Doors of Hope — A.W. Tozer

The Door of Hope in Hosea

Or see the second chapter let me read a few verse beginning with the verse 14. Therefore behold I will allure her And bring her nests and speak comfortably Unto her and I will give her her vineyards from thence in the valley of Acre 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 and it shall be at that day thou shall call me ishy and Shall call me no more bail. I for I will take away the names of bail on out of her mouth and They shall no more be remembered By their name.

And in that day Will I make a covenant for them? With the beasts of the field with the fowls of heaven and with the creeping things of the ground. And I will the sword and the battle out of the earth and Will make them lie down safely.

And I will betroth thee me forever. Yeah, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment and in lovingkindness and in mercies. Even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness and thou shalt know the Lord.

It shall come to pass in that day I will hear I will hear the heavens and they shall hear the earth. And the earth shall hear the corn and the wine and the oil urge as real. And I will so her unto me in the earth.

And I will have mercy upon her mercy. And I will say to them that were not my people. Thou art my people and they Thou art my God. Now I have one verse here that I want to accent a little. And I will give her the valley of a for a door of hope and She shall sing there as in the days I'm to talk about the door of hope and And where it's likely to be found.

Humanity as Builders and the Meaning of a Door

Now begin by reminding you that Mankind has always been a builder. Long before history recorded the deeds of man with ink man himself. Recorded in stone there have been all kinds and grades of buildings from the symptom hut To the most elaborate Cathedral or the great tall sky touching of modern civilization.

But we are not to allow the complexity inside of the buildings To blind us to the fact that a building is after all a very simple thing. It has a wall and a floor and a roof and a door. Now that's about it everything after that extra added on.

But if you have the walls and the floor and the roof and the door in and out you have a building and Of all the parts of any building the part that had and the most has always been the door. The door has worked itself into human language.

And it in poetry in art and even in music and you will find it in figures of speech Everywhere the idea of the door even our Lord said I am the door. If a by me of any man enter he shall go in and out and find Pastor.

And we read all through the Bible about the door and we find the door appearing Every place. I say in literature language everywhere the door seems to be the most Important or at least the most attractive part.

And I suppose that we could easily understand why? Because the door is that let and then it protects you after you're in there and When we walk away from our homes and see our loved ones. For the last time for years is in some cases It's always framed in the door that we remember them and when they come in the door again that we see them when they come to greet us.

So the door has fascinated mankind and Has given itself a language and a meaning That no other part of any building could have unless it were that not even the foundation Can compete with the door for popularity in wide usage.

Evil Doors and Blessed Doors

Thinking about doors when I thought I'd give this message this morning. And I thought of some of the evil doors there are in the world. I Have been in prisons. I have never been incarcerated For a crime, but I have been in prisons numbers of them and I think one of the chilling sounds To be found anywhere on earth is the great thing sound of a prison door closing the great lock being turned and The the prison door is is a is a distressing and there's the door to the mausoleum.

And you have may have your own list of doors. Maybe somewhere at some time some terrifying door That opened or the closed and shut you in or that opened and let somebody or something come out of which you were.

So there are evil doors, but there are also blessed doors. I wondered as I thought about this what the political or if they took away the cottage doors. Well there they love to talk about the vine covered cottage door and the Rose door.

Well, it is beautiful and I don't mind telling you poor city victims That a little cottage will against the side of a hill with flowers growing round. It is a heaven on earth compared with the finest apartment building that ever face of God's patient earth.

So you may not like me for that. Some of you were born In the city and you've never been in a house an apartment and that's too bad. But a cottage is a lovely place. It may not have all the modern Inconveniences, but it and the nice part about the average country cottage is it's been lived in but the same people.

Nowadays your apartment has been live wouldn't want to know By how many or who they were? But the cottage has been lived in and It'd be a part of the landscape. I think it was Emerson who said that when the Sun arose in the morning that Upon the buildings and that beetle that the landscape took in the building as though it were Part of it and was there a rat.

Well a cottage with its simple door Is taken in as a friend when you look at it You think that it is as truly a part of nature as the very flowers that grow around the door should grow behind it. So there's the cottage door and then there's the school door and The church door that to a great many people the old church door is a lovely sight the door that swings open early on the Sunday and Closes again only after the last Straggler has said goodbye and has gone his way.

So the church when I suppose it if I wanted to do it that I could skim over all the wide Ranges of man's living and find many of us. But I read here this morning about the door of hope and I will give them here or give her The value of a or of hope and do we have here not only the charming figure of a door But we have added on to it for intensification The beautiful word hope.

The Door of Hope as God’s Provision

So we have a door of hope and a well-grounded and future Happiness is what hope is said to be. Now God built this door of hope and I hope that I might to lay before you this morning a few thoughts about this door this door which God has built and yet I wonder how I Describe that which is beyond all power of description as I get older.

I feel Less less keen to want to preach than I used to not that I do not love to preach and I think I'd die if I had to quit it. But that it's fair the the the effort to say that which cannot be said.

The effort to to express the end who to describe that which defies all human speech. That's what weighs upon me. So when I out the door that God has built it in the valley of a core for the poor suffering sons of men.

How am I going to describe it? I've had a lot Leonardo da Vinci the great artist who painted the Last Supper. They say that he painted that and painted and finished it. There was only it that he couldn't get finished he painted the Sulky solemn dishonest face of Judas and he felt that he painted the Feminine face of John and that was all right in the great rough face of Peter.

And he thought he'd done well on that all other parts of the picture. He seemed to feel he had done. Well, it would indeed be a masterpiece, but that one face He could paint how could he work himself up?

How could he whip up his genius to a white heat that he might be able added to paint in that face. That was like no other face that ever has been or will be world without end that he waited for I don't know how many days or weeks or months and Always he'd come up to it and then grown in despair.

They may be tomorrow then the next day would come up to it and still he didn't feel that he could paint it. And so at last in just a pulse of despair. He just painted it and walked away said that's not it.

But how could I ever hope to paint it? How could to be able to condense? into that expansive canvas all the beauty and the charm and patience and the pity That belonged in that face. So, I suppose I must go on talking about the door of hope all tells me that I never can hope to do it any credit.

Because this door was different from any other door over in the city of Akron, Ohio cyberling who was The head of the cyberling rubber company. I suppose you've ridden around on his type early had so much money.

He didn't know what to do with it a few years ago. So he decided to build himself a mansion. But do you suppose American rocks were good enough not for not for that man. You suppose that that the carpets made in America were good enough.

He had money. So he sent to your various parts of the old country and there he got the stones to build his building and the entablature went over his doors and There he got the very slate for the roof.

And then when he came to finish it Not break and made thing was in the whole building the carpet was made in I suppose Persia and The walls were came from somewhere else and the whole building had been imported.

I I lived in that city a while, but I never look at that building. I was kind of ashamed of a man who was ashamed of the very rocks Of his own land. So I never went has been something to see this that that Hypocritical make-believe that there was brought from all over the world and there in an eastern city now.

This building this door of which we speak Came also. But it came down in the heart of the master builder. The one who became later the carpenter of Nazareth all the materials out of his own heart to build this building.

It was love and mercy and grace and kindness and goodness and come and all the tender Loving mercy that was in the heart of God went into this building this Temple and so the door of hope is surrounded by the forget-me-nots and the life Everlasting and all the charms and the beauties that the sit into it.

This is the door of hope a well-grounded anticipation of future happiness. And now where does he pull the sons of men can find it. Well, he placed it says the Bible in a valley of a core Store in a valley.

The Valley of Achor as a Place of Trouble

I have seen beautiful valleys in my time. I have gone down the valley the Ohio Valley. There's the valley and The Susquehanna Valley, there are very many lovely valleys and if religion that is if some religion Had been man-made We'd have found some grassy valley where some lovely were meandered softly through down to the sea.

But the Bible says that God set the valley or the door of hope in the valley of a core. Now, you know about the valley of a core was make and the man who stole the golden wedged and troubled Israel. And they put him to death him and his family and he great stones there to tell of sin and disobedience and dishonesty and lust Covetousness and then God Almighty's punishment upon it all.

There the man who troubled Israel lies I suppose still to now under the shifting sands and still to time. But there are the rocks in that valley to tell of a man. But but who would disobey for the sake of a little advantage and they named that valley the valley of a core the valley of trouble and distress.

And there were no green grass and no charming flowers. There were salt blasted trees and serpents and vultures and all that the heart hates and would run from all valley of trouble. And yet there in the valley of trouble said God is the door of hope and I will give her hope in her very despair and in the very Place of trouble.

I will place a door there and her through which she can go to well grounded Expectations of happiness to come necessary to talk a little about Israel and why God said this about her. You remember that Israel had sinned against God and he had a bride that had betrayed him and he said how she was no good and he didn't even want to call her his bride and He Turned his face away from her.

But he couldn't kill so he said all right. There will be a day When after she is found that this One with whom she's taken up is not the right one. She'll come back and when she comes back I will lure her and I are comfortably in the wilderness.

And I will give her her vineyards from here and the valley of a core for a door of hope and she As she used to sing as in the days of her youth. Now what could that mean but that this woman had backslid he had turned away from God this Israel and had walked away and had taken up with Balaam and the gods of the nations round about and God would not endure that so we punished her and He turned away from her far and wide over the face of the earth.

We might point out that Israel is still today Scattered throughout the whole wide world erred because she would not be true to God. And if she got her deserts along with the rest of us sinners, God would never restore her to himself again.

But he says that his love is too big for him and so her and he will bring her back and he will give her a valley and a door in a valley. Will not be the Beautiful green valley of the Shenandoah. It will be the blasted sandy stirring hot serpent infested valley of a can the valley of a core.

Backsliding, Repentance, and Restoration

The valley of now, how can we apply that to our own hearts my brethren? We can apply it by remembering that we're with temptations and It isn't it isn't Uncommon to find God's people forgetting him temporarily Breaking their fellowship and losing the sense of his love and getting so in this or the rearing of a family or their ambitions.

That they put God as it were aside a little they turn to Baal or to some other God or goddess and For a while they find strike a certain compromise and In moments of stillness, they may remember those happier hours when first they knew the Lord Soon Cover that over and manage somehow to quiet their hearts away and God says that that kind of people are not going to come back too easily.

They may how it isn't a pleasant valley. It will be a valley of a core a valley of trouble. Just as Israel go in and prophetic times in days to come into the furnace of affliction and all the terror of a core when the judgments of God falls upon her fall upon her then God says I will set a door there you will find Anticipation of happiness.

You will find redemption there. You will find the door that's sprinkled with the blood of Jesus you will find a door that has a knocker that can be can be Manipulate a child or the weakest sickest person and yet with a sound that wakes all heaven.

For when God hears anyone as he always listens and comes and responds to the knock. You'll find that door there. Now it could be Whom I am now preaching that have allowed your heart to be all covered over with the dark ugly since a worldliness and sin.

Could be that some of you don't pray as much as you used to pray. Could be that bought so eagerly. Hasn't been open for several days or maybe several weeks. It could be with which you tumbled out of bed in the morning and smiled and said it's Sunday maybe that has given place now to a Cold goal, but you go because you feel you should and the family wants you to and you're keeping up the appearance.

But in that deep heart of yours something is wrong and you don't have the joy this wells of salvation. Don't spring up anymore. It's only with great effort that you can get even a bit of water to the surface Of your heart.

Now what are you going to do? Are you going to think I ever was anywhere in the first place and I have proved that a man can't live this Christian life. Anyway, are you going there? No, I beg you don't open the door of despair.

I Cannot describe what is in there because I have never been himself into that through that door. But I beg of you don't enter the door of despair. Don't look into that dark cave filled with dead men and the vile and evil memories.

But rather remember that God said I will allure her. I will allure her. Who this backslidden bride this woman who has been untrue? This person who has named arms of God the Father Almighty and has taken up with worldliness.

Now we have no bail know where to look for bail. If I were to where she want to worship him I might find some relics of bail at the Field Museum. I don't know Museum of Natural History. I might find it there.

I wouldn't know where to go to find a false God in America because we are Partialization that doesn't any longer worship idols. But my brethren you can find God's that move your heart away from in prayer and you don't have to go To the some heathen village where they worship a stone.

No in Chicago and they are the businessmen's gods and the school child gods and the gods of the houses of the scholar and the gods of the traveler and the Gods of the show people and the gods of the writers and artists and builders.

We have lots of them. You can't take them up in your hand and carry them, but they're there. Whatever it is. Hail to bail Means Lord, you're the master of my life you you have absorbed my affect and you temporarily away from God.

And we call that An idol and it is an idol. Turn away from us completely and say I'll have nothing more to do. They've proved. They're no good. No God never uses use that about people. They say the man never was any good.

They say a man had a family of six children and four five of them were open was no good. God never uses the word no good in the sense that we do. When God says no good body is morally worthy of salvation.

And therefore we're not good and Jesus said no man is good only God so in that sense. Nobody's any good. But when we use the word and talk about a young man and say he's no good. We mean he's beyond. We mean that there is no hope for him.

But God never means that. And when God never says he's no good meaning that he's impossible to do anything with him. God says I will allure him. I will allure. And I will call her Back into the wilderness.

Not into the city not into the palace, but into them. And there I will set for her a door of hope in the valley of a car. So there is a door of hope. For you that and it is the door. I say the materials were taken out of the heart of God.

God's infinite mercy and his great grace. And his kindness beyond description. These tenderness God himself. These are the materials out of which the door of hope is made speaking to a discouraged person.

Hope in Sickness and Disappointment

I Don't often preach about backsliding here. I don't think I've preached about backsliding. I think it's been years. We don't believe in we don't believe in it and We we we so tried to keep the people will be will stay Up very much on an even keel if we never have a keeping revival if They if we never have any visitation that can get into the papers in the world.

At least we're not backsliding all the time. So walking with God is to keep a rather even keel and that's what I mean, I like but Even the best of churches sometimes and the best of people and the best of family and their difficulties.

So now it's not only for our backsliding. But there are other valleys of despair. Sicknesses for instance. Some people just seem to be born to be sick. Don't they and not not neurotic not that They're just something else goes wrong.

And then something else goes wrong. And the two things that have gone wrong have no relation to each other. One didn't cause the lab. But one thing to go wrong and then another and I say some people have illness either in their home or in their own part of the year round.

That can get mighty discouraging. Mighty district, but you know what? God will put a door of hope in that home where there's illness or where they're incurable and You will find there a door will you says God to sing as she used to sing.

And she shall sing there as in the days now. She'll begin even to call God is shy and say he's you know, my friends that there are some things you'll never learn. Unless yet you get sick. And this sounds like heresy church.

Because I should suppose that the average alive preacher would take the position that you oughtn't to get sick. Maybe right away but I Can't follow along there quite. Because I remember that David said before I was afraid but since that I have returned unto the Lord you remember that passage in the Old Testament my brethren and That's not and it's twice repeated.

I think that David meant ill. I'm quite sure he did and I have no instances of People who got sick and while they were laid aside They got a chance to discover a door of hope busy to see up to that time.

They didn't need any hope. Thank you. But after a long siege when I illness and they began to see there wasn't much in this life after all and They found their door of hope and they began to say he had groomed and they found God to be to them.

All that he'd wanted to be all that time and couldn't Miss visits your home more frequently than you think it should. Don't look at the illness but look for the door because God puts it there founded in atonement.

And covered by the blood of the Lamb. And then there are appointments that come to people all down the line. I've had people come to me and talk to me about their losses, but there are shattering disappointments.

There's always two or a way to react when you find yourself suddenly in the. In this case, I'm assuming you're not to blame. I'm assuming this is not the result of any Wandering from the presence of God.

I'm assuming is simply in the course of life things come to us as we go along and here we have shattered and disappointments and losses and they all add up and weave themselves into a Camel's hair hurt which we must wear.

Which we're bound to wear and can't escape wearing trouble and Difficult in party. Now, what are we going to do? How are we going to react to these heartaches and loss? It's often sigh a long sigh of surrender.

And say all right for some people some happy people to live the Christian life for people that have no trouble with me. I'm born to trouble as the sparks fly upward and there's no use for me. Some people are born Says the discouraged man.

For the bright flower-covered valleys to sit beside the slow-moving river. And watch it bear its driftwood out to the sea. But not me only stream around here is a jerky little inadequate muddy stream and the only birds are vultures.

The living things that grow Are weeds and briars. That's my life. Again, I quote the text. I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness. And I will give her her vineyards from thence and the very door of hope.

And I say that right beside you if you'll believe it. There's the beginning of something better. Right where you are. During the war times they used to have a phrase I never liked one of the words never used in my life except now I'm going to use it word worsen.

I never liked the word worsen. And they would say about a boy about a situation in on the field. Every situation it will probably worsen before it gets better. Now I'd like to tell you that you don't have to adopt that.

Things may be about as bad as you think they can get but don't say to yourself. They are probably worse before because right beside you is the door of hope right beside you Is the door of hope see that?

You can enter into something new and grand and wonderful that your most vivid Rivaled imagination couldn't picture 20 minutes ago. If you will only dare to believe it here. Well fella Jacob, he wasn't too old then he lived quite a long while after that.

But he certainly wasn't a boy. He ran away to get away from death the Threatened murder by his brother his angry brother. He saw and he went into the wilderness the waste howling wilderness. Now there was a fellow who was no good.

You tell me anything good up to that time. He was no good. And yet there's nobody that's no good in that sense of the word. So God had to lure Jacob. He couldn't talk to Jacob as long as mama was there because mama wanted to know everything Jacob was doing boy.

Call that an Oedipus complex now, I guess her mother fixation. My old I'd say he's tied to his mother's apron string that doesn't sound learned but that certainly was close to it. Jacob was that way and He God couldn't long as he was at a home.

Jakey do this. Jakey do that Jacob. Come here son. Come here, honey. Jacob was always being found a routine mother. And God looked down and said I see something in Jacob not even his mother knows is there.

