Encouragement

---

The 1970's was a time when I was very lost and very much into secular music. I remember vividly my days living at Mary Graham Hall, a temporary shelter for children from broken homes, hearing a song by the Bee Gees, an Australian pop group. A particular song made it to number 5 on Casey Kasem's weekly American Top 40 countdown and it was called "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"

Like so many secular songs it had a pleasing melancholy melody which isn't easily forgotten.

Perhaps if you're old enough you too recall this song from your nostalgic past.

While some people feel this to be one of the sadder secular songs others might say it makes them feel a certain happiness.

Here are part of the lyrics:

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?


Now I believe the Bee Gees were saying you can't really mend a broken heart anymore than you can stop the rain from falling or the sun from shining. Thus the cry for help in mending this "broken heart"

While the Bee Gees no doubt meant a broken heart resulting from a romantic love gone wrong God tells us that a broken heart results from a life gone wrong and contrary to our Creator's will.

A broken heart is a good thing that results from coming to a sense of our sin and realizing our great offense against a holy God. God is holy and can not abide the presence of sin because sin is contrary to all that God is.


Indeed what or rather who makes the world go around?

Any Christian knows the answer to this question. God makes the world go around. It is through the power of His word that the Almighty God and Creator of the universe makes the world rotate in a 360 degree fashion each and every day.

Likewise it is God who alone can mend the sinner's heart after breaking God's commandments.
Anybody who is self-conscious about his walk with the Lord knows that when he sins his conscience bothers him and he must stop what he is doing and confess this sin before the God with whom he has to do.

People often hold up King David as an example of a man who sinned and somehow got away with it. He committed both adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered Uriah the Hittite Bathsheba's husband. No, David didn't get away with anything. Oh, yes for perhaps about a year he covered up his sin and then Nathan the prophet came to him with a story of a man who stole a lamb and when David heard it he pronounced the death sentence against this man and the prophet told David, "Thou art the man!"

David didn't just slip up he purposely wrought wickedness and folly in Israel by doing that which he knew was wrong. This was a premeditated sin. Why was David's sin wrong? Because God said it was. Without God's approval what we think is right is not right but is wrong.
All sin is defined in terms of God's law. What man may think is right God calls an abomination. David was guilty of breaking the seventh commandment "Thou shalt not commit adultery" and the sixth also "Thou shalt not kill."

Both of these commandments carried the death penalty under the Old Testament. Perhaps David thought he could escape God's punishment because he was the king. Like today many presidents and prime ministers do heinous acts thinking they can get away with their sins because of their political power but God is not mocked and what soever a man soweth that shall he also reap.

David lived with the memory of his sin the rest of his life. He could not forget it or atone for it by penance or animal sacrifices. He needed God's forgiveness which can only result by being washed verse 2. "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin"


Look at David's lament and sorrow and confession as a result of his sin which he acknowledged as being primarily against God first and then to his neighbor.

The nature of man is one that is soaked in sin and therefore he must be thoroughly washed and cleansed. Many professing Christians wear the hypocrite's garment and are content to be cleansed only from the outside and like the Pharisees during our Lord's time they desire to appear clean, moral and good while their inward self is corrupt and full of vile polution.

David's cure for a broken heart was nothing short of the miraculous healing power and efficacious washing of his soul by God's Holy Spirit. This is what anybody needs who has broken God's law and commandments. We can never hope to be restored by merely confessing our sins to a priest or by saying numerous "Hail Marys" or by depriving ourselves of food or living life dangerously. All such forms of self-atonement are ineffectual. These ways are not God's ways. To have a broken heart mended we must look to God and His ways for "there is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death." Proverbs 16:25

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Proverbs 28:13

Let us never excuse, diminish or deny our sins for we shall not prosper. Rather let us confess AND note AND forsake them. It's not enough to just confess them. Many hypocrites confess their sins only to sin again and again with not real change of heart. This isn't Biblical salvation. Biblical salvation seeks to mend the sinners heart from a brokeness resulting from each and every offense act of God.

There are no small sins. Because God is big and infinite our sins are big and infinite. No infinite sin can be atoned for by any of our finite acts of penance. Only God who is infinite can atone for our great sins and blessed be God it is so otherwise we would be left in our sin and misery without hope in a fallen world headed for hell and destruction.

In summary read carefully several times David's prayer and confession for his sin and let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart today about your many sins and may God mend your broken heart if you indeed have become self-consciously broken over your sins.

Reflect upon God's goodness for it is the goodness of God that leads anybody to repentance never to be repented of.

"Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" Romans 2:4


1."Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,And my sin is ever before me. 4 Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.
6 Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.
7 Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones which You have broken rejoice.
9 Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation; Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise.
16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.






Carlton Pruitt ministers the gospel to the Los Angeles area. Formerly a Hollywood actor (SAG member)and junk removal expert he now spends most of his time studying the scriptures, writing articles, hymns and poems and doing street preaching. See his videos on www.YouTube.com. Type in LAStreetPreacher in the search bar. CONTACT at [email protected]

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE