This is the Truth Network. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast, equipping our leaders of this great weekly Bible study held at Dario, our wonderful, gracious host. all across North Carolina. This is to equip, encourage, and guide you as you prepare to teach the word and guide the discussion at each location each week.
And we continue our journey now through the book of Daniel. Here we are with today's special guest, Dr. Sam Horn. How has God turned your brokenness into beauty.
Now I know we just celebrated Christmas. Recently from the date of this recording, But Dr. Horn, we're going back to Bethlehem. For another story directly from God's word in our new journey. Through the book of Ruth.
There's so much in there, Dr. Horne. You're excited, aren't you, jumping into a new book in our Wednesday in the Word study. As we look at these four chapters, 85 verses. 20, 25 minutes is about the length of time it takes to read through the whole book in one sitting.
Dr. Horn, What's your Kind of raw reaction to this great book tucked in between the book of Judges, a book of compromise, roller coasters, defilement. And the book of Samuel, a kingly book, setting up the great throne and lineage. Of the line of David. Here we have Ruth right in the middle.
What say you, sir, about this out of the gate? First of all, I love going back to Bethlehem. That's a great place to go. Man, if you can run back to Bethlehem as often as you can. In the scriptures and in your own personal life, that's just an incredible thing.
So I'm excited about that. But secondly, you know, when you're in the middle of darkness. When you're in the middle of brokenness, when you're in the middle of ruin, and especially when that darkenness is moral. And that hopelessness is spiritual. and the ruin is personal.
You need hope. You need light. You need God to pierce through the darkness. And remind you that he has a future for you that isn't where you are. And the book of Ruth is set in the middle of all of this.
And you read in the book of. of judges Well, you start off reading the book of Joshua, and it's an amazing story. I mean, Moses is dead. Joshua comes on the scene. There's this amazing victory that happens.
As you go into the land, you meet this incredible woman named Rahab, who first Gentile in all of Canaan that becomes loyal to Yahweh. And if you were going to pick somebody that was going to be the very, very first person. Who Ever is going to be converted from pagan idolatry and moral depravity, you would never pick Rahab. God picks her. And long story short, she comes over after the victory to Israel, and Joshua receives her into the camp.
and doesn't just put her in some back corner. He marries her to one of the leading men. in the in the in the tribes named uh salmon And so she and Salmon get married and they have a baby. And they named that little baby Boaz. And and this worthy man marries this unworthy woman who God has made worthy.
And now they have a worthy man, a worthy son. And that's how he's described in the book of Ruth. Boaz is a worthy man when we meet him. in chapter two.
So You can see the connections already. Right away, we're told the book of Ruth was written during the time of Judges. And by the time you get to the end of the book of Joshua, we know that we're heading into really dark times. Because Joshua has to deal with idolatry that has already crept in. to the lives and into the tents.
of the people that walked over the Jordan River with him. and destroyed Jericho. Watch God bring these walls down without firing an arrow, right? But immediately, you begin to realize: man, there's something in the heart of these people because Aiken grabs. hides and the next thing you know there's a defeat and this pattern is set.
And so That pattern comes full bore in the book of Judges. And by the time you get to the end of the book of Judges, You don't know where you're going. I mean, the promises that God gave to Adam and to Noah. And to Moses. They just look like they've all fallen apart because this nation is a nation that is unwilling to be ruled by God.
They have no king and everybody's doing what's right in their own eyes. And then you come to the book of Ruth. And everybody in the book of Reuters does what's right. It's a stunning story of small window. A small oasis of grace in the midst of all of this darkness.
in this little town of Bethlehem. Is a city of people who, at least for these four chapters, are doing what is right with the exception of one man. And we're gonna meet that man here in just a moment. Yeah, he comes right up in chapter one. You know, Dr.
Horn, we just left 2 Peter, and toward the end, there's a great little statement by Peter that says, The Lord is not slack concerning his promises. The heart of God is opened up for all to see. He's not willing. That any should perish. He's long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, all should come to repentance.
