We turn for our text to the words
of Psalm 94 and verse 12. Psalm 94 and verse 12. Blessed is the man whom thou
chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law. Psalm 94 verse 12. Blessed is the man whom thou
chastenest, O Lord, and teach us to him as of thy law. And as we come to consider the
content of this particular verse, the subject that I want to take
up this morning is that of the school of Christ. The man described in this verse
is surely one who is in that school, the school of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and as we consider it, simply to observe each clause
of the verse where we read first of all of God's chastening and
then secondly of God's teaching but I want us to reverse the
order as we have it before us in this particular verse and
so in the first place to say something with regards to God's
teaching At the end of the verse then we read of that man who
is taught of God, lest it is the man whom thou teachest. O Lord, it says at the end of
the verse that this is the one who is teaching out of his own
law. We have that promise, of course,
in the New Testament in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ concerning
this teaching. John chapter 6 and verse 45. They shall be all taught of God,
says the Lord Jesus, and every man that hath heard and learned
of the Father cometh unto me. All are to be taught of God.
And what is the manner of God's teaching? Well here we read about
how God teaches a man out of the law. There is to be that. instruction that is found in
God's holy law and we know the point and the purpose of the
law it is that the sinner might be brought to recognize himself
to see what his real need is before the holiness and righteousness
and justice of God the Lord is good says Paul if a man use it
law for them, and that lawful use of the law has to do with
the fact that it is meant to show the sinner the error of
his way. We often refer to those words
of the Apostle in Romans 3 verse 19 where he says we know that
what things however the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law that every mouth may be stopped, that all the world
become guilty before God. There is the lawful use of the
law. It's that every mouth may be
stopped. It is to bring the sinner up short, as it were. Therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in
his sight. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin and As Paul writes these things, of course, he is writing
out of his own experience. He had once been Saul, the Pharisee,
and he thought that righteousness was to be found in his own observance
of the Lord of God, touching the righteousness which is in
the law. He once thought himself to be blameless. But when God
taught him out of that law, How different was the effect? He then realized that there was
no righteousness that he could attain by his own observance
of the commandment of God. He then began to see and to understand
the real purpose of that law. And he writes of that, of course,
in Romans chapter 7. At verse 8 he says, Sin taking
occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence
for without the law sin was dead for I was alive without the law
once but when the commandment came sin revived and I died."
Now he was brought to the end of himself, how his mouth was
stopped how he saw that there was no salvation in his keeping
of the Lord of God It was not the way whereby he could truly
know God as his God. And when he was under conviction
of sin, as evidently he was at the stoning of Stephen, though
he was one there, of course, approving of that wicked deed,
though Saul was one of those persecutors of the early church,
yet it appears that at that time his conscience was troubled There
was something of conviction in the heart of that man. And when
Christ confronts him there at the very gate of Damascus, remember
the word that the Lord spoke to him, it is hard for thee to
kick against the prince. Well, this is a man, you see,
who is being taught out of the law of God. He's being convicted. His conscience is gold in him.
and he is troubled, he is disturbed and he does not know what to
do and what was peculiar to Paul at that time is peculiar to all
God's people in some measure it was certainly the case was
it not with David see how David writes here in the 32nd Psalm
verse 40 says day and night thy hand was heavy upon My moisture
is turned into the drought of summer, Seelah. I acknowledge
my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will
confess my transgressions unto the Lord. And thou forgave us
the iniquity of my sin, Seelah. Now when he's under conviction,
when he's under that law work, how he feels God's hand to lie
upon him so heavily. and he feels it even in the night,
watches, he's troubled, he's disturbed. This is the way in
which God, I say, instructs his people. He shows them what they
are under the teaching of that holy law. What is the law? It's
a revelation of the character of God. It's a declaration of
God's holiness and righteousness and justice. And when God made
man, He created man in His own image, He made him after His
own likeness, and when the man is taught out of that law, he
is made to see how far he has fallen short of that glory of
God. It is the work of God then, I
say, to teach His people out of that law. It's part of the
school of the Lord Jesus Christ. Job says in chapter 5 concerning
God's teaching, "...he maketh sore, and bindeth up, he woundeth,
and his hands make whole." And there we see quite clearly there
are two aspects to that teaching. It's not just that God makes
the sinner sore, it's not just that God comes to prick and to
wound the sinner, but as God makes sore so, God also binds
up. He grants healings. And so there is that other aspect
to the teaching of God. Not only teaching out of the
law, but the teaching of the gospel. Whereas the law comes
to convince the sinner, to reprove the sinner. What is the gospel?
