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The ROD
“A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back” (Prov. 26:3). “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly” (Prov. 26:11). |
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“In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found: but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding” (Prov. 10:13).
“The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit” (Prov. 14:8). When a Christian did backslide into a blamable state (fallen from perfection, light, sobriety, seeing, hearing, and faith), then the apostles did undertake the same redemptive action as actual parents would to a baby child bound on the broad way to hell – THE ROD. Children deny their parents as fools deny God (Ps. 14:1, 53:1). Children that are left unrestrained in their foolishness are a grief to their parents (Prov. 17:25, 19:13, 29:15); even so, adult men allow their infantile foolishness to rule their adult bodies unto the grief of the Arch-Adult, their Creator (Prov. 17:25, 19:13, Eph. 4:30). Children hate knowledge and love foolishness. They are, therefore, unteachable and unlearned, until growth develops the capacities which enable one to learn matters of grave responsibility, weighty knowledge, or that which God calls saving wisdom & doctrine. They can no more learn saving doctrine and wisdom than a baby child can eat meat. They do therefore need the ROD.
Just as the scriptures do teach that children need a rod, so Paul said to the backslidden, baby Christians of Corinth – “shall I come unto you with a ROD, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness” (1 Cor. 4:21)? “The rod” is directly opposite to the expression of tender “love” and gentle “meekness”! Please understand this! This time which Paul was warning of, wherein he needed to use “a ROD” rather than a “spirit of meekness,” IS NOT the same circumstance that calls for “all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Tim. 4:2), “patient,” an “apt to teach” mentality that is “gentle unto all men,” or a “meekness instructing” mentality, as 2 Timothy 2:24-25 so clearly outlines. Please don’t mistake me, 2 Tim. 2:24-25 is not to be nullified or made void…all longsuffering, patient, gentle, and meek teaching and instruction must be first accomplished, and then, if all of this does fail, or the severity of the sin at hand does demand otherwise, which is exactly the situation Paul was dealing with, then he speaks of the time of the ROD, declaring that, it is the opposite of what is understood to be meekness and gentleness. Saints will waver or totter from the way of holiness, but if they are seeking God with a broken heart and willing mind, so as to bear the first fruits of repentance, the circumstance would allow for meek instruction and gentle teaching. However, if a man is not repentant, is unwilling to follow God in some way, to the degree where they are falling into a damnable condition… my reader! This is a time, not of meekness or gentleness, but rather authoritative, judgmental (2 Cor. 13:1) preaching according to the power of God (2 Cor. 13:4), which is, namely, the power to excommunicate if repentance is not obtained (2 Cor. 13:2). This mind and heart of the apostle Paul, which was forewarned of in 1 Corinthians 4:18-21, did eventually come upon the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 12:20-13:11-->
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There is a time when a true pastor does approach the flock of God with an intimidating “heaviness” (2 Cor. 2:1). The heaviness comes from a God-placed burden, and the pastor continues, without relief, until those persons, for whom the burden is, are pressed down with the holy matter. What was Paul’s burden in the aforementioned verse citation? He was burdened by the wicked backslidings of regenerate believers in Corinth. Paul was spiritually heavy because the people were carnally light. The spiritual condition of the people was a grave and eternally dangerous dilemma. Paul was heavy because if the Corinthians woke up to their spiritual condition, they – themselves – would suddenly “let [their] laughter be turned to mourning, and [their] joy to heaviness” (James 4:9)! Pastors ought to always come to the flock and find gladness and happiness by their presence, but not so if they are, at present, held in the gall of sin and the web of iniquity (2 Cor. 2:1-4). Though Paul would come in personal “heaviness” (2 Cor. 2:1), it was not unmixed with “anguish of heart”, “many tears”, and “much affliction” (2 Cor. 2:4). Though Paul threatens that his coming is with “heaviness”, “power”, “the ROD” (2 Cor. 4:18-21), and unsparing judgments (2 Cor. 13:1-5), before his arrival and upon it, and during the wielding of such a beating that the ROD of God would inflict, Paul said, “I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented…” (2 Cor. 12:21). Whether weeping, or a heavy countenance which delivered pride-breaking words like a rod to the back of fools, Paul was in the Spirit of true, holy, pure, and jealous love (2 Cor. 11:2-3). My reader, this message was of similar force – as a rod upon the foolish – but before the rod did lash, the Spirit of God did cause me to weep in anguish of heart…thus I entreat you now, do not murmur against the beating lest, if haply, you need it. The rod is not an instrument of meekness and gentleness, as Paul said, “What will ye? Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness” (1 Cor. 4:21). God’s word, spoken by God’s Spirit, can only be heard by God-given ears. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches” (Rev. 3:22). Such a Spirit, heretofore described, did seize me with anguish of heart and weeping in the opening prayer of this message... and then, the same grace which seized me at the first, did cause me to stand up and deliver this beating by God's holy rod - see the following sermon.
