period of seclusion and abstraction has been the almost uniform preparation. It was from a prolonged retreat beside the brook Cherith, and afterwards in a cavern of this very Horeb, that Elijah issued forth on the two great incidents of his grand career; and it was from a similar but longer sojourn in the hill-country of Judea, that, in the spirit and power of Elijah, Messiah’s harbinger burst forth on an astonished people. Luther’s Horeb was the period he spent in the Augustinian convent; Knox’s Horeb was his seventeen months in the French galley; and there are men now living who are a largre influence on their brethren, whose own spirit was first wound up to the right intensity during a season of repose and solitude, and who came forth from their chosen or enforced retreat with a baptism on them which still remaineth.
A coated phial will hold a certain charge of electricity; but if there are a number of minute conductors in contact with it, they will draw off the force as fast as it flows in, and reduce to nothing what might otherwise have been a flash of mimic lightning. A tree that grows in a forest, and surrounded by a million more — it may be straight and tall, and there may be no bend or flaw in its smooth and taper bole; but its roots are shallow, and should some chance bereave it of its comrades — should it be left alone — the first blast will lay its leafy honours in the dust; for its growth was entirely gregarious; its safety lay in its associates; and now that this shield is gone, having no depth of earth, the moment that the long fingers of the hurricane are twisted in its locks, it goes over with a crash, and the birds no longer build in its branches. So with earnest feeling in a bustling place: it gets no leisure to accumulate. The seriousness of the Sabbath is stolen by the week; nay, it is spirited away by the first beams of the following day. A jocular companion, an urgent engagement, an absorbing care, a multitude of matters, some idle and some innocent — like so many furtive conductors, like the very vapour in the atmosphere, are quietly robbing you of the elevation or energy which you felt at night; and before the good purpose comes forth in any definite or decisive act, the power has vanished and you are weak as other men. And so with the piety which is produced and fostered merely by good comxanionship: as long as you are under the roof of pious parents, as long as you enjoy the fellowship of earnest and fervent friends, you may hold on; but when cast on the wide world, or brought into circumstances of strong temptation, if you are not kept close to God by God himself; if you are not so rooted and grounded in the truth as to render your piety decided and independent of human support, it will be too likely to fall wdien the weather breaks and the tempests blow.
By choosing the better part, Moses was so far ready for any work that God designed; and in his palace-life he had been unconsciously receiving a portion of his training. He had got some insight to statesmanship and military affairs; he had acquired the etiquette of the Egyptian court, and had learned to be at home in the presence of princes. But these, like “the wisdom of the Egyptians,” were mere accomplishments, and for the great but unguessed
undertaking before him Moses needed a profound and peculiar discipline. He needed to grow in acquaintance with that God with whom he was hereafter to commune face to face, and whose messenger and spokesman he was to be in a manner so special and pre-eminent. He needed to be lifted completely and conclusively above those mixed or meaner motives by which well-intentioned men are so often in large measure actuated. He needed to be raised nearer to heaven than earth; and, we may add, he needed to have his entire spirit so habituated to lofty thoughts, so accustomed and inured to live at a high level, that in after days,
“As some taU rock amidst the waves
The fury of the tempest braves,”
so his spirit should be able to surmount the molestations and the murmurs, the opposition and the obloquy, which for the next forty years, like a troubled sea, should chafe and churn around him.
For such purpose no retirement could have been found more suitable than the desert of Horeb, that “great and terrible wilderness,” which a friend thus describes: — “It was a vision of more utter barrenness and desolation than we had ever seen or fancied; no soft feature in the landscape to mitigate the unbroken horror. No green spot, no tree, no flower, no rill, no lake, but dark brown ridges, red peaks like pyramids of solid fire; no rounded hillocks, or soft mountain curves such as one sees in the ruggedest of home scenes, but monstrous and misshapen cliffs, rising tier above tier, and surmounted here and there by some spire-like summit, serrated for miles into ragged grandeur, and grooved from head to foot by the winter torrents that had swept down like bursting water-spouts, tearing their naked loins, and cutting into the very veins and sinews of the fiery rock.” “^ Amidst this labyrinth of bald and blasted mountains, Moses dwelt for forty years; and although it is vain to surmise what were all the thoughts and musings of this protracted interval, we are inclined to think that a glimpse is given in that Ninetieth Psalm, entitled,” A prayer of Moses, the man of God,” — and which acquires new significance when we think of the hermit lifting up his eyes to these lonely silent pinnacles, and thinking, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” And then, when his thoughts reverted to the wretched scenes in Egypt,” Return, 0 Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their chil-
