"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
Last message we began a consideration of the bold promise of 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." We considered nine different ways in which affliction works for good in the lives of genuine Christians. I promised then that today, in a second and concluding message on this grand text, we would consider how God can overrule divine desertion and even sin itself for good in the lives of His people.
Divine desertion overruled for good
Perhaps the best way to persuade you, if you are a true Christian, that even God's apparent desertions or withdrawals are intended for your welfare, is to ask you a series of questions:
- Does not divine desertion drive you to prayer to seek after and prize communion with God more than ever, causing you to knock at heaven's gates with unceasing petitions?
- Does not the Lord use divine desertion to cause you to examine your own soul in order to discover, pull, and cast away the accursed weeds of sin which have caused you to desert God and Him to desert you?
- When the Holy Spirit teaches you that the most common cause of divine absence is your own sin, does this not cause you to hate sin with a holy hatred?
- Does not God use His own withdrawals in your life like a rough file to scrape off spiritual rust - rust which all too quickly develops on your faith, hope, love, and other graces of God when they are not used regularly?
- Does not God's desertion serve by the Spirit's secret influences to purge you of remaining infirmities, weaning you from worldly thinking, worldly conversations, and worldly actions?
- Have you not experienced that the Holy Spirit uses the withdrawals of God to cut off your reliance upon anything within you, such as your experiences, your humility, your prayers, your faith, and your conversion, so that you may learn to more fully believe in and rely upon Jesus Christ alone?
- Has not the Holy Spirit used divine desertion to cut off your relying upon even the gracious benefits God has given you, so that what God gives does not lord over your soul over and above the Lord Himself?
- Through God's apparent desertions are you not often taught that His delays in your life are not denials, but rather, that at His time and in His way, He will again draw close to commune with you through His Word?
- Does not the Lord sometimes hold Himself back in order to teach you that He would be righteous never to commune with you again on account of your continued sinning against Him?
- Through divine desertion does not God persuade you that He must be honored in His presence and His absence?
Dear believer, if you are honest, are not these Spirit-taught fruits of divine desertion profitable for you even though you often fight against many of them? Can you not see that the Lord brings you into the depths of desertion before you die in order to keep you from the depths of damnation after you die? At times you may even fear that He holds you above hell by desertion, but afterwards must you not confess that He does so to keep you from hell for eternity? Your desertions work for your spiritual welfare to prepare you for heaven, and to make heaven all the more heavenly when you shall finally enter into glory. Truly, even when God appears to absent Himself from you, He is still secretly present with you, as the Heidelberg Catechism says, with His Godhead, majesty, grace, and Spirit (Question 47).
Even sin overruled for good
"All things," Paul asserts, "work together for good to them that love God." All things include not only affliction and divine desertion, but even sin. Even sin shall work together for good - not for them that love sin, but for them that love God. Rightly, Augustine has written, "God would never permit evil, if He could not bring good out of evil." Here, of course, we tread upon cautious ground, for there is nothing worse than sin; we must do all in our power to discourage, and not encourage, sin.
We have to maintain at least three important guidelines when considering how sin works to the good of God's people. First, we have to maintain there is nothing good in sin itself. Sin is the evil of evils; in and of itself it can work nothing but death and damnation. Thomas Watson wrote, "Sin is like poison, which corrupts the blood, infects the heart, and without a sovereign antidote, brings death."
Second, we have to maintain that those who encourage themselves in sin by the argument that good will come out of it, wrest the Scriptures to their own damnation. Paul is clear that to do evil that good may come is only to make our damnation just (Rom. 3:8). One of the main marks of being a Christian is to hate all sin and to love holiness and godliness.
Third, only corrupt human nature can abuse the doctrine of good resulting from sin, for true grace can never play lightly with sin. Sin will work for good only to them that hate sin. It will work for good to them that love God and abhor themselves on account of sin. It will work for good to those who are humbled by sin, who flee to Christ to be saved from it, and who dare not allow themselves the least sin to gain an entire world. It will work for good to those who count the least sin worse than the greatest affliction. It will work for good to those who, knowing their own weakness, fight earnestly against sin, using the Word of God, the blood of Christ, the strength of the Spirit, and fervent prayer to wage holy war against it.
Yet, though sin is worse than hell in its essence, God, through Christ, and by His mighty overruling power, directs even sin to our spiritual welfare if we are true believers. Let me explain four ways in which this is so:
First, God causes the sinfulness of sin to bring us to true self-examination and self-knowledge. Scripture tells us that the Lord permitted Hezekiah to fall to teach him that which was in his heart. When we are in our right place before God, we will not shrink from knowing the worst about ourselves, just as a cancer patient requests to know the worst of his sickness. Therefore Job prayed, "Make me to know my transgression" (13:23). By nature our sins will find us out, but by grace we find our sins out. This leads us by the Spirit to a deep and profitable self-knowledge, causing us to confess with Paul, "I am the chief sinner," or with Martin Luther, "In myself I am not only miserable, but misery itself."
Second, God uses the sinfulness of sin to bring us to genuinely condemn ourselves. True Christians are led to pronounce a sentence of condemnation upon themselves, taking God's side against themselves. Thomas Watson profoundly notes, "When a man has judged himself, Satan is put out of office. When he lays anything to a saint's charge, he is able to retort, 'It is true, Satan, I am guilty of these sins, but I have judged myself already for them; and having condemned myself in the lower court of conscience, God (for the sake of Christ) will acquit me in the upper court of heaven!'" God will never step upon a self-condemning beggar who casts himself exclusively on divine mercy. Rather, the owning of my sin as a child of the first Adam works for good by making room for the righteousness of the second Adam, Jesus Christ. God uses the greatest evil of sin to make room for the greatest good of communion with Himself. He uses condemnation to unlock, as it were, the door to salvation.
Third, the sinfulness of sin works for good in the believer by keeping him engaged in the good fight of faith. The Christian not only leads a wayfaring life, but also a warfaring life. His heart is a castle that is in danger of being assaulted every hour. Daily a heavy duel is fought between two seeds, for "the spirit lusts against the flesh" (Gal. 5:17). "Watch and pray" should be the daily, yes, hourly motto of our lives as believers.
Fourth, an awareness of the sinfulness of sin can also yield the profitable fruit of spiritual reformation. When God permits His people to fall into sin, His normal design is to break the back of that sin they have fallen into. Abraham stumbled in faith, but became a champion of faith. Moses stumbled in meekness, but was a champion of meekness. Peter stumbled in zeal, but became the champion of godly zealousness. God makes His children's maladies their medicines when He gives grace to them not only to find out their sin, but also to drive out their sin.
I cannot conclude without a serious warning: Remember, Christian, though the Lord directs even sin to end in good, allow me to warn you never to make light of sin, nor to become bold in sinning. Sin will always cost you a high price. Just as grace is always amazing, sin is always dreadful. Remember David. Sin cost him his peace, a broken family, and the terrors of the Almighty. Though the Lord shall never damn His children, He will have them taste something of the bitterness of hell in this life when they tamper with sin. He chastises sin by placing them into such bitter agonies and soul-distress that they can sometimes be filled with horror and be drawn to the brink of despair.
Oh, that the dread character of sin, as well as its consequences, might serve as flaming swords to keep you from eating of the forbidden tree of iniquity!
Dear unconverted friend, if you are not born again, no affliction and no sin, yes, nothing will serve your good. Sin can only work death and damnation for you unless you learn to flee to God by faith and in repentance, casting yourself upon His mercy in Jesus Christ. By nature, through sin we ask God for the shortest way to hell. We would rather sleep our way into damnation than sweat our way into salvation. Do not forget that the damned shall live in hell as long as God Himself shall live in heaven. If you refuse to believe in Christ, you will end in hell one day. And there you will be constantly dying without ever being dead. In hell there is no relief, no intermission, no end to the wrath of God.
Dear friends, allow me to ask you a final question: Can you answer on one hand with Chrysostom when sent a threatening message from the empress, "Go tell her that I fear nothing but sin," and can you answer on the other hand with a godly forefather when offered promotion by King George III, "Sir, I want nothing but more grace"? For those who hate sin and love grace, God shall fulfill His own promise, notwithstanding affliction, desertion, and sin: "All things work together for good to them that love God."