Obedience in Difficult Times Ruth 1:1-20 Pastor John Lillie

Sunday 4-12-2026  

Guest Speaker Pastor John Lillie

NASB

Ruth 1:1-20

Naomi Loses Her Husband and Sons

1 In the days when the judges ruled,[a] there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2 The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

3 Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

Naomi and Ruth Return to Bethlehem

6 When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.

8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. 9 May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

11 But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— 13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

14 At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

20 “Don’t call me Naomi,[b]” she told them. “Call me Mara,[c] because the Almighty[d] has made my life very bitter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Good morning. What a privilege to be here. My wife and I, Anne, have uh really enjoyed the fellowship. Um we're still trying to learn people's names. That's been slow. Most of you recognize me as Pilot, right? What is Pilate preaching today at the church? Uh love to be a part of uh Journey of the Cross and uh and uh getting to know people slowly. So now you're gonna know me, and it's gonna be a job for me to know you. And I don't know about some of you, but as I get older, names just are challenges for me. And uh I will try to remember, but uh I'm sure I will struggle with that. Uh I want to thank Pastor Byron for uh giving me a chance to speak with you all. Uh we enjoy this fellowship. Um we picked this church because we believe that God is glorified in this place. Uh we believe that this ministry has enormous potential for reaching this community with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray for you here. I pray for you when I'm up north. Um I've been a uh a pastor. God drugged me into the pastorate at 28 years of age. I didn't want to be a pastor. I wanted to serve him, but I thought I was going to do that in camp ministries, which my wife and I were involved in directing Bible camps for many years. But at 28, he said it's time, and uh and um I can't tell you that I was I I was willing. I was obedient, but it wasn't what what was in my heart. And uh what's an amazing thing about God is that he has made this the desire of my heart. And so I've been at the same church for 45 years, and we have seen God move and work in incredible ways. Uh we now have a good staff of pastors up there, and I'm still involved. I still zoom with our elders' meeting. I have a chair on the leadership team. And uh every once in a while I get to preach, not often anymore. Uh I probably miss that more than than anything. But I'm very involved in the ministry still, and I thank God that um that I can do that. I would be um I don't know what I would do if I didn't have the opportunity to serve God in some way. So coming here and uh having a chance to be a part of the congregation and having a chance to be a part of your walkthrough and uh and in other ways, uh it's a blessing to me. Love your pastoral staff, um, good guys who love the Lord. I I honestly I'll say it again. I think FBI has great potential. And you know this is an exploding place. Inverness is growing. I've driven here now for a few years, and it's getting every year we come back, it's the roads are crazy. People are here, and they need the gospel, right? So catch on fire for that, and we'll see what God can do. I want to thank uh Pastor John for the music today, and that last song was perfect. Um H. G. Spatford wrote that song many, many years ago. He wrote it because um his wife and daughters had taken a trip to England, and the ship never made it. His wife was rescued, his daughters died at sea. And H. G. Spafford um got aboard a ship to go to his wife, who was in England, to be with her. And he asked the captain of that ship to let him know when they came to the place where that ship that carried his family went down. And he wrote that song. It is well with my soul. It fits perfectly what I want to talk about today. This is a passage that's been on my heart for a long time. And when Pastor Byron said, Would you be willing to preach? I knew exactly where I was gonna go. Now we had the scripture reading this morning, right? And some of you are thinking, Well, that's depressing. Who would ever want to preach out of a passage like that? Well, I hope you'll give me a chance to walk through this with you and talk about how it should impact us as believers. And I'm gonna promise you it's got an awesome ending. So let's get started. But let me have prayer with you first. Father, we would now take this time that we have and set it aside to think about your word, but more than that, to think about you, the kind of God that we serve, who reveals himself to us in an incredible way in this beautiful little book called Ruth. Help us learn these things. Help us to apply them to our lives. Help us to be able to live our lives so that no matter the circumstances we find ourselves in, we can say with authority, it is well with my soul. We commit this to you in Jesus' name. Amen. We've recently celebrated another Easter, one of my favorite times of the year, and one of my favorite parts of the Easter story is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24. Cleopus and another disciple of Jesus are walking on their way to Jerusalem. I think we're taking a moment and getting our slideshow coming up. Go to slide number three. I've already blew past the beginning. There we go. We had hoped. That's what that's that's a fine spot. We'll start right there. I did have a picture, not an actual picture of the disciples who has pictures of them, but three men on a walk. And these disciples are had there, well, there's the picture, amazingly enough. They had been in Jerusalem. They don't live in Jerusalem, they live in a maya, about seven miles from Jerusalem, but they'd been in Jerusalem probably the entire weekend, probably all day on Friday, the Passover, and were very likely witnesses of the crucifixion of Jesus. Now, when people think, well, who are these disciples? I can name the twelve, but who are these guys? Well, I want you to know that by this time there were hundreds of disciples, all right? There were twelve apostles, and we call them disciples, twelve apostles, but there were hundreds of disciples, and these two are part of that larger group of disciples that had been followers of Jesus, had listened to his messages, had seen him heal people, and had been come, they become convinced that this was God's Messiah.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Right up until Friday.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

When they very likely were witnesses of his crucifixion. And now Sunday morning, they're on their way back to Emmaus, slowly, sadly, discouraged, defeated, disillusioned, and a stranger joins them. The Spirit of God was keeping the eyes of these disciples from recognizing that stranger, but we know who he was, right? That stranger was Jesus. And Jesus begins to share concerning himself from the scriptures. But before he gets into that, the disciples shared in verse 21, or the the two walking disciples, we we had hoped that he was the one to redeem, to redeem Israel. We had hoped that Jesus was the Messiah. Everything he said, everything he did pointed to that. We we had hoped, and those three words just flash at me, blinking. We had hoped, and now it's lost. Clearly he wasn't. They crucified him on the cross, they laid him in a tomb, and we're going home. Wasn't how we thought things were going to work out. We thought God was doing a great thing among us, that Jesus was truly the Messiah. We were wrong. We are lost, we're going home. And Luke 24, 27 says, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Wouldn't you have love to be there? And listen to God, the author of the scriptures, say, Let's take a walk through the Old Testament, and I'm going to show you every passage, or many of them anyway, that said this is what had to happen. You better believe it. Isaiah 53 was part of that. And the Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all. What are God's people going to do when we face uncertain times? When our hopes and our dreams crash down around us and we feel defeated and lost? Is there meaning? Is there purpose? Is there hope in difficult times? That's the question. Well, let's take a look at the message. Now I I put the text as a scripture reading so I wouldn't take up my time. I told the guys, give me as much time as you can. I hate to run people past the time when your clocks say it's time to leave. So I'm going to try to get it all in here. I know this is going to be a little bit on the longer side. Bear with me. The message. What we read, what we read in the scripture reading this morning, the basics of that story we will consider today. Here are the basics. Number one, there is a famine in Bethlehem. This is great. We're going to be right at time. There it is. A family, dad, mom, and two sons, with means and intent, leave Bethlehem for Moab. Dad dies in Moab. Sons meet and marry Moabite women. Sons die in Moab. Naomi returns to Bethlehem with her Moabite daughter-in-law and a bitter spirit. This is not how I thought things were going to work out. It is not what I had hoped.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Now that's a casual read.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

It's a casual read. Now it goes without saying, and yet it's always been interesting to me that when someone says that, then they say it anyway, and I'm going to say it anyway. That believers need to regularly read your Bibles. If you're not reading your Bible, you are not getting what you need to walk as a believer in Christ. But I'm going to say one more thing about that because I'm going to encourage you to read it out loud. My wife and I have committed for the last few years to together read through the Bible. Alright, so in the year, we're going to read. We start in Genesis and we read through it. Roughly three chapters a day. But because we're reading it together, we're reading it out loud. I'll read half of it, and she'll read half of it, and we're both reading out loud. And I discovered something that I should have figured out a long time ago. When I read something normally, and I don't read everything out loud, but I'm reading with my eyes. There's one mechanism that I am getting this information through. When I read it out loud, not only am I reading with my eyes, but I'm hearing it with my ears, and I cannot even, I'm amazed to say to you of the things that I have discovered in God's word that I never saw before and never heard before. And so I'm just going to say, try it. Try it. Read it out loud. In fact, there are many opportunities for you to read God's word out loud. A husband and wife can read it together. A father can read to his family. Or you can share with a loved one in a hospital or in a nursing home. Read it out loud to them. But the second part I want to say is don't just read it. Ask questions. Make notes. When something stands out to you, move from being a reader to becoming a student of the Word of God. Pastor Byron isn't the only one that should be digging into the scriptures and then hand feeding you every week. You should be doing that on your own as well. And we have plenty of resources. We have stuff that are available via the internet that are amazing today. That you can do research with, and you can do uh a study program with your Bible. I'm just saying it's available, but become a student of scripture. So we're going to go to point two. What does it mean? This was the message that God gave us. What does it mean? Well, we begin with that there's a famine, and the famine is in Bethlehem. Now, this place dates back to the time of the patriarchs. We find that the greater, I I some would say that this next word I give you is was a more ancient name for Bethlehem. I think what that may be true. I think it was more like the greater area that Bethlehem is located. All right.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

