ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD
We have been taught a false religious doctrine based on a misinterpretation of Romans 8:28. But if you would just read this verse in context and look carefully at the words, you wouldn’t fall for such an erroneous interpretation. Many people who couldn’t quote any other scripture in the Bible can quote Romans 8:28, which says…
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.
People have interpreted this verse as saying that nothing can happen except what is in God’s will. This verse does not say that! There is nothing in this verse that blames God for everything that happens. This verse simply says that the Lord can take whatever happens and work it together for good.
But there are qualifications. The very first word of this verse is the conjunction “and,” which ties this verse to the previous verses. The preceding verses, verses 26 and 27, were saying that the Holy Spirit…
helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. ..he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of
The Greek word rendered “helpeth” literally means “to take hold of opposite together, that is, co-operate (assist):—help” (Strong’s Concordance). It describes a union, not the Holy Spirit alone doing all the interceding for us. The Holy Spirit helps us as we are interceding, but He doesn’t automatically do it for us. He takes hold together with us.
When we start doing what we know to do and we pray, if we will allow Him to do so, the Holy Spirit will take hold together with us and intercede and produce supernatural results. But this doesn’t happen automatically. We have a part to play.
This is a significant departure from those who simply say that all things work together for good, regardless. No, all things do not work together for good if you aren’t operating in intercession—not just a human intercession, but an intercession where you are energized by and operating in the power of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit gets involved and you are operating in supernatural intercession, then we can say that we know that all things will work together for good.
THEM THAT LOVE GOD
There are two more qualifications in this verse.
Verse 28 says that…
All things work together for good to them that love God…
Remember the two teenagers mentioned earlier in
the book who died in the car accident? They were
doing drugs and alcohol, missed a turn on wet
pavement, and died. Those kids didn’t love God. I’m
not intentionally being mean toward them, I’m just
stating the obvious based on their actions. (Luke
6:43-44.) The Bible calls a person who says that they
love God but doesn’t live like it, “a liar.” (1 John 2:4;
4:20.) Doing drugs and alcohol, breaking the speed
limit, going against the law of inertia (too fast around
a corner)—say what you want, but there is no
indication that these kids loved God.
The speaker at the Full Gospel Businessmen’s meeting who had just been to the funeral of these kids said, “Well, we know that God took them.” No, we don’t know that. There are many people who die and go to hell. Not everyone who passes from this life automatically goes to be with the Lord. It depends on your decision whether or not you have accepted the salvation God has offered by His grace.
My wife, Jamie, and I were over in England when Princess Diana was killed in a car wreck. A denominational pastor was asked by one of the kids in his church, “Did Princess Diana go to heaven?” He answered, “Well, it depends on whether she knew God or not.” The media twisted his words and
plastered this headline on newspapers all over the UK, “Pastor Says Diana in Hell.” People got mad! They were literally fearing riots and civil unrest in England because someone spoke the truth that if Princess Diana had not made Jesus her personal Lord, she went to hell.
No matter who someone is, if they haven’t been born again before they die, they go to hell. It’s not because of all their individual sins, but because they didn’t make Jesus their personal Lord. That’s the truth. But since the truth is potentially offensive, especially at a funeral, many people just take the easy route and say, “God is working this together for good, and we know they’re in heaven,” when it isn’t necessarily true. There are consequences for your actions. You have to believe in order to receive.
CHOOSE LIFE
This religious doctrine of the sovereignty of God is the same thing we see in the secular world where people are refusing to accept responsibility for their actions. Rather than admit that they have a problem with drinking, they say, “I can’t help it. It’s in my genes.” It seems these days no one is responsible for anything. Just blame something, somebody, or everything—society, the color of your skin, where you grew up. If you can’t find anybody else to blame, just blame your dysfunctional family.
But the Lord said in Deuteronomy 30:19…
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
God not only gave you this quiz, He also gave you the answer— choose life. But notice, He gave you the choice. You must choose life. Satan didn’t make you a jerk. You chose to be a jerk. You may have had some bad things happen in your life that made it harder on you than on somebody else, but nobody—even the devil himself—can do anything to you or make anything of you without your consent and cooperation.
According to modern psychology, I have little chance of being a normal adult male because my dad died when I was twelve years old. I grew up in a home without a father. Psychologists contend that I’m bound to have all kinds of problems. You might seriously wonder whether I’m normal or not, but my ninety-five-year- old mother told me recently that I never gave her a moment’s problem. I didn’t go through rebellion. I grew up loving my mother. I didn’t realize that you had to be messed up if you didn’t have a father. Nobody told me I had to have these problems.
In our secular society today, nobody accepts responsibility for anything. It’s always someone else’s fault that you are the way you are. Instead of blaming the terrorists for their choice to kill thousands of people on September 11, 2001, some people are saying, “It’s the United States that made these terrorists the way that they are.” Give me a break!
The extreme teaching on the sovereignty of God is the religious world’s counterpart to this secular world trend that refuses to accept responsibility for anything. We just blame God saying, “He’s in control. All things work together for good.” No, God didn’t cause your problems, but yes, He can take those things and work them together for good. First, this is dependent upon the Holy Spirit interceding through you. Second, you have to love God.
The third qualification listed in Romans 8:28 for God turning all things to the good is…
… to them who are the called according to his purpose.
The purpose of God is to destroy the works of the devil.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
1 John 3:8
All things cannot work for the good if you aren’t resisting the devil and fighting against the problems he sends. If you’ve embraced your situation, saying, “Oh God, thank You for giving me cancer,” then don’t think it’s going to work together for good. It only works together for good if you love God, are resisting the problem, and are out to destroy the works of the devil. If you will let the Holy Spirit work through you, then anything that the devil throws at you will work together for good.
NAPTIME
When my oldest son was just a year old, I was loading lumber one day to make a little bit of extra money. At the time, I was pastoring a church in Seagoville, Texas. It was hot, over a hundred degrees that day. The lumberyard was paved with dirt and Joshua had been out running and playing. When his naptime came, he wanted to lie down in this dirt and take a nap. He was sweaty from running around and I knew he’d be a mess if he lay down in the dirt. I also knew Jamie wouldn’t like that, so I put him in the cab of the semi-truck we were loading. The
window to the cab of the truck was up over my head.
When I put Joshua in there, I rolled the windows down and told him to lie down and take a nap.
Joshua, this once tired boy, revived when he got up in the cab of that truck. He’d been wanting to get up there all day long. He was now wide awake and looking out the window, waving at me in the rearview and side mirrors. I went up there and told him to lie down and take a nap. He disobeyed me and got up. Finally, I spanked him and told him to lie down and take a nap. Still Joshua leaned out of that window, trying to wave at me in the side view mirror again, then he fell out of that truck. He hit his eye on the running board and landed on his head on the ground. The fall could have broken his neck, killed him, or caused some other serious damage.
He was lying on the ground crying. I ran up and hugged him, held him, and prayed over him. When he finally quit crying, I said, “Joshua, this is what I was telling you. If you would have obeyed me, this wouldn’t have happened.” I used that negative circumstance to teach him a lesson.
If my son would have been like most Christians, he would have gone out and told all of his friends, “My dad is such a wonderful dad! He pushed me out of the cab of that truck, gave me a black eye, and made me land on my head to teach me to obey him.” If anybody could prove that a parent does stuff like
that, the welfare department would come, take you away, and lock you up because that is not the right way to discipline your children. Yet this is what many Christians are saying God does.
A REAL FAITH-KILLER
There is a famous quadriplegic minister who blames God for their condition, but the truth is that this person jumped off a rock into a pool of water that had a sign there stating, “Do Not Swim.” They went ahead, disobeyed, broke their neck, and became quadriplegic. They then say, “God did this to me to get my attention.”
There is no doubt that God used this situation because this person turned to Him while lying there, a quadriplegic with nothing else to do but listen to God. This person now praises the Lord for doing this and leads many people to Him, but God didn’t cause or allow that accident. That’s a misrepresentation. The Lord didn’t do it.
If all you do is emphasize grace and say, “It’s just totally God’s will. We can’t affect His plans. God’s will automatically comes to pass. We have nothing to do with it,” then instead of embracing true biblical grace, you’re now embracing an extreme religious teaching on the sovereignty of God. Thinking that God controls everything and nothing happens without His permission is a real faith-killer.
If you really believe that, just go out and live in sin because after all, you couldn’t do it if it wasn’t God’s will. Go out and be as carnal as you want to because you couldn’t do it if the Lord didn’t will it. When put in those terms, this thinking defies logic. Only a religious person with a blinded heart would believe that. It’s not true. That kind of thinking emphasizes a few scriptures that talk about God being all-powerful and knowing the end from the beginning, and then takes them to an unbalanced extreme.