1 Bonar’s Desert of Smai, p. 236.
dren. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”
At last came the eventful day, and yet a day ushered in by no special sign nor devoted to any unusual solemnity. Moses had led out his flock as far as Sinai, where in some of the ravines could be found a fragrant pasture for the goats and the sheep, and where there was a good store of water. It was a sword of fire which guarded the gates of Eden; it was in a chariot of fire that Elijah ascended to heaven; it was a pillar of fire which guided the pilgrims in their desert journey, and which afterwards settled down between the cherubim in the Holy of Holies; it was with tongues of fire that the Holy Spirit symbolized His presence on the day of Pentecost; and it was with an effulgence beyond the noon that the fury-breathing persecutor was dashed down on the way to Damascus; so that the element which we deem the purest and most penetrating, Jehovah seems to have employed throughout as His especial badge and cognisance, the opening of His eye, the flash of His finger. But of this Moses was not thinking when a great sight arrested his eye. A. bush, no palm nor olive, but a tamarisk or a thorny acacia, shone out with a brilliant flame. It did not crackle nor burn down, and Moses was hastening to the spot, when his foot was arrested by a voice divine, — a voice which soon brought him to the dust, hiding his face and fearing to look upon God. In the wonderful interview which followed, the Lord announced His name and the purpose for which He had now appeared to His servant, and with marvellous condescension meeting all the scruples of a meek and self-disparaging recluse, He sent him home the most highly favoured and the most heavily burdened amongst the sons of men; the most highly favoured, inasmuch as he was the first to whom, after the silence of ages, Jehovah had spoken; the most heavily burdened, inasmuch as he felt crushed and overwhelmed with the commission which he dared not lay down, and which he trembled to discharge.
It is worthy of notice that Jehovah did not announce Himself as the God of Levi, the God of Kohath, the God of Amram, Moses’ immediate progenitors; but He goes back hundreds of years, and says, “I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” to show at once that it was an everlasting covenant, and that although it had not “grown” of late, it was neither dead nor dormant. All the parties between whom it had been originally ratified still were extant: God lived, and Abraham, Isaac, Jacob were living also. Thus Christ Himself explained the words. “Have you any doubt as to the soul’s immortality? Do you not remember how at the bush God spoke of the patriarchs as friends of His, that is, as friends still living? For He is not the God of the dead. The great I am does not identify Himself with that which has gone into annihilation and ceased to be; so that if at the bush He proclaimed Himself Abraham’s God, Abraham must still retain his identity and consciousness, and the time must be coming when he shall resume his body also, — that body by which alone his personality can be completed, and his identity manifested to those who (like Elijah and the saints surviving to the Advent and then translated) are not pure spirits, but clothed in corporeity.”
This proof of immortality, as exhibited by the great Teacher, is sufficient; but we scarcely suppose that He gave this proof because the strongest or most telling. “In doubting the resurrection, in questioning the soul’s immortality, ye do err from not knowing the Scriptures, neither the power of God. So pervaded with this doctrine is all Revelation, that it was implied in that fundamental revelation made to Moses, that announcement of God’s name which commenced the theocratic history, and even the burning bush blazed with immortality.” But instead of bearing hard on those whose cursory or cabalistic eyes so often scanned the words and missed the revelation, let us be thankful for announcements more articulate, for information more explicit, and for proofs so palpable that faith needs no longer tremble nor ask another sign.
