Leading The Way

Guest (Male): Dr. Michael Youssef offering tough words to begin this Leading The Way audio episode.

Dr. Michael Youssef: You cannot be unfaithful to the Lord. You cannot lower your own spiritual temperature without affecting your family. You cannot be unfaithful to the Lord. You cannot lower your own spiritual temperature without affecting the whole body of Christ.

Guest (Male): Throughout the entire Old Testament, Israel rebelled, God judged, Israel repented, followed by God's grace and redemption. Then lather, rinse, repeat; it all happens again.

But what about today? Nothing has changed much, has it? Mankind continually rebels, God repeatedly offers his amazing grace, and no matter the situation, God brings hope and forgiveness in times of judgment. Up next, Dr. Youssef continues his encouraging series called "Hope and Forgiveness in Times of Judgment" on Leading The Way. Listen with me.

Dr. Michael Youssef: There was a man by the name of R.A. Torrey, a great man of God of yesteryears. But when Torrey was a young man, he had no faith in God, he had no faith in the word of God. As a matter of fact, he was hostile to the gospel.

As a young man, his mother, who was a godly woman who prayed for him on a regular basis, tried as gently as possible to witness to him. But finally, he got tired of his mother's prayer and his mother's witness. And he said to her, he said, "I'm sick and tired of hearing about my sins and your prayers. I'm out of here so that I can't be bothered anymore with this God of yours anymore."

With tear-filled eyes and a broken heart that only a mother can understand, the mother followed him to the gate and she pleaded with him to change his mind. She pleaded with him to turn back home. But he would not be detracted. And she finally, frantically, she called out as he was walking out and she said, "Son, you're going the wrong way. But when you come to the end of your rope and everything seems hopeless, call upon your mother's God and he will surely help you."

As some time passed since that moment and Torrey left home and was living alone and continued deeper into his waywardness. And one night, he was in a hotel room, unable to sleep. He was weary, he was exhausted, he was tired of all the problems that were pressing upon him from every direction. Everywhere he turned, he saw no hope and finally, he reached for a gun that he kept with him and he was about to end it all.

And right at that moment, he remembered the words of his mother saying to him, "When you come to the end of your rope and everything seems hopeless, call upon your mother's God and he will surely help you." And Torrey went on his knees and he cried out to God and he said, "Oh God of my mother, if there is such a being, I need your help. And if you help me, I will follow you for the rest of my life." And God used R.A. Torrey to lead thousands upon thousands of people to faith in Jesus Christ.

Why am I telling you this story? Simply is this. It manifests one of the great truths in the scripture: that in the very darkest hour, in the darkest spot of life, when you cry up to the Lord, the Lord will show you where the switch is. It is often at the deepest moment of despair, when you cry out to God out of desperation, he will illumine your way. It is often in the times of utter helplessness, cry to God and God will help you.

It is often in the depths of brokenness in life, when we cry out to God, he brings you healing. It is often at the height of desperation we call upon the Lord, he comes in and begins to act. It is this incongruous fact that's in the scripture, that is declared here in the book of Hosea chapter 2, verse 15. Turn to it with me, please, if you have your Bibles, to the book of Hosea.

We have started a series of messages from the book of Hosea. And we began to see how this man of God, this prophet of God that's called of God to speak to a generation that is not unlike our generation, to speak to a culture that is not unlike our culture, how this man of God is called of God to experience pain and brokenness in his life for the first hand so that he can sense the heart of God, so he can understand how God feels.

And so Hosea marries a woman by the name of Gomer. Just as God married to Israel. It's a figure of speech, of course. It's a figurative language, but you understand it. Gomer turned out to be an unfaithful wife, running after other men, just like the people of Israel turned out to be unfaithful people, running after the gods of Canaan, the God named Baal and Ashtoreth.

And then you come into Hosea chapter 2 and there you find that despite of the urgency, despite of the desperation, despite of the depth that Israel had sunk into, God's still stretching out his arms and saying, "If you repent, I will forgive you." God stretching out his loving hand and he is treating in the words of Hosea, who's asking his children to entreat his wife Gomer to come back, to turn back from her adultery, to turn back from her sin, to turn back from her rebellion.

And as if God is saying to Israel, "You too can prevent the judgment by coming to me. You too can invoke my mercy once again. You too can plead for my grace once again. You too can come to me in repentance and faith and I will forgive you." In fact, all of that message is summarized in verse 15, that the Valley of Achor becomes the door of hope.

What is this Valley of Achor? When the people of God came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, up to their waist in mud making bricks, and God saved them out of that slavery, took them first in the desert and because of the lack of faith, they wandered around for 40 years. And then Moses dies, Joshua comes in and God uses Joshua to take the people of God into the promised land.

And when they came into the promised land, what happened? There was a border town by the name of Jericho. And that border town was so fortified. It had fortresses, it had high walls. Nobody has ever penetrated Jericho before. But God said, "I am going to help you take over this town supernaturally, miraculously, with my own power you're going to move in."

And they do, they shout and the wall falls and they go in and they take over Jericho. God said, "Oh, by the way, before you go in I want to tell you something. The spoils are not yours. Whenever you see the spoils in that city of Jericho, don't touch it. It is sacred unto the Lord. Don't do anything with that. Don't let anybody touch it. It is not yours." It's the injunction of God. It's a command of God.

But when they got into town, what happened? There was a man there by the name of Achan, son of Carmi. He got in the town and then he saw a bunch of gold and he saw them shining in the sun. And then he saw a bunch of other treasures and he said, "Man alive," I mean, he was drooling. And he looked around, he looked, nobody was looking. He went out again in the tent and nobody can see a thing. He said, "Nobody can see me. All this stuff where I can really be retired for life now. Isn't that great? I don't have to work anymore. I mean, this is a lottery of all lotteries."

So he takes the stuff, nobody saw him, and he hid it in his tent. He forgot about the eye in the sky that was watching him. You see, when you're all alone and nobody can see you, God can see you. In the very privacy of your own heart, when you think nobody knows, God knows. He knows your thoughts before you think them. He knows your words before you speak them.

So what happened? The people of God go from this huge town that they took in a supernatural miraculous way into a tiny little town called Ai. By the way, do not try to pronounce it the way I do, you'll get tonsillitis. It's spelled A-I. Tiny little town, just the way it's spelled, small as the letters in it. Only a few hundred people. And the people of God go in there and they get absolutely decimated. Hundreds of them, hundreds of them die. Hundreds of them. The people of Ai decimated the people of Israel.

And Joshua the prophet of God went up, ripped his clothes and said, "God, what is happening here? How you brought us here to kill us?" And God says, "Oh, Joshua. Joshua, my friend, had you prayed to me, I would've revealed to you earlier that there is a sin in the camp. There's a sin in the camp. One man on your team has been unfaithful to me. He has broken my injunction. He has broken my command."

You say, what I do matters? You better believe it. You cannot do anything without God is watching you. Number one. Number two, sin always followed by trouble. It may take a long time, but it's always trailing. Trouble always trailing sin. So what happened? Joshua cries to God and repents, calls the people to repentance, then Achan, the son of Carmi, is put in that Valley of Achor and he and his children get stoned to death.

You say, that's horrible! That's disgusting! Well, I agree with you. So it is when the knife of a surgeon cut the tumor, the cancerous tumor out of a body. It's painful too. Sin either had to be drastically dealt with or it's going to deal a blow to God's people. I want to stop here and tell you something vitally important. You cannot be unfaithful to the Lord. You cannot lower your own spiritual temperature without affecting yourself.

You cannot be unfaithful to the Lord. You cannot lower your own spiritual temperature without affecting your family. You cannot be unfaithful to the Lord. You cannot lower your own spiritual temperature without affecting the whole body of Christ. Somebody would say, "Wait a minute. It's my life and I do what I want with it." No, it isn't. If you surrendered your life to the lordship of Jesus Christ, the Bible said you are not your own, you are bought with a price. You belong to Jesus.

And when you belong to God's family, you've got to live by the rules of the head of the household. And from the time of Joshua on, that Valley of Achor conjures horror in the mind of the Israelites. It came to represent disobedience. It came to represent helplessness of sin. It came to represent the trouble and the judgment that always follow sin. In fact, the word Achor means troubling. That's really what it means.

What God is saying through Hosea to the entire nation of Israel, who turned their back on God, listen to what he's saying to them. He's saying, "Your unfaithfulness is bringing you trouble. Your unfaithfulness and your lack of commitment to me, the only God of the universe, is bringing you judgment. Your unfaithfulness is bringing you hopelessness and pain, and I'm pleading with you now so that when it comes it is not too late."

Your unfaithfulness is bringing you times of desperation. It might not look like it now, but it is coming. What God is saying, listen, at the lowest point of desperation and helplessness, at the very middle of the Valley of Achor, God is still ready to give hope and forgiveness. And when Gomer says, "I will rise and go back to my husband," God is saying at that point hope will shine again.

And when Gomer says, "I will go back to my husband," a door of hope will open up again. When Gomer repents of her sin, regardless of how low she had sunk, God is going to give them a door of hope again. What God is saying is this: that when Israel acknowledges Jehovah alone to be their God, God will save them. When Israel stops flirting with Baal, flirting with the gods of the Canaanites, God is going to withhold judgment.

When Israel repents of ignoring God, God is going to bless them again. In the book of Hosea chapter 2 verses 5 to 13, I see three things in our culture that we have in common with Hosea's day. Three things that literally leap out of the pages of the scripture. First of all, back then as it is today, God is marginalized. You don't have to be a great theologian to know that God does not like to be marginalized.

God has become irrelevant back then as he is now. The economy and the stock market became the measuring stick for their blessing, and it was doing very well. Back then as it is today, nature and the worship of nature has replaced the worship of the God the creator of nature. Back then as it is today, they were focusing on the astrology, they were focusing on the lining of the star and the reading of the horoscope. All of that has replaced the word of God.

Back then as it is today, Baal dethroned Yahweh the God of the universe. Just as the pursuit of happiness is dethroning our God from this culture. Secondly, the second commonality between our culture and Hosea's culture is this: sex and sexual pleasures have been reigning supreme. Verses 7 and 8 of chapter 2. The influence of Baal upon God's people is that God's people involved in all kinds of pagan orgies, all kinds of temple prostitutions. And you know what? They thought that this is what life is all about.

Back then as it is now, pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry. And I can't understand all these feminists who get to talking about feminists, how can they not understand the degradation that pornography is creating to women in our society? There's a silent conspiracy here, I don't understand it. The God of illicit sex is ruling supreme on the television screen.

There's a third commonality between our day and Hosea's day, it's in verse 12 and 13. It is syncretism. Now those of you who have heard me long enough to know that I don't use big words very often and I try to avoid them. I don't know how to pronounce them anyway, I'm a very simple Bible-loving Christian. But I'll use one because that's the only way I can explain it to you. Syncretism.

You say, what is syncretism? Syncretism is the mixing and the merging of one religion with the other. You know what? New Age theology is ruling supreme in many churches across America today. And they baptized it and giving it a Christian name. I want to tell you that probably this philosophy is the most flourishing philosophy across the land and across the world.

The world over, everywhere you go, you're going to find them the only hostile to Christians. Talk about religion and all the religions of the world and they receive you with open arms. I think there's more acceptability of religion in the world today and religions than any time in modern history. But mention that you believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven and you will be called every name in the book.

Our day is like the days of Hosea. There are so many people who are controlling the media today who honestly believe that the freedom of speech amendment is for everybody in the nation except for the Christians. I'll tell you my prayer is, oh God, don't let the judgment that fell upon Israel fall upon us now. But somehow I'm sensing the Lord to be saying, "If I did not spare my chosen people, why would I spare America?"

The only reason he would spare us is when his people, his people, God is not expecting much from the pagan. When his people come and humble themselves and cry to God. You and I who know better, and if we do know better, we'd better come here before God in prayer, calling upon the Lord saying, "Oh God from the Valley of Achor, let there be a door of hope."

Now people are in a daze, it's almost like the days of Noah. And no matter what Noah says, people were just absolutely living for self, couldn't care less. They didn't think a flood is going to come. And then when it came, it was too late. Let me share this with you as I bring this message to conclusion. Number one, God suffers when his people are unfaithful.

What do I mean by God suffers when his children are unfaithful to him? Because his love is different from our love, very different. You've got to understand that. If a person that I love is untrue to my love, I suffer. Why? Because I lost that love. God does not suffer in the same way as we do. God suffers because the one who ceased to love him is suffering.

You see our love at best has got the self in it somewhere. There's none of that in God's love. You remember when Jesus was going into Golgotha carrying the cross, he saw the women were weeping and he turned to them and he said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me but for yourselves and for your children." God suffers in our unfaithfulness to him because we suffer in our unfaithfulness to him, whether we know it or not.

Secondly, God cannot tolerate sin. There are whole denominations, whole churches, from the pastor all the way down, they believe that God doesn't really care about sin anymore. We're all sinners, they say, it doesn't really matter. Yes, it does. The Bible from cover to cover says God does not tolerate sin because sin defeats the purpose of love.

Those who teach that God does not care about sin and that he tolerates sin, you know what they're actually saying? They're saying God is not really a lover of our souls. That's what they're saying, whether they admit it or not. And that is why it is a lie to say that God doesn't care about sin, because sin hurts us deeply, because sin blasts and destroys those whom God loves.

That is why he cannot tolerate sin and be true to himself. Thirdly, God will always love and plead with sinners to turn to him. God is always anxious to restore a repentant sinner. Again and again you see it in this chapter, chapter 2 in the book of Hosea. You see it again and again. He's saying to Hosea, "Go back. Go back. Go back to Gomer. She might return this time. Try again. Keep on loving her."

What is God saying? God is telling us something about himself. Even though the woman has sunk so low, God said, "Go again. Go again." Because no one, but no one, but no one can sink so low as to go below the mercies of God. What a great God we have. His love reaches as low as sin will take us. He saves from the guttermost to the uttermost, that's our God.

Guest (Male): A reminder from Dr. Michael Youssef that God restores all those without hope to himself. Thank you for being a part of today's Leading The Way. Would you like to experience restoration and hope in your life? A great way to do this is by speaking with a Leading The Way pastor or counselor.

You can start that conversation by filling out a short contact form at ltw.org/jesus. You know, Dr. Youssef grew up in Egypt, and he answered God's call to ministry by attending Bible school in Australia and seminary in the United States. Watching people living in the darkness of not knowing Christ throughout his life and across the world, well, that grew a passion within Michael to reach our lost and dying world with the gospel.

And now, through the ministry arms of Leading The Way, people are being introduced to God's grace across six continents. Recently, the offices received a note from deep inside the volatile Middle East region that we think will really encourage you, just as it did our team. It says: "I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. My mother recently heard Leading The Way on the radio. God touched her heart and she began asking questions. God used your program as an open door for the gospel."

Friends, know that when you partner with Dr. Youssef and Leading The Way, you're making it possible for people just like this person to learn about God's grace, to have life-changing faith conversations. Please visit ltw.org to learn about the Open Door campaign and to connect further. You can also subscribe to the monthly My Journal. In My Journal, it details the scope of Leading The Way's worldwide ministry and more.

Once again, ltw.org. And you can subscribe to My Journal also by giving us a call: 866-626-4356.

Dr. Michael Youssef's My Journal is the invaluable monthly publication of Leading The Way. Each month, you'll find My Journal offering rich biblically-based devotions from Dr. Youssef that help you deepen your study of scripture. You'll also find monthly scripture prompts to help you memorize God's word, trending articles to equip you with a biblical worldview on popular issues, and the "Ask Dr. Youssef" column where Dr. Youssef answers your most pressing questions.

In the monthly My Journal, you'll receive front-line ministry updates and exclusive previews of Dr. Youssef's books before they're even released, as well as special offers, free digital resources, and more. My Journal is an amazing resource to not only cultivate your own personal walk with Christ, but to also stay informed about how and where God is moving through the world today through Leading The Way.

Get your free subscription today. Subscribe now at ltw.org. This program is brought to you by Leading The Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Thank you for spending part of your day and enjoying this episode of Leading The Way. Please do listen next time when Dr. Michael Youssef passionately proclaims more uncompromising truth on Leading The Way.