One's Concept of God

Hosea 2:14-15

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.   And there I will give her back her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.  And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.”

How one pictures God has much to do with their relationship with Him or the lack of one; for years I knew my ways were not pleasing to a holy God, and I viewed Him as someone I needed to appease before I died.  And the enemy of my soul would always speak to my mind, “do it later”, it’s now time to have fun, live life and after your youth and making your mark on the world, then you can make things right with God. 

The Valley of Achor a door of hope was not always so, it was known by the people of Israel under the leadership of Joshua as a place of judgment and the wrath of a holy God.  What happened is told in the book of Joshua chapter 7, the first defeat of Israel in the wilderness by the people of Ai.  And God tells Joshua that the people have broken faith in regard to the devoted things.  And this would be the judgment, “And he who is taken with the devoted things shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he has done an outrageous thing in Israel.”

And God gave Joshua instructions about how to identify the man who had taken the devoted things in Joshua 7 it a great read, and Achan is confronted and this is his reply: “Achan replied, “It is true! I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done:  When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

And this is how the Valley of Achor became known as the place of judgment the people of Israel took Achan up to the Valley of Achor along with all he had and the devoted things and stoned him and burned his body and heaped stones on him.

But now the rest of the story, going back to the question of how you see God; Has God appealed to your heart, has He brought you into the wilderness to speak tenderly to you, has He taken you to a place of judgment to show you mercy?  Do you see God as a lover, if so you are into the story of Hosea’s time?  For like Israel, Gomer would go after other lovers, and yes, God divorced that generation but God is true to His promises and Hosea is showing a time when God is going to once more become the God of Israel and then His chosen people.

It is once again like the time they came out of the land of Egypt and they will be God’s chosen.  "The valley of Achor for a door of hope;" trouble would be turned into joy, despair into hope.” (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice