Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the prophecy of Hosea. Hosea chapter two, and we read
for our text part of verse 15. The valley of Achor, for a door
of hope. The whole verse reads, or if
we read from verse 14 through 15, 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. Hosea 2 verse 15, specifically
the words, the valley of Achor, for a door of hope. When the tribes were separated,
the ten tribes, in the time of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, They
were led away from the true worship of God. Jeroboam put two golden
calves, one in Bethel and one in Dan, with the express purpose
of keeping those that were in those tribes from returning to
Judah and to Rehoboam to Jerusalem, gave them alternative worship. And so also he exalted of the
least of the people, whosoever would, he consecrated him and
made him a priest, not of the tribes of Levi. And so he turned away of those
tribes. And really, in the history of
the 10 tribes, Israel, they went further and further away from
the true worship of Jehovah. Judah indeed did depart, and
yet did have times of revival throughout her history. And this
time with Hosea, there is hardly any remnant of the true worship
of God that is left at all. No living under the time of not
Jeroboam the son of Nebat, but Jeroboam II. And it was a time
of prosperity in the land. And so the words of Hosea spoken
to them fell on deaf ears. They did not need in their own
eyes. God, they did not need to turn
to him. Everything was going well. Everything
was prospering. It was all going smoothly. Not any threats of judgments
that are here in this prophecy could move them or even the promises
of blessing that in our text and in the context could ever
move them. And we see that these tribes
were taken away by Sennacherib, they were taken away and led
into captivity. And so the promises here, that
which is said, I will allure her, bring into the wilderness
and speak comfortably unto her, These promises we must look at
as, yes, given to a people that did not receive them and were
not blessed with them, but pointing to a gospel day, pointing to
the day when the true Israelites under the gospel, the day in
which we're in now, shall walk in those blessings that are set
before us here. And so it is a word that we would
look at and seek that we might obtain a blessing from it. And when we think of the context
here is a luring, a drawing, and a drawing into the wilderness
and speaking comfortably to her. The children of Israel, when
they began to be a nation, when the Lord began with them, he
brought them out of Egypt and he brought them into the wilderness.
And hear what is said, almost a retracing of their steps, I
bring them again into the wilderness and there speak comfortably unto
her. We think of in verse 15, with
the vineyards, the fruitfulness, that which they viewed in the
promised land and that which was there, they brought back
with the spies, the grapes of Eskol. It is from the Lord that
our fruit is found. But then in the words of our
text, there is the Valley of Acre. And this is the reason
why we read the portion that we did where that valley was
first named. And we read in the last verse
of Chapter 7, Joshua 7, wherefore the name of that place was called
the Valley of Acre. unto this day and it is this
that God says through Hosea he will give the valley of Acorn
for a door of hope. So I want to look firstly at
what went before the Valley of Acre. I'm going to be referring
to the chapter that we read in Joshua. And then the Valley of
Acre, what was actually done there. And then how the Valley
of Acre is given for a door of hope. Firstly then, there's that
which went before the Valley of Acre. How did the whole matter
start? How did it begin? The children
of Israel had come over Jordan and into the promised land. And the Lord had given them Jericho
in a most remarkable way. encompassing around about it,
those seven days, and the walls were caused to fall down flat
and they went straight up into the city and shook it. Israel had been in the position
of starting the conquest of Canaan in a very, we might say, spectacular
way, a way that really so clearly demonstrated it was the Lord's
work. There was no possibility that
they could have said this was our armour and our might and
our skill that did this. They walked round and it was
told by faith that they fell down flat. It was the Lord's
work. So then what a shock. When they
come from that to the very next conquest, and they view the city
of Ai, they send men to look at it, and they say, this is
but a small city. Don't send all of the people. Just send 3,000. That's all it
will take. And go and smite it. And yet
they were put to the worst before the men of Ai. And we can get some. idea of
what this meant to Joshua, how perplexed he was. We read in
verse 6, that Joshua rent his clothes and fell to the earth
upon his face before the ark of the Lord, until he even died.
He and the elders of Israel put dust upon their heads. But you
know they're blaming the Lord for this. Alas, O Lord God, wherefore
hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan? to deliver
us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us, were to God we
had been content and dwell on the other side, Jordan. O Lord,
what shall I say when Israel turneth their backs before their
enemies? For the Canaanites and all the
inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, shall environ us
around, and cut off our name from the earth. And what wilt
thou do unto thy great name? This defeat had worked so many
things in Joshua to imply that the Lord had brought them over
to destroy them. And then to go on from that and
to picture what was going to follow on What is going to be
the consequences of this? What are the other nations are
going to hear about this and where it shall follow on? Dear
friends, are we in that position? The Lord has blessed us, the
Lord's favoured us, he's given an expectation of his presence
and blessing with us and then suddenly there's a tremendous
reverse and things go completely wrong and immediately our mind
goes Why has the Lord done this? Why has he led us into this way,
into this position? And then our mind goes forward. What is going to happen? This
is going to happen. That's going to happen. And we're
running away. We're planning providence, as
it were. We're mapping it all out, all
upon one thing that has happened. And Joshua has completely missed
the reason. He doesn't know the reason. He doesn't know. It's hidden
from him. There might be those things hidden
from us. And because it's hidden from
us, we come to our own conclusions and we start to do the same as
Joshua. Did Joshua come before the Lord
and ask why? Is there a reason why this has
happened? Is there a reason why we have
been put to the worst before our adversaries? Or are we just
supposing all of this ill will towards the children of Israel? It seems amazing that we can
go from a position of blessing a position where the children
of Israel are brought all the way through the wilderness and
into the promised land. And now Joshua, in effect, he's
just throwing it all away as if the Lord has thrown it all
away. And the Lord says to him, Get
thee out, wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel has
sinned. The Lord tells Joshua the reason
why. Now it's time we might prostrate
ourselves before the Lord and beseech the Lord for a thing.
And yet we are completely missing the reason for the trouble and
the trial and the things that we are in. And especially we
would take warning of that when we start to think hard thoughts
of the Lord and say things as if it is the Lord's fault and
that the Lord thinks evil towards us. We think of what he says
in Jeremiah, I know the thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts
of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Something
to always remember, with the Lord's dealings with his people,
it is not to destroy them, it is not to put them to the ruin
before all of those round about, but to bring them back from their
sin and to purge them from their sin, to deal with their sin. We read in Isaiah about Zion
saying, the Lord's forgotten us. The Lord says, can a woman
forget her sucking child, the son of her womb? Yea, they may
forget, yet will I not forget thee? I've graven thee upon the
palms of my hands. It may be as you've come into
trouble or trials, those of which we're going through as a nation
that is touching many, many people personally, that you also had thoughts, words,
prayers before the Lord that has really put the Lord in the
dock. Well, the Lord says here, there
is something that you don't know. There's something that I will
show to you that is wrong. He says, Israel hath sinned,
and they have also transgressed my covenant. It struck me so
much concerning the present situation that we are in. Some time ago we made supplication,
many of us, to the governments that they would never close the
places of worship again. And even in the last week, again
supplicating personally to our local MPs as well. And yet the
Lord has seen fit to cause that those in authority over us have
closed our places of worship for public worship. In effect,
the Lord has said, my hand is not only upon the pubs, the cinemas,
the football stadiums, and the shops that are not necessary,
but my hand is upon my church, my people. And they are to recognise
the hand of the Lord. Judgement shall begin at the
house of God. And not to think, well, all of
the sins of this nation, they're nothing to do with me. They're
the sins of the nation. No. The Lord will deal with his
people. He loves his people. He loves
them too much to leave them to be in a careless position. We
read in the last days that Men shall be lovers of pleasure more
than lovers of God. And that applies, it comes right
into the church as well, that because iniquity abounds, the
