On Eagles' Wings Pt 51 — Don Courville

Well, it's good to be back again with you today on Eagle's Wings. Let me remind you that the scripture says that they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles.

They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. That's Isaiah 40, 31. And Exodus 19, 4 says, You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bear you on eagles' wings, and brought you, I brought you unto myself.

Biblical Images of Eagles’ Wings

And David prayed in Psalm 17, 8, Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings. And Psalms 91, 4, He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Prayer for Faith, Grace, and Revival

Heavenly Father, we pray that today you would encourage us to walk by faith, to learn to live by the grace of God, to let Jesus be Lord of our life, to have self crucified and the Lord Jesus reigning as preeminent.

And I pray that as this word goes out over the air, that you would encourage Christians to let Jesus be free in their life, and that you would encourage those that do not know Jesus to trust him as their Savior.

Father, we realize that we live in dangerous times, and we pray that every word would count, every moment would be precious. For it is in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Well, I'm still out on the road. As a matter of fact, I don't even know if I'm going to make it back this winter.

God has been doing some significant things up here in this area of the country, up in western Nebraska where we've been this summer. We came back up to see what was going on. Remember I'd shared with you about the revival meetings that went on in Alliance, Nebraska, for ten weeks.

Revival in Gordon, Nebraska

And I tried to get back up for those meetings, and I had a hard time getting up there, and I finally got up for the last night. Powerful, powerful meetings. And then meetings were scheduled to go into my former town, Gordon, Nebraska, later on in the fall.

Well, that has just happened last week, and I wanted to be around for that, and so we hung around. We took off for a while and was back down in Missouri and Arkansas and Tennessee and Louisiana and a few other states, traveling around.

And then we came back for these meetings, and I wanted to be here to pray and see what God would do. And let me share this with you. God did something very, very unusual. Something that we hadn't planned on, which is usually the way things go if God is involved in a revival.

Because you see, men, we don't have much to do with revivals, really. It's the Spirit of God that does it. We can pray, and we can plan, and we can announce some meetings, but we're not going to have a revival unless God does it.

Well, what happened was we had some meetings scheduled, and I'm not the evangelist. I'm not really an evangelist. I think I have a pastor's heart, pastor-teacher. But the evangelist, Don Enders, his family was scheduled to come in and start the meetings on the 10th of September and go through the 17th.

They were going to go for about eight days, and they started off with a couple days at a city festival that they had. They were put on for doing some gospel singing, and that was sort of an introduction.

And all the Christians around were aware that they were coming. And the meetings were set up, and the first meeting was to start on Monday night. Well, that Monday night in the city auditorium, which was planned to be an evangelistic outreach, only a few Christians showed up.

Now, the night before at the public festival, about 170 had drifted in for just listening to their singing, and they could come in and stay and go and do whatever they want, and most of them stayed. And in the morning, it was the same way.

But that Monday night, the Christians just didn't show up. There were about maybe 75, I'd say, at the most there at this meeting, and it was anticipated that there could be hundreds there. But 75 showed up, and there was about eight, if I remember correctly, of us preachers there.

And those of us that were involved had one witness in our spirit, that God was grieved. Now, before the meetings had started, the Holy Spirit had given us a witness that He was grieved with the area. He was grieved with the coldness and the apathy and the backsliding of Christians.

He was grieved with their careless lives and their careless attitudes. And that Monday night, it's just like the Spirit of God said, that's it. Cancel these meetings. And the evangelist and Pastor Wes and another pastor, Pastor Jules from Alliance, had come up and myself and then a couple of other team members all had this agreement in their spirit that God said, cut it off.

And so they said they'd go two more nights and that was it. And that Tuesday night, the next Tuesday night, when people came in, and there were about 150 that night, about doubled what the night was before.

About 150 that night came in, it was just like a shock when they were told that the meetings were going to be over the next night. That the Spirit of God was grieved with the Christians in the area, that the Spirit of God would not play games, that God's Spirit was deeply grieved and hurt.

And it was just like God himself had pulled out. And they were just shocked at what they heard. And they went ahead and had the meetings that night and God worked in power and he was gracious to us. And I know one young man that I led to the Lord myself had just got out of the army and had come there that night, he'd started in the papers and came there and he got saved.

