Chastening

In this 11th chapter here, or
verse 18, 1 Corinthians 11, verse 18. For first of all, when you come
together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among
you, and I hardly believe it. For there must be also heresies
among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest
among you. When you come together, therefore,
in one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in
eating, every one taketh before another his own supper, and one
is hungry, and another is drunken. What shall I say to you? Shall
I praise you in this? I praise you not. For I have
received of the Lord Jesus, or of the Lord, that which also
I have delivered unto you. That the Lord Jesus, the same
night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given
thanks, he broke it and said, Take ye, this is my body, which
is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. After the
same manner also he took the cup, when he had stopped saying,
This cup is a new testament in my blood, this do ye, as often
as ye drink yet, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat
this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till
he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat
this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, and worship it,
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a
man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink
of that cup, For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth
and drinketh damnation to himself, not deserving the Lord's body.
For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many
sleep. For if we would judge ourselves,
we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are
chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with
the Lord. I could not begin to explain
to you what it was and how my heart was brought to speak on
this subject this morning. But I would like to convey at
least this thought to you. Normally, if I have the Lord's
message, it is because of much struggle in my soul and much
trial in my own heart. And I come to these things the
way I believe that those that the Lord has called to preach
come by His truth. They come by His truth experientially.
And I think that any other way of approaching the truth is useless
and vain and would be a message out of time. It would not be
a message that would be timely for the Lord's flock. To see
that the Lord will give it in the way that He has, I believe
it to be a very timely message and one that I believe will bear
fruit. I trust this morning that your
heart will be open and receptive to this message. I realize, and
I fully realize this, that no man, left to himself, can receive
the truth of God, that the truth of God is foolishness of an actual
man. And I recognize that we must die to receive God's truth.
You cannot accept the truth of God without dying to yourself,
dying in yourself. You just cannot do that. It takes
a heart that is willing to die to themselves to receive God's
truth. And so when you bring this message
this morning, I recognize already that there are many things about
this message that will be trying, maybe, to some of your souls
and will be a test to your heart. But nevertheless, I hope this
morning that you're prepared to die out for yourselves and
to receive the truth of God into your very hearts, that the truth
of God might live there and bear fruit in your soul. I'd like
to start out by saying here this morning that there have been
irregularities in the Corinthian church with regard to the Lord's
Supper. I read this passage here in 1
Corinthians 11. These irregularities that were
in the church, we read about them, and how did they turn the
time of attention to the Lord's Supper into a time of party,
festival, and gluttony. And each person had brought his
own fixings, as it were, and the Scripture tells us that some
were eating, and others were poor and didn't have so much
to eat, and some were committing the sin of gluttony, and others
were doing it out. And this was all taking place
at the time the Church was gathered together to have the Lord suffer,
to observe the Lord's a time when the brethren and sisters
of the Lord would come together around the table of the Lord
to celebrate His death on their behalf and to await for His coming,
as Paul explained here in this text. Now, in verse 30, we read,
for this cause, the cause of these irregularities, The cause
that these people were not coming with the proper attitude, and
they were not examining themselves, and they were eating and drinking
unworthily of the Lord's table. The cause of this, for this cause,
Paul says, many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. Now, little did the church in
Paul recognize or understand the reason of this prayer. They
did not understand the reason of this patience of God upon
their members. They could not understand why.
I'm sure why it was that there was so much calamity among the
people, and why that some were sickly, and why that others had
passed from them. Supposedly men and women who
were in good health, or appeared to be in good health, suddenly
went to sleep. They suddenly died and were taken
out of this world. And I'm sure that you all understand
the cause of this. Now, I believe that there is
a constant judgment going on in the Church of God, a constant
judgment going on in the Lord's true Church. Now, I want to distinguish,
of course, between the professing people of God and the true people
of God. I certainly believe that out
in the world and in the professing churches of our time, that there
is much going on, it seems the Lord never intervenes, It seems
that nothing ever happens. There seems that there is no
judgment of God in the midst of the people. And the scripture
says in Peter that judgment must begin at the house of God, and
then it will begin at the house of God, where live the ungodly
and the sinner of Peter. The judgment must begin at the
house of God. Now, the house of God is that
place where God grows His crop. It is His church. It is His field.
It is His habitation. It is that building of God that
He puts together and calls men and women out in the world, forms
this body, His body, and lives in that body, His church, His
people, His living family on earth. Now, in the midst of the
true Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is constant judgment
going on. Now, the judgments of God are
not punitive toward His people, they are corrective. This is
to be understood, they are corrective. God means to correct His people. Now, if you understand this,
Paul was saying here, if we would judge ourselves, we should not
be judged. The Apostle Paul, telling the
church of Corinth, that if you would get busy and straighten
your situation out, if you would judge yourself and walk orderly
and wordly with God's sight, then you would not be judged
by the Lord. He would not come into your midst.
And He would not afflict you as He has, He would not threaten
you as He has, He would not chasten you so as He has, if you would
judge yourself, if you would order your work rightly, then
the Lord would not do this. But then He says, but when we
are judged, well, when we are judged of the Lord, in verse
32, We are chastened of the Lord. We are chastened of the Lord.
God actually comes, and he brings the rod of discipline, and he
corrects his people, and sometimes these corrections are very, very
painful. Sometimes these corrections result
even in the dead. of some of the members of the
living family of God. And you remember, as I read out
over the Lamentations this morning, the Lamentations of Jeremiah.
And you might wonder about a man who has lamented so the dealings
of God in his life, and how they mourned and wept, and how they
said, I'm a man that has seen affliction. about the wrath of
his wrath, and how that the Lord would shut him up, and how that
the Lord would have been crooked in his path, how that the Lord
would have so dealt with him, and even shut up his ears to
his prayers. You might wonder about all of
this. But listen, Paul is saying that if we would judge ourselves,
he says that when we're judged of the Lord, he says that this
is not a proof, as he explains here, that God keeps His church
and that He keeps His people away, and especially, too, if
any man die as a result of his iniquity, this is not a proof
that he perishes eternally. Oh no, says Paul, there just
now in this world, Why? That we should not be condemned
with the world. That we should not be sent to
hell along with the world. That we should not suffer the
wrath of God eternally. God judges his people now, in
this life, and brings corrective chastening in their lives. God
brings chastisement upon his church in order and because he
has no intention of sending them to hell. There he does, people,
justify, and justification is irreversible, and God would be
mutable if he were to change his mind after he justified the
soul and sent that soul to hell. And God is not mutable. He's
immutable. God cannot change, and God will
not reverse justification. But he will correct his children.
He will teach in his living family. He will discipline his people. He will bring corrective discipline
upon them. Now, beloved, I want you to understand
as we look at this that none of the children of God, the true
children of God, are exempt from the chastisement of the Lord.
We read in both Hebrews chapter 12 that whom the Lord loved,
he chastened. And the rod of God is the rod
that is brought upon the Lord's people. It's not the same rod
with which He will break the wicked and destroy them forever
and send them into hell, but it is the corrective rod. But
it comes upon all the members of the living family. If a man
is not a partaker, He is not a legitimate son of God. He is not in the family of God,
as Paul tells us. Now, let me read to you a few
scriptures that have impressed my heart. I want you to turn
back and look at the Psalms, and I'd like to read to you two
verses concerning David. And then we'll turn over and
read a verse concerning the Apostle Paul. But in Psalm 73, I want
you to look at verse 14. I want to read verse 13 and 14.
And I want you to get a picture here of something that I'm sure
can be of help to you. I want to raise an issue here
before getting into the message, the heart of the message. I want
to raise an issue. David says here in verse 13,
Verily I have cleansed my heart and veins, and washed my hands
in innocency. For all the day long have I been
plagued and chastened every morning. Now those of you that are acquainted
with this psalm recognize us here that David is having some
heart trouble. He's having some soul trouble
about the fact that the wicked, that they get along fine in the
world, they have no problems, and they have no difficulties,
seemingly, but they just sail through the world, and they enjoy
themselves while they're in the world, and when they die, that
there's no ban to their death, that they escape, as it were,
all their life long, and even in death, and that they are never
chastened of the Lord. When he says, it appears that
I've washed my hands of indecency, and he says, it appears to me
that I've cleansed my heart of vain, and he says, it's because
all the day long I've been playing. And he says, and also, and chastens
every morning. Every morning, God rips me when
I get up. He chastens me every day. He
pleads me all the time at the hands of God's opponent. Well,
it kind of reminds, this is what we read out of Lamentation, Chapter
3. And in Lamentation 3, what you
have is the exact thing I'm talking about. You have a man who is
experiencing the chastening of the Lord. the corrective discipline
of God, to have a man whom God loves, and whom He will not leave
to Himself, a man over whom God is jealous, a man whom God will
have, whose heart God will have for His own. That's what you
have in Lamentations 3, and what you have also in David's psalm
there. Now turn to Psalm 118, and I
want you to look at verse 18. David here is saying, the Lord
hath chastened me sore, but he has not given me over unto death.
The Lord has chastened David, and he was experienced in this
business of the corrective discipline of the Lord, and he said, Lord,
chasten these two off. Now brethren, sometimes, and
of course you could not help but detect it from what we read
in Lactation 3, but sometimes this chastening of the Lord is
severe. And you also detected it in 1
Corinthians 11, where some was sickly and some also fell asleep.
This correctness is discipline of God. It's not a shackle on
the wrist. It's not just a peach tree limb,
as it were, upon the backside of a man. But God has a way of
getting into a man, and He has a way of disciplining a man,
of correcting a man in such a way that it bears sore to a man,
and God can even kill a man when He's chastening him, if so pleased.
And so Paul or David said, the Lord has chastened me sore, but
he has not given me over to death. The Lord has not killed me. He's
not aspiring me to death because of my indifference and because
of my unholy walk and because of my rebellion in my flesh nature. He's not giving me over to death.
The Lord has chastened me sore, but he's not killed me. Now turn
over to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, and
let us know this, if you will, verse 9. Verse 9, and here Paul
is talking about the ministers of God, and how they approve
themselves as ministers of God, and he mentions here several
things, but in verse 9 he says, And none of them, and yet well
known, as dying, and behold, we live, and listen to this,
as chastened, and not killed. as chastened and not filled. Now look, so we see in the reading
here of the word of God this morning, that it is the experience
of the Lord's people, that they are a tried people, they are
a tested people, they are a people that the Lord takes in hand and
deals with. Now, you may wonder about this.
Why should this be so? Why should the godly have to
suffer in this life, men and women who are trying to do right?
Men like Jeremiah, who took the Word of God into his bosom, it
burned like a fire in his bones, and he had to open his mouth
and declare the Word of God. Even if men put him in a dungeon,
he waited for the Word of the Lord and declared that. They've
been a man after God's own heart, who sought to please the Lord
and walk in His ways. Why did God chasten him so? Saul of Tarsus converted and
become a preacher of the gospel, a chosen vessel unto the Lord,
and God chastened him, but Paul says, not killed. He was a faithful
minister of the gospel, but he was a chastened man. Why is all
of this? Well, we declare, and with the
best reason on our side, that it is utterly impossible for
men to understand how there can be any justice in the dispensations
of God in this world, or how there can be any justice in God
at all, if there be not a time to come in which the great mysteries
of this life shall all be set right. Brethren, there are some
things about God dealing with these people, and the things
that he allows to come to their lives, the afflictive dispensations
of God in the lives of these people that we will not understand
until we get to glory, but God has a reason for it, and he has
a purpose behind it, and that reason, whether we want to accept
it or not, is corrective. in our lives. God just does not
allow anything to come into the lives of these people that is
not good for them and that is not corrective. The overruling
providence of God in the lives of these people brings about
that which is good for them, that which is corrective for
them, that which will better them and prepare them for eternity. And that's difficult to accept
sometimes, some of the soul work, chastening of the Lord, some
of the afflictive properties of God. Well, we divine man who
disbelieves in the immortality of the souls to account for the
fact that the most godly are those who suffer the most in
this world. Brethren, it is so. Mark it down. That it's in those who love God
the most, who've awoke with God the closest, and whose heart
was more closely inspired with God, that have suffered the most
in this world. And often those who have the
greatest happiness in this world are the men who least deserve
it and are the most wicked. Is that not the truth? It is
the truth. I'm telling you it's the truth.
It's the living family. It's the choice people of God
that are the afflicted and tried and tested. It's the poor family
of God that experiences the discipline and the chastening of God Almighty. And so if there be no a future
state of rewards and punishments, If the just man shall not reap
the full reward of all his sufferings and prisons, and if the wicked
shall not receive punishment for all his sins, how can God
be just, and how can the judge of all the earth do right? I
say, and this ought to comfort you this morning, that if you
be one of those whose God has chastened you, I want you to
know that it's right. And that's what I got out of
Lamentations. I don't know what you got from it this morning,
but there was a statement made there in Lamentations that was
a blessing to me, and it's this. Who is he that saith, and it
cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? He said, he
said, to turn aside the mind of a man before the face of the
Most High, to subvert a man that he calls the Lord, who doeth
not. And then he says, who is he that
says, and it comes to pass when the Lord commands it not? If
God is not in favor of these things happening, then why did
they happen? Jeremiah says. Why did they happen? If the Lord is not in favor of
it. He says, out of the mouth of the wolf's eye proceedeth
not evil and good. God is not up to two different
things. He's not on one hand doing good
and on the other hand doing evil. Whatever God does, He would say
to us this morning, it's right. It's right. Now, sometimes we
get in situations where we just have to die. And God is aware. And what He does is right. and
that out of his mouth proceeds not evil and good. What God is
doing is right, and if it appears that he's subverted your way,
if it appears that God is against you and that the providences
of God are so afflictive and that God is so dear with you
that he's hard and that he's mean and that he's unjust, You're
wrong. It's not that way. The rock of
God is a rock of love and His corrections will ever come from
a heart of love toward His living family. And then there's another
thing that I want to throw in right here before we get right
into the heart of the message, and that is that we're not to
judge the characters of men by their position in this world.
You know, oftentimes we do. And some would say, surely, if
that man was not a good man, God would not have rewarded him
so. Well, that man is wealthy because
God has blessed him for his wealth and blessed him for his goodness. There must have been something
worthy about that man, or he wouldn't have the position in
this life that he has. Well, let me make this statement.
We must never judge men who are inward conditioned by their outward
position. Never. Now, don't forget that. Because if you will follow the
living family of our Lord since they've been in this world, you
will find that many of those, and I would say that the majority
of those that walk closest to their Lord, where the tested
and the tried and the afflicted and the poverty stricken men
and women who have to pray daily, daily and hourly, crying to God
for their needs in this world. The world is not worthy of those
that have followed the Lord Jesus Christ throughout the years that
men have been in this world that God has been dealing with men.
The world is not worthy of them. Hebrews chapter 11 tells us about
it. Men and women who had to live
in caves, and men and women who had to swallow nails. All spirit
of Christ, you're going to get it. But if the Spirit of God
indwells you, the Holy Spirit of God indwells you, then I believe
that there is a power and principle and influence in you like as
in no other man. And whenever a child of God sins,
the Holy Spirit of God doth immediately in his heart bring him under
conviction. And he is made visible in his
heart when he goes against the principle of the Spirit of God
in his heart. When he's against holiness, the
Spirit of God will immediately bring him to see that the Spirit
has been breathed in his heart. Well, secondly, the sins of the
righteous are worse than other men from the fact of greater
mercy which they have received from the Lord. God's people are
recipients of great mercy. Now, if you knew yourself to
be a sinner, if you knew yourself to be loathsome, if you knew
the loathsome condition that you were in by nature, and if
God the Holy Spirit brought you out of your sins and brought
you to Himself, if He's killed you and made you alive, You know
that you've been the recipient of great mercy from the Lord. Now the sins of God's favored
people, those that have received the most from the Lord, the sins
of the choicest people of God, they hurt the Lord more than
the sins of the wicked. Let me explain this again. The
sins of God's favored people hurting the Lord. Those nearest
us can hurt us the worst by their sins. Now remember that. Judas, you remember, his sin
was great. And you know why? Because Judas
was a professing apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a professing
friend of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a professing love to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And he turned out to be a traitor.
Now think of all that Christ has done for us. Then shall we
sin? When we do, we keep the love
and the mercy and kindness and grace of God when we openly rebel
against the Lord and live in our sin. That's why our sins
are so great, because we've been the recipients of so great a
mercy. God has been pleased to worship
us. We're the chosen people of God, chosen before the world
began. called in time, been made to
receive from the Lord the bitterness of His death and resurrection.
God's people are people that have experienced so much love
and so much mercy from the Lord. Now, the greater love, now I
want this to be impressed upon your heart, Because often times
we cannot understand why that God would deal with us the way
he does, but the greater love you have for a person, the more
power that person has to breathe you. And whenever God loves you,
and loves you with a pure heart, as he does all of his chosen
family, And the greater love that God
has for men They are least sinful, they are
least rebellious, the reason that hurts his heart. One of
the old writers said this, when the Lord takes a man to his final
chamber, and admits him into his secrets, he at once becomes
jealous of him, and he will not permit him to sin so deeply as
others. He will not permit it, because
God has taken him in to his private chamber and revealed his secrets
to his heart, and God will not permit it. Okay, now, if you
set your sins in this way, Is it any wonder that God chastens
you? Is it any wonder that God feels chastened to you sorely? Is it any wonder that God plagues
you every day and whips you every morning? Is it any wonder? Has
the Lord been good to you? Has the Lord revealed Himself
to you? Has the Lord shown Himself to you? Has He? And yet you're
careless. Then you can expect that God
is going to change in your heart. Think of this time, this broken
covenant in grace. And sure, our sins must be greater
than other men's sins because of what we have experienced from
the Lord. Now the first thing is this,
that the sins of God's people are worse than those of other
men from the ruinous effect of their example upon the world. The ruinous effect of their example.
The Lord, when the last man is seen drunk, It's a sin. When you see a lost man reeling
down the street under the influence of liquor and alcohol, it's an
awful thing. It is indeed an awful thing.
But if a church member, somebody who professes to be a member
of Christ's boss, somebody who says, I'm Joseph Christ, somebody
who says, my sins are unsubverted, is found reeling down the street,
then how much worse is that? Well, I believe that it's under
the shadow of the imperfections of the Church of the Living God
that the wicked men of this world find shelter from the heat of
their conscience. From the imperfections of the
Church. Men looking, women looking upon those who profess in members
of the Lord's Church and say the cause of their sin, well,
my sin's not so bad, because look at this one, look at that
one, look at that one, look at that one. A preacher, a deacon,
a church member who sins, I contend and plead the wicked must be
when they sin. And this is it. I plead they must be. I say that
the sins of God's people are worth because of the ruinous
example that their sins are to others. We bring so much dishonor
on the name of the Lord when we sin. We do damage to the morals
of mankind when we allow these sins to profess in the people
of God. I'm telling you that your sins
are worse than the many sins, and that's why God deals with
you like He does, and that's why God intends to correct you
and take you into His hands. Therefore, I would stop chasing
these people into a poor place, that you may give a manifest
and striking example to all the world of the hatred of sin. God is sinful. Does it
make any difference who he finds it is? He hates sin. Whether
it's in you and your sanctified situation or in the out-and-out
sinner out here in the world, God hates sin. Some people say,
well, you know, I don't think God feels about my sin like he
does about other people's sins. God hates sin. And God will punish
every sin. And every sinner will go to hell
or else he'll find mercy for a substitute. God won't punish
your sin even when you are in sin. God hates sin. When God judges an ordinary man
for sin, I believe that justice is revealed, don't you? I believe
it is. But when He lays the rod on His
own child, you see God's hatred for sin. You really see God's
inflexible justice when He lays His rod upon His own child. When you see Christ expiring
on the tree, wavering there in anguish and pain, when you see
the blood flowing down and the water rushing from the spirit
on the side there, you know and see there a picture of the inflexible
justice of God. God hates sin. He hates sin. And God will even withstand it
in my life and yours. I read an example of this. Brutus
of Rome. He was trying traitors. And everybody
was impressed. They were just impressed. But whenever he called up his
own two sons and accused them of rebellion and traitorship
and had them publicly whipped and thrown into the prison, into
the common prison, everybody was impressed. All of Rome was
impressed with his inflexible justice. David, well I believe that there
were thousands of worse men in Jerusalem than David. But God's justice, you remember
David committed adultery, gave occasion for the enemies of the
Lord to blaspheme, he committed adultery and murder. And God,
let me say, God's justice was more fully manifest in the punishment
of David, that it would have been manifested in a hundred
ordinary men. God giving the sin of a hundred
ordinary men. Why was this? Because David was
a public man. Because David was God's own child. Because David was one who had
snuggled up to the bosom of God and had spoken words of love
and covenant in the hope that God had made himself David's
God. And they were wrong upon earth.
And David's sin was also sin against God. He said, they gave sin to the
old men, and I gave sin to them that is evil, and I sired them.
It's an awful sin. It's an awful sin. And so God brought His justice
to bear upon David, because his sin was worth another man's sins,
because David knew the Lord and had the light of God in his throat. And then lastly, the fifth thing
is this. Because of the high value which
God sets upon His people, God places a high value upon these
people and upon the love of these people. A high value. Now, in thinking about this,
I want to make some statements here this morning. I think sometimes
we just somehow or other feel that God has no right to our
hearts. That He has no right to so deal
with us as to as to leading us away from this world. Brethren,
if God did not chasten us, God's value of these people I'm talking
about has lost value of its own. If God did not chasten us, we
would soon destroy ourselves and lose our interest in His
love. Because of God's extraordinary
value of these people, He's determined He's determined to wean them
from their sins and to cure them of their infirmities. He's determined
that way. God will have your heart. Now,
most of you probably this morning know just about where your heart
is in regards to your relationship with the Lord. You know just
about where your heart is. And some people, they don't intend
to get any closer than they are, they don't want to get within
spitting distance of being what they ought to be, and they don't
want to get down to the hub of truth and let God do His will
from the heart. They don't intend to ever get
any closer. They don't want any sanctifying
work going on in their hearts. They don't want God to interfere
and throw their hearts to Him. And they feel like God's intruders
when He does. And that He's on the ground and
they don't belong to Him. God finds how to bad-mouth His
people. Now I ask for the written. Let them have what they have
in this world. Let them have their pleasure.
Let them set their hearts on their riches and their pleasures.
Let them set their hearts on it. Let them give their hearts
to their lusts and to the things of this world. Let them give
themselves up to it. That's all there is to it. That's
all there is to it. That's all there is to it. That's all there is to it. That's all there is to it. That's
all there is to it. That's all there is to it. God won't stop the love of the
wicked. He won't stop the praise of the wicked. The love of the
wicked and the praise of the wicked is not pleasing to the
Lord. It's not pleasing to God while
they're in their abominations and living in their sin and looking
after the carnal mind. It's not pleasing to God. But
with regard to the righteous, from them he looks thereup, and
I'll go further to say that he'll have it. He'll have your heart. He'll have your heart, brother.
