As the eagle so the Lord

May that weight upon the Lord shall renew their strength and mount on eagles' wings. May that weight upon the Lord shall renew their strength and mount on eagles' wings. And not be faint, those who hope is in the Lord shall renew their strength.

To you alone, my spirit yields. 37. Let's stand for this.

Listen, O heavens, and I will speak. Hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teachings fall like rain, and let my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.

I will proclaim the name of the Lord. O praise the greatness of our God. He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just.

A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He. They have acted corruptly towards Him. To their shame they are no longer His children, but a rapt and crooked generation.

Is this the way you will repay, the Lord? O foolish and unwise people, is He not your Father and Creator who made you and formed you? Remember the days of old, consider the generations long past. Ask your Father and He will tell you, your elders and the West Plain to you. When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided all mankind and set up boundaries for the peoples, according to the number of the sons of Israel.

For the Lord's portion is His people. Jacob His allotted inheritance. In a desert land He found Him.

In a barren and holy waste, He shielded Him and cared for Him. He guided Him as the apple of His eye. Like the eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spread its wings to catch them and to carry them on its pinions.

The Lord alone led Him. No foreign God was with Him. May the Lord bless His world.

Amen. Let's keep our Bibles open there and just pray for a moment. Father, we thank You for Your Word.

We ask that as we come around it now that You will speak to our hearts. Enable us to be sensitive to what it is that perhaps You want to share with us, remind us of. And we pray that the meditations of our hearts and the determination of our will may be ordered by You.

Amen. So the little lady in East London who had an overactive enthusiasm for feeding pigeons, like the birds, has now been released from jail. I thought they dealt a little harshly with her, quite frankly.

The municipal authorities in Scarborough tried to scare off their seagulls by emitting some sound from some amplification unit last week. Unfortunately, it had the undesired results of attracting even more, with the net result that at least the street cleaners are happy because they've got more work to do. That's always assuming that they've got street cleaners these days.

You never know the way things are going. What I want to do this morning is to direct your attention to that verse to which our Notes and News has made reference, and we've heard it read from Johnson just a moment ago. Deuteronomy 32 and verse 11 speaks of God as an eagle.

It's an interesting thing in the Bible that sometimes the world of nature, the world of farming is used in order to convey spiritual truths. Our Lord is a past master at doing that. There are over 3,000 references to animals and birds in the Scriptures which seem to suggest that God does want us to take some stock of what maybe His natural handiwork is wanting to tell us.

David will say to you that if you want to understand something about the characteristics of God, you have to go to the person of the shepherd. As the shepherd, so the Lord. The Lord is my shepherd.

Here, however, it's not a shepherd and sheep that are in view. It's an eagle and the eaglets. It's Mother Bird and her young.

Now, just in case you think that I'm being a little bit too fanciful, let me remind you that our beloved Lord, when He was preaching the Sermon on the Mount, also arrested the attention of His hearers by directing them to the birds. And He says, fix your eyes on them. Remember how He previously had told them to consider the lilies? Then He says, fix your eyes on the birds.

They don't toil. And yet your Heavenly Father, well, He feeds them. Here is one theologian who says, You see, He, the Lord Jesus, is making the birds our schoolmasters and teachers.

It is a great and abiding disgrace to us that in the gospel, a helpless sparrow should become a theologian and a preacher to the wisest of men. And He goes on, whenever you are listening to a nightingale, you are listening to an excellent preacher. Don't dismiss that too quickly as being sentimental slush.

Not unless you want to face Martin Luther and tell him what you thought when you get to heaven because that comes directly from him. Why here in Deuteronomy with Moses in effect preaching his final sermon, his Nunc Dimittis, does he make reference to the eagle? Well, at the beginning of his preaching ministry in Israel or towards the Israelites as they came out from the land of bondage in Exodus chapter 19 and verse 4, there too he speaks of God and he uses the same imagery. He says, I have brought you from the land of bondage on eagles' wings.

Now, decades have been absorbed into history and here is Moses taking his leave of the people and he plunders the same metaphor that he had used all those years ago and says it's right. Psalm 37, you find David doing more or less the same thing, that is testifying to the faithfulness of God. I call that the old age pensioner's psalm.

He says, I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor your seed begging bread. Moses, I say, an elderly man proclaiming his last word to the Israelites, to the Hebrews who have given him so much trouble as their pastor and preacher. He says, you want to understand about God as you move into a future without me as the eagle? So, the Lord.

I'll try and show you next week from the book of Job, how the sovereignty of God is worked out through his animal creation. And we'll have reason to go to the concept of the eagle and more animals on that occasion. Job will tell you that behind the world that God has made, is the personal interest of the God who made it.

Not just you and me, but the planet itself. God has not relinquished his concerns for planet earth. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and the day will come when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.

He is involved with inanimate and animate creation. But more of that next week. Here I want to extract from you, from this text and placard in front of you, if you like, some of the traits of the eagle which correspond to the interests of Almighty God.

The eagle has a policy of disturbance. I mean, that's what the verse says, doesn't it? Like an eagle that stirs up its nest. You know those Hebrews, they were getting somewhat comfortable in Goshen.

Goshen, I remind you, was the land or that part of the territory in Egypt, which had been given to them when a pharaoh who was inclined towards the Hebrews ruled. Joseph had been and Joseph had gone. The centuries had gone by.

And God decides that his people who are so comfortable in their nest in the land of Egypt shall be disturbed. Sometimes in the future they will look back to Egypt and hype the blessings beyond all proportion. They'll talk about the cucumbers and the garlic.

Do you remember those of you who read the authorized version, how those lists of vegetables come occasionally onto the pages of Scripture as the Israelites remember what they used to have in Egypt? Leeks, garlic, onions, cucumbers. As far as I'm concerned, you can pass the lot. Well, the cucumbers are not too bad.

But garlic and onions, I mean, that's got to be unchristian if you've been having those and sitting next to someone in church on a Sunday. He wanted to disturb them from their comfortable nest in Goshen. And so the eagle comes.

I'm told that the nest of the eagle has at its surface level some feathery down. It's comfortable. But the actual structure of the nest can be composed of thorns and spiky twigs, with the net result that if you move the down out of the way, then you are left with things that will make you uncomfortable.

So in Goshen, there are taskmasters who are brought by Pharaoh and given responsibility over the Hebrews who increase the labor that they have to do and make conditions that much more unpleasant. And from the hearts of the ancient Hebrews comes a cry to God for deliverance. And God is here through Moses saying, Actually, when the nest got uncomfortable, the reason for the disturbance was myself.

As you know, beloved friends, that can be the case. And more often than not is the case in our own lives. Sometimes he disturbs the nest.

Perhaps there you were in the pristine years of youth and you had to take on middle age, or you had to take on old age. Some of the comforts of good health are no longer there, and it seems that your life is that much more difficult. As the eagle, so the Lord.

One of the objectives of Mother Eagle is to bring her birds to full maturity. You see, the reason for wings is to fly. And if you think that's a daft comment from the pulpit, let me tell you it is one of the comments that needs to be made more and more in a world which sometimes assaults birds and restricts them from ever lifting their wings to the full degrees that God intended.

For birds, on the dimensions of the pages of this Bible, will be locked into intensive farming methods, cages. And that's the only life that millions will know in our country and in the Western world. And I would like to say, believing that I have the authority of God to say it, that that is an abuse of creation.

The reason why Mother Eagle comes and disturbs the nest of her young is because it is vitally important that the young eagle also stretches its wings and discovers just what the circumference is of the ability of the wings to propel that eaglet in flight. And when you have methods of farming or treatment to those who share this world with us that preclude them from their God-given abilities, then I say it is an offense to the Creator as the eagle. So the Lord, the eagle coaxes its young to freedom as God will coax the Hebrews out of the slavery of Egypt into the full freedom of the promised land.

And in the process of maturity He will take them 40 years into Sinai. But not only will the eagle disturb the nest, he will desire to observe the eaglet in flight like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young. Switch the analogy a little.

Because of the frequency with which I use aeroplanes, I have a ticket that gives me the right of entry or passage at Gatwick Airport that is known as the fast track. It means that if I'm late, as is frequently the case at arriving at the check-in, I produce my little document and they will put me straight through and I get service that some passengers don't have. When the Hebrews left the land of bondage and moved towards the promised land, they could have gone down the fast track.

They could have been there within a matter of weeks. But God takes them into the wilderness and He keeps them there for 40 years. He does not give them the option of the fast track because He needs that amount of time for their maturity.

And sometimes, my beloved brothers and sisters, I have to make the application to myself and to yourselves that God does not always allow the fast track. He takes you into the peninsula. He takes you into the wilderness.

And the reason why some of the disturbing circumstances you find yourself in, the reason for them is that the divine eagle is concerned to bring you to a point so that you can extend your wings and fly because He wants you mature. Jesus talked about maturing the disciples. The apostle Paul speaks about all men being presented mature before God.

And as it is wrong to have methods that prevent an animal from exercising his God-given rights in terms of the limbs or the wings that he has. So it would be wrong for God to put all of us through the fast track. He wants us to develop maturity.

You say you get a little bit carried away on this subject. There is a pain in our created world. The apostle Paul writing to the Romans, and you argue with him, not with me.

The apostle Paul writing to the Romans talks about the whole creation groaning. Wanting release from the bondage under which it finds itself. Nature in pain.

Looking for its redemption. Here is the beloved Christ. God in pain.

He's on a high mountain. He's looking over Jerusalem. And He is reviewing the resistance of those that He came to help to receive the aid that He brings.

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How oft would I have what? Have gathered you under my wings as a hen gathers her chicks. The beloved Lord Jesus taking a scene, a familiar scene from any farmyard, from any enclosure in His day where this sort of farming legitimately was practiced.

I would have brought you under my wings as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not. And there's pain within the heart of our Lord because of the resistance of those whose circumstances He came to improve. The eagle disturbs the nest.

The eagle observes all that is happening to its young. The very word eagle, if you track it back in the original language, has the idea of hovering, has the idea of coming alongside with great power. Here are the Israelites and they're such a stubborn people, so disobedient, such a gainsaying folk.

Looking back to the past as though the nest in Egypt is better than what God has in store for them. And God in His grace flutters by. There's the flap of the wings.

There's an indication to Moses that he and the Israelites are not on their own in Sinai. The Lord is with them. As the Lord Jesus says to His church, as He sends the infant church out into the world, I send you out as a sheep amongst wolves.

But I'm with you. In the wilderness of this world, I will observe what you're doing. When the eaglets fall, the eagle drops down in order to carry them on its pinions.

The Israelites never saw God, but they had every indication that God was with them. The manna in the wilderness years, their staple diet, it never ran out. The soles from the shoes, the sandals on their feet, never wore away.

God every day gave evidence to the young Hebrew nation that He was alongside it. He might have lost patience. Indeed, there was one occasion when He reflected on the reason why He brought Israel out of Egypt and suggested to Moses that perhaps He would make another nation and Moses intercedes.

The long-suffering of God is incredible. That word long-suffering is one that was coined by a preacher, Miles Coverdale, who actually translated the Bible before the version that we call the Authorized Version. And he wanted an opposite of short-tempered in order to describe the patience of God.

And he comes up with this wonderful word long-suffering. And when you look at the Israelites, 40 years, making their way, not on the fast track, back to the Promised Land, when you think of their stiffness and their rebellion and the patience of God, you magnify His grace and His ability to be the long-suffering God that He is. But forget Israel and think of yourself.

I think of myself. Down these five decades, not allowed to go through the fast track because there's so much that I need to learn, so much correction that needs to be made in my life. But there are occasions, frequent occasions, when I've heard the Divine Eagle extend His wings and come by, and I've known the whoosh and felt the support of His presence, like an eagle that hovers over its young.

I suppose, is it Anne Roderick of the Body Shop? I forget her Christian name. Is that right? Anita Roderick of the Body Shop. I suppose that one of her goals is in effect to try to do for you and me, which if we're honest, we want, but actually she can't do it.

And that is to preserve our youthfulness. I mean, it's not the reason for cosmetics. I mean, you ladies, you only use cosmetics in the ratio of the deficiency.

So do men too, incidentally. I could have preached from Micah chapter 1 in the last verse which talks about making your head as bald as the eagle, but I was too kind. I might need a toupee one day myself.

Why does the Bible, when it speaks of the eagle in Isaiah, say, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. And the psalmist comes in with the same observation, Psalm 103 verse 5, thy youth is renewed like the eagles. Because according to legend, the eagle will set its face to mother sun and will fly into the face of the sun and then dive down into the ocean and then be reborn.

The ancients' way of explaining the longevity of eagles. For you see, an eagle can last, in terms of its lifespan, 100 years. George Kansdale, in his book on animals of the Bible, says of one eagle in Vienna, it was known to have lived for 104 years.

So the concept of the Bible, or the reason why the Bible takes the concept of the eagle and uses it in terms of its rejuvenation, or seemingly so, is to make this point that the nation that will be healthy, the man or the woman who is able to negotiate the track of life that corresponds to going through Sinai and not the fast track, is the man who receives from the divine eagle all the blessings that he is prepared to give day by day. They needed the manor, they needed the provision of clothing, you need the Word of God, you need the water of life, and God makes this provision for you as you make your way through this world. You need to know what it is at the spiritual level to be rejuvenated.

What is the goal of the eagle? Well, to catch its wing, to catch its young when they fall and have not successfully developed the art of flying and ultimately having taught them to allow them to go to the highest heights. Several times in the Old Testament references made to the panache of the eagle to build its nest at the height of the mountain ranges. I mean, it can do this because the eagle to the world of birds is what the lion is to the world of animals in the jungle.

It is the king of the jungle. The eagle is the king of the birds. It can soar higher than any other eagle can go, than any other bird can go.

And in the Old Testament you find that God's purposes for Israel is to lift them spiritually to the heights. The apostle Paul, writing of the church, says that God has raised us, has lifted us up to be in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. There was a remarkable missionary to India by the name of Stanley Jones.

And he founded what I think was probably the first and maybe the only Christian ashram in India. He was a bit of a mystic, but a very great man. And an ashram is a place where people come together and live out their lives in community and endeavor to worship and serve the Lord.

Stanley Jones, on one occasion, was in the lower heights of the Himalayas and he was watching an eagle. And he saw the weather worsen and the clouds were low and the thunder was heard and the lightning was streaking across the Himalayas. And Jones says, I waited for the bird to come lower and lower and lower and find some refuge in the trees.

Instead, it soared higher and higher and higher. And with that majestic wingspan, used its skill in flight to go above the turbulence of the climate, to cope with the thunder and the lightning and to soar higher and higher until I lost it from my view. And don't you see, that is what God wants of you and me.

Not the fast track into the promised land. But there in that experience which corresponds to Sinai, to take the full span of our wings. And when things happen to us which are unpalatable, to be able to adjust the wings so that the very unpalatable experience actually lifts us higher.

So that as the years go by, even though our youth is not literally returned, our spirituality grows and grows and grows. And we're able to cope with all the extremes, even that of physical strength being dissipated and natural vision and hearing no longer being what they were. This is what God wants of you and me, as the eagle saw the Lord.

