In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of Christ being the center of our lives. He refers to Colossians 3:11, which states that Christ is all and in all. The preacher believes that understanding this truth and living it out will bring freedom and grace into our lives. He also highlights the need for revival in churches and in the nation, as the American conscience is becoming seared due to the church's complacency and sin. The sermon concludes with stories of individuals who found salvation and hope in Jesus, emphasizing the transformative power of Christ in our lives.

Well, it's good to be back again with you today on Eagle's Wings. I've trust that you've had a good week and your heart is prepared or you're prepared yourself today for worship. We live in a day when we have much entertainment, but very little real worship of the Lord and many leave churches because they're not entertained. I was looking at a verse the other day this week, and I meditated on it several nights as I went to bed. In Matthew 27 and verse 39 and 40, "...and they that pass by reviled him wagging their heads and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself, if thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." You know, the Christian life is one where we are continually tempted to come down from the cross to save ourselves, not to be spent. Jesus said that he came to be spent. He came to save. He came to seek and to save the lost. He came to be a minister, and then he commissioned us to do the same. But we're so riddled with the philosophy of the world that we think that we need to have our rights, we need to have our needs met, we need to be served, and if we don't get it, then we go off in a huff and a puff. Well, it's good to be speaking to you today from Alliance, Nebraska, a different mic and a different town. Just as God leads, we are available for revival ministry, mobile, willing to go where the Lord sends. Myself and my family, God has been teaching us and training us to be available, to minister, and sometimes we end up in places where we didn't think we was going to end up. We didn't think we would end up back up here. We had other plans, but God made it very clear that he wanted us to help out in the ministry up here in Alliance, Nebraska, where God has worked in revival. And the thing that excites me in this area is the ongoing fruit of revival. This place is hot. People are getting saved every week. People are joining the church every week. There's, I think, there's eight Bible studies. One year ago, I think the attendance was about 20 in this church, and this place is just bulging the walls out with two services. The evening services, I don't know, they must be pushing up towards a hundred now, but the morning services are just pushing the walls out. Young couples, young people. I even heard of another young person that just got saved in the high school here, and you'd think that we were, some of them, we were a wild outfit, because these people were just coming in off the street right out of their world, and they're still looking like they did, but they have glows on their face. God wants us to be reaching out, and I have a burden for you and your church for revival. My heart beats for revival. I've seen what it's done in my life, in my ministry, and, you know, there's many pastors that don't believe that we can have revival. Well, I'm convinced that we can, because I've been in, on revivals, and I'm seeing God do it, and they've been genuine. There's been some, of course, that where God worked, but then things didn't continue. It's the continuing fruit of revival that we are investing our lives in, that which is genuine and real, and I want to share with you a little, some articles, and I'll share maybe one or two today, one for sure, on revival, that you can have it. The pastor of this church was just back out at a big pastors meeting, and I don't know what they called it, but he said there were about 1,500 pastors there, and he was there to talk and share about revival, and our hearts are broke over the response that we get from pastors. So many are in unbelief. I'm just tempted to preach a sermon on unbelief, but I'm not going to do it. I'm having a hard enough time just sticking with the things that I consider crucial to get out to you. My friend, you can have revival in your church. I'd like to say hello to the lady that wrote me down in the Rocky Comfort area, down in McDonnell County. That's the county I come up out of, and I'd just like to say we're going to pray for your church. Let's pray right now. Father, we just commit this time with you this morning, and for the lady that called over in the Rocky Comfort area, I don't even know what church she's in. It doesn't matter, but we just pray for her and her church. Lord, the bottom line is, are we willing to pray? I pray for revival in our church. I pray for revival in the lives of those that are listening this day, that you would just speak to their hearts. I pray for those that are not saved, that don't know Jesus Christ in a personal, real, vital way, that you would speak to them about their need of Jesus Christ. It's in His name we pray. Amen. I was reading a little poem, and maybe I shared this one with you, but I think it's good, on lamps. So many times we're not a lamp if we're not filled with the Spirit. We're a lamp with the light out. But this poem goes, His lamps, His lamps we are, to shine where He shall say. And lamps are not for sunny rooms, nor for the light of day, but for the dark places of the earth, where shame and wrong and crime have birthed. Oh, or for the murky twilight gray, where wandering sheep have gone astray, or where the lamp of faith grows dim and souls are groping after Him. And as sometimes a flame we find, clear shining through the night, so dark we cannot see the lamp, but only see the light. So may we shine His love, the flame, that men may glorify His name. My friend, my heart flows for you with love. I love you. I care about you. And it's not because of something in me, it's because of Jesus Christ and what He's done in my life. He set me free, and He's continuing to set me free. And this is the thing that revival does. It sets us free from the bondage of sin and self. You can have it in your life. You can have it in your church. I'm praying for our nation. I believe God wants to do a work in our land. And we can spend our time focusing on all of the evil that's around us, and all the darkness that's on the horizon and coming in fast. Or we can focus on God and pray for His glory to come back as it has in the past. I'm going to take you up to a little booklet that I've got entitled, Revivals Can Be Prayed Down. That means that you can pray and have revival. The history of revival is that they came when men and women prayed and believed God for revival. You can have it in your church and in your life. Jonathan Goforth. There's a story about him and the revival in Korea and China in 1904. And Jonathan Goforth, as you know, was a Canadian who went as a missionary to North China before the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. And in the succeeding years, missionary Goforth became more and more dissatisfied with the results of his work. And during the early pioneering years, he consoled himself with the belief that there had to be a seed time before there could be a harvest. But now after 13 years had passed, the harvest seemed as far away as ever. The verse in John 14.12 kept reoccurring in his mind. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do. Restless and discontent, he spent more and more time studying the scriptures, especially those passages that related to the acquisition of the power Jesus promised. He also read the account of the Welsh Revival in 1904, as well as the autobiography of Charles Finney. And in 1906, one of his mission leaders invited Mr. Goforth to accompany him on a trip into Korea, where a great revival was going on. And there the missionary saw firsthand the boundless possibilities of revival, of the revival process. And he had been in Korea only a short time when someone explained to him the source of this great movement. It had begun with prayer on the part of the Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries. They had heard the news of revival in the Cassia Hills of India only two or three years before, so they began spending an hour each day asking God to bless them in the same way. And when they concluded that just one hour a day was perhaps not enough, they changed and began praying from 4 to 6 p.m. every day. The answer came like a rolling prairie fire, and the revival spread the length and breadth of Korea. And Mr. Goforth saw tens of thousands of men and women whose lives had been completely transformed by the power of God. More than 50,000 converts were added to the church. Now on his way back to China, he stopped off at several mission stations in Manchuria. At each station, he was asked to give them a report on what he had seen, and his listeners were spellbound by what they heard. Consequently, the leading men of the different areas asked Mr. Goforth to come back for a series of meetings. And I might just stop here and share with you that the hunger, the hunger for revival and hungry hearts will be met. My concern is that we don't have a real hunger for it. And as I traveled around the country from 1985 up to even now, and I share in places on what God has done in this area, the hungry hearts come up, some with tears. I've even had pastors with tears in their eyes thank me for coming and sharing. It gives them hope. There is hope for you and your church. Anyway, when he returned, he went with the assumption that it was sin alone in the lives of individual church members that was grieving the Holy Spirit. The sins that are common among Christians, such as pride, jealousy, bad temper, backbiting, and unforgiveness must be confessed and dealt with before the power of God could be demonstrated. At the end of the first meeting, an elder in this church in Manchuria stood up and confessed that as the treasurer of the church, he had taken money from the funds to use in his own business. The effect was immediate, and many others tearfully confessed first one kind of sin and then another. And the movement increased in intensity until that same year. Hundreds of members who had drifted away returned to the churches. Bands of Christians went out over a wide area of the country, preaching the gospel with great effect. In one village, there lived a notorious gambler. He saddled his donkey one morning, intending to go off to collect a gambling debt. But when he got to the edge of the town, the animal refused to go a stepfather. He beat and cursed it, but had to give up. The only way the donkey would go was to go south, so the man had to yield. For after all, there was a chap down there who was owing him some money, too. Things went well until they came to a fork in the road, and as one might guess, the donkey insisted on taking the left fork. Fortunately, that road led past a church where a revival was in process, and that is exactly where the animal stopped. The rider was intrigued by the sound of the singing, so dismounted to see what it was all about, and that is where he was saved. In the succeeding years, Mr. Goforth was invited to mission after mission all across North China, and in each series of meetings, he saw amazing changes in the lives of both the Christians and the unbelievers. In his concluding remarks in the thrilling little book, By My Spirit, he says, we wish to state emphatically, as our conviction is, that God's revival may be had when we will and where we will. He then quotes D.L. Moody in regard to Acts chapters 1 and 2. D.L. Moody was continually urging that Pentecost was merely a specimen day. That is, it was not just an episode in Christian history, nor was it a Big Bang affair to get the gospel off to a good start, but it was something Christians around the world could imitate. I trust that this little story will give you a hunger for God. It will give you a hunger for revival. It will give you a hunger to see Him work, and work in your life and in your church. You can have revival. My prayer is that we will see God work in our land. We'll see an awakening in our land. In North America, there are many, many, many hundreds of people praying for God to send an awakening. It's been many years since we've seen a major revival, and our belief is that one of these days, in one of these areas, maybe even in this area, where a small revival starts and reaches a community, it is spread across the land. I want to take a little time with you. Over the last few weeks, I've been in Colossians, and sometimes I don't get very much out, but in