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John Wilmot Mahood*
eclipse. They have no vision of Him. And is not this the reason for na tional and international conditions to day? “ Where there is no vision, the people perish”—literally, “ the people run riot, the people cast off restraint, the people get a craze.” Thus we have the craze for amusements, for gambling, for gaudiness in dress, for the immoral show. To know God and to tell His message with power we must have life. Jesus said, “ I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” This is what we must have if we would see God—abundant life, for abundant life is necessary to have spir itual vision. We are having a great vitamin re vival these days. Many carry a bottle of vitamins in our pockets or have one on our tables. Radios and newspapers are continually advertising the life-giving qualities of certain'brands. But the most effective life-giving vitamin in the world is not sold over the drug counter; it is free to all. This gift is the Holy Spirit who reveals Jesus Christ as God and Saviour, and brings life and power to all who receive Him by faith. A life regenerated by the Holy Spirit will have a vision of God and know Him. In the second place, a life enlightened by the Holy Spirit will give us a vision of the world’s supreme need. Millions are perishing because they have never known and accepted the source of life— the Lord Jesus Christ whom the Holy Spirit reveals to every regenerated man and woman. The true Christian will al ways be a witnessing Christian. The church of Jesus Christ must be a mis sionary church: “ Ye shall be [my] wit nesses . . . unto the. . . [end] of the earth.” It is when the church has no vision that the multitudes perish. Today many young people have caught this vision, and the missionary training schools and theological seminaries are crowded with young people preparing to take the gos pel message of redemption through the blood of Christ to the ends of the earth. In these young people who have had a vision of responsibility and opportunity, and have heard the call of the Holy Spirit, is found this world’s most en couraging hope for world peace. *Founder of the London Bible Institute and Theological Seminary
H AVE you had a vision? The Bible says “ Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Visions were all important in the Old Testament economy. Many of God’s messages to men were given by the medium of visions. Some of the greatest of the prophets were taught in the school ^of visions. There were Daniel and Isaiah and Ezekiel, not visionary, but vision prophets. It would be interesting to study the peculiar physical and psycho logical conditions of these Old Testa ment visions. But let us leave that for another time, and inquire whether men have visions today, and what is the na ture of spiritual vision. In the first place we may have a vision of God. Isaiah had such a vision. He said: “ I saw . . . the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.” Do you say, “ Can we see God?” That question has been asked all down the ages. People have even made images of what they think God is like. In the wilderness the children of Israel wanted to see God, and when Moses tarried in the mountain, they became rebellious, and said to Aaron, “Up, make us gods, which shall go before us.” And Aaron made them a golden calf. This was blasphemy. He was more anxious to be popular with the crowd than with God.
We do not do that today. Yet some have a golden calf and worship at a false altar. They dethrone Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and worship at the shrines of theosophy, spiritualism, hu manism or modernism. Or they spend their time collecting gold and silver and other material things, and give no time to developing spiritual sight. Yet God is near in the mountain, and they do not see Him or know Him. The material things they seek are only temporal. Only the spiritual things like love and joy and goodness and peace are eternal. They are the realities of life and we want reality. But we cannot spend this life seeking things that are only tem poral, and know reality. Someone has said, “ If we spend sixteen hours a day dealing with tangible things, and only five minutes a day trying to find God, no wonder the tangible things of the world are two hundred times more real to us than God is.” It is with the mind and the spirit that we see the things that are real. And the world’s best microscopes can never reveal love and truth. Yet, strange to say, in these days when men are spending so much time dealing with things they have never seen, like protons and neutrons and elec trons, some are still saying we cannot know God. And so to many God is in
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