Romans 8, 28. So I want to look
at a few things with this, this morning that don't immediately
come to mind when you read it or hear it. 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. Notice the verse began and we
know it's not, we think we hope or we believe, but we know. And the knowledge referred to
here is not intellectual, but spiritual. The we he uses here
is the Lord's people. This is not for, this is not
for Adam's race. But we know, we know. It's spiritual. It's not a matter
of facts, but of faith. Factually, a lot of things have
never worked together for any good to anyone. Factually. We can't read this as an excuse. for everything that's ever happened
or, or ever foolish thing we've ever done. No, this is a statement of faith.
We know we know by God given faith. And to me, the real key to this
verse is in the word. Good, good. And again, that does not mean
from an intellectual standpoint that everything that happens
or don't happen, you do or don't do, is somehow going to work
out for good. That's not what it's saying at
all. The good Paul is referring to is laid out in the next verse,
verse 29. For, that's a connecting word,
for, or because. Here's the what, why, and how
of the good. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that
he, the Lord Jesus, might be the firstborn or first begotten
from the dead among many brethren. For whom he did foreknow. Not foreknow what we do, but
foreknow what he'd do. A lot of folks try to explain God's
foreknowledge spoken of numerous times in the scripture. Try to
explain foreknowledge as God knowing what we do, nothing to
do with us. God knowing what he'd do. This
is about him, not us. And the foreknowledge here is
not just previous knowledge. No. There's no foreknowing of something
that don't exist. And apart from God's purpose
and God's foreordaining and decreeing Nothing exists. Only God could foreknow in this
sense, because all that he's decreed shall certainly come
to pass, shall certainly be. And in his sovereignty, his purpose
cannot be overthrown. In his immutability, which means
unchangeable nature. His purpose cannot change. And in his omniscience, which
means all seeing and all knowing, he cannot be surprised or his purpose frustrated. And
in his omnipotence, meaning his power, he cannot fail. foreknowledge. Then here's this
word predestination. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate. I pity folks that have a problem
with that. I don't pity self-righteous religionists,
false preachers who neither know or believe the gospel. Try to
explain this away. But this is God's word. It's
not mine. It's not yours. It's God's word. But so many
try to explain this away. And they say this foreknowledge
and this predestination is based on God's knowing what you do.
Oh, no, we didn't exist to do anything. This is before there was anything
but Him. We existed only in the mind and
purpose of God from eternity past. When He chose, He predestinated,
He decreed some things. It's all His doing, His doing.
Now you know what destination means. It means wherever you're
headed. You get in your car and we're
driving 26 west. Where are you going? Our destination
is Asheville. Our destination is Knoxville. We have a destination where we're
going. Well, this prefix pre simply means beforehand. Knowing beforehand. God knew before there was anything
what he was going to do about everything. He knew before there
was anyone, what he was going to do with everyone. What's wrong with God being like
that? Nothing. The only people have a problem
with that is proud hearted, self-righteous religionists. I even had a man
say to me one time, how can God know what's going to happen when
it hadn't even happened yet? I didn't even, I didn't even
waste my breath trying. He knows all before there's any. He's God. He's God. He knew it
all before he ever hung the stars and created the earth. So Paul
says, and we know the world don't know. Foolish religion don't know, but God's people know. And we
know. Now notice here, it's improper
to begin a sentence with the preposition, and your English
teacher told you that. But God's word does it here. And is a connecting word. Tying
back to the previous verses. Verses 26 and 27. And the work
of the Holy Spirit in us. That's how we know. That's how
we know. Again, not intellectual, but
spiritual. Apart from Him, we know nothing.
But by Him, we know. Now here's where I'm getting
to for a few minutes. And I know our time is going to get gone.
