Moses’ prayers are often found relieving the terrible stroke of God’s wrath. Four times were the prayers of Moses solicited by Pharaoh to relieve him of the fearful stroke of God’s wrath. “Entreat the Lord,” most earnestly begged Pharaoh of Moses, while the loathsome frogs were upon him. And “Moses cried unto the Lord because of the frogs which God had brought against the land of Egypt, and the Lord did according to the word of Moses.” When the grievous plague of flies had corrupted the whole land, Pharaoh again piteously cried out to Moses, “Entreat for me.” Moses went out from Pharaoh and entreated the Lord, and the Lord again did according to the word of Moses. The mighty thunderings and hail in their alarming and destructive fury extorted from this wicked king the very same earnest appeal to Moses, “Entreat the Lord.” And Moses went out from the city into privacy, and alone with Almighty God, he “spread abroad his hands unto the Lord, and the thunderings and hail ceased, and the rain was not poured out upon the earth.”
Though Moses was the man of law, yet with him prayer asserted its mighty force. With him, as in the more spiritual dispensation, it could have been said, “My house is the house of prayer.”
Moses accepts at its full face value the foundation principle of praying that prayer has to do with God. With Abraham we saw this clearly and strongly enunciated. With Moses it is clearer and stronger still if possible. It declared that prayer affected God, that God was influenced in His conduct by prayer, and that God hears and answers prayer even when the hearing and answering might change His conduct and reverse His action. Stronger than all other laws, and more inflexible than any other decree, is the decree, “Call upon me and I will answer you.”
Moses lived near God, and had the freest and most unhindered and boldest access to God, but this, instead of abating the necessity of prayer, made it more necessary, obvious and powerful. Familiarity and closeness to God gives relish, frequency, point and potency to prayer. Those who know God the best are the richest and most powerful in prayer. Little acquaintance with God, and strangeness and coldness to Him, make prayer a rare and feeble thing.
There were conditions of extremity to which Moses was reduced which prayer did not relieve, but there is no position of extremity which baffles God, when prayer puts God into the matter.
Moses’ mission was a divine one. It was ordered, directed and planned by God. The more there is of God in a movement, the more there is of prayer, conspicuous and controlling. Moses’ prayer rule of the church illustrates the necessity of courage and persistence in prayer. For forty days and forty nights was Moses pressing his prayer for the salvation of the Lord’s people. So intense was his concern for them which accompanied his long season of praying, that bodily infirmities and appetites were retired. How strangely the prayers of a righteous man affect God is evident from the exclamation of God to Moses, “Now, therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation.” The presence of such an influence over God fills us with astonishment, awe and fear. How lofty, bold and devoted must be such a pleader!
Read this from the divine record:
“And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold!
“Yet now if thou wilt forgive their sin--and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.