Second Kings chapter six. I want to begin the message by
reading a few verses right here so we can see where we are and
what's being said here. Let's begin reading in verse
eight. It says, 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 such a place, for thither the Syrians are come down. 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. Therefore the heart of the king
of Syria was sore troubled for this thing, and he called his
servants 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. So this King of Syria wanted
to take Israel and Elisha kept warning the King of Israel and
sending him away and they couldn't take him. So verse 13, he said,
the king of Syria said, go and spy where he is that I may send
and fetch him. And it was told him saying, behold,
he is in Dothan. Therefore sent he thither horses
and chariots and a great host. And they came by night and compassed
the city about. And when the servant of the man
of God was risen early and gone forth, Behold, and host compassed
the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said
unto him, Alas, my master, how shall we do? So Elisha's servant
got up early that morning and went outside and all this great
host is out there waiting. And he runs back inside and he
says, what are we gonna do? Verse 16. And Elisha answered,
Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be
with them. 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 mountain
was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. 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. Follow me, and I will
bring you to the man whom you seek. But he led them to Samaria,
And it came to pass when they were come into Samaria, that
Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see.
And the Lord opened their eyes and saw, and behold, they were
in the midst of Samaria. And the king of Israel said unto
Elisha when he saw them, my father, shall I smite them? Shall I smite
them? And he answered, thou shalt not
smite them. Wouldst thou smite those whom
thou hast taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow? Set
bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and go
to their master. And he prepared great provision
for them. And when they had eaten and drunk,
he sent them away and they went to their master. So the bands
of Syria came no more into the land of Israel. Now, I love this
story. I truly love this story. We just
looked at it not long ago. It hadn't been that long at all.
We just looked at this story. It's a precious, beautiful, encouraging
picture of Christ. It's a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I love this story, but I don't want to look at the story
tonight. I want us to look at the prayer that Elisha prayed
on behalf of his servant. It's a prayer that hits home
with all of us concerning anyone that we love. I mean, it hits home. It especially hits home to me,
and the reason is because I am constantly given the task and
given the burden of trying to preach the gospel to people.
And it just, it just hits close to home. It's my prayer. It's my sincere
prayer. As I preach in my weakness, I
truly believe I'm seeing more and more of my dependency on
His strength. I believe I am. I say that in
weakness, and I say that in humility. I believe the Lord is honestly
allowing me to see my absolute need for His strength, my need
for Him to speak, my need for Him to bless, my need for Him
to do all of this. If He does not do this, it's
not gonna be done. We're not going to worship. So, this was Elisha's prayer. And this is what we're going
to look at for a moment. This is also the title of the message
tonight. Verse 17, it says, And Elisha
prayed and said, Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes, that he may see." What a prayer that is. What a
prayer that is. He made it clear exactly who
he was addressing. He said, Lord, this is directly to you. Lord, I acknowledge
you. I'm speaking to you. He addressed
exactly who he was talking to. And he acknowledged his power,
and he acknowledged his ability, and he acknowledged his right.
He said, you're gonna have to do this. You're gonna have to do this.
Would you please do this? You're the only one who can do
this. And he made this great request
on behalf of another, on behalf of somebody else. He said, would
you do this for him? Would you do this for him? I'm
asking this request for him. Now, what's important about that
is our Lord said, look not on your own things, but on the things
of others. The scripture says the Lord turned
the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. What
that tells us is our Lord blesses that. He does. He blesses that. He blesses and
he answers a sincere desire and concern for others. Our Lord
has commanded us to pray for each other. He commanded us to
pray for all men. He even commanded us to pray
for our enemies, which is, I'm so thankful He put that in there
because had He not, I wouldn't in my own wicked flesh, but we
pray for each other. He did not instruct us to say,
give me this day my daily bread. He instructed us to say, give
us our, we pray for each other. We pray public prayer. When we
stand up and pray, we're praying on behalf of us. We pray for
us. So prayer that is on behalf of
someone else, that's a good thing. And there's no greater thing
to pray for somebody else than this right here. Open his eyes
that he may see. Open her eyes that she may see. Now, we do pray that for ourselves,
too. I want to make that clear. We
do pray that. I want to see, too. But with my own personal cry
for mercy, Let me show you what 1 Samuel 12 says. Turn with me
over there to 1 Samuel, back toward Genesis, a few pages to
1 Samuel 12. 1 Samuel 12, verse 20. Three, it says, moreover,
as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing
to pray for you. But I will teach you the good
in the right way. I do beg God on behalf of myself. I do. I beg God on behalf of
myself. You should too. That publican
in the temple smote upon his breast crying, God be merciful
to me. So we do beg on our own behalf,
but Samuel said it would be a sin against the Lord if as I'm crying
on my own behalf, I cease to cry for you. I cease to pray
for you. So my sincere prayer is Lord,
please, please, please. Our Lord is so able. We limit him. We limit him, but
there's no limit to him. He's so able. Lord, speak the
word. Say the word. You don't have
to move a muscle. You don't have to come into my
house. Just say the word and he or she will be healed. Lord,
I believe you're so able, if you're willing. If you will,
open our eyes that we may see. Open our eyes that we may see.
We sing the song, open my eyes that I may see. Glimpses of truth
thou hast for me. Place in my hand the wonderful
key that shall unclasp and set me free. We pray that on all
of our behalf, Lord, open our eyes, open our eyes. Samuel right
here is a wonderful example of a person who was deeply involved
in the things of religion, but blind to God. Deeply, deeply involved in the
things of religion, but blind to God. Samuel had eyes just
like Elisha's servant. He had eyes too. In the story there in 2 Kings,
he physically saw those soldiers, and that's what made him afraid
and run into Elisha and say, what are we going to do? He saw
them. He had eyes. He could physically see, but
he couldn't spiritually see. And Samuel right here is a perfect
example of so many people. I mean so many people. So many
people. that are in that same state.
Samuel was God's answer to his mother, Hannah's prayer. She
prayed to the Lord and said, if you would give me a child,
I would give him back to your service. I would lend him to
your service. And God did. And she did. Samuel grew up in the temple
with Eli in the service of the Lord, helping Eli perform all
of the tasks that needed to take place for God's people to worship.
But look at chapter three, right here in 1 Samuel, look with me
at chapter three. He was already involved and already
helping and already in the service. Now look at 1 Samuel 3 verse
7. It says, Now Samuel did not yet
know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed
unto him. He knew all of the things. And
he saw all of the things that pertained to religion. He saw
the tables, and he saw the cups, and he saw the animals, and he
saw the blood, and he saw the incense, and he saw the robes,
and he saw all that stuff. All those things that pertained
to religion, but he hadn't yet seen God. He knew all of these
things. but he did not yet know the Lord. He didn't yet know the Lord.
Now, my heart breaks for those who have seen all of
these things that pertain to religion, but have yet to see
Christ. My heart breaks for them. It
breaks for them. And my heart breaks for them
because it is not in their hand to see Christ. And it is not
in my hand for them to see Christ. It's in God's hand only. And people can see all of these
things and they can flip with us and they can see the Scripture.
And they can see the worship service and they can see God's
people rejoicing I mean truly rejoicing, truly joyful over
this. But if God does not open their
eyes, they'll never see. Seeing, they'll never see. Our Lord said, seeing, they see
not. A long time ago, when we were
much younger, Her parents had a magic eye poster hanging in
their house. And I've mentioned those to you
before. You know what that is? It's a poster with dots all over
it. It's just full of dots. It's just a digital, just dots. And when you look at it and stare
at it, after a while, a 3D image, there's a picture inside a picture
And after a while, this 3D image will pop out at you and you'll
see what it is. I never saw it. I never did see it. Never did. I cannot tell you, I was there
a lot. We went over there a lot. Her
parents were so hospitable. And I can't tell you how many
times, and for long periods of time, I stood in front of that
poster trying to see it. I never saw it. I never saw it. As far as I know,
everybody else who looked at it saw it. Everybody. They'd talk about it. They'd
all talk about it. It was a picture of the Statue of Liberty. And you could see, as you look
at the picture, you know, there's the Statue of Liberty and you
could see her arm holding up the flame. And there were a couple
of military fighter jets flying in the background up over the
flame. I heard that over and over and
over. Everybody who saw it, they all
said the same thing. Yeah, here's the arm. I never saw it. I was right there
with him, looking at it too. I never saw it. I could repeat
it. When somebody new would come
to their house, they'd walk in and say, what's that? I'd say,
well, that's a magic eye poster. And it's a picture of the Statue
of Liberty. She's right here. And her arm is holding up the
flame. And there's a couple of military
fighter jets right up here. And they stare at it a while
and they go, I see it. I see it. Isn't that amazing?
That's wonderful. I see it. I didn't. It wasn't wonderful to me. I heard about it being wonderful,
but it wasn't wonderful to me. I never experienced what all
the fuss was over. I never experienced what all
the fuss was over. I heard about what all the fuss
was over, but I never experienced what all the fuss was over. Now
concerning the spiritual matters of God. The only hope that you
or I or any man or woman or boy or girl has is if God will give
us eyes to see Christ. Job said, I heard of thee by
the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Now I see
you. I pray God will give us eyes
to see. He is the only one who can do
it. If he does, this is what we're
going to see. As though you're looking at a
magic eye poster. If he does, this is what we're going to see.
