But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
To be left without correction and reproof is to stand outside God's family, for that discipline is the common portion of all His true children and the mark of legitimate sonship. Its presence shows He is dealing with believers as sons and leading them rather than forsaking them, even through obstacles, trials and perplexities. It flows from a Father's tender love for their present and eternal good, to turn them from sin and error to obedience, and though painful it trains them in holiness and brings forth righteousness in character like Christ. Therefore His children are to receive rebuke with meek submission and gratitude, holding still under trial instead of fainting, resenting His hand, or turning away from Him.
Chastisement Proves True Sonship
Chastening means correction and reproof, and it is shared by all of God's children. To be without it is to be illegitimate and not a son, while to undergo it confirms sonship. Some afflictions may be received as such chastening from the Lord, and those who are without chastisement are not recognized as His sons. Enduring the Lord's rebuke and discipline, rather than growing faint when He rebukes and disciplines, shows that God is dealing with believers as sons.
The obstacles, trials and perplexities that confront those who consecrate themselves to God prove that He is leading them as sons rather than having forsaken them. Trials and obstacles are His chosen methods of discipline and His appointed conditions of success. In His providence He brings persons into different positions and varied circumstances to reveal defects concealed from self-knowledge and to give opportunity to correct them and be fitted for His service, and He often permits the fires of affliction to assail them that they may be purified.
Chastisement and reproof are signs that people are God's children. Being reproved is therefore evidence of sonship. Those who receive reproof should not on that account be treated as illegitimate or be dismissed by their enemies.
Loving Purpose of Discipline
God's discipline flows from a Father's tender love and care, and it is a great blessing given for present happiness and future good. Affliction received as His chastening belongs to His overruling providence, working for good even when its purpose is not understood. He leads His children in ways they would choose if they could see the outcome and understand the purpose they fulfill as workers with Him. Trials are a means by which He seeks to lead them to know Him and trust Him.
He corrects His children to save them from their errors, to turn them from a harmful course and save them from themselves, to separate them from sin and wickedness, and to require their obedience. He sends correction to the erring, and every soul must submit to His discipline rather than insist on its own way. His correction can come through calamities and misfortunes as a call to heed Him, as in the sinking of a boat and other misfortunes.
Though painful at the time, chastening yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness in those trained by it and helps them share in His holiness. The painful, prolonged and unexpected trials and testing through which He purifies and develops Christian character are essential to becoming like Christ. He refines, sanctifies and elevates His people and prepares them for exaltation, often permitting the fires of affliction to assail them that they may be purified.
His discipline exposes defects concealed from self-knowledge and teaches self-knowledge, as seen in the experience at Battle Creek where correction exposed defects and called for gratitude and self-correction. He who reads hearts knows character better than men know themselves, and sees powers and susceptibilities which rightly directed might advance His work. So in His providence He brings persons into different positions and varied circumstances to reveal those hidden defects, gives opportunity to correct them and be fitted for His service, and works through grace to improve talents and form a symmetrical character He approves. That training secures life that measures with the life of God.
Chastisement is part of God's great plan to work for good and to bring victory out of what looks like discomfiture and defeat. When misfortune or calamity comes, even the cutting off of usefulness in some line, it is not neglect or cruelty but God working for good, and under the rod of affliction a Christian may do more for the Master than when engaged in active service. Learning this guards against forgetting God and looking only at things seen, teaching instead to behold by faith the unseen.
The Lord disciplines the human heart on the principles of a skillful gardener, making the heart tender not by violence or force but by patient, painstaking effort and tender care. This care is what souls need to prepare them to receive the impressions of the Holy Spirit. Hardship and discipline are wholesome schooling for people in their fallen state, as seen in labor and self-denial in childhood, such as the toil of Waldensian children.
Receiving Discipline in Life
God's children are to receive His reproofs and warnings meekly and with submission, because chastening is correction and reproof given to save them from their errors. When He rebukes and disciplines they are to endure rather than grow faint, and they are not free to insist on their own way but must submit to His discipline and yield obedience. Under His chastening hand in the tests and trials that surely come they must not curse God nor draw apart from Him to demand their own ways instead of His.
That chastening hand can come through suffering abuse from others, through conniving at evil, and through injury that stirs a sensitive, proud spirit. Enduring it means holding still under provocation, where silence before evil deeds and injurious men is the most decided condemnation of wrong and at times the strength that keeps a person from bitter retaliation. This training is to be accepted with gratitude, correcting one's own wrongs while leaving judgment of others to God, as illustrated by the experience of the Gaskills in Battle Creek whose defects were exposed to teach them self-knowledge.
When misfortune or calamity comes, even the cutting off of usefulness in some line, it is not neglect or cruelty but God working for good to bring victory out of what looks like discomfiture and defeat. Under the rod of affliction a Christian may do more for the Master than when engaged in active service. Learning this guards against forgetting God and looking only at the things which are seen, teaching instead to behold by faith the things which are unseen. Trials are a mercy that can wean God's children from earthly things and turn them toward lasting joy beyond this passing world. They are a blessing for present happiness and future good, means by which God seeks to lead them to know Him and trust Him.
Hardship and correction can draw people near to Him, as when the severe blow of the deaths of two children softened a young couple's hearts, awakened their desire to change, and helped them recognize their need of Jesus and commit to a life of obedience. The Lord's correction can come through calamities and misfortunes as a call to heed God, as in the sinking of a boat and other misfortunes used to turn a person from a harmful course and save him from himself. Failure to amend life and give up excesses brings severe chastening. A man who will not do God's will and lives under evil control needs to be taken in hand and disciplined and chastened like a rebellious child. Without holy restraint his strong uncontrolled passions, envy and jealousy, outbursts of anger, and evil surmisings make him a demon in his home, and he ruins himself in a downward course.
Because fathers and mothers are themselves under God's discipline as His sons, sharing the chastisement common to all His children, they must enjoin and require obedience from their children in God's spirit. They are to do this with patience, gentleness, sorrow and pity, and with sanctified hearts, never with hasty words, anger, sharpness, hardness of heart, cruelty, harshness, unreasonableness, severity, or injustice. So doing makes the children kind, gentle and loving and gains their love and respect. Children need to be disciplined and taught to yield their wills, or those who grow up undisciplined may later find it difficult to submit to God's discipline and the teaching of His word. Every believer is called to come under God's discipline and control and stand steadfastly for righteousness and truth, and that discipline works through grace to improve talents and form a symmetrical character that God approves, securing life that measures with the life of God.
To be left without correction and reproof is to stand outside God's family, for that discipline is the common portion of all His true children and the mark of legitimate sonship. Its presence shows He is dealing with believers as sons and leading them rather than forsaking them, even through obstacles, trials and perplexities. It flows from a Father's tender love for their present and eternal good, to turn them from sin and error to obedience, and though painful it trains them in holiness and brings forth righteousness in character like Christ. Therefore His children are to receive rebuke with meek submission and gratitude, holding still under trial instead of fainting, resenting His hand, or turning away from Him.
Chastisement Proves True Sonship
Chastening means correction and reproof, and it is shared by all of God's children. To be without it is to be illegitimate and not a son, while to undergo it confirms sonship. Some afflictions may be received as such chastening from the Lord, and those who are without chastisement are not recognized as His sons. Enduring the Lord's rebuke and discipline, rather than growing faint when He rebukes and disciplines, shows that God is dealing with believers as sons.
The obstacles, trials and perplexities that confront those who consecrate themselves to God prove that He is leading them as sons rather than having forsaken them. Trials and obstacles are His chosen methods of discipline and His appointed conditions of success. In His providence He brings persons into different positions and varied circumstances to reveal defects concealed from self-knowledge and to give opportunity to correct them and be fitted for His service, and He often permits the fires of affliction to assail them that they may be purified.
Chastisement and reproof are signs that people are God's children. Being reproved is therefore evidence of sonship. Those who receive reproof should not on that account be treated as illegitimate or be dismissed by their enemies.
Loving Purpose of Discipline
God's discipline flows from a Father's tender love and care, and it is a great blessing given for present happiness and future good. Affliction received as His chastening belongs to His overruling providence, working for good even when its purpose is not understood. He leads His children in ways they would choose if they could see the outcome and understand the purpose they fulfill as workers with Him. Trials are a means by which He seeks to lead them to know Him and trust Him.
He corrects His children to save them from their errors, to turn them from a harmful course and save them from themselves, to separate them from sin and wickedness, and to require their obedience. He sends correction to the erring, and every soul must submit to His discipline rather than insist on its own way. His correction can come through calamities and misfortunes as a call to heed Him, as in the sinking of a boat and other misfortunes.
Though painful at the time, chastening yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness in those trained by it and helps them share in His holiness. The painful, prolonged and unexpected trials and testing through which He purifies and develops Christian character are essential to becoming like Christ. He refines, sanctifies and elevates His people and prepares them for exaltation, often permitting the fires of affliction to assail them that they may be purified.
His discipline exposes defects concealed from self-knowledge and teaches self-knowledge, as seen in the experience at Battle Creek where correction exposed defects and called for gratitude and self-correction. He who reads hearts knows character better than men know themselves, and sees powers and susceptibilities which rightly directed might advance His work. So in His providence He brings persons into different positions and varied circumstances to reveal those hidden defects, gives opportunity to correct them and be fitted for His service, and works through grace to improve talents and form a symmetrical character He approves. That training secures life that measures with the life of God.
Chastisement is part of God's great plan to work for good and to bring victory out of what looks like discomfiture and defeat. When misfortune or calamity comes, even the cutting off of usefulness in some line, it is not neglect or cruelty but God working for good, and under the rod of affliction a Christian may do more for the Master than when engaged in active service. Learning this guards against forgetting God and looking only at things seen, teaching instead to behold by faith the unseen.
The Lord disciplines the human heart on the principles of a skillful gardener, making the heart tender not by violence or force but by patient, painstaking effort and tender care. This care is what souls need to prepare them to receive the impressions of the Holy Spirit. Hardship and discipline are wholesome schooling for people in their fallen state, as seen in labor and self-denial in childhood, such as the toil of Waldensian children.
Receiving Discipline in Life
God's children are to receive His reproofs and warnings meekly and with submission, because chastening is correction and reproof given to save them from their errors. When He rebukes and disciplines they are to endure rather than grow faint, and they are not free to insist on their own way but must submit to His discipline and yield obedience. Under His chastening hand in the tests and trials that surely come they must not curse God nor draw apart from Him to demand their own ways instead of His.
That chastening hand can come through suffering abuse from others, through conniving at evil, and through injury that stirs a sensitive, proud spirit. Enduring it means holding still under provocation, where silence before evil deeds and injurious men is the most decided condemnation of wrong and at times the strength that keeps a person from bitter retaliation. This training is to be accepted with gratitude, correcting one's own wrongs while leaving judgment of others to God, as illustrated by the experience of the Gaskills in Battle Creek whose defects were exposed to teach them self-knowledge.
When misfortune or calamity comes, even the cutting off of usefulness in some line, it is not neglect or cruelty but God working for good to bring victory out of what looks like discomfiture and defeat. Under the rod of affliction a Christian may do more for the Master than when engaged in active service. Learning this guards against forgetting God and looking only at the things which are seen, teaching instead to behold by faith the things which are unseen. Trials are a mercy that can wean God's children from earthly things and turn them toward lasting joy beyond this passing world. They are a blessing for present happiness and future good, means by which God seeks to lead them to know Him and trust Him.
Hardship and correction can draw people near to Him, as when the severe blow of the deaths of two children softened a young couple's hearts, awakened their desire to change, and helped them recognize their need of Jesus and commit to a life of obedience. The Lord's correction can come through calamities and misfortunes as a call to heed God, as in the sinking of a boat and other misfortunes used to turn a person from a harmful course and save him from himself. Failure to amend life and give up excesses brings severe chastening. A man who will not do God's will and lives under evil control needs to be taken in hand and disciplined and chastened like a rebellious child. Without holy restraint his strong uncontrolled passions, envy and jealousy, outbursts of anger, and evil surmisings make him a demon in his home, and he ruins himself in a downward course.
Because fathers and mothers are themselves under God's discipline as His sons, sharing the chastisement common to all His children, they must enjoin and require obedience from their children in God's spirit. They are to do this with patience, gentleness, sorrow and pity, and with sanctified hearts, never with hasty words, anger, sharpness, hardness of heart, cruelty, harshness, unreasonableness, severity, or injustice. So doing makes the children kind, gentle and loving and gains their love and respect. Children need to be disciplined and taught to yield their wills, or those who grow up undisciplined may later find it difficult to submit to God's discipline and the teaching of His word. Every believer is called to come under God's discipline and control and stand steadfastly for righteousness and truth, and that discipline works through grace to improve talents and form a symmetrical character that God approves, securing life that measures with the life of God.