All Things Work Together for Good to Them that Love God
T. Chalmers, D.D. 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. I. IT IS ABUNDANTLY OBVIOUS OF MANY A SINGLE ADVERSITY — THAT A GREAT AND PERMANENT GOOD MAY COME OUT OF IT. This is often verified, as when the disease brought on by intemperance has germinated; and the loss by a daring speculation has checked the adventurer, and turned him into the way of safe though moderate prosperity. Apart from Christianity, man has often found that it was good for him to have been afflicted — that, under the severe but salutary discipline, wisdom has been increased, and character strengthened, and the rough independence of human wilfulness tamed, and many asperities of temper have been worn away. And so of many an infliction on the man who is a candidate for the world above. The overthrow of his fortune has given him a strong practical set for eternity; the death of his child has weaned him from all idolatry; the tempests of life have fastened him more steadfastly to the hold of religious principle. He is made perfect by sufferings. II. THESE ADVERSE VISITATIONS DO NOT ALWAYS COME SINGLY. The apostle supposes the concurrence of two or more events, all verging towards the good of him to whom they have befallen. It has often been said that misfortunes seldom come by themselves; and it is the compounding of one evil thing with another that aggravates so much the distress of each of them. And when we are lost in the bewilderments of a history that we cannot scan, and entangled among the mazes of a labyrinth that we cannot unravel, it is well to be told that all is ordered and that all worketh for good. III. IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES EMANATE FROM ONE EVENT WHICH IN ITSELF IS INSIGNIFICANT, insomuch that the colour and direction of your whole futurity have turned on what, apart from this mighty bearing, would have been the veriest trifle in the world. It is thus that the great drama of a nation's politics may hinge on the veriest bagatelle. The pursuers of Mahomet were turned away from the mouth of the cave in which he had the moment before taken shelter by the flight of a bird from one of the shrubs that grew at its entry. This bird changed the destiny of the world. And therefore it is well that all things are under the control of God who maketh all things work together for good unto those who love Him. Is not the fact that what is most minute often gives rise to what is most momentous, an argument for the doctrine of a providence that reaches even to the least? Should God let go one small ligament in the vast and complicated machinery of the world, it might all run into utter divergency from the purpose of the mind that formed it. IV. HOW AM I TO BE ASSURED OF MY INTEREST IN THE DECLARATION OF THE TEXT? 1. The promise here is not unto all in the general, but to those who love God. Now I may not be sure that I love Him. I may desire to love Him; but to desire is one thing and to do is another. Now it does not follow that you are altogether destitute of love to God because it stirs so languidly within you that you are not able very distinctly or decidedly to recognise it. Your very desire to love Him is a good symptom; your very grief that you love Him not bodes favourably for you. Where there is an honest wish for affection, there is in fact the embryo of affection itself, struggling for a growth and an establishment in the aspiring bosom. Meanwhile it is most desirable that the germ should expand. And the question is, How shall this be brought about? Never by looking to oneself, but by looking unto the Saviour. 2. They who love God are described by another characteristic. They are the "called" — i.e., those who have felt the power of the call upon their hearts, and have complied with it accordingly. It is only upon our entertaining the call of the gospel and consenting thereunto that there ensues a transition of the heart to the love of God. Anterior to this, the thought of God stood associated with feelings of jealousy and insecurity and alarm. A sense of guilt has alienated us from God. It is this which stands as a wall of iron between heaven and earth. And the only way by which this else impregnable barrier can be scaled, and we can draw nigh in affection to the Father, is by accepting the only authentic offer that He ever held out to us of reconciliation. It is by beholding Him in the face of Christ. (T. Chalmers, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. WEB: We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.