I was once again reading a book by M.R. DeHaan that he published in 1950; The Jew and Palestine in Prophecy in which he details at length the meaning and understanding of the Burning Bush. And as we look at Israel today his words become even clearer to us some seventy-five years later.
“The burning Bush in the desert, which Moses encountered, is one of the most graphic pictures of the history of the nation of Israel to be found anywhere in the entire Bible. It represents a nation of people burning almost without interruption in the fires of persecution and affliction, and yet miraculously preserved because in the midst of the Bush is the Angel of the Lord.
Because of an everlasting, unbreakable covenant made with their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God will never permit Israel to perish, but instead He will judge every nation who has ever oppressed or persecuted Israel. The fact that this Bush plainly represents this Hebrew nation is clear not only from the context in Exodus 3, but even more clear in Acts 7.
The lesson of the burning Bush is Israel in the fires of affliction, but miraculously preserved. Then God raises up Moses, and after a brief time in which He sends plagues and judgements upon Egypt, all Israel is delivered and returned to its land; none are left behind.
I wonder how many realize that we are standing this very moment, prophetically, where Moses stood historically on that day on the backside of the desert. Egypt and other middle Eastern countries are afflicting Israel. But God has not forgotten His people and in the past, He raised up Moses as a type of the prophet greater than him; the Messiah of Israel who will soon come in fulfillment of all prophecy and the promise of Abraham, and will once again lead them out of their bondage into their own land.
That time is prophetically here. No other nation has been so much in the news as Israel. No other land has been so prominent in the news as Canaan. The years of bondage for Israel are about over. Soon the Messiah will come. But first he will take out his bride, the church in the Rapture … just as Moses received a gentile bride in the wilderness while Israel was in bondage. Then for a brief time the Bush will burn with its most intense heat, the time of Jacob’s trouble, called the tribulation and the day of the Lord. After this brief period of great tribulation, represented by the last burning of the Bush, Israel’s Messiah, the Lord Jesus, will return to them, thoroughly judge their oppressors and their enemies, and bring them back into the land of their fathers; according to His sure word so beautifully given to the prophet Isaiah:”
Isa 10:22-24 For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness. 23 For the Lord GOD of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land. 24 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt.
As we look at Israel today and witness the “burning persecution,” we also have been and are witnessing the promise of God that Israel will never be burned up no matter how fierce the fire. Yes, the return of our bridegroom for His bride is imminent.