William Einwechter explains in this audio message that the stability and order of people and nations are tied to obedience to God's law. The alternative of obeying God's law is following the desires of men which ultimately result in chaos and sin.

1 John 3:4 (NKJV) - "Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness."

If you have a Bible, please open it. Turn to Proverbs 29 18. Proverbs 29 18. Where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the law happy is he. This well-known text is often misunderstood and misused.

The first reason is that the word vision itself is misunderstood and on the basis of that the text is used to promote an idea that is foreign to it. The second reason is that almost always only the first half of the verse is quoted. We always hear where there is no vision the people perish. Period. That's not what the verse says in its entirety.

And so the parallelism that's established in the text is lost. I think these two problems go together because if you misunderstand the word vision, the second half of the proverb makes no sense and therefore it's dropped. You see, the word vision is often construed to mean something like having a plan, or goals, or ideas for what you want to do or be in the future. It's the idea of having a mental image of what you want to accomplish. It's a discerning mind so that you know why you are here and where you are going.

And the ones with vision have keen foresight and have set their minds on accomplishing great things. And so we say things like, we need a vision for the future. And then Proverbs 29 18 is quoted or something like we need men and women a vision. And we quote Proverbs 29 18. Those that don't have any vision, as the passage says, are those without the plans and the goals.

They're the individuals and groups that slog through life and never really achieve anything significant because they don't have the foresight to develop a vision for the future. Now I grant that planning and goal setting and vision in the sense that which it is used here is a good thing. But the point is this is not what Proverbs 29 18 is talking about. Rather this text is teaching that the stability, order, and prosperity of men and nations are specifically tied to obedience to divine revelation. It sets before us the alternatives of God's word and peace or man's word and anarchy or God's law or chaos.

First of all, let's take this passage and interpret it and then we will seek to make some applications from it. Proverbs 29 18 is written in the form of Hebrew poetry. Now the fundamental characteristic of Hebrew poetry is not rhyme or meter, but rather parallelism of thought. In Hebrew poetry, the thought or idea of one line is set in comparison to the following line in either a synonymous, antithetical, or synthetic sense. Now the parallelism in our text here is antithetical in nature.

What this means is that the idea or statement in the first half of the verse is contrasted with its opposite in the second half of the verse. Line one is the antithesis of line two or vice versa. Now antithetical parallelism is the most common form that's used in the book of Proverbs because it is especially adapted to the purpose of the book, which is to contrast the way of the wise and the way of the foolish. And so we'll have the way of the foolish in one line, the way of the wise contrasted with it in the second line. Now the proper interpretation of Proverbs 29 18 begins with a recognition of its antithetical structure.

Now the first line says, where there is no vision, the people perish. The word vision is a translation of a Hebrew term that was a technical term in the Old Testament for divine revelation. And it is most often used of the communication of divine revelation to the prophets by means of a vision or prophetic word. For example, in 1 Samuel 3 and verse 1, the text says, and the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli and the word of the Lord was precious in those days, there was no open vision. Same word that's used in the Proverbs passage we're looking at.

And here the word of the Lord being precious is comparable to being no open vision or no word from the Lord. In 1 Chronicles 17 and verse 15, after Nathan had spoken to David, he said, according to all these words and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David. And here we see all the words that Nathan spoke were according to all of this vision that he had received from God. In Micah chapter 3 and verse 6 It says this, Therefore night shall be unto you that you shall not have a vision. And it shall be dark unto you that you shall not divine.

And the sun shall go down over the prophets and the day shall be dark over them then shall the seers be ashamed and the diviners confounded yea they shall cover their lips for there is no answer of God. They cover their lips there's no answer from God they're not speaking his word because there's no vision from God. In the introduction to many of the prophets, we have words such as this as in Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 1. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amos which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah kings of Judah. The whole prophecy is called the vision of Isaiah because it refers to a prophetic vision that God gave to him.

In other words, God has communicated his word to Isaiah and it is called the vision. Frans Deilich in his commentary on Proverbs says this about the usage of vision here. It refers to prophetic revelation. It refers to the contents of that which is proclaimed by the spokesman of God. Therefore, in our passage here, the word vision is a reference to the word of God.

It has nothing to do with vision in terms of planning and goals and foresight. It's referring to the Word of God, where there is no word from God that people perish. What's significant also about this word vision is that it refers to both the revelation itself and the faithful preaching of that revelation. The prophets received the vision and then they proclaimed it. In the light of this fact, the vision is both the word revealed and the word proclaimed, it is significant to note that in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which is called the Septuagint, which was begun around the third century BC, they translate the Hebrew word vision in Proverbs 29 18 by a Greek word that means an expounder or an interpreter.

