Visions

When someone writes to me about a vision they have received, I suggest there are several questions that they need to answer.

Why?
Why do they get these visions? Are they for them to strengthen their prayer times. Or are they something that they need to share.

Who?
What are they for? There are many possible answers: them, their church, someone they know, the wider church, people in the world. They need to know who the vision is for.

How?
If a vision is for sharing, how does God want them to share it? He can tell them.

Format: The communication will be different from the revelation. They are not the same.

Medium: How does God want the communication spread. Preaching a sermon is just one possible way. A message can be shared in a variety of ways, depending on who is it for.

They need to get answers to all these questions.

Leadership and Vision

Sydney Finkelstein has an article in the Harvard Business Review called Secrets of the Superbosses. These are leaders who building exceptional organisations by spotting, training, and developing a future generation of leaders. The are able to delegate to these people, because they understand their vision.

Superbosses articulate uncompromising visions that they expect employees to internalize and follow. During the execution of work tasks, employees enjoy extraordinary authority over everything except the vision. The Superbosses generally stay clear, intervening only to ensure that decisions employees make support their visions and don’t conflict with them.

This is yet another reason why every manager should craft a compelling vision for their teams, no matter where they are in the corporate hierarchy.

Jesus that operated is the way. He spent time with the twelve and the seventy making sure that they understood his vision for the Kingdom of God and how it will come:

• go in pairs to a place and stay there
• heal the sick and cast out demons
• proclaim the good news of the kingdom
• stay in the house until the people who have decided go follow Jesus understand the vision and the method for sharing and can do it themselves.

Once they understood this vision, Jesus sent them out to do it in pairs, with no direct supervision. They experienced great success.

Paul grabbed this vision and ran with it, without Jesus needing to control him.

The modern church seems to have lost this vision, and replaced it with control and failure.

There is an Alternative

Imagination can create a vision that exposes the lie that there is not alternative. It brings hope by proving that things do not have to be as they are.

Visions of Disaster (2)

Actually, the powers of evil are not strong enough to create a big earthquake or tsunami. The devil is a boaster, and often exaggerates what he is able to do. All his powers can do is trigger a situation where there is a build up of tension in the rocks. They can change the timing and the direction, but that is about all. (The ones who smashed up the fountains of the deep in Noah’s time are locked up, so they can no longer destroy the earth, as God promised Noah).

God’s prophecy is nearly always redemptive. He warns what will happen and tells his people how to prepare, so they can of restore the people the world when they are shaken. He does not prophesy mindless destruction for the sake of destruction (that is the devil’s game.

A tsunami would just destroy everything. It does not help the gospel. Just as the Christchurch earthquake didn’t advance the gospel, because the church was not prepared. (This is the point of the Commando army. God really needs it in place before he can fully shake the nation.)

I listened to Graeme Cooke’s message to New Zealand again at the weekend. Every time I listen, it feels like fire burning in my heart. He does not speak destruction for New Zealand. He speaks of a storm, but a storm that would sort through churches. Those built on the rock of Jesus will stand, but those that do not own Jesus and do not pursue his Spirit will be swept away. The storm is for the purification and transformation of the church, not for the destruction of society.

I have pondered what the storm could be. It could not be a Tsunami and earthquake, because that would just destroy everything: It would not sort churches. Persecution would do it, but that does not seek likely this year. It could happen, but it would take the church to oppose the world on a popular issue. That seems unlikely, so I assume that it is more like to be economic, because that would challenge churches that are not built on Jesus foundation. However, I do not have a word from God on that. What I do get is a picture of confusion in Wellington. Politicians and bureaucrats making mistake after mistake that makes troubles worse.

Years ago, a pastor in Invercargill shared a dream of vision of a massive wave, sweeping onto the South Island from the east. It struck Southland first and then moved north. He believed that God was showing him a massive move of the Spirit that will sweep the South Island. That is the sort of vision that stirs my heart.

Visions of Disaster (1)

A friend asked me about visions of earthquakes/tsunamis coming to different parts of country that have been shared Christians in different parts of New Zealand. Several people confirmed in their own personal words or visions as well. May answer is as follows.

Talk of Tsunamis and earthquakes have circulated for years. Thirty years ago, the talk was of Wellington. And an Australian saw a vision of a volcano blowing out of Lake Taupo. A few years ago, several Christians saw a vision of a tsunami destroying Christchurch. (One American couple moved to Dunedin to avoid it). I have not heard the latest accounts, but I find it hard to take them seriously, because they do not stir my heart.

I believe that spiritually-sensitive Christians sometimes hear the devil saying what he would like to do. Before the Christchurch earthquake, a friend heard an audible voice while he was walking through Christchurch at lunchtime say, “I am going to destroy this city”. After the earthquake, he assumed that God had been warning him. I do not doubt what he heard, but I do not accept his interpretation. God does not want to destroy Christchurch, because he has good plans for it. It is the devil who wants to destroy Christchurch.

The devil is the one who loves to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). He wants to destroy the Christchurch, because he knows that God has plans for it, even though he does not know what they are. I believe my friend heard the devil speaking out what he wanted to do (but was not actually capable of doing). Or perhaps, God let my friend hear what the devil was saying, so he could stand against it in prayer.

I assume that most of the talk about tsunamis comes from spiritually–sensitive people who have picked up what the devil wants to do. Fear is his one of his best weapons. Or more likely, God is letting them hear what the devil wants to do, so they will intercede against it.

It is dangerous, if Christians agree with these words, because they give the powers of evil authority to do what they want to do. It is possible that the Christian who delighted in the vision of tsunamis destroying Christchurch, were actually giving the powers of evil permission to trigger the earthquake that did such immense damage in the city.

Average is Over (1)

I have just read Average is Over by Tyler Cowen. He gives his vision of America beyond the great stagnation.

The main point of the book is that high earners are taking advantage of computing power and improving their position. Low income earners who are not competent with technology are losing. The middle is getting thinner and thinner.

Cowen says that the lower classes have suffered as jobs have been exported to low wage countries. He argues that the process has only started. More and more middle class professional jobs will come under competition from Asia. The safe careers of lawyers and engineers will come under pressure from cheap international competitors with similar skills. The proof of this change is the fact that the labour share of national income has been declining for the last thirty years.

Most of the book expands on this theme, but the final chapter called A New Social Contract describes, his vision for the future of America. It is a disturbing vision.

The forces outlined in this book, especially for labor markets will force a rewriting of the social contract, even if it is not explicitly recognised as such. We will move from a society based on the pretense that everyone is given an okay standard of living to a society in which people are expected to fend for themselves much more than they do now. I imagine a world where, say, 10 to 15 percent of the citizenry is extremely wealth and has fantastically comfortable and stimulating lives, the equivalent of current-day millionaires, albeit with better health care.

Much of the rest of the country will have stagnant or maybe even falling wages in dollar terms, but a lot more opportunities for cheap fun and also cheap education. Many of these people will live quite well, and those will be the people who have the discipline to benefit from all the free or near-free services that modern technology has made available. Others will fall by the wayside (229-230)

The majority of people will experience declining incomes. They will learn to get by on less and less. Support from the government will decline too, as the wealth classes use their political power to get taxes reduced. The only good thing is that entertainment will be cheap via the internet. More circuses but less bread.

Visions

God speaks into the context of our experience. He uses the images, words and places with which we are familiar when he does speak to us. When prophets communicate their words, they used words and images with which their listeners are familiar. All the prophets did this.

Sometimes God gives a seer a vision, so he can show things that go beyond familiar words and images. The seen has to translate what he saw using the words and images with which he was familiar. John’s Revelation is a good example of this. Here is a description of something he saw.

At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne (Rev 4:2-3).

I doubt that John saw jaspars, rubies and emeralds. These are physical things and John had been given a glimpse into the spiritual world. John saw something that was beyond is earthly experience, so he was trying to describe the indescribable. He used images of the most beautiful things he knew to describe the wonder of the spiritual world, but even this gives just a hint of its glory.

At other times, God uses images just to strengthen the power of communication. Audio-visual communication is often more effective that written communication. We remember things that we see better.

The biblical prophets used everyday language and context to describe what they saw, but they were also very clear about what was a revelation from God and what was a description of their response or their experience.

Sharing Vision

This is a comment on a comment on a previous post, but it is an important topic, so I will post it separately.

Being shown images by the Holy Spirit is as important as hearing words. It is just another way of communicating.

God does not speak in images just to suit the learning style of the seer. He communicates this way for the benefit of all his people, so the images are not the property of the seer to be kept for himself.

If a Christian has been given words or shown images by the Holy Spirit, then the vision should be recorded as accurately as possible. This is what the biblical prophets did. Daniel and John described what they saw (sometimes not very well, because human language was not up to it).

The Christian should pray about whether and when to share the vision. Often the Lord does not give permission to share until some time after the vision is received. Receiving a vision does not constitute permission to share.

Once permission to share has been given, the vision should be described as accurately possible. In my view, it is best to describe what you saw “I saw…..” Any contextual information or interpretation should presented separately. “I believe this means…..” This approach has several benefits.

1. It allows other Christians to test your seeing (eg Maybe you ate too much curry with your fries last night).
2. It encourages readers to think about the nature of what you seen,
   
   • an exact description of what will happen (1 Kings 22:17),
   • symbolic of real entity like Daniel’s beast, or
   • a symbolic presentation of a spiritual truth like Amos’s lion hiding in the thicket (Amos 3:5). I note that seer’s often confuse these three different types of seeing when interpreting what they have seen.
   People can then apply what you have seen to their situation, which may be different from yours.
3. Readers are free to decide about the timing of the fulfilment, because that is not usually contained in the vision.
4. Readers can test the interpretation of the vision. Sometimes another people can provide a better interpretation of a dream and vision. Daniel understood the meaning of Nebuchadnezzar's dream better than he did. Some seers are not gifted at interpretations of visions.

I understand that in these experiences distinguishing what the Sprit is showing from what the person already know is difficult, but it is also really important. Just as it can be difficult to distinguish the voice of the Spirit from the words that pop out of your own mind. However, learning to distinguish the two is critical for sharpening the prophetic gifting. Unfortunately many prophetic people do not bother trying.

If in a particular situation, the Christian has struggled to distinguish the two, there is nothing wrong with saying that to the readers. It does not diminish a gifting to be humble. The Holy Spirit is capable of highlighting what he wants people to see or hear (that should not be taken as an excuse for prophetic laziness).

The safest way to keep the description accurate is to write it down as soon as it is received. If too much time passes by, the memory dims and extraneous stuff can creep into the description of the vision.