Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Miserable Comforters

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

How do you bear suffering? How do you get through the inevitable suffering that will come to you? The answer to that is comfort. In the book of Job, Job has three friends who show up and do an absolutely terrible job of comforting. Yet, even by looking at their terrible comfort, we’re going to learn something about the sources of comfort. In this passage, let’s take a look at 1) the bad comfort, 2) the better comfort, and 3) the ultimate comfort. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 13, 2008. Series: Job - A Path Through Suffering. Scripture: Job 5:1-7; 6:1-10. 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. The way you live now, your present behavior and character, is determined in a large part by what you believe your ultimate future to be. In today's teaching, Tim Keller explores how Christian Hope can transform our present behavior. After you listen, please take a few seconds to rate and review our podcast. Your review can help others to discover our podcast and experience the hope of the gospel. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. Tonight's scripture reading comes from the book of Job. Chapter 5 verses 1 through 7 and chapter 6 verses 1 through 10.

Call if you will, but who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn? Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple. I myself has seen a fool taking root, but suddenly his house was cursed. His children are far from safety, crushed in court without a defender. The hungry consume is harvest,

taking it even from among thorns, and the thirsty pant after his well. For hardship does not spring from the soil nor does trouble sprout from the ground. Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward. Then Joe replied, If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales, it would surely outweigh the sands of the sea. No wonder my words have been impetuous. The arrows of the Almighty are in me,

my spirit drinks in their poison. God's tears are marshaled against me. Does a wild donkey braille when it has grass or an ox bellow when it has fodder? Is tasteless food eaten without salt? Or is there flavor in the white of an egg? I refuse to touch it, such food makes me ill. Oh, that I might have my request,

that God would grant what I hope for, that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose his hand and cut me off. Then I would still have this consolation, my joy and unrelenting pain, that I had not denied the words of the holy one. This is God's Word In Macbeth you've got these famous lines Each newmore new widows howl

New orphans cry New sorrows strike heaven upon the face. Now that's literally true. That's why it's a famous quote. Suffering is absolutely inevitable. And there's no book of the Bible, and there's no perhaps work of world literature that faces the questions of suffering with the same honesty, realism, and wisdom

of the book of Job. The two questions I think that sufferers always feel and pose are the why question and the how question. The why question is, why is this happening to me? The how question is, how can I bear it? How can I get through it? In the book of Job, we're going to go back and forth because some of the passages talk a little bit more about the Y of suffering, but that is always to some degree linked to

the how. Do you handle suffering? And sometimes we're looking at a passage that has more to do with the how. Do you bear suffering? And that is always to some degree linked to the why. Last week, we began the book of Job. We saw that Job was a devout man, a pillar of his community, who inexplicably and suddenly lost everything.

His family, his health, his prosperity, his all of his wealth. And last week we looked more at the why of suffering. This week, we're going to be looking more at a very important question. That is, how? How do you bear suffering? How do you get through the inevitable suffering that will come to you? Now, the answer to that is comfort. Now, there's a limit to what comfort does. For example, a shock absorber system in a car,

a car has a shock system. The shock system doesn't eliminate the bumps in the road, but it keeps the car from being actually shaken and literally into pieces by the bumps. And in the same way, comfort. You've got to have sources of comfort. You've got to have sources of strength when you go through suffering.

So that the, not that it eliminates the suffering, but the suffering won't actually shake you to pieces. Now, usually the place you go to for comfort are your friends, your friends. And see, Job had three friends. Halifaz, Bill, Ed, and Zofar, and they show up, and from basically chapter three, all the way into the 20s, we'll see, Elephaz, Bill, Ed, and Zofar,

in cycles, speak to Job to try to comfort him, to try to help him interpret and understand his suffering. Now they do an absolutely terrible job of comforting. In fact, it's so bad that at one point, Job in chapter 16, verse 2, says to them, miserable comfortors are you all. Misurable comfortors. And yet, even by looking at how they don't comfort very well, we're going to learn something about where the sources of comfort

must come from. So let's take a look at this passage of the three headings. Bad comfort, better comfort, and the ultimate comfort. The bad comfort we get from LFS, the better comfort we actually see in Job, and the ultimate comfort that we get from somebody else. First of all, let's look at the bad comfort, the miserable comfort, the bad counseling, in a sense, of LFS.

