“ALL THINGS”
D. L. Stewart
Ephesians 1: 9–11; Romans 8: 26–30
I was thinking, beloved brethren, of these words as to the God “who works all things” and then as to all things working in Romans 8. In the first chapter of Ephesians we are in the area of purpose. We get an impression there of God Himself, His own eternal purposes before time began, but to be worked out in time, in what has been called ‘this divine parenthesis in the midst of eternity’. He arranges everything according to His own thoughts and everything is in the range of His working. It is going to result in amazing fruit and an eternity to come filled with the marvellous results of divine working. There will not be an element in eternity, there will not be a person, that is not the detailed product of divine working. These are great matters for us as having been marked out for sonship, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and taken into favour in the Beloved. These marvellous things are from the mind of God.
Later on Paul speaks about “the administration of the fulness of times; to head up all things in the Christ”; that would be the world to come, the time of display, the time of glory. Things are not always going to be small and outwardly insignificant and weak, things are to be glorious, and in a day to come the whole scene is to be lit up with the glory of Christ. We look forward to that,
we are going to have part in it. It says, “In whom we have also obtained an inheritance “. We have part in it, part in that wonderful inheritance “according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will”. The counsel would suggest the detail of it. There is what is in God’s heart in His purpose, but the counsel relates to the detail of the way that He takes. It is the wonder of His ways that produces praise as Paul speaks of them in Romans 11—“how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways!” It just bows the soul in the presence of such a God, ‘Our God whom we have known’. We anticipate these things. In the time of the service of God we can in spirit and heart rise above all that is small and difficult here and enter into the light, and in measure into the experience, of that side of things which relates to God’s purpose and the blessedness of His own thoughts.
Romans 8, of course, is not exactly that side of things but it is the same persons. As we look at these verses in Romans 8 we read of predestination, “predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son”. Foreknowledge is first, “whom he has foreknown”. It is the same persons, but they are here in a scene that is marked by groaning. The latter part of the chapter speaks of that. The saints are not exempt from it; although having part in purpose and the glory, they are not exempt from the ordinary experiences of mankind. There is groaning under the governmental results of what has come into this scene and altered everything since the beginning of time, but the saints can have part in the groaning in an intelligent way. They are waiting adoption. “We also ourselves groan”, it says (Romans 8: 23); there is suffering, anxiety, pressure of circumstances, pressure of spirit. Men have all these things, but the saints are groaning, awaiting adoption, awaiting a change, awaiting the great matter of the translation, when bodies of humiliation will be transformed into bodies of glory. The saints are here in the very circumstances of time, and all that marks time, but they are here in the light of a coming day and in the light of the power of God which is about to change everything. Here we are in this scene, here in our groanings and our difficulties; in one moment of time everything will change. We are to be in the present light of it in our souls. What is going to sustain us is hope; it is one of the greatest things in Christianity. It says here that conditions are so difficult, and things so difficult to understand come into our lives and come among us, that, as we have been reminded already this night, we really do not know what to pray for. The psalmist says, “Thy way is in the sea, and thy paths are in the great waters; and thy footsteps are not known”, Psalm 77: 19.
We see God operating and in one sense often we scarcely know what to make of it, but the apostle says, “we do know that all things work together for good to those who love God”.
That is a remarkable thing; it does not say exactly that God is working all things for good; that no doubt would be true; but things are working. Whatever it might be that comes into our experiences and into our circumstances, things are working, working today. One thing is working, and another thing is working alongside of it in perfect accord. What a marvellous thing the position of a believer is, that in the very things that we fear and the difficulties that we encounter, one thing after another and one thing along with another, everything is working, and all for good. When it is all passed, when we look back we shall find that there is a perfection and a harmony relating to all these things whatever they may be, a perfection which causes the heart to be attached to Christ and attached to God, the God ‘whom we have
known’, the God of all grace and all encouragement and comfort. These things belong to us, they are our portion and He would have us to be in the fulness of the enjoyment of them, and the very experiences we go through are just meant to deepen with us something more of divine workmanship in our souls in view of the day of display.
It says that these things work, but in the midst of these things that we have been speaking about we have the service of the Spirit. It says that “the Spirit joins also its help to our weakness”—a marvellous thing! Coming down into the very secrets of our hearts and unspoken fears, and things that we could scarcely explain to anybody, the Spirit with us and in us enters into these very things and the very feelings and difficulties of our hearts and thoughts and “joins also its help to our weakness ... makes intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered”. What provision there is for us, beloved brethren. We have a Priest on high interceding in the place of power, the place where everything is effected, and we have One down here equal in every sense to Christ, to serve us in all the details and difficulties that mark our lives. He is here to join His strength to our weakness and make intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. May the Lord encourage us all.
Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
19 August 1980