I sought for a man

I just want to read with you one scripture in the book of Ezekiel chapter 22. Ezekiel chapter 22. I have very much enjoyed being here with you for the conference and meeting so many of the Christians.

Thank you for such a warm welcome. I only wish my wife could have been with me, but unfortunately that wasn't possible this time. I just want to read this one verse, verse of challenge, and meditate on it for a few minutes.

Ezekiel 22 and verse 30. The Lord says, I sought for a man among them that they 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. 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.

I would like to pass on a message of encouragement from this passage. In our lives and in our families and in our service for the Lord, we all will come across times where we encounter weakness and inadequacy. And sometimes those situations can be very disheartening and frustrating.

And so that's why this passage here talks about the need to build up the wall, make up the hedge, or stand in the gap. Fill that gap in, build up that wall that's coming down, and somebody steps in and meets the need. In this passage, the Lord was looking for somebody to do that, to build up the wall and to stand in the gap.

And he says, I sought for a man. He wasn't seeking for a group. He was seeking for an individual.

You know, in the modern world, we are so aware of how broad the world is. And sometimes that means that we're very aware of our smallness and our weakness. And so it's easy to think that I don't matter.

I don't really make a difference. And that might be correct, natural thinking, but it is completely unbiblical. It's not how God works.

Because God, in this verse, and often in Scripture, we discover that God doesn't so much look for groups as he looks for individuals. Individuals. I sought for a man or a woman.

You know, the sin of Israel was very grievous in this time. If you take a look back in verse 2, they were called the bloody city. The bloody city.

They shamelessly shed blood. And then in verse 3, you'll read that they were making idols against herself to defile herself. And the reason why idols were defiling was that often in ancient times, idol worship was linked with various forms of sexual sin or some form of a prostitute.

And you'll see that's why later on in verses 10 to 11, he talks about that form of abomination. And then we also have in this passage greed. Verse 12, they've taken gifts to shed blood.

And farther on in the passage, verse 27 and verse 29, the princes are like wolves ravening the prey. And verse 29, they've used oppression and exercised robbery. And so there was the bloody city, shamelessly shedding blood.

There was idolatry. There was sexual defilement. There was not respecting the holy things.

In verse 8, they have despised mine holy things. And so there were many problems in this day. What's worse, if you look in this passage, it wasn't just among the people, but the prophets and the priests and the princes, they all were engaging in these sort of things.

Somebody might say, what on earth does that have to do with us today? But let me just outline how this could apply to us today. Shamelessly shedding blood. You know, our Lord reminded us in Matthew chapter 5 that murder isn't just something that we do with our hands.

The Lord said that a person that's angry with his brother without a cause or calls his brother a fool, it's in the same category, the same category as the sin of murder, murder in the heart. And likely classified that way, we would all have to plead guilty to the sin of murder. You know, we need to be very careful, brothers and sisters, how we express our anger and our frustration towards fellow believers.

You say, well, that's how I feel. Well, that may be, but that's not how God wants you to talk or to express it. Shamelessly shedding blood.

Idolatry. Well, of course, in many countries of the world, this is still a reality. People bowing down before idols.

I've traveled in China and East Asia and seen this. But, you know, the second commandment of the law, not to make an idol, the real reason behind that was God said my glory can never be contained or represented by something physical. And he said you will distort the true knowledge of me by making an idol.

And so in the New Testament, there's all kinds of things that we can gather around ourselves that distort the knowledge of God, wrong impressions of God. And so in Colossians 3, we read the words that covetousness is idolatry. But in my mind, when I have a wrong view of things and instead of following the Lord Jesus, who lived a satisfied life, satisfied with a simple life.

If I follow that life of the world of always grasping for more, it can become an idol. So we have shamelessly shedding blood and idolatry. But then the third one we discovered was sexual defilement.

And somebody might say, well, surely an assembly in the modern day wouldn't be polluted by this. But just like I've showed you in these first two ones, sometimes the truth is a lot deeper. Shamelessly shedding blood is also called gossip.