And here you have from the promise in the Adamic covenant, you know, with 3:15, the promise of the Messiah early on in Genesis, to the Noahic covenant. To all the way through the Abrahamic covenant, the beautiful picture to his promise going through Ruth, you know, one of the two books in the whole Bible named after. A female. You have one of those books. Ruth is a she's a gentile.
whom uh a poor Gentile, by the way, who married a A very uh wealthy, well-to-do Jew. You have the book of Esther, who was a Jewish. Queen married to a wealthy Oh, pagan Gentile king. And you have God's providence pulsating from Verse to verse in both books. Dr.
Horn, so much in here. We uh give a quick shout out early on here to Alicia Grimes, one of our Women in the Word leaders at Dario, who in their group meets on Thursdays, who has put together a whole curriculum and some wonderful questions and insights on this book. Which kind of led to us doing this book next.
So, really. I'm gleaning a lot from her notes and grateful for her and her thoughts and questions, and connecting this to the gospel and the picture of what Christ has done for us. We're going to get there.
So, we're going to go back to Bethlehem as in the Bethlehem that we traditionally celebrate at Christmas, but we're going to go to a pre-Bethlehem experience here in this book. Dr. Horn, 10 verses. Out of the gate, one pastor that I heard recently called it. Uh uh the first chapter A chapter about A family and a chapter about famine.
And how God uses this tragedy. And some other things to drive people from Bethlehem, which means the house of bread, which was a strong house. Harvest grain. uh a bread bowl for all of uh israel But There was no bread. And this family left to go to the land of idolatry.
Speak to that, set it up for us a little bit. Especially as our leaders are looking at these first five to ten verses, you know, in this first week, kind of how they can prepare and look at this and give good background. But then also jump right in to the narrative. Who is Who is Boaz? You know, who is.
Who is uh Naomi, Ruth, Orpah? These characters were meeting, and these men that didn't live very long. A lot of death, a lot of famine, a lot of darkness coming right out of Judges into Ruth. Yeah.
So, maybe the best way to set it up for our leaders and for anybody else who's studying the book of Ruth with us as we go on this little journey is to do three things. First thing is to identify the key characters in the book and there are For example, we know Ruth is a key character. We know Naomi is a key character. We know Boaz is a key character.
So there are three major characters. There's an unseen character orchestrating all of it, and that's God. We can never assume that God is not a character.
So there is a divine character who's orchestrating the lives of everyone and everything that happens to them in the book.
So when you talk about the book of Ruth, many commentators are going to argue that behind everything, one of the main ideas in Ruth is the divine providence of God who is working all things for the good of his people.
So Romans 8, 28. Is actually illustrated very well in the book of Ruth. It's the whole book of Ruth. You know what looks like a disaster for Naomi in chapter one, a disaster that she actually has no ability to control. When you meet Naomi, she is a woman.
She is an Israelite woman married to a very powerful man. We'll find out about that here in a moment. But she lived in a culture and at a time when she had no ability to counter or even influence the decisions made by her husband. And her husband makes a terrible decision. And she is bound by the Torah to go along with him.
And it doesn't just go bad for her husband, it goes bad for her. And the evidence of that is when she comes back. And people say, oh, Naomi is back. The word Naomi means pleasant, blessed. She says, don't call me that.
That isn't who I am anymore. The hand of the Lord has been heavy against me.
So here is. This Sweet providence of God to rescue a woman who, through no fault of her own, is in this awful predicament. And by the time we get to the end of the book, she is actually holding in her hand the fullness of God. The blessing of God, and not just the fullness of God and the blessing of God, but the ancestor of the one who's going to redeem her. That's stunning, right?
And so you've got. Ruth, you've got Naomi, you got Boaz, you've got God, and then you've got this. Um This unnamed character that we're going to find out about in chapter three, and then we've got a named character. Who we find out in chapter one, Elimelech.
So we got five characters we got to talk about.
So that's one piece. If I were a group leader, I would be introducing that idea. We're going to look at the story through the lens of five characters. The second thing I would do is I would say, let's talk about. One of the key themes, we talked about the providence of God, but a word shows up key throughout the book is the word redeemer.
So, for example, Boaz, when Naomi finds out Ruth's been gleaning in this man's field, she's like, oh, that man is one of our redeemers. And we're going to find out that there's actually a second Redeemer who doesn't live up to his name.
