Leonard Ravenhill emphasizes the importance of waiting on the Lord, drawing from Isaiah 40:31 to illustrate that those who wait upon God will renew their strength and soar like eagles. He reflects on the nature of God as everlasting and unchanging, encouraging believers to trust in His timing rather than their impatience. Ravenhill warns against the dangers of pride and the need for humility in our relationship with God, stressing that true worship and prayer require stillness and a heart aligned with God's will. He highlights the significance of obedience and the necessity of waiting on God to experience His blessings and guidance in our lives.

I thank you again for this privilege, this opportunity again to be still in my presence. We thank you that the river of God is full of water. The word says that all the rivers of the world flow into the sea and yet the sea is never full. This is beyond our understanding, but we thank you too that there is not only an inflow of water into the sea, but there's an outflow of blessing and grace from thee which cannot dry up in the summer by heat or freeze up in the winter by cold. We're glad that from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. We're glad that giving does not impoverish thee and withholding does not enrich thee. We're glad that in asking for our portion we're not robbing others who at this moment may be asking for their portion of blessing. We have expressed our desiring with him beyond the sacred page we seek thee Lord. We recognize the danger of making an idol even of the Bible. We want the word to be unveiled to us, uncover it. As the book of the revelation is the uncovering of the things that are going to come to pass, we pray may there be an uncovering of thy truth to our hearts this afternoon. Give us something that will stay with us, that will abide with us, that will draw upon us, that will be illumination in our times of darkness and strength in our times of spiritual opposition and difficulty. We thank you again for the true church of Jesus Christ, for everybody who is in this wonderful, wonderful body of the Lord Jesus, the one who died and rose again for our sins. And we pray to you this afternoon that he lives at the right hand of the Father to make intercession. We thank you we've come with boldness, not with familiarity. We come with courage because you've already opened the door of entrance. The one who said I am the way, the door, the truth and the life. I am the door by which if any man enter in he shall be saved. We recognize he is the door, the blood-spinkled way into your holy presence. Take we pray the things of Jesus and reveal them to us. And again may we say we were glad that we went to the house of the Lord and we'll give you praise in Jesus' name. Let's look at a very familiar text. In the prophecies of Isaiah and the 41st chapter. Isaiah 41 and, sorry chapter 40, the latter part of it. Verse 28, hast thou not known, hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, hath fainted not, neither is weary. There is no certain thing of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, but the young men shall utterly fall. But 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, and they shall walk and not faint. Now I don't know what stage you're in this afternoon, whether you're up with eagles or, that's a nice place to live, it's dangerous too, you can get shot down if you're not careful. Mount up with wings as eagles, run, that's pretty exciting, walking, that's pretty tedious. And I don't think it's, running is mentioned in the New Testament, we're constantly urged to walk, walk with the Lord. This whole chapter, this 40th chapter, in fact the 40th and the 41st are very wonderful chapters, not that the rest is not, but there's so many exciting things said in this chapter. The fact that God, in the titles we read of him here right immediately, I have found on earth that the everlasting God, and then he's called the Lord, and then he's called the creator of the ends of the earth, faint if not. And in the 22nd verse it says he fits upon the circle of the earth. I think that's a very wonderful description, there's no place higher than that. You know, one of the old preachers, I think it was Daniel Steele, said that the last thing to leave the human heart and the first thing to return is pride. And I've often thought of this fact again, that Satan did not get kicked out of heaven for getting drunk. He didn't steal a slab of gold off Main Street. When you get to heaven, if you see anybody digging the streets up, you'll know they're evangelists. They're always after the gold. But Satan didn't dig a slab of gold out of Main Street, he didn't get drunk, he didn't fight, he just decided that he wanted to sit up where God sits. And pride is an awful thing. God sits upon the circle of the earth. Again, this very prophet says he's a high and lofty one who inhabits eternity. You know, this book has been attacked more than any other book, I think, in the Bible except Genesis, and maybe as many times the scholars have said that there are, at least they used to say there were two Isaiahs, now they've gone as far as 22. I don't know when they'll finish up, maybe they'll get one free chapter before we're through. But I think that Isaiah had a kind of twinkle in his eye. The book is divided chapters 1 to 39 and then chapters 40 to the end, 66 I think it is. But you discover that the Holy One is mentioned in one section 17 times and in the other about 21 times. He seems to have left his imprint on this wonderful, wonderful book. Martin Luther called it the Gospel of Isaiah because, of course, of the 53rd chapter, which describes so perfectly the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. But here it says, Have thou not known or heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth, fainteth not, neither is weary. There is no searching of his understanding. You can never explain God. You can experience him, but you can't explain him. You know, God doesn't owe you any explanation for anything he does in your life. As I said the other day, you've every right to tell God you want to be a saint, but you've no right to tell him how to make you a saint. And if you read a book and you think, that's thrilling, I'd like the Lord to take those 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 steps in my life, he'll take you the opposite way. Because you'll get conceited and think you're going to be a saint