Idolatry is also called covetousness. The Lord Jesus taught us in Matthew 5 that he said that everyone who looks on a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And Brother Smith has already referred to this.

But you know, the epidemic of pornography is awfully frightening. And I found some statistics a while ago, and as a parent, this is pretty freaky to me. Did you know that 9 out of 10 children between the age of 8 to 16 have viewed online pornography at least once? It's from the London School of Economics, 2002.

The average first age of exposure is 11. Of course, these are just maybe a random thing that pops up. But did you know that the biggest age group of pornography users, it's not older men.

It's people from the age of 12 to 17. One out of five children in that age range will receive unwanted sexual solicitations online. That's from your U.S. Department of Justice.

And in the age bracket of 15 to 17, the number of teens having multiple hardcore pornographic exposures, so repeat it, going back for it, 80%. So we may as well be honest. As parents, it's only wisdom to protect ourselves and our children and our families.

But we all need to think about this. It pains me to recite these statistics, but it's fairly likely that there is some in the meeting this afternoon that are struggling with this form of temptation, adults or children. And if you are, please seek help from someone.

Pray to the Lord for grace. But you may need to seek somebody's help, as it says in James 5, to confess your faults to one another, that you may be healed. And if somebody comes to you and confesses this form of a struggle, as Brother Smith has been saying, their feet are almost slipping.

When they say that, just listen to them and pray with them. Meet with them to help them to become accountable for this issue and to overcome. Don't, as we have been hearing this weekend, don't scold them.

They already know that what they're doing is wrong. Every time they click, they know. That's why they've come to you.

You don't need to rebuke them. You need to pray with them that the Lord will give them strength and keep them accountable. They need that help.

And so there were these three things in Ezekiel that were big problems, highly relevant today. There are other things, but we're not going to talk about it. The holy things.

These things that seem so small and so simple, and yet God said they were important. How often we fall into that trap. And we say, oh, what's the harm? What's the big deal? It's not a big issue.

But if the Lord wants us to do something, no matter how small it may seem to us, we ought to follow him. Having seen how these problems can affect our lives, I want to move away from this negative aspect to think, well, what's the answer in the modern day context, in the assembly? What hope is there? Well, what did God do? This was what was happening in Ezekiel's day. And what did God do? In the dark situation of this context, it says, I sought for a man.

And whenever, whenever the situation is dark, this is what God does. He seeks for someone who is willing to stand in the gap and build the hedge and make the difference. Someone has said it this way, that one person with God is a majority.

Do you believe that? One person with God is a majority. I believe that. And if from this conference afternoon, with all that we have listened to in instruction this weekend, if we could be challenged one person, it doesn't matter what everybody else does, one person, I sought for a man, for a woman, and you are that one person who will stand in the gap and build up the hedge.

How worthwhile it would be. Often, even in history, God just uses one. I read from your history back in an election years ago.

The two major contestants were Jackson and Adams. But neither of them had secured the majority vote that was required. Jackson had 99 votes.

Adams, 84. William Crawford, 41. And Henry Clay, 37.

None of them had a majority. So the bottom one, he dropped out, Henry Clay. He didn't like Jackson.

He didn't want to support him, even though he was the lead runner. So Adams, well, but he didn't like all of Adams' policies. So I think from your history, you probably all know this better than me, he tried to broker various agreements.

But anyway, it finally came down that the House had to vote. And so 25 states voted. Twelve states for Adams.

Four for Crawford. Seven for Jackson. That's 24.

And even still, Adams didn't have the required majority. He had 12. There's 25.

He needed 13. So there was one state left, New York. 35, congressmen.

17 were for Adams and 17 were against. Split right down the middle. And still, for the one state that was going to decide how the House would vote, which would decide who would become the president, the decision came down to one last, the 35th man, congressman, Stephen Van Rensselaer.

Clay and Webster tried to talk to him to convince him what way to go, and he listened so long he was confused. He was tired, and the time was coming. He had to make his decision, and he did not know what to do.

