I'd like to deal with verses
7 to 11, Hebrews 12, 7 to 11, before we look at God's Word.
Let's ask our Lord's blessing here. Our Father, how wonderful it
is to call upon Your holy name. And even as we approach unto
You, we do so only in the Lord Jesus Christ, accepted in the
Beloved. Father, we ask your blessing
upon the service tonight. And we ask this for Christ's
sake. Amen. Whom the Lord loveth. Those that He's always loved. Redeemed by His precious blood. His glorious bride. He does something for her that
she absolutely must have. He chastens her. Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth. Always corrects her. Always trains
her. Always educates her. always instructs
her, and scourgeth, spanks every son, every adopted son that he
receiveth in Christ. Now verse 7 says, If ye endure
chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son
is he whom the Father chasteneth not? Now, if you endure chastisement,
and as I said last time, the greatest chastisement is the
chastisement of the heart. It's a grieving. The chastisement
that God's people suffer is the realization, because of the presence
of sin, that I have failed my Lord. That it hurts. And this chastisement, and we
looked at two or three different examples, but I think the greatest
chastisement is when God is silent. When there's a realization, an
awareness that I'm not aware where He is. That silence is
the pinnacle of His displeasure. And I realize by that silence
Almighty God is still lovingly teaching His people. But if you
endure chastisement, it does not mean if you just grin and
bear it, finally make it, beaten, torn. No, it means that if you
have been placed in a position to where you know The Lord is
dealing with me in convicting grace, convicting power. The cold wind, blow, O north
wind. That's what the Lord said concerning
His garden in Song of Solomon. Blow, O north wind, upon my garden. Blow, O south, that the spices
may come forth. The Lord says unto His Spirit,
blow upon My bride. Blow on her in convicting grace
and mercy, but then comfort her that the spices of His grace
and mercy might be shown forth. If you endure chastisement, if
you endure chastening, God's dealing with you as sons. If you're aware, I tell you,
an unbeliever doesn't care. An unbeliever is only grieved
if he thinks he's caught and he's going to get punished for
it. David expressed true chastisement
against thee and thee only. Have I done this great evil?
My sin is ever before thee. That's the chastisement of a
believer. An almighty God who chastens
His people lovingly. They don't want to run away.
Have you ever noticed you take a child, a rebellious child,
and I'm telling you, I've said this before and I mean it. Number
one, they want to know where the lines are. They do want to
know. They want to know where's the
line. How much can I get away with? Then they're going to try it.
They're going to bump the line. You stand your ground, and you
chasten them. And when you chasten them, when
they're caught, and they act as though this is something that
has got to be the most unbelievable thing, I'm going to get a spanking.
But when they are chastened, they will absolutely run to you. And they covet your consoling,
your hugs. They want to be chastened. It is the sign of absolute love. They're not going to run. They're
not going to go. Will you go away also? Peter
said, Lord, where are we going to go? You have the words of
eternal life and we're sure. You're the Christ. We endure
chastening. And we endure it prayerfully.
We call upon the Lord. And we call upon Him reverently,
realizing, Lord, I've been disobedient to You. I've said so many times,
I cannot... I would desire to. I would desire
to pray as I ought. I wish I could, Paul. I wish
I could. I wish I could. Seek the Lord as I would desire. I wish I could enter in. I was
thinking about the song we just sang. I think, oh, if I could
be reverent as I ought to be. And realizing the failing of
my own flesh, I say as Job 10-2, I will say unto God, Do not condemn
me. Show me wherefore thou contendest
with me. Lord, reveal unto me the failings
of my ways. Lord, I want to know. But have
mercy. Oh, in wrath, remember mercy. God's people have never been
under wrath, but in your dealings with me, Lord, remember. And if by the grace of God I
believe God and believe that He sent the trial for my good
to draw me to Him, made me willing in the day of His power, I want
to be in fellowship with Him. I desire. I want to be close
to Him. I want to hear Him. I want to
hear His Word. I want to be led by His Spirit.
