The pages of the Old Testament are bloody with the record of war and battle. As you read through these accounts, the Bible seems to echo the sound of violence. You can almost hear the thundering wheels of the chariots, the rising crescendo of battle cries, the whinnying crazed horses, and the metallic clang of sword upon sword.

Every battle was recorded for a definite reason. Every victory and every defeat was the shadow of the spiritual battle that you and I as Christians fight in our spiritual walk. They are lessons to the spirit-filled Christian in the warfare of faith. These battles are the exploitation of the tactics of the enemies of the soul. God takes us into the plotting room of the diabolical enemy of His children. We learn by this how to have victory over Satan.

We can learn from two battles recorded in the twentieth chapter of First Kings. The first was fought in the hilly country of Samaria. Benhadad, King of Syria, moved his powerful army against the army of the Israelites, God's people. But with great faith and assurance in their God, the smaller Israelite army marched out and routed the Syrians. They scattered and ran for their lives. The mighty King Benhadad just barely escaped with his own head.

Once safe back in his own headquarters, Benhadad was furious with wounded pride. "Why," he questioned, "Why did we lose to a much smaller and much weaker army? How did they defeat us with our great army and our battle skilled troops?" One of the king's advisors came to him and said, "It was their God, their God was with them. He gave them the battle. Their God is a God of the hills, and that is why they defeated us. Their God of the hills gave them strength." Then, the crafty counselor gave Benhadad advice. He said, "Fight them in the plains. Fight them in the valleys. They cannot win there. You will defeat them because their God is not a God of the valleys."

So Benhadad raised a huge army of crack troops trained to a keen edge: tough swordsmen and courageous charioteers. One year later he sent them out. Thousands upon thousands of them went marching to the Valley of Aphek to attempt to crush God's children. The Bible says the army's troops filled the whole countryside and before them the Israelites looked like two little flocks of lambs. It appeared like sure defeat. This was the valley of the shadow of death for the Israelites.

But then a prophet walked into the midst of them and said, "Thus saith the Lord, God is going to give you victory over that great army you see before you today. It seems impossible, but God is going to do it." Then he told them why: "These men have said their God is a God of the hills, He is not a God of the valleys." The prophet said, "You shall have victory and the world will know that God is Lord of all, because the enemies of God's people have put a limitation on God."

When the fury of battle had faded away, the enemy dead covered the ground. It was an overwhelming victory for the Israelites. This was God saying to all generations, "I am a God of victory, and a God that will not be limited to a God of the hills."

Christian, what is the lesson here for you? Well, we speak of mountain top experiences and walks in the valleys. You've heard this term often. Times when we are at a peak and victory is easy and times when we are low down and victory seems impossible. Times of being lifted into the heights of elation and times of being in the dry desert valley. A time when we look down upon our troubles, and a time when troubles seem to stare down upon us, ready to pounce and destroy.

This is why some Christians have the same reputation that the Israelites had. Their God is a God of the mountain--the mountain top experience. They win in the mountains. They win when their spirits and emotions are lifted. They win when they are walking on the heights where God seems to be so near. Wait until they descend into the valley. Thoughts come sneaking into the Christian's mind like the thoughts of the crafty Syrian counselor. Thoughts that say, "Your God is a God of the mountains, but down here in the valley He will not deliver you." And like the Israelite army, surrounded like bleating lambs ringed by ten thousand hungry wolves, your situation, your adverse circumstances seem to growl and snarl and snap at you there in the valley, down there in the dry place where impossibilities seem so real and victory appears completely beyond hope.

I want to be just like that prophet who came to God's people before that battle. I want to speak to you and tell you this: Your God is a God of the valleys. Do not agree with the enemy. Do not limit God to a mountain peak. Your God is a God of the valleys. He is with you in the heat of that trial. He is there to deliver you from the valley of the shadow of death.

Some of you reading this now are in this valley and you are outnumbered by your troubles. You think you are alone, so very alone. You've turned the eyes of your memory back upward towards the mountain top experiences in your life. You think, "If only I were back there, if only I were back on that peak, living in the spiritual sensation of that experience; oh, I had such an awareness of God then. I know if I were back there I could overcome this thing; I could get victory if I could feel God like I did then."

Some of you seem to be beset by temptations that threaten to destroy you. Temptations that almost shout out loud, "I have you now, you are down in the valley and I will weaken you further till you die." Temptation is a terrible valley. But, dear child of God, your God is a God of the valleys. He is there with you. He will empower you to win this fight. Do not succumb to the counsel and whispers of the enemy who tells you that your Lord is not there because you have fallen in the valley and you are surrounded. He tells you that your flesh and carnal nature have brought you to the low place where God never goes. But listen, God is there holding out His hand for you.

Perhaps you are grieving in the valley of sorrows. The Comforter is there with you. Perhaps circumstances have heaped upon you. Situations have brought you into the valley and you are encompassed by towering crags. It seems that you will never, never get out of this terrible place.

Do not despair. Do not give way to fear and doubt. God is right there with you. He is able to deliver you from whatever it is that brought you low. You could not have fallen to a place where God has not gone already to deliver someone else. The Psalmist David lived a spiritual life and realized God's mercy continually because he was aware of this fact. In the 139th Psalm, David said, "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely, the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee."

