Broken Can’t Fix Broken

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.” (Jeremiah 13:23, ESV)

Ask people what they consider one of the greatest hymns of all time and you might get a variety of answers. Yet this one hymn almost everyone will recognize when they hear it. It is “Just as I Am.” It was written by William B. Bradbury and published in 1849.

Billy Graham attended a revival in 1934 led by Mordecai Ham. It was there that Billy Graham came to saving faith in Jesus. It was also there that he heard the hymn at the time of invitation. Later Billy Graham made this the song of invitation for his crusades. The first time I heard it was on the television in conjunction with a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade.

The hymn speaks of a profound truth. When one comes to Jesus, they come just the way they are. The point is that all who come to Him are poor, defiled, wretched sinners. It is the way we all came to Jesus. None of us were righteous, no not one. Yet this is exactly the way the Lord has designed His plan for us, we are to come to Him just as we are.

Why is this the plan and the only plan that works. It is because “Broken Can’t Fix Broken.” In other words, all men are broken due to having a fallen sinful nature, by which all have sinned. We all are broken and need to be fixed. This is the case now as it was in the days of Jeremiah.

It is for this reason that the Lord asks the Israelites this rhetorical question. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?” The illustration is clear. The Israelites were so accustomed to sin, that they would not and could not change their own lives. Just as a leopard could not change its spots or a person change the color of their skin, they could not remedy their brokenness. They were broken and “Broken Can’t Fix Broken.”

Let me give you a contemporary illustration. Say you have a car that is broken and sitting in your driveway. You are upset with the car as the has a serious engine issue. The engine is blown, a coil is bad, the spark plugs are shot, you name it. The problem is that the car cannot fix itself. So, it just sits there until you have it towed to a garage where someone with the knowledge and tools can fix it. The car comes just as it is to the mechanic and then the mechanic fixes it.

This is the point that we must comprehend. When we come to Jesus we come just as we are. We do not need to clean up our own act and we are not capable to do so, for it is not in our nature to do so. It is because we are broken by sin and “Broken Can’t Fix Broken.” No, if we are going to have our sin problem fixed, we cannot do the fixing, we need someone else who is capable to fix the core problem, that of our nature. The only person who can do this is Jesus, our Lord, God and Savior.

So, unsaved people must come to Jesus just as they are and let Him do the fixing. And that He will in marvelous and miraculous ways that are beyond mortal human capability.

This is the way for all of us. Jesus is constantly work to fix our brokenness, a lifelong process conforming us to His image.