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Colin Smith: Hell is a place of torment and the irony of discontent is that the discontented person becomes his or her own tormentor. When discontent gets a grip in your life, it really does bring a taste of hell right here, right now to you.

Steve Miller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. And Colin, I think most of those listening today would say, "Okay, I get it, hell's a place of torment. But I've never really thought of discontent as being equated to hell. That's quite the bridge you've given us there."

Colin Smith: Well, for sure that's got to be a part of the experience there and of course the reason that we're looking at that is that we want to go in the opposite direction. What we want to go after is contentment, this great, great grace that the Bible commends to us.

And where we're starting is at the beginning of this journey in which we're trying to get from anger to peace, from frustration to satisfaction, and from anxiety to trust. That's the heart of what contentment is. And we're beginning by naming discontent for what it is. It is a hellish sin. Got to deal with that wherever it rears its ugly head in my life in order to get on the path to contentment.

Well, that's what we're looking at in today's broadcast. So if you can, join us in Exodus 17 as we continue the message "The Hellish Sin of Discontent." Here is Pastor Colin.

In the Old Testament, as you know well, we have the story of Job, a good and a godly man, a man wonderfully blessed by God. His family was blessed, his business was blessed. Job was living the dream as we would say, until one day through a series of disasters this good and godly man lost everything. And Job said, you remember these famous words, "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Now that's what a godly person says.

An ungodly person, a discontented person says something different. You see, the discontented person says, "The Lord gave and he should have given more. The Lord has taken away and he should not have done that." Which is why Jude speaks about the harsh things that ungodly sinners speak against God.

See, discontent is a hellish sin because at its heart it is a rebellion against God. Any person who believes in a sovereign God and then is discontent is guilty of rebellion because God is sovereign over all of my life.

Paul pictures it this way in the book of Romans. He said, imagine a piece of clay saying to the potter whose hands mold it, "Why are you making me like this? Why have you made me like this?" Have you ever said that to God? "God, you should have done something different." And remember how the Apostle Paul answers that? He says, "Who are you, oh man, to talk back to God?" He's God.

But you see, all discontent at its heart is an expression of horrible rebellion against God. It's a manifestation of pride, it is an expression of rebellion, it is thirdly a fruit of unbelief. And this is why we read from Exodus in chapter 17 this morning. It tells the story of how God's people had been greatly blessed. They had been brought out of slavery in Egypt. They had crossed the Red Sea without getting their feet wet. God had given them manna to feed them in the wilderness. And here's something fascinating. Why is it that those who are most evidently blessed are often most discontent?

Now this was an overwhelming impression made upon me the very first time I came to India, meeting brothers and sisters who have so much less than I have in my life, so much less than the vast majority of us have, and seeing that there was a far greater general level of contentment among Christian believers than typically is experienced here. Why is that, that so often those who are blessed the most are content the least? Why would that be?

And the answer of course is that contentment has nothing whatever to do with what you have or what you do not have in life. Contentment is a condition of heart. That is why adding to what you have cannot bring contentment. It just doesn't work. It doesn't happen. The world always says to us, if you can bring what you have up to what you want, then you will be content. It never happens. What you want just moves. Contentment is a condition of heart.

Now at one point, God's people who had been so greatly blessed, they come to a place where they had no water. Now that is a legitimate concern. And there obviously are times in life where we may have a legitimate concern as to how God will supply what we need. But what happened was that their legitimate concern metastasized into unbelief. Verse 7 of Exodus 17: "They tested the Lord by saying, 'Is the Lord among us or not?'"

Now here are redeemed people, God's people brought through the Red Sea, and within a very short space of time they have lost confidence that God is with them. If you no longer believe that God is with you, you will no longer be confident that he will supply what you need, and it will not be long therefore before the grumbling and the complaining begins and you will find yourself sliding into the hellish sin of discontent because it is the fruit of unbelief. It arises from a loss of confidence that God is actually with you, that he cares for you, and that he will, as we're going to see later in this series, wonderfully supply all that you need.

So discontent really is a hellish sin. Why? Because it leads to hell. It's the defining characteristic of the ungodly, always discontent. It comes from hell. It is a manifestation of horrible pride, rebellion against God, and of unbelief, lack of trust in him. And then thirdly, discontent can rightly be described as a hellish sin because it brings a taste of hell into your own experience right now.

Hell is a place of torment and the irony of discontent is that the discontented person becomes his or her own tormentor. When discontent gets a grip in your life, it really does bring a taste of hell right here, right now to you. And for that reason it is a very, very costly thing.

Jeremiah Burroughs, one of the things that he says about the cost of discontent and it was very striking to me, he says, "By murmuring and discontent in your hearts, you come to lose a great deal of time." A great deal of time. And that has been very striking to me. How much time is wasted over brooding over what might have been? "If I had done this, if I had pursued that, if I had taken this other fork in the road, if only I had not made that foolish mistake."