It is full of consolation. It is here that God brings comfort
to the heart of the sinner. Now look again at the words of
the text. Blessed is the man whom thou
chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law. In the Old Testament, of course,
often times the word law is to be understood in a more general
sense. The basic meaning of the word
law or Torah, as it is in the Hebrew, is to teach, to instruct. And so, we're not to limit the
word simply to those laws that God promulgated at Mount Sinai. We're to see that there is a
wider reference. It is used in a more general
sense, often times. And even here, you see, we would
be wrong to confine God's teaching simply to what He gives from
His holy law. There is a reference here, I
would say, even to the gospel. Think of those words of Isaiah
chapter 2 and verse 3, we read there, "...out of Zion shall
go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
It's interesting what God says through the prophet there. He
speaks of the law coming out of Zion, not out of Sinai. God gave the law at Mount Sinai. But what is this law that's spoken
of there in Isaiah chapter 2, out of Zion? It is that word that we have
in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans chapter 8 and
verse 2, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. James refers to it as the perfect
law of liberty. What is the perfect law of liberty? It is the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Yes, the law was given by Moses,
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. but how that grace and
truth is spoken of by the Apostle as the law of the Spirit of life
that comes in and by and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now look
at the context of this verse. Blessed is the man whom thou
chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law, that thou
mayest give him rest from the days of adversity. Here is the point and purpose
of that teaching that God is giving to this man. He is teaching
him in order that he might be brought to that place of rest. And it is of course the gospel
that speaks of rest for sinners. We think of the invitation, the
gracious words of the Lord Jesus himself at the end of Matthew
11. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest
for your souls. It is the Lord Jesus Christ himself
then who grants rest. And what is that rest? It's a
cessation from all works. The law speaks of works. The
law commands the doing of certain deeds. And the gospel, on the
contrary, speaks of that that has been accomplished, the work
is done. There is rest then in the gospel, a cessation from
every work, not only a cessation from sinful works, but a cessation
even from looking to our own imagined righteous works. Cease
from your own works, bad and good, and wash your garments
in my blood, to use the language of the there remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God for he that is entered into his rest hath
ceased from his own works as God did from his." You see how
Paul there in Hebrews 4 speaks of the gospel in creation God
ceases from his own works God rests on the seventh day and
hallows and sanctifies the day and in the gospel there is also
that rest that rest that remains to the people of God. To this
end God is teaching his people then, that thou mayest give him
rest from the days of adversity. God's teaching, God's teaching
in this school of the Lord Jesus Christ, again In Job 36, Elihu
utters those words, Behold God, exalted by his power, who teacheth
like him. How God teaches his people. Then
he teaches them their sins out of the law. That's the point.
That's the purpose of it. That's the lawful use of it.
But he doesn't only show them their sins, he also shows them
that place of safety, that place of rest, that salvation that
is found in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But in this
school, we see from the text that there are these two aspects.
There's not only teaching, there's chastening. and how necessary is the chastening
and the correcting. And so we come in the second
place to consider the opening clause of the verse. Blessed
is the man whom thou chasten. Now, here in the psalm we certainly
see a contrast between God's dealings with this man, the blessed
man, the godly man, and his dealings with the ungodly. In verse 10
we have mention of his chastening of the heathen. He that chastiseth
the heathen. And remember the opening verses
of the psalm. It certainly speaks of God's
coming in the way of judgment and dealing with those who are
violent wicked men, O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth,
O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show thyself, lift up thyself,
thou judge of the earth, render a reward to the proud. God does deal in a certain way
with the ungodly. And He deals with them, it says,
here in verse 10 in terms of a chastising. He chastiseth the
heathen. But what is the end of that wicked
man? Verse 13, until the pit be digged
for the wicked. In fact, the psalm ends on that
very note. He shall bring upon them their own iniquity and shall
cut them off in their own wickedness, yea, the Lord our God shall cut
them off." There we have the end of the wicked. And we have
records. We have the record here in Scripture,
of course, concerning the way in which God does deal with ungodly
and wicked men. How He dealt with that wicked
world at the time of the floods, the universal flood. those things
that are recorded for us in the sixth chapter of Genesis. How
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. And he repented the Lord that
he had made man on the earth, and he grieved him at his heart.
