Two Kinds of Vision [B]

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Proverbs 29. We looked at it briefly this morning, and I talked to you about this being a passage, a verse that’s taken out of context a lot, and I know because I’ve been one that’s taken it out of context. But it wasn’t that the conclusion was wrong.

We talked about setting goals in ministry. We talked about having a vision in ministry in terms of a picture in our minds of where we’re going, and we talked about how that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Paul did that, and we talked about some of the things this morning that were outlined in Colossians that when he did ministry among the people at Colossae and I think the other churches as well, he had these things in mind.

Does anybody remember what any of the three were? Christ-centered. .

. any one of the three? Is anybody else awake this morning?

Christ-centered worship, preaching, discipleship. Very good. You got that from your notes, didn’t you?

That’s all right. Whatever it takes to remember it. Christ-centered worship, Christ-centered preaching, Christ-centered discipleship.

If we have any vision, it’d be easy for a church to develop a vision and say, we want to be the big church, we want to be the trendy church, we want to be the church everybody talks about. But if we’re going to set goals as a church, if we’re going to have any kind of vision, it should be this kind of vision of Christ-centered everything that we do. And so vision and having a direction is not necessarily a bad thing.

It’s just that the reason I included it in this series is that it has nothing to do with the text that people use to quote it or quote to support it. Proverbs 29, 18 says, Where there is no vision, the people perish. But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

I’d like to go back a few verses and just try to bring in a little context tonight. We’re going to talk about a second kind of vision. As I told you this morning, we use the word vision today other than in terms of eyesight.

We talk about somebody having a vision, somebody being a visionary. It means they see clearly what’s coming or what needs to be done. Not that they’re fortune tellers, but we think of men in government or men in business and say he’s a visionary because he knows what needs to be done.

He sees where we’re going. There’s another kind of vision that when it’s used here in the Old Testament, it tends to mean, and that’s a revelation from God. And it’s hard sometimes to get a context from the book of Proverbs because I’ve told you this before, you can be talking about the subject of wisdom.

The next verse you’re talking about money. Then the next verse you’re talking about raising children. But occasionally you find an area where it talks about the same subject for a few verses.

So we’re going to look back at verse 15 on down to verse 21 of Proverbs chapter 29 tonight. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. The wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth, but the righteous shall see their fall.

Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest, yea, he shall be a delight unto thy soul. Where there is no vision, the people perish. But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

A servant will not be corrected by words, for though he understand, he will not answer. Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? There is more hope of a fool than of him.

He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at length. And then it goes on to talk about anger and transgression from there. But we get a sense from the context that the whole passage here, these few verses that we looked at, This verse that is so often taken out of context, that I have taken out of context to say, you know, that where we don’t have a vision, where we don’t have a plan for the future, we just languish and die.

That’s not what the verse, it’s not what the passage as a whole is talking about. The passage as a whole is talking about correction. It’s talking about instruction.

It’s talking about the information that we need to have to live godly lives. It’s talking about the rearing of children, and it starts in verse 15, saying, The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother’s shame. And you’ve probably all seen this.

I hear stories. I hear people tell stories all the time that, well, I was in the grocery store the other day, and there was this woman there who was just letting her child get away with murder and not correcting him. He was acting up, and she was just letting him.

And I live in fear of being one of those parents that people tell stories about when they come home from Walmart. But we’ve all seen it, and not just kids at Walmart, but we’ve all seen what happens when children are not corrected, when children are not disciplined. When children are not given the instruction that they need, they run wild.

Do they not? Okay, making sure y’all are alive. Y’all are thinking about hot dogs, aren’t you?

We’ll try to be quick tonight. Left to themselves, they run wild. A child left to himself puts his mother to shame.

And I assume to his father too. And when the wicked are multiplied, transgression increases. When we’ve seen the results of people not being disciplined throughout their lives, and we’ve multiplied the number of wicked people, then transgression, sin, lawlessness increases.

And that’s not just a spiritual principle, that’s a practical principle as well. As we’ve seen generations of children grow up without any kind of direction from their parents, not to say that all parents have neglected their responsibility, But when we’ve seen generations of children grow up by and large with very little direction from their parents and grow up to be adults who have very little direction, very little respect for authority, and pass those same things on to their children, as a country, as a civilization, we’ve regressed. I tell my dad, my dad and I talk about deep things and sometimes not so deep things, especially when we’re in the car, and we’re just talking about it last week as a matter of fact.

And I told him, I don’t know why I’m such an expert, I wasn’t there. But I told him, I said, I think Western civilization peaks sometime between 1953 and 1963. And ever since then, we’re just kind of sliding backwards into the Dark Ages, is what I said.

