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January, 2023 (Vol.57-No.1) |
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Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on January 1, 1989 Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE NEW YEAR, a time when we reflect on the past and look ahead to the coming year. I am going to a passage I have preached on almost every year since I became the pastor of this church, because I believe we all need this message. Turn in your Bible to Psalm 84, and read beginning at verse 5: “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.” I will preach this message a little differently than I have in the past. I usually begin by focusing on the word “blessed” in verse 5. Today, I want to start by focusing on the word “strength” in verse 7: “They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.” For some reason, the word “strength” attracts me more than the word “blessed” right now. I do not believe I am the only one wondering, “Where is this strength I have been promised all these years?” Maybe you are starting to question whether this promise is genuine or not. The truth is that many times I have questioned it myself. I will get to the word “blessed,” but I am starting to understand that the blessing and the strength of God has promised are closely related. I would like us to pause on the words “from strength to strength” and understand how this process works, so we can all move a little more into the strength that God has promised us. Over the years, I have discovered that I do not really like the way God takes us from where we are to where He wants us to be. In fact, there are a number of things about God’s methodology I feel I could improve upon if He would only ask me first. I have no problem with God’s objectives: He has some wonderful ideas about what He wants us to become. We would be fools not to want the promise of going from strength to strength. But, in my opinion, God has a strange way of getting us there. About this time last year, we claimed God’s promises of leading and strength for the coming year. Now here we are, a year later, and I can tell you that last year was the worst damn trip God ever took me on! If God were the Automobile Club and I had to depend on Him for a roadmap, I would cancel my membership. Nevertheless, the promise remains: “Blessed is the man” who goes “from strength to strength.” Do you want to go from strength to strength? Wait until I tell you how you get there; you might change your mind! Even a seasoned warrior in the faith can reach a point where he has to say, “Enough is enough!” As a preacher, sometimes I feel that I ought to be able to settle down and enjoy the fruits of my labor. We can all start to wonder why we should have to go through any more trials. The answer is simple: going through trials is the necessary “condition precedent,” the prelude to going on to the next level of strength. This is true of the church as a body and also of you as an individual. Sometimes we feel we have reached rock bottom, but God has promised in Deuteronomy 33 that “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” However far we fall, God’s hands are waiting there to catch us and lift us up. But if we must keep going through trials in order to go from strength to strength, couldn’t God at least discuss it with us first? By analogy, when I was a little child, my father might have yelled at me, “Sit down!” But when I was older, he might have said, “Son, let’s sit down together and talk.” So why can’t God be a little more democratic? He could ask me, “Son, are you ready for the next valley?” Or He could say to us, “Children, what should you go through this year to make you stronger? Now, I don’t want to interfere with your plans, but can we fit in this little trial?” The Scripture says, “Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.” The Greek word translated “chasteneth” means “to train a child.” Like a father, God trains His children. Like a coach training a boxer, God does not put you into the ring fifteen rounds if you have never fought one round. This church has been through a great deal of training, and we have been toughened. So how can tough people like us be moved to a point where we can receive more strength? And how is the blessing in verse 5 related to the strength promised in verse 7? Read the first words of verse 5: “Blessed is the man . . .” Circle the word “blessed” in your Bible. When most Christians see the word “blessed,” they usually think of a particularly blessed experience in their lives, or a blessing associated with a particular person or place. These kinds of blessings have an identifiable locus, but that is not the meaning of the word “blessed” in this verse. Rather, this word “blessed” refers to an existential state of blessing, no qualities of which ever change. God promises a state or condition of blessing that never changes, 365 days a year, no matter how your circumstances may change. But this promise does not apply to everyone. It applies to a particular kind of man: “Blessed is the man . . .” The definite article makes it specific; not just anyone will receive this state of blessing that never changes. I can honestly say I do not feel like I have obtained this unchanging state of blessing. There were some days this past year when I felt I wasn’t even close to being blessed. Yet God’s promises remain, and His word is forever settled in heaven. What do we know about the man who receives this blessing? “Blessed is the man . . . Who passing . . .” This particular man is going somewhere. He is in the process of change. He is not static or fixed at any one level of development. Whatever else we can say about this blessed man who ultimately goes from strength to strength, he inevitably faces change. To state it simply, this year will not be like last year. If you had a difficult year, you can thank God that this year will be