So he prayed. And he looked down and he saw one ballot. And he took it as a gift from God, and he picked it up.

He looked at the name, Adams. He cast that vote, and one vote, one ballot, made one congressman break the tie in the House that eventually decided the president of the United States, the power of one. It's in our history, and it's in the Bible.

You can make a difference with God. Think of some examples from Scripture. Think of Noah.

So often in history, God's purposes have come down to a crunch time. Is it going to go ahead, or is it going to collapse in the dust? And Noah, hundreds of years after man was made in God's image, there's this tragic decline, and it comes down to one man, the only man that pleased God in that day, and God told Noah to build, to build an ark. And because of that, the world was rescued, and one day the Messiah was going to come, and there was one man who was there to make up the hedge, to build up the wall, to build something for God.

I looked for a man. You know, God is looking today for men and women and young people who are willing to build. Lots of people want to deconstruct, and that's a relatively easy thing to do, but God wants people to build.

What are you going to build for God? You say, well, I just kind of want to watch. See, Christianity isn't like that. I know there's many churches, and that's how they hire their pastor, and they have their full-time ministry team, and they say, well, we just pay them, and we just come and enjoy.

That's not God's way. God's way is that we're a body where we come together and contribute, as we were studying yesterday. It's not a spectator sport.

It's participation. So what are you going to build? Well, we read in Jude verse 20, but you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith. And you know, as you and I take time each day to feed on the word of God and to converse with God and to commune with him and enjoy his presence, we can build ourselves up.

You say, I thought it was the responsibility of the teachers and the elders to build us up. Well, the Bible says building yourselves up. That's the mark of maturing in Christianity, that we can go to the word and we can build ourselves up.

We heard about it yesterday, about building a valuable and a durable work. Let every man take heed how he builds thereupon. And so whether it's your Sunday school class, put your whole heart into those children to see them saved for the Lord.

Whether it's a burden that you have to visit the older saints, sometimes older saints are lonely and neglected. You say, is that a work for the Lord? Yeah, you could spend your whole life encouraging older saints. You say, well, what will I do if they ask me to come and preach? Well, if God has told you to visit the older saints, you just tell them, you know, I have a higher calling.

I'm not supposed to be preaching. I'm supposed to be visiting the older saints. Don't try and do everything.

This one thing I do, do whatever God has called you to do. Or maybe God has given you ability to feed in the word and to feed God's people. You know, there's a crying need.

Some people say, well, the Bible studies are boring. Maybe you've said that. Well, why don't you dig into the word? And don't you worry about visiting the older saints or about preaching.

You study the word of God and make that your one thing so that when the Bible study comes along, that's what you're building into it. You've got something that can feed the saints. Build like Noah did.

Come down a few years, not now to Noah, but think a little while later. It's pretty dark in Abraham's day. The world's been scattered.

And Abraham has been called by God. He's living in modern-day Iraq. And the word of God comes to him one day.

And the Lord says, come out. And he tells his family, I'm going. And they say, where? He says, I don't know.

And they say, you're crazy. You're going and you don't know where you're going? He was going, as we've been hearing, following God. He was standing in the gap.

Not now building like Noah, but he's going. Going like Abraham. I don't know.

Maybe there's somebody here and God is calling you to go. Maybe to a new location as a missionary, another country, another city. Or maybe another assembly that has a need that the Lord's been burdening your heart about.

You're going to stand in the gap and go? Mind you, if God hasn't told you to go, you be very careful. The Bible's really against people that go when God hasn't told them to go. We don't need guidance to stay.

Never need guidance to stay. That's the lesson we learned from Israel, isn't it? When the cloud of fire was above, it wasn't hard to figure out when they needed to stay. If everything hadn't changed, they stayed.

But when the cloud began to move, well, that was when they went. To go. Brother John mentioned that maybe I should say something just a little bit about the work that the Lord has given us to do in respect to China.

So I'll just take a couple of minutes and say something about this here. I could have never dreamed when Brother Murray McCandless asked me to join him preaching back in 94, and I agreed, and the Lord gradually began to work in my life to be involved in evangelism and teaching the Word of God, and a burden grew for my home city of Toronto. I would have never dreamed one day that I would be working with the Chinese people, sharing the gospel, or going to China.

See, God doesn't usually give us long-range plans. He's not into that. I know businesses are, but he isn't.

He's more into one-step plans. One-step plans. May not work for business, but it works real well for the Christian life.

One-step plans. And so I started, we had some kids' meetings back in 2000, 2001, and some children started coming out, and they began to be the foundation of the work, those families that we met at that time. Children's work's a great way to meet people.

You know, Chinese people are largely ignorant of the scriptures, because communism has tried to stamp that knowledge out, and they largely succeeded in stamping the knowledge of God out, but they did not succeed in stamping the thirst out. That's the cool thing. They couldn't get rid of the thirst.

And so people have immigrated large numbers, thousands to Canada, and we have an opportunity to share the gospel with them. Not only in children's work, but we soon discovered the need to do, as I mentioned last night, what Paul did, to teach the word of God from house to house. And so we would often meet in homes to study the scriptures together and go over the word line by line so that they could understand the Bible and know the Lord.

In fact, not only with the Chinese immigrants, but we also used this with some pilots. This was a very interesting opportunity. Brother Jim Smith knows about this.

Over the last few years, a number of people have come to study pilot, to be a pilot in Canada and also in the United States. It's a providential thing. They've all gone back to China, but they've gone back with the gospel, and many of them have been saved.

It started in Gander and also in London, Ontario, and Welland and different other places. It was a great opportunity. I went, and I know Mr. Smith went and others, and just sharing the gospel with these pilots that have been with us for a short time.

And just a few months ago, I was in London Assembly and preached with the first Chinese pilot that got saved. His name is Raymond. I told his testimony.

It's very, very moving. So home Bible studies. Then over the next few years throughout the middle, 2003, 4, 5, 6, until the present, we often in the summers were able to have a tent work.

It was a great location right beside a mall and a library, and the Lord brought many blessings. Brother Matthew has helped in that effort before, and many people came to hear the gospel, and I'd ask that you pray because this is likely to be our last summer this summer in that tent because the land is being developed. We also engaged in a lot of social work, and those of you that work with people that are new to a country know about this.

We taught them English. My wife is the pro at that. I couldn't do it.

It's a good thing my life doesn't depend on it because I'm in big trouble. My wife is just astounding at that. She teaches them English, and we help them get jobs because it's not easy adapting in a new culture.

You just don't know how to say things. I remember one lady, and she had had about 40 interviews, no job. So we went over and said, well, why don't you come over and practice? This is what my wife does.

She says, come on over and practice. And so you write out a few questions, and they practice it all out. And we soon found out what the problem was.

Yuki, well, we got the questions, and so they said, well, what are your goals in being part of this company? That was a standard question. So she had written out her answer. My goal in joining this company is that I want to suck the marrow out of this job.

I still remember my wife and I sitting in the living room looking at her. What did you say again? And we said, you know, Yuki, that might not be the best way to express that thought. There might be a better way.

And she got a job within a week. Within a week. And so that's been a large part of our work.

We have Christmas dinners and things like this, just ways to connect and show the love of Christ so that then we can share the gospel. The assembly began breaking bread back in 2006. Mr. Gaius Goff was a big help in that.

It's a bilingual assembly. Some of the believers, it's easier for them to participate in Mandarin. So we sing half and half, and brothers and pray in whatever language they're comfortable, all the English Christians that are there are happy with that.

And when there's preaching, it's often translated. So we're very thankful for the little group there that's growing. The Lord is raising up leaders, and for that we're thankful.

And the Lord has blessed over the last year in the salvation of a number of teens and some families, and soon we expect them to be baptized. So we just ask that you pray for that work. My current part of that work is that I'm studying Chinese.

