Definition, Necessity, God-like Character

Introduction: The Importance of Nurturing Children in Chastening and Admonition

0:02 How not to foul up the training of your children. This is cassette number 10 in a series given by Pastor Albert N. Martin in the adult Sunday school class of the Trinity Baptist Church on March 17, 1991.

0:18 While others are taking their places, let me express my thanks to you for your prayers on my behalf. As you can hear, I'm still not out of the woods. I came through the whole winter without picking up any colds or any of the flu bugs, but as I indicated last Lord's Day, something was coming on me from last Thursday onward, a week ago Thursday, and it's had me pretty much shut up all week. And it was the elders' judgment that to attempt anything more than the class would be unwise, and I'm thankful for their judgment, which I did not find it difficult to embrace.

0:59 And I'm grateful to at least have the opportunity to minister to you in this adult class this morning. I don't have anything that's life-threatening. It's just a bug that settled in the bronchial areas and throughout the head, and I've been on antibiotic for a week, and I'm giving the Robitussin people good business and trying to do everything one is supposed to do in the use of legitimate means, the best of means are, but means at best, and ultimately it is the Lord who heals all of our diseases and renews our health. So I would ask your continued prayers.

1:41 It's not an easy thing to be in this kind of situation where your mind is not very productive and you look back over a week and say, Can I say it's good for me to have been afflicted? What have I learned? What good has come? And I find that often I have more fuel for repentance and confession, and then I do for praise after such a week.

2:03 But I do thank you for your prayers. Now we come this morning to our tenth lesson in a series now entitled, How Not to Foul Up the Training of Our Children. And in addressing this vast and crucial subject, we have spent a number of weeks focusing our attention on the tremendously important issue of what I have called the spiritual world. The spiritual and emotional climate which we create and maintain as the context of the more formal discipline and training of our children.

2:41 Using the analogy of the deadly effects of radon and invisible particles of asbestos suspended in the air, we have sought to demonstrate that the climate of our homes must be free of such spiritual and emotional radon. And asbestos as hypocrisy and sham, these ought not to characterize our own religious experience, but rather spiritual reality and sincerity should be the climate that we create in our homes with reference to spiritual issues. And that at the emotional level,

3:23 there should not be the toleration of the spiritual or emotional radon and asbestos. There should be the protest of coldness, distance, rejection and ill-will, but rather a climate of emotional warmth, closeness, acceptance and goodwill. And all along the way, we have sought to demonstrate that God himself is the great and perfect pattern for our parenting. Now today, we shift our focus from the basic climate of the home, that we've been dealing with, a climate that ought to characterize,

4:04 as we have seen, the three major groupings of people within that home, the husband and the wife, and then the parents, the relationship between the siblings or the children. Now we shift our focus today from the climate that under God ought to characterize a home where we don't want to foul up the training of our children, to begin to focus upon the two major means given to us in the will of God

4:43 for the molding of our children according to the will of God. And those two major means, of course, are set forth in Ephesians 6 and verse 4. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, but nurture them. That word nurture takes within its scope providing them with everything necessary for their development into their God-given potential by nature and grace, by common grace and special grace, if God is pleased to confer.

Defining 'Chastening' (Paideia) as Physical Discipline

5:19 Nurture them in, and then two major means are set before us, in the chastening and the admonition of the Lord. And what I want us to do as we now shift our focus for these remaining weeks hoping to complete this present series by the end of the month, I want us to turn to Ephesians 6-4 to do a little more careful study of this passage because I'm convinced that unless you as an individual believer can take this passage and stand your ground intelligently with some knowledge, with some knowledge of the meaning of the words

6:02 and being able to give a reason for the meaning you attach to the words, sooner or later you will be shaken from the clear teaching of the word of God given the increasing aggressive emphasis that is coming from many, many quarters against the biblical concept that chastening and admonition, that is, physical punishment and discipline, and verbal instruction are the major means ordained of God for the molding of our children. So now we look at Ephesians 6 and verse 4. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,

6:46 but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. Now, the word chastening translated here in the 1901, as chastening, is the word paideia. And its first cousin in the verb form, that's the noun, is paideuo. So you have the two words, paideia and paideuo.

