Evangelist Herman E. Wesley III
When God Has His Hand on You
Hebrews 12:4-11
PRELIMINARIES
To my good friend and minister of this congregation of saints, Brother David M. Tillman, Jr., brother Arlester Johnson and others who are numbered among the leadership. Members of the Narrow Lane Church family, my good friend and minister of the College Street Church in Greenville, who always does an excellent job, brother Bishnoo Rampersad, and to all of you are visiting with this church today, for its Revival services; we bring you greetings from the NorthPointe Church where we have been blessed to plant and serve the saints of God in that place, and minister to that community. I am most happy to have my wife, Sonja, and my sons with us today, along with brother Floyd Murry, the hardest working man in real estate...if you need a realtor, call brother Murry! Brother Murry works alongside me in the ministry, and we appreciate him, as well as all of the good folk at NorthPointe, and a number of members from the NorthPointe family are with us today as well. Now, your theme for this “FULL DAY” of instruction and inspiration is: LESSONS THAT WILL HELP US, WHILE THE ENEMY IS TRYING TO HURT US.
I would like to draw your attention to the Word of the Lord as penned by the Hebrew writer in Hebrews, chapter 12, verses 4-11:
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, " "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives." It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have be-come partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the perfect fruit of righteousness. (12:4-11).
“LESSONS THAT WILL HELP US, WHILE THE ENEMY IS TRYING TO HURT US.”
THE SUBJECT I WANT TO DEPOSIT INTO YOUR ACCOUNT THIS MORNING...WHEN GOD HAS HIS HAND ON YOU.
INTRODUCTION
All the Jews to whom the book of Hebrews was written were undergoing persecution because of their break with Judaism. It was coming from their Jewish friends and relatives, who resented their turning their backs on the religious customs and traditions in which they had been born and raised. The readers had been reminded about "the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly, by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated” (10:32-33). Even the unbelieving Jews who were involved with the church must have suffered because of their association with Christians.
The affliction had largely been in the form of social and economic pressure, though some of them had been imprisoned (10:34). We can imagine the arguments they heard for rejecting the new faith. "Look at what you have gotten yourselves into. You have become Christians and all you have had are problems, criticism, hardship, and suffering. You have lost your friends, your families, your synagogues, your traditions, your heritage—everything."
It is difficult, from time to time, to understand that as Christians we will find ourselves in some “interesting” storms. What is even more important is to understand that the storms that come in our lives are allowed by the permissive decree of God. You remember Job, and how it was God Himself who singled Job out for the challenge of His faith by Satan. God, metaphorically, put His hand on Job! Not only did God put His hand on Job, but God, to this day, puts His hand on us! In the text, some believers perhaps were wondering why, if their God was a God of power and of peace, they were suffering so much. "Why are we not winning out over our enemies, instead of our enemies seeming always to have the upper hand? Where is the God who is supposed to supply all our needs and give us the answers to our questions, and fulfillment to our lives? Why, when we turned to a God of love, did everyone start hating us?"
The last section of chapter 11 begins to answer questions like these and also provides a foundation for the exhortations of 12:4-11. Suffering for God’s sake was nothing new. The saints of the Old Covenant had known what it was to suffer for their faith. They faced warfare, weakness, torture, beatings, imprisonment, stonings, destitution, and every sort of affliction—all because of their trust in the Lord (11:34-38). And despite all this, they did not receive the fullness of blessing promised to believers under the New Covenant, such as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the knowledge of sins completely forgiven, and peaceful consciences. These heroes of the past "did not receive what was promised," yet they endured valiantly and "gained approval through their faith" (v. 39). They faced afflictions in the right attitude, which is what the readers of Hebrews are counseled to do—to run the race of faith as their forefathers had done (12:1).
More importantly than this, they were to fix their eyes on Jesus, who had given up more and suffered far more than any other. One of the reasons He "endured such hostility by sinners against Himself," was that His followers might "not grow weary and lose heart" (12:3). They could look to His example for strength.
