The Seat of the Scornful

By Virginia Brandt Berg (1886-1968)

Audio length: 7:55
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Every morning before I get up, I review Psalm 23. Then I say the Lord’s Prayer. Then I always read Psalm 1, and chapters 11 and 12 of Hebrews. I go through quite a few scriptures that bless my heart and help to prepare me for the day. But now I want to read you Psalm 1. I think many of you may know it or perhaps you memorized it long ago.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

“Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” You know, in so many places today there’s a scorning of the things of Christ, and it seems like nothing is sacred anymore. So much of the news is slanted toward modernism and communism (atheism). And some of the leaders that we expected so much from, it seems as if they’re not on the side of Christ.

I can understand why some people do not want to be outspoken for the Lord Jesus Christ. They come to a place where they are fearful. They don’t themselves sit in the seat of the scornful, but they’re afraid of these scornful ones and those that will ridicule them, or they’re afraid of the repercussions that could impact their career or reputation.

Some of the greatest people in history have been scorned for their stand. There is a lot of criticism these days, and it does make it hard for people to testify and to witness about the power and blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ.

True, every Christian who strives to faithfully bear witness for his Lord is going to pay dearly for his courage and his fidelity. Peter declared long ago, “Know this, there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (2 Peter 3:3; 1 Peter 5:8).

Now the paths of service are crimson with the blood of suffering. Hearts have been broken and hopes have been dashed and souls are needlessly wounded by thoughtless, cruel people who are willing to occupy front seats among the scornful. These people sit on the seat of the scornful and jeer at God’s people and make it hard for them to testify or witness about the things of Christ. I love those words in the psalm: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (Psalm 1:1).

It was the same, though, for the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a hero of the multitude, but when the curtain came down on His ministry, men of religious bigotry and political malice unsheathed the sword of hatred, and at His arrest, His disciples fled for their lives. At the cross there was but one of His chosen disciples who dared to stand by.

You know, Paul was the heart of the early church. You remember that in his hour of direst need, he said: “Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world and has departed … and Crescens is gone,” and “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. … At my last trial no man stood with me. All men forsook me” (2 Timothy 4:10, 14, 16). Paul’s friends were not able to face the lions and the swords of fire and martyrdom. They clung tenaciously to their seat among the scornful.

This occurs in our time also. I had an experience along this line. A young woman had been greatly blessed; God had healed her marvelously, and she went to tell someone about it. She said, “Oh, I had the most marvelous doctor, and he did such a wonderful work.” Then she added in a whisper, “Of course, the Lord helped a little.”

I turned to her, and I said, “You did have a good doctor, but you’ve got a very jealous God; and the Lord healed you through the prayers of all your friends, and I prayed for you desperately. True, the doctor did help some, but the Lord did the work.” It seemed she was ashamed of this.

A friend complained of the blasphemy of a certain program, and I said, “Did you write in or protest?” She said, “Oh, goodness no! They would’ve published my name and my letter.” I responded, “Well, those that stand against Christ and the things that you believe, they don’t mind having their names published.”

One time a Christian woman and I were sitting in the Southern Pacific train. A conversation between three people took on a vitriolic tone toward the Bible and Christ. She couldn’t stand it any longer and she got up and left. She never said one word of protest or gave any witness of her faith before those people.

There’s something tragic when we’ve got so much to witness about, but we let those that sit in the seat of the scornful put fear into us. It’s an awful thing when we have such a wonderful Lord, and there can be such transformation in others’ lives, and yet we don’t tell people about the balm that there is in Gilead. We used to sing a hymn in Sunday school:

Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone.
Dare to have a purpose true,
And dare to make it known.
—Phillip Bliss, 1872

Oh, I wish that some unsaved one listening in right now would have the courage to trust God for salvation and then help us stand out for His truth. Declare your allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ right now. Do you have the courage to do that? What a changed life you would have. What a witness you could be for the truth and the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God help you to have courage to stand out for the cause of Christ in this dark day. It’s needed so very much, and surely you owe the Lord Jesus Christ that much loyalty that you’ll not listen to the scornful or sit anywhere near the seat of the scornful. God help you to have the courage to speak for Him.

From a transcript of a Meditation Moments broadcast, adapted. Published on Anchor March 2026. Read by Lenore Welsh.

https://anchor.tfionline.com/post/the-seat-of-the-scornful/?=

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Lessons from the Cross

Audio length: 6:54
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Virginia Brandt Berg

As we near Good Friday, we remember the cross of Christ. In Luke 23, the 34th verse, we find these words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

So many of Jesus’ expressions from the cross were expressions of His wonderful love. He prayed for His enemies when He said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” in the hour of their triumph over Him, and in the midst of the shame and suffering that they delighted in showering on Him. Yet He poured out His love in prayer for them. I think that is a call to everyone who believes in the crucified Christ to do likewise. Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

Then the next expression of love from the cross: “Woman, behold thy son,” and [to John], “Behold thy mother.” The very same love that cared for His enemies cared for His friends. Jesus knew just what the anguish must be in the heart of His widowed mother, and He committed her to the care of the beloved disciple John. Even so, we who are disciples of Christ must not only pray for our enemies, but also prove our love by loving those who are around us.

