Well, we welcome you again to O'Neill's
Wings.
You know, we read Isaiah 41 almost every
time when we start off.
We trust that you would understand the importance
of the Word of God in placing it
first in your life.
The Lord thinks a lot about His Word.
This is why we read Isaiah, excuse me,
it wasn't 41, it was 40.
When we start out and we say, 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 increases strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
and the young men shall utterly fall.
But they that wait upon the Lord shall
renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, and
they shall walk and not faint.
This program on Eagles Wings is designed to
be an encouragement to you.
Pastor, local church, believer, and also to encourage
you to receive Christ if you haven't done
that.
We want you to understand, but if you'll
wait upon the Lord, He'll meet your need.
He's all you need.
Is He all you want?
Christ is sufficient.
We celebrate His birth, this is the time
of year, we call it Christmas time.
It's His birth that we're celebrating.
It's His birthday, His coming into this world,
not ours.
Like the poem I read you last week,
Mary's poem, what about the gifts?
Do you have a gift for Jesus, or
does He get left out?
Well, the Scripture says, Behold, a virgin shall
be with child, and shall bring forth a
son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel,
which, being interpreted, is God with us.
We trust that He's with you.
We trust that He is in your church.
We trust that He is present, that He
would be felt, and that those that come
your way would sense His presence.
We have so many things in our churches
today that knock out the sense of the
presence of the Lord.
It's an entertainment system, it's a party, it's
a social system.
The church is to be a place, I
believe, where the holiness of God is manifest,
where the godliness of the saints reflect the
life of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I would hope that your church would not
be a place where someone would come in
and hear some gossip being told in a
corner, or to see people moving about disrespectfully
during prayer time or the reading of the
Word of God, but there would be a
sense of waiting on God and watching, a
sense of joyfulness.
So many times we have music that is
fleshly, and we have beat that drums out
the message of the words, and then we
have words that are just so man-centered
and not God-centered.
We need to be careful.
On His birthday, we don't know for sure
if this was the date that He was
born.
The scholars have debated on that.
The important thing was that He came and
He lived, and He died and was buried
and rose again the third day, according to
the Scriptures.
My friend, He came for you.
He came to set you free.
That's what He said.
He said, The Spirit of the Lord God
is upon me.
He said, I came to relieve your burdens,
to set you free.
I like Chambers.
In his little book on December 25th, entitled
His Birth and Our New Birth, Isaiah, reading
from Isaiah 714, Behold, a virgin shall bring
forth a son, and they shall call his
name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with
us.
Matthew quoted from Isaiah, actually.
There is His birth in history, and then
there is His birth in me, and I
hope there's been His birth in you.
If you haven't yet received Him as your
Savior, what a wonderful time to do it.
Even right now.
You say, What's it take?
You're driving along.
You're sitting in your living room.
You're walking.
You're doing the dishes.
Have you really come to the end of
yourself at some point in your life and
recognized that you are a sinner?
And even deeper than that, the Scriptures would
just say that we are sin.
Paul, when he got saved, came to realize
that there was no good thing that dwells
in him.
But where you're at, you can receive Christ
as your Savior.
You're driving down the road.
You can just pull over somewhere, pull into
a parking lot, pull off the interstate, off
the edge, and just bow your head.
Confess to Him that you know that you're
a sinner, and then thank Him for dying
on the cross for your sins, and then
ask Him to come into your life to
save your soul, to set you free.
Wouldn't you want to do that?
And this could be your spiritual birthday.
My friend, that was God in a manger.
You were born probably in a nice, clean
hospital, or maybe at home if you're older.
He was born in a stable.
That reminds me of a story that I'll
tell you a little bit later on about
three trees.
I almost forgot about this story.
I'll share it with you a little bit
later on, the story about three trees in
relation to Christ's birth.
There was His birth in history.
Luke 135 says, Therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be
called the Son of God.
Jesus Christ was born into this world, not
from it.
He did not evolve out of history.
He came into history from the outside.
Jesus Christ is not the best human being.
He is a being who cannot be accounted
for by the human race at all.
He is not man becoming God, but God
incarnate, God coming into human flesh, coming into
it from outside.
Do you understand this?
His life is the highest and the holiest,
entering in at the lowliest door.
Our Lord's birth was an advent.
I was watching on TV the other day.
I don't know what program it was.
I just flipped it on, and there was
this great big choir, and this great big
orchestra, and some celebrant, I can't even say
that word, some famous people, singers, singing.
