In the sermon 'Difficult Blessings' by Peter Allison, the central theme revolves around understanding the significance of God's chastening as a demonstration of His love. Drawing from Proverbs 3:11-12, Allison emphasizes that God's correction is a sign of love, akin to a father's relationship with his child, and not retributive since Christ bore the entirety of God's wrath on the cross. The sermon explores various purposes of trials and afflictions, such as preventing sin, strengthening faith, and providing assurance of salvation. Through biblical examples like Paul, David, and the Israelites, Allison illustrates how God uses trials to humble, correct, and refine believers, likening the process to a coach training athletes. The sermon advises believers not to despise or grow weary of God's chastening but to embrace it as a means of spiritual growth and sanctification, reminding them of their status as children of God. The ultimate goal of such trials is to make believers partakers of God's holiness, offering comfort and assurance during afflictions.

Please turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 3. Our scripture reading this morning is verse 11 and 12. Hear God's word. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest his correction. For whom the Lord loves, he corrects, just as a father, the son in whom he delights." May God be praised at the reading and the hearing of His Word.

Almighty Heavenly Father, as we look to Your Word, may You teach us. May You cause us to delight in your word, to receive it with meekness as the ingrafted word. May you sanctify these sinful lips that your word might be proclaimed and the chaff blow away. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, last week we considered some amazing promises out of this chapter of Proverbs, promises that God would give us length of days, a long life and peace to those who remembered his commandments, that we would find favor with God and man if we remember mercy and truth.

That he would direct our path as we committed our way to him and that as We feared him he would bring physical health and strength to our bones and that we would have plenty and abundance of the of this world's goods as we honored Him with our possessions. And so that is the context then in which we find this exhortation. Having given us all of those promises, and those we said are indeed promises, These are not simply What we call Perverbially true means true most of the time. This is the Word of God. It is it is truth It is always true And and that truth Includes this exhortation my son do not despise the chasing of the Lord, nor detest his correction.

For whom the Lord loves, he corrects. And so the context of these prosperity proverbs is to also remember that those whom God loves, those upon whom he looks with favor, those whom he regards as sons, he chastens, He sends trials. What is the significance then of the chastening that God sends? Well, It is first and foremost a sign of His love. That's the significance of the trials that He sends.

This is the same God who sends prosperity. This is the same God who heals us, who gives strength to our bones, to our flesh, health to our flesh. The same one who blesses our life with peace, who satisfies our mouth with good things. This one, this God who loves us, our Father, is also the one who chastens us. So the first significance then is trials, afflictions, trials, afflictions, difficulties are for the Christian a sign that God loves us.

So If you are in the midst of a trial, or the next time you find yourself in the midst of a trial, a big one or a little one, remember that God is simply saying, signifying to you, signifying with a picture that you can feel, that you can see, I love you. You are a true son and not a legitimate child, not a bastard. And that should be a source of encouragement, if you remember that first. The significance also is that of correction, not retribution. Correction, not retribution.

Correction is what we give to our children. It says, the Lord is doing this just as a father, the Son in whom he delights. It is not retribution because God's wrath was poured out on Jesus Christ at the cross. All of it. God, Christ suffered on the cross all of the wrath of God for our sin, every bit of it.

That's why he said, it is finished. God's wrath is finished. Christ has suffered it. If God was then pouring out his wrath on us later on, then Christ didn't suffer it. And it wasn't finished.

And God's wrath wasn't fully satisfied for all of our sin But that's not the case Christ has fully satisfied the wrath of God. He has appeased God. He has propitiated the wrath of God for our sin. And that is a complete and full satisfaction. There isn't any part left over that we have to pay.

If he did, if that was the case, then Christ would not have accomplished the salvation of his people. He would have done a little bit of it. But Christ has actually accomplished. His death is actually paid in atone for our sin. And so the chastening that God sends upon us as our Heavenly Father is not retributive.

It is not punitive, but it is corrective. It is not done in wrath, but in his love. It is done and is sent to correct us in some way, to perfect us, to sanctify us. And so the Lord says, my son, my son, that's also speaking of his daughters as well, my children. This verse is actually quoted in its entirety in the New Testament, in Hebrews.

It is quoted and applied to the saints there not to grow weary, not to become feeble and weak, but to remember this exhortation, because we have a need to be chastened. What God does, what God says to us, we have a need to hear. What God does to us, we have a need to receive. And we need chastening. It is necessary for us.