What we read were two parts out of chapter five, a part out of chapter five and a part out of chapter six. LFS speaks to Job in four and five. Job answers in six and seven. We have a slice out of both Elephaz's Comforter Council and Job's response. Elephaz's council starts at the top of chapter five and it says, call if you will,

but who will answer you to whom, to which of the holy ones will you turn? And what he's saying is you can stop your praying. The word call means pray with emotion. And what he's heard, Job, crying out in his agony to God. And what he's saying is, forget it, stop that. God's not going to listen to you. And not even his angels, his holy ones will listen to you.

Why? Because, as you can see, in verses two to 5 to 6 all the way down, because he's saying, Job, you're a fool. Now, in the Bible, a fool was a disobedient person, disobedient to God and self-centered and therefore foolish. And notice he says in verse 2, Fools die. I myself have seen a fool taking root, verse three, which means Fools can prosper for a while like Job did. But eventually, their house is cursed, their children are whisked away, very, very. Boy, now look, here is what he's saying.

This is really unsympathetic and rather cold. And he's simply laying out what he already said earlier in chapter 4, and he lay down the principle that is Elephaz when he says in his very famous little phrase, who being innocent ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed? As I have observed, those who plough evil and those who sow trouble reap it. Now, what is he saying? He says, innocent people don't perish.

I'll probably people aren't destroyed. If you are reaping trouble, you sowed it. In fact, look down here at verse 6. Hardship does not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground. Who's he saying? If you go by a field and you see wheat growing up, or barley growing up, you don't say, oh, that wheat and barley just sprang up. Sprang up. No, you wouldn't say that. There's no way that wheat will spring up from the ground unless it's planted. If you plant wheat, you reap wheat. If you plant barley, you reap barley. And what is he saying? If you are reaping

trouble in your life, you planted it. If there's something going wrong in your life, you can stop your belly aching, you can stop your blubbering, see what he's saying in verse 1, pull yourself together, man, stop your blubbering. Forget the praying and forget the emoting. You must have brought this on yourself. So examine your life, figure out what you're doing wrong, where you don't have faith, where you're not praying, where you're not obeying God, figure out what you're doing wrong, make amends and everything will be fine. Very practical and incredibly cold, miserable comfort.

A friend of mine, a friend of mine who's now a retired minister, folks funded himself, though I'm sure it really wasn't very funny at the time, but when he and his wife were both young, married, she went through a period of depression, and he was a miserable comforter, a Job's Comforter, and he says, he says, at one time he was giving a talk, and he said, my wife went through I one time he was giving a talk and he said, my wife went through a period of depression when we were young.

I was at my wit's end. I pulled out all the stops. Every morning I went in and said to her, buck up! But nothing helped. I'm sure it wasn't very funny at the time. I'm sure he was telling the truth. That's miserable comfort and why.

What is wrong with aliphaz's comfort? It's because it doesn't grasp the biblical complexity of things. You might think that's a funny thing to say. You might think, oh, if you believe the Bible, then you believe in bad answers. Not at all. I believe the Bible's multidimensional understanding of reality

is more nuanced and more complex than any other worldview I know. See, Elephaz, for example, this comfort where he says, stop your emoting, figure out what God is saying to you, you're doing something wrong, get it straight. First of all, this denies the complexity of human nature. something wrong, get it straight. First of all, this denies the complexity of human nature.

In First Kings 19, Elijah, the man of God, cracks. He thinks everything that he's ever worked for has been wiped away. And he goes into deep depression. And so God sends the angel of the Lord. And when the angel of the Lord shows up to the depressed Elisha, I've always been amazed at this.

