Psalms 147:3
“He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”
Often as we have read this Psalm, we can never fail to be struck with the
connection in which this verse stands, especially its connection with the
verse that follows. Read the two together: "He healeth the broken in
heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars;
he calleth them all by their names." What condescension and grandeur!
What pity and omnipotence! He who leads out yonder ponderous orbs in
almost immeasurable orbits, nevertheless, is the Surgeon of men's souls,
and stoops over broken hearts, and with his own tender fingers closes up
the gaping wound, and binds it with the liniment of love. Think of it;
and if I should not speak as well as I could desire upon the wonderful
theme of his condescension, yet help me by your own thoughts to do
reverence to the Maker of the stars, who is, at the same time, the
Physician for broken hearts and wounded spirits.
I am equally interested in the connection of my text with the verse that
goes before it: "The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together
the outcasts of Israel." The church of God is never so well built up as
when it is built up with men of broken hearts. I have prayed to God in
secret many a time, of late, that he would be pleased to gather out from
among us a people who have a deep experience, who should know the
guilt of sin, who should be broken and ground to powder under a sense
of their own inability and unworthiness; for I am persuaded that, without
a deep experience of sin, there is seldom much belief in the doctrine of
grace, and not much enthusiasm in praising the Saviour's name. The
church needs to be built up with men who have been pulled down.
Unless we know in our hearts our need of a Saviour, we shall never be
worth much in preaching him. That preacher who has never been
converted, what can he say about it? And he who has never been in the
dungeon, who has never been in the abyss, who has never felt as if he
were cast out from the sight of God, how can he comfort many who are
outcasts, and who are bound with the fetters of despair? May the Lord
break many hearts, and then bind them up, that with them he may build
up the church, and inhabit it!
But now, leaving the connection, I come to the text itself, and I desire to
speak of it so that everyone here who is troubled may derive comfort
from it, God the Holy Ghost speaking through it. Consider, first, the
patients and their sickness: "He healed the broken in heart." Then,
consider, the Physician and his medicine, and for a while turn your eyes
to him who does this healing work. Then, I shall want you to consider,
the testimonial to the great Physician which we have in this verse: "He
healed the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." Lastly, and
most practically, we will consider, what we ought to do towards him who
healeth the broken in heart.
I. First, then, consider THE PATIENTS AND THEIR SICKNESS. They
are broken in heart. I have heard of many who have died of a broken
heart; but there are some who live with a broken heart, and who live all
the better for having had their hearts broken; they live another and
higher life than they lived before that blessed stroke broke their hearts in
pieces.
There are many sorts of broken hearts, and Christ is good at healing
them all. I am not going to lower and narrow the application of my text.
The patients of the great Physician are those whose hearts are broken
through sorrow. Hearts are broken through disappointment. Hearts are
broken through bereavement. Hearts are broken in ten thousand ways,
for this is a heart-breaking world; and Christ is good at healing all
manner of heart-breaks. I would encourage every person here, even
though his heart-break may not be of a spiritual kind, to make an
application to him who healed the broken in heart. The text does not say,
"the spiritually broken in heart", therefore I will not insert an adverb
where there is none in the passage. Come hither, ye that are burdened,
all ye that labour and are heavy laden; come hither, all ye that sorrow, be
your sorrow what it may; come hither, all ye whose hearts are broken, be
the heart-break what it may, for he healeth the broken in heart.
Still, there is a special brokenness of heart to which Christ gives the very
earliest and tenderest attention. He heals those whose hearts are broken
for sin. Christ heals the heart that is broken because of its sin; so that it
grieves, laments, regrets, and bemoans itself, saying, "Woe is me that I
have done this exceeding great evil, and brought ruin upon myself! Woe
is me that I have dishonoured God, that I have cast myself away from his
presence, that I have made myself liable to his everlasting wrath, and
that even now his wrath abideth upon me!" If there is a man here whose
heart is broken about his past life, he is the man to whom my text refers.
Are you heart-broken because you have wasted forty, fifty, sixty years?
Are you heart-broken at the remembrance that you have cursed the God
who has blessed you, that you have denied the existence of him without
whom you never would have been in existence yourself, that you have
lived to train your family without godliness, without any respect to the
Most High God at all? Has the Lord brought this home to you? Has he
made you feel what a hideous thing it is to be blind to Christ, to refuse
his love, to reject his blood, to live an enemy to your best Friend? Have
you felt this? O my friend, I cannot reach across the gallery to give you
my hand; but will you think that I am doing it, for I wish to do it? If
there is a heart here broken on account of sin, I thank God for it, and
praise the Lord that there is such a text as this: "He healeth the broken in
heart"
Christ also heals hearts that are broken from sin. When you and sin have
quarrelled, never let the quarrel be made up again. You and sin were
friends at one time; but now you hate sin, and you would be wholly rid of
it if you could. You wish never to sin. You are anxious to be clear of the
most darling sin that you ever indulged in, and you desire to be made as
pure as God is pure. Your heart is broken away from its old moorings.
