Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

This talk and Q&A by Tim Keller was held at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City on October 2, 2013. 

When we suffer, it's natural to ask the question, why? Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller shows us what the Bible has to say about how to face pain and suffering. After you listen, we invite you to go online to gospelandlife.com and sign up for email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly newsletter with articles from Dr. Keller, as well as other valuable gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelandlife.com.

Pain and suffering. Of all the topics you could write about or talk about, this is the one that probably makes you feel the smallest. And that's why we got to get right to it. The reason I say it makes you feel small, it's, pain and suffering is like the great wall of China. There's just no way around it, no matter where you turn. It doesn't matter what part of life you want to understand or comment on or write about or talk about. Philosophical, you have a philosophical bent.

There it is, evil and suffering, right smack in the middle talk about philosophical, or you have a philosophical bent, there it is, evil and suffering, right smack in the middle of one of the great questions of philosophy. All right, well, are you into psychology? Okay, well, it's suffering that is crushing us emotionally. Are you into culture and anthropology? There's no better way to understand what a culture is all about, then to see how that particular

culture equips its members to handle suffering. Are you into religion or spirituality or theology? Suffering is like the Great Wall of China. There's no way around it. Everywhere you turn, there it is, right in the middle of whatever it is, you're trying to think about. And therefore, we've got to deal with it. Can't come to grips with anything else in life unless you come to grips with this. But the challenge we've got, and I do have it,

is that there are some people who are extremely troubled by evil and injustice in the world, rightly, but they're not actually going through suffering themselves personally at the moment. So there's some people who are very troubled by evil and injustice, but they're not suffering it particularly themselves. And there's other people who are suffering terribly at the moment, and both of those people ask the question, why? But it's not, even though it sounds like the same question, and it certainly overlaps, it's certainly related, they're not quite the same question. And that's not, even though it sounds like the same question, and it certainly overlaps, it's certainly related, they're not quite the same question. And that's actually a challenge we've got tonight,

it's got a challenge we have when I was trying to write. And that is, it doesn't seem like you can leave either side out, so what I'm going to do is first talk to the first question and talk about the general problem of suffering and how we understand it. How do we understand suffering and evil and injustice in the world? But then secondly I want to talk about the personal problem. How do you survive it? How do you actually face it? And the reason everybody in this room I don't care who you are needs to think about this. Is, well, there's Macbeth, a place of Macbeth, where it says,

each new mourn, new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrow strike heaven upon the face. Ernest Becker wrote a book, some years ago, called The Nile of Death, and he says this, I think that taking life seriously means something like this, that whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise, it is false.

And since everybody in this room is going to experience pain and suffering at some point and it's going to either make you a better person or a worse person, it will not leave you as you were, then you need to come to grips with this. So first of all, the general problem of suffering, how do we understand it? It is very typical when we start asking questions about why is evil and suffering in the world, how do we understand it? Especially if we're talking about God,

is we immediately begin to make it a problem for the existence of God. So we ask the question, well, if there really is a God who's all powerful and all loving, how does he reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with it? And if evil and suffering is here, which arguably is, then how can we believe in God?

I actually think that's probably not the best way to start. And no, probably tonight we'll get back to that subject, that question. The reason I don't, I think it's a bit of a mistake to start there is because very often, if you sit and say, okay, evil in suffering, then you look at Christianity. And you say, does Christianity give me all the answers?

Does it explain the mystery of suffering? Does it completely knock down all the pins? And the answer, by the way, is no, it will not. And so he's, well, you know, Christianity does not give me all the answers, I won, in fact, there's certain areas in which it's a bit difficult therefore, okay I don't have to believe it. And you walk away and everybody says, okay we just dealt with the philosophical question of the problem of evil and I think that means there's really, I don't believe I can't believe in the Christian God and all that. But here's the problem, you live in this world, you're walking away and you say the Christian way of making sense of suffering and facing suffering, I don't buy.

But what are you going to do now? You have to live in this world. And you say, the Christian way of making sense of suffering and facing suffering, I don't buy. But what are you going to do now? You have to live in this world. Evil and suffering is going to happen to you. And therefore, you have to have some way of making sense of it, some way of understanding it. And so even if you say, no, no, no, you don't, I just believe, you know, evil is senseless. It's meaning, I mean, you know, suffering is evil and senseless and meaningless. That's all I believe. I don't believe I have to. I have to have a theory. Don't you realize

that is a theory that is a particular worldview with its own philosophical genealogy and with its own social location? It comes from somewhere and you've adopted it. Everybody's got to adopt some way of understanding, suffering, and handling it because they always go together. The way you handle it has to do with the way you understand it. And you have to have some, and if you say the Christian way is, and I don't like it, okay, it's got a problem. All right, it's got a lot of problems, sure. But then what's your alternative?

