One of the great temptations that confronts believers is that of accepting slanderous caricatures about God. We will be considering this in greater detail in the message today, but it is a point that, frankly, needs to be stated again and again.
The wicked say that God is going to rip us off, and so we must defy Him. The “godly” say that God is going to rip us off, and so we have to let Him do it, because He is God. The premise that both share is false, and wicked, but, given the premise the former option is to be preferred.
The former rebels against God because of false and lying assumptions. The latter submits to false and lying assumptions. We are not unjustified in calling the former wicked. But we are unjustified in calling the latter pious.
The thing that scares us back from accepting the promises of Scripture at face value is the obvious and glaring presence of evil, pain, and suffering in the world. When someone has lost a loved one, or is suffering from excruciating pain, we do not want to rush to their side to offer sickening platitudes, not even if there are Bible verses attached to the platitudes. But neither do we want to shake our fists at heaven. So we just lower our heads, and try to just get on.
But there is more to this than trying to pretend that we believe Romans 8:28. And that is the course of actually accepting and believing it. God is absolutely sovereign over every thing that happens in this world—whatsoever comes to pass, as the Westminster Confession puts it. But if we only get this far, we are fatalists, and not Christians. This same God, this sovereign one, is also an everlasting torrent of triune goodness.
Every tear will be dried. Every broken bone restored. Every heart ache swallowed up. Two things: God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for our food.