The Power of Intercession

‘Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” So the LORD relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people’ (Exodus 32: 13-14).

‘Moses was a type of Christ, by whose mediation alone, God would reconcile the world to himself’ (Matthew Henry). His intercession for the nation of Israel is a classical example of the power of prayer. If one man’s intercessory prayer saved a whole nation, then there is a lot that the believer today can accomplish through intercessory prayer. About Moses’ intercession Wesley writes, ‘though God designed to punish them, yet He would not ruin them. See here, the power of prayer, God suffers himself to be prevailed with by humble believing importunity. And see the compassion of God towards poor sinners, and how ready he is to forgive. Christ is the ultimate intercessor. A Christian’s intercessory prayer is offered to God through and by Christ. He bridged the gap between us and God when He died on the cross. Because of Jesus’ mediation, we can now intercede for other Christians or for the lost.

The focus of this lesson is the importance of intercessory prayer. One may ask ‘why do I need to intercede for others if God is omniscient, knowing all things and He is Omnipotent, being all powerful to do anything?’ God knows all things and can do all things but after God created man and gave him dominion on earth, prayer is the medium through which God’s Glory is revealed on earth and His will is revealed on earth. So the psalmist says ‘O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens! Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants you have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger’ (Psalm 8:1-2). Like a CEO who would not bypass a manager at a store location to interfere in the business of that store, so will God not bypass his children who have been given dominion to rule or manage the earth, to do anything on earth.

Through man’s prayer he allows God to intervene on earth and allows the will of God to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In fact ‘God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it’ (John Wesley). So, Amos 3:7 says, ‘surely the Lord GOD does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets’. An effective intercessor is spiritually sensitive and is able to discern the mind of God in heaven and then pull it into fruition on earth.  One may ask, ‘what if something needs to be prayed about, but no one has been spiritually sensitive to know about that issue’. Paul in his letter to the Romans said, ‘we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered’ (Romans 8:26). So even when we are ignorant of what to pray about, as long as we begin to pray and we pray in tongues, the Holy spirit takes over that prayer and intercedes on our behalf.

In Moses’ intercession in Exodus 32:13-14 he reminded God of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Clearly Moses knew God and His dealings with man. For one to be an effective intercessor, he needs to know God and His word. As a Christian, God has given you the ministry of intercession (2 Cor 5:18). The New Testament has countless examples of God’s deliverance through intercessory prayer. Through your prayer families and nations can be transformed. Did God not say that ‘if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear