Pulling back the veil

The history of Israel, like that of most nations, is filled with the ebbs and flows of national fortune. There are great moments of victory, and there are disasters that make the people shudder. There are Golden Ages, and Dark Ages when chaos seems to rule. Some of the most fascinating moments often come during those Dark Ages.

One such moment came in a Dark Age around 850 BC, as the northern kingdom of Israel was disintegrating. Joram was king of the northern kingdom, and the prophet God had sent to him during that time was Elisha. Joram did not like God’s prophet, and yet Elisha worked tirelessly as God’s advisor to the king. He advised the king on how best to deal with the nations that were attacking the kingdom. In fact, the advice that Elisha gave to Joram was so good that the king of Aram, who was mounting the campaign against Israel, suspected a spy in his court. Enraged, he summoned his officers and demanded, “Will you not tell me which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?” “None of us,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.” “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.” Then he sent an army of horses and chariots by night and surrounded the city (2 Kings 6:11–14).

Being God’s prophet during Dark Ages is a confusing place to be since not only do God’s people not appreciate you but the enemies of God’s people hate you as well. Elisha was indeed at Dothan and was trapped by the army of Aram. When Elisha’s servant got up early the next morning, he saw the horses and chariots surrounding the city. “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” the servant asked. This was a pretty natural reaction. This was not the kind of situation that any normal person would like. It is, however, a place where countless people have found themselves over the millennia.

What happened next makes this story unique. “Don’t be afraid,” Elisha answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire.

For a brief moment, the servant of Elisha saw something that is not accessible to the unassisted eye – he saw a whole other world superimposed on the world we live in every day, the world seen through eyes opened by God Himself. This world had all the same mountains and trees, armies and civilians, but it also had another dimension – the great purpose and protection of God over His people.

From that point, on the story took some very interesting twists, the upshot being that the army assembled against Elisha was rendered powerless.

But what does that have to do with you and me? While it is very easy to become excessively speculative with this story, there is a very practical and important teaching in it that we need to understand. Let me illustrate it by something that happened on a recent weekend.

I went to my first ever “men’s retreat” with eight other men from our church. It was a good time. The camp had lots of “toys”, such as a 100-metre “zip line” designed to terrify (a good male bonding tool). The speaker and the music were okay but, I thought, unremarkable. As the weekend came to a close, I was thinking that there was nothing particularly impressive about men’s retreats and when one considers that time is in short supply, I would have no big drive to go next year.

And then it happened – the veil was pulled back, and a different world was revealed that I simply had not seen before. Half an hour before it was time to go, the director of the camp asked if anyone wanted to reflect on what they had enjoyed. A man stood up with a battered old Bible and shared, as emotionally charged men do, that this Bible had belonged to his mother, who had passed away just six months earlier. He was probably 35 and had been one of the jokesters at the camp, but there was obviously a story behind that Bible and his relationship to his mother. He did not tell us what that story was, but in the few short sentences he spoke we learned that something remarkable had happened at the retreat that had completed some kind of a journey.

With that, the floodgates opened, and the sharing went on for 45 minutes. Some stories were a little more detailed, alluding to marriages, health issues and spiritual journeys. Some got started and never finished, and most, I suspect, never had the chance to be told. It did not really matter because the veil had been pulled back on a hidden dimension of the weekend. Like the servant of Elisha, we saw something that the natural eye could not have seen – we saw the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of a group of men. That retreat had not been just about good food, male bonding and inspirational teaching. What had taken place were all kinds of supernatural encounters between men and God. In those brief minutes, we were able to see that fact as plainly as Elisha’s servant saw the fiery angels on the hills around the city of Dothan. I was overwhelmed by what I had seen.

The Bible teaches us that there is a great deal going on that the natural eye cannot see, and for the most part we must be content with that reality. But the Bible also has some other things to say about this reality.

First, we must be aware that a spiritual reality does exist. Just as the knowledge of an invisible world of microorganisms has changed daily life in the last 200 years, so, too, a knowledge of the invisible spiritual world should change how we run our lives. We will never “see” a corrosive spiritual environment, but we are given a simple command based on the knowledge that it does exist. Paul states it simply: “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character’ ” (1 Corinthians 15:33). We do not have to “see” an evil aura to prove the reality of spiritual danger or to take the appropriate actions. We simply need to know that evil exists in many predictable environments even though it is almost always “invisible”. Similar principles apply to “good”.

Second, once we know the invisible world exists, we realize that it often can be seen. In fact, it can be seen far more often than it is. As I sat there in the closing minutes of my men’s retreat, it took the shock of an emotional man telling a simple story to make me aware that the Holy Spirit was working in the lives of the men around me. The stories that started pouring out reinforced and magnified that sudden insight. The work of the Holy Spirit did not begin with that insight, and if there had never been the opportunity to share, the men who had felt the touch of God would still have taken a treasure home with them. This time, though, through the miracle of a few spare moments and the thoughtfulness of a camp director, a veil had been pulled back and we had seen a previously invisible work of God.

Third, having our eyes opened, having the opportunity to peer behind the veil, we, too, can be changed. This is not something to take for granted. The Bible tells the stories of many who saw amazing works of God and yet appear to have learned nothing. King Saul had powerful encounters with God, but ended his days in paranoia and insanity. But others were transformed, as Moses was when he encountered the burning bush in the desert.

Having the veil pulled back can transform us. That transformation has at least two sides. There is a transformation of joy that seizes God’s people when they encounter an active work of the Creator. It is the exhilaration of being reminded again that, in a world of schedules, details, obligations and demands, a higher purpose and design remains. There is more to life than the next payday and its monthly erosion. It is the joy that a walk in a quiet forest can allude to. God has a design for your life and mine.

There is still another transformation, however. It comes when we realize that just as God has been at work in those around us, He has also been at work in our lives. This may be the greatest insight of all. The testimonies of God’s work never cease to warm those who care to listen. A story of faith during times of suffering makes all who hear it want to reach out. A story of victory elicits a shout of joy. But there is also the relentless ache for the touch of God in our own lives. In the course of life, with all its distractions and demands, we can easily fail to be aware that God is still reaching out to us, and so we stop looking. But when that veil is pulled back, when the world that can only be seen through the eyes that God has opened is revealed, when we see the work of God among those around us, then we have an opportunity to also see what God is doing in our own lives.

For me, that is where the men’s weekend had its deepest impact. I do not have an emotionally charged resolution to report. I did not feel compelled to bare my heart as others did. I still cannot really articulate what God did during that weekend, but there is something that I do know, again: God’s most dramatic work may be invisible, but it is very real. I have recommitted myself to keep the eyes God has given me open.

James Toews is senior pastor of Neighbourhood Church in Nanaimo, B.C. This article is based on a sermon preached in November 2001.