Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 25, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - God's Gappers

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February 25, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - God's Gappers · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Dear Israel, you're killing me.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: And if you're visiting today, it's great to have you.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: And like Doug said, we hope we do get to meet you.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: We're in a sermon series on the wild and crazy and alien book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament, 48 chapters long.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: And just to torture you further, I've laid uh thrown down the gauntlet called the Ezekiel Challenge.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to read the book with me, 48 chapters in 12 weeks.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't started yet, you're behind.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Get moving.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: So and I appreciate those people.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Every week I get emails from somebody who says, okay, I'm starting and I'm catching up.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: And I want to honor the person who emailed me this last week said, Not only am I uh I've gotten caught up here, but I'm I've just started the devotionals and I love them, and I'm gonna get caught up in those.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, if you get that done by the time Jesus returns, congratulations.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, uh anyway, honor uh honor you guys who are doing that with me.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm learning a lot.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: My message this morning, by the way, God's gappers.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: God's gappers.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: And and uh I get that from a verse in the Old Testament.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't gonna use this verse.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: If you're only gonna preach 12 messages out of 48 chapters, you have to pick and choose.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: And I just wasn't gonna skip over it, but it's one, it's one of the most famous verses, if not the most famous in Ezekiel, and it's used all the time.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: And the more I looked at that several weeks ago, I thought, I gotta do that verse.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: And that verse, say it with me.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel 22, 30, get ready, say it with me.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land, so that I might not destroy it, but I found no one.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: These are words from God in Ezekiel chapter 22.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: It's the famous stand in the gap verse.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: And I say it's famous because those of you who've been, especially the men's convocations and so forth, perhaps this has been uh the title.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, back in 1997, I see Terry Kimes is back there, and Mike Clutter and Vernon Brown and I flew to Washington, D.C.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: for the sort of ultimate, the climactic event in that uh sort of decade when Promise Keepers was the major uh Christian men's movement in our country and in Canada.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And that uh that rally in Washington, D.C.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: attracted over a million, a million men.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Those are all the dots at the bottom of this picture.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: And uh and the four of us were standing there in the shadow of the Washington Monument, which we see on the screen in front of you.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: And it was named Stand in the Gap because its theme verse was our verse, Ezekiel 2230.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: In the King James Version, I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge, not wall, hedge, and stand in the gap before me, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, that uh rally started very memorably with a number of Jewish believers on stage playing shofars, that's that weird uh ram's horn, which was the horn in the Old Testament called the nation at a time of crisis or a great time of prayer.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: And the first words that were stayed that were said were these brethren, we come to a prayer meeting, Jack Hafer said it, we come to stand together, hearing the call of God from the eternal word of Scripture, that there would be a man to stand in the gap.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: On that day we were challenged, we were moved, uh, hundreds of thousands of men uh committed their lives to Christ.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: It was great.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: But that phrase, stand in the gap, is used.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it was the headline phrase for the National Evangelical Free Conference of India, which I which I flew over and spoke to a number of years ago, uh, but since 1997.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Stand in the gap, repair the wall.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: And it's also one of the themes year after year for the National Day of Prayer.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: National Day of Prayer is always the first Thursday in May, so it's May the 3rd this year.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: And the theme this year is actually unity, uh, not stand in the gap.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: But you will all you'll find on their literature, if you go on the website or you got in stuff in the mail, sentences like this as the 66th annual National Day of Prayer approaches.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: We're looking for individuals, churches, communities who are willing to join us in rallying millions of Christians to once again heed the call to stand in the gap.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk about that verse today, and the verse actually falls into sort of three parts.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: It has three, three sort of very interesting parts of it, each of which leads to a wonderful challenge.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: The first part is the first five words, I searched for a man.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: God speaking, I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall standing gap, and I found no one.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: This is an interesting idea that God would say that he's looking for anything.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: So why does God say, I'm looking for someone?
