On Eagles' Wings Pt 107 — Don Courville

Revival Begins With the Holy Spirit

Whose body is yours? Does your body belong to the Holy Spirit? Have you been bought with a price? Do you recognize? That either you belong to God. Are you still belong to yourself? I'm glad to be back with you on Eagles wings today.

You may not recognize my voice. That's because I'm carrying along a little cold. But I want to share some things with you today that God has been teaching me over the last few months and over the next Few months as God leads.

I want to share with you some things about the Holy Spirit. This program on Eagles wings is geared for revival. Revival means life again. Vive has to do with life re again. I'm convinced that God wants us to live in revival.

The early church was born in revival and thrived in revival and we need revival today. I was reading a magazine from a from a certain denomination in the South today, and they was talking about revival.

And I am encouraged to see that many are beginning to get back to the track and they were talking about how there was a Need for confession of sin and that's where it starts. One article in there on the revival was talking about her.

How everybody was encouraged and enthused my friend when revival comes it starts with the Holy Spirit. Breaking us and bending us and bringing us to the point of recognition of our need. I'm convinced today that many of us do not understand the Holy Spirit.

We do not understand who he is. We do not understand how he works. We are ignorant of the scriptures. I've gone through the scriptures here recently on the Holy Spirit and it is just Saturated with dozens and dozens of verses on the Holy Spirit.

Some books are Stronger on the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is mentioned all through the Bible the New Testament. Which we'll be talking about specifically a little bit in regards to the Holy Spirit is So important for us to understand, you know.

The Spirit Bears Witness to Believers

The Bible says the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Romans 8 16 you will have this witness within your spirit that you are a child of God if you do not have this witness.

Then my friend you better seek spiritual help. You better speak seek spiritual counsel. The Bible says in Galatians 4 6 and because you are sons God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts crying Abba Father.

And the Bible says in 1st John 3 24 and he that keepeth his commandments Dwelleth in him and he in him and hereby we know that he abideth in us by the spirit which he hath given us. First John 4 13 hereby know we that we dwell in him and he and us because he hath given us of his spirit.

Do you have the Holy Spirit within you? I know there's been a lot of teaching a lot of talking a lot of doctrine a lot of preaching and sermons on the Holy Spirit. Unless it's founded solidly on the Word of God.

We can become confused. We can become discouraged. We can become distracted. I Receive the Holy Spirit. He comes to dwell within you because the Bible says if any man have not the Holy Spirit He is none of his so either you either have him or you don't he is God.

The Holy Spirit as God and Guide

Also sometime later I'll be sharing with you a message on temptation and in the area of of The book of Acts in the first church when it began the early church when Ananias and Sapphira Came in and tried to lie To the church actually they lied to God and Peter said why'd you lie to the Holy Spirit?

Why did you lie to God? They're both the same. Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about the area of Your body whose body is yours. I have in my possession From some good friends a little booklet entitled whose body is yours by Walter L Wilson and I would consider that this little booklet is is a classic if any of you know Where we could get copies of these we'd like to get a hold of them have another little booklet.

That's a price as a little booklet too, but I thought today I'd share this message that dr Wilson shared with us on whose body is yours so that we can understand some things very clearly about the Holy Spirit.

He's so precious. He wants to to be a part of our life be a part of our ways. And if I might give you a little illustration of something that happened just last night I'm recording this to you on on February the 15th.

Hearing the Holy Spirit in Everyday Decisions

Well last night was February 14th. I'd been out of town. I was coming home from another town and as I was coming into town on my way in I was asking the Holy Spirit. I Said Lord, you know, I'd like to get something for my family.

You know, we don't have much money and I really don't want to buy candy gets the little ones all round wound up so much. And and it's not that good for us. We all like it, of course, but it's not that good for us.

What would you like? Me to get the family for Valentine's Day. And as I was coming into town, I had this impression in my mind. Buy him a pineapple. Well a fresh pineapple is something that we don't buy very often.

It'd be a real treat to get a pineapple. And and so I that's the only thing that came into my mind Was a pineapple so I pulled into a store and I went in there and I got a buggy. And I went the opposite way of the pineapples and started looking at other things.

I looked at nuts and then I went around to fish and looked at the fish and then I looked at some turkey. We love turkey and and come on around and looked at some other things that looked at some ice cream and.

Then I went back over and bought a couple fresh some vegetables and lettuce and stuff and there was the pineapples and so I went over there and looked at the pineapples and and There were several of them.

I didn't know anything about pineapples. I don't buy them very often. But I looked at one it looked nice and big and it looked a little browner than the others and. And it's like the Lord just impressed on me take that one.

So I did and I went and bought my pineapple and the and the few. Other little vegetables there and I went home and when I come in I told everybody I had a Valentine surprise for him and and all the kids were excited.

