Psalm 51, verse 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Now the minister of Christ is
responsible for what he preaches. Paul said, Woe unto me if I preach
not the gospel of Christ. He said again, I am determined
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. If anyone preach any other gospel
unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be
accursed. even if it be an angel from heaven.
So the minister of Christ is responsible for what he preaches,
and then he's responsible for how he preaches. I want you to
turn with me to 1 Corinthians 2. Now, the minister of Christ
is responsible for how he preaches. We are to have a humble spirit. We are to preach for the glory
of God. We are to lift up Christ in such
a way that he will be given the preeminence and he will not be
overshadowed by our own personality, our own programs. In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul said,
Brethren, when I came to you, I came not with excellency of
speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus
Christ, in Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness,
and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in
the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. And then again
in Romans chapter 9, listen to the Apostle in this scripture,
Romans 9 verse 1. I say the truth in Christ, I
lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,
that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself
were separated from Christ, for my brethren by kinsmen according
to the flesh. So the minister of Christ is
not only responsible for what he preaches, but he's responsible
for how he preaches it. He's to preach with the right
attitude. He's to preach for the right purpose. He's to preach
with a broken heart. He's to preach so that Christ
Jesus the Lord shall have all the preeminence. The minister of Christ is not
responsible for the success of what he preaches. He's not responsible
for the success of his gospel. How you react to the message,
how you react to the warning, how you react to the invitation,
how you react to what we preach, is not our responsibility. That's
between you and the Holy Spirit. There was an old man who lived
up in the mountains. This is a story. I cannot vouch
for the truthfulness of it, but it illustrates what I'm saying.
There was an old man who lived up in the mountains of a mining
town, overlooking a mining town, and there were a lot of tales
about the old man. There was a lot of tradition
surrounding him. Some people said he was a prophet.
Some people said he was a very wise man, a very brilliant man. Some even passed the word around
that he could foretell the future. So two little boys decided that
they would trick the old man, and they trapped a little bird. They called it a field bird,
a very small bird, and they took it up to the old man's shack.
He was sitting on the front porch. Before they got to the shack,
the little boy holding the bird in his hands said, Now I'll tell
you what we'll do. He said, I'll hold this bird in my two hands
like this, and we'll ask the old man, Is the bird dead or
alive? We have a bird. I have a bird
in my hands. Is it dead or is it alive? If
he says it's dead, he said, I'll open my hands and let it fly
out. If he says it's alive, I'll squeeze the bird and kill it.
and then drop it on the ground. So they took the bird and came
up to where the old man was sitting on the porch. And they said,
Old man, I have a bird in my hand. Is that bird dead or is
that bird alive? The old man sat there a moment,
didn't say anything. Finally he looked up at the little
boy and he said, Son, that depends entirely on you. that depends entirely on you.
The minister of Christ is responsible for what he preaches. God has
given us a message to preach. The minister of Christ is responsible
to preach that gospel in the right attitude, with a broken
heart. He is to preach it clearly and
plainly so that the cross of Christ is not secondary but first,
of first importance. The conviction and conversion
of a sinner is not man's work, it's God's
work. The conviction and conversion
of a sinner is not the work entirely of the mind and the reason and
the intellect, it's heart work. I may preach to your ears, I
may appeal to your I may employ the means of love and fear and
gratitude, but to reach your heart with the gospel in regenerating,
quickening, life-giving power is the work of God alone. I can't do that work." In John chapter 1, the Apostle
John said, "...as many as receive him." to them gave he the right,
the authority, the privilege, to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood,
not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of
God." In Galatians 1.15, the Apostle
Paul said, when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's
womb and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, that
I might preach him among the heathen. It pleased God to reveal
his Son in me. And the Apostle Paul wrote in
Romans 9.15, God said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion,
so then it is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. We may preach to your ears, and
you give them to us and we may appeal to your reason, and we
may employ all the means of love and fear and gratitude, but to
reach your heart is impossible with men. It takes God the Holy
Spirit to break the heart, to reveal sin, and to lift up Christ. Our Lord said, Whom do you say
that I am? Peter said, Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. He said, Blessed are you, Peter.
Flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you, but my Father, which
is in heaven. Only God can deal with the heart.
And the heart is the seat of affections, emotions, and the
issues of life. Solomon said, Keep thy heart,
for out of it are the issues of life. The Lord looketh not on the outward
countenance, the Lord seeth not as man seeth, the Lord looketh
on the heart. The heart is the source of sin,
the heart is the place of repentance. I will hide thy word in my heart,
that I might not sin against thee." The heart is the birthplace
of faith. Turn to Romans, chapter 10. In Romans 10, verse 9, that if
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe
in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved. Verse 10, For with the heart
man believeth unto righteousness. With the heart man believeth
unto righteousness. The heart is the seat of affections.
The heart is the seat of emotions. The heart is the source of sin.
Out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, out of the heart proceeds
murders, out of the heart proceeds hatred, out of the heart proceeds
all of these things. They come from the heart. It's
the place of repentance. My son, give me thine heart,
God's sake. The heart is the birthplace of
faith, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.
The heart is the home of love. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart. The love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts. And here in our text this morning,
Psalm 51, David said back in verse 16, Lord, you don't desire
sacrifice. I'd bring it. David had been
thinking about his great sin, his great transgressions. He
said, My sin is ever before me. I acknowledge my transgression.
against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and none this evil
in Thy sight. I bring sacrifices, but that's
not it." God does a delight in sacrifices. I bring burnt offerings,
but that's not it. Verse 17, the sacrifices of God
are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. Turn back
to Psalms 34, verse 18. Listen to this carefully. David
went on to say there in Psalm 51, if this heart work is done,
then I'll bring sacrifices, then God will be pleased with my sacrifice.
If this heart work is done, then God will be pleased with my offering.
If this heart work is done, then God will be pleased with my worship.
Dave is not discounting sacrifice, nor discounting offerings, nor
discounting worship. He is saying, if the heart work
is not done first, the other is no good, for the sacrifices
of God are a broken heart. That's our whole problem today,
is religion without heart. You call me Lord with your lips,
he said, but your hearts are far from me. And in Psalms 34, 18, the Lord
is known to them that are of a broken heart. and save as such as be of a contrite
spirit." What is the heart? What are we
talking about? The heart is the seat of affection. The heart is the source of sin. The heart is the place of repentance. The heart is the home of love. The heart is the birthplace of
faith. The sacrifices of God are broken
hearts. the Lord looketh on the heart."
What is the heart? Spoken of with such strong emphasis,
such great importance, what is the heart? I wouldn't wound or offend anybody
here, but the heart is not the organ of the body which receives
and sends forth blood to all parts of the body. A lot of religious
people got upset when they started talking about transplanting hearts,
as if it would change the personality of an individual. Your heart
has no more to do with your personality, the heart that pumps blood than
your kidneys do, or your lungs, or anything else for that matter,
as far as establishing the personality and the character of an individual.
That's just another organ like any other organ of the body.
When we send somebody a valentine, we have a heart drawn on there,
like in the shape of the real heart. But the heart is not that
organ of the body that pumps blood. The heart spoken of in
the scriptures is the real you. It's the real you. It's the soul
of a man. It's the very essence of the
man. It is that part of the man that
directs the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions, the desires, the
motive. The soul is that which constitutes
all that I am. The heart is that which constitutes
the whole that I am. The whole soul of man is the
heart. One writer says, the heart of
man is the seat of government. The seat of government. The heart
controls the actions, the words, and the attitude of a man. So
when God says, my son, give me thine heart, he's calling for
surrender of the throne. He's calling for an unconditional
surrender of the government. He's calling for total surrender
of the real person. Your body is not you. Your heart
is you. Thomas Boston wrote a book one
time, about the fourfold state of man. And in that book, there
was a chapter on man in his state of innocence. That was back before
the fall. And then there was a chapter
on man in his state of nature, that is, unregenerate state,
his state of rebellion, in the state of sin, under the curse
of the law. There was a chapter on the state
of grace. And that is the life of the believer,
as he is in Christ Jesus and all of the benefits of his grace.
And then the last chapter was the state of glory. The state
of glory. Now, I have passed through three
of those states. I'm looking forward to the fourth.
In Adam, I was in a state of innocence, and then by rebellion
and sin in a state of nature, and by God's mercy through Christ,
I am now living in a state of grace. And some of these days,
when God shall call me home or Christ shall come, I will live
forever in a state of glory. Now, I see in the Scripture a
threefold state of the heart of man. And there are some of
you who have passed through all of these three stages or states
of the heart. There are some who are still
in number one. There's some who have passed through number one,
and you're struggling in number two, and there's some who know
something about number three. And I'm going to give you the
threefold state of the heart of man, as taught in the Word
of God. Number one, there is the natural
heart. And secondly, there is the wounded
heart. And thirdly, there is what we've
been talking about from Psalm 51, the broken heart. First of all, let's look at Jeremiah
chapter 17. Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 9. There is the natural, or the
wicked, heart of man by nature. Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 17,
verse 9, the heart is deceitful above all things. Now don't forget
what I said the heart was. The heart's you. Your soul, it's
the government of man. It's the whole you. It's the
real you. It's the you that God knows and
you know a little bit about. But the heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Desperately wicked. The heart
of man is said to be, in the word of God, desperately wicked,
stony, hard, double-minded, divided. The heart of a natural man is
the dwelling place of Satan. It's the producer of evil thoughts. Turn to Psalms 35. Let me read
something here. Rather, it's Psalm 52, it is. Psalm 52. In Psalm 52, verse
1, why boasteth thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? The
goodness of God endureth continually. Thy tongue deviseth mischief,
like a sharp razor working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than good,
and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Thou lovest all
devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue. God shall likewise destroy
thee forever. He shall take thee away, and
pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the
land of the living. The heart of man is a wicked
dwelling place of Satan. It's the producer of evil thoughts. And this wicked, deceitful heart
is not only in the lives of the outwardly wicked, but the deceitful,
wicked heart also dwells in the ceremonialist and the religionist. In the book of Acts, chapter
8, There was a man called Simon who professed to be converted,
and in Acts 8, verse 18, when Simon saw that through laying
on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered
the apostles money, saying, Give me also this power that on whomsoever
I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost. And Peter said unto
him, thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that
the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither
part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in
the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy
wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine
heart may be forgiven thee." For I perceive that thou art
in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." A man
may be religious, he may be in the church, he may even be in
the pulpit, and yet his heart not be right with God. In 2 Corinthians
chapter 3, actually the Apostle Paul writes over here that there
is a veil on the heart. a veil that blinds the heart
from being able to see the mysteries of the gospel. In 2 Corinthians
3, verse 14, But their minds are blinded, until this day they
remain at the same veil, untaken away. In the reading of the Old
Testament, which veil is done away in Christ, that's talking
about the people of Israel. could not look at the tabernacle
and see Christ. They could not look at the tithes
and see Christ. They couldn't look at the sacrifices
and see Christ. They couldn't see Christ in those
things because of the veil that was over their eyes. Even unto
this day, verse 15, when Moses is read, when the writings of
Moses is read, the veil is upon their hearts, the veil of unbelief. When this veil is upon the heart,
when the heart is not right with God, When a man is in religion
without a renewed heart, he can rejoice in a creed, but not in
Christ. He can practice the letter of
the law, but not the spirit of the law. He can understand the
rules of religion, but he can't understand the spirit of grace. They can promote the glory of
an organization, but they cannot live for the glory of God only. They can even talk to men about
God, but they never talk to God about men. So there is the natural
heart, there is the wicked heart, there is the divided heart, there
is the stony heart, there is the double heart, and it's It's
such a wicked heart and it's so deceitful that a man can even
be in religion and not know that he has this natural heart, this
wicked heart. Who can know it? The heart is
deceitful above all things. Personality, the character of
an individual, is so deceitful, evil is so deceitful, that a
man can be in the middle of religion and still not know that he has
a wicked heart. But I think these things will
give us some clue to that. In which do we rejoice, Christ
or our creed? Are we practicing the letter
of the law, or are we practicing the spirit of the law? Do we
understand the rules of religion? Are we able to discuss and enter
into the rules of religion, and still have never been able to
enter into the spirit of God's grace. What are we promoting? Are we promoting an organization,
or are we promoting the glory of God? We can talk to men. People say,
I witness. That's not too hard to do. Nothing
to that. I talk to people about God. Do
you ever talk to God about people? A hard, deceitful, natural heart
can talk to people about his religion, about his theology,
about his creed, even about his God. But the broken heart talks
to God about people. And then secondly, there's the
wounded heart. In Psalms 109. And this, there's
not as much strength in the scripture on this point as there is on
the first and the third. The natural heart, the double
heart, the deceitful heart, is always through the Bible. The
natural heart, the wicked heart, and also the broken heart. But
there is in between, I believe, and many of the old writers,
the men of the past, have written about the wounded heart. In Psalms
109, verse 22, the psalmist said, I am poor and needy, and my heart
is wounded. my heart is wounded within me.
Now, theologians have called the wounded heart the convicted
heart, the awakened heart. And it's not my plan this morning
to go into whether it's effectually awakened or whether it is just
disturbed by what we call common grace. whether it is Holy Spirit
conviction or law conviction. I can only say when I see the
direction that the wounded heart moves. The wounded heart can
either grow hard or the wounded heart can proceed to be broken.
But I know there are some things that make these wounds. First
of all, in Romans 7, if you'll turn over there with me, the
first thing that wounds the heart, and this has to be done before
the heart can be broken, There's got to be a severing of the heart.
There's got to be a wounding of the heart before it can be
broken. It's got to come in contact with something that breaks it,
that disturbs it, that smatters it and shatters it. In Romans 7, verse 7, the first
wound, the first thing that makes the first wound is the law of
God. The sinner is made aware of the holy law of God, Romans
7. He's aware of judgment. He's
aware of God's perfect, immaculate law. In Romans 7, verse 7, Paul
said, What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but
by the law. I had not known lust, except
the law hath said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taken occasion
by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence,
revealed what was there. The law split my heart open and
let me see what I really was. Without the law, seeing was dead,
seeing was there. But the law was the error that
came and broke open the old cesspool and let me see what was there.
Verse 9, For I was alive without the law before that error came,
before the sword of God's law came and broke open the sword
and let me see the corruption. I was alive, but when the law
came, I died. And the commandment which was
ordained to life, God said to Adam, Do this and live. Do this
and live. I found that very law which was
ordained to life, I found it to be unto death. It slew me.
The law of God. So the wounded heart, the first
wound made in the heart is by the law of God, the holy law
of God. I look at that law. And I see
its perfection, and I see my imperfection. I see its holiness,
and I see my unholiness. I see its righteousness, and
I see my unrighteousness. I take a look in the mirror of
the law, and I see the dirt and filth and corruption. That's
what Paul said, that law that was ordained to life, I found
to be unto death. It slew me. It slew me. And I think that which makes
the second wound is the majesty of God in Exodus 20. Now this
world, this world today has a peanut God. The religious world today
has a little old silly, sentimental, foolish, emotional God. That's
right, a defeated, frustrated, begging God. That's what they've
got. They've got a little old weak God. He runs around. He's
a bedpan janitor. He runs around healing bodies,
and that's all he can do. And sometimes he can't do that.
In Exodus 20, the people saw from Sinai's mountain the majesty
and the power and the glory and the sovereignty of the God of
glory. It says here in verse 18 of Exodus
20 that people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise
of the trumpet and the mountains smoking, and when the people
saw it, they removed and they stood way
off. They stood way off. The fear of God, oh, the awesome,
awesome presence of God, the terrible, awful, holy presence
of God, the power of God that covered the heavens and covered
the earth, and the mountains shook and scared them. And they said, Moses, speak with
us and we'll listen to you, but don't let God speak with us.