So, this man is one of our redeemers.
So, it's going to narrow down, right?
Now, It's going to go from one of our redeemers to he's the one that's going to redeem us. And you couldn't have picked a better person to redeem. You know, to fulfill the office of redeemers. And then, When he and Ruth get married and God gives them a son, Here's, and Naomi holds that tongue at the very end. Here is what the women of the town who are witnessing all of this say.
They say to her, Blessed be the Lord. Who has not left you this day without a Redeemer? And may his name be renowned in Israel. He will be to you a restorer, a redeemer of life. And a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, is more to you than seven sons, and she has given birth to him.
So, this idea of redemption through a redeemer. is massive. But Just so we get the picture that the great Redeemer in the book isn't the ultimate redeemer, we have this statement at the end that I just read to you.
So, the second big idea, other than here are the characters and what God's doing in their lives in the sweet providence of God, there is this redemption. Category, right? And then the third theme is the one we want to look at in our study as we launch the book, and that's in the first 10 verses, where we find that even uh even great men with great privilege can make horrific mistakes and willful sins that lead their whole family into a place of very very hard and difficult circumstances and that's what we find and what happens when you find yourself there in a hopeless spot What hope is there? And the answer is every hope. The God of heaven is a God of hope.
And it doesn't matter if you're a pagan woman in a daughter of Moab, steeped in the idolatry that God condemned, and with a huge. History against Israel. Moab has this stunning history against Israel. And here is a woman steeped in that. God says, There's hope for you.
Here's Naomi. And she is dragged into a position where God's judgment falls on her and on her family. And God says, there's hope for you. And it doesn't matter who you are. If Elimelech had listened, there would have been hope for him.
This book is a book of hope because God is the God of hope.
So well stated, Dr. Horn, and you know, you look right out of the gate. at these first verses. I guess you let the verses, let the text of God's word set it up. And most of our groups are really good at reading together the scriptures out loud.
like a public reading of Scripture. or they're reading the words Of God. It's the most important thing you can do because it's God speaking to you. It's His revelation. It's His opinion.
It's His thoughts. It's His words and sentences, and not our own. And then, as the leaders go through it, we provide questions for each group.
So Dr. Warren effectively setting up who these folks are. And how they ended up in, you know, there were. Maybe I read from some commentators anywhere from 10 to 12 famines throughout the Old Testament. Right.
That that drove God's people to do certain things. God used famine. To reconcile Joseph with his brothers in that whole situation and his dad ultimately in Israel, and saved Israel. Because they got to Egypt and God, you know, there was famine in Elijah's day and some of the great miracles with Elijah and Elisha in those periods there, and the judges and other places in the exiles. But so you have the famine driving them to Moab.
You talked a little bit about the Moabites where we dealt with the Moabites.
So much of this is. even connected to Peter who talked about the How Balaam the false prophet Hired by the Moabite king Balak. To curse Israel. He couldn't curse him, but he gave this evil. Evil advice.
To cause the, you know, to tell King Balak, hey, get your women, your Moabite women, to seduce Israel. With their idols. and in a sexual way, which led to for wholesale adultery. and sin and compromise in Israel and a lot of bloodshed.
So this was a, these were. Unclean people, of course, spawn through an incestuous relationship. From Genesis 19 in the aftermath of Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, Lot's daughters getting him drunk. Go read it, folks. I hate even, it's so hard and difficult.
To read that. But that's how this nation came and they were always uh like you said uh A stone in the shoe of the Israelites and always plaguing them and dogging them on every side. And here, Uh it's a it's a it's a a Moabite woman. Who's got a book named after her? Talk about God turning brokenness into beauty.
And she's in the messianic genealogy in Matthew. And that's something. Yeah.
So in her mother-in-law. Was also a Gentile who, you know, Rahab the harlot, as you touched on earlier.
So I guess it's important to cover these things, getting into it, but then just go verse by verse. into the narrative So let's do that. Yes, sir. Go quickly, just quickly, quick. Like, we've done a little bit of a review of the context, the setting.
You know, the last verse in Judges is in, and everyone did as it was right in their own eyes. It was just Bedlam, it was mayhem. And yet you have this book that takes place in that era. of a beautiful picture of God. Restoring, redeeming.