like the other person you read about. There is no blueprint for sainthood. I think that the whole thing is summed up, and remember this, there's no finality this side of eternity for any believer. No finality. We're never breaking you down, if we're really honest and truthful and hungry. But, in saying that, I think that the whole secret of Christian progress is summed up in one of the oldest, and if you like, commonest, or best known hymns that we have. My old granny used to sing it in the kidney corn in England, and it's that one that you knew from, I guess everybody knows it better than any other hymn, Trust and Obey, There's No Other Way. And that's all there is to the Christian life, trust and obey. Our old friend John Patrick made a little poem out of it, a couplet out of it, he said, if you don't trust and obey, you'll rust and decay. And I think that's very good, it summarizes it anyhow. There's no place where you can disobey God and get away with it. There's nothing more important than obedience. Now, it's easy to rush on into this chapter, into this verse, which is the 31st I want to talk about, but notice this, it's they that wait upon the Lord. Now, if there's anything that marks our generation, we're an impatient generation. I've noticed more than once, I pulled up at a stoplight, and one of those where about seven roads meet, you know, and you sit there, and you sit there, and you sit there, and you think, goodness, the thing's broken down, and you turn your eyes to a certain, it goes green, everybody behind goes, you know, everybody, you know, get out of here. And now we get impatient with God sometimes. We know that God is going to do things, well, why doesn't he do it now? Well, he sets the timetable. One of the favorite sayings I have is that God is never in a hurry and is never late. One of the greatest men of faith we had in England was a man called George Muller. And I remember Mr. Chardwick used to say, I've been to meetings with preachers where preachers would almost groan before God, give me, give me faith like George Muller. But he said they were very careful not to take 2,000 orphans so they need it. You see, he had 2,000 orphans and never once did he ask for a penny to support them, and never once did he fail to pay a bill. Once when he was crossing the Atlantic, they ran into trouble, I've run into more than once crossing it, and that is that we ran into a frog, it doesn't matter too much up there, but on the big ships it did. And Muller said to one of the officers, well, what time will we get to New York? Oh, we won't be there on Saturday, we won't be there on Saturday. Monday at the very earliest. And he said, I have to preach in New York on Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock. Well, I'm sorry sir, but you know, we can't change the weather even for preachers. Well, he said, sir, I shall be in New York, Saturday afternoon preaching at 3 o'clock. Oh yes, I suppose you will. The captain of the ship was a friend of George Muller, so he had told Muller, any time you want to come on the bridge and see the operation of the ship, come up. Muller went up, and he said to the captain, this is a bad fog, oh, this is typical you get off Newfoundland, this could be miles long, it's going to delay us maybe a day. The captain happened to be a Christian. And George Muller said, well, brother, what did we pray about it? Oh, all right, you know, reluctant. You don't want to put a strain on God, that's the worst thing you can do. I mean, omnipotence might break down or something, and so he said, all right, so they knelt down, and as soon as they knelt down, the captain started praying, and, you know, as soon as they knelt down, George Muller prayed. And all he did, he didn't go into ramifications and string words, you know, and paint stained glass windows like people often do when they're praying to show off. He just said, Lord, I thank you for removing the fog. That was all there was to it. And the captain started, our loving Heavenly Father, and he got a nudge in the ribs, and Mr. Muller said to him, don't pray. He said, why not? He said, number one, you said it couldn't be done, and number two, you don't look till the fog's gone. How now? Well, he said, let's go on the bridge and look. And so they walked from the bridge to the side of the boat, and looked all around, and the day was as clear as this. They could see ships in every direction. Muller had a living faith in a living God. A lady told me a while ago, oh, I've just got a living Bible. I said, I've had one 60 years. I never knew it was dead. I don't like the living Bible. I wouldn't have it in the house, but some people like it. It may help them. But Muller had a living faith in a living God. You know why? He knew how to wait on God. You see here, it doesn't say, they that pray, or they that praise, or they that sacrifice, or they that do exploits. It simply says, they that wait upon the Lord. And waiting is a very difficult thing. You see, we often give God our turn. As I say, most people don't pray, they just give God a shopping list. Lord, I need this, that, and do bless so and so. We need this, and do look after that, and that's it. I think if we waited on God, very often we wouldn't say the prayers we say. I don't hear many, I hear 50 different interpretations of the Spirit for life. I never hear anybody saying that one side of the Spirit for life is that your prayer life is revolutionized. Because Jude talks about praying in the Holy Ghost, not praying to the Holy Ghost, praying in the Holy Ghost. There are three groanings mentioned in Romans 8, and one of them is groaning. I think the whole creation is groaning right now. I think that's the reason we've had so many colossal earthquakes in the last two or three years. The whole creation is groaning. I think maybe the oil crisis, the economy crisis is going to make a lot of us groan too. But there is a groaning in us of the Spirit. You see, the highest form of prayer has no language at all. There's an old, it's hardly a poem, a big adumbral that says, What am I, an infant crying in the night? An infant crying for a light with no language but a cry. A baby cries in the night, the mother gets up. The old boy turns over and says, What does he want? Oh, he needs feeding. Oh, oh. Cries again half an hour after and the father says, Is he feeding again? No, no, he needed changing. He cries a bit later and you say, Did he need feeding again or changing? No, no, no, he's