Job 4:12 – Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof.

Job 4:13 – In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,

Job 4:14 – Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.

Job 4:15 – Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:

Job 4:16 – It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,

Job 4:17 – Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?

Hello readers, new blog time today. We are in the middle of Eliphaz speaking to Job. Eliphaz is this old wise guy who thinks he knows whats going on. And in this story we seem him reference a spiritual encounter he had which he draws upon to explain Job’s situation. Well, well, it all sounds great doesn’t it. But the Bible says in 1 John 4:1 – Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.  However, Eliphaz believed this spirit. Spirits can fool you, you cannot see them, there was a woman with a spirit of divination who followed Paul seemingly saying all the right things… but he was grieved and cast the spirit out of her. We are commanded to try the spirits, because many spirits are not the Holy Spirit of God, and they may just seduce and entice you away from truth, away from Jesus Christ. This spirit that Eliphaz encountered may have seemed legitimate, but test the legitimacy of spirits against God’s word rather than just believing it because it gave you a hair raising experience and makes you feel special and privileged. How do you try a spirit seeing as you cannot see a spirit? You try it with the spiritual gauge God has given us of his word. There’s a vast spiritual world out there that cannot be navigated but for the Holy Bible.

Many people today put their trust in experiences, in feelings, in senses. Jude in fact says that there are those that separate themselves being sensual, and not having the Holy Ghost. We see a man here, a man cast in the role of a friend and councillor who had put a lot of stock in this experience he had had. Eliphaz trusted what he had seen and experienced. And not just for himself, but he was going to use this as a backdrop for giving Job some advice for his life and in handling the conundrum he was in. You won’t be any help to someone without God’s word to give them. We are not supposed to trust experiences, senses, feelings, and in fact not even in signs and wonders. They can fool you. And even if they are nice and part of life, they actually only are given from God to confirm what God has already said. So without them, you can still trust God’s word. The signs and wonders given in the Bible were given to confirm the word of God. Remember Gideon… he wanted a sign. God had commanded him but he was fearful and that’s ok. God did give him assurance, but the signs God gave him only proved what God had already said.

The Bible is greater. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14:32 – And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. What does this mean? It means the spirits are subject to God’s word. Many prophets rise up today yet what they say does not check out in God’s word, or check out according to God’s word. Let’s go to 2 Peter 1… because Peter in his second epistles affirms to us the superiority of the scripture. Peter was there at the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus was transfigured, yet Peter points us to the word of God. He says… we have a more sure word of prophecy. That’s the Bible! We have not followed cunningly devised fables… how many religions alone have been started out of private spiritual experiences. Jesus before Pilate said in secret he had said nothing and that he had spoken openly in the world. The Bible speaks of the faith once delivered to the saints, and of the common salvation, and of the great plainness of speech that we speak with seeing as we have so great a hope. Think of Islam, think of Mormonism, think of the church today which is all about dreams and experiences and visions and senses and feelings. Nothing of the word of God. Satan is ultimately behind it, because he wants to draw you away from God’s word.

Believe not every spirit the Bible says. Don’t trust your heart the Bible says. Experience may teach you all the wrong things. God’s word is the plumbline, it is the authority, it is more sure than even the greatest experiences. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Jesus said his words are spirit and life. True spiritual experience is had in God’s word. Isaac felt and got fooled by Jacob… the voice sounded like Jacob, but he felt the goat skins covering Jacob’s arms and got sucked into believing the lie. Experiences and feelings helped to derail Job’s friends and also made them unable to help Job at all in his darkest hour of life. The Bible says let God be true and every man a liar. If you are looking for signs and wonders and spiritual experiences, it means the Bible is not what gets it done for you. Yet the Bible is the incorruptible seed of the word of God. It is the thing that plants the seed that can bring forth life, and a fruitful and eternal life at that. Look at Colossians 1:5,6 – For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth… what will bring forth fruit in your life is hearing the word of God and believing and obeying it.

God said to Job the end of the book that his wrath was kindled against Eliphaz and his two friends, because they had not spoken of Him the thing that is right as Job had. Job’s friends didn’t represent God right to him. They didn’t represent who God is or what God was doing in Job’s life rightly … that’s really where you get when you go away from God’s word, when your life and faith and thinking isn’t built upon the rock of God’s word. That’s what you get when you stray from God’s word into experiences and senses and feelings and philosophy and whatever it is… but it will give you a distorted image of who God is. Why do you think the church is like it is today? Because most people have abandoned God’s word. We can and should know things, things as concrete and immovable and unchanging as those tables of stone which contained the law of God. John wrote 1 John so that we could KNOW things, like proofs that we are saved or not. 1 John 5:13 – These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. We should form what we KNOW and think and believe and do from God’s word. How have we gotten so far from who God truly is, from what God truly requires… because we’ve gone after experiences and feelings and our ways and means… abandoning God’s word in the process.

Consider these verses … 1 John 5:20,21 – And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. … just think of the end of the epistle… this is the true God. Get your image of God, of Jesus Christ, from the words of his book. All of Job’s friends wisdom and philosophy and whatnot… it failed. Their thinking and assumptions and conclusions were wrong. Job saw God when God spoke to him, we need God’s word to set us straight as his word did Job… and it illicted humility and repentance in him. May God’s word, God speaking to us today… bring about that same humility and repentance, and that is the work of the true Holy Spirit of God… who is the Spirit of truth, who is the Comforter. Job’s friends came to comfort him and couldn’t, but the truth of God’s word can give you the truth and true comfort today. And yes it is a battle, but God is looking for Davids today who can run into the camp and have the confidence and assurance and know God and be able to slay giants and be used of God. So many are shipwrecked and turned aside and off here or off there… let God’s word place you on that narrow road that leads surely to life here and life eternal.

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