7:17 Now sometimes the word, both the noun and the verb form, refer only to training or instruction in general. For example, 2 Timothy 3.16, All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, for correction, for reproof, for correction, for paideia, for instruction in righteousness. Now there the word obviously has the broad connotation of training in general.

7:52 And the verb is used that way as well. In Acts 7.22, it is said that Moses was, trained or learned, paideuo, the verb is used, in all the learning of Egypt. And Paul speaks of his own training at the feet of Gamaliel.

8:11 Acts 22 and verse 3. And Titus 2.12 says, The grace of God hath appeared to all men teaching us. There's our verb again, training us.

8:24 However, while the noun paideia can mean training in general, instruction in general, and the verb to train, to instruct, yet there are contexts where the word cannot mean training in general, but means more specifically a form of physical chastening. Now the use of the noun and the verb in Hebrews chapter 12 especially, is one such passage. So I don't want you shaken if someone comes and says,

9:07 Oh, well, you've been taught that you're to nurture your children in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. Don't you know that the Greek word paideia means simply instruction? And then someone turns you to 2 Timothy 3.16, and then shows the verbal use in Acts, and you're thrown.

9:22 Well, I don't want you thrown. You can say, I'm fully aware of that. However, the same word is used in other contexts, where it, it cannot possibly mean training in general. And one such passage that brings together both the noun and the verbal use of the word many times is Hebrews chapter 12.

9:43 We read in verse 5, You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with sons. My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art reproved, but of him. Now, what is this chastening? Verse 6, For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and must be God's.

10:14 Every son whom he receiveth. Now, this word must be God's for scourging cannot in any setting under any context mean anything other than a figurative lashing or a literal scourging. It's the word. Used most frequently of the scourging, which our Lord Jesus received.

10:36 And they scourged him would be the verbal form of this word. So you see, in this setting, it is not instruction in general, but it is instruction particularly enforced by physical chastening. And he goes on to say, It is for chastening that you endure. God deals with you as sons.

11:01 For what son is there whom his father chastens not? But if you are without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate and not true sons. Furthermore, we have the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live?

11:27 For they indeed for a few days chastened us, as seemed good, to them, but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. Now this next verse is critical. All chastening seemeth for the present not to be joyous, but grievous. Whatever this chastening is, when it is being administered, it's always grievous.

11:51 Now general instruction is not always grievous. It is one of the most delightful things, even to a child, to come to a new level of learning. But whatever this chastening is, it always has the accompaniment of grief. You see that?

12:09 All chastening, all chastening, whatever the chastening is that he's talking about, all chastening while being administered is not joyous, but grievous. Yet afterward it yields peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness. Now because this word in many contexts has a more limited connotation of physical chastening, the Holy Spirit did not scruple to use the verb pi-duo in Luke 23, 16 and 22. And I want you to turn to that passage.

12:54 Now this is a little more detailed word studies than I generally give you, but I have a deep, burning, pastoral concern in doing this. I want you to be, able to give a reason of the hope that is in you when you are challenged with respect to the necessity of physical chastening as an essential element of the nurture of your children. Luke chapter 23 and verse 16. Context, our Lord is before Pilate.

13:27 And they are calling upon Pilate to pass a sentence of guilty upon Jesus. And Pilate says, verse 14, I have examined him. I find no fault in this man touching the things whereof you accuse him. No, nor yet Herod, for he sent him back unto us.

13:49 And behold, nothing worthy of death has been done by him. I will therefore pi-duo. I will chastise him. And release him.

14:03 Verse 22. And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him. I therefore will chastise him and release him.

14:19 And when he said, I will chastise, what was he saying? I will scourge him. So here, chastisement is used synonymously with scourging. Now, dear people, unless God the Holy Ghost who superintended the choice of words is out to throw a curve at us, which he has not done, he has given us his word as a lamp unto our feet, a light to our pathway.

14:46 Don't ever be moved by the sophistry of someone who quotes a little Greek to you and says, Ah, but don't you know the Greek word pi-dia? Noun and pi-duo verb simply means instruction in general. It has no definite and specific reference to physical chastening. I hope you will be able to open up your Bible and respond to it and respond intelligently and say it ain't necessarily so and instruct this person from the word of God.

15:19 And one final reference that again clearly shows that in certain contexts it means physical chastening in contrast to verbal admonition or correction is Revelation 3 and verse 19 where the risen Christ says to the Laodicean church, As many as I love, I rebuke, verbal, and I chasten. I spank them spiritually. I bring chastening upon those whom I love. And then if you need an additional linguistic argument in the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures, when you hear some of us who teach you refer to the Septuagint,

16:03 we're referring to a translation made from the Hebrew into the Greek about 200 B.C. and that was the common Bible. That was the King James version of the first century people of God in terms of an Old Testament in the Greek-speaking world.

16:20 And all the way through the Septuagint when the words for spanking or the use of the rod are needed. You know what word is chosen? Almost without exception, paiduo. In all of those passages in Proverbs that we'll look at in a few moments, the words for afflicting with the rod, sparing the rod, and the rod of correction in conjunction with the use of the rod, the word instruction or correction is this word found in Ephesians 6 for nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord.

Defining 'Admonition' (Nouthesia) as Verbal Instruction

17:04 And then the second word will take much less time to establish what it means, the second great means given to us for the nurturing of our children, chastening, Ephesians 6 for admonition, nuthesia. And it has a verbal form as well, nutheteo. And it means admonition, instruction, or warning. And it's always verbal and it is always authoritative and it is frequent and it is frequently corrective.

17:40 And that's how it's found in the various contexts in which it is used in the New Testament. Just one example that we could give among many, Romans 15 and verse 14. Romans 15 and verse 14. The apostle says, I myself am persuaded of you, my brethren, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another, confident of their moral goodness, that which is the fruit of the Spirit in them.

18:17 They were full of goodness, confident of their spiritual perception, filled with all knowledge. He believes that under the impress and impelling, goading pressure of moral goodness, joined to spiritual understanding and discernment, they have a God-given ability to admonish, to instruct, to warn one another, verbally to engage in a discipline that will tend toward mutual edification and progress in grace. We are told to admonish certain classes of people

18:58 in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Now, why have I taken the time? Well, because unless we are convinced in our own minds and hearts that in this pivotal text, Ephesians 6, 4, God has given us as the two main deposits of the means for the nurture of our children, chastening and admonition, we will not give ourselves to understanding the full-orbed biblical doctrine of what constitutes godly chastening, for it's to be chastening of the Lord, that is, godly chastening,

19:41 that derives all of its lines and all of its contours from the Lord who reveals His mind in Scripture. It is to be the chastening of the Lord and the admonition of the Lord. Unless we are convinced that these are the two major categories of means that God has given us for the molding of our children, then we will not apply ourselves with the necessary diligence to discover what constitutes godly chastening, godly admonition. We will not give ourselves to the implementation of godly chastening and godly admonition apart from the conviction

The Absolute Necessity of Physical Chastening

20:25 that God has no other major category of means that He has handed on to us, His children. All right? What I propose to do then in the next two weeks, finishing up this morning's time and then on into next week, is I want to set before you and my wife will bear witness to the hours of wrestling with the biblical data. I went back to my Bible, back to my concordances, back to my lexicons, determined that I would mine afresh from the Scripture the biblical doctrine of godly chastening and godly admonition.

21:05 And what I want to do in the remaining time this morning is cover the first two of three heads that we'll cover in the next two weeks. Number one, I want to demonstrate the absolute necessity of physical chastening in the nurture of our children. Secondly, the godlike character of physical chastening in the nurture of our children. And then, unless it grows from seven to something more or I can see an organizing principle that will reduce it to less, next week we'll look at that as the seven major failures in the physical chastening essential to the nurture of our children.

21:44 So number one, the absolute necessity of physical chastening in the nurture of our children. Now, of course, the first text that I would cite is the one we've already looked at in our introduction. If there were a way to nurture our children without godly chastening as a major means, the Holy Ghost would never have guided the apostle to say, Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them in the chastening of the Lord. If chastening were incidental, necessary only in certain exceptional cases of the so-called,

22:28 quote, strong-willed child, or some other category into which the experts place human perversity, then God would not have included it in a generic command addressed to fathers that is to be binding upon the people of God until the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. So its necessity could be rested down upon this one text alone, and as surely as no child is truly nurtured so that that child, after the pattern of Christ, grows in wisdom, stature, in favor with God

23:13 and with man, without godly admonition, so no child who is a fallen son or daughter of Adam can be properly nurtured without godly physical chastening. But I will not rest the case solely upon Ephesians 6 in verse 4, but I want you to follow as I read without comment or with very little comment the cumulative witness of one, two, three, four, five pivotal texts in the book of Proverbs. Now when I come to any of the texts where the term beat

23:57 with the rod is used, I'm not going to use the word beat because in our day the very word beat conjures up the idea of a father in uncontrolled anger thrashing at his kid with a club. And the whole concept of beating is filled with negative, rightly negative, connotations. The Hebrew word itself means to strike, does not mean to strike necessarily fiercely or with great force, it's even used of the son, beating down upon Jonah's head. That's the verb that's used

24:41 in the book of Jonah. So I'm going to use the word to strike or in a more what I would call paraphrastic sense the way the NIV renders it feeling this pressure and I'm not saying it was right to paraphrase it, maybe a footnote would have been better, use the term punish. But I'm telling you I'm not translating when I say punish but trying to convey the idea. All right?

25:07 Proverbs 13 and verse 24. And God willing next week when we deal with the seven major failures in the administration of the rod of correction we'll come back to every one of these texts and see the distinct contribution that each one of them makes to one of the potential areas of failure in the use of the rod. And that's what has fascinated me in my fresh study of these passages. But today we're simply trying to establish is it absolutely necessary to inflict physical punishment,

25:51 physical chastening upon our children if we love them and desire to see them properly nurtured. Ephesians 6, 4 has already answered and given his witness in the affirmative. Now Proverbs 13, 24. He that spareth his rod and hear the Hebrew word for rod is variously translated as a staff, as a stick, as a scepter, as a branch.

26:18 So it refers to a physical object with which to inflict physical chastening. So whatever the rod is don't think of it like a baseball bat but neither can you think of it as a combination of words or shutting someone else in a room. It is speaking of a physical object that is to be applied to the physical consequences of a child. He that spareth his rod hateth his son but he that loveth him chastens him diligently.

26:59 Proverbs 19 and verse 18. Proverbs 19 and verse 18. Chasten thy son seeing there is hope and set not thy heart his destruction. Nurture them.

27:21 Destroy them. You want to destroy them instead of nurture them? Then refuse to chasten them. Proverbs 22 and verse 15.

27:33 Rendering. Stages are bound up in the heart of a child and toughing it out will ride you through them. That's the modern version. Terrible twos.

27:56 Frightening fours. Stages are bound up in the heart of a child but toughing it out will ride you through them. Nonsense. Ungodly.

28:08 Humanistic. Abominable. Hellish. Nonsense.

28:14 Being promoted hour after hour over channel 13. Public television. Supposedly non-religious. That bearded guru that hour after hour has hundreds of people eating out of his hands is a humanistic devilish tool.

28:36 Abominates everything that the word of God says. And he's only one of many. Foolishness. And according to the scripture foolishness is not ho-hum funniness.

28:49 Silliness. Foolishness is moral perversity. Foolishness. Moral perversity is bound up in the heart of a child.

29:02 But the rod of correction shall drive it far. What is God's ordained instrument? To drive the moral perversity from the child? The rod of correction.

29:22 Chapter 23 verses 13 and 14. Withhold not correction from the child. For if you beat him now I'm going to change this. If you strike him with the rod or if you punish him with the rod he will not die.

29:43 Now you see how it bleeds that verse of its knee jerk call it consultations. If thou strike him or punish him with the rod he will not die. You shall strike him with the rod and shalt make him a twisted angry psychological misfit. Why do I say that?

