The Discipline of God

Hebrews 12:5-11

     Study brings us tonight in our continuing study of Hebrews to the 12th chapter, and in this particular portion, we come to a very, very significant subject.  The title of our message tonight is "The Discipline of God."  "The Discipline of God," and I really believe that if an individual gets a grip on the truths of this subject, that it can become a changing experience and changing facts in his life.  We need to understand what God is doing in our lives, in our suffering, and in our trial, and in our trouble; and I think this passage, as clearly as any and others that we shall bring into comparison, can give us that information; and so I encourage you to stick with it.  Get your mind in gear, and learn as the Spirit of God teaches us together.

     Now, as we come to the 12th chapter, we need to get a running start, because that sets the stage for what we're going to study...The Hebrews to whom this epistle was written by an unknown author, the Holy Spirit, of course, being the unseen writer, but the Hebrews in this epistle are undergoing persecution, and the persecution was coming about as a result of their break with Judaism; and it was coming from their Jewish relatives and friends; and they were unduring...they were enduring some very difficult times.

     In chapter 10 verse 32, the Holy Spirit says, "But call to remembrance the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great fight of affliction, partly while you were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly while you became companions of them that were so used." 

     Now, here, the writer simply says, "It has been your history and your experience to be in affliction, to be in persecution," and, indeed, it was so.  They were being pressured particularly by the ostracizing from society that left them as almost nomads, people without a people, a nation without a nation; and they were being pressured strongly by their Jewish friends and relatives to forsake Christianity and go back to Judaism; and it was very easy for the friends to say to them, "You see, can't you see the fallacies of Christianity?  You've accepted what you think is true, and look at all the trouble you've gotten yourself into.  You've become a Christian, and look at the mess.  Look at the persecution and the trial and the affliction and the suffering that you've gone through.  You claim to have had the answer in the new covenant, this Messiah Jesus.  Where are the changes?  You're still suffering.  You're still going through trial greater than every because you've been ostracized from your families, your homes, your society, your friends."

     And so it was a...it was a tremendously heavy pressure.  The community of Hebrews included those who were truly saved, those who had really committed themselves to Jesus Christ; but they were having a hard time making a clean break with Judaism because of these threats of these persecutions.  They were hanging onto Judaistic function.

     On the other hand, some of these addressed in the Book of Hebrews weren't saved at all.  They were intellectually convinced.  They believed in their heads, not in their hearts; and they, of course, were in danger of going right back to Judaism and being apostates, which is a person who has all the light and, against full light, makes a full rejection; but the primary target of these words as we shall look at them is to the saved who are going through some terrible trials, some real sufferings, some Tribulation, some anguish, some affliction.  And lest they think that this is something bad within Christianity, and unless they begin in their minds to disqualify Christianity on the basis of trouble and say, "Well, I thought Christianity was a happy thing.  I thought there was supposed to be joy.  I thought there was supposed to be peace.  I thought God was supposed to take care of us and supply our needs and give us answers for our questions, and...and smooth the way and etc., etc.  Now I've got all this trouble and, worse than I had before, I've got everybody I used to love hating me."

     Now, it's important that they understand the meaning of suffering.  It's important that they understand what suffering has to do with Christianity and what part it plays in the new life in Christ; and it's a...it's a marvelous thing to begin with that he has already prepared the ground for what he says in chapter 12 in chapter 11, because in 11:35, he began a recitation