If you'd like to be turning to
Proverbs chapter three, you'll find our text. Proverbs chapter
three. Title this message, Whom the
Lord Loveth. Whom the Lord Loveth. We're gonna
read two verses in Proverbs chapter three, verse 11 and verse 12. My son despised not the chastening
of the Lord. neither be weary of his correction. For whom the Lord loveth, he
correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Our world believes, our religious
world and false religion believes that God loves everybody. That's the popular message. God
loves everybody. That's the lie, isn't it? That
is the lie. You can make your own choice.
You can pray this prayer. You can make God Lord. He's already
Lord. We know that to be true, don't
we? And we find here in this particular passage that that's
evident that he doesn't love everybody. Because whom he loves,
he chasteneth. If he doesn't chasten you, he
doesn't love you. Does the Lord chasten everybody?
No, if he loved him, he would chasten him, wouldn't he? This
is just more evidence of the Lord's gospel in showing us that
whom the Lord does love, he does chasten, and everybody else,
he leaves them to themselves. He said, Jacob, have I loved?
Esau, have I hated? Somebody said, yeah, he was talking
about nations there. He wasn't talking about people.
No, he was talking about two people. Before they were even born, having
done any good or any evil so that the purpose of election
might stand, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. You know what
that means, and I say this often, but this gives me great comfort.
If I'm the Lord's, I can't mess it up. Before I was born, before
you was born, Before the world was created, the Lord's people
were given to Christ in the covenant of grace. He loves his people. He calls them their children.
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us
that we should be called the sons of God. Brethren, now are
we the sons of God. We're the sons and daughters
of God. If we're his, we can't mess it up. No, he loves us with
an everlasting love. And just as we love our children
and correct our children, he corrects his people. How does
he correct us? With the gospel. Somebody said,
we were living, Greg may have mentioned this while he was here
for the conference even. I don't know if it's from the pulpit
or not, but he said, what kind of discipline do you do at your
church? How do you discipline the people? I don't remember,
did he say that from the pulpit here? I can't remember. He said,
what kind of discipline do you have? And he said, oh, we discipline
good at our church. We do. We preach the gospel every
Sunday, every service. We preach the gospel. That's
what gets the job done, doesn't it? Somebody asked me through
an email what they were asking questions about. Do you have
elders that are ordained? What do you have to do to become
a member? What do you have to do to do
this? And that was a lot of dos they were asking. What do you
have to do? What do you have to do? And I said, come and listen. Just come and
sit and listen. Come in here, come see a man.
It told me all things ever I did. Is this not the Christ? The gospel's
the only thing we have to offer. The gospel is what the Lord uses
to correct his people in whom the Lord loveth. He chastened. That word chastened means correct.
He corrects us. Well, how does he correct us?
Does he get a whip out and just beat us up? Does he stick our
nose, you know, have dogs, when they mess something up, you get
them, you stick their nose in it, you tell them, no, don't
do that. Does the Lord do that to us? No. No, he corrects us in
love and in patience and in kindness. Now that doesn't mean it's gonna
be pleasurable when he does it. Sometimes, we're gonna turn to
Hebrews chapter 12 in a minute, but he said it's not joyous.
It's not joyous for the present time. He said it's grievous when
you become corrected of the Lord. Flesh hates it. But though the
outward man perisheth, the inward man is renewed day by day. And
what does the renewing? It's the Lord's gospel, isn't
it? It's the Lord blessing his word to our heart, growing us
in the milk and the sweet honey of the word. That's what he does. Well, we know why the Lord would
hate Esau, don't we? He despised the birthright, but
this was before he was even born. So he despised the birthright
because he was hated of God. That's the cause and effect.
So why would the Lord love Jacob? One word, grace. Grace. That's it. Nothing good in Jacob.
I can tell you everything about Jacob and you already know it.
He was a liar. He was a trickster. Everything that he did, a thief.
He said, I love Jacob. Jacob's mine. I've loved you
with an everlasting love, and your sins and your iniquities
I remember no more. I've put them away. See, Jacob's
perfect in the sight of God because Jacob was found in Christ. How is it that Noah was considered
an upright man? He found grace in the sight of
the Lord. Was he looking for grace? Is
that how he found it? No, the Lord said, here it is.
