THE VISION OR DIVISION, by Elhanan ben Avraham
Where
there is no vision the people cast off restraint" (Heb. ipara am: become unruly, get wild, run riot,
run amok; also: are uncovered) Proverbs 29:18.
The words
of this passage of wisdom and warning well describe the state of much of our
world today. Conflicting philosophies, politics, and religions have engaged in
a war dance for so long that "peace" has become an almost indefinable
abstraction. And yet "peace" is at the head of agendas across the
planet, being used as a political ploy, a weapon, and at best is a synonym for
"cease-fire" and "survival." "Peace" at worst is,
or may be, used to seduce and destroy many (Daniel 8:25). The
"shalom" describes in the Books of the Covenant has become vague, its
vision blurred by pettiness and selfish motives. And can another Scripture be
applied even to those who have tasted of the heavenly vision: "My people
are silenced by lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6)?
Have you
ever wondered how the glorious vision of the Messiah, Prince of Shalom, who
went forth from the Israeli city of Jerusalem has traveled two thousand years over the planet and reached
your home town?
Have you
ever compared that original vision found in the pages of the Bible with the
situation in your own city, your own congregation? Do you see anything similar,
or do you see a collection of religious institutions professing faith in
Messiah, yet who have little in common and less contact between them? Has
something gone wrong? Has the vision been distorted, changed along the way?
Yet it is
the very serious responsibility of those gathering in the name of Messiah to
not only carry the vision to the world, but to be a living example of that
vision (John 17:20-23).
The world
around us appears to be casting off restraint in many realms, breaking up into
even smaller units and ideals. Much of the Eastern European and Soviet worlds has cast off the counterfeit vision of communism, dissolving
a union into new groupings in search of a vision. Western Europe is reforming
itself, and seeks its own vision of purpose. In the prosperous West cynicism
has reduced the general vision to the number One: Self realisation and
immediate gratification. Even the bond of two together in the form of marriage
has become an unstable institution. A large percentage of marriages end in
divorce and children are left with uncertainty and instability at the core of
their beings. Others fear to have children, having no sense of continuity, no
sense of a past to identify with, nor a future vision
with which to pass on the baton. No root and no fruit.
The
heaving sands of the Arab world are being swept about by winds of Islamic
vision, a desperate distortion of Old and New Testament concepts which arose in
the confusion of the 7th century AD Middle East. The Far East is erecting the
Church of Materialism, or exporting its philosophies and mysticism to a hungry
and spiritually bankrupt West, filling its already current vision of "Me
as [Elohim]."
With such
a snowball of delusion barrelling on a deadly course towards the 21st century,
how can we allow ourselves as [Elohim’s] children to
be paralyzed by pettiness, and divided amongst ourselves by personal feuds? Has
the vision of life which has been entrusted to us been dammed up by our
selfishness and reduced to a festering swamp? With the spiritual starvation
around us, it behoves us to carefully examine our own beliefs, and perhaps sift
out those additions and subtractions which have added up to divisions. Whether
it was popes, "prophets", or "priests", perhaps we must
remove them from the current, that fresh and living
waters might again flow from the unpolluted Source.
We must
be honest with ourselves in searching, and ask: Have we perhaps built our own
Golden Calf of doctrine or denomination? As the children of Israel in the desert,
have we grown impatient and built a mighty one for ourselves that neither hears
nor sees? It was in their impatience that their nakedness was uncovered before
their enemies (Exodus 32:25). The Hebrew impara
am ("cast off restraint") is the same usage in this passage as in
our passage of Proverbs 29:18. And, to our dismay, we have seen recently the
shameful nakedness of too many ministers and ministries exposed before their
opposition. In desiring "greater things" for ourselves, have we been
unfaithful with the "small" things that [Elohim] has given us? Could
it even be that we have lost vision and have cast off restraint, compromising
by mixing the set-apart with the unclean?
There is
room for all colours in a rainbow, for many tones and textures in the Body of
Messiah, but our priorities must be established for the sake of the highest
purpose. Let us therefore purify the way, cast away the idols that pollute us,
flee Rome and Babylon and return to Jerusalem, the Source, and the Scriptures
as our model.
May the shalom of [Elohim], where all things work together for
the good, be the manifest sign in and between our congregations. And may
[Elohim] grant us the unity of vision to impart to a blinded world running
amok.