I want to speak on the subject of the Providence of God. This is a subject that is not often taught.  In all my years as a Christian, I have never heard someone speak specifically on this subject. There have been many who bring up various passages that deal with the Providence of God, but it is more often just an “aside” than a “specific”.  For instance, the teaching about Joseph and his ascendency to become second to Pharaoh, we have those who have taught on Esther and her rise to become the queen to Ahasuerus the King of the Persians and Medes, who ruled from India to Ethiopia, over 127 provinces. Yet even though these narratives are at the heart of the Providence of God, most never mention this, but use these epic narratives to talk about faith or the sovereignty of God. I’ve never heard a teaching devoted to the Providence of God.  There are areas of Scripture that relate to the idea of God working in the details of our lives to bring about our good and His Glory, yet not pointing to or elaborating on the Providence of God. So with that in mind, I would like to launch out in deeper waters to specifically describe this great mystery of God’s Providence and show that God’s hand is involved in directing all things.

Sovereignty and Providence:

This teaching should be familiar to most of you, because it will remind you of God’s sovereignty over good and evil and that we can be confident of His promises to bring good out of our lives. This I’m sure will bring your thinking to the place where you’ll be able to see how sovereignty and Providence are closely related. With that let me try to define for you Providence and Sovereignty. This won’t be the first time you will hear me define these Godly parameters in this series, because like I say they are closely related.  Providence is part of the Sovereignty of God. It’s hard to separate the two.

Definition of Providence and Sovereignty:

Remember this is a first pass and I’ll try to refine it more as we go. Providence is God’s loving care and provision.  Sovereignty is God’s supreme power and authority over His creation.

Refining definition of Providence:

With that in mind now let me refine the definition of Providence as that’s the subject I will be teaching.

The Providence of God is where He takes all of the Gazillions of life’s events and weaves them together for His plans and purpose. 

Providence is not spoken much in the modern church. The main reason is most of today’s churches are semi-Pelagius or Arminian and therefore even though they give lip service to the Sovereignty of God, they actually operate as though they are sovereign and God is the servant. Therefore, to talk specifically about the Providence of God becomes very difficult, as the modern church can’t conceive of God either allowing evil or creating evil.  Hence you don’t hear teachings on it that often. The reformed folks still teach on it from time to time, but it isn’t a major topic either, because it’s very difficult at times to try and explain certain aspects of these parameters.

Further refinement of the definition of Providence:

Providence is the exercise by God of His Sovereignty, thus Providence is within the realm of Sovereignty.  This concept is not well understood and is even less accepted. So an understanding of Sovereignty is essential.  Hopefully, I’m going to explain all of this through the Scripture.

To think of the Creator is to think of the Providential care of the Creator for His Creation. He made the Creation dependent upon Him; or, worded differently, because the Creation has been made, it is reliant upon the Maker. The one flows from the other. Initially, God created; and now, subsequently, He maintains and directs what He created. The creation is past and complete; the maintaining is present and continuing. In other words, Providence assumes Creation, and Creation is dependent upon Providence so that all of God’s plans and purpose are completed. That’s why in this relationship there is no place for a Deism that separates God from the world; or on the other end of the spectrum Pantheism that merges God with the world thereby removing Providential care by God of the world. A Creation without Providence would be a heavens and earth without meaning and direction; it would be devoid of an ultimate and concluding purpose. With no Providence, there would be no assurance of a tomorrow, no guarantee of continuity between the past and the present, with an anticipation of the future. We could have order today, but next week there could be anarchy. What ever structure we have could evolve into annihilation, with the race of man and beast being totally destroyed. Without Providence, Creation has no promise of the next day. That would be opposite of what Scripture teaches.  According to the book of Revelation, God has created and God has a plan for His Creation. That plan of the Creator will come to fruition; it will not be denied. And it is God’s Providence that assures the future.

More minutia:

The word Providence comes to us from the Latin, providentia (pro, “before” plus videre, “to see”), meaning, “to see before” or “foresight.” Within the etymology of the word is a forward looking, an anticipation, a seeing of what is ahead. The concept of Divine Providence relates to this sense of “knowledge of the future.” There is no specific word for Providence in the Scriptures. In the KJV and the NASB “providence” is used in Acts 24:2 to translate the Greek word pronoia, which literally means “forethought.”

In the NKJV and theNIV “foresight” is used in Acts instead of “providence.” Pronoia which appears in one other place, Rom. 13:14, is translated “provision” in both the KJV and the NKJV. The maintenance and sustenance of Creation is for the purpose of bringing it to a conclusion, the conclusion determined by God for eternity. What is the purpose of Providence? If the purpose of Creation is the glory of God which it is,   then it goes without saying that the purpose of Providence is the glory of God. Finally, all things exist and function for His glory, and His alone. Amen!   This concludes the introduction.

God governs all things in the universe through Divine Providence:

Divine providence is the means by and through which God governs all things in the universe. Ok let’s get into the Bible and prove from the Word of God what’s been said so far.  The doctrine of Divine Providence asserts that God is in complete control of all things. This includes the universe as a whole (Psalm 103:19) “The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.”

(Psalm 47:2) “For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth.”

The physical world:

(Matthew 5:45), “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

C. The affairs of nations

(Psalm 66:7) “He ruleth by his power for ever; his eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves Selah.

Human birth and destiny

(Galatians 1:15) “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,”

Human successes and failures

(Luke 1:52) “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.”

Protection of His people

(Psalm 4:8) “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.”

So you can see that this doctrine stands in direct opposition to the idea that the universe is governed by chance or fate.

The purpose of Divine providence is to accomplish God’s will

The purpose, or goal, of Divine Providence is to accomplish the will of God. To ensure that His purposes are fulfilled, God governs the affairs of men and works through the natural order of things.

The laws of nature

The laws of nature are nothing more than a depiction of God at work in the universe. The laws of nature have no inherent power, nor do they work independently. The laws of nature are the rules and principles that God set in place to govern how things work. The same goes for human choice. In a very real sense we are not free to choose or act apart from God’s will.

Sinful choices in accordance to God’s will

Everything we do and everything we choose is in full accordance to God’s will—even our sinful choices (Genesis 50:20). “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.”

That’s the classic one that most refer to in this understanding of God’s Providence, but there are many more that we’ll turn to before this series is over. The bottom line is that God controls our choices and actions. Let me give you a few more Scriptures that demonstrate this. (Genesis 45:5). “Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.”

This is where Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and they are troubled.   I think we all would be troubled. Here is a truly noble heart, Joseph  not only forgives and forgets, but he wishes even those who had wronged him to forget the injury they had done, that they might not suffer distress on this account. Then with deep piety he attributes the whole to the Providence of God; for, says he, “God did send me before you to preserve life.” On every word you’ve got to lay a strong emphasis. What do I mean by that? He’s telling them it isn’t you, but God; it isn’t you that sold me, but God who sent me. Egypt and Canaan would both have perished, had not a merciful provision been made.  You were to come down here, even though you didn’t know it. God sent me before you, and if not death would have been the consequence of this famine, God sent me here to preserve life.

Everything they have was given by the Providence of God.

(Deuteronomy 8:18) “But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.”   

This is recapitulation where Moses is reminding the Israelites how the Lord delivered them and fed them, clothed and shod them, and for them not to forget where they got their wealth and why. He wants them to continually call to mind that they owed all they had, and the increase of it, to the Lord and His almighty providence; without which they could never have gotten possession of this land, nor have prospered in it. God had a purpose and a plan … and what was it? That He may establish His Divine Covenant.

It’s not in the power of the king or any person.

Proverbs 21:1) “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”

What does that mean?  Seemingly it looks like the kings have the power  either to do, or to design, what they please; however their very wills are subject to the great Lord of all –  that’s right. He can divert them from what they intend, that’s no problem for the Lord.  He can make them go against that which they had no intention to do.  He can do it.  It reminds me of the farms in the desert, where they use irrigation, and the gardener directs the flow of water through the trenches into which ever parcel of ground he thinks best.

God does not violate our responsibility as free moral agents

Yet He works in such a way that does not violate our responsibility as free moral agents, nor does it negate the reality of our choice. The doctrine of Divine Providence can be succinctly summarized this way:

God in eternity past, in the counsel of His own will, ordained everything that will happen; yet in no sense is God the author of sin; nor is human responsibility removed.

The primary means by which God accomplishes His will is through secondary causes (e.g., laws of nature, human choice). In other words, God works indirectly through these secondary causes to accomplish His will.

God can work directly to accomplish His will

God also sometimes works directly to accomplish His will. These works are what we would call miracles (i.e., supernatural events as opposed to natural). A miracle is God’s circumventing, for a short period of time, the natural order of things to accomplish His will and purpose. Two examples from the book of Acts should serve to highlight God directly and indirectly working to accomplish His will. In Acts 9 we see the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. In a blinding flash of light and in a voice that only Saul/Paul heard, God changed his life forever. It was God’s will to use Paul to further accomplish His will, and God used direct means to convert Paul.

Talk to anyone who converted to Christianity, and you will more than likely never hear a story quite like Paul’s. Most of us come to Christ through hearing a sermon preached or reading a book or the persistent witness of a friend or family member. In addition to that, there are usually life circumstances that prepare the way—loss of a job, loss of a family member, failed marriage, chemical addiction. Paul’s conversion was direct and supernatural.

Acts 16:6-10  “Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not. And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.”

Here we see God accomplishing His will indirectly. This takes place during Paul’s second missionary journey. God wanted Paul and his company to go to Troas, but when Paul left Antioch of Pisidia, he wanted to go east into Asia. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit forbade them to speak the Word in Asia. Then they wanted to go west into Bythinia, but the Spirit of Christ prevented them, so they ended up going to Troas. This was written in retrospect, but at the time there were probably some logical explanations as to why they could not go into those two regions. However, after the fact, they realized that it was God directing them where He wanted them to go—this is providence. Proverbs 16:9 speaks to this: “The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”

On the other hand, there are those who will say that the concept of God directly or indirectly orchestrating all things destroys any possibility of free will. If God is in complete control, how can we be truly free in the decisions we make? In other words, for free will to be meaningful, there must be some things which are outside of God’s sovereign control—e.g., the contingency of human choice. Let us assume for the sake of argument that this is true. What then? If God is not in complete control of all contingencies, then how could He guarantee our salvation? Paul says in Philippians 1:6 “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.” If God is not in control of all things, then these promises, and all other biblical promises, are invalid. We could not have complete security that the good work of salvation that was begun in us will be brought to completion. Furthermore, if God is not in control of all things, then He is not sovereign, and if He is not sovereign, then He is not God. So, the price of maintaining contingencies outside of God’s control results in a God who is no God at all. And if our “free” will can supersede Divine Providence, then who ultimately is God? We are. That is, obviously, unacceptable to anyone with a Christian and biblical view. Divine Providence does not destroy our freedom. Rather, Divine Providence is what enables us to properly use that freedom.

Ok, hopefully you all have a better handle on Divine Providence, now let’s launch out a bit deeper.

PROVIDENCE AND EVIL

Evil is the Achilles heel of the Christian faith, at least in the minds of many. The humanist uses the reality of evil to invalidate the claims of those who follow Christ. It is not a new problem; the problem is this: on the one hand, a good and powerful God; and, on the other hand, the existence of evil. These two realities are inconsistent, or so it seems, and the fact that both are part of the Christian teaching nullifies for many the Christian religion itself. There was an atheist philosopher who said, “If God is good and powerful, then why does evil plague the earth?” The rationale is as follows: If God is good and benevolent, then He must not be powerful, because a good God who is powerful would not allow evil. If God is powerful, then He must not be good and benevolent, because a powerful God who is good and benevolent would not allow evil. Perhaps it is appropriate to admit that this is not just a problem for the unbeliever, it is also a problem for many Christians. For most believers the question is simply worded in this manner: Why did God allow sin? For the deeper thinker who would be more reflective, the issue is what the philosopher stated. Thus there is a dilemma facing the believer: the God of the Bible and the presence of evil, both natural and moral evil. How does the believer respond to the skeptic? For that matter many Christians have trouble satisfying themselves, never mind the skeptics. How does the Christian defend the faith? Is there a final answer? We need to examine some of the observations.

God is good and God is powerful.

Undeniably this is the teaching of Scripture; it is not one or the other, but both characteristics belong to God and these facts must be accepted by the believer— the book of Revelation requires it. Compromise or modification of these attributes cannot be entertained if one is true to the text.

Sin is real.

Not only are we confronted daily by things we perceive to be evil, the Bible affirms the existence of evil; but its existence does not make invalid the existence of God who is totally good and powerful. Because tension is created by affirming both God and evil, it is not, therefore, proper to deny one or the other. Both are present realities. Rejection of either does not solve the problem. Perhaps the problem cannot be solved, but denial of either that God is good and powerful or the reality of evil does not bring resolution to philosophical and theological aspects of the issue.

What is evil? I’m not sure we have a consensus answer within the Church. We know it didn’t exist in eternity prior to Creation.

We also know that it wasn’t a part of original Creation—all that God made was “very good” (Gen. 1:31).  So there was a “time” when evil was not in the existence. The problem of evil should not be. It does not seem that it ought to exist. It is that which is inconsistent with God’s good Creation. Evil is an intruder, an interloper; it does not fit—it is something alien. It is so alien that it is difficult to define; leading some believers, like Augustine, to deny that evil has reality and must be spoken of as a negation of the good. That almost sounds like Christian Science. While this may safeguard the association of God and evil for some, it seems to minimize the seriousness of evil. It seems that evil must be accepted as a “something”, because we can see the reality of it all around us.  There are some who would argue that’s not sin that we see. Yet what ever label you put on it there is evil in the land and the description of evil must be summed up and its essence is that it’s illegitimate.  It should not be. Ok, let’s move out a little deeper.

Evil is consistent with the will of God

It must be maintained that God’s ultimate plan for His Creation includes evil, even though evil is an illegitimate thing. To affirm this does not impugn God so as to make Him guilty of sin, for God does not commit sin. Sin is according to His will—this is something one could say He’s managing; however, He is not guilty of sinning in His willing of sin. Whatever He does is right. He is God! In our belief and acceptance of Scripture we find this following verse: “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things” (Isa. 45:7). “Calamity” in the NKJV is “disaster,” as well as the NIV and “evil” in the KJV). The Hebrew word is “ra”, it’s a word appearing over 600 times in the Old Testament.

Now according to Young’s Analytical Concordance, “ra” is translated “evil” 444 times in the KJV.  It is used in the following verses: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (ra) (Gen. 2:9); the children of Israel did evil (ra) in the sight of the Lord (Jud. 2:11); he saw that evil (ra) was determined against him by the king (Esth. 7:7); the face of the Lord is against those who do evil (ra) (Ps. 34:16); Against You . . . have I sinned, and done this evil (ra) in Your sight” (Ps. 51:4); the fear of the Lord is to hate evil (ra) (Prov. 8:13); you who hate good and love evil (ra) (Micah 3:2). From these seven verses out of the 444 verses, the meaning of ra should be apparent. The word cannot be limited to natural catastrophe (“calamity” or “disaster” as in theNKJV or NIV); the word may include that, but mostly the word is used to identify that which we usually associate with the concept of evil. And plainly in Isaiah God says: “I create (ra) evil.” “Create” is bara, the same word used in Genesis 1:1. Should not the conclusion be reached that God must have “willed” the existence of evil or it would not exist? If the answer is in the negative, then it seems that there is something that arose that is outside of God’s plan and not under His control, something that is in existence that was not created by Him.

Evil events that were caused by God are reported in the Bible. Numerous examples could be stated, but I’ll give you one from each Testament.

In the New Testament speaking on the Day of Pentecost, Peter discourse concerning “Jesus of Nazareth”; of Him, he says that He was “delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). In Peter’s epistle he adds: “He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world” (I Pet. 1:20). The most despicable act of all, the crucifixion of the Son of God by the sons of men, was “foreordained” and “determined” by God, determined before God made anything. It was not possible that this act of evil would not occur, for it was His purpose that it occurred.  In the Old Testament repeatedly in connection with Pharaoh, God affirms to Moses that He would harden his heart so that he would not let the Children of Israel leave their captivity in Egypt. Before Moses returned to Egypt, God declares to him: “But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go” (Ex. 4:21; see: 7:3; 9:12; 10:20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8). Therefore the intransigence or the stubbornness of Pharaoh was God’s doing. It should be noted that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Ex. 8:15, 32; 9:34), but this was after the initial hardening by God.

The Bible affirms that God does not commit evil

Scripture abounds with testimony to this fact: “A God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He” (Deut. 32:4);

“…far be it from God to do wickedness, and from the Almighty to commit iniquity.” (Job. 34:10)

“You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you.” (Ps. 5:4);

“…for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.” (Jam. 1:13);

“…the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” (Jam. 1:17);

“God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” (I Jo. 1:5).

The cause of evil is not with God but with man, for man does the sinning. Man is the cause of his own sin, a cause which is determined by God through the use of secondary causes that lead man to make the decisions he makes. Consequently God’s plan comes to pass, but God Himself is not culpable. God is not the immediate cause of man’s individual sin; the Bible teaches that humans are responsible for the evil they do. To begin to think that sin is God’s responsibility in the sense of accountability is to begin to think incorrectly about the fact of sovereignty. This is something I’ve been studying and I’ve learned.  This is not an easy subject and most of the churches who are Arminians take a different tact that violates Scripture. “God must be viewed as the One guaranteeing the act, but man is the one who commits the act. If God does evil, then He is not God. God is the cause of no man’s sin.  It is true God has a hand in the action where sin is, but no hand in the sin of the action.”
(Thomas Boston, A Body of Divinity, 122).

Evil is used by God to accomplish His purpose

In fact, evil is part of His purpose; “The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (Prov. 16:4).

To Pharaoh, God announces: “For this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you” (Ex. 9:16);

The man affected by the evil of blindness, Jesus indicates that he was in this condition “that the works of God should be revealed in him” (John. 9:1).

The psalmist attests: “Surely the wrath of man shall praise You” (Ps. 76:10)

Seeking to calm the fear of his brothers after the death of their father, Joseph tells them that even though “you sold me,” it was “God who sent me before you to preserve life” (Gen. 45:5). Evil is neither a problem nor dilemma for God, but is one of the instruments whereby He accomplishes His will. It is right for Him to do so, because He is God. But what is right for God is not understood by man, because man is not God. If God is not in control of evil, then there is an essence in the universe that is outside of His control; and this would bring into question God’s ability to accomplish His will. If God did not intend for evil to exist and allowed it to be, then He is not in control of all things; now if this is the case, then how can He be God? Think about it, if God didn’t intend for evil to exist and allowed it to be, then He can’t be sovereign and if He’s not sovereign He’s not God. Let me put it this way, He can’t be the God of the Bible, maybe some sub-god, but not our awesome, glorious, infinite God of the Bible.

Evil will be judged by God

“He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained” (Acts 17:31).

He has reserved “the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment” (II Pet. 2:9).

The dead will be raised and judged, and “anyone not found written in the book of Life” will be cast into the lake of fire”(Rev. 20:15).

“The Lord is a God of justice” (Isa. 30:18) and “true and righteous are His judgments” (Rev. 19:2).In conclusion of part 1, it should be pointed out that the Bible does not deal with the question of the existence of evil and the holiness of God—how both can exist; you can’t find that in the Scriptures directly. In the Scriptures the reality of Providence and the presence of evil never pose a problem. From the perspective of the book of Revelation it is not a dilemma. Both are affirmed by God’s Word, and the inspired writings do not seek to defend God or justify God in the face of the existence of evil. It is a problem in man’s thinking; the problem has no foundation in the Divine Essence. I guess for the believer who is searching for a definitive explanation, the problem of God’s relation to sin remains a mystery Deut 29:29.  If you just listen to what I have to say and don’t study this on your own, you’ll probably not retain much that was said. The teachings you hear are meant to encourage you to take what you’ve heard and go in to the Scriptures and other sources and put this together yourself. If you do this you’ll truly be a Berean and you won’t have a dilemma on your hands.  May the Lord bless His word to your heart Amen!

 “Providence is God’s loving care and provision and Sovereignty is God’s supreme power and authority over His creation.”

This teaching should be familiar to most of you, because it will remind you of God’s sovereignty over good and evil and that we can be confident of His promises to bring good out of our lives. This I’m sure will bring your thinking to the place where you’ll be able to see how Sovereignty and Providence are closely related.   With that let me try to define for you Providence and Sovereignty.  “The Providence of God is where He takes all the Gazillions of events and weaves them together for His plans and purpose.”  Providence is the exercise by God of His Sovereignty, therefore Providence is within the realm of Sovereignty.  This concept is not well understood and is even less accepted. So an understanding of Sovereignty is essential.

Some of the things I mentioned in the first paper on Providence:

God governs all things in the universe through Divine Providence, the universe; the physical world; the affairs of nations; Human birth and destiny; Human successes and failures; protection of His people, etc.

1. The purpose of Divine providence is to accomplish God’s will

2. God does not violate our responsibility as free moral agents.

3. God can work directly or indirectly to accomplish His will.

In our previous study of the Providence of God we have seen that God’s providence extends over all things.  It could be over great momentous events, or over minutia. We haven’t gone into a whole lot of detail yet but we must consider those areas that we define as tragedies and or accidents which many times we would consider evil. We wonder how God’s providence relates to this evil because this evil cast its shadow over God’s benevolence and power and we wonder what is God’s role and how He might interface with it.

Last time I mentioned that an atheist philosopher, I remember his name now, John Stuart Mills, said that he could not believe in a God who was considered to be both omnipotent and benevolent. He could not believe that God being all good, righteous, benevolent and all powerful, while at the same time be compatible with all of the suffering and pain that is in the world. Mills reasoning went like this; If God seeing all of the evil in the world and He being all powerful and doesn’t stop it, then He is not good or loving. And if He is loving and good and doesn’t stop it, then he must not have the power to do so. He must be more impotent than omnipotent.

There was a Rabi, his name was Kosner, maybe some of you have read his book or are aware of his book, Why do bad things happen to good people.? His reasoning is that God cares about the human condition, but is powerless to do anything about it.  His reasoning would make God at best a Divine spectator, who’s favorite hymn would be “ka sara, sara, what will be will be”. According to the Rabi God is very sorry for the condition, but He can’t do any more then He has done to alleviate the pain of the human condition. This is the great problem of evil and most humans can’t deal with it and don’t know how God deals with it. Consequently, great confusion abounds.

Evil manifests in diverse events.  We have to deal with natural catastrophes such as storms that ravage the earth as we’ve seen with tsunami, tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, fire, draught, wind, snow, etc.  We have to deal with evil on an international scale where stronger nations oppress weaker nations and tremendous harm is caused to innumerable men, women and children.  This, of course, is the dilemma   when confronted with evil – the question is asked – Why? Then people will say, how could God allow this to happen?  There are areas in the Bible that theologians put in certain categories called “The Hard Sayings”. We have such teachings of Jesus that are put in this category; some are teachings on the final judgment, about the reality of hell, and many more.

Teachings of Jesus

One of these hard sayings is captured by Luke in his gospel in the chapter 13. (Luke 13:1-3) “There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.”

They’re coming to Jesus about an outrages occurrence under the govern- ship of Pontius Pilate.  What happen was that the Roman troops entered into the sanctuary, where a group of people were assembled to worship. When the troops entered they began the wanton slaughter of the people as they were performing their worship and sacrifices. And when the sacrifices were being offered on the altar, the blood of the people was mixed with the blood of bulls and goats. If you can picture it in your mind, this is a terrible atrocity. Then certain people came to Jesus to ask, since you’re the great Rabi, and great teacher, “How could God allow such a tragedy? How could He allow such a slaughter?”  We see it today, in Israel; we’ve seen it in New York City, and I’m sure many would bring the same question to Jesus as these people did. “Jesus where was God when Pilot mixed the blood of the Galileans with the blood of bulls and goats?” What was the Lord Jesus’ response?  Jesus looked at them and said “I’m so very sorry to hear about this, I know that my Father cares very much about protecting you. You know He watches over the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. But the management of this universe is so demanding that on this particular occasion, God overlooked this human event.  I will report that to Him and tell Him to be more careful in the future.”  Now you know that is not what Jesus said.  Jesus’ answer is a hard saying.  (Luke 13:2) “And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things?”  Jesus’ question raises a very important theological question. What is that question?  Does pain and suffering in this world have a one to one correspondence with the degree of guilt we bear? Can we conclude that when some people perish in an event and others are saved, that the ones who perish must be more wicked than those who didn’t? I’m sure that question has been posed many times, especially to Christians who may have been in an accident and survived and others in the same accident perished. When we see the Lord Jesus’ answer we should say, God forbid that we come to some conclusion like that.  Why, because Jesus acknowledges and recognizes that those who suffer may be far more righteous than those who are spared.  Jesus is disallowing the supposition that those who perished were far worse sinners because they suffered worse things.

I think that many would think that Jesus would continue to say, “Yes I realize there is an injustice here and God will correct it on the final day.” But that is not His conclusion. He looks at the people who are raising the question and says in Luke 13:3  “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” Think about this answer, at this point Jesus is answering the objection of John Stuart Mills, who says that God can’t be good and at the same time allow human pain and suffering, tragedies and accidents in His universe.  Classical Christianity would respond to Mr. Mills and say the reason you don’t understand why there is suffering and pain in this world is because you don’t understand that God is good. And a good God and a good judge is not willing to allow evil to go unpunished. The Bible tells us that we suffer and that we die, ultimately because we sin. That doesn’t mean that we suffer in this world in direct proportion to the degree of our guilt. However, we will suffer if we are not found in Christ who in the final analysis has suffered for us. The final judgment will be on God’s perfect standard and no one will suffer beyond their degree of guilt, and we do not suffer ever as innocent sinless people before almighty God. In order to understand this, you must remember the horizontal plain in which we live, in relationship with other people and the vertical plane in which we live, in relationship to God. On the horizontal plain, there will be occasions that I will treat you unjustly and you will treat me unjustly. You will injure me and I will injure you with no just reason. You have all slandered people and have all been slandered by other people. Yet, you have never been slandered by God. You have never been falsely accused of anything by God. Neither have you suffered unjustly at the hand of God. Now that we understand this, what did Jesus mean when He said, “… unless you repent you shall all likewise perish.” Remember the people that come to Jesus are puzzled and perplexed by something. That’s right; they are astonished that God would allow these things to happen. The locust or their focal point of their astonishment is in human suffering. What Jesus is saying to them is your asking the wrong question. What should be amazing to you is that God has spared you this long. What should surprise you is not the manifestation of His justice, but the manifestation of His mercy. “…except you repent you will all likewise perish.”

The only reason that Jesus is implying that you haven’t perished already is not due to justice but to the Mercy. So what are the assumptions there, the assumptions are simple. The assumptions are that God is Holy and that God is just and that we are not. Any life that we enjoy at all in the presence of a just and Holy God, if we are sinners, is a life of mercy. However, the debate goes on with Jesus Luke 13:4 “Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?” Now another accident, another tragedy is brought before Jesus. And they’re saying explain this one to us Jesus.  They are building a tower in Siloam and eighteen people are walking down the street. They are minding their business, they are not harassing the contractor, they are not playing sidewalk superintendent, they’re not messing around the construction site, they are just minding their business. They are just walking down the street enjoying the day and all of a sudden the tower that’s being built falls on them and tragically they are crushed beneath the stones.

Should some find solace if Jesus were to say “I know I told you that the Scripture says that He that keepeth Israel neither slumbers or sleeps.  But you have to understand that is found in the poetry section of the Old Testament, you can’t take it literally.  It’s a poetic expression of hyperbole. My Father rested after the days of creation and He was entitled to His rest. On that particular afternoon when He was distracted by other things, the tower fell. It might have been like I told you before that my Father’s eye is on every detail of human existence and knows every sparrow that falls, knows every hair on your head, however His attention was diverted for just a minute and during that time the tower fell. I’m sorry, but I’ll ask Him to be more vigilant more diligent to keep watch so that doesn’t happen again.”  NO!  That’s not what he said! He gives the same response to the falling tower as he did to the brutality of the Galileans where Pilots soldiers did the action during the sacrificial slaughter.

He says about the tower, “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” There’s a hymn that we have all sung and it might just be the most popular hymn in Christendom.  I’m talking about Amazing Grace. One writer said he wasn’t sure that it’s aptly titled when questions like this come up. He said, “when questions like this come up, it’s not grace that amazes us but Justice. We assume of the patience and mercy and benevolence of God and when the anvil falls, we’ve become so accustomed to His Grace we are startled, we are perplexed, and we become angry.”  People immediately ask God, how could you allow this to happen to me?  Jesus calls us up short at that point.  Jesus is loving, He’s pastoral, tender, and concerned.. No, He is not mean or nasty to people in the midst of their pain and suffering, we know how tender He is, yet on this occasion, He reminds us that we have no prior claim on the mercy of God. If suffering befalls us it’s not because God is unrighteous, He has his reasons for allowing these things to happen even though we don’t know in all circumstances why God allows these things to happen. The one thing we do know is that God is not being unholy, unrighteous, or unjust in allowing the tower to fall. Something we all must think about.  I know when I’m on my knees before God I deserve to have every tower that I walk past fall on me. And if the next one falls and crushes me to bits, I can only thank God for the Grace and mercy he has poured out on me so many, many times in this world. I know some of you don’t like what I’ve said, and you’re wondering where faith comes in, what about God’s promises. Faith and His promises are all there but this is showing at times we are not on the grounds of faith. Let me say something else that you may not understand or like, but I believe if you stay with me throughout this series, it’ll make good sense. Grace is not as amazing as it should be, we as Christians have presumed on Grace to think somehow that God is obligated to us and we forget what Grace is. Grace by its very definition is voluntary and it’s free and not required.  If it was required by God to deal with us in a certain way, it would be Justice and not Grace. So I urge you to get that distinction in your mind between Justice and Grace, that we may understand the graciousness of Grace. Why, because Grace is the very heart and core of our relationship with God Himself. It’s by Grace that we live and by Grace that we live eternally and it’s by Grace that we are redeemed and only by Grace.

God’s providence to Job

Let me now continue this study in Providence by looking at God’s Providence to Job. We looked at the problem of pain and suffering, by looking at those who came to Jesus after Pilot had slaughtered those Galileans and mixed their blood with their sacrifice. We asked, after 18 people were crushed when the tower fell on them, where was God in all of this.  How does God allow suffering to take place? There are passages scattered all through the Scripture that answer this question in some measure. Probably the most famous and the one with the greatest Biblical response to pain and suffering is the Old Testament Book of Job.

The accuser of the Brethren

Remember the story; it almost begins like the first act of a drama. The scene is in heaven where the accuser Satan comes before the throne of God. And we’re told that he comes from walking to and fro in the earth. Did you notice after his roaming in the earth and he comes to God, what he does, but mock God, that’s right, you heard me right.  He mocks God. What he’s saying is look down there God, this creation that you made is a mess. Look at your creatures that you made in your own Holy image. You’ve lost them; they walk according to my course. They are faithful and devoted to my law. I have them in my pocket. If you notice, God doesn’t debate, he doesn’t challenge that premise. But he does say to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job?” Why don’t you go back to and fro and consider my servant Job! Job loves me and he is a man of integrity, and honor, he is upright and just and he obeys me. Now Satan’s lips begin to drip with cynicism, doth -  Job – love – God – for – naught?   Come on God, sure Job loves you, sure Job obeys you, and certainly he listens to your commands, why shouldn’t he? You’ve made him the wealthiest man in the world; you’ve given him every one of his hearts desires. This man prospers in every conceivable way more than any other on the face of the earth. God you’ve built a hedge around him and you’ve protected him so much with your providence, you’ve blessed him so much with your providence that he would never listen to me.

But let me at him, take the hedge down, put a door in the hedge, let me try him, let me tempt him and test him.  Then let’s see how long it takes for your faithful servant to curse you.  Then God said, all right, you can go down to the earth and you can afflict Job in every conceivable way a human can be tested.  You can test him with pain and grief, poverty, disease, you can do all, but don’t take his life. Because his life is still in my hands, so go ahead I’ll take the hedge away. Job 1:12-20 “And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD. And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house: And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them: And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house: And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,..” This is one of the most incredible statements in all of Scripture.  Do you see what has happened; the Sabeans come and take away his livestock, the wind blows and destroy his home, and family. The Chaldeans come and steal his camels and kill his servants. Every possession that Job has enjoyed is stripped away from him.

He grieves, he cry’s, a scream comes out of his mouth, he tears his garments and he falls to the ground, but when he falls to the ground he WORSHIPS GOD! (Job 1:21)R! “And he said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

Can you imagine, after losing everything he has, he worships God.  The only thing he had left was God and his wife and his wife the Scripture says spoke as a foolish woman. Nonetheless, she shared in the loss of their children, wealth through the loss of their livestock, possessions and status. The first woman of Uz is now reduced to sitting next to her husband on a hill of dung, while everyone in the city mocked them.  Will she stand by her man?  Will she be the helpmate that God created her to be? Will she bring consolation to her husband when he is afflicted with disease and his flesh begins to rot away? Rather she comes to Job and says, “Job, curse God and die!” Is that a statement of compassion?

Look Job, haven’t you suffered enough, haven’t you endured enough pain? Look, the only way you’re going to get yourself out of this and presumably herself is for him to turn away from God and turn to Satan.  Maybe someone might see these words of her as being kind and compassionate. This kind compassionate woman would seek to end his pain by delivering Job to Satan, by suggesting that he curse God and die. CURSE GOD AND DIE JOB!

Job said, in all of this, “though He slay me will I serve Him.” And in all of this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.”  Get thee behind me woman!

Whose will is being done?

But who are the characters in this drama? There’s Job, the Sabeans, the Chaldeans, Satan and God.  Now whose will is being done? We might look at this and hear the pleas of the Sabeans and Chaldeans as they stand before God on Judgment Day and God says, Oh I remember you Chaldeans, I remember you Sabeans. You’re the ones who destroyed Jobs livestock, his camels; you took away his property and killed his servants. And here’s my punishment to you. Are they going to stand up and say, Oh God you can’t do that, the Devil made us do it. We were just tools in the hands of Satan.

We have to raise this question.  Did the Chaldeans and Sabeans lose their liberty in this drama? Were they not acting as free moral agents when they stole Jobs cattle? Of course they were, it’s not like Satan came along and found some innocent, pure, upright Sabeans and Chaldeans and then created evil in their heart and reduced them to puppets in order to make them rob Job. No! No! It doesn’t work that way.  The Sabeans and Chaldeans were cattle rustlers from the beginning, they coveted after those livestock for years, but they couldn’t get through the hedge. But as soon as Jobs’ possessions were exposed to the lusting eyes of the Chaldeans and Sabeans they couldn’t wait to jump at the opportunity when Satan said “let’s go, get Job.” Now the intent, choices and motives of the Chaldeans/Sabeans were evil. It would be a waste of time to spend to long saying that the motives and intents and purposes of Satan in this drama were altogether wicked. Satan surely had a hand in it. But if I could call it this way, it’s the other character in the drama that we call into question and that is God. Can God say on the last day, Hey, I didn’t touch Job!

God ordained Satan to do it

It was Satan, the Sabeans and Chaldeans that did it. I’m innocent of any wrong doing. However, we could argue “but You ordained Satan to do this. He couldn’t do it unless you gave him the go ahead. And the criminal acts of the Sabeans and Chaldeans were under your control, under your Providence, under your Sovereign authority and You let it happen.”  And God’s going to say, Yes, I did. And I did it for this reason; to manifest my own Glory to stop the mouth of the Evil One and to vindicate the integrity of the man whom Satan has slandered. God’s involvement in this pain and suffering and misery was all together righteous.  But there came a moment when Job himself was not convinced. And when Job reached the nadir, the rock bottom of his pain and after all hope was banished from his soul; and he listened to the condemning tongues of his comforters who came to him and said day after day “this is your fault; you have to be suffering only proportional to the pain that you bear. God would never allow this to happen to you unless you have some hidden sin from which you were supposed to repent. And you must be in the most anguish in your pain, because you are the very chiefest of sinners. You need to repent Job”. and Job is racking his brain and his spirit, but he sees nothing that he’s done.  Am I so wicked that I can’t see what I’ve done? Then Job comes and starts to shake his fist in the face of God. He says God why??

And God doesn’t answer.  And Job gets more and more frustrated and demands it again. Finally, we read in Job 38, God answers Job.

God answers Job (Job 38:1-2) 

(Job 38:1-2)R! “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” Do you hear the force of that rebuke that God gives to Job! And Job is crying in agony, how can you do this God? And God says, “Who is this that darkens counsel without knowledge!” Watch it Job, you’re casting a shadow over the wisdom, the perfect wisdom of my counsel.  You are not speaking from the perspective of omniscience’s Job. No Job, you are speaking at this moment from the perspective of consummate ignorance.  Job, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And now you put Me on trial? You want Me to give an answer to your theological questions, you want to interrogate Me.  Ok, I’ll answer some of your questions, but before I answer them, I want you to answer some for Me. Job 38:2 “Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.” Ok, here’s the first question Job ” Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? …”  Speak to me Job if you know.

If you’re a veteran of any campaign, if you’ve been through the wars, if you’ve gone through the agony of years of service; then I’m sure you have had the experience of some young person coming in and smugly saying to you, “don’t you think you ought to do this, or don’t you think you ought to do that!”  And they second guess everything you do. And you try to be gracious to them, when you would really like to grab them by the throat and say, listen kid, where were you… It’s like during the 2^nd world war when the green horns come in and say I think we ought to do this and the sergeant would like to say, where were you at Quadal Canal, where were you at IwoJima, where were you at Tarawa, at Okinawa?

God says, Hey, Job where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? He doesn’t give Job a chance to respond, but you know the answer Job would give. Lord, I wasn’t anywhere; I didn’t exist when you laid the foundations of the earth. You are from everlasting to everlasting, you are eternal, you are infinite, I’m temporal, and I’m finite. Speak up Job, answer the question. Who determines its measurements? Who laid its corner stone when the morning stars sang together and all of the Sons of God shouted for joy. Who shut the sea in with doors, who made the clouds and their garments, who fixed the limit on the sky, have you commanded the morning since your day has begun and caused the dawn to know its place?

Now for two chapters God goes into the most brutal interrogation that any person has ever been subjected to.  Can you untie the belt of Orion, can you draw out leviathan with a six foot test line? What’s Job saying No, No, No, No, and God’s response is I can, I can, I can. And after two and one half chapters God never answers Job’s question.  The only way that God answers Jobs question and the only way He answers our questions is not with an explanation that He has reserved for heaven, but He answers it with Himself. What happens here is not an example of divine bullying over Job, but it’s a review course, a crash course in the nature and character of God. Job, Job, Job, look who I am, you can trust me.  And after Job sees this fantastic revelation of God, what does he say? Job 40:2-3 “Then Job answered the LORD, and said, Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth..”  I will speak no more, “wherefore I abhor myself and I repent in dust and ashes.” Job realized in his misery he lost his head and began to assault the very integrity of God, until God said, that’s enough Job. Go on back home, you’ll find double the camels, double the cows, double the crops, double the children and double your health and I’ll make a hedge around you that will last for an eternity.

What do we learn from this marvelous account of Job?  We learn the lesson of patience in the midst of suffering, but the main thing I want us to take away from this brief survey is to remember when we are afflicted with some kind of trial and may be in pain or anguish and groan within ourselves as to why these things happen, and we come before God almost shaking our fist in His face, screaming “God, I’ve confessed all of my sin, I’m clean before you, why am I still in this trial, Why God? “  Two things I want you to remember. We must remember at all times who we are and who He is. That was the lesson that Job had to learn about Divine Providence. He was not dealing with some kind of impartial force or some impersonal chance. No! He was dealing with a Holy God who is Sovereign over everything that takes place in our lives. May the Lord bless the Word to your heart.  Amen

One of the early church fathers once said that if the whole of Scripture was a feast for the soul, Romans 8 was the main dish. Romans 8:28-31 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”  Romans 8 is summarized in these three verses which is the heart preparation for the benediction that begins in verse 31. “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” Starting in verse 31 and going to the end of the chapter is one long paean of praise and it comes immediately after this summary in verses 28 through 30. Backing you up a little bit, remember that Paul in the epistle to the Romans is discussing the doctrine of justification by grace through faith, that is the truth by which we are saved.  He talks about man’s condition in sin in the first three chapters, and starting toward the end of chapter 3 and all the way through chapter 7 he talks about justification and its fruits, or its effects. Then in chapter 8 he gives to us the great reality that justification is eternal, that whoever the Lord justifies He glorifies, that anyone that is saved in the beginning will be saved in the end. In other words, that we are eternally secure and will persevere in faith to the end. That great truth of chapter 8 is summarized in those three verses that I just read to you. They sum up the whole doctrine of eternal security. “Whoever the Lord foreknew He predestined, whoever He predestined He called, whoever He called He justified, and whoever He justified He glorified.” Nobody is lost in the process and that is because “God causes all things to work together for their good.” That is the sum of this wonderful text. Justification is eternal. And in chapter 8, justification and its eternal character is secured to the believer by the marvelous ministry of the Holy Spirit whose work is outlined throughout this chapter. It is the Spirit who secures us in a no-condemnation status. We will never be condemned, we are secured eternally as justified in a no-condemnation status because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Summary of Romans 8

Back in verses 2 and 3 the Holy Spirit frees us from sin and death. In verse 4 it is the Holy Spirit who grants to us the fulfillment of the law by giving us the righteousness of Christ. It is the Holy Spirit in verses 5 to 11 that changes our nature. It is the Holy Spirit in verses 12 and 13 who empowers us for victory over sin. It is the Holy Spirit in verses 14 to 16 who confirms our adoption as children of God. And then in verses 17 to 27, it is the Holy Spirit who guarantees our eternal glory. And that ultimately the Holy Spirit guarantees our glory by what it says in verse 27, He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. It is the ongoing intercessory work of the Holy Spirit that secures our eternal glory. The Holy Spirit does this securing work, keeping us in a no-condemnation status. He does it in all the ways that we have gone through up to verse 27. Now in verses 28 to 30 is a summary, you have in this summary a great promise in verse 28, and that’s where we want to start our study.

Verse 28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

This verse is very familiar to Christians, it is perhaps the most highly regarded of all promises that believers enjoy because it is so comprehensive. It says that He causes, God causes, all things to work together for good to those that love Him.

