"ON EAGLE WINGS"
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1 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, My speech shall distil as the dew, As the small rain upon the tender herb, And as the showers upon the grass:
3 Because I will publish the name of the Lord: Ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: For all his ways are judgment: A God of truth and without iniquity, Just and right is he.
5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: They are a perverse and crooked generation.
6 Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is not he thy father that hath bought thee? Hath he not made thee, and established thee?
7 Remember the days of old, Consider the years of many generations: Ask thy father, and he will shew thee; Thy elders, and they will tell thee.
8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, When he separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people According to the number of the children of Israel.
9 For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land, And in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about, he instructed him, He kept him as the apple of his eye.
11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, Fluttereth over her young, Spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, Beareth them on her wings:
12 So the Lord alone did lead him, And there was no strange god with him.
On this 8th day of March (the year twenty thousand and twenty-two), I salute mothers. I honor grandmothers, Godmothers, adoptive mothers, teachers, aunties, and cousins who have mothered children who were not their own biologically but loved them just as much spiritually. Happy mother's day. All of you, women created by God with instinct and love in your spirits that nurtures, have taught us something about how God loves. We refer to God as Father and use the pronouns He and Him. But today, I also want to point you towards the motherly loving ways of God.
We will all leave a legacy at the end of this life. Our text this morning is about the legacy of Moses; it is his farewell speech to the children of Israel.
God had used Moses to prepare them to enter the Promised Land and claim the victory. He had given them laws and commandments to guide them. He had challenged them to keep the promises of God in front of them.
And, of course, Moses was now moving off the scene, and Joshua was replacing him. They still had challenges ahead, but Moses is preparing the for what lies ahead. Our text is a song that Moses taught them just before his death. Moses asked the Israelites to memorize this song. As I think about it, I am glad that my teachers made me remember poems as a child. I am happy that the church demanded that I stand before them and recite speeches, monologues, and Bible verses. When you memorize sometime, it stays with you, it becomes a part of you.
I still remember the poem "Life" by Langston Hughes that Mrs. Dubose, my sixth-grade teacher, asked us to remember.
A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life!
A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after,
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter;
And that is life![1]
A word in your spirit or a song in your heart may be the thing that sustains you amid difficult days.
Moses' poem follows what is known today as the "RIB" pattern. In Hebrew, RIB means a controversy or a lawsuit. This song was God's indictment against Israel for breaking the covenant with him. But the poem didn't stop there. It challenge them, but it concludes with encouragement for them. God would show compassion to them. God would deliver them from their enemies.[2]
In Deuteronomy 31:2, Moses declares:
2 And he said to them, “I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in. The Lord has said to me, ‘You shall not go over this Jordan.’
In Egypt, 110 was the symbolic age of wise men. Moses was a wise man, not so much because of what he knew. Moses was a wise man because of what he did. Moses based his life on a relationship with God. In Deuteronomy 31:1-3, Moses prepares them for his exit and announces to them Joshua's entrance by saying:
1 So Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel.
2 And he said to them, “I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in. The Lord has said to me, ‘You shall not go over this Jordan.’
3 The Lord your God himself will go over before you. He will destroy these nations before you, so that you shall dispossess them, and Joshua will go over at your head, as the Lord has spoken.
Moses reminds them that God was still there even though he would no longer be with them. The same God who led them under his leadership will be with them under Joshua's leadership. It is natural to depend on human leaders. We should be able to depend upon our leaders. But never confuse human leadership with divine providence. God, not Moses, was the key to their past triumphs. God, not Moses, would be the answer for their future trials. Respect your leaders, but depend on God. In our text on this mother's day celebration, I point you to the illustration used by Moses to explain how God loves his people. Moses compares the love of God to the love that a mother eagle demonstrates for her eaglets. In Deuteronomy 32:11, Moses declares:
11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, Fluttereth over her young, Spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, Beareth them on her wings:
There are five verbs in this text that end with "eth" in the KJV
1. Stirreth
2. Fluttereth
3. Spreadeth
4. Taketh
5. Beareth
In the King James Translation of the Bible, many words end in EST or ETH. To understand these words, take away the EST or the ETH, and what is left is the simple meaning of the word. If you take the EST or ETH off of Goest and Goeth, what you have left is the word "go."
King James uses the EST and ETH to differentiate between the Second and Third Person Singular. Words ending in EST are Second Person Singular Present. Words ending in ETH are Third Person Singular Present.
So these five words – stir, flutter, spread, take, and bear each represent an action that God brings to care for and equip the Israelites.
FIRST—HE STIRRETH
The song says, "As an eagle stirreth up her nest." The eagle must stir up the nest and practically force the young eaglets out to get the young eaglets to fly. In the beginning, as she anticipates the arrival of her young, the mother eagle builds a nest on the edge of the cliff. She lays a foundation of branches and sharp thorns to make the nest strong. She fills it with layers and layers of delicate features to make it comfortable. The eagle takes care of her babies every need in the very beginning. But eventually, the mother eagle realizes that her babies can't rest in her nest forever. So what does she do? Bit by bit, she takes away feathers until the once comfortable nest for the baby eagles becomes uncomfortable, forcing them to learn how to provide for themselves.
We have a God who allows us to experience some uncomfortable situations. We have a God who finds a way to force us out of our comfort zone. Not because he is tired of taking care of us, but instead because he wants us to grow to the point that we can care for ourselves. The weaning is not a sudden process. The mother gradually withdraws her total care. She stops shredding the worms for her babies and begins to drop the worms into the nest. She begins to spend more and more time away from the nest, forcing the baby to learn how to take care of themselves. The strategy pushes the eaglets to learn how to move on their own by spreading their wings.
