Today's Bible Reading: EZEKIEL 22:17-23:49, 24:1-14; 2 KINGS 24:20-25:2; JEREMIAH 52:3-5, 39:1
Ezekiel 22:30
And 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.
It seems that there are seasons when cultures collapse into ruin. They might have been viable and vibrant in the past, but that time had passed. They had regressed into a pathetic state of decline and degradation. Their moral character had cratered and had given rise to their duplicitous debauchery. If only there was someone who would rise up and lead them beyond their bewildered state.
This was the situation of the Israelites in our text. They had rejected their God as their Lord and had chosen to follow their own path. Moral corruption had overtaken everyone, the prophets (v25), the priests (v 26), the princes (v 27) and the people (v 29). The line between the holy and unholy, and the clean and unclean had become blurred. The people of God were no longer distinct and different. (v 26). Their character and conduct couldn’t be distinguished from their unbelieving counterparts. They did as everyone around them. They followed the ways of the world and fell into worldliness.
The Lord compares their corruption to a wall surrounding a city that provided protection from enemies who would encroach upon it. He suggests that a portion of the wall had been dismantled making it ineffective in protecting the inhabitants from sure destruction. Their deliberate debauchery had demolished the “wall” of the Lord’s protection for His people. Their sinful behavior breached the wall and brought upon them God’s wrath. Apart from a gracious act of mercy from the Lord, they would be utterly annihilated.
Yet even in the height of their hideous behavior, the Lord holds out a hand of help. He seeks for one who had remained faithful in the midst of their faithlessness. He looked for one whose heart was wholly His. He sought after someone who was righteous rather than rebellious and who had not been deceived or enticed by the enemy. He looked for someone like Hezekiah or Josiah who “. . . did what was right in the eyes of the Lord . . . “ (2 Chron 34:2). He holds back His hand in hopes of finding someone “who would make a wall and stand in the gap before Him, to divert the approaching destruction. God is unwilling to give up on His people. His hope for their repentance and return to Him was extended one last time. So in a last ditch effort to awaken their affections, avert His wrath and lead them to return to Him, the Lord searches. He seeks for them a savior.
But among all His people, He could find none, not one. Their corruption was so pervasive and perverted that it was impossible to find a righteous intercessor whom could stand in the breach and beech the Lord to be merciful to His people. There was no one who could cry out to the Lord to avert His anger, there was no one to call the people to repentance and reformation, there was no one to lead them to reject their rebellious ways and there was no one to revive their relationship with the Lord. He sought for a man among them, but found no one
This is our plight as well. We are embedded under God’s wrath for our deliberate disobedience. His anger is burning against us because of our sins. Our transgressions have created an unholy rift between us and a holy God. As Isaiah states, your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. (Is 59:1-2). We like them have a breach in our wall. We have a gaping gap between us and our God. Also, like them we can find no one among us that can stand in the gap. We are all unrighteous and incapable of this great task.
But there is one who is like us, yet different. He resembles us, but without sin. He is the one who can stand in the gap for us. He is our gap-filler. Jesus is the one who by His life and work can avert God’s wrath. He is our only hope of salvation. No other one can be found (Is 45:22). He alone can save us. It was Jesus who stood in the gap on the cross, by his death closing the rift between unholy men and a Holy God. He was the righteous one who hung on Calvary to being us, the unrighteous ones, into a right relationship with God. (1 Peter 3:18)
Today thank the Lord for Jesus our gap-filler. Look to Him as your only hope of salvation. Let others know of the hope that you have and that the can have in Him.
Comments