Wait on the Lord, Part 1 — Leonard Ravenhill

Seeking Illumination Beyond the Sacred Page

Asking thou of God. We are glad that giving does not impoverish thee and withholding does not enrich thee. We are glad that in asking for our portion we are not robbing others who at this moment may be asking for their portion of blessing.

We have expressed our desire and intent beyond the sacred page we seek thee, Lord. We recognize the danger of making an idol even of the Bible. We want the Word to be unveiled to us, uncover it. As the book of the Revelation is the uncovering of the things that are going to come to pass through Christ, may there be an uncovering of our truth to our hearts this afternoon.

Give us something that will stay with us, that will abide with us, that will grow upon us, that will be illumination in our times of darkness and strength in our times of spiritual opposition and difficulty.

We thank you again for the true Church of Jesus Christ, for everybody who is in this wonderful, wonderful body of the Lord Jesus, the one who died and rose again for our sins. And we praise you this afternoon that he lives at the right hand of the Father to make intercession.

We thank you we come with boldness, not with familiarity. We come with courage because you have already opened the door of entrance. The one who said I am the way, the door, the truth and the life. I am the door by which if any man enter in he shall be saved.

And we recognize he is the door, the blood-spinkled way into your holy presence. Take we pray the things of Jesus and reveal them to us. And again may we say we were glad that we went to the house of the Lord and we give you praise in Jesus' name.

Waiting on the Lord for Renewed Strength

Let's look at a very familiar text in the prophecy of Isaiah and the forty-first chapter. Chapter forty, the latter part of it. Verse twenty-eight. Hath 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 certain thing of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, but 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. Now I don't know what stage you're in this afternoon, whether you're up with the eagles or that's a nice place to live, it's dangerous too, you can get shot down if you're not careful.

Mount up with wings as eagles, run, that's pretty exciting, walking, that's pretty tedious. And I don't think running is mentioned in the New Testament, we're constantly urged to walk, walk with the Lord.

This whole chapter, this fortieth chapter, in fact the forty in the fortieth verse, are very wonderful chapters, not that the rest is not. But there's so many exciting things said in this chapter, the fact that God, in the titles we read of him here right immediately, hath thou not heard that the everlasting God, and then he's called the Lord, and then he's called the creator of the ends of the earth, faint if not.

And in the twenty second verse it says he fits upon the circle of the earth. I think that's a very wonderful description, there's no place higher than that. You know, one of the old preachers, I think it was Daniel Steele, said that the last thing to leave the human heart and the first thing to return is pride.

And I've often thought of this fact again, that Satan did not get kicked out of heaven for getting drunk. He didn't steal a slab of gold off Main Street. When you get to heaven, if you see anybody digging the streets up, you'll know they're evangelists, they're always after the gold.

But Satan didn't dig a slab of gold out of Main Street, he didn't get drunk, he didn't fight, he just decided that he wanted to sit up where God sits. And pride is an awful thing. God sits upon the circle of the earth.

Again, this very prophet says he's a high and lofty one who inhabits eternity. You know, this book has been attacked more than any other book I think in the Bible, except Genesis, and maybe as many times.

The scholars have said that there are, at least they used to say there were two Isaiahs, now they've got as far as twenty-two. I don't know when they'll finish up, maybe they'll get one for each chapter before we're through.

But I think that Isaiah had a kind of twinkle in his eye, the book is divided chapters one to thirty-nine and then chapters forty to the end, sixty-six I think it is. But you discover that the Holy One is mentioned in one section seventeen times and in the other about twenty-one times.

He seems to have left his imprint on this wonderful, wonderful book. Martin Luther called it the Gospel of Isaiah because, of course, of the fifty-third chapter which describes so perfectly the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But here it says, hath thou not known or heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth, fainteth not, neither is weary. There is no searching of his understanding. You can never explain God, you can experience him, but you can't explain him.

You know, God doesn't owe you any explanation for anything he does in your life. As I said the other day, you've every right to tell God you want to be a saint, but you've no right to tell him how to make you a saint.

And if you read a book and you think, that's thrilling, I'd like the Lord to take those one, two, three, four, five, six, seven steps in my life, he'll take you the opposite way. Because you'll get conceited and think you're going to be a saint like the other person you read about.

There is no blueprint for sainthood. I think that the whole thing is summed up, and remember there's no finality this side of eternity for any believer, no finality. We're never breaking new ground if we're really honest and truthful and hungry.

Christian Progress Through Trust and Obedience

But in saying that, I think that the whole secret of Christian progress is summed up in one of the oldest and, if you like, commonest or best known hymns that we have. My old granny used to sing it in the chimney corn in England, and it's that one that you knew first.

I guess everybody knows it better than any other hymn, trust and obey, there's no other way. And you know, that's all there is to the Christian life, trust and obey. Our old friend John Patterson made a little poem out of it, a couplet out of it, he said, if you don't trust and obey, you'll rust and decay.

And I think that's very good at summarising it anyhow. There's no place where you can disobey God and get away with it. There's nothing more important than obedience. Now, it's easy to rush on into this chapter, into this verse, which is the 31st I want to talk about, but notice this, it's there that wait upon the Lord.

Patience in God's Timetable

Now, if there's anything that marks our generation, we're an impatient generation. I've noticed more than once, I pulled up at the stoplight and one of those where about seven rows meet, you know, and you sit there, and you sit there, and you sit there, and you think, goodness, the thing's broken down.

And you turn your lights for a second, it goes green, everybody behind goes, err, err, err, err, you know, everybody, you know, get out of here. And you know, we get impatient with God sometimes. We know that God is going to do things, well, why doesn't he do it now?

Well, he sets the timetable. One of the favourite sayings I have is that God is never in a hurry and is never late. One of the greatest men of faith we had in England was a man called George Muller. And I remember Mr Chardwick used to say, I've been to meetings with preachers where preachers would almost groan before God, give me, give me faith like George Muller.

But he said they were very careful not to take 2 ,000 orphans so they needed it. You see, he had 2 ,000 orphans and never once did he ask for a penny to support them and never once did he fail to pay a bill.

Once when he was crossing the Atlantic, they ran into trouble, I'd run into more than once crossing it, and that is that we ran into a frog, it doesn't matter too much up there, but on the big ships it did.

And Muller said to one of the officers, well, what time will we get to New York? Oh, we won't be there on Saturday, we won't be there on Saturday. Monday at the earliest. And he said, I have to preach in New York on Sunday afternoon at 3 o 'clock.

Well, I'm sorry, sir, but you know, we can't change the weather even for preachers. Well, he said, sir, I shall be in New York Saturday afternoon preaching at 3 o 'clock. Oh, yes, I suppose you will. The captain of the ship was a friend of George Muller's, so he had told Muller, any time you want to come on the bridge and see the operation of the ship, come up.

Muller went up, and he said to the captain, this is a bad fog, oh, this is typical you get off Newfoundland, this could be miles long, it's going to delay us maybe a day. The captain happened to be a Christian.

And George Muller said, well, brother, what did we pray about it? Oh, all right, you know, reluctant, don't want to put a strain on God, that's the worst thing you can do. I mean, omnipotence might break down or something, and so he said, all right, so they knelt down, and as soon as they knelt down, the captain started praying, and, you know, as soon as they knelt down, George Muller prayed.

And all he did, he didn't go into ramifications and string words, you know, and paint stained glass windows like people often do when they're praying to show off. He just said, Lord, I thank you for removing the fog.

That was all there was to it. And the captain started, our loving Heavenly Father, and he got a nudge in the ribs, and Mr. Muller said to him, don't pray. He said, why not? He said, number one, you said it couldn't be done, and number two, you don't need to, the fog's gone.

How now? Well, he said, let's go on the bridge and look. And so they walked from the bridge to the side of the boat, and looked all around, and the day was as clear as this. They could see ships in every direction.

Muller had a living faith in a living God. A lady told me a while ago, oh, I've just got a living Bible. I said, I've had one 60 years. I never knew it was dead. I don't like the living Bible. I wouldn't have it in the house, but some people like it.

It may help them. But Muller had a living faith in a living God. You know why? He knew how to wait on God. You see here, it doesn't say, they that pray, or they that praise, or they that sacrifice, or they that do exploits.

Prayer, Stillness, and the Groaning of the Spirit

It simply says, they that wait upon the Lord. And waiting is a very difficult thing. You see, we often give God our terms. As I say, most people don't pray, they just give God a shopping list. Lord, I need this, that, and do bless so and so, we need this, and do look after that, and that's it.

