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The Soil of the Heart
Written by Dr.
Lester Hutson
Copyright
- Lester Hutson - 1986
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced
without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.
"Broken and Contrite"
Psalms 34:18
Remember that in the Bible the literal meaning of "broken" is "crushed," and the literal meaning of "contrite" is "collapsed." Understanding that gives a little better insight into our Lord's words in Psalms 34:18, "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken (crushed) heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite (collapsed) spirit." It's obvious from the outset that softness and tenderness of heart is the soil of the soul God wants to see in every man.
Fellow Christian, if your life is going to continue fruitful, free of the weeds and clutter of life and workable to God, the soil of your soul must stay broken and contrite. The harder our hearts become, the more barren and useless we become to God and man.
IV. There Are Four Specific Areas That Should Break the Hearts of All of Us Who Know the Lord.
A. Our hearts should be broken over sin.
1. I am amazed in our day at how little shame and brokenness there is over sin. We're living in an age when most men have grown hardened and calloused toward sin. It seems a light thing to most people anymore.
I heard about a fifteen year old boy who recently killed his parents in cold blood. A TV program on children, crime and punishment told how this kid, who was Mr. Macho at his school, walked into a convenience store and shot the clerk. He didn't steal anything. He was just there to kill. A couple of nights later he walked into the bedroom where his stepfather and his mother were asleep. He leveled a .44 pistol at his stepfather and blew his head off. He then turned to his own mother who had awakened startled by the noise. He shot her in the neck. She didn't die quickly, but was writhing in agony. She turned to face him, and he shot her right between the eyes. He then went to a friend's home to spend the night. To his friend, he laughed and mocked as he recounted the gory details of his triple murders. Remorse? No! I'm talking about hardness over sin.
Sometime ago, a lady made an appointment with me. She was about twenty-five or thirty. She brought her six or seven year old son when she came. She told me her sordid background of illicit sex affairs, about this boy's live-in daddy and of his illegitimacy. She went through this without the slightest evidence of shame or remorse.
Even many preachers taken in immorality show no shame but insist on continuing to preach.
I never thought I'd live to see a society so calloused and cold toward sin. There's almost no shame and embarrassment over adultery, deceit, cheating, sex perversion, public cussing, public drunkenness, public lewdness, rape, murder, child abuse, drug abuse or any other sin. In Romans 7:13 the Bible speaks of sin being "exceeding sinful." But to an ever growing percentage of society, sin is ever less sinful. We're in the day of which Paul warned in I Timothy 4:1-2, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron."
Folks, I see the trend even among God's people. I can remember the day when a Berean wouldn't have dressed half naked in the mixed public. Now some people of this church have no shame in shorts or other seductive clothing. I see very little shame and embarrassment anymore when one of God's children takes a day out of the house of God to play, or when he withholds the Lord's money, or whenever there's sin of any other sort in his life. Sin is just not very sinful to most anymore. There's a general coldness and hardness toward it.
2. Fellow saints, there ought to be a brokenness in our hearts over sin in ourselves. God forbid that we get so hard and so calloused that we can take lightly in ourselves the very attitudes, words and evil deeds that put our blessed Savior to the tree. King David cried in view of sin in his life,
"Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me," in Psalms 51:1-3.
Sin may become little and unimportant to you, but it's not little to God. It was our sin that put Him to the tree. (II Peter 2:24) My sin and yours is why He had to suffer and bleed and die. Oh, how that ought to break our hearts.
3. Our hearts should not only be broken and tender over our own sins, they should break over the sins of others. When Ezra realized the sins of his brothers and sisters, it broke his heart. Ezra 9:5-6 records his words.
"And at the evening sacrifice I arose up from my heaviness; and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God, And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God; for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up into the heavens."
4. Sin is a terrible thing. It is never a matter to be taken lightly, whether in ourselves or others. Listen to Jeremiah 6:15, "were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush; therefore they shall fall among them that fall; at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the Lord."
Listen to Jeremiah 8:12, "Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush; therefore shall they fall among them that fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the Lord."
B. Our hearts should also be broken over self.
1. Folks, I have to admit to you today that I am not happy with myself. Not only do my sins concern me, but the weaknesses and shortcomings I see in me break my heart. I'm ashamed of myself when I think of where I could be, and then think of where I am. I have some old flaws that God could have removed from me twenty-five years ago, but I've let old self have his way. These very weaknesses that I could have overcome keep hurting my family, alienating people and causing even this church to suffer. In so many ways where I could be a man, I'm still a boy.
