Men Of Vision

When I was a young boy, my family used to watch a lot of television. And I would sit there and watch TV. And maybe about once every six months, I don't know how often it happened.

But while we were sitting there watching the television, all of a sudden, the Lord opened our eyes that these things might become reality in each of our hearts. And I decided I would just beep. You know, there's a special report.

We need to think. I had a Baptist preacher. I'd listen to him preach.

And he would be preaching along. And he'd get in the middle of his sermon. He'd be all excited.

He would say, this just in. You ever heard that news report? This just in. What he was saying is, I just got a phone.

This just in. Here's what it is. So I'm kind of in that position here this morning.

I thought we'd just continue on the verses here in Acts 2. But this just came in. And I believe the Lord's heart. And I know I need this.

And I'm sure we all need this. But I want to go back here to Acts chapter 2 and touch on this prophecy again, because I really don't think that if we as men, and I'm going to talk to the men specifically here, we as men, if we don't get this one, the whole book of Acts is pretty much going to be irrelevant to us. We're not going to be able to receive it.

It's going to be just another story we can tell the children about what Peter and Paul and all these people did. But it's not a reality in our life. And I know there's some struggles here.

I know there's some young people even that want to see reality. They want to see reality. Now we preach and we teach.

Where is the reality of it? Reality comes when we all surrender ourselves and say, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. This book starts out in Acts chapter 1. It says, the former treaties have I made oath theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.

To teach is one thing. But if you follow the example of the Lord, it's to do and to teach. And that's a challenge for me because I do a lot of teaching.

But all of us are teachers in some sense. We teach our families. We teach our children.

We teach one another. And as I think about the book of Acts, I want to be an example of the Lord. I don't want to come here and teach you something that I myself am not doing.

So I want to do and teach. And that's why I think the Lord has stirred in my heart and maybe in others' hearts to go down and establish a outreach in Columbus. And sacrifice, yes.

Sell your goods, yes. Be persecuted, yes. Fearful, maybe, yes.

All these things. I mean, if you sit down and read the book of Acts and put yourself in the book of Acts, it's a fearful time. Very challenging.

And so we'll see it as we go through here. I did something else this week. I wanted to get to know a little bit more about these 12 and their life.

And I read from the martyrs near, the apostles and many others, the Phillips, the Stephens, and many others who we're going to talk about here over the next months, and how they face this great difficulty. Persecution, even some of them martyred for their prophesying. They're going forth and proclaiming the Word of God.

And I wondered, how did they continue? I mean, I think we're a pretty weak group. How are we going to continue when? We're going to read here this morning. People come into our houses and take your mothers and fathers and take them down to prison.

And the house is broken up. Children are left to themselves. Mothers and fathers are dragged down to prison cells.

You know, it's a nice story, and you read it in the Bible. But what happens if that happens to us, you know? And so in some countries, that is reality. How did these people do it? How did these people make it? How did they endure great difficulty? I want to go back here and look at Acts chapter 2, starting in verse number 16.

We talked about this last week. But I want to bring something out for the message this morning in Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 16. Peter says, but this is that which is spoken by the prophet Joel.

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And on My servants and on My handmaidens I will pour out in those days of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy. Now again, I've emphasized this, but God, His heart is to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh.

And I know that many people, this is a hurdle for them. This is one of the great hurdles. And if you don't believe that God wants to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, male, female, servant and handmaiden, then you're going to struggle.

You're going to struggle throughout this entire book. You need to embrace this idea that God is wanting to pour out His Spirit upon you and I, all of us, all flesh. And that's believing flesh in the context in Joel.

Believers, God's children. I want to pour out My Spirit upon all of them and that all of them would prophesy. In Acts chapter eight, we won't turn there, but Saul comes in and he makes havoc at the church.

We'll go ahead if you want to flip over. In Acts chapter eight, it says in verse one, and Saul was contending unto his death, the death of Stephen. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church, which is at Jerusalem.

Now remember Jesus said, start in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. Go into Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria.

