Thank you for making time during this busy season to join Dr. Michael Youssef for what will be a very challenging Leading the Way. You'll step into the pages of the story of a young family who packed up and moved to a brand new city. Because hope was lost, their economy crashed, leaving them with very little options. They fled to a land called Moab. In the Bible, Moab is a symbol of disobedience and rebellion. Well, soon in this new place, tragedy struck when three of the family members died, leaving their widows to find new lives in an unfamiliar place.
Here's Dr. Michael Youssef to begin with a few questions. What is your Moab? What is your Moab? Your Moab could be a relationship that is not honoring to the Lord. Your Moab may be a distrust in God's promises. Your Moab may be your placing of your feelings, your ideas and your thinking and your emotions above what God said. Your Moab may be unfaithfulness with God's blessings.
Whatever your Moab may be, you can come home to Jesus. Please remember that Leading the Way is a listener supported media ministry relying on God's provision through your prayers and generosity to maintain and continue worldwide gospel impact. And now is a perfect time to partner with Dr. Youssef during this month's Giving Challenge. Get the exciting details about how your gifts will be multiplied at ltw.org. Right now, listen with me as Dr. Michael Youssef shares a challenging call to come home. The book of Ruth is a magnificent little book.
It was named after a Gentile woman. Ruth, I'm going to explain this as we unfold the series of messages together. It's an amazing grace of God because it teaches us a great deal about how God cares for an ordinary believer. It teaches us that our extraordinary God can do great and extraordinary things with an ordinary believer. Now, three things I want to share with you from chapter one.
Three things, write them down if you're taking notes. Whenever you short circuit or you try to short circuit God's plan or God's will for your life, there is an initial comfort in that process. There's an initial comfort.
I'm going to come to this. Secondly, there is an inevitable consequences to short circuiting God's plan for your life. Thirdly, there is an indisputable cure. Listen, there is a euphoria. There is an initial comfort in getting away from the will of God and doing your thing.
I'm not going to deny that. Elimelech's family thought that the grass was greener on the other side of the septic tank. So they left the house of bread. That's what Bethlehem means.
Beth house lachim in Hebrew. Bread, the house of bread. They left the house of bread and went to Moab. Why?
Why? Because they ran out of food. And when they ran out of food in Bethlehem, they looked for solutions outside of God's promises. They looked for solutions outside of God's people.
They looked for solutions outside of the land of promise. Don't miss this. Don't miss this. Don't miss this.
How you act and what you do when you are facing crisis situation in your life says a great deal about your spiritual discernment. Elimelech did not take the family into another part of the promised land. That would have been fine because this is the land of promise. God promised it to Abraham.
God promised it to Abraham's descendants. They could have gone to another part of the land of promise, but they didn't. They went to enemy's territory.
They went to the pagans. Let me tell you about Moab. Moab is today in modern Jordan. I've been on both sides of the Dead Sea.
I've seen them from both sides. It's 10 miles. That's all it is. It's a short trip. Not too far geographically, but listen to me. Spiritually, it's the other side of the world. On a clear day, you could stand and see the fields of Moab from the ridges of Bethlehem.
I've done it. These green fields of Moab were beckoning dear old Elimelech and his family. Day after day, day after day, he looks on the other side and sees the green land and he says, this is where I should go. These bright green lands were inviting him. When that situation kept on going on for a while, Elimelech could not resist the temptation anymore. He just couldn't resist.
So he packed the family camel wagon and they headed for Moab. Question. Why not wait for the Lord? Why not trust God to provide? You read in the book of Deuteronomy and all the promises of God that he gave to Moses, all the promises of God to Israel. Why not keep on trusting in the promises of God that he never leave you nor forsake you? Why do you have to go to enemy's territory?
Why not believe the promises of God given to Israel through Moses? Here's another question. What's wrong with Moab? What city is good as the other? What town is as good as the other?
It doesn't matter. Yahweh is everywhere. What's wrong with Moab? You see, everyone was thinking about Moab. Eli did it. He just went over there. He didn't just think about it.
He did it. But what's wrong with Moab? Well, the people of Moab had no moral compass.
Everything goes in Moab. There was no preacher to rebuke people that they're going the wrong way and need to come back. As long as they don't forget about Yahweh and remember him on occasions or in the high and holy days, they will be alright. As long as they think that they're good people, they belong to the people of God, doesn't matter where they are, they'll be okay.
As long as there is mutual consent, it's okay. No, don't ever forget the days of judges, even the faithful believers, even the faithful believers felt that they're caught between obeying God on the one hand and trusting in the fertility gods of Canaan on the other. Today, people can pack the pews, pack the churches when there is a national crisis. But as soon as the crisis is over, they go back to Baal worship.
Abraham Alech and his wife and two boys were just beginning to get comfortable in the land of Moab. Remember, there is what? Initial comfort.
