Day 6: Light of Salvation

“O LORD, save Your people, the remnant of Israel!”

Clearly, this means to pray for the salvation of Israel. God is precise in what He requires. He does not say merely, ‘Pray for Israel,’ but, specifically, ‘Pray for their salvation.’

In Ezekiel 36:37 we find another example of a prayer in which God Himself reveals what He requires His people to pray for:

Thus says the LORD God: “I will also let the house of Israel inquire of Me to do this for them: I will increase their men like a flock.”

Reading Ezekiel 36 from verse 23 to 37 in Hebrew, I once counted that God says eighteen times in succession, ‘I will...’ Never once does He suggest that His actions in restoring Israel proceed from any other source than His own will.

But verse 37 brings out the delicate balance between God’s predetermined purpose and man’s response. God is saying, in effect, ‘Even though what I am going to do is settled, I will not do it until the house of Israel asks Me to do it for them.’

The purpose of prayer

This underlines the supreme purpose of prayer. It is not that we should get God to do what we want. It is that we may become instruments through which God can do what He wants. Here in Ezekiel 36:37 is a perfect example. Israel is not asked to improvise a prayer or to make their own choice. God has already declared what He will do. He waits, however, for Israel to come into agreement with His will and ask Him to do what He has already committed Himself to do.

Meanwhile, God is giving Christians from Gentile backgrounds the responsibility and the privilege to ‘stand in the gap’ on behalf of Israel. This they do by pleading on Israel’s behalf for the mercies promised to them by God, but which the majority of Israelites are not yet in a position to comprehend by their own faith.