Today’s passage is Numbers 14:11-25. God wants to kill the Israelites for their contempt but Moses says that would be bad for his reputation, asks God to forgive them, which God does but says none of them except Caleb will enter Canaan but will wander in the desert until they’re all dead.
On their Behalf
In 2008, my wife and I fasted from October 11th to November 11th. We also had no sex during that time. We did this in repentance for our own sins of immorality and those of our families.
I had committed adultery twice before I got married the first time and once after I was married. My parents committed adultery, as did my sister and my daughter. My grandfathers committed adultery and one of them lost his high position in the police because of it. My family was cursed with adultery and sexual immorality going back many generations. My wife and her family were similar.
When my wife and I read the story of Rizpah in 2 Samuel 21 as part of our QT reading, we were convicted of our sin and our families’ sins and saw the need to repent for both us and then on their behalf, so we fasted and prayed every day for the Lord’s forgiveness and the end of the curse in our families that stretched for generations. Like Moses in today’s passage, we prayed for their forgiveness and their salvation.
A couple of weeks later my wife’s brother was in a terrible car accident. He was drunk and having an affair. His girlfriend was only slightly injured but he was severely injured. He was in a coma fortwo weeks. He suffered cerebralhemorrhage. My wife gave thanks to God because she saw this as an answer to her prayers. His adultery was brutally stopped and the salvation of the unsaved members of her family began. Her brother returned to the Lord and her father, a Buddhist, converted and was baptized in Wooridle Church in 2015.
The QT passage on the day of her brother’s accident was Psalm 65, which talks of the forgiveness of sins. We did QT together and prayed before going to the hospital to pray for her brother..
God’s healing of my family and their return to the Lord is taking longer, but I do not give up hope. It may be that the Lord is calling me to further repentance on their behalf. My prayers for them are unceasing.
Application: earnestly seek God’s forgiveness for my sins and the sins of my family.
Lord, let not my family languish in their wilderness away from you but heal them and bring them to salvation, I pray.
