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.