Romans (Quality: Average)

[0:00] Romans, and verse 28, 28 verses of the 8th of the Romans.

[0:14] And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the cause according to his purpose.

[0:35] There is immediately, before the expression of this knowledge, we know that all things work together for good, the expression of ignorance.

[0:55] Look at the verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities.

[1:07] For we know not what we should pray for as pure ignorance. And let us not forget that it is an inspired man that is talking.

[1:25] Paul is among the people. We know not what we should pray for as we ought.

[1:36] And if there were a man told of the Holy Ghost to pray, it most assuredly was Paul. And if there were one who had clear and empathic answers to his prayers, surely it was Paul.

[1:55] And yet, he knew not what to pray for as yours. Now that's looked upon by some people that we have encountered in our lives as being very very veritory to the Christian profession.

[2:17] That if you are a Christian, you ought to know what to pray for and ought to be able to pray for it at any time.

[2:31] Well, it just isn't so. The Holy Ghost speaks of the infirmities in that 26th verse.

[2:42] The infirmities, of course, means the weaknesses, the inabilities of the child of God to pray as it ought.

[2:57] That a child of God does seek to pray is one of the greatest characteristics of a child of God. Behold, he prays.

[3:10] And he knows that he ought to pray. And thank God he wants to pray. But he wants to pray with the Spirit.

[3:24] And with the understanding, not merely with words. Do you really know what you ought to pray for this morning? What you ought to pray for?

[3:37] You may be like me and have many things on your mind that you feel you want God to do for you, but ought it to be so. Of course, if you consult yourself, you're answering yes, because you feel so.

[3:53] But that is not necessarily correct in God's sight. We know not what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself, to make an intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

[4:12] Have you ever looked at that closely? It's most helpful. But the great intercessor in heaven is Jesus Christ.

[4:23] We have an advocate in the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. But here is another intercession. And that is the Holy Ghost.

[4:34] And he makes an intercession down here. Where? In the heart. Of whom? Of that man who doesn't know what he ought to pray for. Nobody else wants it.

[4:46] There's no room for him in anybody else's heart. There's only room for him in that man's heart, who is ignorant of what he should pray for in the Lord.

[4:57] What a beautiful thing this is. And look too. He makes intercession for the saints with groanings. Not the Holy Ghost groanings.

[5:09] Oh no, it's not he that groans. It's you and me that groanings. And without groanings is the Holy Ghost prompting them, exciting them.

[5:23] Well, of course, looking at it through the eye of the flesh, one would say the Holy Ghost is the teacher of a man's afraid. He'll add beautiful language, fluent, grammatical, eloquent.

[5:36] I know not what. Oh no, he won't. The Holy Ghost could do that, of course. No, but the true eloquence of the man in prayer is groanings, which cannot be uttered, which can't be expressed in words.

[5:55] You've read of Peter's repentant, haven't you? Have you? You haven't read a word of what Peter said.

[6:09] He wept bitterly. That's very significant. It isn't people saying, oh, I'm sorry, very sorry.

[6:20] It's the person that feels it, with groanings which cannot be uttered. And dear old Peter couldn't utter the repentance that he felt.

[6:31] He went out and wept bitterly. The best repentance. The silent with regard to words, but full with regard to feelings.

[6:46] You don't read of the woman that stood behind him weeping. You don't read of her saying, that's true. But look at her washing his feet with her tears and wiping them with the hairs of her head.

[7:03] The poor soul was too full to speak. Too broken. Too crumbled. Too humbled. It was the Holy Ghost, with groanings which couldn't be uttered, that were speaking all the time.

[7:20] Hannah, she didn't say much, did she? And Eli, the high priest, thought that she was drunk. What a mistaken idea.

[7:32] A good man. But he could make a mistake, you see. But her heart spoke. And why? Because the Spirit was making intercession in her with those unspoken words that we've got to.

[7:51] And that brings me to this. That he knoweth, he that searcheth the heart, knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit in your groanings and sighings that are inexpressible.

[8:07] And that's the way to pray, man. You do not know what they need. You will say in spirit, if not in words, with Hezekiah, like a crane or a swallow, so does I chatter.

[8:20] He's been praying for that. Splendid chattering though. He's put fifteen years onto his life, and what is bringing him a cure physically. That's the way to pray, man.

[8:33] But you can't pray like that in the me. Only if the Holy Ghost makes intercession quarters with those groanings which cannot be uttered.

