How Will You Wake Up Tomorrow?

You see, when we pray, God starts to work. When we pray, the plan of God starts to unfold. That's why it is folly to go quickly into any battle, any situation, without first hearing from the Commander, without first understanding or knowing what it is that God wants to do.

Thanks for joining us this week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon. In 2 Kings chapter 6, we find Syria is at war with Israel. Elisha woke up early in the morning to find an army with horses and chariots surrounding the city. Elisha's servant asked his master, What shall we do? What a difference a day can make. One morning you wake up seeing the troubles that surround you in your human reasoning. But you see things much differently the next morning because your eyes were opened and you saw a miracle. Now let's join Carter, asking the question, How will you wake up tomorrow? 2 Kings, please, in your Bible, if you have it, chapter 6, verse 14.

Now it was a scenario where suddenly the people of God of that particular time woke up in the morning and by night, it says in verse 14, the enemy that was against them had come with a great army and surrounded the city. I don't know if you've ever woken up and you feel surrounded. You're surrounded by your struggles, your trials, your problems, difficulties. Maybe it's an illness in your body. Maybe it's something in your mind. Maybe it's just during the COVID-19 situation, a lot of people, depression has visited their heart, visited their home. Maybe you lost your job.

You don't see any way forward. Maybe you feel like you're being taunted by the voices of the enemy all around you. And you just woke up this morning surrounded. And the servant of the man of God, I gather from this particular passage, he was the first one that got up and went out.

And so there's two types of men that are going to wake up this morning. The first one is the servant of this man called Elisha. He gets up early and he went out and 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, that's Elisha, answered and said, 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 men and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. So there's two types of men wake up. Two types of the servants of God, both are followers of God.

Do you understand? Elisha is a follower of God. He's called into the specific ministry and so is Elisha's servant. If you were to ask this man, are you a follower of Jehovah God of that time?

He would say, absolutely, completely. I am part of the staff, may I put it that way, of this man of God called Elisha. I'm with him. I'm his armor bearer, whatever he wanted to call himself. I'm his servant and he goes somewhere. I go with him.

He does things I do. And I'm pursuing the same God that he is. The problem is that this servant is a follower of God, but he has little to no spiritual vision. And there's a lot of people like that in the body of Christ, in the church of Jesus Christ. They are followers of God and they're zealous about God. They go to church. They go where the servants of God go.

They do the things that they're asked to do, but they themselves have little or no spiritual vision. When the enemy comes in and in this case like a flood and their very first response is what shall we do? God is not even in the equation of this man's question. He's looking for, we have to do something.

We have to do it and it has to be done by us. And that's the problem with this kind of a man, the natural man. The New Testament calls this a natural man.

Yes, they have a spiritual life and they have come to salvation through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. But as with this man, he sees with his natural eye, he pushes forward with his natural strength and he reasons everything with his natural mind. In other words, he's completely outside of where the strength of God really is and the power of God and the wonder of God, the kingdom of God. There's this whole realm around him that he doesn't see.

I don't know about you tonight. I don't want to live there. I never want to live there.

I never wanted to live there. Right from the beginning, I said, God, I see something in the word of God. I see a kingdom that cannot be seen with the natural eye and sometimes can't be comprehended with the natural mind.

It can't be attained with natural ability. This is a kingdom, God, where you operate and you invite us into this kingdom by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. You give us your Holy Spirit and you said, when the comforter comes or the spirit of truth comes, he will take the victory that I have won for you and he will show it to you and he will show you things to come. He will show you things that I have determined to do. He will show you things that you have inherited because of the sacrifice of the son of God on the cross.

And so many people, maybe it's because we're not having to fight a war that's beyond our natural ability. I think this man probably had a reputation in the city. Maybe as he walked through the city, they said, oh, there's the servant of the man of God.

There's so and so. And wow, he's a holy man. He's a spiritual man. He walks with the man of God.

And maybe he'd done a few things that had brought him to some kind of a spiritual reputation. But one morning he wakes up surrounded. One morning there's something that's just outside of the realm of his own possibility. And he can't comprehend any way forward. He doesn't see any victory. And he starts to try to reason, starts looking in his own pockets, starts looking at his own resume, starts checking in his own wallet.

He starts looking for something that's within his own natural mind, natural might and his natural hand to try to win a supernatural victory that can only be won by God. You see, this is important now because we are in a battle now for the very soul of a nation. We're in the battle for the testimony of God in our generation. And we're not going to be able to reason our way or push our way through this.

We're not going to be able to build or do something in our own natural strength that's going to win this victory today. As Pastor Tim shared on Sunday, we either pray or I think I'm paraphrasing for him, but the way I heard it is we either pray or we don't win. It's either God has to fight or the fight's not going to be won.

This is not something. And I love the illustration of King Hezekiah presenting this threat before the throne of God then going to bed. And while everybody's sleeping, God sends the angel of the Lord comes down and slays 185,000 of the enemy that had surrounded the city one more time. You see, when we pray, God starts to work. When we pray, the plan of God starts to unfold. That's why it is folly to go quickly into any battle, any situation without first hearing from the commander, without first understanding or knowing what it is that God wants to do.

First Corinthians chapter two says it this way in verses 12 and verse 14. Now we have received not the spirit of the world. Now remember this world only sees with its natural eye, pushes with its natural strength and reasons with its own natural mind. But we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. Verse 14, but the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God for their foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.

In other words, the man who lives by his own strength, his own reasoning, he can't know the things of the kingdom of God. And so we'll always live in a realm of what shall we do? What can we do?

What ought we to do? It will always be that reasoning. In other words, the natural man will end up in a boardroom and not in a prayer room. Everything will be designed out of his natural mind and he'll come up with all these wonderful themes for the church that are just so powerless. It's just a lot of denominations.

I hate to say it, but they're just known for it. This year's theme is going to be three rhyming words and this is going to be our whole year and it all came out of a boardroom. Somebody, the first, maybe the most powerful guy in the room threw the three words out and everybody just fell into line and they decided to do something. And not realizing that not praying and not hearing from God just lends itself to a continuous road of increased powerlessness and eventually just irrelevant in the culture and the society that we now live in. In John chapter six, verse five, it says, Jesus lifted up his eyes and he's seeing a great multitude coming towards him. He said to Philip, where shall we buy bread that these may eat?

For this, he said, to test him for he himself knew what he would do. So this is the son of God. He's showing us how the kingdom of God works. He saw a great multitude. In other words, there was a great need and he knew that need could not be met through human resource.

So he tests the man who's been walking with him for a season. Philip should know better. They knew he could do miracles. They knew he had power.

And immediately, Philip resorts into his natural understanding. Philip said, 200 denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may have a little. So immediately, this man, seeing the size of the problem, is looking in his pockets.

He's looking to his friends. How much money do you have? How many denarii do you have?

How much do you have? He's the ultimate bean counter in the kingdom of God. He counts the number of beans out there that are necessary and then he counts the number of beans they have in their pocket.

He said, I'm sorry, we don't have the resource. Now Jesus was testing him. You ever thought that when something comes your way that you and I don't have the strength to meet the need that's before us. You ever thought that God just might be testing you over something and just seeing are you willing now to look away from your own resources? Are you willing to look away from your own thoughts about the situation, your own strength to achieve your desired ends or whatever you think the end is that God would have you to have? And one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother said to him, there's a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish. But what are they amongst so many? Then Jesus said, make the people sit down.

There was much grass in the place so the man sat down in number about 5,000. And Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to his disciples and the disciples to those sitting down and likewise with the fish as much as they wanted. Now first of all, he tests Philip. It says in the scripture, for he knew, he himself knew what he would do. Now we know that the kingdom of God operates through faith. I want you to follow me on this thread of thought.

He knew what he was going to do and he knew who his partner was going to be in doing it. There's a little boy. Now the disciples didn't steal this bread and fish from this little kid. I don't even know where he's going. Maybe he's going home. Maybe he's passing through. I don't know. Maybe he's on his way to school and this is his lunch.

Maybe his mom sent him out to buy this for supper for the family. But there's a little boy passing through. Jesus, remember, he knew what he was going to do and his kingdom does not operate apart from faith. You remember in one passage of scripture says he could do not many mighty miracles there in this particular town because of their unbelief. So here's this little boy passing through. He's got five loaves and two small fish. And he just comes through the crowd and presents it to one of the disciples as a little child and says, this should do it.