They understood the phrase where there's no vision to mean something like this, where there is no faithful interpreter or teacher of the word of God, the people perish. In this I think they went too far in placing the expounder of the word in the forefront. I think that the Hebrew word vision has primary reference to the word of God itself. Yet they did succeed in bringing out the idea of proclamation of that vision, proclamation of that word. The people need not only a vision from God, they need men who will faithfully and fearlessly proclaim that word and teach that word unto them.

Furthermore, in interpreting the word vision and understanding what it means, we need to look to the second half of the verse of the Hebrew parallelism here. It's corollary in the second phrase is, but he that keepeth the law, happy as he. Vision and law are set in parallel. And they're referring to the same entity from different perspectives. And obviously when we talk about the law, the law of God, Torah, the law of God, we're talking about his word and his revelation of how men should live, a revelation of himself and his glory.

And that idea of the revelation of God's will through his word is what is contained in the word vision. And so it's something like this where there is no word from God. Where there is no divine revelation and faithful men to proclaim it, the people perish. And so the contrast in this proverb is between the presence and the absence of the instruction in truth and righteousness that God gives to us in his word. And so when there is no vision, no revelation, no word from God, the people perish.

But when the law of God is known and obeyed, the people are blessed. I hope it is clear to you by now that the word vision has nothing to do with the human mind and conceiving plans and setting goals for the future. It's not about men of vision. It's about revelation from God. Now continuing in our text, the word people is in the singular, but it's what we call a collective noun in that it designates a group of people, particularly a state, a city, a nation, perhaps a community of believers.

So the proverb does not focus so much on an individual in this passage, but on a composite of individuals that are bound together in some kind of particular community. Now the word perish that is used here indicates the consequences that befall those who are devoid of the vision, who are devoid of the word of God. Again we have to define what this word means. The Hebrew term means something like this, literally, to let go or to let loose. To let go or to let loose.

It is used for example this word, perish, The Hebrew word is used in Exodus 32 25. Word is translated by the term naked. What's Exodus 32 25? Well it's the shameful behavior of the Jews while Moses was on the mountain receiving the law when they made the golden calf and they gave themselves over to the practice of pagan religious festival. The text says this, when Moses saw that the people were naked, it's the same word as the Proverbs 29 18 translated parish.

And when Moses saw that the people were naked, and then it goes on to say, for Aaron had made them naked under their shame among their enemies, and then it continues. The question comes to our mind, why in the King James, for example, is it translated by the term naked? Well, it's expressing here the shameful conduct of the people of Israel in their worship of the golden calf. And at that time they cast off restraint and let loose in this degrading pagan festival. Now as the King James translators looked at this and they wrestled with the meaning of the word, the very idea being to let loose or to cast off, It may have been chosen because of that very idea of casting off or letting loose one's garments and that it may have been used in this literal sense, they literally cast off their garments, which would not have been uncommon for pagan worship and celebrations, which were immoral to a very, very shameful degree.

Now let's look at another passage where this is used, and here again it's translated by naked. Second Chronicles 29 verse eight. For the Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he made Judah naked and transgress sore against the Lord. Here again this word is translated as naked to indicate how king Ahaz had caused the people to transgress the Lord by establishing the worship of Baal. Baal worship was characterized by the most despicable and immoral practices available or imaginable.

You see the worship of Baal calls the people to let loose and to give free reign to their lusts. Where there is no law, the people perish. Let go, let loose, give free reign to their lusts, and give themselves over to shameful, ungodly behavior. Gisinius in his lexicon states that the term translated as parish in Proverbs 29, 18 means lawless unbridled behavior. Lawless unbridled behavior.

I've already mentioned the Greek Old Testament in its translation of the word vision. They translate the word here, that is in our English is perish, by a compound word that means literally to be against the law. And therefore it refers to one who is an open transgressor of God's law or who is lawless. And so what the proverb is saying here is where there is no prophetic vision, no word from God, where there is no faithful proclamation and teaching of the word of God, the people become unbridled and lawless in their behavior. They let loose, they cast off restraint and indulge themselves in the pursuit of the lusts of the flesh.

And so the first part of Proverbs 20 is teaching that when a people is without the law word of God, they become an unbridled people. They become antinomian. They give free expression to their sinful desires. They become lawless and they rush toward anarchy and destruction. That is probably the reason behind the sense of the word as being perish.

Because when you live contrary to the law of God, you bring your own destruction upon yourself. When you set aside the moral and ethical teaching of the word of God and substitute it with man's ethics and the teachings of Those who are opposed to God's holiness and truth, you bring destruction and anarchy upon a people. You bring chaos, moral chaos into the world. You see, God's word alone has the power to restrain men so they do not give free reign to the lusts of the flesh. And the word of God keeps us from destruction, the destruction of lawless living.

It does it in three ways. Number one, by revealing to us the way of salvation from the power of sin. So when there's no vision, there's no proclamation of the true, pure and real gospel of Jesus Christ, the people perish. Secondly, the word of God keeps us from the destruction of lawless living by teaching us once we have been converted to love the righteous and good law of God that will lead us into the pleasant paths of liberty and peace. And thirdly, the word of God keeps us from the destruction of lawless living by restraining us through the threat of punishment for sin.

That punishment can be from God ordained authority who's properly carrying out that authority and bringing sanctions against those who are breaking God's standards or from God himself directly in his discipline. Where there is no vision to guide and restrain the people, the community in which they live is characterized by the expression of unbridled sinful passion. A culture is developed that is distinguished by violence, sexual promiscuity and perversion. The abandonment of responsibility, drunkenness, inner strife, loss of liberty, lawlessness and we could just go on. A society of people, a society of men devoid of the counsel of the word of God is by definition a lawless society.

This does not mean they don't have laws. They may have many laws, but their laws promote unrighteousness. And to promote unrighteousness is to promote lawlessness. As Alan Ross states in his commentary on Proverbs concerning this verse, If there is no revelation from God, people can expect spiritual and political anarchy. Now let's look at the next phrase in our exposition here, but he that keepeth the law happy as he.

The antithesis to an unbridled people without vision are the people who both have and keep the law of God. The singular he, which is in the Hebrew and carried over in her English translation, is a pronoun that's referring back to the singular collective noun of the previous phrase. And so it's not designating an individual particularly here, it's designating the people that were in the previous line. A group, a community of people. The verb keep, keepeth.

Not only has the idea of keeping or observing, but it has the idea of watching over something with jealous regard for its preservation. That no one would corrupt it. To keep the law of God is not just to obey it, but to be jealous for its preservation, its understanding, and its practice. And so here's the people, they keep the law of God. They love the law of God.

They're zealous to understand the law of God and to teach it and to keep it. In fact, the verb in the original has the idea of an uninterrupted exercise of activity. This is a continual type of mindset, habitual action. Keeping of the law here is presented as a daily moment by moment practice. In other words, all of life is governed by God's law.

All of life. Not just Sunday morning. Not just particular times, but all. The time when you are at your business. The time when you are in your church, the time when you and your family, it's all governed by the law of God.

Now the word law here is that great Old Testament word for the revealed will of God for men, Torah, the Hebrew word Torah. Now the problem is that we often define the word law in a very narrow legal sense. And so we need to pause for a moment here and talk a little bit about the idea of the Hebrew word Torah. Torah essentially denotes the concept of teaching, instruction, and giving of direction. In other words Torah, if you were going to translate that over, you might speak of authoritative instruction in living.

It is not primarily a legal concept, but it's the concept of the divine teacher instructing us on how to live. Torah provides us with the principles we need to know to conduct our lives according to the will of God. It teaches us how to love and serve one another and how to love and serve God. In Baker's dictionary of Christian ethics, Jacques defines Torah this way. Quoting him here, now the noun is derived from the Hebrew verb yara, to throw or to shoot.

In biblical usage, it covers a wide variety of meaning. To inform, instruct, guide, lead, etc. Torah exists to provide direction, to aim at the purpose of doing God's will. It is never just law in the legal sense. It is wisdom, grace, and expression of devotion to God, a style of life.

It is through Torah that God shows his interest in all aspects of man's life, which is to be lived under his direction and care. The law of God stands in parallel to the word of the Lord to signify that law is the revelation of the will of God. In the Old Testament, there are four essential notions that are associated with the word Torah. And these show the, and we're going to get to our word now, the absolute sufficiency of biblical law. First, Torah emphasizes authority because it comes from a superior to an inferior, from God to man.

Biblical Torah carries absolute authority because it comes from the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth and expresses his will for us. Secondly, Torah is considered as dogmatic truth in the Old Testament because it is spoken by God, the God of all truth. Therefore, it is absolutely dogmatically so true in its definition of right and wrong, justice and injustice, wisdom and how to live. Number three, Torah includes the notion of completeness in the Old Testament. That is, its concern is the whole life of the people.

And of every individual, every sphere of life, the religious, the moral and the social is under the rule of God. Fourth, the idea of finality is present in the concept of Torah. Here is the definitive revelation of God's will. Not an abstract teaching but in concrete and practical instruction designed to guide those who will heed its meaning. It is sufficient to govern the life of men, the life of man, the life of every man, every woman in every situation, in every revelation, relation I should say that he faces.

You see then in this passage keeping the law is not an isolated action. It's a habitual thing carried out in every aspect of life. The people being represented in this proverb govern all of their lives by the law of God, their personal lives, their personal ethics, their family life, their church life, their church ministry, and to the degree that they have influenced their civil government and civil law. The verb express keepeth expresses not only obedience to God's law but as we've said a love and respect for it. Absolute love and respect for the law of God which causes us to meditate in a day and night as the psalmist says.

Oh how I love thy law. Oh how I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day. That kind of person, that kind of people, as we will now see, are happy or blessed. But the action of keeping the law is predicated, of course, on the presence of God's law, correct? This implies the Scriptures are known and the law of God is being faithfully taught and preached.

Remember the idea of vision was not only the vision itself but the faithful proclamation of the vision and therefore by parallelism it's not just the presence of the law, it's the faithful teaching and proclamation of the law of God, the Torah of God. In a sense, every Christian Bible that we have, we carry around our churches, and it is the law of God is present in that sense, But is it being opened? Is it being preached? Is it being urged upon the people as God's will? Also as we think of this idea of the word keepeth, It helps us to better understand the meaning of the phrase where there is no vision.

The lack of vision from God comes primarily from a hostility toward God, from a deliberate rejection of his word. In Scripture, the absence of the word of God among a people is often accorded to the fact that the people are under God's judgment for their apostasy and their refusal to hear the word of God. Listen to Isaiah 29 10 through 11. For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep and hath closed your eyes. The prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.

The vision of all has become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, read this, I pray thee. And he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore, the Lord said, for as much as this people draw near me with their mouth and with their lips, do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me. And the fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. In other words, the absence of the living word in the hearts of the people is judgment because they are rebels against God.

Amos 8 11 to 12 says, Behold the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of the hearing, the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea and from north even to the east. They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it. Why? God has removed his blessing from this people.

You see, where there's no revelation from God, it's because the people would rather listen to false prophets. Jeremiah 5-30, here's what the people were committing their sin. A wonderful and horrible thing, wonderful in the sense it causes wonder how amazing that anybody would do this. A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely, the priests bear rule by their means, and the people love to have it so.

What will you do in the end thereof? What hope is there left for you? Corrupt leadership and people who love it. Unfaithful prophets, manipulative, self-seeking priests, and everybody says Just what we want. In other words, the people without a vision from God are not victims, but rebels.

Now the word happy, the end of our phrase here, is the antithesis of parish. Again, keep this in mind as we think about the meaning of it. The word translated happy here is the term that is rendered in other places in the Old Testament by the word blessed. Blessed. Of particular significance are Psalm 1, 1 to 3, Psalm 119, 1 to 3, because they use this word in connection with obedience to God's law, just as this passage in Proverbs does.

Psalm 1, 1 to 3, Blessed, or we could translate it happy, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seed of the scornful, but his delight, his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law to the meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bring it forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. That description of what that man will be like is a description of what it means to be blessed. To be blessed is to prosper in life.

To prosper in your marriage relationship with your wife. To prosper in your parenting. We're not talking about financial prosperity. We're talking about prospering in living, which if you work hard and obey God's law, there will be a prosperity there. But the primary aspect is the whole life.

You prosper in life. Then Psalm 119, 1 to 3. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies and that seek him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity.

They walk in his ways. To walk in the law of the Lord is to walk in his ways. I hope there's no antinomians here. I hope there's none here who that word means against God's law. I'm a Christian.

I'm free from the law of God. I hope no one would ever think that way. We are free from the condemnation of the law. But actually we have been saved to be set free from our own autonomous approach to law so that we might keep God's law. We were slaves of sin, Paul says, now we're to be slaves of righteousness and righteousness is defined by God's law.

We're to be slaves of the law. It's the most wonderful slavery you could ever have, Paul says. This is what Proverbs 29 18 is promising, the same things as those Psalms. Happy as he keeps the law. You see the word blessed comes from a Hebrew verb that means to be straight, to go straight, to go on and to advance.

