Standing in the Gap Pt.2
II PETER 3:9-10
9 ¶ The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (Peter is setting the attitude of God toward man just before judgement)
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
EZEKIEL 22:30
30 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.
When the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God, we found out that only four of the five cities of the plain were destroyed, and that the city of Zoar was spared because of one righteous man (Lot) who was present in Zoar at the time of when judgement fell, so by one man all of the inhabitance of the city was spared - a type of Christ, and also a type of this end time age.
GENESIS 19:20-25
20 Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. (Lot knew judgement was Imminent)
21 And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken.
22 Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
23 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.
24 ¶ Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
This is symbolic of what will take place in this day.
Standing in the Gap Pt.2
We saw from last week how that God saved the inhabitance of an entire city by the presence of just one righteous man in that city - Lot.
From Abraham’s negotiating with God right down to just 10 righteous people in order to save a city, we see how that God showed us that it only required just one person for God to spare an entire city – this is showing us something of how great the grace and mercy of God really is, and of how important we are in this hour for the purpose of God to save life.
*God saves life through people who are qualified to stand in the gap.
When we begin to look into this subject of “Standing in the Gap” we start to see that it is written all over the bible. God also placed this experience in Brother Branham’s life directly after the opening of the seven seals.
Last week we saw how that directly after the message of Mordecai was first made known to Esther, she expressed thoughts of a lack of a willingness to stand in the gap for her people because of the risk to her own life.
***And so for the story of Esther to go on into victory, she had to first have a change of heart under the ministry of Mordecai in order for her to come into a full willingness to put her life on the line and to stand in the gap for her people – we see how that Brother Branham knew that he needed a change of heart also.
*God is looking for people who are able to stand in the gap in the time of judgement – this is a principle that runs all through the scriptures.
*And these people who are able to stand in that gap are people who meet certain qualifications - and we will find out that we are a people that meet these qualifications in this end time age.
*We saw last week how that Jonah had to have a change of heart from when he first began to run from his responsibility to then standing in the gap for the lives of the sailors on the ship.
JONAH 1:1-3
1 ¶ Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, (Just like how that the word of the Lord came to a prophet in our day. On the 17th of February 1965, brother Branham preaches a message call “A Man running from the Presence of the Lord” because he knew that he had been that man like Jonah in that he had also tried to run away from the responsibility that God had called his life to back in May 1963 just after the opening of the seven seals)
2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.
3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD,
(Jonah wanted to take the easy road of life just like we mostly all want to do. And so we can see a parallel in this day with Brother Branham’s life because just after the seals were revealed, he then wanted to run away and take the easy road and move out into the wilderness 1100 miles from civilization just like Jonah wanted to get as far away from Nineveh as he could)
JONAH 1:10-12
10 Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. (Notice – a whole ship and people coming under judgement because of one man running from the presence of the Lord – this also happened with Adam when the whole human race came under judgement and death after Adam left the presence of the Lord)
11 ¶ Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous.
12 And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. (Something had happened to Jonah - Jonah has had a change of heart and was now willing to stand in the gap for these sailors by sacrificing his life – a type of Christ giving his life for the salvation of the world)
*Abraham stands in the gap for Lot in Genesis 18
*Judah (a type of Christ) stood in the gap for Benjamin in Genesis 44 when the stolen cup was discovered in Benjamin’s sack, this was just before Joseph (also a type of Christ) revealed himself to his brothers. The whole drama of how Joseph spoke rough to his brothers and hiding the money in their sacks and hiding the cup in Benjamin’s sack - it was all about testing to see if his brothers had had a change of heart from how they had treated him at the beginning.
*Moses stood in the gap between an angry God and a stiff-necked people.
*Rahab stood in the gap for her people (her family) at the time of when Jerico was under judgement.
*All of these different places in the bible is showing us one great picture of the spirit of Christ that stood in the gap for the entire human race.
STANDING.IN.THE.GAP_ JEFF.IN V-6 N-7 SUNDAY_ 63-0623M
161 Moses lost the feeling of his people because they wouldn't listen to him. And, Brother Roy, you see your dream? And now I cannot go, with a ministry like that, until I feel different in my heart about it, no matter if God did tell me. But that is that change that Brother Roy... that seen coming. Something's got to change me, because I, in my heart, if I go out there feeling the way I do now; I still feel that they ought to have heard that Message, they ought to a-done it. And I don't have the feeling for the people that I should have. Until I can get that feeling, there is no need in me going, because I'd be a hypocrite.