[8:47] Now the Holy One in Heaven knows what is the mind of the Spirit in those groanings inside. Because the Holy Ghost makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

[9:05] And if that isn't enough for one morning to go home and think about, what is? But our text has a little conjunction. It's joined with all that I've been talking about.

[9:18] And, as if that's not enough, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.

[9:30] to them who are these calls according to his purpose. We know it. Well, how do we know it?

[9:43] How do we know it? That's a question. It deserves an answer. How do we know that all things work together for good to them that love God?

[9:58] Well, the first source of this knowledge must be based on the Word of the Living God. He has said so.

[10:11] That certainly should be sufficient. It is sufficient. When you have faith in exercise to believe it, and let me add that when we talk our faith, we talk of the Holy Ghost, not of the creature.

[10:28] No man rightly can talk of faith if he neglects the Holy Ghost. For faith is the gift of God.

[10:40] The power of the Holy Ghost must be in it. Faith is a catch word for this phrase, that's thrown about like a boy playing football.

[10:51] And half the time, I'm sure, neither speakers nor hearers know what on earth the man is getting at. It's one of those handy phrases, by faith this, by faith that, and the rest.

[11:06] But what is it? It's not just my consenting and accenting to have given the statement of God. Any man can do that, and every man should do it too.

[11:20] A living faith that lays hold of the Word of God, then enjoys it, eats it, drinks it, lives in it, moves in it.

[11:32] This is the gift of the Holy Ghost. What the Apostle terms in the Ephesians of the Colossians as faith of the operation of the Spirit of God.

[11:48] Well, blessed me for giving us just a little bit of it. We know then, by the Word of the Living God, that all beings do and will and must work together for good to those that love God.

[12:07] Who is it that brings it to pass, when the Lord commands it not, says one prophet. Now man contrives, and he uses great ingenuity, in contriving, civilly politically or religiously, any other way too.

[12:33] Man who all the while engineered conjuring up something to do. And when you think of the millions of the human race spread out of the world, every one of them conjuring up something.

[12:49] And when you think of the world, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, the Lord commanded it not.

[13:07] You always most reassuring. Cast your eye around a day in a world like we are living in. Everybody like the Ishmaelites, hands against his rubber man, everywhere threats that I know not what, utter destruction, scheme upon scheme, conquers upon conquers and whatnot, program upon program.

[13:31] If you want any rest of mind, burn the newspapers, and realize that no man will ever be able to accomplish anything, anything in his widest sense, good or bad, unless God commands you.

[13:57] And if you don't believe that, friend, I'm sorry for you, because you really have no peace and you can't have any peace whatever in your mind.

[14:09] But there is a second way by which this knowledge is obtained, and that is by observation. Observation.

[14:25] What has God given you and me? Eyes. I don't mean eyes of the body merely, but the eyes of the mind. When we read like we were reading just now, in Genesis, just to take one scripture alone.

[14:43] And you observe that when Job's father sent him to look after his brethren, and he heard about their health and whatnot.

[14:55] Jodie is wandering out to this way. Casually, as we remarked in the reading. Nothing in it? No. No.

[15:07] And yet the whole of Jacob's, of Joseph's history turns on that apparently casual wanderings.

[15:19] of the Jews. And not only of Joseph's history, but the history of the Israelites. And that means that history of the whole Church of God all was tied up in that simple, innocent looking.

[15:37] A boy just wandering about. But it had to be. God was there. A man observed him.

[15:51] Another stranger asks him what he's asked. He says. Well, he says, I have heard. There again.

[16:03] in the reading. Why did the man happen to be there? At that juncture? Just as he heard the brethren of Joseph utter their decision, what they're going to do with Joseph?

[16:19] How came it? Chance? Luck? Fortune? Sure not. God. God was there. The man didn't know it. Joseph didn't know it.

[16:31] He died. But God was there. And, afterwards, Joseph contacts his brethren with all the issues that follow after.

[16:43] Sold into Egypt. Eventually becomes prime minister of state. And then, after the death of his father, his brethren bow before him confessing their sins, pleasing his forgiveness, and Joseph said, You meant it for evil.

[17:06] But God meant it for good. Now, I don't know what you think of that phrase, but I know a thing like that. I mean, it's just granted to your heart good.

[17:20] You meant it for evil that all you had in your heart, said Joseph at that time. But God... Yes, but Joseph didn't see that at the time.

