[BBC List] mur mur mur (a good contrast on thanksgiving day)

[Mike Abendroth]

The Evils of a Murmuring Spirit 


by Jeremiah Burroughs 


Thus we have showed in many respects the excellence of this grace of
contentment, laboring to present the beauty of it before your souls, that
you may be in love with it. Now, my brethren, what remains but the practice
of this? For this art of contentment is not a speculative thing, only for
contemplation, but it is an art of divinity, and therefore practical. You
are now to labor to work upon your hearts, that this grace may be in you,
that you may honor God and honor your profession with this grace of
contentment, for there are none who more honor God, and honor their
profession than those who have this grace of contentment.

Now that we may come to grips with the practice, it is necessary that we
should be humbled in our hearts because of our lack of contentment in the
past. For there is no way to set about any duty that you should perform, you
might labor to perform it, but first you must be humbled for the lack of it.
Therefore I shall endeavor to get your hearts to be humbled for lack of this
grace. 'Oh, had I had this grace of contentment, what a happy life I might
have lived! What abundance of honor I might have brought to the name of God!
How might I have honored my profession! What a great deal of comfort I might
have enjoyed! But the Lord knows it has been far otherwise. Oh, how far I
have been from this grace of contentment which has been expounded to me! I
have had a murmuring, a vexing, and a fretting heart within me. Every little
cross has put me out of temper and out of frame. Oh, the boisterousness of
my spirit! What evil God sees in the vexing and fretting of my heart, and
murmuring and repining of my spirit!' Oh that God would make you see it! Now
to the end that you might be humbled for lack of it, I shall endeavor in
these headlings to speak of it: First I shall set before you The evil of a
murmuring spirit. There is more evil in it than you are aware of.

In the second place, I will show you some aggravations of this evil. It is
altogether evil, but more so in some cases than others.

Thirdly, I shall labor to take away the excuses that any murmuring,
discontented heart has for his disorder.

There are these three things in this use of humbling of the soul for the
want of this grace of contentment.

For the present, the first: The great evil that is in a murmuring,
discontented heart.

1. THIS MURMURING AND DISCONTENTEDNESS OF YOURS REVEALS MUCH CORRUPTION IN
THE SOUL.

As contentment argues much grace, and strong grace, and beautiful grace, so
murmuring argues much corruption, and strong corruption, and very vile
corruptions in your heart. If a man's body is of such a temper that every
scratch of a pin makes his flesh to rankle and be a sore, you will surely
say, this man's body is very corrupt, his blood and his flesh is corrupt,
that every scratch of a pin shall make it rankle. So it is in your spirit,
if every little trouble and affliction makes you discontented, and makes you
murmur, and even causes your spirit within you to rankle. Or like a wound in
a man's body, the evil of the wound is not so much in the largeness of it,
and the abundance of blood that comes out of it, but in the inflammation
that there is in it, or in a fretting and corrupting humor that is in the
wound.

When an unskilled man comes and sees a large wound in the flesh, he looks
upon it as a dangerous wound, and when he sees a great deal of blood gush
out, he thinks, these are the evils of it; but when a surgeon comes and sees
a great gash, he says: 'This will be healed within a few days, but there is
a smaller wound and an inflammation or a septic sore in it, and this will
cost time', he says, 'to cure.' So he does not lay balsam and healing salves
upon it, but his great is to get out the septic inflammation, and the thing
that must heal this wound is some potion to purge. But the patient says,
'What good will this do to my wound? You give me something to drink, and my
wound is in my arm, or in my leg. What good will this do that I am putting
in my stomach?' Yes, it purges out the infection, and takes away the
inflammation, and till that is taken away the salves can do no good.

So it is, just for all the world, in the souls of men: it may be that there
is some affliction upon them, which I compare to the wound; now they think
that the greatness of the affliction is what makes their condition most
miserable. Oh now, there is a fretting humor, an inflammation in the heart,
a murmuring spirit that is within you, and that is the misery of your
condition, and it must be purged out of you before you can be healed. Let
God do with you what he will, till he purges out that fretting humor your
wound will not be healed. A murmuring heart is a very sinful heart; so when
you are troubled for this affliction you had need to turn your thoughts
rather to be troubled for the murmuring of your heart, for that is the
greatest trouble. There is an affliction upon you and that is grievous, but
there is a murmuring heart within and that is more grievous. Oh, that we
could but convince men and women that murmuring spirit is a greater evil
than any affliction, whatever the affliction! We shall show more fully
afterward that a murmuring spirit is the evil of the evil, and the misery of
the misery.

2. THE EVIL OF MURMURING IS SUCH THAT WHEN GOD WOULD SPEAK OF WICKED MEN AND
DESCRIBE THEM, and show the brand of a wicked and ungodly man or woman, he
instances this sin in a more special manner. I might name many Scriptures,
but that Scripture in Jude is a most remarkable one. In the 14th verse
onwards, it is said, 'That the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints,
to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among
them, of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and all
of their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.' Mark
here in this 15th verse mention is made four times of ungodly ones: all that
are ungodly among them, all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly
committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken
against him. This is in general, but now he comes in particular to show who
these are: 'These are', he says, 'murmurers',-that is the very first. Would
you know who are ungodly men, whom God when he comes with ten thousands of
angels shall come to punish for all their ungodly deeds that they do, and
those that speak ungodly things against him? These ungodly ones are
murmurers; murmurers in Scripture are put in the forefront of all. You had
need to look to your spirits; you may see that this murmuring, which is the
vice contrary to this contentment, is not as small a matter as you think.
You think you are not as ungodly as others, because you do not swear and
drink as others do, but you may be ungodly in murmuring. It is true there is
no sin but some seeds and remainders of it are in those who are godly; but
when men are under the power of this sin of murmuring, it convicts them as
ungodly, as well as if they were under the power of drunkenness, or
whoredom, or any other sin. God will look upon you as ungodly for this sin
as well as for any sin whatever. This one Scripture should make the heart
shake at the thought of the sin of murmuring.

3. AS WELL AS BEING MADE A BRAND OF UNGODLY MEN, YOU WILL FIND IN SCRIPTURE
THAT GOD ACCOUNTS IT REBELLION.

It is contrary to the worship that is in contentedness. That is worshipping
God, crouching to God and falling down before him, even as a dog would
crouch when you hold a stick over him; but a murmuring heart is a rebellious
heart, as you will find, if you compare two Scripture together: they are
both in the book of Numbers. 'But on the morrow', says

Numbers 16:41, 'all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured
against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the
Lord.' They all murmured; now compare this with chapter 17 and

verse 10: 'And the Lord said unto Moses, Bring Aaron's rod again before the
testimony, to be kept for a token against the rebels.' In the 16th chapter
they murmured against Moses and Aaron, and in the 17th chapter we read,
Bring the rod of Aaron again, before the testimony, for a token against the
rebels. So you see that to be a murmurer, and to be a rebel, in Scripture
phrase is all one; it is rebellion against God. Just as it is the beginning
of rebellion and sedition in a kingdom, when the people are discontented.
When discontent comes, it grows to murmuring, and you can go into no house
almost, but there is murmuring when men are discontented, so that within a
little while it breaks forth into sedition or rebellion. Murmuring is but as
the smoke of the fire: there is first a smoke and smouldering before the
flame breaks forth; and so before open rebellion in a kingdom there is first
a smoke of murmuring, and then it breaks forth into open rebellion. But
because it has the seeds of rebellion, it is accounted before the Lord to be
rebellion. Will you be a rebel against God? When you feel your heart
discontented and murmuring against the dispensation of God towards you, you
should check it thus: Oh, you wretched heart! What, will you be a rebel
against God? Will you rise in rebellion against the infinite God? Yet you
have done so. Charge your heart with this sin of rebellion.

You who are guilty of this sin of murmuring, you are this day charged by the
Lord, as being guilty of rebellion against him, and God expects that when
you go home, you should humble your souls before him for this sin, that you
should charge your souls for being guilty of rebellion against God.

Many of you may say, I never thought that I was a rebel against God before,
I thought that I had many infirmities, but now I see the Scripture speaks of
sin in a different way than men do, the Scripture makes men, though only
murmurers, to be rebels against God. Oh, this rebellious heart that I have
against the Lord, which has manifested itself in this way of murmuring
against the Lord! That is a third point in the evil of discontent.

4. IT IS A WICKEDNESS WHICH IS GREATLY CONTRARY TO GRACE, AND ESPECIALLY
CONTRARY TO THE WORK OF GOD, IN BRINGING THE SOUL HOME TO HIMSELF.

I know no disorder more opposite and contrary to the work of God in the
conversion of a sinner, than this is.

Question. What is the work of God when he brings a sinner home to himself?
Answer. 1. The usual way is for God to make the soul to see, and be sensible
of the dreadful evil that is in sin, and the great breach that sin has made
between God and it, for, certainly, Jesus Christ can never be known in his
beauty and excellence till the soul knows that. I do not say what secret
work of the Holy Ghost there may be in the soul, but before the soul can
actually apply Jesus Christ to itself, it is impossible but that it must
come to know the evil of sin, and the excellence of Jesus Christ. A seed of
faith may be put into the soul, but the soul must first know Christ, and
know sin, and be made sensible of it. Now how contrary is this sin of
murmuring to any such work of God! Has God made me see the dreadful evil of
sin, and made my soul sensible of the evil of sin as the greatest burden?
How can I be then so much troubled for every little affliction? Certainly,
if I saw what the evil of sin was, that sight would swallow up all other
evils, and if I were burdened with the evil of sin, it would swallow up all
other burdens. What! am I now murmuring against God's hand? says such a
soul, whereas a while ago the Lord made me see myself to be a damned wretch,
and apprehend it as a wonder that I was not in Hell?

2. Yea, it is strongly contrary to the sight of the infinite excellence and
glory of Jesus Christ, and of the things of the Gospel. What! am I the soul
to whom the Lord has revealed the infinite excellence of Jesus Christ, and
yet shall I think such a little affliction to be so grievous to me, when I
have had the sight of such glory in Christ as is worth more than ten
thousand worlds? A true convert will say: 'Oh, the Lord at such a time gave
me a sight of Christ that I would not be without for ten thousand, thousand
worlds.' But has God given you that, and will you be discontented for a
trifle in comparison to that?

3. A third work when God brings the soul home to himself is by taking the
heart off from the creature, disengaging the heart from all
creature-comforts: that is the third work ordinarily that the soul may
perceive of itself. It is true, God's work may be altogether in the seeds in
him, but in the various actings of the soul, in turning to God, it may
perceive these things in it. The disengagement of the heart from the
creature is the calling of the soul from the world-'whom the Lord hath
called he hath justified'-what is the calling of the soul but this? The soul
which before was seeking for contentment in the world, and cleaving to the
creature, is now called out in the world by the Lord, who says: 'Oh Soul,
your happiness is not here, your rest is not here, your happiness is
elsewhere, and your heart must be loosened from all the things that are here
below in the world.' This is the work of God in the soul, to disengage the
heart from the creature, and how contrary is a murmuring heart to such a
thing! Something which is glued to another cannot be taken off, but you must
tear it; so it is a sign your heart is glued to the world, that when God
would take you off, your heart tears. If God, by an affliction, should come
to take anything in the world from you, and you can part from it with ease,
without tearing, it is a sign then that your heart is not glued to the
world.

4. A fourth work of God in converting a sinner is this, the casting of the
soul upon Jesus Christ for all its good. I see Jesus Christian the Gospel as
the Fountain of all good, and God out of free grace tendering him to me for
life and for salvation, and now my souls casts itself, rolls itself upon the
infinite grace of God in Christ for all good. now have you done so? Has God
converted you, and drawn you to his Son to cast your soul upon him for all
your good, and yet you are discontented for the want of some little matter
in a creature comfort? Are you he who has cast your soul upon Jesus Christ
for all good? As he says in another case, 'Is this thy faith?' 5. The soul
is subdued to God. And then it comes to receive Jesus Christ as a King, to
rule, to order, and dispose of him how he pleases, and so the heart is
subdued unto God. Now how opposite is a murmuring, discontented heart to a
heart subdued to Jesus Christ as King, and receiving him as a Lord to rule
and dispose of him as he pleases! 6. There is in the work of your turning to
God the giving up of yourself to God in an everlasting covenant. As you take
Christ, the head of the Covenant, to be yours, so you give up yourself to
Christ. In the work of conversion there is the resignation of the soul
wholly to God in an everlasting covenant to be his. Have you ever
surrendered up yourself to God in an everlasting covenant? Then, certainly,
this fretting, murmuring heart of ours is strongly opposite to it, certainly
you forget this covenant of yours, and the resignation of yourself up to
God. It would be of marvellous help to you to humble your souls when you are
in a murmuring condition.

If you could but obtain so much liberty of your own spirits as to look back
to see what the work of God was in converting you, there is nothing would
prevail more than to think of that. I am now in a murmuring, discontented
way, but how did I feel my soul working when God turned my soul to himself!
Oh, how opposite is this to that work, and how unbecoming! Oh, what shame
and confusion would come upon the spirits of men and women, if they could
but compare the work of corruption in their murmuring and discontent with
the work of God that was upon their souls in conversion! Now we should labor
to keep the work of God upon our souls which was present at our conversion;
for conversion must not be only at one instant at first. Men are deceived in
this, if they think their conversion is finished merely at first; you must
be in a way of conversion to God all the days of your life, and therefore
Christ said to his disciples, 'Except ye be converted and become as little
children?' Ye be converted. Why? Were they not converted before? Yes, they
were converted, but they were still to continue the work of conversion all
the days of their lives. What work of God there is at the first conversion
is to abide afterwards. There must always abide some sight and sense of sin;
it may be not in the way which you had, which was rather a preparation than
anything else, but the sight and sense of sin is to continue still, that is,
you are still to be sensible of the burden of sin as it is against the
holiness, and goodness, and mercy of God to you. And the sight of the
excellence of Jesus Christ is to continue, and your calling away from the
creature, and your casting of your soul upon Christ, and your receiving
Christ as King-still receive him day by day-and the subduing of your heart,
and the surrendering of yourself up to God in a way of covenant. Now if this
were but daily continued, there would be no space nor time for murmuring to
work upon your heart: that is the fourth point.