**So by the help of the Lord we want to try to look a little bit deeper into this subject of Standing in the Gap, because we know that there are dimensions of truth that will unlocked greater to us as we go on in our growth and maturity with the revelation of this hour.
JEREMIAH 5:1
1 ¶ Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.
**The sins of the people had been filling up the city of Jerusalem, and the Babylonian power that was God’s instrument of judgment was moving towards it.
And so God is saying “Run through the streets of Jerusalem and look around in the broad places and see if you can find a man of one that seeketh the truth of my word, and if you can then I will pardon this entire place.” God is desperate for someone who is qualified to stand in the gap.
*Just like in this day, the message of the hour that has come to us through a vindicated prophetic ministry, very few people are seeking to know its truth in this day. There are many cities in the world today that don’t even have one believer of this end time message dwelling in them. And so this scripture is actually showing us the condition of the world that we are living in today.
*So when we look back to this time of Jeremiah, we see that the city of Jerusalem had arrived at a place of such a terrible condition in that it had become so desensitized to the things of God, and especially to the prophets that God had sent them.
The people had become so callous in their hearts – their hearts were filled with lies and corruption and robbery and deceit of what we read about in Ezekiel 22 that God had no other alternative but to bring judgment upon them.
**So God is saying, “If you can find a man that is seeking Truth, then I will pardon the entire place for the sake of that one man.
***God was looking for a man who could stand in the gap for the people, a man that would stay His judgment from striking the people, because He would not be able to strike this righteous man along with the wicked because His great character of justice would never allow that. This is what the story of the cities of the plains teach us – The inhabitants of Zoah were all spared because of the presence of Lot in there city.
EZEKIEL 22:30-31
30 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.
31 Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD.
STANDING.IN.THE.GAP_ JEFF.IN V-6 N-7 SUNDAY_ 63-0623M
40 Now, today, if God was going to a liquidate the people, and there was a time that when God had gotten tired of fooling with our sin, we constantly going wrong, who would stand like Moses, today, for the people? Where would we find a person that would stand, or could stand, that God would accept like He did Moses? And Moses' own life on earth meant so much to God till it stayed the wrath of God, and God would not cross over Moses.
(This is why the ministry of Malachi 4 – if God had not sent it in this generation, then God would have cursed the whole world with a curse. That is why every single person alive in this generation owes their literal existence on earth to God keeping his promise to send a prophet like Moses to this generation - MALACHI 4:5
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
*As believers of the one whom God has sent in this day, we are also included in this in that if there was no one in this age that was able to receive the revelation of the truth that this prophet would bring, then the earth would have by now already been smitten with a curse – it is you and I who are seeking the truth of what God has sent in this hour that is staying the judgements of God from destroying the earth with atomic fire, and so this is how important it is for you to seek and to believe the truth of the message that God has sent for this day, because this is the very thing that is sparing the lives of billions of people. We are the people in the cities of the world that are holding back the judgements of God.)
That always was a puzzle to me till I... One day, in revelation of the Scripture, there came this thought to me. That, you see, Moses, in act, was every way substituting. He was a type of Jesus Christ.
41 And when God was going to take the life of the whole world, and destroy it, and all the sinners, and condemned to die, Christ died for us all. And God could not cross over Christ, being His Own Son.
__________
*If we are able to backtrack a little to our last study of the loud voice that causes the resurrection to take place. We studied that subject from the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead by the loud voice of Christ being shouted out in St. John CH11 – we have heard that same loud voice of Christ being shouted out in this generation also.
*We tried to show how that it is because of the voice of this message sounding forth in this day, that that is also what calls the sleeping saints out of the literal graves just as it has call the living saints of this age out of denominational graves of spiritual darkness of the ignorance of the 7 church ages.
*The rapture event takes place in 3 parts of the Shout, Voice, and Trump.
The shout was the message to gather the living saint, the voice was the voice of the resurrection to wake the sleeping saints, and the Trump calls us all to the wedding supper in the sky – this is what Brother Branham teaches us in the rapture message.
*The problems we have as humans of why we sometimes struggle with these things is that we have preconceived imaginations of what the symbols of the bible will look like in reality form, so that when the reality of the event actually takes place, we miss it in its reality form because we have become so focused on what we have imagine how something will look like when it happens.
