Transcript
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Provides background on the Book of Ruth, its authorship, setting in Judges, and reads Ruth 1:1–5.
Speaker A
Sam, Here we are in Ruth, chapter one.Let me give a little bit of a background to the Book of Ruth, as I normally do whenever we start a new book.Just a few bullet points before we read and pray and dive into our study tonight.Ruth is the first of two books named after a woman, Ruth.And then the other book is a.
So this is a unique category here.She is a Gentile, as we will see in this story.And in particular, she is a Moabite.She lives in the land of Moab, or actually in Hebrew, it's pronounced with a v, Moab.And so she is not a Jew.
She is a Gentile.And as a descendant of the Moabites.We'll talk more about her lineage in a moment.The writer of this book is unknown.She's not the writer of this book.This book is about her.But the Jewish Talmud says that Samuel was the writer.The prophet Samuel was the writer of the Book of Ruth.But we don't know that for sure because the writer's not identified anywhere in this book.The location of these events that we're going to read through the Book of Luke is mainly Bethlehem.
They will.This family that we're gonna read about in the opening chapter takes a detour into Moab.But the story primarily takes place in Bethlehem, the time of events.The Book of Ruth fits somewhere early in the Book of Judges.If you glance real quickly in your Bibles at chapter one, verse one, it says now, it came to pass in the days when the Judges ruled.
So what that tells us is that the Book of Ruth fits somewhere into the Book of Judges that we just finished last week.And it is likely that it fits early in the Book of Judges because the Book of judges covers 400 years.And the reason why it likely fits early in the story of the Judges is because Ruth ends up marrying a guy by the name of Boaz.And Boaz's mother is Rahab.It's the same Rahab who was the prostitute in.
In Joshua.The Book of Joshua, chapter two.She gets saved.She becomes a proselyte to Judaism.She herself.Also, Rahab is a Gentile.Rahab is a prostitute.And God redeems her life.She becomes a proselyte to Judaism.She marries a Jew by the name of Boaz.
By the name of.No, she marries a Jew and has a son named Boaz.And then Boaz here is going to end up marrying Ruth.So we see here in where this story would be placed.It has to happen early in the Book of Judges because we got a reference to the book of Joshua.So it all ties together between Joshua and the Book of Judges.And so that's the background.I'm going to read the first five verses, we'll pray, and then we'll dive into our study together today and see how far we get, hopefully at least through.
Opens with prayer, examines the moral context of the Judges era, and explains the meanings of Elimelech, Naomi, Mahlon, and Chilion.
Speaker A
Through chapter one, it says this verse one.Now, it came to pass in the days when the Judges ruled that there was a famine in the land and a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah.
So Judah's like the.Think of it as like the county, the region.Bethlehem is the town.A certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to dwell in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.The name of the man was Elimelech.
The name of his wife was Naomi.And the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion.Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah.Ephrathah, by the way, is an ancient name for Bethlehem.So that's this region, that's the town that they're from.
It says, and they went to the country of Moab and remained there.Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died and she was left.And her two sons, now they took wives of the women of Moab.The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth.And they dwelt there about 10 years.
Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died.So the woman survived her two sons and her husband.Let's pause there and pray.Lord, we thank you for this time together in your word.And we pray this evening, as we open up this story of Ruth, that over the next several weeks, you will speak to our hearts through the pages of Scripture.
And, Lord, that you would use this story to just encourage us.Lord, we thank you for your grace.We thank you for your mercy.We thank you for a story of love and redemption.And we pray that this would speak to us even today.
We love you and we thank you in Jesus name.And everyone said Amen.So here we are now, coming to the Book of Ruth.It is very different from the Book of Judges.You remember that the Book of Judges was really characterized by that one verse that was repeated a few times in the Book of Judges.
