The third step of God’s administration is discipline, or chastisement. After we are saved, we should love our wives and treat others with meekness under God’s ruling. This is not merely a teaching of the Bible but a demand of the life within us. The Holy Spirit who dwells in us often demands that we deal with our family with meekness and treat others with considerateness. The Holy Spirit gives us the feeling that if we do not treat our family with meekness, we are rebelling against God’s rule. However, we are often careless, disregarding the sense of the Holy Spirit in us, and we act according to our own will. When we want to lose our temper, we lose our temper, and we may even use ugly words to reproach people. When God sees that we do not submit to His authority and ruling, He is forced to execute the third step of His administration, which is to discipline, to chastise, us through the environment.
For example, perhaps one morning a brother quarrels with his wife, and after he leaves home, he has a minor automobile accident. At that time the Holy Spirit rebukes him inwardly for quarreling with his wife, and he realizes that the accident is from God’s hand in His governmental administration. He spontaneously repents, confesses, and prays, “O Lord, forgive me and save me. I will not do this again.” After this incident, however, he is in himself again, and soon enough, his temper comes again and flares up freely, without any sign of his being under God’s ruling. He had repented and confessed, but after the incident he still was not under God’s ruling; he lost his temper as it pleased him. At this point God can only say, “Once again I will exercise My administration over this one.” This time the discipline will be more severe. The brother may have a serious illness that will not be taken care of merely by his regretting and repenting. It may take half a year or a year for him to recuperate by being confined to bed and thereby being disciplined by God.
Today most Christians acknowledge the doctrine concerning discipline and chastisement. However, this discipline, this chastisement, is not merely a doctrine but also a matter of God’s governmental administration.
A brother once asked me, “I know a brother who is truly saved, but I have seen him losing his temper with his wife for over ten years, even until today. Why has God not disciplined him through the environment for all this time?” This situation bothered this brother very much. In another situation, after a brother is saved, he may continue to love the world, going from place to place in the world. This one rebels against God’s government and does not submit to the second step of His administration, but God apparently does not execute the third step of discipline on him. Some situations are even more puzzling. It seems that with some brothers, the more they love the world, the more they prosper, succeed, and make money. Why is this?
According to our understanding, whoever loves the world will be chastised by God or have his worldly things destroyed by God. But in fact, God is greater than our concept. His administration, His government, is beyond what we can imagine or determine. We may think that if God’s children make a mistake today, God will chastise them today. Our God, however, does not have a hot temper. When children make a mistake, if their parents chastise them immediately, this indicates that the parents are hot tempered. Some parents, however, are patient and tolerant. Although they know that their children have done something wrong, they do not chastise them immediately. Rather, they still care for their children to make them happy. They wait to discipline the children until the weekend or until after the children finish an examination in school. The parents exercise caution because they know that since there is an examination coming, they should first take care of the children by feeding them so that they can take the examination properly. Such parents are not small-minded. They do not immediately discipline or chastise their children for their mistakes; they first consider their children’s schooling and examinations. If parents immediately discipline and chastise their children, it shows that their temper is hot and their mind is narrow.
If parents are broad-minded and moderate in their temper, after they see their children make a mistake, they will consider whether it is appropriate to punish them at once or whether they should wait until another time. After some consideration, the parents may feel that according to the present situation and need of the children, it is not fitting to handle the matter immediately. Thus, they may wait for several days before handling the matter. In caring for our children of different ages, we all have different ways of handling things according to their different needs. To illustrate, suppose a father has a daughter who is only four or five years old; she does not yet go to school and spends most of her time playing at home. One day she does something wrong and is caught. Therefore, the father calls her and asks her, “Do you know that you have done something wrong?” She says, “Yes, I do.” Then he continues, “Should you be punished?” She knows that she should be punished. Then he asks her, “How many times should I spank you?” She says, “Three times.” Eventually, he spanks her only twice, and she goes away crying.
The next day her older brother commits the same mistake, and she is happy because she will have someone as a companion in having been spanked. She runs to tell her father, “Dad, my brother committed the same mistake.” This may occur near the time when her brother is supposed to go to school. Thus, after some consideration, the father allows her brother to go to school first. When the little girl sees that her brother has left for school, she grumbles, “I did something wrong yesterday, and my father spanked me twice. Today my brother did something wrong also, but my father did not spank him but allowed him to go to school.” As she says this, she goes and asks her mother to come and help her with her case.
Actually, it is not that her father dismissed the punishment but that he hid it within himself. Perhaps the father did not punish her brother on that day, but rather gave him some money to buy lunch because he had to stay at school for a long time. The father thus took care of his son’s need, wanting him to study well, but his younger daughter was upset when she saw that. She saw that when her brother did something wrong, instead of punishing him, her father allowed him to go to school and even gave him money for food. She wondered, “How can this be?” She did not know her father’s heart. If he had punished her brother at that moment, perhaps her brother would have refused to go to school, and this would have frustrated his schoolwork, which would have been a loss to him. Therefore, her father simply allowed him to go to school and cared for him so that he could study well. A few days later, perhaps on Saturday, because there was no school the next day, the father was able to deal with him and thus settle the matter.
This illustration is to help us see something concerning God’s discipline. Hebrews 12 says that “the fathers of our flesh...disciplined...as it seemed good to them” (vv. 9a, 10a), meaning that fathers know how to discipline their children in the most profitable way. However, when the Father of spirits disciplines us, He knows all the more when to discipline us (vv. 9b, 10b). We should never think that all God’s disciplining and chastening of His children must be done today. The Bible does not present this limitation. On the contrary, the Bible shows that when the Master comes, some slaves will receive a greater chastisement (Matt. 24:48-51).
Our God is great. Unlike us, He does not become angry easily; He will not chastise us immediately when He sees a mistake in us. He is very great, and particularly, He is full of wisdom. With some, He chastises them immediately, but with others, He waits for a while. How long will He wait? He may wait until He comes back. In our earlier illustration the father waited until Saturday to deal with the son’s mistake. Our “Saturday” will be the time of the Lord’s return. At that time He will settle accounts with us. He will examine us and hear our case; that time will be His judgment. I hope that we are impressed by this. However, this is not a threat; rather, this is light from the Bible.
In the Lord’s table meeting God’s children always like to pray, “O Lord, You are pleasant. You are truly desirable.” Also in the prayer meeting they pray, “Lord, You are truly desirable. O Lord, You are good.” It is true that the Bible says that the Lord is pleasant and desirable (S. S. 1:16; 5:16). However, we must also know the fear of the Lord (2 Cor. 5:11). Therefore, when we exhort others, we should not only say that the Lord is desirable; we should also speak concerning the fear of the Lord. One day we saved ones will have to stand before Him. His giving us grace is according to His administration. He cannot grant us grace and at the same time disregard His administration; rather, He dispenses grace and simultaneously carries out His administration. It is not possible for us to enjoy the dispensing of His grace without experiencing the carrying out of His administration.
All that He does toward us is a matter of His governmental administration. If we are a saved one, we should be under His ruling; this is according to the principle of His administration. If we are not ruled by Him but act according to our own will and desire, we will have no way to escape from the third step of His administration, which is His discipline as His chastisement on us. However, this discipline is according to His good pleasure and His multifarious wisdom. If He thinks that it is profitable to discipline us today, He will discipline us today; if He thinks that it is profitable to discipline us in the future, at a more suitable time, He will discipline us then. As long as we do not live under the ruling of His life, sooner or later we will experience His environmental discipline; this is unavoidable.
We all should seriously consider whether it is acceptable for a saved person, who has received the Lord’s salvation and has become a child of God, to continue to act casually, according to his own desire. Is it acceptable for him to ignore God’s will and disregard God’s ruling? Suppose that a saved one remains merely saved, acting according to his own desire for his whole life and never caring for God’s administration. Suppose that eventually when the Lord Jesus comes, He brings this one into His kingdom unconditionally to reign with Him and then places him in the New Jerusalem to enjoy God’s eternal blessing. If God did this, could He be called the righteous God? If He acted in this way, the God of the universe would surely be an unreasonable God who had no administration or government; He would be at most a benevolent God.
Our God, however, is not like this. It is not that no matter what we do, He simply gives us grace continuously; nor is it that once a person is saved and becomes a child of God, God simply loves him blindly, bestowing on him grace, peace, and blessing and eventually, when the Lord Jesus comes back, allowing him to reign with Him and enter into the New Jerusalem. Our God is not a God who is only kind and good. Rather, He has thoughts, principles, and rules; everything He does is according to His plan. All things must be headed up in Him and come under His ruling. He grants us salvation so that we may submit to His Son and be children of obedience who submit to His authority and rule. If we do not submit to His rule and authority, He will not let us go easily. Rather, He will have to execute the third step of His administration on us. If He does not discipline us today, He will discipline us at a later time.