“Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be carried captive, how I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols; and they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed, for all their abominations,” (6:9).
I don’t ever want to get over the feeling I had when I read His Word, “how I have been hurt.”
Consider the Hebrew word He used to describe His hurt.
Hurt: “7665. שָׁבַר šāḇar: A verb meaning to break, to burst, to break in pieces, to break down, to break up, to smash, to shatter…” Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance
And I was struck with this truth: No one knows heartache like Almighty God. No one has ever been hurt to the degree of Holy God. No one has ever felt the extent of heartbreak, the bursting, the breaking in pieces, the smashing and shattering of a heart, like our Holy and Gracious God.
And I just kept hearing His words play over and over again in my head. And if we have ever had our heart broken, have ever been betrayed by someone we love, truly it is only an inkling of what He has endured, a shallow glimpse into How He Has Been Hurt.
Consider How He Has Been Hurt
- He Has Been Hurt by our adulterous hearts that turn away from Him.
- “Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be carried captive, how I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me…” (6:9).
- He Has Been Hurt by our wandering eyes that turned to idols.
- “…and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols…” (6:9).
And though He Has Been Hurt by our unfaithfulness time and time again, He would be born a Man to bear even more Hurt, to be smitten and afflicted by God and crushed for our iniquities, that we would be healed.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed, (Isaiah 53:5).
And He would bear our sins, be Hurt and die for us, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed, (1 Peter 2:24).
And though He was perfectly just, He would be Hurt for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, to be made alive in the spirit.
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, (1 Peter 3:18).
And can you imagine How He Has Been Hurt, never knowing any sin and yet becoming sin that we might become the very righteousness of God in Him?
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, (2 Corinthians 5:21).
But I can’t help but believe that His greatest Hurt was when He became sin for us and the Holy Father, Who cannot even look upon sin, turned away, forsaking Him there on the cross alone.
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46).
How do we respond to How He Has Been Hurt?
Consider what the Lord said will happen when people are finally confronted with How He Has Been Hurt by their sin and rebellion. The result will be self-loathing.
“…and they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed, for all their abominations,” (6:9).
And the day will come when the inhabitants of Jerusalem will receive His Spirit of grace and realize How the Only Begotten Son of God Has Been Hurt, and will mourn and weep bitterly for Him, as for their only child.
“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn,” (Zechariah 12:10).
And while many refuse to see truth, the day is coming when everyone will see How He Has Been Hurt, and those who have rejected His compassionate gift of salvation by grace, will mourn over Him.
Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen, (Revelation 1:7).
If we have trusted Jesus for salvation, if we have acknowledged How He Has Been Hurt by us, and have confessed our own sin and our own need of His salvation, we can look forward to living with Him in the place without death or mourning, crying or pain, in the place where all the Hurt will one day pass away.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away, (Revelation 21:1-4).
But until then, let us pray that just the thought of Him being Hurt, that the image of our own words, thoughts or deeds as bursting, breaking in pieces, smashing and shattering His heart, would so shake us that it would cause us Hurt to even think of ever pursuing anything other than Him.
Oh, that we would cherish the gift of our salvation with an unquenchable desire to please Him with all that we are so that we would not have to look on How He Has Been Hurt by our disobedience or disregard.
Oh, Lord Jesus, we never want to get over How You Have Been Hurt. Lord, please may all that we do be motivated by our love that we would wholeheartedly keep Your commands so as to never bring Hurt on You again.
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments, (John 14:15).