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Because He loves you...
From Spurgeon's sermon, "CHASTISEMENT"
When God afflicts his child, the chastisement is applied in love,
and his strokes are, all of them, put there by the hand of love.
The rod has been baptized in deep affection before it is laid on
the believer’s back. God does not afflict willingly, nor grieve us
for nothing, but out of love and affection, because he perceives
that if he leaves us unchastised, we shall bring upon ourselves
misery ten thousand-fold greater than we shall suffer by
his slight rebukes, and the gentle blows of his hand.
He is chastising you, not punishing you; he is correcting
you in measure, he is not smiting you in wrath.
There is no hot displeasure in his heart.
Even though his brow may be ruffled, there is no anger in his
breast; even though his eye may have closed upon you, he does
not hate you- he loves you still. It is simply because he loves
you, because you are sons, that he therefore chastises you.
Bend meekly down before his superior wisdom, and say-
“O God I believe that in the darkness you are brewing light,
that in the storm-clouds you are gathering sunshine,
that in the deep mines you are fashioning diamonds,
and in the beds of the sea you are making pearls.
I believe that however unfathomable may be your designs,
yet they have a bottom. Though it is in the whirlwind and in
the storm, you have a way, and that way is good and righteous
altogether. I would not have you alter one atom of your
dispensations, it shall be just as you will. I bow before you,
and I give my ignorance the command to hold its tongue,
and to be silenced while your wisdom speaks words of right.”
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