Without a Vision the People Perish

I. This year we commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, which, among other things, was a call to Christians to go back to the Bible. So, I am beginning a series of sermons on Scripture.
II. Prov.29:18 KJV Where there is no vision, the people perish: But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
A. Everybody knows this verse: Without a vision, the people perish.
1. Well, it doesn’t mean what most people think it means.
2. ?It’s not that there isn’t some truth in the common misinterpretation of this verse. The harmful part of its misinterpretation is not that we get the wrong lesson, but that we miss the true lesson.
B. Proverbs 29:18 ESV “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.”
C. The way we think of a vision today
1. The future imagined or the imagining of the fulfillment of a goal
a. As in “a church needs a vision” — or a ministry or a company or a family.
2. Seeing something in a dream or trance
a. This is more consistent with what “a vision” was in ancient Israel when Proverbs was written.
D. So, when it says “without a vision, the people perish,” it means that without a prophetic vision the people perish, which is why the ESV translates it that way.
E. There are two reasons we know this is the correct meaning of vision:
1. Vision = āzôn is used 35 times in the OT. In every one of those 35 cases, it refers to an event through which the Lord spoke to a prophet.
a. E.g. 1Samuel 3:1 “The word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.”
2. One of the features of Hebrew literature is parallelism.
a. This is so helpful in interpretation! When we’re uncertain of the meaning of a given word, the parallelism helps us to understand it.
b. E.g. Proverbs 29:22 A man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression. — This is synonymous parallelism.
c. Proverbs 29:23 One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor. — This is antithetical parallelism.
3. In Proverbs 29:18 we have an instance of antithetical parallelism.
a. Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint,
(1) but blessed is he who keeps the law.
b. “Blessed” is in opposition to “perishing” or casting off restraint.
c. Keeping the law is the opposite of not having God’s prophetic revelation.
F. You see, God created humans with a mind, and He’s allowed man to know things, both through observation and through experience.
1. But He’s also made it so there are things man needs to know which he can’t know on his own.
2. In particular, man doesn’t know what he needs to know about God and about himself, and about how the world came to be.
G. I recently read someone say that a God may exist but we have no way of knowing. I sort-of agree.
1. We never want to give the impression that we believe in God because we’ve looked at the evidence and come to the conclusion that there must be a God and that He must be like this.
2. But what if God chose to make Himself known to us? That’s what Christians believe.
3. We believe in God because God has chosen to reveal to man the things we need to know.
H. Some of these things God has revealed by writing them on stone with His own finger, as with the 10 commandments (Exod.31:18).
1. Some of these things He has revealed by speaking directly from heaven for man to hear, like when He spoke to Moses or when He spoke out of heaven at Jesus’ baptism and said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” – Matthew 3:17
2. But in the OT most of the messages God revealed to man came to prophets by means of supernatural visions, and then to others through the prophet. E.g. Isaiah 1:1 “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”
3. Now the pattern of the Bible is not for there to be constant prophetic visions which people receive, but when God has a new sphere of knowledge to impart upon His people, He gives it to a prophet, the prophet declares it to God’s people by the power of the Spirit, it gets written down, again by the power of the Spirit, and then that written form of God’s revelation becomes the authoritative deposit of the word of God.
4. So vision in Proverbs 29:18 is really the same thing as law. That’s why they’re parallel.
5. Both are the word of God, an expression which is also synonymous with vision in the parallelism of 1Sam.3:1 “The word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.”
I. Human nature is such that whether its because of our experience or the influence of others around us, some things very much seem right to us and we are inclined to believe them. This is very dangerous.
1. Proverbs 14:12 (&16:25) There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
2. Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.
3. Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding.
4. Proverbs 26:12 Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him. (See also Proverbs 3:7, 30:12; Isaiah 5:21)
5. This is pretty much what Proverbs 29:18 says: Without God’s word, people are a mess.
a. If you put your trust in your own heart instead of trusting the Lord’s word, there is more hope for a fool than there is for you.
J. But let’s talk more about the “perish” and “cast off restraint” part of the verse.
1. The Hebrew word here is the one which is used in Exodus 32:25 to describe the wild behavior of the Israelites when Aaron made the golden calf.
2. Run off the tracks, fall apart, melt down, run wild, go crazy, descend into chaos, fall into anarchy
3. In the parallelism, it is opposite of blessed.
4. Without the word of God, man can’t be what he was made to be. He can’t thrive. He can’t flourish. He’s a train-wreck.
K. But notice v.18b goes one step farther: “Blessed is he who keeps the law.” The blessed person is not the person God speaks to. It’s the person who God speaks to and who does what the Lord says.
1. In the Bible we know that there are lots of folks who have God’s word but are still very lost, still falling apart, because they don’t keep God’s word. There are even people who know the Bible very well, but who do not live according to it.
2. Matthew 7:24–27 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
L. 29:18b implies a number of steps, for no one goes directly from having God’s word to doing it.
1. Having access to the word of God (language, availability, literacy, etc.)
2. Paying attention to the word of God (listening, reading, being attentive)
3. Learning the word of God — This is a long-term process requiring commitment, interest, patience
4. Living according to the word of God (prayer, desire, the Spirit’s power)
M. But even that isn’t complete. The transition from stage 3 to stage 4, from learning God’s word to living by God’s word, doesn’t happen without God’s word getting into one’s heart.
1. It’s when God’s word understood becomes God’s word cherished and enjoyed and clung to and embraced and celebrated, that it can then become God’s word lived out.
2. Paul refers to this with these words: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” (Col.3:16)
3. Jesus refers to it as when “My words abide in you.” (John 15:7)
III. What does this mean for us this week? What does this mean for us in 2017?
A. It’s not enough to have God’s book of visions on the shelf!
B. And so two paths lie before each of us. Every one of us is at a crossroads.
C. Are we going to believe that what we get from man is sufficient or are we going to believe we need what God says?
D. There is so much information, so many voices, so much wisdom and knowledge, but the point of this verse is that: Without God’s word, we are lost. We don’t know where we are. We don’t know where we’re going. We don’t know how we got here. We don’t know why we’re here. We don’t know who God is. We don’t even know who we are!
1. We need knowledge from outside ourselves. We need knowledge from God.
2. Without God’s word, the people perish, but when they live according to His word, they’re blessed.
3. Without God’s word, my life goes to pot. Without God’s word, my life is a mess.
4. Without special communication from God, we disintegrate, we go wild, we fall apart, we melt down, we descend into chaos. That’s where the world is right now. This is every day’s news.
E. There are a lot more ways to be without the word of God than just ignorance or unavailability. We can be without the word of God because of neglect, or because of pride, or because of sin, or because of rebelliousness, or because of unbelief (if we think the Bible merely contains human ideas about God, then we are without a vision, and we are included in the group which will perish).
F. I have enjoyed seasons of rich feasting on the Lord’s word in my life, but not as many as should have been, I’m ashamed to say.
1. And I’m even more ashamed to say that I’ve come to see that pride is my main obstacle.
2. I have come to see that on some level I don’t think I need to feed on God’s word each day.
3. But to the extent that I ignore God’s word, to that extent I make a mess of my life, my family, my ministry. Without a vision, the people perish. Without a prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint. But blessed is he who keeps the law.
4. And until God beats me down far enough I don’t realize that I need Him and His word everyday.
5. And later I look back at times like that and say to myself, “What a fool you were!”
6. Maybe there are others like me. Have you been beaten down far enough yet?