And yet, with life and immortality brought to light, how many close their eyes and miss the comfort! A few days ago we read new biographies of two of the greatest bards of modern Britain; one the most ethereal and idealistic of our poets, the other such a master of the lyre as hardly Gray or Dryden has surpassed. When Shelley was by a sudden squall buried in the Gulf of Genoa, William Godwin wrote to the young and distracted widow, his own daughter, “My poor girl! What do you mean to do with yourself? You surely do not mean to stay in Italy?... Above all, keep up your courage. You have many duties to perform; you must now be the father as well as the mother, and I trust you have energy of character enough to enable you to perform your duties honourably and well.”^ Is not this exquisite sympathy from a father to his favourite child, “My poor girl, what do you mean to do with yourself?” Is not this strong consolation from the philosopher who could dispense with Christianity: “Keep up your courage. I trust to your energy!” Again, when Campbell lost his wife (and I fear he had lost any practical faith in
1 Memorials of Shelley, p. 206. Lond. 1859.
Christianity beforehand) his reflection was, “These are strange dispensations, and to what demonstrated end?” but added, “There must be a God, that is evident: there must be an all-powerful, inscrutable God.”^ With deaths so dreary, or rather with survivors so desolate in their sorrow, contrast the hope full of immortality. “Surely,” writes the great scholar Bengel after the death of his child, “Surely, when the door of paradise is opened to let in any of our departed friends, delicious breezes blow through it upon us from that abode of blessedness.” “As I reclined my head upon my dying child’s little couch, I thought I could gladly die with it that moment.” And when dying himself, said the successful physician Dr. Gordon, “I have found in Christ a happiness I did not think existed on this side the grave. People have said that death is frightful. I look on it with pleasure. I see no monsters around me. Death? I see no death at my bed-side. It is that benign Saviour waiting to take me. This is not the testimony of one who has nothing to live for. I am in the prime of life, with comforts and friends around me; but the prospect of heaven is more than all.”^
You are immortal, my brethren. If you have found the Saviour, you have experienced a first
Redding’s Reminiscences of Campbell, vol. ii. p. 131. 2 Dr. Gordon, by Newman Hall, p. 171.
resurrection. The heart which was dead before has come alive again, and you have got new feelings towards God and holiness. You trust in Jesus. You believe that He has gone to His Father’s house, and you will believe that He will keep His promise, and that where He is you shall be taken at last, to dwell with Him for ever. But to keep that hope alive, you must keep close to Him who gave it. “A darkening universe” you may defy
“To quench your immortality
Or shake your trust in God.”
But that which a darkening universe cannot do may be effectually done by a sinful indulgence or a departing Saviour: for the wages of sin is death, and there is death in leaving the Fountain of Life. Oh, it is a chilly clime, that land of estrangement from God, — and under the hazy, frosty cloud which a guilty conscience brings over the scene, confidence Godward and the hope of a glorious hereafter wither away, and even the strength for discharging duty and the elasticity for bearing trial. So, dear friends, as you would desire never to penetrate the fearful mysteries of the second death, escape from the darkness and horrors of the first. Be sure that you have really emerged from the grave of ungodliness, — the death of trespasses and sins. Be sure that, like a tombstone on your soul, there is no bad besetment, no sinful habit holding down your spirit.
THE BUENING BUSH. Ill
And in loving obedience and affectionate communion, keep near that Conqueror of death, who to faithful discipleship says, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” And in daily devotion, in the sanctified Sabbath and the frequented sanctuary, keep as near as you can to heaven’s gate, — in those connections and employments where He who is “the God not of the dead but of the living” will be apt to meet you, and where you may be cheered by a glimpse of that world in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob now dwell with God.
There is something wonderfully sublime and spirit-filling in that name by which the Llost High now announced Himself to Moses, and by which, in its form of Jehovah, He is designated throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, “I am that I am,” the Self-existent, the Immutable, the Eternal, the one living God, to the exclusion of the lords many which Egypt and the other idolaters adored. But self-sufficing as His own perfections are, great are His compassions, most gracious and forthgoing His propensities. The plenitude of His own joy occasions no indifference to the cry of the Hebrew bondmen, the absoluteness of His perfections is itself a necessity for fulfilling the promise to the patriarchs. And this is the believer’s privilege. In the Divine nature there is nothing so august or glorious but it may become to him a theme of pleasing contemplation; for that blessed relation to the Most High which through the Mediator he has resumed, invests each perfection with light and endearment. In itself, “I AM THAT I am” is a name high and lifted up. Its Divine independence seems to shut the creatures outside; it seems to fling “dust and ashes” to an infinite distance. But when we find that, through the grace of this glorious God, sinners may be saved — when we find that frail fellow-mortals may be taken up into God’s eternity — when we find that the life of Abraham is now locked up within the life of God, whilst Abraham, the friend of God, retains his personality and his place in God’s affection, the name grows full of strength and comfort. We venture to hope that we may be saved even as they, and that we too may find, within that unchanging name, our impregnable and immortal dwelling-place; and so we sing, at once adoring and confiding —
“The God of Abram praise!