We're gonna get to that slide in just a minute. We're not there.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Or Ephra, which we find in the prophecy in Micah 5, too. But you, O Bethlehem, your Ephratha, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth to me one who will be ruler in Israel. Okay. So it dates back. Oh in fact, Bethlehem is where Jacob, the patriarch, buried Rachel, who died in childbirth. You can go to Bethlehem today, and Rachel's tomb is there, and you can visit Rachel's tomb. So this is an ancient city. That word Bethlehem in Hebrew is two parts. There's a prefix, Beth, or bet as the Hebrews may have pronounced it, bet. With more of a T sound, bet. And it literally means the house of. Alright. The house of. We have another city. We have numerous cities. As you read your Bible, you're gonna find out that a lot of them will have the prefix of Beth, but a common one that you identify with is Bethel, right? Bethel. So we have the prefix Beth, which means the house of, and El, which is a shortened version of Elohim, which is God. So Bethel means literally the house of God. So we have Beth here, the house of, and the latter part, Lakim, has that little rough sound in the back of it. Like you're clearing your throat a little bit. Bethlehem. We get rid of that gravelly sound, but it's in the Hebrew that's what it is. And Lakem means bread. So Bethlehem is literally the house of bread which dwells in the place of blessing. The irony is striking. There's a famine in the place of blessing. There's a famine in the house of bread. How can that be? A community that got its name from the fact that there was always produce, there was always food, that was a grain, that was a growing place that always was able. We'll name this place the house of bread because we always have what we need, and there's a famine there now. And the first question that comes to our mind is why. Famines may come because the natural movements of weather patterns. It happens. Y'all are experiencing a bit of a drought here in Florida. All right. Weather pattern. Perhaps. I had the boat out the other day on part of Sala Papka, and some of the areas that I could just blast right there are a foot and a half deep. We're down. It must be a foot and a half to two feet of water levels on these inland lakes that we all have. But it happens. But we also know that famines can be a result of God's bringing punishment upon a people. Or they may come as a means of testing. Let me give you a side note, real quick. The difference between testing and temptation. Okay. Temptation is a work of Satan whose purpose through the temptation is to destroy the person. Let no man say he is tempted by God. The purpose of temptation is to destroy. Testing is a work of God, whose purpose is to prove the strength and the fitness of the believer. All right. So it's not to destroy us, it's to make us stronger and to prove our strength. This is very important for you to think about and remember. Now I'm going to give you an example in the Bible, and this is an incredible example because both of these things are happening at the same time. And that's the book of Job. You remember the book of Job? God says, Have you considered my righteous servant Job? And Satan says, The only reason he is obedient to you is because you've blessed him. And God gave him a certain parameter that he could touch Joseph's Job's life. You can do this and you can do this, but you can't do this. And for Satan, that temptation was to purposefully destroy Job. To destroy his testimony and destroy his marriage and destroy his family, and Satan's goal was to destroy him. And God allowed Satan's access to Job in a certain amount for the purpose of testing and proving Job. Yeah, that both those things happening at the same time. It's a fascinating thing when you read the book of Job, watch that and see that. And that happens sometimes in our lives. You need to understand that difference. That was just a side note. Moving on. What's going on in Ruth? Is this a fact is this a natural weather pattern? Is this a time of Satan's tempting and destruction? Is it God testing? I think to answer that question, we need to ask what time period does it take place in?