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“For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed. This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare: Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you. For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates. Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we wish, even your perfection. Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you” (2 Corinthians 12:20-13:11).
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Paul was forewarning them that he was coming to them a third time, and Paul had heard that many had not repented of specific sins which he had dealt with already (see how Paul names them in 2 Cor. 12:20-21). As a parent does not want to beat his child with a rod, Paul acknowledged the likelihood of his arrival that, he said, “I shall not find you such as I would” (2 Cor. 12:20). As a child does not want to be beaten by a rod, as his little face is cast down at the sight of an approaching parent who knows of rebellion worthy of the rod, even so, Paul said that he was coming to Corinth, and that, “I shall be found unto you such as ye would not” (2 Cor. 12:10). The Corinthians had become foolishness-bound baby children, in need of the “rod of correction” (Prov. 22:15). By this point, their “foolishness” had become infamous, and with long instruction it had been denounced and rebuked, and, lo, it was still “bound in the heart of the child” (Prov. 22:15)! Paul painstakingly exposed the "foolishness" of the gospel-gate (“the strait gate”) and the narrow way, or in other words, initial regeneration by a personal crucifixion, and the path of morality of the cross-bearing, self-denying disciples in Christ! The 1st and 2nd chapters of 1 Corinthians do deal directly with the Corinthian foolishness, and how they had been disqualified from the wisdom of God. Do you see how spiritual fools do need the ROD? Trace with me this thematic vein throughout the 1st and 2nd letters to the Corinthians, so that 2 Corinthians 12:20-13:11 is properly contextualized.
In 1 Corinthians chapters 1-2, Paul preached to them under a burden to make plain how the Corinthians had become spiritual fools. To become a spiritual fool is, in other words, to be worldly-wise, when the Corinthians should rather have been spiritually wise men who are worldly fools, because God’s wisdom is at enmity to worldly wisdom. Paul continued with the same burden into 1 Corinthians chapter 3, emphatically declaring a reaching-out, rescue cry to the worldly-wise, sin-bound Corinthians – “Let no man deceive himself. If any among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain” (1 Cor. 3:18-20).
Paul continued with the same burden into 1 Corinthians chapter 4, and here he descriptively compared two courses of “Christian” morality – the worldly-wise interpretation of Christian morality in comparison with the worldly-foolish (God’s wisdom) interpretation of Christian morality. Paul explained how circumstantial prosperity, peace, and honor is, in the heathen’s eyes (worldly, carnal wisdom), the greatest indicator of favor from God, and the absence of these things is suggested as the consequences of rebellion, wickedness, and backsliding. Paul reproved his spiritual children in that they had forsaken the ways of their spiritual father, and those of Jesus Christ, and he said – “We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ, we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised…buffeted…reviled… persecuted…defamed…and…made as filth” (1 Cor. 4:10-13). Salvation for the Corinthians would be a turning around, turning their morality upside down, and a following after the ways of God exemplified in Paul (spiritual wisdom instead of worldly wisdom, making them spiritual men instead of carnal Christian men). Thus Paul commanded them, “be ye followers of me…of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every Church” (1 Cor. 4:16-17). Do you think that Paul was convinced that “foolishness was bound in the heart” of his spiritual children (Prov. 22:15)? Paul knew that false prophets had deceived the Corinthians to believe in and follow after a worldly-wise pseudo-Christian morality. In 2 Corinthians, he called them out on several fronts (2 Cor. 10:12, 11:3-33). How sad it is that Corinth did “suffer fools gladly” and forsake the wise way of salvation (2 Cor. 11:19), and that they were pushed to the verge of forsaking the apostle Paul altogether! Paul responded in heartfelt agony, saying, “Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates” (2 Cor. 13:7). With all of this in mind, we are brought to the climactic passage of 2 Corinthians 12:20-13:11, referenced here again for your review -->
In 1 Corinthians chapters 1-2, Paul preached to them under a burden to make plain how the Corinthians had become spiritual fools. To become a spiritual fool is, in other words, to be worldly-wise, when the Corinthians should rather have been spiritually wise men who are worldly fools, because God’s wisdom is at enmity to worldly wisdom. Paul continued with the same burden into 1 Corinthians chapter 3, emphatically declaring a reaching-out, rescue cry to the worldly-wise, sin-bound Corinthians – “Let no man deceive himself. If any among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain” (1 Cor. 3:18-20).
