Prayer: Standing in the Gap

1986

Now, here’s a good question for you, and maybe it’s one you have asked yourself before. Why is it that God needs our prayers to do His will on this earth? Doesn’t He want to do that? What in the world does He need us for? He knows us. He knows that we can’t be of a whole lot of value to Him. So why does He do that? Would He do it anyway? And the answer is no. He wouldn’t do it anyway, not apart from our prayer.

In Ezekiel 22:30, “‘I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so that I would not have to destroy, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all that they have done,’ declares the Sovereign Lord.” Now this was righteous judgment on God’s part—they deserved it. He said they deserved the fiery judgment and deserved His wrath. And all sin deserves the wrath of God. But God said, “I looked for a man among them who would stand in the gap, that would intercede, that would pray to me on their behalf. But I couldn’t find any!” His will was that He’d spare the nation. But because He found no one that would pray for the nation, He said, “I have no choice but to destroy it.” His will was to spare it. His judgment, His justice said I must destroy it because no one would stand in the gap, no one would pray.

In Daniel chapter 9, this one really intrigues me. In Daniel 9:1, “The first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.” So here’s what happened. Daniel is walking through life. He is studying Jeremiah chapter 25, and he reads in Jeremiah chapter 25 that they are going to be in bondage for seventy years. And so immediately dropping to his knees when he read that—verse 4, “I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: ‘Oh Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of love with all who love Him and obey His commands…’ That’s who His covenant is for—those that love Him and obey His commands. “We have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and to all the people of the land.” In verse 11, “Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us because we have sinned against you.” Verse 14, “The Lord did not hesitate to bring disaster upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything He does; yet we have not obeyed Him.” In verse 17, “Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, oh Lord, look with favor on Your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, oh God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your Name. We do not make requests of You because we are righteous, but because of Your great mercy. Oh Lord, listen! Oh Lord, forgive! Oh Lord, hear and act! For Your sake, oh my God, do not delay because Your city and Your people bear Your Name.” He read the word of God in Jeremiah chapter 25. He saw that they were going to be in bondage for seventy years. He saw that their time was almost up. And immediately this man of God who read the word of God, the revealed will of God in the word of God, and he still was compelled to pray about it. He pleaded with God to fulfill His word. Here is a case of even a prophecy, and a man of God fell on his knees to beg God to fulfill his own prophecy! God will not act apart from the prayers of His people. We think God just functions independent of us, and He doesn’t do that—even in His prophecy.

Something that we need to appreciate in light of all of this is that we’re partners with Jesus Christ. We’re partners with God through Jesus Christ and by his Spirit. In John chapter 20, we see something that’s a little bit frightening. John chapter 20: 21, “Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’” “As the Father has sent me (in the same way the Father has sent me) I’m sending you.” How many of you “old-timers” remember the show “Andy of Mayberry”? Anybody? Yeah, most of you do. There is one episode I thought of while I read this verse. It was an episode where there was an arch criminal on the loose. Andy and Barney Fife didn’t feel like they could handle the big responsibility of this arch criminal being on the loose so they found some of the upstanding citizens in the community like Goober and Gomer Pyle, and they deputized them. They were all running around in these badges. What happened there was Andy of Mayberry had this authority, and what he did was he bestowed this same authority on these other people. He deputized them with the authority that was invested in him. That’s what Jesus is saying. He said, “The Father has sent me. He has authorized my presence. He has given me authority. And in the same way the Father has sent me, I am sending you. I am deputizing you." That’s where we stand as disciples of Christ—we’re deputized on the same mission that Jesus was sent on. “Go make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit teaching them to obey all things that I’ve commanded you.” You see there’s that word “deputies”—we’re partners with Jesus. We are partners because we’re His body. We’re partners because the same Spirit that was within Him is within us, if we’re disciples of His. And so we have the same mission that He did.

Now because of all that look at verse 22 and verse 23, “And with that He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” Now, is that scary or what? Now, I’ve heard that manipulated and thought-peddled for a lot of years now. I’ve never heard a satisfactory explanation of that, that really describes exactly what that says. It says what it says what it says, and I’m not about to tell Jesus He was wrong. There’s something in there that’s a little bit hard to understand, for sure, but maybe it has something to do with supernatural weapons. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we can demolish satan's strongholds, but we’re not at satan’s mercy, pushed to and fro by everything he wants to do. There is a part that we can play in the forgiveness of sins and demolishing his strongholds in people’s lives.