Turn to Hebrews chapter 12. Saturday, March 9th, there will
be a baby shower for Renata Green. Information is in the foyer. I've entitled the message for
tonight, Chastening. Chastening. We've already read
from Psalm 94, 12, blessed is the man whom thou chasteneth. Now in this passage of scripture,
we're going to read seven verses, seven times chastening is mentioned. Hebrews chapter 12, beginning
in verse five. And have you forgotten the exhortation
which speaketh unto you as unto children? My son, despise not
thou the chastening of the Lord, or faint when thou art rebuked
of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth and scourgeth. every son whom
he receiveth. If you endure chastening, God
dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father
chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons.
Furthermore, we've had 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, no chastening for the present
time seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness. unto them which are exercised
thereby." Chastening. Chastening. What is it? Does the Lord chasten me? How
can I know? Now, when I think of chastening,
I think of correction or even punishment for wrong behavior.
And that certainly is a part of parental responsibility. Listen
to this scripture, Proverbs chapter 13, verse 24. He that spareth
the rod, hateth his son. It's so important. But he that loveth him, chasteneth
him early. To fail to correct my children
is for me to fail to love them. And to correct them, to chasten
them, is to love them. Proverbs 22, six says, train
up a child in the way he should go. And when he's old, in the
end, when he's old, he'll not depart from it. Now question,
does that mean if I raise my child, if I raise Aubrey the
way, She ought to be raised. I don't raise her now. She's
an adult. But in my attempts to raise her,
does that mean if I do the very best I can, that guarantees she'll
end up being all right, being in good shape? Doesn't mean that
at all. I know many people who've raised
their kids, and their kids end up being utter rebels. What that
passage of scripture is saying is train up a child in the way
it would go, it should go the way it wants to go, and don't
restrain him. Let him go the way they want. And in the end,
they won't depart from that direction in your failure to train them
up. Now, if we have children, we
want to raise them right. It's our responsibility before
God to do so. We want them to be good people,
not criminals. We want them to be good people.
Somebody says, well, I thought there's nobody that's good. Well,
you know what I mean. They're all sinners. I realize that,
just like you and I are. But I'm talking about productive
citizens, productive members of society. We want them to do
the right thing. There is right and wrong. And
we want them to do the right thing. The parent's responsibility,
as long as your kids are under your roof, is to make them do
the right thing. That's the responsibility of
the parent. You want them to be respectful,
loyal, responsible, generous, empathetic, humble people. You want them to be a good spouse.
You want them to be raised to be a good parent. You want them
to be a good friend. You want them to be a good employee.
You want them to be a good employer. You want the best for your children
and you raise them up in that sense. Now, chastening is the
training of a child. That's what it actually means.
We generally just think of being whipped, but that's not really
what the word means, although it could be included. It's the
proper training of a child. That's the chastening of the
Lord, the training of a child. Correction is involved and there's
much more to that in this thing of training a child. Now, I've said enough about training
our children. Let's look at the Lord's chastening
or training of His people. This is what this is about. And
look in verse five. He says, and have you forgotten
the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, children
of God. You know, there's no higher stake
than that. To be a child of God, nothing's better than that. There's
no higher place to reach. A child of God, having God as
my father. Having the Lord Jesus Christ
as my elder brother and my savior. Having God the Holy Spirit giving
me a new nature. Being a child of God, behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we
should be called children of God, sons of God. What is a greater
privilege? I want you to think about this.
What a privilege you and I have in being sons of God. There's nothing greater than
that. He says, have you forgotten? We forget a lot, don't we? Have
you forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto
children? My son, despise not thou the
chasing of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. Now there are a lot of privileges
to being Saved by the grace of God to be sanctified, set apart by
God to be his. I hope you're asking why me?
Why would he do that for me to be elected by God, to be chosen
by God, to be his peculiar treasure. To be redeemed by the blood of
Christ. To be justified and stand before
God without guilt. To be regenerated and given a
new nature. This is all a part of what's
being called a son of God. What a privilege to be a son
of God. Sons by union, both he that sanctified
and they who are sanctified are all of one for the which cause
he, the Lord Jesus Christ is not ashamed to call them brethren. That's my brother. We have the
same father. He said, I go to my God and your
God. I go to my father and your father. Sons by adoption. Having predestinated us unto
the adoption of sons, God adopted me. He made me a son before time
began. Being sons by birth, of his own
will begat he us through the word of truth. Have you forgotten
that you are a son? Now we're truly members of a
royal family and of a royal race. Somebody says that sounds elitist.
Anybody that wants to be in this family can be. I had somebody, I was trying
to talk to somebody not that long ago about the gospel. And
they said, well, you sound elitist. No, I'm not. If you want to be
saved by Christ, he'll save you. He doesn't keep anyone away. Now you won't come, I realize
that. Nobody wants to be saved by Christ, unless he gives you
the want to. But anybody who comes to Christ,
he receives. He said, he that cometh to me,
I will in no wise cast out. Come and welcome. But understand
this, the highest state there is, is that of being a child
of God. God, my father. Christ, my savior,
God, the spirit, my comforter, the one who gives me life. We have his name, the Lord, our
righteousness. This is the name wherewith he
shall be called. This is the name wherewith she shall be called.
We have his name, the Lord, our righteousness. We have his protection. We have his provision. We're
his heirs. We have His chasing. Not everybody has it, only His
children. Now I want to be chasen by the
Lord. Now that doesn't, if we understand chasing, you'll want
to, you see the Lord's chasing. When people think I'm being chasen,
I'm doing something wrong, I need to get more in the word, I need
to start praying more, I need to start all the things you need
to do, that's not what the chasing of the Lord does. The chasing
of the Lord makes you look to Christ only. Now understand that. That's what the chasing of the
Lord is about. It's about making you look to Christ only. And we need to be continually
chastened to cause us to do that. This is the blessing of the Lord,
to be chastened by Him, to where you're made to see that all you
have is Jesus Christ and you like it that way. And you don't
want it to be any other way. That is the blessedness of his
chastening. Aren't you thankful for his chastening?
If he left us to ourselves, where would we be? But thank God for
his chastening. Now, in the context, the people
he was speaking to are the people who are weary and losing heart. We considered that last week.
And he says, you've forgotten who you are. His children having
all the privileges of sonship. And he quotes Proverbs chapter
3 verses 11 and 12. And have you forgotten the exhortation
which speaketh unto you as unto children? And this is Proverbs
chapter 3 verses 11 and 12. My son, despise not thou the
chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. And scourges, the word of slogs,
whips every son he receiveth. You know, the Lord said in Revelation
chapter three, verse 19, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous. Therefore, and repent, change your mind about the chastening
that comes from your heavenly father's hand who loves you,
who's too wise to err, too kind to be cruel. And he never makes
a mistake. And his chastening is always
to keep you at the feet of his dear son. That's what his chastening
is. It's not you do something wrong
and he smacks you for it and punishes you. My punishment was
taken care of in Christ. He bore all my punishment. But
this is the chasing of the Heavenly Father, the correction of the
Heavenly Father to keep us looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
I think this is interesting. What does this say about universal
love? Whom the Lord loveth, he chastened. He doesn't love everybody. He loves his elect. He loves
his people. Whom the Lord loveth, he Oh, I want his chasing hand,
don't you? I don't want to be left to myself. Whom the Lord
loveth. What a blessed privilege to be
loved by him. I love that hymn. I stand amazed
in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how he could
love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean, but he does. God the
Father does. God the Spirit does. Whom the
Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and he scourges every son he receives. You see, Jacob got his fatherly
chastisement, Esau didn't. Esau wasn't a child. Jacob was,
and Jacob was chastened. Now, that word scourge, verse
six, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth. And the word means literally
flog, flog. And the best way I can illustrate
this is early in Mexico, when Walter and Betty went down there
to be missionaries, just a few years after they got there, they
actually adopted a Mexican child. They had five kids of their own,
but they adopted this child. She was in a very bad condition,
and they felt moved to adopt her, and they actually made her
their child. And they wanted to be real careful
with this little girl, and they didn't want her to feel anything
but love, so they just kind of took it easy on her. They would
let her get by with things they wouldn't let the other kids get
by with. They would be very quick to,
or very slow to correct this little girl. I can't remember
what her name is. But one time she was behaving so badly that
Walter said, I can't take it anymore. And he grabbed her and
he spanked her and she was crying and so on. And in her tears,
she said, now I know that you love me. The fatherly chastening. Now I know that you love me. I want to be somebody he loves.
I want to be somebody he receives. I'm not going to participate
in that argument. How can it be fair for him to
not love everybody? Because I know how it'd be fair
if he didn't love me. And I'm so thankful for his pure, glorious,
gracious love. I want to be somebody he loves
and somebody he corrects. I don't want to be left to myself.
I want his chasing. And if I don't have it, I realize
that I am in bad trouble. I don't want to be left to myself. My prayer and your prayer is
thy kingdom come, thy will be done. I don't want my will done.
I don't want to be left to myself or my own thoughts. Thy will
be done. Take my will and make it thine. It shall be no longer mine. Take
my heart, it is thine own. It shall be thy royal throne. I want his chastening. Verse seven. Somehow one of my pages of notes
are gone, so I'm going to have to wing it, but pray for me. Verse seven, if you endure chastening, God
dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father
Chasteneth not. If you're having the chastening
of the Father, let me tell you what the chastening of the Father
does. It shows you you're poor, and that you're needy, and that
you're sinful, and you desperately need the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what His chastening does. It brings you to where all you
have is Jesus Christ. If that's where you're at, you've
been blessed of the Father chastening you. And what son is there that
a good father doesn't chasten? Oh Lord, give me your chastening. Don't leave me to myself. Verse
eight, but if you be without chastisement, whereof all are
partakers, then are you bastards and not sons. Furthermore, we've had fathers
of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. You know, when my dad corrected
me, he did it with a belt. And when he was correcting me,
I learned to not act defiant. I took it with reverence, because
I know if I didn't, it would prolong the whipping. I had some
sense about the way I When our parents corrected us in whatever
way it was, we gave them reverence. We knew what trouble it would
bring in our lives if we didn't. Now look what he says in verse
nine, shall we not much more rather be in subjection unto
the father of spirits and live? Now, I don't think I'd ever noticed
this before. He's called the Father of Spirits. This is speaking of the spiritual
nature that every believer has that you have because He begat
you. He's the father of spirits. He's not the father of the natural
man. He's the father of spirit. And every believer has this spiritual
nature he's speaking of. Shall not we rather be subject
to the father of spirits and live? And I'm talking about life
before God. I'm talking about eternal life. I'm talking about when the Lord
said, because I live, you shall live also. What a life every
believer has. This shows the power of the flesh
that we don't realize how great it is. That shows the power of
the flesh dragging us down. But we have life before God,
spiritual life. Shall we not much rather be subject
unto the Father of spirits and live? Four, verse 10, they verily
for a few days, chastened us after their own pleasure. They
were fallible, our parents. They made mistakes. As a parent,
don't you regret a lot of things you did as a parent? I know you
do. And our parents made mistakes, and they chastened us after whatever
sins they had, their own pleasure. For they verily for a few days
chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our benefit,
our profit, for our good. Everything he does is for our
good. And look at this next statement,
that we might be partakers of his holiness. That's a staggering statement. That's an amazing statement that
we might be partakers of his holiness. I love what the cherubims cried
around his throne in Isaiah chapter six and revelation chapter four. Holy, holy, holy. is the Lord God of hosts, the
whole earth is full of His glory. Holy is the Father, holy is the
Son, holy is the Spirit, His holiness, His underrived holiness. Who shall not fear Thee, O God,
for only Thou art holy. The holiness of God. Every attribute
is surrounded by His holiness. A holy love, a holy wrath, a
holy grace, a holy justice, a holy immutability, a holy independence. Every attribute of God is holy. His holiness. And it says we are partakers. of his holiness. Peter put it this way, partakers
of the divine nature. 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 4. Now this is so mysterious but
when God births a man or woman into his kingdom of his own will
begat he us. birthed us, fathered us, gave
us spiritual life, being made a partaker of His holiness, born
of the Spirit. Now Adam, before the fall, he
had a nature and it was a nature that could sin or could not sin, That was his nature. God made
him upright. And in his nature, he could sin
or he could not sin. He went a time where he didn't
sin. And in that sense, he was not
sinning. He didn't sin until he sinned.
But there was a time when he could not sin. He could obey. He could be obedient. But I have
no doubt that God had determined in the day you eat thereof, you
shall surely die. He not only had a nature that
could not sin, but he had a nature that could sin. He didn't have a holy nature.
He had an innocent nature. He was born and created upright. The wise man said this, I know
only that God created man upright, but man sought out only many
inventions. He had this nature that could
fall or couldn't fall, but actually it would fall because it was
all a part of God's determined decree. He said, in the day you
eat thereof, you shall surely die. And I, you know, I have
no problem saying that at all. Somebody says, are you making
God the author of evil? That's, I shouldn't use the word
stupid, but that's stupid. Nobody can make God the author
of anything. God's who he is. You're making God this, I'm not
making God anything. God's who he is. And he said
in Genesis chapter two, verse 17, in the day you eat thereof,
you shall surely die. And Adam was a lot better off
after the Lord saved him than he was before he was saved because
he now has a nature that cannot see him. A holy nature, the nature
of well, it's called partakers of the divine nature, partakers
of his holiness. Let me show you that in scripture.
First John chapter three. Verse nine, whosoever. born of God doth not
commit sin. For His seed, the seed of God,
being a partaker of His holiness, partakers of the divine nature,
being born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by
the word of God that liveth and abideth forever. His seed remaineth
in him. And he, what's the next word
say? Cannot sin. He lacks the ability
to sin. The new man lacks the ability
to sin for he's born of God. Now that is staggering. It's amazing. And even though
we have this holy nature, there's no time in our experience when
they can say, well, that thought was holy. That action was holy. That one passes the test. You're
never that way because you always have everything coming out of
this one consciousness. You have two natures coming out
of one consciousness. You don't have One nature on
one shoulder and the other nature on the other shoulder trying
to tell you what to do. You're like the bad angel and
the good angel and the demon. That whole idea is wrong because
that introduces a third person. You got this one, this one and
you. No, there's only one man with these two natures and it
all goes through this one consciousness. But the scripture says, partakers
of the divine nature, partakers of His holiness, that holiness
of which He's made unto us, the scripture says, wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. Sanctification is holiness, that's
the same word. He's made unto us holiness. He
is my holiness. As He is, so are we in this world. And He makes this staggering
statement. We'd never believe it were it
not in the Word of God. Partakers of His holiness. You see, God chose me to be holy. according as he hath chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy. Without blame before him. On
Calvary's tree, listen to this scripture, Hebrews chapter 10,
verse 10. By one offering, or by the witch
will, we are sanctified. forever, once for all, made holy
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. Now listen to
me. Right now, you'll never be any
more holy than you are right now. Now somebody says, well,
that's discouraging. No, it's not. You're going to
get rid of this flesh one of these days, and you're not going to be a
sinner anymore. And then you'll know the glory of this. but we
know the glory of it now. I'm just astonished by that statement. Everything he does in his chastening
is that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now, no chastening,
look what he says in verse 11. Hebrews chapter 12. Now, no chastening for the present
time seems to be joyous, Did you ever enjoy it while your
parents were whipping you? Of course not. I would think if
he hits me one more time, I'm gonna die. I didn't think I could
take it anymore. It wasn't anything joyous about
it all. It was extremely grievous. Nevertheless, the Lord's chasing
is grievous in the sense that when he chastens you, you find
out something about what you are. and your own sinfulness
and your own unlikeness to him and your own, that's grievous,
that's vexing, that's difficult. It doesn't seem joyous. It's
grievous. Nevertheless. Well, that's a good word. Nevertheless. Afterwards. It yieldeth the peaceable
fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Now this is the blessing of our
heavenly father's chasing. It yields this peaceable fruit. What was the difference between
the good ground here and the other three bad grounds? Anybody
remember? Fruit. Fruit. Every believer possesses
the fruit of God the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Turn with me to James chapter
3. Verse 13. Who is a wise man and endued
with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation
his works with meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envying
and strife in your hearts, glory not, lie not against the truth.
His wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual,
devilish, but For where envying and strife is, there is confusion
and every evil work, but the wisdom that's from above. I want that wisdom, don't you?
The wisdom that's from above is first pure, absolute truth. Then. peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, approachable,
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without
hypocrisy and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that
make peace. You see, when by the Lord's chastening,
I'm made to look to Christ only and he's all I have. That's the fruit of righteousness.
That's the fruit of peace. That's when I'm gentle, peaceable, easy to be entreated,
full of mercy and good fruits without partiality. and without
hypocrisy. That doesn't come by reading
a book and practice on being that way. That comes from looking
to Christ only and you look to him and that will be the fruit. Don't you want the Lord's chastening
to cause you to As Hebrews 12, 2 says, looking unto Jesus, looking
away from every other object and looking to him only, looking
unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Chastening,
what a blessing. And when we persevere and endure
in chasing, that means we're enduring, looking to Christ only.
May God give us grace to do that. Let's pray. Lord, how we thank you for your
chasing hand. Lord, we would veer off and go
in every wrong direction and look to ourselves and look to
our works and look to our righteousness. Without your chasing hand, that's
what we'd do. So Lord, we pray that you'd shut
us up to Christ, hymn us up to Christ to where we have nothing
else all the time, looking to him only. Lord, how we thank
you for him and how we thank you for the blessing of your
heavenly chasing that causes us to continue to look to him. Bless this message for his sake,
in his name we pray, amen.