Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
The voice of one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord; make level in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain:
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
The voice of one saying, Cry. And one said, What shall I cry?
All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath of the Lord bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass.
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever.
O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up on a high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold, your God!
Behold, the Lord God will come as a mighty one, and His arm will rule for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.
He will feed His flock like a shepherd, He will gather the lambs in His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and will gently lead those that have their young.
Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are accounted as the small dust of the balance; behold, He taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
It is He that sitteth above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in; that bringeth princes to nothing; that maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and the justice due to me is passed away from my God?
Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of His understanding.
He giveth power to the faint; and to him that hath no might He increaseth strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
But they that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.
Beloved Lord, we thank You that whenever we come to Your Word and to the ministry of Your Word, You have made specific provision in grace and power. You have made available to us an anointing. And, Lord, we want, by faith, because the Lord Jesus has won that anointing for us, to come very simply and stand by faith in it—for my speaking and our hearing.
May my speaking be anointed and our hearing be anointed, and thus, in this time, may You perform and fulfil something by making Your Word, as it were, living to each one of us; that we shall receive the implanted Word that will take root in us, grow up, and bear much fruit. Hear us, O Lord. We shall give You all the praise and all the glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
This prophecy of Isaiah, of which the first part begins here in Isaiah 40 and goes right through to the sixty-sixth chapter, has been very much on my heart now for almost two months. As I thought through the night about this morning, I felt perhaps I should share something from this chapter. It is an amazing chapter.
Of course, it is a prophecy that we know has to do with the last days. These prophets, when they looked into the distance by the Spirit of God, often saw the first coming of the Messiah and the second coming of the Messiah as one movement. To them, it was not actually revealed that there was a great gap between.
It is like some of us when we go up on high mountains in mountainous country. We look and see, in the distance, range after range; but sometimes those ranges look so near that we think they are one range. It is only when we climb them that we suddenly discover there is a huge canyon or valley between this set of peaks and that set of peaks. So it was with the prophets. They often prophesied the coming of the Lord Jesus, and saw it as one movement.
This is a wonderful example of it. We know from Matthew 3 and Mark 1 that this word about “a voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God,” was first fulfilled in the ministry of John the Baptist.
It was a time of enormous shaking—a time of enormous shaking. The Romans had come, and through treachery on the part of the Jewish people, they had occupied the whole land and taken it for themselves. It was a terrible period of shaking for them, and those who believed in the coming of the Messiah wondered how it would be possible for the purpose of God to be fulfilled.
And the Lord said that every valley should be exalted, every mountain and hill made low, the uneven made level, and the rough places a plain; and that the glory of the Lord should be revealed. This was a preparing of a way for the coming of the Lord Jesus.
We know that there was a whole remnant of faithful saints preparing the way of the Lord. I think of Simeon, Anna, and Mary. There were a whole number of them whom we could mention, preparing the way apart from John the Baptist. We think of him as the supreme preparer of the way for the Lord, and certainly it was the glory of the Lord that was revealed.
It was no star that came to Jerusalem and then, in an extraordinary manner, went from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. It was the glory of the Lord—the Shekinah glory of the Lord—that was coming back to the people. It stood over the place where Jesus was born, and later John said:
And we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
This glory came in a way that nobody was expecting. They were expecting a great public manifestation of glory, but in fact it was only the wise men, probably when Jesus was about eighteen months of age, who actually came to see and followed the glory. They understood that the glory had come back to the land and to the people.
I do not want to spend too long on this. All I want to say is that this is also a prophecy concerning the second coming of the Lord Jesus. It is very interesting: this time there is a way that needs to be prepared in the wilderness, and there is a highway that needs to be made level in the desert.
There are valleys that have to be brought up, mountains and hills that have to be brought down, uneven places that have to be made level, and rough places that have to be made a plain. If you are building a road, it is very difficult when you come to a canyon or a gorge. It is difficult when you have mountains and hills, uneven places, and rough places. They are all a problem for road builders, especially in the old days when they did not have the equipment we have today.
