Prayers of Moses!
This message of “Prayers of Moses” is mainly a collection of Scriptures and is sent to all the prayer partners, especially God’s servants, who pray for various things and yet are discouraged by the lack or delay of answers to their prayers. Let us pray diligently; let us pray without ceasing; and let us pray to the very end until we are released from the burden of prayer by God Himself.
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Here is God’s Testimony of Moses: “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him, I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord” (Numbers 12:6-8).
There was a reason why God gave such a commendation to Moses! Moses was a powerful servant of God. He was a Prophet-Priest, in that, he went both from God to the people with God’s message, and from the people to God, interceding for them.
Moses was a praying man with sincerity in his prayers. He prayed 14 different times covering a broad spectrum of people, prayer for the heathen, prayer for himself, prayer for his siblings, prayers with brokenness at the unbelief of his people, prayers for God’s intervention for his people from destruction, and prayers for God to spare Israel as a whole nation!
Prayer Against Judgment of the Heathen!
God ended the plague of frogs: “So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the Lord about the frogs, as he had agreed with Pharaoh. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields” (Exodus 8:12-13). God was judging Egypt, but Moses was NOT! He retained his heart of mercy and compassion to pray for the plague to be lifted and God did, by answering him!
God ended the plague of the swarms of flies: “So Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord. And the Lord did as Moses asked, and removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; not one remained” (Exodus 8:30-31).
God stopped the plague of locusts: “So he went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the Lord. And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt” (Exodus 10:18-19).
Prayed For Himself!
Prayer for protection for himself from an agitated congregation: “All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ And Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?’ So, Moses cried to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me’” (Exodus 17:1-4).
Pleaded with God to go with him with His presence: “Moses said to the Lord, ‘See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.’ And He said, ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’ And he said to him, ‘If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here’” (Exodus 33:12-15). Moses could have settled for an Angel (Angel of the Lord) to travel with him, but he refused and begged God to go Himself with him on his journey and God yielded!
Moses longed and prayed to God to show him His glory: “Moses said, ‘Please show me your glory.’ And he said, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But’ He said, ‘you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.’ And the Lord said, ‘Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen” (Exodus 33:18-23). Moses did not want wealth, riches, fame, and power, but his only longing was to see the glory (“Inner Self”) of God! Moses’ longing was to go beyond the blessings, power, and all that he had received from God and see the inner core (the heart, soul, inner self) of God because of his love for God!
God’s glory brought on conviction and Moses interceded with God for pardon: “The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, ‘If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance’” (Exodus 34:5-9). All the people who boast about talking to or experiencing God all the time, take note of Moses’ reaction – The moment Moses experienced God’s glory, he trembled in His presence and started confessing his sins and the sins of his people to a holy God!
Prayer for His Sister, Miriam!
Prayer for his sister Miriam who challenged his authority and was stricken with leprosy: “And Moses cried to the Lord, ‘O God, please heal her—please’” (Numbers 12:13). Miriam spoke up against Moses, and yet, Moses never lost his compassion to pray and intercede for her.
Prayer With Brokenness for People’s Unbelief!
A heartbroken Moses fell on his face before the Lord: “Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, ‘Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?’ And they said to one another, ‘Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.’ Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel” (Numbers 14:1-5). This is proof that Moses was truly a man of God! He was genuinely shocked with dismay and brokenness at the unbelief of God’s people denying the land promised for them by God!
Prayed to God to Spare His People!
Moses prayed and God speared the people from His judgment with fire: “And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. Then the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down” (Numbers 11:1-2). Moses always stood between people’s constant complaints and God’s anger!
Moses prayed and God speared the people from the fiery serpents: “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.’ Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.’ So, Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.’ So, Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live” (Numbers 21:4-9). The symbol for the Hippocratic Oath of the medical society came from the bronze serpent Moses lifted on a pole for the healing of the people!
God’s Pardon of Israel!
The first time, when Moses prayed, God pardoned Israel: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now, therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.’ But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’’ And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people” (Exodus 32:9-14). Moses did not settle for God’s offer of becoming a great nation (whereas many in the modern world would have wanted just that) but pleaded with God for His mercy, and God relented from His judgment!
The second time, Moses prayed, and though God pardoned the people God prevented them from the Promised Land: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.’ But Moses said to the Lord, ‘Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, and they will tell 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 face to face, and 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. Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’ And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, 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 generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.’ Then the Lord said, ‘I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it…not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun” (Numbers 14:11-24, 30). God made His second offer to make Moses a “mightier nation than they” but once again Moses interceded for God’s pardon of His people. This time, God yielded and pardoned the people but ruled that only Caleb and Joshua would enter the land of Promise and those under 20 years of age. The rest of them did not make it! THE TIME OF MOSES’ INTERVENTION CAME TO AN END!
The only prayers Moses prayed for himself:
· God to protect him from being stoned by the people he led!
· For God to go with him with His presence all along his journey!
· For God to show him His glory!
God’s Honor of Moses!
The last chapter of Deuteronomy closes with God honoring Moses with a grand tour around the Promised Land and reserving a special place for him in history, that no man could take!
“Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. And the Lord said to him, ‘This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.’ So, Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-Peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day. Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him. So, the people of Israel obeyed him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses. And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel” (Deuteronomy 34:1-12).
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John Jeyaseelan
Global Prayer Center | prayer | 701 Bill France Boulevard, Daytona Beach, FL, USA
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