Gateway Church's Podcast
Reality
Well, open your Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 6, and as you open your Bibles, I want to tell you that a lot of preachers preach sermons that they have learned this great experience with God. They've had this great revelation, and so they come and they tell the people of God, "Here's what I learned. I want you to be able to experience this victory the way that I did, and I want to be honest enough with you this morning to tell you that this is not to be one of those sermons. I have years ago, I thought I had a really good grasp on what I want to talk to you about today. I'm going to talk about handling adversity. And years ago, I really thought that I knew how to do this God's way, and recently God has honored me deeply by giving me yet another opportunity to learn this great lesson. And so can you hear that I'm thanking God through the greeting of my teeth? That's where it starts as long as we thank God. But I do believe that I come to you today as a fellow struggler, but I also believe that I have a word from God for you. And so let's open our hearts, and let's read together from the word of God, 2 Kings chapter 6. We're going to begin reading in verse 8. Now the king of Syria was making war against Israel, and he consulted with his servants, saying, "My camp will be in such and such a place." And the man of God sent to the king of Israel, saying, "Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are coming down there." And then the king of Israel sent someone to the place of which the man of God had told him, thus he warned him, and he was watchful there, not just once or twice. Let me tell you what's going on here. This is not the kind of warfare that we're used to seeing in the Old Testament, the kind like when you saw David in Goliath fight, and Israel was on one side, and the Philistines were at the other side, this is not that kind of warfare. This is an ambush kind of a warfare. And so what they would do is they would send troops down to a secret location, and when the Israelite army would come by, they would slaughter as many as they could, and then they would run back to a safe place, and then they would hide out and do it again. And so Elisha sent word to the king of Israel to say, "This is where the ambush is set up." And when he says, "This happened not just once or twice. This is actually an Aramaic figure of speech that means that it happened so often it could not be confused to be coincidental. So I'm guessing 12, 15, 20 times maybe that this happened. You've got the picture. Verse 11, "Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing." And he called his servants and said to them, "Will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?" In other words, there's a snitch here. Someone's guilty of espionage, and I want to know who it is. And rather, matter of fact, one of his servants says in verse 12, "None, my lord of king, but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom." So he said, "Go and see where he is, that I may sin and get him." And it was told him saying, "Surely he is in Dothan, therefore he sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city." And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army surrounding the city with horses and chariots, and his servants said to him, "Alas, my master, what shall we do?" The actual Hebrew says, "Our goose is cooked." That's what that means. And so he answered in church, "I want you to read this aloud with me. Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Read it again like you mean it. Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. I want you to know this is always true. This is always true. Those who are with you are more than those who are against you. And Elisha prayed and said, "Lord, I pray open his eyes that he may see." And then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw him, "Behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." I want to visit with you this morning about three ways to see. And the first way to see is through the servant's reality. It's the lowest level of reality that's available to us. It is real, but there are greater realities. I want to tell you that if all we ever see is our circumstances, that it will not be long until our lives really come to resemble an episode of 24. There's no way out of this one. And if you ever think that, the enemy of your soul will come and whisper into your situation. See there, if you were really a child of God, this would not be happening to you. Everyone's going to know the truth about you now. Here's one that I hear. You'll never fulfill your destiny now. You know, we really do have an enemy and he loves to stir it up for us. And if he ever decided to take a vacation, well, we've always got ourselves, do we not? We have a tendency to make trouble for ourselves, don't we? Do you know there's a third source of our troubles? Do you know that God often leads us into trouble when he's preparing us for greatness? Now you may be thinking to yourself, well, my God would never treat me that way. We'll go talk to Elisha about that, yell that down to Daniel in the lion's den. Because anytime the Lord decides that he's going to train someone for greatness, he will often lead them into trouble. And often it can be a very disconcerting way to go through this life. One of the things that catches us most