Sermon: "Unseen Resources"

2nd in the "The Full Armor of God" series.
Delivered July 8, 2007 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

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Well next week I am going to Malawi. Debbie and I are part of the group from Central and from Grace and from Westside Christian Fellowship who are going to Malawi and as I prepare for that I have become convicted in a fresh way at how much more spiritually African believers view reality than American believers. As I have talked to them there is just an awareness of spiritual reality that I find you know challenging to me; to realize that this is a real way of viewing what's around us; that there are realities that I don't always quickly pick up on as an American. As an American we have been shaped by a society that is profoundly materialistic. We believe that the really important things are things that we can see, things that we can touch, and things that we can smell. If we can't sense it, it is not as important. That is just where we are. I find that I may be even a little more like that because I have an inclination towards being on the science side of things. If I weren't a pastor, I would probably be a scientist of some sort. That is what my interest was before I became Christian. And so, if you come to my house and you look at my mailbox you won't find Theology Today or Christianity Today and things like that coming to my house. A few of those come to my office, but what comes to my house is Discover Magazine, MIT's Technology Review, Popular Science and Wired. That's what I read every month. That is what I enjoy, you know keeping up with and I read them cover to cover.

But because of that there is that tendency in me to view the things that I see and sense and contest for as being the really real and so it was really interesting for me to pick up on a discussion that I maybe became aware of about three years ago about astrophysicists and cosmologists talking about something they are calling Dark Matter. As they have looked at the universe and taken measurements of how light bends and how gravity is working, they recognize that they can only account for 4% of the mass of the universe in terms of the stars and planets we can actually see. That means that 95% or more of the universe, at least as we understand it now is invisible and it can't be sensed by any of the instruments we have. They are estimating that 22% is something they are calling Dark Matter, which is something that does not reflect any electromagnetic radiation. So we can't see it. We can't test for it by instruments. We can't bounce radio signals off of it. There is no way of knowing whether its there or not in reality, but we see its effects and 74% is something they are calling Dark Energy, which is even a wilder concept; energy that can't be sensed. 95% of reality, they are hypothesizing right now is invisible and by our current instruments will remain so unless we learn something new.

Spiritual reality is like that. In the physical realm what they are saying is that there are evidences of matter and energy we can't see. In the spiritual realm we can't see most of the spiritual realm, but we see evidences of it. The issue is; how seriously do we take that? Because again, it is so easy to believe that if we can't see it is somehow less important or less real. But Biblically speaking invisible does not mean unreal. Invisible is not equal to unreal. Something can be invisible and yet be absolutely vital. So we have to fight that tendency in us to rely only on what we can taste and see and touch as being the really important things and start viewing life differently.

It shows up in all kinds of ways. We get into a bad argument with someone and we see it only as a matter of personalities, habits and behaviors and never think about or pray about how it might have been spiritually inflamed. If we have this idea that only the material is the really important, then we look at our city and our cities problems and see it as being political and economic, a matter of law and order and not a spiritual problem. It comes up when we think about using our relational skills, our money, our vote, medicine or even physical violence to solve problems instead of praying about them. It comes up a lot of different ways in our lives. And it is not just our society that thinks this way; we have been shaped by our society so we think this way as Christians as well. I saw amazing evidence of that one time. I see it all the time, but one that I want to share about is in July 1977, I was reading an article in a magazine called Presbyterians Today and it was describing a really horrendous decision that was made by our national church. It just had nothing to do with scripture. It was abysmal in my opinion. It's a strong opinion and this is what it said about this decision. "After two hours of debate and a minute of silent prayer, commissioners voted 328 to 217 to accept the proposed revision." That is the problem right there. If this is our view of reality, then we view our capacity to influence one another, our reason, our abilities in argument and debate and the strength of the majority vote, we view that as where the real power is and we give a minute to silent prayer recognizing in that minute that Jesus is Lord of the church and has a voice that he can speak effectively to us and that there are spiritual powers that oppose us; one minute. And this is all over the church. It's in my life.

I see two different results in our lives if we are living with this sort of mindset where we treat the physical as being the only important part of life. On the one hand I see us running around frantically trying to solve every problem in our lives with human skills and energy; just running ourselves ragged trying to solve everything with the equipment that we have, as just being a mature adult. On the other hand, I see some people coming to realize that some of the problems that we are facing have deep spiritual roots and at that point they want to get out of the whole battle, because they feel overmatched. Man, spiritual things get weird. I can't see it. I am acknowledging now that something is going on and that there are beings, I mean I don't want any part of that. I am in a dangerous zone if I am there. The scripture tells us that we are not overmatched when we deal with spiritual reality; that God has done things that give us a capacity for victory in spiritual situations. So there is a spiritual reality, but God is at work in it.

