“O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” 2 Kings 6:17 ESV
In 2 Kings 6:8-23, the Old Testament shows us an amazing example of the reality of spiritual warfare. The prophet Elisha is besieged by horses and chariots and a great army sent by the Aramean King. Why? Because the prophet was revealing their military plans to the King of Israel. As a result, their attempts to conquer Israel were being thwarted. When Elisha and his servant are surrounded by this vast army, Elisha’s servant is very troubled and rushes to the prophet saying “‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’ He said, ‘Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.‘ So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”
The rest of the passage is also a beautiful example of how spiritual warfare is fought by those who fear God. But the crucial thing to focus on here is that to fight spiritual warfare well, your spiritual eyes must be opened to see what is going on in the invisible realm.
When you read chapters like Ephesians 6, you realize that we can better fight the war when we see what is going on around us. As such, as Christians, the first step to success in spiritual warfare is to pray for spiritual vision. We cannot be effective in spiritual warfare if we fight blindly. Fighting blindly is not having faith. Instead, when the Lord opens our eyes to see, the pieces of the full armor of God mentioned in Ephesians 6 (truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, God’s Word, prayer) will become so much clearer to us. Our faith in God will grow when our eyes are opened to see clearly what he has going on for us.
Teaching on Ephesians 6, author and Bible teacher Priscilla Shirer said, “The first step for us in utilizing the spiritual resources we’ve been given is to have our spiritual eyes opened so that we can see them.” I couldn’t agree more. To that end, Priscilla continued, that we need to pray for more spiritual vision. “We should ask the Lord to open our eyes to see the enemy’s activity and to be more aware of the spiritual resources He has given us to disarm and defeat him.”
Let’s no longer try to fight blindly. The devil will take advantage of us if we do so. Let’s ask God boldly for spiritual vision like Elisha did and expect God to give it to us. If you are interceding for someone in spiritual war, pray like Elisha did that God may open his eyes that he may see.
