We welcome you again to O'Neill's Wings,
a church revival ministry designed to encourage the
pastor, the local church, for revival, for walking
with the Lord, being right with the Lord.
We want to be an encouragement to you.
We trust that you would get your Bible
and follow along with us, if you can,
if you're not driving, and that you let
the principles from God's Word soak in.
Prayerfully consider some of the things that are
said.
We want to challenge you to consider the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Is He your Savior?
Or do you just know some things about
Him?
Have you just been a church goer?
Why not take a spiritual inventory on your
life?
Pastor, challenge your men to take a spiritual
inventory of the church, just to see what
kind of condition you really are.
And if there's things they're not right, to
be willing to humble yourselves before God, and
to let Him restore you, build you up.
Trust that God will use this as a
time of ministry in your life today.
Amen.
David said in Psalms 138, 7 and 8,
Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
thou wilt revive me.
Thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the
wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand
shall save me.
The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.
Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever.
Forsake not the work of thine own hands.
One of the verses that's been a great
encouragement to me is Philippians 1, 6, which
says, Be in confident of this very thing,
that he which had begun a good work
in you will perform it unto the day
of Jesus Christ.
We're here to encourage churches for revival, pastors.
Last week, I shared some from a pamphlet
by James A.
Stewart on the phenomena of Pentecost.
And I thought I might share a little
bit more today before we start our desert
survival series on the life of Moses.
He went through some things about the church.
Our churches today, he said, are mere imitations
of the real thing.
We've substituted and offered up strange fire in
the place of the fire of God.
And he went through about five things that
we've lost.
Four or five things, I think it was,
maybe four.
But I thought I would touch on these
before we get into our study on the
life of Moses to show how the cross
applies to our life.
He said, we've lost our garments of holiness.
We've lost our holy garments by compromising with
the world in order to escape the offense
of the cross.
We have not invaded Hollywood, but Hollywood has
invaded us.
Instead of being persecuted by the leaders of
this world system, we've allowed them to flatter
us and have compromised with them.
We sit at truth tables with the enemy.
Our message and our lives are no longer
an offense to these whirlings.
And they of the church and they of
the world walk closely in hand and heart
and none but the master who knoweth all
can tell the two apart.
I hope this doesn't describe you, Mr. Christian,
Miss Christian.
I hope you haven't lost your garment of
holiness.
If you have, you can turn back.
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from
all sin.
You can turn back.
It's when the church is terrible with as
an army with banners in her Christ likeness
and separation that she is a phenomena to
the unsaved.
It is when she is despised, reviled, and
persecuted that the church returns to her pristine
glory.
Would you lead the way?
Back?
Would you be the one to humble yourself?
If we humble ourself, he will exalt us
and lift us up.
But if the church is full of pride,
she's full of self-glory.
You know how you can tell if you're
full of self-glory?
Everything you do and say will revolve around
yourself.
It's your goals, your desires, your preference.
Has it been that way?
The most miserable person to be around is
the one that's the most self-oriented.
We're to be Christ oriented, Christ conscious, not
self-conscious.
There's another thing.
We've lost the wonder of redeeming love.
If you've got over your salvation experience, maybe
you never got it in the first place.
The men of old like Charles Wesley, John
Newton, and other such men of God to
their dying breath can never get over the
wonder of the Christ of God dying for
them.
Writes the sweet singer of Methodism, and can
it be that I should gain an interest
in the Savior's blood?
Died he for me who caused his pain?
For me who him to death pursued?
Amazing love, how can it be that thou,
my God, shouldst die for me?
Tis mystery all, though immortal dies, who can
explore his strange design, in vain the firstborn
syrup tries to sound the depths of love
divine.
Tis mercy all, let earth adore, let angel
minds inquire no more.
Charles Wesley.
Well, I think that we have lost the
sense of the presence of God in our
midst.
It's the devil business to, it's his business
to rob the church of its reverence for
the great God of wonders.
He'll rob you.
He's a thief.
He comes to steal, to destroy.
It was more than, more than 75 years
ago that that keen evangelical scholar Bishop Westcott
of Durham Cathedral wrote, every day he makes
me tremble at the daring with which people
speak of spiritual things.
This is an age of impoverished conception of
the God of the Bible.