He was searching. And it was a powerful night. He got saved and was so excited about what Jesus did for him that night. He'd gone through some hard things, his dad had just gotten murdered a year before.

But God was gracious and he worked in a lot of lives. And the next night, the Wednesday night before, the crowds doubled again and as well as I could figure, they were maybe somewhere between three and four hundred.

We'd moved out of the city auditorium, by the way, on the second night out into the park in a gazebo. And the speakers were set up and the whole town could hear what was going on. And it was just powerful the last night.

God ministered in power and then they were gone. The next morning they just pulled out. And it just shocked the whole area. And I think, my friend, that God is moving in and he's saying, listen, you can't play games anymore.

The Urgency of Christ’s Return and the Padded Cross

It's over. The time is short. And I believe Jesus is coming soon. And we've said that for years and years and years. But now with the things going on in the world, every day you hear something new. Prophecy is hot.

The fulfillment, all of it that's needed before the Lord Jesus can come back has been fulfilled. God is speaking to the church today that now is the time to go with it. And if you don't go with it, you're going to get left.

And the time of carrying padded crosses is over. Matter of fact, the evangelist Don Anders handed me a little sheet of paper entitled the Padded Cross. And I don't know who wrote this. Maybe it's been around quite a while and it's sort of put into the modern lingo.

But maybe we ought to listen to this. The message of the Spirit to the church today. He's saying, I will be Lord. I will be glorified. I will have my way. I will be God. You won't be God. And you're going to get left behind.

The padded cross. Well, here I am, Lord. You said take up your cross. And here I am to do it. It's not easy, you know, this self-denial thing. I mean to go through with it. I'll bet you wish more people were willing to be disciples like me.

I've counted the cross and surrendered my life. And well, it's not an easy road. Lord, do you mind if I look over these crosses? I'd kind of like a new one. I'm not fussy, you understand. But a disciple has to be revelant these days.

I was wondering, are there any that are vinyl padded? I'm thinking of attracting others, you see. And if I could show them a comfortable cross, I'm sure I could win a lot more. And I need something durable so I can treasure it always.

Oh, it should be flat, too, so it will fit under my coat. A person shouldn't be too obvious, you know. Funny, doesn't seem to be much choice here. Just that coarse wood, I mean, that would hurt. And don't you have anything more distinctive?

I can tell you right now, Lord, none of my friends are going to be impressed by this shoddy, rough old workmanship. They will think I'm some kind of a nut or something. And my family will be just mortified.

What's that? It's either one of these or forget the whole thing. But Lord, I want to be your disciple. I mean, just being with you, that's all that counts. But life has to have a balance, too. You just don't understand.

Nobody lives like that today, like I want to. But let's not overdo it. Who's going to be attracted by this self-denial bit? Start getting radical like this, and they'll have me off to the funny farm.

Know what I mean? Being a disciple is challenging and exciting, and I want to do it. But I do have some rights, you know. Now, let's see. No blood, OK? I just can't stand the thought of that, Lord. Lord, Lord Jesus.

Now, where do you suppose he went? That's a quote from the padded cross, my friend. Do you want a padded cross? I don't think there's ever been a cross that was fun to bear. I don't think there's ever been a cross that the flesh loved.

The cross is the emblem of death. It's the emblem of suffering and shame. And the Lord Jesus Christ died on that cross for you. He shed his blood there on that cross for you. And my friend, the cross is the only way you'll ever make it to heaven.

You can't come into the shadow of the cross without facing the reality of your own sin, the awfulness of your self. And Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me. Now, I've been going through the book of Colossians, and I have a real burden to teach the Word of God.

A Burden for Revival and the Church’s Spiritual Condition

But I also have a burden for revival. And there are some great men of God teaching the Word, some great men of God on this program. And let me encourage you to tune in to the men of God that preach on this program, support their programs.

J. Vernon McGee, I think Dr. John McArthur is on, and Dr. Charles Stanley, and some others. You listen to these men teach the Word. I only have a half hour each week, and I just can't do what they do by getting on day by day, and it's costly.

