Focus: God’s Word enables us to see with the eyes of faith and empowers us to live with joy and assurance that God will accomplish his purposes.
Function: To encourage the people to live with joy and assurance by putting on the glasses of God’s Word.
Text: II Kings 6:8-23
A periscope is a spyglass through which a submarine can scan the horizon above the waters of the ocean while the submarine itself can remain submerged and thus invisible. A periscope, then, enables a submarine to navigate the waters and carry out its missions of waging war and keeping the peace. God’s Word is like a periscope.
You see, like a submarine in deep waters, so we go through life’s waters. Surrounded by history, at times completely overwhelmed by the circumstances and storms of life, we try to keep our ship afloat. Sometimes we bump into situations that perplex us so much so that we wish we had a periscope to navigate the waters of life.
God’s Word is our periscope. God’s Word enables us to see with the eyes of faith. The periscope of God’s Word empowers us to live with joy and assurance that God will accomplish his purposes in our lives. Put on the glasses of God’s Word. For they help us to see with the eyes of faith.
Now the way we go through life depends a lot on the way we see things. If I take off my glasses, I no longer have 20-20 vision. No good. Should I put on sunglasses, my view of things gets shaded a bit. So it is also with the way I navigate through daily life. If I put on the glasses of unbelief--colored by secularism, capitalism, communism, socialism, or any other ideology or viewpoint--my worldview (the way I see things) will be shaped by such glasses.
In other words, it matters through what periscope we are viewing the world around us. I say, put on the glasses of God’s Word. For they help us to go through life with joy and assurance that God will accomplish his purposes in and through us.
When I view today’s world through the lens offered by secular commentators and journalists, I get restless. Some of us get downright discouraged; others worry about the kind of future our kids and grand kids must face. It seems like half the world’s population is in a panic mode. For example, secularists worry about global warming and cook up solutions that seem to suggest that we are fully in control of the forces displayed in nature. Environ-mentalists predict an increase or rise of tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; and scientists are trying to figure out how we can possibly destroy a meteorite if one should be on a trajectory to hit our planet.
Along with these dire predictions and measures, we also face endless ethnic wars, religious fanaticism, and a potpourri of religious views that color the way we see things in life. The messes in life, the hopeless of many, and the fears of tomorrow make up the waters through which we navigate our ship of life. What is your periscope telling you? What colors our perspectives on life?
THE TEXT: OBSERVATIONS
Today’s scripture passage is a delightful tonic to sober us into viewing our lives and world through the eyes of faith. The story of Elisha trapping the Arameans and taking them captive may seem at first amusing, but on a deeper level it is very instructive for us today. Let’s make a number of observations. First of all,
· The story has a military context: Ben Hadad, the King of Aram is at war with Joram, the King of Israel. Ben Hadad and his military commanders (I assume that Naaman is part of Ben Hadad’s war council) plan all kinds of raids into Israel. But it seems that there is a traitor among the military planners of King Ben Hadad. Every time the Arameans plan a raid on God’s people Israel, the king of Israel has an ambush waiting for them.
Who is outsmarting the king of Aram? Who is leaking the military intelligence of Ben Hadad’s war council? How come that Joram, the King of Israel has the upper hand every time the King of Aram wants to deal a devastating blow to God’s people, Israel? One of the officers of the King of Aram (is it Naaman, the one healed by God’s Word spoken through Elisha?) seems to have some military intelligence of the highest order: “…Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you (Ben Hadad, King of Aram) speak in your bed room.”
That response leads us to a second observation from the text.
· The military context of thestory gravitates to the center of conflict: And the center of the conflict is Elisha, the bearer of God’s Word in Israel and prophet par excellence. It turns out that Israel’s God provides Elisha with insights that enable the king of Israel to undermine the enemy’s plans. Ask yourself: who is looking out for the welfare of God’s people Israel? Who is outsmarting, overruling the wicked plans of King Ben Hadad? Who stands at the center of this military dogfight? It’s the God of Israel. It’s the Word of God protecting, informing, and guiding Elisha. Elisha, the bearer of God’s Word--yes, God Himself--is at the center of this military conflict.
Note, for example, King Ben Hadad’s strategy: he wants to capture Elisha, for Ben Hadad realizes that if he eliminates or silences Elisha, then he has a chance to subdue God’s people Israel. “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” King Ben Hadad thinks that his approach is sound. His military strategy is clear: eliminate Elisha, and thus you eliminate the threat. So, Ben Hadad sends an army with horses and chariots to capture this one man—this colossal threat—called Elisha, the bearer of God’s Word.
Now note the third observation. Consider how Elisha fights this battle against Ben Hadad.
· Elisha fights with the weapon of prayer: First, Elisha stills the fear of his servant, presumably it’s Gehazi. With the naked eye, Gehazi observes Ben Hadad’s chariots and horses surrounding the city of Dothan. There is no way that Elisha and his servant can escape. “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” the servant asked.
