From
the book "The Fingerprints of Providence"
by
Pastor David M. Atkinson
Brokenness
- by Pastor David M. Atkinson (Edited by DSB)
"The
LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as
be of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous:
but the LORD delivereth them out of them all" (Psalm
34:18-19).
"...
both Dr. F.B. Meyer and his friend came down and came out to the
station on the train and walked up to Moriah Church...While they were
in the meeting Evan Roberts came in and the place was crammed up, and
Evan rose now as if he was going to speak. But instead of speaking he
broke down to cry, and he wept in the pulpit. So Dr. F.B. Meyer's
friend gave him a poke and said, "I told you, that's just the
Welsh people. "NO" said Dr. Meyer, "I have been in
ministry for so many years and I knew there was something missing in
my ministry and that man has it. That man has been broken by God and
I have never submitted to that kind of breaking."
"The
flowers smell sweetest after a shower; vines bear the better for
bleeding; the walnut-tree is most fruitful when most beaten; saints
spring and thrive most internally when they are most externally
afflicted. Afflictions are the mother of virtue. Manasseh's chain was
more profitable to him than his crown."
– Thomas
Brooks.
"God
is a jealous pruner,
For
He knows–
Who,
falsely tender, spares the knife
But
spoils the
rose." –
Joyn Oxenham
"the
difficulties of life are intended to make us better – not
bitter.”As the wicked are hurt by the best things, so the
godly
are bettered by the worst."
– William
Jenkyn
"If
you have gained the wisdom to know how to lose your life, your
service to God will be wrapped up in making winners out of
losers.”
"Broken
vessels
reveal their contents." –
James O. Phillips
"It
is God's way to set people aside after their first start, that
self-confidence may die down. Thus Moses was forty years on the back
side of a desert. On his first start he had to run away. Paul was
three years also, in a desert, after his first testimony. Not that
God did not approve the first earnest testimony. We must get to know
ourselves and that we have no strength. Thus we must learn, and then
leaning on the Lord we can with more maturity, and more
experientially, deal with souls."
– John Darby
"There
was no part of…holiness, that I had so great a sense of its
loveliness, as…brokenness of heart and poverty of spirit;
and
there was nothing other that I so earnestly longed for."
– Jonathan
Edwards
"In
one respect at least a man is like a horse. He's not really of much
practical use until he's broken...A wild horse out on the mesa may be
thrilling to watch...but he never carries a rider or pulls a load.
All his energy, strength, speed and beauty are WASTED ON
HIMSELF...UNTIL HE IS BROKEN.
A
man is that way too. He may be quite exciting and attractive when
wild and untamed...but he doesn't pull a load! He needs to be BROKEN
FOR HARNESS! He may hold great promise: purebred pedigree,
intelligence, strength, drive...but until he is broken, all these
qualities are squandered in self-service." – Richard
Halverson
"Do
you know the trouble with the average Christian? He is only broken on
one side. He will do this, but he will not do that. He will go here,
but he will not go there. He will sing in the choir – if he
can
sing the solos. He will work in the foreign field, but he refuses to
work in the home field. He still wants his own way. God wants us to
be broken – absolutely and unconditionally."
– Oswald J. Smith
"It
is doubtful whether God can greatly use a man until He has deeply
hurt him."
– A.W.
Tozer
"Success
and suffering are vitally and organically linked. If you succeed
without suffering, it is because someone else has suffered before
you; if you suffer without succeeding, it is that someone else may
succeed after you." – Edward Judson
"It's
the defeat more than anything else that hurts you! Defeat is always
the hardest thing for you to stand, even in trifles. But don't you
know that we have to be defeated in order to succeed? Most spend half
our lives fighting for things that would only destroy us if we got
them. A man who has never been defeated is usually a man who has been
ruined."
– J.L.
Allen
THE
FRAGRANCE
The
scent of precious ointment – how it lingered
Long
after all the guests had gone away;
And
Mary's hands, how sweet where she had touched it,
The
alabaster box she brought that day.
It
filled the empty room with love's anointing,
Reached
to the neighbors on the busy street
And
ministered in many deeds of kindness
To
friend and stranger whom she chanced to meet.
In
every task she found the fragrance with her –
The
pitcher that she carried bore the scent,
The
coins exchanged for food within the market –
She
took the blessing everywhere she went.
The
box, UNBROKEN, could have kept its treasure
And
pleased the fancy of a dinner guest;
But
Mary broke the box, and IN THE BREAKING
Her
Lord, and all the world beside were blest. – Rugh Gibbs Zwall
BROKENNESS
– HOW IT IS BORN
Psalm
34:18-19
The
word "broken" in the authorized version is the English
translation of the Hebrew word "shaw-bar" which means "to
burst, break up in pieces, crush or tear."
