Good morning, everyone. Good
to see you. I add my welcome to Winston's. Glad to have you
here today. Today I'm beginning a two-part
series covering the first 11 verses of Hebrews chapter 12.
And the title I've chosen for this first segment, as you can
see, is The Chastening of the Lord. And as our text will show
us, this chastening is the means by which God produces what verse
11 of our text refers to as the peaceable fruit of righteousness. And that's going to be the title
of the second segment of this series. But our emphasis today
is going to be on how God providentially yields in the believer this peaceable
fruit of righteousness. And he does so, as we'll see,
by the means of chastisement. Chastisement, the loving, corrective
disciplinary measures that are appointed by God for his adopted
children in Christ. As we'll see in our text, this
chastisement is likened to the discipline that children receive
at the loving hand of their earthly parents. And the believer's endurance
of these circumstances is part of the cross that believers are
said to bear. take up his cross. The life of
faith is described that way as taking up his cross according
to the Bible. Six times in the New Testament
we have recorded the words of Christ saying, if any will come
after him they must deny themselves and take up his cross daily and
follow him. In fact in Luke's gospel Christ
adds that those who don't bear his cross cannot be his disciples
or followers. So taking up his cross is not
pleasant to our flesh because a cross, as it sounds like, is
a burden. And so it's grievous. That means
it's not something naturally sought after by us. And that's
how the Lord's chastisement of his people is described in our
text today as that which seems grievous, grievous
to us. That just simply means it's sorrowful,
It's painful to us. It's a matter of grief. And I
believe it will be helpful to our understanding of the chastening
of the Lord. And really for this entire series,
if we'll keep in mind what God said through Paul to the Romans
in Romans 8, 28, where he wrote, and we know that all things,
all things work together for good. to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to His purpose. And all these
things, which include the chastening of the Lord, they all work together
for good, for each and every one of God's adopted children
in Christ, the called according to His purpose, for those in
whom God the Holy Spirit produces, as our text will show, the peaceable
fruit of righteousness, and He does so through chastisement. Now, as a little background,
leading up into today's text, in the preceding chapter, chapter
11 of Hebrews, we're given a brief history of some of the Old Testament
saints. Many refer to that chapter, as
some of you know, as the Hall of Fame of Faith. And in that
chapter, God relates how all of these objects of His everlasting
mercy and these Old Testament saints, how they had endured
great difficulties in bearing his cross. And, you know, as
we read that, we're prone then to applaud their great faith. But, you know, chapter 11 really
is a testimony of God's faithfulness. How in each of their trying circumstances,
and they were indeed trying, some even died for their faith.
In each of them, it shows us that God supported them all the
way. He gave them the strength to
run their race, so to speak. And he gave them the grace to
persevere to the end in the faith. And so with that as the example
set forth, he continues now into chapter 12, saying, wherefore,
seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
he's referring back to those in chapter 11, he says, let us
lay aside every weight, in other words, anything that would hinder
us, and lay aside the sin which doth so easily beset us, the
sin of unbelief that would have us in difficulties, doubt, and
despair. And he says, and let us run with
patience, that is, so as to endure. the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne
of God. For consider him that endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied
and faint in your minds. Oh, excuse me, my throat is real
dry this morning for some reason. See, being sinners, we deserve
the wrath of God. So let us keep in mind the cross
that He, our sinless substitute, our unblameable Savior bore. This is one here who the scripture
says knew no sin. who suffered, bled, and died.
It says that he offered himself up without spot, and he was dying
at the hand of sinners. That is, those full of spots. So there's the contradiction.
So he's saying, let us endure, seeing the joy that's set before
us in him, in Christ, as our substitute and our representative.
And faint not. Continuing in verse four, he
says, ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against
sin. Now these to whom he writes in
Hebrews here, like us, his listeners had not yet been called upon,
not yet to die a martyr's death, as God had so purposed in the
lives of some of those cited in the previous chapter. Verse
5, and ye have forgotten. Now that opening phrase of verse
5, many think would be better translated and makes more sense
if we read that more in the form of a question. Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten the exhortation,
that is the encouragement, which speaketh unto you as unto children,
as the children of God? And so he reminds them of it
by quoting from Proverbs 3, saying, My son, despise not thou the
chastening of the Lord. Let me stop right there a moment
and just say a few words about the chastening of the Lord. The
chastening of the Lord is not in any sense to be considered
as punishment due unto the sins of God's children. That wouldn't
be dealing with them as children. That would be dealing with them
in a vindictive way. No, for those of the household
of faith see their surety. The Lord Jesus Christ He paid
that debt. He took on that responsibility.
He bore in full the wrath of God against their sins, the full
punishment that was due unto them. As God said through the
prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 53, he said Jesus Christ was bruised
for the iniquities of God's children. That the chastisement of their
peace was upon him. So the chastening of the Lord
upon his children is not punishment. That's been taken care of. God
says of the sins for those for whom Christ died that he'd remember
them no more. No, it's corrective instruction
for them. And as we see, it's for their
benefits. And notice it's called the chastening
of the Lord. Every affliction a believer endures
under the providence of our sovereign God is appointed by Him in love
and in mercy. It's governed by Him. It's limited
by Him as to how difficult our circumstances might be, how long
we may have to endure them, how many we may have to endure. We
worship a big God who truly is in control of all things. And
these afflictions take place for his own glory and, listen,
for the believer's own good. So as much as our fleshly nature
dreads being so disciplined, and as sorrowful as it may be,
the different circumstances we may go through at different times,
we're not to despise it, but rather we should highly regard
it. Now, that doesn't mean we're going to enjoy it. but we should
regard it highly, knowing, believing God, by faith what God says,
that it will achieve that which God intended for our good. Paul, he continues citing this
encouragement to God's children, saying, nor faint when thou art
rebuked of him. Verse six, for whom the Lord
loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. So this chastening, it's done
in perfect love, the love of God. And this loving discipline,
it's only for the children which he receives, and it is for every
single one of them, every son whom he receiveth. That is, speaking
of those whom God the Father has predestined to the adoption
of children, you can read about that in Ephesians 1. Those who
he determined in the everlasting covenant of grace that he would
be their Abba Father. It's those for whom God the Son
took on a human nature, took humanity into union with his
deity and walked here on this earth. This is those that he
receives. It's everyone for whom he lived
and died and thereby redeemed. He bought them. by His precious
blood, that they might receive the adoption of children. And
these children then are manifest as the accepted children of God
by their faith in Christ. They're those, see, who will
enjoy all the privileges of sonship and communion with God, and those
who will be ultimately received by Him into His presence in Heaven's
eternal glory. If this describes you, you should
rejoice, even though our text today makes it very clear. You
will most certainly endure difficulties, chastisements appointed by your
heavenly father in perfect love for your good. Because as we
see in verse seven, if ye endure chastening, God dealeth with
you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father
chasteneth not?" You know, they say that a child that is totally
lacking any discipline from their parents is one that feels totally
unloved. He says, but if ye be without
chastening, whereof all are partakers. This is speaking of all of his
sons, his children. If you're without this chastisement,
he says, then are ye bastards. and not sons. None of God's children,
see, are exempted from chastisement. No chastisement means not in
his family. And not all who profess to belong
to him are his true children. In other words, they might not
be what they profess to be, what they may even in themselves believe
themselves to be. And here's the indicator of it.
If there's no chastisement, they're bastards, not sons. And that
kind of shoots a hole in that health and wealth gospel that's
propagated that suggests that God wants everything to go great
for you, you know, and that if you'll just do this or clean
up your act in this way or that way, that you'll have that prosperity
and that will be a sign of God's eternal blessing being upon you.
Well, now, God's children here, are not without chastisement."
Well, continuing in verse 9, he adds, furthermore, we have
had fathers of our flesh, that is earthly fathers, which corrected
us and we gave them reverence and we submitted to their correction.