[17:33] He was going through it. How could he? When he was put down the pit where there was no water, he didn't see God there. When he hauled up and sold to the Ishmaelites and gone down to Egypt, he didn't see God there at the moment.

[17:53] The iron entered into his soul. Until the word of the Lord came, we are told of him, the word of the Lord tried it.

[18:05] He couldn't make it out. He was neither head and tail, nor confusion. Where was he? Where was the Lord to allow this to happen?

[18:16] Until the time came for the Lord to forgive his word and bring him out, Joseph didn't see it, and neither was you while you were passing through.

[18:31] I don't know. You may be some of you in some hole or muck this morning. You do not know where you are nor what you are, what to think, what to do, what to say.

[18:43] Europe would stay in corner. Well, to tell you that God is ordering and arranging all these things so confusedly in order to bring out some wise design, you poo-poo it perhaps you know, not the me.

[19:04] and you're not suddenly. Well, think of the hymn you've just been singing. Many years ago I came into this chapel, sat in the last seat of one year on my right.

[19:24] The old demon gave out that key which you've just been singing. I can see him now swinging the book as with his manner when he got thoroughly warmed up.

[19:39] Oh, what a truth that was in one person's heart that morning. And it is so many and many a times he's chained to his throne a volume lies with all the fates of men with every angel's form and size drawn with eternal fancy.

[19:59] How often one has wanted to read our fate with curious eyes but it cannot be done while you're passing through. It would be no trial if you're not to read our fate with curious eyes but it cannot be done while you're passing through.

[20:11] It would be no trial if you could see it when you're going through it man. But you will see it. Like Joseph said, when God has perfected his blessed with and pleasure you shall find that all things do work together and the way that you're going through and the way that you're going through and the way that you're going through.

[20:29] the way having observed it in another's you'll observe it in your own taste.

[20:49] In the meantime the waiting oh what a trial it is to wait people talk about waiting as if as if we'll sit down in an easy chair, speak up before a nice fire, and you're all right.

[21:03] Waiting isn't like that, friends. Ah, far from that. When you're waiting for God, you've got one thing on your mind, and one thing only, and that is, will he come?

[21:17] Will he do it? You're looking for it. You're anxious about it. You can think of nothing else, and if you don't, it's not waiting. It's imagination. I'm talking strong, but it needs it.

[21:30] It's right. People talk about waiting for God, like singing old dahls. It's hard work to wait. You need strength to wait in the right way.

[21:44] And when you do wait, you'll say, my soul failing because of the waiting it seems so long, Lord. When wilt thou come?

[21:57] Well, all this is for your profit. This works for your good, and mine, though we do not think so. One more instance out of many that we could give, of course, from the Bible, of observing this, by which we know that all things work together, all good.

[22:18] You take Job. You take Job. Now, if ever there was a man that had his castles plucked up to the roots, it was he.

[22:29] Everything taken away from him, as you know, I need not go into detail. And at length, God suffered the death of death.

[22:39] He was smite with that death of dreadful disease. So there's a mass of corruption from Hector. And instead of sitting in his highly furtish room with every luxury, he's sitting on a downhill, scraping himself in the potsherd.

[23:01] Poor dear man. Is this a child of God? Is this a favorite of heaven? Is this the man that God has said he's furtish, and upright, and is sure he's evil?

[23:14] Yes. That's the man, but who the thought is? Judging by outward appearances is nothing. Many a dear child of God has a load to carry that the world knows nothing of.

[23:29] Ah, they don't know how to carry it either. They reel to and throw and stagger like a trump and man, and ah, at their which they, Thee, well, the psalmist says, he envied the world.

[23:48] So here, if you know anything rightly, then you know yourself. There are, if you stand out with facts, they say, More than half could wish, and here am I, says the psalmist, Waters of a full cup are run out to me.

[24:03] My tears have been my meek day and night. I've mingled my ashes with my grave. God's forsaken me. His mercy clean gone forever.

[24:15] I say, doesn't it look all wrong? Ah, the devil said he's all wrong too. And you're all wrong yourself. And you'll believe the devil's knowledge in presence to God.

[24:28] And yet, wait, wait. And enable, wait. You've got time. And you will see what he did to Job. He'll do believe.

[24:41] All things work together for good. Who we know by revelation and by observation. And now, you will say, There's one difficulty in this station.

[24:57] That is, that little word all. We know that all things work together for good. Now, please, friends, don't you start picking and choosing about this little word all.

[25:17] There's some things you will say, I do believe work together for good. But there's some things I don't believe work together for good.

[25:28] You say that in your heart. Stop it. You are picking the word of God to be. See, isn't it right? He says all things.

[25:39] Now, I know. At least, I ought to know, now at my time of day, that many times in the word of God, these universal statements have to be qualified by limitations.

[25:54] As for example, when John the Beth, if he's baptized in the Jordan, you read that all men went out to him. An impossible fact.

[26:06] They did not. Not all, in the widest universal sense, have received. It meant to be. And you've got to take that vindic interpretation in many of the apparent universal expressions of only read.

[26:23] But not here. Not this one. Not this one. The context assurance that. And that's the cue to go by in interpreting the word of God.

[26:37] We know that all things work together for good. And I'm going to begin at the worst thing.

[26:49] And when we've dealt with that, there's nothing more to be said. That will cover the law. All things are going to say sin.

[27:00] because that's the one you will pick out and say that doesn't. It's all that it does. And if that does, well, it needs no argument about the rest, does it?

[27:16] Now let me preface this part of the subject strongly. God is not the author of sin. God could not be the author of sin.

[27:28] The most holy one and sin can never be linked together. But the fall wrought the channel for mercy to run said that dear old dockyard labourer John Kent.

[27:48] And he's right. Did the fall happen by chance? What is it came from a man balancing himself on the edge of a razor with no probability of God being in the matter?

[28:12] God, you will say, permitted it. True. But what God permits, God wills to permit and there's no answer to the point.

[28:22] for if he didn't will to permit it, he wouldn't permit it. It wouldn't come back. His holy and eternal will had a hand for a wise purpose.

[28:36] The whole of the Bible after which reveals that astounding purpose of God. sin enters the world.

[28:50] The thing that God hated, the thing that God had nothing to do with the actual commission of, because that was from the devil and from man's own free will, believing the devil in presence to God.

[29:07] And yet, behind it, lay the eternal counsel of Almighty God that so it should be and that he will bring good out of his evil and hasn't said.

[29:25] Hasn't said. What will be the secret, the cause of the endless anthems to eternal God to our eternity unto him that loved us and washed us and loosed us from our sins in his own blood?

[29:47] Why this? Because he who knew the end from the beginning decreed that sin should come, but when it came he equally decreed that out of it and through it of his infinite purpose and mercy he decked to himself a glory and an honour in the eternal redemption of an innumerable country of people which he has done.

[30:20] Which he has done. Now, if you want a clincher on that take this with you. Here is the Son of God in calm.

[30:37] He is here on this earth in the actual likeness of sinful flesh and we know that he was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sin.

[30:54] We know too that he never committed sin in thought or word or act. The sin less one.

[31:07] Now, he was crucified. And will you tell me why? On the face of it, the circumstantial evidence, why was he crucified?

[31:24] Because he preached something that the ecclesiastical rulers of his days didn't believe him. He upset the dignities of the church of that day.

[31:38] He preached that he was the Son of God. Oh, this is flash, flash that thou, being a man, doth make thyself equal with God.

[31:58] You see the point, don't you? And from that moment, those ecclesiastics were taking counsel step by step to put him to death.

[32:14] And they succeeded. And they had to succeed because God determined him. now, if that wasn't the piece of evil, will you tell me what was?

[32:30] If that wasn't absolutely devilish, what was? The crucifixion of the Holy Lamb of God with the exhibition of man's direst, extreme enmity against against God, come, let us kill the heir, and the inheritance shall be ours.

[32:57] And any price get rid of him, and they did, and God decreed it. And if he decreed that, the greatest piece of wickedness that ever was perpetrated on the face of the globe, what can we exempt it?

[33:20] And in case you are slow to believe what I said, listen to this. The day of Pentecost has come, and the speaker is filled with the Holy Ghost, and his speaker, the dear man that once fell, but now by God's mercy is on his feet, and he's a new man.

[33:45] Indeed, he said, ye men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, so he yourselves also know, him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, there you have it, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.

[34:26] now, you can understand everything if you believe that. The two things there are very clear.

[34:37] Here is the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God regarding the crucifixion of Christ, but the act of wickedness is charged on those who did it, ye with wicked hands have crucified and slain.

[34:57] God not the author of it, though God wisely purposed it to come, but he had nothing to do with the actual committing of the evil audience, and yet, out of that colossal evil, the crucifixion of Judea stung, well, hangs our hopes of eternal forgiveness of sin.

