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This verse is taken from:
Deuteronomy 8. 1-7
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“search the scriptures” John 5:39
The subject verses recount the faithfulness of God towards His people during the wilderness journey. God also reminds them that along the way, they had experienced His fatherly chastening, v. 5. The idea of chastening not only embraces the application of correction or punishment, but it also includes the idea of teaching and guiding in the way that one should go. Indeed, immediately following the reminder of His fatherly chastening, we read, ‘Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him’, v. 6. Undoubtedly, the chastening was linked to keeping the commandments of the Lord. This principle of fatherly chastening is repeated in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where we read, ‘For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth’, Heb. 12. 6. The writer goes even further to suggest that if we are without chastisement, then we are not sons, Heb. 12. 8.
When the chastening of God comes into our lives, there are several ways in which we can respond. We can despise it, or faint under it, Heb. 12. 5. Or, we can be exercised by it, Heb. 12. 11. An illustration can be drawn from the realm of ornithology. In the event of a storm, the duck is quite unaffected by it - it despises it. The hen becomes miserable, and faints under it. But the eagle spreads his wings on the blast and uses the power of the storm to soar to even greater heights. This is the Lord’s desire for us, that we should be ‘exercised thereby’. The Lord reminds us, ‘every branch that bringeth forth fruit, he purgeth it, that it might bring forth more fruit’, John 15. 2. Purging, or chastening, is never intended to be destructive, but productive in the believer’s life.
May the Lord help us to accept that chastening is normal in the Christian life, and indeed a token of the Father’s love. May He also help us to accept whatever He might think best for us.
Faint not Christian! though thy God,
Smite thee with the chastening rod,
Smite He must with Father’s care,
That He might His love declare.
[J. H. Evans]
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