This is what He wanted of Israel, that Israel would recognize that there is only one God who could lead them, only one God who could bring them into the fullness of His purposes. The Lord alone led Him. No foreign God was with Him.

He made Him ride on the heights of the land and fed Him with the fruit of the fields. You see, it's all there. If you don't like my emphasis on the world of nature, your problem is not with me.

It's with the God behind this book. The Apostle Paul says, don't you see, even the very natural things that he has created, they speak. Martin Luther was right.

He's making the birds our schoolmaster and teacher. It's a great and abiding disgrace to us that in the gospel a helpless sparrow should become a theologian and a preacher to the wisest of men. Luther never spoke more eloquently and never more scripturally.

You found it hard in your life thus far? Let me tell you that you're not on your own. God has you under His surveillance. He wants to lift you up.

He wants to lift you on higher ground. He asks you not to fight Him, nor your circumstances, but to go along with Him so that together you can cope. And that's why He sent the Lord Jesus into the world, to take on the responsibility of the biggest problem that is yours, your sin, and to say, come to me, take refuge under my wings.

But you see, it's not automatic. You have to make a choice. I finish.

Here is a refugee, a woman. She could have been born in Bosnia. She could be one of the thousands of refugees that we hear about on our news in the disgraceful circumstances that happen in Eastern Europe and in Central Africa.

But she was born before our time. She's a Moabitess. She comes to the land of promise.

Not the fast track. She goes through bereavement. She goes through separation of her loved ones.

And when she settles down in Bethlehem, a noble man, a spiritual man comes alongside her and says, congratulations, Ruth. You have come to rest under the wings of God. You have come to trust in the Lord God of Israel and know his benefits.

She made the choice. The choice is available for you to make, to know the protection and the guidance of God as you make your way through Sinai and ultimately to be received into God's promised land as the eagle of Israel. So, the Lord.

Let's pray. Could you play that song, Be still for the presence of the Lord is in this place. Remain in this state of reflection for a moment or two.

I want to pray for this congregation, for myself, for many more here who might know have had a sense of disturbance in their lives which they want the great God to deal with. Let's listen to this little beautiful modern hymn being played for a moment or two. The eagle comes and you feel the power of the wings as she sails by you.

Sometimes the eagle will poise herself under the falling little eaglet who cannot cope with the first attempts of flight and catches it, returns it to the nest and then the whole process commences again until eventually the eaglet is able to maturely fly and to cope with its circumstances. Verse 3 of number 15. Mission Praise says, Be still for the power of the Lord is moving in this place.

He comes to cleanse and heal, to minister His grace. No work too hard for Him. In faith receive from Him.

Be still for the power of the Lord is moving in this place. Let's sing very softly. And if there are areas in your life where you want to know the consoling and the helpful ministry of God's Spirit then just tell Him about it right now as we sing this.

Father God, as we come before Your throne right now I want to pray, I pray for myself for the many occasions when Your divine disturbance has created such problems and I've reacted immaturely against them. Pray for people here who are finding advancing years difficult to cope with. Some who have more tender years and they're finding difficulty in their job.

Some who don't have a job at all. Bring to you some of the people who've written and called into our office during these past few days. Lord, it's not sentimental language that compelled Moses to write that as the eagle so are the purposes of God towards His own.

We're asking that You will minister to us right now. Some people of nervous disposition. Some folks who are trying to kick habits that have been theirs for years.

Lord, we pray for that maturing process to continue to give us the ability to realize that even if we're not on the fast track even though our progress is slow at least progress is being made. Day by day and week by week and month by month You make the provisions that are necessary for us to be able to cope through our pilgrimage in this world until we take the last flight and we soar high, so high so far away from this world that You invite us temporarily to be with You in glory until the day comes when You return this world to its original and paradise lost is restored and regained and the earth becomes and men and women become what You want them to be when the universe proclaims the glory of God and no sin is found within her. Bless us, Lord, we pray.

Minister healing to this congregation in Jesus' name. Amen.