COMPASSION FOR THE BLIND
ELISHA: PROPHET OF COMPASSION AND CONFRONTATION
by Ron Ritchie
I want to introduce to you a friend and Christian brother, Walt Heyer, who
as a Christian became spiritually blind. As all of us do, he had to turn
back to the Lord Jesus, the only one who could give him back his spiritual
sight, so that he could become the whole person God intended him to be in
the first place.
Walt Heyer:
Have you ever thought that you had made such a mess of your life that you
could never again face your family or friends? I felt that way eleven years
ago and for years afterward. Let me explain.
I was an executive with a $400 million corporation, married with two children,
and living what looked to be a very nice life. But my mind had been unbuttoned
and twisted by confusion over who I was. I could not get a grasp on my confused
and twisted mind.
Here is yet another testimony of the destructive power of child abuse. My
father used a hardwood floor plank for enforcement of discipline, and my
mother always called me bad names that she shouted at the top of her lungs.
My grandmother enjoyed dressing me as a female. When my uncle found out
my grandmother had cross-dressed me, he began to tease me and sexually abuse
me. All this took place before I was ten years old. To cope with the abuse,
I developed a second personality named Crystal who would escape the abuse.
But the consequences of this twisted confusion would come thirty-three years
later when I was diagnosed as a transsexual. To eliminate the twisted confusion,
sex change surgery would be required. I wanted the confusion that had tormented
me all my life to go away, so in 1983 the surgery was performed. Walt Heyer,
male, became Laura Jensen, female. That is when the mess started to get
so big that I lost my career, my wife, my children, and my friends.
My inability to get hold of the twisted confusion was complicated by the
fact that I was a high-functioning alcoholic who also used cocaine to cope.
In 1986 as the female personality Laura Jensen, I entered an alcohol recovery
home in San Mateo. Four months of in-home treatment has worked to provide
over eight years of recovery now.
But the surgery changing my sex did not eliminate the twisted confusion.
And it was not until 1991, eight years after the surgery, that a new diagnosis
of my case was made. Over the six months beginning on July 21, seven prominent
Ph.D.s and psychiatric doctors agreed that I was not nor had I ever been
a transsexual, but had always suffered from multiple personality disorder.
As an abused child I had developed sixteen fragmented personalities, some
female and some male. But one thing was for sure: the very destructive transsexual
surgery was in error.
By 1986 it had become very clear that I needed to affirm my relationship
with Christ. And this time I need to entrust my life to him. Opening my
eyes to Christ came the hard way. I had accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior
in 1976, but I had failed to completely trust him. At the time I didn't
make the connection between accepting him and the necessity of entrusting
my life to him. I placed more trust in my alcohol-soaked brain to make the
best choices for my life, when I needed to do nothing but open my eyes to
Christ and trust him.
But opening my eyes to Christ is what has made it possible to restore the
personality of Walt Heyer, male. I have not yet been able to restore my
life financially because of my experiences. It has been difficult to impossible
for employers to provide me an opportunity to work in a position at or near
my skill and experience level. But prayers continue.
I choose not to blame the childhood abuse for my troubles, nor do I blame
the doctors for their misdiagnosis of transsexualism. I don't blame alcoholism
or drug addiction, either. The responsibility for the problems that destroyed
my life is mine alone. At the core of my failure was accepting Christ without
trusting him.
It took the total destruction of my life and then my recovery from alcoholism
for Paul's great prayer to become a reality for me: "...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." (Ephesians 1:18-19.)
Thank you for allowing me to share my experience and faith with you. Please
keep me in your prayers.
As Walt had the eyes of his heart opened to the truth of God so we all need
to be given spiritual eyes to not only be able to see ourselves as God sees
us, but to be able to walk by faith in Him and experience the "invisible
realities" so we can be used by Him in a world that is blind to his
life and love. In this message we want to see how God is able to give us
eyes to see into the world of the Spirit and then give us eyes to see all
those around us who are spiritually blind and show them the compassion of
our Lord Jesus. But first a little context.