love of many shall wax cold. Is not that so? It is true in
my case. Iniquity takes away the love
of God, makes us grow cold, distant, hard, far off from the Lord. The Lord gave us some time ago
that time when we couldn't gather in our churches. Did it work
for good? Were you blessed? Was I blessed? The Lord visiting us again. May
there be that renewed sense. Lord, bless me again. Bless me
now. Let us not come through this
trial and just be able to brush off or imply that, well, this
has nothing to do with us. It has to do with others, but
not us. Well, we're the children of Israel
here. The word in verse 11 is Israel
has sinned. Israel has sinned. They have also transgressed my
covenant, which I commanded And he tells Joshua what had been
done, that they had taken that accursed thing. And he reveals
to them particularly what that reason was, why. He had taken
away his power, his might, his blessing from amongst them, and
he gave them direction as to how that they should deal with
it. And that is where they come down
then to this valley of Acre. It wasn't enough that they should
know what was wrong. It wasn't enough that that should
just be made known to them. There must be a coming into the
valley of Acre. So our second point, what is
the Valley of Acre? What was done there? We said
of that which was in the margin, acre meaning trouble, a valley
of trouble. And in this valley, sin was dealt
with very, very thoroughly. We cannot read this account without
realising how thoroughly this was dealt with. It was searched
out and found out because it was done by lot. It was found
out by the Lord, examined again and again until it got right
to where the very root of the problem was. It didn't stop at
the tribe of Judah. It went down house by house until
the very root of it. You know, dear friends, sometimes
we just deal with sin. superficially. We don't deal
with the root often. You that are gardeners, you know
what it is. If you've got a dandelion or
something in your garden and you just rip off the top of it,
the root is still there. You know that will easily spring
up again. We've got them in the car park
here at the chapel, they grow up. Unless I use a weak killing
rod, and I know how many ever times I might chop off the top
of it, it'll spring up again, because the root is still there.
And here, sin is dealt with going right down to the very root,
finding out the very man, and then bringing him to confess
the matter in verse 10. Achan is found out, verse 20
rather, and Achan answered Joshua, said, indeed I have sinned against
the Lord, God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done. And
God is beginning to be justified here. You know, sometimes there's
allegations made, naturally speaking, people will make allegations
against another and it's investigated. And when it gets to the matter,
you find it's not true. But in here, it is traced right
the way through, and it's found true. Achan has to confess it. He tells where it is. And they
run, and they go, and they find it, and they confirm it in verse
23. There it is. There is the evidence
of it. They find it in his tent, the
wedge of gold, the silver hidden in the tent. a Babylonish garment. And so they take these things
and they take Achan and his family and everything about him, all
that would have in some sense be connected to that sin. And they stone him with stones.
They burn them with fire. They raise a heap of stones onto
them. The whole message is what an
evil thing sin is and how thoroughly it must be dealt with. And we might read this account
and we think, how severe that that is. But God must deal severely
with sin. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. And the breaking of the covenant
of God, the sentence is death. There's no doubt here and will
be no doubt in the minds of the children of Israel. Not only
in the way that the Lord dealt with them with Ai, but also how
he dealt with the sin. The sin must be put away. It must be dealt with. And so
this valley, this was a valley of trouble. Achan had troubled
Israel. He was then troubled. He was
then doubted. Now I look upon, in a gospel
sense, the children of Israel as, as it were, a body. And I
can hear as sin in Israel. You know, many times through
the wilderness journey, there were many that were killed, many
slain. those bitten by serpents, those
that were slain, Mount Sinai because of the golden calf, Korah,
Dathan, Aviron. Many times there was a dealing
with sin through that wilderness journey. But Israel as a whole
were brought to the Promised Land. They were blessed, and
here as well. Israel were told the Lord would
not be with them anymore unless this thing was dealt with. This
was taken out and then the Lord was with them. The Lord in the
Sermon on the Mount, he speaks of the dealing with sin as the
plucking out of ice or cutting off of a right arm. Dealing with
it is a painful thing But it's better, he says, to enter into
life whole or lame or blind rather than to be cast wholly, fully