David was speaking from experience. In the heights or depths, God is there. In the loneliest place in the world, God is there. In the darkest place, God is there. Sin cannot bring you where His mercy cannot be found. Sickness cannot take you on a bed of pain to a place beyond His reach. The hem of His garment trails through the dust of the deepest valleys of human misery. You are not beyond help. You are never beyond help.

Mental darkness, in its frenzied, fear-creating storms of anxiety, cannot carry you beyond the reach of God. Depression cannot hang your head so low that the Lord cannot lift it up. There are no crevices of guilt too deep and dark for His grace and pardon to penetrate.

Don't be like the advisor of Benhadad. Don't say, "He's not a God of the valleys. He is not here." This thought causes more suffering to people than any other I know. It places boundaries on God's love. It is not pleasing to God. It tries to limit Him, and God will not be limited. Jesus said, "With God all things are possible." There is no limit there. All things are possible: the healing of crippled limbs; the deliverance from pain; the forgiveness of any sin; the changing of any life; the healing of any mind. No matter how distorted or twisted by strange ideas or fears, with God all things are possible.

We may have false ideas and concepts that create within our heart a graven image of a small, limited God. We may have weak and wavering faith that seems to carry us past the boundaries of answered prayer. God Himself is not limited, and realization of this fact can transform your life. Faith in an unlimited God will bring you into a whole new area of living. Don't let your situation, whatever it may be, deceive you into thinking that it has succeeded in bringing you so low that even God can't touch you.

Many times you've said, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me." Believe that! Thou art with me! Confess it. Pray it. Say it. Let the reality of this truth penetrate into the very seat of your motivation. As Jesus said, "Let these sayings sink down into your ears" (Luke 9:44).

It is only our wrong ideas that deceive us into believing that God is not hearing us, or God is not willing to deliver us. Let truth burst the bonds of this deception of Satan.

Jesus was in the boat with the disciples when they thought they would go down. He was with Peter in prison. He was with John on the lonely Isle of Patmos. And He is with you now. Do not place a limitation upon God.

One day Jesus came to a place in Jerusalem called the Pool of Bethesda. There He found a man who was crippled and had not walked for thirty-eight years. Jesus looked the man in the eyes and said, "Will you be made whole?" The man began to make excuses and give reasons why he had not been healed, but Jesus touched the real reason. The man had lost his will. He had lost his hope. He had lost his desire. He had been defeated by his sickness, and he had lost his faith that any good thing could happen to him. He had placed a limitation upon God. He thought God could and would heal others, but not him. He had more faith in the power of his crippled limbs to bind him than he did in God's ability and willingness to set him free. He was waiting for a special spiritual thing to happen, a mountain top experience.

He thought God was a God of the mountains only, but it was there in his valley that Jesus came. It was there in his barren, bleak existence that the Savior arrived. It was not up there in the clouds of spiritual emotion, but there in the dust of his valley that Jesus said, "Rise up and walk!" and the man responded. He climbed up and out of his defeat, up and out of his unbelief, up and out of his hopelessness and his disease. The power of God raised him into a new life. And it began there in his valley. God can and will do this for you right where you are.

A woman taken in adultery was dragged out before a mocking crowd. The hostile mob pointed their fingers at her and shouted, "Stone her, stone her!" She trembled with fear and hung her head with deep shame. Caught in sin and exposed, she stood in the valley of humiliation. She thought she stood alone against the world and even thought she stood alone against God, because she had broken the law. Then she heard a voice--the voice of Jesus--say, "Whoever has not sinned, let him cast the first stone." The embarrassed mob broke up. Jesus turned and faced the woman and forgave her: "Go, and sin no more," He said.

That woman, that adulteress found God where she least expected, in the most horrible moment of her life. God was there. In the deepest valley of her existence, she found God.

Legion met God in his mental torment. He was a howling beast of a man. He lived in the tombs with the dead, cutting himself with sharp rocks and wailing out haunting cries of fear in the night. Jesus delivered this man. He met him in his valley. He met him in his darkness and torment and brought him out.

God will meet you wherever you are. Sin, sickness, torment, guilt, whatever your need, God is in your valley. He is there with you now. He has seen your sorrow. He has seen your trials and struggles. He is there. You have thought, "Things will be better when I climb out of this." But you don't seem to be able. You have almost lost your will to struggle on. You look to the heights and the hills and say, "If only He would come down."

Turn around. Look. He's there with you now. Look away from your troubles and sorrow. Turn toward Him. He will release you. He will meet you right where you are.

The man by the pool was sick thirty-eight years. He had not walked during that period, but time does not limit God. The length of your sickness does not diminish His ability to heal you. The woman taken in adultery was a wanton sinner; but her desires, as strong as they were, did not limit God's ability to change her life and give her a new heart. The depth of your sin does not limit God's ability to transform your life. Legion's mental torment did not limit God. The leper's rotting skin was not past the boundaries of God's healing. The blind eyes of Bartimaeus did not limit God. Even the death of Jairus' daughter did not carry her past God's ability. Jesus brought her back.

David said, "He restoreth my soul." There is nothing He cannot bring back. Nothing He cannot breathe life into. What is it that has brought you low? Whatever it is, God knows all about it. You are not out of His reach, past His touch. Prayer and faith can put you in conscious contact with Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ will meet you in your valley and set you free.

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