Sermon Tone Analysis

Are You A Gapper?

PP-Have you ever needed some help?

Where you felt as though you were sinking?

To the point that all was under water?

Maybe the hot water heater went out in the house and water is pouring out of the hot water heater and its in the middle of the winter, so no warm shower.

Your cooking dinner, the phone rings and the person needs to talk, the baby starts crying, the doorbell rings, its the relatives coming from out of town and you forgot to change the sheets in the guest room.

Have you ever been stranded on the side of the highway?

What about moving from one place to another?

How frustrating is it young people to have homework, and think you understand it when the teacher is teaching it, and you get home to do the assignment and what you thought you understood, you didn’t!

Fellas have you ever been working on the car, go into the project and figured out that you needed an extra hand?

But God in His great mercy, still looks for an answer to fix their disobedience problem without having them carried off as captives into Babylon.

Well in the scripture we’re going to read today, where God WANTED help! “Say What!”, yes, I said it, God wanted some help!

I know what you’re thinking… God can do anything, he doesn’t need us, but He wants us to help him!

He said,

It was a request sent throughout humanity, to see who would be committed to seeing His purposes done.

It was a request sent throughout humanity, to see who would be committed to seeing His purposes done.

PP- (NIV)

30“I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.

God was saying, “ I searched for a person on the planet earth who would stand before me or stand up for the people of the earth.

I need some help.

I need someone who will stand up and intercede for my people.”

Someone who will pray, deny themselves, and cry aloud and spare not”

Someone who will inconvenience themselves, someone who not only talks about helping others but will actually take time out to seek the face of God on behalf of others!

They will fill in the gap!

(NIV)

30“I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.

Ask the person next to you, “Are You A Gapper?”

Today’s teaching is, “Are you A Gapper?”

Today’s teaching is, “r u a Gapper?”

PP- A gapper is a go between.

A person who acts as a mediator by means of prayer.

They go on behalf of someone or a group of people who are in trouble.

The goal is to bridge the “gap” between God and man.

They attempt to mend the relationship or build a relationship between two or more parties that are at odds.

The theme, or encapsulation of Ezekiel’s prophecy is that the fall of Jerusalem and His people being carried away into Babylonian captivity are looking more and more necessary at this point in order to correct His disobedient people and draw them back from complete and permanent apostasy.

But God in His great mercy, still looks for an answer to fix their disobedience problem without having them carried off as captives into Babylon.

He is looking for one last ditch effort.

He said…

PP- (NIV)

30“I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.

The Walls

The Walls

PP- The analogy of a gap, hole, breach in the city wall was chosen because of its obvious overtones about the impending fall of Jerusalem.

The walls of ancient cities are lines of defenses.

The walls of a city represents safety and protection from outside negative influences.

The wall you see here isn’t the original wall around jerusalem.

This was the one built by the Turks in the 16th century.

This is just one of several walls that had been built around Jerusalem.

Why because enemies had torn them down!

At various times of Israel's history, enemies would come and knock holes in the walls so that encroachment would be easier.

The city has been destroyed many times and rebuilt.

But this wall metaphor speaks of their spiritual walls.

Things are ultimately destroyed because of a hole, a fissure, a leak, a space, that the enemy poked.

Then he chips away and eventual invades, influences, and annihilates.

The holes come from the enemy!

When he gets in he dominates (by influence), deceives (defrauding, causing delusions), delights in order to destroy (the pleasures of sin)! turn people away from their proper .

There are holes in families, relationships, communities, governments, the church, and it allowed, the enemy will come in and take over!

What we see in Ezekiel Chapter 22 is sin in the city from the result of breaches by an enemy!

PP- God told Ezekiel to confront the sin in the city.

God told Ezekiel to confront the sin in the city.

(NIV)

1The word of the Lord came to me:

2“Son of man, will you judge her?

Will you judge this city of bloodshed?

Then confront her with all her detestable practices

3and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: You city that brings on herself doom by shedding blood in her midst and defiles herself by making idols,

4you have become guilty because of the blood you have shed and have become defiled by the idols you have made.

You have brought your days to a close, and the end of your years has come.

Therefore I will make you an object of scorn to the nations and a laughingstock to all the countries.

5Those who are near and those who are far away will mock you, you infamous city, full of turmoil.

6“ ‘See how each of the princes of Israel who are in you uses his power to shed blood.

7In you they have treated father and mother with contempt; in you they have oppressed the foreigner and mistreated the fatherless and the widow.

8You have despised my holy things and desecrated my Sabbaths.

9In you are slanderers who are bent on shedding blood; in you are those who eat at the mountain shrines and commit lewd acts.

10In you are those who dishonor their father’s bed; in you are those who violate women during their period, when they are ceremonially unclean.

11In you one man commits a detestable offense with his neighbor’s wife, another shamefully defiles his daughter-in-law, and another violates his sister, his own father’s daughter.

12In you are people who accept bribes to shed blood; you take interest and make a profit from the poor.

You extort unjust gain from your neighbors.

And you have forgotten me, declares the Sovereign Lord.

Drop Down to how the Civil and religious leaders acted:

(NIV)

25 There is a conspiracy of her princes within her like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they devour people, take treasures and precious things and make many widows within her.

26 Her priests do violence to my law and profane my holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference between the unclean and the clean; and they shut their eyes to the keeping of my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.

27 Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey; they shed blood and kill people to make unjust gain.

28Her prophets whitewash these deeds for them by false visions and lying divinations.

They say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says’—when the Lord has not spoken.

29 The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the foreigner, denying them justice.

30 “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.

31 So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

This lists of sinful behavior came because the enemy either assaulted or schemed their way in.

PP- Gaps are sometimes caused by embracing the practices of the world.

Sometimes holes in our protective walls are caused by an assault, and other times they are caused by our own embracing of worldly practices!

PP- (NIV)

PP- (NIV)

You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you.

Do not follow their practices.

All of this happened because they allowed their enemies, the Canaanites philosophies, idol worship, ideologies to infiltrate their lifestyle and destroy their faithfulness to God.

To poke holes in their spiritual walls!

When you allow sin to reign, problems to fester, issues to go unaddressed, things will go haywire!

They allowed the enemy to come in, and to make matters worst they didn’t repair the holes in their spiritual walls and then put him out!