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Exchanged Glory III: Wise as Serpents
A huge part of having a sensitive God sensor is being willing to investigate to find out what God is doing.
And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him (Moses) in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, "I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn." So 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." (emphasis added)
Most people know what happened after this. God sent Moses to Egypt and brought Israel out of Egypt with mighty miracles.
What would have happened if Moses hadn’t turned aside to the burning bush? I think the answer is: “Nothing.” If Moses hadn’t been interested enough in God to check out a miracle (a bush that burned without being consumed), his God sensor wasn’t sensitive enough to do all that he needed to do in Egypt.[45]
A huge part of having a sensitive God sensor is being willing to investigate to find out what God is doing. If we treat Exodus 3:2-4 as a metaphor, we find a general principle that teaches us a valuable lesson for life. God often gives small demonstrations of His power (like a burning bush) and then waits to see what we do with them. If we make our God sensors sensitive by looking into His work, He speaks to us. If we don’t, He lets us walk by.
Here are some examples: an unsaved man may see the work of God in a friend who is being transformed after surrendering to Jesus. What if that man doesn’t bother to find out what caused His friend’s change of heart? He has ignored the burning bush of a life touched by supernatural grace and has missed a chance to hear from God. If he had asked a few questions and then followed up with some heartfelt searching, he could have been touched by heaven’s power.
Some walk into a church meeting and feel the Holy Spirit moving. I have seen people start crying as they sense His presence in the service. They have seen the burning bush of God’s goodness to His people, yet some walk out and never come back. They don’t put in the effort to learn Who has touched them and what He wants with their life. As a result, they miss the blessing He could bring to them. Those who come back and pursue Him are transformed by His word and power. God speaks to them from the “burning bush.”
I am sometimes amazed by the questions people don’t ask. Imagine if I walked into a room full of suffering sex addicts and said, “I was hopelessly bound by sexual sins, but Jesus has made me free.” If people didn’t ask questions, I would know one of the reasons they were still suffering sex addicts. They haven’t made their God sensors sensitive.
My statement was a burning bush statement. It demanded questions. “What do you mean by free?” “What did God teach you that helped you along the way?” “How can I learn what you did?”
God is looking for those who will investigate when He moves. He judges a generation that walks by.
Next Jesus let fly on the cities where he had worked the hardest but whose people had responded the least, shrugging their shoulders and going their own way. "Doom to you, Chorazin! Doom, Bethsaida! If Tyre and Sidon had seen half of the powerful miracles you have seen, they would have been on their knees in a minute. At Judgment Day they'll get off easy compared to you. And Capernaum! With all your peacock strutting, you are going to end up in the abyss. If the people of Sodom had had your chances, the city would still be around. At Judgment Day they'll get off easy compared to you."
(Matthew 11:20-24, The Message)
In these statements, Jesus condemned the cities that had seen His ministry and walked by without repenting. On a first reading, we might think that the Israelites in these cities must have been horrible sinners. After all, Sodom was full of wickedness. If the Israelites would face a stricter judgment, they must have been worse.
If we look more closely, however, we see that they didn’t fit our normal image of “horrible sinners.” Most of them weren’t murderers, thieves, or adulterers. Very few, if any, raped and plundered others. Many followed the Law of Moses strictly. They were probably basically nice people.
Aside from their outward religious dress and activities, I suspect that they were a lot like us. They did their work and treated others with basic respect. A large number of them probably even liked Jesus. In other parts of Israel, many praised his teachings in the synagogues (Luke 4:15 NAS). Great crowds came to see Him. At one time, they wanted to make Him king (John 6:15).
This wasn’t true for all of them, of course. The religious leaders especially rejected Him, but Matthew 11:20-24 pronounces judgment on more than the religious leaders. Jesus condemns everyone who didn’t become His disciple.
What great sin did the common people commit that was going to make it so intolerable for them on Judgment Day? It was that after God had shown His miraculous power, they didn’t take the time to find out what Jesus was really about. They looked at the ultimate burning bush, God’s Son, and walked by without doing what was required. If they had sincerely investigated, God would have spoken to them, and they could have repented and been saved.
