Joel 2:13

How To Be Sorry

Rend your heart, and not your garments. Joel 2:13.

“Rend your heart, and not your garments.” That sounds strange advice! Some of you know plenty about rending your garments, and I expect mother knows more than plenty about mending them. But that doesn't explain the text. What did the prophet Joel mean when he advised people to tear their hearts and not their clothes?

Well, in the East they have lots of customs which we think strange, just as in the West we have lots of customs which an Eastern would consider strange. One of these ancient customs was to tear or rend the clothes to show grief, horror, or dismay. It must have been rather an expensive way of showing grief, you think. Yes, it does sound rather wasteful to our ears, but then we look at things with different eyes, and to the Jews it was a way of proving how deeply they were moved.

Then, if it was a usual custom to show grief in this way, why did the prophet tell the people to rend their heart instead of their garments? And what did he mean by “rending the heart”? To understand we must go back a little.

The people of Judah, to whom the prophet spoke, had been going through a terrible experience. They had been visited by a plague of locusts, and the corn and the vines and the fruit-trees had been eaten bare, so that there was left no food for either man or beast. To add to the horror of it all a drought had accompanied the plague, and the rivers had dried up and the ground had become burnt like a brick. It was very terrible; but Joel told the people of Judah that they deserved it all. God had sent the plague and the drought to punish them for their sins. And Joel pleaded with them to repent of these sins not merely outwardly, by rending their garments as a sign of grief, but inwardly, by being sorry in their hearts. He urged them to turn to God with penitent hearts, and God, he said, would pardon their sins, and perhaps remove the plague.

It seems to me that often when we say we are sorry we are merely rending our garments instead of our heart. We are sorry to all outward appearance, but we don't care a bit at heart. We say, “Oh! Sorry!” in an offhand sort of way, and we are really anything but sorry.

Once I knew a little girl whose elder sister had snatched away from her favorite doll. She was a fond mother, and she didn't stop to argue the matter. She hit her sister a hard blow, and nurse caught her doing it. Nurse didn't ask who was to blame; she vigorously shook the doll's mother, set her in the corner with her face to the wall, and told her to stay there till she was sorry. Half an hour passed and nurse asked if she were sorry now. “No!” was the decided reply, “I'm not.” At the end of another half hour, the nurse repeated the question, and still dolly's mama said, “No.” “Ah, well,” said nurse, “if you won't apologize, and say you are sorry, you must just remain where you are.” “Oh!” said the child, “I'll say I apologize, if you like, but I won't say I ' m sorry, for I'm still glad I did it.”

That little woman was perfectly sincere and truthful. She knew the difference between saying she was sorry, and feeling sorry, and she would not tell a lie even to get out of an uncomfortable corner. She wouldn't pretend what she didn't feel.

I'm afraid many people are content with pretending. But I don't want you to be one of those. I want you to be sorry with your heart as well as with your tongue. Being sorry with the tongue is only “rending the garment,” but being sorry with the heart is “rending the heart.”

Now, I think you will find that what we mostly have to be sorry for is one of two things either saying or doing something to wound another, or persisting in some bad habit or fault.

1. We have to be sorry for hurting someone. How are we to be heart sorry for that? We are heart sorry when we not only apologize for the wrong but try to make up for it in some way, try to pay back in kindness an unkindness. Grown-up people call this “reparation,” and it is a good name, for it means repairing as far as possible the damage you have done. And don't be content with a little reparation. Try how big a one you can make.

2. We have to he heart sorry for our had habits, such as laziness or untruthfulness or selfishness or hot- temperedness any fault in fact that we know is wrong, yet persist in. And how are we to be sorry for a bad habit? Why, by stopping it! It is no use feeling a pang of sorrow at the moment and saying, “I'll not do it again,” and then doing it the very next opportunity.

A gentleman once asked in a Sunday school in America what was meant by the word “repentance.” A little boy raised his hand, “Please, sir, being sorry for your sins.” A little girl also raised her hand. “Well,” said the gentleman, turning to her, “what do you say?” “Please, sir, it's being sorry enough to quit.”

Yes, that's it! Repentance is being sorry enough to quit to stop doing the wrong, and to try with all your might and main never to do it again.

I won't promise you that it will be easy. In fact, I can tell you that it will often be extremely difficult. But then the difficult things in life are the things best worth doing. And I'll tell you this for your encouragement the more often you succeed, the easier you will find it.