God is moving them. And He's using the tool of persecution to scatter them. But it closes here in verse one, except the apostles.

Now I know many people think, well, this is an apostle. This book of Acts is for apostles. Notice here that God scatters the church, the apostles stay in Jerusalem.

Verse two, and devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc at a church, entering into every house and hailing men and women, committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad, notice this, went everywhere preaching the word.

They that were scattered, this is not the apostles. The apostles are back in Jerusalem. The church is being scattered.

Adults are being thrown into prison. But they that were scattered went everywhere, hiding out in caves. No, preaching the word.

That's this spirit upon them that is prophesying. They're going everywhere. The apostles are still in Jerusalem.

And I think God gives us that to tell us that this is not an apostolic book, the book of Acts. It's for all flesh to take part in what God has here for us. What drove these people? I know some people are afraid of just little things happening.

I mean, how can you go forth with boldness when you just got some people come to your house and took your parents into prison and you just proved that Stephen has been martyred and you know that you're in big trouble if they hear or find out you're preaching. How do you go forth? I know most Christians are afraid of God. Most Christians are going to be hiding and flee.

Well, these people, they had something. Are there these kinds of people today in America? Maybe we should get a little bit closer. Are we these kinds of people? Something else I'd like to ask you, would you recognize this as God's work, His handiwork? Would you recognize great persecution as God's handiwork to scatter the people of God that they could preach in Judea, Samaria and to the other most parts of the earth? I believe that God used Saul as His instrument.

They're still in Jerusalem. He told them to start in Jerusalem but go to Judea and Samaria. And so they were going to Judea and Samaria.

Jerusalem was comfortable. And so he said, I'll send Saul down there to make havoc of the thing. God allowing Saul to make havoc to get them to do what they were commanded to do, get you out to Judea.

You know, wouldn't God, I think if God wanted us to go to Judea, He'd maybe send us a nice dream and get us a new Jesus. Not He'd send someone here to just make havoc of the place and to scatter people all over the place. Yeah, the sovereignty of God.

He used Saul to get His people moving. And I realized that I know human nature, but I've been around long enough. I think most people today would think that the early church was too radical.

These people are too radical. I mean, God doesn't work this way. This is too radical.

Well, as we go through the book of Acts, we're going to see a radical people. But my interest this morning is what drove them? What was their drive? And I know they had the spirit of God. Yes, you will receive power after that.

The Holy Ghost has come upon you. And I understand that. I also understand that they were surrendered.

They were surrendered people. You know, they saw, just think about this. They saw 45 days earlier, the crucifixion.

They saw Jesus on the cross. They saw Him being put in a grave. Then they met Him.

Many of them saw Him after His resurrection, alive on numerous occasions. Then amazing that they stood there and He says to them, go in the hole and win with Him. And we didn't have that opportunity to see that, but we get to read about it.

And by faith, we can make it real in our hearts. Yeah, they were surrendered. I have no doubt that they were surrendered to the will of God.

And I've told you this before, and I want to challenge some of you men. You may not let me back here to preach for you, but listen, when God called them, they came out of their vision. Came out of their will.

They came out of that. And I'm not for giving up your jobs and things of that nature. I know you have to provide, but boy, we don't have to provide the way we provide.

But they were called. Peter was a fisher. He loved fishing.

He was called out of it. Peter, I'm going to make you a fisher of men now. And yeah, Peter went back during that 40 day period.

He was struggling and he went back to fishing and the Lord had to call him out again. Do you love me or do you love these fish? Come on, Peter, what do you want to do? Feed my sheep? Or do you want to fish? I don't see us living in the book of Acts until we get our priorities in order. Honestly, priorities.

But here's what I want to share with you. And it takes this and it's mentioned here in verse 17. These people had vision.

And vision is a very important aspect to what is happening here in the book of Acts. And I understand when God poured out His Spirit in verse 17, it says, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. And I want to focus on that again.

