Putting God at the center of your life opens your eyes to his presence, protection and purposes more in having a godly vision. Next, on bold steps.
Open up your eyes and see that the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, the Almighty God of the universe, is on your side. It makes me get up with a new vision and say, yeah, we'll charge hell with a squirt gun if God is on our side.
Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe, president of Moody Bible Institute and senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. Today, we continue our look at Elisha and what it means to have open eyes and God's vision in the midst of a seemingly impossible situation. That's next. As we continue with part two of this powerful message. Do you see it yet? To listen again, visit our website. Bold steps bold steps.org. Now here is Mark Jobe with today's bold steps.
Just this past week, I had an experience that reminded me again I need to trust the voice of the spirit. I was asked to speak in Vancouver so and so. I was praying, God, I want to be encouragement to these pastors. I want to speak life into them. I want to some of them are tired and discouraged. So help me, Lord. And so we gathered at this big church with several hundred pastors there, and I got up to speak on stage. But before I got to speak on stage, I felt like the Lord was saying to me.
As I was praying for the pastors, I felt like God was saying, I want you to pray for Jerry. Like Jerry. Yeah, pray for Jerry. So I started praying, Lord, I pray for Jerry. I don't know who he is or what he's doing, but I pray for Jerry. I felt like this got a real clear word for Jerry. A man 50 years or older. Older man 50 years or older. Name is Jerry. Clear word. Hey. He's moved into his calling, but he stepped back because of the fear of man. He needs to disregard the fear of
man and pursue the call of God. A very clear word. So I kept thinking. I'll run into a Jerry. I'm saying hi. Hi. What's your name? Doesn't happen to be Jerry, does it? You kind of look like Jerry. I wanted to go, people. Hey, are you Jerry? Jerry and I couldn't run into any Jerry. So finally, it was kind of the last day of the conference I was supposed to be speaking. So I got up, and I kind of gave my message, gave it all people were being prayed for, and I just thought, all right, let me
just throw it out there. I said, is there a Jerry in here 50 years or older? Because I, I need to talk to Jerry. I've been praying for Jerry. And I said, raise your hand if you are. No hand went up at all. So I went down and I was just kind of standing awkwardly standing there. Afterwards, some older man came up to me and said, you know, my middle name is Gerald. No one's ever called me Gerry, but I'm wondering if it was me. I said, no, God would have said, Gerald, no, no, go go go.
Sit down. I think God knows he could call you Gerry if your name was Gerry. Don't say no. Don't make it up now. And some pastor came running up to me afterwards. Like agitation and a voice, he looked at me and he said, I know who this word is, for I know the Gerry. I said, good. Introduce him to me. He says, he's not here. I said, what do you mean he's not here? No. He was supposed to come. I invited him at the last minute. He cancelled out as soon as you said. Gerry, me and
my friend looked at each other. We knew exactly who we were talking to. God is working in his life. What's your message for him? And so I told him. He said that's exactly. That's exactly it. He's a pastor, he said, I texted him and said the speaker from Chicago is calling out your name, dude. He texted me back and said, come on. So we went to the hallway and he said, I'm going to call him up. So he calls him up. He said, Jerry, I got the speaker from Chicago that's calling out your name. He's
got a word from you. I'm like, hey, Jerry. My name is Mark. And I gave him my word and he said, pause at the end of the other line. And he said, I receive that. And his wife was on the other line. She said, thank you. We needed to hear that. Now, now, here's what I want to say. Early on in ministry, I probably wouldn't have said that up front. I would have probably said, I'm not. I'm not going to say that. But I've learned over the
years that I don't want to. I don't want to leave a place without just dropping everything that God has put on my heart. I want to I want to release everything that's there. Even though it may seem crazy because I understand that God is the God of the universe, I understand that in this auditorium there are people here that I don't know. I don't know your name. I don't know your face. I don't know your story. You're sitting there and say, I don't even want to know you.