SPEAKER_01 23:51

When chronological order, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:58

You are you already know that? That you can't start in Genesis and then chronologically you read through and and the timeline follows. It's not the way it works. Now Joshua Judges and Ruth are pretty close to a timeline. Alright. So we find out the timeline. We go back to the beginning verse, chapter one of verse one of Ruth, and says, In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine. So Ruth takes place during the time of the judges. The time of the judges is maybe the worst time in the history of the nation of Israel. So chronologically, the book follows the conquest of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. It ends with the time of the kings. That's the time of the judges. Starts with the conquest of, doesn't start. It begins with the end of the taking of the land of Canaan under Joshua. It ends with the time of the kings.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

That middle period.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

And again, it may be the darkest time in the history of the nation of Israel. Let me give you a little lengthy, but I want to share it. Let me give you the last words of Joshua to the nation of Israel. So then Joshua leadership, bring them into the land, defeated the nations, not completely, tragically, but the primary nations, they defeated them. God lit before them. You know, the walls of Jericho, the sun standing still, so that a certain enemy could be defeated, the hornets that were brought in to drive up. I mean, God did this incredible work. And now Joshua's ready to leave his people. And he says this to them, chapter 23, verse 6. I'm going to put it on this, or they're going to put it on the screen. Therefore, be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses. This is Joshua speaking to the nation. Turning aside from it, neither to the right hand nor to the left, that you may not mix with these nations, remaining among them, or make mention of the names of their gods, or swear by them, or serve them, or bow down to them, but you shall cling, cling to the Lord your God, just as you have done to this day. For the Lord has driven out before you great and strong nations. As for you, no man has been able to stand before you to this day. One man of you puts to flight a thousand, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, just as he promised you. But, but be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God. For if ye turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you, and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them, and they with you know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, a whip to your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

That was the final message that Joshua gave to the nation of Israel.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Let me read this to you. So this is the beginning of Judges. And all that generation explanation, all of the people who had been with Joshua and had watched God part the Jordan River, and they come through on dry ground, had watched the walls of Jericho fall, had seen victory after victory after victory with armies and cities that were stronger than the nation of Israel, and they were put to flight and they were destroyed because God did that work. That generation were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. You got Joshua's warning, and you're not even turning a page in the book of Judges, but they forgot God, and they turned aside. And the judges, well, here's the pattern. Next slide. The cycle of judges. When you read the book of Judges, you're going to read cycle after cycle after cycle of exactly the same thing. You start out with the people falling into sin. They get bored, they get tired, they begin to chase after the lifestyles and the gods of the other nations, and they fall into sin. God brings judgment upon them. That can include famine, it includes oppression, it includes enslavement. God puts his people in a very difficult spot. Third part of the cycle. The people cry out for deliverance. They start out, they're doing fine, they're walking with God. God brings, they fall into sin, God brings judgment into their lives, then they cry out for deliverance. Number four, God raises up a judge, a deliverer. Someone who's going to step up and take the lead and help the nation of Israel rid themselves of this situation. A well-known judge was Gideon, right? Who stepped up and led 300 men to oppose a coalition of kings that were like fleas on the land. They just wait 300 men. God says, okay, we got it down to the right number. Now go on. And they're going to rid that, and he's going to bring peace and prosperity. Gideon, through his faithfulness, brings peace, peace, and prosperity for the nation. So God raises up a judge to free his people. Number five, a period of peace is enjoyed by the nation, usually as long. Did we get number five up? Usually as long. There we go. We're going to bring them all back. Here we go. As long as the judge lives. And when the judge dies, the cycle starts again. And you're going to cycle over and over and over again. And in one of those cycles is the book of Ruth. What are we to do when the days turn dark and the path becomes difficult and suffering and hardships multiply? Elimelech and Naomi took their two sons and moved to Moab. Moab. Now, Moab's origins were Semitic. I don't want to go into details, but let me just say that remember Abraham brought his nephew Lot with them when they came into the promised land. Alright. And their herds got so big that they had to split. And Lot says, Well, I'd really like to move into the plain area. This good pastures, Abraham, fine, I'm going to go the other way. And Lot ends up in the cities of Sodom, right? And Gomorrah, that the whole wicked cities of the plain. And God comes to destroy that because of their wickedness. But he takes Lot and his family out, right? And of course Lot's wife turns back. God said, don't look back. But she did and turns to a pilgrim's salt. And so it's Lot and his two daughters. Lot is the father of the nation of Moab. So they were semite in the sense that they were kind of related to the Jews, or what would become the Jews, with Abraham, Abraham and his and his descendants through Isaac. But they had long since lost their way. They worshipped Kemosh as the God to whom they ascribed their success and to whom they would offer human and child sacrifices. If you ever wonder why God commanded Joshua to destroy the nations in Canaan, this is my opinion. It's because of their willingness to burn their children in the fire. I think that was the line that was crossed. It's how they treated the innocents among them. I'm not going to make that my preaching point today, but you can take that a little further and you can see why America's in trouble today. Okay, moving on. Moab had been the nemesis of Israel from the days of Balaam until the end of the Old Testament. Jeremiah records the fact that they were going to be destroyed as a people group. The question was it an act of disobedience of Elimelech and Naomi to leave Bethlehem? I'm not going to answer that. I want you to think about that. Because as you face decisions in your life, you have to determine: is this contrary to God's will? Is this something that God. Now I'm going to give you some pointers that might show where I'm leaning at that, but that's a question I think we have to ask in our own lives. As we face decisions and consequences and what we choose to do, we have to ask that. Number one, let me point out the fact that in 1 Samuel 14, Saul is identifying the nation of Moab as the enemy of Israel. Now, chronologically, okay, Samuel, probably the last judge and prophet, not the last prophet, but the last judge and also a prophet in the nation of Israel, is going to anoint Saul as king. So this is now, we moved into the time of the kings. A lot of years have hasn't passed, and I suspect that Ruth is closer to the end of Judges. And Moab was already in a despicable place with their worship and idolatry. But 1 Samuel 14, when Saul had taken the kingship over Israel, he fought against all his enemies on every side, and the first enemy that's listed is Moab. So they were an enemy nation. Number two, her sons married Moabitish women. Samson was a judge in Israel, right? Interesting comparison between him and Gideon, because Gideon, though he struggled with faith, became a man of faith and believed God and did the work. Samson, on the other hand, did he accomplish the work that God intended him to do? Yes. But there was no blessing in it. There was very little obedience in that. He did most of his work against the Philistine people out of revenge. You can read the story. But it starts out so early because Samson says to his father, I've fallen in love and I want you to go down and make arrangements for me to marry her.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