Last year I was in China for six months, two, three-month stints, and I'm working on my Chinese. I study every week now online and myself, and it's a long road, but you've just got to keep going. And I can communicate, and I can pray, and I can have Bible studies, and I hope within a year to be able to preach.

And so we're looking to the Lord as this first assembly has been established, that the Lord will guide us into a new work, because there's many opportunities to share the message of Christ, thousands and thousands of Chinese people. So that's my little story. I ask for your prayers.

But maybe there's somebody else here, and likewise, God is calling you to go. And if he is, will you stand in the gap? Will you build up the hedge? We can think of Moses, things that come to a crunch time in his day. And how did he stand in the gap? He stood in the gap as a leader by praying, and leaders do many things.

But Moses, in that moment when God was going to destroy the people, he learned the lesson of just lifting God's people up in prayer. I don't know very much about this. I have had to do a little bit of leading in the new assembly, but those of you that are leaders, you know about this far more than me.

And sometimes there's some problems that just can't be solved. But they can be, by taking them to the Lord in prayer, and he will bring the resolution. But come to the last one, we've thought of Noah who built one man, Abraham who went one man, Moses who prayed one man.

But then think of the days of Nehemiah, and the bright empire of the days of David and Solomon have come down. Israel has disobeyed and they've been put out of their country. And now the year is 538 BC, and Israel, a small group is coming back, just 50,000 of them to rebuild the temple.

And then 50 years later in the days of Ezra, another 1,000 come back to teach the people. And then now it's 13 years later and Nehemiah is coming with just a few companions, and he's going to rebuild the wall. Most of the fellow Jews have stayed back in Assyria and Babylon.

They're comfortable. But Nehemiah, one man, he's going to rebuild to repair the breaches in the wall. And if Noah was one man who built, and Abraham was one man who went, and Moses was one man who led, Nehemiah was one man who rebuilt, maybe there's a believer here coming out of a time of crisis.

You feel battered down from stress or persecution. You wonder if God can use you. Maybe you know of somebody in that situation.

You know, the scriptures are replete with so many examples how God is the God of rebuilding. Abraham goes down to Egypt those different times, but God brings him back. David steals Bathsheba, commits murder with Uriah.

Mind you, he had to face his sin, but he's brought back. And he's even brought back as the king. Peter denies the Lord, and yet he is the one who was used to proclaim the gospel on the day of Pentecost.

And so whatever the dark time period, God says, I sought for a man. And he finds his man. There was another day, hundreds of years later, and the world was dark.

Scripture has been silent for 400 years. And Israel's religion has transformed and regressed into just a barren, barren religion without the presence of God. And it was at that time, the fullness of the time, that God sent forth his Son to redeem them, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

God was looking for a man. Did he find him? Yes, he found him. And he looked down.

And on at least four occasions, he couldn't hold back. And he expressed his delight with his Son. At his baptism, this is my beloved Son, and whom I'm well pleased.

Again at the transfiguration, the same refrain. And then there in John 12, we read that although some people didn't understand the voice, they thought it was thunder. The Lord said, I have glorified your name, and I will glorify it.

The Father was looking for a man, and he found him. And the fourth occasion was not said with words. And after the Lord Jesus died, God looked down, and he found his man, his blessed Lord, Jesus Christ.

And he raised him from the dead. And God found his man. What did the Lord Jesus do? Did he build like Noah? Yes, he did.

The Lord Jesus said, I will build my church, and he built it at the cost of his life. Did he go like Abraham? He most certainly did. And who could ever measure how far he went? The incomprehensibly wealthy one became immeasurably poor.

The lofty one became low. He went the full distance. Did he lead like Moses by his prayers? Think of them in the garden.

And Hebrews describes it this way. He offered prayers and strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death. And he was heard in that he feared.

He prayed. Did he rebuild like Nehemiah? No one was so gracious to the weak and the broken. In his inaugural address, he proclaimed healing to the brokenhearted and deliverance to the captives, liberty to the bruised.

