And so the Sabbath is different from what is common or ordinary. The other six days are common, and they are given for the pursuit of the common and ordinary things of life. On the Sabbath, we should strive to avoid those mundane things that promote the making of the Sabbath into an ordinary day. The Sabbath is a day for special things—different things. If you will turn with me to Exodus 3, we will see what makes the day holy. It is not merely proclamation by God. Here we have a biblical example of how something becomes holy.
This is what makes the Sabbath holy—different. Because God was present, the ground had to be treated in a different way—with respect and with deference that one would not give to something that is common. Until God put Himself in that area, the ground where Moses saw the burning bush was no different from all the other ground that was all the way around the area. But as soon as God put His presence there, it became sacred. It became holy.
It became holy by means of a spiritual action. It is something that is not physically discerned. And it is interesting to note, right in this context (in Exodus 3:1-5), that Moses was not aware that it was holy—until God told him! So the Sabbath is a spiritual thing. Its being holy is not something that is physically discerned. It is something that had to be revealed to you. (I Corinthians 2)
So, to Moses here, He appeared in a flame of fire within a bush that did not burn up. Notice the wording here: It says that the Lord (in verse 2) appeared to him in a flame of fire in the midst of the bush. It does not say God was the flame of fire, but it says He was in the flame of fire. He was not the fire.
I want you to get that clear. In every instance in which God appears as something other than a bodily form, or angelic form, or human form, He is in that thing. He is not that thing. For instance, He goes through the wilderness with the Israelites as a pillar of cloud and fire. He was not the cloud. He was not the fire. He was in it. It was just a physical representation of His presence.
So, this flaming bush was not some projection of God from Heaven—like in Star Trek where somebody is beamed down, here and there at the same time, and projecting himself into this bush, or this flame.
We have God in that. He is there. He is not somewhere else and here. He is there, right in front of Moses. How do I know this? Because it says in verse 5,
You might recall from the movie The Ten Commandments how they portrayed Mount Sinai as being God's dwelling place. That is a true representation. I can remember the first time I saw that, I screwed up my face. I said, That can't be right. Yes, it was.
Moses was standing on the dwelling place of God. It was God's territory.
Now where does a priest serve? He serves where God lives. He serves at God's altar. Where was God living symbolically at that time? He was living at Mount Sinai. And where was God's altar? The whole mountain was God's altar. He not only had a dwelling place, He also had an altar. It was a mountain.
So here we have another setting apart. In this case it was an entire mountain to serve as God's dwelling place, and the altar at which the Israelites were to worship and to serve Him.
