The Wings Of A Dove Series

Wings of a dove

PPT 1 Series title Jukebox lessons

(Note to pastors, I have been doing a series, talking popular songs and playing parts of them and using them as a jump off point for my message. Today however I chose to place the song at the end of the service. The song is Simon and Garfunkel's "Like A Bridge Over Troubled Water." You can find it on Youtube. I cut the last stanza out, to flow better with my sermon. Blessings!)

PPT 2 Msg title

Taken from this verse:

Ps 55:6 And I said, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.

Have you ever wished you had the wings of a dove to fly away from what is going on in life?

Even the strongest of persons can face circumstances that push them beyond their breaking point.

West Virginia is experiencing the worst storm/flooding in 100 years. Another way of saying that is that there is probably no one alive in the state of Virginia who has had experience dealing with that type of storm.

They are facing a challenge no one they know has had to deal with before.

Uniqueness of severity of a storm can make a person wish they could fly away.

The length of a trial can make a person want to fly away. (A soft tongue breaketh the bone)

Pr 25:15 Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.

(Strong wills can be broken with a persistent speech, that works both for good and for negative things.)

A trial that a person cannot see any resolution would make a normal person want to fly away from.

PPT 3 text (picture of withered crops)

Jer 8:20 "Harvest is past, summer is ended, And we are not saved." (NAS)

Jer 8:20 The crops are in, the summer is over, but for us nothing's changed. We're still waiting to be rescued. (MSG)

This passage talks about harvest time that brought in insufficient resources for the year ahead. In an agrarian society, with no long term storage planning or sites, a bad harvest spells doom ahead. Some people looking at their life cannot see good down the road, that leads to feelings of hopelessness, and a strong desire to run from circumstances they cannot run from.

All of us at one time or another have wanted to:

Fly away from a set of circumstances

Fly away from a state of mind

Fly away from some turmoil

What if you can't fly away? Then what?

There are some things you can't fly away from.

Inward grief, the pain of loss.

Usually you cannot fly away from loneliness, because being with other people doesn't cure loneliness. You can be lonely in a crowd.

You can't fly away from:

Some work situations.

Some financial situations.

Some family situations.

Some physical illness situations.

Even if magically you were able to grow wings:

A doves wings cannot out fly slander. (Spurgeon)

A doves wings cannot out fly a lying tongue.

A doves wings cannot out fly heartbreak.

What happens when people got boxed in with no visible way of relief?

This psalm is a prayer of those who do not have the ability to escape. The psalmist clearly states he doesn't have any such wings.

What do you do when life backs you in a corner?

Some people take the wings of suicide.

Some people are so vexed, have so little hope, and are so storm tossed inwardly they take their own lives.. I suppose everyone has thought of that at some point in their life. Most of us talk ourselves out of it, or in my case God intervened.

Here are some very sobering statistics

Nearly 30,000 Americans commit suicide every year.

Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for 15 to 24-year-olds and 2nd for 24 to 35-year-olds.

Men commit suicide more often than women, but women think about it more then men.

On average, 1 person commits suicide every 16.2 minutes.

There is 1 suicide for every 25 attempted suicides.

All those statistics point to one very tragic reality. There are a lot of people in America, and the rest of the world who are very overwhelmed by life.

You don't have to be suicidal to wish you could fly away.

I want to make a couple of short observations, and then we will give some good news.

1. A change of location won't end many issues.

You don't leave your emotions in one state if you move to another.

You don't leave your mind in one state if you move to another.

You don't necessarily leave loneliness in one state if you move to another.

In short there are a lot of things that travel with you.