And it was John the Baptist who echoed those words. Perhaps he had heard them. A bruised reed shall he not break.

John the Baptist was that bruised reed. He's in prison. And he's wondering, is Jesus really the Christ? Somebody came to me, a Christian, and said, I'm wondering if Jesus is the Christ.

I don't know. I might have been tempted to go hard on him. Now, of course, we know that ultimately every believer will confess that Jesus is the Christ.

But John wasn't ultimately denying that. He was just in a sag period. What did the Lord do for him? As the messengers were leaving the Lord Jesus, he said to them, he said, just tell him what I'm doing and he'll know.

And then as the messengers were leaving, he said, I tell you, John the Baptist, he was more than a prophet. No one greater born from women. And he encouraged his heart.

He rebuilt. Because our Lord Jesus, I sought for a man. God found him.

The man who filled his heart with delight, who would build like Noah, who would go like Abraham, who would pray like Moses, and who would rebuild like Nehemiah. But I want to close. We've seen that God has always been looking for a man or a woman to stand in the gap and to make up the hedge.

And all through history, he's found them. Not many of them. Not one.

Just enough. Just one. But Christ is still looking for a man, for a woman.

An individual who will stand in the gap and make up the hedge. Will he find them? Will he find you? Will he find you? In Ezekiel's day, the sad refrain was, he found none. Will you be that one individual who will follow God's prompting and do whatever he is prompting you to do? This is the call.

What does he say? He says, Ezekiel chapter 22, I leave this text with you. I sought for a man, a woman among them, that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land. Will he find you? Just one.

The key is right here in this text. Who will make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me. If I want to be that kind of person who will be found by God to stand in the gap and make up the hedge, I will be the person who will live my life under God's eye every day.

Realize that he's always by my side. I will realize that in the Christian life there is no such thing as my private life. It's all open before the Lord.

Everything is towards him and for him and before him. And when I live life that way as we studied yesterday, I will be strong. I've heard talk, I don't know what you think about this, a lot of people they talk, they say, you know, there's never been a day that's so difficult for people to follow and serve God.

It's no wonder that we can't do it. I don't believe that kind of talk. Because that kind of talk says nothing about God.

And that's a big omission. I mean, we are Christians. We are people of God.

And that kind of talk says nothing about God. And I want to tell you that one person with God, as I've showed you from these examples, Oh may the Lord convince my own heart, one person with God is able. Not on our own, but in his presence we can.

You take a look at Israel's history. It didn't matter their history, you know, as you go through it. They didn't get defeated when the enemy was strong and have success when the enemy was weak.

That wasn't their history. In fact, when the enemy was strong and they were walking with God, they prevailed. Didn't matter how strong the enemy was.

But when they weren't walking with God, it didn't matter how weak the enemy was. They collapsed. Our success, brothers and sisters, has nothing to do with the strength of the enemy.

It has everything to do with abiding in Christ. With living before him. Being open before our Lord.

And when we, as this scripture, walk in the presence of the Lord, we will be strong. It will change all of our relationships. Think of Philippians 4, the Lord is at hand.

Philippians 4 and 5, and it helped them deal with those disagreements between those saints. When we realize the Lord is at hand, we'll be able to get along with one another better. Our responses will be tempered.

Romans 13 and 12 says, The night is far spent, the day is at hand. And he exhorts us to holy living. And when we see the Lord near, ourselves in his presence, we will be incited on to holy living.

Then we read in Revelation 3, the Lord Jesus says, I stand at the door, right near. And brothers and sisters, when we live that close to him, he says, I'll come in. And we will have his presence.

May the Lord encourage us as we leave this conference to walk close to him. So that we may be that one man, that one woman, that one young person who will prevail with the Lord. I leave the text with you.

May it challenge my heart and yours. 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. And in that day, he said, I found none.

In Garnevilla, I hope he will say, I found one. You.