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. (12:4)
None of the suffering Hebrews to whom this letter was written had endured what Jesus had endured. None had given his life for the gospel. Nor had any of them lived an absolutely sinless life as Jesus had done, living in perfect obedience to the Father, and thus deserving no punishment at all. On the contrary, some of their suffering was deserved and was intended for their spiritual discipline and growth. Now stay with me now, because I’m really trying to get you to see something here. Every one of us will encounter some rough seas. Some times it comes from God. Sometimes we bring it on ourselves. But regardless as to how the rough seas come, God still seeks to be our Captain. He wants to maneuver us through the storms of life so that we come out on the other side better than when we went in. Friends, and even church folk, will abandon your ship when it looks like its going down, but we have the abiding promise of God, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. We have the promise of God, I will never leave you nor forsake you here! Understand this now....it is not on the calm sea that we wonder about the presence of the Lord...it is in the howling winds of the rough sea, and He tells us, He assures us, “Batten down the hatches, put on your raincoat, hold on tight, and don’t you leave me, ‘cause I ain’t leavin’ you!”
The key word of 12:4-11 is discipline, used both as a noun and a verb. It actually comes from a greek phrase or term which denotes, or signifies whatever parents and teachers do to train, correct, cultivate, and educate children in order to help them develop and mature as they ought. It is used nine times in these eight verses.
[DISCIPLINE, From the Greek paideia, which, in turn, comes from pais ("child") and denotes the training of a child.]
If you follow along with the imagery, or the picture the Hebrew writer is using, the figure changes from that of a race to that of a family. Christian living involves running, working, fighting, and enduring. But at the same time, it also involves relationships, especially our relationship to God and to other believers. The emphasis of this passage is on the heavenly Father’s use of discipline in the lives of His children.
Purposes of Discipline
God uses hardship and affliction as a means of discipline, a means of training His children, of helping them mature in their spiritual lives. He has three specific purposes for His discipline: retribution, prevention, and education.
We must realize that there is a great difference between God’s discipline and His judgmental punishment. As Christians we often have to suffer painful consequences for our sins, but we will never experience God’s judgment for them. This punishment Christ took completely on Himself in the crucifixion, and God does not exact double payment for any sin. Though we deserve God’s wrathful punishment because of our sin, we will never have to face it, because Jesus endured it for us. Neither God’s love nor His justice would allow Him to require payment for what His Son has already paid in full. and so then, in discipline, God is not a judge but a Father (Rom 8:1).
I. The Hand of Punishment
We experience some of God’s discipline as the direct result of our sin, but the punishment is corrective, not judgmental. It is punishment, to be sure, but not of the sort that unbelievers receive.
Because of his lust for Bathsheba and the resulting adultery and murder, God severely punished David. Most other kings of that day did this sort of thing, and worse, as a matter of course. It was considered to be a king’s prerogative. But, no matter what any culture tolerates, none of God’s people has a prerogative to sin, not even His own anointed king who was a "man after God’s own heart." In fact, those who are especially blessed and enlightened by God have less justification for sinning. Consequently, God disciplined David, not out of wrath but out of love. David’s sin did not cost him his salvation, but it cost him dearly in the loss of an infant son by Bathsheba, and in countless heartaches from several of his other sons. He went through years of anguish that otherwise he never would have experienced. Through the prophet Nathan, God told David that because of this sin (really a series of sins), "Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife" (2 Sam. 12:10).
Yet David was a better man because of God’s discipline. God had a purpose in the discipline—to draw His servant closer to Himself, to convince him not to sin again, and to help him grow and mature.
We see this same picture recurring in the life of Jonah. Jonah disobeyed God, and the Bible says that God “prepared a fish!” (Jonah 1:17).
If I had the time, I’d tell you that that fish represented God’s love. That fish represented God’s tender mercy. That fish represented God’s presence and His discipline in the lives of His Children. You are blessed when God prepares for you a fish! Ain’t no joy in the fish! Ain’t no light in the fish! Ain’t no future in the fish! But I tell you, when God prepares the punishment, it is not punishment for punishment’s sake! It’s punishment to make you, to mold you, to shape you. We’ve got to understand this thing! That’s why so many church folk fall by the wayside and fall out of the church when “fish time” comes. They can’t find a handful of good church folk to pray for them and with them, that God lets that fish cough them up! Ya’ll better stay with me, now! I know some of you are saying, “Well, if he had a done right, he wouldn’t be in the fish! Well, I’m the “Keep it real preacher” from the “Keep it real church!” Some of those who talk the most and the loudest got the smell of fish all over them, and they don’t even realize it. They’ve gotten immune to their own smell! ARE YOU HEARING WHAT I’M SAYING? When we discipline our children, even for something serious, we do not put them out of the family. We discipline them to correct their behavior, not to disown them. Neither does God put us out of His family when He disciplines us, His children. He wants to draw us deeper into the fellowship of His family.
It is often as hard for us to see the good in God’s chastening us as it is for our children to see the good in our chastening them. But we know that, because He is our loving heavenly Father, He will not do anything to harm us. His discipline may hurt, but it will not harm. It is the best thing the Lord can do for us when we sin. It restrains us from repeating the sin.
God says that when His children "forsake My law, and do not walk in My judgments, if they violate My statutes, and do not keep My commandments, then I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes" (Ps. 89:30-32). But the other side of the promise of punishment is the promise of faithfulness to His covenant. "But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him, nor deal falsely in My faithfulness. My covenant I will not violate, nor will I alter the utterance of My lips" (v. 33-34). When God chastises, He is not rejecting but correcting.
II. The Hand of Prevention
Sometimes God disciplines in order to prevent sin. Just as we put restrictions and limits, and sometimes literal fences, around our children to protect them from harm, so God does with us. We do not allow our small children to play in busy streets, or play with matches, or splash in the swimming pool without someone to watch them. God also puts fences around His children to protect them. What seems to us a terrible inconvenience or hardship may be God’s loving hand of protection.
If the apostle Paul was anything he was self-disciplined. He was also genuinely humble, always careful to give the Lord credit for anything good or miraculous that he did. Yet Paul tells us that God gave him a "thorn in the flesh" for the specific purpose of keeping him from exalting himself (2 Cor. 12:7). God allowed this "messenger of Satan" to "buffet" Paul not because His beloved and faithful apostle was proud but to keep him from becoming proud. The thorn in the flesh was sent to protect his spiritual well-being. Paul did not enjoy the thorn, and pleaded earnestly with the Lord on three occasions to remove it. But when God assured him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness," Paul gladly accepted the thorn, in fact boasted in it (vv. 8-9). He learned that not only this thorn but also many other hardships and afflictions were being used by God to make him better. It caused him to be able to make this declaration: "Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong" (v. 10). Because the Lord’s discipline made him better, Paul thanked the Lord for it. It is one of God’s blessings, though not as attractive as some of the others.
Our sickness, lack of business success, or other problems may be God’s way of keeping us from something much worse. If God’s children accepted His preventive discipline more willingly and gratefully, He would have much less need for administering His corrective discipline.
III. The Hand of Education
Besides punishing and preventing, God’s discipline also educates us for better service and better living. It will teach us, if we will listen to what He is saying through it.
First of all, discipline can help us better know God’s power and sufficiency. Sometimes God can get our attention better through affliction than through blessing. Prosperity has a way of making us feel self-satisfied and independent, while problems often make us more aware of our need for the Lord. We need Him every bit as much when things are going well as when they are not, but often we do not feel our need for Him until we face our own helplessness.
By God’s own declaration, Job was "blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil" (Job 1:1). Yet God allowed him to suffer pain, loss, grief, sickness, and ridicule that make Paul’s thorn in the flesh, whatever it was, seem insignificant by comparison. Just as Paul’s thorn, Job’s afflictions were messengers of Satan and came upon him with God’s approval (1:12; 2:6). Job went through his horrible sufferings and "did not sin with his lips" (2:10).
Job’s discipline was clearly not punishment; nor was it prevention. It was sent to educate Job further in the ways and character of the Lord. It was a slow process. Job did not sin through all his suffering, but he was hard put to explain it. He kept trying to figure out on his own why he was having such a hard time. He knew it was not because of sin, and he knew that God was not wicked or capricious. But he was not willing to accept his suffering. Job endured it, but he did not accept it, until, after two long lectures directly by God, he acknowledged he did not need to know the reason behind everything that happened to him. God is sovereign and omniscient and omnipotent. What Job learned through his trials was not the reason for them but that God is supremely great and marvelous. He learned "things too wonderful for me, which I did not know," and confessed to his Lord, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees Thee; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes" (42:3, 5-6).
Through his great and seemingly unending suffering Job had been given a magnificent view of God. He experienced His holy majesty, His deliverance, His care, His power, His counsel, His defense—all through His discipline. Job also learned a great lesson about himself: that his wisdom was not God’s wisdom. He learned to trust God for who He is, not for what he himself could see and comprehend. When we see God better, we see ourselves better.
Discipline can also teach sympathy for others. Again Job’s experience is a perfect illustration. "And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends" (42:10). Through his troubles, Job saw God more clearly, himself more clearly, and others more clearly. He became more sensitive and understanding. He learned a great deal in God’s school of suffering.
When we have troubles, problems, heartaches, we should ask ourselves—better still, ask God to show us—if He is disciplining us as punishment, as prevention, or as education. When we ask, however, we should remember Job and realize that God may not show us the reason as quickly or as clearly as we would like Him to. We can always be sure that His discipline will correct us, protect us, or instruct us. Whatever the reason, it will be for our good, and we should be thankful.
What I’m trying to do this morning, brothers and sister, friends and visitors, is speak peace to your soul and give you some comfort for your journey. Whatever you are experiencing, you are not the first, and you will not be the last. What you are experiencing is a speed bump on your road to glory. There’s an old adage...”you have to pay your dues”, another one is “no cross, no crown...no pain, no glory.” Jesus endured what He endured, according to verse 2 of this very text, for “The joy set before Him!” Don’t you ever forget that while we celebrate Resurrection Sunday, there was a Crucifixion Friday. And let me speak this clearly to you this morning...You can’t have a Resurrection Sunday, without a Crucifixion Friday!
It might be Friday in your troubles. Friday in your circumstances. Friday in your situations. Friday in your turmoil. Friday in your upheaval. Friday in your frustration. Friday in your disappointments. Friday in your pain! Friday in your shame! Friday in your sorrow! It’s Friday now, but Sunday’s coming!
BEHOLD! Says Jesus in Revelation 2:10! “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful...
Only faith can bring us to appreciate discipline, whatever the kind. We are able to see behind the scenes in Job’s ordeal because Scripture gives a vivid picture of the workings of both Satan and God. But Job had no knowledge of this. As far as we can tell from the Bible, Job went to his grave not knowing exactly why he had to suffer as he did. When he finally acknowledged God’s sovereign omnipotence and goodness in it all, it was by faith. He came to see God more clearly (42:5) but he was not shown the whys and wherefores of his problems more clearly. When we understand and trust God more deeply, we are content with whatever limited knowledge He gives.
There is so much more in the following verses of this text, but in a summary form, let me tell you that when we are disciplined by God, and of course we have to look at our trials, difficulties and storms with a new perspective, but when we are disciplined by God, it proves two things.
It proves, 1) That we are sons [and daughters] of God, and it proves 2) that God loves us. It also give more meaning to the words, “Please be patient with me, God is not through with me yet!” There is a word, at the close of our selected text this morning, a special and significant word...
AFTERWARDS...
Look again at the text, real quick, verse 11:
Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Momma whipped me for stealing...but afterwards, I don’t steal no more! I know somebody knows what I’m talking about!
Daddy locked me out one night for coming in too late, but afterwards, I started getting home on time!
AFTERWARDS!
When its all over but the cryin! AFTERWARDS, when the “fat lady” has sung! AFTERWARDS, when you’ve hit rock bottom! AFTERWARDS, when your face has been pushed down in the dirt! AFTERWARDS, when you’ve lost all you had! AFTERWARDS, when your friends and loved ones have discarded you like trash on the roadway of life! AFTERWARDS, when you stand face to face with the reality of your failure! AFTERWARDS, when you’ve humbled yourself like clay under the hand of the Mighty Potter...IT YIELDS WHAT GOD INTENDS FOR IT TO YIELD! PEACEABLE FRUIT! WHEN JONAH WAS COUGHED UP BY THAT FISH, HE DID WHAT GOD COMMANDED HIM TO DO! THAT’S PEACEABLE FRUIT! LISTEN TO ME, PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM! THERE IS A PURPOSE BEHIND EVERY PROBLEM! A PLAN BEHIND EVERY PAIN! THE FACT THAT GOD PREPARED A FISH FOR JONAH WAS PROOF ENOUGH THAT GOD STILL LOVED HIM, ASND BECAUSE HE LOVED HIM, HE CHASTENED HIM! GO THROUGH YOUR NIGHT. HOLD ON TO GOD IN YOUR NIGHT! STRETCH OUT ON HIS PROMISES IN YOUR NIGHT! AND JUST REMEMBER..WRITE IT DOWN, STAMP IT ON YOUR FOREHEAD IF YOU HAVE TO! TATOO IT ON YOUR ARM IF IT WILL HELP! BUT REMEMBER, WEEPING! GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY, I SAID WEEPING ENDURES FOR THE NIGHT, BUT JOY! WONDERFUL JOY; JOY! UNSPEAKABLE JOY; JOY! TRANSFORMATIVE JOY; JOY! RE-CREATIVE JOY; JOY COMETH IN THE MORNING!
HBRCB.
