Genesis chapter 1. I want to
continue our study tonight in Genesis chapter 1 and considering
the work of God on the fifth day of creation. Let's read verses
20 through 23. And pay particular attention
to the words. These words are not there by
accident. plunked in there like a bunch
of history writers. This is God's inspired Word. These words are important. The
punctuation and the sentences of the Word of God are important.
Our Lord said when He talked about fulfilling the Word of
God, He said He's not one jot or one tittle. That means a punctuation
point or a period is going to change from the Word of God.
It's not going to change. He's going to maintain it. Genesis 1, verse 20, And God
said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature
that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the
open firmament of the heaven. And God created great whales
and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought
forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after
his kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying,
Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters and the seas,
and let the fowl multiply in the air. and the evening and
the morning were the fifth day. I read a lot on this fifth day
and I didn't get a lot of help. I just didn't get a lot of help.
They had a lot to say about the physical creation of the creatures
of the sea and of the fowl of the air. I mean, it was interesting. If you like science at all or
you like to watch the Discovery Channel or something, you'd be
really interested. All their messages were very
interesting. But they made no spiritual application whatsoever
to these verses. They just talked about them in
awe. And I'll give you some of the
facts that they said tonight along with the spiritual application. But it's the spiritual application
that I want you to see. If we miss that, we've missed
the Word of God. If all we can see in the battle between David and
Goliath is a young underdog whooping a giant, we've missed the Gospel. We've missed the message of God,
if that's all you can see. If all you can see is a love
story in Samson and Delilah, then you've missed the whole
message of Samson. You've missed that whole message
of that whole book. You've missed it. You've missed
the reason for the judges. And that's what religion does.
It takes these things in their natural sense And who wouldn't
want to gather and hear them? I used to love to sit and listen
to these guys as they went on and on and on about the 70 weeks
and the wheels and Ezekiel and the eyes. Man, I'd just eat it
up. I'd sit there and listen to it.
It was fascinating. But when everything was said
and done, it had no spiritual application whatsoever. It was
just interesting. And if I want to spark my interest,
I'd just stay home and watch the Learning Channel or something.
I'd just find me something on there on Wild Geese or something
and sit home and watch that and be fascinated. That's not why
I come. I come to church to worship God.
And I study this book and open this book not to be fascinated
by facts, but to be fed in my heart from the gospel. And I read these things, and
they're fascinating things, but there are two things that caught
my eye right off in this thing, and that was in verse 20. There
was two words that caught my eye. God and life. The word God and the word life. Where you find the one, you always
find the other. We're the ones not found. You'll
never find the other. I don't care how interesting
it is. If God be absent, there cannot be life because in Him,
Paul said, we live and move and have our being. Ain't that what
he told those philosophers there on Mars Hill? He said, I saw
your devotions and I saw your gods and I saw your statues.
The only one here that makes any sense is this one that you're
erected to the unknown God That's who I'm going to declare unto
you. And in declaring Him unto them, He said, in Him, in this
unknown God, we live, we live and move and have our being. In Him is life. Turn with me
to John chapter 1. We covered some of this back
in our early studies in the book of John. In John 1, verse 1,
he says, "...in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God, and the same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that was made." Now, listen
close to this verse. In Him was life. There wasn't but one kind of
life before creation. That's eternal life. That's that
life that was in Christ. That's that life, essential life
of the Godhead. But a purposed life to give,
and that given in Christ. You see that? In Him was life. And the life was the light. You see that? That was the light
of men. This life. And so I know I can
go back and I don't care if he's talking about plants. If it's
a living thing, it has life. And if it has life, it was created
of God. And if it's created of God, it
in some way has to bear His image. Because He can't change His consistency
with what He gives. He remains in harmony, John,
no matter what he's doing. If he's creating a blade of grass,
that character doesn't change. If he's creating a man, that
character doesn't change. It doesn't change. Now, the purpose
of what he's doing may change, but he doesn't change. And that
life is the light And that's why it says over there in Romans
chapter 1 that even the heathen and darkest apocryphs without
excuse because He has creation. He has creation to look at. What a mystery. What a mystery. In Him was life. And spectacular,
spectacular are the Think about it. Are the mountains with the
snow-capped peaks? And my wife and I were sitting
out on the back porch this morning. I was drinking my coffee and
talking to her a little bit. And you can look out the window
at all the different shades of green. We've been getting some
steady rain here lately and everything's green. You look out there and
there's just thousands of variations of green. Well, when you come
down from the mountains, I only got to do this one time in my
life, My son was stationed down in South Carolina, and we went
down, and we was going through the North Carolina mountains.