Who reigns enthroned above;
Ancient of everlasting days,
And God of love!
Jehovah! great I am!
By earth and heaven confessed,
I bow and bless the sacred Name,
For ever blessed!
The God of Abram praise!
Whose all-sufi&cient grace
Shall guide me all my happy days
In all His ways:
He calls a worm His friend!
He calls Himself my God!
And He shall save me to the end
Through Jesus’ blood.”
That burning bush, laid a lasting hold on the memory and imagination of Moses. When his commission was ended, when about to lay down his miraculous rod, and recalling how not one of the good things which God had spoken had failed, and how all the difficulties which his own timidity had conjured up had disappeared, he reverted to this memorable scene, and, in blessing all the tribes, the best blessing he could wish for Joseph was “the goodwill of Him that dwelt in the hush.”’^ Apart from all its adjuncts the sight was striking; in connection with the voice of Jehovah, in connection with the affliction in Egypt and the deliverance which from that instant dated, it was a sight never to be forgotten. It was a sight profoundly significant. As we have already hinted, the glory of God was emblemed by the effulgence which outshone the day; but it was not a mere effulgence. “The bush burned;” it did not simply gleam with a mere phosphorescence or lambent light, but it “burned with fire;” and it was with Moses the amazement how so fierce a flame could involve the branches and yet leave them fresh and green. Assuredly a sign, it was a symbol also, not merely a
1 Deut. xxxiii. 16.
H
prodigy but a lesson to the eye, a symbol interpreted, when from the burning bush Jehovah said, “I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters.” And doubtless the Christian Fathers were right in understanding the lowly bush preserved amidst the fire as an emblem not only of Israel in Egypt, but of the Church of God in a persecuting world; and our Church of Scotland fathers have not only sanctioned the interpretation by adopting the emblem, but their records have supplied new illustrations to their own chosen motto, “Nee tamen consumebatur.”
How signally the marvel has been repeated in the Babylonish captivity as well as in the Egyptian bondage, in the Christian Church passing through its ten persecutions in the days of imperial Rome, in the Albigenses, in the Lollards of England, in the Huguenots of France, in the Covenanters of Scotland, we need not linger to repeat. There is one inference of practical import with which we are content to conclude.
The individual believer, like the collective company, may be compared to this bush. Like the lowly shrub in Horeb, you feel small compared with the trees of the wood. Your abode is obscure, your attainments humble. You are a root out of a dry ground, and growing where there are few advantages.
And, to make you more anxious, the fire lias kindled upon you. You are in straits, in grievous perplexity and trouble. You are in pain yourself, or in deep distress on account of others, in the furnace of affliction, as we say. Or you are assaulted by fiery darts of Satan, fierce temptations, infidel suggestions, allurements to some great wickedness, till, in the red-hot rain, you feel as if you must be utterly consumed. But call on God, and He will come to your rescue. The bush may be in the fire, but if God be in the bush it runs no risk; the flame that laps it round may consume the canker worms and caterpillars that preyed upon its verdure, but they will not scorch the tiniest sprig nor consume the most tender blossom. There is no affliction so severe but under it God can support, and out of it can carry more than a conqueror. There is no furnace so hot as to consume a hair of your head if the Son of God be with you there. And although all other temples should yield to the torch of the destroyer, like the famed fabric at Ephesus, and the still more famous shrine at Jerusalem, whether it be the frail body of an afflicted believer or the twigs and tendrils of a bush in the desert, which forms the place of God’s special indwelling, no fire of earth or hell can hurt a living shrine of the Godhead, far less consume a temple of the Holy Ghost.