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I was reading yesterday from Deuteronomy 9 where Moses reminds the Israelites of God working in their midst.  Moses tells of being on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights when he received God’s Law for the children of Israel.  God then told him to “do down at once because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt.”  God continued, “Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven.”  So Moses said he went down and saw where the Israelites had fashioned an idol in the shape of a calf and were worshipping it.  At this he threw down the two tablets and they broke.  Moses immediately tells that he “once again (like on Mount Sinai) 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 (the Israelites) had committed, do what was evil in the LORD’s sight and provoking Him to anger.”  Moses tells of praying, “O LORD GOD, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.”  He told of also praying for Aaron that God would not destroy him. 

The question that came to my mind, “What if Moses had not prayed and fasted before the LORD for forty days?”  Would GOD have destroyed them? Would there be an Israel today?  What about the lineage of Aaron?  Would GOD have destroyed Aaron, too?

This reminded me of Abraham’s encounter with King Abimelech in Genesis 20.  You remember how Abraham told the people of Gerar that Sarah was his sister for fear of his life.  Abimelech took Sarah as his wife and God came to him in a dream and told him he was “a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.”  The GOD told Abimelech to return Sarah to Abraham “so he will pray for you, and you shall live.”  Would God have killed King Abimelech if Abraham didn’t pray for him?

And then the three friends of Job in Job 42.  The LORD rebukes Job’s friends for they had not spoken of Him what is right.  The LORD told them to go to Job with a burnt offering and “my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly.”  Was it Job’s prayer that turned God’s wrath away from the three?

How about me?  Where would I be had my mother and then later my wife Mary not prayed for me over the years?

So, who prayed for you?  And who/what are you praying for?

And, with a deep concern in my heart, where will our country be if I don’t pray for it?  GOD, save our land…

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