Deut No.11 Prayer - the open secret

I know it wasn't as much of a time when I said that it's full of Gospel truth. There are some who think that the Gospel is only to be discovered in the pages of the latter part of the Bible, and that's not so. The Gospel is discovered even in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, and it becomes more and more plain as you go through the Bible, and this is what you would expect, because the Bible is written by one agent, by one being, and that is the Holy Spirit.

Yes, you have your sepulchers, many men who were employed over a long period of time, each using their own personalities and different skills to write down a message, but that message which was written down was inspired by the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost is never in two minds. He's consistent. It's said of men that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

That doesn't apply to the Spirit of God. And throughout the whole of the Old Testament and into the New Testament, there's a uniformity of revelation as the great Gospel of the ever-blessed God becomes plainer and plainer until it excels in clarity when Jesus comes unto the earth and not only proclaims the Gospel, but personifies the Gospel. Well then, we come to this Book of Deuteronomy, which has many anticipations of Gospel truth within it, and you will recall that I have on several occasions reminded you that this book contains the oracles of Moses, an old man who was well beyond pension age.

He ought to have given up working a long time ago, but he never did until that glorious day in his life when he was well beyond 100 years of age. God said, Moses, it's time for you to really come up here and to be with me in heaven. Do you remember how God alone knew the vain place of his servant Moses? But these oracles were given to his people by way of reminder, way of recollection, as he takes his leave of them.

They're there. Can you imagine the sight? Thousands and thousands of Hebrews gathered on the plain of Moab, ready to move into the promised land, and Moses fortifies them, gets them ready for that tremendous day in their experience when they represent the land which God earlier gave to the patriarch Abraham and his descendants. Now, I also told you, and if your memory is good, these facts should be very much at the forefront of your mind, that the Book of Deuteronomy indicates that God has granted several blessings to his people.

He has given them, and perhaps I could best bring it to your memory by using the word L, or rather the letter L, to enumerate them all. He has given them, he has promised them a land. He has given them a law.

He has given them a Levite. And he has given them a leader. And we looked into the personality and the ministry of Moses in about article 7 study.

But as I was gleaning in this book earlier on this week, it seemed to me that we ought to come back to Moses, not generally just to span his life and his success, but just to investigate one particular aspect of this man's makeup. There are a number of things that stand out paramountly about the personality of Moses. One or two are very surprising.

Moses, for instance, is known as the meekest man that ever lived. Numbers tells us that, does it not, in the lesson quoted, Numbers 12.3, the meekest man in the world at that time. And maybe I could just engage in one of my typical digressions for a moment and clear out what is meant by meekness, because there are some people who think that meekness is synonymous, means exactly the same as weakness.

But the meek man is not the weak man. Meekness is thus defined as strength under perfect control. Strength under perfect control.

And that characteristic is epitomized by Jesus and it's anticipated by Moses. The meek man, the meek leader of the Hebrew community. But not only is one of the characteristics that stands out in Moses that of meekness.

There is another. He has a remarkable ability to commune with God. There aren't many people who bear the accolade in Scripture as being friends of God.

The text of Exodus 33 and verse 11 tells you that Moses is so honest. He's another enoch. He walks with God.

He knows what it is to have fellowship with the Lord. So this man who is meek is also one who communes with the living God. And then emerging out of those two qualities is the third which I singled out particularly for exploration this evening.

And this is the prayer life of Moses and the power that he had in that holy ministry of intercession. You remember how it said of a patriarch Jacob that he surveilled with God? Well the same could be applied to Moses. He was a man and perhaps he stands out par excellence in the opening chapters of Scripture.

Who knew how to use this holy art to its best advantage. I remember Alan Redpath preaching a very powerful message on one occasion. In which he said something like this.

That no man in the history of Scripture or later on in the history of the church ever achieved anything in the service of God that was lasting without being a warrior in the holy art, the holy ministry of intercession. And though Moses had the advantage of an Egyptian education though according to one of the modern lawyers of the 20th century he is assessed as having a great legal brain. Although he was a military man and able to lead his forces against the primitive tribes in Sinai the thing that really makes Moses the outstanding successful man that he was was not his innate intellectual ability was not his natural leadership which grew in potential after the experience before the burning bush when God commissioned him to be the human redeemer of Israel.

The thing that makes Moses successful is the way in which he engaged in the art of intercession day by day and sometimes week by week I and if you recognize the if you looked at the reading carefully this evening sometimes for 40 odd days he would send and be sent on behalf of his people in the presence of the Lord. In the end my friend the men who count for God are not those who are gifted with a dynamic personality that could be a carnal natural thing the men who really count in the service of the Lord who have left an indelible imprint on the page of history are men who have known what it is to spend time hours and hours in prayer before a living God. If you inquire into the remarkable success story of the carnal in remission you cannot but come to this conclusion that in its infancy its success in contrast to other consensual missions at that time even in the mainland of China was due to the sail life of Hudson Taylor.

Though he wouldn't want me to say it I know him well enough to be able to make this deduction that if you want an explanation for the modern miracle of operation mobilisation then you have to go back to the conviction that Weber had as to the foremost ministry of prayer for the advance of that work and its constant purification before the Lord. In the end I'm arguing this that success in the service of God is correlated it's related to the amount of time that we spend and they spent in the holy ministry of intercession. Now why do we come to the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy well we do that my friend because it's a classic chapter in many ways it's a pivot on which the rest of the chapters of this book spring for here you have Moses recapitulating on two or three occasions three actually when he spent long periods of time before the Lord God and alongside of that as the context is filled out you discover that two of the reasons behind those lengthy periods of prayer was the simpleness and the apostasy and the dire need of his people.

Now let's break off this for a moment so that we can get the whole of the Pentateuch these first five books the last three in particular in perspective. You see what you've got in Deuteronomy in this ninth chapter is a bringing together of two separate incidents which are described in full in earlier books. You remember the occasion when Moses was given the law on Sinai and he came down the mount and he saw that the people were back in their Egyptian days of idolatry.

Well all that is described more graphically and in detail in Exodus 32 no need to turn to it at the moment but you get a summary, a few verses of what is given at length in Exodus 32 here in the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy if you've got that in your mind. Then there's another incident which is coupled to that one here in Deuteronomy and it really alludes to the time when the Israelites under the leadership of Moses were sitting at the very entry into the Promised Land itself and they sent their spines into Canaan. You remember the Sunday School Chorus ten men went to find Canaan and I've forgotten what came next but your memory is probably much better than my.

Twelve men went to find Canaan ten were bad, two were good and so it goes on. Well that particular incident is spelt out in detail in Numbers chapter twelve through to fourteen and the prophecy of it is in the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy and you remember how the people were influenced by the majority report of the spines and decided that it was too dangerous for them to go into the land that God had promised them. So I'm just spending moments in giving you this context for this particular chapter of Deuteronomy.

Allusion is made in detail there are other allusions too but most of the chapter is given up to a recital and a prophecy of those incidents. Moses getting the law from God and coming down Mount Sinai and seeing a horrific scene in front of him. Moses eventually leading the people to Sodestania, the promised land is in front, but the people they find that they've got a yellow suit right down their back and they want to go and return to Egypt and as a result of that they merit the anger and the righteous indignation of God.

So then that's what we're looking at in the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy. And you say well what's that got to do with prayer? Well it's got everything to do with prayer because you see at the end of both those incidents and we'll come to them in some detail in a moment, Moses intercedes for the people and never did a nation need a leader to pray for them, more than the Hebrews did on those trim occasions of apostasy and unbelief. Now there are many other examples that I could bring together that you've been here all night to illustrate Moses' prayer life.

But coming back to my thought of Deuteronomy 9 being the pivot, you see how this particular chapter illustrates in depth the holy art of intercession as is employed by Moses when he comes before the Lord and pleads for the spiritual eye and the physical well-being of his people. And let's make this application immediately just in case the clock beats me I never get round to the application at the end and it is this that what Moses was engaged in doing on behalf of the people yesteryear is desperately required in contemporary times. I believe that one of the hardest ministries to engage in consistently is a ministry of prolonged holy intercession.

I'm not talking about prayer sessions. I think sometimes we have been conned and I watch what I say, weigh up what I say, knowing that these tapes go to other groups of people besides the folks who gather here in the tabernacle this evening. But I sometimes feel that we've been conned and are increasingly being duped in the evangelical world, in the United Kingdom, into thinking that when we come together and have a chorus jamboree and emotions get elated and we're feeling all so glad and all so happy in the presence of the Lord that we have engaged in the holy art of intercession.

And I'm not so sure that that's not more of just an evangelical emotional trip that sometimes exceeds far less than we believe. I know the emphasis these days is on praise and the power of praise. And I would be the last to say that we shouldn't be praising the Lord.