So I want you to hang with me and I'll try to move fast. It's a long way from the all
things for good in verse 28 to the image of God's Son in
verse 29. That's a long span. And when I say that, it may not
be long in time, in years. Some believers live longer in
this world than others. Some die younger than others. But in our experience, in suffering,
in people's treatment, in dying, God gets it all done regardless
of the years involved. I don't know, but I just really
think it's very, very profound. All that happens on a person's
death bed, a child of God I'm talking about. God can bring you a million miles
in a few minutes. See? So however God works it in the
life of every believer is his business. But I promise you,
he gets it done. Every one of God's children gets
from the all things in 28 to the image of God's son in 29. God's providence. What is it? It is the unceasing activity
and work of God in the affairs of men and especially his children. God is king. over his creation. You need to remember that. Now
there's various views, and I don't need to go into all this because
most of it's garbage, but there are various views of how this
world is governed. Deism says that God created it,
but he stands back as a spectator. He just wounded up like a watch
and stands back and watches. No, that's not right. That's
not right. Of course, the atheists say there's
no God to be considered in it at all. All this somehow just
happened. No, that's wrong. And others say, which is pretty
much the same, that everything is by chance or by luck. You know, one person has good
luck and one person has bad. The late Dr. R.C. Sproul said, what are the odds of anything
in this world happening by chance? And then he said, not a chance. That's true. That's true. Thomas Watson, the great Puritan
preacher, said that God is to be trusted even when his providences
seem to run contrary to his promises. God is to be trusted when it
looks like he's not going to do what he said he would do. I have often said this, God seems
to delight in letting things get to the impossible stage. before he steps in and does what
he says he'll do. Some of you this morning bleed
with all your heart. The evidence is God-given conviction
in your heart. And of course that is manifest
by how you live. I don't, I don't, I don't listen
to anybody that says they're a Christian when they live like
the devil. Not that we're saved by works,
but I promise you this, we're saved by faith that works. Certainly does. And so some of
you are truly believers this morning, but somehow you can't
really see how God is ever going to get the likes of you to heaven. I kind of got a question about
it myself, but he's going to do it. He's going to do it. He never said for you and I to
see how he's going to do it. He said he'd do it. He'll do
it. Now, God didn't let problems get to
the impossible stage before he solves them. We'd never give
him the credit for solving them. You know what we'd do? We'd say,
well, it worked out. I was really worried about such
and such, but it worked out. No, it didn't. God worked it
out. We're so dumb and thoughtless
that we don't give him credit for it, praise for it. What's wrong with giving God
the credit for what he does? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
What's wrong with these verses of scripture? Nothing is wrong
with them. He's God. He's God. Everything that touches the life
of a child of God, everything that we call good and everything
that we call bad, it's all given for some specific purpose. We certainly don't always see
why, but we don't have to. Let me give you some scripture
right quick. Psalm 118, excuse me, Psalm 1830, as for God, his
way is perfect. You got a problem with that? Well, I wish God this. I wish
God, no, no, no. Don't wish God anything. As for
God. His way is perfect. Psalm 3115, my times are in thy
hand, the psalmist said. Lord, I absolutely am not in
the driver's seat. I can't control anything. I'm
just, I'm so dumb. I can't find my way in and out
of the rain. My times are in thy hand. Genesis 41, 32, Pharaoh
dreamed twice. God's going somewhere. He's a
heathen wicked kid. And the Bible says this, it is
because the thing is established by God and God will shortly bring it
to pass. Philippians 1, 12, Paul said,
the things which have happened unto me, Buddy, there's some
things happened to that guy. The things which have happened
unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.
Well, where'd they fall out from? They fell out from God's providence. That's it. It is he who prearranges,
prepares things in our lives. A great writer named Peter Jeffrey,
he's a pastor in the country of Wales. And he said this and
I underlined it and picked it out this morning. He said, we
are not leaves blown around by the winds of chance or fate, but the children of God held
fast in providential hands. You can trust God. John Newton. Many of you are
familiar with the name John Newton. Seaman, slave trader, wicked
man before the Lord came into his life. Later wrote the great
hymn, Amazing Grace. And the story went concerning
Newton, that he was a very prompt man with every appointment. with
everything he did. And his friends even got aggravated
because he was so precise, time-wise. And he was never late for anything.
But something happened one day, and
he missed a certain boat that he was supposed to catch and
go somewhere else. And in just a few moments before
the boat was even out of sight, it exploded, killed everybody
on board. I'm talking to you about Providence. Talk about things that happen
or don't happen. It's not just coincidence. It's
not just accidents. For God's children, it's on purpose
and in God's purpose every time, every time. The great preacher
Augustine or Augustine, some called him, he always walked
the same way home in the evening, he said. And one day he went
another way. I went back and read it again.
It didn't say he decided. Well, I guess he put that in
there, but he went another way. But he did say, I don't know
why I did. I always go that other way. Later to find out that a dear
friend of his was robbed and killed about the time that he
would have been passing that way. had more for him to do. It wasn't
his time. And the fact that you're here
today is evidence that God has something more for you in life than to just be a dummy and live
like a devil and die someday. No, no. God has a purpose in
the life of every one of his children. In the time of the Reformation,
the 1500s, there was a great preacher named Bernard Gilpin.
And he was arrested and was to be put to death for his faith,
his testimony of the gospel. And when they went to get him,
he had fallen and broken a leg and been attended to, and he
was in bed with a broken leg. And they said, well, we won't
take him like that. tell the authorities because they meant
for him to walk to his execution. So they said, we'll wait on him.
Wait till he heals. But before he healed, wicked
King Mary, Queen Mary, better known as Bloody Mary, was dead. And Queen Elizabeth ascended
the throne and his life was spared. All these things, not by coincidence,
not accidents, but God's doing. God's doing. Now, let me find what I've got
going here. I'm just going to quit this note
stuff and talk a minute. There was a man named Thomas
Gresham from England. in the 1500s, born
1519, died 1579, lived to be 60 years old. And he was a businessman and
a politician and a Christian. And in his lifetime, being a businessman, he got into
finance and working for the government. And he dealt with foreign affairs
debts and loans and financial business for the government,
millions of dollars. And he founded in London, England,
what is known as the Royal Exchange, the stock market. Huge building
at the time. And the way that came about,
as an infant, As a newborn, unwanted, he was
cast out in the field to die. And another little boy, six or
eight years old, came walking across the field. And he, for some, for God only
knows, he walked off the path because he was following the
chirping of a loud grasshopper. It chirped and it flew when he
got close. He thought, I'll follow that grasshopper. So he did. And when he did, he found that
infant. And he ran home and told his
mother. And she came and got the baby, raised the baby, claimed
it, and raised it for her own. His name, Thomas Gresham. He became this famous man in
England. And to this day, how from the
building of that Royal Exchange in England, there's an emblem
of a huge grasshopper that he put there when he built this. And this writer was saying, most
people didn't know what the grasshopper meant, if anything. But it meant something to that
man. It was his story. And you might not have a grasshopper
story, but you have a story. And it behooves us more often than we do To sit
down, shut up, be quiet, be still and meditate on all that God
has done to bring your life to where it is and to be who you
are. Some of you were born and grew
up in this part of the country. Others of you have come in from
other places. Some of you grew up in a Christian home with godly
parents. Others of you grew up in wicked homes. Some of you
might not even know who your parents were. Guess what? God
is bigger than all of that and he's proved it in your life and
in mine. Oh yes, he really has. My mother Born, lived in her
childhood in Alabama, Fort Payne, Alabama. And her dad died and her mother remarried a mean man, a wicked man. with wicked friends who would drink and party. My grandmother, my mother's mother,
for fear of what might happen to her daughters, my mother,
12, and her sister, 14. She put them both on a Greyhound
bus in Fort Payne, Alabama. to come to Saluda, North Carolina,
to live and be brought up by an uncle and an aunt there. Had
that not happened, you'd have never heard of me.
And I'd have never heard of you.
But God, hey, God's been so gracious, so good to us all. Let me give
you this in a hurry. I know our time's about gone.
What did I do with that? Yeah. Now this little book here,
this is called the divine purpose and is written by a Reverend
John Matthews, printed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1843. This is a first edition, maybe
an only edition. This little book, this little
volume I'm holding was literally printed a hundred and 79 years
ago. Can you believe that? Now, he's talking about Joseph
and Israel and he says this, the Old Testament repeatedly
says to the Israelites, I am the Lord thy God which brought
thee out of the land of Egypt and from the house of bondage.
He says that repeatedly. Now here's what the writer says.
God couldn't have said that if he hadn't miraculously brought
them out. Had they not been in bondage
in Egypt, the occasion of these miracles would not have existed. And the famine prevailed. Had
the famine not prevailed, they would not have been there, for
this was the cause of their going. Had Joseph not been in Egypt
previous to that time, bread would not have been found even
there, for he was the means of its preservation. And thus the
cause of their going would not have existed. Had Joseph not
been sold and carried into Egypt, he would not have been there.
Had his brother loved him as they ought, had they not envied
and hated him, they would not have sold him. Had not his father
loved him more than all his other children, they would not have
hated him. So you see the change? Little did that venerable patriarch,
Jacob, know the long train of consequences which were to flow
from his fond partiality. We look at Jacob's partiality
to Joseph and say, boy, man ought not be that. He ought to be like
that. He ought to treat all his children
the same. Oh, no. Oh, no. Joseph had a heart for
God. The rest didn't. Better give
some thought to that. Well, I'm going to leave everything
I've got to my young ones who live like hell. No, you better
leave it to God. And if you've got one that honors
God... A little poem I read years ago.
I somehow remember it. From Jacob's love on Joseph's
shed came Egypt's wealth and Israel's bread. I hadn't thought
of that in years. From Ruth's chance gleaning in
the corn, the psalmist sang that Christ was born. That's providence,
providence. It's in your life and it's in
mine. Oh my. Well, let's get to the personal part.
God, I've already said this. You are not a nobody wandering
around this world. God don't know anything. No,
no. He knows all about you. He knows more about you than
you know about yourself. And He behooves us to acknowledge
Him. In all thy ways acknowledge Him.
He shall direct thy paths. We need godly wisdom. We don't
need more from Washington. We don't need more from Hollywood. We don't need more from our heathen
environment. We need more from God's word.
I'll tell you why. He's the only one you've ever
heard of that hadn't lied to you. Amen. Amen. May the Lord. Bless the reading of his word,
Romans 8, 28 and 29. And may these scattered thoughts
find a lodging place in some heart this morning, only as God
has purposed it to be so, will it be so.