Send him his mother won't believe is there. And it's my business to get out of Jacob that which his mother won't believe it in Jacob. Bring out in Jacob that which his mother doesn't know that doesn't know it there.

So poor Jacob sleeping on a rock tipped it up and leaned asleep and while he slept there appeared a ladder so tall That it stood on the earth and its top reached the sky and the angels ascending and descending Ladder and in the valley of despair a Door was open and Jacob entered through he didn't go in very far, but he got inside 20 years later to him the second time and he went on further and explored the riches of the palace of peace.

But thank to get just inside. Though like the wonder the Sun is gone down darkness arrest the stone. Still in my dreams. I'd be nearer my God to thee. That's where that song came from. It's imagery. Jacob's troubles.

A Bereaved Couple Finds a Door of Hope

I knew a good man. Years ago a good man. Praying man a tender man. He told me about an experience. He said he and his wife. Only little boy, maybe three or four or five years old. And of course, they're old.

Was centered upon this little lad and he was growing more deeply into their affections every hour that he lived. And then the day came when this little boy got they hadn't been Christians. They hadn't been Christians said they just been careless livers.

He said that they came when they took that little boy out and buried him. He and his wife came back alone. Back to the house that had been made noisy. By a five-year-old and little shoes little short trousers little shirts.

Lay around to remind them and they said you suppose we can go back and he said well. We'll try it. We'll go back won't be there and he'll never be back. But we'll have to live we can't die with him. We're going to have to get adjusted somehow.

Took each other's hands and walked back and they opened the door and went in and they children around your home, you know that. You don't clear up the evidences of their being around for six months, there's always something there something you find.

I'd down and They looked around and everything was there, but the boy. And they sat down him on the door that Apologetic but firm man said I am the sheriff. I have come to tell you that you are you are where your Business is up.

We'll be up for sale. You're bankrupt. You're done. You're finished and this is finished. He said that came Before we'd hardly had time had time to sit from our boys to now we were bankrupt. Now we not only had lost our boy.

But we had laughing and I knew the circumstances and I knew the very home. Where the boy had lived would have to go. Said I decided what I'd do about it said I knew where there was a revolver in my room.

And so he decided I'd go to the bathroom. Take my gun go to the bathroom shut the door and get out and said my wife read my mind. And I know how you feel. But she said all is not lost. Did you ever think honey That if we pray maybe God would help us.

Well, he said no. Well, she said listen, I I don't pray either and I've been as bad as you but she said In this darkness in this bitterness and gone. So these two poor pagans without much instruction dropped to their knees And lifted up their hands and faces to God and began to pray.

And they were both converted. That was years before The hour that this man was telling me about it, but there was still ten as he talked. He was now in a high key position where he could reach many men for God.

Longness of those dual losses Had been drained away from their hearts and the pure waters of joy were flowing now all. Because a woman badly instructed without much truth But with a little faith Dead to her husband.

I believe we'll find a door if we look. Even in our valley of bitterness there's a door and They in their ignorance found that door that now go thou and do likewise if there is trouble in the home. Don't you give up?

Hope for Business Crisis and Every Valley of Despair

So give her a door of hope in the valley of despair. If there's trouble in that business give up. Your nerves have gone until you're afraid. The breakdown may be just around the corner. Don't you give up?

And don't you give up no matter what. For that God says there's a door if you will only believe the blood of Jesus Christ Cleanses from all sin the spirit and the bride say come and let him that hears news whoever will let him come.

And come unto me all ye that labor under heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and I am meek and lowly in heart. You shall find rest unto your souls. So let's stop and say now It looks as if I was no place to go from here.

All right. Straight ahead. There's the door a door of hope That God has opened for the poor dying sons of men enter. You'll find all hope And all your anticipations of happiness. Then good shall we pray God and father of our Lord Jesus.

Prayer for Hope, Restoration, and Perseverance

We thank thee this hour. Thou has not left now has not allowed us to wander into the serpent infested valley and left us there, but thou has deluded us and Wounded and even there has placed the door wherever we are.

There's a way out and away in from that spot thou has so arranged it in thy grace. Thou has sent thy son Jesus to die to rise to live to plead to be for us Advocate above a Savior by the throne of love While he's there and we are here or Is within touch?

We bless thee. We will not despair. We will not give up. We will not surrender to the sins of the enemy. We will dare to believe That with every temptation now, we'll make a way. I will turn our tin into silver and our silver into gold.

And I will give us the garments of praise for the garments of heaviness. Bless thou the word spoken this morning. We ask it of Jesus Christ our Lord.