Remember that. When you short-circuit the will of God and the word of God, there is initial comfort. Initial comfort.
Can you say that with me? Initial comfort. In their newfound prosperity in Moab, who's just beginning? Things are really going to get good for me here.
And just as they were enjoying their new life of prosperity in Moab, tragedy struck. Remember, short-circuiting God's plan has an initial comfort. The Bible said sin is pleasurable for a moment. See, the Bible doesn't deny that.
They're for a moment. But the consequences are the consequences. And that's what I come to secondly here. The inevitable consequences.
Please hear me right. Any comfort outside of the will of God for your life has deadly consequences. I know it. I've experienced it. I tried to run away from God as far as I could. Any comfort from the shadow and the shelter of the Almighty has disastrous results. And so verse 3, 4, and 5, look at them with me please. There is an immediate consequence and then there is a long-term consequence. And here what I know from the Word of God, I'm from my own failures. Here's what I know. These consequences come as a surprise to a sinning believer.
They really do. What happened? What happened? What happened to me? What is this happening to me, Lord? Where are you, God? He's never moved. Did you know that? You moved.
He didn't. Dear old Naomi, now she's a widow. She's widowed. And so when she was widowed, she placed her hope in her two sons.
They'll provide for her. But the two boys were even more comfortable in the land of Moab than their father was because they married two pagan girls. The Old Testament is very clear not to marry a non-Jewish person. The New Testament is even clearer. Do not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. And so short-circuiting God's plan and God's purpose not only has an initial comfort but also has inevitable consequences.
Oh, don't miss what I'm going to tell you. Verse 4, they were there for 10 years. God waited and waited. And he waited some more.
Listen to me. He may be waiting for you. And you are here by divine appointment because God wants to say, I'm not going to wait forever. You are in your own Moab, whatever your Moab is, and it's different for every one of us. You might be comfortable in Moab now. You might have thought that God had forgotten where you are spiritually now, but he hasn't.
He doesn't. He loves you too much. He loves you too much to leave you in your Moab.
Let me ask you this. What is your Moab? What is your Moab? Your Moab could be a relationship that is not honoring to the Lord. Your Moab could be a friendship that is dragging you down spiritually. Your Moab may be a distrust in God's promises. Your Moab may be your placing of your feelings, your ideas, and your thinking, and your emotions above what God said. Your Moab may be unfaithfulness with God's blessings.
Your Moab may be a complete self-absorption. Whatever your Moab may be, you can come home to Jesus. You can come home to Jesus. Can you say that with me? You can come home to Jesus.
You can do it today. God's patience with you is his way of wooing you to come back, come back, come back from your spiritual Moab. Let me tell you a couple of things about spiritual Moabs, just in case you don't know. Figuratively speaking, Moab has a way of making a short stay to be a long-term one. Figuratively speaking, Moab has a way of saying to you, do it just this once.
Once it's over, you don't have to do it again. And then before you know it, you are in Moab's clutches. Figuratively speaking, Moab has a way of saying there's plenty of time to live holy and pure life.
There's plenty of time only to discover that time has gone. Here in Moab, after 10 years, Elimelech, Naomi, and the two boys intended to go to Moab for a short period of time, just for that one bad crop year. But they found themselves entrenched in Moab. You know it's something that the Bible said, particularly in Peter, about Lot. The Bible said Lot was vexed.
That's a beautiful English word. He was torn apart between the godliness of his uncle Abraham that he wanted to be and between the lifestyle of Sodomites. As a matter of fact, if you read carefully in the book of Genesis, you read first that Lot came close to Sodom. And the next part you read that he was now moved outside the gates of Sodom. And then the last time you hear about him, he is inside Sodom.
Verse 5, after the father died, in rapid succession both boys die. Now try to put yourself in Naomi's place. She comes into this utopia with her husband and two sons, but she loses all of them, all of them. There is no support for her.
Back then, as you heard me say many times, widows who have no male members to support them were really worse than being destitute. And here you find Naomi in a strange place, a stranger. And she felt it for the first time, now that her support base gone in a strange country. The first thing, there is what?
Initial comfort. There is inevitable consequences, but praise God there is the third. There is indisputable cure. Indisputable. Indisputable.
And those of us who have experienced it can testify to you. Indisputable cure. Do you know what the cure is? Honestly, there are only two words.
All the mumbo-jumbo's and all the big theological terms and everything else is fine, but I'm a simple guy. Two words. Indisputable cure. Go home.
Say it with me. Go home. And now people say you can't go home again. Well, in the physical sense, yes, but spiritually, it's the only way. Home is your only place to go. It's the only cure to your soul. It's the only spiritual healing that you can receive.
It's the only way to happiness and joy and peace. Come home. Come home. Naomi was not just at the bottom of the barrel. The barrel actually crashed on her and with an overwhelming force. In her experience of bitterness, she wanted to go home. Look at verses 8 and 9. She asked both of her daughters-in-law to go back to their homes and find other husbands.