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you look in the context, the half a dozen verses before this, you see that what God is saying to Ezekiel, who is in the settlement far away from Jerusalem, 600 miles to the east, in a settlement in the suburbs of Babylon, he's speaking to Ezekiel, but he's talking now about Israel, the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem, and God says, I'm looking for someone back there, and I'm not finding him.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Why am I looking for someone?
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, he says, you know what?
5:52
SPEAKER_00: There's nobody in Jerusalem who's really filling the bill, uh, standing in the gap.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: He says the conspiracy, and he lists all their leaders, the conspiracy of her prophets within her, verse 25, is like a roaring lion tearing its prey.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: They devour people.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: The prophets do.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: The prophets, these are the people who heard fresh words from God, and yet they're all about themselves, devouring people or seizing wealth and valuables and multiply the widows within her.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: And then he moves to the priests.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Those are the uh, those are not the most exciting people, those are the preachers.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, they take the Mosaic law and they teach it.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: The teachers in Sunday school teach, the preachers, her priests, he says, they do violence to my instruction.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Terrible teaching.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And they profane my holy things, they close their eyes to the truth.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And then he moves to the court, to the princes, the king, the official, the political leaders, those who are able to go to court and steal people's land.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: And he says, that's what they're doing.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives in order to make profit dishonestly.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: And then he, because God's most angry at the prophets, he goes back to them and he says, Her prophets are lying when they say this is what the Lord God says when I have not spoken.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, you know what?
7:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking for someone and I don't even find this person among the people.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: The people of the land have practiced extortion, committed robbery.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: They've oppressed the poor and needy and unlawfully exploited the resident alien.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm not finding.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: And you might say, well, hold it, weren't there any good people?
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer was, yeah, there's a, for instance, the prophet Jeremiah.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Problem with the prophet Jeremiah, who's living in Jerusalem at this time, is he's been imprisoned in a deep pit.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: By the way, that pit's been discovered archaeologically.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: You can see that pit outside the walls of Jerusalem.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: He was in there, he nearly died, and he is stuck in that pit without food or water, in the muck with all this disease, and he's nearly dying.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: So, so what what God is saying is not that he's not seeing anybody in Jerusalem who's godly.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: It's just that he's not seeing anyone among the leaders and among the people.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, this whole idea that God is searching, he's looking from heaven, I think is such, this idea, when I saw this, it sort of crashed down on me like an anvil, because it's a common idea in the Bible.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: The eyes of the Lord.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: Another famous verse, 2 Chronicles 16, 9.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth to strengthen those whose hearts are loyal to him.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: He's looking for people who are loyal to him.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: He's looking all over the earth.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we read in Isaiah that he's looking and he's not finding.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: I, the Lord, was amazed to see, as he's looking, that no one intervened to help the oppressed.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: So I myself, God says, I stepped in to save them with my strong arm and my wrath sustained me.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: God's upset because he's looking for a certain kind of a person and he's not finding it.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're theologically astute, if you're a Sunday school teacher, whatever, right about now you're thinking, just a second, I've got a theological problem with this.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, isn't God, why would God ever have to look for anything?
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Isn't he omniscient?
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Isn't he everywhere present, omnipresent?
9:00
SPEAKER_00: Isn't he, you know, doesn't he know why would he have to look around?
9:04
SPEAKER_00: I have to look around when I misplace my cell phone.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Why would God have to ever look around?
9:09
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't misplace cell phones.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: He does, he knows right now, at this moment, which of us in this auditorium are doing this and doing that.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: God, why would he have to look?
9:18
SPEAKER_00: And that's a theological problem, and it's a legitimate problem because of verses like Hebrews chapter 4, 13, nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him before whom we must give account.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: God's not going, oh, I don't know who I can trust.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: God knows these things.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: So why would God say, I have to search?
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer, and I'm sorry, this would be really brief, it's advanced hermeneutics, and it's called phenomenological language.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: And that means that God is sort of He's trying to convey to us how He feels about the fact that He's not finding anyone who is loyal and who's righteous and who'll stand in the gap.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: And so he so he goes, How can I, how can I how can I help my people understand how upset I am?
