Telling you what I was going to talk about didn't scare you. Looks like most of you made it. Discipline. That was a happy subject, isn't it? I want you to look with me in Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 12. And it is a happy subject in many ways. Not for the immediate, as Hebrews points out. But, in the long run, yes. For a life that was never disciplined, or a life without discipline, is a horrid life. A horrid life. For that life, and anyone in their path. So, what we're going to begin looking at tonight, highlighting that word begin, divine discipline. Divine Discipline. And it is Hebrews chapter 12, verse 5 through 11 is the passage. And this passage, as well as any New Testament passage, elucidates the biblical pattern and teaching on divine discipline, God's discipline. The very idea of discipline has fallen into disfavor, particularly corporal punishment and many secularists, and they write about it, and you can see the lack of it in public places, that it's not distinguished between that and child abuse. And of course, they can't distinguish between a policeman protecting you and a robber, very often guns, and so they blur the line. The difference is love. That's what makes the difference. We now focus just on positive reinforcements. I'm alright with that, but you need to know that just the focus upon positive reinforcements comes from a couple of ideas. One of them is that human beings do not have a sinful nature. They're either born with a blank slate or, it's good, But the other is from the study of animals. And the founding psychologist of educational psychiatry and psychology did study on animals and ants and so forth, and this is where they get this stuff from animals. So remember, they believe that we're the human animal. So I'm alright with positive reinforcements, but the whole Bible has both. And that's what you need, is the balance, and the balance is in love. The greatest example of that is God. And that's what this passage reminds us, that God is in the discipline business, and He, my dear friend, it is to be remembered, is love. What He does is loving, but who He is, is love. And so this passage lays that out. People think, well, God, He's love. He wouldn't bring sickness into my life. He wouldn't cause me to lose my job. And I'm not saying every time that happens, He caused it, He could use it, and you caused it, Satan caused it, or others caused it. But listen to me, beloved. God does bring those things in our life, and He does it. He'll never do it to cause evil in our life. He will do it to cause us to grow spiritually, to lose the lesser for the greater. We do it with our children all the time. We cause them to lose the lesser because we know that they'll get the greater out of it. They don't understand it. They don't see how it's love. They think it's abusive. But it's not. We know that. Well, God knows. But to us, If God really caused me to lose my job, that seems cruel. Not if you knew what He was trying to do and to bring you to a totally different level. He has a much more wonderful job He can hand you if you can ever get this message. If you can ever pass this class, He'll move you on. But if you keep flunking it, He just has to keep bringing you back to repeat the course. So, Nothing could be further from the truth and the idea that God either doesn't use them, but also doesn't bring some of them. And what it'll do is to cast you into utter confusion and walking in immaturity during the course of your spiritual life. Again, we do this with our children and to not do it would be very unloving. So when we're going through trials, there are a lot of things to think about and as we all know, Trials, loss, and all of those bring an enormous amount of confusion. And this passage can help you to weed through some of the confusion. The reason that we are so confused is because we forget the scripture, we have the idea that the blessing of God equals the comfort of a human as we've described it. That our goal is really God's goal, or it should be, if you would listen, So I'm going to take this and teach divine discipline, but I want to expand your thoughts in the area of discipline. So I want to begin by giving you five kinds of discipline and then five purposes for discipline, okay? So there are five kinds of discipline that are laid out in the scripture. One of them is, the first one is parental discipline. parental discipline. Parents are to rear their children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. So part of our responsibility when we have a child is to discipline that child. So that's the first kind. Now when we get to the purposes you'll see how that expands out and that discipline has a fivefold purpose. But you have five Second kind, self. Self. Self-discipline. When you do parental discipline, what you're trying to do is to get them to the point where they self-discipline their self. So when they're a child and you are having to bring discipline into their life, your ultimate long-range goal is that they grow up to self-discipline themselves. To make choices that are right, that they refrain, they don't just do what they feel or they don't run over people. You know, you watch a little child and they're grabbing toys and we're disciplining them so that hopefully when they grow up and they go out to eat, they