I think if we waited on God, very often we wouldn't pray the prayers we pray. I hear 50 different interpretations of the Spirit for life. I never hear anybody say that one side of the Spirit for life is that your prayer life is revolutionized.

Because Jude talks about praying in the Holy Ghost, not praying to the Holy Ghost, praying in the Holy Ghost. There are three dronings mentioned in Romans 8, and one of them is droning. I think the whole creation is droning right now.

I think that's the reason we've had so many colossal earthquakes in the last two or three years. The whole creation is droning. I think maybe the oil crisis, the economy crisis is going to make a lot of us drone too.

But there is a droning in us of the Spirit. You see, the highest form of prayer has no language at all. There's an old, it's hardly a poem, a bit of dog roll that says, what am I, an infant crying in the night, an infant crying for a light with no language but a cry.

A baby cries in the night, the mother gets up. The old boy turns over and says, what does he want? Oh, he needs feeding. Oh, oh. Cries again half an hour after and the father says, is he feeding again?

No, no, he needed changing. He cries a bit later and he says, did he need feeding again or did he need changing? No, no, no, he's afraid. But when I put the light off, he stopped like that. It's the intuition the mother has.

Well, Hannah prayed and she didn't pray. She said no words but she prayed. She prayed with droning. And the highest form of prayer is, I've heard people say, well, that droning's in Roman Veda, of course, it's tongues.

No, it isn't. God has more sense than us. If it was, he'd tell us it was. It is beyond tongues. It is the droning of the spirit of God within us. It's inexpressible. It's a language which is known only to God.

What am I, an infant, crying in the night? You'd be amazed if you put that little fella to bed and you open the door in the morning and the fella came out as big as your daddy and said, hi, love, how are you?

Who in the world are you? Well, I'm your boy. You put me to bed like that. Well, wait a minute, you're 20 years old. What happened? Oh, well, in these days you don't have to wait. Instant coffee, instant tea, instant manhood.

And I grew up all the night. You say that's impossible. By the same token, instant mercury is impossible too. You see, an instant prayer line is impossible. There's a place where God gives increase of burden.

But you see, again, it's waiting on the Lord. Few people know the art of waiting. There's a precious verse that says, be still and know the time, God. As I said yesterday, the day before, there are not many people.

I don't believe there's one person in a hundred spirit-filled, do what you like with them. I don't think there's one person in a hundred knows how to worship God. You go in a meeting, somebody says, everybody raise your hand, let's worship God.

That's not worship, that's prayer. Nearly every case of the Word of God where they worship, they worship prostrate. We stand to sing, we kneel to pray, we prostrate ourselves to worship. We use our tongues when we sing, we use our tongues when we pray.

You don't need to say a word when you worship. Worship Him in spirit. Now, you don't get down and become catty because that might just become transcendental meditation, which is a fake of the devil for be still and know the time, God.

Whenever there's a vacuum, Satan fills it. When the church went soft and quiet on divine healing, what happened? Satan filled it with what? Christian science. When we're quiet on the true rebirth, being born again of the spirit, the devil fakes it.

Because you see, the devil's answer, in my judgment, to regeneration is reincarnation. When we don't teach about the Holy Spirit, then you get a proliferation of people teaching about spiritism and kindled offshoots of bad things.

You see, the devil fakes. He copies everything God does. God gives us Christ, Satan gives us the Antichrist. God gives us the Holy Spirit, Satan gives us evil spirit, which people talk to and spirit talks to them.

The devil gives us the true church, I believe the fake of that is the Roman church. It is really a political system, it's the richest system in the whole wide world. But you don't unmask it today. You see, now we've got Romanists, spirit filled, some of them still drink.

David Wilkins says, if you haven't got it, get a little pamphlet on that, it is a fantastic thing. The empathy is not on the Holy Spirit, the empathy is having you as a gift of thanks. So you have men that haven't given up their drinking, I know a woman that lives with a man half a week and a friend lives with a man the other half of the week, they both tend to be spirit filled.

There are areas where people are doing all kinds of things. You see, we Roman Catholics, well I believe a Roman Catholic can be saved and filled with the Spirit, but you can't stay in that rotten system.

