October 26 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Ps. 51:17).

Devotional

There is a sense in which the history of the world is the history of broken hearts. If the epitaph of many were faithfully inscribed, it would be this, "Died of a broken heart." Worldly adversity, blighted hope, the iron heel of oppression, or the acid tongue of slander crushed the sensitive spirit, and it fled to where the rude winds do not blow, and "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest" (Job 3:17).

Passing beyond the limit of time, we visit in imagination the gloomy precincts of the lost, and lo! we find that the abodes of the finally impenitent are crowded with weeping, mourning, despairing souls. Yes! there are broken hearts there, and there are tears there, and there is repentance there, such as the betrayer of his Lord felt before he went "to his own place" (Acts 1:24)—but, alas! it is that "worldly grief" that "produces death" (2 Cor. 7:10).

In all this grief there enters nothing of that element which gave its character and complexion to the sorrow of David—the broken and contrite heart, the sacrifice of God which he does not despise. A man may weep, and a lost soul may despair, from the consequences of sin; but in that sorrow and in that despair there shall be no real heartfelt grief for sin itself, as a thing against a holy and a righteous God.

But we are now to contemplate, not merely the broken spirit, but the contrite heart also—the sorrow of sincere repentance and deep contrition springing up in the soul for sin, its exceeding sinfulness and abomination in the sight of God. This state defines the first stage in conversion. The repentance which is enkindled in the heart at the commencement of the divine life may be legal and tending to bondage; nevertheless, it is a spiritual, godly sorrow for sin; it is "unto life" (Westminster Confession of Faith 15:1).

The newly awakened and aroused sinner may at first see nothing of Christ. He may see nothing of the blood of atonement and of God's great method of reconciliation with him. He may know nothing of faith in Jesus as the way of peace to his soul. Yet he is a true and sincere spiritual penitent. The tear of holy grief is in his eye. Ah! we do not forget with what ease some can weep. There are those the fountain of whose sensibility lies near the surface. An arousing discourse, an affecting book, a thrilling story, will quickly moisten the eye. But still we must acknowledge that the religion of Jesus is the religion of sensibility. There is no godly repentance without feeling, and no spiritual contrition apart from deep emotion. Yes! the tear of holy grief is in his eye. If ever it is manly to weep, surely it is now, when for the first time the soul that had long resisted every appeal to its moral consciousness is now smitten to the dust, the adamant heart broken, and the lofty spirit laid low before the cross of Jesus. Oh, it is a holy and a lovely spectacle, upon which angels, and the Lord of angels himself, must look with ineffable delight.

Reader, have you reached this, the primary stage in the great change of conversion? Have you taken this, the first step in the soul's travel towards heaven?

It is knowing the disease that leads to applying for the remedy. It is the consciousness of the wound that brings you into contact with the Healer and the healing.

Oh who, once having experienced the truth, would wish to escape this painful and humiliating process? Who would refuse to drink the wormwood and the gall, if only along this path he could reach the sunlight spot where the smiles of a sin-pardoning God fill the heart with joy and gladness? Who would not bare his bosom to the stroke, when the hand that plucks the dart and heals the wound is the hand through whose palm the rough nail was driven when he was "wounded for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities" (Isa. 53:5)? Who would not endure the uneasiness of sin, but to feel the rest that Jesus gives to the weary? And who would not experience the mourning for transgression, but to know the comfort which flows from the loving heart of Christ?

Again I put the question—has the Spirit of God revealed to you the inward plague? Has he brought you just as you are to Jesus, to take your stand upon the doctrine of his unmerited, free mercy—asking for pardon as a beggar, praying for your discharge as a bankrupt one, and beseeching him to take you as a homeless wanderer into the asylum of his loving and parental heart?

Just as I am, without one plea
but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thou bidd'st me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

(Charlotte Elliott, 1836)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.