A Few Good Men

“The righteous one perishes, and no one takes it to heart; faithful men are swept away, with no one realizing that the righteous one is swept away from the presence of evil. He will enter into peace — they will rest on their beds — everyone who lives uprightly.” (Isaiah‬ ‭57‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

What’s your measure of greatness? What constitutes a hero, in your mind? That all depends on your values and worldview – the actions, values and character choices you see as most important. If you look around at who our culture praises and applauds, then you get a pretty good idea of what standards they’re using to measure greatness, what they value and who they see as important. To be honest and very blunt, that’s just downright scary.

We all have someone that we look up to. We even use that phrase – look up to – because it implies we’ve placed this person on a pedestal, a level above our own. We see in them things that we want and hope to see in ourselves. In case you didn’t know it, every child does this naturally with their father whether he deserves that position, or not. Since we are celebrating Father’s Day this weekend, I have some hopes and some concerns about these things that I’d like to share with you.

In the opening verse of our focal passage, we find that nobody even notices when someone righteous perishes. Isaiah’s culture had so lost its way that NOBODY even noticed that the best men, the righteous ones, were dying off. The most disheartening thing about this is not that the righteous are dying – that’s sad, but it happens naturally. No, the most disheartening this is that nobody even notices or cares that it’s happening. They’re just oblivious and couldn’t care less.

This didn’t just happen in Isaiah’s day, this is happening right now, in our day! We are losing our “righteous” ones and nobody notices or seems to care. What do I mean? I mean that we’ve lost sight of what constitutes a good man. We no longer recognize what qualifies as a righteous man. We’ve diluted what it means for someone to be worthy of being our hero, someone you can truly look up to. We’ve settled for far less than mediocrity. We now call good men evil and evil men good.

Our heroes are often overpaid sports figures, movie icons and rich entrepreneurs or, for this new generation, social media influencers. As mentioned last week, the tree is identified by its fruit. When you see good fruit, you know you have a good tree. When you have good character, values and actions then you know you’ve found a good person. So, what characteristics, values and actions you consider valuable and good define who or what you see as righteous. If your definition is broken, then your heroes will possess those broken values and they’ll display those poor characteristics in their actions. 

You think I’m kidding or exaggerating? Do you remember what happened when the news media learned about Mike Pence and his life rule about being alone with a woman who was not his wife – the “Billy Graham rule”. The media called it “sexist” and a “lack of true character”. They said it was better to have good character than a set of rules to follow. Gentlemen, good character is the direct result of developing and following good rules and habits. Good character is sullied and lost by abandoning those righteous rules and breaking your good habits. Our culture mocked and ridiculed a man who was simply trying to honor his marriage vows and value his wife. But this same media who mocked Pence’s “rule following” regarding his marriage vows, was shocked when he followed the rule of law and upheld the constitution on January 6, 2020.

On this day when we honor fathers, I want to remind you men what it means to be a good father. I think we really know what it means to be a good father but, somehow, we expect good fathers in spite of the poor examples we laud and celebrate. In the verses that follow our focal passage, Isaiah identifies some very poor examples. Men of questionable character that mock God’s rule of law. Rebels and liars sticking out their tongues at Him. But even worse, these men burn with lust and slaughter children in the ravine.

Men, as I mentioned last week, you cannot protect your family from the onslaught of the enemy unless you know his methods of attack. You can’t defend against him unless someone is on guard duty and watching your perimeter. I’m trying to be that tower watchman, the barking guard dog. If you’re going to have a strong family, if you’re going to have a legacy to pass onto your children then you have to start today by seeking to be a hero in your children’s eyes and a righteous man in God’s eyes and that kind of life begins at an altar. 

Yes, that altar. The one where you made promises and exchanged vows. It’s called an altar for a reason – you sacrifice yourself on it for the love of someone else. It isn’t just for the sake of the love you have for the that one standing next to you, it’s also for the love you have for all that comes from that union. But most especially, it is for the sake of your love for God. “Then He said to them all, “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will save it.” (Luke‬ ‭9‬:‭23‬-‭24‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

So, listen up. I’m the watchman that’s ringing the bell and the guard dog that’s barking because the enemy is in the camp.  The enemy is attacking us through our vulnerability towards selfishness. Our culture has taught us to believe that personal happiness is the greatest prize our world has to offer. Because of that, we have a tendency to justify the choices we make by claiming that God just “wants me to be happy.” We make choices that are in opposition to His Word and against His will and we justify them in our minds with our yearning for personal happiness. I’m here to tell you that God is more interested in your personal holiness than in your personal happiness.

One of the biggest issues I see in modern marriage is the tendency to make it all about ourselves, our needs and our desires. But if you listen to the promises of the traditional wedding vows (which I still use, by the way) then you’d notice that they are not about your own needs but about your lover’s needs. Those promises are about being present and loving when things are going well but even more so when they aren’t. Don’t make a promise you have no intention of keeping. Be a man of your word, your family is counting on it. 

Let me give you a bit of marriage advice from an old married man of 47 years. Marriages don’t usually fall apart, they grow apart. When your interests and attention are turned elsewhere then you don’t fan the flames of your relationship. When you fail to do that, the flames burn out and the coals grow cooler with each passing day. But a little puff of breeze can reignite those coals, so get your fans out. Here’s the divine energy to get it started: “To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.” (Ephesians‬ ‭5‬:‭33‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

Did you catch that? Each of you is to love his wife in the way he loves himself. In other words, when you love your wife in the ways that you love yourself then you’ll find divine power to fuel a dramatic reaction in your marriage. The world is filled with self-help solutions and the most common one for a failing or failed marriage is to just “move on.”If you make the same mistakes in the next marriage, you’ll get the same results. Wash, rinse, repeat. Same issues, same response, same results.

Every marriage relationship faces challenges. Whether the marriage survives those challenges is dependent on the response both parties make to those challenges. Husbands, if you love your wife in the same way that you love yourself, with the same commitment, intensity and sacrifice, then your wife will respond to that love. Wives, if you respect your husband, with the same respect and devotion that you owe to one who loves you with the love of Christ, then your husband will respond to it. Marriages built on selfless love and mutual respect will grow, thrive and flourish. 

In closing, I want you to note the words used by Isaiah to describe these men: righteous, faithful, and upright. These are men who make the daily choice to walk the more difficult path, the path of obedience to God and His Word. But in choosing that difficult path, they face risks, ridicule and cultural rejection. When they die, their cultural peers don’t even take notice of their absence. In other words, their culture doesn’t see them as heroes, as trend setters, as famous and worthy of their attention. When you do what God says is the right thing, most of the world won’t sit up and take notice. They’ll just ignore you and your achievements.

But I can assure you, someone’s watching. Someone notices those choices. Someone is paying attention to your sacrifice. Your children notice and God is paying attention. What you might not have noticed in our focal passage is how God responds to your sacrifices, “with no one realizing that the righteous one is swept away from the presence of evil. He will enter into peace – they will rest on their beds – everyone who lives uprightly.” When we do what God desires, when we sacrifice our own will to do His will, then we are “swept away” from the presence of evil and we “enter into peace” and find “rest.”

“For those who live according to the flesh think about the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, about the things of the Spirit. For the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭5‬-‭6‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

“Those who are persecuted for righteousness are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. “You are blessed when they insult and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of Me. Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭10‬-‭12‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves.”(Matthew‬ ‭11‬:‭28‬-‭29‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

If all you want is recognition, fame, wealth and the praise of men then keep doing what you want. But if you want to know God’s blessing, if you want to experience His peace and hear Him say, “well done, faithful servant”, then He’s looking for a few good men… 

That is, if you’re up to the challenge and can handle the truth.