On Eagles' Wings Pt 3 — Don Courville

God's Strength for Those Who Wait on Him

Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There's no searching of His understanding. He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But 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.

We welcome you today to the program entitled On Eagle's Wings, a part of the Church Revival Ministry, a program designed to encourage you to stir us up to pray for revival, to encourage the pastor of the local church that's preaching the Word of God, for God to visit us in an unusual way.

We need to see an awakening. We need to see God visit our land, and this program is designed to encourage you in your walk with the Lord, to encourage you to receive Christ as your Savior, if you don't know Him.

And we trust that God will use this program to encourage you. Why don't you call your pastor up and have him tune in and listen? Maybe God can use something that's said today in this program to encourage him or call up a friend.

So just sit back and listen, and we trust that you can get some principles from God's Word that will be a blessing to you. Notes from a friend of mine, Ralph Suteria, who's in Revival Ministry, and he shared some things on the philosophy of revival that I thought I might share with you, and maybe a few other things today, but he said there's much confusion and mixed feelings regarding the word revival.

Revival as Cleansing and Spiritual Adjustment

To some it is either of no value, too risky, or smacks on excess in experience and emotionalism. To others it designated nothing more than professional mass evangelism. Still others regard revival as a phenomenon of bygone days, the good of which is dissipated and the return of which is neither possible or desired.

Be convinced, he went on to say, that God wants to do a deep work in our lives, whatever you want to call it. We dare not fuss over words or terms or miss God in the meantime. Some are more concerned what they name the baby even before they have the baby.

Give God the benefit of any doubt or lack of understanding on our part. Here's a definition of revival that he gave us. He said it is specifically a ministry of cleansing and spiritual adjustment to the inner life of the local church and to the body of Christ in general in bringing back into consciousness and health those who already have life.

And we thought it would be good to share this definition with you because when we talk about revival this is what we're talking about, a cleansing of the body of Christ, not an emotional experience even though we get emotional.

We get emotional when we get over a traumatic illness. We're happy. Or if God would touch us and heal us of something, we get emotional. But this is more than emotion. This is deeper. It has to do with making things right with our God, making things right with our neighbor, with our husband, with our wife.

Spiritual Awakening and the Presence of God

Let me give you a definition of spiritual awakening. Specifically it has to do with the unconverted when they become consciously aware of the presence of God at a given point and time. God sovereignly and supernaturally compels people in a city or area to respond to him.

And I might add that I've never experienced a spiritual awakening. Our land has been pretty dry in this area. This is why many are gathering around our continent praying that God would move and send an awakening.

But when God's people respond, then the unsaved see and experience what God is doing. I might share a little story with you. I'll call it the woodpecker story. And it was shared in a book by W .P. Nicholson, as in Heritage of Revival, a little booklet that, or magazine that I was given when I was up in Canada some years ago.

And in it was a story about God's glory. The title of it was The Glory is God's. And it was about Dr. and Ms. Jonathan Goforth while they were attending a summer conference which happened to be south of Chicago.

And it had to do with the introduction of Dr. Goforth when he spoke. And I'll share this story with you in a few moments. But first of all, I wanted to share something else with you. It is from the book of Isaiah, a verse that God prompted me about many years ago.

Isaiah's Word for the Weary and the Breaking of Pride

It was in Isaiah 50, verse 4 and 5, where Isaiah said, The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season. To him that is weary, he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

The Lord God had opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. Before I could experience the power of that passage, God had to break me of my pride as a pastor, my bitterness, thinking that I could operate as a pastor in the power of the flesh, that I could just barrel on through day by day doing what I thought needed to be done.

And in that breaking process, God broke me down to see that I had to spend much time in prayer. I had to proceed cautiously and watch and see what he was wanting to do. I had to be willing to change my plans.

I had to be flexible. I had to have my flesh crucified. Had to deny the self that wanted to always come out and express itself. I had to just let go and let God be the Lord. And I found that in our land, in our churches, we have so many programs, so many problems, so many procedures, that we wonder even if God is involved in a lot of it that's going on.

