Israel’s first line of defense

For Christians with a burden to pray for Israel and defend her cause, there are several very important truths which can be drawn from the two times when the intercession of Moses spared his people from the destructive wrath of the Lord.

The first occurred with the sin of the golden calf, when God was about to “consume” the Israelites for their rebellion and start over with Moses alone. God could have done so and still kept every promise He had ever made to the Hebrew patriarchs. Yet Moses pleaded with the Lord and turned away His hot anger (Exodus 32:9-10).

In his first line of defense, Moses asked God to consider what the Egyptians would say about Him as a faithful, loving God.

“Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?’” (Exodus 32:12).

In his second line of defense, Moses urged the Lord to “remember Abraham” and all his covenant promises to the patriarchs, including to multiply them and to give the Land of Canaan to their descendants (Exodus 32:14).

Later in the same chapter it adds that Moses offered his own salvation if necessary, saying ‘blot me out of Your book...” (Exodus 32:32).

In the end, the intercession worked, as God relented from utterly destroying the Israelites and they proceeded on towards the Promised Land.

Yet Moses found himself pleading for their very lives again when the people believed the bad report of the 10 spies, as recounted in Numbers 13 and 14. God was about to consume them once more and Moses again returned to his first line of defense: Lord, what will the Egyptians and also the Canaanites say about You?

“[T]he nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying, ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring this people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness’” (Numbers 14:15-16).

Finally, Moses appealed to the long suffering of God and the “greatness of His mercy.” And again, the intercession worked.

From this we learn that:

1) God is sensitive to what the gentiles say about His covenant relationship with Israel. In fact, Ezekiel 36 repeatedly states that for the nations to say God is unfaithful to Israel amounts to “profaning” His name. Hence, we also can be assured that it pleases God to hear us affirm in prayer and in public His eternal bond with Israel.

2) God will always remember His covenant with Abraham and keep His promises to Israel. Praying those very biblical promises back to Him is always a recipe for moving God’s hand on Israel’s behalf.

3) God has an incredible love for Israel, which was reflected by Moses and even the Apostle Paul when they offered to give their own salvation for their people (Exodus 32:32; Romans 9:1- 3). We may not be ready to go that far ourselves, but we can get a sense of God’s own deep attachment to Israel in their professions of sacrificial love. This, too, can be carried back to God in prayer.

4) God’s mercies are truly great! He forgave Israel for their sins. And Israel today, like every other nation, is still sinful and needs our pleas for God to be merciful and forgive.

So God’s emotional bond with Israel survived the sin of the golden calf, and the rebellion provoked by the 10 spies.

This may surprise some Christians, but it also has survived their rejection of the Gospel, as Paul insists: “Concerning the Gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:28-29).

This all provides a firm foundation for our own prayers for an Israel still in need of our intercession today.

David Parsons is the media director for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem; www.icej.org