Today, as part of the M’Cheyne reading plan, I read Exodus 32, which describes God’s wrath when the Israelites began worshipping the golden calf while Moses is on the mountain. In response, God tells Moses that he will wipe out the people, and offers to start a new nation based on Moses. But Moses—the humblest of men—intercedes for the people, and in Exodus 32:12, he begs God to relent. And then follows this wonderfully hopeful verse:

“So the LORD relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.” Exodus 32:14

The word relent in Hebrew is nacham, which comes from a primitive root meaning to sigh or breath heavily, by implication to be sorry. As a positive action, it means to offer comfort. And I do find it comforting to think of God sighing…the way a mother sighs when she sees her kids fighting again…not in anger, but in sadness and longing for them to learn to play together peacefully, the way Jesus sighed and wept over Jerusalem (Luke 13:34).

David also experienced mercy when God relenting from destruction. When David sinned by numbering the people, the prophet Gad gave him three choices of punishments. David chose the plague because he trusted in God’s mercies. And indeed, in 2 Samuel 24:16, the Lord relented and David built and altar and worshipped.

And when the angel stretched out His hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the destruction, and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “It is enough; now restrain your hand.” 2 Samuel 24:16

Later, the Psalmist in recounting all of God’s goodness to Israel in Psalm 106 remembers also how God relented:

But they rebelled in their counsel
And were brought low for their iniquity.
Nevertheless He regarded their affliction, when He heard their cry;
And for their sake He remembered His covenant,
And relented according to the multitude of His mercies.
Psalm 106:43-45

Jeremiah the weeping prophet insists on God’s willingness to relent from judgment when people turn from their evil.

If that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. Jeremiah 18:8

Five times he offers the hope of God relenting if his people will repent (Jeremiah 18:8, 26:3, 26:13, 26:19, and 42:10), but of course we know the judgment came as Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and took the people away.

Other prophets also remind us that God relents from harm when his people return to Him:

So rend your heart, and not your garments;
Return to the LORD your God,
For He is gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, and of great kindness;
And He relents from doing harm. Joel 2:13

God relented of two disasters when Amos pleaded for his people in Amos 7:3 and Amos 7:6.

And even more famously (or infamously depending on how you feel about the Assyrians), God relented from his plan to destroy Nineveh when the people of the city turned from their evil ways at the preaching of Jonah.

Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it. Jonah 3:10

What does all this have to do with COVID-19? Surely a great evil has come upon us and the world. And truly, God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. So we can be confident that when we intercede, our God is willing to change his mind.

Let us plead his mercies, turn away from our sins, and perhaps we also as David did will see God relent and halt the plague among us.

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Her life was poured out in love in a very resistant culture. She found a way to befriend women by ministering to children with all types of classes. But over the course of her life, she saw again and again new followers of Christ falling away because of family pressure, sickness and opposition.

Near the end of her life as she looked back over years of struggle with only small evidence of results, Lilias wrote these words, which have profound implication for all who desire to see the gospel flourish in unreached peoples.

The old Exodus story has come with a fresh glow today, in setting forth the steps of emancipation for slaves under the yoke of Islam. It seems to fall into three sections:

1. The breaking of the oppressor’s power

2. The passing under the blood

3. The passage of the Red Sea

It is in the first breaking down of Pharoah’s authority that I believe we have failed. “First bind the strong man” has been an ignored counsel. We have gone straight to the task of  “spoiling his house” and it is but little spoil that we have carried away, with the “strong man” of the powers of darkness resisting every step and pursuing the fugitive. It is with these powers that we need to deal, stretching out the rod of faith higher and higher from the dust of the earth to the very throne of God. At this point, judgement crashed down and shattered the last resistance.

The book concludes with a story Lilias wrote and a prophetic encouragement by the author. These are powerful sustaining words for those who labor in difficult places and may wonder if anything they do really matters:

In a small booklet called Vibrations, Miss Trotter told of a day when the wall of her house had suddenly without warning, fallen inwards. She had sent for a builder to repair it but he first asked to investigate the cause. On returning from his exploratory trip outside, he explained that the kneading machine in the Baker’s shop next door had been vibrating against her wall every night for twenty years, gradually weakening the structure. Every stroke of the seesaw-like machine had done its work, but only the last had brought about the destruction.

