THE EVILS OF A MURMURING SPIRIT
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 — 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 — 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 (<021601>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
<021701>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.