Let's remember the meeting Wednesday
night at 7.30 over at Bobby's, and we will, Lord willing, be
in the 24th chapter of Matthew's gospel, beginning with verse
37 of verse 30. Yes, I believe it's verse 37
on the second coming of our Lord, his teaching on that. Now I want
to ask you to turn to the book of Isaiah chapter 41, I shall
read the first 16 verses, Isaiah chapter 41. Keep silence before me, O islands,
and let the people renew their strength. Let them come near,
then let them speak. Let us come near together to
judgment. Who raised up the righteous man
from the east, called him to his foot? gave the nations before
him, and made him rule over kings. He gave them as the dust to his
sword, and as dribble stubble to his bow. He pursued them and
passed safely, even by the way that he had not gone with his
feet. Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from
the beginning? I, the Lord, the first, and with
the last, I am he. The isles saw it and feared.
The ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came. They helped
every one his neighbor, and every one said to his brother, He of
good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the
goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer, him that smote
the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering, and he fastened
it with nails, that it should not be moved. But thou, Israel,
art my servant. Jacob, whom I have chosen, the
seed of Abraham, my friend, thou whom I have taken from the ends
of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and
said unto thee, Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and not cast
thee away. Fear thou not, for I am with
thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness. Behold, all they that were incensed
against thee shall be ashamed and confounded. They shall be
as nothing. and they that strive with thee
shall perish. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt
not find them, even them that contended with thee. They that
war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of naught. For I, the Lord thy God, will
hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help thee. Fear not, thou worm, Jacob, and
I'll read that again, and I want you to notice what God calls
Jacob. He doesn't call him a snake or
a serpent, but he does call him a worm. God's people are worms,
but they're not serpents. Verse 14, God says, addressing
Jacob, his chosen, "'Fear not, thou worm, Jacob, ye men of Israel. I will help thee, saith the Lord,
and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make
thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth. Thou shalt thresh
the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills
as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the
wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them.
And thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the
Holy One of Israel." May the Lord bless that verse. wonderful
passage of scripture to our hearts. Now, this evening, we are remembering
our text that we've been speaking from in Romans 8, 28, where the
inspired Paul wrote, 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. And this evening, I want to speak
on why this is so. Why is it that all things are
made to work together for the people of God, for the Saints
of God? We have seen from God's Word
that all the good things work together for our good, and all
the bad things. And I think I have covered all
the bad things in the four categories, the bad things such as affliction
and temptation and the hiding of God's face from his people
at times, and then this morning, sin. So everything that is bad
is bound to come under one or the other of those categories.
sin, the last one, being the most terrible of all things,
and even that being made to work together for the good of God's
people. Well, dear friends, then, why
does God make all things, good and bad, the best and the worst,
the good and the evil, to work together for his people? Well,
of course, the answer to that question is because of the love
which the Lord has for his people, and the value that he places
upon those whom he has chosen." Now, he calls Jacob, and he calls
the people of God, worms, or worm Jacob, as you see here.
And God's people don't think too well of themselves, they
know what they are by nature. Yet God loves them, and he loved
them before he ever saved them. He loved them before he even
chose them, that's why he did choose them. And he placed a
value upon these poor worms of the dust. And having therefore
loved us, and I can't tell you why he did that. We'll just have
to wait till eternity, and God may be pleased to reveal why.
I don't know, except that he just determined to love us and
let the others perish without his great love. But God did love
us. from eternity, God did put a
high price or a high value upon all the people of God who are
called Jacob and his chosen. And he made a covenant with us.
He says, they shall be my people and I will be their God. And because of this covenant,
because of his love and the value that he's placed upon his people,
he does make all things work together for their good. You notice here in the 10th verse
of that 41st chapter of Isaiah, God says this comforting word
to his people, than which I don't know of any other more comforting
word in the scripture to the people of God. Fear thou not,
for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God, thy God. I will strengthen thee. Yea,
I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness." And he goes on with that sovereign I,
making promises to the people of God. But perhaps the most
comforting thing in that verse 10 is that God says, I am thy
God. I am thy God. In the book of
Isaiah, in this chapter and other chapters, he speaks of the people
having other gods. They're making their idols, cutting
wood, putting gold upon it, and making an idol and so forth of
it. This is what the heathen did. But these people, he says, I
am thy God. The true God belongs to you. Fear thou not. Be not dismayed,
for I am thy God." Beloved, if we can know this, that God has
determined to be our God, we can take that, can we not? Fear
not, be not dismayed, no matter what happens. Now, that's a glorious
expression, and I want us to just suck the sweet substance
out of that word here this evening, the Lord willing. the expression,
I am thy God. This is the relationship between
the people of God and God, God's people and himself. Thy God. So then we can say this, if God
is thy God or our God, everything must work together for our good.
