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Hebrews 12:8
Comments
The alternative is a terrible one. The child values his sonship above everything else. There is a commitment in the heart of the father towards the child that will continue to own the child through thick and thin. The most terrible pronouncement that the child could hear from the lips of his father would be, ‘I disown you. I no longer regard you as my child.’ That commitment to the child persists, even though the father is faced with a prodigal son. God has put a deep bond in the heart of every parent towards their child in spite of our being evil. How much greater is the love of our perfect heavenly Father towards every one of his children! It is the world of unbelievers that is abandoned to their sin. Paul tells us in Romans 1, ‘Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts.’ This is how God treats those who are not his children. He deprives them of the most beneficial influence he could have on them – his parental discipline. Sin is allowed to get worse and worse in them, and certainly its consequences will not be any the less because there was no restraint on it. Men and women are allowed to plunge themselves into wickedness which is where they wish to go, but afterwards they will deeply regret that God handed them over to their sin because of the judgment that it brings with it.
Application
Even when we are under chastisement, there is a right way to behave. We never, never allow ourselves to become resentful, but we strive to cooperate even with the sternest forms of chastisement. We remind ourselves of the Lord’s patience in what led up to this, and our own intransigence. We remind ourselves that ‘he hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him’ (Psalm 103:10-11). We ask God to make us submissive so that the effect of them on us is not wasted and even more severe does not follow.
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