Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the book of
Hebrews, chapter 12, beginning at verse 5. Hebrews 12 and verse
5. And the title of the message
is God's Love and Chastisement. God's Love and Chastisement. Now, one of the things that we
learn early on, if the Lord gives us a new life in the new birth
and faith to believe, to rest in Christ, to believe in Him
and plead His blood, His righteousness alone, is that we have to learn
to look at all things through the eyes of the Bible, the truth
of God. And one of the main things that
a believer who is, last week I preached on running the race
of grace from Hebrews 12 and verse one and two, and showing
how that a believer, a sinner saved by grace, washed in the
blood of Christ, one who is clothed in his righteousness, justified,
which means our sins are forgiven and we're justified, we're righteous
in God's sight by the blood of Jesus Christ. One who is in that
standing and state before God, who has been born again, given
the gift of faith and given the gift of repentance from dead
works and running, persevering in the faith, that person has
to learn, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith, but learn to think biblically. And one of the main issues of
thinking biblically is the issue of trials that believers go through,
testings, hardships, all of that. The writer of Hebrews dealt with
some of that in Hebrews 11 when he spoke of the Old Testament
believers, some who'd been They'd been persecuted, been tortured,
ridiculed. Some of them had lost their ways
of living and had to live in caves. And some were even killed
for the faith. And he's trying to encourage
the Hebrew believers who are going through trials at this
present time when the book of Hebrews was written. They lived
in Israel, lived in Jerusalem and they were under attack from
the Romans, they were under attack from the unbelieving Jews and
he told them in verse four, he says, you have not yet resisted
unto blood striving against sin. You're striving against sin,
preaching the gospel, witnessing for Christ, but you haven't been
killed yet, you haven't been martyred. Now somebody said,
well, that's very little comfort because I'm still hurting and
all of that. But the point that he's making is this, that the
persecutions that come over the gospel and our identification
with Christ are not punishments for our sins in the way of payment. Somebody, I'll never forget this.
One time I was preaching on the episode of King David's life. where King David horribly committed
adultery with a woman named Bathsheba, had her husband killed, set him
up to be killed and lied about it. And in 2 Samuel chapter 12,
the prophet Nathan later on came and exposed David both to the
people and to himself. And he told David, he says, the
Lord has forgiven your sins. Your sins will not be laid to
your charge. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Christ is your hope. But he says,
but because of this, the sword will not leave your house. You're
going to have trouble in your house. And of course, from that
time on, David had nothing but trouble in his house. His oldest
son, Absalom, tried to kill him, all of that. There were all kinds
of problems. And there was a baby produced
by him, Bathsheba, in that illicit affair. The baby died. And so
David was being chastised. but it was not in a way of payment. And when I preached on that,
a man come up to me and said, yeah, David sure had to pay for
those sins. Well, if you're talking about
suffer the consequences as by way of payment, you might say
he did, but payment for sin. Now, let me say this before I
get into these verses. There's only one person who could
pay the full price for the sins of sinners in the court of God's
justice. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ paid for my sins. I don't have to pay for my sins.
Now, I do suffer consequences for being a sinner. I get sick,
I grow old, I'm going to die, this body of death is going to
shed, my spirit's going to leave this body and I'll go to be with
the Lord. That's a consequence. But is
my death the payment for my sin? No, because God won't accept
any payment except that which fully satisfies His justice,
and that's the blood of Jesus Christ. So make that distinction. If you're a believer, you may
suffer the consequences of sin, but you're in no way paying for
them. Christ did that. And unbelievers, those who die
in unbelief, they'll never pay for their sins. In hell, they'll
never pay for their sins. So here's what the writer of
Hebrews does. He shows these people who are
believers that what they're going through is not payment for sin. And many times, what it is, it's
chastisement for sin. Now let me read some scripture
and then I'll go in to tell you what chastisement is all about.