We're going to see us. We're gonna see God and we're gonna see Christ. If God gives us spiritual eyes
to see, we're gonna see ourselves for what we are, like a 3D image
popping out at us. We're just gonna, oh, I see it. We're gonna see us for what we
are. We're gonna see the sin. And we're gonna see the rebellion
and we're gonna see the vileness. You know, there are people on
death row who have committed the most heinous crimes that
could ever be imagined, who have never seen themselves, never
gotten ahold of their sin. But if God gives us eyes to see,
we're gonna see it. We're gonna see our sinfulness
and we're gonna truly see God's holiness. We'll see it. We'll see his justice. We'll
see his judgment. There are preachers in pulpits
right now who have never truly seen God. Never have. Never seen his strictness. Never
seen his hatred of sin. Never seen His promise to damn. Never seen His absolute power
to do it. But if God gives a man eyes to
see, He will. He'll see it. He'll see Himself.
He'll see God. And He'll see the Lord Jesus
Christ. There are sinners everywhere
struggling under the bondage. of the law and trying as hard
as they can to satisfy holiness, trying as hard as they can to
survive the judgment. That's what people want to do
is survive the judgment, who've never seen Christ. They've never
seen what He made Himself to be. They've never seen what He
took upon Himself. They see that He came and He
walked around But they've never seen what He took upon Himself
and made Himself to be. They've never seen why He was
hanging on that cross. They've never seen what God poured
out on Him as their substitute, bearing their sin, redeeming
their soul. They've never seen their death
in Him. Everybody's afraid to die. Everybody's
afraid to die until they see their death in Him. And all of
a sudden, the sting is removed. They've never seen their life
by Him because of God's holy justice
to Him. But if God opens their eyes,
they'll see it. If God opens their eyes, oh,
they'll say, I see it. I see it. I see, like a 3D image
popping out, I see righteousness and peace kissing each other. What do you see? You look right
there. You look right there. Dear brother, look right there
and tell me what you see. I see righteousness and peace
kissing each other. I see justice and liberty shaking
hands. That's what I see. I see my sin
being dealt with. That's what I see. I see the
holy law being satisfied. I see God and man embracing. And I see it all in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I see a person. I see a person. I don't just see a doctrine.
I see a person. I don't just see religion. I
see a person. Now, so we will all know, here's
just a little information, just to make sure we're all informed
of it. If God is pleased to open our eyes, we will know it in
this way. If God is pleased to open our
eyes, we'll know it in this way. When God is about to open a person's
eyes, He gives that person a desire to have his eyes opened. When
God is about to do it, He gives that person a great desire to
have his eyes opened just like blind Bartimaeus. Don't you love
that man? Don't you love his story? Our
Lord was standing there right in front of him about to open
his eyes. He was about to open his eyes
and he said, Bartimaeus, What do you want me to do? And he said, I want to see. I
want to see. I want you to open my eyes that
I may see. And it says immediately he received
his sight and followed him. Glorifying God. Now let me ask
each one of us this question. What do you want? What do you want? I want to see. I want to see. Lord, please don't pass me by. Don't pass me by as I sit on
this highway side begging. Open my eyes that I may see. And open the eyes of the other
poor sinners who are in the same condition I am. Don't leave us
to ourselves. Please have mercy on us. Please
let us see Christ. Our Lord said, and you shall
receive. And if we receive, if we do receive
eyes to see, this is what we'll experience. All right, we'll
close with this. Go to Luke 24. If he does give eyes, and if
we do see, this is what we'll experience. Luke 24, this is two disciples walking
on the road to Emmaus, and they're depressed, they're heartbroken,
because their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has just died on
the cross of Calvary. And as they're walking, the Lord
joins Himself to them, and after hearing their conversation for
a moment, this is what He says in verse 26, He said, Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses
and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures
the things concerning Himself. And they drew nigh unto the village
whither they went, and He made as though He would have gone
further, But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us, for
it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went
in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as he sat
at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and break, and
gave to them, and their eyes were opened, and they knew him. And he vanished out of their
sight. And they said one to another, did not our heart burn within
us? While he talked with us by the
way, and while he opened to us the scriptures. If the Lord ever
opens our eyes, we'll know it. We will know it. And we'll know
it because we'll be so blessed as he opens the scriptures to
us. And the more we see of him, the
more blessed we'll be and our hearts will burn within us. So
this is my prayer. Sincerely, may God open our eyes
that we may see the person the blessing and the glory of the
Lord Jesus Christ. I pray He will. Now, we sang
this song last week, but we need to sing it again. There's only
one song we can sing. Brother Eddie, you come.