Here is the Antichrist, it's still the great whore, however you try and level it up. And that doesn't go over big and it won't get me to a full gospel business conference anywhere else, but that doesn't scare me a hill of beans.

You see, one of the greatest prophets that the Pentecostals had, the books are republished now, was Dr. Charles Price. He was a giant of a man. He was a kind of super edition of Oral Roberts and Billy Graham and everybody else put together.

He had fantastic miracles and healings and ministry. And he said, just before he died, he said, look, right before the final outpouring of the Spirit promised in Joel 2, there will be a false revival, don't touch it, stay clear of it, because it's not the real thing.

Do you know now we've got Jehovah Witnesses who are charismatic? The town we just left, the leading man in town, the richest man is a spiritist medium, he was asked to cause a charismatic conference because he speaks in tongues.

Well, where do you end? I mean, one thing God has always demanded is purity. And it's either pure in heart, see God. And God says the only way you can ascend into his place, you know, we make pride the easiest thing, you say to people, I've just now kneeled down and told God, the most demanding thing in the Christian life is prayer.

For the simple reason, Psalm 24 says, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He who hath clean hands and a pure heart. In the revival in the Hebrides, one of the greatest of modern revivals, the leader of it was Duncan Campbell.

I prayed with him many hours at 5 o 'clock in the morning, I'd preach with him in various countries. And he mentioned how when they had had one move of the Spirit and they went to another place, the church was packed, the elders were there, deacons were there, preachers were there, but God wasn't.

And does it matter who's present if God is absent? And does it matter who's absent if God is present? But God wasn't there. And Duncan preached and nothing happened and he stopped and he pointed to a boy, a 16-year-old boy, Hugh Macdonald, I think his name was, and he said, Hugh, I pray.

The 16-year-old boy stood up and he said, Ach, in his Scottish way. They say, Ach, you know, like this. Ach, he says, what's the good of praying if we're not raped with gas? He quoted the 24th Psalm, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?

He who hath clean hands and a pure heart. That became the key to the revival. And when he quoted the Psalm he prayed, now you see Duncan Campbell's eyes filling with tears now and he said, Brother Raymond, he prayed.

I didn't ask a deacon, there wasn't one there that could pray or a preacher, but that boy could pray, he was 16 years of age. And he said he prayed 15 minutes, 20, 30, 40, 45 minutes. And at the end of that 45 minutes, it's just as though you split the sky.

I die 64, oh, that thou would reign in the heavens and God just descended, not only there but on the cabin down the road and the dance hall at the other end of town. God laid captivity to the whole of that area that they were in.

Dr. Tozer had a fine definition of revival. He said revival changes the moral climate of a community. It did in Finney's day. It doesn't do it today. You put a million dollar crusade on and somebody goes out of town you didn't even know they'd been and it's gone and the climate's the same.

We say we're more power than the Holy Spirit. Well, I don't think that's difficult to lay hands on people and they'll do this, do that and the other. But tell me this, how many, look, it only took 120 spirit-filled people to turn the city upside down and invade the world.

There are more than 120 Pentecostal churches now in California, in Los Angeles, and nobody knows we're here. Unless you put it on TV and shouted about it. But you see, we're so content, we're so easygoing.

All we want is a little blessing, a little help. But you know, when God invades, when God comes with really Holy Ghost power, we're going to be pretty shocked, I think. It's going to be pretty devastating.

As I say, I don't think we're eternally conscious people. One of the great things when each of us has to stand alone at the judgment seat of Christ, saints, sinners, preachers, mixers, it's going to be a terrible day.

I don't know how long it will last, the day of the Lord is a thousand years. So what if it lasts a million? We're going nowhere. We're going nowhere. God can take a thousand years to put Hitler there and make him explain why he killed so many people, liquidated six million Jews, destroyed homes and this and that and the other.

It's going to be a terrible day. But again, what I'm trying to say is this, I don't think God is awesome. I say this and it sounds cruel, but I'm cruel, I know that. But I don't believe that most of our people go to church to meet God.

They go to church to hear a sermon about God. They don't go to meet God himself. Oh, I enjoyed what that man said. It's always a good meeting if we enjoy it, isn't it? Tell them a good meeting is a lot of them stripping and getting us wiped out.