afraid. But when I put the light off, he stopped like that. It's the intuition the mother has. Well, Hannah prayed and she didn't pray. She said no words but she prayed. She prayed with groaning. And the highest form of prayer is, I heard people say, Well, that groaning is in Roman Veda, of course, it's tongues. No, it isn't. God has more sense than us. If it was, it tells it was. It is beyond tongues. It is a groaning of the Spirit of God within us. It's inexpressible. It's a language which is known only to God. What am I, an infant, crying in the night? You'd be amazed if you put that little fella to bed and you open the door in the morning and the fella came out as big as your daddy and said, Hi, Mum, how are you? Who in the world are you? Well, I'm your boy. You put me to bed like that. Well, wait a minute, you're 20 years old. What happened? Oh, well, in these days you don't have to wait. Instant coffee, instant tea, instant manhood. And I grew up all the night. You say that's impossible. By the same token, instant maturity is impossible too. You see, an instant highlight is impossible. There's a place where God gives increase of burden. But you see, again, it's waiting on the Lord. Few people know the art of waiting. There's a precious verse that says, Be still and know that I am God. As I said yesterday, the day before, that unlike many people, I don't believe there's one person in a hundred, spirit-filled, do what you like with them, I don't think there's one person in a hundred who knows how to worship God. You go in a meeting and somebody says, Everybody raise your hand, let's worship God. That's not worship, that's prayer. Nearly every case in the word of God where they worship, they worship prostrate. We stand to sing, we kneel to pray, we prostrate ourselves to worship. We use our tongues when we sing, we use our tongues when we pray. You don't need to say a word when you worship. Worship Him in spirit. Now, you don't get down and become passive because that might just become transcendental meditation, which is a fake of the devil, for be still and know that I am God. Wherever there's a vacuum, Satan fills it. When the church went soft and quiet on divine healing, what happened? Satan filled it with what? Christian science. When we're quiet on the true rebirth, being born again of the spirit, the devil fakes it. Because you see, the devil's answer, in my judgment, to regeneration is reincarnation. When we don't teach about the Holy Spirit, then you get a proliferation of people teaching about spiritism and kindred offshoots of bad things. You see, the devil fakes. He covers everything God does. God gives us Christ, Satan gives us the Antichrist. God gives us the Holy Spirit, Satan gives us evil spirit, which people talk to and spirit talk to them. The devil gives us a true church, and I believe the fake of that is the Roman church. It is really a political system. It's the richest system in the whole wide world. But you don't unmask it today. You see, now we've got Romanists, spirit-filled, some of them still drink. David Wilkins says, if you haven't got it, get yourself a pamphlet on that, it is a fantastic thing. The empathy is not on the Holy Spirit, the empathy is having you as a gift of thanks. So you have men that haven't given up their drinking. I know a woman that lives with a man half a week, and a friend lives with a man the other half of the week. They both tend to be spirit-filled. There are areas where people are doing all kinds of things. You see, we Roman Catholics, well I believe a Roman Catholic can be scared and filled with the spirit, but you can't stay in that rotten place. It is the Antichrist, it is still the great whore, however you try to level it up. Now that doesn't go over big, and it won't get me to a full gospel businessmen's conference anywhere else, but that doesn't scare me a hill of beans. You see, one of the greatest prophets that the Pentecostals had, in books that are republished now, was Dr. Charles Price. He was a giant of a man. He was a kind of super-edition of Oral Roberts and Billy Graham and everybody else put together. He had fantastic miracles and healings and ministry. And he said, just before he died, he said, look, right before the final outpouring of the Spirit promised in Joel 2, there will be a false revival, don't touch it, stay clear of it, because it's not the real thing. Do you know now we've got Jehovah's Witnesses, who are charismatic? The town we just left, the leading man in town, the richest man, is a Spiritist medium, he was asked to cause a charismatic conference because he speaks in tongues. Well where do you end? I mean, one thing God has always demanded is purity. And it's neither pure in heart, nor God. And God says, the only way you can ascend into his place, you know, we make prayer the easiest thing, you say to people, I've just now knelt down and told God, the most demanding thing in the Christian life is prayer. For the simple reason, Psalm 24 says, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. In the revival in the Hebrides, one of the greatest of modern revivals, the leader of it was Duncan Campbell, I prayed with him many hours at five o'clock in the morning, I'd preach with him in various countries. And he mentioned how when they had had one move of the Spirit, and they went to another place, the church was packed, the elders were there, deacons were there, preachers were there, but God wasn't. And does it matter whose presence in God's absence? And does it matter whose absence in God's presence? But God wasn't there. Duncan preached, but nothing happened, and he stopped, and he pointed to a boy, a 16-year-old boy, Hugh MacDonald, I think his name was, and he said, Hughie, pray. The 16-year-old boy stood up, and he said, Ach, and in Scottish ways, they say, Ach, you know, like we say, Ach, he says, what's the good of praying if we're not right with God? He quoted the 24th Psalm, for each one ascending to the hill of the Lord, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart. That became the key to the Revival. And when he quoted the Psalm, he prayed, and I can see Duncan Campbell's eyes filling with tears now, and he said, Brother Raymond, he prayed. I then asked a deacon, there wasn't one there that could pray, or a preacher, but that boy could pray with 16 years of age. And he said he prayed 15 minutes, 20, 30, 40, 45 minutes. And at the end of that 45 minutes, it's just as though