And he found it because of that. The Lord gave him grace. It was
bestowed on him, wasn't it? Noah found grace in the sight
of the Lord. We are made to see, brethren,
that the only way you and I, you and I or anyone else can
be saved is by grace alone, according to the purpose of God, according
to the choosing of God, according to the will of God. Outside of
that, no one can be saved. No one will be saved. The reason for that, brethren,
is our pride. I've been thinking a lot about
pride lately. Every one of us has it. It likes to rear its
head up quite a bit, don't it? I was thinking about all the
times you can go from being happy and having a good day, but somebody
bumps into you at Walmart with your card or something, and they
act like it's your fault. Well, pride pops up pretty quick,
don't it? or somebody messes with your children, you know,
or say he gives them ugly look, you're ready to, you understand
what I'm saying. But that's ever more so before
the Lord, our flesh is prideful. Your flesh says, we will not
have this man reigning over us. We will not submit to him. That's
what the flesh says right now. The Lord didn't save our flesh.
He gave, we have two natures. And thanks be to God, the elder
shall serve the younger. The old man perishes, we're dying,
but the new man is renewed by the Lord. He keeps his people.
He keeps us by chastening us, bringing us back to him, whom
the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. Truly, pride is the root of all
sin. thinking of ourself, that we
are this, we are that. You've been around people that
that's all they do, they think about themselves. We were at a get
together one time and they had so many hamburgers and hot dogs
allotted and one family man, they had to go first. They were
like, look out, my kids go first, we're going first. We got up
there and there wasn't any hamburgers left. It was like, all right,
well, we eat hot dogs, girls, it's fine. Thinking about themselves,
not worried about anybody else. That's our nature, is what I'm
trying to tell you. That's in you and that's in me right now.
That's never changed. But what has changed? The Lord's
given us a new heart. One that cries out to Him. One
that cries, Abba, Father. Lord, save me. Save me from myself. Save me from my sin. Save me
from my pride. That's what we read in Psalm
119, 33 through 40. Teach me thy ways, O Lord. Teach
me thy precepts. Quicken me in your righteousness.
This is the prayer of the believer. As soon as we start praying,
Lord, chasten me. And then we start getting chastened.
You know, we start murmuring right after it, don't we? Is
that not true? Lord, I wanna grow in grace. I wanna, well,
it's gonna, your flesh isn't gonna like it. Your flesh isn't
gonna like it. We're just like the children
of Israel murmuring in the desert, aren't we? The Lord gave them
manna from heaven, water out of a rock. Their shoes never
wore out. Their clothes never got a hole in it. And they said,
we loathe this light bread. We hate this bread. This bread
that we didn't have to work for. This bread that we didn't have.
I mean, the Lord just sent it to them. That's you and me. That's you and me, daily. Lord,
teach me your ways. Lord, save me from myself, my
pride. Lord, cause me not to be tired
of your manna, tired of the milk, of the word, tired of your water.
Lord, I need a drink. I need life-giving food. That's
why we're here, is to see him. Only the Lord chastens his people. and only his people are chastened. He does it by giving us repentance
and faith and enabling us to bow to his sovereignty, his lordship. Did you know men will not bow
unto the Lord? It's all about pride. A little
something of pride, either a work that they've done or something
they haven't done, that's pride. That's the problem is pride.
But we're enabled to, the Lord gives us repentance. He changes
our mind. Somebody told me one time that
repentance, that meant you had to come to the Lord with a broken
heart and a contrite spirit, and you had to pray and beg him
for forgiveness. That's what they called repentance.
And I said, okay, if the Lord gives you repentance, you will
come to him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit and beg
him. That is true, but that's not repentance. Repentance is
the Lord changing our minds, showing us we're a sinner. We'd
have never seen that. We didn't ever, unless we see
the state that we're in, this is the chastening of the Lord
that he does for his people. He says, no, let me show you
what you are. And now let me show you my son
and what he's done for you and what you are in him. That's the
gospel, isn't it? This is who you were. This is
what you thought you were. This is what you really are.
