Good men lean, lead and love. In fact, the Word tells us to know the love of God which is unknowable. It has no height, no depth, no breadth, or other limit. But Ephesians 3 tells us to know that love. So our walk with the Father is an endless, eternal journey into the limitless love of God. Now you meditate on that a little bit. God’s love is a mind-blowing thought!
Too Few Good Men
There was a movie out a few years ago with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson called A Few Good Men. And that title serves to shape this Father’s Day message. But if I may, today’s world is suffering from too few good men. Would you agree?
Now, as I unpack this, I am not castigating any one group or individual. I’m sharing some general, truthful and accurate observations about culture. And know this: I am thankful for every person, man or woman, who wholeheartedly follows the Lord. I mean that with all my heart. But starting with this author, all of us can grow in our love for the Lord and improve our service. All of us need to do that.
We know that is not a condemnation of anybody, because the Word says the Lord Who began a good work in me is going to continue it until the day that I see Him face to face. At that moment, I will have been transformed into the image of Christ.
But until then, as long as I am here, blessed with the sunshine and breathing the air, there is change I must embrace. I’m still here and you are still here. We are not in His presence, face to face. So the Holy Spirit is still at work in us. That’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing!
The World
God loves us enough to complete His transformational work. What joy and peace that should bring us! But the world is filled with a majority of people who will never follow, never understand, and continue to reject what the Lord has to offer in His free gift of eternal life.
If we confess our sins and turn to Him and ask Him to forgive us of our sins, He promises without fail that He will do that very thing. But the world rejects the message. The Word says that there is a wide gate and a wide path and many find it. And it leads to destruction. But there is a narrow gate and a straight path. It leads to eternal life. But few find it. That’s what the Word tells us.
So, in the light of our Heavenly Father, we honor the earthly fathers He gave us. They blessed us in so many ways. And looking at God’s many gifts to us, we must understand that the world does not agree with most of what written here. That doesn’t make this message wrong. It does confirm what Jesus said about the minority that will know and follow the Truth. Don’t be discouraged because we knew that going in.
And so we turn to Ezekiel 22:30. This is probably not the verse that you would have thought would be a jumping off point for a Father’s Day message. There, we read:
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.
God didn’t find that person. This is the Word of the Lord to a nation that had rejected Him. He was looking for that man. And He still calls His own to stand in the gap for others and for the Kingdom. We are to declare the truth and stand up for the truth. God looked, but He didn’t find that man.
Standing In The Gap
We need to be the man that God was looking for. And I am confident and thankful those men are with us today. But once again, there are too few of them. The world is trying to make you believe a lie. They are teaching lies to children. It’s a lie that there’s no difference between men and women. They think God didn’t know what He was doing.
Oh, wait a minute! There is no God. We are all just biological accidents. That’s exactly what’s going on in the world. If you don’t like what you are then the destructive lie is that you can be something else. Is that happening or not? That’s exactly what’s going on in the world. But God did not make a mistake. God created them male and female (no other options). And He said, It is good!
He gave us roles. God gave us things to do. He made us differently for the purpose of establishing the home. And if you don’t understand today that the home is under a hostile attack with all the forces of Hell going against it, then you don’t know what’s happening. So we need to look, we need to be the fathers who stand in the gap, we need to be the ones the Lord is looking for.
So there are some prerequisites to being a good father. I’m preaching to the choir and I understand that. But this will go out on the internet. So you never know. I might get canceled or taken down after a piece like this. That’s up to others. I stood in the gap and told the truth whether it was acceptable to anyone else or not!
Good Men – A Little Levity
Being a man, we have to function as a man. The few good men take responsibility as a man. There is great value – by God’s design – in thinking like a man, acting like a man, and working like a man. And these are all prerequisites to being a good father, a good husband and good example. Unless we can be a good man, we cannot be a good husband and father. This is what we need to teach our children. It’s what we need to teach our grandchildren. And it’s what we need to build into the lives of those who come into our families.
So once again, I am thankful for the Godly, good men I know. That begins with my Dad. But again, even if we assume that every man in every church today is a good man, according to the Scripture, there are still too few good men, we need to pray, and we need to work.
Now let me offer a little light hearted exercise here. I know you’re surprised that I would want to put a smile on this. It’s fun to smile. And it’s good for your heart, right? That means, I’m gonna live to be 100!
I’m gonna help you girls out today. We’re honoring fathers, but I need to help you ladies out just a bit with a little insight. If you’ve been married for any length of time, you’ve probably figured all these things out. But just in case, let’s see what a man means when he says something. You know I routinely work with translators on the mission field. So I’m going to ‘translate’ Man-Speak for you!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Part II will follow soon and opens with the Man-Speak exercise!
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