And when we were on the way down into South Carolina, we hit it
at the perfect time of year. And high up in the mountain,
it was still winter. But as we come down the mountain
on the South Carolina side, it begins to get warm as we come
down. And as we come down, you begin
to see buds on the little trees and stuff, and got down a little
bit farther and it's fully leafed out. And by the time we got to
the bottom, the dogwoods were in full bloom. It was amazing
to come down that mountain and see the changes in the season
as you come down the mountain. I've never got to do that before
that or since, but it was something to see. It really was. And how
spectacular are the mountains with their snow-capped peaks
and the rolling meadows with all these changing shades of
green and the deep blue sea. I see these movies where these
big islands out there, Jamaica and all that, and you see this
beautiful Blue-green sea outlined with the white beaches and the
palm trees, and they're just beautiful. But what are those
things? What are the grandeur of those
things compared to even life in a weed? Think about it. Think about it. What are all the grandeur of
a desert or a mountain compared to one living thing? Life is
spectacular. It's just spectacular. The more
I read by these men, the more I realize just how spectacular
life is. It's fascinating. What a mystery
of intrigue is life to men. He studies it. He devotes his
life to understand it. He sees it. He stands in awe
of it. But he can't probe the depth
of it. And he can't recreate it. And
he can't sustain it. In spite of all his best efforts.
God and life. These are the fundamental principles
of creation, both natural and spiritual. And see here in creation,
the diversity of life. Creatures so small that a man's
eye can't even see them. All this included right here
in these verses that I just read to you. Tiny creatures of the
sea that if you put them under a microscope, you could probably
put a thousand of them on the head of a pin. You can't even
see them with your eye. But you look at them through
that microscope and there they are just moving and doing and
doing whatever God created them to do. They're just moving around
and doing this and doing that. And the water is just full of
life. It's just full of life. When you can't see anything in
it, you just take a handful of water with nothing in it, put
it under a microscope and you'll see so much life, you just won't
believe it. You won't ever want to drink
water again if you ever look at it under a microscope. It's
just full of organisms, full of life. And that's what he's
talking about. He said, let the waters bring
forth abundantly, he said. Abundantly. Abundantly. And there's such a variation.
Here's a thousand things, some kind of little living organism
that you could put on the head of a pen. And then in the old
sailing days, they kept logs on ships. They still do, I suppose,
but probably now on a computer. Back then they had ship's logs
and every day, whatever the daily routine was, whatever they saw,
whatever they passed, whatever they did during that day, was
jotted down and kept record of in a book. And in these ancient
mariners' ship's logs was recorded a whale that a ship passed by
and estimated that whale to be 600 feet long and 300 feet wide. That's a big fish. Ain't nothing
like that over in the Red River, is it? 600 feet long, 300 feet
wide. And scientists now know that
there were sharks in the ancient seas I think they call them megalodons
or something like that, but their teeth were about the size of
that glass. They say the shark, they estimated
him to be about the size of a greyhound bus, and they fed on these big
whales and these other big creatures in the sea. The sea was full
of creatures and such a diversity in size. A diversity of life. Creatures
so small a man's eyes can't see them and so massive that you
just can't fathom something like that being in the sea. And you think of the diversity
of life and think of the complexity of
such things and the order required to sustain such things. One writer
gave, I can't even recall to give it to you in exact figures,
but he was talking about the fry of fish. Fish is eggs, I
guess is what I'm talking about. And he said some of these fish
have as many as six million eggs at one time in the sea. Just
one fish. And he said a pair, a single
pair of herring, Now, I do know something about herring. My brother
used to live up in Virginia and on the James River when they'd
run, we'd go out and fish for herring and smoke them and eat
them. They were good fish to eat, but
these herring, just one pair of herring left unchecked, left
out of order, uncontrolled, unmolested, just one pair would choke the
entire Atlantic Ocean in just a short time. That's how prolific
the life is in the sea. It's just unbelievable. You can't
fathom. Nowhere else on God's earth is
life in such abundance as it is in this sea and of such diversity. You can't take it in. You just
can't take it in. You can't fathom it. Think of the complexity of such
things and the order required to sustain these things. Well,
it says all things were made by Him and for Him, and by Him
all things consist. He keeps the order. And in spite
of our sinful greed and lawlessness, we've robbed the ocean of its
treasures, and misused it for how many thousands of years,
and yet the ocean still has an abundance of life in it. It cannot
be depleted. Well, I want you to look tonight