surprised about this is that all of us have been taught that the safest place on Earth is right in the center of God's will. Do you believe that? I want to tell you that the safest place on Earth is in the center of God's will. But dear friends, do not ever mistake the center of God's will as a place that is free from trouble because it's simply not. Psalm 105 verse 24 says this, "He increased his people greatly and made them stronger than their enemies. He turned their heart to hate his people to deal craftily with his servants." Now leave that up just for a moment. It says he turned their heart to hate his people. Who is their heart? It's the enemy, isn't it? Who is the he? God? God turned the enemy's heart to hate his people. Listen friends, this is one of the ways God works in our lives. Here's what he does. Verse 24 says he builds us up until we're strong enough to win a battle and then he goes and he picks a fight for us. That's what it says. I'm not sure I like it. But that's what it says. It comes to us often as a severe mercy. Do you know that the devil is no problem for God to defeat? But he loves to see us do it. And so he builds us up and he trains us and then he picks a fight for us. Do you realize that right this moment, the Lord our God has the ability to completely bail us out of whatever trouble that we're in right now. He has the ability to do that. Before we leave the room this morning, God has the sovereignty and the power and the authority to completely bail us out of whatever troubles us right now. You know why he doesn't do that? Because he loves us. And in his wisdom, he knows that would not be best for us. And friends, we have got to get settled in our hearts that the Lord our God will only act in ways that are best for us. He's never malicious, he's always kind, he's always gracious, he's always good to us. Listen to what Hebrews 12 says, beginning in verse 7, it says, "And dear a hardship is discipline, God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you're not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the father of our spirits and live? Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Now for some reason we who have been in church for some time, whenever we hear the word discipline, we hear the word punishment. I think we've got this view of God that he's sort of got this little edgy thing going. He's a little bit ticked at us and he just sort of keeps that most of the time. I think in our brain we know better than that, but when we hear the word discipline that's what we hear, let me reorient you a little bit. Where you hear the word discipline, think of the words to disciple. That's where it comes from. There are three parts to discipline. There's training, there's correction, and there's punishment. When you're training, you don't punish unless there's disobedience. But do you realize that this word for discipline actually means to train a very small child? That's what it means. But when we undergo some trouble, it feels to us really like a severe mercy. Years ago, the Lord decided that I needed some discipleship, that I needed to be trained in some key areas. I was raised in a denomination that doesn't believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, angels and demons, the modern day work of God, just like in the book of Acts. I was raised to not believe that. I read the Bible. I just didn't see it for today. God decided that I needed to be discipled. I had finished a year of seminary, and I was thinking about becoming a missionary, and a good friend of mine was training to move to South Africa to become a missionary, and he said, "Hey, let's go to Africa for the summer." We loaded up, and we left for three months for Africa, and we spent a full half of that way up in the bush in Botswana. So one night, I'm sound asleep in my bed, and I am startled awake from a very disturbing dream, and right next to my bed is a demon, and I didn't even believe in him. Even more deep in my knower, I knowed he was there. You know what I'm saying? And there was no mistake. It was the filthiest, most vile, evil, wicked presence I had ever sensed in my life. And for five and a half hours, I lay there. I'm not one given to fear. I've got my issues, but fear's not one of mine. But I lay there for five and a half hours, trembling, saying, "In the name of Jesus, get out. In the name of Jesus, get out. Wouldn't get out." Finally, the sun came up, and it thing left, and I went back to sleep. Now here is the real problem. I had no one that I could talk to about this. I didn't know a soul on earth that believed in such things. I couldn't talk to one of my seminary professors, because they would have thought I had a screw loose. And so for five years, I held that story. No one I could talk to about it. And finally, I met a guy that seemed to know about such things, and I said, "Let me tell you what happened to me one time." I said, "In the name of Jesus, get out for five and a half hours, and it didn't get out. Why is that?" And he said, "Oh, that's easy." And I said, "Well, please do tell." But curious for a while, and he said, "The reason it wouldn't leave is because you were afraid." Now listen, I had read the Bible, but God saw that I needed to be expanded. And so he brought me in to one of the most miserable night of my entire life in order to teach me a lesson. Let me tell you three things about the