ACTS 7:31

The martyr Stephen was speaking about Moses and the burning bush and Stephen said in Acts 7:31-32, “When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, Saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled and dared not behold.” No doubt that there was an important reason that God identified Himself this way to Moses. God said, “I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

This was all about the promise, and an emphasis on the fact that God was going to keep His promise. God made the promise to Abraham about the land that God would give to Abraham. God owns everything. Whatever you have, God has given it to you. Abraham did not have the promised-land when God made the promise, but it was etched in stone because it was etched in the mind and heart of God. What God promises, He always fulfills. That is why He mentioned that He was also the God of Isaac and of Jacob. The promise was not just to Abraham: it was also to all of his descendants. God kept the promise to Abraham, and God kept the promise to Isaac, and God kept the promise to Jacob, which meant that God was going to keep the promise to Moses. By the way, it also means that God is going to keep the promises He has made to us. Make sure that you know what the promises are, and then you will know what God is going to do in your life. Also, make sure that you have received the promise of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.

Moses had been in the wilderness for forty years. He had been chased out of Egypt when he tried to stand up as the leader. But when the time was right, God revealed Himself to Moses and God set things in motion. Moses needed to be prepared before He was able to accomplish this great task. After forty years of getting the highest learning of Egypt and after forty years of learning practical things herding sheep in the wilderness, Moses was ready. But before He stepped out into his calling, Moses needed to be reminded of some things here at the burning bush.

First Moses was reminded of the promise. Moses must remember to have faith in that promise. That is how he led the children of Israel to the promised-land: faith in God’s promise. Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith, it is impossible to please Him.” The Bible says, “The just shall live by faith.” It says in Genesis, “Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Moses also needed to live by faith in God’s promises, and Moses need to be aware of another important spiritual principle in order to be a leader of God’s people. It says in Acts 7:33, “Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground.”

Moses needed to be aware of the holiness of God. God is holy. The only way that we can approach unto God is to put off the things of this world that have tainted us. That is what taking off the shoes symbolized and that’s what repentance accomplishes. Believers must still repent in order to draw closer to God, because God is holy. That is why Jesus told the apostles to always pray, “Forgive us our trespasses.” That is why the apostle John said to believers in First John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

God is holy and the people of God must be holy. The leaders of God’s people must certainly be holy also. “Be ye holy for I am holy, saith the Lord.” Without holiness, you will not have any power. We are dependent upon the power of the Holy Spirit in order to serve Him, and the emphasis is on “holy” as much as it is on “spirit” in the name of the person Holy Spirit. No wonder that believers are told to “quench not” the Holy Spirit and to “grieve not” the Holy Spirit. No wonder that Moses was told, “Put off the shoes from off thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground.” How else would Moses be prepared to draw close to God, and how else would Moses be prepared to lead the people of God? There is a beauty to holiness, and there is also a power to holiness. If you do not have the power of God, it may that there are some sins that you should turn from, and it may be that your life is not as holy as it should be. That is what God was telling Moses.

In Acts 7:34 God tells Moses why God had appeared to Moses. God said to Moses, “I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.” God cares about His children, and He always has things planned out so that His children will be taken care of. Woe to those who fight against the children of God. They only pile up judgment against themselves because God loves and cares for His own. Jesus said in Matthew 18:6, “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

God does not like to destroy the wicked. Jesus is the Savior of the world. But enough is enough. Those who persecute and hate God’s people are ever marching closer to the date of their destruction. We should not hate them, we should pray for them because their destruction draweth near just as the deliverance of God’s people draws near. So it was in the time of Moses, and so it will be in the end time. That is one of the themes of the book of Revelation. Revelation 6:9-10 says, “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” The time will come for judgment and the believers will be delivered from the earth. They will be caught up from the earth and delivered from it. And judgment will fall upon those who were not a part of the people of God. It happened in the time of Moses and it will happen in the end-time.

As we look back at the sermon that Stephen was delivering in the book of Acts, we see that Stephen is showing the fact that there were certain parallels between Moses and Jesus. They were not parallel in all things because Jesus was the Son of God, but there were some noticeable parallels. Stephen said in Acts 7:35, “This Moses whom they refused, saying, who made thee a ruler and a judge? The same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.” That which man refuses, God chooses. Why is that? Perhaps it is to show that God is in charge and not man. Perhaps also it is because someone who has been rejected by man has learned an important lesson necessary to be able to serve God faithfully in this world. In order to serve God faithfully you must go away from the things of the world. “Evil communications corrupt good manners.” In order to speak the Word of God you must speak the Word of God without compromise. You cannot be concerned with the opinions of man. If you have been an outcast, you have gotten used to being that way, so you will be a good servant of God. Jesus was an outcast. John 1:11 says of Jesus, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

Moses was an outcast, but God made him a ruler and a deliverer. God called, Moses surrendered to that calling, and this is the result. Acts 7:36 says, “He brought them out, after that he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.” The people of God had been in Egypt four hundred years, but God had not forgotten them and God had not forgotten His promise to them. God will not forget His promises to us either, and the day will come when He will deliver us also from this world. In order for the children of Israel to be delivered from Egypt, they needed a deliverer. In order for you to be delivered from the world and its enslavement, you also need a deliverer, and Jesus is the chosen One who can deliver you.

Moses was a leader and a deliverer. He was also a prophet. Things were revealed to Moses from God. The first five books of the Bible were revealed to him. Another important thing that was revealed to Moses was the fact that there would be a future deliverer about whom Moses had a certain symbolism. The Bible says in Acts 7:37, “This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up onto you of your brethren, like unto me: him shall you hear.” Jesus is the Deliverer and the Savior that Moses spoke about. The children of Israel always knew that God was going to send another deliverer to them, and they were always looking for that deliverer: otherwise known as the Messiah. Moses brought the law straight from the mind of God; and the other deliverer would also speak and bring a great teaching from God. John 1:17 says, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

Stephen said about Moses in Acts 7:38, “This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spoke to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; who received the living oracles to give unto us.” This is an interesting use of the word church, and helps to explain the true meaning of the word. The word church means “those that are called out.” The children of Israel were a church in the sense that they were called to come out of the world and to be together having escaped the enslavement to the world. If they were called, then someone called them: God. The church refers to the people. It does not refer to a building. The church is made up of those who are called by God to come out from the world and to join together in their service to God and in their walk with Him. Moses was the leader of this great assembly, and to Moses were revealed some very great and wonderful things: words from God, and not just any words but living words. What was Moses to do with these great words that were given to him from God? Moses was to give the words unto the people so that they also would know the words of God. That is what a prophet is: someone who gets a message from God and then who delivers that message without compromise unto the people.

With all of these great things happening: God keeping the promise that He made to Abraham, God remembering His people and choosing the time to deliver them, God preparing Moses and calling Moses to be the leader who would take the children of Israel out of bondage: surely the people would respond in a way that would show faith and thanksgiving and service to God. Is that what happened? No. In spite of all that God had done for them, the people turned away from the prophet and his message.

The Bible says in Acts 7:39-43, “To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt. Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him. And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifices unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O you house of Israel, have you offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your God Remphan, figures which you made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.”

This tendency of the people of God to turn away from God has always been something to watch out for. It happened when the children of Israel first came out of Egypt. It also happened after they were taken into the promised-land, and was the reason that they were eventually taken into captivity into Babylon. It also happened when Jesus came to Israel, and they rejected Him. As a believer you can make sure that the same thing does not happen to you by doing the things and thinking the things that will keep it from happening. “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” “Draw nigh unto God, and he will draw nigh unto you.” “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

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