You got to have something. And I want you to know that historically and culturally, there's only about a half a dozen different approaches to evil and suffering, ways to understand it and ways to deal with it. And if instead of asking, does Christianity have all the questions, if you ask that, the answer is no. But there's another way to ask the question, basically. And that is, how does Christianity

compare to all the alternative ways, all the other ways you have out there of understanding suffering and handling suffering. And if you compare Christianity to all the alternatives, I want you to know it comes off looking really good. And that's what I'm here to talk to you about. One way to start would be the way Pico Iyer does. Pico Iyer wrote an article from the New York Times recently called the Value of Suffering. Now Pico Iyer himself is an interesting, cultural phenomenon because Pico Iyer is Indian, but

he was born and raised in Oxford, England where his father was on the faculty, the University of Oxford. And so in one sense, he's British, Western, but he also married a Japanese woman, and he's been living for the last 20 years in Japan. And as a result, he wrote this article called the Value of Suffering, in which he actually compares the Eastern and particularly the Buddhist version of the Eastern view of suffering,

and the more Western secular view of suffering. It was very, very interesting. And he compares them. He kind of puts them alongside of each other and looks at them. So for example, in the article, he says, does the tarot of suffering ever abate and can one possibly find any point in suffering? That's the question. So then he starts looking at the Japanese.

He says, wise men in every tradition tell us that suffering brings clarity and illumination. And then he says, I once met a Zen-trained painter in Japan in his 90s who told me that suffering is such a privilege. It moves us toward thinking about essential things. It shakes us out of short-sighted complacency. When he was a boy, he said it was believed that suffering proves such a hidden blessing that you should be willing to pay for it.

Now that is not the Western view. Just in case some of you are wondering, that is not the Western view. The idea there is you accept suffering as the way of things, you completely embrace it, you never complain about it, it humbles you, it strengthens you, it's the way of things, so you should actually get your heart ready for it. Now, and then what Pico Iron points out is he admires the Buddhist-based Japanese culture when it comes to suffering because he talks about how when its tsunami came, not that long ago, and lots and lots of people are killed. This is what he says.

He says, my neighbors in Japan live in a culture that is based at some invisible level on the Buddhist precepts. This makes for what comes across to us is uncomplaining hard work, stoicism, and a constant sense of the way and a constant sense of the ways that difficulty binds us together I'll do my best you often hear Japanese people say I'll stick it out. It can't be helped these are phrases you hear every hour in Japan and Listen to this when the tsunami

in Japan. And, now listen to this, when its tsunami claimed thousands of lives north of Tokyo two years ago, I heard more lamentation in panic in California than among the people I knew around Kyoto. Paul Brand, a pioneer orthopedic surgeon in the treatment of leprosy patients, spent the first part of his medical career in India. I think he was British when he spent the first part of his medical career in India. I think he was British and he spent the first part of his medical career in India, the last part in the United States. And this is what he said.

In the US, I encountered a society that seeks to avoid pain at all costs. Patients lived at a greater comfort level than any I had ever previously treated, but they seemed far less equipped to handle suffering and far more traumatized by it. So a Paul Brand who worked in India and in the United States, but Pico-Ir, who has worked in both the West

and also the East, say, is that Western people are far more traumatized by suffering than Eastern people. And he, why? All right, very important. Here's the reason why. Let's think about what the Western view of life is. Western civilization is often called secular. Now, secular does not necessarily mean hard secular.

Like everybody, nobody bleeds in God. But if you read a book, and almost nobody can, by Charles Taylor called a secular age, it's a brilliant, everybody says it's the book on the subject of secularism. 900 pages, 800 pages, Harvard University Press, totally unreadable. But that's why.

It's a great book. And there he says, what secular people don't necessarily disbelieve in God, they have a thin view of God. Here's what they say. They say, there may be a God or there may not be, but nobody can know. And there may even be an afterlife or not. But nobody can know. See, that's the official.

Not like you can't believe in it. But if you do believe in it, you just can't be sure at all. Nobody can know. What does that mean? What it means is the only happiness you can be sure of getting is here. The only meaning in life that you can be sure of, you're going to have to get here. You might believe in God. you might believe in an afterlife, but it's thin enough that basically your heart, your mind, every, the meaning of life is to be free to choose to live in such a way that makes you happy now. And you realize that no other culture sees the meaning of life as something in this life, material, happiness, comfort, physical

comfort, there is no other culture in history that's ever seen that. So for example, let me just give you a rundown. Some cultures say the meaning of life is to go to heaven and live with God and your loved ones forever. Other cultures say the meaning of life is escaping the cycle of reincarnation in order to go into eternal bliss. Other cultures say the meaning of life is to escape the illusion of this world and go into the all soul of the universe enlightenment, which of course is Buddhism. Or some cultures say the meaning of life is to live a moral, virtuous, honorable life even in the face of defeat and doom. That's the old northern European pagan, I mean us Europeans.

Northern European pagan approach was the meaning of life is to be a person of honor, a person of virtue, whether or not you went down to an ever-ending defeat, all the better, because that's really what the meaning of life was. And there's other people who just saw the meaning of life was to live on in your family, and in your descendants. But you see see in every case Every one of those cultures the meaning of life is something beyond this life something beyond comfort and happiness

Here, so what does that mean in every other culture? Besides our modern Western culture If the meaning of life is something outside of this life, then suffering as painful as it is could be a chapter in your life story that actually helps you get to your goal. As it's painful, of course, suffering is painful, pain and suffering. And yet, every other culture, it's possible for suffering to be a meaningful chapter in your life story. It's actually, it can

be a means to an end, it can be a means to get you there. It can help you escape reincarnation, you know, the reincarnation cycle. It can help you get to have it, it can help you, you know, love your your descendants, it can help you in every one of those cases, but not for us. And what that means is, by the way, I got this idea from studying cultural anthropology and a number of cultural anthropologists who are not, I don't think, religious believers at all, but who just say empirically, this is it. For the secular view, secular Western culture, we are the worst culture in the history of the world at helping people face suffering. Because in our context, in a secular view,

suffering has no meaning. It cannot help you get to your goal. It can just destroy your goals. It cannot help you to get to your real goal in life. It just destroys your goal in life. It cannot be a meaningful chapter in your life story. It's just an interruption of your life story, or it's the end of your life story.

