"And I sought for a man among them, that should build up the wall, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none. Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them" (Ezek. 22:30, 31). If it had not been for Moses, who stood in the breach that day when Israel worshiped the golden calf, the nation would have been destroyed. But at the time mentioned by Ezekiel there was no Moses, nor any man that could approach to God for them or was fitted to be used as a savior for them; and so the judgment fell on the guilty people. The mercy of God looked for a man before he let the stroke fall. He would have been glad had there been such a man. But there was not. Here we stop to reflect---not only that God is looking, and looking for men whom he can use, but how much depends on any one man's faithfulness to God, not only as far as he himself is concerned, but also as to the welfare of others; for no man is evil just for himself, and no man is good only for himself. We hear men excusing their wrong lives with the plea that they are harming only themselves. Besides being untrue, the excuse is pitifully selfish. Harming only yourself--when men are perishing around you, whom, if you had been a true man, you could have saved; when souls are overcome in darkness and despair, whose gloom you could have lightened; spending your life in selfish gratification of passions and fleshly [170] desires, the while the place you could have filled goes unfilled; the tasks of noble service God would have given you to do, go undone; souls perishing, hearts breaking, lives going to destruction for the lack of the helping hand which you could have extended--yet you say: "I am harming only myself!" And who can declare the disappointment of God when he "sought for man" and "found none"? Let us cleanse ourselves to be vessels sanctified, meet for the Master's use.

[TAG 170-171]