Job 5, and the verse is the verse 6. The Word of God says, although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground, yet man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause, which doeth great things and unsearchable. marvelous things without number, who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields, to set up on high those that be low, and those which mourn, sorry, that those which mourn may be exalted to safety. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, And the counsel of the froward is carried headlong. They meet with darkness in the daytime, And grope in the noonday as in the night. But he saveth the poor from the sword, For their mouth and from the hand of the mighty. So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth. Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth, therefore Despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty, for he maketh sore and bindeth up. He woundeth, and his hands make whole. He shall deliver thee in six troubles, yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee. In famine he shall redeem thee from death, and in war from the power of the sword. Thou shalt behead from the scourge of the tongue, neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh. at destruction and famine thou shalt laugh, neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth. We'll end our reading at verse 22 of Job chapter 5. And with the word of God before us open, let's again unite, please, in a word of prayer. Let's seek the Lord together. Our loving Father, in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, we come to thee. We confess, Lord, our great need of Thee, as we come not only to preach the word, but to hear the word. Oh, grant, dear Father, ears to hear. Grant an understanding heart, we cry to Thee. May the Holy Spirit be the great instructor and teacher. Therefore, I pray today that Thou wilt empty me of self and sin. Lord grant, dear Father, the infilling of thy Holy Spirit. Grant, Lord, the Word of God today to have free course and to be glorified. May, O God, our time around the book be profitable. Mix the Word with faith today. May it bring profit to our souls, we ask of thee. And grant, dear God, our hearts to be challenged, and then give to us all grace to put into order and into effect that which we do hear. Let us not only be hearers of the word, but grant us to be doers of it. And may we speedily and may we gladly obey thy voice in all things. For I offer prayer in the name of Christ my Savior. Amen and amen. Now here's a question for you to ponder today. What makes you happy? What makes you happy? After a few moments of quiet meditation and thought, you might say to me, my family and the relationships that I have with others is the thing that makes the happiest in this life. Another individual might say meaningful work and a sense of purpose in this world are things that make me happy. Good health, another would say, is the basis for leading a happy life because health is your wealth. Another might say traveling the world, immersing oneself in the cultures of the world is when I find myself to be the happiness or the accomplishment of goals that I have set for myself. When those goals have been accomplished, that is when I find myself to be happiest in this life. Or this spiritual man, the spiritual woman would say happiness comes from being forgiven and having a personal, living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. In a survey of 1,000 United Kingdom residents conducted in 2017, only 46% of people said that they were happy. Just over half of the men surveyed, 51%, said that they were either happy or very happy, compared with only 42% of women. When asked to name one thing that would make them happier, a quarter, 25% of the participants mentioned that money. More money would make them happy. I'm sure that not one person surveyed in 2017 would have mentioned what Elipaz mentions here in Job chapter five as something that would bring them happiness. When speaking to his much-tried friend Job, Elipaz the Temanite said in Job 5 verse 17, Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth. Therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. It is this behold of scripture that we want to consider today as God enables us. So today we want to behold the happy man. Behold the happy man. Let me make first of all a general remark about the statement before us before we get to a number of specifics. What does Elipaz mean when he says, behold, the happy man? Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth. Well, the word correcteth here, it means, or it has a diversity of meanings. It can mean to convince, to convict, to reprove, to chide, to correct, or to rebuke. However, the follow-on statement in verse 17, which is our text for today, gives to us the clearest indication what is in the mind of Elipaz when he said, behold, happy is a man whom God correcteth. You see, Elipaz goes on to say, therefore, despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. Therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty." And so when Elipaz in the previous part of the verse, he speaks about the correction of God, he's really speaking about the chastening of God. The chastening of the Lord is this correction that he speaks of. The one who is to be happy in Elipaz's estimation is the one who experiences God's chastening. Now that doesn't sound right. In our minds that sounds wrong. Surely it's the person whom God