Hosea #2 Ch. 2-3 Seven Blessings of Israel — Chuck Missler

Hosea’s Ministry to a Prosperous but Apostate Nation

I'm really finding not only this book, but our timing of studying this book really ordained to the Lord in many ways. Just a little background, we'll be jumping into chapters 2 and 3 tonight, but for those that may have just joined us, Hosea, of course, was a contemporary of Isaiah and Amos and Micah.

Hosea, he was sort of a century earlier, an anticipatory, if you will, of Jeremiah, in the sense that Hosea was the prophet to the northern kingdom, right after Solomon, of course, there was a civil war, and the idolaters, Jeroboam took the northern kingdom into idolatry, and the faithful migrated south and so forth.

Those that were interested in idolatry moved north. So the point is we have the northern kingdom that Hosea is going to minister to. The northern kingdom went from bad to worse, increasingly in the idolatry and the rest.

The southern kingdom declines later, and most of us are familiar with Jeremiah's writings as he wept over the death of his nation, that was the house of Judah, the southern kingdom. But Hosea is, in a sense, very parallel to Jeremiah earlier, addressing the issue of the northern kingdom.

And one of the things that hits us right between the eyes is to understand the predicament of the northern kingdom, because they were in unparalleled prosperity. Jeroboam had a standing army, they conquered all the old territories, they conquered all the way to Damascus, they enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, not exceeded since the days of Solomon.

So it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times, to quote Charles Dickens' famous opening line of The Tale of Two Cities. The best of times, it was prosperous, people enjoyed multiple houses, they've had... everything was... you know, the stock indexes were breaking 12 ,000, whatever, and yet it was the worst of times.

It was morally the nadir of that nation, and they had plunged into every conceivable sin and idolatry that one can imagine. And so Hosea is faced with dealing with a nation that's prosperous and not interested in listening, warning them that God's patience had a limit, that there would be a time that He would say, enough's enough, and He was going to judge the northern kingdom by using their enemies as His instruments of judgment.

That's the message of Hosea, in a quick nutshell. And, of course, that should hit us right between the eyes, because America has never been more prosperous in many, many ways, technologically and in terms of investment performance.

The stock indexes are defying gravity, and everybody is enjoying a life, financially, that's unprecedented, and yet it doesn't take a lot of insight to look behind that and realize that behind that there's some very serious decay, and I don't mean just the erosion of the military and some of these other things.

The real root problem of America is its moral decay, never in its history has America been more openly condoning of immorality, of corruption in high office, make the list. And our entertainment industry takes pride in exporting adultery, they don't make a movie without it, it seems.

It's not just the sin, it's the open cultural condoning and encouragement of sin. There's always been homosexuality, but it's when it's openly condoned and given special rights and so forth. That's a measure of its biblical standards.

So there are some startling parallels in the predicament of the northern kingdom in America, and there's also some disturbing parallels, potentials, between God's remedy for that, which in the northern kingdom was to use their enemies to, in the northern kingdom's case, wipe them out.

A century later, the same thing happens in the southern kingdom, their kings go from bad to worse, and they had a couple of good ones, but they also went down, and it was Jeremiah that had to face the same predicament in the southern kingdom when Babylon was God's instrument.

The Assyrians were God's instrument in the northern kingdom, Babylon in the southern kingdom. But having said all that, we finished last time with Hosea, all you have to do is go to Daniel Turnright, Hosea chapter 1 is where we finished.

In the last couple of verses of chapter 1, we saw several prophecies all wrapped up there. In chapter 1, verse 10, we discover that Israel will experience a great increase in population, Hosea tells them.

He also indicated that in the nation there will be a great turning back to God, ultimately. Also he predicted that the northern and southern kingdoms would once again ultimately be reunified into a single nation.

He also indicated that they will appoint themselves one head, ultimately, who of course will be the Messiah. Now these prophecies are yet future, they're not to be realized in the lifetimes of his hearers, but there is a positive subsequent destiny laid out.

Hosea 2 and the Restoration of Israel

There's a fifth prophecy that shows up in verse 1 of chapter 2, and I think I mentioned last time that the Hebrew chapters and verses in the Hebrew Bible are a little different. We're going to pick up the thought in chapter 2.

Now chapter 2 of Hosea could be called the Valley of Achor, and you're going to discover that Hosea's wife proves faithless, Israel proves faithless, but God proves faithful. And you may recall in chapter 1 that God is going to use Hosea's wife as an example, as a model of Israel, and we'll see that develop in chapter 2.

But chapter 2 verse 1, Hosea continues, Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi, and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Now remember when we were back in chapter 1 that Gomer, Hosea's wife, had three children. The first was a son who was named Jezreel, and we went into the whole background of Jezreel, and the word itself can mean sowing or gathering.

It's kind of a pun. You're going to discover if you actually get into the linguistic structure of Hosea, Hosea probably more than any other writer of the Old Testament, indulges in wordplay and puns and subtleties that we miss in the translation.

And I won't try to derail the continuity of our study by getting too much into that, but one of the important ones is this whole business of Jezreel. It can mean both scattering and gathering depending on how you use it, and that ambiguity in his name is exploited by God in subsequent passages.

And I won't get into the whole background of Jezreel and the Valley of Jezreel, which we know also as the Valley of Armageddon. We talked about that last time. But that was the first son, was Jezreel.

Then they had a daughter, and in verse 6 God said, Call her name Lo-Ruhamah. Lo means no in Israel, no or not. Ruhamah means mercy or pity. No mercy, no pity is what the name is, what God instructs Hosea to name the kid.

Kind of a rough handle to go through school. It means not loved, in effect. That's a horrible name to give a girl, but it's going to change, relax. But God is using this to get a message across. Then they have another daughter that is, in verse 9 God says, Call her name, or excuse me, it's another son, Call his name Lo-Ami.

Lo not, Ami, my people. You are not my people. Boy. And so this, he's implying it in the names of these children that he's severing his relationship with the people. I won't go through, I won't try to rebuild the whole chapter again, but that's the background.

And what you find in chapter 2 is a positive step. In chapter 2 verse 1, God says, Say to your brethren, Ami, and to your sisters, Ruhamah. In other words, he removes the no. Ami, you are my people. Ruhamah, you are going to have pity or mercy.

And so God is announcing by this name change in his children that the day is coming when he's again going to be saying, You are my people. He's not saying it there, that's a prediction that it ultimately happened.

God’s Continuing Covenant with Israel

Now it's interesting, as you go through this study of Hosea, a lot of other issues are lurking beneath the surface. There are those, very prominent in many denominations, that teach that God is permanently through with Israel.

We're going to think, they discount or they spiritualize God's commitment to Israel. They argue by a variety of reasonings that the promises to Israel devolved upon the church. And the tragedy of that viewpoint, besides being wrong, is that it causes you to dismiss a good part of the Old Testament and surprisingly a major part of the New that depends on that.

And so it's very, very important. And God is not through with the nation Israel. And that's one of the main themes that Hosea is going to document. And it's also one that Paul picks up in the book of Romans, we'll be talking about that.

God is not through with Israel. But let's turn to verse 2. I mean all the way to verse 2. Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband. Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight and her adulteries from between her breasts.

God is going to be drawing a parallel between Gomer's relationship to her husband, Hosea, and Israel's relationship to Yahweh or Yehovah or the God of Israel. It's interesting, we're going to, this is one of the prominent evidences in the scripture how God uses the marriage institution to communicate His most intimate truths.

He did that in the Garden of Eden. He did that with Boaz and Ruth, the book of Ruth. You go all the way through the scripture to the climax, and certainly Paul develops this in Ephesians chapter 5 in instructions to husbands and wives.

And of course it climaxes in the marriage supper of the Lamb and so forth. There's a very, very provocative intimacy between God's use of the marriage in that way and His most intimate truths, most intimate spiritual truths.

The only thing that survived the Garden of Eden beside Adam and Eve was the institution of marriage. It was born there and carried forward. Very, very important. And God is using it here to communicate a fundamental truth between Himself and His chosen people, Israel.

So when you see the discussions about Gomer, recognize that by implication God is talking about Israel as well as His wife Gomer. Now, God told Hosea that his wife would be unfaithful, turn to prostitution, she's going to do that.

But that serves God's purpose because she then becomes a model of exactly what Israel did by turning from the true worship of God to the idolatries, which in spiritual terms is a form of parlatory. So verse 2 starts to pick that up.

Plead with your mother. Plead. Now the word plead implies contention. And the contention, of course, derives because Gomer went back to prostitution. There's all kinds of scholastic debate. Had she been a prostitute prior and there's different... experts have different views.

