Please open your Bibles to Exodus 32.
We are in week three of a series on the power of prayer. We’ve adopted James 5:16 as our theme verse for the entire series— “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” So we’ve been talking each week about what makes prayer powerful. The first week we talked about how…
• We pray expectantly: Like we believe something is going to happen.
• We pray persistently: We keep praying until something happens.
And today we are going to add a third element to effective prayer.
• We pray persuasively : Like we believe what happens depends on our prayer.
And I will confess to you that this is the one that’s hardest for me to make sense of as a pastor/amateur theologian. If God is sovereign, how do our prayers change anything? If God has foreordained every detail of history, and if it all unfolds according to his plan and in accordance with his will, then what difference do our prayers make?
Not too many years ago there was a small southern town that voted in liquor by the drink. There was a lot of opposition. The townsfolk lined up on opposite sides of the issue. Those opposed waved signs that said “Say no to alcohol!” Those in favor waved signs that said “Say yes to restaurants!”
Well, not too long after the liquor by the drink bill passed, the first tavern opened up in this town. And the local church began to actively pray against it. “Lord, let this business fail!” “Lord, shut down this den of iniquity!” They kept at it for weeks. And one night, there was a terrible thunderstorm, and the tavern was struck by lightning, and it burned to the ground.
The church folk were shocked, but delighted. But the tavern owner was mad. And he sued. He contended that their prayers were responsible for the burning of the building. They denied the charge. They said, “Look at your insurance policy. It says, “act of God.” Our prayers had nothing to do with your bar burning down!”
So, at the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, the judge remarked, “Well, at this point I don’t know what my decision will be, but it seems obvious to me which side believes in the power of prayer and which side does not.”
Do things really happen as a result of our prayers? This is also one of those points of theology that can be so easily manipulated and abused. Can we, through our prayers, make God do something he wouldn’t otherwise do? Or stop God from doing something he was planning to do? Today’s Scripture passage seems to be saying that. But this morning I want to take a deep dive into this passage to help us understand what is really going on in this story. Let’s stand to honor the reading of God’s Word:
9 The Lord also said to Moses: “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone, so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God: “Lord, why does your anger burn against your people you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a strong hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘He brought them out with an evil intent to kill them in the mountains and eliminate them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger and relent concerning this disaster planned for your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel—you swore to them by yourself and declared, ‘I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and will give your offspring all this land that I have promised, and they will inherit it forever.’” 14 So the Lord relented concerning the disaster he had said he would bring on his people.
One of the most confusing verses in the Bible, and the story around it:
And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.
Exodus 32:14
If you are using the New American Standard version, verse 14 probably gives you even more heartburn:
So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. (NASB)
This messes us up because we know Malachi 3:6 says, “I am the Lord, I do not change.” And Numbers 23:19 tells us “God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.” So what do we make of a verse that says, “The Lord changed His mind?”
Of course, New American Standard readers still are probably not as confused as King James readers. You guys are really messed up with this verse, because in the King James Version, Exodus 32:14 says,
And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
Say what???? Slow your roll, pastor. God doesn’t repent because God never sins. Is this a typo? What was really going on here?
I want to be clear at the outset that the Bible is not contradicting itself. Numbers 23:19 is absolutely true: God is not a man, that He should change his mind. So when we read Exodus 32, understand that the Lord doesn’t change His mind the way human beings do. And if you’re following along in the King James, let’s be crystal clear that “repent” doesn’t mean repent from sin. It means a change in direction. So we’re going to use the Bible to interpret the Bible, and dig deeper into what’s happening.
Let’s back up and look at the setting of all this. In Exodus 19, after three months of journeying from Egypt, the Israelites came to the foot of Mt Sinai. God calls Moses to the top of the mountain and tells him that He (God) is offering a covenant to the people of Israel. if they will keep the covenant, God will make them His own “treasured possession” and “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (verses 5–6). And at first, God’s people are all in. In Exodus 19:8 they had said “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” So Moses goes back up the mountain. He gets the 10 commandments in Exodus 20, and at the end of that chapter, the people are in such fear of the holiness of God that they beg Moses,
18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid[d] and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.”
So Moses goes back up the mountain, and this time, according to Exodus 24:18, he was up there for forty days and forty nights. He receives the law on the stone tablets. He gets more laws. He gets blueprints for building the tabernacle. He gets patterns for the priest’s garments. He even gets the recipe for the incense to be used in the tabernacle. And while Moses gets more and more details, the people get more and more restless.