In those days, there was no king.Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.In fact, if you just glance backwards, that's the way that the whole Book of Judges ended.The very last sentence of the very last chapter.In those days, there was no king in Israel.Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.So it was a period of time when there was no king.And again, the story of Ruth is inserted somewhere during that period, a period of time when, even though there was no earthly king, God was supposed to be their king, but the people did not acknowledge God as their king, and they were doing what was right in their own eyes.So as a result, there was this unrestrained behavior and there was this reckless morality throughout the nation of Israel at this particular time.But what we learn when we read the Book of Ruth is something encouraging, that while these things were happening in the foreground during this particular time, that is to say, these things being godlessness and reckless morality, while these things were happening in the foreground, there was another story that God was weaving in the background.
There was another story that was unknown until we read it here in the Book of Ruth, that God has determined to actually extrapolate from the time period or the frame of the period of the Book of Judges, so that it stands alone as a story that we can see all by itself that in the middle of this godlessness, this reckless morality, is a story about love and redemption.It is a story about love and redemption.And when we come here to chapter one, the first things that we are introduced to is a family and a famine.There is a family that is mentioned here, and we find out that there is a famine that is affecting their lives.And so, as God has chosen to separate this story out from the Book of Judges rather than, you know, I'm glad that he didn't give it to us in the middle of the Book of Judges, because it would have been like a downer and then an upper and another back to the downer.
Like, he took out this story all by itself so that we can see a wonderful story of love and redemption.We're introduced to this family here in the first five verses.The husband's name is Elimelech.His name in Hebrew is from two words, El, for the name of God.Melech is the Hebrew word for king.
His name together means my God is King.He is married to a woman.Her name is Naomi.Her name in Hebrew means pleasant or delightful.So these are two Jewish people here.This is a Jewish story.They get married and they have two sons.And they are mentioned here in this first chapter, verse two also.And their two sons don't have such wonderful names like mom and dad.Do you know here, dad is Elimelech.My God is king, and Naomi is pleasant or delightful.Son number one is Mahlon.His name means weak or sick.
Yeah.
Discusses Israel’s famine as divine discipline, maps the move to Moab, describes the sons’ marriages, and traces Moabite origins.
Speaker A
And his brother is no better.The second Son here, Kilion, his name, means tired or dying.I'm not making this up.So here you have these two boys, you know, sick and tired, right?
You know, I can just hear the two of them in unison, like, we're sick and tired, you know, and there's nothing to eat around here.Yeah, there's nothing to eat.Cause there's a famine.You know, we're down to celery and cheese whiz.So, like, please, God, do something.
And so they're complaining here about, you know, their conditions.There's a famine in Israel at this particular time.They are sick and tired.Now they have, you know, a famine going on.And it doesn't tell us in the passage how long the famine lasts, nor does it tell us how widespread the famine is.
What it does tell us is that it has contributed to hardship, obviously, for this family.And so in order to escape the famine, they've gone to the land of Moab.Now, here is a map just to kind of orient ourselves to where Moab is.So on the left side of the screen is Israel.You see Bethlehem.This is where this story mainly takes place.Bethlehem's about five miles south of Jerusalem, and Moab is the region east of the Dead Sea.So if you were to look at a map today, this would be the country of Jordan.This is where they are going to end up, going to escape the famine that is at least there in Bethlehem.Now, Bethlehem in Hebrew is from two Hebrew words, Beit Lechem, which means house of Bread.
And it was known as the house of Bread because wheat was harvested there.Thus the graphic design, by the way, of, you know, the wheat fields, because such great quantities of wheat was harvested there that they would make bread.It was like the bread basket of Israel at this time.So how ironic that at the place called the House of Bread, there was no bread.There was famine in the land.
And so this family affected by famine, they're starving to death.And, you know, the boys already have one foot in the grave.You know, they're sick and tired.You know, like, they're almost already there.We're going to see here, you know, in the rest of the story that they do end up dying, but they go to the land of Moab to escape this famine.
Now, the Bible tells us that oftentimes when famine would strike the land of Israel, it was as not because of natural disasters necessarily.A lot of times it was because of God's correction that God would actually withhold the rain as an indication of his displeasure and his desire to correct the people.And he would use famine to.To accomplish that.The Bible says in Ezekiel 14, verse 13, Listen, Ezekiel 14:13, Son of man, if a country sins against me by being unfaithful, I will stretch out my hand against it to cut off its food supply and send famine upon it.
So God clearly says to the prophet Ezekiel there in Ezekiel 14:13, that oftentimes famine came upon the land because it was God's corrective hand.And that explains exactly the spiritual climate and condition of the people of Israel during the period of the Judges.Because if you've been with us through the period of the Judges, our Bible study, they had that cycle of sin.They would follow after God.Then they would start to worship the pagan gods of the nations around them.God would send the nations around them as a disciplinary action to correct them.Then they'd cry out under their hardships to God.God would raise up a judge, a military leader.Then they would get right with God again and they'd have a time of peace.So there was this time, this cycle through the period of the Judges where the people were not living for God.
There was.There was periods of times when they would.But there was a great number of years when they wouldn't.And God would bring his disciplinary action upon them to correct them, to turn them towards Him.Look, God will still sometimes bring discipline to our own lives through difficulties, sometimes through hardships.That isn't to blame.Every single difficulty that you've encountered on, you know, God is just trying to correct you.Okay?There are some things that happen in our lives just because we live in a fallen world and it has nothing to do with disciplinary action from God.But there are times when in order to get our attention, God will bring difficulties.He will allow hardships to come into our lives to correct us, to get us to the place where we are at the bottom of ourselves so that we will finally look to him and, and God.
God will use good things and difficult things to bring us to a place of surrender, a place of humility, a place of contrition.And so, you know, as you look at your own life, you could probably look at different times when you realize, yeah, there was a period of time in my life where I wasn't right with God and man.He put the squeeze on and got my attention in a quick way.So God will do this from time to time.
And the Bible says that he will sometimes use famine to bring that kind of correction to his people.And that's likely what he was doing here at this particular time with the nation of Israel.And so the scene here is Bethlehem, this family.And because of this famine, they leave Bethlehem for a time, it says, for 10 years there in verse four.And they go to the land of Moab.And when they go to the land of Moab, the two boys, sick and tired, they end up married.Two Moabite women.One is named Orpah.Her name means fawn or gazelle.And the other one, that they marry, the other son marries Ruth.Now, in Hebrew, her name is pronounced without the th sound.It's pronounced root, almost like the root of a tree.That's how her name is pronounced.Root.And her name translates friendship.
It's a beautiful name.It translates friendship.So sick and tired.Mary, gazelle and friendship.All right.
But dad dies.And not too long thereafter, sick and tired die, too.And so now you have these three women who were left as widows.You have Naomi, kind of the matriarch of this small little family here with her two daughters in law, Orpah and Ruth.And so verse six, then she, that's Naomi, arose with her daughters in law that she might return from the country of Moab.
For she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had visited his people by giving them bread.So you know, she's in Moab, but she's hearing back home in Bethlehem, the famine is over and God has brought bread again.And so verse 7.Therefore she went out from the place where she was and her two daughters in law with her.And they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.
And Naomi said to her two daughters in law, go, return each to her mother's house.The Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me, the Lord grant that you may find rest each in the house of her husband.And so she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept.And they said to her, surely we will return with you to your people.Now remember, they are Moabites.Orpah and Ruth.Let me tell you a little bit about the Moabites.The Moabites were children of incest.
If you remember the story in Genesis 19 about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot and his family was the only righteous family within Sodom and Gomorrah.And God spared Lot and his family, sent a couple of angels, and one in particular who would literally take them by the hand and escort them out of Sodom and Gomorrah before God destroyed those twin cities and brought judgment upon those twin cities because of their sexual Sin, their sexual immorality.Lot and his two daughters and his wife escape.You know the story about how Lot's wife turned back, looked with longing.She was turned into a pillar of salt.So Lot just went on with his two daughters, and Mrs.Lot did not join them.She was left as a pillar of salt.But this weird thing happens, okay?In those days, a woman who was without a husband and thus childless often fell upon hard times and ended up in poverty.
