And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: **all these things are against me.** (Genesis 42:36)
*1/ The things we see are against us when God begins with us in grace.
2/ What Jesus has done to turn these things to be for us.
3/ How these things are now for God's people in Christ.*
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This sermon was preached online for Providence Chapel Northampton.
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**Sermon Summary:**
The sermon centers on the profound truth that what appears to be against God's people, is ultimately transformed into spiritual good through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
Drawing from Jacob's anguish over the loss of Joseph, Simeon, and the threat to Benjamin, the preacher illustrates how suffering and hardship, though perceived as adversarial, are part of God's sovereign plan to bring about greater good.
The core message unfolds through three movements:
**First,** recognizing the overwhelming weight of sin, law, and divine justice that condemn the unregenerate;
**Second,** the divine reversal achieved through Christ's perfect life, substitutionary atonement, and resurrection, which satisfies God's holiness, justice, and righteousness;
**and Third,** the believer's transformed perspective, where every element of life—law, God, self, enemies, trials, and Scripture—now works for their eternal good because Christ has fulfilled all things.
The sermon concludes with a powerful assurance: if God is for us, no force in heaven or earth can prevail against us, and all things, even in their darkest moments, are being orchestrated for the glory of God and the salvation of His people.
The sermon addresses the doctrine of God's sovereign grace and the transformative power of Christ in the lives of believers. It articulates that, although circumstances in life may seem adversarial, they can ultimately be used by God for good due to the redemptive work of Jesus. The preacher draws from Genesis 42:36, where Jacob expresses his despair, to highlight three key movements: first, the weight of sin and condemnation faced by the unregenerate; second, how Christ’s life, death, and resurrection reverse this condemnation; and third, the believer's changed perspective that sees all things, including suffering, as serving their ultimate good in Christ. This message underscores the Reformed belief in God's sovereignty and the assurance that all events are under His providential control for the benefit of His people.
Key Quotes
“The things we see are against us when God begins with us in grace.”
“What Jesus has done to turn these things to be for us.”
“How these things are now for God's people in Christ.”
“If God is for us, no force in heaven or earth can prevail against us.”
The Bible teaches that all things work together for good to those who love God (Romans 8:28).
In Romans 8:28, the Apostle Paul assures believers that God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. This means that even the hardest trials we face are under God's sovereign control and serve His larger plan. Just as Jacob believed that everything was against him, we often feel the weight of our circumstances. However, Scripture encourages us to trust in God’s providence, as He is orchestrating events for our benefit, often far beyond our understanding.
Christ's righteousness is imputed to us through faith, as taught by Paul in Romans 10:3-4.
The imputation of Christ's righteousness to believers is a foundational doctrine in Reformed theology. Paul writes in Romans 10:3-4 that righteousness is obtained not through our works but through faith in Christ. This means that Christ's perfect obedience and righteousness are credited to our account, allowing us to stand justified before God. The work of Christ fulfills the law's demands on our behalf, as highlighted throughout the New Testament, emphasizing that our salvation comes solely from His efforts, not our own.
Recognizing our sinful state highlights our need for Christ and His saving grace.
Understanding our sinful state is crucial for realizing our need for redemption. Romans 7 describes the struggle of sin in our lives, emphasizing that in our flesh, there dwells no good thing. Recognizing this truth is the first step toward true repentance and faith. It allows believers to appreciate the depth of God’s grace and mercy extended to us through Jesus Christ. Without acknowledging our sinfulness, we cannot fully grasp the significance of Christ’s sacrifice and the transformation that comes through Him. This awareness fosters humility and reliance on God’s grace in our daily lives.
Trials can refine our faith and draw us closer to God, as seen in James 1:2-4.
James 1:2-4 encourages believers to count it all joy when they face trials, knowing that these challenges produce endurance and maturity in faith. God allows trials not to harm us, but to cleanse, refine, and strengthen us spiritually. This perspective turns our hardships into opportunities for growth and deeper reliance on God. Trusting in God's providence during trials, just as Jacob ultimately learned, helps us transition from viewing our struggles as obstacles to embracing them as integral to our faith journey.
The law serves as a tutor to lead us to Christ and show our need for His grace (Galatians 3:24).
