On Eagle’s Wings
by Dr. Joseph M. Marshall
Exodus 19:3-4; Deuteronomy 32:11-12
GBC 21 October 07 AM
INTRODUCTION:
We need to understand how the Lord works in our lives. The Bible says in Exodus 19:3-4, “And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. “
I. The Meaning of Life (Exodus19:3-4)
In this passage of Scripture, the Lord gives us the meaning of life. No matter where you look in the Bible, you will never find better definition for the meaning of life than what we find in this passage.
The Bible says that God brought His people unto Himself on eagle’s wings. The meaning of life is that God brings us unto Himself. This is what the Lord wants. He wants us to come unto Him. The Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
The Lord explained to Moses that when He called him down to Egypt to lead God’s people out, He wanted Moses to understand that He was bringing them not to a land, but to a Person.
God said, I brought you unto myself.” He wants us to know Him, to come unto Him. This is why, after many years in the ministry, the apostle Paul wrote the church in Philippi in Philippians 3:10 “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;” Surely, Paul knew the Lord as his Saviour. He met Him on the Damascus road. After all those years of serving the Lord, he said, “My great goal in life is to know the Lord, to come unto Him.”
The meaning of life is to know the Lord. How well do you know Him? May we come to know Jesus Christ in a way that we have never known Him before, more intimately than we have ever known him. Christ can do for us what no one else can do for us.
The meaning of life is that the Lord brings us unto Himself. Once we realize this, we should look for Christ in all things, every day, everywhere we go. The Lord wants us to meet Him every day, in everything He does. Look for Him because He is working in all these things to bring us unto Himself. The Bible says in Philippians 2:13, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
II. The Method God Uses (Deuteronomy 32:11-12)
In Deuteronomy 32, we find the method that God uses to accomplish the meaning of life. This is how God works to bring all this to pass. He says in verses 11 and 12, “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.”
The Bible makes it very simple. The Word of God says, “as an eagle…so the Lord…” As an eagle works, so does the Lord work. God says, “ I want you to understand what I am doing in your life. I want you to know Me. I want you to come unto Me.”
This is why Moses said in Psalms 90:1-2, “Lord thou hast been our dwelling place….from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” Moses learned this great lesson when his mother by faith placed him in a basket among the bulrushes. He was not on the river’s bank; he was in the hands of God. Moses learned that when Pharaoh’s daughter found him and took him to Pharaoh’s palace. He was no in Pharaoh’s palace; he was in the hands of God. He learned this as he grew up in the palace of Pharaoh and was trained in all the wonders of Egypt. He was not there as a child of Pharaoh, he was in the hands of God. As a forty-year-old man, after he had tried to take things into his own hands to deliver his people, fled for his life to the backside of the desert, and stayed there for forty years, Moses learned that he was not just in a desert place; he was in the hands of God.
As an old man, Moses could see that God had been in everything that had happened to him. The Lord had led him, protected him, cared for him, and brought him to the present hour. In this passage, God reminded him that all of his happened in order to bring Moses unto Himself.
A. As an Eagle, so the Lord Builds.
The Lord says, “The way the eagle works is the way that I am going to work.” As an eagle builds, so the Lord builds.
Far off, in high tree or a rocky place, high above the ground, the eagle finds the perfect location in which to build the nest. The greatest care is taken in building hat nest, gathering branches and other things from the earth and carry them to the nest to make it just exactly like it needs to be. The nest is prepared with tender, loving care.
This is a building process that goes on. The life of the eagle cannot continue unless the building process goes on. As the eagle builds, so the Lord builds. Sometimes we hear the expression “self-made people.” But God builds His people.
The more that I think about it, the more that I find it takes me a life time to prepare any sermon that I preach. Every little tribulation or trial that has taken place in my life, has made me what I am today. God is building us and he is not finished yet. God’s Word says in Philippians 1:6, “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” We know He will finish because someday we are going to be like the Lord Jesus. Thank God for that.
The Lord saved me from where I was, right where He found me; and if someday I am going to be like the Lord Jesus, I am going to be one continual construction site until I see the Son of God. He is still working!
If you see on your construction site something He has not quite finished, keep in mind that God is still working on His children as long as His children are walking as His servants on this earth.
When the disciples of our Lord went to the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, the bible says that the Lord Jesus had a question and answer session with them. He said in Matthew 16:13-18, “When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
The Lord is the One who builds His church. We must allow Him to do the building. As an eagle, so the Lord builds.
B. As an eagle, so the Lord breaks.
God works like an eagle. Mother knows that baby eaglets were not born to stay in the nest for the rest of their lives. She cares for them and she longs to be near them. She is proud of them, but they were not born to stay in the nest, so she must do something that is painful to do.
She worked so hard to build the nest, but she must begin to remove some of the soft things that made it to comfortable. Some of the sticks that had been lying horizontally to make it comfortable for them are now turned vertically. If we could hear the little eaglets talking in the nest, they would say something like, “It is impossible to find a comfortable place around here! Ouch! That hurts! I can’t find a place to sit. I don’t know what is going on. Everything was perfect until a few days ago. Something went wrong.” This mother eagle is causing her eaglets to look beyond the nest, making them realize they must get out of here. She must break up the nest.
