Searching the word family and preparing for Sunday and I wanted to share this commentary by Matthew Henry. It encourages me today and I pray it does the same for you.
3:39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
3:40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
3:41 Let us lift up our heart with [our] hands unto God in the heavens.
3:42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
We must not quarrel with God for any affliction that he lays upon us at any time.
Wherefore does a living man complain? What God does we must not open our mouths against. Those that blame their lot reproach him that allotted it to them. Though we may pour out our complaints before God, we must never exhibit any complaints against God. What! Shall
a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? 1. We are men; let us herein show ourselves men. Shall
a man complain? We are men, and not brutes, reasonable creatures, who should act with reason, who should look upward and look forward, and both ways may fetch considerations enough to silence our complaints.
We are men, and not children that cry for every thing that hurts them.
We are men, and not gods, subjects, not lords; we are not our own masters, not our own carvers; we are bound and must obey, must submit.
We are men, and not angels, and therefore cannot expect to be free from troubles as they are; we are not inhabitants of that world where there is no sorrow.
We are men, and not devils, are not in that deplorable, helpless, hopeless, state that they are in, but have something to comfort ourselves with which they have not.
2. We are living men. Through the good hand of our God upon us we are alive yet, though dying daily; and shall
a living man complain? No; he has more reason to be thankful for life than to complain of any of the burdens and calamities of life. Our lives are frail and forfeited, and yet we are alive; now
the living, the living, they should
praise, and not complain. While there is life there is hope, and therefore, instead of complaining that things are bad, we should encourage ourselves with the hope that they will be better.
3. We are sinful men, and that which we complain of is the just
punishment of our sins; nay, it is far less than our iniquities have deserved. WE have little reason to complain of our trouble, for it is our own doing; we may thank ourselves.
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