Posts Tagged ‘Romans 8:28’

Sermon: Reading the Fine Print in Romans 8:28

Posted: October 8, 2012 in Sermons
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
1

Joseph Plum was a US jet fighter pilot who was shot down over North Viet Nam during the Viet Nam War. He was a POW for six years. For six years in lived in an eight foot by eight foot cell. He could pace three steps in one direction, turn and pace three steps in the other direction. In solitary confinement, he tapped on the walls to communicate to the POW in the cell next to him. While he survived, many POWs did not because of what he called “Prison Thinking.” The first reaction of “Prison Thinking” is the woe is me syndrome. Woe is me because I’ve been shot down, I’m in prison, separated from my family, and tortured. The second reaction of “Prison Thinking” is blaming others such as the President and the mechanics. The ones who felt sorry for themselves atrophied and died. Joseph Plum, however, said it was the best six years of his life. Even though he was tortured, laid on his stomach with his arms pulled out of joint, back behind him and tied to his legs, and beaten in the back.

He learned how to cope with affliction and benefit from suffering. After the war, Joseph Plum travelled all over the USA and spoke twice a week on “How to Survive.” He spoke to young people who have contemplated suicide and other similar groups.

There is a promise of God in a well know verse of Scripture that if understood and applied can help us to survive spiritually by not succumbing to the woe is me thinking or the blame game. The verse is Romans 8:28. But we must read carefully the fine print.

1. This Promise is for Members Only

“And” connects Romans 8:28 to what Paul has been writing in the entire chapter. Paul is writing to believers to assure them of their eternal salvation. Paul is writing to those “who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) in whom the Holy Spirit dwells (8:9) and who have assurance of their salvation and can cry “Abba Father” (8:15).

In other words, the promise in Romans 8:28 is not for everyone.

A. The promise in Romans 8:28 is for members only i.e., members of the Church of Jesus Christ. Paul identifies these members with two titles.

1. Believers Love God. This is the only place in Romans where our love for God is mentioned. In all other places, it is God’s love for us that is stressed. For example, just look at the three uses of “love” in 8:35, 37, and 39. But in Romans 8:28, Paul identifies believers as those who love God. This identification goes all the way back to Exodus 20:5, 6.

2. Believers Have been Called by God. Loving God is the human side of this identification and “the called according to His purpose” is the divine side. There is cause and effect in these titles. We love God because He called us to salvation. God initiated salvation. We will learn in 8:29-30, that God initiated our salvation in eternity past. Then He initiated our salvation in our life when someone gave us the gospel. Through the gospel, God called us to salvation (“He called you by our gospel” (2 Thessalonians 2:14).

B. This promise is not for Unbelievers. God is not working all things together for good to those who do not have God as their Father. With membership in the Body of Christ comes privileges. Just read 8:14-17. But the unbeliever is under the control of Satan. This is clear from 1 John 5:19: “We know that we are of God and the whole world lies in the wicked one.”

1) Because this promise is for believers, “we know” God works all things together. Not only do we have assurance of salvation, but we have assurance that God is in control of our lives. Paul did not say, “We feel that all things work together for good.” We don’t always feel good about life. We don’t always feel saved. Assurance is based of God’s Word not our emotions. Paul said in regard to salvation, “I know whom I have believed that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him” (2 Timothy 1:12).

2) We know this not because we feel it, but because we know God’s Word teaches this. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17).

David Jeremiah’s comments:

We have to “know” the promises of God before we can feel encouraged, assured, or hopeful. Too many churches try to build up people’s emotions, appealing directly to the heart. But the way to the heart is through the head. We have to know before we can feel.

The phrase “we know” is used five times in Romans, and the verb “know” appears 13 times. So Paul puts great emphasis on what we can know for certain in spite of what we can’t know.

On the other hand, “We do not know what we should pray for as we ought.” So Paul is using an interesting contrast in this section of Romans 8. In verse 26, we don’t know how to pray; but in verse 28, we know all things work together for good. We know the ultimate truths even when we don’t know the immediate ones. Even when we don’t know how to pray, we know that God is in control.

