Cities of old used to fortify themselves by building a wall around them. Those walls created a barrier which complicated the actions of the enemy. The walls also kept other threats at bay, such as wild animals.
Unfortunately, neglect and withering attacks by adversaries could take a toll on the wall. If the enemy waited long enough and worked hard enough, they could breach the wall, enter the city, and defeat it.
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Afterward, the city would always have vulnerabilities. Predators such as thieves and foxes could enter, wreaking havoc on the people.
In fact, once breached, the walls were useless until someone would fix them.
Until…
The Repairer of the Breach
…came to help, the city would fall victim to practically anyone and anything.
Let me tell you a few things about…
The breach.
Jerusalem was no exception to the rules of ancient warfare.
The city had a wall, however, an enemy breached it. Babylonians conquered the city and carried most of its inhabitants into captivity. The city lay in ruins.
The people who remained were defenseless.
In addition to the physical conquest of the city, scripture records its spiritual downfall.
From the beginning, God gave His people…
Physical and spiritual walls
…to protect them.
God gave Israel a framework of constructive human behavior. He gave them moral values that guaranteed their longevity.
As long as the nation honored God and conducted themselves under God’s laws, no enemy could overtake them.
Sadly, the people rebelled against God. They angered God by killing their babies. They rejected moral standards. The lusts of the flesh governed their behavior. Wicked kings seduced the people. The people sought sinful lifestyles. They rejected God.
God sent prophets to warn the people. Still, the people defied God. They continued on a destructive course.
Satan created a breach in their spiritual defenses.
By the time Judah’s King Manasseh finished his reign, the nation had no moral compass. They had no national conscience of right and wrong. Their sin corrupted them. Their rejection of God’s Way destroyed them.
Satan had breached Israel’s spiritual wall.
Israel embraced…
False religion.
They went whoring after false gods, wickedness, corruption, and perversion, they still (and in vain) gave “lip service” to God.
Prophet Isaiah acknowledges this in the Book of Isaiah Chapter 58. The people “went through the motions” of service and expected their rituals to appease God.
They didn’t appease Him.
Go ahead and fast. Pray. Go through the motions of worship. The breach renders your religious service useless.
Here’s what God says to the people in Isaiah Chapter 58, Verse Five:
Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
Isaiah 58:5
God did not accept the fasts of the people. The nation and its people did not satisfy the Lord by performing a routine. God rejected their service.
God wanted His people to serve Him from their heart. If they did, their service would manifest outwardly in their behavior.
According to God’s words spoken through Isaiah, If the people had…
True religion
…they would:
- Loose the bands of wickedness.
- Undo heavy burdens.
- Free the oppressed.
- Break every yoke.
- Feed the hungry.
- House the homeless.
- Clothe the naked.
- Fulfill family obligations.
They would stop:
- Putting forth the finger.
- Speaking vanity.
These indicators apply to God’s people right now, in our day.
True religion supports morality and justice. It allows God to work through us to minister to others, including to those who are in need. It provides a framework that lifts us up. Everyone can benefit from God’s Way.
Intact spiritual walls give you security. They result in blessings. They give you…
Positive results.
God wants to help. Prophet Isaiah says,
Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.
Isaiah 58:9
Also,
Thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:
Isaiah 58:10
And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
Isaiah 58:11
Serving God from the heart leads to your…
Restoration.
The enemy had breached the walls of Jerusalem. God’s people were defenseless, spiritually and physically. The nation needed restoration.
I’m pretty sure that many people didn’t realize the source of their trouble. They expected God to help them. After all, they only heard positive things from their prophets.
Some were deliberate in their sin. Perhaps others didn’t know right from wrong.
They needed someone like Prophet Isaiah to speak on God’s behalf. God gave Isaiah this mission:
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
Isaiah 58:1
Restoration begins with…
Repentance.
Repentance begins with the preaching and teaching of God’s Word.
At this critical moment of Israel’s history, God mercifully sent someone to expose their sin.
I think God wants the same thing for our nation. Sadly, with so-called “churches” of every size and denomination all over our land, few seem willing to “cry aloud and spare not.”