The sound of His voice would slay us. Let not God speak with us. Oh,
when the apostle Peter, who had sat down at the table with the
Lord Jesus, he'd eaten with him. And I'm sure out there on the
side of the mountain, when they'd begun to pray somewhere, they'd
lay down side by side and slept. And they'd sat around in a boat,
and they'd fished, and they'd been together all this time. And then one day the Lord Jesus
came up on the disciples, and they were fishing. They hadn't
caught anything. And he said, throw your nets on the right
side of the ship. And they threw them over there
and started bringing fish in. It almost sank the boat and broke
the net. Peter looked at the Lord Jesus
and he said, Lord, depart from me. I'm a sinful man. I'm not
comfortable in the presence of such power. I'm not comfortable
in the presence of such awesome majesty. You just depart from
me. I'm a sinful man. when a man
sees God. Oh, Isaiah said, When I saw the
Lord, I cried, Woe is me! Daniel said, When I saw the Lord,
the glory of God, my comeliness melted into corruption. John
on the Isle of Patmos heard the voice of God and fell at His
feet as a dead man, overcome by the awesome majesty and power
of the God of glory. The Bible says of sinners, there's
no fear of God before their eyes. Well, the God that's being preached
from the average pulpit, there's no reason to fear him. There's
no cause to fear him. The God that's being worshipped
today in the average church, there's no majesty about him,
there's no sovereignty about him, there's no might, there's
no power. It's big man and little God that's being preached today,
the dignity of the sinner. and God the beggar, God the valet,
God the servant of men. Ask a man one time, said, do
you think that your sins will be forgiven when you die and
you'll go to heaven? He said, why sure, isn't that
what God's for? When the heart is wounded, it's
wounded by the law, the holy law of God. that demands perfection
in thought, in motive, in attitude, that demands perfection in imagination,
in the subconscious and the conscious, that demands holiness. And when
that law comes in its power, and it is the right understanding
in the hands of the Teacher, the Holy Ghost, it wounds the
heart, it cuts it open, it kills it. And then when we look up
and see the majesty of God, oh God, the greatness of God, how
great thou art. We sing about it, but we don't
know anything about it. How great thou art. And then
I think the third wound is made when a man feels his helplessness,
his total inability. David Brainerd saw that. David
Brainerd who was the great missionary to the Indians, who lived in
the home of Jonathan Edwards, who was the sweetheart of Jonathan
Edwards' daughter, who died when he was only 29 years of age.
Of whom Jonathan Edwards said, any gospel that produces a man
like David Brainerd would bear looking into. David Brainerd
said he saw four things that made him angry. and all but destroyed
him. He said he saw, first of all,
the holy law of God, that God demanded repentance, and he couldn't
produce it. Couldn't produce it. Secondly,
he said, I saw God demanded perfect faith, and I couldn't produce
that. And thirdly, he said, I saw that
God was the author of faith, and he could give me faith, or
he could pass me And then, fourthly, he said, I realized that God
could save my soul and reveal his son to me, or God could leave
me in my darkness and leave me in my sin and send me to hell,
and he'd be just in doing so. Now, that's the wounded heart. Some of you may be in that condition
this morning. That's the wounded heart. It's
a state of confusion. It really is. It's a state of
doubt. It's a state of halting between
two opinions. It's a state of conviction. It's
a state of disturbance. It's a state of not knowing where
you stand. But you've been wounded by the
law, that is. You've been wounded by the awesome.
Here's a preacher who comes along and says, God's sovereign. Another
preacher comes along and says, no, he's not man's sovereign.