He'll have your heart, sister, and he will chasten you until
he gets it. God will be with you until you
give him your heart. He will make you, even as a weaning
child, He will take away from you the breast of the world,
take it away from your lips and put bitterness in your mouths
until you begin to love this world and long for a better one. God will do it. God will do it. I'm telling you He will. He will
do it. If you're being childless, He'll not allow you to be satisfied
with the things of this life. He'll not allow you to just be
taken up with this world and the things of this world. He
won't do it. God will lead you away from it. And it might just
as well wait for that. Now, listen to me. An heir of
heaven, an heir of heaven cannot love sin. He cannot go to the
wall of sin. God too highly values his children
to allow any of them to love, sin, and go away with him. He
won't do it. He'll not allow it. God will
very soon set a child of his up as an object of scorn to go
away with. God will expose him. God will
run him out in the open. God will expose him just like
he did David. He'll expose him. I know some people that were
able to live in sin, live in sin, live in sin, year after
year, year after year, in the devil world, and in sin, and
in rebellion against God, and never anybody ever know anything
about it. Don't you believe, O Coward
God, that you can live in such villainy, and that you can live
in uncleanness and sin, and fornication and adultery, and that God is
going to allow you to do it? He will not allow it. He will
not allow it. He will expose you, and you will
be sent out before the throne of men. God will not allow anyone
of his children to live in infirmity and sin and wickedness. He will
undo it because He out-of-bounds His people and He will, He will,
He will wean you from your corruption and wean you from the wickedness
of your heart and He will correct you. He will do it in some manner. He will. God will. Because He does not intend to
condemn you all over the world. He will not condemn you all over
the world. He's saved throughout the world. I told you that the
justification of God was irreversible. Irreversible. And so God's dealing
with you now is with His children. God knows how to raise children.
And I know you don't take much, uh, you don't think it's very
important about how to raise, but God does. And he ain't about
to give you up. Listen, God's taking you into
hand, and if he's laid his hand upon you in election, and if
he's called you by his Spirit out in the world, and if he's
put the hope of the gospel in your breast, then yes, he is. And if he won't give you up to
the world, he can allow your heart to go back to the Lord.
Ain't he brother? Well, Roman Luke 1 says that there's never
or now no confirmation of that which are in Christ Jesus. I'm
going to talk to you a little bit about God's Spirit as to
being condemned in the world. I'm going to close here in just
a little while, but I want you to listen to what I'm saying. God is not
going to condemn His people along with the world. And that's why
God's chastening and correcting, that's why God's dealing with
you in the area. Now, it is not consensual for the justice of
God to punish the same offense twice in two different persons.
The Lord Jesus Christ suffered our ill for us, in our room instead
of place, and God will not Christ demand payment once in His hand
and then in ours. I said that His correction of
us was not punitive. God is not dealing with us as
a judge. We've not experienced the sword
of a judge, but the law of the Father. That's what we've experienced,
the law of the Father. You know what I'm talking about?
Not the sword of a judge. Now, the substance of the life
is here, in this world, this rod of chastity. God's going
to use a rod one of these days to break the wicked, but he's
not going to use the same rod and use this to correct his people.
There'll be a different rod. Now, he has this rod here to
hand to love, and we've been telling you how to use it, that
God, and God cannot condemn those who are who belong to him, all
of his promises. in the covenant would be violated
if so be that God was to condemn one of his children along the
world. All the promises of his covenant,
this covenant, are requisitioned. It's so wonderful, this covenant.
Turn back to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 16, and I want to try
to illustrate it with a pen, this covenant which God has made
with his people. And how that these promises of
the covenant would be violated if God was to allow any of these
that He's called out in the world, chosen in Christ, to finally
experience eternal death. God is not going to send any
of them to Hell. He's going to deal with them
in time. Now listen to me, hear me out here in Ezekiel 16, we
have here a picture, and you read this sometime, and I'm not
going to read all of this because it's a long chapter, but you
read this sometime and you'll see it's all right in Jerusalem,
and it's all here in Prophets Ezekiel, to show Jerusalem their
abominations, to show them there and cause them to see and cause
them to know their abominations. And he likens Jerusalem here
to a rock that committed adultery, which hated strangers instead
of her. And he said, How weak is thine
heart, saith the Lord God, seeing that thou dost of these things
the work of an imperious, foolish public. And then he says here
in verse 35, wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord. In
verse 38, and I will judge thee as woman that breaks wedlock,
and shed blood out of chastisement. God was furious with Jerusalem. He was furious with Jerusalem.
And you remember that in the Old Testament. that there was
no such thing as divorce for adultery, because all those that
were caught in adultery in the Old Testament were stone dead.
They were put to death, and there was no such thing as divorce
for another. But now here, He made him visible.