In 2 Kings 6:1-7 is a wonderful, touching story of how the present and powerful
Jehovah was willing to be involved with his prophets even in the daily pressures
of life. Elisha and the other prophets went from Samaria down to the Jordan
River to cut down some trees in order to build a new meeting hall. During
the cutting, one of the men dropped a borrowed ax-head in the river. He
came to Elisha and told him about his accident and wondered if he could
be of any help. Elisha asked him to show him the spot where it fell in.
When he did, Elisha threw a stick at the spot, and the metal ax head rose
to the surface of the river and was retrieved. This is an illustration from
the Old Testament of the way our Lord Jesus is also willing to enter into
the daily lives of his children: "Cast all your anxiety on him because
he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7).
But in spite of that peaceful scene down by the Jordan river, Aram was once
again at war with Israel.
The eyes of the Lord
2 Kings 6:8-10
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.
From time to time war would break out between Aram and Israel. In this case
roving bands of soldiers from Aram were testing the strength of Israel;
eventually they would begin a full siege of Samaria (see 2 Kings 6:24).
The same situation exists today as roving bands of guerrillas from Lebanon
in the north keep slipping into Israel. In 852-841 BC Joram (Jeroboam) I,
the son of Ahab and Jezebel, was the reigning king of Israel, and Ben-Hadad
II was the king of Aram. Ben-Hadad was sending out his spies, and based
on their information and the wisdom of the various commanders, he would
then move his army to make contact with Israel. But every time the Aramean
army arrived at what should have been a classic location for an ambush,
no one else showed up!
The prophet Elisha was residing in Dothan, as we will see, and God continued
to reside in the heavenlies but remained very interested in his people.
"...The eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that
He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His" (2 Chronicles
16:9). (There was a spiritual remnant in the land, but the majority of Jews
were trying to worship both Jehovah and Baal. Elisha was seeking to woo
them back to Jehovah.) So in this time of war, God once again stepped into
time and space and by divine revelation informed Elisha of every plan that
King Ben-Hadad made. The prophet in turn would tell King Joram, who would
then check out the information. Finding it truthful, he was able to avoid
one deadly conflict after another.
A hundred years earlier David had written a song (Psalm 59) about the time
Saul was sending out men to kill him:
"Deliver me from my enemies, O my God;
Set me securely on high away from those who rise up against me.
Deliver me from those who do iniquity,
And save me from men of bloodshed.
For behold, they have set an ambush for my life;
Fierce men launch an attack against me...
Arouse Thyself to help me, and see!
...For God is my stronghold.
My God in His lovingkindness will meet me;
God will let me look triumphantly upon my foes...
For Thou hast been my stronghold,
And a refuge in the day of my distress."
Would that Israel had had the heart of David toward God. Would that we had
the heart of David toward God in the midst of our spiritual warfare!
President Clinton's crime bill was defeated last week, and it put him into
a depressed mood. According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle
with the headline "Clinton Says He Needs Prayers," our president
went to the Full Gospel African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Temple
Hills, MD last Sunday. He said, "I ask you to pray and to speak to
your friends and neighbors and to hope somehow we will all find the wisdom
and judgment to come back and do the will of God in our ministry, which
is to make you as safe as we possibly can." Regardless of what you
think of all the contents of the crime bill, the role of government according
to Romans 13 is to be the sword of the Lord toward wrongdoers. Our communities
are becoming overwhelmed by wrongdoers, and the leader of our nation has
asked us to pray for him. In the spirit of David we need to support him
in prayer as we trust God to deal with the violence and crime in our communities.
The man of God
2 Kings 6:11-17
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.
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.
"Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with
us are more than those who are with them."
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.
Ben-Hadad finally assembled his officers and yelled out at them, "Which
of us is on the side the king of Israel?" He was sure there was a spy
in the camp. It is amazing that the men knew what was really going on when
the king did not. But one of the king's officers told him what it appeared
most of them knew: None of them was disloyal or even a spy; the truth was
that Elisha the prophet of God knew every word the king spoke in his bedroom,
and he would turn around and tell the king of Israel; and then the king
would move his army out of harm's way.