To be blessed in the biblical sense means to receive all the good that comes from walking a straight path in God's will and obedience to his law. I like the way the Hebrews tied in the idea of blessedness to straightness. You know how most of us live our lives and we approach our problems and the challenges that come to us? Instead of a straight line in getting to the heart of the issues and working through them and living life according to God's will, our marriage relationship for example is not like this to each other. It's more something like this.

We're all over the place because we don't know what we're doing. We're following the urge of the moment, the anger of the moment, the frustration of the moment. We're not following God's law by the power of the Holy Spirit that tells us how to live. And so those who keep God's commandments live according to the creator's design. It's like the person who buys a product and decides he's going to follow the creator, the producer, the manufacturer's instructions and put it together the first time instead of spending a few hours trying to figure out themselves.

Now the antithesis in this passage between parish and happy is striking. To perish as we saw was to let loose and to live a life of lawlessness. Wherein we give free reign to our sinful passions And then we receive the evil fruit of such a life. To be happy is to walk a straight path of obedience to God's law and to receive the good fruit of such a life. And so the contrast of our proverb is emphatic.

The first line presents a rebellious people without care or concern for God's word, who have cast off all restraint and moved toward chaos and destruction. While the second line presents an obedient people who love and keep God's law, who govern themselves through the power of the Holy Spirit by the teaching of Scripture and they prosper in all things. That's the contrast. The first line, the fool, the second, the wise man, according to the contrast of Proverbs that shows that antithesis. Now let's in our concluding time here apply this proverb.

And I'd like you to consider with me by application the following points. Number one, the truth of Proverbs 29 18 applies to all men and all times in history. Proverbs was not written only for the Jews. Proverbs is a book of international wisdom literature from the moment it left Solomon's pen. It calls all men and nations to walk in the fear of God.

It applies the righteous standards of the law of God to all nations, all men on earth, not just the Jews. It's because the book of Proverbs reveals wisdom for living in the world created by God. Greg Bahnson rightly contends that Proverbs has a universal application and authority. He says this, it is generally conceded that the scope of wisdom literature opens up under the whole world and is not restricted to what is true only in Israel. Thus we find axiomatic and categorical truths throughout a book like Proverbs.

Truths which lack distinctive national traits. It is concerned for all nations. Even the Jewish commentator Cohen says that the teaching of Proverbs is applicable to all men everywhere and is true of life generally and not of any particular people or land. And so Proverbs is instructing all nations in the true wisdom and the fear of God. Proverbs 29 18 knows no boundaries.

It has always been the truth For Israel, for Gentile nations, the nations of this Christian era. There is no culture, there's no nationality where it does not apply. Secondly, Proverbs 29 18 makes an explicit connection between the wisdom of God and the law of God. One of the prevalent errors today among Christians is the notion that we should heed the wisdom of God revealed in the Old Testament, but we're not bound to the law of God. Well, that's a faulty notion and Proverbs refutes that, particularly our passage that we're looking at here today.

Proverbs is a book of wisdom and the wisdom it declares is the wisdom of keeping the law of God. That's wisdom. There's no vision that people perish, but he that keeps the law happy is he. You know what the motto of the book of Proverbs is? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

What is often overlooked about this motto is that it's telling us that all of the moral instruction of Proverbs is based in the revealed law of God. How so? First, the concept of the fear of the Lord brings together law and wisdom because both are rooted in the holy nature of God. Divine law and divine wisdom both proceed from the same source and they're never in conflict. They work together.

Biblical law sets forth the essential principles and precepts of righteous living and biblical wisdom applies these righteous standards to various circumstances. Secondly, the idea of the fear of the Lord establishes a very close connection between the law of Moses and the wisdom of Solomon, or we could say between Deuteronomy and Proverbs. If you study the book of Deuteronomy, it will strike you how often the call to the people is to fear the Lord thy God. It's the same thing that Solomon is saying, to fear the living God. The fear of the Lord is the essential starting point of wholehearted obedience to God and his word.

And thirdly, in both Deuteronomy and Proverbs, to fear the Lord is to depart from evil and to obey God's precepts. That is simply the case because both books are based on the same unchanging standard of righteousness which is the holiness of God himself. As Walter Kaiser says, the counsel given in this book was applied, that is the book of Proverbs, was applied to the more practical situations in life, but its aim was to command the same standard of righteousness commanded in the law of Moses." End of quote. If you think about the statement here in Deuteronomy 4, 5 through 8, you will see the connection. Moses says, Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, which refer to the law of God, even as the Lord my God commanded me that you should do so in the land whether you go to possess it.