We don't know whether she did or that was just predictive on the part of God that it's sort of irrelevant to the story in a sense. See whatever her beginnings were, she was to etch her name on the infamy of the nation because throughout eternity her name will be associated with the faithlessness of Israel.

And all this, of course, Hosea's heart is broken because despite all that Hosea loved her. Let's not emphasize the text, you have to infer it from a number of things, but it's pretty clear, I think, that he loved her.

He wasn't just... he was being obedient to God indeed, but his heart was in it. He loved her. The worst sin you can commit. We've often said, asked questions, well what's the most painful sin you can do?

And we've suggested that is gossip. It's not murder, that's pretty quick. Gossip isn't. The innuendos and the reputations it destroys just continue. Gossip is perhaps the most painful sin. What is the worst sin you can commit?

It's been suggested that the worst sin you can commit is to be unfaithful to one who loves you. In the interpersonal sense, that's certainly true, and in the theological sense. The ultimate sin is to be ungrateful to the Creator that provides and redeems and deals with us.

And that's what this is going to hit. The greatest sin a Christian can commit is being unfaithful to the God that has redeemed you and who loves you still. So this passage is going to demonstrate in some strange ways the nature of God's love toward those who have been... who have proved unfaithful to Him.

And I won't ask for a show of hands, because if we were honest, all our hands would go up. Have we all been unfaithful to Him? Absolutely. So we want to understand, what's His attitude about that? What's He going to do?

You know, to the Greeks, God was unfeeling. Their word was apatheia, from which we get the word apathy. To the Muslims, Allah is capricious, unknowable, but not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible weeps for His people, yearns for them, and works for their deliverance.

And we could go through a lot of examples, and some of the more interesting examples would be out of the second chapter of the book of Jeremiah, but we'll keep moving here. See, if it were you or me, and we were God, or if we were Hosea maybe, we might give up.

But God continues to work to turn sorrow into joy, tragedy into unfaithfulness. How does He do this? Through the triumph of love. That's His best shot. But even God reaches a point where beyond that, He would be a namby-pamby, yielding...

He would violate His other nature of righteousness and justice and the rest. There is a point, which even God, in His mercy, has a point beyond which He will not go. And that's also the deal here. So, verse 3.

Lest I strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. Now, he's speaking in terms of Gomer, but he's talking about Israel.

If she does not repent, God is going to judge her. This is hard for us to relate to, probably, because in our culture, we tend to glamorize adultery. We don't admit it openly, but our entertainment media hangs on those affairs, they politely call them, and so forth.

Adultery is the chief product of Hollywood. But see, God is going to tell it like it is. Nothing glamorous here. Her life, Gomer's life, is going to go downhill, and so is Israel's. Verse 4. And I will not have mercy upon her children, for they be the children of whoredoms.

Boy, that's tough language. Some scholars believe that that's an indication that the children were illegitimate. Other scholars debate that from a number of points of view. But in any case, God is applying the sins of the nation to the individuals that compose the nation.

Can't escape that application. And it's interesting how we look at our nation, and the prevalence of adultery has turned our nation into the debris of broken homes, single-parent families, offspring incapable of intimacy or commitment.

We've even degenerated into a culture in which family values are an issue of debate. People argue about that. You've got to be kidding. They're debated within the corridors of power. So anyway, at this time in Israel, the entire nation had turned to idolatry.

I'm always intrigued. You know, we read about the Canaanite gods, the Balaam and so forth, that they worshipped and idols, and you think, how silly that is, how nonsensical that is. But wait a minute, gang.

In our culture, we've devised or invented the most insulting god of all. These ancient civilizations would carve out something out of stone or wood and worship it and so on. Of course, when you look at that, it's hard to understand the insanity of paganism.

And yet, in our nation, not only is paganism the enforced religion within our schools, we've invented a god that's even more insulting than one of wood and stone. We've invented a god called random chance.

It's not that we're ascribing the creation to a false god. We're saying, we don't need one. It just happened. A random accident. We teach our kids that they're a random accident of chance and have no destiny, and then we wonder why we have circumstances like Columbine High School.

It's a natural product. There are going to be more of those. It's interesting, when you read Exodus chapter 20, there is that exhortation that God says, I will visit the iniquity to the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me.

Remember that passage in part of the passage of the Ten Commandments? That's attached to a specific commandment. The second commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. God is serious about that.

And Israel had her way of following an other god, and we in our culture have ours. But that is something that ignites His fury, ultimately. Verse 5, God continues, For their mother hath played the harlot, she that conceived them hath done shamefully, for she said, I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water and my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

Gober had turned to prostitution for money. Now Hosea may not have been a wealthy man, and may not have been able to provide for her luxuries. She may have only provided for necessities. But she wanted her own way.

So Israel also, in the broader sense, had turned to idols or spiritual adultery. And she was giving the idols credit for what God was providing. How to make God feel? God is providing their prosperity.

They're more prosperous than they've ever been in their history in the Northern Kingdom. And they're ascribing it to these false gods. How do you think that makes God feel? Change the subject. What has made America great?

I grew up in a first generation family. Loved this country, its opportunity. The incredible efficiency of capitalism. Great believer in that. Entrepreneurship. Our freedoms. A nation that admired achievement.

A meritocracy. Came close to being one. Was that what made America great? Many of us fall into the trap of believing that. And indeed those things are wonderful things, I believe. I'd defend them. But is that what made us great?

No. Alexis de Tocqueville had a tour of America in 1815. And to try to understand this incredible country. And he wrote a famous book, Democracy in America. His conclusion was, America is great because America is good.

If America ceases to be good, she'll cease to be great. That was his conclusion. So does America attribute its greatness? Its prosperity? The freedom of its borders? To the one that's protected her and provided for her?

The one that has been the foundation of her heritage? No. It's disparaged. It's outlawed. I saw a great little quip. Dear God, why did you let happen what happened in our high school? Columbine, Colorado.

And it said, Signed Susan, 12th grader. Letter comes back. Susan, I'm not allowed in your schools. Signed God. Says it all, doesn't it? So God's love is also a disciplining love. And we're going to see the rest of this passage segmented by three therefores.

In verse 6, verse 9, and verse 14, it says, therefore. What do you mean therefore? Because of all this, because Gomer was unfaithful to Hosea, he's using that as the idiom. Israel is unfaithful to God.

Therefore, verse 6, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns and make a wall that she shall not find her paths. Now, we're all reminded of the hedges in the book of Job. Where God had put a hedge about Job to keep Satan from being able to touch him.

Satan complained. And, of course, you know the story of Job where progressively Satan was allowed to pierce that hedge and take away Job's prosperity and his family, even his health and so forth. Now, Job didn't have the benefit of chapter 1's conversation between God and Satan.

So he was faced without that. And, of course, Satan had misjudged Job. Job ended up coming off pretty good. But the point is, even there in the book of Job, God did not allow Job to be tempted beyond that he was able, as Hebrews 2 .13 promises us.

But now in the case of Gomer, it's the other way around. The hedge is there to serve as a protection against Gomer herself in finding the evil things that she desired. So verse 7, and she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them.

And she shall seek them, but they shall not find them. Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now. See, there comes a day when a girl who has become a harlot is no longer attractive to her clientele.

And they lose interest in her. And she sinks lower and lower in the social scale of the city. And ultimately is unable not only not to get luxuries, but even necessities. So she's in trouble. And hungry and clothed in rags, not fancy garments.

And this is exactly what would be happening to Israel. And so when that happens, then the people will say, now let's return to God. It sort of reminds you somewhat of the prodigal son. You remember that in Luke chapter 15.

One of the sons takes his inheritance and goes off and riots his living. And eventually, of course, spends all his money, ends up in trouble. He's finally feeding pigs and realizing that even the servants back at home did better than he's doing.

And he went back home just to be a servant. And you know the story, how he gets there and the father sees him coming and kills a fatted calf and so forth. And celebrates the return of the lost son. One of the unnoticed morals of that whole parable in Luke 15 is that the son never lost his sonship.

Despite his embarrassing behavior and so forth. Despite his errant ways, he never lost his sonship. Anyway, verse 8. For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

God's pointing out that her disdain of her provider, whether it's Gomer's disdain of Hosea, or whether it's Israel's disdain of her God, the effect's the same. And it's interesting. Multiplied her silver and her gold.

By the way, some of the experts believe silver was more valued than gold in their economy. Small point, but I mention it in passing. There again, see, we do the same thing in America. We're certainly at this three level.

There's Gomer as a type of Israel, and yet what happened to Israel applies to us. Why do I say that? Because of Romans 15 .4. Whatsoever things are written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through the patience and the comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

So, as we study this ancient book, 8th century BC book, about Hosea and Gomer and Israel and so forth, let's consider at least the possibility that there's a parallel with America. And we don't realize who gives us our prosperity, who controls the world we're really in.

And so we ascribe, of course, all this to our own self or the luck of the draw, if you will. Verse 9,. Therefore will I return and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

God's declaring here through Hosea, in this passage, that he's going to judge Israel. Of course, from the time of his readers, that's yet future, but history bears it out. And I suspect the same predicament may be facing America.

We're so sophisticated that we condone homosexuality as a normal lifestyle. We don't punish murders, we subsidize them. We have too many judges that twist the laws, rather than acknowledge the God that overrules the laws of a nation.

Verse 10,. And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand. I will also cause all her mirth to cease her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

This is one of those places, by the way, that Hosea deals with a pun that I can explain easily. The word cease there, I will cease her mirth, is Shabbath. And the word sabbath is Shabbat. And in the Hebrew, the letters are the same, they're pointed, they're pronounced differently.

So again, it's a pun, it's a play on words, if you will. And this occurs all through Hosea, and if I take each one, it'll distract us from the main theme, but just be aware of the high level of communication taking place here.

Verse 12,. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me, and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the fields shall eat them.

And I will visit upon her the days of Balaam. Balaam is the plural of Baal. One is Baal, Balaam is multiple Baals, false gods. Wherein she burned incense to them, she decked herself with earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, said the Lord.

Baal had many variations. The word Baal actually in Chaldean meant Lord, but it's used as an idol. He's pictured in Canaanite worship with a bull-like helmet wielding a thunderbolt, with a spear-sharp point in one hand and a battle-mace in the other.

He's typically associated in Roman terms with the god of war, Mars. Baal is associated with the planet Mars. And the word planet Mars is associated with war even to this day. We do speak of martial arts and so forth.

And there are some that believe this all started because the planet Mars actually had near-past-bys to the earth, and there's a whole thing about that I won't get into here, but our briefing pack Signs in the Heavens deals with this, and also in some detail our commentary on the book of Joshua, when the sun stood still and so forth, deals with the possibility, these very interesting conjectures about the planet Mars having caused all calendars to change about 701 B .C.

But be that as it may, we'll continue from verse 13. I will visit upon her the days of Balaam, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with earrings and jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, said the Lord.

See, behind all of Gomer's problems is her ingratitude to Hosea. Behind all of Israel's problems, God is saying, is they forgot the God they worship. And I submit to you that behind all of America's forthcoming problems is that she's forgotten God.

And we're going to reap the whirlwind as a result. By the way, J. Vernon McGee in his commentary has expressed the view that the depression of the 30s, the dust bowl, all that was sent to us to speak to warn us of judgment.

And he has the view that if we had repented and heard God at that time, we never would have had to fight World War II, Korea or Vietnam, and we would we've been sending out missionaries rather than soldiers to suffer in prison camps and so forth.

That's J. Vernon McGee's view. Very interesting view. Verse 14. Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her. What? Therefore, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her.

We're going to discover what God tells Hosea to do is when she finally, out of desperation, turns back. To do what? Take her in and love her. And clothe her. Wow. See, that's, to me, the mystery here.

Why does God bother with us? Why does God bother with us? That's the story here. Here is Gomer, unfaithful, turning to prostitution, total ingratitude towards her benefactor, modeling, of course, Israel, turning her back on the God that brought her through the Red Sea and all that stuff.

And what's God going to do? Going to take her back in. The mystery is why. Donald Gray Barnhouse, one of my favorite writers, he writes,. Who can explain the insanity of true love? Love is of God and is infinite.

Love is sovereign. Love is apart from reason. Love exists for its own reasons. Love is not according to logic. Love is according to love. Thus it was for Hosea who is playing the part that God has played with you all of your life and with me.

This was out of his commentary on Romans. But he's commenting on Hosea and I thought it would be useful to share with you. And he does an eloquent job. I don't normally like to read some of these things but I think this is worth it.

