STANDING IN THE GAP

STANDING IN THE GAP

Ezekiel 22 describes a scenario that was detestable to God. Bloodshed, idol worship, disregard for widows and orphans were going on. Disregard for religious rites and festivals and adultery were rampant. Even Priests and Prophets were stealing from the temple treasury, committed murder and gave false prophecies. God compared the people to rusted precious metal that is worthless.

God was angry with the people and was going to cleanse them in a painful process, but not without first giving them a chance to repent. He therefore looked for a righteous person whom He could send to talk the people into repentance but could not find any. Ezekiel 22:30 says, And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. (KJV)

“Make up the hedge” and “stand in the gap” are English expressions called metaphors. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase, which literally means one kind of object or idea, is applied to another, thereby suggesting a similarity between them. A hedge can be made of a bunch of protective plants or a solid wall usually found around a house or a town. The Bible uses this idea to illustrate the invisible spiritual protection that God places around His children. For example, Elisha’s servant saw the heavenly forces defending them when the Syrian army came to arrest him (2 Kings 6:17), the Psalmist said that the Lord surrounds His people with spiritual protection just the way the mountains around Jerusalem provided it with natural protection (Psalm 125:2) and Lucifer once declared that God had placed a spiritual hedge of protection around Job and all his possessions (Job 1:10).

But this spiritual protective hedge can be broken, thus making the believer vulnerable to Satan’s attacks. In Job’s case mentioned above, God deliberately opened up the hedge so that Satan could harm him. In the case of the people of Jerusalem described in Ezekiel 22, it was their sinful ways that had broken their spiritual protective hedge. God looked for a righteous person to go and warn them the same way He had sent Jonah to the people of Nineveh, but He could find even one.

When Adam and Eve fell in the Garden, their spiritual hedge of protection was opened up allowing sickness, pain, disease, hatred, impatience, etcetera, to afflict them. God had to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to come down to earth from heaven to pay for all men’s sins and to show mankind the way of salvation. Jesus therefore stands in the gap for all sinful men today to save us from hell.

In similar manner, Moses stood in the gap for the nation of Israel in the matter of their freedom from Egyptian slavery when he doggedly negotiated with Pharaoh for their release. Esther too stood in the gap for the Jews when she risked her life by approaching the king without a prior appointment and asked him to repeal the law that condemned all Jews to death. Jonah’s story is all about a man who stood in the gap for the sinful people of Nineveh. William Wilberforce stood in the gap for all slaves and fought for twenty years till slave trade was abolished by Great Britain. More recently, Nelson Mandela stood in the gap for all oppressed black South Africans till the apartheid system was ended in that country. 

I am convinced that Nigeria’s hedge of protection has been broken in several places as we speak. I say this because we are committing the same horrible sins that the people of Jerusalem were recorded to have committed in Ezekiel 22. One of the most popular words in our country’s lexicon today is ‘corruption’. Corruption is one word that lumps together all the vices described in Ezekiel 22. It includes stealing from the public treasury, contract inflation, extortion from drivers on our roads, under-dispensing of fuel by petrol stations, rape, adultery, telling lies, tribalism, nepotism, cronyism, bad governance, militancy, and so on. Amnesty International has classified our country among the most corrupt in the world.

God must be talking to some righteous people right now to rise up above the rot and sound a note of warning about the disaster that could fall on us if we do not repent of these evils. If you feel highly grieved by these vices, it could be that God wants you to stand in the gap for others. God may be leading you to do something about the godlessness. Please do not hesitate.

I felt a strong need to put pressure on government about certain things so I called a few friends to join me in starting a socio-political movement in 2013. Again in 2014, I felt a strong need to intercede in prayer for our State in view of the continual bloodshed going on, so I put together a team of intercessors who gave birth to the Plateau Indigenous Independent Ministers Association (PIIMA) with the motto, “Standing in the gap”. God wants you to do something about that detestable situation around you so that others may be saved. I plead with you to get up and stand in the gap. You can do it. God will bless you for saving others.