Deuteronomy 9:11-19 –
At
the end of the forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. Then the Lord told me, “Go down from here at once, because your
people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have turned away quickly from what I commanded them and have made an idol for
themselves.” And the Lord said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are a
stiff-necked people indeed! Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make you into a nation stronger and more
numerous than they.” So
I turned and went down from the mountain while it was ablaze with fire. And the
two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. When I looked, I saw
that you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves an idol cast in
the shape of a calf. You
had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. So I took the two
tablets and threw them out of my hands, breaking them to pieces before your
eyes. Then once again I fell prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and
drank no water, because
of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and so
arousing his anger. I
feared the anger and wrath of the Lord, for he was angry
enough with you to destroy you. But
again the Lord listened to me.
Jeremiah
7:16 – “So do not pray for this
people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead
with me, for I will not listen to you.
Exodus
32:11 – 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?
Ezra 9:5-6,9,15 – Then,
at the evening sacrifice, I
rose from my self-abasement, with my tunic and cloak torn, and fell on my knees
with my hands spread
out to the Lord my God and prayed: “I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you,
because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the
heavens… Though we are
slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage. He
has shown us kindness in the sight of the kings of Persia:
He has granted us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and
he has given us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem… Lord, the God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in
our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.”
Nehemiah
9:6,21 – You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even
the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the
earth and all that is on it, the seas and
all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the
multitudes of heaven worship you… For forty years you
sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet
become swollen.
Daniel
9:18 – Give ear, our
God, and hear; open your eyes and see the
desolation of the city that bears your Name. We
do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great
mercy.
Application:
- ·
Moses’ intercessory prayer on this occasion
ranks among the great prayers for Israel’s national survival.
- ·
Using God’s own words, Moses appeals to God’s
special relationship to Israel, then to God’s need to vindicate His name in the
eyes of the Egyptians, and finally to the great patriarchal promises.
- ·
Ezra felt both an inner shame before God and
an outward humiliation before people for his own sins and the sins of his people.
- ·
God’s love is more than a match for our
guilt.
- ·
God answers prayer because of His grace, not
because of our works.
- ·
A proper sense of God’s holiness makes us
aware of our unworthiness.
- ·
You alone are the Lord.
- ·
“Clothes did not wear out” was evidence of
the special providence of God.
- ·
God answers prayer because of His grace, not
because of our works.
All Scripture verses taken from NIV
