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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
The Power Of Vision | Happy Caldwell | World Harvest Church | Murrieta, CA
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Hi, I'm Grant Dufresne and welcome to Dufresne Ministries podcast channel. We believe that as you listen to this message, your faith will be stirred and you will be encouraged in whatever you are believing God for today. Stay tuned at the end of this message to find out more information about our ministry.
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Turn in your bibles to Proverbs 29:18. Proverbs 29:18. I'm going to read the new King James reads just a little bit different. Where there is no vision, the people perish. The new King James says, where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint. I want to share with you about the power of vision. I think sometimes we don't realize that a heavenly vision, a vision from God, comes completely furnished with its own power. You know, the Apostle Paul, and we'll read that in a minute. In Acts 26, defending himself before King Agrippa said, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Let me read you some statements about vision. There is no redemptive revelation. There's no vision. People perish. Robert Woodruff was the president of Coca Cola Company for 32 years. He set and cast a vision before his entire staff that he wanted everyone in the world to taste Coca Cola. And I think he pretty much accomplished that vision. But there was no heavenly power to make that come to pass. That was his vision or his goal. There's a difference between goals and vision. Vision contains the power that is necessary to bring it to pass. A goal is something that you set. I want to sell so many boxes. I want to win so many people. I want to do so much. You can set the goal, but what happens now? I know this from experience, because when we built our church, I had assumed that we would build it and finish it and pay for it in a year. The Lord told us to build it and pay for it as we went, which we did. But I assumed that would only take a year. Well, at the end of the year, we still weren't finished and it still wasn't paid for. There was still water in the basement and, you know, all kinds of things that I didn't understand. So I went to the Lord and I said, what about this? He said, I didn't tell you it'd be finished in a year. You put that on there. Well, what happens when you don't make your goal? What happens when you don't accomplish what you set? You can get discouraged, despondent, guilty, ashamed. Well, I didn't stop what God called us to do just because I missed My goal, the vision is what orients the activity in your life, not the goal. Paul said, I press toward the mark for the prize. I have a goal. There's something I want to accomplish. But it was the vision that continued to move Paul. And I've thought about this many times, the Apostle Paul, just think of this man. He was murderer, a blasphemer. I mean, he threw Christians to the lion's den. He was, you know, chief of sinners. He gets saved on the road to Damascus. He becomes a new creature in Christ. At one time, he got petitions from the ruling authority to have arrested every person that was in the Bible, says it this way, in acts way, in that way. He got warrants, I guess you could say, in today's terminology, to go arrest every person that was in that way. Well, I studied that out one time. In the way of what? What was that way? Referring to the way of faith. And it helps you understand better if you'll add in Jesus Christ at the end of that. They were in that way. What way? The way of faith in Jesus Christ. Because before they were in the way of the law, but now they were in the way of Jesus Christ. So he not only was being persecuted, but he was also. He had persecuted the church, and now he's being persecuted not only from the authorities, but he is having to teach this to the Jews who didn't want to hear it, and then to the Gentiles, which did want to hear it. And a lot of what Paul wrote, he had to explain to the Jewish people that were raised under the law what the way of faith in Christ Jesus was all about. You know, when they asked Paul and he preached on grace, and this guy asked, Paul said, now that we have grace, can we continue in sin? And Paul said, no. And I asked the Lord, I said, why did that guy say that? He said, I'll tell you. Because every person that was raised under the law knew that they could get cleansed. Every year the priest would go into the holy of Holies and he would do his ordinances in the people, and then he'd come out. So sprinkle the blood on the people and they would be cleansed. Or actually they weren't cleansed. They were just covered. Their sins were atoned for one more year. But Hebrews says it never dealt with the consciousness of sin. It says they kept their sin consciousness so it never changed the people. And so this guy was thinking, having been raised under the law, okay, we'll accept this grace thing. Can we keep sinning like we could under the law. And Paul said, no, you totally misunderstand what this grace is all about. So the Apostle Paul was very instrumental in producing the church that we know today. I mean, he taught, he had schools, he taught the people. What you know, we know as the Bible was all about. There wasn't any Bible then. But we have one. We have one. Now let's go over to Acts 26, and I want you to read with me there what he told King Agrippa. Now remember, the Apostle Paul was saved on the road to Damascus. He said, I saw a light from heaven, O King, brighter than the sun shining around me and those also who journeyed with me. Acts 26:14. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me, saying in the Hebrew language, saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Now? This is Jesus. It's hard for you to kick against the goads. So I said, who are you, Lord? He said, I'm Jesus, whom you persecute us. But rise and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which will yet be revealed to you. He goes on and says, I will deliver you from the Jews. I will rescue you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles to whom I will now send you to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Now, that's the vision. That's what he saw, that's what he heard, that's what he understood. So he said to King Agrippa, therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Now, we've had a lot of people over the years that said they had a vision from God, but the proof is in the pudding. Let me make these statements to you and then we'll come back to it. If you want to test to see whether a vision is present or not, look at the people, not the leader. There are a lot of people that claim to be leaders. There are third world countries, third world nations that have a lot of leaders but no vision because they become the leaders have become dictators. Control, you may ask. Vision is a redemptive revelation. This means the vision is not self focused, but others focused. God raises up a man or a woman with a vision to impact people. You know we live in a pop culture today, and there's been what I call a dumbing down of the culture, a dumbing down of the church. And I'm not clothesline preaching here. But when my wife and I grew up and went to church, we wore our Sunday best because my mother said, these are your Sunday clothes, these are your Sunday shoes. I couldn't even wear my Sunday shoes on Saturday. So we were raised with that. I realize that's, you know, a generation ago. I was doing Andrew Wommack's Bible College Men's advance couple of years ago, and he said, now happy we all dress western. Blue jeans and boots feel comfortable. So I did. I got boots and I got blue jeans. So I wore them. But as I was getting ready to go and preach my session that morning, I tried to leave my shirttail hanging out, and I just couldn't. And I was like, Paul, I was in betwixt two. I didn't know. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to obey the spiritual leader, but yet I was having internal conflict. And it was because of my generation, the way I was raised. So I got out there that morning, I had my shirt tail tucked in, but I had on my jeans and my boots. And I said, guys, you're just going to have to forgive me. I said, I tried to wear my shirttail hanging out, I said, but every time I'd let it hang out, I could hear my mama say, boy, tuck that shirt tail in. So I realize we live in a different culture. It's very evident, and we don't fault that, but you've got to take some responsibility. I know Keith Moore and I were doing a minister's conference up in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee a couple years ago, and Keith just kind of stood on this point for a while, and he said, there was a young man came up to him, said, you know, Brother Keith said, I appreciate you and your ministry, blah, blah, blah and all that. He said, but God don't care what we look like. God don't care what we wear. And Keith very lovingly said he used to. Come on, come on. You remember the priestly garments. You could wind up dead presence of the Lord if you weren't dressed right. And if you read the book of Revelation, when we get to heaven, we're all going to have fine linen. Well, God looks on the heart. Yeah, he does. I went to the airport one day to pick up some tickets, and I was dressed like this. I'd come from office. They treated me very nicely, very respectfully, gave Me, my tickets, et cetera. I didn't think anything about it. Well, a few weeks later, I had to go back and get some more tickets. And I was dressed in my jeans and shirt and whatever. I was treated totally different. That lady looked at me and she said, Now, Mr. Caldwell, you know if you lose these tickets, you can't get on that airplane. I said, yes, ma'. Am. I don't know whether she thought I was deaf or old or what, but she definitely treated me different because she thought I was ignorant. People treat you different the way you're dressed. So if a vision is present, you will see the effects the people. What Proverbs 20:18 does not say is where there is no leader. It says, where there's no vision. A vision changes people, and you're going to see why in a minute. Because a vision from God, a heavenly vision, living thing, it carries its own power. So vision never leaves people the way they are. It moves us to change things for the better. Let me read you this little story. It's maybe a little side trip. A professor once gave an interesting assignment to his students as a Bible college professor. He listed 12 pairs of individuals and said, I want you to discuss each pair and tell me which pair you think was the greatest leader of each pair was the greatest leader. And on Friday, you can tell me your conclusion. The first pair was Moses and Joshua. The second one was Elijah and Elisha. So the class got together, and the student president, they all met. And so, you know, they came to the class the next day, and Friday came, and the professor said, well, what did you all come up with? The spokesman said, well, we decided that out of Moses and Joshua, Joshua was the better leader because he led the people into the land of Canaan, fought the giants, the Moabites, the Amorites, and he possessed the promised land. And they also decided that Elisha was a better leader than Elijah because he had a double portion of Elijah's anointing. He had a greater track record when it came to doing miracles and actually did some phenomenal stuff and had twice the results that Elijah had. So the professor paused a moment, and he said, well, I appreciate your research, but everybody gets an F. And they said, why? He said, because between Moses and Joshua, Moses was the greater leader because he left a successor in Joshua. When Joshua passed away, he left no successor. And within one generation, the whole country went back into sin. The same was true with Elijah and Elisha. Elisha did twice the miracles, but when he died, he didn't leave a successor. And within One generation, the whole country went back into sin. So remember, in leadership, a great leader, just about what you accomplish, it's what you pass on to the next generation. When I first started pastoring, I was in my office one day and my secretary said, there's a visitor. A young man, a pastor, wants to see you. I said, fine, send him in. He came and sat in front of my desk. My desk was a door over two file cabinets. We were in a shopping center and we introduced ourselves to each other and he said, I've come to see you. He said, I'm new here. I've just been hired by a church across town to be their pastor. And he said, I just came to tell you that I'm going to build the biggest church in the state of Arkansas. I said, okay. He got up and left, told me a lot of other things he was going to do. And I thought, why did he want to tell me this? He was an excellent teacher. He had come from another state, this was a denominational church, and he just, you know, did everything right, very polished and professional. He was on the radio. I heard him. He was a great teacher. Then one day he came to see me again and he said, you know, he said, I'm going to leave this church and I'm going to go across the river, across town and start another church. I said, you can't do that. He said, why not? I said, because of the people. I said, you'll hurt those people. He did it anyway, started another church, split that church, and then he left the second church that he pastored, went back to where he came from. Neither one of those churches exists today. A lot of the people were backslidden, hurt, offended, angry, etc. I'm going to make a statement to you. I want you to listen very closely. Ambition drives you. Vision guides you. An ambitious man is a goal setter, a conqueror, a trooper. I mean, ambition has done a lot of things, but ambition drives you. You're driven. Vision guides you. Now go over to Habakkuk. This is one of my favorite books and chapters. I can identify with this. This is where you're going to see the power of vision. Habakkuk, chapter two, verse one. I will stand my watch. I will set myself on the rampart and watch to see what God will say to me. Now, I can identify with this because. And I told Pastor Nancy and I told Stephen today when we flew in here yesterday, we flew into San Diego, and I was looking forward to seeing San Diego again because 56 years ago, I Lived in San Diego behind barbed wire. It was called the U.S. naval Boot Camp, Camp Nimitz, 1963. And I was there for three months and I hadn't been back since. And I don't remember it being this cool the whole time I was in San Diego. Y' all are having good weather. And so then, you know, I went, graduated from boot camp and then got my first assignment. Vietnam wasn't a fully escalated war at the time, but we'd been studying about it and we knew about it. So I signed up for a river gunboat in Vietnam. And just like the military, instead they sent me to a destroyer, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Bay of Pigs, Gitmo. And we were wartime alert because we were in our gun mounts. We were shooting live ammunition. It was a different day. And the destroyer had three divisions, so we were on every third day now in our gun mounts. We were sleeping in them eight hours on, eight hours off. But we had to stand a watch. A watch. There were several watch sections and a watch is where you are totally responsible for what goes on in that ship. And the Marines were dug in on shore and we were shelling the islands. We were totally dependent upon our captain, who was Admiral Nimitz nephew. He was our captain. And our commander in chief at that time was John F. Kennedy at John F. Kennedy, jfk and then our gunner's mate and he directed our firing. And we came so close to blowing the Marines out of the foxhole that they sent us some dirty messages. The gunner's mate didn't want to be there, so he went to the gunner's locker and got a.45, which we all carried and shot himself in the leg just to get out. He of all people should have known that a.45 was designed to knock a man down. And it makes twice as big a hole going out as it does going in. Well, he got out all right. After he got out of the hospital, they court martialed him and sent him to prison, to the brig. So I understood the severity, seriousness of standing your watch. Every one of us have a sphere of influence. All of you have a sphere of influence. That's your watch. That's what you're going to be held accountable for. You know, you're going to get rewarded in heaven for whether you obeyed God and what he gave you to do. You're not going to get rewarded for what you thought of to do, but you're going to get rewarded for keeping your assignment. And everybody's assignment is different. Amen. So he said, I was Standing my watch. And I set myself on the rampart to see what God was saying to me and what I would answer when I'm corrected. Let me tell you a little funny story about that too. When we were steaming on that destroyer, the seas were really rough. I mean, it was hurricane and the ship