Stirring Up Your Nest

Excerpts from the Sermon by Lester Roloff

Most people spend their life building a nest down here and are afraid of having it disturbed. I was reading the Book of Job this morning. In 29:2, Job says, “Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me.” In other words, “I wish I were back in the good old days.” People talk about the good old days, but the days you live for Jesus are the only good old days you’ll ever have. Count all your other days wasted.

Job had said, “I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand” (Job 29:18). “I’m going to live a long time,” Job had thought to himself. “I’ve got my nest fixed, and I’m going to be comfortable, and I’m going to have a good time. I’ve got all the money I need. I have all the camels that I’m going to need. I’ve got plenty of servants, and so I’m going to build myself a nest. My years will be like the sands of the sea. I’m going to live a long time.” Yet it wasn’t very long until God stepped in and stirred up his nest.

Now remember this—God never stirs up your nest down here except to give you a better nest up there. I think everybody ought to have a nest, but it ought to be a spiritual nest. We just need the good spiritual security that is in Christ.

Turn to Deuteronomy 32:9. “For the Lord’s portion is His people.” God is interested in His family. He loves His children, and I think He’s looking forward to getting them all home one of these days. All of us ought to live homesick. Every one of us ought to be glad to get to go home. “For the Lord’s portion is His people. Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land.”

Do you know what happens in a desert? There is no water and no vegetation; there are famines and hard times in a desert—in a lonely place. He found Jacob in a desert land. Where did He find you?

A lot of you don’t know what I’m talking about because you live such sheltered lives. You’ve got your little feathers pulled right up over your eyes and ears, and you’re stretched out and saying, “I’m enjoying my nest.” You wait until your nest gets disturbed. You’ll howl to high heaven, “Why did the Lord treat me like this?” You ought to be treated like that. No man has a right to live in a nest of selfishness, a nest of pleasure-loving, a nest of just-the-things-of-the-world. If you belong to God, He’ll disturb your nest.

Deuteronomy 32:10 says, “He found him a desert land, and in a waste howling wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye.” Now, verse 11 will be our text: “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings.”

You talk about building a nest; an eagle can really build a nest. She’ll take the softest, nicest things of every kind, and she’ll build a nest, and then she’ll lay her eggs. Then after a while the little eaglets are hatched out, and then she begins to observe them. Oh, how wise she is! She’ll get ready to take off, and she’ll whisper something like this, “Y’all stay in this nest. I’ll be back. I’m going to the store. I’ve got to go get some provisions.”

Well, the little eaglets, probably a couple of them, just sit there, helpless as they can be. They can’t do anything. And they say, “Yes, Mother, we’ll be here when you get back.” So the old eagle stretches those wings and takes off down the runway. She soars into the air, and she turns those old eagle-eyes on and begins to look.

After a while she sees her prey for the day. She grabs it up and comes back. Day after day, she is taking care of those little eaglets.

One day, Momma says to her eaglets, “Have y’all ever stretched your wings? Stretch them, and see how long they are. Do them up and down, like this.” One morning, the little eaglets woke up, and one said, “Oh, I didn’t rest too well last night.” The other one said, “Me neither. Something was punching me, something sharp. That’s strange. It never has been that way before.” Look out. Somebody is stirring up their nest. The mother had been taking a few things out. The thorns were protruding, and it was making the little eaglets unhappy with their nest.

Can you imagine a mother disturbing the nest of her little children? But she was. One of them said, “I’m just kind of glad it’s gettin’ up time. I’ll tell you, that old nest just don’t appeal to me much anymore. I’m so tired of staying in that nest.”

The mother was looking at them, blinking her eyes and said, “Y’all stretch your wings some more.” They did, but they said, “Mother, don’t get any funny notions. We’re never going to fly across that place where you’re going. That’s the most dangerous thing ever. We just can’t imagine ever being able to fly like that, and we’re not going to take any chance on killing ourselves. We’re not going to do it.” She said, “Alright, y’all just exercise your wings a little, and Mother will be back after a while.”

They were out exercising their wings one day when the mother eagle came back and swooped down and made a little circle. She had been doing some acrobatic flying. She would go down and come up, and the little eaglets would say, “Boy, we wish we could fly like that. We guess we never will.” The mother thought to herself, “That’s what you think! If you are my eaglet, you’ll fly or die.”

So the mother swooped one of the eaglets off the ledge, “Aaaaah! Mother, how can you do that? I told you I couldn’t fly.” Down she went, heading toward the rocks and hollering till the mother swooped down under her just before she hit the rocks and said, “Get on my back, Honey.” They soared back up to the nest and came in for a sweet, soft landing. “Oh, Mother, you won’t ever do that again, will you? Oh, it scared me! You’re a terrible mother. Think about it. I could have gotten killed.”

The mother said, “An eagle is known, not by her beak or her feet, but by her wings, and you can either fly or you can die. I’m responsible to teach you to fly. Now get a good night’s rest.”

Day after day, the old mother would pick out one and sweep it off, and the other would stand there until one day, oh blessed day, that little eaglet directed its wings and began to lift up and soar. She said, “Mother, fly along close, but don’t bother me.” She began to fly through the air, and after she came in and made a landing on the old rock, the other little eaglet said, “Hmph, if you can do it, I can too!” And off he went, and oh, it wasn’t very long until the little eaglets would wake up in the morning and ask, “Mother, are you going to let us go with you today? We want to fly all the way across to the other mountain today. We want to help you catch rabbits and bring in the food.”

One day after a long, solo flight, the eaglet said, “You know, Mother, I’d rather fly than eat. It’s the joy of my life! Do you remember the first time you knocked me off that rock? I was so afraid.” “Yes, Honey, I remember,” the momma said. “I remember when my mother stirred up my nest also. The way I got you to fly was to stir up your nest.” “Mother, I want to ask you something. Did you take some of that good, soft padding out of our nest?” The mother smiled and said, “Yes, I knew that as long as you loved that nest you’d never get out and fly, and you’ll never get anything done in your nest. I had to get you out of the nest.”

I wish more mothers and dads would get their silly nest stirred up and begin to put their children first and teach them to soar into the heavenlies with Jesus. They will never be happy until they do. Most of our children in this generation have never learned to fly. This is the nest-stirring time, and we need to learn to fly for God.

We need soldiers! We need men and women who will build Christian homes and pray and get rid of the trash and the junk. Take out the garbage, and clean out the house, and let God use your home and your life. You will give an account to God for not teaching your children to fly.

I grew up on a farm and had about all the nest I wanted. I had no ambition. I really didn’t. But the Lord came in and stirred up my nest, and it scared me half to death. In fact, it just about made me sick. I was sick already of course, but it scared me. I had never offered a prayer in the church or anywhere else. I was not a man of prayer. I knew absolutely nothing about the Word of God. But when God stirred up my nest, it was a tremendous stirring.

I thank the Lord for that night when He stirred up my nest. He made me believe that if I didn’t preach, I wouldn’t live. I was scared to die, and I was scared to preach. You talk about stirring up my nest! When He got through with me, I didn’t have any nest left!

Thank you, Father, for the day that you stirred up our little, selfish nests—that You let the thorns protrude and made us unhappy and uncomfortable and miserable, living in an old, worldly nest. Lord Jesus, I know so many of the young people today have had a nest made out of worldliness and all the make-believe junk they could put in. But I’m so glad that You permitted them to be stirred up and got them out and gave them a vision of Jesus, the great Eagle Flyer. Oh, sweep us into Thy arms tonight, and have mercy on us. Meet the needs of all of Your children. Amen.