God's Broken Heart


The heartache, anger, and sacrifice that overcame defeat.





God's broken heart

Was God over-reacting in anger when he sentenced mankind to toil and sorrow? No! God was brokenhearted.

God's anger and foremost judgement were directed at "...that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray..." (Revelation 12:9 NIV). How dare this wily serpent meddle with the object of His devotion! Yet that is exactly what God had to allow. There was no other way to birth a race who would return His love by choice and not by force.

God pronounced the curse upon mankind out of love. God knew that now it would take a world of pain and sorrow, thorns and thistles, to ever again get this race to the place where they could receive the great sacrifice He would make for them. They would have to come to the end of themselves. They would have to die before they could live.

When God forced his precious loved ones from the Garden of Eden, he knew the awful cost He would pay to bring them back home. He said to the serpent, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" (Genesis 3:15 NIV). This is the first promise of a Redeemer. Jesus Himself would intervene to rescue the woman's seed and to crush the serpent's head!

The man and woman were helpless to fix the consequences of their rebellion. God stepped in immediately and made coats of animal skins to clothe them. Then, with tears and love, He drove these dear blighted mortals from the garden he had planted just for them. He could not allow these creatures to partake of the Tree of Life and live forever in their blemished state.

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:21-24 NIV).

God's whole creation was wounded, desperate, hopeless. God could not bring His blighted race home now. Not one of them was worthy to enter the gates of Heaven. Even their eternal spirits had been damaged, so that they could no longer commune with Him on this earth or in the life to come. Rebellion was all they knew now. They were lost.

We are lost. We all inherited that blighted nature passed down from Adam and Eve. There is no amount of good that we can do that will fix it:

As it is said in the holy Writings, There is not one who does righteousness; Not one who has the knowledge of what is right, not one who is a searcher after God.

Because by the works of the law no man is able to have righteousness in his eyes, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

For all have done wrong and are far from the glory of God.

For this reason, as through one man sin came into the world, and death because of sin, and so death came to all men, because all have done evil (Romans 3:10-11,20,23; 5:12 BBE).

We are sentenced to death. The spoiled creation must be destroyed. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves.But wait!

For the reward of sin is death; but what God freely gives is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

But God has made clear his love to us, in that, when we were still sinners, Christ gave his life for us.

For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life (Romans 6:23; 5:8; John 3:16 BBE).

Jesus has stepped in to pay the price! He died that we might live. Death was powerless to hold him. Jesus arose, and He is alive today!

But God gave him back to life, having made him free from the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be overcome by it.

Who was put to death for our evil-doing, and came to life again so that we might have righteousness (Acts 2:25; Romans 4:25 BBE).

The One who loved us from the beginning has intervened. Love has found a way! With his very own blood He has rescued us!

To discover how to apply this to your life, click here.


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Scriptures in the Knowing God section are taken from the "New International Version" and the "Bible in Basic English."

Copyright ©1981-2006 by Lois Turley
Used by permission."