Because in those cultures, women were very dependent upon a man to provide for them.When the daughters of Lot left Sodom and Gomorrah with their father, it is believed that they thought that seeing as Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, there were no other men, which wasn't true.But they're thinking, you know, where are we going to find a husband?So the Bible says that they do a very despicable thing.They get their father drunk.
That's not the despicable part of it, per se.They get their father drunk, and the one daughter sleeps with her father, commits incest with him.She gets pregnant.Then later, the next daughter does it also.She gets pregnant.
And the children born to the one daughter, the son born to the one daughter is named Ben Ammi.And from that boy's descendants come the Ammonites.The other son born to the other daughter who had sexual relations with her father, Lot, was named Moab.The Moabites are descendants of an incestuous relationship.So you have to understand this because this heritage has everything to do with the background of Ruth and Orpah.And in particular, we're going to see Ruth, because this is a wonderful story of love and redemption, of God's grace, and how God can take a life with a bad and tragic heritage, no fault of Ruth's, and make it into a wonderful story of redemption.So, you know, the rest of this story is yet to be told, and you'll see it unfold as we make our way through the Book of Ruth.But they're Moabites.
Details Naomi’s plan to return to Bethlehem, Orpah’s farewell, and Ruth’s heartfelt pledge to remain with Naomi.
Speaker A
Moabites, again, not Jewish.They're gentile.They're heathen.They're so heathen.The principal God of the Moabites was a God by the name of Chemosh.Chemosh is mentioned in the Bible, and part of the worship of Chemosh was child sacrifice as a result of the Moabites being descendants of an incestuous relationship and the fact that they also practiced the worship of child sacrifice.The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 23, verse 3, that no Moabite was ever allowed into the house of the Lord from the time a Moabite was identified down to 10 generations following.
God even put a restriction on the Moabites even being allowed in the temple court area, let alone in the temple itself.It couldn't get in there because they were Gentiles.But no Moabite could come near the temple of the Lord down to the 10th generation.So these were a people who were very ostracized.These were people who were considered very inferior in terms of their relationship to the Jewish people.
They had obviously a very tainted past as a people, as a group.Again, no fault of their own.It's just what happened, you know, as a result of their heritage, their ancestry coming from this incestuous relationship between Lot and one of his daughters.And so that's the background.And you need to understand that because the redemption is that much more wonderful when you know how tainted the background is.
And, and so Naomi is urging her daughters in law, don't go with me to Bethlehem.You're from the land of Moab.These are your people.You worship your gods here, stay here.You're better off here than going with me.
And so that's, that's what she urges them.And so she kissed them, they lifted up their voices, they wept.Verse 10.And they said to her, surely we will return with you to your people.But Naomi said, turn back, my daughters.
Why will you go with me?Are there still sons in my womb that they may be your husbands?Like, you know, she's like, it's not like I'm going to be able to find a husband myself and have children.I'm getting up there in age now because she's already had two full grown children who got married, two full grown sons.So she's like, it's not like I can repeat this over again.And, and then the age difference for you marrying my future son, it's like, this isn't going to happen.So why are you following me?She says, verse 12, turn back, my daughters, go, for I am too old to have a husband.If I should say I have hope.If I should have a husband tonight and should also bear sons, would you wait for them till they were grown?
Like this isn't even feasible here.Would you restrain yourselves from having husbands?You know, in other words, would you refuse to get married because you're waiting for me to have birth to boys who can grow up and marry you?Like this isn't even, this isn't even feasible.She says, no, my daughters, now look for it.Grieves me very much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.Now hear her words there.I'm going to read that same statement from the Niv.The Niv, she says it this way.It is more bitter for me than for you.
Because the Lord's hand has gone out against me.Now, both translations end the same way.New King James that I'm reading from says, the Lord's hand has gone out against me.Niv says, the Lord's hand has gone out against me.But New King James, she says there at the beginning, grieves me very much for your sake.But Niv picks up on a word in the Hebrew and Niv translated, saying that it is more bitter for me than for you.We're going to see here as this chapter unfolds, that bitterness marks Naomi's life.I don't say that to judge her.I just say that as a matter of fact and by out of her own mouth, she's going to even want to be renamed because of her own bitterness of soul.So this is the first glimpse of it.
She's like, you know, you girls stay back.You're better off here.I can't give birth again and find a husband and have kids and wait for them to grow up, for you to marry them.You go back, it grieves me for you.Or again Niv, it's more bitter for me than it is for you.The Lord's hand is against me.Now look, there are a lot of people who get into difficult situations.And no doubt her life is in a difficult place.Place.She's lost her husband, she's lost her two sons.
So we should have compassion for her.I mean, she's in a very bad place.But unfortunately, what happens is when people get in a very bad place, they automatically think that God is against me.And that just simply isn't always the case.And you should not jump to that conclusion.
If you're in a place yourself where you have been going through hardship and difficulty, don't jump to the place where you think God's out to get me.God's hand is against me.No, because look, God is going to accomplish something wonderful in this story.You can't draw the conclusion by making the assumption that God is just out to get me.And so his hand is against me.
Now let's keep reading here.Verse 14.Then they lifted up their voices and wept again.And Orpah kissed her mother in law.But Ruth clung to her.
I heard a sermon once that was Entitled Kissers and Cleavers.Some people will kiss you and turn their back on you and leave you.That's what Orpah did.And other people will cleave to you.There's a difference between friends.
Some are kissers, some are cleavers.Judas was a kisser.
There are some people in your lives who will just.They will kiss you and they will leave you.They are not loyal to you.They're not a true friend.But Ruth, she clung to Naomi.
So Orpah leaves and she ends up having a very lucrative business.You know, media kind of guru with her own talk show.
Actually, that's Oprah.But a true little tidbit of fact that you may not know that I heard Oprah one time say that her mother named her Orpah out of this story.But when the birth certificate was typed up, it was misspelled and the P was put in front of the R. And instead of it being Orpah, her name was Oprah.But that's free information for you.But anyway, so she goes off to become this media sensation with her own talk show.And Ruth, on the other hand, clings to her and verse 15.And she said, this is Naomi speaking.Look, your sister in law has gone back to her people and to her gods, see, again, because she's a Moabitess, return after your sister in law, like, go do what she does.And then Ruth says these famous words that are sometimes quoted at weddings and sometimes they're like, you know, stitched on, you know, quilts and pillows and stuff and cards.
And here's what she says.
It's very dear what Ruth says to her mother in law.She says, entreat me not to leave you.And this often is used in terms of what a wife says to a husband at a wedding ceremony.But entreat me not to leave you or to turn back from following after you.For wherever you go, I will go.
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge.Your people shall be my people and your God, my God.Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried.The Lord do so to me.And more also, if anything but death parts you and me.
Just a wonderful statement that she makes there, saying, I'm not turning back, I'm going with you.
Covers Naomi’s renaming as Mara, analysis of her bitterness, related lament psalms, and the contrast between blaming God and trusting Him.
Speaker A
And I want to know your God.I want to live in your land.I want to know your people and be with your people.And let nothing separate me from you except death.And so she makes this very heartfelt promise to her.And so verse 10 says, when or verse, sorry, verse 18 says that when she saw.That's when Naomi saw that she, Ruth, was determined to go with her.She stopped speaking to her.Now, that doesn't mean, like, she gave her the silent treatment.It just means that she.Like she had nothing more to say.It's like, well, shut my mouth.I mean, what can I say to that?You just given this beautiful little speech there in a few sentences.I have nothing to add.How can I say anything?So verse 19.Now, the two of them went until they came to Bethlehem.