He says in verse five, and you have forgotten the exhortation.
which speaketh unto you as unto children." Now that's key. And
it says, my son, he quotes from Proverbs 3 here, he says, my
son, despise not thou the chastening, that's chastisement, of the Lord,
nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth,
he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Now that's
why I titled this message, God's Love and Chastisement. Whom the
Lord loveth, he chastened. Now what is chastisement? Chastisement
is not punishment for sin in the way of payment. Chastisement
is correction. And it's when God brings us through
tests and trials even scourgings that's whippings you might say
in order to treat us as his children whom he disciplines and out of
love it's kind of like and and he he uses that as an example
look at verse 7 he says if you endure chastening god dealeth
with you as with sons he's not and if you endure chastening
he's not dealing with you as an enemy dealing with you as
a child of God, sons there being emblematic of all the children
of God, men and women. For what son is he whom the father
chasteneth not? If you're a child and your parents
must discipline you, sometimes it's hard discipline, sometimes
it's light. He says in verse 8, but if you
be without chastisement, whereof all our partakers, all believers,
all children of God partake of this chast time. If you're without
it, then you are you bastards and not sons, you're illegitimate
children. Now everybody suffers in this
life in one degree or another, even unbelievers. unbelievers,
it's not chastisement, it's as far when I'm talking about unbelievers,
I'm talking about those who live their lives in unbelief and die
in that state, the non-elect, that's the non-elect, the vessels
of wrath fitted for destruction, they suffer but their suffering
is not the chastisement of a loving father, their suffering is the
punishment for sin Not in way of payment, they can't pay for
it. Their death won't pay for it. Their suffering in hell won't
pay for it. But the true child of God, and
the Bible says that if Christ be in you, the spirit dwells
in you, and that's giving evidence that you're a child of God. You
believe the gospel, you're running the race of grace, looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. And so this chastisement,
is God dealing with you, whatever trial or testing you're going
through, whether it's sickness, whether it's loss, whatever it
is, God, if you're a believer, it will not condemn you. It will
not consign you to hell. It's the chastisement of a loving
father, discipling you, teaching you, correcting you. You understand? Now, another thing about chastisement
we need to understand is God does not always chastise all
of His children for specific sins. Sometimes He does. And I always use the analogy
of like driving. For example, if you're a believer
and you go out here and you speed up and down the highways and
you run a red light, you're gonna be chastised if the cops catch
you or some other way. You'll be corrected. But that,
you know, all of that's obvious. But sometimes, you know, we're
all sinners and we sin all the time, in essence, in many ways,
but we're not always chastised for it. If we were, we wouldn't
be able to hang our heads, wouldn't be able to hold our heads up.
We'd go around, you know, all the time. But we are tested,
and he says here, all are partakers of this chastisement. God correcting
his children. And sometimes it is for specific
sins. I'll give you a great example of God chastising one of his
children, but not for any specific sin. Read the book of Job. God put Job through a lot of
testings and trials, real tough ones. Job lost his family. He lost his belongings. He lost
his health. Now, later on, God restored it
all, many fold. There's no promise of that now,
but there was no specific sin that Job committed that God did
this, but God used Job to teach a lesson. You may say that's
cruel, but it's not. That was in God's providence. So understand that. God's going
to chastise all of his people, sinners saved by grace, those
who are justified eternally. You see, our standing before
God in Christ never changes. We're always forgiven by His
blood. We're always justified by His
righteousness. And when we're born again, we
never lose that spirit. We never lose that life. I know
there are denominations who say, well, you can be saved and then
lost. No, if you're saved by God's grace, you'll stay saved
by God's grace. He will never leave you or forsake
you. Don't let these false preachers tell you otherwise. The reason
they tell you that is they believe salvation is conditioned on you
in some way, to some degree, at some stage. And it's not. Christ met all the conditions.
