“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.” Romans 8:28
Amongst the observations most frequently heard in the world, is that made on the undeserved prosperity of the wicked, and the many seemingly uncalled trials and tribulations of the righteous. Experience will indeed tell us, that neither of these opposite conditions is uninterrupted; neither is it all sunshine in the most prosperous worldly lot; nor is it all gloom—far from it—in the Christian’s portion on earth. Experience will also go further, and will abundantly prove the saying of the wise man, that “the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.” Such success has a tendency first to deceive, then to corrupt, and lastly to betray men into utter destruction. But the text will lead us still further; it will teach us, that the trials of the righteous preserve them—yea, work for good; and that “all things,” and, therefore, even the greatest trials, “work together for good to them that love God.”
The text represents them as workmen. They work together for good; they are constantly at work for that purpose, whether as instruments in God’s hands, or as in a degree self-moving for that end; they are constructing as it were a building, or they are laying a foundation; and that which they lay—that which all things befalling a Christian are ever laying for him—is a ground for his substantial, necessary, and eternal benefit. “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.”
This, then, it will be, with God’s blessing, my humble endeavour to show in the following: first, premising the sense of the word “good,” in all just and reasonable acceptation; next, showing more fully how all things may be thus said to “work for good to them that love God;” finally, pointing out some of the many things which will be found by experience to work in this very manner.
The term “good,” it must be said in the first place, is very different, both in the language of the bible and in the estimation of the truly wise, from what it usually represents in the language and opinion of the world. The bible teaches us to view all things in their consequences, and in their real and essential nature. View things in their consequences, in their final end and issue, if you would view them at all justly or wisely. Ease, and health, and worldly wealth, and success may be good, just as the plentiful feast is good, provided a man has temperance and soundness of constitution properly to partake of it; but, if he is likely to indulge to a surfeit, or if every morsel is food to some mortal disorder, and every cup adds strength to a fever that is raging in his veins, no one in reason would call such an entertainment good to such a man. And just so with the good things of this present life: the Christian does not unreasonably deny that prosperity is pleasing, health desirable, friends and relations deeply attaching to us, and the smiles of social endearment or public favor greatly captivating; but neither does he, like the world, consider them to be necessarily all they seem to be, good to all persons, and under all circumstances; he does not forget that earthly and bodily good is just what it becomes in the use of it; that many times the use can hardly be separated from the abuse; that lawful things, when unlawfully or idolatrously used, are just as evil as unlawful ones. Rather, that for a few comparatively who have perished from a hardened course of forbidden pleasure, multitudes have been for ever lost by allowed indulgences. Till he sees, then, the application made, and the resulting consequences of any worldly boon, he does not call the possessor happy, nor the possession good, nor very eagerly or supremely does he desire it either for himself or others.
But, again, the things really and essentially good in their very nature and inseparable qualities are those which, in the estimation of the mere world, are held in no account whatsoever. What the bible chiefly esteems, and the world wholly neglects, are spiritual blessings,—the good things of the soul of man, “the precious things of heaven, even of the everlasting hills.” Those precious things, the goodwill of him who is the great I AM—the peace of God which passes all understanding—the luxury of promoting the good of man and the glory of God;—still more, the pardon of sin, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ—a gradual advancement in true holiness—a growing fitness and longing desire for the future blessedness of the saints, and a final admission and “you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.,” (2 Peter 1:11) the “inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,” 1Peter 1:4 —these are truly to the world but as a dream, a fancy, a cunningly-devised fable; but, to the mind of the Christian, stand for everything truly and substantially good. They are in all his plans first and foremost, and nearest and dearest to his heart. They are as necessary to him in his calculation and account of human happiness, as profit and pleasure are to his neighbours around. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart conceived, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9 But God hath revealed to him by his Spirit, these very things, as his chief good, his measure of all true happiness. Wealth may be good, health still better, kindly affections and attached friends the best of earthly treasures; but the favor of God, the acquisition of his image, the means of grace, and the hope of glory, are to him sovereign and above all. While many ask, amidst the increase of their corn, and wine, and oil, “Who will show us any good?” he exclaims, “Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me”—“in thy presence is the fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.” He weighs well the nature, and “remembers the end” of all that is called good, and so “does not amiss.”
For, secondly, he finds that, while we so do, and so consider, “all things work together for good to those that love God.” There is, first, on the mind of the Christian that secret influence in the very disposition of love to God, which will of itself turn to good every thing that comes from the God whom we love, and the Saviour on whom we fully and implicitly rely. And there is, secondly, a full disposition on the part of our heavenly Father so to order and direct every event which befals his loving and attached children, as shall be found at last to have answered the ends of sovereign wisdom and divine mercy.
In the first instance, the tendency, on our own part, of love to the great and good God will be this, namely, to turn all that befals us to an instrument of good. As, in the healthy body, food of very different descriptions may yet all turn to nourishment, and minister to health and bodily strength; so, in the healthy mind, purified and strengthened by the grace of God’s Holy Spirit, every thing that meets it is converted to its advantage, and adds in some way to its improvement and its happiness. There is ever a colour cast upon outward circumstances from the complexion of the inward soul. The vain man, on his part, the ambitious, the sensual, the gainful, well know how to turn all to the advancement of their sinful objects; and no less does the good man turn all to the enlargement of his goodness, and the lover of his God to the increase and exercise of that love. Viewing every thing in the glass, or by the lamp of God’s word, he ingeniously, so to speak, finds in every thing a reason for loving and fearing, serving and obeying God. Every event works for his good, because he is resolved it shall do so; and every result satisfies, pleases, rejoices him, because he is persuaded it ought to do so. Loving God, he has a confidence that he is beloved of God; and then, feeling himself in a world made by God, and proceeding forward under his guidance and permission, he never will believe that any thing falls out in it but what is intended to make him both good and happy. Happy then he will be, if God intends he should be so; and holy he will be encouraged to become, under the consciousness that God intends his holiness.
Dispositions like these will indeed work for their possessor even upon the hardest materials, and will, by the very force of a new and spiritual nature, convert all into “servants to righteousness unto holiness.” Faith will be a hand, bringing together the events of life and the framer and guide of all life and all existence; and the result will be a solemn and heart-satisfying conviction, that “all things work together for good to them that love God.”
Next, will such a faith prove to be groundless; for surely there is a power engaged, there is a pledge in the gospel, a sure word of promise, and even of covenant, that all things shall be ours;—“All are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” The trial of our faith lies indeed very much upon this one point. Can we, for a moment, believe that God permits all the disorder and confusion which appears to us in the world—the prosperity of wickedness, the trials and adversity of the righteous, in order to raise a doubt on our minds whether he be not absent all the while—whether he bears or not any share in the world he created, or in all those moving causes that owe their activity and life to himself alone? God is surely present; he is powerfully operating; he is the supreme controller, and the almighty director; he is fully aware of those adverse appearances, and is no less deeply engaged in the final issue of all events, to render them consistent with the ends of justice and mercy, than as if we saw him at work with our bodily eyes: or, as if we then could fully know the mind of the Lord, or be his counsellors to instruct him.
The expressions of scripture are too strong, and too agreeable to the very nature of God and of his works, to make us doubt for a moment of his providential care and unceasing watchfulness. “He is not far from every one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being.” To the true disciple saith Christ himself, “The very hairs of your head are all numbered;” and yet more strongly, “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” Promises, these, which have been ever realized in the history of the saints in all ages who have walked with God—Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and the patriarch Jacob—none more tried than he—yet we read his testimony to “the God, which fed me all my life-long unto this day; the angel which redeemed me from all evil.”
Keeping in view the notion of what is truly good for this state of trial, and for the soul as well as for the body, there is no time and no extent to which we shall not find the promise sure, and the fulfilment exact, where God is pledged for the supply of his servants that trust in him: his eye is ever open, his ear ever attentive unto them. The petition he denies is able to operate as powerfully and as favourably on their behalf as that which he grants; merciful alike in the gift which he bestows and which he withholds, and wise alike in the evil which he permits, and which he restrains.
There is nothing more important to the believer’s faith, than to apprehend that there is no uncertainty, nothing imperfect or weak in the dispensations of God, as they respect the final issue of the Christian’s trials. Either God is wholly absent and forgetful of his daily wants, or else he is wholly and for ever at work on his behalf. If he were wholly absent, well might his servants doubt that, after all their endeavours to that end, they should be able to turn to good all the events of this mortal life. If he do not temper the trials of his servants, how in truth shall they overcome them? If he do not controul their enemies, how shall they ever escape them? Figure to yourself any place, or time, or circumstance, where God is not, or where he can be spared from the concerns of his people, either temporal or spiritual: but, if none can be imagined or assigned, then is it but justly and essentially true, that, by his especial order and his immediate appointment, “all things work together for good to them that love God.”
But we may proceed, lastly, to show, in a practical manner, some of those very things which shall thus work together for good. Take the most unpromising and most unfavourable case, for instance, that of great prosperity. None will deny it to be a case of many others the most trying to the graces of the true Christian. Yet even shall the temptations arising from worldly honours and successes, to a man armed with the love of God, work together for good. Graces rarely exercised in exalted stations, shall be found to shine the more conspicuously in his instance. The grace of humility, and tenderness of spirit, shall be the more eminently illustrated in that station, where, too often, there is only pride and hardness of heart. If he be found, in a sober, self-denying spirit, setting little value on those things so commonly called good amongst mankind—using this world without abusing it—shall not the grace of God be more abundantly magnified? When not overcome, as Agar feared he might be, saying, “lest I be full, and say, who is the Lord?”—but rather, when led by fulness to more gratitude, and by a lofty station to deeper humility, and to a more lowly submission to God, and meekness to man—how will he by such prosperity as this testify to the reality of Christian principles: how will he, in giving freely where he has freely received, esteeming even his highest gains as loss for Christ’s sake, and returning upon others all that mercy which has been exercised towards himself, prove that he has not received the grace of God in vain; but that even prosperity has “worked together for good to them that love God.”