That praise and a jolly type of meeting are much more effective to ordinary carnal people like myself than the likes of prolonged, agonizing intercessory prayer. And I for one believe the time has come for the balance to be regained with the praise and the prayer put into right, biblical perspective and balance. Now where was I? I was bringing you to the occasion in this ninth chapter when Moses is desperately determining he must pray for an ungodly apostate people.

Let's look at this first one in greater depth. And really the story starts from the seventh verse. The geographical identification is in the eighth.

Moses employs the word Horeb, which may not be so familiar to you. It's synonymous with Sinai. And he has in mind years ago when he went into the Holy Mount and there for forty days in the presence of his Divine Friend he was given the Decalogue which is another word for the Ten Commandments.

This was a stupendous event in the history of the Hebrews. If ever there was a day that should have been marked as a red letter day in the history of the ancient children of Israel it was this one. Moses in the presence of the Lord on the summit of the Holy Mount receiving the law and all the various subdivisions of that law which is contained within the early books of the Bible.

But unfortunately if you read the parallel passage which I quoted in Exodus which we won't turn to now or else we just can't get through this evening you'll find that when Moses was away and incidentally it was at the express request of the people that he went into the Mount and not themselves because they were afraid of what would happen to them if they were in the presence of the Lord. After being away for some time they got a little bit impatient. They said to Aaron, this man Moses we don't know what has become of him.

It's a bit boring to wait with spiritual expectancy. Easy to get down on your knees for half an hour or so. Easy to be in an attitude of elation for a little while.

But when you leave it not just away one week or two weeks but six weeks then your patience is tried. And so Aaron he condescends to the people's request that he makes him a god like one of the gods of Egypt, the golden star. What a tragic comes after is here in Scripture.

Moses in the Mount before the Lord. Aaron and the people naked, prostrate in the valley before the golden star. Moses fasting even without water before God.

The people engaged in debauchery. Brother Moses and the intermediaries of the Hebrews standing before the Lord of hosts. Aaron his brother in the valley superintending idolatry and immorality.

And Moses comes down and he sees the sight and that meek man drops the commandment which is great. Symbolic of the great that there has been in his heart is he cannot believe what his eyes have seen and which the Lord already has implemented. That so quickly only three months having left Egypt, having seen the division of the Red Sea.

These people are back to the idolatry and the paganism so right in Egypt. And Moses as a result of this will start to pray. But let's move on to the second occasion and spell that out in greater depth than my initial allusion.

The months have gone by and the people are at the border of the promised land. As they are now as Moses is about to take his leave from them. There's a place which is a bit of a tongue twister for you to be able to remember.

It's in the twenty-third verse of this ninth chapter of Deuteronomy. And the connoissance party has gone through into Canaan and they've summed up the situation and they all agree that it's a lovely land. All that I told you about the land when we had just one evening describing it was true.

A great land flowing with milk and honey. One of the best most fertile regions of which this world boasts. And God has given this land to his people.

And given them any instruction contained in this twenty-third verse. Go up and possess the land which I have given you. But they didn't want to know.

It's fine. The majority report which was brought back spoke of the anarchy and the giants and all the problems of taking Jericho and Ai and the rest of the cities that were in Palestine itself. And in holy disbelief and the parallel chapter numbers will fill out the historical incidents.

They determined even to murder Moses. Would you believe it? And Aaron. And had it not been for divine intervention these men would have been thrown to death.

They said they'd elect another captain, another leader and go back to Egypt because Egypt was preferable than going in faith into the promised land and fearing God to be their enemy. And as a result of that incident as I shall show you, Moses again turns to prayer before a holy righteous and totally indignant God. These then are the occasions of the prolonged periods of prayer as illustrated in this ninth chapter.

But also included here and filled out in the parallel passages of Scripture are a couple of propositions that the Lord put to Moses. It looks at the word occasion or the occasions, the historical incidents. Now I want you to look to help you with homiletics to get this study into your mind of the propositions which God makes.

In other words, God's reaction to what Moses has seen and experienced. And the reaction is an incredible one. It's an enticing one for Moses.

It's almost God-tempting, Moses, sizing up the measure of this man. Look at the 14th verse of Deuteronomy 9. Actually we'll take the reading from the 13th. Furthermore, the Lord spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a schismatic people.

Let me alone that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make of thee, Moses, a nation mightier and greater than they. God's proposition to Moses after the idolatry of the people beneath Sinai is to erase the nation from the face of the world, and from the posterity of Moses to create a more noble community.