And therefore, we are the worst of all the cultures, because this life is all there is. You see the problem? And so, in other words, if you're taking a look at all the different approaches, I mean, there's the karmic approach. Karm is not, I mean, is another version of the Eastern view of things. And that is that if you're suffering right now, it's because of something you've done wrong in a former life. If you're having a good life right now, it's because you lived good in a former life, and therefore there's no such thing as unjust suffering. And if you are suffering, then the thing to do is to patiently endure it,

so you have a better life next time. In other words, now, whether you believe any of these things or not, don't you see how every single other culture really makes sense of suffering? Every other culture does, but not ours. And so, if you live in this culture, it's the worst one of all. Of all the possible ways of equipping its members to face the realities of paid and suffering, it's the worst one. However, I'd like to argue that Christianity might be the best. For example, Luke Ferry, who wrote a brief history of thought, it's a great little book, he's a French philosopher

and an atheist, by the way, very, very outspoken, secular atheists, wrote a brief history of thought and has a couple of chapters in which he talks about why Christianity was so triumphant in ancient times. I mean, you had Greek and Roman philosophy. You had this incredible civilization, this ancient classical civilization. Christianity came along and just swept the field.

Why? Now, fairy goes into a lot of, there's a lot of reasons. But he says the one is that when it came to suffering nobody had an advantage on Christianity. Nobody. Why? Well, let's think about this for a minute. Seneca, Cicero, the great Reagan philosophers were not that different than Buddhist, by the way. There's similarities. Why? Because many people believe that when you die, you continue to exist, but not as a person.

You go into the all soul, but you don't exist. You don't keep your personal existence. Your individual consciousness. You continue to exist. You become part of the great spirit that binds us all together, but you're no longer your own conscious personal self. And you know what that means? Is it means that after death, even though you may go on,

love is over. If you have love relationships in your life right now, death means the end of them. And it is completely unnatural, not to want. If you have a love relationship, not to want that to endure. It is unnatural, not to. But if you read Seneca and Cicero and some of the older Greek

stoic writers like Epic Titus, what they said, which is very, very similar, by the way, to what Buddhist writings say, is that though you want to be compassionate when it comes to your love, that doesn't mean that you should attach your heart. You should be compassionate, but you should detach. And I'm going to tell you something right now, I don't want anybody to grimace because it's not as bad as you think.

Epic Titus, the stoic philosopher said, the only way that you will ever get ready for the inevitability of suffering in your life is you have to detach your heart from loved ones. You have to make sure you realize they're all going to go away from you, they're all going to go away from you, and you're going to be completely destroyed unless you tell yourself that. And so he actually said, when you kissed your little boy in the morning, in your heart or under your breath, you should say, good morning, you might die tomorrow. Now look, Fattery, by the way, and quotes him and says, that sounds cold, or maybe sounds funny, but he saysie, by the way, quotes him and says, that sounds cold, or maybe sounds funny,

but he says basically, this is saying, look, eventually we're all going to become, love is over, love is temporary. So why? So enjoy it, but let's not get too attached to it. I read one historian who said that when Christianity came along, the populist, the Greek and Roman populist had been told that this is the way, the populace, the Greek and Roman populace had been told that this is the way you dealt with suffering, stoicism. Be strong, be noble, be compassionate, be honorable, but don't get too attached to anything. So that's how you do it.

You accept everything, you don't weep, you don't wail, you don't lament. That shows that you're being You don't wail, you don't love mint. You know, that shows that you're being naive, that shows you're being infantile. You need to be an adult, and you need to detach your heart. And one historian said that that was actually too much for people to do. I mean, the philosophers could do it, but average person can't do that.

And when Christianity came along, it said three things. It gave people three resources. That is to say, Christianity said, if you believe in Jesus, if you accept Christianity, you have three resources for facing suffering. And these three resources, not only did that ancient pagan culture not have, but no other culture actually has. The first thing is the Christianity gave them first and foremost a God who suffers. Christianity, unlike any other religion, says that the great sovereign God has come to earth and in the person of Jesus Christ has actually suffered.

He went to the cross, he suffered. He knows pain, he knows rejection, he knows betrayal, he knows torture, he knows hunger, he knows thirst, he knows death. He did that in order to die for our sins to take our punishment. And you know what that means? It means that when you suffer two things, if you believe in him, you are not being punished for your sins because Jesus was punished for your sins. And secondly, he understands what you're going through personally.

And that means he's with you. He is absolutely with you. You might say, I don't feel he's with me, okay, subjectively, you may not feel he's with you, but objectively, he is. And that was the first thing that Christianity said. If you believe in gospel, the message of Christianity, that's the first thing you've got.

The second thing you've got, second thing you've got besides that, very important, is that your future is one of love relationships. The second thing you've got, second thing you've got besides that, very important, is that your future is one of love relationships. Infinitely greater love relationships than anything you've known here. Not just with God, but with other loved ones. So you don't have to detach your heart.

