Strangeness and the Order of God 42:51

Welcome to Gospel and Life. There are lots of things the Bible is pretty clear about. Don't steal, for instance, or don't commit adultery. But no single Bible verse will tell you exactly whom to marry, which job to take, whether to move or stay put. We need God's wisdom to make good decisions in every part of our lives. Join us today as Tim Keller explores how we can cultivate wisdom with God at the center of all life's choices. ♪

We'll be reading Proverbs chapter 5, verses 16 through 23, followed by Revelation chapter 21, verses 1 through 5. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water on the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.

A loving doe, a graceful deer, may her breasts satisfy you always. May you ever be captivated by her love. Why be captivated, my son, by a strange woman? Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife? For a man's ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths. The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him. The cords of his sin hold him fast.

He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. This is the word of the Lord. We've been looking at the book of Proverbs, and we've been looking at the subject of wisdom. And wisdom, we have been saying each week, is competence with regard to the realities of life. Competence with regard to the realities of life.

Wisdom is not less than being moral and good, but it's much more. It's knowing the right thing to do in the vast majority of life situations in which the moral rules don't apply. And you can immediately begin to see some of the motivation for legalism. Why it is that so many human communities, and particularly religious communities, and actually particularly church communities,

want to multiply rules. We want to make up all kinds of moral rules, even though they're not in the Bible. All sorts of them. Why? Because we don't want to have to think. We want a rule to cover every single case, every single situation.

We don't want to have to actually think out the implications. We don't want to have to master reality, master the human heart, human nature, relationships. We don't want to have to get to the place where we have to know reality so well, how things really work in the world, that we always know what the result of a particular action is going to be. That takes a lot of experience, wisdom. We don't want to have to think. We want to have a rule. But you know what? No matter how much you multiply rules, you'll never cover all the situations. It just doesn't work.

Wisdom is being in touch with reality, understanding reality. Now, we said that each week. What does that mean? What is reality? What does it mean to be in touch with reality? So we're going to look at in the last of our introductory studies of the book of Proverbs, and in this passage, in these passages really, we're going to look through them in sequence. We're going to see in the beginning, we're taught the persistence of reality. It's really there. Secondly, the problems with reality.

And thirdly, how it gets healed. If you want to be wise, you have to know all three. The persistence of reality, the problems with reality, and how it gets healed. Okay, first.

Let's take a look at verse 16 to 20, the persistence of reality. And yeah, of course, this is teaching about sex, and there's a lot of explicit sexual references in here. And sometime in the future, we'll get back to what the book of Proverbs and biblical wisdom literature says about sexuality at length. We'll have a whole sermon, a whole top discussion on it. But for tonight, we're going to see how this particular teaching teaches us about wisdom and foolishness in general.

And of course, it's a warning against adultery. But in the middle of it, in verse 20, there's a very odd and key and important term used. It says, why be captivated, my son, by a, now the translation here is a strange woman. Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife? Now, why would another man's wife be strange? Now, you know, the word might be better translated, alien, right?

And when you see that, you say, well, maybe it's talking about foreigners. But no, it's not, because this term comes up over and over again in the introductory chapters of Proverbs, always in a context like this of adultery. And commentators have pointed out that in many cases, it just can't be that the woman is of a different race. So why this term strange? Why this term alien? What the commentators and the Hebrew scholars say is this.

Some behaviors, we're being told, adultery is just one of them. Some behaviors are alien to your true nature, no matter how great they feel at the time. They're alien to your true nature. Now, illustration. If you were to get on a rocket ship and go to Venus and you would land and you would open the door,

And without the help of an oxygen tank or any other contraption, if you were just to inhale, breathe in one deep breath of that wonderful Venusian atmosphere, which is 96% carbon dioxide, 4% nitrogen, has absolutely no oxygen in it at all, what would happen? Now, you know, they say a change in climate's good for you, but probably not in this case. Your lungs would experience alienation. That is to say...

They are in an environment that doesn't fit their nature. They're in an environment in which they don't work. And because they don't work in that environment, the result will be disintegration, breakdown, and death. What is God saying, though, when he calls adultery strange or alien? He's saying this. There is a physical order we all know about. It's there. It persists. If you were to go to the top of First Baptist Church afterwards and try to fly off of it just simply flapping your arms...

No matter how hard you believed, no matter how much you were the little engine that could, no matter how much you tried, you're violating your physical nature. You're violating your physical being. You're putting yourself in an environment in which you will not physically work. You'll fall to the ground, disintegration, breakdown, death. You know what God is saying, though?

He's saying there is a divinely established moral spiritual order that's as persistent as there as the physical order. And when you do not follow his directions, the God of the Bible is not one who says, follow my directions or I'll smack you. He doesn't have to do that. His directions are nothing but the directions of the creator, the maker. He knows our nature. When God says, follow my directions, he says, if you don't follow my directions, you're smacking yourself.

You're violating and assaulting your own being. When God says you must forgive, you must be radically generous with your money, you must keep sex inside commitment, marriage, you must tell the truth, you must treat other people exactly the way you want to be treated yourself. When he says you must do that, he says that fits who you are just as much as I can say, don't try to fly off the top of First Baptist Church.

What he's saying is if you don't forgive, if you're not radically generous, if you don't tell the truth, you are creating an environment that's alien to your nature. I built you, he says. You're creating an environment in which you will not work. Disobedience to me creates an environment as antithetical to your soul as ammonia gases to your lungs. And therefore, the first point is pretty interesting.

There is a divine moral order. You cannot decide what is right or wrong for yourself. You don't determine that. God, when he invented the world, created a divine moral spiritual order that is there. It's as persistent as the physical order. And wisdom is recognizing that it's there and living in accordance with it. Okay, that's the first point. But that's not the only thing you need to know about reality.

The ultimate reality is this divine moral spiritual order. God ordered the world. It's not just a randomness. It's not just something you cannot create your own reality. He has created reality. It persists, but that's not enough. You need to know more than that to be wise. If you only know the first point, it just brings you up to the level of Pharisee. You've got to learn something else. Now let's take a look at the middle section where we see the problems with reality. Now, when anyone in New York just about hears something

what I just said. There is a divine moral spiritual order. It's fixed. It's there. There are moral absolutes. When someone in New York hears that, we have problems. And there's two kinds of problems we have with that understanding of reality. The first problem is

is sort of something you see in verse 22 and 23. Notice it says, the evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him. The cords of his sin hold him fast. He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly. Now that's very typical for the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs over and over says, because the world has been ordered by God,

Because there are certain things God made us for. He made us to forgive. He made us to tell the truth. He made us to love others unselfishly. If you don't forgive, if you lie, if you live selfishly, you're going against the fabric of things. You're going against the order of things. What does that mean? If you live right, your life will go right. If you live wrong, your life will go wrong. See, that's what it's saying.

And the book of Proverbs is filled with this, you know, because God has ordered the world. You have statements like this. The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry. This is chapter 10 of Proverbs. Or here's another one. Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth. Here's another one from chapter 10. The memory of the righteous will be a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot. Do you know what the problem is with that? Proverbs depicts a world orderly made by God in which if you do right, things go right.

If you love others, you'll be loved. If you work hard, you'll prosper. But that's not the way it always works. We know that. We've seen good people starve. We see hardworking people not have enough because it's taken from them. They're exploited. We see good people whose names rot. That is to say, they never get credit for what they've done. They've been trampled upon.

And we see people all the time who try so hard to be good friends, so hard to be good parents, so hard to be good sons or daughters, so hard to be good, and their lives just don't go right at all. And so one of the problems we have with this view of reality is if this is God's divinely ordered world, it's broken. If this is God's divinely ordered world, it doesn't always seem to work like that. It's broken. That's the first problem we have. It doesn't always work like 22 and 23. Yeah.

But the second big problem we have with this view of reality is in verse 21. For a man's ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths. Now, that is the language of judgment. The Lord is a judge. He's looking at every one of you. He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows if you're awake. Oh, that's Santa Claus. But we got Santa Claus from God. God is a judge. He's a judge. He looks everywhere.

into your ways and he's holding you account now accountable now we have a lot of problem with especially today especially here in New York you know why over the years it's a simple fact people who believe in a divine moral order moral absolutes and a God who will judge us and hold us accountable to those absolutes people historically who believe that have used that to justify oppressing others sometimes even violence right I think it works like this

If you believe in a God of judgment and you believe in absolute moral standards and you say, "I'm on the right side of those moral standards," and you see those people over there? They're on the wrong side of those moral standards. That gives you justification to come down on them. It's almost like people say, you know, sort of, they say, "Well, God's going to judge them anyway, so we'll just start a little early." In fact, are we not just the instruments of God's judgment, justice in the world?

But after 9-11, that kind of reasoning is blood-curdling. And as a result, a lot of people have problems with this view of reality. They have huge problems with the whole idea that there's a divine moral order. That's not what most New Yorkers feel at all. They just think that's a horrible thing to say. That leads to oppression. That leads to injustice. Oh, no. They say everyone has to be free to decide what is right or wrong for him or her.

They have problems with this idea of a divine moral order and a judging God. But I would like to show you, and it's important to see this, that there are great problems with their problems. Great problems with their problems. Arthur Leff, who used to teach at Yale Law School, brilliant man, deceased now, some years wrote an article in the Duke University Law Journal called Unspeakable Ethics on Natural Law. Extremely

amazing article. It had a huge impact on me over the years. I wrote it quite a long time ago now. But here's what his point was. Arthur Leff was a skeptic. He accepted the fact that we don't know if there's a God or not. And therefore, we cannot base our law on God. But in this article, he showed that though he didn't believe in God himself or didn't know

In this article he showed that if there is no God, there's absolutely no way that you can make a case for the existence of human rights. In the article, for example, he says this. He says, "You can say it's wrong for majority "to disadvantage any minority, "but that's an assertion, not an argument. "You can say all sorts of things, "but what you cannot say is why one say "is better than any other say. "If someone says it's all right "to control this minority with force, "and you say no, it's not right,

Who's to say your view of reality is right and theirs is wrong? Maybe it helps to put the question this way. If there is no God, who among us gets to impose our will on everyone else into law so it must be obeyed? Stated that baldly, the question is so intellectually unsettling that one would expect to find what we do find, plenty of legal and ethical thinkers trying not to come to grips with it at all.

Now, here's what Arthur Leff is saying, and let me spell it out just briefly to you because it's devastating and I want you to understand it. Arthur Leff says, look, if there was a God, then we could base our law on God. He's the maker. He's the creator. He would know. But if there is no God, then all law has to be grounded in a human opinion of what else is there. But we're all equals. The question is who gets to enshrine their human opinion as law so everybody else has to obey it.

So, for example, if you're a person from America and you find or travel or you see a country in Africa, Latin America, or Asia in which you see women relegated to second-class citizenship or even worse, sometimes basically put into almost kind of a servitude, economically powerless, politically powerless. And if you say, that's atrocious, that is wrong, I'm going to work against that, I'm going to stop that. Here's what Arthur Left says. Look, your outrage is based...

on a extremely white European enlightenment understanding of human rights. Why should your human opinion, your view, your very white view, have privilege over their view? And of course, now, if I ever say that to New Yorkers, you know what they say? They say, well, don't be ridiculous. We know what's right. And Arthur Left says, would you please admit what you just said was not an argument, but an assertion of your power? In fact...

