On the need for intercession – Attempts at Honesty

In Deuteronomy 9, Moses recounts some of the history of the Israelites during the time when he lead them. He recounts how angry he was when they rebelled against God and disregarded the message that Moses shared with them.

While Moses was on the mountain receiving the Law from God, the Israelites were having an idolatrous party and they provoked God to the point where God threatened to kill them all, start over, and build a nation from Moses’ descendants.

How did Moses respond? Moses tells us:

“I fell down like the first time in the presence of the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food or drink water because of all the sin you committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and angering him.”

Deuteronomy 9:18, CSB

The next verse gives the reason why Moses interceded for the Israelites:

“I was afraid of the fierce anger the Lord had directed against you, because he was about to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me on that occasion.”

Deuteronomy 9:19, CSB

What strikes me is that rather than take God up on his offer to be the head of a new nation, Moses gets on his face before God and pleads for the welfare of the Israelites who have rejected both God and Moses.

Rather than seeking the harm of those who rejected him, Moses pleaded for their welfare. Elsewhere it says of Moses:

“Moses was a very humble man, more so than anyone on the face of the earth.”

Numbers 12:3, CSB

Moses didn’t let his pride get in the way of fulfilling his role as leader of the Israelites.

In my previous post, I spoke of loving enemies. Moses gives us a fine example of how this is done. He loved his enemies by pleading for them before God.

We should do the same. Perhaps a prayer of intercession would be better than an angry post. Perhaps I should be more concerned about a person’s standing before God than what they said to me or about me. Perhaps I should plead for their forgiveness rather than remind God of how evil they are.

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