The disappointments of life are in reality only the decrees of love. I have a message for you today,
My child. I will whisper it softly in your ear, in order that the storm-clouds which appear may be
gilt with glory, and that the thorns on which you may have to walk be blunted. The message is
short_a tiny sentence_but allow it to sink into the depths of your heart, and be to you as a
cushion on which to rest your weary head:"This thing is from Me."

Have you never thought that all which concerns you concerns Me also? He that touches you
touches the apple of My eye (Zech. 2:8). You have been precious in My eyes; that is why I take
a special interest in your upbringing. When temptation assails you and the "enemy comes in like
a flood" I would wish you to know that "this thing is from Me." I am the God of circumstances.
You have not been placed where you are by chance, but because it is the place I have chosen for
thee. Did you not ask to become humble? Behold, I have placed you in the very place where this
lesson is to be learned. It is by your surroundings and your companions that the working of My
will is to come about.

Do you have money difficulties? Is it hard to keep within your income? "This thing is from Me."
For I am He that possesses all things. I wish you to draw everything from Me, and to depend
entirely upon Me. My riches are illimitable (Phil. 4:19). Put My promise to the proof, so that it
may not be said of you, "Yet in this thing ye did not believe the Lord your God" (Deut. 1:32).

Are you passing through a night of affliction? "This thing is from Me." I am the Man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3). I have left you without human support that in turning to Me
you might obtain eternal consolation (2 Thess. 2:16,17).

Has some friend disappointed you? One to whom you had opened your heart? "This thing is from
Me." I have allowed this disappointment that you might learn that the best friend is Jesus. I long
to be your confidant.

Has someone said false things of you? Leave that, and come closer to Me, under My wings, away
from the place of wordy dispute, for I will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your
judgment as the noonday (Psa. 37:6).

Have your plans been all upset? Are you crushed and weary? "This thing is from Me." Have you
made plans and then come and asked Me to bless them? I wish to make your plans for you. I will
take the responsibility, for it is too heavy for you; you could not perform it alone (Exod. 18:18).
You are but an instrument and not an agent.

Have you desired fervently to do some great work for Me? Instead of that you have been laid on
a bed of sickness and suffering. "This thing is from Me." I was unable to attract your attention
while you were so active. I wish to teach you some of My deep lessons. It is only those who have
learned to wait patiently who can serve Me. My greatest workers are sometimes those who are
laid aside from active service in order that they may learn to wield the weapon of prayer.

Are you suddenly called to occupy a difficult position full of responsibilities? Go forward,
counting on Me. I am giving you the position full of difficulties for the reason that Jehovah your
God will bless you in all your works, and in all the business of your hands (Deut. 15:18). This
day I place in your hand a pot of holy oil. Draw from it freely, My child, that all the
circumstances arising along the pathway, each word that gives thee pain, each manifestation of
thy feebleness, may be anointed with this oil. Remember that interruptions are divine instructions.
The sting will go in the measure in which you see Me in all things. Therefore set your heart unto
all the words that I testify among you this day; for it is your life (Deut. 32:46,47).

Some time ago I visited a brother in the Lord who had used his sawmill for the manufacture of
broom handles. Seeing the rough appearance of the broom handles as they came from the saw and
lathe, I asked the brother how they were made smooth enough for use. "Oh, I will show you," he
replied; he then grasped an armful and placed them in a revolving cylinder. In a very brief time
he stopped the cylinder and, to my amazement, he took them out quite smooth in appearance and
feeling. He had done this that they might rub each other smooth.

"Ah," said I, "here is a good lesson for us as to the ways of the Lord with us, His people, and I
understand better than ever what it is to ‘endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit.’ When God’s
grace has saved a man, and made him personally fit to go to heaven, cleansed by the Saviour’s
blood, and with a nature capable of enjoying it, He next sees fit to put him into such circumstances
on earth as thus serve him a good purpose, like this smoothing process." Thus it is, beloved
brethren, that we are put, by His divine and unerring hand of love and wisdom, into association
with many in the body of Christ who daily try and exercise our hearts, that in the workings of His
grace we may "rub each other smooth." Even so, Father, may our hearts respond!

A Christian blacksmith who had a great deal of affliction was challenged by an unbeliever to
account for it.

His explanation was this:"I don’t know that I can account for these things to your satisfaction,
but I think I can to my own. I am a blacksmith. I often take a piece of iron and put it into the fire
and bring it to a white heat. Then I put it on the anvil and strike it once or twice to see whether
it will take temper. If I think it will, I plunge it into the water and suddenly change the
temperature. Then I put it into the fire again, and again I put it into the water. This I repeat
several times. Then I put it on the anvil and hammer it, and bend it, and rasp and file it, and make
some useful article which will do service for twenty-five years. If, however, when I first strike
it on the anvil, I think it will not take temper, I throw it into the scrap heap and sell it at a half
cent a pound.

"I believe my God and Father has been testing me to see whether I will take temper. He has put
me into the fire and into the water. I have tried to bear it as patiently as I could, and my daily
prayer has been, ‘Lord, put me into the fire if Thou wilt; put me into the water if Thou thinkest
I need it; do anything that pleases Thee, O Lord; only don’t throw me into the scrap heap!’"

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 that spareth his
rod, hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes" (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 hath 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
seemeth 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:not merely "partakers of His holiness"; but there are given unto us
"exceeding great and precious promises," whereby we might be "partakers of the divine nature"
(2 Peter 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 Me 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. He does not have to go to God about it. 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 which 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.)

A vigorous branch of a noble vine rose up above the top of the wall and said to himself:"Here
is a sphere which no other branch has taken over, a place where enlarged views and enlarged
capacity are found, where nails and wires are things of the past, and where, of course, fruit of an
extraordinary character may be expected to grow."

So the branch stretched himself higher and higher, until he was very high indeed, and he heard
the gardener say, "Well, well, his time will come."

"Yes, truly," said the branch, "my time will come, no doubt. It ought to come up here. My
brethren below will, of course, do the best they can,, but one must not expect too much of them."

"Nor," said the gardener, "must we expect too much of you."

Slowly, as it seemed to the branch, which was lonely in his elevation, the season for gathering the
grapes came around, but how great was his shame and grief to hear the gardener say, "Never
mind the top branch, it is empty."

Time passed on, and the pruning hook was brought out, and the branch said to the gardener, "Oh,
my master, can you do anything for me?"

Smiling, the gardener replied, "What! are you willing to deny yourself?"

"Yes, master," said he, "I am willing."

"So be it," he said, and instantly the lofty part of the branch was cut off and the remainder brought
down upon the wall and made fast in a sure place.

When another vintage was gathered, the gatherers looked at the humbled branch and saw nothing
but a few folded leaves. "It has not recovered its wasted strength," they said. But the gardener
himself drew near and lifted up the leaves, and behold! there hung upon it the largest, richest
cluster of all.

"Master!" said the branch, "I hid it for Thee:Thou didst prune me in Thy wisdom and bind me
in Thy love."

The first person in the Bible to be described as a vinedresser was Noah (Gen. 9:20). While God’s
chosen people were wanderers, there was little or no opportunity for growing vineyards, for such
an occupation requires permanent settlement. The land of Canaan was evidently ideally suited to
the growing of grapes (Numbers 13:23,24) and there are frequent mentions of vineyards and
vinedressers in the Old Testament following the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan.

David, Solomon, and Uzziah hired vinedressers to keep their vineyards (1 Chron. 27:27, 2 Chron.
26:10, Eccl. 2:4, and Song of Solomon 8:11). Naboth had a vineyard for which he was murdered
by King Ahab (1 Kings 21:1-16).

Vineyards were such a familiar sight in Israel that God used the figure of the vineyard in an
allegorical sense to describe His relations with the nation of Israel. He was the vinedresser; Israel
was the vine or vineyard. God had brought the vine out of Egypt and planted it in Canaan where
it flourished. The divine Vinedresser had taken good care of His vineyard and had fenced it in to
protect it from enemies. But instead of bringing forth good fruit, it had brought forth wild grapes.
In judgment, God was going to remove His care from the vineyard and allow the wild beasts to
destroy it (see Psalm 80:8-16, Isa. 5:1-17, and Jer. 2:21).

The Lord Jesus used the figure of the vineyard in several of His parables. In Matthew 21:33-41
and Mark 12:1-9 the religious leaders of Israel were the hired vinedressers who refused to produce
the fruits of the kingdom of God and instead murdered God’s servants and finally the Son of God
Himself.

The Lord also used the figure of a householder hiring workers for his vineyard to illustrate the
truth that the rewards of the kingdom are dispensed by God according to His grace and goodness
and not according to our ideas of who deserves what (Matt. 20:1-16).

Perhaps the reference to vinedressing which has the most meaning for us today is found in John
15:1-8. "I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman [vinedresser]. Every branch in Me
that beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it
may bring forth more fruit…. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me …. If a man abide not in Me,
he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and
they are burned . . . ."

God expects anyone who wants to be a branch in His vineyard to bear fruit. The only source of
power for fruit-bearing is to be found in Christ the Vine (or main trunk). If the branch is not truly
connected to the Vine, it will eventually wither and its lifelessness appear to all and it will be
burned. (The same thought is expressed in James 2:14-26.)

The expression in this passage to which I wish to direct our attention is, "My Father is the
husbandman . . . and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more
fruit." What does a good vinedresser do in order to have his vines bear the maximum amount of

fruit? In almost any book on vine growing a great deal of attention is given to proper pruning.
This pruning is not done in a haphazard fashion but according to a careful plan. I will not go into
detail as to these methods, but I would like to quote one who has had experience in growing
grapes.

"The grape vine bears only on new wood, never on old wood. The branches must be pruned
drastically every year. This is done before the leaves appear in the spring. It may look as if the
vine dresser is killing the vine. The more heavily the branches are pruned, the larger will be the
bunches of grapes. If the branches are pruned less heavily, there will be more bunches; but they
will not be of so high a quality."

Heavy pruning brings forth high quality fruit. Is not this what God is telling us through the writer
of Hebrews when he discusses chastening in chapter 12:3-11? Verse 11 states, "Now no
chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Just as the human
vinedresser prunes his vines according to a careful plan, so the Father chastens and purges us
according to His careful plan. Nothing that happens to us is an accident. He must purge out all
the old, dead growth (anything of the flesh) which would hinder the production of the fruit of the
Spirit. Just as the literal vines must be pruned yearly, so God’s pruning process goes on
throughout our lives.

Let us not despise or rebel against or try to evade the chastening of the Lord. Let us be exercised
by it so that we may bring forth the maximum amount of fruit of the highest possible quality.

What is your first response when someone criticizes you, rebukes you, corrects you, or tells you
that you are wrong? Why, does not your blood rush into your neck and head, and your hair bristle
a little, and you immediately begin thinking thoughts like these:"I didn’t do anything wrong"; or
"it wasn’t my fault." Or, if, deep down, you know you were wrong, you may say to yourself:
"Boy, what a sorehead!" or "Why are people always trying to put me down?" or "Who does he
think he is, anyway? He must think he’s perfect!" or "He sure doesn’t show any Christian love!"
or "He should talk; he does things ten times as bad himself!" or "How can he talk to me like that?
he’s never been in my shoes."

Now, who can honestly say that he or she has never experienced such reactions to reproof or
correction? Most of us_and I include myself particularly_respond in such a way more often than
not. And with many of us, do not our thoughts often become open and manifest to others_ often
in bitter words of retaliation?

Such are the natural tendencies of man. But let us not excuse ourselves as to such behavior by
saying, "We’re only human." Let us rather listen to what the Word of God has to say about these
things; the Book of Proverbs is particularly rich in instruction concerning the proper response to
reproof and correction. Let’s listen:

"He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction; but he that refuseth reproof erreth" (Prov.
10:17). "Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge; but he that hateth reproof is brutish" (12:1).
"Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction; but he that regardeth reproof shall
be honored" (13:18). "A fool despiseth his father’s instruction; but he that regardeth reproof is
prudent" (15:5). "Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way; and he that hateth
reproof shall die" (15:10). "The ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise"
(15:31). "He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul; but he that heareth reproof getteth
understanding" (15:32).

"But what if the reprover is not fair?" a teenager may ask. "It was the other boys who were doing
most of the harm." God’s answer is, "He that regardeth reproof is prudent." Even if you were
only one tenth of one percent to blame for the trouble, you are guilty of that part and need to be
corrected. If you refuse correction this time, you may be one percent to blame the next time, and
maybe ten percent the following time, and who knows what it will be the time after that.

"But that person is ultra strict and ultra sensitive, and how can she know anything about raising
children when she has not had any herself?" bewail the young parents. God’s answer is, "He that
regardeth reproof shall be honored." It may very well be that the person who continually criticizes
the way you raise your children has selfish or unloving motives, or at least does not come to you
in the spirit of meekness (Gal. 6:1). But does this negate the force of the reproof? Does it release
you from your responsibility to respond to the reproof in a Scriptural way? Have you ever
considered that perhaps God is trying to speak to you in this way? Maybe you really do need to
modify the way you are raising your children, and God is allowing this trial in hopes that you will
respond in a right way to the reproof and correction.

Many other like questions are often raised by persons who have been reproved. The reprover is
often regarded as a "thorn in the side" by the recipient of the reproof, and thus the words of
correction are taken lightly or disregarded altogether, and this is often accompanied by a bitter
denunciation of or retaliation against the reprover. This is what was experienced by Elijah (1
Kings 19), Jeremiah (Jer. 36-38), John the Baptist (Matt. 14), Stephen (Acts 7), and the Lord
Jesus (John 8). And, sadly, this is what faithful Christians often find today, even when they go
to their erring brothers and sisters in the spirit of meekness:they find both their message of
correction and themselves despised. "He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul."

The next time a brother in Christ, or a neighbor, or anyone comes to you and offers a criticism,
rebuke, or a word of correction_regardless of the spirit in which he brings the reproof, try the
following:(a) Thank the person for the reproof and tell him he is right_if the reproof is
justified_or tell him that you will consider the matter before the Lord if you are not sure the
reproof is just; (b) thank the Lord for the reproof; and (c) seek the Lord’s help in accepting the
reproof as chastening from Himself (Heb. 12:5-11) and in learning the lessons which the Lord has
in it for you. Actually, it is impossible properly to carry out this advice by one’s own efforts for
it is exactly contrary to human nature. It can only be done through the power of the Holy Spirit.
We must first have a real, heartfelt desire to be instructed by the Lord, to grow into spiritual
manhood and maturity, to be controlled entirely by the Lord. We must pray continually that we
will be ready at all times to receive instruction from the Lord, not only through the reading of His
Word (2 Tim. 3:16) directly, but through His servants (our fellow-believers) who may faithfully
apply God’s Word to our Me and situation, and also through our non-Christian neighbors who are
quick to pick up and point out inconsistencies in our walk and testimony. We must pray
particularly for spiritual strength to receive reproof and correction from persons with whom we
have little bond of affection or from persons who do not bring the reproof in a spirit of meekness.

Let us soberly consider the message of God to us:"He is in the way of life that keepeth
instruction," but "he that hateth reproof shall die."

Did you think of us this morning
As you breathed a word of prayer?
Did you ask for strength to help us
All our heavy burdens bear?

Someone prayed, and strength was given
For the long and weary road,
Someone prayed and faith grew stronger
As we bent beneath our load.

Someone prayed, the way grew brighter,
And we walked all unafraid,
In our heart a song of gladness;
Tell me, was it YOU who prayed?