It's as necessary for us as our daily bread is. It's as necessary for our spiritual health that we be chastened and afflicted as bread is for our physical health, food. We need this. There are a number of reasons why we need it. There are a number of purposes that God accomplishes through our chastening.

And so we are not to despise it. One of the things that God accomplishes is the prevention, the prevention of sin. Remember Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians was about to speak about some very amazing things. How he was caught up into the third heaven and saw things that It wasn't lawful to write about and so on. Unexpressible words.

Should say it wasn't lawful for him to even utter. And then he says this, and lest I should be exalted above measure, lest I should become proud because of the abundance of revelations that I have received that God has given to me as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ as a writer of scripture lest I as a human should be puffed up and think more highly of myself than I ought. God sent me a thorn in the flesh to trouble me. A messenger of Satan was given to me to keep me from becoming proud. He says, I prayed with the Lord three times that this affliction would be taken from me.

And God simply answered, my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness." Now Paul is not saying that he was proud or puffed up. He was saying that God sent him this affliction to keep him from sin. If you think about that, if you delight in the Lord and delight in His commandments, then we will be very grateful and we will be thankful To know that the Lord is preserving us from some sin that he knows we have a tendency to, or from some sin that we may not realize we are in danger of falling into. In danger of falling into.

So God sends chastening to prevent sin, knowing our weaknesses, knowing our human failings and inabilities and tendencies. He sends affliction to keep us from falling into sin. But he also sends afflictions to strengthen us. This is like the coach sending his players through a rigorous workout routine. And what do they often tell you?

No pain, no gain. Do another lap. Do a few more push-ups. Run a little harder. And when you're tired and think you can't do any more, go a little more.

Because it's in that effort, It's in that struggle that our bodies are conditioned and strengthened and able to do more. And in the same way, Solomon here says that God sends trials to us to strengthen us as a father his children yours a coach his players he writer of Hebrews compares our spiritual race, our spiritual walk, to a race and urges us to run, to prepare ourselves, to equip ourselves, to run with patience, endurance, the race that is set before us. So afflictions are one way that the Lord equips us to do that, to run this race that is before us. And that's why James says, my brethren, count it a joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Count it a joy.

Now that's not saying be happy-clappy. That's considerate. Reckon it to be a joy when you fall into trials, knowing, thinking ahead and knowing that in this trial if we endure it with patience, the Lord will teach us. The Lord will strengthen our faith. The Lord will reveal to us something that we didn't know before, didn't understand, didn't see.

And He will perfect us and refine us, like gold and silver are refined in a fire. David wrote in Psalm 119, it is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn your statutes. It's good for me that I might be afflicted that I might learn your statutes. What's he saying? Well you can learn something and you know it But when you experience it, when you live it, then you really know it.

Then it's deep inside of you. Then it's a part of you in a way that this mere academic understanding isn't. When you have experienced something, then you often see things that you don't see when you're just reading something. David here is speaking about knowing God's law, about it being a part of him, about him having understanding of it, about it being hidden in his heart. And he says that it's good that he was afflicted so that he could have this deeper understanding of God's commandments.

But God told the Israelites the same thing in Deuteronomy 8. Moses recounts for the children of Israel the covenant as they were about to go into the land of promise. For 40 years They had been wandering in the wilderness, in a desert. And God says, Every commandment which I command you today, you must be careful to observe that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, because he hated you, No, because to humble you and to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

God says He put them through 40 years of struggle in the wilderness, eating manna every day, giving them water from a rock. For 40 years, they wandered, knowing they weren't going to go and get to the land of Canaan, a promise. Simply so that God could humble them and test them to know what was in their heart, whether they would keep His commandments or not. So he humbled you. He allowed you to hunger, to know what was in your heart.

What were you going to do when you got hungry? Were you going to sin against God? Were you going to curse God? Were you going to grumble and complain? Or were you going to turn to the Lord and ask for food and Acknowledge that you were fed by his hand.

He humbled you. He allowed you to hunger. He fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you to know, that he might teach you, that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Your garments did not wear out, nor did your foot swell these 40 years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you." You should know that, Moses told the children of Israel.

The Lord is doing this to teach you. If you're hungry, the Lord is testing you. He's teaching you. He's testing you to see what you're going to do. He's giving you an opportunity to call upon him and to rest in him and to trust in him for your food.

Moses says, know in your heart, you should know in your heart, that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you. Are you a father? Do you love your children the way the Lord loves you? Then you will chasten your children in the same way, for their good, for their good, that they may be strengthened. You will chase in them to know what's in their heart.