It's not temporary. And thirdly, as a kind of enhancement, only Christianity believes in a resurrection. There are other religions who believe that when you die, you exist, but you're not even personal, okay? But there are other religions that believe that when you die, you go to heaven and you're still personal. But only Christianity says that the future is not a spiritual future only, but that someday Jesus Christ will come back to renew this world, it'll be a new heaven and new earth, it'll be this... We don't get a consolation

for the life that we lost in the afterlife. We get the restoration of a life that we lost. I'll get back to that. A real life, the eating and drinking and hugging and dancing. Luke Ferry actually says, there's no other religion that ever offered the world a resurrection. And so what he actually says is, look, I can't believe it's true. I'm not a Christian, but I don't understand people who wouldn't wish it was true. And he's right. And of course, what it did was it swept the field.

And actually, I think it would do that too if you sit and look at Buddhism, which isn't a whole lot different from the ancient stoicism. But here's where we have to go. Let's summarize this part because I don't want to talk about how do you actually face it. Let me summarize like this.

As I said, eastern cultures and eastern forms the karmic religions, Buddhism, you might even say, yeah, eastern religions basically say accept suffering. That's what Pico Eir is talking basically say accept suffering. That's what Pico I was talking about, accepted. Western culture says it's outrageous, it's unjust, it's meaningless. But see Christianity, the reason I say Christianity always looks good when you're comparing, let me show you how new on Christianity is, how comprehensive it is. First of all, let me ask you a question, class. As far as Christianity is concerned, is suffering just, when suffering in evil happens to you, is it just? Is it perfectly fair, the way the comic religions and Buddhism says, you know, don't worry about it, is it

just or is it unjust? Is suffering just or is it unjust? And the answer is, according to the Bible, yes. Do you know why? Look, the Bible gives you a narrative that tells you the history of the world. And it starts, God did not make the world as a place of suffering. Genesis 1, Genesis 2, He did not create a world with death and suffering. He did not create a world with injustice or crime or violence. It wasn't there. But because we turn from God, suffering and evil has come in. So in one sense, yeah, we are getting the human race as a whole what comes from turning

away from God. So there's a certain sense in which suffering in this world is not completely unjust. On the other hand, if you go to the book of Job, the whole book of Job is about this question. Job was having a terrible life. And so his friend showed up and said, Job, if you're having a worse life than us,

that means you must be a worse person than us, that means you must be a worse person than us. See if you were a better person than us, if you were living a more moral life, you would have a better life. If you're a worse person than us, you're not living a moral life, you have a worse life. Therefore, if you're having a bad life, it must be because you deserve it. And the whole book of Job in the Bible is about the fact that that is not true. God shows up at the end and he condemns Job's friends.

Because the fact is that now the world is so messed up and broken that lots and lots of relatively good people have terrible lives and lots of relatively bad people have better lives and the world is too messed up. To ever just look at people and say, you know, suffering is always, is always right. The karma says, the suffering is always fair. Christianity says no. Western society says, you know, all suffering, we don't deserve any suffering at all. And Christianity says no to that too.

You see, it's more balanced, more nuanced. Let me ask you another question. When you suffer, should you cry and scream and complain, or should you trust God and pray? What's the answer? Yes. You see, actually, if you read the Pico-Iar story, the Pico-Iar's article points out that when the Dalai Lama came and saw what would happen at the tsunami he wept, or at least basically Picoires says he was with him and he said I saw it tear in his eye.

And that a big part of the article is about that because that doesn't actually fit. That's not what you're supposed to do. And then he actually quotes this famous haiku from Isa. You know, the great 18th century Japanese poet, Kobayashi Isa wrote a very famous haiku. It goes like this. The world of do, that's the first line. The second line is a world of do, it is indeed. And then the last line is, and yet, and yet.

ESA had just buried two infant children. And so here's the Haiku again, the world of do, a world of do, it is indeed, and yet, and yet. And somebody wrote this about that. The dew drop is a symbol of impermanence. As a Buddhist, ESA would have been committed to the belief of the world as we now see it is due, shimmering and beautiful, but fNS and infleating.

All things are truly like a do-drop, quickly passing into the ocean of the all soul, losing their individuality, but not their being. So the first line is a brilliant summing up of the worldview of the East. The world is due. But then comes the unexpected final line, and yet, and yet, this is clearly a misgiving.

Being expressed about the whole approach, and many interpreters have agreed, including Pico-Ir, you can see it, he mentions Esa there, that what Esa is doing is he's wondering allowed, if detachment in the face of suffering is really possible, or even right. In any case, this is a testimony to the unnaturalness and maybe the impossibility of loving someone without desiring the relationship endure forever. See Christianity on the one hand says, of course you can yell and scream because suffering is terrible. Look at Jesus crying on the cross.

But on the other hand, Christianity says, yet God has got a plan. See, one of the most amazing things about Christian teaching about suffering is this, that our God is both sovereign and suffering. He's sovereign. It says the Romans 8, 28, all things work together for good to those who love God.

And are called according to his purpose, meaning that God has a plan for things, even if we can't see it. Now, if that's all it said, I couldn't handle that. That's too powerful, too remote. It's like he's a puppet master. But he's also a suffering God. He's come into our world and he became mortal and vulnerable. He suffered for us so that he could forgive us and he could end evil someday without ending us.

