The King Who Ripped His Clothes

This is the kind of story you don’t read to your children before they go to sleep.

Samaria. A high wall fortified city.

One day an army comes and launches a siege.

No one in Samaria can come out. The city is surrounded with troops. After a few days, food prices go up and it won’t be long before the smell of death starts creeping into every home. Only the rich now can afford to buy what is left on the market stalls.

There’s a king in Samaria. He feels terribly helpless. He might be king but he can’t help his people.

The Bible tells us that, ‘‘One day the king was walking along the city wall. A woman cried out, ‘Help! Your majesty!’ He answered; ‘If God won’t help you, where on earth can I go for help? ’ The king continued, ‘Tell me your story.’ She said: ‘This woman came to me and said, ‘Give up your son and we’ll have him for today’s supper; tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I told her, ‘Your turn-bring your son so we can have him for supper.’ But she had hidden her son away.’ (2 Kings 6 vs. 26-29)’’

The king must have heard some terrible stories lately but this one was beyond anything he had heard. I don’t think you can go any lower than that: mothers deciding to have their sons for supper!

The Bible says: “When the king heard this, he tore his clothes in despair.” When you hear the horror stories on the news almost every day, how do you react? How do you respond to the millions of children caught in the sex slave trade or to the multitudes of souls living in slums like beast in cages? How do you respond to Christians across the Communist world and the Muslim world, who because of their faith, have ended up locked in small, filthy prisons cells?

Does it break your heart? Does it move you to the extent that you cannot help, but rip your clothes too?

Everywhere I go, I meet people who are moved by the needs and touched in their hearts by the suffering in the world. But very few truly end up tearing their hearts.

A.B. Simpson, a great missionary of the past, often hugged a globe to his chest and wept over the world’s lost-ness.

If someone is to ask me: “Timothée, how do I know where God wants me to serve Him? There are great needs everywhere, where should I go?”

I will answer them: “If a group of people, a community, a city, a specific country, anything that literally breaks your heart, then this is very likely where God wants to use you.”

Too many of God’s people have only undone the bottom of their shirts during a short term mission trip overseas or at a church outreach in their community. It’s good but more is needed. Your clothes have to be torn from the top to the bottom.

Thankfully in Samaria there’s a man of God. He announces that the next day, the troops will have gone, the famine will be over and the gates of the city will be wide open. And it happened just as the prophet has said.

This is what I see here: The very day after the king ripped his robe, the gates of the city were ripped open.

Friends, the day your heart is ripped open, the gates to your destiny will open up. No one will be able to stop you from running into your calling.

Some people have prayed for years asking God to open the doors but few of them are really willing to pay the price. Ripping your clothes will cost you but the blessings you’ll reap will be countless.

2000 years ago, the King of kings ripped heaven open to come down into our world. On the way to the Cross His clothes were ripped. His heart was ripped. Jesus is calling for “ripped-clothes, ripped-hearts followers”.

If your heart is already torn, keep it torn. Don’t go looking for a needle and a thread to sew it up again. Keep your heart on fire for Jesus and for the lost. Don’t let anyone try to make you look more respectable by giving you a new shirt.

The day Samaria opened up again, the crowds like a mob came pouring out through the gate. In that joyful crowd I’m sure there was that boy, the one those two mothers had planned to eat. But on that day he probably was the happiest boy in town. His life was spared.

Today millions of boys and girls are trapped in the jaws of death. You’ll find them in dark rooms in Karachi or Dhaka making carpets from dawn to dusk. You’ll find them locked up in brothels in New Delhi. You’ll find them eating out from rubbish bags in Kampala and Mexico City. But they don’t have to die. There is for each one of them the promise of a new life.

Let your heart break today with what breaks the heart of God. And by all means keep it broken.

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