Worldwide Family Activity Report - A Eulogy to David Brandt Berg
FAR009 - GP
January 1995 by The Family, Zurich, Switzerland
The Family
Making a Difference!
A Eulogy to David Brandt Berg
By his daughter, Faith Berg
(photo caption: David Brandt Berg, 1919 - 1994)
David Brandt Berg was the founder of The Family. In November 1994, The Family commemorated his passing from this life into the next. Surely he has now heard his Savior's "Well done!" for his life of Christian service. In The Family's first 25 years, his leadership inspired The Family to personally share the Gospel with over 260 million people in over 100 countries, nearly 18 million of whom received Jesus and God's free gift of eternal life. Upon his passing, his daughter Faith offered the following eulogy:
It shouldn't have come as such a surprise when I heard that my father--"Dad" to me and the rest of The Family, and Father David to the public--had died and passed on to his heavenly reward; he was 75 and had been in failing health for years. Somehow, though, I had come to think that he would always be with us. It took me some days to recover from the shock of losing someone who was such an important part of my life, someone so special to very many people because of his great love for them, and someone so important to the world.
His life's work: To share God's love with others
Throughout his life, at every possible opportunity, my father tried to reach people with the love of Christ, to love them into the Kingdom of God. His methods were often unconventional, unorthodox and, to some, incomprehensible.
Jesus said, "They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick," and that He came to earth "to seek and to save that which was lost" (Mark 2:17; Luke 19:10). Dad felt especially called to give a message of hope and salvation to those who were beyond the reach of mainstream Christian churches and their traditional means and methods. Regardless of people's past or present circumstances or station in life, he would always try to find a way to bring them into God's eternal kingdom of love. His entire life was dedicated to spreading the Word of God and the love of Jesus everywhere he went and everywhere that he could get our Family to go.
The ministry of a prophet
The weak and downtrodden received God's love through Dad, and loved both God and Dad in return.
However, he received only censure and shame from his narrow-minded critics who didn't understand--or didn't want to understand--how close to Jesus Dad really was. He knew he could never please them, just as Jesus couldn't please the self-righteous people of His day, and Dad never tried to. Instead, he exposed their hypocrisy--fearlessly, relentlessly, without compromise and without concern for his own reputation.
In 1970, David Berg withdrew from public life and for nearly 25 years he lived in seclusion, fulfilling the ministry of a prophet, praying and hearing from the Lord, and helping us--through his writing--to evangelize the world.
God knows that my father never desired public adoration or credit. He wanted only to be a faithful messenger for God, and that he was, until his dying day. Because he was true to his calling, he left us an enormous body of writings: inspirational lessons, instructions, reproofs, prophecy, fatherly counsel and advice on just about every subject imaginable. What greater legacy could he have left The Family--and the world--than that?
Greatly loved and admired
Although my father lived in anonymity, he was always loved and admired by his neighbors and others who knew him. There was hardly ever a person whom he met or came in contact with--be they taxi drivers, gardeners, waitresses, shopkeepers, landlords or anyone else--that he didn't touch with the love of God, through a smile, a word of encouragement or a kind deed.
God was always in Dad's thoughts and he seemed to touch God intimately, no matter what he was doing. His face emanated love and light, compassion for others and love for God.
Once in the mid-'70s, while living in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, he visited an elderly woman who was one of his neighbors. To his surprise, he saw his own picture hanging on her wall, and asked her why.
"Well, I don't have any photographs of Jesus Christ, but I have a photograph of you. I don't know what Jesus Christ looks like, but I know you and I feel that I've seen the love of God in you. I think you must represent God on the earth today."
Some of my father's detractors would probably like to twist that story to make it sound as though he thought he was Jesus, or that he would have liked others to think so. To the contrary, in everything he did and said, he lifted up Jesus and pointed others to Jesus, not himself. He only spoke of how weak and fallible he was. He often compared himself with King David of the Bible--a man full of faults, failures, mistakes, sins and shortcomings. Dad wasn't perfect and never claimed to be, but, like King David, he loved God with all of his heart. This is what I and others saw, and that is what we remember him for.