So anyway, this is what he's talking about. Look at verse
nine of Hebrews 12. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh,
which corrected us, and we gave them reverence, respect. Shall
we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and
live? God our Father, our Spiritual
Father. If we were lovingly chastised,
now I'm not talking about a cruel father who beats his children
to death and all of that, you know that's evil. But I'm talking
about a loving, responsible father who rears his children up in
the admonition of the Lord, and he punishes when punishment is
needed, appropriate punishment, and he rewards when reward is
needed. He loves his children, and we
respect fathers like that. Well, how much more should we
respect our heavenly Father, our spiritual Father, if we're
saved by the grace of God? And listen to what he says in
verse 10. For they verily for a few days chastened us." Our
earthly fathers only for a few days chastened us. We know it
was a few years, but he's talking about a short time. After their
own pleasure, when they thought it was fitting. That doesn't
mean they took pleasure in hurting or anything like that. But he,
our spiritual father, for our prophet, that we might be partakers
of his holiness. Now, what is holiness? Separation. from the world. And when we're
called into the fold of God's kingdom, His sheepfold, by the
Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel, we're separated
out from the world. Understand that. That's our separation. And it's not because that we
look upon ourselves as being better than others. Because we're
not. We're separated out by the grace
of God. and we become partakers of His
separation. We follow Christ, as Hebrews
13 says, outside the camp, outside the camp of the world, outside
the camp of false religion, outside the camp of worldly manners. We follow Him. And so when we're
chastised, it's not for our hurt, it's for our profit. we gain,
that we might be partakers of what separated us unto Him. And
so look at verse 11 now. Now he says, Now no chastening
for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Now, when we look at these chastisements
in a right way, we look at them as manifestations of God's love
for us. Believers, again now, I have
to keep emphasizing that because of the heresies of the day. He's
not talking about everybody without exception here. He's talking
about sinners saved by grace, God's elect, the redeemed of
the Lord, justified in Him, and who are born again by the Spirit,
running the race of grace, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. And so those who believe are
to look at these tests and trials that we go through, these painful
episodes in our lives, and sometimes it's just temptations. We're to look at those as testings,
as the loving, the chastisements of our loving Heavenly Father. But that does not mean we're
more than human. sometimes these things hurt and
we're not to act like they don't and that's why he says no chastening
for the present seemeth to be joyous don't act like you're
happy that it's happened to you because you're not going through
a trial going through the loss of a loved one for example going
through the pain of disease that's not joyous it's grievous it's
burdensome but he says in verse 11 nevertheless afterwards after
it's over, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them
which are exercised thereby." It's afterward that it brings
forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Now what is that?
Does that mean that I come out on the other side thinking I'm
better now than I was? No. The peaceable fruit of righteousness
is we come out on the other side looking to, clinging to, resting
in Christ even more than we did before. Our faith grows. Our
spirits grow. We keep our focus on Christ.
And if that chastisement brings you to death, just think about
that. Then, as Paul said, to be absent
from the body is to be with Christ. Think about how you'll yield
that peaceable fruit of righteousness then in a perfect way, going
on to be with Him. So that's what it's talking about,
driving us more to Christ, driving us more to dependence upon Him
and thanking God for His grace. So he says in verse 12, wherefore,
or for this reason, lift up the hands which hang down in the
feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that
which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be
healed. In other words, stop grieving
and looking downcast over these trials that we go through, especially
when we come out on the other side and it yields that peaceable
fruit of righteousness. Don't go around heavy-handed
and heavy-hearted and all of that, but make straight paths
for your feet. Walk straight. Run the race of
grace, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,
and lest that which is lame be turned out of the way and let
it rather be him. In other words, don't lose your
faith. Now, you can't lose faith, but you can lose a profession
of faith. There are some people who profess
to be believers, but they're really not believers. John dealt
with them in 1 John 2. He said, they went out from us,
but they were not all of us. Had they been of us, they would
have no doubt remained with us. Now, the reason those who claim
to be believers, claim to have faith, left it was over persecution. They totally apostatized from
the faith. You need to understand that.
There's a difference between a believer straying for a little
while and one who totally turns around and becomes against Christ,
calls Him a cursed, and apostatizes, falls away from the faith. Those
who fall away in apostasy, they never were saved to begin with.
