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STAND IN THE GAP

ISAIAH 59:9-16

Most, if not all of you will remember baseball great and Hall of Fame member, Babe Ruth. During his baseball career Babe Ruth had hit 714 home runs and he was now playing one of his last full major league games.

But the great Babe Ruth, toward the end of his carrier was not as agile as he once had been. The Braves were playing the Reds in Cincinnati. And in the game the great Babe Ruth fumbled the ball and threw badly, and in one inning alone his errors were responsible for most of the five runs scored by Cincinnati.

As Babe Ruth walked off the field after the third out and headed towards the dugout, and a crescendo of yelling and booing reached his ears. Just then a boy jumped over the railing onto the playing field. With tears in his eyes, and streaming down his face, he threw his arms around the legs of his hero.

And Babe Ruth didn’t hesitate for a second. He bent over and picked up the young boy, hugged him, and then set him down on his feet, patting his head gently. At that point the noise from the stands came to an abrupt halt. Suddenly the booing had stopped. In fact, a hush fell over the entire park.

You see, in those brief moments, the fans saw two heros: Babe Ruth, who in spite of his dismal day on the field could still care about a little boy; and the small lad, who cared about the feelings of another human being. Both had melted the hearts of the crowd.

In our study this morning, during the time of Isaiah’s ministry, the Southern Kingdom of Judah was in a mess morally and spiritually. They cheated each other, took advantage of each other, they were unrighteous in their actions and where not interested in truth or justice. They were even oppressing their own people.

And the reason we see these things manifested in their lives is because of where their walk with God was at. It was absent! They were seeking after other god’s, committing spiritual fornication and even offering their children as sacrifices to the god Molech, burning them in the fire. They had turned so far from God they didn’t even see the sin they were involved in. Yes, there was a lot of noise, a lot of complaining about the situations they were in, but no one was willing to step in and take a stand for the nation or the people.

It is out of all this immorality and spiritual unfaithfulness that Isaiah says beginning in verse 9 of Isaiah chapter 59...

ISAIAH 59:9-15a

Do you see what a dark period of history this was for the Southern Kingdom of Judah. They walked in darkness, not knowing where they were going. Life was filled with injustice andunrighteousness! And Isaiah likens their condition to a person who is blind and can’t see where they are going. Thus, they are walking aimlessly through life, not knowing where they are going, like a dead man, spiritual zombies!

Paul, in Ephesians chapter 2, said that outside of a relationship with Christ a person is "...dead in trespasses and sins, in which you...walk...according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all...conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." Ephesians 2:1-3.

In other words, because we miss the mark of perfection, we are sinners and are spiritually dead outside of Christ. And thus, we meandered through life, not knowing where we are going, but we were being lead down a coarse of destruction set up by the prince of this world - Satan! And whichever way the winds of this world blow, we are taken in that direction, satisfying the lust of our own flesh and rebelling against God.

That is where the Southern Kingdom of Judah was at. They even came against those who stood up for righteousness, who loved the Lord. They would mock these people, put them down, even persecute them. It is as Isaiah 57:1 says, "The righteous perishes, and no man takes it to heart; merciful men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil." In their eyes the righteous got in their way exposing their evil deeds with their light. For them it was better that these righteous people died or were taken out of their way.

Interestingly enough, even though they hated the light that exposed their deeds, they complained, moaned because of how unjustly they were treated. And it even seems that the righteous were moaning and complaining about life also. People in general were unhappy, dissatisfied and irritable. It is out of all of this that we read in the last half of verse 15 and verse 16 of Isaiah chapter 59, what God thinks of all these things. We read...

ISAIAH 59:15b-16

God was looking for anyone to stand in the gap for the people, to intercede for them. God saw all the evil that permeated the land. He heard all the complaining and moaning done by the righteous and unrighteous. And His inditement against them was that no one stepped forward to do something about it. No one would stand in the gap and intercede for the nation and the people. And in this particular case, God says that He will step in with His righteousness and He brought to them salvation.

In Ezekiel chapter 22, God was again looking for someone to stand in the gap for the nation and the people. At this point in their history, these words were spoken by Ezekiel just prior to the final assault on the Southern Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians. And this is what the Lord said beginning in verse 29 of Ezekiel chapter 22. We read "‘The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger. So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,’ says the Lord GOD." Ezekiel 22:29-31.

Like in Isaiah, God was once again looking for someone to stand in the gap for the nation, and He once again found no one. Interestingly enough, this time God allows His judgment to fall upon the Southern Kingdom of Judah, allowing them to be taken captive by the Babylonians, and the city of Jerusalem, its walls, and the temple itself were destroyed.

Why did God choose not to act and save in one instance, and then, as in this case in Isaiah He steps in and saves? Both times there was no intercessor, their spiritual condition was about the same, what was the difference? All we can say is that God is sovereign, He is in control, and He does as He pleases! You see, we may not always understand why, but we can take this away as we study both these passages. In both cases God was looking for someone to intercede for the nation, to take a stand for the people, and He found none!

Like the story I read of Babe Ruth, this nation is winding down, it is deteriorating. And there are millions of people watching to see what is going to happen, complaining about the things that are going on, and things are not looking good.

The morality of this nation is in the toilet. From our leaders down we have done away with our morals and developed a mentality of "If it feels good, do it!" and so we do! We now see men having sex with men, women with women, adulatory, and all kinds of sexual promiscuity and perversion.

Violence is out of control. We see children killing children for brand name clothes, brand name shoes, or just to get in gangs, or even worse, just for the fun of it. People have no control any longer, and we shoot first and ask questions later. We see violence in the homes, in the schools and on our streets as well as in the movies and the television shows we watch.

And spiritually speaking, we have remained a very religious nation, but our faith is not in the true and living God. Our religious activities are now focused upon worshiping angels, trees, nature, spaceships, people, ourselves, science, even the church they belong to, and-so-on. And God sees this religiosity as nothing. It is unacceptable to Him. As God said in Isaiah 57:5-6, "Inflaming yourselves with gods under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks? Among the smooth stones of the stream is your portion; they, they, are your lot! Even to them you have poured a drink offering, you have offered a grain offering. Should I receive comfort in these?"

And we can go on-and-on, but you can read for yourself what is happening in our nation. You hear the news reports of what is taking place in America. You don’t need me to tell you these things. And out of all that there is a lot of groaning, a lot of complaining, a lot of dissatisfaction with life and the things that are taking place. There is a lot of moaning, and people in general are irritable in their life. And this is seen both in the saved and the unsaved.

Now the unsaved can complain but the reality of it all is they have brought this upon themselves, they have no one to blame but themselves. And for the saved, instead of sitting up in the stands and booing, we need to step forward and stand in the gap for this nation and its people. Like that little boy that ran down from the stands to embrace Babe Ruth, to stand in the gap for him in a sense, understanding the thousands in the stands that were only complaining and booing at what they saw, he made a difference and changed the hearts of the people by his actions.

God is also looking for someone to stand in the gap for this nation. Yes this nation is wicked, they are stiff-necked, but that does not give us the right to cheer for their destruction, but to intercede before God on their behalf, that God would have mercy upon them and open their eyes to His truth.

Remember when Korah rebelled against Moses and Aaron in Numbers 16. They felt that Moses and Aaron had too much power, to much responsibility, and they wanted in on some of the action, even though they were from the tribe of Levi, and had the responsibility of caring for the tabernacle of the Lord, but that was not enough for them, they wanted to usurp the position of Moses and Aaron, and they got 250 men to follow in their rebellion.

And God dealt with Korah, Dathan, Abiram and their families by destroying them as the earth opened up and swallowed them. And the 250 men that followed after them in the rebellion were killed by fire from the Lord. It is out of all of that we read in Numbers 16:41 "On the next day all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘You have killed the people of the LORD.’"

The people were angry with Moses and Aaron for killing these people, and yet Moses and Aaron did nothing wrong except exercise the gift that God had given them. Those in rebellion were not "the people of the LORD", but fighting against those that God had put in authority! They were fighting against God by their, actions.

Listen to what transpired in this episode in Numbers 16:42-45. We read "Now it happened, when the congregation had gathered against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tabernacle of meeting; and suddenly the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD appeared. Then Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of meeting. And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.’ And they fell on their faces."

God tells Moses to get out of the way, He is going to wipe out these stubborn, stiff-necked people, He was going to destroy them. And what was the response of Moses to this? Did he jump for joy and say "Go get them God!"? No, not at all! Did He ask God to wait until he got a good seat to see their destruction? Not at all! Did Moses tell God to give them one for him? No, not at all! Moses did not rejoice. He did not jump for joy. But the response by Moses is very interesting, and we can learn much from what he did.

Again, in Numbers 16 we read beginning in verse 46 "So Moses said to Aaron, ‘Take a censer and put fire in it from the altar, put incense on it, and take it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them; for wrath has gone out from the LORD. The plague has begun.’ Then Aaron took it as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the assembly; and already the plague had begun among the people. So he put in the incense and made atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living; so the plague was stopped. Now those who died in the plague were fourteen thousand seven hundred, besides those who died in the Korah incident. So Aaron returned to Moses at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, for the plague had stopped." Numbers 16:46-50.

Notice the heart of Moses. His desire is to intercede for the people, to stand in the gap before God’s wrath destroyed them. Moses calls for Aaron to take a censor, put fire in it, and place incense on it and let it filter and flow over the people. And as he did, the wrath of God was stopped.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating that you go out and buy some incense and go around Manitowoc spreading its fragrance over the people of this city. They may lock you up if you do! But there is truly an important spiritual principle we can take from this story.

