“I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD.” —Ezekiel 22:30-31

Jerusalem was full of sins. The strong oppressed the weak; husbands were killed and women made widows. Those who should’ve known better didn’t do any better: the priests profaned the law of God and commonized holy things; they made no distinction between the clean and the unclean. The result of this was that God was profaned. Innocent blood was shed for the sake of personal profit. When the prophets saw these heinous evils, they whitewashed them with false visions and lying divinations. They spoke in the name of the Sovereign Lord when the Lord had not spoken. In short, evil reigned in the marketplace and in the sanctuary (Ezekiel 22:23-29). Doesn’t that sound like what is currently obtainable in your country and the nations of the world? The descent into sin just races to the bottom but there seems to be no bottom in this descent.

It was in the midst of this moral crisis that the Lord spoke through the prophet Ezekiel saying, “And 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, my italics). It was men who were corrupt but God still looked for a man to stand in the gap on behalf of the land. 

It Was So in the Beginning

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the bible says, “the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep” (Genesis 1:1). God brought order to this chaos and did his work of creation. To who did he handover this now ordered earth? Man! “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28), he charged. Animals like the lion, the so-called king of the jungle was there, but God didn’t handover the earth to it. The animals didn’t have what it takes to rule over the earth. There was a species of creation that was qualified to take charge of God’s world and maintain the order he had instituted at creation. God made that species — man —in his own image; he breathed in him the breath of life and he became a living soul. God literally took a quantum of his life and placed it in this man by breath and gave him life. It was this man, who bore about the life of God within his container of a body, that was charged with catering for the earth. He was the kind of man that God was looking for. 

God made that species — man —in his own image; he breathed in him the breath of life and he became a living soul. God literally took a quantum of his life and placed it in this man by breath and gave him life. It was this man, who bore about the life of God within his container of a body, that was charged with catering for the earth. He was the kind of man that God was looking for. 

Of course, things fell apart.

Jesus the Model Man

When God was going to fix the problem of sin that led to the failure of Adam, God also found himself another man, the last Adam. John describes him thus: “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 1:4-5). That man, Jesus Christ, was the kind of man that God seeks for. In him was the kind of life that God seeks for —the life that is light that shines and confounds darkness. It is not possible to chase away darkness with darkness therefore, the man that God seeks for must possess a different kind of life —that which is light and shines in darkness and drives it away. That is why even though there were multitudes of men in Jerusalem, God still searched saying, “I sought for a man.” Note also that God wasn’t searching for a men, but for a man. It is unfortunate that Ezekiel said he found none. The point is that one man is enough for God to at least begin with as a seed of righteousness for the fulfilment of his plans.

Note also that God wasn’t searching for a men, but for a man. It is unfortunate that Ezekiel said he found none. The point is that one man is enough for God to at least begin with as a seed of righteousness for the fulfilment of his plans.

You would have observed by now that anytime there is a problem in the earth, it is caused by the failure of men. God’s solution to the problem has always been to seek for a man. After all, “The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to man” (Psalm 115:16). He will not send angels to do on earth the work he has assigned to man right from creation. Once God finds himself the breed of man he seeks and that can fulfil his purposes on the earth or any portion of the earth, things fall in place.

You would have observed by now that anytime there is a problem in the earth, it is caused by the failure of men. God’s solution to the problem has always been to seek for a man.

Men Of Like Passion Found By God

Lest you think that only the sinless Adam and Jesus met the criteria for the genre of man that the Almighty seeks, we have other examples of mere mortals like you and I in scripture, who set themselves apart and answered God’s need for a man. Secondly, the term man as used here is generic for male and female, lest you read this as a woman and think only the male gender get to be who God seeks for and are used by him.

JOSEPH: The Psalmist says of him, “He called down famine on the land and destroyed all their supplies of food; and he sent a man before them–Joseph, sold as a slave. They bruised his feet with shackles, his neck was put in irons, till what he foretold came to pass, till the word of the Lord proved him true” (Psalm 105:16-19). You are familiar with his story I hope. He didn’t join his brothers in doing wrong; the promise of pleasure and ease that getting involved with Mrs Potiphar held couldn’t sway him. His allegiance was to God. 

When there was famine in the land, God didn’t send an angel but he sent a man, “Joseph, sold as a slave”. His status as a slave didn’t matter; what mattered was that he carried within him the life that bore the light of God, the kind God seeks for. This man was consistent in his father’s house, in prison and in the palace. In his final blessings, Jacob his father describes Joseph as “him that was separate from his brethren” (Genesis 49:26). He was a prince, different, set apart and distinguished from his brothers. Coming from a father who knew the real character of his children in their natural habitat, that meant something. Character and consistency were his hallmarks.

DAVID: When the man Saul failed, God went in search of another man and that search took the Prophet Samuel to Jesse’s house. The prophet almost poured the oil of anointing on the wrong head but God rejected the physically qualified men. The Lord told Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). That statement is quite revealing; it tells the kind of man the Lord seeks for in his service. Not any kind of man, no matter how physically imposing or appealing they may appear, meets this need. It is a matter of the heart. David was rushed in from the wild where he had been tending his father’s sheep and he didn’t even need to bath or consecrate himself like his brothers before him, but because his heart was right, the Lord told Samuel, “Rise and anoint him; this is the one” (1 Samuel 16:12). The Psalmist confirms: “He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens; from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel his inheritance. And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them” (Psalm 78:70-72, my italics). Integrity of heart, skilfulness of hands, were his hallmarks.

MOSES: When the Israelites groaned under the yoke of Egyptian slavery, God’s strategy was to ready a man. That brought Moses to the scene. Stephen says in Acts 7:20 that, “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child.” At the time of suffering and search for a deliverer was when Moses was born. Maybe you have wished that you were born at a different time and place but God doesn’t make mistakes. It was at that time that Moses was born and he met the need. Mordecai told Queen Esther, “who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14). Ask the same question of yourself. Will you be the person God has been searching for at such a time as this?

Moses tried to save his people prematurely and with the arm of flesh. Two questions, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ (Acts 7:20-28), sent him away to be made into the kind of man God and the enslaved Israelites were seeking for. It took another 40 years for him to be ready. But when he was, this one man, under God, faced down the most powerful emperor and empire at the time and freed Israel from slavery (Acts 7:20-28). If God just finds one man, the kind that he seeks, wonders are done.

JOHN THE BAPTIST: After the intertestamental period of about 400 years, God needed a man to “‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him’” (Matthew 3:3). John the Baptist was found. What were his traits? Jesus said of him: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet” (Matthew 11:7-9). John was not a reed, easily swayed by the wind. He had firm convictions on right and wrong and not even imprisonment by Herod and the threat of execution could sway him. Paul says it is children who change their “minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth” (Ephesians 4:14). The mature like John are not reeds swayed by every new doctrine or prevailing opinion. Fine clothes and external appearances were not his preoccupation. And he was more than a prophet; he prepared the way for and saw Christ, whom all the other prophets spoke about. Jesus also said John was “a lamp that burned and gave light” (John 5:35). He must also have carried in him the life that is light. 

MARY: When God was looking for a womb to bear the Saviour of the world, he found himself “a virgin pledged to be married to a man” (Luke 1:26). Pledged to be married to a man but still a virgin. She wasn’t pledged to be married to an angel without testosterone but to a man; both of them with the hormones that undo many young people flowing in their blood. They didn’t test themselves out before marriage to check for a so-called ‘sexual compatibility’. Carrying a child while unmarried came with dire consequences; her wedding plans were interrupted. Her response to God’s need that came with disruptions to her life was: “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). 

It was not on this day and occasion that she knew she was the Lord’s maidservant. It was not on this occasion that she first submitted to God’s will being done in her life at whatever personal cost to her. That’s the kind of man or woman that God seeks for.

Are You He That Should Come?

As God seeks for a man in your family, school, workplace, church or community, who would stand in the gap on behalf of the place, let us end by asking you the question that John the Baptist asked Jesus that prompted the response we considered earlier: “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Matthew 11:3, my italics). Will you be the person God seeks for or should he look somewhere else? If you are willing but feel unqualified (none of us is in ourselves), then prayerfully ask God to make you into the person he seeks. Like Moses, you too can come back from a question to be the breed or species of man or woman that God seeks for.