Exodus 17:8-13
Have you ever asked for
intercessory prayer? Two weeks ago, at Wednesday Bible study, Eleanor asked us
to pray for her. So we anointed her forehead with a little oil in the sign of
the cross and we asked God to heal her sore back. That’s intercession. To
intercede is to act on behalf of someone in difficulty or trouble, as by
pleading or petition. Eleanor believed it would do her some good. Her faith is
based on the word of God where it says in James 5:14-15, “Is anyone among you
sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them
with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the
sick person well.”
Eleanor simply obeyed this word by faith and called on us to pray for her. And God kept his word. The next morning, she tells us, there was no soreness in her back! And today she is still free from that pain, even after a tumble in the garage the next Sunday might have undone her healing! It is significant that Eleanor asked us to intercede for her. By doing so, she showed her faith in God’s word. Do you appreciate the fact that we have a prayer chain to call when there is a need? Are you part of it? Do you believe in the power of intercession?
Do you know there is more to intercession than just prayer talking? I see two forms of intercession in today’s text. On the one hand, this is a picture of intercessory prayer, talking to God about someone else’s need. Moses stood between God and the Israelites on behalf of the Israelites who were facing a dangerous enemy and he asked God to bless them with a victory. On the other hand this little story also gives us a picture of intercessory action. We see Joshua, actively interceding with his army on behalf of the more defenseless women and children in the camp. He and his army stood between their families and the Amalekites.
So to make an application of this in the realm of intercessory prayer, may we always be prepared to intercede on behalf of people not just in prayer but also in action. When we prayed for Eleanor and anointed her with oil, we were taking action and also praying. We could say that prayer itself is a form of action. But even Moses’ intercession was more than words. His action was to raise his hands in prayer and keep them up until the victory was won. Our action in praying for Eleanor was to gather around her, anoint her with oil and lay our hands on her shoulders and back as we prayed.
This story is also a demonstration that Joshua’s army had to depend upon God for any victory. They could not win without God’s help. There had to be intercessory prayer for their intercessory action to be of any use. As Moses stood with his staff raised high to God, he was seen to be interceding for the people of Israel. The enemy saw that too. When Moses’ arms began to droop under the heaviness of the burden, both Israel and the enemy perceived the weakening of the intercessor, and God let it be seen that the power to win was coming from God, not Joshua, not the army and not Moses; through Moses and through everyone’s faith filled actions, but not because of them, because of God.
Then, as the battle went on, Moses needed someone to intercede for him. When Aaron and Hur let Moses sit down and they stood by and upheld Moses’ arms, they became intercessors too. They interceded for Moses who was interceding for all Israel. This is intercessory prayer. Aaron and Hur took intercessory action when they stood beside Moses and laid their hands on him to help him uphold the staff. And they may have prayed too, something like, “This better work!” They had not been told by God to step in like that. But they acted in faith based on God’s word that the staff must stay up. In the book we are reading, “Who Stole My Church,” by Gordon MacDonald, the author points to Aaron and Hur’s support as a team effort that resulted in God’s blessing. He related that to a time when his group’s prayers together for a situation in that church resulted in God’s blessing.
Now we should go a little deeper. Another great example of intercessory prayer happened when Moses stood between God and Israel. That time, Moses interceded in a case where God saw rebellious Israel as the enemy. He told Moses he was about to destroy all the people for their sinful rebellion. Moses stood up to God and interceded for the Israelites. This is recorded in Numbers 14:11-20
The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”
Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, Lord, are with these people and that you, Lord, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’
“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’ In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”
The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked.
This is a great example of intercession! That is exactly what Moses did here. He stood between God, the judge, and the people who were being condemned for their sin and rebellion. It was his attempt to reconcile differences between God and the Israelites. Moses succeeded because he remembered what God had said about himself. Moses applied God’s Word to the matter of interceding for God’s people. This is a regular principle in intercessory prayer. Use God’s Word to know God’s will.
Jesus was the greatest intercessor of all. He also stood between God the judge and the people in need of God’s mercy. In Jesus’ intercession for us we can see three things at work. When Jesus wanted to intercede for us, he didn’t just stay in heaven and have a little chat with God to ask for God to forgive sinners. His intercession took action!
Intercession will cost you something, at the very least it will cost you time. It may cost you suffering as you hold out for the answer. Moses certainly suffered as he tried to hold his arms up with the staff of God during the battle with the Amalekites. That must have hurt. You try to hold your hands up in the air and see how long you can do it without feeling any pain.
Intercession also requires you to identify with the person for whom you are praying and share their burden. When God offered to get rid of all the rebellious Israelites and start over with just Moses, Moses could have thanked God for the honor. But what he did do was identify with the people who were in danger of destruction. He saw himself as one of them, enough so that he prayed for them as if he was praying for himself. He was more concerned for their lives than for his own. Isn’t that exactly the same thing Jesus did when he identified with us by taking on human form as God in the flesh? When we intercede for someone, we are treating their problem as if it is our problem. That’s identity. Jesus identified totally with the human race, he who was without sin was even baptized as if he needed cleansing and further, he was crucified in our place. That’s intercession in action. He stood in for us and took the condemnation we had earned.
Another element of intercession is agony. That is, intercession can cost us in suffering. Besides the time it takes to intercede, it could also take some pain and agony. Again all you have to do is look at Jesus on the cross and all the pain and suffering he bore for you. I have already mentioned the suffering of Moses, as he tried to hold up the staff of God for all those hours in that long day of battle with the Amalekites. There is also the pain and suffering and fatigue of Joshua and his army as they interceded for the rest of the people during the long battle they fought.
How might we suffer when we intercede for people today? If we truly identify with the people for whom we pray, we might say we feel their pain. We might actually feel their pain as our own and shed a sympathetic tear as we pray for them or even just think about what they are going through. As we imagine how we would feel if it was our problem, it does become our problem too, in a way, as we intercede.
In addition, we live as people who are put on this earth in order to preach the gospel. That really means that we live to intercede for unbelievers, praying for them and living for their sake, hoping that they will be spared the coming destruction if they put their faith in Jesus along with us. Jesus told us that his ministry requires our own death, death to self. So part of our agony in intercession comes from Jesus’ teaching and example. “Take up your cross daily.” "If it dies, it brings forth much fruit."
And what did he say about Paul the Apostle? I will show him how much he must suffer. Each of us must ask ourselves, are we living for Jesus, or for ourselves? Are we here on earth on a mission for the gospel? If we call ourselves saved Christians we are supposed to be. Each of you make an assessment. Look at your life and see how much you do for Jesus, how much of your life is given away in ministry so that others might be saved, how much of your resources are set aside for ministry, how much you are suffering for the cause of Christ? Are you living life as a sacrifice?
Can you live as Jesus lived? You can’t die on a cross for the sins of the whole world, but you can die to yourself for the sake of this ministry. Knowing who he was and where he was going, he washed the disciples’ feet and he died on a cross. We should have the same attitude as Christ. We will probably not be asked to die on a cross. But we are being asked to give up everything for the sake of the gospel. As the saying goes, “Only one life, twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” I cannot tell you what the details of your life will look like if you truly take up the cross of Christ as your main mission in life. But I can tell you, you will suffer for it. I can also tell you it is worthwhile. It is the only thing that really is worth your while.
I can also tell you that you will never do it or even understand why I am talking this way, unless you are a truly born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, on fire for the Lord, genuine Christian giving thanks to Jesus for a life and faith you don’t deserve, and more than just a habitual church goer. Much more. The gospel isn’t just fire insurance. It is a call to arms in a deadly battle against sin and evil, with a promise that if you stand with the Lord, the victory is assured no matter how much you suffer for it until that great day.
Your life is not your own. God wants all of us to live as intercessors. We remain on this earth for a time as ambassadors for Christ. We do not live for ourselves but for God and for the people who do not yet believe. As ambassadors who intercede for the lost, we have one more thing, authority. Ambassadors in any country are authorized by the sending nation to represent the interests of their home government in the foreign land where they are stationed. As ambassadors for Christ we currently reside in a foreign land called the United States of America. But our true citizenship, even our birth certificate, is held by the Kingdom of God. As Christians we are authorized by God to do his work in this place. Intercessors find a place of prevailing prayer with God because we know that it is his work we are sent to do. We are not in this for ourselves.
In Jesus name, we exist to serve him by interceding for the people around us who do not yet believe. That is our primary mission. Everything else, every other blessing that may be ours, life and health and financial resources are provided by God for our use as his ambassadors. We can enjoy that blessings of his provision. Bit we must not forget that the purpose for that provision is to serve God and intercede for the people of this earth. May God help us, he must! Let us pray.
Eleanor simply obeyed this word by faith and called on us to pray for her. And God kept his word. The next morning, she tells us, there was no soreness in her back! And today she is still free from that pain, even after a tumble in the garage the next Sunday might have undone her healing! It is significant that Eleanor asked us to intercede for her. By doing so, she showed her faith in God’s word. Do you appreciate the fact that we have a prayer chain to call when there is a need? Are you part of it? Do you believe in the power of intercession?
Do you know there is more to intercession than just prayer talking? I see two forms of intercession in today’s text. On the one hand, this is a picture of intercessory prayer, talking to God about someone else’s need. Moses stood between God and the Israelites on behalf of the Israelites who were facing a dangerous enemy and he asked God to bless them with a victory. On the other hand this little story also gives us a picture of intercessory action. We see Joshua, actively interceding with his army on behalf of the more defenseless women and children in the camp. He and his army stood between their families and the Amalekites.
So to make an application of this in the realm of intercessory prayer, may we always be prepared to intercede on behalf of people not just in prayer but also in action. When we prayed for Eleanor and anointed her with oil, we were taking action and also praying. We could say that prayer itself is a form of action. But even Moses’ intercession was more than words. His action was to raise his hands in prayer and keep them up until the victory was won. Our action in praying for Eleanor was to gather around her, anoint her with oil and lay our hands on her shoulders and back as we prayed.
This story is also a demonstration that Joshua’s army had to depend upon God for any victory. They could not win without God’s help. There had to be intercessory prayer for their intercessory action to be of any use. As Moses stood with his staff raised high to God, he was seen to be interceding for the people of Israel. The enemy saw that too. When Moses’ arms began to droop under the heaviness of the burden, both Israel and the enemy perceived the weakening of the intercessor, and God let it be seen that the power to win was coming from God, not Joshua, not the army and not Moses; through Moses and through everyone’s faith filled actions, but not because of them, because of God.
Then, as the battle went on, Moses needed someone to intercede for him. When Aaron and Hur let Moses sit down and they stood by and upheld Moses’ arms, they became intercessors too. They interceded for Moses who was interceding for all Israel. This is intercessory prayer. Aaron and Hur took intercessory action when they stood beside Moses and laid their hands on him to help him uphold the staff. And they may have prayed too, something like, “This better work!” They had not been told by God to step in like that. But they acted in faith based on God’s word that the staff must stay up. In the book we are reading, “Who Stole My Church,” by Gordon MacDonald, the author points to Aaron and Hur’s support as a team effort that resulted in God’s blessing. He related that to a time when his group’s prayers together for a situation in that church resulted in God’s blessing.
Now we should go a little deeper. Another great example of intercessory prayer happened when Moses stood between God and Israel. That time, Moses interceded in a case where God saw rebellious Israel as the enemy. He told Moses he was about to destroy all the people for their sinful rebellion. Moses stood up to God and interceded for the Israelites. This is recorded in Numbers 14:11-20
The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”
Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, Lord, are with these people and that you, Lord, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’
“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’ In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”
The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked.
This is a great example of intercession! That is exactly what Moses did here. He stood between God, the judge, and the people who were being condemned for their sin and rebellion. It was his attempt to reconcile differences between God and the Israelites. Moses succeeded because he remembered what God had said about himself. Moses applied God’s Word to the matter of interceding for God’s people. This is a regular principle in intercessory prayer. Use God’s Word to know God’s will.
Jesus was the greatest intercessor of all. He also stood between God the judge and the people in need of God’s mercy. In Jesus’ intercession for us we can see three things at work. When Jesus wanted to intercede for us, he didn’t just stay in heaven and have a little chat with God to ask for God to forgive sinners. His intercession took action!
Intercession will cost you something, at the very least it will cost you time. It may cost you suffering as you hold out for the answer. Moses certainly suffered as he tried to hold his arms up with the staff of God during the battle with the Amalekites. That must have hurt. You try to hold your hands up in the air and see how long you can do it without feeling any pain.
