From Baca to Beracha, Part 2

Greetings, friends and new listeners. Welcome to The Sound of Faith.

I'm Sharon Notz thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Our message today is for all who have ever experienced the Valley of Tears, a place where it seems all blessings are cut off or lost. It's entitled From Baka to Baraka. God wants to take you from Baka, the Valley of Tears, to Baraka, the Valley of Blessings, and turn your tears into triumph.

I preach this message by personal experience, so I'm excited to tell you how to get from Baka to Baraka. All right, Isaiah said in 51-11, therefore the redeemed. Does that fit anybody here this morning? The Bible says let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

Does that fit anybody here this morning? Therefore, the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion. Now, Zion is the mountain, the hill where God's house was. So whatever you read about Zion in the scriptures automatically translate the house of God.

In your case, you can say faith tabernacle, or if you're visiting here this morning and you have another church, you know, your church, whatever it might be. So Zion means the house of God wherever you go. They shall come and return to Zion with singing, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

I want to say it this way. They're going to come back to Baka. They're going to come back to the valley of tears, only this time they're going to come back with singing and everlasting joy upon their heads.

And this time they're going to turn it into the valley of Baraka. It's going to be a valley of blessings, and their sorrow and mourning is going to flee away, and they're going to dance before the Lord, and they're going to rejoice in their God, and they're going to get stronger and stronger and stronger. Jeremiah 31, 13. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together, for I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoice from their sorrow.

That day the angel of God came to them in Bokeem. They were sorrowful. They wailed and they lamented.

We don't even see it in the English as intense as it means. They cried and they wept bitterly, but that same valley a few hundred years later had turned into a valley of blessings, and now they were going to return with joy and gladness, and God had caused their tears now to turn into pools of water. Amen. We have not liked all this snow we've gotten.

We are fed up with it. We're up to here and beyond, but I'll tell you last summer when you couldn't water your flowers and you couldn't wash your car, and some places they had to bring bottled water into the school, and some places people's wells dried up and they had to pay thousands of dollars to try to dig another one. I tell you what, they may not have liked shoveling all that snow, but in a few months from now their wells will be full and their flowers will be blooming. It takes rain and snow to make the bud come forth. The Bible says in Isaiah 55 that he causes the rain and the snow to come down from heaven and returns not thither, that it may bring forth the bud and the blade that he may give bread to the eater and seed to the sower. So if you want to have bread to eat, you've got to have some rain. If you want to have some seed to sow, you've got to have some snow, and if you want to turn the valley of tears into triumph, you're going to have to cry sometime.

But if you'll cry those tears, you'll get rainbows in your soul. Hallelujah. All right, let's continue on in 84, now we're to verse 7.

They go from strength to strength. Every one of them in Zion appears before God. Do you see the power that's in this word? Everyone that goes to Zion, what does Zion typify? The house of God. Church.

Everyone that appears before God. You don't appear before God sitting at home. You appear before God in Zion. I think that deserves a better amen. You appear before God in Zion. In the house of God. And the result is you go from strength to strength.

From weakness to defeat to worse. Some of you don't like this message. You know why? The Holy Ghost is on your case. And you know why?

Because He loves you. And He wants to bring you out of Baca into Baraka. It's been a long time since some of you have seen a rainbow. Amen. Do you know that when John had the vision and the other prophets had the vision of God, the ancient of days sitting on the throne, there was a rainbow over Him. And the only way you're going to see a rainbow is you've got to get in the presence of God. You've got to come before the throne of God. You've got to come before the altar of God.

If you want your tears to turn into a rainbow. He said they go from strength to strength. They get stronger. Let me tell you something. I speak this by the Word of God and I speak it by experience. True faith is never ever damaged by trials and tribulations. If you have true faith and your trust is in the Lord, the trials and the tests, no matter how severe they are, they're not going to kill your faith.

They're not going to cause you to be defeated. You may feel weak at some point and you will. But out of that, you're going to draw closer to the Lord. Amen. You're going to realize there's nowhere else to turn but to God.

And that's what He's waiting for. And when you turn to Him, the psalmist said, my strength is in thee. And because my strength is in thee, when I should be weak, I'm actually strong because your strength is made perfect in my weakness. And that was what I just quoted that the great apostle Paul said, because God will cause our weakness to showcase His strength.