blesses. Surely it's the person who has no money problems, no financial problems, no relationship problems, no family problems, who is the happy one in this life, but no. It is the individual whom God corrects and whom God chastens who is to be happy. Now Elipaz is not the only one in scripture who said such an astonishing thing. The psalmist who wrote Psalm 94 said the following in verse 12 of Psalm 94, "'Blessed is the man whom thou chasteneth, O Lord, and teacheth him out of thy law.'" And so we have in the mouth now of two witnesses, we see that the happy, that the blessed man is the man whom God corrects and whom God chastens. And therefore, that being the case, we need then to consider this matter of God's chastening, if we are to understand why the person who receives such, the correction and the chastening of God, is to be the happy individual. I want you to notice then a number of things today. First of all, notice with me the methods of God's chastenings. The methods of God's chastenings. Chastening from God can come to us from many different and varied places. There are times when God sees fit to chasten His child in the body. In the body. I'm not saying that all sickness is a result of sin in the life of the Christian, so don't be making contact with me with respect to that. However, there are times When the body is inflicted with sickness as a result of God's chastening his unrepentant child, there is biblical warrant for saying such In the Corinthian church, when people were partaking the communion feast in an unworthy manner, the Apostle Paul, he said these words in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 29 and 30. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak, and sickly among you, and many sleep." It was their unbecoming conduct at the Lord's Supper which brought upon some of the Corinthian believers bodily sickness. They were weak and they were sickly. The Lord chastened their body as a consequence of their misconduct within their spiritual lives. In the life of the Apostle Paul, we find this, knowing that Paul, like every man, could have become proud because of the revelations that he was given. God afflicted his child with a thorn in the flesh to counteract that ingrained tendency to become proud and to become boastful. 2 Corinthians 12, verse 7, And lest I should be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelations there was given on to me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of Satan to buffet me lest I should be exalted above measure bodily weakness Yes, and bodily sickness is one of God's methods used in correcting us, in chastening us. What did the psalmist say? The psalmist said in Psalm 119 verse 67, Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I have kept thy word." Here we find the psalmist who was straying in his Christian life, and God brought affliction into his life, bodily affliction. We're not told, but the affliction of some kind was brought into the psalmist's life, and as a result of that, he was chastened, he was corrected, and he repented, and then he lived as God would have him to live. "'Now I have kept thy word,' he said." J. C. Philpott. Evidently, as you read his works at times of sickness in his own life, he said these words. He said, the greatest blessings I have ever had, the sweetest manifestations of the Lord to my soul have been upon a sick bed. Illness, he said, is often very profitable. Bodily afflictions separate us from the world. They set our hearts upon heavenly things. They draw our affections from the things of time and sense when the Lord is pleased to manifest Himself in them. There are times when God sees fit to chasten His child through others. This is another method, through others. David the king was rebuked for his sin of adultery in two ways. First of all, through the counsel of God's servant. Nathan was sent by God to David to reprove him for his sin. We know the story how the prophet goes in before David and recounts the story of the poor man who only had one lamb and the rich man who had many flocks and a visitor came to the rich man's home and said if I'm taking from his own flocks what the rich man did. He took this little lamb, a lamb that had been brought up in the home of the poor man, and he took that lamb and he slew the lamb. And David, on hearing this, he went into a fit of rage. He was angry. And yet, when Nathan was given the opportunity to speak, he said with unbolding and unflinching boldness, he said, David, thou art the man. those words convicted David? God used God's servant to speak to David, and are we not at times in our Christian lives rebuked by the preacher, maybe by some Christian friend, maybe by a faithful father or by a faithful mother, and we're wounded by their counsel as they entreat us to stop on the road that we're on, to seek the Lord again, to repent of our sin and to seek the restorative power of God, even in our Christian lives, and we find ourselves deeply wounded, and yet the Scripture reminds us, faithful are the friends, faithful are the wounds of a friend. And so David was rebuked, he was chastened through the words of Nathan the prophet, but he was also chastened through circumstances in his family. David's sin, lead to the tragic death of his son. Not only that, but later on there would be treacherous rebellion. that would come from another child within his family, that of Absalom, and how he would steal the hearts of the people away from King David. His sin had long and serious consequences to it, and through these afflictions and through these chastenings, God was correcting his child. Now again, Do not think that the death of a loved one is a result of God's chastening in your life. Not saying that the death of every individual is as a result of chastening. But there are times when God takes those from us to correct us. I'm only but presenting what we have in Scripture. I'm only but presenting what we have in the Word of God, how God uses to correct his children. And therefore it is incumbent upon us as believers to keep short accounts with God, not to linger on in our sin, but whenever we're reproved for it, let us then turn to God, let us seek again a fresh cleansing in the blood of Christ, lest God would have to chasten us sore. There are times when God sees fit to chasten His child by providential circumstances. Jonah is a good example of that. Running away from the will of God, a tumultuous storm in the Mediterranean Sea caused God's servant to re-evaluate his actions and return to the place of his calling. and thereby the circumstances of life, God chastened Jonah, that he would turn again and lift his heart and his eyes towards the holy temple, that he would turn from his sin and his waywardness and his backsliding, and as a result, he would return to the place where God called him. Jehoshaphat was another man who was corrected through the providential circumstances of life. When Jehoshaphat joined affinity with Ahaz, king of Israel, who did very wickedly, God frustrated their plans of gold hunting in Ophir by destroying the merchant fleet. We read of there in 2 Corinthians 20, 2 Chronicles 20, verse 37. Then Eliezer, the son of Dovah, And Moreshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaz, the Lord hath broken thy works, and the ships were broken that they were not able to go to Tarshish. God stepped in by the providential circumstances of life to chasten and to correct Jehoshaphat for his sin and his league with ungodly men. God can so arrange life's events to see that our plans are frustrated. And while we may get irritated by that, Just as Balaam was when the ass crushed his foot against the wall, we should ask in such times, why is God correcting me? Am I going down a road that God doesn't want me to go down? Why is God frustrating my plans? Why does it seem that nothing is falling into place? Is God protecting me from spiritual ruination? For Balaam, the crushing of his foot preserved his life. It was a providential circumstance. He was going the wrong way. The angel of the Lord, with a sword drawn, was about to put him to death. And there it was. I'm sure he was unhappy, to say the least, when that ass put and crushed his foot against the wall. But it was the means of preserving his life. And God may do that. God may, by His circumstances, providentially, He may chasten, He may correct. God checks us by His providence. He hedges up our ways in order to have our feet redirected. These are but some of the ways that God can chasten his children in body, through others, yes, and by the providential circumstances of life. This is how God corrects us. This is how God chastens his children. Let me move on and speak a little about Not only the methods of God's chastening, let's think in the second place, the messages in God's chastening. The messages in God's chastening. God speaks to our souls. God speaks into our lives when God chastens us. He communicates certain messages to us. when He comes to correct us and apply the rod in our lives. The first message God communicates to us through the chastening process is that He hates sin. He hates sin. Now it's true that God hates sin in the life of the sinner. but he hates sin and the life of the child of God. In whatever form it arises, he hates, he is abhorred by sin and the life of the child of God. Repeated exhortations are found in scripture that the child of God is to lay aside their sin, the besetting sin. They are to flee from sin. They are to forsake their sin. The child of God is not to indulge their sin. They're not to revel in their sin. They're not to make provision for the flesh and for their sin. No, God hates, God abhors sin. And His chastening of us when we sin evidences that to be so. Joseph Carlyle said, when God lays the rod of correction upon his child, he aims at the purging out of his sins, at the preventing of his sins, at the revealing of a fatherly displeasure against him for his sins. Corrections are not sent to take away our comforts, but to take away our corruptions. Did you get that? Let me repeat it. Corrections are not sent to take away our comforts, but to take away our corruptions. It is by his chastening that we are sanctified. God is still, in the 21st century, a God who is of pure eyes than to behold iniquity and canst not look upon iniquity. The second message that God communicates to us through the chastening process is that He loves His child. He loves His child. That seems questionable when we are being corrected by our Heavenly Father. But the Scriptures abound in proof texts that affirm that in love and not in anger God chastens His child. Proverbs 3 verse 12, for whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Hebrews 12 verse 6, for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Revelation 3 verse 19, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Bezel is therefore, and repent. What did the hymn writer say? Though he may send some affliction, t'will but make me long for home, for in love and not in anger all his chastenings will come. James Smith said, God loves us too well to give us any unnecessary pain. He is too wise to allow our follies to go uncorrected. And so when we're smarting under the chiseling rod of God, let us not say that God is punishing us. for our sins, for that can never be, but rather that God is correcting us because He loves us. Listen to what Matthew Poole said about God's chastenings. He said they are the plagues of God's love. God's chastenings are the plagues of God's love. Joseph Carlyle again said, corrections are not manifestations of wrath, but an evidence of His love. I think of what Jeremiah said. Remember that book of Lamentations that he penned? As he witnessed all that was going to befall the nation. This is what he said in Lamentations 3, verse 32 and 33. But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion. according to the multitude of his mercies, for he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. Oh, understand, child of God, understand your father's heart. It's a heart of love. This is why he chastens. He does it out of love. The third message God communicates to us through the chastening process is that we are his child. We are his child, chastening and fair's sonship. Hebrews 12 verse 7, If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? Our chastening is the evidence of our sonship. It is the proof of the Father's love for us. We are His child. To go unchecked in sin would evidence a lack of sonship. That we're not part of the family of God, that we've never become a member of the household of faith. If we go on and sin and we're never chastened. Paul will, or the writer to the Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, will use startling language. In Hebrews 12 verse 8, when speaking about one who professes to be saved and yet they live habitually, habitually they live in their sin but they never experience the chastening rod of God in their lives. Listen to what the Holy Spirit had the human penman right there in Hebrews 12 in the verse number 8. But if ye be without chastisement, we're off all our partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. You're not sons? These individuals who call themselves backsliders, and yet they live on in sin, and never turn from it, and never repent of it, and never know the chastening of God in their lives, I question, and the Holy Spirit, oh, forget about me. Think about what the Holy Spirit says. He says, you're not a son. You're not a son. Naomi experienced chastening. Jehoshaphat experienced chastening. David experienced chastening. It evidenced that they were the child of God, and in a strange way, our chastening by God evidences that we are in union with His Son. It evidences that we have a relationship with the Father. What father disciplines another family's child? You've maybe been out and about, and you've maybe looked on at the behavior of children, and you've said to yourself, that child needs to be chastened. But you don't go and administer the chastening, do you? Why? Because it's not your child, none of your business. But the father will chasten the child in love, with meekness, or he'll chasten The child, because it's his child, a child that bears the family name. A. W. Tozer said, he may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this he does with a smile. The proud, tender smile of a father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the one whose child he is. The fourth message that God communicates quickly is that he seeks our return and restoration. This is the main objective in God's chasing of his child. It is to see their return to him and restoration. I think of those words there that God uttered in Hosea 5 verse 15, I will go and return on to my place till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me early. And in that form of chastening, the withdrawing of God's conscious presence from the people of Hosea's day, It had its desired effect because we go on into the next chapter and we read the response of those very chastened people in Hosea chapter 6 verse 1. This is their response to God's chastening. Come and let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us. He has smitten and he will bind us up. It is God's objective to see our return. And he chastens us. And so then, let us kiss the rod and bless the hand who holds it, believing that his chastenings, though grievous, will nevertheless afterward yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. And that brings me to my final point. We have considered together the methods of God's chastening, the messages in God's chastening. I want to consider finally the mercies received during and after God's chastening. The mercies received during and after God's chastening. Though God's chastening process is never a comfortable process for any believer to go through, the Christian ought to submit to that chastening because of the various mercies that they receive through the entire correction process. What are those mercies? Quickly, there is the mercy that it is God and not man who chastens us, and that ought to make us happy. that it is God and not man who is chasing us. Our text in Job 5 verse 17 refers to the correction of God and the chastening of the Almighty, the Word Almighty, the All-Sufficient One, the All-Sufficient God, the One who is able to support us, the One who is able to comfort us in our chastening, the One who is able to deliver us from the corrective process that we have to go through. This is the One who is indicating. It is the Lord, not men behind the chastening. Do you remember David? He was given three choices as to what punishment he would receive because he numbered the people. We're there in 1 Chronicles 21. Out of all three choices, David understood that it was better to fall into the hand of God. and into the hand of his enemies. And thus he said to God the prophet, let me not fall into the hand of the Lord, for very great are his mercies, but let me not fall into the hand of man. High in wrath, God remembers his mercies. When dealing with his blood-bought children, This is certainly a mercy of God. There is the mercy, secondly, that while God corrects us, he does not consume us, and that ought to make us happy. Jeremiah speaks of himself in Lamentations 3 verse 1 as a man who had seen affliction by the roar of God's wrath. But in the midst of his affliction, God's servant goes on to say in Lamentations 3, 22 and 23, it is off the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. How easy it would be for God to remove us from this world when we go astray as his child, but instead, in mercy, he corrects us. And are you not thankful for that? Are you not happy about that child of God, that instead of God consuming us, he only corrects us? With all our feelings, with all our sins, with all our faults, with all of our wanderings, we have given God good grounds to consume us. But instead of doing that, He corrects us and He chastens us and the grounds of mercy. Mercy. There's the mercy thirdly that God corrects us in love and not in wrath, and that should make us happy. We have read about what he says there in verse 32 and 33, Lamentations 3, God's compassion. According to his multitude of mercies, he does not afflict willingly or grieve the children of love. It is divine love, not wrath, that regulates the degree and the duration of chastening that we receive at the hand of God. Speaking of divine chastening, Octavius Winslow said, oh, we could Oh, could we always analyze the embittered cup? How astonished would we be to find that the bitterest draught that ever touched our lips, the principal ingredient was love. Divine love saw the discipline to be needed. Divine love selected the chastisement which was sent. Divine love appointed the instrument by which it should come. Divine love arranged the circumstances by which it should take place. Divine love fixed the time when it should transpire. Divine love determined the duration of the affliction. Divine love never for one moment withdrew its beaming eye from the sufferer. Love, God in love chastens his child. How we ought to be thankful that love, not wrath, governs the degree and the duration of the chastening. Let me give you a final mercy. There's a mercy that the chastening process draws us from our sin and on to God, and that should make us happy. This, as I've already said, is the chief objective of God's chastening of us. God corrects us in order to detach us from sin and then to draw us on to Himself. Yes, as verse 18 says, He maketh sore, but do you know what else He does? He bindeth up. Yes, he woundeth. Look there, verse 18, Job chapter 5. He woundeth, but his hands make whole again. One preacher said, his strokes are strokes dipped in love. And however cutting to the flesh, if blessed by the Spirit, they are made instrumental in driving us home. Driving us home. Chastened one, If divine chastening results in your relinquishing of sin and your return to God, then God's corrective process has done its intended work. God chastens us to arrest us from going further into sin, which will only bring more heartache and more suffering and more misery into our lives. how we ought to thank God that God does chasten us to stop us from bringing greater hurt into our souls. As God corrects us on our homeward journey, let us keep these mercies before us. And let us not despise the chastening of the Almighty, for it is designed for our spiritual good. If through God's correction and chastening we are made to be more like Jesus Christ, then we should patiently bear it. And instead of despising it, we should bless God for it. May God impart to us the grace needed to respond biblically to God's chastening. And if we do, then we will be the happy one that Elipaz speaks of in Job 5 verse 17. Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth. Therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. To the Lord in these days, to his purposes may they be fulfilled. and may we respond positively to his chastening. And may God make us a happy people, even though we have experienced his correction. Let's unite, please, in a word of prayer. Let's pray. O God, our loving Father, we give our lives to Thee. We confess at times we need the rod to be applied. There are times, gracious Father, that we feel Thee miserably, we go astray, we need the Great Shepherd to come and to drive us back home again. And we thank Thee for the chastening of God. Grant, Lord, Thy mercies in these days. Remove Thy chastening hand from us. May we repent of our sin, individually, collectively, nationally. May, O God, we experience the mercy of God. Grant, Lord, the word to take root into our souls. Bless us as we leave this place today. Take everyone in the car park safely home. For those who watch in online, We pray that thou will bring us all collectively together for the preaching of the word tonight. Answer these prayers, because we offer them in the Savior's name. Amen and amen.