That which you once loved you now hate. That which you once hated
you now at least desire to love. It is well. I am glad that you are here, for
to you is the text sent, "He healeth the broken in heart."
If there is a broken-hearted person anywhere about, many people despise
him. "Oh," they say, "he is melancholy, he is mad, he is out of his mind
through religion!" Yes, men despise the broken in heart, but such, O
God, thou wilt not despise! The Lord looks after such, and heals them.
Those who do not despise them, at any rate avoid them. I know some few
friends who have long been of a broken heart; and when I feel rather
dull, I must confess that I do not always go their way, for they are apt to
make me feel more depressed. Yet would I not get out of their way if I
felt that I could help them. Still, it is the nature of men to seek the
cheerful and the happy, and to avoid the broken-hearted. God does not
do so; he heals the broken in heart. He goes where they are, and he
reveals himself to them as the Comforter and the Healer.
In a great many cases people despair of the broken-hearted ones. "It is no
use," says one, "I have tried to comfort her, but I cannot do it." "I have
wasted a great many words," says another, "on such and such a friend,
and I cannot help him. I despair of his ever getting out of the dark." Not
so is it with God; he healeth the broken in heart. He despairs of none. He
shows the greatness of his power, and the wonders of his wisdom, by
fetching men and women out of the lowest dungeon, wherein despair has
shut them.
As for the broken-hearted ones themselves, they do not think that they
ever can be converted. Some of them are sure that they never can; they
wish that they were dead, though I do not see what they would gain by
that. Others of them wish that they had never been born, though that is a
useless wish now. Some are ready to rush after any new thing to try to
find a little comfort; while others, getting worse and worse, are sitting
down in sullen despair. I wish that I knew who these were; I should like
to come round, and just say to them, "Come, brother; there must be no
doubting and no despair to-night, for my text is gloriously complete, and
is meant for you. "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their
wounds." Notice that fifth verse, "Great is our Lord, and of great power;
his understanding is infinite." Consequently, he can heal the broken in
heart. God is glorious at a dead lift. When a soul cannot stir, or help
itself, God delights to come in with his omnipotence, and lift the great
load, and set the burdened one free.
It takes great wisdom to comfort a broken heart. If any of you have ever
tried it, I am sure you have not found it an easy task. I have given much
of my life to this work; and I always come away from a desponding one
with a consciousness of my own inability to comfort the heart-broken
and cast-down. Only God can do it. Blessed be his name that he has
arranged that one Person of the Sacred Trinity should undertake this
office of Comforter; for no man could ever perform its duties. We might
as well hope to be the Saviour as to be the Comforter of the heart-broken.
Efficiently and completely to save or to comfort must be a work divine.
That is why the Holy Divine Spirit, healeth the broken in heart, and
bindeth up their wounds with infinite power and unfailing skill.
II. Now, secondly, we are going to consider THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS
MEDICINE: "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their
wounds." Who is this that healeth the broken in heart?
I answer that Jesus was anointed of God for this work. He said, "The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted." Was the
Holy Spirit given to Christ in vain? That cannot be. He was given for a
purpose which must be answered, and that purpose is the healing of the
broken-hearted. By the very anointing of Christ by the Holy Spirit, you
may be sure that our Physician will heal the broken in heart.
Further, Jesus was sent of God on purpose to do his work; "He hath sent
me to heal the broken-hearted." If Christ does not heal the broken-
hearted, he will not fulfill the mission for which he came from heaven. If
the broken-hearted are not cheered by his glorious life and the blessings
that flow out of his death, then he will have come to earth for nothing.
This is the very errand on which the Lord of glory left the bosom of the
Father to be veiled in human clay, that he might heal the broken in
heart; and he will do it.
Our Lord was also educated for this work. He was not only anointed and
sent; but he was trained for it. "How?" say you. Why, he had a broken
heart himself; and there is no education for the office of comforter like
being place where you yourself have need of comfort, so that you may be
able to comfort others with the comfort wherewith you yourself have
been comforted of God. Is your heart broken? Christ's heart was broken.
He said, "Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness."
He went as low as you have ever been, and deeper than you can ever go.