But the Lord says it shall be done, if He will only have a people who will commit themselves to Him and be ready, whatever the cost, to make a way in the wilderness and a highway in the desert. These are not easy places to make a way or a highway.
But the Word is:
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
This is even more interesting because He goes on to say, “A voice crieth.” The voice asks, “What shall I cry?” And the answer is, “All flesh is grass.” Grass is a very perishable, transient thing. All flesh is grass, and all its glory is as the flower of the field. It perishes and fades, but the Word of our God shall stand forever.
If the Lord has said that His glory will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together, then it is going to be fulfilled, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Everything else passes away, but the Word of our God stands forever.
Then it says, “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.” The Word of the Lord is in our mouth. “O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem.” The Word of the Lord is in our mouth. Then it speaks about the coming of the Lord: His recompense and reward are with Him.
I hope that at least proves that this is all to do with the coming of the Lord. We do not just think back to John the Baptist and say it is all fulfilled, and therefore it is like a fossil, an antique that we admire and try to learn from. Here we have something for our own day and generation.
We are actually living in these times described in the world as the end times. We are waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus, but there is a job to be done. We are not simply to wait passively for His coming. There is a way to be made in the wilderness and a highway for our God in the desert.
There are enormous obstacles and problems that stand in the way. That is why the Lord says to the prophet, “Do not be afraid.” The whole world system, and the whole spiritual power of invisible principalities and world rulers of darkness, are going to stand against this purpose. They are going to energize flesh and blood, energize nations, and produce ideologies and philosophies. Do not be afraid.
The nations are as a drop of a bucket.
What a wonderful statement that is: a drop in the bucket. He does not say half the bucket, or a third of the bucket. It is a drop in the bucket. Not one nation, but nations—all the nations are as a drop in the bucket. Who has ever been afraid of a drop of water?
When we have floods, storms, tornadoes, and tremendous waters, naturally we are afraid. The power of water sweeps everything before it. If you have ever been in a flood, you will know what I mean. I was once in a huge flood, the worst for four hundred years, in the tip of Sinai, and I will never forget it to my dying day.
Dry wadis became raging rivers, all converging on the bay where I was staying. When I looked out the back door, the cliff that had been dry desert was like Niagara—one huge horseshoe of powerful water. It swept all the cars away, buried everything, and went right through the hotel. I looked out another window and saw water at the level of the downstairs windows.
I said to the friend who was with me, a deep-sea diver, “How long do you think this hotel will last?” He said, “I think it is pretty well built. I think we will be all right.” And we were. But I have never forgotten it. When the light finally went out, all you could see was water. Oh, how frightful water was.
I suddenly realized how finite and small I was, and how enormous natural powers and forces are. It does not matter how strong you are, or how good a swimmer you are; you cannot do anything about it. It is such an enormous thing—the voice of many waters. That is when I first understood Psalm 93:
Above the voices of many waters,
The mighty breakers of the sea,
The Lord on high is mighty.
But the Lord says, “Do not be afraid. These nations are not like this. They are like a drop, one single drop in the bucket.” Fear does obsess and possess some of us to the point where we are almost paralysed; but to be afraid of a single drop of water in a bucket is ridiculous.
Have you ever heard of someone drowning in a drop of water? Have you ever heard of a drop of water sweeping away a building, or somehow paralysing life? The Lord says that the nations are a drop in the bucket—nothing—if you will only trust Him.
Is the Lord wonderful? He has provided these valleys, mountains, hills, uneven places, and rough places. He has done it deliberately, because He is not going to make it easy. Those who think they are going to have an easy time have another thing coming. There is nothing easy. Through many tribulations we enter into the kingdom of God.
Those who are really going to be faithful, and part of making a way in the wilderness and a highway for God in the desert, will face obstacles. Yet it is the Lord Himself, as we trust Him and cooperate with Him, who brings up valleys, brings down mountains—even Everest—makes uneven places level, makes rough places a plain, and fulfils His purpose.
The Lord sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are as grasshoppers—not hippopotamuses or rhinoceroses. We can think of great powers and imagine that the Lord has a problem. But grasshoppers are fragile, so easily dealt with. The Lord says, “I sit above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers.”