Paul continued with the same burden into 1 Corinthians chapter 4, and here he descriptively compared two courses of “Christian” morality – the worldly-wise interpretation of Christian morality in comparison with the worldly-foolish (God’s wisdom) interpretation of Christian morality. Paul explained how circumstantial prosperity, peace, and honor is, in the heathen’s eyes (worldly, carnal wisdom), the greatest indicator of favor from God, and the absence of these things is suggested as the consequences of rebellion, wickedness, and backsliding. Paul reproved his spiritual children in that they had forsaken the ways of their spiritual father, and those of Jesus Christ, and he said – “We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ, we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised…buffeted…reviled… persecuted…defamed…and…made as filth” (1 Cor. 4:10-13). Salvation for the Corinthians would be a turning around, turning their morality upside down, and a following after the ways of God exemplified in Paul (spiritual wisdom instead of worldly wisdom, making them spiritual men instead of carnal Christian men). Thus Paul commanded them, “be ye followers of me…of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every Church” (1 Cor. 4:16-17). Do you think that Paul was convinced that “foolishness was bound in the heart” of his spiritual children (Prov. 22:15)? Paul knew that false prophets had deceived the Corinthians to believe in and follow after a worldly-wise pseudo-Christian morality. In 2 Corinthians, he called them out on several fronts (2 Cor. 10:12, 11:3-33). How sad it is that Corinth did “suffer fools gladly” and forsake the wise way of salvation (2 Cor. 11:19), and that they were pushed to the verge of forsaking the apostle Paul altogether! Paul responded in heartfelt agony, saying, “Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates” (2 Cor. 13:7). With all of this in mind, we are brought to the climactic passage of 2 Corinthians 12:20-13:11, referenced here again for your review -->
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“For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed. This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare: Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you. For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates. Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we wish, even your perfection. Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction. Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you” (2 Corinthians 12:20-13:11).
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As a parent will not spare for the crying of his child who is being beaten under the rod, even so, Paul would “not spare” (2 Cor. 13:2) the Corinthians. Paul was coming to examine their faith! He forewarned them to examine their own faith before his arrival (2 Cor. 13:5), to prepare them, if haply, they might be brought into agreement with a potential conclusion that Paul would test and conclude upon them all – that if they could not repent of the sins which were aforementioned, then, lo, they would be “reprobates” who failed the test on whether, Paul said, “Jesus Christ is in you.” (2 Cor. 13:5). The greatest evidence that Jesus Christ is in a man is present progressive repentance from sin (Matt. 18:15-17); hence, if a man can’t repent, then he is not presently considered as a saved man – one whom is lawfully and spiritually possessed by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Upon Paul’s arrival, he was going to test and find out all unrepentant men, that he might then put them under the rod of excommunication. In this way, the whole Church (and especially Paul) was “punishing” and “inflicting” the wayward children (2 Cor. 2:6) with the ROD. Excommunication is called “punishment” and “infliction” in 2 Corinthians 2:6, which is in reference to when they excommunicated the man spoken of in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Paul said that he “judged” this man with “the power of the Lord Jesus,” and through excommunication, the man was delivered over to “Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). This is the hope that comes with using the beating ROD of rebuke and “sharpness” (2 Cor. 13:10), or the rod of excommunication, that it will save these wayward children and drive the damnable foolishness away from them. You see, my reader, the use of the rod that Paul was speaking of is the very same context as the use of the rod for the foolishness-bound, fallen, unregenerate children of literal, physical Israel. Both cases are a damnable condition, persons whose only hope is the rod, and so Paul used it and spared not, only hoping for their repentance and faith to be restored. Restoration into a saving relationship with the Lord was his only wish, as Paul said, “and this also we wish, even your perfection” (2 Cor. 13:9).
To the flesh and the world, or might I say to the worldly-wise, backslidden Christian – Mercy is gentleness, compassion is acceptance and tolerance, and humility is a teachable spirit always ready and willing to unlearn obedience and relearn compromise. There is a place for gentleness, but not for the wicked and foolish (Christian or non-Christian). There is a place for compassion to motivate acceptance and tolerance (Jude 22), but not for the backslidden, carnal, wicked men who are strictly forbidden by God to go on without judgment. For then, this would be the toleration of a manner of sin which God warns is intolerable to overlook. Rather, true compassion and love in these circumstances is heaviness (2 Cor. 2:1), chastening (Rev. 3:19), the rod instead of a spirit of meekness (1 Cor. 4:18-21), sharpness (2 Cor. 13:10, Gal. 4:20, Titus 1:13), punishment through affliction instead of holy kisses (2 Cor. 2:6-8), and separation without sparing (2 Cor. 12:19-13:11). Such a man of God does just this! He is under the burden of God that professors of Christianity must prove their faith (2 Cor. 1:23-24, 2:9-10, 3:1-3, 6:3-4, 7:2, 11, 15-16, 8:6-9, 24, 9:8-10, chapter 10, 12:11-12, 12:19-13:4) or be excommunicated without sparing (2 Cor. 13:2). This form of pastoring is true love (1 Cor. 13:6). Practicing this judgment is a Christian soldier’s decoration, even the medals of honor borne by our Lord and Captain - persecution, accusation, slander, hatred, and seditions (John 15:20, 2 Cor. 13:7). The wisdom of God standeth sure: "Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful" (Prov. 27:5-6). To the feelings of the flesh, TRUE LOVE is painful, even as a wound.