The
word "contrite" is the English translation of the Hebrew
word "dak-kaw" which means "to crumble, bruise, humble
or smite."
The
Christian's most difficult and delicate task is to be broken without
being bitter. David said, "It is good for me that I have been
afflicted" (Psalm 119:71).
The
Bible teaches that no one is born with a contrite or humble spirit.
Some come to possess the contrite spirit quicker than others. Some
spend a whole lifetime and never come to possess a contrite spirit.
There
is a process which leads to the contrite spirit. The process which
leads to the contrite spirit is the breaking process.
That
is why the broken heart and the contrite spirit are, by parallel
grammatical construction, virtually equated in our text, Psalm
34:18. It is significant to note that the very same words
appear
in Psalm 51:17 with the adjectives and nouns
interchanged. The
"broken heart" of Psalm 34:18 is the "contrite
heart" of Psalm 51:17. The "contrite spirit" of
34:18 is the "broken spirit" of 51:17.
We
must conclude, then, that the terms "broken heart" and
"contrite spirit" are virtually synonymous.
There
is a very simple reason for this. A broken heart is the necessary
preparation for a humble, contrite spirit. The contrite spirit has
had the back of self or "flesh' afflicted (Psalm 34:19a)
or broken. The contrite spirit sorrows regarding self and self's sins
(Psalm 119:67, 71, 75).
Thomas
Watson said, "The vessels of mercy are first seasoned with
affliction, and then the wine of glory is poured in. Thus we see
afflictions are not prejudicial, but beneficial, to the saints."
THE
CONTRITE (BROKEN) SPIRIT IS BORN
Psalm
119:75b
1.
It is born of God.
The
contrite spirit comes from God. Let us not make the mistake of
ascribing the credit for brokenness to Satan. Satan is rather the
father of hard rebellion. Who broke Jacob in Genesis 32:25?
It
certainly was not Satan. It was the Lord! Satan buffets us to make us
hard. God permits the buffeting in order to break us and make us
tender (Psalm 119:51)!
2.
The contrite spirit is born – not in the heart of one who is
out of fellowship with God – but rather, in the heart of one
who is basically right with God and therefore despised and derided by
those who are not. It is only the upstream, against-the-tide
Christian who ever knows brokenness.
Job
is an illustration of this truth (Job 1:8). So is
Joseph
(Genesis 37:6, 7, 9-11; 42:6). Joseph was right in
the
prophecies he made as a young man. He was "right" before
God, but he was not broken before God. Brokenness is God's method of
adding the dimension of grace to the law-keeper's life. Brokenness
has grace for its lesson and mercy for its theme. Broken people
become mercy-oriented people (Psalm 51:1).
3.
The broken spirit is born in the heart of one who is "horrified",
outraged by sin – especially the sin of those who "profess"
to know God's law but actually "forsake" its principals.
The contrite spirit is created in the heart of a person who breaks or
grieves over double standards, hypocrisy, spiritual decay and erosion
(Psalm 119:53, 104).
4.
The contrite spirit is born when a believer continues to sing even
when it seems that he is a "pilgrim" – alone and
isolated (Psalm 119:54). The contrite
spirit exists in
the heart of a person who can honestly say, “This world is
not
my home, I'm just a-passing through, My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me From heaven's open
door, And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.”
–
Albert E. Brumley, arr.
5.
The contrite spirit is born in the heart of the believer who
"remembers" or focuses upon the person ("name")
of God in the blackest of nights (Psalm 119:55).
The
"when I am afraid, I will trust in Thee" spirit always
gives birth to the contrite spirit (Psalm 56:3).
Note
carefully where one's focus should be – especially during the
time of trouble or isolation. The focus should be on God –
His
Statutes, His customs, His decrees, His ordinances, His methods, His
love, His past record, His trustworthiness, His sufficiency to be our
all in all! The one going through troubles or loneliness will only
deepen his own discouragement by focusing on himself.
6.
The contrite or broken spirit is born by focusing and resting upon
the Word of God when affliction comes.
7.
The contrite spirit is created in the heart of one who is committed
to principled, obedient living – one who lives according to
the
Word of God, not by the word of man (Psalm
119:56, 60, 61,
63, 72, 77, 78).
Young
Joseph possessed a broken spirit. He determined to live by principle
or precept regardless of the cost. He refused and rejected the
advances of Potiphar's wife saying "Thou art his wife: how then
can I do this great wickedness and sin against God" (Genesis
39:9).
8.
The
broken spirit is born in the heart of the believer who is "robbed"
(Psalm 119:61).
One
may be "robbed" of:
a.
The esteem and good-will of others;
b.
Reputation; for example, Joseph in prison;
c.
Cherished relationships and friendships; for example, Joseph was
"sold" away from everyone he loved.
God
will often touch that which we hold dearest in order to break us.
Samuel
Rutherford was the deeply sensitive and intense pastor of a church in
Anworth in Great Britain during the time when free spirited men of
God were "dissenting" against unscriptural practices of the
high church. The high church officials became angry over the truths
Rutherford preached-and they knew just how to hurt him. They banished
him from his parish and people. They "robbed" Rutherford,
and their robbery broke his spirit.
In
1637 in Aberdeen, Scotland, during the period of his forced exile
from his beloved church in Anworth, Rutherford wrote the words: "He
(God) knoweth all that is done to me, how that when I had but one joy
and no more, and one green flower that I esteemed to be my garland,
He came in one hour and dried up my flower at the root, and took away
mine only eye and my only crown and garland."
The
significant truth is this: Rutherford recognized the hand of God in
the robbery of men. He recognized that God was allowing his spirit to
be broken.
We
have observed how the broken spirit is born. Now let us look at
another aspect of The Broken Spirit.
One
of the saintly Puritans of many generations ago prayed, "Lord,
give me perpetual broken-heartedness." Now why would a man pray
that kind of a prayer? Why would anyone open himself up to constant
brokenness? I was talking over the counter with a business woman on
one occasion. It seems that there is just no end to her family
problems. As she stood there in the depths of lonely frustration, she
exclaimed in exasperation, "Oh God, I am just so tired of
hurting all the time!"
One
thing is absolutely certain. It would take a man or woman totally
yielded to the purpose of glorifying God to ask God for perpetual
brokenness. It would take a person who has had an enlightening taste
of what The Broken Spirit can accomplish. And this is what we are
going to consider next.
BROKENNESS
– WHAT IT DOES
1.
The Broken Spirit makes a believer mercy-conscious (Psalm
119:64, 76; Luke 17:10).
It
makes a Christian aware of God's great grace. The unbroken spirit is
an ungrateful spirit – a spirit not conscious of mercy or
grace. Willian Jenkyn, the Scottish covenanter said, "Such is
grace that it shines… most glorious (appears most wonderful)
when (the circumstances are ) most clouded."
He
who sees the depravity of his heart and the gravity of his sin the
most appreciates grace the most. See Luke 7:37-48 .
. . [vs
47] “For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many,
have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven
little, loves little."
Brokenness
of spirit makes a Christian mercy – conscious. Brokenness of
spirit makes a believer grateful for grace!
2.
The contrite Spirit makes the believer teachable (Psalm
119:64, 66, 108 ("Teach me")).
Thomas
Brooks said, "God's house of correction is His school of
instruction."
Stephen
Chamock said, "We often learn more of God under the rod that
strikes us, than under the staff that comforts us." Hebrews
12:10 promises us that God “disciplines us for our
good, so
that we may share His holiness.”
3.
The Broken Spirit gives the believer "good judgment" or
good discernment regarding sin and the issues of life (Psalm
119:66, 80).
The
Broken Spirit is wise because it does not work against wisdom by
defending itself. The Broken Spirit is free to make good decisions
because it is no longer married to subjectivity (judgment based on
individual personal impressions, feelings, and opinions rather than
external facts). The breaking process frees the spirit to look at
life objectively – through the eyes of God.
4.
The Contrite Spirit establishes right priorities and orders or
organizes the life of a believer correctly. (Psalm
119:72,
103)
John
Bunyan wrote the immortal Pilgrim's Progress. Remember that
previously we saw that a person with a broken spirit feels like a
pilgrim. Well, John Bunyan was a tinker (repairman) whose broken
spirit longed for the celestial city. Bunyan, like Abraham, "looked
for a city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God"
(Hebrews 11:10).
The
earthly, or terrestrial, could not satisfy the priorities of the
thirsty Bunyan. He once asked, "Do not even such things as are
most bitter to the flesh, tend to awaken Christians…to a
sight
of the emptiness of this world, and the fadingness of the best it
yields?"
Bunyan's
broken or contrite spirit rightly established eternal priorities for
him. Like the Psalmist, Bunyan could say, "The law of [God's]
mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver."
The
Broken Spirit is able to make wise comparisons between the good, the
better and the best, and between the short-term and the long-term.
The person with a broken spirit has been weaned and no longer puts
his roots down too deeply on earth or pins his expectations on
temporal things or relationships. His priorities rise out of a value
system which is based upon what is eternally better and what is
eternally sweeter.
The
Broken Spirit is able to say what an emaciated cancer patient in
South Carolina whispered just a few weeks before he passed away. "Lay
not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; for where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew
6:19-21).
Show
me a man's priorities, and I will tell you whether or not the spirit
of self and the world has ever been broken in that man!
5.
The Contrite Spirit sheds a previously unseen light upon the meaning
of life (Psalm 119:105 . . .
“Your word is a lamp
to my feet And a light to my path”).
BROKENNESS
– HOW GOD VIEWS IT
God
views spiritual brokenness as the result of His own "well"-doing
in man and man’s humble response to Him (Hebrews
12:3-13;
Isaiah 66:1-2).
H.G.
Spafford who lost all of his daughters in a shipwreck wrote:
“Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say; It is well. It
is
well with my soul.”
In
Genesis 50:20, Joseph spoke about how God views
difficulty and
brokenness saying, "you intended evil against me; but God meant
it for good.."
God
knows the selfishness of the human heart. God knows that spiritual
brokenness is what the heart needs to rid it of its selfishness. He
knows that "the only good heart is a broken heart"
(Jeremiah 17:9). So, God searches our heart, tries
it and
purifies its motivations with brokenness (Jeremiah 17:10).
The
broken, contrite heart is the only kind of heart that God does not
despise (Psalm 51:17). Do not fight or buck the
broken heart.
The
story is told of a donkey who once fell down while crossing a river
with a pack-load of salt. When the donkey fell down in the water,
some of the salt dissolved, and his load was lighter. After that the
donkey thought he had learned how to out-smart his master. He would
deliberately fall down in the river hoping to lighten his load.
However,
the donkey tried this trick on his master once too often. One day he
deliberately fell down into the river with a load of wool upon his
back. To his surprise, he discovered that his load was not lighter,
but much heavier.
God
sees spiritual brokenness as a good, healthy thing for us. Do not
fight it or try to out-smart God – lest you be like the
donkey.
"It is doubtful whether God can greatly use a man until He
has deeply hurt him." – A.W. Tozer
BROKENNESS
– WHAT WE CAN DO WITHOUT IT
Nothing.
Nothing worthwhile. Nothing of value to God.
The
unbroken, proud spirit is despised by God (Proverbs 6:17).
God
actually hates the proud look. The self-reliant spirit can never
please God (Psalm 51:19).
"Be
clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace
to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of
God [God's hand is at work in your life as it was in Joseph's], that
he may exalt you in due time" (I Peter 5:5,6).
Jesus
said, "For without Me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5).
The way to releasing Christ within us for the sake of working through
us is the way of brokenness.
BROKENNESS
– THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SUPERFICIAL AND THE LASTING
In
his book, A Pot of Oil, George D. Watson describes
the
difference between what he calls "thorough gentleness" and
"mere mental or superficial gentleness." Much of what
George Watson writes about gentleness can be applied to the subject
of brokenness.
It
(gentleness, or superficial brokenness) consists of mentally putting
one's self on the altar, and then mentally saying that the altar
sanctifies the gift. Concluding that one is therefore sanctified,
such an one goes forth with a happy, flippant theological prattle
about the deep things of God: but the natural heartstrings have not
been snapped, and the Adamic flint has not been ground to powder, and
the bosom has not throbbed with the lonely, surging sighs of
Gethsemane, and the beautiful self-constructed air castles have been
crushed to pieces….
"We
must not only lie on the alter when we are sanctified, we must submit
to the kind of dying that makes way for death to be carried out in
the little hidden details of life. This involves a longer more drawn
out process of dying than most think necessary. It involves a vast
amount of quiet suffering, the silent bearing of a thousand pains,
and the speechless enduring of secret crosses, told only to God
though private midnight tears. But if we want to be filled with a
(gentle or broken) spirit we must be filled with death to
self…there
is a vast and tedious stretch of weary and painful progress in having
the mind of Jesus…"
Now
how is Watson describing the difference between that brokenness which
is genuine and lasting and that "brokenness" which is only
superficial?
He
is saying that the hurt which is only a temporary bruising will soon
be seen to be only a brief blip on the cardiogram of a generally
unaltered attitude and lifestyle.
The
tenderness which is the result of the bruising does not last. The
life-changing effect of the bruise does not last.
The
limp of the genuinely broken Jacob follows him for the rest of his
life! So will God’s breaking follow you – if you
will be
broken.
Like
a bird that trails a broken wing,
I
have come home to Thee;
Home
from a flight and freedom
That
was never meant for me.
And
I, who have known far spaces,
And
the fierce heat of the sun,
Ask
only the shelter of Thy wings,
Now
that I’ve been undone. – Pastor David M. Atkinson