The following message was delivered at
I have made every effort to ensure that an accurate transcription of the
original tape was made. Please note that
at times sentence structure may appear to vary from accepted English
conventions. This is due primarily to
the techniques involved in preaching and the obvious choices I had to make in
placing the correct punctuation in the article.
It is my intent and prayer that the Holy Spirit will use this
transcription to strengthen and encourage the true Church of Jesus Christ.
God’s Loving
Discipline
(Part 2)
Copyright 1998
by
John F. MacArthur,
Jr.
All rights reserved.
Hebrews, chapter 12, verses 5-11. We have been attempting to answer a very important question and that question is: Why do bad things happen to God’s people? Why do bad things happen to God’s people? The atmosphere in today’s evangelicalism—the atmosphere in today’s church—which is, I think, in the media, is basically dominated by the modern Charismatic movement, is a view of Christianity that, frankly, is quite foreign to Scripture.
If you watch Christian television
and draw your conclusions about Christian theology from that, you might be able
to conclude, from all that you’ve seen, that Christianity is a path of life
that leads to wealth, it leads to outrageous hairdos and amazing wardrobes, it
leads to garish sets and strange-looking chairs and gold on everything, etc.,
etc., etc. It leads to wealth and
prosperity and happiness and comfort and feeling really good about
yourself. You will hear preached, in the
Christian media, “The Prosperity Gospel” that Jesus wants you rich, and Jesus
wants you comfortable, and Jesus wants you successful, and if you suffer it is
because you are weak in faith. If you
suffer, it is because somehow you’re not claiming what is rightfully
yours.
There is also in contemporary evangelicalism the notion that somehow Jesus will
fix all of the troubles of your life.
So, we are told today in that part of evangelicalism which is different
than the Charismatic movement that the real issue is that we have to approach
people on the basis of their “felt needs.”
In other words, what are the anxieties, the troubles, the pains, the
sorrows, the sufferings, the discomforts, the issues of life that people feel
badly about…We need to address those and we need to bring Jesus to them as the
one who fixes all the troubles of life, the one who solves all your problems,
the one who makes you comfortable, the one who brings peace to your troubled
life; Jesus will eliminate every uncomfortable event, every uncomfortable and
unfulfilling relationship—somehow Jesus will bring peace to every difficult
circumstance. That’s the “felt need”
gospel.
So, you have on the one hand, the
prosperity gospel which promises you that you can be rich in Jesus and solve
all your own problems. Then, you have
the “felt need” gospel which says that,
“Well, God really wants to fix your life and make it absolutely placid and
peaceful and comfortable and fulfilling and satisfying in every way
imaginable. In fact, both of those
viewpoints would probably conclude that if difficulty comes into your life, it
is probably the devil. What you may want
to do is figure out how to chase the devil away because it’s the devil who’s
bringing all these bad things into your life.
They don’t come from God; they come from the devil.
So, that leads to some kind of
training that you need to get involved in as to how to bind the devil. You get into that foolish notion of
pronouncing some kind of doom, at least on the temporary level or at least as
far as your life is concerned, on Satan himself, attempting to bind him and
then bind demons who are the cause of all your problems. If you can successfully engage in binding
Satan and binding demons, then you can eliminate the discomfort and the
suffering and the lack of tranquillity in your life.
All of this is unbiblical. All of this is a misconception. In fact, this misconception that Christians
should be above suffering is a sad dishonor to all those faithful and noble
believers through the ages—through the history of God’s kingdom—who have
suffered, who have suffered severely, who have suffered persecution, who have
suffered martyrdom—all of those heroes.
For example, listed in Hebrews, chapter 11: Abel and Enoch, and Noah,
and Abraham, and Sarah, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and Moses, and Rahab,
and Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah, and David, and Samuel, the
prophets—all of those who quenched the power of fire [and] escaped the edge of
the sword in the midst of weakness were made strong, [who] had to fight wars,
who had their own beloved killed and received back their dead by resurrection,
[who] were tortured, not willing to accept a release because they wouldn’t
recant their faith, those who experienced mockings and scourgings and chains
and imprisonment, or stoned and sawn in half and put to death with the sword
and went about in sheepskins and goatskins as bait for wild animals, were
destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves
and holes in the ground—and none of these, it says, was the world worthy
of.
What about those people? Were they people of weak faith? Were they people who just didn’t cash in on
their options? Were they people who
didn’t take advantage of what was theirs?
Couldn’t they find God able to meet all their discomforts? Was it because they just didn’t trust God? Was it because they didn’t know that they
were supposed to be prosperous? Maybe it
was because they didn’t know how to “bind Satan.” Maybe they didn’t know how to bind those
demons.
What folly! What heretical thinking all of that is! These are the men and women of the noblest
kind. These are the heroes of the faith. These are the best of God’s people. These are the great believers of the ages and
they suffered immensely. You could add
to that list, and probably would if Hebrews were being written today, the
apostles who were systematically executed.
And finally, the last of them, John, died in exile on the isle of
What about all those early
Christians? What about all those early
Christians who died under Roman persecution, who were torched in Nero’s garden
parties to light up the darkness? What
about all those who died under the terrible persecutions prior to the 4th
century? What about all those who died
during the time of the Reformation? What
about those who died for the faith in the Catholic Inquisition and were
martyred there? What about all those
“prereformational” believers who were slaughtered and martyred: Huguenots,
others…? What about those who suffered
martyrdom since the time of the Reformation?
What about all the missionaries that were killed by the people they went
to reach with the gospel?
It might be shocking to you to know
this, but according to David Barrett (sp?), editor of World Christian Encyclopedia, 300,000 Christians are martyred each
year, right now. 833 a day somewhere in
the world are being martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ, in hostile
countries that hate the truth. What
about all those people? Were they people
of weak faith? Were they less than noble
believers? Shouldn’t they have known
that this whole deal is about comfort and prosperity, about having all your
felt needs met? Isn’t this all about
that? Isn’t this all about feeling
good? Isn’t this all about having a
perfect environment in which to live?
Faithful believers through the ages
have suffered and the more faithful, the more they’ve suffered; not the more
faithful, the less they’ve suffered.
Jesus said, “In the world, you will have tribulation,” John
As I say, it’s a shocking statistic
and it’s one the government of the
Now, underlying everything that
occurs in this world, even allowing for Satan to be active in doing certain
things to thwart the cause of Christ, underlying everything that occurs is the
sovereign rule of God. I say something
that you may not have thought of but it’s true: Satan is God’s servant. He’s only allowed to do that which God
permits. He is the servant of God and
the servant of God’s sovereign purposes.
Everything occurs under the sovereign rule of God. Isaiah 45:7 says that, “God is the One
forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity;
I am the Lord who does all these things” Suffering, trials, persecution—all
kinds of adversity are under God’s sovereignty and fit His purpose, and
especially His purpose for His own beloved children.
The heroes of faith in Hebrews 11
demonstrated extraordinary obedience in the face of severe trial and they
demonstrated at the same time, unwavering trust in the purposes of God,
unwavering confidence in the sovereignty of God. God’s purpose in suffering is the issue that
must be understood: God has a purpose for our suffering.
With that in mind, let’s read the
text. Hebrews 12, verse 5, “Have you
forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons? ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline
of the Lord.’” That is the phrase that I
want you to get a hold of. This is the
discipline of the Lord we’re talking about here. “Do not regard it lightly, nor faint when you
are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He
scourges every son whom He receives. It
is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons, for what
son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all
have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to
discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to
the Father of spirits, and live? For
they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines
us for our good, that we may share His holiness. All discipline, for the moment, seems not to
be joyful, but sorrowful; yet, to those who have been trained by it, afterwards
it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” (NASB)
Now, what that passage identifies
for us is the discipline of the Lord.
That is to say, God brings into our lives difficult trials for His own
purposes. This is all part of Him
conforming us to the image of His Son.
Perfecting us calls for discipline.
Now, as we saw last time in
introducing this passage to you, God has four purposes in the discipline.
Purpose #1: Retribution
Some discipline that comes into your life, some negative circumstances, some—on the surface—“bad” things/trials that come into your life are because you have sinned and need to be punished because God is holy and wants His children holy. In other words, it is retribution to create an aversion to sin because of its painful consequences. We saw that last time. We saw David as an illustration. David suffered immensely in his life as God was punishing him or chastening him for his sin that he might learn to be holy so that he could honor God and be blessed.
Purpose #2: Prevention
Secondly, God brings suffering into
our lives for prevention. We saw that in
the case of
Purpose #3: Education
Thirdly, God brings suffering into
our lives for the purpose of education.
So that we may, in that trial, learn something about ourselves and
something about the greatness of our God.
The illustration of that we used was Job. Job came to a truer understanding of himself
through his terrible suffering and a greater understanding of God than he had
ever had before. It is in the trials, it
is in the pain and the sorrow and the suffering that we discern who our God is
more clearly.
Purpose #4: Anticipation
And then, fourthly, God brings
suffering into our life for the purpose of anticipation. Because we need to long for heaven. We need to have a more heavenly
perspective. We need to be loosened up
from earthly attachments. We saw John
the apostle as the classic illustration of that. John, suffering greatly as in exile,
suffering broken-hearted over the demise of five of the seven churches in
So, for purposes of retribution,
prevention, education, and anticipation, it is God who disciplines His
children.
Now, look at verse 5—just the
beginning of the verse—and I’ll remind you of where we ended last time. “Have you forgotten the exhortation which is
addressed to you as sons?” And, he goes
on in verse 5 to say, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the
Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him…”
He’s reminding them of Old Testament Scripture. He quotes from Proverbs 3:11 and following. He is quoting an Old Testament passage
because the question that comes up here—a natural question—you’ve had all of
that wonderful chapter 11, all of those great heroes and they all suffered a
profound suffering for the cause of Christ.
I told you last week about my
continual reading of the story of William Carey. It’s just—the suffering in that man’s life is
just more than one would imagine a person could
The question comes up: does God do
that or did the devil do that?
Nothing happened in the life of Felix that didn’t happen in the life of
Job. Nothing happened in the life of
William Carey that didn’t happen in the life of Job. The spiritual strength—admittedly, Felix went
through a dark, dark, and sorrowful time, having lost two wives and now, most
of his family and all of his work. He
went through a terrible, dark time, but in the end, he was restored to his
father and restored to the ministry there and restored to the work of the
mission, until at the end, at the age of 37, he died in his youth, another
great grief to his father because of his tremendous skill and talent for
ministry. This sorrow upon sorrow shaped
William Carey into the man that he was.
The Old Testament reminds us that
the discipline of the Lord is just that: it is from God. “Do not regard it lightly and don’t faint
when you’re reproved by Him.” It speaks
to you. Look at the first part of verse
5. “Have you forgotten the exhortation
which is addressed to you as sons? Don’t
regard lightly the discipline of the Lord…”.
This is a message to believers, do you understand that? He’s talking to believers. This is addressed to “sons,” he says. That passage isn’t addressed to unbelievers;
it’s addressed to you, to sons. It
speaks to you.
Now, we’ve already seen the
purposes of God; I want to take you now into the text and I want to show you
three different things that appear in this text that help us understand the
discipline of the Lord: two perils in discipline, two proofs in discipline, and
two products in discipline. Perils,
Proofs, and Products.
I. The Perils in Discipline
Let’s look, first of all, at the
perils in discipline. We’re all going to
be disciplined and coming with that discipline are some perils: two things that
are dangers to the purposes of God in discipline. God wants to accomplish something in
disciplining us. He wants to conform us
to the image of Christ. He wants to
reveal more of Himself to us—that’s education.
He wants to prevent us from sinning.
He wants to humble us so that we’re more useful. He wants to chasten us for sins committed so
that we don’t do it again. He wants to
fill our hearts with the anticipation of glory…All those things that we
saw. But, that only works if you avoid
the two perils.
1. Peril, number one: “Do not
regard lightly—”.
Literally, the Greek language here says, “Despise not—”. That’s the first peril in discipline. The Lord brings a purposeful discipline into
your life, the Lord brings training into your life through difficulty, and you
despise it instead of embracing it. It
means, “to misjudge,” that to “treat as lightly” rather than as profoundly as
it ought to be treated. “Do not fail,”
it means to consider the real purpose of this discipline, the real scope of it,
the real end of it. See discipline not
as a momentary affliction, but as an accomplishment that God is in process of
bringing to pass for your good and His glory.
Frankly, there are many people who
never see past the pain because they’re self-absorbed, they’re self-centered,
they’re caught up in their own comfort…Let me tell you, in evangelicalism
today, I mean, it has to be true that these people who claim to have this great
faith to believe Jesus can make them rich, and these people who come and want
Jesus to fix all of their problems and demonstrate a kind of faith that
believes at that level—I believe those people are serious casualties to life’s
real issues. Because it just literally
devastates them as if it were a surprise that it should happen, because they
have been expecting nothing but prosperity and comfort. There are many people who can’t get past the
pain because they think Christianity is somehow a blank check and when you
become a Christian, God’s going to deliver to you everything you want. When you don’t get it, you are angry. You despise; you treat lightly or you
misjudge; you fail to consider to the real purpose and scope of what is
happening.
This could happen a number of
ways. You could get yourself in a
position where you can’t see past the pain, by callousness. That’s
“hardening against God.” You just become
hard. You become resistant rather than
melting at His discipline, rather than doing a heart examination as we saw last
time, in saying, “Look. Is this because
of retribution? Is this part of God’s
prevention in my life? Is this part of
my education? Is this part of God
wanting to build in me anticipation for glory?”
Instead of saying that, you get angry at God, you get hostile, your
heart gets hard, you become callous, and you—this is the peril—you then cut off
the purpose of God from being achieved and no doubt will guarantee to yourself
greater chastening.
Not only by callousness can you
treat this lightly, but by complaining. Like
You can treat lightly the
discipline of the Lord then, by callousness, by complaining, and even by questioning. “Why is this happening? Why is this happening? Why are You doing this? Why me?
Why me?” All of that kind of
attitude thwarts the purpose of God in the chastening and leads to greater
chastening.
But, I think perhaps most
importantly—I mean, while it’s important to mention callousness and complaining
and questioning, the most common way that you will despise, that you will treat
lightly the chastening of God is by carelessness,
a failure to change. You just let it
come and let it go and it doesn’t make any difference in your life. You go on in your own sin. You go on in your own selfishness. In any or all
of those ways you can treat God’s discipline lightly, you can look down on it,
you can think little of it…That’s really what the term means. It means, “to think little of it,” not to see
it for what it is.
I guess because of the years over
studying Scripture, when a trial comes into my life, I, by God’s grace—I go
immediately to the question of: this is a profound thing. This is something God has wrought. This is something that God is doing in my
life. In fact, I didn’t mention my own
recent experience. My doctor, who really
saved my life, was here last Sunday and he said, “Why didn’t you mention what
you just went through?” I said, “Well, I
don’t do that very often.” It’s kind of
a rare thing for me to do that. He said,
“Well, you should mention that.” So, I
said, “Well, maybe I will.” And, I said,
“Well, I don’t know that I knew how serious I was. When I walked into your office, you know,
just trying to get some help for my pain and inability to breathe, because I
had blood clots all through my lungs—and I didn’t know that—but, when I walked
into your office, I didn’t know how bad I was and I don’t know that I’ve ever
asked you.” I said, “Well, how bad was
I?” He said, “You had somewhere between
two hours and twenty-four at max. to live.”