was boom. If you ever served aboard a naval warship and you're hitting those waves, boom. It hits those things, almost jars your insides out and that's called a pitch. And then it rolls back and forth and then the pitch boom. And that's why when you see sailors walking around outside a naval base, that's where they got the term drunken sailor. Because at sea you have to walk with the ship rolling. The deck is always moving. And when you've been at sea a long time and you get ashore and the ground stands still, you're still going like this. I mean, I use that as an excuse lots of times. So the bridge is batting down. I mean, everybody's on wartime alert. And I got to feeling a little seasick. I spent two years at sea on two different ships. So I was used to the sea. But I don't know why. I got Washington feeling kind of woozy and I needed to, as we used to say, upchuck. So I. I was looking for something. I was, I was standing watch. I didn't want to throw up on the deck on the bridge. So I saw somebody's helmet that was laying there. So I went and got it, went over behind a petition and threw up in the helmet and then put the helmet back. About that time, the captain came off on the bridge and it was his helmet. And he looked at that and he said, who did this? I said, I did, sir. He looked at me, he said, caldwell, next time use your own helmet. But you could be court martialed for what you did on your watch or didn't do serious business. Well, our watch is just as serious. So here's where we come into the power. He said, write the vision. Make it plain upon tables that he may run who reads it for the vision is yet for an appointed time. When we built our church, the Lord told me why I was building it, what he wanted our church to become a spiritual production center, to produce life, city, state, nation, world, the television network, the same thing. He said, you must do this. If you don't do it, I'll get somebody else. Well, you'll get no reward because you didn't finish what I told you to do. But at the end it will speak and it will not lie. Though it tarries. Wait for it, because it will surely come. It will not tarry now. The power of vision, innate. It's born in the vision. If God gives you a vision, it comes with power. The vision will fulfill itself if you'll go along with it. You don't have to make it come to pass. It's from God. God sent it. He gave it. And he said, there's a purpose for it. There is an appointed time. And at the end it will speak. And everything that the Lord has asked us to do is speaking. It says, I was God, here I am. It brings comfort. It changes people. So the power of vision is just simply obeying and doing what God said do. If you'll remember Romans chapter 1. The apostle Paul again said, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. Say that out loud. It is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel, the gospel of the kingdom. The good news about who Jesus is, why he came, what he did. The other day I was meditating on this and the Lord told me, he said, you know, son, he said, the 47 years you've been in ministry, I think that's right. He said, you've basically been teaching the revelation of the kingdom. Matthew 16. Jesus told Peter, I'm going to give you the keys of the kingdom. Whatever you bind, I'll bind. Whatever you lose, I'll lose. He said, that's what you've been doing basically all your ministry life. You've been teaching the principles of the kingdom, how it works, actually, the literal translation. When Jesus told Peter, he said, I'm going to give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. I'm going to show you Kingdom of Heaven's operating system, the kingdom from the heavens. He said, I wanted you to do that. You continue to do that. But he said, don't forget to preach the Gospel of the kingdom. Good. To teach the revelation of the kingdom. But don't forget the Gospel of the kingdom. Because the Gospel of the Kingdom is the power of God. When Billy Graham came to Little rock, Arkansas in 1988 to do a crusade, I was blessed and fortunate and honored to be on the steering committee. And we were planning. It takes one year to plan a Billy Graham Crusade Crusade Director they have several of them. They moved to the city and they lived there for a year. And we had the pre crusade meetings at our church. And one night we were sitting back there in the green room and I was just so blessed. There we were sitting and on the couch was George Beverly Shea, Cliff Barrows, and us. And we had a banquet, and the governor was there and all these different people. And Billy came in the next week or something. Five nights, 30,000 people a night in the Coliseum. And George and Cliff started talking like two young guys reminiscing. Cliff said, hey, George, remember the night we were in such and such a town? George said, yeah, remember this? And they just. I got so blessed listening to them talk. They'd been with Billy Graham forever, since he started in the 40s. And George Beverly Shea told this story. He said, you know, after one crusade, we got a letter from a guy that said, you guys need to quit singing that song. When Billy gives the altar call every night called Just As I Am, he said, that's what people come down for. They come down because of that song. So George told Billy, and Billy said, okay, is that right? Well, I'll tell you what. Let's just don't sing the song for the next crusade and see if that's true. So they didn't. They didn't sing Just As I Am without one plea. Billy just stood there and gave the altar call. And during that period of time with no Just As I Am, three times the salvations were recorded. Billy said, it wasn't the song. It's the power of the gospel. And in all