So, take us through now by way of preview of how they can break down these 10 verses and just kind of teach them to the group setting up the next three chapters. What I would do is, we're going to meet four of the six major characters. Remember, we said there's God, there is a man named Elimelech. There is a woman named Naomi. There is a woman named Ruth.
There's a man named Boaz, and there's an unnamed Redeemer who doesn't step up to the plate.
So there are six major characters in the book, and we meet four of them in these 10 verses.
So let me show them to you. In verse one, you meet the first main character and the primary character, the unseen character, and that's God. In the days when the judges ruled. And here's where God shows up. There was a famine in the land.
And you alluded to this earlier, Stu, when you said that the metaphor of a famine is tied to disobedience to the Torah. When God gave Moses the law and the people stood between those two mountains and swore obedience to the Torah, Moses said, these mountains are going to bear witness to you. That mountain is going to witness that if you obey the Torah, God is going to bless you. And one of the main ways he's going to bless you is with rain. If you disobey the law, then this mountain is going to witness that God is going to curse you.
And one of the ways he's going to curse you is he's going to send famine in the land.
So you know that the land is under the curse, right? You know that God is disciplining his people through famine.
Now There is a man in Bethlehem. You alluded to the house of bread, which is an incredible metaphor. Here is a man who is living in the bread basket of Israel. And the word man there isn't just the normal word for man. It's the idea of a worthy man.
We're going to be introduced later on to Boaz, and we find out he is a worthy man.
So, this is a man of high stature, whoever this man is. he's a man of high stature now we're not told who he's who he is just yet You know, there's a little bit of suspense here. This man, whoever he is, we find. is going to disobey and he's going to abandon He's going to disregard the Torah of God. He's going to abandon the land of God and he's going to go not just anywhere.
He's going to go to Moab. And you've alluded to the history of Moab, so we don't need to rehearse all that again. But this is not just like You know, I'm having a hard time in Greenville, South Carolina, so I think I'll move to Winston-Salem. It's not the parallel. The idea is, you could not go to a worse place than Moab.
If you thought it was bad, in Bethlehem because God was judging the nation for their disobedience to Torah. Why would you go to a city and into a nation where the disobedience and the sexual immorality was so great, it was actually the cause? of all of the disobedience that was taking place in your own country.
So whoever this worthy man is, he is doing a very unworthy thing. And he's dragging his white. and his two sons. And then we're told his name In verse 2, the name of this worthy man was Elimelech. And the name of his wife.
Naomi, and the name of his two sons, Melon and Chilian, and they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. And they went into the country of Moab and remained there. The idea was: we're just going to take a little sojourn. The word for remained was sojourn. We're just going to go and have a temporary stay to get out to get past the worth of the famine.
We're going to find out. that they were there 10 years.
So this this little stay in the wicked Country of Moab. Ended up. being a lot longer. And in fact, for three of them, it was permanent, right? Because we read that Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died.
And the two boys took Moabite wives. And they lived there 10 years and they both died. And they died childless.
So famine and barrenness and death. Are marks that the writer puts early on in to let you know that this man. This worthy man did a very unworthy thing, and he did an unworthy thing in an unworthy way because he was doing what everybody else was doing. He did whatever was right in his own eyes.
So, the first lesson in Luke, in Ruth, rather, is when you do whatever is right in your own eyes. Don't be surprised when it leads you to a very wrong place. with very bad results. And that's what happens here. And they were there for 10 years.
So we've met. God we have met elimelech And we've met Naomi.
Now, we've got to figure out just for a minute who Elimelech was. There is a rabbinic teaching. And obviously, rabbinic teaching is helpful because it gives extra biblical historical context. To what we're reading in the scripture. It doesn't take the place of scripture, but sometimes it's like sort of a background piece of information.
It's like, oh, who is this guy, Elimelech, and what makes him so worthy? And the answer is in the identity of his heritage. Elimelech was the son of a great. military judge. named Nashon.
Nayshan is um Is a very important man who shows up in First Chronicles chapter two, verses four through ten. uh nashan uh descended from judah uh the son of jacob his father was a man named aminadab And a minute to have. had a sister that Aaron married. Right, Aaron Aaron took for a wife Elizabeth, the daughter of Amenadab, the sister of Nashon.
