A FEW GOOD MEN

“’I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land so that I might not destroy it, but I found no one. So I have poured out My indignation on them and consumed them with the fire of My fury. I have brought their actions down on their own heads.’ [This is] the declaration of the Lord God.” (Ezekiel 22:30-31 HCSB)

I can still remember the Marine recruiting slogan, “We’re just looking for a few good men.” It was designed to grab a young man’s attention by saying, “The Marines are exceptional. To be a Marine is special. Not everyone can do it—only the elite. Are you one of those who stands out from the crowd? Then we want you!” Of course, this appeal to ego was hard to resist. An eighteen year old male wanted to think of himself in those terms.

It was a similar plea that was made to the citizens of Jerusalem just before the city would fall to the Babylonians. God didn’t make an appeal to ego, or even to patriotism, as good as that might be in and of itself, but rather He was looking for the spiritual standout—the one who would live holy in an ungodly time. I would suggest that we are in such an hour today.

God is conducting an INVESTIGATION.

“I searched for a man among them.”

God was looking for a few good men in Ezekiel’s day. He is doing so today.

Could He not have intervened Himself? Of course, He could, but when He did it would not be good. A holy God would act with justice, and if the Jews received their due, it would mean destruction because of their sin.

Might God not have sent an angel? He might have done so, but He would not for it wasn’t heavenly beings who had the problem, it was human beings, and so it required human action.

God uses people to make a difference in people.

When an Ethiopian eunuch was riding in a chariot, reading Scripture, full of questions but finding no answers, God sent a man named Philip to share the Gospel with him. Cornelius was a God-fearing man with a God-given desire to be righteous, but he didn’t know the only means possible to effect that—a relationship with Christ.

God directed an angel to Cornelius to dispatch messengers to a man named Peter to come and preach the Gospel to him. God gave Peter a vision that would move him to go to a Gentile. There was supernatural activity to be sure, but God didn’t use an angel to share the Gospel, nor even a vision to convey the Gospel to Cornelius. God did all this to send a man!

He uses saved sinners to share with seeking sinners. This is how God works.

It is a truth which was driven home to me in a small book that made a big impact in my life. “Power Through Prayer” was a little paperback I read in the early days of my ministry. It was written by E.M. Bounds, who served as a chaplain during the Civil War. Some of the opening words are engraved on my heart and I find myself returning to them over and over. Bounds accurately stated:

“WE are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization. God's plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God's method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. ‘There was a man sent from God whose name was John.’ The dispensation that heralded and prepared the way for Christ was bound up in that man John. ‘Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.’ The world's salvation comes out of that cradled Son. When Paul appeals to the personal character of the men who rooted the gospel in the world, he solves the mystery of their success. The glory and efficiency of the gospel is staked on the men who proclaim it. When God declares that ‘the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him,’ he declares the necessity of men and his dependence on them as a channel through which to exert his power upon the world. This vital, urgent truth is one that this age of machinery is apt to forget. The forgetting of it is as baneful on the work of God as would be the striking of the sun from his sphere. Darkness, confusion, and death would ensue.

What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use -- men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men -- men of prayer.”

God is conducting His investigation—His eyes ranging far and wide—intense scrutiny focused on finding a few good men. Will you be such a man?

God is calling for INTERCESSION.

“who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land so that I might not destroy it, but I found no one.”

The walls of an ancient city were strategic for the defense of the citizens. If an enemy could find a breach in the wall, the invading army would pour into that gap and the city would fall.

There was a gap between what the Jews were supposed to be and the way they actually behaved that was wide enough to drive a truck through! The enemy was on the way to exploit that gap with deadly efficiency.

God was looking for an intercessor—someone who would rise up and fill the gap. It would require a man of character. He could not have the same glaring flaws in his spiritual experience if he would fill the gap in the city’s spiritual defenses. We have to be different to make a difference. The intercessor must have integrity or else he is a contradiction to the very word he proclaims. Failing to model the message we give undermines our credibility. That is a sobering truth to me—and for us all. Actions speak louder than words.

Again, I return to Bound’s incisive words:

“The character as well as the fortunes of the gospel is committed to the preacher. He makes or mars the message from God to man. The preacher is the golden pipe through which the divine oil flows. The pipe must not only be golden, but open and flawless, that the oil may have a full, unhindered, unwasted flow.

The man makes the preacher. God must make the man. The messenger is, if possible, more than the message. The preacher is more than the sermon. The preacher makes the sermon. As the life-giving milk from the mother's bosom is but the mother's life, so all the preacher says is tinctured, impregnated by what the preacher is. The treasure is in earthen vessels, and the taste of the vessel impregnates and may discolor. The man, the whole man, lies behind the sermon. Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon is forceful because the man is forceful. The sermon is holy because the man is holy. The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is full of the divine unction.”

This is the kind of man God is looking for—a good man. I love how the Bible describes Barnabas: “for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.” (Acts 11:24a). That is the challenge to me. But, it is also the challenge for you and all of God’s witnesses. Every professing child of God is a witness—either a good one or a bad one—but each of us represents our Lord. On the job, in the school, about the neighborhood—wherever we are, we are His ambassadors. Our Bibles need to be “bound in shoe leather.” That is, we need to demonstrate the truth we declare—and we must declare it. This is how we can repair the walls.

God is restraining His INDIGNATION.

“’So I have poured out My indignation on them and consumed them with the fire of My fury. I have brought their actions down on their own heads.’ [This is] the declaration of the Lord God.”

If you could imagine the wrath of God rising up like flood waters. As sin on top of sin, brings drop after drop into a swollen stream—a torrent of transgressions now filling a river of retribution, pressing against a spiritual levee. Finally, the levee will break if someone doesn’t place sandbags there to shore it up and secure it. Spiritually speaking, this is what would happen to Jerusalem. God’s indignation against their iniquity would burst upon them.

How close are we to that tipping point? I grew up sitting in little church buildings, hearing preachers warn about the coming judgment of God. It was a fearful thing to consider as a child and they sounded like it could happen any day. But, it didn’t. Later, when I came to Christ and God would call me to preach, I took up the same message and still, thirty six years later finds me faithfully declaring it. Yet, that day of reckoning has not come.

But it will—some day, one day—maybe any day now. It could be today. Yet, it might also be that God would grant a reprieve from judgment, if we would return to Him. Otherwise, only His righteous indignation will fall.

God is looking for a few good men.

What about a few good women? Could they not make a difference? Of course—and they are. That’s the thing. When you look around the church, there are significantly more women than men attending. When there is work to do, we find a number of godly ladies who will jump into the labor while men tend to loiter. Thank God some men do serve faithfully and fervently! But, we long for more men to rise up and roll up their sleeves and do what God has called us to do. We don’t want women to do less, but we need men to do more!

Will you be that man? God wants you!

My precious sister, will you pray and ask God to stir the hearts of men? They won’t respond to nagging, but you can speak passionately to the heart of God in prayer and the Lord can use circumstances to corner those fellows and His Spirit can convict them and His Word challenge them. As this message is read by some man today, it could be that a dear woman’s tearful cry to God will make this appeal strike like an arrow the bull’s eye of some guy’s heart.

I am praying that God would use me to stand in the gap. I make myself available to repair the wall. Men, will you come and join me? Your family needs you. The church needs you. Your community, your nation, and the world await you. God is calling you!

God still needs a few good men!