I mentioned it just a little bit, but I want to focus on vision and dreams. You notice here that the first aspect, sons and daughters, that's male and female. Verse 18, servants and handmaidens, that's male and female.

But here it's men. Men, young men, old men. Nothing about women here.

It's all about us men. And the reason why it's about us men is because God gives visions and dreams to lead people in a direction. And God has placed men in the place of leadership, whether you're in a church, whether you're in a hall.

God is going to lead His people through male leadership. And God leads oftentimes through visions and through dreams. And so He says, you young men, I'm going to lead you and your family with a dream and a vision.

You old men, I'm going to lead you and the church and your family with dreams and visions. And so men, I'm one, you're one too. And I know most of the men are not even here.

Hopefully, maybe some of them are listening. But Brother Danny Kenniston often said, he preached a sermon that's, where are the men? Where are the men? Where are the men? So this is for the men. Largely, ladies, you can just take a break, relax.

If you want to, you can say amen. Amen. Motivate, push my husband.

Well, visions and dreams. Men are to be the leaders of the church. Men are to be the leaders of the home.

And so God is directing men through visions and dreams. So I understand when God pours out His Spirit upon all flesh. We talked about this last week.

One of the things that's going to happen is prophecy, men and women, prophecy. But one aspect of that pouring out of His Spirit upon all flesh is He's going to pour out His Spirit upon young men, old men, to give them visions and dreams to move them in the right direction. And I had a vision.

I told you about many years ago, it's been about 10, 12 years, that I dreamed a dream. I saw someone walking on the other side of a big river. I woke up.

I went back to sleep. I had the same vision. I saw someone walk.

I knew the person. I saw him across the river. He was walking with someone else, two people on the other side of a river.

And I woke up. I thought, it's kind of strange. I dreamed this dream.

Before I got out of bed, the phone rang. It was sitting right beside my bed. I pick it up.

It's this man. And I saw in the dream, he tells me, there's a man from Colombia wants to talk with you. And there's another man besides you on the stream.

Do you want to talk with him? I said, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I just saw you two on the other side of a river. Well, God used that to direct us as a church to go and help administer in Colombia for many years.

Young people were down there. We were down there as a family. And God directs us.

I believe in visions and dreams. But visions and dreams are for direction. If you look in the book of Acts, Peter goes up on a rooftop.

He has a vision. He has a dream. God's showing him direction.

Paul's vision and dream of the Macedonians come over and help us. Always the vision and dream is to give direction. But this morning, I want to talk about vision for men, men having vision.

God needs men with vision. We need visionaries. We need people who have vision.

That vision, at least to me in my heart, is something that motivates me. It motivates me. Now, many people, and I was one for many years, many people have visions.

But those visions are pertaining to this temporal world. And you can go everywhere. And you've got people.

There are probably people sitting in here that have visions in this temporal world. I know people who want to be famous in Hollywood. And they have a vision.

And that vision is set before them. When they go to bed at night, they don't lay there and meditate upon the Word of God. They lay there and dream about being a model or being an actor and making millions of dollars.

That's a vision that they have. But it's a temporal vision. But people have visions.

Some of you have visions. Right now, you have dreams. Oh, I dream that I could.

I dream I have visions that I could do this and that. It might be interesting for us to stand up and say, what is your dream? What is your vision? Some, it's sports. And that was me.

I spent hundreds of hours, no doubt about it, God only knows, laying on my bed, walking, driving in a car, just dreaming and envisioning me standing on the 16th hole of the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. Some of you are from Georgia. Augusta, Georgia.

And hitting a perfect shot on the par three over the water and winning the Masters. Going on to the US Open and the PGA and the British Open and all, just visions and dreams and revelations of what I could do. You know what, I became pretty good at playing golf.

Actually, it was on a golf scholarship. Some of you want to be in sports, that's your vision. And there are some who have a vision of maybe something like this.

They want to own a certain vehicle or they want to own a yacht. That's my vision. I think about it.

