Standing In The Gap
Scripture: Ezekiel 22:30; Isaiah 6:8
Introduction
Two weeks ago Nikki and I traveled to Tennessee to visit our family. To get to Tennessee, we traveled east on Interstate 70. Interstate 70 runs from Utah all the way to the upper east coast. As we traveled east on 70 through Missouri, we came to a point where we crossed into Illinois. In order to get from Missouri to Illinois, we had to cross a bridge. After crossing the bridge, we got on to Interstate 64 down to Interstate 57 which took us into Kentucky. To get from Illinois to Kentucky, we had to cross another bridge. These two bridges were large, main bridges that we had to cross but there were several smaller bridges that we also had to cross before we arrived in Tennessee. If you have ever crossed a bridge before, use that memory to aid your understanding of this message: “Standing In The Gap”.
Bridges are used to assist travelers in getting from one point to another. Often they are built over rivers, streams or ravines that are took deep to securely extend the road. Without the bridge, you could only drive so far and then would be forced to either walk (in the case of a ravine) or take a boat to cross the large body of water. The function of a bridge is to “close the gap” between two destination points. Traveling on Interstate 70, we could not cross into Illinois from Missouri without the bridge. The bridge closed the gap between those two states. This is what we as Christians are called to do, strand in the gap and close it. We are to provide a direct link to God for those who are unable or unwilling to stand on their own.
Let me give you some natural examples of what it means to stand in the gap and then we will examine the spiritual side which is the point of this message. So let starts with a newborn baby. Every one who has done anything to assist a newborn baby has stood in the gap. You stood in the gap for that baby because what the baby could not do for itself, you did it for them. If the baby was hungry, the baby had no means of feeding itself so it cried. You understanding the needs of the baby came forth and fed the baby. Your feeding of the baby was you standing in and filling the gap between the baby’s hunger and the food. How many of you have ever gone shopping for an older person who was unable to leave their home? The gap was they had a need that they could not fulfill themselves. When you went shopping for them, you stood in the gap and close it. One last example; how many of you have ever prayed for someone else, whether they requested you to do so or you were led to do it? When you stood or kneeled before God in prayer for someone else, you were standing in the gap. You were fulfilling a need for someone who may have been unable to fulfill it themselves. Standing in the gap is our duty, our calling as Christians. God is looking for those who are willing to stand for those who cannot stand for themselves – are you willing?
I. The Call To Stand In The Gap
Accepting the call to stand in the gap is one of the most important things we will do as a Christian. We need to understand that things happen when we stand in the gap. When a Christian prays, things happen. When God touches our hearts and leads us to pray or intercede on behalf of someone else, things happen. We are not here just to live our lives, we are here to influence. Influence our families, friends, community, city, state, nation, and world. If you are not being a spiritual influence, then chances are that you are being influenced spiritually. When we stand for those who are unable to stand for themselves, we are fulfilling that spark of grace that each of us have been recipients of. Consider the situation that Ezekiel found himself in when he received this word from the Lord. The Jews were in exile to Babylon at this time and most of Ezekiel’s message was focused on the fall of Jerusalem – their last hope. They were God’s covenant people and Jerusalem was the city of His temple, yet that did not bring them out of exile or save the city. When you read through the 22 chapter, God shared with Ezekiel some of the sins of the people. Some of these sins included killings, disrespect of parents, sexual promiscuity, contract killing (assassins), forgot the Lord, oppression of the poor and needy. As you look at this list, all of these things are going on right now in our society, in our city and even in some of our homes. But it gets worse.
In Ezekiel 22:26, God addresses those who are supposed to be leading the people to Him, the prophets. When the preachers begin to deceive the people, things have gotten extremely bad. Look at Ezekiel 22:26. “Her priests have done violence to My law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane, and they have not taught the difference between the clean and unclean; and they hide their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.” Let me explain to you what God is saying about His prophets, His priests and His ministers. The ministers (I will use this term so you will have a point of reference for us today) deceive and lie and thus mislead the people. “Her priests have done violence to My law and have profaned My holy things.” Here God speaks directly to the deceit of those ministers. What they did was negate the word of God. When we take God’s word and commandments and “change them to meet out needs” and teach others to do so, we in fact are doing violence to His word, His law. How many of God’s statues have we changed to fit our own desires? How many ministers have stood before their congregation and told them that God is not concerned about their sins as long as they give their tithes? How many ministers have stated to their congregation that “life-style” choices are acceptable to God because we must be a people that accept everyone and everything? When we change God’s word to fit the needs of the day or to fit our own life choices, we are doing violence to His word. “….they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane and they have not taught the difference between the clean and unclean.” Now God addresses even more specifically what these ministers were doing. They made no distinction between what was holy and profane – everything was acceptable. It was a “feel good” atmosphere where sin was never addressed. They no longer taught the people the difference between what was right and acceptable before God and what was wrong. Remember, what is right in our eyes can be extremely wrong in God’s eyes. That is why we must teach and preach God’s word because man’s morality is so flawed that we can justify anything. Finally God says “they hide their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.” Let me put this in terms that we can relate to. These ministers (priests, pastors, etc) no longer saw the need for worship on Sunday. (Remember, their Sabbath was actually on Saturday, the last day of the week but Christians began worshipping on the first day of the week when Christ rose from the dead on that day. So I use the term Sunday because that is the day we actually set aside for corporate worship.) These ministers did not value Sundays any more, it was just another day. So it was okay to skip Church to go to the football game. It was okay to skip Church and sleep in. It was okay to come to Church and the whole time you were there wishing you were somewhere else. God says that they got so bad that even He was profaned among them. The word profane means “show disrespect or contempt for sacred things; to treat with irreverence or contempt.” This is how “God’s representatives”, the ministers, were treating Him. Can you imagine a society where those who represent God treat Him with contempt? We are living in one.