Nothing can harm Jacob, nothing can crush that poor worm and
destroy him. And so you've got a great many
implications here that are so wonderful. What does this relationship
imply when God says, I am thy God? Well, first of all, we think
of God as Father. And this is one of the sweet
expressions of the Scripture. The Lord Jesus Christ said, when
you think of the Father, when you come to pray to him, You
think of him as Father, and say, Our Father, which art in heaven. Now, Father loves his child,
and he does what is good for the child. God is our God, as
he says he is. He is our Father, and he does
us good in all things, even when he chastens us. You know, the
scripture says that as a man chastens his son, So the Lord,
thy God, chasteneth thee." Those chastenings are good. God doesn't
give us what we want all the time, but he does give us what
we need. God isn't trying to please us
and humor us all the time, but he is reforming the children
of God. That's why our whippings come,
and he's a tender-hearted father. He said, like as a father pities
his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him. A father, a true father, will
pity his little child, because he knows his frailty, and he
knows that he is flesh, and sinful flesh at that. Now, our Lord
Jesus Christ, in this book of Isaiah 9.6, is called the everlasting
Father. So then, he is our Father from
eternity. before we're ever born, and he'll
be our Father to eternity. And he loves us as a Father,
therefore all things will be made for our good. Another relationship
here that is sweet is implied in that expression when he says,
I am thy God, and that is the relationship of husband. Because
here in the Old Testament, the scripture says, thy God, or thy
maker, is thy husband." He is. God created us. God created us
to be one with him, as children with the Father, and as really
a wife to the husband. Thy maker is thy husband, he
says. So in that relationship we see
that God will make everything to work for his children. They
compose the bride, the wife of Christ, of the Lord. A husband
does everything he can to please his wife. A husband, it's unnatural
for him to do things that would destroy and hurt his dear, precious
wife, his bride, his bosom love. And so God, as our Father, God
as our husband, will not do anything to hurt his people, but will
do everything to help and make work together. In this expression,
I am thy God, we think of a physician. You remember Job. God, through
Job, spoke of these other physicians, and he said that you all are
physicians of no value. He's just no help to me. But
Job had a true physician, and that was God. God healed Job. because he was his physician. He wounded him, too, and then
healed him. A faithful physician. And so,
the Lord Jesus Christ is our physician, the Lord is our physician,
and he is a capable, he is a skillful physician. He knows how to wound
to get the malignancy out, and he knows how to heal his dear
people. And he says, I am the Lord that
healeth thee. And so, in the fourth place,
when we think of God being our God, as he claims to be, you
may get this relationship of a friend. If God is our God,
then he's our friend, dear friends. Not only father, husband, and
physician, but he is our friend. What a friend we have in our
Lord. The bride in Song of Solomon, the 5th chapter, verse 16, says,
This is my friend, her husband was her friend, and so he is
to us. And what will a friend do for
you? A friend will study to be kind
to you. A friend will study to help you
and to do you good. He may not always please you.
He may not always do that thing which will be a pleasurable to
you, but he'll be a true friend to you. And so we can count upon
the Lord God for his friendship. I remember that, let's see, back
in Deuteronomy 7 and verse 9, God was a friend of Israel, you
know. But you notice in the 7th chapter of Deuteronomy and verse
9, God tells them what he did to them. how he caused them to
suffer, and then he says this, "'The Lord did not set his love
upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any
people. For ye were the fewest of all
people, but because the Lord loved you, And because he would
keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord
brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of
the house of bondage from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt."
And verse 9, "...know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is
God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with
them that love him, and keep his commandments to a thousand
generations." Well, the Lord is faithful to his people in
love. God loves his dear people so much that he gave his son,
the son of his bosom, for their salvation. He is faithful in
his promises, because God can't lie. We can take hold of the
promises of God because he is our God. He is true and faithful
and cannot lie. He is faithful in his dealings
with the people of God, in all his afflicting of us, in all
the appointments of trial and suffering. God is faithful to
us. And then God is faithful in that
he's an unchanging God. God never changes. We change,
dear friends. Our friends even change here
on this earth. But God never changes. And he
said, I will never forsake thee, I will never leave thee, nor
forsake thee. So when our earthen friends fail,
as they often do in a pinch, God is there. God never fails. He's ever a friend. in adversity
as well as in prosperity. And once again, this word, thy
God, not only implies that God is our Father, as he is, our
husband, our physician, our friend, but it implies that he is the
nearest of all relations to us. And we get this from the scripture. We have this relationship of
our Lord to his people as the head is related to the body,
as the members of the body are related to the head. Christ is
head over all things to the Church, the head. Paul says he is the
head of the body and we are members in particular. What does the
head do? Does the head of the body do
anything to hurt the members of the body? Certainly not. That
head is there to guide and direct and protect. The head is ever
sending messages to our bodies, to our feet, our hands. our noses and eyes and ears too. All the members of the body get
messages and directions and guidance from where? Right here. Your
very health comes from your head. So if some harm, some danger
comes, The head is alert to it, and it tells the hand to put
the arm up to protect. So our Lord Jesus Christ is the
head. He is in union with his people. They are one in Christ. They
are one body and one head. So as the head of our body studies
to do the members of the body good, so our Lord studies and
desires and ever is doing the members of his holy body good. Sending the sweet influences
of his grace, his mercy, his love and his spirit throughout
the members of our body. So this is a wonderful relationship. that we have, you see, by the
fact that God says, I am thy God, and he says that, and he's
determined, and so he is. All right, now the second thing
I want to speak to you about is this, that realizing all of
this, these implications, these truths that are related to that
scripture, all things work together for good, for the saints of God,
And God saying, I am thy God, there are some things that we
ought to be careful to observe. And what are they? First of all,
let's learn that there is a providence. There is. Now, sometimes I talk
to a friend. All of you know him, and we discuss
different matters. And I've heard him say it a number
of times. He said, Brother Hux, as our
primitive friends say, All these things are according to the arrangements. And I say, Amen. The primitives
are right on that. Everything that happens to a
child of God is in the arrangements that God has made. So I say then,
there is a providence. All things don't just in themselves
work together for our good. Affliction and temptation and
God hiding his face and sin and sickness and death and all of
these things, none of them in themselves work for our good,
but God in his power and wisdom makes them work for our good.
So we believe in a divine providence. God is the disposer of all events. and everything that takes place,
all issues are from the Lord, and they are made therefore good
to the people of God. David said his kingdom ruleth
over all. He's talking about his providential
kingdom. The things that happen in this
world, in all history, are not governed by the counsels of men.
or by just coincidences and so forth, but they're governed by
God's divine providence and his wisdom. And there are three things
here in God's providence that we need to ever know and you're
aware of, but I call your attention to them for your comfort, God's
foreknowledge. or we might say God's foreordaining. For the reason God knows all
things that are going to come to pass is that God has foreordained
all things to come to pass. He predestinated them. And then
that takes in, of course, God's determining. He has foreordained
them, and therefore he foreknows them. He knows them ahead of
time. And then the last thing is, God's
directing all things to their own periods and time and purpose
for the good of his people. So whatever things work in this
world, God sets them to working. Some of you no doubt have read
the book of Ezekiel, and you know in that book, as our colored
friends sing about the wheels, the wheels that are in operation.
There were wheels, and then there were eyes in those wheels, and
then there was the moving of the wheels. And some of us sometimes
scratch our head and wonder, what does all this mean? All
these wheels, the eyes in the wheels, and then the moving of
those wheels. Well, they have a meaning. The
wheels are the whole universe. The eyes of those wheels are
God's providences, God's determining and setting them to working.
And the moving of those wheels is the hand of God that moves
them to go where God directs them. So the whole universe,
all creation, from the least creature to the greatest, is
moving according to God's divine wisdom and counsel and providence
for the good of his dear people. Jacob, whom he calls a worm. Well, then where does chance
come in? Somebody said, well, I was lucky so I didn't get killed
in a certain accident. Well, that's foolish talk, isn't
it? Certainly. There's no such thing as chance.