You're a dead dog sinner. But now I've made you, I've made
you the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Not by works
of righteousness you have done, I did it all by myself. When
he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down, he sat down. God doesn't do that for everybody,
does he? He doesn't love everybody. And
that is the message that men hate. They hate a God that's
sovereign. They hate a God that's in absolute
control of everything. The dust that's in the air in
this room right now, he's purposed it. He's God. They will not bow
to that God. No, Jesus, our Lord did not die
for everybody. Otherwise, he's a failure. That
means there's people in hell whom he died for. That's the
blasphemous lie that's being preached. Oh, but for the sweet
gospel of truth, whom the Lord does love. Whom the Lord loveth. You notice that's, I like the
King James for this reason, but the ETH at the end, that's continual.
Whom the Lord loveth. everlasting. He chasteneth. He chasteneth. He will not lose
one sheep. He will not leave his children
to themselves. Do you know why? He cannot deny
himself. See, we're in him. To lose us
or to leave us to ourself if we are in Christ means he has
to deny himself. Can't do it. He can't do it.
We talk Sunday about the things the Lord can't do. He can't lie
and he can't deny himself. I'm telling you, the Lord's gonna
give me a message on that, I think, soon. The things God can't do. And that's our hope, isn't it?
He can't change. He can't change. He's immutable. It's pretty good evidence that
I'm not the Lord's if I'm left to myself. That's pretty good
evidence. The Lord just leaves me to myself.
If the Lord doesn't keep us to the end of our life, that's pretty
good evidence that I'm not his. I'm not his. If he doesn't continually
shut me up to Christ, that's what chastening does. That's
what chastening does, is it shuts you and I up to Christ. It shuts
our mouth up. It opens our ears up. It opens
our eyes up to just him. That's what his chastening does.
He's not gonna reveal anything new to us. He's gonna reveal
his son every time to his people. And he's more than enough, isn't
he? He's more than enough. He only does this to his children.
Now the writer of Hebrews was dealing with this same subject
of chastening of the Lord. Let's turn there, Hebrews chapter
12. And let's look at verse five
and six. I like the wording here. He says, and ye have forgotten,
Hebrews 12 verse five, and ye have forgotten the exhortation
which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not
thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked
of him, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourges every
son whom he receiveth. The Lord's the one that does
the receiving. The one, the receiving here that he's talking about,
that means he takes them up. The word also is translated accepts
them, whom the Lord accepts. Well, how are we gonna be accepted?
We have to be found in Christ. He has to put us there. So he's
made us acceptable in the beloved. He made us accepted in the beloved.
Therefore he chastens us. Everyone given to Christ in the
covenant of grace before time. He's going to chasten them. They
will be taught. What did the Lord say? Number
one, he said, he'll make them willing in the day of his power.
But he said, they all shall be taught of me. They all shall
be taught of me. Isn't it a glorious thought that
the Lord teaches us? It's amazing. He saved us by
grace. But then he didn't just save
us and say, you're on your own from here on out. He saved us.
He provided everything from the time of our birth to the time
of our death in this life and in the life to come, everything.
You and I supplied nothing. He's going to take care of his
people. He's going to take care of his people. He promised. Now
let's read on verse seven through 12. If you endure chastening,
God dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is he whom
the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then ye are bastards and not sons.
Furthermore, we have had fathers in our flesh which corrected
us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in
subjection unto the father of spirits and live? For they verily
for a few days chasten us after their own pleasure. but he, for
our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now, no chastening, now here
it is, 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. Ryder uses strong wording here
to emphasize the facts that if the Lord doesn't chase in you,
he's not your father. He's not your father. It's that
simple, isn't it? These are those left to themselves. They're not
his children. And he gives us the example of men. And I know
from my experience, my dad used to say, this is gonna hurt me
a lot more than it hurts you whenever he would spank me. And
I made the mistake one time saying, why don't you lay down and let
me spank you? That didn't work out too good. But truly, it was
what seemeth right is what he's saying here, what seemeth right
unto them. And some, they become angry and
they lash out at their children and indisciplining them. And, you know, that's the point
here. The Lord is not doing, he's not
coming out with a whip. And that's the wording that's
used here. Another definition of the word,
a whip, like getting a belt. And he's not coming after us
with a belt. He's not punishing us. Think about that. Why? Why is the Lord not punishing
you? Do we not deserve punishment?
