| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 3 |
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Take the matter of chastening. It is always painful, but we know that the object of our Father is our good, the correction in us of things that are wrong, and the bringing out in us of qualities of divine beauty which otherwise would not be developed. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews puts it very plainly in a remarkable passage. He reminds us that we are God’s sons, and exhorts us not to regard lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor to faint when we are reproved of Him: “For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth… God dealeth with you as with sons.”
Referring to our acceptance of the chastening of earthly parents, he says: “We had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us as seemed good to them; but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.” The wisest and most loving earthy father may not always chasten either wisely or lovingly, but whatever chastening our heavenly Father may minister to us, we know that He has in mind only our good, our profit. Then follow these words which interpret for us the purpose of all the trials that God sends into our life: “All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous, but grievous: yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.”
The teaching is clear and positive. Painful in the human experience as it must always be, we know that in its outcome chastening always works good. We do not know how much we owe to suffering. Many of the richest blessings which have come down to us from the past are the fruit of sorrow or pain. Others sowed in tears and we gather the harvest in joy. We should never forget that redemption, the world’s greatest blessing, is the fruit of the world’s greatest sorrow. In our own personal life it is true that in all chastening our Father’s design is our profit, and that suffering rightly endured yields the fruit of righteousness.
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