I desire it. Or I want to have this beautiful house. And all of these visions are temporal visions.

They're visions that pertain unto this present life. You know, just ask yourself the question, what are your dreams and visions about? Some of you, it's getting married. You know, marriage is still a temporal institution.

If I ask you that question, what are your dreams and visions? It would be interesting to hear. You know what, if I stopped the apostle Paul and said, Paul, tell me a little bit about your visions, would you let me know? I would tell him some things like, oh, I got this vision of this part of the world, this state, this nation receiving the gospel and we planting churches and God being glorified. And he'd probably get excited just talking about it.

My vision, my dream is this. Some of us, some people have a vision to be a millionaire. That's why they sell so many lottery tickets down here.

People sit around and try to figure out ways to make a million dollars. A million dollars isn't that much anymore, by the way. But people have visions and treat a lot of people.

Money, wealth, make me rich, I want to find a way, are wide open to all these scams. Some people, it's just build a business, just make a name for myself. Be successful.

I find it, I really think it's a tragedy. And I think in the day of judgment, we're all going to lament it. Some of the men, I've seen them over the years, they have a vision to build businesses.

And they're building big ones, lots of them. I mean, you can give them a business, a temporal work, and they'll put it together in their mind, and they'll work it, they'll envision it, they'll imagine it, they'll get it done. Set something spiritual in front of them, they just go paralyzed.

You know why that is? Because they don't have a vision in their heart. They don't love the things that pertain to the Kingdom of God, and they don't have any vision in the spiritual realm. Now, I want to promise you this.

Remember we talked about the two times God changed languages? He did it at Babel. And He did it here on the day of Pentecost at Babel. He did it because they were building for their own glory a temporal structure that would reach from the heavens, but in the day of Pentecost, they were building for the glory of God.

I'm going to tell you this. All your visions, no matter what it is, if you accomplish them, all your visions in the temporal world are going to come falling, crashing, in the last two chapters of the Bible. It's going to go, boom.

And you're going to stand there on the day of your death, and you're going to say, why in the world did I pursue in my life and have this dream and desire to get this nice yacht and sail the seas? Now I've lost it all, and it's all coming crashing down. My Hollywood career, I can't take it with me. My nice sports car, my million dollars, all this stuff is coming down just like that.

And you can have visions about what you want in this temporal world, but I can tell you this. It's just like Babylon. Just read the last two chapters.

That's what's going to happen to your vision. Boom. It's going to collapse.

End of life, you're going to ask the question, many of you, what was the purpose of that? What was the purpose? I spent all this time and energy and built this big business and was making all this money. Now I'm going to die. What was the purpose of it all? And it's all going to crumble.

You say, I'm going to leave it to my children. Then I experience this. They're going to fight with each other and war about the inheritance.

It's going to be a mess. My mother's fantasy, that's what it is. Thou fool, who shall these things be which thou hast laid up? You got to give it up.

I love this illustration. I just read it recently. Steve Jobs, you know him? He's the head of Apple.

I think he passed away. Mega, mega, mega billionaire. When he was young, he was starting up Apple.

He went to a man named John Scully, who was actually the president of Pepsi. Big outfit. They were stationed in New York.

Jobs, Apple, his company was starting out in California. And he comes to this John Scully. He says, listen, I need some wisdom.

I have this business called Apple. That was when it was really small, when you should have invested in it if you wanted to be a millionaire. But he comes to this man, John Scully, who was the head of Pepsi.

And he says, I need some wisdom from you. I want some understanding. And I'd like you to come.

And I'd like you to sit on the board. I'd like you to be the president. I'd like you to help me with my corporation.

And John Scully, I wrote down a few things he said. He said, I need a million dollar salary, a million dollar bonus, and a million dollar severance pay when I leave. And Steve Jobs, he didn't have as much money as he had now.

Of course, he's passed away. He said, he nearly choked, but he said, I'll give it to you. And then he said to him, you come out and you live with us out here in California.

