The Problems Part 1
REVELATION Number 46
The Problems Part 1
The next aspect of the Lord’s message to the Church as expressed in the letters to the seven Asian churches, is His admonishment about problems He sees. As we said in an earlier segment, the Lord sees the good, the bad, and the ugly, and for this we can be grateful. That He knows all these things gives us cause to trust Him when He says that we are holy, righteous, and blameless because it’s clear that He is in possession of all the facts and sweeps nothing under the proverbial rug.
Scripture has much to say about the Lord’s chastening of His children. Job 5:17 encourages us this way, “Behold, happy is the person whom God disciplines, So do not reject the discipline of the Almighty.” (NASB 2020) Likewise Proverbs 3:11–12 where we read, “My son, do not reject the discipline of the LORD Or loathe His rebuke, For whom the LORD loves He disciplines, Just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.” (NASB 2020) This may sound familiar because it is quoted in Hebrews 12:5-6.
In a coming segment, we will review this again because the Lord says this to the church at Laodicea, “Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.” Revelation 3:19 (NASB 2020)
Hebrews 12:7b–11 provides us what is perhaps the most detailed explanation of Father’s discipline in scripture. There we find, “God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” (NASB 2020)
Our heavenly Father is not abusive. He can be trusted to deal with us in Love. His character cannot allow harsh overbearing mistreatment of His children. Nevertheless, it remains true that none of us enjoy discipline or correction. We are well advised to notice here that He calls us to “be subject to the Father of [our] spirits and live.” The NET Bible translator note on this phrase points out that this is an echo from Proverbs, which teaches that “the Lord’s discipline brings Life, but resistance to it leads to death.”
It reminds me of Deuteronomy 30:15–20
“See, I have placed before you today life and happiness, and death and adversity, in that I am commanding you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, so that you may live and become numerous, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to take possession of it.
But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but allow yourself to be led astray and you worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you will certainly perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and take possession of it.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have placed before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding close to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, so that you may live in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” (NASB 2020)
God was addressing the Hebrew people here, and His references to the Law were applicable differently for them. They were under the covenant of the Law as handed down from God by Moses. We who live under the covenant of grace established in the blood of the Lord Jesus are not under the curse of the Law. But we are still charged with respecting and responding to the discipline of the Lord. This is how He causes us to grow up into Christ (see Ephesians 4:15) becoming mature children who are no longer tossed about by every wind of doctrine and every temptation from the evil one.
God is clear that He knows what is best for us. If we are honest, we know this. The Lord is faithful and trustworthy, He is Love and there is no evil in Him.
Knowing all this, we can look forward to His reproof, correction, and discipline because we know that this leads to the kind of maturity talked about in Ephesians 4:13–16. He will continue to equip us and build us up “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is, Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” (NASB 2020)