We need to be students of God’s Word because what we don’t know can never help us, but what we do know can.

2. This Promise Includes All Things Working Together

The words “work together” come from one word in the Greek from which we get our English word, synergism. Synergism means that the action of two or more can accomplish more than separate individuals can.

Ecclesiastes 4: 9 says, “Two are better than one….for if one fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he has not another to help him up.”

Paul uses the noun in Romans 16:3 and 9 to describe his co-workers in the gospel. When we work together, we can accomplish more in service to Christ. Paul used in 1 Corinthians 3:9 to say when we work together not only with each other but with God we can even accomplish more: “we are laborers together with God.”

When work together with God not only in ministry but in our circumstances we honor Him. We must believe that God is working all things together, which includes the difficult and the even the bad.

A. God uses the bad things that happen to us.

Whereas God limits for whom all things work together for good, only believers, God puts no limits on the circumstances He uses in believers’ lives.

Paul personally experienced this difficult truth and wrote about it in 2 Corinthians 12:7: “Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.”  Thomas Watson wrote, “A sickbed often teaches more than a sermon.”

B. God uses the bad things we do.

The writer of Hebrews 12:6,10, and 11 taught that when we do bad and God chastens us, if we respond properly, that chastening can produce the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

My Dad used to say right before he spanked me for my disobedience, “Son, this is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you.” I remember thinking, “I’ve a solution that will save both of us a lot of pain.” But Dad was right as I learned when I became a father.

God works “all things” together. Individual trials may not be good. In the physical world, some chemicals by themselves are poisonous such as sodium and chlorine, but combined produce tasty table salt.

I read recently, of a pastor who returned to his pulpit a few weeks after his son committed suicide. With great emotion he read his text – which happened to be Romans 8:28.

Then he looked at his congregation and said, “I cannot make my son’s death fit into this passage. It is impossible for me to see how anything good can come out of it. Yet I realize I only see in part. I only know in part. It’s like the miracle of the shipyard. Almost every part of our great ships is made of steel. If you were to take any single part of that vessel – be it a steel plate from the hull or steel from its rudder – and throw it into the ocean, it will sink. Steel doesn’t float! But, when the shipbuilder is finished, when the last plate has been riveted in place, that massive steel ship floats!” He then concluded by saying, “Taken by itself, my son’s suicide is senseless. Throw it into the sea of Romans 8:28 and it will sink. But when the Divine Shipbuilder has finally finished, even this tragedy will build together God’s unsinkable purpose” (Stephen Davey’s sermon in Wisdom for the Heart).

The fine print of Romans 8:28 includes the following: This promise is for believers only, the promise includes all things or circumstances working together not just the good. Lastly, this promise means that all things work together for our good, not all things are good.

3. The Promise Means that All Things Work Together for our Good

Notice the fine print did not say, “All things that work together are good.”

You might say, “You mean even evil and sin and false accusations and injustice and failure and broken relationships and cruelty and betrayal and pain and suffering and hatred and jealousy and abandonment – you mean even that?” Everything I just listed was a part of the last few hours in the life of Jesus Christ. And it all worked into God’s plan for your good and His glory (Stephen Davey).

The good that can be accomplished is spelled out in 8:29, becoming more like Christ. There is no greater good than conformity to Christ.

This promise is for believers only, who have assurance that God works all things not just the good together. It is for believers who know this because God has said this in His Word. This promise is for believers who view their circumstances as God does.

In Genesis 42:36, when Jacob learned that not only had he lost his son Joseph but now he lose also Benjamin, Jacob complained, “All these things are against me.” For Jacob the world had turned sour and his words expressed his bitterness.

Bob Jones Senior used to tell of a man who fell asleep on a park bench and a bunch of mischievous boys put Limburger cheese on his mustache. When he awoke, he said, “This park stinks.” “The flowers stink.” “That bakery stinks.” “The whole world stinks.” The problem was right under his nose not everyone and everything else.