Keep therefore and do them for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for. And what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law that I set before you this day?" The keeping of the law of God, the observing of the law of God becomes Israel's wisdom and understanding in the sight of the nations. And it would be wisdom to them to keep the law. And Proverbs 20 19 says that to them, says it to us today.

Number three, God's law is sufficient for knowing the will of God and living all of life under his blessing. The contrast in our passages between the moral chaos inherent in a suppression and rejection of the word of God and the blessed life that results from obedience to the word and the law of God. In other words, a knowledge and a faithful keeping of God's word is sufficient, sufficient to keep us from the moral and social chaos that threatens us. It is sufficient to bring us into a life of liberty, peace and prosperity Because we live in accord with the Creator's design. According to Proverbs 29 and 18, we need nothing else.

We need nothing else than the instruction and righteousness that God gives us in his word. That's the blessed life. It's not he that keeps the law and follows modern trends of sociology. Happy is he. No, he that keeps the law.

Period. That's the straight path. We need no other direction but the word of God. Now granted, there's a lot of ethical situations that confront us and it's going to take a lot of that meditating day and night to figure out how the law applies to some of the situations we face. We didn't say this was easy, But we did say there's a standard.

And if we meditate day and night in the law of God, I call that the day and night principle of biblical law hermeneutics. And the church has abandoned that as they've abandoned the law of God. Proverbs 29 18 is an Old Testament text expressing the same truth of the scripture we're memorizing this week, 2 Timothy 3 16 and 17. You can take the phrase no vision and law in our proverb and that's equivalent to the all scripture given by inspiration of God, correct? Vision and law is equivalent to all scripture given by inspiration of God.

The words perish and happy are equivalent to profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work. If you keep the law and the vision of God is the revealed will of God is present as being faithfully studied, taught and proclaimed, you will know the doctrine, you will know the reproof, the correction, the instruction of righteousness that God wants you to know. And 2 Timothy 3 verse 17 is the Apostle Paul's endorsement of all of the moral instruction of the Old Testament. He's talking about Old Testament in this passage. He's talking about Old Testament.

Now the point of Proverbs 29 and 18 and 2 Timothy 3 16 through 17 is well stated by Gordon Clark. He's commenting here on this idea of the sufficiency of the law of God. It's a little lengthy, but listen carefully. This is tremendous. Gordon Clark says, there's one final point to be made.

Someone may now admit that we are under obligation to obey God's commands, but he may argue that in addition to the Bible we need further guidance. The Bible is alright so far as it goes, but the Christian life is wider than the Bible. We meet situations that biblical commands do not cover and so we must look to God for additional information on what to do. After all, is there any harm in adding to the Bible, provided only that we do not subtract from it? This type of argument, however, contradicts the express statement of Scripture and is therefore dishonoring to God.

We are all familiar, no doubt, with the phrase, all scriptures given by inspiration of God. But have we carefully read what follows? Of course, scripture is profitable for doctrine and for instruction in righteousness, But for what purpose? Note the next verse, Clark says, that the man of God may be perfect or perfected, thoroughly furnished or completely furnished or equipped unto all good works, that is, unto every good work. The statement is comprehensive.

It includes every good work. There is no good work for which scripture does not prepare us perfectly. It is the law of God stated in scripture that defines sin and good works. God has given us all the guidance we need. We do not need Roman Catholic tradition.

We do not need mystic visions. We do not need additional revelations. But we do need, oh, need sorely a great deal of Bible study. In the Bible. And in the Bible alone, we find the rule of life.

Dr. Clark. Number four, by way of application. The principles of Proverbs 29, 18 apply to each and every human society. As we pointed out in our exposition, the word people is a collective noun that applies to a group of people.

For example, a nation, state or city. And that the singular he is referring back to the singular collective noun people. Proverbs 29 18 is speaking in focus to a group or a society of men and women. What is a society? It's any community of people that are united together on the basis of some common bond.

That bond could be genetic, geographic, religious, political, or simply one of similar aims and interests. It most definitely applies the idea of people to the three primary social units or covenant institutions that God has established, family, church, and state. You could substitute any social unit for the word people. Where there is no vision, the church perishes. Remember the idea of Paris, cast off restraint, give themselves over to unbridled, less anxious behavior, something like that.

Sinful behavior. When the church keeps the law of God, It is blessed. Society. When a particular nation has no vision, the people perish. But when it keeps the law of God, they're blessed.

Number five, Proverbs 29 18 provides an incisive diagnosis of the state of things in the world today. The text teaches there are two kinds of peoples, two kinds of cultures, two kinds of societies. There's the people that has no vision And remember what that word means. And there's the people where the law of God is known and obeyed. Or in other words, there's the culture of death, where people have cast off restraint and are governed by their passions.

There's the culture of life where people are governed by the word of God. There is the society that's characterized by lawlessness and chaos, and there's a society that's characterized by law and godly order. They're the options. And you're somewhere in those camps or in transition to them. The terrible thing is that today, the nations of the earth, including our nation, are best represented by the people where there's no vision, No word from God.

The word of God is becoming increasingly excluded from all spheres of life, including the church. And more and more people are casting off all restraint. The West and its institutions are descending into chaos and destruction. We think of our country. The United States was formerly known as a country that governed itself imperfectly, but sought to govern itself in accordance with the word of God.

Because of this, there was unprecedented liberty, prosperity, and justice. And there was the blessing that this text speaks about, but this is no longer the case. We're a people who have largely rejected the word of the Lord. Therefore there's little vision in the family, church, and state. We are governed today by our passions.

We are marked by violence and sexual perversion and the accompanying social chaos. We promote lawlessness by our laws. And so, Because we have cast off restraint of God's law, we legalize the killing of unborn children and we say it's something like a choice. We condone homosexual perversion and we call it alternative lifestyle. We glorify violence and call it entertainment And we're rapidly losing our liberty and stand on the verge of anarchy or tyranny.

Both are to be dreaded. Anarchy is the tyranny of the many. Every man with the power to do so inflicts his will and purpose on others without restraint from the government. Tyranny is the anarchy of the one, imposing his own autonomous will on others. You know, if we look at the state of the American family, for example, we see the inescapable truth of Proverbs 29 18.

Because we have rejected God's order for the family as established very clearly in his law, we are in a very perilous position And the family as we know it is doing what? Perishing. We're redefining marriage, redefining the family because there's no vision. Husbands and wives have abandoned their God-given roles and are following the vision, the word of feminism. Parents have rejected God's gift of children, are following the vision of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood.

Young people have rejected the necessity of honor and obedience to their parents and are following the vision of rebellion set forth by their peers in their music and their entertainers. The result is the unprecedented breakup of the American family. There's one telling illustration to this For the first two points there. What's been called the birth dearth. Because the West, formerly Christian West, Europe, United States, so forth, has rejected the biblical revelation, the biblical vision of the dominion mandate to be fruitful and multiply because we've disregarded and discarded the biblical doctrine that a nation and a family is blessed when their quiver is full of children, we are quite literally in the West, perishing, dying out.

We're being replaced by peoples who are being fruitful and multiplying, though in the service of a false religion, we're literally perishing because we've lost the biblical revelation on children. We can also look at the state of the church in America and see the fact of Proverbs 29 18. The decline of the church is a direct result of our failure to hold forth within our churches and our pulpits the full authority and the full sufficiency of Scripture to define and direct everything in our faith and in our church practice. Today cultural trends carry more weight than scripture. Church growth techniques founded on business models and mass marketing principles define us in our mission in the church rather than biblical evangelism and discipleship.

Church programs build on the traditions of men and responding to the cultural demands, this is what we want you to give us. That's the kind of church responding to that, which is the business model and the mass marketing principle, give your customers what they want, this now determines the ministry of the church rather than the words of the living God. It is Christ and his apostles. Finally, and this leads right into the last point, the vision of Proverbs 29 18 is both the Word of God and the faithful preaching and exposition of that Word. Remember vision is both the revelation and the faithful proclamation of the revelation.

Isaiah received the vision, but it didn't stop with Isaiah. He faithfully proclaimed it at great cost. He was hated and persecuted and eventually martyred. We believe he was the one being spoken about in Hebrews 11, it was sawn asunder. Tradition is, and this is tradition so might not be correct but we do have that passage in Hebrews, that he was put in a log by Manasseh and sawed in half because of his faithful preaching of the Word.

Jeremiah not only received a vision, but he proclaimed it at great cost. The great tragedy of our day is for a pastor or an elder, for a preacher, a teacher, to look in the Word of God and see it and God open their eyes to teach us. Why can't you teach that? People won't accept it. I'll lose my job.

They'll create a controversy. There's no vision in the mind of that man in the biblical sense of Proverbs 20 19 because it's not just the word, but it's the faithful proclamation. The word. Remember the translators of the Greek Old Testament rendered the word vision by the word that meant an interpreter. A teacher who would set forth the true meaning of the text.