And you get exactly the same thing in Numbers chapter 14. And there you'll recall the references to the people who have been so influenced by the majority of the scouts to decide out the promised land. And Moses in the 11th verse, or rather the Lord in the 11th verse of Numbers 14 says this.

Almost a replica of what we have just read. The Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? How long will it be ere they believe me? For all the signs which I have showed among them, I will smite them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater nation, and mightier than they. Two occasions when God says to Moses, You've had enough of this lot.

Let's have another go at making a people who will be more deserving of all that I have planned than these disnect, rebellious infantile Hebrews. Now Moses stands out at this point, and I took time putting in the context for you to see by way of contrast. He stands out as one of the greatest intercessors of all time, because before him by none other than God has been placed a scintillating opportunity.

Moses alone and his posterity could become God's own people. Here is the possibility of self-aggrandizement to Moses. The riches of spoils they are unique, and it's God who's offering them.

But God knows the measure of Moses. And Moses stands out here not only as the meekest man that ever lived, but one of the most spiritually discerning. And he says, No Lord, you mustn't do this.

Why must not God do what he has promised will be for the benefit of Moses and for the disadvantage of an undeserving people? Because I shall show you the glory of God as it stands. And you know something that makes any prayer that you offer a valid prayer or an invalid prayer is this. Whether the glory of God will be enhanced by an affirmative response on the part of God to the intercession that you make.

Let me try and put that more simply. If I ever ask from God anything that will not ultimately advance his glory, I have no right to ask for it at all. If I ask God for health for my body and I want it only for my personal advantage, it is an invalid prayer.

If I ask God for the spiritual well-being of my son, I'm concerned only about my family name and reputation, it is an invalid prayer. If I ask God for food and clothing so that my life can be sustained physically on this earth for my own interest, it is an invalid prayer. There is only one prayer, only one methodology in prayer which is accepted by the Lord God Almighty and it is that prayer which finally is conceived of as enhancing the glory of God.

And what Moses is concerned about is not his own physical pedigree, is not the glory of his name, is not the creation of a nation that all owes its antecedents to Moses himself. He's concerned that the Lord God Almighty who released the Hebrews by miraculous display of power from the bondage of Egypt should be recognized by the pagans as the God of the world who brings about his eternal and sovereign purposes. And to this end Moses will engage in a period of prolonged and extraordinary intercession.

Four days in prayer, I reckon to be a long time. The most I've ever done is two. But Moses having spent 40 days before the Lord in the presence of his friend receiving the Ten Commandments can sit by the sight that greets him when he's down in the valley and he looks at the people in an immoral fashion worshipping the golden calf having made his presence felt in that idolatrous community having exercised justice and judgment in the encampment goes back to Sinai and would you believe it for 40 days longer he spends time in prayer to his God that the people might not come under the judgment of complete annihilation by the Lord that might yet be allowed to enter into the promised land and fulfill the purposes of the Lord.

Deuteronomy 9.18 gathers up my last remark and I fell down before the Lord as at the first 40 days and 40 nights I did neither eat bread nor drink water because of all your sins which you sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. Moses is in the habit of praying when spiritual cancer devours the testimony of his own people and the extra disciplines which are incorporated into his prayer well are spelt out. I hardly need to spend any further time on them.

In the 18th verse and in the parallel passage dealing with the incident at Cederspania without food without water this is a holy fact, a miraculous fact he could not have existed unless he'd been supernaturally sustained by Almighty God. But so intense was Moses he was so concerned about the spiritual well-being of his people and about something that even transcended that as I shall recap upon in a moment or so. He spends this time and he goes without the common necessities of life before the Lord his God.

Do you remember when the early church was in trouble? The reference is in the Acts of the Apostles I think the 11th chapter. People's in jail and when the leader's taken the people sometimes go to pieces. So they engaged in prayer.

They managed to retrieve the situation. They weren't so afraid. They didn't themselves scatter.

But they got into somebody's home and the whole of the church in Jerusalem spent a prolonged period in prayer. And the actual word which describes their praying in the 11th chapter of the Acts is this. Actually it's an early chapter.

You'll have to check this up. I'm speaking from memory. They engaged in an agony of prayer.

It was prolonged intercession that spanned the whole night. And in the authorised version the idea seems to be of the length of the prayer being important whereas actually from the original Greek, if I recall the word correctly, it's the depth it's the intensity of the praying which is so wonderful. They come before the Lord in an agony and they pray desperately for the release of Peter and for the advancement of the cause of Jesus in Jerusalem.

It wasn't an easy emotional praise meeting. The singing of a few choruses and I'd be the last to argue against that. I'd be on a very weak wish it so to do.