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" was his bitter cry. If
that be your agonized utterance, he can interpret it by his own suffering.
He can measure your grief by his grief. Broken hearts, there is no
healing for you except through him who had a broken heart himself. Ye
disconsolate, come to him! He can make your heart happy and joyous, by
the very fact of his own sorrow, and the brokenness of his own heart. "In
all our afflictions he was afflicted." He was tempted in all points like as
we are", "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." For a broken
heart, there is no physician like him.
Once more, I can strongly recommend my Lord Jesus Christ as the
Healer of broken hearts, because he is so experienced in the work. Some
people are afraid that the doctor will try experiments upon them; but our
Physician will only do for us what he has done many times before. It is
no matter of experiment with him; it is a matter of experience. If you
knock to-night at my great Doctor's door, you will, perhaps say to him,
"Here is the strangest patient, my Lord, that ever came to thee." He will
smile as he looks at you, and he will think, "I have saved hundreds like
you." Here comes one who says, "That first man's case was nothing
compared with mine; I am about the worst sinner who ever lived." And
the Lord Jesus Christ will say, "Yes, I saved the worst man that ever
lived long ago, and I keep on saving such as he. I delight to do it." But
here comes one who has a curious odd way of broken-heartedness. He is
an out-of-the-way fretter. Yes, but my Lord is able to "have compassion
on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way." He can lay hold of
this out-of-the-way one; for he has always been saving out-of-the-way
sinners. My Lord has been healing broken hearts well nigh nineteen
hundred years. Can you find a brass-plate anywhere in London telling of
a physician of that age? He has been at the work longer than that; for it
is not far off six thousand years since he went into this business, and he
has been healing the broken in heart ever since that time.
I will tell you one thing about him that I have on good authority, that is,
he never lost a case yet. There never was one who came to him with a
broken heart, but he healed him. He never said to one, "You are too bad
for me to heal;" but he did say, "Him that cometh to me, I will in now
wise cast out." My dear hearer, he will not cast you out. You say, "You
do not know me, Mr. Spurgeon." No, I do not; and you have come here
to-night, and you hardly know why you are here; only you are very low
and very sad. The Lord Jesus Christ loves such as you are, you poor,
desponding, doubting, desolate, disconsolate one. Daughters of sorrow,
sons of grief, look ye here! Jesus Christ has gone on healing broken
hearts for thousands of years, and he is well up in the business. He
understands it by experience, as well as by education. He is "mighty to
save." Consider him; consider him; and the Lord grant you grace to
come and trust him even now!
Thus I have talked to you about the Physician for broken hearts; shall I
tell you what his chief medicine is? It is his own flesh and blood. There
is no cure like it. When a sinner is bleeding with sin, Jesus pours his
own blood into the wound; and when that wound is slow in healing, he
binds his own sacrifice about it. Healing for broken hearts comes by the
atonement, atonement by substitution, Christ suffering in our stead. He
suffered for every one who believeth in him, and he that believeth in him
is not condemned, and never can be condemned, for the condemnation
due to him was laid upon Christ. He is clear before the bar of justice as
well as before the throne of mercy. I remember when the Lord put that
precious ointment upon my wounded spirit. Nothing ever healed me
until I understood that he died in my place and stead, died that I might
not die; and now, to-day, my heart would bleed itself to death were it not
that I believe that he "his own self bare our sins in his own body on the
tree." "With his stripes we are healed," and with no medicine but this
atoning sacrifice. A wonderful heal-all is this, when the Holy Ghost
applies it with his own divine power, and lets life and love come
streaming into the heart that was ready to bleed to death.
III. My time flies too quickly; so, thirdly, I want you to consider THE
TESTIMONIAL TO THE GREAT PHYSICIAN which is emblazoned in my text. It is
God the Holy Ghost who, by the mouth of his servant David, bears testimony
to this congregation to-night that the Lord Jesus heals the broken in
heart, and binds up their wounds. If I said it, you need no more believe it
than I need believe it if you said it. One man's word is as good as
another's if we be truthful men; but this statement is found in an inspired
Psalm. I believe it; I dare not doubt it, for I have proven its truth.
I understand my text to mean this: he does it effectually. As I said last
Thursday night, if there is a person cast down or desponding within twenty
miles, he is pretty sure to find me out. I laugh sometimes, and say, "Birds of a
feather flock together;" but they come to talk to me about their despondency,
and sometimes they leave me half desponding in the attempt to get them out
of their sadness. I have had some very sad cases just lately, and I am afraid
that, when they went out of my room, they could not say of me, "He healeth
the broken in heart." I am sure that they could say, "He tried his best. He
brought out all the choicest arguments he could think of to comfort me." And
they have felt very grateful. They have come back sometimes to thank God
that they have been a little bit encouraged; but some of them are frequent
visitors; and I have been trying to cheer them up by the month together. But,
when my Master undertakes the work, "He healeth the broken in heart," he
not only tries to do it, he does it. He touches the secret sources of the
sorrow, and takes the spring of the grief away. We try our bests; but we
cannot do it.
