Stand in the Gap

Read the book of Ezekiel sometime. Not some of it. All of it. The whole thing. Start to finish. I’ll warn you. It’s kind of depressing. But that’s never stopped you before. Gladiator is depressing. Nicholas Sparks is depressing. So, you’re used to it.

         The book of Ezekiel (spoiler warning!) is filled with God telling the prophet Ezekiel how He is going to pour His wrath on Israel, because they have stopped following Him. And when I say they “stopped following Him,” I mean they went off the deep end. Off the cliff. Climbed the high dive and plunged too deep for the lifeguard to see.

         The people of Israel weren’t just breaking a few rules here or there. They had completely conformed to the ways of the surrounding countries. To list just a few things, they were: robbing, mistreating the poor, burning their children as a sacrifice to false gods, and to put it lightly…sleeping around with whoever they felt like.

         It got so bad that God Himself said this of the people, “As men gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the midst of a furnace, to blow fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you in My anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there and melt you. Yes, I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you shall be melted in its midst. As silver is melted in the midst of a furnace, so shall you be melted in its midst; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have poured out My fury on you.”

         Chapter after chapter, God condemns His people for their sins. BUT…verse 30 of chapter 22 shows the grace and mercy and love and long-suffering (patience) of God so wonderfully. The first word read: “So...” So what? It seems God finally came to a conclusion. After 21 chapters, has he had enough? Is he going to kill them all?

        

         The verse continues. “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.”

         Please read that again. Think about it for a long time. These people are slaughtering their own children for false gods. Yet, God is seeking ONE man. One. Just one person. One man who called out on behalf of his people would have saved them all. What mercy. Sadly, the verse continues.

“…but I found no one.”

Don’t read on until that sinks into your soul. No one. An entire people group. All of them fallen away. Every single person. The more I read this book, the more Israel looks more and more and more familiar to me, and it scares me like crazy.

There’s also hope, certainly. After all, this is the United States of America. This is Canada. This is Australia. This is…fill in the blank. Certainly there are believers here willing to call on the name of the Lord. Stand in the gap. Certainly.

         I can’t help but wonder if Ezekiel thought the same thing.