Elisha responds with the weapon of prayer, stilling the fear of his servant. He prays: “O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.”
Later, when the chariots and horses and soldiers come close to Elisha, he prays: “Strike these people with blindness.” And after having trapped the Arameans, leading them into the hands of King Joram, Elisha prayed again: “Lord, open the eyes of these men so they can see.” Elisha’s stealth weapon is the powerful instrument of prayer. Thus we notice the military context, the center of conflict, and the weapon of prayer, all playing a role in this story.
THE TEXT: INSIGHTS
Now we need some insight. For example, this Scripture teaches us that there is more to our world than what the naked eye may observe. There is a created reality that is only observable with the eyes of faith. And we can only see that invisible world by the grace or work of God. I cannot conjure up that world. You and I can only see that world with the eyes of faith, and that only when we put on the glasses of God’s Word.
Sometimes, I meet people who receive a vision from God; they see things that normally we do not see. I remember Andrew, for example. Andrew had been struggling for more than 16 months with cancer. Andrew was tired; he wondered whether God was calling him home or whether he would still recover. Then, at night, Andrew had a vision. He saw the blue skies along the heavens, filled with clouds. Then Andrew noticed a hand coming out of the clouds, summoning Andrew to come. It was then that Andrew knew clearly that God was calling him home. Andrew died a few weeks later.
Elisha’s story clearly teaches us that along with our visible world there is an invisible, yet just as real world as this. We are surrounded by the spiritual realms called heaven. God, along with his angels and heavenly hosts or armies, surround us. And we learn that the Lord of heaven is also Lord of the earth. For God overrules the scheming of the king of Aram, and God teaches the king of Israel a lesson.
The invisible, spiritual world called heaven is real and can only be observed by faith that is informed by God’s Word. Or, in the case of Gehazi, God enabled Gehazi to literally see glimpses of that invisible realm.
If you are a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, you must never lose sight of God’s spiritual realm circumscribing, intersecting with our daily lives and world. Just as we are “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,” (those who have died in Christ and who are with Christ in heaven), so we are surrounded by the powerful hosts and angels of God. This is a great insight that God’s Word teaches us today.
Also, note from the Scriptures that God’s Word empowers us in our daily living. Ask yourself, what did Elisha and his servant see? What did God reveal to the bearer of his Word when King Ben Hadad threatened to arrest and kill Elisha? Why did Elisha stay calm, cool, and collect?
God showed him (and us) that no one can overthrow the Word of God or the bearer of God’s Word without first having to deal with God himself. You can’t mess with God’s Word; you can’t undo God’s purposes for his people; you have to reckon with God in all your daily affairs.
In this powerful vision, God shows how he overrules the plots and schemes of his enemies, and how he protects and guides his people.
APPLICATIONS
Here’s what the Lord is saying to us today: Navigate the storms of life with the periscope of God’s Word. Put on the glasses of faith. You cannot buy eyes of faith. Seeing with the eyes of faith is God’s gift to us. God enables us to see with the eyes of faith by revealing to us his inspired Word. It is God’s Word that shapes our vision, our worldview. And it’s God’s Word that enables us to face the storms of life. In fact, God’s Word helps us to chart a course through life. It assures us that God’s guiding hand will protect, calm, steer, and uphold us. Inform your vision with the periscope of God’s Word.
Also, Elisha’s use of the weapon of prayer illustrates for us the way to go through life—be in prayerful conversation with the Lord. Call upon him for guidance, for help, for protection, for joy in the midst of a fearful and frightening world. It’s not my wealth, my business connections, my access to weapons or my intellectual wit that bring security. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who wants to be called upon, who desires for us to pray to him in his mighty name.
One more thing: the story of Elisha trapping and tricking the Arameans into becoming prisoners in the hand of God underscores this awesome truth: People may decide, rule, plot and scheme, weal and deal, but in the end it’s the Lord who overrules and re-directs and sees to it that his purposes for his people shall be established.
Many are the ideologies and promises of the good life that come our way; vicious are the wars being fought; clamorous, luring, and seductive are the voices of wealth and fame and pleasure; somber are the forecasts of unbelieving doomsayers and citizens of the world. In the midst of all these competing and conflicting voices, there is God’s Word, telling us that what God has begun in Christ Jesus—namely the restoration and renewal of all things—God will also complete and fully accomplish.
The gates of hell will not prevail against the people of God, the church of Christ. The swords and vices of persecutors may decimate the Christian church world-wide, the blood of martyrs may continue to flow deeply and richly, but we shall focus our eyes of faith on the periscope of God’s Word, which says: (II Corinthians 4:16-18) “…we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
God’s Word enables us to see with the eyes of faith and empowers us to live with joy and assurance that God will accomplish his purposes.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen!