Correction from God (Part B)

May we not take this scourge of God, the correction of God as a Father, lightly. God will not beat up on you. He will not be merciless to you. He has, and it only belongs to Him, a way of correcting us in full circle. The instant you know your guilt, you know your punishment, you know where it's from, you know you're in good hands.

That's how it works. Join with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Correction from God is the title of Pastor Rick's message. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That word, instruction in righteousness, same Greek word translated here as chasten.

The word correction is not the same. That's the Greek word he would have used here if he meant harshness at this point. And so what I'm trying to let you know is where the writer of Hebrews says, my son, do not despise the chastenings of the Lord. He is saying to them, don't despise the education in the faith because it's difficult. Learning to be like Christ is not easy on your flesh at all, and many have abandoned the faith because it's too hard. Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world. So it's not a reduction of the force of what is being said.

It is zooming in on just what is going on here because it goes on in my life. Not used to speak of punishment, nor in Hebrews chapter 3 where he is originally quoting. It is not used there as punishment. Don't despise the chastenings of the Lord. The education of the faith, it's not all a classroom environment because once you learn in the church, in the assembly, or however you learn of Christ, you still have to go do it. Or else you've got an incomplete knowledge, and that's where it can become very grueling. Or in the process of learning, you find out you were wrong. You thought you were right, but you're wrong.

That's very pleasant, is it not? When you've been telling everybody something that's wrong, and you come to the Scripture, and the Scripture says, no, you're wrong. And now you've got shame. Now it's like, oh, I've been telling people this.

I've been saying this was okay to do. And there it is rebuked in the Scripture. I don't want to give examples.

I'll get everybody. So you make your own examples. So the context is clear that this education is being used by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of application. Conviction of conscience. That belongs to this. That is a chastening. That is a part of the education. See, little children, they pretty much have a clean slate, but adults, we've piled up over the years opinions and views that may not be right, and they get corrected when we come under the chastening of the Lord.

It can be a joy, it can be a relief, or it can be a great grief, and all of the above at one time. I was ignorant. I was wrong.

I did wrong. Now the Lord has shown me a better way. God's way addresses these things. Galatians 6, 4, but let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone.

Just personal. Turn the searchlight on you. One of the lessons that comes out of Joshua invading the promised land there at Gil, there before they were crossing over Jordan to bring down Jericho, they took the knives to themselves in circumcision. They first turned it on themselves. It was an examination of the faith, of what this was all about, of God dispatching judgment through them on a people who they could not boast were better than them simply because of our pedigree.

That would have been false. And so for we Christians, before we go and judge another, we turn examination on ourselves. Verse 6, for whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives, whom the Lord loves.

Now again, this word chastened here in the first part of verse 6 is whom the Lord loves, he trains. Now if any of you have been trained, you know again it can be grueling without being demeaning. It's just difficult. The nature of the beast. Correcting ignorance. Ignorance can be very stubborn. It can just, you know, because our feelings, I like it this way.

You need to unlike it that way. And so may we never take this portion of scripture lightly as though it was no big deal. Well the chastening is for the bad Christians. That's not what he's talking about even though he's talking to those Christians that are in jeopardy, but overall it's for all of us because he's going to say if you're not getting correction from the Father, you're illegitimate.

You're not his. That'll make everybody wake up. And scourges every son whom he receives. Now this is intensified discipline. And so the writer is saying don't despise an education from the Lord.

This is what it is. And sometimes he takes the belt off and he gets to swinging and you are the subject. You are the target and he does not miss.

And you better get ready for this. Now my experience as a Christian is that God only scourges when you force his hand. It is possible to be the good child and in advance see what he doesn't like and avoid it. Now I'm not talking about weakness of the flesh. I'm talking about stubbornness of the head.

If you want to be stubborn, I will not forgive that person. I heard a belt unbuckle and it came from up. Ooh, and I don't want to be you. One of my brothers, he always got the razor strap and the rest of us scattered. We didn't want to hear it or see it.

It was awful. But it was better being us than him. And you would think he would learn. But it's true. And so you don't want to be on the receiving end of the scourge. And that word scourge is just what it says in the English.

It means it in the Greek. The difference between correcting ignorance and chastening and clobbering ignorance or insolence in scourging critical lessons. When nothing else works, in my own, now this is not a boast, but it was a revelation. Early on when I became a full-time pastor, there was someone in the church that just irked me to no end, intentionally. And I didn't have the resources I used to have before I became a Christian. So eventually they pushed my last button and I let them have it. I was right. Except God didn't like how I did it. And I was chastened. I haven't done it since. And I have found myself being very careful about that matter. God said, you don't talk to my people like that. He's your person.

