Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - A Rich Man’s Poverty

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

There’s no more important issue, spiritually, for people than the question of innocent suffering. We don’t struggle much with the suffering that comes to people who’ve brought it on themselves. The real problem is innocent suffering.  We’re looking at Old Testament narratives because in them, profound truths are depicted concretely. In the New Testament, authors explain these truths with rational propositions. But in the Old Testament, they’re depicted. And there’s probably no place anywhere, beyond the book of Job, where you have the problem of innocent suffering so profoundly depicted.  We learn three things about suffering from the story of Job: 1) from Satan, we get an understanding of suffering, 2) from the early Job, we learn how to face suffering, and 3) from the later Job, we learn how to overcome suffering. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 9, 1997. Series: Pointers to Christ – Directional Signs in History. Scripture: Job 1:8-22. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. This month we're looking at directional signposts through history that point us to Christ. All through the Old Testament from Genesis to Jonah, you see signs that point us to Jesus. Listen now to today's teaching from Tim Keller on 18 to 22. Then the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on earth. He is blameless and upright,

a man who fears God and shuns evil. Does Job fear God for nothing, Satan replied? Have you not put a head around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land, but stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said, Satan, very well, then everything he has is in your hands,

but on the man himself do not lay a finger, then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. One day when Job's sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, a messenger came to Job and said, the oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabians attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, the fire of God fell from

the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who escaped to tell you. And while he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, the Caldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and carried them off. They put the servants of the sword, and I am the only one who was escaped to tell you. And while he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house. When suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house, it collapsed on them, and they are dead.

And I am the only one who escaped to tell you. At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head, and then he fell to the ground in worship and said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, made the name of the Lord be praised. And in all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. This is God's word. Now, there is absolutely no more important issue spiritually for people than the question of innocent suffering. We don't struggle that much with suffering that comes to people who have brought it on

themselves. If you embezzle, if you put together some kind of scheme of fraud, and it all comes down on you and your whole life falls apart because it's revealed and you go to jail. No one worries that much about that. There's all sorts of ways in which you can sin, and then you suffer. The real problem is innocence suffering. And so there's many people here, there are always are many people here who are thinking about Christianity and wondering whether they should strengthen or develop or have a relationship with God. And one of the big questions that always comes up is, why did the innocent suffer?

Why did the good people suffer? Why do people suffer who seem to be trying very hard to live a good life while other people who don't seem to be trying nearly as hard seem to have a better life? But it's also true for people inside the faith, not just people thinking about entering the faith of people on the inside. There is no more important question. I said in the very beginning of the fall, the reason we're looking at these Old Testament narratives, and this is the last one in the series, is because our modern mind is not so much a rational expository mind, but it's

a mind of images and sights and sounds. We don't like to think things out rationally as much as we tend to be more intuitive and there is no better place then to go to understand God than the Old Testament because in the Old Testament you very often have depicted, depicted concretely, very profound truths that are expounded in the New Testament by authors who explain them in very rational propositions and very profound ways, but in the Old Testament they're depicted, and there's probably no place anywhere beyond the book of Job where you have the problem of innocent suffering depicted this way. It's a story and we learn a lot about it. We learn three things from the

story of Job about suffering. We get an understanding of suffering from Satan, ooh, from Satan we get an understanding of suffering and from the early job we learn how to face suffering and From the later job we learn how to overcome suffering From Satan we learn how to understand from the early job we learn how to face from the later job we learn how to actually overcome What do I mean first of all? Satan actually this dialogue with Satan that we read here is actually a very interesting and fascinating and unique way that the Bible uses to teach us a biblical understanding of suffering.

You see, when you take a look at this dialogue, we almost always get hung up on the trees rather than standing back to look at the forest. And if somebody has real questions about some things that I just skip over here, we have a question and answer time afterwards during the class time. And you could ask them, because there's a lot of questions that rise up. What in the world is Satan talking to God for in heaven to Satan go to heaven? What is this? Let's stand back and see the point. Here's the point. it's telling us the relationship

of God to evil. Now I see the question that immediately arises in people's minds is why does God allow evil and there are three basic answers apart from the biblical one, three alternate understandings of why God allows evil. There's the fatalistic, the humanistic, the moralistic. The fatalistic says that basically God is the author of evil, God is the life force and everything and

God, and evil is just part of God. And therefore evil is absolutely inevitable. There's no solution for it. And so the fatalistic approach says, be stoic. That's the stoic approach. Resign yourself to it. Just accept it. Don't cry over it. Keep the stiff upper lip. The fatalistic approach. God is the author of evil. Now the second approach is the humanistic. And the humanistic says that God has nothing to do with it. Now there's a, you know, there are people who say there is no God, and therefore evil is completely random. And then there's other people like Rabbi Kushner who wrote that very best-selling book, who says, God, can't help it. God is a loving God, he's a good God,

but he can't stop it, he can't help it. And so the humanistic approach is the opposite. Instead of saying God is the author of evil, the humanistic approach says, no, God has nothing to do with evil. It happens without him. It happens apart from his control. And so, as opposed to the stoic that says, resign, this approach says panic. This isn't the stoic approach suffering. This is the panic approach that's suffering. This is avoided. It all costs. Stay away from it. It makes your life meaningless. It has to make your life meaningless because it's at random. There's no plan. There's no meaning to it.

Get away from it. And if it happens, kill yourself. Because you see, suffering is meaningless, and life with suffering is meaningless. So that's the panic approach, the humanistic approach, which is the most popular approach in the West. But you have the fatalistic, and you have the humanistic, but you also have the moralistic. And the moralistic approach is very prominent as well. And the moralistic approach says that this is why God allows evil. He lets bad people suffer, but good people he doesn't, and therefore if you are suffering, you're not living right. You're doing something wrong. You may not think so, but look at yourself. So you see, whereas the fatalistic approach says,

be stoic, you know, the stoic approach. And then the humanistic approach gives you the panic attitude. The moralistic approach gives you the groveling attitude. In other words, when things go wrong, beat yourself up. There must be, you must be your fault. There's something wrong with you. Now most of us, by the way, are not nearly consistent enough. We have done them all.

And most of us really, you know, I'm systems. You know, the system that says God is the author of evil, or God has nothing to do with evil, or God punishes people who are bad with evil. They will provide those different responses, the stoic approach, the panic approach, the groveling approach, and the beating yourself up approach. Most of us have had more than one.

Most of us have gone back and forth. But the book of Job blows them all apart, and it doesn't blow them apart with three or four interesting propositions. It blows them apart with a story. It blows them apart with this dialogue. Take a look. first of all, who can come up with the idea to really screw Job to the wall? Does God say, hey, I got an idea? No. The cause is the ill will of Satan in the story. And what's so interesting about

the scene, verse 11, it's the ill will of Satan and is the cause, and there we learn an important point that the Bible says and that is, that God did not make the world to be filled with death and destruction. He didn't create a world with death and destruction. He created a perfect world, but that when we decided to be our own masters, it unleashed the forces of death and disintegration in the world because the world isn't built to run that way You see I mean if you if if a car is built to run with oil and you put oil in it It's fine, but if you refuse to put oil in it or if you put milk in it instead of oil Everything will fall apart. It's not built to run that way and when we decided to run our own lives and the world that God gave us

Death and destruction, the forces of darkness were released. And God hates those forces of destruction. You know, and one of my favorite passages is a terrible place, actually, but it's in Ezekiel 18, verse 32, where God cries out and says, why will you die? Turn to me and live for, get this.

I take no pleasure in the death of anyone. I take no pleasure in the death of anyone. So first of all, we see God's not the author of evil. But secondly, we are absolutely told here that God isn't complete control of it. All right, you see the tension here? Because you see Satan says, I'm going off to do this to Job, and what does God say in

verse 12? In verse 11, it's Satan's idea, but in verse 12, see this is so perfect, it's depicted narratively. These incredible philosophical, theological balances are depicted narratively, so vividly. In verse 12, what does God say? Essentially, he says this, this far, but no further. And this tells us that evil is not out of God's control at all. Oh, not at all.

It tells us that God is absolutely control of evil and he is a overruling it and b overcoming it. A overruling it, b overcoming it. And you can see that in the story too. First of all, what do I mean by overruling it? He says this far no further. He puts a limit to evil. The Bible everywhere says that God is continually

keeping the world from being and us from being as miserable and as bad as we otherwise would be, as we could be, as we should be, as we would be. The Bible says continually that nations would be far more violent, that hearts would be far more hard, that families would be far more broken, that society would be, a civilization would be far more disordered, that there would be, that if God was not continually saying,

over and over and over again every day, this far but no further, He's constantly doing that. So He's in control of He's overruling evil, He's always putting a limit to it, and then secondly, He's overcoming evil, He's always putting a purpose to it. What is Satan's reason? Why does Satan want to let suffering come into Job's life? And you see, it's so interesting because Satan and Job, pardon me, Satan and God have an absolute unity of opinion. There's consensus, isn't this wonderful? I mean, if Satan

and God agree on something, it must be true. And the consensus is, what a servant is. God says, have you seen my servant Job? There is none like him in all the earth. And what does Satan say? He contradicts. He says, he's not a servant. But the way in which he contradicts, he says, does Job fear God for nothing? Now, they agree on this. If you serve God for the life comforts that you get, you're not serving God at all. Unless you're serving God for nothing, you're not a servant. And unless you're serving God for him,

and not just for the life comforts, and not just for the wealth, and not just for the ease, and not just for the health, and not just for the ease and not just for the health and not just for the friends and not unless you're serving God for him and not for these things your life is a bubble your a bubble boy. You are building your life on things that inevitably will burst and you are fragile and you are vulnerable and you are you know it's a castle built in know, it's a castle built in the air. It's a house built on the sand. And therefore, here's the question, is Job a servant or not? Is he a fragile, vulnerable person that can be overwhelmed or is he a strong person with roots? And the answer is, actually, as it turns out, he's partly there, but he's partly not. And therefore, Satan releases the suffering into Job's life to eradicate the servantness

of his heart. And God allows just a certain amount in order to do the opposite. God only lets Satan do what he does in order to thwart his deepest desires. God only lets Satan do as much and a kind of damage to Job, that in the end does no damage to Job. Satan wants to destroy him as a servant, God wants to make him as a servant. Satan wants to take what servantness is there

and go down to zero, God wants to take what servantness is there and put it up to 100%. And therefore, God wants to take what servaness is there and put it up to 100%. And therefore, God only, only allows the evil, puts a limit to it, and puts a purpose to it. So you see, God is absolutely in control. So first of all, we see God is not the author of evil, and then secondly, we see God is absolutely in control of evil, absolutely in control of evil. And thirdly, evil does not go out into people's lives

on the basis of goodness or badness. In fact, oh gee, actually I took this end. This sentence came into my sermon, then I took it out of the sermon, then I put it back in, then it took it out, and actually took it out right before I came up here, and now I'm putting it in. If anything, evil is attracted into Joe's life, not because he's a bad person, but because he's a better person than others.

It's almost like, here's a man who says, I most want to be a servant, and if anything, that the suffering and the trouble comes into his life because he wants to be a servant. And because he is, to a great degree of servant. And because that's the thing he most wants in life. Now, what do we have here? This absolutely demolishes every single alternative view of evil and suffering in God. Against the failistic view, it says he's not the author

of evil. Against the humanistic view, he says he's in total control of evil. And against the moralistic view, he says it does not come in to people's life on the basis of some nice neat distribution between good and bad people. And here's what's so interesting. Here's what I would like to challenge you with. Every view but the biblical view is a path answer.

People are, I'm so, I was really looking forward to saying this because everybody says, ah, Christians, you've got path answers. Pad answers when it comes to these things. Fine. In some cases, they seem simpler, but in this case, every alternative you are suffering in the biblical view is a pad answer. What if you have the humanistic view? And you say, I can't believe in a God who would allow even one's suffering. He's not good and powerful if there's even one's suffering.

So what are you doing? It's a neat answer. You are asked, what are you doing? It's a neat answer. You are asked, what are you doing is you're solving it. You're fitting it in. You're saying, well, God can't be this and this happened. And therefore, I won't live with that tension. I'll destroy that mystery. You see?

Where the moralist, here's what's so interesting is the secularist. Says, I can't believe in a God who will allow evil and suffering. In other words, you have to rationally put it all together. And then over the other hand, you have the moralist that says, well, I absolutely believe that if you're suffering or something wrong with you, you're not living right. And you're doing the same thing. Job allows the mystery to stand and Job allows God to be God.

Because every alternative view insists on God being the answerer. Every other view puts God in the dock. Every other view says, well, if you give me a rational explanation for what's going on here, I might believe in you. Every other view. But this is the one view that will not. This is the one view that lets God be God. This is the one view that lets suffering remain a mystery. And this is the one view that doesn't go for a bad answer. Nicholas Wolderstorf, a philosopher, lost his son in a mountain climbing accident. I think he was in his 20s. I mean, the son was in his 20s.

And afterwards, Wolderstorf wrote a book, and in the book he says this, he says, I cannot fit it all together by saying he did it. God did it. But neither can I fit it all together by saying there was nothing God could do about it. And then he goes on one of the other points, he says neither can I fit it all together by saying, well, there can't be a God at this happen. See? He says, I can't fit it together that way. Every view, but the biblical view, tries to put God in the dock and say,

if I don't have a rational explanation and you sort of put it together, you neatly put it together. He says, no, no, I can't fit it all together. Seeing God as the agent of death is one way of fitting it together in a rational pattern, but Bible speaks of God overcoming death. Not as an agent of death, not as helpless before death. And if God overcomes it and if God hates it and if God is overruling it, then God is God. See us, let's put it this way. The ancients approached God as the accused approaches a judge.

For the modern person, the roles are reversed. We are the judge. God is in the dock. We will be a very reasonable judge, however, if God would just simply have a reasonable explanation for why He permits war and poverty and disease, we're all ears. We're ready to listen. We might even be willing to acquit God. If the explanation is reasonable, but the point is, Louis says, we start our, start out today assuming that that is the right order.

We are on the bench, you see, we are the questioner, we're the cross-examiner, we're the charger, God is in the dock. The meaning of Job is that God is not the ultimate answerer, He's the ultimate questioner. He is not the one who comes and gives you the big answers. He is the one who stands and asks you the questions. Victor Francho, I often quote him, but in this case, I'm going to tell you something I've never told him before. Victor Francho says that when he was in the death camps, he was a Jewish psychiatrist that was in the death camps during World War II. He said,

the men and women who survived were the men and women who stopped asking what is the meaning of life, and they began to realize that life was asking what is the meaning of you. This is an amazing thing because these are not even people, and Victor Fonkel is not even thinking about a personal God, he's sort of thinking of life in some kind of abstract way with a capital L, but it's the same. He says the people that survive or the people that stop saying, life, what is the purpose, what is your purpose? And they began to realize that life was asking them, what is your purpose? In other words, they began to realize that what made life meaningless was not

life, but the way in which I live, if I live for myself, if I live selfishly, if I live for things, but the way in which I live, if I live for myself, if I live selfishly, if I live for things, if I live for things, if I don't live for bigger things, things bigger than me, things bigger than life, depending on what I am living for, is what makes life meaningless or not. And in the Holocaust, he says, people who survived and stopped becoming, they didn't become animals, they didn't become evil in the camps. There are people that finally stopped asking life questions and let life ask them questions. And I'm saying to you, that's the meaning of the book of Job. Only when you stop putting God in the dock, only when you stop trying to make it all work out, when you say, well, God couldn't be good and powerful and wise. He couldn't

