Suffering is hard to handle. None of us like it. Usually, we can handle it better in ourselves than having to watch friends and loved ones go through it. We were just like our children, and we ask why not only for ourselves but for others. If they're not careful, we try to inform others why they are suffering. Be careful. The Bible teaches three reasons or three types for suffering.
1. Job’s type: to test or show our faith. 1 Peter 1:6-7, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
2. Jesus’ type: suffered because he was godly. 1 Peter 4:12-16, John 15:18-19, Matthew 5:10-12
3. Jonah’s type: he suffered because he was disobedient and rebellious. This kind of suffering is asked for. The Bible calls it chastisement. Hebrews 10:30-31, Psalm 94:12, Hebrews 12:5-17
I. The Ministry of Chastisement, Why
1. To prove our son ship.
a. Proverbs 3:12
b. God will never disown us. 1 Peter 1:23, Ephesians 4:30
c. God has the right to chasten us. Deuteronomy 8:5, 2 Samuel 7:14
d. God has a reason for his chastisement.
1) It is for our profit.
2) If you are living in sin and God is not chastising, you I would read Hebrews 12:8 very carefully.
2. To purge from our sin. verses 10 and 11
a. look at Jonah, what if God would never have chastened him?
b. What if God had not chastened me?
c. We learned to stop sinning and start obeying.
3. To promote our sanctification. Verse 10
a. To make us holy. 1 Peter 1:15-16, Ephesians 1:4
b. To bear fruit. John 15:1-2
4. God is not afraid to discipline his children as some fathers are.
a. I don't know about you, but I fear God.
b. He knows only as you are holy that you're going to be happy.
c. The most miserable person here today is that Christian living in sin outside the will of God.
II. How Does God Discipline us?
1. Three ways.
2. Rebuked
a. Verse 5, this is the gentler side or the easiest form of chastisement.
b. 1 Timothy 5:20, word means to convict. When we bow for prayer, He convicts us.
c. Word means to reprove, revelation 3:19. through the preaching of the word.
d. I believe God always uses this method first.
e. The gentle persuasion of conviction through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
3. Chastening
a. Verse 5-6, we get our word education or teaching from this word.
b. The word denotes the training of a child, including instruction, discipline, correction.
c. Sometimes rebuking is not enough, discipline and correction must come.
4. Scourgeth
a. Verse 6, when rebuking does not work when chastening does not work God must scourge.
b. There's nothing gentle about this, nothing tender.
c. Scourging carries the applying of the whip. A whip made of leather straps with pieces of bone or lead in the tips of it. Matthew 27:26, mark 15:15
d. God has used this whip on me.
e. When a child of God persists in his sins, backsliding, rebellion, God will and may take you home.
1) 1 Corinthians 5:4-5
2) 1 Corinthians 10:8-10
3) 1 Corinthians 11:28-32
III. What is God Trying to Say to Me?
1. First, it should be a word of comfort, verse 6.
a. The doctor's hand that holds the knife and cuts is because he loves us. It is for our good.
b. Hebrews 12:11, no chastening for the present he seems to be joyous.
c. Where would you and I be if God had not chastened us?
d. Car always desert as a father and not a stranger. It's done in love!
2. It should be a warning against carelessness in our living, verse 12 and 16.
3. Are you suffering today? According to Hebrews 12, are we asking for it?
4. God will not let his children live in sin and get by with it.
5. Don't make God use the scourging. Come make things right.
a. 1 John 1:9
b. Proverbs 28:13
c. Proverbs 29:1