Charity does not seek laughter for the guilty (James 4:9). True pastors seek the godly sorrow of the guilty (2 Cor. 7:8-10), that they would “be afflicted, and mourn, and weep” (Jas. 4:9). What do you expect to see when you look upon a true pastor in the hour of carnality and foolishness? Even the disposition of the pastor seems to cry out, “let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness” (Jas. 4:9), as he visits, preaches to, exhorts, and rebukes the wayward ones. When have you ever seen a gentle lamb cast off its meek and gentle demeanor, rise up, and “beat” (Prov. 23:14) a man with a ROD? NEVER! But parents do this to their children (Prov. 23:14) as shepherds do to wayward sheep, and even more, shepherds do smite the wolves until they leave with shattered jaws and broken teeth. The true pastors are therefore grave in their communications with such persons who are in spiritually foolish conditions, while other “pastors,” other mock-ministers and the like, are deluded to think that kindness is lightheartedness. “I want to make them to feel comfortable with me,” they say. “Heaviness will make the people think I am unkind instead of nice,” they fear. “They can repent just after we play volleyball,” they hope. Preacher! Your vain thoughts, your methodology, is a poisonous medicine for an already poisoned soul. You say – “I need to show them I care by playing games and rolling dice” – but this is a serpent’s bite! You are sinking spiritual fangs into their flesh and your carnality is the venom, and God will make you pay the price! Alas! You are caught up in the foolishness of a child’s mentality! You have become a child and adopted their methodology! Do you think I am kidding!? I am shocked and appalled at how many “Christian” groups do “ice break,” playing funny games of ridiculous, idle, and childish entertainment, of such immaturity it feels like a children’s school recess! Bankrupt of spiritual joy and Christ-centered edification, these spiritual counterfeits entertain themselves with idleness, with personalities and ironies. They have turned from blatant sin into Christless communities of “love” and “care” that are centered on men. They have half-repented into a morality of imitating Christ’s commandments, and, lo, they are without Christ! Any passer-by who is full of the Holy Ghost would quickly detect that such a people are all blind to the invisible realm of spirituality in Christ. As sober as a soldier, lo, the man of God would retire to his closet in agony…
To the flesh and the world, or might I say to the worldly-wise, backslidden Christian – Mercy is gentleness, compassion is acceptance and tolerance, and humility is a teachable spirit always ready and willing to unlearn obedience and relearn compromise. There is a place for gentleness, but not for the wicked and foolish (Christian or non-Christian). There is a place for compassion to motivate acceptance and tolerance (Jude 22), but not for the backslidden, carnal, wicked men who are strictly forbidden by God to go on without judgment. For then, this would be the toleration of a manner of sin which God warns is intolerable to overlook. Rather, true compassion and love in these circumstances is heaviness (2 Cor. 2:1), chastening (Rev. 3:19), the rod instead of a spirit of meekness (1 Cor. 4:18-21), sharpness (2 Cor. 13:10, Gal. 4:20, Titus 1:13), punishment through affliction instead of holy kisses (2 Cor. 2:6-8), and separation without sparing (2 Cor. 12:19-13:11). Such a man of God does just this! He is under the burden of God that professors of Christianity must prove their faith (2 Cor. 1:23-24, 2:9-10, 3:1-3, 6:3-4, 7:2, 11, 15-16, 8:6-9, 24, 9:8-10, chapter 10, 12:11-12, 12:19-13:4) or be excommunicated without sparing (2 Cor. 13:2). This form of pastoring is true love (1 Cor. 13:6). Practicing this judgment is a Christian soldier’s decoration, even the medals of honor borne by our Lord and Captain - persecution, accusation, slander, hatred, and seditions (John 15:20, 2 Cor. 13:7). The wisdom of God standeth sure: "Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful" (Prov. 27:5-6). To the feelings of the flesh, TRUE LOVE is painful, even as a wound.
Charity does not seek laughter for the guilty (James 4:9). True pastors seek the godly sorrow of the guilty (2 Cor. 7:8-10), that they would “be afflicted, and mourn, and weep” (Jas. 4:9). What do you expect to see when you look upon a true pastor in the hour of carnality and foolishness? Even the disposition of the pastor seems to cry out, “let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness” (Jas. 4:9), as he visits, preaches to, exhorts, and rebukes the wayward ones. When have you ever seen a gentle lamb cast off its meek and gentle demeanor, rise up, and “beat” (Prov. 23:14) a man with a ROD? NEVER! But parents do this to their children (Prov. 23:14) as shepherds do to wayward sheep, and even more, shepherds do smite the wolves until they leave with shattered jaws and broken teeth. The true pastors are therefore grave in their communications with such persons who are in spiritually foolish conditions, while other “pastors,” other mock-ministers and the like, are deluded to think that kindness is lightheartedness. “I want to make them to feel comfortable with me,” they say. “Heaviness will make the people think I am unkind instead of nice,” they fear. “They can repent just after we play volleyball,” they hope. Preacher! Your vain thoughts, your methodology, is a poisonous medicine for an already poisoned soul. You say – “I need to show them I care by playing games and rolling dice” – but this is a serpent’s bite! You are sinking spiritual fangs into their flesh and your carnality is the venom, and God will make you pay the price! Alas! You are caught up in the foolishness of a child’s mentality! You have become a child and adopted their methodology! Do you think I am kidding!? I am shocked and appalled at how many “Christian” groups do “ice break,” playing funny games of ridiculous, idle, and childish entertainment, of such immaturity it feels like a children’s school recess! Bankrupt of spiritual joy and Christ-centered edification, these spiritual counterfeits entertain themselves with idleness, with personalities and ironies. They have turned from blatant sin into Christless communities of “love” and “care” that are centered on men. They have half-repented into a morality of imitating Christ’s commandments, and, lo, they are without Christ! Any passer-by who is full of the Holy Ghost would quickly detect that such a people are all blind to the invisible realm of spirituality in Christ. As sober as a soldier, lo, the man of God would retire to his closet in agony…
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“No preacher is going to skip into the pulpit with the “good news” that the church won the top honors in the interchurch bowling league if he has come from the closet of prayer with eternity blazing in his eyes.” - Leonard Ravenhill
“No preacher leaves the closet with a sweat on his soul and offers a world of rebels the feeble utterance, ‘God loves you,’ without also stating, ‘God is angry with the wicked every day (Ps. 7:11).’” - Leonard Ravenhill |
Pull out the rod, and a child will lose the smiles fast! Oh! Put the childish games aside! At this time a pastor is NOT even to behave in “meekness” toward the baby-man. It is not the hour of entreaties, but of “charges” and commands (1 Thess. 5:27, 1 Tim. 1:3, 5:7, 21, 6:17, 13, 2 Tim. 4:1). Nay, a true pastor does not show the face of toleration and acceptance if indeed the person is not being accepted by God. They don’t just carry the message in word only, but in heart, and in “Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:4), so that they are under the power of the message. Even so, the message is rightly called a BURDEN! And therefore, their body language does speak the weighty words: “let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness” (Jas. 4:9). It is a countenance-sobering demeanor, downcasting the countenance of sinning-saints who are intoxicated in a Godless happiness. How sobering, how agonizing? How heavy is the prayer that Charles Wesley prayed for the wayward and backslidden children of God?
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“O wouldst Thou break the fatal snare
Of carnal self-security, And let them feel the wrath they bear, And let them groan their want of Thee, Robb'd of their false pernicious peace, Stripp'd of their fancied righteousness. “Long as the guilt of sin shall last, Them in its misery detain; Hold their licentious spirits fast, Bind them with their own nature's chain, Nor ever let the wanderers rest, Till lodged again in Jesus' breast.” – Charles Wesley |
At such times, true pastors are neither laughing nor in lightness, and rather, they are in mourning and heaviness. Therein they do feelingly speak saving messages to backslidden fools, if haply, by God’s intervening grace, the hearers might feel what they preach! Spurgeon believed that if what he preaches does burn in his heart, it is sure to burn in the hearts of the congregation that hears him. True charity feels the spiritual conditions at hand, and he reflects them by his demeanor, as it was written – “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body” (Heb. 13:3). If you knew the balm of Gilead for sick souls, that it is for them to mourn and weep, then you would mourn and weep over them to help them mourn and weep for themselves! “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep,” Pastor James pled (Jas. 4:9)! Is this not why God commanded and compelled Ezekiel to “Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes” (Ezek. 21:6), for Ezekiel bore a message from God which, when the people heard it, and when it came to pass, “every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water” (Ezek. 21:7). Let weeping Whitefield speak to you on the matter, and judge ye, my readers, what interpretation he took on how the God-sent messenger should pastor baby-child, backslidden, fools:
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"Tremble for fear God should remove His candlestick from you. Labourers are sick. Those who did once labour are almost worn out... There are few who like to go out into the fields. Broken heads and dead cats are no longer the ornaments of a Methodist. These honourable badges are now no more. Langour has gotten from the ministers to the people; and, if you don't take care, we shall all be dead together. The Lord Jesus rouse you! Ye Methodists of many years' standing, shew the young ones, who have not the cross to bear as we once had what ancient Methodism was.
Don't be angry with a poor minister for weeping over them who will not weep for themselves. If you laugh at me I know Jesus smiles. I am free from the blood of you all. If you are damned for want of conversion, remember you are not damned for want of warning. YOU ARE GOSPEL-PROOF; and, if there is one place in hell deeper than another, God will order a gospel-despising Methodist to be put there. God convert you from lying a-bed in the morning! God convert you from conformity to the world! God convert you from lukewarmness! Do not get into a cursed antinomian way of thinking, and say, "I thank God, I have the root of the matter in me! I thank God, I was converted twenty or thirty years ago; and, though I can go to the public-house, and play at cards, yet, I am converted; for once in Christ, always in Christ." Whether you were converted formerly or not, you are perverted now. Would you have Jesus catch you napping, with your lamps untrimmed? Suffer the word of exhortation. I preach feelingly. I could be glad to preach till I preached myself dead, if God would convert you. I seldom sleep after three in the morning; and I pray every morning, "Lord, convert me, and make me a new creature today!" -George Whitefield |
Like George, Charles Spurgeon knew the heart of the matter, even if his doctrines and deeds were a looser hand than that which gripped his heart. With many colorful words, he too, made clear the woeful scene at hand – a pastor’s heart at conflict with foolish backsliders – and when reading Spurgeon’s words you can see the very picture heretofore examined, as it were, framed by a silver tongue of eloquence. Within the article titled, “What Is A Revival?”, the unutterable emotions in God, the God of George Whitfield, are aflame in the same vehement message yet again, in Spurgeon, for another generation, time, and people to feel the heat. Spurgeon’s words cry out with surging emotion – “Forsake the foolish and live” (Proverbs 9:6)!
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“Workers in the Sunday-schools, tract distributors, and other laborers for Christ, what different people they become when grace is vigorous from what they are when their life flickers in the socket! Like sickly vegetation in a cellar, all blanched and unhealthy, are workers who have little grace; like willows by the water-courses, like grease with reeds and trashes in well-’watered valleys, are the servants of God who live in his presence. It is no wonder that our Lord said, “Because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth,” for when the earnest Christian’s heart is full of fire it is sickening to talk with lukewarm people. Have not warmhearted lovers of Jesus felt when they have been discouraged by doubtful sluggish people, who could see a lion in the way, as if they could put on express speed and run over them? Every earnest minister has known times when he has felt cold hearts to be as intolerable as the drones in the hive are to the working bees. Careless professors are as much out of place as snow in harvest among truly living Christians. As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes are these sluggards. As well be bound to a dead body as forced into union ‘with lifeless professors; they are a burden, a plague, and an abomination. You turn to one of these cold brethren after a graciously earnest prayer-meeting, and say with holy joy, “What a delightful meeting we have had!” “Yes,” he says carelessly and deliberately, as if it were an effort to say so much, “there was a good number of people.” How his frostbitten words grate on one’s ear! You ask yourself, ‘Where has the man been? Is he not conscious that the Holy Ghost has been with us?’
Does not our Lord speak of these people as being cast out of his mouth, just because he himself is altogether in earnest, and consequently, when he meets with lukewarm people he will not endure them? He says, “I would thou wert cold or hot,” either utterly averse to good or in earnest concerning it. It is easy to see his meaning. If you heard an ungodly man blaspheme after an earnest meeting, you would lament it, but you would feel that from such a man it was not a thing to make you vexed, for he has only spoken after his kind, but when you meet with a child of God who is lukewarm, how can you stand that? it is sickening, and makes the inmost spirit feel the horrors of mental nausea.” |
Paul approached the situation of baby Christians just as he approached the situation of sleeping, darkened, blinded, foolish, and backslidden Christians. It was a situation where he must not spare them, or else they would infect the rest of the body of Christ. Not only does the scripture say, “forsake the foolish and live” (Prov. 9:6), and most assuredly promise, the “companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Prov. 13:20), but this is stated because fools are said to be those who are like a “Body of Christ” infection that violently spreads, like a lump of dough is entirely overcome by a little “leaven” (1 Cor. 5:6). The infected ones who spread their leaven are the ones ill-behaving with “malice and wickedness” (1 Cor. 5:8). They are also called those who are in darkness, like the fool, and this is the same voice of the OT which saith – “the fool walketh in darkness” (Eccl. 2:14). Darkness is an unpardonable spiritual condition when it is without restoration. We “were sometimes darkness, but now are [we] light in the Lord,” and we must therefore “walk as children of light” (Eph. 5:8), which is, having “no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph. 5:11), nor, by necessity, them who are in darkness. How could we have fellowship with them that are in darkness!? It is not even possible, if indeed we are in the Light! The apostle John said, “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the Light, as He is in the Light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1:5-7). My reader, you must understand that backslidden Christians are not to be taken lightly! We are called to “come out from among them and be separate” (2 Cor. 6:17)! They are right now, at least temporarily, and hopefully not eternally, fallen from grace…which means that they have fallen into unbelief, unrighteousness, and darkness, and the scriptures declare what the bottom line is for such men – “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness” (2 Cor. 6:14)? “Touch not the unclean thing” (2 Cor. 6:17) and “purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened” (1 Cor. 5:7), as ye are in the light, believing, and in righteousness. “Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person” (1 Cor. 5:13). These backslidden Christians who have come to hate “instruction,” “knowledge,” “understanding,” do now mock God (Gal. 6:7) by mocking sin (Prov. 14:9), and they must be severely dealt with so that they might hear the signal and wake up, “that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:26). Severe words will rightly represent the “severity” of God (Rom. 11:22). As fleeing from a contagious, incurable, airborne disease – as the black plague – God commands, “Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge” (Prov. 14:7), for we are “not to keep company” (1 Cor. 5:11) with such a one in the name of Christ.
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Spiritual Incapacity is when saving wisdom is hidden, and this position of spiritual darkness is The Deception of God.
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Jesus Christ preached and proclaimed the verses which were descriptive of “The Deception of God” that the Lord sent upon the damned generation of the Babylonian Captivity, but He preached them as the prophetic description of the 1st century Jews. Those Jews of the 1st century, like unto the Jews of the Babylonian Captivity, were under a deception, and therefore they willingly crucified their Messiah. As God wanted Ahab to go up to Ramothgilead and die there, so also God wanted His Son to be rejected and crucified, praise God! But what were the definitive terms which described the deception of those Jews of the 1st century? They had an inability to “hear,” “see,” “understand,” or “perceive” (Matt. 13:14). They were called “dull of hearing,” men with “eyes closed,” therefore they were doomed to be detained from grace to be “converted” or “healed” (Matt. 13:15). They were said to have “blinded eyes” and “hardened hearts” (John 12:40). Do these descriptions sound familiar? These terms are the very same spiritual delusions which are indicators of God casting away a generation of people, according to Romans chapter 11. In Romans 11:5-12, God makes the case that He did cast away the Israelites to save, receive, elect, or in other words, “graft in” the Gentiles instead (in one sense, temporarily). Before Romans chapter 11 ended, Paul described what the Lord had done to the Israelites and Gentiles through a helpful metaphor – a branch-laden olive tree (Rom. 11:16-23).
Romans 11 explains how the Israelites were under God’s delusion, and were therefore, in the metaphor, the broken off branches, but the elect Gentiles were the grafted in branches. Nevertheless, there is a warning given to the Gentile Church of the NT Dispensation! The grafted in Gentile branch represents the dispensation of the New Covenant in Christ. The 1st century Israelites were “broken off” (Rom. 11:17), because God “spared not” (Rom. 11:21) from His castaway wrath, but, lo, the elect, saved, newly grafted in Gentiles in Christ must – “take heed, lest He also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off” (Rom. 11:22). Therefore God is indicating that He can and will, in these very terms, cast away, reprobate, blind, break off, put to sleep, incapacitate, harden hearts, close eyes, bring dullness of hearing and an inability to perceive or understand, so the man can’t repent or be healed – but LOOK – this is castaway, reprobating wrath to the REGENERATE Christian GENTILES, the very same experience that came upon the Jews of the 1st century. Therefore it should be highly significant to you and I, when and if we find written in the New Testament such spiritual conditions described as darkness, blindness, spiritual deafness, dullness of hearing, slumber, etc…for this language is the very same wording of the former, God-sent, damning delusion! My reader, such spiritual conditions in such words do indicate the NT damning delusion which was forewarned as a potential danger in Romans 11. The language of the NT is exactly parallel to these experiences described and coined in the OT, for they are the very same in the New Covenant arena. So also we must conclude that since all of these descriptive words are the characteristics of persons under the temporary or finally damning delusion of God in the OT & NT experience, and, seeing that they also describe, are interconnected to, and are synonymous with the NT experience of being a spiritual infant or a “babe in Christ”, then to be a “babe in Christ” is to be under the damning delusion of God from which a man has a need to be savingly recovered from. Frankly, babes in Christ are going to hell if they don’t repent.