Instead, they choose to compromise. They want to “go along to get along with the world” and our corrupt, perverted society.
Just as in our text regarding Israel, the enemy has breached our national spiritual and physical defenses.
In America, we have no moral fabric. The Constitution no longer defends us. In fact, our enemies now use the Constitution and our laws as weapons against us while exempting themselves from accountability.
We have allowed evil people to ban God from every nook and cranny of our society and government. The people follow our leaders into the promotion and acceptance of perversion as normality. The secular and religious influencers of our society sell us evil labeled as “good.”
The Enemy has breached many of us. We try to serve God in ritual, but God is against us.
Many people, even those who attend church, don’t understand why.
That’s because few leaders will lift their voice like a trumpet, declaring, “Thus saith the Lord!”
Our enemy, Satan, has laid our land to waste. We need restoration. But for that to happen, we need…
The Repairer of the Breach.
The enemy has breached our nation, our families, and our personal lives. God’s hand is against us.
As in our text, the people were content to live among the ruins. They were happy to let Satan have his way with their country and their lives.
I’m telling you that God wants something better. He wants us to prosper. He wants abundance for us. He wants us to live in peace and safety. He wants us to enjoy the fulness of life.
For that to happen, something needs to change. Someone needs to rise to proclaim God’s Word.
If you already have received the New Birth, if you have accepted Salvation through Jesus Christ, you are…
The solution.
According to our scripture, you and I have the responsibility to solve the problem. Here’s what God says in Isaiah Chapter 58, Verse 12:
They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
Isaiah 58:12
Doesn’t that sound wonderful? I think it’s time to take responsibility for restoration.
If you’re anything like me, you’re pretty good at tearing things down. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done plenty of that. But, now it’s time for us to build things up.
Sometimes, I feel like The World has programmed us to accept the decay of our society. The World wants us to feel comfortable with our personal deficiencies and our sin.
We’re trained to accept our national decline.
Still, I think we want (and expect) God’s blessings even though we won’t put our faith in motion.
I think part of the problem is that we have…
Bad prophets.
Sometimes, we expect other people to do the difficult, dangerous work. That way, we can ignore our personal responsibility.
After all, God gave His people prophets. He gave us pastors and teachers. Why not depend on them to fight for Truth and Justice?
God says,
I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,
Isaiah 62:6
To me, it seems like we hope that someone else will watch on the wall. We want someone else to mention the Lord continually.
But, right now, we can’t count on those “other people” to keep us safe.
They are not doing their job. They are neither on our side nor God’s side.
As with Israel, the people who should mention the Lord keep silent. They refuse to warn the people of their transgressions. They welcome the enemy into our land. They do not offer a positive path forward.
Modern “ministers,” attempt to lay new foundations rather than rebuild on the old ones.
God speaks to such religious leaders in Ezekiel Chapter 13. The people whom God wished to speak through prophesied out of their own hearts (Ezekiel 13:2). God calls them “foolish.” They follow their own spirit, not the Spirit of God (Ezekiel 13:3).
Those whom God expected to care for the people prey upon them like “foxes in the deserts” (Ezekiel 13:4). They lie about what God says (Ezekiel 13:6). Their vision is vain (Ezekiel 13:7).
What I want you to know is in Ezekiel Chapter 13, Verse Five. God says to the prophets, And to the ministers of our day,
Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.
Ezekiel 13:5
Gaps existed, but the prophets, the pastors… the ministers, if you will… refused to repair the breaches.
Those who claim that God has called them have failed us. They’ve betrayed God and the people. They’ve sold out to the Enemy.
The time has come when…
Good people
…must rise to repair the breach.
You might feel as though you’re “unqualified.” You may think that you’re “unable.” It’s time that you change your way of thinking. Now is the time for some new labels.
Prophet Joel says,
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
Joel 3:10
I’m telling you that God wants to give you a new name. He wants to call you “The Restorer of the Breach.” You may feel weak, but now is the time to be strong.
God wants us to do something. He needs us to step up. He says,
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.
Ezekiel 22:30
That’s pretty sad, isn’t it?
