R868 When Your Heart is Broken, Pt.1

Welcome to the encouraging word featuring the Bible based preaching of Dr. Don Wilson. And a message today, it'll go straight to our hearts. Again, this is the encouraging word featuring Dr. Don Wilson, well-known author, evangelist and pastor in today's message. When your heart is broken, it's actually a topic we'll be taking care of and discussing over the next two days here at the encouraging word. Your heart may be full. This may be a wonderful highlight of years for you, even the midst of the covered and everything. Or it may be a year. That's difficult. If your heart is broken, God has encouragement for you in his word today. We're also here to encourage you directly at eight six six eight nine nine word. That's eight six six eight nine nine nine six seven three or online at TCW online Dorji. We would love to connect with you. And now Dr. Don Wilson.

And as we find ourselves in a moment of wonderful worship in the presence of the Lord, our heads bound in the sanctuary.

And I receive hundreds, if not thousands of letters from you, dear people. Now, I want you to know how much we love you. And right now, I want to reach out to you.

Because you are dear and near to our hearts.

The way you pray together with us. The way you support this ministry.

The way you partner, the way you worship.

There's something very special about being together like this. Some of us on this campus. Some of us had a bedside. Some of us in a nursing home. Yes, you're in a prison cell, aren't you?

Right now, maybe there's a group of you, man or ladies, gathered together. Your heart is hurting.

Maybe you were a cluster of nurses and very special people who take care of others.

You could be in a firehouse somewhere. You're one of those gallant people, you're always there. You're on duty today.

You're always available to people such as ourselves.

You might be in a restaurant, you getting meals ready, and it's the Lord's day and you wish that you could be here. But God is right there with you. You know that the Tabernacle of the Lord is right there where you are right now.

Bible says where two or three are gathered together in my name. That I'm right there in the midst of you.

Now, I want to pray for all of us today, no matter where we are, no matter where we come from, no matter what we're doing. I want to pray for you.

And this is going to be perhaps one of the strangest prayers that you may ever have heard your pastor pray. So here it is. You ready? Heavenly Father.

Right now. I'm going to ask you. To break the hearts of my people.

Lord, I am asking you in front of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people.

I'm asking you to break the hearts of my people.

And I pray this prayer beginning with myself. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Whom I believe that God raised from the dead. And it is in his name that I pray these things a man.

Have you ever. Had your heart broken, you haven't been broken hearted. Now, when we talk about a broken heart, I don't have to remind us here today that. The journey of life could very well be one broken heart off for another. We know that we are born to die. We love to celebrate our little ones. We love to look into the face of a brand new baby and think about life. And it is the most wonderful, joyful thing that we could ever contemplate. But every person, the moment you are born, you're born to die.

And life's journey presents many challenges of many descriptions and of many kinds. I can stand here today and testify to you. About every conceivable reason why we would have a broken heart if you haven't had a broken heart. I guarantee you your heart will break. Broken marriages, disappointments. Without children, without sons and daughters. Death, loneliness. Financial ruin. The hurricanes of life. But what I want to speak to you about today is a brokenness in the presence of God within the context of the life that we live. I want you to take your Bibles today and turn with me to the book of Nehemiah and Chapter one, God has been speaking to me even this week. In a very significant way, and I want to speak to you about when your heart breaks. It's an amazing thing when we study the word of God. We going to discover something that our God is the one who brings it all together. But listen carefully today, because the Lord will speak to your heart. He's going to speak to you there, right in the context of your broken marriage. Your disappointment. Your struggles, your loneliness, your heartaches. But overriding everything is the matter of our brokenness before the Lord that only he can fill that void that is left behind. Found near mine. Chapter one and beginning a verse three. Listen to what happens. The Bible says, and they said to me, those who survived the egg zile are back in the province. And barring great trouble and in disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has broken down and its gates have been burned with fire. When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days, I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Then I said.

Oh, Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and with those who obey his commands, lick your ear. Be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant is praying before you. Day and night for your servants.

The people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you.

We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses saying if you are unfaithful. I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your eggs out, people are at the farthest horizon. I will gather them from there and bring them to the place. I have chosen as a dwelling place for my name. They are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. Oh, Lord, let your ear. Be attentive to the prayer of this, your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name.

Give your servant success today.

By granting him favor in the presence of this man now Nehemiah was referring to King Otto Xixi as the man who had the power and the authority.

To open up all that was necessary for the children of Israel to rebuild the walls that had been broken down.

We learned last week how that God used just to man. Peter and John. And how that God released them from their prison, he set them free. And they went back to the people and they shared the things with the people and through the lives of just two men. God opened the door to an unprecedented revival, to a time of refreshing.

There's something that is hard to describe as the very place in which they met was shaken and they began to be filled with the Holy Spirit and they were speaking the word of God with great boldness and power and conviction.

There's a number of things here that God has just been speaking to my heart about. I want you to note in the first place that. When your heart breaks. That in this context, some of these people, the survivors were returning, the survivors were coming back.

Now we know what happened in the history of Israel. They had sinned against God. In fact, we're reminded of it right here in this passage. And God, because they had disobeyed his commandment, had scattered them and sent them into a strange land. They'd gone into exile. And now, in answer to the prayer, God was bringing them back. The survivors were coming back, folks. That's what revival is all about.

God has been showing me these.

That is exactly what takes place in my heart and in your heart.

When your heart is broken and my heart is broken in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, we those of us who are survivors, we come back.

Forgive the interruption. You're listening to Dr. Don Wiltern, our teacher here on the encouraging word. And Dr. Donnally, back in a minute with more of this when your heart is broken message. But I pray that you, as you hear Dr. Don talk about the attitude of coming back, of being a survivor, that you were not built to survive alone. God has built us for community. A body of Christ. We call it the church itself, not just your church or my church, but the connection of believers across the globe. We would love to pray with you and for you anytime, day or night. Our phone number, connection to our friends taking those calls.

I love taking those calls. My name's Brit. I might be the one answering the call at eight six six eight nine nine. Word got the number down. I pray you at stores in your cell. Let us be your contact. Your 2:00 a.m. friend is Dr. Don would say at eight six six eight nine nine nine six seven three or meet us online keyboard to keyboard at TCW online Dorji. We really would love to pray with you and for you and put resources in your hands that will encourage you now because it's from us, but because it's from God's encouraging word, the Bible itself.

Now back to our study today with Dr. Don Wiltern.

Did you know, by the way, that life's journey is a survival course? You know that, don't you? Let me tell you, there are two things that are going to happen on the survival journey of life. You're either going to make it or you're not. Life is about surviving, folks. Yes, it's surviving that breakup of your marriage at surviving that disappointment. Surviving that heartbreak at surviving that death.

It's surviving that thing that has happened, that occurrence that occurred. It is surviving the unthinkable and the unmentionable. It is surviving the unimaginable.

But did you know that you can drift away from the Lord and God will allow you to go into exile and he will begin to break your heart.

And when you turn and you come back as a survivor and God allows you to come back into the land and into his presence and into his heart, that it is the most unbelievable thing that will begin to happen. But he has a prerequisite. Your heart must be broken.

But there's something interesting about what happened here. Not only with the survivors returning from exile, but some of them were still in great distress.

You see, we've got it all confused, folks. The Bible tells us in verse three. Yes. The survivors were coming back from exile. They were returning back to the heart of God. They were coming back to their land. But it didn't remove the distress. My own life, I have all too often found myself in the presence of the Lord. Even during these days. And I have associated the fact that I'm a survivor and I'm coming back into the presence of the Lord with the fact that all of a sudden all my distress is gone. Not at all. Consider what happened to these people. The walls were broken down.

And the gates were destroyed, were burned.

What do walls and gates do? Provide protection.

Covering security, watch this. Do you not walls and gates, do they give you peace of heart?

Do you know the first casualty when you move away from God is a lack of peace? You're not settled.

He had disturbed in your heart because you know that you're not living for the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything else has begun to clutter your life. I know in my own life, and in order to come back to the presence of the Lord, I must have a broken heart in his presence. I prayed that God would break the hearts of my people. Because I see survivors are coming back from exile. I'm praying that survivors are going to stand up and come back into the promised land. But lips never forget that many of our schools suffer great distress.

You've been through great hardship.

A lot of pain. Many times when you go into exile from the Lord, you act unwisely and you begin to hurt yourself. You suffer the consequences of the real reason why you went into exile to begin with. And that is the sin that is in your life.