Romans 11 explains how the Israelites were under God’s delusion, and were therefore, in the metaphor, the broken off branches, but the elect Gentiles were the grafted in branches. Nevertheless, there is a warning given to the Gentile Church of the NT Dispensation! The grafted in Gentile branch represents the dispensation of the New Covenant in Christ. The 1st century Israelites were “broken off” (Rom. 11:17), because God “spared not” (Rom. 11:21) from His castaway wrath, but, lo, the elect, saved, newly grafted in Gentiles in Christ must – “take heed, lest He also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off” (Rom. 11:22). Therefore God is indicating that He can and will, in these very terms, cast away, reprobate, blind, break off, put to sleep, incapacitate, harden hearts, close eyes, bring dullness of hearing and an inability to perceive or understand, so the man can’t repent or be healed – but LOOK – this is castaway, reprobating wrath to the REGENERATE Christian GENTILES, the very same experience that came upon the Jews of the 1st century. Therefore it should be highly significant to you and I, when and if we find written in the New Testament such spiritual conditions described as darkness, blindness, spiritual deafness, dullness of hearing, slumber, etc…for this language is the very same wording of the former, God-sent, damning delusion! My reader, such spiritual conditions in such words do indicate the NT damning delusion which was forewarned as a potential danger in Romans 11. The language of the NT is exactly parallel to these experiences described and coined in the OT, for they are the very same in the New Covenant arena. So also we must conclude that since all of these descriptive words are the characteristics of persons under the temporary or finally damning delusion of God in the OT & NT experience, and, seeing that they also describe, are interconnected to, and are synonymous with the NT experience of being a spiritual infant or a “babe in Christ”, then to be a “babe in Christ” is to be under the damning delusion of God from which a man has a need to be savingly recovered from. Frankly, babes in Christ are going to hell if they don’t repent.
“Be not highminded, but FEAR.” – Romans 11:20
Perhaps you have been taught to never fear such an experience, but oh! Will you hear it? The same men who cast away their fears of God’s wrath do often become castaways! Instead, we should cast away our high-mindedness and learn to FEAR, lest we become, like the others, a NT castaway (Deut. 17:18-19). You are highminded if you fancy yourself the peculiar, prized selection of God, forcefully concluding that, because you are prized by God then you deserve Him to respect your person in the case of you bring spiritually backslidden. Then you believe that, whether you are right with God or not, He will always savingly persevere you. God is no respecter of persons – not to the Abrahamic seed (physically or spiritually) – nor to you. The false prophets did always teach the people to trust that God will have a partial respect with them because of His promises, and with history in view, they vainly imagine that all of God’s historically famous favor that He bestowed upon the seed of Abraham is now upon them – “We are Abraham’s seed” (Lk. 3), they exclaim! – And so the Jews would solace themselves, but all the while, they were in bondage to impenitent sin. God showed us what He thinks about respecting their persons. God signals His message to them by turning His shining face away from them, and, lo, by turning it upon the Gentiles, raising them up – Hallelujah! – So that the Gentiles became “Abraham’s seed” (Gal. 3:29)! Never assume a promise is yours while the holy justice of God is provoked by your unfaithful behavior…God can fulfill His promise without you, in some mysterious way we cannot comprehend. Don’t think so highly of yourself! That is what the text warns against. Rather, let us FEAR…let us be low-minded.
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Appendix of Qualification: For an OT typological parallel, Leviticus 26:14-46 explains the different phases of chastisement in proportion to the measure of iniquities committed, and in this case it is five phases (1st (26:16-17), 2nd (26:18-20), 3rd (26:21-22), 4th (26:23-26), 5th (26:27-39)). There are, as it were (according to typological and Covenant parallels), five phases of increasingly intensifying chastisements wrought upon backsliders, and only the last phase inflicts with the power of excommunication from the Church (or ejection from the Promised Land for the OT, Lev. 26:27-39). Leading up to this final phase there is a partial and increasing measure of delivering over in which God delivers soul and body over to satanic powers, curse, and defeat – until finally the man is altogether fallen into the judgment: “deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of his flesh” (1 Cor. 5:5). Preceding and leading up to this final stage of chastisement, there are lesser phases of spiritual and physical affliction, none of which hold the power of excommunication. Like the physical alien armies which would invade, oppress, and take Israel captive during certain phases of chastisement, the invaders of the NT dispensation are satanic spirits, or, alien armies of temptation which lead into oppression or captivity of actual sin committed. These temptations or actual sins increasingly intensify, to the agony of soul and body, and devils are connected to this process of chastening as it intensifies more and more. This is how God uses devils as an instrument – a ROD – just like He used heathen armies for OT Israel. This ROD delivers NT Christians over into drunkenness, darkness & the spirit of sleep, desertification, and adulterous rioting. When graces for perseverance are taken away from the regenerate man, then suddenly, he is overtaken by the instruments of death and afflicted, and God willing, the man is brought to repentance quickly thereby long before he ever comes near to absolute captivity into sin and the final result – eventual excommunication. This means, when the light of God’s face begins to dim, or when you get just a bit soul-sluggish and sleepy, or just a little desert-dry and weary, or just a little flirtatious with worldly lusts, then turn to God with haste – turn at His chastening – and by God’s grace it will go no further. But if you persist without responding in repentance, then the lashes of the ROD just increase with strength, intensifying the pain of every blow, and the demon spirits are those forces which will inflict these horrid spiritual conditions: drunkenness (Isa. 19:14, Micah 2:10-11), darkness & the spirit of sleep (Isa. 29:9-10, Eph. 6:12, 2 Cor. 4:3-6), desertification (Luke 10:19), adulteries (Hos. 4:12, 5:4, 1 Tim. 4:1, James 4:7).
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