different. If you had a great victory last year, you probably want to perpetuate it. Our tendency is to want to bring God down and identify Him with the blessing. We wrongly think that when a particular blessing is removed, it means God is no longer there or we have somehow gotten off the track. That is not what God’s word teaches. Remember the lesson of Elijah at the brook Cherith. He obeyed God’s word, and God provided him with a brook to drink from when there was no rain in the land. But after a while, the brook dried up. F.B. Meyer said that God often takes away the gift to teach us to trust the Giver of the gift instead of the gift itself. We are on a journey. That is the good news: it implies that we will not be in our current condition forever; but it goes deeper than that. Are you ready for a change? Sure you are! But we are prone to think, “I’m ready for a change – if God would talk to me about it first! I’m ready for the journey as long as I can pick the route. Besides, I know how God is supposed to change people: from poor to rich, and from sick to healthy. It shouldn’t be like a marriage vow, for better or for worse. I ‘married’ God for ‘better.’ Furthermore, I should get to define what ‘better’ means! I know where I should be going and what God’s objectives should be!” Now, I want some strength for this coming year. I have already submitted my order to go from strength to strength. What is the pathway to receiving this strength? “Blessed is the man . . . Who passing through the valley of Baca . . .” Some Bibles have a note in their margin that says “Baca means weeping.* God’s word is declaring that blessed men, on their journey, pass through valleys of weeping. Whenever you are in a valley, the devil loves to convince you that you must be out of God’s will. The devil loves to beat sensitive people to death with their own conscience. It is easy to lose faith when you fail to understand that valleys of weeping are part of the Christian journey. Stop beating yourself up over the fact that you are there! Valleys are part of God’s plan to move us from strength to strength. So the fact that you are in a valley of weeping is not a sign that you are out of God’s will. Until you cross that threshold of understanding, you have no hope of making it through the valley. The cause of the valley is irrelevant. Most Christians camp out in their valley and wonder, “How did I end up in this hell?” Then they reason, “Well, if I hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t be here. And if I had done that instead, I would be somewhere better.” Once you start thinking that way, the devil will become your most encouraging counselor; he will agree with you as long as you keep convincing yourself it is your own fault. You will not find a single hint in this psalm that God, who gave the promise, is even concerned about the cause of your valley. You are in a valley simply because it is part of the journey, so accept that fact. I am convinced there are some valleys God leads us into, and others we fall into on our own. In either case, Romans 8:28 says, “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Literally, God enters in to all things to work His good. Maybe God put you in the valley; or maybe He gave you the freedom to move around, and you strayed beyond His perimeter and fell *Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance #1056 into the valley. It makes no difference. God enters in to your situation to work His good and make it serve His purpose: to take you from strength to strength. Again, the causes of your circumstances are irrelevant; but let’s suppose you are to blame. So what? God can get you back on the right track. By analogy, when a rocket goes off course, we do not make it go around in a circle and start over; we simply adjust its direction and correct its course. The closer it gets to its destination, the smaller the necessary adjustments become. No matter what mess you are in as the result of what you might have done last year, stop beating yourself up about it! Stop looking back and trying to figure out why it happened; just trust in God and let Him lead you out of it. On the other hand, let’s assume you are innocent. Perhaps you did not do a single thing to deserve being in a valley. I sometimes want to protest to God. “If there were any justice in this world, I wouldn’t be in this valley! I haven’t done anything except try to help You. It isn’t fair!” I suppose if I were like one of those popular TV evangelists, I would tell everyone I had talked to God, and then I would say, “And the Lord said to me . . .!” God seems to talk to them all the time. But I don’t need God to speak to me from out of the ceiling. I know what He has already said in His word. Every time you feel as though you are being corrected for something you did not do, take that correction and apply it to the hundred things you know that you should not have done. If you keep saying, “But I’m innocent,” you might die in your valley. It does not matter whether you are guilty or innocent. The promise is “Blessed men go through.” As we go into this new year, we can expect to go through valleys of weeping. The promise is that blessed men not only go into valleys of weeping, they go through them. God is interested in moving us from strength to strength, which is not possible without the valleys. He has something planned for His children, and like a good coach, He is preparing us for it. Though much of the church world might not recognize it, we are in the last days. A time of testing will come before God takes the church out of the way and Antichrist is revealed. Strength is the quality God wants from men and women of faith, and the way we get it is by going through valleys of weeping. I wish I could tell you that we have had enough trials, we are finally strong enough, and there will be no more valleys of weeping. But I cannot. The valleys are God’s “opportunity zones” for strengthening. I repeat, sometimes God puts you into a valley, while other times, you just stumble into it on your own. God uses the valley you are in to make you look forward, not backward. Thus, you are looking the wrong way whenever you try to figure out what you did wrong. Equally, you are looking the wrong way whenever you assess the situation and put the burden on God’s shoulders and say, “I didn’t do anything wrong!” Remember, the cause is irrelevant. You are in the valley, and blessed mem go through. What does the next part of the verse say that blessed men do? “Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well.” More literally, they make it “a place of springs.” Instead of seeing the valley as something to run away from, they start digging wells in their valley and turn it into a place of springs that can refresh others. God will deliver you when you accept the valley as the place where He will do His work in you. I used to quickly read past the first part of that verse so I could leap ahead to the phrase, “The rain also filleth the pools.” That was the part of the promise that got my attention. When I used to preach on this verse, I would say, “Hang on! God is going to send the rain and deliver you!” But that is not what the Scripture says. A more accurate translation is “The rain also covereth the pools.” If you have already turned your valley into a place of springs, you do not need the rain. You already have water flowing in the valley. The rain that God sends simply “covereth the pools.” It is an added blessing. Paul said in Philippians 4, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Notice that the word “therewith” is in italics in the King James Version. The italics indicate that it was added by the translators. Paul never said “therewith to be content.” He was not saying he had learned to be content with the circumstance; he had learned to be content in spite of the circumstance. You do not have to love the valley you are in, but you can learn to be content. Paul goes on to tell us how, saying, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” When you find yourself in a valley, you can go through it and turn it into a place of springs. Stop trying to get out of it, stop trying to run from it, and stop trying to figure out why you are in it. Start digging wells, by acts of faith! God gives us the capacity to tackle the valleys. This is the message for the coming year. There is no looking back, friends. God has not left us: He is still on His throne, and His word is still the same. I am not preaching a doctrine like that of Christian Science: I am not denying the reality of our valleys. I hate the valleys as much as you do. If you are searching for some brand of “no-stress Christianity,” go find another church. You will never be tested in a church like that. The true church will be tested, but God will use those tests to make us stronger. We might be in a valley, but we are going through it. What is the secret to going through? “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee,” that is, whose strength is in God. Thank God for the fact that He is everywhere, because that means He is with us in our valley. I do not know what you might have thought was essential for your strength last year; maybe it was your health, a relationship, or a job; or maybe it was simply having money or some other gift from God. God, through His Son, has promised, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” He did not say we would never have to endure valleys; indeed, He said we would. But He said He would be with us in the valleys. God’s strength is our strength, when our strength is in Him. How does this message relate to the messages I have been preaching on giving? If your strength is truly in God, you ought to start the new year His way by putting Him first. Give God the firstfruits as a testimonial. The firstfruits are the first income you receive in the new year. Some people are afraid to give God the firstfruits; they want to keep it for themselves as a crutch to lean on. But if your strength is in God, you can lean on Him. Our calendar gives us an occasion to start anew each year. We can give God the firstfruits, the first paycheck of the year, the first benefit of the year, as a testimonial to declare, “Lord, I offer this unto Thee to say in my feeble way that I want to live in this coming year as one whose strength is in Thee.” I guarantee that if you are not in a valley yet, you will be in one, because valleys are part of the journey. But I have good news for you: blessed men go through! Blessed men transform their valleys into places of springs because their strength defies the circumstance, and they go from strength to strength because their source of strength does not change. Blessed is the man who strength is in God. Start your year casting yourself into His strength. I did not preach this sermon as a mere cerebral exercise. Take this message and live it. We are impregnable as long as our strength is in Him. And thank God, He is always with us. Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | April, 2023 Wingspread | March, 2023 Wingspread | February, 2023 Wingspread | January, 2023 Wingspread | | Year 2019 Wingspreads | August, 2016 Wingspread | 2016 Wingspreads | 2014 Wingspreads | 2013 Wingspreads | 2012 Wingspreads | 2011 Wingspreads | 2010 Wingspreads | 2009 Wingspreads | 2008 Wingspreads | 2007 Wingspreads | 2006 Wingspreads | 2005 Wingspreads | 2004 Wingspreads | 2003 Wingspreads | 2002 Wingspreads | 2001 Wingspreads | August, 2001 Wingspread | November, 2001 Wingspread | December, 2001 Wingspread | 2000 Wingspreads | 1999 Wingspreads | 2015 Wingspreads | Year 2017 Wingspreads | 2018 Wingspreads | Year 2020 Wingspreads | Year 2021 Wingspreads | Year 2022 Wingspreads | Year 2023 Wingspreads | | Return Home | Current Wingspread | Wingspread Archives | Contact Us | |
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