She believed with all her heart in that vibration of prayer that would gradually but insistently weaken the solid front of Islam. For forty years she did her part and died content, and we who follow have sought to carry on that quiet rhythm. Already there are those cracks in the wall of which we may not speak, but she knew and we know that not one vibration is lost. Every one does its work and we cannot tell how soon or how late the great barrier will crumble. May God grant us the patience to live in faith and hope and, if necessary, to die not disappointed, because: The vision is yet for an appointed time. It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay.

Here is one of her illustrations combined with a quote from Vibrations. 

These quotes are from Until the Day Breaks: The life and work of Lilias Trotter, Pioneer missionary to Muslim North Africa by Patricia St John (page 194 and 221). Unfortunately, this book is out of print. You can learn more about the life and ministry of Lilias from a more recent biography: A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter by Miriam Rockness.

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The story below, as told by Leonard Ravenhill, is recorded in his biography In Light of Eternity by Mack Tomlinson. I think Ravenhill remembered it so clearly because it touched him deeply and became part of his very approach to life.

In my twenties, during a period of pastoring, I loved to go past the Salvation Army building, which was the largest one outside of London. There’s a huge block of stone at the front. Chiseled in one stone it says, “William Booth of the Salvation Army opened this corps,” and then it gives the date of 1910. In a second stone it says, “Kate and Mary Jackson, officers in this corp.”

It was in this poor city, where they spin and weave cotton into cloth and the whole town was on the poverty level, that Kate and Mary Jackson labored for a couple of years and nothing happened. Those girls worked diligently and went to bed exhausted at night.

So they wrote William Booth: “Would you kindly move us to another station? We’re so tired and disheartened. We’ve tried everything that we’ve been taught to do. Please move us to another location.”

Booth sent a telegram back with two words: “Try tears.”

The did and they saw real revival come. Those girls went to travailing prayer, not just prayer, but travailing prayer, prayer with anguish in it.

The road to revival is often paved with tears and brokenness.

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Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. James 5:17-18

Even though James is telling us that Elijah didn’t have any special characteristics that we don’t have, I think most of us find it hard to believe that our prayers will get the same results that Elijah’s did. Surely Elijah knew some secrets to effective prayer that we would all like to learn. Or perhaps he was more earnest then we are or more holy.

James mentions rain, but rain wasn’t all that fell in response to Elijah’s prayer; he also called down fire from heaven when the priests of Baal couldn’t awaken their God to respond.

However, if we read I Kings 18 carefully, we can easily discover the source of Elijah’s effectiveness; it is really very simple and plain. Elijah heard from God.

When we read the story of Elijah and the rain, we may miss the importance of 1 Kings 18:1

During the third year without rain, the Lord spoke his word to Elijah: “Go and meet King Ahab, and I will soon send rain.” 1 Kings 18:1

As the rest of the story plays out, Elijah does pray seven times for rain, but his persistence in prayer is based on his certainty of having heard God’s original promise.

Similarly in the story of Elijah and the priests of Baal, it is easy to be intimidated by Elijah’s extraordinarily boldness. He tells them to pour four jars of water over the wood to be burned, not once, but three times! Lighting the wood by natural means is impossible. Could I, we think, every do something so crazy?

But again, we must not miss that Elijah didn’t come up with these actions on his own. He says clearly that he received instructions from God and was simply following them.

At the time for the evening sacrifice, the prophet Elijah went near the altar. “Lord, you are the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,” he prayed. “Prove that you are the God of Israel and that I am your servant. Show these people that you commanded me to do all these things.

Sometimes I think Christians fall into the error of thinking that the power to make change is in our prayer, but in fact, as Jesus said, “apart from me, you can do nothing (John 15:5).” God invites us to participate in what he wants to do through prayer, but first we must hear from him, by waiting on the Holy Spirit and by reading his Word. Then we can pray with the faith of Elijah.

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But one seemed a little unusual: Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was described as Recorder (2 Sam 8:15). What was the difference between the recorder (mazkir, derived from zakar, to remember) and the scribe (from capar, to number or declare)? Was Jehoshaphat the court historian, as the NLT translates the office?

Zakar, the root of the word used,  has a rich context in the Old Testament. The first occurrence is in Gen. 8:1 when God remembered Noah and from there it is often used in respect to God’s covenant promises and followed by His action to fulfill His covenant.

• God said to Noah: “And I will remember my covenant … ; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.” Gen. 9:15
•  “God remembered Abraham, and brought Lot out of the catastrophe …” (Gen. 19:29, NIV).
• “And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, … and I have remembered my covenant.… and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians …” (Exod. 6:5-6).

There is more to this word than a passive recording of events! Did David appoint Jehoshaphat to remind him of the promises he made in his relationships with people and make sure he followed through?

If so, he is doing exactly what God has done.  In Isaiah 62:6-7 God says: “On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind (zakar) the Lord, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”

You who remind is one word: Remembrancers.

Does God forget and therefore need to be reminded? Of course not! But He does seem to delight in us remembering His promises and reminding Him of them with expectation of fulfillment.

I love this picture of intercession and am glad that David, a man after God’s own heart, saw the need to have a Remembrancer in his court. God is inviting many to fulfill the office of Remembrancer around the throne of Jesus our King!

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But when you read the book of Numbers carefully, a more nuanced picture of Moses as a leader emerges. One aspect of that leadership is shown in the way Moses prayed, on his face, in a posture of humility. The expression “Moses fell on his face” occurs three times from Numbers 16 to Numbers 20. Over and over again Numbers shows us a beautiful picture of Moses coming between the people and consequences of their sin and crying out for mercy.

• In Numbers 11:2, the people complain and the fire of God breaks out. When Moses intercedes, the fire is quenched and the people are spared.
• In Numbers 12, Miriam is struck with leprosy after she and Aaron challenge Moses leadership. Moses intercedes (Num 12:1) for her and after a week in isolation, God heals her.
• In Numbers 14, the Israelites complain about the dangers of the promised land and refuse to go in. God threatens to disinherit them and make a new people from Moses. This is no empty threat. God had done just this with Noah. Considering the problems Moses had already endured trying to lead this stiff-necked people, no one could blame him if he agreed to this plan. But instead, he intercedes for the people, arguing with God for mercy on the basis of His reputation among the nations.
•  Numbers 21: 4-8 provides a powerful picture of the future sacrifice of God’s son. The people complain again and God sends fiery serpents among them. When the people cry to Moses for help, he intercedes for them and God tells him to make a figure of the serpent and hold it up on a pole. Whoever looks at the image, even though bitten by a serpent, lives.

Among these profound pictures of Moses as an intercessor, the one that most impressed me was Numbers 16:41-50. The Israelites gather to complain against Moses and Aaron and God threatens to kill them all. Immediately Moses and Aaron fall on their faces, but this time Moses goes even further. He instructs Aaron to run into the crowd of people with his incense censor to stop the plague. Throughout the Bible, incense represents prayer (Rev 8:4). Here we see not just prayer, but prayer running directly into sin and sickness. This is a whole other level of commitment. Aaron is clearly a type of Christ who left the purity of heaven to run toward the plague of death on earth, knowing that He alone had the power to stop it.

This picture can encourage us to boldly take the censer of prayer into the place of pain and death knowing that God is the life giver and His mercy can reverse any situation.

We can choose to pray at a safe distance from a problem. God hears these prayers for sure. But there is a time to take our prayers into the very center of the problem. This might mean taking a plane to walk the streets of a distant city or refugee camp and pray or it might mean walking through your neighborhood. But it surely means that the person who prays in the power of the Holy Spirit is both fearless and willing to get close to the contagion.

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This morning as I was taking a walk, the full force of this word stunned me, stopped me, and brought tears to my eyes. The word consists of the prefix dis meaning to remove, and the root orient, meaning the East. Clearly, one aspect of being disoriented is to lose a sense of direction, something I’m sure we’ve all experienced, for example, whenleaving an unfamiliar building and looking around to determine which direction is east or west.

The simple, unchanging answer to that common problem–embedded in the word disoriented–is that the sun rises in the East. No matter how lost one is, no matter how dark the night, you can be confident that when the sun rises, you will know which direction is east.

So why was I stopped in my tracks this morning? I suddenly felt the horror of losing the ability to detect where the light is coming from, where truth is coming from. What if disorientation wasn’t just a temporary experience, but permanent? How great is that darkness!

We live in a culture that is more and more disoriented…that cannot perceive the difference between light and darkness, that has lost the ability to turn to the East and find “the Son of righteousness, rising with healing in His wings” Malachi 4:2. Oh, how we need to pray for the light to shine in that darkness and for people who have lost the ability to perceive light to once again hunger and thirst for righteousness.

The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like total darkness. They have no idea what they are stumbling over. Proverbs 4:18-19

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