Proverbs 29:18, in the English version says, ‘Where there is no vision the people perish.’ The people die!
When I was a student in the Bible College I had to preach to the other students, in a church, in front of some young people. Preaching is difficult even to a congregation, but preaching to a bunch of my fellow students – whose great delight would be to pull me to pieces – was extremely difficult! I’m afraid we did it to find fault... But I felt led to preach on this very verse. I can’t remember what I said, but I do remember several of the students came up to me afterwards, absolutely amazed, and really felt what I was saying was prophetic: I do believe that right from the beginning this verse – where there is no vision, the people perish – was to set the direction for my life.
We talk a lot about revival – but I want to show you from Proverbs 29:18 that, without a clear vision, we won’t see revival.
Revival begins from God as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit – but it usually comes because of someone’s vision in prayer. It is said that is how the Welsh Revival started, in a prayer meeting where a young girl began to cry out, “I love You Jesus!” Somehow her vision caught on and there was a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So many revivals have begun because a group of people got together to pray. One of the most outstanding things in the 1904 Welsh Revival was the level of prayer that was going on. They told me that on the Saturday night the people would go up the mountain to pray, taking lanterns with them in the darkness, and you could tell how strong the revival would be on the Sunday and on the coming days, by how far up the mountain these lanterns were! The more the people, the higher the light went, so would be the level of the spiritual awakening!
There is a connection between vision and prophecy, but there is a difference. Vision is something you receive, but not necessarily from God – people have some very strange visions... A God-given vision is something you SEE, as in a picture, what the outcome will be. Whereas prophecy is an anointing, a gift from the Holy Spirit, foretelling what will happen in the future, SPEAKING out what God is revealing…
I feel I have a combination of vision and prophecy. My ministry is called Eurovision Mission to Europe – because it is a vision God gave me for Europe! Eurovision! Right from the beginning the clear vision I had was of the revival that would come in the then communist Soviet territories – that would begin in Russia and move from East to West, into Europe. BUT, I had to go out there and fulfil the vision! It was not a prophetic vision to be scattered for somebody else to pick up, although that was part of it, but a clear vision of what God wanted ME to do. When I launched my magazine, Prophetic Vision, it was MY prophetic vision, for Europe, Israel and the former communist countries – just as with Hudson Taylor, famous British missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission – his call was with a vision for China. That’s what God wanted HIM to do.
But Hudson Taylor also had a vision in 1889 which was prophetic. He was back from China on furlough, in a church preaching, when suddenly God gave him a vision – nothing to do with China – it was a vision of Russia! In the vision he clearly saw two world wars – (which happened 1914-18, and 1939-45) – two separate wars, but which would actually be one. Historians now see that the war which began in 1914 inevitably led, through the 20s and 30s, to the Second World War and didn’t finally conclude until 1945. He also saw in his vision the rise and fall of communism, and – this is the thing that interested me when I heard it – the last great revival would begin in Russia, and from there go into Europe – and would not die out, but lead to the return of Christ!
The Russians know and believe this vision, though I find in England people hardly seem to have heard of it. I didn’t know it until I had started working with my own vision in Russia.
But the fact is, vision is so important. I’m DRIVEN by a vision. DRIVEN by the vision God showed me.
My documentary, The Rape of Europe, was based on a vision God revealed to me – and every single thing that God was revealing to me, you can see it in that film! Whether the European Parliament building in Strasbourg which was deliberately built as the Tower of Babel, or the Woman Riding the Beast from Revelation 17 – you can’t deny it, you can see it, it’s there!
In my life and in yours, we need a vision in three directions.
The first is we must have a vision of one’s own self, when you examine yourself and see what you are capable of. If only we could become more aware of the capability God has put within us, and have a vision of what we can do, not alone, but with God! I never hear anyone who quotes the words of Paul who says, before taking communion ‘let a man examine himself’! Every time we take communion, every time we take the bread and the wine, there should be a self-examination. I do it! It so impressed me when, still a teenager, working to pay my way to go through Bible College, a wonderful evangelist held a three-week crusade in Camberwell, London, and opened a church as a result. In fact I left my old church for this church, and worked with this evangelist to gain experience. At the end of that crusade, on the last Sunday, the evangelist called us together, new converts and supporting believers, for a great communion service. That must have been in 1949, and I’ll never forget what he said as we took communion, “Whether you are a new convert doing this for the first time, or an old Christian, I want you to feel emotionally, when you take this communion that, even for you, old believers, it’s just the same as if this were the first time!” Every time I take communion, I have the sense of wanting the freshness and the self-examination which comes with it. So we need a vision of ourselves.