We’re going back to the time of the barbarians, slowly but surely. Well, it’s the result. Again, I don’t know.

I wasn’t there between 1953 and 1963. I just know what I saw in I Love Lucy. Ever since then we’ve had generations of kids that have grown up without the kind of direction that they had from their parents and society has paid the price for it.

Folks, it’s a practical principle that we see as we look around us. It’s a spiritual principle as well. That where the people, not just children, but where the people do not receive discipline, correction, instruction, they run loose.

They run free. They do what they will. He says, correct your son.

Correct thy son, verse 17, and he shall give thee rest. Yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean you discipline your son, you give him a spanking, and right then and there you’re going to be happy about it. My parents never told me this is going to hurt you more than it’s going to hurt me.

Or, wait, did I say that right? They never told me it was going to hurt them worse than it was going to hurt me. But I heard other parents say that, and I thought, well, maybe there’s some truth to it.

You know, you grow up, and the parents love. No, I’ve had to spank Benjamin, and I said, you know, I don’t enjoy spanking him. I don’t enjoy telling him no. I don’t enjoy getting on to him.

But yeah, the spanking definitely hurts him worse than it hurts me because I’m thinking, I love you boy too much to let you act that way. And I tell him that. I said, you know, Daddy loves you, but you’re not going to get by with that.

And he’s learning slowly but surely. And you know what? As he learns and as he’s gone from the point where we tell him no and he throws a fit and throws himself down on the ground, and that still does happen sometimes.

But the first few times that started happening, I’d give him a light swat and say, you’re not going to throw a fit. And he doesn’t do it as much anymore. Well, now that my son has, again, don’t think I’m telling you I’m a child-rearing expert or that I’ve got it all figured out.

I’m just telling you where I am right now. He’s learned a little bit about how to behave, a little bit about how to behave in public, and he’s more fun. He’s more enjoyable to be around.

We enjoy our time together when he doesn’t throw a fit to the point where I can take him out in public and we run errands sometimes. He’ll go to the grocery store with me or Walmart or Lowe’s or whatever. We just have a big time.

And I enjoy his, even though he’s a year and a half old, I enjoy his company. He gives rest to my soul. Whereas when he doesn’t act right, when he doesn’t act like he’s had correction, he brings me and his mother to shame.

But children are like that. People are like that. It’s part of our human nature that left to our own devices, we run wild.

We run wild. And in verse 18, he says here, where there is no vision, the people perish. And I told you about that this morning when it says vision here.

I had been told that that doesn’t mean vision in the sense that we think of vision. And so I went to check it out myself and got out my handy Bible software where we can pretend like we understand Hebrew and looked at the Hebrew word that went behind vision and looked up, ran a search real quick of every place. It’s so neat what we can do today.

Ran a search of every place where that Hebrew word is used in the Old Testament and skimmed through them. And I saw there were some 34, I think, examples of where that word is used. three of them had to do with some kind of dream.

The other, which in those cases I believe also may have been a dream that was given to them by God. But in all the other cases, as far as I could tell, it indicated that God was giving a message to somebody. Not necessarily that they were asleep, and not that they had pictures, they had plans in their head about where they were supposed to go, but that God had revealed something to them.

That’s why I told you this morning, you know, he says, this is the vision of Isaiah. This is the vision of so-and-so. And then they began to prophesy on God’s behalf toward the people of Israel.

This word, vision, I think they would have understood the correct meaning when they translated it 400 years ago. But for us, as I said, what we mean by the word vision has changed. And the word we would understand correctly would be revelation.

Where there is no revelation from God, the people perish. And that word perish really doesn’t have anything to do with dying. It has everything to do with being loose, running loose.

And so if I was going to translate this, my best effort at it would be, where revelation is lacking, the people run amok. Now that’s based on what I’ve studied in the Hebrew of this verse, but I’m not a Hebrew scholar, so that’s the Jared paraphrase, take it for what it’s worth. But where God’s revelation is lacking, the people run amok.

And that fits in perfectly with the context of the verses we’ve already looked at, that children, that people left to their own devices will run loose, will run wild, and do whatever they want. But he that keepeth the law, happy is he, or blessed is he. He that keepeth the law, he who abides in God’s law.

And yes, at the time that this was written, that meant all the law, the ceremonial law, the civil law, the moral law. Folks, for us today, the moral law is still in effect. And even though it can be difficult to live by the principles of God’s Word, we can be faced with difficult choices sometimes, we can be faced with difficult circumstances, But ultimately, I still believe and maintain there is joy in a life that is lived according to the dictates of God’s moral law.

There are certain things that I never had to worry about because I tried to live my life according to God’s Word. Folks, as a teenager, I never had to worry about an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. And I didn’t need the government to tell me how not to have one.