Finally Ben-Hadad's failures on the battlefield all made sense: Elisha was
the eyes and ears of Israel. So the next plan was to find and capture this
prophet. The word came that he was residing in the small city of Dothan
("Two Wells"), which was about ten miles north of the capital,
Samaria. (Dothan was the same city where Joseph's brothers had sold him
into slavery [1850 BC; see Genesis 37:17-28].) So Ben-Hadad sent a large
part of his army including men, horses, and chariots down to that city and
surrounded it.
The next morning Elisha's new servant got up, had a cup of coffee, walked
out to the front garden, looked up to the hills, and was shocked to see
them covered with men from Aram who had surrounded the city with their horses
and chariots. Fear gripped his heart, and as he ran back into the house
he cried out to Elisha: "Oh, my master, what shall we do?"
I personally find that for many Christians in the western church, fear is
our first reaction when we feel surrounded by the enemy. And then we too
ask, "What shall we do?" On the political battlefield, the liberal
party is saying that the religious right is a scary group of people, and
those in the religious right are saying that they are surrounded by the
liberals who are going to take away all their rights. Fear rules the day
on both sides. On the social battlefield, the gays and straights are lining
up against each other and the anti-abortion folks are lining up against
the pro-choice groups. The Hispanic gangs are lining up against the Asian
gangs, the neo-Nazis are lining up against the blacks, and the blacks are
lining up against the Jews. In the religious arena conservatives are lining
up against the liberals over the social gospel versus the gospel of salvation,
the positions of men and women within the church, and whether the word of
God is really the word of God.
With hearts filled with fear, each side is crying out, "What shall
we do?" When we feel outgunned, outnumbered, and outwitted, whether
it be on the political, social, or religious battlefield, and our hearts
are filled with the temptation to give in to fear, we need to go back into
the Scriptures to see what men and women of God did in similar situations.
Moses: The prophet could see the Egyptian army chasing the people of Israel
as they were leaving the land of slavery. The people were terrified and
wished they had stayed in Egypt rather than coming out to die in the desert.
But Moses had had the privilege of having a conversation with God, face-to-burning-bush.
He had had the privilege of seeing and realizing that there is life and
God beyond the physical world. He was invited into eternity while living
in the desert of Sinai. He was given spiritual eyes to see that behind history
stood God Almighty, and no daily event was out of his control no matter
how frightening it appeared at the moment. So because of his spiritual eyesight,
Moses was able to say with full confidence, "Do not be afraid. Stand
firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The
Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for
you; you need only to be still." (Exodus 14:13-14.)
Deborah: Israel had sinned against God during the days of the judges, so
the Lord sold them into the hands of the Canaanites; and they were ruled,
intimidated, and treated cruelly by Sisera the commander of the army with
his nine hundred iron chariots. Finally after twenty years of this cruel
oppression, the people cried to the Lord for help (they stepped into eternity).
The unseen but always spiritually present Lord heard the cry of his people
and sent help in the person of Deborah the prophetess, who was leading Israel
at that time. In the strength and wisdom of the Lord Jehovah, she was able
to form a plan that placed Sisera and his nine hundred iron chariots in
the dry river beds on Mount Tabor. Then the Lord caused a heavy rain to
fall, and the chariots were stuck in the mud and run-off, forcing the army
to flee on foot. That enabled Barak to destroy Sisera's whole army. (See
Judges 4.) Deborah broke out into a victory song, of which this is one verse
(Judges 5:3):
"Hear this, you kings! Listen, you rulers!
I will sing to the LORD, I will sing;
I will make music to the LORD, the God of Israel."
Israel experienced victory over their enemies because they were finally
given the spiritual eyes to see that their only hope after twenty years
of oppression was to turn to the invisible but always present God of Israel.
