Open your hymnals with me to
number 185. Number 185. Don't worry, I'm
not going to lead you in singing, but I want to read. Is this on? Okay. Glorious things of Thee
are spoken, Zion, city of our God. He whose word cannot be
broken formed Thee for His own abode. This is His place of habitation. This is where the Lord's pleased
to manifest Himself. We're in His presence. And I
pray that He will give us the grace to believe that from our
hearts and to have a spirit of worship this morning. So, Bert,
would you come lead us please? Number 185, let's stand together. Good morning. The men were reminiscing
this morning in the study about where we were
as a congregation 18 years ago. You remember Alex and Carolina?
We met in the flower shop, as it was affectionately referred
to. Michael Etheridge was the plant
manager of a silk flower company in Longwood, and we used his
conference room as our first meeting place for first six or
eight months, I guess, that we met. And then we moved from there
to the Harley Hotel in downtown Orlando, met there for a while. And then we moved from there
to the clubhouse at Kingswood off of Lee Road and met there
for a couple of years. And then in 2000, the Lord enabled
us to build this building, and we've been here since then. And I just stand amazed that God would call
us out. He'd be pleased to make himself
known to us and keep us for 18 years and continue to grow us
in his grace and now begin to save some of our children that
were only babies back then. What a blessing. There's nothing
in this world like it. Nothing I've been getting texts from
Esther in Germany. Esther was a baby, a little girl,
and now she's over in Germany watching our services. Let's try to pray, asks the Lord. Our merciful Heavenly Father, how humbled we are before Thee
that You would love us, that You would be pleased to
call us out and make Yourself known to us, that You would give
for us Your dear Son and then make Him known to us. and cause
us to find all our rest and all our hope in Him. Lord, for all these years, You've
kept us together, You've enabled us to meet, and You've been pleased
to send Your Holy Spirit to bless Your Word, and we ask that You
would do it again. We ask that You'd be pleased
to do it this morning. Lord, that you would speak to
our hearts, that you would cause us to believe that you've loved
us, and that you would break our hearts before thee in submission
and in faith and in love. That Christ would be lifted up.
We pray for our children and we ask, Lord, that you would
be pleased to call them out, to bless them with the gift of
faith, to save them, and to continue your work of grace here in this
place. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I'm sorry. Open your Bibles with
me, please, to 2 Kings chapter 6. I opened the message Wednesday
night by saying, let me tell you a story. And I want to do
the same thing again this morning. Let me tell you a story. God
had sent in the middle part of the 9th century BC a prophet
to his people. His name was Elijah. And Elijah
was greatly blessed of God to give the gospel to Israel. Now Elijah, like the Lord Jesus
Christ, was caught up with a fiery chariot into glory. Before the
Lord took him home, he passed the mantle of his blessings on
to his successor, Elisha. Elisha is a picture of Christ
and his church. Elisha translated means God is
my salvation. Elijah means God is Lord. Elijah is a picture of Christ
in his earthly ministry. And now that he's been caught
up into glory, he said to his people, the works that I do,
you'll do even more. And Elisha performed many more
miracles than did Elijah. Elisha is a picture, as I said,
of Christ working by the power of his spirit through the preaching
of the gospel of his grace in the saving of his people. And here in the beginning of
Elisha's ministry, the king of Syria is on a campaign to destroy Israel. But God has given to the king
of Israel a prophet to warn him. And so every time the king of
Syria made his plans to attack Israel, Elisha would warn the
king of Israel what was about to happen. And the king of Israel
was always prepared and never under any danger because Elisha
was there to warn him. And the scripture says he did
not do this once or twice. He did it every single time.
The king of Syria was enraged in thinking that there was a
traitor in his own camp. And so he brought his servants
together and he said, which of you is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants spoke
up and said, none, my lord. But there is a prophet in Israel
that knows what you say in your bedchamber. Now what that means
is that he knows the thoughts that you have and the ramblings
that you have in your dreams. And he tells the king of Israel. And the king of Syria said, where
is he? And they said, he's in Dothan.
And they said, go get him. And so the king of Syria sent
an army, an army of soldiers and chariots, swords and spears,
and they surrounded the town of Dothan. And Elisha's servant
woke up that morning, for they had surrounded the city at night,
and Elisha's servant went out and saw this great army surrounding
Elisha and the city of Dothan. And he ran back in the house
and he said, Master, what shall we do? Now that's the title of
this message. What shall we do? We're surrounded with an insurmountable
number of enemies and they're too strong for us. They're too
strong for us. What shall we do? And Elisha
responded to his servant by saying, Fear not, for they that are with
us are more than they that be with them. And the servant didn't
understand that, and so Elisha prayed for him and said, Lord,
open his eyes that he might see. And sure enough, the Lord opened
the eyes of the servant, and he looked out, and he saw that
there were flaming chariots surrounding the army of the Syrians. And
for truth, they that were with Elisha and his servant were more
than they that were with the king of Syria. And so Elisha
prayed to the Lord again, and he said, Lord, blind these men.
