THE BURNING BUSH by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 5, 1861

THE BURNING BUSH.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

"And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned." Ex. iii, 3. Would that there were more like Moses in this respect. Especially do God's servants need this intrepidity in these last days, when the Lord is about to do his "work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange act." Isa. xxviii, 21. While reading and reflecting upon this first great manifestation of the Lord to his servant Moses, I could but liken it in some respects to the third angel's message. Previous to this Moses had made the choice to suffer with God's people rather than enjoy all the glory of an Egyptian monarch; but the time had come when the Lord was about to prove him and find out what he would really endure for his sake. We have no evidence that Moses saw the angel of the Lord in the burning bush; yet he may have had some intimation that the Lord was there, for it seems that he had already left the flock and come to the mount of God. Be this as it may, he was blest in obedience, for he no sooner stood upon the spot than he found that the God of Abraham was there in power. No wonder he hid his face for fear and could not look upon the effulgent glory of God as there revealed, and that when the Lord laid so great a burden upon him, he exclaimed, Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt!

Now we believe that the law of God is shining out under the third angel's message with a brilliancy equal to that which attracted the attention of Moses, and that if an individual will turn aside from his ordinary course and hear these strange things for himself, that the Lord will call after him by his Spirit, and he will be led to yield to the claims of the divine law, upon which he may be fully crucified, and say with Paul "I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came sin revived and I died."

But there is one point I wish to notice in particular. It is this: "And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses." Why did not the Lord call to him in the outset? Why did not the burning bush appear directly in his pathway? Was it because the Lord was confined to that particular spot? No; but he wished to test Moses' obedience just as we shall all be tested. No matter if an individual has professed the religion of Christ for years, and has even been a teacher in Israel, he must yield to the mandates of God's law as far as light is brought out, and walk in the light, or what little light he had in the past will become darkness, and O, how great that darkness when all the righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned nor appreciated of the Lord.

But there is another step to be taken. It is not enough to turn aside and hear, and believe in the message. Hundreds have done this. It is a common thing for the multitude to be stirred up. Why, they will lay aside business and go for miles, and listen with intense interest to the word of the Lord as it comes from the lips of his servants, sealed to their consciences by his Spirit, and at that moment they perhaps feel that they ought to obey God rather than man; but how is it in the end? It is just like a man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straitway forgeteth what manner of man he was. But he that looks into the perfect law of liberty must continue to look therein if he expects to be blessed in his deeds.

E. J. W.

Battle Creek, Mich.