our learning and in all of our revelation getting over the years, be careful that you don't quit preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Because the gospel of the kingdom is what got us in the kingdom. I know that's got to be right, because I was saved at the Grand Ole Opry, the old Raman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. And I didn't go there to get saved. I went there to hear Johnny Cash. But I didn't know my wife and her family had been praying for me to be saved. I was in the liquor business. I sold it, Sam Carr bought it, and Ed drank it. That's what we used to laugh about. But Jimmy Snow preached five minutes. Said, if you need a new life, Jesus Christ is the only way. Jimmy Snow was the pastor of the church. And I was sitting up on the balcony with Jeanne, and I said, I want to go down. So I took her with me. She was already saved, but I took her down there with me. I got lost, went backstage by accident. Ran into Tex Ridder. He was still alive at that time. And then went down the front. And Jimmy Snow's wife prayed for me. Connie Smith, different ones. And I just asked Jesus to come into my heart. And I was born again. It was the gospel that had the power to get me up out of that balcony down to the front of the stage. It's the gospel that carries the power. It's the vision that carries the power. Building our church, and I know you all have learned a lot about building. I was telling him, I said, every time I came to see Ed or every time we got together talking, he was always building something. I thought, man. So I hung around him to find out how to build things. I learned that part. I'm not sure that I was glad because wound up having to build a lot of things. But I found out that in the building of the vision, power came with it. You ever bought a toy or electric something and it says battery's not included? Well, with a vision, the power is included. So whatever your vision is, whatever your assignment is, whatever God's called you to do, there's power that comes with it. It'll move mountains. It'll give you favor. When we bought our property, the people that owned it for the church, the people that owned it didn't want to sell it. So our contractor and I said, what are we going to do? He said, the Lord had already told me, I want you here on this hill. He said, I asked the Lord, I said, what do we do now? They turned down our offer of 16,000 an acre. That's what the property across the street sold for. So we offered them 16,000 acres. They turned it down, said, we don't want to sell it. We don't need the money. They owned an abstract company and they didn't want the money. So I said, what do I do now? He said, wait 30 days and go offer them 14,000. That doesn't make sense. If they didn't take the 16, why would they take the 14? We waited 30 days and went back and offered them 14,000 acres. And they said, okay. I mean, you can't figure that out. And then they said, and we still don't want the money. So you can take all the time you need to pay us. We'll carry the note ourselves. We'll allow you to legally structure everything so that, you know, if you can't pay it, we can't take your buildings or whatever. And worked it all out, and I think we paid it off in about a year or so. That was the power of the vision. When we built the television network, there was a telecommunications company representative like Altel Verizon, one of the big communication companies. And because we're so high up on a mountain, a hill, they wanted to Put a telephone tower up there on the hill. So he came to see me. I just said, no, I'm not interested. Well, think about it. Well, I'm not interested. So he left. And the Lord corrected me. He said, now, he said, be careful not to. I think the Lord told brother Copeland this one time, said, son, when I send you a cow, milk her before you send her home. So he said, I want you to call that guy back and talk to him. I said, okay. He said, now, Pastor, call what? We normally pay two or three hundred dollars a month for the tower site and blah, blah, blah. And I said, okay, Lord, what. What do I. You want me to put that tower on this property? He said, yes. That's what's going to hold your microwave dish. That's going to send the signal from your control room to the main transmitter. That sends it all over the stage now, all over the world via livestream. You can watch it right here. I watched it this morning. VTNTV.com and you can watch it via live stream. And you want to get on there and start watching it because Nancy's going to be on there starting August and you want to be able to watch her right here. So I called the guy back and he came up and I said, well, I'll tell you what, we'll go ahead and cut the deal. You can put the tower on our property. But here are the conditions. This is what the Lord told me. He said, you have them design the tower to hold your microwave dish. It's a monopole. Cost them almost a million dollars to put it up there. He said, and you tell them you want $1,000 a month and you want them to give your staff, your engineers all their phones. And you have them put in the contract that if they ever vacate the tower you take ownership of becomes yours. That was in 1988. The tower is still there. They've been paying us $1,000 a month since 1988. We've already got new phones, and if they ever vacate that tower, it becomes our property. And the communication companies have changed several times. I don't know which one started, maybe Altel and then went to Verizon. But each one of them have to renegotiate the contract. And they look at it and they say, who made this deal? He did. The vision comes with its own power.
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