The Eagle Life Series

Flight is not only for the birds, it is for the believers as well. Pilots and astronauts do not

have exclusive rights on soaring into the heavens. The Negro Spiritual says,

I got wings, you got wings,

All O God's children got wings.

When I get up to heab'n

I'm going to put on my wings,

I'm going to fly all oveh God's heab'n.

Man has always envied the birds, and has longed to able to fly. The history of man's labor to

turn this aspiration into a reality is fascinating. Before the story is finished, however, every

believer will have a part in it.

The day is coming, says Scripture, when all believers will take part in God's spectacular

flight event called the rapture. All believers will be caught up into the sky to meet the Lord. There will a great migration from this planet into outer space, because this earth will be so

contaminated by the disease of sin that God will have to destroy it by fire to purify it. After

this there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and believers will be able to make a reentry

into this transformed world.

All who trust in Jesus Christ as Savior have a great adventure in flight in the future. God

expects us to be preparing now for this adventure in the heights by living an exalted life, or,

as our text suggests, and eagle like life. The eagle soars to heights beyond that of any other

bird. It lives on the highest level. Its dwelling place is above the snake line. Twelve hundred

feet above the sea level is called the snake line, because poisonous snakes do not cross that

line and go higher. Settlers in the days when snakes were abundant, and their bites less

curable, would always ask of a piece of property, "Is it above the snake line?" That is where

the eagle lives; out of range of the deadly serpent.

Its power and grace in flight that take it out of sight has made it a frequently used biblical

symbol. In Prov. 30:19 there are four things too wonderful for the author to understand,

and the first is the way of an eagle in the sky.

Bird of the broad and sweeping wing,

Thy home is high in heaven,

Where wide the storms there banners fling,

And tempest clouds are driven.

It is appropriate that man name his first mechanical bird to reach the moon-the eagle. It

is likewise appropriate that God should use the eagle to illustrate the kind of high level living

He expects us to attain. Life on a higher plain; mountain top experiences; sitting with Christ

in heavenly places, and setting our affections on things above, are all parts of what is meant

by the eagle life. It is a life of high ideals and aspirations. It is life in which the perspective is

always upward.

And high above the seas and lands

On peaks just tipped with morning light,

My dauntless spirit mutely stands,

With eagle wings outspread for flight.

This is the position every Christian should be in: ready as the poet and the prophet says,

to mount up with wings like eagles. In order to aid each of us to rise toward this ideal it is

our goal to find in our text answers to 3 important questions concerning the eagle life. The

first question is-

I. WHAT IS THE RESOURCE FOR THE EAGLE LIFE?

In the spiritual, as in the physical realm, there must be a source of fuel to propel us into

the heights. It is clear from the context of Isa. 40 that man left to his own resources will

either never get off the ground, or crash soon if he does. The natural man has no desire for

flights into the heavenlies with Christ. Life on a higher plain has no appeal. If God

transformed a man outwardly, but left the inner man in bondage to the law of sin, he would

be just like the butterfly in Charlotte Gilman's poem in which his transformation was

lamented.

I do not want to fly, said he.

I only what to squirm!

And he drooped his wings dejectedly,

But still his voice was firm:

I do not want to be a fly!

I want to be a worm.

The natural man longs only for the mud, and the worm life. His aspiration is to go lower

into the darkness of sin and its passing pleasures. Oswald Spengler in his book Decline Of

The West says, "We have descended from the perspective of the bird to that of the frog."

The tragedy is that believers, who should be looking up, are influenced by this low

perspective of the majority. Like Peter, they take their eyes off the resource for their power,