Friday, July 8, 2011
Read: Exodus 14
We could go a whole month in this one chapter. But lets take a look at verses 15 and 16. ” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to get moving! Pick up your staff and raise your hand over the sea. Divide the water so the Israelites can walk through the middle of the sea on dry ground.”
I think it is fair to guess that the people had been praying their sandals off for the last few chapters. And then in the last chapter they engage in Passover and extended conversation with Yahweh. But the bad guys are coming. What are we going to do? Or better yet whats God going to do?
There is a vital key to prayer that we miss as Christians and we get some great insight to the way God works in this Chapter of Exodus. Moses and the people of Israel are crying out to God. They are tired and upset. They’re furious with Moses for making them leave. Over a million people walking through the desert together. that sounds terrible. So when the situation gets worse and the Egyptians change their minds about letting the Israelites go, why does God tell Moses to stop crying out to him?To understand Gods commands we need to understand prayer.
Read the parable of the persistent widow. Luke 18:1-8
Why would God tell Moses to stop crying out? Because God had heard him and the time had come for Moses to listen and see his prayers answered. Many times we forget two crucial parts of prayer. One is the listening part. We only tell God our Problems and we don’t listen to know what God wants us to do about them. The other part we forget is expressed in this parable. Our faith in prayer. The widow new that if she kept pleading with the judge she would be heard, and Jesus said that God will answer the call of his chosen ones, He will not put us off. Moses stop crying out and see that God has heard you and is with you. God answered Moses in a way that goes against the very nature of physics. he sent his angels to protect the Israelites and he parted the Red Sea.
The miracles God performed for his people were amazing. Even the Egyptians believed, in verse 25 “He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt.”
Crying out to the Lord is only a part of prayer. Our relationship with God is not exactly like the widow and the judge. We are to be persistent in our prayers but we should expect God to answer us because we are his people and he loves us. So cry out to God, listen and expect an answer. Mark 11: “Have faith in God…Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
Process:
What do your prayer habits look like? Do you have any stories or examples of prayer being answered in your life? Maybe the example isn’t a personal one but a story of a friend (or family).