This is an age of blasphemy and irreverence
inside the church of Jesus Christ.
How often our worship and service are as
a loud and irreverent tramp in the ears
of the Almighty.
I believe God is crying to us today
in these solemn words.
When you come before, come to appear before
me, who hath required this at your hand
to trample my courts?
Isaiah chapter 1 in verse 12.
What would the good man say today?
That was many years ago.
Much of our so-called worship and singing
is an abomination to the Lord.
By all means let us sing cheerfully and
joyfully, James Stewart said in this book, but
never let us forget the majesty and holiness
of God whom we adore.
We've slipped into an age, I'm afraid my
friend, of the good Lord bless us and
keep you.
Oh the man upstairs, he's, him and I
are, we're on good relationship.
We've got a good thing going.
I've heard men talk like this.
This is the age when everyone seems to
be on good terms with God and yet
never was there so much sin and wickedness
in the church.
Dishonesty, greed, lying, sensuality, blasphemy have struck at
the very foundation of our nation.
This is the day when we're trying to
humanize God and bring him down to the
popular level of a good pal to everyone.
And then Mr. Stewart went on to say,
there can never be a mighty movement of
the Holy Spirit inside the church until we
clothe ourselves in sackcloth and ashes and repent
of this sin of irreverence.
There's another one.
We've lost the power of the miraculous.
Mr. Stewart said the church always fails at
the point of self-confidence.
When the church is right on the lines
of a circus, there may be crowds, but
there can be no Shekinah.
Miracles are the direct work of his power
and without miracles the church cannot survive.
The root trouble in the present distress is
that the church has more faith in the
carnal methods of the world than in the
power of Pentecost.
I'd like to stop and just say something
here.
The church that's going to be in the
disciple making business may not very much be
in the crowd making business.
Disciples are few nowadays.
Those that are willing to take up their
cross and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
We've cut down the standards so much where
you can do this and be a disciple,
you can do that and be a disciple.
We've given so much leniency that God hasn't
given.
When the early disciples took up their cross,
they died to everything.
They died to their friends, to their family
if need be, to their to their reputation.
They died to their glory.
Have a sermon on on Joseph.
Joseph was a type of Christ and seven
things that he died to when he was
taken prisoner and went to Egypt.
Maybe sometime on this broadcast, I'll be able
to share that with you.
But Mr. Stewart went on to say, Our
great church programs and mass evangelistic campaigns are
usually along the lines of sound business organization
and promotion.
Hollywood evangelism and Madison Avenue advertising were entirely
absent from the ministry of the Apostles Peter
and Paul.
All worldly methods of promotion and propaganda are
a direct insult to the Spirit of God
himself.
As Samuel Chadwick has stated so eloquently, worship
is idolatry until he, being God, inspires it.
Preaching is powerless if it be not a
demonstration of his power.
Prayer is vain unless he energizes it.
Human resources of learning, organization, wealth, and enthusiasm
are less than useless if there be no
Holy Spirit in them.
It was the miraculous inside the church that
aroused the interest of the unsaved without.
No wonder there's there's no interest.
They don't see anything miraculous.
All they see is a puff of smoke.
I've said these things and Mr. Stewart went
on to say something in quoting Andrew Murray.
Mr. Murray said the missionary revival we need
and pray for can come only by a
return to Pentecost.
The end is ever contained in the beginning
and returns to the beginning.
To know what Pentecost means, to have its
faith and its spirit, this is the only
power for evangelizing the world and this generation.
The Great Commission was given in connection with
Pentecost and its fulfillment was made dependent entirely
upon it.
Haven't been so long used to the natural
one wonders if we are prepared for the
supernatural and I'll end with one other statement.
It is the duty, now pastors listen, evangelists
listen, Bible teachers listen, church leaders listen.
It is the duty of all pastors and
evangelists and Bible teachers to call the church
to repentance.
Back to Calvary, back to Pentecost.
Oh Father, we pray that you'd turn us
back to Calvary.
Now I'd like to take you in the
last few moments of this program into the
life of Moses in the Desert Survival Series.
We said a few things last week about
Moses.
His testimony in Deuteronomy 34 and verse 10
was one of having walked with God and
few men have walked with God like Moses
did.