And when He deals with me and reveals to me what I am, it causes
me. It draws me to Him. Job went
through trials, trials. And Almighty God sent these trials
as an example to us. And you read of the patience
And the mercy of God and the keepingness of Almighty God for
this man Job. And Job, he answered his wife. And I thought, oh! I read what
his wife said to him. And I think, how hard! Hard! All of these things. Lost his
kids, lost his land, lost his animals, lost everything. And
here's what his wife said. Dost thou still retain thine
integrity? Curse God and die. Can you imagine how that felt?
I just, you know, to have your spouse say, just curse God. But he said unto her, Thou speakest
as one of the foolish women speaketh." What? Shall we receive good at
the hand of God and shall we not receive evil, adversity,
affliction, and grief? All for our good, Job was saying. It's for our good. The Lord helped me to remember that. And in all this, did not Job
sin with his lips? If you endure chastening, God
dealeth with you as sons. For what son is he whom the Father
chasteneth not, convicts not, reproves not, teaches not? But if you be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons. Verse 6, it said, For whom the
Lord loveth, He chasteneth and scourges every son whom He receiveth. I read one time when Brother
Henry made this statement. God only had one Son without
sin. He had none without chastisement. If ye be without chastisement,
if you be without correction, whereof all are partakers, Then
are you bastards, you're illegitimate, you're not sons. There's no weaning
from the world and the cares of it. If there's no work of
correction because of the frailties of this rebellious flesh, if
there's no bother, if it does not bother, Something's wrong. God's people
are continually pricked in their heart because of the presence
of sin. This is the life of a believer. I'm telling you, this false conception
that people put on television and stuff like this, this fairyland
is what it is. It's a joke. It's a circus. I'm telling you, you may talk
to a believer and they will speak and they are honest of the joy
of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength.
But I'm telling you, the joy of the Lord is coupled with chastisement,
with the pain of this flesh, of this world. If there's no
care for God's honor, no care for His presence, no care for
His fellowship, no desire for correction, the Apostle says,
whereof all are partakers, then you're not His son. 2 Corinthians 13, 5, examine yourselves
whether you be in the flesh. I'm saying in the faith, not
the flesh. Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith.
Prove your own selves. By correction. By correction. By Almighty God bringing us to
see our frailty, our need, our inability, determined by the
Word of God, if there be any evidence of a halting in my walk,
Like Jacob, when the Lord touched the hollow of his thigh, and
he halted for the rest of his life, reminded of what he is. What's your name? Jacob. That's
my name. Not anymore. In God's sight, you're Israel.
You're a prince with God. But he never forgot what he was
by nature. Halted. Verse 9 and 10, We fed
fathers of 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 chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for
our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness." Now,
we all have parents. that we have naturally looked
to for correction, for instruction. They were the means of Almighty
God to teach us physically the necessity of being corrected,
chastened, taught, instruction. And if they did so in love, trained
us up, taught us when and where and why we were being corrected,
where we had failed in disobedience. Then we realized that they were
the earthly picture and type of the respect and honor that
we are to give Almighty God. Children, obey your parents in
the Lord. But this is right. Obey your
parents. Almighty God has given you. You
children, listen to me. Listen. It's right. It's right that you obey your
parents. It's right. There's many of us
here tonight. I'm blessed to be one of them.
You may still have your parent. I've got my mother. And I'm telling
you, it doesn't matter how old I get, she's my mother. And I am to respect her and honor
her. Almighty God has given us parents,
and our parents but to be those that correct us. And we gave
them reverence and thanked them. I told you,
Gabe told me, he was probably 18, 19 years old at this time.
He told me, he said, Dad, the best thing you ever did for me
is thank me. He said, I tell you, you may
not have known it, but in my heart, He said, I was a whole
lot more rebellious than you realize. I don't think so. I knew it. He just thinks I didn't
know it. We gave them reference. Shall
we not rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and
live under Him who holds the very souls in our very being. Ezekiel 18, verse 4 says, Behold,
all souls are mine as the soul of the Father, so also the soul
of the Son is mine. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. What respect is due unto the Father, the Son, the Spirit,
unto God Almighty. Earthly fathers, they chastened
us and did that which in their minds was the right thing to
do, if it was done correctly in love. Earthly fathers, the
Scripture says, corrected us after their own pleasure. Not that they were to beat us
and enjoy it, but it means that they corrected us in the way
that they thought was the right way. that they thought was the
right amount of punishment. But without perfect knowledge
and understanding. And often did not correct us
when we needed it. They're frail creatures. But
parents do respect. But God chastens perfectly. Now here's the thing that we
have to understand. Almighty God administers chastisement
to His people with temperance, with mercy, always in love, but
always on time, always when it's needed, and always in the way
that it's needed. What's the right thing to do? How do you correct a child? You do that which is your pleasure,
meaning that which you think is the right way. I think this
is right. I think this is what God teaches.
I think this is the way it should be done according to the Scriptures. The Almighty God of the grace
of our precious and Savior, Lord Jesus Christ, He chastens us
for our profit. It's always for our profit. Why
am I going through what I'm going through? For our profit. For our good. These earthly fathers
corrected us for a few days. This will answer exactly what
that means right there, for a few days. As long as you're under
my roof, you're going to do it my way. I look back now, and
I've not been home for a long time, but I'll tell you this,
even after I was not under the roof of my parents, I remember. By the grace of God, the Lord,
though, corrects us for our eternal good, for our eternal profit. Firstly, Father has chastened
us for that temporal good, the Father of Spirits, for our eternal
profit and welfare. Because He who loves us shall
deal with us for our betterment. Because of our union with Him.
Don Fortner told me that he would tell his daughter Faith, and
I thought this was good advice. He'd tell Faith, he said, Remember
who you are and whose you are. Did you ever say that? Remember whose you are. Good advice. Almighty God deals with us for
our profit. The last part of verse 10, that
we might be partakers of His holiness, that we might be shown
that we are partakers of His holiness. Participants and recipients
of a new heart. That we might be brought to a
sense of indwelling sin, knowing where we've come from, from the
pit from which we've been dug, and brought to confess who we
are. Paul said, I know in me, that
is in my flesh, there dwells no good thing. The will is present
with me, how to perform that which is good I find not. But
Almighty God sends these chastening, corrections, loving, to wean
us from this world. I need to be weaned. I am absolutely
prone to wander. And truly, Lord, I feel it. Prone
to leave the God I love, there is an old man in me that would
do nothing but that, but for the grace of God. And to cause
us to afresh, cast ourselves upon Him who is our strength,
He does it for our profit. We need to be made aware of the
Blesser, truly His blessings, but to remember who is the Blesser,
the Lover, of our souls. The Lord wisely and timely chastens
and teaches us through these trials. He teaches us what He
has done for us in Christ, makes us aware of who we are in Him,
and teaches us of His love and faithfulness through these trials. Isaiah 43, 2. When thou passest
through the waters, I read this Scripture a few minutes ago and
I thought to myself, Lord, teach me this. To read it, how easy it is to
say at the moment that I read it, Amen. Amen. Lord, give me
the grace to say Amen when I'm going through it, aware of it. When thou passest through the
waters, Listen now. All of us need this. I will be with thee through the
rivers, rivers of trial and adversity and chastisement. They shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned. Humanly speaking, that makes
no sense. But spiritually speaking, our
God has promised, I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to
forsake you. And oh, how my old man wants
to argue about that. You don't really believe that,
do you? You don't really believe that it's going to be okay, do
you? What if He takes me home? What
if my chastisement is to take me out of this world according
to his good pleasure? Paul says in Philippians 1.21,
for me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. That's the best
of it. That's the best. That's the best. If there were no chastisements, Promises would never be precious.
It's when we go through the trials of this life, reminded that His
Word endures forever, that it accomplishes the purpose for
which it was sent. But His loving hand administers
that trial. His hand directs the burdened
soul to His Word, and He comforts His people lovingly, draws them
to Himself, holds them to His bosom, and comforts them because
they are sons. It amazes me when I hear how
much argument there is today of the evils of actual chastening
of children. Men say it's abuse. You've infringed
upon their rights. And I'm telling you, it is nothing
more than to call God a liar. Because whom the Lord loveth,
He chasteneth and scourgeth every son that He receiveth. And for
that, I am so thankful. Don't leave me to myself. Last
verse. Verse 11. Now, know, chase me. And I know it's for my good.
