November 2012 USPS 184720 Volume 51 Number 11
The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land has committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord (Hosea 1:2). Hosea was a prophet during a time when Israel was in absolute disobedience to God. In the O.T., God did some seemingly bizarre things with His prophets. He often told them to do things and act in certain ways that seemed crazy, but it was for a reason. The point was, it caused the people to say, Why are you doing this? The answer was, God told me to, and this served as a picture, a living illustration of what Israel s condition was in God s sight. So when God told Hosea the prophet, a man of God, a holy man, to marry a prostitute, He was illustrating the spiritual condition of Israel. God told him to marry a whore and have children by her. 2 Hosea obeyed the Lord and married Gomer, a prostitute, and they had three children, two sons and a daughter. God even told him what to name the children, because again, their names were to signify the spiritual condition of Israel. They named their first son Jezreel which means God scatters, because God was scattering the people. They named their daughter Lo-ruhamah which means not pitied. God was saying, Time is up. I m not having mercy on you anymore. They named their last son Lo-ammi which means not my people. God was saying, You have departed from Me, and you are not My people. After they married, had three children, Gomer went back into the world and back into prostitution! After having a loving husband, a godly man, a beautiful home, and giving birth to three wonderful children, she chose to go back into the pigsty of prostitution!
Bring Her Back! If you think it s amazing that God told him to marry her in the first place, think about this: God said, Go and get her and bring her back! Now by this time, she had gone so far down into sin that she was actually a slave on the slave block. God said, I want you to go down to the town square, buy her back, bring her home, and make her your wife again. Don t raise your hands, Gentlemen, but how many of you would be up for that assignment? Why would God tell Hosea to do something like that? It seems like an awful lot to ask of somebody who had treated her with love and respect. The first time he married her, it was okay. You know, you can marry someone who gets saved and full of the Holy Ghost. You can forget their sinful past, because now they are a new creation. But when they willingly go back into the world and become even worse, it s hard to forgive again. This time she was a slave, and yet God told Hosea to buy her back, and he did for fifteen pieces of silver. Because in the interim, from the time she left home to the time she became a slave and God told him to buy her back, God had been dealing with Gomer. During that time, He had stripped her down, taken away all her pleasures, all her lovers, all of her trinkets, and all the things that she loved for herself. When God had stripped her down to nothing, she would reach the place where she would be glad to return to her husband. By this time, she had come to her senses, just like the prodigal son Jesus taught about in Luke 15. The Bible says that one day he came to his senses, and he said, Look at me. I m sitting in a pigsty eating pig slop, while even the servants in my father s house are better off than I am. I will arise and go home, and I ll say to my father, I don t deserve to be your son Can I be a servant? God was moving in Gomer s life to strip her down, so that when the time came she would be ready to go back home. I Will Return And she shall follow after her lovers, and she shall not overtake them, and she shall seek them, but shall not find them. And then she will say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now (Hosea 2:7). Let me tell you, when people turn their backs on God, backslide and go back into the world, there are only two things that can happen: First God will allow them to sow their seeds of sin, but pleasure for sin is only for a season (Heb. 1125). After awhile, the harvest is going to come up, and it will be a crop of trouble. The seeds of sin bring a harvest of hell! Secondly, the devil knows 3
A DOOR OF HOPE IN THE VALLEY OF TROUBLE he s got them on his territory, and he becomes their tormenter. Gomer didn t realize how blessed she was or how quickly she would lose her blessing. Remember, this is a picture of Israel, and God reminded them: For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold. Gomer didn t realize that God was the One that was blessing her and the One who gave her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal (vs. 8). Therefore, God said, I ll take it all away. I ll take away all the blessings. I ll remove your lovers. I will cause your mirth to cease and your celebration feasts (vv. 9-11). God was saying, The party s over! Time is up, and I m going to judge you and let you see just what a wretch you are. God Saves Wretches! I love the song Amazing Grace, because it says: who saved a wretch like me. There was an article in the paper recently that really burned me up. I actually wrote a letter to the editor, but I m not surprised that I didn t get a reply. The article stated how many churches are changing the words: a wretch like me to a soul like me, or one like me. They said that nobody wants to think of himself as being a wretch, and that it doesn t fit them. Then I actually heard on TV 4 a very popular Christian group who has been around over 30 years, singing the words who saved a soul like me. I started shouting at the TV: It s a wretch like me! And I have Scripture to prove it! Paul said in Romans 7:24, O wretched man that I am! It s good to know that you are a wretch, because when you get to that place, there is nowhere else to go but to God. Many sinners think they are pretty good people. But it s when you realize that you don t have the power to overcome bondage; you have no righteousness, because you are spiritually bankrupt, that you see yourself as a wretch undone and in need of God s amazing grace! That was Gomer. She was a wretch. Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt (vv. 14-15). We see clearly that this is an allegory, because God is talking about Gomer, but He is also talking about Israel. Israel is the one He brought out of Egypt. God did not say of Gomer: I m going to allure her out into the wilderness, and then I m going to whip her, I m going to
spank her, I m going to scold her and berate her, the wretch that she is! No! He said, I m going to speak comfortably to her. She had been disobedient, unfaithful, disloyal, but God said, I will speak comfortably to her. The Hebrew word comfortable is LEV which is also Hebrew for heart. God was saying, When I get her in the wilderness, I m going to have a heart to heart talk with her. I know she will listen to Me there, because there won t be any lovers to distract her. There won t be any parties going on to distract her. There I will have her attention. God Is A Jealous God At this point in the message I will chart a course that will go two parallel ways. One, obviously, is referring to backsliders like Gomer. The other speaks to the righteous in whom God desires to do a greater work in your life. So if one shoe doesn t fit you, the other one will, so put it on. In the case of the righteous, why would God allure us out into the wilderness? Why does He take us into wilderness experiences? You know good and well, you have done it, and I have done it when we were in the wilderness. We ve said, Why, Lord? Why am I here? I don t understand this. I m Your child. I ve been walking right. I ve been living right. I ve been believing You, so why am I going through this? We may even point out that we haven t committed spiritual adultery, because James said, Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of this world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. Does the Scripture say in vain, the spirit that dwells in us lusteth to envy? (Js. 4:4 5) This is a powerful verse that states that the Spirit of God in the child of God actually lusts to the point of envy! Don t think of the word lust in the negative because in the times of the King James English, it was used for good or bad. What it means is: God loves us so much, and He wants all of us so much that He is jealous over us! He envies our time when we fritter it away on other things. When we neglect our time with Him, He s jealous. He s just as jealous as the jealous husband whose wife is flirting with every man on the block, and vice versa. God says, I m jealous over you. If I get you in the wilderness, you won t be distracted by anything. You will be right where I can have a heart to heart talk with you. When we are walking in the blessings, and everything is going smooth, we don t always hear Him. We have a tendency to neglect our spiritual walk with the Lord. But when we are under pressure, we are on our prayer 5
A DOOR OF HOPE IN THE VALLEY OF TROUBLE bones, we are in the Bible, we are going to church to hear God s Word. It s when we are having a season of blessing and refreshing, if we re not careful, we may begin to enjoy the blessings instead of the Blesser! God says, In the wilderness, you will hear My voice. Then I can speak to you with My BAT KOL. The Hebrew meaning is a small voice, and it literally means the voice of the daughter. BAT means daughter, and KOL means voice, and the voice of the daughter means a little voice, like the voice of a little girl. It is found in 1Kings 19:12 when Elijah was hiding in a cave, having fled for his life, because he slew 450 false prophets of Baal. When God speaks in a still small voice, you will have to pay attention, and you will hear Him speak comfortably to you. Hubands and wives do the same thing after they ve been married awhile. In the beginning, they had their romantic love talk, even baby talk, and special little names they called each other. But after a few years and a few kids, they get so busy with life, and there is always something to do, and something to take care of, and stuff, stuff, stuff. Nobody calls anybody Baby Cakes anymore. Sometimes it takes a separation for them to miss each other, or someone gets sick, or a crisis comes into their life; then they 6 start reaching back for those sweet things and loving words. That s how we are with the Lord sometimes, but He wants to speak comfortably, tenderly to us. Even when we ve blown it, when we ve messed up, He will bring us to the wilderness, and when we are ready for Him to lower the boom, and we know we deserve it, instead He speaks tenderly to us: I ll not ever leave you. I ll not ever forsake you. I want you to be true to Me, because I love you with an everlasting love, and I draw you in My loving kindness. (Refs.: Heb. 13:5, Jer. 31:3). The Door of Hope I especially love verse 15: I will give her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope, and there she will sing like she did in her youth. What is the significance of the valley of Achor? The first time we read of it in the Bible, goes back to Joshua and Jericho, the first city they conquered when the Israelites came into the Promised Land. As God instructed, they had marched seven times around the city walls and on the seventh time on the seventh day, the walls fell straight down. They possessed that mighty-fortress city just like God had told them they would. God told Joshua: I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king, and the mighty men of valour (Josh. 6:2). It was
