On Eagles' Wings Pt 61 — Don Courville

Well, it's good to be back with you again today on Eagle's Wings. We want to be an encouragement to you. We are burdened for revival for this land, and we're praying for it, and we trust that you are too.

A Call for Revival and Repentance

We want to see God do a mighty work in our land. I was just reading a passage in Jeremiah 17 .9 that says, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? For I, the Lord, search the heart.

I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. Well, my friend, if God gives to America according to our ways and according to the fruit of our doings, we have had it, which is what burdens us.

We see that if God was to judge in fairness, we wouldn't stand a chance, and we are pleading for God to send revival. We're praying for God to do a work in our land, and we are encouraged by the response that we get from you.

It's encouraging to hear someone write and say, we are praying for revival in Joplin, or we're praying for revival in this area or that area. You know, Hosea, in chapter 10, verse 12, he cried out, So to yourselves in righteousness reap in mercy.

Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity, you have eaten the fruit of lies, because thou distrust in thy way in the multitude of thy mighty men.

Revival, Tradition, and the Work of the Holy Spirit

You know, I've seen so many times churches that could have had revival, but they were so programmed that there was no room for the Spirit of God to move in. My friend, I trust that your church is not like that, that there is room for the Holy Spirit to change the program.

One of the problems with tradition is we can elevate it above the freshness of the Spirit of God, even above the Word of God, which is deadly dangerous. If you're burdened for revival, then you pray, and God will answer your prayer.

We have been seeing God work in certain areas of the country, and my ministry is one right now of backing up pastors, ministering to churches that are burdened for revival, that are experiencing revival, or that want revival.

I've done a lot of pre-revival work. Now, revival is the work of the Holy Spirit, but there are some principles and some tools that we can use, basically that of getting right with God ourself personally, being clean and praying, making restitution.

I have something I'd like to share with you on restitution, and I have something I'd like to share with you on bitterness. As a matter of fact, I have a lot of things that I'd like to share. I could share some of my messages that I preach, but I have such a limited time.

I just want to encourage you. We have unlimited sermons going out, and there are good men preaching the Word of God. But who's hollering for revival? Who's hollering for repentance? Now, by revival, I mean a brokenness where we come to the point where we recognize that we are in sin, that our church is cold, backslidden, that our leaders, our people are cold.

Testimonies of Salvation and Local Ministry

When's the last time somebody got saved in your church? Now, the church I've just moved into up here in western Nebraska, I've only been here two weeks, but I think we've probably seen a couple dozen people get saved.

We've had 13 get saved in a brand new ministry that was just started off. A man down in Texas, God prompted him to come back to his hometown here, or not really his hometown, I guess, but he had lived here, his folks are here, and he'd come back here.

He'd come into the church and said, Preacher, God prompted me to come back here. And the preacher said, What does God want you to do? And he said, He wants me to work with the older folks. And he said, Praise the Lord.

I've been praying that God would send a man in to take care of this need. There's been 13 prayed to receive the Lord since this thing started up less than two months ago. The youth ministry, there's a man that moved in here, and God burdened him to work with the youth in town, and he started an interdenominational ministry.

The kids just come in, he meets with them, has Bible studies. A number of them have got saved. And another man's moving in, he's going to be a prayer warrior. He used to be my assistant pastor back up in Gordon, Nebraska.

And I've moved in, and I'm helping doing a lot of counseling and doing a lot of visitation and pretty much generally whatever the pastor suggests. I've just submitted myself under him. Our ministry is to be available.

And we travel. We plan on coming back down into Missouri about the end of the month. And I don't know if you have enough time to get a hold of me now, but you can try. You never know. It might work out if you want me to come over and visit with you.

Pastor, I'm interested in helping you out. Also, I have something that I started last week sharing, and it's a pamphlet that you can have, a little booklet, I guess. On 10 Scriptural Reasons Why the Rock Beat is Evil in Any Form.

And I'd like to give you this. I'd like to give it to you free, but I just can't afford it. So I'm offering it to you for a donation of at least $5 to help cover the cost. And again, thank you for those that write, for those of you that send in support for the program.

You know, we don't ask for money. We just really ask God to provide. We know many of you are on limited incomes, and God is able to meet our needs. That's why I keep saying, Jesus Christ is all you need.

Is He all you want? If God wants this program to go, it'll go. If He wants it to shut down, then we'll shut it down. We just want to do what He wants. Now this little booklet, entitled 10 Scriptural Reasons Why the Rock Beat is Evil in Any Form, can be a great help to you if you're experiencing some turmoil in your church.

Maybe you can't understand why the music is so different than what it used to be, and maybe why there's such an unrest in your church. Because a lot of people don't understand that the rock beat invites demons in.

And this little booklet will give you even some testimonies of some Africans that have come over to America, and they'd hear this rock beat, and they'd say, why are you calling in the demons? That's the music I used to play to call them in when I was in the jungles.

It's the same beat. And this thing may give you some light, Pastor, that you can use, or a deacon, or elder, or just whoever you are, you write for it, it might give you something that you can use to help clean your church up.

The Holy Spirit has to have clean ground to work from. He has to have a clean heart. And this maybe can help you. Let me just share a little bit. There's 10 Scriptural Reasons, last week I shared one, and let me share a little bit from the second one on how the rock beat violates God's command to give no place to the devil.

And I'll do some reading in here and share a little bit, but I want to get back and share a story with you on Revival. Last week I sort of cut myself short on sharing with you just stories. We have stories, we have fresh stories, we have old stories about how Revival has come, and you can have it.

There's many believe that you can't have Revival. And I've got a sermon laying right here by me I'd like to preach on unbelief. I'll tell you what, I had a three-year-old girl get an answer to prayer today that was just a miracle of God.

She prayed for something, and I said, honey, I don't think you're going to get that, because Daddy's not going to fork out the money for that. Well in the mail, that very next morning was the money. And she was so excited, she came in to, as a matter of fact, while I was recording the last week's program, she came in and just shared how God had answered this prayer.

She said, we're going to get it now, aren't we? I guess so. I hadn't got anything to say. God can answer your prayer for Revival. Our area needs it bad. Our country needs it bad. But we're not going to see it if we're inviting demons into our church.

The Rock Beat, Rebellion, and Spiritual Warfare

Now the rock beat violates God's command to give no place to the devil. And this article goes on, and it says this. When sons and daughters disregard the instruction of their parents by listening to the rock beat, they are guilty of the kind of rebellion which is described in 1 Samuel 15, 23.

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Remember, rebellion is simply reserving for myself the right to make final decisions. It's deciding to have an equal voice with those whom God has placed in authority over me.

And I shared last week how the rock music is alienating the children from the parents. Just as the New Age doctrine that's being taught around the country and in many of the schools is alienating the children from the parents too.

And ultimately, it's geared to be an attack against Christ, against Christianity. Now rebellion manifests itself in many ways, but the rock music is one of the strongest forms of stirring up rebellion in the heart, and that's why we have testimonies of teenagers.

I have several dozen written testimonies of teenagers, how they've written a story or a testimony of what that rock music did to them. Now let me go on and share this. This was the type of rebellion which Satan demonstrated when he said, I will be like the Most High God.

This is the type of rebellion we're talking about. Witchcraft involves exposing oneself to the realm and the power of Satan's control, and the Bible teaches us that whoever gives Satan such ground violates the command of Scripture.

Ephesians 4, 27 says, neither give place or ground to the devil. The Greek word for place in this verse refers to a spear of jurisdiction. Now think about this. When Satan is given authority, he uses it to control and destroy the one who gave it to him.

So if you get into the rock music, and I am talking about what is called supposedly Christian rock, I contend, I know there's a big debate over this and a big discussion, and you may want to tune me off or whatever, but let me suggest that you listen, that the rock beat itself is demonic.

And you say, I don't believe it. Well this little pamphlet will prove it. Now God saved me out of the rock Himself. Now this goes back into the dark ages to some of you back in the 60s, but it's the same beat.

It's the same thing, and it about destroyed me. Now let me share with you how Satan gained control in a teenager's life, and this teenager is David Brown, age 16, he lives in Arizona, and he wrote, I started listening to contemporary Christian music about four years ago.

I thought that the music was okay, and I enjoyed it, but one day I was listening to a Christian radio station and a song came on that I had never heard before. I liked the song, even though it was questionable, and when the group who played that song came to town, I went to their concert with some friends.

I knew, however, that my parents would not have approved had they known what type of music was played. After the concert, I borrowed money from a friend to buy their tape. I bought it, I brought it home, but my parents did not want me to keep it.

I did anyway. I listened to it all the time and finally brought some other Christian rock tapes, even though my parents did not want me to. I listened to them for a while, but soon got bored with them.

I then started listening to secular rock on a light rock station without my parents' knowledge. I began to want to listen to rock music more and more, and I began to enjoy the harder stuff. I soon changed stations to a hard rock station so I could listen to the harder stuff.

After listening to that station for about a year, all without my parents' knowledge, I found that the stuff I liked the station could play only at night, so I got the tapes of some of the other groups I liked, and I found that I loved heavy metal.

I just couldn't get enough. When I finally faced the reality of how wrong I was, I made a commitment to give it up. However, I still struggle with it daily, and every time I hear it, I am tempted to get back into it.

And the rock is just like an alcoholic with his alcoholism, or somebody with smoking. It has a drawing power on you, an addiction on you. In this case, the drawing power is the power of Satan. Now let me give you a testimony of a former Satanist high priest, that the rock beat gives ground to Satan.

A Former Satanist's Testimony About Christian Music

He wrote, and his name is David Pratt from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and he wrote,. My background is not a good one, but I give thanks and praise to God for saving me from it. I was a Satanist high priest for nine years.

I am writing in regard to Christian music, or what is called power tracks, Christian rock and roll, and contemporary Christian music, and their counterparts rock and roll, heavy metal, black metal, country music, rap, and punk.

I understand that I cannot judge groups as to whether or not they are genuine believers, but the Bible does say that we are to judge their fruit. The Bible says that we are to be Christ-like. Some groups who play this kind of Christian music say that they do so because it's the only way they can reach the young people of today.

They claim that we must look like the world and use the world's music in order to reach young people with the word of God. How long will Christians allow themselves to be deceived and lied to by Satan, the father of lies?

The Bible says we are to be in the world, not a part of it. It also says that to be a friend with the world is to be an enemy of God. As ambassadors for Christ, we should represent him the best we can.

Christ never changed his appearance, whether he walked with kings or the poor. When I first became involved in the occult, music had a big influence on my life. It was not just the words, but the music itself.

Its effect on me spiritually was to bring me into another state of consciousness. The beat and style of the music used in the occult rituals is the same that I now hear in Christian power tracks, Christian rock and roll, Christian rap, and in much of what is called Christian contemporary music today.

People who were saved from the youth culture of today say, I cannot listen to this new Christian music because when I hear it, it takes me back to my past when I was lost. It brings all that back to me, lustful desires, love of money, sex, suicide, and rebellion against authority.

Think of the struggle that these young Christians have when they try to separate the things of the world from the things of God. When they hear what is called Christian music that sounds just like the world, these vulnerable young Christians become confused and the music becomes a stumbling block in their lives.

Normally a Christian will take only what is good and leave the bad. The discernment does not always work with music, however, because if the music is bad and the words are good, many Christians are not able to separate them and both are swallowed together.

Satan tried a mixed message tactic on Jesus in the desert when he misquoted scripture by mixing it with half-truths. Jesus rebuked Satan for this tactic and quoted the whole truth back to him. David Pratt from Chattanooga, Tennessee, former Satanist high priest for nine years, testifying that the rock beat gives ground to Satan.

That's why you need to take a stand. Your church needs to take a stand if this is allowed to come in. And the contemporary music, I remember back in the seventies, excuse me, when the contemporary music began to come in.

At first I didn't like it, but then I began to like it a little bit. But I found out that as I listened to that, it greatly dampened my love for the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a subtle thing. And after a while, after a few years of it, I stopped it because I realized it was getting back to the area that I had came out of before I was saved.

And so I stopped it. And even today, I'm pretty sensitive in this area. And some might say different things about that, but you can say what you want to say. If you want this booklet, Ten Scriptural Reasons Why the Rock Beat is Evil in Any Form, then you write to me and send me a donation of five dollars or more to help cover the cost.

And we'll get one to you as fast as we can. Now, we want there's so many issues we can get off on and I and I don't even really like to get off on an issue like this, but it's so important. And I see that in the area of revival, if a church doesn't clean itself up from every area, then you go back to the deadness.

You go back to the turmoil. You go back to the deadness of works without the power of the spirit of God and all other kinds of things. So let me encourage you. Now, there's revival happening around the country in small little spots and areas.

Revival History and Persevering Prayer

And the the testimony of history records pockets of revival. And then there's been some great revivals. And what we're praying for now is an awakening in our land. Oh, that God might send one that we might turn back to him before it's too late.

And I've shared with you, I actually I've been sharing from a little booklet called Revivals Can Be Prayed Down, which was put together in 1987 by M .L. Eggleston, just a little pamphlet. And it's coming on up to into the 70s.

And then towards the end of this, I'm going to give you an interview with the pastor that's in this area where I'm at, the pastor that used to be in my church. And he went off to school after the eighty five revival and got him another degree and came back and started pastoring in the same area where he was.

And we've seen God work in a mighty way, had 10 weeks of revival meetings. And the evangelists estimated that about a thousand people prayed to receive Christ, not counting all the others making decisions.

And so we moved in to help this pastor in this area because it's still going on. We're not seeing that many pray to receive the Lord every week, but we are seeing anywhere from one to probably about a half a dozen, sometimes more a week, depending on how the week goes now about three weeks ago.

I think there was nine one week and then people are getting right, confessing sins, making restitution. It's a normal pattern in this church. And the pastors learned how to keep this thing going, which is one of the things that has been new to us in the revival work, at least for me, I've only been in it for five years.

Some men, maybe some men listening that can write into me and write a letter what God's done in your life and in your church and revival in the past. Maybe you can share some insights with us. I'm really I don't consider myself a specialist in this area.

I have just learned some things and I've learned that the up and down experience that so many pastors experience is not the way of faith. It's not the way of the Holy Spirit to be discouraged one day and encourage the next day and then discourage the other day.

That's not the lifestyle of the New Testament faith that we see. That's not it. It's a consistent day by day living with Jesus Christ and seeing him work in power. Now, I shared with you the Solomon Islands back in 1936.

The 1949 Hebrides Revival

Now, let's come on back up a little bit closer into maybe my period of time, 1949. And I was only about three years old at this time, so I didn't remember too much at three years old. But we have a record of the revival in Scotland in 1949.

And I'd like to just take the remaining period of time and read to you about this revival. And in 1949, the churches in the Hebrides were almost empty. There were few, if any, conversions and young people had all but ceased attending the Sunday services.

In desperation, the ministers appealed to the people in their neighborhood for help. As a result, a group of men led by the minister of the parish church of Braavos, covented together with God to prevail in prayer until revival came, meeting in an old building by the roadside three nights a week from 10 o 'clock till after midnight.

They knelt down in the straw and pleaded with God to do something. After three months, they saw no change. But instead of becoming discouraged, they said, we are three months near to the answer than when we started.

God is a covenant-keeping God. He must stand by his promise. We must go on till the break comes. And one night, about two months later, a deacon from the free church rose from his knees and began to read from Psalms 24, 3 through 5.

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? He that had clean hands and a pure heart. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord. Brethren, said the deacon, we have been praying for months for revival, waiting upon God.

But are our hearts clean? Are our hearts pure? And in answer, they fell upon their knees in confession and rededication and began to travail in prayer even more earnestly. About four o 'clock in the morning, after they had spent hours of soul-searching, the power of God suddenly swept upon the seeking men.

With great expectancy, many people gathered at the old parish church for the first meeting, but nothing unusual happened. About 30 spent the night in a nearby cottage in prevailing prayer. At about three o 'clock in the morning, they suddenly sensed God's power.

Leaving the cottage, the prayer warriors found men and women everywhere seeking God. Lights were burning in homes along the road. Residents could not sleep. Three men were found lying by the roadside, crying for God to have mercy on them.

The second night, busloads of people from all over the island crowded into the church, including seven men converted in a butcher's truck on the way. It was a tremendous meeting, with many saved. As the last person was about to leave, 17-year-old Donald Smith, a new convert, began to pray aloud for those people still lost.

For 45 minutes, he continued praying, and as he prayed, crowds outside continued to grow, with more people arriving from farther away. When an elder announced Psalms 132, people streamed back into the church, singing this hymn.

There, the meeting continued till 4 a .m. in the morning. At the close, an excited messenger told the preacher, There's a crowd of people outside the police station, weeping in awful distress, and they're calling for someone to come and pray with them.

Then Duncan Campbell saw an unforgettable sight. Men and women were kneeling everywhere, under the starlit sky by the roadside, outside their colleges, even behind the peat stacks, crying for God to have mercy on them.

There were nearly 600 of them. For five weeks, the revival swept on in that parish, with four preaching services following one another through the night. Then it began to spread to other districts. Arnold, a small village of 500, was locked in religious indifference against the revival.

In desperation, a little prayer group met. Just after midnight, Donald Smith rose and prayed, Lord, you made a promise. You have said that you will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground.

At the same time, the convicting spirit of God was sweeping into that village. After the meeting, the preacher walked to a neighbor's house for a glass of milk. There he found the lady of the house with seven others down on their knees, crying for pardon.

Fishermen out in their boats, men behind their looms, merchants with their vans, school teachers examining their papers, were all suddenly convicted of their sins by the Holy Ghost. And by 10 o 'clock that morning, the roads around the town were dotted with seekers.

Within two days, the unusually crowded drinking house was permanently closed, and 14 drunkards were converted, who are now pillars of the church. In less than 48 hours, nearly every young person in that town between the ages of 12 and 20 had surrendered to Christ, and every young man over 18 was faithfully attending the midnight prayer meetings.

Today, they are new men, new women, new young people in the Isles of the Hebrides. They have new homes, new lives, and they live in a new world of peace and happiness. Many are in full-time service for the Lord.

Praying for Another Awakening

This is a record of the revival in Scotland in 1949, and we are seeing this type of thing happen today in 1990. Do you want it? Are you desperate enough for it? We can help you if you want it. We're not forcing ourself on you.

We're not angry at you. We're not against you. We are for revival. Just this week, God opened up for us to share some of the truths that He shared with us on spiritual warfare in this town, in a large mainline denomination church that has been traditionally for years considered closed to the gospel, but they are hungry.

Are you? Well, that's why we're sharing this with you. The scripture says in Joel, in chapter two, blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and those that suck the breast, let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber and the bride out of her closet.

Let the priest and the ministers of the Lord weep between the porch and the altar and let them say, spare thy people. Oh, Lord, and give not thy inheritance to reproach that the heathens should rule over them.

Wherefore should they say among the people, where is their God? Let me encourage you to pray for God to break out in our land and ask God to start in your heart as I'll ask him to start in mine. Father, thank you for these folks listening today.

If there's one without Christ right now, burden their heart to receive Jesus as their savior. Oh, Father, show them that the Lord Jesus died on the cross for them, shed his precious blood. He was buried and he rose again the third day for them.

And all they have to do is call upon the Lord. My friend, it's been good to be with you until next time. May God richly bless you.