George Craig
Hebrews 12:5. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him.
We are cautioned against two extremes into which afflicted people are prone to fall: to disregard God’s chastisements, and to despond under them. In order to incur the guilt of despising the chastening of the Lord, it is not necessary for us to cherish conscious contempt either of God or of His dealings with us. Many are guilty of this sin who would shrink with horror from the idea of mocking God’s providence. Indeed, this sin assumes so many forms that we may easily commit it without being aware that we are guilty.
In some, it takes the form of studied indifference to trouble. Though such indifference may be sanctioned by worldly fashion, it plainly implies contempt of Him who has endowed us with an emotional nature and requires us to feel our sorrows, so that we may be made better by them. In others, it appears in a habitual tendency to separate God from their trials. The chastening may not itself be despised; but the divine Chastener is as little recognised as though He had long ago exchanged activity for repose and left His world to work on by its own energies. A third class of people ignore the purpose of their afflictions; they acknowledge perhaps the providence of God in them but turn a deaf ear to the design of the rod and the duty to make good use of it. And a fourth group show the same unsoftened and unbelieving temper by restraining prayer in the time of adversity; they thus show that they lack any
1Taken, with editing, from The Christian’s Daily Companion. Craig (1805-1866) was minister of Sprouston, near Kelso.
true sense of dependence, any conscious need of heavenly help, any sincere desire for the blessed relief that the sorrowful obtain by pouring out their hearts before their God.
But the sin of despising the chastening of the Lord, whatever form it assumes, is grievously unbecoming in Christians. To be indifferent to the rod is daring impiety, even if God chastens only as an offended Sovereign, or as a righteous Judge. But is it in either of these capacities that He afflicts His people? Far from it! Hear the Apostle’s argument: “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord . . . for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth”. So it is as a Father that God afflicts – a kind and considerate Father who loves His children and, just because He loves them, does not spare the rod. And is it no presumption, no impiety, to despise a Father and a Father’s love?
Consider the case! The great God comes forth from His place to set in order a series of afflictive events for our benefit; He condescends to occupy His infinite mind in adapting them to our various circumstances. Yet, instead of seconding His design and showing gratitude for His condescension, we make as light of His corrections as if they were the result of chance, or as if all we had to do with them was to get rid of them! What blindness! What unthankfulness! What heartlessness! How marvellous is God’s mercy in still continuing to address to such hardened offenders the fatherly entreaty, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord”.
The case of those who run to the opposite extreme, of fainting under God’s rebuke, is perhaps worthier of sympathy but it is not less sinful. Depression usually appears in connection with heavy and protracted afflictions – unless its victims have a morbid temperament, and then they require the help of a doctor. And who needs to be told that it is difficult for flesh and blood to bear accumulated woe?
It is trying to be stretched prostrate on a sickbed, when the support of one’s family or the success of some favourite scheme imperiously calls for immediate and vigorous exertion. It is mysteriously trying to be laid aside from active duty and to have only the work of patience assigned to us, when our prospects of usefulness are bright and our desire to throw ourselves into them is ardent. No one who has not had his fondest hopes suddenly blasted, or the object of his warmest regard unexpectedly removed from his grasp, or the result of years of anxiety and labour consumed in a moment before his eyes, can form an adequate conception of the strong temptations which God’s people sometimes have to faint under their burdens, to weary of life, and to abandon themselves to despair!
Yet the sin of the despondent is not less grievous than that of those who
despise God’s chastisements. Does it also not imply disbelief of the providence of God? Does it not, equally with the other, involve disregard of the end of affliction? Above all, is it not accompanied with the same aggravation: contempt of a Father’s love? It is remarkable that the Apostle employs the same argument against both sins. He calls the children of God to avoid both, from the same consideration: that the Chastener is a Father, and the chastening is the result of paternal love.
He therefore virtually teaches that both are extremes arising from the same principles and involving similar guilt. Indeed what conceivable proof of the folly and guilt of immoderate grief can be so decisive as the fact that the believer’s heaviest trials, no less than his lightest, originate in the love of God and are administered with a special regard and adaptation to his needs and well-being? What could anyone wish for more, in his trials, than to have them measured out and superintended by an infinitely wise and gracious Being – One who knows what is best for him and who will not, like a foolish father, ruin him by ill-timed indulgence or weary him by unnecessary correction?
The true course for the people of God is to pursue the middle path between apathy and dejection. We are not forbidden to mourn, nor are we precluded from seeking the removal of our sorrows. But our grief must not be allowed to unfit us for duty, nor must we labour so much for their removal as for the sanctification of our trials. Let us ever strive then to make our sorrows tributary to our piety! While the trial lasts, let us possess our souls in patience.
And whenever we are tempted to faint or to murmur, let us thus commune with our own hearts and with God: Why should I repine? Am I not a sinner who deserves far more than I suffer? Am I not in the hands of a gracious Father who corrects in love, and will not inflict one pang more than is necessary? O my Father, let me ever trust Thy wisdom, and confide in Thy goodness! Let me ever, by the eye of faith, pierce the clouds and contemplate the bright heavens stretching away behind them! And let my hard and foolish thoughts of Thy providence give place to meek resignation and filial confidence and living hope – so that I may desire and have no will but Thine!