And then we're going to get stronger and stronger. Just like the Bible talks about Abraham, a story we all know well. I'll just quickly refer to the fact the Bible says that he was fully persuaded that what God said he was able to do. And because of that, his strength, his faith made him stronger. He didn't get weak and weary even though the years were ticking off. And it seemed like it was a long time and that prayer wasn't coming to pass.

He didn't get weak and faint and give up. The Bible says if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. That's what Solomon said in the Proverbs. You see, but I got all this adversity. Well, that's when God comes through the greater.

Amen. So if you faint when you have a hard trial to test your strength is small, why is your strength small? Because you're not trusting in the Lord. You're not coming to God's house to get renewed and strengthened.

And that's why you faint. But he said, Oh, I'm longing if I can just get to the house of God, if I can just appear before God, if I can just get into Zion, if I can just get to the altars of the Lord, I will go from strength to strength. Amen. All right, let's read verse eight. Oh Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer.

Oh God of, somebody help me out here. Oh God of, oh God of, oh God of Jacob, behold oh God our shield and look upon the face of thine anointed. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. He said, Oh Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer. Oh God of Jacob.

Now we can't just pass over this because it's significant. Why did he say, Oh God of Jacob? Why did he not say, Oh God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which is usually the pattern that they use. Why did he say, Oh God of Jacob? Most of the time when Jews pray, they say, Oh Lord God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But here he just said, Oh God of Jacob, hear my prayer.

I believe the significance of the fact that he said Jacob and he didn't say Abraham or Isaac or Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is because it was Jacob who at a time when he felt he did not deserve the blessing of God. At his hour of greatest need, when Esau was fast on his tracks, when he knew that he had done all that conniving and trickery, when he had fled from the face of his brother, when he felt like he had nowhere to turn, when he was so desperate that when the angel of God appeared unto him, he grabbed hold of him and wrestled all night long and would not let go. He was so desperate, he said, I will not let you go until you bless me. And the angel of God touched him in his thigh and after that he was walking around with a limp, but that limp didn't bother him any because he knew that he had been touched and blessed of the angel of God.

And he went out with victory. And I believe the psalmist chose this title, Oh God of Jacob, because he was remembered. It was Jacob who was weak. It was Jacob who was desperate. It was Jacob who had come to the end of himself and had nowhere else to turn. He sent his family over on the other side. He got a hold of God and he said, God, if you will bless me, I will serve you.

I will honor you. I will pay my tithes to you. And God knew that he would keep his word and he believed him and he gave Jacob those 12 sons to bring forth the nation of Israel. So the psalmist is here and saying, Oh God of Jacob, because it was Jacob who when he was filled with fear, he had fear of the future. His future was so uncertain.

He had no idea what was going to happen when he finally faced Esau. He didn't know if he was going to lose everything, but in his desperation, he called out unto God. And the Bible says, your name will no longer be Jacob, but your name will be Israel because you are a prince with God. You have wrestled and you have prevailed with God. And I want you to know when you get in your place of desperation, you can cry out, Oh God of Jacob, meet me right here. I believe that if you will touch me and you will bless me, I will go forth in strength as a prince with God.

So no matter how desperate your situation is, you can call on the God of Jacob. And he's the same God. He's the same great I am. He said, my name is I am. I'm the God that was, I'm the God that is, I'm the God that will be. I'm the God who changes not. My covenant I will not break.

I will not alter the words going out of my mouth. So then he goes on to say, hear my prayer and give ear. Behold, Oh God, our shield and look upon the face of thine anointed. Because the shield speaks of protection. God is a shield to us. And we'll talk about that in just a moment a little more, but the shield is protection. You are going to get into battle.

Now what are you going to do? Turn around and run? Don't do that because you don't have any armor on your backside. You only got armor on your front side. If you read Ephesians the sixth chapter and you read all about the old armor, you find out there's something to cover you from here to here in the front, but not in the back.

Why? God doesn't expect you to turn your back on the devil. He doesn't expect you to run in fear and be a coward. He said, having done all stand to stand, stand, stand with the shield whereby you are able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Our God is the shield. He will protect us and he will cause his face to look upon the anointed. This is a very powerful blessing that the Hebrews speak to one another.

