More Than I Deserve

Job 11:5 “But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against thee;”

Job 11:6 “And that he would shew thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is! Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.”

The book of Job is about a guy called “Job”… at the risk of stating the obvious! It focuses primarily on a great physical, emotional and spiritual tribulation, trial and temptation that he went through. As a result, what a comfort this book has been to the saints through the ages, particularly in suffering. Whole religions spawned out of man trying to make sense of suffering, but we will stick to God’s view rather than man’s philosophy… which is without answer, hope or sense.

Job said ” Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!” … well here we are, he got his book! And nobody would choose suffering, but things that we would not want sometimes we are made to partake in nonetheless “The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.”

Things aren’t always going to make sense, but if you have Christ, you have hope that is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. If you have suffering without redemption, there is no redeeming quality to what you go through, because you have chosen the path of no Redeemer “For I know that my Redeemer liveth”… my heart breaks for so many people going through something horrible yet without redeeming quality.

As Jesus promised when he said “let us pass over unto the other side” when he boarded a ship to cross a smooth lake with his disciples, only to be engulfed into a mighty storm and Jesus seemingly asleep to what was going on!, and they wondering where he was at and if he even cared!… yet a chapter later the Bible says “and they came over unto the other side of the sea”… there is an other side to what you’re going through child of God! Jesus is the author and FINISHER of our faith, even if you can’t see beyond the storm for now and you may like Job, for now, say “mine eye shall no more see good.”

This book is unique in that it is not narrative like some others, the Bible has something for everyone!… but it is a book mostly of dialogue, that is, Job having a back and forth conversation with his “friends” … who have come to comfort and counsel him in his grief. Watch out for those Christian counselors I’d say, because Job didn’t need enemies when he had his friends.

And it’s worth noting as you read, that Job didn’t have the benefit that we have as he went through this, of seeing the spiritual aspect to his trial. In life we operate in a domain where we do not have full sight, that’s why we have to trust Jesus. We know from reading though, that the Lord had held up Job to Satan as a prime example of faith, love and fidelity to God. And Satan had told God that Job only serves you because you make sure he has it good in life. And God allowed, with limitation, Satan to afflict Job… and so the aspect of Job’s suffering was very much spiritual… like our Saviour’s was at the cross.

Of course, God knew that Satan’s accusation was not true… he’s a liar. But he did make Job’s latter end better than the beginning, and he will do that for you as well. But thank God we have the Bible so we can arm ourselves with the wisdom of God and spiritual food so we have knowledge and strength for handling what comes at us i life.

The book of James says we must have the wisdom of God for trials and temptations that we face. Not that it necessarily eases the pain of suffering at all, but knowing what’s going on, what the Lord has promised, that he does work all things together for good for them that love him… that may well prevent you from blowing out when things get tight.

And so in Job 2, as Job’s trial is setting in… bearing in mind he was in this state for months, not days… Job’s friends have been discussing his case and decided to come and see him. That happens a bit doesn’t it. How often people behind your back get together and decide what’s best for you, as if they’re qualified to do so because something bad hasn’t happened to them. People who have it “made” in life often think this is God’s stamp of approval on their life, and qualifies them for the role of instructor and example of how things are done right. But credibility and counselling credentials are not forged in the fire of ease, as Job said “He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease. “

The thing is, it is a danger to confuse gain with godliness. The Bible.. remember the Bible?… the Bible says gain is not godliness.

And so in Job 2, Job’s friends… Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar… arrive to find Job sitting in the ashes. He’s unrecognizable to them. Also picturing how unrecognizable our Saviour was by the mauling he took in bearing our sins in his own body. But they arrive to find Job is agonizing “they saw that his grief was very great”… but his worst agony is that he feels the worse thing he has lost is God. He feels God has forsaken him and that is tormenting him “My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?”

If a man like Job who had had all the best things in life and was such a good man considered being forsaken by God, and not being able to be right with God as the most hellish thing about his newfound position… what does that say about how bad hell will be? Eternal separation from God “depart from me, I never knew you”.

See, saved or not, we all enjoy the grace of God alike, if you are unsaved, you are yet to experience what God’s withdrawn hand and God being moved against you feels like… oh please do not go to hell.