And so we are going to take a look at an Old Testament section and a New Testament section on this issue of the unseen powers that surround us. Let's first go into the Old Testament, the Book of 2nd Kings, Chapter 6, Verses 8 to 23 and let's pray.

God, as we go in to your word, open our eyes, open our hearts, strengthen our faith that we might respond to you as you want your people to respond, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

2nd Kings, Chapter 6, Verses 8 to 23: I am going to read Verses 8 to 14 right now.

"Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, "I will set up my camp in such and such a place." The man of God sent word to the king of Israel: "Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there." So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he was on his guard in such places. This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, "Will you not tell me which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?" "None of us, my lord the king," said one of his officers, "but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom." "Go, find out where he is," the king ordered, "so I can send men and capture him." The report came back: "He is in Dothan." Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city."

Let's stop right there. First of all, we are dealing with an unusual situation. Israel is at a time of war with the Arameans and they are trying to catch each other off guard and so the King of Aram is trying to set up ambushes for the King of Israel so he can catch him at some point unaware, attack and have a decisive and quick victory. Now what makes this a little unusual is that the reason why Israel is surviving so well is that a prophet, his name is Elisha, he is an independent person who is speaking the word of the Lord to the leaders in Israel. He is also known in this passage as the man of God and as the prophet. And so Elisha is getting supernatural knowledge of where the King of Aram is setting up his forces and so he gives that information to the King of Israel and so there is a situation where already the plans of a person are being frustrated by something that we can't account for in normal human wisdom.

But when we come to Verse 14, we come to a verse that really is a classic situation for a non-spiritual solution. Verse 14, the King of Aram sends horses and chariots and a strong force, surrounds the small city, they go by night and when they wake up the next morning the city is surrounded. There is a situation where we normally expect; we are going to have to meet this human power, this military power with another power, which is also a human power, military power; that the only way to get out of this is to beat them in an open fight. That's where I would be if I were looking at that situation and I think most of us would be. That's the way I am when I get in to a situation and all of a sudden I am surrounded by a problem a lot bigger than I expected to be. I am looking for human resources to deal with it and my response is like what you are going to find in the next verse.

"When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked."

That is a normal response. To see an overwhelming situation surrounding us where humanly we don't have the resources to cope with us and we are saying, "What shall we do?" But the prophet Elisha has a very different response; Verse 16:

"Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. Remember a few weeks back I talked about how many times in scriptures "Don't be afraid" comes up, here it is again. "Don't be afraid" Why? "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."

Now if we stop the verse at that point again, you could still be thinking on a human scale, Ah, Elisha has some special knowledge that the King of Israel is coming with his army and they are going to surround these people or maybe people have snuck in to the city and Elisha knows about that. We have more army men than they do. But that is not what Elisha is talking about at all. And so the next verse comes:

"And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha."

Elisha prayed, open his eyes then he may see. This was real when it was still invisible and God prays that he now can see the reality. So he has a vision of a preexisting reality, which is that God is there in that situation, spiritually powerful and able to deal with the Arameans. And so the servant sees horses and chariots of fire; not human agency, but divine power available in this situation. So we go on:

"As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, "Strike these people with blindness." So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked. Elisha told them, "This is not the road and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are looking for." And he led them to Samaria. After they entered the city, Elisha said, "Lord, open the eyes of these men so they can see." Then the Lord opened their eyes and they looked, and there they were, inside Samaria."

How does God actually deal with this situation? Well first of all, God uses the prophet who is there. Elisha is in the right spot. He has faith. He does the right thing and he prays and God uses that, that specific prayer to strike them with blindness and it's not only blindness, but its incredible stupidity as well, because they are not only blind, but they are willing to follow this person that they can't see. So this is a profound spiritual blindness as well. They are just ready to go anywhere. They are not even thinking and then they find themselves right in the middle of Israel's power. So what happens:

"When the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, "Shall I kill them, my father? Shall I kill them?" "Do not kill them," he answered. "Would you kill men you have captured with your own sword or bow? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master." So he prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel's territory."

This battle is won without a single person losing their lives. Elisha is totally protected. Israel is totally protected. It's a very unusual moment and these people their lives are spared and they go back and Aram stops attacking, because they have totally been outmatched by something mysterious and they don't even understand how it happened, because God intervened with unseen spiritual power. Spiritual, unseen, but real. Invisible does not mean unreal.

