XXVIII.
CHASTISEMENT
Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he
receiveth."
HEBREWS xii. 6.
IT is hardly possible to suppose that any
shall read these lines who have not drunk of the bitter cup of affliction.
Some may have even endured a great fight of afflictions. Squadron after
squadron has been drawn up in array, and broken its regiments on the devoted
soul. It has come to us in different forms, but in one form or another
it has come to us all. Perhaps our physical strength and health have been
weakened in the way; or we have been racked with unutterable anguish in
mind or body; or have been obliged to see our beloved slowly slipping from
the grasp of our affection, which was condemned to stand paralyzed and
helpless by. In some cases, affliction has come to us in the earning of
our daily bread, which has been procured with difficulty and pain, whilst
care has never been long absent from our hearts, or want from our homes.
In others, homes which were as full of merry voices as the woods in spring
of sweet-voiced choristers are empty and silent. Ah, how infinite are the
shades of grief! how extended the gamut of pain! How many can cry with
the Psalmist, "All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me!
We can see clearly the reason of all this suffering.
The course of nature is out of joint. Man's sin has put not himself only,
but the whole course of nature into collision with the will and law of
God; so that it groans and travails in its pains. Selfishness has also
alienated man from his fellows, inciting him to amass all that he can lay
hands on for himself, oblivious to the bitter sufferings of those around
him, and careless of their woes. Whilst behind the whole course of nature
there is the incessant activity of malignant spirits, who, as in the case
of Job, may be plotting against us, reveling in any mischief, which, for
some great reasons, they are permitted to work to our hurt.
There are different ways in which affliction
may be borne. Some despise it (ver. 5). They refuse to acknowledge
any reason in themselves for its infliction. They reject the lesson it
was designed to teach. They harden themselves in stoical indifference,
resolving to bear it with defiant and desperate courage. Some faint
under it (ver. 5). They become despondent and dispirited, or lose
heart and hope. Like Pliable, they are soon daunted, and get out of the
Slough of Despond with as little cost as possible to themselves; or, like
Timorous and Mistrust, turn back from the lion's roar. We ought to
be in subjection. Lifting the cup meekly and submissively to our
lips; calmly and trustfully saying "Amen"to every billow and wave; lovingly
trying to learn the lesson written on the page of trial; and bowing ourselves
as the reeds of the river's edge to the sweeping hurricane of trial. But
this, though the only true and safe course, is by no means an easy one.
Subjection in affliction is only possible
when we can see in it the hand of the Father of spirits (ver. 9).
So long as we look at the second causes, at men or things, as being the
origin and source of our sorrows, we shall be filled alternately with burning
indignation and hopeless grief. But when we come to understand that nothing
can happen to us except as our Father permits, and that, though our trials
may originate in some lower source, yet they become God's will for us as
soon as they are permitted to reach us through the defense of his environing
presence, then we smile through our tears; we kiss the dear hand that uses
another as its rod; we realize that each moment's pain originates in our
Father's heart; and we are at rest. Judas may seem to mix the cup, and
put it to our lips; but it is nevertheless the cup which our Father giveth
us to drink, and shall we not drink it? Much of the anguish passes away
from life's trials as soon as we discern our Father's hand; then------
Affliction becomes chastisement. There
is a great difference between these two. Affliction may come from a
malignant and unfriendly source; chastisement is the work of the Father,
yearning over his little children, desiring to eliminate from their characters
all that is unlovely and unholy, and to secure in them entire conformity
to his character and will. But, before you can appropriate the comfort
of these words, let me earnestly ask you, my reader, whether you are a
child? None are children in the sense of which we are speaking
now, save those who have been born into the divine family by regeneration,
through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Of this birth, faith is the sure
sign and token; for it is written: "Those that believe on his name are
born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God." Are you a child? Does the Spirit witness with your spirit
that you are born of God? Can you look up into his face and cry, "Abba,
Father"? If so, you are surrounded by your Father's tender, loving care.
Nothing can reach you without passing through the cordon of his protection.
If, therefore, affliction does lay its rough hand upon your arm, ;arresting
you, then be sure that it must first have obtained permission from One
who loves you infinitely, and who is willing to expose both you and himself
to pain because of the vast profit on which he has set his heart.
All chastisement has a Purpose. There
is nothing so absolutely crushing in sorrow as to feel one's self drifting
at the mercy of some chance wave, sweeping forward to an unknown shore.
But a great calm settles down upon us when we realize that life is a schoolhouse,
in which we are being taught by our Father himself, who sets our lessons
as he sees we require them. The drill-sergeant has a purpose in every exercise;
the professor of music, an object in every scale; the farmer, an end in
every method of husbandry. "He does not thresh fitches with a sharp threshing
instrument, neither is a cart-wheel turned about upon cummin; but the fitches
are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod." So God has a purpose
in every pain he permits us to feel. There is nothing fortuitous or empirical
or capricious in his dealings with his own.
The purposes which chastisement subserves are very
various. Of course we know that the penalty of our sins has been laid on
the head of our great Substitute; and that, therefore, we are forever relieved
from their penal consequences. But though that is so, yet often chastisement
follows on our wrong-doing; not that we expiate the wrong-doing by suffering,
but that we may be compelled to regard it in its true light. Amid the pain
we suffer we are compelled to review our past. The carelessness, the unwatchfulness,
the prayerlessness which have been working within us pass slowly before
our minds. We see where we had been going astray for long months or years.
We discover how deeply and incessantly we had been grieving God's Holy
Spirit. We find that an alienation had been widening the breach between
God and our souls, which, if it had proceeded further, must have involved
moral ruin. Perhaps we never see our true character until the light dies
off the landscape, and the clouds overcast the sky, and the wind rises
moaningly about the house of our life.
Times of affliction lead to heart-searchings, and
we become increasingly aware of sins of which we had hardly thought at
all. And even though the offense may be confessed and put away, so long
as affliction lasts there is a subdued temper of heart and mind, which
is most favorable to religious growth. We cannot forget our sin so long
as the stroke of the Almighty lies on our soul; and we are compelled to
maintain a habit of holy watchfulness against its recurrence.
It is also in affliction that we learn that fellowship
with the sufferings of Christ and that sympathy for others which are so
lovely in true Christians. That is not the loftiest type of character which,
like the Chinese pictures, has no background of shadow. Even Christ could
only learn obedience by the things that he suffered, or become a perfect
High-Priest by the ordeal of temptation. And how little can we enter into
the inner depths of his soul, unless we tread the shadowed paths, or lie
prostrate in the secluded glades of Gethsemane! We who attempt to assuage
the griefs of mankind must ourselves be acquainted with grief, and become
men of sorrows.
Be sure, then, that not one moment's pain is given
you to bear that could have been dispensed with. Each has been the subject
of divine consideration before permitted to come, and each will be removed
directly its needed mission is fulfilled.
Special discipline is evidence of special
love (ver. 6). It costs us much less to fling our superfluities
on those we love than to cause them pain. Indulgence is a sign not of intense
but of slender love. The heart that really and wisely loves will bear the
pain of causing pain, will incur the risk of being misjudged, will not
flinch from misrepresentation and reproach; from all of which a less affection
would warily shrink. It is because our Father loves us that he chastens
us. He would not take so much trouble over us if we were not dear to his
heart. It is because we are sons that he sets himself to scourge us. But
oh, how much he suffers as he wields that scourge of small cords! Yet,
hail each blow; for each sting and smart cries to thee that thou art being
received into the inner circle of love.
When suppliants for his healing help came to our
Lord, for the most part he hastened to their side. But on one occasion
he lingered yet two days in the place where he was. He dared to face the
suspicion of neglect and the loving impeachment of bereaved love, because
he loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. He loved them
too much to be satisfied with doing small things for them, or revealing
only fragments of his great glory. He longed to enrich them with his precious
revelation of resurrection life. But his end could only be reached at the
cost of untold sorrow, even unto death. Lazarus must die, and lie for two
days in the grave, before his mightiest miracle could be wrought. And so
he let the thunder-cloud break on the home lie loved, that he might be
able to flash on it light which broke into a rainbow of prismatic glory.
If you are signally visited with suffering, such
as you cannot connect with persistence in carelessness or neglect, then
take it that you are one of Heaven's favorites. It is not, as men think,
the child of fortune and earthly grace, dowered with gifts in prodigal
profusion, who is best beloved of God; but oftenest the child of poverty
and pain and misfortune and heart-break. "If ye be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then ye are bastards and not sons." Oh, ye who
escape the rod, begin seriously to ask whether indeed ye be born again!
Pain is fraught with precious results
(vv. 10, ii). " Not joyous but grievous: nevertheless afterward." How
full of meaning is the "afterward." Who shall estimate the hundredfold
of blessing from each moment of pain? The Psalms are crystallized tears.
The Epistles were in many cases written in prison. The greatest teachers
of mankind have learned their most helpful lessons in sorrow's school.
The noblest characters have been forged in a furnace. Acts which will live
forever, masterpieces of art and music and literature, have originated
in ages of storm and tempest and heart-rending agony. And so also is it
with our earthly discipline. The ripest results are sorrow-born.
"The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow
is unknown."
Holiness is the product of sorrow,
when sanctified by the grace of God. Not that sorrow necessarily makes
us holy, because that is the prerogative of the divine Spirit; and, as
a matter of fact, many sufferers are hard and complaining and unlovely.
But that sorrow predisposes us to turn from the distractions of earth to
receive those influences of the grace of God which are most operative where
the soul is calm and still, sitting in a veiled and darkened room, whilst
suffering plies body or mind. Who of us does not feel willing to suffer,
if only this precious result shall accrue, that we may be "partakers of
his holiness" ?
Fruit is another product (ver. 11).
Where, think you, does the Husbandman of souls most often see the fruit
he loves so well, and hear the tones of deepest trust? Not where his gifts
are most profuse, but where they are most meager. Not within the halls
of successful ambition or satiated luxury, but in cottages of poverty,
and rooms dedicated to ceaseless pain. Genial almost to a miracle is the
soil of sorrow. Necessary beyond all count is the pruning-knife of pain.
Count, if you will, the precious kinds of fruit.
There is patience, which endures the Father's will; and trust
that sees the Father's hand behind the rough disguise; and peace,
that lies still, content with the Father's plan; and righteousness,
that conforms itself to the Father's requirements; and love,
that clings more closely than ever to the Father's heart; and gentleness,
which deals leniently with others, because of what we have learned
of ourselves.
Nor is it for very long. Jesus, who endured the
cross and shame and spitting, is now set down on the right hand of the
throne of God. Ere long we too shall come out of the great tribulation,
to sit by his side. Every tear kissed away; every throb of anguish stayed;
every memory of pain allayed by God's anodyne of bliss. The results will
be ours forever. But sorrow and sighing, which may have been our daily
comrades to the gates of the celestial city, will flee away as we step
across its threshold, unable to exist in that radiant glory. "And God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain." "For
I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." "For our light
affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding
and eternal weight of glory." "Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down,
and the feeble knees."
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Chapter XXIX.
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