You know it is very hard to deal with the heart. The human heart needs more
than human skill to cure it. When a person dies, and the doctors do not know
the complaint of which he died, they say, "It was heart disease." They did not
understand his malady; that is what that means. There is only one Physician
who can heal the heart; but, glory be to his blessed name, "He healeth the
broken in heart," he does it effectually.
As I read my text, I understand it to mean, he does it constantly. "He
healeth the broken in heart." Not merely, "He did heal them years ago";
but he is doing it now. "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up
their wounds." What, at this minute? Ten minutes to eight? Yes, he is
doing this work now. "He healeth the broken in heart," and when the
service is over, and the congregation is gone, what will Jesus be doing
then? Oh, he will still be healing the broken in heart! Suppose this year
1890 should run out, and the Lord does not come to judgment, what will
he be doing then? He will still be healing the broken in heart. He has not
used up his ointments. He has not exhausted his patience. He has not in
the least degree diminished his power. He still healeth. "Oh dear!" said
one, "If I had come to Christ a year ago, it would have been well with
me." If you come to Christ to-night, it will be well with you, for "he
healeth the broken in heart." I do not know who was the inventor of that
idea of "sinning away the day of grace." If you are willing to have Christ,
you may have him. If you are as old as Methuselah--and I do not suppose
that you are older than he was--if you want Christ, you may have him.
As long as you are out of hell, Christ is able to save you. He is going on
with his old work. Because you are just past fifty, you say the die is cast;
because you are past eighty, you say, "I am too old to be saved now."
Nonsense! He healeth, he healeth, he is still doing it, "he healeth the
broken in heart."
I go further than that, and say that he does it invariably. I have shown
you that he does it effectually and constantly; but he does it invariably.
There never was a broken heart brought to him that he did not heal. Do
not some broken-hearted patients go out at the back door, as my Master's
failures? No, not one. There never was one yet that he could not heal.
Doctors are obliged, sometimes, in our hospitals to give up some
persons, and say that they will never recover. Certain symptoms have
proved that they are incurable. But, despairing one, in the divine
hospital, of which Christ is the Physician, there never was a patient of
his who was turned out as incurable. He is able to save to the uttermost.
Do you know how far that is--"to the uttermost"? There is no going
beyond "the uttermost", because the uttermost goes beyond everything
else, to make it the uttermost. "He is able to save them to the uttermost
that come unto God by him." Where are you, friend "Uttermost"? Are
you here to-night? "Ah!" you say, "I wonder that I am not in hell." Well,
so do I; but you are not, and you never will be, if you cast yourself on
Christ. Rest in the full atonement that he has made; for he healeth
always, without any failure, "he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth
up their wounds."
As I read these words, it seems to me that he glories in doing it. He said
to the Psalmist, by the Holy Spirit, "Write a Psalm in which you shall
begin with Hallelujah, and finish with Hallelujah, and set in the middle
of the Psalm this as one of the things for which I delight to be praised,
that I heal the broken in heart." None of the gods of the heathen were
ever praised for this. Did you ever read a song to Jupiter, or to Mercury,
or to Venus, or to any of them, in which they were praised for binding up
the broken in heart? Jehovah, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, is the only God who makes it his boast that he binds up the
broken in heart. Come, you big, black sinner; come, you desperado;
come, you that have gone beyond all measurement in sin; you can glorify
God more than anybody else by believing that he can save even you! He
can save you, and put you among the children. He delights to save those
that seemed farthest from him.
IV. This is my last point: consider WHAT WE OUGHT TO DO.
If there is such a Physician as this, and we have broken hearts, it goes
without saying that, first of all, we ought to resort to him. When people
are told that they have an incurable disease, a malady that will soon
bring them to their grave, they are much distressed; but if, somewhere or
other, they hear that the disease may be cured after all, they say,
"Where? Where?" Well, perhaps it is thousands of miles away; but they
are willing to go if they can. Or the medicine may be very unpleasant or
very expensive; but if they find that they can be cured, they say, "I will
have it." If anyone came to their door, and said, "Here it is, it will heal
you; and you can have it for nothing, and as much as you ever want of
it;" there would be no difficulty in getting rid of any quantity of the
medicine, so long as we found people sick. Now, if you have a broken
heart to-night, you will be glad to have Christ. I had a broken heart once,
and I went to him and he healed it in a moment, and made me sing for
joy! Young men and women, I was about fifteen or sixteen when he
healed me. I wish that you would go to him now, while you are yet
young. The age of his patients does not matter. Are you younger than
fifteen? Boys and girls may have broken hearts; and old men and old
women may have broken hearts; but they may come to Jesus and be
healed. Let them come to him to-night, and seek to be healed.
