A FALSE VISION The prophet Jeremiahwarned about prophets who spoke a vision from their own heartsand not from the mouth of the Lord. Beware of spiritual hocuspocus from those who seem to have had a vision from the Lord when Hehas not spoken. Someone said “If fire doesn’t fall from heavensomeone is always waiting with a match.” Isaiah 50: 10-11 talks aboutthose who fear the Lord and are His servants but at times walk indarkness and have no light. In times like that the Bible says inverse 10 that we must trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon our God.He goes on to say that we can kindle our own fire and walk in thelight of our own fire and the sparks that we have kindled. However, ifwe do that God says “this shall you have from My hand, you shall liedown in torment. In times of uncertainty and not being sure of howto proceed we must wait before the Lord to renew our strength andfind His direction. This is especially true in times of testing’s andtrials. It is said that when a caravanis traveling across a desert and asand storm comes that makes it impossible to see ahead that the bestthing to do is stop and make the camels lie down and to lean againstthem, covering one’s self until the storm passes. God’s prophetssuffered greatly when they faithfully pronounced God’s warnings and judgmentsto a rebellious nation. False prophets proclaimed peace and safety whichwas a message that the people wanted to hear but was not a truemessage. God’s true prophets suffered prison, were abused and even killed fortelling the truth. As I look into God’sword and see His command to go into all the world and preach the gospel,making disciples I wonder how many are really hearing the voice ofthe Holy Spirit? A few years ago I heard a missionary say “we are reachingthe entire world today through television”. Yet there are still hundreds oflanguages among tribal people in this world that do not have one word of thebible in their native tongue. Some of them are learning the official languageof the country like Spanish and Portuguese but many are still monolingualand cannot understand the gospel clearly enough in their country’sofficial language to be saved and follow our Lord. Jesus gave us a prayerrequest two thousand years ago that I never hear prayed in churches. Here itis: Matthew 9: 37 -38 He said to His disciples, the harvest is plentiful but thelaborers are few. Therefore pray for the Lord of the harvest (The Holy Spirit)tosend out laborers into His harvest. Is there not still a bountiful harvest togather? Are the laborers still few? There are places where there are laborers inabundance. I talked to one Pastor in Longview Wa. And he said that when hecandidated to pastor the church where he presently worked that there were 265people that applied for the job. He was thrilled that out of that number he waschosen. The same thing happened to a Pastor friend of mine who sought the pulpitof a large church in Alaska. 160 people applied for the position. When thenumber got down to two families he and his wife moved to Alaska, they were sosure that he would get the job. However, the other family was chosen. In Boliviaour headquarters was in a city called Cochabamba. However, we all workedout in jungle areas among tribal people. I realize that those in the cityalso need to be reached and a good strategy would be to plant a goodchurch in the city and use it as a mother church and out-each the villagesin the out-lying districts. This didn’t happen very much. Churches from even thesame denomination fought over believers and one church three blocksfrom the other one bussed believers to their church, passing by their rivalchurch. A few miles from the city there were many villages beyond theelectric lines and running water that had no gospel witness so-ever.Another phenomena was that the most difficult places to reach weremanned by single women who were willing to go into the hard placesand live. Often the most gifted teachers were the ones that packed upand returned to the states to find a position more favorable to them fortheir talents instead of being stuck out among a group of dirty Indianswhere the heat, bugs and poor diet was more than they wanted to face.In saying all this I praise the Lord for every teacher, preacher, Sundayschool teacher and musicians and greeters, etc. in our churches here inAmerica. Were it not for these churches and the faithful givers to missionsthere could be no work done overseas. Neither am I judging another man’splace of service or kind of service. What I am saying isthat there is something terribly wrong with this picture. I doubt thatthis is a true story, I hope not, a pastor in Oregon received a letter froma congregation in Florida telling him that they had heard about himand wanted him to consider being their pastor. At the end of theirpetition they offered him a salary double what he was presentlyreceiving. He joyfully read the letter to his wife and said Honey! Go startpacking while I ask the Lord if this is His will. My question is, howclose are we as a church body and you and I as individuals, tofollowing the leading of the Holy Spirit? Ananias and Sapphirawere struck dead for lying to the Holy Spirit to impress others thatthey had given all when they held back some that was theirs to keep ifthey hadn’t been deceptive and lied about it. One dear lady around50 years old approached me after a presentation of our work. She said;I regret that I’m too old to go to the mission field. how I wish I was youngagain. I ask her how old she was and when she told me I said we willtake you. She retorted, I couldn’t stand the heat and the bugs! We don’t like to thinkof ourselves as false prophets. However. As I pen these words I realizethat when I fail to warn the wicked ones of their fate I am, by beingsilent saying, peace and safety. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will burdenmy heart and cause me to weep for the lost. Dear Lord, may I bethat laborer you desire to thrust forth into the harvest. |
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