God’s Call to Discipline

Deuteronomy 4:35-38; Joshua 5:13-15

Jim Davis

Frank Herbert said, “Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” I can only wonder, will the cry for freedom ringing across the Mideast—the world today result in any real freedom. There was a big surprise awaiting the Israelites as they crossed the Red Sea. It was the forty years of discipline necessary before entering the Promised Land. The land flowing with milk was well within reach of a few days march. But it would only be realized after forty years of discipline in the Sinai wasteland. 

God revealed himself to the Hebrews to discipline them. Moses gives his last words of encouragement in the book of Deuteronomy. The Israelites are about to cross the Jordan River to conquer Canaan after living in the Sinai Desert for forty years; Moses reminds the Hebrews God’s reason for calling them, “From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you” (Deuteronomy 4:35-38). 

Israel’s freedom did not come without responsibility—without responsibility there would be no freedom. The hardships and experiences in the wilderness would allow them to acquire the discipline needed to live in a land that flowed with milk and honey.  

Deuteronomy 4:35-38
35 You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other. 36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. 37 Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, 38 to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today. NIV

At the end of the forty years, as they stood on the brink of the Jordan River, Moses reminds Israel of God’s discipline in their wilderness experience.

Deuteronomy 11:1-7
11:1 Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. 2 Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; 3 the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; 4 what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the LORD brought lasting ruin on them. 5 It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the desert until you arrived at this place, 6 and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents and every living thing that belonged to them. 7 But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the LORD has done. 

The Israelites are reminded of what they have experienced in the wilderness. God’s hand of discipline had descended upon their enemies. God’s hand of discipline had also descended upon the Israelites. They had difficulty accepting God’s discipline. In the wilderness the Israelites ate manna from heaven, drank water pouring forth from a rock, God’s presence was evident in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Yet, there was a restlessness in the camp that seems almost inexplicable—a never satisfied restlessness. There was no way the Israelites would ever begin to succeed without the discipline of the wilderness. Otherwise the land of milk and honey would mean destruction.

The purpose of God’s discipline was to strengthen and nurture Israel to possess the land of Canaan. Moses writes, “Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, and so that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your forefathers to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Deuteronomy 11:8-10 NIV).

William Feather writes, “If we conduct ourselves as sensibly in good times as we do in hard times, we could all acquire a competence.” The discipline learned in our wilderness journeys is absolutely essential. 

Blessings without responsibility usually meet with disaster. Apparently those who win lotteries around the country are broke within a few years. It doesn’t seem to matter if they win a million or fifty million. Why? They lack discipline. They lose sight of the value of a dollar. They fail to see the value of what they learned in hard times—a penny saved, is still a penny earned. When you have millions the value of a dollar doesn’t seem that important. 

God’s discipline is not self discipline.

God’s discipline is much different than self-discipline. God’s discipline is designed to bring us to dependence on God. Personal discipline can become like a drug. We go to the gym to feel better. We make good grades to feel better about ourselves. We work because our work gives us a sense of pride and self-worth. We are driven to succeed because it gives a high. We may even discipline ourselves to do religious things to feel better about ourselves. We may have a form of godliness as we deny the power of God over our lives (2 Timothy 3:5). God’s discipline brings a realization of our need to depend upon the power of God. Moses writes, “. . . he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength . . .” (Deuteronomy 4:37). We are no match for the dark forces seeking to rule us. Only God can prevail over those forces. 

The Wilderness of Our Lives

I have often questioned—how can you experience the ten plagues, cross the Red Sea through divinely parted waters, eat manna from heaven, drink water gushing from a rock, be guided by God in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night—and refuse to follow God across the Jordan River to live in a land flowing with milk and honey? How do you make sense of it? 

Why is it, when we receive God’s blessing—when we are asked to entrust our lives to God’s sovereign power—there seems to be a tremendous urge to continue to live as we have always lived. It is like trying to extricate ourselves from quicksand. The suction is overwhelming. The harder we try the deeper we go. It is hard to trustingly hold on to God and relax in the quicksand in total dependence at the same time. 

Christians throughout the New Testament were having a difficult time relinquishing their hold on self. Just look at the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Hebrews, the seven churches of Asia. Read the book of James or John’s books. There seems to be a wasteland that most of us must live in before we discover the Promised Land. Some say they wish they could have seen at twenty years of age what they clearly see at sixty. Forty years traveling in the wilderness is not that uncommon.

It is hard to see ourselves eating Eden’s forbidden fruit. Yet, the choices of Eden are our daily reality. It was poet Robert Burns who wished for humankind the power to see ourselves as others see us. My, what insights that would bring! But there is still another perspective on human affairs that is greater still. 
What if we could see as God sees? I’m convinced his perspective would set us free to really live. It is hard to take a good look at ourselves. This makes it all the more difficult to see ourselves through the eyes of God until we understand what God is seeking to do with our lives. Seeing ourselves as God sees us would allow us to accept the hardships as discipline as God works through us to accomplish his will. 
In the book of Hebrews we find Christians going through their wilderness journey. They were mostly Jews who had accepted Christ. They were persecuted by the Jewish community for their new found faith. They weren’t responding too well. Like those in the Sinai Desert their freedom in Christ turned sour as troubles came. They thought they deserved better. They were rebelling in unbelief. They just couldn’t believe faith in Christ would bring such hardship (Hebrews 3:6-19). They were encouraged to hear God’s call as a call to endure hardships as discipline for it was a sign God was treating them as his children (Hebrews 12:7). 

Although we sigh for a world free of stress, we know deep inside that such a world would produce calloused and unfeeling people. 
Refusing God’s Discipline

"Viktor Frankl observed from his years in a Nazi prison camp that only those people who believed in a future had the will to go on in extreme adversity. Despite hunger and intense pain, even the slightest ray of hope that something awaited them outside prison gave them amazing endurance." (James Thompson, Strategy for Survival, A Plan for Church Renewal from Hebrews, Sweet Publishing Company, 1980, Page 44.)

Coming to Christ doesn’t erase all our troubles. It just gives us a new perspective in our troubles. It gives us God’s perspective. God is seeking to pry our eyes open to see ourselves in the very center of a powerful world order (Ephesians 1:17-22).

The source of our troubles is of little consequence. The wastelands we are traveling may be self-imposed or forced upon us by others. There may seem to be no logical explanation for our troubles. We can still praise God as we seek to endure these troubles as a discipline to maturity.  Coming to maturity will allow us to experience the reality of the living hope of the resurrection in our lives here on earth.

1 Peter 1:3-5
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. NIV

The first Christians were discovering the resurrection as a living hope. Not just something reserved for dead bodies. I visited a graveyard in the small town that my brothers and I played in as children. I noticed concrete and granite slabs had been placed upon some of the graves. The entire graves were covered. The amazing thing was that tiny trees were growing up under the slabs. The heavy concrete and marble slaps were literally being moved aside or cracking as the tiny trees grew. I back packed in the Sierras while living in California. I noticed how up above the tree line in the barren rocky terrain some trees were literally growing out of rocks. The fragile roots of the trees and winter ice were prying the rocks apart making room for their growth. This exemplifies the kind of power God desires to exert in our fragile lives.

Everything will seem unfair until we have our eyes open to God’s powerful order. God’s rule is far above every ruler in heavenly realms (Ephesians 1:17-19). The experience of the Egyptians slaves wandering in the wilderness only foreshadowed what was to come through Christ. They couldn’t begin to imagine what God was preparing for those of us in Christ. To us it is made clear what God was doing in Christ. 

1 Corinthians 2:9-10
9 However, as it is written: 

"No eye has seen, 
no ear has heard, 
no mind has conceived 
what God has prepared for those who love him"— 

10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. NIV

Today the Holy Spirit reveals to us what God was accomplishing through the lives of the faithful of old. What we have in Christ is beyond anything they could ever imagine. What God is able to do for us, in us and through us is more than we can ever imagine. 

Ephesians 3:20-21
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. NIV

 When we die to the circumstances we find ourselves in for the sake of Christ we begin to discover our personal resurrection through Christ. Going to school, college or graduate school takes discipline. Believe me, at times I knew it was punitive, but it was discipline. We can even use the hardships imposed upon us by others as discipline as we learn how to love our enemies. Whatever road we choose in life will have its on set of disciplines. God’s discipline is not punitive. 

Some things can only be learned at the School of Experience no matter how smart we are. Just ask Solomon. Life is not always pleasant. This is life. It doesn’t matter if is going to school or digging ditches or CEO of a corporation. Enduring the hardships as God’s discipline—seeing hardship as an opportunity to undergo God’s discipline will allow God to resurrect us to new heights. 

The power of God is not given to us to live above the world order, but to live within it. God leaves the thorns and thistles in our lives. We want him to pull them out of our flesh or at least let them fester and pop out on their own. This is not life!! He leaves them—just about the time we think they are going to fester up and pop out—our enemies come by and poke them deeper into our flesh just to remind us of our weaknesses. That is when we must remind ourselves of our need to humbly accept them as reminders of our need of God. 

2 Corinthians 12:7-10
7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. NIV 

It is not easy when the pain of our circumstances is compounded by the pain of God using our enemies to discipline us. It is one thing when a friend helps you pull out a thorn . . .  but when God uses an enemy or a stranger to do the same thing, it is a different matter. 

We come to Christ mistakenly believing when we are resurrected from the watery grave of baptism through our faith in Christ all our troubles will be gone (Colossians 2:12). We are really not that much different than those who crossed the Red Sea. We may even come into a church thinking we are entering into the midst of angelic like people. The church is not much different than the disillusioned slaves in the Sinai wasteland. 

Conclusion:

As Moses writes the book of Deuteronomy at the end of their forty year journey, he reminds them of all their wilderness struggles. They now can see through the eye of experience; now their hearts are open to God’s perspective. God has revealed himself through their troubled lives. 

Joshua was about to lead the Israelites across the Jordan River to conquer Canaan after forty year’s of discipline in the wilderness as we read the following verses. 

Joshua 5:13-15
13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" 

14 "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for his servant?" 

15 The commander of the LORD's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so. NIV

I always expect the Lord to say, “I am on your side.” This is especially true when I am following a direct order. However, when the commander of the Lord’s army is asked “Are you for us or for our enemies” he replies—neither. Initially, the answer stuns me. He doesn’t give the answer I expect. I expect him to say, “I am on your side!!” Instead his answer is "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." 

Thinking about how to stand on holy ground is sobering. It is much more sobering than the adrenaline rush we get from thinking—God is on my side! It is God’s way of getting us to live life soberly. It is not a question about what God is going to do or not going to do for me or whose side God is on. It is all about how I am going to react as I face life’s battles—as I stand on holy ground. Will I enter battles expecting God to take away all the difficulties? Or, will I enter into the battle realizing my responsibility as I stand on holy ground? Will I stand with God? Will I hear it as God’s call to discipline?

Forty years of Israel’s desert journeys brought them face to face with the giants from whom their parents fled. Now it is different. There is a realization that this time they are standing on holy ground disciplined to accept God’s call. In essence all our lives are lived on holy ground. When we choose to endure any hardship we face as God’s discipline with this sobering thought, we can expect the walls of our circumstances to collapse as God resurrects us to a new way of living.