Who would labor in the word to understand it and then faithfully set it forth. And the problem in the church today is we don't have men like that. We don't have men preaching like that. I've been told that when the Nazis were seeking to dominate and take over every area of life in Germany. One of their big concerns and a concern that was raised to Hitler was the clergy.

Would they go along? Hitler's response was this, they will sell their souls, sell their miserable souls for their lousy pensions, which were paid by the state. And they did. As Hitler brought that country into chaos and destruction, they were silent. There was no vision.

The people perished. And this was happening today. There's no vision in that fateful proclamation of the Word within our churches. God help us. We need today are men like Ezra.

Ezra 7 10, for Ezra prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord. He had set his mind, and that's the idea of heart. He had set his mind, he was unflinching in his goal and purpose. He had set his mind to understand and know the law of God. Then it says and to do it in his personal life.

He realized he needed to live what he was going to teach. And then it was this and to teach in Israel Statutes and judgments. That was his whole life. Any man who is called to teach in the church has, Ezra is his example, not all are called, not all are given these gifts, but you men, if you have been called to preach and teach the word of God to the people and you've been given the gifts of the Holy Spirit and you've been given the calling of the church, your job is to seek the law of the Lord, to do it and to teach statutes and judgments in Israel regardless of what it costs you. And if you're not willing to pay that price, please get out of the ministry now.

We don't We don't need any more men where there's no vision, faithful proclamation. The hour is dark, But the light isn't going out. God is doing the work in our day. And we must take passages like this. We must understand what they mean.

Now don't you misuse this passage, and sometimes it's somewhat of a tame misuse because when we speak of having no vision, we mean a biblical vision, but don't make it something you, it's your biblical vision. It means the revelation of the living Word, of the living God. And where that is not there and that is not faithfully proclaimed, we cast off restraint and live according to our own desires, our own wisdom, our own experience, our own lusts. We turn upside down the ways of God. As we're saying, the church must proclaim that word.

I'd like to conclude with Charles Bridges commenting on Proverbs 29 18. He applies this vision and the proclamation to his day and to the preachers. He says, quote, the vision as appears from the contrast is divine instruction. The ministry is the appointed ordinance to communicate this blessing and therefore the main instrumentality of conversion and subsequent Christian perfection. No greater calamity therefore can there be than the removal of the vision.

The temporal famine affecting only the body is a light judgment scarcely to be mentioned compared with that by which the people perish. The famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord. For when there is none that can edify and exhort and comfort the people of God by the word of God they must needs perish. They become thrall and captives unto Satan. Their heart is bound up, their eyes are shut up, they can see nothing, their ears are stopped up, they can hear nothing, they're carried away as a prey into hell because they have not the knowledge of God.

Oh, often did Israel provoke this most fearful judgment. The removal of open vision, the candlestick of the apocalyptic churches, that is in Revelation, has the same cause been long since removed out of its place. And for the most part, little more remains than the ceremonial of bygone days. From the apostate church of Rome, Bridges says, the vision is well nigh withdrawn and the people perish in ignorance and delusion. For our Protestant Cranmer nobly testified quote I know how antichrist both obscured the glory of God and the true knowledge of his word over casting the same with mists and clouds of error and ignorance through their false glosses and interpretation.

It pitieth me, he adds, to see the simple and hungry flock of Christ led into corrupt pastures to be carried blindfolded. They know not wither. And other bodies also having a name to live. The complaint is as real as in the days of old. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Hosea 4-6." End of quote from Charles Bridges. The truth of Proverbs 29-18 is inescapable. Where there is no vision, the people let loose. They give reign to unbridled passions and unbridled imaginations. It is God's law, it is God's law or moral or social chaos in family, in church or in society.

There's no other options. Proverbs 29 18 not only explains though the reason for our fall into lawlessness, it points to the solution of our crisis, repentance toward God, faith in Jesus Christ, and a full return to the law of God as revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. A nation, a church, a family is blessed when the people love the Lord and walk in obedience to his word. And So my friends, the choice is ours. God's law or chaos.

What choice will you make for your life? God's law or chaos? What choice will you make for your family? God's law or chaos? What choice will you make for your church?

God's law or chaos? What choice will you make for your beloved country? God's law or chaos? Let us pray. Father, thank you for your living and powerful word.

May it do its work for thy glory, the restoration of thy people. The perishing people around us could be rescued. Oh God, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.

Churches in your area, log on to our website ncfic.org. Thank you. Thank you.