For The brethren and sisters in Christ, all life’s experiences are controlled by their Heavenly Father. Either He causes them or He allows them to happen. We can never tell if an event is specially caused by God or not, but we can be confident that nothing can happen which the Lord does not know about and which cannot be used to our benefit. The Apostle Paul, after saying that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28), goes on to give great comfort, with the words: “If God be for us, who can be against us?. . . Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (8:31-37). All experiences, therefore, should be understood within the setting of the chastening of the Lord, teaching us obedience and increasing our appreciation of the work of God in Christ.
Just how experience can chasten us under the providential Hand of God is the subject of this article. The key scripture is Hebrews 12:5,6: “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth”. No chastening is enjoyable at the time, yet it is “for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness” (v. 10), and it “yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (v. 11). The benefits of suffering do not just happen of their own accord. We have to be “exercised” by experiences, and it is therefore necessary for us to appreciate what chastening means.
The reference to the chastening of a son by the Father in Hebrews 12:5,6 is a quotation from Proverbs 3:11,12. If we trace back the theme from Proverbs 3 we come in turn to two other passages: Deuteronomy 8 and Job 5. These passages contain two important examples of chastening.
Chastening in the wilderness
Deuteronomy 8:5 states: “Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee”. This teaching is directly taken up in Proverbs 3:12, so directing us to God’s dealings with Israel to provide an understanding of chastening.
The first principle comes out in Deuteronomy 8:2,3: “thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger”. The sufferings, or tests of obedience, came to Israel because they followed the angel of His presence. The Lord led them into circumstances, each one of which tested their faith. They were not forced to follow, and in that respect could have avoided the suffering. This is the context of chastening; it is suffering which arises because we follow the path to the Kingdom.
A second principle follows on from this. The circumstances which provided the test were not necessarily specially created by God for Israel. The Lord led them into an environment which was naturally testing. It was likely that the wilderness could not naturally sustain an army of people with water and food. The Lord did not have to create a famine or a drought to cause Israel to hunger or thirst. All that was necessary was for Israel to be led into the wilderness, and they would soon run short of food and water. This shortage God allowed to continue for a while so that Israel might be tested.
The situation would not necessarily be unique to Israel either, so that an unbeliever who heard about Israel’s difficulties in the wilderness might well have put it down to natural, even predictable, factors. Here there is a close parallel with our lives. Our sufferings are rarely beyond the ordinary experiences of others. The outsider may see nothing exceptional about our troubles. But the Lord does not need to use supernatural experiences to test us. He allows natural events to take their course or leads us into problems which others may also suffer. What is peculiar to the disciple is that those circumstances are providentially suited to improving character according to the will of God.
This last point is taken up by the Apostle Paul after he had referred to the lessons to be learned from Israel in the wilderness: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able” (1 Cor. 10:13). Each of us will differ in our ability to withstand difficulties. One brother may seem to lead an uneventful life, but the tests he needs according to the purpose of God may be more subtle and less obvious. Another brother or sister may seem to be facing numerous major crises. It is not for us to judge why there is such a difference, and it would be wrong for us to infer reasons why one person may need more overt chastening than others. The Lord Jesus suffered more than anyone, yet he was sinless. It is sufficient for us to accept that the Lord is working with us as individuals according to our unique characters.
The particular example of suffering given in Deuteronomy 8 is hunger, and it was a test designed to teach Israel to depend upon the provision of God. The test produced a reaction in Israel to turn back to Egypt: “Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full” (Ex. 16:3). If we begin to consider whether we should turn back and give up the struggle, it will help if we recognise that the trying circumstances we find ourselves in are in fact the ways in which the Father is proving us to see if we will keep His commandments.
The test to rely upon the providence of God was one which was a daily experience for Israel: “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no” (Ex. 16:4). Day by day Israel had to trust in the Lord to provide. Do we recognise the daily test to trust in the Lord? It is perhaps more difficult for us to think in terms of a daily provision because wages, salaries and allowances are paid week by week or month by month. But the manna signified more than physical food. It was symbolic of the Word of God. The Father suffered them to hunger in order that they might “know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live” (Deut 8:3). In the pattern of Israel’s testing, the Lord may shake us out of a false security in this life which may derive from our job, our home or our health. The chastening of redundancy or illness may remove our confidence in our own strength and throw us onto the love and mercy of God, making us more ready to feed upon the Word of God day by day.