Then we read about the thief who was hanging next to Jesus who said, “We are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  And Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (See Luke 23:41–43.) Jesus was demonstrating His love for the penitent thief. He had appealed to Christ’s mercy to remember him, and what an immediate answer he got to his appeal!

So whether it was the love that prays for enemies, or the love that cares for friends, or the love that rejoices over a penitent sinner, Christ proved that the cross was a cross of love, and the crucified One is the very embodiment of love that surpasses all knowledge. (See Ephesians 3:17–19.)

With every thought we have of what we owe to that love of the cross, I pray that God will help us prove that the mind of the crucified Christ is our mind, that His love is not only what we trust in for ourselves, but what guides us in loving others and our loving interaction with the world around us.

I lived for some time once with a person who was perfect in her social graces and read the Bible continually and was perfect in church attendance. But her life was like an icicle of coldness. There had been resentment there, and that resentment had turned into a lifelong grudge against a certain person. It just seemed to drain the love and joy out of her life.

So often when I think of that person, it reminds me of the little boy who was in the orphans’ home, and some very wealthy people came to take him home because it had been decided that he could go with them. They began to tell him of what he would have, what would be his possessions in their beautiful big house, and how someday he was going to have a real live pony, and how they would get him a watch that was his very own when he became a teen, etc. But his little heart was hungry for just one thing. When they got through with the possessions that they would give him and what they were going to do for him, he looked up with appealing eyes and said, “Can you spare a little bit of loving?”

I used to think of this when with that particular woman, as I had to abide in her home for a while. “Oh, can’t you spare just a little bit of loving?”—Because I was going through a great trial myself at that time.

Human love has weaknesses, but Christian love is divine, it is God-given. Romans 5:5 says, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” And 1 Peter 3:8 says: “Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” A divine brotherly love will bind Christians in a solidly united family. Jude 1:21 says, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.”

As long as Christians walk in love, they will enjoy fellowship with their heavenly Father. But Satan has many tricks, and he tries so hard to draw a Christian outside the bounds of love, and he will do it if he possibly can.

If you want to grow spiritually, walk in love and continually try to practice the love of Christ that is in your heart. But when a Christian starts to criticize and loses his loving spirit, he stops growing, for he is no longer walking in love.

A Christian needs to watch and pray. Not watch and criticize, but watch and pray! Beloved, those who do wrong don’t need criticism; they need prayer and lots and lots of love. God’s Word says in Romans 12:10, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”

In Hebrews 10:24 God’s Word says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” And may I just add this: That love begets love. One person walking in love will encourage others to do likewise. It’s such a catching thing, the love of Christ in action, and it spreads from heart to heart.

God’s Word says in 1 Peter 4:8, “Above all things, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” Love doesn’t talk about the mistakes of others. This scripture tells us that love covers with a veil of silence the mistakes of others.

God bless you as Good Friday approaches and you think about Jesus Christ, who manifested such love from the cross.

From a transcript of a Meditation Moments broadcast, adapted. Published on Anchor April 2025. Read by Lenore Welsh https://anchor.tfionline.com/post/lessons-from-the-cross/

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Heavenly Citzenship

 

1970-01-02

Virginia Brandt Berg

10:44

10:50

Downloads:  Heavenly Citizenship.mp3

I am a stranger here, within a foreign land;
My home is far away, upon a golden strand;
Ambassador-to-be of realms beyond the sea,
I’m here on business for my King.

—From "The King's Business," by E. Taylor Cassel, 1902

Greetings again in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord bless you and make you a blessing.

You know, our citizenship isn’t here. There is such a wonderful scripture about this that I want to read to you, it’s in the third chapter of Philippians. I wish we could just read the whole chapter, it’s such a wonderful chapter. God’s Word says, “But what things were gain to me, these I counted loss for Christ.” Paul was saying that all things were just nothing, he counted them loss! They weren’t worth anything compared to what he received in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.

If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.—Philippians 3:8–11

Now we go on to the portion that I especially want to talk about this morning, skipping a few verses here, because we don’t have time. And he said:

Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, and whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

Now let’s mark that sentence, because we are going to say something about that:

“Who mind earthly things, for our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”—Philippians 3:17–21

Now in 2 Timothy 2:3 and 4 we find also these words: “Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. For no man that wars entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” So you see, the Word tells us that no good Christian soldier entangles himself in the affairs of this life.

I think perhaps I mentioned one time on this program that I did not have my citizenship in this country, because I had married a Swede who had been born in Sweden, and who didn’t have his citizenship. If they only knew, he was such a wonderful man of God. It was during the days of the war, and if you married one who was an alien, you became an alien! Well, my people had been born in this country, my great-grandparents and all.

Yet that made an alien of me, and every month I had to send in where I was and account for myself because I was “an alien!” It was such a ridiculous situation, and I haven’t time to go into all the facets of it, but I can tell you it was most embarrassing. It took me some time to get that citizenship.

