Jehovah's Witnesses Straight Talk - Forum/Blog

What? God Chastens and Scourges those He Loves!

Heb.12:6 For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives."{Proverbs 3:11-12}
12:7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn't discipline? 12:8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children.

The idea of being chastens, and scourged is a very violent concept, why would God be so harsh on his own children? There must be a very serious defect in all of us in order for God to take such drastic measure?

Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Jer.17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?
17:10 I, Yahweh, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.

Moreover, if we read the history of Christianity its frightful to read of the violence done to first century Christian's. Even the apostles of God died a violent death, Christ himself under went such a violent terrible death. Yet, all these witnesses that have went before us thought of such trials as God's discipline, expected as Christ followers. The acceptance of such thinking is completely foreign to this world.

2 Corinthians 11:2 For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I married you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

1 Corinthians 4:12 We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure.

Most were plundered of their homes, lives, lively hood, families, and friends, and like Job of old, they understood if God allowed such trials than something good for them in their faith would come of it.

Matthew 10:34 "Don't think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn't come to send peace, but a sword.

Luke 1:79 to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace."

Luke 2:14 "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men."

Resentment of Discipline

1Pet.2:19 For it is commendable if someone endures pain, suffering unjustly, because of conscience toward God.
2:20 For what glory is it if, when you sin, you patiently endure beating? But if, when you do well, you patiently endure suffering, this is commendable with God.
2:21 For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you{TR reads "us" instead of "you"} an example, that you should follow his steps,
2:22 who did not sin, "neither was deceit found in his mouth."{Isaiah 53:9}
2:23 Who, when he was cursed, didn't curse back. When he suffered, didn't threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously;

We've all witness very famous people being removed from their position, the proud arrogance displayed is so common in all of them they've earned creditably and shouldn't be corrected, or disciplined for their actions. They are above being corrected; they are in charge of making the rules, and they don't apply the same to them as those under them.

Psalms 40:4 Blessed is the man who makes Yahweh his trust, and doesn't respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.

Psalms 138:6 For though Yahweh is high, yet he looks after the lowly; but the proud, he knows from afar.

Subsequently, resentment ensues it is human and ugly, but we all have it, its just easier to see it in those at the top! The point is, when we feel entitled then resentment of being corrected goes hand and hand. Imagine if you will a Christian's at the top, looked up to by his peers being scourged by God? Well, thats exactly what happened to Christ, there was none higher, but to his onlooking disciples and seeing Christ hung on the Roman torture sake appeared to them that God was against Christ His own Son! Nothing in their mind could have imagined such a horrific thing, let alone God would allow such a humiliation onto death for Christ in his flesh!

Isa. 53:1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? 53:2 For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form nor comeliness. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
53:3 He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn't respect him.
53:4 Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.
53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
53:7 He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn't open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is mute, so he didn't open his mouth.
53:8 He was taken away by oppression and judgment; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?
53:9 They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
53:10 Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Yahweh shall prosper in his hand.

Now we are faced with a harsh reality, Christ flesh was perfect and ours is not! If Christ could no ascend above the Jehovah's discipline, where does that put us?

The Flaw of Fleshly Thinking

The flesh believes into its every fiber of its being that once obtained to a certain position through trials none should follow. In other words its over, it has past the test, and anything less then get respect and credit, is an unfair judgment, an undeserved injustice, not something its needs.

Rom. 9:19 You will say then to me, "Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?"
9:20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?"{Isaiah 29:16; 45:9}
9:21 Or hasn't the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? 9:22 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction, 9:23 and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, 9:24 us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?

As stated the apostles of Christ were fleshly, they had not received the yet promised Holy Spirit so they believed in that game also. That is, what Christ had gained along with them in his many trials in their flesh with Christ on earth they had earned blessings and respect, which meant? They should not be humiliated like a common criminal in front of the people.

Such extreme discipline of Christ shook them to the fearful core of their flesh!

Mark 14:27 Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of me tonight, for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.'{Zechariah 13:7}

No Gain in The Flesh for Christian's

John 6:63 It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life.

There are no gains, (merit) in our flesh, in Christ. In other words, a brother build up a business, a home, and a reputation in the community those gains are not in Christ, those gains are in his flesh but not in Christ. Those gains are not part of the treasure in the heavens, and it does not mean those works gives him better standing in Christ or with God as taught by false religion and expected by false religion as proof of God's blessings.

Mark.10:28 Peter began to tell him, "Behold, we have left all, and have followed you." 10:29 Jesus said, "Most certainly I tell you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land, for my sake, and for the sake of the Good News.

But if we think it is, then God disciplining us after all the trials and prayers to achieve such status we are left hopeless, and in a state of shock.

1 Peter 4:12 Beloved, don't be astonished at the fiery trial which has come upon you, to test you, as though a strange thing happened to you.

1Cor.3:18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise. 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He has taken the wise in their craftiness."{Job 5:13}
3:20 And again, "The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is worthless."{Psalm 94:11} 3:21 Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,
3:22 whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours, 3:23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Such has been the case with many person that believe God had directed them into a certain religion only to be ruined in reputation, lost of friends, family, and even their lively hood destroyed, when God's discipline is allowed to come upon them as it was allowed upon Christ and all this apostles.

Heb. 5:7 He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear,
5:8 though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered.
5:9 Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation.

If we believe there are gains in our flesh in Christ, and we think God has promised them too us on this earth then certainly the fiery trials that burns them up is very strange, confusing, fearful and resentful indeed! None will stand, in Christ, for he is a consuming fire when it comes to gains and thoughts of our flesh. That is our judgment, resentful or not, it can't change because God must and will judge all those on earth, as if by fire, when everything mankind has built, invented, found, discovered, worship will hiss by the fire of Christ Jesus righteous life being revealed.

2Pet.3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

God does not exempt us from the same judgment. None of God's anointed should think they will get to a certain point in their faith making them exempt from God's discipline - it never ends, because we are still in our flesh, moreover, our flesh constantly and proudly mixes the things the flesh builds on this earth into Christ and his kingdom!

Gal. 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. 5:17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.
5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

James.4:1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members? 4:2 You lust, and don't have. You kill, covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask. 4:3 You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.

When fiery trials come and they must of necessity come to separate the truth of God from the lie (the flesh) we should be thankful because there is something that God needs to fix in our spiritual life.

Heb. 4:12 For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 4:13 There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

The Tent of Our Flesh

Our tent of our flesh should be stamped: temporary, not of God, vanishing very soon, don't trust in this tent that demands permanents in our carnel mind of foolishness. This is not your home, it a prison, and in tribulation most of the time!

Rom. 8:7 because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God's law, neither indeed can it be.

1 Peter 1:24 For, "All flesh is like grass, and all of man's glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls;

The tent is part of this world, and all that is gained in it and through it must perish as the tent must perished. Satan and wicked spirit force have no power over the Spirit in the tent, but the tent itself they can take, mislead and misuse.

1Cor.3:11 For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ.
3:12 But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble;
3:13 each man's work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man's work is.
3:14 If any man's work remains which he built on it, he will receive a reward. 3:15 If any man's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.

Christ conquered death, and Hades, he took the power away from Satan by killing our fleshes judgment. As long as Satan can keep us in a constant state of condemnation in our flesh he has control of or minds and misleads us into all manner of trying to perfect in our flesh to redeem our guilt of our flesh.

1 Peter 3:21 This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you--not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This is why God discipline comes upon us, it destroys any confidence in our flesh, we may resent that discipline, but without it we will thinking we can make ourselves better by cleaning the filth of our flesh up into righteousness, a lie!

Nothing on this earth in the flesh for God's anointed will not be shaken and exposed to the very core proving its not of God. God first cleanses his own name in those that are his children. Not for our name sake, that is, in our flesh, but for his name sake and glory.

1 Peter 4:17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. If it begins first with us, what will happen to those who don't obey the Good News of God?

Submitting to God's Discipline

The power of God's discipline bewilder us, as it did Christ when hung upon the torture staking, in asking why God had forsaken him! The power of such cleanses and sanctification is beyond what any human in the flesh can endure. The flesh cannot endure at all in the Spirit of God.

So we fail the test in the flesh, which humiliates us in our flesh, but has nothing to do with purifying the spirit. What we believed was important, what we thought we could obtain to, what we thought being hard on ourselves wouldn’t prevent, didn't! In fact, what we thought was important to God wasn't!

Isa.40:17 All the nations are like nothing before him. They are regarded by him as less than nothing, and vanity.
40:18 To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him?

Isa.6:5 Then I said, "Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of Armies!"
6:6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar.
6:7 He touched my mouth with it, and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin forgiven."

We find ourselves in a raging sea, nothing can save us, our direction is confused, our sight, mind, all the things that we uses normally are being tested as if by fire. So we cry out! God why have you forsaken me!

He hasn't, but the thoughts of our flesh are not helping us, the flesh thoughts have forsaken us, the ones we thought were of God, they don't exist in God, and they will be exposed and destroyed as if by fire, which is, Christ Jesus our righteousness. Our logic will not stop the fire, our logic won't change a things, no matter how much we think we've gained, we haven't at all.

Matthew 13:12 For whoever has, to him will be given, and he will have abundance, but whoever doesn't have, from him will be taken away even that which he has.

Now we have been render dead before God, we have nothing to stand on, we have nothing to present too God, we don't exist, not even our prayers help. Then God at this point of complete helplessness steps in with what? A kindness!

Rom.8:36 Even as it is written, "For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter."{Psalm 44:22}
8:37 No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

We are at square one, where we were at our anointing, nothing we did made us anointed, or we could say: “this is what I am, this is what I did, so God anointed me!” Nothing and never will be in this flesh to save us or that we gain something in Christ by our works. We have not gain more merit then Christ if we been anointed 1000 years, or a day. Christ is the bank all merit comes from no human!

Romans 9:11 For being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls.

We are not of this world, nothing of this world gave us a new birth, not one thing. We are not to accumulate the things of this world and call them God's. It not hard at all to mislead our flesh, it is always weak because in not of God, nor can it please God. It no great thing that Satan has mislead the entire world of flesh.
Matthew 26:41 Watch and pray, that you don't enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Satan gives them wants, if the flesh is set upon a certain course, and it is the flesh of one God's anointed just give it to them, let them think God gave it too them all the better. The flesh will bitterly fight to hang on to those so called blessings to it own bitter end, that is, what the flesh does!

James. 4:1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members?
4:2 You lust, and don't have. You kill, covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask.
4:3 You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.
4:4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
4:5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously"?
4:6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."{Proverbs 3:34}
4:7 Be subject therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
4:9 Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

The flesh gains by control, the Spirit releases us from the power of the flesh. We are not grappling with our flesh to get a blessings from the Spirit, such thinking is so misleading there are no gains in the flesh for those in Christ. Hears why?

Romans 6:11 Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Colossians 2:12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Christ in our gain, we have already received all we can get from God in Spirit by being made a part of Christ life. Nothing lacks in Christ, Satan does not want you or me to know that. Its finished, completed in Christ, for God's anointed. We have received eternal life, Christ is in us, which should be proof enough.

1Cor. 3:21 Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 3:22 whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours,
3:23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

The flesh is of no value at all, nothing! The flesh can add nothing to the Spirit! Grappling with our flesh like Jacob did with an angel has already been done for us, for every anointed child of God, in Christ. We have the blessings in the Spirit, but not in our flesh. Most want the blessing in the flesh more than the glory of God in Spirit and truth.

Romans 8:5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Romans 8:6 For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace;

Romans 8:7 because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God's law, neither indeed can it be.

Romans 8:8 Those who are in the flesh can't please God.

Romans 8:9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.

Romans 8:12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

Romans 8:13 For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Moreover, this is why God destroy any confidence in our flesh when we undergoing our discipline. We cannot stop a scourging once its starts by saying we will do something for God in our flesh. We cannot say I will never do that again in my flesh if you promise not to spake me anymore?

James. 1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers{The word for "brothers" here and where context allows may also be correctly translated "brothers and sisters" or "siblings."}, when you fall into various temptations,
1:3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
1:4 Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

This confuses for most of God's children when having in trials in their flesh, because such thinking above is fleshly, or human wisdom. We cannot judge what we need in the Spirit by fleshly ideas. This is why Paul said he could not judge himself, and why Christ said not my will, but yours Father before being hung on a torture stake. The flesh has no power in any of God's judgments upon his children.

1 Corinthians 14:33 for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. As in all the assemblies of the saints,

Heb. 12:6 For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives."{Proverbs 3:11-12}
12:7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn't discipline?
12:8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children.
12:9 Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?
12:10 For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.
12:11 All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby.
12:12 Therefore, lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees,{Isaiah 35:3}
12:13 and make straight paths for your feet,{Proverbs 4:26} so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
12:14 Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord.

We submit to the discipline, but our flesh cannot! It must be destroyed. When we hear the words God is faithful, even when we are not sure exactly what is happening? What we are being told is the flesh cannot and will not submit to God's discipline, but God is faithful, and will not forget, or will not leave us. The flesh will every time!

Romans 8:7 because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God's law, neither indeed can it be.

This tribulation is momentary and light, it is what we are called to endure in, it not a scale of human justice, or a ladder of success we climb, we don't belong to ourselves and we cannot take head ship of ourselves back as if to say how much and how long we should endure? We must remain in grace, to remain in grace we have to rest from our justifying ourselves and all the reasons why we don’t belong in this trial; resting in full assurance of our salvation in Christ Jesus that is carefully guarded in heaven for us.

1 Peter 1:5 who by the power of God are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Romans 16:20 And the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Romans. 8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
8:32 He who didn't spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?
8:33 Who could bring a charge against God's chosen ones? It is God who justifies.
8:34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
8:36 Even as it is written, "For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter."{Psalm 44:22}
8:37 No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
8:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Completed: July, 07, 2021

by: Daniel a Slave in Christ Jesus