And the consequences have a great price to bear upon your heart and your life. But, folks, I've got to show you something today. Because evidently, Harry, Nehemiah Chapter one, something extraordinary happened and it began with a leader with Nehemiah. It began individually and personally. Did you notice what Nehemiah did in response to this?

Yes, survivors were coming back and some of them were still in distress. The walls were broken down and the gates had been burned. They had no peace. They had no security. They had many, many questions.

How are we going to live? How are we going to be protected? What are we going to do? Where are we going to go? What should we say? Where should we be?

How can I make my marriage work? I cannot overcome. How can I stand up? I'm flat on my back. I've been hurt. I've got an aching heart. I can never do it again.

Watch what their leader did. Number one, he heard. That's what verse four says he heard. By the way, do you know what that means? It means that he began to pay attention. You haven't spoken to somebody and off you've had a conversation with them, you feel like they haven't listened to one word you say, oh, it happens all the time. Now, what was that you said to me? And you just spent five minutes listening to whatever it was they were saying. Teachers will tell you about that especially. He heard he opened his ears. God got his attention. He didn't just say it. He heard he was listening to what God was saying.

But he didn't stop there because God's servant, as he's heart was breaking, he not only hurt, but he sat down. He sat down. That's what boost forces that he heard.

And then I sat down. Forgive the interruption. We'll be back with more with Dr. Don. The entire message is on the way, as a matter of fact. You're going to have some messages from Dr. Don every single day. And I strongly recommend. Take a moment. Go to our Web site. T e deviled you online, dot o R.G.. And sign up for the daily encouraging word e-mail. Will come in your e-mail box about six o'clock every morning with insight from God's word. Insight from Dr. Don. An application to take God's word and see it encourage us powerfully. That's online at TCW online. Oh, r.g. I pray you'll sign up for the daily encouraging word e-mail today. Now back to today's message with Dr. Tom Hilton.

Let me tell you what America's solution to problems is. I'll guarantee you you've been there. I have. What happens to us folks when we go through the survival courses of life? When we suffer, they have heart break. When we heard so deeply what happens to us. Guess what we do. We've been taught this.

Get as busy as you possibly can be. We get out our list. We say, I'm going to go to work early, come home later. I'm going to keep talking on the telephone. I'm going to write more letters. I'm going to run more miles. I'm going to be more busy. We surround ourselves with busyness. Why do we do that? Because our whole philosophy in life is that when we hurt, we need to clutter our lives to the point in which we don't have to think about it.

Now, here's what happens.

When we adopt that approach, and most of us do, if not all of us do that, that's the way we deal with problems. That's the way we deal with our broken heart. That's what we do in God begins to speak to us. We just throw busyness at it. God, you're speaking to me. You're drawing me into your heart. Well, I'll just do something else. I'll just go on another mission trip. I'll just get busy. I'll just teach another. I'll just be at another service. I'll just do this. I'll do that. I'll run around. Yeah, I'll add another meeting. I'll just do this. The more busy I get, the more I don't have to think about it. God says hold on.

Sit down. Stop. You know what happens when we don't do that? We become like living volcanoes. He ever studied the anatomy of a volcano. Junk begins to be suppressed.

When your heart is breaking and God is speaking to you and all you do is get busyness to shut out the pain, it all goes inside. Now, what happens when things go into your tummy? Yeah.

Depression sets in. Headache's. More tablets, more prescriptions. Insomnia. Can't sleep at night. Manifestations of anger.

Attitude, hostility, twitches, illness, sickness. It might take six months. Maybe you can suppress it for two years, 10 years, 50 years. But eventually the lid is going to come off the volcano.

I have never seen a volcano that begins to erupt, that makes an announcement. Hello. I think I'll just share a few of my hot little pieces of lava around the community.

Folks, gather round. Everybody gonna love the fireworks. No. When a volcano erupts, what happens? Great damage is done, folks. Lava is hot, it burns. It destroys houses. It kills people.

It it eliminates entire communities. It destroys the vegetation.

And it just spews out, even if that mountain has been there building up for this moment, even for decades, for centuries, that which is inside comes out and causes great damage and great harm. And God is speaking to our hearts.

Sit down.

Stop. You're not doing anything for yourself by throwing something more at it or making another appointment or increasing your schedule. You've got to cut back. You've got to stop. You've got to slow down. You've got to sit down.

