2 Kings 6

Seeing The Unseen

Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. 2 Kings 6:17.

How much do you see? Do you see half of what is to be seen? Or all that is to be seen? Or more than is to be seen? These are the three kinds of eyesight, and you must have one or other of the three.

1. Perhaps the greatest number of people in the world have the first kind of eyesight. They see only the half of what is to be seen. They look, for instance, at a flower, but they don't really see it. If you asked them to draw it for you or describe it to you, ten chances to one they would give it seven petals instead of five, and those petals would not be the correct shape. Then they would make it grow on a wrong stem, and the leaves would be smooth instead of hairy. These people had looked but they had not noticed; and noticing is the better half of seeing.

About the middle of last century there lived a very famous Swiss professor called Agassiz. He was a great student of Natural History, and among the Subjects that he studied most closely was the life history of the fish. He knew all that there was to know about the fishes that live in our day and the fishes that lived in the days before man was.

It is told of him that he used to give a fish to one of his students and tell him to take it away and study it for a while. When the student came back Agassiz would ask him what he had seen about the fish. The student would say he had seen this and that, and Agassiz would ask, “What else?” The student would come at last to the end of what he had seen, but Agassiz would send him back to study the creature again. A second time the student would return and Agassiz would ask what he had seen now, and the student would reply he had noticed this and that besides. And again, when he had come to the end of what he had seen, Agassiz would send him back to look a third time; and so on till the student was astonished to know how much there was to see in an ordinary fish. “Ah!” Agassiz would say, “it has been there all the time but you didn't look close enough to discover it.”

2. The second kind of eyesight is the eyesight that sees all that is to be seen. It notices and remembers. It sees an object and it immediately stores up a little picture of that object with every detail complete. It is a very valuable kind of eyesight, and the hopeful thing about it is that if you haven't got it naturally, you can train yourself to have it.

Have any of you read Kipling's book, Kim? The story tells how Kim, when a boy, was trained to have the eyesight that notices. He was sent up to Simla and there he was put in charge of an extraordinary man, called Lurgan Sahib, who taught him how to see. Kim and a little native boy were set to play what they called “the jewel game.” Lurgan Sahib would make a collection of small objects, such as precious stones, and he would give both boys a look at them, and then he would ask them to describe the stones from memory. At first the little Hindu boy always beat Kim at the game. But in the end Kim learned to play the game of noticing so magnificently that when he grew older he was able to do most valuable work for the British Government.

Boys and girls, train yourselves to notice. The world is rich in exquisite details if only we open our eyes to see them.

3. But the third kind of eyesight is the most important as it is the most precious. It is the eyesight of our text the eyesight that sees the unseen.

The text is a prayer of the prophet Elisha. At this time Elisha's life was in great danger from the king of Syria. The king of Syria, who was Israel's enemy, had discovered that the most private plans he made to surprise the Israelites were foiled by Elisha. Not that Elisha spied! But God allowed him to know all the Syrians' plans, and he told them to the king of Israel. So the king of Syria sent a special force to capture the prophet, who was then living in Dothan, a city twelve miles north of Samaria.

During the darkness of one night the Syrians stealthily and noiselessly surrounded the city, which was built on a mound. There they were discovered in the grey dawn of the morning by Elisha's servant, who rushed in terror to his master, crying, “Alas, my master! how shall we do?” He was sure that their last hour had come. But the prophet only smiled quietly. “Fear not,” said he, “for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” And then he prayed “Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.”

And the next moment the young man was crying out, not in terror but in amazement, for, round about the city, encircling it more closely even than the Syrians, was a host of chariots and horses of fire. The Syrians were still there, but the young man saw that something greater than the Syrians lay between them and his master. God Himself had sent His legions to protect and shield His prophet. God had not deserted them. He was with them in the danger.

Now the eyesight that God gave to that young man is the eyesight I want you to have the eyesight that sees God and God's love in everything.

When Jean Francois Millet, the great French artist, was a little fellow, he and his father stood on the cliffs one night to watch the sunset. The wonderful crimson of the sky and the golden glory of the sea made Francois cry out with delight. But his father stood still and bared his head. “My son,” said he, “it is God.”

Boys and girls, I want you to see in all the happenings of your life, the beautiful things and the glad things ay, and the perplexing things and the sad things God Himself God giving, God guiding, God loving. For if we see God with the eyes of faith here below, we shall be getting ready to see Him as He is later, when He takes us to live with Him for ever.