CHASTENING
Hebrews 12:11; Genesis 28:1-3,20-22; 29:25;
Our brother read this passage on Saturday as to chastening, and we have read of two men in these scriptures who were chastened, Jacob and Peter. Both of these persons had experience with God. Many of the features that I find in myself I can relate to in these two men, but God formed them, and He had a desire to bring them through. I thought that their histories were like the reference in Jeremiah where it says that “as the clay in the potter‘s hand, so are ye in my hand”, Jer.18:6. Chastening is like that. In whatever chastening we receive, we are never far away from the hand of God, because running parallel with chastening is the love of God. Indeed, the love of God runs throughout everything in Christianity, including chastening.
In the two passages we read in Genesis, we can see that sonship is in view. Sonship involves relationship, and thus chastening leads to relationship with God. Chastening is never an end in itself. It involves that God passes us through it in view of establishing us in our relationships with Him. In both Jacob’s case and in Peter’s case, that was surely the end in view. In the passage we read about Jacob, he was told by God to go out and to find a wife, and he did what God told him to do, but then he found someone who did not treat him fairly. Jacob could have said that that was unjust. He had to serve another seven years for Rachel. But in that very exercise, God was forming Jacob, and he comes through at the end of his life to be a worshipper. He could speak about the God that shepherded him all his life long, and could add “bless the lads”, Gen.48:16. You may say that he looked forward to another generation. And I am sure he would say to himself, ‘God has not yet formed these boys, but He has formed me.’ We have a responsibility to the oncoming generation. But I say again, chastening is never an end in itself. Indeed, if we make it an end in itself, we miss the benefit of so much of God’s ways with us.
I read about Peter in Luke 22. You may say he made a big mistake. The Lord Jesus had warned him that the cock would not crow until Peter had denied Him three times. After denying the Lord three times, Peter went out and wept bitterly. It must have been as if a sword had pierced his heart. What sorrow he must have had, but his tears would be valued – they would be part of the chastening. So when Peter stood up in Jerusalem to preach the gospel, the chastening had taken place, and then it really shone in his epistle when he brings out all these references to what is precious. He writes about “precious blood” (1 Pet.1:19) and “the proving of your faith, much more precious than of gold which perishes”, 1 Pet.1:7. All these were a direct result of the chastening that he had gone through.
And beloved brethren, if the Lord passes us through chastening, the result will shine eternally. It will shine in Peter and it will shine in those in this company. Even although there are only a few of us here tonight, it will shine eternally. Why? Because it is God’s work and it is God’s intention that formation should take place. If we go back to Jacob’s history for a moment, he was a young man at the time God spoke to him. Much of the chastening in our lives takes place in our middle age and in later years, but it cannot be limited to that. In Jacob’s case, he was a young man when God began His chastening. When Jacob laid his head on the stone pillow that night, then got up in the morning and erected the altar, it has been said that he made a bargain with God1 Did he have any right to do that? But chastening was taking place in that young man through his having to do with God. It ran through his life until he became a worshipper. Beloved, it is the same with us. That is what chastening is in view of. It is not an end in itself; if we think it is an end in itself, we can easily lose our relationship with God. It involves His love, it involves His compassions.
May these things encourage us to see that chastening is what God uses, and I say again, it always runs along with His love; God’s love toward us never changes. May the Lord bless the word.
Word in meeting for ministry, Bad Endbach, Germany
7 October 2015
W.K. Clark