We need you out there. And this head of Pepsi said, I don't want to go out there. I'll be a consultant for you.

But I'm going to stay here in New York. And I'm going to run Pepsi. And I'll consult for you as you build your Apple Corporation out there in California.

And then John Scully wrote an autobiography of his life. And he said, here's what happened. And it changed his perspective.

This is in the temporal world. Because Steve Jobs looked at it and said this. Are you ready? Do you want to spend the rest of your life making sugar water, or do you want to change the world? And Mr. Scully said that thing hit him to the breath of air.

Do you want to spend the rest of your life making sugar water? Think about that. That's all Pepsi is, isn't it? You want to spend the rest of your life making sugar water, and I'm out of here, and we're going to build an empire that's going to change the world. And it has in many ways.

And I wonder sometimes the Lord looks down and says, you people, you want to spend your life making sugar water? What are you doing? Here, we can change the world. We can change the world. And you're spending your time on sugar water.

I don't want to discourage anyone here this morning from drinking Pepsi. But it isn't good for you. I've used this story before, but Noah had a vision.

He had an eternal perspective. God came to him one day and said, Noah, I need a boat. I'm going to bring a flood that's going to destroy everybody.

You're going to need to build this boat. And Noah had the perspective that was eternal. He understood that judgment was coming.

And Noah spent a lifetime building this boat. And Jesus uses Noah as one of the men that is an example that was before the second coming of Christ, as it was in the days of Noah. There's another man here, too.

His name is Lot. So it shall be in the days. Now, Noah and Lot are given to us as good examples of one having an eternal vision, the other having a temporal vision.

Here, Noah, his eternal vision caused him to build the kingdom of God, build God's work. He spent a lot of money. He spent a lot of time and a lot of effort.

But here's the lesson. When the judgment came on Noah's generation, that boat and everything he invested, all the work and money, everything he spent and invested went with him, and he took it into the new world. I don't know what he did with it, but all his possessions and everything.

You know what happened to Lot? He invested in a temporal vision, the wealth of Solomon's Wharf, business, the well water plain. When the judgment came on his generation, he left, and he had nothing. He's out in a cave, but everything he's worked for is gone.

Babylon is fallen, is fallen. Jesus said, follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men. Now, the Lord has a spiritual vision here.

Peter has a temporal vision. I want to be a fisher of fish. No, I want to give you a spiritual vision.

I want to make you a fisher of men. I want you to move out of this temporal vision to a spiritual one, from sugar water to turning the world upside down. What is your vision today? I know there's some wives here that say, I wish my husband could get a vision.

He should get a vision for something bigger than, I don't know. I get myself into spirituality of the mundane, everyday life. The Bible says that Noah's day, they were eating, drinking, marrying, giving in marriage, planting, crying, throwing, eating, drinking.

That is the mundane life. And they all perished. I don't think God called us to a mundane life.

As a matter of fact, when you read the book of Acts, there's nothing mundane about it. There's nothing mundane about what's going on here in the early church. You know, this is the motivation for the message, but apart from having real vision for what we can do to affect eternity, this book is going to roll off everybody's hearts.

And I'm telling you, two years from now, we're going to be the same people we were. And there's going to be really young people frustrated. We're not changing.

We're not going anywhere. And so I want to encourage you before we get started here and we start looking at these things, let's have a vision of big things. What God can do.

I read this illustration. You can take this from a guy that goes out and gets fish, but Judson, he probably knows this. You can take a shark, six-inch baby shark, put it in a small aquarium, and that shark will stay full grown about eight, ten inches.

It fits into its environment. You put that same shark in the open ocean, it'll grow to 15 feet. You know why? Because it fits into the environment.

Some of us have a real small, very small, I'm just a church member that just, I can't do anything. You've got to get out of that mindset. There's a lot of things that God would like to do with you and through you.

Theo Moody said this, If God be your partner, make your plans large. The poorest man is not he who is without a cent, but he who is without a dream. Dream, spiritual dream.