What does the angel of the Lord say? Doesn't say a thing. The angel of the Lord cooks Elisha a meal. Cooks him a meal and wakes him up and says, you need some strength. Why don't you eat something? Then let's him go to sleep. Then wakes him up again, touches him and says, you need some strength. Why don't you eat something? Then let's them go to sleep. Then wake them up again, touch his hymn,

and says, you really still don't have the strength. You need to eat some more. Angel of the Lord? Look, if we were just a spiritual and moral beings, if we only had a spiritual and moral nature, then the first thing you do when you come to a depressed person is you get out your list of the things to do. And here's what you say.

You say, have you prayed in faith? Have you confessed all known sin? Have you rebuked the devil? Have you pleaded the blood of Jesus Christ? Have you thanked God for everything? Have you claimed all the promises? Now, those are all in the Bible. But guess what? We're not just spiritual beings. We're also physical beings. Now, those are all in the Bible.

But guess what? We're not just spiritual beings, we're also physical beings, and maybe we need a nap and a walk by the ocean. And we're not just personal beings, but we're relational beings, and maybe we need a hug. Maybe we need someone to tell us that they love us. See, look, religious people tend to reduce everything to spiritual and moral. And so you always get a lecture from them. But actually, I mean, you know, without trying to beat up on everybody, but maybe not

a few other people. Secular people tend to see depression is all biochemical, so they just give you a pill. And it's just as reductionistic as always giving you a lecture. But God never reduces things like that. The Bible says there's a complexity about human nature. You can't just wait in and deal with discouragement and depression, you know, as if there's only it's all comes down to one thing, but not only that, Eliphah is not only doesn't grasp the complexity of human nature, he doesn't grasp the complexity of suffering and the purpose of suffering itself. In the book of Genesis, you have young man Joseph, remember him?

And he is pathologically doated upon by a father who dots on him and adores him and favors him over all of the rest of his brothers and sisters. And as a result, the family system is poisoned terribly, so that all the brothers are murderously bitter. And Joseph himself becomes spoiled, he's arrogant, he's self-centered, he's out of touch with how people see him, he's on the road to a miserable life, but God brings into his life horrible suffering.

Years of slavery, years of imprisonment, years of asking, God for things, praying, and God never answering, never. You ever feel that you're in one of those situations where it's been years since God has ever really answered any of your significant and most heartfelt prayers. And Joseph went through all that suffering, but at the end of the book, and we get a kind of God's eye view

because we're the readers, and no one who's actually in suffering ever gets that God's eye view, but we see him standing as the prime minister of Egypt. Wise, humble, say, great, saving his family now from starvation, spiritually and physically. And none of it could have happened without all that suffering. He said, wow, that's interesting.

Well, so obviously when suffering comes into your life, it's because there's some tragic flaw in your life that God is trying to deal with you on. Is that right? See, that's what elevates things, but not necessarily. Oh, no. In John chapter 9, Jesus and the disciples are walking along and they see a man who's blind.

And the disciples ask Jesus, master, who sinned that he was blinded? Was it him or his parents? Now this is a very Job's friend kind of question, very moralistic, you see. I can see, so I'm not a sinner or the son of a sinner, but he's blind, so he must have sinned or his parents must have sinned. And what does Jesus say?

When they ask him, who sinned? His parents or him that he was blind, so he must have sinned or his parents must have sinned. And what does Jesus say? When they ask him, who sinned? Is parents or him that he was blinded? And Jesus says, neither he's blind so that the glory of God can be shown to the world. There was no correction, there was no chase, and there was nothing wrong. He didn't do anything wrong. And see, that's Job.

We saw this last week, let me give it to you in a nutshell. In the very, very beginning of the book, God and Satan are having a debate about Job. And Satan looks at Job and says, he's a phony. Oh, he's very good to God and he's very good to other people, but he's only good to God, not for God's sake. He's not good for other people, for other people's sake. He's good for his sake. He's good because he's getting benefits.

