erent. This aroused his severest condemnation. What he had was good
enough for him and ought to be good enough for them.

There are many today who are just like Paul was. They are fully contented
in their present situation, and should any one try to show them its
insufficiency and the need of higher attainment, it would only arouse
their opposition and indignation. That is why so many people oppose
holiness. Just as soon as Paul saw Christ and the higher and better things
for which Christ stood, he suddenly lost his satisfaction and became an
earnest seeker for those better things. Sometimes it takes a rude shock to
break through our self-satisfaction and to show us our true needs; but
when it comes and arouses a dissatisfaction, it is truly a blessing.

Suppose Luther had been satisfied to continue in the Romish church,
approving and submitting to her teachings and practices. Where might the
world have been today? He became dissatisfied and gave voice to that
dissatisfaction. Others heard and became dissatisfied. This
dissatisfaction made their hearts hungry for God, and out of that
heart-hunger came the Reformation.

Dissatisfaction has brought us the multitude of new things which we have
to use and enjoy. It has been because men became dissatisfied with old
methods and old implements and old ideas and customs and old attainments
that they have toiled in painful research, that they have labored night
and day to invent new things. In some places, people still plow with a
crooked stick and grind their flour in hand-mills. What their fathers had
is good enough for them. Some people are like that about religion. What
their fathers had is good enough for them, and they are indignant if we
even suggest something better; they are satisfied. There are others who
sought and obtained a real experience of forgiveness, but right there they
stopped. Years have passed. They were satisfied when they were first saved
(which was a very good thing); the only trouble was that they remained
satisfied and never made any further progress. They hear entire
sanctification preached, they accept the doctrine intellectually, but they
can never be persuaded to press on into the experience themselves. They go
on from year to year to year and never make any real spiritual
advancement. What is the trouble? Oh, they are just satisfied, that is
all; and they will never get any further till their sleepy satisfaction is
rudely broken in upon by someth