Galatians 3:24 teaches that the law of God serves as a tutor that leads us to Christ. It reveals our inability to achieve righteousness on our own and highlights our need for grace. While we are no longer under the law for justification, it still holds relevance in guiding our lives, showing us God’s character and His standards. Understanding the law’s role helps believers appreciate Christ's work in fulfilling the law, and this understanding deepens our love and obedience toward God.
Galatians 3:24
Sermon Transcript
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Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to the portion we read, Genesis chapter 42. I'm reading through our text, verse 36. And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children. Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away. All these things are against me. Genesis 42 and verse 36, and it is specifically the last words, Jacob's assessment of all those things that he had rehearsed, all these things are against me.
Jacob, though he knew it not, was reaping what he had sown many, many years ago. In fact, he'd already reaped it in Laban, when Laban had deceitfully changed his wages those ten times. But when Joseph was taken by his brothers and sold, then they returned to their father and they deceived him. They brought the coat, they covered it with blood, they made it appear a evidence of his death. and Jacob believed them.
They did not, in fact, actually tell a lie, but they caused that the clothes told the lie without them having to say anything. Many people still will do that, you know. They won't tell a direct lie, but they will insinuate or tell part of something, knowing that those that are listening will draw a conclusion that they want them to, but it is not the truth, and it is in God's sight still seen as a lie.
I often think of a situation, and maybe it comes close to some, we can be tempted to put up on our house a dummy CCTV camera, not connected to anything, there's no recordings, there's no expense, it's just a dummy. But really it's a lie. We are saying that or giving the impression that there is something there when it is not there. And I think we need to be very careful about going down that track in any way at all.
This is what Joseph's brothers did. Of course this is what also Jacob did. Jacob very clearly did lie to his father When his father said to him, Art thou my son Esau, my very son Esau? And he said, I am. Well, we reap what we sow. And when we walk in a path, then we can expect that the Lord will bring that back. upon us but dear Jacob here he was one of the lords the lord had blessed him in spite of chastening him in fact chastening was a way of blessing and is for the people of god but as the sword did not depart from david's house so from jacob's house the deceits did not depart from him And so Jacob here had walked for some 20, 22 years, believing that his son Joseph was dead.
His words are, Joseph is not. Simeon is not. Well, they told him where he was. locked up in prison, I've no doubt that the reason why Joseph chose Simeon was because Simeon was foremost in wanting to kill Joseph and put him in a pit and to sell him, maybe even to kill him. remember a few years before the Chechem it was Levi and Simeon that had gone through and killed all of the people in that city because they had defiled Dinah their sister and Jacob's blessing later on or foretelling instruments of cruelty are in their hands and so Joseph would have known that and so selected out Simeon and so there's a reason why they not only because of the famine but because of Simeon why they must go back to Egypt and face this man that was being so hard on them and was bringing to their remembrance all of their former sins. But Jacob is at home and these tidings then come and the heaviest of them of all is that this man not what seems to be a kind man, a nice man but this man that dealt so roughly and spoke so roughly and accused them of being spies wanted now his only, his beloved Benjamin one who he idolised, thought a lot of and no doubt did because he loved Rachel and this is only the last child that was left of her. And so He clings, He holds fast onto Him. You know there are some times that we have idols, we have things that we won't let go of.
Things that need to be let go of for God to work His providence and bring on to the next step. What was before, dear Jacob, hear? God was bringing about what he'd said to Abraham, that his seed should be a stranger in a strange land. How they were to go into Egypt, what land even it was, was not told Abraham, but God was bringing it about. You know, sometimes the hardest things that we have to do, or bow to, or submit to, are necessary in the outworking of God's providence, what He is actually doing.
If Jacob had point blank refused Then what would have happened? God's purposes, you might say, would have been frustrated. But they weren't. He is brought to submit. He is brought to let Benjamin go. But as he's going through this, he is thinking, he is thinking, he is saying, all these things are against me. We know they were not against him. The removing of Joseph to Egypt was not against him. The locking up of Simeon was not against him. The request for Benjamin was not against him. But he thought so. And we may come into places that we think and say the same thing.
And may this account remind us that the Lord very seldom tells His people beforehand what shall happen. Sometimes He does like He did with Abraham, but leave out the detail. And we have to walk it out. We have to go day by day, hour by hour, doing hard things, making hard decisions, but watching the Lord unfold His will and His providence.