Some of our churches are so dead, no one ever gets saved. No one even hears the gospel in some churches. And some don't even know what the gospel is. Would you like to have a fresh anointing of God's Spirit on your ministry, pastor, on your life?

Mr. Deacon, housewife, husband, teenager, young person, would you like to experience God in a new way? Well, let me share the woodpecker story with you, so that you might see that God's ways are not always our ways.

The Woodpecker Story and Giving Glory to God

Our ways are to exalt ourself, to lift up the person. God's way is for the person to be humbled and for the Savior to be exalted. Well, at that conference, just before Dr. Goforth spoke, the chairman introduced him as our brilliant speaker with overflowing praise.

And while he was praising him and talking about him, Dr. Goforth was sitting with his head bowed and his face hidden. And as he stepped forward, he stood a moment, as if in prayer, and then he said this, Friends, when I listen to such words as we have just been hearing, I have to remind myself of the woodpecker story.

A certain woodpecker flew up to the top of a high pine tree and gave three hard pecks on the side of the tree, as woodpeckers are known to do. And at that instant, a bolt of lightning struck the tree, leaving a heap of splinters on the ground.

The woodpecker had flown to a tree nearby, where it clung in terror and amazement at what had taken place. And there it hung, expecting more to follow. But as all remained quiet, it began to chuckle to itself, saying, Well, well, well, who would have imagined that just three pecks of my beak could have such power as that?

And of course, everybody laughed, and then when the laughter ceased, Dr. Goforth went on to say, Yes, friends, remember, if you or I take glory to ourselves, which belongs only to Almighty God, we are not only as foolish as this woodpecker, but we commit a very grievous sin, for the Lord has said, My glory will I not give to another.

Revival as Personal Repentance and Self-Examination

I wonder, my friend, before we have a song in a moment of "'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus," I just wonder, is it possible, is it possible that you have been taken the glory for your life? Is it possible that you have been in the limelight?

You have had to have your way? Could it be possible that your marriage is on the rocks and just fixing to blow apart like that tree did? Could it be possible that you're the problem? One of the things I discovered in the revival of 85 when God broke me was that I had been blaming other people for, in reality, what I was guilty of myself, and God come along and blew my tree apart.

When He blew my tree apart, I didn't sit up in another tree and say, Look at what I've done, because I knew I hadn't done it. I knew God had done it. He broke me, and He showed me all the selfishness, the bitterness that was in there.

My friend, let me encourage you. If there's someone that you have been blaming God for, search your heart and see if in reality you're not just angry at God, or you're fearful about some situation. Don't let it exist.

Revival is cleansing, cleansing yourself, not going out trying to cleanse somebody else, but dealing with yourself. We can't go around blaming our pastor or our boss for all our problems. We need to look within sometime and just see who really is the problem maker.

Waiting on God Through Problems and Trials

Well, are you trusting yourself, or are you trusting Jesus to take you through the trials of today? I was just thinking about how sometimes things don't work out, and we try to get them to work out, but they don't.

We struggle with it, and after a little bit, maybe we'll even get mad about it, upset. All the while, we're blaming other people. God's been rolling things in. He's been rolling these things in one after the other, and we just wonder, why is there so much going on?

Why is there problem after problem after problem? I've just been experiencing some of these things lately, just with problem after problem rolling in, but I've learned over some time, I've learned over time to just commit it to God and watch and see what He's doing, and to start praising Him and thanking Him when these problems begin to pile in, because you know what I've learned about these things?

I've learned that following all this barrage of problems and things going wrong and everything, following all these things, comes God's blessing, and when God's blessing comes in and it seems like God is always a little bit too late, well, when these things come in, as I wait on God and for His timing, it seems that just at the right moment, God comes through and delivers me from that, and if I give up on Jesus, I miss the blessing.

But if I wait, then He pours out His blessing. This week we experienced that thing, where God just at the right time come through in abundance and delivered us from what we thought could be a devastating problem.

Oh, how good it is to trust in Jesus. Oh, my friend, trust Him. You've been trusting Him, or yourself. Is it true that Jesus can deliver you? Well, it's true. Talking about problems, I was having a problem getting a tape to come on the song, "'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.".

If you heard some rumblings around, it was me trying to get some things put together, and out of that I shared a little story with you about some problems coming in, and God did just this week. I come home and the kids were all excited, my wife was all excited, and it was just a neat evening with the family as we rejoiced in God's goodness, and we had waited.

We had waited. I wanted to share in the last few moments a little bit on Moses, and get a principle out of this that you can use. Learn a principle from every message that your pastor gives you. Get something.

Moses and the Threat of Pharaoh

But in the birth and the training of Moses, there were some interesting things. In the book of Exodus, in chapter 1, the first seven verses was the naming of the twelve tribes, and then eight through fourteen of that chapter.

There was the story of a new king arising, and this king was motivated by fear, and I hope you're not motivated by fear. Sometime I might share some things with you on fear, but fear-motivated people and pride-motivated people, both are getting their motivation from their inner self, and it's all sin.

But anyway, this king was afraid of Israel, and so he planned to destroy Israel. Verse 11 said that he'd try the work plan, and so he tried to kill them by overworking them. The scripture says they set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens.

Well, that didn't work. I don't know of anybody, really, that's been hurt too bad by hard work. I guess we could get ourselves wore out and maybe get hurt at work, but hard work generally doesn't hurt anybody.

Most of the time in our country, it's when we stop working, we get in trouble. Then verse 12 says the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. The principle of the cross is this, the more we die to self, the more Jesus will be seen in our life.

The more afflictions that we get victory in, the more glory there is for God. Well, the more he afflicted them, the more they grew. It just wasn't working. So he went to plan two, and this plan was to kill the babies.

It was an abortion effort to get them as they came out, and he took the main two midwives and instructed them what to do. But they feared God, the scripture says, and they wouldn't do it. And God honored them and gave them houses of themselves in verse 21.

Moses's Birth and His Parents' Faith

But out of this process of suffering came a child, and this child was Moses. And so we come into chapter two with the birth of Moses. And he had a strong spiritual heritage. His mom and dad, when they gave birth to this little baby, they recognized that he was a special son.

Exodus 2 .2 says,. And the woman conceived and bare a son, and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. They knew that he was a special child. The scripture says in Hebrews 11 .23, that when he was three months old, that they hid him by faith.

Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents because they saw he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. They hid him by faith. Why did they hide him? I believe they saw two things.

They saw God, and they were not afraid. And I think they were guided by these three principles. By parental instinct. Do the best, give the best you can for your child. Divine meditation. They had meditated on scripture, and they knew that it was time for a Deliverer to come, and they believed that Moses was the Deliverer.

And they were right. And then hope in God's deliverance. Thus, I think that they had these three things. They had a conviction. And, you know, conviction always destroys fear. If you have a conviction, you'll stand up to a lot of powerful enemies.

And then also, they had confidence. And confidence always develops faith. They hid him three months. And then thirdly, they had a commitment. And commitment dares to follow. They committed Moses to God.

Giving What We Cannot Keep to God

What they wanted, they could not keep. So they gave Moses to God. Have you ever thought about just giving your problem to God and letting Him have it? And take it? James Elliot said, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

What do you have that you're trying to hang on to that you need to just give to God? Whatever is given to God is never lost. Whatever we try to keep, we lose. You know, Jochebed went through some hard things.

She had to die to self, self-effort to save her son. Survival for Moses, she just couldn't do it. So she gave him to God when she put him out in those bushes. And something else, she had to rest on God alone.

And faith isn't reckless abandonment. No, she had one of the, Miriam watched the baby out in the bulrushes. Wasn't going to let a crocodile get it or something. No, it's not reckless abandonment. But she put her problem in her basket and put her basket in the river in the hands of God.

And then she waited on God to see what He would do. The result was victory. Short range, Moses was given back to her. Long range, Israel was freed. Now you see, when Christ went to the cross, it seemed like defeat.

But it resulted in victory. When Moses was put in the water, it might have looked like the end of it. They didn't know what would happen. But it ended up in victory. Won't you give your problem to God?

Won't you let Him take you and build you up and carry you on eagles' wings?