Are All Things Working Together for Good?

I listened to my car radio on a recent morning and heard a transmitted voice say words like these:

“‘All things work together for good to them who love God....’ Does this promise include tragedy and disasters? It’s easy to see God’s hand when blessings are flowing. It’s tougher when all we sense is bad news.”

The voice was that of Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer, author of over 30 books, including “Hitler’s Cross” and “Oprah, Miracles, and the New Earth.” Born in Canada in 1941, Lutzer serves as senior pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, Illinois. I often hear most of his 15-minute “Running to Win” broadcast while driving to work in Aberdeen, N.C.

Lutzer said two men in his church engaged in extramarital affairs but now want to renew relationships with their wives. He asked his radio audience if “all things were working together for good” for those men. He heard those men cry out to God at a prayer meeting after they proved unfaithful to their wedding vows, he noted, adding that God didn’t cause the men to sin but would use their sins to shape their repentant hearts.

Lutzer also said God allows people to get cancer. I thought about the verse he quoted: “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” (Romans 8:28, KJV).

The Amplified Bible renders that verse this way: “We are assured and know that (God being a partner in their labor) all things work together and are (fitting into a plan) for good to and for those who love God and are called according to (His) design and purpose.”

I’ve heard people say, “All things work together for good,” and leave off the rest of that verse. All things do not work together for good for folk who fail to get under the “umbrella of God’s grace.” If someone dies before placing faith in Christ, his future will be horrible, according to the Bible.

“The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:41-42).

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16-17).

Those who have not accepted Christ stand “condemned already”! “The Message Bible” offers this explanation of John 3:16-17: “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.”

No, all things do not work together for good for everyone. St. Paul wrote, however, that God uses things that happen in the lives of those who love him to somehow work out for overall good in the end.

What does “to them that love God” mean? Nigel Turner says that in Jesus’ teaching “loving God” implies “being unconditionally available.”

What does “to them who are the called according to his purpose” mean? “Church” in the New Testament is translated from the Greek word “ekklesia” which comes from two words: “ek” meaning “out” and “kaleo” meaning to “call.” Christians are called “to be in the world but not of the world.”

Believers sometimes suffer. Wil Pounds says, “Suffering is not always a punishment for sin. Suffering should not produce a spirit of rebellion, but a stronger faith in God. God limits Satan (Job 1:11-12), and he cannot defeat the person who trusts in God.”

During times of prosperity, persecution or pain, each Christian faces this question: Do I believe God is good, that his Word is true and that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are "the called according to his purpose"?