I knew from God’s Word. I didn’t have to worry about certain diseases. I didn’t have to worry about getting caught drunk driving.

I didn’t have to worry about, you know, I won’t say I never lied, but I tried to be honest and truthful because God’s Word tells us to. And so I didn’t have to walk around all the time trying to remember what I’d said to who. Folks, it may be hard at times, but overall I believe there is joy and there’s blessing in a life of obedience.

And he says, happy is he that keeps the law. A servant, he says in verse 19, will not be corrected by words. And what that means is by words only.

just coming out and telling the servant, you know, you need to do this. You need to act this way. You need to, folks, if it’s just words and there’s no action, there’s no example behind it to back it up, there’s nothing but just our words, there’s only so much we can do to get through to people.

For though he understand, he will not answer. Seest thou that a man is hasty in his words. Going back to that, to try to get somebody to act right just by us reasoning with them, ultimately is not very effective.

Folks, people have tried for centuries to straighten out society, to straighten out their fellow man, and trying to do it by coercion, trying to do it by guilt and societal pressure. Well, this is what we expect of you, so that’s what you need to do. Or doing it by force of law.

Ladies and gentlemen, force of law, coercion, guilt, reason, none of these things have ever changed a man’s heart from the inside out. The only thing that can change a man’s heart from the inside out is God, the power of God, the revelation of God. to speak to men’s hearts, to break down the hardened walls of our hearts, to break through the sin and the searing of our conscience and get through to people.

And so to say that by words we’re going to correct a servant, we’re going to make people act right just by telling them how they need to. . .

Folks, it has nothing to do with us telling them how they need to live. It has everything to do with the revelation of God. God’s Word is powerful, sharp, like a two-edged sword.

And me just simply telling people, you know, this is the way you ought to live because it’s nice. Rarely is that going to make any impact on people. But you begin to speak the things of God’s Word to people.

You begin to preach God’s Word. You begin to live God’s Word and share it with people. And they hear God’s Word.

I won’t say everybody changes, but it changes hearts. It changes lives. Look around the room.

Look at yourselves and look at everybody else in the room. And look at me and think of where each and every one of us could be if it was not for the fact that God had gotten a hold of our lives. And we can see the power of the Word of God.

We can see the power of God’s revelation. God’s Word to penetrate men’s hearts and to change us from the inside out. Folks, a servant or anybody else will not be corrected by mere words.

But the instruction, the revelation of God makes all the difference. And he that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child, bringing him up in the truth, bringing him up in the faith, because they were expected, just as we should be expected, that all those in their household would be trained up in the ways of God’s Word. It was expected in the Jewish culture that you would raise your children, You would teach them the law, just as you would teach them to tie their shoes.

I don’t know if they wore shoes that tied. But you understand what I’m saying. Teach them the things that they need to know about life.

Folks, the law and their faith was part of that. For us, as we teach our children, we potty train them. We teach them to tie their shoes.

We teach them how to eat with silverware. That’s what we’re working on now. We teach them how to do this and that.

Folks, the nurture and admonition of the Lord should be an inseparable part of us preparing our children for life. Not simply giving them a list of rules of do’s and don’ts. There’s nothing wrong with rules, but not simply hovering over them with a list of rules and do’s and don’ts and you just don’t do this because I said so, but telling them what the Word of God says.

Telling them what the Word of God says. Teaching them His Word. He that delicately bringeth up His servant from a child shall have him become His son at the length.

Folks, this whole passage, again, believe it or not, I’m almost through, I think. I think. Don’t hold me to that.

This whole passage centers on the fact that where people are left to their own devices, they will do as they please. And to do as they please usually doesn’t mean doing the right thing. Verse 18, which is so often quoted, to say that we need to have plans, otherwise we’ll just languish here, means so much more.

It means that where the revelation of God, where the Word of God is lacking, the people will run amok, and we should not be surprised by that. We can apply this in our society today. We like to blame society.

We like to blame the world outside. And, you know, there are things that are to blame for the moral corruption in our world today. We can blame government agencies that have not helped matters.

We can blame the education system. We can blame higher education. We can blame our cultural institutions.

We can blame Hollywood. We can blame the television. We can blame popular music, all of these things.

But ultimately, the blame for society run amok lies with the fact that the Word of God is not heard or heeded. And it’s when churches abdicate the responsibility to make the revelation of God known that society runs amok. We’ve abdicated a great deal of responsibility.

Folks, we can try to fix it by legislation, but it’s not going to change anybody’s hearts. I’m not saying then we should vote for all kinds of immoral legislation and remove all restrictions on everything and just let people do whatever. but I am saying to rely on the government to fix our moral problems is a bad strategy.