Not if you're in Christ. Because he endured the full punishment
that you and I deserve on the cross of Calvary. The Lord will
not come to his children and exact punishment, exact the law
again in justice and in judgment. It's been satisfied on the cross
of Calvary for the Lord's people, for the Lord's people. Whom the Lord loveth. You know,
John used to refer to himself as one whom the Lord loves. And
I think that's so precious. He never does refer to himself
as John throughout the entire book of John. He said, one whom
the Lord loves. that the Lord loves you. If you
know that, if you knew that, what would you be afraid of?
What would you be concerned with? What would you be worried about?
He loves his people. He loves his people. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you believe on him, it's
because he's enabled you to. That means he loves you. That's
what that means. He loves you. He loves you. Your flesh is not gonna like
the teachings, called grievous, not joyous here. But he says
that's the only way that you can be partakers of his holiness.
You mean I have to suffer to be made a partaker? No, you're
suffering because you are a partaker of his holiness. See, you have
to be just as holy as God is. I have to be just as holy as
God is. And the only way I can be as holy as God is, is to be
found in Christ. Therefore, if I'm found in Christ,
I will be chastened. I've been made a partaker of
his holiness. And then we yield fruit, he says
here. We yield fruit. The only way that we can yield
peaceable fruit of righteousness is the chastening of the Lord
must be exercised in these people. And what is that? What is that
fruit? What is that fruit? That's us
being made to look to Christ. That's you being made to look
to Christ because Christ is the only thing God is pleased with.
It's Christ in you, the hope of glory. The Lord causes these old dead
limbs to fall off sometimes, don't he? Causes some of the
old dead, you know, you cut a tree. I mean, you can see the wind
come and it'll blow all the dead off. If you don't prune a tree
properly, it won't bring forth fruit. Sometimes the Lord gets
rid of things. He gets rid of things off of,
gets rid of things out of our life. It causes division in families. He promised that would happen.
He said, it's going, don't be, expect it, is what he was saying.
Expect it to happen, it's going to happen. Don't be surprised. We don't know all the chastings
that the Lord does, but we do know that he keeps his people
looking to Christ. He keeps us bringing us back
over and over again. Bringing us back, I'm reminded
of, of Gomer and Hosea. And how many
times did Gomer, the Lord told Hosea, go and marry a harlot.
And he did. And then she runs off multiple
times with men. And he's just leaving gifts on
the doorstep. And she thought, these are from
my suitors. These are from these men. And it was from him the
whole entire time. What's the end of that story?
Well, she eventually fell in love. And isn't that exactly
what the Lord causes us to do, is fall more and more in love
with him by the chastenings that he gives, by the lessons that
he gives, by the glorious gospel? Is it not more savory to you
now than when you first believed? Is it not more glorious now than
when you first believed? Do you not need it more now than
you ever needed it? I need Christ more today than
I needed him yesterday. And I'm gonna need him more tomorrow
than I need him today. The clock's ticking, I need a
substitute, I need a savior. And there is a redeemer, Jesus
Christ, God's son. The purpose of, the reason for
chastening is the Lord makes us cry out to him. Peter, Peter
didn't need any help walking on the water until he began to
sink. And he said, Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Lord, the Lord's held him. Oh,
you have little faith. Wherefore did thou doubt? Told
him the reason he doubted he had little faith. Lord is going to make us be pleased
with what he's pleased with. He's going to make us cry out
for Christ. That's what he's going to do. And it's grievous
sometimes to us because we don't understand his ways, but his
ways are above our ways. His thoughts are higher than
our thoughts. He's God. My encouragement this evening
to you is to remind you he's still seated on the throne and
everything he does is right and it is good and it is just and
it is true. His ways are right. He draws the confession that
salvation is all of the Lord. All comes back to pride, though,
whenever we get upset with the things that's going on in our
life, we can. I can stub my toe and have a
bad day. not get over it, little things, things that bother us.