It wasn't the tingling feeling that runs up and down the spine when something emotional just touches your heart. The depth of agony these people want of Peter released. Here's Moses and in agony he prays before God for the spiritual well-being of his people.

And would you believe it that Exodus tells us that in a most incredible fashion Moses tries to bargain with the Lord as though that were possible. The 32nd chapter and the 30th verse spells out the scene. And it came to pass on the morning that Moses said unto the people, you have sinned a great sin and now I will go up unto the Lord.

Peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. Did you get that? Peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord and said, O this people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold.

Yet not, yet not if thou wilt forgive their sin. And he doesn't finish the sentence. And if not block me I pray thee out of thy book which thou hast written.

I want to speak and address one day on that unfinished sentence in the book of Exodus. But the idea is of Moses coming before the Lord and saying, Lord will you forgive them? Or forget me? Or even forget me and forgive them. That's the idea of atonement.

Of course the whole thing is preposterous. There's only one who can come to God with this terminology with this approach and doubtless the divine heart of the Lord is moved as he sees Moses his servant cross-stretched in front of him and as he thinks back to an eternity gone by when the plan of salvation was conceived and when the voice went down the heavens who shall I send and who will go for us? And the second person in the vicinity said, yes I will go. I will go to this world that you will create, to this humanity which will fall into sin and will need to be recreated spiritually.

I will offer my life as an atonement for the sins of a broken and a fallen humanity. And maybe God was the Father was even thinking of this as poor old Moses with theology arised comes before him and says, Lord, if you like, blot me out. But remember then whatever theological criticism you might level at Moses at this time remember that here is a man who stands out with a holy sensitivity desiring the spiritual benefit of his people when he had every reason to call down fire from heaven to consume the folks that had caused him so many problems in the last decade.

My time's gone. The last thing therefore I bring out to you of the prayer of Moses as indicated here in Deuteronomy and later on in Numbers later on chronologically is that he pleads the promises of God. He stands before the Lord and he says Lord God, this is what you promised Abraham.

Remember thy servants Abraham verse 27, Isaac and Jacob Remember the covenant that you made. Don't look upon the stubbornness of this people, Lord. Remember not the wickedness that these people have committed at this moment.

Go back centuries to the conversations that you had with the ancient patriarchs and the covenant that you entered into to make their posterity a blessing to the whole of mankind. And then Moses clenching his excellent example of the greatest intercessor of the Old Testament says Lord, the reason I'm asking this is because if you annihilate these people and create a new race from me, the pagans around will say that you weren't able to do what you had promised historically. You couldn't get them back into the land.

Lord, your name will be ridiculed upon the face of the world and this cannot be the case. Remember then these people for they are thy people and thine inheritance which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arms. And bringing it all together into one piece of holy unanswerable logic.

Moses prays Numbers 14 verse 17 Lord, let the power of my God be great. And if God answered the prayer of his people the prayer of Moses on those two occasions then indeed the glory of God will be seen around the world in that day. And so it was.

And the principle my friends applies down the centuries and to the present moment. We who are called to a ministry of intercession have as our prime objective the glory of God. Why do I want to see these kids who come to our boys club and our girls club run for the Lord so that it might be said the tabernacle has got a fine youth work that's pure carnality.

That could attract me on the human level but God would have to forgive my sin. Why is it that we want to see this place filled with people? Why is it that we want to see young men and young women going out into the villages to evangelize so that people can say you know down in the center of Worthing on that coastal strip there's a church that's really on fire for the Lord. They're tremendous people they've got a great testimony.

No, the very language is almost akin to spiritual blasphemy. The reason we want these youngsters won for the Lord is for the glory of God. The reason we want men and women to be saved in the tabernacle is for the glory of God.

I say this publicly if there is any way in which in my ministry I have an attitude that would steal glory from God and apportion it to myself I pray God to take me from this church and from this pulpit. There is only one who deserves all the glory. There is only one reason why we engage in prayer and evangelism.

It is to bring adoration and praise to the great God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that should be the springboard of all our intercession and the springboard of all our evangelism. May you have learned may I have learned something deep this night about the holy ministry of prayer.

Amen. And Father our prayer is exactly the same as that of the meekest man that lived in the Old Testament era. Father let your power be great and let it be known among the nations of the world.

And may your power be released through our own engaging in the holy ministry of intercession. And use us as you use Moses for the spiritual benefit of men and women some of whom don't know how to pray for themselves for Jesus' sake. Amen.