Powerful man.
His testimony was was that which gave evidence
of a man that had paid the price.
Are you willing to pay the price to
walk with God?
Well this series, this Desert Survival Series is
designed to develop discernment, to discern doctrine.
I mentioned those passages to you last time
and to teach us how to be desert
dwellers.
Now let me say something about the desert
dweller.
Isaiah 48 21 says they thirsted not when
he led them through the deserts.
Are you going through a desert?
A dry experience?
A bitter experience?
A very trying experience right now?
Maybe you lost your job.
Maybe your marriage is is on the rocks
and in the process of caving in.
Are you willing to let God be all
to you?
I have a message on the book of
Colossians where where I teach and preach how
Christ is all and in all and I
say in there there's a lesson I learned
and that is that Christ is all we
need but is he all we want?
Are you willing to be a desert dweller?
Or do you always have to go get
the pleasures and the treasures of the world?
Those things leave you dissatisfied, unfulfilled.
God said in Isaiah 43 19, I will
even make a way in the wilderness and
rivers in the desert.
The desert experience when the children of Israel
went into the desert that the word exodus
even means the way out.
It looked like the way to death and
Pharaoh and the children of Israel laughed at
them when they went out in that desert.
They thought they were gonna die.
By the way, when Jesus came to the
disciples in Mark 6 31, he said come
yourselves apart and rest for a while.
The devil says you're gonna die in the
desert.
There's no food out there.
You better not.
You can't trust God in that desert.
Jesus says come you yourselves apart into a
desert place and rest while Jesus has come
unto me all of you who are weary
and heavy laden and I will give you
rest.
Could it be you've been going everywhere except
to Jesus with your problem?
He's still God.
He hasn't changed.
We change, but he doesn't change.
He's the one that rose from the dead.
When he said it was finished, that meant
he had finished everything in relation to your
needs.
All the way from your sins to your
suffering, he is sufficient for everything.
And let me tell you this, if we
learn to bloom in the desert, then we
can learn to bloom anywhere.
Those that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength.
Maybe it's time.
We stopped running around so much and took
time to spend with the Lord.
Time in prayer, real prayer, not just ten
minutes, but to maybe take an hour or
two or three or four hours and just
pray and meditate and read.
Well, it seemed foolish to go into the
desert.
First Corinthians 1 25 through 27 talks about
how God takes the foolishness of the world
and his his foolishness is wisdom, but he
takes these things and he turns them into
a blessing.
Now, for a little bit of background, getting
into the book of Exodus, Joseph was a
slave.
He was sold as a slave.
He grew up down there.
He ended up second to Pharaoh and he
just stayed there.
Seventy entered the land when his family came
down.
There were seventy entered the land and several
years later when they left the land, approximately
400 years later when they left the land,
it's estimated there could have been two to
three million people that went out.
They entered free, but they were made slaves.
The book of Exodus tells us that when
a new king arose, he was afraid because
there were so many of them.
So he began to put them in bondage
and we'll get into that when we get
into the first chapter.
But let me say this about Moses.
Moses was a type of Christ and Moses
was misunderstood.
The Bible tells us in the book of
Acts, in chapter 7, that he was misunderstood
when he was 40 years old, chapter 7,
excuse me, and verse 25.
It says, he supposed his brethren would have
understood how that God by his hand would
deliver them, but they understood not.
Moses had took into his own hands a
situation.
He'd killed an Egyptian and he had in
his heart that God was going to use
him and that was right.
But there were some things that Moses also
didn't understand.
He didn't understand God's timing and he was
misunderstood.
You know, one of the greatest burdens is
the burden of being misunderstood.
Lord Jesus was not understood.
He came into his own and his own
received him not.
Could it be that you're bearing that burden
of being misunderstood?
Jesus understands you.
If he understands you, why are you letting
others affect you so?
He's all you need.
He can take you through the desert of
your trial, of being misunderstood.
You know, Moses gave up the treasures and
the pleasures of Egypt, Hebrews 11.25 tells
us.
He was a type of Christ.
The Lord Jesus gave up his throne with
the Father and John 17.5, he says,
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with
thine own self, with the glory which I
had with thee before the world was.
