Join us as we navigate the profound discussions on self-judgment versus divine discipline underpinned by scriptural insights. From understanding the necessity of repentance to acknowledging the varied consequences of sin, this episode provides a comprehensive guide for believers aiming to live a righteous life. Stanley’s wisdom encourages listeners to embrace God’s teachings as a measure to avoid unnecessary hardships and align with His divine purpose.
00:19:43 Closing and Call to Visit InTouch Ministries
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, April 3rd. Hebrews chapter 12 clearly explains that the Lord disciplines those He loves. Join us today as we learn more about how Christ uses correction to help us lead orderly, godly lives.
SPEAKER 02 :
God our Heavenly Father is exactly what He claims to be our Heavenly Father. And who are we? Exactly who He identifies us to be His children. All of our life long, our Heavenly Father is in the process of training us. Working in our life, sifting and sanding and sculpturing and chipping away, pulling out, bringing us to the realization of those things that are foreign to His character and to His likeness in our life. So all of our life, we are being trained by God for holy living. The greatest expression of the meaning of the holiness of God is this. That is the crucifixion of His only begotten Son. The reason Jesus Christ was crucified is that God is so holy, He absolutely cannot excuse sin. He cannot overlook sin. He will not turn away from it. to simply ignore it, he had to deal with it. And God’s method of dealing with sin was the only method he could deal with it and still remain true to himself. And that is he crucified his only begotten son, who was the Holy Son of God, the Lamb without spot and without blemish. And when he died… He placed all of the guilt of all of mankind upon Him. And in those moments, Jesus was separated from the Father. He endured that separation. He paid the penalty for your sin and mine and the sin of the whole world. And therefore, only in that way and only for that reason, God can now forgive you and me of our sin. And so I say all of that to say this. When we talk about how to avoid divine judgment, we’re not saying there is an escape hatch, there’s a way to sneak out from under the judgment of God even after you’ve sinned. No, even for the believer, there’s no way to sneak out from under it. In the life of the believer, when God disciplines us in some fashion, and we’re coming again soon now to how he does it, but when he disciplines us, when he corrects us, and it’s painful correction. In the life of the believer, remember, it’s training. It’s training. It is training to protect us from further disaster and drifting further and further away from God until we lose, listen, not our relationship, which is a son or a daughter, not our salvation, which is impossible to lose, but losing our fellowship, losing our usefulness, losing our fruitfulness, and becoming set on the shelf by God because we refuse to be used by Him. So the believer who suffers divine discipline is suffering that discipline in training. The unbeliever, and I watch this, the unbeliever who gets the same dose. Same thing happens in their life. What is the difference? If the believer is over here suffering this and the unbeliever is suffering this, what’s the difference? I want to say it again. In the believer’s life, it’s training. It’s discipline. God is creating holiness in their life. In the unbeliever, you know what God’s doing? Here’s what he’s doing. And if you’re not saved, get this. What God is doing in the life of the unbeliever is he is giving you, listen, advanced warning. of a little bit of what you’re going to get a whole lot of on the other side when you die without Christ. You say, are you trying to scare me? If I could scare you into heaven, believe me, I would. But I can’t. I’m only telling you the truth because to ignore God’s Listen, to ignore God’s momentary acts of judgment in your life, to ignore that is to ignore advanced warning of ultimate judgment. That’s the difference in how God operates in the life of the believer and the unbeliever. And that’s the reason you and I see some people getting along so well, because theirs is coming. God is committed to daily training you and me. Daily discipline. We don’t like it, but you know what He’s doing? He’s saving us from ourselves. He’s protecting us. What God is doing in our life is indeed for our good. Now, with that in mind, how can you and I avoid divine discipline? That is His divine correction. How can we avoid it? Now, I want to say again, I’m not talking about sneaking out, slipping away, and escaping something that God intends to do. I’m not talking about that at all. So let’s go now to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and let’s read two or three of these verses again. Notice what he says in verse 28. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. He’s talking about before you come to the Lord’s table in this given instance. He says you need to examine yourself, check out your heart, and see what kind of condition it’s in, see if your attitude’s right before you come. Then he says, for he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he doesn’t judge the body rightly. That is, he says, in this given instance, if you come to the Lord’s table and your attitude is all wrong and you’re not reverencing and commemorating what this really means, commemoration of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, the promise of his coming again, and you just come in to have yourself a big party and drink and carouse at the Lord’s table, he said, you are going to be judged. Now, Verse 30. But this reason, many among you are weak, sick, and a number of slaves. That is because of their conduct. Now look at verse 31. rightly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. Now, that’s what I’m talking about when we were contrasting here the discipline of the believer and the condemnation of the unbeliever. He says, now, if you judge yourself, then he says you should not be judged. Now, what is he saying here? Self-judgment. What he’s referring to is self-judgment. We’re not talking about the judgment out yon in the future. We’re talking about judging ourselves. What is involved in self-judgment? Well, he begins it in that 28th verse when he says, let a man examine himself. That is, honest self-examination is the first step to self-judgment. The second thing I want you to notice here is not only is it self-examination, but it is coming to the right conclusion with God. That is, self-judgment is coming to the same conclusion that God comes to about what I’m asking about. He said, when we judge ourselves, we must be absolutely open and honest with ourselves about what we see. And self-judgment is coming to the same judgment that God comes to, the same conclusion that he comes to about this area, this issue in our life. It is coming before him with honesty, with humility. It is coming before him and coming to the same conclusion that he comes to. Now watch this. He says that you and I are the sons and daughters of God. You know what that means? That means, now listen carefully, that all of your sins have been atoned for and Jesus Christ was punished in your behalf and mine. Secondly, it means our names have been written in the Lamb’s book of life and will never be erased. It means that we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise forever. It means that we’re the sons and daughters of God and that we are holy in His sight. And because we’re holding His sight, sin of no fashion fits who we are. And God is in the process of cleaning up our life. He will continually cleanse us through His precious blood, the Bible says in 1 John 1, verse 7. And God’s goal for us is holiness, righteousness, Christlikeness, and to accomplish in and through us what He desires. Therefore, sin doesn’t fit us. And therefore, God’s not going to put up with it. And therefore, if I am going to escape divine discipline, I have to deal with that thing that crops up in my life or that God makes me aware of. I have to deal with it. And if I deal with it, if I judge myself rightly, I come to the same conclusion he does. I humble myself before him and confess. And listen, not just agree with God. But agreement must be followed by repentance, which means I have a change of attitude about that. Doesn’t fit my life any longer. I don’t want it in my life. And so I walk away. Repentance is going to be followed by a change of conduct and behavior. The only way to avoid divine discipline is to deal with the thing that God brings to mind, deal with it right then and there, or God will have to do it in a more harsh fashion. Now, let’s think about something. And I think this is very important. And that is that God always gives us time to judge ourselves. That is, he isn’t up in heaven saying, now watch him, got him. That’s not the way God operates. You see, God is the quick draw for judgment. God is loving and kind and patient. Now listen carefully because I don’t want you to dare misunderstand. I don’t mean that you can just sin against God and sin against God and say, well, I’m going to get around to that. Now, you know, I’ll handle that later. Friend, to avoid divine discipline, you deal with it now. Or he deals with it in some other fashion. He says, if you judge yourself, then God won’t have to do it. Because you see, listen, now think about this. And I realize that every time I come to preach a little heavy on grace, which is what the Bible teaches, I think about what Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, who is a great, famous English pastor, said. He said, anytime you preach the grace of God according to the Scriptures, it will appear to some that it’s cheap grace, that you can just sin and get by with it. And you know I don’t believe that. And that’s not what God teaches, but God does teach that God is a gracious, loving Father. Now, Therefore, because he’s, as he says, slow to anger, he will give you and me time to deal with whatever he brings to mind. You say, well, how much time? He gives us enough time to acknowledge it, confess it, and repent of it. But if at any point, as soon as he reveals it, if I come to confession but not repentance, then I haven’t dealt with it. Because you see, dealing with sin demands humility and along with that recognition and acknowledgement, confessing it and repenting means I get up and I walk off the other direction. I’m not going to hang around and do the same old thing. Now, Lord, I’ve got to think about this. Lord, I know you’re patient, God. I’ve just got to have some time. No. When I start demanding time, you know what happens? The discipline clock starts. How much time do I need to say, God, you’re absolutely correct. I’ve sinned against you. I disobeyed you. I knew better. I did it in a way. I ask you to forgive me. I agree with your whole attitude about this. It doesn’t fit who I am in Christ. I thank you for your forgiveness. I repent of this sin in Jesus’ name. But if I linger around in it, what I’ve done is invited divine discipline. And I hammer away at that for the simple reason I don’t want anybody to get the idea that you can just sin and sin and sin, and when it’s convenient, then you deal with it, and then God just withholds the discipline until then. No, He doesn’t. Now, I want to make one more point here, very important. There are some sins, the nature of which, if you commit it, and you deal with it instantly, the nature of that sin is such, you will bear the consequences no matter what. So I want to be sure nobody has the idea, well, you can just go out here and do sin, sin, sin, and sin, and sin, and if you’ll deal with it real quickly, then you won’t be judged. Listen, all of us know we cannot premeditate it. We cannot, with premeditation in our heart, decide we’re going to do thus and so. And as soon as we do it, we’re going to bring it to God and confess it real quick so we can avoid the judgment. We’re talking about in our daily life when we stumble and fall, not premeditated things