2. When Isaiah the prophet looked at himself in the light of god's divine revelation to him, he said, "Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips," in Isaiah 6:5. When Job took an honest look at himself, he said, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes," in Job 42:6.
3. As Paul said in Philippians 3:3, there is not one of us who has any just reason for any confidence in the flesh. It is self that has caused most of us most of the anguish, defeats and lack of progress we've ever known. There is not a one of us hearing these words who has a legitimate reason to be proud of or satisfied with himself.
Yet, rather than facing ourselves and our hearts being broken over our weakness and failure, we tend to ignore ourselves and feel pretty good about ourselves.
4. Yet, may God forbid that we allow ourselves to become hard and calloused about ourselves! Self needs to be broken or crushed. Jesus said, "For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted," in Luke 14:11.
I'll tell you who is going to prevail with God. It is those whose hearts are broken over self, those who see the need to improve, those who realize how weak and needy they are, those who still recognize themselves as little and not big!
C. Our hearts should also be broken over society.
1. Oh, what a wicked world in which we live! Things are breaking down everywhere: cheating on the stock market and in the business world, laws which promote evil and penalize good, promiscuous and perverted morals, enormous air and water pollution, bizarre criminal activity, the threat of nuclear destruction, more and more oppressive government, and a wholesale repudiation of God and everything He stands for.
2. The heart of man is still deceitful and desperately wicked just like Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17:9. We are in the days of the perversion of Romans 1. The perilous times have come when men are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, and they are
"covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away," II Timothy 3:2-5.
As I Timothy 4:1-2 prophesies, we have reached the age of seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Folks, society today is in a mess and is getting worse.
3. You'd think such a state of godlessness and headlong plunge to utter destruction would break the hearts of God's people. You'd think they'd be like the weeping prophet Jeremiah, who, when Israel was on a similar suicidal drive, wept and pled and lamented until his eyes were like a fountain of waters. You'd think, in view of the society where we are, that God's people would mourn and pray and fill the front of churches on their knees, seeking God for mercy and clemency as did Isaiah of old.
4. It's not working that way, folks. Instead of becoming more broken over society, God's people seem to harden with the society. The harder and more cynical and cold-hearted society becomes, the harder and more cynical God's people become. Just like a chameleon that changes to an exact reflection of his surroundings, God's people seem to take on the exact spirit of the society around them. If they were soft and meek and humble, they'd stand out and look so peculiar just like Titus 2:14 says they should. But not many of God's people seem to want to be peculiar or stand out or be separate or different from the world unless it be to wear ultra-stupid worldly clothes or hair styles and try to be even more worldly than the world. No. The by-word of God's people is "conform." Be as tough as the world you're in. Meet hardness with hardness. After all, that's the Clint Eastwood style, and everybody knows that's the way to be.
5. Isaiah looked at the world around him, his society and his heart was broken. he cried out in Isaiah 6:5, "Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips."
Of wicked Israel, those who slew our Jesus, Paul said, "My hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved," in Romans 10:1.
John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son...." Yes brethren, our hearts should be broken over our society.
D. And, our hearts ought to break over sinners.
1. Oh, the hardness and apathy most of us have over those who know not our Savior. In reality, our attitude is "So What?" We pacify ourselves by saying, "Well, they could get saved, if they wanted to."
When most families hear one of it's members is soon to die with cancer or some other dread disease, their hearts break. Yet, a lost family member on his way to eternal hell is no big deal.
2. Yet, the prospect of any man dying and going to hell ought to be heartbreaking. I remember after the bad wreck I had in 1967, where so many cuts occurred and bones broke, I later thought, "I would not want that to happen even to a dog." Folks, hell is worse than anything else we know. Oh, how it ought to break and move our hearts that sinners are going there!
3. God is not hardened toward sinners. No sir! He loves them (John 3:16) and laid down His life for them (Romans 5:8). He came to earth knowing how it would end. Yes sir, our God has a tender heart over sinners, and Luke 15:10 says, "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." Matthew 9:36 says when Jesus saw the multitudes of sinners, "He was moved with compassion on them."
4. My fellow believer, how long has it been since you shed a tear over a sinner? How long has it been since your heart was genuinely tender and broken over someone you know to be on his or her way to hell?
I can't begin to adequately describe the effect my dear old mother's broken heart over me, her lost son, had. To hear her weep and beseech God on my behalf over a stream of tears touched my heart in a way so powerful I could hardly resist.
5. The Bible says, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him," in Psalms 126:5-6.
Broken (crushed) and contrite (collapsed)! "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit," says Psalms 34:18.
"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"