Virginia Brandt Berg (1898-1968)
God bless you indeed. This is Grandmother speaking and reading from God's Word, precious Verses of Scripture about this Rock of our Salvation. God's Word says here in Matthew 11:27 (Jesus speaking),
"All things are delivered unto Me of My Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
"Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls,
"For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." -- I want to repeat that last sentence, Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light. I'm just reminding some of these that write in about how very heavy their burdens are, that He has promised to take that upon Himself.
He's promised to take your heavy burden and lighten it and give you rest, in this passage of Scripture. you ought to read that over and perhaps even commit it to memory.
I was reading about a Christian blacksmith who had a great deal of affliction, and he was challenged by an unbeliever to account for the reason why a Christian should have such affliction. His explanation was this: I don't know that I can account for these things to your satisfaction, but I can to my own.
I am a blacksmith, and I often take a piece of iron and put it into the fire and bring it to a white heat. Then I put it on the anvil and strike it once or twice to see if it will take temper. If I think it will, I plunge it into the water and suddenly change the temperature. Then I put it in the fire again, and again I put it in the water. This I repeat several times.
Then I put it on the anvil and hammer it and beat it and rasp it and file it and make some useful article which will do service for many many years. If, however, when I first strike it on the anvil I find that it will not take tamper, I throw it into the scrap heap and I sell it at 1/2 penny a pound.
Now I believe my God and Father has been testing me to see if I will take temper. He's put me into the fire and into the water -- I've tried to bear this as patiently as I could, and my daily prayer has been, Lord put me into the fire if You will, put me into the water if You think I need it,
Do anything You please, only don't throw me into the scrap heap! -- You see, dearly beloved, those of you who have these burdens and testings and trials and afflictions, God is working with you, you're worth His working on! He considers you worthwhile. And this man continues this way:
Our life is like the dial of a clock. The hands are God's hands passing over and over again. The short hand is the hand of discipline, and the long hand is the hand of mercy.
Slowly and surely the hand of discipline must pass, and God speaks at each stroke, but over and over passes the hand of mercy, showing how there's 60-fold of blessing for each stroke of discipline and trial God gives.
Both hands are fastened to one secure point: the great unchanging heart of a God of love, fastened to the pivot of the solid Rock. You know, this little poem is such a blessing to my heart today:
"I cannot But God Can."
O balm for all my care,
The burden that I drop
His hand will lift and bear.
Though eagle pinion's tire
I walk where once I ran,
This is my strength: to know
I cannot, but God can.
I know not, But God knows,
O blessed rest from fear,
All my unfolding days
To him are plain and clear.
Each anxious puzzled, "Why?"
From doubt or dread that grows,
Finds answer in this thought,
I know not, but God knows.
I wonder sometimes if many of these burdens we carry are perhaps caused by our not carrying our side of the yoke I just read you about: My yoke is easy, my burden is light. But we're so sure the burden is heavy and the yoke is not light! Our Lord surely does not fail to carry His part of the yoke! In fact, He puts His shoulder under the heaviest end of the burden.
We want so much to have the promises fulfilled, but we don't look at both sides of the promise. You take the promise, "Delight thyself also in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart," in Psalm 37. We set our minds on the desire of our heart and keep mentioning that to Him, but what about our end of the promise?
What about our side of the yoke? "Delight thyself in the Lord? -- This is the condition of the fulfillment of that promise. Do you really delight yourself in the Lord? Or is it kind of drudgery, His work and His Will and reading His Word? So often we quote the promise:
"Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him and He will bring it to pass." -- Then we get our mind on how God's going to bring it to pass, and when will He bring it to pass, and we look at our faith to see if our faith is big enough to bring it to pass,
But we think very little about the words "commit" and "trust!" We don't commit it utterly to Him and go about our business with that sweet utter trust, and we don't take our side of the yoke: Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust in Him.
Let's read His precious promises over and note the provision, note our part of it. There's the precious promise, "No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." -- Then we concentrate on the many good things we desire, especially that thing of the present we're wanting so much, and our heart and mind may not be so much on our side of the yoke.
We're just thinking about God taking His side, but the "walking uprightly" is what we should fasten our attention upon.
Every promise in the Word has a condition, we've said that so many times! I want to repeat it again, Jesus says, "Take My yoke upon you," but we just don't want to do it, we want to have our way about it and we want Him to carry the whole share of the burden, and we're not even willing to keep our part of the contract. So often we hear the promise,
"All things work together for good," but no they don't, beloved, not for some people! That promise is only to those that love the Lord and who are called according to His purpose.
Do we put the emphasis where it belongs? The loving of God? Why, that's part of the first and great Commandment! And you can't expect all things to work for good if you don't love the Lord the God with all thy heart and soul. Then take this promise:
"Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." -- But we ask people to pray to have faith, and we try little tricks of the mind to encourage our believing, but God says it comes by reading His Word.
Read the Word of God and all these things will fall into line, and God will so bless your soul, and your life will become so rich in really deep spiritual things. He's still on the Throne and prayer will change things for you.