Like those baby eagles, there comes a time when you and I have to climb to the edge of our comfort zone, spread your wings, face your fears, and take a leap of faith.
But sometimes, God has to stir the nest. He allows affliction, calamity, struggles, and even death to teach us that we can fly in the face of life's most tremendous storms, to teach us that if we don't get out of our comfort zone, we will never learn how to fly.
The comfort zone mentality is scripture. According to Jeremiah 48:11, God condemned the Moabites because they had.
Jer 48.11 "been at ease from their youth … hath settled on his lees."
11 Moab hath been at ease from his youth, And he hath settled on his lees, And hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, Neither hath he gone into captivity: Therefore his taste remained in him, And his scent is not changed.
The Prophet Amos in 6:1 rebuked Israel for having a comfort zone mentality when he said, "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion" (Amos 6:1).
1 “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes!
God often disturbs us by bringing affliction, calamity, death, or some other trial into our life that takes us out of our comfort zone. There is a great danger of the saints becoming too comfortable in their situation and therefore not growing spiritually.
SECOND—HE FLUTTERETH
Then the song says, the eagle "Fluttereth over her young." The fluttering and the stirring go together. Fluttering means to "fly unsteadily or hover by flapping the wings quickly and lightly:" The eagle is not forsaking her babies. On the contrary, she is encouraging them to learn how to fly.
Parent eagles then flutter their wings over the nest; they sometimes bring food to the eaglets but dangle it just out of their reach. When the parent eagle flaps their wings, they show the baby eagle how to use its wings. Dangling the food forces them to use their wings and imitate their parents.
Once the eaglets begin to flutter their sings, it causes them to grow and become stronger. I am so glad I serve a God who uses my struggles and troubles to strengthen me and grow me. That is why James 1:2-4 says:
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Because he loves us, he is faithful to use God to prepare us to fly. I don't know about you, but I believe that I can fly. My God has stirred up my nest and disturbed my comfort zone because he only wants me to do his will.
THIRD—HE SPREADETH
Moses's song says, the eagle "Spreadeth abroad her wings." It would be heartless to force the eaglets to fly and then allow them to fall. No sir. The eagle pushes the little birds to fly, but when she discovers or notices that they are falling, she spreadeth her wings to catch the young eaglets. No mother eagle wants her young ones to drop to the earth and hurt or kill themselves. Every young eagle will have days when it loses its strength and begins to fall. But there is a mother eagle there to catch before they fall.
According to 1 Corinthians 10:13, our God does not:
13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Oh, he will give us burdens that we cannot carry along, troubles that we cannot bear alone, paths that we cannot trudge along. That is when we have to remember 1 Peter 5:7:
7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Just like when that baby eagle continues plunging to the ground, and its mother mouths up on her grown-up eagle wings and catches them before they fall, our God will catches us.
In the words of songwriter Kurt Carr:
I almost let go.
I felt like I just couldn't take life anymore.
My problems held me bound
Depression weighed me down.
But God held me close, so I wouldn't let go.
God's mercy kept me, so I wouldn't let go.
I almost gave up.
I was right at the edge of a breakthrough but I couldn't see it
The devil really had me; but Jesus came and grabbed me,
And He held me close,
So I wouldn't let go.
God's mercy kept me, so I wouldn't let go
FOURTH—HE TAKETH
Then the song of Moses says, the eagle "Taketh them" meaning that the mother eagle (after catching her falling eaglet) takes them back to the nest so they can rest and then try again. What that old saying, "if at first, you don't succeed, try, try, again." You have to keep on going even when things look like they are not working out in this life. There are times when God knows something that we don't. He knows that we have the skills and talent to succeed. Of course, he knows; he created us. If anybody knows, God does.
In this life, you will fail. So when you fail, remember, "Rome was not built in a day." Remember that even the "best-laid plans go astray." Remember Proverbs 24:16:
16 for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.
FIFTH—HE BEARETH
Finally, the song of Moses says, "He beareth them on her wings." Like a momma eagle, God is watching, and at the last moment swoops down and catches us before we fall.
Like a baby eagle, I’m saved, I’m fine, I’m gonna survive. The momma eagle then flies up as high as she can go and again drops him. She continues to do this until he learns to fly.
The Lord bore the Israelites on eagle’s wings. When they didn’t have any water, He swooped down and provided water for them. When they came to the Red Sea, He provided for them. When they didn’t have any food, He swooped down and provided manna for them.[4]
So we have a God who is always there, who always cares for us. He is a God who draws near in times of trouble. He is a very present help in times of trouble.
If your nest is stirred, he cares.
If your faith is weak, he cares.
If your hope is fleeting, he cares.
When your friends are few, and your problems are many, he cares.[3]
In the words of Luther Barnes:
Jesus cares when I'm burdened
Yes, He cares when I'm all alone
Yes, He cares when I'm in misery
Oh, He cares, He cares for me
And He cares when I'm discouraged
He's concerned is so earnestly
Yes, I know, I know Jesus cares
He cares for me; oh yes, He does
Jesus cares when I'm in sorrow
When my pain is so hard to bear
And He cares about my situation
It's so good to know He's always there
When my days are dark as night
He'll be there to make it alright
Yes, I know, I know Jesus cares
He cares for me
[1]Life, by Langston Hughes 1872-1906
[2]Richards, L. (1990). The 365 Day Devotional Commentary (p. 129). Victor Books.
[3]Butler, J. G. (2014). Sermon Starters (Vol. 1, p. 29). LBC Publications.
[4] PreachingToday.com. (2002). Perfect Illustrations: For Every Topic and Occasion(p. 54). Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.