Broken Bones
Youth Service
II SAMUEL 12:1-7
1 ¶ And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.
2 The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:
3 But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.
4 And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
5 And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: (David had been so shocked and then angered by the injustice of what he had been told by Nathan of how this rich man had taken the poor man’s lamb, not realizing that he himself was the man. As humans, we can be so shocked at other peoples sins, and then find it so easy to pronounce judgement on them, but then if the tables are somehow turned back on us – then we want to be shown mercy, and this is why Jesus tells us that “blessed are the merciful for that shall obtain mercy” Yet David here is handing out the death sentence on someone who has merely taken someone else’s pet lamb – and being the king, he had the power to pronounce that judgement)
6 And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity. (David is in an emotional state of anger against this rich man, and he is not showing any pity either, because he has just pronounced the death sentence on this man for something that is not worthy of death.
Note to self, when you are feeling angry, it is best that you wait until you are calmed down before you make statements of judgement upon a person)
7 And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man.
PSALM 51:5-8,13
This is the psalm that King David wrote after this event of when Nathan the prophet had told him of his sin with Bathsheba.
5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
7 ¶ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
___________
13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
Broken Bones
We are taken this title from our scripture reading in PSALM 51:8b “that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” Straight away, we would ask the question - Why would God break a person’s bones?
Subject: is from verse 13
Then Will I Teach Transgressors Thy Ways
*This morning, we want to sidestep away a little from our recent subjects of:
“The Perfecting of the Saints” and
“The Different Categories of People within the Message Ranks” and
“The Great Tribulation Period of Jacob’s Trouble” - of what we have been studying over the last few weeks.
Youth Service… We are all youth when it comes to the timeless truths of the word of God, and so these things will apply to all of us.
PSALM 51:5-8 – we want to read these verses again and make some comments…
Again - This is the psalm that King David wrote after this event of when Nathan the prophet had told him of his sin with Bathsheba.
5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
*Since the time of Adam, we have all come birthed into the world with our human nature flawed and “bent out of shape” from what God intended it to be, and so it is a nature that is naturally iniquitous in that you don’t have to teach a child how to be naughty, because it comes to him automatically because of his nature.
**And the reason us humans are like this, is because of the fact that the method of which we were conception by was founded upon a lie that was told (By the serpent), and so this is why we need to be born again by another method of conception - by what we term as the “new birth” of which comes to us by the incorruptible seed of the truth of the word of God for our age.
**”What is the new birth Brother Branham?” It’s the revelation of the truth of the Word of God revealed to the human heart.
Remember that your first birth was produced as the result of unbelief in the word, and that is why we are all born with a natural nature to disbelieve the word of God and to resist the things of God, but when you are born again, then it produces a new nature in you that causes you to be able to receive and believe the word of God sent for your age – and that is why the evidence of the new birth is when you can receive the message of God sent for your age by a clear understanding of which produces a truth that is on the inside of you.)
6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts (God is looking for truth to be on the inside of us): and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. (This is the place of where there is to be an ongoing fellowship with God, of where He will continually unfold His wisdom to you)
7 ¶ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
Jump down to verse 13
13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
___________
**It is never a good practice to try to teach something to someone of what you don’t have the knowledge of it yourself, because you will almost always mislead that person.
*And so David in verse 13 has come to the realization, that in order for him to be able to teach transgressors the ways of God, that God would first have to allow him to become a transgressor, and to fall into this trap of the sin that he had committed with Bathsheba – and this was in effect God breaking his bones metaphorically. Like how that God also allowed for Job to go through what he went through.
*God never made David do what he did, but yet God permitted David to do it of what David desired because of his fallen nature, and to then experience the reality of what it was like to be a transgressor, and to have his “bones” broken as it were, but then to have those same bones healed by the mercy of God.
**We know that king David lived for around 70 years, and he was able to fit a lot of drama’s into his life during those relatively short years, and we are also allotted 70 years for our lives, of which we are living in the captivity of the Babylon of this world – and for many, this life can so often seem to be full of broken dreams, and broken hearts, and broken bones – but we must remember, that there is a time limit that God has placed on this season of which we will experience these areas of brokenness. Because there will be no brokenness in that great future land that is to come. And so God has a purpose in allowing things to break in this life. Because this life is like a big school room – it’s a place of learning, of where we are to learn about the great character of the grace and mercy of God.
**And so in this schoolroom of life, God is the great teacher, and we are his students, and so he has designed certain lessons for us to learn by the pathways of which He will allow us to go down in life. He could have stopped this event from happening in David’s life of the trap of sin that he fell into with Bathsheba, but God allowed it, and He allowed it for the purpose of revealing the character of His great mercy to David in a greater way, so then David could go on and teach others of the great mercy of God.
**And this is the reason why we have so much of what is written in the book of Psalms of the great mercy of God of which would have never been penned unless David’s had had his bones broken.
