I Kings 20:28 states, “And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the Lord, Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, Therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.”
The phrase “The Lord is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys,” spoken by the Syrians, rose up before God as a stench in His nostrils. The king of Israel mentioned in our text, is none other than the wicked Ahab. (“And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him” 1 Kings 16:33.)
It was not for Ahab’s sake that God allowed him to defeat the Syrians, first in the hills, and second in the valleys. After the battle in the valley the Syrians fled to Aphek where a wall fell upon the remaining 27,000 soldiers killing them all, truly an act of the God of the valley. Though we see in this account that Benhadad, king of Syria, was himself evil, “drinking himself drunk” (I Kings 20:16), it was the statement that God was not God of the valleys that brought destruction.
Paul says in Galatians 6:7, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” If nothing else, we should be careful what we say about God. We will one day answer for every idle word we utter (Matthew 12:36).
In applying this to our day, my mind went back to the song, “God of the Mountain.” I first heard this song sung by Ron Thompson. We had him come and sing for us at our little country church held in our shop near Addy, Washington. The part of the song that meant the most to me was,”The God of the mountain is still God of the valley.” It is on the mountain when things are going great that we seem to be happy. I’m sure Israel was happy when they won the battle against the Syrians in the hills. It is there that life is good. It is, however, down in the valley when things go wrong that our faith is put to the test.
I thought that Ron had written this song. I went to Google and saw that the Gaithers sang this song. Going further I found it was written by Tracy Dartt. Wow! We had the Dartts come and sing twice in our little country church. Both times Tracy was not able to be there because of health reasons. Looking further I found that Tracy Gail Dartt passed away on April 7, 2022 at the age of 78. He wrote powerful pleasing songs that gripped my heart with wonderful truths. I shared this with his family the last time they were with us. They admitted his ministry was coming to an end. I regretted it. One said, “Maybe you will be the next Tracy Dart.” Of course I couldn’t. There is not another voice like his, or a mind that could make those songs flow so naturally. I’m sure they meant that maybe I could carry on his ministry of salvation.
The actual account of how Tracy wrote this song is written in his own words and can be found at Manna Music, http://mannamusic.com. He truly knew what it was to be in the valley. It was in that time that God woke him up in the night and in a half hour gave him that song. My friend, are you in the valley? God is there. May you find in the night hours that He is your God of the valley!
