View source for The Lord sometimes flogs His children home!'

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<p>&quot;<strong>As chastened, yet not killed</strong>.&quot; 2 Corinthians 6:9<br />
  <br />
  The Lord does not see fit to lay the same chastisements <br />
  upon all His people. <strong>He has rods of different sizes and <br />
    different descriptions</strong>; though all are felt to be rods <br />
  when God brings them upon the back.<br />
  <br />
  The Lord chastises with one hand, and upholds with the <br />
  other. In your spiritual experience, you may have passed<br />
  under<strong> many chastising strokes. </strong>And when they fell upon <br />
  you, they seemed to come as a killing sentence from God's <br />
  lips. You feared your <strong>illness</strong> might end in death. Under your <br />
  <strong>bereavement</strong>, you felt as if you could never hold up your<br />
  head again. You thought your<strong> providential losses</strong> might <br />
  prove to be your earthly ruin. Your<strong> family afflictions</strong> <br />
  seemed to be so heavy, as to be radically incurable. <br />
  <br />
  All these were <strong>killing strokes</strong>. But though chastened,<br />
  you were not killed. You lost no divine life thereby; <br />
  but you lost much that <strong>pleased the flesh</strong>; much that <br />
  <strong>gratified the creature</strong>; much that looked well for <br />
  days of prosperity, but would not abide the storm. <br />
  <br />
  But you lost nothing that was for your real good. <br />
  <br />
  If you lost bodily health; you gained spiritual health. <br />
  <br />
  If you lost a dear husband or child; God filled up the <br />
  void in your heart by making Christ more precious. <br />
  <br />
  If you had troubles in your family; the Lord made it up <br />
  by giving more manifestations of His love and grace. <br />
  <br />
  Your very losses in providence were for your good; <br />
  for God either made them up, or what you lost in <br />
  providence He doubled in grace. <br />
  <br />
  So that though chastened; <strong>you are not killed!</strong><br />
  <br />
  Has anything that has happened to you quenched <br />
  or extinguished the life of God in your soul? <br />
  <br />
  As the dross and tin were more separated; has not <br />
  the gold shone more brightly? Have you not held <br />
  spiritual things with a tighter grasp? <strong>When God <br />
    chastens His people, it is not to kill them; it is . . .</strong><br />
  to make them partakers of His holiness, <br />
  to revive their drooping graces,<br />
  to make them more sincere, upright and tender in conscience, <br />
  to make them more separate from the world,<br />
  to make them seek more His glory,<br />
  to make them have a more single eye to His praise,<br />
  to make them live more a life of faith. <br />
  <br />
  Here is the blessedness—that <strong>when God chastises <br />
    His people</strong>, it is not for their injury, but for their profit; <br />
  not for their destruction, but for their salvation; not to <br />
  treat them with the unkindness of an enemy, but with <br />
  the love of a friend!<br />
  <br />
  Look at the afflictions, chastening and grievous sorrows<br />
  that you have passed through. <strong>Have they been . . .</strong><br />
  friends to you, or enemies?<br />
  instruments of helping you, or hindrances?<br />
  ladders whereby you have climbed up to heaven, <br />
  or steps whereby you have descended into hell?<br />
  means of taking you nearer to Christ, or means <br />
  of carrying you more into the world? <br />
  <br />
  If you know anything of God's chastening, you will <br />
  say, &quot;Every stroke has brought me nearer to God! <br />
  <strong>He has flogged me home!</strong>&quot; As a father will seize <br />
  his truant boy out of a horde of other children and <br />
  flog him home, so <strong>the Lord sometimes flogs His <br />
    children home!</strong> Every stroke laid upon their back <br />
  brings them a step nearer to their home in the<br />
  mansions above!<br />
  <br />
  In your own experience, you know that <strong>God's <br />
    chastening have not killed you</strong>. But rather they <br />
  have been the means of reviving and keeping <br />
  alive the work of grace upon your heart!<br />
  <br />
  &quot;<strong>As chastened, yet not killed</strong>.&quot; 2 Corinthians 6:9
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