The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod: Learning to Trust God When Suffering Stings
Psalm 39:9 "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it."
For the past several years I’ve been reading deeply in the Puritans. Their books may be four hundred years old, but their voices are startlingly fresh. They lived through plague, persecution, and political chaos—and yet they learned to suffer well.
J. I. Packer once said, “If you want to understand what God-centered Christianity looks like in practice, go to the Puritans.” R. C. Sproul confessed that when he read them, he felt “like a pygmy standing at the feet of giants.” Joel Beeke says they teach us “how to walk with God in public and in private, in joy and in suffering.”
One of those giants was a London pastor named Thomas Brooks. And few books capture the Puritan theology of suffering like his tender little classic: The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod.
A Pastor in a Dying City
Thomas Brooks was born around 1608 into a turbulent England. He lived through civil war. He buried his beloved wife and several children—one of them claimed by the Great Plague. He watched the church he loved torn by persecution.
And then came 1665.
The Great Plague swept through London, killing more than 100,000 people—roughly one in every five Londoners. Most who could leave, left. But Brooks stayed.
He walked plague-ridden streets with a Bible in one hand and eternity in the other. He said, “A dying city must not be left without a living gospel.” He visited the sick, comforted the dying, and buried the dead.
When the plague finally lifted, Brooks was physically weakened and broken by grief. He had seen unimaginable sorrow. Yet his sufferings did not make him hard—they made him tender. He became a gentle shepherd to others who hurt.
Out of that crucible came a sermon on one verse of Scripture:
“I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.” (Psalm 39:9)
That sermon became a book. That book became a balm. Widows, orphans, and survivors of the plague read it aloud in tear-stained homes. Charles Spurgeon later listed it among his “golden books of the Puritan age,” saying, “Brooks scatters pearls and diamonds with both hands.”
Why has The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod comforted believers for nearly four centuries? Because it answers two piercing questions all suffering Christians eventually face.
What Is the “Smarting Rod”?
Brooks calls our trials the “smarting rod.”
“Smart” is old English for sharp, stinging pain—like the sting of a switch across your legs. The “smarting rod” is God’s rod of affliction—His fatherly discipline that hurts, but heals.
This is not the rod of an angry judge, but the rod of a wise and loving Father. Brooks wrote,
“Afflictions are but God’s school, wherein His children learn to read their Father’s heart.”
God’s providences can sting. His discipline can smart. But those very stings are signs of His care. Behind every painful stroke is a Father who is not punishing us in wrath, but shaping us in love.
Who Is the “Mute Christian”?
“Mute” simply means silent—and Brooks takes the word from Psalm 39:9:
“I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.”
He doesn’t mean a Christian who literally never speaks in suffering. He means a believer who doesn’t murmur against God; who doesn’t rail, grumble, or argue with God’s providence.
This “mute Christian” is not emotionally numb. He feels deeply. He weeps freely. But he refuses to turn his pain into accusation against God.
Brooks put it beautifully:
“The mute Christian is one that seeth the hand of God in his affliction, and lays his hand upon his mouth.”
It’s the posture of Job, who buried ten children in a single day and still said:
“The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21)
and later,
“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” (Job 13:15)
That is a mute Christian under the smarting rod.
Why Be Silent Under the Rod?
Brooks builds his book around a simple but searching question:
Why should a believer quietly submit under God’s painful discipline?
Here are seven reasons he draws out—rich, pastoral, and deeply rooted in Scripture.
1. Because God Is the Author of the Affliction
David finds comfort in this thought: “Because thou didst it” (Ps. 39:9). He calls his troubles “thy stroke” and “the blow of thine hand.”
If our suffering were random—just bad luck, blind fate, or the malice of people—we would have every reason to despair. But if it comes through the hand of a sovereign, wise, and good God, then it comes with purpose.
That is why, when David had to choose a judgment—famine, fleeing from enemies, or three days of pestilence—he said:
“Let me fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man.” (2 Sam. 24:14)
Better a painful blow from a merciful Father than an easy path outside His hand.
Brooks says, in effect: when you can say, “My Father did this,” you must either be silent—or accuse your Father of folly.
2. Because the Rod Comes from Love
Jesus says, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten” (Rev. 3:19).
Brooks writes,
“The rod in His hand is dipped in love before it is laid upon our backs.”
Joseph’s story proves that. Betrayed, enslaved, falsely accused, imprisoned—yet at the end he looks at his brothers and says:
“Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” (Gen. 50:20)
The very rod that men wielded in hatred, God used in love.
We may not see God’s loving purpose in the moment—but our quiet submission is an act of faith in His character. Silence under suffering is not natural. It is supernatural. It is the fruit of seeing our trials as ordered by infinite wisdom and sanctified by eternal love.
3. Because God Measures Every Affliction
“God is faithful,” Paul says, “who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able” (1 Cor. 10:13).
Job’s story shows Satan could go only as far as God allowed—and no further. God set the line: “Only upon himself put not forth thine hand… save his life” (Job 1:12; 2:6).
Isaiah 27:8 says God corrects “in measure”—by exact calculation. Psalm 103 reminds us, “He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.”
Your trials are not flung at you wildly from heaven. They are weighed and measured by a Father who knows your frame. The burden is suited to the back He has made.
Brooks says:
“The rod is weighed in heaven before it falls on earth.”
The God who measures the affliction measures the grace.
4. Because Afflictions Are the Way to Holiness
In Isaiah 27, after speaking of measured discipline, God says:
“By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged.” (Isa. 27:9)
Affliction is God’s furnace to burn away dross, His medicine to cure spiritual disease, His pruning knife to cut away what is unfruitful.
Psalm 39:11 says that when God corrects His people “for iniquity,” He makes their “beauty to consume like a moth.” In other words, He strips away superficial beauty—pride, comfort, false security—in order to restore true beauty: holiness.
We don’t like the smarting rod, but it is mercy if it leads us out of sin and into Christlikeness.
As Brooks says:
“God’s wounds are better than the devil’s delights.”
5. Because Afflictions Prevent Greater Evils
Sometimes the rod is preventive. A lesser pain saves us from a greater destruction.
Brooks writes:
“God’s rod is a schoolmaster to keep us from greater mischiefs.”
6. Because Murmuring Is Worse Than Suffering
Brooks doesn’t only encourage silence; he warns against murmuring.
“Murmuring,” he says, “is the devil’s music.” It is rebellion against God’s will, an accusation that God has done wrong, and a poison to our own souls.
Israel’s history proves this. God brought them out of Egypt with mighty miracles, but their murmuring turned a short journey into a forty-year funeral march. They complained about the manna, the water, the leadership, the timing, the hardship—and God said, “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me?” (Num. 14:27).
Paul warns us: “Neither murmur ye… as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer” (1 Cor. 10:10).
Affliction may hurt us. Murmuring hardens us. Affliction may prune. Murmuring poisons.
A silent Christian glorifies God; a murmuring Christian slanders Him.
7. Because Christ Was Silent Under His Sufferings
This is Brooks’s highest argument—and Scripture’s sweetest comfort.
Isaiah 53:7 says of Christ:
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth:
he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.”
The Gospels repeat it: “But Jesus held his peace” (Matt. 26:63). “He answered him never a word” (Matt. 27:14). Peter sums it up: “When he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1 Pet. 2:23).
Christ was silent under:
Brooks says:
“Christ, our Head, was dumb under the greatest sufferings; shall the members be mutinous?”
and again,
“God’s rod is a pencil to draw Christ’s image more lively upon the soul.”
When you are quiet under the smarting rod, you are never more like Jesus.
Leaving the Smarting Rod for the Embracing Arms
Near the end of his life, Thomas Brooks lay dying. Friends gathered around his bed. They wanted to know how a man who had buried his wife, lost children, endured plague, persecution, and countless sorrows could still speak so tenderly of God’s goodness.
Brooks whispered one sentence that summarized his whole theology of suffering. He said:
“A weak faith may swim in deep waters, if it keeps its face upward.”
Then he added softly:
“I am leaving the smarting rod for the embracing arms.”
Not bitterness.
Not complaint.
Not murmuring.
But trust.
He died as he had lived—a mute Christian under the smarting rod, quietly submitted to his Father’s hand.
That is the call of Psalm 39:9:
Not to understand every rod.
Not to enjoy every rod.
But to trust the hand that holds it.
Whatever “smarting rod” rests on your shoulders today, lift your face upward. Say with David, “I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.”
And remember: the rod will not last forever. One day, the silence of submission will give way to the song of glory—and the hand that wounds in love will welcome you home.
For the past several years I’ve been reading deeply in the Puritans. Their books may be four hundred years old, but their voices are startlingly fresh. They lived through plague, persecution, and political chaos—and yet they learned to suffer well.
