Ed Dufresne - Without a Vision My People Perish

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Where there's no vision the people perish. When Christians don't set a goal in their lives, when they don't have a vision before them, they'll perish. They'll get lukewarm and lazy; they'll float around, not knowing what they're supposed to do.

As you read this book, I want you to make a decision of what you are to be involved with and where you belong, and hook up to it. When you do, you'll have success in your life. You'll be singleminded (James 1:58).

All you have to do is to ask God; He'll tell you what He wants you to do and where He wants you to be.

Many people ask God to speak to them. And He does. And down the road they go off on something else; they don't do what God has told them to do. If He's told you to do something for a year, you take that year and do what He's told you to do. Nothing less.

You have to set a goal in your life. I have found that if I get disappointed or depressed, it's because I've gotten away from my goal. My vision isn't before me, what God told me to do.

CHAPTER ONE

THE HEAVENLY VISION

Habakkuk 2:2 & 3: And the Lord answered me and said, "Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie; though it tarry , wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry."

God can give you a vision in many ways. He may speak to your heart, give you an open vision, give you a vision in your spirit, or show it to you in the Word of God and witness in your heart that that's your job, the one you're supposed to do.

Five or six years ago, as I was traveling through the Mojave Desert, the Glory of God moved in on me, and I started to weep. God gave me a vision. My oldest daughter was with me and wrote everything down as I told it to her, as God showed it to me.

Part of what I saw was a large, round building, a training center, with thousands of people coming in to hear the Uncompromised Word of God. I saw them coming out, full of the Word, getting into cars, busses, planes, and every available vehicle to go into the world to preach the Gospel.

I saw myself on airplanes. I saw myself on the radio. I saw myself on the television. The vision is coming to pass! It will not tarry!

When God shows you something, it will come to pass. The proof that it's from God is that it's in line with the Word and comes to pass.

I started talking it, though, before it came to pass (Romans 4:17). I went to one body and shared it with them, but they didn't "catch" the vision. So God raised up Palos Verdes Faith Center, a place where the people could hook up to the vision and not let go.

There are parts of the vision that have not come to pass...yet. But they will!!! Such as the healing hospital, for patients that doctors have given up on, the ones that medicine can't help, the hopeless ones that are told to live out their last years, just waiting to die. These are the people who will come to the healing hospital. We'll administer the Word to them, and they'll be raised up!

I'M AN EXTREMIST!!! I'm extremely healed; I'm extremely blessed of God: We've got to make the quality decision to be extremists when it comes to the Word of God. We need to be balanced, yes, but WITH THE WORD!!! You can't balance faith with unbelief; that's being double-minded.

Jesus was an extremist. He was single-minded. He had the vision of what He was to do and He decided to do it and would not be persuaded or tempted away from it. And He had success. He's the example we should follow.

If it's from God, it will be a success. God is not a God of failure. He won't give you a vision that cannot come to pass. The vision He'll give you WILL come to pass. But you've got to lock in on that vision and set your sights on your goal and not be moved or swayed by the circumstances around you (2 Corinthians 5:7).

God has done, and is doing, great things through this ministry. But I've had to hold on to the vision. When discouragement tries to come on me,

I go back to the vision, I remember the vision. I always look towards the goal, not at my current position.

CHAPTER TWO

THE PEOPLE

In every instance in the Old Testament where God has called a man to do a job for Him or given him a vision of something, He's given him a people to accomplish that goal.

Proverbs 29:18: Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

You'll perish without a goal in your life. People in the world, not even born-again, set goals and nothing seems to be impossible for them. They'll not take 'no' for an answer. They'll push through to their goal.

Many Christians set a goal to help a ministry, saying, "Bless God, I'm going to get behind that Ed Dufresne ." Then the pressure comes; I guarantee you it will. The pressure comes to doubt or gossip or whatever. And the Christians faint and decide to go somewhere else or do something easier.

Jesus never said it would be easy, but He said you'd have victory; and the only way you will is by setting a goal in your life.

People fail in their faith because they have no hope, they have no goal. SET A GOAL!!! Set it high enough so that you have to reach for it, but not so high as to seem impossible to you. SEE THE END RESULTS!!!

When you reach that goal, set another, higher up, and meet that one, and so on. WATCH YOURSELF ACCOMPLISH IT!!!

If the devil can get you from looking towards your goal, and get you going one way or another, you're not doing anything, you're floating.

God has always sent a people to work with His men to fulfill the vision.

Exodus 17:12: But Moses hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

Together, they had victory. Here's a Man of God carrying out what God told him to do. Everywhere in the Bible where God has called a man to do something, He's always spoken to a people to come and help him.

Some of you are going to see through this why you're not having success in your lives; God has shown this to me.

I've always had to get back to what God had told me to do before anything would work in my life.

God would tell me to do something and I'd want to do something else instead; I'd go off and do what I wanted to do, and each time I did I'd almost starve. Why? Because I turned away from the vision, from what He wanted me to be doing.

When I was first born-again I was constantly helping other ministers. I helped them build new buildings. I helped them clean toilets. I held their coats while they prayed for others. God always put me with a man to help until He called me and gave me a vision, and then He said, "I'll give YOU men to help YOU."

If you're called to the ministry, you're going to need help. You can't do it all yourself; that isn't God's plan. God's plan is for a group of people to get together with a man who has a vision and hold up his hands and walk with him.

Judges 20:11: So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man.

You get a body of believers knitted together, coming together, sharing the same vision, and you'll get the job done. You'll take over a city.

I've made up my mind that no devil, no demon, no man, no woman, NOBODY will run me off from the calling that God has called me to, and the heavenly vision that He has given me.

I won't put up with talkers, gripers, or backbiters any longer. And if people don't like it, they are welcome to leave. Let them go some place else.

I've been given a job to do, and I am going to do it!