The Burden Cast upon God

**Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He »haU mtstam

Whose eye will light upon this the closing meditation of our volume, and feel that the character which these remarkable words portray belongs not to him? Who is not hv/rd€7ied I Who bears not some heavy load, staggers and faints not under the pressure of some galling, perhaps, crushing weight of infirmity, trial, or cross, along life’s crowded avenues? There is no saving clause in the covenant of grace exempting the saints of God from burdens. Yea, the very provision of that covenant — “a covenant ordered in all things*’ — implies their existence, their varied character, and deep necessity. The covenant of grace is made for a poor and an aflcted people whom the Lord has left in the midst of Zion. To know from experience what the fulness and preciousness of that covenant is, we must be emptied, tried, burdened. It is only the poor sinner that lives upon Christ’s wealth, the empty soul that lives upon Christ’s fulness, the feeble saint that lives upon Christ’s

power, the tried, afiUcted, and tempted believer that lives upon Christ’s grace, sympathy, and love. The extent of our conscious need is the measure of our Ufe of faith on Jesus. We ally weakness with His strength, demerit with His righteousness, indigence with His opulence, and hang the empty vessel upon His unbounded and fathomless sufficiency. Beloved, entwine as a thread of gold with the ministry of home this precious thought: — “My emptiness fits me for Christ’s fulness, and Christ’s fulness is designed for my emptiness.”

But what an exceeding great and precious exhortation and promise is this: — “Cast thy burden wpcm the Lord, and He shall Sfustain theeJ’ The marginal reading is, *’thy gift’’ We accept both readings is correct. AU that we receive from the Lord we receive as a gift, — the gift of His most free grace and love. The believer sees and tastes free grace in every blessing of His Heavenly Father. He traces it in the sun that cheers him, in the spring that refreshes him, in the breeze that fans him, in the flowers that delight him. He sees it in the love that comforts him, in the friendship that strengthens him, in the sympathy that soothes him, in the outstretched hand that relieves his want. Nay, more. The child of God sees free grace — a Father’s gift — in every cloud that darkeus, in every sorrow that embitters, in every disappointment that wounds, in every burden that crushes. But infinitely beyond all, he sees and tastes free grace in the blood that pardons him, in the righteousness that justifies him, in the love that adopts him, in the voice that caUs him, and in the promises that engage to bring him home to glory. Over the “door of hope” opened to us down in the dark “valley” of our poverty and nothingness, the marvellous words are emblazoned — “By grace abb TE SAVED.” All these as gifts, natural and spiritual, are to be cast upon the Lord; in other words, employed in His service and devoted to His glory. Is it talent? is it wealth? is it influence? is it time? is it grace? — cast thy gift — whatever the one talent may be — upon the Lord; consecrating all to, and employing all unreservedly for, Him.

But we restrict our exposition of the passage to the received text. ‘*Cast thy burden upon the Lord,’’ The Lord’s people are truly a burdened people. ‘They of the whole creation are the most burdened. They are conscious of burdens of which the unregenerate world is totally unconscious. In the first place, beloved, are you sensible of the burden of sin? This is an evidence of spiritual life. As a dead body has no sensibility and feels no pressure, so a soul dead in trespasses and in sins has no consciousness of the body of sin and of death to which it belongs. A corpse does not weep, nor groan, nor sigh, nor bewail its humiliated condition; neither does a spiritually dead soul cry out from its grave of corruption, “0 vrretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of sin and of death 1 “And why not? Because there ia no life, and where there is no life there is no sensibility. If, my beloved, conscious sin is your burden, — if your heaviest sigh, your deepest groan, your bitterest tear springs from the feeling of indwelling sin, it is one of the strongest evidences of spiritual life, -^that you are in truth a living soul. The Spirit of God has breathed divine life into you, and thus quickened and vitalised, you cry,” Woe is me! for I am undone, because I a man of unclean lips” Go, ye who despairingly have thought that you had no aflSliated relation to the children of God, since you discern so much in your heart contrary to the Father’s nature, and so much in your spirit contrary to the image of the brethren, and who in view of this exclaim, “/ abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes,*’ — take the comfort to yourself that, this conscious burden proves your possession of spiritual sensibility, and this bitter bewailment evidences the life of God in your soul. yes, the Lord’s people are a burdened people, and the burden of indwelling sin is the greatest burden of alL

Such, too, is the burden of the newly awakened soul. Whence the great inquiry, — *’What shall I do to be saved? “Whence the touching appeal, — “Lord help ms! “Whence the agonizing cry, —” God be wer-; ciful to me a sifmer! “it springs from the awakened cansciencep from the guilt-distressed soul, — the sinner just made to feel his sins a burden, convinced that he is poor and wretched, lost and undone, and without Christ must perish for ever. To whom did the Saviour address that wondrous invitation, the power and savour of which will continue imtil the last awakened sinner shall look to Christ and live: “Come v.nto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!* it was to just such as you! Has the Spirit discovered to you your sinfulness, shown you to yourself as “poor, and blind, and miserable, and naked”? Does your load of sin seem too great for you to bear? Come and cast it upon Christ, the sinner’s great Sin-Bearer. This great, gracious, and free invitation is addressed, thou guilt-burdened soul, to thee, and nothing shall dare forbid your acceptance. Christ speaks it, Christ means it, — and who shall say. Nay, when Christ says, Yea? The love that bids you come, will be ac-Qompanied with the power that enables you to come and in simple faith cast that burden of sin and guilt upon the loving, Almighty Saviour, who alone can unclasp it from thy soul, and give thee rest. You have nothing to do either with its material or its dimension. That is Christ’s concern. Yours is simply to helieoe that He sorrowed for it in Gethsemane died for it on the cross, and now invites you to transfer it to Him, seated in glory upon His throne. You have nothing to do in the xoatter but believingly to take Him at Hk word, and so find rest for your guilt-oppressed and sin-weary spirit.

Come unto Me, ye weary: Come!
Ye heavy-laden, cease to roam I
I will refresh the weary breast
And give the labouring spirit rest.

Sweet word! it calms my troubled soul.
It bids my sorrow cease to roll;
Smiles like the rainbow on the deep.
And hashes all my woes to sleep.

Perhaps a sense of backsliding from the Lord is your burden. You did run well, walked closely with God, and loved to feed in green pastures with the flock and beside the Shepherd’s tent; but you did not love the fold, and went away and walked no more with Jesus. And now the Shepherd has gone after you, and by the gentle moving of His Spirit on your heart is drawing you back with weeping, and mourning, and confession. Your departures are a grievous and a heavy burden, and like Ephraim you smite upon the thigh, and are ashamed, you are even confounded, and exclaim, “Turn Thou me and I shall be turned for Thou art the Lord my Ood” Come, then, poor backslider, thou wanderer from the Shepherd’s side, thou truant from the fold, and listen to the tender, forgiving language of that God and Father against whom thou hast sinned. — ‘* Is Ephraim my dear soni is he a pleasant child f for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.’* Approach, thou penitent soul, — though a wanderer, still a son; though a backslider, still a child, — and cast the burden of thy back-slidings upon Jesus, whose unchanging love and restoring grace are now gently and effectually drawing thee back to Himself. “/ udll arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Hini, Father, I have sinned against heaven and befc/re Theer

Return, wanderer! Return,
And seek an injured Father’s face;

Those warm desires that in thee bum
Were kindled by recovering grace.

