Text: Ezekiel 22:30
We sometimes wonder what good one person can do. As individuals, how much do our actions really impact the situation around us? From our perspective, the impact may be minimal. From God’s perspective, it may be much different. In our text, God was searching for “a man” to change His mind about destroying the people. This reminds us of the importance of our efforts as individuals. Do not think that your effort is in vain.
Summary of the Situation
- Conspiracy of the prophets (Ezekiel 22:25, 28) – motivated by money; spoke what people wanted to hear
- Violence of the priests (Ezekiel 22:26) – blurred the lines between the clean and unclean, holy and profane
- Greed of the princes (Ezekiel 22:27) – forsook their role as civil leaders for their own power and wealth
- Sin of the people (Ezekiel 22:29) – violated God’s law, particularly by doing harm to their fellow man
- It is easy to see parallels between their situation and the conditions that exist around us
A Man Among Them
- An individual – a man in this context; at certain times, God requires action from a man (1 Timothy 2:11-12); individually, we are required to act regardless of what others do (Numbers 25:6-8)
- One among them – there would not be a hero coming in from the outside to save them; being among God’s people means we are (or should be) ready to act (1 Peter 1:13)
- One who was aware of the situation – we cannot respond to a problem if we do not know it exists; we must be watchful (1 Peter 5:8), not bury our heads in the sand and expect others to watch for us
One Who Would Build Up the Wall
- Building up the wall was to prepare for future attacks – important work (cf. Neh. 2:17)
- To “build up the wall” today is to strengthen the defenses of the church against attacks – how?
- Strengthen ourselves (Jude 20) – we are “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5)
- Strengthen others (1 Thessalonians 5:11) – we do this as part of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:16)
- Strengthening comes through the word (Acts 20:32)
One Who Would Stand in the Gap
- Standing in a breach in the wall where the city is vulnerable – two applications can be made from this
- First, to “stand in the gap” is to make intercession to God for the people (Psalm 106:23; cf. Exodus 32:9-14) – we should be concerned enough about the state of God’s people to pray for them (2 Corinthians 11:28)
- Second, to “stand in the gap” can also refer to defending against attacks – must be set for the defense of the gospel (Philippians 1:16); stand against sin and error (1 Corinthians 5:2; Titus 1:9)
No One Was Found
- Though God was just looking for one person, He “found no one” – because of this, destruction was coming (Ezekiel 22:31)
- It is possible for God’s people to reach a point that no one is willing to take a stand (Revelation 2:14-15, 20) – the result is that we will be “carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14)
- When that happens, there is no hope – God intervened by sending Christ because we could not be saved otherwise (Romans 5:6); however, if we fail to do what we can, God will not intervene further (Hebrews 9:28)
Conclusion
- It may seem like one person cannot do much – but our efforts are not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58)
- Obviously, we should expect fellow Christians to be active in serving the Lord and standing for truth
- But our first concern is to look to ourselves – make sure you are doing all that you can be doing
