HEB 12:9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. 12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.13 "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

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Last week the session was about how Christians are disciplined by God. When the LORD disciplines us, it means that He is interfering in our lives, and interfering in our freedom. All these came about because of His great love for us. Unhappily, we are often unappreciative of this interference. We would often fight against it, and hate His discipline. But the Bible says we are not to look down on the discipline of the Almighty, as all His intentions for us are good.

Aethism arose because man has attempted to reject God's interference in his life. The whole basis of aethism is for one to be fully in control, and for one's freedom not to be interfered with. So aethism was invented, the idea that God does not exist. Dr Tong said that the entire idea in itself is illogical. If something does not exist, there is really no need to discuss it. For example, no one bothers to discuss the non-existence of dragons, because none exist. However, people discuss at length about the non-existence of God, which could only mean that He must exist. But Dr Tong emphasized that the existence of God is absolutely not dependant on the result of our discussion. He will not come into being just because we conclude in our discussions that He exists; or conversely, He would not simply disappear just because we conclude that He does not exist. This is because the 'Incontingent God cannot be produced by a contingent imagination.' Our temporal reasoning process cannot possibly produce an eternal existence.

Verse 9 tells us that every father would discipline his own children, and is respected for it. All of humanity accepts this, including the Chinese who has many proverbs and sayings to establish the roles of father in education and discipline. However, there are many differences between the earthly father, and our heavenly Father's mode of discipline:

1. The education by human-fathers is temporal - All fathers would feel that there are just too little time for them to be with their children. Typically, before one knows it, the children are all grown up, and little time is left for any discipline or education from the father. When God teaches us however, His education is for all eternity. He does not simply give us earthly wisdom, but imbued in us eternal truth, and the strength to live that truth. A human-father would give us education that bears temporal fruits, but our heavenly-Father teaches us to bear fruit with eternal value and effect.

2. The education by human-fathers is based on the father's own self-serving understanding - While we need to respect the good intention behind everything that our parents had taught us, we do need to acknowledge that they have taught us based on their own principles and understandings, and they are not always right. Since we are all finite beings, we teach our children based on our own finite understanding. When we grow old ourselves, we may change our minds about matters that we have taught our children. Having a good intention does not necessarily produce good result. Dr Tong related an incident in his Indonesian church where a mother called his church up to forbid her daughter from being baptised. This was because she was brought up in a stern Muslim family, and her baptism will cause harm to the family. So the intention of the mother was good, but the result may not be so. The opinions of the elderly may not be correct as well.

Dr Tong gave another illustration of a woman living with her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law told the woman that she would help her take care of her baby, so that she can be freed to do her chores. The woman agreed and left the house. When she came back, she was horrified to see that the mother-in-law was feeding her baby with peanut, by chewing on the peanut first herself, and then spitting it out and putting the chewed food into the baby's mouth. She was outraged and forbade her mother-in-law from ever feeding the baby again. A quarrel inevitably occurred, because the old woman claim that her son (the woman's husband) was raised in exactly the same manner. So clearly, human-parents based their teaching on self-serving principles.

Our heavenly Father however, teaches us for our true good. Every single one of His intentions for us is good and righteous. He does not discipline us for His own good, but for our good, based on His good will. This is completely different from the human method.

3. The education by human-fathers is often based on considerations of profit and loss - Most parents would encourage their children to study subjects based on future earning potential. Few would care about the likes and dislikes of their children when picking the subject matters for study; only if those are money-generating skill-sets. Dr Tong related that in his church in Indonesia, a businessman father came to ask him to dissuade his son from pursuing a musical career because he needed someone to take care of his business. The boy was very talented musically, and was not interested in any other subjects. Dr Tong told the father that God will take care of the child, and that he should be left alone to pursue his career goals. In the end, the father relented, and the boy is now the assistant conductor of Cleveland Orchestra, one of the best orchestra in the world.

Our heavenly Father would never be influenced by our considerations of profit and loss. His plans for us would always be for our best, and will always be true and absolutely just.

4. The education by human-fathers is often without firm principles - Many people are simply not prepared for parenthood, and certainly not trained for it, and yet they would start teaching and disciplining their children. The discipline of God however, is with a firm purpose and goal, that is, holiness. The LORD is very stern with us because He wants us to partake in His holiness. This is most important, and a principle we must never forget.

Dr Tong emphasized that holiness is what God is all about. It is His will, His commandment. It is, God. Our God is a holy God, and He manifest Himself as the true God via His holiness. There is absolutely no impurity in holiness, no sin, no filth, no evil, no bias, no errors. This is why God is God. And the important thing is that He has allowed us to partake in His holiness. This means that we are to be righteous because He is righteous. We are to be good because He is good. We are to be loving because He is loving. And we are to be holy, because He is holy. The final goal of the education of our heavenly Father is to bring us into holiness.

Dr Tong mentioned that he has been pondering about a problem for several decades. He noticed that many a times, talented preachers often lapsed into unholy living. This applies especially to people who love to preach about the Holy Spirit and His gifts. They are often exposed as having committed serious sins like adultery or embazzlement. So Dr Tong has been wondering if this must be an inescapable formula - that a talented preacher will have great flaws. But when he studied further into the issue, he realised that the problem is that our understanding of the Holy Spirit is flawed. We have forgotten that the Holy Spirit is holy. We need to understand that the holiness is a true mark of a servant of God. Everything in life can be faked including the gifts of the Holy Spirit, except true holiness. Holiness cannot be imitated, even by the devil.

All Christians need to understand this, that we are all called to holiness. As saints, we are to be the holy people of God's kingdom. We ought to remove from our lives all filth, sin and dispicable things, and lead a life of holiness so that we can be useful to our LORD. When the LORD disciplines us, the Holy Spirit allows us to know ourselves. When that happens, we will be willing to accept the discipline, and would repent and confess our short-comings before the LORD.

Dr Tong ended the session by relating his experiences, having been disciplined by his mother. Dr Tong said that the last time his mother disciplined him, he was already 18 years old. He has been a preacher then for more than a year, and preached some 300 sermons by then. He was disobedient to his mother, who then hit him on his arm with a belt. Tong went into the room furious. When he awoken at night, he saw that his mother was sleeping beside him, having bandaged his wounds. Dr Tong said he was filled with remorse for disobeying the discipline of his mother, who had brought him and his brothers up since he was fatherless at 3.

All these painful discipline by God would produce the fruit of righteousness, and peace. Once the discipline is over, the true peace will come, and we will then be empowered to do God's work, to speak out against unrighteousness, to stand up against evil doers, whoever they may be. The person who has accepted God's discipline would be a completely different person. His messages would be with power, his life would be victorious. Only then can he strengthen his feeble arms and weak knees, and walk the pathway of the righteous.

Disclaimer: This summary does NOT represent the official position of STEMI (Stephen Tong Evangelistic Ministry International), and is the personal opinion of the author, expressed without prejudice. Expressed opinions are meant for academic discussions only.