I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for [the sake of] the land, that I would not destroy it, but I found no one [not even one]. Ezekiel 22:30
The culture is in trouble when men become hard to find. Among males, GOD IS LOOKING FOR SOMEONE HE CAN CALL A MAN – this suggests that God is looking for someone from a blueprint! It implies that He has a template and a plan and a purpose that, even though there were many males in the land, He could not find A MAN who could live up to His idea of…a man.
We’re living in a day when a lot of people have surrendered meaning to convenience, and purpose to existence. And this is nowhere seen as great a dilemma as it is in the lives of men particularly. The refusal or failure of males to become men as God has defined them has created havoc at every level (of course there are many exceptions to this rule). Looking at the scope of the decline and decay of marriages, of ministries, churches, the culture, and even the climate, much of it can be tied to the absence of Adam – men not being in their God-ordained space.
The first sin was occasioned by the first man’s abdication of his role – it began with Adam not being man enough to step into his place between the woman and the serpent. He was right there, knew the word and authority of the Lord which was being twisted and contested by Satan before Eve, and he did nothing. The world is going out of course today because, for the most part, man in not in His place.
There is a pointed significance in the fact that after man’s disobedience, the first question God asked was “Adam, WHERE ARE YOU?” It had everything to do with his spiritual Geography. He had left His place.
“And I sought for a man among them…” Which means it is possible to be a male but NOT A MAN.
1. Man was created first because he would be the one God would be looking to for leadership in the world:
There’s a divinely orchestrated reason for manhood. When a man comes to Christ, he is drafted into the purposes of God; but unfortunately, even men in church today are living lives distracted by culture, not living in the purposes of God for the advancement of His kingdom, but for selfish desires.
2. Man was created for relationship with God
The authority of man, or the agency of man as God’s representative on the earth draws its power from man’s very relationship with God.
8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.
9 God called to the Man: “Where are you?”
10 He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.” Genesis 3:8-10 (MSG)
God was free to tell Adam what He was up to as long as Adam walked with God. God has plans for every man but He is not free to tell you what He is up to because you are not walking with Him in an ongoing relationship – only visiting with Him on Sundays perhaps.
Long before Eve came on the scene, Adam was already set-up, operating fully under God’s RELATIONSHIP, PROVISION AND AUTHORITY. “I don’t want you to use your own knowledge independent of me; I want you to live by derived knowledge, dependent on me. I don’t want you operating by trial and error, or you would be worn out by the lack of alignment,” said the Lord.
Wheel alignment, which is sometimes referred to as breaking or tracking, is part of standard automobile maintenance that consists of adjusting the angles of wheels to the car manufacturer specifications. The purpose of these adjustments is to reduce tire wear and to ensure that vehicle travel is straight and true.
In much the same way, GOD IS CALLING FOR MEN TO BE ALIGNED WITH HIM, because a lack of alignment with God invites inversions in our lives!!! Things go upside down.
3. When we don’t align, we invite inversions in our lives.
Isaiah 3:12
As for My people, children are their oppressors,
And women rule over them.
O My people! Those who lead you [a]cause you to err,
And destroy the way of your paths.”
The inversion about children running things and women running the men is a form of JUDGEMENT.
The devil thrives on inversions…coming to the woman deliberately, roles reversed; all hell breaking lose…
Woman is meant to get her word from the man who has received the word from the Lord; all hell broke loose when Adam left God’s word to listen to his wife. The woman has her role to play in the plans and purposes of God, but it is NOT to lead the man. The divine order must be restored.
1 Cor. 11:3 But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
11:1 Follow me as I follow Christ – Meaning that God is not asking us to be “headless heads”. It is a derived authority. Woman will follow a man they can see modeling the followership of God. We are as good a leader as we can be followers. Women have been created to receive and respond to the godly leadership of men…or the lack thereof.
4. Wherever God can find a man, He shares his plans and purposes with that man
Genesis 18:17-19 Amplified Bible (AMP)The LORD said, “Shall I keep secret from Abraham [My friend and servant] what I am going to do, since Abraham is destined to become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him?
The welcome contrast here is Abraham, a man God found in a decadent generation and culture that was rife with the abomination of men living NOT AS MEN and God was ready to judge it! But God was like, shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?
Conclusion
We’re here to reclaim the imperatives of Biblical manhood. Biblical manhood is a man who has submitted to biblical authority. We want to be the man who says I WILL BE GOD’S MAN; I WILL LIVE BY GOD’S STANDARDS, FOR GOD’S GLORY; I WILL BECOME THE MAN OF MY HOUSE; I WILL INFLUENCE MY REALM AND BE THE MAN THAT GOD CREATED ME TO BE. A kingdom man must understand that he has a divine design for God’s glory and the expansion of His kingdom that includes all the other things we think about and that we work for.
Herein is the impetus for Men in Christ Ministries…
When God finds a man, relationship is restored; from relationship we find our identity; the power of our purpose is released from our identity, which is a function of our relationship with Him. And then we can walk in the authority and power of God on the earth. It is my hope and prayer that as we humble ourselves in prayer before God, and as we give ourselves to the study of His word, we would be making it easy for God to find a man.
*(Some ideas for this article were culled from a message broadcast by Dr. Tony Evans.)