Job 15:31

31 Let not him that is deceived [ta`ah] trust ['aman] in vanity [shav']: for vanity [shav'] shall be his recompence [tamuwrah]. KJV-Interlinear

31 'Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; For emptiness will be his reward. NASB

There are two sources of value. Bible doctrine is the source of intrinsic value, and everything else is the source of no value, vanity, or, as it is called here, emptiness.

God is the ultimate source of all things. He is the only source of all things. There is no other source from which anything can originate.

If you ignore God in your life, if you ignore Christ, doctrine, your spiritual life, then you, by default, are placing your confidence in nothing.

We were all placed into this world for the purpose of being saved, for our participation in the solution of the angelic conflict, for advancing to spiritual maturity, for going on to heaven in the next life.

Everything we think, say, and do, from birth until our death, is the environment in which God provides us with the logistical support for functioning in this life. All of our support aids us in living a life, such that we can study Gods Word, so we can learn and understand all about life and truth, so we can grow up to maturity and responsibility, so that we can prepare ourselves for eternity.

If you are not doing that, then your life is a total waste of time. You are in effect, spending all of your time, all of your life, investing in the things of this world, things which are temporary, and will do you absolutely no good in the next life.

By ignoring your spiritual life, you are fooling no one but yourself. You can neither expect anything from this life which will help you in the next life, nor can you expect some alternate 'next' life by means of your own definition, invention, or imagination.

Reject, or ignore God, Christ, and doctrine, and your reward in the next life will be zip.

God placed all of the details of this life, here for one reason, they all provide us with an environment to grow up, to realize the importance of our spiritual life, to apply the principles of what we learn to our daily life, to help us function and live within this life.

Things like right from wrong, truth from lies, charity from greed, responsibility from irresponsibility and so forth. These all provide us an opportunity for applying the things we learn from our Bible study.

Life provides us with many examples in the extreme which help, or should help, us to learn of the extreme differences between the spiritual life and the lack of a spiritual life. We can see the very rich verses the very poor, the living verses the dead, the gifted verses the untalented, the beautiful verse the ugly, and so forth.

The spiritual life represents the very best of the best in life. Lack of a spiritual life represents the very worst of the worst in life.

But Eliphaz, in this verse teaches us one more principle. The words in the original, deceived [ta`ah] trust ['aman] vanity [shav'] recompence [tamuwrah], all point to a decision or a result. And that decision or result comes at the end of ones life.

The spiritually deficient person not only invests in nothing in life, but whatever he has at the end of his life is 'stripped away.' He loses all he had, for nothing of this world, from this life, crosses over into the next life.

Only your spiritual resources advance into the next life. And, if you have no spiritual resources, or very few, then when you get to the next life, you will have little or nothing.

For many folks, their salvation will be all that they will enter into the next life with. That is certainly better than the alternative of the Lake of Fire.

But entering into the next life with a soul jammed full of spiritual growth would be so much better.

Now is the time to post a prayer.