you split the skies. Isaiah 64, oh, that thou wouldst reign in the heavens, and God just descended, not only there, but on the tavern down the road, and the dance hall at the other end of town. God laid captivity to the whole of that area that they were in. Dr. Tolbert had a fine definition of Revival. He said Revival changes the moral climate of a community. It did in Finney's day. It doesn't do it today. You put a million dollar crusade on, and somebody goes out of town you didn't even know they'd been, and it's gone, and the climate's the same. We say we're more part of the Holy Spirit. Well, I don't think that's difficult, to lay hands on people, and they'll do this, do that, and the other. But tell me this, how many Pentecostals, look, it only took 120 Spirit-filled people to turn the city upside down and invade the world. There are more than 120 Pentecostal churches now in California, in Los Angeles, and nobody knows we're here. Unless you put it on TV and shouted about it. But you see, we're so content, we're so easygoing. All we want is a little blessing, a little help. But you know, when God invades, when God comes, with really Holy Ghost power, we're going to be pretty shocked, I think. It's going to be pretty devastating. As I say, I don't think we're eternally conscious people. One of the great things when each of us has to stand alone at the judgment seat of Christ, saints, sinners, preachers, mixers, it's going to be a terrible day. I don't know how long it will last, the day of the Lord is a thousand years. So what if it lasts a million? We're going nowhere. We're going nowhere. God can take a thousand years to put Hitler there and make him explain why he killed so many people, liquidated six million Jews, destroyed homes and this and that and the other. It's going to be a terrible day. But again, what I'm trying to say is this. I don't think God is awesome. I say this and it sounds cruel, but I'm cruel, I know that. But I don't believe that most of our people go to church to meet God. They go to church to hear a sermon about God. They don't go to meet God himself. Oh, I enjoyed what that man said. It's always a good meeting if we enjoy it, isn't it? Tell them a good meeting if the Lord goes from stripping and gets us right down. But you see, if we develop this, I nearly said method, I'll say divine exhortation, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Because as he says in the previous verse, or verse two, that is previous, he gives power to the faint. And to them that have no might, he increases strength. In my opinion, the second letter to the Colossians, pardon me, the second letter to the Corinthians, in the twelfth chapter, verses ten and eleven, no, verses nine and ten, you have two statements there where Paul says, in the twelfth, I read the tenth verse first, because he says, You see, when I am weak, then am I strong. That's a paradox, isn't it? When I am weak, I'm strong. When I have no confidence in the flesh. People say, it must get easier, you've been preaching a lot of years. I've been preaching over fifty this manner, and further they've been preaching about sixty or more. But no, it doesn't get any easier. If it gets easier, I'll give it up. It gets more difficult. In the slow way that I've pursued God, and understanding better now, obviously, than I did fifty years ago, it's more awesome than ever to preach. I get invitations, oh, we want you here, we want you there. I say to Martha often, sweetie, we could sell this house and get on a boat and go around the world and stay away for three years and have a nice time visiting other countries. Everybody wants you. You know what they say? One group of people wrote, they said, we're having this great conference I've preached in Australia, and God has blessed the conference. And they wrote back and said, well, we want you back on a certain day, say January 1st to the 8th. January is summertime down there, blistering hot, I preached Christmas Day and it was 105 and no air conditioning. But we want you this week. We're sure you're the man, we don't want anybody else to come, you come, you're God's man for us, January 1st to the 8th. I left a letter on my file, and about a week after I got a letter from India. We've been searching and wondering and thinking and praying and we're quite sure you're the man to come, January 1st to January the 8th. Now Gabriel must have got the file mixed up or something because I'm sure that the Lord doesn't tell two people in two different nations so far away. But you're the key man for a particular thing. So what you do is be still and know that you're God. You've got to find out what God is saying. But again, the Apostle Paul boasted. He said, no boasting for me except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet he says, I boast because my strength, God says, is made perfect in weakness. Again, it's one of those paradoxes. My strength is made perfect in weakness. For they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles. I like eagles. They're great birds. I remember seeing one standing on a stump in Australia. The stump was there. The bird was there. Magnificent thing. And the sun was blazing. And the thing just turned and looked right into the sun. It's the only creature that can do that. There's no creature under heaven that can look into the sun and then turn away and see something else. It has a marvelous optic nerve that has a kind of a shutter. It has a lens on its eye. Now, it's a very beautiful bird. It has distinctive features. To me, it's typical, as the Lord here says, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They, they that wait, mount. You've got so many ready-made programs. One of the difficult things for me to understand in one sense today is why God puts up with a church if he puts up with it now. After all, he's threatened he's going to spew us out of his mouth. We can't get much more sick, I think. He says he'll spew the church out of his mouth. And I marvel that he puts up with us as a nation. Every day we have more divorces. Every day we have more wretchedness, rape, murder, nightclubs, nudity. We're trampling his commandments underfoot, and God sits there on the circle of the earth and does nothing. But you see, again, God is slow to chide and swift to bless. He's very patient. I remember about a year ago when I was thinking about a certain thing, and the Lord said, well, consider Moses. Well, I consider him many a time. But you can always think of something new. I thought of Moses on the backside of the desert. He'd left, we don't know how many. Some people say a million and a half. Some people say five million people in a slave camp. He could have been hopping up and down and shouting and tearing his hair and saying, five thousand people died in that slave camp today, and God, He didn't do anything about it. Ten thousand died yesterday, and babies were born and starvation situations. And your people, they're naked, they're being like that. After all, it's rather amazing when you think of it. I think the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history. Between the Testaments, between Malachi and Matthew, you have a period of 400 years of captivity for Israel. But they've had 400 years of captivity under the Pharaohs and so forth. And yet Moses is on the backside of the desert. And as I say to the preachers very often, you've got a Bible school, get a diploma, get a 50, and then you won't scare the devil with them. But you can go to Bible school, get a diploma, go to a seminary, get some degree. So what? Excuse me. Unless you learn to wait upon the Lord, you've really no qualification to go out to a big, big, big, demanding world like this, and a church that will run you underground unless you're careful. You need to learn to be still and know that He is God. After all, Jesus had been training 30 years before He preached. Now God's going to go to Bible school and become a prophet. John Baptist was 30 years in the wilderness. And the only minister in six months. It's this period of development, it's patience, it's the waiting, it's the hearing. And I say to preachers, look, you can get a diploma and then offer to be pastor of a church, but I'll tell you what, you can't offer to be a prophet. You get all kinds of young men, they'll write to me about my books, and you know what, I'm sure God has taught me to be a prophet. And I say, all right. John the Baptist, they really tie it down. And I say, I believe that you're ready to lose your head in six months. That's the only way you can prove you're called John the Baptist. Have you already pledged your head to heaven? Because one missing note in modern evangelism, surely, surely, surely, is repentance. Nobody stresses repentance. Repentance isn't saying you're sorry. Repentance is an attitude. It's a change of mind about God, a change of mind about sin, a change of mind about your own state. I've been going the wrong way. By the grace of God, I go the right way. I've had the wrong sense of that. I say that God is justly content with your health. And then in mercy, I kneel down and say, Lord, save me. I'm a sinner. I need to be saved. I need to be born again in the Spirit of God. All right, they shall mount up with wings as eagles. The eagle is a lovely bird. Where does it go? Well, the scripture says over and over again, it mounts up at least to the height. You know, I'm sure you know this, but let me remind you of this, in case you haven't thought of it, that the eagle is a very beautiful, powerful bird, but it's not a table bird. I've eaten all kinds of birds, turkeys and hens and ducks and I don't know what, but I've never eaten an eagle, have you? It isn't a table bird. You can get a minor bird or a parrot that talks. But this old bird here isn't a talking bird. You can tame any kind of bird. You can't tame an eagle. I've never seen a tamed eagle. I've seen an eagle in captivity, but I've never seen a tamed bird. So it's not a table bird, it's not a talking bird, and it's not a tamed bird. The old rabbis, when they taught about the power of nature, they said that the lion is the king of wild beasts. He's the strongest of all beasts. The lion is the strongest of wild beasts. The ox, the patient ox, is the strongest of domestic beasts. They said that the eagle is the strongest of birds, just like the whale is the strongest animal in the sea. They that wait upon the Lord to renew their strength, they shall mount up. This is not a barnyard bird. You wouldn't find an eagle at night on a branch with an owl just croaking away and looking for mites. You wouldn't find an eagle on the side of the road scaring you like other birds. You'd see crows there, ravens there. Somebody's knocked an animal down and you see them tearing the flesh. When other truckers have run over it, and we saw them coming over on the road there, and they were stripping the flesh off the flock. You'd never find an eagle eating. It's not a carrion bird in that sense. An eagle will only eat fresh, fresh living things, warm meat, bloody meat. If he doesn't eat a carcass, it's because he's driven to total extremity. But his normal way of life is just to eat flesh and drink blood. In the... In one of the... No, let me go a little further back here in a minute. In Deuteronomy verse 9, chapter 32, pardon me. Deuteronomy 32, verse 9, it says, To the Lord's portion is his people. Let me stop there a second. Do you realize that I have been very often in churches where there are little envelopes, and there's a rack before where you're sat, and they say, that's for your tithe. This is the Lord's portion. No, it isn't. The Lord's portion is his people. You can give him your tithe without giving yourself. You can't give yourself without giving your tithe. He wants me from the crown of my head to the sole of my feet. The Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is a lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste, howling wilderness, he led him out. He instructed him. He kept him as the apple of the night. Now, as an eagle stirreth up her nest, and flutterth over it, her young, and spreadeth abroad her wings, and taketh them, and beareth them on her wings. You see, he says earlier, I have borne you on my wings, as an eagle. The eagle is a bird of great strength. There comes a time when the mother eagle will put her wings partly out, and all the youngsters climb on her back, and off she goes. She can carry a tremendous weight. But then when you come to this, verse 29's chapter in Job, verse 27 says, Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? She dwelleth, and abideth in the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and a strong place. From thence she seeketh her prey, and her eyes behold her far off. There's an awful lot in there. You'll never find an eagle making its nest in your backyard or under the spout of it. The eagle is a solitary bird. And you'd better get hold of this right away. If you mean to walk with God, you're going to walk alone. You're going to walk alone. I don't remember God ever called a bunch of men. He called Abraham, walk before me and be thou perfect. Enoch walked with God. How long? 300 odd years as far as I can find out. Now if you walk with God, surely it's safe to say you talk with God. I'd like to have run up behind God and Enoch on the road when they were talking together. As a matter of fact, I'd like to have slipped a tape recorder in the garden of Eden because God came down every night and talked with Adam. That must have been marvelous. I'm sure they didn't talk about sports. They didn't talk about Dow Jones, how we knew they weren't bad. They talked pure, holy conversation. That must have been wonderful. If you walk with somebody, you'll talk with somebody. If you talk, you'll share secrets. I've often wondered when they walked together, when God walked with Enoch, I wonder if God ever expressed his sorrow over the tragedy of the garden of Eden. Do you think he did? After all, in the garden of Eden, Adam didn't get drunk, he didn't beat his wife up, he just did a sinful thing. He disobeyed. Trust and obey. He didn't trust, he didn't obey. What's one of the hardest things you have to take or I have to take? It's when you make a promise to somebody and they don't believe you. My God hurts. Yet much rather they stamp on your toes. They didn't believe me. Israel did not get into the promised land. Why? Did they go after strange gods? Hoarding after strange gods? No, no, no, no. What did they do? They just chose to believe God. They entered not in the cause of unbelief. As I've said before, I think we're the greatest generation of unbelieving believers that the world's ever known. We don't believe God. We believe little things about God. But do we really believe God? Do we still ignore the fact that you've got to know God, you've got to know a person before you can believe them. If a man comes down the street and he says, hey, you know, I was looking at you and I hear you're a preacher. Now look, tomorrow I'm going to meet you here at 9 o'clock and I'm going to give you $50,000. I seriously doubt whether I believe him. And if I met Bob tomorrow and he said I'm going to give you $50,000, I doubt if I'd believe him. Unless he's going to borrow it. But I'd have confidence in him because I'd say, well, if Bob or Ted or Harry or somebody, I've got confidence. I know that person. They're not fooling with me. I think one of the great embarrassments of the judgment seat, and dear Dr. Tovey used to say, Len, keep this in your mind, not many of us are going to look God straight in the eye at the judgment seat. Most of us are going to bow our heads in shame. As I said when I read Hebrews 11, men and women subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, felt the mouth of God, subdued kingdoms mouthed. What's wonderful about it? Well, I'll tell you what strangles me right down to my toes is the fact that nobody in Hebrews 11 ever had a Bible. That's the astounding thing. Man alive, it takes us a week to find out God's will with a Bible. We struggle with this and struggle with that and wonder if this is the text and somebody phones you and says, I think I've got a word for you. And before you are, you're dizzy. Isn't it amazing that those men and women in Hebrews 11 could, as it were, get God's voice filtered through all the other things? Indeed, it is a wonderful day in which we live. You know, there are about 50 nations going through this room right now, all talking. Oh, you can't hear them because you're not tuned into them. But if we had a good powerful set, I could turn that knob if it was an old world radio and I could turn it and say, hey, listen, they're giving the news now. Listen, you can hear Big Ben striking in London. Listen, this is what's happening in Tokyo. I can take you to the world without going out of this room. That's one of the great things of science. You know, with so many voices calling, voices, voices, voices, voices, difficult to be still and get the voice of God filtered through all that and say, this is God's voice for me. You've got to mount up very high above the world. No, the eagle isn't a barnyard creature. It doesn't snoot down at night with the owls. It isn't a poor old hen clucking around thinking she's created the universe because she laid an egg. It isn't a sparrow tripping on a tree. It lives where nobody else lives. Well, isn't that exactly what you and I are supposed to do? Doesn't Colossians 1 say, he the risen in Christ will Christ seek those things which are above the world beneath who is dead? What do you want me to do with that? As little as you can. You don't feed on its offals. You don't see an eagle snoot down and steal the apples on your tree or bananas if you're growing them. He's not bothered about that stuff. He wants flesh. He wants blood. It says in this very verse, the 29th of the 39th chapter of Job, From then she seeketh prey, and her eyes, behold, are far off. Her young ones also suck up blood. Where the slain are. Warm flesh. Warm blood. And she gets it in her system and her wings go out. She has the biggest wingspan of everything except that ain't one vile old bird I saw from in India. But they can't fly like an eagle. Its wingspan is enormous compared with its body. You see an eagle with its wings up like this, they look as though they belong to another bird. But it feeds only again on warm meat and blood. Well, didn't Jesus say somewhere, is it in the 6th of John around there, except ye eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, ye've no life in you. I think Dr. Campbell Morgan was a great expositor but I heard him say one day, if I gave up work for a week, if I just lounged about in a week, I think I'd backslide. I was shocked at that. What would you do if you were in a concentration camp? What would you do if you were on the Isle of Patmos? You see, we're activists. We think because we're doing and doing and going and going and working. Do you know how many hours I've worked for the Lord today? No, no, no, I don't care I haven't been. What I care about is how often you're still before God. You say, I believe in tithing. Well, I don't think most people do. Oh, yes, I give a tenth of it. No, no, no, no, no. Malachi says, bring all the tithes into the storehouse, tithes. And that means you tithe your time every day, which means you give God two hours and twenty-four