Virginia Brandt Berg (1898-1968)
In the still of the night
Jesus comes to me.
As I listened
He whispered so tenderly,
Mourn thou not
for the day now gone,
Fear thou not
for the coming dawn.
So I rolled every care
on His gentle breast,
And there came to my spirit
a hallowed rest.
With Jesus near
I had no fear,
In the still of the night.
We had been on a tour and working for the Lord, and there was one thing that I particularly noticed on this tour, in places that I went, where I hadn't been for years. The Verse of Scripture that you find over in Galatians chapter 6, Verse 7:
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." You know, places where I had gone years ago, that I saw that they were failing God, and they were giving more time to things not essential and the things that were materialistic. I went back to visit some of these places and I saw how the reaping had surely come. How that they were now reaping from the lack of spiritual things, and there were problems in the home.
And then on the other hand, I visited a home up in Sacramento where we had stayed during a revival meeting years ago, and this dear family where we were guests -- they had had the little prayer meeting in their home -- had invited all the folks there, and that was the benign of a church that's there now, and their children are in the Lord's work. One young man was singing so beautifully in the choir, and the other working for the Lord, and all the children saved and true to God and really dedicated to the cause of Christ. And I thought how wonderful that those parents were reaping from that early teaching they gave. And while they sacrificed so much to have that home of theirs open to the outside and to those prayer meetings, that the children were getting the benefit of the Gospel and now the reaping time had come. And they were having this blessed experience of seeing their children all so devoted to the Lord's work.
And then I was also involved in the work amongst young people that were picked up off of the skid ways. In San Francisco I spoke one day, in an audience there, there were only about perhaps 50, 60 or 70 people in the audience but in that very group there were 10 narcotic addicts under the age of 16, and four prostitutes under the age of 14. These Christian workers had gone out on the streets and picked up these boys and girls and brought them in. This was their particular work.
And as I heard the stories from the lips of some of these boys and girls and how they had come from broken homes, or how their parents were drunkards and there had been such a lack of God in their home, and here was the reaping in these young lives. Oh, surely it's true that if you sow to the flesh you shall of the flesh reap corruption, if you sow to the spirit you shall reap life eternal and you are gonna reap eternal things.
And all the way on the trip this thought kept coming to me, how true God's Word is. You know that everything you do comes back sometimes, somewhere, even every word you fling out comes back someday, and I think sometimes even our thoughts come back upon us -- thoughts are things after all.
It seemed uncanny sometimes as I traveled about to see how the law of sowing and reaping works and how surely God fulfilled that Word. That's the way of the law of spiritual gravity, just so the law of retribution is fixed as surely as that. Whatsoever man casts out, it returns again on his own life. If he throws out in the world a little kindness, it returns after many years as a blessing. If he casts forth a curse, it comes back to him a greater curse.
I saw in El Waco, Texas in our home there, a wonderful mother who had prayed for years for her children. And they had slipped away, some of them, into dark paths once and awhile, here and there, but she kept praying so earnestly for them. And now, as I visited there, she was telling me how gradually each one had come back. "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Pro.22:6), God's Word says. And here I saw it truly come to pass there in that home. She kept talking about the wonderful children she had and how they cared for her. Well, my reaping may come one way and yours will come another, but as surely as we live, whatever we do comes back to us.
I visited a historian in the North, a college man, a university man, just super educated, and during the days of War he had slipped away from God. He had had wonderful Christian training but he had turned his back upon the Lord for awhile. And now he was having the reaping, there had been years that he hadn't been as he should have been and hadn't walked with God. And there he was, he had just lost everything. He'd lost his family. He had lost his business. He'd failed in business and there was such a sadness about him, his eyes had such a story to tell.
Well, it's just the same, dear beloved, on the other side of the picture, where one so truly garnered, one really lives in the Word and one testifies and witnesses for the Lord. Oh, what a precious reaping there is.
I traveled for awhile, most of the trip, with my son's family in a big cruiser, and some of you who are listening know him, and he has brought up those children to witness for the Lord. And they are wonderful Christians, everyone of them. It is just a joy to be with them. They were happy all the time and would break out in singing, and were always praising the Lord. It was really a wonderful experience to be with such a group.
But the reason those children are that way is because the parents, years ago, spent much time teaching them the Word of God. Sometimes their father would take entire evenings, I've known him to, week after week, take evenings giving all of himself in the Bible study to those children. And no wonder now they are witnessing Christians and that they are giving of themselves to the Lord, every one of them really dedicated, consecrated Christians.
And then I noticed that someone here to whom I had spoken kindly, I had given Scriptures, I had dealt with them years ago and how that came back to my own heart. Now isn't that wonderful? That we are able to be so encouraged and how we can have such joy as this that when we fling out the Word to them and comfort hearts, that it comes back upon our own lives with God's blessing and the sweetness in hearing them say, "You were a help to me, you were a blessing to me when I needed help most." Kind words spoken years ago gather momentum in your life and perhaps today you are reaping love and gratitude from what you sowed years ago.
Well, I noticed that when the parent is irritable, impatient and is unkind and so very critical of a child, why, they get back from the child irritability and impatience. It is the seed that the mother and the father sowed and they are getting the reaping.
I met a young man on a trip that I had known years ago, who had had some faith in God but he had lost faith. And I talked to him and he told me that he began to lose faith when he began to read the type of literature his father had kept in the house, a type which led only to the loss of his faith in everything. You know, that is pitiful that a parent will keep that kind of literature around the house so that the young person could get a hold of it. And now the father is heartbroken because the young man has become an unbeliever.
And in those meetings I talked about there, where they'd picked these young people up off the street, I talked to a young girl with a reckless, independent spirit. She had continually been playing near the danger line and with companions that were out even late at night and on joy rides and now she had been picked up by the police. There was such a horror when there was retribution in that life. And all those things had gathered momentum and they had come back upon her now, and her little white face showed how surely the reaping that God had spoken of had come home to that heart. And then she confessed that often her mother would leave her just with a baby-sitter and would go to some bar.
You know beloved, God's Word never fails. God's Word is true. And I don't know any better way to close this thought than with this, reading this passage from God's Word. Every single Verse here could be a sermon in itself. It is the 6th chapter of Galatians, from which we took the Verse we are talking about.
"Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness: considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden. Let him that is taught in the Word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."
Oh, if we could only see the future and see what a reaping will come and how surely God's Word will be fulfilled in this law of reaping, this law of retribution, how careful we would be about what we say, what we do, and whether we live with God and whether we walk with Him. God bless you. He's still on the Throne. Prayer does change things.