She's a Philistine woman. The very enemy of the people of God.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all our people that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? No, we had such hope. The angel told us that our son, you, Samson, was going to be a Nazarite from the womb. We set aside everything that would in any way contaminate you as one specially called of God. What are you doing? Going to the world to pick a wife. We see that same thing happening in Ruth. Her sons married Mona Bayashwoman. Her sons and husband die in Moab. And she returns broken and bitter. Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara, which is bitter, because the whole Lord's hand has been against me. Okay. We read the passage, we discussed the aspects, the principles of it. The third point is what does it mean to me? This is the application. How does that fit me? How does it fit you? Why is it important that we understand this? There's a there's an old Puritan saying that I love. The saying is walk in the way of grace. Walk in the way of grace. Be very careful. Be very prayerful when you seek to know the place that God wants you to be, or the decision that He wants you to make. Proverbs 3: Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will walk you in the way of grace. That was that last part I've inserted. The way of grace means that you make the decisions and choices, and the path that you take is a path that God is able to bless you in. Does that make sense? Why should we expect God to bless me in my life if I'm out there living like the world? Or if I'm doing things that are apart from his will and grace? How, why should I expect God to bless me? And that's where the Puritans came up with as walk in the path, walk in the way of grace. Maybe if there's nothing else you take away from the message today, take that away. I remember a family, one of my one of my dad's churches that he pastored. And the daughter had just graduated from high school, and she informed her mom that she wanted to go to Bible school. She wanted to study God's word. She wanted to go to Bible school. And mom wasn't ready to let her out of the nest yet, you know. And mom put the kibosh on that. No, no, you're not, you're gonna stay here. I'm not ready yet for you to leave the house. You can get a job, whatever, but you're not gonna go to another state and go to Bible school. That mother lived to regret keeping her daughter from pursuing God. Her selfish desires to not let her daughter go yet would end up that young lady taking a path that was apart from God. It's not just Bible school, it's all choices. It's every aspect of life, where you work, who you marry, where you worship, where you live, how you manage your money, who you befriend. Are your choices putting you in the place where God can bless you? So what it means to us, number one, is be in the place of blessing. Be in the place of blessing. All right, live your life so that God can bless you. When you're contemplating, young people, about the person that you're going to marry, ask God for his will to be done. Don't you get so connected with whatever this love thing is that you can't trust God. To either open that door or shut that door. Be in the place of God's blessing. Number two, understand the cost when you move into the world. Now I'm going to step on some toes. Understand the cost when you move into the world. If you think that you can live in the world and not have it influence your life, your values, your priorities, and your children, you are fooling yourself. Christians historically have patted themselves on the back because they are five or ten steps behind the world. And as the world continues to grow in their wickedness and immorality, we maintain that five or ten steps back and pat ourselves on the back that we're holy and righteous. When the world a hundred years ago would look at what Christians are doing today and be shocked. Godliness isn't a few steps behind the world. Elimelech and Naomi are not the only ones to lose their children to Moab. And it's happening at alarming rates in people who are attending our churches today. Don't take your children to Moab. Do not immerse them in worldly desires. Do not embrace worldly fashion. Do not, do not, do not let the world educate them. I don't care. I'm leaving in two weeks. Pastor Byron's gonna have to clean up this mess. What are we doing? You know what they're teaching in our school systems today. Do not be surprised if you take them to Moab, that they will live and die there. Don't be surprised. Since I'm I'm throwing rocks, do I need to go to the pulpit mite maybe? Is it me? I've never been accused of having a lot of static. Let's just kill the let's kill that mic and then go to the pulpit mic. Now we're good. No one breathe. Since I'm throwing rocks in the glass house. Parents, would you get over the obsession to buy your children internet accessible tools that allows them to plunge into the depths of human wickedness, and you can't monitor that well enough. Why are we doing that? Why are we doing that? I'm just saying you invite the most disgusting part, accessibility to the most disgusting part of humanity into the lives of our families and our children. And we need to be accountable for that. Okay, there I am through another rock. Number three, next point. Know what God requires of you. Know what God requires of you. Do I have a number four?

unknown 48:47

Ha ha ha.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

Hep, you know, always says, check your PowerPoint when you're before you're done. See. I'm already blowing that hip. Know what God requires of you. Um I I think it was a couple years ago. Um I we're I'm down here. The beauty of us, Ann and I coming down here is we brought some of our church family with us that are also retired. Dave and Sharon Van Wyck, who are here. Um, Dennis and Ellen Young, who are who left yesterday to go home. And the Ken and Iris Blonde, you know, and Brian and Diane are in the backyard, you know. So I just like having some of our people around. This is really cool. But one year, Dave uh had his truck down as well as a car, and I offered to take his truck back up north. I drive a truck and followed me in our vehicle. And we we were looking for an alternative route because we were tired of going through Atlanta. You know what I mean? You can get lost and never come out of Atlanta. And Chattanooga was just as about getting just about as bad. So we were looking for a cut across from the Tifton area over to 65. All right. And I'd been checking the maps and I'd been using my GPS and stuff, and and I I found a path and we're gonna get on it, and it it comes into Birmingham, the northern part of Birmingham, and I could tell that it was going to be a perilous exchange. You know what I'm saying? One of these clover leaf stacked expressways, and and so we stopped at a at a rest area before we got there, and I told her what was before us. Gonna get a little dicey. But you do not have to be concerned with traffic, you do not need to be concerned with the speed limit, you do not need to be concerned with watching for road signs. Block all of that peripheral stuff out. All you have to do is what? Follow me. Follow me. The words didn't even clear my lips. And God says, Well, you finally got that. Isn't that what God has been asking of us to do? We get so distracted by everything else. And he says to us, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross. And follow me. Follow me. The way may be difficult, but just follow Jesus. Now we come to the conclusion. I hope I hope I'm okay with time. If not, we're we're getting close. One more truth.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

I love that verse in the Bible that says the greatest of these is.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

That doesn't mean faith and hope don't matter. Because you know what a person has if they don't have hope. Not a trick question. Hopelessness. Hopelessness. That's one of the most difficult, hard states for a person to be in who have no hope. No matter what happens, whether we prove to be faithful or not, I want you to understand this. No matter what happens, whether we prove to be faithful or not, whether the times are good or evil, God will accomplish his purpose. He doesn't need me for his purpose to be accomplished. I wish I had time to do the whole book with you and I don't. So I'm gonna cram it all into a couple sentences. What begins in the book of Ruth as a train wreck ends with hope and promise. Because out of this broken, hopeless beginning, Ruth finds a kinsman redeemer. If you got your Bibles there, let me see if I can find that passage really quick. Chapter 2, I think maybe verse 3. I'm I'm reading now the ESV. So she set out, that's Ruth, and went and laid in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. She happened to come upon the field of Boaz. If you're reading out of the King James, they use just simply the word hap. She happen upon the field of Boaz.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

Or we might say it, what a coincidence.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

