It seems impossible that Israel would grumble so soon after seeing such a wonder as the parting of the Red Sea and the wholesale destruction of Pharaoh and the army of Egypt. Within three verses in the text (three days in real time for the Israelites) they go from the heights of praise singing and dancing, to grumbling against Moses for water. And then again, they grumbled about food, and then for water again. As an outside observer reading the story it’s easy to criticize Israel, but guess what? I do the same thing almost every day. Such is the blindness of unbelief. It will not be satisfied with the past works of God. It will not trust in the future works of God. At the moment of need it grumbles and complains rather than trusting in God.

All I have to do to see how much I have in common with Israel is to equate each impulse I have toward grumbling with the same sin of unbelief that Israel demonstrated in the wilderness. Ouch.

I don’t want to be unbelieving but believing. I’d rather act with anticipation waiting patiently by faith to see the gracious provision of God for my needs, than grumble and complain, poisoning my heart, blinding me to His goodness, and dishonoring Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:10 says that this exact passage (noting especially the grumbling of Israel) was written for my instruction, that I might take heed and resist temptation–the temptation in this case to grumbling. So what is there that can help me be more faithful and less complaining?

The passage reveals two things that happen when the grumbling of unbelief rises in my soul. By learning to recognize these two traits of unbelief perhaps I can enact an early warning system in my soul so that when I start to see them I can repent more quickly.

One, the grumbling of unbelief does not see who its accusation is really directed toward, and two, it greatly exaggerates and distorts the circumstances at hand.

First it is misdirected. When I grumble in unbelief it may be at my computer, my children, a client, or some other object of frustration. Yet, the providence of God is behind every circumstance and so my grumbling is really against God. I can just imagine my computer responding like Moses, “who am I, just a bunch of processors and circuit boards–that you complain against me–your grumblings are not against me, but against the Lord.”

Secondly, when I grumble in unbelief my perceptions get distorted. There may very well be a real frustration or need, but in unbelief I exaggerate and mischaracterize the problem. Did Israel really believe that Moses did everything he did with the purpose of getting them out into the desert just to starve them to death? Come on! How could they say that? Yet what do I do when my computer won’t print? “Ahgh, that Bill Gates is out to get me! Microsoft is evil, they are trying to drive me crazy” How exaggerated and distorted! How blind to the hundreds of blessings my computer enables every day! For every software glitch I experience there must be thousands working properly, each designed by an engineer with a genuine desire to make my life better or easier through software. Yet one failure and my flesh is convinced that “they’re all out to get me.”

If I monitor the thoughts of my heart closely, looking out for these two characteristics of a grumbling unbelieving heart, perhaps I will catch myself more often and thereby sin less and trust God more. But what of the dozens of times every day when I don’t catch my grumbles? After all, murmuring and complaining flow so naturally out of a sinful heart like mine. What of all these sins? Thank God, His Grace by the blood of Christ is powerful enough to both change me and to forgive me when I fail–though my failure is as common as breathing. John Owen described so well, the vastness of God’s grace in view of the commonness of my sins,

“How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one whereof were enough to condemn them all, has this love overcome! What mountains of unbelief does it remove! Look upon the conversation of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities, wherewith his life is contaminated, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this be not to be admired. And is it not the same towards thousands every day? What streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day! This is our Beloved, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.” Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

Beware O my soul, of the misdirection of grumbling and the exaggeration of circumstances. Though they may be toward inconsequential things, like computers, they nevertheless reveal the presence of unbelief in your heart. So repent. Listen to the Word–it is not silicon chips that you vent your rage toward, but the Lord. And He is not out to get you. Far from it, He is out to bless you. When you hear the grumbling of unbelief rising up—be quiet, repent, and remind yourself of what is true and accurate about your circumstances. Put off the grumbling of unbelief and return to the songs of praise which flow from seeing and remembering the glory of the Lord, His goodness, His perfect care, and the millions of ways He blesses you every day. So be it Lord. Amen.

Psalms 142:6

David’s spirit was overwhelmed and had fainted within him. His emotional stress was unavoidable since his life was threatened by enemies who sought to kill him, and they had the upper hand. David’s emotions did not run opposite to his circumstances. As a result he was troubled, he complained, and felt trapped. He felt weak and imprisoned. David’s piety however is that in such a low state he sought the Lord. He did not just cry; he cried to the Lord. He did not just pour out complaint; he poured out his complaint to the Lord. He did not just declare his troubles; he declared his troubles before the Lord.

