Without vision

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=100 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04000640egdysm.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000066" FACE="Arial" ><B>Church of God, In Truth</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Arial" ><B> </B></FONT><B>    |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Church of God, In Truth"><B>home</B></A></div> <div> back to<B>  </B><A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Edification Articles"><B>Edification Articles</B></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#0000BF" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <A HREF="faith_and_patience.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Faith and Patience">Faith and Patience</A></div> <div> <A HREF="the_gifts_of_the_maji_and_ou.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Gifts of the Maji and our Destiny">The Gifts of the Maji and our Destiny</A></div> <div> <A 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<div> <A HREF="id329.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Government in Gods Church">Government in God's Church</A></div> <div> <A HREF="id330.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="HWA Radio Transcript 1979">HWA Radio Transcript 1979</A></div> <div> <A HREF="id333.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Is God speaking to us?">Is God speaking to us?</A></div> <div> <A HREF="id334.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Do you believe God?">Do you believe God?</A></div> <div> <A HREF="id335.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Warnings and Exhortation">Warnings and Exhortation</A></div> <div> <A HREF="id336.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Righteous Judgment">Righteous Judgment</A></div> <div> <A HREF="id337.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The physical and spiritual blessings of ">The physical and spiritual blessings of submission</A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=380 width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I><B>“WITHOUT VISION THE PEOPLE PERISH”</B></I></div> <bR> <div>         Five words, but a world of meaning and direction for life. </div> <bR> <div>                                                                                                                                                </div> <bR> <div>      “<I>Without vision the people perish</I>.”This insight of Proverbs 29:18, gives us a clearer and precious gem of God's word to life. It makes us aware that everything is of God, and by God for man. Man is God's precious jewel as He says of him in Malachi 3:17,”They shall be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts, On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.”</div> <div>      In the New King James Version, we read, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.” As explained, the verse gives us two concepts, 1). Revelation (vision) is needed to guide us in the right path, and 2). Obedience to that revealed word will bring us to our goal. The Holy Scripture is God's revealed word for mankind. This is what the apostle Paul in his epistle to Timothy implies, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be compete, thoroughly equipped for very good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  When the apostle wrote this, the only recognized scripture was the Old Testament as the New Testament was still in the process of writing. Today we have all 66 books that comprise God's revealed word. From Genesis (beginning) to Revelation that the apostle John wrote is God's revealed word for man. This is the instruction manual that God intends to be used by man.</div> <div>      Although the Bible is the word that will bring us to life, the natural man can't understand it without God's spirit in him. In short, as God's creation, man is not yet complete. He need the spirit of God as the final ingredient for him to be a finished product. This concept opens the idea that God is reproducing Himself in man. </div> <div>      In the garden of Eden, God had intended that man should have partaken of the tree of life rather than the other tree that resulted to his death. Man's wrong choice, his disobedience to the Creator made him go astray, away from the ingredient that would have completed him. God drove him out of the garden lest he also partake of the tree of life and live forever in sin.  Since then the final ingredient the Holy Spirit was not made available to man. Even today, except for the few that God is using, and also those that He had called and chosen to be the firstfruit of His harvest of humanity, the spirit of God is not available.</div> <div>      This means that salvation is not yet open to everyone. It was the spirit of God that inspired men to write God's word  to guide him to completion or perfection, it is by this same spirit that will open up his mind to understand these word.  This is our topic today that wise Solomon calls “vision” or revelation. Without this revelation of God's word, the people will come to naught as Strong's Exhaustive Concordance will later  tell  us about the word perish. God's word can only be truly understood if one has the spirit of understanding from God. This is what a friend can't grasp. A very religious friend, a Pentecostal woman, claims to have God's spirit and could speak in tongues, and lay her hands on others for healing yet finds it hard to comprehend the Bible.  She was confused when I told her to read what the apostle Paul had to say in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, regarding the need to have God's spirit before one can comprehend spiritual things.</div> <div>      We all have to realize that God's revelation of His plan is not all at once, but staggered bit by bit, piece by piece, according to His pleasure. Those in the early days of His work do not know what we know today. Here's what God said to Daniel, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end” (Daniel 12:9). Daniel was assured of life in the future, but was not given to know what it will be in the last days.</div> <div>      The kings and the prophets of old also desired to know, “For I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it” (Luke 10:24). The unfolding of God's plan is right on schedule. Factors only He knew work together to bring about the realization of His plan.</div> <div>      God's work had not stopped. It might appear to have been lost and forgotten in the world  yet behind the scene, it was silently moving on. Unnoticed and maybe unrecognized for almost 19 centuries, God called a man of advertising talent.  God worked mightily with him, opening doors that led to the revitalizing the 6<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >th</FONT> era of His Church, the Philadelphia era. The man was Herbert W. Armstrong. Under him the church grew in an unprecedented  rate of 30% in all aspects.