Faithful Intercession (Deuteronomy 9:25)

So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you.
—Deuteronomy 9:25

What a verse. When you think about the meaning of Deuteronomy 9:25 and what it represents—Moses recounting when God’s people formed a golden calf, bowed down, worshiped it, and indulged in all kinds of immorality flowing from this idolatry—it is striking. God said he was going to destroy his people, all of them, and Moses interceded on their behalf. The story is in Exodus 32. Moses prayed to God for them. He stood in the gap and pleaded for God’s mercy. He pleaded for God to relent from his wrath. In an awesome picture of intercession and the power of prayer, God hears Moses’s words, sees his intercession, and does exactly what Moses asked.

He relents from showing his wrath and displays his mercy in response to Moses’s intercession. In this verse, Moses says, “So I lay prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights.” For forty days and forty nights—this picture of Moses pleading with God for his mercy. What a powerful picture of intercession.

Do you and I pray like this? When we think about the people of God around us, do we pray for one another like this? Do we pray for the church like this? Do we intercede like this? When we think about people around us who are under the wrath of God—people who, at this moment, stand in judgment before God for their sin—are we pleading like this?

I was talking with someone just this week about how Heather and I prayed for years—year after year after year—for her mom to come to know Christ. And one day, in a way we never could have imagined, God answered that prayer. She was born again, her life entirely changed, her heart made new. It was awesome. In response, we trust not just our intercession but the intercession of many others.

Do we pray like this with confidence—that when we pray, and keep praying day after day, month after month, year after year, God hears us and will answer us?

I want to encourage you, based on Deuteronomy 9:25, to intercede faithfully and to pray with confidence—a humble confidence—that God is hearing you and will answer in his sovereign timing, according to his sovereign will and his Word. That is the beauty of this passage. If you look back at Exodus 32, Moses is praying the Word. He is praying the Word. I want to lead us to do that right now.

God, we praise you for the privilege of intercession. This is such an awesome privilege that you have given us—even right now—to come before you. The same God Moses prayed to, the same God Abraham prayed to—we come before you now on behalf of others and ask for your mercy.

God, we pray for your church. We pray for the churches we are a part of. Help us to be faithful intercessors for our churches and for the people in them. We think right now of people in need—those around us in our lives, our families, and our workplaces. Help us to be faithful intercessors for them,

to lie prostrate before you, pleading for your mercy upon them. And God, we pray this for those who are lost around us—for those who do not know your grace, your mercy, and your love—for those who are right now under your judgment in their sin and, if nothing changes, will experience your judgment for all eternity. God, have mercy, we pray. Please have mercy.

We pray for family members, friends, and coworkers who do not know you. We pray for your salvation to be made known among them. Even as faces and names come to our minds right now, we pray for them. We plead for your mercy upon them.

A Prayer for the Tai Lue People

We know, based on your Word in 2 Peter 3, that you desire their repentance. We know that you love the world—that you gave your Son so that all people might know you. So we pray: draw more and more people around us to yourself. We intercede for them right now.

And for people far from us—for the Tai Lue in Vietnam—we know your Word says (Revelation 5) that you sent your Son to purchase people for yourself from every nation, tribe, tongue, and language. So we pray for the Tai Lue in Vietnam. Draw them to yourself according to your Word. We pray that this unreached people group—men, women, and children—would come to know your grace. We intercede for them right now.

God, make us men and women who lie prostrate before you, doing this day and night on behalf of others. Make us, we pray, faithful intercessors in prayer, just as we see in Moses—and ultimately in Jesus, our Intercessor, who intercedes for us continually—and the Spirit, who, as Romans 8 teaches, intercedes for us continually.

What an awesome thought.

We love you, God. We praise you for the privilege of prayer, specifically intercession, and we ask that you would help us to be faithful with this privilege.

In Jesus’s name, amen.