This morning I want to begin with a humble thought: All of us are sitting here this morning worshipping the LORD as a result of someone's prayer. Before we came to know the LORD, there were people praying for our salvation. No one has come to God by his or her own effort. Let us examine the power of intercessory prayer.

Moses the supreme example of an intercessor
Moses stands, along with Elijah, as two important OT figures. They met our Lord Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mt. 17:3 f). He is known as the one who led the people of Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness. His successor Joshua took the people into the Promised Land.

Let us examine one of his significant roles, that of an intercessor.

The first fasting (vv. 9-11)
The Ramadan just ended. A month of fasting for devout Muslims — not food or drink during the day time for a month! Surely, it is not an easy feat. They are allowed eat and drink at night. But look at Moses. For forty days and nights he did not eat any food or drink water. Some will say it is a medical impossibility! True. Only because God enabled him to do so, Moses was able to fast for such a long time.

Deut 9 is really a short summary of ten chapters in Exodus (24-34). Moses simply reminds the next generation (Joshua's generation), who were too young to know about what God had done for Israel, to fear and never to forget the LORD as they go into the Promised Land.

Why did Moses go to God in the first place? I know that some people observe this practice of fasting for forty days, especially when they have a life crisis. A pastor friend of mine sought the LORD's guidance when the church he was serving had a very unclear direction. He fasted for forty days and nights (of course, he drank water!). He took some mineral pills as well. Boy did he lose a lot of weight!

But for Moses it was in obedience to God's command:

'Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instructions' (Exod 24:12)

God called Moses into His presence, and there he gave him the step by step instructions on Offering, the Ark, the Tabernacle, the Priests, the Sabbath … all to do with the proper worship of God. Then, God wrote with his fingers the nature of the covenant on two stone tablets to be deposited in the Ark.

That was going to mark Moses forty days of fasting in the presence of the LORD. BUT something happened. God began withdrawing from His people. God saw what was going on down below; Moses had no idea what was going on. God saw the people making a golden calf and worshipping it, the very opposite of the kind of worship for which Moses was collecting information on.

The expressions God uses indicate how deeply this behavior of Israel disturbed God. The LORD calls Israel 'Moses' people':

Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. (Exod 32:7)

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

God does not want to identify himself with this people any more. I wonder how God feels about us at times. In the Exodus account, we have a very realistic (from the human perspective) account of how God feels. Moreover, God lashes out his anger by saying,

Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation. (Exod 32:10)

It is incredible how frank the whole conversation is here. God's patience appears to be fully tested and he does not want to get into this arrangement any more. After all, God's promise to make Israel his people was not an unconditional, unilateral contract as we might be led to believe. When we examine the Sinaic Covenant carefully (Exod 19:5-6), he does states that it is a conditional phrase, 'if you keep my commandments …'

Thank God that our relationship with God in the New Testament is not like that. At least we have the assurance that Jesus Christ is the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:2) and that 'if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness' (1 John 1:9).

But here in Exodus 32, God was ready to drop his people, for the sin they had committed against God was very, very grave. God hated this sin the most, for God alone ought to be the object of our worship. And in the place of Israel, God proposed a new plan to Moses: that he would build a new nation through the descendants of Moses, much like what he had done through Noah (32:10b).

Here comes the great intercessor Moses. Look at his plea before God. Examine his cry before the angry God. He spoke on behalf of God first.

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? (32:12ff.)

Here the intercessor is foremost concerned about God's fame. I do not think that it is Moses' wit here to outthink God and to stop his plan to destroy them.

No, Moses was genuinely concerned about God's name before the nations surrounding Israel. He was, after all, God of all nations; he deserved worship from all peoples of the earth. And, destroying Israel is not a good start!

The amazing thing about God is that he relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had mentioned. Our God is God who listens. He listened to the plea of Abraham concerning the destruction of Sodom (Gen 18). God said, 'If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake' (vs. 26). Abraham managed to bring the number to ten; however, he got the point when he realized that there were not even ten righteous people in the city to avert the impending disaster. But the point here is that God was willing to listen and to negotiate with Abraham.