And see, if he was only a suffering God and not a sovereign God, then I couldn't be sure that what happens to me is meaningful that it's under his control. And if he was only a sovereign God but not a suffering God, then it would be too cold and harsh and I couldn't handle it because he's both a sovereign God and a suffering God, I can cry out, I know who he understands, and to end the end I can trust him. And so you see, I mean, I'll just read some of it, unlike, put it this way, Christianity teaches that contrary to stoicism, suffering is painful. Contrary to Buddhism, suffering is real, not an illusion.

Contrary to karma, suffering is often unfair, but contrary to secularism, suffering is meaningful. There's a purpose to it. Buddhism says accepted, karma says pay it, fatalism says heroically, endure it. Secularism says avoid it, or fix it. From the Christian perspective, all of them are right, partly, but reductionistically, and therefore

they're all wrong. So Christianity has the theology to say, sufferers do indeed need to stop loving material goods. We do need to detach our hearts somewhat from this world and from, and from, like goods in Kendra Go, this mortal life also means sometimes we do love our comforts too much and our money too much, and the Buddha say to Tatch your heart and that's partly right. We also, the comic people say that, you know, the comic religion say that we're paying for past sins. Well, there's a certain sense according to the Bible that is true we are as a human race. And the secular, secular, what I love about the secular world is, unlike the Eastern world, secularism says, let's not be passive in the face of suffering.

Let's do something about it. Let's not just accept it. Let's try to make sure it doesn't happen again. And that's true too, but that can't stop suffering. Christianity is so nuanced, so comprehensive. It actually includes the insights of every other culture yet transcends them all because of Jesus. Because of Jesus.

Why is there so much pain and 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 is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of the Gospel with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give.

Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now, here's what you have to consider if you are going to actually survive suffering. Here's an overview idea and five or six steps. The only hope I've got is that since you're all came to get the book, I don't have to work too much about saying, I got to cover it all. But here's the thing. When Kathy and I first got into the ministry,

one of the things we began to realize, took a few years, we began to realize. We got into the ministry, we began to realize that one of the main reasons that, one of the main reasons that so many people lost their faith in God was suffering. We also discovered that one of the main reasons that people found faith or strengthened their faith

was suffering. And therefore, suffering as an experience does not do anything to you. It's what you tell yourself about it that moves you one direction and other. And therefore, it's up to you. You must not think of yourself as passive in the face of suffering. You hear me? You must not.

It can make you or break you, and it's up to you. How you understand it, break you and it's up to you. How you understand it, how you treat it. That's something we learned pretty early on when we suddenly said, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. This person is saying, the reason I'm not a Christian, the reason I'm an atheist is because of suffering and the person would name what happened. Then we'd meet somebody else who went through exactly the same kind of suffering, the same

thing, same proportion, same level, and they said, that's what brought me to God. Okay, I'm trying to figure this out. What's going on here? And both of them would actually say, the suffering did it. Well, actually, it was what happened in their heart in response to the suffering that did it. And suffering can either make or break you, It can either make you a harder person, or a more tender, harder person.

It can make you a prouder person, or a humbler person. So you suffering can either bring you down and make you see, say, you know, I'm not as smart, or as good, or as strong as I thought. I need people, and I need God. Or it can also, suffering can make you incredibly the opposite, self-absorbed. Suffering can make you feel so noble,

like nobody understands because I've suffered. And you start to look down at people. So what's it gonna do? Is it gonna make you haughty? Or is it gonna make you humble? Is it gonna make you bitter and hard and not care about people? You see other people suffer?

I don't care because I went through. Or is it gonna make you more compassionate? Well, here's what I suggest in the last chapters of the book. I'll just name them and we'll take some questions. These are not exactly steps. In fact, to be wrong, to consider them steps. These are aspects. You've got to do them all.

OK, here's the first one, weeping. You've got to pour out your heart to God. You've got to be in touch with how badly you're hurting. You've got to be honest with yourself. You can't stoically just hold on and bite your lip and just wait for it to go away. That doesn't actually help you. Not only are you not going to learn anything from your suffering, if you just actually deny that you are suffering,

but actually it could really, really set you up for some terrible psychological collapse later on. And one of the things I love about the laments or the lamentation Psalms, especially Psalm 39 and 88, many of the Psalms start out very dark and in the end they come up and they say, but God will hear me or something like that. You notice how often that happens? But there's two times, Psalm 39 and Psalm 88, they just get to the end and they just stay dark. They get to the end and they say, you know, look away from me, Lord, to give me some peace before I die. Or they say, darkness is my only friend.

And one commentator, Derek Kiddner, a wonderful commentator on the Old Testament, looks at Psalm 39. I remember reading it several times and thinking, what in the world is this thing doing in the Bible? Where's the hope? Aren't we supposed to trust God? And Derek Kiddner said, this is a Psalm to remind you that you can stay in darkness a pretty long time.

And then he says, the fact that God puts it in the Bible shows what kind of God we have. And then he says, he understands how we speak when we're desperate. Weeping. God be able to do that. Secondly, trusting. What do I mean by trusting? Weeping. You've got to be able to do that. Secondly, trusting. What do I mean by trusting? Well, in the answer, here's these balances that you see on the one hand weep, don't be

stoic, on the other hand, hold on. Why? Where are you going to go? Where are you going to go? Imagine this. Let's imagine that you love Jesus Christ in His lifetime and you watch Him and you follow Him. And now you're standing at the foot of the cross and He's dying.

What are you going to do? Here's what you might do. Here's what you probably would do. Here's what I would do. Okay? Let me be honest. This is what I would do. I would say, I don't see anything good that God could possibly bring out of this.

Walk away, lose your faith. Why? Here you are looking at the greatest thing that's ever happened in the history of the world that God's doing for us. And because you can't fit it, you can't fit that ocean of meaning into your little thimble brain. You've lost your faith. Don't do it.

Hold on. Say, I don't know why God's letting Jesus die, but he might have a good reason for it, maybe. And he did. Thirdly, praying. One of the great things I learned from an Old Testament professor years ago, studying the book of Job, which is a very hard book to understand. The biggest reason it's so hard understand. His job is just always arguing and he's complaining and he's cursing the day he was born and he's saying to God, I don't

think you know what you're doing and you're reading this and you're going, you keep waiting from the geese, be struck by lightning. At the end, God shows up and says, you have done well and he speaks to Joe's friends and says, my servant, Joe, has honored me, and I'm mad at you. And you're sitting there saying, what? It's OK. And I remember my old Testament professor said, but you have to remember, he was yelling, and he was screaming, and he was chewing the rug,

and he was complaining, but he was praying. He did it with God. He stayed close to God. He did it in God's presence. And that's the reason why in the end he got through. Doesn't mean you have to feel good when you're praying. Just have to pray. Number four, okay, you need to learn how to reorder your loves. This is a very Augustinian thing. It'll be real fast about this, but it's as simple as this. I can't tell you how many times I've

had people say to me, okay, I had a financial reversal, I had a career reversal. I'm never going to have the career I had before. I'm never going to make the money I had before. And there's two ways you can go with that. One, as you can say, and it is, you know, it was too important to me. My relationship matter is my family, relationships, my relationship with God, not my job. It shouldn't be the most important thing. It's important, but I made it to important. What are you doing? I talk to people like that all the time. They're reordering their love.

They're putting their love for God and their family ahead of their love for their career. And as a result, they're getting some relief. But if you don't know how to do that in that situation, you're going to be aggravated. It'll be, and to a great degree, it's your fault. Reorder your loves. And lastly, hope.

you're going to be aggravated and to a great degree it's your fault, reality or love. And lastly, hope. Hope means we already talked about this. So I'm ending with it. At the, there's one place in Brothers' Caramots off where Dusty Eski puts in the mouth of Ivan Caramontsoff, who actually, in the end, still objects to God and evil and suffering. But Dusty Eski puts probably what most scholars think is his own view in Ivan's mouth about how we can handle God and suffering. And this is what he says, I believe like a child that's suffering will be healed

and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidian mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass, it will suffice for all hearts, for all the comforting of resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they've shed, it will

make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that's happened. This then is the ultimate defeat of evil. Actually, CSList puts it in great divorce as a place where it says, the eventual glory will be so great that it will work backwards. Meaning, the bad things that have happened will be sucked up into the glory and will only make the glory better for it having happened. That's the ultimate defeat. That's a little bit hard to grasp or understand,

but I don't think there's any other way to do justice to the promises of what God says is going to be there in the future. And sometimes you just have to think about that. There's a great place where Paul says, I reckon that the sufferings of this present time is not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed. Now he sounds like he's from Mississippi, doesn't he?

I reckon that, or is it Texas? Yeah, I reckon that, this, well, but the word reckon there is an old English word, of course. They guess across the idea of thinking, accounting, adding it up, adding it up. And what we're trying to do here is, what Paul is trying to say is sometimes, I just have to think about the resurrection.

I have to think about the glory that will be revealed. And I have to think and think and think and think until the glory overshadows me. And the suffering that I'm going through right now looks small by comparison. That's a mental discipline, but it's actually a, it's just a way of immersing your heart in hope.

So weeping, trusting, praying, reordering your loves and hoping, you can't not do any of them. Hoping without the weeping is cognitive therapy. Weeping without the hoping is just ventilation. In other words, they're all reductionistic unless you bring them all together and see them in Jesus. Look at Jesus weeping and crying out for you. Look at Jesus trusting God even though He's being crushed.

And in order to love us and forgive us. See, look at Jesus praying in the garden, he gets somebody not my will but dying be done. Look at Jesus doing everything. And you will be able to, and it'll make you into a great and beautiful person rather than a small and triple person. So those are overviews and there's a lot more where that came from, but you're probably sitting

on it right now, so I don't have to tell you much more about it. So I think, let's just see whether they come right up. Right? You want to ask me a question? Oh, okay, let's go. No, the question is, you want to sit? Or do you want to? We have it.

Oh, OK, I'll just have to break it. Yeah. Just a couple. I tried to collate the ones that have come in and maybe bucket them this way, Tim. Maybe start with an intellectual question and a personal and a cultural first. In a world of evil and suffering, you probably have faced these questions over the years.