a done deal. Usually when the victors conquered a city, they stripped the dead bodies of all of their weapons and their silver and gold. They would go into their tents and take all their valuable goods, and they got to keep them. These were the spoils of victory (Ref. Deut. 20:14). But in the case of Jericho, because it was the first city of conquest (and God always gets the first, just like He gets the tithes first) they were not to take the spoils for themselves. God said, All the silver and gold go into the treasury of the Lord. Don t take anything for yourselves, because it is accursed (Josh. 6:18-19). These were the instructions they were given by God through Joshua, but one man, and it only takes one, disobeyed the commandment, and stole silver and gold and a Babylonian garment. Meanwhile they were moving on to the next city, which was just a little city. It wasn t a fortress city like Jericho with huge walls, so they thought, We will go in there and take it like it is nothing. But when they went into the little city of Ai, they got the socks ripped off of them. They had to flee the city, and 36 men were killed. Then Joshua fell on his face crying out to God, This is terrible. How could You let this happen? (Josh. 7:6-9). God basically said, Shut up and get up! The reason you cannot stand before your enemy is, because there is sin in the camp (Josh. 7:10-11). You and I can never stand before our enemy if we have sin in our life. The enemy knows it, and he is just waiting for this opportunity. When he tries to jump on us when we are full of Holy Ghost power, we start quoting Scriptures to him, and he flees! (Js. 4:7). But when we know we re not doing right, we are not so bold to do this. We have to repent and cry for an hour, until we believe we are really forgiven, and by then the devil has beat us up. God said to Joshua: There is sin in the camp, and I will not bless you or to go with you anymore until you get sin out of the camp (vv. 11-12). Stuff like this scares me, because I realize it only took one person, Achan, to bring judgment on the whole nation of two to three million people. They all suffered because of his disobedience. It only takes one or two people in the church to get bent out of shape and start running their mouths for the whole church to suffer. It only takes a few people on the choir to not like this and not like that, and before you know it, the whole choir is affected, and there is no anointing when they sing. God will not move when there s uncleanness behind the pulpit. You have to get rid of the sin. You can t just cover 7
A DOOR OF HOPE IN THE VALLEY OF TROUBLE it up and go on, God says, I m not in it, and I m not blessing it. They had to get the offender out of the camp. It was a long process, but when they got through it, they found out it was Achan: And Joshua, and all of Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them unto the valley of Achor (Josh. 7:24). Achan had stolen the silver and gold and the Babylonian garment, and dug a hole and buried it in his tent. He thought no one saw him, but he failed to look up. The silver and gold were to go to God, and the Babylonian garment was accursed, so he brought the curse on all Israel. Because of that, his whole house was cursed. God even made them kill his sheep and oxen and asses! Why? God was making a point, and He is always very emphatic that partaking of that which is cursed, occultic, and demonic will bring a curse on everything that pertains to you. If we understand how our actions can greatly affect our families, we would take heed. Sometimes we just get into self, and we know that we are going to eventually get around to getting the victory, but meanwhile, we cause havoc to those around us. Joshua brought Achan and his 8 family down to the valley of Achor: And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned them with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones until this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of His anger. Wherefore the name of that place was called the valley of Achor until this day (Josh. 7:24-26). The valley of Achor means the valley of trouble. It became a metaphor for a place of trouble and judgment, and its mention brought an immediate remembrance of these events. For instance, I could walk up to almost any American on the street and say 9/11, and immediately, we would be on the same page. I wouldn t have to elaborate or rehearse the tragic events of that day. All I have to say is 9/11, and you instantly know what I m talking about. It was the same with Achor: Just say, the valley of Achor, and immediately they knew trouble! Keeping this in mind, let s return to our story of Gomer where God said, I am going to allure you into the valley of trouble, but when I get you into the valley of trouble, I m going to speak tenderly to you. I m going to talk to you from the bottom of My heart.