Jacob also wrestled with the LORD. He did not let him go until there was the promise that he would bless Jacob. Not revealing his name, the LORD promised to bless Jacob (Gen 32:26). It is another heart-warming story that God will listen to us when we come to him in desperate prayer.

God listened to the plea of Moses and did not destroy the people of Israel. So Moses went down the mountain with two tablets of stones containing various instructions pertaining to worship, inscribed by the very finger of God.

The breakdown (vv. 16-17)
When Moses came down the mountain and saw what God had seen earlier, he felt what God had felt before. He was sick to the stomach. He saw these people getting out of control in apparent religious frenzy, worshipping a golden calf placed at the center. This included his very own brother Aaron. He realized how deeply this was offending God. He now realized why God was more than ready to destroy this faithless people.

Moses broke the stone tablets in no time and threw them out of his hands, for these Israelites were not worthy of receiving the worship instructions (ironically) from the LORD. We can also say that not only the stone tablets were all broken, but Moses himself also broke down.

Although it is not mentioned in Deuteronomy account, in the Exodus, we see Moses punishing his people for this act. The Levites who stood on the side of the LORD, carried out the killing and some three thousand died (Exod 32:29).

The second fasting (vv. 18-20)
Here was Moses, the second time in the presence of the LORD. He felt prostrated before him. There were no words to say, for he knew how God felt. For forty days and nights, he tried to win God's favor on behalf of his people:

I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed … I feared the anger and wrath of the LORD, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. (Deut 9:18-19)

Here is the great intercessor at work again. This time, he was on the side of his people. During his first fasting, he was on the side of God, trying to mind God's fame among the nations. This time, he was minding the future of his people Israelites against God's fierce anger.

Moses went back up to the LORD and said,

Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin — but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written. (Exod 32:32)

Imagine the cries of Moses. For forty days and nights, without food or drink, there was only one thing on his mind: please forgive this people. Take my own life, if you have to, but please let them have one more chance.

Such was the resolve of this great intercessor, willing to lay down his own life. Remember the sweet offer of the LORD to Moses, 'I will build a new people through you.' Moses was not interested in that. He wanted to bring his people in the right relationship with the LORD one more time.

In many ways, Moses' second fasting was much more difficult than the first one. He was more tired. He was really discouraged by his own people's sin (now he saw it all). He also knew why the LORD was so angry. Moses had to reach deed down in his inner well, to look for the strength to prostrate before the LORD, for as long as it was required.

Have you ever been determined this much to change the will of God? Some say that 'prayer is not so much to change the will of God; but to learn to conform our will to His.' It sounds all theologically correct. Who are we to change the course of history and, most of all, to change God's sovereign will?

And yet, here in our passage, in a very mysterious way, we see the possibility and the reality of Moses locked in a prayer session to avert the impending destruction upon his people. How? By changing God's planned action.

The result of Moses' forty days and nights of prayer is accounted in Deut 9:19-20:

But again the LORD listened to me. And the LORD was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I prayed for Aaron too.

That is what Standing in the Gap is all about. Can we pray like Moses did? Can we bring the people to God the way Moses did? We have Discovery Meetings, our evangelistic gatherings, coming up in January and going on until March. Are we willing to intercede on behalf of the souls of our loved ones? Our country also needs our intercession. Last year this time, Metro Manila experienced a series of bombing. This year we have had the temporary closing of some embassies. Many tourists and investors are being turned away. We may be heading down to uncertain economic future. We need to pray for the country.

Are we willing to stand in the gap? Let me repeat what I said at the beginning of this message: All of us are sitting here this morning worshipping the LORD as a result of someone's prayer. Before we came to know the LORD, there were people praying for our salvation. No one has come to God by his or her own effort. It is now our turn to pray seriously for the salvation of others.

Between now and the beginning of the Discovery Meetings in January, we have a little over forty days left. Let me propose the following:

Let us pray for the next forty days, four minutes in the morning and four minutes in the evening (four minutes each for the beginners and forty minutes for the season veterans), to pray for four souls to be won. That shall be our 'first fasting.' Then when the Discovery Meetings get under way, we shall continue to pray for another forty days, our 'second fasting.'

May the LORD bless you all!