Learning to Fly on Eagle's Wings

Reading: Deut 32:9-11

DPTD from Dave Redick via the Internet

Introduction

The winter of 1940 was really hard

forJosephine Kuntz ("Coonz")

and her husband.

Usually he had work as a house painter

or a textile worker,

but that winter

he was totally out of work.

Because of the weather

he couldn't paint houses,

and because of a lay-off

at the textile mill,

there was no work there either.

They literally had no money.

To make matters worse, Rachel,

their 18 month old daughter,

was recovering from pneumonia,

and she wasn't doing very well.

The doctor told Josephine that Rachel

should eat a boiled egg every day,

but there was no money

to buy eggs.

A young friend asked "Why don't you pray for an egg?"

They were a church-going family,

but they'd never really prayed

about specific needs.

Josephine took the suggestion to heart.

She got on her knees,

she asked God

to somehow provide an egg each day

for her daughter.

Later that morning she heard a hen cackling

near the hedge in front of their house.

She looked out,

and there in the bare branches

was a fat red hen.

(By the way,

she said this as a true story.)

Josephine never saw that hen before

and had no idea where it came from.

She watched in amazement

when the hen flew down

laid an egg in the yard,

and then strutted off down the road.

What do you do

when such things happen?

You thank God,

and you fix breakfast!

The next day Josephine was surprised again

when she heard that red hen cackling

at the front hedge.

She said the hen came by

every day for over a week

and went through the same routine.

Each day little Rachel had a fresh boiled egg.

She grew stronger,

the weather improved,

and Josephine's husband went back to work.

She said, "The next morning I waited by the window

and watched,"

but the hen never came back again.

["The Little Red Hen." Josephine M. Kuntz,

SNOWFLAKES IN SEPTEMBER,

(Nashville: Dimensions for Living, 1992), pp 29-30.]

Now God gives blessings to everyone:

Matt 5:45 Jesus said

45 "...He causes His sun to rise

on the evil and the good,

and sends rain

on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Acts 17:25-28 Speaking of God in heaven:

25 ... He Himself gives to all

life and

breath and

all things;

[Verse 27 tells why:]

27 that they should seek God,

[then it adds]

though He is not far from each one of us;

[Finally, verse 28 adds]

28 ‘For we also are His offspring.’

Nonetheless, God takes special care of His own people

II Chronicles 16:9 “For the eyes of the Lord

move to and fro throughout the earth

that He may strongly support those

whose heart

is completely His.

The entire Old Testament is all about

how God worked for the good

of His people Israel,

those descended

from Abraham

and Isaac and Jacob

and the 12 tribes

that came from the 12 sons of Jacob.

God gave them special care,

because they were

His own inheritance

And so it is with God's people today

who live under the New Testament.

Turn to Deut 32:9-14 That's what our text is all about

9 For the Lord’s portion

is His people;

Jacob [or "Israel", God renamed him]

Jacob is the allotment

of His inheritance.

10 “He found him in a desert land,

And in the howling waste of a wilderness;

He encircled him,

He cared for him,

He guarded him

as the pupil of His eye.

[KJV: the apple of his eye]

11 “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,

That hovers over its young,

He spread His wings

and caught them,

He carried them

on His pinions.

12 “The Lord alone guided him,

And there was no foreign god with him.

13 “He made him ride

on the high places of the earth,

And he ate the produce of the field;

And He made him suck honey from the rock,

[a figure of speech, ]

[like the promised land was]

["a land flowing with milk and honey"]

And oil from the flinty rock,

14 Curds of cows,

and milk of the flock,

With fat of lambs,

And rams, the breed of Bashan,

and goats,

With the finest of the wheat—

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