We didn't like it necessarily as we were growing up, but we
knew they loved us and so we respected them for it. He says,
shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of
spirits, the creator of our eternal souls, and live, live eternally? For they, again speaking of our
earthly parents, verily for a few days, the days of our youth when
we were under their guidance as our parents, they chastened
us after their own pleasure. Now that doesn't mean they took
pleasure in our discipline, but rather it means after their own
best judgment. In their wisdom, fallible though
it may be, but he, oh man, now we're going to talk about the
infallible one, the all wise heavenly father for our prophet. Now if you're infallible, you
can't fail to realize what he intends to have as a result. Our prophet that we might be
partakers of his holiness. This is not speaking of the essential
holiness of God because holiness is not a communicable attribute. Holiness only belongs to deity. But we partake of holiness. We
share in it, in that which is in Christ that's received out
of his fullness. See, we partake of it or we enter
into fellowship or share with it in communion with God as we
see our holiness. in our substitute and representative,
in the Lord Jesus Christ by God-given faith. The only holiness that
a believer has is his holiness. It's based upon his perfect righteousness. That is the merit of all that
he accomplished by his obedience unto death. That being imputed
or charged to the accounts of all his children. our difficulties,
our troubles, our afflictions, our chastisements. They bring
us to a greater sense of our sin. They cause believers to
acknowledge their sin, and so they take us to the only place
we can go for relief. They remind us of the full pardon
and forgiveness of all our sins, past, present, and future, reminding
believers of their completeness in Christ. Again, as Ephesians
1 puts it, accepted in Him, in the Beloved, having His perfect
righteousness accounted to them. See, knowing that God sees them
in Christ as, listen how they're described in Colossians 1.22,
as holy, unblameable, and unreprovable. Sinners like me and you in God's
sight, holy, unblameable, and unreprovable. all due to their
oneness, their union with Christ, their sinless substitute and
representative before the holy justice of God, who cannot commune
with sin, who requires perfection as a holy God. And then in verse
11, he declares, Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be
joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness, unto them which are exercised
thereby. The afflictions that believers
endure under the chastening of the Lord, they do not at all
seem to be a matter of joy at the time. Although if only viewed
by the eye of faith, they really are. But it speaks of that which
we naturally will grieve over, circumstances we would not choose
for ourselves. Notice the wording here indicates
that believers are exercised by the Lord's chastening. I know
some folks claim to enjoy exercising. Personally, I never have. I'm
sure they do. But I do it because I know it's
for my good. And whether you find physical
exercise enjoyable or not, you do it for your own good. Like
physical exercise is to me this chastening of the Lord, it involves
the believer's experience of things that none of them enjoy. Nevertheless, they're the tokens
of the love of God in Christ. They're the work of God the Holy
Spirit in the believer and they're evidences of sonship, of being
one of the adopted children of God and the very things we grieve
over. They all work together for the
good of God's children. Now, listen, our senses scream
otherwise. But faith believes that because
faith believes God. And that's what God says. And
patience will have us experience that. And I'm going to deal with
that more, how it grows our faith, and faith worketh patience in
the second segment of this series. For now, from our text, this
is clear, that the peaceable fruit of righteousness is one
produced in all the children of God and only in them, and
that, too, by God's appointed means, by the chastening of the
Lord, it takes place. So let's consider in more detail
this morning now what this chastening of the Lord is about. As we've
already seen, It's that which seems grievous to us. It's not
enjoyed as it is endured. I mentioned in my introduction
how chastisement is akin to bearing his cross. A cross is a burden
that opposes our own wills. Now, in light of that, can't
everyone honestly say that, you know, things don't always go
according to their wishes or wills? Yet the Bible says that
many shall perish. Broad is the road that leads
to destruction, so many of them are not sons. They're not to
be found among God's adopted children in Christ. So while
we can know that the chastening of our Lord seems grievous, you
can't conclude that just because you experience some grievous
things that that is the chastening of the Lord. But here's something
to think about that I've been pondering in my study of this.
Since it's clear It's a clear truth from God's Word that all
things, all things work together for good to them that love God.
To them that are called according to His purpose, Romans 8, 28,
then all grievous things that true believers endure may well
be considered as the chastening of the Lord, because it yields
or produces that which is good for them, the peaceable fruit
of righteousness. And the reason I suggest this
is because The believer's eternal good, it's all, every bit of
it attributed to the finished work of Christ for them. All
their good is a fruit and an effect of his finished work on
the cross. His righteousness, that's the
merit of what he accomplished there in satisfaction to the
justice of God, that being imputed or charged to their account so
that they otherwise now guilty, hell-deserving sinners, they're
reconciled to a holy God who could not otherwise commune with
a sinner. So peace is made between them
and God. So all the fruit and effects
produced in the believer as a result of Christ accomplished righteousness
for them, I think may well be considered to be peaceable fruits
of righteousness. I'll tell you where that takes
my mind, and I'm sure many of you may be thinking the same
thing. Well, wait a minute then. If I thought like that, you know,
if I'm a believer and I think like that, does that mean I shouldn't
worry? I might as well go on and sin
all I want. I know that sin has its consequences in this life.
People suffer from those consequences, but you know, knowing all things
work together for my good, does that mean that even the consequences
of that which I intended for evil, God might likewise yield
afterward the peaceable fruit of righteousness as is produced
by the chastening of the Lord? Think about this now. If we embrace
that philosophy, it actually brings into doubt whether we're
one of those for whom all things work together for good, who are
the called according to his purpose. Paul kind of dealt with that
mindset in Romans 6.1. Those of you familiar with Romans
5 and 6, you know that at the end in Romans 5, he's dealing
there with how a sinner can be reconciled unto a holy God. by the very righteousness of
another. In other words, by grace, not
by anything they could do. So he begins in verse 1 of chapter
6 saying, well, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in
sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? And you might want to
read this whole passage later on your own, In the interest
of time, skipping down to verse 11, he adds, likewise reckon
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto
God, look, through Jesus Christ our Lord. In other words, based
on seeing the peaceable fruit of Christ's righteousness that's
derived from your union with him, then let not sin therefore
reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust
thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness
unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God, how, as those that
are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of
righteousness unto God." I point you here because there's the
motive of grace and gratitude that's impressed upon true believers
by the Holy Spirit. Their motive in striving to obey
God and avoid sin, whereas it might have at one time been mercenary
and legal. In other words, I want to get
something for it, gain God's favor or remove God's wrath.
It's no longer that. You see, they don't strive to
do those things to gain his favor or to gain spiritual life. Rather,
they strive to obey and avoid sin as those who see themselves
already alive from the dead. due to their union with Christ
in his death and resurrection. When he died, they died. When
he arose again, they arose again. We weren't there. We did that
in our representative, in our substitute, so that when he died
for our sins, our sins were truly punished in him. And so it guaranteed,
it demanded his life, that he rise again and so will everyone
for whom he lived and died. If one professes to believe on
Christ and yet persist in an attitude of blatant disregard
for God's revealed will, as it pertains to our character and
our conduct, that would expose an absence of a love for God. And it would expose an ingratitude
that would indicate God's love perhaps hasn't been shared abroad
in their hearts, as is described of believers. But listen, just
because our fallen, sinful natures are prone to that, it doesn't
alter the truth of Romans 8.28. But it does remind us of this,
doesn't it? That promise that all things
will work together for good, it is limited to those who do
love God, who are the called according to His purpose. And
as the scripture says, we love Him because He first loved us. Think about that. Think of the
wondrous grace of our God who commended his love toward us,
the scripture says, while we were yet sinners, at enmity,
enemies with the true and living God, really total ingrates, and
he loved us that we might love him. Now, back to our text, this
is clear. The Lord's chastening is grievous
to us at the time. Not all grievous chastisements
or circumstances or chastisements, just as all things do not work
together for the good of those who are not the called according
to his purpose. The chastening of the Lord includes
what a credible Bible commentator often use referred to as the
afflictive providence of God. In other words, it includes all
the trials, temptations, difficulties, or afflictions that are appointed
by God and brought about according to his own sovereign will in
the lives of his children, and they all flow from his everlasting
love for them. For whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth. Now, just as I've shown that
not all which is grievous to us can be considered to be chastening,
well, not all trials, temptations, difficulties, or afflictions
are chastisements from the Lord. To the believers at Corinth,
Paul wrote, There hath no temptation. And the word temptation there
includes trials and afflictions and testings. It says, no temptation
hath taken you but such as is common to man. The point here
being your difficulties are not unique to you. But look what
he adds to the believers now at Corinth. He says, but God
is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that
you're able. but will with the temptation
also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it." See,
no matter how difficult our trials may seem, we know from this promise
that God doesn't give his children any more than he'll give them
grace to handle. And we have a record of that,
a historical record of it, in chapter 11 of Hebrews. the faithfulness
that's shown there, the faithfulness of God in seeing those saints
through the most trying of circumstances. So the outward afflictions, trials,
and difficulties endured by true believers are chastisements from
the Lord. But since all now saved and lost
endure grievous providential afflictions, then those circumstances
alone do not distinguish the sons from, as our text puts it,
the bastards. Those who would illegitimately
may profess to believe Christ, may even mistakenly presume that
to be the case, to be a true child of God, but in reality
are not. Many preachers, they're going
to speak words of comfort to those in their congregations
in their times of difficulties, and they often do so by quoting
Romans 8.28, that all things work together for their good,
and that including the chastisements of the Lord, And it's a true
source of comfort to true believers. But listen, if the gospel, now
the gospel, that's the good news of how God saves sinners. Well,
if your gospel, the body of faith that you believe, if it doesn't
set forth the imputed righteousness of God in Christ as the only
ground for their peace with God, then there's no basis for concluding
that the difficulties in your lives are the chastisements of
the Lord, not where the peaceable fruit of righteousness remains
absent. And I say this sadly. So many
remain deceived in counting themselves as Christians who know nothing
about the peaceable fruit of righteousness. that belongs to
each and every one of God's true children. You know, like many
of you in years past, there's a time I took comfort from these
same words. But you know, back then in applying
it to myself, it was like I was reading somebody else's mail.