Augusta, Georgia, there's a church, the inscription on the foyer says this, We need men who see the invisible, who hear the inaudible, who believe the incredible, and think the unthinkable. You ever thought about that? The Bible says God is able to do exceedingly abundantly of all that you could ask for. Do you believe that? I can imagine me doing this and this, this would be wonderful.

I'll even give you bigger things. You ought to dream big. You ought to have visions of big things on the eternal side of things.

How many of you have ever gone over that map? I've done this throughout my life. I remember I was going to be a missionary in the Philippines back when I was in my early years. And I looked at the Philippine islands and I saw an island there called, I had a prayer card for the Philippines as a missionary.

I was going to go to the Philippines. And I was envisioning and dreaming that island was mine. And I was going to take that island and give my life to the people on that island.

Maybe 100,000 people. And I was going to make sure everyone there had the God. It was my dream.

I've never gone over that map and looked and I just make sure. Sri Lanka is the one that's been on my heart. Sri Lanka is not too far from India.

I've heard that it's very difficult to be a Christian there. I would like to just give my life to pouring myself out, having a vision, a dream. You ever dream that way? Young people, you ever lay in bed and just think about what's God going to do with me? I have big dreams and visions.

That's a good thing. We ought to dream. Turn to John chapter 4 with me.

We went over this. I want to do a little bit different here when we went through the book of John. In John chapter 4, by the way, these people are ignorant men.

They're accused of being ignorant. They couldn't figure out why they spoke in all these languages. But these ignorant men of Galilee are going to turn the world upside down.

They're going to do things they never thought they could ever do. All because they were surrendered, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they had a spiritual vision. They went out and God used them in a miraculous way.

Here in John chapter 4, verse 27, I want to start reading here. This is the story of the woman at the well. At the end of it, verse 27, And upon this came his disciples, and marveled that he talked with the woman.

Yet no man said, What seekest thou, or why talkest thou with her? The woman then left her water pot, and went her way into the city, And saith to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did, Is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. In the meanwhile his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that you know not of.

Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him aught to eat? And Jesus said unto them, My need is to do the will of him that sent me, And to finish his work, say not ye there are yet four months, And then cometh harvest. Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, For they are white, all ready to harvest. Now something that's interesting about this passage here is that, And I notice this in creation.

I've been on creation a lot. You've heard me talk about creation a lot. But creation is, God designed creation To have a physical thing, and then a parallel spiritual thing.

And you see a number of them here. For example, I have meat to eat that you know not of. Now when you think of meat, well that's a hamburger.

That's a steak, that's a sausage, that's french fries. No, no, I have a higher plane meat to eat that you don't know. You're on this plane down here.

I'm on another plane. It's a spiritual plane. I have drink, he told the woman at the well.

I have water that you don't know anything about. She said, Oh, give me this water. The water I know of is a physical water.

It's a temporal water down here. But you're talking about another water. A spiritual water.

There's so many words that we can make comparison. Life. When I say the word life, many people think of physical life, natural life.

But the Lord's thinking of spiritual life. Eternal life. How about this one, work? I say the word work, so you think about your jobs.

You think about your occupation. That's down here. God has another work.

He's mentioning it here in this passage. You know the harvest. We think of those fields out there, the natural world.

But there's a spiritual harvest. And you look at creation and God has set the natural creation. Creation, work, harvest, life, drink, meat, and many, many others.

And then above it he set a spiritual harvest, a spiritual meat, a spiritual drink, a spiritual work. And these two are separated. And here's what the Lord's saying.

Lift up your eyes. You're focused on the work. Food, drink, down here.

Get your eyes up to another plane. Look at it from a spiritual perspective. When I say harvest, don't think of the natural world.

Think of the spiritual work. When I say meat, don't think of a hamburger. Think of doing the will of God.

When I think of thirst, don't think of physical thirst. You think of spiritual thirst. You see, the problem with the Lord and the people, he was always talking on that spiritual plane.

