Some of the parts of the Bible that you really want to study
are the prayers. Most of these are found
in the Old Testament, though the prayers of Paul will make a good study.
You will want to imitate them when you pray. They all share the same characteristics, but
I will not teach them all together, just talking about these characteristics. Each prayer deserves a separate treatment,
even when they overlap and repeat the other prayers. They are that important.
Today I want to talk about a prayer of Moses.
Moses’ mission in life was to take the Israelites from slavery
in Egypt and to bring them to a new land that God had promised them. They were now on the edge of entering that
land.
But there is a problem.
I don’t want to go into the whole thing here. We will have lessons on that later on.
But the people are in a life and death situation. God was about to abort the mission. The life of the Israelite nation was close to
being done. We have all known people who
have died way before their time. I will
not make judgments here about their lives.
We simply don’t know what was going on in their lives. And there are other reasons why people die too
soon.
And, besides, we’re talking here about the people who are
doing the praying for them. And
certainly these principles of prayer relate to any prayers that we make.
The story is found in Numbers 13 and 14. The prayer begins in Numbers 14:13.
In verse 11, “The LORD said to Moses, “How long will this
people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the
signs which I have performed in their midst? 12 “I will smite them with
pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and
mightier than they.”
And then Moses responds to God.
He bases his prayer around 3 themes:
1) God’s Name
13 But Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear
of it, for by Your strength You brought up this people from their midst, 14 and
they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, O
LORD, are in the midst of this people, for You, O LORD, are seen eye to eye,
while Your cloud stands over them; and You go before them in a pillar of cloud
by day and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 “Now if You slay this people as one
man, then the nations who have heard of Your fame will say, 16 ‘Because the
LORD could not bring this people into the land which He promised them by oath,
therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.’
If God were to judge the nation and end them, what will the
nations say? How would that look to God’s
reputation? What would that say about
God?
I first got cancer in 1996.
I say first got cancer, because I got cancer again in 2017.
The doctors wanted me to start chemotherapy right away.
I didn’t want to. I
had young kids, and I told them that when they had problems, they should pray
about them and God would help them. If I
just jumped into getting treatment, what would that say about God? Oh, yeah, God can help me with the small
stuff, but something really big, no point asking God. Just go right ahead and do what they say.
That just didn’t sound right to me. So I asked the doctors to hold off and test
me again in a few months, and let’s see what happens. That started a very interesting time in my Christian
life. I felt like God was speaking to me
constantly about things, things I should do, and in a few months, I called them
back to be tested again.
They did the tests again, and they came back normal.
The point is that I had a reason behind my prayers. A reason that had to do with God’s Name. Is God the One who wants us to call on Him in
trouble and will He deliver us, or not?
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray that God’s Name be hallowed.
This is the same thing here.
It’s not the only way God’s Name is hallowed, but it’s one.
Moses made the case before God, like a lawyer in a courtroom,
he made the case that if God were to end the nation of Israel, it would shame
the Name of God before all the nations.
They were watching. They knew
what God had done to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt.
If God were to destroy the nation in the wilderness, what
would the nations think? Either that God
couldn’t do what He said He would do, or God didn’t really intend to do what He
said He would do.
When you pray, are you able to make a case before God why He
should answer your prayer? Is there a
promise somewhere in the Bible that would make God look bad if He didn’t
answer?
I know a lot of Christians won’t like this. A lot of Christians today are afraid to take
a Bible passage and say that this is a promise that God has to keep. I say, if the Bible doesn’t mean what it says
or says what it means, then why are we reading it all the time or preaching sermons
on it every week? If it doesn’t mean
what it says or says what it means, then why didn’t God say what it means or
mean what it says in the first place?
How are we to understand the Bible then? We can’t all go to seminary. We can’t all learn Hebrew and Greek. We can’t all buy a library of all the latest
Bible dictionaries and commentaries that tell us all the latest in Biblical scholarship.
Most of us are just ordinary people trying to make it through
life. So can we understand the Bible or
not?
When you pray, can you think of some reason why God should
answer your prayer, based on what it says about God, how it would make God look?
Moses did, and He knew God face to face.
2) God's Purpose
The second
theme that Moses built his prayer around was God’s purpose.
God said He was going to bring the Israelites to a Promised
Land. If He didn’t, it would be like God
didn’t or couldn’t keep His Word.
I think Christians need to look at their lives and ask what
they are living for. Do you know what
God’s plans for your life are? We won’t
know all the details. I don’t think God
wants us to know all the details. We might
not want to go that way if we knew where it will end up.
But we should have a sense that we are on the path He wants.
Do you see a purpose for your life?
If you were to find your life in a life-threatening situation,
can you approach God and make a case for your life?
When I had stage 4 cancer two years ago, and the doctor said
this treatment is just a band-aid, I never for a second thought I was going to
die. Why? I hadn’t done anything with my life. I knew I had a purpose I hadn’t fulfilled
yet. What is that purpose? I’m not sure completely. I have some ideas, but it’s certainly a lot
more than what I have done so far in my life.
Your purpose in life doesn’t need to be something glorious
or magnificent. It can something as
simple as taking care of your family or teaching Sunday School. But you should have a sense that you are doing
what God wants you to be doing and that your life has meaning.
And then thirdly
3) God’s love
and mercy
17 “But now, I pray, let the power of the Lord be great,
just as You have declared, 18 ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abundant in
lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means
clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the
third and the fourth generations.’ 19 “Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this
people according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness, just as You also have
forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.”
Moses here is taking God’s Words to him and repeating them
back to God. Today we would call that
praying Scripture. We quote the Bible
back to God as we make our case to Him.
We take God’s words to us and are essentially saying to God, did you
mean this or not?
God, didn’t you say such and such? Psalm such and such says this. You said in such and such passage that such
and such.
Here Moses focuses on God’s lovingkindness and mercy. God had forgiven the people before and why
should this be any different? You said
that You were slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, so according to the
greatness of your lovingkindness, forgive them, just like You already have done
before.
When you pray, think of past times that God did something
and if God did that then, why He should do it again.
In 2007, I saved my son’s life. Well, God did. It was clearly a miracle all the way around. I believe God has a purpose for my son far
beyond the mere extension of his life.
God didn’t spare his life just so he could live an ordinary ho-hum
life. I believe God has plans for
him. And if I ever needed to, I would
refer back to that when I pray for my son.
When you pray, and I mean now the big ones, not the ‘God,
can you find me a parking place,’ you need to make your case like a lawyer. Gathering reasons why God should answer your
prayer. Does God need to be convinced? I suspect it could be more for our sakes than
His. But I’m just reporting what the
Bible says and what it all seems to mean.
In those tough times, don’t just keep begging God for an answer. Tell Him why He should.
And God then said to Moses.
20 “I have pardoned them
according to your word;
According to YOUR word, Moses.
Moses knew God face to face.
Don’t argue with Moses here. Just
pray like Moses prayed.
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