We Need the Breakings of God — R. Edward Miller

The Contrite Heart and God's Presence

15. For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

Would you turn with me also to Psalm, the 51st Psalm, that most remarkable psalm. It is a repentance psalm. It is bad enough to have to confess your sins to God. It is worse to confess it to one another.

But how about writing a song about it that all the world, for generations and generations and generations, can read all about it. The 51st Psalm, verse 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Breaking the Emotions and the Will

And our subject tonight is on the third message in this series on breakings. First we spoke on the breakings of the emotion. The breakings of the emotion. It is necessary. It is necessary to have our emotions flowing and be released from the terrible bondage of stoicism, from the bondage of fear of showing emotion, from the bondage of having our emotions all locked up.

Some people have their emotions so locked up that practically nothing is able to unlock them. Nevertheless, we've also found out, both by observation and by experience, that even though the emotions can be broken, still there's something lacking, isn't there?

And so we looked at another aspect of breaking. It's the breaking of the will. That border that sits at the door of action and opens it or doesn't open it. The will. That needs to be broken. That needs to be broken loose from its set ways and its determined rebellions against God, against the righteous and rightful ruler of our lives.

But even that isn't enough. In fact, one of the proofs it isn't enough is the life and lives of those that crucified Jesus. Their will followed the law so perfectly that they could say, well all that I've done from my youth up, one said to Jesus, didn't they?

In fact, a surrendered will, if it is not accompanied by other things, can produce a tremendous operation of self-righteousness, of legalism. You can do everything right and still be wrong. Everything, just dotting every I and crossing every T, and still be wrong.

It isn't enough. Some people think it is enough. Some people think if I do right, well what more is there? Especially if their emotions also are released. When emotions are released, their will is determined to do the things of God.

But it isn't enough. Those same ones were the same ones that would drag a Stephen out and stone him. The same ones that would take a Christ out and crucify him. And yet they were so righteous, weren't they?

At least in their own eyes. And actually thought they were doing God a favor. And so there's another realm of breaking we're going to touch tonight. The breaking of the heart. That's something else. That goes deeper.

The Contrite Heart and Repentance

We're not talking about melancholy. We're not talking about going around in sadness. That's not necessarily, that's just an emotion after all. We're talking about something far deeper than that. The contrite heart.

Contrite means just pulverized. I mean it's really broken. We find a contrite one here, the sensible of his sins. He knows that he's done wrong. He realizes that he's offended the Almighty. He realizes he's in trouble.

We find the heart of Mary Magdalene was broken as she waited in his presence. In the seventh chapter of Luke, washed his feet with her tears, wiped them with the hairs of her head, poured out the ointment upon him.

And Jesus said, therefore, because of this, her sins, which are many, are forgiven her. We read in the 34th Psalm that God is nigh to such ones. Like to read 34, 18. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

The Lord is nigh to such ones. The way to draw nearer to God, let that heart, that inner being of ours. We read over in Joel, he says, rend your heart, not your garments. Rend your heart. There's something inside that needs to be deal with, not just the outer works, not just the changing from the outside.

There has to be something else done. I read in Jeremiah 17, 9, that the heart is deceitful above all things, and who can know it? Look into your heart, examine it well, listen to what it says, and you'll be sure to be deceived.

It takes the Holy Spirit to do that, doesn't it? We cannot do it on our own. It's deceitful, and the person that most deceives is oneself. That's the one that's mostly deceived. Jesus said his own church was greatly deceived.

They looked in their own heart, and they said, I am rich, increased with goods, all is well. He said, oh no, it isn't, because you don't know that you're blind and wretched and naked. Oh, what a picture he drew of his own church, if you please.

See, they were being deceived by their own heart, perhaps by their own actions also. But something was wrong. I read in Proverbs 23, that as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Out of the heart are the issues of life.

Again, we read in Proverbs. It's out of what's inside. Jesus said, out of the heart proceeds evil. It needs changing. It needs something done to it. We read in Ezekiel 36 that God intended to do something about it.

He said he'd take out that stony heart. That sounds pretty hard, doesn't it? He'd take out the stony heart and put in a heart of flesh, a tender heart, a sensitive heart, an inner being of ours. It needs breaking, mind you.

It needs, badly needs breaking. It needs contriting. It needs, contriting means it's so broken it'll never get mended again. You'll never repair it. You drop a dish, a nice dish on your kitchen carpet, and it can break into two or three pieces.

But some good old cement will fix it up and you can still sit it on your shelf. But down in Argentina, our floors are ceramic tile. It's amazing what it does to a dish when it falls on it. You don't try to mend it.

It's too far gone. You just sweep it up and hope you get all the little pieces. So when you come out the night to get a drink, barefooted, you don't find it accidentally. Of course, that's always when you find it, isn't it?

Hardness of Heart and Disobedience

Contriting, that's broken so it can't be mended. That's beyond mending. Over in Psalm 95, I read something about this heart, very important. Verse 8. Harden not your heart. Would you see that? Then that's something we do, isn't it?

That's done by our own actions. As we, going through life, we harden our heart to situations. We harden our heart, we don't want to be affected by it. We hear it so often, so we just harden up. If you start to work and you haven't worked for a long while, oh my, how tender your hands are.

It isn't an hour until blisters are forming. But you keep it up and keep it up and keep it up. Pretty soon there's hard calluses formed, haven't they? No longer are those hands tender and sensitive and even painful, but now they're all hardened up.

But it takes a while to do that. It takes a while for that hardening to come, but it does harden. The hardness of heart, sin hardens your heart. Disobedience hardens our heart. We harden our heart by closing down.

Closing to our emotions helps to harden our heart. Closing our expressions of affection hardens the heart. Giving away to the lust of the flesh will harden the heart. He says, don't harden your heart.

Don't be like those people that were so good on the outside, but oh, their hearts were so hard on the inside. Those Pharisees. He said, don't be like that. Do something better than that. Harden not your heart as a provocation, as in the day of temptation in the wilderness.

When your fathers tempted me and proved me and saw my works. Look at that. 40 years long was I grieved with this generation and said it's a people that err in their heart. That's where the problem is.

They have not known my ways. I swear my wrath of it should not enter into my rest. Well, what is a heart, a broken heart? What is the breaking of a heart? After all, if it's not emotions, there's a good definition I think was written by William Law a couple hundred years ago.

He was a contemporary of, in fact, he was one of the early teachers or mentors of John Wesley. Wonderful man of God. He said, first of all, the heart is broken when all of its strongholds are broken. All of its defense is down against God.

No longer defended, but it's, it was broke. Those strongholds are broken. Then he says, when all of its false coverings are off, when I stopped seeing myself so good, that deception always everybody sees themselves as good.

Nevermind how anybody else sees you. You know that you're a lot better than other people think you are. Now, don't you? But what's your opinion gives a thousand others. They won't believe you, but you know in your secret heart.

But when those false coverings come off, light begins to come and we see I am poor and needy. And it's not my brother, as the song says, not my sister, but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

I stopped seeing myself and all my self righteousness and all my goodness. I see my need. All the false coverings are off. I see it as it really is. Turn with me to Jeremiah. I think maybe your eyes should take a look at this word of God in the book of Jeremiah.

Verse nine. The heart is deceitful above all things, and furthermore, desperately wicked. And who can know it? Who can know it? Only the ones that allow the false coverings to come off. Only the ones that let the light of God search out.

David prayed that. Search me, oh God, didn't he? Search me and know my thoughts. Know what's inside. He prayed for it. Get all the false coverings off until what's really there is seen. In Isaiah, to give a picture of it, God said, he said, you're like one massive sore from the crown of your head to the sole of your feet.

He said, just like one massive sore. That's the way my people are. Or again, we mentioned what was said to that lovely church. It was going along so well. Mind you, that wasn't a cold church. Jesus said it wasn't cold.

He did say it was lukewarm. He said, I wish you were cold. That sounds strange, doesn't it? Oh, you don't like to go to those cold churches. Like an iceberg when you step in. Refrigerator. Remember, I've mentioned to you, there's a church in England, out towards Bristol.

They sold it to a meatpacking company, and now they hang up, they keep frozen the carcasses of sheep. So instead of having live sheep, they've got frozen mutton. The Laodicean church, we thank God we're not like that place with all they've got is frozen mutton.

We're doing well. We have all the latest courses. We're the most advanced church in town. We're God's special beloved ones. But he says, you don't know what a condition you're in, when the false coverings are off.

The Inward Eye and Self-Knowledge

And we can see what's really there. He goes a step further in his definition. He says, when the inward eye is open. I mentioned the other day that the living ones in the throne of God had eyes on the inside.

Everybody has eyes on the outside, but only a few have had their inward eye open. Only those to God has been able to overcome the fears and the resistances and the rebellions, and be able to draw close enough to touch that inward eye.

And when that inward eye is open, the first thing it's going to see, and this is what he says, when that inward eye is open to see all that is bad. Shall I go on reading? All that is rotten that proceeds forth from it is its own.

All that is bad and rotten that proceeds forth from it is from me. We like to think it isn't. We like to say, you know, I wouldn't have said that if that person hadn't done that. I wouldn't have reacted that way, except that person.

That's why I did it. It wasn't really me. I really didn't mean it either. Just, you know, it kind of slipped out. But where did it slip from? That's the thing. Where was it hiding? Why was it there? Where'd that anger come up from all of a sudden?

We can keep our cool in a situation up to a point, and then? Well, I was doing all right until they said that. Well, I'm just not going to sit there and let them walk all over me. Of course not. When the inward eye is open, and we can see that it isn't from the outside, it's from the inside.

There is my problem. It's a tremendous revelation and a tremendous step forward in grace. When God can get you to understand that it's not what cometh into man that defiles a man, but that which comes out from him, out of the heart proceeds.

When we begin to see that, our inward eye is beginning to open. When I begin to see that my problems are not from without, they're from within. Then's when my heart really starts breaking. Then's when I fall before God and say, oh my God, it's me.

I need you. I need a work of the Holy Spirit. I need a work of God. I need you to come to my heart. I need you to tender. I need you to break it. I need it to be contrited for a broken and a contrite heart.

Thou will not despise. David in his confession, David in his repentance, said if I can get to that place, I'll have it made. I'll get back in. He didn't even try to go up and offer sacrifices. He said that, didn't he?

Sacrifices are no good, he said. That won't help me any. In fact, we read over there, I believe it's in Samuel, that he was afraid to go up the brazen altar and offer up sacrifices. He said, thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it.

Thou delightest not in burnt offerings. A thousand offerings, that's not going to take care of my sin. What can? Ah, he said, a broken and a contrite heart, that will do it. Thou won't, you won't despise that.

You'll receive that. That's what I need. Blessed is the man when his eyes are open, the heart, that, that's the inward part of us. That's what monitors, that's what takes care. That's what judges what we see and hear and feel on the outside.

The Heart as the Source of Sin and Repentance

Now, we're not talking about reason. We're talking about something deeper than reason. Something much deeper than that. It's where we receive God, where God enters into us. It's where we want God. It's where repentance and penitence springs forth from.

It's where evil springs forth from. It's a place of receiving God. It's a place of receiving the love of God. William Law says it's a place within us where God can come and build his dwelling deep within the human vessel.

That's where it is. The broken heart can see and even hear, yes, and even smell the stench of sin. Did you know that? I think it's Psalm 38. This is one of the Psalms of the law of David when he's going through his time of repentance.

And verse 5, my wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness, because of my foolishness. He could even smell it. It stinks because the inward senses are open. They can see it. Turn with me to Hosea 5 .13.

When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrians and sent the king Jerob. Yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound. When they saw it, they saw his sickness.

They saw that it was there. Isaiah 21. In Isaiah 21, in verse 3, I believe, therefore are my loins filled with pain. Pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a wound that travails. I was bound down at the hearing of it.

I was dismayed at the seeing of it. There it is, the seeing, the hearing, the smelling. The inward senses are open. They're touched. I can see, I can sense, I can smell, I can hear. Oh, it isn't outside, it's inside.

Then's when we really begin to have the cries in our heart for the deliverances. Then's when deliverance goes nigh. When we can begin to see that our heart, that's where our problems are. The brutish man, he doesn't see that.

No. Talk to any man on the street, he'll tell you all of his troubles are outside. He'd be a good man, he'd be a fine man if it just wasn't for the government, and if it just wasn't for his boss, and if it just wasn't for his wife.

He'd be a wonderful man. Everything's outside. Nothing's inside. He's a brutish man. He's a stony heart. His heart has not been softened at all. He has none of these sensitivities at all. When I was a lad, we always had a dog on a, in the farm where I grew up, and always went with us where we went on the farm.

It was a lovely golly dog, nice long fur on it, and we would play with it and have a good time, and it would go with us when we went to work, and it would sit in the shade, wait for us. It was always with us, but sometimes we wished it wasn't with us, because there's something about a dog that they just love carrying, and the older and the stinkier and the smellier it is, the more they like it.

To them it's perfume, and they'll go to that, and they'll actually roll and roll and roll in it till their, their whole fur coat smells rotten with that rotted flesh they've rolled in. They love it, and then they like to come up close to you and show off.

Don't I smell sweet? Oh, more than once we'd pick it up and throw it in the river a few times. Oh, or just perfume off, and you see the stonyhearts that way. They like evil. It smells good to them. It sounds good to them.

It looks good to them. They like it. They revel in it. They say, aren't I sweet looking? Don't you like the way it is? Because, you see, the inward eye is not being opened. They have that dog heart. They have that heart that loves carrying, that loves that which is rotten.

From Hardened Hearts to Penitent Hearts

God needs to work on our hearts. There has to be a breaking. There has to be a deep breaking within us. They have no sense of the awfulness of evil. They have no sense of the awfulness of crime. Doesn't it, shock you sometimes to see what some people can do as you read your paper, and do it so carelessly, so callously, and then go ahead and repeat it again?

You say, how can they do it? Because they have no sense. They have no sense. They have the, they've lost the ability. Their heart is so hard. It's become like a stone of adamant within them. No way, no way can they be touched.

You can punish them. Put them in jail. Visit them in jail. They'll tell you a strange thing. They'll say, I'm not guilty. I was framed. They don't even feel guilty because their heart has been hardened.

But when it begins to break, it becomes a sorrowful heart. It becomes a penitent heart. It becomes a mendicant heart. It begins to beg. It begins to plead. It begins to cry out, be merciful to me, a sinner.

It isn't like the Pharisee's prayer. Lord, I thank thee that I'm not like other people. Not like this publican here either. He said a truth there. He wasn't. Because a publican did not even dare lift up his face to God, but cried out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

And God said his prayer was answered. But the other one, no. No way. Because it came out of a hard heart. We read over in Proverbs, son, give me thine heart. Son, give me thine heart. That's what God wants.

He wants it to be given to him. He wants it to be broken. He wants to break it and break it until it's contrite, until it's pulverized, until it can never be mended. So to always be sensitive. Always be sensitive to what's going on the inside.

Always have your senses alerted. Always be sensitive to the Spirit. Always be tender before God. Always be open to his Spirit. We need that wonderful work of God. That work of God that will bring that tendering, that breaking, that melting to the inner being.

Our prides are melted down till our deceptions are melted down. Till I see, not just mentally see, because anyone could say that, but inside of me I say, oh God, it's not others, it's me. I'm the one.

It's not their fault, it's mine. It's my fault. Well, they acted this way and perhaps I caused their reaction. Perhaps it was me. Perhaps it was my pride. Perhaps it was my despising. Perhaps it was this.

Perhaps it was that. Perhaps just not showing love or whatever. I see myself because the inward eye is open. Now I don't mean introspections we mentioned the other day. That isn't it. It's that God has opened up our inner being and shed light.

There's no, there's no eyes without light, is there? There's nothing to see without light. But he brought light into the inner being and I can see where my need is. You see, we could have broken emotions.

We can even have a broken will and have a hard heart. Have a hard heart. The Pharisees had a broken will, but a hard, hard heart. Many things can break our emotions. Anger can break our emotions. Frustration can.

Sorrow can. And still our heart will be hard. But how wonderful when our heart is tender and our will is broken and our emotions are released. Oh, that person is a sensitive heart. That one senses the moving of spirit.

That one senses when it's God and when it isn't God. That one knows the difference and they can't tell you, they can't tell you how they know the difference. They just know it's different. They just know that something's right or something's wrong.

There's that witness within them. There's that sensitivity within them. Whether the spirit is really there or whether the spirit isn't there. I've been in many services. I've heard preachers say, the Lord's presence is amongst us this morning.

It wasn't. I know it wasn't. Not at all. They just said words. You'll know when his presence is there. You'll have the sensitivity. You'll know. You'll know when he even steps in. Oftentimes, I've noticed it.

Spiritual Sensitivity and the Presence of God

Very, very many times, in fact. And that is when in a service, just listen to a tape. If you listen to a tape of a whole service and the spirit comes and anoints that service, you won't have to be there.

Just listen to the music and you'll know when he came in. If you have a sensitive heart, you'll know it. Oh, there's that note. There's that strange, undefinable something that's there. I first was called by touch of that when we had a conference way back, I think it was in early 60s.

And my wife was in the kitchen. She couldn't come to services. And so we had worked up a speaker so she could hear what was going on. Now, she wasn't in the service, but she could tell exactly what song and how far along in the song the anointing and his presence of God came into service.

She wasn't there, but she could tell it. And so we'd take a tape and listen. And sure enough, I don't know, it'd be right in the middle of a song sometimes. They didn't change key. Wasn't any more people.

Wasn't any less people. Everything was the same, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't the same. There was a fullness. There was a note. There was a something. Yeah, there it was. There's that sensitivity.

And you know when he's not there, even though you can sing just as loud, sing just a nicer song as you want to, but some way, somehow, it isn't the same. How many have noticed that? Have you? I'm sure many of you have.

When God is able to open our hearts, when God's able to bring that sensitivity, when God's able to break down it's, oh, it's like a series of walls, not just one wall. Perhaps you might think of it like a petrified onion, and each one of those layers has got to get broken out until it's just contrite.

Until you give up and say, well, there's no use mending it, it's too far gone. No use even trying, for a broken and a contrite heart, that will not despise. That God will accept. I wish we could break our own hearts.

It needs it badly enough. But the trouble is, we can't even do that. It's so deceptive. It would just pretend like it was, and it still isn't. But I'm glad that there is one that can. I'm glad that the Holy Spirit is an expert in hearts.

I'm glad that he's able to take out a stony heart and put in a heart of flesh, aren't you? Father, I pray tonight, in Jesus' name, that you will move in our hearts. I pray, Father, that you will break open our hearts, because they are so hard.

Even yet, Lord, there's so much to be done. Even yet, Lord, our will, we can get so far, and then, and then, Lord, it hardens up within us. It seems like we just don't attend it very much, and be careless a little bit, and get foolish, and there it is, hardens up within us.

But Lord, at least David knew when it got hard. He could smell it. He could sense it. He said, it was my foolishness that did it. My foolishness that hardened me up. Now, Father, bring us out of our foolishnesses.

Bring us to thy place, thy feet, like Mary of old. At thy feet I fall, and bow down before thee, and worship thee, and adore thee, and bless thy name. Let that come into us, O Lord. He makes the place of his feet so glorious.

As we bow before him, we can melt us and stay in that presence. That's what happened to Mary of old, as she stayed there. Oh, the fountains of the deep were broken up. Oh, work on our hearts. Truly, we need the breakings of God, the melting, the contriting.

We need the eyes of the inner man open. We need to be able to see, and hear, and sense, and smell what's going on inside. Lord, we've been such outward creatures. All of our problems were outside of us.

We were so unconscious of the inward until you came. And the more we draw near to you, the more, Lord, you will see and bring to light that which is within us. For you do not come to us in the outward.

You do not walk as you did in Galilee, visible to all. But you come in another way, and we can only find you within. We'll never find you without. Teach us, Lord. Open our inner beings up. I ask in Jesus' name.

God bless you, and go with God tonight.