Man has five senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling. These five senses enable man to be in intelligent touch with his environment. They are all receptive. Sight receives the effect of light; hearing of sound; smelling of odours; tasting of food and drink; feeling of touch. These five senses put us in touch with the world in which we live, and with the present.
As Christians we have another faculty outside this world and the present moment. Faith gives us vision. It is not visionary in the sense of being unpractical, and imagining things that only exist in a disordered mind.
No: faith puts us into more real touch with things outside and above us than things around us, which we can see and take account of. We Christians look “at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). The things the Christian touches in this world are present and passing. Death comes, and in a moment they are past. The five senses cease to operate and there is no more seeing out of the glassy eyes of the dead; no more hearing, tasting, smelling or feeling. But the things that faith puts us in touch with are eternal. Faith puts the believer in touch with them, and death cannot rob him of them.
We all need a vision in the true sense of the word. Abraham had a vision. “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham” (Acts 7:2). What a change it made in his life! He became a stranger and a pilgrim for the rest of his days. “He looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10).
No city on earth has foundations that will last. London, Paris, Berlin, Bombay, Sydney will all pass away. “The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10).
How good it is to have a vision! See how faith acts. “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). Do we? That is the question for us all to answer.
Moses had a vision. “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:27). Doubtless this refers to the second time that he left Egypt. On the first occasion, we read, “Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh” (Ex. 2:15). On the second occasion he withstood Pharaoh to his face, and brought the children of Israel under the mighty hand of God in triumph out of Egypt.
What nerved Moses to turn his back upon the most brilliant position the world then offered—the son of Pharaoh’s daughter? A vision! He was not visionary but eminently practical. Recently we looked out upon the vast stretches of desert from the banks of the Suez Canal, the very desert which the children of Israel traversed, and marvelled that Moses could endure for forty years, summer and winter, day and night, such utter barrenness, such scorching sun, such company as the stiff-necked and rebellious children of Israel. He had a vision! He endured as seeing Him that cannot be seen (with mortal eyes).
With what regret will Christians, who have mainly lived for this world, look upon their wasted lives. They may have amassed wealth for this world, and find themselves poor in the coming Kingdom. They may have inscribed their names high on the roll of earthly fame, and find they must take a back seat in favour of some simple, faithful, Christian woman who lived on the dole in a cottage, but who lived a life of faith, who had a vision and was governed by it.
How good it was that Moses esteemed “the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect to the recompense of the reward” (Heb. 11:26). What an example for us, who have greater knowledge and privileges than ever he had. May we be found following it.