We have been fellowshipping together these weeks on the book of Proverbs. In Proverbs, there is one passage which says:
Wisdom hath builded her house;
She hath hewn out her seven pillars.
We take wisdom as our Lord Jesus. He is the wisdom of God; He is our wisdom. And He is building His house. Of course, the house that He builds is the church.
How does He build His house? He builds His house with seven pillars. These seven pillars represent the sevenfold character of our Lord Jesus. He is building His church with His own character, and that is the only way to build that solidly and beautifully.
In the past, we have shared together on five of these pillars:
This morning, we will go into the sixth pillar, which is discipline, or being disciplined.
Let us read a number of verses from Proverbs.
Proverbs 10:17
He is in the way of life that heedeth correction;
But he that forsaketh reproof erreth.
Proverbs 11:13
He that goeth about as a tale-bearer revealeth secrets;
But he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter.
Proverbs 13:1, 3, 24
A wise son heareth his father’s instruction;
But a scoffer heareth not rebuke.
He that guardeth his mouth keepeth his life;
But he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.
He that spareth his rod hateth his son;
But he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
Proverbs 14:27
The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,
That one may depart from the snares of death.
Proverbs 15:5, 31-33
A fool despiseth his father’s correction;
But he that regardeth reproof getteth prudence.
The ear that hearkeneth to the reproof of life
Shall abide among the wise.
He that refuseth correction despiseth his own soul;
But he that hearkeneth to reproof getteth understanding.
The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom;
And before honor goeth humility.
Proverbs 16:20, 32
He that giveth heed unto the word shall find good;
And whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he.
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty;
And he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city.
Proverbs 17:10
A rebuke entereth deeper into one that hath understanding
Than a hundred stripes into a fool.
Proverbs 20:30
Stripes that wound cleanse away evil;
And strokes reach the innermost parts.
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go,
And even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 23:13, 17-18
Withhold not correction from the child;
For if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
Let not thy heart envy sinners;
But be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day:
For surely there is a reward;
And thy hope shall not be cut off.
Let us pray.
O Father, we do ask Thee to breathe upon Thy word and make Thy word living and operative in each of our lives. We pray that, as Thy word is given, we may touch the living Word, our Lord Jesus, for He is everything to us. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
As we come to the Lord, we are as living stones. He has given us His life, but still we have much of ourselves in us. There is much rubbish, many impurities, and many corners in us.
Because of that, for these living stones to be built up into that spiritual house, there is a need of cutting—sorry, trimming—polishing, and all these works of discipline.
Discipline is necessary for us. Otherwise, we are not able to be useful to God or to be fitted to one another.
You know, as you open the book of Proverbs, what is the purpose of these proverbs? This is given at the very beginning, in Proverbs 1:2:
To know wisdom and instruction.
The purpose of these proverbs is that we may know wisdom and instruction. The wisdom here, of course, is practical wisdom, not speculative wisdom, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That is very practical.
The word instruction in the original language also has the meaning of correction, warning, and discipline. Discipline is the way to practical wisdom.
We need to be disciplined. Discipline will take away the evil that is in us. Discipline will drive away the foolishness that is in us. Discipline will bring us into a realm of life, and discipline will make us wise in the Lord.
A person who is never disciplined never grows up.
How important it is, therefore, for us to be really built up together as God’s spiritual house, that we need to learn discipline.
Why must we be disciplined? What is the meaning of discipline?
The fruit of the Spirit is very full and rich, as you find in Galatians 5. The last ingredient of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control.
Now, what is self-control? If it just means self-control, then it cannot be the fruit of the Spirit, because it is self-control. The word there means the self under control. How can self be under control? Because the Spirit controls you.
For the Spirit to control us, that is discipline.
Why do we need discipline? There are two reasons. Negatively, there is so much in us that is impure, foolish, and nothing but rubbish.
There is so much self in us. We want to have our own way, as our brother just mentioned. We want to do the things that we like to do. We think that is liberty, that is freedom, that is pleasure, that is joy, that is satisfaction.
We do not know how foolish we are. Because of all these impurities within us, and so much self in us—our self-will, self-opinion, self-desire, self-possessiveness, and all these things—we need discipline.
If there is no discipline, we will just be wild, even brutish. Discipline will purify us; it will purge us of our foolishness and take away all these evils. This is the negative reason.
But there is a positive reason for us to be disciplined, because the very word discipline also means child training.
The life that God has given to us needs to be built up, developed, guided, matured, and grown. In order for the life in us to mature and grow, it needs discipline.
You find this in Hebrews 12: do not despise the discipline of our heavenly Father. Our earthly fathers chasten us for a few days according to what seems good to them. How much more we need to accept the discipline of our heavenly Father, who disciplines us with the purpose that we may be partakers of His divine nature.
Through discipline, our heavenly Father is training us, channeling us, and guiding us into a life that will be useful in His sight and pleasing to Him. So, brothers and sisters, we need discipline.
It is a fool who despises discipline. It is a fool who hates reproof.
Now, naturally, we do not like to be reprimanded or reproved. There is so much pride in us. But the Bible says, if you refuse reproof, you hate your own soul. Why? Because we need it. We are not perfect.
Of course, some people just like to reprove people. That is human nature too. We do not like to be reproved, and yet we like to reprove others.
For people who like to reprove others, their reproofs are of not much value. But the Bible speaks of the reproof of life.
Do not despise the reproof of your father or your mother. Spiritually speaking, it means those who are more mature in the Lord. Because they care for you and are concerned with your spiritual life, sometimes they have to minister reproof to you. Now listen, because that will make you wise.
Brothers and sisters, we need discipline. We need discipline for our body’s sake.
This body, which is created by God, is meant to glorify God in the body. The body itself is not evil. Heathen philosophers consider the body evil, and because of that they mistreat their bodies in order to save themselves. This is not the word of God.
Our body is created by God with the glorious purpose of glorifying God in the body. But because sin has entered into the world, this body has become the body of sin and death. Therefore, this body needs discipline.
Paul said, “I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage.” Brothers and sisters, after man has fallen, this body, with its passions and lusts, has controlled man.
Man lives by the force of all the lusts and passions of the body. Because of this, we who are redeemed by the Lord have to buffet our body and lead it captive.
Eating and drinking are legitimate. These are legitimate needs of our body. God gives us a body, and for that body to be maintained, you need to eat and drink. There is nothing wrong with eating and drinking.
But the sign of the last days is eating and drinking. As the days of Noah were, so shall be the days of the Son of Man. It is characterized by eating and drinking. There is nothing wrong with eating and drinking, but eating and drinking can become sin.
Gluttony, indulgence, excessive eating and drinking, and making eating and drinking the very meaning and purpose of life—that is sin.
Because of that, we have to be disciplined to control our eating and drinking.
The Lord, when He was on earth, ate and drank, and yet there was no excessiveness. Anything that is legitimate, if it exceeds its legitimate boundary, becomes sin.
Sleeping and resting are legitimate. God created night and day; the night is for us to rest. These are necessities for us to live. But oversleeping and over-resting can become laziness. Now, laziness is a sin.
Talking is natural. God gave us a mouth to talk. If we do not talk, we cannot communicate. Nobody knows what is in your mind until you begin to express it by words.
There is nothing wrong with talking. If you talk the right thing, that is the best thing to do. But idle words, gossiping, backbiting, and telling lies—these are all sin.
For that reason, brothers and sisters, we need discipline. We need discipline over our body, that our body may be under us and not above us; that the body may be used for the glory of God, and not that we may be used by the body.
The body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Brothers and sisters, Christianity is not asceticism, but it does require discipline.
Do we know anything of discipline over our body, or are we always yielding to the passions and lusts of our body?
Sometimes, when God is training us, you may even go beyond what is legitimate. That is to say, eating is legitimate, but sometimes you have to fast for the Lord’s sake.
If we do not know how to put our body under, then when God has a special need for our body, we will not be able to give it to Him.
Remember our Lord. He was walking, tired, hungry, and thirsty, by the well in Samaria. When a person is tired, thirsty, and hungry, he does not like to open his mouth and talk. He does not have the strength to do that.
Yet, when that Samaritan woman came, our Lord Jesus forgot all His weariness, thirst, and hunger. He began to talk to that woman. In other words, He had full control of His body.
Do we have such control over our body? When the Lord wants to use that body, is your body there, able to be given to the Lord?
When the Lord wants that body, perhaps you find that your body just cannot respond. A person who has never been disciplined in his body, when the Lord requires it, cannot respond. But a person who is disciplined can respond whenever the Lord requires.
Again, in ordinary days, we should eat, drink, rest, and take care of our body, because the body is the temple of God. We should take good care of it. We should not hurt it, harm it, or overdo it.
But, on the other hand, we do not yield to our bodies. We take care of the body for the Lord, but we do not submit ourselves to the body. The body is to be used for God, and this comes only through discipline.
Why is it that you find most people—servants of God, great servants of God, used by God throughout the ages—were people who got up early in the morning? You find it in the Bible and in biographies. Those servants of God greatly used by God usually were early risers.
What is the good of rising early? It reveals something: they are people who disciplined their lives. They do not love their beds so much that they love the Lord less. That is discipline.
Our body needs discipline.
So does our soul: our emotion, our mind, our thought, our intellect, our will, and our volition. These are the functions of our soul.
But how are these functions used? Are they driven by the self-life in us and used by the self-life in us? Or is the self-life displaced by the Christ-life in us, so that He can use all the faculties of our soul?
In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul says that we overthrow reasonings and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
How do you find your thought life? Do you find that your thoughts, your mind, your reasonings, and your intellect are really serving God? Or do you find they stand as strongholds against the knowledge of God?
When you want to meditate upon the word of God, can you meditate, or does your mind begin to wander? Can you think through the things of God, or do you find your thoughts become muddy?
How about your imagination? Does your imagination just fly wild, and you cannot draw it back? Or can you use your imagination for the Lord?
Naturally, our reasonings and high thoughts are against the knowledge of God. When we study the word of God, our own mind begins to work, trying to put our thoughts into the word. Actually, there may be nothing there in the word, but we can inject many of our own thoughts into it and interpret it that way.
Is that the way you read the Bible? Or can the Spirit of God take hold of your mind and open up understanding to you?
We must bring every thought into the obedience of Christ. How do we do it? Discipline.
If your mind has never been disciplined, if you allow your thoughts just to wander, then you will be daydreaming all the time. You will be useless. When the Lord wants you to think, you cannot think; when you want to stop, you cannot stop.
How does it come about? Discipline.
How about our emotions? God wants us to have emotion. God Himself is full of emotion. God loves the world—that is emotion. God hates sin—that is emotion.
It does not mean that we who are the Lord’s should have no emotion at all. No. Look at our Lord Jesus. How full of emotion He was. When He saw the multitude as sheep without a shepherd, He was moved with compassion. When He saw Jerusalem for the last time, He wept.
But, brothers and sisters, how about our emotions? Who is using your emotions? Are your emotions using you? Do you have control over your emotions? Are your emotions expressing the emotion of God, or merely expressing your own feelings?
The Lord said:
He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me;
And he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
It does not mean that God does not want us to love our father and mother. It does not mean God does not want us to love our children. It does not mean that God does not want us to love our own life.
It means this: we love our father and mother, our children, and ourselves so much for selfish reasons that these things begin to draw us away from loving God. He has to purify our love.
If our love is purified, then we may love God, and we may love our father and mother, and even our own life, for God’s sake. How much better that love will be. Our emotions need to be disciplined.
Have we ever been tested or dealt with in this area?
How about our will? Look at our Lord Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. He said, “Not My will, but Thine, be done.”
With Christ, His will was pure and perfect, yet He said, “Not My will, but Thine, be done.” How about us? How our will needs to be purified in order that we may will the will of God.
We may love with the love of God. We may have the mind of Christ. In other words, you find that the self-life in us has to be displaced, and the Christ-life has to be in charge, using all the channels of our soul.
We need that. We need discipline for that sake.
Now, how about our spirit? You may think, “Certainly the spirit is so pure; there is no need of discipline.”
But you remember 2 Corinthians 7:1:
Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Even our spirit needs to be purified. Not only does our flesh need to be purged, but our spirit needs to be purified.
In 1 Thessalonians 5, it says:
And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly;
And may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Even our spirit needs to be purified. How?
One day the Lord Jesus was going to Jerusalem, and He passed through Samaritan villages. Because His face was toward Jerusalem, the Samaritans, who were hostile to the Jews, would not receive Him.
When this happened, you remember the two sons of Zebedee, the sons of thunder. You begin to hear the thunder. They came to the Lord and said, “Lord, look, they do not receive You. Do You want us to call fire down from heaven and burn these people up? They deserve nothing but to be destroyed.”
What faith they had. They believed they could call fire down from heaven. They had no doubt about it. But what kind of a spirit did they have?
The Lord said, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.” As the Lord was traveling toward Jerusalem, He manifested the spirit of the Lamb. He was going there to be offered on our behalf. Yet these disciples who were with Him manifested the spirit of the world.
“You do not know what spirit you have.” Even our spirit needs discipline.
The Holy Spirit dwells in our new spirit, and our spirit should always be open in fellowship with the Holy Spirit. But sometimes our self tries to slip into our spirit and defile it.
Even our spirit needs to be purified. That is why you find in the book of Proverbs:
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty;
And he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city.
If you can take a city, certainly you are very powerful. But if you have rule over your spirit, it is even more powerful than taking a city.
How we need discipline. How we need to be disciplined. Unless we are disciplined, we do not grow, and we are not of much use.
But, brothers and sisters, how are we disciplined? Does it mean that we just start out to discipline ourselves? Who is the One who disciplines us? Who is the One who administers discipline?
We know: it is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit whom God has given to us is the One who administers discipline to us according to our need. He knows exactly when and where we need to be disciplined.
We Christians are not like the ascetics of this world. They try to discipline themselves, and often they mistreat their body because they think that evil resides in the body. They think that if they can mistreat the body, they will drive the evil away and become sanctified.
But that is heathen philosophy. That is not Christianity. The Lord does not want us to go out and become ascetics. No.
We thank the Lord that there is One who is all-wise. There is One who knows how to administer discipline to our lives. The Holy Spirit is the Administrator of discipline.
But we need to cooperate in order to be disciplined.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, how can we have a disciplined life? How can our life be disciplined so that we may grow and be useful?
First, we need to submit and commit our life to the Lord. If we have never committed our lives to the Lord, the Lord is not able to discipline us.
The word discipline and the word disciple are very closely connected. You will not have the right discipline if you are not a disciple of the Lord.
The Lord will not discipline just anybody. You do not go out on the street and try to discipline all the children on the street. You discipline your own child.
Unless we commit ourselves to His care, unless we take Him as our Master, unless we give ourselves to Him and deliver ourselves, as it were, into His hand, He will not start to discipline us.
Discipline is for children. Discipline is for those who are committed. Therefore, brothers and sisters, the first thing is that we must be committed.
Why is it that you are not disciplined? It is because you are not committed. If you are committed, then He is committed to discipline you.
Second, after you have committed to Him as your Master, then you must be willing to deny yourself.
Therefore, you find in the Scripture that He always says:
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
If anyone wants to be My disciple, if anyone wants to follow Me, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me. Denying self is a matter of the will.
After you have committed yourself to the Master, then you will to deny yourself. You are willing to deny yourself. That is an attitude you must have.
Third, then you are open to the discipline of the Holy Spirit. All you need is to be open to Him.
Sometimes He will discipline you by inward enlightening. He will illumine you within with the word, speaking to you within, and you learn to be corrected.
Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your heart.
Sometimes He will arrange your circumstances. He will raise up your circumstances to teach you. When you are surrounded, just be open and try to learn.
In these two ways, the Holy Spirit is able to discipline us.
It is true that during the time of being disciplined, it is not always pleasant; rather, it is painful. You find this in Hebrews 12. But eventually, ultimately, we will be made partakers of His divine nature. It is worth it.
So, brothers and sisters, for the Lord to build His church, He has to use disciplined people. If we are not disciplined, we will not be able to be built up together.
Discipline is building Himself in us, that we may be built together. How important it is that there should be such a pillar.
When the Lord disciplines us, if we have understanding, then this thing will go deep. It is much better than a hundred stripes upon a fool.
That is the reason why we need to be open to Him, for Him to complete this work of discipline.
Discipline matures us. Discipline builds us up and builds us together. So this is the sixth pillar.
Our heavenly Father, how we praise and thank Thee that Thou hast given us Thy life, and Thou hast given us Thy Spirit. O, we do praise Thee for the Holy Spirit, who is the Administrator of discipline.
Lord, we just commit our lives to Thee. We ask Thee to discipline us, to chasten us, to train us as children, that we may grow up and be built up together unto the praise of Thy glory.
Lord, do not allow us to be foolish so as to despise Thy reproof. Lord, humble us, that we may learn to accept Thy discipline. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.