Chapter 3
Mount Horeb
Dear reader, we now arrive at the Mount of Fire, or the Mount of Command. Here I see in the Third Chapter of Exodus that God met Moses in the Mount of Horeb, and in the flaming bush the God of heaven spoke to Moses and commanded him to do the greatest thing that a man was ever commanded to do in this world, and not only the greatest, but the hardest thing that a man was ever commanded to do; and that was to go into the land of Egypt and deliver three millions of slaves out of the hand of the greatest nation that was living at that time. And he was to go without gun or buckshot or powder, and not even take a box of caps with him, and yet he was to bring them out with an uplifted hand and with an outstretched arm, and do all this right in the face of the mightiest army on the earth, probably, at that time.
Yonder goes the man to Egypt, and yonder he comes with his people. He must have been successful or he could not have gotten out. But he got out, and as he went he carried the whole nation of his own people with him. Yonder he goes with three millions of slaves, and flocks and herds in abundance, with gold and silver and brass by the donkey loads.
He got his commission from the top of the mountain. When God meets a fellow on the mountain top and tells him something, the fellow never gets over it. And so it is today, the mountain top life is the one altogether lovely, and full of glory and peace and love and joy in the blessed Holy Ghost.
Now there are many things about delivering the Israelites out of Egypt that are very interesting to the Bible student. In the first place, the life of bondage in Egypt is a type of sin, and if a man could be a type of the devil, it was the man Pharaoh, for when the people wanted their freedom then the man Pharaoh set his heart on keeping them in bondage, and in order to keep them there he doubled the task that they already had. How much like the devil that was. How hard the devil makes it on a fellow when he tries to get out of the life of bondage and flee from the life of sin. The devil brings everything in the world to bear on his mind to keep him in bondage.
How natural it is to see them down there in the slime pits gathering straw and making brick under the lash of the taskmasters. Don’t you see the poor sinner there, and hear his groans and the lash of the taskmasters? Listen to the command of Pharaoh. He says not one brick shall fail. You must bring up the number of bricks, and if you don’t, the lash will be applied.
The poor sinner groans under his burden and the devil laughs at his misery and drives him on. And yet the devil has no right to man’s service at all. He is serving the enemy of his soul for nothing, and going to hell and paying the devil to let him go. It looks like they would get their eyes open sometime, but if Moses had not come after them they would have stayed there till they died and never made one effort to escape.
It is true that when Moses got there they did not want him, and so it is today; the people are so blinded by the devil that they don’t want the Son of God to reign over them. Nevertheless when they do get their eyes open and see their privileges in Christ Jesus they beat the world shouting and praising God for freedom. Then it will tickle you to death to hear them tell of their burdens as lost sinners, and then tell how the Lord has saved and sanctified them and delivered them from all sin and made them free and happy in the Lord.
Now as we see the Israelites fleeing from Egyptian bondage, we have before us the sinner fleeing from a life of guilt and condemnation. So the fleeing of the Israelites from a life of bondage is a beautiful type of the convicted sinner fleeing from a life of sin.
But they had not journeyed far till they came to the end of their own strength; they were hedged in between the mountains, and before them rolled the Red Sea, and to their surprise behind them was the rumbling of Pharaoh’s chariots and the marching of his mighty army. They cried to Moses who was to them a god, and he told them to stand still and see the salvation of God. He stretched out his rod over the Red Sea and the waters divided and let the Israelites through dry shod.
The reader will notice that the Red Sea is a beautiful type of the Blood of Christ, and when the sinner passes through the Blood by simple faith, he finds the salvation of God. Moses said that is what the Israelites would find — the salvation of God. And Moses said to them that “Today you shall see the Egyptians no more forever.” And how true that is to the saved man. If he is true to the Word of the Lord he sees the enemy no more forever, as he has seen him in the days gone by. In the days of the life of sin I saw the devil, my master, and today I see him out there as an enemy, and I have nothing to do with him, and he is not my master any longer, for which I do praise the God of Israel and take courage.
So we see that the crossing of the Red Sea is a beautiful type of conversion. After they had gotten across the Red Sea, we next notice that the Lord gave them manna from heaven, “and it was white, like coriander seed and the taste of it was like waffles made with honey.”
But Moses was to lead them on to the land of Canaan; he was not to stop with them when he got them out of bondage, but he was to go on to the land of Perfect Love. You will remember that the first sermon he preached after he got to Egypt he told the children of Israel that the land of Canaan was flowing with milk and honey, and he said that it is not like Egypt; it is a land of grapes and olives and pomegranates, and he also said that it was a land of hills and mountains, and springs of water and lands, and “houses that you did not build that the Lord will give you.”
So we see that Moses got a wonderful commission from the top of the mountain out of the burning bush; no man ever had a greater one than the Lord gave Moses in that remarkable conversation that took place on the mountain that day. I don’t wonder that Moses stood and trembled in the sight of that bush and covered his head and dared not behold. I am not surprised that the Lord told him to take the shoes off his feet, for the place on which he stood was holy ground, for the Lord could not commission a man to do as great a thing as Moses was to do and not receive it on hallowed ground. The very mountain was sacred with the presence of God.
No man from that day until now ever received such a commission from either God or man. But the reader will remember that this great commission was delivered to a man on the mountain top. Well, we see by now that the great events of the Bible all took place on the mountain top, which goes to prove to me that the Lord wants us to move upward and onward and outward without a halt or without a let up or a slow up, but with a wagon load of determination to go up and stay up after we get up. Glory to God for the mountain-top of experience!
So we see that Moses was to bring the Israelites out of bondage and across the Red Sea, and give them the manna from heaven, and lead them on to the mountain that we call Mount Sinai, and then he was to give them the Law, and then go up to the land of Canaan. Without a doubt Moses was a second blessing preacher. He was to do more than to get the people converted; he was to take them on to the land of milk and honey, which is not the justified life, but the sanctified life, which every Bible reader knows full well. And I will preach it and sing it and shout it. Glory to God forever and ever. Amen!