THE VALLEY OF BACCA

 By Donnie Swaggart

Psalms 84:6 — “Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also fills the pools.”

 

Verse Six of the Eighty-fourth Psalm is one that is most often overlooked when reading this Psalm, as most don’t really know what the Holy Spirit is referring to; however, I believe as I explain it to you, you will receive a great blessing from it.

 

 

Before I go into the explanation, I believe it is important to make some remarks concerning the great Book of Psalms. The theme of Psalms can be summed up in three words. They are: Trust, Worship, and Praise. Psalms is meant to be a Book of refreshing for the weary soul caught up in the midst of life’s difficult situations.

Psalms expresses the complete range of human emotions and experience. Psalms deals with the darker, more difficult things that life brings our way, and then Psalms rises to heights of exuberant joy.

 

 

Psalms, as far as we know, is the earth’s first songbook. It is a songbook of praise, worship, and adoration to the Lord. As the largest Book of the Bible, and due to the fact that this Book is primarily given over to praise and worship, then it stands to reason that praise and worship of God should characterize the majority of our communion and fellowship with the Lord.

 

The Book of Psalms contains five Books corresponding to the five Books of the Pentateuch and to the Book of Revelation. They are laid out in the following manner:

 

• Chapters 1-41 correspond with the Book of Genesis and Revelation 1-3.

• Chapters 42-72 correspond with the Book of Exodus and Revelation 4-9.

• Chapters 73-89 correspond with the Book of Leviticus and Revelation 10-11.

• Chapters 90-106 correspond with the Book of Numbers and Revelation 12-18.

• Chapters 107-150 correspond with the Book of Deuteronomy and Rev. 19 22.

 

 

Seventy three Psalms were written by David, twelve by the Sons of Korah, twelve by Asaph, two by Solomon, one by Moses and one by Ethan. Of the remainder, most scholars believe that they were written by David.

 

 

There are fifteen Psalms which are said to be Messianic, meaning they are prophetic in tone and refer to Christ; however, I believe one can say that all the Psalms are Messianic, referring to Christ in either His Atoning, Mediatorial, or Intercessory Work. It has been said “When one reads the Gospels, one is reading the actions and deeds of Christ, and when one reads the Psalms, one is reading the heart of Christ.”

 

 

The first point I wish to make is what the Valley of Baca was. It was a valley outside the gates of Jerusalem. It was here in this valley that the garbage and refuse of Jerusalem was taken. It was the “garbage dump” of the city. There is an important point to be made here. Due to the fall and the entrance of sin, this world is a “garbage dump”; sick, perverted, jaded, cruel, and rotten to the core, because of sin. Sin has turned this planet, God’s Creation, into a garbage dump. Violence, greed, hatred, racism, and all of the attendant vices of sin has turned this world into a cruel and inhospitable place.

 

This point was brought home to me recently in a very graphic way. Not long ago we took a family trip to Washington, D.C. In all my world travels, Washington, D.C. has been and will always be my favorite city. We spent the first day walking the complete area called the Mall with the Capital at one end and the Lincoln Memorial at the far end. We started in the middle at the new World War II Memorial. It moved me as I thought of the price paid to defend our nation from Japanese Imperialism and Nazi Fascism. I stood looking at this monument, proud to be an American. We then proceeded to the Vietnam Memorial and then to the Lincoln Memorial. Both places always move me to tears. But then we went to the Holocaust Museum honoring the over six million Jews murdered by Adolph Hitler. I can’t express to you how moving this museum is. Actually, it overwhelms one’s senses as you look at some of the most gruesome pictures of torture, Barbarianism, and death. 

