The Art of Divine Contentment

Hearing and Learning

I begin with the first point: the scholar and his progress, “I have learned.” Along the way, I will make two observations by way of paraphrase.

1. About being content in every condition, the apostle does not say, “I have heard,” but, “I have learned.” From this comes our first doctrine: it is not enough for Christians to hear their duty; they must learn their duty. It is one thing to hear and another to learn, just as it is one thing to eat and another to digest. Saint Paul put his teaching into practice. Christians hear much, but it is to be feared that they learn little. There were four kinds of ground in the parable, but only one was good ground (Luke 8:5). This illustrates the truth that there are many hearers but few learners.

Two things keep us from learning.

1. Treating what we hear lightly. Christ is the pearl of price. When we undervalue this pearl, we will never learn either its value or its virtue. The gospel is a rare mystery. In one place it is called “the gospel of grace” (Acts 20:24); in another, “the gospel of glory” (2 Cor 4:4), because the glory of God shines brilliantly in it as in transparent glass. But anyone who has learned to despise this mystery will hardly ever learn to obey it. A person who regards the things of heaven as incidental matters, and perhaps considers running a business or advancing some political scheme more important, is on the high road to damnation. He will hardly ever learn the things that make for his peace. Who will learn something he thinks is scarcely worth learning?

2. Forgetting what we hear. If a student has his rules laid before him but forgets them as quickly as he reads them, he will never learn (Jas 1:25). Aristotle calls memory the scribe of the soul, and Bernard calls it the stomach of the soul, because it has the power to retain things and turns heavenly food into blood and strength.

We have excellent memories for other things. We remember what is vain. Cyrus could remember the name of every soldier in his huge army. We remember injuries. This is like filling a precious cabinet with dung. But, as Jerome says, how soon we forget the sacred truths of God! We are apt to forget three things: our faults, our friends, and our instructions.

Many Christians are like sieves. Put a sieve into water, and it is full; take it out of the water, and everything runs out. In the same way, while they are hearing a sermon, they remember something. But like the sieve out of the water, as soon as they have left the church, everything is forgotten.

Christ says, “Let these sayings sink down into your ears” (Luke 9:44). In the original, it is, “put these sayings into your ears.” A man who wants to hide a jewel from thieves locks it safely in his chest. Let these sayings sink down. The word must not fall only like dew that wets the leaf, but like rain that soaks down to the tree’s root and makes it fruitful. Oh, how often Satan, that bird of the air, picks up the good seed that has been sown!

[Application:] Let me urge you to examine yourselves seriously. Some of you have heard much. You have lived forty, fifty, or sixty years under the blessed trumpet of the gospel. What have you learned? You may have heard a thousand sermons and yet not learned one. Search your consciences.

1. You have heard much against sin. Are you merely hearers, or are you scholars? How many sermons have you heard against covetousness, teaching that it is the root on which pride, idolatry, and treason grow? (2 Tim 3:2, 4). One writer calls it a metropolitan sin. It is a complex evil that twists many sins together with itself. There is hardly any sin in which covetousness is not a main ingredient. Yet are you still like the horseleech’s two daughters, which cry, “Give! give!”?

How much have you heard against rash anger: that it is a short frenzy, a dry drunkenness, and something that rests in the bosom of fools? Yet at the slightest occasion, do your spirits begin to catch fire?

How much have you heard against swearing? Christ’s express command is, “swear not at all” (Matt 5:34). More than any other sin, this may be called an unfruitful work of darkness (Eph 5:11). It is neither sweetened with pleasure nor enriched with profit, which are the usual bright colors with which Satan paints sin. Swearing is forbidden under penalty. While the swearer shoots his oaths like flying arrows at God, seeking to pierce his glory, God shoots “a flying roll” of curses against him (Zech 5:2).

Do you make your tongue a racket with which you toss oaths like tennis balls? Do you amuse yourselves with oaths as the Philistines amused themselves with Samson? In the end, those oaths will pull the house down around your ears. Alas! How can those who have not learned to leave sin have learned what sin is? Does a man know what a viper is if he will play with it?

2. You have heard much about Christ. Have you learned Christ? The Jews, as Jerome says, carried Christ in their Bibles but not in their hearts. Their sound “went into all the earth” (Rom 10:18). The prophets and apostles were like trumpets whose sound went out into the world. Yet many thousands who heard the sound of these trumpets had not learned Christ: “they have not all obeyed” (Rom 10:16).

(1) A man may know much about Christ and yet not learn Christ. The devils knew Christ (Mark 1:24).

(2) A man may preach Christ and yet not learn Christ, as Judas and the false apostles did (Phil 1:15).