Let's learn then, dear friends, to adore the wonderful providence
of our God because he has control of that and he's working it out
to the good of his dear people. Then, unto this too, we need
to learn this, to be thankful, as we mentioned before, for the
happy condition of God's people. O beloved, here we find cause
to be thankful that all things are made to work together for
our good, the bad and the good. If a believer dies, he goes to
heaven, he goes to God. But while he lives, God's making
everything to work together for his good here in this earth. Affliction is for his good, as
we mentioned. God likens that affliction to
gold tried in the fire. Well, let me ask you a question.
What does the fire do to gold? Does the refiner's fire hurt
that gold or does it help it? Yeah. It actually purifies it,
doesn't it? The refiner's fire does not hurt
the gold. It takes all the dross out of
the gold and makes it more valuable. And this is the way trials and
afflictions and sufferings of every kind to the people of God
are made to refine and purify and to make a child of God as
gold more valuable. And those afflictions discipline
the child of God. What happens when God just lays
us upon our backs, makes us sick, and we have to lie down? Where
are our eyes then? Our eyes are looking up, aren't
they? Most of the time when we are
standing up or sitting around, we are looking at something else.
But oh, when God lays the rod on us and we lie down in the
bed in suffering, we're looking right up to heaven, and our thoughts
are directed there. So how much good, dear friends,
comes from the saint's affliction? It's a bitter root, but it bears
wonderful fruit, even the fruit, the peaceable fruit of righteousness. And then, what else can we learn
from this? that all things work together
for the good of the people of God by divine providence, where
we learn what encouragement there is to surrender to the Lord Jesus
Christ. What encouragement? Because to
become a Christian is to have everything working for your good.
They ought to preach that to sinners more. Because this is
what they want. They're working their poor selves
to death. They're even taking the Lord's
day. They don't have six days enough to do it. And so they
grab God's day to get things when God Almighty says here that
really a Christian has all things working for his good. He doesn't
need to worry about these other things. He can look to his Father. And I say that's a great encouragement. It's like some people would like
this power that we read in a certain fable, that everything we should
touch would become gold. Some people would like to have
that. Well, that fable showed us the foolishness of that, but
actually here, when you become a Christian, Everything you do
touch becomes gold to you. It is made gold to you. Even
the worst things are turned to gold and precious jewels. So
it's impossible to lose our acquaintance with God. He said, I am thy God. And Job, I believe it is, said,
get acquainted with it, and he'll do thee good. And then on top
of all that, Let's look at the awful condition of the wicked.
My Lord, everything in this world, good and bad, works for the damage,
the destruction, and the damnation of the wicked. Everything! I don't care what you can mention.
That is the awful condition of them while the people of God
have the evil and the bad things working for their good, the very
good things of the wicked work for their damnation and their
evil. What a terrible state is that
thing. You can go ahead and list them. All the temporal things
in the world work for the destruction of the wicked. The riches and
prosperity that he gets are nothing but snares. In fact, even David,
and we ought to think about this, in Psalm 69, I think he prayed
for this. Look at it. You may think this
is a terribly hard prayer, but it is an inspired prayer. In
the 69th Psalm, in verse 22, David said, Let their table become
a snare before them. That table, of course, is prosperity,
what they desire, their food, their riches, their comforts. He says, let all of that become
a snare to them, and that which should have been for their welfare,
let it become a trap. Well, he might as well pray that
prayer for the wicked against them, because this is exactly
what's happening to every wicked person, every Christ-rejecter
in the world, every disobedient person under the wrath of God. Everything in snares. He thinks,
oh, if I could just get rich. Well, God Almighty said it will
bring nothing but snares, and we're to warn even the rich to
be careful, because those riches that are coveted after pierce
them through with great pains. All their enjoyments are mixed
with sorrow and misery. Their riches are like a millstone,
and their pleasures about their neck to sink them deeper into
hell forever." 1 Timothy 6 and verse 9 tells us that. We won't
look at that, but we'll pass on here. So all these temporal
goods work for evil for an unsaved person, one outside of the covenant
of grace. But we can put all that, all
the spiritual good things, work together for the hurt of the
wicked. You notice that? Take them and
listen to the servants of God, God's dear servants who preach
the holy word of God to sinners. Do you know what the ungodly
works for their hurt and not for their good? Paul tells us
that we who preach and administer the Word of God are a saver of
life unto life unto them that are saved, and of death unto
death to those that are perishing. How about that? That the servant
of God who sent, who loves sinners, who seek their salvation, yet
is really made one as to their damnation, to add to that. So
Isaiah, you remember, in the 6th chapter of Isaiah, when he
went into the temple of God and got a vision of the glory of
the Lord Jesus Christ, he heard a voice saying, Who will go for
us? Whom shall I send? He said, Here
am I. Send me. Send me, Lord. What did the Lord
tell him to do? He said, You go. And do what? Preach to these people and get
them converted and comfort them and bring salvation to them?
