The Eagle Christian: His Faith His Family His Foes

By Harold O'Chester

On Thanksgiving Eve, November 1955, I regained consciousness in a hospital in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I was aching all over after a horrifying car wreck. When I asked about my family, I was told they had gone to be with the Lord--my wife, two children, and an unborn child. My first response was to say, "Let me die too." My second response was "Why did God do this?" An old preacher said to me, "Young preacher, you're going to have to wait on the Lord." As I studied the Bible for "wait," I came to Isaiah 40:31. It became my life's verse.

"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; they shall walk, and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31).

When I took a strong stand against the burning of seven Black churches in our county by the KKK, again I had to wait. They took a contract out on my life in 1968. I was under FBI protection for eighty nights.

To soar like eagles is the goal of every Christian according to the Bible. Eagles, bold in nature, majestic in all they do, relentless in endurance and, above all things, breathtaking in flight--and we are to be like them. Wow!

Of all the birds God created, the eagle is perhaps the most fascinating. The eagle must exercise the wisdom God has given to him as he chooses a mate, disciplines his children, and fights the many natural foes of his life. It is not coincidence that God would liken his believers to such an amazing creature. Riding lofty thermals to the heavenly heights, how can it be that we were also meant to soar on the wings of faith, prayer, and praise to greater heights of spirituality?

Come with this author and take a journey into the mighty eagles' domain, leaving the plains of spiritual mediocrity behind. Come learn what it means to soar with eagles, renewing strength, and being all God desires you to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638749462

Book preview

cover.jpg

The Eagle Christian

His Faith His Family His Foes

Harold Oand#39;Chester

ISBN 978-1-63874-945-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63874-946-2 (digital)

Copyright © 2021 by Harold O’Chester

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

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.

—Isaiah 40:31

I was blessed beyond measure to be the pastor of a number of churches first in the state of Mississippi and finally in Austin, Texas. Serving these churches was by far the highlight of my life; however, in my final years in the ministry, I was the pastor of the Allandale Baptist Church which after a move of five miles became the Great Hills Baptist Church.

It was in the latter church that I preached these messages on eagles. For the privilege of being the pastor there for thirty-four years, I am grateful. I, therefore, dedicate these messages to the chosen ones who heard them first, of the most inspirational person to me along the pathway of life. I wish you knew her like I know her. To Barbara Jean O’Chester, I owe you more than I could ever repay. I love you until the end.

Acknowledgments

This book could not have been produced at the age of ninety-four without the help of many. It came about simply because of all the more than twelve thousand sermons I’ve preached over my sixty-five years in the ministry. The series of sermons I preached on eagles became the most requested of all the cassettes produced through our church’s television ministry.

One man in our church invested $2,000.00 in copies of these cassettes and sent them to all the franchise owners in his company. Of course, the ardent desire of my wife of more than sixty-four years was the greatest encouragement of all the people.

Among others was Larry Cates, former deacon and beloved brother in the Lord Jesus. He either did not want me to get lazy in my retirement or he simply wanted to encourage me…but it worked, and I am grateful to him.

I met with the godly wife of a pastor in our city who had a reputation as an editor of new books, and I hired her to edit this book. She is a perfectionist and it shows in this book. I need to change only a few things from her initial edit. Thank you, Camille Minor, for your dedicated work.

To the staff at the Christian Faith Publishing Company, I am deeply in debt for bringing this book to completion. I had written six other books on my own, but this was a new experience, and Brenda was very helpful.

While I was writing this book, I had to go through four different surgeries. My three daughters, Jennifer, Shannon, and Kathleen, prayed for all that was happening to me during this process and God saw me through.

I have tried to be as factual about this remarkable bird as I could be and used as much descriptive prose that I could find to help me. I do hope this book will encourage you to be a Christian eagle.

Introduction

To soar like eagles is the goal of every Christian, according to the Bible. Eagles, bold in nature, majestic in all they do, relentless in endurance and, above all things, breathtaking in flight—and we are to be like them. Wow!

Of all the birds God created, the eagle is perhaps the most fascinating. It is not coincidence that God would liken His believers to such an amazing creature. Riding lofty thermals to the heavenly heights, how can it be that we were also meant to soar on the wings of faith, prayer, and praise to greater heights spiritually?

Come with me and take a journey into the mighty eagles’ domain, leaving the plains of spiritual mediocrity behind. Come learn what it means to soar with eagles, renewing strength and being all God desires you to be.

1

Consider the Eagles

Many years ago, after I lost my wife and two children in an automobile accident, I obviously had many questions. You cannot go through an experience like that without asking some very pertinent questions.

I pointed out my questions to God: Had I not surrendered to the Lord, and had I not quit my job and sold my house and furniture, put everything else in my car and gone off to school?

I was telling the Lord that it didn’t seem fair that He allowed my family to be taken from me.

While in the hospital recuperating from my own injuries, an old country preacher in Mississippi came to see me, and I asked him what I was asking everyone.

He said, Young preacher, you just have to wait on the Lord…just wait on the Lord.

Later I realized that he was simply telling me that probably by and by, the answer would come, but just not now. Until that time, I had to wait on the Lord. In the next few days, I began reading the Bible, looking up the word wait, and I found it prominently in the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah said in 40:31, "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."

God is the creator of all things, and as Creator, He wants to utilize every resource available to reveal Himself to mankind. How in the world would we ever be able to understand the concept of God? He is a spirit, and we have never seen a spirit, touched a spirit, or tasted a spirit.

God made Himself plain through His creations. His nature, precepts, principles, and attributes can all be seen in the metaphors and word pictures He gives us in the Bible. He uses things in nature to reveal Himself or some aspect of His character in His dealings with us.

I remember watching a bald eagle soaring in flight in Wyoming. And as I looked at the eagle soaring effortlessly through the open skies, commanding respect from all who looked on, God began to reveal Himself to me.

It’s hard to imagine how anyone can look at the magnificence of this universe and come anywhere close to believing the theory that this world began as a speck, which developed while floating through time.

Others believe in a dynamic explosion, sometimes called the big bang, in which every star, galaxy, and celestial body fell into place perfectly and just happened to end up with the exact number of miles apart they needed to be. Whoa, Nellie! If you believe that, I’ve got some swampland to sell to you!

Chance, some say, is the cause of everything. It just happened.

Some say that every animal in existence (including man) evolved from a single-celled amoeba. However, when I look at man and see how divinely and fitly he is made, it amazes me that anyone could fall for that stuff.

Think with me about it for a moment. If man really did evolve over millions of years from an amoeba or from some other species of animal, then with all the years that have passed, wouldn’t at least some kind of evidence of evolution between species have been found by now? But it hasn’t!

Beloved, mankind stands alone. The Bible simply says that man was created by God, in God’s image and in His likeness. And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26).

God reveals Himself to all of us through the wonders of His creation. Time and again, He reveals Himself or some divine truth concerning a principle that would govern man. For example, in the Bible, God speaks of gold and silver to illustrate His purity, His holiness, and His beauty. He uses the refining process of these elements to demonstrate to us how and what He desires to perform and to do in our lives.

Zechariah 13:9 says, "I will bring the one-third through the fire. I will refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested."

We may wonder why God would try to reveal Himself to us in this way, until we remember that we are dealing with God, the Inscrutable One. Who can really know Him?

This is His intense desire, that we come to truly know Him, not just personally but as much as is humanly possible to know and to understand Him—His characteristics, His attributes, the way God thinks, and the way He acts. The more we learn about God, the more of God we are going to be able to utilize in our own lives.

The answer to that question is seen in Romans 1:20, "For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

This is the only answer to the question concerning how people across our world who have never heard about Jesus can become godly. God is saying in this verse in Romans, I have given them my creation. If they truly want to know me, they can find me.

So when the Bible says that God set forth to create, and He created every winged bird and ultimately