The Education of Sons of God
“THOUGH HE WEEK A SON, YET LEARNED HE OBEDIENCE BY THE THINGS WHICH HE SUFFERED.” — Heb. V. 8.
IT is always consoling to us to behold the footsteps of our Lord.
When we see him tried, we cheerfully submit to the like trial.
When we perceive that in his case an exception to the rule of chastening might have been expected, and yet none was made, we are encouraged to bear our sufferings patiently.
When we see the great Elder Brother put to more rather than less of trial, we are fully drawn to obey the will of God by submission.
I. SONSHIP DOES NOT EXEMPT PROM SUFFERING.
1. Not even Jesus, as a Son, escaped suffering.
He was the Son, peculiarly, and above all others.
He was the honored and beloved first-born.
He was the faithful and sinless Son.
He was soon to be the glorified Son in an eminent sense.
2. No honor put upon the sons of God will exempt them from suffering. (274)
3. No holiness of character, nor completeness of
obedience can exempt the children of God
from the school of suffering.
4. No prayer of God’s sons, however earnest, will
remove every thorn in the flesh from them.
5. No love in God’s child, however fervent, will
prevent his being tried.
The love and wisdom of God ensure the discipline of the house for all the heirs of heaven without a single exception.
II. SUFFERING DOES NOT MAR SONSHIP.
The case of our Lord is set forth as a model for all the sons of God.
1. His poverty did not disprove his Sonship. Luke
ii. 12.
2. His temptations did not shake his Sonship.
Matt. iv. 3.
3. His endurance of slander did not jeopardize it
John x. 36. 4 His fear and sorrow did not put it in dispute.
Matt. XXVL 39. 5,, His desertion by men did not invalidate il
John xvi. 32.
6. His being forsaken of God did not alter it.
Luke xxiii. 46.
7. His death cast no doubt thereon. Mark xv. 39.
He arose again, and thus proved his Father’s pleasure in him, John xx. 17.
Never was there a truer, or lovelier, or more be loved Son, than the chief of all sufferers, “A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”
III. OBEDIENCE HAS TO BE LEARNED EVEN BY SONS.
Even he in whom there was no natural depravity, but perfect, inherent purity, had to learn obedienca
1. It must be learned experimentally.
What is to be done and suffered can only be
learned in the actual exercise of obedience.
How it is done must be discovered by practice.
The actual doing of it is only possible in trial.
2. It must be learned by suffering.
Not by words from the most instructive of
teachers.
Nor by observation of the lives of others, Nor even by perpetual activity on our own part. This might make us fussy rather than obedient: we must suffer.
3. It must be learned for use in earth and in
heaven.
On earth by sympathy with others. In heaven by perfect praise to God growing
out of experience.
IV. SUFFERING HAS A PECULIAR POWER TO TEACH TRUE
SONS.
It is a better tutor than all else, because —
1. It touches the man’s self; his bone, his flesh,
his heart,
2. It tests his graces, and sweeps away those shams
which are not proofs of obedience, but pretences of self-will.
3. It goes to the root, and tests the truth of our
new nature. It shows whether repentance, faith, prayer, etc., are mere importations, or home-grown fruits,,
4. It tests our endurance, and makes us see how
far we are established in the obedience
which we think we possess. Can we say,
“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in
him “?
The anxious question — Am I a son?
The aspiring desire — Let me learn obedience.
The accepted discipline — I submit to suffer.
BLOSSOMINGS OP THE ROD.
Corrections are pledges of our adoption, and badges of our sonship. One Son God hath without sin, but none without sorrow. As God corrects none but his own, so all that are his shall be sure to have it; and they shall take it for a favor too. 1 Cor. xi. 32.
John Trapp.
1 bear my willing witness that I owe more to the fire, and the hammer, and the file, than to anything else in my Lord’s workshop. I sometimes question whether I have ever learned anything except through the rod. When my school-room is darkened, I see most — C. H. S.
If aught can teach us aught, Affliction’s looks, Making us look unto ourselves so near,
Teach us to know ourselves beyond all books, Or all the learned schools that ever were.
This mistress lately pluck’d me by the ear, And many a golden lesson hath me taught;
Hath made my senses quick, and reason clear Keform’d my will, and rectified my thought.
Sir John Daviee.
278 MY SKKMONOsOTib
“I never,” said Luther, “knew the meaning of God’s word, until I came into affliction. I have al ways found it one of ray best school-masters,” On another occasion, referring to some spiritual temptation on the morning of the preceding day, he said to a friend (Justin Jonas), “Doctor, I must mark the day; I was yesterday at school.” In one of his works, he most accurately calls affliction “the theology of Christians” — “Theologium Christianorum,” “I have learned more divinity,” said Dr. Rivet, confessing to God of his last days of affliction — “in these ten days that thou art come to visit me, than I did in fifty years before. Thou teachest me after a better manner than all those doctors, in reading whom I spent so much time.” — Charles Bridges,
A minister was recovering from a dangerous illness, when one of his friends addressed him thus: “Sir, though God seems to be bringing you up from the gates of death, yet it will be a long time before you will sufficiently retrieve your strength, and regain vigor enough of mind to preach as usual,” The good man answered: “You are mistaken, my friend, for this six weeks’ illness has taught me more divinity than all my past studies and all my ten years’ ministry put together.” — New Cyclopedia of Anecdote.
Not to be unhappy is unhappinesa,
And misery not to have known misery,
For the best way unto discretion is
The way that leads us by adversity t
And men are better showed what is amiss
By the expert linger of calamity
Than they can be with all that fortune brings,
Who never shows them the true face of tilings
Samuel Daniel,