Questions of Suffering – Timothy Keller [Sermon]

tonight Swiftsure eating can be found on page 8 of your bulletin it's taken from job chapter 1 verses 8 through 22 then the Lord said to Satan have you considered my servant job there is no one on earth like him he is blameless and upright a man who fears God and shuns evil does job fear God for nothing Satan replied have you not put a hedge around him in his household and everything he has you have blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land but stretch out

your hand and strike everything he has and he will surely curse you to your face the Lord said to Satan very well then everything he has is in your hands but on the man himself do not lay a finger then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord one day when job's sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house a messenger came to Jobe and said the oxen were ploughing and the donkeys were grazing nearby and the Sabian's attacked and carried them off they put the servants to the sword

and I am the only one who was escaped to tell you while he was still speaking another messenger came and said the fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants and I am the only one who is escaped to tell you while he was still speaking another messenger came and said the Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and carried them off they put the servants to the sword and I am the only one who was escaped to tell you while he was still speaking

yet another messenger came and said your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house it collapsed on them and they are dead and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you at this job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head then he fell to the ground and worship and said naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will depart the Lord gave and the Lord has

taken away may the name of the Lord be praised in all this job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing this is God's Word there's nothing more certain than that you're going to suffer or and at least that people around you are going to be suffering disease death disaster deep disappointment all the deadly DS when you suffer it's just so natural to ask the question why in fact instinctively sometimes the very first thing out of your mouth when tragedy hits why me why this why now why them why him why her but it's why

the question why there is no book of the Bible there's no piece of literature in in the whole world that addresses the great question of suffering the why question of suffering with the intellectual and philosophical integrity and deafness with the emotional and dramatic realism and with a spiritual wisdom of the book of Job the book of Job is a it's actually an epic poem it's a lyrical epic poem the only one really like it in the Bible and it's a it consists of first of all a dialogue between God and Satan and then a long

dialogue between job and his friends and finally a climactic dialogue between God and Jobe and we're going to look at this over a number of weeks and right out of the right out of the gate we get some it we get some major advice about how to suffer the inevitable burdens of human life it has to do with this question why right away we ask the question why and here's the advice we get from this text we're going to learn here number one you have to avoid Pat answers to the why question of suffering secondly

need to embrace living without an answer to the why question and then thirdly you need to anticipate the ultimate answer to the why question avoid Pat answers to it embrace actively embrace and accept living without an answer to the questions of why you're suffering and then lastly anticipate the final answer avoid the Pat answer be willing to live without an answer and anticipate the final answer first avoid Pat answers basically when suffering hits there are two basic ways people respond to them the more religious person starts to say why is God punishing me what am

I doing wrong maybe I need to go to church more maybe need to pray more I'm afraid there's a lot of folks and not just in religions in general but in a church itself that say well you know if you if you're sick you don't have enough faith if you're having financial problems you need to have believe you need have enough faith so one of the responses is what I'll call moralism start pushing those buttons start doing all the things in every God will bless you if I'm more if I'm more diligent if I pray

more etc the other approach is not moralism but cynicism and we're as religious people Tennessee suffering as a punishment secular people tend to see suffering as just the randomness of life a random thing life is a crapshoot religious people have a tendency to believe well if you live good life then good things will happen to you and if bad things are happened to you maybe you're not praying enough maybe you're not living good enough but secondly people have a tendency when they see suffering they say see this proves that there is no God or if

there is a God he's incompetent or indifferent this shows that life's a crapshoot this shows that there is a God you know you can the heck with him because he allows this sort of evil and suffering and these are the two approaches moralism and cynicism and moralism is based on this idea that God is up there doing tit for tat and if you live a good life you'll have a good life and if you're not having a good life it must be you're not living right and cynicism is based on the idea that nobody's in

charge that life is random it's just a matter of chance there is no good one good powerful guide in charge of everything and the book of Job starts right out to tell us that both of those approaches are absolutely wrong and spiritual dead ends and it tells us through this amazing dialogue between God and Satan in verse 8 God says have you seen my servant Jove there's none like him in all the earth a man who fears God and shuns evil and Satan says oh you think he's so great hurt him let bad things happen