Hezekiah: He was king of Judah 715-687 BC, a good king in the eyes of the
Lord. He found himself and the city of Jerusalem surrounded by the Assyrian
army of 185,000 soldiers. He went to the Lord in the temple (he stepped
into eternity) and prayed that God would deliver his people. Then he gathered
his people and said with the eyes of faith, "'Do not be afraid or discouraged
because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is
a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh,
but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles.' And
the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said"
(2 Chronicles 32:7-8). Then the Lord sent his angel among the Assyrian army,
and 185,000 men died. Victory is "'not by might nor by power, but by
my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty" (Zechariah 4:6).
So Elisha told his servant, "Don't be afraid. Those who are with us
are more than those who are with them." A thousand years earlier Jacob,
just before he was to wrestle with God and then meet his brother Esau, was
met by a large army of angels, and he named the place Mahanaim, which means
"double camp" or "double host;" the camp of God and
the camp of Jacob, two worlds of beings co-existing (see Genesis 32:2).
"The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him,
And rescues them." (Psalm 34:7.)
Elisha prayed to the one and only living God of Israel, "O LORD, open
his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord answered his prophet's prayer
and opened the servant's eyes. And when he looked out he saw the same hills
full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
The breathing dead around us see only with physical eyes and live out their
lives based on what they can see alone. But the Scriptures are filled with
the truth that the physical realm is not all there is, for God is Spirit
and rules within the spirit world as well as in time and space. Paul later
encouraged the Corinthian church, "...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" (2 Corinthians 4:17). The prayer that all of us
need to pray in times of fear and distress is, "O Lord, open my eyes
that I may see spiritually what is really going on around me. What are you
doing behind the curtains of history? And how should I react to my current
stress?"
What did the servant of Elisha see? He saw the hills filled with horses
and chariots of fire (not material fire, but the glory and brightness of
celestial beings when made visible to man). David wrote (Psalm 68:17),
"The chariots of God are tens of thousands
and thousands of thousands...."
Zechariah the prophet would write three hundred years later (520 BC), "I
looked up again---and there before me were four chariots coming out from
between two mountains---mountains of bronze! The first chariot had red horses,
the second black, the third white, and the fourth dappled---all of them
powerful. I asked the angel who was speaking to me, 'What are these, my
lord?' The angel answered me, 'These are the four spirits of heaven, going
out from standing in the presence of the LORD of the whole world'"
(Zechariah 6:1-7.) The chariots of fire that Elisha's servant saw were similar
to the ones that had taken Elijah along with the whirlwind to heaven and
would eventually be mentioned at the death of Elisha himself (see 2 Kings
2:11-12, 13:14). The servant saw the powerful army of God positioned to
protect his prophet and his people, and if necessary to defeat their enemies
on earth.
There is another song of David that should become ours in times of threat
and fear (Psalm 118:5-8):
"From my distress I called upon the LORD;
The LORD answered me and set me in a large place.
The LORD is for me; I will not fear;
What can man do to me?
...It is better to take refuge in the LORD
Than to trust in man."
The apostle John wrote to encourage the Asian Christians, "...The one
who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world" (1 John
4:4).
What would you do if your house was surrounded by a hostile enemy? Would
your heart become filled with fear? Would you try to run, or reach for your
weapons, or call 911....?
The blinding power of God
2 Kings 6:18-23
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.
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.
As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord. Notice that
he did not panic. His heart was not filled with fear, for he was given the
spiritual reality that the army of the Lord covered the hills. He was living
in the double camp, the spiritual world and the physical world. His prayer
was very interesting. If you are at war, the objective is to kill as many
of the enemy as possible before they kill you. Here was an army that hated
God and Israel as well as the prophet and his servant; but unlike his mentor
Elijah who had called down fire from heaven to consume the eight hundred
false prophets of Baal, he prayed only that the army would become blind.
God answered his prayer, and the entire army was struck blind. This could
have been either physical blindness or mental blindness leading to confusion
so that they willingly allowed Elisha to lead them to Samaria. In this context,
as the servant had had eyes but could not see the spiritual world, so the
Syrian army probably had eyes but could not see that the man was Elisha.