minutes, plus an offering, which means about three hours a day. That's normal diet. That's normal going for a spiritually healthy life. So we've not been taught that. We've been taught, oh, I believe you've made a big business these years. Ah, made a million dollars. Oh, what a business. A tenth for the church, eh? Now, we can't make God rich however much we give him. We can't make him wise however much we pray. All we can do is be still and know that he's God. And then, after that, get up and do the exploits he talks to us about. It says, doth the eagle mount up at thy command. These are characteristics of it. She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, way, way up there in the sky. Never, never on a tree in your garden. Never on a rooftop. Never in somebody's barn. We stopped coming over. We left our car, actually, in Phoenix. And the people there have just got a very, very beautiful home right out in the desert with every kind of cactus. It's just a dream of a place. And they've only just come in it. And there's a little ledge inside the thing across the door, the pulse, you know, across the door. And the bird has already come in and she's sitting there on her eggs. She doesn't pay any rent. But anyhow, there she is, enjoying that beautiful new home. You never find an eagle doing that. Remember what this psalmist says again in Psalm 91. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High. Well, Bethlehemiah went to see a young lady one day. He buried her mother a few days before. The girl had no one else. She had no daddy. And the young lady, she wasn't so young anyhow, but young ladies never get old. And she was in middle age and her mother died. And Ephraimiah went along and he said to her, Now, my dear, look, just dry your eyes. Your mother is in heaven. You know, your mother is so excited. She's living in heavenly places and she's with the Lord and everything's new and wonderful. You have no idea how your mother's enjoying the presence of the Lord. The girl didn't, she wasn't praised a bit. And he said, I mean that. Oh, Dr. Myers, you said you didn't know my mother. There's nothing fresh for my mother in heaven. She's been living there for 40 years. She's been living in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It's just the case of a change of location. The atmosphere is no different. Different. I'm living in His presence. The eagle gets up there right on the rock, high, high, high, away there on the rock. And you know, he makes a, the man and the woman help together, the male and female. You know, they get twigs about as thick as my wrist. They get them together and fix them there on the rock. And they get them some smaller twigs. And you know, they'll steal sheep. They'll steal lambs. They just put their big claws into the land, but not in its wool. They'd more sense than that because the wool would break off. They put it right in its flesh. But then later they'd tear off that wool and they'd line the nest with it. She'd run off upon the rocks in a strong place. From then she'd seek with her prey and her eyes behold her far off. I tell you, this is the most unique bird in the world. You know, I have a record where they clocked an eagle flying at 120 miles an hour. You couldn't catch that with your helicopter. And it can go higher than your own helicopter too. But anyhow, that's 120 miles an hour they clocked the bird. You know, an eagle can look at the sun and turn there and see a weasel or a rat that length three miles away. A man actually paused on the top of a mountain in Scotland where this eagle and he would see that eagle and he'd go suddenly go off. He kept his eyes in that direction and he saw just a rabbit, a small rabbit more than two miles away. And that eagle went and it never lost that prey. It was after and suddenly it swooped and it came down. Brought that struggling little thing and there in the nest it tore it apart and the little one sucked up the blood and they ate the warm flesh and delighted in it. And Jesus says it said, eat of my flesh and drink of my blood. That's not cannibalism. He's meaning that unless we partake of his nature unless we partake of his will unless we partake of all that he desires for us we're going to feed on rubbish round about us. A lot of stuff that's put on TV isn't even worth looking to. It's excitement and it's almost earthly, central and deadly. But again, we're to live in heavenly places. Because right after that isn't it in Colossians? Colossians 3 verse 1 If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above not on the things of the earth. Do you know what I think? I think one of the greatest drugs you know there are lots of Christians on drugs about 99% of them you know what they're drugged with? Materialism. It's the biggest trick the devil has put over on us. You've got people preaching prosperity health, wealth and prosperity if you don't get a million dollars within two years of getting the vaccine you didn't have it. That's just about the philosophy of something. God wants you healthy, wealthy and wise. I don't think so not in the way they say. If he did the greatest man that ever lived after Jesus the Apostle Paul do you know what he says? To this present hour I suffer need. Where the Oscar When anybody comes over with that philosophy all they do is go to 1 Corinthians 4 and read it and then go to 2 Corinthians 4 He lays it out what it really means. You see we're living in a day when a lot of lot of people want to be happy but few want to be holy. A lot of people want to be good few people want to be spiritual. A lot of people want to go to the cross few people want to get on the cross. I want him to give his blood for me I don't want to give my blood for him. Hmm? He died that I might live. As I ask people often I've got a little of a stamp on it now I think are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for? Hmm? That's the only way to live and not be embarrassed when we stand at the judgment seat. But we've got to feed on Christ. We've got to climb into the heavenlies. You know what? That eagle sees more than any other creature in the world. Why? Because of its height because of its vision. Well isn't that exactly what God does for us? We see things that nobody else sees at all. Paul says to a church they're saved they're sanctified he taught them they had other teachers and he prayed in one of the Ephesians 2 that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened there are many people who still see men as trees walking around. Do you remember the man that Jesus healed and they loosed him and let him go? No, no, no. He brought him from the dead but the man still had his gear on him but he was buried in he's walking around and he said now come on you've got to do something else loose him and let him go. And then there was a man whose eyes were touched and they said can you see and he said not very clearly I can see men as trees touch his eyes and then he saw men as men. You know when we get to eternity we're going to be amazed how near we came to put it in our vernacular to a million dollars at our toes and we never saw it. How near we came to getting a divine command that the phone rang or somebody called us and we missed it. Sure the eagle is a wonderful bird. Got a marvellous eye it can see what nobody else sees and one thing it likes to do is look right into the face of the sun and I think so often in the book of the revelation when God pulls the anchor on all those islands of the sea and men cry for the Himalayan ranges and they cry for the rockets to fall on them and hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne they say I want to hide from that face and yet at the end of the revelation the reward of the righteous is they shall see his face. What a difference. They want to run away from that face that's filled with wrath and anger those eyes like a flame of fire that tongue like a sharp two edged sword they're terrified. You think of that Hollywood bunch when they have to bow at the feet of Jesus and all the rest of us as far as that goes they see him in all his majesty and his glory but you see if we see him now if it is true that something lives in every hue that Christless eyes have never seen you remember the Lord the prophet had a problem with a young man I guess he had been to Bible school and didn't make it and he takes him to a place and he says you see all that and he says I can't see a thing and he says Lord open the young man's eyes oh the hills are filled with the chariots of God oh my how far we come short don't we seeing his glory and seeing his majesty seeing the things that he wants us to see you know another thing about an eagle is it's the most courageous of birds if you see a mounting storm and the lightnings are flashing and the skies dark and it looks as though we've come to doomsday everything scatters animals will run in halls birds will die under cover you know what an eagle will do he'll bounce off that rockery that he has and he flies right into the heart of the storm he loves the storm he loves the storm he'll put those wings up we live out in the country and sometimes I look out of my office window and I'll see birds we have a lot of buzzards around but occasionally there are some Mexican eagles come over you know the Mexicans like to get over the border and these eagles come over occasionally and I see those birds in the sky you know all they do is put the wings out like that and you can watch them for 15 minutes they'll never flap their wings they ride the air currents just fantastic they come right down and they get an air current they go up up and ooooh away they go till they're almost out of sight and then you'll see them come swooping down they ride the currents they ride the storm the hymn writer says with salvation walls surrounding thou mayst smile at all thy foes that 46th psalm God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble they will be not feared though the earth be removed we're going to live to see that I'm sure and though the mountains be carried in the midst of the sea that doesn't faze the true believer of the storm he's as happy in the storm as he is anywhere else that bird will go to the centre of the storm when everything else has fled and he rides it up and not only rides it he enjoys it he says I'm here this is what God made and I enjoy this you watch me and he soars away and up he goes and the lightning flashes and he doesn't beat it home I like to read that 27th chapter in the book of Acts where a preacher got on board he got on board as a preacher he got off as the pilot nobody could handle the boat they ran into the storm I think the people laughed each day when Saul came up and they said oh he's going to Caesar they say he's the greatest brain that ever lived but he got fanatical and he has to go to Rome and after a breath of air they took him down and chained him he came up day by day and then there came a day when there wasn't a day it was a night it lasted 14 days and 14 nights no stars appeared no moon appeared no sun appeared no hope appeared and everybody screaming and wailing and fasting and praying and crying and the ship is in a sea that's boiling and the spas are breaking and the winds are driving and the sails are ripping and everything is doomed it says all hope was gone so they said there's only one thing to do every night you just take your sword and kill everybody on board and paul says you take me up to see the boss take me up to see the captain i've got a ship on my hands and we don't know where we are it's dark there's no stars to sail by there's no sea we've been fasting and weeping and crying and we're in a terrible night never been like this in history and paul says well that's all right what do you mean that's all right well he said i stood by me this night an angel of god whose i am and whom i serve now i told you you see they wouldn't take any notice of this prophecy so you don't follow everybody's prophecy if you did you'd be doing cart wheels down broadway and standing on your head in the shopping market don't take everybody's prophecy prophecy needs to be judged but you see in this situation he had the mind of god and he says there stood by me this night an angel of god whose i am and whom i serve and serve and whom i serve and whom i serve and serve and whom i serve and whom i serve and whom i serve and whom i serve and whom i whom i serve and serve and whom i serve and whom i serve and whom i serve and whom i See, God has always demanded purity in his church and if we are pure, as was it Sir Galahad said, my strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure. The heart that is pure is passionate, passionate for God. The eagle there is not mixed up with any other bird, he lives in a world of his own and you and I have to live in heavenly places. Alright, he has a piercing eye, yes, he has tremendous strength, as an eagle, what does it say?