He didn't say that, did he? No, sir. Let me just read exactly
what God said to him, and we won't take time, but you follow
it out in your references and find how many times this scripture
is quoted in the New Testament and even quoted by our Lord Jesus
Christ to refer to the people to whom he preached. And of course
we're doing the same thing. Verse 9 of that 6th chapter of
Isaiah, God said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed,
but understand not, and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make
the heart of this people fat, make their ears heavy, and shut
their eyes. lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart,
and convert, and be healed." Great God, what a scripture that
is! And how it makes one tremble to think that even the worship
services even come to that end for a great many people. This
is what we're doing. Instead of softening the hearts
of sinners and causing them to yield to Christ, we're actually
adding hardening to them, and closing their eyes, and shutting
their ears, and making them fat in their hearts so that they
feel they don't need God. Lord have mercy. I've heard that
scripture preached by a Baptist, and the preacher of that has
to go out and get everybody saved that they can, you know. Well,
salvation, of course, does come through the preaching of gospel,
know that. But here's the other side of it, and the terrible,
awful side of it. Make the heart of this people
fat and their ears heavy. Close their eyes. The word preached
hardens them instead of softens them. Well, now, I know you dear
folks think, well, it would be so good if we had more people
to come in. And I feel that way too. We long for people to come
in and worship, to come out of the sound of the Word of God.
But in the light of this scripture, can't you take comfort in that?
And when they don't come, when they're not here, when they turn
away and say, I will not go, can't you just take comfort and
say, well, perhaps if they did come, it would do nothing but
add more to their damnation than actually they would get by not
coming? Well, you have to look at it like that, whether we'd
like to or not. What about prayer of the wicked?
That even works to their hurt. Not only the preaching of the
pure word of God, but the prayer of the wicked. What does the
scripture say? It says that the sacrifice of the wicked is abomination
to God, to the Lord. The sacrifice of the wicked.
So if he prays, he sins against God. And if he doesn't pray,
he sins more. Somebody asked me that question
one time. Well, if praying by the wicked
person is a sin against God, why shouldn't he just never pray?
Well, of course, the answer to that is, he even sins more when
he doesn't pray to God. So he's in a terrible shape.
Take the blessed Lord's Supper that we just delight to come
to the table and remember our Lord Jesus Christ, his person,
his wounds, his redeeming blood and grace. How does that work
for a wicked person? Does that do him good to come
to the Lord's Table? Do you know what the Apostle
says in 1 Corinthians 11? The Apostle, by the Spirit of
God, says he drank damnation to himself. Even that which is
so good for the people of God works damnation to the wicked
person who discerns not the Lord's body. And what about the Lord
Jesus Christ, God himself, the greatest good? Why, he works
evil for a child of disobedience. You must believe this because
we have scripture, and I'll have to turn you to this because this
is a challenge to some people's faith, 1 Peter 2, verse 18. Some of these scriptures, dear
friends, surely make us to tremble as well as to thank God for his
wonderful mercy. But here in verse 8 of 1 Peter
2, will you look at this? and a stone of stumbling," that is, Christ is a stone of
stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at
the word, being disobedient whereunto also they were appointed. So Jesus Christ, our Lord, is
a stumbling stone for the unsaved. Isn't that an awful thing? All
unsaved people need to know that. Christ is a stone set for the
rising and the fall of many. For the rising of the chosen
Jacob, the fall of the reprobate, those who refuse him, reject
him. Well, beloved, let's admire the
wisdom of God in all this, and I trust your heart is submissive
to these scriptures. Many people rebel against this
portion of the Word of God and turn away from it. It's God's
Word, and it's good for a child of God. Admire his wisdom. Paul said, Oh, the depth of the
riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. He says,
For his ways are past finding out. All things work together
for good. Take Joseph being put in prison
in Egypt. Didn't that work for his good?
When they put Joseph in prison on a false charge, it meant that
he was going to be promoted to the second highest man in Egypt,
in that nation. The Egyptians hated the Israelites. Did that work for their good
or their evil? Brother, that was the cause of their deliverance.
God said, I see how they hate you and treat you. I'm going
to deliver you. I heard you cry. Cause got to
change. Is that a hurt or a help? Why,
he says, it furthers the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't
know how it does that, but God says it does, and so it does. So, beloved, it just comes down
to this point, and you listen to this, God saves his dear people
in a way that many times we think he's destroying them. Think of Joseph, think of the
Israelites, think of Jeremiah and all the prophets and all
the people of God of all time, the workings of God. David a while ago, I came across
that scripture where David was so upset about the wicked. God was just whipping him every
day, as I said, before breakfast, and then putting him to bed,
spanking him, and without any supper at night. David said,
I'm chasing all the day long, and all these wicked folks are
getting along so well. He said, I almost slipped. I almost blasphemed the name
of God. But he started off that psalm,
what is it, Psalm 73 or 1 or something like that? He said,
God, surely God is good to Israel. He's good to Israel. I said,
what, David? It looks like God hates you,
it looks like he loves that crowd over there. They get along so
good, got everything the heart could wish for, having a big
time, and going on their wicked ways, rejecting the word of God
and all of that, and prospering! Here you are a child of God,
and God is spanking you, and it looks like he's going to kill
you, and you say, God's good to Israel. Indeed he is. Those whippings are good. And
God chastens his dear people because he loves them. It's wonderful. the providence of God. So every
providence of God, no matter what it is, has a mercy in it,
and it has a mystery in it, it has a wonder in it. Who can read
the story of God and the deliverance of God's people and the salvation
of sinners without standing and wondering? Look at your own experience. How in the world did you get
saved? By the mercy of God. And what a mystery! And what
a wonder it is! And God led us all through this
wilderness journey and all the major things, and then came and
revealed himself to us, and got us at the right place at the
right time, and brought us in. How thankful we ought to be.
Let's understand then, because of this, to be content with our
trials, with our circumstances, Shall we be discontent with that
which is going to work good for us? This will keep us from murmuring
and complaining, because these afflictions even are working
a weight of glory for the people of God. And then you just mark
how the scriptures fulfill, because as David said, God is good to
Israel, is he not good to us? We might sometimes be like David,
suffering under the chastening hand of God, and reading some
of these things and seeing how God's people do go through trials
and affliction. We might sometimes question whether providence is really
working for the good of his people. But God says it is. And we know
it is because when he gives them the bitter wormwood of affliction
and trials and chastening and so forth, he turns it to their
good. He sweetens those bitter waters
of morrow. And then you can see again why
we never get through with thanksgiving. God has caused us to be thankful
for everything, no matter what it is. Oh, how thankful then. We ought to be, and can never
be anything else. In everything give thanks. I
said he's a physician. Your physician sometimes gives
you some bitter medicine, but you don't hate him for it, do
you? Because that bitter medicine does you good. Shall we hate
our all-wise physician for giving us the bitter herb or bitter
medicine that does us good? No. A lot of people will thank
God for the good things. They'll complain about the bitter
things and the bad things. There are very few people who
praise God for the evil things, for the bad things. Let us be
one of them by the grace of God. Now, then let me come on to a
close of this. If the worst things work for
our good, what can you imagine that the best things will do
for us? If the very worst that we can
have, and we say the very worst thing that God gives a child
of God is the cross, that is, his suffering for righteousness'
sake, for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if that cross
is working for our good, and it is, what shall the crown do? If those bitter waters of Mara
are working for our good, what will the sweet wine of Providence
or Paradise do? If God's rod has sweetness in
it, what will his smiles have in it? If God's smiting us is
for our good, what will his loving us do for us? And if temptations and suffering
have a substance of joy in them, What is glory going to do for
the people of God? All this bad, something good
comes out of it for the people of God. His mercies are ever
new, every day and every morning. But the crowning mercies are
yet to come. We haven't tasted everything yet. This is heaven
to know this. To just have the knowledge of
this is heaven, dear friends. But what is heaven itself going
to be to the people of God? Then we might argue with ourselves,
since God is making all things work to good for us, should we
not, in everything we do, turn everything to the glory of God,
do everything to God's glory, whatever we do? Somebody said,
well, is this thing I'm doing, is this a sin, is this wrong?
