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's no searching of his understanding.
He giveth power to the faint, and to
them that have no might, He increases strength.
Even the youth 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.
We welcome you to On Eagle's Wings, a
ministry of encouragement to the local church, to
the pastor, to the believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
If you're weary, if you're fainting, if you
need strength, we want to be an encouragement
to you.
We're for revival.
Our land needs to see a moving of
the Spirit of God.
Let's pray for it.
We welcome you again to another program On
Eagle's Wings.
I was just thinking, it's that time of
year again that we call Christmas time.
Sad time to those of us that love
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our hearts are broken because He's not in
it.
So much of it He's left out.
It's just a commercial time, pagan time.
I was reading in a little magazine called
The Voice in the Wilderness, a poem entitled
Mary's Dream.
I never quite read a poem like that,
and I thought I might share it with
you.
I thought it might be appropriate for this
time, just to keep our hearts finely tuned
to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It goes like this.
I had a dream, Joseph.
I don't understand it.
Not really.
But I think it was about a birthday
celebration for our son.
I think that's what it was all about.
The people had been preparing for it for
about six weeks.
They had decorated the house and bought new
clothes.
They'd gone shopping many times and bought elaborate
gifts.
It was peculiar, though, because the presents weren't
for our son.
They wrapped them in beautiful paper and tied
them with lovely bows and stacked them under
a tree.
Yes, a tree, Joseph, right in their house.
They decorated the tree also.
The branches were full of glowing balls and
sparkling ornaments.
There was a figure on the top of
the tree.
It looked like an angel might look.
Oh, it was beautiful.
Everyone was laughing and happy.
They were all excited about the gifts.
They gave the gifts to each other, Joseph.
Not to our son.
I don't think they even knew him.
They never mentioned his name.
Doesn't it seem odd for people to go
to all that trouble to celebrate someone's birthday
if they don't know him?
I find the strangest feeling that if our
son had gone to this celebration, he would
have been intruding.
Everything was so beautiful, Joseph, and everyone so
full of cheer, but it made me want
to cry.
How sad for Jesus not to be wanted
at his own birthday celebration.
I'm glad it was only a dream.
How terrible, Joseph, if it had been real.
Where's the Lord Jesus Christ in relation to
your life?
Is he in or out?
Is he there as your Savior?
Or do you need to invite him in?
It's a hard, lonely life without Jesus.
If you've got material wealth, money, and things,
it doesn't take long to find out that
they don't satisfy that longing in your heart.
There's something there missing, and it's Jesus.
That's what I found out.
I was a 19-year-old college student,
psychology major, down in a university in Louisiana.
Raised in church all my life, yet I
had that empty feeling.
I'd go back to my dorm and cry.
I just didn't know what was wrong, and
finally one day I picked up my Bible
and read a verse Matthew 6 33 that
says, Seek ye first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness and all these things shall
be added unto you.
And that verse began to settle in, and
finally one hot summer night, I gave my
life to Christ totally.
I was his, and he changed me.
He came in, and what a wonderful thing
that was.
I wouldn't trade you anything for that.
Jesus Christ is real.
Invite him in.
The Bible says, Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved.
Receive him as your Savior, and then if
you if you need some help, you can
write to me.
Write on Eagle's Wings, Box 1100, Web City.
You can just give me a note, and
maybe I can get you in contact with
a pastor that will see that you get
discipled, you get fed the Word of God,
get you a Bible, will help you grow.
This ministry is designed primarily for the church,
the local church, the pastors especially, to encourage
them.
But you need Christ.
You need to be plugged in to a
place where you can be cared for spiritually.
So you write to me on Eagle's Wings,
Box 1100, Web City, 64870, if I can
be of some help to you.
And by the way, if you just like
to write, you maybe you've been listening to
this program.
I realize that it's the times have sort
of changed according to some circumstances with this
station, but if you'd like to write me,
I'd like to hear from you.
I work with Gospel Revival Ministries.
I'm the Phil representative and Crusade coordinator living
down here in southwest Missouri.
God's opening up doors down here to minister
to you by radio.
We want to encourage you.
Take the time to share Christ with someone
today, will you?
Or at least this week.
This is the time for Christmas, the time
for sharing and caring.
You go sit down in a mall, and
you watch all the people going.
You look at their faces.
You look into their eyes.
A lot of empty lives out there.
We don't want to do that, though.
We don't want to take the time to
share Christ, to take the time from our
busy schedules.
And I know what it's like.
I'm busy, too.
It's hard to stop and easy to pass
on by.
But aren't you thankful that God had time
for you?
For me?
Aren't you thankful that he took the time
to come down?
Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he
is good, for his mercy endureth forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
the psalmist says, Whom he hath redeemed from
the hand of the enemy.
They gathered them out of the lands from
the east and from the west, from the
north and from the south.
They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary
way.
They found no city to dwell in.
Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.
Are you fainting?
Pastor, are you about to faint?
Let's get together.
Get a hold of me.
Let's pray.
Let me encourage you.
I was a fainting pastor.
I know what it's like to struggle.
Sometimes the load becomes almost unbearable.
The things to do are without number.
