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Father's Day Thoughts
God judges sin. The Lord our God is holy and perfect
in righteousness. And as any honest person will acknowledge, we humans
are not very holy, nor are we anywhere near perfect in righteousness.
We are diseased with sin. We have carried an infection since the first
two human beings walked this earth. It’s an infection of rebellion and
self-will. Every last human being has this wrongness inside, though the
symptoms may manifest themselves in very different ways. When allowed to
run its course to completion, James says that the sin inside us brings
forth death.
In our generation, our society has been allowed to explode with every
expression of sin. There are very few voices to speak against the evil
that men do. And I fear that even fewer voices have been raised to God
in earnest prayer on behalf of lost sinners. Yet it’s the work of the
church to do both: to speak up on God’s behalf to lost sinners, and to
speak to God on behalf of sinners.
As men of God, we’re to stand in the gap.
If there is no one to stand between sinful humanity and the perfect
righteousness of God, then judgment always comes. And when it comes, it
purges the land, one way or the other. Anyone with a Bible can flip
through the pages, from the first Garden, to the Flood, to the Canaan
nations who were destroyed or driven out before Israel, to the
Babylonian Exile, to the burning of Jerusalem by Rome in the first
Century. We can also see the same pattern in history since those days.
God judges sin. God judges sinners. God judges sinful groups of people,
such as families, cities, regions and nations. And some day, the Lord
will judge the whole earth, as He describes in the Scriptures. Likewise,
every human being will also be judged. God always judges sin.
God has revealed in Scripture that He wants us to stand in the gap.
Ultimately, of course, only one Man is able to turn back God’s righteous
judgment for the sins of human beings. That Man is Jesus of Nazareth. In
Jesus Christ, God intervened supremely to reconcile the sinners of
earth. And all who come under the protection of Jesus Christ will be
kept from ultimate judgment, as Jesus Himself promises in John 5:24.
But what about those who’ve not come under God’s protection? We see them
every day, all around us. Men and women and young people resist God’s
grace (usually in complete ignorance of God’s will) and they flaunt
their sin, their wicked lifestyles, their unbelief. They do not pray for
forgiveness or faith. They do not seek God’s protection and mercy. In
their ignorance of God’s will, they do not know what is coming. They may
joke about going to hell, but they have no idea what they’re joking
about.
Many in the Scriptures have stood in the gap, at various times in
history. Moses threw himself on the ground, more than once, pleading on
behalf of Israel. Job offered sacrifices for the sake of his children.
Prophets, such as Amos, pleaded with God to turn back from harsh
judgments (see Amos 7:1-6). And there are more.
Let’s see what God says about standing in the gap between His righteous
judgment and sinful people:
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: "Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the
son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the children of
Israel, because he was zealous with My zeal among them, so that I did
not consume the children of Israel in My zeal.” (Numbers 25:10, 11)
And about Phinehas, the Psalmist wrote: “...they provoked Him to anger
with their deeds, And the plague broke out among them. Then Phinehas
stood up and intervened, and the plague was stopped." (Psalm 106:29, 30)
Centuries later, God spoke to Ezekiel about Jerusalem and the kingdom of
Judah: "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." (Ezekiel 22:30)
Before Ezekiel’s time, Isaiah the prophet had already prophesied: "Then
the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw
that there was no man, and wondered (or was appalled) that there was no
intercessor..." (Isaiah 59:15b & 16a)
These and other passages make it very clear to me that God wants His
people to stand up -- not only to stand up in front of sinners for His
truth and His gospel -- but also to take a stand before the throne of
God on behalf of those who cannot or will not pray for themselves. As
Jesus is at the right hand of the Father interceding on behalf of God’s
children, so we as God’s children are to intercede on behalf of God’s
enemies -- those people who are still in rebellion against God.
See what the Spirit of God says through Paul in 1 Timothy 2:1-6 ---
Therefore I exhort first of all that earnest requests, prayers,
intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for everyone, for kings and
all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in
all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the
sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to
the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator
between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for
all, to be testified in due time…
We are to plead with God on behalf of everyone. We are to speak for
those who will not or cannot yet speak for themselves. We are to pray
for all in authority, and for everyone else around us. Pray for mercy,
pray for saving grace, pray for their needs to be met, pray for their
health, their prosperity (Jer. 29:7), for their well-being both now and
in eternity.
In the teachings and parables of Jesus, we see that God wants us to take
prayer seriously. And we also see that we’re not to think only of our
own selves. In fact, we are told to pray even for those who act as our
enemies. Why? Because they really need God’s mercy and grace, if they
are to be saved.
Standing in the gap does not mean that we ignore the sins of the people
around us. In fact, it means just the opposite. It means that we’re
provoked to action by the sins we see and hear around us. We agree with
God and we speak up on His behalf -- we speak the truth in love and by
His leading. And we also allow our hearts to be moved with God’s
compassion, remembering that we are also sinners, saved by grace, that
we also have rebelled against God. We were also lost and without hope
before God rescued us through faith in Jesus Christ.
Be a man of God. Stand in the gap. Count as one man for God. Be the man
who tells the truth. Be the man who weeps for the lost sinners around
you. Be God’s Man in this evil generation.
Jim Sutton
June 20, 2004
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