And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from
the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing,
and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made
them." But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Here is
God, He's going to deal with the wicked. And yet there is
this man that finds grace in this wicked world. We're told
how the earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was
filled with violence and God looked upon the earth and behold
it was corrupt for all flesh it corrupted his way upon the
earth and God deals with that wicked world and how does God
deal with that wicked world? He deals in the way of judgment
He sends a great flood but the man who finds favor with God
the man who is looked upon in a gracious fashion
Noah and his family they find refuge in the ark, the only place
of safety. Time and again we read of God's
judgments upon the wicked and the end of that judgment of course
is the destruction of the wicked not only in the flood but we
also read of the wicked cities of the plain, those cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah and how God deals with them in his wrath
And yet, how just God is, again, in the way in which He deals
with those wicked cities. In Genesis chapter 18 and verse 20, the Lord said,
Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because
their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see. where do
they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come
unto me and if not I will know. Oh God examines the scene as
it were the cry has come up into his ear but God comes down to
see where do they have done altogether according to the cry of it. Here
is God, you see, condescending to speak to us in these human
terms. Of course, God knows all things.
He knows the end from the beginning, but we see here how God deals
in strict justice. He doesn't act in any precipitous
way. He comes to examine the scene,
to see if it is as he had heard. And it was so, of course, and
so subsequently We read of that terrible judgment that God visited
upon those cities. In chapter 19, the Lord God rained
upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord
out of heaven and He overthrew those cities and all the plain
and all the inhabitants of the cities and that which grew upon
the ground. Here is God's dealings then with
the wicked. O Lord God, to whom vengeance
belongeth, O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show thyself. We see
it, I say, in the judgment of the flood, we see it in the destruction
of those wicked cities of the flame. We see it, of course,
in the way in which God dealt with the inhabitants of the land
that He had promised to Abraham and to his seed. in Genesis 15
where God gives promise to Abraham as God enters into covenant with
him. We're told the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full. Oh, they were a wicked people.
And they were storing up, you see, God's judgments against
them and the time came. And how does God judge those
wicked? peoples, the Amorites and the Canaanites, and the various
peoples of the Promised Land. He judges them by means of his
chosen people Israel. They are to go in and they are
to take possession of that land. And it was so. It was so. In Deuteronomy chapter 7, when
the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou
goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before
thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites,
and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations
greater and mightier than thou. And when the Lord thy God shall
deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly
destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with
them, nor show mercy unto them. Neither shalt They will make
marriages with them. Thy daughter thou shalt not give
unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
For they will turn away thy son from following thine, that they
may serve other gods. So will the anger of the Lord
be kindled against you, and destroy this Sodom and Gomorrah. They
will have no dealings at all with those wicked people. God
will judge them. There is a difference. There's
a contrast to be drawn in the psalm between the way in which
God deals with the heathen and the way in which God deals with
his people. What is God's correction of the
godly? Well, we have it here in the
text that man is a blessed man. Blessed is the man whom thou
chastenest. O LORD, and teachest him out
of thy law." We read those words at the beginning of Hebrews chapter
12 concerning God's gracious purpose in the chastenings of
His people. My son, despise not thou the
chastening of the LORD, nor faint when thou art corrected of him.
For whom the LORD loveth, he chasteneth. and scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth." It is a mark of sonship, is it not?
That's what Paul is saying as he makes reference here to the
words of the wise man in Proverbs. God's corrections are given to
his children and they're given them for their good Now, we're
considering the way in which God teaches his people. And we
see here in this text how that a certain priority, we can say,
is given to his chastening. It is that that is mentioned
first in the text, although we've reversed the order. The opening
clause speaks of the blessed man as the man that is chastened
of his God. It has that priority. Now, certainly
a man like Job evidently knew something of this chasing of
the Lord. There in Job 23 we read, for
example, at verse 19, "...he is chastened also with pain upon
his bed." Now, the man there, of course, is one who is afflicted
in his own person. The way in which God's dealing
with him. He's in pain. And what is the purpose of God's
dealings? It is to open his ears, to receive
instruction. Look at the context. Job 33 verse
16, Then openeth Then he openeth the ears of men
and sealeth their instruction, it says. Then he's opening man's ear. He's bringing the man to the
realization that he needs God to instruct him, and God's instructing
him now in a very severe fashion. This was the experience of Job.
Poor Job, you see, and all the afflictions that he has to endure.
The prophet tells us the Lord's voice cryeth unto the city the
man of wisdom shall see thy name he is a rod and who hath appointed
it the hearing of the rod as God is chastising his people
and Job how various were God's dealings with him as much that
is mysterious to us in that remarkable book of Job how the man is chastened
in regards to his possessions. He's one of the great men of
the east. And yet, it's all taken away from him, all his many possessions. And not only that, but then subsequently
God deals with him in terms of his own children, his own family.
There seems to be a certain progression in the way in which God is instructing
this man and chastening this man. First his possessions, then
his own flesh and blood, his own children, and then of course
his own person. He's struck down by some awful
condition, he's covered from the sole of his feet to the crown
of his head with boils and he takes that pot shirt and he goes
and sits among the ashes and he's scraping himself. And yet
we have that remarkable statement there in Job 5 verse 17, Behold,
happy is the man whom God correcteth. Therefore despise not thou the
chastening of the Almighty." Now this statement, as it were,
occurs and recurs throughout God's Word. We have it there
in Job, I say. Happy is the man whom God corrected. And it's echoed, of course, here
in the words of our text. Blessed is the man whom thou
chasten. and then it's taken up in the
Proverbs and it's repeated as we've seen in Hebrews chapter
12. This is the way of God, this
is the teaching of God with his people. And now poor Job has
to learn these lessons and we see it when we come to the end
of that book of Job. What does he say in the final
chapter? I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear,
but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and
repent in dust and ashes." Now he's abhorrent in his own sight. Previous to that in chapter 40
and verse 40 says, Behold, I am vile. Now, who is this man who
is making these remarkable statements concerning himself? reckoning
himself to be a vile man, abhorring himself. Well, at that time he
was a man born again, he was a regenerate man, he was a justified
man. Are we not introduced to the
man in the very opening verse of the book and we see quite
clearly from what we're told in that verse that Job was a
child of God. There was a man in the land of
Oz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright,
one that feared God and eschewed evil. Here is the testimony of
God concerning Job. He is perfect and upright. How
is he perfect and upright? Not in his own person. Or there
was that in Job, you see, that needed to be purged out of Job.
God was still teaching his child, but here he is at the outset,
he is perfect, and a man is only perfect in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's upright. A man is only upright in the
Lord Jesus Christ. All our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags, says Isaiah. Job, I say, is a true child of
God. He fears God. He eschews evil. And yet, the strange, the mysterious
way in which God deals with him. He is brought to learn more and
more concerning himself, more and more concerning his God. Again, if you think of the words
of the hymn writer, afflictions make us silly. What else would
escape our sight? How very foul and dim are we
and God. how pure and bright. Wasn't that
true in the case of Job? He was learning the truth concerning
himself. And so we see, I say here in
the text, now that this aspect of God's teaching of his people
has a certain priority. God is not just teaching his
people in an intellectual fashion, he's
not just instructing them with regards to their minds that they
might have a right knowledge of God but he is teaching his
people by the manner of his dealings with them and the mystery of
his chastisings it has then a priority it is the lot of God's people
I say And yet, what do we have to recognize here? We see that
there's profit here. It is profitable. And we have
it there in that portion that we read in Hebrews chapter 12.
