TWIST BUSTERS | Without a Vision the People Perish

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Twistbusters. This is the series that we've been doing where we take popular passages of scripture that are mangled and twisted by evangelical leaders, vision casting leaders, prophets, prophetesses, and people like that, and we demonstrate that what they're saying about these verses, when you put it back in context or use sound biblical hermeneutics, it's not saying what they say it's saying.

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Today we're going to be looking at that popular verse that says, without a vision the people perish, and we're going to just take a little bit of a look at the context to prove that what these fellows are saying about this isn't true.

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Now I've gathered three salient examples of how this is popularly taught today, the last of which will be

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Craig Rochelle and his Chazon teaching, but let's go ahead and let's take a look.

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This is Pastor Dennis of the Victory Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and he is in a sermon titled,

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Living by Vision. Let's get an example of how this fellow takes this passage of scripture from Proverbs 29 18 out of context to make it say something it doesn't say.

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But I think God's calling his people to think a little differently about what they're doing with their life.

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What is their destination? And that destination is called vision. Vision is what

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God gives you. It's the ability to see beyond what is. So God gives you a vision so that you can see beyond what is.

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Okay, you have a verse that says God's gonna give me a vision, okay? And to cause to come to pass what should be.

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When you're living by vision, you're living with an eye on the future, not on the past or on the circumstances.

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You lift up your eyes, you lift up your head above all the mundaneness and normalness of life, and you look out where you're going.

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And people that learn to live like this are successful. So if I learn to live this way,

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I will be successful. So God wants me to be successful, and he wants to give me a vision, okay?

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Separates people and success. If you don't have a vision, then you will not be successful.

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So Proverbs 29 18 says it this way, without a vision, my people perish.

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Now I'm gonna point this out. Watch what happens here. Where there is no vision, the people perish, dot dot dot.

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What do you think is on the other side of those dots? Dot dot dot. Where there is no vision, the people perish, says

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Pastor Dennis. People are perishing all over the world, and the reason they're perishing is because they don't have vision.

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You want to know the problem in the third world? The problem in the third world starts at the very core that most people don't have any vision.

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They're just trying to survive. If only they would have vision, they wouldn't be so poor.

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I thought poverty was a result of man's fall into sin. All right, so that's one example of how it's taught, and you're gonna note here there's something fishy going on because where there is no vision, the people perish, dot dot dot.

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Let's take a look at another example, Pastor Joel K. from his recent sermon series titled...

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I gotta stop fumbling over my words...titled, Ready, Aim, Fire.

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Let's hear what he has to say. Well, let's get into it. We're ready for a new series. You see behind me, Ready, Aim, Fire.

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This is a series about vision. It's a great way to start the year to get a sense of what God has got for your 2018.

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I know that for a lot of people, when they turn up to a new year, they set goals, they set plans, they set a sense of, you know, all the different New Year's resolutions, but the reality is that probably by the end of last month, all those resolutions have already been, you know, you're blown out of the water.

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You know, I wanted to go to the gym, well you did, you joined the gym, and now you're two weeks deep of not going back, and you feel guilty, and you feel shame, and you feel like I'm paying this gym membership now for 12 months.

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It's okay, just give it to Jesus, and turn up back to the gym, and get on with it. But you know what, here's what I think.

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I think a lot of people, the reason they stop with resolutions, they stop with things, is because they haven't got an end game in mind. They haven't got a target in mind.

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They haven't got the aim in mind. They haven't got a sense of vision, and the Bible tells us in Proverbs that without vision, people perish, or in another version, it says people come to the ends of themselves.

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In other words, I've got no clear direction for my life, and before we know it, they find themselves in a place where they're kind of hopeless, or they feel like there's a lack of desire, or there's a lack of dreams, and I don't know where you're at this particular

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Sunday, but how are you going in 2018? Have you... Right, how are you doing? I mean, did God give you a vision for 2018?

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Let me show you what he said about vision the following week, without vision, the people perish.

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Hmm, let's look at how he defined vision the following week. And I love that there's this great quote by Bill Hybels that says, vision is a picture of the future that produces passion.

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So what have you got a vision for in your life? What are you dreaming about? I'm dreaming about people stopping twisting

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God's Word like this. That end goal, you know, like I said last week, we're going for God, and we're going after becoming more like Jesus, but what is the dreams that God's placing off?

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What is those desires? Is it that one day you might open a business, a coffee shop? Maybe one day you want to graduate and be a doctor, or one day you want to...

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So God's gonna give me a vision to open a coffee shop, or to be a doctor? You're believing that your mom and dad might be restored in a marriage, or you're believing that you might find a husband or wife.

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I mean, what is the goal, the dream, the desires that God has placed in your life, and when you can... Yeah, because, you know, without a vision, the people perish.

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Now here's the most popular, at least well -known, teacher of this doctrine. This is

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Craig Rochelle of Life Church TV out in Oklahoma, and here's his teaching on the

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Hebrew word chazon, which is actually found in Proverbs 29 18, but let's listen to what he does here.

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...stumble upon success. Everyone ends up somewhere, but few people end up somewhere on purpose.

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Our key verse for today is found in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 29 verse 18.

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If you can, all of our churches, can you guys help me out and say this aloud? Scripture teaches where there is no vision.

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Everybody say, no vision. Where there is no vision, what does the Bible say? The people what? The people perish.

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Hmm, and notice dot dot dot, where there is no vision, the people perish.

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See? God has got to give you a vision for 2018. He's got to give you a vision for your life.

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He's gonna tell you to open a coffee shop, and all that kind of stuff. You're gonna perish unless God gives you a direct revelation vision.

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Is that what Proverbs 29 18 says? You might want to open your

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Bibles at this point, but let's let him spin this out a little bit here. There's no vision.

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The Hebrew word that's translated as vision is the word chazon. Everybody say chazon.

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Very good. When you say it, you have to kind of act like you're gonna hack a loogie. Yeah, by the way, yeah, that really is the word that's used there in the

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Hebrew. Like that. So if you hack a loogie on a person's neck in front of you, just say chazon.

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I'm sorry about that, okay? This is not to be confused with calazon, no, or chazonas, which is

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Spanish for underwear. This is not what we're talking about. This is the Hebrew word chazon, and if you're taking notes, it means a dream, a revelation, or a vision.

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Where there is no chazon, where there is no vision for a godly family, half of the marriages end up in divorce.

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Where there is no vision for financial freedom, you can live in a very wealthy part of the world and still live paycheck to paycheck, always worried about money.

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Where there is no vision for a godly body, a body that's healthy and would honor

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God, you can live in a very good part of the world and still be fat and out of shape and unhealthy.

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Where there is no vision for a great ministry. So that's what's plaguing all of us, is that we just haven't received a direct revelation from God, a vision on skinniness.

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Who knew? Make a lasting difference. You can stumble through life always hoping for something better, knowing that God has something out there for you, but always living dissatisfied and under God's potential for your life.

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Where there is no vision, no chazon, the people perish. Yeah, so you get the idea.

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Common theme here is they're all saying, you've got to get a direct vision from God, a dream, a revelation from God so that you won't perish.

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Is that what Proverbs 29 18 says? We've noted two of the fellows actually put the verse up on the screen and their media people were at least honest enough to put dot dot dot.

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By the way, the dot dot dot, those are called ellipses, which means the thought isn't complete.

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Think of it this way. If I were to tell you a joke and I were to say to you, so there was an attorney, there was a

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Catholic priest, and a rabbi. They all walked into a bar and the attorney said to the rabbi, and then didn't tell you the rest of the joke, you'd probably get mad at me.

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It's like, well, what did the attorney say to the rabbi? How's the joke end? You see, that's exactly what all three of these fellows have done.

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And by the way, if your pastor's ever taught this doctrine, he's done it also. Or she.

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Unfortunately, there are she's doing that too. But all of them have told you only half of a sentence and then spun an entire theology out of half of a sentence.

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Let me show you. Here's Proverbs 29 18 from the English Standard Version, which by the way is a good translation.

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You know, it's not the only one that's out there, but notice what it says. Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint, comma, but blessed is he who keeps the

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Torah, the law. Oh, you see, the prophetic vision that we need is not some direct revelation from God about going to the gym, or being happy with our job, or being free in our finances.

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The prophetic vision we need from God is the Bible. That's why it says, blessed is he who keeps the law, the law, the

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Torah. That's the Bible. This, by the way, is also shown to say the same thing in the in the

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NIV. Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.

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So over and again, guys like Craig Groeschel and all of these purpose -driven people who say that you need to receive a direct purpose from God, or a dream destiny from God, they take

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Proverbs 29 18 and chop it in half, leave off the part that would make you realize, oh, the prophetic vision

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I need for my life is the Bible, and instead teach you that you have to receive some direct revelation from God on, you know, your 2018 or anything like that.

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That's not what Proverbs 29 18 says. The prophetic revelation, the prophetic vision that you and I need, it's found in the

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Bible. And without the Word of God, the written Word of God, people cast off restraint.

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Don't believe me? Just look at the society around you. Now, if you found this helpful, please share this video with others.

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If you would like to hear more of this type of content, then understand that I do a podcast where we do 10 plus hours per week, where we do this type of discernment work, teaching and training you how to put

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God's Word back into context, use sound biblical hermeneutics and exegesis in order to properly understand what

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God's Word truly says, so that you can spot when people are twisting it and teaching false doctrine.

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Until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.