to him and you'll see he's no good and God says very well you can do this but not this and Satan went out and did all these bad things to Joe and when we first look at this we might be horrified what in the world is God and Satan playing games with with this poor job and that's that's to totally miss the brilliance of this this is narrative Lee and and dramatically getting across a profound philosophical point and that is the AUSA metrical relationship of God to suffering no other philosophy no other religion has this

particular belief God's awesome Etra chol relationship to evil and suffering what do I mean on the one hand notice it's satan's idea that all these bad things should happen to job God doesn't come up with the idea Satan's idea Satan is the one who does and does it God does not actually actively directly generate the suffering Satan does it and he goes and does it and this is a way of getting across a very important fact and that is that when God made the world he didn't make disease in it he didn't make natural disaster

that's not the world God made it was in the world in which wind storms came and knocked over houses and killed everybody in them it wasn't a it wasn't a place of death disease and disaster and death are not things God actually made there in this world but he didn't directly make them they are forces of darkness that were unleashed when we turned away from God and when we rebelled against God the fabric of this world began to unravel and we unleashed those forces so on the one hand we say God is not actively desiring

deliberately intentionally creating the suffering that goes into jobs life Satan is doing it but and it's a very important yet yet however God is in absolute control we don't have Satan and God you know it's two opposite forces fighting against each other not at all what we have here is God in total charge but what he's doing is he's overruling the evil do you understand this he permits it notice he says very well but then he limits it he says you can do this but you can't do that you can't touch him you can't do

this you can do that he's in total charge why does God allow this and here's the answer God only allows Satan to accomplish the very opposite of what he wanted to accomplish he only gives it Satan enough rope to hang himself Satan is bringing evil into jobs life right suffering in Joe's right life right but he has a result he's trying to get it right what is Satan want what is the result that Satan once in job's life from all the suffering he wants him discredited right he wants some exposed as a fraud right and

yet at you don't even need to have read the whole book to know something and that is job is one of the most great and famous figures in the history of the human race thousands of years later here we have thousands of people in New York City meeting together to study his life millions of people had their lives changed by his example of bravery and courage and of pathos and humanity Satan was allowed by God to bring evil into job's life God hates evil he's against it see he didn't create a world in which evil

existed but he permits it why he permits Satan only to bring evil into job's life in such a way and in such an amount that actually completely defeats Satan's real intention Satan is only allowed by God to actually defeat himself and achieve the very opposite of what he wanted and what this is telling us is two things and boy this is important everybody number one we're told here we're being told this is probably the way God works with us God hates if suffering and evil see but on the other hand he's in control it's awesome

Metro you can't say God can't help it sure he's permitting it he's in charge but you can't say God just loves to see people suffer he doesn't see he hates it but he permits it but why does he permit it he permits evil and suffering to come into your life only to the degree that it defeats the actual intention of Satan for you only the degree it makes you a great person owner degree actually it actually defeats itself but the other thing we learn here is job never finds out about this do you know that

through that the entire book job never hears about this he has no idea that's why he's suffering in fact one job would get when you get to the end of the book and and and God shows up and begins to say speak to job he never brings it up he never tells him about it he never says when I listen job I just want you realize has been really hard I know but do you realize for the rest of the the rest of time for the rest of history you will be you will be the

object one of the great works of literature your your model and your example is going to change people's lives for millions and millions and millions of years so you see it's all going to be for the good god never says that all he says is who darkens counsel through words without who do you think you are Joe I'm God I know what I'm doing see what the moralist says oh the reason you're suffering is you're not living right you need more faith and the cynic says oh the reason you're suffering is life is a crapshoot

and God's out to lunch those are Pat answers how do they know they don't know that and their answers to keep them in control huh because the cynics is all you see look at how life is so bad look at all these evil and suffering God is allowing you can live any way you want you Oh God nothing and the Marlys says oh no you do this and this and this and then God has to bless you but the Bible says both of those are Pat answers both of those are trying to answer the question

for why and both of those are ways for people to give Pat answers to the ant to the question why that keep them in control but what the Bible calls you to do is to serve God even though you'll never know you will never know just like Jobe never knew the actual reasons for the suffering you therefore hold on to mystery you do not try to get an answer and you stay in a relationship with a god that you can't control but not only that that's just the first thing we're being told avoid those Pat

answers the second thing we're being told is don't just resign yourself that you're never going to learn why you suffer embrace it see that it you need not to know now listen to me carefully you need not to know he said why is that well look in verse 8 job says pardon me God says been doing this all day God job's Satan you know they kind of look alike in my mind you know all right God says job loves me see he says God job is my servant but he fears me and in the Old

Testament word fear is a much more positive term than what you comes across in English the word fear means in word aw and wonder and therefore God is saying job serves me but out of love job loves me and you know what Satan says now he doesn't he doesn't serve you for nothing what does that mean he doesn't love you he loves the things you're getting he's getting from you it's the things that he loves it's the money it's the prosperity it's the health it's the status he doesn't love you he loves the things he's

getting from you he doesn't love you for yourself he doesn't love you for you yourself alone if any of those things go away he'll be out of there now let's give the devil his due I believe he's put his finger smack on one of the big problems with the whole human race absolutely look there's no place more like this in New York by the way no coincidence have you ever been having somebody coming after you being real friendly to you and when they find out that you're not going to do what they want you to

do they're gone you know if you're a little higher up in business or the media or the art world and you meet somebody a little further down and they're really friendly to you until they find out you're not really going to open doors for them and then they're gone you weren't being befriended you weren't being loved for you yourself you're being networked or let me be a little more serious even you know a lot of women know this a guy comes on very friendly very you know affirming really seems to be interested in you and

when he finds you won't sleep with him he's gone why he didn't love you for yourself alone he loved you for it he loved you for what he was going to get and Satan is smiling see that's how human beings are oh and that's not how men are that's how human beings are because because ends listen if you've ever been the object of one of these things where you feel like the person really liked you but when they found out that you weren't getting what you they wanted from you they drop you hmm how do

you feel you feel like you're treated as an object you feel depersonalized dehumanized right but guess what when you treat somebody like that you don't just be personalized them you dehumanize yourself you become an exploiter you become a manipulator you become hard you become a cynical Satan bit by bit by bit you're getting more like him because you see when Satan looks at people loving saying they love God people saying they love each other you know what he says you're all in it for yourself you're not loving that person you're loving yourself and getting things

from the person you don't love the person for who they are themselves but if you want to be a real human being not a manipulator if you want to be a really compassionate person if you want to be a person of integrity a person of principle you've got to learn how to love God for who he is himself alone and love people for who they are in themselves and guess what the only way that's going to happen almost always the only way you're ever going to learn to love God for who he is in himself

is through suffering was Satan right about Jobe yes and no because at the end of chapter one after job loses a lot of things he hasn't lost his health yet he's lost his money and he's lost his family he boughs and continues to worship God see he lost his things and we'll get back to this in a minute he said these things aren't really important God's important and as a result at the end of the first quarter it is job one Satan zero you see in other words one goes to say it goes to job

not to Satan but we're going to see as we get into things as we as we get deeper into the book that there is self-centeredness a lot of self-centeredness clinging to Jobe he's not he's not a self-centered mercenary all the way down he doesn't love God just for the things but he doesn't yet love God for himself alone and the only way for God to make Jobe into a man of greatness is to have him suffer and not know why he meet why see I've had people say to me I could handle this suffering if

God would just show me exactly why see if he could just come and say oh you're suffering now this is terrible but five years from now this will happen and ten years from now that will happen then I'd be able to handle it in other words you'd be suffering you'd be serving God for the for the things you were going to get the only way to be sure you're serving God for he himself alone rather than for what you're getting out of it is you've got to be in a condition where serving God gives you

nothing where you're getting nothing out of serving God in fact you're getting the opposite in fact by being serviced by serving God bad things are happening - because you're serving God you're getting nothing out of it at all that's the reason why you can't know the reason for your suffering there can't be a reason why an answer to the question why given to you or you will never become the kind of person that suffering can make you see if you really want to learn how to love God for himself alone become not a manipulator not

an exploiter not that exactly the person that Satan says you really are even though it's not completely true but it's partly true then you've got to be willing to let God put you through the wringer so point one you have to avoid Pat answers to the question why am i suffering but secondly you need to actively be willing to embrace living life without knowing why you're suffering that's the only way to become a person who loves that's the only way to see Satan is cynical about love you know it's about you know when when God

