MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 12:25
HEAVINESS OF HEART AND ITS CURE
I. The causes of “heaviness of heart” are many and various. It may arise,
1. From great bodily pain. The human mind and the human body act and re-act upon each other. The mind or spirit may be made heavy by physical pain, as the body may be brought under the dominion of disease by mental suffering. It is only when a more powerful influence comes into operation that pain of body is prevented from exercising a depressing influence upon the spirit. In the case of Job we have an instance of severe bodily suffering, weighing down a spirit that had borne other most terrible calamities without being overcome (Job 7). In the case of Stephen, and many others, we see intense bodily suffering exercising no depressing influence upon the man, because he is lifted above it by supernatural interposition. Where this special grace is not given pain of body will make the heart “to stoop”—that is, it will disqualify the man for duty by depriving him of hope and courage, and will leave him more or less passive in the hands of circumstances.
2. Heaviness of heart is often caused by bringing the future into the present. The man that has every day to carry a heavy burden upon his shoulders will find that an attempt to carry the load of two days at once will weigh down his body beyond all his power to rise and stand upright. He must not try to carry more than the load of to-day, if he is to do anything at all. So is it with the spirit of a man if he goes out to meet the cares and difficulties of to-morrow, while he is bearing and battling with those of to-day. The weight of the present is as much as he can carry, his heart must “stoop,” if he dwells upon the possible or certain trials of the future. The right way to bear burdens is to take the advice of One who Himself was a burden-bearer. “Take therefore no thought (no anxious care) for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. There are many other burdens which make the heart to stoop, we will mention but one more.
3. A consciousness of unpardoned guilt. There is no burden so heavy to bear as this. Guilt makes the spirit feel as if the hand of God’s displeasure was sinking the soul lower and lower. The language of Scripture is very vivid in describing the feelings of man in such a case. “When I kept silence my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day long.” “Mine iniquities are gone over mine head; as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.” “Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up,” etc. (Psalms 22:3; Psalms 38:4; Psalms 40:12).
II. The human heart can be uplifted by seasonable words. “A good word maketh it glad.” Such words sometimes take the form of a promise of help. A man bowed down by disease is made glad by the word of the physician, which assures him that his malady can be cured. The debtor who feels himself hopelessly involved is made glad by the promise of one who engages to meet his debts. The man who is bowed down under a sense of guilt is lifted out of his heaviness by the promises of a forgiving God. In all these cases the worth of the word depends upon the character of him who utters them. It is a “good word” if it is not only a cheering word, but a reliable word—if the promise is uttered by one whom we know would not promise what he was unable to perform. It is this certainty which makes every promise of God so good a word to the soul. And when a man’s heaviness of heart arises from a source which is beyond the power of human help, there is no greater service that a friend can do him than to remind him of some “good word” of the Heavenly Father which is suitable to his case.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Not “heaviness,” but “anxiety.” This last is the fashion of most griefs. We are bound to conquer it. The determined man (see comments on Proverbs 12:24) is just the character to do it. “Anxiety” discredits faith. “A good word,” and such words are plenty in this very book, should gladden it, as the expression is; or, as a freer translation, “cheer it away.” It is a sin for men to be dejected. It is a great folly, too; for it broods over half their lives. Our passage tells all this, and tells the mode to dissipate it. It was the mode of Christ when he quelled the foul fiend. The sword of the Spirit is the “word” of God (Ephesians 6:17).—Miller.
There is nothing that claims our grief so much as sin, and yet there may be an excess of sorrow for sin, which exposes men to the devil and drives them into his arms.—Lawson.
A single good or favourable word will remove despondency; and that word, “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee,” will instantly remove despair.—A. Clarke.