He's yours. That would have been really bad. I knew instantly. Instant. It was like in a dream where the perception is just given to you and you know things.

I knew it right instant. I learned the hard way. It was a scourge. For two years I suffered under that. God began to slowly bring me out of it. And I learned so much. And so here I am standing before you and I know about the scourge of God.

I am not boasting about my going through it and surviving. I am boasting about His gentleness and His love. That He is always right. He is never the cause of wickedness. Simply because He allows it does not make Him guilty.

He is not a man. It is a prerogative of God. And those who don't like it, we call them atheists.

We call them antichrists because that is what they are. And so when King David was scourged for his sin, he took it like a believer. He never despised the scourge of God that he knew he deserved. That he stiffened up against.

He said, all my bones waxed old. He hardened up against God. He knew he was wrong. He refused to face it. How did he do that? He just kept looking the other way.

He would not analyze the situation. Not at all. It's too painful. Just sweep it under the rug. Maybe it will go away. Not if God is your house cleaner.

He's not going to go away. Psalm 119, before I was afflicted I went astray but now I keep Your word. Psalm 119 verse 71, it is good for me that I have been afflicted that I may learn Your statutes. I don't care how old you are. You can be 150. As a Christian, if you goof up and you're in a state of stubbornness, you're going to get scourged. If you have enough time at that age, you might not have enough time to get scourged.

You'll be up. Anyway, your failed attempts at humor are very unpleasant in the pulpit. Now, we as parents, he scourges every son he receives. Eli was negligent. He did not scourge his thug sons who were priest, Hophni and Phinehas.

And people suffered because of that. And God sent a man of God named Samuel, who was a lad of God at the time, to let Eli know that he was going to be judged for that scourged. The unbelievers are judged. David refused to discipline Absalom and Amnon.

Both of them were criminals and it created a firestorm in the palace and in the life of David. But our Father in Heaven, He is not negligent. And that's why the writer is going to say, if you're not getting chastened by the Lord, then you must not be His. Because He does not let it pass.

Not long. He gives you time to correct it. He allows you a period of self-correction. But God does not pretend sin is cute. Oh, look at that. He sees sin for what it is.

Death. That's what sin is. And so, we must watch out for being right in our analysis and wrong in our application. That would be Solomon. Solomon was right with all that he said in scripture.

And then he blew it as he got older. What a warning for all of us. You see, the Lord does not let even the saved children of His ever be comfortable with sin. Verse 7, if you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom the Father does not chasten? Well, Hophni and Phinehas.

That's who. But of course, he's speaking about an ideal father. If it is Paul, he probably has his own father in mind. Some, many, have not had good fathers. When I ministered before a pastor amongst men who many of them had not good fathers, when I preached Christ, I was very careful to specify our Father who is in heaven. Because the only knowledge they really had of a father was one who was drunk and brutalized them and abandoned all these bad things. And so, we have to make sure we keep the human element here because the human element is inescapable.

We wouldn't have it. Moses' tablets had no human element. They were written by the finger of God. But the letters and all the rest of the Scripture, God uses the human beings to do it.

And He uses their personalities. And so, if you endure chastenings, that means to suffer the discomfort of it, the struggles, the strain of being trained, the self-agony of what it takes to memorize formulas and laws and rules, even as Christians. Scripture memory. Who here was born with Scripture memory?

None. You have to work to get it, repeat it, write it down, read it, read it, read it again. And in so doing, you begin to crystallize what it means in your head. You begin to get it.

You see beyond what you initially saw. There's so much more when we memorize verses. Again, King David and King Jehoshaphat, they were chastened and they prevailed with God.

They did well. We saw how David went out building, making plans for the building of God's temple. God deals with you as sons, he says here in verse 7. He corrects believers. He judges unbelievers.

This correction, these that we're reading, are for those in the family. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 18. I will be a father for you and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. That's New Testament theology. And so Satan comes along to try to take us off course like he was doing these Hebrews. He looks to attack all the time, to sink our joy.

That is the easiest one. To burn our faith and to take us prisoner, take us a prize. That is what Satan does. He's the quintessential pirate.

He steals what doesn't belong to him on the high seas. And so we are not defenseless. In fact, not only are we not defenseless, we can punish the enemy by obedience, by doing what we're supposed to do in the areas where we can do them. Verse 8, Hebrews 12, But if you are without chastening, which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate sons. Well, there are those that call themselves Christians, they may go to church, but they don't really love the Lord. And they're really not that interested in the scripture. Christodom is their mother, but God is not their father. That is a serious problem because these who participate in ritual and Christodom, oftentimes they've tricked themselves into believing that they have satisfied the requirement to belong to the family of God when they don't. Jesus said you must be born again.

It's very simple. And if you are not born again, you're not his. So that's how we are told to preach it and that's what we must do. Now God, again, this illegitimate son thing, God doesn't spank other people's children. But the illustration dies off because he is more than father, he is God. And so he will punish and he has the right to judgment.

We don't spank other people's children as a rule and we don't want them spanking our children. That is the rule. So we get that.

We see the logic here. One quick thing before we move to the next verse. If God stops correcting you and you're his and you know, we're talking about when you know you're wrong. When God corrected me, I knew I was wrong. I knew I crossed the line. I knew that I entered into my flesh.

It felt so good for a flash and then it felt really bad. I'm talking about when God takes the scourge and you know it, you know you're wrong. If he stops speaking to you, you are in dangerous waters.

That needle is in the red zone. This was the case with Balaam. Balaam, it says, was a prophet of God. God spoke to him. And God sent, of course, his angel and even spoke to him through a donkey to correct Balaam, to take him off the course that Balaam was going on, which was greed and an apostasy, which greed led to apostasy.

How did it end up? Balaam stopped listening. He no longer received the instruction.

He reached the point of no return until the children of Israel slew him. And so don't, may we not take this scourge of God, the correction of God as a father lightly. God will not beat up on you. He will not be merciless to you.

He has, and it only belongs to him, a way of correcting us in full circle. The instant you know your guilt, you know your punishment, you know where it's from, you know you're in good hands. That's how it works. When you feel scourged by the hand of God to the point of you're done, that's on you. You don't have to feel that. God says, listen, this will lift.

This will come off. But you need to respond because you're on a course that is deadly. Remember Balaam. Remember that he reached the point of no return because he became nonresponsive to the call of God. He did not want what God wanted. Verse 9. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect, shall we not, much more readily in subjection to the father of spirits and live. He's appealing to their reason why they must not shy away.

The father of spirits, essentially the giver of life, Zechariah 12, and thus says Yahweh, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him. And so he is just staying on cue to who God is. So this entire letter, a correction of a wrong course, the alarm is blaring in the cockpit. Your altitude is dropping. You are plunging.

That comes before the crash. And so earthly fathers, verse 10, for they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but he for our profit that we may be partakers of his holiness. Well, our earthly fathers and mothers, our parents, sometimes they under discipline, sometimes they over discipline. Sometimes they fail to discipline when it is necessary to discipline. Sometimes they discipline for the wrong motives.

I've never done that one. Sometimes they discipline at the wrong time. You know, you've got to learn. We make mistakes as parents.

It is a humbling experience. God makes no such mistakes. All of his corrections are right, and many start gallantly in the Christian faith. They start coming under the correction of the Lord, the encouragements, the corrections, the scourge, and then they want no part of it.

They tire of his standards of accountability. They become apostates. 1 Peter chapter 1, we're almost done. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind.

Snap out of it, Peter says. Be sober and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lust as in your ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, so also you be holy in all your conduct because it is written, be holy for I am holy. That goes all the way back to the days of Moses. Christ preached it. The apostles preached it. We are to preach it.

It is still in force. God always invites his people to be holy. Because holiness strives against sin, holiness is helpful. Holiness is good. It is better than anything else. It gets the work of the king done.

Without it, everything begins to fail. Without holiness, how can you see God? Blessed of the pure and hot, they shall see God. You say, well, what is holiness? I'm not holy. It's just striving for holiness against sin. Righteousness is your relationship before men, based on your relationship with God. This is just a quick overview of the two words, righteousness and holiness. Holiness is your relationship with God based on the word of God and the Spirit of God in you. So that holiness has to show up somewhere in life. You cannot be righteous if you're not first holy.

We are a holy people in spite of the fact that we fail often enough. God can overcome that. What he cannot overcome are those who turn his back to them. He cannot. He will not.

He stands at the door and knocks. He will not crash it in. He will not force anyone to serve him as his child. He will force the unbeliever to serve him as he did with Pharaoh, as he did with the wicked.

He controls it in that sense, but that is not forcing them to become believers. Verse 11, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward, it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Yeah, you go through the course.

You survive it. There are more courses. There's no certificate in Christianity.

You have arrived, you've graduated, and now you can go out and never have to worry about another classroom. That is not it. It chastens all of us. If it doesn't chasten the pastor, it's not going to chasten anybody else. It trains us all. And so, Christian development in God's hands can be grueling to the flesh, delightful to the Spirit. Many believers remember this and benefit from these chastens and have gone on to glorify the Lord.

May we be one of them always. You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Yastin of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews right here on Cross Reference Radio.