be all those things. Why not? Any other God isn't God. Any other God that you work out, that rationally fits isn't God at all. And you will be stuck with either the stoic way or the panic way or the groveling, and all of them are debilitating, utterly debilitating, you'll never be able to face life that way. One of the biggest obstacles for people to believe in Christianity is that they think they already know all about it. But if we look at Jesus' encounters with various people during his life, we'll find some of our assumptions challenged. We see him meeting people at the point

of their big unspoken questions. The Gospels are full of encounters that made a profound impact on those who spoke with Jesus. And in his book Encounters with Jesus, Tim Keller explores how these encounters can still address our questions and doubts today. Encounters with Jesus is our thanks for your gift to help gospel and life reach more people with the amazing love of Christ. Request your copy of encounters with Jesus today when you give at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Put it another way. Job had two sets of two bits of advice in the rest of the book. He says, a, pardon me not he says, his wife says to him, a, curse God and die. That's the approach that says,

hate God. And his friends, LFS, build ed and so far come and say, well you must be sending somewhere. And they say, obviously you're doing something wrong. You need to grovel before God. You need to beat yourself up. They say, hate yourself. And until you understand the biblical mystery, and let's tell you let God be God, until you stop charging him, until you take him out of the dock, until you're willing to see him as the ultimate question, or the one who's the right to ask you questions, not you asking

him questions, you will be stuck. You will either have to hate God when suffering comes or you'll hate yourself. And there's no other alternative. And both are debilitating. You can't love. You can't rejoice. You can't face life. If you're filled with hatred for God or for hatred for yourself, and those are the only two alternatives. Unless you understand this. So Satan helps us understand suffering. Now, then practically speaking, you say, OK, that's interesting, but in fact,

that's very interesting, very interesting, but how do I actually deal with it? Maybe you've got something on the horizon. Maybe you've got some problem on the horizon. How do I deal with it? Well, my suggestion is you look at the early job and the later Job. You know, it's funny when I was taking art classes, they would talk about the early Titian and the later Titian.

You know, artists are like that. In this book, you'll see in the beginning, Job, what does it say? When the first onslaught of Satan comes, he says, he gets up, he rips his clothes, he falls on the ground, he shaves his head, and he says, naked I came, naked I'd to hold apart. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And it says, in all these things, God, the pardon me, Job did not charge God with sin, with wrongdoing.

He didn't charge, you see what's going on in the beginning, he did not put God in the box. Just, he didn't put God in the dock. Just, he didn't put God in the dock. Just what Lewis said, he didn't charge God. He didn't put him in demand and answer. When you put him in the box and you demand an answer and you make him the condemned one and you make him the prisoner and you make him the person

on trial, you see, Job didn't do that the first time and here's what we learn from early Job. Make sure that you keep a balanced ministry of both tears and truth. You notice something? First of all, it says he rose up and he shaved his head and he ripped his clothes and he fell to the ground. Now, you know, in an awful lot of Christian circles, there's a lot of Christians who believe that the faithful way to face suffering is your eyes well up a little bit in tears. And then you smile for the tears, you know, and you say, oh, it's hard, but I'm trusting the Lord, and I know he's just going to work it out, and I'm just praising him's name. And you think that's the way you're supposed to do it. But if you had a friend who's a Christian and when they got bad news, if they got up, like Joe,

ripped their clothes, tore their hair, fell on the ground, and began to cry and scream, what would you say? He would say, hmm, I think she's lost the victory here. And yet what does it say in verse 22? Jobbed it all that, and in all this, Job sinned not. There is a kind of stoicism. There is a kind of stoicism that masquerades as Christian faith. And the fact of the matter is because Job has that right understanding, because Job does

not put God in the dock, because Job does not put God in the dock, because Job does not say he's the author of evil, or says he's out of control of evil, or say that he just dispenses evil to good people, I mean to bad people is supposed to good people, because he understands that, Job has this amazing ability to cry out, he grieves, he's not a stoic, he's not a stoic,

he yells, he screams, he cries, he expresses his grief. He feels his feelings. He's allowed to feel his feelings. If you're a marvelous, you can't feel your feelings. You have to say, oh goodness, I have to trust God here. I better not be upset. If you're secularist, why should you feel your feeling? You're going to say, well, my goodness. After all, this is just natural. This is entropy. The universe is, you know, started in a big bang and this physical universe is all there is.