Daddy was home. I've been gone and. And I come in and I got this behind my back and I go in there and there's my wife and and I bring this around. Bring it out of the bag and there's a pineapple and everybody got all excited.

I mean the kids started jumping up and down. My wife got excited and I like it when they get excited a pineapple. They said we were just talking about how nice it would be to have a pineapple. I shared that with a friend of mine today.

Dear brother Wes who used to be my assistant pastor. We've worked so much together now. He's moved into this area where we are at. He understands these things and those of you that have kindred spirits will understand that the Holy Spirit.

Can you lead you in details like buying a pineapple and he can he can work these things out? It's so precious to know Him and to listen to him and I have gotten into so much trouble in my life because I would not Listen and obey the Holy Spirit now wasted 20 minutes in that store going around looking at other stuff.

That's because of my old stubborn stubborn self. Well, I'd already been revealed to me what God had told me to get was a pineapple. We ate half of that pineapple last night and really enjoyed it and then we ate another quarter of a quarter of it today.

It's meant more because it came from the will of God now. I want to talk to you about this message that dr Wilson gave us on whose body is yours. I want you to listen carefully as I relate this message to you and I know sometimes on these programs these messages.

Messages aren't delivered with a lot of fancy Razzle-dazzle and many times I have things I want to share that God won't let me share. He wants. I'm trying to let him be the Lord of every area of my life here recently.

Surrendering the Will and the Body

He's been dealing with me about this will. Have you ever surrendered your will to the Holy Spirit? Have you who's really running the show in your life? Who's running your your business, sir? Who's running your church pastor.

Who's running your home mom? Who's in charge are you or is it the Holy Spirit? Now? What about your body? Whose body is yours? Dr. Walter Wilson said because there exists in these days a great desire in the heart for and a confusion in the mind concerning the spirit filled life are the path of Consecration it may help to clear this matter if I tell you of my own experience with the Lord the Spirit.

It was my privilege to be raised among a group of believers who were quite Orthodox in their teaching and quite earnest in studying the word. It was among these that I first trusted the Lord Jesus in December of 1896.

He saved me changed my life. Immediately the Word of God became my constant companion. I loved it studied it preached it gave away tracks. In large quantities, no apparent success followed my labors and much energy produced little fruit.

This failure disturbed me greatly. But I assured myself and was assured by others that we were not to look for results, but only to be busy at seed-sowing. In 1913 the Lord sent to my home a godly man who had been serving the Lord in France.

He said to me What is the Holy Spirit to you? I Replied he is one of the persons of the Godhead. Yes, said he that is who he is, but I asked you. What is he to you? I Answered this question by saying he is a teacher a guide.

He is the third person of the Trinity. My friend corrected me saying he is the first two but he is not the last that you mentioned for to call him the third person is to give him a place of Insignificance and Inferiority which he should not have he is just as great just as precious just as needful as the other two persons of the Trinity.

But still you have not answered my question. What is he to you? And dr. Wilson said I now saw the point. Mr. Leavenmore was trying to make with me and answered truthfully. He is nothing to me. I have no contact with him.

No personal relationship and could get along quite well without him. This fact and truth surprised my own heart. I knew it was true and yet dreaded the fact that it was true. My friend at once remarked it is because of this that your life is so fruitless.

Even though your efforts are so great if you will seek to personally know the Holy Spirit He will transform your life. Read John 14 16 and 17 and see whether you Do really know him the Spirit and if you find you do not then come to him immediately in faith and make him the Lord Of your life.

I was afraid to do as this brother suggested because for years I've been taught by those who ministered the word in my circles that the believer can have nothing personally to do with the Spirit. God worked by and with his spirit, but we should have no contact with him.

Whatever I was told from the platform that if anyone yielded himself to the Spirit that one was a heretic to be avoided. Because of the years of this training Three obstacles loomed large before me to prevent me from taking the Holy Spirit for myself.

Dr Wilson said the first was my fear of becoming a religious fanatic. The second was a fear of giving Christ an inferior place and thus hurting his heart. I did not know that there was no jealousy in the Godhead.

The third was that I should be giving to the Holy Spirit a position and place that should be occupied only by Christ. These doubts and questions I made known to my Christian teacher. He was a wise man of God and revealed to me from the scriptures that only by the Spirit.

Would Christ be made known to me and the beauties of Christ be revealed to my heart. He assured me that if the Spirit had all his own with within my soul He would do freely what he came to do. Reveal the scriptures exalt the Savior.

Magnify the Father. Give power in service and victory in the battle with Satan. This encouraged me to study those passages which told of the privilege of the believer in receiving the Holy Spirit. The preacher left the city before I had made a decision in my soul and shortly thereafter that blessed man of God the late Dr. James Gray came to our city and one evening expounded Romans 12 1 Leaning over the pulpit.

Presenting the Body as the Spirit's Dwelling Place

He said have you noticed that this verse does not tell us to whom we should give our bodies? It is not the Lord Jesus who asked for it. He has his own body is not the father who asked for it. He remains upon his throne.

Another has come to earth without a body. God could have made a body for him as he did for Jesus, but he did not do so. God gives you the privilege and the indescribable honor of presenting your bodies to the Holy Spirit.

To be his dwelling place on earth if you have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, then yours is a holy body. Washed whiter than snow and will be accepted by the Spirit when you give it. Will you do so?

Now. At this service. Mr. Baker was sitting beside me and he was deep in meditation as I was. We said little as we went home together. For he was living with me and we went at once to his room and while I went to my study.

Dr Wilson said there I lay upon the carpet prostrate in God's presence. Heartbroken over a fruitless life yet filled with a great Hope because of the words I had heard from a teacher in whom I had all confidence.

There in the quiet of that late hour. I said to the Holy Spirit my Lord I have mistreated you all my Christian life. I have treated you like a servant. When I wanted you I called for you when I was about to engage in some work.

I beckoned you to come and help me perform my task. I've kept you in the place of a servant. I have sought to use you only as a willing servant to help me in my self-appointed and chosen work. I Shall do so no more.

Just now I give you this body of mine and from head to my feet. I give it to you. I give you my hands my limbs and my eyes and lips my brain all that I am within and without I hand over to You for you to live in the life that you please.

You may send this body to Africa or lay it on a bed with cancer. You may blind the eyes or send me with your message to Tibet. You may take this body to the Eskimos or send it to a hospital with pneumonia.

It is your body from this moment on help yourself to it. Thank you. My lord I believe you have accepted it for enrollments 12 and 1 you said acceptable unto God. Thank you again, my lord for taking me we now belong to each other.

The Spirit's Immediate Use of a Consecrated Life

During the night. Dr. Wilson has seen the light burning in the room of his father-in-law. So that in the morning when he came to breakfast, he said it's too bad. You were ill during the night. Father, why did you not call me?

He replied. I was not sick last night, but all night long I sought to give to the Lord and to give my body to the Holy Spirit. I Was unable to do so because business kept intruding tents camp furniture flags Advertising Factory problems all pressed upon my mind and demanded my attention.

It was 430 this morning before I could really get to the Lord. Then I did give this body to the Holy Spirit and accepted him as the Lord of my service at 5 o 'clock. I retired. You go down Walter and open the mail and get the work started for I'm going to a luggage shop to buy a traveling bag.

Since I have given my body to the Spirit and he has accepted it I know he will have work for me to do and I want to be ready to go at the luggage shop. Mr. Baker was waited on by a young lady as he told her of his needs.

She said are you the mr? Baker of the awning shop? Yes, he replied immediately her face flushed. She was choked with emotion and told how just a few weeks before her mother her mother had died and on her deathbed had requested The daughter to find mr Baker and ask him to lead her to the Lord Jesus as she herself had been led by this same friend some years before.

Thus before he arrived at the office the Holy Spirit had proved his acceptance of that servant by giving him this soul the first thing. In the morning as I left home that morning. I said to my wife lover This is to be a wonderful day with me for I gave my body to the Holy Spirit last evening.

I have quit asking him to help me do things and shall today see him as Lord of my life. Doing things through me. I will call upon you. I will call you up and let you know what happens about ten o 'clock two young ladies entered my office.

He said selling advertising they'd often call for that purpose before and I'd given them some large contracts. Never had I spoken to them about the Lord Jesus. My lips had been my own. And I used them for business purposes.

Now however, these lips had been given away and the Holy Spirit made you to use of them at once. Are you girls bad enough to be lost? I said. The older one answered immediately that she was and had been sitting up the previous night until 2 in the morning Reading her Bible and seeking the Lord.

It was only a short way to Calvary for this girl. She soon met the Savior and found peace in her soul. The younger sister was not so easily led. She said you must think I'm a very bad girl upon which I handed her my Bible opened at Romans 3 and requested her to read The chapter verses 9 to 19 and see what God said about her.

She denied that this passage referred to her at all and would not accept it. I handed her my scissors and Requested that she cut it out of the book in order that I might not have an untrue statement in my Bible.

This she refused to do saying that her mother had taught her that all the Bible was true. This part she said referred to someone else but not to her from this passage. I turned to her. I turned her to Mark chapter 7 and had her read verses 20 to 23 in this portion.

She admitted that the last two items did refer to her but certainly the other items were not true in her life. We next turned to Matthew 13 and read the story of the weed and the tares as we read read the explanation verses 37 to 43 the tears fell from her eyes as she acknowledged that she was like the tares.