I know it is. I know it is the mark of His
love. I know it is. I know it by faith. And I know it somewhat by experience. But I know this, Paul says, 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. Oh, in this last verse, I ask
the Spirit of God's blessing upon this subject of chastisement. As I told you last time, chastisement
to God's people. There is no ability for me to
say what they are. They are what the Lord sends.
I don't know what they are. But I know this in light of eternal
judgment and being cast out of His presence forever, under His
wrath forever, forever, forever. This light affliction in comparison to me Telling one
of my children, as I told you last time, no, no, no, uh-uh. Don't go, come on, come back
over here. Right here. Right here. Oh, I'm telling you, I
have seen a heart just broken. I mean, a child just weeping
over being a correction. Just a little, you know, uh-uh. Now, y'all, uh-uh. Put that down.
And just bust out crying. No chastening for the present
seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. It appears to have no delight
in it. There's no cheer in it. It doesn't
appear to be anything profitable. But it hurts. And we're fearful. And it seems to be heavy and
sad, sorrowful. And all that our flesh can perceive
of the Lord's chastisement is what our natural reasoning deducts
to be evil, bad, and how easily our flesh is deceived every time. chastisement, affliction to the
believer is not what the flesh says it is. It says that it's grievous, but
according to his word, Nevertheless, no matter what my flesh thinks,
no matter what my old heart lies to me about, no matter how painful
it is, and I'm not going to say it's not painful, the Scripture
bears out, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous. It seems continually to be grievous. Nevertheless, afterward. It yieldeth the peaceable fruit
of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." I may have told you, Betty Groover,
two or three years ago, maybe the last time, time before, I
don't know, I can't remember. We were in Mexico. She asked
me, she said, well, tell me, tell me, Marvin, how are you
doing? How are you doing? I knew what
she wanted to know. How are you doing? Going through
some treatments for cancer. She said, how are you doing?
I said, Betty, I'm doing really well. I really am doing well. And I said, looking back, I'm
going to be honest with you, at the time, at the time, Some
of you know exactly what I'm saying if you've been there.
At the time, you're going through some treatments, and it didn't
seem to be joyous. It seemed to be grievous. But nevertheless, afterward, there's a yield. After the chastisement,
it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. unto them that
are exercised thereby." I've got two scriptures I'm going
to read to prove what I just said right here. But I told her,
I said, now looking back on it, I said, surely one of the best
things ever happened to me. Because I'm telling you, I can
preach on the frailty of this life. I can preach on this life
being a vapor. But I'm going to tell you something.
I'll tell you when you really realize it. It's when a doctor
tells you, you're sick. All of a sudden you realize,
I'm mortal. I'm mortal. Afterward, it yields
the peaceable fruit. Genesis 50. I'm going to read
two verses of Scripture. Genesis 50, verse 20. This is to prove exactly what's being said. No
chastisement to the present. Genesis 50, verse 20. Joseph's brother Brothers had
done him in. They hated him. Turned him over
to a traveling caravan. Brought him into Egypt. Sold
him. God raised him up. At the time he was sold into
bondage, I'm sure that that trial was grievous. But here's what
Joseph said afterward. Genesis 50, 20. As for you, you
thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good to bring
to pass as it is this day to save much people alive. Turn to Romans 8.28, the last
scripture. These scriptures that set forth the preciousness of
the trials. and the yielding of that peaceable
fruit of righteousness that Almighty God has done something for us
that we couldn't do for ourselves, and then teaches us that through
the trials. Romans 8.28, and we know that
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are the called according to His purpose. We're not going to be without
chastisement. Not God's people. We're not going
to be without afflictions. We're promised afflictions in
this world. In this world, you're going to
have trouble. You're going to have trouble.
If you're without the chastisement, the conviction, the realization,
That I am what I am by the grace of God, and if Almighty God leaves
me, I'm gone. If He doesn't save me, I'm not
going to be saved. We look back. You that know Him. What would you exchange all of
the experience that you've had for what He's taught you? Look
how He's weaned you. And He's still weaning you. All
of us. from this world. We know this
life is a vapor. We're not going to live forever
in this world. We look back now and we see His
promise. And He said, I've done what I've
done because I loved you. Kept you. Shown you yourself. Shown yourself concerning Me. Lord, teach us and forgive us
and keep us for Christ's sake.