Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Luther Burbank, the world famous scientist, worked for years to try and develop a black-petaled lily.

He had several thousand experimental lily plants in his laboratory.

A sudden cloudburst let loose a flood of rain that they were all washed away.

William Stidger tells of sympathizing with him over what had happened, and Burbank said to him , "When anything like this happens I always remember a little couplet my mother use to quote:

From the day you are born

Till you ride in a hearse,

There's nothing that happens

Which couldn't be worse.

We have all sought to comfort ourselves at some point in life by recognizing this reality-it could be worse.

It is almost always true, but still it is a negative comfort.

Your life can be a mess, but others are even worse.

If this is the best you got, then it has to be what you hang on to, but there is a better and more positive way to deal with the negatives of life, and that is to wait and see if what you thought was bad turns out to be good, and instead of being the worst, it may in reality be the best thing that could have happened.

That is what Paul is writing about to the Philippians.

They are worried about Paul.

They heard he was thrown in prison in Rome, and they have naturally concluded that his being arrested was not a good thing.

They assumed that his ministry, which they supported, was now on hold, and Paul would be of no value in advancing the Gospel now.

Paul says not to worry, for your gifts are not money down a hole.

His being arrested turns out to actually help the advance of the Gospel, and give him a better ministry than the one he had planned.

The key to being an optimist is having the patience to wait and see what God will do with your negative experience.

We so often jump to the conclusion that bad stuff is just that, and that alone.

Sickness, trials, shipwrecks, stoning, and prison do not sound like prizes for which you would sell many lottery tickets.

Nobody wants this sort of stuff in their life if they can avoid it.

What Paul learned by his experience is that the bad stuff of life can be a way for God to use your life in a way that good things could not be used.

Paul's being a prisoner led to his having a ministry to the palace guard of Nero, and some of these soldiers came to Christ, which never would have happened had he not become a prisoner.

He never would have crossed their path had he not been arrested.

The fruit of Paul's ministry in prison was quite extensive, and he writes in 4:22, "All the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar's household."

Paul had Christian friends in the highest places, even the house of the Emperor.

There is no reason to believe this ever could have happened if Paul had not been treated like a criminal.

This is one of the answers to the question-why do bad things happen to good people?

It is because bad things are often the only way to get us in touch with the right people, and to make us willing to go the way God wants us to go.

In other words, bad things are tools God uses to get the job done in our lives.

The point is not to rejoice in bad things, but to rejoice in the Lord who can use bad things for good goals we never would have achieved without the bad things.

Colonel Bringle of the Salvation Army became a very popular author.

He came out of Harvard with honors, and began his ministry on a street corner in Boston.

A drunken hooligan threw a brick at him and hit him in the head.

He received a concussion that put him in the hospital for months.

During his convalescence he wrote a book called Help To Holiness.

He added four volumes, and these devotional aids sold in large numbers around the world.

He said, "My brethren, if there had never been a brick, there never would have been a book."

His bad experience opened up doors he never would have entered had they not compelled him to do so.

Don't be so quick to label bad things as a curse.

Wait to see if it might be a blessing.

Even pray to that end.

Grace Crowell wrote a poem that says it all.

Yet as I live them, strange I did not know

Which hours were destined thus to live and shine,

And which among the countless ones would grow

To be, peculiarly, forever mine.

If I but wait, perhaps, this hour will be

Like silver in the sun, some day, to me!

Paul never dreamed that his days in prison would be days God would use him to let his light shine through all of history because of the epistles he would write there.

We should pray, "Lord this is a bad day I am having, what good can you help me make of it for your glory?"

F. W. Borham, the great Australian preacher and author, tells of his pastor friend who was asked in Seminary to preach at a certain church one weekend when the pastor became ill.

He had other plans with 2 of his best friends, and he did not want to go.

He suggested other names and begged to be excused, but the Professor refused to let him off the hook.

It was with deep anger that he submitted, and he went to the church in a negative mood, wanting to curse them rather than bless them.

But all of his negative feelings were sheer waste, for he met the love of his life there, and his whole future was changed.

Had he just waited to see what the end result would be, he could have saved himself a lot of grief.

On of the most common phrases of the Bible is wait on the Lord, and the reason is, we need to learn to wait and see what God in his providence is going to do before we label bad things as a curse.

Bad things often turn out like Paul's being thrown in prison.

They are stepping stones to fruitful blessings that could not be foreseen.

God loves to work in all things, even bad things, for good.

It is God's specialty, and wise is the Christian who has a wait and see attitude toward bad things.

Because Paul had this attitude, he did not have to back off earlier testimony.

Had he jumped the gun and written saying this is the worst thing to ever happen to me, and now my ministry is ruined, he would have been embarrassed to have to later say it was a great blessing.

He waited to see what God would bring to pass.

Jowett wrote, "The cloud, which appeared so ominous, brought a gracious shower; the restriction became the mother of a larger liberty."

Prison bars and progress sound incompatible, but Paul just waited and sure enough, he saw his arrest lead to advance.

It was a promotion to a higher ministry.

Why is it so important for Christians to grasp this reality that God can use evil for good?

Because most of the unbelief in this world is base on this very issue.

Most atheists are so because they say a good God cannot exist and permit all the terrible evil and suffering there is in this world.

Many people do not believe in God because they feel they are better than God, for they would not permit the evil that exists if they had the power of God.

So who needs a God who is less noble and compassionate than they are themselves?

This would be a fairly powerful argument if the Bible did not reveal that God permits evil for a higher good.

He permitted evil men to kill His Son for the sake of redeeming lost men.

He permits men to become lost, because only those who are lost and then found again can be truly righteous and loyal to God forever.

Satan was made perfect by God, but he fell because of pride.

That will never happen to those redeemed by the Son of God.

They will be eternally loyal, for they know they are what they are by the grace of God, and not by their own wisdom, power, or goodness.

If God is going to have an eternal kingdom with assurance their will never be another rebellion, he had to permit a world with evil and free choice.

This terrible fallen world is essential to the perfect world to come.

God will bring good out of all its evil.

What good is evil?

It is the opportunity to be a child of God.

Paul says do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Use evil to reveal your good.

Let your light shine by showing the contrast of the good to the evil.

Where their is hate show love.

Where their is greed show generosity.

Where their is bitterness show forgiveness.

Where their is gloom show joy.

Where their is anxiety show peace.

Where their is violence show gentleness.

The point is, if there was no evil their would be no way to identify the good.

The goal of history for the Christian is to bring good out of evil, so that evil does not win the war.

Whenever you stop with evil, you let it win.

The Christian is to overcome evil with good, and that means to go over, around, or through it, and if you can't avoid it no matter what, then seek to use it for some good and outwit it.

The providence of God is God working in history to make bad events and circumstances lead to good consequences.