Secondly, we need a vision of Jesus! A vision of His Power, His Glory – of who He really is. I feel so concerned, because people don’t seem to have the vision of who Jesus really is. If you only understood His unlimited Power, His tremendous Glory! I remember a few years ago when I was in Switzerland, in the mountains in prayer. I had come down and that night I had a remarkable vision. I saw myself in a long line of people waiting to go into this room, and I was carrying something very large. Someone came up to me saying, “Don’t let anybody take that thing from you!” Immediately he said that, I was ushered into the room, jumping the queue! All I could see in that room was brilliant, indescribable light! I couldn’t see anybody, only the brilliance of the light – and the music!!! My whole spirit was filled with overwhelming wonder and blessing. I was thinking, “If only people could hear this music, if only they could experience what I am experiencing, they would give everything to be here!” I believe it was a vision of the Glory of God, I fell on my face. When we see the Glory of God, we’re on our knees, we’re on our faces before Him!
The whole of my life, right from the beginning, I’ve been motivated by the vision God gave me of what He was going to do. And He has fulfilled everything!
Three days after my trial when I had been found guilty and sentenced to what could have been ten years or more in a communist prison – (their practice was to bring more accusations, there was no early release) – I had a dream, a vision – the same dream on two consecutive nights. I saw myself out of the prison, in the Royal Albert Hall, then the largest auditorium in London, speaking to ten thousand people at the Easter Convention of the denomination I was part of at that time. It was a dream, but it was a prophetic vision that I was to pray into. And in that prison I had an experience of the Glory of God that I have never experienced before or since. And later, when I was able to smuggle my own Bible back into my cell, the dream was confirmed in the Word of God, even the very day that I would be released – my birthday. And exactly on my birthday I flew home with Prime Minister Harold Wilson; I received a phone call, “David, are you strong enough to speak in the Royal Albert Hall on Monday at the Easter Rally?” It was an exact fulfilment of what God had shown me!
We must obtain the reality of what God is showing us in prophetic vision!
We need a vision of ourselves, self-examination as Paul says. The second vision should be of the Power and Glory of Jesus! If you get a real vision of who Jesus is, you will be afraid of nothing! You can take on the world and the flesh and the devil – if you have a real vision of Jesus!
The third vision we need is a vision of the world. Look at the sin! Sin is the result of the fact that the world is under the power of Satan! We need to be delivered! God has always given me such a vision of the NEED of the world! Look what’s happened under lockdown – people are suffering! I was in London in the war when bombs were falling all around – some of my school friends were killed, their houses destroyed. My home was badly damaged twice – but somehow I never had any fear! I was 8 years old when the war started, 13 when it finished – but never a sense of fear. I saw the problem, I had a vision of the need – but all it did, even at that young age, was make me more determined to go and preach the Gospel! More determined to pray, to see revival. I spent so much time in prayer over London. Although the churches after the war were very few, scattered and broken, I now speak in some of the large churches that have sprung up in the places where I prayed as a boy! I had such a vision of revival during the war, such a vision of the Power of God! I prayed into that vision.
We need a clear vision of ourselves, of our own powerlessness... But a vision of Christ and His Glory and His Power which enables me! And a clear vision of the world where we have to go! Hudson Taylor prophesied of something that was to happen after his lifetime. I believe that what I am seeing today in Russia – and have seen for the last 30, 40 years – is literally the fulfilment of his vision and prophecy.
I want to return to my first thought, the difference between vision and prophecy. Prophecy is when God puts something in your spirit, and which you speak out, and it may be that, like Hudson Taylor, it will happen in years to come. Vision is when God gives you a clear vision of what He and you can do together – and you have to go out and do it! Somebody has to get out there and fulfil the vision, fulfil the prophecy. This is the challenge of Proverbs 29:18, where there is no vision, the people will die! If we don’t have a vision, that threefold vision, the people out there will die! If I did not have a vision of what God could do in Russia, what would have happened when I came out of the prison and my own denomination criticised me because I said, “I’ve got to go back!”? They said, “You’re are a wanted man, you’ll go back into prison, how can you go back and put yourself, your wife and family at risk?” I said, “I HAVE to go back!” And the greatest miracles came – because I went back! A thousand times greater than anything I had seen in the past.
Get a vision, act on it and God will be with you – if not, Proverbs says, you will die.