It takes us as a church, it takes us as a people of God to make known the revelation of God, to make known the Word of God. You see, when it says where there is no vision, where there is no revelation, it doesn’t mean God had not spoken to the people of Israel. Even the pagan countries around them, God had given them a conscience.

God had written His law in their own hearts. It’s not a matter of God not speaking to people. It’s a matter of God not being heard by people.

People willfully ignoring God and those who heard God’s revelation not making Him heard to the people around them. What we can learn from this verse in its proper context is that God’s revelation is the only source of spiritual wisdom. It’s not our reason.

It’s not our philosophy. It’s not our laws that keep the people from perishing, from running loose. It’s revelation.

It says where there is no vision. He could have very easily said, where there’s no philosophy, where there are no smart people, where there’s no education, where there’s no this or that, where there are no programs, the people run amok. But he didn’t.

He said, where there’s no vision, where there’s no revelation. Folks, the revelation of God is the only source we have of spiritual wisdom. If we want to know about God, if we want to know about God, we can’t find Him just by our intellect.

If we want to know what He’s like, if we want to know what His plan is, what His will is, we can’t find it just by simply thinking about it long enough. When we talked Wednesday night about the Solas and Martin Luther, the Solas, if you weren’t here, being the Latin word for alone. And the five teachings of the Reformation that even though Baptists are not Protestants, we’re in agreement with them on, being that we hold to by Scripture alone, that Scriptures are the only standard.

We hold to by faith alone, that justification comes by faith, not by works. By grace alone, that we cannot earn God’s forgiveness. by Christ alone, that He’s the only mediator between God and man, and for the glory of God alone.

That God accomplished everything that needed to be accomplished for our salvation. We talked about those things that were rediscovered, and people began to rediscover those things, those essential truths of the gospel, when they realized that what they’d been taught, that reason and philosophy, these things they’d been taught and instructed to lean on, could not lead them to a relationship with God. Their reason, their philosophy, their learning were all powerless.

They needed the revelation of God. We would have no idea who He was. We would have no idea what He was like.

We would have no idea about the gospel if He had not, through His Word, chosen to reveal Himself to mankind. So we look to the revelation of God as the only source of spiritual wisdom. God’s revelation is the only source of spiritual wisdom.

Second of all, God’s revelation works by being heard and heeded. As I mentioned, when He says where there is no vision, he doesn’t mean God is not speaking. He means the people are not hearing and they’re not heeding when they are hearing.

If our society around us does not hear God’s word, it’s not because God hasn’t spoken anything worthwhile or relevant for them today. It’s because we as the churches have stopped declaring his word. We’ve stopped speaking with any kind of authority, with any kind of conviction that this is not just a book of moral ideas.

It is the very word of God breathed by him. And when it says where there’s no vision, where there’s no revelation, it means that when it is heard, it’s not heeded. People don’t listen to it.

God’s Word works when people hear it and obey it. And finally tonight, God’s revelation works to change and constrain our corrupt nature. God’s revelation works to constrain and change our corrupt nature.

What does that mean? Well, he says where there’s no revelation, where it’s lacking, the people perish, the people run wild. The power of God, the power of God’s Word is such that simply by hearing, we can be born again by faith.

Realize that? He says faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God. I used to try to argue people into heaven, and you know what?

I was not successful even one time. But yet I’ve had success just by telling people what God’s Word says. And people can respond in faith.

People can be born again just by having heard the Word of God. By having heard the Word of God and believing what it says. And yet when it’s not heard, when it’s not shared, the people run amok because they either don’t know better or they choose not to know better.

It works to change our corrupt nature and it works to keep us in check. Better than any government, better than any moral system, the Word of God is the only thing that can change men’s hearts. I didn’t mean for this to be a downer of a message, and I hope it’s not, because as much as I can say, you know, it’s the responsibility of the churches if the world has not gone quite the way we planned it.

Folks, there’s also joy in this that we realize the power that the Word of God has. We realize, we believe how powerful the Word of God is. Just by hearing it.

Each and every one of you here today, if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, you’re here and with a changed life and a changed eternity because at one point you heard the Word of God, the Word of salvation, the gospel, and you believed it. And everything was changed. Folks, the Word of God is powerful.

That ought to give us joy. It ought to give us a reason to celebrate because when we look at the world around us and think we’ve got to do something about it, we’ve got to fix it. We’ve got to fix the moral corruption around us.

Folks, it’s a big job and it’s not something we can accomplish. But if all we’ve got to do is make the Word of God known and let the Word of God do its work, it takes a tremendous burden off of us. The Word of God is desperately needed in our society today.

People need to hear it from the pulpits and they need to hear it from our lips when we go about our daily lives.

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