So much faith in empirical reason, technology, and personal experience that it's easy to wonder, Old as Christianity have any relevance to the problems of modern life? This month, Tim Keller invites us to consider how... Christianity is more relevant than ever in offering answers to the deepest longings of our hearts So we're going to spend two weeks on the psalm and two weeks on the theme Because I think as you will see it's a tremendously relevant ...tremendously practical and especially, by the way, as we go into the holidays, you're going to find there's a... Many of us will have a particular need to grasp the teaching of this passage.

Psalm 73 reads, and it's printed in your bulletin, Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. My feet had almost slipped. I had nearly lost the foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles, their bodies are healthy and strong, they are free from the burdens common to man, they are not plagued by human ills. For pride is their necklace. They clothe themselves with violence, and their callous hearts come-- ...the evil conceits of their minds know no limits. They scoff and speak with malice. In their arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven and their tongues take possession of the earth. Their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. They say, How can God know? I have knowledge. This is what the wicked are like. Always carefree. They increase in wealth.

Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure. In vain I have washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued. I have been punished every morning. If I had said I will spook my heart. Thus I would have betrayed your children. When I tried to understand all this it was oppressive to me till I entered... The sanctuary of God. And then I understood their final destiny. Surely you put them in ...on slippery ground, you cast them down to ruin, how suddenly they are destroyed, completely swept... As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. Thank you. When my heart was grazed and my spirit embedded, I was senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you. You hold me by my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For far from you will perish, you will destroy all who are unfaithful to you, but as for me, it is good to be you. Dear God, I have made this sovereign Lord my refuge, and I will tell... Of all your deeds. God's Word. Now I hate to do this because in a sense I know... Next week, a holiday weekend, many, many, many of you won't be here, but I tell you, this Psalm and the teaching of this Psalm... Something I so much want to get into you as a community and as a body that I've got to give it time. And if you're not going to be here next week, I urge you to maybe get the tape or something like that. Listen. A lot of people are mad at God. People who believe. People who don't believe.

And people who don't know what they believe are mad at God. R.C. Spoke once I heard him tell... Story he was out golfing and his golf partner insisted that he wasn't religious and I actually probed a little bit and at one point he turned to him and said, I can't believe in a God who let my little baby die. Now you see... See what you've got there? There's such a thing as true doubt. ...the evidence for God compelling, but that's not what that was. You can't. Mad at somebody, you're sure doesn't exist. An awful lot of what we think and an awful lot of what's going on in this room in a Of your hearts, which you think is doubt, and you think it's intellectual doubt. I just can't see the evidence, but actually you're mad at the one that you say you doubt in.

And it's not just unbelievers, it's not just people who are doubtful or skeptical, it's not just people who don't know what they believe. I'm suggesting to you... ...underneath an awful lot of your so-called skepticism and intellectual doubts, you're just mad at the way your life is going and at the way God is running the world. But I'm also suggesting to a lot of those of you who say, I'm a Christian. It could be that underneath a lot of your doubts and a lot of your troubles and a lot of your struggles, you're mad. You know, the counselors will tell you there's nothing that we deny more than that. Anger. And in your typical church people will say, Mad at God? Oh, a good Christian would never get mad at God. And yet here we have... I have many, many extremely honest and very realistic passages in the Bible. When my heart was grooved, my spirit embittered, I was senseless and...

Ignorant, I was a beast before you. What is he saying? I was mad at you. You know, there's a place in... Psalm 44 where it says, All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten thee, or have been false to thy covenant. ...we were slain all the day long. Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off. Why dost thou hide thy face? Why dost thou forget our affliction and our oppression? Wake up, God! What's wrong? All through the Bible we've got people who are realistic, and I hope you will get realistic. Some of you who say, I'm not a Christian, you really, I don't believe in God, I'm mad at God, it's your real problem. Some of you who are Christians, you're saying, Well, No problem is I can't go or I worship is nothing, my quiet times are boring, I don't understand, God doesn't seem to be very real to me. You're mad maybe. Now this is one of the classic, maybe this is the classic case that tells you what happens when you start to get mad at the injustice of life.

Mad at the way God seems to be manhandling, mishandling the world. Look, and here's a person, and that person catches, discovers the cancer in time to catch it, and here's somebody else who does it, and he or she dies. It's random, it all seems unfair. Now this man, his name is... Asaf, the writer of this song, tells us about... About a problem that he had and I want to show you how, you know, how typical it is. You see, on one hand, he tells us up in verses 13 and 14... That he's been leading a very exemplary life. He's kept his heart pure. He's washed his hands in innocence. He's worked tremendously hard to lead a decent life, a good life. Religious life, serve God and so on. But we're also told secondly...

The guy who does this, he has been afflicted. Now we're not sure why, and in verse 14 he says... He says, I have been, all day long I have been plagued and I have been punished every morning. It could be that there is sickness in his life, it could be that there is trouble in his family, it could be there is an economic disaster, it could be there is some terrible disappointment. I think most of us... Over the years we have read Psalm 73, we are kind of glad that he doesn't tell us what it is. He says, I've done my very best to live a good and moral and decent life, and yet... Every morning I'm plagued. Every morning the pain is there. Now we don't know if he means emotional pain or psychological pain or physical pain or what and we're kind of glad I hope all of you are glad he doesn't tell us because when you read the thing you can just fill in the blank.

With your own trouble. So it makes it easier to identify. So he's been living a great life, you know, a self-controlled life, self-denial. Then on the other hand, secondly, everything is going wrong. But thirdly, and worst of all, it's... But he sees all sorts of people who are making no effort to live compassionate lives, they live abusive lives. They're making no effort to lead moralized or leading immoralized, no effort to lead lives of self-denial, they're leading lives of selfishness and conspicuous consumption. And they're having a great life. And you know, if you read verses 4 down to verse 12, they have no struggles. Their bodies are healthy and strong. They look great, they feel great. We also see that they're abusive to people. They're proud. They're arrogant, if you read through the verses.

You know, it's a tremendous picture of an awful lot of people in this world who are succeeding. And who are powerful and who are influential. Those of you who get close to those people realize that in so many cases Cases they are abusive, in so many cases they are shallow, in so many cases they are cruel, They are impulsive, they are emotional wrecks, and yet they go on from success to success. And this man says, I almost broke under this. Now he tells us... These three things, I'm trying to lead a good life, I'm having a lousy life, and people who are not trying to lead a good life are having a wonderful life. And those three things all together just about crush him. And he tells us... Something about the nature of where he was in verse 15, pardon me, in verse...

16 and 17 he says, I tried to understand this, it was oppressive to me. It means that he was tremendously perplexed and confused. His thinking was going around and around in circles. He was getting nowhere. He couldn't make any progress. Yes. But not only that, as we already read in verses 20 and 21, he'd become embittered toward God. Feel the anger churning, but actually the most, you might say, the greatest... Problem or trial or difficulty that he really faced, you can see in Two and three where he says, As for me, my feet had almost slipped. I had never lost my foothold. What's he mean by that? Well, he's saying that because of the fact that I had lost my foothold, I had lost my foothold. Because he was confused and because he was mad, he had gotten to the place where he was about to lose his basis for living.

He was about to slip. The image, the picture is here you are on a mountain. You're going up a mountain and you lose your foothold. And you begin to slip. The next thing you know, you're in danger of just going-- Over the edge, down into a ravine, and plunging to your death. And when he... Talks about losing his foothold. He's talking about losing his grip on the basis of his life, what he bases his life on. Paul Tillich over here, who for many years taught at Union Theological Seminary, a great theologian of the 20th century, many people considered him, he used to always say that... Every human being bases his or her life on one or more ultimate concerns. That's the way he put it. Ultimate concern. Everybody's got bottom lines to their life. Everybody's got some things that they base their life on. What are you living for? Hmm?