Perhaps your burden is cental There is, probably, no pressure so acutely felt as that in which the mind is more immediately concerned. Any trial — be it spiritual or temporal — which implicates the mental powers, entails a burden which nothing short of supernatural power can sustain. The Lord has seen fit to send this cloud-veil upon your mind, which for a time shades your Christian evidence, obscures your hope, weakens your hold upon the Saviour, depresses you to despondency and drives you almost to despair. And now you question the sincerity of your Christian profession, you doubt the reality of your conversion, and are ready to ignore the hope of heaven which you once SO happily cherished. All this, however, is the effect only of a mind morbidly, nervously, and for a season, temporally unhinged; but whose spiritual regeneration, whose hidden life, and whose eternal safety nothing can touch. Creation illustrates this idea. The sun is eclipsed, but not annihilated. The stars are veiled, but not extinguished. Dark clouds may drape Christ from the believer’s eye, but nothing extinguishes, or can for a moment lessen, His great love to His saints. Mental depression may obscure your Christian evidences — those stars of the soul which smile upon it so cheeringly — but the Divine seal of the Spirit nothing can ever efface. The child of the light may walk in darkness and be a child of the light still, — for once a child, ever a child! Such is the burden which the Lord invites you to cast upon Him! No saint or angel can sympathize with it as Jesus can. He passed through mental distress infinitely darker and more crushing than yours. And will He suffer you to succumb to this temporary eclipse, or permit you to sink beneath these dark waters? Will He suffer the enemy always to take advantage of your physical infirmities, thus to work upon your mental and spiritual feelings, producing so much gloom, disquietude, and distress? no! In the exercise of His Divine power He will cry, — ‘*Thv,8 far shalt thov, go and no farther” The darkness and the light are both at His command, and both, in the experience of His saints, work together for good. If ever the sympathy of Him who in the terrible and nnparalled darkness of His soul exclaimed, “My €foi, my Oad, why hast Thou forsaken Jf e,” flowed out toward you, it is now. And think you that this temporary darkness of the mind through which you are passing, lessens the love, or shakes the faithfulness, or impairs the power of your covenant God and Father? Impossible! Listen to His marvellous language. “2%e mourUains shall depart, and the hills be removed; hut My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace he removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee” Cheer up, then, thou sad and desponding one! Why art thou cast down? Hope in God, for this long, dreary night of weeping shall, ere long and for ever, merge into a bright morning of joy.

Heavy, too, is the burden of affliction. Who counts not this among the many which he bears along the weary, dusty road of life? “Many are the afflictions of the righteous” And again: *’The Lord trieth (he righteous!’ Yet again: “TTAom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth!’ Thus if- you are an afficted saint, a tried believer, a chastened child, burdened with carping cares, corroding anxieties, heart-crushing sorrows, and heavy stripes, you wear but the stars and orders of the spiritual realm to which you belong, and possess but the seals and evidences of a nobler sonship and closer relationship to God than angels claim.” If ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with sons!’ Accept, then, in meekness and love these Divine evidences — these sacred proofs of adoption — even the many trials, sore temptations, and painful corrections with which your Heavenly Father, in love, sees fit to visit voil

But, perhaps, your A-cwte-duties, trials, and wants, form your burden. Every home is an embryo kingdom, an epitomised world, of which the parent constitutes the sovereign. There are laws to be obeyed, rules to be observed, subjects to be governed, cares to to be sustained, demands to be met, and “who is sufficient for all this?” is often your anxious inquiry. Who can tell what crushing burdens, what bitter sorrows, what corroding cares, what pressing demands, may exist within a single family circle, deeply veiled from every eye but (xod’s! You are perhaps a widower — bereaved and desolate; or you are a widow — lonely and helpless. Your children are an anxiety, your domestics a trial, your necessities are pressing, your whole position one of embarrassment and depression. What shall you do? Do even as the Lord who loves you enjoins, — **Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee!’ Your Heavenly Father knows all your home-trials, for He has sent them. Jesus, though he had no home on earth, yet sympathised with the home-cares and sorrows of others, and is not a stranger nor indifferent to yours. Bring all to Him, tell Him all, confide to Him all, trust Him in alL You have no family trial too great, and no domestic want too little, and no home-sorrow too delicate, to take to Christ. Obey the precept, — ^*Cast thy burden upon the Lord;*’ and He will make good the promise, — “and He shall sustain thee,’’ costly and blessed home-burden that brings Jesus beneath our roof!

But who is our Burden-Bearer? “Cast thy burden UPON THE Lord.” Jehovah-Jesus is the great Burden-Bearer of His people. No other arm, and no other heart, in heaven or upon earth, were strong enough, or loving enough, to bear these burdens but His. He who bore the weight of our sin and curse and shame in His obedience and death, — bore it along all the avenues of His weary pilgrimage, from Bethlehem to Calvary, — is He who now stretcheth forth His Divine arm, and makes bare a Brother’s heart to take thy burden of care and of grief, dear saint of God, upon Himself. Can you for a moment question either His power or His love after all that He has done for you? This were cruel unbelief indeed!

But how shall we, how can we, describe the tenderness of Christ towards His burdened ones, and the gentleness with which He leads them? “He shall gently lead them that are with yomg” — them that are burdened. You are wearied. Your deep afllictions are a burden. Your sinful heart is a burden. Your want of faith, and love, and fruitfulness is a burden. You are, as it were, “with young,” passing through much sore and painful travail of soul, a burden to yourself cast down and discouraged by reason of the way. But oh, blessed solace! — Jesus leads you, and leads you gently. All others would drive you, — man would drive you, the world would drive you, Satan would drive you, your own impulsive heart and blind judgment would drive, and even the saints would drive you, — but Jesus leads you, and leads you tenderly, skilfully, and safely. He is the loving, careful Shepherd who overdrives not His sheep, especially the weak, the sick, the burdened, the little ones of His flock. He knows y<mr burden, — “thy burden.” The marvellous language of Gk)d is “I know their sorrows” He knows how thy friend that loved thee is gone like a shadow, how thy gourd that sheltered thee is smitten in a night, how the voice that was the sweetest music to thee is hushed in the stillness of death, how the strong and beautiful staff that supported thee is broken and lies a ruin in the dust. Jesus knows all, — and He is leading you through all. He is leading you by these very self-same dark providences, — these events that appear so adverse, this way that seems so ’ dark, these dealings that seem so mysterious, painful, and crushing. How precious and soothing is the promise — ‘*Ivnll hrmgthe blind by a way that they knew not; J wUl lead them in paths thai they have not known; I will make darkne88 light lefore them, and crooked things straight. These things vnll I do unto them, and Twt forsake thm” As Jesus thus gently leads, so let us meekly, confidingly follow, believing that His hand is powerftd. His heart is loving, His eye is unslumbering, and that He is leading us by the right way home to be with Him for ever.

But the question will arise in your heart. How am I to cast my burden upon Him? The answer is at hand. In faith and by prayer. It is by an act of simple, prayerfol faith we transfer our cares and anxieties, our sorrows and wants, to the Lord. Only believe that God is able to do all that you need, and ask Him to do it. Only believe that Christ is willing to grant all that you request. Only believe that He is most true, most loving, most faithful when He invites you come and lean upon Him, and to lean with all your might upon that arm that balances the universe, and upon that bosom that bled for you upon the soldier’s spear. Perhaps faith and unbelief are now struggling painfully within your tried and anxious heart. You believe that God is alle to bear your burden, but you question His willingness to bear it Or, perhaps, you question not His readiness, but you doubtingly ask, “Is the Lord able to do this thing for me? *’ And thus, while you are deibating a matter

tsaiahxlii 16. about which there is not the shadow of a shade of doubt, the burden is crushing your gentle spirit to the dust. And all the while Jesus stands at your side and lovingly says, — “Cast thy burden upon Me and I will sustain thee. I am God Almighty. I bore the load of thy sin and condemnation up the steep of Calvary, and the same power of omnipotence, and the same strength of love that bore it all for thee then, is prepared to bear thy care, and want, and sorrow inow. Koll it all upon Me.”

Child of my Love! lean hard,

And let me feel the pressure of thy care.

I know thy burden, child! I shaped it —

Poised it in mine own hand — made no proportion

Of its weight to thine unaided strength;

For even as I laid it on, I said —

‘I shall be near, and while she leans on me

This burden shall be mine, not hers;

So shall I keep my child within the circling arms

Of mine own love.* Here lay it down: nor fear

To impose it on a shoulder which upholds

The government of worlds. Yet closer come!

Thou art not near enough: I would embrace thy care,

So I might feel my child reposing on my breast.