30:15 Well that's the thesis of another guru by the name of Philip Grevin who teaches very close by at Rutgers University. And I made reference to his book reviewed in the New York Times a few weeks ago in which his major thesis is the roots of the anger that breeds in our society lie in the country's Judeo-Christian heritage which is so pervasive that the values and viewpoints shaped by centuries of tradition and practice imprint even areas that we believe to be most remote from religious convictions and traditions.

30:58 Mr. Grevin is telling us the rod of correction is the perpetrator of all of our national sins. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Withhold not correction from the child if thou strike him with the rod he will not die you shall strike him with the rod and deliver his soul from and then Proverbs 29 and verse 15 the rod

31:41 is almost what we might say the Old Testament parallel of Ephesians 6-4 just reversed God and reproof give wisdom but left to himself that is a child not nurtured on the one hand by the rod and on the other hand by reproof a child left to himself shall come to his full potential as a noble human being a child left to himself causes shame to his mother

32:24 the child left to himself not nurtured by the constant pressure of rod and reproof becomes such a horrible creature that he ultimately brings shame to his mother now I want to quote from Ward Law who has an excellent three volume commentary on the book of Proverbs and he says this after considering these texts from the wisdom of Solomon he says in their system of education some are for excluding the rod altogether but the

33:09 rod is not a rod it is a rod where the rod is always the rod and what the rod can be a rod they have been in the and the truths and precepts delivered by him are the truths and precepts of the Spirit of God,

33:47 we must beware of gainsaying any of his prescriptions in any of the various departments of duty. And I would add to that what the scripture tells us, that it was the Spirit of Christ who spoke in the Old Testament writers, the prophets, along with Solomon. It was the Spirit of Christ speaking through them as the church's great prophet. He has always been the one through whom uniquely the word of God has come to us.

34:20 And this whole book of inscripturated revelation closes in the last chapter with that frightening warning in Revelation chapter 22, verses 18 and 19. And we need in this area to ask God to write these words upon, I testify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, referring explicitly, of course, to the book of the Revelation, but implicitly to the whole body of divine revelation. If any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of the prophecy,

35:02 God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book. When you're tempted to excise the biblical doctrine of the absolute necessity of the sanctified use of the rod of physical chastening for the nurture of your children, remember these words. Take out God's words, any of them, and God will take your part out of the book of life. In the biblical doctrine of original sin, and total depravity and God's great wisdom and God's grace,

The God-like Character of Physical Chastening: Introduction

35:43 we dare not budge from this clear witness of the word of God. I hope these texts will be at your fingertips continually. Now, having demonstrated the absolute necessity of physical chastening in the nurture of our children, in the time that remains, I want to set before you what I've called the God-like character of physical chastening, in the nurture of our children. It is God-like to nurture our children by chastening.

36:16 Now, I have two reasons for making this a separate heading and taking the time to develop it. Number one, to show if chastening is essentially evil or unnecessary, then God is evil or unwise or is guilty of sadism. Sadism is the receiving of pleasure by inflicting pain upon others. Sadism is the receiving of pleasure by inflicting pain upon others.

36:41 Now, I want to demonstrate the God-like character of physical chastening in the nature of our children, and I want to do so, reason number one, to show if chastening is essentially evil or unnecessary. If there is a better way to train children, then God is evil, or he's unwise, or he is guilty of sadism. And then secondly, I do this to show that God must be our pattern for our chastening, and thereby lay the foundation for next week's lesson. As we look at the seven ways that we can foul up the training of our children in the use of the rod,

37:24 we'll see that in each of these ways except one, since God doesn't need that particular one, it is an aberration of the pattern of divine chastisement that exposes the failures in our administration. In our administration of chastening. Alright? The God-like character of physical chastening in the nurture of our children derives from the fact that God has always felt it necessary to chasten his children.

37:57 And I've chosen only texts where the specific words, the technical words for chastening or correction are used. I could find many instances where the thing is illustrated, but since the word is not used, I want to rest it squarely down upon God's own words. And what I want us to see in the fifteen, sixteen minutes that remain is that God chastened his children before the giving of the law, God chastened his children under the old covenant, and God chastens his children under the new covenant. So God ain't never had no spiritual children but what he's had is bank them.