*So, when we imagine of what this great loud voice of the resurrection shouting out will look like in real life, many have thought about it like of what a Pentecostal baby would think of, like that when we get to heaven there will be harps everywhere – but when Brother Branham went beyond the curtain of time, he never saw people sitting on clouds and floating around and playing beautiful music with harps.
**So then it is often our imagination that interferes with and blinds us from seeing the truth of the reality of how things actually play out in reality form of when God brings his word to pass.
AMOS 3:7
7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
*If the message of this hour hadn’t come though the ministry of a prophet – could there have been a maturity and a perfection of an end time bride and the resurrection and a rapture in this day? - I don’t think so.
*If Isaiah had not prophesied that a virgin shall conceive – would Mary have conceived 800 odd years later? I don’t think so according to Amos 3:7.
*Amos 3:7 states that before God does something in reality form, he will first speak it and reveal it through the channel of a prophet on earth.
**And this is what the message of the hour has done in that certain things had to be spoken in this hour in order to bring on the reality of the event.
THE.RAPTURE_ YUMA.AZ V-5 N-14 SATURDAY_ 65-1204
178 One day, there will come a blast from Heaven, "And the dead in Christ shall rise first." Them Old Testament saints back yonder, who are waiting, will blast forth and come out of there first, and go into the resurrection. We'll drop right in line, going into the sky; these old mortal bodies changed and made like unto His Own glorious body. What a--what a parade that'll be when it starts heavenward, some of these days, in that rapturing time that lays ahead, oh, proudly displaying the Blood of Jesus Christ upon their chests, the Message of God in the hour that they lived in. That's the hour that we're looking forward to, brother.
179 Looky, just in closing now. The second resurrection, all... First one is past. The second one is at hand, right now, will come to hand now.
180 Now, the third one is the two witnesses of Revelations 11:11 and 12. Which, these are the ones that turns back, with the Spirit of Christ, to witness to the Jews, like Joseph did to his brethren. And remember, "Their dead bodies laid in the street, for three days and a half. Then the spirit of life came into them, and they were raptured, taken up into Heaven."
There is your three raptures of the New Testament.
Three raptures of the Old Testament; all of them past.
181 Now we're ready, waiting for the raptures, the Rapture of the saints. It's been spoken, and so shall it be. When God says anything, "All heavens and earth will pass away, but that Word will never fail."
THE.RAPTURE_ YUMA.AZ V-5 N-14 SATURDAY_ 65-1204
206 It's been spoken. It has to come to pass. It will come to pass.
So God is also playing out this great drama of standing in the gap in this day also, but when we ourselves look at our own lives with our everyday struggles, we can struggle to see how that we are a part of this great drama of the word being live out in this day – yet God is writing the mystery of these truths into the story of your life also.
Look at Abraham’s life. When we follow the pattern of Abrahams journey, we find that it’s the same pattern of the time of Luther coming out of the Catholic Church, because Luther coming out of the Catholic Church is a type of Abraham coming out of Babylon.
*In Genesis 12 – Abraham came out of Babylon, that was Luther coming out of the Catholic Church with a message of “The just shall live by their faith”.
*In Genesis 15 – God confirmed the covenant with Abraham by blood, that represented the Methodist Age of Wesley - the message of the Blood, sanctification.
*Then in Genesis 17 – God revealed Himself in the form of a nursing mother. That was the Pentecostal Age representing Pentecostal babies feeding on the milk of the breast.
*And then at the end of the Pentecostal Age comes Genesis 18, God in a man with dust on His clothes that was able to discerned the secrets of Sarah’s heart with his back turned to the tent showing a prophetic ministry of a Son of Man ministry in the last days just before Abraham and Sarah were changed back young again. What did Abraham call Him? “The Judge of all the earth”, because it was a time of investigation judgment just before Abraham and Sarah were turned back young again and Sodom was destroyed by fire.
*And so when Abraham understood that the judgment of God was coming, and the bible is showing us a spirit of intercession that was in Abraham at that time because we see how that he began to plead and to throw himself in the gap for the sake of the people.
So when God was being revealed as Judge, Abraham became an advocate. An advocate is one who pleads the cause of another.
*We are living in a world where they have legalized same-sex marriage and it has been forced upon all the nations. The world has become so wicked and dark in this end time generation, and the cry of it has come up to God, and God has come down, and there is a people on earth that have met with the same one that Abraham met with back then – and so there is to be a spirit of intercession that is to be upon us in this hour.