Between me and Jesus, we can feed this crowd. I don't know about you, but I've got grandchildren and that's the way they are. They don't see impossibility. They don't count the beans. They don't look at the numbers.

They don't get up in the morning and look at the size. If Papa tells them it's all going to be okay, then in their minds it's all going to be okay because Papa said so. They don't have to figure it out. They can't drive a car. If I tell them we're going to get ice cream today at five o'clock, they know they're going to get from where they are to get the ice cream even though they can't drive a car.

They don't have to know how. Papa told them that's going to be done. You see, and this little boy, I just love it. He just presents his little lunch in spite of the thousands that are there and Jesus already knew. How much faith does it take for a miracle?

My Bible says it takes the size of a grain of a mustard seed. That's what this little boy had. He had mustard seed faith. He brought his little offering to Jesus and said, between you and I, we can do this.

And I've experienced this with my grandchildren so I know what this is all about. They just have a faith in them that God help us as adults to get back to it again. Jesus himself said, Matthew chapter 18 and verse 3, Assuredly I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Now that doesn't mean, that's not talking about salvation. That's talking about entering into this place of God's power, this place of God's wonderment, this place of the kingdom of heaven. This kingdom that just grows into something, it's planted in the field and it grows, it's a small seed but it grows into something that can give provision and lodging for people all around it. It's something that God alone can do. Unless you be converted and become as little children, you will live like the servant of Elisha outside of the kingdom. It doesn't mean heaven is not your home.

It means while you live on the earth, you live outside of this place of the miraculous. Outside of the wonderment of saying, God I only have like a, I feel like sometimes I felt in my life like I got less than this little boy but I bring it to God anyway. And say, Lord if you can use it.

And he always has used it. And he's fed multitudes throughout the world through this little lunch bag of an offering called My Life. But I gave it to him, not trying to figure it all out.

And even today I thank God that I don't have to figure everything out. I bring it to him. I bring my little bit of faith to him. I bring my little situation or my big situation to him and say, God you're able to look after this. Sometimes we just go to bed and while we're sleeping God looks after our situation and does something that's so much bigger than we could ever have thought or even imagined. He sets our feet on a pathway. He does something through our speech.

He just does something in his kingdom that you and I can't figure out what it is. But we just simply bring it to him and say, Lord I just believe that all things work together for good because I love you and I'm called according to your purpose. I believe that a miracle is going to happen through this whether I understand it or I don't. I believe God that you're going to do something through this situation and my life that can't be done apart from you.

I don't like living in the realm of natural reasoning. And once you've tasted, oh now I know why the psalmist said, oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh once you've tasted of his favor, you've tasted of his power, you've tasted of his leading, you've tasted of his ability, his willingness to take our nothingness and do everything through it.

Once you've tasted you never want to go back to the boardroom again. You never want to go back and be part of that crowd that gets up in the morning and says, alas Master what shall we do? And Elisha's response was so simple. He said, oh Lord 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 all around Elisha. And now suddenly his eyes are open to a whole world, a kingdom he hadn't seen, a power he wasn't aware of, the willingness of God to act on our behalf, the love of God for those who are his servants, the presence of God, the power of God to intervene in every situation. Suddenly his eyes are open and he sees the army at ready, those that were sent of God, those that are always there to fight, this ever present help that the Lord declares himself to be.

He suddenly sees it upon the mountains, not just on one side, not just on the east or the west, but all around, more and mightier than anything that will ever come against the testimony of God in the earth or the children of God. And this is my prayer for you. Maybe you woke up this morning and you said, alas Master, what shall we do?

Maybe that was your prayer. I don't know what to do. Maybe you got up and spoke to your wife or your husband or maybe to your mom or your dad and said, what are we going to do? I don't know what we're going to do. We've got to do something.

And your whole life is stuck in this narrow little corridor of human effort and human reasoning and human understanding. And my prayer for you tonight is, oh God, would you open the eyes of your people one more time? Would you open the eyes of your people in China that are listening tonight online?

Those in Japan, those in Korea, those in Singapore, those in Australia, those in Canada, those throughout the United States, those in Europe that are online listening and will be listening again tomorrow to this. Would you open the eyes to see something, God, in our generation that we need to see again? We've lived in the natural for too long. We've too long tried to figure everything out. We've too long strategized ourselves to spiritual impotence. We've too long lived in a place where the power of God is not, the reasoning of man is, but the power of God is not. And now we find ourselves overnight literally surrounded by enemies who are hell-bent on stamping out the testimony of Christ in this generation.