God is in the disturbances just as much as He is in the deliverances. Every one of us is exactly the way we are for one reason. We are content to be that way. Some folks are so content that they would just sit where they are and do no more until the Lord Jesus comes. We must realize that God wants to stir us up.
We wonder why things happen. You may wonder why you are having difficulty. You may wonder why things are not going smoothly for you. It is because God wants to do more with your life that He has ever done before.
When I was saved, I was placed in the body of Christ by the Spirit of God by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The Lord came to live in me at the moment of salvation, but I am to be filled daily by the Holy Spirit. I am sealed by the Spirit of God unto the day of redemption. I have the earnest of the Holy Spirit. I received the gifts of the Holy Spirit when I got saved, and I can have the fruit of the Holy Spirit as I abide in Christ and the Holy Spirit works in my life.
I believe that for every task God gives us, He anoints us with His Holy Spirit to do that job. God has anointed me to be the pastor of the church I presently pastor. I have that confidence, not in my ability, but in the fact that God Almighty has called me and has anointed me to be the pastor of this church. Surely, if the Lord has put me here, then the Lord’s anointing will be upon me to do what he wants me to do. The Lord has equipped me to pastor. He breaks up things in my life to cause me to seek Him. Remember the meaning of life is to come to the Lord.
C. As an eagle, so the Lord broods.
When we are having problems and difficulties, we wonder, “Where is God in all of this?” I know what it is like to deal with problems. I do not enjoy them, but I thank God for what I can learn form them. The greatest thing I learn from them is that Christ will see me through.
Our heavenly Father broods over us. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 32:11, “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young…” Up in the nest, the eaglet is watching as mother eagle does something beautiful and majestic. She has already stirred up the nest and made the eaglets uncomfortable. She has their attention. Very few times in our lives does God really get our attention. When He gets our attention, we should respond to Him. Some people may go for years without God getting their attention, but when He gets it, they should respond to Him. Mother eagle has their attention. They are no longer comfortable in the nest. Suddenly, they see her. Beautifully, majestically, she glides through the air. Those gorgeous wings are spread as she moves through the air with the eaglets in view.
She watches them because she has walked that path before and she knows what is going on inside their little hearts. They are looking at her and thinking, “Could I ever do that? Could I ever fly like that?” Mother looks like me, and I look like her. Mother is out of the nest, and I am in the nest. Could I ever get out of this nest and do something I have never done before?” Eaglets do not learn by watching one another. They learn to fly by watching their mother. Christians never grow by watching one another. They grow by looking to Jesus Christ!
There are disappointing, heartbreaking things that happen sometimes to turn our eyes back on the Son of God. The beauty of it is that His eyes are always on us. In the darkest night, the roughest time, the loneliest hour, when it seems as though it would be easier to die than live, God is watching you, brooding over you. He is always tenderly, lovingly looking at you. The Bible says that we are never alone and never forsaken!
D. As an Eagle, so the Lord Bears.
Mother has a big job on her hands because one of those little eaglets has to be the first one out of the nest. The first eaglet walks over the edge, he must fly. As these eaglets watch their mother, beating within their breasts is a desire to d what she is doing. Suddenly, over the nest one comes. Fluttering his wings as fast as possible, he tries to fly. He makes it for a moment, then suddenly, his mother sees him faltering. Like a rocket, she zooms down beneath him, spreads her wings, and catches him. She bears him on her wings and takes him higher and higher, until she removes her wings and lets him try again.
Conclusion:
The Bible says in verse eleven, As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings.” She makes sure that he does what he is supposed to do. He must exercise faith to fly. He was born to fly, not to sit in the nest.
Many Christians have never realized why they were born again. We were not born again to sit in the church house. We were not born again to build buildings. We were not born again to have meetings. We were born again to abide in Christ and to tell others about the Son of God. We fail, but when we are failing and falling, our heavenly Father is there to bear us on His wings.
I have thought many times that I could not live and would not live, but God saw me through. I could only fall so far until I fell on His wings.
The little eaglet tries again and mother eagle sees that his wings are faltering. Again, like a rocket, she zooms down beneath him, picks him up, carries him higher, moves her wings, and lets him try again. Finally, he flies!
In all of the recorded studies of eagles, researchers have never found that even one eaglet has fall to his death because he was not caught on his mother’s wings! I know that I am safe in Jesus Christ. I am sure of heaven. I have the promise that the Lord will take care of me.
God said, Moses, I want you to understand something. The meaning of life is that I bring you to Myself!” I want you to know the Saviour. I want you to see that everything He does, He does to get your attention, to bring us unto Himself! This is the way the Lord works!
First of all, He builds. Then He has to stir us up; He breaks. He is always brooding, always watching over us. When we attempt things for Him, remember that if we do fail, He will bear us on His “wings”.
