#26 - All Things for Good

I sneaked one last book in before the end of 2012, number 26 - Thomas Watson's All Things for Good. I like to keep a steady diet of Puritan books throughout the year, and Watson is one of my favorites.

The book is really an explanation of one verse - Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Watson first explains how the best, the worst and everything else in between work for good to the godly. Then he spends time addressing the love of God. He ends by explaining both the call of God and the purposes of God.

Here are some gems:

• God does not bring His people into troubles, and leave them there. He will stand by them; He will hold their heads and hearts when they are fainting...God will be the strength of our hearts; He will join forces with us. Either He will make His hand lighter, or our faith stronger.
• Faith and fear go hand in hand. Faith keeps the heart cheerful, fear keeps the heart serious. Faith keeps the heart from sinking into despair, fear keeps it from floating into presumption.
• Affliction teaches what sin is...A sick bed often teaches more than a sermon. We can best see the ugly visage of sin in the glass of affliction. Affliction teaches us to know ourselves. In prosperity we are for the most part strangers to ourselves. God makes us know affliction, that we may better know ourselves. We see that corruption in our hearts in the time of affliction, which we would not believe was there.
• Desertion works for good, as it gives us sight of what Jesus Christ suffered for us...None can appreciate Christ's sufferings, none can be so fired with love to Christ, as those who have been humbled by desertion, and have been held over the flames of hell for a time.
• Thus we see desertions work for good. The Lord brings us into the deep of desertion, that He may not bring us into the deep of damnation. He puts us into a seeming hell, that He may keep us from a real hell.
• A believer carries his sins as a prisoner his shackles; oh, how does he long for the day of release! This sense of sin is good.
• A child of God being conscious of sin, takes the candle and latern of the Word, and searches into his heart. He desires to know the worst of himself; as a man who is diseased in body desires to know the worst of his disease...It is good to know our sins, that we may not flatter ourselvesm or take our condition to be better than it is. It is good to find out our sins, lest they find us out.
• When God lays men upn their backs, then they look up to heaven.
• Discontent is an ungrateful sin, because we have more mercies than afflictions; and it is an irrational sin, because afflictions work for good.
• By this let us test our love to God. Have we the spirit of martyrdom? Many say they love God, but how does it appear? They will not forego the least comfort, or undergo the least cross for His sake. If Jesus Christ should have said to us, "I love you well, you are dear to me, but I cannot suffer, I cannot lay down my life for you," we should have questioned His love very much; and may not Christ suspect us, when we pretend to love Him, and yet will endure nothing for Him?
• Be much in prayer, meditation, and holy conference. When the fire is going out you throw on fuel; so when the flame of your love is going, you make use of ordinances and gospel promises, as fuel to keep the fire of your love burning.