Gap Persons
Devotions for Growing Christians
Gap Persons
Ezekiel 22:30 - And I searched for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.
The month of September always seems to bring with it a good news/bad news type of situation for many college fellowships. The good news is that everyone is rested up and eager to go. Many have renewed zeal and enthusiasm about their faith. There are new programs and fresh ideas. No one is bored or burned out yet. Weariness and lethargy are foreign words at this point. Everything seems positive.
But the bad news is that September seems to be the month when gaps appear in the walls - especially in campus fellowship groups. Key Christian leaders have graduated or changed roles over the summer months. New leaders are not tried and tested at this point - and some are nowhere to be found! The energy and excitement of new unseasoned Christian students has not yet been channeled or disciplined. New plans and programs still have to be implemented and perfected.
Gaps in the walls of any Christian fellowship, including churches, are potential danger points. The Bible teaches that the enemy is always looking around for gaps and cracks in the walls. Satan would love to infiltrate any gap of a Christian fellowship, and proceed to tear down the whole wall. (See 1 Peter 5:8.)
Gaps never repair themselves automatically, and unrepaired gaps have a tendency to widen. No leadership, or poor leadership, leads to general discouragement and lack of commitment. Undirected zeal and enthusiasm often ends with a bull-in-a-china-shop effect. Diligent effort must always be made to close the gaps in the walls of testimony and defense. Perhaps you are in a church or campus fellowship that has obvious gaps in the wall. Pray earnestly and specifically that those gaps would soon be repaired.
God closes gaps with people. Regardless of whether the gaps in Christian fellowship are associated with programs or positions, they are repaired and filled by godly individuals. These people are more than just "Sunday morning only" Christians! These are men and women who are willing to get involved and take on responsibility, in spite of discouragement and opposition and ridicule and hard work. Our text indicates that God is searching for people who will stand in the gaps - and maybe you are the gap person that God wants to use to fill that special need in your fellowship.
Ezekiel lived and wrote in a day when huge gaps had developed in Israel's walls of testimony. God had specifically chosen the people of Israel to be a light to the nations, but they themselves had turned to darkness. The gaps in Israel's witness were so gaping that God was about to remove the nation. Already the Lord had permitted the northern kingdom to be overrun by the armies of Assyria, and the northern capital of Samaria fell in 722BC. About 150 years later, as Ezekiel was writing, the southern kingdom of Judah was tottering before the Babylonian armies. God's people had not repented and repaired their walls, even though God had been very patient and long-suffering. The southern kingdom was about to learn the hard way.
Some of the people of Judah had already been taken away to Babylon. In fact, Ezekiel was one of the captives, and he was preaching and writing from Babylon. The thrust of his message was that even God's Temple and His holy city of Jerusalem would be destroyed. God was removing His presence, His name and His glory from Israel.
God had searched for individuals to stand up and close the gaps of what little testimony remained, but He had found no one. Now, to protect His name from further defamation and to prevent further distortion of His holy character, God must remove the nation completely. Jerusalem, with Solomon’s magnificent Temple, was completely destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar's forces in 586BC.
There is a pointed lesson in all of this for God's people today. When a Christian fellowship group does not repair the breaches in its wall, and conditions go downhill to the point where the witness to Christ is detrimentally affected, the Lord must step in with discipline. 1 Peter 4:17 states that "judgment begins with the family of God." If the gaps are not closed and the situation persists to the point where the testimony is no longer Christ-centered or Christ-honoring, the Lord may even remove such a testimony.
It doesn't matter how wonderful and outstanding the group might once have been. Like God's chosen city of Jerusalem with His beautiful Temple, a gathering may be removed when it no longer brings glory to God. The 1st century church at Ephesus was close to that position when the apostle John wrote Revelation 2:5. If they would not repair their walls and brighten their testimony, the Lord said He would "remove your lampstand out of its place." According to Revelation 3:15-16, the church at Laodicea, like ancient Judah, had reached the point of no return and would be "spit out." What a sad and terrible situation, when a once-strong testimony to God is permitted to die or is removed in some other way. If only gap persons had stepped up to close the gaps before the downward spiral started. How important gap persons are!
Up to this point the idea of gap persons has been applied to filling gaps in the walls of testimony and defense of Christian fellowships - especially campus fellowships. The principle of closing gaps could also be applied to our nation as well. We claim to be a nation under God, but our walls are in ruins. The gaps in our moral defenses are gigantic and ever-widening. The parallel to the nation of Judah at the time of Ezekiel is striking.
In Ezekiel 22:23-29 we see that every segment of Israel's society was guilty. Prophets, priests, princes and people all contributed to the gaps in the walls. The false prophets claimed "Thus saith the Lord" for their false visions (v25, 28). Their false prophecies led to all kinds of problems, including loss of wealth and life as leaders blindly followed the lies. (1 Kings 22 is an example.) Ezekiel 13:5 condemns these false prophets precisely because "you have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build up the wall of Israel."
The priests blurred the distinction between the sacred and the secular, and thus lowered and hid the holiness of God (v26). And many of the "prophets and priests" in our nation today are guilty of the same sins? The truth of God's Word is not proclaimed. The lies of human religion and philosophy bring untold loss to those who blindly follow. How can there be any peace and fulfillment apart from a relationship with the living God of the Bible? And like the corrupt priesthood of ancient Israel, the Church has allowed the increasing secularism within our nation to hide the glory and holiness of God to the point where many churches are nothing more than social clubs or commercial opportunities! How long will God tolerate a "Christian" nation that is ripe for judgment?
Judah's princes and people were woefully guilty of social oppression and injustice (v27,29). Virtually no one raised a voice or an eyebrow at the social sins. The voice of any true prophet like Jeremiah was literally turned off and shut up in prison. (See Jeremiah 37-38.) Notice how verses 27-29 read like a current newspaper account of life in our own country. Maneuvering and manipulating by unscrupulous leaders and politicians for dishonest gain hurts our society right down to the grass roots. And the all-pervading attitude of "What's in it for me?" has made our society a prison of oppression for many citizens who are truly poor and in need.
By the standard of God's plumbline, the walls of our nation are not in any better shape than those of ancient Israel. (See Amos 7:7-9.) How can a country that claims to be one nation under God expect to survive, never mind prosper, when God and His standards are buried beneath the ruins of former walls?
God is still searching for gap persons. Whether a gap in the testimony of your fellowship group or a breach in what remains of the moral defenses of our country, the call goes out for individual believers who will "build up the wall and stand in the gap."
Gap persons can greatly affect the outcome of a situation. When the Israelites complained in the wilderness in Moses' day, God said that He would destroy them. But "Moses, God’s chosen one, stood in the gap before Him, to turn away His wrath from destroying them" (Psalm 106:23). Do you remember that Moses was reluctant to be a gap person (Exodus 4). This should be an encouragement to those of us who are hesitant and need to be motivated. Let’s muster up the moral courage to stand up and be a gap person!
- Dave Reid