When, why, and how does the Lord God discipline us when we sin?

I speak not merely of suffering for Christ - if we are reproached for the name of Christ, it is only for joy, and triumph, and glory to us; but of those things in which there may be the "multitude of thoughts within," because we see that we have been walking inconsistently and carelessly in the Lord's ways. Still it is, "Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord," etc. The Lord does not chasten willingly, without a needs-be for it. And when there has been failure or inconsistency that brings chastisement, He turns the occasion of the chastisement to the working out of the heart's evil that needed to be chastened, The Lord, in chastening, throws back the heart upon the springs which have been the occasion of the evil. The soul is hereby laid bare for the application of God's truth unto it, that the word may come home with power. It is taught wherefore it has been chastened; and not only so, but it is brought into the secret of God's heart - it learns more of His character, who "will not cast off his people, neither forsake his inheritance." (v. 14.) What God desires for us is, not only that we should have privileges conferred upon us, but that we should have fellowship with Himself. Through these chastenings the whole framework of the heart is brought into juxtaposition with God. And this stablishes and settles it on the certainty of the hope that grace affords.

Tribulation works patience, because it breaks my will. I kick against the tribulation if I do not see the key to it. A naughty child, put in the corner, knows very well that his father would not put him there if he did not need it. So with us, the Lord puts us in the corner, and there we must stay till He lets us out. I get the experience of God's faithful love, for I am sure He would not put me there if I did not need it. "He withdraweth not His eyes from the righteous." He is constantly and unceasingly watching for their good. In Job 33 it is inward things that have to be corrected; it is correcting a disposition, to withdraw man from his purpose. In Job 36 it is actual failure, discipline for positive faults, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." The Lord has laid His hand upon me, and I must bow. It may not be for a positive transgression, but perhaps a disposition to be corrected. He has something for me to learn; there is something wrong, so He puts His hand on me in discipline. The Holy Ghost being given me, I have the key to it all, in the love of God, and I believe in this love. There are many things to correct in me, which hinder me feeling the love. I know it better, the more I am disciplined and exercised; but I have learnt it in God's having given His Son.

"My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord." Suppose the Lord's hand is upon one of you, the great principle is, that He is doing it for your good. Whom He loveth He chasteneth. Love would not do it if not needed. Do not despise it. God loves you too well to punish you for nothing. You say, "Oh, I don't despise it; my heart is sinking under it!" Not so either. Do not faint; it is love that does it, and love will bring good out of it. Mark, too, we are to expect chastening; there is a great deal to correct. You may be as sincere as possible, and, as to the purpose of your heart, single-eyed; but is there nothing hindering you? You may not know what. Would you wish God to leave it there? He knows the thoughts and intents of your heart when you do not; and He is not a Physician for nothing. No child is without chastening, bringing us nearer to God. We must all know how easily we get out of God's presence; and He does it for our benefit, that we may be partakers of His holiness, that holiness which is in God Himself. Mark how thoroughly this is grace. He calls us according to His holiness, and then sets about making us partakers of it; and when all is done, there are "the peaceable fruits of righteousness." Like Paul's thorn in the flesh, our very service and devotedness may bring us into suffering for His sake, and at the same time into that which humbles the flesh. The thorn was something that met him in his service, made him despicable, and was a correction to the tendency to be puffed up. God may give it the character of a trial for Christ.

The moment Jonah was delivered "the word of the Lord came unto him the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee;" for if the Lord pursued His servant with His storm anal tempest, and cast him into the deep, in the midst of the seas, it was for restoration as well as correction, and to put the prophet into a right condition of soul to be the vessel of the divine will. Accordingly he did not now attempt to flee, but he arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. It is always so in the Lord's dealings with His people. If we turn back from the path which He marks out for us, we surely must encounter the chastenings of His hand, and the object of His dealings is never accomplished until we are brought face to face again with the path from which we declined, and made willing, by grace surely, to enter upon it. It is on the principle enunciated by the psalmist — "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept thy word."