There's no end to the busyness cycle.
Beware of the barrenness of busyness.
Many things to do.
Many places to go.
Many people to see.
Many problems to solve.
But yet, if you don't have the peace
of Christ ruling in your heart, be in
the umpire, it'll get you down.
It'll wear you out.
I believe that we're in the day of
satanic attack of the sort to where Satan
wants to wear out the Saints.
His tactics are very subtle.
His strategies are very smooth.
His deceptions are very delightful to the flesh.
We need to be careful that we don't
succumb to the Delilah's that he's setting out
there for us, both morally and spiritually and
physically.
Pastor, God designed you to be the pastor.
Not to necessarily be an errand boy, a
fundraiser, a janitor, and all the other stuff
that Satan will like to slip in on
you.
And sometimes you have to do some of
those things as the servant of the Lord.
But be discerning.
And you folks out there that have a
good pastor, you watch him and guard him.
Guard his family.
Help with needs.
Take care of them as you're able.
Pastors are falling out of the ministry by
the dozens every day.
Our land's become, our land's going to become
a dark land for pastors, godly pastors.
Our churches are finding it harder to find
good pastors.
If you've got one, you pray for him.
You take care of him.
You encourage him.
This morning when you go to church, you
tell your pastor that you're going to pray
for him more.
You ask him if there's something that you
can do for him.
After he gets over the shock of it,
say you mean it.
Ask him if you can take care of
the kids or something.
He led them forth by the right way
that they might go to a city of
habitation.
Let God lead you.
Holy Spirit, guide us.
Lord, guide us as we as we seek
to do your will, Father, in Jesus name.
We should be excited just because maybe I'm
low-key on this program doesn't mean that
I'm not excited.
I've been doing some studying on in the
last month on enthusiasm.
Maybe I might share some things with you
sometime on it.
We should be excited about what God's excited
about.
You know, sometimes we get to the place
to where we don't realize that we're dominated
by fears.
And these fears sort of close in on
us.
And they sort of squeeze down on the
outward expression of ourself.
And we're afraid just to be ourself.
To let God just live his life through
us and fulfill our character.
I know many times that when I'm around
pastors, I get into some place and the
first thing that these pastors want to do
is they want to judge me.
Well, why do they want to judge me?
And by that I mean I'll go in
and they'll want to know what kind of
school I went to, what kind of degrees
I got, or how big my church is,
and stuff like that.
Well, I've learned to evaluate those things and
to ask myself, well, why are they asking
those questions?
Well, they're afraid.
Many are afraid that their reputation might be
ruined if they get somebody in that doesn't
hold up to their standard with their other
pastors.
There's been quite a vicious war going on
in this area.
In the last few weeks, I started reading
a book by Jack Van Impey.
Jack Van Impey is a friend of John
Musser.
He encourages him in his revival ministry, and
he wrote a book called Heart Disease in
Christ's Body.
I'd encourage you to find that book and
to read it.
Maybe I should have brought some with me
to offer to you.
But I don't have them.
But Heart Disease in Christ's Body by Jack
Van Impey is just a real revealing book
of how fears dominate, prejudices, these type of
these disease attitudes that dominate us, and they
make us do things.
The fear of men, the Bible talks about,
is one of the things to be avoided.
I've been looking at Moses.
You know, when Moses came out of the
desert, and he met the Lord at the
burning bush, and the Lord told him he
was going to send him, Moses started coming
up with these excuses, and I believe they
were actually fears.
Because he didn't want to go.
He's afraid to go.
There's some reason that he's coming up with
these excuses.
Many times, we'll come up with an excuse,
because we don't want to do something, and
really we're just afraid.
One of the things about Christ coming was
that he came to set us free.
In the book of Luke, Luke chapter 1,
71, 74, 75, in there, the scripture says
that he would grant unto us that we,
being delivered out of the hand of our
enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness
and righteousness before him all the days of
our life, without fear.
You know, as long as I am afraid
of anything, there's a flaw in my faith.
Perfect love casts out fear, the scripture says.
And fear is focusing on my inability, and
faith is focusing on God's ability.
And what God is going to do with
Moses, he's going to train him, to actually
disciple him, to say to Moses, he's going
to say, Moses, now look, I want you
to quit focusing on your inability.
I know you don't have any ability, and
I want you to focus on my ability.
And so when he comes up with these
things, God deals with him in very tenderness,
and of course at one point he gets
God angry because of his unbelief.
Well, chapter 3 of Exodus, in verse 11,
Moses said unto God, who am I?
Moses said, I'm a failure.
You ever feel like that in your life,
in your Christian life, in your life period?
Maybe you're not a Christian yet, but you
just say, I'm a failure.
You feel like that.
Well, that's been programmed into you.
Satan is the programmer for failure.
He wants us to feel like that.
And Jesus, by the way, he said that
without him we would fail.
He says, I am the vine, you're the
branches.
He that bideth in me, and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.
For without me you can do nothing.
That's failure.
Now, you know, one of the things that
deserts are good for, and they're not good
for many things we think, but they are
good for some things, deserts are good for
revealing your flaws and your fears.
Moses had some time out there in that
desert to think.
By the way, you're going through a struggling
time or problem or pressure.
Why don't you let God use that to
reveal the self-life?
That's inside of you.
Just take some inventory.
Stop, maybe pull off for a couple hours
one day, go out in the park or
someplace, and let God just open up to
you your own heart.
Use that desert to reveal your flaws and
your fears.
Deserts are good for making you face yourself.
So use that time.
You know, past failures produce fear.
That's why I didn't like tests in school.
When I went through school, I hated tests,
and still I will avoid a test if
I can, even to take my driver's license
test.
I don't like it.
Why?
It's because past failures, when I was in
school, when I failed a test, it just
devastated me, and I felt dumb.
I felt like I didn't know it in
these things.
So these failures produce fear, and fear in
the script, in the spiritual life, is a
lack of faith or trust in God.
Paul told the Philippians, he says, listen, forget
those things which are behind and reach forth
into those things which are before.
Faith lives in the future.
You go back to yesterday, and it's going
to destroy your faith.
You learn from yesterday, and if you have
to make restitution for something that you did,
but learn from it and go on.
God's not going to beat you down.
One of the things that the human being
needs is forgiveness.
Well, Moses was forgiven, and God's saying, listen,
I've got a ministry for you.
And he says, who am I that I
should go unto Pharaoh, the children of Israel,
of Egypt?
He says, who am I that I should
deliver them?
And the problem of Moses is that he's
still living in the past.
Fear lives in the past.
Faith lives in the present and the future.
By the way, faith commands the present, and
it looks forward to the future with hope.
As you're getting ready today to go out
to meet the challenges of today, pastor you're
fixing to go preach, Sanskrit teacher you're fixing
to go teach, go in faith.
Believe God to do something.
When you got up this morning, did you
believe God to do something?
Are you living by faith?
Moses was still living in the past.
And what's God's answer for his fear?
He gives him a promise.
Because in in verse 12 he said, certainly
I will be with thee, and this shall
be a token unto thee that I have
sent thee when thou hast brought forth the
people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God
upon this mountain.
So he gives him a promise.
I'm gonna be with you.
Like the little girl that wouldn't go downstairs
in the dark.
But if her daddy would go, she'd go.
Many times we want God to do supernatural
things, and God just wants us to live
simply by faith.
We want to see unusual things.
The unusual thing is that you can get
up in the morning and live with God.
You can have fellowship with Him.
If we walk in the light as He
is in the light, we have fellowship one
with another.
In the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son
cleanses us from all sin.
Think about it.
Are you fellowshipping right now with the Lord
Jesus?
Are you enjoying Him?
Are you letting Him minister to you as
you listen to this?
And it's not that Moses is going to
go, but it's who is going to go
with Him that makes the difference.
Like that song, I can face tomorrow.
But that song also says, because he lives,
I can face tomorrow.
The reason that so many people are thinking
about suicide in our day is because there's
nothing for them to look forward to in
the future.
My friend, Jesus Christ is something to look
forward to.
If you're struggling right now, just bow right
where you're at.
Tell Him you repent of your sins and
ask Jesus to come into your life.
He will change you.
He will do it.
All you have to do is believe.
Ask in faith.
God's saying to Moses and to us, I
believe, a couple things.
He said, Moses, you've tried in your strength,
not try in mine.
My friend, are you struggling in your own
strength?
Are you trying and it's so hard?
He says, you've tried in your strength, not
try in mine.
Philippians 4.13 says, I can do all
things through Christ who strengthens me.
We claimed the promise but fell so many
times to realize that the promise was born
out of Paul's desert experience.
He said, I've learned how to be a
base and I know how to abound.
All the trials and lives, I've learned how
to have victory no matter what.
I don't let the circumstances get me down.
I've learned to live with Jesus Christ as
Lord of every moment of my life.
Well, you've tried in your own strength, not
try in mine.
I believe also he's saying, my presence will
take care of your fear or your excuse,
Moses.
What was Moses afraid of?
Well, another failure.
Didn't want to go back again and maybe
the consequences.
Don't let the past fears dominate your present.
Learn to live free.
Learn to live by the grace of God.
Do you know how to be filled with
the Spirit?
The word filled in the Greek means control
and we're commanded to be controlled by the
Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 5.18 says, and be not drunk
with wine wherein is excess, but be filled
with the Spirit.
A filling with the Spirit comes by a
yielding to the Lord Jesus.
And also, if you'll study your Bible, you'll
find that being filled with the Spirit and
being filled with the word is the same
thing.
Are you saturating your mind with the Word
of God?
You're going to have things controlling your life.
Unless you're memorizing and meditating the Word of
God, these things are going to come in
and they're going to dominate your life.
They're going to dominate your thinking.
The thought life is one area that Satan
uses to try to destroy us and bring
us captives.
Learn to fly on eagle's wings.
Learn to live by the Spirit of God.
Let him direct you.
You have a good day today.
Let the Lord lead you, direct you, and
lift you up on eagle's wings.
If we can help you, you write us.
Hear it at just right on Eagle's Wings
Box 1100 Web City 64870 God bless you