What did he do? What did he do?

He paid attention, he heard he sat down number three. He wept. We don't like that. Now, the ladies in our midst don't have a problem with that.

But we men do because it is almost impossible. To be a real football fan and weep at the same time.

It's not the manly thing to do. That's why we say to our wives many times, just stop it. Turn the taps off, stop crying. Sniveling. But, folks, I want you to hear what God is saying to my heart.

You see, weeping is a volcano potential that is tucked away inside of me that if it doesn't come out, it's going to turn from water into lava.

It's going to change from a sweet saver to a foul stinking odor. It's going to turn from a blessing into a curse. And all of us masquerade in life when your heart breaks. And here we find God's servant. He opened his ears and he listened.

He sat down, he whipped note in the fourth place, he mourned. Now that word they mourn doesn't mean anything, excepting that he adopted the attitude of a great death like loss. Why was mourning so significant as his heart broke? Because it is no different, my friend, to losing that which is closest to you. When God begins to break my heart. You know, the number one loss that I suffer is me because I am in the way of God.

I am in the way of my people experiencing God. I am in the way of my wife. I'm in the way of my children. I am in the way. And God says to me, my son, Don, if you want to experience me and have a fresh encounter and live the abundant life, you've got to die too soon.

And so morning is a very functional part of the process that I have to go through, that you have to go through. When your heart breaks, otherwise your heart is not right.

What a powerful message from Dr. Don Milton. And maybe you don't need me or Dr. Don to remind you that your heart is broken. But I pray that you would hear the voice of God through that South African brogue of our pastor to let you know that you are not alone. God's promise never to leave you or forsake you. And we would love to talk with you right now. It could be that God has stirred your heart to a to a point of decision.

There's a crossroad and you need to draw a line in the sand and say, OK, God, I'm going to do something different from this point forward. I pray that you would open your heart to what Dr. Don's gonna ask you to do next.

Because it is the most important decision of the day. God has spoken to you, hasn't it? And you're ready to give your heart to Jesus. I'd love to help you right now. Would you pray this, pray with me and accept Jesus into your heart in life? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner. I know that Jesus loves me and Don for me on the cross.

Right now I repent of my son and I can face my son to the Lord Jesus Christ coming to my heart and saved me today. And forgive me for my son in Jesus name, I pray. A man if you've prayed that prayed. We'd love to get along side of you and celebrate with you and send you some literature and help you as you begin to grow.

And I want you to know that I love you very, very much. Perhaps you've heard Dr. Wiltern give that invitation more than once. But today's the day that the Lord stirred your heart. And you didn't hear Dr. Die. You heard God's love, God's forgiveness, God's acceptance of you. Just as you are. And now ready to help you become the woman of God, the man of God that the Lord intended for you to be. We have great resources that we can put in your hands.

Probably the greatest resource we have, though, is the power of prayer. We would love to pray with you right now at eight six, six, eight, nine nine word. That's our phone number. You can call us anytime, day or night. Eight six six eight nine nine nine six seven three. Or meet us online. Keyboard to keyboard at t e. W. Online dorji. That's t e w. Online Dorji. We would love to try to become a partner with you to come alongside you in this walk of Christian faith. And one of the resources that has been a blessing to us.

Here's Liz with all the details about it this month at the encouraging word, we would like to spotlight a new industry resource, Johnny DVD. This is the true life story of Johnny Erickson. Tada! In this DVD, Johnny tells you the story of her diving accident that snapped her neck and left her paralyzed. She tells of her good and bad days, of her fears and victory in her faith in a loving heavenly father.

We hope this resource will encourage you in your faith. Call us at eight six six eight nine nine word and request Johnny DVD for your gift of twenty dollars or more in support of the encouraging word. Thank you for listening today.

The encouraging word broadcast continues to be a blessing in my life. God has truly blessed me through your sermons. Each day I read my encouraging word Bible God. Watch your program on Sunday. A desire to be closer and closer to God closer than I've ever been. I've been disabled and homebound since 2006. Unable to attend the church, I've been deeply blessed by the encouraging word broadcast in your ministry. I desire to be a part of your ministry.

Our times gone for today, but we're connecting online at TCW online. Dorjee. That's TCW online. Dotto, R.G..