On Eagles' Wings Pt 4 — Don Courville

The Everlasting God Gives Strength to the Weary

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 is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

Those Who Wait on the Lord Mount Up With Wings

Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. And 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 to O 'Neill's Wings, a ministry, or part of a ministry of church revival ministry. We trust that this will be an encouragement to you. We are, we're for the pastor that's preaching the word of God, we're behind him, we're for the church that's exalting the Lord Jesus Christ, preaching the word.

The Need for Personal and Corporate Revival

We want to encourage you for revival. We want to encourage you in the Lord. And today we trust that this will be a blessing to you as we share some thoughts on the history of revival and some things from God's words and principles.

So sit back and listen and let God's word minister to you and the principles that you learn from this. We hope it will be a blessing to you. The role of prayer in spiritual awakening. There's a little pamphlet put out by J. Edwin Orr on how God brought about and entered the concerts of prayer of history.

It's a little pamphlet on how God's worked in years past. And I thought I might just share a little bit today with you on the history of revival in our country. From this little booklet I'll just read to you and I might say a comment every now and then but mostly I want to read to you a little bit about what we're talking about, revival.

An awakening in our land is what we need. Revival is what we need to experience personally and corporately in our churches. And then as this spreads it could turn into an awakening, which is what we're praying for.

United Prayer as the Beginning of Spiritual Awakening

Well, Dr. A .T. Pearson once said, quoting from J. Edwin Orr, he said, there has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer. Let me recount what God has done through concerted, united, sustained prayer.

Not many people realize that in the wake of the American Revolution, there was a moral slump. Drunkenness became epidemic. Out of a population of 5 ,300 ,000 were confirmed drunkards. They were burying 15 ,000 of them each year.

Profanity was one of the most shocking kind. For the first time in the history of the American settlement, women were afraid to go out at night for fear of assault. Bank robberies were a daily occurrence.

What about the churches? The Methodists were losing more members than they were gaining. The Baptists said that they had their most wintry season. The Presbyterians in General Assembly deplored the nation's ungodliness.

In a typical congregational church, the Reverend Samuel Shepard of Lenox, Massachusetts, in 16 years had not taken one young person into fellowship. The Lutherans were so languishing that they discussed uniting with Episcopalians who were even worse off.

The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York, Bishop Samuel Provost, quit functioning. He had confirmed no one for so long that he decided he was out of work, so he took up other employment. The Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall, wrote to the Bishop of Virginia, James Madison, that the Church was too far gone ever to be redeemed.

Voltaire, Everard, and Tom Paine echoed, Christianity will be forgotten in thirty years. Take the liberal arts colleges at that time. A poll taken at Harvard had discovered not one believer in the whole of the student body.

They took a poll at Princeton, a much more evangelical place, and they discovered only two believers in the student body, only five that did not belong to the filthy speech movement of that day. Students rioted.

They held a mock communion at Williams College, and they put on anti-Christian plays at Dartmouth. They burned down the Nasher Hall at Princeton. They forced the resignation of the president of Harvard.

They took a Bible out of a local Presbyterian church in New Jersey and burned it in a public bonfire. Christians were so few on campus in the 1790s that they met in secret like a communist cell and kept their minutes in code so that no one would know.

In case this is thought to be the history of the moment, Kenneth Scott LaTourette, the great church historian, wrote,. It seemed as if Christianity were about to be ushered out of the affairs of men. The churches had their backs to the wall, seeming as if they were about to be wiped out.

Concerted Prayer and the Second Great Awakening

How did the situation change? It came through a concert of prayer. I must go back a little. There was a Scottish Presbyterian minister in Edmundburg named John Erskine who published a memorial, he called it, pleading with the people of Scotland and elsewhere to unite in prayer for the revival of religion.

He sent one copy of this little book to Jonathan Edwards in New England. That great theologian was so moved, he wrote a response which grew longer than a letter so that finally he published it as a book entitled A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of All God's People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth, pursuant to Scripture promises and prophecies concerning the last time.

That was the title of the book, not the book itself. But do not miss its message, A Humble Attempt, that's New England's modesty, to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God's people in extraordinary prayer for a revival of religion and extension of Christ's Kingdom.