But you see, if we develop this, I nearly said method, I'll say divine exhortation. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Because you see, it says in the previous verse, or verse, two verses previous, he gives power to the saints.

And to them that have no might, he increases strength. In writing in his second letter to the Colossians, pardon me, his second letter to the Corinthians, in the twelfth chapter, verses ten and eleven, no, verses nine and ten, you have two statements there where Paul says, in the twelfth, I read the tenth verse first because he says, when I am weak, then am I strong.

That's a paradox, isn't it? When I am weak, I'm strong. When I have no confidence in the flesh. People say, it must get easier, you've been preaching a lot of years. I've been preaching over fifty this manner, and some of them have been preaching about sixty or more.

But no, it doesn't get any easier. If it gets easier, I give it up. If it gets more difficult, in the slow way that I've pursued God and understanding better now, obviously, than I did fifty years ago, it's more awesome than ever to preach.

I get invitations, oh, we want you here, we want you there. I say to Martha often, sweetie, we could sell this house and get on a boat and go around the world and stay away for three years and have a nice time meeting other countries.

Everybody wants you. You know what they say? One group of people wrote, they said, we're having this great conference I've preached in Australia and God has blessed the conference. And they wrote back and said, well, we want you back on a certain day, say January 1st to the 8th.

January is summertime down there, blistering hot. I preached Christmas Day and it was 105 and no air conditioning. But we want you this week. We're sure you're the man, we don't want anybody else to come, you come, you're God's man for us, January 1st to the 8th.

I left a letter on my file and about a week after I got a letter from India. We've been searching and wondering and thinking and praying and we're quite sure you're the man to come, January 1st to January the 8th.

Now Gabriel must have got the file mixed up or something because I'm sure that the Lord doesn't tell two people in two different nations so far away. But you're the key man for a particular thing. So what you do is be still and know that you're God.

You've got to find out what God is saying. But again, the Apostle Paul boasted. He said, no boasting for me except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet he says, I boast because my strength, God says, is made perfect in weakness.

Again, it's one of those paradoxes. My strength is made perfect in weakness. For they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. I like eagles. They're great birds.

The Eagle as a Picture of the Waiting Believer

I remember seeing one standing on a stump in Australia. The stump was there. The bird was there. Magnificent thing and the sun was blazing. And the thing just turned and looked right into the sun. It's the only creature that can do that.

There's no creature under heaven can look into the sun and then turn around and see something else. It has a marvelous optic nerve that has a kind of a shutter. It has a lens on its eye. Now, it's a very beautiful bird.

It has distinctive features. To me, it's difficult as the Lord here says, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They, they that wait, mount. You've got so many ready-made programs.

One of the difficult things for me to understand in one sense today is why God puts up with a church if he puts up with it now. After all, he's threatened he's going to spew us out of his mouth. We can't get much more sick, I think.

He says he'll spew the church out of his mouth. And I marvel that he, he puts up with us as a nation. Every day we're more divorced. Every day we have more wretchedness, rape, murder, nightclubs, nudity.

We're trampling his commandments on the foot and God sits there on the circle of the earth and does nothing. But you see, again, God is slow to chide and swift to bless. He's very patient. I remember about a year ago when I was thinking about a certain thing and, and the Lord said, well, consider Moses.

Well, I consider him many a time. But you can always think of something new. I thought of Moses on the backside of the desert. He'd left, we don't know how many. Some people say a million and a half. Some people say five million people in a slave camp.

He could have been hopping up and down and shouting and tearing his hair and saying, five thousand people died in that slave camp today and God, you didn't do anything about it. Ten thousand died yesterday and babies were born in starvation situations.

And your people, they're naked, they're being like that. After all, it's rather amazing when you think of it. I, I think the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history. Between the testaments, between Malachi and, and, and Matthew, you have a period of four hundred years of captivity for the, for Israel.

But they've had four hundred years of captivity under the Pharaohs and so forth. And yet Moses is on the backside of the desert. And as I say to the preachers very often, you've got a Bible school, get a diploma, get a fifty and then you won't scare the devil with them.

But you can go to Bible school, get a diploma, go to a seminary, get some degree. So what? Uh, excuse me. Unless you learn to wait upon the Lord, you've really no qualification to go out to a busy, busy, demanding world like this and, and a church that will run you underground unless you're careful.