In Psalm 141:2 we read "Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." Also, in Revelation we read "Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints...Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. And he was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel's hand." Revelation 5:8, 8:3-4.

Thus, God is saying to us to do as Moses did, lift up our prayers before God, interceding for the people who are living in sin, in rebellion against God, that before He pours out His wrath against those who reject Him, that He would pour out His Spirit one last time, opening the eyes of the spiritually blind, stopping the plague of judgment before it is too late. For the children of Israel, 14,700 lost their lives besides those that died in the Korah incident. May we intercede before more are lost!

Instead of desiring judgment to fall on the wicked, that God would snuff them out, lets pray for them. That kind of attitude of seeing them destroyed is like what James and John, the sons of thunder, wanted to do, and Jesus rebuked them for their hearts desire. In Luke 9:51-56 we read, "Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’ But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them.’ And they went to another village."

They were ready to destroy sinners, like many Christians desire to do today, calling fire down from heaven. How easily we forget that we all came from that condition, sinners separated from God and deserving death. And yet God had mercy upon us and extended His hand of grace to us. That should be our hearts desire, to destroy sinners by seeing them get saved! We need to have compassion, love, forgiveness for them, which is very difficult at times. We must remember that our Lord had compassion, love, forgiveness with us!

Prayer is so important and yet we place prayer at the bottom of our busy schedule many times. Lift up your prayers before God. Spread them out before the Lord. Intercede for this nation and its people! Prayer is the heavy artillery in our spiritual armor that is spoken of in Ephesians chapter 6. Now as much as we are to pray for the lost, the wicked, we are not to allow them to overtake our families, our friends, and-so-on.

Turn to Nehemiah chapter 4 for a minute. In this passage of Scripture the children of Israel had returned home from their captivity from Babylon. They had been home some 90 years or so, and the land, the city was still a mess. The walls were still broken down, the city in shambles and Nehemiah comes on the scene to encourage them and assist them in repairing the city and its walls.

And as soon as the work began, even before they started, the enemy was there to discourage them, threaten them, mock them, to get them to just give up. And I want to share with you what Nehemiah said to the people, who were discouraged, the work seemed overwhelming, and they were ready to just to throw in the towel. But in Nehemiah 4:14 we read "And I looked, and arose and said to the nobles, to the leaders, and to the rest of the people, ‘Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, great and awesome, and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.’"

Nehemiah tells the people to get things in perspective, God is in control, He is great, He is awesome! He then tells us to "fight" for our brethren, our sons, our daughters, our wives, our homes! The Hebrew word used for "fight" is LACHAM (law-kham), which speaks of doing battle, it speaks of consuming the enemy, it speaks of destroying the enemy!

Folks, if you are married, if you have children, if you have a family, parents,

grandparents, brothers and sisters, friends, you already understand that there is a battle going on to destroy them. Don’t allow that to happen. I will tell you this right now, my family is so important to me that I will not allow the enemy to destroy it, though he can and has tried. My children, I will not allow the enemy to take them away, to destroy their faith. My prayer is that God will do whatever it takes to see that doesn’t happen. Yes the attack is heavy, and at times it may seem like we are losing, but don’t ever give up the fight!

For my parents, brothers and their wives, I will not give up interceding on their behalf that their eyes would be opened to the Lord. The battle is intense, it is difficult, but our God is awesome, He is great, and He will fight for us to see these victories.

Think about it for a minute. Imagine you were in a war, and you and 5 of your best friends were pinned down in a fox hole with the enemy all around you. Are you going to just give up or are you going to fight until the battle is over? Of course you are going to fight!

Don’t do anything less for your family, your wife, your children, your friends. As you intercede, and the enemy sees what God is doing, the enemy does get discouraged, and God is going to complete the work that He has started. Notice what Nehemiah said in chapter 4 verse 15. We read "And it happened, when our enemies heard that it was known to us, and that God had brought their plot to nothing, that all of us returned to the wall, everyone to his work."

I like that. The enemy saw they could not be victorious in fighting against God, and in the victory, in having the correct perspective of the situation, that we as a body of believers can join together in prayer, can do the work as a body of believers, and see all that God can do.

May we not be like the crowd who booed, and complained at what wasn’t getting done. May we get off our easy boy chairs and get into the battle, encourage each other and intercede for this nation and its people. It is as Hanani the seer said to king Asa in II Chronicles 16:9, "For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him..."

May we be those people whom God shows Himself strong through. Start with your families and work outward and see all that God wants to do, He will bless you above all you ask or think. All He is asking you to do is surrender your heart to Him, and look at this world through the eyes of Jesus with eternity as the back drop!