The Burning Bush of World History #1

[00:00:00] I'm very glad to be able once again to be here amongst you today. And I would like you to turn with me to the Book of Exodus in chapter three, the third chapter of the Book of Exodus. [00:00:22] I'm going to read from verse one. [00:00:26] Now, Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father in law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God unto Horeb. [00:00:40] And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. [00:00:47] And he looked. And behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside now and see this great sight why the bush is not burnt. 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. [00:01:20] And he said, draw not nigh hither. Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. [00:01:32] 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. Verse 13. [00:01:55] And Moses said unto God, behold, when I come unto the children of Israel and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you. And they shall say to me, what is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. [00:02:17] And he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. [00:02:27] And God said, moreover, unto Moses, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. [00:02:53] Go. [00:02:56] And then I want to turn to deuteronomy and chapter 33. And just one single little phrase in verse 16. [00:03:09] Deuteronomy, chapter 30, 316. [00:03:13] One phrase in the middle of it, and the good will of him that dwelt in the bush. [00:03:23] Just a further word of prayer, beloved Lord, it has always pleased you in weakness to manifest your power. [00:03:31] And we commit ourselves to you. [00:03:35] Lord, by faith we appropriate that anointing for myself for the speaking of your word, and for the hearing of your word, both upon me and upon all of us, that this may be a meeting with you. And we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. [00:04:03] There is this little phrase in Exodus, chapter three and verse two. And the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. [00:04:21] I have been given the title for this morning and this evening. [00:04:28] It is the burning bush of world history. [00:04:33] Somewhat awkward title. [00:04:37] The burning bush of world history. [00:04:46] I don't suppose any child of God has any doubt whatsoever that when God made an appointment with Moses and met him in all things, not above a bush, not beside a bush, not around a bush, but in a bush. [00:05:08] It must, I imagine, make us feel, whoever we are, that there is some very great significance in this appointment. [00:05:24] It is true that God has enormous humour. [00:05:28] But for him, in all his infinity and greatness, to get into a bush and to speak out of a bush at a human being is almost beyond our understanding. [00:05:49] There has to be some enormous significance in this. [00:05:58] Of course, we all know, those of us who know our bibles, that this was ONE of the great turning points of human history, and indeed of divine history. [00:06:10] For it was in the meeting by God with Moses that something was set in motion that is still with us today. [00:06:30] Moses was the grandson, the adopted grandson of Pharaoh. [00:06:41] He was brought up in all the wealth of an Egyptian palace. [00:06:47] He had all the education of royalty, the sophistication of the standards of the pharaohs, no meaning standards. [00:07:04] For 40 years, moses Was in EgyPT and lived the LiFE of a prince in royal luxury. If we believe the Talmud, and I do, it so happens the Moses was one of the great heroes, popular heroes of the Egyptian public. [00:07:36] He had led the campaign against the Ethiopians and led the campaign against the Libyans. [00:07:44] And he had BeeN highly decorated, all kinds of honors heaped upon him. [00:07:53] And then I don't have to tell you all the story. Most of you here will know your bibles as well as I. [00:08:01] You will know the incident with the hebrew slave and the way Moses fled into the desert. When I lived in Egypt, not anymore today, basically because of Israel, but when I lived in Egypt, the normal egyptian considered the Sinai hell. [00:08:29] To go to Sinai, to live in Sinai, was considered just to be the end of everything. Today, because Israel was once in the Sinai, they have built all these super five star luxury hotels in Sharmashech and elsewhere. [00:08:49] And they don't feel quite the same about the Sinai anymore. [00:08:54] But in those days, for an egyptian prince to flee into the desert was as if his life was ended. There was no more hope for him. Furthermore, to end up keeping sheep and goats. That was considered the lowest, most menial occupation that any egyptian could possibly have entered. [00:09:25] But for a prince, a grandson of pharaoh, to keep goats and sheep and camels, I take it, although they are not mentioned in the desert, was the lowest of the low. [00:09:43] Whether Moses thought it would last for one year, two years, three years or five years, I imagine he