"Teaching God's Word to God's World"
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In your sermon on "Moses, an example in trial" I heard you say that eagles teach their young to fly. This is absolutely not true, but is just an illustration that preachers use. I think you should stop using that illustration.
Answer:
I have heard this complaint before, and so I quit using it, even though that is what the text says.
Since I am not an Ornthologist, I never should have avoided the illustration that God Himself gives. Here is the text:
Deuteronomy 32:1112, "11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: 12 [So] the LORD alone did lead him, and [there was] no strange god with him."
From the April 2001 National Geographic a reader wrote: "Critics claim that no bird actually performs this act: fledglings either learn to fly on their own or die trying." The April 2001 issue of National Geographic, however, has shown that the Biblical passage is entirely correct."
A reader submitted the following question:"Do eagles really assist their young in flight training?" The Research Correspondence Staff at the journal replied:
"Some offer a lift. Golden eagles, for example, have been known to swoop down under their flapping eaglets and fly upward with the eaglets on their backs before dumping them off and repeating the process (p.1)."
I guess the Lord knows more about birds than I or my listeners do. What a beautiful picture this is, and a real comfort to think about. God teaches us how to fly!!! Fledglings we are. But we can learn to mount up with eagles’ wings.
Isaiah 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."