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Text: hebrews 12:5-12
Paul is talking to Hebrews as a nation. The context is tribulation and the final seven years required on the nation according to Daniel 9:24. Hebrews 1 gives the time frame as the last days. These are important to note so you understand the context of what you’re reading. When Paul says ye have forgotten it is because as a nation there are some wondering why things are happening the way they are.
Voice of chastening
- …nor faint when thou art rebuked… (vs 5)
- In the form of an enemy
Pain of chastening
- …scourgeth every son… (vs 6)
- Chastening is an indication that the child is loved.
- Proverbs 19:18 Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.
- There will come a time when the rod will not work hence the instruction to administer the rod while there is hope. Secondly, no chastening is joyous to anyone, parents or children, but not only are you not to spare the rod but you are not to spare your own feelings about the rod.
- Spankings affect the heart like touching a hot stove affects the heart by affecting the DESIRE to never touch it again. See also Proverbs 20:30 for this connection.
- The rod teaches the child judgment and consequences. That is spiritual truth being taught in discipline. Without consequences the child will be trained that he or she deserves everything and will get away with anything. See also Ecclesiastes 8:11 for this truth.
- Proverbs 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.
- The philosophy of the world is in direct opposition to the wisdom of God. The world says to “Express yourself” and let the child be expressive, don’t stop them from learning their way. Those ideas constitute what God calls a “child left to himself”. The result is grief and shame to his mother.
Accepting chastening
- …endure chastening… (vs 7)
- Otherwise people get defensive and never learn
- Or they say, “Why me” and fail to find value in it
Without chastening
- …what son is he whom the father chasteneth not… (vs 7)
- According to some dads, they just don’t have to spank their children.
- …if ye be without chastisement… (vs 8)
- God requires obedience from your children, so don’t hinder the work of God by not expecting the same. God says more about a parent hindering the obedience of their children than any other.
- 1 Samuel 3:11-13 Eli’s passive fatherhood
- 1 Timothy 3:4-5
- 1 Kings 1:6 Adonijah was not chastened
- Hebrews 12:6-8 – Chastening, or the administration of pain in order to align the will of the child with the will of the parent.
- Expecting obedience otherwise you’re training them to be disobedient.
- Enforcing obedience
- Distraction, not discipline.
- Training behavior is training the heart.
- Example: If I bribe my child in order to get the behavior I want then I am training that child to respond to bribery. I’m not teaching them to be obedient.
- Example: If I don’t enforce something when I say I’m going to, then I’m training them to be disobedient. Counting to 3 or wait until I’m yelling to enforce are all bad ideas.
Subjective chastening
- …they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit… (vss 9-10)
- God said sometimes parents correction doesn’t have anything to do with God’s commands, but that didn’t matter. God still put children under parents.
Benefits of chastening
- …nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit… (vs 11)
- Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
- Proverbs 23:13-14 Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
- Benefits of the right attitude
- Commandment with promise..
- Obedience is growth
- Obedience is opportunity
- Obedience is success – Proverbs 10:17 – reproof is the way of life
