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TOPIC: MacDuff, John - The Faithful Promiser (31 days) (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 15 LOVE IN CHASTISEMENT
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LOVE IN CHASTISEMENT
"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." —Rev_3:19
Sorrowing Believer! what could you wish more than this? Your furnace is severe; but look at this assurance of Him who lit it. Love is the fuel that feeds its flames! Its every spark is love! Kindled by a Father's hand, and designed as a special pledge of a Father's love. How many of His dear children has He so rebuked and chastened; and all, all for one reason, "I love them!" The myriads in glory have passed through these furnace-fires—there they were chosen—there they were purified, sanctified, and made "vessels fit for the Master's use;" the dross and the alloy purged, that the pure metal might remain.
And are you to claim exemption from the same discipline? Are you to think it strange concerning these same fiery trials that may be purifying you? Rather exult in them as your adoption-privilege. Envy not those who are strangers to the refining flames—who are "without chastisement." You should surely rather have the severest discipline with a Father's love, than the fullest earthly cup without that Father's smile. Oh! for grace to say, when the furnace is hottest, and the rod sorest, "Even so, Father!" And what, after all, is the severest of your chastisements in comparison with what your sins have deserved? Do you murmur under a Father's correcting love? What would it have been to have stood the wrath of an unpropitiated Judge, and that, too, forever? Surely, in the light of eternity, the heaviest pang of earth is indeed "a light affliction!"