don't grab somebody's hamburger because that's what they decided they wanted. So, self-discipline. The third is church discipline. And that's a kind of discipline. So you could have a child that grew up, did not get parental discipline, didn't get self-discipline, and they get in church, they're focused on the grace of God, they began to do things that cause all the disruptions of a toddler, and they have to be disciplined. Or they end up destroying the church, the mission of the church, the harmony of the church, and they actually become the pastors. And it's interesting that I can think back over these some severe church discipline cases, and where some of the most severe, they admitted having always gotten away with everything. I mean, I remember them saying that publicly. It was not until this discipline that I had to face my responsibility alone. And out of that, became salvation, committing to missions, restoring marriages. So, church discipline is because they didn't learn self and maybe the parents didn't discipline them. The fourth kind is government discipline. So, you don't get parental, you don't get self-discipline, you're not in the church, you go to jail. Why? Because you're not disciplined. So the government has to set controls on you because we've got to protect all these other people from you. Just like the toddler, you know, he kept biting his friend. You've got to separate him. Well, now you're a 30-year-old and you're still biting. We're going to put you in prison. The fifth kind of discipline is divine discipline. That's where God, He may now use different things, and He does use these instruments, but now we're talking about where God is directly doing something in discipline, not just using secondary and tertiary levels, and this is of two kinds. One we could call corrective, and that is a large part of what you're going to see here. But the other is ultimate discipline, which is hell, for the ones who never did get it right and never will. There has to be and I give you the five purposes, you'll see some of that in there. There has to be a place where there's an ultimate discipline in separation. So, that's the five kinds. Parental, self, church, government, divine. Divine has two. We can call it corrective or redemptive or temporal here, and then eternal, okay? Now, the fivefold purposes of discipline. Why does God discipline? And again, there's application to us. The first is redemptive. Redemptive. That God is doing discipline to break the rebellious heart to redeem that. So when we talk about church discipline, everybody's for church discipline as long as it's redemptive. Well, not everybody's for it. The ones that are for it. Well, I'm for it, you know, if it's redemptive. What they're basically saying is, if it'll redeem them, let's do it, but if it won't, let's don't. That's what they're saying. Well, we don't know, do we? Until we do it. Because it's up to them, see? So what do you end up doing? You don't do it. So this would be of a rebellious child and you're trying to redeem the child from rebellion. A second purpose is correction. Correction. This isn't rebellion, necessarily. This isn't redemption. This is error. So again, you can think about church discipline. We have church discipline, not because they're in rebellion, but it's corrective. All of us sit under that. When we're hearing the Word of God, it's a form of discipline, see, on us all. And what's it doing? Correcting our thinking. Correcting. That's what we do with our children. You can't pour the milk over there. It's to drink. That's wrong. See, we're correcting. We're not sending them to hell. We're not saying, well, you're out. I know you're four, but you're on your own. I just can't take it anymore. You just spilled too many glasses. See, it's not rebellion. It's just they made an error. So you're trying to correct. This is a lot of what discipline is, isn't it? From the time they're born to they can start doing anything, doesn't matter what they're doing, No, can't do that. Can't have both those. Don't jerk that. Don't put that in your mouth. Don't get that. It's just constant, isn't it? Correction. So God is constantly correcting us. So when I'm using the forms saying God disciplines, you have to be thinking in these ways that it could be... When I say maybe God's disciplined you, you don't have to be in rebellion. But what are you trying to do with your child? You have a really good child, but there's just an error here and you're just trying to help. See? And that's all he's trying to do. So you have redemption, you have correction, you also have purity. Now this can be a couple of kinds. It can be purifying the person that you're disciplining. So purifying their thoughts. purifying their associations, their friendships, things like that. So we would say, you can't run around with that person anymore. You can't watch this. So you're trying to purify. It can also be purifying in the sense like church discipline where you take that person who will not repent and you take them out to purify the body. And this can be in extreme cases in a home where you have one that their behavior is so bad that it's infecting the other children. And you have to take extraordinary measures to purify. And this leads also and can be the same thing as the next one are related and that's protection. That