And so this word has rested upon me here. All these things are against me. We briefly set forth how it was with dear Jacob, how he is viewing these things, all being against him. My mind went further than dear Jacob, and went to all of the people of God, how we are first as sinners, as fallen sons of Adam, and what is against us in that state. And so then it led to further think of this. Well, if we look at those things that we see against us when God begins to work a work of grace in us, What is it that God does to change those things from being against us to being for us? And so I want to look at, in the first place, the things against us. The second, what the Lord has done to turn these things to be for us. And then in the third place, how? How these things are now for God's people in Christ Jesus.
So go now from dear Jacob and thinking of one in whom the Lord is first working, is opening their eyes, He has given them eternal life, He's caused them to live. They now have ears and eyes, spiritually so. They now have senses. They can now feel in a spiritual way.
All these things are against me. They are seeing things that they did not see before. Having to perceive things that they never saw before. And over room is in utter darkness. You can't see anything in it that was in it. But as soon as the light is turned on, then all those things are seen, they're manifest. And so it is, when the Lord begins with His people, they see what they didn't see before.
It was still the same, it was all there, but they didn't see it and didn't perceive it. I wonder how many of us can say, in our experience, that there has been a time like that. We saw things we didn't see before, We understood things we didn't understand before, and the first time it happened, it was that we said, like with Jacob, all these things are against me, one after another. Well, what are those things that we have seen against us?
Well, the first one is the holy law of God. Paul says that the law is a schoolmaster unto Christ. But that no flesh is justified by the law, it is evident the just shall live by faith, and by the deeds of the law shall no man living be justified. The commandment came that sin might abound, and that where then sin abounded, there is to be a bringing down that all the world might be guilty before God.
And we see that law that we thought in our unregeneracy, well, we can just do a few good deeds and we can merit our acceptance with God. The law's not too hard and not too bad. It's not really against us because we can do some good works. But when God opens the eyes, When the law is brought to bear in all its length and its breadth, then we see that condemnation that we are under, that we have broken the law of God.
The soul that sinneth it shall die, who so transgresseth in one point is guilty in all. And this is going to be one of those things that we must say is against us. It is not for us, it is to condemn us and to bring us in guilty before God. The second thing that we will prove is against us, or who is against us, is God Himself. It's God Himself. What aspects of God? We know the Scriptures declare that God is angry with the wicked every day. and that we cannot stand before God as sinners.
Adam couldn't. Adam realized this. This is our second point. When the Lord came into the garden, then he couldn't stand before Him. He had to try and hide and to cover his nakedness and flee from the Lord, and the Lord that he once had communion and fellowship with, now he can't at all. But what is the aspects?
The holiness of God. To see that holiness, Daniel saw it, and how that he fell as having no strength at all. The angels in heaven, holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. And for a sinner to feel full of uncleanness, full of sinfulness, full of wretchedness, and that God is most, most holy. And we see that holiness is against us, because we are so unholy. We think of the justice of God. God is a just God.
A just weight's in the bag, they're all of Him. and he shall demand a justice upon a sinner. He can't just acquit him. He can't just say it doesn't matter. He has said in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. The wages of sin is death.
And we know with the justice of God that if we get the justice that we are due, what we deserve, that we shall perish. Sometimes we might feel someone's done something against us in the land. We feel like we'd like to go to court, and we'd like to go before a justice, a justice of the peace, or a barrister, or something like that, to get justice, because we feel if our case is known, then it'll go favorably toward us, and we'll get what we want. But when we look at what we have done in the sight of a holy God, then we know that if we were to apply on justice ground, we should come off the worst, we should perish, we should be condemned, that that justice of God is not for us, but against us.
And what about the righteousness of God? God is righteous in all His ways, upright and perfect in all His ways. But we are all unrighteousness, all as an unclean thing. He's not a man that doeth good and sinneth not. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And we see then that God's righteousness, as that righteousness belonging to Him as God, as the Eternal God, as the incommunicable righteousness, is against us. There is a barrier between us and God, and every attribute of God emphasizes that barrier to say that it is against us. But then we go from God and we go to ourselves. What about ourselves? The Apostle Paul in Romans 7, he says, who shall deliver me from this body of death? A body of death.
That when I would do good, evil is present with me. He speaks later in the 8th chapter of Romans that what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. We are not able to perform the deeds of the law. We cannot do that which is right because of our corrupt nature, our flesh, our body of We can have a mind and a will to do that which is right, but how to perform that which good is good, I find not. It's like a man that has a broken leg, and however much he wills to run a race, he cannot run a race.
A broken arm he cannot lift, he cannot write, although he much would like to. And it is because he views his own self, His own weakness, that is against Him. It's going against Him. And this is so with the child of God. Hymn writer says, nor can I promise future good to bring. Why not? Because we know that in ourselves, that is in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing. That is why.
And so with our eyes open we view this. We view God differently, we view ourselves differently, we view the Lord of God differently, and each of those things, we say, all these things are against us. How can we ever be blessed? How can ever we get to heaven? How can a man be just with God, with all of these things that are against him? But then there's further as well.
There is men that is against us. As soon as we have a regard to the word of God, the Lord says, I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them. The world that lieth in sin and wickedness don't like those who are troubled over their souls and concerned about the things of God. They don't like them. They rise up against them. Paul turns from the persecutor to the one being persecuted. The man that was born blind is reviled and cast out by the Jews.
No, we look for no friendship, no help from men. And even in the tribulations and trials that Job had, he said of his friends, miserable comforters are ye all. And so this is another thing that we see against us. We might go to a minister and seek for help, for advice. We might go to a loved one and we find out that none of them is able to help, or to remedy, or to save us. We say it's another of those things that is against us.
But then we have another one, and this is Satan. Satan, the enemy of God's people. He hates it. When there is any sign of a seeking after Him, any concern for soul, any desire for soul, Satan will stand up against the Child of God. He's accuser of the brethren. you find that he is immediately one seeks the Lord to be an adversary against the child of God either as an angel of light or as a roaring lion or as an accuser, a tempter first and then an accuser another one of those things that is against us But then we have another one, and this is providence. God's ordering in our lives. This is what Jacob would have been seeing. This is God's providence, God's ordering, God's way. And Jacob, he sees this.
It's going against him. All these things that are happening are against him. They're not for him. And we might view that as well. Providence unfolds the book and makes his counsel shine. Those things that are brought to pass, those things that come to pass. You think of the two on the way to Emmaus. We trusted that it should have been he that should have redeemed Israel. He said, art thou a stranger? Knowest not the things that have come to pass in these last days?
And it is these things then. that we may view to be against us. Afflictions and trials and loss of jobs or hard things in the family or in those of our neighbours or with those things that are ours broken and going wrong. those things that men are dealing with us and that affect us, these things in the Lord's ordering, knowing that these things don't happen by chance but come of the decree of God. And we see them instead of working for good, it's our view in it, we see that they are tending to harm us and not be a token. We think of the word that I'll make all my goodness pass before thee in the way, but all we see is not goodness, but badness and things that are going against us and working against us. But it's not only providence, it's also the word of God.
The Word of God. And when the Lord first began with me, wherever I turned in the Word of God, whether it was to be the New Testament or Old, whether it was Gospel or whether it was the Law, it all condemned me. Every page, every sentence, all found me out as a sinner. And the Word of God condemned me. That was how it was at the beginning.
And yet go to the word, I must. Read the word, I must. Seek in it, I must. Maybe there's some of you in that position. You go to the word of God for relief, for help, but instead The verses you light upon, the passages you read, seems to make your problems, your trials, your burdens to be even worse and harder and harder. All these things are against me. What a picture, hemmed in on every side, not seeing anything as it were for us. but everything against us.
How is that going to be changed? How can the Lord change that? What will the Lord do to change those things? Could it possibly be changed when there is so many of them? Well, the Lord has changed it for His people. I want to look secondly at what the Lord has done to turn these things to before us.
The Lord's plan of salvation is to aim to turn these very things so that instead of being against, they're for us. but it cannot be done by just a decree of Almighty God. God is a just God, a holy God, and therefore that plan that He does must be for His honour and for His glory. In every part it must be seen to be right, it must stand in the High Court of Heaven and before all those that are looking on. And the Lord gave the promise, right in the Garden of Eden, as soon as man fell, the seed of the woman that should bruise the serpent's head. The whole secret of turning all of these things against us to be for us is in the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In His person as being God and man in one person, in him being made a brother, one a near kinsman, in him coming to this world and living a perfect life, working out a righteousness that is different, separate from his own righteousness as God, the righteousness that is able to be communicated to another. And then, that He should put away the debt that His people owed, that He should obey the law in their place and satisfy the demands of the law in their place.
