This morning, I would like to share something with you. Let us turn to Proverbs 29:18, the first part:
Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.
If there is no vision, people become scattered. People are ruined.
Let us also read Exodus 3:1-5.
Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
And Moses said, I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
And He said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
Let us turn also to Acts 26:19.
Wherefore, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.
We will read only these portions of Scripture.
During these past two sessions, by God’s grace, we have considered what God desires in spiritual leadership.
We have realized that, in God’s work, the matter of leadership is vital to God’s interests. If there are suitable vessels and instruments in God’s hand, then God’s people will be blessed. If leaders are in question, then the people will suffer much.
In spiritual leadership, it is not a matter of sitting in a high position and giving commands. Rather, you become a servant to all. You become a slave to all.
God is still looking today for such vessels. If He can find vessels willing to humble themselves, willing to stand in the gap, then God can establish His testimony and begin to do His work.
Spiritual leadership is very vital to God’s heart. Therefore, we have been considering the making of leadership.
We have seen that this matter is altogether dependent upon God Himself.
Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you.
God is not looking to choose those who think of themselves as wise. He is not interested in choosing those who think themselves mighty. He does not choose those who think themselves noble.
Very often, God is looking for those who are foolish, those who are weak, and those who are not.
Those who think themselves wise, mighty, and noble, but are not willing to give themselves up to the Lord, want to rely upon their own natural resources. God cannot use them.
But those who are foolish, weak, and of no account—if they have a heart willing to accept the dealings of the Lord—are the kind of people God chooses and uses.
God is looking for those who realize that there is nothing in themselves, yet God has chosen them. When God chooses them, they cannot help but serve Him. This is the kind of people God can use.
This morning, we would like to go one step further. We want to look together before the Lord at His requirements.
It is not dependent upon what we have or what we possess naturally. But when God chooses a person, He does have demands upon that person. He has His standard.
If you do not meet His standard, you may be called, but you are not chosen. If these demands are not met, God still cannot use you.
Of course, this depends upon our condition before the Lord. If we are willing to place ourselves in the Lord’s hand, willing to receive His dealings, and willing to receive the work of the cross, then the Lord can create in us the condition in which we may be used by God.
Those who are in a place of leadership are those who can influence other people. If you want to influence other people, you have to see something yourself. You have to be able to walk before people, and therefore encourage others to follow you.
But if you do not see yourself, if you do not know where you are going, how can you lead others?
The one in spiritual leadership is the one who has foresight. He sees something. Having seen something, he can share with others what he has received and encourage them to go on together with him.
In God’s requirements, the first requirement is that we must have vision. If we have no vision, Scripture says that the people cast off restraint. Without vision, they cannot go any further.
A leader who has vision can share that vision with those who do not have it and bring them forward toward the goal.
What is vision? We see something with our natural eyes. Sometimes, because of His mercy, God may allow us to see something without our physical eyes. But, strictly speaking, vision is not merely something that we see apart from our natural eyes.
Vision is something we see from the depths of our spirit. When the spirit is opened, God reveals what is in His heart in the depths of our spirit.
From God’s point of view, it is revelation. From our point of view, it is vision.
Our God is a great mystery. Nobody knows God. Nobody knows what is in God’s heart. Nobody knows God’s will. Nobody knows what He is doing.
But thank God, one day He desires to reveal Himself to us. It is as though a curtain opens.
When He reveals Himself to us, in the depths of our spirit we see Him. We see what is in His heart. We understand His will. We begin to comprehend what He wants to do on this earth.
This is what we mean by revelation. Vision gives spiritual insight.
There is no vision in work without vision. Work without vision is merely work—mere toil and labor.
Work without vision is toiling or laboring. We see many people working very hard, even to the point of exhaustion, because everything is upon their shoulders. They have to think of a way and use their natural energy to fulfill the work. It is hard work because there is no vision.
On the other hand, some people see something but have no work at all. These people are like those who are dreaming. They talk much, but nothing is accomplished.
Vision plus work: this is spiritual service.
If we really serve the Lord, we need vision, and then we add work to it. Then we are able to serve the Lord.
Vision gives us direction. Vision gives us design. Vision gives us a goal.
As we move forward, we meet many obstacles and problems. If we have no vision, there is no strength to go on. We become discouraged very easily.
But when we really have vision, no matter what difficulties we encounter, we cannot let go, because we have no other choice.
Vision occupies a very important place in the work of God.
It is sad to say that there are many people doing what seems to be God’s work. There are all kinds of works on this earth, and they are all done in the name of the Lord Jesus. People may think they are all doing it unto the Lord.
But many do things according to their own thinking and according to their natural energy. There may be much excitement and much accomplishment, but, brothers and sisters, one day we need to stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
If these works have no eternal value, what will remain?
Because of this, we have a deep feeling that we need to see something before the Lord. We have to see what men cannot see.
Moses endured when he brought the people out of Egypt and encountered many problems because he saw Him Who is invisible. He could endure to the end.
If there is no vision in the work of God, we are easily discouraged and easily negative. But if we have vision, we cannot be negative. We have to be positive. We cannot be discouraged, because inwardly we have seen something.
The first thing we need to see—especially those who are in a place of leadership—is that we must have vision in order to lead others.
If we ourselves do not have vision, and yet we seek to lead our brothers, is this not the blind leading the blind? We only circle around in the wilderness, and eventually we all die there. We cannot enter into God’s promised land.
This is one of the greatest problems we face today.
We thank God that throughout the world there are many who know the Lord, many who are on fire for the Lord, and many who will sacrifice for the Lord.
But one thing is lacking among God’s people: there is a lack of vision, particularly among those in places of leadership. Because of this, we see God’s people scattered, broken up, and in ruins.
We need to come before the Lord and ask Him to give us the spirit of revelation, that we may truly know Him. In our spirit, we need to see something, and then we can share with others what we have seen from the Lord.
I would like to use two examples from Scripture—one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament—to show the importance of vision.
In the Old Testament, Moses was a servant of God, raised up by God to be a leader. From this particular person, we can learn many lessons.
Moses became a leader not because he chose to be one, but because God chose him.
When Moses was born, humanly speaking, he could not live, because Pharaoh had issued a decree that all the male children of the Hebrews should be thrown into the Nile River. Pharaoh wanted to destroy the whole race.
According to man, from the moment Moses was born, he ought to have died. Moses had no choice in becoming a leader. It was God Who chose him.
Even though a death sentence had been pronounced upon him, by God’s mercy his life was preserved. Not only was his life preserved, but he spent forty years in Pharaoh’s palace.
He learned all the wisdom of Egypt and became mighty in speech. We can see God’s sovereignty preserving him.
Moses did not choose God; God chose Moses. At the age of forty, Moses decided to visit his brethren.
We do not know where this motivation came from. But Moses’ mother became his nurse, and it is possible that while she was nursing him, she shared with him the things of God.
Before Moses was weaned and brought into Pharaoh’s palace, his mother may have told him about the God of Israel. She may have said, “The way God preserved your life shows that He must have a purpose for you. Perhaps He will use you to deliver His people.”
From the time Moses was very small, this seed was planted in his heart. Even after forty years under the influence and education of Egypt, that seed in his heart could not be removed.
I want to say a word to the mothers and fathers. God places a child in your hands, and this is a great responsibility.
When you are nursing that child, you must bring the Lord to that child. If you instruct him in the way of the Lord when he is young, when he grows up he will not depart from that way.
All the wisdom of Egypt could not remove that seed from Moses’ heart.
At the age of forty, Moses had a desire to visit his brethren. He went out to deliver them. He assumed that his brethren ought to know that he was their leader.
But Moses’ knowledge of God was only secondhand. He had no intimate, firsthand knowledge of God. All that he had received came through his mother.
He relied upon this secondhand information and used his natural energy. He wanted to be a leader and a deliverer. But he was rejected by his own brethren, and he was also rejected by Pharaoh.
Spiritual leadership is not a matter of having something in yourself. Moses fled into the wilderness for forty years, where he learned lessons before God.
On one side, God allowed Moses to see that all he had learned during the first forty years—his natural resources, natural abilities, and all he had received from the world—were useless as far as God’s work was concerned.
He had to allow these things to go through death. He could not rely upon them in the matter of leadership.
For forty years, Moses had to unlearn all those things he had learned before.
On the other hand, Moses entered the school of God. During that time, he was shepherding in the wilderness. He was in touch with nature, and he received new things from God.
Because of his past failure, he came to know himself. Because of his loneliness in the wilderness, he was able to learn from the Lord.
The Scriptures tell us that one day Moses was keeping the sheep. In the wilderness there are many bushes. They are dry, and sometimes they can catch fire and be immediately consumed.
For forty years, Moses had seen such things as common occurrences in the wilderness. But this time he saw something common, yet there was something unusual in the common thing.
He saw that the bush was burning. That was an ordinary thing. But, strangely enough, the bush was not consumed, though it was in flame.
So Moses turned aside to see what was happening. When he turned aside, God spoke to him from the bush: “Moses, Moses. Do not come nearer. Take off your sandals, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
Before God, Moses was like a servant. Moses fell before the Lord, and he was fearful.
What is this vision? Forty years earlier, Moses had thought of delivering God’s people. His heart was right, but he had no vision. His work depended upon what he had received from his mother, and therefore his work failed.
But because of this vision, the beginning of his true work came.
What can we learn from this vision? In this vision, Moses was allowed to see three things:
Using the burning bush, God revealed His heart and His mystery to Moses.
This bush represents God’s Son, the Lord Jesus. Our Lord Jesus was equal with God, but He willingly emptied Himself.
He took the form of a servant and put on humanity. The bush represents the incarnation of the Lord Jesus.
Before He came to earth, He was in glory and majesty. He was worshipped by angels. Yet He emptied Himself of His glory, came into this world, and put on humanity.
Scripture tells us that He came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He took upon Himself the likeness of flesh, yet He had no sin.
Our Lord had no sin. From a human point of view, He appeared to have the form of flesh, but He had no sin. He humbled Himself to become one of us.
But thank God, though He had the form of sinful flesh, God was in Him. On one side He was man; inwardly, He was God.
God said of Him:
This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.
God spoke through Him. How does God speak through a bush? God speaks through the Lord Jesus.
Hebrews 1 tells us that in the past God spoke to the fathers through the prophets in many portions and in many ways, but in these last days He has spoken unto us in His Son.
God speaks to us today through the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is God’s final Word. When the Lord Jesus has spoken, we should not seek another word beyond what God has already said in Him.
In the burning bush, the fire represents the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit. When He was baptized, the Holy Spirit came upon Him and dwelt in Him. In preaching the gospel, He was full of power.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, He accomplished God’s work. This is the mystery of God revealed through the burning bush.
If we are to serve God today, we need to understand this mystery. We need to know the incarnate Lord Jesus.
On the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father said:
This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.
We must hear His voice. All the Lord Jesus did on earth was through the Holy Spirit. Through the eternal Spirit, He offered Himself without blemish unto God. He finished the work given to Him.
This is what we have to see. Otherwise, we cannot be in the place of leadership, and we have no way to serve the Lord.
God also revealed the mystery of Israel. In those days, the Israelites in Egypt were slaves. They were like a burning bush: lowly, despised, and under the oppression of the Egyptians.
From a human point of view, the Israelites were nothing but thorn bushes. But God was in their midst.
They would not be destroyed because God was in their midst. The fire was burning, and they passed through many trials. Yet they were not consumed.
Not only were they not consumed; they even grew and multiplied. God showed Moses, “This is My people. Even though they are nothing, I am with them. I will bring them through, and I will bring them into glory. This is My purpose for the nation of Israel.”
When Moses saw this, he had direction.
We may apply the same principle to the church. Israel is God’s earthly chosen people; we are God’s heavenly people. In this sense, the burning bush represents the church.
What kind of people are in the church? We are sinners who have obtained grace. We were under the curse, but the Lord brought us to Himself because He became a curse for us.
From the human point of view, the world looks at the church and sees nothing. We are of no account in the eyes of the world. Even we ourselves know that we are nothing.
But thank God, our Lord dwells in us.
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
Even though we are like thorn bushes, ordinary and insignificant, God has made us His dwelling place.
The fire represents the work and discipline of the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit, we obtain grace and become the church.
There are many things in our lives that are not pleasing to Him. There are many things that do not correspond with His nature. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is like fire, disciplining us and burning within us.
Everything of the flesh, the natural life, the world, and sin, He burns away. He consumes these things in us.
But here is the marvelous thing: though we are burned and burned, we are still here. We are growing because we are being transformed. We are changed by the Holy Spirit.
One day, the Lord will obtain a glorious church, without spot, wrinkle, or blemish—holy and without blemish.
This is God’s purpose for the church. We need to see this vision.
If we do not see this vision, how can we work? The more we look at people, the more discouraged we become. When we look at ourselves, we are also discouraged. We are all nothing but thorn bushes.
If you put all the thorn bushes together, you merely have more thorn bushes. There is nothing in which to boast.
If we have no vision, we may say, “Let us give it up. We are only occupying an empty place. Get rid of us, and the work is finished.” But that is because we have no vision.
When we have vision, we see that even though we are nothing, God dwells in the midst of us.
The Lord wore a crown of thorns, yet He maintained His glory. He is patient with us. He is burning away all that is impure, and He desires to transform us.
We have hope because God is in the midst of us. If God were not in our midst, we would all be consumed to nothing.
