“So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” ” (Luke 4:16-19)
Jesus came “to bind up the brokenhearted.” There is many a wounded heart that is not broken. The brokenhearted are those who have lost all hope of saving themselves by their own righteousness. As long as a person has hope, the heart remains whole and unbroken. As long as a sailor’s wife has hope that her husband’s vessel may outride the storm, her heart is calm within her; but when the fatal news comes—when an eyewitness tells that he saw the lifeless body sinking in the waves—the thread of hope is cut asunder, her heart dies within her, she droops, she sits down brokenhearted. As long as an awakened sinner has hope of saving himself, as long as he thinks that self–reformation, weeping over past sins, and resolving against future ones, will clear him before God—so long his heart is calm; but when the fatal news comes, that all he does is done out of a sinful heart, that even “his righteousness are as filthy rags,” that “by the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified,” then does the heart of the sinner die within him. He says, “It is done now, it is all done now, I never can do anything to justify myself.”
Is this the state of your soul? This is a case for Christ. He justifies the ungodly; He imputes righteousness without works; His blood and righteousness are ready for poor brokenhearted sinners. They are the very souls that answer Him; He is the very Savior that answers them. Once a broken–hearted woman, who had spent her all upon physicians, and was nothing better, but rather worse, came behind Jesus, and touched the hem of His garment. Did He show Himself the Savior of the brokenhearted? Yes; He said, “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.”
- Robert Murray M’Cheyne