Even princes and judges, all those great powers of whom people are so afraid, are there by God’s appointment, and they will stay there by God’s appointment until He says they are finished. When God says they are finished, they are finished. Mao Zedong had his time; Stalin had his time; Hitler had his time. They came and they went. But the Word of our God stands forever.
There is a promise to us in all of this, and that is what I want to dwell on this morning. There is a marvellous promise. I go all over the earth amongst the people of God, and I find that in the last few years there is an unbelievable tiredness and weariness among so many of God’s children, especially those in the front line of the battle.
There is exhaustion, and it is understandable because the current is flowing against us. More and more, the so-called traditional homelands, where the gospel has had such a place in history, are becoming cesspools of evil and iniquity.
We used to speak of those going to Asia and Africa as being on the front line, and we prayed for them because we said, “We do not know what it is like in Britain, the United States, and such countries, because we have had such a tradition of revival, awakening, and gospel preaching.” In many ways, even our national societies were influenced by the Word of God.
But the antagonism which was once felt in other places has come to the so-called homelands. There is in the atmosphere a spiritual and aggressive antagonism against those who are born of God and will be faithful to the Lord.
If we do not learn the secret of how to be renewed—not merely to survive, but to overcome—we shall become weary. Normally, we think of young men as the illustration of vigour, strength, and power. In the Word of God, young men are regularly used as examples of vigour and strength.
Yet Isaiah says:
Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall:
But they that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings as eagles;
They shall run, and not be weary;
They shall walk, and not faint.
There will be such antagonism in the air that even those who are naturally strong, virile, and vigorous will become weary, exhausted, and will utterly fall. But they that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. What a marvellous promise for the last days.
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
How can we face this growing antagonism? Many of us in Britain, Europe, and elsewhere hope that elections will bring great change. You may have a difference in politics, but this growing antagonism in the air is something predicted in the Word of God.
The Word of God is very clear that everything that can be shaken will be shaken. We are told in Haggai 2, and in the words of our Lord Jesus recorded in Luke 21, that there will be an enormous shaking.
This shaking will first be on earth, and then in heaven. First, there will be shaking in every aspect of earthly life—social, moral, ethical, religious, medical. Every side and aspect of life will be shaken to its foundation. And the Lord is the One who shakes. Finally, it is not Satan; it is the Lord. He said, “I will shake.”
The Lord has a purpose. He is not destructive. He shakes everything so that what cannot be shaken may be revealed. Many of us believers hold on to the shakable. We really do. We love the shakable, and sometimes the Lord has to give us a very sharp dose of medicine. He shakes everything, and suddenly we find that we have been trusting in the shakable.
As believers, we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. If we would dwell on the unshakable King and the unshakable kingdom, we would be saved. But, if you are like me, you have somehow got a vested interest in the shakable. We love these things, build upon these things, and the Lord says, “There is no way.”
This great shaking began in this century and is reaching its climax at the end of it. It is interesting that in 1903 there was the great Welsh Revival, which lasted in power and glory for at least two or more years.
A few years after 1903, in a small Welsh town in western Wales, in a place called Llanddewi, a great crowd gathered in an old Welsh Presbyterian chapel—a Calvinistic Methodist chapel—to hear one of the servants of the Lord who had been much involved in the Welsh Revival.
As he preached, he suddenly realized that nobody was listening to him. Their eyes were fixed on the wall above the pulpit. One of the elders in the front row pointed above his head and begged him to come down. When he turned and looked, he saw a vision on the wall. The whole company saw it together.
It was the vision of the head of a lamb with huge human eyes, and tears running down its face. The vision remained on the wall for half an hour. Some people even ran from the building down the road to fetch others to come and see it.
Of course, the brother did not preach any more. Instead, the whole assembly got on its knees and asked the Lord, “What does it mean?” The word that came to them was that a period of unparalleled shaking in the history of the world was about to begin. Whole things would be swept away, and this shaking would continue until the Lord Jesus came.
