We’ve talked for a few weeks about the disastrous decisions of the Israelites at the foot of Mt. Sinai, but thankfully the story ends with a powerful prayer. Let’s focus our attention there this week. After the “great sin” of idolatry and insulting God, He was angry. God wanted to wash His hands of the nation of Israel and be completely through with them. The only reason He didn’t do so was because of Moses’ powerful prayer. Often, we only pray for things to happen, but sometimes we need to pray so that things don’t happen. Moses prayed and Exodus 32:14 tells us, “Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.”
God changed His mind. Now before some of you challenge that thought (in Malachi 3:6, God does say, “I the Lord do not change…”) God does not change His essence, but He can change His thought process. That’s what happened here—Moses prayed, and God changed His mind. What was so powerful about Moses’ prayer that it changed God’s mind?
In Exodus 32:7-10, God was angry, so angry, He wanted to destroy the Israelites. In response, Exodus 32:11 tells us, “But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?’” Moses prayed with the right perspective. He wasn’t shouldering the responsibility of the people. He did not pray as if he was in control or ultimately responsible. Moses essentially said to God, “This is not on me, You are still in control, You are still sovereign, and You are still on the throne.” We often find ourselves coming to God with stress and anxiety weighing on us. We pray and move on with the burdens still weighing us down because we feel we are ultimately responsible. Like Moses, we must learn to pray from the right perspective—God is still in control, still sovereign, still on His throne—so we don’t have to stress out or fall apart!
Next Moses continued his prayer in Exodus 32:12-13, “Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” He simply prayed according to God’s personality. Moses had seen God reveal Himself repeatedly and knew who God was – Healer, Deliverer, Savior, and so much more. Moses knew God and because He did, he knew how to pray, praying God’s promises back to Him.
May every prayer we offer be prayed with the right perspective, according to God’s personality and promises.