could hardly believe it would last ten years. [00:09:56] But it went to 20 years, 30 years and 40 years. [00:10:04] By then, all dreams of being a great deliverer of the jewish people, of being some great pioneer in history whose name would forever go down in the annals of mankind as a great man had died. [00:10:29] And then one day when all these ideas had died, he was 80 years of age. Even I haven't got there yet. [00:10:41] 80 years of age. [00:10:47] He saw a bush on fire. [00:10:53] That is not so extraordinary a sight in the desert, for every now and again one of these dried up old bushes catches fire. [00:11:06] I used to do God duty in Egypt, and I remember two or three times seeing bushes on fire and saying to the Bedouin assistant who was with me, what's that? [00:11:25] A bush? He said, it's caught fire. [00:11:32] Quite normal, it seemed, and I don't have any doubt, that when Moses first saw the bush, he thought, it's a bush, it's caught fire. [00:11:48] And he went on either sitting with his sheep or leading his sheep. But he turned back ten minutes later, it was still burning. 20 minutes later, still burning half an hour later, still burning an hour later. Then he said to himself, this is some bush. [00:12:08] How does this bush burn and burn and burn? It should have gone up in smoke in a few moments. [00:12:15] And it was then, as the book says, he turned aside to see this great sight coming near to the bush. [00:12:30] He noticed the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed. [00:12:42] And then out of the midst of the bush, he heard his name called twice. [00:12:52] And then he heard the word of God coming out of the bush, below waist level, so near to the sand of the desert, saying, do not come any nearer. [00:13:11] Take off the shoes from off your feet, for the ground on which you stand is holy ground. [00:13:26] I know many who go to theological seminary to learn about God, but this was the strangest theological seminary in the whole of history. [00:13:43] For here God revealed his name, a name which I think has always been beyond any theologian to fully comprehend. [00:14:02] A name that jewish people will not take upon their lips. Only three times in, on one day in the year was that name ever enunciated, and that by the high priest on the day of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement in the temple. [00:14:36] This revelation of God was not merely to change the life of Moses. [00:14:44] It was a turning point in history. [00:14:52] What was the bush? [00:14:56] You might wonder why I would stay even for a few minutes on asking such a question. What is the bush? What was the bush? There have been so many ideas about this book from quite ridiculous ideas, such as it was an acacia tree. And in the acacia tree often grows a parasite that has crimson flowers and crimson fruit. And apparently Moses was so stupid after 40 years in the desert that he thought the tree was on fire. [00:15:28] It doesn't explain, of course, how he heard the word of God coming out of the tree. [00:15:35] There are many other ideas, too. Some people tell us that it is the acacia bush which would grow up almost to my height, full of thorns. There are others who have suggested, traditionally, and that this is the traditional interpretation, that it was the BlackBerry bush, the bramble. [00:16:00] And there are others who say that it is the Christ thorn, which you will find all the way through the desert, and indeed in Jerusalem and further north as well. [00:16:16] The thorn out of which the crown of thorns was woven. [00:16:22] Thats a very interesting possibility. [00:16:27] But I cannot understand why the Bible calls it a bush, if in fact it was a tree. [00:16:38] Does it really matter? If you want my opinion, for what its worth is that it is one of those worthless, two a penny little thorn bushes you find all over the desert in the Middle east. [00:16:58] Even the camel turns up its nose if it can find something else better to eat. [00:17:07] It was a dried up old thorn, Booth. [00:17:12] Dead. [00:17:14] Die. Its life had been, in one sense, fulfilled. [00:17:22] It was dead. Even its thorns, as most of you will know, were not the green thorns, which can still inflict great damage upon you, but which are a little better than the dead, dry thorns. [00:17:40] A bush from which the life has long gone. [00:17:50] I say God was saying something. [00:17:55] And there are three ways in which I see this thorn bush. And if you will bear with me, I will talk about two of them this morning and one of them this evening. Me. And if you want to sleep, you can. [00:18:10] And for the benefit of those who sleep, it's all recorded. [00:18:20] First, I believe it was Moses. [00:18:24] That thorn bush was Moses. He had been a great palm tree, a royal palm tree, magnificent in its stature, striking in its looks. [00:18:38] And God had reduced him to a two a penny worthless thornburgh. [00:18:45] It had taken 40 years in the desert to reduce Moses from all his dreams of greatness and all his dreams