All Things?

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says resting in God’s rule is ultimately a matter of faith.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Is it really true that all things must work together for my salvation? At the end of the day, the question is, when everything I can see and sense and feel and experience tells me that God’s Word is not true, will I choose to believe my emotions and my thoughts? Or will I choose to believe what God has said is true?

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude, for August 24, 2022. I’m Dannah Gresh.

All of us turn to something or someone for comfort, but there’s only one true source of real comfort. Here’s Nancy, continuing in the series, “Christ, Our Comfort in Life and Death.”

Nancy: This week I sat in my living room one afternoon and talked with two single moms, both of whom are walking through some really hard things with a child. One in particular is in an extremely difficult situation. Listening to her story, I’m thinking, It’s likely to remain that way for a long time; there’s no real light at the end of that tunnel, humanly speaking. These are moms who have a strong relationship with Christ. They know Him. They love Him and His Word, but they need comfort.

I shared with them the section from the Heidelberg Catechism that we’re looking at this week. We just talked for a few minutes about comfort. Now, we tend to think of comfort as an easy chair or relief from pain. But our English word “comfort” comes from two words: cum and fortis. What does a fortis, fort, fortify make you think? Strength–with strength.

Comfort is no easy word. It’s no “just sit down and relax and don’t have any problems or pain” work. It means: “with strength, to strengthen, to restore strength to.”

In fact, when I want to know what a word really means, I often will go back to the original Webster’s Dictionary (1828). You get some wonderful meanings for words back then because there was a gospel influence and influence of the Scripture in many of these definitions.

But part of what that dictionary says is that comfort means “to strengthen the mind when depressed or enfeebled; to give new vigor to the spirits. That which gives strength or support in distress, difficulty, danger, or infirmity.” Now, that’s comfort we need. That’s comfort we all need.

I shared with these two moms, as we were just talking about, “Yes, the goodness of the Lord, but the hardness of life.” 

My sweet husband sends me every morning during his quiet time, which is always earlier than my quiet time, he sends three or four verses that he texts to me from his quiet time that have ministered to him. He’s reading the One-Year Bible, so they’re usually from different parts of the Bible.

I shared with them a text that Robert sent me that morning where Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was in anguish. “He was sore distressed,” says one of the translations. He’s sweating great drops of blood, as it were. And, I love this in Luke 22, verse 43, this is the verse Robert texted that I shared with those women, “Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.” Strengthening Him.

Now, you might think, Jesus is there praying. He’s crying out, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” And you think, Now the angel came and strengthened Him, and He was able to get up and walk away. No. The next verse says, “He continued praying earnestly, sweating, as it were, great drops of blood.”

What did the angel do that brought strength from the Father? Gave Him strength to keep in the battle, to keep pressing on, to continue in the anguish and the pain. He didn’t take the anguish and the pain away. The cross was right in front of Him. And the comfort didn’t relieve Him of the cross, it didn’t relieve Him of the suffering.

The comfort God gives doesn’t relieve you. It’s not like a pain killer, “Take this, and you’ll be oooh, you’ll feel great.” No. It’s strength to take you through the pain in life and in death.

Someday all of this will be over. No more pain. No more tears. No more prodigals. But we need grace. We need help. We need strength to live in the here and now between now and then. And that’s where God’s comfort comes in: with strength, with fortitude, grace, strength to persevere even through the blood, sweat and tears.

So, as we’re looking at the Heidelberg Catechism, one section of it, the introductory section of it in this short series, we start with the first of 129 questions. These were intended to catechise children and young believers in the basics, the foundations of their faith, and it starts with this whole concept of comfort. And it says–this was written 460 years ago– “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” What strengthens you when you are in distress?

Now, we’ve done this already on the earlier sessions, but let’s again read what the response is to this question in the catechism. I don’t want you to just hear me reading it. I want you to hear your own voice saying it, because as we speak truth with our hearts, we’re counseling our hearts with the truth.

Listen, there are women sitting in this room today who are going through some excruciating difficult or painful circumstances. Or maybe you’re just about to, and you don’t even know it yet. This is where we need to be counseling our hearts according to truth. What is the truth? Otherwise, our emotions are going to send us spinning and reeling, and we’re going to be up and down and in and out and distressed all the time. But what is our comfort?

So, I want you to say it with me as if you really believe that these things are true—because they are. Friends, what is your only comfort in life and in death?

Audience:

That I am not my own—but belong, body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior,  Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.

He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.

Nancy: Amen?

Audience: Amen.

Nancy: You said it like you believe it, and we need to keep telling ourselves the gospel that gives us comfort, that gives us strength.

As I’ve been mentioning this week, our team has put together a pack of cards, twelve cards that have, each one has this portion of the catechism printed on it. You can take some of these and put them in places where you can be reminded of them, where you can read this—on your kitchen counter or on the bathroom mirror or in your car. But also, there are a dozen in that packet, so you can have some left over to share with others, as I was sharing with the two women sitting in my living room the other night, to encourage one another with these gospel truths for our souls.

We’ll be glad to send you that set of these cards about our comfort—our only comfort in life and in death—when you make a gift of any amount to help support Revive Our Hearts this week. That’s our way of saying, “Thank you for helping us tell the gospel story day after day.”

Dannah: So, let me just jump in here and tell you how you can get in touch with us. Our website is ReviveOurHearts.com. Just click or tap where you see the word donate, and you’ll also be able to indicate that you want the cards Nancy was just talking about. If you’d rather use the phone, you can call 1-800-569-5959 and ask about the catechism cards.

Now, let’s pick it back up. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy: Today we want to look at just this one section from the catechism. It says, “He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven.”

I’m going to pause right there. I often recite these words when I’m doing different things throughout my day, but one of the times I often do it is when I’m drying my hair. And I have one of those big, large roller brushes that’s also a drier, and I’m trying to straighten my out-of-control hair, and always that brush gets full. I’ve got hair falling out. I see it. It’s on the floor. It’s on the counter. It’s on my brush. And I kind of laugh while I’m reciting this, “He watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven.”

Now, I’m okay, really, with losing some hair. I prefer not to lose it all, but that happens. There are harder losses, but it’s just touching on one here that even in the littlest things in life, God watches over me. He knows the most minute details of my life. And He’s also ordained the most major issues and events of my life.

Here in this part of the catechism we talk about the providence of God, the watch care of God, of how nothing is happening in our lives that escapes His notice, His attention, and His engagement in our lives. Nothing can happen to me without the will of my Father in heaven. He watches over me. He cares for me. He preserves me. That’s God’s providence. And that providence of God is affirmed over and over again throughout Scripture.

Listen to some of these verses:

Matthew chapter 10,  Jesus said, “Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny?” They’re not worthless, but they’re not worth much. “Yet not one of them” and how many are there? Not one of them “falls to the ground without your Father’s consent. But even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So don’t be afraid . . .” Jesus said that even if you fall, like when those birds fall, if He cares for them when they fall, how much more does He care for you when you fall? So don’t be afraid “you are worth more than many sparrows” (vv. 29–31).

Luke 21, Jesus said, “You will even be betrayed . . .” now, this is a lot more serious than hair falling out or sparrows falling. You will even be betrayed “by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will kill some of you.” Persecution. We have brothers and sisters in other parts of the world today who have walked through or are walking through this very verse right now. Jesus said, “You will be hated by everyone because of my name, but not a hair of your head will be lost” (vv. 16–18).

What’s He saying? He’s not promising that there won’t be any physical loss. He’s saying some of you will die. He’s not saying that our physical lives will be spared. As I’ve said, many believers have lost their lives for the sake of Jesus. But He is saying we will be eternally preserved, that no one can destroy our soul. Why? Because we belong to Him. We are His, and He watches over us. He cares for us.

The apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians 3. He said, “Pray for us . . . that we may be delivered from wicked and evil people, for not all have faith.” There are godless people out there. I never noticed these two phrases next to each other until yesterday—not all have faith, so they do evil, wicked things. “But the Lord is faithful . . .” Some people have no faith. And the two words in the Greek, the original Greek, they are very similar. Not all have faith, but the Lord is full of faith. He is faithful. He stays faithful. “. . . he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one” (1–3).

We have a protector. We have a keeper as we walk through life.

First Peter 1 talks about this: 

You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials. (vv. 5–6)

Don’t be surprised. This is going to happen. You are going to suffer grief. You are going to lose hair. Some of you will lose your lives. But he says that you’re being guarded. You’re being safe-guarded. You’re being watched over. You’re being cared for because God takes good care of what belongs to Him.  And if you are in Christ, you belong to Him.

So, He knows all that I go through. He watches over me. He cares for me. He watches over you. He cares for you. When you’re crying yourself to sleep at night for that son or daughter or grandchild who is so far from the Lord, the Lord sees. He hears your cries. He knows your broken heart. He knows things that you haven’t had the courage to tell anyone else what’s going on in your world. 

He knows.
He sees.
He cares.