into hell fire. The message the Lord would have
for his people is that sin is the most bitter and evil thing
and must be dealt with. And when we are appointed, from
the valley of Achor as to be a valley of hope, the key to
it is, sin is thoroughly dealt with. And that must be a hope
for the people of God. And I want to then look at this
in our third point, as it being a valley of hope, that which
our text It says before us, in the middle here, verse 15. The Valley of Acre, for a door
of hope. An opening of hope. Something that they were to go
through. Something that without this valley
that would just be shut, the blessings of God. and any hope
shut out. But here is a door. How does
it open? How does it open here? Well,
I want to begin with our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. If we say in this Valley of Acre
that here sin was dealt with so thoroughly, when we come to Calvary, when
we come to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, He who was to bear
His people's sin and to be made sin for us who knew no sin, He
has dealt with sin most thoroughly, most completely. It is a dealing with it in a
way as to take away the wrath of God because of that curse
upon the people. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
upon a tree. Our Lord Jesus Christ hung upon
the tree to bear the curse that was due to his people. His sacrifice
is a propitiation in his blood, a wrath-ending sacrifice. It is in that way that the wrath
that is due upon his people is taken away and the blessings
of God can flow to them. If the children of Israel had
not proceeded in the way that the Lord directed them in, the
Lord had clearly said to them that if they did not take this
thing away, then he would not be with them anymore. He would never go with them at
all. And so the opening for the blessings
of the Lord are opened up in what the Lord Jesus Christ has
done at Calvary. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission. and without there being full
satisfaction and a full dealing and putting away of sin, then
those blessings cannot flow to the people of God. But they do
flow, and they do flow from the Lord Jesus Christ, and they do
flow through the good news of the Gospel. If ever there is
an assurance as we compare this passage and ACORP with that which
our Lord Jesus Christ has done. If any are in doubt as to the
effectualness of Christ's sacrifice and sin put away, we see the
message of this passage here. We see also the empty tomb, the
Lord rising from the dead after sin had been put away. Death, which is the sentence
against sin, was put to death, the grave was overcome, and the
Lord rose again. The Lord giving assurance unto
all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead, the Father
raised the Son. The Son, our Lord says, I have
power to lay down my life, I have power to take it again. This
commandment have I received from my Father." So when we have here
what God has promised through Hosea, that he should give the
Valley of Acre for a door of hope, it was as if he says, I
will give for a door of hope my complete dealing with sin,
my complete putting away sin from Israel, my dealing with
it so that I might be with you forever and bless you and go
with your armies and bring you into this promised land. And when sin was dealt with here,
then the Lord was with them and the Lord did bless them. And
we see that effect immediately that followed after it. So we
look, we see, And again I say that the secret here is the complete
dealing with sin. That which the Lord has accomplished
at Calvary is not a partial putting away of sin. It's not a half
work. It's a full work. And it deals
with the root of it. Remember what we said, this didn't
just stop at Judah, it went right down to the root. The Lord, what
he has done, he deals with the root. You and I are born in sin
and shaped in iniquity. It's not just the sins we've
committed from the cradle to the grave. We are fallen. We are dead in trespasses and
sins where the Lord finds us. And that sin by nature is right
in our nature. And the Lord will deal with that
completely at Calvary. And because He has dealt with
it there, He will deal with it along the way as well, in chastening,
in correcting of His people. And that brings to the second
hope that is raised up in this valley of Achor, because it is
a valley of trouble. As if the Lord would say to his
people, I come to you in a way a blessing in your troubles. Before Joshua or Israel ever
knew that they had sinned, the sins of ignorance as it were,
but a sin of ignorance, the curse is still there. The blessing
was that it was made known to And how was it made known to
them? They started to have trouble. And the trouble started when
the Lord withdrew his help and the Lord withdrew his presence.
You know, trouble is bound up with it. Dear Job, he said, man,
is born Our Lord was insistent, in me
you shall have peace, in the world you shall have tribulation.
