TEXT: Psalm 39:9

SUBJECT: Mute Christian #1

Tonight, with God’s blessing, we’ll take up a new Puritan. By a new Puritan. His name is Thomas Brooks. He was an English pastor who lived from 1608-1680.

He wrote many books, but the one we’re going to study is called The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod.

What’s the book about? It’s about submitting to the will of God—even when it hurts. Or, Suffering with Grace. This is a lesson everyone needs to learn, but nobody wants to. The old Puritan can help us on this one.

He starts by briefly explaining the text. The author is David who writes as a suffering believer.

His attitude is one of quietness. Though sorely tempted to lash out at the men who are doing him wrong--he holds his tongue.

The reason he’s quiet is because God is behind it.

This brings him to the doctrine of the verse and the theme of his book.

In other words, when bad things happen to you, don’t pout, don’t whine, don’t complain, don’t rant and rave.

The Bible has a lot to say on the subject, but two passages stand out (to me, at least). One is I Corinthians 10:10. Speaking of the experiences of Israel in the wilderness, Paul says,

The other is Hebrews 12:5,12. Speaking of the hardships of life which come from God to make us better, it says,

Using Thomas Brooks as a guide, that’s the topic we’ll explore over the next few weeks, the Lord willing. Suffering quietly.

What does this mean?

Suffering speaks for itself. It includes being sick, poor, excluded, depressed, persecuted, disappointed, bereaved, and so on.

But what about suffering quietly? What is he getting at here? In good Puritan style, Thomas Brooks spends a lot of time defining his term. Here’s some of it.

The stoic believes that emotion brings unhappiness. To be happy, therefore, you have to eliminate all feeling. When you think of the Stoic, think of Mr. Spock! When the Klingons, attacked, he didn’t panic; when crewmates were killed, he didn’t cry; when Scotty got the dilithium crystals to heat up, he didn’t celebrate.

Spock doesn’t pout, whine, gripe, or go all to pieces. Because he has turned off his emotions.

Is that the silence God wants from us when we suffer? It isn’t. Brooks says,

He’s right, of course. If God’s Son cried at the tomb of his friend, don’t say emotions are wrong or showing them is a sign of weakness!

If you know many kids, you know they don’t all react to disappointment in the same way. Some become furious; others become sulky. The former make a lot of noise, the others make a lot of quiet! The screaming kid and the sulking kid are equally mad, but they show their anger in different ways.

Christians are no different. When things go wrong, some believers lash out with rage while others become quietly bitter. Pouters are quiet, all right, but their quietness is act of rebellion, not of submission. If your son is yelling and screaming, you might say, "Be quiet in there". If he goes to his room, gets in bed, and covers up his head, what do you say? "Good boy!" Of course you don’t! You know his silence is not obedience, but a way of punishing you for crossing him.

The believer who sulks in silence is not quiet under the Rod. Brooks says,

Godly quietness is not sulking.

GODLY SILENCE IS NOT DESPAIR.

To despair means to give up hope. When suffering, it’s easy to pray—for a while. But if God doesn’t come to our rescue right away, we begin to wonder about Him. Is He there? Is He able to help us? Is He too mean to help us? Can He bring any good out of our problem?

As our problems get worse, we’re tempted to give up all hope. Maybe we don’t complain any more because we don’t pray any more. Maybe we don’t say a word because…what’s the use?

That is not godly silence. It is unbelief. The Puritan says,

The silence of the man who’s given up hope is not a godly silence.

If godly silence is not stoicism, sulking, or despair, what it is? Thomas Brooks calls it

That’s certainly true, of course, but what does he mean by holy principles?

He devotes pages and pages to this, but I’ll try to summarize. The principles that make us submit to suffering with grace are these.

First, the Sovereignty of God. Nothing happens to us without God’s permission. Our problems are not random and meaningless; they’re not outside the interest and control of heaven. Jesus Christ said

We have a hymn that’s easy to sing, but awfully hard to believe and obey. It starts like this,

God is in control. Of everything. Including your problems. If you’re going to suffer with grace, you’ve got to believe that. If you don’t believe it, your problems will make you crazy with worry or rage or self-pity. Here’s the quote,

The second principle is the Justice of God. Nothing God brings into our lives is unfair or unjust. Because everyone has sinned, everyone deserves to have problems—problems a lot worse than the ones we’ve had. God is not unjust. Thus, we’ve got no grounds for self-pity.

In short, God did it. And what He did was right.

The third principle is God’s Goodness. Not only has God not wronged us by bringing problems into our lives, He is actually doing us good by them.

Speaking of chastening or the discipline of God, Hebrews 12:6,12 says,

Sitting in Judgment over his brothers, Joseph said, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good". Brooks adds,

The last principle is faith. It is the Christian’s duty to believe the promises of God whether they seem true or not and no matter how long it takes Him to make them good. Brooks says,

To prove this, he cites Psalm 40:1-3, Psalm 62:5, James 5:7-8, and this one, Lamentations 3:26,

Everyone has problems. But not everyone responds to them in the same way. Most people respond badly, with rage or despair or atheism or indifference or denial.

The Lord wants us to submit to our problems with grace. If we can solve them, by all means do it. But if we can’t, we commit ourselves to the One who can. We wait in faith. For one day—no matter how bad our problems are—or how many,