Colossians chapter 3, in verse 11, there's a verse that ends that Christ is all and in all. And in this passage in Colossians 3, there are some tremendous truths that I want to just share with you this morning. Truths that, in light of the cross, will set you free, will give you liberty. You know, life is hard. There's that bumper sticker I shared with you once on the back of a car. It said, Life is hard. Oh, life is hard. It's not easy, but Jesus makes the difference. Jesus gives us grace. That grace greases our life and helps us to slide through. It's Jesus that can put a smile on your face when all the world around you is caving in. Christ is all and in all. Christ is all you need. But my question is, is He all you want? Some years ago, someone shared a story about the mountaineers up in the mountains in the Philippines. They lived in fear, fear of evil spirits, and they lived in filth and pain and drudgery. One day, a missionary came, and he told them of Jesus. And they cried out, Then there is hope. And one chief, he said, Is this true? Is this true what you've told us, that there is hope, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin? Is this true? He said, My father and my great father do not know this. Did your father and your great father know this? And the missionary hung his head. And he waited a few minutes, then he looked up and he said, Yes. And the chief's eyes were wide with amazement. And he said, If you have only now come to tell us, it could not be true. My friend, what this world is looking for is reality. The truth of Christ being in you is not truth until it is displayed in practical life, in private and in public. And my proposition to you is that we need revival in our churches, in our day, in our land. The American conscience is becoming seared because the church is asleep and in sin. It's no wonder that you don't see folks getting saved, your neighbors and those in your church. It's because the conscience of America is becoming seared. But if you'll come alive, if your church will come alive, people will be seeking you out. It amazes me to be in this little church, to see how many people come in every week. I don't know who they are. They come in and they're getting saved. The Holy Spirit will draw them to the place that's hot. The Holy Spirit will draw them to the light. All we need to do is be clean, clean and pure vessels for the Spirit of God to use us. So you see, to the native it was not true because it had not been seen before. Your neighbors, have they seen it in your life? Christ is all you need. He's all they need. Is he all you want? The reason, maybe the reason some of your family are not getting saved because he's not all you want, and so they don't want him either. Where do we stand? Where do we stand? I'm flipping back over to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, 14 and 15. For the love of Christ constrains us, and I'm asking God to teach me about the love of Christ. The love of Christ constrains us, controls us, compels us, drives us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. Are you like their young rich ruler that came to Jesus one day and said, I want to follow you. Jesus said, go sell all that you have, and then you can come follow me, and he went away sorrowful because he had a lot. You see, God the Holy Spirit knows where the idol is in your life, and he'll put his finger on there and say, deal with it, die to it, give it up, give it to me. One of the reasons that we have so little dedication is because God doesn't have our will. Our wills are not submissive to him. He died for us, that we which live should not live for ourselves. We're so selfish, we don't get our way, we get mad, churches split, we have fights, wars among us, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. If Christ is all, then you're through living for yourself. I might ask you, who are you living for today? Is it for yourself or for God? You know, Colossians chapter 3 is a tremendous chapter. This whole book is a tremendous chapter on revealing Christ. Chapter 3 talks about the Christian and his character, the character that will really be the character of Christ. We have a wardrobe, a new wardrobe. I call it the wardrobe of grace. Look at verse 1 of Colossians chapter 3. If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. We're risen with Christ. It says that. We have a heavenly position and that heavenly position demands that we have a Christ-like walk on this earth. This is the practical outcome of chapter 1 and 2. If you might flip back over to chapter 1 and verse 18, let me remind you that Christ is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things, and that word all appears all in this book, that in all things he might have the preeminence. Preeminence is revealed by priority. Is Jesus number one priority in your life? That's what reveals preeminence. Priority is established by what you seek with urgency, desire, and ambition. Urgency has to do with that which is important. Desire with the affections and ambition with your goals. You might even look at verse 2. He says, now set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Did you spend more time this week reading your magazine, your newspaper, and watching your TV than you did in your Bible and in prayer? If you did, then I might be so bold as to suggest, could it be that you're carnal? Could it be that maybe you're not even saved? Did you talk to someone about Jesus this month? This last month? Have you talked to somebody in the last week? How about in the last six months? Last year? Don't you realize that the scripture says that we're seated with Christ? You know, if you're not with Christ, your life is going to have some evidences of need. I was thinking of a story that I heard or read somewhere about after the Battle of Murfittsburg, there was a young soldier dying, and there was a doctor treating him, and the doctor realized that this man was dying, and so he talked to him about Jesus. And the man was very restless, very restless, and so he talked to him about Jesus, and he led him to the Lord. And then the young man became very still, and very settled, and very peaceful, and he went out that way. You see, the scripture says in Isaiah 57, verse 20, but the wicked, that would be those that are unsaved, are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt, there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Could it be that the reason your life is so stirred up, and there's so much turmoil in your life, is that you have not the peace of God in your life? We're seated with Christ. You know, being seated with Christ means that we're settled, we're secure, we're saved, we know who we are, we know where we're going, we know what the purpose is in life, we know why we're here, we know why God's left us here. We know some things. We know the basic thing of life. We have life through Christ. And so he says, set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Now why? Well, because we're seated, and then also in verse 3, he says, because you're dead. You're dead. That means you're dead to the past. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away, new things have come, he's died to the past. You're dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. If I might give you a crude little illustration on this. Suppose that your life was to be pictured like this, that you're inside of a black bag, and that represents sin. Maybe your head sticks out, and your arms and legs, but you are in sin. And when you become a Christian, God takes you, and he places you in a transparent plastic bag, one that's clear, and that represents being in Christ. And your life now is to be transparent, and clear, and clean. And others are to see you, and they are to wonder at this change, and it's Jesus that does that. You're out of the old dark bag, and into the holy glory of God. Out of Adam, which represents sin, into Christ, which represents holiness. And he goes on in verse 3, for you're dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Verse 4, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then we shall also appear with him in glory. We're to appear with him. Are you ready for him to come back? He's coming soon. And then he lays out some things that we're to put to death. In verse 5, he says, mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth. There are five things, basically. Mortify your members which are upon the earth. Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. Let me say this. Back in 1984, I was at the World's Fair down in New Orleans, and there was a little display there of a pump. Pump and water. And hooked to that pump was a man. And the man was going up and down, up and down on the handle of the pump. The pump was running the man. Instead of the man, running the pump. Could it be that there's a sin in your life that is running you? Well, that's what we're talking about. The grace of God will set you free. And I'm here to tell you that God can lift you up on eagle's wings. He can give you a life where you're free. And so that your sin is not running you. We're to mortify it. That means we're to kill it. Something that you have to do. If gossip comes your way. A man just told me this week. He says, and he was a bitter man. I happened to be in a certain place, sitting there eating a big Arby's sandwich. And he come up and I said, Don, I know you. And he says, I don't know. And I said, yeah, I know you. And I named his name. He was a former pastor in this town. And he was in a big church. A big building. I don't know how many people they had in there, but they kicked him out. And he was bitter. When I told him who I was and he remembered me. And then he just started spewing out this stuff. There's no church, he says. There's no church. Oh, he was bitter and mad. They had kicked him out. He had done something that, man. I'll tell you, he wasn't living in victory. I finally, the only way I slowed him down, I asked him, do you love Jesus? And he slowed down a little bit and he said, yes. But boy, you got to be careful that something doesn't run your life. Fornication, that sexual immorality, uncleanness, as thoughts, words, looks, gestures, inordinate affection, that's uncontrolled passion or lust. You know, and the ego, evil concupiscence, that's gross, evil desire and covetous, and of course, is idolatry of the heart and mind. You know, you can have a respectful sin. Or you think it's respectful, but there's no such thing when God, the Holy Spirit is talking to you. And in verse six, Paul went on to say, for which thing's sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience? For in the witch, in verse seven, you also walked sometime when you lived in them. Do you know that that's talking about past? Walked in the past and lived in the past. I believe that if we see God sweep through our churches in revival, we would see many get saved that would just shock us. We'd say, oh, I thought old Deacon so-and-so and his wife were saved. No, the reason we have so much trouble in our churches, I believe, is we've got a lot of unsaved people. They've just been there forever. We've drifted into positions of leadership and some have no position, no right to be there. We need to see God sweep across our land and bring revival again. We need to see God bring us to the point where we're desperate. Are you desperate? Are you wanting to see God work in your life? I trust that you are, that you want to see a cleansing and you see the Spirit of God sweep in. Is there somebody that you're mad at and you're fixing to go to church? You're going to take your gift before the altar and there remember that your brother hath ought against thee? The thing here in this church that I'm seeing that every Sunday there's people going to the altar, dealing with stuff, going to each other, making restitution. I had to make a restitution last Sunday morning when I came up and God worked it to where I could make the man right when we both pulled up at the same time out in the street. And I just asked Him to forgive me for what I did. I said I wasn't watching what I was doing. And He just said, You're forgiven brother, there's no problem. Just keep a clear account. Nothing between my soul and the Savior. And I believe that would go between you and your brother also. I trust that God will work in your life. That when you walk through this day and as you talk that Jesus Christ will be the one living in your life. That there will be a glow and that you've learned how to fly on eagles' wings, live by the grace and power of God. Let Him lift you up. 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. They shall walk and not faint. Until next time, I trust that God will richly bless you, my friend.