10:13
SPEAKER_00: And and he goes, Well, you know what?
10:15
SPEAKER_00: They look for stuff and they get upset when they can't find their cell phone.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: So I'll say, I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm looking for a certain kind of a person and I can't find them.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: And he says, they'll understand what I mean when I say I'm looking for a particular kind of person.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: But I'm looking and I can't find them.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And so we find lots of verses in the Bible, a number of verses that have this idea in it that God's looking, God looks down from heaven, Psalm 53, too, on the entire human race.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: He looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God is looking for a person with specific attributes, which makes me wonder.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, am I that person?
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Could I possibly be the person that God wants to find?
11:02
SPEAKER_00: If you like books on prayer like I do, I collect them, I read them, I love them.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: One of the first, one of the best, one of the ones that ever influenced me early on was a little book written about 80 years ago by a wonderful man named E.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: M.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Bounds, and the first sentences of that book go like this.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: We are constantly on a strain to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the church and the gospel.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or the woman, we would say.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: God's plan is to make much of the man, far more of him, than of anything else.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Here comes his famous sentence, the most famous sentences he ever wrote.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Men are God's method.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: The church is looking for better methods.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: God is looking for better men.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: First time I ever read that, I was just completely dumbstruck.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: God's looking for special men and women.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: And the fact of the matter is that it's fascinating.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it fascinating?
12:08
SPEAKER_00: The whole thing is singular.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: God's looking for a man.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: He's looking for a single person, a single man, a single woman.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: And if you think about it, down through history, it is single people who make a difference.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar is just, I mean, Babylon was just Nebuchadnezzar, sort of written large.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Persia is known for Cyrus, right?
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Greece was known for Alexander the Great.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: Rome is known for its Caesars.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Individual men and women down through history are what makes a difference.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: After the New Testament times, you have uh you have Augustine, and then after that, Bernard of Clairvaux, and then you have uh you have the reformers, you have right John Calvin, and you have John Huss, and uh, and and then later you have John Wesley, a single great man who makes a difference.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: And you have uh George Whitfield, and and then in the last century, Billy Sunday, and of course the man who who died this past week, Billy Graham.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: He stood in the he was an he was a phenomenal person, one individual who made a huge difference.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Back in the late 90s, uh uh we had Jerry Jenkins speak here.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Jerry Jenkins had been chosen by Billy Graham to write his biography, and Jerry, we'd lined up Jerry before the biography had come out, and the biography called Just As I Am, number of you have read it, was a bestseller.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: So he'd become even more famous than he was before.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: He'd been the editor of Moody Monthly Magazine, and and he came and he spoke for us in the late 90s, about exactly 20 years ago.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: And I do remember him saying, you know, you think I'm famous, you know, everybody's talking about just as I am.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: I've started this new series called um um uh the what?
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the left behind series.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: He says, I've just started these books called Left Behind.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: I think that's gonna be kind of big.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so anyway, but but Jerry James, a story he didn't tell in his book, a story about Billy Graham that reveals what kind of a man Billy Graham was, is this story.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh during the 18 months that Jerry Jenkins uh was um was was writing the biography for Billy Graham.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: He spent loads of time with him, and once Billy Billy had said to him, uh, let's go down and stay at a hotel in Fort Lauderdale, and we can work on it there away from everything.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: So they went down to this hotel in Fort Lauderdale, and one morning uh Billy said, I've I've arranged for uh to go to the barbershop downstairs.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: So Jerry says, he and I went down to the barbershop downstairs, and Barber starts cutting his hair.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And there's a there's a manicurist who's nearby who strikes up a conversation with Billy Graham.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: And at one point, she says to Billy, Jerry's sitting on his side, she says to Billy, what do you do?
15:01
SPEAKER_00: And Billy says, you know, in his southern accent is in his uh Carolina accent, I'm a preacher.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Um, oh, I don't care for preachers that much.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Except Billy Graham, I do like him.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: And Billy says, Oh, you like you like Billy Graham, do you?
15:25
SPEAKER_00: And she says, I do.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: I really learn from him.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Well, thank you.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: I am Billy Graham.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Oh, you don't even look like him.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: And the barber caught her eye and mouthed, it's really him.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Oh my God.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: And Billy said, No, but I work for him.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Great story about Billy Graham.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Never, never published.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: But um shows the kind because God works through people who are humble and who are fully committed to him.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh, I remember being moved when I went up to uh Moody Month when I visited Moody Bible Institute uh one of the first times and saw on the wall that plaque where Deal Moody's famous statement is made.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: By God's help, I aim to be that man or woman.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first point.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: God's looking for a person.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Am I that person?
16:36
SPEAKER_00: The second point is, and this is oftentimes the most neglected clause in this verse, we skip right over it to get stand in the gap, but this is really important.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before me.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: So the picture is here that there's a wall around the city, right?
16:56
SPEAKER_00: And somehow part of the wall has gotten broken down.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: And so the the wall is for protection, right?
17:03
SPEAKER_00: The wall protects the city.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Part of the wall is broken down, and so there's danger because the city is no longer protected.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: People can come through the wall, either enemies or God Himself in His wrath can come in, and that wall needs to be repaired.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And so He says, someone who would repair the wall, stand at the gap, so that I might not destroy it, but I found no one.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: God's looking, and this is the second point, God not just looking for a person, he's looking for someone to repair the wall.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking now about restoration.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about restoration.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about moving into the life of a person, a church, uh, a country, and trying to restore that person, that church, that country.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: And the problem with Jerusalem, we know from about nine chapters before in Ezekiel 13, 5, God said, you know what?
17:57
SPEAKER_00: The wall around that nation is broken down.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And he's talking about spiritually, he's talking about morally because of violence, because of idolatry, because of uh uh pleasure seeking, because of greed, and he says, and they've done nothing to repair the breaks in the walls around the nation.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: They have not helped it to stand firm in battle on the day of the Lord.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we need people who come and restore or repair the wall.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: There are broken down walls, and I've gotten to the point of my sermon where right now you're already thinking, I'll bet, of children, loved ones, people you know, maybe Christian organizations you know, because we're talking about God's people here, God's nations, who have broken down walls, and nothing, nothing right now is being done.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: And we're in critical condition.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: And I and I'm and I know that I am on safe ground by talking about individuals.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 25, 28 puts it this way: a person without self-control is like a city with broken down walls.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Do you know anybody who lacks self-control?
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Don't raise your hand.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we all know some of it.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Because the, you talking about the fruit of the spirit, you know, the nine?
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Here at the end of time, I think the end of the fruit of the spirit, self-control, is the most lacking, the most broken down of all the fruits of the spirit.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: And this is why we have so much trouble in our country today.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Lack of self-control is a break in the wall.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: You know people with lack of self-control?
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Of course you do.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: By Proverbs definition, all young people lack self-control.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: So we know people like that.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, parents are called to restore the wall and stand in the gap for every child they have, every young person they know.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: School teachers, Sunday school teachers are wall restorers, wall builders, gappers, gap standers.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: So now here's the interesting thing as you go to the New Testament, you find that Paul and James, Jesus, Brother Jude, and so forth are very interested in this concept, and they point out something uh very specific, which is that different people require different wall restoration methods.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Jude 22, 23.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on those who waver.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: There are some believers that you know who are weak, uh uh fearful was the name of one in Pilgrim's Progress, and they waver.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: You need to be gentle and compassionate with them.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Save others by snatching them from the fire.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: You take a young person who's about to head into an absolutely toxic relationship, which you know will ruin them with a gang of drug addicts or with another person, snatching them from the fire.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on others, but with fear, hating even the garment, defiled by the flesh.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: Be careful when you get involved with helping people with certain difficulties, because those difficulties can seep into your life and you'll suddenly catch the same besetting sin.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: So different people require different restoration methods.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, here's another great verse on restoring people, Galatians 6, 1 and 2.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Dear brothers and sisters, if another Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly, you who are mature, you who are spiritual, should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Love the picture of mama elephant nudging the young elephant back onto the right path, right?
