The Third Vision – The Proof

While I was attending Princeton Theological Seminary, I was studying under and with some of the greatest religious intellectuals in the world. In the context of a strongly neo-orthodox resistance to the gospel I often asked the Lord how I could effectively witness to my teachers and classmates. I had tried to speak on an intellectual level. It seemed absolutely fruitless. In this setting I began to understand that most of my life I had approached evangelism as a kind of informing others of the option and presenting a rational argument or even an emotional argument for acceptance of Jesus as Savior and Lord.     

 
I came to a point of desperate desire to touch this very closed community but faced my inability to do so with some major examination of my evangelistic biases.

 
I was sitting in my Calvin class...... truly boring but not because of the subject!..... and I had a vision that forever changed my thinking on the root of evangelism. It was the kind of vision where you feel you are actually in the vision. I didn't fall on the floor but I did lose consciousness of the physical room I was in. This does not mean I thought that I physically experienced the vision. Anyone looking at me would have seen me with my eyes open sitting in class....... I only say this to help people understand that visions are not as strange as we sometimes make them.

 
I was sitting in a group of people, about thirty in number. We were sitting in a circle around a small fire. As I looked around I saw that we were in a large cave. It was a lot like Mermac Caverns where the ceiling was very high and the whole cave was quite large. The only light was the flicker from our fire. It cast shadows all around the cave.

 
As I sat there I felt such a desire to get out of the cave but realized I really didn't know how. Anyone from the South knows about caves. We were always told as children to stay out them because some of the caves we had near our house were long enough and had enough tunnels to get lost in forever. Samuel Clemens immortalized this in his story of Tom Sawyer. Tom and Becky ventured into a cave and met a murderer that Tom had testified against. His murderer eventually died in the cave by getting lost. Tom and Becky almost got lost themselves. With this in mind I looked around the room to see if there was a way out.

 
In fact there were about twelve black holes at the edge of the room. I knew from experience that these black holes were tunnels leading away from the main room. One of them surely led to the outside but which one........ How could I know? If a person went down the wrong one they could get disoriented and end up lost forever. The limited companionship in the main room was better than being lost.

 
As I looked at the possible exits each one had a person right outside of it. As I looked carefully at the first one this person was jumping up and down saying, "this is the way out." As I moved on to the next the person was shouting at the top of his voice and waving his arms to get attention, "this is the way out...... this is the way out." While the style of the message was slightly different it was basically the same. The people were doing their best to convince us that they knew the way out. Yet I was not convinced. In spite of their strong expressions I could still be lost forever in the labyrinth of our cave if I followed their direction and they were wrong.

 

At the next to the last "exit" I felt a great despair. I bowed my head and earnestly prayed that God would help me to get out of this terrible place safely........ but how could I know? As I lifted my eyes again I looked at the last person. He was dressed neatly and in every way just a normal guy. He was standing there saying quietly, "This is the way out." He did not jump up and down or do any of the things the others did to try and convince me that he knew the way out. At this I felt my heart was going to burst. At least all of the others did a good job at trying to convince me. This one wasn't even doing that! He would not be a good candidate.

 
I bowed my head again and begged the Lord, "Please show me how to know the way out." As I lifted my head the final time I felt again drawn to the man that didn't try to convince me except to simply say he knew the way out. I looked first at his face but then my eyes lowered to see that he had something in his hand. There in his right hand was a branch of a tree with living leaves and a big ripe pear still attached to the branch. Suddenly I knew that he knew the way out.

 
You see pear trees don't grow in caves.

 
I understood from this vision that the passion of our evangelistic program..... the convincing arguments...... the motivation of our intended converts to find a way out of the darkness of this world...... all are meaningless unless we have the proof.

 
The man who knew the way out had already gone out and brought back proof of his knowledge. Anyone who really cared to know could have uncontroversial evidence that his way was the way. He held the proof in his hand. He went out of the dark world of the cave and came back with life and fruit from another world. A world of sunlight, rain and fruit bearing plants.

 
Above all Jesus was that man. He came from another world and brought with him fruit that does not exist in this world. Imagine a man dying with blessing on his lips for those who were killing him. The apostles continued that fruit bringing as they all gave their lives for Jesus and for others. We are called as well to go out to that wonderful world of fruit and bring back into the darkness of this present world the fruit of the Spirit of God within us.

 
I knew that God was saying to me that as I let His love, joy. peace, longsuffering goodness, faith, meekness and temperance flow through my life, it would do the work of convincing those who wanted to find the way out of this present darkness. Nothing else will substitute. Nor is anything else essential.

 
Galatians 5:22 (KJS) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 (KJS) Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

 
Ephesians 5:8 (KJS) For ye were sometimes darkness, but now [are ye] light in the Lord: walk as children of light: 9 (For the fruit of the Spirit [is] in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)

 
Matthew 7:16 (KJS) Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

 
John 13:35 (KJS) By this shall all [men] know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.