In this sermon, the preacher addresses the issue of playing games with God and the lack of power and reality in our lives. He emphasizes the need to stop pretending and pointing fingers at others while ignoring our own sins and immorality. The preacher shares a personal story of experiencing revival in his own life and the impact it had on him. He also highlights the importance of discernment and the need for stronger leadership in churches. The sermon references Hebrews 5:12-14 to emphasize the need for believers to mature in their faith and become teachers of God's word.

Welcome to On Eagle's Wings, a part of church revival ministry. Trust that God will use this time to encourage you in your walk with him, whoever you are, wherever you are. So just sit back and listen as the truths of God's word soak in the message of revival. I hope it burns in your heart. James Stewart in his book, The Phenomena of Pentecost, in the chapter on why there is no revival, said never has the word revival been so constantly on the lips of the people of God as today. Never in the history of the church has such vast sums of money been spent on organizations and promotion for the cause of revival. Never in the history of evangelism have our evangelists and prophets been so highly advertised. Public relations men are spending thousands of dollars monthly to place famous personalities before the eyes of the church in the world. No publicity angle known to men is left untapped in the endeavor to publicize the preacher. And yet we still await that mighty work of God which will once and for all prove to a cynical world that Jehovah is no longer as a stranger in the land. How tragic it is that again and again when our hopes have been built up to believe that revival was now in our midst, we have discovered that it was only a false alarm. I wonder if in our special love and loyalty for our denominations, James went on to say, we must be careful not to ignore the whole mystical body of Christ which is composed of all true born-again blood-washed souls. How tragic it is to see many lonely believers who never glory in the oneness of the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit has very little concern for any denomination or group, he said. And he went on to say the Holy Spirit is seeking to break down the denominational barriers that divide the saints of God. The barriers that we so carefully erect now will be destroyed suddenly at the coming of the Lord. There are no denominations in heaven. Why should we not seek to prepare for glory now? No wonder George Whitfield cried out in his day, I wish all names among the saints of God were swallowed up in that one name of Christian. Are you Christ? If so, I love you with all my heart. I was reading in a newspaper of one of our denominations, major denomination of our country. One of the men was bold enough to write, and I'll leave out things. I do not want to embarrass this denomination in no way. I've been a part of it myself and still am in ways. He went on to say that we are so similar to the Pharisees of Christ's day to reach unchurched people. He made the comment, these comments at their annual national evangelism conference. And he said the denomination stands in judgment before God for its lack of true evangelistic zeal and concern for a dying world. The Pharisees were our kind of people, he went on to say. They were big on stewardship, espoused high moral standards, believed the scriptures and were faithful in worship. Isn't it strange that Jesus released his most biting rebuke on people who were so similar to ourselves, end of quote. And he went on to say, just as Christ condemned the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, he also is calling our denomination to repentance today. And then he said, why are we not reaching America for Christ? It is because we are whited sepulchers on the outside but full of decaying bones on the inside. We will never know the souls that have been shut out of heaven due to inconsistent living, end of quote. And then he said a couple other things. One about being guilty of false evangelism. He said we're at times so anxious to get joiners that we do not spend time to be sure the conversion experience is valid. He said our denomination has grown indifferent to outside people in need. Maybe it's time that there is a voice in the wilderness, a voice just to speak up and say, how long are we going to play games? Play games with ourself? Play games with God? Play games at church? When are we going to admit that we have no power? There's no reality. Our lives are full of sin and self. How long are we going to carry on with this pretense? We point our fingers at the Hollywood, Christianity, the showbiz, evangelism, the money-making schemes. We point our fingers at the evangelists that fall, when at the same time we ourselves are in immorality. We have sin in our lives. Our families are not put together. We don't know what our kids are doing. Our lives are one big mad rush. How long will we play games with God? Alexander, or excuse me, James A. Stewart, in his book on the phenomena of Pentecost shared some things that were pretty insightful. One of the things that he shared was from A.W. Tozer, and Tozer warned us, quote, it is our belief that the evangelical movement will continue to drift farther and farther from the New Testament position until its leadership passes from the self-effacing saint to the modern religious star. Sounds pretty close to where we're at today, doesn't it? Within the last quarter of a century, we have actually seen a major shift in beliefs and practices of evangelicals so radical as to amount to a complete sellout, and all this behind the cloak of fervent orthodoxy. Tozer went on to say, until such self-effacing men return again to spiritual leadership, we may expect a progressive deterioration in the quality of poplar Christianity year after year, until we reach the point where the grieved Holy Spirit withdraws like the Shekinah from the temple. It is open question whether or not the evangelical movement has sinned too long and departed too far from God to return again to spiritual sanctity. May I stop and just read you a passage from Isaiah 57, verse 15, that says, For thus says the High and the Lofty One that inhabited eternity, whose name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy place, with Him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. We are the proud, arrogant, boastful. We are the first church, we're the biggest, we're the best, and all of that. Where is God? Where is the old-time promotion of humility, the exaltation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ? In reality, not just in theology, but in the practical life, where we were when we were honest and moral. It's been a long time. May I share a story with you? A story of revival in our land, in our day. A story about myself and what God did in my life. Just a few short years ago, as a matter of fact, it was in the spring of 1985, I was pastoring a church up in a western state. Had been there about two years, and I was going through my typical up-and-down experience. For a while I was hot, and then for a while I'd just get cold. And I was beginning to get dissatisfied with myself. People came and people go, and it seemed like if the crowds were big, I was up, and if the crowds got down, I got down. And I had a few other things that would turn me cool. And after a little bit, I began to get dissatisfied with myself altogether, and had thought about quitting my church, resigning. I told the Lord that if I couldn't have reality, then there's no use pretending. When I was in the Air Force, I never did like the pretending stuff. Playing games, go out and do something that was useless, waste time, burn up money, waste money. And I didn't like it in the church. I was sincere, but there was something missing in my life, and I didn't know what it was. I just couldn't put my finger on it. Well, about the first part of the year, a friend of mine was given an invitation by an aunt to go down to Arizona to a revival crusade. And him and his wife went down there. And while they were down there, in that crusade, and that crusade I think went seven weeks, they were deeply touched by God. And they came back, and they shared what God had done in their lives. And I remember my pastor friend sharing with me how God was breaking him, and was cleansing him, was showing him things about himself, and about pride, and in different areas. And as he spoke, there was a hunger in my own heart for this. But yet there was pride, and I was sort of saying, what are you doing preaching at me inside? But yet my heart was saying, this is what you want. This is what you're looking for. And my pastor friend went on to share how God was becoming so real to him. The phoniness was fading away, and he was learning to let God be God. And in the areas of his church that he'd been struggling with, he was getting victory in those areas. Well, we decided to pray together for revival. I was personally wanting it for myself, but we were agreeing to pray once a week for revival in our churches. And so we did. We met every week, and we prayed. And sometimes God would wake me up at two or three in the morning, and I'd get up for an hour or two, sometimes three hours, and pray, and cry, and read my Bible. I was searching. This was a deeper search than when I first found the Lord as my Savior, and maybe sometime later on I can share that with you. But this went on for several weeks, and then finally we had some revival meetings lined up with an evangelist from Michigan, evangelist John Musser. He was set up to come into my pastor's friend's church, and then my church, and then one other church down the road about 90 miles. Well, when he came in, he started up in Pastor Wessa's church, and went for eight days. And God began to move in an unusual way among the people. The very first night there were some deep commitments to the Lord and brokenness. One friend of mine that was in our church was deeply affected that first night, and sometime later on too. I'll share about him. But God worked that first week for eight days, and the missionaries came in off of an Indian reservation just north. And they came in, and God began to deal with them with bitterness in different areas in their life. And after the eight days, then they moved down to our church. And we went for 18 days in our church, and the pastor down the road was sort of hopping up and down, wondering when the revivalist was going to finally get to his place. But God had a work to do, and I think it was the 12th message. Brother John had preached on victory, and God the Holy Spirit that evening just broke me before him, and showed me that I was not living in victory. That I was defeated, and actually I was a bitter pastor. Bitter against my people. And I learned later as I began to grow, that if I was bitter against my people, I was really bitter against God. And things that would that would come my way, that I would kick at, and try to get out of the way, and get rid of them. I was really just fighting against God. Anger is really just anger against God. And all the other sins of the flesh was just against God, and God broke me. And I went a few days later before the church, and asked them to forgive me for being bitter. Actually I was bitter. It started out because the people wouldn't come out to prayer meeting and pray. And if I might throw in a little commercial for pastors, please pray with your pastor. He needs your encouragement. Wednesday night is the night that you've set aside for prayer. It's not just a play time, or routine time. It's real. Your pastor needs you there. But when I went in, the people just sort of backed off. And I grew bitter because the battle was hard. But I didn't have that right. I learned as I began to grow afterwards, that if you don't surrender your rights to God, you take them for yourself. And whatever you take for yourself, you corrupt it. Well I didn't have a right to be bitter, but I thought I did since I was a pastor. I thought, well these people, they got me in here. They needed to pray with me. But God broke me over that, and I confessed it. Well this movement of revival, and later on I'm going to share things, as I get into a series on the life of Moses, I'm going to share things that God taught me. And I began to teach my people things that would set us free. And things that would give us strength and victory during some very hard times. The Moses series, I call it the Desert Survival Series, is designed to give you victory. Pastor, there is victory. There's hope for you and your church. That revival movement that started in April of 85, it went for seven months. It went on to another church. The church down the road went for two weeks, and then it came back to another church that was unscheduled south of us, 35 miles. And it went for three weeks there, and God began to cleanse. And it went on back to my town. I went on vacation and came back, and Brother John was in another church in town. And then he went to another town, and it went on in the state for seven months. He finally, during the beginning, after a few weeks, he had to move his family out. Brought him out in a trailer. But what I wanted to say was, this can happen in your life. It can happen in your church. You can see a cleansing. You can let go and let God just be the God of your life. One of the things that I discovered was that I was trying to be the Lord of the church. I remember a story that I heard when I was in Bible college about a pastor that was trying to be the Lord of his church. And I heard him. He told us the story personally. The church was struggling along, and he was having troubles. And they were going to church one Sunday morning, and he had a little neighbor girl in the back seat, and the little girls leaning over the front seat, watching as they drove along. And then finally she said, Pastor Bohr, are you the Lord of this church? And he said the tears just began to swell up in his eyes, and he had to pull off the road as the Spirit of God convicted him that he was trying to be the Lord of his church. There's only one Lord. Is he the Lord of your church, Pastor? Is he the Lord of your life, Mr. Deacon? Is he the Lord of your life, Mom, Dad, teenager? Is he really the Lord? Could it not be that maybe you have struggles in your life because he is not the Lord of your life? Well, this movement of revival that went on for seven months, and actually is still going on in many areas. One particular part of the state really got pretty hot, reached over into another part of the state. There would be a lot of emotional responses and things like that. Some came just for the excitement of seeing something happen. Nothing ever happens in church as much. Well, we were packing the place out, moved to the city to the high school auditorium. We had a pizza blast and fed a whole lot of teenagers in that town, and a lot of them got saved. But after it all cleared, there was a few folks that were really crucified with Christ. They'd come to understand that they were dead, that when they received Christ at the cross, their life was finished, and that they were crucified, and that was no longer them, but Christ that lived in them. Well, these were the truths that were first taught in the early church, and somehow or another, the crucified life is being left out. I think we have moved over to another gospel. I heard of a meeting a few weeks ago, a major meeting with many of the major leaders in the country, and they were talking about how we have really a different gospel today. A gospel of easy believism, and it would be heresy then if it's another gospel of repentance of your sin and letting Jesus be the Lord of your life. But as the movement went through the state, every place there was a few that were deeply touched by God, and they were left different people. Now, you may not have this need. You may be okay. You may have everything in order. You may know that your sins are forgiven, that Christ is your Savior, and you're living the Spirit-filled life, and that's fine. Would you pray for those around you and those that are listening to this broadcast that don't really know that