SOARING LIKE AN EAGLE Isa 40:25-31

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SOARING LIKE AN EAGLEIsa 4025-31
Focus on verses 29-31

• Rev. Dr. Stephen Tee

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Introduction

• Isaiah 4031 is one of those
• famous,
• favorite

verse that is continuously preached
Why is this so? Most encouraging God promise to
the Israelites
Unfortunately
Always preached out of CONTEXT
Lost its the meaning what God intended
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The immediate context is Isaiah 4027-30.
Isaiah 4025-30 gives the understanding of the
context of this passage

• V25 God Himself asks a rhetorical question.
• Why? Israel questioned God power because
• they were in captivity.
• They think that the gentile God is greater.
• If you are so great how come we are in captivity.
• Verse 26 God says, hay, lift your eyes
• there is no one like Him!
• God identifies Himself as the Holy One,
• He is indescribably superior to all so called
  gods

• None is His equal!

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God has just testified to His might
and power in v25 and v26 to
convince Israel that there is no
God like Him V27 Now Isaiah is addressing Jacob
and...Israel Why Jacob and Israel? This
prophecy possibly uttered prior to the Assyrian
conquest of the Northern Kingdom (722BC) and
certainly before Babylonian conquest of the
Southern Kingdom (586BC) Jacob and...Israel
could be directed at both the Northern and
Southern kingdoms who were in captivity in
Babylon.
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Israel felt God has abandoned them. Isaiah
comforted them that God is not ignorant of their
condition.
V28 Isaiah reminded the Israelites of who their
God is by asking some questions.
Why Is this necessary?
Because of the exile, the Israelites was
despondent and dis-spirited.
Have you not known and heard of the Lord? 1.
Through Moses
2. Through Joshua

• Dont you know that God does not-
• faint

• grow weary

• does not lack understanding

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• V28 God declares that He is the
• Creator and
• Sustainer

of everything by virtue of His great might and
power

• The heavenly host exists and moves, not
• simply by natural laws.
• He knows the name of each star in the universe
• The Son of God is Himself the sustaining
• Center,
• Upholder
• and Controller

All things that exists
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• Because of their long exile, the
• Israelites were
• disillusioned
• discouraged
• downcast
• dis-spirited
• despondence
• They doubted Gods ability and power.
• They thought God has abandoned them.
• Hence God moved Isaiah to prophesy words of
• encouragement and comfort in v28-31

With their God
God of Gentile Greater than their God.
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• Believers too when pressured with
• great adversities
• disappointments
• discouragement
• disillusion

Response the same way
V28 Isaiah asked two rhetorical
questions. Purpose - stirred the Israelites to
remembrance God's character.

• Creator
• Does not faint

• Does not grow weary
• Omniscience

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Wonderful Promises
Isa 4029 He giveth power to the faint and to
them that have no might he increaseth strength.

• Faint also means
• weary
• exhausted

especially emotionally and spiritually
When one is in this condition, we need power.
The Israelites after a prolonged exile were in
this condition.
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Wonderful Promises

• Isaiah reminded the Israelites Not to
• Focus inward (themselves),
• Focus outward (others)
• Focus upward (Godward)

God is the source of their power

• Power - 381 (koah/koach) means
• strength
• ability
• capacity

speaks of power to act and ability perform some
function.
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Wonderful Promises
Isa 4030 Even the youths shall faint and be
weary, and the young men shall utterly fall Isa
4031 But they that wait upon the LORD shall
renew their strength they shall mount up with
wings as eagles they shall run, and not be
weary and they shall walk, and not faint.
Contrast between v30 and v31
Waiter of God
youth and young men
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Wonderful Promises
youth and young men
Live in their natural strength
Contrast
Waiter of God

• Lives in God's
• untiring,
• unwearying.

Supernatural strength
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Wonderful Promises
Isa 4031 But they that wait upon the LORD
shall renew their strength they shall mount up
with wings as eagles they shall run, and not be
weary and they shall walk, and not faint.
Promise Not for everyone Only to those who wait
upon the Lord Wait 6960 (qavah) means
Basic idea is to wait for or look for with eager
expectation.  

• to hope for
• to look eagerly for
• linger for

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Wonderful Promises

• Wait (qavah) includes-
• hope
• patience

• resting (trusting)

• wait does not suggest that we
• sit around

• and do nothing

This involves meditation
1. On His character 2. His promises, 3. Praying.
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Wonderful Promises
Everything comes to the believer who can
wait. Waiting is the key to possession of all
Gods promises. Greatest challenger to believers
is waiting.

• Many believers failed to possess their promise.
• because they lack patience.
• Example life of Abraham
• Heb 612

• Heb 1235-36

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Wonderful Promises

• Wait upon (qavah) is
• imperative mood not a suggestion
• but a command.
• present imperative lifestyle or
• continual habit/practice
• One of the most difficult aspects of the
• Christian life is waiting on God.
• It is especially difficult in the midst of trials
  
• because believers expect instant deliverance

4 Promises

1. Renew strength
2. Mount up as eagles

3. Run and not be weary 4. Walk and not faint
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Wonderful Promises
Exchanging Natural Strength For Supernatural
Strength

• Wait upon who? Not men But the Lord
• The result or effects Renew their strength
• Renew (2498) chalap. Meaning
• to substitute
• to exchange (taking off old clothes
• putting on new clothes.
• "taking off" our weakness and
• exchanging them for Gods strength.

• to change for the better

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Wonderful Promises
Strength - koah

• strength

• capacity

• ability

SUPERNATURAL FLYING
They will mount up with wings like eagles

• Mount up (5927) alah. Meaning
• to ascend
• to rise
• Describe life moving from a lower
• to a higher plane.

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Wonderful Promises

• Wings (803) - (eber) means
• 1. pinions (the terminal section of a
• birds wing including the carpus, metacarpus,
• and phalanges)
• 2. put forth fresh feathers (Jamieson)
• To mount up with wings as eagles to rise above
• difficulties,
• challenges

• trials
• adversities,

• infirmities
• circumstances

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Wonderful Promises
Presents a beautiful picture of an eagle
spreading its magnificent wings that it might
take advantage of the updraft and glide almost
effortlessly through the sky

• In the figurative sense, a believer is uplifted
• physically,
• emotionally
• and/or spiritually.

By Gods strength Or power Eph 320
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Wonderful Promises

• Why did God choose an Eagles (5404) (nesher)
• and not a chicken to represent a believers life.
• Nature of eagles, it is noted for their
• size
• grace
• strength,

• speed,
• long feathers,
• powers of flight

• keenness of vision,

• majestic

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Wonderful Promises

• Eagle
• mounts to a lofty height, untired and undazzled
• soaring even above the fogs and mists of the
  
• lower regions of the air,
• soaring above the very clouds, undeterred
• by the lightning, wind turbulence and floating
  in
• the pure azure above!

That is what believers are. Do we believe?
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Wonderful Promises
Metaphor of an Athlete in Scripture

• They shall run (rus) means
• to hasten,
• move very quickly

• to make haste by running

• Isaiah is referring to running in a figurative
  sense
• using a metaphor taken from runners in a race,
• who exert themselves, who strive hard
• and who spend their strength performing
• or attaining some goal

Their goal was returning to Jerusalem through the
valleys and up the mountain. Needed strength.
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Wonderful Promises

• Note not be weary
• Not (3803) - lo describes factual negation.
• Meaning those who walk in God's power,
• they shall absolutely not get weary.
• Get tired (3021) (yaga') means
• to labor or toil and then to be weary,
• grow tired or be in need of rest

because of either physical or emotional needs.
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Wonderful Promises

• Note that this pair of Hebrew verbs
• (faint..weary) are used three times
• (Is 4028,30,31) clearly indicating a
  relationship.
• Isaiah describes the vigor (strength) of youths
• and young men cannot compare with God's
• untiring strength
• unwearying strength

(Isa 4028)
God...does not become weary or tired.
God strength will not fail in the storms and
demands of life.
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Wonderful Promises
Supernatural Walking
They will walk and not become weary

• walk (1980) (halak) is the common Hebrew verb
• for walk
• or travel from one place to another.
• Clearly in context, Isaiah uses halak as a
• metaphor because walking pictures our daily
• conduct
• or behavior
• or response

In the affairs of life
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Wonderful Promises

• walk (present imperative) meaning
• not a suggestion
• but a command

to make this our continual or habitual practice

• Not faint (3289) - ya'aph.
• Means to grow
• tired
• or faint.

as from physical exhaustion
Again referring to Israel arduous and tiring
return to Jerusalem from Babylon
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Wonderful Promises
Conclusion

• When one is
• at the lowest,
• burden by seemly impossible situation
• bewildered by the darkness.

• confounded by obstacles,

God uses the dark experiences of our life to
develop our spiritual dependency on Him. Paul
understood this secret. Gods strength is
manifested in our weakness.
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Wonderful Promises

• The Lord will sometimes takes us
• to Babylon, where we feel
• oppressed,
• This is how He is forming us into the man
• or woman he wants us to be.
• In the darkness of circumstances, He
• transforms believers from chicken to eagle.

• and closed in

• constricted

God desires you and I to soar like the eagle with
His strength above the storm and lightning of
our adversities.