Being overwhelmed was not just a result his external circumstances, his circumstances pressed him, but the fainting of his inner spirit in the circumstances caused him even more distress. His emotions were sapped, his joy had dried up. The piety of David though, is seen in where he directed his distress, or rather to whom it was directed. David’s feelings of being trapped resulted from the reality that he was in fact trapped in a cave. All the distress associated with such circumstances, caused his spirit to be brought low.

While in such a spiritually depressed state David does not pen Psalm 27. In Psalm 27 David declared God’s salvation and in it he deeply rejoices in God’s beauty. No, while in the cave he writes Psalm 142 where he pours out his complaint. But there is a connection between the two Psalms. In Psalm 27 David was looking back on having been delivered, and looking back he deeply rejoices in God’s faithfulness. God’s faithfulness to him in that time of trouble established his confidence that God was in total control, and that He would deliver him in this current trouble. David was trained to seek the Lord by such trials. By such refining he came to expect a true deep satisfying joy in the Lord would invariably follow such times.

Therefore in Psalm 142, when David finds himself yet again in trouble, even though his spirit faints, he is trained to lift up his head. He may have been “in prison,” physically trapped in a cave, and of course emotionally distressed, but rather than grumbling in darkness he sticks his head out between the bars to glimpse the light just outside his cell; he cries out to the Lord. His feelings of despondency are real, but they do not keep him from seeking the Lord! Such downcast moments only deepen his cry for the Lord. They remind him that the Lord is his true refuge and his portion forever.

David’s piety is also seen in how he acknowledges is that God was totally in control of his circumstances and in control of the condition of his spirit, “when my spirit was overwhelmed within me thou didst know my path.” David does not dismiss God from the circumstances or from his current emotional state. Instead he appeals to God to rescue, deliver, and restore him both circumstantially and emotionally. David knows that a genuine and deeply satisfying thanksgiving to God will soon follow, because he trusts that God will deal bountifully with him. However, David does not “jump the gun.” He does not break into a jubilant exaltation yet, for he is still trapped, and his spirit is still in a state of tears. It may be harmful for us to speak peace to our own hearts before God speaks peace.

John Owen in “The Mortification of Sin” Wrote:

“In case God disquiet the heart about the guilt of its distempers, either in respect of its root and indwelling, or in respect of any eruptions of it, take heed thou speakest not peace to thyself before God speaks it; but hearken what he says to thy soul… This is a business of great importance. It is a sad thing for a man to deceive his own soul herein. All the warnings God gives us, in tenderness to our souls, to try and examine ourselves, do tend to the preventing of this great evil of speaking peace groundlessly to ourselves; which is upon the issue to bless ourselves, in an opposition to God… it is the great prerogative and sovereignty of God to give grace to whom he pleases (“He hath mercy on whom he will,” Rom. 9:18; and among all the sons of men, he calls whom he will, and sanctifies whom he will), so among those so called and justified, and whom he will save, he yet reserves this privilege to himself, to speak peace to whom he pleaseth, and in what degree he pleaseth, even amongst them on whom he hath bestowed grace.”

I think remaining God-centered and continuing to cry out to God while in such low states – truly anticipating by faith the joy and thanksgiving to come, is better than trying to twist my emotions against their actual current condition and thereby praise from false spirit. Rather, I should not cease to praise – for God is always worthy of it, but in such times my praise should be like David’s here in Psalm 142. Truthful, honest about my complaints, always directed to God, always working to strengthen my soul’s satisfaction in Him alone, always clinging to hope that God will deliver, and truly anticipating the joy to come and the peace that will come when I can bring true, deep, soul drenched thanksgiving to Him.

God will deliver, and joy and thanksgiving will flow. My praise will reach its culmination having been anticipated with tears, it will be rich, full, and genuine. God wants my praise, and I want to give Him my best, fullest, and most genuine praise. Often God needs to squeeze it out, and I’m happy to be squeezed if it will produce the true oil of joy and gladness in Him.

Thank you, Jesus, for directing my path. Thank you that you work everything out, even distresses, to deliver me from the world and set my joy in you. Help me Lord to take heed to my spirit, knowing its true condition that I might seek you deeply and fully, and praise you deeply from the heart. I love you and need you. In your name. Amen.

Psalms 112:1

When I think of the blessedness of fearing the Lord I think of Jesus’ words in Mark 9 after he warns that it is better to remove a hand or an eye, if it causes us to stumble, than to enter hell with two hands, or two eyes. He concludes His warning with an analogy of salty fire. Ultimately, for those who do not flee from sin, they will encounter the unquenchable fires of hell. Such thoughts are, and should be, maximally disturbing to us. They should produce a deep dread and fear of hell – and of Him who puts people there. Ultimately, the fires of hell are an awful, dreadful, horrifying thing to contemplate. However, they can also bring a blessing. Jesus equates the fires of hell with salt. He says everyone, in a sense, will be “salted with the fires of hell.” For those who end up in hell, such salting will be an unimaginably and excruciatingly eternal reality. But for those who are turned away from sin by such thoughts, the salt is good, and it is good that we should have such salt in us. He warns that if this salt becomes un-salty that it would be no use to us. This salt, the salty fires of hell, are good for us – they can actually produce a blessing that makes us happy; abundantly happy, as this verse concludes.

I think the connection between how fearing God to the end that we are happy in Him and delight greatly in Him is seen in how Jesus is speaks of the salty fires of hell as a means of preserving us, and thus keeping us out of hell. In other words, as I have a genuine – salty – and lively sense of the horror of hell in me (by contemplating it) I will be highly motivated not to go there. I will thereby avoid, by any means, the stumbling sins that would lead me there. Jesus knows that we do not like to think about terrible things like the fires of hell, yet He knows that having such salty fear within us is good. Therefore, He gives grotesque illustrations of chopping off limbs, unquenchable fire, and worms that never die. Such realities ought to disturb us, create dread and fear in us, and motivate us to flee from sin into the arms of our savior.

When this salt does its intended job and we flee to God, we find Him to be a powerful, unstoppable savior that keeps us from hell and brings us into His eternal kingdom. To the degree that our fear is active, lively, real, and salty, our feelings of delight in God will be all the more active, real, and lively.

“Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commands.” Happy is he who has a salty fear of God, he will “greatly delight.” He will be exceedingly pleased, extremely delighted, take rich pleasure in, highly favor, and be sorely pleased in God. Could one reason why we fail to experience the depth of joy and delight in God come from the lack of effective salt in our lives? Have we passed too quickly over those inspired scriptures that warn and threaten of hell? Do we desalinate the salt God ordained to preserve us by improperly understanding such blessed doctrines as eternal security and truths such as “once saved always saved?” Do we too quickly say to ourselves that such scriptures as Mark 9:42-50, Romans 11:17-22, Galatians 6:7-8, 2nd Thessalonians 1:5-10, and Hebrews 2:1-3, 10:26-31 do not apply to us because we’re saved? Or does God want to keep and preserve His eternally saved saints, of whom He will not lose a single one, through, and by the means of such salty and fearful warnings?

John Owen in “The Mortification of Sin” gives directions for how to practically kill sin in our lives. One of his encouragements is this…

“Keep alive upon thy heart these or the like considerations of its [sin’s] guilt, danger, and evil; be much in the meditation of these things; cause they heart to dwell and abide upon them; these considerations; let them not go off or wander until they begin to have a powerful influence upon thy soul – until they make it to tremble. ”

Such a genuine fear of God, such effective use of good salt for our soul, will cause trembling. But it will be happy, delightful, trembling. Trembling that produces humility before the Lord. Trembling that the Lord looks upon with infinite grace, mercy, and love. When we are thus humbled, God draws near to us, and we can draw near to Him. So in the end our souls forget their dread as they are swallowed up in a happy view of Christ.

O Lord keep and preserve me, save me from sin. Keep my soul alive and desperate for you. Don’t let me ignore the reality of hell – in as much as my thoughts of it send me running to you. Lord let me have salt in myself that I will all the more delight and take great pleasure in “all that you are for me in Jesus.” In His name I ask. Amen.

John own writes this sentence in the context of waiting on God to restore peace to us, after we’ve repented of a particular sin. His advice is that we do not jump too quickly from confession to restoration. Yes it is blessedly true that we have been fully forgiven even from the time of Christ’s death on the cross. Yet God is the one with whom we are seeking peace, when we turn from our hostile activity of sinning, and so is God who must bestow it. Forgiveness and restoration are ours by possession; they have, in fact, been given to us in their entirety through Christ’s death, once for all. Yet its application, such that we are fully healed and relationally restored to God happens incrementally. God is faithful and dependable. We need not fear his rejection, but we must wait for Him to touch us, and move by his Holy Spirit, thus bring us deep and experiential peace. We must use all the means God has ordained – repentance, confession, restitution, and repudiation, among others, yet God is the one who will decide when it is best for us to obtain what we seek by them, in this case, peace with God.

I think this principle is the same with regard to all of the means of grace God has ordained. Whether it be prayer, the Word, spiritual gifts, or simply general health. We must use the proper means of attaining these things, but the results are never mechanical or automatic, yet it is assured. God will bestow the blessings of grace upon us at the time, and in the manner that He, by his perfect wisdom, knows will be best for us. Normally, God is quick, sometimes instantaneous in bestowing blessings when we use means of obtaining blessing. He is so consistent and dependable in this, that it is no wonder that we sometimes begin to think of means, and bestowing, as automatically connected. Yet the bestowing of Grace always remains God’s prerogative, and sometimes, if only to remind us of this, he will withhold, or delay his blessing, even as we avail ourselves of proper means. He does this lovingly, carefully, and wisely, as a gentle shepherd and doctor to our souls. He does this for our good, our benefit, and our greater blessing. He does this for his own glory, and for his glory to be known by us most fully, which is, of course, our greatest good.

Consequently, I must be active in using and availing myself of every established and ordained means of grace by which I may lay hold of that which I need (and I need God). I must rise early. I must open my eyes to the Word. I must ask God for help. I must pray and praise and worship. I must seek diligently, desperately and vigorously. I must confess my sin in my weakness. I must look to Jesus. Because of God’s promises he will bless these means, but it is his prerogative as to how and when. It is for me to use the means; it is for God to bless them.

Thank you, Lord, for your complete and total faithfulness. Thank you for giving me life and breath and strength that I might use the means you’ve ordained. Please help me to continue to use them. Grant me steadfastness and perseverance and endurance in using all available means. Make me patient and humble, and happy to trust you for the blessing I desire and the grace I need. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Jesus is my rock of habitation. He is my rock – a strong, firm, dependable fortress. This strong fortress is also a place of habitation. He is my dwelling place, a place of comfort, rest, and security. My rock of refuge is never changing, always present, and never moving. Yet I come to it continually. I inhabit my home of rock, yet I also leave it and must frequently return.


It is a testimony to my own weakness that I am so prone to wandering from my place of security and comfort. Yet in the flesh this will always be a limitation I must contend with. Right now as I meditate and ponder and pray, I am more keenly aware of what a treasure my rocky fortress is, yet I know that later, when my mind is occupied with other things, this awareness will lessen. And even now, with all my attention focused on Jesus as my rock, my capacity to grasp the glory of it is limited. I must continually come and constantly return to my rock of habitation. I need God to revive me again and again, day after day. The more I come to my Rock, the more fully I grasp His glory, the more I groan knowing that I cannot hold this glimpse for very long. Yet the more I return, the more I want to stay. John Owen, one of the great puritan thinkers and writers describes it this way in The Glory of Christ:

“Alas! We cannot here think of Christ, but we are quickly ashamed of, and troubled at, our own thoughts; so confused are they, so unsteady, so imperfect. Commonly they issue in a groan or a sigh; Oh! When shall we come unto Him? When shall we ever be with Him? When shall we see Him as He is? And if at any time He begins to give more than ordinary evidences and intimations of His glory and love unto our souls, we are not able to bear them, so as to give them any abiding residence in our minds. But ordinarily this trouble and groaning is amongst our best attainments in this world, – a trouble which I pray God, I may never be delivered from, until deliverance do come at once from this state of mortality; yea, the good Lord increase this trouble more and more in all that believe.”

C.S. Lewis put it more succinctly: “Our greatest havings are wantings.” It will do me no good to complain about my weakness, that I cannot hold steadily onto the glimpses of glory I find when I inhabit my rock of refuge. God has so ordained this limitation, while I am in this jar of clay. Yet, let me return continually to my rock. Let me contemplate often. Let me praise continually. Let me be revived again and again.

O Lord, I confess that I do not like to live with tension, yet longing for you is the ultimate tension. Please Lord, let me embrace the tension of being required to have to come continually to my rock, and accepting this fact that I must come and go often, that I might return frequently, stay longer, and yearn to dwell eternally in my rock of habitation.