They were always down here on the physical plane. They couldn't grasp what he was trying to say to them. And so when the Lord speaks to his disciples, he says, lift up your eyes.

A lot of us need to lift up our eyes. Lift up. Let's go to work.

Somebody wants to clean up the building. Or he wants to hammer some more wood. No, no, no, work, work, work, work.

Let's come up here. Lift up your eyes. Work.

How about this? Go to the church, the house of God. Getting a higher view. Lift up your eyes.

You know, we tend to live life in that lower realm. We think in that lower realm. And they were also, he says, you know, I asked if you have any food.

Did anybody bring any food? No, no, no. I've got meat. I've got meat to eat.

Oh, somebody brought me some food. Somebody brought me some food. Nobody brought me any food.

Fellas, listen, I've got another kind of work. And there's another kind of harvest. And if you guys would lift up your eyes a minute and look out into this world.

By the way, that harvest out there, there's probably 500,000 cornstalks out there in that large field. When you get out of Columbus, you'll see about 500 souls standing just like the cornstalks, walking. And that's a harvest.

Look on the harvest. It's white. It's ready.

Now, if you have any better ideas, I'm more than willing to accept them. We as a brotherhood want to accept them. But we need to put some of these things in practice.

And that's why we're trying to establish something in Columbus. And this week we're going to, Lord willing, have a meal. And a few families are going to go down there.

We're going to try to invite people. And we're going to open up, try to open the door. I don't see any reason why we should go through the Book of Acts and not try to live it out.

How many of you are in agreement with that? We can just sit here, be the same person. Now, I realize as we go through the Book of Acts, there's going to be a lot of money, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of time. And you may even get a brick.

You may even get some stones thrown at you. It may be a fearful thing. But that's all you're going to read here in the Book of Acts.

So, lift up your eyes. If you don't have this as a priority, to eat His meat, to do His work and to work in His harvest, your eyes are not lifted up. You know, I wonder if the Lord were here today, He'd say to us, lift up your eyes.

We're looking all at this meat, drink, work, harvest. Lift up your eyes. I understand what the Lord is saying here is this, that the meat is what gives you the strength to do the work.

And the place where you work is out there in that field. So, look on the fields. And I think it's good for us to be down there.

I think a lot of times we don't have vision because we don't look on the field. The Bible says when Jesus saw the multitude, even Him, He was moved with compassion. I think it's a bit of the article of this.

Just sit and watch Him. Look. Watch Him scurry about inside cars, outside cars.

Watch Him sell their, watch their own children run around neglected. Watch their life. Watch what they're doing and just say, man, I need to help these people.

We need to do something. Get moved. Even Jesus.

It's not like He said, oh, I have so much compassion. I don't need to be moved. But when He saw the plight of the people, they were as sheep having no shepherd.

He was moved with compassion upon them. I think one of the reasons why we don't have compassion upon these people is because we're never down there with them. We never see them.

Now, I don't think we have to just choose a city like that, but I think it stretches us. Jesus went to cities, and cities are like fields. That's where the people are.

If you go out there and you look at that cornfield, they're stacked side by side. It's massive. That field is not like Martinsburg.

Martinsburg is that field. You go down, there's a cornstalk here, there's a cornstalk here, a volunteer over here, and some beans have kind of grown up in the midst. That harvest field there is the city.

They're stacked in there. By the way, Jesus went to cities. All these places that He went.

Churches were planted in cities. Ephesus was a city. Corinth was a city.

Colossae, Laodicea, Smyrna, they were all cities. Philadelphia, they were all cities where people were. They planted churches in the middle of that cornfield.

Having a vision. Some of you probably read George Mueller. I just read recently, just for the sake of seeing his vision.

He was walking down, I think it was the streets of London. He came across this. They had these old orphanages.

Buildings were decayed. He's got this kid, gnarly kid, half-dressed, dirty, standing there at the fence, probably the picket fence or barbed wire fence. He's calling to George Mueller.