21:33
SPEAKER_00: But be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Share each other's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: You repair walls sometimes by gently, gently restoring people to the path.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: And if you do that, then your perpetual ruins will be rebuilt, says Isaiah chapter 58.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: You'll re-establish the ancient foundations and you will be called the one who repairs walls.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Broken walls.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't that be great?
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Because there are broken down walls all around us that need rebuilding.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: And there's a number of ways to rebuild and restore those.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: In the 1500s, as you know, the church that Martin Luther was a part of had broken down walls because of faulty doctrine about salvation.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: The idea was that somehow, if you put money in the coffers to help build St.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Peter's, that somehow that would reduce your time in purgatory.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And somehow that and people associated that with salvation.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: So Martin Luther the monk hammers some stuff on a wall, gets called up before the diet of worms, gets excommunicated, famously says, Here I stand, I can do no other.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: God help me.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: Repairing the wall by speaking bold truth.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
22:50
SPEAKER_00: So that's the second point.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Be a repairer of the wall.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: And now the famous third point, stand in the gap.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Because you know what?
22:57
SPEAKER_00: When you get in there and you're repairing the wall, it's going to take you some time.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: It's going to take some time to restore the wall.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: So you need to stay in that gap, stand in that gap to be personally that person's protection, an intercessor, and intervener until that wall gets restored.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: God's looking for someone to stand in the gap.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: If repairing the wall is restoration, standing in the gap is protection.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful thing as you go through history and you go through the Bible, is the great examples of gappers, God's gappers.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Abraham, of course, the first famous one, he actually stood in the gap for one of the worst cities we know of.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: That is Sodom.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Abraham interceded for Sodom.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: His nephew Lot lived there.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham goes, God, if there's 50 righteous people in Sodom, will you destroy the city?
23:52
SPEAKER_00: God says, Nope, won't destroy the city for 50.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Then Abraham spoke again, since I've begun, let me speak further, even though I'm just dust and ashes.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Suppose there are only 45 righteous people rather than 50.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: 50, 45 is only five less than 50.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: So would you, he says, destroy the whole city for the lack of those five?
24:12
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I will not destroy it.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember Ezekiel 22, Ezekiel's thinking of this passage because he uses that same phrase.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: God says, Stand in the gap, so I will not destroy it.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: I will not destroy it if I find 45.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Abraham goes, Ah, okay.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Forgive me.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hit you up one more time.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: How about 40?
24:36
SPEAKER_00: And God says, I won't destroy it for 40.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: How about 30?
24:40
SPEAKER_00: I won't destroy it for 30.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: How about 20?
24:42
SPEAKER_00: I want to destroy it for 20.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: How about 10?
24:44
SPEAKER_00: I want to destroy it for 10.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Abraham goes, okay, I think I've worked you down far enough.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: I'll buy the car now.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: No.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: So standing in the gap, this is intercession that won't give up.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Right?
24:58
SPEAKER_00: And some of you have been doing that for years, for years with your child.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: And you're to be honored for that.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Now, Moses, of course, most famously in the Old Testament was God's gapper, protecting his people with prayer.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: You remember the story at Horeb at Mount Sinai?
