The prayers of Moses may be considered of four sections.
- Exodus 3-6: Four occasions of prayer uttered before God began to work mightily to deliver His people.
- Exodus 32-34: Four prayers offered in connection with the giving of the laws. Praying for God’s erring people.
- Numbers 11,14,16,27: Moses leading God’s wayward people through the howling wilderness.
- Deut 3: This is the most pathetic and involves Moses being denied entrance into the promised land.
After 40 years in the desert, God had drastically changed the disposition of this mighty man. The desert had provided him with a deeper knowledge of God and himself. His thoughts would have been that he was incompetent for such a tremendous undertaking of saving his and God’s people. This is the mark of a true and godly servant.
The business world thrive on self confidence, but principles are far different in the arena of God’s school and God’s work.
What a message Moses had to proclaim – “the I AM had sent me, certainly I will be with you” (Ex 3:12). Moses needed not human cleverness, nor he need skillful organisation as we see in so many ministry circles today. He was a vessel appointed by God to do one great thing. He was to speak the word of God to Israel, the elders, and to Pharaoh and his court. What an immense undertaking. But if God was for him, who could effectively be against him. Not one!
Remember the well-known poem:
“Only one life, ’twill soon be past.
Only what’s done for Christ will last”
Do we remember Philip in the book of Acts? He joins himself to the chariot heading from Jerusalem to Ethiopia. The man was spiritually blind. What did Philip do? Did he relate to the eunuch his great evangelistic success in Samaria? Did he delve into the political issues of that day? What did he do?
“Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same Scripture (where the eunuch was reading) amd preached unto him Jesus” (Acts 8:35). That was all that was needed, that was all God could use.
How about us? All of us are not evangelists in the full sense of the word, but we who are born again have the gospel entrusted to us, to pass it on to others. It may be by giving one’s testimony. It may be through a little word during a normal conversation, or it may be just through handing a sinner a gospel tract.
Moses was told what to say, and he said it. May God give us the grace and the spirit of Moses!
Elder Andrew Lim