discipline is protective. So you could be, God could do it to protect someone else from you but he could also be protecting you from yourself, protecting you from something else. And I would say that a lot of times we don't even know what he's protecting us from, but he did something. I think one of the amazing things we may find in heaven is one of the great things we learn are all the times that God protected us from ourself or something else through doing something that maybe we thought that was bad at the time. And then we're going, Whoa, doggie, I'm glad that little thing happened. I'm glad about that flat tire. I wish I'd have been praising Jesus instead of... So it can be protective. Again, you have a child that keeps hurting the other children, what do you do? You separate them. You're going to learn to behave. You're not going to hit on Sally. You're just not going to do it. Right? Because what are you doing? You're trying to protect. In the church body, we have somebody who's causing trouble. You know what we have to do? You try to work it out, won't work it out, you gotta go. Because we have an obligation to protect those. Same thing in our culture, right? I mean, if you were talking about, you have to protect us, so you have to take these people and get them out and protect the people that are playing by the rules. So discipline has a protective. And then the last thing discipline has is a justice. It's for justice because it's right. And you know, it really bothers me when you see these things on TV and, well, you know, people just want vengeance. We don't want vengeance. That's not what we're after. We want justice. There's a vast difference. The scales, you ever seen the scales, you know, and the law things and so forth? They're to be put in balance. And injustices do this. And justice does this. So, God will bring about justice in the final conclusion. In everything. He acts justly, but all of the unjust will be dealt with justly. But in our homes and other places, it is for justness. It's not right. See? That's what we're telling them. There's a right beyond us. So when I'm saying discipline, and when you're reading in this passage, keep in mind this broader perspective, because when you talk about disciplining your child, you're thinking, well, it's just not right that they get away with that, or they can't hurt the other children, see. or I'm just trying to help them get better. So you're employing all of these ideas all the time. You're just moving in and out of them. We do it in church discipline, we do it in government discipline, and we do it in self-discipline. We do things to protect us, we do things to keep us from getting impurities in our life, and so forth and so on. So that's kind of the big picture there. Now when you come to the passage that we're studying, what you have are these Jews. who are going through suffering. And what's happening is, they're suffering, and some of them are ready to apostatize. Either to leave and not have made a final commitment to Jesus Christ, or the Christians are becoming timid, and so He gives all these warnings not to do those things, and He gives encouragements to stay strong. But they've come, and they're following the Messiah, but life got worse. There's all these problems, and they're no different than us. We get confused. When you're trying to live for God, and you're trying to do the right things, and the bottom's falling out, and this happens, you're confused, right? We're confused. That's where they are. So, here they've come to the Messiah, they're trying to walk with God, and yet, things are really bad. And they don't look better, they look like they're getting worse. And more people are turning on them, they're losing their jobs, they don't have health insurance anymore, they don't have a job, they don't belong to the cliques, they can't go to the synagogue. All these things have happened. Why? I mean, if they're not serving the true God like they're supposed to, and I am, why do they have all that? That, beloved, is where this passage falls, in the confusion of trouble. I want you to look at a few verses to kind of get this in context. Look back at chapter 10, in verse 35. And he says, And just notice the words, confidence, endurance, patience, and things like that. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. See? Don't throw it away. Don't quit. For you have need of endurance, so that when you've done the will of God, you may receive what's promised. Don't quit. For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith. Trust Him. confusing, scary, hard, trusting, see? And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure. That's the warning. But we're not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul, see? So what is that passage? Hang in there. Don't let the hard trials and all the things that confuse you, don't let that cause you to pull back. You live by faith. And then you have chapter 11, which is a whole chapter on examples of that. Chapter 11 are the people who endured, had patience, and stayed in there with faith in very confusing times. They didn't pull back. And then you come to chapter 12, verse 1 through 4, which we've just finished studying, and what does he say? So run the race. So look what he did. Don't lose patience. Don't quit enduring. Live by faith. Don't let these things pull you back. Then He gave a whole chapter on all of these ones that they would have known first hand, reminding them that they were people of faith and they didn't pull back. And then you get to chapter 12. Now you run the race. You run the race. And we have a cloud of witnesses. We have all these people, now you become that one. And then you come to verse 5 through 11, and what does he talk about? Discipline. Discipline can give you great insight into the complexities of living the Christian life that don't seem to go so well. Okay? So that's the context. of this to try to help these first century Jews to hang in there and stay faith and the same as the context for us. So divine discipline helps them and us to understand our plight, to come through it strong rather than just even come through it or not come through it at all. Remember, we're told about in 1 Peter, 1 Peter is about suffering. James, trials, and these things can perfect our faith, and strengthen us, and be our benefit. And if they're our benefit, they can benefit others, and they can benefit our relationships, and they will ultimately be able to benefit our children, and those children can take them and benefit their... There's just really no end. But we can cut that off by not understanding and following the discipline and so forth. So, in these verses, verse 5 through 11, I note 11 characteristics of divine discipline. They're either 11 characteristics or 11 things related to divine discipline, and they can be applicable when we're talking about other areas, but particularly for we as believers, relating to discipline, there are 11 characteristics or associations, things to remember, and so forth, okay? So that's what we're really digging into as we go through the passage, to see these 11 things. So the first thing is in the first part of verse five, and that is, forgetting about it produces fear and frustration. Forgetting about it, Forgetting about divine discipline, the reality of it, produces fear and frustration. In the first part of verse 5, there are three of these characteristics or aspects in verse 5. The first one says, And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. The Jews had forgotten. You know what? They had forgotten quite a bit. They had forgotten that only faith pleases God, Hebrews 11, 6. And so they are reminded, if you're going to please God, it's by faith, not the laws, not Jewish descent, not who your parents were, but faith, but they had forgotten. They had forgotten that the choice saints of God suffered. If you want to take something and hang on to it, it's that. I mean, all of it, but I would just say on a very practical level, who are you? Who am I? That when suffering comes into my life, I think, why me? Why shouldn't be? And the greatest saints of God throughout history have suffered. But they forgot. We sometimes don't do as well as to forget because we don't even know it. They forgot. But when we do know it, we forget. The names that I would mention, or most pastors would mention, or if you're a teacher and you would mention teaching others, they all suffered. All kinds of stuff. Sometimes I look at their life, and if it wasn't for the grace of God, I think, man, you ought to quit. That's a dead-end street for you. Their health, their families, their children dying, I mean, just horrid things. And when we forget that, we do it to our spiritual peril. Same with them. You know what else they forgot? They forgot the teaching of the Book of Proverbs. They forgot it. I don't mean they couldn't tell you about it. I'm just telling you they forgot it. You know what the book of Proverbs was? Dad teaching his son. That's what it was. And you could apply that to girls too, but it was about that. You know what verse 5 and 6 are? Quotes of Proverbs 3, 11 and 12. They forgot Proverbs. What's it about? Teaching, disciplining, correcting your child while there's still time. They forgot about it. That's what a loving father does to his son. And if you're a son or a daughter of God, and he's the loving father, there ought to be discipline. They forgot about God's discipline upon Israel that covers entire books, like Ezra and Nehemiah, had entire books on it. You see, what the Scripture does is it links sonship or daughtership to father by discipline. I want you to turn back to Deuteronomy chapter 28. And this is a quite important chapter, but it can be kind of a summary type if you think about the law. I'm talking about the orthopraxy of the law, the doing and the keeping of the law. And chapter 28 really lays it out in the way that it all worked. And I'm just gonna read a couple of verses. So they're the children of God in covenant. He's the father, right? So look what it says, verse one of chapter 28. And the rest of the chapter just lays this out in detail, I'm just skipping. But verse one says, now it shall be, You're diligently, if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments, which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. He'll bless you, right? Verse 15. But it shall come about if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes, with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Now Bobby, if you bite your sister one more time, this is what's going to happen to you. But if you'll quit biting her and just bite your sandwich, you can play and we'll go to the park. Isn't that what we do all the time? That's what God would do. People find this harsh. It's not harsh, it's love. What kind of love to let them betray every righteous thing and not do anything about it? I would call that child abuse. Turn over to verse 58. If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, The Lord, your God, and the word Lord, notice, all in uppercase, which is the tetragrammaton, the word we translate Yahweh or Jehovah. Verse 63, it shall come about that as the Lord delighted, delighted over you to prosper you, multiply you, So the Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you, and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it." It was all about a choice and responsibility, right? So God says, I want to do this, and I'll bless you if you do this, but listen, if you don't, this is what's coming. They forgot. that privilege of sonship and relationship with God brings about this responsibility, and if it's violated, there is discipline. So they forgot discipline. They forgot that the people of God were exiled to Babylon. Why? Because they were disobedient. They were supposed to allow the land to sit idle every seventh year. So God really said, work six years, the seventh year, it's off. Do what you want. I'll take care of everything. I'll give you enough in six years, you won't need to do that. So the year, every seventh year, the land had a sabbatical, but the people really had a great time, didn't they? Except one thing. Well, if we're making this much in six, if we went ahead and worked it that seventh, you see how much more we could make? So they started doing it. They got away with it for 490 years. God must have accepted it, because look how many generations passed and he didn't do anything about it. And then he said, time's up. You're going to leave the land. And you're going to go into captivity. And he took them into Babylonian captivity. And if you multiply 7 times 70, you get 490. They'd gone 490 years, given it no Sabbaths. So they owed God 70 Sabbaths of the land. They were in Babylonian captivity 70 years. God says, I'm going to get it. They forgot. They forgot the discipline of the Lord. By the time Christ came upon the earth and was in Jerusalem, the test was whether or not God loved you and whether you were really doing right was by how much wealth you had, the positions you had. And again, remember the common thing that happened when the invalid guy was there. He said, who sinned, him or his parents? He couldn't love God. And we have that same kind of thing today, don't we? I don't know, you're going through this, God must not love you. So if somebody's healthy, wealthy, and wise, we assume that, or they assume that God really loves them, but He couldn't love you if you're poor, or you're crippled, or something of that nature. So here were these Jews, and they were poor, they were afflicted, they were losing everything, and they were becoming depressed and frustrated, just like human beings do. Why? Because they forgot that sonship brings with it discipline. When we have a child, part of that relationship is discipline, and the same with us that know God. So they had forgotten the teaching of God, and when you forget the teaching of God, it brings frustration, confusion, depression, discouragement. We have forgotten enough, generally, to condemn us a thousand times. We forget all the time. We forget the Scripture, and when we do, we focus on the situation or the experience alone. We fear needlessly, and we fret, and we get frustrated easily because we've either forgotten the Scripture, we don't know it, or we're rejecting it. But if you know the Scripture, it gives you that peace in that tumultuous situation. I want you to turn to 2 Peter in the New Testament. 2 Peter chapter 3. And it says in verse 1 and 2, this is now, beloved, the second letter I'm writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder. I'm going to remind you of some things. Verse 2, that you should remember. the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets, the commandments of the Lord, and the Savior spoken by your apostles. And then he goes in to knowing about the coming of the Lord, and knowing there's going to be mockers, and knowing all these things. He's reminding them. Jude, remind them. Peter, remind them. Hebrews, remind them. Why? Because we forget. Look back in 1 Timothy. chapter 4. He says in verse 6, and this is talking about what is a good minister, what is a good shepherd. And he says, in pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of faith and of sound doctrine which you have been following. You see the word pointing out? It's a present tense. Just keep pointing it out over and over and over because we forget. And to walk through all the time, we always need to be reminded, but in difficult times, We need to be reminded so that we don't get frustrated, we don't get confused and depressed and feel forsaken of God. We go, oh, so that may be what God's doing, or God's speaking to me this way. So it doesn't mean the thing you're going through is not hard or not real, but it means we're looking to a deeper thing. And again, Satan may try to kill, steal, and destroy. God doesn't do that. God will bring things into your life, and the benefit will always be better for you, which will ultimately benefit others. But remember, I've said, I just can't preach in a way, because I don't think it's reflective of the Scripture. If your goal is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, then all this fits. If you have a different goal, I can't make the Scripture fit that, because that means that your goal is not God's goal for your life or for my life. So he's to constantly be doing this, reminding the flock, reminding himself, I have to be reminded, I forget. And sometimes, you know, you're just reading along and you say, man, I remember that and I forgot that verse and I'm gonna go write it down, I'll never forget that sucker again. But that was a good effort and it may just fit you right at that moment. Somebody says it, you hear it on the radio, You hear it in a class, you hear it in a sermon, you see it in your devotional, and God just speaks to you very poignantly. So, if you forget that the Lord disciplines, and you look at the circumstances of your life, it will cause you confusion. And you know, I've said that sometimes God brings these in. He's the one that directed it. Sometimes He allows it. Now, let me give you an example. There are certain things your child, they do, and you bring the discipline to correct them. Don't do that anymore, you know, or spank them or put them in the corner or something. So you brought the discipline. But other times, it just happened and you used it. So God can allow it. We could have done it. Somebody else could have done it. So your little child, they're outside playing, you know, and you said, don't play on the sidewalk. And the next thing you know, little Johnny comes in, he's bawling his head off. And what'd he do? He scraped his knee. And what'd he do? He ran on the sidewalk. You didn't go out there and shove him down. I did that because I want to teach you a lesson. Terrify your kid. But what'd you do? You allowed it. When you saw their knees scraped up, what are you going to do? What'd mommy tell you? I told you not to run on the sidewalk. Didn't I not tell you not to run on the sidewalk? And you just, boy, you're really drilling it. Well, I told him not to run on the sidewalk and he did. See, you're telling all the neighbors. But you didn't shove him down. You didn't set up a trap so he'd trip. But you're gonna take that and you're gonna teach him and correct him. So, we do that in our children's lives. Sometimes we bring the discipline Sometimes just we allow certain freedoms and in that they do it, somebody else does it, kid hit him with a ball bat or whatever. And so, same thing in the spiritual realm. God brings some, but some, and I would say a large portion we bring into our own life. But others can bring it as well. I'm going to try to touch on this, maybe I can get through this. But the second part, the second principle or characteristic is, despising discipline is disastrous. Despising discipline is disastrous. He says in the second part of verse 5, And my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord. Meaning, don't keep it in low esteem. So there are two things. Don't forget that he does it, right? So you got to remember, God does do this. And then you got to give it its proper esteem. So again, you're disciplining your child, they have to value that discipline. Or it doesn't work in their life. So you give it the proper esteem. So the thing that's being focused on here is not you not taking serious the seriousness of the problem. That's not the focus. The focus is not taking serious the discipline that may be present or going on in the problem. have gone through a financial problem and it's very serious and I mean you're very serious about it. What you're not esteeming is the discipline of the Lord in that that may have brought it about or may be using it to try to teach you a spiritual lesson. You've scraped your knee and now He wants you to get the message. So let me give you four things that can kind of keep us from doing this very quickly. One of them is callousness. not esteeming it because we become callous. We see our experience, and that's our focus, rather than focusing upon what God may be teaching us. Beloved, we have to see beyond the physical thing to the spiritual. If you just see that you scraped your knee, but God may be saying, don't go in that area, you're missing it. You see that your finances got messed up, Well, any lost person can see that. And see, we don't believe in deism. Remember what deism is? That there is a God, but He's not involved in the day-to-day lives of His creation. He doesn't intervene. But we believe that God intervenes, therefore, when these things are happening, they're not out of His purview, out of His involvement. So you always have to be thinking. What happens is, you become callous because you become spiritually insensitive. So something's going on, but you've become spiritually insensitive. So you're telling somebody, yeah, you know, we're going through some financial things, and what I'm going to do is fix it. I'm going to try to... And there's no sense of what may be going on spiritually. So you get out of that financial thing, and you know what happens a little later? You got you another one. You know what happens a little later? Got you another one. You keep getting out of it, but by Georgia, it keeps coming back. Because