Afflictions Like a Rod

[Kokavkrystallos]

Afflictions Like a Rod (Thomas Brooks)​

For the first, in what respects are afflictions like unto a rod? I answer, afflictions are like unto a rod in these seven respects.

1. Used When Milder Means Will Not Prevail​

The rod is never made use of but when no fair9 means will prevail with the child. It is so here. God never takes up the rod, He never afflicts His people, until He hath tried all fair ways and means to humble them and reform them (2Ch 36:15ff; Mat 23:37-38).

And when none of the offers of grace, the tenders of mercy, the wooings of Christ, the strivings of the Spirit, nor the smart10 debates of conscience will awaken them, nor work upon them, then God takes up the rod, and sometimes whips them until the blood comes.

2. Chosen by the Father​

Parents choose what rods they please to correct their children with. The child shall not choose what rod he pleaseth to be corrected with. Oh, no! It is the prerogative of the father to choose the rod. The father may choose and use either a great rod or a little rod, a long rod or a short rod, a rod made of rosemary branches or a rod made up of a green birch. It is so here. God chooseth what rod, what affliction, He pleaseth to exercise His people with (Lev 26; Deu 28; Lam 3:9-18). You read in the Scriptures of very many rods, but they are all of God’s choosing. “Shall there be evil11 in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?” (Amo 3:6). Though there be many rods to be found in the city, yet there is not one of them but is of God’s choosing. “It grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD is gone out against me…I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?” (Rut 1:13, 21). “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things” (Isa 45:7). “For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good: but evil came down from the LORD unto the gate of Jerusalem” (Mic 1:12). David was whipped with many rods, but they were all of God’s own choosing (Psa 39:9-10); and Job was whipped with many rods, but they were all of God’s own choosing (Job 1).

3. Not the Delight of Parents​

Parents take no pleasure, they take no delight, to use the rod. Every lash the father gives the child fetches blood from his own heart. The father corrects the child and sighs over the child; he whips the child and at the same time weeps over the child. Nothing goes more against the parent’s heart, nor against their hair, than the bringing of their children under the rod of correction.

It is so here. “For he doth not afflict willingly,” or, as the Hebrew runs, “he doth not afflict,” millibbo, “from his heart, nor grieve the children of men” (Lam 3:33). You often read that He delights in mercy (Mic 7:18); but where do you once read that He delights in severity, or in dealing roughly with His people? God very rarely takes up the rod but when our sins have put a force upon Him (2Ch 36:16; Jer 5:19). It is grievous to God to be grieving His people; it is a pain unto Him to be punishing of them. “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together” (Hos 11:8). My justice, saith God, calls upon Me to rain hell out of heaven upon thee, as once I did upon Sodom and Gomorrah; but then mercy interposeth her four several hows: How? How? How? How? “How shall I give thee up?” God puts these four pathetical12 interrogations to Himself because none else in heaven or earth could answer them. The prophet brings in God speaking after the manner of men, who, being provoked a thousand ways by the vanities and follies of their children, think to give them up to take their own courses, and to look no more after them; but then their bowels begin to work, and their hearts begin to melt, and they begin to interrogate themselves thus: “How shall we give up these children? For though they be disobedient children, yet they are children. How can we turn them out of doors? How can we disown them? How can we disinherit them? For though they are rebellious children, yet they are
children, etc.” Afflictions are called “God’s work,” yea, “his strange work,” “His act,” yea, “his strange act,” as if God were out of His element when He is afflicting or chastising His people (Isa 28:21).

4. Smarting, Grievous, and Troublesome​

The rod is smarting, grievous, and troublesome; and so are afflictions to our natures. “Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous” (Heb 12:11). Flesh and blood startles and is troubled at the least trouble. Affliction is a sort of physic13 that makes most sick. Some write that tigers will grow mad, tear their own flesh, and rend themselves in pieces, if they do but hear drums or tabors14 sound about them.15 Were not Job and Jeremiah such tigers, who, in the day of their afflictions did more than curse the day of their birth? (Job 3; Jer 20). Oh, what a bitter cup, what a heavy burden was affliction to them! “My soul is weary of my life…My soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life” (Job 10:1; 7:15). “I am weary with my groaning” (Psa 6:6). “Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God” (Psa 69:1-3). Doubtless many good men have sat under Elijah’s juniper (1Ki 19:4), wishing themselves out of the world, if it might stand with divine pleasure, that they might rest from their sins and sorrows, and be rid of their many burdens and bondages, looking upon life [as] little better than a hell, were it not for the hopes of a heaven hereafter.

5. Not Laid Down until We Submit​

When parents take up the rod into their hands, they will not lay it down until they have subdued the spirits of their children and brought them to submit and to kiss the rod and to sit still and quiet before them.16 It is so here: when God takes up the rod, He will not lay it down until He hath brought us to lie quietly at His feet. “If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they have trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land” (Lev 26:40-42). When God takes up the rod, His children must either bow or break. They must say, “The Lord is righteous”; they must kiss the rod of correction, or else destruction will come like a whirlwind upon them (Isa 5:3, 6).

It is reported of the lion that he spares those creatures that fall down before him and submit unto him; but as for those that endeavor to run from him, or to contend with him, those he tears in pieces. It is just so with the Lion of the tribe of Judah, as you may see in Hosea 5:14-15.

King Edward, riding furiously after a servant of his that had highly displeased him, with a drawn sword in his hand as purposing to kill him, seeing him submit, and on bended knee suing17 for his life, did not only put up his sword, but also spared him, and received him into his favor.18 The King of kings will never put up His sword when once He hath drawn it until His people fall on their knees and submit unto Him.

God never left chastising of Ephraim until He had brought him to His bow,19 until He had made him submit and kiss the rod (Jer 31:18-20).

6. In a Father’s Hand​

Afflictions are called a rod, in respect of the hand that lays them on. Though affliction be a rod, it is a rod in a Father’s hand. The sword is in the judge’s hand (Joh 18:11), and the cudgel20 is in the master’s hand, but the rod is in the father’s hand (Heb 12:6-9). When Balaam’s ass offended him, he wished for a sword to slay him (Num 22:29); but so doth not God. When we do most highly provoke Him, He doth not take up a sword to slay us, but only a rod to scourge us and chastise us, as indulgent fathers do their dearest children.

7. Meant to Cure, Not Kill​

Afflictions are called a rod, in regard of the ends to which they serve. A rod is not to kill, but to cure; it is not for destruction, but for correction. When David gave a full commission to his soldiers against Absalom, it was not to slay him, but to restrain him; it was not to ruin him, but to reduce him to his former obedience. The application is easy. We can as well live without our daily bread as without our daily rod.

Now, the ends21 of taking up the rod are these:

a. For the good of the child​

First and more generally, it is for the good of the child, and not for his hurt. It is so here. God takes up the rod, but it is for the good of His people. “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (Gen 50:20). Divine goodness did so over-master the plotted malignity of Joseph’s brethren as that it made a blessed medicine of a most deadly poison. “Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good” (Jer 24:5). When Israel was dismissed out of Egypt, it was with gold and earrings (Exo 11:2); and when Judah was dismissed out of Babylon, it was with great gifts, jewels, and all necessary utensils (Ezr 1:6-11). “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). This text, like Moses’s tree cast into the bitter waters of affliction, may make them sweet and wholesome to drink of.

b. To make the child sensible of his folly​

More particularly, the rod is to make the child sensible of his folly and vanity. “In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found: but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding” (Pro 10:13). So it is here. God takes up the rod, but it is to make His people sensible of their folly and vanity. It is to make them look up to Him, and to look into conscience, and to look out to their conversations.22 Schola crucis is schola lucis. [The school of the cross is the school of light]. God’s house of correction is His school of instruction. His lashers are our lessons, His scourges are our schoolmasters, and His chastisements are our advertisements.23 Hence both the Hebrews and Greeks express chastening and teaching by one and the same word, musar (Hebrew), paideia (Greek), because the latter is the true end of the former, according to that in the proverb, “Smart makes wit, and vexation gives understanding” (see Isa 26:9; Psa 94:12; Pro 3:12-13; Job 36:3-10). Afflictions are a Christian’s looking glass,24 by which he may see how to dress his own soul, and to mend whatsoever is amiss. They are pills made up by a heavenly hand on purpose to clear our eyesight. “And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?” (1Ki 17:18). If God had not taken away her son, her sin had not been brought to remembrance. It was the speech of a holy man in his sickness: “In this disease,” said he, “I have learned how great God is, and what the evil of sin is. I never knew to purpose what God was before, nor what sin was before.” The cross opens men’s eyes, as the tasting of honey did Jonathan’s. “Here,” as that martyr phrased it, “we are still learning our A, B, C; our lesson is never past Christ’s cross; and our walking is still home by weeping-cross.”25

c. To prevent further folly, mischief, and misery​

The rod is used to prevent further folly, mischief, and misery. “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell” (Pro 23:13-14). It is said of the ape that she huggeth her young ones to death; so many fond parents, by not correcting their children, they come to slay their children. The best way to prevent their being scourged with scorpions in hell is to chastise them with the rod here. So God takes up the rod. He afflicts and chastiseth His dearest children, but it is to prevent soul mischief and misery; it is to prevent pride, self-love, worldliness, etc. Paul was one of the holiest men that ever lived on earth; he was called by some an earthly angel, and yet he
needed the rod. He needed a thorn in the flesh to prevent pride. Witness the doubling of those words in one verse: “Lest I should be exalted above measure…lest I should be exalted above measure” (2Co 12:7). If Paul had not been buffeted, who knows how highly he might have been exalted in his own conceit? Prudent physicians do often give their patients physic26 to prevent diseases; and so doth the Physician of souls by His dearest servants (Job 40:4-5; Hos 2:6-7). “He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain…that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man” (Job 33:17, 19). Afflictions are the Lord’s drawing-plasters, by which he draws out the core of pride, earthliness, self-love, covetousness, etc. Pride was one of man’s first sins and is still the root and source of all other sins. Now, to prevent it, God many times chastens man with pain, yea, with strong pain, upon his bed. “Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more: That which I see not teach thou me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more” (Job 34:31-32). The burnt child dreads the fire. Sin is but a bitter sweet; it is an evil worse than hell itself. Look, as salt brine27 preserves things from putrefying, and as salt marshes keep the sheep from rotting, so sanctified rods, sanctified afflictions, preserve and keep the people of God from sinning.

d. To purge out vanity and folly​

The rod is to purge out that vanity and folly that is bound up in the heart of the child.

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