"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 the blind army
to Samaria. Can you picture this in your mind? A humble prophet of the living
God of Israel leading the army of Aram ten miles south into the capital
of Samaria and then into the palace area, where he presented them to King
Joram. Once they arrived in Samaria, the prophet prayed again and asked
the Lord to open their eyes, and as they began to focus they found themselves
in the enemy's camp, fully surrounded by Joram's troops. And a wildly excited
king approached Elisha with rare respect and urgently asked, "Shall
I kill them, my father? Shall I kill them?"
Elisha said, "Do not kill them, but set food and water before them
so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master." That
way they would witness the spiritual reality that the God of the whole world
was Jehovah, and he protected his prophet as well as his people. They would
also know that they themselves were extended the grace of God when they
were set free to return home unharmed. What a witness! You can hear the
soldiers of Aram when they returned home to Damascus: "We were strangely
captured and led to Samaria by a bald-headed man and surrounded by the army
of Joram. But instead of being killed, we were fed by the Jews and then
sent home!" This act of kindness would eventually affect the whole
nation of Aram: "There is a God; he lives and blesses Israel, the Jewish
slave girl, and the Gentiles who place their faith in him, like our General
Naaman. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel's territory.
Compassion for the blind
It was only God who gave spiritual eyes to the servant of Elisha so that
he as well as the prophet could live in the spiritual reality of the double
camp. Likewise, he can give us spiritual eyes to see that the eternal chariots
of God are always present, surrounding and protecting us from the armies
of this world when it is the will of God to do so.
It was only Jesus who was able to give physical sight to a man born blind
in John 9. Meanwhile the spiritually blinded Pharisees refused to believe
Jesus was their Messiah because he healed the man on the Sabbath. Their
spiritual blindness kept them from believing either the man's or his parents'
witness that it was Jesus who had healed him. The formerly blind man finally
told the spiritually blinded Pharisees, "One thing I do know. I was
blind but now I see!" (9:25.) Jesus then told the Pharisees, "For
judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those
who see will become blind." (9:39.)
It was only Jesus who heard the prayer of Paul on behalf of the Ephesian
Christians: "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened
[moving the truth of God from the mind into the heart so it will be stirred
with emotion] in order that you may know the hope to which he has called
you [eternal life now], the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints
[we belong to God and he belongs to us, so we can draw on his spiritual
resources and he can use our lives], and his incomparably great power for
us who believe [the same power that God used to raise his Son from the grave
is available to us when we ask for it]." (Ephesians 1:18-19.) This
"resurrection power" eliminates fear in any circumstance.
It is only Jesus who can continue to remove our friend Walt's spiritual
blindness and our own spiritual blindness so that we can finally become
the people of wholeness that God has called us to be in Christ Jesus.
We have seen that God used his prophet Elisha as an instrument of his compassion
among his Jewish people. We have also seen that Elisha's life and ministry
foreshadowed the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. And in the same way,
our Lord's life and ministry foreshadowed what our life and ministry are
to be among the hurting people he leads us to relate to day by day as Christians.
Once we recover from our spiritual blindness, we are then motivated by the
Spirit of God to move out into the body of Christ and the world around us
and to seek ways to help others who are spiritually blind. The greatest
testimony anyone can hear from us in a world of darkness is the words of
the formerly blind man in John 9: "All I know is that once I was blind
but now I see!" And when asked, "How did that happen?" he
answered, "I met Jesus---the Light of the world!"
Catalog No. 4377
2 Kings 6:8-23
Fifth Message
Ron Ritchie
August 21, 1994
Copyright (C) 1995 Discovery Publishing, a ministry of Peninsula Bible Church.
This data file is the sole property of Discovery Publishing, a ministry
of Peninsula Bible Church. It may be copied only in its entirety for circulation
freely without charge. All copies of this data file must contain the above
copyright notice. This data file may not be copied in part, edited, revised,
copied for resale or incorporated in any commercial publications, recordings,
broadcasts, performances, displays or other products offered for sale, without
the written permission of Discovery Publishing. Requests for permission
should be made in writing and addressed to Discovery Publishing, 3505 Middlefield
Rd. Palo Alto, CA. 94306-3695.