And then your time and your energy are increasingly sucked into a different life, what might have been. Friend, do not waste the time that you have by dreaming of a life that you have not been given. It is a waste. God is calling you to live the life you have been given, the life that you have, the life that you have now, the situation that you're in now and to do it for his glory.

Secondly, it brings this awful cost, this hellish sin of discontent. Not only do you just waste time, you waste your life with it, but it costs you your discernment. You lose discernment. Now this is especially clear in the story recorded in Numbers in chapter 16, where we read about God's people grumbling in the desert and they begin complaining. It's one of these scenes that recurs in the Old Testament story.

And what is so fascinating, and I want you to see this, is that as they complain, they lose touch with reality. Now just remember this, if you are in the company of someone who often complains, say this to yourself: "This person often complains. I must therefore remember not to trust his or her discernment because complaining directly costs discernment when it becomes habitual."

And I'll show you that here in Numbers chapter 16 and verse 13. It's so clear. Here are God's people and again they're complaining to Moses, Numbers chapter 16, and they say this. How's this for losing touch with reality? "You have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey."

Not "you're taking us to a land of milk and honey," you've brought us... Egypt is now apparently a land that was flowing with milk and honey. They've forgotten all about the bricks being made without straw and apparently their memory's got so clouded, they're so distorted by their own complaining that their memory of Egypt is transformed from the reality of what it actually was.

And then they say something else: "You've brought us out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness that you must also make yourself a prince to be over us." So you see what they're saying to Moses? "You're just wanting to make yourself a prince." Wait a minute. Where was Moses brought up? He was brought up in a palace. And what did he do for the sake of the people of God? He gave up being a prince. He gave up the palace in order to take his stand with a very persecuted people of God. But you see these folks have got into the habit of complaining to such a degree that they have lost their own discernment. That's what it does to you.

You become a malcontent, you can no longer tell truth from lies. You can no longer discern good from bad, better from worse. It costs you. Here's what discontent does. Discontent leads you to an exaggeration of the blessings of yesterday and to losing sight of the blessings and the opportunities of today. That's what discontent does. And it's a hellish sin.

Steve Miller: You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called "The Hellish Sin of Discontent." Now we're going to pause here, but we'll get back to the message in just a moment. This message has been one of the most listened to in the past year. We went back and we looked at the top 10 messages and we bundled them together in a series called "Listener Favorites 2026." It's airing all month long on the radio. We're also making it available on CD. Ask about how you can get a copy of "Listener Favorites 2026" when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365, or you'll find ordering information at openthebible.org. Back to the message, here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Here's the strange irony of this thing, that you lose the joy of what you have because you cannot get what you want. I mean, why lose the joy of what God has given you because you're becoming increasingly obsessed with what he has not given you? It costs you your joy.

And it may add to your sorrows. That's the fourth way in which it is really costly and there are many examples of this in the Bible. But the one that is most striking to me and it's a very tender story and I've thought long about this one, it's the story of Rachel who was married to Jacob. She saw her sister Leah, you remember the story, having children and as the years passed it got to her. Rachel wanted children and she had none.

Now what a tender and what a sensitive issue. And you may like to identify that issue or you may like to broaden it out to some other issue, but you find yourself saying, here is something that I really want in my life and God has not given it to me. And for some that may be the gift of children or the gift of grandchildren or of marriage or of some particular ministry or of some particular position or a dream of something that you looked for and it has not come to pass. Well, Rachel was in that position. She was not happy. She was not content with what God had given to her in her life and your heart goes out to her. You sympathize with her.

But scripture records that when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister and she said to Jacob, "Give me children or I die." Extraordinary words. "Give me children or I die."

"If I don't have this, my life isn't worth living. I have to have it. I have to have it." And that discontent cost Rachel her life because she had a child and she died in childbirth. Now let me be clear, Rachel is a dearly loved child of God. All who are in Christ will see her in heaven. God is the great redeemer. And the first child born to Rachel of course was Joseph and the child born that cost her her life was Benjamin. And we know from that story how God's great, great purpose of grace was wonderfully advanced through them. But we must not miss from this story that it is possible to want something that God has not given so much that you bring sorrow into your life that you would not have had otherwise.

What if getting what you want should prove to be the heaviest burden and the greatest cross of your life? The scripture says God withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly. In other words, everything that will wonderfully nourish and advance his purpose in your life, the good and the bad, his sovereign hand brings. He will withhold no good thing. What if God's withholding is actually part of his kindness towards you?

It is possible, friends, to want something that God has not given too much. And there is all the difference in the world between humbly coming before God and saying from the heart, "Lord, give me children, but whatever happens I will love you and I will live for your glory." There's a big difference between that and the spirit of Rachel that says, "Give me children or my life isn't worth living. Give me children or I die." That's idolatry, isn't it? That's idolatry.

So remember the principle of the manna. When you gather what God gives, it is a blessing to you. But when you try to grasp more, it goes bad on you. That's the principle of the manna. And discontent is a hellish sin, first because it leads to hell, that we learn from Jude. Second because it comes from hell. It is characterized by the things that are at the very heart of hell: pride and rebellion and unbelief itself. And discontent is a hellish sin because it brings into your life right now, if you allow it to take root, a taste of hell in which you become your own tormentor.

So I hope that all of us are now ready to deal with discontent. I hope that every person in this first service today is at the place of saying, "I didn't think too much about this before, but now I see that I need to deal with this hellish sin wherever it rears its ugly head in my life. I need to get beyond thinking that mourning and complaining does not matter. I need to get serious about moving from anger to peace, and from frustration to satisfaction, and from anxiety to trust."

Friend, thank God today, don't you thank God with me today that there is a Savior for this hellish sin? A Savior to whom we can come with all of our discontent today. A Savior we can ask to forgive this hellish sin wherever we see it in our own lives. A Savior we can ask to cleanse us, to wash this out of the very fabric of my life. Oh God, do that in our hearts today.

A Savior to whom we can come and say, "You came to deliver me from every sin that leads to hell. I want you to deliver me from this. I want you to bring me into a place of growing contentment." And do it, oh Lord, in increasing measure even this month. And as you set as it were your sail for this journey from anger to peace, from frustration to satisfaction, from anxiety to trust, you will find that peace in life comes from knowing that everything that concerns you really is in the hands of a Savior who loves you.

That satisfaction lies in knowing that in Jesus Christ you really do have all that you need. And trust begins when you know and see again that he really is faithful and those who look to him are never, never, never put to shame.

I end with a quote from one of my heroes of the faith in this last generation, Alan Redpath. I know his ministry at Moody meant much to many who still remember him from these years. And Alan Redpath went through some extraordinarily difficult times in his life, especially when after returning from Moody he came to my home church in Edinburgh, Scotland, Charlotte Chapel, and then he had a stroke, was laid on his back for a prolonged period of time, then made a very slow and gradual recovery.

And Alan Redpath wrote these words and at a time that was most difficult in my life, I wrote them out, stuck them in my Bible, and probably read them every few days in the flyleaf. "There is nothing," Redpath said, "no circumstance, no trouble, no testing that can ever touch me until first of all it has gone past God, past Christ and through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose which I may not understand at the moment. I may not know what his great purpose is, but," and I just love this, "I refuse to panic. And as I lift my eyes to him no circumstance will cause me to fret, for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is. And that is the rest of victory."

Steve Miller: You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith as he wraps our message "The Hellish Sin of Discontent." If you joined us late, missed the first half of this message, or you ever want to go back and listen to a broadcast that you missed, you can do that when you come to our website, visit openthebible.org.

Well, Open the Bible is a listener-supported ministry. It is your generosity that allows us to bring you Pastor Colin's teaching whether you listen on the radio, online, or through the app. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to say thank you by sending you a copy of Brad Wetherell's new book called "Saved to Sin No More." And Colin, what's one thing that you'd like people to take away from this book?

Colin Smith: Well, I think the number one thing is encouragement in the Christian life. You know, I think a lot of folks have the idea that to be a Christian is basically to commit to a disciplined pursuit of a good and a moral life. And it's so much more. And that's the heart of what's in this book speaking about union with Christ. You know, I was just talking to someone who's past the age of 70 this week.

And he told me that for 35 years he had regarded himself as being a Christian and everyone else would have regarded him as a Christian too. He said, "But it was only in the last five years that he really came to understand a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ." He said, "I had religion for 35 years. I've only had a relationship with Jesus for five." And there's all the difference in the world.

And the first thing he said when I said, "Well, tell me about the difference," he said, "Well, I've begun to experience victory over sin." And then he spoke about peace and he spoke about joy and he spoke about hope. Now you know, it's simply not possible to gain victory over our besetting sins if all we've got is our best effort to live a good life and to overcome the things that plague us.

What makes it possible to really make progress in the Christian life is that Jesus Christ himself lives in the life of a believer by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. That makes a whole new life possible. And this book really gives an introduction to the central, though sadly I think little understood, truth of the Christian life: Christ in you. That's the hope of living a new and a transformed life. It's a wonderful book and I think it'll be a great encouragement to all who read it.

Steve Miller: Again, the name of the book is "Saved to Sin No More: How Union with Christ Empowers a Life of Holiness." And we want to send you a copy as our way of saying thank you for your financial support this month. You can give your gift online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365. Or again our website is openthebible.org. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Miller. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us next time. This program is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

Colin Smith: Hi, this is Pastor Colin again and I want you to know about "Watch Your Life." "Watch Your Life" is a six-session course that is geared for leaders but accessible to every believer. The six sessions will show you how to grow in godliness, how to feed on Christ, how to pray in the Spirit, how to battle temptation, exercise faith, and discern God's will. There are questions at the end of each session and you can use them on your own or you can discuss them with a friend. For more information, visit openthebible.org/courses. That's openthebible.org/courses.