And everything is burning down. Everything is running down. Everything is falling apart. That's physics. You see, how can you, after a while, how are you going to feel your feelings? But you see, Job does. He's not a stoic.

He understands. Set on the other hand, Job grabs hold of the truth. And you know what that truth is? See, on the one hand, he's got tears, but on the other hand, he's got truth. If you have a ministry to somebody else in grief or to yourself, only with tears, but not truth or only in truth, but no tears.

You'll destroy them. You'll destroy yourself. But what's Jov's truth? Naked, I came and naked, I will depart. Now listen to what he's saying. Do you believe that this is a tragedy? When you read this, you say, boy, I'm glad this hasn't happened to me.

And this is unusual. This is weird. I mean, to lose all of your children, to lose all of your money, to lose all of these things. What if I told you, a lot of you are in your 20s, what if I told you that somewhere in your 40s, I couldn't tell you when, but somewhere in your 40s, everything you work for, think of all the money you're trying to work for, you're trying to get into your career, everything you work for will be taken away from you, your career, your money, your friends, any family members, any children, any spouse you might have.

What if I told you that? You say, what's the use of going on? What if I told you somewhere in your 20s or somewhere in your late 30s? Everything was going to be taken. You'd say, what's the use of work and what's the use of going on? It's going to happen anyway. It's going to happen to everybody in this room. Do you think Job is an odd situation?

Do you think Job is an odd occurrence? Do you say, what a terrible tragedy, my dear friends, every one of us is going to lose everyone we love. Every one of us is going to lose all of our money. Why? Naked, we will go. We're going to leave without a stitch. Every one of us is going to lose everything. And the only way that the average person can face life is that you absolutely blind yourself to that.

You refuse to see it. But Job did not. You know what Job is saying? Job is saying, this is hard, but I knew this was going to happen anyway. I'm not surprised. This is happening a little early, but it's happened to everybody. And I don't feel picked out. I don't feel picked on because every single person is going to leave naked. And I know that if I build my life on the things of this life, then of course I won't be able to face life. But I build myself a life on things that are

bigger, things that are bigger than its life, things that are beyond me. I build my life on God, you see. I leave naked, but praise in the name of the Lord. Now, if you understand that, you'll be able to face life. If you have hold of that truth. Do you realize that every, the old, you know, the old lumberjack story, do you know the old lumberjack story? The lumberjack was coming in, he's going to knock all the trees, and he's going to knock all the trees and he's going to take all the trees and he saw a poor little mother bird starting to build a nest in a tree. And he knew that it would be terrible if she finished her nest. Just terrible. You know, and put the little birds in there and all they would be terrible. So what did the lumberjack do? He says, I have to do something so she doesn't do that. And her whole life will be ruined if she builds her nest in the tree. So what he did was he took

the side of the axe and he slammed the tree and he shook the tree and the poor little birds up there, you know, going like this and then she's trying to do a little bit more nest building and then she goes like this and finally she says enough of this and she flips to another tree. Well that's no good so the lumberjack goes after her and clobber's that tree until you know she's getting these little concussions and so she goes to the next tree and he hits there again and next tree.

What is this man doing? He's just trying to ruin my life. And finally, she found a rock. A high rock and she began to build her nest and it was okay. And you see, here's what the Bible says, every tree here is coming down. Every person, every career, every child, every mother, every father, every tree here is coming down. Unless you build your life in Iraq, there is no hope.