When you are about to go to Christ, possibly you ask, "How shall I go to
him?" Go by prayer. One said to me, the other day, "I wish that you
would write me a prayer, sir." I said, "No, I cannot do that, go and tell
the Lord what you want." He replied, "Sometimes I feel such a great
want that I do not know what it is I do want, and I try to pray, but I
cannot. I wish that somebody would tell me what to say." "Why!" I said,
"the Lord has told you what to say. This is what he has said: 'Take with
you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity,
and receive us graciously.' " Go to Christ in prayer with such words as
those, or any others that you can get. If you cannot get any words, tears
are just as good, and rather better; and groans and sighs and secret
desires will be acceptable with God.
But add faith to them. Trust the Physician. You know that no ointment
will heal you if you do not put it on the wound. Oftentimes when there is
a wound, you want something with which to strap the ointment on. Faith
straps on the heavenly heal-all. Go to the Lord with your broken heart,
and believe that he can heal you. Believe that he alone can heal you;
trust him to do it. Fall at his feet, and say, "If I perish, I will perish
here. I believe that the Son of God can save me, and I will be saved by
him; but I will never look anywhere else for salvation. 'Lord, I believe;
help thou mine unbelief!'" If you have come as far as that, you are very
near the light; the great Physician will heal your broken heart before very
long. Trust him to do it now.
When you have trusted in him, and your heart is healed, and you are
happy, tell others about him. I do not like my Lord to have any tongue-
tied children. I do not mean that I would want you all to preach. When a
whole church takes to preaching, it is as if the whole body were a mouth,
and that would be a vacuum. I want you to tell others, in some way or
other, what the Lord has done for you; and be earnest in endeavouring to
bring others to the great Physician. You all recollect, therefore I need not
tell you again, the story that we had about the doctor at one of our
hospitals, a year or two ago. He healed a dog's broken leg, and the
grateful animal brought other dogs to have their broken legs healed. That
was a good dog; some of you are not half as good as that dog. You
believe that Christ is blessing you, yet you never try to bring others to
him to be saved. That must not be the case any longer. We must excel
that dog in our love for our species; and it must be our intense desire
that, if Christ has healed us, he should heal our wife, our child, our
friend, our neighbour; and we should never rest till others are brought to
him.
Then, when others are brought to Christ, or even if they will not be
brought to him, be sure to praise him. If your broken heart has been
healed, and you are saved, and your sins forgiven, praise him. We do not
sing half enough. I do not mean in our congregations; but when we are
at home. We pray every day. Do we sing every day? I think that we
should. Matthew Henry used to say, about family prayer, "They that pray
do well; they that read and pray do better; they that read and pray and
sing do best of all." I think that Matthew Henry was right. "Well, I have
no voice," says one. Have you not? Then you never grumble at your wife;
your never find fault with your food; you are not one of those who make
the household unhappy by your evil speeches. "Oh, I do not mean that!"
No, I thought you did not mean that. Well, praise the Lord with the same
voice that you have used for complaining. "But I could not lend a tune,"
says one. Nobody said you were to do so. You can at least sing as I do.
My singing is of a very peculiar character. I find that I cannot confine
myself to one tune; in the course of a verse I use half-a-dozen tunes; but
the Lord, to whom I sing, never finds any fault with me. He never
blames me, because I do not keep this tune or that. I cannot help it. My
voice runs away with me, and my heart too; but I keep on humming
something or other by way of praising God's name. I would like you to
do the same. I used to know an old Methodist; and the first thing in the
morning, when he got up, he began singing a bit of a Methodist hymn;
and if I met the old man during the day, he was always singing. I have
seen him in his little workshop, with his lapstone on his knee, and he
was always singing, and beating with his hammer. When I said to him
once, "Why do you always sing, dear brother?" he replied, "Because I
always have something to sing about." That is a good reason for singing.
If our broken hearts have been healed, we have something to sing about
in time and throughout eternity. Let us begin to do so to the praise of the
glory of his grace, who "healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their
wounds." God bless all the broken hearts that are in this congregation to-
night, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
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