If there is no God, he says, every complaint about a naked use of power is itself a naked use of power because there's no other way to establish your particular opinion as better than everyone else's. You see that? Because if it's really true that everything is up to you to decide what is right or wrong, what's wrong with me and my culture doing whatever I want? Arthur Left says you have to recognize that

that once you say there is no God, there is absolutely no way you can look at someplace else and say, that's against human rights. You made that up. You know that. You have an opinion. You're a human being. They have an opinion. Who gets to exercise the power to make everyone else obey? Because it's not a question of right and wrong. There is no right and wrong. It's nothing but power. Isn't that weird?

If you say, I don't want to believe in a divine moral order, moral absolutes, and a judging God because it leads to naked use of power, Arthur Left says, yeah, but if you get rid of a divine moral order, if you stop believing in a judging God, that's all you have left is a naked use of power. And it gets worse than that. Sheshulah Milosh. Sheshulah Milosh.

I hope I said it right. The Nobel-winning Polish poet and author, very respected, who just died very recently, was in his 90s. He wrote some years ago an amazing little essay called The Discrete Charms of Nihilism. And because he was Polish and because he's in his 90s, just died, he had seen both Nazism and communism. And here's what he says in that amazing essay. He says, "'Marx called religion the opium of the people,'

But now we are witnessing a transformation. The true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death. It's the huge solace of thinking that our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders are not going to be judged. But all religions have recognized that our deeds are imperishable.

You know what he's saying? He says, I've seen societies in which we've gotten rid of the idea of a divine moral order. We've gotten rid of the idea of moral epsiles. We've gotten rid of the idea that there's judgment after death. You know what happens? That's the opium of the people. I can do anything I want. I can trample on people. I can get power because I'm not going to pay for it. Because the whole idea of judgment after death is gone. He says, it was the opium. We said, we can do whatever we want. What is Milosz saying?

Yeah, believing in a God of justice and a divine moral order can lead to abuse, can lead to power, can lead to oppression. But we happen to know that not believing in it, if anything, is worse because you can't even define justice. And it certainly leads to just as much. It has led in the 20th century to just as much oppression, just as much violence. So do you see, my friends, we're in a box. We are stuck.

Reality seems to be broken, but no matter what you believe about it, no matter how you try to explain it, your belief or your explanation seems to lead to disaster. If you say there is a divine moral order, God has made the world in a certain way, there are moral absolutes, that leads to oppression and injustice. If you say there aren't any, that leads to just as much problem. What are we going to do? Every view of reality seems to lead to some kind of trouble or some kind of problem. The answer is, let's see what the gospel has to say.

In the midst of life's uncertainties, where do you turn for wisdom? The book of Proverbs is filled with wisdom to help guide us in all aspects of life. In Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional book, God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, you'll get a fresh, inspiring view of God's wisdom each day of the year from the book of Proverbs. This devotional book will help you unlock the wisdom within the poetry of Proverbs and guide you toward a new understanding of what it means to live the Christian life.

This resource is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share Christ's love with more people. You can request your copy of God's Wisdom for Navigating Life when you give today at gospelinlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

Because we not only see the persistence of reality and the problems of reality, but last of all, the gospel tells us about the healing of reality. The last passage, of course, is not from the book of Proverbs. It's from the book of Revelation. It's the end of the whole Bible. And there's two things that happen here that I think are just absolutely astonishing. The first thing is that we do not see at the end of time we human beings leaving reality.

But rather, we see God coming down into reality. Now, what is he doing? It says in verse 4, he's healing the old order of things. And that tells us what we need to know. First of all, there is an order. In other words, you don't just decide what's right or wrong for you. There is an order. Right and wrong has been there. God has invented it. There is an order. But God's original order didn't have death in it.

Didn't have pain in it. Didn't have crying in it. Didn't have tears in it. Well, why not? What happened? Genesis 3. When we decided to become masters, our own masters, instead of God's servants, it released the forces of disintegration, breakdown, and death. Go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible. Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. And what do you see? The earth was without form and void forever.

and darkness was upon the face of the deep. See, uncreation, disintegration, chaos, incoherence, formless, void, darkness. But the Spirit of God comes upon it, and life, light, the unrestricted presence of God

Under the absolute lordship of God, life wakes up. But when you get away from the absolute lordship of God, when you get away from the absolute presence of God, things unravel, disintegration, uncreation, breakdown, death. But look, what's coming out of heaven? We're not leaving reality. God's power, God's beauty, God's glory, his unrestricted presence is coming down to heal the old order, to heal our reality.