God gave Moses the instruction, tell Aaron and all the priests to bless my people, put my name on them and I will bless them. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee. The Lord be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift his countenance upon thee and give you his peace. Give you his shalom. Release his active presence in your behalf to go with you wherever you go.

His goodness and mercy to follow you. When the Lord lifts his countenance and shines his face upon you, you're not walking in darkness. You're not the children of the night. You're the children of the day.

Amen. You're the light of the world. You shine his lights amongst the wicked and perverse and crooked generation. You don't fear the Arab adane or the terror by night because you have the Lord looking upon you.

His face is upon you. He's keeping you as the apple of his eye. And the apple of the eye isn't talking about a piece of fruit off of a tree. It's talking about the little pupil of the eye, the little man of the eye. That's what it meant, the pupil of the eye. And you know you're going to guard your pupil.

Anything comes, you're going to guard that. The Lord is looking at you when his face is upon you. You're as the pupil of God's eye, and he's going to watch out for you and protect you. And when God causes his glory to shine upon you, you will shine and men will say, how come you have such hope? You have such joy. You have such peace all around. You've got trials.

You've got problems. The Lord will cause his face to shine upon you. For a day, just a day, just one day, one day in the courts of the Lord, just give me one moment in God's presence. Just let me get to Zion. Just let me get to the altar of the Lord. Just let me appear before God. Just let me find that nest that God has made in his altar. Just let me get into the house of the Lord.

For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked. Now these are not the words of a doorkeeper. Being a doorkeeper is an honorable position. Amen. And great reward. I believe when we get to heaven, there are going to be a lot more honors bestowed on doorkeepers and feet washers and table servers necessarily than preachers.

Amen. But this is not, these are not the words of a doorkeeper. These are the words of the King David, the great King David, the man that God said you were a man after my own heart. Why could God say that? Because David was so perfect, because he was so flawless, because he never messed up, because he never made a mistake.

No, but because in spite of messing up and not being perfect and doing things sometimes that caused the Lord to have to judge him, he always knew how to get his heart back to God. He said, I blew it this time, but if I can just get to the house of God, I fell down this time, but if I can just get to the house of God, I'm weak this time, but if I can just get to the house of God, if I can just appear before God, if I can just get to Mount Zion, I know I will have strength. Just let me get in God's presence. Let me get in the house of the Lord.

Hallelujah, because there are more blessings, there is more joy, there is more peace, there is more strength in God's house than all the pleasures, than all the joys, than all the excesses of the flesh. I mean, we live in a generation, this generation is obsessed with amusement. They're obsessed with entertainment. Oh, let me entertain you is one song.

Please entertain me is the other song. Just entertain me. Well, now you've got to make shows that are more this and more that and more intense this and more intense that. I mean, what are they going to do?

I heard that the day is going to be coming and you can see them, you're going to be able to see them do autopsies on TV. People want, come on, feed me, feed me. I need more entertainment.

I don't, that doesn't shock me anymore. You got to up the level. I got to have more shock value. You got to entertain me more. I got to go on more vacations.

I got to do more of this and do more of that. No, David said, just let me get in the house of the Lord. Just let me get in God's presence. One day in God's presence is worth more than a lifetime running after the flesh because the flesh profits you nothing. It'll profit you nothing and it'll cost you a whole lot. It's not cheap. It's not cheap in more ways than one to try to satisfy the flesh.

You can spend thousands of dollars a year trying to satisfy the flesh and it'll profit you nothing and you can just come into the house of the Lord with your praise and your worship and stand in God's presence. Somebody said one day of God's favor is better than a year of labor. If you have God's favor on you, you could be working in a job where you feel like this is a, this job's not going anywhere and you look all around you and you think, oh, they're going to get the promotion before I will. Well, they'll get the raise before I'll get it. Well, that door will open for them before me. But you see, the thing that they don't understand is you've got God's favor.

Amen. You may not have the college degree. You may not have the experience. You may not have this and you may not have that. You might not have the white right wardrobe.

You might not have everything that the other person seems to have. But if you've got God's favor, he said, I'll open doors that no man can open. I'll open the windows of heaven over your head. I'll pour you out blessings you don't have room enough to receive. I will do exceeded and abundantly above all you can ask or think. If you have God's favor, you can have God's favor and you can make half the money of what other people you know make and you can have more to show for what you have because you've got God's favor. Amen. Just give me God's favor. Verse 11 for the Lord God is a son and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory.