God did this also with Abraham. He commanded Abraham to take his only son and offer him as a sacrifice. God did it to test Abraham. As soon as he saw that Abraham was ready to obey soon as Abraham had the knife above Raised above his son and was ready to thrust it down. God said stop see I now know what's in your heart That was a trial to Abraham to see if he would obey the Lord to see if he believed God God had promised to make of Abraham a great nation and he and to do it out of Isaac and here God is telling him that to kill his own this son and Abraham believed God that God was able to raise his son from the dead and therefore he was ready ready albeit with sorrow he was ready to obey God and to sacrifice his son.

That was a testing of Abraham, a strengthening of his faith. The strengthening of His faith. It's also testing. Trials are necessary because they bring also an assurance of our salvation. They bring an assurance that we belong to the Lord and that we are faithful.

The apostles, after they were taken into the Sanhedrin and commanded not to preach the gospel, then they were beaten for doing that and released. They left the presence of that Sanhedrin, that gathering of elders, they left rejoicing that they were worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ. They saw that as an affirmation that they belong to the Lord. They saw it as an assurance of their salvation, an assurance that they were worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus Christ. They saw it as God being pleased with them.

Chastening is necessary for our assurance because it brings comfort in knowing that the Lord sees us as worthy to suffer for his name. But chastening is also necessary to correct us when we sin. That's probably the one that's most obvious to us. David speaks in Psalm 51 in his repentance of God healing the bones that have been broken bones that God had broken to bring David back to repentance A few verses before in Psalm 119 and 67, David had written, Before I was afflicted, I went astray. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word." He recognizes there that affliction, trials, are sometimes necessary to turn us from the direction that we were going and wake us up, cause us to see that we've fallen to a stupor, that we've fallen asleep, that we've wandered off the path of righteousness.

And So how do we respond then to the Lord's chastening? How do we respond to it? Well if we know that we need that chastening, If we know that it's for the prevention of sin, it's for our testing and strengthening in the faith and for confirming us in the faith and for correcting us when we sin, then we will respond very differently to it. Then we won't despise it and we won't grow weary of it. How do we do these things?

How do we not despise God's correction? It says, my son do not despise the chasing of the Lord well we can despise it by being very hard-hearted and acting as if the affliction was really not a big deal that we're strong and we can handle it God means His chastening to be felt. Maybe as a child or as a father or mother you've seen your children respond to a chastening that way, particularly maybe a spanking. They can take it. They are tough.

They won't give you any acknowledgement that you are chastening them. That is a way of despising God's chastening. We can respond in the same way by having a stiff upper lip, just saying, Well, I'm strong enough, I can handle this. This isn't an issue for me. But God means his chastening to be felt.

And if you are his child, it will be felt. What that means is the Lord will simply chasten you more severely. We also despise the chastening when we consider only the immediate cause and do not see God's providence behind it. If we just look at it as a temporal circumstance, oh that guy fell asleep and ran into me, or whatever the case might be, We just look at the temporal circumstances, and we pass it off as just one more thing that happens in the day. But God speaks.

We know that God is behind these things. That God in His providence has brought them to pass, and He's brought them to pass for a purpose. Purpose. In 2 Kings, Hezekiah has prayed to God for deliverance from Snakrib, king of Assyria. Now, Assyria was a mighty nation.

They conquered many people. They were extremely violent. If you go to the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, you can see many stone etchings from the ears of the Assyrians, and they abound with decapitated people. The Assyrian soldiers standing in triumph over top of the foes that they have vanquished, their feet upon their neck, their heads severed from the body. That's actually what David did with Goliath, you remember, cut off his head.

Sign of triumph, of victory. And so they put these images of their victories all over the place. The Assyrians were a terrifying force, a cruel force. They went about wrecking vengeance and havoc and desolation everywhere that they conquered. But God's word to Sennacherib was, Did you not hear long ago how I made it?

From ancient times that I formed it, now I have brought it to pass that you, speaking of Sennacherib, that you should be for crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins. Sennacherib's army would go through and demolish cities with thick walls and leave a pile of rubble. Their inhabitants therefore had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were as the grass of the field and as the green urban as the grass on the housetops and The grain blighted before it is grown.

But God says, I raised you up. I am the one who called you. And he goes on to say, and because you have disregarded me, I'm going to put a hook in your nose and Bring you back where you came from hook in unit. We do that with bulls a bully put a ring in their nose and you put a rot and you can put a stick on that ring and You can a little child can lead a bull That has a ring in its nose God says he put a ring in Sennacherib's nose and brought him back. See, all the devastation and destruction that Sennacherib brought, God had ordained.

And he had a purpose in it. Jeremiah, it brings a word concerning Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar was the king that God raised up to destroy Israel and to bring them into captivity, to judge them. And yet, God calls Nebuchadnezzar in Jeremiah 25, God calls him his servant. His servant.

Therefore, says the Lord of hosts, because you have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the Lord. The families of the north is the Babylonians. They would come around the Fertile Crest and come down from the north. So they're called the families of the north, even though they're coming more from the east. He says, I will take them and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against the land, against its inhabitants, and against those nations all around, and will utterly destroy them and make them in astonishment, hissing, and in perpetual desolation." God said, Nebuchadnezzar is going to be my servant.

Why? Because he's going to do my will. He's going to accomplish my purpose in chastening the people of Israel. And so when we experience chastening, we need to look behind the immediate purpose, to recognize that it is God who is accomplishing something in our life, and not focus on the means through which he is bringing that chastening to pass. Now we can also despise his chastening when we become irritated at the rod instead of seeing the hand that holds the rod.

In 2 Chronicles, God sent a prophet to Asa, the king of Judah, And he came with an unpleasant message. He came with a message of chastening because Esau had not trusted the Lord. Esau was a good king, the Bible says, but he hadn't trusted in the Lord in a certain point and he had relied on the king of Syria instead of the Lord God to deliver him from an invading army. And he said, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to him and you've done foolishly. Asa, you haven't been loyal to the Lord and from now on you're going to have war because of that.

So what do you think Asa did? He got angry at the rod instead of seeing the hand that was wielding that rod. And he put the prophet in jail, put him in prison, because he was angry at the messenger over the message that he was bringing. We say don't shoot the messenger today. Pay attention to the message.

So we despise the chastening of the Lord when we become angry at the messenger, when we focus on the rod itself and not on the hand that is wielding that rod. We despise the chastening of the Lord when we see no purpose in it or when we fail to examine our own life and disregard our Father's loving correction and look for that purpose in the chastening, whether it's a little thing or a big thing. And these are things that we know now. But in the heat of the moment, in the heat of the affliction, when we've been irritated or we've been tried, it's sometimes hard to remember these things. Asa was a good king.

And yet in the moment of his affliction, he shot the messenger instead of examining his own life and asking why the Lord needed to bring this affliction upon him. We can reject the chasing of the Lord. We can despise it. We can be hardened to it, refuse in a way to acknowledge it. But there's a second exhortation here.

It says, don't despise it, but also don't detest his correction. Now, we have the benefit of the New Testament quoting this same verse, and of course doing it in Greek, and so we can look at the meaning of that Greek word. What did Paul use in the New Testament. And so this word in the Hebrew can mean to feel a sickening dread. It can also mean to loathe and detest, but it can also mean a sickening dread.

Or the Greek word that's used both in the Septuagint and in the New Testament is a word for relax, to give up. Just to give up. So we can despise it by being and be hardened to it But we can all we're also told not to give up not to grow faint not to just lie down and become despondent over it See we can't we are not to grow discouraged and weary and just say, I can't learn anything and give up. That is to detest, to reject God's correction. Another way we can give up or we can not accept his correction is by doubting God's graciousness in this providence.

Doubting God's graciousness and his goodness. Jacob was that way. You remember when he had lost Joseph and He had sent his sons down to Egypt to buy grain. They came back and one more son was in jail down there now. The family was accused of being spies.

This ogre down in Egypt wanted his youngest son to go back the next time they bought grain. And remember, Jacob just shut down. He just said, everything is against me. He doubted at that point God's goodness and His gracious providence, what He was bringing to pass in His life. Gideon had the same question, exact same question.

When the angel of the Lord came to him and the angel of the Lord came and said, the Lord is with you mighty man of valor. Now here's Gideon trapping out the grapes or threshing the wheat in the in the in the press in order to in order to hide from the Amalekites Who were marauding the land? This is a time of great affliction for the land and here the angel Lord comes and says The Lord is with you almighty men of valor and Gideon says well if the Lord is with us then why is all this trouble happening to us? He doubted at that moment of the goodness and the graciousness of God's providence. And Jonah also became angry at God's providence.

God had caused the tree to grow up in a day to provide shade and then God sent a worm the next day to kill it and then Jonah was angry that that tree had died angry at God We can also detest the correction of the Lord when we try to remove it by unlawful means. We try to escape the affliction by an unlawful way. We think, well, I can just take this shortcut here, maybe it's lying, and I can avoid this trial that the Lord's sending. I can shorten it. I can stop it.

That is to despise, to grow faint at the chastening of the Lord. We can also despise his chastening by refusing to be comforted by his hope at the end, by the good that God has promised to bring through that circumstance. The Israelites were like that and Jeremiah had to bring an exhortation to them that God did have good planned for them, even though they were refusing to acknowledge it. In Jeremiah 29, God says, After the seventy years are completed, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you and cause you to return to this place. For I have thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

And then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you." And he also says the same thing a little while later. He speaks of people that refuse to be comforted. A voice was heard in Rama, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more. And The Lord says, Refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded, says the Lord.

They shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future, says the Lord. Tell your children that your children shall come back to their own border. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself. You have chastened me and I was chastened like an untrained bull Restore me and I will return for you are the Lord my God Surely after my turning I repented and after I was instructed I struck myself on the thigh.

I was ashamed, even humiliated. Refusing to be comforted, refusing to look in faith to what the good that God will bring is a way of despising God's correction. So if we're not to despise it, if we're not to refuse it, how do we respond to it? My son, don't despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest his correction. For whom the Lord loves he corrects just like a father a son in whom he delights how do we respond then How do we not despise or reject God's chastening?

Well, his chastening should bring a softening and a humility. That's the first response. It should bring a softening. It should cause us to pause and to be humble, to acknowledge that maybe we're doing something wrong, to examine, be willing to examine our own life and our own heart, lest there be some wicked way in it. In Leviticus 26 we have the blessings of the covenant and God's promises to bring chastening where his covenant is disobeyed, not kept.

This chapter follows the pattern of revelation in this fourfold bringing of a covenant on judgment. But there at the end, it says, but if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in which they were unfaithful to me and in which they have walked contrary to me and that they have also walked contrary to me, not just far off, but they themselves, and have brought them into the land of their enemies, if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they accept their guilt then I will remember my covenant in verse 42 with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham and I will remember the land there's the promise of restoration if we are humbled and accept and acknowledge where we have turned from the Lord. We show our acceptance of this correction when we don't despise the messenger, the means by which he sends it. But we receive that affliction as just and merciful and being even less than we deserve. For it is.

It is. We accept this trial as from the hand of the Lord given in his mercy, given in his mercy, given in His mercy, and less than we deserve. That God is in His goodness, desiring to teach us, desiring to purify us. And so we accept it. We accept the affliction as for our good, as that which will strengthen our faith.

And our faith enables us to understand the reason for the discipline. When we understand the reason for the discipline, when we start examining our own life and the things that we have done and asking the Lord what we can learn in this trial and asking for patience to endure it with humility, then we will be able to see the rod as a rod of love, and not wrath. Then we will be able to remember that God has promised to bring good from it. And we'll be able to start looking and praying for and seeking the good that he promises to bring in our afflictions. For if we, when we do not despise the chastening of the Lord, and don't go weary, don't go faint in this correction, we will then also remember our title and privilege as adopted children of Jesus Christ.

And we will look to Christ to bring us through the affliction. As our Father, who desires, who loves us, who desires our good, who desires to sanctify us and purify us so he can present us as a spotless bride to Christ without blemish or wrinkle. We know that he chooses the best time to bring our affliction. He chooses the very best means that's tailored just for what we need. He knows the exact proper measure, not too much, more than we can bear, but not too little, that it is insufficient to accomplish its purpose.

And he knows the most effective instruments to bring us through. He chooses the best time, the right means, the proper measure, and the most effective instruments to accomplish all of these purposes. And we can trust in that. And we know lastly that these trials, these afflictions that he sends, the big ones and the little ones, the short ones and the long ones, are sent that we might be partakers of his holiness. That we might be partakers of His Holiness.

Even Jesus Christ was perfected through suffering. How much more do we need to be perfected, sanctified, edified, strengthened, purified through suffering so that we can be partakers of His holiness. That is that ought to be and should be a great comfort and assurance in our affliction. Let us pray. Almighty Father in heaven, We thank you that as our Father you know what we need even before we ask, and that you know what afflictions we need, and the best way to bring those, that we might be restored, that we might be built up in our faith, that we might be taught greater love, greater obedience, be made more gentle and peaceable.

Father we ask that in our afflictions that come this week, You might work in us that peaceable fruit of righteousness, that we may be able to look back on them in gratitude, but even in the midst of them, to praise you, to hope in you, and to rejoice in our salvation. We ask these things through Jesus Christ. Amen.