191. Heavy Loads

Heavy Loads

Psa_55:22 : ’93Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.’94

David was here taking his own medicine. If anybody had on him heavy weights, David had them, and yet out of his own experience he advises you and me as to the best way of getting rid of burdens. This is a world of burden-bearing. Tidings come from across the sea that Bishop Wiley, of the Methodist Church, in the discharge of his duty’97going around the world’97falls at his work at Foo Chow, China. A man full of the Holy Ghost was he, his name the synonym for all that is good and kind and gracious and beneficent, and that entire denomination has a burden of mourning. Word comes to us from West Virginia and from Kentucky of a scourge sweeping off hundreds and thousands of people, and there is a burden of sorrow. Sorrow on the sea and sorrow on the land. Coming into the house of prayer there may be no sign of sadness or sorrow, but where is the man who has not a conflict? Where is the soul that has not a struggle? And there is not a day of all the year when my text is not gloriously appropriate, and there is never an audience assembled on the planet where the text is not gloriously appropriate: ’93Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.’94

In the far East, wells of water are so infrequent that when a man owns a well he has a property of very great value, and sometimes battles have been fought for the possession of one well of water; but there is one well that every man owns, a deep well, a perennial well, a well of tears. If a man has not a burden on this shoulder, he has a burden on the other shoulder.

The day I left home to look after myself and for myself, in the wagon my father sat driving, and he said that day something which has kept with me all my life: ’93DeWitt, it is always safe to trust God. I have many a time come to a crisis of difficulty. You may know that, having been sick for fifteen years, it was no easy thing for me to support a family; but always God came to the rescue. I remember the time,’94 he said, ’93when I did not know what to do, and I saw a man on horseback riding up the farm lane, and he announced to me that I had been nominated for the most lucrative office in the gift of the people of the county; and to that office I was elected, and God in that way met all my wants, and I tell you it is always safe to trust him.’94

What we want is a practical religion! The religion many people have is so high up you cannot reach it. I had a friend who entered the life of an evangelist. He gave up a lucrative business in Chicago, and he and his wife finally came to severe want. He told me that in the morning at prayers he said: ’93O Lord, thou knowest we have not a mouthful of food in the house! Help me, help us!’94 And he started out on the street, and a gentleman met him, and said: ’93Sir, I have been thinking of you for a good while. You know I am a flour merchant; if you won’92t be offended, I should like to send you a barrel of flour.’94 He cast his burden on the Lord, and the Lord sustained him. Now, that is the kind of religion we want.

In the Straits of Magellan, I have been told, there is a place where whichever way a ship captain puts his ship he finds the wind against him, and there are men who all their lives have been running in the teeth of the wind, and which way to turn they do not know. I address them not perfunctorily, but as one brother talks to another brother: ’93Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.’94

There are a great many men who have business burdens. When we see a man harried and perplexed and annoyed in business life, we are apt to say: ’93He ought not to have attempted to carry so much.’94 Ah! that man may not be to blame at all. When a man plants a business he does not know what will be its outgrowths, what will be its roots, what will be its branches. There is many a man with keen foresight and large business faculty who has been flung into the dust by unforeseen circumstances springing upon him from ambush. When to buy, when to sell, when to trust and to what amount of credit, what will be the effect of this new invention of machinery, what will be the effect of that loss of crop, and a thousand other questions perplex business men until the hair is silvered and deep wrinkles are plowed in the cheek; and the stocks go up by the mountains and go down by valleys, and are at their wits’92 ends, and stagger like drunken men. There never has been a time when there have been such rivalries in business as now. It is hardware against hardware, books against books, chandlery against chandlery, imported article against imported article. A thousand stores in combat with another thousand stores. Never such advantage of light, never such variety of assortment, never so much splendor of show window, never so much adroitness of salesmen, never so much acuteness of advertising, and amid all these severities of rivalry in business, how many men break down! Oh, the burden on the shoulder! Oh, the burden on the heart!

You hear that it is avarice which drives these men of business through the street, and that is the commonly accepted idea. I do not believe a word of it. The vast multitude of these business men are toiling for others. To educate their children, to put wing of protection over their households, to have something left so when they pass out of this life their wives and children will not have to go to the poorhouse’97that is the way I translate the vast majority of that energy in the street and store. Grip, Gouge & Co. do not do all the business. Some of us remember when the Central America was coming home from California she was wrecked. President Arthur’92s father-in-law was the heroic captain of that ship, and went down with most of the passengers. Some got off into the lifeboats, but there was a young man returning from California who had a bag of gold in his hand; and as the last boat shoved off from the ship that was to go down, that young man shouted to a comrade in the boat, ’93Here, John, catch this gold; there are three thousand dollars; take it home to my old mother, it will make her comfortable in her last days.’94 Grip, Gouge & Co. do not do all the business of the world.

Do you say that God does not care anything about your worldly business? I tell you God knows more about it than you do. He knows all your perplexities, he knows what mortgagee is about to foreclose; he knows what note you cannot pay; he knows what unsalable goods you have on your shelves; he knows all your trials from the day you took hold of the first yardstick down to that sale of the last yard of ribbon, and the God who helped David to be king, and who helped Daniel to be prime minister, and who helped Havelock to be a soldier will help you to discharge all your duties. He is going to see you through. When loss comes, and you find your property going, just take the Bible and put it down by your ledger, and read of the eternal possessions that will come to you through our Lord Jesus Christ. And when your business partner betrays you, and your friends turn against you, just take the insulting letter, put it down on the table, put your Bible beside the insulting letter, and then read of the friendship of him who ’93sticketh closer than a brother.’94

God has a sympathy with anybody who is in any kind of toil. He knows how heavy is the hod of bricks that the workman carries up the ladder of the wall; he hears the pickax of the miner down in the coal shaft; he knows how strong the tempest strikes the sailor at the masthead; he sees the factory girl among the spindles, and knows how her arms ache; he sees the sewing woman in the fourth story, and knows how few pence she gets for making a garment; and louder than all the din and roar of the city comes the voice of a sympathetic God: ’93Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.’94

Then there are a great many who have a weight of persecution and abuse upon them. Sometimes society gets a grudge against a man. All his motives are misinterpreted and his good deeds are depreciated. With more virtue than some of the honored and applauded, he runs only against raillery and sharp criticism. When a man begins to go down, he has not only the force of natural gravitation, but a hundred hands to help him in the precipitation. Men are persecuted for their virtues and their successes. Germanicus said he had just as many bitter antagonists as he had adornments. The character sometimes is so lustrous that the weak eyes of Envy and Jealousy cannot bear to look at it. It was their integrity that put Joseph in the pit, and Daniel in the den, and Shadrach in the fire, and sent John the Evangelist to desolate Patmos, and Calvin to the castle of persecution, and John Huss to the stake, and Korah after Moses, and Saul after David, and Herod after Christ. Be sure if you have anything to do for church or State, and you attempt it with all your soul, lightning will strike you. The world always has had a cross between two thieves for the one who comes to save it. High and holy enterprise has always been followed by abuse. The most sublime tragedy of self-sacrifice has come to burlesque. The graceful gait of virtue is always followed by scoffers’92 grimace and travesty. The sweetest strain of poetry ever written has come to ridiculous parody, and as long as there are virtue and righteousness in the world, there will be something for iniquity to grin at. All along the line of the ages, and in all lands, the cry has been: ’93Not this man, but Barabbas. Now, Barabbas was a robber.’94

What makes the persecutions of life worse, is that they come from people whom you have helped, from those to whom you loaned money or have started in business, or whom you rescued in some great crisis. I think it has been the history of all our lives’97the most acrimonious assault has come from those whom we have benefited, whom we have helped, and that makes it all the harder to bear. A man is in danger of becoming cynical. A clergyman of the Universalist Church went into a neighborhood for the establishment of a church of his denomination, and he was pointed to a certain house, and went there. He said to the man of the house: ’93I understand you are a Universalist; I want you to help me in the enterprise.’94 ’93Well,’94 said the man, ’93I am a Universalist, but I have a peculiar kind of Universalism.’94 ’93What is that?’94 asked the minister. ’93Well,’94 replied the other, ’93I have been out in the world, and I have been cheated and slandered and outraged and abused until I believe in universal damnation!’94 The great danger is that men will become cynical and given to believe, as David was tempted to say, that all men are liars. Oh, my friends, do not let that be the effect upon your souls! If you cannot endure a little persecution, how do you think our fathers endured great persecution? Motley, in his Dutch Republic, tells of Egmont, the martyr, who, condemned to be beheaded, unfastened his collar on the way to the scaffold; and when they asked him why he did that, he said: ’93So they will not be detained in their work; I want to be ready.’94 Oh, how little we have to endure compared with those who have gone before us!

Now, if you have come across ill-treatment, let me tell you you are in excellent company’97Christ and Luther and Galileo and Columbus and John Jay and Josiah Quincy and thousands of men and women, the best spirits of earth and heaven. Budge not one inch, though all hell wreak upon you its vengeance, and you be made a target for devils to shoot at. Do you not think Christ knows all about persecution? Was he not hissed at? Was he not struck on the cheek? Was he not pursued all the days of his life? Did they not expectorate in his face? Or, to put it in Bible language, ’93They spit upon him.’94 And cannot he understand what persecution is? ’93Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.’94

Then, there are others who carry great burdens of physical ailments. When sudden sickness has come, and fierce choleras and malignant fevers take the castles of life by storm, we appeal to God; but in these chronic ailments which wear out the strength day after day, and week after week, and year after year, how little resorting to God for solace! Then people depend upon their tonics and their plasters and their cordials rather than upon heavenly stimulants. How few people there are completely well! Some of you, by dint of perseverance and care, have kept living to this time; but how you have had to war against physical ailments! Antediluvians, without medical college and infirmary and apothecary shop, multiplied their years by hundreds; but he who has gone through the gauntlet of disease in our time, and has come to seventy years of age, is a hero worthy of a palm. The world seems to be a great hospital, and you encounter rheumatisms and consumptions and scrofulas and neuralgias and scores of old diseases baptized by new nomenclature. Oh, how heavy a burden sickness is! It takes the color out of the sky and the sparkle out of the wave and the sweetness out of the fruit and the luster out of the night. When the limbs ache, when the respiration is painful, when the mouth is hot, when the ear roars with unhealthy obstructions, how hard it is to be patient and cheerful and assiduous! ’93Cast thy burden upon the Lord.’94 Does your head ache? His wore the thorn. Do your feet hurt? His were crushed of the spikes. Is your side painful? His was struck by the spear. Do you feel like giving way under the burden? His weakness gave way under a cross. While you are in every possible way to try to restore your physical vigor, you are to remember that more soothing than any anodyne, and more vitalizing than any stimulant, and more strengthening than any tonic is the prescription of the text: ’93Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.’94

We hear a great deal of talk now about faith cure, and some people say it cannot be done and it is a failure. I do not know but that the chief advance of the Church is to be in that direction. Marvelous things come to me day by day which make me think that if the age of miracles is past, it is because the faith of miracles is past. A prominent merchant of New York said to a member of my family: ’93My mother wants her case mentioned to Mr. Talmage.’94 This was the case. He said: ’93My mother had a dreadful abscess, from which she had suffered untold agonies, and all surgery had been exhausted upon her, and worse and worse she grew until we called in a few Christian friends and proceeded to pray about it. We commended her case to God, and the abscess began immediately to be cured. She is entirely well now, and without knife and without any surgery.’94 So that case has come to me, and there are a score of other cases coming to our ears from all parts of the earth. Oh, ye who are sick, go to Christ! Oh, ye who are worn out with agonies of body, ’93cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee!’94

Another burden some have to carry is the burden of bereavement. Ah! these are the troubles that wear us out. If we lose our property, by additional industry perhaps we may bring back the lost fortune; if we lose our good name, perhaps by reformation of morals we may achieve again reputation for integrity; but who will bring back the dear departed? Alas! for these empty cradles and these trunks of childish toys that will never be used again. Alas! for the empty chair and the silence in the halls that will never echo again to those familiar footsteps. Alas! for the cry of widowhood and orphanage. What bitter marahs in the wilderness, what cities of the dead, what long, black shadow from the wing of death, what eyes sunken with grief, what hands tremulous with bereavement, what instruments of music shut now because there are no fingers to play on them! Is there no relief for such souls? Ay, let that soul ride into the harbor of my text:

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,

I will not, I will not desert to its foes;

That soul, though all hell shall endeavor to shake,

I’92ll never, no never, no never forsake.

Now, the grave is brighter than the ancient tomb where the lights were perpetually kept burning. The scarred feet of him who was ’93the resurrection and the life’94 are on the broken grave hillock, while the voices of angels ring down the sky at the coronation of another soul come home to glory.

Then there are many who carry the burden of sin. We all carry it until, in the appointed way, that burden is lifted. We need no Bible to prove that the whole race is ruined. What a spectacle it would be if we could tear off the mask that hides human defilement, or beat a drum that would bring up the whole army of the world’92s transgressions’97the deception, the fraud, the rapine, the murder and the crime of all the centuries! Ay, if I could sound the trumpet of resurrection in the soul of the best in the world, and all the dead sins of the past should come up, we could not endure the sight. Sin, grim and dire, has put its clutch upon the immortal soul, and that clutch will never relax unless it be under the heel of him who came to destroy the works of the devil.

What it is to have a mountain of sin on the soul! Is there no way to have the burden moved? Yes. ’93Cast thy burden upon the Lord.’94 The sinless one came to take the consequences of our sin! And I know he is in earnest. How do I know it? By the streaming temples and the streaming hands as he says, ’93Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’94 Why will prodigals live on swines’92 husks when the robe and the ring and the father’92s welcome are ready? Why go wandering over the great Sahara Desert of your sin when you are invited to the gardens of God, the trees of life, and the fountains of living water? Why be houseless and homeless forever, when you may become the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty?

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage