Two Sets of Eyes

Week 1 – Spiritual Warfare Devotional by Pastor Mark Cowart

Thank God, you have two sets of eyes, your natural eyes and your spiritual eyes.

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 servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, and said, “LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then 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. II Kings 6:15 NKJV

Faith causes your spiritual eyes to work at a whole new level, as we see in the example above.

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. Mark 4:23 NKJV

Jesus was talking to thousands of people, and 99.9% of them had these things we call ears on the sides of their heads. That was not what He was referring to. He was talking about the ears of the heart. Can you hear what the Holy Spirit is really saying?

There are many “sets of two” throughout the scriptures. There is two kinds of knowledge. Natural knowledge is acquired through the five physical senses – what you can see, hear, touch, taste and smell. Through these sense gates, you gather knowledge. With these blessed faculties, we can progress through levels of understanding in any area of study. Then there is another kind of knowledge not accessed through our physical senses. This is revelation knowledge.

When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, ‘Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?’ So they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ 
Matthew 16:13-19 NKJV

Jesus told Peter that sense knowledge didn’t give him that information,“…but my Father in heaven.” That is the Heavenly Father working through the Holy Spirit to open Peter’s spiritual eyes to this truth, this divine revelation.

He went on to say that He would build His church, Greek word ekklesia, on this rock of revelation knowledge. That term for church would have been strange to the disciples, because it was a word commonly applied to an exclusive group, those initiated into membership for some particular purpose in business or philosophy. Up until then, it had nothing to do with religion or spirituality. So, the Lord is creating something new – His Church, His called-out ones. This is the people, not the buildings that we have come to call “the church.” You and I, the ones truly born again who have ears to hear and a heart after God, we are the ekklesia that He promised to build.

Peter saw the truth through his spiritual eyes. In this case, everyone saw the same person, but only Peter really saw the truth. His second set of eyes, the eyes of his understanding, were working. And when Jesus said, “…if any man has ears to hear…” He wasn’t talking about natural hearing. He was talking about the ears of the heart. In actuality, a deaf person can hear the gospel, maybe through sign language or reading, without audible sound. It doesn’t take vibrations on the physical ear apparatus to hear the Spirit of God.

This kind of hearing and seeing is essential in spiritual warfare. There is an unseen realm that you and I are dealing with, every human being is dealing with right now, that really determines the outcomes in the seen realm. The first thing we need to know about this conflict is this: All warfare is deception. This is stated in The Art of War by Sun Tzu, an ancient but renowned military textbook. All warfare is involved around deception, he says. When approaching an enemy in the natural, we need intelligence – we have to know what they are doing. The more we know, the better chance we can stand against them and overcome them. Naturally, they are thinking the same thing about us.

When we see violence in the natural, just know there is spiritual activity behind that. When America came to be, through the overthrow of British tyranny, a period of strong God-fearing culture was experienced on this continent. With the subsequent erosion of the Christian foundations of our nation, we are seeing ungodliness increase in every sphere of influence.

The true history of our nation is being unearthed by scholars going back to older texts. We must beware of deconstruction, the modern rewriting of what happened and why. Our founding fathers came here so that they could worship God freely, and He has blessed them and us for it ever since. At the same time, the enemy has been opposing what He has built.

We must realize that there are spiritual forces behind the erosion of decency, law and order in our time.

To win the battles we see externally, we need to win the spiritual battles first. To do that, we must have ears to hear and eyes to see in the spiritual realm. You know, one thing essential for natural sight is illumination. If you have 20/20 vision, in order to enjoy the benefit of your perfect eyesight, you have to have light! This gift is useless without light. Likewise, we need the light of God’s Word to see in the spiritual.

You have to understand that you can read the Word, and the light of the Word not actually penetrate your heart. That’s when we hear about Christians who end up doing absolutely immoral things contrary to the Word. Intellectually they might say they know it is wrong and they shouldn’t do it, but they end up doing it anyway. Why is that?

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 
II Corinthians 4:3-4 KJV

There is very real and very tangible spiritual darkness. It’s as real as physical darkness. Where is the darkest place you have ever been? I remember nights as a boy visiting my grandparents in Texas, when we’d sit outside to escape the heat of the house until it was dark and cooler. The stars were especially bright against the night sky, because there was no other light for miles. Even so, that wasn’t the darkest place that I’ve ever been. Down in the Cave of the Winds here in Colorado, when the tour guide turns out the light, you cannot see your own hand in front of your face. No light reaches those depths. That would be for me the darkest place physically that I’ve been.

There is a counterpart to that in spiritual darkness. Recently I heard a unique testimony of a young man who had been shot, physically died and left his body. He said, “I went into this darkness. All I can tell you is there is not darkness like this on the planet earth.” He went on to say he could see in this darkness. All of a sudden, it came to me what we just read in the II Corinthians scripture above. This is talking about people who are not born again. They don’t have the life of God inside of them. They actually have spiritual death as their nature. Satan has blinded their minds – this is the key – “… lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

They are darkened in their understanding. We need to remember this in the context of our witness before unsaved people. They will be impacted by the light that you have in your own life more than the words you speak. There was a guy that I worked with as a young man who made my life miserable just by being the solid believer that he was. God started to deal with me simply by observing him.

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16 NKJV

There is light that comes out of you as a believer. But, as we all know, that light can be dim or it can be brighter. We will look more in depth at this idea in the next segment.

Father in the name of Jesus I thank you for the word that has been sown in our hearts right now as we study spiritual warfare. I thank you that the victory is already ours in Christ. We war from a position of victory in Christ. I thank you that it’s the entrance of your Word that brings light into our lives so we can see. We thank you for all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.