discipline of God. Here's how you know that it's the discipline of God. One is it will happen when you are right in the center of God's will. Elisha hadn't disobeyed God. He hadn't moved out from under his covering. No willful sin there. He was right where he was supposed to be. Number two, you don't get yourself into it, and you can't get yourself out. There's no way that Elisha could have gotten himself out of that situation. It was simply the discipline of God. Here's the third thing. It will be a direct contradiction to the calling that's on your life. One of the callings on Elisha's life was that he would alert the King of Israel to where the enemy was. Now the enemy was about to kill him. Think about Abram. God said, "Abrum, go to the land of Canaan, and I'll cause you to prosper." And as soon as he gets to Canaan, what happens? There's a famine. You live off the land, you are not going to prosper when there's a famine. At some point, every one of us have to learn that the safest place on earth is with God, not in our circumstances. And the Lord our God is jealous that we find our security in him alone and not in the safety of our circumstances. That's what God is really after. And so he often will bring us to a place of crisis in order to get at something that's lodged in our hearts. If we're ever going to accomplish everything that God has for us, we cannot be made to mistrust God when our circumstances go south. God can always be trusted. He can always be trusted. But we've got to be able to see beyond our circumstances, and that brings us to the second way to see, and that's the prophet's reality. Now the servant saw the lowest level of reality that there was. Elisha was able to see that there are more for me than there are against me. Now listen, here's why this is so important, because Jesus said that the ability to see beyond your circumstances is one of the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Do you want to partake of one of the mysteries of the kingdom of God? We've got to lift up our eyes. Listen to what happened in Matthew 13 beginning in verse 10. The disciples came and said to him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?" He answered and said to them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has to him more will be given, and he will have abundance, but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing that they do not see and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, "Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive." Now verse 15 is key, listen to this, "For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are heart of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears lest they should understand with their hearts in turn, so that I should heal them." Now you've got to hear in that God's desire to heal people, but he says one of the reasons I cannot heal them is because their hearts are dull. That's what prevents us from seeing reality. And Jesus went so far to say in verse 15 that they have closed their own eyes to what's real. If you and I ever come to understand that beyond what we can see, that God is working on our behalf, we have come to partake of a mystery of the kingdom. John Piper says, "God does a thousand things in one thing. Elisha didn't have to see it to know it was there. There's no indication in the text that Elisha saw the army." And I think it's more real to assume he didn't see it, but he didn't have to, because he saw with different eyes than the servant did. Now listen friends, we have got to know that this is always true, that those who are for us are more than those who are against us, but if our eyes are only open to our circumstances, they will be closed to the truth of this reality. Do you know two things that all of us need? One thing is friends, we need friends. Friends bring comfort, friends bring encouragement, God gives us friends for holy purposes. You know the second thing we all need is an enemy. We need an enemy. An enemy creates adversity, and every time you encounter adversity, God is offering you a promotion. You cannot judge what is real, based on what you see. Napoleon said this, that the goal of warfare is victory. The goal of victory is occupation. And God wants to bring us into a place where we can occupy what we once had to fight for. Now listen, what I have found is that most people allow comfort to direct what they see rather than letting faith direct what they see. And if you and I allow comfort to direct what we see rather than faith, we will tolerate our limitations. And if we tolerate our limitations, we are making friends with God's enemies. He comes to us often as a gift of God in disguise. And it comes to introduce us to what is on the inside of us. We have got to pick our eyes up and see what is really going on. But I want to tell you, there is a third way to see. And that is God's reality. Now let me tell you what I mean by this. The servants saw the lowest level of reality possible. It was real, but it was only what he could see naturally. Elisha was able to see that in this situation, that more are for me than are against me. Here's what God was able to see. God was able to see the big picture. Here's what that means for you and me. That in this situation, God has things for you to learn. And if you will learn the things that are available in this trial, that there is a very strategic place