at this life created on the fifth day, knowing this, that though
it be diverse in its manifestation, it's one in its origin. In Him
was life. And this life is the light of
men. Now, in keeping with the analogy
of God as the great sea, and this solid mass called dry ground
exposed and appearing by a divine act of gathering the waters into
one place, or what the Lord said to Job, I break up for it my
decreed place. for these waters to be gathered
and for Christ to be exposed. As He did on the cross, when
every attribute of God was gathered and manifested and glorified
in Him, God broke up a place in Him for those things to settle
and be satisfied and reside for eternity. And I want us to look
tonight at these two seemingly diverse creations and see if
we can find some harmony here with the greater life and the
greater work for which these things were but the stage. Now, first of all, let's look
at the life in the sea. In Genesis 1, verse 20, God said,
Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature Now listen
to the wording of this, that half-life. That half-life. That's past tense. That's past tense. Gathered around in unison with
the body of Christ in that broken cavity, God demonstrates an abundance
of life The like of which cannot be seen anywhere else in creation. There are two things that we've
been looking at here in our study. One is the dry ground and the
other is the sea. And once God calls the great
body to appear, it says the earth brought forth grass and herbs
and trees, plants of all kinds. All the life the earth produced,
preserved by the seed within it, and it brought forth after
its kind. And now He begins to demonstrate
the life as the waters bring forth its children. And what
this tells me is that the earth and the sea are one in their
purpose. They're one in their purpose.
They both have something to do with this life. They're in unison. They're not working separately.
The earth is not over here doing one thing and the sea over here
doing something else. What's going on in creation is
the same thing. And so if you look at the sea
as God and you look at the body as Christ, Christ and God are
not in division with what's going on in life. And the Bible does
because it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness
dwell. And we talk about that life in Christ and that begatting
in Christ and our being chosen in Christ. But the Father has
as much to do with it as the Son. And the Holy Spirit has
as much to do with it as the Father or the Son. They are equal
in this thing of salvation. It just pleased the Father that
in Him should all fullness dwell in the accomplishment of salvation. They are in harmony. The sea
and the land are in harmony. Listen to this here in John 5,
verse 26. Let me see if I can't maybe better
point that out to you. In John 5, verse 26, the Jews were looking for the
Messiah to be someone more like David, a man, a special man,
a blessed man, an anointed man, a man chosen of God, but nevertheless
a man. And then they considered God
as absolute God, totally separate. And so when they viewed him even
in his claims to be the Messiah, the Messiah to them just meant
a man, a special man, but just a man. What was upsetting to
the Jews is when he made himself equal with the Father. That's
when they got upset and wanted to take him out and throw him
off the hill. When he told them, he said, I and the Father are
one. Now watch what he says here in John 5, verse 26. The Lord
said, "...for as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given
to the Son to have life in himself." Now this is not to be understood
as though the Son did not have eternal life essentially, or
was not equal with God, nor the Father making Him God by giving
Him this life, but it's to be considered in this life. It was
given to Him as our Redeemer and Mediator and covenant surety
in Him was life." This life was in harmony with God. That's what
Christ was telling them. When I say to you that in the
Son is life, and when the Bible talks about, he that hath the
Son hath life, He's not saying that the son has something that
the father don't have or that the father didn't give you or
couldn't give you. It's saying that it was purposed
in the son of the father. You see what he's saying here?
These things are all in harmony. Now listen again closely as he
describes the creatures of the sea. He said, "...let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life." Everything
in the sea that's brought forth is said to have light. That word, have light, means
it already had it. That's what it means. Already
had it. It's a past tense. I don't know
how to explain that. But I see in these waters all
life, an abundance of life, the like of which can't be seen anywhere
else in the universe. I see life to things so insignificant,
that they're virtually invisible to the eye, and yet life in such
an abundance that you can't even comprehend it or discover it
all. They're still discovering stuff. I watched the thing the
other day where they're hunting this giant squid, and they find
dead ones, but they've never seen a live one, never filmed
a live one. And they hunt for little tiny
creatures and stuff in the sea. They just always discover new
things in the sea. But I see in the sea, by the
Word of God, not only an abundance of life, but a willingness to
give it freely, abundantly, without discrimination. And when I think
of the creatures of the sea, I think of them in several ways.
I think of them, number one, that even when darkness covered
all things and covered the face of the deep, those waters were
there. When he spoke light, the first thing you saw was the waters.
The water never went anywhere. And knowing what I know about
God, this might be hard for you to swallow, I don't know. But
we need to get over it if it is. Because God is eternal. And brother, when you think about
God, you need to think not like a man. And not see like a man. But look into His Word as it
testifies of Him. He is eternal. And whatever life
that He gives in time was already in Him. Already in Him. It was in Him
in His purpose, and in Him in His counsel, and in Him in His
design, and in Him in His holiness. in Him from eternity. I don't
care if it's a fish or a man or a star or the sun, whatever
it is. Whatever it is that came about
in time came about because it was in God from eternity. And
so when you consider this abundant life in the sea, and we're looking
at the sea as a type of God, that life was with Him from eternity. And that's how it's worded here
in creation. Do you see that? Listen to that
one more time. And God said, Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life. That's hard to get a hold of,
isn't it? John, if you're a believer, you had life when God put you
in Christ before the world was ever created. Before he ever spoke this world
into existence, before ever the first man set foot on this planet,
before ever a man fall, he gave you life in his purpose and in
his counsel in Christ. He quickened you together with
Christ. That's what he did. Put you in Christ. Oh, I tell you, the more you
think on that, the more precious. I'm telling you, Ephesians chapter
1, chapter 2 is going to get so precious to you after a while
because the more you think on it, the more you think on it. Man! Man! Nothing, nothing can stop God. This thing has been set from
eternity. When He decreed the decree, there
was life. And who's going to stop Him?
Who's going to change Him? Who's going to slow him down?
Nobody. Nobody. Oh, I see the purpose of God
in this. And then I see a willingness
of God to give life. Look at the abundance. He said, let the seed bring forth
abundantly. Evidently, God has purposed an
abundance of life. If we look at Him, look at that
seed as a type of God, and it fits perfectly. Then let me know
this, God has purposed an abundance. He told Abraham, he said, look
up Abraham. Wasn't no smog back then. Wasn't no emissions in the air
back then. You could see all them stars. He said, can you count the stars?
He said, that's how your seed is going to be. He said, look
at the sands of the seashore. Can any man give me the number
of the sands on the seashore? That's how many children you're
going to have. That's how much life God is going to give. Oh,
I tell you, if I just look here at the picture, just look at
the picture, not the actual promise, but just the picture of the promise.
Let this sea bring forth abundantly, He said. And where else in creation
can you see an abundance of life like you see in the sea? Nowhere. Nowhere. Oh, it's a testimony to me that
there's a life hidden in God, untouched, unseen, unknown, apart
from the revelation of God. And what I'm laboring to point
out here is that the only way for a man to experience this
life and see this life and to know this life is for God Himself
to equip you for it. Everything that come about in
creation had its beginning in these waters. Turn with me to
John chapter 17. John chapter 17. I can remember my pastor, Brother Mahan,
saying this to me so many times when Kathy and I were sitting
there at 13th Street. He'd emphasize this time and
again, time and again, time and again, and I'd underline it every
time he said it. Eternal life is not how long
it lasts. Eternal life has to do with the
quality of it. What he's talking about is the
quality of that life. The quality of it. That's what's
hidden from view. You talk to any religious man
out here who has a hope of heaven, and ask him what eternal life
is, and he'll tell you real quick that means life everlasting.
Well, it is everlasting, but that's not what eternal life
is. I'm going to show you that here in John chapter 17. In John chapter 17, verse 3, And this is life eternal, that
they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent. That's eternal life. That's eternal
life. To know Him. How long is it going
to take you to know Him? Remember I told you He's eternal?
That's how long it's going to take you to know Him. Eternity. We know Him. It starts in Christ. We see Him in Christ. He's manifested
in Christ. We lay hold of Him in Christ.
And through the purpose of God in Christ, we're redeemed. We
lay hold of Him by faith. We're regenerated by His Spirit.
One day we're raised up to be with Him in glory. And in glory
for eternity, we're going to sit around His feet It says, God Himself will wipe
away all tears. There's not going to be any tears.
We're going to sit up there for eternity, John, and marvel, marvel
at God, who God is. And look at these little things
that we just pass over every day, every day. Walk through
the grass and never look down. Surrounded by life and never
even consider it. Consider the lilies, he said.
He did. He wouldn't have pointed it out
if he hadn't. He said, They toil, neither do
they spin. And Solomon, that's who you glory in, old Solomon.
He said, Solomon, on his best day, was never arrayed like that
lily. But you didn't even consider
it. You just walked through the grass, passed it by. Not how long it lasts, it's the
quality of it. It's the quality of it. And this
life, this abundance of life is in the sea. It's in the sea. In there in its purpose, and
in there in its design, and in there awaiting that day. Awaiting that day. Now, here
comes the second thing I want you to see, and that's the foul
of the air. And I want to read this carefully
to you. If you read verse 20 of Genesis chapter 1 carefully,
the fowl are linked. They are linked to the waters
of the sea. He said, Let the waters bring
forth abundantly the moving creature that hath lot, and, see that
word and? Fowl. that they may fly above
in the open firmament of heaven. I read, you know, some of these, I hesitate to call them preachers
because I very seldom ever read any gospel and what they say,
but they have a lot of interesting facts and they to get their degree,
they've had to study biology and get into a lot of these different
things. And some of them just, I mean, everybody's got your
favorite subject when you went through school. History was kind
of my favorite thing. And then other people, you know,
English or math and all these different things. Well, some
people like biology. And some of these preachers I
read by, you could really tell that they were strong in biology.
And they were talking and really going into depth about the birds
and the fishes. And I watch enough of those type
of things on TV that I know a little bit about it. And let me just
give you two or three similarities here between the fowl and the
fish. Number one, they talk about,
if you've ever watched in these movies about such things, the
fish swim. But it almost looks like they
fly when they go through the water. They use their fins the
same way birds use their wings. And they're designed the same.
If you look at them, the bone structure in them is the same.
The blood of birds and the blood of fish is the same blood. I thought that was really interesting. These creatures of the air came
from the sea. Now what does that tell me? Well,
if I consider life as it was purposed in God, somewhere in time, that creature that was purposed
in God is born and takes wing, don't he? He takes wing and he
soars into the firmament. His souls. I see a picture of the believer
who was given and purposed life in God before the world began,
and that life purchased. Purchased. We've already covered
those things. That cavity that God created
in him caused that body to appear. That life was purchased, purposed,
Exposed, manifested, raised, begin to bring forth life. Begin
to bring forth life. Begin to be covered with life.
And these creatures, this abundant life that God had purposed in
the sea, all of a sudden, He said, begin to fly. He gave them
wings and they rose out of the sea. They're no longer just a
purpose. They're no longer just something
in the design. No longer something just in a
council, in an ancient council. But these things are manifested
in the scene. And what he's talking about is
believers in time. He gives you faith. And by faith,
faith is the wings of a believer. That's what it is. He gives you
wings. You can soar when other men can't.
They look at this, I read and read and read and read and read
these men and they said and they talked about eggs and fish and
plankton and whales and migratory birds and pigeons that took four
hours to pass over and I could just go on and on and on with
the things that they talked about, interesting things that had nothing
to do with God or God's purpose. But I'm telling you this, Everything
that God purposed in Himself and exposed in that body and
purchased in that body and raised in that body, but it has life. And that life is able to do something
that men just sit back and are astounded by it. I remember one
time, let me just tell you a story here and maybe it will help you
understand what I am talking about. Brother Mahan, he didn't
take many vacations. But every now and then, he got
a little older and he wanted to be with Becky. Becky was sick
with cancer. He'd already lost one son. He
was about to lose another daughter. And he wanted to spend some time
with them. So he went with them and went
on vacation. And they went somewhere out west.
And they were out there fishing for trout. And they had them
a little can of worms and fishing. And the trout got his worm and
he went up to get him another one and he went up there on the
hill and he got that worm out of that can, old slimy worm,
in his hand and he startled. There was an eagle sitting in
the tree not very far from him. He'd never seen a bald eagle
before. And this bald eagle was sitting there in the tree. I
don't know if he was hunting or resting or what he was doing
there, but he was sitting there in that tree. Been there all the
whole time they were there. Nobody knew it was sitting there.
