American Reformation Church Prayer Journal 60
ARC Prayer Meeting
This brief teaching on prayer is going to be a bit different this week. It will highlight an unexpected response that came from the Lord in regards to a prayer by one of His main men in Holy Writ, which is Moses. If you familiar with the Old Testament and the Exodus, the relationship between God, Moses, and the children of Israel was a stormy tale.
It is through this ordeal of Israel coming out of the bondage of Egypt and brought into the Promise Land flowing with milk and honey, the unique, interesting, complex, and meaningful relationship between God and Moses was forged. The back and forth between the two as they dealt with murmuring, complaining, and the unbelief of Israel made for an intense prayer life for Moses.
First, it is important to acknowledge that Moses had an extraordinary direct access to God in prayer. If you recall the incident with Aaron and Miriam challenging Moses’ authority, God told them to step outside as he dealt with their ignorant presumptions. Numbers 12:6-8 declares, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses?”
Clearly, nobody on the planet had that special honor and relationship with the Almighty. Being in such direct communication with the Lord, however, brought Moses to intense times of intercession. On a few occasions, he had to stand in the gap between God’s wrath and Israel’s disobedience. Moses would wrestle with God in prayer pleading for Him to spare the people, lest the pagan nations boast that the Lord was not able to fulfill His promise of bringing them into the land (Numbers 14:16).
It is this understanding of how much the Lord seemed to respect and enjoy His communications with Moses that makes this one response to him in prayer a rare event. As you may know, due to Moses one time misrepresenting God’s power to Israel when it came to the rock and Israel’s need for water, the Lord forbad him to enter the Promise Land. This definitely bothered Moses. He bore the weight of the Exodus and worked diligently to fulfill every jot and tittle of God’s law down to the minutest details. Surely, the Lord would consider his devotion and let him finish the work and enter the land. No sir. You can go to the mountain, you can look up the land, then you can lay down and die. When Moses questioned the Lord about his desire to see the promise fulfilled, God Word stated, “But the Lord was angry with me on your account, and would not listen to me. So the Lord said to me: ‘Enough of that! Speak no more to Me of this matter.”
Wow, what a response to an heartfelt prayer. Obviously, it was not the answer Moses was expecting. But sometimes, God’s answers to our prayers is no and we must trust our Heavenly Father knows best.
This happened with our family as we pleaded with God to spare the life of our son, Jeremiah Thomas. As his days were coming to an end, I remember one last time I cried out to the Lord to do a miracle and heal him. It became apparent, the Lord would heal him, but not here on earth, but in glory in heaven. Yes sir and your will be done is the only proper response.
I pray this brief teaching was a blessing to you.