My Valley of Trouble Sometimes God leads us into the valley of trouble. Believe you me, I ve been there, and I always say that I never want to go through it again! I know it s my flesh speaking, because my flesh doesn t like to hurt. I was tired of hurting for years. It was a battle, and I had to fight through it. I don t want to go through it again, but nevertheless, there are things that Jesus whispered to me in those dark valleys that I never heard before in all my years of serving Him. There are things the Lord spoke to my heart that I had I never heard before: Things that just melted my soul and spirit, and that is what God wanted, because He knew that there were things in me that would be hard for me to recognize in myself; things that were self-righteous and proud, a tendency to be boastful, and to be impatient with others weaknesses. God said, These things will destroy you, and I love you too much, and you are too valuable to Me to allow them to destroy you. So in order for Me to be able to do what I want in you and through you, I have to get these things out. As long as I am blessing you, you are not studying about this stuff. In fact, you take the blessings of the Lord as the stamp of approval on your holy, godly life. You think: I must be holy, because I m so blessed. But God said, When you are in the valley of trouble, don t be dismayed (Like He told Paul, Don t kick against the pricks. ), because I will do something for you in the valley that I cannot do for you on the mountain top. If you have people in your family who are backslidden and away from God, or unsaved children, and your heart is grieved for them, and you want them to get saved, but you see that right now it looks like the bottom is falling out, and they are in trouble, don t be upset! And don t always interfere with God s dealings. Get in your prayer closet, and say, God, I know You are doing something, and this is all part of the plan to get them back to You. I know You got them into this place, because You want to strip them down, till they come to the place like the prodigal, and say, I am tired of this pig sty. I am tired of playing this game. I am tired of being beat up by the devil. I will get up and go back to my husband, I will go back to my Jesus. It was better for me then. Gomer said, It was better for me before! What kind of fool am I, out here stripped and naked, standing on this slave block while everybody is jeering and laughing at me? Some of those hypocritical men that went to bed with me, now are shaming me. They are just as guilty as I am, but I am up here on this slave block. But God said, Don t be 9
A DOOR OF HOPE IN THE VALLEY OF TROUBLE afraid, Hosea, to bring her back, because I tell you, she will never leave you again. She will never go back out there again. She will be true to you, because I have done a work in her. I have allowed her to walk in the valley of trouble, but I didn t leave her there to die. I have opened a door of hope in the valley of trouble, and I send you now to bring her back. This is what God wants us to do for those who are backslidden and away from Him. He s waiting for them to say, I want to come back, Lord. They may not say it to you, but they are saying it in their hearts, and God hears it. He knows when the time is right. You notice that He did not tell Hosea to go and get her until after she said, I will return to my husband. It was better for me there than it is now. He didn t send him before, because it would have been a waste of time. Her heart was not ready. So don t despair if you see that one getting deeper and deeper in the pit. God knows when they have reached the place where they have lost all hope, and then He will open the door of hope to them! Child of God, if you find yourself in the valley of trouble, listen for God s voice, because you will hear the voice of the Lord in the valley of trouble say things to you that you never heard before. In Psalms 46:1 God said, I am a very present help in time 10 of trouble. In Psalm 37: 39 He said, I am your strength in the time of trouble. In Psalm 91: 15: I will be with you in trouble, and I will deliver you out of trouble. One of my favorites is Psalm 138:7: Though I walk in the midst of trouble right smack in the middle of it Thou wilt revive me. There are scores of Scriptures, especially in Psalms, about God being a present help in our time of trouble. God says to us: I will give you a door of hope in the valley of trouble, and you will sing to Me as in the days of your youth when I brought you out of your Egypt of sin. Remember that first love you had when Jesus first saved you? You were so full of joy, so full of the goodness of God, you just had to sing. You played gospel songs all day, singing along. He said that He will restore your joy to you and give you the same songs of salvation you had in the beginning when He brought you out of sin. So when you are in the valley of trouble, start looking for the door of hope. Provision in the Valley God knew there was no way that Gomer could get herself out of slavery. She could not pay the price to redeem herself. There was nothing she could do to get herself out of that place, so God had to open a door for her, and when God opens a door for you,
He will rescue you; He will redeem you. If you are in the valley of trouble, and you feel sometimes like the Lord has forgotten you, He wants you to know that He has you in this valley for a season and for a reason. If it is not apparent to you now, it will be, I promise you. If you will just keep listening for the voice of the Lord, you will hear Him say, Here s an open door, the door of hope. Because Jesus said in John 10:9: I am the door. In John 14:6 He said, I am the way I am the way out of your trouble. Not only this, He says, While you are in this place, I am going to supply your need. Did you catch what He said to Gomer? He said, And in the valley of Achor I will give you vineyards. Vineyards speak of provision. It speaks of God meeting your need even in the valley of trouble! When God does not immediately extricate you and deliver you out, you may not understand it, but God is faithful in the midst of that valley. He said, I will give you vineyards. I will supply your need. I will not leave you in that place without provision. I will not forsake you in that valley. If God could supply the daily needs of food and water for 3 million Jews in the wilderness for 40 years, put shoes on their feet and clothes on their back, can t He supply your need in your wilderness experience in the valley of trouble? If He did it then, He ll do it again. Only God can turn your wilderness into a vineyard. Only God can turn your wilderness into a garden. Only He can turn your wilderness into a place where the Rose of Sharon and the Lilly of the Valley bloom. This is what Isaiah prophesied about restoration: The earth mourneth and languisheth: Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down: Sharon is like a wilderness, and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits (Isa. 33:9). Today Sharon and Carmel are the most fertile areas of the Holy Land. It s where the Lilly of the Valley grows and the Rose of Sharon grows. But in this area there once was mourning and languishing. The trees were shaking off their fruits, because they had not had any water and were dying. Without water, the fertile plain will become as the wilderness. We are talking about the people of God being in an experience like this: A place that is normally fruitful and beautiful has become a place of desolation where the fruit is falling off, but God can make a vineyard in your wilderness. Isaiah 35:1-2: The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, and the 11
excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God. God can make the desert blossom like a rose, and He has literally done this for Israel. This prophetic message has already been fulfilled, and today Israel is only second to Holland in supplying the world with fresh flowers. Israel also supplies most of Europe with their fresh fruit. In the early 1900 s when Jews first started coming back to the land in the Zionist Movement, it was a swamp land, but today, it fills the earth with flowers and fruit. The Valley of Peace Now for my favorite verse on this subject, Isaiah 65:10: And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor (the valley of trouble) a place for the herds to lie down in, and for my people that have sought me. God will make the valley of trouble a place for the flocks to lie down! And this tells me that the valley of trouble will become a valley of peace, because sheep will not lie down where there is trouble. They will only lie down in the green pasture. They will only lie down next to the still waters. They will only lie down where there is no threat of danger. If there is a threat around them, they are scared, nervous, and become panicky, because they have absolutely no defenses. Sheep is the only animal that God made that has no defense, and that s why God likens His people to sheep, because without Him we have no defense! The Lord is our Shepherd Jehova-Roi. He is Jehovah-Shalom! (The Lord our Peace). He is our Jehovah-Shamma! (The Lord is present). He will defend us, and we won t lie down until He leads us to a place of safety and peace: And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effects of righteousness quietness and assurance forever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places (Isa. 32:17-18). Our God is not only the God of the mountains, the metaphor for victory, but He is also God in the valley of trouble. Once when Israel was in a battle against the Syrians and Israel desolated them, the enemy went back to their king and said, We better find another strategy. Obviously, their gods are the gods of the mountains, but let us fight them in the plains, and surely we will be stronger than they, So the king hearkened and sent the army to face Israel in the valley. But what they didn t realize was, God is the God of the mountain, and the God of the valley. Then God sent a prophet to tell the king of Israel, Thus saith the Lord, Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the 12
hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the Lord (1Kgs. 20:23-28). The Lord is even our God in the valley of Achor, the valley of trouble, so we must not murmur and complain, even if we don t understand what God is doing. He said, I brought you to this place that I might speak tenderly to you. It s our responsibility to get in the posture to wait on the Lord and to hear His voice. The worst thing we can do in trouble is to get up and try to make something happen in our flesh. This is always the first thing we want to do, because we feel like we have to do something. We have to fix it, and in our haste and fleshly zeal we do things that make the situation much worse. But God says, Be still and know that I am God (Ps. 46:10). When you have done all you can do, you have to rest in the Lord, and let Him do what only He can do. You can call for the saints to pray. I advise you to do that. You can get saints to agree with you. I think you should. There is great power in the prayer of agreement. But when it s all said and done, you ve got to trust in the Lord and know that He is able to bring you out. So when you find yourself in the valley of trouble, remember, He will create a door of hope that is His promise to bring you out! 13