So by Exodus 32, the people go to Aaron and they say,
32 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
Isn’t that amazing? These people had seen God inflict ten plagues on the Egyptians so they (Israel) could be delivered from bondage. Less than six months before they had seen God part the water of the Red Sea so they could pass through on dry ground while the Egyptian army drowned. It took them less than a football season to go from all in obedience to all out idolatry. They give Aaron their gold jewelry, Aaron makes a calf, and verse 6 says,
6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
Which is a really PG way for the Bible to describe some really R-Rated behavior. And God sees all of this, and he says to Moses,
7 “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 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.”
Now, do you think for a second Moses doubted God’s Word? Of course not. Keep in mind that Moses was God’s messenger to Pharaoh. Ten different times, God sent Moses to Pharaoh to say, “Let my people go. And if you don’t, here’s what’s going to happen: Blood. Frogs. Gnats. Flies. Dead cows. Boils. Hail. Locusts. Darkness. And if you still don’t let my people go, God’s going to top it off by killing the firstborn child in every single household in Egypt.
1. Moses believed God’s judgment was real (v. 9-10). Moses knew God wasn’t playing. And so if he was going to plead for the people, he needed to pray persuasively.
I have to ask. Do we pray for lost people as though we believe hell is a real place? And that people who don’t surrender their lives to Jesus really go there? [Point out “Who’s Your One” posters]. When we pray for our lost friends, do we pray knowing that the only way for them to escape the wrath of a holy God against sin is to repent of their sin and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ? And are we begging God to save them before it is too late? Or are we, somewhere in the back of our minds, thinking that surely a God of love doesn’t send people to hell? We don’t want to offend people. We don’t want to get a reputation as one of those “hellfire and damnation” churches. So we’d much rather talk about how Jesus can help us achieve our best life now. We would much rather have people respond to Jesus because of all the benefits he offers, and not because of the damnation he saves us from. The way the gospel is presented today, it doesn’t sound like a call for salvation as much as a call for improvement.
Charles Spurgeon, the great nineteenth century preacher, put it this way: “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, at least let it be filled [in spite] of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for. – Charles Spurgeon
Church, do you believe God’s judgment is real? If so, you pray for lost people. And you pray persuasively. Let’s look at how Moses did this. In verses 11-12, we read Moses’ prayer:
11 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? 12 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.
Notice what Moses appeals to. He reminds God of God’s own great power. And he wonders out loud, to God, what the Egyptians would say if God destroyed the people He had worked so hard to deliver. We can sum it up this way:
2. Moses believed God’s glory was primary (v. 11-12). If you want to pray persuasively, pray that God be glorified. Because God is chiefly concerned with His own glory. Now I realize that would sound really egotistical if it was coming from a human being. But when it is coming from God, it’s entirely appropriate. After all, what else should the supreme being of the universe seek after? By definition, nothing can be of higher importance than the glory of God. Because if there was, that thing would be supreme instead of God.
So persuasive prayer makes God’s glory its primary objective. Andrew Murray (1828-1917) was a South African pastor and writer who wrote extensively on prayer, and he put it this way: in his book The Believers School of Prayer, he said, “Every answer to prayer He gives will have this as its object: when there is no prospect of the Father being glorified, He will not answer. So, with us as with Jesus, the essential element in our petitions must be that the glory of the Father be the aim and the end, the very sould and life of our prayer.”
Christian, when you pray, is God’s glory your primary objective? If so, your prayer will be persuasive. If it isn’t, then don’t be surprised if there doesn’t seem to be much power to your prayer life.
A pastor was leading a prayer time at his church one Sunday morning. He had invited anyone who had a need to come to the altar and pray. He and other leaders would kind of circulate around and pray alongside people. The pastor came and put his hand on the shoulder of a fifth grade boy who was kneeling and praying with all his heart. And as the pastor drew closer, he could hear the boy praying. The boy just kept repeating one word: “Tokyo. Tokyo. Tokyo.”
After the service, the pastor found the boy again and said, “I was impressed with how fervently you were praying. But can you tell me why Tokyo is so much on your heart?” The boy replied, “I took a geography test on Friday. And I really need God to change the capital of France to Tokyo before the teacher starts grading them.”
Let God’s glory be the primary focus of your prayer!
Let’s continue to look at Moses’ prayer. In verse 13, Moses prays,
13 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.’”