Is not this what is missing so much from all our evangelistic efforts? Explicit agreement, visible union, unusual prayer? This movement had started in Britain through William Carey, Andrew Fuller and John Sutcliffe, and other leaders who began what the British called the Union of Prayer.

Hence the year after John Wesley died, the Second Great Awakening began and swept Great Britain. In New England there was a man of prayer named Isaac Bacchus, a Baptist pastor who in 1794, when conditions were at their worst, addressed an urgent plea for prayer for revival to pastors of every Christian denomination in the United States.

Churches knew that their backs were to the wall. So the Presbyterians of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania adopted it for all their churches. Bishop Francis Ashbery adopted it for all the Methodists.

The Congregational and Baptist Associations, the Reformed and the Moravians all adopted the plan until America, like Britain, was interlaced with a network of prayer meetings which set aside the first Monday of each month to pray.

It was not long before the revival came. It broke out first of all in Connecticut, then spread to Massachusetts and all the seaboard states in every case entirely without extravagance or outcry. However, there were some variations.

The Kentucky Revival and Its Social Effects

When the revival reached the frontier of Kentucky, it encountered a people really wild and irreligious. Congress had discovered that in Kentucky there had not been more than one court of justice held in five years.

Peter Cartwright, Methodist evangelist, wrote that when his father settled in Logan County, it was known as Rogue's Harbor. If someone committed a murder in Massachusetts or robbery in Rhode Island, all he needed to do was cross the Alleghenies.

The decent people in Kentucky formed regiments of vigilantes to fight for law and order, fought a pitched battle without loss, and lost. There was a Scottish or a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian minister named James Magritte, whose chief claim to fame was he was so ugly that he attracted attention, and it was reported that people sometimes stopped in the street to ask, What does he do?

He's a preacher. Then they reacted, saying a man with a face like that must really have something to say. Magritte settled in Logan County, pastor of three little churches, and he wrote in his diary that the winter of 1799, for the most part, was weeping and mourning with the people of God.

Lawlessness prevailed everywhere. Magritte was such a man of prayer that not only did he promote the concert of prayer every first Monday of the month, but he got his people to pray for him at sunset on Saturday evening and sunrise Sunday morning.

Then in the summer of 1800 came the great Kentucky Revival. Eleven thousand people came to a communion service. Magritte hollered for help, regardless of denomination. Baptists and Methodists came in response, and the great camp meeting revival started to sweep Kentucky and Tennessee and then spread over North Carolina, South Carolina, and along the frontier.

Out of that second great awakening after the death of John Wesley came the whole modern missionary movement and its societies. Out of it came the abolition of slavery and popular education, Bible societies and Sunday schools, and many social benefits accompanying the evangelistic drive.

Prayer Meetings in the Revival of 1857–1858

Conditions had deteriorated by the middle of the nineteenth century. Why? It sounds familiar. The country was seriously divided, as by the Vietnam War, over the issue of slavery. And second, people were making money lavishly.

In September 1857, a man of prayer, Jeremiah Lanphier, started a prayer meeting in the upper room of the Dutch Reformed Church Constitutory Building in Manhattan. In response to his advertisement, only six people out of the population of a million showed up.

But the following week there were fourteen, then twenty-three, and when it was decided to meet every day for prayer, by late winter they were filling the Dutch Reformed Church, then the Methodist Church on John Street, then the Trinity Episcopal Church on Broadway at Wall Street.

In February and March of 1858, every church and public hall in downtown New York was filled. Well, it's a little bit of history. I might stop there, I might continue on next week, and I'll read you a little bit more, but I wanted to say something to you about this.

Revival, Christian Integrity, and the Next Generation

Are you ready for revival? Are you desperate? Then let's pray. You get together with your pastor and pray. You get together with your wife, your husband, and pray, a friend, and pray that God would do something in our land.

One of the reasons I wanted to share this with you was the effect that all of this is going to have on our youth. We've seen our years of hippies and yippies and even farther back with beatniks, but I think if we don't see revival in our land, that the rock generation that we have now is going to be totally something different in the form of rebellion, and we need to consider what our compromising is doing too, what our own personal compromising is doing as Christians as the youth watch us, and they watch very closely.

