You need God’s word. This proverb is a great reminder. The Bible, the inspired scriptures of Jehovah, the only true God, is crucial for you. Without a revelation of God’s will, mankind is desperately ignorant and will self-destruct. Individual examples of dysfunction are all around you. God will soon destroy the world for its insane rebellion.Neglect the Bible to your own peril. Fulfillment and happiness are by keeping God’s commandments, which can only be known by attention to the Bible. Your success and prosperity depend on you having a message from God. The lesson of this proverb is simple, but most are grossly misled by a false interpretation and foolish application.The hired gun brought in by the ambitious pastor tells the contented church, “To be a big church, you need to think big. If you want to grow, then you need to think growth. If you want to triple your attendance in two years, then you need to build an auditorium that size. If you can dream it, you can believe it. If you can believe it, you can achieve it.”He goes to his next PowerPoint slide and declares, “God agrees. The Bible says, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ Get a vision, people! Get a vision of tripling the size of your little church! Sign your pledge cards today, and help your pastor get that multi-million dollar mortgage! You need a vision, so your church won’t dry up and disappear.”Who has not heard this sound bite, “Where there is no vision, the people perish”? The words of this proverb are well known, but the true meaning is little known. Here is one of the most abused verses in the Bible. This is the sound of words with no regard to the sense of words. May God save you from such ignorant and flippant use of the Scriptures.This proverb is often corrupted to seduce churches to borrow large sums of money to finance unnecessary building projects. The “vision” is a plan to grow the church in size; and “perishing” is continuing on the same course with a bought-and-paid-for building. What a travesty of Bible interpretation! May the LORD bless you to read and understand the sense of this proverb, as Ezra read and gave the true sense to Israel (Neh 8:8).As often in Proverbs, the parallelism tells you that “vision” is the hearing and reading of God’s word. A happy man is contrasted with people perishing, and the law of God is contrasted with “no vision.” There is nothing here about dreaming or building plans.The lesson is simple but powerful. God’s word is a great blessing, and obeying it is the basis for true happiness. But where the word of God is not preached, the people will die in ignorance and folly from starvation for knowledge. Pray God to save you from such. This is the lesson of the proverb, and you should not let anyone corrupt this verse again.God at times may take His word away from His people. Consider the days of Samuel, who anointed David king of Israel. The word of the LORD, or a revelation from God, was rare in those days, and it was called a vision, as in this proverb. In general, God was not revealing Himself and His will to Israel until Samuel arrived (I Sam 3:1).God took His word away at other times also. Under Asa, the nation had gone a long time without a teaching priest or the law of God (II Chr 15:3). And during Josiah’s reign, the law of God, which had been lost, was found during temple renovation (II Chr 34:14). While in Babylon, God also took His word away from Israel (Ezek 7:26; Lam 2:9). Jesus saw His own people, without faithful preaching, as sheep without a shepherd (Matt 9:36).Without the word of God to save him, man will worship totem poles, stop spanking children, teach reincarnation, believe he came from monkeys, burn children in sacrifice, eat a cracker-god, kiss a stone in Mecca, worship buffalo, burn widows on funeral pyres, save baby seals while aborting baby humans, invent same-sex marriages, and so forth.
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Sep 2 20256 m