Those I love I rebuke and discipline. Therefore be earnest and repent.As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.As many as I love, I reprove and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
5 sermons cite this verse
… in the beginning Jesus says, you nauseate me, you make me vomit, you make me gag. when you get down a little further he says and those I love I rebuke I chase and therefore do this and do that what is he saying you disgust me you nauseate me I look at your life and I see nothing good but that does not change my loving purposes for you you nauseate me but I still love you. You make me vomit, but I'm absolutely committed to you. There's grace. And then he says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone will open to me, I will come in, and I will eat with him and him with me. Now, you know, in ancient times, to come into someone's home and eat with them, to be invited in, was to be invited into intimate fellowship and friendship. what is Jesus saying here? You know, evangelists use this all the time to say, bring Jesus' salvation into your life. And you know, that's okay to use the metaphor that way, but that's not how it's used. This is written to Christians. What is he saying? …
You have often noticed his craftiness and said, "How wrong it was." Notice the chastisement that followed. If he had not been a man of God, the thing might have answered, perhaps, but as a man of God he must be chastened for it. "You only have I known," said God, "of all people of the earth. I will punish you for your iniquities." There is no punishment for the Believer in the world to come, but in this world there are chastisements that will surely follow upon every sin. "As many as I love will I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent." And especially in family sin—family troubles will come up with a terrible harvest if we once fall—perhaps it might be but once—into some family transgression. Fathers, people of God, take pains to rule your households in the fear of the Lord! Mothers, pray for Grace that in your families you may never lead any of your sons or daughters in a wrong path! Sons, ask for Grace that you may have the blessing! And if you are godly sons, deal wisely with your ungodly brothers, never letting them have to say that you were harsh, or overbearing, or unjust to them as Esau could truthfully say of his brother, Jacob. But rather be more tender to them, give up more to them, be more kind with them than you would have been if they had been Christians, if by any means you might yet win them over and they might be brought to know the Savior. Oh, for a family in which there is constant prayer—family in which every child may safely follow the father's example—a family in which the parent's life shall always encourage the child to follow their example! Oh, for God-fearing households! They are the strength of the Church! They are the glory of the nation! God loves the tents of Jacob well, and there will He command a blessing, even life forevermore, where brothers dwell together in holy unity. Now as for Esau (one final word about him)— IV. THE UNGODLY SON WHO MISSED THE BLESSING. …
Alas! so it is; not only does the world not imitate such a temper of mind as this; but, if the truth must be spoken, it despises it. As regards, indeed, our Lord's instance itself, the force of education, habit, custom, fear of each other, and some remaining awe, keep the world from reflecting upon the notes of character which the Gospels ascribe to Him, but in His followers, it does discern them, it understands and it condemns them. We are bidden lend and give, asking for nothing again; revenge not ourselves; give our cloak when our coat is taken; offer the left cheek when the right is smitten; suffer without complaint; account persons better than they are; keep from bitter words; pray only when others would be impatient to act; deny ourselves for the sake of others; live contented with what we are; preserve an ignorance of sin and of the world: what is all this, but a character of mind which the world scorns and ridicules even more than it hates? a character which seems to court insult, because it endures it? Is not this what men of the world would say of such a one? "Such a man is unfit for life; he has no eye for any thing; he does not know the difference between good and evil; he is tame and spiritless, he is simple and dull, and a fit prey for the spoiler or defrauder; he is cowardly and narrow-minded, unmanly, feeble, superstitious, and a dreamer," with many other words more contemptuous and more familiar than would be becoming to use in Church. Yet such is the character of which Christ gave us the pattern; such was the character of Apostles; such the character which has ever conquered the world. "In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in watchings, in fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true, as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful yet alway rejoicing;"--these are the weapons of our warfare, "which are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds." These are despised by the world, but they have subdued the world. Nay, though they seem most unmanly, they in the event have proved most heroic. For the heroical character springs out of them. He who has thrown himself out of this world, alone can overcome it; he who has cut himself loose of it, alone cannot be touched by it; he alone can be courageous, who does not fear it; he alone firm, who is not moved by it; he alone severe with it, who does not love it. Despair makes men bold, and so it is that he who has nothing to hope from the world, has nothing to fear from it. He who has really tasted of the true Cross, can taste no bitterer pain, no keener joy. …
It is so in great things. He set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the children of Israel. When you read God's Word, Egypt comes upon the stage—Assyria, Babylon, Greece and Rome. Yet what are they but a sort of background? They come and they go, for all their secular grandeur, as mere accessories. The central figure is always the Election of Grace—the people of God—for the rest, they are merely the plowmen and the vinedressers for the Lord's own people. Sometimes these nations are nursing fathers. At other times they are sharp rods. Whichever they may be, they are mere instruments. The Bible speaks of them as so much scaffolding for the building of the living temple in which the mercy of God shall be displayed! Whenever you read, or hear people talk about prophecy, you may depend upon it that Inspiration has not been given to tell of Louis Napoleon, or any other earthly Sovereign. It is not the history of Prussia, Russia, or France that the heavenly Apocalypse unveils. The whole Book is written for His people—it gives us the history of the Church—but it does not give us the history of anything else! The way to read the Book, if you do read it, is with this central thought in your minds—that God has not revealed to us anything concerning Assyria, Babylon, Greece, or Rome for their own sakes—but He has referred to them because they happen to have a connection with the history of His Church. That is all, for He has chosen Jacob to Himself and Israel to be His peculiar treasure. My Brothers and Sisters, I believe that when kings and potentates meet in the cabinet chamber and consult together according to their ambition, a Counselor whom they never see pulls the strings and they are only His puppets. And even when armies meet in battle array, when the world seems shaken to and fro with revolutions and the most stable thrones quiver as though they were but vessels out at sea, there is a secret Force working in all. The end and drift of these momentous actions is the bringing out of the chosen race—the salvation of the blood-bought company and the glory of God in the redeeming of the world unto Himself! When you read the newspaper, read it to see how your heavenly Father is managing the world for the good of His own children! All else—be it the disposal of a throne, the settlement of a political question, or the winning of a boat race—all else, I say, are minor things compared with the interests of the Election of Grace! All things are revolving and cooperating for good. They are working together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to the purpose of His Grace. By them He will make manifest throughout the ages unto the angels and the principalities, His manifold wisdom! …
Look out for those who are in the same state as you have been in—and be very tender toward them. As you know their case, and have traversed that howling desert, you will be able to direct them. I have described your case because Ifear that I have sometimes been on the verge of it myself. I have found recovery by a fresh resort to the love of Christ and a simple renewal of my trust in Him. I can, therefore, enter into your feelings and ask you to try the same remedy. After you have found the remedy to be a good one, it is but a small return, and certainly it is due from you, to tell others how you have been restored! Some of you, Beloved, have never been thus carried into captivity. I pray God you never may be. There is no necessity for it, but let me entreat you to walk very tenderly with your God. We serve a jealous God. He will wink at many an act of insubordination done by His enemies, the one-tenth of which, if done by His favorite ones, His elect, His darlings—He will hide His face from them at once! "You, only, have I known of all the people of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities." Says He not, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten"? A sinner may go on wantonly unrebuked. He may add house to house and field to field, and he may think himself secure—God will deal with him in the next world. But the heir of Heaven is under a discipline of Divine Love and God will deal with him in this world! And among the chastisements of departure from Christ will be the loss of comfort, the loss of power to do good and I know not what other affliction added thereunto in his soul or in his circumstance. Dear Brothers and Sisters, walk carefully, then— while you have the Light of God, walk in the Light! Oh, prize the sweet love of Christ! Never, never let it go. Say unto your soul, when Christ is in your heart, "I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that you stir not up nor wake my Love until He pleases." Introduce no rival's love, and no worldliness! Fall into no inconsistencies, but pray for Grace that with holy jealousy you may still dwell in the Light of God and find favor in His eyes. …