You need to learn to be still and know that he is God. After all, Jesus has been training thirty years before he preached. Now gradually go to Bible school and become prophets. John Baptist was thirty years in the wilderness and the only minister in six months.

It's this period of development, it's, it's, it's patience, it's the waiting, it's the hearing. And I say to preachers, look, you can, you can get a diploma and then offer to be pastor of a church, but I tell you what, you can't offer to be a prophet.

I get all kinds of young men that write to me about my books or I hope you'll preach them. You know what, I'm sure God has taught me to be a prophet. I say, all right. John Baptist, they really tie it down.

And I say, I believe that you're ready to lose your head in six months. That's the only way you can prove you're, you're, you're called like John the Baptist. Have you already pledged your head to heaven?

Repentance as a Change of Mind and Direction

Because one missing note in modern evangelism, surely, surely, surely, is repentance. Nobody stresses repentance. Repentance isn't saying you're sorry. Repentance is an attitude. It's a change of mind about God, a change of mind about sin, a change of mind about your own state.

I've been going the wrong way. By the grace of God, I go the right way. I've had the wrong sense of that. I say that God is just if he sends me to hell. And then in mercy, I kneel down and say, Lord, save me.

I'm a sinner. I need to be saved. I need to be born again and restored again. All right. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. The eagle is a lovely bird. Where does it go? Well, the scripture says over and over again, it mounts up, it reaches the height.

You know, I'm sure you know this, but let me remind you of this in case you haven't thought of it, that the eagle is a very beautiful, powerful bird, but it's not a table bird. I've eaten all kinds of birds, turkeys and hens and ducks and I don't know what, but I've never eaten an eagle, have you?

It isn't a table bird. You can get a minor bird or a parrot that talks, but this old bird here isn't a talking bird. You can tame any kind of bird, you can't tame an eagle. I've never seen a tamed eagle.

I've seen an eagle in captivity, but I've never seen a tamed bird. So it's not a table bird, it's not a talking bird, and it's not a tamed bird. The old rabbis, when they talked about the power of nature, they said that the lion is the king of wild beasts.

He's the strongest of all beasts. The lion is the strongest of wild beasts. The ox, the patient ox, is the strongest of domestic beasts. They said that the eagle is the strongest of birds, just like the whale is the strongest animal in the sea.

They that wait upon the Lord to renew their strength, they shall mount up. This is not a barnyard bird. You won't find an eagle at night on a branch with an owl just croaking away and looking for mites.

You won't find an eagle on the side of the road, scaring you like other birds. You see crows there, ravens there. Somebody's knocked an animal down and you see them tearing the flesh. Truckers have run over it.

We saw them coming over on the road there. They were stripping the flesh off the floor. You never find an eagle eating a carrion bird in that sense. An eagle will only eat fresh living things, warm meat, bloody meat.

If he doesn't eat a carcass it's because he's driven to total extremity. But his normal way of life is just to eat flesh and drink blood. In Deuteronomy 32 verse 9 it says, The Lord's portion is his people.

Let me stop there a second. Do you realize that I have been very often in churches where there are little envelopes and there is a rack where you sit and they say that's for your tithe. This is the Lord's portion.

No it isn't. The Lord's portion is his people. You can give him your tithe without giving yourself. You want me from the crown of my head to the sole of my feet. The Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is a lot of his inheritance.

He found him in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness he led him out. He instructed him, he kept him as the apple of the night. Now as an eagle stirreth up her nest and flutters over it, her young and predator draw the wings and take of them and bear of them on their wings.

You see he says earlier, I have borne you on my wings as an eagle. The eagle is the blood of great strength. There comes a time when the mother eagle will put her wings partly out and all the youngsters climb on her back and off she goes.

She can carry a tremendous weight. But then when you come to this 39th chapter in Job, verse 27 says, Does the eagle mount up at thy command and make her nest on high? She dwelleth and abideth in the rock upon the crag of the rock and a strong place.

From thence she seeketh her prey and her eyes. Behold afar off. There is an awful lot in there. You never find an eagle making its nest in your backyard or under the spout of it. The eagle is a solitary bird.

And you better get hold of this right away. If you mean to walk with God, you're going to walk alone. You're going to walk alone. I don't remember God ever called a bunch of men. He called Abraham, Walk before me and be thou perfect.