At this point I would like to say that if you haven’t read Job, and that time and again, you are doing yourself major disservice, the Bible is 66 books, and you must balance your Christian life out by reading all of them, not just picking parts that convenience you.

And stop reading what people are saying about them, and start reading them yourself. Reading what someone says about the Bible because you don’t get it is not reading the Bible. All you’re going to do is get processed food, and someone might have processed all the good out already and you’re left with white bread… looks good, but no nutrition for your Christian life. Look, Job’s friends were talking about God to Job, but they were wrong about him… and if you pick counsellors to counsel you on God’s behalf, and their commentary is going to frame your Christian walk, you are in big trouble. Make decisions based on what God says not what someone who probably has no clue says that God says which he may not have said. These three friends were eminently qualified to speak on God’s behalf… they thought… but they fed Job chapter after chapter of bull.

The reason why it’s so important to get balanced truth and balanced counsel, which is what Job sought for, is because Satan deals in half truths. The remarkable thing about the book of Job is that you can read what his friends are saying to him in isolation, and it makes a lot of sense.

…But when you read what they say in the context of the rest of the Bible, and Job’s situation, we can conclude that these men were saying the most horrible untrue things to Job.

… see, we see Satan in the first two chapters and then after that it’s like he disappeared. He came among the sons of God in chapters 1 and 2… but where’d he go after that? But then you spot him again, and you see Satan using Job’s well meaning friends to try and bury Job with false accusations, lies, and half truths.

If you’ve read about the temptation of Jesus Christ, whom Job’s prophesies of, Satan did not tempt Jesus with a pitchfork… he used scripture, and a perfectly good and in fact wonderful verse… to try and get Jesus to jump off the temple building!… so you better sharpen up, child of God. Satan came to present himself among the sons of God to the Lord in this book, and he’s still present and presenting himself among the ranks of the sons of God today. He’s not “out there” … he’s in here, among the brethren… can’t you see his work yet?

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And so Job is one of God’s own saints going through a horrendous experience, having his entire life immersed in tragedy… but the worst thing in his mind, the worst thing about his suffering is that the thing he feared above all else, that is, not being right with God and losing harmony with God… that has happened to him he feels, as his Saviour would later say as he hung on the cross “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

I could not begin to do justice to this book in one short post, but this book answers questions you don’t even know you have yet. And this book to me so wonderfully illustrates the work and ministry of our Saviour as our Intercessor, Counsellor, High Priest… our Advocate and Comforter. And he is truly qualified to do these things, and be these things.

This is why we only can and only should point people to Jesus. Only Jesus knows. Only Jesus can help. When the Bible says Jesus succours us, that word means to run to the aid and assistance of. Why I tell you about Jesus is because I don’t know where you are at, and even if I did, which I don’t, I can’t help you, nobody can as Job said and pleaded for “Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!”. But the Lord can. There is no solution in man to the problems you have which you cannot even articulate. There is no solution in yourself or in me… as Joseph said “And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.”

So much of the book is Job pouring out his heart to God and he’s basically saying to God… God if only you knew how I feel, I just want to tell you what I’m going through. And in some sense, he was right, for God had not entered his own creation yet… God although perfect, had not been perfected in this way yet it is amazing to say… but it’s as if he’s saying in this book, hang on Job, I’m coming! I’m on my way… and he was. “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:”

You know the book of Hebrews says that it was in becoming flesh, and suffering, and tears, and striving against sin to the point of sweating great drops of blood, and obeying his Father through it all is what made Jesus perfect, and it’s what qualified him as our advocate and priest and bishop of our souls. He perfectly knows God. He perfectly knows man. He is the only one who can truly represent the one to the other. He is the only one who can balance what I need in every part of my life. Sometimes I need rebuke. Sometimes I need encouragement. Sometimes I need a slap to wake up. Sometimes I need a hug I love you. Only Jesus knows how to strike the balance of what I need in every situation and circumstance of life. And while you can dismiss what other people say because “ you don’t know how I feel, you don’t know what I’m going through”… yet you can’t disqualify Jesus from helping you or judging you, from saving you or sending you to hell… because he’s experienced it all, because he was a partaker… you don’t get to explain to him why he can’t judge you because he doesn’t get you.

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But now I would like to briefly touch on the verses quoted at the start. It is where Zophar, who is the third friend, he begins to talk to Job and he says something that got my attention recently “Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.”

If you read the book of Job to this point and you know where Job is at, and why… this is a pretty mean, cold hearted thing to say. Zophar’s telling Job… who’s lost his wealth, his children, his health, his own wife doesn’t want to go near him, and he is feeling completely disconnected from hope, purpose, reason, light, life… God… and Zophar is telling him … Job, God is doing to you less than you deserve.

Pretty good friend hey!

But in one sense he is right. We have become so entitled to God’s grace that we don’t realize God doesn’t owe us a thing. He only “owes us” what he gives us because he has bound himself voluntarily by promises made in love to us. It’s not because we demand it or can demand it. We are only entitled because of his mercy… not because we “deserve” better. If you are entitled, you are yet to experience salvation. I’ve met a lot of entitled Christian kids raised by loving parents who are so full of entitlement, because they’ve never learned a thing yet.. But Jesus Christ has no entitled children. The prodigal son was entitled before he left for the far country, when he returned he just wanted to be a servant because he knew how unworthy he was.

And while Zophar was right in a sense, yet Zophar was wrong. What he said was wicked. Because while that may be true in and of itself, we also know that this is not the heart of God. So he had no right to say this on behalf of God speaking into Job’s heavily grief laden state… which he was not even in because he was so bad, but because he was a man Jesus could allow to be tested in a way nobody else would be.

Zophar didn’t know the mercy and grace of Christ. He didn’t know this is not who God is and how God deals with us, when he could be justified in doing so. Zophar was lying about God to Job, and that’s what Satan’s role is in your life, maybe he’s had great successes in your mind toward God already. Just speak to people and see how well Satan succeeded in conquering their mind and heart and attitude towards God.

Zophar thought he knew God, but he didn’t. He may have known some truths, but he didn’t know how to use them. Today, there are many claiming Christians who are audacious enough to try and claim they know the heart of God… when they don’t. They have no clue. But I can point you to who does know the heart of God and his will toward man, even fallen, sinful, wicked man… and his name is Jesus Christ… he knows the heart of God intimately, because he is at God’s heart “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

How can you, or I, who haven’t seen God, tell someone else what his heart is to man? This is what Zophar is so foolishly brazen to do, but he’s not alone. We only know God’s heart as revealed to us by his Son who is at and from his heart. This is why we have to stick oh so close to God’s word, where he reveals himself to man. Because these friends did not reveal God to man… even though they thought themselves qualified to do so. Oftentimes it’s better to shut up, isn’t it “O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.”

Yes Jesus is above and from above. But he was not above us. The Bible says “for God so loved the world”. We read in Psalm 103… which Zophar hadn’t read… “He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.”

That doesn’t sound like what Zophar is saying to Job! Zophar never gave Job this hope. And when Job was very heavy in sorrow and grief, when Zophar could have provided true comfort through telling him about the mercy and grace of God in the balance of his righteousness and holiness… Zophar instead whacks Job with a … Job, you’re getting less than you deserve.

Look, we will get what we deserve ultimately, because God is just and righteous, but God wants to save you, he wants to draw you in cords of love, he sent the Holy Spirit as the Comforter… where was Job’s comfort from these friends? There are many things about God you may be yet to discover yet also, because you’re not using the Bible to divine him… but your own imagination and experiences and philosophies. Let God be who he says he is. And the fact is, he’s not like us… he tells us he’s not like us! “thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself”… and thank God for that. And thank God that he’s not like fallen man, he doesn’t think like fallen man with fallen man’s limitations, biases, contradictions and coldness… as the Bible says “The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.”

Do you know that God, Zophar? No, Zophar didn’t. He had no right to say that to Job, and he was not right. I would like to invite you to Jesus Christ, dear reader. God’s done the opposite of what Zophar said to Job… to me. He’s been better to me than I deserve. You know, mercy is by definition getting what we don’t deserve, and not getting what we do deserve. Do you know his mercy? Why not get to know this God? His name is the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s not like us. He will change your life. Job knew God in a way he never had before after this trial, that’s what life is about, getting to know this God and his lovingkindness more every day. It is the goodness of God that leads a man to repentance. Trust in him. And never stop trusting in him. Eternal life is knowing God through Jesus Christ his Son. He really is worth knowing, and when you know him you wish you did sooner. God bless you and have a great day!

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