Millions would be swept into eternity. It was, of course, the First World War, in which nearly twenty million died, including the flower of the youth of Europe—France, Germany, and Austro-Hungary. It was an unbelievable time. Kingdoms disappeared which had existed, in many cases, for thousands of years.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Tsarist Empire, the German Reich, the Ottoman Empire, and even the Chinese dynastic empire, which had lasted over two thousand years, all came to an end either just before or during that war.
Then came the Second World War, in which fifty-five million people were swept away. It was an even greater shaking, but it came out of the First World War. The British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires disappeared. The Soviet Empire was born. Marxism was born in 1917 in the First World War. The whole thing is of a piece.
This shaking has gone on ever since. It has not stopped; it is increasing in power. The collapse of the Kremlin was unbelievable. In the matter of a year, the whole thing collapsed and changed.
Of course, we have a way to go. Scripture says that in the end it will be the sun, moon, and stars that will be shaken. The powers of the heavens will be shaken. What began on earth as a moral, social, and religious shaking to do with nations, society, philosophies, and ideologies will finally reach the physical universe.
I find this very interesting, because in this last great era of humanism, with a world government, man will feel himself very clever. We have put a man on the moon, we are exploring space, overcoming diseases, and reaching the point where genetically we could produce altogether new forms of life. Amazing.
There could be nothing more divinely designed to shake humanity to its foundations than the Lord touching the sun. When that happens, something will happen to the moon, and immediately the seasons and tides will be affected. Man will suddenly realize how finite and small he is, and how huge the powers of nature are.
That is why Jesus said that men’s hearts will faint for fear and for expectation of the things coming upon the earth. Some people get very frightened when you speak of these things. But if you know the One who is shaking, if you know the Person who is doing the shaking, you will not be so afraid. We have to know Him very well.
Come back to this: the Lord has given us a marvellous promise. “Those that wait for the Lord.” In the Hebrew, it can mean either wait on the Lord or wait for the Lord. Actually, waiting for the Lord is even harder than waiting on the Lord.
They that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings as eagles;
They shall run, and not be weary;
They shall walk, and not faint.
If I had been giving this prophecy, and had been tempted to manipulate it, I would not have put it that way. I would have said, “Those that wait for the Lord shall walk and not be weary; they shall run and not faint; they shall mount up with wings as eagles.” That would seem more logical to me.
Normally, you do not faint when you walk, although you may get weary. When you run, you may faint if you overdo it. I would have started with walking, then running, and finally mounting up. But is not the Lord amazing? He always puts first what He most desires.
Remember how He spoke of the good seed falling into the ground. Instead of saying that it would bring forth thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold, He put the hundredfold first. That is what He wants. If you cannot manage that, then sixtyfold; and if not that, thirtyfold. But at least bring forth something.
There is an awful lot in Scripture about walking, and an awful lot in Scripture about running. We are told to walk by faith, walk in love, walk worthily of our calling, and walk in Christ as we received Him. Walking is a natural thing. We were born to walk.
There is also much in Scripture about running. We are told that many run in a race, but only one obtains the prize. Running is walking in a quicker form; you are still using your legs. Walking and running are both of the earth—of Adam, are they not?
But wildernesses, deserts, valleys, mountains, hills, uneven places, and rough places are a problem when you are walking. They are an even bigger problem for running. If you have ever tried to walk twenty-four miles with a huge gorge to go down and then climb out of, followed by hills and mountains, you can become weary.
I remember being in Namibia, in an area with a great deep gorge, rainforest below, and high steplands above. I was sitting in a little study looking out of a large window at a dry, sun-baked hill on the other side. I saw regular puffs of dust, and then I saw a very tall young African man running.
His legs were like a machine. He was moving extraordinarily fast, and every time his long legs touched the ground there was a puff of dust. He came nearer and nearer and went right past the lake. The host and hostess said, “Oh yes, he is the postal runner. He runs twenty-five or twenty-six miles and never stops.”
When he went past, he was not even puffed or exhausted. He made me feel so old. But even so, mountains, valleys, and uneven places are obstacles when you are walking or running.
My dear friends, listen carefully to me. When you have eagles’ wings, valleys, mountains, hills, uneven places, and rough places are nothing. There are no barriers when you have wings.
You rise up above and fly. You use the very currents in the air that could destroy you or blow you off course. The eagle is an amazing creature, as are vultures and birds of prey. They are designed in such a way that they use the very things that should destroy them.
They live in that atmosphere. They nest in the most inaccessible places, in the precipices and crags of the mountains. There they reproduce and find their food. The very currents that should destroy them they use to mount higher and higher and higher. The eagle is always a symbol of the divine in the Word of God; it is a symbol of the Holy Spirit as well.
Here, then, we are to mount up with wings as eagles. Then the valley is nothing, the mountains are nothing, and the hills are nothing. If you have watched these creatures, you will see how near they can seem—so near that you can distinguish the colours in their wings and identify the species. Then suddenly they mount up and up until they are mere specks in the sky. Often they will drop like a stone.
Brothers and sisters, we have many valleys. There are many valleys in the Word of God, and many mountains. Perhaps you have a valley in your life.
Here is one valley: the Valley of Achor. Achor in Hebrew means trouble—the valley of trouble. In Hosea 2:15, it says:
I will make the valley of Achor a door of hope.
How can you make a way for the Lord in a valley of trouble, a valley of very serious trouble? It is a valley where the enemy has come in, as he did with Achan. The Valley of Achor was called Achor because of Achan’s sin.
Do you know that the Lord can turn such a valley of trouble into a door of hope—a gateway through which you can move into more of the Lord and into fulfilment? The Valley of Achor.
Or consider Psalm 84:
In whose heart are the highways to Zion.
Passing through the valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs.
They go from strength to strength;
Every one of them appeareth before God in Zion.
They turn the valley of weeping—that is what it means—into a place of springs. Their tears suddenly become fountains for others. Springs flow. Have you ever heard of such a thing that the Lord can do?
Most of us, at some time in our lives, will go through a valley of weeping. It can be over a thousand and one things. Some of us stay with the weeping until the end of our days. It embitters us, destroys us, and ravages us. It becomes, not a milestone that we pass, but a dead end.
But those in whose hearts are the highways to Zion can turn a valley of weeping into a place of blessing for others—a place of springs. Is that not beautiful?
Or consider the valley of dry bones. Some of us feel that we are in a valley of dry bones. We may be in homes or fellowships where everything seems like dry bones—bones here, bones there, skulls here, feet there. There is nothing more depressing than dry bones.
Years ago, I saw one of those bone houses in a monastery. On the wall, in big letters, were the words, “No laughing.” There were thousands of bones in that old house: skulls piled in one corner, ribs in another, and hands laid on top of each other elsewhere.
There was a very old chest with glass panel doors, and sitting in it was Saint Stephen—not Saint Stephen of Scripture, but a saint from the fourth century. He still had skin on his face and hands and was clothed with a purple garment. They had found him on Mount Athos and put him in that cabinet for nearly fifteen hundred years.
A very irreverent friend was with me, and I had to keep kicking him because he was about to burst into hysterical laughter. He saw a leather bucket filled with a skull, bones, feet, and hands, and asked the old priest, “What is in that bucket?” The priest said, “That is the last priest.” My friend said, “I suppose that is where we got the term ‘kicking the bucket.’”
But when you see bones all over the place, you realize what a miracle it would be if those bones could live. Can you imagine how dramatic it was for Ezekiel when he was in that valley of dry bones? Not merely a few bones, but an army—perhaps twenty thousand people’s bones—all absolutely disconnected and dead.
Then the Lord said to him:
Son of man, can these bones live?
Poor Ezekiel looked at the bones and said, “O Lord God, Thou knowest.” Then the Lord said to him, “Prophesy over these bones, and say unto them, Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”
He did, and there was a great noise. The bones came together, bone to its bone, until they stood as a great army. Then the flesh came upon them, but there was still no spirit in them. He had to prophesy again. It was the Word of the Lord.