25:16
SPEAKER_00: They made a calf.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Moses up on the mountain with God, getting the Ten Commandments.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: And Psalm 106 summarizes the story.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: They exchanged their glory for the image of a grass-eating ox.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: They forgot God, their Savior, who did great things in Egypt, and ah, inspiring axe at the Red Sea.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: So God said he would destroy them if Moses, his chosen one, hadn't stood before him in the breach.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: Same word, by the way, in Hebrew, gap, breach, to turn his wrath away from destroying them.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: If you don't mind, I'm going to tell you the whole story because it's in Deuteronomy 9, but Moses is telling the story.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the story about, it's a great lesson about how do I stand in the gap, praying, interceding for my loved one.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: So the story goes like this: While the mountain was blazing with fire, Moses says, I turned and came down, holding in my hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: There below me, I could see that you had sinned against the Lord your God.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: You had melted gold and made a calf idol for yourselves.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: How quickly you turned away from the path the Lord had commanded you to follow.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: So I took the stone tablets and I threw them to the ground, smashing them before your eyes.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: And in that move, Moses was protecting them standing in the gap by joining God's horror at their sin.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: And then Moses continues, then as before, I threw myself down before the Lord for forty days and nights, ate no bread, drank no water because of the great sin you'd committed by doing what the Lord hated, provoking him to anger.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: I feared that the furious anger of the Lord which turned him against you would drive him to destroy you.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: So he protected them with desperate prayer.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: He's scared to death.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: And I prayed and said, and I decided to include his whole prayer.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: This is amazing.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: This will guide you.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: How do I pray?
27:09
SPEAKER_00: How do I stand in the gap for my loved ones with prayer?
27:12
SPEAKER_00: I prayed to the Lord and I said, O sovereign Lord, don't destroy them.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: They're your own people, they're your own special possession, whom you redeemed from Egypt by your mighty power and your strong hand.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: So this last month, as I've been praying and deliberately saying, God, I want to stand in the gap for this person, for this couple, this person who's in critical condition health-wise, this couple who's talking about divorce right now, this church which is falling apart, Lord, I want to stand in the gap, and I've used this.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I pray is this right here, Lord, I know you love them.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: They're your own person, they're your own special chosen person, they're your child.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: This is a couple who knows you, who loves you.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Point two, please overlook the stubbornness and the awful sin of these people and remember instead your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Point to Lord, Lord, I say, and you can say the same thing.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Would you please cut them some slack?
28:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're so weak.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm weak.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: And would you overlook their stubbornness and just think back about, you know, how they used to live and, you know, when things were better, would you please be be kind to them and compassionate?
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Third point, and this is like manipulation.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: If you destroy these people, the Egyptians will say the Israelites died because the Lord wasn't able to bring them to the land he promised to give them.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Or they might say, He destroyed them because he hated them.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: He deliberately took them into the wilderness to slaughter them.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, you say to the Lord something like this, Lord, your reputation's at stake.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: This is a prominent couple.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: This is a couple who, if they, if they split up, this is gonna hurt your reputation in the community.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna hurt your reputation among other people.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: This will have an effect on their children, on their grandchildren.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray for this conflict between these people.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't stand in the gap because of this conflict.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And if they don't forgive each other, it's gonna have ramifications.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray for my child, I pray for my grandchild, I pray for my nephew, I pray for my friend.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you love them, you chose them.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: Please cut them some slack.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: And listen, if this thing doesn't get resolved, Lord, it's not good for your glory.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: It would be for your glory to resolve this.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: So that's the way you pray when you're standing in the gap.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: And he concludes by reiterating they're your people, they're your special possession.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: You brought them out of Egypt.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: You care for them.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: I know you care about them, Lord.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: And then in this chapter, we find out for the one and only time that Moses prayed for his brother.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: He saved his brother's life because God was gonna kill Aaron, because Aaron, remember, had said, okay, send me your gold.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: You want to build an idol?