But there’s more. You say, “Well, that’s good that He knows and He sees and He cares, but can He do anything about it?”

Well, the next part of the catechism goes on to say, “In fact, all things must work together for my salvation.”

You say, “But I’ve already been saved.”

Well, Scripture tells us there’s a past-tense aspect of salvation—we have been saved from sin and Satan. We are being saved—there’s a present-tense aspect. We are being sanctified. God is making us experientially into what we are positionally—we are being saved. And we will be saved—glorification. The future, where we will be fully free from the presence of sin and evil.

So, there is that arc to salvation. Here the Heidelberg Catechism says, “All things [all these hard things, from hair falling out of your head to all the other things you could list] must work together for my salvation”—my ultimate salvation.

Of course, you recognize tones there of Romans chapter 8, verse 28: “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

And we see believers, Old and New Testamentsaints, who lived out this reality by faith, when they couldn’t see how it was working together, but they trusted God’s promises.

Remember Joseph in the book of Genesis, after his brothers had betrayed him and sold him into slavery, and Potiphar’s wife had lied about him, and he spent years in prison? All these things . . . He had to wonder, Does anybody know? Does anybody care? Is anybody watching? But through it all, he had faith in what had been revealed to him of the promises of God.

And so, in Genesis chapter 50, at the end of the story, Joseph is the Premiere. He’s the Prime Minister, and he could give it back to his brothers, but he says to them, “Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid.” 

You planned evil against me; but God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people. (v. 20) 

“This is not just your own salvation, but the survival and salvation and the redemption of others.”

This is just the Old Testament. He didn’t have all the New Testament we have. He didn’t have Romans 8:28. But he knew God, and he said, “You planned it for evil, but God planned it for good.”

Deuteronomy chapter 8, Moses says to the Israelites, 

God led you through the great and terrible wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty land where there was no water. [This is hard stuff going on.] He brought water out of the flint rock for you. He fed you in the wilderness with manna . . . in order to humble and test you, so that in the end he might cause you to prosper. (vv. 15–16)

Remember that when you’re going through the scorpions and the snakes and the thirsty land where there’s no water in that great and terrible wilderness—like this a no good, terrible, very bad day. Remember that phrase, “so that in the end He might cause you to prosper.”

“All things must work together for my salvation.”

Jeremiah chapter 24, the Israelites were sent as exiles into Babylon. But God said, 

I will keep my eyes on them for their good and will return them to this land. I will build them up and not demolish them; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God because they will return to me with all their heart. (vv. 6–7)

That’s the good that comes out of this, out of the hardship.

2 Corinthians, chapter 4, 

Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. (vv. 16–17)

The problems seem so weighty. They seem so long. But God’s Word says, “Yes, they may feel that way now, but recalibrate your thinking and realize that those troubles are producing in your and for you a far more exceeding eternal, incomparable weight of glory.”

Paul says in Philippians 1, 

I know that this will lead to my salvation through your prayers and help from the Spirit of Christ Jesus. (v. 19)

Hebrews 12 (I’ve been studying the book of Hebrews the last several weeks) it says, 

Endure suffering [be strong; be fortified] as discipline. . . . For [God] does it for our benefit, so that we may share his holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (vv. 7, 10–11)

We’ve got to learn to live for the later on. And in the end, we will prosper. He will bring us this eternal weight of glory.

“All things must work together for my salvation,” says the catechism.

Now, I just want to park for a moment on that “all things.” I want to put a question mark there. “All things? All things?”

This past March was the two-year anniversary of Robert’s cancer diagnosis. And, for me, it was a sweet time of reflection on the journey God has had us on.

Robert said as we were talking about this not too many months ago: “I would gladly go through all of this again, in order to experience what God has done in my life as a result.”

I thought about that, and I took that sentence, and I put it up on an Instagram post that was prompted by that sentence. And here’s what I wrote that day on Instagram. I want to share it with you because it relates to what we’re talking about here. I wrote:

Two years ago this week, just as COVID was taking off, my DH (my dear husband) was diagnosed with melanoma, the first of two cancers that year. Multiple scans, biopsies, surgeries and chemo treatments later, Robert is now in complete remission. We could not be more grateful.