And yet, maybe if I hadn't have stubbed my toe, I'd have fell
down the stairs and something. I mean, think about the things
that the Lord keeps us from and we don't even have a clue about.
Somebody cuts us off in traffic and we have to slow down, but
the Lord prevented us from having a wreck 10 miles down the road
and we didn't even know about it. It's his protection, it's
his providence. And that's exactly what we're
kicking against when we kick. That's the embarrassing part,
isn't it? We're kicking against his providence, his purpose.
We're kicking against his chastening. And this is what the writer's
telling us. He's saying, it may be grievous for a season, but
whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. Despise not the chastenings of
the Lord, he says. Don't despise them. They're for
your good and for his glory, and he can't lie. He's the one
that said that. Could end up like Jonah, if we're
not too careful. Think I'm gonna do things my
way. He got on a ship, went to Joppa, down to Tarshish, got
on the sides of the ship, went down on the sides of the ship,
went to sleep. And the Lord said, no, you're going to Nineveh.
You're going to Nineveh. He sent a great storm, didn't
he? And they woke him up, so we're under, we're gonna perish. And he said, they cast lots,
and you know the story. cast lots and said, you have
to throw me overboard. And they tried hard. They got
rid of all the cargo. They lightened the ship as much
as they could. But nothing worked. Nothing worked. Jonah had to
be thrown over, didn't he? And that's a picture of us in
works trying to lighten the ship, but we're still gonna perish.
Somebody had to die, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we took by wicked hands, crucified and slain him. He had to go into
the depths for you and I and bear our sin, and he did on the
cross. But what happened, the Lord prepared a fish, a great
fish to swallow him up. And he gets in that fish three
days and three nights. That's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He uses that as a allegory in the New Testament,
doesn't he? Jonas says this, out of the belly
of hell I have cried. Now, you ever been in a situation
before where you look and you say, I've messed up, this is
all my fault. If you're a believer, you know
that your sin is all your fault. You can't point your finger at
God and say, well, you've made me thus, or this was because
something, somebody, no, we own our sin. The new man owns our
sin, and it loathes that sin. The amazing part is, is the new
man isn't perfectly righteous. It's the old man that's sinful.
But the new man owns the old man's sin. Isn't that glorious? The Lord took that sin, took
that sin and nailed it to his cross. That's the good news.
Jonah said, out of the belly of hell, I have cried. Out of
the belly of hell. gotten to the place where you
feel like that you messed up, what do you do? What do you do?
The Lord will make you cry out to him. If you're his, he will
make you cry out to him. You will say, Lord, have mercy
on me, the sinner. That's what Jonah was saying.
Out of the belly of hell, I have cried, salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. He
was made to say that. You know, that's exactly what
the Lord's gonna make me and you say if we're his. Salvation's
of the Lord. God is God and it is finished. Made him cry, made him confess,
cry out. Proverbs 25 four says, take away
the dross from the silver and there shall come forth a vessel
for the finer. Okay, so I need to take the dross out of the
silver. I need to get, I need to start living better. That's
what he's saying, right? I need to get rid of some of this sin.
Stop sinning so much. Oh, we're created in sin. Everything
we do is sin. Everything that we produce is
toxic. So what's gonna have to happen? Well, Isaiah 125 tells
us, I will turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy
dross and take away all thy tin. God's gonna do it. How does he
do that? Well, he has to do that with
fire, doesn't he? He does it with fire. And sometimes
the fire of our trials, that's what Paul called it, the fiery
trials of our faith, But the thing about the trials is that,
what does the scripture say? It worketh experience and experience
hope. Hope maketh not ashamed of the
gospel. It makes it all we have. It makes
Christ all we have. That's what the chastening of
the Lord does. It brings us back to Christ saying,
Lord, you do all things well. You do all things well. We know,
we've been made to see what the Lord say. He said, you being
evil, Know how to give good gifts unto your children. How much
more your heavenly Father will give unto you that ask him. Ask
and you shall receive. Ask, I wish, I would like to
run to Christ at the first sign of anything all the time. That's
what I would like to do. And we're no different. Sometimes
you go through, you try to problem solve and you try to figure things
out. I don't pray about certain things like I should. And then
I have that uh-oh moment. Uh-oh. Lord, hey, save me, Lord,
I didn't mean to mess this up. I didn't mean to. I wasn't even
trying to do that. Lord, save me. Lord, save me. And he says, I'll never leave
you. I'll never forsake you. I'll go with you all the way
even to the end. The glorious gift, brethren,
that he gives us is that we are made to like his way better.
Lord, I like your way better than my way. Matter of fact,
I love your way and I hate my way. I don't even want a way.
I don't have a way. You're the way. That's what we're
made to confess. Somebody says, well, I don't like God's way.
Well, you may, we may not be his then. Lord's people, we love
God's way, don't we? We love God's way. He's God.
We love him the way he is. We're made to bow, not bow. Yes, that ugly sin of pride.
I'm not saying that we don't have it. We still have it. It'll
start springing up. I'm dealing with weeds right
now in my garden. And I gotta take care of those weeds or it's
gonna choke out the plants. And just the garden of our life,
the garden of our flesh, that pride will just poke out. Can't
get rid of it. It's rooted too far. We can't
get rid of it, can we? What does the Lord do? Well,
he comes with the, The glorious shearers of the gospel, and he
trims it back down, doesn't he? Shuts us up to Christ. Is there
any pride whenever we sit here knowing that it is finished in
us? I mean, in our minds right at that moment. Think about what
I'm saying. We're worshiping him. We're not thinking about
how good we are and what a good job we've done. We're thinking
about him. There's no pride in this gospel
for men and women. He gets all the glory. We love
it that way, don't we? We love it that way. The Lord prunes his people. The
Lord shows us your sin's been paid for by the blood of Christ.
He reveals he was made sin. All that, I love that whenever
we get to the point where we're grieved over our sin, then you
hear the sweet, sweet news of the gospel. I've put away your
sin. I've put away your sin. There's
such rest in that. It's not something that I've
done that can mess it up, or something that I've done that
can earn salvation, no. He did it, and he keeps us. He
keeps us the same. There's nothing that'll humble
the Lord's people more than to see the love of God displayed
on the cross of Calvary, what the Lord Jesus Christ did. That'll
humble you, won't it? It exalts him. It exalts him
alone. It breaks us, empties us of pride. and we're given repentance. Revelation
3.19 says, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous,
therefore, and repent. Only the Lord can make us repent,
but repentance is not a one-time thing. I need to be, I need repentance
now, because you know what it's like. You stay, have you ever
missed a couple of services in a row? You get, kind of get beside
yourself a little bit. You get more full of yourself.
I don't know how to explain it. Maybe some of you might know what I'm
talking about. Maybe you don't, but it's, you don't, if you don't get to
listen to messages during the week, like you normally do, you
kind of start, everything's upside down. I don't know. Does that
make sense? Everything's upside down then. And it's, it's the
absence of the Lord is what it is. It's the absence of peace.
Can't find that anywhere else. And then you hear the good news
of the gospel, and that dove of peace flies in, and you rest. You rest. You rest. Aren't you thankful for the Lord
keeping his people? The Lord makes us change our
minds about what we are. He gives us, makes us a sinner,
makes us say, Lord, truth, I am a dog. Truth, Lord. Can I be
your dog? Can I have a crumb from your
table? Can you be my master? That's what he does. Lord, you're
right, I'm a dog. Can I be your dog? The Lord gives us a heart that
says truth. You remember in 1 Samuel chapter
three, Samuel had been given to Eli, the priest at that time,
by his mother Hannah, and so he would have been young. He'd
never heard the voice of the Lord before, but it was known
that he, the Lord had his hand on Samuel. One night they go
to sleep and Samuel hears a voice that says his name, Samuel, Samuel.