It's for our profit. For our profit. That we might
be partakers of His holiness. always part of the sanctifying
of God's people is it not? that there might be more and
more that impartation of holiness to them that they
might see that their holiness can only come from the Lord as
he takes them in hand and as he instructs them and so as it
is profitable we also recognize this with regards to God's chastisings
that it is only for a period there is an end to these things
there is an end to these things that is a great word is it not
that we find in first Peter chapter 1 verse 6 now for a season now for a season If needs be,
you are in heaviness through manifold temptation, that the
trying of your faith, being much more precious than the gold that
perishes, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at
the appearing of Jesus Christ. Oh, it's all so profitable, you
say. It's that purging process. It's
that purifying of faith. It's the trying of that faith,
which is much more precious than the gold of perishing. And yet,
at the outset there in that sixth verse of the opening chapter
of 1 Peter, it is now for a season. Now we do well, as I said many
times, to take account of the words of Holy Scripture. It's
now, and the points that the force of that word is this, it's
just now. It's just now. And it's not only
just now, it says also that it's for a season. It's for a little
period of time. It's for a short while. This
is the way of God, this is how God deals with his people, is
it not? And also it's neither It's only as God sees it's necessary. You see there is a difference
between the way in which God deals with the heathen and the
way in which God deals with his people. He has such a gracious
end in view. What do we read in another Psalm,
Psalm 103 and verse 9? He will not always chide, neither
will he keep his anger forever. That is not the way of God. Verse 14, the Lord will not cast
off His people, neither will He forsake His inheritance. Oh, we spoke of God's dealings,
as I recorded in the Old Testament, God's dealings with wicked men
at the time of the universal floods, those wicked cities of
the plain, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, those wicked people
that peopled the promised land the Ammonite, the Canaanite and
so forth but we also have recorded of course God's dealings with
his people Israel and didn't God deal with them in the way
of chastening but how different how different it was when God
sends them into exile, when they're taken into captivity in Babylon. What does he say? I know the
thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts of peace and not
of evil, to give you an expected end. And when we read that remarkable
book of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, lamenting the sad condition of
Jerusalem, And there in the great third chapter of the Lamentations,
verse 31, he says, The Lord will not cast off forever, that though
he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude
of his mercies, for he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve
the children of men. He does not afflict willingly. The margin says that the Hebrew
is literally, he does not afflict from the heart. All this work
you see of chastening, it's his strange work. It's his strange
work. And he feels it when he comes
to correct his children. Again, in that passage in Hebrews,
we're reminded, are we not, of our earthly fathers chasing us. And now, of course, when the
father is correcting his child, it hurts the father, it grieves
the father. But he does it for the child's
good. How much more? Is that the case with him who
is the heavenly father of his people? like as a father pityeth
his children, we're told, so the Lord pityeth them that fear
him. He knoweth our pride. He remembereth that we are dust. Oh, the man then who knows this
God and has dealings with this God is truly the blessed man.
Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest
him out of thy law when God begins with the man and is instructing
him in terms of that holy and righteous law of God, when the
man is brought under the conviction of his sins, when he's made sad
as a sinner, it is that God might ultimately bring to him the glad
tidings of the gospel, the good news of that salvation that is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. But friends, let us thank God
for this, that He doesn't just teach us in terms of the letter
of His truth. God's teaching is clearly that
that is experimental. He teaches His people by their
experiences, by those chastenings. This is the school, I say, of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Godspeed says we must not learn
God's truth as schoolboys learn their tasks. we don't learn by
rope, do we? God has to teach us and God as
he teaches us he takes us in hand as it were and he at times
sees the necessity of the rod but that rod has a voice and
that man who is having dealings with this God is the blessed
man or as the word really means he's the happy man he's the happy
man What a favour it is to know something of that school of the
Lord Jesus Christ and to be brought to that place of rest that he's
spoken of here in verse 13, to be resting to be putting all
our trust, all our confidence only in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the point, this is the
purpose of all the Lord's teachings. Well, the Lord Grant that we
might know something of his teachings today, for his name's sake.