God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. The symbol taught him encouraging truths;--that the Hebrew race, after all their experience of fiery trial, would come forth unscathed and unconsumed. But the shepherd-leader desired more than this: he craved the assurance of a LIVING GOD--an ever-present guardian, a pillar to guide by day, and a column of defence by night. It was the truth that was borne to his ear from the desert's fiery oracle. There could be no grander watchword for himself, or for the enslaved people,--"_God said unto Moses,_ I AM THAT I AM!" No comment is subjoined;--nothing to diminish the glory of that majestic utterance. The Almighty Speaker does not qualify it by adding, "I am light, power, wisdom, glory;" but He simply declares His _being and existence_--He unfolds Himself as "_the living God_!" It is enough! Elijah is in his cave at Horeb. All nature is convulsed around him. The rocks are rent with an earthquake. The sky is lurid with lightnings. Fragments of these awful precipices are torn and dislocated by the fury of the tempest, and go thundering down the Valley. Nature testifies to the presence, and majesty, and power of her God: but He is not in any of these! "The Lord is not there!" The Prophet waits for a further disclosure. He is not satisfied with seeing the skirts of God's garment. He must see the hand, and hear (though it be in gentle whispers) the voice of Him who sits behind the elements He has awoke from their sleep. Hence this formed the closing scene in that wild drama of the desert. "_After the fire there came a still small voice._" _The Lord is there!_ He is proclaiming Himself the prophet's God! with him in the depths of that howling wilderness, as He had been with him on the heights of Carmel. "_And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave._" (1 Kings xix. 12, 13.) Shall we go for illustration of the same truth to New Testament and gospel times? The disciples are tossed with storm in the Sea of Tiberias. The voice of a _living_ Saviour proclaims His _name_. "_It is I_ (lit. I AM); _be not afraid!_" The assurance, in that night of gloom and tempest, lulls their trembling spirits to rest. John, in Patmos, beheld, in a vision of surpassing brightness, his Lord arrayed in the lustres of exalted humanity. Overpowered by the glory which unexpectedly burst upon him, "he fell at His feet as one dead." His misgivings are stilled; his confidence and hope restored, by the proclamation of a _living_ Saviour-God. "_I am He that_ LIVETH" (lit. THE LIVING ONE)--and a similar comforting symbol was given him in a subsequent vision, when he saw that same covenant angel "ascending from the east, having the seal of the _Living_ God." (Rev. i. 18, and vii. 2.)