And he gets up and he goes to Eli and he says, here am I, for
you called for me. Eli says, I didn't call for you,
go back to bed. And three times that happens, three times. The
third time, Eli said, perceived that it was the Lord and said,
when he says unto you, Samuel, I want you to say unto him, Speak, Lord, speak, Lord, for
thy servant heareth. Speak, Lord. And the Lord told
Samuel that he was going to destroy Eli and Eli's sons because they
mishandled the priesthood. We've been talking about the
priests and how serious it was in Hebrew, so we know a little
bit about that. But they had done a disservice unto the Lord.
The Lord told Eli that he needed to rebuke his sons who were taking
of the people's offerings. They were turning it into a feast
rather than, rather than it being worship. The Lord was angry.
He said, you need to rebuke them. You need to, to, to take care
of it more or less. And he knew he should, and he
didn't, and he didn't. And Samuel was told by the Lord that he's
going to die and his sons are going to die. And here's if me
and you got that news, And whatever news may come, it's not news
to God. It's not news to God. News is
man. News is to man. You can't give God news. He knows
everything. You can't give him news. But
if we ever receive news that's grievous, I hope and pray that
the Lord gives us these words that Eli said. Next morning,
Eli told Samuel, tell me everything that the Lord told you. He said,
and if you don't tell me everything, you withhold something back,
then may it come on you instead. And so Samuel told him everything.
Eli says this, it is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. It is the Lord. Let him do what
seemeth him good. Is that your confession? No matter
what happens in life, I hope that's our confession. It is
the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. You remember whenever
David was coming back from battle and a servant of Saul was yelling
at him, he's cussing him, throwing rocks at him. And one of David's
servants looked at David and he said, do you want me to go
take his head off? He said, I will. David said, no, let him alone.
For the Lord told him, Shimei, the Lord told Shimei, curse David. It is the Lord. Let him do what
seemeth him good. This is what the chastening of
the Lord does for us, brethren. It makes us run to Christ, bow
to him. It makes us say, it is the Lord,
let him see, let him do that which pleases him. Job lost everything
in one day, didn't he? And what did he say? The Lord
giveth and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of
the Lord. Lord, give me that heart. Lord,
do we need that heart, don't we? He makes us despise ourself
more and more and makes us need Christ greater and greater. Now
in closing, let's go back to our text, Proverbs chapter three,
we'll read this one more time together. My son, Proverbs 3.11, my son
despised not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of
his correction. For whom the Lord loveth, he
correcteth, even as a father, the son in whom he delighteth.
My son denotes whom he is speaking to, speaking to his son. Lord
speaks to his people, speaks to his people through his spirit,
by his gospel, by his gospel. Then he tells us what he is speaking,
despise not correction. Then he tells us why he's speaking.
It's because he loves you. So he's speaking to you because
you're his son. He's speaking, despise not correction, despise
not the chastening. And he tells you why, because
I love you, because I love you. That's what he's telling us.
Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. If he's chastening you, if he's
chastening you, count it all joy. You're his. If he's bringing
you to Christ and shutting you up to Christ and making you bow
to Christ over and over and over again, that's what the chastening
does. That's what the chastening does.
It's because he loves his people. And he says he delights. That word delights is there,
isn't it? For whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth. He's not as a
father, the son in whom he delighteth. He delights in me. He delights
in you. If you're in Christ, he delights
in you. I love that. When he sees us, when he sees
me, he sees the blood. He sees us in garments as white
as the snow. He views us as worthy. He views
us as worthy. The robe of righteousness has
been given to his children, and Christ hung his head on Calvary's
cross and said, it is finished. That means it's finished. Makes
us say, Lord, teach me your ways. Teach me your ways. Correct my
thoughts to be your thought. Calls us to see Christ higher
and higher, and calls us to see less and less of ourself. May
we be found and chastened as one whom the Lord loveth. May
we be chastened as one whom the Lord loves. Let's pray. Father,
thank you that you keep your people looking to you. For if
left to ourself, we would turn our eyes away at first chance.
We got. Bless your word and bless this message to our understanding
for your glory in Christ name, amen. In closing, let's turn
to number 216. Look to the lamb. Let's stand
together.