And it is the “all things” that is so comforting. This great text needs our close and careful attention because of its richness. We’re going to give it our close attention for this teaching and maybe the next. We can take verse 28, which, as I say, is part of this summary of the security of the believer and divide it into four sections. Verse 28 talks about the extent of our security, it talks about the recipients of security, the source of security and the certainty of security comes in verses 29 and 30. The extent of security, it covers all things, the recipients of this security, those who love God, and the source of their security, they are the called. The certainty of their security, that whoever He foreknew and whoever He predestined and whoever He called and whoever He justified, He glorified. So we see the extent, the recipients, the source and the certainty of security. If anybody ever asks you where in the Bible it tells them about being eternally secure, this is where you go first and foremost.

Extent of our Security

Now let’s take that first point and let’s just talk about the extent of our security. How really secure are we? Well, here is the extent of our security in one simple statement, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good.” That is the extent of our security. That is a tremendously comforting and reassuring statement. There could not be a more reassuring statement than that. No statement made to a believer could contribute more hope, happiness, freedom and joy in the heart than that statement.  Why?  Because what it says is that no matter what pain, no matter what problems, no matter what failures, no matter what difficulties, no matter what disasters, no matter what sin, no matter what suffering, no matter what temptation, all things work together for good. The extent is emphasized in the word “plantain” in the Greek, meaning all things. It is a comprehensive promise, and the context has no limits. There’s nothing that qualifies the “all things,” as null in void. It means absolutely what it says, all things work together for good. God takes anything and everything that occurs in a believer’s life and makes it work together for the believer’s ultimate good. This is the greatest promise that we can have in this life. There are absolutely no limits on this statement in this context. It is limitless.

Let me ask a question, “What negative prohibition does Jesus give in the New Testament more than any other negative prohibition?”  Do you know the answer?  You want me to give you a few more minutes. Well, the answer is FEAR NOT.  Jesus says this so often that we don’t even hear it as a negative prohibition.  He says it so often that it almost takes on a sort of greeting.  Usually when He comes into a room, where the disciples are assembled He’ll say don’t be afraid. Now there are reasons for that, certainly one of the reasons is when Jesus manifested; the awesome majesty of God that He displayed frightened people. He would have to assuage these fears; He would have to do something to calm the people.  But I believe there is another reason that our Lord had to say this so many times. I believe it’s because He understood something very basic about us, and that is we are given to fear.  There are many times and many occasions in our lives where we are frightened. Obviously, the most frightening thing about our lives is the unknown future.    I’m talking about reality; I know faith is the answer however most of us still have times when the unknown future can give us fears. I know we are supposed to remain in faith, however most of us still think about the unknown future.   We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, let alone the next 10 seconds.  We don’t know if tragedy will befall us at the next turn.

We don’t know if we will be hit with a painful disease and when our thoughts start to roam in these areas it can frighten us.  Now how would you feel if Jesus Himself spoke to you today and said, “fear not”, from this moment on nothing bad will ever happen to you again. What would that do to your fears? Wouldn’t that put a little more bounce and skip in your step as we faced tomorrow and the future?  What I want us to consider today is in a very profound way, that Jesus has made that consideration a reality already. That’s right! It’s an indirect promise and it’s one that we don’t always quite grasp in its full implication. And yet we’re familiar enough with it, that when polls are taken about what peoples’ favorite verses are in the New Testament this particular verse that contains the promise that comes to us indirectly from Christ is quoted.  Romans 8:28 “For we know that all things work together for good, for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”  I would like to throw the “the” in there, even though “the called” is not in the Greek.   Now let’s look at that for a minute.  You could say, John the text doesn’t say that only Good things are going to happen to God’s people! It doesn’t say that God will never allow anything bad to happen to you. That’s true; I have to agree, those words are not found in the text.  We have to be inferring something here from the text that I want us to examine. The text simply says that God is at work in such a way that all things, that is everything, everything that we encounter, everything that happens to us, everything that we meet up with, everything that befalls us, God is working together for Good! Now that doesn’t mean that when anything happens to us, in itself, it doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. What God is saying here, in His providence, He is saying that everything that does happen to us will work together for our good.  Here is where we have to give this more thought. We have to think about this a bit more comprehensively.  I have to ask you this, if everything that happens to us is working for our ULTIMATE good, would it not follow that ULTIMATELY everything that happens to us is good? If God is working in it and through it, then we have to say that ULTIMATELY, it was good that it happened.  You’ve heard the word that I’ve stressed here, the qualifying word, this is one of those words you find in the fine print. I’m talking about the world ULTIMATELY.  When folks talk in the language of theology they often make a distinction between the ultimate and the proximate. That distinction, which can really be a technical thing, is a distinction between the remote which is far away, out of the range of our immediate vision, out of our immediate grasp.  So it’s between the remote and that which is near at hand? That which we do see, that which we do embrace, that which is in the here and now.  Now if you recall in one of the past teachings, I made a distinction between causes, between primary causality and secondary causality. I know that is a little bit of an abstract thing and I realize that, but what the theologian is getting at when he distinguishes between primary and secondary causality is this…  You remember the story of Joseph. When he was reunited with his brothers, his brothers were terrified that Joseph would seek and enact vengeance against them. They are fearful and apologizing and all of that and Joseph, like Jesus says, “fear not” don’t be afraid. You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.  What Joseph is saying there were two agents involved in my affliction.  There were two causal powers working.  It is because of you, Joseph is saying to his brothers, that I was sold into slavery, that I was thrown into prison and I endured so many years of pain and affliction.  You were the cause of that, yes you were the cause. Yet at the same time in that human causal chain of events, Joseph recognized that beyond the actions of his brothers, stood the overarching Providence of God.

Proximately, the secondary cause

Joseph said you may have caused these things proximately , you may have been the near at hand cause, you were the secondary cause.  Joseph is saying to his brother, I understand that you don’t even have the power to sin against me.

Unless that it is somehow in the realm of God’s overarching providential government of my life.  And so ULTIMATELY God’s intentions were being worked out and His intentions were absolutely righteous good and holy, so He is able to bring good out of your evil. That’s the fundamental lesson that we struggle to understand as we examine this Biblical concept of Providence. There is no other statement in Scripture that crystalizes this more clearly than Paul’s summary in Romans 8:28. “But we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to purpose.”  Let me read this in the NAS version of the Bible … “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God …” Did you hear that, that God is the primary cause of everything that happens.  God has the power to make everything that happens to us work for our good.  Do you believe that?  Why I even say that is because we tend to vacillate, we tend to struggle in the moment of crisis when we’re called upon to trust the promise of God. Who in the world looks forward to pain except the masochist? Who looks forward to the death of family members or to friends?  Who looks forward to wars and all of the rest of the evil that befalls our existence in this world?  Many times when these things come along, it’s very difficult to hold firm in your faith that God is at work here. God is at work here for good.  That is a real test of the Christian life.  To what degree are we able to trust God for tomorrow?  And yet it is precisely at the point of our trusting and believing the promise of God that these things are working together for our good.

The antidote for fear

That is the antidote to fear.  One of the most comforting prayers is the 23^rd Psalm.  The Lord is my Shepard, that’s an upbeat Psalm and it’s a Psalm of care in Divine Providence, showing me   that my life is in the hands of the good Shepard. The phrase in that prayer that has gotten all of our attention is where it says, “…yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”  I’m sure you’ve prayed that prayer. You’ve read that, you’ve heard that, but it’s one of the hardest truths of God. We have to believe, where that faith gets beyond our brains and into our spirit.  Many of us still can’t get to the place where we can put our total trust in God even though he says, He is with us and his rod and staff are there to comfort us. And why is that, because there are many things that lurk down in the shadows of the valley, there can be things in those shadows that can make us fear.  But the Psalmist says even though I walk in the shadow of death in the valley, I will fear no evil. Why is that?  Because, “thou are with me!”   This old minister said that God’s people will never be exempt from walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

Going through the valley of the shadow of death without fear

What God has promised is when we go through the valley of the shadow of death, He will go with us. What does that do to your courage, if the Lord Jesus in His incarnate form would walk into our room today and say to us or me, John I want you to go through the valley of the shadow of death and I’m going to walk with you. I know what my response would be. I would say Lord if you’re going with me, let’s go. It’s a little more difficult to put our trust in God’s presence when we cannot see it.

During the Korean War there were children in orphanages that couldn’t sleep through the night. They were in fear of starving because food was so scarce and that fear made them so they couldn’t sleep the night thru. They’re principle fear was that they wouldn’t be able to survive another day, because there would be no food. A nurse came up with an idea, when she tucked the children into bed at night, she gave them a piece of bread to hold in their hand.

That bread was security enough to allow them to go off to sleep in great calmness of spirit without a problem. It was because their security was not a blanket but a piece of bread.  They had tangible concrete evidence that their future care was being provided.  This was an example of human providence. Now God is saying, even if you don’t see me, even if you can’t touch me, I will be there, even in the valley of the shadow of death.

Providence guarantees His presence in the midst of suffering

He’s teaching us a premise; he’s teaching us something that is a law of God. This is something that God has promised and committed Himself to that by His Providence He guarantees His presence in the midst of suffering. And not only that, His absolute promise that no matter what  happen to us in this world, God will redeem them, why is that, because the God of Providence is a redeeming God.

With that understanding, I would like to get a bit more analytical and analyze this verse by taking it apart and getting real familiar with it. Look back at the verse again.  Romans 8:28 “ And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” The verse starts with this confidence, “And we know…” This isn’t something that is ambiguous, this isn’t something that is a possibility, this isn’t something that is a potential, this is something that is reality. We know that God causes all things to work together. Take that verb “work together,” it’s the Greek verb sunerge from which we get synergism which means “to work together.” Everything is synergistic, everything blends together, and everything operates cooperatively. In the Psalms you have a similar statement in Psalm 25:10 where it says, “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant.” That really is an Old Testament parallel promise, to those that are His who keep His covenant, who believe in Him, who follow Him. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth. Now, all things then are synergized by God, woven together, brought together in order to produce good. Listen carefully. All things are not necessarily good in themselves, right? But God takes all things and weaves them into what is good. The word “good” here needs our attention, it’s agathon from which we get that old name that your old aunt had or your grandma, Agatha.  And agathon means “good in the purest and truest sense,” what is morally good, what is practically good. There’s another word for good in the New Testament, kalos, and it means “what is beautiful, or what looks good, outward goodness, outward beauty.” But this is the inherent goodness. And God is taking everything that happens in the believer’s life, no matter what it is, and effecting out of it ultimate good, moral good, practical good, real good. Kalos appeals to the eyes, agathos appeals to the soul. Kalos appeals to the eyes, agathos appeals to the moral sense. This is true goodness. No matter what happens in your life it will turn out good. And that is the reason you could never lose your salvation because no matter what happens it turns out. What? Good. That is a gilt-edge promise that nothing can happen in the life of a believer that can end up in ultimate bad. It’s another way of saying “Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ,” down in verse 35. It’s another way of saying what is in verse 31, “If God is for us, who is against us?” It’s another way of saying what is in verse 34, “Who is going to condemn us?” If everything works together for good, then nothing could possibly cause us to lose our salvation. That’s His point. It is an absolutely potent argument. God calls, justifies, glorifies and nobody falls through the cracks, everything is causing ultimately their eternal good.

In Deuteronomy 8:16 in the wilderness it says, “He fed you manna which your fathers didn’t know that He might humble you and that He might test you to do good for you in the end.” You know, that is really consistent with God’s nature.

We read that in Psalm 145 that God expresses Himself in great goodness. God is good, the Bible says.  Jeremiah the prophet extolled the goodness of God in Jeremiah 24, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel,” verse 5, “Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the captives of Judah whom I have sent out of this place and into the land of the Chaldeans, I’ll set My eyes on them for good, I’ll bring them again to this land and build them up and not overthrow them and plant them and not pluck them up, I’ll give them a heart to know Me for I am the Lord and they will be My people and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart,” He’s talking about the Israelites taken into captivity who will come back and He says in spite of their sin, in spite of having to be taken away, I will do good to them. It is the character; it is the nature of God to express Himself in goodness toward those upon whom He sets His love. He is a God of goodness. Genesis 50:20, that wonderful statement, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for…What?  for good…for good.” God makes things turn out good. It’s not automatic; it is by the working of the Holy Spirit that it happens.

Holy Spirit intercedes and groans

In Rom 8:26, we don’t know how to pray so the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. We don’t know how to hold on to our salvation. We don’t know how to hold on to our faith. We don’t know how to confront the issues of life, how to battle the kingdom of darkness and how to avoid the temptations that would absolutely overwhelm us. But the Spirit of God is there constantly interceding for us in this groaning before the throne of God, and God who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. The Holy Spirit is always interceding for us, always praying for us, always coming before the throne of God in perfect harmony with God’s will. And what is God’s will? That we go all the way from being predestined, called, justified, to being glorified, that’s God’s will, and that nobody gets lost in the process. That’s the will of Jesus as well. He said He wanted to keep all that the Father gave Him. The Spirit is the one who works out the will of God and the desire of Christ by interceding for us incessantly as the great priest who dwells within us. The yearning of the Holy Spirit, the groaning, is so we would come to final glory. Remember that we read the whole creation is groaning for final glory and believers are groaning for final glory, and then in Rom.8:26-27, the Holy Spirit is groaning that we might come to final glory. He is interceding always with these inexpressible communions between the trinity that we might be brought to glory. It is because Rom. 8:28 is true; all things are working together for good because the Holy Spirit is interceding for us, the Son at the right hand of God is interceding for us as our lawyer and Advocate against any who would come to condemn us, and  the purposes of God are being carried out. This all works together. This is really a monumentally important passage. We are secure forever in a non-condemnation status because of the intercessory work of the Holy Spirit. By the intercessory work of the Holy Spirit and the ongoing intercessory work of Christ fulfilling the will of God, the whole of the trinity is in harmony. Everyone who has been predestined before the foundation of the world will be brought to glory, that plan is unfolding. Not just because it was said, but because it was said it is being done. Again I say to you, there are no restrictions in verse 28 at all, absolutely no restrictions. Due to the consummate cooperative work of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, everyone who truly comes to faith in Christ will be brought to glory. That’s why John says, “They went out from us,” when somebody departs from the faith, denies Christ and leaves, “they went out from us because they were not…what?…of us. If they had been of us, they would have continued with us.”

Why? Because that’s the Father’s plan and will, that’s the Son’s intercessory goal and  the Spirit’s intercessory goal…to sustain us in a non-condemnation status in order to bring us to glory.   Rom 8:26-27 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.  And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.   You can actually say in Rom. 8:28 that everything that happens in your life will work out for good. The good here, let me say it to you clearly, the good here is eternal glory.

Romans 8:28 -“All Things”

Now that doesn’t mean that the good is going to be realized only in eternity, the good here is going to sustain you into eternity. It involves your eternal glory and it involves getting you to that. You might ask what is meant by “all things”.  There are no limits, so let’s talk about it. Let’s see how far we can go with this.  First of all, I’ll give you two points; there are only two kinds of things that can happen to you here. What are they? Good things and bad things. Pretty simple, isn’t it? Didn’t take me long to figure out the outline here.

All things represent “good and bad”

The only things that can happen to you are good things or bad things and in either case they work together for what? For good! Well, let’s talk about the good things that work together for good. That’s obvious, but maybe not so obvious. What good things work together for good? Well, let’s start with God’s nature, that’s the best thing in existence in the universe because God is perfect and perfectly holy. He is pure goodness and His nature works for our good. What do you mean by that? Well, let’s take some of His attributes. His great power works for our good. How does it do that?  His great power supports us, in trouble.  Deuteronomy 33:27 says, “Underneath are the everlasting arms?” Remember Daniel, Jonah, and the three Hebrew children in the fire in Babylon, – all supported by God’s great power.  2 Corinthians 12:9, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” It is God’s power that provides all that we need. It is God’s power that conquers our great enemy Satan and all other enemies. It is God’s power that carries us to victory. It is God’s power by which we overcome the flesh and sin. It is the goodness of God’s power  that works for our good. We could secondly say His great wisdom works for our good because it is our wisdom that instructs us. “I will guide you with My eye,” it says in Psalm 32:8.  He has given us the guidance through His Word, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” The wisdom of God is revealed on the pages of Scripture. As we expose ourselves to the truth of God, wisdom instructs us and leads us in a path of obedience , therefore we are lead in the path of blessing and  joy. “Happy is the man who hears My Word and does ,” Jesus said. The goodness of God’s very nature leads to goodness for us.  It is His power ultimately that will accomplish the victory… the victorious work over Satan. It is His power that ultimately holds us. It is His wisdom that gave us the gospel. It is His wisdom that provided the path of righteousness for us. It is His wisdom that devised the saving plan in Christ.  His great kindness leads us to repentance, it says in Romans 2. God is kind and His kindness works for our good.  Everything in God’s nature works for our goodness…His grace, His mercy, His compassion, even His law which calls us to the obedience that produces blessing. But let’s take, secondly, God’s promises. Not only God’s nature but let me talk for a minute about God’s promises.

God’s promises work for our good. The precious promise of God is the victory for the troubled soul when guilt comes. He promises to be gracious to the humble, James 4. When disobedience is our experience and when we disobey His Word and disobey His law, we have the promise of Hosea 14:4, “I will heal their backslidings.” The promise of Micah 7:18, “Who is a pardoning God like Thee?” There is grace with Him. There is mercy with Him. There is forgiveness with Him. There is pardon with Him. When trouble comes we have the promise of Psalm 91:15, “I will be with him in trouble.” Psalm 37:39, “I will give him strength in the time of trouble.” When deprivation comes and we’re out of human resources, Philippians 4:19 says, “My God shall supply all your needs.” Psalm 37:25 says, “I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor His seed begging bread.” Jacob said, “Lord, Thou hast said Thou wilt do me good,” Genesis 32:12. God’s promises secure the goodness of God to us.  God’s nature is good and brings us goodness. God’s promises are good and produce for us goodness.  I need to add not only does the very character of God, the very nature of God, the very promises of God work for our good, but all of Scripture works for our good. I have to add that because I don’t want to just leave it with the promises…all of Scripture works for our good. It says in Acts 20:32, “The Word of His grace is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified.” Everything produces good…everything. Worship, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart to the Lord, obeying all the Scripture works for good. Those are the good things…the character of God, the promises of God, the Word of God. And let me add, prayer works for our good. This is a means of grace …prayer works for our good. It’s really the key that unlocks the treasury of God’s mercy. Prayer keeps the heart open to God and shut to sin. Prayer mitigates the intemperate heart and the swellings of lust. It was Luther’s counsel to a friend when he perceived a temptation to immediately go to prayer. It is the dispeller of sorrow because it vents the grief, and eases the heart. It says in 1 Samuel 1 that when Hannah had prayed in her sorrow, she went away and was no sadder. These are good things, all that the Bible calls for, prayer, worship, the Lord’s Table, any form of obedience, any form of submission. The fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, anything in the Scripture, anything that it calls for, any means of Grace becomes a source of good.   Let’s go deeper now, go beyond the character of God, the nature of God, the promises of God, the Scripture and all its fullness and all that it calls for; let’s talk about angels. Angels are good, good angels, holy angels.

Angels work for our good

Do you know they work for our good? They work for our good. Hebrews 1:14, says, “Angels are ministering spirits set out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation.” We don’t even know what’s going on, folks, but angels are assisting in bringing us to glory. They’re sent to render service to us so that we will inherit our salvation. They protect us from those things that would destroy us. Matthew 18:10, one of the really remarkable statements of Jesus, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones,” talking about believers, these little ones who believe in Me, meaning believers who are childlike, which we all are, “don’t look down or think little on these little ones for I say to you, that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven.” The picture here is, God’s in heaven and God is watching His children and if you despise them or belittle any believer, it shows up as concern to God.  Remember, the angels are always watching God’s face, to pick up that concern to be dispatched by Him to the aid of those believers.   That’s a tremendous concept.

God in His nature works for our good, God in His promises works for our good. God in His Word has produced diverse spiritual means to produce our good; He has even given to holy angels the assignment of working for our good. They’re always beholding His face so that they’re in ready contact with Him to be dispatched to the aid of those for whom He shows concern.

People work for our good

I would add  one more category. That’s people. Other believers work for our good, that’s true…other believers work for our good. You can see this, in 2 Corinthians 1:24, Paul says, “We are workers with you for your joy…we are workers with you for your joy.” You know, the Lord has distributed through the entire body of Christ spiritual gifts. I have the gifts in the area of teaching and preaching, you have gifts in other various areas, and those gifts are to be used for the strengthening of believers.  I would hope that the expression of my gifts,  my life and  expression of my ministry works for your good. I hope my gifts work for your spiritual edification, for your greater knowledge of Scripture, your greater love for Christ, your greater love for God, your greater service to the Lord, your greater grasp of truth so that you can honor Him in His Word.  Hebrews 10:24 says, “When you come together, stimulate one another to love and good works.” We come together to worship with the purpose of stimulating each other to goodness. Therefore saints, work together to produce good in each other. What an atrocity when a believer leads another believer into sin. Jesus said in Matthew 18 that if you lead another believer into sin you’d be better off to be drown with a millstone around your neck and thrown in the deep sea. You never want to lead another believer into sin; you must always want to do good to them.  James 5 talks about the spiritually strong praying for the spiritually weak so that good can be brought about by good deeds. Our good God is doing good for us constantly as an expression of the goodness of His character and His nature. Our good God has made to us great and precious promises. Our God has given us His good Word which ministers good to us as we learn it and apply it and obey it. God has called the good and holy angels to our aid to do good for us. He has designed that saints within the church mutually minister goodness to each other. These are the good things. Well, all of that is important and all of that is true, but frankly, that is not really the important element of the passage. Go back to the passage for a minute. What the passage is really saying here is that it’s not just good things that work for our good, but it’s also bad things that work for our good. If everything went exactly the way we want, we wouldn’t even ask the question whether our salvation would be sustained. We wouldn’t be asking the question…can we lose our salvation…if  good was all there was. God does, in spite of all that He has promised and pledged to us, in spite of all that’s in His Word; In spite of all the paths of obedience we can walk and thereby be blessed, in spite of the work of holy angels, in spite of the mutual stimulation and goodness of believers around us, in spite of all of that our lives are still filled with bad things, aren’t they?

Bad Things

Man is born of trouble as the sparks fly upward. Jesus said, “In the world you’re going to have   trouble and tribulation.” We have bad things in our lives and they become the real issue. Can bad things separate us from God? Can bad things bring us out of a non-condemnation status into a condemnation status? Can bad things cause Christ not to love us anymore? Can bad things cause God to remove our salvation? Well, let’s ask these questions,

There are three categories of bad things that I want you to see…three categories of bad things. Category number one, I’ll call suffering.   Suffering is bad. I mean, it’s reflective of the curse. Adam and Eve didn’t suffer in the garden before the fall. There wasn’t any pain. There wasn’t any sorrow. There weren’t any tears. There wasn’t even any death.

The first area of bad things that we have to deal with is suffering. Life is just full of it. It starts out at the beginning and lingers there and maximizes itself at the end in the horrors of death.  Life is just full of bad things. Life is full of pain and suffering. That’s how it is. But, you know something? That’s within the plan of God. Ruth 1:21 says, “The Almighty has afflicted me.” In Exodus God said, “Have not I made the blind, and the lame, ?”  Job said, “The Lord gave and the Lord…what?…taken away.” Jeremiah 24:5 says, “Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive and Judah whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.” Isn’t that amazing? God says I’m sending Judah into captivity in Chaldea, or Babylon, for their good. That was a bad thing as far as they were concerned. It involved the destruction of Jerusalem, it involved literally leveling the city of Jerusalem, and it involved the massacre and death of many, many people. It was suffering of rather monstrous proportions. But even suffering which is bad can work for good. First Peter 5:10 “After you have suffered for a little while the God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory in Christ will Himself perfect, confirm strengthen and establish you.” That’s why James 1 says, “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials...right?…knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience and patience has a perfect work.” Suffering produces good. Why? We learn how to deal with pain and therefore we learn how to help others deal with it. We learn compassion. We learn patience. We learn gentleness. We learn trust. We experience Grace from God and mercy and sustenance. The goodness of God can come out of suffering. I think of Joseph, his brothers threw him in a pit, sold him off as a slave. He was thrown into prison but in the end it all worked together for good, Genesis 50:20, “You meant it for evil, I meant it for good.” And then there was Job. There’s a man who suffered. Lost everything he had, absolutely everything, all his children died, lost all of his wealth, all of his crops, all of his land, and all of his animals. Then he got ulcers and boils. He was a catastrophe without parallel. Through it all God was working good and in the end he says this, “I heard of Thee with the hearing of mine ear but now my eye sees Thee and I repent in dust and ashes.” He learned the greatness and goodness of God through it all. It was a remarkable, remarkable lesson. Paul burdened in 2 Corinthians 12 with a thorn in the flesh. Prayed three times for the Lord to remove it, the Lord said “I’m not removing it; I’m going to leave it there because it humbles you and because in your weakness you’re made strong.” When you can’t trust yourself, and when you’re at the end of your own resources, then you have to turn to God and become strong. Even Paul’s blindness in Acts 9 drove him to Christ. Suffering is good. God uses it to do a number of things. I’ll just recite a few of them. He uses it to teach us to hate sin. You know, when you look at all the suffering in the world as Christians, you don’t ask the questions that the world asks. The world says…why has all this happened? Right? Why is the world like this? They don’t understand because there’s no recognition of the impact of sin. But when you and I look at the suffering in the world, we hate the sin that caused the suffering. You remember Jesus was at the tomb of Lazarus and He started to cry and you might ask the question…why in the world is He crying, He’s about to raise Him from the dead? He wasn’t crying because Lazarus was dead, He wanted him dead, that’s why He hadn’t come sooner. When Lazarus was sick they sent a message and said, “Come down here, he’s sick.” Jesus didn’t go. He wanted him dead because He wanted this spectacular miracle to occur during the Passover season, as it was all part of orchestrating the cross and the resurrection.  Jesus wanted Lazarus dead, and when He arrived and saw the sorrowful weeping and the anguish of the family, Jesus wept. He wept not because Lazarus was dead, but He wept because He could extrapolate from that experience all the suffering of all humanity through all the years when loved ones die. He could see the consequence of sin. Thus, it teaches us to hate sin also. We understand all the suffering in the world gives us an aversion to sin, and that’s good. That’s a good lesson to learn. You ought to make a conclusion somewhere along the line in your mind that if sin on a big scale causes so much disaster, it will cause the same disaster on a smaller scale. It’s consequences in your life are just the same as the consequences  in the world. If you hate it in the world, you ought to hate it in your own life. Secondly, suffering teaches us to see the evil that is in us. Whenever we suffer we’re reminded that we’re still fallen, aren’t we? The corruption of our hearts just boils up in our suffering. You suffer and what happens? You get impatient, you become bitter, and you begin to question and doubt God. You really begin to see the fallenness that’s still in your life. You could get angry or wallow in self-pity, you can become very self-centered, prideful and make everybody suffer  your pain. Suffering is good because it will teach you to hate sin, it will teach you to see the evil that is in you. Suffering is good also because it will drive you to God. Like Paul, when you get to the point where you have nowhere to go, you wind up going to Him and that’s good. I don’t know about you but when suffering is experienced, the greater the prayer life becomes, is that not true? In prosperity the heart is easily distracted and is easily divided. Suffering drives out the world and sends us singularly to God. Further, I think suffering is good because it will conform us to Christ and it helps us to experience the fellowship of His sufferings. We begin to understand our Lord, as Paul said… to bear the marks of Christ. We suffer with Him. Romans tells us that we might reign with Him right here in Romans 8. We participate in Philippians 3 the fellowship of His sufferings. It helps us to identify with Him and to go to Him as our great High Priest. Suffering also drives out sin.  Job 23:10 says, “And when He has tried me I shall come forth as gold.” Suffering will destroy your dreams, ambitions, pride, and in many cases will burn out the dross in your life. The Lord uses suffering as a chastening to drive out sin. Severe chastening sometimes culminates in death, 1 Cor 11: 12 “ some of you are weak and sick and some of you sleep” Paul said to the  Corinthians because of the way you desecrate the Lord’s table. There is a sin unto death, 1 John says, no sense in praying for the person who has committed that. No sense in praying for the person the Lord is chastening to death. There can be some very severe chastening.  In Hebrews it says, “For whom the Lord loves He chastens.” Suffering is good because it can drive out our sin. It’s good too because ultimately it brings joy. You say, “What do you mean?” Job 5:17 says, “Happy is the man whom God corrects…happy is the man whom God corrects.” You need to look at suffering that comes into your life and confess that you must be a child of God because He scourges His own. Right? Hebrews 13. If I’m going through suffering and  pain, the Lord is refining me, the Lord is scourging me, one or the other or maybe a little of both, and after I have been corrected, while it seems grievous for the moment, in the end it will bring joy. John 12, Jesus said to the disciples, “You’re going to suffer but it’s going to be like birth pangs, and out of that suffering is going to come joy.” Then suffering is good because it produces greater glory. In 2 Corinthians 4:17, momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory, far beyond all comparison. All the suffering in this life that you endure will be compensated for in the life to come in greater glory. It’s a marvelous thing to think about, the goodness that comes in suffering. Suffering is good, it works for good. It’s not in itself good, it doesn’t feel good, it’s an element of the curse and  fallenness and it’s related to the sinful realities in our existence, but it is good because it teaches us to hate sin.

It teaches us to see the evil that is in us, it drives us to God, and conforms us to Christ. It drives sin out, it ultimately produces joy because we’ve been refined and corrected and it gains for us an eternal weight of glory. This is a marvelous benefit. This is a great blessing.

Struggling

Secondly, let’s not talk about suffering; let’s talk about something else that is bad in one sense but produces good. Let’s call it struggling yes, struggling. Now we move away from suffering which has often to do with our physical being, to struggling which has to do with the moral,  and spiritual battles we fight. What I mean by struggling is battling temptation. Even that works together for good. You say how? Well first of all, it sends us to our knees to pray. You know, when the animal sees the hunter coming, he runs to safety. Certainly when the believer sees the enemy coming, he runs into the presence of God. Psalm 42, “Tempted to despair, David was driven to God.” The struggle with temptation drives us to our knees. It devastates our spiritual pride. It shows us that we’re really weak. Anybody who parades their pride, who thinks they’ve arrived spiritually and they’re more spiritual, pious, godly and more virtuous than somebody else really doesn’t understand. They don’t understand what we understand, that we are all sinners. Struggling with temptation is the way to do that. Just when you think you’ve arrived spiritually, here comes that wave of temptation and that struggle. You lose the struggle and you have to go back and ask yourself whether you have as much spiritual maturity as you think you have. So, even the struggle with temptation is good for us. It causes us to lean on the strength of Christ. That’s another element. That’s why in 2 Corinthians 12 Paul goes to the Lord in the midst of his struggle. Further, it makes us desire heaven. I don’t know about you but I get weary of the struggles. That’s why Paul said, “I’d rather depart and be with Christ, I’m tired of this, to die is gain.”Suffering can work together for good. Struggling can work together for good. Even temptation, amazingly, can produce good. It can send us to prayer, break our pride, teach us how really weak we are, force us to lean on Christ and to long for heaven. I think of Peter who lost the battle at the arrest of Jesus, the internal battle with temptation, denied Christ, went out and wept bitterly. Those were tears of a man who had learned some hard lessons. He had learned so much about his weakness. He learned so much about the wiles of Satan. He learned so much about the importance of praying instead of sleeping. But even temptation could be turned into good for us if we learn those same lessons. I think that was step one on the road to Peter becoming the man he was in the book of Acts.

Sin

Let’s get to the real issue here. Suffering is bad but produces good. Sin is bad  but works together for good, this is the most notable thing of all. Even the sins of believers work for their good. Everything I’ve said up to now is true but it really isn’t the point here. This is the point. You say, “How in the world could sin work together for good? How can God cause sinful things to come out for good?” It’s not by the nature of the sin, but it’s by the nature of God’s Grace and mercy because it is God who brings light out of darkness and sweet out of bitter. This in no way lessons the vile, filthy nature of sin but it shows that sin cannot ultimately triumph in the believer because God overrules it with His Grace and it turns out good. How can it be good, because it gives an opportunity for God to demonstrate Grace and that’s good, because it is covered by the righteousness of Christ and that’s good. Should we sin that Grace may abound? No, no, no. Our sin deserves eternal hell. Now as believers our sins still deserves eternal hell as much as it did before we were saved.

It doesn’t change. It’s still wicked. It’s still sin. It’s still an offense to God. It’s still deserving of damnation and eternal punishment but God in His mercy through Christ overrules that. That’s the point here. The point is not just that suffering and struggling works together for our good in life. No, the real point here is everything that happens in life, the worse of which is sin, is not at all able to overrule the saving purpose of God. That’s the main point. That’s just an incredible marvelous reality. Our own sins can have a good result if they cause us to be humble, and repentant,   if they cause us to praise God for His forgiveness, cause us to long for glory, to pursue holiness, enhance our prayer lives, drive us to the Word of God, to spiritual accountability and to faithfulness.  So, if the weariness with our sin moves us toward a greater devotion to God and Christ with more worship and prayer, more Bible study, more faithfulness, and more ministry, then there’s good out of that. But that’s not the main point. The good that He’s talking about here is the good of eternal glory…and there isn’t any suffering in life that can alter your eternal glory nor alter your eternal glory. There isn’t even any sin in life that can alter your eternal glory. Everything works together for your good in time and your glory in eternity. All the matters of life, whatever they are good or bad, are all working together for good by God. Good things like God’s nature, promises, the Word and prayer, angels and believers are working for your good. Bad things like suffering, struggling and sin work for your good by teaching you to hate sin, teaching you to see your fallenness, to be humiliated before God and desire more of God, to conform to Christ,  pray, to be penitent and repentant,  to long for God’s grace, and to be grateful for forgiveness. But beyond all of those things which are here and now, all that can happen to you in this life good and bad will ultimately be used by God to bring you to eternal glory. That is the monumental truth here. Bottom line…nothing can separate us from the love of Christ because everything works together for good which means our eternal glory.

Doctrine of eternal security reiterated in Romans 8:29-30

That establishes the doctrine of eternal security and is reiterated in verses 29 – 30, He foreknew, He predestined, He called, He justified, He glorified, and everybody gets there. That’s why in verse 31 you have this explosion into this great concluding benediction. If everything works for our ultimate glory, then nothing can alter that…absolutely nothing. But there is the limitation here given in verse 28, “To those who…what?  “love God and are called according to His purpose.”

Romans 8:28 has a limit to whom the “all things” apply.

There is no limit at all on the “all things,” but there is a limit with regard to whom the “all things” applies. Everything in the life of a believer works for their good, conversely, nothing in the life of an unbeliever works ultimately for their good. Nothing. Their good or their bad are before God wickedness and it only produces eternal judgment. That’s why though non-believers can have good in their lives, it will really work to their bad.

I have one more teaching to give on Rom 8:28. I want to expound further on this verse in order to insure we don’t do what Satan does, when he calls good, evil and evil, good.  Satan does this constantly in order to beguile, accuse, and slander. We have to understand this. Amen!

A.W.Tozer “Whatever God is He is infinitely.  In Him lies all the power there is; any power at work anywhere is His. Even the power to do evil must first have come from Him since there is no other source from which it could come.  Lucifer, son of the morning, when he lifted up himself against the Most High, had only the abilities he had received from God. These he misused to become the devil he is.

I am well aware that this kind of teaching raises certain very difficult questions, but we should never retreat before truth simply because we cannot explain it.  To shrink from this truth is to raise still more and harder questions and, worst of all; it is to think feebly of God, the supreme indignity.”

Lesson:

Now as we continue our study on the Providence of God, you will recall that in our last lesson we looked at the popular passage in Roman 8:28, where the apostle, with tremendous optimism tells us  “All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.” Hopefully, you remember in that discussion that I raised the point that everything that happens to us being ultimately good.

Making a fundamental mistake.

Now there is a danger lurking here because it could be that we end up making a fundamental mistake, in fact something that the Bible strictly prohibits. That is we do what Satan does when we call good evil and evil good.  That’s the monstrous lie that the serpent uses to beguile, tempt, accuse and to seduce God’s people away from the truth. This tendency we have is our fallen nature. When we do something that is clearly in violation of the law of God, what is our human tendency but to try to find some way to justify what we have done. Some form of rationalization, so that by the time we explain our conduct it comes out being a virtue rather than a vice; which is calling evil good.  Yet at the same time we are accustomed to twisting good and evil to such a degree that we will call the goodness of God evil.

There is an account in the New Testament, when John the Baptist, the great Prophet whom God used to announce the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who stood beside the Jordan River and said, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” this John the Baptist who was one of the most heroic people in the New Testament was the very same man whom when he was thrown into prison went through a period of doubt and struggle. John sent his disciples to Jesus with a question, that I find somewhat troubling. The disciples of John went to Jesus with John’s question. “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”  John was walking through the valley of the shadow of death and he feared evil, he was beginning to vacillate in his faith. He was wavering on the identity of the One whom he had been ordained from birth to declare to be the incarnate presence of God.  He’s having a crisis, are you really the one that I believed you to be, or should we look for someone else?   Dear friends, how many times have you felt like that? How many times have you actually done it, not just thought it, but actually did it?  I’m talking about searching for another redeemer and savior. How did Jesus deal with John’s doubt?   He told John’s disciples to tell John what he has not been able to see from his prison cell- tell John about my ministry.  Go back and tell him that the blind are receiving their sight, the deaf are hearing, the lame are walking, the dead are being raised and the poor are having the gospel preached to them. You go tell John that!  Now, why do you suppose Jesus answered John’s inquiry in that manner?  I’ll take a sanctified guess at it.

Jesus’ solution

I think what Jesus is saying in response to John’s question is this; John while you are alone and being assaulted with doubts, why don’t you pick up your Bible and read it again.  Remember, what I had to deal with in the wilderness when I had a confrontation with Satan and he wanted me to do all kinds of things that would move me out of my calling.  I told him that I could not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.  Now the word that came from the mouth of God that you need to read again is Isaiah 61. That’s where the work and ministry of the Messiah is spelled out in detail.  You remember that text.  “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;” In other words, John go back and read the job description of the one who is to come. Because, I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to do and exactly what the Word of God says I’m to do. What’s the problem with John?   John’s expectations of Jesus were not being met and when his expectations were not being met, doubt about the Lord Jesus Christ came into his mind.

Jesus gives testimony about John the Baptist

A curious thing happens after the disciples of John leave Jesus.  Jesus turns to those who are there and begins to give testimony, not about Himself, but about John the Baptist. He says “What did you people go out in the wilderness to see?  a reed shaken by the wind?”  Why did Jesus say that?  It’s because if people overheard this conversation, perhaps now there confidence in John the Baptist was lost. They could be wondering, what’s wrong with this guy, he was bold, he was courageous, he was our leader and now he’s asking if you’re the one who is to come, or should we look for another? Jesus asks did you go out to see, someone dressed in soft clothes.  Those who are dressed in soft clothes live in royal palaces.  John  is languishing in prison  because of the testimony of Me.

There is none born of women greater than John the Baptist

Of all the men born of women, there is none greater than John as he is not a reed shaken in the wind. Then Jesus goes on to give beatitude.  We tend to think that all of the beatitudes that Jesus gave were found in the Sermon on the Mount, where He says… “Blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who are poor in spirit, and so on. You would’ve thought that He exhausted His list of beatitudes in that one sermon, but no, because He gives a special beatitude for John, when he said, “Blessed are those who are not offended by me.”

Jesus seen as a stumbling block, people find Jesus offensive

“Blessed are those who are not offended by me.” I believe what Jesus is getting at here; based on the language He uses, has to do with what we find in Scripture concerning the Rock of offence, the Stone of stumbling.  Jesus is saying that there are people who stumble over Me, and find Me offensive. Later on the Bible says that One who was regarded by many as a rock of offence and as a stumbling stone, God declared to be Jesus.  Jesus is the Chief Corner Stone of the Kingdom of God. He is the chief corner stone of the house of God, the chief corner stone of the family of God. Yet others saw Him as a stumbling block and were offended by Him.

Sometimes when we deal with questions of ethics and moral theology we deal with human relationships. Human relationships that end in dispute and conflict and people get offended.  You offend somebody and you’re offended by somebody.  This is part of the fabric of our daily lives isn’t?

We are called to be inoffensive in our behavior.

The Bible warns us not to be offensive in our behavior, particularly towards the weak and towards the little ones.  Woe unto him through whom the offense comes. We are called to be inoffensive in our behavior.  But the distinction we make in ethics is this – an offense given and an offense taken- it’s in the fabric of our language. I’ll say, something like, now don’t be offended in what I’m about to say. I don’t want you to be offended, my intent is not to offend you, I don’t want to do anything wrong to you. If I do something wrong to you, then you have every right to be offended, because I’ve committed an offense.  This is an offense given.  However, sometimes when you don’t do anything wrong to people they’re offended.  What can you do about it?  This is the case of the offense taken.  There was no offense given, yet someone took offense. They got offended by something you said or by something that you did. Now, the perfect example of this problem focuses on the life of Jesus. If Jesus ever gave an offense unjustly, that would have been a sin.  Jesus never gave an offense unjustly.  He would no longer have been sinless and if He’s not sinless, He can’t save anybody, let alone Himself.  His sinlessness is an absolute requirement and prerequisite for His qualifying to be our Redeemer. Can we say that anyone who ever met Jesus or encountered Him was offended by Him?  All kinds of people took offense at Jesus.  The Pharisees were offended by Jesus, the Scribes were offended by Jesus, even and the disciples of John the Baptist were offended.  Jesus says “you people can’t be pleased; you are like the children in the market place who play their little game. We played the flute and you didn’t dance, we played the dirge and you didn’t mourn.”  He asked how have you related to John, and how have you related to Me?  John came out of the wilderness dressed in this bazaar costume, a costume reminiscent of old testament Elijah, a guy living on wild locust and honey, he looked like a cave man coming out of the desert and he gave you this message, “repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  He insisted that you go down in the water, because you are unclean, and get ready to meet the Messiah. He said your King is about to show up and you’re not ready.  What did you say about him?  You said, he had a demon and so you said to the scribes and Pharisees you would not submit to God’s command through John the Baptist to baptism.

Pharisees call good evil

But the common people saw the righteousness of God in John the Baptist and they went to the river Jordon and asked to be baptized for cleansing, that they might not be filthy when the bride groom came. You see, John when he came out of the wilderness was doing what was right and most of the people saw John’s action as being good, but others like the Pharisees and the Scribes saw John’s behavior as evil, calling him a demon.

They were calling good evil. They were taking offense at righteousness.  Jesus said that John came as an ascetic, a person of great self-denial, living in the wilderness, living on locust and wild honey. Then what happen?   Jesus came, He didn’t fast, and they said that He was a wine bibber and a glutton eating with tax collectors and with evil people, and He’s wicked.

When John came it was time for the dirge, the land was in mourning. The people were in anguish waiting for their redemption. The wedding hadn’t taken place yet and the groom hadn’t shown up.  Jesus had to teach His disciples.  He said when the bridegroom comes and the wedding is taking place that is not the time for fasting.  That’s the time for joy and celebration. The flute is being played and when the flute is being played its time to dance. You don’t mourn when the flute is played and you don’t dance at the funeral when the dirge is being played.

Disappointments in our expectations

Now the bottom line in this episode, the very thing that John struggled with and what we struggle with is disappointment in our expectations. If I expect something from you and I don’t get it, I am disappointed and even offended. But  if you’re offended, and hurt, you’re offense may be utterly without merit. You have no right to be offended because your expectation was not correct in the first place. However, if I promise you that I’m going to do something by such and such a time and I don’t do it, then you’re disappointed because I didn’t meet your expectation has merit and you have every right to take offense.  This is what John the Baptist was struggling with.  When he was in his cell, he was saying, when is Jesus going to make His move?

John’s expectations not met

I expected long before now that this one who I announced as King would manifest His kingship and would drive the Romans out. Jesus wasn’t meeting John’s expectations. John’s taking offense, should I look for another? That’s what we do with the Providence of God.  We have expectations of God and when He doesn’t meet our expectations we are offended. We start to look for someone who will meet our expectations because we don’t pay attention to what God has promised us.  He said I will do every single thing that I have ever promised that I would do when in my judgment it is the appropriate time to do it.  If you expect me to do it when you want me to do it, you are going to be disappointed.

Taking offense can be calling good evil

And you’re going to be taking offense and you are going to be calling good, evil.  Dear friends, we must believe that God doesn’t know how to do evil, and we must be very careful at this point. Faith in the Providence of God really is faith that He is working “all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.”

Looking at the important qualifiers in Romans 8:28

As we have been studying the Providence of God we have been looking at the most famous passage in Scripture that gives comfort to us about Divine Providence and of course that’s our text Roman 8:28. We just looked at the danger of confusing good and evil, of calling good – evil and evil – good.  Now I would like us to change gears a bit and look at the important qualifiers in this verse. Remember it says all things work together for good … for whom? We see two things here.  For those who love God and for those who are called according to His purpose.  So, I believe we can all agree that this is not a blanket universal promise from God, where God says, I’m going to make everything that will ever happen to be positive and good for everyone. There is definitely a restriction in this promise. The promise is for those who God has called and those who love God. Dear friends, that tells me that if you don’t love God, there is no guarantee that everything that happens will ultimately work together for your good.  And if you are not among those who are called according to God’s purpose and if you are actively working against the purposes of God, don’t dare take refuge in this verse.

The Providence of God is a two edge sword

The reason is that the Providence of God is a two edge sword.  God’s Providence includes His government and God’s execution of His government includes His execution of His justice. Let me take a moment to explain what God’s government means in terms of His Providence.  Let me again explain it briefly. This may be defined as “that continued activity of God whereby He rules all things by design or purpose so as to secure the accomplishment of the divine purpose.” God’s government is thus His providence considered from the point of view of the purpose or “end to which God is guiding all things in creation, namely, to the glory of His name.” God governs as King of the universe. As King of the universe, God is the source of all authority in heaven and on earth, the King of kings and Lord of lords. God established the laws of nature and by means of these laws He administers the government of the physical universe. But God is a moral being and has created man in His image; therefore God’s government of man has a moral character.

Through His sovereign, wise and beneficent will, God governs and controls His creatures by making use of moral influences, such as circumstances, motives, instruction, persuasion and example. God’s government is universal as it is the execution of His eternal purpose. However, like His providence, His government is both general and particular: Everything is under God’s control for the purpose of revealing His own glory. Thus God’s providence and divine government cannot be separated. God’s providence and divine government of the natural order, of the nations, and of man, may be considered separately if we bear in mind  they all work together to achieve His ends.

God’s providence and divine government: the natural order

God controls everything in nature, from rain and hail, good crops and plagues, to health and sickness, life and death. Since God’s will is directly responsible for the regularity of the natural order, day/night, summer/winter; nothing is impossible with God. He reveals Himself through His providential government of the natural order: The man who does not acknowledge God is without excuse,  the fulfillment of His promises are guaranteed.

God’s providence and divine government: world history

The whole of Scripture as biblical history is one long record of divine government. The two most important events in God’s plan of redemption as revealed in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, are Christ’s first coming to herald God’s kingdom and His return to reign as King of kings. Throughout the Old Testament the rise and fall of nations were dependent upon God’s will, and decreed by Him according to His eternal purposes. Israel, as God’s instrument for bringing about His plan of redemption, was governed according to strict moral laws. Depending upon their obedience or disobedience, they were either rewarded or punished.

God’s providence and divine government: individuals

One problem often raised about God’s providence is that it seems difficult to reconcile it with man’s freedom. The Bible does teach God’s absolute control, but at the same time man is a truly free agent and therefore morally responsible for his actions. God prompts us to will and to do what He commands, but the praise for the good is due to God’s grace. We are, in fact, “not able to reconcile God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility” because we cannot comprehend “the nature of divine knowledge” nor “the laws that govern human conduct.” This is therefore one of those teachings of the Bible that we must accept by faith as one of God’s mysteries, which will be revealed to us “when perfection comes” and we “shall know fully.”

Another problem arises because of God’s dealings with Israel as a nation concerning reward or punishment for obedience or disobedience. Two questions have been asked:

The Bible makes it clear that the purpose of God’s tolerance and patience with the wicked is to give them an opportunity for repentance, but that His judgment and vengeance is sure.

Why do the just so often suffer? There are several answers:

a) There is a distinction between the righteous and the wicked and it will  be seen in the Day of the Lord;

b) Meanwhile suffering is the Lord’s discipline;

c) The bearing of suffering patiently glorifies God and leads to blessing;

d) The righteous need to walk in faith and not allow adverse circumstances to affect communion with God.

In the New Testament the fact that believers suffer is no longer a problem because Jesus, the only Just and Innocent, suffered the ultimate penalty. We believers are called upon to share in Christ’s sufferings in order to share in the glory to be revealed. The belief in God’s providence and divine government teaches His people “to wait on Him in humility and patience for vindication and deliverance;” To have courage and hope rather than despair; and to pray to Him for help, and to praise Him for everything. To get back to what we said before we defined God’s Providential Government … I said that God’s Providence includes His government and God’s execution of His government includes His execution of His justice.

God’s Justice

In His Justice He will punish impenitent sinners. Well, that’s kind of a scary thought, in fact when you think about it; it’s probably the scariest thought of all.  It’s the one thought that no unbeliever ever wants to think about.  The person who refuses to submit to God, even if he acknowledges the existence of God;  this person will place his trust and hope that God will somehow capriciously forgive everything he  has ever done and never call him into account. That must be their hope.  They all say they’re going to heaven.

Our culture is a culture that has come to the place where they view punishment as being more and more repulsive. When a person willfully and purposefully commits an act of vandalism and destroys someone’s property, it becomes an international incident when the local authorities seek to punish him. Because there is an outcry against punishment rendered by human government, how much more is there a protest against the idea that God might punish us? Can you remember a while back there was a canning incident that took place in Singapore?  Do you remember the controversy that took place here in the U.S? People were saying the punishment was cruel and unusual and questioned whether justice was really served.  At the same time the news media were polling people here in the US, whether it was appropriate to spank children in the schools. Whether corporal punishment is ever legitimate?  My purpose today is not to focus on these issues, but only to remind you that we have a growing opposition and repugnance for the very concept of punishment. I’ll tell you one thing that I’m very sure about and that is that God is not interested in being politically correct. God doesn’t rule by referendum or take His cue from the government system of Singapore or the government system of the US.  God has decreed the punishment of evil. We’ve got Scripture that attest to a day when He will judge the whole world and He will call every human being that has ever lived to make account. Now if those people do not love God, the supposed good things that they received from Gods hand during their life time will actually work against them.

The sin of ingratitude

We are told in Scripture that one of the most fundamental, basic, foundational sins of the human heart is the sin of ingratitude.  When Paul tells us in the first chapter of Romans that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven,  He tells us that that wrath is not revealed against innocence or righteousness or against goodness, because God is not a tyrant or capricious.  Rather His wrath is revealed against ungodliness, unrighteousness and the most basic ungodly things that we do as His creatures.   What is that basic thing that we do as His creatures? Paul says, they would not honor Him as God, neither were they grateful.  Think about it, perhaps the most two frequent offenses that we commit against God are a stubborn abject refusal to honor Him as God. Let me speak personally to all of us and those who will read this paper. In the privacy of your mind, where the only person who can intrude on that privacy is God Himself,  I want you to ask yourself in that interior compartment call the mind of your own consciousness, DO YOU HONOR GOD! Do you have a sense of reverence, and devotion and affection for the God who made you?  According to Paul, Paul is saying that God has made His presence known, clearly and manifestly.

God has already revealed His existence to you.  He says that all of us in our fallen corrupt human nature repress that knowledge, we fight against that knowledge, and we seek to flee from that knowledge.  We end up refusing to honor God in our minds.  The second thing is “neither were they grateful.” You know how it is in your own life where you can be offended. How about when you bend over backwards, walk the second mile, make a sacrifice of some sort , try to do something good, even giving  something that is costly to you and then you realize that they have no appreciation what so ever.  They show no gratitude and show no sense of being grateful for your gift. Of course you realize how offensive that is to you.  Well, it’s also offensive to God; the Scripture tells us that every good and perfect gift that we ever received in this world comes from God. Everything comes from God.  You may think that you have pulled yourself up from your bootstraps and that you’ve earned every single benefit that you’ve received and you take the credit for it. You haven’t taken into account that every skill that you have, all the gifts that you have were bestowed upon you by your Creator.  You insult Him, by calling your success a matter of your own skill or whatever beside God. You have despised the benefits of God.  Now what is the price tag for that? You see, everytime God gives us a gift, everytime God is gracious to us can become an occasion for the increase of our sin. If for no other reason, everytime we receive a gift from God and we refuse to acknowledge that it comes from God and refuse to express gratitude to God for it, we become guilty of the sin of ingratitude. In light of the passage in Romans 8:28 where “…all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”  In light of this passage any bad thing that takes place in your life, ultimately will become a good thing.  But there is another side to that story, there is another face on that coin.

Not loving God

If you do not love God, then every good thing that has happen to you is ultimately a bad thing, because it is now  ultimately working for your destruction.  Because through God’s goodness you have hardened your heart and increased your hostility to Him and with every gift He gives you your guilt is multiplied as long as you refuse to be grateful. So in simple terms, what this text is teaching us is that for those who love God, there is no such thing ultimately as a tragedy and for those who despise God there is no such thing ultimately as a blessing. You see if you don’t love God your blessing will be your curse and if you do love Him your curse will be your blessing.  There are no other alternatives. I mentioned before about that international incident where a canning took place in Singapore, where the president of the US tried to intercede and have the government of Singapore  not go through with this penalty.

Out of deference to the President of the US, the president of Singapore said they would reduce the amount of lashes from six to four.  The President of Singapore saw that as an act of mercy and grace. The sinner in hell would do anything he could do to reduce his number of lashes by one.

Deceived about sin and punishment

Dear friends we have this very foolish propensity to believe that God will not only punish us, but we hedge our bets by saying if He does punish us that all of our sins are equally serious and there will be no difference in the punishment. They would believe that the lusting after a woman would be the same as actually committing the act, so they might just as well commit the act.  They believe they won’t be any guiltier then they are already. So there is no sense in putting any restraints on their behavior because it’s all the same.  Paul said No, every single time you refuse to be grateful to the gift of God that ingratitude goes into a bank account. It goes into a treasury and it’s not a treasury of merit. It is not the treasury of the riches of Christ and it’s not the treasury of blessing.  It’s the treasury of wrath.  Paul said, we are heaping up wrath against the day of wrath.

Heaping up wrath

There’ll be some who hope and pray that there will be no day of wrath.  The Old Testament prophets taught there is a day of wrath.  If Jesus of Nazareth ever taught anything, He taught on the chilling Day of Judgment. He taught that every idle word that we speak will be brought into account.  So there will be a day of wrath and if God is capable of wrath, the worst thing that we could possibly do is pile it up. Keep piling up, keep storing up, keep paying into that account, treasuring up, and storing up wrath against the day of wrath. The Bible says it will be a day of darkness with no light in it.  So you see Romans 8:28 is good news and its bad news.

Conclusion

For those who love God and are called according to His purpose and rejoice in His Providential government it’s the best of all possible good news. However, for those who remain ungrateful and unloving towards God, it’s the worst of all possible news.  What kind of news is this for you? This is something you need to understand.  Let me close with a quick summary of the Providence of God.

God’s Providence is always executed in the “wisest manner” possible. We are often unable to see and understand the reasons and causes for specific events in our lives, in the lives of others, or in the history of the world. But our lack of understanding does not prevent us from believing God. We bow to His will, which is evident in His works of Providence.

And we say, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and His ways past finding out!”
The God of Providence rules all things well. How we ought to trust him! Ever remember, our heavenly Father is God all wise, good, and omnipotent. He is too wise to err, too good to do wrong, and too strong to fail. Hopefully you see God more clearly and maybe in a different way they you saw Him before. I pray that it will increase your faith. I also hope you’ve learned from this series that if you are truly saved you can never lose your salvation and you can totally trust God. Amen!

When I failed again and again in a particular weak area, I would experience great guilt and thoughts of condemnation.  As a result, for many years I experienced feeling horrible about myself which robbed my joy, especially when I read in Romans 14:17 “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.”  If we have been reconciled to God by the death of Jesus we should have no ongoing guilt and condemnation. “… We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement” Rom 5:11.

