Making the Invisible Visible

A television set can make unseen signals visible. When we see the images is not when they became real—they were already there. A television set doesn’t generate images. It simply receives the signals and converts them into sights and sounds that we can perceive. But the signals were already there, before we tuned them in.

Probably every person reading this article has watched television when suddenly the picture went blank. What did you do? I bet you didn’t call the television station and complain that they stopped broadcasting. The first thing you did was check to see if everything was working on your television set. Was the electricity on? Was it plugged in? Did something break? You examined your receiver to see what was wrong with it, trusting that the station was broadcasting 24/7.

Always Transmitting, Never Failing

Similarly, God is real and does exist. He just can’t be seen. He is broadcasting all His power and blessings 24/7. It’s never God’s transmitter that is broken. It’s always our receiver that is the problem. If we ask God for something and we don’t see it manifest instantly, most people question why God hasn’t answered their prayer yet. They assume that because they haven’t seen or heard anything, nothing has happened. That’s all wrong. We need to have more faith in God than we have in a television station.

There is a very good illustration of this truth in 2 Kings 6. Elisha, the prophet of God, was revealing the Syrian battle plans to the king of Israel. Every time the king of Syria tried to ambush the king of Israel, Elisha would warn the king of Israel, and he would ambush the Syrian’s ambush. This happened so often that the king of Syria finally asked his servants to reveal who the traitor was. He knew that the king of Israel could not be maneuvering like he was without inside information.

Elisha’s Confidence

When one of the king of Syria’s servants reported that Elisha, the prophet of God, was revealing to the king of Israel the words the king of Syria spoke in his bedchamber, the Syrian king sent his armies to capture Elisha.

Second Kings 6:15 says,

And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?

When Elisha’s servant saw the Syrian troops, he panicked. He knew why they were there—they had discovered Elisha was the one telling the king of Israel the Syrian king’s battle plans. They were in big trouble. But look at the response of Elisha in 2 Kings 6:16: “And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”

Opening Spiritual Eyes

People who don’t believe anything exists beyond their five senses would say Elisha was lying. He was confessing something was so when it really wasn’t so, hoping that it would become so. But that’s not the way it was at all. Elisha spoke the truth. There were more with him than with the Syrian army. It’s just that Elisha’s forces were in the unseen reality.

The key to understanding this is recognizing there is another realm of reality beyond this physical world. Those who are limited to their five senses will always struggle with this. They think Elisha was lying, and indeed, he would have been lying if all that existed was this physical world. You could count the Syrian troops by the thousands, while there were only Elisha and his servant. But Elisha wasn’t lying because there is another world of reality. If you look at the whole picture—the physical and the spiritual world—then Elisha was right on. In the spiritual realm, there were many more horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha than there were Syrian troops.

Elisha’s Prayer: Revealing the Spiritual World

According to 2 Kings 6:17,

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.

Gehazi’s physical eyes were already wide open. God opened his spiritual eyes so he could see with his heart into the spiritual world. And when the spiritual world was taken into consideration, Elisha’s statement was perfectly true.

True Nature of Faith

Those who see faith as an attempt to make something real that isn’t real will always struggle with those who see faith as simply making what is spiritually true become a physical truth. Those who limit truth to only the physical realm would have called Elisha one of those “name it, claim it,” “blab it, grab it” cultists. But in saying such things, they condemn themselves. They show that they only consider what they can see, taste, hear, smell, and feel to be reality. They are what the Bible calls “carnal.”

Physical and Spiritual Truths

When Gehazi’s eyes were opened, the Syrians didn’t disappear. They were still there. The physical truth was still true, but a greater spiritual truth emerged. True faith doesn’t deny physical truth; it just refuses to let physical truth dominate spiritual truth. True faith subdues physical truth to the reality of spiritual truth.

Because Elisha believed in the realities of the spiritual world, he raised his hand and smote all the Syrians with blindness. Then he led the whole Syrian army captive to the king of Israel. Praise the Lord! That’s not bad for an old prophet whom carnal people would say was all by himself.

Elisha was not just speaking some wishful statement, hoping that it would become a reality. He knew what was real in the spiritual world, and he controlled his emotions and actions accordingly. There is no indication that Elisha saw the horses and chariots of fire around him. He didn’t need to. He believed it. Those who operate in true faith don’t need to see with their physical eyes; their faith is evidence enough.

A Woman’s Healing Journey

There was a woman at a camp meeting who had a huge goiter on her neck. She went forward for prayer and knew that she knew she was healed. So, she got up in front of the audience and gave a testimony of her goiter being healed, even though the goiter was still visible. The people praised God, thinking that the healing would manifest itself shortly.

Believing Beyond the Visible

The next year, at the same camp meeting, the woman got up again and praised the Lord for her healing, but there still wasn’t any visible proof. This concerned a lot of people, but they didn’t say anything. The following year, the same thing happened. This was too much for most of the people, and it caused the leaders of the meeting to approach this woman and tell her she couldn’t testify of this healing again until the goiter was gone.

The woman told the Lord that she knew He had healed her, and she didn’t need to see visible results to believe it. But for the sake of the unbelievers, she asked the Lord to physically remove the growth. It disappeared, and the woman showed them what she had already known was true. You can get that strong in faith. Your faith is substance and all the evidence you need. Faith is real.

Faith in My Own Life

I’ve experienced this in my own life. When my youngest son, Peter, died on March 4, 2001, my wife and I spoke our faith, saying, “The first report is not the last report.” We spoke resurrection life into Peter’s body, and then we headed into town. It was one hour and fifteen minutes from the time we got the call until we got to where Peter was. During that time, I was operating in faith. I remembered prophecies about Peter that had not yet come to pass. Therefore, I knew it wasn’t time for Peter to die. I rejoiced by faith, seeing Peter alive and well.

Peter’s Resurrection

When I arrived, my oldest son, Joshua, met me at the door and said, “Dad, five or ten minutes after I called you, Peter just sat up.” Thank You, Jesus! This is the point: I didn’t rejoice more when I saw Peter raised from the dead than I did while I was driving. During the drive, I knew Peter was alive, and I was rejoicing with all my might. It was actually anticlimactic when I saw in the physical what I had already seen in the spiritual. Don’t get me wrong; I was blessed, and I rejoiced to see my son raised up after being dead for five hours. But the physical reality wasn’t more real to me than the spiritual reality of faith.

A Lifestyle of Belief

This is the way I live. I know it’s not “normal,” but I’m not getting “normal” results either. I’ve been believing big, and there have been big results from that believing. When we moved into our new offices, and when we see the warehouse finished, it was, and will be, anticlimactic. I’m seeing all these things in the spirit now. When they manifest physically, others will be impressed, but I’m impressed now.

I’m not believing for something that isn’t real to become real. I’ve seen into the spiritual realm by faith, and I’m simply making what I’ve seen in the spiritual world manifest in the physical world. All the things I’m seeing with my physical eyes now, I have already seen in my heart. I saw it on the inside before I saw it on the outside. This is a wonderful way to live. This is the normal Christian life. This is walking by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).