Bring suffering into his life. Satan wants to bring suffering into Job's life in order to expose him as a fraud, to discredit him as a phony. God, however, let Satan bring that suffering into his life, but only give Satan enough rope to hang himself. God only let Satan bring us enough suffering into Job's life as accomplishes the very opposite of everything Satan wanted. Because Satan wanted to discredit him and show him up as a fraud, but as a result of the suffering, Job has a name that literally lives forever. Do you know that? The opposite of what Satan wanted. God let's suffering come into Job's life so that today he's one of the most famous people that

ever lived, one of the greatest figures in the history of the human race, millions of people have been changed by his example. Why did Job have some kind of tragic flaw, something that God was trying to deal with? No. It was like the man born blind that the glory of God would be known in the world. But Job couldn't have seen it. Not only couldn't Job see it, but Joseph couldn't see it. Nobody can see it. And Elephaz is absolutely wrong to say,

well, you know, you got to figure out what God is trying to do here. You got to figure it out. Now, here's the problem, and this is what really concerns us. Elephaz's counsel is awfully close to what you hear in an awful lot of churches today. Because there's an awful lot of churches where you're going to hear people say, if you're sick, it's because of a lack of churches today. Because there's an awful lot of churches where you're going to hear people say,

if you're sick, it's because of a lack of faith. Or if you're not prospering financially, it's because of a lack of faith that you're not really surrendering. Same thing. And you know what's wrong with about this? This is illogical and moralistic. It's illogical, first of all,

in that the idea that you can go, when you start to suffer, you can figure out what God's trying to do. See, to either say, oh, I know what God's trying to do. I need to change this and this and everything will be all right. That's as stupid as to say, God doesn't have any purpose. God has abandoned me.

How do you know? Look at Joseph, look at Joe. Look at all these stories that we see in the scripture. No one can know from your vantage point. and no one can know many times after years and years and years of going through it, what in the world God is up to, so guess what you're going to have to trust him. It's illogical to think you can figure it out or you can see it, but not only that, it's moralistic.

Why is there so much pain in suffering in the world? And how do we handle it in a way that won't destroy us, but could actually make us stronger and wiser? Those are the questions Tim Keller explores in his book, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering. The book doesn't provide easy answers, but is instead both a deeply theological and incredibly personal look at how we can face pain and suffering.

Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering and incredibly personal look at how we can face pain and suffering. Walking with God through pain and suffering is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel Unlife share the hope of the Gospel with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelunlife.com slash give. That's gospelunlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. The real problem he has is he doesn't understand the meaning of grace. He sees the Bible as a record of people who by living well,

get God's reward and blessing. Actually, look at the Bible. You want to know what it's a record of? Yeah, Abraham and Job are relatively better, Jacob, Joseph, and Jonah, people like they're relatively worse, but they all suffered. And then you know why they suffered? Because of God's love.

They suffered because God was trying to enlarge them. The Bible is not a record of people living right and getting the blessing. It's a record of people who are so broken and so corrupt that they never would have been able to rise above their own brokenness and corruption except the grace of God, broken to their life, usually in the form of disappointment and discouragement and disaster. That's what the whole book's about. And Alaphah doesn't see that.

But if you see it, and you see things are complex, there's both a, we have both a spiritual nature and a relational nature. So it's complex, you never really are sure. If that's the case, then you should be going in, not with an agenda here, you need to do this and do this and do that, but not just sort of lovingly supporting people.

I mean, the angel of the Lord, lovingly supported Elijah, but later on the still small voice came and challenged him with the false premises that the root of his discouragement. And therefore, you need to always, as a comforter, go into people's lives with a mixture of truth and tears. In John chapter 11, when Jesus shows up

at the funeral of Lazarus, there are two sisters, Mary and Martha. They're both suffering terribly. When Martha comes up and says, Master, if you'd been here, our brother wouldn't have died. Jesus says, I am the resurrection of the life. Truth, almost a rebuke. And when Mary comes up and says, Master, if you had been here, our brother wouldn't have died.