“Oh,” I said. “Then, I was fairly
serious.”
Well, I knew I was serious and I
thought that I might be able to die, but the only thought that entered my mind
in the whole process—and I know this is the grace of God and because of
constant exposure to the Word of God—is, was the thought: “Lord, what is this
purpose? What are you trying to
accomplish? What do I need to know from You?”
This is a deep and profound experience; this is not a trivial
experience—none of life’s suffering is trivial.
You don’t want to treat it lightly; you want to treat it profoundly, but
you want to look at it from God’s perspective.
Don’t despise it.
2. Peril, number two: “Don’t faint
when you’re reproved by Him—”.
That’s the first peril in
discipline. The second peril…Look at
verse 5 again. Not only “don’t treat it
lightly,”…“don’t faint when you’re reproved by Him.” Don’t lash out—that’s the external—don’t
break out against God, and don’t break down inside—this is just as bad. There are some people who don’t—they don’t
get hard against God, they don’t question God, they don’t get callous…They just
collapse. “Ohhhhh….This is more than I
can
“Ohhhhh…I don’t understand. I’m holding on, brother.” These people give up and become inert, you
know; they just [say], “I don’t know if I’m saved.”
They forget Psalm 34:19—I think
it’s verse 19. It says, “Many are the
afflictions of the righteous.” We get
more afflictions than the unrighteous, you know that? but, they’re over when we
die. But, we get more than the
unrighteous because we’re afflicted by the unrighteous who hate what we stand
for and we’re afflicted by God who wants to make us more righteous.
These people sometimes find their
faith begins to fail. They begin to
doubt—doubt God’s wisdom, doubt God’s plan, doubt God’s love…And, then they
wind up in Psalm 42, like the Psalmist, and they have to do a double take and
say, “Why are you troubled, O my soul?
Why are you troubled in me? Hope
in God, I will yet praise Him.” They
have to pull themselves up, don’t they?
Despise not and faint not. Don’t break out and don’t break down. Those are the two perils in discipline that
hinder what God wants to accomplish.
II. The Proofs in Discipline
Secondly, there are two proofs in
discipline here…Two proofs. Two things
that are proven by this discipline and we’ll see that in verses 6 to 8. “For those whom the Lord loves He
disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure; God
deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t
discipline? If you are without
discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate
children and not sons.”
You know, Satan is the victor often
in our trials on the basis of how we respond.
Many Christians take trials with despair and despondency, others despise
them, some feel God is far off. Instead
of trust, doubt comes. Instead of
quietness, turmoil comes. Instead of
contentment, resentment comes. Instead
of hope—knowing God is perfecting us, that the testing of our patience has a
perfect work—instead of hope and giving of thanks, thoughts of bitterness arise
toward God. And, we cry like the
Psalmist in Psalm 10:1 who says, “Why are You standing so far away, O Lord? Why are You hiding Yourself in my times of
trouble?” The Lord isn’t hiding
Himself. The same Psalmist says, “The
Lord is a very present help,” isn’t He?
He’s not hiding. Don’t despise and don’t faint. We say, “How can I keep from doing
that?” By understanding two proofs that
should really lift you up.
1. Proof, number one: It
proves “God’s love for you—”.
The first thing that your
chastening proves—the first thing your suffering proves—is God’s love for
you. Verse 6, “For those whom the Lord
loves, He disciplines.” That’s the reason
not to despise or think lightly of it.
That’s the reason not to become callous or questioning or careless. Because it is an evidence of love. It all proceeds from His love. When you came to Christ, you were rooted and
grounded in love. We love Him because
“He first loved us.” We should have a
rooting and grounding in love. What does
God so loved me that He gave His
only begotten son. God so loved me that
He choose me before the foundation of the world. God so loved me that He set His love upon me
and forgave my sin and granted me righteousness in Christ. God so loved me that He has Christ preparing
a place for me in His own house in glory.
God loves me. That’s an assurance that nothing should ever
be able to shake. Have the sweet
assurance that love is behind all your chastenings.
A man asked a little boy, “Why are you looking
over the wall?” The little boy looked at
him and said, “Because I can’t see through it.”
You know, life can be like that.
At some point, discouraged Christian, you’ve got to climb up and look
over the wall and what you’re going to see is a loving Father. You’re going to see a loving Father. Look above the dark clouds of discipline and
see the sunshine of His never-changing love.
It’s like flying in a plane through the dark clouds and hitting the
brilliant sunlight. You’re going to find
behind the clouds is God’s love. He loves you.
All discipline flows from God’s
love. It was love that elected you
before the foundation of the world. I
tell you, the heart is warmed and thrilled when it goes back to God’s sovereign
love in eternity past. Ephesians says,
“In love,” chapter 1, “having predestined us.”
It was love that choose us; it was love that redeemed us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us
as an act of love. It was love that
effectually calls us. Jeremiah 31:3
says, “With loving kindness have I drawn you.”
Ephesians 2 says, “He loved us with a great love and it was that great
love that drew us out of our spiritual deadness.” “God, being rich in mercy,”
verse 4, “because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were
dead in our transgressions made us alive together with Christ, by grace you
have been saved.”
Chosen by love, drawn by love,
redeemed by love, and kept by love. It
is love that also disciplines us. He
loves us so much, He corrects us and He withholds from us what would harm
us. I mean, how many times have we said
to our children, “I’m doing this because I love you” and then we take out the
rod and it’s true? That is why we do it. Because we love them too much to let them
follow a path of behavior that will lead to their own destruction. We love them too much to have them
It says in Lamentations
Remember—the great High Priest, the
Lord Jesus Christ, according to the book of Hebrews, is touched with the
feelings of our infirmities, right? “In
all points tempted, like as we are,” He is touched with the feelings…What does
that mean? It means He feels the actual
pain of our weakness. He knows. He has compassion, tenderness, empathy,
sympathy, but He still employs discipline.
Just like a parent. I feel the
pain when my children have pain. I hurt
when my children hurt. I’m touched with
the feelings of their infirmities and yet I use the rod because love demands
it.
So, the first thing that discipline
proves is that God loves you. God is
love and nothing is so sensitive as love and yet He chastens. In fact, when He chastens you, in a very real
sense He does feel that pain. Isaiah 63
says, “In all their affliction, He was
afflicted.” It pains the Lord to
chasten His children just like it pains a father or a mother to chasten his or
her children. But, His love is
unselfish. When you see a parent who
says, “Oh, I love my child too much to spank them,” they don’t love the child. They love themselves and are not willing to
suffer the pain that inflicting pain on their child might bring—they’ll suffer
another kind of pain, to be sure. Love
is unselfish and love says, “Even though it hurts me deeply to do this, I do it
because I love you,” and that’s how God loves us. The first thing proven by discipline is
love.
2. Proof, number two: It proves our
sonship.
Secondly, our sonship. Verse 6 again,
“Those whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He
receives.” Every son in the kingdom will
be scourged. That’s a proof of sonship. That is a proof of sonship. Every son—no exceptions—but only sons. It is both inclusive—“every son”—and
exclusive—it doesn’t involve people who aren’t His children.
He scourges—“mastigoō”—that’s the
act of flogging with a whip; that’s the act of hitting someone with a
lash. “Every son He lashes.” God here is pictured as a Father using a
corporal correction for faulty, sinful, wicked behavior. God does it to everyone of us and the fact
that He does it is evidence that we’re His children.
He says in verse 7, “God deals with
you as with sons, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t
discipline?” I mean, fathers do
that. Proverbs
Furthermore, it says in Proverbs
23:14, “you shall beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.” It’s all part of training. Proverbs 29:15, “The rod and reproof give wisdom,
but a child left to himself brings his mother to shame.” Our society is filled with undisciplined
children and we understand what they are like—it’s tragic. The fact that God chasten s us indicates we
are His sons. “It is for discipline,”
verse 7 says, “that you endure.”