I got to read that again. The Lord will give grace and glory. Amen. Wednesday night I preached the message on grace. Just the foretaste of grace. God will give grace and now I want to tell you he'll give you more than grace. He'll give you glory.

Talk about that in just a second. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. The Lord our God is a son. The son speaks of life. If we didn't have this son, this planet would be an ice ball. You wouldn't be here.

I wouldn't be here. It would be just a big ice ball like other planets are. Because the son is situated perfectly in the heavens, we're at one degree one way or one degree the other way, Earth would not be able to be on, life would not be able to be on Earth.

Earth would be uninhabitable. If you moved it one degree away, we would become an ice ball. If you moved it one degree closer, we would burn up. That's why it's not just an accident. That it's right where it is.

Right at the precise angle and degree that it is. How many say amen? Because it's the Earth that warms, it's the sun that warms the Earth and causes us to have flowers and vegetation and trees and herbs and warmth and light and without the sun, this Earth would just wither up. Amen. In the tribulation, God's going to turn the sun up seven times hotter and it's going to bake the Earth. And some people say, well, you know, I won't be over there. Well, the sun's wherever you are. You can't escape that. You might escape the boils and you might escape some stuff, but you ain't going to escape the sun.

Amen. But our God is a sun. It means that he sustains our life. The sun invigorates life on the Earth and gives us warmth and protection.

And it's the same way. When we're come to God's house, God gives us life. He is the sun. The Bible says through the prophet Malachi and the son of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings. But some people believe the better translation would be and healing in his rays because the same Hebrew word they make wings can be raised because there it says sun, S-U-N. The son, Jesus Christ, is the son of righteousness, S-U-N, and he's got healing in his rays.

Amen. And that's what our God is to us. He's our healer.

He's our Jehovah Rapha. He said, I am the Lord God that heals thee. I not only will heal you, I'll remove sickness and disease from the midst of you.

I won't even let the diseases come on you to come on the ungodly. How many say amen? Because our God is ever present with us as our son to give us life and to give us health. And our God is the shield. As I said a moment ago, the shield speaks of protection from the enemy, from satanic attack against us. God is the shield. The first time that the word shield was ever mentioned in scripture, it was mentioned to Abraham.

God said to Abraham, fear not Abram, for I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. Now God spoke this to Abraham at the time when he had just won a great victory against five evil kings. The kings that had come to Sodom and Gomorrah, remember his nephew Lot had gone to Sodom before the destruction? When they said, oh we got so much cattle we need to split up because we can't have all our cattle and servants are just starting to have strife because we need more room? And we know that Lot looked at Sodom and Gomorrah and it looked so green and it looked so lush.

Maybe that's where that saying comes, the grass might look greener on the other side but it ain't always what you think it is. And after he was there and Abraham went on his way, word came to Abraham that these five wicked kings with all their armies had invaded Sodom and Gomorrah and had taken away captive his nephew Lot and all his family. And what did Abraham do? He rose up with the men that he had amongst him, 318 men he had in his little force, his little family.

And he went and he got Lot back and he got the family back and he got everything back and he got the spoils back. And this is when God said, fear not Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. It doesn't matter how many are against you. It doesn't matter the number of the enemy. All that matters is who is for you. Who is for you. Amen.

That's all I want to know is who is for me. Because in verse eight where it said, oh Lord of Hosts, that is not just something you should read over in passing. Lord of Hosts is a military title.

It would be like saying, you know, General Schwarzkopf or General Tommy Franks, the one that's going to be heading the war that's going to break out soon. The Lord of Hosts means the captain of the Lord's armies. God has got an army.

The host is talking about all the innumerable angels that are in heaven. The armies of angels that God says he sends forth on behalf of the righteous as ministering spirits, as flaming fire. He sends them forth to encamp round about the righteous and deliver them.

And the Bible says they're mighty in power and excellent in strength. And they hark into the voice of his command. Why do they hark into the voice of his command? Because he's the Lord of Hosts. He's the captain. He's the general.

He's the captain in chief. So when the psalmist was praying to the Lord of Hosts, he wasn't just saying some nice little title. He was saying, oh Lord, come with all your armies and deliver me. My faith and my trust is not in the arm of flesh.

