Saturday, November 3, 2007

The Lord Is Like An Eagle

Deuteronomy 32:9-12 For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.

1. The eagle's nest also has a great lesson for us.

The eagle ladens its nest with glass and sharp stones that she finds along the ground. After the nest is sufficiently uncomfortable - the eagle then finds a rabbit and such like and takes its soft downy pelt and lines the nest with it.

When the eaglets are hatched, they find themselves in a most comfortable domain. Their mother has insured they will spend their times as chicks in an environment so soft and pleasant.

Alas, the time comes when it is time for the eaglets to leave their nest. Rather than hold a long talk with her babies about the necessity to spread their wings, she does something rather cruel - to our standard. She pulls away the soft down of the rabbit and exposes her young to the jagged rocks and sharp glass. The eaglets, finding this most uncomfortable - decide it is time to leave the nest.

A pastor told me once how like the Lord this is. When it is time to move - He often makes circumstances unbearable. Some have been led to leave a church for this very reason. Perhaps it is a job situation, or a geographical change. The Lord may use oppression to make His children move.

A lesson in history shows us that Israel is still God's chosen nation. God desired that Israel would return home again so that she could once again become a nation in 1948. Unfortunately, the Jewish people had become comfortable in their adopted lands - many becoming quite wealthy through trade and craft. God rose up a Hitler, a demonic fiend, to cause His people to flee to their native land. God took away the feathery down of the nest and exposed His beloved people to the rocks.

2. The eagle takes her young to great heights in order to teach them to fly.

One-by-one the great eagle takes her young unto her wing and begins the arduous process of flight training. Higher and higher she soars to incredible heights and drops her baby. Downward, downward does the eaglet fall - helpless, without the knowledge or the skill to flap its wings - with greater and greater velocity it falls toward the earth.

Fortunately for the chick, an eagle can fly downward faster than her babies can fall. Before the baby can smash upon the rocks the mother eagle swoops under her babe and carries it back up to the heavens.

How often, Christian, have we felt like we were falling only to discover our great God often at the bottom of our fall. How often must we learn that it is at the bottom of ourselves - when we have no other course to turn to - that we find the Lord an ever present help. Yet, is this not the Lord's way to bring maturation to His child?

So, the eagle mounts again into still greater levels; then she will try again, and the little one is cast off into the immeasurable air, and it begins to understand the mechanics of flight. But so soon does it tire and again fall. The eagle again descends and receives its babe in its mighty iron pinions - claws of death - claws of life.

Thus the process is continued until the eaglet is trained to fly - the eaglet becomes strong - drops its inexperience - and becomes complete. The eaglet turned eagle, the worm turned butterfly - has been trained to swim in God's air, to fly in God's firmament, and to beat its strengthened wings in the face of the sun.

Again, is this not God's way with us? We so often fly poorly - if at all. We fall, but we find that the wing of the Most High is under us - and we rest upon it. So we fly a little and soon find our weakness, and before our testimony can crash on the rocks below and again we find that we rest in high-places in the midst of the danger.

We do not always fly as we ought and fear is often stronger than the little strength we think we have. We are scoffed at and jeered at by the wicked - but take heart, my companion in Christ - we are only still learning to fly.

Isaiah 40:28-31 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 increaseth 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.

It is so easy to stand on the ground and laugh at the young eaglets in their early flight training - but God's wings are under us. God will not forsake us - not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Father.

(Used with permission from: Baptist Bible Believers Website)

3 comments:

  1. Was this from the "Eagle Preacher's" sermons? I heard his tapes a few years ago. Loved all the similarities.

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  2. Sorry, I am not sure what sources it was gleaned from. My friend at Baptist Bible Believers Website put the article together, but he did not list the source(s).

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  3. This is a powerful message from God. It is true I already know the source. Sometimes we wonder why we are going through. God is teaching us to grow up and become mature saints, so he can use us and trust us. He said we shall do Greater Works, so if we are going to do Greater Works than he did, than we have to mature, grow up, Spread our wings and Fly. Walk by Faith and not by Sight, Leaning and totaly depending on Jesus.

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