If God doesn't at some point bring you to value by the Spirit's
work of regeneration and conversion through This preached gospel
of God's grace wherein His righteousness is revealed. If He doesn't bring
you to value and rest in the peaceable fruit of righteousness,
then you're not a son but a bastard. Now, that, this clear truth here,
I think, ought to make all of us want to know more about this
righteousness. His righteousness, that which
alone brings peace that will reconcile a sinner like you and
me to a holy God. Now, you know, there are some
difficulties and afflictions that only true believers experience.
First, you know, there's the persecution over their identification
with and promotion of God's gospel. You consider the context then,
again, of Hebrews 12. that has us referring back to
those witnesses in chapter 11 and the trials of many of those
Old Testament saints. If you read that on your own,
you'll see that much of the afflictions they endured, not all but much,
were due to their identification with the gospel. As Christ said,
blessed, this is in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, blessed,
and when he says blessed, he means eternally blessed here.
Blessed are they which are persecuted not just over their religion,
but for righteousness sake. For theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute
you and shall say all manner of evil against you because you
deserve it, no, falsely. And look, for my sake, rejoice
and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. for
so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." You know,
thankfully in our day, we haven't been called upon to suffer. Nothing
like those listed in Hebrews chapter 11. But you know, all
believers are persecuted, at least to some extent. It may
be just a light affliction. Compared to them, it certainly
is. But we suffer that by the rejection of family and friends
over our gospel. Due to what the Bible calls,
in Galatians 5, the offense of the cross. The offense, see,
of the gospel of pure, unadulterated grace. What an offense it brings
to our natural mind, as it did to all of us when we first heard
it, I'm sure. It'll have us cry out, wait a
minute, don't tell me there's nothing I can do to be saved. You know, when I thought like
that, I wouldn't have phrased it this way, but in essence,
isn't that the same thing as saying, don't tell me I really
do need God's mercy and grace? Well, secondly, you know, only
the true children of God experience what some have referred to as
the inward cross. Bill spoke briefly about that
in the 10 o'clock hour, the internal warfare between the flesh and
the spirit. Those without the indwelling
presence of God the Holy Spirit, they do not experience the chastisement
of the Lord and the eternal good derived from bearing that inward
cross. And yet so many mistakenly think
they experience that warfare in which the Bible teaches all
believers are engaged in. See, by nature, as fallen sinners,
we're all born with a conscience. And so, even before we heard
the gospel of God's grace, if we were attempting at all to
live an upright or moral life, we have an internal struggle
just by nature, don't we? Because of our natural sinful
tendencies. I mean, we try to not be as selfish
as we naturally are, or as greedy as we naturally are. Not to mention
more egregious sins. But again, if afterwards, if
after those struggles, there's no peaceable fruit of righteousness
produced in you, then there's no basis for characterizing that
internal welfare as that which God's children are said to experience. There's no justification to consider
that to be the chastening of the Lord. Where the peaceable
fruit of righteousness remains absent, The struggles are not
between the flesh and the spirit, but rather that's a vain struggle
in which the sinner presumes to be able to kind of gain some
sort of victory themselves over it as they go about that battle. In essence, they're presuming
to be able to produce their own righteousness that they imagine
will find them acceptable before God. Well, in contrast to that,
in the believer's warfare, between the flesh and the spirit, they
find out they're in a battle that serves as a continual reminder
of their inadequacy to gain their own victory. And it's a battle
that won't go away until we leave what the Bible calls the sinful
body of death. So the believers are reminded
of the peaceable fruit of righteousness, that which they have in Christ,
their Savior. They're reminded of that perfect,
justice-satisfying, peacemaking righteousness that he rendered
for them by his doing and dying. And so while they all will fight
the good fight to the end, so to speak, they do so as they're
sustained by a perfect peace that's been made for them. See,
they know that The battle won't go away because of our remaining
sin nature, but they're engaged in a battle. It's one they know
they could never win for themselves, but it's one they know has already
been won for them. And so they strive as those that
are already alive and dead to sin, as we read earlier. The
sin nature stays with the believer and plagues him or her throughout
their life, but having been given a new principle of life, born
again of the spirit, is evidenced by giving the spiritual faculties
to embrace God's gospel, you see. Well, they now have, the
Bible teaches, they have the indwelling presence of God the
Holy Spirit that influences us. And that means war. Now, the
life of a true believer is not necessarily one of continual
outward difficulties and afflictions under the providence of God.
You know, at times, God causes some of his children to prosper
in this life, to enjoy happiness in their circumstances, maybe
in their family, in their health, perhaps in their jobs, whatever.
And you know, when that happens, the believer should, and he does,
by God's grace, see God's goodness in those mercies and thank God
for them. So at times God removes the burden
of that outward cross that we might be called upon to bear,
but he never removes the inward cross in this lifetime. The believer,
a sinner saved by grace, but being a sinner, he's going to
carry that burden until the day he or she dies because of the
corruption of our fallen sinful nature, that which the spirit
calls the flesh. And the internal welfare that
results between that sinful nature, the flesh, that opposes that
new principle of life and the influence of the indwelling presence
of God the Holy Spirit, well, that's that warfare. Until God
brings spiritual life and gives us the gift of faith to believe
on Christ, listen, not as we imagine him to be, but as he's
revealed in the gospel, as the prophet Jeremiah put it, as the
Lord our righteousness, well, that warfare is yet to be engaged
in. In the state of unbelief, you
see, there's no spiritual life. The Bible teaches we all come
into this world spiritually dead. So there's no spiritual life
to do battle with our fallen sinful natures. And in that very
sinful nature, the flesh is, listen, manifested as being unopposed,
without opposition, in the hearts of unbelievers. Listen, even
when we were religious unbelievers, And it's evidence this way. It's
evidence by our false hope, our ground of salvation. When we
think that somehow our gospel tells us that we'll be saved
based on something that proceeds from us, a product of our flesh. But, you know, Paul wrote in
Philippians 3 about having no confidence in the flesh. Well,
that's just the opposite. It's having confidence in the
flesh. It's looking to be saved based on a work of your own hand
that you presume will make the difference in your being saved.
If you'll just receive Jesus, accept him as your savior, walk
this aisle. If you're looking to something
you did to make the difference, then that's not the gospel. That's a work of your hand. And
it manifests that that fleshly, fallen, sinful nature is unopposed. You think about it this way.
Think of the masses who believe that Christ died for everyone
and so that reduces you to having to believe that the real difference
in salvation has got to be something other than or something in addition
to the work of Christ. Because we know that the Bible
says most will perish, many will perish. And you know, most people,
they typically believe that. that deciding factor to hinge
on some decision that they make to get themselves saved. That's
not the hope of God's true children. Their hope is in Christ and in
his finished work alone, the righteousness of God that he
rendered for them by his obedience unto death on the cross. You
see, their perfect, everlasting peace was made between God and
those children he reconciled, each and every one of those for
whom he lived and died. to whom this righteousness has
been imputed. Charge, reckon to their account,
those who in time and their respective generations shall all receive
the adoption of children by, listen, his blood-bought gift
of faith." The Bible says he purchased his church. Well, in
the next segment of this two-part series, we're going to spend
more time discussing the peaceable fruit of righteousness. and how
various chastisements of the Lord might be used to bring them
about in the believer. But let me just summarize today's
message. We've seen from God's word the
following, that all whom the Lord loves he chastens, deals
with them as sons. We've seen that any who are without
chastisements are not sons, but illegitimate, though they may
imagine themselves to be sons. We've seen that while the Lord's
chastening is described as that which is grievous, as we go through
it, Not all grievous afflictions or difficulties can be so characterized
as the chastening of the Lord, nor can, fourthly, all the internal
conflicts experienced as we strive to avoid sin and live a moral
life, neither can all of them be characterized as the chastening
of the Lord. So what's the point? The point
of all this is let us examine ourselves. Let's examine the
tree by the fruit that is yielded afterwards. not by the trying
circumstances themselves. You know, some of the more popular
preachers of our day, they're excellent motivational speakers.