you might be an encouragement to them? You see, I was talking to a pastor this morning who just got back from a conference, and when he got back, he found out. He called me, and he said, the fat had hit the fire. Boy, when he got in, they were going to get rid of him. One man had got up during the Wednesday night prayer meeting and started to state how the pastor was teaching heresy, and he went over a couple things, and there was a visiting family there, and the woman got up and said, you're wrong. What you're saying is not right. The pastor's okay, and there was some immorality in that church, and a couple other things, and he just called for some counsel and advice, and I visited with him and shared some things with him. But you know, this is going on all over the country. Any church that's going to be intent on serving Jesus Christ is going to be under an attack, an attack from Satan. Don't give up. Hang in there. As we get into our series on Moses, there's a scripture that says in Exodus 19, for you have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bear you on eagles' wings and brought you unto myself. Would you be willing to let God bear you on eagles' wings? You know what it is about the eagle that makes him so appealing to us? It's his size and strength and beauty, and not only that, the eagle can soar for hours on the end up in the sky without any effort at all, hardly. You know how he stays up there? Well, he sails on the turbulent winds. He's able to stay up by riding on those turbulent winds, and we as Christians need to learn the art of sailing on the turbulent winds of life. And this series that we have for Moses is designed to help you do that. Now, this series is to develop our discernment. If I might turn with you over to Hebrews 5, 12 through 14, and we won't have much time this morning to get into this series, and next week, Lord willing, we'll take off and give you some introduction in it. But in Hebrews 5, verse 12 and 14, the scripture says, For when the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. If I might stop here and say, we have weak leadership in our churches today. Weak leadership. Men are in positions that should not be in positions. If they've had immoral relations in their life, it weakens the church. If they're not leaders at home, but there's a way to learn to be strong. There's a way to make things right. And this program, hopefully, will be an encouragement to you personally for our area. There's ways of finding victory, problems in your church. There's ways of solving them in your life, in the life of your teenagers. And we're hoping this program will be a benefit to you. By the way, the story of what happened in the church that I pastored has been put in written form. And for those of you that are listening to KKLL, I'll leave a few copies here at the station. And you can drop by and pick one up. It's not a real professional copy. I have a few of the thousands of professional copies that were made. I have a few left. The story is sort of old since it happened in 85. But a printer printed up some lesser quality that I have a few thousand of that he gave me a few months ago. And I'll leave some here so you can read on that story of what God did in our church. Pastor, let me encourage you to get one and read it. I'm for you. If you're preaching the Word of God and you know that what I'm saying, many of these things, you might see them in your own church in your life. But anyway, the scripture went on to say, For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe, but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even to those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Can you discern? Are you able to discern what is right and what is wrong? Are you willing to stand up and say, Things are not right in my life. I cannot teach this Sunday School class. Pastor, are you willing to stand up and say, I cannot. I cannot, Pastor, until I get something taken care of in my life. Can I have some time off? Pastor, you can't go out and preach Sunday morning if you're not right with your wife. You just can't do it. The Holy Spirit won't let us get away with that. The Bible says in Ephesians 14, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Oh, the church is being tossed to and fro. We are being slammed against by Satan, and there are some things that we can do to learn how to have victory. There are some ways that God has given to us, and we'll be sharing these things. These things will teach us how to be desert dwellers. The Bible says they thirsted not when he led them through the desert. God bless you, my friend, as you seek to be a desert dweller. The one that lives in the desert is able to live in victory, and live without defeat. Would you let him bear you on eagles' wings? Be still, my child, be still and know, you are my own. I love you so. I paid the price on Calvary, and gave you faith to come to me. And I will lift you up with wings as an eagle. You'll not be tired. I'll not let you fall. And I will lift you up with wings as an eagle. You'll not be tired. I'll not let you fall. Sometimes you stray so far from me, and in the dark you cannot see. But in the time of deep despair, I hear your voice in silent prayer. And I will lift you up with wings as an eagle. You'll not be tired. I'll not let you fall. And I will lift you up with wings as an eagle. You'll not be tired. I'll not let you fall.