11/4/11 MOSES PLEADS FOR THE PEOPLE
Numbers 14:10-19 Friday, November 4, 2011
Key Verse: 14:19 Kevin Jesmer NIU UBF
“ In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”
Dear Lord Jesus. Thank you for this day that you have given me. Thank you for blessing our family and keeping us in your love. Please help my kids to love Jesus and have an eager desire to know you and to love you. May coming to Jesus be the joy of their lives. Help me to communicate the love of God to them. May they live in your love. Help me to preach the message of the growing cross to them this weekend and they may “get it”. Please bless Julie to grow through the True Woman conference. May she be blessed abundantly. Please grant me one word of God through this passage. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen!
1. I will make you a great nation (10-12).
Verses 10-12, “10 But the whole assembly talked about stoning them. Then the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. 11 The LORD said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”
God was angry at the people’s unbelief. He had poured out his grace on them, but they rebelled against him and treated him with contempt because of their fear and unbelief. God offered Moses an easy way out of a hard job. He would destroy the rebels with a plague and start over again with Moses’ family and make a greater nation. Moses could forget about the rebels and raise his own sons.
I can see here that God is not pleased when we grumble and complain about being called to follow Jesus on a pilgrimage to the Promised Land. We want to go back to our old lives. Or we want to just fall back into a carefree life of sleeping and taking it easy and just relaxing all the time. That is my problem. I simply want to forget my calling and fall back into a complacent life and rest a lot. I can see that my kids, as their hearts are being dragged away and enticed by the world, they have no joy in following Jesus and seeking Jesus. In a sense they are going back to Egypt in their hearts.
But God is not too pleased about grumbling even when he has poured out his grace so abundantly on us. But he does not treat us as our deeds deserve. He forgives us and hopes in us and waits until we come out of our grumbling and complaining. Sure we deserve his judgment, but he forgives. Praise God that we can continue to be his people and that God can work through us.
2. Moses’ prayer (13-19).
Verses 13-19, “ 13 Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. 14 And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, LORD, are with these people and that you, LORD, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. 15 If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, 16 ‘The LORD was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ 17 “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: 18 ‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’ 19 In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”
Moses did not accept God’s offer. He had a shepherd’s heart for the people, and he loved God. God’s honor was at stake. God had brought the people out of Egypt with his mighty hand and led them through the desert with cloud and fire. If he put them all to death, the godless nations of the world would mock God. So Moses asked God to forgive the people one more time because of his great love. God relented (20).
I thank God for those who prayed for me. There are so many who prayed. Especially they prayed and I could make the breakthrough in my spiritual life and find new appreciation about the grace of Jesus and his holiness. I could make a new beginning with Julie and our lives of faith together.
I need to learn how to pray for others. I thank God that Julie and I could begin to pray for our kids each night. That is long overdue. I thank God for world mission night where we could pray for missionaries and the work of God in general. I want to grow as a prayer servant for the students of NIU. I want to pray for the people of America and for my family.
Prayer: Lord, help me to know your mind and heart, love you more, and pray for your people and your redemptive work.
One Word: Love God and pray for his people
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