Welcome to Gospel in Life. The way you live now, your present behavior and character,

is determined in a large part by what you believe your ultimate future to be.

In today's teaching, Tim Keller explores how Christian Hope can transform our present

behavior. After you listen, please take a few seconds to

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the hope of the gospel. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller.

Tonight's scripture reading comes from the book of Job, chapter five verses one through seven

and chapter six verses one through ten. Call if you will, but who will answer you?

To which of the holy ones will you turn? Resentment kills a fool and envy slays the simple.

I myself has seen a fool taking root, but suddenly his house was cursed. His children are far

from safety, crushed in court without a defender. The hungry consume is harvest, taking it even from

among thorns and the thirsty pant after his well. For hardship does not spring from the soil,

nor does trouble sprout from the ground. Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly

upward. Then Job replied, if only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the

scales, it would surely outweigh the sands of the sea. No wonder my words have been impetuous.

The arrows of the Almighty are in me, my spirit drinks in their poison. God's tears are

marshalled against me. Does a wild donkey braille when it has grass or an ox bellow when it has

fodder? Is tasteless food eaten without salt? Or is there flavor in the white of an egg? I refuse to

touch it. Such food makes me ill. O that I might have my request that God would grant what I hope

for, that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose his hand and cut me off. Then I would still

have this consolation, my joy and unrelenting pain, that I had not denied the words of the Holy

One. This is God's word. In Macbeth you've got these famous lines.

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