All Things For Good: Chap. 2 Pt. 6

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Hermeneutics: Matthew Chap 24 Pt. 7

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So, we are still in chapter two, but I am 99 % sure that we are going to finish off chapter two today.

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We have one last little section. We've been going through this book by Thomas Watson, All Things for Good.

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Again, it's available, you can get a PDF online for free. Some of the scripture references are a little bit off, it's cheap on Kindle, but a meaty little book, and it's all expounding on Romans 8 .28,

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that all things work for good for those who love God. And so chapter two is focusing on the worst things work for good to the godly, and we talked about the four different evils that Thomas Watson brings out to show how these worst things work for good.

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And so the first one we spoke about was affliction, and then we spoke about temptation, then we spoke about desertion, and then finally we're talking about sin.

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And last week we talked about the sins of others, because that's easier, right, to focus on other people's sins, and how the

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Lord can use that for good. But this week we will be focusing on the sinfulness of the godly, our own sins, and how even these can be overruled to be used for good, not that they are good in its own sense.

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Let me make sure that my phone is on vibrate, okay.

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And so we'll read, and again, it's an interactive study here, feel free to ask questions, make comments.

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So let's consider number two. The sense of their own sinfulness will be overruled for the good of the godly, thus our own sins shall work for good.

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This must be understood carefully when I say the sins of the godly work for good, not that there is the least good in sin.

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Sin is like poison which corrupts the blood and infects the heart, and without a sovereign antidote, sin always brings death.

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Such is the venomous nature of sin, it is deadly and damning. Sin is worse than hell, but yet God, by his mighty overruling power, makes sin in the outcome turn to the good of his people.

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Hence that golden saying of Augustine, God would never permit evil if he could not bring good out of evil.

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The feeling of sinfulness in the saints works for good several ways.

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Okay, so before we look at those ways, just to recap what he's saying, and he'll repeat that admonition at the end.

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We should not take this lightly, sin, we should be careful to understand it. We don't want to be like those who sinfully said, you know, may we sin more that grace may abound, right?

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And Paul says, may it never be. We don't want to have that attitude that sin is not good, it's not to be considered good, but we recognize that God is good, and he can even use the poison of sin to work for our good.

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And so he is a sovereign antidote. You know, he talks about it being poison, you know, and we were talking, even considering a pastor with the infection, and one of the things that was a reassurance to us from the start was like, it's in the gland, it hasn't moved on to the bloodstream, because then we know it's on the move, and it's even more dangerous.

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And sin is like that, if it's not stopped where it's at, it continues to grow and bring destruction.

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You know, sometimes we try to justify sin, rationalize sin, say, ah, it's just a little bit, you know,

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I, you know, I'll just vent a little, I'll just have this little bit. It always grows.

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It's never content to remain small. And we should never even consider it small when we consider that sin, the smallest, slightest sin requires death and damnation, and was paid for on the cross by Christ.

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So, any questions or comments about that before we consider these ways? I know we're just jumping into it.

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Just that, I think we always have to be careful with that, because some may say, especially non -believers or wishy -washy believers, oh, it's only a little thing.

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Right. Look out, because before you know it, you do it once, and what's the saying? The first time is always the hardest, and then it seems to get easier, and before you know it, you think you're okay, and you always look back, and instead of one, you're up to 21, and now you've got a big problem.

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Yeah, it's true. Mike? What did he mean when he said sin was worse than hell?

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Sin is worse than hell, because hell is the culmination of the punishment.

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Sin, you're still accruing hell. It talks about one of the dangers of being on this earth.

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It could be the best thing or the worst thing, because you could still be storing up wrath, is what the

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Scriptures tell us, and so in that way, you are still making things worse for yourself and for others, but when it comes to judgment.

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Make sense? Ashley? I was going to say sin might be worse than hell, because believe it or not, hell is,

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I mean, it's not a good place, obviously, for the unbeliever, but it is good, because God's justice is being served there, but sin is never good, because we're sitting against the one that we died for.

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Amen. I view it as like that. Yeah, no, that's an excellent point as well.

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I'm not sure how much, I don't listen to the tape after, so I don't know how things are transferring over, but the idea is hell, while not a good place, it is good in the sense that God's justice is being meted out.

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Sin is continual rebellion and sinning against God, and especially for the believer, as was mentioned, those sins must be paid for on the cross, right, and our

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Savior takes those sins upon himself, so that's... But isn't it not true that, are they not, say, like degrees of hell, so if you're continuing to sin and you're making your sins worse and worse, then you can have an even bigger problem, because you can be in a part of hell that's going to make the suffering worse than this part of hell.

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Well, what Scripture tells us is that God repays each one according to their deeds, according to their works, and so amazingly enough, for the believer, we get rewarded, we who are rebels and deserving hell are actually saved and then rewarded for the good things we do that are only done by his grace and his power to begin with, but those who are continuing to sin against God, they will be repaid according to, and so, yes, to a degree, there'll be greater suffering for the greater sinner in hell.

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But again, the idea of sin as opposed to hell is we are still rebelling against God, we're still doing that, hell is the vindication of God and the justice of God, sin is continual rebellion against God.

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Erica? If the punishment matches the crime, basically, the sin was more of a temporary thing, like it doesn't ever end, like if they end up in hell, like does the...

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I know where you're going. I mean, I've never thought of that, but...

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When God gives us the law in the Old Testament, and he gives a standard of justice that, you know,

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I think the Latin is lex talionis, right, it's the law of retribution, and that's where we first see an eye for an eye, hand for hand, tooth for tooth, stripe for stripe, even life for life.

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And so, the idea is the punishment is meant to fit the crime, and you're not to exceed it, because if left to ourselves, we always want to one -up, you know, we don't want to just get you back, we want to get you better in our minds, so you learn your lesson or you never try it again, that sort of thing.

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And Jesus, when he speaks against that in the New Testament, in the Gospels, he is not contradicting the law of retribution in terms of the justice of it.

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What he's saying is these people have taken as to, I'm going to take matters into my own hands, I'm going to get my revenge,

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I'm going to repay, when the Lord says, I will avenge, I will repay, and he gives us the civil magistrates who bear the sword to punish evildoers, and so it's their responsibility to mete out that punishment after due process, right?

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You're asking about the soul, though, and the person being cast into hell, like, well, they only sin for 20 years, 50 years, 70 years, does their sin being restricted to a time frame mean that their punishment will be restricted to a time frame?

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And that's not what Scripture tells us. Scripture tells us that all our souls are immortal, never to die as in terms of being annihilated, you know, snuffed out.

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You know, Christ says that the dead will hear, and he's talking about the Gospel going forth and the spiritually dead become alive, and then he goes, and then one day, all those will come out of the tombs, those who are righteous unto their everlasting reward, and those who are wicked to their everlasting destruction.

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So, we all get new bodies, some to enjoy forever in the presence of Christ, and some to experience eternal punishment.

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So, I know that's a little bit of a topic that's being debated today, but when we look at the

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Scriptures, I think they're hard -pressed to argue the fact that we're seeing the same time frame given, eternal, it's eternal to begin.

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It's eternal for both. One second. What we have to remember when it comes to the sinner who is cast into hell, for one, they're sinning against the holy, cosmic, infinite

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God. So, their sin is against the infinite creator who they bear their, his image. This is not just,

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I stole your bike, you know. This is sinning against the holy God who's infinite. And there's, well,

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I'll leave it at that. I'll let Anthony, Pastor Anthony. I was just gonna say, as you were speaking,

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I thought about how, like, even what appears to be like a good deed by somebody who is not saved because we have that sinful nature, even that's tainted.

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Exactly. So, in a way, every single action is sinful because everything is tainted.

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Yes, the righteousness of man, our righteousness is as filthy rags before God. Anything that's not done in faith is sin.

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And the person who's spiritually dead, there is no faith. So, even their best deeds are done for their own glory or because it'll make someone happy but it'll make them look good.

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It's like, as you said, everything they do is tainted with sin, you know. Everything, every breath they take is a rebellion against God.

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And so, you're talking about sin from the moment of conception, practically, right? We're born sinners and that's why we sin.

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We don't sin and become sinners. So, yeah. So, that's a subject that can be much more in depth but I hope that gives you, you know, a quick answer to understand.

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All right. Number one, as far as several ways that the Lord overrules us.

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Number one, sin makes them weary of this life. That sin is in the godly. That sin is in the godly is said but that it is their burden is good.

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Paul's afflictions, pardon the expression, were but child's play to him in comparison of his sin.

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He rejoiced in tribulation but how did this bird of paradise weep and bemoan himself under his sins?

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Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Romans, that's 724.

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A believer carries his sin as a prisoner in his chapels. Oh, how does he long for the day of release?

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This sense of sin is good. And so, the one thing that the first way,

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I guess, we can say how the Lord overrules sin and can use it for good is to help to change our perspective and our priorities that we would be weary of this sinful life and we would look to Christ.

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If we consider Romans 7, again, not Romans 8, verse 24.

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Well, sorry, in verse 21. He's going on there for quite a bit actually in chapter 7 regarding the law and sin.

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He goes, so I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand for I delight in the law of God and my inner being.

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But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

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Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? And then the next verse we'll talk about in the next section.

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But he says, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh

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I serve the law of sin. And so here he says, wretched man, you know.

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And this is, he is talking, I believe, as a believer struggling with indwelling sin because some people would say, oh no, that's him prior to conversion.

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But the one prior to conversion is not, you know, guilty over their sin like this.

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And Reston was saying, I delight to do the law of God. That's not the mindset of the unbeliever.

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So this is regenerated Christian who is still struggling with this, but finding our hope in Christ.

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And so that's part of the next thing that we're actually going to talk about, the second reason. But sin makes us weary of this life and our sin in it.

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And so that is good in the sense that we would look at sin as a burden and have a right perspective of it.

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Any questions about that or comments? All right, very good.

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Number two, this indwelling of corruption makes the saints prize

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Christ more. He who feels his sin as a sick man feels his sickness, how welcome is

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Christ the physician to him. He who feels himself stung with sin, how precious is the brazen serpent to him.

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When Paul had bemoaned his body of death, how thankful was he for Christ. I thank God through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. That's Romans 7, 25. Christ's blood saves from sin and is a sacred ointment which kills this deadly disease of sin.

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And so again, when we consider sin and the weight of sin, the impact of sin, it does make us appreciate

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Christ all the more. When you are painfully aware of the problem, how much more you're going to appreciate the solution.

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There's too many in the world today, they don't recognize the problem of sin. They recognize some vague idea of evil, but they kind of go by their own definition and they have their own solutions, better education, better laws, better this, better that.

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And the Christian is the one who understands only Christ can deliver me from sins. And so how much more precious is

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Christ? I mean, you think about, he talks about the sick man needing that physician and recognizing the hope and the help that he brings.

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And if you're familiar with the Old Testament account of the wilderness wanderings, when

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God sent serpents to bite the people in their rebellion and their grumbling and complaining, and yet they put one bronze serpent up and you could live if you looked on the serpent.

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How grateful you must have been. You think about it, there's like millions of people and there's one serpent going around. Like, I hope it gets here soon,

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I would like to look and live. How much more do you appreciate that solution and that life -saving?

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And Christ is our Savior. And so he is the one who delivers us from this body of death.

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And so while sin, again, is evil, it is wicked, the fact that it can make us appreciate our

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Savior more is a way that God is overworking, overruling it for good. Questions or comments about that?

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No? I was going to start asking you guys questions when

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I started realizing how much of a time I'm taking. I'm like, ah, maybe. If they have it, great. If not, we'll move on. Number three.

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The sense of sin works for good as it is an occasion of putting the soul upon six special duties.

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Verse one. A. Sin puts the soul upon self -searching. A child of God, being conscious of sin, takes the candle and lantern of the

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Word and searches into his heart. He desires to know the worst of himself, as a man who is diseased in the body desires to know the worst of his disease.

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Though our joy lies in the knowledge of our graces, yet there is some benefit in the knowledge of our corruptions.

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Therefore, Job prays, Reveal to me my transgression and sin. It is good to know our sins, that we may not flatter ourselves or take our condition to be better than it is.

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It is good to find out our sins, lest they find us out. And this is something that we really should take into consideration.

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He mentions Job, and Job is questioning what's going on. Why is he suffering the way he is doing?

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And so, a lot of times we see him defending himself and his righteousness. And we understand he was righteous.

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When he talked about the things that he did, he was not wrong. He was not lying.

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He was suffering because he was a righteous person. And God was sort of bragging on him to Satan.

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But we also know that he's also a creature who has no right to demand an explanation from the

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Creator. But for this part here, Reveal to me my transgression and sin, that's a fair question.

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That's a fair prayer. We have the same prayer given to us in Psalm 139.

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Anyone know that by heart? I know you're just on the cusp of it, but it says in verses 23 and 24,

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Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any way, any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

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What we want to, we do want to have an idea of our sinful condition, of the sin that is within us.

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And so we should be praying. As we, he talks about self -searching. And I like the terminology.

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He talks about taking the candle and the lantern of the Word. And just showing how that brings light to our situation.

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Just like he spoke about before, about desertion. And the mariner, the sailor who has no stars, no moon to give him guidance.

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No stars to navigate by. But he goes, but he has that lantern and he can see the compass.

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And he can find some consolation that he's got an idea of where to go. And this is what the

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Word is for us. It is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. And so we should always have it lit.

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We should always have it lit before us. You know, to illumine our way. And to be using it to understand our condition.

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Because he says here that we may not flatter ourselves. And sometimes we flatter ourselves.

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Because we're not looking at the Word to compare ourselves to Christ. We're looking at our neighbor and going,

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I'm better. I'm okay. It could be worse, right? And so we want to consider what the

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Word says. Use it as a light. Use it as a mirror to see our condition. That we might go to Christ.

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That we might find the answer to our disease and our problem. And to correct it.

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So there's that. Any questions or comments about that? No? Explaining everything so well.

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He said he didn't have enough time. I've got plenty of time. Don't worry. Okay. B, sin puts a child of God upon self -abasing.

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Sin is left in a godly man as a cancer in the breast or a hunch upon the back. To keep him from being proud.

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Gravel and dirt are good to ballast a ship and to keep it from overturning. The sense of sin helps to ballast a soul that it not be overturned with pride.

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We read of the spots of God's children. Deuteronomy 32, 5. When a godly man beholds his face in the looking glass of scripture.

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And sees the spots of pride, lust, and hypocrisy. They are humbling spots that make the plumes of pride fall off.

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It is a good use that we may be made even of our sins. That may be made even of our sins.

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When they occasion low thoughts of ourselves. Better is a sin which humbles me than that duty which makes me proud.

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Holy Bradford uttered these words of himself. I am but a painted hypocrite. And Hooper said,

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Lord, I am hell and you are heaven. So, that idea of having humility before God and recognizing who we are.

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These are things that having to deal with when he says cancer or hunch.

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That it should be preventing us from being proud.

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I would hope it would never be said of us. But you've probably heard the stereotype of the

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Bible thumper. The holier than thou, that sort of thing.

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The projection of Christians sometimes from unbelievers.

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Is that they are just better than everyone else. I think sometimes a lot of that is projection.

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Most of the people I know who are like that. Don't have that attitude. Like, oh, I'm so much better.

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So, I mean, we don't have to worry about baseless accusations. But we should always be careful about the sin of pride.

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Because it's one of those things that's just insidious. It's always there. The sin of pride is the root sin of so many other sins that are manifested in different ways.