And everybody was just singing with all this
gusto, Handel's Messiah.
And I had to turn it off.
It was just like the Spirit of God
in me was grieved by all these people.
And I know, unless something's happened recently, that
some of those singers, those famous ones, were
not even saved.
They're pushing for another movement to get rid
of Christians.
I couldn't understand what they were even on
the platform for, singing that song, some kind
of money-raising thing, I guess.
Are we doing things in the Spirit?
Our Lord's birth was an advent, a great
advent.
He humbled Himself, took upon Himself the form
of a servant.
No reputation.
When they saw Him, when He was walking
down the streets years later as a man,
they didn't look at Him as God, but
He was.
He was God in the flesh.
His birth in history.
They keep trying to get rid of Him
out of our schools in this country, and
now they're having real problems in the schools.
Because Christ has been put out, the Word
of God's been put out, well, something else
is going to take that void.
And, of course, Satan has filled it up.
The cultists have filled it up.
And now they're having real problems.
When John Musser, Evangelist John Musser, of whom
I'm working with him, he's the director of
Gospel Revival Ministries, I'm the field representative, crusade
coordinator.
When he was down in Mexico last year
making a mission trip down there, and he
came back across on this side, and he
got into the high schools, and he was
sharing because John was saved out of drugs.
The schools began to come to him and
asking him to help them because they're having
an epidemic of suicides down there.
The kids are getting into the Satan and
the rock, and they were killing themselves.
It was like a tidal wave coming down
the valley.
And they said, You can even preach.
We don't care what you do, just help
us.
You can preach Christ in the public schools.
I don't know how far we'll have to
go before we'll be broken to see that
we've made some bad mistakes in our land.
I hope we turn before it's too late.
But amidst all of the sorrow and the
pain and the sadness, we've got this gaiety
of Christmas around us, sort of a mockery
celebrating his birth.
But yet, who cares about Jesus?
As you go to church today, I'd hope
you'd go with a new fresh love for
Jesus.
You'd look into the eyes of those that
you meet, and you'd look to see if
there's life there.
Even as you go to church, look to
see if there's life there.
Maybe you've just been putting on a facade.
Your life is just like a Christmas package.
If they take the pretty wrapping off, there's
nothing inside but emptiness.
His birth in me, Paul said, of whom
I travel in birth again until Christ be
formed in you.
He was concerned about the Galatians, that some
of them had not really been saved.
I think one of the problems in the
church today is we haven't been willing to
realize or recognize and accept the fact that
we have dropped our standards so much that
our membership consists of those that are saved
and not saved.
And it's a mockery to the community around
us because we don't do anything about it.
I pray that God would give you courage
to do something about it, Pastor, Deacon, to
at least start praying for revival in your
church and your life.
And we at this ministry of On Eagle's
Wings, if we can help you, we want
to.
You can write to me here if you
want, On Eagle's Wings, Box 1100, Web City,
64870, and try to make some contact with
me, and I'll pray with you, meet with
you.
And if you're desperate for revival, that's the
point to begin, to get desperate.
Just as our Lord came into human history
from outside, so He must come into me
from outside.
Has He come into your life?
When He came into mine, He changed my
life.
Have I allowed my personal human life to
become a Bethlehem for the Son of God?
What about it?
Mary, Joseph, their lives became a Bethlehem.
There was shame.
To bring the Lord Jesus Christ into the
world was shame for Joseph and Mary.
The reputation of them was that she was
like a harlot, and He married her.
Of course, their marriage didn't take place until
after the birth.
But there was the talk, the sly remarks.
To bear Christ, it's going to cost.
Count the cost.
Many people go out waving the flag, but
they're not carrying a cross.
Have you allowed your personal human life to
become a Bethlehem for the Son of God?
Bethlehem is the place of birth.
Let Him take your Bethlehem.
He'll burst out into a new life, new
radiance, new testimony.
I cannot enter into the realm of the
kingdom of God unless I am born from
above by a birth totally unlike natural birth.
You know, this was the thing with Nicodemus,
the leader of the Jews, the top religious
leader.
He came to Jesus at night, and he
said, Lord, Master, what do I have to
do to get to heaven?
And Jesus said, You must be born again.
And let me emphasize the must.
You must be born again.
You see, if you were baptized in your
church, that's not good enough.
That's not being born again.
If you joined your church, that's not good
enough.
You must be born spiritually.
When we're born into this world, we're born
spiritually dead, and you must be born spiritually,
and you do that by receiving Christ as
your Savior.