At times guilt can come and red flag us that something is wrong as a conviction. However, what I’m speaking about is guilt, accompanied with tormenting fear; which is a legalistic pressure to do the Word but without the grace to do it. If you do not have the right understanding about how to deal with sin you may continually live in a guilty state before God, even though He says we can go to Him each time for forgiveness; even in an oft repeated sinful area without fear of condemnation. 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I hope by sharing with you, having gone through this struggle for many years, I can help free you of the same “guilt -struggle”.  This vicious cycle of guilt usually leads to believing you are not saved, which strikes at the love and acceptance of God for you.

Instead of resting in the written Word I was driven by feelings. Instead of simply believing the written Word regarding His love and acceptance for me I let my feelings of guilt and condemnation control me. “… He has made us accepted in the beloved” Eph 1:6   I was sin-conscious instead of God-conscious, always trying to correct myself for God like an Old Testament person still under the law.

The Word says in Romans 8:1, “There is now therefore no condemnation to them who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.”  Each time I sinned I kept thinking that I was not walking in the Spirit.  I was up one day and down the next, never sure of my salvation. Romans 8:9 says, “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you…” I let the devil have a heyday with me by making decisions based on my feelings and not by what the Word said about me. I needed to overcome this mindset and gain the victory. I had to settle this by faith in the written Word, in spite of how I felt. With each attack in my mind, I would give Him my trust so that He could fight for me. I had given up using my own strength as it shows in Luke 4 when Jesus depended on His Father’s power to deliver Him from the temptation of the devil.  I am accepted in the beloved and it is not according to my works, goodness or perfection. ( Eph 1:6)   

Tit 3:5    “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost”

Eph 2:8, 9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

The “breastplate of righteousness” (Eph 6:14) has to be put on by faith.  How can we otherwise stand against the devil if we aren’t sure of God’s love for us, and that His righteousness stood in place of our sin?

Once I submitted to God’s warfare, peace started, because the burden was His and He would fight for me. Through renewing my mind with the Word I stopped trying to change me!!!   “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Rom 12:2 .  Now it was His burden. I had come out from under the law of sin and death which kept trying to bind me; I had to rest in His grace by faith and trust in Him.  “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Rom 8:2 .  The purpose of the New Covenant is total dependence on Him and His Spirit. Trying to obey the law in my own strength was not obedience from the heart; it’s only when by faith in Him to do the whole work that it’s truly from the heart. He already accepted me unconditionally. I am “…justified by His blood…” Rom 5:9.  Who is it that condemns? (Rom 8:31-34)   As I gave this area to Him by faith, trusting Him and stopped trying in the flesh to perfect myself, peace came. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and do of His good pleasure” Phil 2:13  I realized my salvation was secure because He said so and I stopped worrying about all my mistakes. I knew He wasn’t rejecting me and I finally felt secure.  It took a constant decision to act in faith to push out these tormenting guilt thoughts and to go on with a productive day. The more dependent I am on Him the less I am controlled by what I am doing and my failings. He wants our devotion and if we don’t have a healthy relationship by knowing internally of our acceptance by Him, it is easy to fall prey to looking inward followed by feelings of insecurity.

We need to put sin in its correct perspective. We must as a “one-time” act believe this verse, “…reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin but alive to God” Rom 6:11. This is how we should view sin in our flesh.  We are dead to it and the law is no longer valid because grace has saved us through faith.  Rom 6:14 “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.”  I knew I was not supposed to sin or have it dominate my life, but at times it would seem to be an ongoing conflict because of “…sin that dwells in me…” Rom 7:17.  Because it is the job of the Holy Spirit to kill sin in us “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Rom 8:13.   As we yield to Him in faith to do so, then we must reckon that the sin that arises in us is not unto condemnation! I have been “crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20). When this understanding came to me fully I was really set free!

An example of spiritual warfare happened when I had a dream that was sensual in nature and when I awoke I felt a tremendous guilt because I could feel the sensual feelings. I always read a daily passage from an A. B. Simpson devotional and by God’s providence its message for the day was the power I needed to bring more freedom to me. These external feelings of guilt tried to affect me concerning my standing and salvation in Jesus Christ. I was declared righteous by His death at the cross “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” Rom 5:21. I am dead to that sin and any other stronghold, as long as I remain in faith, humbly yielding myself to Him to purge these things from my life and never to go back under the works of the law to deliver myself from guilt. The reading from Simpson’s book said this: “When it seems your old self has come back, you listen to it, fear it, believe it, it will have the same influence upon you as if it were not dead. Simply ignore it. It is Satan trying to make you believe your old self is not dead. Refuse it. Treat it as a demon power outside of yourself. The evil thing will disappear because your faith will dispel the spirit. We need to reckon ourselves dead and meet everything from that standpoint.”

The old sinful self is no longer recognized as our true self. He lives in me now. It took courage to take up  the shield of faith and declare I was forgiven.  “He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. 1 John 1:9 The devil likes to say, “There you go again, and again, and again.”  We need to cast that troublesome thought down. 2 Cor 10:5 “Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” and replace it with a scripture from the Word such as “I am forgiven” or “I have been accepted in the beloved.” This will bring peace once again.  He in His time will bring deliverance through “…sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience…” 1 Pet 1:2.  Christ in us is our source of sanctification and when we recognize this, we are dead. We can move from unbelief to faith because we read in 1 Cor 6:11 “… you are sanctified and justified by the Spirit… and  “ Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Rom 6:6.   I was made free from sin and became the servant of righteousness (Rom 6:18). His life indwelling in me counteracts the power of sin in my flesh. Though it is dead we are painfully aware of something that would gladly return to life. We cannot trust our own resources any longer because “For we are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God” Col 3:3.

The spiritual part of us (in our heart) no longer wants to sin. There is a sin principle in your flesh as Paul says in Romans 7, not in your spirit. My flesh may want to sin, parts of my “uncrucified” soul may want to sin, but the real you, renewed you, the born again you, does not want to sin. That’s why you can’t sin comfortably. You can sin and be comfortable when you’re not born again. Being born again we can live and behave in “…newness of life…” Rom 6:4. We are one sharing in His death. We are one with Him sharing in His resurrection by a new life “…in the likeness of His resurrection…” Rom 6:5. Our old “unrenewed” self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that our body which is the instrument of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil that we might be no longer “…servants of sin”.  Rom 6:6. His spirit and His heart are in us. We now have a good heart with His power and grace of the New Covenant enabling us for victory!  We have His righteousness in our spirit. Wrongness might be in our soul and flesh, but our spirit is full of right desires and right wants even though the devil keeps you thinking how bad you are, and how often you fail. While we are aware of our mistakes we are not to always think about them!!! There is no peace in that!!  Sin is no longer the boss! You need to know that when you are in Christ the thoughts of unbelief, “I just can’t get over this…” must yield to Him and we must trust Him diligently and expectantly for deliverance. The devil will try to press and torment you with guilt, but renewing your mind with God’s Word will bring victory. The flip side of this is who are you yielding to, God or the devil? What is it going to cost you to change? You should want to change and know that He died to set you free from a sinful lifestyle. If you are straddling the fence you will end up missing all the good things that God wants for you. Are you yielding to the flesh instead of acknowledging your weaknesses and giving the burden to Him? Whatever sin you yield to over and over is what you become a slave to. Romans 6:16 says, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” We want to be willing slaves to God and do what He wants. Pressure comes from the devil and you need to make the decision about to whom you will yield. We can learn to not react to our emotions and to act on the Word of God and this takes discipline and time. Pray and ask God to change the desires of your heart in an area of weakness so that the temptations can be handled properly and godly. Does it seem like it’s taking so long and it’s not working? That is unbelief and not faith.

Here are some excerpts dealing with this subject from Andrew Murray in his book Covenants and Blessings.   “The intensity of their desire for their needed healing made all who came to Jesus ready to believe His Word. Where the actual desire to be freed from every sin is strong and masters the heart, the presence of the New Covenant comes like bread to a starving man. The subtle belief that it is impossible to be kept from sinning destroys the power of accepting the promises of the Old Testament promise “I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me…I will put my spirit within you and you shall keep my judgment” Eze 36:27. If this is understood in some feeble sense according to our experience and not according to the Word then the soul settles into a despair of self-contentment that says it can never be otherwise. It makes true conviction for sin impossible. The New Covenant provides a guarantee not only for God’s faithfulness, but for man’s too. There is no other way than by God Himself undertaking to secure man’s part as well as His own. No new Covenant could be beneficial unless provision were made for securing obedience. He demanded obedience. If it was to be an everlasting Covenant it must make sufficient provision for securing the obedience of the Covenant people. Christians today are unable to see and believe what the New Covenant really means. They thought human unfaithfulness was a factor to be permanently dealt with as something utterly unconquerable and incurable. They never realized how the Holy Spirit is to be the unceasing, universal, all sufficient worker of everything that has to be done by the Christian. God showed the purpose of the law was to convince man of his sin and awaken his confession of his frailty and need of a New Covenant and true redemption. A real knowledge of the power of sin and our entire inability to cast it out or work in us what is good is what is hard to learn at once. Until this is learned one cannot fully enter into the blessing of the New Covenant. You cannot raise yourself from the dead or keep your soul alive. When you can see this you will be capable of appreciating the New Testament Covenant promise. Then he is made willing to wait on God to do it all in him. You will learn to come out from the Old Covenant of bondage and learn that all your efforts are failures. We consider the glory of the New Covenant above the Old to consist chiefly in the redeeming work of Christ for us and not equally in the sanctifying work of the Spirit in us. It is ignorance and unbelief of the Holy Spirit as the power through whom God fulfills the New Covenant promises that we do not really expect them to be made true to us. We seek to be sanctified by works as were the Galatians “This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” Gal 3:2.   They had not understood that the progress of the divine life is by faith alone and day by day strength from Him alone out of love. The New Covenant law written in the heart needs an unceasing faith in a divine power to enable us to keep it. The power of religious flesh is one of the great marks of the Old Covenant religion. It misses the deep humility and spirituality of the true worship of God with a heart and life entirely dependent upon Him. The faith of the flesh cannot conquer sin and it is still the Old Covenant life of bondage and failure. The secret root of evil must be removed. It is the legal spirit of self-effort which hinders faith in God. It does not overcome sin because it does not rest in faith and the liberty which Christ has made us free. One must know that grace always and alone does all the work in our sanctification and fruit-bearing, in order to stop with one’s own efforts of feebleness and bondage under the law. The law came with its literal instruction. It sought by the knowledge of God’s will to appeal to man’s fear, love, and his natural powers of mind, conscience, and will. It spoke to him as if he could obey so that it could convince him of what he did not know: that he could not obey. “And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.” Rom 7:10 it can rouse effort but not secure success. It can appeal to motives but gives no inward power beyond what man himself has. Instead of the vain attempt to work inward from without, the Spirit and the law are put into the inward parts to work outward in life and walk. We will see how the “…sending forth of the Spirit of His Son into our hearts…” Gal 4:6 is the consummation and crown of Christ’s redeeming work. In the New God does everything in him. In the Old the heart was wrong. In the New a new heart is provided into which God puts His fear, His law, and His love. The Old failed to secure obedience but demanded it. In the New God causes us to walk in His judgments. As Adam died to God we inherit a nature dead “in” sin, in Christ we died “to” sin and inherit a nature dead to sin and its dominion. When the Holy Spirit reveals this death to sin and the law and the one condition of life yielded to God, the transaction from the Old to the New Covenant can be fully realized in us. We have a sense of sin once accepted by God. He sees that the New Covenant promises are not true in experience. He has indwelling sin. The power for a holy walk in all this with his conscience condemning him brings a secret despair of deliverance. We long for something better. The heart begins to be fixed on Jesus, the Surety of the Covenant. Years of bondage turn into hope. It will be to us according to our faith. Do I have this kind of faith so this blessing can be mine? He will bestow the power to make the surrender and to believe with a life of communion and victory within us. Let go of self and fall into the arms of Jesus. In the heart the work of grace will be done. It is the opposite of our fearful attempts at cleansing our heart and keeping right. Our only glory will be in the Atonement and the righteousness of God as our only plea!! He will make all covenants grace true in you working all in you. It is through belief that the word works effectually in us placing in the heart the actual possession of the grace of which the Word has spoken. The Holy Spirit entering the heart, writing, revealing, and impressing upon it God’s law and truth that can work true obedience. Do not neglect the chief blessing, the power of a holy life enabled by the Holy Spirit to keep His commandments. So our confidence must be in the hidden power for holiness that the working of the Holy Spirit brings. This is our covenant right. As we can see that grace literally and absolutely does all in us, we will consent to live the life of faith in which every moment everything is expected from God.”

In conclusion, do not allow unbelief in overcoming a habit to keep you bound, this annuls faith that would otherwise lay hold of the blessed victory! Only faith in Him and His promises will change you as you press in and endure. “…After that you have suffered a while (His grace will complete you) make you perfect, established, strengthen, settle you.”  1 Peter 5:10.  We need to understand and really know that unbelief is not pleasing to Him and also to know that deliverance is only by an act of faith and belief in Him and His power. If you are truly seeking deliverance you must continue to study and cry out about that area; without guilt and condemnation, and He will change and deliver you. Once you realize you are “freed from sin” Rom 6:7 and the “law of sin and death” Rom 8:2 then you can be free from your own efforts and believe God to produce proper holiness. He changes us from “…glory to glory…” 2 Cor 3:18.  Little by little, and then you look back and realize you are not the same as you once were! Amen.

Many people believe that the person in Ro 7 is an unbeliever, however these teachings about the ”believer, the law and indwelling sin” will clearly demonstrate that this man who is Paul describing himself is a believer.

In Mt 6:33 we are instructed to ”seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” When we seek money and materialism instead of the Kingdom we reverse this principle and it surely becomes a curse.

Faith is like a muscle and it needs to have resistence in order for it to grow. Jas 1:2-3says, to “count it joy when we fall into various trials, knowing that the trying of our faith works patience.” When we can develop patience in the midst of a trial then we know that our faith has grown.

As the title suggest, in Christianity you have those who are willing to contend for the “Faith once and for all delivered to the Saints” and those who only put up a good front, but are actually like the title suggest, “Pretenders.” Unfortunately there are many more “Pretenders” than one might think in present day Christianity.

Listen to Pastor John Fresia about being chosen by God.