This is what the Lord Jesus Christ came to do and did do, and that is why He laid down His life and rose again. so that the people of God, those that believe in Him, might be justified from all things that they could not be justified by the law of Moses. It is so important for us to realize that bound up in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ is the whole turning point for the people of God, is the difference between life and death, between all things against us to all things that are for us. It is the turning point. No wonder it is put forth that to know the Lord Jesus Christ is life eternal. Our hope, everything, is in what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished here below.
He is the one that is lifted up on the pole of the everlasting gospel in preaching. He is the one that is set forth in the ordinances of the house of God in baptism and in the Lord's Supper. He is the one and whose last will and testimony is towards a people that he has loved eternally and chosen, and that he shall then bring the benefits and blessings of what he has accomplished here on this earth, on this sin-cursed earth, under the law. He was born under the law, born of a woman, that he might redeem them that are under the law.
It is so important for us that the Holy Spirit lay these things on our heart, that what the Lord Jesus Christ has done effectually will be then known and realised and felt in a sinner. In a sinner that has bought all of these things and seen them against them, that then in the Lord's time and way, and perhaps one by one, He sees those things taken from the against side and put on the foreside, taken from that which is to His condemnation and to that which is for His salvation. May we then view the Lord Jesus Christ as the One that we need whenever we see anything against us. May we view the answer is to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Lord that quickens the people into life that first begin to see everything against them.
Already they are partaking of the benefits and blessings of Christ's death and resurrection, because they are no longer dead in sin. They are no longer with their eyes darkened and their understanding darkened. They now see, they now understand. So how is it then, if we go back through that list that we viewed, And we have a look at what was against us and how it can be for us. This is our third point. How these things are now for God's people in Christ. The first one that we mentioned was the Law of God.
We think of the children of Israel when they came to Mount Sinai. And to highlight their wickedness and their breaking the law, they made the golden calf. They worshipped it. They said that was their gods that brought them out of Egypt. But there was Moses with the Lord, and the Lord wrote on two tables of stone the moral law of God. The two tables of stone, first table is our duty toward God, and the second, our duty toward man. The very first one, thou shalt have no other gods before me.
And there is a people that are worshipping other gods. And so Moses comes down from the mount. And when he sees their wickedness, he casts those tables, casts them down to the ground and broke them. What a symbol. the broken law of God. That's what we have done. But God did not leave it there. Moses had to go up to the mount again. Moses then on that holy mount made again two tables. And again, the Lord wrote in those tables, on those tables of stone, But where were they to be put? What was to be done of them? And where were they to go?
They were to go in the Ark, a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. thy God, which have brought thee out of the house of bondage, out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And it's to this God that the law was fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is the work that he came to do upon this earth. which was beautifully fulfilled and prefigured with those unbroken tables at Mount Sinai. To see the law fulfilled in Christ, it's beautiful to see the type and to realize the great anti-type that the Lord Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law. in His perfect life, and in what the Lord demanded for sinners. Bearing the sins of His people, He took their punishment. He endured the wrath of God instead of them, and then rose again from the dead.
And so the law of God in Christ Jesus to a believer Those that are believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, He has fulfilled that law. That law is no longer against a sinner, but for a sinner. Because in Christ He has fulfilled that law. Not in Himself, but in Christ. This is what is taught there. This is the only way that that condemnation through a broken law can be brought about, are delivered from condemnation, because Christ has fulfilled them. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
God has made a difference in their lives, changed their lives about, brought them to repent, turned from idols to the living God, and turn from serving self to serving the Lord, turning from looking to the deeds of the law and their own works to look at Christ's finished work. Dear believer, child of God, know this, the law of God is now not against you but for you. But secondly, God himself God Himself. In viewing what the Lord Jesus Christ has done on Calvary, we read that God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God's holiness He cannot look upon sin but without utter abhorrence. so that he must punish the sins laid upon his son. His justice does require a just balance, that the exact payment be made, particular redemption.
It was taught there in Numbers chapter 3, the latter part of that chapter, the children of Israel, the firstborn, were redeemed by the Levites. They had to number the Levites None were the firstborn. The difference, and there was more of the firstborn, had to be redeemed with the five shekels of the sanctuary.
And it was particular. They couldn't say, oh, don't worry, there's just a slight disagreement. There's not enough Levites. You can let the other ones go. No, it had to be an exact weight. right through the Scriptures, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, especially a just way to just balance.
The Lord was angry with those that had a weight that had a lettering on it as if it was one weight but weighed less or laid more, weighed more depending on whether it was being used to sell or to buy goods. The emphasis always is, if there's going to be a settlement, a payment, it must be just.
And then what about the righteousness of God? Well, the Lord Himself provides a righteousness for His people. He doesn't just say, well, you'll never ever be able to come up to my righteousness, and we won't. Therefore there's no hope for you. He says, I will work out a righteousness and give it to you. Paul teaches this in Romans 10. He said of his countrymen, they are ignorant of God's righteousness, going about to establish their own.
But Paul is setting forth a righteousness that's imputed. that's put to our account, and that is what Christ has done, not what we have done. So then those things that, in God Himself, we may say are against us, the Lord has granted us a holy life, a holiness in Him. The hymn writer says, Christ has holiness enough to sanctify us all, a work in the people of God, not to make them spotless, sinless, but as accounted holy in the sight of God, and all that the Lord has done in their redemption is holy. The Holy Spirit, the Holy Bible, the Holy Ordinances, a holy people, a people that are separated from all other people, a people for God, and for his worship. And so God himself, what a blessing to view that God is for us, not against us, that he is on our side, that those things that he's done are in love's sake. Those things he's opened our eyes to, we can discern even that, as that love, God Himself is for us. May we never think that the Father is an angry God and the Lord Jesus Christ is a mediator to pacify an angry Father standing in between us and God. No. The Lord says the Father Himself loveth you. The love of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all for a poor sinner. in whom he gives light and life.
But then what about ourselves? What about this body of death? that Paul really felt and complained of. He says, if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Who shall deliver me from this body of death? He identifies this body of death as being carried about by the soul, and that we will have that body of death right to our journey's end. But he says, who shall deliver me? I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. Again, our Lord is set forth, how shall he deliver us from this body of death?
That what the flesh what the law could not do because it was weak in the flesh. God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and foreseen condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Spiritually minded is life, to be kindly minded is death. If ye therefore mortify the deeds of the body through the Spirit, ye shall live. And the Lord then gives that new nature. that shall fight against and cause that the old nature does not have the ascendancy. There is a constant battle we have in Hebrews 12. You've not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
But what a reminder for us. Paul says in that 8th of Romans, the whole creation groaneth together until now. and we groan as in the body of death. Soon through death that body shall be taken down, laid in the grave. Then at last day it shall be raised again, joined with our souls. And then in heaven, no more conflict between the body and the soul, a complete oneness. And so the Conquest, the thing that is not now against us, it's a mark for us that there is a conflict, that there is a groaning, that there is a resisting, that there is a crying unto the Lord. You think of the Lord's name, His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.
And what about men? You think of dear Joseph later on in this account. He says to his brethren, ye meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. You think of at Calvary, ye have taken by wicked hands, crucified and slain. Who? He that was delivered by the determinate counsel and full knowledge of God. Men, wicked men. were used to bring about the purposes of God, even in redemption, even in the sufferings and crucifixion of the Lord.
Well might the Lord say, Who is he that shall harm you? If ye be followers of that which is good. Fear not the reproaches of men. What is man? Poor, puny man. The Lord can smite him down in a moment, And yet the Lord uses men, ungodly men, sinful men, uses them for the good of His people. We see that they're in God's hand. And so those that are against us, those that He used to bring us off self and off man, those that God uses, and they're in His hand. When we see that, then we see that even men even though their motive was spite and hatred, yet we see that they're in God's hand for good.
And so Satan, how can Satan be for our good? What did Satan achieve with Job accusing Job? Did he achieve much? For Job had a severe path of trial, affliction, But in the end, the latter end of Job was better than the beginning, and Satan was proved to be a liar.
Satan, his heel, not his heel, but his head is bruised. He's a defeated foe. He is bound, he cannot stop the Lord's people from entering heaven. He cannot stop them being born again. Resist the devil and he shall flee from you. We are poor, we are weak, but we have the authority of the King of Heaven to call forth His power and His might. That which the Lord did at Calvary, it bruised His hand.
What about providence? Going back to Romans 8 again, we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose. Him writer says providence unfolds the book and makes his counsels shine. Those darkest providences, like dear Jacob's, they turn about for good.
Oh, how we need time, need to be able to look back, need to trust the Lord with the vow between, with those things that we see not yet put under us, but later on we shall see have worked for good. And what about the Word of God? Go back to my own experience. When the Lord blessed my soul, when he showed me the Lord Jesus Christ, Then the whole Word of God, Law and Gospel, all of it was for me. Wherever I looked, I saw the Gospel. The Lord is truly able to shut, and no man opens, and open, and no man shuts. It was the same Bible. Same Bible. But how I viewed it, and how the Lord showed me, it was different.
And may we prove that, may we know that. that we see, from beginning to end, like those two in the way to Emmaus would have done, as the Lord opened to them in all things in the Scriptures concerning himself, their heart burnt within them. So may we who see like Jacob and say, all these things are against me. have our eyes opened and be brought to see the Lord Jesus, and to trust in Him, and see these things rather than being against us, have turned about the very same things, and they are for us.
They speak for our eternal good. They speak as the fruits of the Lord Jesus Christ, making this great change, turning this about, and a poor sinner that had everything against them. Now I've used those things, taken away, not just neutral, but they are now for Him. If God be for us, who can be against us? What an encouragement. If you, if I, are speaking Jacob's words tonight, all these things are against me. The Lord bring about that time when you see, like Jacob was to see later on, that those things were not against, but they were for, and God working out His purposes, His sovereign will. May the Lord add His blessing. Amen.
About Rowland Wheatley
Pastor Rowland Wheatley was called to the Gospel Ministry in Melbourne, Australia in 1993. He returned to his native England and has been Pastor of The Strict Baptist Chapel, St David’s Bridge Cranbrook, England since 1998.
He and his wife Hilary are blessed with two children, Esther and Tom.
Esther and her husband Jacob are members of the Berean Bible Church Queensland, Australia. Tom is an elder at Emmanuel Church Salisbury, England. He and his wife Pauline have 4 children, Savannah, Flynn, Willow and Gus.
Pristine Grace functions as a digital library of preaching and teaching from many different men and ministries. I maintain a broad collection for research, study, and listening, and the presence of any preacher or message here should not be taken as a blanket endorsement of every doctrinal position expressed.
I publish my own convictions openly and without hesitation throughout this site and in my own preaching and writing. This archive is not a denominational clearinghouse. My aim in maintaining it is to preserve historic and contemporary preaching, encourage careful study, and above all direct readers and listeners to the person and work of Christ.
Brandan Kraft
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Everything that exists is a thought in the mind of God.
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I spent the majority of my adult life building something I didn't know had a name. It started with the Scriptures and a lot of late nights. It ended with one sentence that generates every theological position I hold, from the nature of God to the nature of heaven and hell, without contradiction. One sentence. Thirty chapters. Sixteen appendices. And if you accept the sentence, everything else follows.
Most systematic theologies start with a list of doctrines and work through them one by one. This book starts with an ontological claim - that everything that exists is a thought in the mind of God - and derives everything from that single proposition. This is not a rearrangement of existing theology. This is a paradigm shift. Since Augustine imported Plato's metaphysics into the church in the fourth century, every major system of Christian theology has been built on a foundation the Scriptures never laid. This book identifies that foundation, names it, traces its influence across sixteen centuries, and replaces it with an ontology derived from Scripture alone. If the claim holds, this is the most significant shift in the theological starting point since Augustine. And I believe it holds.
This is not a devotional. This is not a commentary. This is a systematic theology built from the ground up by a computer programmer with no seminary degree, no denominational backing, and no one's permission. It uses the vocabulary of information theory, computer science, and quantum physics to describe realities that traditional theological language has never been able to reach. If you are a scientist who suspects that information is fundamental to reality but can't bring yourself to call it God, this book speaks your language. If you are a sovereign grace believer looking for a system that follows the logic all the way, this book does that. And if you have been told that the sharpest doctrine produces the coldest heart, this book ends with the widest arms you have ever seen in a Reformed theology.
The digital edition is free. The truth doesn't come with a price tag. - Brandan Kraft
Where this book stands in the tradition
4th century BC
Plato
Idealism — forms over particulars
The Republic ethic: “God is not the author of evil”
“Everything that exists is a thought in the mind of God, sustained by His will, authored by His purpose, and held together by personal covenants of love.”
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