says have you seen my servant job he loves me you can almost hear Satan's begin singing what's love got to do with it got to do with it you almost hear satan saying oh yes true love see Satan is the cynic that says you people don't love each other you're using each other and God says I can create free lovers you know it's intriguing that that if I read the book read Screwtape Letters sometime I was just going to read you a section but the time was running by there's a play Screwtape the Screwtape Letters

are based on the book of Job from what I can tell because the Devils are always saying there's no such thing as love there's no such thing as love there's no such thing as love yet they know that the reason why their enemy Jesus Christ often puts his disciples through the wringer is because he says he wants to turn them Screwtape says he wants to turn them into free lovers and it's the only way to become a free lover someone who loves Christ loves loves God for himself alone now look finally what are you being

called - you're being called to stay in a relationship with a God that you can't control and accept embrace the mystery and not knowing why you're suffering and not expecting you ever will know and realize that that is a way for you to learn to love God for himself alone and to only way to become a truly human being otherwise you're just you're just a demon otherwise you're just a manipulator otherwise you're just you're just a tyrant your dictator so how do we walk this path job starts off awfully well you know why he says

naked I came out of the womb and naked I'm going to die he says the Lord has given and the Lord is taken away blessed be the name of the Lord or this translation the name of the Lord be praised there's two things you got to see here first of all there's emotional realism one of the things I find fascinating is it says listen it's his job tour his robes fell to the ground cried out and yet it also says and all these things Jobson not you know we people especially way western people here in

the West we church people if you see somebody who tears their robe you know tears their their clothes and and run jumps falls to the ground screams we say kind of lost it happened thing if the Bible says and all these things job send not you know crying out grieving in the midst of pain there is Christianity is not stoicism sorry this text proves that but in his emotional pain and in his emotional authenticity and in his being totally in touch and free in his expression of his emotions he holds on to the theology of

grace because what does he say he does not say these things that you've taken for me they're mine I earned them I worked hard for them these homes these children this money these things remind how dare you take them away what does he say I came naked naked means vulnerable and helpless and I'm leaving naked and everything I have was on loan from god there's just God gave them to me they're gifts of grace now let me tell you why it is absolutely crucial to grab hold on the theology of grace when you're suffering if

you build your life on your things if you say the thing that makes me who I am is I've worked so hard and I've got this money I've got this position I've got this name I've got this achievement suffering so if the other most foundations of your heart and happiness are your things suffering will be pulling you away from the uttermost foundation of your happiness because that's what suffering is suffering is always taking away something important to you some earthly thing and so if you build your life on things suffering will make you sadder and

sadder matter and matter worse and worse but if as job you build your life on God and though you certainly like having money and you certainly like having your health you certainly like having friends and loved ones the ultimate love is God's love the alts wealth is god's love the ultimate status is God's love then what suffering is doing is it's driving you deeper into the source of your joy so if you build your life on things suffering pulls you away from the source of your joy and you're just going to get madder and madder

and sadder and sadder and worse and worse but if you build your life on God then what happens is suffering drives you into him drives you deeper into the source of your joy and that's the reason why job became job that's the right that's the reason why everybody's heard of Joe that's the reason why we're talking about Jobe now that's the reason why Satan was defeated even though that's why Satan actually actually accomplished the opposite of what he expected and wanted Wow so go home and be like Jobe we're going to see Jobe isn't even

being like Joe and the rest of the book but I want you to see one thing when Joe got ahold of grace he didn't have a whole lot to go with all he knew was hey these things you know came from God and I should look at them as a loan and if God wants to take them away it's he brought them to me to start with so he is the right to do that that's rational that's theologically that's right but boy he had no such he does not have the resource to understand grace that

we do and let me tell you what the resources that we have that he didn't have and therefore we have a really very little excuse not to be able to become great under suffering here's what it is Satan comes to God and says job doesn't really love you he's just using you you know he did that before you know where he does that in the Garden of Eden in the Garden of Eden Satan comes to us and says God doesn't really love you see Adam and Eve said we're not allowed to eat the tree because

God says we shouldn't eat the tree because He loves us and what is Satan say you must be kidding what's love got to do with it he's using you that tree is perfectly good to eat he's just trying to use you he's trying to keep you down he's trying to exploit you now listen when Satan said that bad things to God about us even though there was some truth in them God didn't accept it but when Satan said bad things to us about God and there was no truth in it we believed it the lie

of Satan is if you give yourself to God utterly and wholly if you totally trust him he'll crush you you won't be happy you can't trust God God doesn't really love you that's the lie of Satan it's sank into the hearts of our parents it's Adam and Eve it has sunk into the heart of every human being and you know the reason why we can't handle bad news you reason though the reason why when suffering comes we immediately think the worse of God you know why let me speak for myself please I mean obviously let

me speak for myself my main problem is life in my in life is I don't really believe God loves me you say what are you talking about you tell me every week what's my you some kind of hypocrite no no I'm saying look I know it up here but I do not know I am NOT as certain as this is my right hand that the Lord of the universe loves me unstoppably infallibly unconditionally I don't know that in my heart of hearts deep down inside when somebody criticizes me when bad things happen it doesn't look

like I'm succeeding why do I get so upset because well you know I guess God loves me but that's kind of on audio but what people think of me is on video see what God thinks about me is kind of abstract but what people think of me and how things are going down here that's important I know that God loves me but the important thing is I need my things I need my status I need my achievement I didn't make friendships I need my success I need my people around me loving me the reason I

can't handle suffering is because I believe the lie of Satan Satan said to God about us they don't really love you and he resisted but when Satan said to us about God he doesn't love you we absolutely believed it and the biggest thing we need is proof that he loves us and the thing we need to handle life is proof that he loves us and the thing that we need to walk down this path of suffering without knowing exactly the reasons why it's happening so that we can turn into people of greatness is we need

to believe that Satan is a liar and that God loves us well how do we know that I'll tell you how we know it Italian Job I don't know how Jobe Noah but I can tell you how we know it centuries later Satan assaulted another innocent sufferer who died naked and who died crying out why why am i suffering and he got no answer it was Jesus Christ but keep this in mind when Jobe suffered he was only relatively innocent but Jesus Christ was the true Joe the true absolutely innocent sufferer and when Jobe felt

he was abandoned by God that's he wasn't really because we'll see that at the end of the book but Jesus was truly abandoned by God in fact Jesus is the only person in history that God said to if you obey me fully I'll crush you to powder and send you to hell I'll turn my back on you and you will experience absolute separation from the glory in the face of the Father if you obey me fully I will send you to help nobody ever said that to anyone no God never said that any other human

being but Jesus Christ Jesus Christ is the only person who ever served God truly for nothing and why did he do it for us and that's your proof you jobs out there you people who are suffering and you have no idea why and thought you can tell you it's not because of anything you did that is what you need you jobs out there to see the ultimate job Jesus Christ the ultimate innocent sufferer because when he died on the cross for you that proves the Satan's a liar that proves that is Satan is an absolute

liar pikas God in human form was able was willing to love us just for who we were in himself in ourselves he he didn't get anything out of it Jesus already had all glory he had all the Angels were to eat it why did he love us because he was going to get something out of he couldn't get anything out of it he loved us for who we are in himself so you go love him for who he is in himself Jesus Christ suffered not that we would not suffer but that when we suffer we

could become like him let us pray thank you father for giving us this good word a terrible word but a good word and that is that there's a purpose when bad things happen to us and you hate evil and suffering you hated so much you were willing to get involved with it and become a innocent sufferer yourself and that's the result as a result when we suffer even though we have done nothing to bring it on ourselves we can know you still love us and we can walk the path of obedience and faithfulness to you

without knowing why we're suffering and yet at the same time trust you and know that you love us because of what Jesus Christ did and that we know is going to make us it's going to refine our faith and it's going to refine our souls so that we come out looking like gold and silver and we pray father that you would help us to understand that Jesus Christ came and did this for us so that we now can face our problems and our troubles with poise and even with a certain amount of joy certainly with

grace and we ask that you'd give us this through Jesus in his name we pray amen for more of this series and other resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church please visit