One of them decided to just do that. Oh, but Ruth. Beautiful Ruth. Lovely Ruth.
Loyal Ruth would not leave her mother-in-law. Ladies, I need to explain this. It's a very personal thing. It's my opinion, so take it or leave it.
Do whatever you want with it. I for one never never condemned Naomi for feeling bitter. Never. Never. Never.
In fact, I admire her candor. We need to be real with God. But here's a piece of advice. Before you place the blame on God, find out, find out if you had a hand in what happened. Are you with me? I know, I know, I know that some things happened to us. We had nothing to do with what we did or did not do. It has nothing to do with us really. Many things happened. Totally out of our control. But there are times when things happen as a natural consequence of something we've done. It may be something happened years ago. You may even forgotten about it.
But then years later, it raises its ugly head. But Ruth made an ironclad commitment to Naomi and to Naomi's God. Beloved, listen to me. God honors those who keep their word and keep their commitments.
And the truth is this. Naomi's faith was such that it made an impact, made her faith attractive to Ruth, Naomi's testimony. And her truthfulness led her daughter-in-law into wanting to follow Naomi's God.
Ruth saw Naomi's God to be a loving God, to be a forgiving God, to be a restoring God, to be the God of new beginnings, to be the God of second and a hundred and a thousand chances. Although Naomi, whose name means pleasant. If your name is Naomi, now this is a freebie on the house. Your name means pleasant. That's what Naomi means in Hebrew. But then she said, don't call me Naomi anymore because I'm not pleasant.
I'm a Mara. Mara, from remember when the kings came from the east and brought three gifts to Jesus, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, bitter. And that was to predict his cross, bitter.
And the word Mara, it's the same in all three Semitic languages, Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew, bitter. Naomi was in pain, but she did not stop caring. Verse nine, she prayed for her daughters-in-law. She might have been coming home without a husband, without two sons, but she was coming home with a faithful daughter-in-law. And in verses 19 to 22, mark it in your Bible, you see the two women make the only decision that pleases God. Let me tell you something, you might not be sure if your decision is pleasing God or not, there's one decision you can make that I promise you on the authority of God's Word that pleases God. Come home.
Say it with me again. Come home. And so, they come home and we're going to see the unfolding of how God honored that decision of coming home. I want to conclude by telling you this true story. Some of you remember the name Dr. E.V.
Hill. He was truly a wonderful man of God, served God so faithfully. He told this story about a mother in New Jersey, found herself alone when her husband walked out on her with a rebellious daughter. Finally when the daughter, when she became old enough, she packed her bags and left home. For weeks and months, the mother prayed and searched for her daughter to no avail. For months she knew nothing about whereabouts of her daughter. She called friends, she called relatives, but no one would tell her where her daughter was. And one day a family member felt sorry for her and he told her, he said, your daughter is in London, England living as a prostitute.
She sold all that she could sell, got a ticket, traveled to London, England with a picture of her daughter and went from pub to pub to pub, showing the picture to the bartenders. Have you seen this girl? Have you seen this girl? Have you seen this girl? And finally a bartender in one of those pubs said to her, she said, wait a minute, I see her coming here occasionally.
She doesn't come regularly, but I see her coming on occasions. And the woman said, good enough. She goes to the poster board in the back of the pub and she pins the picture of her daughter with the caption underneath, come home, come home. Few weeks later the daughter comes into that pub half drunk, bloodshot eyes, and she looks up and she sees her own picture, she recognized her own picture, and she kept saying, who brought this here? Who brought this picture here?
Where did this picture come from? And then she peered into the caption and said, come home. And she realized when the bartender told her there was a woman who came here looking for you the other day, she kept asking if anybody has seen you. She realized that was his mama. Her mama spent all her fortune to get out on a plane and go to London looking for her wayward daughter. She sat there and she sobbed until she could cry no more. Gathered her belonging and she came home to her mama.
Now beloved, please listen to me, I'm about to finish. Jesus, the son of God, came all the way from heaven for you. God's son shed his blood on that cross for you. Wherever you are, whatever you've done, however long you've been away, Jesus is saying to you, come home.
His arms open on that cross is an indication of his longing for you to come home. Welcome home. Welcome home. Will you answer that call to come home? Thank you for listening to Leading the Way Audio with Dr. Michael Yousaf. And if you'd like to speak with a pastor or a counselor about how you can come home, just fill out a contact form at ltw.org slash Jesus. I want to thank God publicly and thank you, the partners in the Gospel, for all that you have done during 2024 and all that you're going to do in the future.
Because God opened doors I never dreamed that he would open. So let me invite you to join us in this great opportunity of the December Give Challenge. You can learn more about it at ltw.org. If you'd like to speak with someone about the Giving Challenge and how you can make an eternal impact through Leading the Way, give us a call. 866-626-4356. And the website again ltw.org.