Hip will tell you the way he opens his Science School classes, he always asks, What are you learning this week? What things have has God spoken in your heart? And it was it was, I don't know, a couple months ago, and I said, I don't believe in coincidences anymore. I don't believe in coincidences. How many times in our life we're doing something and something happens? Wow, what a coincidence. God is a God of details, God is a God of small things. Now, when I get to heaven and God sees me and says, Hey, uh John, I just want you to know that remember that time that this thing happened? That really was a coincidence. Okay. But I can't tell the difference. And I'm going to trust that God is in the details of my life. And you know what happens when you start to believe there's no such thing as a coincidence? You can't be angry when you have a flat tire. See what I'm saying? These things don't just happen out of the air. Oh, why is my like look? I mean, you could almost put that. I think God smiled when we translated it this way. How lucky that she ended up on a field owned by Boaz of the clan of Elimelech. And God smiled. No, no. There had no luck. Luck had nothing to do with that. A kinsman redeemer. I don't have time to build that. I hope he researched it a little bit. Pastor Byron said he sent that out on his little questionnaire thing. Hope he looked it up. Out of the Mosaic Law, that's a provision for a family that loses the opportunity for there to be an heir. When that happens, the family's over, the lying stops. There's nothing after that. And the kinsman redeemer was the answer to keeping families from dying, their generations from dying. Okay. She finds a kinsman redeemer. And they get married, and she has a son that is now the son legally of the line of Elimelech. And Naomi, who had nothing, is now bouncing on her knee, the heir of her family, that her line will continue. And the women of the community come up to her and say, Naomi, Ruth is better to you than. And Obed grows up and takes a wife. And they have a son, and his name is Jesse. And Jesse grows up and takes a wife and has many sons. And the youngest was David. King David, who would establish the throne on which the prophecies of scripture say that the Messiah will sit upon.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

And not only that, but begin the living would be born.

SPEAKER_02 58:46

So on that dark night in Bethlehem, and the angels appeared to the shepherds, and they said, For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior, who is Christ the Lord. That whole thing goes back to a Moabiter's widow coming out of her land and in a desperately hopeless situation. Our God, whom we serve, is able to do exceedingly abundant beyond all that we ask or think. I want you to know that today. And he is still the God we worship today. Please understand that. I'm going to have you bow your heads. I'm going to speak to you, and I'd like you to close your eyes. Not because I'm. Bargained with God about it. I had to confess because I crossed the line and I said, God, how could you, how could you call me to a ministry where I've led so many people to Jesus and and I've tried to be an encourager of the believers and you haven't answered this prayer for this one person. And how am I going to enjoy heaven if they're not there? I'm going to tell you that five months ago, this is after over 30 years of praying, five months ago, God transformed that person's heart.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

And they are seekers. All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

Anybody else? Yeah. Yes. I'm going to close in prayer. And I'm going to ask you to, those who raise their hands, and if you haven't raised your hand, then but you felt oh, I should have raised my hand, then do it right now. I don't know your name, so I'm not going to name anybody. I'm just going to ask for God's grace in meeting that need. So raise your hands, those who did. If others want to raise your hands, I'm going to pray. Father, we come before you today, King of Kings, Lord of Lords. There is nothing that is impossible with God. And Father, I'm praying on behalf of these ones who have shared that they have burdens and needs and desires, and maybe they prayed for a long time, but they're pressing on their heart. And you are a God who loves to answer prayer. We commit this to you. I believe that with God all things are possible. All things are possible. And I know that you're working in their hearts to teach them how to be faithful, and you can work in meeting those needs that exist out there because, Lord, we can trust you, the God of all the earth, to do right. We commit this into your hands. Help us, Father, as believers, to walk with you, to love you, to be faithful, to not let the world entice us into their ways that we can be in the way of grace and experience the blessings of God. And may you use us for your kingdom and for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:31

Would you stand with me, please? I'm going to dismiss this in a word of prayer. Ask Pastor John if he would make his way to the back. Let him greet you as you're leaving today, but also let you know that we have pastors and deacons who will stand down here. We'll linger around here for a few minutes if you have a decision or something you'd like to pray about or talk about. That's why we're here. Would you pray with me, please? Lord, thank you for the message of hope. Thank you for what you give us. Help us to put it into practice. Help us to get our way and to trust you, to get in those paths of grace and blessing. Lord, help us to trust you in everything we do for your glory as we go from here. Let it not happen just for this next few moments, for the days to come. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.