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Give me your gold, I'll be in charge of handling it.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: And God was so mad at Moses' brother, he was gonna kill him.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: He says, the Lord was so angry with Aaron that he wanted to destroy him too.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: But I prayed for Aaron and the Lord spared him.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: You have a brother, you have a sister, you have a child, you have a friend.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: Here you know, right here, Bible's telling you, pray for them.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: You can stand in the gap for your close relative, your loved one.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: And then, if you have a chance, protect that person with bold action.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I took your sin, the calf you'd made, Moses says, and I melted it down in the fire and I ground it into fine dust and threw the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: If you have to, take bold action.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: One more, there are three great intercessors in the Old Testament.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: I've mentioned Abraham, I've mentioned Moses, one more, I'll mention Samuel, and the reason I include him is because he did both things.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: He not just stood in the gap, he repaired the wall.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: They pleaded with Samuel, pray to the Lord your God for your servants so we won't die, for we've added to all our sins the evil of requesting a king for ourselves.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: The story, as you know, is the people of Israel said, You know what, we're tired of being run by you, Samuel, and prophets like you.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: We want to be, we want to have a king like everyone else.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: God gets angry, he says, I'm your king, sends thunder, sends lightning, and they're terrified, and they go to Samuel and say, Would you pray for us?
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Would you stand in the gap for us?
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Would you protect us with prayer?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: We realize we've got a gap on the wall.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: God's about to come through and kill us.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: And Samuel replied, Well, you know what?
31:16
SPEAKER_00: I care most about repairing the wall.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: So for a moment, let me teach you the truth.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid, even though you've committed all this evil, don't turn away from following the Lord.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Instead, worship the Lord with all your heart.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Don't turn away, etc.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Yeah, I'll stand in the gap with prayer, but I really want to repair the wall with truth.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: As for me, I vow that I will not sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: But I will also teach you the good and right way.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Above all, fear the Lord and worship him faithfully, and so forth.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that something?
31:52
SPEAKER_00: So God's looking for people, he's looking for men, he's looking for women who will see broken down walls, step in and try to restore those walls as best they can, and while they're doing that, in the meantime, will stand in the gap.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: And you can't help thinking in secular history of all of the great people who've come and stood in the gap.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: One of the first, uh maybe the first great hero of Rome.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: This is uh 500 BC, was Horatius.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Back in those days, Rome was just a baby nation, and it was in danger of getting snuffed out.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: And the mighty Etruscans came against Rome, suddenly appeared over the hill.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, uh, Rome goes, We're dead.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: And they said, We need to destroy the one bridge over the Tiber.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: The Tiber River had only one bridge that led to Rome, and they knew they couldn't defend themselves.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: They said, We need to tear down the bridge.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: We don't have time.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Will anybody stand there on the bridge and keep them from coming over while we destroy the bridge behind you?
32:51
SPEAKER_00: And Horatius said, I'll do it, and he did.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: This mighty warrior stood there and saved the city of Rome by standing there on the bridge, and as a result, is their first great hero.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Or I think of the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, who said in John chapter 10, I'm the shepherd and I'm the door.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: And what he meant by that is that I guard the entrance to the pen so that no thieves, no wild animals can come and kill.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm the human door for the sheep.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus did is he stood in the gap to protect us and save us by giving his life for us, didn't he?
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Several hundred years later, someone did very a very similar thing.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: It was a monk from Asia who came from a small village.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: His name was Telemachus.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: He took weeks to walk to the great city of Rome.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: And when he got to Rome, not knowing anything about it, he joined the crowd.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: It was a festival day, and he went to the great Colosseum.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: He went into the Colosseum to see the show.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: And to his shock and to his horror, gladiators marched out and began killing each other.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: Blood was being shed on the ground.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: He tried to scream, this little man, yelling, stop this, stop this.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: They didn't listen, so he clambered over the rail.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: He went down, he got between gladiators, tried to stop them, and the crowd was so angry at their entertainment being interrupted that they stoned Telemachus to death.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: The Emperor Honorius, a rather noble man, was not there.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: He was at his palace, and when word came of what had happened on that day, he stopped the gladiator killing in the Colosseum forever.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: That's how it stopped.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Because one man, Telemachus, stood in the gap and gave his life to make that change.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Now in Ezekiel 22, the sad case is no Telemachus came to stand in the gap for Jerusalem, which is why there's one more verse at the end of the chapter that says, Therefore I found none.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I poured out my indignation on them.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: I've consumed them with the fire of my wrath, compensated on their heads, thus saith the Lord.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's a sad story.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: And I end, however, by saying it doesn't need to be a sad story for those that you love.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to encourage you and me to make three commitments and three pledges today based upon the three lines, the three parts of our stand in the gap verse.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: And the first is Lord, I see the gap.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: I'll be your man.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: I'll be your woman.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Because God's looking, God is looking, God is searching for a certain kind of person, a person who will repair the wall and stand in the gap.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, the first step is for you to hear God speaking today, like Isaiah did, and asking, whom can I find to stand in the gap?