She was quite like a Christian but knew in her heart that she did not have the life of Christ. Having thus admitted that she was a hypocrite and lost. She too like her sister trusted in Christ Jesus the gracious Spirit of God having obtained the mastery and control of these lips and eyes and brain Began at once to use them.

These two precious souls were the first fruits of this life more abundant. After the two sisters had gone I caught up on the telephone to tell my companion of the great honor given me and the blessed assurance granted that the Holy Spirit Had accepted my body for his own purposes.

Since that eventful time He has proved in a multitude of ways his authority and his power his wisdom and his knowledge in Bringing about many such miracles showing himself to be indeed the leader of the life the Lord of the harvest.

Entrusting the Body to Christ's Lordship

I entreat each of you to go directly to the Holy Spirit himself. Give him your body and then look to him constantly to do what he wants with that body for the glory and the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dr. Walter Wilson whose body is yours. A powerful powerful little thing my friend whose body is yours. If you don't know Jesus Christ is your Savior. You'll be driven by your lust. You'll be driven by the devil.

You'll be driven by circumstances. You'll be like a ship without a rudder a ship without a sail at the mercies of the waves and storms of life. How much better it is to have a master in control one who you can trust for you.

See if Jesus Christ loved you enough to die for you on the cross and if you've come to the point to where you trust him as your Savior you commit the most precious thing that you have to Him by faith and you're resting your eternal destiny on the on the fact that the Word of God says that whosoever shall call upon The name of the Lord shall be saved.

Why not? Stay there at Calvary and let him lead you through life if he knew how to get you saved don't you think he knows how to get you through the day. A Wonderful thing it is to be led by the Holy Spirit the other day.

Guidance in Ordinary Circumstances

We were up in Rapid City South Dakota we'd gone up for two days. One day we'd spent getting ready for our little four-year-old to have some eye surgery about the middle of March the next day we had.

We were seeing midwives and doctors getting ready for the baby that's coming the last part of April and We'd gone to a stock show and had been doing some other things and we had a friend with us. One of my oldest daughter's friends had gone up with us and we were we were getting pretty tired two days of this.

We had stayed on the campus of a Bible College up there and spent the night sort of camped out there in the dorm and and we were sort of getting tired and getting late in the evening before we were to make the three-hour trip home and we were coming down to Main Street in Rapid City, and we passed a music shop and we had in the back of our van a Vibraphone that had been given to us some years before but we never really perfected playing that thing and it made beautiful music so we we put it in with the hopes of maybe trading it off for another instrument a Probably a what we was looking for is something like electronic piano.

Because when we were down in Louisiana, and I was preaching down there. We was in a school building and and we didn't have a music instrument and our musician had to borrow one of these I don't know what you call them big cube keyboards or whatever made beautiful music and so we decided that that maybe we needed one of those for our ministry and We was hoping to trade this thing off and I didn't know what it was worth.

And so we went past there and I was just impressed by the Lord to go back around the block and go in there. And so we did and it turned out that we were almost able to to swap that thing over for a beautiful electronic keyboard has 15 combinations of different instruments on it and portable enough to where we could carry it around with us and.

And I'd asked my wife to pray and she says I can't pray. I'm too tired and she said I said go ahead and. So she did she prayed in her tiredness and and after we left the place with that thing. Just we couldn't hardly believe that we'd we'd almost made an even swap for it.

Our friend that went up there said see there Vicki God even answers to the prayers of tired people. My Friend, I don't know where you're at in life. I don't know what kind of struggles you're at where you're at doesn't matter.

But are you in victory where you're at? Are you living under the control of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit can direct you to go around the block and go into a music store. He can direct you to go in and buy a pineapple as he directs us.

We have victory and peace and things work according to the will of God. Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Does your body belong to the Holy Spirit? Well, we're going to be sharing some things about the Holy Spirit as we go through the next few months.

Abiding in the Spirit

Hopefully it's God leds. He's really impressed on me. I have things to share. I need to prepare some things and we'll have other messages as God leads us. But this is the most important thing right now that God wants me to share with you.

Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Do you know him? Are you abiding in him? Are you living in his presence? He's a wonderful wonderful God our God is but don't miss out on His companionship. I'm continually coming back to the Lord and confessing my sin of not Abiding in him, you know, he guides us.

He dwells with us. He he lives within us. You know, the scripture says that. But you're not in the flesh but in the spirit if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of his.

Listen, the scripture says no you not that you're the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But the anointing which you have received of him abideth in you. John said in 1st John 2 27 and you need not that any man Teach you but as the same anointing teaches you of all things in his truth and is no lie.

And even as it had taught you you shall abide in him. Are you abiding in him living in fellowship with him? Well, our time's gone until next time. I trust that God will richly bless you and remember Jesus Christ is all you need.

Is he all you want? God bless you, my friend.