(3) A man may profess Christ and yet not learn Christ. There are many professors in the world whom Christ will profess against (Matt 7:22-23).

[Question:] What, then, is it to learn Christ?

[Answer 1:] To learn Christ is to be made like Christ, to have the divine marks of his holiness engraved upon our hearts. “We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image” (2 Cor 3:18). A metamorphosis takes place. A sinner who views Christ’s image in the glass of the gospel is transformed into that image. No one has ever looked upon Christ with a spiritual eye without going away entirely changed.

A true saint is a divine landscape or portrait in which all the rare beauties of Christ are vividly portrayed and displayed. He has the same spirit, the same judgment, and the same will as Jesus Christ.

[Answer 2:] To learn Christ is to believe in him: “My Lord, and my God” (John 20:28). We must not merely believe that God exists, but believe in God. This is the actual application of Christ to ourselves, like spreading the sacred medicine of his blood upon our souls. You have heard much about Christ, yet you cannot say with humble reliance, “My Jesus.” Do not be offended if I tell you that the devil can say his creed as well as you can.

[Answer 3:] To learn Christ is to live Christ. When our conduct follows the Bible, our lives shine in the church of God like rich diamonds. They are, in some sense, parallel with the life of Christ, as the transcript is with the original (Phil 1:27).

So much for the first meaning of the word.

What Nature Cannot Teach

II. “I Have Learned” Implies Difficulty

The words “I have learned” imply difficulty. They show how hard it was for the apostle to attain contentment of mind. It was not bred in his nature. Paul did not come by it naturally; he had learned it. It cost him many a prayer and tear, and the Spirit taught it to him.

From this comes our second doctrine: good things are hard to obtain. The work of religion is not as easy as most people imagine. “I have learned,” says Paul. Indeed, you do not need to teach a person to sin. That comes naturally (Ps 58:3), and therefore easily, like water flowing from a spring. It is easy to be wicked; hell will be taken without a struggle. But matters of religion must be learned.

It is easy to cut the flesh, but hard to prick a vein without cutting an artery. The trade of sin does not need to be learned, but the art of divine contentment cannot be attained without holy effort: “I have learned.” There are two compelling reasons why it requires so much study and exercise.

1. Spiritual Things Are Against Nature

Everything in religion runs contrary to nature. Religion includes both things to be believed and things to be done, and both are against nature.

First, consider matters of faith. A person is justified by the righteousness of another, becomes a fool so that he may be wise, and saves everything by losing everything. All this is against nature.

Second, consider matters of practice.

(1) Self-denial. A person must deny his own wisdom and see himself as blind. He must deny his own will and have it melted into the will of God. He must pluck out the right eye, beheading and crucifying the favorite sin that lies nearest his heart. He must be dead to the world yet abound in the midst of want. He must take up the cross and follow Christ, not only along golden paths but also along bloody ones. He must embrace religion when it is dressed in nightclothes, with all its jewels of honor and advancement stripped away. This is against nature and therefore must be learned.

(2) Self-examination. A person must take his heart apart as he would a watch. He must establish a spiritual inquisition, a court of conscience, and examine the things in his own soul. He must take David’s candle and lantern (Ps 119:105) and search for sin. Indeed, like a judge, he must pass sentence upon himself (2 Sam 24:17). This is against nature and will not easily be attained without learning.

(3) Self-reformation. A person must become like Caleb, a man of another spirit. He must walk directly contrary to his former self, with the current of his life altered and flowing into the channel of religion. This is wholly against nature. When a stone rises, its movement is not natural but forced. The movement of the soul toward heaven is also a forced movement; it must be learned. Flesh and blood are not skilled in these things. Nature can no more cast out nature than Satan can cast out Satan.

2. Spiritual Things Are Above Nature

Some things in nature are hard to discover, such as the causes of things, and cannot be learned without study. Aristotle was a great philosopher, whom some called “an eagle fallen from the clouds.” Yet he could not discover the cause of the motion of the Euripus River and therefore threw himself into it.

How much more difficult, then, are divine things, which belong to a sphere above nature and lie beyond all human investigation: the Trinity, the union of the divine and human natures in Christ, and the mystery of faith that believes against hope? Only God’s Spirit can light our candle here. The apostle calls these “the deep things of God” (1 Cor 2:10). The gospel is full of jewels, but they are locked away from sense and reason. The angels in heaven are searching into these sacred depths (1 Pet 1:12).

Application:

Let us beg the Spirit of God to teach us. We must be taught by God. The eunuch could read, but he could not understand until Philip joined him at his chariot (Acts 8:29). God’s Spirit must join us at our chariot. He must teach, or we cannot learn. “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord” (Isa 54:13).

A person may read the figures on a sundial but cannot tell the time of day unless the sun shines on it. In the same way, we may read through the Bible, but we cannot learn effectively until the Spirit of God shines into our hearts (2 Cor 4:6). Oh, implore this blessed Spirit! Teaching is God’s royal prerogative. “I am the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit” (Isa 48:17). Ministers may tell us our lesson, but only God can teach us.

We have lost both our hearing and our sight, so we are very unfit to learn. Ever since Eve listened to the serpent, we have been deaf; ever since she looked upon the tree of knowledge, we have been blind. But when God comes to teach, he removes these impediments (Isa 35:5).

We are naturally dead (Eph 2:1). Who would attempt to teach a dead person? Yet behold, God undertakes to make dead people understand mysteries! God is the great teacher.

This explains why the preached word works so differently upon people. Two people sit in the same pew. One is effectually worked upon, while the other lies under the ordinances like a dead child at the breast and receives no nourishment. What accounts for the difference? The heavenly wind of the Spirit blows upon one but not upon the other. One has the anointing of God, which teaches him all things (1 John 2:27); the other does not.

God’s Spirit speaks sweetly but irresistibly. In that heavenly doxology, no one could sing the new song except those who were sealed on their foreheads (Rev 14:1–3); the reprobate could not sing it. Those who are skilled in the mysteries of salvation must have the Spirit’s seal upon them.

Let this be our prayer: “Lord, breathe thy Spirit into thy word.” We have a promise that may add wings to our prayer: “If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13).

This concludes the first part of the text, concerning the scholar or learner, which I intended only as a short gloss or paraphrase.

The Lesson of Contentment

II. The Lesson Itself and Its Proposition

I now come to the second and main thing, the lesson itself: “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” This was indeed a rare piece of learning. It is certainly more wonderful that Paul knew how to adapt himself to every condition than all the other learning in the world, which was so highly praised in former ages by Julius Caesar, Ptolemy, and Xenophon, those great admirers of learning.

The text has only a few words in it: “in every state content.” But if Fulgentius was right when he said that the most golden sentence is always measured by brevity and sweetness, then this is a most accomplished saying. The text is like a precious jewel, small in size but great in worth and value.

The main proposition on which I will dwell is this: a gracious spirit is a contented spirit. The doctrine of contentment is supremely excellent, and until we have learned it, we have not learned to be Christians.

1. It Is a Hard Lesson

The angels in heaven had not learned it. They were not content. Although their condition was very glorious, they were still soaring upward and aiming at something higher: “The angels which kept not their first estate” (Jude 6). They did not keep their estate because they were not content with their estate.

Our first parents, clothed with the white robe of innocence in paradise, had not learned to be content. They had aspiring hearts. Thinking their human nature too low and homespun, they wanted to be crowned with Deity and “be as gods” (Gen 3:5). Although they could choose from all the trees of the garden, none would content them except the tree of knowledge, which they supposed would be like eye salve that made them omniscient. Oh, then, if this lesson was so hard to learn in innocence, how hard will we find it when we are burdened with corruption!

2. It Is Universal in Scope

It concerns everyone.

First, it concerns rich people. One might think it needless to urge contentment upon those whom God has blessed with great property and that they should instead be persuaded to be humble and thankful. No, I say, be content. Rich people have their discontents as well as others, as appears in several ways.

(1) When they possess great property, they are still discontented that they do not have more. They would turn a hundred talents into a thousand. The more a man drinking wine consumes, the more he thirsts. Covetousness is a dry dropsy. An earthly heart is like the grave, which is “never satisfied” (Prov 30:16). Therefore, I say to you rich people, be content.

(2) Even if we suppose rich people to be content with their property, which seldom happens, although they have enough property, they do not have enough honor. Their barns may be full enough, but their towers are not high enough. They want to be somebody in the world, like Theudas, “who boasted himself to be somebody” (Acts 5:36). They never travel so cheerfully as when the wind of honor and applause fills their sails. If this wind dies down, they are discontented.

One would think Haman had as much as his proud heart could desire. He was set above all the princes and raised to the pinnacle of honor as the second man in the kingdom (Esth 3:1). Yet amid all his pomp, because Mordecai would not uncover his head and kneel, Haman was discontented (Esth 3:2) and full of wrath (Esth 3:5). Nothing could relieve this inflammation of revenge except shedding the blood of all the Jews and offering them up in sacrifice. The itch for honor is seldom relieved without blood. Therefore, I say to you rich people, be content.