that we’re going to work out and finagle. We’re talking about those things that happen to all of us in a given day or time in our life when we know that we have to deal with them or those things that come into our life and we have to deal with them. The sooner you deal with it, the less discipline you have to experience. Let’s look at this Corinthian church, what was happening for a moment. He said three things are going on in the Corinthian church. Some of you are weak, some of you are sick, and some of you are asleep. What he was saying is this. As a result of your sin, God’s disciplined hand has already been expressed. The weakness, physical weakness or emotional weakness in some of you is God’s discipline. He says some of you are physically sick. And that is the hand of God’s discipline. Some of you are asleep, which means they died. Now, if you’re not familiar with that use of the word, turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And you’ll recall this is exactly the word that Paul uses because it is his word to describe how the believer passes away. In verse 13 of chapter 4, 1 Thessalonians, he says, But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. So he’s talking about using the term sleep for death of a believer. So what Paul is saying here is this. He says, God’s divine discipline is already there in the church. Some of them are weak, some of them are sick, and some of them have died. Now let me hasten to say, all weakness isn’t necessarily the result of sin. All sickness isn’t necessarily the result of sin. And all death isn’t necessarily the result of that person’s sin. But ultimately, it was Adam’s sin that has brought death onto the whole human race. So every person who dies isn’t dying in sin. But here’s what he says. He says, in the body, three forms of divine discipline are weakness, sickness, and death. We could add a lot of things to that. Financial disaster, loss of material possessions, loss of job, disaster, that is disappointments, failing to reach goals. All kinds of things happen as a result of God’s divine discipline. And so he was simply saying to them, these are the things that have happened. And so he says, you’re suffering grief and you’re suffering expense that is absolutely unnecessary. Think about this. Friend, sin is always expensive. If it didn’t cost you any money, it would cost you peace, joy, happiness. I think about people who go through terrible financial disasters in their life when they absolutely reject God, absolutely reject His way, going to do it their way. Even Christians who say, no, this is the way I think it ought to be done and get out of God’s will and put material possessions ahead of God. And what happens? Usually, He disciplines us in the areas of our weakness. where we falter and we fall. And even when we have not fallen or faltered, He sends adversity into our lives in those areas that grow us up where we need to be grown. And so when we talk about the ways that God disciplines us, He disciplines all of us in different ways. But one thing for sure, He disciplines us exactly what we need. And though so often people, innocent people get hurt Because we won’t deal with what God is up to in our life. And so I say all of that to say to you, I don’t know what’s going on in your life. But this I do know. He says, take it seriously. You say, well, I don’t know whether this is divine discipline, if this is sin in my life, or if it’s just happenstance. Think about this. In the life of a believer, there’s no such thing as happenstance. He says that God loves us. And that He’s engineering all of our circumstances for our good. That’s divine discipline, hardship, heartache, troubles, trials, difficulties. Whatever comes our way, God’s going to work it for good if we respond properly. Now, whatever’s going on in your life that’s giving you a difficult time, anxiety, pain, whatever it might be, would you be willing to ask yourself this question, Lord, are you trying to get my attention? Be wise enough… to give him the privilege of saying to you, yes, I’m trying to get your attention. I want to correct this in your life. And if you’re willing to deal with that, then I will remove the discipline. Until you deal with that, the discipline will be there. And the longer you live in that, the more intense the discipline is going to become because I love you and I want to save you from yourself. Now, if you can look at it that way, we’re not talking about a harsh, cruel, angry God. We’re talking about a loving Father who’s looking out for our good. And I want to challenge you to examine yourself as I have to examine myself. Lord, are you in the process of disciplining me in this area, that or the other? And if you and I will be open and honest, confessing, repenting of sin, whatever it might be, then what does He do? He restores us and honors our obedience, even in confession and repentance. And He will remove the discipline for the moment, for the time, or He will remove it for good, if you and I will walk in obedience to Him. I simply say all that to say, God wants His best for you and me. And He’s prepared the best for us. And He’s just waiting for us to get into position so we can receive the best of his blessings. And Father, we love you for your kindness and your joy that you’re willing to place in our life and we walk in obedience to you. I pray, Father, for someone today who is unsaved. You said, behold, today is the day of salvation, that confession, repentance, that belief is to be done today, not tomorrow, next month, next year, 20 years from now. that you would grant all of us the courage to look within ourselves, to examine our own lives, and then to be wise enough to do our own self-judgment so that you will not have to judge us yourself. And I pray that each one of us will be obedient to your will, to whatever you require of us. And we know that it’ll be good. And we thank you for it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to part two of How to Avoid Divine Discipline. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
