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Observe here —

1. The fault taxed, complaining. It denotes an action that passeth on a man's self, and intimates fretting, whereby one torments himself increasing his own grief and sorrow for his affliction.

2. The unjustifiableness of this before the Lord. Losers think they may have leave to speak; but religion teaches rather to lay our hands on our mouths, and our mouths in the dust before the Lord, who does us no wrong.

3. On what accounts it is unjustifiable, what are these things that may silence all our complaints? We are men that should act more rationally. We are living men that might therefore be in a worse condition. We are Sinful men, whose hardships are the just punishment of our sins. We are men that have another thing to do. Let each man complain for his sin.

I. THERE IS A SINFUL COMPLAINING UNDER CROSSES AND AFFLICTIONS.

1. Let them complain of themselves, as the causes of their own woe. The sinful nature, heart and life, are father, mother, and nurse to all the miseries that come u n us. These are the carcass to which these eagles gather together. Remove that, and they would all quickly fly away. If the clouds return after the rain, let us blame our own misguidance.

2. Let them complain to God and welcome (Psalm 102:1-11).

(1) We must not complain of God.

(2) We must not complain of our lot, or murmur because better has not fallen to our share.

(3) We must not arrest our complaining eye on the unjust instruments of our afflictions, like the dog snarling at the stone, but looking not to the hand that casts it.

II. SINFUL COMPLAINING IS SELF-TORMENTING.

1. To God whose Spirit is grieved with it, and provoked to anger by it.

2. To others, as marring the harmony of society, and often when people give way to that black passion, God in His just judgment inhibits others, that they have no power to help the complainer.

3. To a person's self it is disagreeable and tormenting. It is a breach of the sixth commandment, a sin against one's own life, destructive to the body. The sinful complainer puts a load above his own burden. For if one's will were submitted to the will of God, how easy would it be to bear afflictions; but when the proud heart cannot stoop, the apprehension magnifies the cross, and of a molehill makes a mountain.

III. MAN, SINFUL MAN, IS A COMPLAINING CREATURE.

1. Men do not entertain due thoughts of the sovereignty of God, and His awful majesty (Matthew 20:11-15).

2. Men, often see not the designs of holy providence, and they are apt to suspect the worst, for guilt is a nurse and mother of fears.

3. Pride of heart is the cause of sinful complaining. Men are naturally like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. An unsubdued spirit under a cross makes a heavy burden.

4. Unmortified lust, when crossed with afflictions makes a fearful mutiny. If men were not too much addicted to the creature, too closely wedded to the things of time, they would not raise such complaints on the loss of them. Grasp hard a man's hand that hath a sore finger, he presently cries out; but if his hand was whole, he would take it kindly.

5. Want of a due sense of the evil of sin and of our unworthiness on that account.

6. Overlooking our mercies.

7. Dwelling and poring upon crests and difficulties. This is just taking an unbelieving lift of our own burden, which will certainly increase it.

8. Unbelief is the great cause of all It was the generation that believed not that murmured in the wilderness. Faith brings the soul to rest in God in all conditions. It satisfies the soul with a full Christ in the want of all things (Habakkuk 3:17-19).

IV. BECAUSE WE ARE MEN WE OUGHT NOT TO COMPLAIN.

1. We are men and not brutes. We are endowed with rational faculties, by which we may take up such considerations, from the sovereignty of God and the demerit of our sins, that might silence our complaints.

2. We are men and not gods, creatures and not creators, subjects and not lords, and therefore ought to submit and not to complain.

3. We are men and not angels. We are not inhabitants of the upper regions, where no storms blow, where there is an eternal spring and uninterrupted peace. Can we think that the rocks must be removed for us, that God's unchangeable purpose in the management of the world must be changed for us?

4. We are men and not devils. We, at our worst, in this world, are not in that desperate, hopeless, and helpless state in which they are. But have something to comfort us which they have not.

V. BECAUSE WE ARE LIVING MEN WE OUGHT NOT TO COMPLAIN.

1. Our life is forfeited yet continued, therefore there is no reason to complain.

2. Living, we are not in hell, and therefore should we praise and not complain (Lamentations 3:22).

3. Living, we have the means of grace and hopes of glory. So we have access to better our estate in the other world, if it should never be better in this.

4. Living, it may be worse with us ere we go out of the world than it is, if we do complain.

5. Living, we may live to see our case better. While there is life there is hope. We have to do with a bountiful God.

6. We have no surer hold of our life than of the comforts of life. The latter are uncertain, so is the former. The stroke that takes away a comfort might have taken away our life.

7. When other comforts are lost, and our life is continued, that which is best is preserved to us.

8. The time of life is the time for all men's praising, because they sit all at the common table of mercy, and therefore not for complaining.

VI. WE ARE SINFUL MEN JUSTLY PUNISHED FOR OUR SIN AND THEREFORE OUGHT NOT TO COMPLAIN.

1. Our sins are the procuring causes of all afflictions. God hath joined together the evil of sin, and the evil of punishment, hence drawing the first link of this chain, we draw the other also on ourselves, why then do we complain?

2. When our afflictions are at the highest pitch in this world, yet they are not so great as our sins deserve.

3. We receive much undeserved good, while at the worst we get but our deserved evil.

4. Our afflictions are necessary for us. Our hearts are hard to wean from a frowning world, how would we do if it were smiling on every hand. Nay, there are many mercies in thy lot. there must be a mixture of crosses in it, something crooked, something wanting, to be a corrective. Why then should we be so angry with our blessings?

5. We might get out from under them, if we would speedily answer the design of them (Leviticus 26:41, 42).

6. How often is the sin visibly written on the punishment, that men may clearly see the cause of God's contending, and lay their mouths in the dust.

VII. UNDER OUR AFFLICTIONS WE SHOULD TURN OUR COMPLAINTS ON OUR SINS.

1. Instead of complaining of God, let us complain of ourselves to God, instead of taxing a holy God with severity, let us charge ourselves with folly before Him.

2. Instead of the heart's bleeding for trouble, let our hearts bleed for sin.

3. Instead of tossing our cross in our minds to fret ourselves, let us toss our sin there to humble ourselves.

4. Instead of labouring to get up our lot to our mind, let us labour to get our minds brought down to our lot.

(T. Boston, D. D.)

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KJV: Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?

WEB: Doesn't evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?