of ministry that God will bring you into at some point in the future. You see, God doesn't waste anything. And when he teaches us a lesson, he's always building it up and saving it for a very strategic plan that he has in the future. And that's God's reality. And this is really available to all of us. Listen to what 1 Corinthians 2 says, beginning in verse 9 says, and you're all familiar with this. However, as it is written, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. And we stop reading right there, but look at what verse 10 says, but God has revealed it to us by a spirit. Listen friends, you're being invited into God's reality. God is willing to talk to you about the big picture. And here's what he will reveal to you, that there is always, always more going on than you can see with your eyes. When you go through some trying situation, this is God's seminary and he is training you for greatness. And the extent of which you and I learn the lessons that are available to us right now will be the very extent to which God brings us very strategically into a place of ministry with these things later. You know the devil will always come and challenge you for what's sacred to God. And what's sacred to God is not just your life. Whenever the devil comes against you, he's after you, he's after your testimony, and he's after the ministry that God wants to bring you into at some point in the future. And if we will get our eyes up long enough off of our situation to realize, you know what? God's doing something great here. God will be able to teach us and shape us and mold us and make us more into the image of Jesus. You know, in the Bible, the people who did the greatest things for God were the people who encountered the most trial. We simply cannot give our circumstances power over how we think and feel about God. About six months ago, my wife and I entered into a very difficult situation personally. To God's grace and His kindness, our marriage has only grown stronger in the midst of this. We're not out of it yet. But about last September, I got to where I was so in turmoil over this thing that I would go to bed at night, I'd sleep for a couple hours and I'd get up and I was a lot awake, I couldn't sleep because I was just wrestling. And every night when I got up to pray, it was always the same prayer, "God, you can fix this. You're able, God, God, your power can take care of this. Please get me out of this, God, and God didn't move." I started getting mad at God. And one night I got up and I did the same thing, happened almost every night and I got up and I went into our study and I began to pray. And 30 minutes into my prayer I realized I hadn't prayed one time about the situation. I was really surprised at what I heard myself pray, but here was my prayer. God the revelation that I have of Jesus is insufficient to see me through this struggle. I need more of Jesus. And in His kindness, He took me over to 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 18 that says, "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." That word for knowledge means literally experience, experience. It's the kind of knowledge that you have after you experience something. And it occurred to me, I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box, but listen, I got this one. Listen to me. Maybe the struggle that I'm in is not really about the struggle that I'm in. You know, isn't it interesting that if you read through the prayers in the Bible, it seems that they never say God spare your people from troubling circumstances. That's not the way the apostles prayed. That's not the way Jesus prayed. But the prayer center around is this, God, we need to know you better. So give me the wisdom not to waste this trial on trivialities, but that in this trial that you would accomplish for me the greatest thing that I could imagine and that is coming to know you better. You know what you and I really need right now? More than anything else is not that all of our problems would go away. It's the greatest that would be. You know what we really need? We need to know God better. And friends, inside of this difficulty you're in right now, the hand of God has extended to you for that very purpose. That's what God's after. Most people would testify that they did come to know God better in trial than they did when things were easy. And so how God gets us ready for what He has prepared for us is He gives us opportunities, circumstances which are excruciating at times so we can come to know Him better. You know when things go badly we have a choice. We can lay down and die or we can trust the Lord our God. And I want to tell you this morning that God can always be trusted even in the worst of times God is a faithful God. He will never leave you, He will never forsake you, He will come and get you, He will redeem you, He is your friend, He's the best friend that you'll ever find. Don't form a judgment about God based on what you're going through because that is not a true picture of who He really is. You know I really believe that where God wants to bring all of us is to the place where we can pray this prayer. God please don't let this thing end until I learn everything that you have for me to learn in this trial. That's what God is after. And I want to tell you that often before you're greatest miracle you will fight your greatest battle. Let's bow our heads.