When Moses gave up the treasures and the
pleasures of Egypt, he went out into the
wilderness.
But it was in the wilderness that he
came to know God.
Have you come to know him in your
wilderness?
Moses was a deliverer.
The Lord Jesus was a deliverer.
Moses was a mediator.
He said, I stood between the Lord and
you at that time.
The Bible says there's one mediator between God
and man.
My friend, I hope you haven't been trusting
a false mediator.
The church can't be your mediator.
Some religious person can't be your mediator.
The Bible says there's only one mediator, one
go-between, between you and God, and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the one that's alive.
He is the scar prints in his hand
and on his side.
You come to him.
Oh, there's a beautiful passage, if I can
get to it, in Isaiah 53 5.
It says he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him
and with his stripes we are healed.
You see, the Bible says the wages of
sin is death.
But the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ.
Our Lord's sin must be paid for.
Well, Jesus paid it all.
Won't you accept the payment that he made
for you?
Well, Moses life was 40 years in Pharaoh's
palace, 40 years in the desert of Midian,
and 40 years in the wilderness, and he
got a doctor of desertology degree when he
was finished.
Now I might say this before we have
a closing song in a minute, that his
training in the world did not teach him
victory over self.
He learned that in the desert.
He learned it in the desert.
What are you learning in your desert?
And also his training in the world did
not equip him to deliver Israel.
He learned that also in the desert.
He couldn't deliver others.
Paul said, I am crucified with Christ nevertheless
I live, yet not I.
But Christ lives in me.
My friend, have you come to the point
where you're crucified?
His training in the desert did these things.
And I might give you this little statement,
that your desert experience is designed to kill
you.
That's right.
It's designed to kill the self-life.
Not to harm you, your person, but to
destroy the old carnal nature that you're born
with.
Could it be that you're struggling and fighting
and and trying to to lick all the
all your problems yourself, and you're you're a
bitter person?
Could it be that you're angry and you're
blaming somebody else for your problems at work
or your family problem and really, all you're
doing is blaming God?
Now, I believe that God puts us into
circumstances to get us to him.
And we often try to run or get
rid of that very thing that God designed
for us.
And we need endurance.
We need it.
We need to learn to be stable.
We have a generation that doesn't want to
work now.
We have a generation that wants it easy.
If we don't have air conditioning all the
time, we cry and complain.
If we don't have it our way, we're
turning into a generation of softies.
We need to learn to be strong so
that we can face the the trials.
I was reading over in James 1 verse
12 says, blessed is the man that endureth
temptation.
Have you been just eating it up?
Have you been placing yourself in positions of
being tempted?
For when he is tried, he shall receive
the crown of life, which the Lord had
promised to them that love him.
That was James 1 12 and James 5
11.
James said, Behold, we count them happy which
endure.
A sad person is a person that's that's
undisciplined.
And you have heard of the patience of
Job, and have seen the end of the
Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and
of tender mercy.
By the way, that's another lesson, the lesson
of Job, the things that he went to.
Well, Moses.
Moses was the shepherd.
He led the flock to the backside of
the desert, came to the mountain of God,
he led them to God.
But first, he had to go out in
that desert and meet God and get to
know God himself.
Could it be that the reason you have
no power to reach others is because you
have not let God take you into the
desert and make you the person he wants
you to be?
If you'll follow Jesus, you'll have to turn
your back to the crowd and you'll have
to go where he leads you.
And it may be that he just wants
to lead you out into that desert and
wants to just teach you things by faith
that will help you to endure.
Let him bear you on eagle's wings.
Please, my friend, let him bear you up
on eagle's wings.
Be still, my child.
Be still and know you are my own.
I love you so.
I paid the price on Calvary and gave
you faith to come to me.
And I will lift you up with wings
as an eagle.
You'll not be tired.
I'll not let you fall.
And I will lift you up with wings
as an eagle.
You'll not be tired.
I'll not let you fall.
Sometimes you stray so far from me and
in the dark you cannot see.
But in the time of deep despair I
hear your voice in silent prayer.
And I will lift you up with wings
as an eagle.
You'll not be tired.
I'll not let you fall.
And I will lift you up with wings
as an eagle.
You'll not be tired.
I'll not let you fall.
You'll not be tired.
I'll not let you fall.