Contrast Joseph who was in the same trial as his father, Jacob. Joseph who had been mistreated by his selfish brothers was not bitter. When Joseph was 17 years old his jealous brothers hated him so much they plotted to kill and threw him in a pit. When they discovered they could sell him to some Midianite travelers and make a profit, they sold their brother into slavery. When in Egypt, the Midianites sold Joseph to an Egyptian officer whose immoral wife falsely accused him. Joseph was put in prison for two years when he was not just innocent but righteous in turning down Potipher’s wife’s proposition. Did Joseph have what Joseph Plum called “Prison Thinking?” Did Joseph have a pity me party? Did Joseph get on Facebook and start blaming and criticizing people? When finally delivered by God and promoted and reunited with his brothers 13 years later, he said to them, “Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here: for God did send me before you to preserve you” (Genesis 45:5).

Fanny Crosby, the blind songwriter, wrote in her autobiography about her doctor who accidentally put the wrong medicine on eyes when she was just an infant which resulted in her blindness for the rest of her life. Fanny Crosby wrote that she had heard that this physician never stopped expressing his regrets, and that it was one of the sorrows of his life. But Fanny Crosby said, if I could meet him now, I would say, ‘Thank you, thank you, over and over again for making me blind. Although it may have been a blunder on your part, it was no mistake on God’s. I believe it was His intention that I should live my days in physical darkness, so as to be better prepared to sing His praises and incite others to do so.”

David Jeremiah on Romans 8:28

Posted: October 6, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
Tags: , ,
0

When I was a senior in college, God called me to the pastorate. Almost overnight I knew that God had changed the direction of my life. I didn’t mind the new focus, but I was troubled by one aspect of it: I had been headed in another direction almost my entire life. I had been interested in radio from the time I was young. I used to build amateur radios and string antenna wire all over our house. And when I grew older, I got involved in radio production, working as a “dj” in college at an FM station. I then helped our college start its own Christian radio station. So I just assumed I would always be involved in some aspect of radio broadcasting as a career.

But I followed the Lord’s leading and went to seminary after college to prepare for the pastorate. After four years of seminary, I did further graduate work and then accepted a call to start a new church in Indiana. About halfway through my time at that church, radio reappeared “out of the blue.” I got a call from a local radio station asking if I’d like to host a live radio program. From that program grew another, and another, until finally, today, I am as involved in radio as I can possibly be. The program I host now is broadcast all over the world in several languages and can be heard in North America just about everywhere a radio is turned on. So, God said “No” to radio only for a while. I laugh sometimes when I think of my original radio “vision” and what God eventually did. God had a better plan—He always does.

Sometimes it’s difficult to see at the moment what God is doing in our lives. That was true for John Newton when he experienced a crisis in 1754. As he sat having tea with his wife before leaving to captain a ship on a journey to Africa, he suddenly crumpled to the floor unconscious. It was later determined he had had an epileptic seizure. He resigned as captain of the ship and never went to sea again. He later found out that the new captain of that ship was killed when the slaves on board revolted and took over the ship. John Newton’s plans were changed, but his life was spared. After this incident, Newton’s wife, Mary, became ill. She hovered near death for nearly a year during which time Newton cared for her instead of working. When his money ran out, he took a job in Liverpool as a surveyor and reluctantly moved there, leaving Mary in the care of others. He believed he’d never see her alive again. Two months after settling in Liverpool, Mary made a miraculous recovery.

Through all these events, John Newton was learning that God’s hand was always directing him, causing everything to work together for his good. God’s providence was active in all areas of life, even the little things. His grace was sufficient to meet every need and to show how, eventually, all the pieces of life fit together (David Jeremiah. Captured by Grace, page 94).

Sermon: God’s Hand in the Glove of our Circumstance

Posted: March 25, 2009 in Sermons
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

THE providence of God has been described as the hand of God in the glove our circumstances. Certainly Romans 8:28 allows for that description. We know that God sovereignly works in the lives of the obedient child of God as demonstrated in the life of Joseph who said to his brothers, “You thought evil against me but God meant it for good.” But God also works in the lives of the unsaved. The name of God is not mentioned in the book of Esther. Perhaps, as some have suggested, the reason for this omission in Esther is because there are no believers in Esther; yet God’s providence is explicit in preserving His chosen people. In addition to hand of God in the lives of the obedient and the unsaved, God works in disobedient believers as we will see in Jonah one.

One of the messages of Jonah is that God desires for all nations to hear His Word. In the New Testament this unchanging desire is repeated in the Great Commission. But God in OT was concerned for all nationalities as well. God is so concerned for all nations that He will work in the lives of prejudiced and nationalistic believers like Jonah. In Jonah one, we see how God reaches all kinds of people.

I. In order to reach all nations, God commands us to go with His message to them.

God takes the initiative by commanding Jonah with three imperatives in 1:2. “Arise,” “Go,” and “Cry.” Again, in the NT, Christ commanded us to “Go” into all the world and preach the gospel. We must begin in our Jerusalem and also go to the uttermost parts of the earth.

There are three reasons for obeying God’s Word.

The first reason for obeying God’s Word is because we have been called. Jonah was a prophet and in 2 Kings 14:25, he had prophesied concerning the expansion of the borders of Israel. Here God again calls Jonah to witness His word but this time to Nineveh. To whom are you witnessing His Word? Are we segregated in our witnessing and concern? For whom did Jesus die? Jesus died for all nationalities (John 3:16). We are commanded to pray for all men because God “will have all men to be saved.” For whose salvation are you praying?

The next reason for obeying God’s Word is because of the greatness of the opportunity. God called Nineveh “great” four times in Jonah. In 4:11, Nineveh was “great” because of its population. It was second only to Babylon. In 3:2, 3 Nineveh was “great” because of its size (1800 acres). In 1:2 Nineveh was “great” because it was the capital of the Gentile world of that day: Assyria. It is interesting that the missionary of the NT, the apostle Paul, unlike Jonah, wanted to go the capital of his Gentile world which was Rome (Acts 19:21). Which attitude concerning ministry opportunities do we have? The attitude of Jonah who has to be forced by God to minister or the attitude of Paul who lives to serve others and the Lord.

The final reason for obeying God’s Word is because sinners are headed for judgment. After God commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh, He said “for their wickedness is come up before.” Nineveh was not only great; Nineveh was “wicked.” The word translated “wickedness” in 1:2 is translated “evil” in 3:10 and can mean either moral disaster (3:10a) or physical disaster (3:10b). Nineveh’s disastrous situation was moral evil. Nahum, who prophesied against Nineveh said, “Woe to the bloody city” (3:1). The Assyrian king, Shalmaneser II (859-824 B.C.), would pile up decapitated heads in a pyramid in front of the cities he had conquered as a warning to others. The Assyrian kings were cruel, brutal, and terroristic.

Not only was Nineveh headed for judgment as prophesied by Nahum, but so are all sinners according to Jesus Christ.

“An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented not at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here” (Mt. 12: 39-41).

We must obey God’s Word and witness to sinners who are destined for judgment. Pastors and theologians like John R. Stott and Clark Pinnock deny the eternal suffering of the unsaved in hell and consequentially will be responsible for more sinners going there through their emasculation of this doctrine.

Not only do we see reasons for obeying God’s commands, but we observe that believers can rebel against God’s commands.

There can be rebellion against obeying God’s Word. Prior obedience does not guarantee present obedience. Jonah obeyed God in 2 Kings 14:25 when God commanded Him to prophesy a positive message to his nation. But now Jonah disobeys God’s command to preach to an enemy nation. The narrator leads us to believe that Jonah is going to obey when he repeats one of the commands from verse 2 by saying, “And then Jonah arose.” Jonah arose, however, to disobey God.