The third factor that made Moses’ prayer so persuasive is that he believed God’s promises were eternal (v. 13). Now, when Moses said, “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he wasn’t suggesting that God had forgotten them. God doesn’t have to be reminded of His promises. But sometimes we do. Sometimes we forget promises God has made to us like Romans 8:28—that all things work together for the good of those that love God and are called according to His purpose. Or Psalm 84:11—that “no good thing does God withold from them whose way is blameless.” Or what about the one that is one the cover of your bulletin—1 Timothy 2:4: God desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. Friends, we don’t need to remind God of his promises, but we do need to remind ourselves. Psalm 119: Forever O Lord your word is settled in heaven; your faithfulness endures to all generations. And we have confidence that when we pray God’s promises back to God, God is going to be faithful to His word. Rightly understood, rightly interpreted, and rightly applied, God will abide by his word. So look again at 1 Timothy 2:4. Do I need to ask God if it is his will that [name someone on Who’s Your One] be saved? No. God has already said so in his Word. I think God may be waiting for bold pray-ers who know God’s promises and are willing to pray in accordance with them. Moses did, and look what happened:
14 And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.
Are you beginning to understand that Moses wasn’t twisting God’s arm to get Him to do something He wasn’t willing to do? Moses prayer was persuasive not because Moses made God do something God hadn’t been planning on doing, but because Moses got on the same page with God. Let me explain what I mean by this.
You might have noticed in your reading of Exodus that God and Moses go back and forth on whose people the Israelites are. When God is frustrated with them, he calls them Moses’ people. Look at verse 7:
• 7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
But in verse 11, Moses says to God,
• “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people,
Now, all you parents with small children understand this, don’t you? When they do something you’re proud of, you’re all, “That’s my boy!” But when they aggravate you, what do you say? You say, “Let me tell you what YOUR CHILD did today…” Or you say, “Brent, come get your kid!” This is your DNA at work here…
But something happens in this passage. Moses, maybe for the first time, takes responsibility for the people God has given him. Skip down to verse 30:
30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
3. Moses believed God’s people were his responsibility (v. 30). You see, they were God’s people, but they were Moses’ responsibility. He took ownership for their standing with God. So what does he do? He goes back up the mountain, and he intercedes for the people.
Friends, there is such an important lesson here. When it comes to the gospel, the people in our circle of influence are our responsibility. That doesn’t mean we can save them. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. But we must intercede for them. It is on us to bring their names before our Heavenly father. It is on us to beg God to give us opportunities to share the gospel with them. And it's on us to follow through with those opportunities God gives us. It has been said that the second most embarrassing question a Christian can be asked is, “When was the last time you led someone to Jesus.” But the most embarrassing question is, “When was the last time you tried?” The key to praying persuasively is taking ownership for the spiritual condition of the people around us. When you feel like you’ve got skin in the game, it changes the way you pray for someone.
There’s one last thing I want to point out about this passage of Scripture, and then we are done. In verse 30, Moses says “perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” Atonement means covering over. Moses goes up the mountain, hoping that he can cover the people’s sin. Now hear this, and really let it sink in:
Can Moses do this? Can a human being make atonement for the sin of another human being? Why not? Because that human being is sinful also. And so the whole system of animal sacrifices and rituals that the rest of Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy describes is limited. It’s temporary. It’s symbolic. It’s incomplete. A sinful man cannot make atonement for the sins of sinful men. So what is verse 30 doing here? Well, let's read on. And verse 31-32 says this:
31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.”
Moses is offering to do what Moses can’t do. He’s offering to take the punishment of Israel’s sin upon himself. And God shuts him down in verse 33: “But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.” But do you see what’s going on? Moses has come to the point where he loves these sinful, idol worshiping Israelites so much that he is willing to take their place.
And I think that is what made his prayers so persuasive. He’s willing to bear the punishment for their sin. And when we love the lost enough to be willing to take their place, then we begin to understand God’s heart for lost people. Because in making that offer, Moses points to the one who will come centuries after Moses. Jesus Christ.
4. Moses pointed to God’s Son as a substitute (v. 32).
Like Moses, Jesus climbed a mountain in order to make atonement for sin. Like Moses, Jesus will say, “Father, forgive their sin.” Like Moses, Jesus would willingly bear the punishment for their sin.
But unlike Moses, Jesus actually could. Jesus Himself never sinned. So he could take our sin, in order to give us his righteousness.
INVITATION