Thou lovest me I I know it. Doubt not, then;

But — Gloving me — lean hard.

And how precious and assuring the promise, — “He shall SUSTAIN thee,’* The terms of the promise are clear. It is not that the Lord will remove the burden, but that He will sustain us under it. He gives us what is equivalent and, perhaps, more than equivar lent to its removal, — grace to endure, and strength to carry it, — so that we reap more spiritual blessing, and He receives more Divine glory, than would accrue from its entire removal Bead the histories of the saints, and learn how they illustrate and confirm this truth. Look at Jacob, in danger from the revenge of Esau, casting his burden of anxiety and fear upon God, — God did not remove it, but sustained His servant, and brought him safely through. Look at Elijah, fleeing for his life from the threatenings of Jezebel, — how God met him in his weariness and petulance, nourished and sustained him in the wilderness, so that in the strength of that meat he travelled forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God. Look at Paul, afflicted with the thorn in the flesh, thrice asking, and thrice denied, its removal, — yet so sustained by the all-sufficiency of Christ’s grace, that he glories in its existence, that the power of Christ might rest upon him. And what has been, is still the experience of the Lord’s people, — that when He does not immediately remove a burden, He imparts all-sufficient grace and strength to bear it. And how much greater a blessing to be daily upheld by the power of God, sustained by the grace of Christ, and comforted by the consolation of the Spirit, than, with the immediate and entire removal of the burden, to lose all the sweet, sanctifying blessings that directly spring from it. A prolonged affliction is often a prolonged mercy. The tedious illness never alleviated — the couch .of weakness never left — the whitened furnace never extinguished — the daily cross never lightened: who can describe what sweet mercy flows through this channel — what sweet nourishment comes from this eater, — how glorious and precious the Saviour becomes, — and how the daily burden proves a daily confirmation of the truth and experience of the great promise of God. “As thy day so shall thy strength

ur

And when we arrive at heaven, and survey in the light of its glory all the way the Lord our God led us thither, — when we review every cross and every bereavement, every want and every correction, we shall then see the covenant faithfulness of God, the tender love of Christ, and the gentle grace of the Spirit, in not removing the burden, nor lifting the cross, nor taking our feet out of the thorny, fliinty path, but in giving us instead, what was a richer, holier blessing — the upholding of His power, the sustaining of His grace, and the consolation of His love. Accept then, my beloved — and this shall be my last exhortation, — accept in meekness and faith your burdens as from the Lord. Seek that they may make you more holy, may endear Jesus to your heart, meeten you for heaven, and bring much praise, and glory, and honour to your covenant triune God. They then shall be as pinions to thy soul, bearing thee upon their gold-plumed wing higher, and yet higher towards heaven, in faith, love, and prayer, until, delivered from the burden of the flesh, thou shalt enter into eternal joy and felicity, — foe eveb with the Lord.

Look onward still!
However dark the mght may be,
The morning breaketh joyously;
Wars after wars may come and go,
And billows seem to overflow;
Thy Father’s hand a bound will set,
His love is deeper — deeper yet.

Lean on this love!
Oh, earthly love hath little power
To cheer thee in thy saddest hour;
And with thy lonely, bitter lot,
The stranger intermeddleth not;
But there is One whose sympathy
Can prove enough for thee.

Are there none lt, — None, whom thy life may help to show
How vain and empty all below?
To shine as brightest stars is given
To those who point the way to heaven:
If such shall be their glorious state,
‘Tis blessed, then, to work and wait.

Say not, ’tis long! “
This sin-stained world is not to be
Thy haven for eternity:
The aching heart, the heavy trial.
Are only for a “little while:”
Patient, thine upward pathway trace
Unto thy Father’s dwelling placa
Joy Cometh then I
For when faith’s less-enduring light
Is chAnged for perfect, lasting sight,
And hearts that e’en on earth seemed one
Shall beat in perfect unison.
And, leaning on a Father’s breast.
His weary child shall be at rest.

“CASTING ALL YOUR CARE UPON HIM, FOR HE
CARETH FOR YOU.”