ANARCHY AND LACK OF VISION

ANARCHY

"Where there is no vision, the peo­ple cast off restraint; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he" Prov. 29:18

The Revisers have helped us by changing the word "perish" to "cast off restraint." Quite literally the Hebrew word means to "break loose." The condition is that of anarchy. ANARCHY is lawlessness, not being without law, but refusing to be bound by law. That is the one fundamental trouble with man. John declared that, when he wrote: "Sin is lawlessness." (1 John 3:4) We have been living in days when lawlessness has been rampant. Men have been breaking through covenants, regulations, and agreements; refusing to abide by any decisions, even those of their appointed leaders, or those to which they themselves have agreed. Our government leadership has been rampant in lawlessness. In this word of wisdom the reason for this casting off of restraint is given. It is that of LACK OF VISION. That is true on lowest levels of consideration, men who so act have NO TRUE VISION of what they are actually doing, NO TRUE VISION of the consequences of their action. They have NO TRUE VISION of society as a whole, and of the necessary obligations of all those individuals who constitute society. They do not see that lawlessness in personal life destroys the possibility of true social conditions; and that false social conditions in turn destroy the individual. And yet they see socialism as the true answer when they HAVE NO TRUE VISION. But the deeper note is that the LACK OF VISION OF GOD issues in LACK OF VISION in all these regards. To see God, is, as in the case of Jacob, to bring healing to the individual; and that is to create a HEALTHY THEOCRATIC NOT SOCIALISTIC COMMUNITY. To lose that vision, is to have NO VISION which is adequate to meet the needs of man; to have no authority to which man can be submitted. The VISION OF GOD is given to man in the LAW OF GOD, and today in that law as it has been INTERPRETED in Christ and MADE POSSIBLE OF REALIZATION through Him. "He that keeps that law, happy is he."