Then it was that this passage became such a comfort to my heart, that my citizenship was in heaven. “For our citizenship is in heaven,” Philippians 3:20. And I want to comment on this for just a wee bit.

Some time ago I found myself one night paying a real price and sacrifice to sit up and hear through a late program. It was regarding some one of our national crises; I think at that time that it was in Africa.

I wanted to be well informed, and more and more I found myself trying to keep up with as many phases of that situation in Africa, and I didn’t realize until this particular night that it was telling on me spiritually.

I was getting so entangled with the affairs of this world, though I wasn’t doing anything worldly, except just trying to keep up with the news, as I see it, and be well informed so that I could converse intelligently with other people.

But I found myself trying to keep up with so many phases of the mess this old world is in, and I couldn’t do it without worrying and feeling almost in bitterness sometimes, and some frustration because of the world condition, it was taking the keen edge off of my spiritual life. It was on this particular night, of this late program, that I just had it out with my soul.

I’m not saying anything against being well informed, but information that is needful and can be used for God’s glory—that’s different. I want to be a good citizen and do all I can to help my country, but first of all, let’s remember this passage, that our citizenship is in heaven.

“We’re here on business for the King,” and our real citizenship isn’t here. You cannot be true to that heavenly citizenship and have so much time absorbed with the affairs of this world, even with the present world crises.

If we really believe our citizenship is in heaven we’ll not become so attached to this world, or absorbed in every little news about its tragic condition. Because its fears drive us to tension, its troubles cause us loss of time and sleep, and time that we could spend in prayer.

Dearly beloved, there are so many of the world to tend to the world’s affairs. Our time and strength and money must be cast on the side of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the side of things eternal.

Our attitude as a citizen of heaven is to be detached from this world, not attached to it! Not to be conformed to this world, though we be well informed in some ways, but we are to be transformed by our living in the things that are eternal, and in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and living upon His Word. (Romans 12:2)

We must have a deep realization that we are living for eternity and not for time, and our heavenly citizenship can never be put in a secondary place. There never was a day when spiritual matters could be so easily put in a second place, and then met with some silly little excuse, that things of time take our thoughts and our energies.

Men are not facing up to eternal facts with moral issues like I have. They have no sense of values; their comparison of values are forgotten today! I don’t know just how to express it the way I want to, but eternal things call, oh they call so earnestly today because the Lord is needing every soldier, and that soldier cannot entangle himself in the things of this world.

We can’t thoughtlessly give ourselves to the temporal because we are defeated spiritually by all this hubbub about us. If we could but see the events of life framed in the ultimate results that they lead to, what a change there would be in our lives and in our sense of values.

God help us that we might keep the divine perspective clear! Is there someone listening in that is content to lose a soul because they’re so occupied with the temporal that they have no sense, no time for things eternal?

Philippians 3:20, states that our citizenship is in heaven, “from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Are you looking for Him? Are you really looking for His coming as He has promised? Or are you looking at TV so much and looking at the news and all these other things so much that you don’t think much about His coming, and your affections are not set upon the things that are above, but they are set upon the things that are upon the earth?

God’s Word says in Colossians, “Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God,” and “Set not your affections upon the things on earth, but on the things that are above.” (Colossians 3:3, 2) And Hebrews 13:14 states, “We have here no continuing city, but we look for one to come.”

Maybe there are some Christians that have said like the disciples of old, “Yes, Lord, I believe these things. I will follow Thee and these things.” But beloved, it’s going to take something more than just a statement of that kind. It’s going to take some real action on your part.

You’re going to have to live in God’s Word and take a definite stand before others, and witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. Won’t you accept the words of these scriptures and believe that in the Lord Jesus Christ you can have a supply of His strength and His power and His wisdom, to take an active part in His service, in the affairs of the heavenly kingdom where your real citizenship is?

God’s Word says, “He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24) That’s where your life is!

There is a little verse that says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8) If you’d just taste, by giving Him a chance to work in your heart! You’d need only a taste to make you long to know Him better and live more in His Word. He wants to help you. He longs to solve your problems and lift your burden and comfort you.

God bless you and make you a blessing. Keep looking up. He answers prayer.

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THE WILL OF GOD

 

1970-01-02

Virginia Brandt Berg

God bless you! I can’t begin to tell you how sincerely that’s said, because we do pray so earnestly for you, and I say again, God bless you indeed.

From these letters that we have received, there are some very pathetic cries that come in from radioland: one from a sufferer who lives in a wheelchair, terribly crippled with arthritis. She tells of the long years of bondage and then she sums it all up in these words, “Is this God’s will for me?”

I’ll tell you, there’s pathos in that, and our hearts are burdened for her. But there is also a real question there: Is that God’s will for her?

You know, so many people handle this phrase “the will of God” so lightly and mistakenly that great confusion is the result sometimes. Sometimes a godly consecrated soul who wants above all else to be submissive to God’s will, will say, “It’s the will of God and I have to bow to it, though I can’t understand why God’s will is always so hard.”

I can’t help but wonder why we think of God’s will as something so hard to bear, as if God were some inexorable tyrant whose inscrutable will is always forcing us into hard places! I can think of so many things this minute that are the result of, I would say, universal sin, or colossal ignorance, or the breaking of God’s law somewhere back down the line, or even man’s own selfish carelessness, or the carelessness of others.

But it’s all blamed on “God’s will!” “This is God’s will.” And Job’s comforters are always there to say, no matter how severe the [state of the] sufferer or the brokenhearted, “Well, God wills it; you’ll just have to accept it.” In many cases I do not believe that’s God’s intention.

I think that God always intends good towards His children, though circumstances of man’s making or man’s own will can temporarily defeat God’s intention. I want to make it very plain that I believe in utter submission to the will of God. I believe that submission is the very basis of victory in prayer, in getting answers to prayer—an utter submission, submissiveness to the will of God. But I also know that many people submit to suffering and bondage and hardships that are not the will of God at all. God’s will for them is really victory over these things. I’ve seen it come to pass that when certain ones that have felt that way have built up their faith by living in the Word of God and have met God’s conditions, they have been utterly delivered.

There are many who, through some mistaken teaching even, live under bondage because they just take it that God’s will is so hard, and that’s “the will of God.”

I think about the little poem that has this thought in it by Annie Johnson Flint:

“His will be done,” we say with sighs and trembling,
Expecting trial, bitter loss and tears.
And then how doth He answer us?
With blessings, and sweet rebuking of our faithless fears.
God’s will is peace and plenty, and the power
To be and have the best that He can give:
A mind to serve Him, a heart to love,
And faith to die with and the strength to live.

It means for us all good, all grace, all glory,
His kingdom coming and on earth begun.
Why should we fear to say, “His will—His righteous,
His tender, loving, joyous will—be done”?

—Adapted from “His Will Be Done,” by Annie Johnson Flint

I would say “Amen to that!” You know, it is important to know just what is meant by “the will of God.” The will of God was the very framework for all of Christ’s ministry. He said, “I do always the will of My Father.” (John 5:30) And He made it plain that to do the will of God was a sure way to the heights of spiritual power and understanding.

But always the Father’s will was a joy. He never once intimated that we were to take all the tragedies of life, the oppressions of the Devil, the unhappy circumstances, and pile them all up in one place and say, “Well, this is the will of God.”

Perhaps I feel deeply on this subject because, as I have often told you, I was a hopeless invalid for years and my case was given up by the finest specialists as an incurable case. Every minister that came to my bedside talked to me earnestly just about submitting: submitting to my plight, that it was the will of God for me; that, as this was God’s will for me, that I must accept it sweetly and bear it patiently. “God’s will for me” was all they told me.

I feel, perhaps I do believe, that this was the easy way out for those men, because they didn’t have the faith to pray for my deliverance, and this is the easy way out for many who will not take the rugged path of the fight of faith and resisting the Devil and putting forth a determined effort of a believing will.

You know, it is easier just to sigh and say, “Well, this is God’s will” and not fight the good fight of faith. But thank God, one day there came to my bedside a minister who rightly divided the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15) And he said as he held the New Testament out before me, “A will, you know, is the last testament of a man who has died. Now this New Testament here is the last will and testament of one who died for you. And this is His will for you.”

Then he read me of His will. He read to me over and over about my inheritance and the joyous promises that were God’s will for me. I began to see clearly into the divine purpose, until all the torment and confusion left my mind and faith took hold of some of those wonderful things that were God’s will for me. Yes, the Lord healed me completely, restored, and sent me out to minister to others.

I found that the New Testament did not give me the right to associate everything that was just dark and hard and unhappy with the will of God. God’s Word says in Lamentations, “He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men”. (Lamentations 3:33) His will was not to rob me of all I prized and loved most. But rather God has spoken His will through His Word.

Here are some of the wonderful promises that were willed to me that this man of God read to me. And you know, some of you do, that that man, that minister of the Gospel, was my own husband.

It says in John 10:10, “He came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly.” And in Psalms 84:11, “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” This is the will of God! And in Matthew 7:7 and 11, “Ask and it shall be given you … for if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”

In John 16:24, “Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be gloried in the Son. And if ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13,14).

We could read on and on, for He has promised so much, and offered such an abundance as His revealed will for us that we can’t help but see that He longs to give us the best. As He says, “Delight thyself in the Lord and he will give thee the desires of thy heart.” (Psalm 37:4) Oh, my friend, here’s a wonderful verse we give you as an admonition: “Taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all” (Psalm 34:8, 10, 19).

Wonderful precious promises, and they are for you, and this is God’s will for you—the wonderful will of a loving heavenly Father.

This is His Plan for Me

When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ
And He shows me His plan for me:
The plan of my life as it might have been
Had He had His way, and I see
How I blocked Him here and I checked Him there
And I would not yield my will—
Will there be any grief in my Savior’s eyes?
Grief, though He loves me still?

Oh Lord, of the years that are left to me
I give them to Thy hand.
Take me, break me, mold me
For Thy will, and the pattern Thou hast planned.

When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ
And He shows me His plan for me:
The plan of my life as it might have been
Had He had His way, and I see,
Then my desolate heart will well-nigh break
With the tears that I cannot shed.
I shall cover my face with my empty hands
I shall bow my uncrowned head.

For He would have me rich, and I stand there poor,
Stripped of all but His grace
While my memory runs like a haunted thing
Down the paths that I cannot retrace.

—Adapted from “When I Stand at the Judgment Seat,” attributed to M. S. Nicholson

God bless you. He still lives and answers prayer, and He will answer prayer for you, my friend! Put your hand in His. Let Him take you and make you all that He planned in His precious will. He wills the best for you. Believe it and reach out and touch Him by the finger of faith today. Amen.

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Thoughts

 

Virginia Brandt Berg

1970-01-02

Greetings again, and the Lord bless you. We do delight in the letters that you send. Sometimes we comment about these letters because they’re so typical, and tonight one or two sentences from one, I want to talk just a little bit about. This one wrote:

“I just cannot get victory in my thoughts. You remember that I wrote to you some time ago about someone I was living with that was very hateful and sensitive and says such unkind things, and I wrote that I had victory over saying anything back again. I was able to control my tongue and not answer back at all. But I haven’t changed my thinking any. I may have self-control so far as it’s concerned outwardly, but I’m just seething and boiling on the inside.”

I won’t read the rest of this, but it reminded me of the story—perhaps I’ve told you one time—about the little boy that was punished for something that his mother had told him again and again not to do, and finally she said, “You sit there and sit there until I tell you to get up.” And he sat there and he was very angry about it and hurt and so willful about the whole thing. At last the mother said, “Now, Jimmy, do you feel better about it and are you ready now to obey?” He said, “Well, I’m sitting down, but I’m still standing up so far as the inside is concerned!” She had wanted him to sit down and not stand up anymore, but he was still standing up on the inside.

So many times it’s that inward struggle of the mind. That’s why God’s Word makes it so plain in Romans 7:25 and Philippians 4:8. I was listening to John Brown the other morning, and he said one of the greatest gifts God has made to His children was the power to think. Our thoughts are a vital part of our earthly life; our thoughts are things. Oh, how true it is.

So many people don’t realize that thoughts are really things that accompany us wherever we go. We can no more get away from our thoughts than we can get away from our shadow. If our thoughts are pure and holy, they come to be the best and dearest of our traveling companions. But when they’re evil and degrading, they’ll dog our footsteps and they’ll haunt you when you try to go to sleep at night. It’s the old foundation fact that our desires are the direct outflow of our thinking.

I read a book some time ago, I wish I knew where it was or could find amongst my things again, and it was called Thinking White. Thoughts are things, and we exhaust our energies dealing with the facts and we fail to deal with the source, which is in the mind, to keep it pure, to think loveliness and godliness, to “think on these things,” God’s Word says.—The persistently, fixedly, intelligently setting your mind on that which is lovely and pure. “Whatsoever things are lovely,” God’s Word says, “think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

You know that scripture so well, but let’s meditate on it again for just a little bit. “Whatsoever things are lovely, think on these things.” All high and holy aspirations really come from high and holy thinking. We’re just heads about with so much that’s lovely and beautiful and so wonderful, that it’s a shame when the thoughts go wandering amongst tares and brambles and on the vicious and upon ugly things.

That’s an awful thing when you think how beautiful God has made the world and how He has given us so many lovely things to think about, so many lovely things to see. You know that we’re too busy today to do any thinking properly, to meditate. Like the mother that went to visit her son living in a Chicago apartment. He rushed here and there and he was so busy, and it was, “How do you do, Mother” and “Good-bye, Mother.” Oh, he was so terribly busy. And one day she said to him, “Son, when do you do your thinking?”

Well, many of us today as I fear are just too busy to stop to really think, and whoever wrote that book on the “Lost Art of Thinking” certainly wrote a truth. We’re just so busy that we can’t sit down and really meditate on the Word of God and think Godward and “set our affection on things above,” as God’s Word says, and “not on the things that are upon the earth.” For God’s Word says, “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Set not your affection on the things that are below but on the things that are above” (Colossians 3:2–3). Your mind has to be centered on the things that are above.

The battles of life are first fought on the battleground of the thoughts, and the issues of life are determined in the mind. I really believe that that’s true. Murder is committed within the precincts of the mind first of all. That shot that assassinated our President recently, that man meditated upon that and that was all fixed in his mind before he ever fired the shot.31 The unseen thief puts out his hand and steals the watch, but first he has stolen it somewhere there within the precincts of his mind.

We teach our children they mustn’t do this and they mustn’t do that because it’s Lord-defiling. But I wonder why we don’t talk to them about the thinking that their thoughts have to be pure, that their thoughts have to be centered upon the things that are of God. It was a charge of God made in the old times that His people would not think. He said, “My people will not consider” (Isaiah 1:3).

Thinking just seems to be such a lost art, and people don’t think as they should these days, don’t take the time just to sit down and think the thing out. God would show you a plan. He would show you how the thing is to be done or He would unravel the whole situation for you if you would just look to Him and sit down in His presence, or kneel down before Him would be better, and give Him a chance.

These thoughts of hate and revenge and criticism, and like this woman said in this letter, that she still has those awful feelings of resentment and that feeling of hate in her heart. It seems to me that it’s almost unpardonable that we should allow our minds to linger, even for the briefest space of time, on that which is so hateful and defiling.

The battles that are fought in the mind: How can we overcome? What is the secret of the overcoming? Well, of course, the only way to get rid of impure thoughts is to throw over against them thoughts of purity and loveliness, transplanting. The way to get rid of lying thoughts is to throw over against them thoughts of honesty.

Someone has said the only way to reap a proper harvest from these fertile gardens of the mind is to carefully sow the seed and carefully tend the crop. I remember my father made me learn as a little girl, and perhaps you learned the same:

Sow a thought, and you reap an action;
Sow an action, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

—Author unknown

God’s Word says that “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). Thoughts may be the most insignificant of things known only to your own self. Yet thinkers today and great psychologists tell us that each thought influences the sum total of the brain.

I read the story the other day of a man who had been so long a stagecoach driver that his fingers had fixed in such a way that they were stiff. He had held the lines for so many years, and so as his hands grew old, they were crooked and hooked, and they wouldn’t straighten. Well, there’s a similar process that goes on in man’s mind when they continue to think the same things over and over.

If one’s trained from childhood to be gentle, kindly, patient, to control the temper, to speak softly, to be loving and charitable, of course they’ll grow into a radiant, beautiful, lovely one. But one who accustoms himself to think habitually of that which is low and vile and to think downward, and ugly tempers and resentful feelings and bitterness and anger, the life will shape itself into that which is not beautiful, but debasing, unholy, and unclean. They’ll find their whole soul bending and growing toward the earth in a sort of a permanent moral curvature, we might call it, while the other is growing into that which is noble and worthy. It’s that he “set his affection on the things above and not on the things of the earth.” “Whatsoever things are true,” God’s Word says, “whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, think on these things.”

What is the secret of it all? The secret of it all is to forsake your thoughts and put your thoughts in God’s Word and upon the Lord Jesus Christ. There is the whole secret. As you think upon Him, as you lift your mind to the lovely Christ and set your affection on the things above, He’ll give you a new mind, one that’s wholly opposite from the old mind. Just as long as you get rid of that old earthly mind, then God can transform you. As you look at the Lord Jesus Christ and all His sweetness and purity and holiness, you yourself will grow to be like the Lord Jesus. That’s the way to get the victory and the only sure way.

God bless you and keep you prayerful, reading His Word, that you might grow like Him. He’s still on the throne. Prayer does change things.

   

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TRANSFORMED

 1970-01-02   Virginia Brandt Berg  

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Greetings in the name of our wonderful Saviour! The Lord bless you and make you a blessing and give you a wonderful day. Welcome to Meditation Moments, and may this meditation be a blessing to your heart as it has been to my own.

Reading in Isaiah 40, that very familiar passage that has been such a blessing to so many, the 28th verse: “Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding.

“He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall. 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.” (Isaiah 40:28–31)

Those wonderful words, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” That’s a very precious and wonderful verse to me, because I’ve had to ask God to renew my strength so many times, and as you grow older, you’ll find that’s true of yourself also.

It will be just a few months and I will be 79 years of age, and yet I have such a busy life: this program is a very small part of my life, counselling, speaking appointments, and writing, and then I have my homework also. So life is a busy thing for me, and so many times I have to look to the Lord to renew my strength, and I think about this verse.

I’m giving you that personal testimony because it has been such a large part of my life, and I feel like it may strengthen your faith to know that there are those that really depend upon the Lord for their strength: they just draw their strength from Him.

You’re drawing strength from the life of a young man, 33 years of age, when you take the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many times when I’ve been so weary I felt I couldn’t take it any longer, I’ve depended upon this very waiting on the Lord to renew strength.

When you read these words and words like it, and you get quiet in your spirit, then you begin to realize how much of the clang and jar and hurry of the, well I might say of the streets that’s gotten into your soul. But there’s a remedy for that. And there’s a place that you can find quiet and repose and strength. “They that wait upon the Lord.”

I know when the feverishness gets in my own spirit, and the restlessness in my mind and tension in my body, I’ve gone through that just like you have, many times. Then I get alone and read His Word, and search my heart, spend time in prayer.

If you’d only do that until there is restored that perfect peace that the Lord promises, and that sweet rest that He always gives—there’s a mighty repose in it, I can assure you of that—and you’ll mount up with wings as an eagle. (Isaiah 26:3, 40:31 ) You’ll just feel like your spirit is on a high flight indeed. Because you lift your soul to the bosom of God that way, and He brings that repose.

There are so many fine people today in this jet-propelled time that take some kind of tranquilizers to calm them down. Their tensions are so great, and the strain on their lives is just terrific, and the pressures of the day are so many, they have to have something, they say, to quiet them before they can get rest, something to cool the fever of this awful rush.

But it isn’t only with adults, this thing today! I just don’t understand all about it, but I have a schoolteacher friend, and she says she has five pupils in her room that have to be given tranquilizers under doctor’s orders throughout the day. And another friend of mine in North Carolina has a boy in her class room that she has to give tranquilizers to. What a pity that even children need such!

But I know the need is with many for a place for such repose. There’re so many places to go and so many things to do, and it’s so easy to get there, and so fast these days, and sometimes the very thought of staying home and not doing anything doesn’t appeal to many people.

Not going anywhere would be shocking for some folks! And to seek God’s presence and read His Word that they might refresh their soul and clarify their thoughts and take the fever out of their lives, well, they seem to think that would be a real waste of time. But unless they do that, they’ll never know this mounting up with wings as the eagle, this running and not being weary, this walking and not fainting. Yet millions down through the ages have found that only in the presence of God, as they wait upon Him, do they find rest and peace.

Every symptom of restlessness can be subdued in this way: all that restlessness can go out of your soul, if you just get quiet before Him and wait upon Him. You’ll find that prayer makes available the power of God that will just take all that strain out of your life. You’ll get so quiet and in such repose.

God’s Word says, “They who have believed have entered into rest.” (Hebrews 4:3) Now that resting place that He speaks of here comes through faith in God, and faith comes by reading God’s Word. How many times have we repeated that verse: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” And God’s Word says, “There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God.” (Romans 10:17; Hebrews 4:9) You don’t have to wait to get to heaven to get that rest.

I don’t believe there was any hurry or straining in the life of Jesus Christ. Although He had such a busy life, His spirit was always calm and undisturbed. When the crowds grew too great and the demands were too pressing, He went aside to be alone with God, and then He would recapture the serenity of His Spirit: that’s why He went apart and alone so many times.

It says that every man went to his own house. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. (John 7:53, 8:1) Yes, we know He went there, because He had nowhere else to go, but He went also to be alone with God, and to wait upon the Lord.

He knew that in the difficult moments of His life, He could never meet the complexities of His calling unless He could lay His spirit on the bosom of God, until He was just encompassed with peace and confidence for all that awaited Him. But we poor humans, we’ve got so much to do, haven’t we? So active and such a hurry!

The fact is we just go ‘round and ‘round, and we don’t get anywhere, and so much time is wasted. And we could really do twice the work and accomplish so much greater things if we’d take time just to let our hearts go up and up to the throne of God, until His peace and rest would come down and equip us thoroughly for the work of the day.

Did you ever get up some day and just have everything go wrong? You broke dishes or you spilled something, or the phone wore you out, and all those things that happen.—Perhaps because you hadn’t waited for Him the first thing in the morning.

I had such a joy this morning. I have a couple of grandsons visiting me, one is 15 years of age and the other is 17, and when I came through the living room early this morning, here they were both sitting there reading their Bibles quietly! Both are Spirit-filled young men. Talk about your teenagers! There are some that walk with God. And you try it, my friend!

Just walk with God down the avenues of His Word and tarry a while with some of His promises. Read some of the passages like I read you just now, until faith will just flame and leap up in your soul. Don’t hurry! “They that wait upon the Lord.” You can’t ever get a blessing or comfort from the Word of God in a hurry.

Just pause a little over the words of Jesus Christ and give Him time to work in your heart. He wants you to leave with Him every care that you have. He wants you just to drop your burden right with Him and realize that His promises are unfailing.

I can assure you, the longer you tarry to read God’s blessed Word, the greater will grow your confidence that all the things in your life will work together for good to them that love the Lord. Oh, what rest and quiet that brings. What peace that brings to your heart to know that!

A restless, feverish spirit, a hurried life, is not so willing to give time to God to work. The Holy Spirit’s a wonderful teacher when you’re quiet and unhurried before Him.

For the help and the healing, the strength and comfort which makes life liveable and bearable amid all this that’s going on today, will never be found in any system of thought or philosophy. But it’s found in a Person, and that’s the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And you find Him there, closer and closer to your heart in the written Word, the living Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ!

Paul found this secret, for he said, “My life is hid with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3) And I might say that I believe with all my heart that amidst the storm of life that is today beating so mercilessly, and the burdens and the pressures that weary so in this world that we’re in and the condition it’s in, God can empower and sustain you and can help you to live joyously and triumphantly and victoriously, if you’ll just wait on the Lord. Wait, I say! God’s Word says, “Wait on the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14) The dear Lord bless you. Give Him time; give Him a chance.

He’s still on the throne and prayer will change things. Amen.

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UTTERLY DESTROY

 1970-01-02 Virginia Brandt Berg

Greetings, and welcome again to Meditation Moments.

We are talking to you today about two little words in the Old Testament, in 1 Samuel the 15th chapter, and those words are “utterly destroy.” As you know, in just the few moments we have on the air we couldn’t possibly tell you the story of Saul and Samuel, and of the king of the Amalekites, Agag.

We couldn’t possibly tell you the whole story, but Saul was told to go out against the Amalekites and to destroy them utterly.[1] God’s Word says, “destroy utterly.” But Saul didn’t do that. If you remember, in the story he brought back King Agag, chained to his chariot. He also brought back the best of the cattle and the sheep because he was going to offer them, he said, in a sacrifice to the Lord. This is a sad story of the growth of evil in a life which was once given to God.

I want to talk about little sins that are left in the life that soon grow to be such great sins, and how what was once so harmless, seemingly, soon conquers the life. I had this brought to my mind recently by a girl that I knew of that had gone for a number of years to Bible school, right here in Los Angeles. Then she married, and she went to Korea. There she fell in with companions of her husband and business, and there was just a little touch of this and that socially.

Now she has come back home, and her mother tells me that she has gone utterly away from the Lord and into the world. Because she compromised in the beginning—and it just began with such little things, just little social temptations—now she’s utterly away from the Lord.

So Saul spared Agag, the wicked king, as he thought for a good purpose, and kept the best of the spoil to be sacrificed to the Lord. God had said “slay utterly.” That word slay “utterly” should be written upon our heart: not “halfway” but “utterly.” Anything less than that’s going to be disobedience, and it will bring disaster.

Why don’t we have the courage sometimes to bravely and definitely sever with the Enemy and stand out wholeheartedly for God? You cannot tolerate sin. I wish you’d write that little word down: “tolerate.” The only security against sin is to be shocked at it.

I confess that you don’t see much shock at sin these days. Even Christians have rubbed up against it all around them in the newspapers and everywhere, and tolerated just a little of this and that, until they have hardened their conscience.

Your only security against sin is to be shocked at it. Keep the fires of indignation kindled hotly against sin. So many things are to our advantage with only a slight wound of conscience, only a little sacrifice of principle. Some haven’t got the moral fiber to wholly separate themselves from forbidden companionship and some little social temptation.

I’ll confess that there are a lot of excuses made for just this slight wound of conscience, when the thing that is wanted to be done is much to the advantage of the person. The greatest sin and separation from God often starts with just an unholy friendship or ungodly association of some kind which seemed so advantageous for some reason, but ends up subverting the consecration for God that one time perhaps was wholehearted and so blessed.

Dr. Livingstone tells a story of a singular little creature he found in Africa called the “ant lion.” It attacked and destroyed the strongest victims by a masterpiece of strategy, just like the Devil does. It would excavate a little pit in the dry sand in the form of an inverted cone running to a point at the bottom. Then it would sit down at the base of its little pitfall and wait for some unsuspecting creature to tread too near the edge of the crumbling sand. The victim at last appeared, and perhaps just by curiosity looked over the edge of this strange excavation, but perhaps he lost his balance and rolled down the side of the little pit where the ant lion waited for his prey.

Not, however, directly and instantly does the destroyer attack his victim. It’s sort of an unequal contest for the little strategist, but he opens his sharp little mouth—like a pair of powerful scissors—and with one quick movement he cuts off a limb. Now this keeps up until he’s mutilated the little creature. And it tries to go up the slippery side of the pit, but just as it reaches the summit it loses its footing again and tumbles once more into the jaws of this waiting little monster. And so limb by limb it is wounded and its remaining strength is gone, and at last it falls right into the hands of its enemy, who devours at leisure the little animal, the little creature, whichever it was. He wouldn’t have dared to attack it directly; he couldn’t have had the strength to have done that.

That’s the story of many a defeated Christian! Some little fox, as God’s Word says: “It’s the little foxes that destroy the vine.”[2] You’ve heard that many times, but it’s that little adversary that you didn’t even dread that has brought the final destruction, separated you from God. It isn’t by some outstanding attack of the Enemy always, but by a thousand little wounds to the conscience, that at last you lose your power of resistance against the Enemy.

And King Saul’s career is, I think, one of the saddest examples in God’s Word. One who had such a noble beginning but ended in awful disaster, simply because he began with just this little disobedience—if you can call any disobedience little. He had not lost out all at once, but the steady growth of sin in his life was horrible. At first it was just seemingly a justified act, a slight disobedience, a slight wound to the conscience. Self-will was a sin in Saul’s heart, but soon grew into a great giant that brought him to disgrace and disaster. But not all at once, remember.

This was the picture of the growth of sin when it was tolerated. For nearly ten years he sat on Israel’s throne while step by step the giant of sin grew. And that is a story of letting a little sin come into your life and not being shocked at it, not seeking God at once for victory over it—until Satan’s power has stripped you of a desire to resist.

God help you. Remember, watch the little sins, the little things that separate you from God. God will help you if you ask Him. He’ll give you victory, for God’s still on the throne, and prayer changes things.

[1] 1 Samuel 15:3.

[2] Song of Solomon 2:15.

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