It's in the Lord of Hosts. And if God is for me, who can be against me? If God is for me, he's more than all that can be against me. So I'm not worried about who's against me.

I just want to know who's for me. Amen. So there's no fear of the enemy when we're in God's house and we know that the captain of the Lord's host is looking out for us. He will give grace and he will give glory. I wish I could park here a while. I preached about grace Wednesday night.

You're in a test? Well, get that message because God's got more than enough grace. His grace is more than sufficient for you. And he told you come boldly to the throne of grace and ask for grace. So God is not only going to give you grace so you can come through the valley of tears. He is not only going to bring you out.

God doesn't want to just bring you out hanging on by the skin of your teeth. He wants to bring you out and give you glory. He wants to give you the spoils. If you read the Old Testament, whenever they went into a city and God sent them to destroy it, they were allowed to take the spoils. And that word spoil, what does that mean? It means the loot.

Amen. It means that they would get to take the silver, the gold, the goods, whatever. They got to take that. And they gave a portion to God in his house and the rest they got to keep if God said they could keep it. There were certain times God said don't keep any to give me all of it.

But most of the time they were allowed to have a part for themselves. So God doesn't want to just bring you through the test barely hanging on. He not only wants to give you grace to endure, he not only wants to make a way of escape for you, he wants to give you glory. Somebody said you don't have to wait till the battle's over.

Shout now. He wants to turn your tears into triumph. He wants to bring you from the valley of Baca and you may go around the ways, but you're going to come back to the same valley only this time you're not going to go forth with weeping for joy comes in the morning. Weeping only in jars for the night.

But joy comes in the morning. And he's going to turn your Baca into Baraka. And your valley of tears is going to become a valley of dancing and shouting because God's going to give you grace to get through and that he's going to give you glory. He's going to give you the blessings.

He's going to give you the spoil. When they came and took David's family and all of their family, when they were at Zigalag and they came back from the battle and their wives were gone and their kids were gone, everything they had was gone. The people were so down, they hit the bottom.

They couldn't have gone any lower. They went so low they were ready to stone David as though it were his fault. He was missing his wives and kids too.

The Bible says David encouraged himself in the Lord. He couldn't look the brother at so-and-so. He was going to stone him.

He couldn't look the brother over here. He was going to stone him. So he encouraged himself in the Lord. And he said, Lord, what should I do?

Should I pursue? God said pursue because you're not only going to get back every last thing. You're not going to only get back every shoelace.

You're going to get back every grain of corn, but you're going to take the spoils too. Amen. God will give us grace. God will give us glory. Hallelujah.

Amen. What an uplifting word from the Lord from Baca to Baraka. If you've ever experienced an extended time in the valley of tears, you know how painful it can be. But our tears are precious to God. Actually, David, the beloved psalmist prayed in Psalm 56, put my tears in your tear bottle.

And we learn in the book of Revelation that the prayers and tears of the saints are gathered into bowls before God's throne as sweet incense. The valley of Baca was one of Israel's lowest points where they lifted up their voice as one to cry and lament over the judgment their disobedience had brought on the nation. It became known as the valley of bokeem or tears.

But centuries later, the writer of Psalm 84 declared that those who appear before God at his altars in the house of God go from strength to strength. And when they pass through the valley of Baca, the valley of tears, they make it into a well where the rain fills the pools. It becomes a valley of blessings.

They turn their tears into triumph. Another valley of testing for Israel was the valley of Achor, where sin in the camp committed by Achan caused them to lose a battle. And it became known then as the valley of Achor of cursings and reproach, where Achan and his family died and their bones were burned. But centuries later, Isaiah called that very same valley Sharon, a place where the flocks and God's people who sought him lay down and rest. Would you like to rest in the fields of Sharon, to go from strength to strength, to turn your tears into triumph and into rainbows for your soul? The key is to appear in God's house and make your delight a place of safety at his altars. Just as the sparrow builds a nest for her young, so God's altars are the place of blessing for his people. God never wastes our pain and he will redeem our tears when we seek his presence in his house. For one day in God's house is better than a thousand elsewhere. If the Lord directs you, please consider sending a larger gift towards the expenses of this station. Thank you and God bless you. Until next time, this is Sharon Notzeng, Maranatha.