36:01
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Here I am, send me.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: I see the gap, I'll be your man, I'll be your woman.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: Second pledge that I would encourage you to take is to say, as best as I can, I'll repair the wall.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: I may not be good enough or gifted enough, or they may not be willing enough to let me repair the wall, but I'll do whatever I can to restore the wall because the wall is broken down.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: I'll do my best to restore the wall so that they will have that protection.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: And then you think, Lord, how do I best restore the wall?
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Does it come with gentle compassion, nudging them back under the path?
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Does it require a bold act of snatching them out of the fire?
36:47
SPEAKER_00: How can I do that?
36:49
SPEAKER_00: How can you use me to restore the wall?
36:52
SPEAKER_00: You know the story about a couple of hundred years ago.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: William Wilberforce restored the wall.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: The wall was broken down.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: Great Britain was the greatest dealer in slaves of any country in the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: And William Wilberforce, prominent politician, was exhausted.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: He was fighting a losing battle.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: He was encouraged by John Newton to stay in the battle.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: And 200 years ago, he stood up there in Parliament and said, You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you didn't know about slavery.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: And before he died, they passed a law abolishing slavery.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: William Wilberforce was mighty in repairing the wall of slavery.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: You and I can be the kind of person spoken of in Isaiah 58, 12.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities, then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I see the gap.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: I'll be your man, commitment number one.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: As best as I can, I'll repair the wall, commitment number two.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: Commitment number three.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, I'll stand in the gap because God is looking for gappers.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: I'll stand in the gap as long as it takes.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful story out of the Civil War, the North versus the South.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: Thomas Jackson had just become a colonel.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: He was a cavalry officer.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: No, he was just become a general.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: He'd been a colonel, just be had just become a general before the first battle of Bull Run, Battle of Manassas.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: And the North looked as though this looked like the turning point of the war.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: And Thomas Jackson noticed that there was a great gap in the Confederate line, and the Union was starting to pour through.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: And the people used to be spectators to these battles.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: The spectators from the North were cheering, the war is already over.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: But Thomas Jackson didn't move.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: He stood his ground.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: And another general called out, there he is, like a stonewall.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: And it became, of course, his nickname, Stonewall Jackson.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: In fact, later General Lee said, if Stonewall Jackson had been with him at the last battle, he would not have lost that battle.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: But the important thing for us is that Stonewall Jackson, this professor, this wonderful born-again Christian, did what you and I need to do.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: Now he did it in warfare.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: He saw a gap.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: He moved into the gap.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: He stood in the gap.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: He risked his life to save a nation.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I see the gap.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: I'll be your man.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: I'll be your woman.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: As best as I can, I'll repair the wall.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, I'll stand in the gap with prayer, with whatever it takes.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: Will you do that?
40:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you a chance to think over that and make those commitments as you listen to Jeremiah sing a song by Babby Mason called Standing in the Gap.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Some of the words go like this.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: I heard that you were hurting, that you were suffering pain.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: I didn't dare just turn my head and look the other way, for when your heart is aching, my heart is aching too.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: Let me help you bear your burden.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: That's the least that I can do.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: I'll be standing in the gap for you.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: Just remember someone somewhere is praying for you, calling out your name, praying for your strength.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: I'll be standing in the gap for you.