Fatherly Rebuke
Hebrews 12:6 6 For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.”
Chapter 11 in Hebrews is the chapter of the heros of faith such as Moses and Abraham. It speaks of all those in the Old Testament that both suffered, and or persevered through their faith. Then as we go into Chapter 12, it speaks of the sufferings we may also face as a child of God. “For consider Him (Christ) who endured such hostility….lest you become weary and discouraged” (vs.3). God is the perfect Father whom both will reward and discipline. He is truly our role model as fathers ourselves, but we simply cannot hold to His standards. We are more concerned with being our children’s friends, than our children’s parents.
Some come to faith, as a means of escaping the woes of this world. They have been told that once they become Christians, life will be easy. But if we accept that God is our Father, we must accept the rebuke of Him. Because He is just, He only could not rebuke perfection, and the only perfection that has walked this earth, was His Son, that was sent here to die for our sins. “But if you are without chastening, of which you all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not sons.” (vs. 8). That is a scary verse if you come to faith on those grounds, and continue to sin, living a life of ease without rebuke. Matthew Henry said “to go on in sin without a rebuke is a sad sing of alienation from God.” Proverbs 3:11-12 “ My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor detest His correction; For whom the Lord loves He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights”. Be thankful when God convicts you, and punishes you for a sin, for you have the security that you are a child of His.
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February 4, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Mike
I was reading about the same subject yesterday in AW Tozer’s book titled “God’s Pursuit of Man”. Below is a little of what he wrote on the subject.
The Christian who is seeking better things and who has to his consternation found himself in a stat of complete self-despair need not be discouraged. Despair with self, where it is accompanied by faith, is a good friend, for it destroys one of the heart’s most potent enemies and prepares the soul for the ministration of the Comforter. A sense of utter emptiness can (if we are alert and wise to what is going on) be the shadow in the valley of the shadows that leads on to those fruitful fields that lie further in. If we misunderstand it and resist this visitation of God we may miss entirely every benefit a kind heavenly Father has in mid for us. If we cooperate with God He will take away the natural comforts, which have served us as mother and nurse for so long and put us where we can receive no help except from the Comforter Himself. He will tear away that false thing the Chinese call “face” and show us how painfully small we really are. When he is finished with us we will know what our Lord meant when He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt 5:3)
Be sure, however, that in these painful chastening we shall not be deserted by our God. He will never leave us nor forsake us, nor will He be wroth with us nor rebuke us. He will not break His covenant nor alter that which has gone out of His mouth. He will keep us as the apple of His eye and watch over us. His love will not fail even while He is taking us through this experience of self-crucifixion so real, so terrible, that we can express it only by crying, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1;Matt27:46; Mark 15:34)
Now let us keep our theology straight about all this. There is not in this painful stripping one remote thought of human merit. The “dark night of the soul” knows not one dim ray of the treacherous light of self-righteousness. We do not by suffering earn the anointing for which we yearn, nor does this devastation of soul make us dear to God nor give us additional favor in His eyes. The value of the stripping experience lies in its power to detach us from life’s passing interests and to throw us back upon eternity. It serves to empty our earthly vessels and prepare us for the in pouring of the Holy Spirit.
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