We're told all Jesus did was melt and break down into tears. You'll never really handle suffering without a mixture of truth and tears. Have telling yourself the truth and weeping your heart out. Or if you want to be a comforter to someone who's suffering of being around and waiting and seeing maybe gently telling the truth, but basically getting yourself deeply involved in that person and just weeping with them.

That's the only humble way to go into suffering when who in the world knows why? You're not supposed to know why. You can't figure it out, why? Because God's a God of grace. And things are complex. Now there you have bad counseling, aliphas. So now let's move on and see how Job responds. And what Job's got to do is he's

got to do his own counseling. Now by the way, nobody gets through suffering without doing some self-counseling. An example of this is Psalm 42, where the psalmist says, Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou is quieted within me? Hope in God. Who's he talking to? He's not talking to God. He's not talking to you. Who's he talking to?

He's talking to himself. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Hey you in there. Why are you cast down? He's talking to himself. And so Job has to do his own counseling, not the best situation. And yet Job does a much better job of counseling himself than Alaphas does.

And here's what he does. Four things he does to handle the suffering. Four things. Here they are. First of all, and you can see this in chapter 6, first thing is emotional realism. If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scale, it would outweigh the sand of the sea. No wonder my words are impetuous.

My pain is ways more than all the sands of the sea. That's how it feels. And look at this for emotional realism, spiritual realism. The arrows of the Almighty are in me. My spirit drinks in their poison. God's terrors are marshaled against me. He says, I feel like God is killing me. I feel like God is destroying me.

I feel like God is against me. There's real reality. Not very polite, is it? So the first thing is he's doing exactly the opposite of what the LFS said, which was, stop your blubbering. You know, keep a sif up or lip. No, no, no, no. He's really getting in touch.

He's really expressing how he feels. There's emotional realism. Number one, number two though, he's praying. Now don't be misled. It doesn't look like it at first, but look down at verse eight. Oh, that I might have my request that God would grant what I hope for.

Now, you know, that's a third... See, in those days, the way you spoke to a great superior was in the third person. In other words, if you went before the king, you say, O, if only the king would hear my request. You didn't look at the king and say, hey, king, answer my request. You didn't do that, that, too direct. You deferentially say, oh, may the queen, oh, at the king and say, hey, king, answer my request. You didn't do that, that, too direct. You deferentially say, oh, may the queen, oh, may the king. So you spoke to the superior in the third person.

That's what Job is doing. But he is praying. And let me tell you why this is important. I was in a class, 35 years ago, it must be now. In my seminary, and it was a professor lecturing on Job. And one of the, there was a student got up and he said, I got a real problem here. He says, Job is saying such hard things about God.

He's mad at God. He's talking about God hurting him and harming him and wronging him. And at the end of the book, God actually shows up and says, Job, you've done well. And he turns to LFAS Buildad and so far. He's almost comedic, probably. He turns to LFAS Buildad and so far. And he says, Job is done very well. But you guys, I'm mad at you, and you better hope Job

prays for you. I'm really mad at you. You better hope Job prays for you. Job, what do you want me to do with these guys? That's almost comedic. We'll get there. And this student got up and said, I don't understand it. Joe says such hard things about God. And at the end, God says, okay.

And he says, I'm reading this book by Al-Bear Kamu called the plague. And the plague, of course, is an existentialist novel in which the plague is a city in which everybody is dying of a plague, but it's a metaphor for life. And the fact is that death and destruction and evil and suffering make life absurd. And there's people in the book who are basically Camus saying very hard things about God. And he says, I don't understand. What's the difference between Job and Camus or very hard things about God. And he says, I don't understand it. What's the difference between Job and Camus or Sartre or any of these existentialist, any of these people who say all these hard things about God? What is the difference?

And I'll never forget the professor said, yeah, but here's the big difference. It's a huge difference between Job and these guys. Well, what is it? He says, Job says a lot of hard things, but he says them all to God. He says a lot of hard things, but he says them all to God. He says a lot of hard things about God, but he says them to God. He never stops praying. And that's the reason why his existential despair when he's pouring out his heart to God isn't existential despair. It's existential.

He never stops praying. He never goes off. He never stays in that relationship. And he says, I don't understand, but he never stops praying. He never goes off. He stays in that relationship and he says, I don't understand, but he never stops praying. And I'll tell you something. If you're not getting anything out of going to God's throne of grace and prayer, I can tell you you're not going to get anything from staying away from it. Thirdly, emotional realism, prayer, and no matter what, the third thing we see the job does is he rejects suicide as a form of comfort. Because looking verse 8, he says, oh, that I might have my request that God would grant what I hope for, then verse 9,

that God would be willing to crush me to let loose his hand and cut me off. He's asking God to kill him. He says, take my life. Now, listen, if you've got a steak dinner in front of you, if it's within your grasp, you don't say, oh Lord, please give me that steak dinner. You don't do that. Why? It's in your grasp, you take it, right?

It'd be stupid to say, oh Lord, give it to me. There it is. He's all right. Why would you say, oh Lord, give it to me. There it is. Why would you say, oh Lord, take my life? All you have to do is pick up a knife and cut your own throat. The answer is, Joe prays for God to take his life because, and only because, he does not believe he's got the right to commit suicide.

He has no right to commit suicide. And since, according to the, what everybody says, 15% of you have thought about it fairly recently, you need to realize that this is no comfort. This is no way to go. Even in the depths of his greatest despair and despondency, Job doesn't even think for a second that he's got the right to commit suicide. So, emotional realism, prayer, refusal to commit suicide and last of all, he says, well, say, why does he want God to take his life?

He says that I would still have this consolation. You know, that's the word comfort. That's an important word. That is the same word that he uses when he says miserable comfortors are you all. I have comfort, he says. I've got it. I've got it. I've got joy in unrelenting pain, and what is it?

That I have not denied the words of the Holy One. Now, what does that mean? To deny the words of the Holy One means I've repudiated God's words, or I'm ignoring God's words. And what he's saying is, up to now, I've been holding on, I haven't turned away from God, I've been holding on, I've been holding on, I haven't turned away from God, I've been holding on, I've been being faithful, and what he's actually saying is,

the one comfort he's got is that he has a clear conscience. The one comfort he's got is that he knows God is pleased with him. The one thing he's got that he can still help him get through suffering is the sense that God loves him. And you know what he's after? He's absolutely right. Please do not overlook how important this is. There's a place in the second book of the Lord of the Rings, the books, not the movies, in which as a favorite place for Kathy and me, where pharomir, the character,

pharomir, resists the temptation of the ring. And when Sam Gamji, the little hobbit, the hero of the story really, sees that. He comes up to pharomi and bows low and says, you showed your quality, sir, the very highest. And when Fermi sees Sam, saying that to him, and he perceives Sam's courage and his faithfulness and his goodness, he smiles and said, Master Samwise, the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.

Do you know what that means? Listen, imagine the person in the whole world that you praise and admire the most. The person you praise and admire the most. And then imagine that person praising you and admiring you the most in the whole world. There is no greater reward than that. The praise of the praise of the word is above all rewards.

There's nothing greater than someone that you really essentially worship, adoring you. There's nothing like it. And Job says, as long as I've been able to keep my conscience clear, I can know that God loves me. I have not denied the words of the Holy One, but that is my only comfort. And he's right. In the midst of your suffering,

if you know God loves you, you can handle it. Why? Because you don't know what's going on, and you're confused, and you don't see what God is doing. But if you know He loves you, then you can handle it. You can trust Him.

But if you don't, then you can't. And here's what Job is doing, but if you know He loves you, then you can handle it. You can trust Him. But if you don't, then you can't. And here's what Job is saying is, I would rather lose my life than my comfort, and he's afraid it's slipping away from him. He's afraid that he's about to do something wrong. He's afraid he'll curse God or turn away from God or fail to keep the words of the Holy One. And he's afraid of that. And he's afraid of losing that sense of God's with Him and loves him. And therefore, he says, I would rather lose my life

than my comfort, and I'm afraid I'm about to lose that comfort. So take away my life. Now, Job is saying, emotional realism, prayer, not suicide, I need to be sure that he loves me, and I can handle things. However, Job is right about something. Because the Bible says it everywhere,

there is no way he's going to keep faithful to the words of the Holy One. Nobody can keep the law of God perfectly. Nobody can do the will of God perfectly. And Job is absolutely right that he's about to crack. Everybody cracks. Psalm 130 verse 4. Lord, if you mark sins, who would stand?

Nobody. And Job knows that, and therefore, in the end, Job's comfort is a good comfort, but not the ultimate comfort, because it's not going to last. Where's it going to get the elder comfort? Here's where he's going to get it. Look, nobody in the history of the world ever perfectly kept the words of the Holy One, right? No one in the history of the world ever perfectly kept the words of the Holy One, right? Oh, no, wait a minute.

Wait. Yeah. One person did. When Jesus Christ came, He perfectly obeyed the law of God. He perfectly kept the words of the Holy One. And that's the reason why there's a place in John 8 where he actually looks at his opponent and says, who charges me with sin?

Does anybody know of anything I've ever done wrong or anything I've ever said wrong? If you're ever in an argument, never say that. But Jesus Christ could, and that's the reason why when he came up out of the waters in his baptism, the Holy Spirit came down and God said, you are my beloved child with you, I am well pleased. The praise of the praiseworthy, which is above all rewards. And yet, and yet, he had it, right?

How do we get that? How do we get that? How do we get that? Well, we know we're going to fail. We know we're not going to keep the words of the Holy One. Second Corinthians 2, 5, 21, says, God made him sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And what that means is that on the cross,

Jesus Christ proved, Fass wrong. Because Ella Fass said, who being innocent ever perished? And the answer is Jesus Christ. What upright person was ever destroyed? The answer is Jesus Christ. Anyone who reaps trouble must have sewn trouble, but that's not true because Jesus Christ

reaped what we sewed. We sewed trouble, we seweded sin and He reaped it. And therefore He is the true Job, the only truly innocent suffer and also the only one who ever completely kept the holy ones words. But we're told, God made him sin that new no sin that we might become the righteousness of God and Him. What does that mean? God put our sin on him so that when we believe in him, our, his righteousness comes to us. And that means when God looks at you, even though you have blown it, even though you will blow it, God sees you as a beauty. And therefore you have what Job didn't have. Job had a sense of God's love,

but it was fallible. And you have a sense of God's love, but it was fallible, and you have a sense of God's love, and it can be infallible. And that's the reason why you can say, in answer to this Heidelberg catechism, question, Heidelberg catechism was an old creed written many years ago, but it goes like this. What is your only comfort in life and death? That's the question and the answer is that I'm not my own, but belong body and soul in life and death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who is paid for all my sins with his precious blood and therefore by his Holy Spirit assures me

of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready to live for him. Let's pray. Oh, Father, we thank You that there is an ultimate comfort. And that comfort is in the gospel. And the gospel is that though in ourselves where wicked and sinful in Jesus Christ were absolutely loved and righteous. Job knew that if he knew you loved him,

he could handle his suffering, but it was a fallible assurance. We have an infallible one. Because the true Job, the true innocent sufferer, the only one who ever could say, I have not denied the words of the Holy One, stood in our place, and now he is our righteousness before you.

And we can know that you love us. And if that's the case, then, in spite of all the stuff that's going on around us, we can say, I don't understand what's going on, but I trust you. I thank you so much, Father, that you sent your son into our life, not just with truth, but with tears. Not just with a message of things we ought to do, but with his own suffering. With us, for us, right alongside of us, that's what we need. We thank you for this and we ask that you give us all these things through Jesus

and His name we pray. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. We hope you continue to join us throughout this month as we look at the uniqueness of the hope Christ offers. If you are encouraged by today's podcast, please rate and review it so more people can discover the hope and joy of Christ's love. Thank you again for listening.

This month's sermons were recorded in 2004 and 2008. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel Unlife podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.