There is good news here; part of the good news that is here is that some of our greatest victories as people and as a church won't be because we have our act together, because we are strong and smart and ready for anything, but because God has given us unseen resources, real resources that matter and he is gracious in using them on our behalf. And this is the perspective of the whole New Testament. We live in a reality that is basically spiritual and Jesus Christ has total authority over it. So I would like to go to the New Testament now and look at one such passage. It is in the Book of Ephesians, but in the first chapter. George was looking at a different chapter. We are in chapter one now. We are going to begin at Verse 18 and go through Verse 23.

"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way."

In the Old Testament Elisha prayed, "Lord open his eyes." Here in the New Testament Paul is praying the same prayer for us, Open the eyes of our heart that we might see some real things that are not visible through our normal eyes. He prays that we might see the hope to which we have been called and the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. We have been called to a hope that Jesus Christ has won for us. There is a day coming when all of creation will be united in harmony and unity under one Lord, Jesus Christ. Every knee shall bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord and we have a hope that's rooted in that event, in that day. We can't see it. We not only have a hope there, but we have an inheritance there. Part of that future belongs to us and we belong to Jesus. We are his inheritance. This is real even though we can't see it.

And then he talks about his incomparably great power at work for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him above every power and dominion, every name, every title in this age and also in the age to come; power like that that we can't see, but it is real and we can see its effects even if we can't see the root of the power. Our eyes need to be open and it's a spiritual thing that God has to do in us, because it's not something we see with our natural eyes. And so that means that we have to have a biblical worldview. Our eyes need to be open to a biblical Christian view of how to see reality around us and the reality of evil. And so I want to give four points about seeing evil through a Christian world view.

The first one is evil is, at its root, spiritual and too great for us to overcome. That is the first part of a Christian spiritual world view. The root of evil is ultimately spiritual. There is a real Satan. There are real demonic forces. There are spiritual roots for evil in the world. It does not mean that there is a demon in every corner or anything like that, but it does mean that there are spiritual realities we don't see and that there are things that we have to bring to God that don't just respond to our intelligence or our will; all the way from personal problems to political problems. These things can be made worse by unseen spiritual reality. It doesn't mean we go around saying "the devil made me do it." It doesn't mean that we see the demonic in every corner. It's not like that. But what it means is that we are wise about the way we act and we are willing to admit when there is more than meets the eye. So just as the astrophysicists look at the effects and notice that there are things happening that demand an explanation in the unseen physical world there are times when we need to be looking at what happens around us and understand that there are causes behind that that are in the unseen spiritual world. And all of this involves powers that are too great for us to overcome on our own. In our natural state it's overwhelming. We are lost the scripture says. We are dead. We are slaves. Those are all words the scripture uses for us, but that is not the last point.

The second point here is that Jesus came to overcome evil and he has overcome evil. 1st John 3:8 says, "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devils work." There is a lot of times we walk around as if what Jesus came to do was to make sure we could be forgiven, but basically to leave us in the same state we were before; just as weak, just as much in bondage with no more impact than we would have had otherwise. That is not true. He has come to destroy the works of the devil. He is looking forward to the day when all creation is eradicated of evil and he is resolutely working toward that and right now and that is what the day of the Lord when Jesus comes back; that's what it is all about, is the final cleansing. Even now he longs for and he works towards destroying the work of the devil. He wants to destroy the grip of unseen powers in society and in our lives. He wants to eradicate the evil behavior in our lives. He wants to heal the effects in our lives of evil. He wants to forgive yes, but he wants to radically change the world and bring it under God's full control. Nothing less will satisfy Jesus.

The third point; evil cannot be overcome by human goodwill and moral teaching, but only by the power of God given to us by the Holy Spirit. Teaching is important. All of the service we do is a powerful thing, but only as a tool of the Holy Spirit in his power; apart from that it does not accomplish anything lasting. What did Jesus say? Jesus said, "I am the vine. You are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing." Jesus said that and he meant it. We need to be equipped by God to fight the battles that we are a part of. We've got to use our goodwill. We've got to use our moral teaching. We've got to use our energy. We've got to use our service. We've got to use our organization, but God first and foremost wants us subject to him, empowered by his spirit and ready to listen.

Which brings up the fourth point. We have to become channels to heal and free people, first and foremost by prayer. Now prayer almost always will lead to some kind of action. Prayer may lead us to change something in our lives. Prayer may lead us to have a difficult conversation with someone we just don't want to talk to about this. Prayer might lead us to forgive someone, to serve in a new way. Prayer may lead us to even write a letter to our congressman or vote a certain way, but prayer is the first step of being a channel of God's unseen power to heal and deliver.