We have ministers and pastors in our midst who are doing all of these things and teaching others to do so. They have lost their love for God and their role as a minister or pastor is all about what they are receiving from the Church. To maintain what they are getting, they are teaching a watered down gospel in hopes of keeping all of the people happy. They are not talking about spiritual growth; they are not talking about living righteously; they are not talking about God’s love for us and what it means when we say we love Him. They are not addressing the sacred things of God, like the marriage between a man and a woman but teach that marriage is whatever the couple decided it is. This is the society that we are living in. When God revealed this to Ezekiel, it got worse. You see, when society is going down hill fast, you’d expect that the men and women of God, those standing in the gap, would be there to tell society that they are gong down the wrong path. You’d hope that these men and women of God would take a stand and call sin exactly what it is, sin. When God spoke this to Ezekiel, this was not the case. God’s desire was to spare Jerusalem and He sought out someone who could stand in the gap for it, but look at the results. Look down at verses 30 and 31.
“I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one. Thus I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; their way I have brought upon their heads, declares the Lord God.” At the time Jerusalem fell, Ezekiel and the Jews were already in Exile. It was their dream that they would be able to return because they were God’s covenant people and Jerusalem held His temple. When Ezekiel prophesied that Jerusalem would fall, this crushed the people. But look at what God did and this speaks to the importance of someone standing in the gap for the land. God said that “I searched for a man among them who would stand build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.” God in His grace searched the land for someone to stand in the gap for Jerusalem, but the wickedness was so extreme that He found no one and He was left with the only option that He did not want to do, destroy Jerusalem. In the last few chapters of this book, God promises them that Jerusalem would be restored, but the people would have to change.
If you are thinking about the United States of America, you should. We are on a slippery slope and I believe that God is looking for someone to stand in the gap. When you think about the changes that have taken place in the last 50 years, we have gotten smarter and much weaker. When I was a child, you’d turn on the TV by pushing a button. You changed the channel (and you only had 4) by turning the button on the channel. At midnight, all of the stations signed off with the national anthem, and you went to bed. Now the TV stays on 24/7 and there is something to watch on every station. People do not sleep much anymore because there is always something to do. When I was a child, my days in the summer were spent outside. There was no cable TV to entertain me. There was no Nintendo, Playstation, Game Cube, X-box or any other game to take up my whole day. When I was a child, a football game came in a large box and you had to set up the players. When you were ready, you flipped the switch and the board would vibrate to make the men move. I remember my older brother’s board was broken so when he played with it, he would take his finger and tapped the board to make the men move. When I was a child, no one had a home computer and to have a computer with the capacity that is held within our current home computers, it would have taken a computer the size of this gym. When I was a child, we played outside. We played hide and go seek, touch football, basketball, rode our bikes, caught lightening bugs and June bugs, and used our imagination to have fun. I will not forget seeing the movie “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” starring Don Knotts when I was a child. That movie scared me – because I was a child. I was watching it one day when my daughter came into the room. She watched it with me and thought it was funny. It did not even bother her because she had already seen stuff that was much worse. When I was a child I did not think about sex, yet today the average age for a child’s first sexual encounter is down to the age of nine. When I was a child, you did not see wardrobe malfunctions on TV and married couple slept separate beds – on TV. I saw a movie recently with my family and one of the first scenes was a couple having sex. I was extremely embarrassed and of course my daughter felt compelled to comment on it.
My point with taking you down my memory lane is to show you how far we have fallen. I believe that today, right now, God is looking for those willing to stand in the gap; those who will stand up and tell the world that sin is wrong; those who will cry out for change and refuse to be led down a road to no where. I am reminded of what Isaiah said in Isaiah 6:8. He said “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Who shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I, send me!” Are you willing to go stand in the gap? Are you willing to put yourself on the line for Christ, to be a light in a dying world? Are you willing to make a change, to be in influencer? If you are, it starts with you standing in the gap.
Before I close out this part, I want to share a personal testimony of someone standing in the gap for me. When I was home a couple of weeks ago, I went to Church with my father. As I looked around the sanctuary, there were many faces that I did not recognize. All of the older people who were there and took care of me when I was a child are gone to be with the Lord. As I sat there, I thought about all the people, who have gone home to be with the Lord, who stood in the gap for me. I remembered my first Pastor, Rev. C.D. Davis, who baptized me and would come and pick us up to take us to Church. He was a humble and spiritual man who I remember cried a lot during his sermons. I remember a man we called “uncle Babe” and how he would get so emotional when he prayed. I remembered my Sunday school teachers who I often gave a hard time. I remembered all of the people who prayed for me; taught me; corrected me; and most important, encouraged me. You see, I am a product of those people who took time for me. They stood in the gap for me and for a whole lot of other people. Now it is my time to stand in the gap for others. As your pastor, whether you are here physically or receiving this message by email, I stand in the gap for you. Now will you stand with me for someone else?
I will complete this message next week focusing on how e can stand in the gap for those we love and more important, those that hate us. May God bless you this week.