So the programs that you like, you encourage them by supporting them. And by the way, I don't look for your money, but I do need your encouragement. I'm wondering, really, if I should even keep on going on this program.

Maybe something better can be put on. There's so little response. I'm wondering if the people in this part of the country care for revival, or do we just care for our own programs and our own little things?

Do we have enough of a burden to drop some of our bickering and fighting and band together and pray? Do we? Do we care enough? You know, the Holy Spirit guides us, and the Holy Spirit leads, and He's sensitive, and He can be rejected, and He can be grieved, and He can be neglected, and He is a person.

He feels, He loves, He understands, He knows things. I was looking at a little booklet the other day, and it shared seven ways that the Holy Spirit can be grieved. And I have this little booklet with me right now, and I was wondering about sharing some of these things with you.

Seven Sins Against the Holy Spirit

Actually, this is seven sins against the Holy Spirit. And since the Spirit of God gave such a witness to what had happened up there in this area, I thought I'd share with you these little seven things, seven sins against the Holy Spirit.

And maybe God can speak to you and minister to you. We need to be sensitive to Him. You know, I've just gone through quite a jolt myself, being up here and coming up here and seeing what's going on. The Spirit of God just got a hold of me and jerked me around like a ragdoll for a couple of weeks and showed me things in my life.

And I'm ashamed to tell you that there were things there, attitudes, and I won't go into all of them. I don't want to. But one of them was boastfulness, and another was just on not being willing really to stay up here this winter.

And the Spirit of God says, I want you to settle in over here around Alliance. I want you to stay here. You need to be here. I was with the pastor of that church last night and the pastor of the Gordon Baptist Church, and we were just talking, and the pastor over in Alliance said, God's just moving in families.

He's moving in families from around the country. He says, I believe God's going to do a great work here, and he's moving in some reinforcements. You know that town where God had the meetings there for 10 weeks?

It was an ungodly town. You wouldn't want to raise a family there really. Bad problems in that town, but God is moving in. Last night, and I'm recording this, after last night, I went over there for an evening service, and there were three people baptized.

Those three people had been saved since the meetings, and those three were youth in the community, and they were some of the worst. One girl, who her life was just terrible, and two other guys in drugs, and if you'd seen them being baptized last night, you would say, wow, where did these guys come from?

But if you'd look in their faces and their eyes, you'd see the joy of Jesus. They were free, and one of them, a 17-year-old young man, was just aglow, and just that week he had led three of his classmates in the high school to the Lord.

That's just last week alone. And that's as a result of letting God move into the community. When's the last time you saw the Holy Spirit working in your community like that? In your life, in your school?

God’s Transforming Work in Communities and Churches

This place is hot. This area is hot. And one of the other things that's happening is the Holy Spirit is dealing with the preachers. We talked to one preacher about, and I think he came out to one of the meetings, the last meeting, but we went by and we talked with him, and he says, man, I've about got killed in the last week two times, and he shared the two instances.

One of them, he was underneath his travel trailer, and his son-in-law drove out from under it. The thing fell down on the ground on top of him, and the only thing that saved him was it didn't go all the way to the ground.

It caught on the, it was a fifth wheel, and something caught and kept it from crushing him. And he said, man. And then another thing, he almost got ran over in a fill station by a guy that cut across the corner real quick, and not only that, that preacher, but two other preachers in that town had just been killed.

All three of those men were on the same street within three blocks of each other. The two that got killed and the one that almost did. God, when he moves into an area, doesn't play games. It may be that God has already left your church, and you're so dead, the Holy Spirit has left, and you don't even know it.

It may be that God is orchestrating things to work in your lives, and in your church, and you're kicking, and you're fussing. Maybe some people are planning on leaving, and maybe you need to let them leave.

And maybe some that are there that hadn't planned on leaving, you need to invite them to leave. Who's playing games? So, seven sins against the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4 .30,. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption.

We grieve him when we do things that are displeasing to him, such as anger. Why do you get angry anyway? It's because your rights have been stomped on. And we grieve him when we give place to the devil.

I've yielded ground to the devil so many times in my Christian life, and he's taken every inch I'd give him. And now I'm on the warpath, and I'm trying to gain everything back that he has. How about it?

Preachers. Ground has been given to him in the area of music or moral lives in your church. Ground's been given to him in the area of maybe watering down doctrines so you don't step on toes. He will take every inch that you'll give him.

Some of you parents, ground has been given in the lives of your children by the compromising that has been done, and you need to get it back. We grieve the Holy Spirit. We grieve him by stealing. We steal God's money when we don't give the way God has directed us to give.

You think that you can't make it. You can't trust God, and so you hold back on your tithe and your offerings. We grieve him by our corruption and our communication. We grieve him by bitterness. We grieve him by evil speaking.

One of the things that I believe that grieved the Spirit of God deeply up in this area was that in one of the churches, three of the families, several months before this, had come up with the idea that they were not being fed by their pastor.

And Satan took a weak area and used this to bring some discord in the church, and some evil speaking came out of that, and the Spirit of God was deeply grieved. And when the pastor found out about it, it had been going on for quite a while, and he wasn't happy with that because he knew that Satan was hitting somehow.

And then when he found out, he knew it. And I just want to share with you that this has been on the mend for the last couple weeks, and that there's been some great victories, but the Spirit of God has had to do some chastening.

We grieve him by evil speaking. And something else that we can do, there's the sin of quenching the Holy Spirit. First Thessalonians 5 .19 says, quench not the Spirit. The word quench means to put out a fire by water or by smothering it.

Fire is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. I want you to recognize that he may be quenched by failing to add fuel to the fire. You may hear something, and you have no right to spread it on. That will put water on the fire, but if you spread it and tell somebody else, that adds fuel to the fire.

He may be quenched by suppressions and failing to open the spiritual draft. He may be quenched by failing to give him due recognition, so much recognition given to self. Oh, so-and-so, they're such a good Sunday school teacher.

Oh, so-and-so is such a good pastor. Oh, so-and-so is such a wonderful deacon. Oh, so-and-so, what about the Holy Spirit, the precious Spirit of God? He's the one that's orchestrating things, or is he?

Is he out? There's the sin of resisting the Holy Spirit. Acts 7 .51, Stephen said, you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do ye.

To resist means to oppose and to hate his deeds. One of the pastors in this meeting up there, on a Monday night, before the Monday night meeting, I was out getting some gas at a store, and he come up behind me, and I just turned around and I said, what did you think about the meetings last night?

Excuse me, this was on Tuesday night. And he says, oh, the evangelist has a few good things to say. And then he went off on an attack on something that he had, he was totally off on, he wasn't right, he misinterpreted it and everything, but the Spirit of God was being resisted by that man, and the Spirit of God had been speaking to that man.

The Spirit of God will just be resisted so long. To resist means to oppose and to hate his deeds. Do you hate the deeds of the Holy Spirit? Do you hate what he's doing? Just like I shared with you that one preacher that said he hated this deacon, he doesn't really hate the deacon, he hated what God was doing.

God was working, God was showing him things, God was showing his heart. And then there's the sin of undervaluing the gifts of the Spirit. You remember in the book of Acts, verses 18 through 20, and when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, give me also this power that on whosoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost.

But Peter said unto him, thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Let me tell you, my friend, a lot of Christians today have assumed and presumed that the Holy Spirit could be begged or bribed to come into their life and give them power so they could be spiritual.

That's not what it's about. The Spirit of God comes into your life. He will empower you, but he will also humble you. And you will want the Lord Jesus Christ to be seen, and you won't want to be jumping up all the time and having your name flashed and people see you.

You'll want to hide. You'll want to be out of sight, and you'll want Jesus glorified. Don't undervalue the gift of the Spirit. He can't be bought. You can't beg for him. When you receive Christ as your Savior, he comes in.

And as you yield day by day to his leading, he will empower you, he will bless you, he will use you. Some of you haven't led somebody to Christ for years and years and years. And for all practical purposes, God ought to just get you out of the way.

I was talking to one pastor, and he said that he had a man in his church that they are talking about just kicking out because he is a negative influence for the cause of Christ. He's in the church and supposedly loves everything and right in, but he's a negative influence because the Spirit of God is not Lord in his life.

And this church is growing and seeing people saved and is under the power of the Spirit of God, and the Holy Spirit is singling out those that are hypocrites. Suppose the Spirit of God came into your church today and just started pointing out ones that were hypocrites, Christians but hypocrites, and they started dropping dead.

Would you be looking for a door out of there? And by the way, my friend, if you're not saved, don't let this stuff keep you away from Christ. It's Satan that's trying to keep you away from Christ. And if you've been looking at Christians that aren't hot for God, get your eyes off them then and look at Jesus.

Get your Bible and see that Jesus Christ is who you're to be looking at. You need Him. He died for you on the cross. He was crucified and buried, and He rose again for you, and He wants you to be free.

Freedom in Christ and the Danger of Trifling with Holy Things

He said, Jesus said, I came to set the captives free. And not only that, there's the sin of trifling with the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 6, 4 through 6 says,. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame.

Now, I'm not going to get into the controversial passage here, not that I'm afraid to, but I want to point out this to you, that they were trifling with the Holy Spirit. Trifling means to talk jestingly or mockingly or to speak lightly of, to treat lightly what He's showing and doing.

To trifle with holy things is dangerous. You can reach out and touch the ox cart and God will smite you dead as it happened in the Old Testament. You can touch the holy things of God. And if God is in it and God is working, you will be burnt.

The church of Jesus Christ has been polluted today by the hands of impure men, men that God should smite down. The church of God is not ready for the rapture. The church of God is ready for revival. Revival starts with repentance and acknowledging that there's sin.

Repentance, Chastening, and the Hope of Revival

Now, if it was all gloom and all darkness that I talked about, it wouldn't be any good. But I'm seeing the glory of God on one hand and I'm seeing the chastening of the Holy Spirit on the other. One area, God is judging that area.

I'm wondering if God is going to judge this area that you're in right here. And I felt that God wanted me to move into this area. And so far, I haven't been able to get into this area and settle down here with you and work with you.

I want to meet with you and pray with you. I want you to invite me to meet you. Would you do that? Would you pray about that? If you have a heart for revival, would you invite me to come meet with you sometime?

You'll have to write. You won't be able to get me by phone right now. I'm hard to reach. But you write me and I'll get your letter someday. I'll be back down into the area in a few weeks. If I'm going to stay up in this area, I've got to come back down and get my coats.

My family's up here and we're not ready for winter. But we're ready for God and we're ready for revival. And what we're seeing has made us excited and it's also scared me. There's also two more. The sin of doing despite to the Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 11, 29. Of how much sore punishment, suppose ye, shall he be through thought worthy who had trodden underfoot the Son of God and have counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace.

Despite is an act of insult, of malice and contempt. One more thing, then we're going to be closing down the sin of blasphemy and against the Holy Ghost. Now, I personally believe that the sin talked about in Matthew 12, 31 and 32, and you can disagree with me, was done by the Jews when they rejected the testimony of the Spirit of God through Jesus Christ, that he was the Messiah and they rejected him.

I believe that that blasphemy could only be done then. But we can have a similar thing in our lives. The scripture said, Wherefore, I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

Now, the Jews did an awful thing when they rejected their Messiah. But we can do just as terrible a thing today by blaspheming the Holy Ghost who wants to move in, in power and revival. And we will not let him.

Closing Exhortation to Pray for Revival

Well, our time is about gone. But let me encourage you to pray for revival. You know, I've been on this program for a year and I'm searching my heart and I'm asking God, do you want me to continue on?

Lord, I don't have anything in it. It takes some time. It takes some sacrifice to get this program out. And I'm just wondering, Lord, do you want me to go? Heavenly Father, would you anoint our hearts to be like Jesus?

Teach us to walk by grace. Lift us up on eagles' wings. Lord, we are sinful and we need you. Lord, there's one out there today that needs Jesus. I pray that you'd touch them to call upon Jesus right now to save them.

For it's in his name we pray. Amen. Well, until next week, I trust that God will richly bless you and you pray for revival. You pray for me and I'll pray for you.