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And so when we have an understanding of sin, though, that should keep us from being proud. We should be considering ourselves.

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Pastor Anthony has mentioned a couple of times. But in Ezekiel 36 -31, where he talks about you're going to remember when

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Jesus is talking. Well, Jesus is talking, right? But the message coming through in Ezekiel is that of the new covenant.

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And what Jesus is going to accomplish. And he goes, I'm going to put my spirit in you, my law in you. And he goes, and you will remember and loathe yourselves and loathe your sin.

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And it does give us a right perspective on ourselves. That we would be humble before God.

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And, again, more appreciative of Christ. So, any questions or comments on that?

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Let's see. Sin puts a child of God on self -judging.

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He passes a sentence upon himself. I am more brutish than any man. It is dangerous to judge others, but it is good to judge ourselves.

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But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When a man has judged himself, Satan is put out of office.

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When Satan lays anything to a saint's charge, he is able to retort and say, It is true, Satan, I am guilty of these sins.

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But I have judged myself already for them. And having condemned myself in the lower court of conscience, God will equip me in the upper court of heaven.

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And so, sin and being aware of sin, we should be self -judging in that sense.

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We've heard, you know, about anytime you've ever tried to share the truth with someone or confront them in a sinful issue.

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How many times we've heard, you know, well, judge not. You know, let's easy judge or take a log out of your own eye.

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And those are true scriptures, right? But the idea is not that we don't judge at all.

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We are told to judge with righteous discernment, to judge with the same standard by which we measure ourselves because if we judge someone by that same standard, we will be judged.

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And so we're told to take that into consideration that we would do so fairly. But, you know, he uses the example of 1

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Corinthians 11, which is something we reference, you know, every

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Lord's Day when we take the Lord's Supper about examining yourself and making sure that, you know, first of all, if you're not a believer, not to take part, to recognize you need to repent.

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You need to turn to Christ for the forgiveness of your sins that you could partake in this meal. But if you are a believer, examine yourself, you know.

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Don't let there be any unconfessed sin in your life. Deal with it. Confess it. Make it right.

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And so when you do that, you're judging yourself. And if you judge yourself rightly, you won't be judged.

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You won't come under the condemnation that some of those in Corinth did where they did not judge themselves.

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They did not care about their sin. They were prideful. They were arrogant. They were reckless and indifferent when they came to the Lord's Supper.

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And some were sick and some had fallen asleep. Some had died. John. Absolutely.

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We do have to do this with grace, gentleness. It's a waiting matter.

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And so, but we can put Satan out of work. Satan is the accuser. He's the one who goes around looking to accuse.

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And you say, I've already accused myself. Thank you. You're not needed here. D. Our life is a wayfaring life and a warfaring life.

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There is a duel fought every day between the two seeds. A believer will not let sin have peaceable possession.

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If he cannot keep sin out, he will keep sin down. Though he cannot quite overcome, yet he is overcoming.

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To him who is overcoming. To he who overcomes. From Revelation 2 there.

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And that was the right reference in Galatians 5 .17. He says, Paul says there,

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For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other.

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To keep you from doing the things that you want to do. And so, sin in all its difficulty is at least, it's being worked out.

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It's being battled out where it's causing us to fight. Scripture warns us that we are at war against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

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And so, the flesh is us. It's ourselves. It's our old man or old woman that continues to seek that which is evil, and contrary to that which is good, that which is godly.

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But we are to be overcomers. But it will be a battle all the way to the end. It's not something where we can ever say we've arrived.

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And if you say that, you have to start over. You've messed up somewhere down the track.

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No, until we come into the presence of Christ, and we are seeing him face to face, and we become like him, we'll always have to battle the flesh.

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And so, we'll see victories. It's one of those things where perhaps when we're first saved, we're aware of serious sinful habits that are a real problem, and we start to mortify those habits in the flesh, and we find victory over that, those big things that we thought, like,

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I'd never get victory over. And all of a sudden, it's not a problem for us. It's not even a temptation for us anymore. Be on the guard.

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It does come back from time to time. But now you've put those away, and then you realize, as you're reading the

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Word and self -examining and learning, you're like, oh, I've got this, this, and this wrong.

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And you just start finding more and more as you get down. You become, as you grow in your maturity in Christ, as you grow in your sanctification, you become more sensitive to sin.

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As you're reading through the Scriptures, you're becoming more aware of the sin that is in your heart. And so,

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God is merciful. He doesn't give it to you all at once. We would just be, like, in despair. Like, never.

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But he shows us things, and he deals with them in us, and then we get to see more and more.

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So we're constantly in that battle. But that's why Paul can say, Paul, the apostle, the writer of most of the

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New Testament, right? And he says, wretched man that I am, because he still recognizes that sin that he still has to contend with.

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And so, it's good, though, that we would be self -conflicting and battling the flesh.

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Any questions about that? Okay. E, sin puts a child of God upon self -observing.

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He knows sin is a bosom trader. Therefore, he carefully observes himself. A subtle and deceitful heart meets a watchful eye.

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The heart is like a castle, which is continually in danger to be assaulted. This makes a child of God to be always a sentinel and keep guard over his heart.

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A believer has a strict eye over himself, lest he fall in to any scandalous sin and so open a sluice to let all his comfort run out.

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And so, again, being aware of sin, of the sin, and having to understand what the

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Scripture says. He says it's a bosom trader. It's close to you. It's subtle. It's sneaky. It's always right there, ready to put you to death, right?

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And so, the believer, understanding that, will be self -observing. He'll be watchful.

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He's like that fortress that's always in danger of attack, and so he's always prepared.

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And Scripture warns us about this or reminds us about this. Romans 13 talks about, says, put on the

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Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, right? Watchful, making no provision. Watching for those areas that would be a temptation for us or could be a temptation for us and not giving it any room.

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But we need to be watchful. We need to know ourselves. We need to be careful. Proverbs says that the prudent sees danger and hides himself.

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So these are like Old Testament, New Testament examples of avoiding temptation, being careful, and watchful.

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This is what we're called to do because sin, you know, we know that the devil is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, always prowling about.

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But our own flesh is always ready to rear up when it thinks that there's a chance, and so we must mortify the flesh.

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Questions or comments about that? You guys recognize this fight,

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I hope. I'm like, what is he talking about? This is all new. Of course, right? We're all well -versed in these things, having gone through it.

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But we can look at this, and as we consider, all things working for good, really? Yes, really.

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This is how. This is how we can say even the worst things, even our own sin, which seems impossible.

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Like, well, how is that good? You know, I'm just messing things up here. But if we view it rightly,

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God is using it, he's using it to help us see and to help us understand and to even benefit us in our further sanctification.

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And so, letter F here. Sin puts the soul upon self -reforming. A child of God does not only find out sin, but drives out sin.

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One foot he sets upon the neck of his sin, and the other foot he turns to God's testimony.

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Psalm 119, 59. Thus the sins of the godly work for good.

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God makes the saints' maladies their medicines. And so, Psalm 119, 59 says,

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We don't look to ourselves, we don't look to... I'm like, oh my goodness, let's look to the

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Lord. Let's look to his word and understand what we're supposed to do. And because he tells us, he tells us how to put those things to death.

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And so, a famous saying, this is what we're called to, self -reforming.

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And again, we recognize, we do this by the power of God, the grace of God. Truly, we are never doing this on our own.

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It's God who is working within us for his good pleasure. But we are called to do the work, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

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And so, we do that, but we can take comfort knowing that we're not doing that alone. And so, when we consider our ways, we turn ourselves to his ways.

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Any questions or comments about that? Yes. Right.

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Right. Yeah, you don't just take that like, well, this is how this works, forget all this other stuff. No, it is, it's all connected.

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Which is fortunate for us, because when we have to deal with the awfulness of sin, our own sin especially, you know, it's, again, careful of the measure that we judge by, because we want to say, those sins out there, that person over there, they're terrible.

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Me, I have reasons. I have extenuating circumstances that, no, this is what we have to deal with.

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And we should be even harder on our own sin, recognizing I'm a blood -bought believer, and this sin is what

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Christ has to pay for, or has paid for. And so, I don't want to add to that. But we look to all these things and say, okay, let me, by the grace of God, see this overturned for good.

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Let me be observant against myself, let me be conflicting, maybe self -reforming, all of this.

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And so, yeah, these are all interconnected. You really can't just put, you know, take one or choose one and leave the others.

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It's all attached. So certainly, that's a good point. And so,

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Thomas Watson is concluding, and he says, but let none abuse this doctrine.

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I do not say that sin works for good to an impenitent person. No, it works for his damnation.

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Sin only works for good to those who love God. And for you who are godly, I know you will not draw a wrong conclusion from this, either to make a light of sin, make light of sin, or to make bold with sin.

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If you should do so, God will make it cost you dearly. Remember David. He ventured presumptuously on sin, and what did he get?

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He lost his peace. He felt the terror of the Almighty in his soul. Though he had all helps to cheerfulness, he was a king.

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He had skill in music, yet nothing could administer comfort to him. He complained of his broken bones.

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And though he did at last come out of that dark cloud, yet perhaps he never recovered his full joy to his dying day.

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If any of God's people should be tampering with sin because God can turn it to good, though the

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Lord does not damn them, he may send them to hell in this life. He may put them into such bitter agonies and soul convulsions as may fill them full of horror and make them drawn near to despair.

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Let this be a flaming sword to keep them from coming near the forbidden tree. And thus have

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I shown that both the best things and the worst things by the overruling hand of the great God do work together for the good of the saints.

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Again, I say, think not lightly of sin. Very, very somber, sober warning because you have all this encouragement.

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Well, yes, it's sin, and it's awful, and it's poison, and it's venom, and yet God can use it for good.

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And part of our flesh goes, hey, there's your out. There's your way to relax and not be so hard on yourself.

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God will work it for good. If that's your thought process, you are in danger. We talked previously about temptation, about the one who is foiled by temptation and falls into sin as opposed to the one who runs and plunges headlong into the river.

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One can hope for the mercy of God. The other has no right to expect deliverance when we presume on God's grace and kindness.

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And so we recognize the story of David, and we say, wow, he's an adulterer.

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He was a murderer, and yet he was forgiven. And I love that account.

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I mean, there's nothing better than counseling someone who's struggling with guilt over their sins,

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I mean, and just broken hearted over, truly broken and repentant over their sin, to tell them the story of David and Nathan.

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And when confronted with his sin, he just says, I have sinned.

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Not like Saul who made excuses or tried to change the story. I have sinned.

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And Nathan gives him the best words ever, and God has taken away your sin.

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There is no one who is beyond forgiveness. We all have that hope.

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Pontrue, genuine repentance and faith in Christ. The worst things we have done can be washed away, but they're not without their consequences.

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David lost four sons and dealt with all sorts of heartache and headache and tribulation that led the rest of his life.

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It was not a good situation, and yet he walked in the mercy of God. He had forgiveness, but we certainly don't want to presume on it.

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So we must be careful not to abuse this doctrine to understand that sin is not good for the impending person, right?

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It works for their damnation. This verse Watson has been expounding on again states that for those who love

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God, all things work together for good. And so, he says the believer may avoid, well,

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I should word that carefully. We're not sort of like, oh, maybe the believer avoid hell. No, the believer, the true believer, the child of God will not go to hell, right?

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Will not spend eternity in hell, but he may experience hell in this life as God's way of sanctifying him and consecrating him and moving him away from his sin.

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So we certainly don't want to play with this, but we take comfort knowing that the best and the worst things by God's mighty hand are made to work together for the good of the saints.

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And so, questions? Nothing?