Dear Friends,

You might be surprised by the subject line, “How to break your own heart.” You might be saying, “Who would want to do that?” The answer is nobody, yet many people do. You ask, “How?” Today’s devotional will tell you and tell you how not to do it. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,

John Janney

• II Samuel 23:5

  2 Samuel 23:5   English Standard Version (ESV)
  5 “For does not my house stand so with God?
  For he has made with me an everlasting covenant,
  ordered in all things and secure.
  For will he not cause to prosper
  all my help and my desire?

II Samuel 23:5

“Take heed, my brethren, as ye remember the history of David. What a blessed life, what a glorious life, is that of David until the unhappy day when kings went forth to battle, but the king of Israel went not! He tarried in inglorious ease at home, and as he walked upon the top of his palace, he saw that which tempted him to ill desire, to that ill desire he fell a prey, and the man after God’s own heart became an adulterer and a murderer. Alas! alas! all the rest of his life he travels on toward heaven with broken bones and sorrowful spirit. At every step, he limps; his prayers are sighs; his psalms lack the jubilant notes that once made them ascend joyously unto the Lord. He is a true man of God still, and in his deep repentance he becomes a pattern to us all in repenting of sin; but the brave joyous David is not there, and at the last, though he pleads the covenant, he has to say, ‘Although my house be not so with God.’ There was a great mass of heartbreak packed away in those few words, more than we need to explain just now. What a dreadful family David had! None of us have had a family 1ike his; that was his chastisement in his own children. What a mercy it was for him that sovereign grace did not cast him away after he had uttered that deep bass note, ‘Although my house be not so with God,’ then came the sweet assurance of faith, ‘Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in al1 things, and sure, although he make it not to grow.’ There came in again the note of deep sorrow mingled with his holy faith in God. O brothers, I have heard men say that a broken leg, when it is mended, is sometimes stronger than it was before. It may be so; but I am not going to break my leg to try the experiment.”

[Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLIV, (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1898), p. 31-32]