Or, suppose the case of deep adversity—suppose the Christian stripped, like Job, of great honors and possessions at a single stroke; betrayed and sold like Joseph, even by brethren, into bondage and exile; or lying like Lazarus at the gate of the rich man, diseased in body, and suing for the crumbs from off his table; or suppose him, as St. Paul himself, in peril of foes, and even doubtful of friends; in weariness and painfulness oft, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness. These last were exactly the circumstances under which the very text was indited by the apostle himself: he saw, what you may see, that trials like these, when tempered by the presence of the God he loved, were good, not, I would say, in proportion to their weight, but according to the patience which they exercised, the faith they strengthened, the experience of divine support they afforded, the hope they brightened, the crown they were preparing; yea, the exceeding and eternal weight of glory which they must eventually be working out. The apostle had “heard of the patience of Job,” and had “seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” The trials of Joseph had even led that servant of God, by degrees of painful progress, to the honour of a prince, and a chain of gold. The “evil things” of Lazarus—good they might have been called—had led him to still higher honours, and had prepared him to be carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom. Every individual circumstance of this nature, as it passed in review before the apostle in the text, had led irresistibly to the conclusion he so strongly expresses. Could he distrust the same arm, disbelieve the same promises; or rather saying with David—“Our fathers trusted in thee, and were delivered,” would he not add—I will trust as they did; I will be “in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?” Let me feel only the “profit, that I may be partaker of his holiness;” and then, “though no affliction for the present is joyous, but grievous,” it shall surely hereafter yield the peaceable fruit of true righteousness; and “all things,” adversity itself, “shall work together for my good.”
Temptation, verily, shall be among the “things working together for good to them that love God.” Such indeed is our state of trial upon earth, that every successive arrival at our doors comes to us in some shape or other of temptation to sin. But take the strongest and most pressing incitements to the corruptions of the heart, and the evil of our nature. Even of these must it not be said, that the temptation, and the tempter himself, may be turned into a worker for good, when that promise is brought forward, and brought home to the heart, “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it?” Another apostle had a like meaning when he said, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” Every enemy opposed [Pg 29] to the Christian warrior affords him fresh opportunity for a sure victory in the strength of Christ. Every obstacle in his path is that which faith regards as a trial prepared for his soul; but hope and joy carry him over, to the glory of his sovereign Upholder. In evil company, which he seeks not, his courage is honourably put to the test, and abides it; amidst a world of licentiousness and excess, which he desires not to approach, he still trusts, through grace, that he shall not be found wanting. In a season of provocation his meekness is tried, and it prevails; and in the moment of fear, and the threats of alarm, “his heart standeth fast, trusting in the Lord;” “nay, in all these things he is more than conqueror through him that loved him.”
If his very sins are in one sense his shame, and the source of his bitter tears and saddest recollections, still those tears and recollections shall prove among the workers for his good, if they lead him more closely to the throne of mercy, and to the fountain of eternal strength. If any experiences of past weakness make him more watchful, sober, and diligent for the future—if they direct him to the vulnerable points in his armour, to the “sin that easily besets him”—if, in the very moment of his conscious frailty and heart-overwhelming struggle, he is enabled to exclaim, “Rejoice not over me, O mine enemy; though I fall I shall arise; though I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me:” then shall he know that “all things work together for good to them that love God.”
I conclude with a single word of remark on the expression in the text, “We know that all things work together for good.” It expresses the personal experience of the Christian. It answers to a similar expression of the same apostle to the Philippians—“I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ.” But to whom is this knowledge vouchsafed? To whom is it a safe and a sure conviction—an “earnest expectation and hope,” so “that in nothing we shall be ashamed?” Truly, to those only who “love God”—to those who are “the called according to his purpose.” His purpose is our sanctification, and that we should be “conformed to the image of his Son.” To such truly, to such only does that blessing apply, so frequently indeed, and but too rashly, appropriated by many others, “All is for the best.”
Let the careless rather tremble, those as yet not effectually called into the gospel vineyard, at such an appropriation of the text. To them it may be only a savour of death unto death, a deadly security, a hope that “maketh ashamed, because the love of God is not yet shed abroad in their hearts.”
Gain rather in prayer, in secret meditation and much retirement from the presence and the love of this world, the true love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Then being first transformed yourself, you will be enabled, by a divine power, to transform everything around you; you will receive all things as from the hand of the Father whom you love, the Benefactor and Friend whom you wish and aim to serve. Your willing and noble obedience to him will render, then, prosperity a new advantage to you by awakening your gratitude, and adversity a blessing, by exercising and perfecting your patience. You will have a fence around you, an armour of divine temper to fortify you in the presence of every temptation, and to turn the very weapons of your adversaries into your own instruments of victory, the trophies of your triumph. Sin will have its struggles within you, but will not gain dominion over you, while every deviation from God’s righteous will is mourned in secret, and restored through grace; and while it brings you the more urgently and constantly to the foot of the cross, where hung the Saviour whom you love, whose favour and forgiveness you implore; and you shall be enabled to close the volume of your experience in the concluding words of the chapter, and with the apostle himself: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?… I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is Christ Jesus our Lord.”
