“TO BIND UP THE BROKEN HEARTED.”
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
Among all the promises of the Bible, none is more soothing to the heart-stricken child of God than the following: “He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted.” Isa. lxi, 1. This no doubt, was spoken with reference to Christ's commission to this world, and how strikingly it was fulfilled in his ministry. Surgeons may show great mechanical skill on the human frame, but the heart they can not touch. Some years ago a circumstance came under my own notice which led me to admire and wonder at the skill of man. Near my school-house was a high swing, where the scholars every day took their nooning, and it was also a great resort on Sundays for those who kept the day for recreation and amusement. On my return one Monday morning I was startled by the intelligence that the day before a boy in the neighborhood had fallen from the swing and broken both his limbs just above the knee joint. He was taken up and carried home, with little expectation that he could live. The surgeons were sent for, and commenced their operations to bind up the wounds. That day-noon, out of sympathy and curiosity together, I went to the place of the misfortune. It presented a solemn and impressive scene. There was every appearance of a funeral, except life in the mangled body before me. The physicians were actively engaged with various tools, from the axe down to the small probing instrument, in making the necessary preparations that preceded the permanent binding up. All things being now ready, the most painful scene takes place. His lying in this mangled condition so long, the sinews of his limbs would of course become contracted, and must be stretched in order to replace the shattered bones. This they found extremely difficult, and with the united strength of two or three men, they failed of about an inch to bring one limb to its original length, thus leaving him subject to a halt the remainder of his days, should he survive the catastrophe. A great undertaking, thought I, and observed to some one, “The doctors can do more than I realize, if they can mend up this boy and make him live.” Yet they did it. In six weeks' time, I believe, he was walking around. But suppose after the parents had sent for the physician they must dictate for him and carry out their notions of sympathy, objecting to any confinement, and the harsh means that he employed to bring his limbs into a proper shape before the healing process commenced. Think you that he would have recovered? By no means. His life depended wholly upon his own obedience, and that of those who had the care of him, to the rules and regulations laid down by the surgeon. Here is a good moral lesson. The state of a broken heart is fitly represented by those mangled and broken limbs, and as the surgeon understood the science of binding up those shattered bones, placing them in a proper condition to heal, just so well does Jesus, the great Physician, understand binding up the broken heart, when every cord is affected. But as the surgeon understood his business, and must have his rules and regulations carried out, just so with this Physician. We dare not choose our own way for the work to be accomplished. What think you would have been the consequence had that wounded boy refused to remain where he had been placed as the only position in which he could be healed? Why, it necessarily follows that during all the time he should have remained in the right position he would have suffered as in the beginning, and at the end of the days would have been unprofited, his wounds fresh and bleeding still. Or suppose he had been very careful most of the time, then in a fit of impatience thrown off all restraint, and tossed himself in any position he chose. The result would have been the same. This is the reason, and the only reason, why christians are left to repine in sadness; they do not submit themselves to God, do not believe in Jesus, do not remember that this was one of his errands into the world. The causes of a broken heart are various, and thus the processes of binding up are diversified. Some are broken in consequence of wrongs they have done, and others sympathize with those wrongs, and stand in the way of the instruments being applied, and the severe measures necessary to be taken to bring them into a position where they can be healed. Thorough work must be made in the beginning. How painful is the operation after having set a bone wrong, to break it the second time and set it over. Equally so must be a half-hearted work; and it is not unfrequently the case that those whose sympathies are so warmly enlisted with the wrong, when they see the united strength of the church on one side, and the patient himself willing to submit to the painful process, refuse to come to their place, and must be severed from the body. Some have been crushed by the hand of injustice, and thus been led to distrust everybody and everything. In their case the cords of affection must be enlarged before the healing process can commence. It may be hard for an individual to forget the injustice heaped upon him by those whom he has been living to benefit, but in the strength of God it can be done. So was it painful for the boy to have his limbs set, but it proved well in the end. Just so with every case that Jesus undertakes. The patient will be led to adopt the language of one of God's tried and faithful servants, “I rejoice that there is no sorrow of earth so great, no wounds so deep, but what heaven can heal.” Again, there is another class who have been wounded by bereavement, and so deep is the wound that for many long years, like Rachel they refuse to be comforted. To you, O afflicted one, is this Physician especially sent. Jesus is willing to make you whole. He only waits for you to say with all your heart, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Can you not believe that he is able to raise you entirely above this sadness and despondency? “Have loved ones gone? does earth look drear?
Look up! shed not that bitter tear.”
To those who have long carried a sad heart, there is hope in this promise. They need not say, “I am afraid these things will yet destroy me;” for they are not left to go in their own strength. They have a Physician to apply to who perfectly understands their case, and has said, As thy day is, so shall thy strength be. He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. Ps. cxlvii, 3. 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 heart of the contrite ones. May the Lord lead all the broken in spirit to his word, and to a careful investigation of this subject, then will they see what a tender care their heavenly Father has for them, and that he is more to them than all earthly friends.