Lessons From The Valley

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. I'd like to think with you this morning about a subject that I think is pertinent to all of our life, and it is perhaps more poignant for some of us today than it is for others. I'd like to think about lessons from the valley this morning because all of us go through valleys. [00:00:40] We are all confronted by things that are difficult to confront. I suppose in the scripture, the first valley that I can think of is when God pronounced, well, I shouldn't say God pronounced a curse. That was when Adam and Eve recognized the extent of the valley that they were in. But as I thought of that, and as I looked at that, in verse 16 of Genesis chapter 3, God said to Eve, to the woman, wasn't called Eve in the Bible before this, I don't think, just a few verses later, we read that that's what Adam called her. [00:01:25] But God said this to the woman, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Now, to Adam, he said, in the next verse, just a little bit later than the first part, dropping down there, Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. [00:01:56] Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till I return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. I noticed that there's one word in common in both the curse for the man and for the woman, and that's the word sorrow. He repeats it again to Eve. He only uses it one time for Adam. [00:02:26] but certainly you see that in the curse that Adam and Eve brought upon themselves and upon us. I know I've said this before but I believe it is good for us to have a garden whether economics dictate that or not and some people say that you cannot justify a garden economically and I'm not going to argue that point But I don't know of any way to bring home the truth of verses 17 and 18 and 19 better than having a garden. [00:03:03] If you have a garden, you know what I'm talking about. I can only imagine what it might have been like before the curse to have a garden. But it doesn't talk about insects here, but I don't suppose they had to fight insects. It's certainly not the weeds that we have to fight today. But as I think of the valleys that people go through, I'd like to just consider some valleys of some people [00:03:34] and then consider some valleys of God's people in general and then some of the lessons that we can or should learn from valleys. Maybe a question that we'll look at a little bit later is why? Why valleys? I think it's a pertinent question. I think as we look at this, perhaps that question will be answered. I suppose Joseph's life was one that illustrates valets, perhaps of all people, better than anybody that I know of. [00:04:12] We could turn to Genesis chapter 38. I don't know if we need to do that. There are a number of verses here where we read about the valley, I think, in chapter 37 of Genesis. There are a number of verses here where we see the valley that Joseph went through because of what his brothers did for him. And I say because of what his brothers did to him, I meant to say here. [00:04:43] We could read beginning at verse 18 through verse 28, and we see here what went through the mind of his brethren here, and perhaps some of what went through his mind, although that is not recorded here. Verse 18, And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams. [00:05:21] and Reuben heard it and he delivered him out of their hands and said let us not kill him and Reuben said unto them shed no blood but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness and lay no hand upon him that he might rid him out of their hands that he might rescue him out of their hands I think is what he is saying here to deliver him to his father again and it came to pass when Joseph was coming to his brethren that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him [00:05:52] and they took him and cast him into a pit. The pit was empty. There was no water in it. They sat down to eat bread and they lifted up their eyes and looked and behold a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh. [00:06:26] And his brethren were content, and they passed by the Midianites merchantmen, and they drew and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt. And that's not all of Joseph's valley. Rather, it is the beginning of Joseph's valley. But we see here some of the things that Joseph went through. He was hated, he was envied, and finally sold into Egypt. His brothers conspired against him, we read here. [00:07:02] In Egypt, we could read further how he was falsely accused. He was cast into prison, although God's blessing was upon him. And there is one thing that was a blessing to me to read as I read of the verses about his stay in Egypt. And as I think about Joseph's life, if you would turn back two chapters to chapter 39, I've highlighted a few phrases here. In fact, there's one phrase we find two times. In verse 2, the Lord was with Joseph. [00:07:33] You find it in verse 2 and also in verse 21. That phrase, the Lord was with Joseph. Now, is God just with people without fail? Why does it say here, the Lord was with Joseph? If we take what James tells us, where James said, draw nigh unto God, and God will draw nigh unto you. I think we have the key of why God was with Joseph. [00:08:06] And it seems to me that we do well to remember that There are other people in the scriptures that we could look at their valleys And I'm not going to turn to scripture But Moses was a child who was given to somebody else to raise But in my mind, Moses' valley occurred when he fled Egypt because he was threatened He killed an Egyptian because he was trying to carry out God's work and I would say in his own way, in his own strength, but for trying to carry out God's work, he was threatened, his life was threatened. [00:08:44] And it didn't occur to me, I don't think, until as I thought about Moses' life. God said, Moses, I want you to go back into Egypt. Did it ever occur to you who he was going to face when he got back into Egypt? We don't read, was the same man alive who threatened his life? I don't know. It was Pharaoh, but that was only the name of their king, so we can't tell. Was it a descendant of the man who threatened Moses? [00:09:15] At any rate, Moses went through a valley as well. In fact, maybe the bigger valley to me would have been, Moses, I want you to go back there and rescue my people and face either the offended man or a descendant of the offended man When Moses left, we could look at Daniel as well. Daniel went through some very deep valleys. He was carried from his homeland. If you look at the first few verses in the book of Daniel, it says that the Lord gave over the king of Israel into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel and others were carried into into Babylon. [00:09:58] But as you look, and I suppose he served as a eunuch under Nebuchadnezzar Although I don't read any, I haven't read that anybody has said that he was a eunuch in the land of Babylon But he served under the prince of eunuchs and so I just assume that's what he was We do not read of his family But he was a person who went through some pretty deep valleys You remember his life was threatened? What had he done? Nothing. He was simply one of the wise men and the wise men couldn't answer Nebuchadnezzar or couldn't tell Nebuchadnezzar what he had forgotten, his dream. [00:10:40] He was cast into the lions then, and there were many other things, but there are some things in Daniel that I think are worthy of note. Some things to learn, and maybe we should look at this a little bit later, but perhaps now would be as good a time as any. If you will turn with me to Daniel chapter 9, I would like to notice one thing that Daniel did that I think we need to learn from as I think of Daniel going through a valley and Daniel was an esteemed ruler. [00:11:25] He was an esteemed advisor to rulers, perhaps I should say. He was given a responsible position. But in Daniel chapter 9, this was where Daniel was praying, he was fasting. You read that in verse 3, in sackcloth and ashes. And I'd like to read verse 4 and the following verses here. And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments. [00:12:01] We have sinned and have committed iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments. Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants, the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near and that are far off, through all the countries where thou hast driven them, because of their trespass, that they have trespassed against thee. [00:12:43] O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of faith, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him. I don't know what you hear when you read that prayer that Daniel made to God, but I see repentance. I see a person that I don't know if Daniel was guilty of the same sins that the other people were or not. [00:13:18] But Daniel was willing to repent even though they may not have been his personal sins. But he includes himself right in with it. Jonah went through a valley of a little different sort. and just confess to you that our valets are sometimes valets that, my valets are sometimes those that I make for myself, sometimes through no fault of my own and that is true for all of us, I am sure. [00:13:50] Jonah made his own valet by running away from God and I am blessed when I, I'm not going to read chapter 2 of Jonah, but I am blessed when I read about what Jonah had to say in the whale's belly there. He certainly said, Lord, I made wrong choices, and I am blessed by his faith that he said he will yet praise God from the whale's belly. [00:14:24] How did he know that? But, you know, the valet that Jonah had may not have been entirely of his own making. He had a rather unusual assignment given to him. A little bit like if you or I were asked to go to Iran and preach a message of gloom and doom. Because that is his message. I don't know exactly what God told him to say. I don't know that when he got there he said anything different, but he said, repent, your end is here. [00:15:01] And you notice that there wasn't a loophole given to the Ninevites. You're just, you're done, is what Jonah was saying. But I am blessed that we have a merciful God. and where there was no loophole, they made one by their prayer and their repentance in sackcloth and ashes. And it's something that Jonah held to God's face. He said, I knew that you were a merciful God and that's why I didn't want to come here. But we have to give Jonah just a little bit of room, I believe, [00:15:37] because Jonah did not live in a day when evangelization was a very popular thing. I suppose it would not be right to not consider David, David's valet, King David in the Bible. As I think of the valet that he went through, being pursued by a king that was his father-in-law, even though David was trying to be a servant of God, be all that God had for him to be, [00:16:08] I suppose if I look at the account of David and Saul there is one thing that I think rankled in Saul's mind more than anything else and that is after the slaying of Goliath you remember when the women came with their tambourines and they were dancing and they were just rejoicing in the victory that God had given them And they said, Saul has slain his thousands and David has slain his ten thousands. [00:16:43] I think something happened just about then. And of course, was it before or after that we read that the Spirit of God left Saul? But there are some things as I was looking at the life of Saul and David, Although, I don't think that the relationship between Saul and David was ever the same after that. Although Saul managed to be civil at times to David, it was just a temporary thing that he managed to be civil. [00:17:16] But I really think that the fact that God's spirit left Saul and he entered into David was perhaps the biggest cross that Saul had to carry. And that thought was a little bit new to me as I thought of that. But did you ever stop to think what happened when Saul prayed in the latter part of Saul's kingship? I read in my Bible, I don't know how late this was, but I read in my Bible that God didn't answer him. [00:17:52] And it was Saul's fault, granted. But that was what Saul had to go through. When David was running from Saul, you know, I always looked at David as the underdog, and he was. But when David prayed, what happened? God answered him, didn't he? When David prayed to God and said, God, shall I go down here into this city? God answered him and said, don't go down there or do go down there. He gave him direction. [00:18:24] So, the valleys that we go through, what is it that we have to learn from these? We could look at the valley that Jesus walked through just by coming to this sin-cursed earth. But as we look at, if I would have to say this was the lowest point in the valley for Jesus I suppose I would go to him in the garden Where he faced that thing of the magnitude of the cross and of my sins and yours all alone [00:18:58] Knowing that God was going to have to forsake him in order for him to die and having him reach the place where he could say, not my will, but yours. I think that is the purpose of valets. I think is what Jesus prayed, not my will, but yours. I think that is perhaps, if we could put it in a nutshell, that is perhaps the purpose of the valets. Not my will, but yours, that we can come to that place. [00:19:30] If you want a series of valet experiences, and I don't think we have time, I'm not going to spend time to look at these But if you would go into Judges and look at chapter 3, verse 8 through 11 You see how the Israelites apostatized They left the faith, they started worshipping other gods And then we read that God's anger burned against them and they were delivered to the enemy And then they repented. And you read it not one time, not twice, not six times. I don't know how often. I didn't read how often, but there are many, many valid experiences there. [00:20:12] And we can sit down, we can read it in a number of minutes or hours. And so it seems, why didn't they get them drift? Why didn't they learn? but one thing we need to remember is that we're reading about many different people when you read about history you can condense it into hours what happened in hundreds of years and that is what happens there one of the valid experiences of the Israelites was when the Midianites came up to oppress them they had turned their own way and they oppressed them only a number of years [00:20:45] But we read that Israel was greatly impoverished because they came and they took their crops, they took their animals, and the Israelites cried out to God and God delivered them, again through Gideon in that case. One of the things about valet experiences, and all of us face valets, I don't know if we face them every day or not, but one of the things about valet experiences is that God can get our attention in the valet. [00:21:16] Where often, if we're on top of things, he's got a harder time getting our attention. And that shouldn't be so, but it is. When God stops us in our tracks And I would just mention Saul Not King Saul now, but Saul in the New Testament Did he listen to God? Yes, he did But where was he when he listened to God? Struck down by the light [00:21:46] That was a valley of sorts for Saul And then he listened to God Was God speaking to Saul all the time? I think so He just wasn't tuned to listen to it. And that's true for you and me too. But God wants to get our attention and sometimes he has to use the valley to get our attention. What is it that we learn in the valley is one of the questions that I would like to look at with you. I believe that one of the things that we learn in the valley is that of humility. [00:22:24] Why does this happen to me? Do you get an answer? One of the people that I didn't mention in the Bible who went through a valley as far as I can determine not of his own making was Job. I don't think the valley was of his making but he definitely went through a valley. And I'm not sure what it was that Job learned. [00:22:55] Did Job ever get answers for his questions that he asked God? I don't think so. But I think there is one thing that Job learned, and that is who is in charge of Job's life. He didn't get answers to his questions that I can read, but he did find out that God is in charge. And that is one of the things that I think we need to learn. One of the things that we learn in the valley is obedience. [00:23:27] Even when I cannot understand why, I need to learn to obey God and to obey others as well. I read Daniel chapter 9 verses 4 through 9. and that talks about repentance and that is one of the things that we need to learn in the valley. As we think about who is in control as we are in the valley, you know, we might say, [00:24:03] well, do I even need to pray about this? And we should. We should pray about situations. situations. We need to, but we do need to recognize that ultimately God is in control. We need to humble ourselves before him. We need to obey him. A number of times in the past months I have had people who said something about our current economic situation was the reason they made the remark. They said it's good for us to go through the situation that we're going through. [00:24:40] And I agree with them, but I'd like for us just to think a little bit, why is it good for