In the life of every believer, many surprising events take place which no one, at least in this life, is able to explain. But we are told, on divine authority, that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom 8:28) – not necessarily these events looked at singly, but when taken along with, for instance, their consequences, they work out for the good of the child of God. Illness, bereavement and all the other circumstances that cause such sadness and difficulty in this sinful world are, none of them, welcome. But they do not come alone to the believer; they may result in more prayerfulness, more searching of the Scriptures, a stronger faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, greater dependence on God’s providence, increased sanctification, greater patience and much else. Thus the trouble, when accompanied by the blessing of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, works for the good of the believer.
Obviously sin does no good to the child of God; rather it causes damage. Indeed it may do immense harm, both to the person who does wrong and to others who are affected by it. Think, for example, of David’s great sin; it was a very bad example to others and it had serious consequences for himself. Yet when one considers how that particular sin – what was indeed a series of sins – was followed by a series of severe chastisements and by deep repentance (as evidenced by the words of Psalm 51) one can see that the whole chain of events, working together, brought about spiritual good for David. Especially one would expect to see, after believers have been guilty of serious sin, their repentance followed by an increased hatred for sin and a greater desire for inward holiness.
As we look around us and take note of what is happening throughout the world, we see that God is very largely ignored and His revelation emphatically rejected almost everywhere. On all sides we see selfishness, cruelty, and wickedness of every kind; we are confronted with idolatry, false religion, militant unbelief; and we watch terrible misery following in their train. We may be inclined to ask how, in a fallen world where Satan seems to rule almost unhindered, God can take glory to Himself. But we should not be surprised to discover that God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts (see Isaiah 55:9). With infinite wisdom He can order all the affairs of the world in ways that are altogether beyond our capacity to understand.
We are told that “the Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever” (Ps 29:10). He was entirely in control of the waters that swept so powerfully over the world in Noah’s time; He brought about this cataclysm because He was resolved to punish the people of that age for their gross sins. What God’s purpose was in bringing that flood on the earth is obvious from Scripture: that He might glorify Himself in bringing judgement on those whose way of life was so utterly evil. In other instances when floods, whether literal or metaphorical, sweep over the earth, God’s purposes may be much less clear, but we ought to realise that, in all He does, God acts in ways that are altogether holy and wise.
And as we consider human rebellion against God, in its various forms, we may take refuge in the fact that all things will work together for His glory – just as all things work together for the good of the individual believer. We may not be able to understand how this can possibly be true, particularly if we are confronted with the depths of human cruelty: the torture of a child, for instance, or the sustained brutality of Nazi Germany towards the Jews. Such crimes speak loudly of the fearful nature of human depravity. But why does God permit such things to take place? Why does He not restrain sin more than He does? These are difficult questions. Indeed we do well to be silent before the great and holy God. The best response to most comments in reaction to such events, and their relation to God’s providence, is to use the words of Paul: “Who art thou that repliest against God?” God has not chosen to explain all His ways of working in providence. But He has made it clear that all things will work together – though not necessarily individually – for His glory.
We get light on God’s ways of working in providence from Scripture. If, for example, we follow the course of Israel’s wanderings through the wilderness from the time when they crossed the Red Sea, we repeatedly see actions and words and attitudes which in themselves were most certainly not to the glory of God. He had revealed His power and His faithfulness in bringing Israel out of Egypt, but He had also given them a revelation in word through Moses. That revelation in word should, on its own, have been sufficient to convince them that God was to be trusted in all His dealings with them, but especially after they had seen it clearly demonstrated, in their deliverance from Egypt, that no earthly power could resist His purposes.
How glorifying it would have been to God if the Children of Israel had trusted His word in spite of every difficulty – even when there was no obvious source of food, when there was a lack of water, and when they saw the great strength of the Canaanite cities. Instead what is again and again prominent in the account of Israel’s wanderings is their unbelief; they did not trust God to deliver them (see Ps 78:22). They were not glorifying God.