Give me some money! Calling him names. Give me some money! Mueller stopped and looked at that kid. Mueller had plans for his life.

He thought, you know, he's got a vision. I need to help these children. This mess that they're in.

Abandoned. A lot of them, they called them loonies. Loonies.

And he did. He got a vision. And he took off.

And you know the rest of the story. I want to encourage you to get a vision for what you can do for the Lord. I know a lot of men that can build businesses and run things and do great.

But I'm telling you, that stuff's going to come down on you. Oh, they've got so many. And the Bible says to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Young men seeing visions. Old men dreaming dreams. It doesn't matter how old you are.

You know, here I am, 62 years old, but I can still dream dreams. I can still think and imagine. What we can do as a congregation.

What I can do individually. 15 years ago, I had a burden, and God gave me a vision about reaching the college campus in the state of Ohio. And for the past 10 years, we've gone two or three days a week to these campuses and preached Jesus Christ and warned sinners of their sin.

And I have no doubt I've preached to a million young people over that 10-year period. A vision. And I have no doubt either that those young people, if someday I stand on the Day of Judgment and say, you warned me.

You warned me. They'll recognize me, too. I told you the story of my wife and I were traveling back from somewhere.

I forget where it was, South America. We were out in New York, Washington. New York, LaGuardia Airport.

Like 2 o'clock in the morning. And I had my family there. They're all hunked out sleeping or waiting for the next flight.

I decide I'm just going to walk around to the airport. And I start walking. I didn't get very far.

And a young man, probably 25, he's coming the other direction. There's not a lot of people in the airport. He comes up to me like this.

Hey, I know you're somewhere. And I stop. Well, 2 o'clock in the morning.

I'm in New York, LaGuardia Airport. That's where New York is, LaGuardia Airport. He says, I've seen you somewhere.

He stops. He comes over to me. Where have I seen you? Where have I seen you? And he asks, what do you do for a living? And I say, well, I'm a pastor at church.

I do paintings. And then I hit him. I know who you are.

You're the preacher. You preached when he mentioned a college. You preached.

That's how you know me. You know, someday we're going to get to heaven. People send us off to heaven.

And God's going to show you what he wanted to do with you. How he wanted to use you in this great work called the building of his kingdom. And you're going to say, oh, my soul.

I never imagined I could do that. I don't care whether you're 16 or 62. Young men, old men.

We've still got enough life in us to accomplish great things for the Lord. And so as we go through this book here and we continue the book of Acts, I want you to broaden your vision. Picture yourself in Stephen's shoes.

I don't know how old Stephen was. Maybe he was 25 years old. Young people, picture yourself.

Imagine yourself in Stephen's shoes. Imagine yourself in Philip's shoes or in Peter's shoes. Imagine yourself doing the things that God is using these men for.

Because he wants to use you for it, too. And we as older ones will try to be an example of those things. Well, I wanted to share that with you.

I think it's important for us to have vision, spiritual vision. Lift up your eyes. The fields are white unto harvest.

And I've said this many times, but I'll say it one more. When you finally get to the end, whether it's death or the second coming of Christ, you'll be just like it was in Noah's day. Nothing matters at that point but whether or not you're either on the boat or out the boat.

And when Jesus comes, all that matters is whether you're being caught up or left in the boat. That's all that matters. And so life ought to revolve around that final day when Jesus comes.

Have I helped as many possibly as I can to get into the boat? Or have I simply built my kingdom? It's all collapsing. Vision. I don't have the vision I wish I had.

But I'm trying to get more vision. I know it motivates me. I get excited about what we could do in Columbus.

I get excited about seeing a drug addict, a young man get converted, and then going out and converting others. I get excited about those kind of things. Does it excite me to go out and play golf anymore? It doesn't excite me.

I go out every once in a while just for the fun of it. But there's no vision there. There used to be a lot of vision.

I want to ask you a question. What really is your vision for your life? Some of you are older. You've got 20 years.

What's your vision for the last 20? Young men. Young ladies.