“You have
forgotten the exhortation that speaks unto you as unto children, My son,
despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked of
him:for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He
receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons….
Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh who 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 seems to be joyous, but grievous:
nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them
which are exercised thereby” (Heb. 12:5-11).

In view of the
tendencies of our nature, how needful it is to keep it in check. Thus we are
told in this passage in Hebrews that if you are a child you must expect
chastening. “He who spares his rod hates his son; but he who loves him chastens
him betimes [or promptly]” (Prov. 13:24). In love God is pledged to chasten us.
His rod we are to receive as a part of the proof of that love which gave His
own precious Son for us.

It is interesting
to notice the character of these chastisements. They are persecution, scorn,
hatred, the reproach of man. You say, if God would only lay me on a bed of
sickness, I could stand it. If it were God who had done these things I could
tolerate it; but it is just the wretched malice of man. I cannot see Him in it.
Well, faith sees God in it. Whom did the Lord Jesus see in all that He
passed through—which was not, I need hardly say, for His discipline, for He
needed neither correction nor prevention? If He could say of the bitterest part
of the cup, “The cup which My Father has given Me to drink, shall I not drink
it?” He could say it of everything else. These things which we bear, no matter
how much they seem to come from malignity, envy, or hatred, we know they also
come from a Father’s heart who permits them for our blessing.

Look at Job,
for instance:Satan was let loose upon him. He took away his property and his
family. He afflicted him with grievous sickness. And then the wife of his bosom
unconsciously lends herself as an emissary of Satan. She says, “Curse God and
die.” See his noble answer:“Shall we receive good at the hands of God, and
shall we not receive evil?” He does not attribute his trial to Satan. In fact,
we do not even read that Job knew it was Satan who was acting in it all.
Whatever the chastening might be, it was the chastening of God. Oh for faith to
look past the poor tools that Satan may use—whether it be the world or the
flesh in fellow Christians—to look past all second causes into the Father’s
loving heart.

Now that is not
an easy thing to do, for, as he says further, “No chastening for the present
seems to be joyous, but grievous.” Do you know what we all have a desire for?
It is a kind of chastening that does not hurt—that might be a pleasure to go
through. But that would be no chastening. It must be grievous in order to be a
chastening.

Then he reminds
us of the effect of this. We have had earthly parents who corrected us
according to their pleasure. A father smote us with the rod, rebuked us with
his lips, cut off some pleasure, or did something that showed his desire to
deliver us from evil; and the effect of it was that we gave him respect and
reverence. But now he says, Shall we not much rather, if our Father sends
affliction, bow to Him? It is not for a few days with Him, but forever. Earthly
parents have done the best they could for our temporal profit, but He has done
so that we might be partakers of His holiness.

Notice that
expression, “partakers of His holiness.” There are given unto us “exceeding
great and precious promises,” whereby we might be “partakers of the divine
nature” (2 Pet. 1:4)—brought to the place where we can drink from the
fountain-source of holiness, the divine nature itself. God chastens us in order
that we may partake of His nature, that we may drink that in, as it were, and
have the fruits of holiness in our outward life as the result. After the
chastening come the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those who are exercised
thereby.

You will notice
here that there are three ways in which we can be affected by chastening. We
can despise the chastening of the Lord—we may think it a trifle and throw it
off. We have been speaking about reproach and scorn. A man may say, “I don’t
care for people’s opinion—that is nothing to me”; he may brave it out in his
own strength. He is despising the chastening of the Lord. It cannot be a severe
chastening that does not bring us to God.

Then, on the
other hand, there are those who “faint” when they are rebuked of Him. They are
overwhelmed and the hands hang down; they are discouraged.

These are the
two extremes—neither of which is faith. But now we have, “To those who are
exercised thereby.” We are to be exercised by what we pass through, not to
despise it, not to faint under it. We are to learn the lessons that God would
teach us, to go to Him for comfort, help, and guidance, to lay hold upon His
grace and mercy.

(From Lectures
on Hebrews.)