In Exodus 5:9, the Bible tells us, “Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of THEIR BROKEN SPIRIT and harsh slavery”.
When I was on a missions trip to Romania in the 1990’s just a few years after communism had fallen, I was taken to what they called “an old age home”. In truth, this facility was filled with the mentally disabled, the elderly and any other person the government deemed necessary. We went there to sing worship songs and minister to them, but what I experienced was something I had never seen, heard about or experienced in my life. When I looked into the eyes of the people we were singing to and worshiping with (they didn’t really sing), as I looked into their eyes, figuratively speaking, I could see through them. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that. I express this very disturbing and eerie thing to Pat who was our full time missionary on the ground. Pat explained why this was the case.
Pat said that these people would have been young Christian children when the “Socialist Republic of Romania”, which existed already as a Marxist-Leninist one-party socialist state was formalized. It lasted from 1947-1989. At first, Romanias post-war resources were drained by the “SovRoms”,new tax-exempt Soviet-Romanian COMPANIES that allowed the Soviet Union to control Romania’s major source of income. Another drain was the WAR REPARATIONS paid to Soviet Union. We hear a lot about government-corporate partnerships and reparations much the same today-don’t we?
In the 1950’s, the Romania’s communist government began to assert more independence, leading to the withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Romania by 1958. In June of 1948, all banks and large businesses were nationalized. As we speak, the USA is in the process of consolidating over 4000 small and medium banks into a handful of the largest banks that are under heavy government regulation. Nothing has changed since Moses or the Romanian communist regime’s day.
Nicolas Ceausescu (who was eventually the leader caught and put to death in 1989 in their revolution) was General Secretary of the Communist Party in (1965) became President in 1974. This is the general history reported to the general public worldwide. Pat told me from the inside what really happened, but was not widely reported in that the communist government came to many of the homes of the people sitting in front of us, told them to gather all they could carry on their backs, and leave all the rest of their possessions at home. Those possessions would then be confiscated and their homes inhabited by communist military and government personell. The government would eventually build large apartment buildings made of cinder blocks called “Blocks”. I stayed in a “Block” for 9 days while I was in Romania.
When I kept pushing Pat for an answer as to why these people were literally-spiritually empty, Pat finally said to me, “Steve, they are empty because their SPIRIT WAS BROKEN. When the communists came in and took all they had and left them helpless, they did not rely on their faith in God, but instead assumed a helpless position void of God’s plan, strength, promises, protection and provision. As a result, as Pat said, their spirit as “BROKEN”. Pat went further in comparing Romania to Poland in that Poland suffered terribly, but the people united with one another, and they clung to God, family. As a result, despite all the damage and death, the communist government was ultimately unable to break their spirit.
As I was reading Exodus 6 in my daily reading, it occurred to me that a “broken spirit” is about the worst thing that can happen to anyone, because it incapacitates that person, community and nation from rebuilding or even living with any goals, purpose or meaning. As a result, people perish into a sea of helplessness and nothingness. In Exodus 5, Moses wrote about the Pharaoh who did pretty much the same thing to the Israelites that the Soviet-Romanian communist party did to the Romania people.
In the Bible, Moses went to Pharaoh as God commanded him to do and demanded that he, Pharaoh let the Israelites free to worship in the wilderness for three days. As a result, Pharaoh took their “hay” (necessary for making bricks) away and demanded the Israelites work much harder in having to go out and pick up hay stubble to make the bricks to begin with. This task was impossible to do at the same productive rate prior to the hay being taken away. In other words, the repressive government stripped the people of their ability to make bricks but demanded they continue to do so at the same rate. Pharaoh unnecessarily punished the Israelites because Moses did as God commanded him to do in telling Pharaoh to let the Israelites go free.
This is what Exodus 6:9 says, “I am the LORD.” Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listend to Moses because of their BROKEN SPIRIT and harsh slavery”. What had happened is that with renewed vigor, Moses returned to his people with God’s words, but the burden of their oppression caused them “not to listen”. Tragically they forgot their initial response to Moses and Aaron in 4:31. A broken spirit forgets the ultimate hope we have in our almighty God.
My devotional encouragement to you today is simply to provide you with some history of past in light of the present. What we are experiencing today is nothing new. Romania has made a strong come back and Israel has been made into a major state with the second highest innovation rate, second only to the United States.
In closing, I want to ask you to do one thing. That one thing is to pray daily that your spirit not be broken with the strength and hope of our Lord Jesus Christ. The truth of where we are at must be looked at with a toughness of spirit reliant upon our Lord Jesus Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit. This is necessary to toughen our resolve or we will shutter at every little news story that slips through our filter of protected joy in life.
In closing, write down Psalm 34:18 and post it on your desk. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit”. Let that be a reminder to keep your spirit strong and unbroken! The great news is that though you may feel defeated at times, God is closer than you realize. He is always with you, and can heal your heart, the church and our nation. We will look very different than we do today in just a few short years. But we can come out of this better than when we started…if we will just depend on God and not allow our spirit to be broken.