of being at the center of some great liberation movement. [00:19:07] To me, that is the first thing he was. It's Moses. And to take the step further, all servants of God, whoever you are, whatever you are, if youre a man of God or a woman of God, if youre a servant of God, here is a picture of what God wants in a servant of his holy ground. [00:19:45] But most of us see the thorn bush. [00:19:49] Certainly Miriam saw the thorn bush when Moses married another woman other than his wife, and so did Aaron. And when they rebelled, they touched the thorn bush, and unwittingly, they touched the fire of God, and Miriam became a leper. [00:20:22] With any servant of God, it doesnt matter who it is. There are thorns. [00:20:34] There is nothing very beautiful about a dry, dead thorn bush. [00:20:40] Its not a beautiful potted azalea or some beautiful pot of cyclamen or some beautiful potted rose, though it has thorns. Very beautiful. This thorn bush is nothing, but God is in the thorn bush. [00:21:04] Not using the thorn bush, not surrounding the thorn bush. God is in the thorn bush. He's dwelling in the thorn bush. That is the secret of anointing. He takes thorn bushes and he anoints them, and a flame of fire burns in the thorn bush, and the bush burns with fire, and the bush is not consumed. [00:21:38] In such a way. God fulfills his purpose to human beings. In such a way, God takes successive steps in the fulfillment of his will in human history. [00:21:55] Whether it is the church, whether it is Israel, it is always the same. Whether it is a human life, it is a thorn bush. [00:22:06] Many of us consider ourselves to be anything but a thornbush. We think of ourselves as olive trees, or we think of ourselves as pomegranates that has thorns, too, but at least there's a lot of fruit on it. [00:22:25] Or we think of ourselves as magnificent palm trees, royal, majestic, holy, a symbol of holiness and majesty. [00:22:37] It takes God a lifetime to reduce us to what we really are, to a penny. Worthless, dead, dry thorn bushes. But if anyone takes issue with that thorn bush, they will discover that within it is the flame of fire that is God. [00:23:11] Be very careful. It's everywhere. I could give you one after the other. Moses. Dear, dear Moses, when he came to the end of his life and was a mountepiss, saw the whole land, he knew he was a thornburg. [00:23:37] He also knew that God was in him. [00:23:45] We have an amazing tradition again, amongst Jews, that when Moses died, because of the very strange construction of the Hebrew, it says, and he died on the mouth of God, not as it's put in your version, by the word of God, on the mouth of it. Therefore, the rabbi said, God kissed him and he died. [00:24:24] Such is the love of God for thorn bushes. [00:24:29] I don't know if you've got there yet. [00:24:33] Or whether you're on the way there. [00:24:36] But wherever you look in the history of God's dealings. You will find this. You take Abraham. God took years and years of preparation with Abraham. [00:24:48] Before he became the father of all who believe. [00:24:53] And Abraham made mistake after mistake. Theyre still with us. [00:24:57] Ishmael. [00:25:00] Thank God. Through the blood of Jesus. Every one of the seed of Ishmael can be saved in the same way as I. And made a child of God and a citizen of the city of God. [00:25:16] But that trouble is still with us to this day. A thornbush or. I think of Jacob sometimes. I'm sorry that some of the things that are said about Jacob. [00:25:32] As if he was a spineless, anemic home lover. Why do people always think that any man who loves a home is spineless? [00:25:43] It's strange. I don't think so at all. I think Jacob was an extraordinary man. And furthermore, he saw the Lord. [00:25:54] But it was his flesh. [00:25:57] He could not break the power of his flesh. And what he saw, he tried to achieve himself. [00:26:08] It took God 21 years in the desert keeping sheep again. [00:26:16] For Jacob finally to come to an understanding that he was nothing but the thorn bush. And when he finally reached that point. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him. He took hold of the angel of the Lord. In all the desperation of knowing that he was nothing but a dead thorn. [00:26:39] And God turned him into Israel or Joseph. [00:26:53] Years in prison. The Bible says in one of the psalms. The iron entered into his soul. Think of that. The iron entered into his soul. And it says, the word of the Lord tried him. What was the word of the Lord that tried him? The word that had come to him. That there would come a day when all the others. [00:27:18] You remember that very seemingly arrogant dream he had. When everything would bow down to him. And, oh, how the word of the Lord tried him. When he was in prison, when he was nothing. When he knew that any moment at the whim of the sultan. He could be taken out and executed. [00:27:38] He came to the place where he was a thorn bush. And then? And then God fulfilled his ministry. [00:27:48] He became the saviour of Egypt. [00:27:51] And the saviour of his own kith and kin. [00:27:55] What a picture. I could go on and on if Im not boarding you stiff. I could talk about David. Who for 20 years was hounded from pillar to post. Chased by some megalomaniac, some crazy king who wanted to kill him, to liquidate him. [00:28:18] But in the end, he became king. [00:28:22] And some of David's psalms, they revealed that he's nothing but a thornbush against you and you only. Have I sinned and done this great evil in your sight. He says, I'm not suggesting that you should follow David in some of his sins, but, my word, there are some thorns there. [00:28:51] He did murder a very faithful and loyal servant and took that one's wife. [00:29:05] It is no wonder that he cries out in one of his psalms, blot out my iniquities. [00:29:15] But the flame of fire was there. [00:29:19] And everywhere you turn, every time you read one of his psalms, it is the flame of fire in the thorn. [00:29:28] Where else shall I go? Shall I talk of Daniel, that magnificent, noble young man from one of the best families in Israel, castrated so that he could enter imperial service, a dried up Thornburg, Daniel became one of the great intercessors as well as a seer who saw right the way down to our time, to all that is happening now in Europe and in the world at large and certainly in Israel. [00:30:16] Shall I go on? Shall I talk about John the baptist? [00:30:20] Shall I talk about him as a dried up old Thornbush who, when he was imprisoned, sent a message to Jesus? Are you really the messiah? [00:30:34] Did not the fire burn within him? [00:30:38] He called himself a voice in the wilderness, prophetic fulfillment of the word of Isaiah. [00:30:53] I could go on. [00:30:55] I could talk about Paul. [00:30:58] We all think of Paul as some wonderful figure, but there was some reason why all the churches in Asia turned away from him. [00:31:09] He repeated many of his letters. Being Paul. He talks about. [00:31:15] You make me boast. [00:31:18] Shall I come to you? He says, dear Paul, whatever problem he had, I don't know what it was. [00:31:29] He called it the thorn in his flesh. It was the thorn bush. [00:31:35] It was the thorn bush. [00:31:38] Those amazing revelations that God has given to us. [00:31:44] I don't know whether Paul had any idea when he was writing them by dictation that they were in fact scripture. If he had, I am almost certain he would have cut out a whole number of things he wouldn't have said. Things like, you know, I thought I was wrong when I first wrote to, but now I see I was right. [00:32:06] I mean, he would never have written these things to me. It is the most extraordinary thing that there he was with a chain to a soldier. Couldn't even go to the bathroom without that soldier. [00:32:24] And all these magnificent writings that we have, at least a large number of them, came out of a man chained to a roman gentile soldier. [00:32:43] Do you want me to go on? [00:32:46] Shall I talk? I know this will upset some people, so I shall be very quick on this one. [00:32:55] Shall I talk about Martin Luther. [00:32:59] He was a Thornbush. [00:33:02] And however much those who love Israel and love the jewish people feel upset and angry about Martin Luther and some of the things he did. There was a flame of fire in that man that turned the world upside down. [00:33:24] I wish I could stay with this for a moment, for there is a suggestion at present that someone else wrote that dreadful against the Jews and their lies. [00:33:36] But I won't stop there to talk about it. [00:33:40] But I think of all the others. I could go on and on, but I have to watch myself because of time. [00:33:49] But I could talk about George Fox. [00:33:56] There was a flame of fire in George Fox. It transformed the prisons of Britain. At one time, two thirds of all the Quaker preachers were imprisoned. Two thirds. [00:34:11] And they turned the prisons into Bible schools. [00:34:17] And men, criminals or others who were unjustly there, found the Lord there and went out with the fire of God in them to transform society. Or I could talk about the covenanters of Scotland. I could talk about the Puritans who have such a bad name in present society, as if they were straight laced, narrow minded, bigoted, prejudiced human beings without any love or grace in them. [00:34:47] Those puritans were full of the fire of God. [00:34:53] Or I could speak of George Whitefield, who had one eye that looked one way and one eye the other way. [00:35:02] And as Lindsay Glegg used to say, in the old days, every time he preached on sin, at least two people were convicted. [00:35:15] But the fire of God was in that young man born in a public house in Gloucester. [00:35:25] It turned the whole world upside down. It was the first great evangelical awakening. It was a thornworf fire. You see? It's no good just having a thorn bush. And it's no good just having the fire. [00:35:43] The fire is God, the power of God, the word of God, the very revelation of God, the mind and heart of God revealed, the purpose of God expressed. [00:35:59] But it's no good just having the fire. [00:36:02] And it's no good just having a thorn bush. It's when the thorn bush and the fire come together that God's purpose is fulfilled. [00:36:16] John Wesley was a dry old stick. I hope there were no Methodists here going to upset me afterwards about this. But he was a dry old stick. Everybody says so. [00:36:25] I mean, you're not called a Methodist for nothing. [00:36:32] I mean, he had a whole system before he was even saved. When he went out to preach to the Red Indians, as he wrote in his journal, I have con to preach to convert the red Indians. But, o God, who will convert me? [00:36:54] It one day he went in fetter Lane into a little prayer house, listened to one of the moravian brothers reading Martin Luther's preface to Galatians and he said, I felt a strange warming in my heart. [00:37:19] The thorn bush and the fire had come together. [00:37:26] Whitefield and Wesley changed the whole course of Britain. It is not going too far to say they saved Britain from the French Revolution. [00:37:41] I could go on, I could talk about those I myself have known in our day and generation. [00:37:52] But I think I've said enough. [00:37:55] Here you have an amazing picture of what God wants in a servant of God, but who is prepared for the reduction, who is prepared for the breaking, who is prepared for the preparation that God goes? Sometimes some people complain they want two years in a Bible college. I have nothing against Bible colleges, but if you think that in two years in a Bible college you can, like a tape recorder, take everything in and then at the end of it press a button and it all comes out, it's no wonder the church is in a mess. [00:38:36] Because what God wants, a thorn bushes, that's no easy matter. [00:38:52] Holy ground. [00:38:56] You put your hand into a thorn bush, especially a dead one, you will be scratched and you will find with any servant of God, I don't care who it is, that there are areas of their life that you will be scratched. [00:39:11] If you want to take issue with them, you can. [00:39:14] But that ground is holy ground. [00:39:22] But I must move on. I want to talk about the second thing. [00:39:29] I want to talk about the redeemed, the church, the body of the Lord Jesus. [00:39:41] What God was saying to Moses was, these people I am sending you to whom I shall redeem by the blood of a lamb. [00:39:54] These people are the thorn bush, Moses. [00:40:01] A corporate, communal form bush. [00:40:08] There will come a time when all the life to you will have seemed to have gone from them, when it will seem to you that there is nothing but thorns. Don't take issue with the Moses. If you do, you will collide with me. [00:40:29] For I am dwelling in the thorn bush. It's a beautiful word, this word. In deuteronomy, the goodwill, it puts it in my version, the new King James says the favour of him who dwelt in the bush. It is very interesting because in Hebrew, in the Lord's prayer, when you say thy will be done as in heaven, so on earth thy will, it's the same word, Ratzon. [00:41:11] The will of him who dwelt in the bush. In other words, the favour, the goodwill. Yes, but more than that, the very purpose of him who dwelt in the bush the gracious purpose and will of him who dwelt in the bush. Are you beginning to get it? [00:41:36] I've always had the greatest admiration for Moses. [00:41:44] All I've ever had to do is lead people in the local assembly and even worse, lead people on tours of the holy land. And, oh, what sympathy I have with Moses. There were times when I could have strangled some people. As soon as you say, now, come together, and some of them come and you explain the thing. So and so, they're photographing. So and so off they're photographing. So they come back a few minutes later and say, what's that down there? You've just spent ten minutes explaining what it is. So you feel like getting bang, bang. You want to kill them. [00:42:28] That's only people on a tour. [00:42:34] I used to think in the fellowship I was in, that you might as well have forgotten any notices, because you used to give all the notices out and say, you could have easily said an UNC and chuck an Uncle Charlie's aunt died last night, and nobody would say, well, you feel like killing people sometimes. [00:43:06] But this was 40 years. [00:43:12] 40 years. And when they rebelled and complained first, they didn't like the manner it came. So, I mean, think of it. This is a thorn bush. Are you getting the picture? I'm talking about the church, not the institutional church, not the traditional system. I'm talking about the living, organic body of the Lord Jesus. And wherever it is expressed in assemblies or fellowships in a real way, you have a thorn book. [00:43:43] They may all look so sweet and devoted and full of the spirit, but when you get to know them, they're of a thorn. Thorns, thorns. And more thorns. And more thorns. [00:43:56] And those who seem to be the sweetest, who always sit at the back, I might say the sweetest, who always and always want to rule the front row. [00:44:08] Thorns. And thorns. And more thorns. [00:44:16] It was the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire that dwelt in the midst of that thorn bush for 40 years. [00:44:33] That pillar of cloud and fire was in the midst of that people, even when they rebelled, and throughout unbelief, did not go up and possess the land. [00:44:47] That pillar of cloud and fire remain. [00:44:53] Fire in the tomb. [00:44:58] They used to complain. I would have thought it was quite remarkable manner. Coming six days out of seven and on the 6th day, a double portion to cover the. I would have thought that quite remarkable. But after a while, and of course, we who know our people only know too well how this happens. They began to complain. [00:45:19] There were no people like jewish people, for opinions. [00:45:24] Then the Lord sent them quails and that wasn't enough. [00:45:30] Then when they got thirsty, they complained. And in the end, Moses had had enough. And he struck the rock and said, you rebelled. [00:45:39] And God said to Moses, Moses, you have touched the thornbush. [00:45:52] And Moses never went over into the promised land. [00:46:04] Beloved people of God. [00:46:08] With a few exceptions. [00:46:11] What a motley lot we are. [00:46:16] Don't you think so? [00:46:22] What a lot of human flotsam and jetsam. [00:46:28] But saved by the grace of God. Brought together by the grace of God. Redeemed through the blood of the lamb indwelt by the Holy Spirit. [00:46:41] It is the Lord Jesus by the spirit who is in the midst of this flotsam and jetsam. Because he loves us. [00:46:51] Don't ask me why he loves us. [00:46:55] It is the biggest question of my life. [00:47:00] Not so much you, but me. [00:47:03] Why does the Lord love us? We are so difficult. We argue, we rebel, we question, we murmur. The slightest possibility and we get out of his will. [00:47:19] Now, of course, if some of you have never even had such a. Well, I don't know who you are. [00:47:24] I mean, if you don't know what I'm talking about. [00:47:28] There are some saints who seem to think they are saints. [00:47:35] But I only know that when the apostle Paul wrote his. One of his earlier letters he called himself the least of all saints. But when he wrote his last letter, he said he was the chief of all siber. [00:47:49] The nearer he got to the Lord, the more he could say, by faith, I finished the course. [00:47:58] The crown of righteousness is for me. [00:48:02] He could only feel he was the chiefest of all sinners. [00:48:12] This church of God is a bush that has burned with fire and has never been consumed. I'm not talking. I don't want to tread on anyone's pawns. But I am not talking about the institutional thing which has gone right off the rails in so many cases which has become a persecutor of those who really belong to the Lord. Those of you who know church history will know that I'm talking about the real church. [00:48:52] It is a bush that burned with fire from that day on Shavuot, that Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came in cloven tongues of fire and came upon the 120 and within a day they'd become 3120. And within weeks, 5000 with a great company of priests and with a few more weeks, 8000. And then turned the known world upside down. That thorn bush went to Ethiopia and took the gospel. That thorn bush went right across North Africa and took the fire of God. That thorn bush came to Spain and to France, to what we call, used to call Yugoslavia, to the whole of Greece, all through Asia Minor, right down to southern India, and even a few centuries later into China, Armenia. [00:49:54] Turned of the Lord as a nation. [00:49:57] It was a thorn bush. [00:50:00] And in the thorn bush was the fire. [00:50:05] As soon as the church became affluent, systematized, institutionalized with great seminaries, great fundraising schemes, all the other things, it died when he remained nothing but poor, broken, reduced, totally dependent upon the spirit of God, he turned the world upside down. [00:50:39] Whenever the church is expressed anywhere on earth, you can take issue with it, but you will discover you have collided with God. [00:50:58] It is a thorn bush. [00:51:02] Beloved brothers and sisters, the history of the church is a history of God doing something and then it all dying, and then the Holy Spirit coming again and renewing the whole thing. Look everywhere you turn. [00:51:27] Of course we speak of the reformation. Of course we speak of the Mennonites and the stundists. [00:51:35] Of course we speak of the Quakers. Of course we speak of what they used to call enthusiasts and then became Methodists or the early brethren. [00:51:58] What a movement. [00:52:04] Where shall we turn? [00:52:13] Where shall we turn? [00:52:31] The problem with the charismatic is that it has become so well oiled machinery that the fire has gone. [00:52:46] Not everywhere. [00:52:51] There's strange fire, because when the fire goes, we cannot bear it. And we make a substitute, we counterfeit it. [00:53:10] It never works. [00:53:16] If you look at church history, a bird's eye view of church history, you will see that it is a whole series of something being rejected, reduced to dryness, deadness, nothing. And then the Holy Spirit working again like a mini Pentecost, and the whole thing revived. And you will notice that in every single one of the great moves of the Holy Spirit, the same features come the exaltation of the Lord Jesus. As long as Lord, as the heart and circumference of the work of God and the Church of God, the work and person of the Holy Spirit as absolutely essential, the word of God as supreme in all things. And real fellowship. [00:54:10] Real fellowship. I don't mean that little tittle tattle that sometimes is called fellowship over a cup of tea or now more commonly, a cup of coffee. [00:54:30] I don't think that can be fellowship, but I'm talking about sharing a sense of belonging, a sense that we belong to one another. We belong to the Lord. We belong to one. You will find it in every single movement of the Holy Spirit through church history. And if you go back earlier in the Reformation, all those wonderful names, pollutions, bogamils, priscillianists, Waldenses, I could go on and on, but I mean, there were so many not hardly known. To most people it was the same thing. [00:55:08] It is the bush burning with fire and the bush not consumed. [00:55:22] Do you agree for Britain, this land of martyrs, this land of champions and pioneers of the gospel, how greatly it has fallen. [00:55:56] When Bishop latimer and Bishop Ridley were burnt stake and as the fire crackled, Ridley almost lost his nerves. [00:56:08] And Latimer said to him, Master Ridley, don't fear. Play the man. [00:56:18] This day we will light a candle by the grace of God in England that will never go out. [00:56:31] John Wycliffe. [00:56:41] Bloody Queen Mary. [00:56:44] Forgive the language. [00:56:48] Bloody Queen Mary dug up his bones a hundred years. Did you know that they were going to burn him at the stake? [00:56:56] That man who was the first, who long that the word of God should be given in the common language of the man of the street and field. [00:57:11] And it was one of the only few occasions when there was an earthquake and the bishops were meeting in Lambeth, and they were so terrified, just at the point where they were going to sign his execution order, that they adjourned the meeting and fled for their lives. And it was never re adjourned. They never came back. They never reconvened. [00:57:43] Bloody Queen Mary, she dug up his bones almost a century later, had them ground to powder. Not that it worried him and scattered in the river. [00:58:05] I remember years ago when I was speaking on one occasion, I think it was the CFI meeting and was arranged in the parish church, maybe. I don't know which it was, but I remember it's the biggest parish church in England, and the poor vicar was terrified because he thought only 30 people would come. And the place was packed. I remember where they all came from. I don't know. Maybe they were all angels, I don't know. But the whole place was full and I preached in that. But we had to pray about it because if it had been too cold, they couldn't have had the meeting because of the stained glass windows. There was some strange thing about these stained glass windows. But afterwards, the vicar came and he actually had tears in his eyes. He said to me, this is one of the most incredible meetings. He said, do you know that where you were preaching, you were standing on the bones of bloody Queen Mary? [00:59:06] I said to him, I'm so thankful, dear brother, that you didn't tell me that before. [00:59:14] No one would bury Queen Mary. No one. They had to take them all the way up there to bury St. Edmunds. [00:59:25] And of course, the St. Edmund was another leader of the fight against you. [00:59:39] Do you feel anything for Britain? [00:59:51] God doesn't need a marvellous, well oiled, all organized church in Britain. What he needs is a thorn book in which the flame of God is present. [01:00:14] When that happens, Britain will again see a visitation of God. Until then you can have as much noise as you want. You can have all kinds of sensational things. You can organize things to the nth degree. Have this campaign and that campaign and it will not touch brittle one whit. [01:00:42] There is a demonic force that has longed for years to take this desile and is in the process of taking them. [01:01:00] Fire. [01:01:03] There is no answer to fire. [01:01:06] There is no substitute for fire. [01:01:11] I came to the Lord through a book that Norman Grubb wrote. [01:01:22] It was the biography of his father in law CT studd. It was the first christian book I had ever read. I read it in one week and at the end of it I didn't know how to pray. I remember it was a sabbath. I. I didn't even realize that. But it was a Saturday. And in the morning I finished the book and I stood up and I. I began to open my mouth and I thought no, I think