The only reason that you're even able to look at your life and enjoy it is because you're just blind to that. But Job was not blind to that. With tears and truth, he was ready for suffering. But, lastly, fortunately for you and me, verse 22, looks forward to the later Job. And in verse 22, this is what it says, in all this, Job did not charge God with sin. He did not charge God. He did not put God in the dock. But you know what it's looking forward to? What's it looking forward to? It's looking forward to the rest of the story in which God does.

Get charged. Buy Job. Job does put God in the dock. He does begin to say terrible things. And he says, this isn't fair, this isn't right. How dare you do this to me? I curse today I was born. I dare you to come to me

and answer me and he says, oh, many, many, many things like that. And it's a good thing he does because most of us have not been able to only deal with our suffering the way Job does in chapter 1. I mean, if Job was all we had, Job 1, we all we had, we'd probably be into spirit because a lot of us have not done that. We have charged God what's wrong doing. We have put God in the dark. And what's the answer? At the end of the book, Job shows up. And there is this great big whirlwind. And God comes down and begins to speak to Job. And when he does, he begins to not give a man's serves, as we've been saying all along, but questions. In chapter 38, verse 2, he shows up and he says, be a man. He says, I'm about to ask you questions. Get ready.

And he never gives Job any answers. He doesn't tell him about the dialogue. He doesn't tell him his purposes. He just gives them questions. And but the questions are crushing questions. He's crushing his self-righteousness. He's saying, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Surely you know.

Here's a couple of wonderful ones. He says, you say I am unjust. Must I be condemned that you be justified? Where were you when I laid the earth foundations? Where were you when I gave orders to the morning and set the dawn in its place? Surely the lightning bolts report to you. They come to you and say, here we are as they do to me. And then you send them along as I do come.

This must be true. You know so much about the course the world should take. With questions, he's crushing his self-righteousness because it's only self-righteousness that makes us hate God. We think we know what's best. And it's only self-righteousness that makes us hate ourselves. Because we think if we were only good we could somehow control God. God destroys his self-righteousness because that's what makes him miserable. And yet at the very end, even though Job has charged God with it wrongdoing, and Job did put God in the dock, God accepts Job. Job says, I'm sorry, I repent and' dust nashes and God says, good, fine. How can he do that?

Job, charge God with wrongdoing. That's the worst thing you can possibly do. We've all done it. And yet in the end, God doesn't charge Job with wrongdoing. How could that be? And I'll tell you why. The answer to the ages. In the Old Testament, you see Jeremiah, you see Job, you see the psalmist, sometimes

in Psalm Psalm 39, Psalm 88, you see sometimes sufferers in the Old Testament crying out and saying, Why me? Why me? Why me? Why me? In the New Testament, when James, the apostle, the brother of John gets killed, they get together and pray, there's no why me. The apostles don't pray like that.

When Paul is all beaten up and his back is all lashed with 39 lashes, he doesn't cry why me. He doesn't pray like that. There's only one place in the Bible. In the New Testament, where somebody cries why me. The reason that Paul and the apostles do not cry why me, the way Job and Jeremiah and the psalmist do, is because they have a place to go where God doesn't give answers, but it gives you a question. And in the New Testament, that question does crush your self-righteousness, but it doesn't crush us in a coercive way, it melts us.

It's not a question, we hear, it's a question we overhear. It's the cry of the cross where Jesus Christ asked the ultimate question, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? And you see, the answer to your questions is a question, but in his question you receive the answer to all of yours. Because when you see Jesus Christ on the cross suffering for you, saying, my God, my God, why is He forsaken me? And you know why, for you.

That is the question that answers your questions. And that's a godly question. It's a godly answer. See, in the end, if you ask God, why have I had the problems I've had? Why did my mother die when I was 12? Why did my little boy die? Why did this happen? Why did I had the problems I've had? Why did my mother die when I was 12? Why did my little boy die? Why did this happen? Why did I lose my career?

You're going to ask all those questions and you know what? God does not give you an answer. He's not an answer, man. He wouldn't be God if he gave you the answers. But here's what he does. He gives you the ultimate question, which is the answer. He says, he says, I take suffering so seriously.

I sent my son into the middle of it. If I could just snap my fingers and get rid of suffering without getting rid of you, what I have done that? Don't you see the reason the suffering continues? Because if I get rid of all evil in the world, I will get rid of you. The only way I can get rid of evil and not get rid of you is if I send my son into the middle of it and he experienced real innocent suffering. He's the only innocent suffer. He's the ultimate innocent suffer. He's the one that Job points to.

The true innocent sufferer. And he cried out like Job cried out. But the reason why God didn't condemn Job for charging God with sin is because God charged himself with sin. Do you realize that? Verse 22 says, in all these things, Job did not charge God with sin. The reason, when we put God in the dock, God will forgive us, is because He Himself put Himself in the dock. Jesus Christ came to be a condemned criminal. Jesus Christ came and was charged with sin.

He was turned into a sinner. He was treated as a sinner. He charged himself so he wouldn't have to charge us. He put himself in the dock so that when we put him in the dock, he can forgive us. And he does. And when you do you see, when you see that he suffered for you, this is so wonderful. It frees you to do two things and then we're done. On the one hand it frees you to rest. You don't have to be angry at God and you don't have to be angry at yourself. Now you know that the reason why you are suffering is the same reason that Jesus suffered. Jesus suffered because think of all the demonic anger

that Satan lashed out on Jesus. His friends betrayed him. His rulers betrayed him. His leaders betrayed him. Everybody sinned against Jesus Christ. Everybody hated him. All the evil came at him. All the suffering came at him. And as a result, death was defeated, destruction was defeated, evil was defeated. And now even in your life, the only reason God allows evil in your life is to the degree that it will turn you into a servant,

like it turns Jesus into the great servant. Only to the degree that it is bringing forth his work until, in the very end, finally, at the very end, he will destroy it forever. The only reason we know that he lets it keep going is the reason he let it go right through his son. He will not let it go one second longer than it has to. But until then, he says, I promise you, I'm loving you in the midst of the suffering.

And I myself have come into it. So first of all, if you understand this, it'll help you rest in second of all. If you understand this, it'll help you get angry. Oh yeah. When Jesus Christ was at the tomb of Lazarus, it's that he snorted with anger. You know why? He wasn't angry at Mary and Martha,

and he wasn't angry at himself. He was angry at death. And do you know, unless you believe what I've told you today, you're either going to be mad at God or mad at you and you won't be free to be mad at death, mad at destruction. It's a pure angry. You can work against the evil of the world,

finally, without guilt and without bitterness. I tell you, it doesn't make you a wimp to believe this. It makes you angry in the right way, pure anger. Anger that's not mad at people you, it doesn't make you a wimp to believe this, it makes you angry in the right way, pure anger. Anger that's not mad at people and looking at some people as enemies, not mad at yourself, not mad at God, but mad at this saying, I'm going to work against evil, I'm going to work against sin all of my life. Until someday I stand with it all wiped away next to my Savior who through his suffering made me perfect. His question why me answers our questions and it changes our whole attitude towards

suffering because now for the first time we can see that suffering is not a senseless mystery, it is fellowship with Him. It is fellowship with him and it's a privilege. Do you understand this? Of course you don't understand this. What you'll need to do is to say, understand more of it. Now Lord, work it into my life. Let's pray that he does that. Father, we thank you that you have given us this book. It's filled with mystery, but we have in it a marvelous, marvelous guidance system in the right direction. It takes us away from so many things that are hurting us, that are harming us, that are distorting our understanding of ourself and our world and of you. We pray that you would help us to see in Job the one to whom he points, the true innocent sufferer,

the one who did go into the dock who was charged with wrongdoing. It's amazing that he charged himself with wrongdoing. He went in there and he allowed that so that he didn't have to charge us. Forgive us, Lord, for putting you in the dock. Give us the strength and the rest and peace that comes from knowing what he's done for us. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, please rate and review it so more people can discover this podcast. And thanks for listening.

This month's sermons were recorded in 1997 and 2017. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.