Understanding the POWER of VISION will CHANGE our PERCEPTION OF COMMUNICATION with God.

Joel 2:28 “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.”

Most of the Old Testament prophets saw what they were saying.

Isaiah 13:1 “The burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.”

Habakkuk 2:2 says, “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.” Visions from the prophets are given to motivate their hearers to action.

One of the most sensational things on earth is a vision from God. Vision ignites fire in our spirit. It births the “prayer of faith.”

It is imperative that we “see” in the Spirit so that we understand the will of God. Jesus said that He only did what He “saw” the Father doing (John 5:19). He maintained a constant vision of the Father. Whatever He saw the Father doing, He did. He experienced unbroken success, first of all because He knew that what He was doing was the will of God, and second because He knew that He could do it. He had already seen it done! When you see that a thing can be done, you receive faith that you too could do it, that it is possible. Once Roger Bannister finally. broke the four-minute mile, hundreds of other runners soon did the same. They saw that it was possible, that it could be done.

The way to learn anything is to watch someone else doing it and then to do it yourself. This applies to skiing, for example. Learners do far better following the instructor down the mountain than trying to do it alone. Seeing someone else doing it imparts confidence that it can be done. Compared to the eye, the ear is a lazy learner. Dr. David Yonggi Cho, pastor of the world’s largest church, teaches that vision is the language of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would “show us things to come” (John 16:13). He would take the things of God and show them to followers of Christ.

NATURAL PICTURES

Vision from God comes in different ways. Some visions in Scripture were things easily seen with the naked eye to which were attached spiritual messages. When God tells Abraham to see the stars, he sees what his children will become in number. God calls Abraham from his tent on a dark and starry evening. The silent desert provides an eerie setting for God’s quiet,' clear voice: “Look at the stars, Abraham.” Abraham lifts his eyes heavenward. God says, “Count the stars if you can. So shall your descendants be” (Gen. 15:5). The voice of God comes to Abraham a second time: “Count the sand if you can. This is how numerous your descendants will be” (Gen. 22:17). From here on, every time Abraham wanders from his tent on cool desert nights and looks toward the stars, he remembers the word from God. His heart

is strengthened as he considers the promise. He worships, giving glory to God for what He knows will happen (Rom. 4:20). As he walks across hot desert sand he stoops and sifts the sand through his fingers. The promise of God echoes in his mind. He knows God has spoken. The pictures he has received continually strengthen his confidence in God.

INTERNAL SUPERNATURAL PICTURES

Throughout Scripture, there are men who received visions-beyond the natural world. They saw into the spiritual world. The visions seen by the apostle John on the Isle of Patmos, for example, left us with the amazing Book of Revelation. There are 35 distinct visions and 34 dreams mentioned in Scripture. In all, 21 different men received visions. Some visions became the subject of entire books, such as Nahum and Obadiah. Much of Scripture was recorded from what the writers saw. - Isaiah 2:1 “The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.”

It is obvious that God employs spiritual sight to communicate messages to us. These pictures come in different ways. But the most common form of vision is the internal image. God has given us imagination. The imagination is like a “screen” that shows constant arrays of images. These images can emanate from three sources:ourselves, God or the devil. It’s like a movie screen in our heads with three different projectors jostling for prime time viewing. Hosts of experiences are stored in memory. We can recall images and thoughts whenever we wish (almost). Our memories not only conjuer up visual impressions, but can also revive other sensations like emotions and physical reactions.

The power of mental pictures should not be underestimated. Imagine an apple in your hand —a crisp, juicy, bittersweet, large, bright, yellow-green apple. You lift it to your mouth and sink your teeth deep into the white flesh. It’s hard and crisp and juice drips from your mouth. You crack off another large slice of apple. Your mouth is full of the refreshing fruit as you chew its succulent pulp (crunch, crunch, slurp, slurp). At this point, most of us are salivating as the taste of apple fills our mouths. Even though none of us is actually holding an apple right now, all sorts of chemical reactions take place in our bodies simply because of a thought, a picture in our minds. Mental images affect our bodies.

If the simple thought of an apple can produce that much chemical reaction, I dread to think what impact negative thoughts and black pictures have on our bodies.

God is able to inject supernatural images into the imagination to create effects in the body, the emotions and the spirit. These are internal images from God. God often speaks to His people like this, but very often they either don ’t believe the image is from God or they are too dull to recognize the significance of what they are seeing. We need to spend time waiting upon the Lord in stillness to become sensitive to the Holy Spirit. It is in times of prayer, praise and stillness that we become aware of what God is saying and we awaken to impressions He is giving us.

EXTERNAL SUPERNATURAL IMAGES

The other kind of image that God gives to people is external visions. This is the kind that Ezekiel received on the banks of the River Chebar and that John received on the Isle of Patmos. Natural surroundings are replaced by an entirely new landscape, a supernatural landscape painted by God. Sometimes it is a contrived picture; that is, a created picture that carries a spiritual message. The Spirit of the Lord carried Ezekiel into one of these visions where he saw a valley of dry bones (Ezek. 37). At God’s command, he spoke to the bones. They revived and became clothed with flesh. Then they stood up. They became a mighty army. This was a picture of God restoring Israel.

Paul was called into heaven and saw things too sacred to repeat. He saw actual realities (2 Cor. 12:2). Moses saw the back of God as He passed by on a mountain (Ex. 3:22). This kind of vision occurs when the Lord opens our spiritual eyes to realities that are normally invisible.