Intercession also requires you to identify with the person for whom you are praying and share their burden. When God offered to get rid of all the rebellious Israelites and start over with just Moses, Moses could have thanked God for the honor. But what he did do was identify with the people who were in danger of destruction. He saw himself as one of them, enough so that he prayed for them as if he was praying for himself. He was more concerned for their lives than for his own. Isn’t that exactly the same thing Jesus did when he identified with us by taking on human form as God in the flesh? When we intercede for someone, we are treating their problem as if it is our problem. That’s identity. Jesus identified totally with the human race, he who was without sin was even baptized as if he needed cleansing and further, he was crucified in our place. That’s intercession in action. He stood in for us and took the condemnation we had earned.
Another element of intercession is agony. That is, intercession can cost us in suffering. Besides the time it takes to intercede, it could also take some pain and agony. Again all you have to do is look at Jesus on the cross and all the pain and suffering he bore for you. I have already mentioned the suffering of Moses, as he tried to hold up the staff of God for all those hours in that long day of battle with the Amalekites. There is also the pain and suffering and fatigue of Joshua and his army as they interceded for the rest of the people during the long battle they fought.
How might we suffer when we intercede for people today? If we truly identify with the people for whom we pray, we might say we feel their pain. We might actually feel their pain as our own and shed a sympathetic tear as we pray for them or even just think about what they are going through. As we imagine how we would feel if it was our problem, it does become our problem too, in a way, as we intercede.
In addition, we live as people who are put on this earth in order to preach the gospel. That really means that we live to intercede for unbelievers, praying for them and living for their sake, hoping that they will be spared the coming destruction if they put their faith in Jesus along with us. Jesus told us that his ministry requires our own death, death to self. So part of our agony in intercession comes from Jesus’ teaching and example. “Take up your cross daily.” "If it dies, it brings forth much fruit."
And what did he say about Paul the Apostle? I will show him how much he must suffer. Each of us must ask ourselves, are we living for Jesus, or for ourselves? Are we here on earth on a mission for the gospel? If we call ourselves saved Christians we are supposed to be. Each of you make an assessment. Look at your life and see how much you do for Jesus, how much of your life is given away in ministry so that others might be saved, how much of your resources are set aside for ministry, how much you are suffering for the cause of Christ? Are you living life as a sacrifice?
Can you live as Jesus lived? You can’t die on a cross for the sins of the whole world, but you can die to yourself for the sake of this ministry. Knowing who he was and where he was going, he washed the disciples’ feet and he died on a cross. We should have the same attitude as Christ. We will probably not be asked to die on a cross. But we are being asked to give up everything for the sake of the gospel. As the saying goes, “Only one life, twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” I cannot tell you what the details of your life will look like if you truly take up the cross of Christ as your main mission in life. But I can tell you, you will suffer for it. I can also tell you it is worthwhile. It is the only thing that really is worth your while.
I can also tell you that you will never do it or even understand why I am talking this way, unless you are a truly born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, on fire for the Lord, genuine Christian giving thanks to Jesus for a life and faith you don’t deserve, and more than just a habitual church goer. Much more. The gospel isn’t just fire insurance. It is a call to arms in a deadly battle against sin and evil, with a promise that if you stand with the Lord, the victory is assured no matter how much you suffer for it until that great day.
Your life is not your own. God wants all of us to live as intercessors. We remain on this earth for a time as ambassadors for Christ. We do not live for ourselves but for God and for the people who do not yet believe. As ambassadors who intercede for the lost, we have one more thing, authority. Ambassadors in any country are authorized by the sending nation to represent the interests of their home government in the foreign land where they are stationed. As ambassadors for Christ we currently reside in a foreign land called the United States of America. But our true citizenship, even our birth certificate, is held by the Kingdom of God. As Christians we are authorized by God to do his work in this place. Intercessors find a place of prevailing prayer with God because we know that it is his work we are sent to do. We are not in this for ourselves.
In Jesus name, we exist to serve him by interceding for the people around us who do not yet believe. That is our primary mission. Everything else, every other blessing that may be ours, life and health and financial resources are provided by God for our use as his ambassadors. We can enjoy that blessings of his provision. Bit we must not forget that the purpose for that provision is to serve God and intercede for the people of this earth. May God help us, he must! Let us pray.
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