The stakes are high. You can repair the breach in your character. You can repair the breach in your family. You can repair the breach in your church and your community. You can make a difference In your state and in your nation.
Right now, I think you get the picture of the problem. Evil people have broken down our spiritual walls. We’ve neglected our defenses. The enemy has conquered us.
Those whom we trusted have not defended us.
If you’re ready to answer the call, you need to understand…
How to repair the breach.
Fortunately, God tells us exactly what needs to happen. He tells us what to do to repair the breaches in our life and nation.
Build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations;
Isaiah 58:12
We don’t need a new way. We don’t need to invent new ways to build churches. We don’t need a bunch of “woke” politicians, politically correct social activists, and sissy preachers. Those only make things worse for God’s people.
The answer lies in the ruins that surround us.
Modern religion (or should we call it “post-modern religion” or “commercial religion”) wants to clear away the ruins. Mega churches and their “ministers” want to remove the rubble and reconstruct Christianity in a new way.
That’s not the answer.
God wants us to…
Build the waste places.
It’s time to recognize what brought us peace, prosperity, and security in the past. We must reconstruct the institutions that Satan has destroyed.
I speak of families. I speak of morality and justice. I speak of truth. I dare say I speak of Christian assemblies. I speak of the Church.
Repairing the breach means to…
Preach the Gospel.
In Isaiah Chapter 61, we see Isaiah’s mission, which the Lord Himself claimed in Luke Chapter Four.
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
Isaiah 61:1-2
Nothing gets the job done the way preaching does. I want you to notice that you have to preach to the right people.
Before I proceed, I want you to notice Isaiah’s audience:
- The meek.
- The brokenhearted.
- Captives.
- Prisoners.
- All who mourn.
God doesn’t want us to waste our time trying to reach those who have no need for God.
Jesus says,
They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Mark 2:17
We need to focus our attention on those God intends to reach.
Apostle Paul put it this way:
Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
1 Corinthians 1:26
I want you to notice the result of preaching:
They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.
Isaiah 61:4
Did you hear the Word of God? To repair the breach, we must seek to restore that which we’ve lost. To repair the breach, someone must preach God’s Truth.
I want you to understand the intended result of preaching.
I think preaching scares many so-called “churches.” Leaders fear that preaching will offend the crowd, driving down attendance, offerings, and their personal brand.
Compromise seems so much easier!
In reality, “Crying aloud and sparing not” serves to accomplish good things, not bad. Through preaching, God wants…
To give unto them [that’s us] beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he [The LORD] might be glorified.
Isaiah 61:2
Those things sound wonderful.
To enjoy the blessings, we must become the Repairer of the Breach.
We must…
Raise up the foundations of many generations.
Israel had a solid foundation. They had the law and the scripture. They had prophets. They had the blueprint for success. In fact, amid the ruins, the foundations were still there. The answers were accessible. Good things were still possible!
As you…
Respond,
I want to tell you about…
A real example
…of a real-life “Repairer of the Breach.”
That person was Moses. Psalms Chapter 106 speaks of Moses in this way:
[God] said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.
Psalm 106:23
God wants you to recognize the problem. God also wants you to solve it.
You need to know, however, that repairing the breach may create…
Vicious enemies.
You can stir up all kinds of trouble when you put your faith into action and repair the breach.
That’s what happened to Nehemiah. He led the people as they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. As the project neared completion, the enemy began fighting vigorously.
The Bible says,
It came to pass, when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arabian, and the rest of our enemies, heard that I had builded the wall, and that there was no breach left therein;
…they thought to do me mischief.
Nehemiah 6:1-2
When threats didn’t work, Nehemiah’s enemies tried to wear out the people, so they couldn’t finish the job. When that didn’t work, they tried to lure Nehemiah into the Temple, where they intended to kill him.
Not only is “repairing the breach” hard work, but it also comes with risks.
Like Moses and Nehemiah, God want’s you to…
Do the right thing.
Go to work. Rebuild the breaches in your life.
Don’t build new foundations. Instead, raise up the foundations that the past has proven effective.
You can make the difference between life and death for you, your family, your community, your nation, and the world.
Let God call you by your new name: “The Repairer of the Breach”!