A walk with God becomes our whole life. God has invaded us. He hasn’t left any peace in our heart. He keeps bothering us, tapping us on the shoulder, and saying, “There’s something more that I want.” Soon He will even have that last thing we hang on to. Even the right to give Him anything is going to be His.
Our first Scripture is a beautiful word, Psalm 66:10–12: For Thou hast tried us, O God; Thou hast refined us as silver is refined. Thou didst bring us into the net. (Hasn’t it always seemed as if God was up to something sneaky? He trapped us!) Thou didst lay an oppressive burden upon our loins. Thou didst make men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet Thou didst bring us out into a place of abundance.
How does God position the kings and priests who are going to rule and reign? How does He bring about what He wants in our lives? How does He make us inherit the earth, when we’re by nature not meek at all, and yet He says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” He just lets men ride over our heads. He brings us to a place where His dealings upon us break us.
How does God bring about His will in your life? It’s by repentance, by a state of repentance. I know the devil doesn’t understand this brokenness and this repentance (and it’s a good thing for us that he doesn’t), but neither do we understand the arrogance of that rebel of all rebels, who rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven.
How can we understand that perpetual eternal arrogance of Satan and the viciousness with which he attacks the souls of men?
We can’t understand him and he can’t understand how we break before God. He goads us, He tries us, He brings us to a place where we sin, as David of old, who was torn by the torment of his own lust until he sinned against God and heard Satan say to him, “So, David, now you’re a transgressor too.”
But he didn’t count on a man after God’s own heart and what he would do. He didn’t count on the fact that such a man will humble himself before God and weep and repent.
Viciously Satan says, “I’ll destroy men in their rebellion.” But when God begins to smite them and Satan gloats in his victory, they humble themselves before the Lord and begin to repent.
God says concerning them, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Psalm 51:17.
Have you ever felt, “Why doesn’t God despise me? Why doesn’t God hate me?” Haven’t you felt sometimes that you’ve done things for which He should have rejected you and turned away from you?
Haven’t you had moments when you were ashamed of your own thoughts, of your withdrawal from God, of your fearfulness? Moments when you felt, “Oh, how often I have yielded to temptation; God will surely turn aside from me.” But He doesn’t because you weep before Him. God can’t despise that; He can’t turn away from it.
In the moments of testing and difficulty, I look up to the Lord, knowing that He doesn’t despise the broken spirit that is contrite before Him.
A broken and contrite spirit God will not despise. It’s a good thing that you never see a brother’s need without weeping about it. It’s a good thing that to every brother’s rebuke you react with tears. It’s a good thing that every time the Spirit of God speaks to you, you react with tears.
If I seem to be making you heavy and sad, remember that this is the way to enter into joy. In the eighth verse of Psalm 51, David says, Make me to hear joy and gladness. The reason that people in this Walk can’t hear joy and gladness is because they don’t know how to cry.
The ears of the spirit are a broken and contrite heart, and you don’t hear joy and gladness until you come before the Lord with a broken and a contrite heart. You don’t seem to hear His voice, you don’t seem to be aware of the blessings He wants to give you until you learn how to weep before the Lord.
We struggle along, sometimes insensitive to the joy and the gladness that would sustain us, because our hearts are not broken before the Lord.
What message do you think the Lord would give to the ministries? What message would He give to the churches that come with problems? to the pastors who come saying, “I need a word from God; I need God to deal with this and that problem.” Suppose you come and you do get a word—that word in itself is not an answer.
It’s not enough for us to know all the right actions, for a right spirit is better even than right actions. A right spirit is better than knowledge and revelation. If a man has a right spirit before God, a spirit that is broken and contrite, he is giving to God what God wants. God seems to leap over all the walls and barriers to take care of that man whose spirit is broken before Him.
Lord, let me never lose my tears. Let my spirit always be that which You delight in, which You never despise.
Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones which Thou hast broken rejoice. Psalm 51:8. Have you ever felt that God had broken your bones? that He was really laying it to you?
Only a shepherd would know the significance of the phrase, “the bones which Thou hast broken.” If a little lamb in the flock persisted in running off where the wolves could get it, the shepherd would often use his rod to break one of its legs.
Then that little lamb had to stay close to the shepherd, who would tenderly bind up the broken leg. God does that to us to teach us not to wander and stray from Him, to teach us to be broken in our spirit before Him, to teach us not to react with resentment, not to be resentful of any man or any woman or of any circumstance, not to be resentful of any lack, any delays, or any path over which He leads us.
Learn how to submit to the Lord, that the bones which He has broken may rejoice. When He lays it to us, He is teaching us how to walk with Him in obedience and submission.
It’s not human nature to walk with God. It isn’t natural for us to walk this way, and therefore God has to deal with us. Without tears, I don’t think we walk with God.
Your heart can say, “But how long shall I cry? How long shall I mourn in spirit? How long shall I be poor in spirit? How long shall I be meek? When shall it end?” Actually, there’s no indication that it will ever end until the new Jerusalem, when God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes.
Until that time there’s going to be weeping because those who make it will be those who are broken in spirit. The liars, the arrogant, the proud shall be turned into hell. The strong man, who thinks he knows so much, stumbles and falls, and the youth faints in the way, but those who sow in tears will come again, rejoicing and bringing precious sheaves with them. (Psalms 126:5, 6).
God will have to show you that the key of it is in your spirit. You may have all the right actions and the right conduct and still wonder why you’re not being blessed. Look to your spirit.
A man came to present his cause against his brother. He was so right, as right as he could be. The preacher turned to the brother whom he was accusing and asked, “Is that right?” He was quick to answer, “Oh yes, he’s right. I’m sorry. I’ve sinned. I’m always doing that and I’m so ashamed. Forgive me.”
The other brother said, “Yes, you ought to repent.” With wisdom from the Lord the preacher told the accuser, “You’re wrong because you’re right with a wrong spirit.” To the accused he said, “You’re wrong, but you have a right spirit, so you’re right.” I’d rather be wrong and have a right spirit than be right and have a wrong spirit.
As I look back to the stories of David, I see how wonderfully God used him, in spite of the terrible sin he committed.
He saw this woman on a rooftop taking a bath. (This doesn’t necessarily mean that she was a conniving woman, because that country is very hot, and she was taking a bath in the evening time.) David committed adultery with her and when she told him that she was going to have a child, he sent her husband into the heavy battle and had the army withdraw from him at a strategic point, so he would be killed. David was guilty of cold-blooded murder. I’ve seen people rejected for deeds much less serious. Why didn’t God reject David? Did He need him because he was a genius? No, the fact remains, that David sinned, but he also repented deeply.
He cried: … Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity.… Behold, Thou dost desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part Thou wilt make me know wisdom. Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones which Thou hast broken rejoice. Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Psalm 51:1–2; 6–9.
What does it take to be a man after God’s own heart? Does that mean he never sins, never does anything wrong? Is there some special code of behavior that he always measures up to? Does it mean he never violates the code of the Torah? No, David didn’t do any of these. But he did have a broken spirit, and every time God put the finger on him, he broke, and he broke hard before God, and repented.
In this Walk, people come in from all kinds of backgrounds. I don’t anticipate hideous sins from our leaders because we are living in a day of the outpouring of righteousness. But whether our violations are minor or whether they are major, it still will remain true for us, that it’s in the brokenness of spirit that God will preserve us.
Don’t be quick to judge another man because he has committed a terrible sin. Look to his spirit, and if his spirit is honestly broken before God, there is mercy for him. How many times shall you forgive him? Seven times? No seventy times seven.
Notice David’s prayer; Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Thy presence, and do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me. Psalm 51:10–11. The ache of his heart came up desperately before the Lord and the Lord met him.
I’m going to make a statement that may help some of you. I think God sometimes traps men in their sin. A man could carry lust in his heart, as David did, all of his life and never repent of it. Sometimes God delivers man over to the wickedness in his heart and let’s him fall into it so that he can be completely delivered of it.
I’ve seen arrogant ones boast, “I never make a mistake,” and then watch how God pulls the rug out from under them because their basis is not one of faith in the grace of God, but an arrogance of self-righteousness.
Arrogantly they say, “Because I have not given voice to it, or I have not given the action to it, therefore I am absolutely righteous.” God sees that they are not, and He has to show them the arrogance of their way. He makes sinners out of them by turning them over to what is in their heart.
You don’t have to be delivered over to the sin if you just have the wisdom to open your heart and let God show you what is there. He can deal with it without delivering you into it.
A man who walks through the valley, weeping before the Lord, has one security; no one ever falls off a valley. When you get up on a mountain, you can easily fall off.
But when you go through the Valley of Baca (the valley of tears), it becomes a fountain for you, a place of security, a place for the ministries to rest. You don’t have a big point to prove; He’s already proved everything. You don’t have to defend yourself. If someone says, “You’re an evil man,” you can say. “How true. But for the grace of God, what a scoundrel it would be.” Let this be your attitude. Away with the self-righteousness. With a brokenness in your spirit, see yourself as the chiefest of sinners, one who has obtained mercy in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God has made some of your problems to happen. He’s had a purpose in some of the things you’ve had to go through. Have you been in a place where you felt you had failed and completely washed out?
Maybe God had to show you something that was in your heart. Do you ever feel that God has turned you over to something in your spirit so that you can no longer bury it, but you must be broken before Him until the root and branch is taken out? The way of deliverance is the way of tears and brokenness.
For us to be broken before the Lord is, in my opinion, one of the greatest things God could do for us. We have achieved a unity, and step by step the Lord is leading us.
“If you will walk humbly before the Lord, if you’ll walk in unity, and if you’ll walk in love, I will bless you to minister to the whole world.”
Time and time again the prophecy was repeated, “Every nation on the face of the earth will be blessed by the Word of God from this house, if you walk humbly, if you walk in love, if you walk in unity.”
Be humble and broken before the Lord, in honor preferring one another, as bond servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t be afraid to wash one another’s feet, to take the humble place. God delights in that broken spirit. He will never despise it.
If He has to reach down and choose on any issue, it will not be the rightness or the wrongness of the situation that determines His verdict, for He will never despise or bring a verdict against a man who is broken in spirit.
The Kingdom is coming and there are no big shots in it, only those who are destined to inherit the earth, and they are called the meek.
In the midst of the battle, the foxhole of humility and of a broken spirit is the best place to hide when the roaring lion and the hosts of principalities and powers come against us.
We find a hiding place in Thee, Lord, a place of safety, and then we become a hiding place. Ask God to teach you how to be broken before Him, what it is to be broken in your spirit.
Let me give you three Scripture passages that will help you.
Thus says the Lord, “Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me. And where is a place that I may rest? For My hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being,” declares the Lord. “But to this one will I took, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” Isaiah 66:1-2.
The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against evil doers, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Psalm 34:15–19.
For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57:15.
“God, what’s Your address?”
“I have two addresses, My son.”
“What is your first address?”
“I dwell in the high and holy place, for the heaven of heavens cannot contain Me.”
“What is Your second address?”
“I dwell also with the contrite and the lowly of spirit.” “Lord, let me be so broken before You that You make my heart Your address.”