In love with the Creator--and His creation
I don't think I ever met anybody that loved all of God's creation more than Dad. Apart from disease-carrying insects and vermin which he called "the Devil's pests," he was so gentle and loving to all of God's living creatures. Once he marveled, "It's so wonderful to look at God's creation! Everything God does is right. Everything is the way it's supposed to be, even the little sparrows."
To Dad, song birds and chattering sparrows outside his window were a special token of God's love and a reminder of His infinite, unfailing care. He also loved to go for long walks, and as he went, he often talked to God's creation. He even seemed to have the gift of communicating with animals, like Saint Francis had. He would tell the cats and dogs that Jesus loved them, and he encouraged us to do likewise. Some people thought that was crazy, of course, but not the dogs and cats; they loved him. He always seemed to be in touch and in tune with them.
The gift of unsinkable faith
Next to his connection with God through prayer, I think my father's greatest gift was faith. He had such a tremendous faith and trust in God, that nothing could shake him! Many times, even when he heard what seemed the worst possible news, he was mainly concerned that our faith not be moved. Our difficulties, disappointments and setbacks became his own, and as a true father, he felt the pain of our suffering. Still, none of these things could shake his faith that God was loving, God knew best, God was in control and God would somehow turn the situation to our good.
He is still busy winning the world to Jesus
I think Dad would want every reader to know that he is not dead. He is very much alive in the Spirit and is still active in the heavenlies in the same ministry of helping The Family to achieve our ultimate goal of giving the Gospel, the Good News, to every creature, so that all may have a chance to go to Heaven.
Some people don't believe in a spiritual world, life after death, or a dimension beyond what we see and feel. What a shame! Look at all that they're missing, because in reality, it's all around us. The Scriptures tell us that not only angels but also a multitude of departed saints surround us. (See Hebrews 12:1.) Dad has now joined the ranks of all the other mighty men and women of God and great Christians who have gone on before us. He and they are alive and well and helping us win this last generation to the Lord.
A man of love has departed from us--a prophet of God, apostle, teacher, friend and father in the Lord--but his words and his example live on in us. He lives on in all of the training and all of the love that he imparted to us. We, too, can be constrained by that same love of Christ that motivated David Berg in everything that he did.
For the past 15 years, Dad had been preparing his second wife, Maria, to lead The Family in his stead. In addition to Dad's teachings, Maria's writings have also helped to inspire and guide The Family, particularly in the past several years. She reflects the same Christ-like compassion and commitment to the Gospel that my father had, so the work that he began will continue.
"Only what's done for Christ will last!"
In an age when much of society seems to be going from bad to worse, God blessed the world with such a man of love, to help save it. Not that Dad could save it by himself; he knew he couldn't. What he could do was live each day to that end and try to inspire others to do the same.
Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). I would say that Dad laid down his life for others, for the sake of the Gospel. He didn't go up in flames as a martyr, but he "died daily" (1 Corinthians 15:31), as the Apostle Paul said, in order to help others come to know God's love.
It's easy to get so bogged down with the cares and comforts of this life that we forget the Great Commission, which is, in Jesus' own words, to "go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). My father never forgot that. He was constantly reminding us to leave our material concerns and pursuits behind in order to bring God's love, hope and comfort to others, to love them into the Kingdom of God. He was always inspiring us to love God ourselves, and to demonstrate our love by serving Him faithfully, holding nothing back. He often quoted the little poem, "Only one life, 'twill soon be past.--Only what's done for Christ will last!"
The rest of The Family and I will remember Dad most for His desire to please God in everything he said and did, his Christ-like compassion and love for others, and his willingness to leave everything else behind in order to go forward with God.
It is my prayer that all of us who were touched by his life, whether we knew him personally, or only through his writings or The Family, will be a little more like Jesus, like Dad was--full of compassion for the weak and meek and poor in spirit, and fully committed to bringing them the Good News of salvation in Jesus and Heaven to come. What a difference each of us could make in our little corner of the world by following Dad's example!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family