Administrators Wanted

“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.” (Eze 22:30 AV)

This verse is often used to motivate those called into full-time Christian service to surrender to said call.  But the context is slightly different.  What the LORD is speaking of here is not the lack of prophets.  Jeremiah is the one penning these Spirit led words.  Isaiah was a contemporary.  There were prophets among the people. The verse says there one absolutely no one willing to stand in the gap.  The LORD is not speaking of a dearth of prophets proclaiming the word of God.  Of what He is speaking is a lack of kings willing to administer the word of God which the prophet is preaching.  There isn’t a lack of declaring. There is a lack of administration.  This is a telling sign to the church of God in the later days.  There won’t be a lack of preaching.  There will be a lack of administration.

What I have seen happen in the midst of my generation is alarming and sad.  We have lost the will to administrate.  The home is run by children and not be a father willing to lead and correct.  Our government is led by the loudest and most obnoxious of voices rather than the rule of law set down several hundred years ago.  In our churches, we have leaders not willing to make hard choices that result in spiritually sound bodies of believers.  We have become too timid, fearing God’s people will leave in droves for the soft-spoken preacher-politicians building churches on the power of positive thinking rather than on the hard truths of the word of God.  We have churches that tolerate perverted and wicked behavior in the lives of its members because we want to be popular.  We will have no minimum standard for service or membership and every person will do that which is right in his own eyes.  Leadership will not create and enforce standards or guidelines for membership or service and produce a powerless church sustained by mere emotional experience.  We have no backbone.  Heaven forbid church discipline is ever exercised.  Someone might get offended.

This was the cause of the downfall of Israel and Judah.  There was no administration of the law.  There was plenty of publishing.  It was preached and taught well.  But if the people of God are not willing to live what they hear, and there is no authority to administer the word of God, all the preaching in the world is not going to change a thing.  What we need are men who have backbones who are willing to take a stand and then stand!  We need men willing to administer the word of God, first in their own lives, then in the lives with whom then are charged.  We need men who will do the hard things no matter what the outcome will be!  Men who are willing to say ‘no’ when the temptation of compromise with promises of popularity come about.  Men who are just as concerned with what is done as they are with what is said!  Men of administration.