By
Shelby G. Floyd
The United States Marines have a motto that says, “We are looking for a few good men.” The Marine Corps has a glorious history of good men who were courageous, brave, caring for their fellow Marines, and loyal patriots of America.
Lee Iacocca was a brilliant businessman who pulled the Chrysler Corporation out of almost certain bankruptcy. After he retired he published a book with the title, “Where Have All The Leaders Gone?” He was referring to business leaders who are failing to lead businesses and corporations in successful ways.
God is also looking for leaders and good men to serve him in the family, in the church, and in our great country. Too many fathers are abandoning their families, their jobs, and the church. They are not faithful to their family, their job and the church of Christ.
It is time for fathers to assume their God-given responsibility as the head of the home and religious leader of the family. There is an old English proverb that says, “One father is worth more than one hundred schoolmasters.” The American icon, Mark Twain declared, “My father was an amazing man. The older I got, the smarter he got.”
In the early days of our country, a well-known preacher by the name of Jonathan Edwards said,
Resolved: first; that every man should live at his highest and best for Christ always and everywhere, and second; whether any other man in the world so lives are not, I shall strive with God’s help so to live to the end of my day.
God Almighty is looking for a few good men to be leaders in the home and in the church. But it is increasingly becoming more difficult to find these kinds of men to be leaders in all of the different kinds of responsibilities incumbent on them. There seems to be a decline of male leadership in almost all of our institutions in America. This is not a good thing and we must turn it around in order for God to bless his people.
DECLINE
Today, our lesson is on The Ezekiel Project. There is in the book of Ezekiel a sentence that emphasizes the power of one person:
Ezekiel 22:30-31
So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord God.
NKJV
Each person has an individual and personal responsibility to fulfill before Almighty God. And our great leader Jesus Christ does not allow the individual to get lost in the crowd. He wants us to step up and be a man.
In the days of Ezekiel the world was much like our world is today. There was a decline in everything that was good during the sixth century before Christ.
o There was a decline of standards of right and wrong, truth and error.
o There was a decline of morals with everyone doing what was right in their own eyes.
o There was a decline of religion, with the people of God abandoning his word and worshiping and serving pagan idolatry.
The nation of Israel had fallen away from God and was in exile because of their sin and rebellion. Israel had desecrated the Sabbath day–the Jewish day of worship. They were guilty of every form of idolatry—worshiping false gods created by men. They had shed much blood by committing murder. They were guilty of every kind of immorality as described in Leviticus 18, and 20. They were even guilty of practicing child sacrifices that they had learned from their ungodly neighbors.
All of these evil and sinful things were being practiced from the princes to the people—from the head to the toe. Continue reading “The Ezekiel Project–God’s Search For a Man”