Mike,

Do you really see our early walk with God as ‘many years of failure’? That time was a stage we had to go through as God planned. I see it as just a stepping stone to where we are today. There were many happy times in the churches, doing our thing for God, as we then saw it. Of course now we see it as all wrong, but we had to go through that period as ordained by God, so I can’t think of it as ‘failure’.
I really think that we were ‘rich in faith’ at that time in that appointed time in our walk.
J____

Hi J____,

Thank you for your question. Yes, “every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” is necessary for our salvation. But that includes the entire book of Job. Job is us in type, and we are all to be crushed to powder before we are to be made a new vessel. That is the very meaning of tried by fire. Our old self- righteous days in Babylon are wonderful in their time and place, just as is our suffering for failing to see them for what they really are.
We are all Job, but let’s not continue to be Job. Let us not continue to proclaim our own righteousness and accomplishments. Rather let us confess that our righteousnesses are indeed failures and filthy rags. Until we do we still have much to be burned out of us. We can of our own selves do nothing. We can’t even sin of ourselves.

Pro 22:8 He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail.
Isa 19:3 And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.
Isa 31:3 Now the Egyptians [ are] men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall fail together.

“When the Lord stretches out His hand,” then we and Job and Peter and all mankind will be more than ready to acknowledge that we are all guilty of living many years of our lives failing to obey His words and acknowledge that of ourselves and our own righteousness, we are complete failures, and that all the years we have spent enjoying the fellowship of our Babylonian brothers and sisters were only the necessary “falling seven times” which failures are predestined to precede our rising again in the acknowledgment that we “can do nothing without Christ.”

Joh 15:5 I am the vine, ye [ are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:for without me ye can do nothing.

I hope that helps you to see that we were “without Christ” while we are in Babylon and that until we acknowledge this we, like Job, still have a lot to learn. Here is what we are while in Babylon.

Job 29:2  Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me;
Job 29:3  When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness;
Job 29:4  As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;
Job 29:5  When the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me;
Job 29:6  When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;
Job 29:7  When I went out to the gate through the city, [ when] I prepared my seat in the street!
Job 29:8  The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, [ and] stood up.
Job 29:9  The princes refrained talking, and laid [ their] hand on their mouth.
Job 29:10  The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.
Job 29:11  When the ear heard [ me], then it blessed me; and when the eye saw [ me], it gave witness to me:
Job 29:12  Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and [ him that had] none to help him.
Job 29:13 The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
Job 29:14  I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment [ was] as a robe and a diadem.
Job 29:15  I was eyes to the blind, and feet [ was] I to the lame.
Job 29:16  I [ was] a father to the poor: and the cause [ which] I knew not I searched out.
Job 29:17  And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.
Job 29:18  Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply [ my] days as the sand.
Job 29:19  My root [ was] spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch.
Job 29:20  My glory [ was] fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand.
Job 29:21  Unto me [ men] gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel.
Job 29:22  After my words they spake not again; and my speech dropped upon them.
Job 29:23  And they waited for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide [ as] for the latter rain.
Job 29:24  [ If] I laughed on them, they believed [ it] not; and the light of my countenance they cast not down.
Job 29:25 I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one [ that] comforteth the mourners.

Job, like all of us, actually thought that the secret of God was upon him “in the days of his youth.” What is the truth on that subject?

Heb 5:14  But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Those who have their senses exercised to discern good and evil know that the our time in Babylon is as the days of our youth when we think as Job thought that God is with us and blessing us, even as we are spiritually eating and starving with the swine. It is only when God opens our eyes that, like the prodigal son, we see ourselves for the complete failures we have made of ourselves, and we come humbly back to our Father. Yes, it is all by God’s design, but that design is to show us that we need to be humbled and acknowledge our own failures.

Ecc 1:13 I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens:it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike