It was God’s purpose to bring the Children of Israel out from their bondage in Egypt. That was what He had promised their ancestors, and now the time had come to put His purposes into effect, to fulfil His promises. He had already been preparing Moses to be their leader and He was now to meet Moses in the desert to call him to that work. As Moses was leading his father-in-law’s sheep, possibly in search of fresh pasture, God caught his attention through the burning bush which “was not consumed”. It was a remarkable demonstration of what God can do: the bush was preserved from destruction in spite of the great power of fire to destroy. At the burning bush, God spoke with Moses and appointed him to deliver Israel from Egypt – a task that Moses could not possibly carry out in his own strength; it was divine power alone that could bring this about.
Moses expected that when he would tell the Israelites about the deliverance, they would ask, “What is His name?” And he enquired, “What shall I say unto them?” Then “God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Ex 3:13,14). He was revealing Himself to Moses as Jehovah, the self-existent God; the name is often translated as the LORD.
Matthew Henry makes four helpful points in expounding the significance of the name Jehovah: (1) “He is self-existent; He has His being [from] Himself, and has no dependence upon any other. The greatest and best man in the world must say, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am’; but God says absolutely – and it is more than any creature, man or angel, can say – ‘I am that I am’. Being self-existent, He cannot but be self-sufficient, and therefore all-sufficient, and the inexhaustible fountain of being and bliss.” (2) “He is eternal and unchangeable, and always the same yesterday, today and for ever. He will be what He will be and what He is.” (3) “We cannot by searching find Him out. This is such a name as checks all bold and curious enquiries concerning God.” (4) “He is faithful and true to all His promises, unchangeable in His word as well as in His nature, and not a man that He should lie.”
This is the all-powerful God who sent Moses to lead Israel into the land flowing with milk and honey, a highly-productive land where they would enjoy tremendous blessing (if they would submit to God and His revelation and would continue in submission to Him). As with so much of Old Testament history, God’s work in bringing the Children of Israel out of Egypt, on their way towards Canaan, is typical of something spiritual. It represents the Lord bringing His people out of the bondage of Satan’s kingdom and on towards the blessedness of heaven. And we must consider the self-existent Jehovah, the One who has absolute authority and infinite power over all His creatures, sending out ministers to take part in that glorious work of leading His children from (to use John Bunyan’s expressions) the City of Destruction to the Celestial City.
When a man is sent out to proclaim the gospel, it is the Lord God of heaven who sends him, whatever human instrumentality may be involved in calling him into the work. But if someone has not been called by the Most High, he most certainly has no right to act as a minister. It was God the Son who said to Matthew: “Follow me” (Mk 2:14). When Christ had taken our nature and entered into the world, He still spoke with complete authority; accordingly Matthew submitted to the call and followed the Saviour. He submitted to Christ’s divine authority and went wherever he was sent, to speak in the name of Christ.
And when Christ was about to ascend to heaven, He directed the remaining 11 disciples: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mk 16:15,16). All truly-called ministers, in every generation, are given the same authoritative commission, and they are given the same message. They are to warn sinners about the consequences of going on in sin; they are to make known the good news about Jesus Christ and salvation through Him; and they are to administer the sacraments. They are to do so in the name of the self-existent God.
In particular, He is the Creator of those to whom the preacher is proclaiming the truth; it is the Creator who has sent him. The authority of the preacher depends entirely on the fact that the Lord has sent him as His ambassador. If someone asked Matthew who had sent him and in whose name he was preaching, he might have answered, “I AM hath sent me unto you”. So Paul spoke “boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 9:29), who had called him to the work of the ministry, promising him, as He did the original eleven disciples: “Lo, I am with you alway” (Mt 28:20). And every preacher in every generation is to rely on the same promise, for that pledge extends to “the end of the world”.
But the fact that the self-existent God sends out ministers as ambassadors has implications, as we have noted recently, for those who hear them. Such preachers can say, “I AM hath sent me unto you”. So, for instance, when a preacher speaks of sin, it should be borne in mind that the great, eternal, self-existent God has sent him to proclaim a revelation from heaven about sin; every sin is against the Creator of all things and against the holy law that He has given, in His kindness, to regulate human life. To reject, or even to neglect, the message about sin is rebellion against this great God, and it is likewise rebellion to reject or neglect the warnings about the consequences of sin – death, judgement and a lost eternity – that such a message ought to include. Accordingly we are to take to heart that each of us – who are continually in the presence of this great God – is guilty and polluted by sin.
If the preacher comes with a message of God’s grace, speaking of the great and glorious salvation that He has provided for guilty sinners, it is again rebellion to despise the provision that has been made by Christ in infinite love to a lost world. No wonder Scripture asks, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation . . . ? (Heb 2:3). Let us remember that the One who died for sinners is not only man but God. He it is who will sit on the judgement seat on the last day, and not least among the matters to be addressed then will be: How did we respond to the call of the gospel – for instance, as He Himself gives it: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28)?
And if the preacher speaks of the need for holiness, let us remember that he speaks as an ambassador for “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy” (Is 57:15), the One who says, to His children in particular: “As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Pet 1:15). The all-holy One is calling on us to follow a holy way of life – and to do so perfectly. Yet every degree in which we come short of perfect holiness is sin; so we are sinning continually. We therefore continually need to come to the Lord, who is a gracious God, to be forgiven and also to be purified. That is what He, with absolute authority, directs us to do.
Whatever the subject of a sermon, provided it is scriptural, we must regard it as coming through an ambassador from Christ. The ambassador’s personal authority is not the point; the important matter is that he was sent out, like Moses, by the eternal, self-existent, perfectly-holy God. To the extent that he remains faithful to the Scriptures, we should feel the authority of his words; it is the authority of Jehovah Himself. How awful will be the end of those who go on despising the authority of the living God as He speaks, not only in the pages of Scripture, but also through His ambassadors!