You don't know who's sovereign. A man comes along and says, salvation
is of the Lord. Somebody else comes along and
says, salvation is an act of the human will. Somebody comes along and says,
man's dead in his sins, and he needs God to reach down in the
dunghill and to lift him and to watch him and to give him
life and to put him on the floor. Some other preacher comes along
and says, God's crying his eyes out up there leaning over the
banisters of heaven because you won't get out of the dunghill
by yourself. If you'll take the first step, God will meet you
halfway, and you're confused. and the law has wounded you,
and the majesty of God has wounded you, and the helplessness of
the sinners. Now, you just go in one of two directions. There's
two fates ahead. Number one, you can continue
in your hardness of heart, or you can come to God with a broken
heart. In Psalms 34, 18, The Lord is known to them that
are of a broken heart. What are the characteristics
of a broken heart? Let me get into it quickly and
I'll close. This is where I hope you wind up. This is where I
hope you wind up. First of all, a broken heart
is broken of self-righteousness. In the light of the law of God,
in the light of conscience, in the light of Christ's holiness,
We're made to cry, O wretched man that I am! O wretched man that I am! Our pride
is destroyed. The heart that's broken is broken
of its self-righteousness. The heart that's broken says,
In my flesh there dwelleth no good thing. The heart that's
broken says, My righteousness is our filthy rags. The heart
that's broken says, We all do fade as the leaves. A heart that
is broken says, O God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And then a heart that is broken,
secondly, is broken before the preached word of God. Does the
word of God offend you? It does not offend a broken heart.
You can't offend a broken heart. The preaching of God's servant
on any subject no longer offends. There is a hunger and thirst
for truth at any cost. When the word of God breaks you,
you say, thank you, Lord. When the word of God strips you,
you say, thank you, Lord. When the word of God humbles
you like the sorrowful Phoenician woman, you say, that's true,
Lord, but the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table.
A broken heart is never offended before the preached word of God.
And thirdly, a broken heart is never offended or angered by
the providence of God. They said, Eli, your sons are
going to die. And Eli said, Well, it's the
Lord. Let him do what he will. Job, when he heard the news that
everything he had had been wiped away, he said, Naked I came into
the world, and naked I shall depart. Blessed be the name of
the Lord. A broken heart does not rebel
against the providence of God. Whatever it pleases God to take
or to give, whatever it pleases God to withhold or supply, the
broken heart says, Thank you, Lord. The Lord is sovereign and
will be thankful. And then the broken heart is
broken at the cross of Christ. Were the whole realm of nature
mine, that were present far too small, love so amazing, so divine,
demands my life, my soul, and my all. And then a heart that
is broken is broken in sympathy and love for other people. There's room in a broken heart
for a lot of folks. There's room for a lot of folks.
There's room for a lot of burdens. There's room for a lot of heartaches.
There's room for a lot of tears. There's room for a lot of rejoicing.
A broken heart is not selfish. It is broad. It is universal. It reaches out and embraces. all people. So those are the
characteristics of a broken heart, a broken heart which God will
not despise. It's broken of pride. It's broken
before the preached word of God. It cannot be offended. It's broken
before the providence of God. It's broken at the cross of Christ.
It's broken in sympathy and love for others. There aren't many
broken hearts. But all broken hearts are saved.
God saveth such as be of a broken heart. There are a lot of wounded
hearts. I think there are a lot of wounded hearts. I think there
are a lot of people who are on the way to having broken hearts.
I think there are a lot of people who have wounded hearts who will
be hardened, who will turn back, who can't take it. Christ said,
Sit down and count the cost. I think that's what we call gospel
hardened. There's a common law conviction,
and the conviction of common grace. And people turn back like
the dog turns back to his vomit, and the hog back to the wallet.
They experience the departure of an evil spirit, and then they
are joined with seven that are worse than the first.
But a broken heart. God give us a broken heart. That is the reason David said,
I'd bring sacrifice, but it wouldn't matter. And I'd bring an offering,
but you're not pleased with that unless, first of all, I have
a broken heart. And then, and then, you'll be
pleased with my sacrifice. Then you'll be pleased with my
gifts. Then you'll be pleased with my offerings. And then you'll
be pleased with my worship. But these things apart from the
broken heart, God will not accept. Our Father in Heaven, break our
hearts. Break our hearts of pride and
self-righteousness. Break our hearts before the convicting
word of the living God. Thy word is truth. Sanctify us
through thy truth. Break our hearts at the cross
of Calvary. And O God, break our hearts from
murmuring and