God's Woodshed Divine Discipline — E.A. Johnston

God’s Fatherly Chastening and Divine Correction

In Deuteronomy 8 .5 we read, Thou shalt also consider in thine heart that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. But there are times in the Christian life when God is trying to get our attention.

He does this through his agents of correction and chastisement. Some of you may have some preconceived ideas about God, and how you view God, friend, will often determine how you live for God. If you're one of those individuals who has shrunken God down to man's size, if you put God on the same level as man, then your perception of God will dictate your viewpoint on sin.

How a Low View of God Produces Tolerance of Sin

You'll be more tolerant toward sin. Many individuals in the church today believe in a God who is tolerant toward sin, at least tolerant toward the sin in their own life. Some folks today like the expression, Once saved, always saved.

And they feel that because they can't lose their salvation, then they can sin all they want to and still get to heaven. I will say this, friend. It is very dangerous to allow any sin in your life. This message you're about to hear may be one of the most uncomfortable and upsetting messages you have ever heard.

But it also may be one of the most spiritually challenging and rewarding messages that you may need to hear. Perhaps your concept of God is vastly different from the one I will present today out of Scripture.

That the God you worship is a God who wouldn't act this way toward a child of His. That the picture of God I'm about to present to you will be absolutely dreadful to some of you, repulsive to some of you so much that you will reject this entire message because it may be offensive to you.

Well, that's fine if you reject my message, friend. But I'd be very careful to be sure you weren't rejecting the God of the Bible. And we're going to talk today about the God of the Bible. Getting serious with God is a serious matter.

Some of us are out of step with God because of the sin we allow in our life. Getting back into a right relationship with God can be ugly because sin must be exposed and dealt with. Calvary was a bloody spectacle, a scandal as a bloodstained Christ bore the weight of sin.

And when you get serious with God, friend, then He will get serious with you. But you better be prepared to sometimes go through hell and back. And as sin is exposed in your life, as those filthy vipers come out from under the rocks into the light, you have to slay them.

Biblical Repentance Means Forsaking Sin

I used to live in a forest out in the country, and on my property were some poisonous snakes. And every year I'd have to pull my boots on, grab a shovel to go out and kill some snakes. I had a rock bed at the foot of my property, and I'd get up on that rock bed with a shovel in one hand and a can of gasoline in the other, and I'd pour gasoline down onto the rocks.

And soon vipers would be slithering out, one going here, one going there, one right across the top of my boot. Poisonous copperheads would come out of those rocks, and as they did, I'd smash their heads with that shovel.

One time one shot its phantom up in my face, but I had my glasses on so my eyes were protected. But those snakes could get pretty mean when you were trying to kill them. And when you ask the Holy Spirit to shine His searching spotlight on your life, it can get pretty ugly.

The sins are exposed and brought to light where you have to deal with them and kill them, so to speak, through biblical repentance. True biblical repentance, friend, is a breaking off of sin. It's different than confession of sin.

In confession, one keeps drifting back and repeating the same sin, allowing that sin in their life, making room for it, then confessing it to God over and over again, but still repeating that same sin over and over again, tolerating it in their life over and over again.

People who maintain a low view of God have a low view of sin. You'll delude yourself into believing that God is somehow tolerant towards the sin in your life, but this is a grievous mistake. True biblical repentance deals with sin by forsaking it and turning from it completely.

If you tolerate sin in your life, friend, you will keep yourself from any usefulness to God, and you expose yourself to the risk of apostasy. The modern church in the West has become an impotent institution because of its refusal to deal with sin in the lives of its members.

That's why we have so little authority in our pulpits today, so little power, and the church is primarily a laughingstock to society. Your sinful flesh may rebel against this message or reject it entirely by saying, God doesn't operate like that anymore, God has changed, but my Bible declares of the Almighty who states, I change not.

Willful Sin and the Warning of Apostasy

Some of you may listen to this message and agree with its truths only to say, well, this is for someone else other than me, someone else who needs it. But some of you, if you're really honest before God, you are the man.

And others may reason with themselves that although they admit to willful sin, they see no chastisement from God. Then perhaps Hebrews applies to you, bastards and not sons, and this is the cause for great alarm.

But either way, I know that the truths I will present to us today, friend, in this message will disturb some of you, help some of you. And undoubtedly, it's one of those sermons I will certainly hear from.

In the book of Hebrews, we read in verses 10 -26,. For if we willfully, for if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. I want to say this, friends, if you are tempted to sin willfully, and if you act on that temptation and sin willfully and presumptuously, I better warn you now, trust me, you don't want to do that, you just don't want to do that.

I want to clarify what this verse means, for it has troubled some gracious souls. This verse deals with the total and final apostasy. I've seen this happen in the church where you know someone who's made a profession of faith, and for a while they're on fire for God, until one day they turn away from God and religion and become unbelievers.

Well, there's no hope for that person, the verse says, but a fearful looking for judgment. There remains no more sacrifice for sins. There's no other Christ to come and save such sinners. This is a dire warning, but let me add this truth to this verse.

Willful, presumptuous sin will not make you lose your salvation, but it will take you to God's woodshed. Look at Hebrews chapter 12, verse 6 and following. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

It's a guarantee, friend, that if you know what your Bible says about a thing, and you know it is sin to do it, and you still choose to go do it anyway, that's a dangerous place to be. God will take you to his woodshed.

If ye endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons.

Divine Discipline Produces Righteousness

My Bible says in Isaiah, all we like sheep have gone astray, every one to his own way. And that's what sin is, friend. It's going our way when we know it isn't God's way. And if you allow sin, indulge sin in your life, then you better be prepared to be taken to God's woodshed.

And that's the title of my message today, friend. God's woodshed under the rod of divine discipline. God will chastise you to correct you because he loves you as a father. Verse 11 tells us the result of God's woodshed.

Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. God will often use circumstances to get our attention when we are out of fellowship with him.

At times he may have to use more drastic measures with those individuals who are slow of learning or too hard-headed to recognize the present predicament in their life as the correcting hand of God. They just think the devil is after them all the time.

But it may be God who has allowed the trial to come, and the devil is just a delivery boy. But I will say this, friend, and I say it with all sincerity of heart. If you are a true, born-again believer with a regenerated heart, then God, as your father, will not allow you to tolerate sin in your life.

He will discipline you. He will correct you. He will use harsh tactics on you, if necessary, in order to achieve the results he is looking for. Now, this may go against your view of God as a loving father who would never intentionally hurt you.

But a loving father allowed his only begotten son to be whipped and spit on and slapped and mocked and abused by man to where he was crucified on a bloody cross to bear the weight of sin. The Word of God in Job 5, 17 and 18 declares, Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth.

Personal Testimony of God’s Corrective Hand

Therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty, for he maketh sore, and bindeth up, he woundeth, and his hands make whole. I remember a time in my life back when I was in college as a college student, and I had drifted away from God in sin.

And during that time I got a back injury that no doctor could help me with. What happened, I had bronchitis, and I went to a minor medical emergency clinic where a young, inexperienced doctor gave me a shot in my hip, and it hit my sciatic nerve, and it messed up my back.

Well, I compounded the injury that week by lifting weights, and I ended up with a severe back injury that would not go away. I went to chiropractors. I went to osteopaths. I went to every back specialist in town.

But often I was just made worse. No one could help me. Finally, after months of pain and discomfort, I was lying in bed reading my Bible, and I came across Job chapter 5 and verses 17 and 18. And God used that scripture to show me He was trying to get my attention through this back injury because I'd been living a sinful life.

Well, I took out an index card, and I wrote those Bible verses on the back of that card, and I scotch-taped it to my bedroom wall so that I could see it every day and think on it. Well, that's when I started living for the Lord again, and I quit sinning like I was doing.

And in time, in the process of time, God completely healed my back, and I never had any problem with it again. But the verse in Job plainly states that it is the Almighty who is behind the chastisement.

He is the one whose hands make sore. He is the one who woundeth, and his hands make whole. If you've been in God's woodshed, friend, and you've been dull spiritually to realize it's God who's been dealing with you to get your attention, to correct you for your own good, maybe it's time you opened your eyes and got serious with God that you got back into a right relationship with Him.

Returning to Fellowship Through Repentance

Amos 3 .3 declares, Can two walk together except they be agreed? Well, the answer is a resounding no. Listen to God's word in Psalm 94 .12. Blessed is the man whom thou chastisest, O Lord, and teacheth him out of thy law, that thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity.

If you've been out of step with God, friend, because of sin, it's time, don't you think, to get right with Him? Use this remaining time we have now to get alone with the Almighty. Ask Him, friend, to shine His searching spotlight of His Holy Spirit on your life, to scrutinize it, to expose the sin there.

Then deal with that sin. Don't tolerate it in your life anymore. Cast it aside like a lonesome thing, like a viper that's harmful to you, because all sin is harmful to you and to your usefulness for God.

If you are a pastor, you have an even greater accountability to God, and ask God to reveal anything in your life that is questionable or displeasing to Him. May God grant you, friend, much grace as you seek Him in repentance now.