At the same time that God was suffering Israel to hunger He was also protecting them and providing for them in other ways. Deuteronomy 8:4 follows on from the ‘proving’ with a recognition of the providential care of the Father for His children: “Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years”. Similarly we should recognise that despite our daily trials there is always evidence of the protecting arm of the Lord. Sometimes indeed in our trials we may see evidence that the Lord has intervened and prevented our complete destruction: “God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
The chastening of Job
Proverbs 3:11 directs our thoughts to the book of Job. The verse is in part a quotation from the speech of Eliphaz which is recorded in Job 5:17: “Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty”. The suffering of Job is the great example of individual chastening in Scripture. The book itself is an explanation of the purpose of suffering in the life of a disciple, and Job is typical in many respects of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The explanation which Job’s friends gave for his suffering was completely wrong. They assumed that suffering was the punishment of God on sinners, and since Job suffered greatly he must have committed serious sins. Eliphaz, when unable to convince Job of this, even goes to the extent of asking: “Is not thy wickedness great? and thine iniquities infinite?” (22:5); and he goes on to accuse Job of the most severe wrongdoing. The truth about Job’s chastening was quite the opposite. Job suffered, not because he was sinful, but because he was “a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil” (1:8). The greatness of the trial of Job was a measure of the greatness of his character. Even the loss of his possessions and children did not break his composure. Only the addition of bodily disease was sufficient to test his character fully.
We should learn from this that it would be very wrong for us to suggest that a brother or sister deserves the difficulties into which they have been plunged. Job’s friends thought they knew that Job had committed some sin to deserve his suffering, yet in the end they needed Job to offer sacrifices for their sin.
As the book of Job proceeds it becomes clear that whilst Job at the outset was perfect and upright he needed chastening to prevent him trusting in his own righteousness. In this trial Job revealed a weakness which without correction may have taken him away from the Truth. Elihu saw it this way: “he justified himself rather than God” (32:2). Instead of pleading his innocence, Job should have recognised the inscrutability of the wisdom of God and accepted His will. Elihu described the right attitude to suffering: “Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more: that which I see not teach Thou me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more. Should it be according to thy mind? He will recompense it, whether thou refuse, or whether thou choose” (Job 34:31-33).
In Job 33 Elihu gives an account of the nature of chastening, and though it is a difficult passage to follow there are important points which emerge clearly. In verse 14 he refers to two ways in which God communicates with man: “For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not”. The word “perceive” conveys the idea of being aware of the process by which God speaks. It is most often translated “behold”. The two methods by which God speaks are unseen. The first is by dreams or visions: “In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that He may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man” (vv. 15-17).
God has in times past revealed His purpose to men through dreams, such as those given to Joseph, the butler, the baker, Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the great tree in Daniel 4 is an example of the Lord working to “hide pride from man”. Such dreams were clearly unusual. The recipients knew that the dreams were special and needed interpretation. Interpretation only came through prophets such as Joseph and Daniel. Nowadays there is no evidence that the Lord speaks to us through dreams, and the modern parallel is to be found in the Scriptures, which are the product of the visions revealed to God’s prophets and apostles. Through the Word of God we are kept back from the pit (v. 18).
The second means of communication from the Lord is given in verse 19: “He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain: so that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat. . . “(vv. 19,20). Here Elihu makes a direct allusion to Job’s afflictions, interpreting them as chastening. But verses 23,24 show that the suffering required an additional factor to be beneficial: “If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness: then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit I have found a ransom”.
Though this passage may seem obscure there is a strong suggestion of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ as interpreter or mediator who provides a “ransom” or atonement for the sufferer. The result of the Lord accepting the atonement is as follows: “His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth” (v. 25), language which is readily associated with immortality. If this is a correct interpretation of Elihu’s speech then he is showing Job that his suffering is in fact the Lord speaking to Job, and that Job can find the meaning of this message through an “interpreter” or mediator. Elihu plays the part of the mediator and brings us back to the central theme for the servants of God in affliction the work of the Lord Jesus.
The conclusion of Elihu’s argument in Job 33 is that the experiences suffered by Job at the hand of God were not unique to him: “Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man” (v. 29). The purpose of the chastening was “to bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living” (v. 30). The Lord was working in Job’s life to purge Job of hidden weaknesses of character so that he might be fitted for the Kingdom of God.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One