Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Exodus 3:1-6
We may well see also a message for Moses himself in the burning bush, in relation to his earlier failure, in his self-directed service for God. Here, in the emblem of the Almighty burning steadily in a common bush, it may be that, as has been said, 'a new conception leapt up in his heart. His life-work might yet be accomplished by the union of his worthless nature with the Eternal Being of God. He was required to become, not an agent, but an instrument; not a promoter, but a conveyor; not a source, but a channel' (F.B. Meyer). Above all, however, Moses learned that the God with whom he had to do was a holy God. It is hardly possible to lay too much emphasis on this today, when the sense of divine holiness is at such a discount in the mind of the Church. One has only to ask whether in fact the call to Christian service in our time is accompanied by a sense of the awe and majesty of God's holiness to realise how different a conception prevails in the modern mind from that which is uniform in the Scriptures. Isaiah, Daniel, Saul of Tarsus, John on Patmos, were all alike overwhelmed and prostrated by the brightness of His glory, but we sophisticated moderns, God help us, want to treat the Almighty as a chum, and speak of fellowship with Him as 'good fun'. So great - and disastrous - is the difference of viewpoint from that of the Scriptures.