The call of Moses.
I. THE MESSAGE BY FIRE. Fire is the sign of the presence of Jehovah. It denotes spiritual agency in its intensity. Fire penetrates and it purifies. It is, therefore, inimical to evil and conservative of good. Darkness of mystery is round about God, and when he comes forth from it to reveal himself to men it is in the form of fire. It is an emblem of the Holy Spirit. In the bosoms of men he glows, and the musing poet bursts forth into inspired song, and the prophet into "words that burn and thoughts that breathe of truth and power." When we ask that God will answer us by fire, we ask that be will make known his presence in the most vivid manner in feeling, and with the most mighty effect on the life. Specially the vision of the burning bush was a type of Israel unconsumed notwithstanding its fierce persecution in Egypt; of the glory of his great Representative, the Messiah—a bright flame springing from the lowly bush; of the Church amidst its age long conflicts and trials; lastly, of all truth, which "like a torch, the more it's shook, it shines;" the more the breezes of controversy blow about it, the purer and clearer its illumination.
II. THE LIVING VOICE OF THE ETERNAL. The sense of hearing as well as that of sight is addressed. So ever in the disclosures of the Divine. What we have felt in part through the hearing of the car is illustrated and confirmed by the evidence of the more skeptical organ, the eye. Or what we have witnessed with a certainty not to be gainsaid, in actual fact is presently interpreted and connected with the great principle to which it belongs by some similar voice of teaching. The utterance here is simple. It is a declaration that the God of history is the ever-present God. He who was with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is here with Moses. Faith has always its past to fall back upon; it can renew its life in moments of weakness out of the living fount of memory.
III. THE WONDER AND THE TERROR OF THE DIVINE PRESENCE. First, Moses wonders at the burning bush. Wonder is the reflection in feeling of the extraordinary, and it is the parent of curiosity. Why and whence, the spirit asks, this irruption into the course of nature? It is the appearance of the living God, is the only answer to the question. Here wonder passes into fear and trembling, which betray man's sense of utter dependence in the presence of the Almighty and the All-holy. The sight of the unspeakable glory is shrunk from. In ordinary life nature and custom conceal God, and mercifully; for how could one glimpse of absolute truth, of Divine perfection, be endured? But terror passes into reverence, which is the blending of fear with love and confidence as the mind becomes more inured to the experience. The sandals are thrown off, as in the presence of an august sovereign. How good to feel that nature, the daily scene of a wondrous drama, the occasional theatre of magnificent spectacles, as in the tempest, the thunder-voices and fiery revelation betokening the presence of creative might,—is holy ground! But the mind becomes deadened by custom. And well is it, therefore, that in those places specially consecrated to meetings with God—the church, the private oratory—habits of outward submission and reverence should be cultivated which may have their right influence on the whole moods of the soul.
IV. THE CALL.
1. The call of man by God is ever to service on behalf of the suffering. All human suffering has an echo in the heart of God. He is the God of all compassion. He is not merely love, but love as an active will. He determines to save. Now it is a nation from outward captivity, now a generation from bondage to ignorance and fear. Light and health are the images of his energy and influence.
2. The called man is a man sent. He has a mission, and it is ever a mission to the lowly and the meek. So has it been with all the great prophets; so above all with the Christ. "I send thee into Egypt." "Where lies the Egypt to which I am sent, and where the fulfillment of my life-call must lie?" the Christian may ask. John Howard found his Egypt in the prisons of Europe, and "trod an open but unfrequented path to immortality." Our Egypt may be close at hand. Wherever we see an obsolete custom, a corrupt habit of thought, an ignorance of any kind, a spell laid upon the imagination, or a vice tyrannizing over the will of others, there is a house of bondage. God needs the co-operation of many finite deliverers that his design of an infinite deliverance may go forward. If we, like Moses and like Elijah and Isaiah, are ready with our "Here am I send me," it will not be long before we receive our directions and our marching orders.—J.