RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS by Spurgeon

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 17, 1881

RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS.

By Spurgeon

EVERY one thinks himself a judge of a sermon, but nine out of ten might as well pretend to weigh the moon. I believe that most people think it an uncommon easy thing to preach, and that they could do it amazingly well themselves.

Every donkey thinks itself worthy to stand with the king's horses; every girl thinks she could keep house better than her mother; but thoughts are not facts, for the sprat thought itself a herring, but the fisherman knew better. I try my hand at preaching myself, and in my poor way I find it no easy thing to give the folks something worth hearing; and if the fine critics, who reckon us off on their thumbs, would but try their own hands at it, they might be a little more quiet.

Dogs, however, always will bark, and what is worse, some of them will bite, too; but let decent people do all they can, if not to muzzle them, yet to prevent their doing any great mischief.

It is a dreadful thing to see a happy family of Christians broken up by a talkative fault-finder, and all about nothing, or less than nothing. Small is the edge of the wedge, but when the devil handles the beetle, churches are soon split to pieces, and men wonder why.

The fact is, the worst wheel of the cart creaks most, and one fool makes many; and thus many a congregation is set at ears with a good and faithful minister who would have been a lasting blessing to them if they had not chased away their best friend.

Those who are at the bottom of the mischief have generally, no part or lot in the matter of true godliness, but, like sparrows, fight over corn which is not their own; and, like jackdaws, pull to pieces what they never helped to build.

From mad dogs and grumbling professors may we all be delivered, and may we never take the complaint from either of them.—Spurgeon.