Yet, when we take other matters into account, we see that God was glorified through these things working together. God took glory to Himself in the exercise of His long-suffering, in not cutting Israel off in spite of their sins; He gave them further opportunities to repent and serve Him. God also glorified Himself in answering Moses’ believing prayer: “Pardon, I beseech Thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of Thy mercy” (Num 14:19). Again God was glorified in His faithfulness to His promises; He had undertaken to bring Abraham’s descendants into the land of Canaan, and no power – not Satan’s, not Pharaoh’s, not that of the strongest tribes in the area, not even that of Israel’s unbelief – could stand in the way of the Most High fulfilling these promises.
This principle has held true throughout history, and it holds true today. We see individuals, organisations and governments ignoring God and His laws, refusing to give God the glory which is due to Him (see, for instance, Ps 29:2). We do not know if the Lord will act, in this life, to take glory to himself in dealing with this generation for its ungodliness. On the other hand, He could greatly glorify His mercy by the conversion of multitudes, even in the very near future. But we do know that, sooner or later, either in mercy or in judgement, God will glorify Himself by fulfilling His declaration: “I have sworn by Myself, the word is gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto Me every knee shall bow” (Is 45:23).
When the last day will come, and the Son of man will call all human beings from their graves, it will not be possible for any of them to refuse. However determined they may have been, during this life, in their rebellion against the commandments of God and the call of Christ in the gospel, they cannot but submit to the command to rise from the dead and go to judgement. And there will be the same unwilling submission when the Judge sends the ungodly away into everlasting punishment. In that day it will be seen that all things relating to the ungodly have worked together for the glory of God.
If we focus on the professing Church, we may be dismayed by its weakness and its failures. We may be saddened to see the devastation wrought by generations of unbelief and departure from the standard God has set for His Church. We have seen a loosening of the Church’s hold on vital doctrines of the faith, including the fundamental doctrine of the inspiration and dependability of Scripture, until some sections of the Church leave one doubting if they believe in anything. Not only is the Fourth Commandment completely ignored, but the First and the Seventh are also being thrown aside – and others too have little respect paid to them. Clearly none of this is glorifying to God.
Yet even in days of spiritual darkness, God takes glory to Himself in the salvation of individual sinners, even although these may be comparatively few. In every generation “the gospel of Christ . . . is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Rom 1:16). All in this generation for whom Christ died will most certainly be saved; they will all believe in Him as the One who died for sinners and rose again; they will all be kept by the power of God, through faith, until they are received into the perfect blessedness of heaven. And God will be glorified in it all.
But God is glorified in preserving His cause in existence in the face of opposition of every kind: Satan’s temptations, persecution, mockery, false religion, atheism, and unfaithfulness within the Church. But the great Head of the Church has promised: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18). So it has proved, and so it always will. Never will the schemes of Satan, and of those who do his evil work, be allowed to succeed to the extent that Christ’s cause will become extinct.
God took glory to Himself at the time of the Reformation, in raising up able, godly men such as Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Knox as leaders in the Church and in converting, through their ministry, large numbers of people. But God’s glory was all the greater because of the contrast between the revived state of the Church and its previous idolatrous condition; one thinks also of Rome’s many false doctrines, the sheer worldliness of most who held office in the pre-Reformation Church, and the manifest wickedness of some of them. Indeed God has been glorified in every revival of religion, not least through the exercise of His power when Satan’s kingdom was immensely strong and the Church was weak, sometimes almost dead.
However weak the Church is, or may become, we must never lose sight of the fact that “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:14). God is yet to work powerfully through His Word to bring multitudes of sinners into His kingdom, throughout the world. Ministers in particular must never lose confidence in the gospel as “the power of God unto salvation”; they must press on in dependence on Christ, in the hope that the Holy Spirit will yet mercifully apply the Word to the hearts of their hearers. And let all who have the glory of God in view, and who have a heart for the good of sinners, persevere in prayer. They may find these words of David particularly appropriate: “Let the whole earth be filled with His glory” (Ps 72:19).