Of course I always ask the question, are you doing it to the glory
of God? Huh? What are you doing it for? Just
to get rich, just to make money, to have pleasure, to have the
honor of men? It's evil for you if that's it,
if that's your purpose. If it's not for the glory of
God, it's going to work for your evil, for your harm. Or it's
a sin, we might put it. Do all things to the glory of
God, giving thanks. The angels of God glorify him. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
die for their sins. In fact, they had no sins. And
he died for our sins. He died for poor, lost, helpless
creatures, sinful, rebellious people as we are. how we ought
to glorify him in everything we do. Now, you might say, well,
how can I do that? How can I glorify God? I close
with this. There are three ways. I've told
you before that you can't actually glorify God by adding anything
to him. You can't take anything away
from a perfect God, for if you did, he'd be less than perfect
and wouldn't be God. If you could add anything to
him, you would increase his glory. which is impossible since he's
perfect in glory and infinite in his person. So when we say
we have some ways by which we can glorify God, we don't mean
that we can add any luster, any glory or honor to God in itself. What do we mean then by glorifying
God? A Christian glorifies God in
the sense that he manifests the glory of God. He speaks of that
glory, admires it, and lives for it. Now, how may we do that? Three ways. We may glorify God,
first of all, by making his glory our chief business. That's what
the Catechism says, isn't it? Westminster Catechism says, what
is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify
God. and to enjoy him forever. And how do we glorify God? By
doing all, or making his glory, the delight, the goal of our
lives. If God is glorified in my life,
I'm a happy person. If he's not, I'm indeed sad. The second way you may glorify
God is by bearing Christian fruit. Our Lord Jesus Christ said herein,
in John 15, herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit. That fruit of a Christian life,
and every child of God bears some fruit, but he says get the
bearing more fruit and much fruit. This glorifies God. And then
the third, the final way that we glorify God, is giving him
praise for all we do. All that's accomplished in us,
give glory to God for it. What do I mean by that? Just
this. I'll turn you to a scripture
that sounds like boasting, but then you'll see that it isn't.
In 1 Corinthians 15, verse 10, the Apostle Paul said this, "...but
by the grace of God But by the grace of God I am
what I am, and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not
in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all." Sounds like boasting,
doesn't it? Sounded like Paul lifted up in
pride if you didn't read any further. But he didn't stop there. He said, I labored more abundantly
than they all, yet not I. But what? The grace of God which
was in me. So then, God grant that we may
labor and serve and live in such a way that we will be to the
honor and the glory of the name of our God. So then, we see why God makes
all things work together for us. We can say, well, we're not
anything in ourselves, but God put a high value on his dear
people. God's people say, well, we're
not but worms in the dust. God said, I know you're a worm,
Jacob, but I love you and you're more valuable than the nations
of this world and all the gold and silver in it and all the
reprobates. And I'm going to make everything
work together for your good." I didn't know that when the Lord
saved me, did you? When the Lord saved you, did
you know right that moment that he was going to make everything
work together for your good? I didn't. Somebody pointed that
out to me and instructed me, and that might have made a big
change in my life, because I was greatly ignorant. Still am. Nothing
to boast of, but thank God I know this. God loves his dear people. He loves them. They are worms,
indeed they are, but they are valuable, they are chosen, they
are God's jewels, they are his church, they are his brethren,
they are his special loved ones. May God's honor, then, his glory
be our chief purpose. So when we walk out of here tonight,
let's walk out with a new determination by the grace of God that all
we shall do will be the God glory, and may the Lord help us for
His name's sake. Amen.