(3) Even if we suppose rich people to be content with their honor and magnificent titles, they do not always have contentment in their relationships. The woman who lies in a man’s arms may sometimes fan the coals, as Job’s wife did when, in a fit of anger, she wanted him to fall out with God himself: “Curse God, and die.”

Sometimes children cause discontent. How often do we see a mother’s milk nourish a viper, and the child who once sucked her breast then try to suck her blood? Parents often gather thorns from grapes and thistles from figs. Children are sweetbrier. Like the rose, they are a fragrant flower, but, as Basil says, they have their thorns.

Our relational comforts are not pure wine but a mixture. They contain more dregs than spirits and are like the river Plutarch describes, whose waters run sweet in the morning but bitter in the evening. We have no charter granting us exemption from trouble in this life. Therefore, rich people need to be called upon to be content.

Second, the doctrine of contentment concerns poor people. You who drink so freely from the breasts of providence, be content. It is a hard lesson, so it needs to be begun all the sooner. How hard it is to be content when one’s livelihood is nearly gone and great property has boiled away to almost nothing!

The means of subsistence is called our life in Scripture because it is the very sinew of life. The woman in the Gospel spent “all her living upon the physicians” (Luke 8:43). The Greek expression means that she spent her whole life upon the physicians because she spent the means by which she was to live.

It is a great thing to remain content when poverty has clipped our wings. Yet though it is hard, it is excellent, and the apostle had “learned in every state to be content.” God had brought Paul through as great a variety of conditions as we read of any man enduring, yet he was content. Otherwise, surely he could never have passed through them with so much cheerfulness.

See the changes into which this blessed apostle was cast. “We are troubled on every side,” and there was the sadness of his condition; “but not distressed,” and there was his contentment in that condition. “we are perplexed,” and there was his affliction; “but not in despair,” and there was his contentment (2 Cor 4:8).

A little further on, we read, “In afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults,” etc. (2 Cor 6:4-5). There is his trouble. Now behold his contentment: “As having nothing, yet possessing all things” (2 Cor 6:10). When the apostle had been driven out of everything, he still possessed everything because of that sweet contentment of mind, which was like music in his soul.

We read a brief map, or history, of his sufferings: “In prisons more frequent, in deaths oft,” etc. (2 Cor 11:23-25). Yet behold the blessed frame and temper of his spirit: “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Whichever way providence blew, he had such heavenly skill and dexterity that he knew how to steer his course.

As to his outward condition, he was equally ready for either extreme. He could be at either the top of Jacob’s ladder or the bottom. He could sing either the dirge or the anthem. He could be anything God wanted him to be: “I know how to want, and how to abound.” Here is a rare pattern for us to imitate.

In his faith and courage, Paul was like a cedar that could not be moved. In his outward condition, however, he was like a reed bending whichever way the wind of providence blew. When a prosperous gale blew upon him, he could bend with it: “I know how to be full.” When a violent gust of affliction blew, he could bend humbly with that too: “I know how to be hungry.”

Paul was like Aristotle’s description of a die with four square sides. Whichever way you throw it, it lands on a base. Whichever way God threw the apostle, he landed on this foundation of contentment.

A contented spirit is like a watch. Though you carry it up and down with you, its spring is not shaken and its wheels are not thrown out of order. The watch continues its perfect motion. So it was with Paul. Although God carried him through various conditions, he was neither lifted up by the one nor cast down by the other. The spring of his heart was not broken, and the wheels of his affections were not disordered. They continued their steady motion toward heaven, always content.

A ship lying at anchor may sometimes be shaken a little, but it never sinks. Flesh and blood may have their fears and disturbances, but grace checks them. A Christian, having cast anchor in heaven, never sinks in heart. A gracious spirit is a contented spirit.

This is a rare art. Paul did not learn it at the feet of Gamaliel. “I am instructed” (Phil 4:12). I am initiated into this holy mystery. It is as though he had said, “I have gotten the divine art; I have the knack of it.” God must make us true artists.

If we put people to an art in which they have no skill, how unfit they are for it! Set a farmer to painting pictures, and what strange work will he produce? It is outside his sphere. Take a painter who is exact in laying on colors and put him to plowing, planting, or grafting trees. This is not his art, and he has no skill in it.

Tell a natural man to live by faith and to be content when everything goes against him, and you tell him to do something in which he has no skill. You might as well tell a child to steer a ship. To live contentedly upon God when outward comforts are lacking is an art that “flesh and blood hath not learned.” Indeed, when many of God’s own children, who excel in some religious duties, come to this duty of contentment, how badly they bungle it! They have scarcely become masters of this art.