How Do All Things Work Together for Our Good? by Daniel Rowlands (1713-1790)

​Romans 8:28  All things work together for good to those who love God.

Observe what Paul says and make no exception. ALL things work together for good! Even affliction is very useful and profitable to the godly. Be confirmed in your faith. Give glory to God, and resolve, with Job, “Though he slay me–yet will I trust in him.” 

After all your tribulation and anguish, you must conclude with David, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” (Psa 119:71) Under all your disquietudes you must exclaim, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Rom 11:33)

The Lord’s glory is seen when he works by means.  It is more seen when he works without means. It is seen, above all, when he works contrary to means. 

• It was a great work to open the eyes of the blind. It was a greater still to do it by applying clay and spittle.
• A horror of great darkness He sent upon Abraham, when He was preparing to give him the best light.
• He touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh and lamed him when He was going to bless him.
• He smote Paul with blindness, when He was intending to open the eyes of his mind.
• The request of the woman of Canaan was refused for a while, but afterwards she obtained her desire.

See, therefore, that all the paths of the Lord are mercy, and that all things work together for good to those who love him.

Even affliction is very useful and profitable to the godly. 

• The prodigal son had no thought of returning to his father’s house until he had been humbled by adversity. 
• Hagar was haughty under Abraham’s roof, and despised her mistress. But in the wilderness she was meek and lowly. 
• Jonah slept on board the ship, but in the whale’s belly he watched and prayed. 
• Manasseh lived as a libertine at Jerusalem and committed the most enormous crimes. But when he was bound in chains in the prison at Babylon, his heart was turned to seek the Lord his God. 

Bodily pain and disease have been instrumental in rousing many to seek Christ, when those who were in good health have given themselves no concern about him. 

The ground which is not rent and torn with the plough, bears nothing but thistles and thorns.
The vines will run wild, in process of time, if they be not pruned and trimmed.
So would our wild hearts be overrun with filthy, poisonous weeds, if the true Vine-dresser did not often check their growth by crosses and sanctified troubles.

Our Saviour Says

• Every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
• There can be no gold or silver finely wrought, without being first purified with fire. 
• There can be no elegant houses built with stones, until the hammers have squared and smoothed them.

In the same way, we can neither become vessels of honor in the house of our Father, until we are melted in the furnace of affliction. Nor can we be living stones in the walls of new Jerusalem, until the hand of the Lord has beaten off our pride with his own hammers.

All the events that take place in the world carry on the same work—the glory of the Father and the salvation of his children. All of these are for your good:

• illness and infirmity that may seize you, 
• loss you may meet with, 
• reproach you may endure, 
• shame that may color your faces, 
• sorrow in your hearts, 
• agony and pain in your flesh, 
• aching in your bones.

Every change in your condition—your fine weather and your rough weather, your sunny weather and your cloudy weather, your ebbing and your flowing, your liberty and your imprisonment–all turn out for good. 

Oh, Christians, see what a harvest of blessings ripens from Romans 8:28! The Lord is at work. All creation is at work. Men and angels, friends and foes, all are busy working together for God’s glory and for your good. 

Oh, dear Lord Jesus, what have you seen in us that you should order things so wondrously for us, and make all things—all things—to work together for our good?

About Daniel Rowland

Daniel Rowland (also spelled Rowlands, 1713–1790) served as an Evangelist and early on as an Anglican curate. He was one of the foremost figures in the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist revival. For 55 years Daniel Rowland was one of the leading evangelists in Wales. Rowland was born in Nantcwnlle, Ceredigion, in either 1713 or 1711.  Following his conversion in 1735, he became renowned as a preacher. The Anglican Church authorities deprived him of his Nantcwnlle curacy in about 1763, an action which was unpopular with parishioners. Following this, he established a Methodist “cause” in Llangeitho, and by 1770 was said to be attracting congregations of over a thousand, making it necessary to preach outdoors. This practice became an influence on the English Methodist preacher George Whitefield.  Rowland’s early preaching gave much attention to God’s judgement in his sermons. As he matured in his ministry, he placed more emphasis on the saving work of Jesus on the Cross. One of the best-known of Rowland’s sermons is “The Redeemer’s Voice”, which takes as its text a passage from the Book of Revelation.   (bio abridged from Wikipedia)