A land with no rain

Pastor Devon Ortiz preached from Ezekiel 22:23-31 on one plain charge: take your spot and stand in it. In verse 24 God calls the land one "that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation." Pastor Ortiz explained that a lack of rain in Israel was always a sign of lost blessing and of God's judgment. If a life is consistently without blessing and nothing seems to get better, he said, the answer is not to work harder, get healthier, go to church more, or become more moral. None of that helps until a person repents and turns to God.

He reminded the church that every believer will answer for how they served God, and he shared a saying from his brother-in-law, also a pastor, that a pastor's job is to help God's people have a good judgment seat of Christ. God is long-suffering, he said, and is not waiting in heaven with a bat, eager to punish anyone. But He is just, and Ezekiel was telling the people exactly why judgment was coming.

He illustrated with a night years ago when he was driving home tired after preaching out of town and entered a freeway exit ramp going the wrong way. Headlights kept coming at him, and he thought the other drivers were not paying attention, until he had to swerve off the road and realized he was the one going the wrong direction. Some believers live that way, he said. God has posted the signs, and they drive past them while wondering why everyone else is going the wrong way. Israel had ignored the prophets and the teaching, and now they were asking why captivity was coming.

Every level is accountable

God addresses four groups in verses 25 to 29, and Pastor Ortiz had the congregation raise their hands to show where each person fits. In every verse, he said, a responsibility was left undone.

The priests. These are the ones who serve in ministry, which today means anyone serving in any capacity in the church. Verse 26 says Israel's priests "put no difference between the holy and profane." They erased the line between what is holy and what is common.

The prophets. These are the ones who preach. Verse 25 describes them taking precious things and devouring souls, and verse 28 says they claimed "Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken." Pastor Ortiz warned that using the word of God to hurt someone, or to show how much you know, is evil. The word of God is a sword and not a mallet. It should convict, and it should never beat people down.

The princes. These are bosses, managers, and anyone in authority over others. Verse 27 shows leaders more concerned with making money than with the God who provides. A business owner, he said, should stand before God every day and ask Him to bless the work, because that success brings God the glory.

The people. This is everyone else. Verse 29 shows the breakdown was not only at the top but in every home, because the people had not brought the word of God home with them. A person who lives one way at church and another way at home is a hypocrite, he said. No one is perfect, but that is no excuse not to strive for it. And no one is exempt from leadership, because someone is always watching: a sibling, a spouse, a fellow church member.

How the baton was dropped

Pastor Ortiz then traced how faith has been handed down in this country, or failed to be. The builders, born from 1901 to 1927, carried their faith through the Depression and World War II, and it shaped church and family life. The silent generation, born from 1928 to 1945, gave sacrificially to build the churches of the 1950s, because conviction mattered more than comfort. The boomers, born from 1946 to 1964, came of age distrusting institutions; faith became compartmentalized, and they began to outsource the work of the ministry to the pastor. Generation X, born from 1965 to 1980, grew up in the divorce boom, often coming home to an empty house with no family altar and no Bible. The millennials, born from 1981 to 1996, saw the rise of atheism and secularism, and the baton was set down. Generation Z, born from 1997 to 2012, has been discipled by screens and influencers, and many of them know about God without knowing God.

He compared this to Judges 2:10, where "there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord." Many Christians today, he said, could not tell sound preaching from a prosperity message. No matter how many degrees a teacher has, the moment he explains away the Bible in a way that moves you further from God, he has discredited himself. He urged people not to hold positions they cannot support from scripture just because one person said so.

Standing in the gap

The turning point is verse 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." Pastor Ortiz said God is still looking for a dad, a mom, a pastor, a manager, a sibling, or a church member simply to do what they are supposed to do. He then walked through the verse phrase by phrase.

"I sought for a man." The word means searching with intent and vigor, the way someone who has lost their keys and needs to leave will turn over the whole house. God will turn things over too. He may disrupt a life, close doors, and withhold peace so that a person will stand where they should. He is not looking for the educated, the wealthy, or the perfect, but for someone who says, "My life is yours. I give it. It's not much. Do what you can." And if you do not take your spot, someone else will, because it is a privilege to serve the Lord. Pastor Ortiz told of visiting someone who lost a job after 42 years, just three years short of retirement, and said people pour their lives into work that will cut them when it suits, while neglecting treasure in heaven.

"Stand." To stand is to take position like a guard. He told the senior saints that their job is not done, because they know what sacrifice is and the younger generation does not. He told those in the middle years that they need to lead now, since that time does not come back. And he told young people to stop getting caught up in everything around them and get sold out for God now, so they are not looking back in twenty years asking what went wrong. He also said every person in the church is a minister before God, though he does not push anyone into full-time ministry, because that must be a calling.

"Make up the hedge." This is a defensive picture. A parent would step in front of a child in the street without thinking, and there are people each of us is responsible to protect in the same way.

"In the gap." The gap is the broken part of the wall, and Pastor Ortiz said there is one at Victory Baptist Church. Many of those who worked the nurseries for years are now past 65 and can no longer climb the stairs and lift the babies, while younger people who could help have not stepped up.

"Before me." This, he said, is prayer language. If he could know how many times each person had genuinely prayed that week, he might be afraid of the answer. He quoted a preacher who said all failures are prayer failures. We have no desire to stand in the gap because we have no desire to stand before God. But standing before God shows how big He is, and a person who sees that can stand in the gap knowing God will supply the strength, wisdom, and energy they lack.

A brokenhearted appeal

Pastor Ortiz said he was not preaching out of anger but out of a broken heart. He had realized that week how few men have stepped up and said they want to give God their lives, and he wondered who could carry the work of the church after him. People can keep doing the same thing every week, he said, sit in their spot, feel good about their checklist of Christianity, and walk out. But then they should not complain when the rains do not fall, when life feels without purpose, when a marriage falls apart, or when they find themselves alone. The congregation had opened by singing "Jesus and Me," and he said that for many it is only Jesus, because they are not in the picture.

He closed in prayer, asking God to create a sincere desire not to please the pastor or fulfill some ideal of what a Christian should be, but to please Him. He asked those who saw the need to stand in the gap to raise a hand. There was no altar call and no piano playing. He told them this was on them: God was moving them, and they needed to go talk to Him. You can lead a horse to water, he said, but you cannot make him drink, and you can lead a Christian to Christ, but you cannot make him serve.