So, whoever, so Elimelech's father. had a sister who married Aaron. And so he is tied to one of the greatest families in Israel. He's tied to the family of the high priest. Nashon, his father, was a primary military, very important military leader.
And tradition says when they got to the Red Sea, Nashon, Elimelech's father, was one of the very first men to put his foot in the water. Remember how when they got to the Red Sea and they were, or rather, they were crossing. The Red Sea, the Israelites stood and they waited in fear. And there was a man who walked out, and it was this man, Nashon. And when he walked out, the water began to part.
And the and the people went across.
Now that's where Bennett. tradition and we have to take all of that carefully. It's not inspired. And certainly wanna be careful. But the point of the story is: Nashon, Elimelech's dad, was a very, very important man in Israel.
He had a very, very storied history in Israel, and he was tied to one of the most important families in Israel, Aaron the high priest. And here is his son Elimelech, and he's going to Moab. He's leaving the house of Bethlehem, the house of bread. He's leaving the land. This is actually.
You could say it this way, and the rabbis actually do. Elimelech isn't just taking a journey, he's turning his back on God. God, if you're going to do this to your land and to your people, then I want to go somewhere where there's a better God. I want to go somewhere where the gods don't do this to their people. And so here is Elimelech, and he takes his family and they go on a sojourn away from God, away from the Torah.
to a place. Where God's judgment comes even more harshly.
Now, think about this. How many times in our lives do we run into friends? That at one time were serving the Lord, and now they're walking away from the Lord. And you sit down with them over a cup of coffee, and you say, Why are you doing this? And you find out, well.
My sister got cancer. And I prayed and God didn't heal her and she died. Or my son, my nine-year-old son, who I... dedicated the Lord. I stood on stage and I dedicated my son to the Lord.
And and he drowned at a camp. And I can't follow a God who does this to his people. Elimelech isn't a story in our Bible of some dude in the past that has no relevant to us. We do a limelect all the time. The church is full of modern day Elimelechs who look at God's actions that are painful and harsh and heavy, and they decide, I want nothing more to do with a God who does that, and they head off to Moab.
their own version of it. And when they get to Moab, it's worse. And that's what we find out.
Now, whenever you take your family to Moab. You always take people who don't have a choice. When you, as a dad, drag your family into the world because you're mad at God, your four-year-old has to go with you. You say, well, I'm not dragging them down to the bar. No, but they have to live in a home where that's now the environment.
Wherever you take yourself in anger or in frustration or in bitterness toward God, you bring your family. And that's exactly what Elimelech did. He didn't go to Moab on his own, he brought a woman named Naomi. And poor Naomi has to suffer. in a context she didn't create.
She didn't create this context. She, that's our third character, right?
So here she is. She's down now in this wicked place. And she cannot do anything about it. And finally, You know, if you're going to add insult to injury, her husband dies and her boys die. And she's got two daughter-in-laws.
And she has no recourse. Nobody in Moab is going to take care of a woman who's not one of them. She's a hated Israelite. Remember Moab. Hates Israel.
They have been a thorn in Israel's flesh. One of their early kings, Balak, hires Balaam to curse Israel. This is that nation. And now here is the wife of a prominent Israelite who came in their midst, and now she's a widow with no recourse. Nobody in Moab is going to take care of her.
She goes back to Israel. She hasn't been there for 10 years. Nobody there is probably even going to remember her. And when she gets there, she has no sons.
So nobody's going to take care of her. And the book of Ruth is the story of a God who hasn't forgotten Naomi, and he's going to take care of her. I think Naomi is the key character in the book, although she doesn't show up that way at first. I think by the time we get to the end, we're going to see a beautiful thing that God does for Naomi. And it's the same beautiful thing he will do for every hurting believer who has to live under the heavy consequences of somebody else's sin.
Maybe you're studying the book of Ruth with us and there's something you haven't told anybody. That's happened to you. Maybe you're the victim of sexual abuse. By a member of your own family, and you've never told anybody that, but you've carried that for years, and it has burdened you down, and it has darkened every bright day. And you read the scriptures, and you have hope, and your hope is tinged with: I don't know if this is going to be true for me.