[35:25] We know now that all things, yes, have established the point clearly, that even wickedness, evil, God purposes to take place out of which he brings good for his glory, having said that, your afflictions, your troubles, your temptations, I, your mistakes, you've made many of them too.

[35:59] You've done nothing against us. We've made nothing but mistakes, and mark you, we bitterly ruled. Ah, you don't get over your mistakes in life, cheaply.

[36:17] Well, some of us don't. You don't talk about it, you don't tell people what mistakes you've made, that's the best kept for yourself. But you tell God about it, and you will never forgive yourself for what you've done, many, many things.

[36:33] Oh, if I hadn't have done that, if I hadn't have gone there, if I hadn't have said that. Perfectly true. good. But we've done it. We can't undo it.

[36:45] That's the trouble. Yes, and yet all those things work together for good. How, what about a lie, the mistakes that you've made when they've come home to roots with compound interest too, and made you butcher lip and dash your teeth with real repentance and anguish of heart, they've taught you and me where our wisdom lies.

[37:18] They've made us pray, Lord, hold me up, and I shall be saved. Keep me as the apple of thine eye. You never pray like that man.

[37:31] If you haven't been well knocked about by your own mistakes, you know, when you make a mistake, sometimes something can done with you. Ah, they say, look what he said, look what he did, have no more to do with him.

[37:46] That's man. But it's not God. If people make mistakes but he doesn't throw them over, he's not finished with them because they've made mistakes.

[38:02] No, if he else, he is still the blessed father of his people. And what father threw his son out of the ditch, into the ditch of God, he made mistakes.

[38:14] What mother would do it, bless you? Their very mistakes when they are seen to be sorry for, holy and dearer than the Lord to a parent's heart.

[38:25] Of course, how much more can your father be in heaven? Give good things to his own children who ask him. Please don't brood over your mistakes, fellow children.

[38:41] That won't do you any good. Sorry for them, yes, be there and you will be. But don't brood over them. You can't gather up, children, milk, that I'll say, it's very true.

[38:56] You can't undo the mistakes you make, but God can work blessed profit to your soul through.

[39:07] And he will. They work together for good. For goodness. Now, I'm not always the best judge of what is good for myself.

[39:22] I think I am, of course, we're all conceited fools when it comes to ourselves. We all know, that is, we think we know what would be the best for us, but really we don't.

[39:36] And that's where the trouble comes. God and I differ. May I say God and you differ. You've got your opinion as to what would be good and you pray for it and God doesn't give it to you and then you quarrel with God for not giving it to you.

[39:54] Yes, isn't it natural? It certainly is natural. And don't think I'm blaming you. God knows I'm the biggest criminal in that matter.

[40:09] But that's the game we get up to. Because we think think we know what would be good if we do not have God does.

[40:21] And why should he permit a person to lie a helpless invalid for years? And that person, one who fears and loves his holy name, will watch it so that that person should write just as I am, without one tree, but that my blood was shed for me inside.

[40:54] It was worth it, wasn't it? She may not have thought so. Charlotte Elliot, I think, today. She might not have thought so at the time, probably didn't. But many aforesa had to bless God and join in all their hearts with the expression of those verses again and again.

[41:14] And why? Ah, because God knew what he was doing with that woman. And he knows what he's doing with you and me. he's working for your good.

[41:29] And the day will come when you will see it. That last verse that had in, through seas or hills it makes its way, that wonderful wheel.

[41:42] The earth and hell of hosts is hastening on the last great day's wonders. There are some wonders to come, great.

[41:53] by God's grace we shall see the one we shall be so surprised. The wonders we shall see. That which we thought was our wonderful, kind providence may not be quite so kind as we imagine.

[42:08] That which we thought was the worst, the heaviest, the bitterest that could happen. Ah, when we get the other side of vain and see in his life what a difference.

[42:21] this is for them that love God. You'll say, yes then, that's the query. Am I a lover of him?

[42:31] But all that I can say now at the end of the service is true love to God. Let me repeat it. Personally, I think so much of it.

[42:44] True love to God is a desire for union with God. It isn't the feeling of emotion, though it's nice to add the feeling, but it's not that so much as what goes before that feeling.

[43:05] The desire of the soul to be one with God, vital of union one. Says the soul loves him if only he and I were one.

[43:20] That's love. That's deep love. That's not that hanky panky stuff that goes in the name of love religiously. That's real love if only we and he were one.

[43:39] Our one. what an honor, what a praise. May God have you. Thank you.