What are the things that really make you tick? What are those things? And he would always say the ultimate concerns always Your priorities which led to your ethics. How did you decide how you spend your time? How did you spend what you're really living for? Will determine how you decide what is right and wrong. So in a sense, there's a whole world view. Everybody has a world view based around your ultimate concern. What really is your God. God, what really you worship, what really you base your life on. Now this man, of course, based his life on serving God, that's what he was born for. And oboeing God. That's how he decides what's right and wrong. And he says, I was about to lose my foothold. And that's his way of saying, I was about to... Throw the whole thing over. I was about to lose my old basis and completely chuck it.

You can see that down in verse 12 where he says, This is what the wicked are like, always carefree, they increase in wealth. And then he says, In vain I have kept my heart pure, in vain I have washed my hands in innocence. And what he's saying is, it's in vain. Living for God, and I'm getting nothing out of it. Here I'm living for God. The thing I have my feet on, I'm starting to... I'm saying, What good is it? And he says, About, he says, He was just about. Lose his foothold, which means to start living for something else. Maybe live for fame, maybe live for power, maybe live for comfort, maybe live for pleasure, maybe just live for himself and he didn't even know. Live to satisfy his impulse. Live to find out what he really wanted and what his deepest desires were. He was about to get a... Entirely different basis for life. He almost lost it all. And yet...

We're told in verse 1, he finally came to the conclusion that God... God, in spite of it all, is good. Now how did he escape? And that's what I want to talk about the rest of this morning, the time we have, and next week. I want to show you that this is the situation he's in. That was the situation he's in. But before I go and show you how he escaped it, how he got his foothold back, how he finally came to say, God is good. I believe in the good. I know he's good no matter what happens to me. So you see he had his feet back on the ground by the end of the song. But how did he get there? Before we talk about that... I want to say that this song makes a point that I'd like to drive home for a moment or two. That's very important. This kind of...

The problem is inevitable. The better a Christian you are. You see, there's an awful lot of people... That would say mad at God, well a really good Christian wouldn't get mad at God, I've never been mad at God. That kind of... Attitude shows tremendous ignorance. Don't you see why this person is in the position he's in? Don't you see why? hadn't been washing his hands so much. If he hadn't been keeping his heart so pure, if he hadn't been doing such a good job, he wouldn't be in this situation. You see, the better. You are. The more self-disciplined you are, the more self-denial, the more you give your money away to people in need, the more you put yourself at their beck and call, the more you take part in the worship of the church, the more you pray and read the Bible, the more you do all these things that are considered, you know, religious things, Christian things. Thank you.

More terrible it's going to be when you see how the world goes. This is inevitable. In fact, I go so far as to say that if you've never been in this position, you aren't trying very hard. I'm making very few efforts in the Christian life if you've never seen this. I'm saying that this situation is something that anybody can be in. You can be a Christian or not a Christian or not know whether you are a Christian. I'm saying everybody can be here but I'm suggesting to you. I'm pressing you to see that this is actually not a problem that only comes to kind of weak minds or not together. ...people who are not really good Christians. My dear friends, if you want to... To deal with the real God, you're going to find that a lot of things he does doesn't make sense. And if you are really doing the kind of job Asaf does, you're going to be sometimes in deep perplexity. In fact, let's go so far. Let's just go to the Garden of Gethsemane for a minute and look. Here's the...

Best person ever. Here's the greatest one ever. Here's the one who really did keep his heart pure. You see, Asaf was just talking relatively. His heart's not pure. Ever had kept his heart pure. His hands aren't completely clean. He's just talking relative to other people. But there's one person who really did. ...are pure, keep his hands clean. And near the last, near the end of his life, he was an utter, utter... Complexity. He says, Is there not some other way? Isn't there some other way? We can do this, oh Father. Asks for something, he says, Let this cup pass from me, and he gets an answer from heaven, No. And he's struggling and he's wrestling with it. Don't you see, the better you are, the more likely you are to be wrestling like this. At some point... As I go so far as to say, as I've already said once, but I'll say it again, if you've never felt like this man, you really...

You're not trying very hard to find God. You're not trying very hard to lead a decent life. You're not trying very hard. You're probably living the selfish life. Now don't you see? This is an enam... But now, let's begin to look at how this man gets out of it because anybody, anybody who's thoughtful, frankly. Is going to feel like this guy did sometime. Anybody. Now, there's really two ways to read the solution to the problem, and I'm only going to look at it one way today, and I'm going to try to get to it. I'll give you a more extensive look at it next week. There's actually four steps, and I'll just tell you-- ...have to tantalize you four things that he does to get out of the depths. He's about to fall, he's about to slip right over the precipice. But, the first thing... If he grabs hold of a negative, it's not much, but if you're about to...

Fall off the cliff, you know, any old thing will do to grab her. He grabs all the negatives. If I spoke thus, it would offend the whole world. Children, you know. But he first grabs a negative, then he goes into the sanctuary, see. He says So I went into the sanctuary, I didn't understand. And then thirdly, he says, I saw their end. He says, I stood back and saw the big picture. And then fourthly... He asked the ultimate question. You know what the ultimate question is? Okay. The ultimate question comes near the end where he finally says, Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and on earth I have Thee. Nothing besides you. So he has four steps and I'm not gonna look at them all today. I can't. Time is rushing and that's what I'm doing next week, but I'm just going to pull one out because I think it's the key one in some ways.

- How can one religion be right and the others wrong? Has science basically disproved Christianity? approved Christianity? Tim Keller addresses these questions and more in his book, The Reason for God, Drawing on Literature, Philosophy, and the World. Real life conversations and potent reasoning, this book will challenge you to gain a deeper Understanding of the Christian faith. Whether you're a believer seeking reassurance or you're reading it with a friend who is searching for answers. When you give to Gospel in Life during the month of May, we'll send you two copies of The Reason for God, one for you and one to give to a friend who is exploring Christianity. It's our hope that through reading the book with a friend, you can have conversations about the claims of the Christian faith. The books are our thanks for your support of this ministry. To receive your two copies of The Reason for God, simply make a gift at GospelOnLife.com.

That's GospelInLife.com/give. We also encourage you to check out our short podcast series Questioning Christianity for people exploring the claims of the Christian faith. To listen to this short series or share it with a friend, visit GospelOnLife.com/questioning. That's GospelOnLife.com/questioning. Your gift helps the message of Christ. Christ's love go out all over the world. So thank you for partnering with us because the gospel truly changes everything. When he goes into the sanctuary he says, I was depressed, I was confused, I was upset, and it wasn't until I went into the sanctuary that I saw their end. I saw the big picture. I saw the whole thing. I saw past and present and future and eternity. Whereas before I was just looking at the present. He saw the big picture. Now, let me lay out the principle and then show you how it works out because it's absolutely critical. If you...

If you would get this down, a lot of you wouldn't have to come see me. I hope you come see me anyway. But if you got this down, you wouldn't have to come see me. Listen. Whenever you feel like this man does, when you get mad, when you get oppressed, when you get confused, you can't understand why, when injustice, the injustice of life just starts to press you down, your problem is that you're not seeing the big picture. You're not too close to something. You don't have the appropriate vantage point from which to see the true shape and dimensions of the thing you're looking at. Somebody some years ago put it this way, truth is cubical. The trick is a cube, not a square. Now what he meant by that, when he said it, was he said--

You can tell a square and you can see the whole square from one vantage point, but you can't see a cube from one vantage point. You have to move around it. So, for example, if you were looking at a house and you want to see the true dimensions of the house, you can't see it from one angle. You've got to go around it. You've got to see it from several angles. That doesn't mean truth is relative. Oh, we're not saying that. We're not saying truth is relative at all. We're not saying that truth is all a matter of opinion. By my moving around the house, it doesn't mean that, oh, you know, it's true. ...people move around the house to look at it doesn't mean one person's going to see a ranch house, one person's going to see a split level, one person's going to see a two-story colonial... Saying is unless you see all the sides, you're not going to see what the house really looks like. You've got to go around it. That's not only true physically, it's true mentally. Then I'll show you spiritually. It's true mentally. Prejudice.

Is reductionism. What is a racial stereotype? A racial stereotype is taking something that is very often true of a lot of people in that group and reducing it. ...seeing people to it, see a square instead of a cube. That's what prejudice is. It's refusing to see the whole. 50 years ago, no, before Einstein came along, the physicists thought that light only operated on a wave model. Einstein comes along... And says it also operates on a particle model. And if before anything came along you would say a wave, a light is not only a wave but also sometimes operates as a particle and the physicists would have said you're crazy. Ridiculous. Why? Because they didn't see all the sides. Now we know that light probably isn't a wave or a particle, because sometimes it operates as one, sometimes it operates as another. It's something we don't know yet.

You have to move around, you have to get all the facts, you gotta see it all. Now... This is the essence of what Christianity says is the nature of truth. Christianity says, ah, this philosophical system and this philosophical system and this philosophical system are wrong. They're mistaken. They're not just saying they're mistaken, they're saying they're too simple. Because of the essence of... Spiritual thinking is seeing the whole and seeing every aspect of the truth. And heresy and false teaching and confusion always, always comes from reductionistic thinking. Spiritual thinking is seeing the whole. Look, for example, 60 years ago there were people who insisted...

That you could explain all of human history as human beings evolving and civilization evolving to higher and higher forms. Social Darwinism. Where is that theory today? 60 years ago, an awful lot of people were Marxists. Where's that theory today? I'll tell you where those theories are. They've gone to the same place that enlightenment liberalism and enlightenment conservatism will go. Go to as well. There are people in this room who doubt a lot of the Christian teaching. You doubt a lot of the message of the Bible. And you know why? Because you are in the Bible. ... by symptoms of thought that seems so compelling everybody, all your friends believe it, all your friends know it. You understand the Christian teaching that the Bible teaches us and we know today that that's not true. And the Bible teaches us and we know...

Note today that that's not true. There are systems of thought that have you captured and are making it hard for you to believe in the gospel message. Do you know where those systems of thought are going to be 100 years from now? Do you know where they're going to be? scrap heap and people 100 years from now will be laughing at the things you... if you write what you believe today and they are not Christian doctrine, people 100 years from now will be laughing at you on the basis... Of new systems that will also go to the scrap heap. Why? Because every one of them. Is reductionistic. I can tell you one thing, 200 years from now there will still be a Christian church because the gospel and the Christian truth is...

It never goes out of date. It'll be still here if history is still here, transforming lives and transforming communities because it looks at the whole picture. Here's one view of humanity. Here's one view of economics. Here's one view of society that says human beings are valuable and dignified, and yet that this particular system assumes that people are going to live rationally and nobly, and it completely misses the doctrine of sin. Ah, but over here, here's another system that hates that of you and says, Yes, we're anti-utopian. And yet when you read it, even... Now it seems to be aware of human selfishness and greed and wickedness. It treats the human beings pretty much as a bag of conditioned responses, as sheep. And it forgets the fact that what the Bible teaches... ...that human beings are in the image of God, that we are infinite in value, that we're semi-divinities.

Bible teaches every single anti and un-Christian system of thought that puts us up... Up against the Christian message will be on the scrap heap in another hundred years. It will be gone because they're all too simple. They don't see the whole thing. That's the The difference between spiritual truth, that's the difference between Christian truth and all these other approaches. And I'll tell you another thing. Don't hook your wagon to them or you will become a dinosaur too. Now, if you are perplexed... If you are oppressed, if you don't get it, if God looks like he doesn't know what he's doing, I'm telling you, you're in too close. You're looking just like God. At the present and not at the end like this guy does. We're looking only at isn't God loving us but he's holy.

Or if you just look at him, God holy, yes, but he's wise. And it's not until you stand back and begin to look at all the sides of things. Aren't human beings sinful? Yes, but also they're made in the image of God. Aren't human beings liable and dignified? Yes, but also they're wretched, wicked sinners. Don't you see? Christianity looks at the whole thing. And if you're in a problem right now, and if you're in trouble right now, your problem is... You got to do what Asaph did. You got to do what the thomas did. You have to go into the sanctuary than I understood. What did he do? He starts, he stands back, he sees the big picture. Let me just show you again briefly because I'll go into more detail next week what he sees. First of all, he sees that he has been a beast. You know, whenever you think God doesn't know what he's doing...

You're only going to be mad to the degree that you are blind to your own arrogance. Let me put it this way. Elizabeth Elliott some years ago told this story I've never forgotten. She said she remembers watching a shepherd take his sheep and throw them in a vat of insecticide. Bind them up, throw them into a vat of insecticide. You know, the sheep are trying to get up, push the heads down. And if they don't do this... Once a year, the sheep die. I mean they practically are eaten up by the insects. But why do you think the sheep feel when the shepherd is doing that? The sheep must think, You don't know what you're doing. If I could get out of here, I'd kill you. And of course, as Elizabeth Elliot says, it's only sensible to understand that if the...

Is of a higher order of being than the sheep, it's only sensible to believe, to understand that many of the things the shepherd does will not seem sensible. Logical to understand that a higher order of being will not seem logical to a lower order of being. But the difference between a sheep and you and me... Animals are not supposed to be self-aware. They don't have self-reflection. They're not self-conscious. You and I can at least know That we're a lower order of being. And when we forget that, we eat like the beasts. Bellow at him, we bite him. Some years ago I pulled a little cat who was about to be... Killed out of a rushing torrent and he just bit me and scratched me all the way up. Why? hand that was saving him, he thought was the hand that was binding him. And if I let him go, he was basically saying, Let me go. I know what I'm doing.

I know what I'm doing. And if I let him go, he'll have been free to be dashed on the rocks and killed. Now listen. Animals can't know they're animals. They can't know that there's higher orders of being. But we are different. Do you believe there's a God at all? At all? If you don't believe there's a God at all, you have no right to be mad. Justice. I mean, there's no such thing as justice. There's nobody to hold accountable. But if you believe there's a God, then you have to understand, if you want to deal with a real God, you're not going to understand him all the time. And it's arrogance. I think you always will. And to the degree you understand that, to the degree you understand that you're acting like a beast, which is what he saw, to that degree you'll start to get some freedom. In other words,

If you deal with God, you should never be confused about your confusion. You can be confused, but don't be confused about your confusion. You can be perplexed, but don't be perplexed about your perplexity. Don't you see? The first thing you've got to say, You're a sinner. You're a lower order of being. It's only sensible. That a real God will not always seem sensible to you. Do you see that or not? If you don't, if you don't start to go around and see the different sides of things, you're gonna be locked, you're gonna be stuck. First thing he sees, God is higher than me, God is holy, God is great, God is above me, and I'm acting like a beast. This is the second side he sees, and that is, he begins to see the wise justice of God. Is this very interesting verse where he says, I went into the sanctuary, and I began to see everything, and then I understood their destiny.

Put them on slippery ground. Oh my gosh. See, he finally begins to get this. He says, You It's hard to believe in God. That's slippery ground to believe in God. There's a lot of things about God, as we just said, that don't make sense. But it figures. There's nothing about a world view that says there is a God as the God of the Bible and he doesn't always make sense to you. That's perfectly coherent. If you decide to reject God, if you decide to put your feet on something else but God, what are you living for? Are you living for your looks? They're going to be gone. Are you living for your career? That's going to be gone. Are you living to be on top of things? That will go. And you know. Could be gone in a minute, in a second, over the edge. And anything you put... Your feet on, besides God, is the real slippery ground.

Anything else you live for is vulnerable. Anything else you live for is fragile. Anything else you live for is temporary. More than that. Listen. You want to know what real slippery ground is? The person who says, I can't believe Than a God who would allow such suffering and injustice. Don't look down if that's what you believe. Leave. If that's what you say, don't look down because you are in the most slippery intellectual ground possible. ...believe in a God who will allow such evil and suffering. Therefore I believe that... Maybe there's a God, maybe there's not. All truth is relative. I had somebody say to me, Since all truth is relative and all morality is relative, we have to be tolerant of each other. And I said to her, Wait a minute. All truth is relative, then why don't I just punch you in the mouth? Because as soon as you say all truth is relative, but you don't have to be tolerant.

On the sequitur of the ages. Dear friends, if that truth is relative, you haven't even got a basis to complain about the injustice of life. If there is no God, you don't even have a way of defining injustice. It's just something that-- You happen to believe you have your standards of justice, you have your standards of justice. Don't you see that? You get rid of God because you think evil and suffering is terrible and you've cut your ground out from underneath you. You know, you're on the most... What's the intellectual possible footing? You cut away your ground for an appeal for even a complaint. That's why C.S. Lewis puts it, he says... People would say all truth is relative. And then they say, but we have to... Tolerant and compassionate. That's like pulling out the heart and demanding circulation. Removing the organ and demanding the function. Laughing at honor and finding traitors in our midst.

The truth is relative and then be amazed that everybody's living selfishly, castrating the geldings and bidding them be fruitful. Can't do it. Deny God, and you're on the most slippery ground. He began to realize that he says, You know what? As slippery as it is to bloom on God, it is more slippery than not. As slippery as it is to live for God. It is far more slippery to live for anything else, because I may slip if I base my life on God. But you will slip if you don't. It's inevitable. It's there. Intellectually, emotionally, psychological, every way. He started to feel better. He was looking at all sides, lastly, and this is the end. He not only saw God was holy, and that humbled him, and then he saw God was wise, and that comforted him. I saw God who was gracious and that transformed him. He said I was stupid and ignorant and yet...

You hold me by my right hand. Just imagine yourself about to fall off of a mountain and suddenly somebody grabs you. Grabs you by the hand and pulls you up, you're dangling over the edge, you're looking into the face of your own death and so much... But he grabs you back and says, I got you. How do you feel toward that person? If you think about it, that's how you have to feel. Toward God, he began to realize that God was holding his hand while, while he was being senseless and ignorant and beastly. Some of you need to realize that the reason that the evidence that God loves you is... The fact that you're still here even though you're mad at him. Why can't you get away from him? Why are you confused? Why do you feel bad about the fact that you're mad at God? Don't you see that that's grace? Grace!

Feeling bad about the fact that you're mad at him shows that he has never let go of you. He's got you by your hand. I think the real reason the psalmist remembered that God was a loving God was because he went into the sanctuary and in their sanctuary that he went to he didn't have a stage with a microphone what did he see? He saw an altar. He saw a sacrifice. And you must all look If you want to stop, if you want to get out of the place where you are, if you want to keep from slipping, you've got to look and see Jesus on that altar. You know what Jesus is saying? He is saying... Don't tell me about injustice. I'm the only person who ever really experienced injustice. I'm the only person who was really innocent. I'm the only person that really kept his hands pure. For you never have. And I willingly suffered and took your punishment.

So that on the last day when I finally wipe away the evil and brokenness of the world, I won't have to wipe away you. The results, Isaiah says, the results of his... The results, Isaiah says, the results of his... Suffering he will see and he will be satisfied. If you believe on him by looking at the fact that he holds you by your right hand, in spite of the fact that you've been a beast to him, that he has sacrificed... Self on the altar so that if you believe in him, your punishment is forgiven. If you look at that, if you remember that, he says the results of his suffering he will see and be... Satisfied. That means in the last day he'll say, I was tortured, I experienced injustice, I experienced brokenness, and it's all worth it because now we can be together. Look at his love, look at his wisdom, look at his holiness, keep going around and around and around, get the big picture. Thank you. And you will be able to say, Surely the Lord is good.

Do that yet, then don't stop going around and looking. Sanctuary and looking until you can. He's waiting to help. Let's pray. Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, please rate and review it so more people can discover the Gospel in Life podcast. This month's sermons were recorded in 1993. 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