Good Morning!
In the sermon this past Lord’s Day we went through one of the most disturbing passages of Holy Scripture, the sodomy of Noah by his son Ham in Genesis 9. While we noted that there was not something sexual intended by the youngest of the three, he did seek to humiliate, and through that to overthrow his father’s rule on the Earth. Having done what he did Ham is cursed in a like manner, the one who hoped to gain preeminence was made a servant. The judgments of God upon wicked sinners are often commensurate with what they hoped to achieve through their transgressions. In Romans 1 it is said that those who lust after the same flesh will be given over to their desires, and that those wishes will be their downfall. But we don’t have to go to the places where it is easier for us to imagine, and sometimes revel in, the condemnation. Moses’s angry lashing out against the Israelites and the LORD in Numbers 20 when the people grumbled for water resulted in his not being able to go to the Promised Land. That took place because his sin was grounded in both his lack of trust in the vow as well as his forgetfulness of his role as leader of the nation. No human can act (at least they shouldn’t be) surprised when our turning against God leads to negative consequences. For if the one who was chosen to bring the children of Abraham out of Egypt could fall and lose the temporal blessing of living and prospering in Canaan (though he did not lose his salvation, it must be noted) why should we be any different?
It has become difficult to talk about the heavenly discipline which comes from our Father because the evangelical world in which we live has sadly downgraded its doctrine of God from the picture drawn by the Bible. Some have even gone so far as to deny that anything “bad” that happens can come from the hand of Jehovah. Part of that derives from the fact that the way “bad” is defined is worldly in its construct. Another is the truth that the scriptural fear of the LORD has been run out of gospel preaching in not just liberal circles, but also conservative ones. To many, blessing has come to mean material wealth, good health, and unmolested happiness, and therefore if you don’t have those things then it means that you haven’t run after faith and hope.
All you need to do according to them is to accept the truth of their presence/reality and then the believer will have them in their grasp.
I recently heard an exposition of Scripture at an event I was attending where the gentleman bringing the message told the audience that if they had the confidence of the woman with the bleeding and just reached out and touched Jesus’ garment they could have what their heart’s desired. All they needed to do was take the leap. Too many TV preachers give off the vibe that if something negative is happening that means that you have not exercised enough faith. The only cheer they can give to the hearer is that the Lord is striving with you in the darkness, holding your hand until the end, as if He has no power over the experience other than to prop you up. The former is close to the truth, we do trust that when we call on God He will hear our cries, and we also understand that the Holy Spirit will comfort us in days of trial. However, like Satan clothed as an angel of light false teaching often sounds close to the truth, but the former ain’t it.
The counselors of Job would fit right in with today’s Church.
The second problem with the above is that it shows a deity that isn’t worth worshipping. If He isn’t sovereign, if all things are not from His hand then He isn’t God. Consider how often the dark times the people of Christ experience turn out to be for their future exaltation in the eyes of providence? Jesus’s dark night of the soul in the Garden of Gethsemane, His arrest, trial, beating, and death were central to the redemption of the sheep for whom Christ had come to save, and His being raised from the dead is the end for which He came. The blood-stained sweat led to the glory of the resurrection.
Let’s go back for a second to the whole question of God’s fatherly discipline of His people. We may not like to think about our daily walk having an effect on our ordinary life, but it does. A reason why we have a hard time reconciling it to reality is because we’ve convinced ourselves that the wonderful grace of God means that nothing out-of-the-ordinary should ever happen to the Lord’s children, and there is truth to that. As noted with Moses we will never lose the love of our Heavenly Patriarch. If God has first loved us with an eternal love than you cannot fall away from eternity. And even in dealing with the subject of God’s correction we need to recognize that it is never bad. Most children hate taking medicine and eating vegetables, and would likely call the experience awful, yet we know that it is not only necessary, but is agreed by all to be a blessing to the health and welfare of each of them.
If we put on our “let’s be honest for a second” hat we know the truth of Prov. 3:11-12:
“My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.”
To paraphrase a famous saying life’s hard, it’s harder if you abuse the mercy of God. Central to the assurance we gain from the finished work of Jesus Christ is that like ancient Israel the Lord will not ignore us. He is intimately aware of what we do from day-to-day, and will deal dutifully with our sin and transgressions in convicting and causing us to see their consequence. As a careful vineyard owner He will prune us, and will skillfully mold us to be more and more in conformity to His Son. Let us accept His sheers, not out of fear of what is lost, but may we rejoice in what we have gained by God’s blessed work of cleansing us in His love.
Here is a bit more to read today:
https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-painful-discipline-of-our-heavenly-father
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church