They watch to see if our talk matches our walk, and when we condemn them for the same things that we do, they're sharp, they pick it up. If they don't see the reality of Christ in your life, and you talk about being a Christian and being Spirit-filled, but they don't see the evidence of humility and the power of the Spirit in your life, they see the hypocrisy, and so we have a generation that is turning to the rock, and we have the compromise of rock with Christianity, and we are going to see a generation of people that do not know the Lord if we don't see God move in our land.

My burden is for revival. My burden is for the pastor, for the church, and I trust that this program will be an encouragement to you, will be an encouragement for you to pray for revival as I've shared a little bit of history, and I'd like to take a few moments to share with you a little bit about Moses.

He was a young person, and a little bit about his training by his parents. How did his parents, with the short time they had with him, how did they do it to produce such a man of character as they did?

Well, we're going to learn a little bit about that in a few moments, but first, I think we need to hear a song about forgiveness.

We need to experience forgiveness.

Exodus, Redemption, and Freedom From Bondage

Moses was an interesting person. In the book of Exodus, which by the way, Exodus means the way out, and the message of Exodus is redemption, and the character is Moses. Redemption was seen by blood on the doorpost, and God delivered them from Egypt.

I think the key verse in Exodus is Exodus 22, where God said, I am the Lord thy God, which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You're not in bondage, I hope, but it could be that you are.

Jesus Proclaims Liberty to the Captives

One of my favorite verses in Isaiah is Isaiah 61, verse 1, where Jesus quoted this verse. Isaiah said, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach the good tidings unto the meek.

He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Jesus quoted this verse, but I want you to notice that he said that he came to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that are bound.

My friend, if you are in bondage, we're here to help you. It is possible to be a pastor and be in bondage. I was one. God broke me, delivered me from that bondage, and he set me free from that bondage.

And if you're in that case, if there's a thing that's binding you, I don't know what it might be. It might be a marriage situation, your job, it might be your church, that's just putting a lot of stress on your life.

We're here to tell you that God can handle it if you'll let him have it. The Christian life isn't you doing the best you can. No, that'll be the devastating principle of your life, to do the best you can.

God doesn't want the best you can. God wants you to just die to self and let him live his life through you. So let go and let God do it. Now I want to teach you a couple things about Moses. The last time we saw God, how God aborted Pharaoh's abortion attempt and there was the birth of Moses, but have you ever thought about that short period of time that Moses' parents had him, just maybe two or three years, not very long, but they had him just that short time.

Training Children in the Way They Should Go

They were giving him back and the training of Moses must have been very powerful. I believe it was a very practical training. They trained him how to survive and live in a pagan culture. And the Bible says that if we will train up a child in the way he should go, and when he's old, he will not depart from it.

I want you to notice that it says that he will not depart from it. Many are claiming the promise when their children have departed from it. But the ideal, I think, is to train our children up in such a way that they will not depart from it.

I know that things don't work out. There's things that go wrong. But I just want to take a moment today and look at the training of our children. Maybe there's some things that we're doing in the training of our children that are not right.

Education, Example, and Discipline in Raising Children

There were three elements, I believe, in the main training of Moses. There was the education of Moses, the example, and the discipline. In the education, they trained him, I believe, according to Deuteronomy 6, where they taught him day and night.

They quoted scripture to him. He memorized. They pumped it in. He remembered it. They taught him. They gave him principles. And they carried out Deuteronomy 6, which says, These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

They taught Moses this way, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and thou shalt be as frontless between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates.

And they trained up Moses, I believe, that way. His training was very thorough. I don't believe they had much time for TV and pleasure. They were busy with Moses. And then there is the example. Someone said that 50 of attitudes are learned by age 3.

90 of our habits are formed by age 20. We say, uh-oh, there's no hope for me. Oh, yes, there's still hope for you. I don't think that they could afford to live one way before Moses and then teach him another way.