you keep flunking the course, and you got to keep taking the same class over and over and over. You become insensitive. A lot of times when God brings something in our life or uses it as a discipline, you know what happens if you're open? You become more sensitive to spiritual things at that place than you were here. Things are going well, you may not have been as sensitive. You go through this and all of a sudden you're listening and looking, so you're becoming more sensitive. But an insensitivity, can cause you to miss the discipline of the Lord. So callousness. Second is complaining. What did Jews do in the wilderness? Gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe, gripe. God was trying to do a work. They were so busy griping. So, something happens in your life, or it's a health problem, or a job problem, or a marital problem, all you can do is gripe. When you talk to somebody, your prayer request is really a complaint. You just gotta get it off your chest and can't really do it the way you want to, so you just put it in the form of a spiritual request. We just pray for my husband. I don't know, he's so sorry. I mean, I love him and he's got all these great qualities, but he's kind of a beast too. So you're just griping. And some people just never get beyond being a complainer about everything. So we miss the discipline of the Lord. Complainer, this is what the Jews did. is by criticizing. You see, God didn't really plan it right. I think we've all done these things. I don't want to hurt any of you if you haven't ever failed in these areas, so forgive me, but I do think we've all probably done this. But the deal of criticizing, see, I think there's a legitimate saying, God, God, I would like to know why this happened. Meaning, your heart is, you want to get all you can out of it. That's an okay why question, I believe. Why, in the sense, it doesn't make sense, and here's a better plan, that's wrong. Or, I'll do it, I'll praise God when I understand the why. That's wrong. What we're saying is, you know, you get hurt. Well, you know, Lord, if I didn't have this hurt, I could do more for you. I lost my job, Lord. If I had my job, I could give more. See? What we're saying is, God, you got a bad plan. Look how much... So we're criticizing, and we miss what God may be doing right then through the discipline. The fourth thing is carelessness. Carelessness. You're just flippant about it. I mean, you're just flippant about your spiritual life. Maybe you go to church, maybe you teach a Bible study, maybe you do devotion, but you're really just flippant. I mean, what you're serious about is you go to work, you do these things, you're going to make this work, but you have a flippant attitude about things that come into your life. Well, that's just life. Or, well, I guess he's going to do whatever he wants to do, you know, but I'm just going to keep on... See, you're just cavalier. And that's a problem because God's trying to bring a discipline, really, and it will ultimately benefit us. And it will benefit other people. And you know, when people go through things and they do grow, and you grow spiritually towards the Lord, I don't know of any who love God that want to go back to where they were. We don't like going through it for the sense that it's hard, but what we are when we get through it, we don't want to go back. That's the thing. And God, you know what, I was questioning about a guy, being interviewed somewhere, a young man, and they asked me, they said, so what do you think, does he have a good level of compassion and everything? And I said, he's a young guy, he's a young guy, who thinks he's gonna live forever, he's never had a headache, and you wanna know how much compassion he has. I said, he doesn't have near as much compassion as he'll have when he's 60, or 50, and he's gone through crises, and he's seen people he loved die, and things like that, see. Life, if you'll let it, can make you a more compassionate person. So I said, be generous to the person. God can take care of a lot of that, if you'll just give a little bit of time. But cavalier, just being cavalier about this whole thing about discipline. Sometimes we're afraid to say to somebody, did you ever consider that it might be the discipline of the Lord? But the idea is because we're thinking about, well, I'm not a renegade. I'm not rebellion. We're trying to follow God. But that's not always it, is it? It's a correction. It's doing something for your benefit. And that's the way you look at it. Lord, I want to walk through this thing. It's a physical thing. But I want to walk through and get everything you have for me, my family, my church, whatever it is, so that when we come out on the other end, we're not the same person we were going in. Father, we thank you for your Word and that you love us enough to be so meticulously involved in our life. To use, to bring those things, and even though they look bad to us, maybe hard, but the benefit's gonna be great. And Lord, may some of that praising we would do in eternity when we know all the facts, and we look back and we see how you did this and it protected us, or it prepared us, or somebody else benefited, and we're so thankful for all of those things. May we do that by faith in this hour. We pray you bless the offering. We love you in Christ's name. Amen.