And the men of Syria were blinded. And Elisha took them by the hand
and said, Here, let me lead you to the one that you're seeking.
And he took the whole army by hand to Samaria, where the king
of Samaria was. And the king saw the army of
the Syrians. And the king cried out to the
prophet. He said, Father, shall we slay them? Shall we slay them? And Elisha said, No. Don't slay
them. Don't slay them. Feed them. And
so they put out a great provision for them. And in so doing, Scripture,
the story ends by saying the Syrians went home humbled and
never attacked Israel again. What shall we do? What shall
we do? This story is full of gospel
truths that have been a great blessing to my heart and I pray
that they will be to yours. Truths that will sustain you
and deliver you from your enemies and enable you to find your hope
in Christ. This story reminds me of what
the what Paul said in Romans when he said, if God be for us,
who can be against us? It is God that justifieth, yea
rather Christ that is crucified and risen again. This is a picture
of the Lord providing for His people. The Lord has in His in his wisdom
and in his love put us in a place where like Elisha and his servant
we are surrounded with enemies. We are. We're surrounded with Satan who
is called the accuser of the brethren Not a day goes by that
he doesn't accuse us. And in so doing, he uses the
law, doesn't he? Well, if you were really a Christian,
you wouldn't be doing that. You wouldn't be thinking that.
You wouldn't be acting that way. And he's relentless in his accusations. The Scripture calls him the father
of lies. And we are easily deceived. by his devices. We are. Left to ourselves, we'll buy
into his lies hook, line, and sinker. And if the Lord's not
pleased to shed the light of the gospel on the truth, then
we will believe a lie and be content. The scripture refers
to him as the prince of the powers of this world. Certainly we see
his hand at work, don't we? In all the things that go on
in this world. The scripture refers to him as
the tempter. Are you tempted by him? We're in a world that... We have an adversary. We have
an adversary. And the Lord said, when we're
to pray, that we pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one. Deliver us from him. Peter knew something of that,
didn't he? When the Lord warned him, he
said, Peter, Satan has asked that he might have you to sift
you like wheat. But I prayed for you that your
faith fail not. And Peter later said, Oh, Satan
is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." He's too
strong for you. He's too strong for me. He was
too strong for Michael, the archangel. In that picture, as a type of
Christ, he would not contend with him over the body of Moses.
He said, the Lord rebuke thee. So it is for us. We're surrounded
with this enemy. And we're often brought to this
place of saying, how shall we do? How shall we do? If you're not in Christ, then
the law of God is your enemy. It's your enemy. It demands perfect
obedience. It is intolerant to you. It is
inflexible and dogmatic. It cannot and it will not bend. If you are under the law, then
you're under its condemnation. You're under its curse. And the
curse of the law is death. What shall we do? The law won't correct you. We
call our penal system the correctional institutions, don't we? And I
hope that some of those men and women come out having been somewhat
reformed so as not to be criminals anymore, but the law of God does
no correcting. It can't change you. It can't
help you. All it can do is condemn you.
All it can do is pronounce you guilty. Yet, oftentimes we look at the
law of God and we think, well, I'll do better. I'll do better. I've learned my lesson. I won't
break that law again. Truth is, God sees the thoughts
and the intents of our hearts. And the scripture says that our
hearts are desperately wicked. Who can know them? And that God
sees our hearts. He says that your thoughts are
only evil and that continually. You say, well, you know, I have
good thoughts. I have good thoughts. I think
virtuous things. I have good intentions and I
have genuine love for my fellow man and for my children. And
all my thoughts are not evil. When God says that your thoughts
are continually evil, he doesn't mean that your mind is in the
gutter all the time. That's not what he means. Because
that's not always the case. What he means is that your best
thought is evil to me. Man at his very
best state is altogether vanity. The plowing of the wicked is
iniquity to God. That's what it means. You see,
when we think, well, all my thoughts aren't evil, all we're doing
is comparing ourselves to ourselves. And we know that we do have evil
thoughts, but we know that all our thoughts are not evil. And
so we think, well, we're not always that way. Before God,
we are. Before God, we are. No thought
that you and I have ever had measures up to his standard of
righteousness or holiness. What shall we do? How are we going to be delivered
from such an enemy? If you're not in Christ, the
law of God is your enemy, and one day it will execute its full
judgment against you, and you'll find no appeal There will be
no loopholes. When the gavel of God's justice
falls, the law will execute its penalty to the full extent of
its wrath. And there'll be no escaping it.
Now that's an enemy that I don't want anything to do with. That's
an enemy that I want to be delivered from. And there's only one way
that that's going to happen. is if the Lord Jesus Christ satisfies
the demands of God's holy law for me and presents himself before
God as my advocate. I need a sin bearer. I need a
substitute. I need one who is righteous to
be my advocate before God. You and I are surrounded by enemies. Satan is our enemy. Oh, our circumstances,
people, our own sin, the law. What are we going to do? Look at verse... Well, let's begin reading in
verse 8. Then the king of Syria warred
against Israel and took counsel with his servants, saying, In
such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent
unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not to
such a place, for thither the Syrians are come. And the king
of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him, and
warned him of, and saved himself there not once nor twice. That
means that every time the king of Syria made plans to attack
the king of Israel, the king of Israel was warned. Therefore
the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing,
and he called his servant and said unto them, Will you not
show me which of us is for the king of Israel? And one of his
servants said, None, my lord, O king, but Elisha, the prophet
that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that
thou speakest in thy bedchamber. You know what that means? He's
not talking about pillow talk here. He's talking about those ramblings
that you don't even know you're making when you're asleep. He's talking about those dreams
that are just very foggy when you wake up in the morning and
then you completely forget them. And he's saying that he knows
that about you. He knows the thoughts that you
have that you're not even aware of. We think that the problem that
we have are the thoughts and motives that we're aware of that
smite our conscience and make us feel bad. That's not even
the tip of the iceberg. It goes a whole lot deeper than
that. He knows everything. David said in Psalm 139 verse
4, there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou
knowest it all together. Such knowledge is too wonderful
for me, I cannot attain unto it. Does he know about those things
that you feel bad about? Those things that you feel guilty
about, certainly He does. And He knows a whole lot more
than that. He knows everything. And the truth is that He's not
pleased with any of it. He's not pleased with any of
it. How shall we do? Verse 13, And he said, Go and
spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told
him, saying, Behold, he is at Dothan. Therefore sent he thither
horses and chariots and a great host, and they came by night
to compass the city about. And when the servant of the man
of God was risen early and gone forth, behold, a host compassed
the city both with horses and chariots. And his servants said
unto him, Alas, my master, how shall we do? And he answered,
Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be
with them." Oh, I'm so thankful for that. I'm so thankful for
that. That if we're on the Lord's side,
who can be against us? He's defeated Satan. He's destroyed
the works of the devil. He's satisfied the demands of
the law. He's done everything for us. What great love the Father hath
bestowed upon us! He's overcome our enemies, every
one of them. And the young man couldn't see
it. He just couldn't see it. Why? Because it's a spiritual
truth that requires the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit to see. You can't see it with the natural
eye. You've got to have the eye of
faith to see this. The natural man, that which is
of the flesh is flesh. The flesh profiteth nothing. And the natural man can only
see that which is physical. This is a spiritual truth. This
is a spiritual reality. There was a real army of angels
surrounding the army of the Syrians and nobody could see it. And so Elisha prayed for him. That's our only hope. Peter,
be of good cheer. I've prayed for you. I've prayed
for you. Father, I pray for them. I pray
not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me out
of the world. I pray that you would keep them. I pray that
you would grow them. I pray that you would reveal
yourself to them. We have an advocate with the
Father. We have an intercessor. The effectual, James put it like
this, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The righteous man is the Lord
Jesus Christ and he has prayed effectually and it avails what
he prayed for. Lord open his eyes. Lord would you pray for me? My
prayers are so fraught with unbelief, they're so feeble. I do pray, Lord, but you're going
to have to make my prayers acceptable to the Father. You're going to
have to present them perfect and holy and righteous before
God. The Lord said in John chapter
9, well let's read our text here. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord,
I pray Thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened
the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountains
were full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Now that's where I want to be. I want to be right there where
Elisha is. It's the only safe place to be.
It's the only safe place to be. The army of the Syrians will
overpower you. Your sin will overpower you. Satan will overpower you. The
circumstances of this life will overpower you. You don't have
the strength to bear them. This thing is too great for you. The only hope that we have is
to be in the presence of Elisha. God is my salvation and for him
to open our eyes and to see for judgment came I into the
world that they which see not might see and that they which
see might be made blind that's what the Lord said in John chapter
9 For judgment came I into the world. That's why I'm here. To
give sight to the blind and to blind those who have sight. And the Pharisees responded.
They knew that it was an indictment against them and they said, Are
you suggesting? Are you suggesting that we're
blind? And the Lord said, if you were
blind, then you would be able to see. But the fact that you
see means that your sins still remain. What does that mean? Here's what it means. If you
are blind, unable to see why God would have any reason to
show you mercy, in yourself, then you see. If you see something in you that
would obligate God or require God to show mercy upon you, a
decision you've made or a work that you've performed or a law
that you're keeping or some progress that you're making that would
cause God to have mercy upon you, if you see that, then you're
blind. For judgment came I into the
world, that they which are blind might see, and they which see
might be made blind." Do you see that all of your righteousness
is in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you see that all the satisfaction
that God would have with you is wrapped up in the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ alone? Do you see that? There was a time when we were
blind to being a sinner. Oh, we gave
lip service, we're sinners. We didn't know what it meant.
We did not know that the absolute best, most virtuous, most commendable
thing about us was sinful in the sight of God. We didn't believe
that. Not until the Lord enabled us
to see. There was a time when we didn't
see how holy God's law really was. And so we set about trying to
satisfy its demands because we thought we could. But we know
now that we could never meet one single iota of God's law. We just can't do it. We can't
do it. It's holy. We need a law keeper. We need
one who's able to satisfy the demands of God's law on our behalf. There was a time when we could
not see what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished. We saw the acts of God, but we
did not know His ways. until the Lord opened the eyes
of our understanding and enabled us to see that He has perfectly
satisfied all of God's justice and all of His righteousness
and all of His people are saved. Verse 18, And when they came down to him,
Elisha prayed unto the Lord and said, smite this people, I pray
thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness
according to the word of Elisha. And Elisha said unto them, this
is not the way, neither is this the city. You might say, well, it sounds
like Elisha's being deceitful. No. Their problem was not with
Elisha, their problem was with the king of Israel. Elisha was
just the one who was warning the king. It was the king of
Israel they were trying to overpower. And so Elisha prayed that God
would make that army of Syrians blind and he took them by the
hand and he said, this is not the way. Your problem is not
with me, your problem is with the king. Your problem is with God. I did
not come to destroy the world. I came to save the world. Your
problem is with God, with the King. And so He blinded them
and took Him right to Samaria and stood Him before the King.
And what the King said, Father? Boy, that's an amazing thing
right there, isn't it? I mean, the King was a monarchy.
That means ruled by one. And here we have the King referring
to the prophet, this humble prophet, as Father. The Lord has made my Lord to be God. He's set Him on His
high throne, isn't He? He's called the everlasting Father,
the Prince of Peace. And what did the king say to
Elisha? Father, shall I slay them? Shall I slay them? What did Elisha say? Don't slay them. Don't slay them. Feed them. Feed them. Give them bread and give them
water. And they set a great provision for them. The only hope that you and I
have that God Almighty would not slay us is that the Lord
Jesus Christ would intercede on our behalf and say to God,
don't slay them. Don't slay them, I brought them
to you. Feed them. Yes, we are to bless those who
curse us. Yes, we are to do good to them
who despitefully use us. Yes, we are to turn the other
cheek, pray for our enemies, heap coals of kindness on the
head of our enemies. When our enemy hungers, we are
to feed him. And when he's thirsty, we're
to give him a drink. But that's not the message here. I mean,
that's part of it, I guess. But you don't have to have spiritual
eyes to see that. The message here is that we were
on a path of self-destruction seeking to destroy the very one
that was able to save us, the King of Israel. That's who we
were. That's who we were against. That's
who we were at enmity with. That's who we hated. We hated
God. That's how we came into this
world. And I'll say what you've heard me say again. If you've
never hated God, you still do and you don't know it. I can't
tell you how many people I've heard say to me, well, I've never
hated God. I've always believed in God. When the Lord shows you the self-destructive
path that you were on in your blindness, and He shows you His
grace and His mercy in the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
You know that you were at enmity with the God that is. You may
have loved the God of your imagination. The little God that you folded
up and put into your pocket. But the God who reigns sovereign
over you, you had no regard for. Until now. Open their eyes and feed them. Feed them. And that's what he's done, isn't
he? He's fed us with the bread of life and now for 18 years
he's been feeding us. And he's turned our swords into
plowshares. That's what he said he'd do. He's turned us from warriors
against God to planters and Our spears into pruning forks.
He's taken away the enmity. He's turned us from soldiers
against God into farmers, hasn't he? That's what he's done. Planting
the seeds. How shall we do? How shall we
do? How shall you do? How shall I
do? Lord, would you pray for me?
Would you feed me? Would you lead me to God and
say to Him for me, don't slay Him, don't slay Him, feed Him? Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we ask that You would Be merciful to us and show us your love. Cause it to be shed abroad in
our hearts. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.