*And so this is one of the main reasons why we experience these different struggles and difficulties during our lives, it is for the same purpose - so that we would also come to know that great character of the mercy of God, and then we will also be able to teach others of the ways of the mercy and grace of God.
BEGINNING.AND.ENDING.OF.THE.GENTILE.DISPENSATION_ JEFF.IN SUNDAY_ 55-0109E
E-14 The old shepherd story that was told there in Jerusalem in the Holy Lands of the shepherds packing a--a sheep, and he said, "What you packing it for?"
Said, "It's got a broken leg."
Said, "How did it do that? Fall over a cliff?"
Said, "No, I broke its leg."
He said, "Why, you're a cruel shepherd to break that sheep's leg."
Said, "No, I loved it." And said, "It was going astray and I couldn't make it mind me, so I broke its leg so I could give it some extra attention. So then it would love me and follow me."
E-15 Sometimes God has to let us break down just a little bit in health to give us a little extra attention, to get us up on His lap, to woo us up in His bosom when the doctor said nothing can be done, then He take us into His bosom, say, "See, I love you. I'm going to let you get well." See? Oh, doesn't that just make life a little better?
Oh, He's so great. He's a marvelous Shepherd, isn't He?
**And so God also allows “lets” us (as we saw in king David’s case) to be broken down with sin or sickness or whatever else, and to feel the pain of it.
PSALM 51:8
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. This is shepherds’ language… and so God allows you to make misstates that will at times feel like your very bones have been broken.
When we look up this term “Broken Bones” in the bible, is generally regarded to be a metaphor for the anguish and conviction of sin.
*In bible times, bones were considered the core of one's being, and so the breaking of one’s bones was used as a metaphor to symbolize profound suffering at the deepest level of the human spirit.
*And so David is describing to us the level of his spiritual condition of the guilt and the pain that his sin had brought upon him, and that his relationship with God has been placed under great strain, and that he has now lost his ability to rejoice and feel happy, because true joy and gladness is reliant on the foundation of a person being in right relationship with God.
And this is why people cannot find true happiness and contentment in this age, because they have no knowledge of its source. Its source comes from being in the right relationship with God.
**And so David's plea to hear joy and gladness again reflects his deep desire for forgiveness and for the restoration of His fellowship with God (Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice) – and so this is showing us a mystery of the pattern of redemption on a personal level of how that God is dealing with us along the journey of our lives.
*Because in order for David to teach transgressors the forgiving and loving and merciful ways of God, David himself had to first become a transgressor and experience the mercy of God firsthand himself of how God delt with his own life of when he was a transgressor.
“that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.”
This transformation from brokenness to joy is a common biblical theme that is seen in passages like Isaiah 61:1 “he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted” – but he can’t bind you up if you are not first in a state of being broken hearted.
Jeremiah 31:13b “for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.” Where mourning and sorrow is, he has promised to turned it to gladness.
*All these statements are the prefiguring of the redemptive work of Christ who promised to bring healing and restoration to those of the human race of whom have been broken by sin.
And so this is why that God allowed David to be broken by sin, in order to truly reveal to him of God’s own true character of grace and mercy and forgiveness.
*And so God allowed king David to go through the school of hard knocks by this experience of his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, for the purpose so that he could then teach us of God’s ways of mercy and grace to a fallen man – and this is the tone of what we read throughout the Psalms – of King David teaching us about the great mercies of God – of how that they are new every morning, and that they fail not.
PSALM 51:13
13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways (what were those ways that David would be able to teach all future transgressors – that God is rich in mercy); and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
**Sinners are not truly converted by telling them that will go to hell if they don’t repent, they are just being frightened into making some sort of confession for Christ in order to hopefully escape the “doom and fires of hell”.
*But sinners are converted when they truly come to see and understand the true character and nature of a merciful God – and this is when we are truly converted also.
**And so it was only after that David had experienced the mercy of God himself firsthand, that he was he qualified to teach transgressors of the ways of a merciful of God.
Notice here also – that David never lost his salvation because of his sin and backslidden condition, because your salvation is never ever based on the merits of your life anyway – it is based on the merits of Christ’s life.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 62-0527
710-103 …Backsliding's not lost; I want somebody to tell me where backsliding's lost, and prove it to the Bible. Backslider's not lost; he's just out of fellowship.
Israel backslid but they never lost their covenant; they lost their--their praises and joy.
David lost the joy of his salvation when he took Bathsheba, Uriah's wife, but he never lost his salvation. He never said "restore to me my salvation"; he said, "Restore to me the joy of my salvation."
Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon on the 21st of March 1869 of which he reflects on this same verse of Psalms 51:8 - Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
“You know, brethren, there is a great deal of flash about many of our spiritual joys; they are in the grosser parts very near akin to carnal excitement; and especially with young beginners, the gladness is too apt to trail in the mire of mere mental pleasure. Our gladness is frequently far from being deep as we could wish, but after the bone-breaking everything is solid; after the bone-healing everything is true; what our joy lacks in vividness it makes up in stability and depth. So David means, “the innermost core of my nature, the very essentials of my spiritual being, shall sing and rejoice.”
**In other words – God wants to reveal His great character to you at the deepest level of your understanding – so that you will be anchored down deep, so when the trials of life come, then your anchor holds in the storms.
*Because you simply cannot know the depth of joy from the innermost core of your soul without first having some experience of the depths of the pain of sin and failure and of the broken bones of the despair, but then to know the loving and tender hand of Jehovah and of the character of God’s great mercy of the great kindness of His redemptive love.
PSALM 51:1-3
1 ¶ To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
(Another translation of this verse 3 says - I know about my sins, and I cannot forget the burden of my guilt.
And also another translation - For I am aware of my rebellious acts; I am forever conscious of my sin.
When we confess our sin to God, then we know for sure that He is faithful to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, because this is His promise to us.
I JOHN 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And that He would cast all of our sins in the sea of His forgetfulness, never to be remembered against us anymore.
MICAH 7:19
19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.
PSALM 103:10-12
10 He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
JEREMIAH 31:34
34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
*God has not only promised to forgive you, but He has also promised to remember your sins no more.
**Yet the reality of what we all have to contend with as human beings, is that in this life, we don’t have the ability to forget about the mistakes and the sins that we have committed, or the mistakes and the sins of which others have committed against us, and so the problem with that is that most of us subconsciously carry a certain level of an ongoing personal feeling of guilt, even though the bible tells us in Romans 8:1 that “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,”.
And then we also feel a sense of resentment towards others because of seeing their faults also.
*And then on top of this problem, the longer you live, the more mistakes you will naturally accumulate, and the more offences that others do against you will accumulate also.
And so there is this natural ongoing buildup of things that you remember in your mind of which (if not checked) and work like a foldback loop that produces more guilt and resentment. And so how do we deal with this problem according to the scriptures?
The answer lays in confession – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1st John 1:9
PSALM 51:3
3 For I acknowledge my transgressions (This is the key to keeping our relationship with God continually fresh – by acknowledging our transgressions to God as we walk along the journey of our lives.
*This confession of sin was what the serpent seed nature that was in Cain lacked.
God was willing to forgive Cain (the scriptures make that very clear), but there was nothing in Cain’s nature that was able to acknowledge his transgression and to ask for forgiveness of what he had done by murdering his brother Abel – **But when David murdered Uriah, we find him quick to acknowledge his sin after God had sent him Nathan the prophet – and that is why that God will always send a prophet with His word before he brings judgement upon a person.
When you see a prophet show up, you know that that prophet is God’s mercy to you if you will receive that prophet’s message, but if you refuse to receive that prophet’s message, then judgement will follow)
Look at all the requests in these verses of Psalm’s 51 that David is asking of the Lord concerning his sin.
1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness
2. According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
3. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin
4. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean
5. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow
6. Make me to hear joy and gladness
7. Hide thy face from my sins
8. Blot out all mine iniquities
9. Create in me a clean heart
10. Renew a right spirit within me
11. Cast me not away from thy presence
12. Take not thy holy spirit from me
13. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation
14. And uphold me with thy free spirit
And then after all of that, he says – then “Will I Teach Transgressors Thy Ways”
**David became qualified to teach transgressors the WAYS of God – of God’s loving kindness and mercies, because all these attributes of mercy and love and forgiveness were a part of the character makeup of God, and so this “disaster” in Davids life was an opportunity for God to manifest His great attributes to David at an experience level and not just at a knowledge of the mind level – and so David doesn’t leave one stone unturned by making a full list of requests of which seem very bold under the circumstances – But he is making those requests based on his revelation of the nature and the character of God.
***And so when David had come into the reality of the experienced of the mercy of God in his own life, then he would truly become qualified to teach others of the loving and tender mercies of God.
**And so is what is very important of what we are to learn as young people – of the WAYS of God.
Because as we go through life, if we do not understand the Ways of God’s loving kindness and mercies, then we will carry about us a level of guilt and resentment towards others, and then we will not be able to have the right relationship with ourselves, or with others, or with God.
PSALM 25:4
4 Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.
JEREMIAH 29:10
10 For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon (this is a type of our 70 allotted years of our lives on this earth of while dwelling in the captivity of the Babylon of this evil world – a time of broken dreams, and broken hearts, and broken bones. That is what this life so often seems to be full of - broken dreams, and broken hearts, and broken bones) I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
ISAIAH 1:18
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
MICAH 7:18-20
18 Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.
19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.
20 Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.
PSALM 103:10-13
10 He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.