Someone might say, given a world that has 9-11 and Hurricane Sandy, I just can't believe in a God of love. What would you say to them? Well, that's the classic. I sized step that earlier, so thank you very much, David, for mirroring the fact. I'm so welcome. No, that's the classic question, which says, if God is all good and all powerful, why is there evil? If he's all good and not all powerful,

he might want to get rid of it, but not be able to. If he's all powerful but not all good, he might be able to get rid of evil but not one too. But if he's all good and all powerful, he would get rid of evil, if there's no, but if evil's there, that shows that we don't have an all-powerful, all-good God. That's called the logical argument from evil against God. In the past, people have thought that that argument disproved God and said, we can't have God if at least not a biblical God,

not a all good, all powerful God, given evil. But in the last 30 years, that argument has been at least in philosophical circles dismantled. I must tell you that out in the, on the street it still has a lot of currency, but it doesn't so much. The logical argument against God from evil doesn't have any currency much in philosophical circles for this reason. There's probably two reasons for the problem and a third. The first is this, that when you say a good

and all-powerful God couldn't have any good reason for allowing evil. The assumption there is that because you can't think of a good reason, and therefore God couldn't have one. See, how in the world could you possibly prove that God couldn't have a good reason that we can't think of? If he's really infinite, see, the point is, if you're trying to just prove the biblical God, the biblical God is so big and so infinite,

he knows so much more than we do, you can't assume that just because you can't think of some good reason why, and just the final reason why God allows suffering and evil that he couldn't have one. And therefore, even though this might sound, this is cold comfort for a suffering person, I know. But at the philosophical level, it means the argument doesn't work. You can't say, God would not allow, a good and powerful God would not allow evil. Well, that's assuming he doesn't have a good reason to do it.

Of course, he doesn't have a good reason. Why not? Because we can't think of any good reason. Oh, you're trying to say because you human beings can't think of a good reason. Therefore, there can't be one. See, that's a non-sequitur. And in philosophical circles, it means it doesn't work. The other thing, of course, I'll just add this.

The Christian understanding is that God in Jesus Christ came to earth and suffered for us. So even though we don't know what the reason that God allows suffering, we don't know the reason. We don't know what the reason that God allows evil and suffering, what it is. We don't know what it is. On the other hand, we know what it isn't.

It can't be because he doesn't love us. It can't be because he doesn't love us. It can't be because he doesn't care or he's remote. So the cross gives us half the answer, and that is, it's not because God just doesn't care. And that's the half we need, I think. The other half, which was a mystery to us, is, OK, what are the good reasons? And of course, Ivan Karamatsse says, well, you'll find out.

Or Dusty Eskiz is. Great. Thank you. In terms of a more personal question, not an intellectual one, the people we often are intersecting and are lies with people who are suffering, what advice you started to tease out this a little bit, would you give practically to just provide comfort and counsel to people who are suffering? Especially maybe if they don't Share the same world you have so they don't believe in God necessarily are there things that we can do to help people in Suffering in practical ways sure the two mistakes. I think we make

The two mistakes I think we make, the two mistakes we make in help trying to help people who go through suffering. And by the way, if you've been through suffering yourself, you're not gonna make this mistake. You tend to make it before you've been through troubles yourself. The one is you feel like the solution is content. I gotta give people answers, I've gotta have explanations, I've gotta, as I said, when a person in philosophy class who's troubled by evil and injustice comes

up to me as a professor, let's say, and they're not suffering themselves, but they're very troubled by the presence of evil and suffering. If they say, why is God allowing this, then I should have an answer. But if you go to see somebody after their loved one has died and you sit down besides them and they look at you and say, why did God allow this? If you even begin to try to do what you did with a philosophy student, they're going to take your head off and they should. It content isn't nearly as important as presence and being present. And in a sense, giving people the eye, giving people a sense that I've got community around

me. There's no doubt about that. The other thing you have to keep in mind is that there are varieties of suffering. There is a whole chapter in the book on this. And it is a great mistake to put just put a template down on suffering and always treat everybody the same way. For example, there are some forms of suffering that the person feels they brought on,

and therefore there's a sense of failure, guilt, and shame. There's other suffering in which a person is, feels that they're being persecuted and betrayed by someone, in which case there's incredible bitter resentment towards somebody. There are other kinds of suffering, which are just sort of normal kinds of losses. So people die, or you have a diagnosis

of having a serious disease or something like that. These are, it's not a failure on your part. It's not somebody did that to you. It's more like life is doing it to you. And then, fourthly, there's the horrendous kind of suffering. The over-the-top, the crazy stuff, where you have little children being tortured to death or a young mother falling dead of a brain aneurysm and leaving five children behind, that kind of thing.

So you have the awful, terrible, horrendous stuff. Every one of those has unique features. In the first, the person who feels like they're failing, they need to receive grace. They need to receive forgiveness. And the best thing for you to do is just to be a forgiving and kind person. In the second, they need to learn how to give forgiveness. And that's a different thing to talk about. And especially the last one, the anger at God, I think if you're just present with somebody,

and they hear you hearing them rail against God, but not getting all offended. That can actually help them. So in every one of those situations, you need to be aware of the varieties, how different it is for different people to go through these different pathways, and mainly your presence rather than your content is important. I remember your wife actually one time saying when someone asks you one of those very difficult questions you can say I don't know because that's an answer. It actually isn't an answer and actually connects a lot of

times with people because they don't know either and some shared sense that you're not you don't have content is way to help people. Just to say I'm not sure and I'll be happy to talk to you about it as time goes on. That's shared sense that you don't have content as a way to help people. Just to say I'm not sure. And I'll be happy to talk to you about it as time goes on. That's another way to not giving people the impression that it's just a black pithers. Johnny Erickson taught us, as said, that it says just because suffering is a misregid.

Doesn't mean there aren't any explanations at all. See, there are some, suffering is sort of like a wilderness with some pathways. There are some pathways that you can try to tread on, but much of it is trackless. And so just because there's big parts where it's mysterious and we shouldn't even try to go there, there are some things that we can know.

And so I try to say one thing is, if you believe in Christ that even though you think he's a band in UE has it. And I would say, but even there, at the very, very beginning when somebody's suffering, I wouldn't, as a pastor, I wouldn't even say that yet. Right. Okay, intellectual personal, how about a cultural one which are, you know, the church in

the public square. Certainly, there are people who have suffered at the hands of people within the church. And yet, how can the church do a better job of bringing to bear some of the resources of Christianity into the public square and be a positive influence. Are there things that we could do better as a church? That redeemer per se, but the church. Do you think that's talking about people outside the church or inside the church? Outside the church.

Are there things institutionally that can contribute to the greater good with respect of this issue? Well, yeah, I must say that we have a little bit of a leg, apart from me, we're a little bit of a disadvantage, perhaps. We're talking about the public square. The first Christians, you must keep in mind that there were no such things as hospitals, except for soldiers. They used, they, they, they, one-to-patch soldiers up

so they could go back and fight, but there weren't hospitals for other people. There certainly weren't hospitals for poor. The poor, there weren't orphanages. Christianity, at least in the Western world, created humanitarianism. The whole idea of human rights, the whole idea of caring for the poor and hospitals and orphanages,

that's all basically a Christian creation. And therefore, the first Christians looked enormously more compassionate than their neighbors. Today, we live in not in a pre-Christian but a post-Christian society, and the humanitarian part of Christianity has been hijacked as it were, and it's been held onto. People have gotten rid of the beliefs. We've gotten rid of the beliefs that every human being has made the image of God, and we're all, you know, in that sense, we're all God's offspring. The theological beliefs that undergird the idea of caring for the dignity of every human being, they're going away, and yet our culture maintains a pretty strong

humanitarian spirit. Now, all I know is it's possible that it's time goes on without the beliefs that we may become more cruel again. Meanwhile, it's like Christians jobs to just do what we've always done. It's just a is to pour ourselves out for the needs of marginal people, of needs of poor people, the needs of sick people. We should do what we've always done and it might be in the future we or the needs of marginal people, of needs of poor people, the needs of sick people, we should do what we've always done, and it might be in the future, we will really look different again.

Right now, we'll pretty much look like a lot of other people, but nevertheless, we need to do that. We have to do that, we'll have no, we won't be true to who we are, and we certainly won't have any credibility. All right, let me just do one more under the umbrella of maybe theological,

so intellectual, personal, cultural, so much of the Bible, particularly in poetry and the Psalms, God is portrayed as a rescuer, as a helper, as a shepherd, as a refuge. One of the questions was, for a lot of us, that seems fairly remote, how do we experience that promise now, or is it just really kind of an ethereal,

eternal promise for the future? Are there ways that we can access or experience that aspect of God now in the midst of our suffering? No, no, no, no. I mean, I think, yeah, no, yes, we can do it now. I've already actually alluded to it a little bit. Sometimes in my, in my, sometimes

you just do it objectively. There's a place where, let me see if I got it here. Now, listen, this doesn't sound very touchy-feely. Elizabeth Elliott, who lost her husband, Jim, and a bunch of other friends, they were killed in the Amazon jungle many years ago, trying to reach a very primitive stone age kind of tribe. Anyway, in one of her books she writes this, God is God. If he is God, he is worthy of my worship and my service. I will rest nowhere but in his will. And that it will is infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to. Now, if you find that cold,

like, oh boy, that means I just got to suck it up right you know. Actually it's a refuge. It's a refuge. She wrote a, Elizabeth L.A. wrote a novel, the only novel she wrote called No Grave in Image, and it's about a, basically about a missionary who gives her life to the Lord and goes out and does all this and everything goes wrong. At the end, everything goes wrong. Her whole life, everything she's worked for, goes down the drain. Long story, I'm not going to give it to you now. But at the very end of the book, in probably this happened to her.

So it's really just an almost an autobiography. At the very end, she said, if God was my accomplice, he had betrayed me. But if God was my God, then he'd liberated me. And what he was trying to say, it's liberating to say, I'm not God, he is. And that is liberating. It is liberating. It's a form of trust.

It's a little difficult for Western people to understand this, but honestly, when you actually are willing to say, and this isn't just asking for a feeling, this is actually letting go and letting and saying, you are God, I am not, and your will is immeasurably beyond my largest notions of what you're up to. But I don't have to know that. That's a refuge.

Do you know how to do that? You can, you that. There's a book in one place in the Proverbs that says, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous man runs to it and is safe. Towers were where you went in a fight, or there's a battle. You went to the tower and you were safe. And just the idea that God is that big, very important. Secondly, by the way, sometimes God actually does now give you the peace that passes understanding. You can't always know when it's gonna happen. You can't demand it.

There's no buttons to push to make sure it's there. So you can access the refuge. God is a refuge now, objectively and subjectively. Great, that should be it. I will be it. Thank you to Tim Keller for this time. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller on facing pain and suffering with the hope of Christ.

We pray you were encouraged. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelandlife.com. That's gospelandlife.com. That's gospelandlife.com. This month's sermons were recorded in 2004 and 2008. 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. you