Now, just search your heart. I've been searching mine to see if there's been any inconsistency in my life, and it's a process of deep searching that we need to go through to humble ourselves before our children and say, I failed you.

I have not done as God wanted me to do. I want to share a little bit with you on a man's home as his castle. Some material I have and just share this with you. I think that we have grossly failed in our nation as fathers.

The Home as a Place of Protection and Preparation

In our nation of this country, we need revival in our churches and in our hearts. We need to see a revival in the home, though. If the home isn't reached, it won't do any good in the church. We've got to get to the home and we've got to get to the fathers.

You've heard the phrase, I'm sure, a man's home is his castle. Well, that's no empty cliche. God designed the home to be a place of protection for every member, and this protection was to be from the influences of a very often hostile world.

It is to be a place of training and preparation and provision. The family is to be secure there. It's to give care to its members and hospitality to its visitors. Its potential is to generate resources and skilled warriors who are able to go out to spiritual warfare and to advance the kingdom of God.

The Assault on the Home and the Loss of Family Life

Now, since the home was designed by God for all these purposes, there should be little wonder that the object of Satan has been to destroy it. He's been very calculated and systematic and very effective in the assault that he's had on the home.

First, the home was robbed of its basic functions, just to be a place of shelter and peace and security. Nowadays, everybody goes a hundred different directions, it seems, at once. Everybody's got activities.

There's no continuity. It seems like to many families, when they come together and sit and visit, even many families have no meals together. I talked with a fellow many years ago when I was in Bible college.

His name was Moses. He was from Washington, lived in Washington. We had him home for a meal, and tears came to his eyes. He said that was the first time he had ever sat at a table and had a meal with a family.

Can you imagine that? He was about 21 years old. Well, then not only was the home robbed of its basic functions, but then ill-trained sons and daughters were lured into enemy territory. We put our children out into a hostile world without preparing them how to meet the temptations and the allurements of Satan that they will face, and they're easily defeated.

Is it no wonder that our churches are not turning out missionaries anymore? Wives and mothers then were coerced out of the home with a promise of vocational fulfillment and financial security, and then they get into situations where they can't get out of.

Many homes today are wrecked because of bondage financially, going into debt, working two, three, four jobs even, some folks, and the home is destroyed. But probably the greatest tragedy of all is that the modern father has been convinced that he should open up the doors of his castle to any godless influence which desires to come in, plunder his home, and take captive his wife and children.

We have let the enemy come right into our living room and take over, but God is calling together men who are claiming his power and learning the principles of his word in order to raise up the foundations of many godly generations.

You know, there's seminars going on in this country that can help you fathers be a godly father, and we on this program are committed to helping you be a godly father for your family, and we want to make available to you information on these seminars where you can take your wife and your family, if your children are old enough, and go through these seminars and they will train you on how to be free and how to be the father and the mother that you're supposed to be, and the teenagers, you'll be able to train them on how they are to live as teenagers.

Moses as an Example of Obedience and Moral Choice

Well, the example of Moses was godly. They didn't drag Moses off to the local drive-in. They worked with him. The Bible says, Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life, or the outgoings or outcome of life.

And then discipline, obedience. If they don't learn this one, then they'll be rebellious. And if they had any trouble with Moses, I would say it would have probably been in this area, because he had one area with his temper that he had a little trouble with, and it got him into quite a bit of trouble, as a matter of fact.

But anyway, they taught him things. They taught him what to refuse, and that was evil. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 23 that Moses refused the evil. Moses knew what to refuse and what to choose.

Our youth today don't know. It says when he came to years, in 1124 of Hebrews, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. I think many of us today might have to admit that we're encouraging our children to receive what Moses was taught to refuse.

Choosing Affliction and Standing in Faith

Well, I think next time I might show you a little bit more with you on this. He was told what to choose. Also, and that was affliction. How many of us are scared of pain? Scared of problems? Scared of suffering?

We're just scared. We don't know which way to go. We do not have the courage to stand up and take a stand. We need to get new strength. We need to experience a reviving of God's Spirit. We need to have God lift us up in a new way.

We need to see the Lord lift us up on eagle's wings.

With wings of the God in the deep despair, I hear your voice.