But when he set that can down and moved, it startled that eagle
and that eagle took off flying. And he said, I was standing there
like this watching that eagle fly off. And he said, I watched
that majestic bird, he said, it took off and soared into the
heavens. And he said, I looked down at
that slimy worm. He said, you know, there's a
lot of difference between a worm and an eagle. That's what I'm
talking about. There's a lot of difference.
There's a lot of difference. Oh, an eagle. Think about the
bird. And think about this. Let's just talk about the Holy
Spirit for one thing. Here's the believer. God sends
him His Spirit. And by His Spirit, he's regenerated. And created in him by the Spirit
of God is that hope of Jesus Christ. He creates in him faith
by the Spirit of God. How is the Spirit of God, of
every creature on earth, how is the Spirit of God pictured
in the Word of God? As a dove. The angels, the holy angels of
God, those who are ministering spirits sent forth to minister
to those who shall be heirs of salvation. How do they move about? They have wings. Isn't that what it says? The one Isaiah saw, that's what
he said. He said with six wings he did cover. You remember? How about that? Wings. On and on and on. All these things
that he talks about. Over and over. You look it up.
Get your concordance. Look it up. See how many times
he refers to the redeemed as taking the wings. David said,
if I take the wings of the morning and fly into the uttermost parts
of the sea. That's what a believer is able
to do by faith. He can soar above this world.
He can leave this world's trouble by faith. He has a redemption
purchase seated at the right hand of God. Just like he told
David of old, he said, I have set my King upon my holy hill
of Zion. Why do the heathen rage? Why
do the people gather together? Why do they do these vain things? I have anointed my King and set
Him there and nothing is going to change it. The believer can
soar up into that firmament of grace. He can just soar up there
and fly up there by faith. He can fly. He's got wings. He's
not held under the bondage of this world and flesh anymore.
He can soar into the grace of God because he's got wings. He's
got wings. These fowl, they come forth from
the purpose of God out of that sea and take wing and go into
the air. He calls it the open firmament. No obstructions. Nothing in their
way. No difficulties. I tell you,
when a man has faith, where's the difficulties? They come,
they come, but he said, just say that mountain, move aside,
it'll move. You got faith as a grain of mustard
seed, he said, you say that mountain, get out of my way, that mountain'll
be gone. Huh? Ain't no obstacles. Ain't no
obstacles. Oh, Satan throws them in your
path. But faith is sins. Faith can do what flesh can't
do. It is sins. It ascends because that's where
it's substitute, that's where it's redeemer, that's where it's
life is. It's already raised up and seated
at the right hand of God. And that faith soars up there.
It soars up there. Oh, I wish I had words to demonstrate
what the Lord revealed to me in my heart this morning when
I looked at this. I doubt so much and it comes
to my children and it comes to folks I pray for and for this
church and for the ministry and things that I see, I doubt so much. What have I to
doubt? Huh? It's already accomplished,
huh? Where's the doubt? The doubt's
in me. It's in me. I tell you, He's
equipped you to fly. If you don't fly, it's your fault.
He's equipped you. He's equipped you. Oh, when He
gives you faith, you're able to fly. I mean, you're able to
fly. Oh, I wish I had words to tell. You know, there's one type of
goose I read this years ago. They can't get a helicopter up
to the top of Mount Everest. They can just go up so far and
the air gets too thin he can't fly anymore. He has to quit.
He lets them out and they have to go on up by themselves. They
can't get anything up there. But the people who have climbed
that mountain have seen geese. A snow goose can fly over top
of Mount Everest. Think about that. That's how
strong. God has equipped this fowl. What
a picture of the believer. Highest mountain on this earth
by the top of it. Nothing, nothing can stand in
the way. Let me see if I can find that
and read it for you real quick in 1 John. In 1 John chapter 5, Whosoever
is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith." Think about that. 1 John 5, verse 5. Faith. Faith. Oh, my soul. We're equipped. And from his
lofty flight, he can see the great body of Christ in an unobstructed
clarity. He can cruise up there among
the clouds where he can look down and see. He can see all the beauty of
that body. He can see all the grandeur of
it. He can see all the details of it. You down here among the
thorns and the thistles and the trees and the bushes, you can't
see very far. You're a hunter, you know that.
You can't see very far. I used to hunt grouse up in Kentucky.
If you didn't have a scatter gun, you wasn't going to kill
one because you couldn't see ten feet through the woods. Up there, you can see. Down here,
you don't see nothing. Walked in religion all my life,
couldn't see nothing. Boy, when he gives you wings
and he takes you up here where you can look down and see, now
you can see. Now you can see that body. Now
you can see that glory. Now you can see that there's
room. There's room there for life.
Room there. Oh, they've got to be made meat
though. Not just anybody can fly. Believers are born of God
and made meat to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
and life. Made to soar into an environment
of grace. unobstructed, wide open, because
God gave him the ability to do it. You know, in Proverbs chapter
30, Solomon gave four things that he could not understand.
I'm not going to give you all four things, I just want you
to see what was at the top of his list. He said, an eagle,
an eagle, let me see exactly how he said that, I want to read
it to you. The way of an eagle in the air. It's fascinating. No visible means of support.
He's suspended up there in an environment of grace and nobody
can see what holds him up there. You see, the believer walks by
faith. He doesn't walk by sight. Ain't
that what he said in 2 Corinthians 5? He walks by faith, not by
sight. He looks at things not seen. Things that are seen are temporal.
Things that are not seen are eternal. The believer operates
with no visible means of support. I don't come in here and preach
tithing. I've never preached tithing. I don't intend to start.
I don't come in here and browbeat you people over giving money.
You give what you want to give. You don't want to give anything,
don't give nothing. I just know when God changes the nature of
a man, and when He does, He gives him the ability to soar into
this grace. And a natural man looks and he
can't imagine how he can do that. How can you do that? Huh? Ain't that where the difficulty
is? What do you mean? You mean y'all don't preach the
law at all? Nope. Love of Christ constraineth us.
I don't see it. I know you don't. I know you
don't. Well, I can't do that. I know
you can't. You've got to be given a new nature to do it. You've
got to be given a new heart to do it. You've got to be given
the ability to do it, the want-to to do it. Oh, I just love that where he
said, And Jesus, when He was baptized, went straight way up
out of the water, and, lo, in the heavens, the heavens was
opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like
a dove and lighting upon Him. Believers are born of God, and
they are made meat. The believer is a spiritual creature
who has the ability by faith to take the wings and fly into
God's grace. And he moves in this open environment
where none but he himself and others like him understand what's
going on. He can just soar. They just stand there on the
ground and look. Don't you catch yourself doing that sometimes
out in the yard and you see these birds? I seen a flock of them
the other day and they was all moving, all of them in unison
all at the same time. None of them hitting each other.
It just amazed me. I looked. Thousands of them in
this big old flock and they were going every which way. Perfect
unison. Or geese. You know, who lets that head
goose? He just goes up there. Man, they
go thousands of miles. They know exactly where they're
going. Come back every year. I'm telling you, it fascinates
me. I just stand on the ground and look. That's what this world does to
a believer. They stand and look. Fascinating. Fascinating. We walk by faith,
not by sight. Turn with me to Romans chapter
8. I won't keep you much longer. It's not my purpose here to exhaust
these things. They're inexhaustible. I just
want to bring a few things out to your attention and get your
interest and let you look at it and let you think about it
yourself. Pray about it. God will give you revelations
of it. But here in Romans 8, verse 1,
he said, There is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit. For the law, that is the basic
principle, the very nature of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. And I can sit on a rock and take
pictures of birds, and I can write books about birds, and
I can paint landscapes filled with birds, but I can't be a
partaker with them unless God gives me wings. But boy, when
He does, then I can soar. And I can soar. And faith is
the wings of the believer. Faith flies above its enemies
and it overcomes all obstacles. But there's one more thing I
want you to see and to think about. As great as an eagle is,
he can just stay aloft so long because he's found his home and
his rest on that body. on that body that God raised
from the sea. And he's going to come back down
and that's where he's going to rest on that body. And every
so often, God will give him that spirit of faith and let him sow. And he'll go up there and he'll
sow around and he'll see the glory of God and he'll worship
God. And you know birds sing. They come back down and every
one of them have a song. And I can't help but think they
sing, something has to do with His glory. They sit in that tree
and sing. And that's what the believer
does. He soars. God gives him of His Spirit that
dove and he soars into the open firmament of God's grace. And
up there he sees His glory and is stirred in his heart. And
he comes back down and he rests there on that body and he sings
about His glory. God give me such wings that I
might see His glory and sing about Him.