And the apostles, when they would encourage the brethren, they
said, you must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom
of God. Troubles, trials, afflictions
are what God uses as a blessing for his people to open their
ears He sends the famine for three and a half years in Ahab's
day to prepare the way so that they will listen to Elijah. He sends the trials upon his
people when they sin against him, the serpents to bite them. And then as they are in trouble
and as they are dying, he's raised up the brazen serpent As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but should have eternal life. This portion, this promise,
is an encouragement to every poor soul in trouble. The psalmist
says, the troubles of mine heart are enlarged. And the trouble
here, specifically, was sin. Sin was found out. Sin wasn't
just left superficially. And when the Lord begins and
he finds out your sin, he finds out my sin, and he searches our
heart, he brings us in as convinced, and he brings us in as guilty
sinners. It is the time of Jacob's trouble,
but he shall be saved out of it. Those troubles like a gloomy
cloud, but there the Lord works and there the Lord comes. And
we see the Lord's kindness. You trace it through Psalm 107.
And you find the people of God going into trouble again and
again. They fall down, there's none
to help. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and he
saved them out of their distresses. And at the end of that beautiful
psalm, who so is wise and will observe these things, even they
shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. The Lord using the
rod in Hebrews 12, we are told the Lord chastens every son whom
he receiveth. Is not one of his children that
he will allow sin upon them without sending the rod and correction? The lash, the hymn writer says,
is steeped, he only lays, yet softened in his blood. Have you got trouble this night?
Trouble that you can't tell, perhaps to one near and dear
to you. Trouble of which it is the burden
of the heart. Trouble that comes in waves like
dear Joe, one after another, you wonder where the scene will
end. Trouble like the psalmist who said his loins are filled
with a loathsome disease. Trouble that causes one to be
so bowed down, like the dear woman that could in no wise lift
herself up. Trouble like the Canaanitish
woman who came because of her daughter, Lord help me, and would
not be put off by all of the discouragements that she had. In this valley of trouble, sin
was discovered. and found and dealt with, and
in the valleys of your trouble, my trouble, we are brought not
to despair, but to the one who truly has dealt with sin, the
one who's put it away in his own body on the tree, the Lord
Jesus Christ and his sufferings and his death. If you thought
this was severe that we read here, What did it fall upon the
Lord? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? When we think we mentioned on
Mount Carmel and the fire fell from heaven and consumed, consumed
what? Not the Baal worshippers or Israel,
but the sacrifice that so set forth the Lord Jesus Christ.
What we say here, sin was dealt thoroughly on Mount Carmel there,
that fire, it burnt up the bullock and the wood and the stones and
the water and the dust. It burned everything up. The
wrath of God against the Son of God in tight there and sin
put away. That's the thing that we can
say with the psalmist that it was good that we are afflicted.
The Lord has made it work for good, sanctified it, and in those
troubles the flesh dislikes the way, but faith approves it well. And it is then in these valleys
the Lord sanctifies his people. He makes them to be his bride,
and he makes them to be a prepared people for a prepared place. He gave them the blessings here
in this valley so that they could then go on. They could then go
on. It is the Lord that shall give
that blessing that enables a poor sinner to go on. You might have
come this evening and joined and said, I don't know how to
go on. I don't know how to proceed.
I don't know how to keep going. And you view your sins like a
mighty cloud. But when the Lord deals with
it, you say, I know I can go on. I can go now. The wonderful thing, the poor
soul, let us stand because of their sins tonight. The Lord
shows you through this word. He has dealt with your sin. Now,
poor soul, now you can go on. Now you can go forward. Now you have. the Lord's blessing
to go on. Wonderful thing where the Lord,
through his word, deals with our sin, deals with our troubles,
deals with our sorrows, and we see it all satisfied in the Lord
Jesus Christ, all set right, all put right, all is settled,
and my soul approves it well. It is a beautiful promise that
is here. The children of Israel here,
they didn't listen to the warnings, they didn't listen to the blessings
either. But reserved for a gospel day,
may the Lord open our ears to it. The Valley of Achor, for
a door of hope. Have you a door of hope in the
trouble you're in now? Or may you have it tonight? the
valley of Ico for a door of home. May the Lord