Hang in there with me. Barnhouse says, The pursuing love of God is the greatest wonder of the spiritual universe. We leave God in the heat of our own self-desire and run from His will because we want so much to have our own way.

We get to a crossroads and look back in pride thinking we have outdistanced Him. Just as we are about to and congratulate ourselves on our achievement and self-enthronement, we feel a touch on our arm and turn in that direction to find Him there.

My child, He says in great tenderness, I love you. And when I saw you running away from all that is good, I pursued you through a shortcut that love knows so well and awaited you here at the crossroads.

We have torn ourselves free from His grasp and rushed off again through the deepest woods and the farthest swamp. And as we look back again, we are sure this time that we have succeeded in escaping from Him.

But once more, the touch of love is on our other sleeve. And we turn quickly and we find that He is there, pleading with the eyes of love, showing Himself once more to the tender and faithful one loving to the end.

He will always say, My child, My name and nature are love, and I must act according to that which I am. So it is that I pursued you to tell you that when you are tired of your running and your wandering, I will be there to draw you to Myself once more.

Redemption Through the Cross

When you see His love at work through the heart of Hosea, we may wonder if God is really like that. But everything in the Word and experience shows us that He is. Let me continue with Barnhouse. He will give man the trees of the forest and iron in the ground.

He will then give to man the brains to make an axe from the iron to cut down the tree and fashion it to a cross. He will give man the ability to make a hammer and nails. And when a man has a cross and a hammer and the nails, the Lord will allow man to take hold of him and bring him to that cross.

He will stretch out His hands upon it and allow man to nail him to the cross. And in so doing will take the sins of man upon Himself to make it possible for those who have despised and rejected Him to come to Him and know the joy of sins removed and forgiven, to know the assurance of pardon and eternal life, to enter into the prospect and the hope of glory with Him forever.

This even our God. And there is none like unto Him. Hallelujah. Are you like Gomer in the depths of your misery? Are you like the prodigal son in a foreign land? Don't just sit there. Go. Return to God.

Remember what He said? Come unto Me all you that are weary and are burdened and I will give you rest. Matthew 11, 28. Let's continue. Verse 15 takes us into the Valley of Achor. This is a strange idiom we're going to encounter here.

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 the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. She's speaking here idiomatically of Israel.

And using Achor as a model, the Valley of Achor, really means the Valley of Trouble. It's mentioned three times in the Bible. First time, prominent time, is Joshua chapter 7. You may recall they had the victory of Jericho.

How many knew that there was a battle of Jericho? How many thought Joshua fought the battle of Jericho? Who really fought the battle of Jericho? Jesus Christ. The last few verses of chapter 5, after dinner one night, Joshua's going.

There's a man there with a sword. He challenged him like a sentry. Are you for us or our enemies? He says, take off your shoes, you're on hallowed ground. No angel allows himself to be worshipped. Who is this requiring worship?

Jesus Christ. And he's using the very phrase that Joshua would remember from the burning bush. He was up there too, you may recall. The battle of Jericho is a mystery. Every rule in the Torah is violated.

The Levites were not supposed to go to war. They went first. They're supposed to work six days, rest the seven. On the seventh day they went seven times around. The whole thing. Starting the battle of Jericho is a very, very strange experience.

Beside the fact the walls came down. I won't start. We'll lose our time. But they really scored, right? Then came Ai. They were told in Jericho not to touch any unclean thing. One guy out of the whole gang.

One guy. Soft garment. Kind of cool. You know, neat threads. Grabbed it. And because of that they went to Ai. Which should have been a pushover. Little town. No problem. They got clobbered. And what does Joshua do?

He goes crying to the Lord. Oh. He's really upset. Really, really upset. And he fell on his face. In Joshua 7. And what did the Lord say? Get off your face. You must deal with sin before you can have a victory.

Don't pray to me. You got sin in the camp. Go deal with that first. And they do. They cast lots. They discover that Achan had stolen his garments. They took Achan and his possessions. And destroyed him and the possessions.

Where? In the Valley of Achor. From then on they had victory. And what's God's principle here? You deal with the sin first. So Valley of Achor means the Valley of Trouble. It was the trouble. Yes, but it was the trouble that they took care of.

It was sin they acknowledged and dealt with. From that point they had victory. So even though it's a Valley of Trouble, it's a Valley of Hope. Because if we deal with the sin, there's hope on the other side.