Vision Hastens 1974

How often the vision that we have in our minds of what God is doing is a very, very different thing from what we see with our eyes as we look around us. For instance, with our minds we get a vision of the fact that God so loved this world that he gave his only begotten son. But when we open our eyes and look around us and see what's going on, we don't see salvation.

We see a world that's sick unto death. And sometimes this discrepancy between our vision of God's purpose that we have in our minds and the actual things that we see as we look around gets so great that we just can't stand it. And then we either turn away from the vision of God and forget it and just sink down into the confusion of this world.

Or we turn to God and cry out for an answer. Now the prophet Habakkuk was going through this and we noticed that Habakkuk didn't turn to God with a bunch of phony praises and hallelujah, thank you Lord, I praise you, everything's so wonderful. But this man turned to God with all the anguish that was really tearing up his heart.

God, what's wrong? Things don't make any sense. Sure, we haven't done all the things we're supposed to, but those Chaldean armies are flat-out evil and they're destroying your people. And you're letting it go on.

How come? The oracle of God which Habakkuk the prophet saw, O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and thou wilt not hear? Or cry to thee, violence, and thou wilt not save? Why dost thou make me see wrongs and look upon trouble? Destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention arise, so the law is slackened and justice never goes forth, for the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted. I will take my stand to watch and station myself on the tower and look forth to see what he will say to me, God, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. And the Lord answered me, write the vision, make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it.

For still the vision waits its time, it hastens to the end, it will not block. If it seems slow, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him will fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith.

So we see Habakkuk climbing up on his watchtower to wait for God to come through with an answer. And he gets an answer. God says to him, all right, Habakkuk, I'm going to give you a vision.

And I want you to hold on to that vision no matter what happens, because it will be fulfilled. It hastens to its end, it's going to be done. And then Habakkuk begins to see above all the bloodshed and the confusion and the injustice and the horrible things that are going on.

Beneath his eyes, he begins to see the glory of God arising and drawing near from the Southeast. Such brightness and such glory that the mountains begin to shake and tremble and the hills sink down and the waters and the rivers and the oceans start to boil and the nations fall under God's judgment and the sun and the moon stand still and his own body begins to tremble and grow weak before God's glory. And this is not an acid trip.

And he knows that he has now seen in the midst of the confusion, the hand of God working and that there's nothing to do but to keep going through the whole mess and greatly strengthened by this vision, Habakkuk rises up and walks through this confusion, trusting God. Now, the day may very soon come that we find ourselves watching the armies of the Chaldeans, so to speak, sweeping over the earth for the last time. We may find ourselves uttering the same cry that he had, but right now there's another kind of discrepancy.

There's a gap that we are now experiencing right now between our vision of God's purpose and what we're actually seeing going on before our eyes. Our gospel from beginning to end is a gospel of healing. And yet when we actually open our eyes and look around us, we see on every hand, when we come down out of the spiritual clouds to where the people really are, we see sickness.

Sickness of body, sickness of mind, sickness in the family, sickness in the city and the nation. And this sickness just doesn't want to budge. If we're hearing the voice of the Spirit at all, surely we're hearing our Lord telling us to go out and find those people that this world is rejecting.

Go find the poor and the maimed and the hawk and the blind. Go to the people nobody wants and bring them to me. And to our amazement, as we start to do this, we discover that we're getting a response from these people.

So great that we can't even cope with it. No longer is it a matter of trying to persuade people to come to fellowship, you know, pester them and beg them. Not a matter anymore of trying to convince our relatives and loved ones that Jesus is real.

We don't even have time to mess around with that. No longer time to try to get people to pay attention when they're bored to death. When we get down to the bottom of this city's barrel and scrape it with the gospel of Jesus Christ, we suddenly find ourselves surrounded by outstretched arms on every side, pressing in on us with needs we can't begin to handle.

So now we're not sitting in somebody's well-furnished parlor discussing whether or not Jesus Christ still heals. We're walking down an alley and people are standing in their doorways on all sides saying, come in here and heal my child. Come over here and deliver me from this.

This addiction that I have. Do something for me. Help me.

And suddenly we find that our gospel, its validity is being put to the test. Don't just talk about how the blood of Jesus wipes away guilt. Prove it.

And don't just be talking about how God heals through Catherine Coleman. Let him heal through you or shut up. And don't just be talking about how to have a mighty Holy Spirit moves, minister the spirit to me or go away.

This is what people are saying. And rightly so. It's all very well for us to drive them to meetings that we ought to be doing this, having them over for dinner.

We ought to be doing this, spending time in their homes, discussing and talking about the things of God, getting into the word. That's beautiful. But these people are expecting something wonderful to happen.

