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our text for tonight's message is taken from Exodus chapter 3 verse 1 to 9. let us turn to this passage and read together Exodus chapter 3 beginning with verse 1. now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law the priest of median and he led the flock to the back side of the desert and came to the Mountain of God even to Horeb and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in the flame of fire out of the midst of a bush and he looked and behold the bush burned with fire and the Bush was not consumed verse 3 and Moses said I will now turn aside and see this great sight why the bush is not burned and when Moses saw that 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 and he said here am I and he said draw not nigh heeda put off thy shoes from all thy feet for the place whereon thou standards is Holy Ground moreover he said I am the god of thy 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 upon God and the Lord said I have surely seen the Affliction of my people which are in Egypt and have heard their Cry by reason of their task Masters for I know their sorrows and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land onto a good land and a lodge onto a land flowing with milk and honey onto the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the amorites and the parasites and the heavites and the jebusites verse 9 now therefore Behold The Cry of the children of Israel is come unto me and I have also seen the oppression where with the Egyptians oppressed them the Lord blessed the reading of his holy and sacred word between chapter 2 and chapter 3 about 80 years had passed the little baby in the basket and left by the Riverside had grown up and had spent 40 years in the Palace of Egypt and another 40 years in the desert of median in our previous message we had learned how the children of Israel had cried out to God in their great oppression got hurt he remembered and he looked upon the children of Israel with compassion now the time had come for their Deliverance we all know this two important truths that God loves us and he cares for us and he has his Sovereign will and plan for our lives which work according to his perfect timing but oftentimes the problem with us is that we want God's plan and God's will to work according to our timing we want it and we want it now last Tuesday we had our Monash Gardens worship service that was this resident a very lovely sister in Christ who has been attending our worship service for many years she's always very cheerful very encouraging we love her a lot she love our worship services but for the past few months she was unwell and she could not attend the services so after the worship service sister geek Elizabeth my wife and myself we went to her room to visit her she had not been eating her physical body was frail but her spirit was strong after we prayed for her she said to us that she was ready to go to the Lord she even said she prayed to God why don't you just take me home why all this delay I want to go home and I want to go home now we were all very encouraged by her and she said to us before we left that she does not wish to see us on our next visit in a good sense because she wants to go home to be with the Lord we told her that it must be according to God's timing not our timing remember God had already told Abraham that his descendants would be strangers in a foreign land they will be slaves they will be oppressed for 400 years and at the end of the 400 years he would punish their oppressors and lead the children of Israel out with great resources so for the past 400 years most certainly the children of Israel would have cried out to God repeatedly but the time had not yet come then now the time had come for their Deliverance and their Deliverance will begin with the Call of one man Moses this is what we want to learn from today's passage the title of our message is Moses and the burning bush our first point is the fire in the bush let us look at verse 1. now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law the priests of median and he led the flock to the back side of the desert and came to the Mountain of God even to whole rep isn't it amazing that God's answer to the children of Israel in Egypt began far away about 300 miles in the wilderness where Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law in Chapter 2 the Bible introduced Moses father-in-law as ruelle but here it was Jethro it is possible that here two names which was common in ancient times the name Jethro means his Excellency most likely it was a former title indicating his status from here onwards he will be called Jetro throughout the rest of Exodus whole rep was also known as cyanine and it will be on this mountain where God later gave Moses the Ten Commandments it was called the Mountain of God not because there was something magical about this mountain but he was here that God manifested his presence you can picture the scenario it was just an ordinary day Moses was tending the ship like any other day he was simply minding his own business and he will never imagine that his life will be changed forever after he encountered the one living and true God firstly God Drew Moses attention through a burning bush verse 2 and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in the flame of fire out of the midst of a bush and he looked and behold the bush burned with fire and the Bush was not consumed it was common to find Pond bushes in the wilderness just as it was common to see a bush burning under the hot desert sun perhaps similar to the burning bush in Australia we have several calamities whereby the bushes were burned we saw pictures of that on television not something uncommon so Moses might have seen such a burning bush before but there was something different about this particular burning bush although it was burning it was not burned that is the meaning of the Bush was not consumed he was curious so he ran over to investigate that is why verse 3 says and Moses said I will now turn aside and see this great sight why the bush is not burned this Burning Bush was a miraculous sign and it was very special because it pointed to God's power and control over creation one Theologian said it also pointed to God's eternity and self-sufficiency in that light the burning bush God's power will never diminish God's Beauty will never fade away and God's glory will shine forever and ever so the Burning Bush was like a glimpse of God's power and Glory his eternity and self-sufficiency when we look at how God used the fire in the bush to draw Moses attention we remember how God drew our attention unto him whether it by calling us to Salvation or calling us to service do you remember God would use the unique situations and circumstances of life to call us isn't it true many years ago one day A friend of mine who was an unbeliever was on his way to work he was in one of the train stations in Singapore and as he was about to board the train he saw a gospel track lying on the top of a rubbish bin someone must have thrown away the gospel track after being evangelized too he wanted something to read anything newspaper magazine so when he saw the gospel track why not he took the gospel tract read it it contained a gospel message about Sin the Savior and salvation on the train ride his heart was convicted at the end of The Gospel track there was an invitation to attend the gospel rally subsequently he attended the gospel rally and he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and he never turned back after his encounter with the one living and true God like Moses it was just an ordinary day he was on his way to work he was simply minding his own business it was not uncommon to find a gospel track being thrown away but something caught his eyes and Drew his attention to pick up that gospel tract is it by chance or coincidence no it was by God's Providence nothing happens by chance or coincidence it is all by God's Providence my friend we can be attending a fellowship meeting a Home Care Group a Bible study all the church came and we think to ourselves that it is just an ordinary meeting but God can use that particular meeting to call you and I in a more special way onto full-time Ministry is it possible most certainly God Called Moses out of this Burning Bush this brings us to our second point the angel of the Lord who was this Angel of the Lord remember verse 2 tells us that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flame of fire out of the midst of a bush now look at verse 4. and when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see Moses turned aside to see God called unto him out of the midst of the Bush and said Moses Moses and he said here am I when God saw that Moses attention was drawn to the burning bush he called out to him in other words the angel of the Lord was identified as God himself which means it was a theophany a visible manifestation of the invisible God this Angel of the Lord was none other than the pre incarnate of the Son of God Jesus Christ so it was Jesus calling out Moses Moses notice Jesus called him by name and Moses immediately responded here am I this was in line with what our lord Jesus has said in the New Testament my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me John 10 28 God knows your name and he knows my name recently in our home care groups we have come to the loss of the 12 disciples of Christ Peter sometimes he was called Simon at times he was called Peter and at other times he was called Simon Peter just like some of us would have several different names our family who called us by a particular name our close friends may call us by a certain name and our classmates may call us by another name have you ever wondered when our lord Jesus calls us which name would he use well buy whatever names the Lord would call us the important thing is that we will recognize his call and we would respond to his call here am I because we are his sheep remember the Sheep hear his voice and they follow him so Moses hear the voice of God calling out to him Moses Moses he recognized the shepherd's voice and he responded here am I our third point is the Holiness of God verse 5. and he said draw not nine hidden which means do not come closer put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standards is Holy Ground Holiness is to set apart it means separation God is set apart from everything he has created there is a distinction between the Creator and the creature in Hosea chapter 11 verse 9 God says I am gone and not men I am the Holy One in the midst of Thee that is why God's people responded by saying there is none Holy Light the Lord first Samuel chapter 2 verse 2.

here God was separating himself from Moses to emphasize the gap between God and Men there was this infinite distance between God's deity and Humanity till this day in the Middle East people will remove their shoes to show respect it is a sign of respect therefore the proper way for Moses to show his reverence to the Holiness of God was to take off his shoes from off his feet verse 6 moreover he said I am the god of thy father the god of Abraham the god of Isaac and the god of Jacob this is the same covenantal keeping God whom we all believe in today and Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God as soon as Moses realized that he was in the presence of a holy God he realized that he was an Unholy man as the Bible says God is of pure eyes than to behold evil habaku 1 verse 13 the opposite is also true God is too holy for our eyes to look upon him that was the reason why Moses was so afraid to look unto God and he hid his face my friend how can we ever survive a direct encounter with such a holy God the Bible tells us that at the end of History every human being who has ever lived on the face of this Earth will stand before God's throne for judgment when that day comes unless we Are Holy we will be destroyed on one hand that is the reason why some people would exhort themselves the man is basically good as long as we obey the right rules and observe the right rituals will be good enough for God the truth is that no one is holy enough to stand before God the Bible says this very clearly there's non-righteous no not one Romans 3 verse 10. on the other hand that is the reason why some people would try to minimize the Holiness of God by lowering his standard and they will say things like I don't think God really means what he says I don't think this is exactly what God wants us to do it is possible my friends we all must understand that God is perfectly holy the only way for us to stand before such a holy God is that we must become holy ourselves but none of us can become holy that is why Jesus was sent into this world to be our savior we can never keep God's law but Jesus Cabot on our behalfs with perfect holiness we can never stand before God in our sinfulness but Jesus died on the cross to take away all our unholiness and when we trust and believe in him God accepts us as holy in his sight because the Bible tells us we will be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ again we must remember that there was nothing magical about the ground that Moses was standing on but it was because of the presence of God that was why it was Holy Ground just as there is nothing magical about this church building this building is special because it has been designated for the worship of God it is special because of the presence of God without God's presence it would just be an ordinary building that is why we must be careful of the things we do in this church in the worship of God in the kind of hymns we sing in the kind of instruments we play the Bible we use the message we preach the prayers we author the services we Render unto God and so forth everything we do in this church in the worship of God is set apart unto him our God is Holy and all the things that we do must be holy as well our final point is The Sovereign plan of God let us move on to verse 7 and the Lord said I have surely seen the Affliction of my people which are in Egypt and I've heard their Cry by reason of their task Masters for I know their sorrow when God's people suffer they sometimes wonder whether God even cares but God not only cares he's always watching over us just like he did to the children of Israel notice God repeated the three action verbs I heard I remember I look upon now here he says I have sinned I have heard and I know they are sorrow verse 9 now therefore Behold The Cry of the children of Israel is come unto me and I have also seen the oppression where with the Egyptians oppressed them so the children of Israel had cried out to God and what did they want from God himself what did they want God to do for them they wanted to be delivered from the oppression of the Egyptians right that was the only thing they wanted but their thoughts were not God's thoughts God's plan was higher than their plans that was only part of God's plan look at verse 8. and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians but God did not stop there that was what the Israelites would want deliverance from the Egyptians God went on to say and to bring them up out of that land into a good land and a lodge onto a land flowing with milk and honey onto the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the amorites and the parasites and the hivites and the jebusites God not only want to save the children of Israel from the Egyptians he also want to bring them into the Promised Land in other words saving them from the oppression of the Egyptians was only part of his plan ultimately he wants to bring them into a land flowing with melt and honey can you see that my friends what can we learn from here when we say that God has a sovereign plan for us what do we mean saving us from sin only that bringing us to a local church like better BP Church enabling us to serve him in the different ministries of this church raising us up from the bed of afflictions blessing us with families strengthening our hands with great resources every one of those things I mentioned is only one part of God's Sovereign plan for you and for me ultimately one day he will bring us into the Promised Land that is heaven along the way there would be challenges difficulties troubles trials and even pain just like Moses and the children of Israel would have to face the wicked inhabitants the Canaanites the Hittites the amorites the parasites the hebites and the jebusites but God would help them to conquer all those enemies just as he will help us to overcome the adversities along the way until we reach our final destination and then you and I will see him face to face and dwell with him for all eternity everything that God would do for us is part of his Sovereign plan do you believe that God's ultimate plan will be bringing us into heaven to be with him forever and ever that day will come and as we move along that road we must trust in him that he will bring to pass everything he has promised us until we see him so let us be faithful let us trust in him at every step of the way just as Moses should trust in him at every step of the way but we are going to learn in our future messages of Moses victories as well as his failures when he fixed his eyes on God that is when he would have the victory when he takes his eyes away from God that is when he'll be weak and he will fail but God is faithful to pick him up again and then he pressed on let us pray Father in heaven we tendy for this opportunity for us to consider this portion of scriptures and we want to learn from the idea servant Moses spiritual lessons that we may apply into our lives how thou has called him in such a unique fashion we remember how thou has called us whether it be unto salvation or unto services for thee thou has also called us in a more special way how thou has drawn our attention unto thee using the situation and circumstances of life to draw us unto thyself oh Lord we hear thy voice how thou called us just as thou is called Moses and we have responded to the here am I and as we live our days on this Earth we know that thou will also call us unto other tasks and responsibilities when we hear thy voice we know and recognize Thou Art calling us not someone else and we want to respond in good faith like Moses here am I and we pray that as we hinge closer and closer to the day we see thee face to face we know that everything works not by chance nor coincidence but by thy Providence it is thy Sovereign will and purpose for our lives all things work together for good to those who love thee to those who are the called according to thy purpose and we want to be faithful to believe that thou has a plan for each and every one of us until ultimately thou will bring us into our Promised Land and that is heaven where we will be with thee forever and ever so help us that we will remain faithful to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ this we pray in Jesus name amen

Our text for tonight's message is taken from Exodus chapter 3, verses 1 to 9. Let us turn to this passage and read together, Exodus chapter 3, beginning with verse 1:

"Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Median, and he led the flock to the back side of the desert, and came to the Mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in the flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed."

Verse 3: "And Moses said, 'I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.'"

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.' And he said, 'Here am I.'

And He said, 'Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is Holy Ground. Moreover, He said, 'I am the God of thy 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 upon God.

And the Lord said, 'I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.'

Verse 9: 'Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.' The Lord blessed the reading of His holy and sacred word.

Between chapter 2 and chapter 3, about 80 years had passed. The little baby in the basket left by the riverside had grown up and had spent 40 years in the palace of Egypt and another 40 years in the desert of Median. In our previous message, we had learned how the children of Israel had cried out to God in their great oppression. God heard, He remembered, and He looked upon the children of Israel with compassion. Now the time had come for their deliverance.

We all know these two important truths: that God loves us and He cares for us, and He has His sovereign will and plan for our lives, which work according to His perfect timing. But oftentimes, the problem with us is that we want God's plan and God's will to work according to our timing. We want it, and we want it now.

Last Tuesday, we had our Monash Gardens worship service. There was this resident, a very lovely sister in Christ who has been attending our worship service for many years. She's always very cheerful, very encouraging; we love her a lot. She loved our worship services. But for the past few months, she was unwell, and she could not attend the services. So after the worship service, Sister Geik Elizabeth, my wife, and myself, we went to her room to visit her. She had not been eating; her physical body was frail, but her spirit was strong. After we prayed for her, she said to us that she was ready to go to the Lord. She even said she prayed to God, 'Why don't You just take me home? Why all this delay? I want to go home, and I want to go home now.' We were all very encouraged by her, and she said to us before we left that she does not wish to see us on our next visit, in a good sense, because she wants to go home to be with the Lord. We told her that it must be according to God's timing, not our timing. Remember, God had already told Abraham that his descendants would be strangers in a foreign land, they will be slaves, they will be oppressed for 400 years, and at the end of the 400 years, He would punish their oppressors and lead the children of Israel out with great resources. So, for the past 400 years, most certainly the children of Israel would have cried out to God repeatedly, but the time had not yet come. Then, now, the time had come for their deliverance.

And their deliverance will begin with the call of one man: Moses. This is what we want to learn from today's passage. The title of our message is "Moses and the Burning Bush."

Our first point is the fire in the bush. Let us look at verse 1:

"Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Median, and he led the flock to the back side of the desert, and came to the Mountain of God, even to Horeb."

Isn't it amazing that God's answer to the children of Israel in Egypt began far away, about 300 miles in the wilderness where Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law? In Chapter 2, the Bible introduced Moses' father-in-law as Reuel, but here it was Jethro. It is possible that here are two names, which was common in ancient times. The name Jethro means "his Excellency," most likely it was a former title indicating his status. From here onwards, he will be called Jethro throughout the rest of Exodus. Horeb was also known as Sinai, and it will be on this mountain where God later gave Moses the Ten Commandments. It was called the Mountain of God not because there was something magical about this mountain, but it was here that God manifested His presence.

You can picture the scenario. It was just an ordinary day. Moses was tending the sheep like any other day. He was simply minding his own business, and he would never imagine that his life would be changed forever after he encountered the one living and true God. Firstly, God drew Moses' attention through a burning bush. Verse 2:

"And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in the flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed."

It was common to find thorn bushes in the wilderness, just as it was common to see a bush burning under the hot desert sun, perhaps similar to the burning bush in Australia where we have several calamities whereby the bushes were burned. We saw pictures of that on television. Not something uncommon. So Moses might have seen such a burning bush before, but there was something different about this particular burning bush. Although it was burning, it was not burned. That is the meaning of "the bush was not consumed." He was curious, so he ran over to investigate. That is why verse 3 says:

"And Moses said, 'I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.'"

This burning bush was a miraculous sign, and it was very special because it pointed to God's power and control over creation. One theologian said it also pointed to God's eternity and self-sufficiency. In that light, the burning bush, God's power will never diminish, God's beauty will never fade away, and God's glory will shine forever and ever. So the burning bush was like a glimpse of God's power and glory, His eternity and self-sufficiency.

When we look at how God used the fire in the bush to draw Moses' attention, we remember how God drew our attention unto Him, whether it be by calling us to salvation or calling us to service. Do you remember? God would use the unique situations and circumstances of life to call us. Isn't it true? Many years ago, one day, a friend of mine who was an unbeliever was on his way to work. He was in one of the train stations in Singapore, and as he was about to board the train, he saw a gospel track lying on top of a rubbish bin. Someone must have thrown away the gospel track after being evangelized to. He wanted something to read, anything: newspaper, magazine. So when he saw the gospel track, why not? He took the gospel track, read it. It contained a gospel message about sin, the Savior, and salvation. On the train ride, his heart was convicted. At the end of the gospel track, there was an invitation to attend the gospel rally. Subsequently, he attended the gospel rally, and he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he never turned back after his encounter with the one living and true God.

Like Moses, it was just an ordinary day. He was on his way to work; he was simply minding his own business. It was not uncommon to find a gospel track being thrown away, but something caught his eyes and drew his attention to pick up that gospel track. Is it by chance or coincidence? No, it was by God's providence. Nothing happens by chance or coincidence; it is all by God's providence.

My friend, we can be attending a fellowship meeting, a home care group, a Bible study, or the church camp, and we think to ourselves that it is just an ordinary meeting. But God can use that particular meeting to call you and I in a more special way unto full-time ministry. Is it possible? Most certainly. God called Moses out of this burning bush. This brings us to our second point: the angel of the Lord.

Who was this angel of the Lord? Remember, verse 2 tells us that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Now, look at verse 4:

And He said, "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is Holy Ground." Holiness is to set apart; it means separation. God is set apart from everything He has created; there is a distinction between the Creator and the creature. In Hosea chapter 11, verse 9, God says, "I am God, and not man; I am the Holy One in the midst of thee." That is why God's people responded by saying, "There is none holy like the Lord," (1 Samuel chapter 2, verse 2).

Here, God was separating Himself from Moses to emphasize the gap between God and men. There was this infinite distance between God's deity and humanity. Till this day in the Middle East, people will remove their shoes to show respect. It is a sign of respect. Therefore, the proper way for Moses to show his reverence to the holiness of God was to take off his shoes from off his feet.

Verse 6, moreover, He said, "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." This is the same covenantal-keeping God whom we all believe in today. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. As soon as Moses realized that he was in the presence of a holy God, he realized that he was an unholy man. As the Bible says, "God is of purer eyes than to behold evil" (Habakkuk 1:13). The opposite is also true; God is too holy for our eyes to look upon Him. That was the reason why Moses was so afraid to look unto God, and he hid his face.

My friend, how can we ever survive a direct encounter with such a holy God? The Bible tells us that at the end of history, every human being who has ever lived on the face of this earth will stand before God's throne for judgment. When that day comes, unless we are holy, we will be destroyed. On one hand, that is the reason why some people would exhort themselves, "Man is basically good. As long as we obey the right rules and observe the right rituals, we'll be good enough for God." The truth is that no one is holy enough to stand before God. The Bible says this very clearly: "There's none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). On the other hand, that is the reason why some people would try to minimize the holiness of God by lowering His standard, and they will say things like, "I don't think God really means what He says. I don't think this is exactly what God wants us to do." It is possible, my friends; we all must understand that God is perfectly holy. The only way for us to stand before such a holy God is that we must become holy ourselves. But none of us can become holy. That is why Jesus was sent into this world to be our Savior. We can never keep God's law, but Jesus kept it on our behalf with perfect holiness. We can never stand before God in our sinfulness, but Jesus died on the cross to take away all our unholiness. And when we trust and believe in Him, God accepts us as holy in His sight because the Bible tells us we will be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Again, we must remember that there was nothing magical about the ground that Moses was standing on, but it was because of the presence of God. That was why it was holy ground, just as there is nothing magical about this church building. This building is special because it has been designated for the worship of God. It is special because of the presence of God. Without God's presence, it would just be an ordinary building. That is why we must be careful of the things we do in this church, in the worship of God, in the kind of hymns we sing, in the kind of instruments we play, the Bible we use, the message we preach, the prayers we offer, the services we render unto God, and so forth. Everything we do in this church, in the worship of God, is set apart unto Him. Our God is holy, and all the things that we do must be holy as well.

Our final point is the sovereign plan of God. Let us move on to verse 7, and the Lord said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows." When God's people suffer, they sometimes wonder whether God even cares. But God not only cares, He's always watching over us, just like He did to the children of Israel. Notice, God repeated the three action verbs: I heard, I remember, I look upon. Now here, He says, "I have seen, I have heard, and I know their sorrow." Verse 9, "Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto Me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them." So, the children of Israel had cried out to God, and what did they want from God Himself? What did they want God to do for them? They wanted to be delivered from the oppression of the Egyptians, right? That was the only thing they wanted. But their thoughts were not God's thoughts. God's plan was higher than their plans. That was only part of God's plan. Look at verse 8, "And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians." But God did not stop there. That was what the Israelites would want: deliverance from the Egyptians. God went on to say, "And to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites." God not only wanted to save the children of Israel from the Egyptians; He also wanted to bring them into the promised land. In other words, saving them from the oppression of the Egyptians was only part of His plan. Ultimately, He wants to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey.

Can you see that, my friends? What can we learn from here? When we say that God has a sovereign plan for us, what do we mean? Saving us from sin only? That, bringing us to a local church like Better BP Church, enabling us to serve Him in the different ministries of this church, raising us up from the bed of afflictions, blessing us with families, strengthening our hands with great resources. Every one of those things I mentioned is only one part of God's sovereign plan for you and for me. Ultimately, one day, He will bring us into the promised land, and that is Heaven.

• Along the way, there would be challenges, difficulties, troubles, trials, and even pain. Just like Moses and the children of Israel would have to face the wicked inhabitants—the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Parasites, the Hebites, and the Jebusites. But God would help them to conquer all those enemies, just as He will help us to overcome the adversities along the way until we reach our final destination. And then you and I will see Him face to face and dwell with Him for all eternity. Everything that God would do for us is part of His sovereign plan. Do you believe that God's ultimate plan will be bringing us into heaven to be with Him forever and ever? That day will come. And as we move along that road, we must trust in Him, that He will bring to pass everything He has promised us until we see Him. So let us be faithful. Let us trust in Him at every step of the way, just as Moses should trust in Him at every step of the way. But we are going to learn in our future messages of Moses' victories as well as his failures. When he fixed his eyes on God, that is when he would have the victory. When he takes his eyes away from God, that is when he'll be weak, and he will fail. But God is faithful to pick him up again, and then he pressed on. Let us pray.

where we will be with Him forever and ever. That day will come, and as we move along that road, we must trust in Him that He will bring to pass everything He has promised us until we see Him. So let us be faithful; let us trust in Him at every step of the way. Just as Moses should trust in Him at every step of the way, but we are going to learn in our future messages of Moses' victories as well as his failures. When he fixed his eyes on God, that is when he would have the victory. When he takes his eyes away from God, that is when he'll be weak, and he will fail. But God is faithful to pick him up again, and then he pressed on.

Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank You for this opportunity for us to consider this portion of Scriptures, and we want to learn from the life of Your servant Moses spiritual lessons that we may

apply into our lives. How You have called him in such a unique fashion. We remember how You have called us, whether it be unto salvation or unto service for Thee. You have also called us in a more special way. How You have drawn our attention unto Thee using the situations and circumstances of life to draw us unto Thyself. Oh Lord, we hear Thy voice. How Thou called us just as Thou has called Moses, and we have responded to the "Here am I." And as we live our days on this earth, we know that Thou will also call us unto other tasks and responsibilities. When we hear Thy voice, we know and recognize Thou art calling us, not someone else, and we want to respond in good faith like Moses, "Here am I." And we pray that as we inch closer and closer to the day we see Thee face to face, we know that everything works not by chance nor coincidence but by Thy providence. It is Thy sovereign will and purpose for our lives. All things work together for good to those who love Thee, to those who are called according to Thy purpose. And we want to be faithful to believe that Thou has a plan for each and every one of us until ultimately, Thou will bring us into our promised land, and that is heaven, where we will be with Thee forever and ever. So help us that we will remain faithful to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen.