Turmoil Turns to Triumph - Ruth

 Ruth 1:1-5 (ESV)

In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

The above story is not the same as the story of Job, but the outcomes are the same.  In Job we have the back story of Satan wanting to entice Job to curse God.   Satan failed, although Job ended up going through a significant time of doubt and despair.  Job lost everything but his wife.  Naomi lost everything.  We have no back story as in the Job account. We have no idea what was happening in the spiritual realm of Naomi’s life.  We do know, from later in the book, that Naomi is not in a good spot spiritually.  The book of Ruth is as much about Naomi finding her faith in God again, as it is in Ruth being woven into the fabric of Israel’s history.   She will eventually become the great-great-grand mother to King David.   These stories in the Bible give us great understanding of the tapestry of our lives in conjunction with God’s sovereign plan.   There is nothing insignificant in these stories.   God put Ruth right were God wanted her through the turmoil of Naomi’s life.  Why?  We have no idea.  All we know is that as Paul stated to Romans centuries later, all things that God does work out for the good that God intended:

Romans 8:28 (ESV)

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Falsely Accused - Genesis 36-39

 Genesis 39:11-20 (ESV)

But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house. And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house, she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled and got out of the house.” Then she laid up his garment by her until his master came home, and she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to laugh at me. But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment beside me and fled out of the house.”

As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger was kindled. And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison.

One of the worst situations to deal with in life is a false accusation.   When people accuse you of something and you have no way to defend yourself.   What compounds the matter is that by even defending yourself you give legitimacy to their accusation.  In the above story we read about Joesph’s challenge.  We don’t have a lot of the story.  We don’t know if Joesph had a chance to defend himself.  It probably wound not make a difference to Potiphar.   His wife tried to seduction Joseph, but Joseph’s character to live holy before God was not something she could handle.  That rejection caused her to make a false claim.   What do we do when we are falsely accused?  There is much in this story to give us in regard to that question.  We do see that God was with Joseph in this situation.  Later we will realize why God allowed it, however. In the account of this struggle for Joseph, we read he was placed in the “place where the king’s prisoners were confined.”  This is significant because this is where God would later send the baker and the cupbearer of the king.   This would be the connection God would use to get Joseph before Pharaoh.  God used the evilness of Potiphar’s wife to arrange for His servant Joesph to be placed in a Prisiazny to meet someone God needed Joseph to meet.   Could God have accomplished this another way?  Of course.   But, like Daniel, Mordecai, and other servants of God, God sometimes chooses prisons, lion’s dens and the facing of the gallows to put us in the place of His design.   Daniel was falsely accused of not be loyal to the king.   Mordecai was accused of leading a rebellion against the king.   Later, the Apostle Paul would be falsely accused of stirring up an uprising against Rome and be lead in shackles and chains to Rome to see appear before Caesar ... the very place God wanted him to preach the Gospel.   As believers we need to start accepting that God moves us where He wants us and where He needs us to be by whatever circumstances He wants to use to get us to that spot for His glory.   To better glorify Him in all things we need to accept that God will use the wicked accusations of the world, for His glory and His purpose.   We may not like the process, but in each of these men of God the outcome was glorious for God.   Think of those in the Bible who had false accusations made against them:

1. Joseph - Genesis 39

2. Daniel - Daniel 6

3. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego - Daniele 3

4. Mordecai - Esther 3

5. Paul - Acts 22-28

6. Jeremiah - Jeremiah 26, 37-38, 43

7. Elijah - 1 Kings 18

8. Amos - Amos 7

9. Nehemiah - Nehemiah 6-8

10. Job - Job 1:9,10 & 2:4,5

11. Jesus - Gospels 

12. Stephen - Acts 6-7

 Matthew 5:11-12 (ESV)

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Preaching the Gospel - 1 Corinthians 1-2

 1 Corinthians 1:17 (ESV)

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

I have read this passages for years in my yearly reading through the Bible.  Up until today I did not see the many references to how God’s Word is to be preached.  There are some wonderful truths that those to preach/teach God’s Word should observe.  Those who listen each Sunday to God’s Word being preached out to pray these verses over the teaching ministry of their Church:

MONDAY - Preaching the Gospel is the speaking the Power of God:

1 Corinthians 1:18 (ESV)

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

TUESDAY - Preaching the Gospel folly to the world 

1 Corinthians 1:21-23 (ESV)

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,

WEDNESDAY - Preaching the Gospel is out of weakness of self

1 Corinthians 1:26-27 (ESV)

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;

THURSDAY - Preaching the Gospel requires a humble heart

1 Corinthians 1:28-29 (ESV)

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

FRIDAY - Preaching the Gospel is not enhanced by fancy talk

1 Corinthians 2:3-4 (ESV)

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

SATURDAY - Preaching the Gospel is not done in human wisdom but in the wisdom of the Spirit

1 Corinthians 2:12-13 (ESV)

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

SUNDAY - Preaching of the Gospel based upon eloquent speech will hinder the power of God

1 Corinthians 1:17 (ESV)

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Pray to Avoid Hypocrisy - Matthew 23-25

 Matthew 23:2-4 (ESV)

“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

Perhaps the worst thing in life is to be a hypocrite who not only deceives themselves but also leads others astray.   Below are the seven WOES that Jesus warns His disciples about concerning the hypocrisy of the religious leaders that day.  We should make  these part of our weekly prayer life and pray over ourselves and our church leaders that we and they don’t become this.  The alliterations behind each day of the week are from John MacArthur’s commentary on Matthew.  He does a great job at giving us one word to describe the “woe.”   Read more of his material on these woes in “MacArthur New Testament Commentary-Matthew.” 

MONDAY- Exclusion (MacArthur)

Matthew 23:13 (ESV)

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

TUESDAY-Subversion 

Matthew 23:15 (ESV)

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

WEDNESDAY-Perversion

Matthew 23:16-22 (ESV)

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

THURSDAY-Inversion 

Matthew 23:23-24 (ESV)

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

FRIDAY-Extortion (self indulgence)

Matthew 23:25-26 (ESV)

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

SATURDAY-Contamination 

Matthew 23:27-28 (ESV)

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

SUNDAY-Pretension 

Matthew 23:29-33 (ESV)

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

God Does Not Forget Us! - Isaiah 45-50

 Isaiah 49:14-16 (ESV)

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;

my Lord has forgotten me.”

“Can a woman forget her nursing child,

that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?

Even these may forget,

yet I will not forget you.

Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

your walls are continually before me.

God will not forget you.    Think of how many people you have known, meet or even had some type of relationship with at one time or another.   Do you remember them all?   Today our electronic devices have ways to show past pictures of events in our lives.  Randomly the device will pop of a picture of some event and there you are at some place or even with some person or some people.  It causes you to remember that moment.  Yet, you may not.   Or, you may, but vaguely.   The other day my computer screen saver was showing pictures from my photo album.  There was a picture of me standing by a guard in Alcatraz prison when we went there almost 15 years ago.  I have no idea who the guy is.   Later I saw a picture of my wife and I at the farthest southern tip of the continental USA, in Key West, Florida.  We took a picture of couple we only meet briefly.   I have no idea who they were, are now.   We so easily forget people.  People so easily forget us.   But, God does not forget us.   God can’t forget us.   He promises to write our name in the palm of His hand.   This is such a reassuring thought.   People come and go.  Relationships foster and end.   But, the relationship we have with God in right in His hands, daily.  

John 10:28, 29 (ESV)

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

We are known by God and He establishes a long lasting and never ending relationship with us:

Hebrews 8:10-12 (ESV)

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel

after those days, declares the Lord:

I will put my laws into their minds,

and write them on their hearts,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people.

And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor

and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’

for they shall all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest.

For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,

and I will remember their sins no more.”

God will never forget us.  We might forget someone in our past that was even significant.   But, God knows and will remember the most insignificant parts of our lives.  

Psalms 139:2 (ESV)

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

Counsel with Love and Grace - Job 18-19

 Job 19:5-6 (ESV)

If indeed you magnify yourselves against me

and make my disgrace an argument against me,

know then that God has put me in the wrong

and closed his net about me.

In the previous chapter, 18, one of Job’s friends, has once again condemned job.  Note Bildad’s words to suffering Job:

Job 18:4-6 (ESV)

You who tear yourself in your anger,

shall the earth be forsaken for you,

or the rock be removed out of its place?

“Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out,

and the flame of his fire does not shine.

The light is dark in his tent,

and his lamp above him is put out.

Bildad goes on and on in chapter 18 about the plight of the wicked and their utter destruction.   He is not showing any mercy, empathy or regard for Job’s plight.  He is simply say, “Job, you sinned and now you pay.”    

In the above passage from chapter 19, Job begins his response.   He has to respond.   He believes that he has been wronged by God.  He believes his life was on the right path and he has done nothing to deserve all this sorrow in his life.  Of course, Job is wrong.  There is no injustice with God:

Romans 9:14-15 (ESV)

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

No, the issue here with Job is that his comforters have become tormentors because they have moved from being those who were sent to console and encourage to someone who would correct and condemn.   Perhaps the hardest issue in coming along someone is remaining in the former and avoiding the latter.   To stay as the one who brings relief vs rebuke is one of the hardest balances of those who counsel.  There is, of course, a time for judgment and condemnation of actions.  But, Job’s situation was not the time.  We know, based upon the first two chapters, that Job did not do wrong.  A narrative Job’s three friends had not heard.  But, Job was trying to tell them about his situation and they made the immediate pivot from the one who consoles to the one who condemns.  They had no mercy for Job.  They were not using Job’s situation to introduce God’s mercy and grace into Job’s life.  They were using the situations to point out Job’s failures.   Job’s argument is as equally wrong.  God was NOT unjust.   But, Job has been driven to defend because his therapist has refused to consider that Job’s original argument was legit.   Job keeps telling them that he is innocent (Job 1-2).  They keep telling him he is guilty.   This drives Job to defend and, eventually, develop bad doctrine to believe.   Allowing the sins and faults and failures of others to bring us into a bad place is a danger for anyone who sees his brother fail and attempts to help them out of their plight:

Galatians 6:1-2 (ESV)

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

The “law of Christ” is to love unconditionally.  

Fear the Lord - the Benefits are Amazing - Psalms 24-26

 Psalms 25:11-15 (ESV)

11 For your name's sake, O LORD,

pardon my guilt, for it is great.

12 Who is the man who fears the LORD?

Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.

13 His soul shall abide in well-being,

and his offspring shall inherit the land.

14 The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him,

and he makes known to them his covenant.

15 My eyes are ever toward the LORD,

for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

In Psalm 25 we read a prayer about the man who pursues God and want s to walk in integrity with God.   The writer, David, states right from the beginning that he wants to lift his soul toward God, seek protection from his enemies and pursue God’s paths.   In the above passage we read him write about what it is like in this life if we turn from sin and turn toward God to fear the Lord.   By doing so, note the benefits God gives us:

1. (vs. 12b) - The man that fears the Lord will be instructed by the Lord in the way he should choose to walk.  This is such a refreshing truth for those who are trying to navigate life and seek God’s will.   When we truly turn from sin (vs 11) and turn to God to fear Him (vs 12a), God gives him instruction on choices.   This is a OT version of the truth in Romans 12:1-2.  

2.  (vs. 13a) - The man that fears the Lord will abide in well being. The Hebrew word for “well-being” is “tob.”   It is used over 500 times in the Old Testament.  The first time it was used was in Genesis 1 when God say the light and said it was “good.”  So, the word has a wide meaning but in our language today it would mean prosperous (which is how the NIV translates the word).   Those that fear the Lord have some type of “tob” life and that is always characterized as a good thing.   

3. (vs. 13b) - The man that fears the Lord will be assured that his offspring will also have some time of “tob.”  David writes they will “inherit the land.”  This probably has some restrictions on obedience.   David’s son Solomon certainly is an example of “tob” after David’s death.  However, David’s son Absalom did not.   

4. (vs. 14) - The man that fears the Lord will have an intimacy with the Lord, to the extent that God will give him divine revelation and make Himself known to him.   Note the same promise from the book of Hebrews:

Hebrews 8:10-12 (ESV)

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel

after those days, declares the Lord:

I will put my laws into their minds,

and write them on their hearts,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people.

And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor

and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’

for they shall all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest.

For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,

and I will remember their sins no more.”

5. (vs. 15) - The man that fears the Lord will be kept from harm because His eyes on the Lord. That enables God to pluck him from the traps and nets of the world.  When we are looking in the wrong place our feet will end up in the wrong steps.   When we are looking straight at the Lord we can be assured our steps are on a safe path. 

Fear the Lord - God benefits us when we do.