And we look at the power, the magnitude of the things that are against us. And like this servant of Elisha, we say, oh God, what shall we do? And the Lord says, pray. That's all I'm asking you to do is pray. You bring it to me.

You do what Hezekiah did. You take the threatenings against your life and against your home and against your town, your city, your country, your family, your nation, and you spread it out at my throne and then go to bed and relax and let me look after it. I will answer your prayer. I will give you strength where you didn't have strength and give you victory that you could never win in any amount of your own human effort. Once this man's eyes are opened, he sees a miracle. Not only does he see the power of heaven surrounding them in this besieged city, but with two simple prayers after that one, he sees an entire army brought into captivity.

Isn't it amazing? That's what the word of God tells us, right? Our prayers are powerful. We have the ability to pull down strongholds and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. We war, not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. And in the prayer closet, God has given us the specific ability to tear down these, to tread on these serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy with the promise that nothing shall by any means hurt us.

Then he sees Elisha, the servant of God, just pray two simple prayers. Strike these enemies with blindness. In other words, don't let them achieve their desired end. They're setting out to captivate the testimony of God, which is always what the powers of darkness will do. And so Elisha says, strike them with blindness. Don't let them achieve their goal. We should pray that again in our generation for all of these things that have risen up to take away the testimony of Christ, to redefine good as evil and evil as good. We should pray again. Strike them, God, with blindness.

Let them not achieve their desired objectives. And then he said to this foreign army, come follow me. And he led them right into the midst of Samaria, into a place where they were taken captive by a praying man.

Isn't that amazing? A whole army is taken captive one more time by a praying man. Then the king, of course, of Samaria said, shall I smite them? Shall I smite them?

And Elisha said, no, you don't harm people you've taken captive by prayer. You show them the kindness of God. He said, set a table, feed them, and then send them home to their master. Show them that there's a power much greater than anything that they've ever understood.

They sat them down at the table. Then Elisha said, now open their eyes that they may see. In other words, open the eyes of our enemies and give them spiritual sight to see there is a kingdom bigger than theirs. There is a God when they deny that he exists. There is a power that's much bigger than any army in the face of this entire planet. And he sent them home and the scripture says they never came back again. Nobody wanted to fight that kind of a battle. And this poor servant that got up in the morning and just in the space of a few short hours and days, he sees something that he's never seen before.

And how do you think he woke up the next morning? You know, God, show me those chariots again. Show me those soldiers again of heaven. Show me, oh, help me to pray like that so that I can pray like Elisha. Help me to see the power of God in my situation. Help me never to trust what I see with my natural eyes and think with my natural mind. Help me never to lean on what I can come up with in my natural strength. You've shown me your power, oh God.

Don't let me settle for less. And so my prayer for you is really simple. I'm going to ask that God give you spiritual eyes.

Now, that may seem like a simple prayer, but it's not. You have to have that faith of a child. You have to have that wonderment of God come into your heart. You see, if you don't have the wonderment of God, you will always reason everything with your natural mind. The wonderment of God says God is much bigger than me. God is good. God has a great plan. God is my Father. God is kind. God can be trusted.

God's ways are not my ways. And you have to have that wonderment. And that's what I'm going to pray for you for. That God give you that wonderment of a child. That expectancy. That because God said it is going to happen. That sense of this deep inherent goodness that's found in God. This plan that He's got for your life that is so much bigger than anything that you've ever thought of for yourself.

God has a much bigger plan for you than you could ever imagine. I'm going to pray for you that woke up this morning saying, what shall we do? That tomorrow you wake up and say, God is with me. God is with me. You wake up with it.

Your circumstance may not have changed, but you've got a bounce in your step. You've got a light in your eye. You've got a joy in your heart. You say, God is with me. I don't have to understand everything.

I don't have to know how it all works out. God is with me. Hallelujah.

My enemies can bark over the wall all they want. God is with me. God is with me. God has promised to keep me. God has sealed me in His hand and no one can take me out of that hand. God has promised me that He's going to bring me to a desired end. He told me the thoughts He's thinking about me are more than the grains of sand at the seashore. Oh, thank God.