Furthermore, we have the outstanding example of Job. In his case, we see not only the patience of a sufferer, but also the end of the Lord. If, in the presence of suffering and wrongs, we patiently endure, we shall find that in the end, “The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” Job's case is specially instructive, as in his troubles we learn that, whatever trials we are permitted to pass through, God uses them for our discipline. In all that Job passed through, we see the discipline and chastening of God for the blessing of His servant. Job had begun to take pleasure in his own goodness and trust in his own righteousness. To destroy Job's confidence in himself and his own goodness, the malice of Satan is allowed, to a limited point, to sift him with terrible trials. The result of all the trials that Job passed through from Satan the accuser, from his wife and from his friends, was that he not only triumphed over all the power of the enemy, but through the trials he learned and judged the secret and unsuspected evil of his own heart. Taking pleasure in his own goodness, which indeed was real and owned of God, he had said, “When the eye saw me, it gave witness to me”; but when at last he gets into the presence of God, he says, “Mine eye sees Thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 39:11; Job 42:5-6).

174 The second point that I wish to lead you to notice is the government that God exercises with regard to His children. He warns them by His word, and if they do not listen, He interferes in His power to stop them in order that He may be able to bless them. See Job 36:5-14; chap. 33:14-30. In the dealings of God salvation is not brought into question. He looks upon His children, and chastens those whom He loves. The persons of whom the Holy Ghost is speaking in Job are called "the just." God does not withdraw His eyes from them, and He says also to Israel by the prophet Amos, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities," Amos 3:2.

In the Epistle to the Corinthians we see that, when the Christians turned the Lord's supper into a scene of dissoluteness, God laid His hand upon them. Some of them were sick and others had even fallen asleep (that is, had died); and the apostle in calling attention to it adds, "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." Solemn thought! We are under the hand of the Lord who punishes sin wherever He finds it. He is a consuming fire, and, when the moment is come, judgment begins at His house. What a difference between such relations with God, and the joy of His love and communion when one has not grieved His Spirit, and when one is walking under His eye and in the light of His countenance! I do not doubt that a large part of the sickness and trials of Christians are chastenings sent by God on account of things that are evil in His sight, which the conscience ought to have paid heed to, but which it neglected. God has been forced to produce in us the effect which self-judgment ought to have produced before Him. It would, however, be untrue to suppose that all afflictions are chastenings. Though they are so sometimes, they are not always sent because of sin. There are things in the soul connected with the natural character, and which need to be corrected in order that we may live more in communion with God and glorify Him in all the details of life. What we do not know how to do with regard to these things, God does for us; but there are many children of God who commit faults which their conscience ought to feel, and which they would discover if their soul were in the presence of God.

In the New Testament we have the same chastisement and forgiveness as a present dealing of God with man on the earth for their good. See 1 Corinthians 11:30-32. They took the Lord's supper as if it were a common meal, and the poor had not enough to eat, and the rich indulged in gluttony and wine, and many were sick in consequence and even "slept," that is, died. But all this was present chastening in this world, for the apostle says, "When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." The Corinthians were chastened for their faults, but were not condemned as unbelievers with the world.

The Apostle speaks of chastening and scourging. The scourging may be more the governmental dealing of God in rebuking and correcting for positive failure. The chastening is not necessarily for any sin, but rather to develop in us that which is according to the nature of God, that we may partake of His holiness.

In the light of the New Testament, chastening may be sent for retribution, as we see in 1 Corinthians 11:30. But on the other hand it may not be, as we see in Paul's case — 2 Corinthians 12:7, - where the thorn in the flesh was preventive; lest he should be puffed up and fall. Yet again, it may be neither retributive nor preventive but educational, as Hebrews 12 shows. The Father trains and disciplines His children, and even scourges them; but all is in pursuance of His objective - "that we might be partakers of His holiness."

It is not at once or speedily that the Lord begins the discipline of His saints. At the least it is not commonly so. Our sin may find us out years and years after it is committed. The Lord may call our ways to remembrance long after we have left those ways and turned to better. The widow of Sarepta, in her experience, may illustrate this for us (1 Kings 17). The sin of Saul against the Gibeonites was visited in the distant, closing days of David (2 Sam. 21). "God moves in a mysterious way." He takes methods which are all His own, in the exercise of His hand with His people. But, "He is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain." We have to bow now — we shall justify Him for ever.