</div> <div>      Yet God's plan and work was not totally revealed to Mr. Armstrong, he died  without God revealing to him His true calendar. This aspect of the work was not intended for him as scientific and technological knowledge was not yet ripe for him. The restoring of the lost true calendar that God had revealed to Moses at creation was reserved for the present church that He called after Mr. Armstrong died.</div> <div>      This true church is not claiming to be continuing the work of Mr. Armstrong, but is tasked  by  God  to  start with the Truth. It can't be denied that Mr. Armstrong had absorbed many doctrinal errors including his adoption of the Jewish/Hebrew calendar that uses the young crescent moon as its new moon. This calendar also had devised postponement rules that favors the preparation day over the annual Sabbath itself for their convenience. Note that these postponement rules cannot be found in God's word. The claim that these are God's unwritten rules given to Moses is a fallacy. The Bible as God's inspired Word is complete. It does not need unwritten rules to make it stand.</div> <div>      God's spirit did not reveal to Mr. Armstrong the truth that by his adopting the Jewish/Hebrew calendar, he would be observing a wrong day for Passover and also the other appointed festivals of God. Because of this the Church also absorbed other erroneous beliefs and practices and so God had to scatter them as He had done before in Babel.</div> <div>      God knew however, that if shown the truth, Mr. Armstrong would change as he had done with Pentecost. He had said many times that the mark of the true church is <U>its willingness to change </U>once the truth is revealed. He knew the church is not yet perfect. He could see the impending down fall of disobedience in the church.</div> <div>      Many times he had said in the past, “Do not believe me, believe your own Bible!” Mr. Armstrong understood that “<I>without vision, people will perish</I>.”</div> <div>      God's work had not stopped. It must not stagnate by sticking to everything that Mr. Armstrong had taught. Those churches of God that look upon Mr. Armstrong as the Elijah to come will stagnate. No new vision (revelation) from God will come to them. Day in and day out, week after week, year after year they do the same thing and expect the same thing. They do not know that Christ will come for His chosen firstfruits. They do not know how to escape passing through the great tribulation even though they keep God's commandments and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12:17).</div> <div>      The Church of God, in Truth task is living the truth as God had shown them in His Word. God had revealed to them the wrong practices and teachings of the former Worldwide Church of God, as well as the new truth that He wants them to live by. <I>For without vision, the people perish</I>.</div> <div>      It would be wise to once again go back to Solomon's two words of admonition, vision and </div> <div> perish in Proverbs 29:18. Vision is Strong's # 2377, chazown; frm 2372: “a  sight  (ment.),  i.e.  a </div> <div> dream, revelation, an   oracle:-vision.”  Perish is Strong's # 6544, para: “a prim. root; to loosen; by impl. to expose, dismiss; fig. absolve, begin:-avenge, avoid, bare, go back, let, (make) naked, set at naught, perish, refuse, uncover.” </div> <div>      Strong's description of the two words explains why we have variants as used by the different  versions of the Bible.  All these variants however boils down to mean that God is revealing in His word (revelation) for vision and lost of self control, or casting off restraint as the NKJV use it for perish. Plainly, it tells us that unless God open man's mind to see the future, man will end up as nothing. This is how valuable this admonition from Solomon is for us today.</div> <div>      How then does this apply to the present stage of God's work?  Clear enough, since we recognize that the annual festivals are guideposts to our understanding of where we are now in God's plan. Jesus Christ had already come and the Church had been established, we are now waiting for the King's return to establish His kingdom and God and man will be at one since everybody in that kingdom will have God's Holy Spirit.</div> <div>      Presently, God's work will not usher in Christ to His kingdom unless He had initially corrected through revelation to His present people the wrong understanding of the true calendar He once revealed to Moses and recorded in the re-creation of the world in Genesis 1.  Man must realize that re-creation started with 3 days of darkness before light from the sun and the moon appeared on the 4<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >th</FONT> day (Genesis 1:14-19). This also corresponds to the 3 days of darkness of the dark moon phase before the young crescent moon that Mr. Armstrong followed. We have to remember that the right new moon that God had appointed for seasons  will give us the months for our annual Sabbaths.</div> <div>      God, by vision has shown this to us. If we neglect this responsibility to prepare the initial move towards the ushering of the true calendar so that God's chosen ones will be protected by Christ's sacrificial blood at Passover, we who know of the impending danger will be responsible to God.</div> <div>      God's plan is coming to culmination or climax. God had allowed rebellious man to use the wrong Sabbaths though He had warned them many times in the past about this through the prophets Isaiah and Amos to name just two. God said that He hated their new moons and their appointed feasts, see Isaiah 1:14 and Amos 5:21 for yourself.</div> <div>      Our part is vital in the present work of God. We are today preaching by showing in our lives the truth that God had revealed. We had been shown the vision and being Christians is to live what God and Christ had told us. Our personal life- our zeal, our respect for others, our willingness to cooperate, our self control, our heart felt prayers- is what God is really examining. He blesses our work in supporting those in charge over us. Our primary responsibility is to be fully committed servants.</div> <div>      Please don't underestimate this vital dimension of the work of God. The church can never be stronger than the individual who make it a body.  The Scriptures tell us, “The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works” (Psalm 33:13-15). The success of the Church of God, in Truth, in doing its task will always rest upon the foundation of individuals who are fully committed and united together through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:5, 12:5).</div> <bR> <div>         This is our vision.....</div> <bR> <div> <I>WITHOUT VISION THE     PEOPLE PERISH.</I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <I>Sotero Sonza</I></div> <div>                                                                                                               </div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>