Over four thousand years ago, a booming voice proclaimed two tiny but
perplexing words to a humble shepherd in the wilderness.
“I AM”
Moses was hiding in the land of Midian after
he had murdered an abusive Egyptian slave driver. While tending his father in law’s sheep on
the edge of a mountain, Moses saw a bush that was on fire, but the branches of
the bush were not consumed by the flames.
This made Moses curious. As he
cautiously crept closer to the fire, the flaming bush told Moses to take off
his sandals. The Voice in the bush told
Moses that he was standing on Holy Ground.
Exodus chapter 3 reads,
1. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his
father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of
the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
2 And the
angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a 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.
3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see
this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
4 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.
5 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.
I AM… These two words are used
many, many times in the Bible. Jesus
described himself using these two words over and over in the New
Testament. But what do they REALLY
mean? I have read that the meaning of
these two tiny words may be the most perplexing of all the words in the Bible.
Exodus tells us about how the ONE
TRUE and Living God revealed His NAME to mankind in the wilderness near Mount
Horeb. God told Moses who He was, and
then commanded Moses to go to Egypt and deliver the Israelites from bondage. Moses was to lead the Jews into the land God
promised to Abraham. This event became
one of the most important things that happened in the history of the Jewish
people, because during this talk that he had with Moses, the one true God described
himself in his unique name, --------- “I AM.”
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| My first Bible Study (Self Initiated) age 6 |
In our day and time, the words “I am” have a completely different
meaning. On any given day, I hear people
proclaim, “I am hungry,” or “I am happy.”
When meeting a new person, I might say, “I am in 9th
grade.” But we use these simple words
differently than our Creator did when he used them. We usually use the words “I AM” to describe
our feelings or our position.
There are lots of theories about
what God meant when he spoke these two words to Moses, but I believe that we
must look at the words and their meaning in the Hebrew language, which was the
language of the Jewish people. It was
also the first language that Moses learned as a small boy. The simplest explanation is that God was
telling Moses, “I will be what I will be.”
Look at Exodus chapter 3 and verse 13:
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?
14 And 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.
This was an important message for the
Israelite people because they had been treated terribly as slaves of the
Egyptian people for four hundred years.
They knew the promises of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they
were starting to doubt that this same God heard their prayers anymore.
God told Moses to tell the Jews
that “I AM” sent him to rescue them from their desperate life. God wanted his people to know that HE was all
they needed, that HE would give them what they needed to escape their
slavery. The one true and living God
wanted Moses to tell them that He would deliver them safely to Canaan if they believed and
obeyed.
Basically, God was telling Moses
that he would provide them---------- (“I will be)
--- with everything they needed to escape
bondage, and then to go and live in the land of milk and honey.
“And God said to Moses, ‘I AM who I AM.’ And he said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM’
has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). These were ancient words to an ancient people, but today, they
are meaningful to us all the
same. I AM has provided a way for us to
be delivered from the bondage of our
sins through his son, Jesus Christ. All we need to do is to believe and obey the
gospel, and we will be
delivered, too.
My Presentation for
L2L Speech 2019
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