Church Bulletin

“Where there is no prophetic vision
the people cast off restraint”
Proverbs 29:18

Those of us of an older generation probably know this verse better as it is in the Authorized Version. i.e. ‘Where there is no vision the people perish’. We have understood the verse to teach that when God’s people have no vision of the reality of people dying without Christ then those people perish—they die in their sins. And of course this is perfectly true. We do need to keep uppermost in our minds the awfulness of a lost eternity. However, it is doubtful if this is what the verse in Proverbs actually teaches. The phrase, ‘where there is no vision’ is used, not so much of our vision, or lack of vision, but of vision in the sense of prophetic vision. The boy Samuel, you remember, ministered before the LORD, under Eli, at a time when the word of the LORD was rare and ‘there were not many visions’. Eli, the priest was God’s servant. But he had grown old and his family had silenced him. His sons were disobedient and immoral and he had failed to rebuke and correct them. On account of Eli’s failure there was no public revelation of God’s mind and will.

The other word that is worth looking at is the word ‘perish’. It can be translated as ‘run wild, or to ‘let loose’. This is why in some Bible versions it is translated, Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint (ESV) or Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint (NIV). We could paraphrase our text:

“Where there is no open revelation of God’s will, no public preaching of his word, no restraining word of the Lord upon people in their sin — the result is — the people cast off restraint, they go their own way, they do their own thing — and the result is they PERISH.”

During the late 1960s the Anglican Bishop, A T Robinson initiated what became known as ‘The Honest to God’ debate. Robinson announced quite publicly that he no longer prayed because he no longer believed in the existence of a personal God! And of course he was applauded by many in the ecclesiastical world for having the courage to express publicly what so many were saying in private.

In 1975 I was doing door-to-door work in two small villages in South Wales — Hayscastle and Wolfscastle. I had visited every home in the area and by way of courtesy I called on the local minister. He said: ‘I no longer believe in heaven or hell. Hell is what you make of this life.’ That was in 1975 and in many ways the spiritual and moral condition of our land has continued to worsen-in keeping with the truth locked up in our text. Let us pray that the LORD will raise up fearless, compassionate, preachers in all the pulpits in our land.

Picture of the Great Bible

The king ordered that a copy be

placed in every church in the land

so that they would be accessible

to the people. Often they were

chained to the lectern.