Virginia Brandt Berg (1898-1968)
Meditation Moments 25:
Greetings and welcome again to Meditation Moments. Again we ask God's blessing upon you and yours and I trust that you're in the place and attitude of heart that God can bless you.
Sometimes in the past I've had to ask myself, am I where God can meet me? Am I on praying ground where I can truly expect God to answer my prayers? I believe He's so willing, and I do not say this lightly, I believe God's willing to answer prayers, to do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think, as His Word says, but there are conditions to be met!
A visiting friend was telling me of the hard place he had gotten into financially: that is, not able to collect much of what was due him. He was really murmuring about it. Then he added, "I do know God's able to prosper me and make Malachi 3:10 come true in my life. Malachi 3:10 says, "I will open you the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing there's not room enough to hold it."
Well, it took some courage for me to ask him then, "But have you fulfilled your part of that bargain? For you only quoted half of that Verse, it says, 'Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in My House, and prove Me now herewith saith the Lord of hosts.'" And then of course it goes on to say,
"I'll open the windows of Heaven and pour you out a blessing there will not be room enough to hold it!" Then his wife spoke up and said, "No, we haven't done our part. He always makes the excuse that the government got the part that he would have given to the Lord!" -- Well, all this doesn't change the verse any, does it?
It's there and it's true! It's God's Word and you can trust Him to utterly fulfill it. It is so because God said so!
He stands behind every promise in that Word with all His power. And that power enables Him to fulfill His Word and His Love makes Him yearn to give you the desires of your heart and His truth won't let Him fail His Word and His mercy stoops down to the level of your need.
I will not therefore minimize my prayer
But make it large as all the promises!
Since God is willing thus to bless,
No less an answer would I share!
Alas for my small faith
Compared with what He saith,
Therefore, hencewith shall prayer be heard
From me according to God's Word.
I will request as long as I shall live,
All God has shown His willingness to give,
As all the love and power His truth declares,
So faith shall make the measure of my prayers!
-- And you know that brings to mind that precious old song:
'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus
Just to take Him at His Word,
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know, 'Thus saith the Lord.'
'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just from sin and self to cease,
Just from Jesus simply taking
Life and rest and joy and peace.
Jesus Jesus, how I trust Him,
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er,
Jesus, precious Jesus,
O for grace to trust Him more!
-- From Hebrews 6:15 we read, "And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise." And I like this from Mountain Trailways:
"God's Word is as full of promises as the heavens are full of stars, and all of them are payable upon demand according to the conditions named. They are made freely and they are paid fully. Spurgeon calls a book of God's promises 'The Checkbook of the Bank of Faith'. We do not have checkbooks for an ornament or for meditation but for use!
"A promise of God is given to be presented and paid in full. The believer's capital for the King's business is all lodged in the Lord's treasury and the only way to secure it for use is to make daily drafts upon the unfailing supply.
"God writes no names upon these promises, only conditions upon which they will be honored. Put your name in, fulfill the conditions and draw upon God for all His promises! Now some promises are payable upon demand" -- now this fits in with our Scripture in Hebrews, "And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise --
"Some are payable upon demand, others are dated farther on. But a long long-term promise of God is as sure of payment as one payable on demand! Be sure of the time limitation of God's promises, and if delayed, look at your dates!" And then he makes this statement, "The possibilities of prayer are bounded by the promises of God." I want to repeat that:
"The possibilities of prayer are founded by the promises of God." -- You know I take God's Word literally and because of this I've sometimes had to stand out against leaders who try to spiritualize so many things in the Word of God. Just recently I was visiting with relatives in the church where the pastor was teaching the adult Sunday School class, and the lesson was from the Book of Genesis.
He began to tell us that this Verse didn't mean what it stated, and that Verse wasn't to be taken literally and the next Verse wasn't to be accepted as a fact, that it was only meant as a sort of a picture, just a picture, an underlying truth.
It was just the underlying truths of these Verses that count anyhow, not that they were just things that really happened! Soon I couldn't stand it any longer for the sake of strangers visiting there. I said to the pastor,
Well, my friend, just where do you draw the lines between what's to be taken literally and that which is not? How are we going to know what's to be spiritualized and what we're just to accept as a fact of truth? Well, he tried to answer but in the end he got so confused and then he said there wasn't any definite rule, that it just took "lots of wisdom and judgment."
I asked him, "Do the little children and very young in this church have that kind of wisdom and judgment that they can differentiate between that which is a fact and that which we are just not to take as any truth at all, but just a spiritual thought?" -- What do you think he answered? He said, "Of course, it's not the best to teach these things to young people."
I mention this because I want you to know that I take God's Word that it really happened, I take it literally. I'd love for you to read one of my books and then you'd know just how literally I take God's Word and how truly I believe all this.
I want to tell you about something that happened in a meeting where I spoke the other night in a congregational church. I was telling some of these things that I've been mentioning to you, but especially of the time when conviction first dawned on my soul that God could not, would not, fail His Word,
And I said over and over again, this is the Word of the Almighty God, it cannot fail, you can depend upon it. Put your fingers on the verse, some promise and say, It's so because God says so! -- you know how many times I've used that expression on these broadcasts!
Well, after the meeting a woman who had been a church member all her life came up to me and she said, "I've never thought of the Scripture in that way. But when you keep saying, "It's so because God said so," it seemed to startle me into sort of a spiritual alertness.
"And I saw that through the years, the Bible had never been real to me, never a vital thing to me! Just a sort of a teaching of some doctrine or creed, and a lot of lovely wise sayings, but I'd never known the Power of the Word, nor believed at all that It could bring to pass miracles!
"But since that meeting when you said those words over and over, 'It's so because God said so', those words have been ringing in my ears and, you know, I believe it now! I believe it's so because God said so!" Well, I had been telling those at the chapel that day where the woman heard this,
That when this realization came to me, it brought with it a lasting unshakable confidence in the Word of God, because at the time it came to me I was a total invalid, utterly helpless: given up by physicians!
But I had been newly born again and my husband had taught me just newly the way of faith. oh, how wonderful it was when I found out that Jesus Christ was the same yesterday today and forever! Now that was many years ago, but from that day I've never doubted the power of the Word of God!
John 6:63 says, "The Words I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life!" And when we come into this realization of the power there is in the Word of God, then we have hold of the truth that makes all things possible! -- And the "all things" came to pass with me! God answered prayer and raised me up and I've been over 45 years now in the work of the Lord.
Meditate on these Verses, "God is not a man that He should lie, neither the Son of Man that He should repent, hath He not said it and shall He not also do it! Or hath He spoken and shall He not make it good?" That's Numbers 23:19. And 1Kings 8:56, "There hath not failed one of all God's good promises!" And Psalm 89:33, "He will not suffer his faithfulness to fail!"
And to every listener He said, "I will not fail you" -- God grand that His Word will have a pre-eminent place in your life! When you're obedient to the Word His blessing will be poured out, when you yield yourself to His Word He'll guide your life daily and faith will spring invincible and you can shout triumphantly with this woman I told you about,
"It's so because God says so! What He has promised He is able also to perform!" -- God bless you and make it very real to you: He's still on the Throne and prayer will change things. Amen.