5. MURMURING AND DISCONTENT IS EXCEEDINGLY BELOW A CHRISTIAN.

Oh, it is too mean and base a disorder for a Christian to give place to it.

Now it is below a Christian in many respects.

1. Below the relation of a Christian. How below the relation of a Christian?
The relation in which you stand. Below what relation? you will say.

i . The relation in which you stand to God. Do you not call God your father?
and do you not stand in relation to him as a child? What! do you murmur? In

2 Samuel 13:4 there is a speech of Jonadab to Amnon: 'Why art thou, being
the king's son, lean from day to day? wilt thou not tell me?'; and so he
told him, but that was for a wicked cause. He perceived that his spirit was
troubled, for otherwise he was of a fat and plump temper of body, but
because of trouble of spirit he even pined away. Why? What is the matter?
You stand in this relation to the King and yet let anything trouble your
heart-that is his meaning; is there anything that should disquiet your heart
when you stand in such a relation to the King, as the King's son? So I may
say to a Christian: Are you the King's son, the son, the daughter, of the
King of Heaven, and yet so disquieted and troubled, and vexed at every
little thing that happens? As if a King's son were to cry out that he is
undone for losing a toy; what an unworthy thing would this be! So do you:
you cry out as if you were undone and yet are a King's son, you who stand in
such relation to God, as to a father, you dishonor your father in this; as
if either he had not wisdom, or power, or mercy enough to provide for you.

i i . The relation in which you stand to Jesus Christ. You are the spouse of
Christ. What! One married to Jesus Christ and yet troubled and discontented?
Have you not enough in him? Does not Christ say to his spouse, as Elkanah
said to Hannah: 'Am not I better to thee than ten sons?' (1 Samuel 1:8). So
does not Christ your husband say to you, 'Am not I better to you than
thousands of riches and comforts, such comforts as you murmur for want of?'
Has not God given you his Son and will he not with him give you all things?
Has the love of God to you been such as to give you his Son in marriage? Why
are you discontented and murmuring? Consider your relation to Jesus Christ,
as a spouse and married to him: his person is yours, and so all the riches
of Jesus Christ are yours, as the riches of a husband are his wife's.

Though some husbands are so vile that their wives may be forced to sue for
maintenance, certainly Jesus Christ will never deny maintenance to his
spouse, it is a dishonor for a husband to have the wife to whining up and
down. What! you are matched with Christ and are his spouse, and will you
murmur now, and be discontented in your spirit? You will observe that with
those who are newly married, when there is discontent between the wife and
the husband, their friends will shake their heads say, 'They are not meeting
with what they expected; you see ever since they were married together how
the man looks, and the woman looks, they are not so cheery as they used to
be. Surely it is likely to prove an ill match.' But it is not so here, it
shall not be so between you and Christ. Oh, Jesus Christ does not love to
see his spouse with a scowling countenance; no man loves to see discontent
in the face of his wife, and surely Christ does not love to see discontent
in the face of his spouse.

iii. You stand in relation to Christ, not only as a spouse, but as a member.
You are bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh; and to have a member of
Jesus Christ in a condition of discontent exceedingly unworthy.

iv. He is your elder brother likewise, and so you are a co-heir with him.

v . The relation in which you stand to the Spirit of God. You are the temple
of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost is your Comforter. It is he who is
appointed to convey all comforts from the Father and the Son, to the souls
of his people. And are you the temple of the Holy Ghost, and does he dwell
in you, and yet for all that you murmur for every little thing? vi. The
relation in which you stand to the angels. You are made one body with them,
for so Christ has joined principalities and powers with his Church: they are
ministering spirits for the good of his people, to supply what they need,
and you and they are joined together, and Christ is the head of you and
angels.

vii. The relation in which you stand to the saints. You are of the same body
with them, they and you make up but one mystical body with Jesus Christ, and
if they are happy you must needs be happy.

Oh, how beneath a Christian is a murmuring spirit, especially when he
considers the relations in which he stands! 2. A Christian should consider,
That murmuring and discontentedness is below the high dignity which God has
put upon him. Do but consider the high dignity which God has put upon you:
the meanest Christian in the world is a lord of heaven and earth. he has
made us kings unto himself, kings to God, not kings to men to rule over
them; and yet I say, every Christian is lord of heaven and earth, yea of
life and death. That is, as Christ is Lord of all, so he has made those who
are his members lords of all. 'All are yours', says the Apostle, 'even life
and death, every thing is yours.' It is a very strange expression, that
death should be theirs, death is yours, that is, you are, as it were, lords
over it, you have what shall make death your servant, your slave, even death
itself, your greatest enemy is turned to be your slave. Faith makes a
Christian as lord over all, lifted up in excellence above all creatures that
ever God made, except the angels, and in some respect above them.

I say the poorest Christian who lives is raised to a position above all
creatures in the world except angels, and above them in many respects too-
and yet discontented! That you who were as a firebrand of hell, and might
have been scorching and yelling and roaring there to all eternity, yet that
God should raise you to have a higher excellence in you than there is in all
the works of creation that ever he made except angels, and other Christians,
who are in your position! Indeed, you are nearer the Divine nature than the
angels, because your nature is joined in a hypostatical union to the Divine
nature, and in that respect your nature is more honored than the nature of
the angels. And the death of Christ is yours. He died for you and not for
the angels, and therefore you are likely to be raised above the angels in
many respects. You who are in such a position as this, you who are set apart
to the end that God might manifest to all eternity what the infinite power
of a Deity is able to raise a creature to-for that is the position of a
saint, a believer: his position is that he is set apart to the end that God
might manifest to all eternity what his infinite power is able to do to make
a creature happy.

Are you in such a position? Oh, how low and beneath this position is a
murmuring and discontented heart for want of some outward comforts here in
this world! How unseemly it is that you should be a slave to every cross,
that every affliction shall be able to say to your soul, 'Bow down to us'!
We accounted it a great slavery, when men said to our souls, 'Bow down', as
the cruel prelates were wont to do, in imposing things upon men's
consciences: in effect they said, 'Let your consciences, your souls, bow
down to us, that we may tread upon them'. That is the greatest slavery in
the world, that one man should say to another, 'Let your consciences, your
souls, bow down, that we may tread upon them'; but will you allow every
affliction to say, 'Bow down that we may tread upon you'? Truly it is so,
when your heart is overcome with murmuring and discontent; know that those
afflictions which have caused your to murmur have said to you, 'Bow down
that we may tread upon you.' Nay, not afflictions, but the very Devil
prevails against you in this. Oh! how this is beneath the happy position to
which God has raised a Christian! What! will the son of a King let every
base fellow come and bid him bow down, that he may tread upon his neck? That
is what you do in every affliction: the affliction, the cross and trouble
that befalls you, says, 'Bow down that we may come and tread upon you.' 3.
Murmuring is below the spirit of a Christian. The spirit of every Christian
should be like the spirit of his Father: every father loves to see his
spirit in his child, loves to see his image, not the image of his body only,
to say, here is a child for all the world like his father, but he has the
spirit of his father too. A father who is a man of spirit loves to see his
spirit in his child, rather than the features of his body. Oh, the Lord who
is our Father loves to see his Spirit in us. Great men love to see great
spirits in their children, and the great God loves to see a great spirit in
his children. We are one spirit with God and with Christ, and one spirit
with the Holy Ghost; therefore, we should have a spirit that might manifest
the glory of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in our spirits: that is the
spirit of a Christian.

The spirit of a Christian should be a lion-like spirit; as Jesus Christ is
the Lion of the tribe of Judah (so he is called) so we should manifest
something of the lion-like spirit of Jesus Christ. He manifested his
lion-like spirit in passing through all afflictions and troubles whatsoever
without any murmuring against God. When he came to drink that bitter cup,
and even the dregs of it, he prayed indeed to God that if it were possible
it might pass from him, but immediately: 'Not my will, but thy will be
done.' As soon as ever he mentioned the passing of the cup from him, though
it was the most dreadful cup that ever was drunk since the world began, yet
at the mentioning of it: 'Not my will, but thy will be done.' Here Christ
showed a lion-like spirit in going through all kinds of afflictions
whatsoever, without any murmuring against God in them. Now a murmuring
spirit is a base, dejected spirit, cross and contrary to the spirit of a
Christian, and it is very base.

I remember that the Heathens accounted it very base. Plutarch reports of a
certain people, who used to manifest their disdain to men who were overmuch
dejected by any affliction, and condemned them to this punishment: to wear
women's clothes all their days, or for a certain space of time at least,
they should go in women's clothes I token of shame and disgrace to them
because they had such effeminate spirits. They thought it against a manly
spirit, and therefore, seeing they did un-man themselves, they should go as
women. Now, shall they account it an unmanly spirit, to be overmuch dejected
in afflictions? and shall not a Christian account it an unchristianlike
spirit to be overmuch dejected by any affliction whatsoever? I remember
someone else compares murmuring spirits to children, when they are weaning:
what a great deal of stir you have with your children when you wean then!
how perverse and vexing they are! So, when God would wean you from some
outward comforts in this world, oh, how fretting and discontented you are!
Children will not sleep themselves nor let their mothers sleep when they are
weaning; and so, when God would wean us from the world, and we fret, vex,
and murmur, this is a childish spirit.

4. It is below the profession of a Christian. The profession of a Christian-
what is that? A Christian's profession is to be dead to the world and to be
alive to God, that is his profession, to have his life hid with Christ in
God, to satisfy himself in God. What! is this your profession? And yet if
you have not everything you want, you murmur and are discontented. In that
you even deny your profession.

5. It is below that special grace of faith. Faith is what overcomes the
world; it makes all the promises of God ours. Now when you look upon you the
profession of religion did God ever promise you that you would live at ease,
and quiet, and have no trouble? I remember Augustine has a similar
expression: 'What! is this your faith? Did I ever promise you (he says) that
you should flourish in the world? Are you a Christian to that end? And is
this your faith? I never made any such promise to you when you took upon you
to be a Christian.' Oh, it is very contrary to your profession. You have no
promise for this, that you should not have such an affliction upon you.

And a Christian should live by his faith. It is said that the just live by
faith; now you should not look after any other life but the life that you
have by faith. You have no ground for your faith to believe that you should
be delivered out of such an affliction, and then why should you account it
such a great evil to be under this affliction? Certainly the good that we
have in the ground for our faith is enough to content our hearts here, and
to all eternity.

A Christian should be satisfied with what God has made the object of his
faith. The object of his faith is high enough to satisfy his soul, were it
capable of a thousand times more than it is. Now if you may have the object
of your faith you have enough to content your soul. And know that when you
are discontented for want of certain comforts, you should think thus: God
never promised me that I should have these comforts, at this time, and in
such a way as I would have. I am discontented because I have not these
things which God never yet promised me, and therefore I sin much against the
Gospel, and against the grace of faith.

6. It is below a Christian because it is below those helps that a Christian
has more than others have. They have the promises to help them, which others
have not. It is not so much for the heart of a Nabal to sink, because he has
nothing but the creature to uphold him. But it is much for a Christian, who
has the promises and ordinances to uphold his spirit, which others have not.

7. It is below the expectation that God has of Christians, for God expects
not only that they should be patient in afflictions, but that they should
rejoice and triumph in them. Now, Christians, when God expects this from
you, and you have not even attained to contentedness under afflictions! Oh,
this is beneath what God expects from you.

8. It is below what God has had from other Christians. Others have not only
been contented with little trials, but they have triumphed over great
afflictions, they have suffered the spoiling of their goods with joy. Read
the latter part of the eleventh of the Hebrews, and you will find what great
things God has had from his people. Therefore not to be content with smaller
crosses must needs be a great evil.

6. THE SIXTH EVIL IN A MURMURING SPIRIT IS, By murmuring you undo your
prayers, for it is exceedingly contrary to the prayer that you make to God.
When you come to pray to God, you acknowledge his sovereignty over you, you
come there to profess yourselves to be at God's disposal. What do you pay
for, unless you acknowledge that you are at his disposal? Unless you will
stand, as it were, at his disposal never come to petition him. If you will
come to petition him and yet will be your own carver you go contrary to your
prayers, to come as if you would beg your bread at your Father's gates every
day, and yet you must do what you list: this is the undoing of the prayers
of a Christian. I remember reading that Latimer, speaking concerning Peter
who denied his master, said: 'Peter forgot his Paternoster,* for that was,
Hallowed be thy name, and thy kingdom come.' [*Paternoster &emdash; The
Lord's Prayer, so called because the Latin version begins: 'Pater noster'
(Our Father).] So we may say, when you have murmuring and discontented
hearts, you forget your prayers, you forget what you have prayed for. What
do you pray, but, Give us this day our daily bread? (For you must make the
Lord's prayer a pattern for your prayers; that is Christ's intention, that
we should have it as a pattern and a directory, as it were, how to make our
prayers.) Now God does not teach any of you to pray, Lord, give me so much a
year, or let me have this kind of cloth, and so many dishes at my table.
Christ does not teach you to pray so, but he teaches us to pray, 'Lord, give
us our bread,' showing that you should be content with a little. What, have
you not bread to eat? I hope there are none of you here but have that.

Objection. But I do not know what would become of my children if I were to
die. Or if I have bread now, I do not know where I shall get it from next
week, or where I shall get provision for the winter.

Answer. Where did Christ teach us to pray, Lord, give us provision for so
long a time? No, but if we have bread for this day, Christ would have us
content. Therefore when we murmur because we have not so much variety as
others have, we do, as it were, forget our Paternoster. It is against our
prayers; we do not in our lives hold forth the acknowledgment of the
sovereignty of God over us as we seem to acknowledge in our prayers.

Therefore when at any time you find your murmuring, then do but reflect
yourselves and think thus: Is this according to my prayers, in which I held
forth the sovereign power and authority that God has over me? 7. THE SEVENTH
THING WHICH I ADD FOR THE EVIL OF DISCONTENT IS the woeful effects that come
to a discontented heart from murmuring. I will name you five; there are five
evil effects that come from a murmuring spirit: 1. By murmuring and
discontent in your hearts, you come to lose a great deal of time. How many
times do men and women, when they are discontented, let their thoughts run,
and are musing and contriving, through their present discontentedness and
let their discontented thoughts work I in them for some hours together, and
they spend their time in vain! When you are alone you should spend your time
in holy meditation, but you are spending your time in discontented thoughts.
You complain that you cannot meditate, you cannot think on good things, but
if you begin to think of them a little, soon your thoughts are off from
them. But if you are discontented with anything, then you can go alone, and
muse, and roll things up and down in your thoughts to feed a discontented
humor. Oh, labor to see this evil effect of murmuring, the losing of your
time.

2. It unfits you for duty. If a man or woman is in a contented frame, you
may turn such a one to anything at any time, and he is fit to go to God at
any time; but when one is in a discontented condition, then a man or woman
is exceedingly unfit for the service of God. And it causes many distractions
in duty, it unfits for duty, and when you come to perform duties, oh, the
distractions that are in your duties, when your spirits are discontented!
When you hear any ill news from sea and cannot bear it, or of any ill from a
friend, or any loss or cross, oh, what distractions do they cause in the
performance of holy duties! When you should be enjoying communion with God,
you are distracted in your thoughts about the trial that has befallen you,
whereas had you but a quiet spirit, though great trials befell you, yet they
would never hinder you in the performance of any duty.

3. Consider what wicked risings of heart and resolutions of spirit there are
many times in a discontented fit. In some discontented fits the heart rises
against God, and against others and sometimes it even has desperate
resolutions what to do to help itself. If the Lord had suffered you to have
done what you had sometimes thought to do, in a discontented fit, what
wretched misery you would have brought upon yourselves! Oh, it was a mercy
of God that stopped you; had not God stopped you, but let you go on when you
thought to help yourselves this way and the other way, oh, it would have
been ill with you. Do but remember those risings of heart and wicked
resolutions that sometimes you have had in a discontented mood, and learn to
be humbled for that.

4. Unthankfulness is an evil and a wicked effect which comes from
discontent. The Scripture ranks unthankfulness among very great sins. men
and women, who are discontented, though they enjoy many mercies from God,
yet they are thankful for none of them, for this is the vile nature of
discontent, to lessen every mercy of God. It makes those mercies they have
from God as nothing to them, because they cannot have what they want.

Sometimes it is so even in spiritual things: if they do not have all they
desire, the comforts that they would have, then what they do have is nothing
to them. Do you think that God will take this well? Suppose you were to give
a friend or a relation some money to trade with and he came and said: 'What
is this you have given me? There are only a few coins here.

This is no good to me.' This would be intolerable to you, that he should
react to your gift like this, just because you have not given him as much
money as he would like. It is just the same when you are ready to say: 'All
that God has given me is worthless. It is no good to me. It is only a few
coins.' For you to say that what God gives you is nothing and only common
gifts, all given in hypocrisy, and counterfeit, when they are the precious
graces of God's Spirit and worth more than thousands of worlds &emdash; how
ungrateful it is! The graces of God's Spirit are nothing to a discontented
heart who cannot have all that he would have. And so for outward blessings:
God has given you health of body, and strength, and has given you some
competence for your family, some way of livelihood, yet because you are
disappointed in something that you would have, therefore all is nothing to
you. Oh, what unthankfulness in this! God expects that every day you should
spend some time in blessing his name for what mercy he has granted to you.
There is not one of you in the lowest condition but you have an abundance of
mercies to bless God for, but discontentedness makes them nothing. I
remember an excellent saying that Luther has: 'This is the rhetoric of the
Spirit of God' he said, 'to extenuate evil things, and to amplify good
things: if a cross comes to make the cross but little, but if there is a
mercy to make the mercy great.' Thus, if there is a cross, where the Spirit
of God prevails in the heart, the man or woman will wonder that it is no
greater, and will bless God that though there is such a cross, yet that it
is no greater, and will bless God that though there is such a cross, yet
that it is no more: that is the work of the Spirit of God; and if there is a
mercy, he wonders at God's goodness, that God granted so great a mercy.

The Spirit of God extenuates evils and crosses, and magnifies and amplifies
all mercies; and makes al mercies seem to be great, and all afflictions seem
to be little. But the Devil goes quite contrary, says Luther, his rhetoric
is quite otherwise: he lessens God's mercies, and amplifies evil things.
Thus, a godly man wonders at his cross that it is not more, a wicked man
wonders his cross is so much: 'Oh', he says, 'none was ever so afflicted as
I am.' If there is a cross, the Devil puts the soul to musing on it, and
making it greater than it is, and so it brings discontent.

And on the other side, if there is a mercy, then it is the rhetoric of the
Devil to lessen the mercy. 'Aye, indeed', he says, 'the thing is a good
thing, but what is it? It is not a great matter, and for all this, I may be
miserable.' Thus the rhetoric of Satan lessens God's mercies, and increases
afflictions.

I will give you a striking example of this which we find in Scripture: it is
the example of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in

Numbers 16:12, 13: 'And Moses sent to call Dathan, and Abiram, the sons of
Eliab: which said, We will not come up: Is it a small thing that thou hast
brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in
the wilderness, except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us?' Mark,
the slighted the land that they were going to, the land of Canaan; that was
the land that God promised them should flow with milk and honey.

But mark here their discontentedness, because they met with some troubles in
the wilderness: oh, it was to slay them, they make their affliction in the
wilderness greater than it was, oh, it was to kill them, though indeed it
was to carry them to the land of Canaan. But though their deliverance from
Egypt was a great mercy, they made it to be nothing, for they say 'You have
brought us out of a land that floweth with milk and honey' &emdash; what
land was that? It was the land of Egypt, the land of their bondage, but they
call it a land that flowed with milk and honey, though it was the land of
their most cruel and unbearable bondage; whereas they should have blessed
God as long as they lived for delivering them out of the land of Egypt. Yet,
meeting with some cross they make their deliverance from Egypt no mercy, no,
it was rather a misery to them. 'Oh', they say, 'Egypt was a land that
flowed with milk and honey.' Oh, what baseness there is in a discontented
spirit! A discontented spirit, out of envy to God's grace, will make mercies
that are great little, yea to be none at all. Would one ever have thought
that such a word could have come from the mouth of an Israelite, who had
been under bondage and cried under it? and yet when they meet with a little
cross in their way they say, 'You have brought us out of the land that
floweth with milk and honey.' To say they were better before than now, and
yet before, they could not be contented either: this is the usual,
unthankful expression of a discontented heart.

It is so with us now when we meet with any cross in our estates, any
taxation and trouble, especially if any among you have been where the enemy
have prevailed, you are ready to say: 'We had plenty before, and we are now
brought to a condition of hardship, we were better before when we had the
Prelates and others to domineer,' and so we are in danger of being brought
into that bondage again. Oh, let us take heed of this, of a discontented
heart; there is this woeful cursed fruit of discontent, to make men and
women unthankful for all the mercies God has granted to them, and this is a
sore and grievous evil.

5. Finally, there is this evil effect in murmuring, it causes shiftings of
spirit. Those who murmur and are discontented are liable to temptations to
shift for themselves in sinful and ungodly ways; discontent is the ground of
shifting courses and unlawful ways. How many of you are condemned by your
consciences of this, that in the time of your afflictions you have sought to
shift for yourselves by ways that were sinful against God, and your
discontent was the bottom and ground of it? If you would avoid shifting for
yourselves by wicked ways, labor to mortify this sin of discontent, to
mortify it at the root.

8. THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF FOLLY, EXTREME FOLLY, IN A DISCONTENTED HEART;
IT IS A FOOLISH SIN.

I shall open the folly of it in many respects.

1. It takes away the present comfort of what you have, because you have not
something that you would have. What a foolish thing is this, that because I
have not got what I want, I will not enjoy the comfort of what I have! Do
you not account this folly in your children?: you give them some food and
they are not contented, perhaps they say it is not enough, they cry for
more, and if you do not immediately give them more they will throw away what
they have. Though you account it folly in your children, yet you deal thus
with God: God gives you many mercies, but your see others have more mercies
than you and therefore you cry for more; but God does not give you what you
want and because of that you throw away what you have &emdash; is not this
folly in your hearts? It is unthankfulness.

2. By all your discontent you cannot help yourselves, you cannot get
anything by it. Who by taking care can add one cubit to his stature, or make
one hair that is white to be black? You may vex and trouble yourselves but
you can get nothing by it. Do you think that the Lord will come in mercy a
whit the sooner because of the murmuring of your spirits? Oh, no, but mercy
will be rather deferred the longer for it; though the Lord was about to send
mercy before, yet this disorder of your hearts is enough to put him out of
his course of mercy, and though he had thoughts that you should have the
thing before, yet now you shall not have it. If you had a mind to give
something to your child, yet if you see him in a discontented, fretting mood
you will not give it him. And this is the very reason why many mercies are
denied to you, because of your discontent. You are discontented for want of
them, and therefore you do not get them, you deprive yourselves of the
enjoyment of your own desires, because of the discontent of your hearts,
because you do not get your desires, and is not this a foolish thing? 3.
There are commonly many foolish attitudes that a discontented heart is
guilty of. They carry themselves foolishly towards God and towards men.

Such expressions, and such kinds of behavior come from them, as to make
their friends ashamed of them many times. Their carriages are so unseemly,
they are a shame to themselves and their friends.

4. Discontent and murmuring eats out the good and sweetness of a mercy
before it comes. It God should give a mercy for the want of which we are
discontented, yet the blessing of the mercy is, as it were, eaten out before
we come to have it. Discontent is like a worm that eats the meat out of the
nut, and then when the meat is eaten out of it, you have the shell. If a
child were to cry for a nut of which the meat has been eaten out, and is all
worm-eaten, what good would the nut be to the child? So you would fain have
a certain outward comfort and you are troubled for the want of it, but the
very trouble of your spirits is the worm that eats the blessing out of the
mercy.

Then perhaps God gives it to you, but with a curse mixed with it, so that
you were better not to have it than have it. If God gives the man or woman
who is discontented for want of some good thing, that good thing before they
are humbled for their discontent, such a man or woman can have no comfort
from the mercy, but it will be rather an evil than a good to them.

Therefore for my part, if I should have a friend or brother or one who was
as dear to me as my own soul, whom I saw discontented for the want of such a
comfort, I would rather pray, 'Lord, keep this thing from them, till you
shall be pleased to humble their hearts for their discontent; let not them
have the mercy till they come to be humbled for their discontent over the
want of it, for if they have it before that time they will have it without
any blessing.' Therefore it should be your care, when you find your hearts
discontented for the want of anything, to be humbled for it, thinking thus
with yourselves: Lord, if what I so immoderately desire were to come to me
before I am humbled for my discontent for want of it, I am certain I could
have no comfort from it, but I should rather have it as an affliction to me.

There are many things which you desire as your lives, and think that you
would be happy if you had them, yet when they come you do not find such
happiness in them, but they prove to be the greatest crosses and afflictions
that you ever had, and on this ground, because your hearts were immoderately
set upon them before you had them. As it was with Rachael: she must have
children or else she died &emdash; 'Well', said God, 'seeing you must, you
shall have them,' but though she had a child she died according to what she
said, 'Give me children or else I die.' So in regard of any other outward
comforts, people may have the thing, but oftentimes they have it so as it
proves the heaviest cross to them that they ever had in all their lives.

The child whom you were discontented for the want of, may have been sick,
and your hearts were out of temper for fear that you should lose it; God
restores it, but he restores it so as he makes it a cross to your hearts all
the days of your lives. Someone observes concerning manna, 'When the people
were contented with the allowance that God allowed them, then it was very
good, but when they would not be content with God's allowance, but would
gather more than God would have them, then, says the text, there were worms
in it.' So when we are content with our conditions, and what God disposes of
us to be in, there is a blessing in it, then it is sweet to us, but if we
must needs have more, and keep it longer than God would have us to have it,
then there will be worms in it and it will be no good at all.

5. It makes our affliction a great deal worse than otherwise it would be. it
in no way removes our afflictions, indeed, while they continue, they are a
great deal the worse and heavier, for a discontented heart is a proud heart,
and a proud heart will not pull down his sails when there comes a tempest
and storm. If a sailor, when a tempest and storm comes, is perverse and
refuses to pull down his sails, but is discontented with the storm, is his
condition any better because he is discontented and will not pull down his
sails? Will this help him? Just so is it, for all the world, with a
discontented heart: a discontented heart is a proud heart, and he out of his
pride is troubled with his affliction, and is not contented with God's
disposal, and so he will not pull down his spirit at all, and make it bow to
God in this condition into which God has brought him. now is his condition
any better because he will not pull down his spirit? No, certainly,
abundantly worse, it is a thousand to one but that the tempest and storm
will overwhelm his soul.

Thus you see what a great deal of folly there is in the sin of
discontentment.

9. THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF DANGER IN THE SIN OF DISCONTENT, FOR IT HIGHLY
PROVOKES THE WRATH OF GOD.

It is a sin that much provokes God against his creature. We find most sad
expressions in Scripture, and examples too, how God has been provoked
against many for their discontent. In Numbers 14 you have a noteworthy text,
and one would think that it was enough for ever to make you fear murmuring:
in the

26th verse, it is said, 'The Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron saying'
&emdash; what did he say? &emdash; 'How long shall I bear with this evil
congregation, which murmur against me?' How long shall I bear with them?
says God, this evil congregation, oh it is an evil congregation that murmur
against me, and how long shall I bear with them? They murmur, and they have
murmured; as those who have murmuring spirits, and murmuring dispositions,
they will murmur again, and again. How long shall I bear with this evil
congregation that murmur against me? How justly may God speak this of many
of you who are this morning before the Lord: how long shall I bear with this
wicked man or woman who murmurs against me, and has usually in the course of
their lives murmured against me when anything falls out otherwise than they
would have it? And mark what follows after, 'I have heard the murmurings of
the children of Israel.' You murmur, and maybe others do not hear you, it
may be that you do not speak at all, or but half-words; yet God hears the
language of your murmuring hearts, and those muttering speeches, and those
half-words that come from you. And observe further in this verse how the
Lord repeats this sin of murmuring,' 'How long shall I bear with this evil
congregation, which murmur against me?'

Secondly, 'I have heard their murmuring.' Thirdly, 'which they murmur
against me'. Murmur, murmur, murmur &emdash; three times in one verse he
repeats it, and this is to show his indignation against the thing. When you
express indignation against a thing, you repeat it over again, and again;
now the Lord, because he would express his indignation against this sin,
repeats it over again, and again, and it follows in the 28th verse, 'Say
unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine
ears, so I will do to you.' Mark, God swears against a murmurer. Sometimes
in your discontent perhaps you will be ready to swear. Do you swear in your
discontent? &emdash; So does God swear against you for your discontent. And
what would God do to them? 'Doubtless your carcasses shall fall in the
wilderness; and you shall not come into the land concerning which I sware,
to make you dwell therein.' It is as if God should say, 'If I have any life
in me your lives shall go for it, as I live it shall cost you your lives.' A
discontented, murmuring fit of yours may cost you your lives. You see how it
provokes God; there is more evil in it than you were aware of. If may cost
you your lives, and therefore look to yourselves, and learn to be humbled at
the very beginnings of such disorders in the heart. So in Psalm 106:24, 25:
'Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word; but
murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord.
Therefore he lifted up his hand against them to overthrow them in the
wilderness.' There are several things to be observed in this Scripture.

We spoke before of how a murmuring heart slights God's mercies, and so it is
here: 'They despised the pleasant land.' And a murmuring heart is contrary
to faith: 'they believed not his word, but (says the text) they murmured in
their tents, and hearkened not to the voice of the Lord.' Many men and women
will hearken to the voice of their own base murmuring hearts, who will not
hearken to the voice of the Lord. If you would hearken to the voice of the
Lord, there would not be such murmuring as there is.

But mark what follows after it; you must not think to please yourselves in
your murmuring discontentedness, and think that no evil shall come of it:
'Therefore he lifted up his hand against them to overthrow them.' You who
are discontented lift up your hearts against God, and you cause God to lift
up his hand against you. Perhaps God lays his finger on you softly in some
afflictions, in your families or elsewhere, and you cannot bear the hand of
God, which lies upon you as tenderly as a tender-hearted nurse lays her hand
on a child. You cannot bear the tender hand of God which is upon you in a
lesser affliction; it would be just for God to lift up his hand against you
in another kind of affliction. Oh, a murmuring spirit provokes God
exceedingly.

There is another place in

16th of Numbers: compare the 41st verse, and the 46th verse together: 'But
on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured
against Moses and Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the Lord,' and
mark in the 46th verse: 'And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer and put
fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the
congregation and make atonement for them, for there is wrath gone out from
the Lord, the plague is begun.' Mark how God's wrath is kindled: in the 41st
verse, the congregation had murmured, and they murmured only against Moses
and Aaron (perhaps you murmur more directly against God) and that was
against God, in murmuring against God's ministers. it was against God but
not so directly; if you murmur against those whom God makes instruments,
because you have not got everything that you would have, against the
Parliament, or such and such who are public instruments, it is against God.
It was only against Moses and Aaron that the Israelites murmured, and they
said that Moses and Aaron had killed the people of the Lord, though it was
the hand of God that was upon them for their former wickedness in murmuring.
It is usual for wicked, vile hearts to deal thus with God, when God's hand
is a little upon them, to murmur again and again, and so to bring upon
themselves infinite kinds of evils. But now the anger of God was quickly
kindled: 'Oh', said Moses, 'go, take the censer quickly, for wrath is gone
out from Jehovah, the plague is begun.' So while you are murmuring in your
families, the wrath of God may quickly go out against you. In a morning or
evening, when you are murmuring, the wrath of God may come quickly upon your
families or persons. You are never so prepared for present wrath as when you
are in a murmuring, discontented fit. Those who stand by and see you in a
murmuring, discontented fit, have cause to say: 'Oh, let us go and take the
censer, let us go to prayer, for we are afraid that wrath is gone out
against this family, against this person.' And it would be a very good thing
for you, who are a godly wife, when you see your husband come home and start
murmuring because things are not going according to his desire, to go to
prayer, and say: 'Lord, pardon the sin of my husband.' And similarly for a
husband to go to God in prayer, falling down and beseeching him that wrath
may not come out against his family for the murmuring of his wife.

The truth is that at this day there has been, at least lately, as much
murmuring in England as there ever was, and eve in this very respect the
plague has begun. This very judgment comes many times on those who are
discontented in their families, and are always grumbling and murmuring at
any thing that falls out amiss.

I say this text of Scripture in Numbers clearly holds forth that the Lord
brings the plague upon men for this sin of murmuring; he does it in kingdoms
and families, and on particular persons. Though we cannot always point out
the particular sin that God brings it for, yet we should examine how far we
are guilty of the sin of murmuring, because the Scripture holds forth this
so clearly, that when Moses but heard that they murmured: 'Do they murmur?'
he said, 'go forth quickly and seek to pacify the anger of God, for wrath is
gone out, and the plague is begun.' And you have a notable example of God's
heavy displeasure against murmuring in 1 Corinthians 10:10: 'Neither murmur
ye as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.' Take
heed of murmuring as some of them did &emdash; he speaks of the people of
Israel in the wilderness &emdash; for, he says, what came of it? They were
destroyed of the destroyer. Now the destroyer is thought to be the fiery
serpents that were sent among them. They murmured and God sent fiery
serpents to sting them. What! do you think that a certain cross and
affliction stings you? Perhaps such an affliction is upon you, and it seems
to be grievous for the present; what! do your murmur and repine? God has
greater crosses to bring upon you. Those people who murmur for want of
outward comforts, for want of water, and for the want of bread, murmur, but
the Lord sends fiery serpents among them. I would say to a murmuring heart,
'Woe to you that strive with your maker! Woe to that man, that woman who
strives against their maker! What else are you doing but striving against
your maker? Your maker has the absolute disposal of you, and will you strive
against him? What is the murmuring, discontented heart of yours doing but
wrangling and contending and striving even with God himself? Oh, woe to him
who strives against his maker! I may further say to you, as God spoke to
Job, when he was impatient (

Job 38:1, 2): 'Now God spake', says the text, 'out of the whirlwind, and
said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?' So, do
you speak against God's way, and his providences which have taken place
concerning your condition and outward comforts? Who is this? Who is this
that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Where is the man or woman
whose heart is so bold and impudent that they dare to speak against the
administration of God's providence? 10. THERE IS A GREAT CURSE OF GOD UPON
MURMURING AND DISCONTENT; SO FAR AS IT PREVAILS IN ONE WHO IS WICKED, IT HAS
THE CURSE OF GOD UPON IT.

In Psalm 59:15, see what the curse of God is upon wicked and ungodly men:
'Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied.'
That is the imprecation and curse upon wicked and ungodly men, that if they
are not satisfied they shall grudge. When you are not satisfied in your
desires and find your heart grudging against God, apply this Scripture
&emdash; what! is the curse of the wicked upon me? This is the curse that is
threatened upon wicked and ungodly ones, that they shall grudge if they be
not satisfied.

And in Deuteronomy 28:67, it is threatened as a curse of God upon men that
they cannot be content with their present condition: 'But they shall say in
the morning, Would God it were even! and at even, Would God it were
morning!' So they lie tossing up and down and cannot be content with any
condition that they are in, because of the sore afflictions that are upon
them.

Therefore it is further threatened as a curse upon them, in the 34th verse,
that they should be mad for the sight of their eyes which they should see:
this is but the extremity of their discontentedness, that is, they shall be
so discontented, that they shall even be mad. Many men and women in
discontented moods are a mad sort of people, and though you may please
yourselves with such a mad kind of behavior, you should know that it is a
curse of God upon men to be given up to a kind of madness for evils which
they imagine have come upon them, and which they fear. In the 47th verse,
there is a striking expression to show the curse of God on murmuring hearts:
The Lord threatens the curses which shall be upon them, and says (verses
45-47): 'The curses shall pursue thee, and they shall be upon thee for a
sign, and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever: Because thou servedst
not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the
abundance of all things.' God here threatens to bring this curse upon them,
so as to make them a wonder and a sign to others. Why? Because they served
not the Lord with joyfulness of heart, therefore God would bring such a
curse upon them as would make them a wonder to all that were about them. Oh,
how far are you, then, who have a murmuring heart, from serving the Lord
with joyfulness! 11. THERE IS MUCH OF THE SPIRIT OF SATAN IN A MURMURING
SPIRIT.

The Devil is the most discontented creature in the world, he is the proudest
creature that is, and the most discontented creature, and the most dejected
creature. Now, therefore, so much discontent as you have, so much of the
spirit of Satan you have. It was the unclean spirit that went up and down
and found no rest; so when a man or woman's spirit has no reset, it is a
sign that it has much of the unclean spirit, of the spirit of Satan, and you
should think with yourself, Oh, Lord, have I the spirit of Satan upon me?
Satan is the most discontented spirit that is, and oh! how much of his
spirit have I upon me who can find no rest at all? 12. IF YOU HAVE A
MURMURING SPIRIT, YOU MUST THEN HAVE DISQUIET ALL THE DAYS OF YOUR LIFE.

It is as if a man in a great crowd were to complain that other folks touch
him. While we are in this world God has so ordered things that afflictions
must befall us; and if we will complain and be discontented at every cross
and affliction, why, we must complain and be discontented all the days of
our lives! Indeed, God in just judgment will let things fall out on purpose
to vex those who have vexing spirits and discontented hearts; and therefore
it is necessary that they should live disquieted all their days. People will
not be troubled much if they upset those who are continually murmuring. Oh,
they will have disquiet all their days! 13. FINALLY, THERE IS THIS FURTHER
DREADFUL EVIL IN DISCONTENT AND MURMURING: God may justly withdraw his care
of you, and his protection over you, seeing God cannot please you in his
administration.

We would say so to discontented servants: If you are not pleased, better
yourselves when you will. If you have a servant not content with his diet
and wages, and work, you say, Better yourselves; so may God justly say to us
&emdash; we who profess ourselves servants to him, to be in his work, and
yet are discontented with this thing or that in God's household, God might
justly say &emdash; Better yourselves. What is God should say to any of you,
If my care over you does not please you, then take care of yourselves, if my
protection over you will not please you, then protect yourselves? Now all
things that befall you, befall you through a providence of God, and if you
are those who belong to God, there is a protection of God over you, and a
care of God. If God were to say, 'Well, you shall not have the benefit of my
protection any longer, and I will take no further care of you', would not
this be a most dreadful judgment of God from Heaven upon you? Take heed what
you do then in being discontented with God's will towards you, for, indeed,
on account of discontent this may befall you. That is the reason why many
people, over whom God's protection has been ver gracious for a time, when
they have thriven abundantly, yet afterwards almost all who behold them may
say of them that they live as if God had cast off his care over them, and as
if God did not care what befell them.

Now then, my brethren, put all these points together, those we spoke of in
the last chapter, and these points that have been added now in this chapter,
for setting out a murmuring and discontented spirit. Oh, what an ugly face
has this sin of murmuring and discontentedness! Oh, what cause is there that
we should lay our hands upon our hearts, and go away and be humbled before
the Lord because of this! Whereas your thoughts were wont to be exercised
about providing for yourselves, and getting more comforts for yourselves,
let the stream of your thoughts now be turned to humble yourselves for your
discontentedness. Oh, that your hearts may break before God, for otherwise
you will fall to it again! Oh, the wretchedness of man's heart! You find in
Scripture, concerning the people of Israel, how strangely they fell to their
murmuring, again and again. Do but observe three texts of Scripture for
that, the first in the 15th of Exodus at the beginning. There you have Moses
and the congregation singing to God and blessing God for his mercy: 'Then
sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake,
saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously, the
horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.' And then: 'The Lord is my
strength and song, and he is become my salvation, he is my God and I will
prepare him an habitation, my father's God and I will exalt him.' So he goes
on: 'and who is like unto thee, O Lord, amongst the gods? who is like thee,
glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?' Thus their hearts
triumphed in God, but mark, before the chapter is ended, in the 23rd verse:
'When they came to Marah (in the same chapter) they could not drink of the
waters of Marah for they were bitter, therefore the name of it was called
Marah; and the people murmured against Moses.' After so great a mercy as
this, what unthankfulness was there in their murmuring! Then God gave them
water, but in the very next chapter they fell to their murmuring. You do not
read that they were humbled for their former murmuring, and therefore they
murmur again (Exodus 16:1 ff.): 'All the congregation of the children of
Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, etc.

And the whole congregation' (in the second verse) 'of the children of Israel
murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness, and the
chlordane of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of
the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, and when we
did eat bread to the full.' now they want flesh; they wanted water before,
but now they want meat. They fell to murmuring again, they were not humbled
for this murmuring against God, not even when God gave them flesh according
to their desires, but they fell to murmuring again: they wanted somewhat
else. In the very next chapter (they did not go far), in the

17th of Exodus at the beginning: 'And all the congregation of the children
of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin and pitched in Rephidim; and
there was no water for the people to drink.' Then in the second verse:
'Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we
may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye
tempt the Lord?' And in the third verse: 'And the people thirsted for water,
and the people murmured against Moses and said, Wherefore is this, that thou
hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, and our children, and our
cattle with thirst?' So one time after another, as soon as ever they had
received the mercy, then they were a little quieted, but they were not
humbled. I bring these Scriptures to show this, that if we have not been
humbled for murmuring, when we meet with the next cross we will fall to
murmuring again.

Excerpt from The <http://www.monergismbooks.com/rarejewel.html>  Rare Jewel
of Christian Contentment 

 

 

Thanks.

 

For the King's honor,

 

Charis,

 

Mike Abendroth

 

 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org

 

Ephesians 3:21 auvtw/| h` do,xa evn th/| evkklhsi,a| 

 

2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."

 

"Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician ... Faith is
not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on
Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us;
that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for
our sins.  It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a
sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can
pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It
brings us to the cross, . but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.
Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor
the sacrifice; . Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between
itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves,
and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing
virtue. It owns the fulness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work
done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labours and enter
into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see
the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion
without a misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the "It is finished!"
of the Sin-bearer, and says, "Amen."   

NOT FAITH, BUT CHRIST 

by Horatius Bonar 
(1808-1889) 

 

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