“INTERCESSION”: Moses: Divine Sovereignty in Intercession.

Read Psa 106:2,6-16,19-23,32.

I have read from Psa 106 because it gives us a quick review that sets the stage for the subject matter this evening. 

With all the human misconceptions and all of the misconstrued calculations concerning Christ, - of His work and of His ongoing ministry today - do you not agree that God is very trusting and audacious in using the Church in the ministry of the advancement of His Plan? 

He has placed His divine trust in His human instruments - the Church, the instrument that can be so faithful, true, and right on in one situation, and the very next, be so totally unreliable and uncaring.

‘How can it be?’, we ask.

It is because of His Sovereign arrangement of things!

Though its full splendor eludes us, the Scripture has revealed adequate grounds wherein the Church is given this glorious destiny of being the vanguards of His divine Plan. 

For - fortunately, - very, very fortunately - the ground is the fact that God trusts His own Son Who He has placed in the midst of the Church to guide and direct and that He has also given the Holy Spirit to produce His own end through the Church’s ministry.

That fact alone ought to cause us to stand on the house top and shout praises to the Most High God, since - often - so many of us are so prone to insist on our way of things!

Tonight, I would like to draw our attention to Moses who is listed in the Bible among God’s great intercessors and who demonstated so well the way God’s arangement of things work.

He is one of the most revealing examples of true intercession in his dealing with the people of God after he came down from Mt. Sinai with the stone tablets that God had given him.

What was it about Moses that made his work of intercession so effective?

I think we can see three very definite features that affected Moses’ praying.

First, notice - Moses had nothing to do with the setting up of this entire scene of the Israelites’ journey into and through the wilderness.

It was all God’s doing, from beginning to end, and Moses - seeing this, was only responding to God’s call by obeying Him.

And, as Moses went along through all of the trials and hardships this call involved, he became very aware of some of the Lord’s strange ways - ways that were not the natural way of things - obviously - ways that were strictly and only God’s ways.

For example, who ever would have thought of striking a rock as a water source, and then actually expect water to flow from it?

Or, who ever would have thought of parting a sea in half and the ground be dry for the foot-journey across it? 

Only a Sovereign Being would, could, and did do things like that and He would do them in His own time, in His own way, and in His own choosing.

And, how were they done?

God’s thought created them, God’s Word voiced them, and God’s servant carried them out here upon earth.

In Ex 14:21, going back to the earlier example, the Lord required the stretching forth of a rod over the Red Sea.

In Ex 17:16, the divine command was to strike the rock with the rod.

In both cases, it took the hand of Moses to carry it out upon the earth, and when he did, God acted accordingly.

Had Moses tried doing these strange things without these explicit divine directions and doings, he would have made a fool of himself.

And - since sin always follows sin, unless the pattern is broken by repentance - he would have further devised many ludicrous actions all on his own and then would have dared to call them ‘God’s actions’!

But it was only in Moses’ learning to hear and to obey the Lord implicitly that kept him from these self-creations.

And he just let the Lord affirm the Lord’s own Word by the Lord’s own doings.

It was obvious that the Lord did not always try to explain His ways to Moses - why Moses was to do things a certain way.

Why should He?

He is God - He is Sovereign - He can and does do things His way, His chosen way, His often-unexplained way - and He does what He needs to do as His Word is followed.

When He chooses the work a certain way, no other way is going to work - of that we can be sure.

For Moses, satisfaction in the role of a ‘servant boy’ was where it had to start, to deliver exactly as Jehovah had chosen to do and when He had chosen to do so - not a minute too early and not a minute too late.

He could take no credit for any of it - nor could he dare to do so - it was all the Lord’s doing - a fact to understand in an intercession ministry. 

And this leads us to the next point to recognize in this ministry. 

How far would Moses have gone in all of this if he secretly had held in his heart anything at all that was displeasing to Jehovah, refused to do it the Lord’s way and in the Lord’s time, and refused to acknowledge that it is all the Lord’s doing? 

It was a hard lesson, but - as he attended this school of the Lord’s doing, he also learned another lesson needed in intercession work.

He learned that no secrets of the heart could be hidden from the Sovereign, all-knowing God - He knows the heart of each of His own.

When Moses was on the mountain the first time alone with the Lord, this lesson was driven home with great force.

It was at that time that the Lord told Moses what was going on with the people waiting down in the valley. 

This we see in Ex 32:7-8: “And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘Go, get thee down: for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves; They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I have commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, ‘These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt’.”

When Moses saw the confirmation of that as he came down from Sinai, his ‘...anger waxed hot...’. (Ex 32:19)

What an aversion to sin there was within him, and - rightly so!

This was a direct affront to the living God Who had chosen them as His very own people, and - Moses was feeling the wrath that Jehovah was expressing.  

The sight of the golden calf was bad enough for him.

But - worse than that - was the sudden change in this people.

Not too long ago, they had solemnly entered into a covenant of obedience to all that God would command 
and - now - that was suddenly being thrown aside.

What kind of a heart did they have before the Lord their God?

We know very well that the Lord saw rebellion there - stubbornness - hard-heartedness - a refusal to follow God’s ways.

But - more importantly the question now is - what of Moses’ heart?

What did it say?

And - how would he be able to go on interceding for these people?

At this point, he feared the anger and the wrath of the Lord in this matter, for the Lord was angry enough to destroy all of them. 

Look at Deut 9:14: [God speaking to Moses] ‘Let Me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven...’.

What did Moses do about this likelihood that God was proposing?

He threw himself at the feet of Jehovah, his God, and interceded for the people - he interceded, truly interceded!

This prayer of intercession by Moses, recorded in Exodus 32:11-14, is one of the most critical times of intervention in Israel’s history! 

Look at Moses’ heart in this unspeakable calamity.

We see his heart opened before the Lord and to himself.

Let us look in Deut 9:25-29 to examine it.

Here is where Moses was rehearsing for the people the conditions of their rebellion and the Lord’s gracious mercy toward them after his intercession on their behalf.

In verse 25, he told them that he “...fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights:...because the Lord had said He would destroy you.”

Thus, when he prayed here, he reminded Jahweh that  these were Jahweh’s people.

He started with the address of ‘O, Lord God’, or ‘Sovereign Lord’ and prayed from the very depth of his heart with this reminder to the Lord.

“I prayed, therefore unto the Lord and said, ‘O, Lord God, destroy not Thy people and Thine inheritance, which Thou hast redeemed through Thy greatness, which Thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand’.” (verse 26)

He called on the Lord to remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (verse 27), reminding Him again of His covenantal promises with them.

And Moses did not sugar-coat anything - he did not try to deny the people’s guilt and sin.

But he did plead with the Lord to overlook their sin in the last part of verse 27: ‘...look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sins.’

And, if God’s people were to be destroyed, he went on in verse 28, then the Egyptians would accuse God in a dual charge - of not being able to bring Israel into the land, on one hand, - and, on the other hand, of trickery in leading them to the desert to slaughter them.

His heart was reaching out to the full and definite expression for God’s glory - the same expression God had voiced to Moses as they talked to each other.

‘This people - in what You have done already - is a witness to Your Greatness, Your Sovereignty, Your Mercy, Your Love, Your Faithfulness. 

Your covenantal promise is at stake here, too - do not forget that, O Most High God.’

Surely, Jehovah, as the unchangeable, true, and faithful God, would not, and could not, retract His covenant promises, nor fail to fulfill them!

Are you able to feel the depth of Moses’ heart at this moment in God’s history of the salvation of His people?

He was so concerned about the Lord’s inheritance the Lord had in His people, about the Lord’s covenant promises, about how the Lord would be perceived by the world.

His heart was right before the living God: it desired the Lord’s glory alone.

It desired that His people be kept in His merciful provision so the world could see the greatness of God.

I repeat, his heart was right before the Lord - and the Lord saw it so!

Now - we come to the hardest point of all for man to swallow, except it be for the merciful grace of God - our third point for the effectiveness in intercession ministry.

If Jehovah should destroy the nation, He would still need to fulfill His covenant promise to Abraham.

It would be in the person of Moses - to make of him a great nation, instead.

Notice that at the close of verse 14, as God is speaking to Moses:

‘...I will make of thee a nation - mightier and greater than they.’

What is Jehovah doing?
 
He is entrusting the fate of the nation into the hands of Moses. 

This condescension on God’s part, which placed the destruction or preservation of Israel into Moses’ hands, coupled with a promise, left the fullest freedom to Moses and his decision.

After the destruction of the people, Moses - and his own seed - could become the makings of a great, new nation - his very own, coming from his very own loins.

What a temptation to any man’s ego!

Would he be willing to give up his own people at the price of his own exaltation?

Moses stood the test.

As he was retelling this episode to the people, he said to them, in verses 15-18, of Deut 9: ‘...so I turned and came down...I looked...’.

And, yes, you sinned grievously before Jehovah.

And, in verse 17, ‘I took the two tablets of stone, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.’  

And, in v 18, ‘I fell down before the Lord again on your behalf...’.

Now look at his expression of self-sacrificing love, in Exodus 32:32, as he depended upon the merciful, compassionate grace of the Most High God:

‘...Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin -: and, if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.”

He stood before the Most High and Holy One ‘...in the breach to turn away His [Jehovah’s] wrath, lest He should destroy them.’ (Ps 106:23)

Do we have any idea of what this means?

This is one man standing before Jehovah for the benefit of a whole nation!

He felt a part of the wrath God expressed but he also felt the pain of the people if God’s wrath were to be carried out.

True to his calling as mediator between God and the people, he entered the breach before God - to turn away God’s wrath from destroying the entire nation.

He would rather have been cut off from fellowship with the living God, cut off from living in His kingdom, and be delivered over to death himself, than to have this people have to suffer this fate.

He was ready to stake his own life so that the nation could continue to live under the hand of God rather than become the head and founder of a new people of God.

Is this not the picture of God’s supreme love shown upon the earth through Moses and Moses’ unselfish ministry of intercession?

This is the wisdom, the love, the concern of God Himself operating in Moses’ heart - willing to substitute himself to suffer the arrows of God’s wrath rather than have God’s glory defiled. 

It was true intercession by Moses. 

He stood in the breach, willing to give up all of himself, even his own life, so that the people are saved and God’s glory, divine honor, His Sovereign will, and His ultimate Plan are upheld. 

So that, God’s creative Word and His everlasting power would proceed onward to the bringing forth of His new creation and His new people in Christ as He had foreordained.  

If we were to read through this entire episode, we would see how Moses and Jehovah would and could talk face to face with each other.

It was so natural, so perfect, so spontaneous, so unconstrained - there was nothing between them that would mar, obstruct, nor turn aside the expression of God’s glory 
through Moses.

This is a good example in which the integrity of the heart and the oneness of mind matched each other. 

When Moses’ heart and mind matched the Lord’s the result of his intercession for the people was made certain -

And, GOD ACTED!!

Once again, I urge you to let your heart look at these things quietly, secretly before the Lord, and have dealings before Him about this kind of heart for intercession.

Let the Holy Spirit probe deeply within - so we - each one of us - can become this kind of vessel of service in His Church, be people He can trust and rely on, working together for His glory alone!