That's what the Bible says. Had they been of us, they would
no doubt have remained with us. And those who sway, they'll continually
be drawn back into the fold. They'll continue to be drawn
back by Christ. He will not let us go. As I said
last week, one preacher said, he has us on a leash. Once saved,
always saved. That's true. If you're saved
by grace, the security of the believer. Christ will not let
us go. And you see that all through
the scriptures. But he says, lest it be turned out of the
way, but in other words, unless you prove to be a false professor. So lift up the hands which hang
down in the feeble knees. Well, let me give you one more
verse here. This is verse 14, it's very important. He says,
follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man
shall see the Lord. Now, I've heard preachers take
that verse out and butcher it. And they'll say this, well, you
got to follow peace with all men. Well, that's true. Believers
are to be peaceable people. We're not to be brawlers. We're
not to go around looking for a fight all the time. We're not
to confront people in a harsh way, trying to get them against
us. We're to be peaceful people.
We're to strive for peace with everybody. But there's one codicil
here. We're to strive for peace with
everybody, but not by denying what is holy. Not by denying
that which is true. Not by denying our gospel. Not
by denying the thing that separates us from the world. You see, it's
our gospel that separates us from the world. It's our gospel,
our message. that brings sinners by the grace
of God in the Spirit to Christ. But that same message exposes
the false hopes and the false grounds of unbelievers, religious
unbelievers, and that brings out their hatred. You know, the
Bible says in John chapter 3 and verse 19, this is the condemnation,
that light has come into the world, that's Christ in the gospel,
And men love darkness and hate the light because their deeds
are evil. The gospel light shows that there's
one way of salvation and no other. It's Christ alone. God's grace
based upon His righteousness alone and every other way is
false. Every other way is a way that
paves the way to hell. That's it. And so you look at
a person who believes salvation, conditioned on themselves, and
you tell them you're lost, you're gonna have their anger. They're gonna feel like you've
attacked them. That's called the offense of
the cross, the persecution of the cross. Now you're to strive
to be at peace with that person, but not by speaking peace where
there is no peace. You're to be at peace with that
person, but not by denying the gospel that exposes them. That's
that holiness he's talking about. He's not talking about just mere
human morality there. Yes, we're to be moral people,
but that's not what separates us from the world because false
religion teaches people to be moral in many ways. But that which is holy, that
separates us from the world, is our message that is so offensive
to unbelievers. Christ, in John chapter 15, beginning
at verse 18, he told his disciples, he said, marvel not if the world
hates you. It hated me before it hated you.
And he told them later on, he said, they'll throw you out of
their synagogues, out of their church services. Because when
you go in and preach the true gospel, it's the light that shines
on their works and exposes their works to be evil deeds. And what
is an evil deed? It's a deed, a work that's aimed
at earning salvation. Salvation is not by works. I
tell people all the time, it doesn't matter, I'm glad that
they're moral, law-abiding citizens. responsible husbands and wives,
mothers and fathers, workers and coworkers, but that will
not make you righteous, righteous enough to pass the test at judgment.
There's only one thing that'll make you righteous enough to
pass the test of judgment, and that's Christ's righteousness
imputed, charged, accounted. And who has that? Only those
who believe in Him and rest in Him as He's identified and distinguished
in this book. And that's the holiness we're
to follow. So these believers who were going through persecution,
it was over the gospel. And he tells them, he said, well,
strive to be at peace with everybody. Don't just try to make them angry
or go to war with them, but don't compromise the gospel. Don't
follow the holiness without which no man will see the Lord. To
compromise the gospel is to deny it. Christ said, if you don't
confess me before men, I'll not confess you before my father.
Now I know it's hard, but it takes the grace of God, doesn't
it? It's the grace of God that brings us to understand and know
and have the courage to witness the truth and tell the truth
even when it hurts and even when people get angry. I don't want
to fight anybody. I don't want to make anybody
mad. But I realize that sometimes when I preach the gospel, people
do get mad because they say, well, what you're saying is true
that I'm lost. Well, I know what I'm saying
is true because I have the Bible to back it up. So follow peace. And that's that's loving chastisements
of God. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. 317-07. Contact us by
phone at 229-432-6969 or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.