And so, that means prayer is not trivial. Prayer is not weak just because it deals with the unseen. Prayer is not weak. To be invisible does not mean that it is unreal. I struggle with that. Sometimes my attitude is like something I read on a fortune cookie once. I opened up the fortune cookie and this is what it said and I have remembered it because it had me pegged. "Pray for what you want, but work for the things you need." If it is negotiable, if it's not that important yeah pray about it, but if it is really important you are going to have to do it for yourself, because we can't depend on anything bigger than that.

It's very easy to fall in to that sort of mindset and that is so different than what John Piper says. John Piper is a pastor; this is not an accurate quote, but he is talking about prayer, as being a conversation with God and this is what he teaches about this conversation. "Prayer is not a domestic intercom with God. Rather, it's a walkie-talkie bringing unlimited fire power to bear in the war that we face." It's so easy to deal with prayer as a little intercom where we can let God kind of know how we are feeling, maybe get a little bit of encouragement back, but of no real power and use. Instead, it's a walkie-talkie in the hands of a soldier calling in fire power to do decisive things in a battle that we are a part of; a spiritual battle. Prayer in action. Prayer full action. Prayer leading to action, but always prayer with that action. And that's a different way of looking at things because its so easy to believe that if it is invisible its not really real.

Now, in human relationships, if we are going to recognize these powers that means we approach some things differently. Let me give you an example. Debbie and I argue sometimes. I know it's a surprise to you, but there have been a few times in our relationship that the argument starts to get out of hand, it starts to escalate and the normal skills that we use, the normal care for one another seems to go out of the window and it gets worse and worse and in these situations there have been times that Debbie or I have stopped things for a moment and said, "We've got to pray about this. This isn't normal" and we will stop, we will consciously submit ourselves afresh to God, we will confess our role in what's happening and we will oppose the work of the evil one in our relationship.

I can't tell you how many times that has decisively broken a pattern that was escalating in our relationship. And it also has happened at times when you can just see how it was spiritual opposition. I can remember one time Debbie and I were slated the following weekend to be talking in a conference, in a Christian conference about relationships and communication and the week before we were having a rip-snorting fight, I mean it is wild, great examples and we stopped and we prayed and it was broken. And that was part of what we had to remember that we needed to share the following weekend, is the spiritual unseen component to even the struggles we have in our own relationships.

It affects churches as well. When a church is beginning to do something new and effective in reaching out all kinds of problems can occur; technical problems, relational problems, divisions, even violence. Now there is all kinds of subtle ways this happens, but I am going to give you an example that is not subtle at all. Last night I was talking to a pastor named Alan Gorman who goes to India occasionally to be part of a teaching team to help teach Indian pastors and he feels totally unprepared for this, because the pastors there have had experiences with God that he has just never had and he talks about one Indian leader that he got a chance to meet and to get to know who said that when he was originally planting a church in India he was preaching inside the building they were using as a church when 12 men came in and beat him nearly to death in front of the people who were there. People prayed for him and he prayed.

Within about three days he was well enough, almost totally healed the way that he had the courage to walk back to that place and preach again, but that is not the end of the story. In the next few weeks seven of the ten people who attacked him died mysteriously; they died of illnesses, they died in accidents and such a level of fear came over the survivors that they came to him, they became Christians and now years later they are leaders in the church. Now folks, we've only got a few choices here; either the guy is making up a story because he's got an American that might believe it or he killed them; a very sneaky guy got away with seven murders or it's a coincidence. Wow, what a coincidence; people attack you and within weeks they are dead. What a coincidence or God sovereignly brought judgment and salvation through power entirely under his control; unseen power, unseen resources. Just because it is invisible doesn't mean it's unreal.

We have a vision; moving people towards Christ where we live, work and play. What are the tools we are going to use to do this? Is it going to be our great personality; well that wipes out about a third of us right there. Is it our incredible intelligence? Our ability to argue with people in such a constructive way? Our lack of fatigue in serving under any circumstances? It's bigger than that. It's light and dark. It's death and life. It's the power of Satan and the power of God. We need unseen resources if we are going to be seriously in this battle. But we are unable to face that in the power that we have inside of us naturally, but we are not alone. Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the devil. He is victorious. He is seated at the right hand of God. He is far above all rule and authority, power and dominion and every title that can be given in this age and also the age to come. Jesus Christ has won the battle. It is Jesus that calls us in to the battle and he gives us gives us unseen, but real and powerful resources to fight those battles and to pull down strongholds. To see these resources, to see the effect of these resources in our own lives and the lives of people around us we are going to have to learn how to pray. We are going to have to learn to pray in levels that we have never prayed before. Just because it's invisible doesn't mean it is not real.

Let's pray. God, you know where we are; open our eyes, help us to see the unseen resources that you give us in Jesus Christ, for our lives and for the lives of the people around us, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2007, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org