Discipline in the Christian life doesn’t come in spite of sonship; it
comes because of it. It’s not some
aberration: “Oh, whoa! Why is this happening? It must be the devil.” No, this is God. It’s because you’re a son that you’re being
disciplined.
You know, I just have to put this
in here. I really do wonder whether
these people who live these lives of outrageous, outlandish wealth and
prosperity and comfort even belong to God at all. I question that on the theological level
often. I even question it on the level
of this text. “Where is the
suffering? Where is the
discipline?” The disobedience is
manifest, “Where is the discipline?” Are
they at all his children? A child who is
disobedient, who wanders away will be disciplined by a loving father who really
cares. He’ll keep a firm hand on him
because he cares what he becomes. The
discipline of my children proves they’re my children. It proves I love them. It proves they belong to me.
I saw a lady in a market just
wailing on some little guy and I made an immediate conclusion: she’s his mother
because that’s who does that. That’s
evidence of sonship. It’s the same with
God. His discipline is for every son,
that we may know He loves us and cares what we become.
But, you know—this is something to
keep in mind now—the common reaction is to be envious of the person who escapes
suffering. The common reaction is to be
envious of the person who escapes suffering when we really ought to be envious
of the person who suffers. Don’t envy
unbelievers. Don’t envy the false
teachers who show nothing but prosperity and comfort. Verse 8 says, “If you’re without discipline,
of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not
sons.” Don’t envy that.
I used to tell my children, “You know,
it’s a privilege to be a MacArthur. It’s
a privilege to be in this family. It’s a
privilege to have me as your father and Patricia as your mother—that’s a
privilege.” And, we’d endeavor to show
them the privilege of it and the joys and the blessings of it, but along with
the privilege came the discipline. It’s
a privilege far beyond anything like that to be the child of God, isn’t
it? An indescribable privilege. It’s equally a privilege to be disciplined,
to become the best child that I can be to the honor of God, my Father.
Jerome said—the early church
father—this is pretty profound—he said, “The greatest anger of all is when God
is not angry with you.” He meant that
the supreme punishment was for God to be indifferent to your discipline. That’s true in parenting. The supreme act of disdain for a child is not
to discipline. That’s indifference. But, we’re disciplined by God because he
loves us and because we belong to him.
It proves His love and our sonship.
III. The Products in Discipline
Lastly, there are two perils in
discipline, there are two proofs in discipline, and there are two products in
discipline. What is God exactly trying
to do in the end? Well, God has
something very definite in mind. Verse
9, “Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected
them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and
live? For they disciplined us for a
short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we
may share His holiness. All discipline,
for the moment, seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have
been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of
righteousness.” See, here, he’s into the
product.
He says—let me contrast the natural
father and the supernatural Father. “Our
earthly fathers disciplined us for a limited period of years and received
respect for it,”—I’m certainly thankful for my father’s discipline, my mother’s
discipline. “We accept it with
gratitude, knowing it was for our good.”
Father or mother, if you want true respect from your child, discipline
firmly in love with consistency and with justice. “Now, if we can accept that from our earthly
father,” he says, in verse 9, “shall we not much rather be subject to the
Father of spirits?” Shouldn’t we be
willingly subjected to whatever discipline God wants to bring? Why?
That we may live?
1. Product, number one: Life.
That’s the first thing. The first product is life. Life—what is he talking about here? Oh, he’s not talking about physical life, we
have that. He’s not talking about
spiritual life in the simple sense of salvation because we’re already in the
family, we’re already a part of the kingdom, we’re already His children. What he is simply talking about here is
living life in this world to the maximum benefit and blessing. Really living. Really having the fullness of life. Like Psalm 119, “Great peace have they which
love thy law.” To enjoy that fullness,
that great peace, that great joy, happiness…He just wants us to live to the
fullest. That’s the first thing: that we
may enjoy the fullness of His blessing, the fullness of His goodness, the
fullness of His power and usefulness.
2. Product, number two:
Holiness.
The second thing is also mentioned—you
see it at the end of verse 10. “The
fathers disciplined us for a little time; He disciplines us for our good.” What good?
That we may share His holiness. He wants us to hate sin. He wants us to learn to stay away from
sin. He wants to bring consequences into
our lives when we sin that cause us to think twice about doing it again.
Earthly fathers [for a] short time discipline
us and we learn to avoid certain things because there’ll be pain associated
with them. We don’t do that because it’s
a painful experience and God is the same way.
He disciplines us that we may stay away from sin and become increasingly
partakers of His holiness. “Be ye holy,
for I am holy…,” He says in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Isaiah 5:15, “‘In their affliction will they
seek me early,” God said. “When I start
to punish them, they’ll begin to seek My face.”
It’s the same thing he’s referring to at the end of verse 11, the “fruit
of righteousness,” righteousness and holiness being the same thing. God wants to bring us the positive blessing
of full life, rich joy, peace, satisfaction, blessing, usefulness, and holiness.
If, then, trials and tribulations
under God, produce life and holiness, then we should welcome them. Right?
Let the rains of disappointment come if they water the plants of
spiritual grace. Let the winds of
adversity blow if they serve to root more securely the trees that God has
planted. And, let the sun of prosperity
be eclipsed if that brings me closer to the true light of life.
So, I welcome discipline. “I count it all joy,” James 1, “when I fall
into various trials because its God at work in me, producing joy.”
Carnal senses and natural reason
object. Verse 11, “All discipline, for
the moment, seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful.” We find no joy in the trial. We often can’t see the profit at the
moment. We can’t experience the fullness
of life. We can’t know the holiness at
the time. Even the sense of God’s love
and our sonship is not perceivable to the carnal mind and the natural
reason. All the natural senses see the
experience as painful and grievous; the reason is because we are locked in the
present. “Yet, to those who have been
trained by it”—here’s the key word—“afterward
it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
You’ve got to get the future view;
you can’t get locked in the present.
“Afterward”—when its over—“it will produce righteousness to those who
have been trained by it,” to those who have responded properly and avoided the
perils of either breaking out or breaking down.
To those who respond rightly to it, it produces righteousness. If you understand the discipline of God, if
you understand His purposes in it, if you understand what He’s doing, it will
produce in you righteousness, holiness, life.
As the bee sucks honey out of the bitter flower, so faith can extract
blessing from trouble. It can turn water
into wine and make bread out of rock. It
hopes and says triumphantly with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him;
and when has tried me,” He said, “I’ll come forth like gold.” In our pain and not our pleasure, we learn
the deliverance of God and are made to know life and holiness.
Remember Mary, Martha’s
sister? She stood at the empty tomb and
she wept at the very thing designed to bring her greatest joy: the
resurrection. She had the present view,
not the afterward. Don’t stand in the
middle of your trouble and weep at the very thing God has designed to produce,
ultimately, your greatest joy.
One little footnote on this—I don’t
mention this very often, but I wrote a book called The Power of Suffering—if you want more help on this, get that
paperback book, The Power of Suffering—learn
all that God has to say about this wonderful discipline.
Prayer:
Father, we are, again, in debt, as always, when we come to
the Word of God. In debt to You for this
treasure, this incredible mine of divine truth—life-changing truth, life-giving
truth, heavenly truth. Father, help us
to “count it all joy” when we fall into these difficult trials, to treasure
Your discipline no matter how painful at the moment. May we know that afterwards, for those who are properly responding to it, it
produces life and holiness in which we will rejoice. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for all You’re doing in our lives,
to make us like Your Son, who, Himself, was perfected through His
sufferings. We thank you for the
fellowship of His sufferings and we pray in His name, Amen.
Transcribed by:
Bible Bulletin Board
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