And you see the burden, and that burden has grown over time, and it has crushed you. And you read a book like Ruth, and you meet Naomi, and by the time you get to the end, the same God who cared for Naomi is going to care for you. Maybe you're a young man and your dad. has done things to you you can't even talk about. Maybe your whole spirit has been crushed.
Maybe your dad dragged you to Moab when you were two or four or eight or 12. And here you are at 24 and you're addicted to things you never would have been addicted to that you can't get the victory over. And you read a book like Ruth and you realize that the God of Naomi has his eye on you. And he hasn't forgot you. And what looks hopeless.
There's no hope for me in Moab. There's no hope for me in Bethlehem. I don't know what to do. I'm just going to go. And the two daughters are coming with her.
And she says to them, don't come. She arose with her daughter in verse 6. To return to the country from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the field of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. There's a little bit of hope. She sets out from the lace verse seven.
And they went to the way of the land of Judah. And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, Go, return each of you to your mother's house. May the Lord deal kindly with you. That word kindly? Isn't a word that's going to show up throughout the rest of the book, it's the word hesed.
It means covenant kindness. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. You have been kind to my sons and you've been kind to me. The Lord grant that you may find rest. Each of you in the house of her husband.
Well, we're gonna find out that God's gonna do that for Ruth, right? She's gonna find incredible rest in the house of Boaz. Then she kissed them and they lift up their voice and wept. And they said to her, no, we will return with you to your people. Initially, we're both going, right?
But Naomi said, Turn back, my daughters. Will you go with me? I don't have any sons in my womb to become your husbands. Turn back, go your way, for I'm too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope.
There's our idea. Naomi has no hope. If I should tell you I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night to bear sons, would you wait till they were grown? No, my daughters, for is it exceedingly bitter To me, for your sake, because the hand of the Lord has gone out. And one of the daughters goes home.
Orpa. But the other one, which we'll see in our next study, in the next part of chapter one, makes an amazing statement. It's one of the most powerful statements in the Old Testament, and I'm not going to give it away in this study. For now, what we need to know, we now know all the players. We know God and what he's up to.
We know Elimelech and what he's done. We know Naomi and what it's cost her, and we just met Ruth. And Ruth is going to be the key to the hope that is coming for all of the future Naomis. and for all of the future people who find themselves in Moab. How do I get back?
How do I get back to Bethlehem? How do I get back to the place of blessing? There is always a way back with God. And Naomi found it. and if you can if Naomi could find it, you can find it.
And that's the beauty of the book of Ruth. That is the voice of Dr. Sam Horn, pastor, author. Broadcaster, man of God, who has done a lot in his ministry and taught the Word of God a lot, including. Encouraging and mentoring me for many, many years.
Dr. Horn and I are hosting this Wednesday in the Word podcast to equip. preachers, pastors, and our Bible study lay leaders to lead a special outreach we do every week at a really cool restaurant concept called Dario across North Carolina. We just opened up Dario number 13 and we've got a group of guys meeting there every Wednesday morning. Encouraging each other.
It's so encouraging to study God's Word and to see and to hear God speak. And Dr. Horn just laid out a really good introductory. Information for the book of Ruth. These four chapters are power-packed.
Dr. Horne, if chapter one of Ruth and even these first ten verses. We're Part of a diagram of Romans 8, 28. It would be the two words at the beginning, all things. Because they haven't quite worked out for the good yet, but they're gonna.
We know they are. But you got to go into the all things, and God doesn't waste any. We found this in Daniel 11, which was one of the hardest chapters I've ever studied. And you really saved me on that, Dr. Horn, because we recoined a phrase that's been given to the devil for too long.
You know, the old phrase, the devil is in the details. No, God is in the details. God is working and weaving his redemptive fear. Thread through the whole tapestry of scripture. And that's the case, if you've ever seen it in Ruth chapter.
One With all these circumstances.
So I'm excited about the studies ahead. You gave a great cliffhanger there. I want to hand it to you. You got me even on the edge of my seat here. On that cliffing, or with what's coming up in week two with these famous words.