they get on their knees. I was thinking of christians. And I got on my knees and then I thought no, I think you stand. And I. To this day I don't know whether I stood or I knelt or what I did. But I said oh God, please do with me what you did in Siti stood and me. Me what you made him. What I actually said. O God, if there is a God which is a very unbiblical prayer. [01:02:10] Would you please do in me what you did in c t stud. [01:02:17] C t stud was a thorn bush. [01:02:20] Oh, what a thorn bush. [01:02:23] Nearly everybody who worked with him left him. [01:02:30] What a thorn bush. I thank God for Siti's done. [01:02:35] It was the fire that got me. [01:02:42] It wasn't the thorn bush, it was the combination. [01:02:46] When he gave away a fortune that today would be something in the region of I suppose, 15, 20 million pounds in one week. I thought to myself this man is either crazy or he's found something worth more than money. [01:03:01] He was a cricketer and a very well known one. Popular. [01:03:06] And when he gave up cricket to go out first to China with the Cambridge seven. Then windy when finally ended in Congo and never came back to Britain. [01:03:19] I thought this man is crazy or he's found something worth more than popularity. [01:03:25] And when I read about his wife and he parting one to come home to look after the home end of what came to be known as the worldwide evangelization crusade. [01:03:37] And he and only once more in their lifetime did they see each other. [01:03:43] I thought to myself, this man is either crazy or he's found something more than even human companionship. [01:03:57] There was one other thing which of course appealed to me, which wouldn't appeal to others, and that was his humour. It never left him. Everything he did. He saw the funny side of things. [01:04:08] I remember in one prayer meeting, him saying they were all praying about putting their feet down and taking something, and he said, thank you, Lord, I take size 14s. [01:04:21] For me, this was a different kind of Christianity. I had never seen anybody with faith like this, with a kind of living faith, a down to earth faith. [01:04:33] He was the one who wrote the hymn backwards christian soldiers marching as from war. [01:04:43] Oh, did he get into a lot of trouble. [01:04:49] Someone to live? He wrote in sound of Chapel Bell chime and bell I'd rather run a rescue shop within a yard. Hell, it was the fire. [01:05:09] I knew Norman Grubb very well. He often came to Halford house when in his mid nineties, late nineties, he was dying. [01:05:27] A very close friend of mine, this was in the States, went to be with him and said to him, is there anything that you would want to pass on? [01:05:40] And he said, never do anything without the fire. [01:05:55] Fire. [01:05:58] Sometimes I'm finishing. Sometimes. [01:06:04] Sometimes people want to be conscious of the fire. [01:06:13] Very often we're conscious of the thorn bush. [01:06:26] We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves. [01:06:45] We are straightened on every. [01:06:48] We are perplexed. [01:06:51] Remember how it goes. This is two corinthians, chapter four. [01:06:56] We are smitten down. [01:06:59] We are pursued. Doesnt sound like a good christian, especially a pentecostal one, always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest. So then death worketh in us and life in you. [01:07:25] Whether it's a servant of God or whether it's the church of God. That's the principle. [01:07:31] Death works in our life. In you. We want to feel powerful. [01:07:45] There are times when we do feel power, but once you put all the focus on the trembling or the feeling of power, you are finished. [01:08:02] Rather be like John Wesley, who, preaching in Bristol in the fields to some thousands upon thousands of miners, said in his journal, I felt as dead as dead could be. [01:08:20] And as I began to preach, he said, I thought I was tempted to think I should not say anything more. [01:08:28] It was so dead. [01:08:31] Until he noticed that all over this black congregation were white stripes the mimers were crying death in him, life in them all would to God it could happen again in these isles from which the gospel has gone to the ends of the earth everywhere I go whether it's Norway, whether it's Sweden, whether it's Denmark these countries, Germany, Holland that have seen so much are now cesspool of pornography, of evil, of darkness, of humanism, of secularism the church is nothing the fact that very largely it is anti Israel, anti Jewish is surely some evidence that something terrible has happened the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed this is the burning bush of world history we have, of course, a third point this evening but whether it's you or me, servants of God whether it is the Church of God, the true church of God or whether from another angle it is Israel amongst the nations it is a bush burning with fire and the bush has not been consumed it is the goodwill, the purpose of him who dwells in the bush thank you.