On Eagles' Wings Pt 318 — Don Courville

Psalm 23: The Lord as Shepherd

Well, we welcome to you on Eagle's Wings today. I'd like to start off by reading you a few verses out of the Psalms. Psalms 23. THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD, I SHALL NOT WANT. HE MAKETH ME TO LIE DOWN IN GREEN PASTURES, HE LEADETH ME BESIDE THE STILL WATERS.

HE RESTORETH MY SOUL, HE LEADETH ME IN THE PATH OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, FOR HIS NAME'S SAKE. YEA, THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, FOR THOU ART WITH ME. THY ROD AND THY STAFF, THEY COMFORT ME.

THOU PREPARES A TABLE BEFORE ME IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES. THOU ANOINTES MY HEAD WITH OIL, MY CUP RUNNETH OVER. SURELY GOODNESS AND MERCY SHALL FOLLOW ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE, AND I WILL DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD FOREVER.

Heavenly Father, we ask Your blessing on our time today. As people are busy getting ready for church, as some are traveling, some are maybe an invalid at home, some are in circumstances very trying at this time, we pray that Your Spirit would minister to us where we're at, and I pray that we'd have ears to hear what You're saying to us.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, there's been lots of things happening in the last three weeks, and where to start, it's hard for me to just know where to start. I want to start in two places at once. Let me start over with where I'm at.

Living in the Reality of God's Presence

God has just been working in such a powerful way, and He's been drawing me closer to this truth to live in the reality of His presence. It's sort of a continual grief with my spirit when I forget the presence of the Lord.

I don't know how you feel, but when I forget about the Lord and then I come back, I'm ashamed that I forgot about the Lord, maybe for a period of several minutes or so or maybe longer, and God just reminds me that I am to be continually aware of His presence.

I was reading over in John 15 this morning, and I was just meditating down through that passage, noticing what the Lord said about abiding in Him as I'd been meditating on this thought of staying in His presence.

He said in verse 1, I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Now you clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. And then here comes this statement that He made to us. He said, Abide in Me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.

I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without Me you can do nothing. I remember back when I was overseas in Turkey and beginning to memorize verses as I had a friend that was discipling me, and I would forget that last part of the verse.

Except ye abide in Me, He said in verse 4, and you come down, and He said the last part of verse 5, for without Me you can do nothing. Not only was I forgetting that verse, but I was missing out on the truth that without the Lord we can't do anything.

You know, one of the things we want to do is we want to bear much fruit, and a lot of our activity has no fruit of the Spirit. There's no evidence that God is in on it, and a lot of it's just barren activity, busyness.

And much of our activity is just trying to stay busy, trying to do things that we think Christians should do. Instead of waiting on God, sensing His presence, and getting the leading of the Holy Spirit, we're just busy.

And when these times are missed, when we miss out on our deep, drawing times from God, it shows itself in the issues, in the emergencies, in the circumstances of life. Now we had a circumstance happen to us about three weeks ago.

A Family Crisis and God's Healing

Where's my calendar? I was just looking at that. It was the 22nd of November, and last week as we had an interview with the pastor, and I'm going to come back and share with you a little bit about that, about how the meetings went in this pastor's church when I finish this.

But back in the 22nd of November, we received a phone call that my wife's nephew had a heart attack. He's 17 years old. He'd gone up to the school for pictures. I think he was on the football team. He was a big old 200-and-something pound kid, and he came back to the house.

They live in a rural area and on a ranch. My wife's sister lives on a ranch with her folks there, and they ranch there, and they go to town, and sometimes they stay in town. Grandma's house is used for a house in town since the grandma is in the nursing home.

And so they were in the home and getting ready for school, and he told my wife's mother that he was having pains in his chest. And what happened then is he basically, he had a heart attack. His father happened to be in town at the cell barn, and he was called, and he came back, and it was a very traumatic time.

Tanner actually clinically died, and they put the juice to him, I understand, six times there at the house, and then when they got him to the hospital, the MTs came. They got him to the hospital. They had to shock him a couple more times, and then when they got him stabilized just a little bit, they flew him up to Rapid City, South Dakota, which was the nearest big town with the flight to life, and they got him up there and took x-rays, and basically what was told to his mother and dad, now Tanner didn't remember any of this.

He was out. But they said his heart was destroyed. He'd have to have a new heart, and so all this is going on. The 22nd, we got this phone call about this. We got ourselves together. We were in a position where we were available and could help out however, and so two days later, we took off after getting things straightened out, knowing that we could be gone for just a week, or we could be gone for weeks, but we were available for God to do what he wanted.

So we took off on Friday and went up, and while we were going up there, they flew him to Minneapolis, and so we got up there. We found out what was going on, and so we could move in and help out in the situation at the ranch and help them take care of kids and things and chores and whatever, so they flew him out there, and they started trying to find a heart for him right away in Rapid City.

Well, they flew him out to Minneapolis, and God had put a spirit. He just put a spirit of belief in many hearts down in this area and up there, and especially in this boy's mother's heart, that he would be healed, and this just seemed to be the spirit that we had, too.

I met with some men the night before we left. It was real late when we left on Thursday night, and I was in Springfield, and God just put in these men's hearts. I was meeting with some other men over there in Springfield, Missouri, and they had the spirit of belief, and we just believed God to heal them.

We just believed that. This seemed to be the spirit that was around. We just believed God to heal them. Well, when they got him out to Minneapolis, they put him through the test for a few days there, and they came back, and the doctors said, Why, there's nothing wrong with him.

He's okay. And one doctor confessed that this was the fastest healing he'd ever seen. You see, they had the facts before him. They had the x-rays that they saw before, and I guess one technician or a nurse had said that his heart looked like a flabby bag after the attack.

When he got out there, he's fine. There's only one explanation for it, and that was that God healed the young man. And of course, it was a happy Thanksgiving, because he didn't have to have a heart transplant.

God had just given him a new heart. He just healed him. Now, after a few days, then they came back home, and then we stayed up there a few days, and we ended up being gone about two and a half weeks on this ordeal.

And all of this was just an opportunity for God to show Himself as strong as the Lord. And He really did a lot of deep working, and He still continues to do some things. Deep working, deep working, especially in Mom and Dad's heart.

How would you like for your child to go through this? And maybe you've gone through some things. But let me share this thought with you. Through all of the exigencies of life, these emergencies that come on, will the presence of God be manifest through us, or will we fall down?

You see, it takes the storms of life to show really what we're made of. I like what David said in Psalm 16, 8, I have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope. Verse 11, Thou wilt show me the path of life. In Thy presence is fullness of joy. At Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

As I meditate upon this, it seems to bring more peace into my soul that God is present, that God is present. Didn't He say He would never leave you? You know, we're moving into what we call the Christmas season, which is basically a time of real paganism, where we get so materialistically minded and we give gifts to almost everybody except the one who's having the birthday.

And we're not even sure this is the right time of year for his birthday, but it's good to remember Jesus, that He came. I was just thinking on this this morning, how it's said in the book of Matthew, in chapter 1, that they would call His name Jesus.

Why was that? Why would they call His name Jesus? Thou shalt call His name Jesus, Matthew 1 .21, if you want to turn there, for He shall save His people from their sins. And then He was called something else, but let me say something on this.

Evidence of a Spirit-Controlled Life

Have you been saved from your sins? Is the controlling pattern in your life the Lordship of Jesus Christ? Is there the evidence of the Spirit of God controlling in your life? What do you mean by spirit control, you say?

Here's the evidence of a spirit-controlled person. You have a sweet spirit. You're tender-hearted, you're kind, you're gentle, you're lowly in heart, you esteem others better than yourself, you're sacrificial, you have a servant's heart, you enjoy Jesus.

You don't just endure religion, but you enjoy Jesus, you love Jesus, and it's a delight to serve Him, not just a duty. And you're poor in spirit, and you mourn, that means you have godly sorrow over sin, you're meek, that means you can yield your rights, and you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you're merciful, you're pure in heart, you're a peacemaker.

These are the types of things that come out of the Spirit of God living in our lives. Of course, the flesh is the opposite. If we're not filled with the Spirit, then we'll be in the flesh, we'll be anxious, we'll be easily irritated.

You know, I was meditating on this down in the revival meetings, which I'm going to share something with you a little bit about, that we're going down in Arkansas, but one night Tim St. Clair shared on Psalms 37, and it might be good, let's just take a moment.

Are you anxious? Are you worried? This Psalms 37 is a very good psalm to settle down our soul on, especially during times that are hard. You look at Psalms 37 1, it says, fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

And what Tim did, he says, you write two columns, you put down on one side my responsibility, on the other side God's responsibility. And I think it was Mr. Gothard that shared in one of his seminars this statement, and I don't know if it was his or if he got it from somebody else, because a lot of the material that's shared there comes from many other people that he works with and that shares things with him.

But he said this, that worry is assuming a responsibility God never intended me to have. Worry is assuming a responsibility God never intended me to have. Have you assumed a responsibility that God has not intended you to have?

One of the reasons I believe that God's blessed Mr. Gothard's ministry so much is because he is obeying God and he's sharing truths from God's Word that will help set us free. It's one of the most powerful revival ministries that I know of in the world, and I know probably of most of the bigger ones and a lot of the smaller revival ministries, and the revival ministry that was just down in Rogers, Arkansas, Life Action Ministries, a pretty good-sized ministry, they have three or four teams that are going around the country through the year sharing these revival truths that will set you free.

And worry is one of the silent sins in the church. It'll rob you of your power in your personal walk with the Lord. It'll rob you of the joy of the presence of the Lord. He said in Psalms 37, fret not thyself, that is my responsibility, not to worry.

And don't envy against the workers of iniquity. What's God's responsibility? In verse 2, well, that's His. They shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb. My responsibility in verse 3 is trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed.

I am to trust and to do good. You know, I like it about the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in Acts that He went about doing good. Well, why did He go about doing good? And by the way, what are we going about doing?

Jesus' Ministry and the Work of the Holy Spirit

Well, He went about doing good because He was filled with the Holy Spirit. Well, of course, we know that He was God. How would God act? Well, He would act just like Jesus Christ. What'd God look like?

Well, if He put on a body, He would look just like Jesus Christ. How would He feel? Well, He would have felt like Jesus Christ. It says in Acts 10 .38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him.

You know, I don't think a lot of us can even recognize people that are oppressed of the devil. And many times those that are oppressed of the devil do not recognize that a lot of the manifestations coming out of their life, like, let's just get back to this thing of the opposite of the spirit is the flesh, a lot of the manifestations and the fruits coming out of their life, like being easily irritated, or being impatient, or being inflexible, or being bitter, or you're easily hurt, you're jealous, you have an unforgiving spirit, or you're proud, you know, you're assuming the best of yourself and the worst of others, and you're critical.

You know, this is coming as Satan has ground in your life. And revival ministries like the Mr. Gothard's ministry, Life Action, the Canadian Revival Fellowship, these three I've had more contact with than a lot of the others, but I know that they have the same principles of having us confess sins and deal with the root, and get rid of these strongholds where Satan has in our life, and this is where the self-righteousness will come out, this being self-centered, having a loose tongue, and we're unfriendly, we have no joy, we're unhappy, we have love of money, we're covetous, we're materialistic, love of self, love of pleasure, we're envious, intolerant, undisciplined, we have a formal, calculated, controlled type of Christianity where we're not free.

All this doesn't come from the Holy Spirit, it comes from the pit. And Jesus Christ, it says, He went about doing good, healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. And this is the truth and the reality and the power that Jesus lives in me, Christ lives in me.

He said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. And so when we realize that it is God that works in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure, we're more relaxed, we're more calm as things come along, and we trust in the Lord, and then we do good also because it is God that works in us, we know.

We may not like the circumstance. And one of the things that God has continually, after revival, and He showed me my heart, He showed me that I was bitter many years ago, I've had to continually watch my attitude.

I may be right and I may be seeing things right, but I'm like old Jonah many times, I'll get bent out of shape. And God has showed me I have to watch my attitude. Prophets have trouble with attitudes, they have trouble also with bitterness.

And if they will not get the victory, if I will not have the victory, then we won't be free for Jesus to live His life through us. I was just thinking on this thing in John 21, how when Jesus just got Peter straightened out, you know, Peter had been so proud, he had boasted that he wouldn't deny the Lord.

Well he did. And he felt so low. I mean, you could have scraped him off the bottom of the barrel when Jesus Christ came back in John chapter 21. And he began to slowly and very patiently and lovingly bring Peter back because he prayed for Peter.

He knew that Satan wanted to sift him and destroy him. And he got him back to feed his sheep. You know how he said, you love me, Peter? Yes, I love you, I'm fond of you, Lord. He was afraid to say that he had that agape type love.

And he drew Peter through this. And then he told Peter in John 19, or 21, in verse 19, he said, follow me. So he's following Jesus. And that's what we do. We follow Jesus when Jesus comes, and he finds us where we are in our sin, and he forgives us.

We trust him as our Savior, and he revives us. He gives us life as a Christian. Many times we'll fall, and we'll come back, and then we follow him. Then Peter turned about, and he saw John following also, John, the one whom Jesus loved.

And Peter said to Jesus, Lord, what shall this man do? And basically what Jesus said to him was, that's none of your business. If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.

You know, many times we have problems because we let other people get us distracted. Many people will not come to Jesus because they've been looking at hypocrites. My friend, don't look at a hypocrite.

He won't do you much good. He'll get you distracted. Look at Jesus. What is there about Jesus that you don't like? Well, I don't find people saying that there's something about Jesus they don't like, because people like Jesus.

They like to hear about Jesus. It's so many times that the vessel, the one telling them about Jesus, is the distraction to them. Do you know that you and I have a responsibility before God to be a representation, an ambassador, as we're called ambassadors over in 1 Corinthians, excuse me, that's 2 Corinthians, in chapter 5, that we are ambassadors.

Why are we ambassadors? Well, it says that love of Christ constrains us, compels us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then all were dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves.

So we don't represent ourself anymore, but we live and represent the one that died for us, and he rose again. And this is why we become a new creature in Christ. The old things have passed away, all things have become new, and we become an ambassador.

He says, He had made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We are to be a calling card of God to the world. And the Scripture says, to which, or don't you know, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and had committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's head, be you reconciled to God. It's not me that people need to see. They don't need to see these manifestations of the flesh, of me being anxious, or easily irritated, or impatient, or envious, or intolerant.

That distracts them from the one they need to see, and that's Jesus. Let me ask you this. Are you easily offended? Are you critical? Does it take much to make you angry? Well, whatever comes out of your heart, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, then that's what's there.

And what you are at home, what you are privately in home, is what you are. So this morning, moms, dads, kids, as you're getting ready right now, and tempers sometimes get a little tried, as you're trying, there's a lot of pressure so many times.

Authentic Christian Witness in the Home

There's more pressure put on a family Sunday morning, and I don't know how many of you really have time to listen to this broadcast, because you're rushing about, trying to get ready for church, and we're like that too.

But is there a spirit of calmness, even though there may be some pressure because you're running late? Will there be the spirit of Jesus there in your home? You see, if you're all fighting and arguing and yelling at each other, and dad's out in the car honking the horn, and mom's trying to change a diaper on the baby, and little old James, he just got out in the sandbox and got dirty, and dad's still honking on the car, and the teenagers are in there trying to get themselves put together, and they're fighting over the mirror, and then you finally get everybody in the car, and you bicker on the way to church, and then you hop out in the parking lot, and you all put on your spiritual face, and you go in smiling, and they're saying, How you doing, brothers?

Oh, nice-looking family. Oh, what a blessing. And everybody's saying, Yes, nice to see you, Sister Sue. But inside, there's fire burning. And then you get back in the car, and you go back home, and the fire burns again, and you just explode again.

Well, you didn't impress anybody, really. Well, that type of stuff, in our daily lives, people are drawn to the reality, the freshness, the originality of Jesus living in your life, and that's what they need.

Follow thou me. Are you following Jesus? When it comes down to it, really, he who walks with God must walk with God alone. You must maintain that fellowship between you and the Lord. Someone asked, What is holiness?

I like the answer that Hudson Taylor gave. He said, The Lord Jesus Christ received, His holiness begun. The Lord Jesus Christ counted upon, or cherished, His holiness advancing. But the Lord Jesus Christ counted upon is never absent, His holiness complete.

Thou wilt keep Him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee. Let me tell you something. There are more people that need to be saved in our churches than there probably has been in any other time of our history.

We have become a church of professional hypocrites. You know, the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 13, listen to this, But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off or made nigh by the blood of Christ.

For he is our peace. Have you been brought near to God by the blood of Christ? Have you been set free from yourself? You see, it's so easy to grow up in church, for us as kids to grow up in church and say Christian things and go do Christian things and go through all of this, but we can miss Jesus.

And I've got this little card, I've mentioned it several times, it says if we meet and you forget me, you've lost nothing. But if you meet Jesus Christ and forget Him, you have lost everything. Are you an ambassador for yourself?

Are you an ambassador for Jesus? As we go through the day, we try to share Jesus with different people, and it's amazing how we get different opportunities to share the Lord. Are you an ambassador for Jesus?

Trusting God and Doing Good

Are you trusting in the Lord and doing good? Then you'll dwell in the land and you'll be fed. And then the psalmist said in Psalms 36 ,4, delight thyself also in the Lord. That's our responsibility, and His is to give you the desires of your heart.

Our responsibility is to commit our way into the Lord, and we're to trust in Him, and His responsibility is to bring it to pass. Are you trying to force something? Are you trying to get it over? Are you trying to get something accomplished?

You need to make a move, you want to make a move, or you have a desire here or there. And God comes and He says, let me take care of it, you just keep your focus on me. How you doing in life? Well, there's so many things that are going on and so many things to share.

The most important thing is that Christ is the central desire of your heart. He's the central attention that you're focused on all day long. Then you'll have that peace. Well the meetings down there in Rogers that we'd had Pastor Tom Hatley on last week as an interview, I'm interested in going anywhere where God is working, and I'm interested in showing up where God is working.

Revival Meetings and the Manifest Presence of God

And I'm still looking for the day when the manifest presence of God comes in a fellowship, or on a church, in some revival meetings like I've read in history, how God would show up. And I was going to share with you this story about Rose, how God showed up and one family even heard about it, and they were traveling and they'd ask different people, how will we know where to get there?

And then they finally, one porter on the train said, when you get down close to the town, you'll know you're there, you'll begin to feel it on the train. And they said, sure enough, it was so. God's presence was so powerful that as they got there they could tell that they were close.

And I long for that. Well down there in the meetings that went for two and a half weeks, they extended it until, for two and a half weeks, I was sensing that God was doing something there special. God, they'd gone through some tough times, all of us in our churches have some hard times and things, and God was healing, and God was drawn out, and confession was being made.

Many were dealing with sin, many were dealing with bad attitudes. We saw parents and teenagers making reconciliation, there were some powerful testimonies. And there was the preaching of the Word, and the teaching of the Word, and there was the anointing of the Spirit.

And once you've been in it, and you recognize it, God will be glorified. And whenever God is glorified, you know, one of the reasons, one of the things that the Scripture says is that the Holy Spirit will lift up Jesus, and Jesus will give glory to the Father.

Whenever Christ is exalted by the Holy Spirit, pointed out, led to, then there is glory, God's glory is there. One of these days, many of my Revival friends believe that God is going to break out somewhere in this country and do a powerful work.

See we have little spots of Revival here and there, but what we're praying for is an awakening. And God has been doing some powerful works of Revival in different areas of our country. And of course, China has been experiencing Revival now for many years, one of the most persecuted churches in the world is in China, and they're experiencing a continuous Revival over there.

But look at their situation compared to ours. We're on easy street, but yet we are cold and calculated and formal, and we don't have the freshness and the vitality of Jesus. We really need to see God do a work in our day, and that's my burden.

I have tasted, I have tasted a little bit of it, and I am so grateful that what God has done for me has changed my life, and He's continually changed me. It's just like Hudson Taylor. When God worked on him, if you read his exchanged life, then he couldn't do enough to help others come to an understanding of this powerful work of Christ being in you.

You see, this is the description of a Christian. It's Christ in you. And our time's coming to a close, and this has been called many different things. It's been called the crucified life, the exchanged life, the spirit-filled life, the victorious life, and many different things.

But whatever you call it, just get it. It's Jesus. He's the one. And one of the results of genuine Revival would be the appropriation of the life of Christ in the life of the believer, for the revived heart can truly say, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Union with Christ in Romans 6

Go to Romans 6. This is the heart of it. Romans 6 is essential to experiencing this reality. In order to enjoy the life of Christ flowing through you, you must do these four things, and then I'll close.

You must recognize Christ's death for you on the cross. Two, you must recognize your death in Him on the cross, that you died. And then three, you appropriate by faith the fact that your old man is dead.

And four, you yield your members and your body to God. Christ is your life. Well, Father, I trust that You will bless the folks, that You'll work in their lives, You'd bring a revival in our land, oh, how we need it, oh, how we ask You to come and send revival to us.

We're a needy people, we're a needy land. Oh, come and revive Thy church today, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, may God bless you, my friend.