38:38 So, if we think that we are wiser than God, or that chastening is evil, then we've got big problems with the God of the Bible. And we're going to have to go make another God. Because the God of the Bible is the God who is not only revealed as eternal, essentially, holy, omnipotent and omniscient, but he's revealed as the God who's never had children, but what he didn't have to put the rod on their behinds for their good and for his glory. So, if you don't want the God of the Bible with a rod in his hand, go make another God.

39:17 But remember, he'll be helpless to save you in the day of judgment. And you'll be like the God you worship. So if you have a God who has no rod, you'll be like him. And it's unlikely that you will have a rod properly administered in your own home.

God Chastens Before the Law (Job)

39:31 All right? Where does it teach us that God chastens his children before the giving of the law? Well, there's a lot of confusion and a lot of mis...

39:40 shall I say, a lot of uncertainty concerning who wrote the book of Job, when it was written, etc. But one thing is clear. All who've studied the book of Job agree that Job is to be fixed as far as the date of his life, somewhere in the period of the patriarchs before the giving of the law. He was a priest in his own house and performed priestly functions.

40:05 And we read in Job 5, verses 7 to 19, it says, In one of the answers given by Eliphaz the Temanite, these words, not everything these characters said was to be taken at face value, but there was much truth that they spoke. Much of their problem was they were applying general principles in a specific case that didn't fit. But now here in verses 17 and 18, we have a very helpful statement concerning our subject. Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects.

40:41 Or reproves. Therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. For he maketh sore and bindeth up. He woundeth and his hands make whole.

41:02 He will deliver thee in six troubles, yea, in seven. There shall no evil touch thee. Now it's obvious that this passage is not speaking of God's judicial wrath poured out upon the ungodly, but he's speaking of God's dealings with his own. Happy, blessed is the man whom God corrects.

41:27 Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty. And his chastening is obviously something that makes sore, that needs the binding up of his hand that afflicted us. He wounds and his hands make whole. And Job is one of the great examples of one who, though he was perfect and upright in his generations, that caused even God to brag about him in the presence of unseen hosts in heaven.

42:05 Yet it was by means of chastening, by means of chastisement, that the man is brought to a deeper understanding of God and of his ways. So God chastened his children before the giving of the law, and then he makes it very plain that he will chasten his children under the law, that is, under the old covenant administration. Several passages, Deuteronomy chapter 8, and this has peculiar significance because God places special emphasis upon it. Here in Deuteronomy chapter 8,

God Chastens Under the Old Covenant (Deuteronomy, Psalms, Samuel)

42:41 as God is underscoring the responsibilities that come with being the covenant people of God, the Lord says, Deuteronomy 8 and verse 5, And thou shalt consider in thy heart that as a man chasteneth his son, so Jehovah thy God chasteneth. And thou shalt keep the commandments of Jehovah thy God

43:23 to walk in his ways and to fear him. And then he goes on to say all of the good that God has purposed for his people as he brings them into the land of promise. But he said, one thing I want you to consider in your heart, don't ever forget it, that as a man chastens his son, so Jehovah thy God chasteneth. Very, very significant that God says that an integral part of his relationship to his children under the old covenant will be the administration of appropriate chastisement.

44:05 Then in conjunction with the Davidic covenant, Psalm 89, there's a very interesting nuance. Here God is speaking of his covenant with David, and in the midst of that he says, Psalm 89 verse 29, His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law and walk not in mine ordinances, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgressions with the rod

44:47 and their iniquity with stripes, but my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, that is, from David, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie unto David. Now, when this covenantal promise is picked up from its more generic statement here, applied specifically in the case of Solomon, notice the additional light in 2 Samuel chapter 7.

45:30 2 Samuel chapter 7. Remember now what we're trying to establish is that God has always found it necessary to use corrective discipline with his children. Chapter 7 verse 12, When thy days are fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, speaking to David, I will set up thy seed after thee, that shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, reference to Solomon.

46:02 I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men. Isn't that very interesting?

46:17 God wants us to understand what he's saying. He said, I will chasten in a way that has strict analogy with what men do in the chastening of their disobedient children. I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men, but my lovingkindness shall not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. So in its application to Solomon, God gives a more specific and detailed outline of what he will do.

46:55 And he says to David, in entering into this covenantal engagement, I will not take away my lovingkindness, and if there's disobedience, I will visit it with the rod of chastisement after the pattern of the chastisement of men. So as Matthew Henry so astutely observed, chastening is not in any way contrary to God's covenant love, but it grows out of it. It grows out of it. And then listen to the testimony of the psalmist.

47:29 Let's look at several of the psalms where the psalmist acknowledges the place of divine chastisement in Christian experience. Psalm 39, 7 through 11. Now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee.

47:53 Hear me from all my transgressions. Make me not the reproach of the foolish. I was dumb. I opened not my mouth because you did it.

48:02 Remove thy stroke away from me. I am consumed by the blow of thy hand. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth. Surely every man is vanity.

48:23 Here he says, O God, I have experienced your stroke and the blow of your hand as well as your rebukes. God was nurturing his child with chastening and with admonition. Over to Psalm 94. Wonderful passage.

48:46 And verse 12. Blessed, perfectly happy, fulfilled all the blessedness, is the man whom thou chastenest, O Jehovah, and teachest out of thy law, that thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity until the pit be digged for the wicked. For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. See the connection?

49:20 Between God's loving possession and care of his people and the blessedness of being cared enough that he will chastise us that we would not have our portion with the wicked. So the whole connotation in the psalmist's mind is not as this wicked, godless author tries to say that the rod of correction can only bring fear. And he has the nerve to quote the Bible. 1 John chapter 4.

49:50 Familiar words to us. Fear hath torment. Perfect love cast out fear. Where there's perfect love, there'll be no fear.

49:59 Wherever there's the rod, there can only be cringing fear. And with that fear, torment. Does this look like a tormented man who says blessed is the man whom you chasten? He's a man who's blessing God that he loves him enough to chasten him.

50:12 Blessed is the man whom you chasten. The Lord will not cast off his people. He says to be without chastisement, according to Hebrews 12, is to be like a bastard child that no one wants to own as his own. It's to be like a little waif that lives under the porch.

50:30 Nobody cares for. If you are without chastisement, then are you bastards. You're illegitimate children. God doesn't claim you because all of his children whom he claims, he loves enough to want to nurture them according to the pattern of his redemptive purpose to make them like Christ.

50:47 And he does so by chastening as well as by admonition, by correction, as well as by positive instruction. One other text in the Psalms, and we're coming near to the end of our time, is Psalm 118 and verse 18. Perhaps we could begin with verse 15, 14. Jehovah is my strength and song.

51:21 He has become my salvation. The voice of rejoicing in salvation is in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. The right hand of the Lord is exalted.

51:31 The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Jehovah has chastened me sore, but he has not given me over unto death. He's exalting in God.

God Chastens Under the New Covenant (1 Corinthians, Hebrews, Revelation)

51:48 He's praising and worshiping God. And he acknowledges that that's the God who has chastened him sore but has preserved him from death. Now, very quickly, does God chasten his children under the new covenant? Surely, with the intensified blessings of the new covenant, the full revelation of how God puts away our sin, the acme of new covenant privilege, being the adopted sons of God and having the spirit of adoption in our hearts, surely God doesn't need to chasten people under that covenant, does he?

52:21 Well, 1 Corinthians 11, 32 answers. 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 32. And it's very interesting that this statement comes in the very context of instruction concerning the new covenant supper of remembrance. Very interesting, isn't it?

52:40 It's in conjunction with a concentrated emphasis on the new covenant and the new covenant supper of remembrance that we are told in 1 Corinthians 11, 32, when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord in order that we may not be condemned with the world. God's chastening is part of the means he uses to keep us from a condition that would otherwise demand that he damn us with the world, the world of unbelieving and ungodly men. God chastens his children under the new covenant. And in the context, he says, that chastisement is come to expression,

53:25 verse 30, for this cause many among you are weak and sickly and not a few sleep. In other words, God was putting forth his hand in touching people's bodies and even bringing some to a premature death. But he was doing that that they might not be judged with the world. And then, of course, the well-known Hebrews 12, 5 to 10 passage, which I've already alluded to, and I will simply underscore those words that are so powerful, inescapable in their implication.

53:59 Hebrews chapter 12, verse 7 and 8, it is for chastening that you endure, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father chastens not? He says it's unthinkable that you would have a father possessed of any degree of common grace who would not see the need of chastening his son. And if you are without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate children and not sons.

Conclusion: Embrace God's Pattern for Chastening

54:31 And then Revelation 3, 19, as many as I love, if we're within the orbit of free, sovereign, electing, distinguishing love, as many as I love, I rebuke and I chasten. Now what do we say then, as we've looked at the God-like character of physical chastening in relationship to the nature of, to the nurture of our children. The God of infinite wisdom, eternal distinguishing love, this God does not scruple to say, that he does not raise his children without chastisement. Therefore, don't be a fool

55:14 in seeking to be wiser than God. Don't be a knave and take God's action as justification for carnal chastening. Don't be arrogant and think you know a better way. Don't be so proud that your child is such an exception that all these verses need to be qualified out of existence in the case of your kids.

55:39 Stop that nonsense and say, Oh God, I will have my conscience held captive to the word of God. I close with this brief quote from Bridges. Having read his comments on all of these verses in Proverbs, they are choice comments. Bridges' commentary on the book of Proverbs, which ought to be a household companion in every household here in this assembly.

56:05 Listen to what he says, showing that God himself is the great disciplinarian. Like as a father, he pities his children. As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you. Yet when his children need chastening, though the flesh cries, spare.

56:22 Though every groan enters into his heart, he loves so well that his soul spares them not for their crying. He uses the rod, yea, if need be, heavily. He will wither their brightest comforts, children or property, if they turn them to idols, and this not for his pleasure, but for their profit. And what child has not blessed him that God did not refrain his discipline till it had done its perfect work?

56:53 Is not this then our pattern and our standard, setting out the sound principle of Christian education? Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, lest they be discouraged. But let not the rule, chasten, spare not, be a hard saying. Is not tenderness for the child a cover for the indulgence of weak and foolish affections?

57:20 There's much more mercy in what seems to be harshness than in false tenderness. There is much more mercy in what seems to be harshness than in false tenderness. Let the child see that we are resolved, that we are not to be diverted from our duty by the cry of weakness or passion. Far better the child should cry under healthful correction than that parent should afterward cry under the bitter fruit to themselves and children of neglected.

58:01 Dear people, God himself is the great disciplinarian and I hope having established from these many texts that discipline, physical chastisement is an absolute necessity in the nurture of our children and that such chastening is God-like in its very essential character when it is done according to the will of God that we will have a solid biblical, textual, theological foundation for the righteous administration of the rod of correction in the training of our children. And if what I've given you this morning

58:44 doesn't provide that foundation, I'm sorry, I don't know what else to say to you. If that will not persuade you, I believe you simply are determined not to be persuaded. So may the Lord help us and then help us to help others and as you then seek to pass on to your children that your dealings are not arbitrary, you will have a handle upon these texts and these perspectives and these passages will be working stuff in your hands as you seek to administer a righteous rule in your home. Let us pray.

59:21 Our Father, we do bless you for your love that has often been expressed in your chastening hand upon us. We thank you you've not left us to be little waifs running about following our sinful impulses, uncorrected and unchecked. We thank you that you love us enough to chasten us wisely, with compassion, with purpose, and we pray that you'd write upon our hearts the things we have considered this morning and give us grace to work out their implications in the power and in the strength of the Spirit. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

60:05 You have been listening to How Not to Foul Up the Bible. We ask you not to foul up the training of your children by Pastor Albert N. Martin. These cassettes are distributed by the Trinity Book Service.

60:14 If you would like a free listing of other audio cassettes and books, please call us at 1-800-722-3584. Or if you prefer, you can write us at the Trinity Book Service, Post Office Box 569, Montville, New Jersey 07045.