You gotta wait. Hey, let me pick up one thing before we close out. Yes, sir. I quoted day 28, and I think that's an amazing connection. I want to make sure we don't miss.
The text says, And we know that for those who love God. All things. Work together for good. All right, so it's not that God is working together all things for good. And everybody goes along from the ride.
The promise that is stated here is: if you love God. And you're called according to your purposes. If you love God, He is at work in your life. And all things. Bitter.
They're happening.
Well, ultimately. Come to good. And that's exactly what we see here. Here is a woman. Brokenhearted Bitter.
devastated, hopeless, but she loves God. And the proof is she goes back to Bethlehem. Her husband is angry at God. He is angry at what has happened. I don't want, I'm turning my back on God.
I'm turning my back on the Torah. I'm going to the place. The one place. where the people there hate God and they hate his people. And I'm going there and I'm dragging my family.
This is not an accidental detail in the text. If you know what to watch for, it's stunning. And in the midst of all of this is this God lover. And God. She loves God and God loves her.
God loved Delimelech and God loved Melan. and Chilion, but they did not repent. And so when you love God. And you're pliable in his hand, even in the midst of all of this brokenness. He's going to take all of this.
and work it to good. for his glory and we Centuries later, we are still trying to figure out who Elimelech was. Like, who is Naomi's husband? I think his name starts with an E or maybe an A. I can't remember.
I'll have to go look at it. I'll have to open it, but we all know Naomi. Nobody has to open the Bible to know the story of Naomi. We know who she is, right? We know who Ruth is.
The two God lovers in this family, we know who they are. The other ones were trying to marry okay, there was two boys. I think one started with a Let me see, maybe was it an M, an M name? And I think some kind of a, I don't know, some chili, chili pepper kind of name. And then they're not that important.
Well, they really are important, but remember them. Because they were not god-lovers. And so if you want your family. To be remembered by your great grandkids, love God in the hard places of life.
Well Well, that's a review, a preview taking us into a new book. Welcome to Ruth, everyone. Going to be a great journey. Dr. Sam Horn, will you pray us out here?
Pray for those preparing and studying and And just, you know, pray that again, we will see in. In this book, and in a message, you know, the gospel. This is a God who is pursuing us, even when we. When we get off into the land of idolatry, which we are all prone to wander. He pursues us, he loves us, and He has a plan.
That is so much bigger and so much grander and so much redemptive that turns. the land of famine into the land of The bread of life at some point. Thank you, Dr. Horne. Amen.
For your words, please, please pray us out of here and lift us up here. Lord, thank you that Stu and I could talk about this amazing book. And Lord, just even talking about it, our spirits just lift up in praise to you. Our hearts. are just overwhelmed by your kindness to us.
Lord, we would be Abimelechs. or a limelex rather we would be a limelex uh in our own way going our own way in anger towards you. And if your spirit hadn't constrained us. And your love hadn't drawn us. And so, thank you, thank you, thank you for loving us and for caring for us.
Thank you for the story of Naomi. What a wonderful. Hope-filled story. And I pray as our leaders open up this new study in this wonderful book. that you would give them a sensitivity to hurting people.
That might be in their midst. Lord, we don't know who's gonna be coming to these studies. You do. You know the pain that's been in their lives, you know the disappointments, you know the hurts. There may be people who you were going to draw to these studies who are almost walking away from everything.
And I pray that this beautiful story of hope and redemption. would be a story of hope and redemption for them.
So give our leaders enablement and wisdom and power. Thank you for stooping. Thank you for what he's doing for the kingdom. Thank you for he and Julie and for their commitment to truth and for the truth network. We pray a blessing on it.
We pray for Palmetto Baptist and the many other churches that you've raised up around the country that are under attack for truth. We pray that we would stand boldly and graciously. And B The kind of people that we see in Boaz as he graciously works. for the purposes of your kingdom. and we want to do the same in our lives.
Thank you again. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Dr. Horn, and thank you for joining us for this Wednesday in the Word podcast. Learn more at wedintheword.com.
Follow us on YouTube. Facebook and all social media, including in Stu Graham. and be encouraged, stay in the word. Read it. Share it, study it, memorize it, and Meditate on God.
word. Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in him. Proverbs 30, verse 5.
