Verses 11 and 12. +I. An exhortation to patient endurance of affliction.+ 1. _From the constitution of our nature we can but dislike or loathe_ (_despise_, see "Critical Notes") _affliction itself._ There has never been one of the human kind who has welcomed affliction for its own sake; nay, more, there has never been one who has not shrunk from it, considered by itself. No man can do other than grieve for the death of his friend when he considers his own loss merely. No child of God can love pain or loss. The man who is under the knife of the surgeon must groan in the unnatural condition in which he is placed. Even Christ Himself, though He delighted to do the will of His Father (Psa. xl. 8), shrank from the bitter cup of suffering. If, then, pain--probably mental pain--was felt to be bitter by the Sinless Man, how much more will a sinful man find it hard to bear. 2. _The pain itself is that which renders us unable to see the connection between it and the benefit it is to work out._ While a man is suffering pain of body or mind, his feelings, more or less, overpower his reason. Although we know that it is to work good in the future, we fail often to realise the fact--feeling holds us down to the present. +II. Four considerations to help us in times of affliction.+ 1. _Its individuality._ "_My_ son, despise not _thou_," which implies that God chastises men as individuals--that he distinguishes between them. There may be many sons and daughters in a human home; no two are exactly alike, therefore a wise discrimination must be exercised with regard to the chastisement or the discipline administered. So God discerns the needs of His children. No son or daughter need think that another cross would suit them better; they may be assured that the one they bear is the one that has been especially prepared for them and is therefore peculiarly adapted for them. 2. _Its end._ It is educational. It is correction, not destruction. Even if it is rebuke, or punishment for a particular sin, it is designed to eradicate that sin, and thus add to the character; and we are assured, on the highest authority, that tribulation worketh patience, experience, and hope--all of which graces go to form a higher type of man (Rom. v. 2, 3). 3. _Its signification._ It means son-ship, adoption. It means that God has taken us in hand; that He is Himself presiding over our education; that He loves us and desires our spiritual growth. 4. _Its Author._ "The Lord." We accept that from one who we know, which we would not from a stranger. If we can be sure that a man's motives are pure, we judge of his conduct accordingly. The consideration that affliction comes from the "righteous Father," the King who cannot wrong any of His subjects, ought to help us to take the rebuke with meekness,--to bear the pain, although we cannot now see the profit. _OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._