Our gospel promises that something wonderful is going to happen to them. See, and if weeks and months go by and nothing happens at all, they have a perfect right to say that they've been missed, misled. Perfect right to say somebody's been taking me down the wrong road.

We have to produce something. We have to minister God's life because our Lord promises that those who draw near to him are going to get light. If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.

Living water is going to come out of him. They're going to be transformed. They're going to be born all over again.

All things will pass away. All things will become new. And also our Lord promises us that if we go forth in his name, with his gospel on our lips, the people who are drawn to us are going to experience these miracles at our hands.

These signs shall accompany those who believe. In my name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues.

They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. Now the same Lord who tells us to go out and seek the lost, who's giving us a vision of those lost and saying, go out there and find them, is also giving us a vision of a body of believers that has the power to manifest the cross of Christ to them in such a way that their lives are going to be touched and healed and changed. Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Preach as you go saying the kingdom of God is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You receive without pay, give without pay.

The same Lord who tells us to seek the lost is also telling us to heal the lost. Now praise God that finally we're beginning to get a vision of what that means to seek the lost. We're just starting to get a thank God for that.

But we also have to have a vision of a body of believers that has the power once it finds the lost to do something for these people. Not just to stand there like a dummy with empty hands but with the name of Jesus to lift them out of their ruts and out of their despair and out of their diseases and out of their troubles and out of their prisons. That's the vision we need.

And we have to seek it until it gets clear and then we have to hang on to it until it starts to happen. We need to see these people that we're getting to now delivered and healed far more consistently than we see now. And so we go up on our watchtower and we ask, just like Habakkuk, Lord give me an answer.

And we wait there until it comes and it comes. And he begins to give us a vision of a body that has the power not only to seek those lost but really help them. At the end of the book of Ezekiel is a picture of the restored temple.

And some very strange things are going on in this picture. At the bottom, underneath the threshold of the door of the temple, which faces east, a spring of water is bubbling up and the water trickles down kind of south and then around east again around the altar, a symbol of the cross, and then over toward the eastern gate across the courtyard to the eastern gate of the temple, which is closed and is always closed except when the Messiah comes through. The water trickles under that gate and keeps moving east.

Fifteen hundred feet from the gate of the temple, it's ankle deep. Three thousand feet from the gate of the temple, it's knee deep. Forty five hundred feet from the gate of the temple, it's waist deep.

And a little over a mile from the eastern gate of the temple, it's a mighty river that goes over your head, rushing along. And on both sides of the river, on the banks are trees growing in land that was once desert. And it keeps going until it empties into the sea.

All this from a tiny spring bubbling up under the threshold of the door of the temple. And the amazing thing about this water is that everything this stream touches is healed. It heals the land.

It heals the waters. And those trees growing on its banks have leaves that bring healing to those who touch them. Healing everywhere.

Now here we have a picture, really, of a spring of water that begins at the foot of the cross of Jesus. And it moves down from Calvary through Jerusalem, out into Samaria, across into Galilee, and on to the uttermost parts of the earth. And this stream of water, which is obviously the Holy Spirit, finds its channel in the people of God, the saints.

It runs in the bodies of those who are following Jesus. The promise is that those who are touched by this water experience healing. Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, preaching as you go, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You receive without pay, give without pay. In other words, don't do it out there to get something back from these people, or to make a name for yourself, or to become rich on it.

Give it freely. Everyone you're ministering this grace to, you do it free. Now we are not to be satisfied and convinced until this vision is in fact fulfilled in our ministries in a way that it is not fulfilled right now.

And we are to hold on to the vision, because it will surely come. It does not lie. It hastens to its end.

He whose heart is not upright in him will fail by the way. He'll give up. But the righteous shall live by their faith.

They'll keep right on seeking the lost. And by their faith, they will make this vision come to pass. It's going to be, it's going to be done.

And it's going to be done in the lives of those who are faithful. God will confirm it. And may God keep us dissatisfied with everything less than this, and faithful until we see it with our eyes.

Let's pray. Father, we just thank you for the way in which you are causing us to touch now in a way in which none of us has ever seen this before. The lives of so many broken souls.

And we just know what that pain is, because we have all experienced it ourselves. We know the loneliness, and we know the anxiety, and we know the despair, and we know the guilt. We know the pain, and we know the fear.

We know the anger, and we know the bitterness, and we know the self-pity. And all these afflictions. But, oh God, we're just crying out to you for the authority of your Son to do everything that he did and told us we could do.

Heavenly Father, we certainly know that you're not sending us out to these people to just stand there and look into their faces. Anoint our lips that they may come forth with living water that will heal. And our hands that they may minister grace.

And our hearts that they may begin to have a love for these people that just doesn't come from us. Confirm your word to us, beginning this very day. We ask you, Father, in Jesus' name.

Amen.