They're very skilled at inspiring their listeners to look past
the various difficult circumstances and gain some sense of peace
and comfort. You know, they successfully divert
the attention of folks away from their present difficulties, having
them take comfort in their Presume future eternal bliss and heaven's
glory. And it's kind of often suggested,
well, it's just there for the taking, just simply on the basis
of whether or not you prefer to go to heaven rather than prefer
to go to hell. That's a pretty easy sell, isn't
it? And granted, their messages, they may be laced with biblical
language, but often there's little, if any, doctrinal substance.
It's not uncommon to hear it suggested your salvation is simply
a matter of a decision to be made by you. You don't need mercy
if that's the case. You just got to cut your end
of the deal, whatever it is they prescribe. They may talk a bit
about Jesus and what he's done, but it's not portrayed as that
which he single-handedly did to save them, but rather to merely
make their salvation possible. So the abbreviated version is
it's really all up to you. You know, that false gospel message
could be summarized kind of like this. If you want to go to heaven,
just choose to do so by believing something. And they may invoke
the name of Christ. And then let's all smile and
feel good about it. Just decide for Jesus and take
comfort. What they're telling you to take
comfort in is in your decision that they claim will distinguish
you. For the children of God, the
called according to its purpose, all things do work together for
their eternal good, and it's a great comfort to them as they
endure the chastening of the Lord. But my point here is don't
be fooled, because many can and many do experience a temporary
peace of mind through what many call the power of positive thinking. Charismatic, dynamic, motivational
speakers and preachers, they can effectively have their listeners
looking past their temporal difficulties. at least for a time, as they
speak to them as if they're the children of God, and so can look
for better days in expectation of an eternity in heaven, if
nothing else. But listen, the peace of God
which passeth all understanding, that's how it's described in
Philippians 4, 7. It's the peace of God which passeth
all natural understanding that keeps the believers hard, it
says. It's the peace true believers experience, and that is not just
a mind game. There's substance to it. True
religion is not, as Karl Marx put it, a mere opiate for the
people. There's doctrinal substance to
the gospel of God's grace, which they believe. As Romans 1, 16,
and 17 declares to us, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Listen, and look at verse 17.
Because therein is the righteousness of God revealed. We better know
something about that righteousness. Is that the basis of your hope?
Is that the ground of your salvation? You think of the masses that
have their ears tickled by these preachers in these mega churches.
Well, just think of those who come in the name of Christ in
churches large and small. This is a sad fact that so many
of them know little, if anything, about the righteousness of God
in Christ, this righteousness that is revealed in the gospel
that is believed upon unto salvation. You know, I was raised in a church
from the cradle roll on up, and that ignorance of His righteousness,
it described me for the first 32 years of my life as well.
I never even heard of the imputed righteousness of God in Christ.
So if you take comfort in your times of difficulty, which we'll
all have, By perceiving them to be the loving chastisements
of the Lord, among the all things that work together for the eternal
good of his children, be willing to test that by looking at the
fruit produced afterward. Do those difficulties lead you
to reflect back upon a salvation, a sense of peace that's derived
by your own doing, perhaps a decision you made for Jesus allegedly? That's faith in faith. That's
not faith in Christ. Or do they drive you to look
to Christ alone? As we read, the author and the
finisher of the faith, the one whose justice, satisfying obedience
unto death, the righteousness he established, listen, fully,
completely reconciled his children unto himself, made peace between
God and these otherwise hell-deserving sinners for whom he lived and
died. Now if that peaceable fruit of
righteousness describes the after effects produced in you by your
difficulties, count it all joy to have been chastised by your
loving Heavenly Father. You see, that's the mark of his
true children. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.
So despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.