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sunday quotes -- the chastening of God

 

David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD..."  (2 Samuel 12:13-14 ESV)

"I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. (2 Samuel 7:14-15) 

The Chastening of God  (2 Samuel 12:1-14)

--God’s conviction of David’s sin (1-9).
--David’s confession (5, 6, 13).
--The consequences that David will face (10-14).

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.  For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”   (Hebrews 12:5-6)

“…in religion, repentance is self-centered; the gospel makes it God-centered. In religion we are mainly sorry for the consequences of sin, but in the gospel we are sorry for the sin itself.”   (Tim Keller, “All of Life is Repentance”, PDF here.)

“A full conviction of sin is a great and shaking surprise to a guilty soul.”  (John Owen)

"We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin."  (C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain)

“A sense of defilement before God is not morbid, neurotic or unhealthy in any way.  It is natural, realistic, healthy, and a true perception of our condition.”  (J. I. Packer)

“The sword of justice no longer threatens us, but the rod of parental correction is still in use.”  (C. H. Spurgeon)

“I have been trying to make the reader believe that we actually are, at present, creatures whose character must be, in some respects, a horror to God, as it is, when we really see it, a horror to ourselves.  This I believe to be a fact: and I notice that the holier a man is, the more fully he is aware of that fact.  Perhaps you have imagined that this humility in the saints is a pious illusion at which God smiles.  That is a most dangerous error… because it encourages a man to mistake his first insights into his own corruption for the first beginnings of a halo round his own silly head.  No, depend upon it; when the saints say that they – even they — are vile, they are recording truth with scientific accuracy.” 
(C. S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain, chapter 4, “On Human Wickedness.”)
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