 

As I stood looking at one exhibit with pictures that were literally an explosion to one’s sense of sight, tears began to flow down my cheek and I began to say “my God, my God.” A woman standing next to me looked at me and asked “How can people do this to another group of people? They must have been Barbarians.” I looked at her and said, “Nazi Germany in the 1930’s was one of the most sophisticated, educated, and enlightened countries of the world.” Germany was the center of higher education. A degree from one of its prestigious Universities was considered greater than a degree from Harvard, Yale, or Cambridge.Concerning Berlin, its Capital, one historian said, “Berlin has been a city of statues, and eagles, of streets choked with trolleys and big black cars, of women with nice hats rushing to gossip in the beautiful cafés of Berlin. Berlin was the largest city in the world in terms of size and the third largest by population.  It was modern, and advanced in the new industrial age the world was entering. Mark Twain said of Berlin on a visit ‘It is a new city, the newest I have ever seen.’ The city had the world’s fastest subways and more taxi cabs during the 1930’s than Boston and Philadelphia combined had at the start of the Twenty-first Century. 

 

It was in Berlin in 1931 that Konrad Zuse built the first computer to make calculations with binary codes of ones and zeros. By 1933 the city had 500,000 telephone lines, the highest ratio of lines to residents anywhere in the world. The city boasted of 149 daily periodicals, so many that Berlin was called ‘newspaper city.’” In this hustle and bustle of an educated and enlightened city, these same people blithely brushed by the doctors forced to walk in the streets carrying a placard that said, “I am a filthy Jew.”

           

These educated, enlightened people would be complicit in the murder of over 6 million innocent men, women, and children. Over 1.4 million of their victims were children. “How could this be?” you ask. The answer is sin. The answer is, though on the outside Nazi Germany may gleam with its new construction and industrial might, but the reality was, it was a “garbage dump” of sin and perversion.

 

 

The actual meaning of the word “Baca” is “weeping” or “tears.” It speaks to the fact that in the life of every Christian there are one or more “valleys of Baca,” a time of great heartache and weeping. Bitter tears of sorrow over circumstances, whether brought on by our own failures or events that take place that we have no control over. No matter the reason, we find ourselves in the midst of the Valley of Baca.

 

Every time I read this Verse, I am always reminded of David and the many periods of his life, the ups, the downs, the exaltations, and the humiliations. The man after God’s own heart, and the one to whom Nathan would say, “you are the man.”

There is an old saying by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “Into each life some rain must fall” and no matter the reason that has brought each of us to our own season of “weeping and tears,” we must understand that each of us is going to find ourselves in “the place of tears.”

           

As a Believer, we must understand that nothing can happen to us the Lord doesn’t cause or allow. No, the Lord doesn’t cause us to sin, but He does allow it, and if that’s true, and it is, why does He cause us to pass through this “place of tears?” Everything the Lord does is for our good, to teach us trust and dependence upon Him, to bring us to the place that we are not depending upon self, or someone else to see us through, but the Lord and the Lord only.

 

 

No matter what you are going through, you must never forget that it’s only temporary. How do I know? I know because the Text says, “who passing through. . ” We are not going to stay in this valley, we are only passing through. Now there are some Christians who may decide they are going to stay in the valley as they begin to feel sorry for themselves, but that is their own choice, not the Lord’s.

 

 

It is the intention of the Lord that while we are passing through the Valley of Tears that we turn the hardship into a “well” meaning we turn this valley into a place of praise and worship. That we offer up the “sacrifice of praise.” A well speaks of water. Water speaks of life. In the midst of your tears and weeping, turn it around and get the focus off of you and your problem and focus upon the Lord, Who is our help in times of trouble. When you do that, “the rain also fills the pools.” In the midst of your trial the Lord will provide comfort and life. The Lord, speaking through the Prophet Isaiah, said in Isaiah 44:3: “For I will pour water upon him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.”

 

There is a little chorus that says:

 

                        “Spring up a well within my soul,

                        “Spring up a well and make me whole,

                        “Spring up a well and give to me,

                        “Life abundantly.”

 

And He will, even in the midst of “The Valley of Tears.”

 

Your Evangelist, Donnie Swaggart