us? What did these men mean when they said, this situation is good for us? I'm not sure what all, that maybe you have some things that you want to share with us. Why is it, what is it about it that is good for us? I think one of the things that I think of is just simply a recognition that it is God who gives us the blessings that we have. [00:25:18] When we're here, when we're here, it is God that gives us these blessings. Or sometimes he's the one that withholds blessings from us. So that we look to him so that we, he withholds it for our good so that we respond as he would have us respond. You know, sometimes God tests us. What will you or I do? What will this person do if I withhold blessings or if I give him blessings? [00:25:52] How does he respond to that thing? As I think of Lessons from the Valley, I think of, as I said, the current economic situation. We could say that our country, our nation is going through a valley. And I don't think we would have anybody that would argue with that. Some people might say it's an economic valley. I am going to say that we are in a valley that is much more than an economic valley. [00:26:26] And I'm going to tell you a little bit more so you understand what I am saying. Somebody said this, that I forget the exact wording. I think if I had my old Bible I could turn, I think I jotted it down. but the idea was to be lacking in character and in principle is a much more serious situation than to have a bank account that is depleted [00:27:00] and that is the thought behind that and that is what I mean when I say that what we're going through is much more than an economic valley We are going through a moral lack in our world today that has, I think, brought about the economic valley that we are experiencing. And let me hasten to say that I am not a preacher who preaches that if we live right, God will bless us financially. [00:27:33] I don't believe that. I think that we are blessed and we have been blessed financially. But just, I'm not trying to tell us that we should get our lives in order so that God can bless us financially. But the thing that I am saying is the valley that we are going through is the morality that we have in our nation and in our world today. Not unlike some of the things that we looked at in Judges. And you could look at many more of them. [00:28:06] And I'd just like to just look at some indicators of the dearth that we have in morality, the dearth that we have in godliness. We can talk about a war in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and I don't know that it's a war, it's butchery in Sudan. If you keep up with the news, you know what I'm talking about, where people are killed indiscriminately. That is one of the indicators. [00:28:38] Our attitude about abortion is another one of the indicators of, I think, where we stand in relation to God's perfect standard. Our willingness to call right good and to call sin by its name evil. Am I willing to do that? Am I willing to stand up and say, but that's not the way we should, or that's not the way we should feel about a certain circumstance, or we, am I willing to call somebody on the carpet when he does something that is wrong? [00:29:14] Most of these may be more, we may feel more comfortable. Well, Iraq, Sudan, you know, that's not, I don't have any part there, so I am not guilty of that. But you remember what Jesus said, that if I hate my brother, I am a murderer. But that's not us, is it? Well, I can only ask us, how do I get along with my brothers? [00:29:47] How do I get along with my sisters? Do I live the kind of life that shows that I am concerned about the good of my brothers and my sisters? Hatred for my brother and my sister is equivalent to murder, Jesus said. People, he also said that if we cannot forgive, we will not be forgiven. And these are sobering truths that get right down to where you and I live today. [00:30:22] And it's not easy, but God gives us the grace that we need. I don't know what you think of when you see signs, when you drive into certain towns, You see signs that say we promote tolerance. It's good, isn't it? We should be tolerant of other people. But when you really explore what is behind all of that, I was just simply made aware of the fact that if I preach against homosexuality, [00:31:02] I am branded as intolerant. And some of the things that I said here this morning as well, that is not in keeping with the sign that we read. But friends, we have something that is much more important than the little signs, and that is this. And if I cannot say this is God's word and this is what I stand on, I am intolerant in the eyes of one person. [00:31:38] But friends, it's the only place that I know to stand to be right with God is to be at one with his word. and I trust that we are willing to be branded as intolerant if that's what it takes because being at peace with God is more important than being at peace with this world and the things that it has to offer to us. May God give us grace and strength to see these things that face us [00:32:14] and a willingness to just simply say this is where I stand on God's word and unapologetically stand for the truth. And I believe that we need to be careful how we stand. And if you look at the situation that Daniel found himself in, remember when Ariok came to slay Daniel and his companions? I am just blessed by the way Daniel answered. He didn't get all excited, but he, well, I don't know, I didn't see him, I didn't hear how he said this, but he said, well, why is the king's degree so harsh? [00:32:56] And then Ariadne told him just a little bit, and then he asked to be taken to the king. Diplomacy, he was diplomatic, and we may be diplomatic, but we do need to stand for the truth and for what is right, and may God help us to do that as we go through life.