"On Judgment Day, the Ninevites will stand up and give evidence that will condemn this generation, because when Jonah preached to them they changed their lives. A far greater preacher than Jonah is here, and you squabble about 'proofs.' On Judgment Day, the Queen of Sheba will come forward and bring evidence that will condemn this generation, because she traveled from a far corner of the earth to listen to wise Solomon. Wisdom far greater than Solomon's is right in front of you, and you quibble over 'evidence.'”
(Matthew 12:41-42, The Message)
The people of Nineveh turned to a burning bush named Jonah. In contrast, the Israelites squabbled about ‘proofs.’ The Queen of Sheba traveled a great distance to hear a burning bush named Solomon (1 Kings 10:1-10). The Israelites quibbled over ‘evidence.’ When God speaks, He expects us to adjust our God sensors so we can hear what He is saying.
We can misunderstand the purpose of burning bushes. For a time, the Israelites were able to enjoy the benefits of the great miracles of Jesus. Unfortunately, the Father was trying to do more than to give them temporary blessings. He wanted to bring them into a permanent experience of His life. If we take advantage of the light God is giving us, we become its children, and it remains within us even during times of darkness.
As you have the light, believe in the light. Then the light will be within you, and shining through your lives. You'll be children of light.
(John 12:36, The Message)
Those Israelites who turned aside and repented entered forever what they briefly touched in Jesus. He moved into their hearts and made them burning bushes themselves.
The person who trusts me will not only do what I'm doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I've been doing. You can count on it.
(John 14:12, The Message)
I don’t mean to imply by this that they became perfect. Jesus is the only One who has fully entered into all that God has for Him. Nevertheless, the promise of the Holy Spirit was for them, as it is for us. When we follow Jesus, He abides with us forever. We are able to do His works, and He will make Himself plain to us.
"The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that's who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him."
(John 14:21, The Message)
Burning bushes are only for a time. They don’t last forever unless we turn to them and allow God to make them a part of us. If we don’t receive His message, we miss out on the grace He wanted to give us through them.
The situation is worse than that, however. A burning bush often drives demons away from our lives as it gives us the opportunity to be filled up with God. When we fail to receive Him, the demons eventually come back with their buddies. They reenter our spiritual vacuum, and our torment can become worse than it was before the burning bush showed up. Jesus described what was going to happen to His generation.
"When a defiling evil spirit is expelled from someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn't find anyone, it says, 'I'll go back to my old haunt.' On return it finds the person spotlessly clean, but vacant. It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits more evil than itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse off than if he'd never gotten cleaned up in the first place. That's what this generation is like: You may think you have cleaned out the junk from your lives and gotten ready for God, but you weren't hospitable to my kingdom message, and now all the devils are moving back in." (emphasis added)
(Matthew 12:43-45, The Message)
A few decades after Jesus was crucified, Israel was overrun by so many spirits of wickedness and foolishness that the Romans destroyed their country and dragged them into exile. They hadn’t turned to the light, so they got darkness.
About ninety years ago (the 1920s), a generation in my country was faced with a huge burning bush, a Christian heritage. They walked away from that legacy to pursue other gods. They were happy that Christianity had cleaned their land of many evil spirits, but they didn’t want to take the time to find out what Jesus was about. They held to a form of godliness but denied its power.
Each generation down to the current one has continued in the sins of their fathers. It isn’t hard to see that the demons are back with their buddies. The result is a swarm of mental illnesses, addictions, and stress related disorders.
We should have expected this. We wanted the blessings of Christianity (a clean house), without the God of Christianity (the house was vacant). The demons consider that an invitation.
There is still hope for each of us individually, and even for the culture as a whole if enough people repent. Turn to Jesus, God’s ultimate burning bush, and be saved from the sickness around us.
He went on in this vein for a long time, urging them over and over, "Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture!"
(Acts 2:40, The Message)
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