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Romans 8:28
"And we know that God causes everything to work
together for the good of those who love God and
are called according to His purpose for them." Romans 8:28
(adapted from Winslow's, "All Things Working for Good")
It is palpably clear and emphatically true that all
that occurs in the Lord's government of His people
conspires for, and works out, and results in, their
highest happiness, their greatest good.
The gloomiest and most painful circumstances in
the history of the child of God, without a solitary
exception, are all conspiring, and all working
together, for his real and permanent good.
The painful and inexplicable dispensations, which
at the present moment may be thickening and
deepening around your path, are but so many
problems in God's government, which He is working
out to their certain, satisfactory, and happy results.
And when the good thus embosomed in the lowering
cloud of some crushing providence, accomplishes its
benevolent and heaven sent mission, then trial will
expand its dark pinions and fly away; and sorrow will
roll up its somber drapery and disappear.
All things under the government of an infinitely great,
all wise, righteous, and beneficent Lord God, work together
for good. What that good may be, the shape it may assume,
the complexion it may wear, the end to which it may be
subservient, we cannot tell. To our dim view it may appear
an evil, but to God's far seeing eye it is a positive good.
Oh, truth most divine!
Oh, words most consolatory!
How many whose eye traces this page, it may be whose
tears bedew it, whose sighs breathe over it, whose prayers
hallow it, may be wading in deep waters, may be drinking
bitter cups, and are ready to exclaim: "All these things
are against me!"
Oh no, beloved of God, all these things are for you!
Do not be afraid!
Christ restrains the flood upon whose heaving bosom
He serenely sits. Christ controls the waters, whose
sounding waves obey the mandate of his voice.
Christ's cloudy chariot is paved with love!
Then, fear not!
Your Father grasps the helm of your storm tossed
bark, and through cloud and tempest will steer it
safely to the port of endless rest.
Will it not be a good, if your present adversity results in...
the dethronement of some worshiped idol;
in the endearing of Christ to your soul;
in the closer conformity of your mind to God's image;
in the purification of your heart;
in your more thorough fitness for heaven?
Will it not be a real good if it terminate...
in a revival of God's work within you;
in stirring you up to more prayer;
in enlarging your heart to all that love the same Savior;
in stimulating you to increased activity...
for the conversion of sinners,
for the diffusion of the truth,
and for the glory of God?
Oh yes! good, real good, permanent good must result
from all the Divine dispensations in your history.
Bitter repentance shall end in the experienced sweetness of Christ's love.
The festering wound shall but elicit the healing balm.
The overpowering burden shall but bring you to the tranquil rest.
The storm shall but quicken your footsteps to the Hiding place.
The north wind and the south wind shall breathe together
over your garden, and the spices shall flow out.
In a little while; oh, how soon! you shall pass away
from earth to heaven, and in its clearer, serener light
shall read the truth, often read with tears before,
"And we know that God causes everything to work
together for the good of those who love God and
are called according to His purpose for them."
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