When you are in a valley of dry bones—whether in a fellowship of dry bones, a nation of dry bones, or a family of dry bones—remember: only God can do it, but He can do it. When the Word of the Lord is in your mouth, from the Book and by the Spirit of God, then something can happen to dry bones.
Then you will mount up with wings as eagles. The impossible is done. The incredible happens.
Or consider another valley, in Psalm 23:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
This is very interesting. First of all, it is a valley of the shadow of death. There cannot be a shadow without light. It is not simply a valley of death; it is a valley of the shadow of death. Somewhere in this valley there is marvellous light, and it is casting a shadow.
You can either live in the shadow or live in the light. Remember that this is not somewhere you dwell. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” As you keep going, you will come through into the light and out of the shadow.
Then here is your testimony: “I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.” Not a teaching, not a system, not an organization, not merely Christian friends. Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
I could speak about mountains. It is a wonderful thing when the Lord steps in and mountains flow down. That is Isaiah 64:
Oh that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down,
That the mountains might quake at Thy presence.
It is wonderful when the Lord steps in without our even exercising faith. He steps in and the mountain is gone. Then we have a wonderful testimony. We stand the following Sunday morning and say, “Brothers and sisters, a tremendous thing happened to me. I had such a mountain in my way, such an obstacle, and then the Lord stepped in and it was gone.”
Well, at least you know the power of your God. But you are not necessarily changed.
Then there are other mountains of which the Lord says:
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
This time you are involved. Mountains are real obstacles, but now you have to exercise faith. The Lord says, “I am not going to step into this—not until you exercise faith.” We say, “Lord, I have not enough faith.” The Lord says, “A grain of mustard seed—so small.”
If you will only exercise that little grain of mustard-seed faith—the faith you had to have because you could not be saved without it—this mountain will be removed. Then we learn something. Only as we see the Lord does faith operate. It will never operate when we are centred on the mountain. But when we see the Lord, nothing is too much for Him. No mountain is bigger than the Lord.
Then there is another kind of mountain. In Isaiah 49:11, the Lord says:
And I will make all My mountains a way,
And My highways shall be exalted.
He makes the mountains a way. Right through the mountains, the way lies. He makes it.
I think of Caleb when he said, “Give me this mountain.” That is faith. Here was a mountain filled with Anakim—great giants—and all enemies, not one with a friendly face. Yet Caleb said, “Give me this mountain.”
Caleb was one of the two, with Joshua, who said, “Yes, there are giants in the land. Yes, there are cities walled up to heaven. But God will give them into our hands.” That mountain became Caleb’s inheritance forever. Today we call that place Hebron.
There is one other thing about mountains. Sometimes the Lord does not remove the mountain, but makes a way through it by changing you. I think of Habakkuk 3:
The Lord God is my strength,
And He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet,
And will make me to walk upon my high places.
Here you have a mountain that is not removed, but something happens to you. I always say that the trouble with most believers is that we have elephant feet. Elephant feet may be very good on the plain, but they are no good up on those craggy heights.
Have you seen these creatures? You hear a small noise of a pebble falling, look up, and see one standing on a little ledge. They have such feet that they can jump from ledge to ledge. They live in those places. Hinds’ feet.
Perhaps you say, “Thank you. I think I am only going to be able to walk.” Well, at least walk and do not faint. Maybe one or two of you can say, “By the grace of God, I will run.” All right, run and do not get weary. There is no need.
But if you can trust the Lord fully, He will give you wings as eagles. You will mount up with wings as eagles. The very thing that should destroy you will be the very thing that will make you.
Whatever the circumstance, relationship, or problem is, the very thing designed to destroy you will become the very thing that will make you. By the grace of God, it will be used to carry you into the very presence of the Lord—full-grown, complete, and an overcomer by His grace.
This is no easy thing. The Lord said, “He giveth power to the faint, and to him that hath no might He increaseth strength.” In order to know this mounting up with wings as eagles, you and I have to know a reduction, and that is no easy matter.
We have to know what it is for our own strength of character and will to be totally devastated, so that we might know the Lord as our power. As the Apostle Paul said:
When I am weak, then am I strong.
