Word of Salvation – Vol. 39 No.47 – December 1994

 

All Things For Good

 

Sermon by: Rev. H.O. Berends on Roman 8:28b

 

Brothers and sisters, boys and girls, young people,

Isn't it a beautiful psalm, this Psalm 91?  The psalmist is speaking about God's people.  He is speaking about those who dwell in the shelter of the Most High and who rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

And this is what he says: if you belong to God, then no harm shall befall you.

If you trust in the Lord, then all will be well with you.  He will keep you from danger.

He will rescue you and preserve you.  He will deliver you from trouble.

Sickness will pass you by and disasters will not come near you.

If you rely on the Lord, He will cover you with his feathers.

Just like a young bird is protected by its loving mother, so God will protect you.  That is what the psalmist tells us.

That's what we sang and that is what we professed to believe just now.  We profess that all who put their trust in the Lord will live long and happy lives without any problems or sorrows or troubles.

Is that so?  Is that really what God through the psalmist, is saying?  Is this really the clear promise of the Lord?  Then what about all those obvious contradictions?  What about Dr. Mary Verghese, that young Christian doctor from India.  She had dedicated her life to Christian service and to healing the sick.

But early in her career she was involved in a terrible accident and was left a pitiful paraplegic.

What about Fanny Crosby, the well-known writer of Christian hymns?  She wrote Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.

As a young girl she was made blind through the mistake of a doctor when she underwent an operation.

These people were Christians, known far and wide for their love of the Lord.  And yet, look what happened!

And there are others, many others.  What about those thousands upon thousands of Christians who, as a direct result of their faith in the Lord, suffered and often died in persecutions?  Many are still persecuted for their faith today.  What about them?  What about us and our loved ones?

We don't have to go so far from home, for we know from our own lives that those words are not literally true.  We may not have experienced great calamities like others I just mentioned.

Though some have.  What if your husband died and you were left all alone, or, for that matter, if he proved false?  What if he left you, or if your wife ran off with another man?  What if you suddenly found yourself on the street without any employment?

What about all those and similar things?  What do the words of the psalmist means when he says;

No disasters will come near your tent?

In spite of his words, my house did get broken into and all my valuables are gone and I did write off the car in a car smash.

It is alright for the psalmists to say: You will not fear the plague that destroys.

But my loved one is struggling with Parkinson's disease, or the after-effects of a stroke, or Alzheimer's disease, or heart disease, or cancer.

These things do happen, also here and now, also to many of God's people.  So what do we do then?  How do we read these words of the psalmist?

Do they not have a very hollow ring about them?  Can we still sing them and mean them?

Or do we have to conclude that his confident assumptions are simply wishful thinking?  Do we have to conclude that these words are simply not true?

Yes, we do.  For, literally, these words are not true.  They are not to be taken at face value.  Now why is that so?  What can and what should we say about this?

Well, firstly, of course, we should realise that the words of this Psalm do depend on certain conditions.  And when these conditions are not met, then these words do not apply.  I mean that a lot of our problems are self-inflicted.  He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge, writes the psalmist.

God is compared to a mother bird, protecting her brood.  But we frequently like to escape from the Lord's protection.  We poke our heads out from under those wings and we look around and we see things we want and before you know it, we are off like foolish little chickens.  We get into trouble through our own stupid fault.

You see it so often.

A Christian boy or girl marries an unbeliever.

For a while it goes well.  Then all kinds of trouble begin to surface.  The result is a difficult life of pain, sorrow, frustration, disappointment and bitterness.  But it is self-inflicted.

Or, just to mention another example.  A life-time of smoking ends in a painful death by cancer.

Or, sexual promiscuity results in AIDS.  Let me assure you, these things have happened in our churches.

Or, selfish parents later have trouble with their children.  These are but a few examples.

Let's face it.  Many of our problems are the result of our own disobedience.  This happens when we choose to ignore the rules, the guidelines for a happy life as laid down by the Lord our Maker.

We reap what we sow, and many of our problems are the direct, or indirect result of our own self-centredness and sin.

Yet at other times that is not the case.  There are times when a Christian's troubles are not self-inflicted.  In the believer's life troubles come and it is then that we are faced with a dilemma.

Remember Job?  He was a righteous man – that’s what he is called – and yet he had to experience all those disasters.

His children died, his possessions gone, his wife unsupportive, his health failing.

Even his best friends were useless comforters.

And so Job cries out, "Why do you do this to me, God?”  How can this happen to me?  I trusted you and loved you!

The whole book of Job is really a struggle with this single question.  For Job, as for many, many others, the words of the psalmist in Psalm 91 are a terrible problem.

And they, and we, might have to say, like that famous character in the musical Porgy and Bess that ‘it ain't necessarily so'.  After enumerating various things related in the Bible, and thinking about them, we too might say that the words of Scripture 'aren't necessarily so'.

We can't take the psalmist's words literally.  They just do not match the experience of God's people.

So then, what do we do?  Do we rip these pages out of the Bible?

Do we take this Psalm – and a few others – and put them on the scrap heap?  No.  Of course not!

What we do is this.  We look at what the psalmist is really trying to say here.

For there is something he is trying to say.  The psalmist wasn't stupid.

He wasn't hiding his head under a blanket.

He must have known that God's people have their fair share of suffering and problems.

But, and this is the crux of the matter, he also knew that God would be with them in trouble.

That also there his faithfulness would be their shield and rampart.  That even then they could say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.

And it is here, of course, that we link in more directly with our text for this morning.

For it is this which the apostle Paul is also saying.

Paul also knew that those who belong to the Lord do have their problems.

He knew that from his own experience.  Paul himself had suffered.

He had suffered through his own mistakes.  He was struck blind on the road to Damascus, because he persecuted the people of the Lord.  Thankfully that blindness was later lifted.

But he also suffered through no fault of his own.  He probably suffered some serious physical disability.  He calls it his thorn in the flesh.  And the Lord would not take it away, in spite of Paul's pleading.

He suffered because of the very fact that he was a follower of Christ.  He suffered danger, shipwreck, hunger, persecution.

And so Paul knew that the psalmist's words are not literally true.  But he also knew what the psalmist was trying to say at a deeper level.

And so Paul says that here in Romans eight as he speaks of the hardships endured by Christians.

In fact he quotes another psalm:

*For your sake we face death all day long, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

Believers, too, experience suffering in spite of, and sometimes because, they belong to the Lord.  But in their suffering the Lord is with them.  And He will in all things work for their good.

Yes, all things for their good, to those who love God.  That is the message of our text.  That is also the message of the psalmist.

Do you know that?  Do you believe that, congregation?

All things for our good – even the ugly things, the difficult things, the sad things.

Even the sorrows and the failures and the disappointments.

Yes, even those problems which we have brought on ourselves through our own sin and disobedience.

That is our text's clear teaching.

That is the power of our God.  That is, too, what we see again and again as we read through our Bible.

Do you remember the story of Jacob?  Now there was someone who was good at getting himself into trouble.

Many of his problems were his own stupid fault and yet the Lord kept on blessing him.  Oh, yes, he also suffered the consequences of his actions.

Towards the end of his life Jacob was a very disappointed man.  His sons had gotten themselves into all sorts of troubles.

His daughter had been violated.  His favourite wife had died in childbirth.

Joseph was apparently dead.  There was famine in the land and Simeon had been left behind as a hostage in Egypt.

And then they wanted Benjamin to go there too, Jacob did not like it at all.  He said: 'If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my grey head down to the grave in misery,'

But Benjamin went and the Lord works for good.  Instead of losing Benjamin, Jacob regains Joseph.

And he and his people are spared from the effects of the famine and drought.  Later on as Joseph looked back on God's dealings with him, including the sadness, the evil and the suffering, he said to his brothers, when they are afraid that he will now take revenge: ‘Don't worry, you are forgiven.  You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.’

God intended it for good.  We see that here in Joseph and in Jacob.

We see that in the many other examples in the Bible.  We see that most of all, of course, in Jesus.  Jesus came and was one of us.  He loved his people.  He taught them and healed them.  He went about doing good.  Yet, there were those who wished him evil.  They took him and betrayed him and scourged him and mocked him and nailed him to a cross.  This was the most horrendous crime that ever happened.

Yet, Peter on the day of Pentecost said: 'This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge,'

It was God's plan and purpose that all this should happen.

Why?  So that through Christ's death we should gain life.

God was at work here.  What the Jews intended for evil, God intended to be a source of blessing for mankind.  God works for the good of those who love him!

That is his promise to his people.

And please note carefully that this is not a general statement.

This promise does not hold for all.

During that period in history which we now call the Enlightenment, there was a general optimism about many of that day's great thinkers.  It was believed that everything that happened was ultimately always for the best.  Man was on the way to creating an ideal society.

But when, on All Saints Day of 1755, the city of Lisbon was shaken by a tremendous earthquake in which 50,000 people lost their lives, this optimism was shattered.

Shortly after the famous French sceptic, Voltaire, published his most famous work, the satirical tale of Candide.

In this work he has a character who is the eternal optimist.

This man, Dr. Pangloss is his name, continues to maintain that we live in the best of all possible worlds.  He believes that all things are for the best.  Whatever happens - sickness, blindness, death, suffering, misfortune... Dr.  Pangloss sees good in it all.  ‘We live in the best of all possible worlds' is his unwavering motto.  But that is nonsense.

And that is not the Christian's opinion.

We know that sin is real.  The results of sin are real.  There are real problems, real pain, real suffering.

And for the unbeliever that is all there is.  They cannot claim God's promise.

But for those who love God, suffering is not the end of the story.  Note what Paul says: for those who love God!  That is an interesting statement.

I mean: you might have expected him to say, for those whom God loves.  God might work for their good because He loves them.

That is true, of course, but that's not what Paul writes here.

No, he writes about those who love God.  Why does he put it that way?  I think the reason is that we have to love God to be able to see that.

We have to trust God to see behind what is happening.  We have to trust his working for our good, also in difficult circumstances.

We have to be able to say:

Lord, this hurts, and I don't know why you allow me to go through these problems.  But, I love you and therefore I trust you.  I cannot see it, but you can.  I love you enough to accept what you give me.  I believe that all things will work for my ultimate good.  Yes, all things.'

Let me ask: Do you believe that, young people, boys and girls, brothers and sisters?

Have you experienced that in your life?  Some of you have, I am sure.  Perhaps you have gone through hard times, but now there is light at the end of the tunnel.

And so you can say: Yes, Lord, I can see your blessing.  I have gone through a difficult period.  Perhaps some of my difficulties were of my own making, yet here too you have helped me.

You did not let me go, and now I can see your love and I thank you for it.'

I trust many of us can say that as we look back on things which have happened in our lives.  Others may still be in a difficult situation.

By God's grace, may you, too, be able to say: I believe, even though I cannot yet see it.  Whatever I am going through, Lord, whether it be my own fault or the fault of others or simply the result of being part of a sinful world, I still love you and trust you.  And I believe that it will all work out for my greater good in the end.

All things work for the good of those who love God!.  Do you believe that, congregation?  God works for our good.  Why does He do so?  I have already said: because he loves us.

But Paul puts it another way here.  He says that God does that because we are called according to his purpose.

God called us according to his purpose and that purpose is that we should become conformed to the likeness of his Son.  We must come to resemble Jesus.

That's why He works all things for our good.  That is also why, at times, He allows us to suffer.

And that is why, when we go wrong, He pulls us up sharply through the consequences of our actions.

So that we might become like Christ, so that we might be renewed into the image of Jesus.

In all things for good, that is God's word and solemn promise.

Let me close by returning to Psalm 91 for a moment.

I once preached on this psalm at a funeral service of a lady who had died from a slow and debilitating illness.  At first sight my choice of a text was strange,  How could we possibly take a psalm like this when we stared death in the face?

Of course, we have to look behind the words for the real meaning.  In fact, the deceased had chosen this psalm.  Was it because it had been a favourite psalm?  It was the psalm which the lady and her friends had recited daily, way back when she had been a young mother.

Where?  Was it in the security of her home, surrounded by her loving husband and children?  No, it was in a concentration camp for women in Japanese occupied Java.

With hunger gnawing at their stomachs, with constant fear of disease and cruelty and beatings; with people dying, including Christians.

And yet, in the midst of it all the confident assertion: He or she who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.'  And we know that in all things, God works for our good.'

God works for our good,  What a wonderful surety,  What a marvellous blessing.

Do you know it, brothers and sisters, boys and girls, young people?

Fanny Crosby knew it.  She became one of the most prolific hymn writers ever.

When, years later, her doctor wrote her a letter to apologise for the mistake which had made her blind she replied, “Do not blame yourself.  It has turned out for my blessing.  For I have been able, by God's grace, to write many beautiful hymns.”

Mary Verghese knew it too.  After her struggle with the bitterness which her condition caused her, she became a famous doctor, working especially with lepers.  She was well accepted by the lepers because she, too, suffered a great disability.  God knew what He was doing and He knows what he is doing with us also.

We, too, may know that, if He is for us, nothing can be against us.

We, too, may dwell in the shadow of the Almighty.

In all things He will work for the good of those who love him.

Nothing, nothing, is able to separate us from his love.

Amen.