We don’t know what the next two years will hold–we don’t know what tomorrow will hold–but here’s what we do know . . . and then I listed these bullet points:

• We know that God is good.
• We know that He loves us.
• We know that this ordeal has all been for our good.
• We know that we needed the refiner’s fire to make us more like Jesus.
• We know that He has not left us alone in the fire for a moment.
• We know that this trial has provided many opportunities to share the love of Jesus with others.
• We know that we do not deserve the mercy He has shown us.
• We know that His grace has been sufficient for each day’s challenges.
• We know that the prayers and encouragement of God’s people are sweet and powerful gifts.
• We know that we are deeply grateful for each other and for the blessing of each new day of life.
• We know that our hope is not in this world or in physical health, but in Christ and the world to come.
• We know that our joy is not dependent on what happens to or around us but on who is in us and with us.
• We know that when we are weak, He is strong.
• We know that He will never leave or forsake us.
• We know He will never give us more than we can bear.
• We know that the best is yet to come.
• We know that death is not to be feared.
• And, finally, we know that heaven rules.

So I posted that on Instagram, and a woman read this post and wrote to me to take issue with what I had said. She explained that what I had written is the way that she used to believe at one time in her life, but no longer. She has been through a series of horrific hurts and losses. She’s felt betrayed by many in the church and in the Christian world.

And she wrote, I’ll share just an excerpt from her communication with me. She said, “The assurances and comforts and theology in this post do not stand up and are instead a source of damage. They are not at all the reality of what the experience actually lived is. It is nothing but pain to hear, when suffering and indifference is all the church has for a huge chunk of people. If heaven rules, it’s more discriminatory and cruel than Hitler.”

Now, there are a lot of people who feel that way, or something like that. So, is it really true that, “He watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven”?

Is it really true that, “All things must work together for my salvation”?

Or is that just true for some people like Robert and me? What about for this woman who says that is not at all her experience—that the thought of God’s providence is painful and seems “discriminatory and cruel”?

Well, I don’t have a full answer for those questions. I know that there is so much pain and evil that is humanly unexplainable, but at the end of the day, the question is: when everything I can see and sense and feel and experience tells me that God’s Word is not true, (“At least it’s not true in my case.”) will I choose to believe my emotions and my thoughts? Or will I choose to believe what God has said is true?

In 2018, Randy Alcorn, the beloved author, his wife Nanci was diagnosed with colon cancer, and four years later went home to be with the Lord. In their Caring Bridge updates, Randy sometimes shared excerpts from Nanci’s journal.

I want to read to you just a few of those excerpts that he posted toward the end of her journey. She wrote:

We don’t know, and neither do the doctors, what’s ahead of us, [this post was, oh, about six months before she went to heaven] but that’s nothing new for any of us, right? We are only finite, but praise God, we know personally the infinite One who’s in charge of the universe and who lovingly supervises our lives!

We haven’t given up, and we prayed for complete healing again tonight as we have every night for nearly four years. But neither are we presuming to tell God what He must do just because we want it. He is God, we are not. Immediate short-term healing is not a certainty, but ultimate long-term healing is woven into the gospel itself. It is the blood-bought promise of Jesus!

And then a post from Nanci’s journal that Randy put on Caring Bridge the day that his sweet wife went home to be with the Lord. She had written, 

Nothing “just happens.” Everything is planned in love. Everything is carried out in wisdom, power, and love. Because I am not God, I should never question why things go the way they go. It is the height of foolishness to determine that my ways are preferable to God’s ways. I am not omniscient, all–wise, or totally just. I don’t even love myself nearly as much as God loves me!!! [She wrote, as she was suffering in those last months of cancer.] So why would I ever second guess God? He always, always has my best interests in mind. And when His way for me is painful, unclear, frightening, seemingly unfair, emotionally difficult, mentally challenging, and so on, I need to trust, to believe that God does all things well.

 

That’s the legacy of a suffering woman. And now, her bereaved husband, who for years has taught so many of us so well about the goodness of God, the providence of God, the sovereignty of God, the love of God, who’s now living out that understanding in a new way, his world would be utterly in upheaval if it weren’t for the fact that he has anchored his heart to what we’ve been talking about.

What is your only comfort in life and in death?

That God watches over me [and you] in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things [all things] must work together for my salvation.

Father, these are words that give us strength and comfort, but they’re not easy. And the things that make us look to these kinds of words, they’re hard things. I pray for my friends in this room, others listening to the podcast, oh, Lord, would You give us faith to believe what we cannot see and trust You rather than ourselves and to know that, in the end, You will cause all of this to be for our prospering, our salvation, our good, and most of all, Your glory. I pray it in Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: If you and I really believed what Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has just been showing us, that all things fall under God’s watchful care over us, how would our lives be different? What a powerful reminder.

Tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts, Nancy will flesh out for us what it means that the Holy Spirit makes us “wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.” Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth calling you to rest in His watch care and find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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