I don't even like you. But I'm here. Someone dragged me here. But here's what I know. Listen. The spirit of the living God knows you deeply, powerfully. And if you open up your ears and eyes, God will speak to you even. Though you try to remain anonymous, because in God there is there is no anonymity in the presence of Almighty God. Secondly, write this down not only his presence, but his protection. So they got up in the morning and the servant of Elijah went outside, and
he saw something that horrified him. The entire town was surrounded by chariots and warriors with spears, horses, shields. They were surrounded by the enemy. They woke up in the morning. And surrounded by the enemy, went to bed at night feeling like they were safe. Woke up in the morning and they were surrounded by the enemy. He says in verse 15, 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, and
he said, oh, no! My Lord, what shall we do? Have you ever felt like that? You ever gone to bed at night feeling like everything was okay and woke up in the morning and you're hit by a ton of bricks? A crisis, a difficulty, something that you didn't expect. And you wake up and you say, oh no, my Lord, what shall we do? And you look around at your physical circumstances and you feel like I am surrounded like never before. There is no way out. This is going
to end up in catastrophe. This is worse than I thought it was going to be. The news is bad. The circumstances are terrible. There's no way out. God, why have you let this happen? So the servant goes. The servant goes to Elijah, and he says, Elijah, have you seen it? Have you seen we're surrounded. We're going to die. Have you seen what's going on out there? Do something. What are we going to do, Elijah? Seems. Eerily tranquil. He's not threatened. He's not panicking. He's not pacing. Verse 16,
he says, don't be afraid. Have you ever been in the middle of something and someone says, don't be afraid. And you're like, yeah. What do you mean? Don't be afraid? Are you seeing what I see? Do you understand what I'm saying? Don't tell me to calm down. This situation demands panic. Don't be afraid. By the way, can I tell you that fear is the antithesis of faith? You cannot be filled with fear and faith at the same time.
One pushes out the other. Your faith will push out your fear, or your fear will push out your faith. You cannot be contained with both at the same time. You have to decide what's going to fill you. Is it fear that's going to fill you, or is it faith that's going to fill you because one will push out the other?
You're listening to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. We'll continue today's message in a moment. But first, Mark, I want to talk about something that's become a growing concern within Christian leadership circles. Our world is going through a whirlwind, pretty dramatic developments and changes, not just here in America, but around the globe. And we need to remind ourselves, yourselves. As Christians, we have a much higher calling than any political movement, don't we?
Wayne, turn on the news. And there is drama all over the place.
From rumors of wars to economic crisis to actualization, to actual wars that are happening to bombings, and it is easy to get distracted by all this, worried by it, anxious by it, sort of sucked into it. But here's what I want to say. This is a great time for the good news of Jesus Christ and the hope of the gospel. Amen. There are a lot of people coming to Christ throughout the world, and you may not hear about it, because there's other news that is prominent
and is taking people's attention. But there is an undercurrent of a harvest evangelism. And that's what we're all about right now, is a moment where people are shaken, where there's concern. But there are so many people that are turning to the heavens, and we at Bold Steps have determined we will not miss that moment. And so we are asking you to partner with us, help us out, because right now is a great time to be calling people to Jesus.
We urge you to give online at Bold steps.org. Or you can call us. The number is 800 Moody. And that works out to be (800) 356-6639. And when you do give, we'll be sure to send you a special gift which will tell you more about later in the program today. Well, thank you for that, Mark. But now let's continue with the final part of our message titled do you see it yet? Here's Mark Jobe.
Do you remember Peter when he was called out to walk on the water and he started to walk on the water because Jesus called him. And the Bible says, as soon as he took his eyes off Jesus and started seeing the waves, he was overcome with fear. And as soon as he was overcome with fear, he started to sink because his faith would no longer keep him them afloat. What happened is he had faith when he was walking, but his fear displaced his faith and he
started to sink. So you have to decide what's going to fill you. Fear or faith? Because you can't be filled with both at the same time. One is going to push out the other. Have you ever played King of the Hill before when you were kids? God at the top of the mound and there had to be one king of the hill, and you would try to push the one guy out so you could get there. You're acting like you never played that game. You must
have been on video games, I don't know. We played King of the Hill when I was growing up, and only one person could be at the top. It's like that with faith and fear. Only one can be the top. It's either faith or fear. You can't have both standing at the top of the hill. He said, don't be afraid. Oh come on. Verse 16, the prophet said, those who are with us are more than those who are with them. The servants looking out and saying, I don't get it.
There's two of us and there's thousands of them. Don't get it. Elijah looks over at him. Oh man, this is going to hit some of you because some of you need exactly, exactly what happened to the servant needs to happen to you. Exactly what happened to the servant. Verse 17 down. Because some of you, God is speaking to you through verse 17. Verse 17 Elijah prayed over him, and this is what he prayed. Open his eyes. So that he may see. You say, well, pastor, I thought
he could see the soldiers. Oh, yeah, he could see the soldiers of the enemy. But he needed to open up another set of eyes. Not the physical eyes. He needed to open up the spiritual eyes so he could see in the spirit world what was really happening. And as soon as Elijah prayed that his eyes would be open. There was a spiritual awakening that happened in the servant.
And suddenly he saw in the realm of the spirit where he had never seen up until this point, because he was viewing life in the realm of the flesh and not in the realm of the spirit. And the Bible says that when he opened up his eyes again, he saw another army say, another army. Oh, you're surrounded by the enemy's army, but you haven't seen the other army. And he opened up his eyes. And there was another army.
The army of God. Chariots of fire. Horsemen. The horsemen, like the horsemen of apocalypse, full of fire, full of strength. And the other army was surrounding the enemy's army. And they outnumbered the enemy by far. And that's why Elijah said, hey, those that are with us are greater than those that are with them, but you can't see it unless you open up your spiritual eyes and see what's really happening
in the spiritual realm. Can I tell you something? Listen, some of you operate in the realm of the flesh. The Bible says flesh gives birth to flesh. Spirit gives birth to spirit. Some of you live your life in the realm of the flesh, the five senses, and you are very, very unaware of what's happening in the spirit realm. There's a round that you cannot see that's a real realm. Not just spiritual. I mean, there's stuff in the physical that you can't see. How many germaphobes do we have
in the house here? How many have already put that little, that little bottle of hand sanitizer? You've already used it a couple times. You said hi to your friends, hi to your friends. Out of your friends. You say he looks sick. Come on now. I'm not a germaphobic, but my wife is on the borderline. She opens up all the doors like this. Salt and pepper. At the restaurant, she gets a napkin and she says. You know how many nasty, dirty germs are in this salt and pepper?
And she does it like that. I mean, she's she's starting to get me worried about germs now. I'm like, I was never worried before. But she says, you know, I go to sign. I go to sign the little thing on with your finger where it says sign. When you pay something, she says, you know how many people have put their dirty fingers on that? That's full of germs. Now I'm starting to see germs all over. It's like, oh man, I never was worried about it, but I'm starting to see germs all over now. I saw that
guy sniffling. I bet he's got the flu. And I'm. I'm like, seeing germs all over. You know, the thing about germs is you can't see them, but they're there. People for years didn't know why people were getting sick. They didn't understand germs. This unseen little scientific in entity that can infect you and cause you to go down in a big flu and be out for a long time because it's in the air. I'm. Some of you are saying I got to get out of here, pastor.
You are. You're making me think about this. This guy next to me, that it's unseen world. But do you realize that there's an unseen world out there called the spirit world? Do you realize, just like if I were to have a black light, to see all the germs and bacteria that are in this place, we would be surprised at how much bacteria and germs are in this place.
But if we were to have a spiritual light that would indicate what is happening in the spirit world, that there is a lot happening in the spirit world in this place. Every single one of you has a spirit. That spirit part of you is the part that interacts with the spirit world. There's the Holy Spirit and there's the not so holy spirits out there as well. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead empowering you, convicting you, drawing you, bringing you to the presence of God.
Some of you in this place right now, the Holy Spirit is saying, you don't even know Jesus. You need to come to. You're under conviction. You don't have a life in God. And if I could see in the spirit world, I would see conviction coming upon you. What's it feel like? It makes you want to run away or run to God? That's conviction. But you have to
feel like changing. That's conviction drawing you. Some of you, you walk in a place like this, you feel the power of the Holy Spirit bringing about the release of healing power, because God is a healer. And if I were to look out in the spirit world, there are some that are receiving the power of God to heal their emotions, to heal their body, to heal their life. Because you've been calling upon it. And in the presence
of God, healing is released. Listen, I don't know. And if you were to see in the spirit world, there's some of you that are being tormented by spirits that are not of God afflicted, entrapped. There's a lot of spiritual activity that we don't see with the naked eye, but it's there. The Bible talks about angels. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him
in spirit and in truth. Can I tell you? Without the presence and the power of the Spirit of God in this place, if we were to show up to church and there was just a bald headed guy chatting. This would be a pathetic place. Place we convene in the name of Jesus. And the Bible says that where 2 or 3 are gathered together in his name, he's in the midst of them. And lastly, let me close with this. And not only you open your eyes to his presence. You open his eyes to his protection, but
you open your eyes to his purposes. You see, Elijah said, watch this. And as all the armies were around them, there was a an army greater than the army that was there surrounding them. And Elijah said, bring blindness upon this army. And in one instant the entire army of the enemy went blind. So when you're blind, when you can't see, you don't know where you're going. Vision either allows you to know where you're going, or vision, if it's taken away, causes you to not know where you're going.
How many of you know that the enemy can be strategic? And sometimes God needs to bring confusion in the camp of the enemy. And so he brought blindness to the army, and this entire army's aimless, not knowing where they're going. And Elijah says, follow me, follow me. This army that had been so fierce, this army that had been so threatening suddenly was reduced to a little kid like kindergarten.
Follow me. And he led them right into Samaria, right into the city, right into the place where the armies of Israel were at. And then when the armies of Israel surrounded him, he said, Now God opened their eyes, they opened up their eyes, and they were surrounded by Israel. And the King says, Elijah, what should we do? Should we kill him? He said, no, no, no, no. Give him something to eat. They gave him something to eat. He says, I want you to see what you have seen.
I want your king to know there's a God in Israel. Now go back and tell your king. And the Bible says, Aram, no longer rated Israel man. Aaron was afraid of Israel now because they knew there was a God alive and well, and they had a purpose. It brought peace to Israel.
Let me close with this. Listen, there have been times as your pastor that I've looked at the challenges of our city, the violence of our city, the bigotry, racism divide of our city, brokenness of our city, addiction where I've done the funeral of kids that have been shot open because they just lived on the wrong side of the block, or someone that overdosed on heroin, and it's brought overwhelming sense of God. We're so small, so limited.
How can we ever, ever make a difference? In times like that that I've sensed the Holy Spirit say to me, open your eyes, because those that are for you are greater than those that are against you. Open up your eyes and see that the Lord of Lords, the King of kings, the Almighty God of the universe, is on your side. And if God be for you, who in the world can ever be against you? Remember, if God is on your side, it makes me get up with a new vision and say, yeah, we'll charge hell with
a squirt gun if God is on our side. If he's on our side, let's do it in Jesus name.
Mark that picture of Elisha's servants opening his eyes and seeing God's army surrounding the enemy that has such a powerful one. We don't often think about the spirit world, but it's very much a part of who we are. And God tells us that we're in a battle.
It it's a powerful image. And Wayne, I think that so many of us are like Elisha's servant, that we see the physical world, we see the circumstances and we get overwhelmed. But we haven't had our eyes open to the spiritual realm. And I love the fact that Elijah says, greater are those who are for us than those who are against us. And I'm wondering if we're speaking to someone right now that you feel absolutely overwhelmed and under the circumstances, and you just are full of anxiety and panic.
Could I tell you this? If God is for you, if God is for you, I want you to open up your spiritual eyes and realize that there is nothing. Nothing that is too hard or impossible for our God.
Well, the message we heard today ends our series fully devoted. But remember to hear any message again or even the whole series. Just go to Bold steps.org. You can listen to it there online, and maybe pass this message series along to someone else by giving them the website. Again, it's bold steps dot while you're there, don't forget that today is the last day to receive our featured Bold Steps gift for the month of April. Doctor Heather Holloman's
book The Six Conversations. If you've struggled in your life to build intimate, authentic relationships, this book offers practical strategies for meaningful communication and connection. This bold step gift will help you transform surface level interactions into life giving relationships no matter where you are, and we'd be happy to send it to you when you give a gift of any amount to support this ministry, just visit us online at Bold Steps. Org or call us at 800. That's
803 Five six, 6639. And if you'd rather send your donation and request this book in the mail, you can write to us at bold steps. 820 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 606. Ten. Speaking of mail, we also want to encourage you to reach out to us with any biblical or spiritual question you may have for Mark. You can write to that same address, or simply click on the link on our website that says ask a question or
email us at. I'm Wayne Shepherd, inviting you back tomorrow for the start of a message series titled Beyond Now. How are we ready ourselves for the end Times? Mark will start by answering the question how close are we? That's Thursday here on Bold Steps with Mark John. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.