There is an order here, but it's broken. There is an order here, but it's fallen. But God is going to come back and he is going to absolutely heal the whole thing. And look where the healing comes from. Where does the renewal come from? Where does this renewing power come from? This is the most amazing thing of all. The throne. The throne.

Now, the throne is the seat of judgment. The king sat on his throne, and the throne would be the place where the king made his judgments. But coming from the throne, coming from the seat of judgment is not destruction. It's not smiting, renewal, and healing. How could that be? How could the judge of all the earth do that? And the answer is in the book of Hebrews. You know this chapter 5, verse 21 of Proverbs? It talks about the judgment of God.

A man's ways are in full view of the Lord and he examines all his paths. In Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12, 13, excuse me. In Hebrews chapter 4, verse 13, the Hebrews writer in the New Testament practically quotes Proverbs 5, 21. He says, nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight, but everyone is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

Well, that's scary. Same thing, right? God is a judge and he's looking at us. But look at verse 14. Immediately, the Hebrews writer says, but we have a great high priest who has suffered, has made atonement for sin, has opened a new and living way. So let us approach the throne with confidence. Now, here's the place where Christianity differs sharply, not just differs, contradicts every other religion that's ever been

Every other religion says there's a judgment and you have to pass it. Every other religion says there's a judgment and you have to pass it. Even Buddhism, that seems so nonjudgmental. Even Buddhism says at the end of your life, if you haven't lived up, if you haven't been good enough, back into the reincarnation cycle were you, you know? In other words, every religion says there's a judgment and you have to pass it. You have to be good enough. You have to live up. And Christianity completely turns that on its head.

Yes, there's a judge. There's a judgment. He looks into your hearts. He sees everything. That's what Hebrews says. That's what Proverbs says. But the judge came to earth. The judge left the bench, went into the dock. And what happened to Jesus on the cross? Darkness, disintegration. His body was falling apart. His soul, my God, my God, has not forsaken me. His soul was falling apart.

He was experiencing uncreation. He was experiencing all those forces. What was going on? Simple, but amazing. There is a judge, but he came to take the judgment. Not to bring judgment, but to bear judgment on the cross. There is a judge, but he's the judge who was judged. Or put it this way, on the cross, the one who made us was unmade so he could remake us.

The one who made us was unmade so we could be remade. He experienced judgment. There is a judge, but he experienced judgment for you in your place. He took what you deserve, and that's the gospel. Now, you got that?

Only if you take that into your life, only if you take that into your heart, do all these conundrums come undone and you become wise. Let me show you three ways in which the gospel, the gospel of the judge who was judged for you makes you wise. Number one, the gospel makes it safe to believe in God's judgment.

and justice. The gospel makes it safe to believe in God's judgment and justice. We have said, have we not up to now, the real problem is if you believe in a divine moral order, that leads to oppression. You say, well, we're on the right side and you're on the wrong side. We're going to judge you. But if you don't believe in the moral order and the judgment of God, that's also a huge problem. But Christians are different. Here's what the gospel says. There is a judge.

So there is a truth. You can't make up your own mind. You can't decide what is right or wrong for you. But it was a judge who was judged because you didn't pass. You can't pass the judgment. He sees into your heart. And the only way that there's any hope is the judge took your judgment for you. Now, do you know what that does? I mean, right after 9-11, my wife Kathy was listening to one person after another say,

You know what's caused all this trouble? Religious fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is what causes violence. Fundamentalism is what causes strife. And one day, Kathy was so tired of it, and she said, it all depends on what your fundamental is. What if the fundamental of your faith, what if the fundamental of your life, what if the central thing in your heart is a man who died for his enemies, is a man who was judged for his opponents rather than to bring judgment, he bore it.

A man who died praying for his enemies, if that's your fundamental, if that's coming to the center of your heart, you're never going to look at your opponents with superiority. You couldn't. The judgment of God is there. There's a justice. There's a divine order. But you're only safe because the judge was judged for you, and that utterly changes everything. So you're not a relativist.

who says there's no divine order, but you're not a moralist who says that makes me superior. The gospel takes away relativism, but it takes away judgmentalism. It's the only way it's safe to believe in truth. See, you can't be wise if you don't believe in truth, but it's dangerous to believe in truth except in the gospel. The gospel makes it safe to believe in the justice and the judgment of God. Secondly, the gospel makes it safe to read Proverbs.

And I want you to know, unless you understand the gospel, it's not safe for you to read Proverbs. How are you going to get wise if you don't read Proverbs? Well, you can't. But unless you understand the gospel, it's not safe. Why do I say that? Here's why. Have we not seen that now the Bible's understanding of reality is that there is a divine order, but it's fallen order needing to be healed. There is an order, but it's fallen.

This is the reason why when you go to the Proverbs, people don't understand them. Because unless you understand both those things, the Proverbs don't make sense. Let me give you an example. Proverbs 26, verse 2. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Have you ever heard that? Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he's old, he will not depart from it. Now, if you're a relativist who doesn't believe in a divine order...

You look at that and you say, how old-fashioned, how retro, the idea of child discipline. I don't believe in that. I believe children need to be able to make their own choices. Okay, so you don't believe it. On the other hand, if you're a moralist, if you believe there's a divine order, but you don't realize it's fallen,

If you believe God made things to work in a certain way, but they don't always work that way because of the fallen nature of things, you're going to read it moralistically. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard people preach this way. Train up a child properly, and when he's old, he'll live a good life. If he's not living a good life, you didn't train him up properly.

guilt. You know, parents are sitting down, they can't believe it. Well, you know what the problem is? Proverbs are not statutes and they're not promises.

They are ways that things ordinarily work in this world, but don't always work that way because there's a divine order. So, of course, in general, yes, if you're consistent with your discipline of your child, that's the best possible thing. Best possible thing. Because there is a divine order. But the order is fallen, and that means sometimes, even if you do everything right with your kid, because of the fallen world, your kids can still grow up and go off the rails.

The Proverbs are not statutes and promises. They're God's best practices for life in a divinely ordered yet fallen world. And until you understand that, you're not going to understand the Proverbs. Remember how Job's friends took the Proverbs? Job says his friends, look at all these Proverbs. If you live right, life will go right. Your life is not going right. Therefore, you're not living right. Moralism, understanding there's a divine order but not understanding it's fallen.

See, the fact of the matter is there is a divine order. So generally, yes, work hard and generally your life will go better. Yes, tell the truth and generally life will go better. Yes, be sexually faithful and generally life will go better. But it doesn't have to. After all, Jesus Christ did all those things and his life didn't go so well. Why? Because he was confronted with the fallenness of this place. If you are a relativist or a moralist,

If you believe you can make up your own right or wrong, or if you believe that if you do everything right in life, your life will go well, you're a fool. You don't see the reality. You don't understand that there actually is a divine order, and yet it's a fallen order. Only the gospel helps you see the whole picture. Only the gospel keeps you from being a fool. Only the gospel makes it safe for you to read the book of Proverbs without clobbering yourself with it and everybody else with it, or else just writing it off. But thirdly, and lastly...

The gospel makes it safe to believe in God's truth. The gospel makes it possible and safe to read the book of Proverbs. Last of all, the gospel gives you radical moderation. Radical moderation. Huh? What do I mean by that? Well, in the book of Proverbs, wise men and women always are moderate.

They're not too passive. They're not too assertive. They're not too optimistic and naive. They're not too pessimistic and cynical. They don't get real high or real low because they're always balanced. They're always poised. They're always cool. That's why they're wise. That's why they make good decisions. They're not up and down. See? They don't speak too much or too little. They're so moderate. How do they get so moderate?

Through the outrageous, over-the-top, radical joy of the gospel. It's the radical, outrageous, over-the-top joy that makes you moderate. What is that outrageous, over-the-top joy? Look what it says we're in for. It says, I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, by the way, that's us. That's the people of God, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. Do you know what that's saying? The bride coming, look,

The older I get, the worse I look in a bathing suit. I suppose you're wondering what that has to do with anything, but I'll show you. The older I get, the worse I look in a bathing suit. You know, bathing suits show everything. They show all your flaws. They show all your sags. They show all your deformities. And of course, I love the beach, but as I get older, and I still put on my bathing suit, but I spend a lot more time on the blanket as the years go by.

And that's the reason why, since bathing suits show everything, it's a good thing that there's no culture in the world in which the bride walks down the aisle toward her husband in a bathing suit. And the reason is because if that was the case, only in 1% of the weddings would people say, oh, the bride looks so beautiful. Because there's not that many people who can handle a bathing suit.

Because bathing suits show everything that's wrong with you, all deformities. Everything is out there. But here's what's so great about wedding dresses. In any culture, they cover everything. It doesn't matter what you look like, really. It doesn't matter what you really look like. On your wedding day, you are beautiful. And as you, you know, it doesn't matter what reality is. Everything is covered. Everything looks gorgeous. I mean, it's all gone. All the problems, all the unsightliness, all the bulges, it's all gone. And as she walks down the aisle, her

Her groom sees this, you looking the more beautiful than you've ever looked in your life, and his heart just races, and he wants to run up the aisle to you, and he's ravished with you. What is John saying is the promise of the gospel. When God looks at you because of what Jesus Christ has done for you, because he was judged for you, he's covered you. He's covered you. All the deformities, all the sins, everything that's wrong, it's covered, and God sees an absolute beauty in you.

And he's the only one who counts, the true lover of your soul. Now, how does this help you be moderate? Oh my goodness. Let's just take one instance. There's a lot of people who've done everything right and they want to be married and they're not. And they've prayed and they've done everything right. And there's a lot of people who've done everything pretty much right and they're unhappily married. Now, to not be married and want to be married, to be unhappily married, that hurts. That's terrible. But if you know this,

If you know that right now, the true lover of your soul already regards you like this, if you even get a taste of it now, it's like wine. But to know that someday you will really be embraced by him and that every set of lover's arms you've ever looked for, this is what you've been looking for, the one who's really going to fulfill your soul is yours. Do you know what that does? That over-the-top outrageous thing will moderate your suffering. It will make it bearable. In fact,

No matter how great it is to get a raise, it's not going to go to your head because it's nothing compared to the wedding supper of the Lamb. No matter how bad you're suffering, you won't go down too far. It's nothing compared to the marriage supper of the Lamb. The gospel, the gospel. Only the gospel shows you reality as it really is. Only the gospel brings you to the scriptures so it really makes you wise. And only the gospel would give you radical moderation so finally you're poised.

But he doesn't make you moderate by telling you something moderate. It makes you moderate by telling you something over the top. He loves you. You're covered. My dear friends, you see the moderation that the gospel brings? Drop your grand pretensions. You're a sinner. But drop your small ambitions. You are his love. Bring the gospel into the center of your heart until it makes you wise. Let us pray. Thank you, Father, for providing for us this outrageous, over-the-top gospel.

that will make us moderate, balanced, poised. It will show us there is a divine order, but it's fallen. It will keep us from relativism or moralism. It will keep us from inferiority or superiority. It will keep us wise. We pray, Father, that you would show us now as we partake of the Lord's Supper.

You would actually give us a foretaste of that great marriage supper in the future and help us sense your love in our lives, which is the only way to truly be as wise as Jesus Christ in whom all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hid. In his name we pray. Amen. Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, please rate and review it so more people can discover this podcast.

This month's sermons were recorded in 2004. 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. ♪