[AI translation] Today, as you know, we are holding our annual "Old and Sick Sunday" in our congregation, when we also pay special tribute with a few flowers and a letter to our brothers and sisters who, because of physical infirmity or advanced age, cannot be with us at the big family gathering of the congregation... We all have such family members or acquaintances or neighbours. Perhaps we have also felt that when we have tried to comfort or encourage one of these people, we have been at a loss as to what to say to them. After all, we ourselves are so bewildered by human suffering. For this reason alone, it is good that we are now dealing with this problem separately. But then we may also face a similar problem with regard to ourselves. After all, a healthy person can still be sick, and a young person can still be old - and, according to the general order of nature, he will be! And the best defence against illness and old age is to prepare oneself spiritually for them in good time! Because a lot depends on the state of mind, also physically. Physically, too, the one who is spiritually healthy is better able to bear the burdens of life. We usually pass on our state of mind to our body unconsciously. And it's amazing what the body can't take when the soul is in good shape! Well, it is against this very spiritual disorder that God's promise, as Paul put it, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God." I would now like to underline and emphasise each word of this divine promise.So: it is all for their good. In other words: there is good in everything! Even in the bad. Even in the worst! Being sick is generally not a good thing. Getting old is not a good thing either! And it's not so much the physical suffering that's the worst of it, it's the mental suffering. It's the feeling that you're becoming worthless. You feel that you're losing strength. You have to disengage from the work of creation. To sit idle and wait to see how it will end! To become more and more dependent on the help of others. Feeling that our lives have become useless. Who else needs you? And yet there are so many tasks to be done, so many plans left unrealised, so much work left undone, and although the soul is ready, the body is powerless. Can there be any good even in such an exhausted state?
And there are so many evils in this life besides sickness and old age! Who has had the life he once imagined? Who hasn't sighed in his soul on a sleepless night that little word: Why? Lord, why? Why me? Why have you destined me for such a fate? Why did it have to be this way? Why? Why? There are so many incomprehensible question marks that sometimes arise when we see a difficult human fate, or even in the depths of our own lives! There are so many evils in life, so many miseries of all kinds, in the fire of which the soul is consumed! What good can come of it? Well, God says: it is all for our good! Everything! Is there no evil, no physical or spiritual misery that is not good? How is this possible?
Because God is great! Someone once said to me, if God is so powerful, why does he not prevent evil, why does he allow people to suffer all kinds of miseries? Why doesn't he destroy all that is evil, why doesn't he completely eliminate it from the world? Is not God powerless in the face of evil in the world, in the face of evil? Well: God has a very different kind of power from the way we imagine power. He does not deal with the problem of evil in the world by destroying it, by wiping it out, so that no evil of any kind can exist in life. We would do that if it were up to us. But that would not be a real victory over evil. God does not eliminate evil from people's lives, but he incorporates evil into the realization of his good plans, his good purposes. He arranges things so that evil works for the good of men. He uses evil to destroy evil. He forms good by evil. He uses evil for good, for the fuller unfolding of good. I see the power of God as most amazing precisely in the fact that he also uses evil as a means to something good. By wounds he heals, by heavy burdens he raises still higher, by suffering he purifies, by pains he revives, by brokenness he makes us more useful, more obedient, by crushing he gives us victory, by weakness he gives us strength! It is wonderful what God can do with a broken heart when He can pick up the pieces! And whoever lets Him put his broken life back together again, perhaps in a new, majestic pattern, will be amazed for a lifetime at how powerful God is! He lets life be broken so that He can make it greater! So, when He does something in spite of our requests and wishes, perhaps it is then that He truly listens most deeply to our prayers! Many of us feel that when trouble comes into our lives, it is God's punishment on us for some sin we have committed. How many times have I heard the question from the lips of suffering people: what have I done wrong that God is punishing me so much? Well, this thought is totally wrong! It is not so! Of course, there is such a thing as sin bringing trouble into one's life. But sin and misfortune are not always related. Very often, suffering and trouble is a sign of God's grace! God is closest! In the trouble. In the suffering. The Psalmist experienced it this way: 'The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and he helps the wounded soul' (Psalm 34:19). This is what it means to be for the good, indeed all good, of those who are with God.
It is so truly for the good of God that even others benefit from it. For example, one of our brothers has been ill for 20 years! 20 years! Can you imagine what that means? There is a lot of anguish in his illness. It's getting worse and worse. Today he can't even move at all. He lies helpless. He needs an operation, but the medical profession no longer dares to operate. What is the point of living like this? A lot! So much! For example, as a special medical case, his illness has been filmed and medical students all over the country are learning about it. This is how suffering can benefit the healing of many other patients! And by his doctor going to other patients and hearing the suffering person complain, referring to this brother of ours, telling him how much more suffering can be endured with patience and spiritual strength, and thus encouraging other patients... Even from this point of view alone, 20 years of agony is not pointless!
Or another brother: he has lost everyone. He's all alone. His great emotional pain is well known to the public. It would be no wonder if he were to collapse under the weight of all the blows he had to bear. But he did not collapse. He carries his cross, smiling. He even comforts others with it. His very being: a living testimony to the power of God who has brought something good out of evil. His very being gives others the strength to carry their own crosses. People look at him in amazement: how can you carry such pain with such radiant serenity?! Well: it can! Because God is so powerful! Because everything is for the good of those who love God.
The same painful event can have completely opposite effects on two different people. One person may be distressed and depressed, the other may be refined and uplifted. The result depends on the inner attitude and attitude of each person towards the suffering. For example, three crosses once stood on a hill in Judea. The same thing happened to all three: they were crucified. But three different effects were produced on them. One of them complained, scolding Jesus for not having saved him and himself. The other man repented at the great tragedy and saw the gates of heaven open before him. The third redeemed mankind with this cross. The same event, but with different results.
So it is not so much what happens to you, to us, that is of the greatest importance, but what we do with it after it has happened. How we receive it and what we use it for! The wonderful thing is that as a believer, you don't have to escape suffering, you don't have to just endure it somehow, you have to use it! To use it to live a fuller life! To become a more human person, a more faithful believer, a more understanding soul, a more useful and obedient servant! And then it all makes sense. Yes: everything is for the good of those who love God!
In fact, Paul says: We know! We know! We do not see, we do not feel, we do not experience, but we know! Even if all appearances to the contrary, we know! But how can we know this with such absolute certainty? Because we have a God who has already once proved to us by a moving example this great truth, that in every evil there is good. That example is the cross of Jesus. Can we imagine a greater evil than the execution of Jesus? Is there a more terrible pain than the agony of Calvary? Was there ever a more blatant injustice than the death of Jesus? No! And out of this greatest evil God has brought the greatest good: salvation! The forgiveness of sins! The opening of the gates of eternal life to us! God is that powerful! God is that good! That is how unimaginably great and good He is! That is why we can know with absolute certainty that every evil can somehow work for us! We may not understand what happened and why it happened the way it did. But I have said this many times: what is incomprehensible is not always meaningless. Let me say it again: what is incomprehensible is not always meaningless! In fact! Everything makes sense. On a higher plane. In a way that is incomprehensible to us. But from above, from the perspective of eternity: it does make sense! So: we know! Yes: we know that everything is for the good of those who love God!
But this last part of the sentence is also important: those who love God. Do you hear? God! Not just some gifts or blessings of God, but God himself. Even without his gifts, they love him. Without his gifts, such as health or the strength and beauty of youth or the happiness of life... Because they are all his gifts. But who love not only God's gifts, but God himself! The God whose love, whose goodness, whose mercy remains even when all his other gifts are gone. And sometimes it is even necessary that God should take from us something or someone that he has given as a gift, so that our eyes may be opened to see the Giver himself, and so that we may love God for God himself, and not for some gift! Because sooner or later there comes a time in all our lives when everything else is taken away from us: money, family, strength, health, friends, children, life partner, everything... And then all that is really left is God, God with His redeeming love! And in God: everything! Everything! All eternal life! So: those who love God! Those who love God for God's sake. Let me put it this way, because it makes more sense: those who love God for Jesus! This is what God is maturing us all for!
God is that great, that good! Is it possible not to love this God? You love him too, don't you?! Love him more! Love him with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength! And then rest assured: all things work together for good to those who love God! The psalmist is right. Let us say with him, "My soul, why art thou discouraged..."
My soul, why art thou discouraged:
Why do you grieve so?
Trust in God, and be not discouraged,
In whom I rejoice at last.
Who seemeth to me
He gives me a kind release,
He will show me manifestly,
That he alone is my God.
(Psalm 42:6)
Date: 7 June 1964 Old and Sick Sunday