To rebel against God’s Word is to flee from His blessings. Jonah fled to “Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” Verse 3 states this act of disobedience twice so we will not miss the point. Jonah fled in the opposite direction from the will of God. How can anyone flee from the presence of God if God is omnipresent? This statement possibly means the following: Jonah fled from the presence of God in the Temple that Jonah referred to twice in chapter two. Or, Jonah fled from the land of Israel which was the geographical place of God’s blessings (Psalm 137). Another possible meaning is that Jonah fled God’s commission. All three may be correct. It is possible that Jonah received his commission in the temple in Jerusalem and was running away in disobedience. In the NT Great Commission, Jesus promised when we fulfill this ministry, He would be with us until the end of the age. This is not a promise of the omnipresence of God but of His blessings as we obey His commission for the church today. To disobey this command is flee from the blessings of God in our lives. Maybe the reason for the spiritual barrenness in your life is the refusal to take the gospel to the unsaved.

Rebellion leads to a downward journey away from God’s will. Jonah went “down” from Jerusalem to Joppa (1:3). Just as “certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho” in Luke 10:30, so did Jonah travel downward from Jerusalem (Jonah refers to the temple located in Jerusalem twice in chapter two). Next, Jonah went “down” into the ship at Joppa in verse 3. Jonah then went “down” below deck in verse 5. Finally, after Jonah was cast overboard and swallowed by the great fish, he went “down” (2:6) to the bottom of the ocean. Jonah not only went down geographically from the Lord but spiritually.

To flee from the blessings of the Lord is to depart from Him. Paul spoke similarly to the Galatians who were flirting with false teaching: “I marvel that you are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ” (Gal. 1:6). Rebellion is not only breaking the rules, it is breaking the heart of a person who infinitely loves you and me.

II. Next, God takes the initiative by sending storms to bring back disobedient believers.

Gods hurls a storm in verse four. The same word is used in 1st Sam. 18:11 when jealous king Saul “cast” his javelin at David. Saul missed. God does not miss when He hurls His storms at us in our disobedience.

In the story there is also a pair of convicting comparisons and contrasts. The sailors, like God, “hurl” the cargo overboard in verse five. The disobedient believer, unlike God who “neither slumbers or sleeps” (Psalm 121:4) falls asleep in verse 5. Sometimes unbelievers are more like God in their concern than believers who are out of fellowship. One of the accusations leveled against conservative churches is that the extent of our social involvement is our stand against abortion and homosexuality. D. A. Carson says that the issue of homosexuality will be for the church what indulgences were to Martin Luther. So we must take our stand against this sin.

While we protest these evils, do we not have an obligation to be like Jesus who was a “friend of sinners” and do more than condemn? We cannot just curse the darkness, we must let our “light so shine before men, that they may see” our good works, and glorify our Father in Heaven (Mt. 5:16).

God not only hurls the storm, but allows the lot to fall on Jonah (Proverbs 16:33) so the sailors will know who is the cause of the storm. God is not only providentally working in the life of the disobedient believer but the unsaved around him. God is concerned for all nationalities.

After the rapid fire questions from the sailors in verse eight (you can feel the severity of the storm and near death in these breathlessly shouted questions), Jonah is almost forced to witness to these pagan sailors in verse 9. Jonah says, “I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord” which is the OT way saying “I am a believer.” The sailors eventually hurl Jonah overboard in verse 15 and the storm immediately stops. This is no freak of nature. The sailors see that the God “who made the sea and the land” about whom Jonah testified in verse 9, is really the only true God. The sailors then “feared the Lord” and become believers. All this happened because God would not give up on His commission being fulfilled nor on bringing these sinners to salvation. The sinner may give up on God, but He will not give up on the sinner.

When Paul wrote in Romans one, three times that God gave sinners over to the consequences of their sin, Paul did not say that God gave up on these sinners. In Hosea, God said to his rebellious people, “how shall I give you up O, Ephriam.” We must not give up on our unsaved acquaintances, neighbors, friends, or family because God does not.

J. Vernon McGee tells the following story about God’s providence. The oil fields of east Texas were probably the last rough and tumble oil fields that this country had. In that area was a dirt farmer, a man who was uneducated but very shrewd. Oil was discovered on his land, and he was sharp enough not to sell. He became an independent oil operator and grew immensely wealthy. He built a magnificent home. He had a lovely wife and two little boys. This man was as godless, as wicked, as vile and profane as any person who has walked this earth. Then a flu epidemic hit east Texas. His wife and one of the little boys died. Two friends who were pastors in that area told me the story. One of them pastored a church nearby and went to visit the man that evening. The pastor was ushered into this lovely, spacious home. There were two caskets, and there sat the man. The pastor went over to sit beside the man and started to put his arm around him to comfort him. The man shrugged him off and began to curse him. “I had never heard language like that,” the pastor told me. “He cursed me as I had never been cursed before, and then he cursed God. ‘What right had God to take my wife and my little boy?’ he said.”

A few short years went by. Then early one morning, as I was waiting to air my program at the radio station in Dallas, the news commentator who preceded me announced that an explosion had occurred at the New London school in east Texas. Five hundred children and teachers were killed, I learned later. It was one of the greatest tragedies this country has ever had. The oilman knew his little boy was at the school. He rushed to the scene of the explosion and, not seeing his child anywhere, began to dig like a madman in the debris and rubble. Finally, someone called to him. His son had been found—dead. The father gathered the little boy into his arms and paced up and down the school yard as if he were insane. Finally, the man was taken home, and the little body was placed in a casket.

My pastor friend knew he had to go through the ordeal again. He drove to the mansion, knocked on the door, and was ushered in. Over against the wall was one small casket, and there sat the father huddled over, crushed and broken. The pastor steeled himself for what he was sure would come. Not daring to put his arm around the man or even to touch him, he simply said, “I have come to comfort you the best I can.” The man looked up, tears coursing down his cheeks, and said, ”I have known all along that God was after me, but I didn’t know He would have to do this to get me.” That man came to Christ. The providence of God can be tender…. or it can be severe.

Answers for The Skeptic

Posted: February 5, 2009 in Book Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Buchenwald Slave Labor CampIs life fair?” “Are all men created equal?” “Is every one born with a silver spoon in his mouth?” “Does every cloud have a silver lining?” “Is all pain equally distributed throughout the earth?” I asked my friends on Facebook to give me examples of innocent people who suffered because of the sins of others. Here are some of the unedited examples they sent me.

“Kids who have been abused, kids in Africa that have contracted AIDS through their mothers who were mistreated.”

“A drunk driver who kills someone-the family suffers.”

“Divorce. Just because the husband and wife refuse to work things out, the child suffers greatly. He or She is constantly being moved from home to home, not having a constant father figure while seeing no love between their parents. Selfishness in marriage which leads to divorce is devastating not only to the child but to everyone else who is around the couple.”

“The Holocaust”

Elie Wiesel is a Nobel Prize winner, author, and Jewish survivor of Holocaust at Auschwitz. In the picture, Elie is the seventh man on the second row of beds.  ”In the concentration camp, he was compelled to witness the hanging of two Jewish men and one Jewish boy. The two men died almost instantly, but the lad struggled for about a half-hour on the gallows. Someone behind Wiesel muttered, ‘Where is God? Where is He?’ Then a voice within him seemed to say, ‘He is hanging there on the gallows.’”[1] “Where is God?” He is here! God is not remote, untouched, or uninvolved but in the fiery furnace with us. He is not only exaltedly transcendent but intimately immanent.

The skeptics have several arguments with the problem of evil and the existence of God.

First Argument of the Skeptic: How can God and Suffering Co-exist?

David_Hume, the eighteenth century philosopher, is often quoted as articulating the problem of evil and the existence of God: “Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”[2]

Does this argument solve the dilemma? Those who reject God say evolution is the alternative to the existence of God juxtaposed with suffering, rejection, hunger, and death. But is evolution problem free? Tim Keller exposes the weakness of that logic: “The evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak-these things are all perfectly natural.”[3] If only the strong survive in evolution then the innocent suffer. So the elimination of God has not eradicated the suffering of the innocence.

Paul wrote that “All things (which has to include the evil of child molestation, death by drunk drivers, divorce, rape, murder, etc.) work together for good” in Romans 8:28. Paul did not say all these evils are good but that God can use evil for good. One preacher, R. A. Torrey, said Romans 8:28 was a soft pillow for a tried heart. During World War II, another prominent preacher called Romans 8:28 “the hardest verse in the Bible.” So which is it? I recently visited the emergency room at Forsyth Hospital and meet a wife who had just been dealt the devastating blow that her 44 year husband had died and her 13 year old son who sat by her side was visibly in shock. The mother-in-law said to me out in the hall of the hospital, “I see no purpose in this.” Is Romans 8:28 a soft pillow or the hardest verse in the Bible for this family? Which is it to you?

This strategic verse must be interpreted in the context of the entire book of Romans. The overarching theme of Romans is the Righteousness of God through the Gospel. In chapters 1-8, Paul develops this truth doctrinally.

  • In chapters 1:18-3:20, Paul argues like a defense attorney that all people are guilty sinners. Evil is not just in the world, evil is in each of us. The skeptic is hypocritical when he points out the evil of God allowing innocent people to suffer and die as if the skeptic has never cause an innocent person to suffer, like his parent, or his child or his spouse. Besides there are no innocent victims as Paul states in his concluding argument: “There is none righteous, no, not one” (3:10). C. S. Lewis said, “Natural disasters do not increase deaths, all of us will die.”
  • In chapters 3:21-5:21, Paul gives hope for the sinner in the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
  • In chapters 6-8, Paul demonstrates that the doctrine of sanctification is the result of justification by faith.

In chapter 6, Paul outlines the steps of sanctification
In chapter 7, Paul admits there are struggles in sanctification
In chapter 8, Paul rejoices in the security of sanctification

Chapter eight begins with “no condemnation” and ends with “no separation” for those who “walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” (8:4). If you have been justified you will have a changed life which gives assurance. You and I can and must have this assurance in the midst of evil and suffering. In Romans 8:1-25, the whole planet is “groaning” and suffering under the curse. Sometimes when the earth groans there is an earthquake, or a hurricane, or a mudslide, or a tornado. That suffering gets closer home for the believer in Romans 8:26-27, where we come to such a low point of weakness we do not know how to pray.

In Romans 8:28-30, Paul declares that God has determined from eternity past our likeness to Christ (perfect sanctification) in eternity future and is presently using daily circumstances to painfully fashion that likeness.

Scripture’s Argument: God and Suffering must Co-exist.

What is the greatest example of suffering in human history? The Holocaust where six million Jews were massacred? The tsunami in December of 2004 which killed 250,000 people? The terrorist attack on 911 in which 2740 died? As horrific as all of these tragedies were, there is one example that is in a class all by itself. That example is found in our chapter: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3).

The skeptic says that God and suffering cannot coexist, but Scriptures affirm they have to co-exist for there to be salvation from present sin and all future suffering.

Was God at the cross? The God/Man was on the cross: “God sending his own Son.”

Was suffering at the cross? Christ “in the likeness of sinful flesh” died for our sins.

Was evil at the cross? God “condemned sin in the flesh” of His Son.

God and suffering also co-exist in our lives. These daily circumstances include the “all things” of evil and suffering. The neuter plural adjective παντα “all things” has no restrictions. The Skeptic in you might be saying, “I wish Paul would have used the masculine. My masculine knight in shining armor just dumped me for another damsel in distress. Others of you are thinking, “I wish Paul would have used the feminine. There is this feminine doll on campus, and I am in love with her, but she doesn’t even know my name.” When Paul used the neuter he included “all things” including your masculine and feminine problems. God is in your suffering accomplishing His will. Maybe you were dumped so God can lead Mr. Right into your life. Maybe see doesn’t know your name now but when it is God’s time she will bear your name. Maybe, don’t take that statement as a prophecy or an absolute.

Second Argument of the Skeptic: Why did God make His Son Suffer?

Some today are accusing God of Divine child abuse. Instead of Sola Scriptura (only Scripture), their view is Sola Cultura (only culture). Just because there is injustice in society you cannot force that reality on the meaning of the cross. Did only the Son suffer at the cross. No! Did God drop his Son off on the doorstep of earth and abandon him?

Scriptures’ Argument: God suffered at the Cross. 2 Cor 5:19 “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.” Can deity suffer? Yes! Those who teach that God cannot suffer teach the impassibility of God, that is, He is incapable of feeling pain. God is not only deity but personality. God the Spirit (who has no human body or nature like Christ) can be grieved. “Grieve” is a love word. Who can grieve a parent? The neighbor? The fellow employee? No! Only a child. We are made in the image of God who has intellect, will, and emotions. Romans 8:32 gives us a unique look at the suffering (not redemptive) of the Father at the cross.

The Skeptic in you might be asking, “Why is God making me suffer?” God is also with you in your suffering. God did not save you and drop you off on the doorstep of life and abandon you. God is mentioned twice in 8:28. Once “God” is an implied subject in 8:28. Here is how Paul wrote Romans 8:28 “and we know that to those who are loving God all things (“He” implied) works together for good.” We don’t have to guess as to why God is making us suffering or what is the “good” is in verse 28. The answer is in verse 29: So that we can be conformed to the image of God’s Son.

Someone defined “Providence as the Hand of God in the glove of my circumstance.” Just as God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, God in is you conforming you to the likeness of Christ.” Your pain, sufferings, troubles are not in vain.

Third Argument of the Skeptic: Why did God not create us where we could only choose Good?

Because He wants us to choose to “love” Him just as He chose to love us. You who are married, would you want to be married to Star Wars C-3PO? Maybe sometimes?

My wife and I are doing the 40 day Love Dare. We watched Fireproof and I bought two Love Dare books. I especially liked day three which was a Wednesday where we were to buy our spouse something during the day that told them that we were thinking of them. I bought my wife a Craftsman 3/8 socked wrench and told her that on Saturday we could take her new socket wrench and together change the oil and bound. Actually, I bought her a rose. She put the rose in a vase on the dining room table and bragged on its beauty everyday and it sat there until the peddles wilted, turned black, and dropped off. Would it have meant as much if I were C-3PO and before I left for work that Wednesday she commanded me. “Bring home a rose for me?”

Dr. J. Robertson McQuilkin was formerly the president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary….He is a conference speaker and author of note. But none of those credentials exceed his exemplary and heart-gripping love for his ailing wife, Muriel. She has walked down the grim and lonely world of Alzheimer’s disease for the last twenty years. Dr. McQuilkin gave up his presidency and numerous other responsibilities to care for her and to love her. He has penned his emotional journey in one of the most magnificent little books ever written. At one point in the book he recounts this incident:

Once our flight was delayed in Atlanta, and we had to wait a couple of hours. Now that’s a challenge. Every few minutes, the same questions, the same answers about what we’re doing here, when are we going home? And every few minutes we’d take a fast pace walk down the terminal in earnest search of-what? Muriel had always been a speed walker. I had to jog to keep up with her!

An attractive woman sat across from us, working diligently on her computer. Once, when we returned from an excursion, she said something, without looking up from her papers. Since no one spoke to me or at least mumbled in protest of our constant activity, “Pardon?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said, “I was just asking myself, ‘Will I ever find a man to love me like that?’”[4] When I read this love story the thought hit me: Is God asking, “Will I ever find a believer to love me like that?”

The Scriptures say God created us to choose to love Him voluntarily, willfully, and sacrificially. Do we? There are answers for the skeptic in the world and in you in Romans 8:28. Let God encourage you and strengthen your faith through this powerful verse.

First book review The Reason For God
Second book review part 1
Second book review part 2 “Exclusivity”

[1] Erwin W. Lutzer. Ten Lies About God (Nashville:Nelson, 2000) 75.

[2] Timothy Keller. Reason For God (New York: Dutton, 2008) 249.

[3] Ibid., 26.

[4] Ravi Zacharias. Jesus Among Other Gods (Nashville: Nelson, 2000) 129.