The more we are burned, the more we grow. The Holy Spirit is at work in the church, disciplining us and allowing us to grow.
Thank God that one day the church will become a glorious church—without spot, without wrinkle, holy and without blemish.
If you see this, you know what God is doing. You have hope, no matter what the condition may be. Therefore, we must have vision for the work.
The third point is that the Lord allowed Moses to see himself: the mystery of the vessel of God, the vessel whom God wants to use.
Not only is God a mystery, and not only is the church a mystery, but the vessel of God is also a mystery.
What kind of vessel is it? It is nothing but a thorn bush.
Forty years earlier, Moses thought he was a palm tree. He thought he was somebody who could accomplish something. But God dealt with him and allowed him to see himself spiritually.
We often learn valuable lessons through our failures. Because we fail, we come to know ourselves.
One day Moses acknowledged, “I am nothing but a thorn bush. I am useless.” A thorn bush cannot be used to make a table. It burns up in an instant and cannot even keep you warm. It is absolutely useless; indeed, it can be damaging because it has thorns.
This is the kind of vessel God is looking for. God did not use Moses because he was something. God said, in effect, “Moses, you are a thorn bush, but I am with you.”
“Whatever you go through is in My hand to discipline you. I use these things to purify you. I use these trials to deal with you. I use them to transform you. I want you to shine. I am with you.”
“My Spirit is in you. Through My Spirit, you can do a great work. You can deliver My people out of Egypt.”
This was the revelation given to God’s vessel. Brothers and sisters, we need this kind of revelation.
We are God’s vessels. We may think God cannot use us. But one day, when we acknowledge that we are nothing but a thorn bush, we begin to understand.
We may wonder why God allows so many things to come into our lives. Why do we have so many difficulties? Why is the cross so heavy? Why is there so much suffering?
One day we will see that He allows all these things to come into our lives because He wants to change us. He is with us.
God is still with us. It is not according to our own might, but according to His might.
When we have this kind of knowledge, God can begin to use us, and He can send us to do the work He desires.
We need vision. We need to see the burning bush. If we do not see this, we do not know God, and we do not know ourselves. How then can we serve God?
Now let us consider the New Testament example: Paul.
Before Paul encountered the vision on the way to Damascus, he had service. He was very zealous.
He went out to arrest those who belonged to the Way. He accused them and sentenced them, and he thought he was serving God.
But his service was without vision. His service was according to human tradition. He had no heavenly vision.
At that time, Paul was Saul the Pharisee. The tradition he had received was considered the best within the Jewish religion. Many Gentiles became proselytes because they saw something pure in the Jewish religion.
Paul received the teaching of the Pharisees. He followed the tradition of the fathers. According to that tradition, he considered Jesus Christ an impostor who needed to be removed.
Paul was one of the prominent young men of his day. He was already a leader—a leader in the persecution of God’s people. Yet he thought he was serving God.
There are many people serving the Lord today who have never received a vision. They do things according to man’s tradition, even man’s best tradition.
According to tradition, a person may think he is serving God while actually opposing God. Yet he does not know it.
Then heaven opened to Paul. He fell flat on the ground. He saw a vision. He saw the Lord Jesus and heard a voice from heaven:
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad.
He said, “Who art Thou, Lord?”
The Lord said:
I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest.
Paul answered, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”
From that moment, Saul the Pharisee became Paul the apostle.
Toward the end of his ministry, when he stood before King Agrippa, he could say:
I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.
From the day on the road to Damascus until the day he was martyred in Rome, all through his life, all his work, all his labor, and everything he did were according to the vision.
“I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” When he preached, when he traveled, when he built the church, and when he wrote epistles, all was on account of the vision he had seen.
The heavenly vision took hold of Paul’s life.
No wonder that at the end of his life he could say:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.
Why could he say this? Because he did not disobey the heavenly vision.
One day, before Christ, Paul’s ministry will be tested by fire. What remains will be gold, silver, and precious stones—materials for eternity.
Brothers and sisters, we need vision in our service.
We do not have time to consider everything Paul saw. Let us only mention that the vision Paul saw was the heavenly Man.
Paul saw the heavenly Man: Christ as the Head, and the church as His Body. The Body is composed of those who have been redeemed.
He saw that the Lord Jesus is the Head and that the church is the Body of Christ, the fullness of Him Who filleth all in all.
Paul knew what he was doing. He was not beating the air. He did everything according to the vision he had received.
This is what we need.
Thank God. It is His good pleasure to reveal His Son.
May He give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation, that we may know Him.
Let us have a time of prayer.