One of the great prayers in the Bible is written by the apostle Paul in Ephesians, Chapter 1. “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” (Ephesians 1:18)
Spiritual Eyes are very different than our natural eyes. We walk through life every day viewing the world through our natural eyes. Paul however prayed for the eyes of our heart be enlightened. The Greek word enlightened is photizo, and it means to illuminate, to make see. Paul must have realized there were a lot of followers of Christ who were not seeing the world through spiritual eyes – and it is the same, today.
Years ago, the Lord spoke to me about living in two worlds: a natural world and a spiritual world. It wasn’t that I didn’t have some understanding of the spiritual world; I did. However, when He spoke that to me, I began to see the spiritual realm in much greater clarity. When He drew my attention to the fact that we live in two worlds, I began to use my spiritual eyes more and more – to see how the spiritual realm is impacting life today.
In Ephesians 6:12, Paul writes, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” I have to remind myself of that verse almost daily. When we get into a disagreement with our spouse, neighbor, co-worker, or the grocery store attendant, it sure seems like we are wrestling with the person right in front of us. But in most cases, there is a spiritual component at work behind the scenes, attempting to bring division, strife, and conflict.
Recently, there was another horrific school shooting in America. When that happens, everyone scrambles to understand. Was the shooter mentally ill? What caused him to go berserk? How do we keep this from ever happening again? In most cases, an argument about guns ensues. If we outlaw guns this would never happen again! Guns certainly play a part in these kinds of events, but there is something much bigger going on…
Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” Only God knows the heart of every person. The wickedness rooted in the carnal nature of man can certainly lead us to do ungodly things – but mass shootings are beyond the fallen nature of man. I’m convinced that there is also an evil power at work in these situations.
1Timothy 4:1-2 states, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.” I believe we are living in the days Paul wrote about almost 2,000 years ago. Many today seem to be giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. Clearly, for a person to go on a killing spree, the conscience has to be seared. There is no compassion, no longer an understanding of the difference between right and wrong. These people are blind to reason – and have one purpose in mind: to steal, kill, and destroy, the agenda of the devil.
It seems that many today are being influenced by deceiving spirits – not just mass murderers. As I listen to politicians, people on the news, and on TV, I envision demonic spirits sitting on their shoulder whispering in their ear. Often the things being said make no sense at all. It’s as though all logic and human reason has vanished! For example, I recently read an article by a prominent politician attempting to support her view about abortion – from the Bible. I read the article twice, the second time with my wife, and neither of us couldn’t understand a thing she said. All I could think was, How can this highly educated person speak such nonsense and others buy into it? Clearly, it was another case of the doctrines of demons influencing thinking.
Having our spiritual eyes opened is the only way to understand what is going on today. School shootings are horrible, and yet, the destruction wrought by demonically inspired philosophies is much worse. For example, history records failure after failure of socialism and Marxism, ultimately ending in death and destruction. How can intelligent people not see this? How can those who study history not see the evil produced by those philosophies? The only answer that makes any sense to me is that they are blind. There is a demonic veil over their minds – and we are actually seeing the prophetic words from Paul in 1Timothy 4 come to pass.
So, my prayer for the Church is the same as that of the apostle Paul in Ephesians 1: That the eyes of the heart would be opened that we might see what is truly happening in our world today. Only then, can we intercede effectively, according to the Word of God.