But as many as came unto Him, to
them He gave the right to become the
sons of God.
When you receive Him, your sins are forgiven,
and the Holy Spirit comes to live within
you.
And you cannot enter into the realm of
the kingdom of God unless you are born
again.
You must be born again.
This is not a command.
It is a foundational fact.
You can't get around it.
You know, one of the deceptiveness of Satan
is he likes to get us to think
that we're good enough, that somehow or another
we'll get into heaven, that we're not that
bad.
But the Bible says that our works aren't
going to save us, not by works of
righteousness which we have done.
No.
You must receive Him.
For by grace ye are saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves.
It is a gift of God and not
of works.
You must be born again.
The characteristic of the new birth is that
I yield myself so completely to God that
Christ is formed in me.
Immediately Christ is formed in me.
His nature begins to work through me.
Many people have had pseudo-conversions, stillbirths I
call them.
You see, when Jesus comes in, there's going
to be the evidence of the Spirit in
your life.
The fruit of the Spirit is love and
joy and peace and long-suffering and gentleness
and kindness, faithfulness, temperance.
These type of things are produced by the
Holy Spirit.
You can't drum them up.
They're the evidence of Him being in your
life.
So when Christ is formed in you, His
nature will begin to work through you.
God's birth in history was in a stable.
His birth in me was in my heart.
God manifests in the flesh.
That is what is made profoundly possible for
you and me by the redemption.
You see, the purpose of His coming wasn't
a cradle.
His purpose for coming was a cross.
The devil tried to keep Him away from
the cross, as he'll try to keep you
away from the cross too.
But if there's no cradle, there's no crown.
There was the cradle for the Lord Jesus,
and then there was the cross, and then
He had the crown.
He's ruling.
He's the Lord.
He's the King of kings, the Lord of
lords.
That's what radio station KKLL means, King of
kings and Lord of lords.
Is He the King of your life?
Is He the Lord of your life?
As you're getting ready to go to church
today, will it all be over at 12
o'clock, and then you'll come back and
be yourself?
For me, Sunday is just, I love the
Lord just as much on Monday as I
did on Sunday.
I dress up a little bit fancier on
Sunday, but it's not to impress the Lord,
mostly because it's our custom.
I've been in places where you came with
what you had.
If you just had old clothes, that's all
you came in.
I've been in places that would not accept
me if I came in old clothes.
I was raised in a place that was
pretty affluent, down in the south, a lot
of culture.
Maybe I could have used a little bit
more of it, but I saw so much
hypocrisy, it turned me off, and almost turned
me away from Jesus.
Don't let something turn you away from Jesus.
Trust in Jesus.
Do you trust Him?
Are you struggling?
Son, we want to pray for you, that
God has set you free.
Father, I just pray for those that are
listening.
If they're struggling, that they learn to trust
in Jesus and let Him take it.
You didn't design us to bear the burdens
of life.
You said, come unto me, all of you
who are weary and heavy laden, and I
will give you rest.
Set the captives free.
Thank you, Father, for coming.
Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the
cross for us.
In your name we pray.
There's a poem written by A.L. Fink,
The Rose Still Grows Beyond the Wall.
Jesus was a rose, the beautiful fragrance of
God in the human body.
And they tried to crush Him.
They didn't like Him, because He exposed their
sinfulness.
And the poem goes like this.
Near and blossomed in God's free light, watered
and fed by morning height, it came to
a crevice in the wall through which there
shone a beam of light.
Onward it crept with added strength, with never
a thought of fear or pride.
It followed the light through the crevice length
and unfolded itself on the other side.
The light, the dew, the broadening view, were
found the same as they were before, and
it lost itself in beauties new, breathing its
fragrance more and more.
Shall claim of death cause us to grieve
and make our courage faint or fall?
Nay, let us faith and hope receive.
The rose still grows beyond the wall, scattering
fragrance far and wide, just as it did
in days of yore, just as it did
on the other side, just as it will
forevermore.
The rose still blooms beyond the wall.
Your life may be dark, the days may
be dreary, the discouragements dangerously discouraging and depressing.
Would you let Jesus Christ shine in your
life?
Let Him break through the crevice of the
wall of hardness, of unbelief.
Give Him a chance.
Let Him lift you up.
Let Him lift you up on eagle's wings.
Let Him bear you.
If He's not your Savior, would you receive
Him right now?
Pastor, encourage your people to love the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Let Him lift you up on eagle's wings.
God bless you.
You've been listening to On Eagle's Wings.
Trust that God will richly bless you.