There is a cost attached to this. Would it not be lovely if we could simply say, “Anyone who wants wings as eagles, just bow your head, say, ‘Thank You, Lord,’ and it is yours”? No, no. That strength and power in you have to be brought to zero.
What does it mean to wait on the Lord? Sometimes people come to me and ask, “What does waiting on the Lord mean?” Think of it this way. It is a poor illustration, but it helps. When you go out for a meal, you have a waiter. What does the waiter do? In a good restaurant, he waits on you.
If you ask for your meat to be done in a certain way and it is done another way, you do not think much of the waiter. He waits on you. Normally, a waiter does not sit down. What would you think if a waiter took a chair, sat down beside you, watched you eat, and began to talk about politics?
You would wonder, “What is wrong with this man? What is he here for? Is he not supposed to be waiting on us?” Normally, a waiter stands. He stands near you. A good waiter watches and can almost tell intuitively whether you are happy or unhappy. He asks, “Is there anything I can do?” That is a waiter.
When we wait on the Lord, it is exactly the same spiritually. We are to be alert for the Lord, watching the Lord. We are to be ready to serve Him and minister to Him. That is waiting on the Lord.
Those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. The promise is to those who wait on the Lord—for servants of the Lord, ministers to the Lord. Those shall renew their strength.
But what does it mean to wait for the Lord? It means that you do not run ahead of Him. You do not go ahead of Him. You wait for the Lord.
This is the hardest of all—to wait for the Lord. We are all subject to this. We pray for someone and want to see them delivered of some bad habit, or we want to see them saved. Some of you parents want to see your children saved.
The trouble is that you try to wait for the Lord, and you pray and pray; then in the end you feel, “We have got to do something.” Then you move in, and boy, do you mess things up. Every time we move in, we mess things up, because we complicate the whole thing. We could not wait for the Lord.
We substitute for the inactivity of the Lord our own activity, and then we get into a problem.
The most important thing about waiting is the ability to hear. I was in Williamsburg a few weeks ago, and we had waiting on us a university graduate with degrees behind his name. He was making a little money by waiting. He was a good waiter.
You can have people with degrees after their names and titles before them, but they do not know how to wait, because that is not the thing that matters. What would you think of a waiter who was deaf? He takes your order, but he cannot hear.
He is so full of his own ideas about what would be good for you that he is writing down something else while you are saying what you want. The most important thing about a waiter is good hearing—the ability to hear.
That is why the Lord always speaks about ears. When the bondslave came to the master and said, “I want to be forever Your servant, Your bondslave,” what did the master do? He did not put a ring on his finger, or a bracelet on his wrist or ankle. He did not say that hands or feet were the most important things.
The Lord said, “Take him to the door, pierce his ear, and put a ring in it.” Why the ear? Because the Lord says, “What is the point of the feet? What is the point of the hand, if I do not have your ear? You have to hear Me.”
That is why, when the leper was cleansed, the blood came first on the ear, then on the thumb, then on the great toe. Then oil came on the ear, oil on the thumb, and oil on the big toe. First, you need to begin to hear the Lord—redeemed hearing. Then you need to know the Holy Spirit enabling you to hear what the Spirit is saying.
To wait on the Lord and to wait for the Lord, it is very important to be able to hear the Lord. May the Lord help us in this.
They that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings as eagles;
They shall run, and not be weary;
They shall walk, and not faint.
Beloved Lord, by Your grace and through Your power, help us to know something of this full experience—seated with Christ in heavenly places. Help us, Lord, to mount up with wings as eagles, so that all the barriers and obstacles which seem so immense to us become small in the light of Your presence, power, and grace.
Lord, we need You. We are living in days of enormous tension and very real antagonism toward the things of God and the people of God. We need You, Lord. We need that power of Yours and that grace of Yours.
So, Lord, we pray: make us servants of Yours in truth, as well as in position. Make us true servants of Yours. May we be those who wait on You and wait for You, and learn this wonderful secret of mounting up with wings as eagles, our strength renewed.
Lord, do it, we pray. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.