J. I. Packer once said, “If you want to understand what God-centered Christianity looks like in practice, go to the Puritans.” R. C. Sproul confessed that when he read them, he felt “like a pygmy standing at the feet of giants.” Joel Beeke says they teach us “how to walk with God in public and in private, in joy and in suffering.”
One of those giants was a London pastor named Thomas Brooks. And few books capture the Puritan theology of suffering like his tender little classic: The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod.
A Pastor in a Dying City
Thomas Brooks was born around 1608 into a turbulent England. He lived through civil war. He buried his beloved wife and several children—one of them claimed by the Great Plague. He watched the church he loved torn by persecution.
And then came 1665.
The Great Plague swept through London, killing more than 100,000 people—roughly one in every five Londoners. Most who could leave, left. But Brooks stayed.
He walked plague-ridden streets with a Bible in one hand and eternity in the other. He said, “A dying city must not be left without a living gospel.” He visited the sick, comforted the dying, and buried the dead.
When the plague finally lifted, Brooks was physically weakened and broken by grief. He had seen unimaginable sorrow. Yet his sufferings did not make him hard—they made him tender. He became a gentle shepherd to others who hurt.
Out of that crucible came a sermon on one verse of Scripture:
“I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.” (Psalm 39:9)
That sermon became a book. That book became a balm. Widows, orphans, and survivors of the plague read it aloud in tear-stained homes. Charles Spurgeon later listed it among his “golden books of the Puritan age,” saying, “Brooks scatters pearls and diamonds with both hands.”
Why has The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod comforted believers for nearly four centuries? Because it answers two piercing questions all suffering Christians eventually face.
What Is the “Smarting Rod”?
Brooks calls our trials the “smarting rod.”
“Smart” is old English for sharp, stinging pain—like the sting of a switch across your legs. The “smarting rod” is God’s rod of affliction—His fatherly discipline that hurts, but heals.
This is not the rod of an angry judge, but the rod of a wise and loving Father. Brooks wrote,
“Afflictions are but God’s school, wherein His children learn to read their Father’s heart.”
God’s providences can sting. His discipline can smart. But those very stings are signs of His care. Behind every painful stroke is a Father who is not punishing us in wrath, but shaping us in love.
Who Is the “Mute Christian”?
“Mute” simply means silent—and Brooks takes the word from Psalm 39:9:
“I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.”
He doesn’t mean a Christian who literally never speaks in suffering. He means a believer who doesn’t murmur against God; who doesn’t rail, grumble, or argue with God’s providence.
This “mute Christian” is not emotionally numb. He feels deeply. He weeps freely. But he refuses to turn his pain into accusation against God.
Brooks put it beautifully:
“The mute Christian is one that seeth the hand of God in his affliction, and lays his hand upon his mouth.”
It’s the posture of Job, who buried ten children in a single day and still said:
“The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21)
and later,
“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” (Job 13:15)
That is a mute Christian under the smarting rod.
Why Be Silent Under the Rod?
Brooks builds his book around a simple but searching question:
Why should a believer quietly submit under God’s painful discipline?
Here are seven reasons he draws out—rich, pastoral, and deeply rooted in Scripture.
1. Because God Is the Author of the Affliction
David finds comfort in this thought: “Because thou didst it” (Ps. 39:9). He calls his troubles “thy stroke” and “the blow of thine hand.”
If our suffering were random—just bad luck, blind fate, or the malice of people—we would have every reason to despair. But if it comes through the hand of a sovereign, wise, and good God, then it comes with purpose.
That is why, when David had to choose a judgment—famine, fleeing from enemies, or three days of pestilence—he said:
“Let me fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man.” (2 Sam. 24:14)
Better a painful blow from a merciful Father than an easy path outside His hand.
Brooks says, in effect: when you can say, “My Father did this,” you must either be silent—or accuse your Father of folly.
2. Because the Rod Comes from Love
Jesus says, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten” (Rev. 3:19).
Brooks writes,
“The rod in His hand is dipped in love before it is laid upon our backs.”
Joseph’s story proves that. Betrayed, enslaved, falsely accused, imprisoned—yet at the end he looks at his brothers and says:
“Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” (Gen. 50:20)
The very rod that men wielded in hatred, God used in love.
We may not see God’s loving purpose in the moment—but our quiet submission is an act of faith in His character. Silence under suffering is not natural. It is supernatural. It is the fruit of seeing our trials as ordered by infinite wisdom and sanctified by eternal love.
3. Because God Measures Every Affliction
“God is faithful,” Paul says, “who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able” (1 Cor. 10:13).
Job’s story shows Satan could go only as far as God allowed—and no further. God set the line: “Only upon himself put not forth thine hand… save his life” (Job 1:12; 2:6).
Isaiah 27:8 says God corrects “in measure”—by exact calculation. Psalm 103 reminds us, “He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.”
Your trials are not flung at you wildly from heaven. They are weighed and measured by a Father who knows your frame. The burden is suited to the back He has made.
Brooks says:
“The rod is weighed in heaven before it falls on earth.”
The God who measures the affliction measures the grace.
4. Because Afflictions Are the Way to Holiness
In Isaiah 27, after speaking of measured discipline, God says:
“By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged.” (Isa. 27:9)
Affliction is God’s furnace to burn away dross, His medicine to cure spiritual disease, His pruning knife to cut away what is unfruitful.
Psalm 39:11 says that when God corrects His people “for iniquity,” He makes their “beauty to consume like a moth.” In other words, He strips away superficial beauty—pride, comfort, false security—in order to restore true beauty: holiness.
We don’t like the smarting rod, but it is mercy if it leads us out of sin and into Christlikeness.
As Brooks says:
“God’s wounds are better than the devil’s delights.”
5. Because Afflictions Prevent Greater Evils
Sometimes the rod is preventive. A lesser pain saves us from a greater destruction.
- God touched Jacob’s hip and he limped the rest of his life—but that limp kept him leaning on God, not on his own scheming.
- God sent a storm and a great fish to Jonah—not to destroy him, but to stop him from running to his own ruin.
- The famine in the prodigal son’s life drove him from the far country back to the Father’s arms.
Brooks writes:
“God’s rod is a schoolmaster to keep us from greater mischiefs.”
6. Because Murmuring Is Worse Than Suffering
Brooks doesn’t only encourage silence; he warns against murmuring.
“Murmuring,” he says, “is the devil’s music.” It is rebellion against God’s will, an accusation that God has done wrong, and a poison to our own souls.
Israel’s history proves this. God brought them out of Egypt with mighty miracles, but their murmuring turned a short journey into a forty-year funeral march. They complained about the manna, the water, the leadership, the timing, the hardship—and God said, “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me?” (Num. 14:27).
Paul warns us: “Neither murmur ye… as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer” (1 Cor. 10:10).
Affliction may hurt us. Murmuring hardens us. Affliction may prune. Murmuring poisons.
A silent Christian glorifies God; a murmuring Christian slanders Him.
7. Because Christ Was Silent Under His Sufferings
This is Brooks’s highest argument—and Scripture’s sweetest comfort.
Isaiah 53:7 says of Christ:
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth:
he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.”
The Gospels repeat it: “But Jesus held his peace” (Matt. 26:63). “He answered him never a word” (Matt. 27:14). Peter sums it up: “When he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1 Pet. 2:23).
Christ was silent under:
- Sufferings infinitely greater than ours
- Sufferings He did not deserve
- Sufferings that secured our salvation
Brooks says:
“Christ, our Head, was dumb under the greatest sufferings; shall the members be mutinous?”
and again,
“God’s rod is a pencil to draw Christ’s image more lively upon the soul.”
When you are quiet under the smarting rod, you are never more like Jesus.
Leaving the Smarting Rod for the Embracing Arms
Near the end of his life, Thomas Brooks lay dying. Friends gathered around his bed. They wanted to know how a man who had buried his wife, lost children, endured plague, persecution, and countless sorrows could still speak so tenderly of God’s goodness.
Brooks whispered one sentence that summarized his whole theology of suffering. He said:
“A weak faith may swim in deep waters, if it keeps its face upward.”
Then he added softly:
“I am leaving the smarting rod for the embracing arms.”
Not bitterness.
Not complaint.
Not murmuring.
But trust.
He died as he had lived—a mute Christian under the smarting rod, quietly submitted to his Father’s hand.
That is the call of Psalm 39:9:
Not to understand every rod.
Not to enjoy every rod.
But to trust the hand that holds it.
Whatever “smarting rod” rests on your shoulders today, lift your face upward. Say with David, “I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.”
And remember: the rod will not last forever. One day, the silence of submission will give way to the song of glory—and the hand that wounds in love will welcome you home.
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