God said, I'm going to judge you like one, like a woman that
wept with love. Now, as we go along here, in
verse 60, He says, Nevertheless, I will never die covenant with
thee in the days that I do, and I will establish unto thee an
everlasting covenant. I'm going to establish this government,
even though you have went away from me." And he described this
whole nation, this people, as a people that were adulterous
and a people that did not love him chiefly and supremely, but
went away from him. And he said in verse 62, "...and
thou shalt know that I am the Lord." In verse 63, now notice
this, "...that thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never
open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified
to love thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God."
Now, here we have the picture that I want you to see. And that
is this. That, number one, the Lord, regardless
of how wicked we were in the past, the Lord has made a covenant
with us with our head, our covenant head, the Lord Jesus Christ. And through the blood of the
everlasting covenant, the Lord has been pacified toward us for
all that we've done. He's been pacified. Now this
word pacified in Hebrew, I understand, means pacified. Meaning that
there has been peace made between God and us. between God and man,
and that peace has been made through the blood of the everlasting
covenant. It's been made by our covenant
with the Lord Jesus Christ. When I suffered on the cross,
it was my sin that nailed Him there and caused God to take
His sword of wrath from His feet and to plunge it into His heart.
It was my sin that killed Jesus Christ on the cross. Oh, how
good! And the death of our substitute
on that cross, pacified, is therefore the perpetuation, it was the
satisfaction, which the justice of God demanded for our sin. Isn't that what it was? It was
satisfaction. God is pacified toward us all,
if we be in Christ. No way he can condemn us to hell. He's pacified. Pacified completely. And therefore, In verse 63, he said that thou
mayest remember and be confounded. Now, he said I want you to remember
this and be confounded. I want you to remember this and
be so amazed by it. And I want you to be disturbed
by it. I want you to think of it. And never open your mouth
anymore because of your shame. Never open your mouth anymore
because of your shame. You are the one that helps. You
are the guide. You overwent the hell and suffered
the vengeance of God for all eternity. You deserve to go.
You deserve to go to hell. You deserve it. I'm not going
to continue along with the world because I'm a liberal. I'm not
satisfied to obey you. And, and you, and listen, he
said, why don't you open your mouth and help yourself to your
shame? You're a sinner and you deserve hell and judgment, but
because I'm passionate about it, I'm not going to condemn
you. You're not going to hell. You're not going to hell. You
ought to, but you're not going to because I'm passionate about
it. I'm peaceful. I'm not at peace with you. And
I can't send you to hell. I can't send you to hell. Because
of the blood of Abraham Lincoln, I can't send you to hell. Because
of this everlasting covenant that I made with your surrogate,
I made with you. I can't do it. I can't do it.
And therefore, therefore, He says, I don't want you to open
your mouth no more because of your shame. Now, brother and
sister, listen to me. Any time that you hear anybody
boast who they are and what they are, it doesn't matter how he's
got it. And he's got a boastful spirit.
And he's gone and hit the blue spell. And there's something
that he's done, something that he's doing, something that he
thinks is magnifying him a little bit more than men, something
he's kind of trusting in, relying in, a little bit more making
him a little different, sets him apart from the common law
of the Lord's people. Mark it that way. God is not
pacified towards that individual. He's not. He's not. A man to whom God owes, to which
God is pacified, is a man who will always bow. To say anything
in his own defense, to say anything in holiness, to say anything
to control himself, he won't do it. He remembers how faithful and
witty he was, and he remembers that God was standing there! But God had mercy on him and
spared him. He is a never-dying soul for
all eternity, and the God means to show him kindness forever
and ever, and give him the bliss and glory of heaven forever and
ever, because he deserves it! He don't open his mouth except
to extol the covenant. And to say that it is righteousness
is a lie. That's all it is. You see that? This is the reason why God cannot
condemn you on the world. Now, I just want to say a word
now, I suppose, about God's giving away. Condemn a lot of the world. The world is going to be condemned.
The world is condemned already. The Bible says in John 3 verse
18. He that believeth is not condemned,
but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he
hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
The wicked are condemned. The wicked are facing the great
day of his wrath. There will come an age when the
angels will be sent forth to gather together and elect And
the angels will bind all those who care, and gather them together
to be burned with everlasting fire, for the day of redemption
is coming.

Chastening

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Chastening

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