And it happened that when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was excited because of them.And the women said, is this Naomi?Now, remember, she's been gone for 10 years.So they're not sure exactly is this Naomi?But she said, now notice we're going to kind of crack open Naomi's heart here.Look what's inside.
But she said to them, do not call me Naomi.Call me Mara.Now look at your footnotes in your Bible right there, because most of your Bibles have a little footnote.What does Mara mean?Bitter.
Bitter.It says, do not call me Naomi.
Naomi means pleasant, delightful.Call me bitter.Because that's what she's feeling, that's in her heart for the Almighty.Notice, the Almighty God has dealt very bitterly with me.I went out full, you know, I left here 10 years ago full.Which isn't true, right?She left there in a famine.
I went out full.And the Lord has brought me home again empty.Why do you call me Naomi?Since the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has afflicted me.Now, look, there's a lot in there.
She basically says, God has ruined my life.
She says I'm bitter.Call me bitter, Ammara.She says, the Lord Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.
I've come home empty.The Lord has testified against me.The Almighty has afflicted me.Five different things she says about her personal condition.By the way, when she says there in verse 21, I went out full and the Lord has brought me home again empty.
Why didn't she say, the Lord sent me out full and I have come home empty?Why has she reversed it?I went out full.Because that isn't true.The Lord has brought me home empty.If she really thought she left full, why doesn't she think God caused her to leave Bethlehem full?That she came back empty?She's putting this burden on God because here's what it reveals.It reveals she believes in the sovereignty of God only as it relates to bad things in her life.
And there are some people like that, and maybe you have even struggled with that.You're here in this Bible study tonight, and you know, when bad things happen, you attribute it to God.Like you believe in his sovereignty, but only as it relates to bad things.Because this bad thing has happened in my life, so it must be God.Well, what about the good things?
Like, do you ever really think that God is maybe doing the good things in your life?You know, why all of a sudden are you tipping the balance to say the bad things are from God?But I'm not sure about the good things.The good things maybe is what I do.So her theology is being presented here now.Again, I say this with compassion for somebody who's been through horrible time.She's lost her husband, her two sons, she has no home, she has no food, she has no money, she has no hope, okay?When you lose all of that, you're desperate.And the truth is not to be cute about it, but the truth is people are like chocolate.Some are sweet, some people are semi sweet, and some people are downright bitter.
Naomi is bitter.
She has come to a place in her life where she is blaming God for her hardships.And she's having a hard time seeing anything good right now.And this is not unique to her.Just put your finger there, if you would, in Ruth, and go quickly to Psalms.
I'm going to read a couple of Psalms with you.Go to Psalms chapter 13.Psalms chapter 13.
David had something to say about the bitterness of his soul too.So it's okay.You know, when people go through difficulties, you can pour it out to God.He's not shocked by it.He can take our emotions.
Psalm 13.Just look at the first two verses.David says, how long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?You ever felt like that?How long will you hide your face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?How long will my enemy be exalted over me?Go a couple more chapters to Psalm 22.Psalm 22.
This is also David.Psalm 22, first two verses.My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?Does that sound familiar?Who quoted that?
Jesus quoted it from the cross because he was feeling in that moment when he took on our sin, though he had committed no sin.He felt felt this estrangement from the Father.My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?Why are you so far from helping me?And from the words of my groaning.
Oh, my God.I cry in the daytime, but you do not hear.And in the night, season and Am not silent.Go over one more Place.Psalm 77.
Psalm 77.This is a Psalm of Asaph.Look at verses 7, 8, and 9, verse 7.Will the Lord cast off forever, and will he be favorable?No more?
Has his mercy ceased forever?Has his promise failed forevermore?Has God forgotten to be gracious?Has he in anger shut up his tender mercies?
And so back here in the Book of Ruth, I share those psalms with you just as examples of the fact that a lot of people have been in a bad place.And it's okay to.
Applies lessons on response to hardship, shares Corrie Ten Boom’s encouragement, and closes with a prayer for trust over bitterness.
Speaker A
To let your emotions be known to God, like, he can handle it.You know, when we have.When we're disappointed, when we're crushed in life, when we are discouraged and we feel hopeless, like, it's okay to cry out to the Lord and to even say those things that we wrestle with, like, where are you, Lord, in the midst of my suffering?
Have you shut up heaven from me?Like, I don't even know if you hear.And, okay, he can handle our emotions.But what I want to say to all of us is this, that we don't always have control over a lot of things that happen in life.And by the way, we get ourselves in trouble when we try to control everything, because we feel safety in that, don't we?If I can just control this and control that, and then we realize how little in life we really can control.Okay, so Naomi had, like, zero control.Like, the famine that came.She couldn't control that.She goes to Moab with her husband and her two sons.
The three of them die while she's there.She has no control over that.She's homeless.She doesn't have food, she doesn't have money.I mean, she has practically zero control.
So when life begins to happen to us in ways that are overwhelming and discouraging and hard, the one thing that you have control over, that I have control over, is not what happens to us in the course of life, but our response to it.
Okay, somebody coined this phrase, not me.My response is my responsibility.
And every single one of us need to grab hold of that.Because while we have very little control over the things that happen in the course of life, the one thing we can control is our response to it.And you can choose to either blame God for everything, get mad, or you can pour out your heart to God and say, God, I don't understand this.This is overwhelming.Sometimes I feel like you're not there, and then just be honest with your raw emotion.
But then to say, but God, but I trust you in the Midst of what I'm going through.And that's key, because those are two very different approaches to life.One is I'm mad at God and God's doing this.It's his hand upon me.And he's made my life bitter and this.And.And then you just become bitter with it.Or you say this has happened.I don't understand it.I'm crying out to God because he's the only one I can turn to.
And my trust is in you.And I don't get it, but I'm going to lean on you and not my own understandings.I'm going to trust you, God, in the midst of this.And maybe one day, this side of heaven or not, maybe until I get to heaven, I'll understand it.But even if I don't, you're still on the throne.I love you.I'm going to serve you, I'm going to honor you, and I'm going to live my life for your glory.That's the choices we have.That's the choice.
And unfortunately, because people don't opt for the latter, there are people who just end up very bitter in life.Call them Mara, like that's their name.And they even want to be known that way.And it's tragic.It's very, very tragic.
Corrie Ten Boom.I'll close with this and then we'll pray.Corrie Ten Boom, who spent time in Nazi prison camp, from the depths of Nazi death camp.She said this quote.No matter how deep our darkness, he, the Lord is deeper still.
That's our Lord.Father, help us in our times of hopelessness not to get bitter.
Help us, Lord, instead to turn to you.
It's okay, Lord, because we see throughout the Psalms, people can let their emotions be known to you.You're a big God.You can handle our emotions, our fears, our worries, our.Our anger, our frustration, our disappointments.But our prayer, Lord, is that the hopelessness or the devastating things that happen will not turn us into bitter people.
But we will trust you in the midst of it.We don't necessarily have to make sense of it, but we trust you in the midst of it.Because no matter how deep our darkness, you are deeper still.So we look to you, Lord.Where else do we have to go?
We don't want to be bitter people, Lord.And I pray right now for those who are hearing this Bible study.They've wrestled with some bitterness in their hearts.
And, Lord, probably no fault of their own, just the circumstances of life that have overwhelmed them.
Lord, would you help them please, would you help them to come to a place where they can at least say, lord, I trust you.I don't get it.I don't understand it.But I'm going to trust you.Take my heart of bitterness, Lord.
Soften it.Invade my heart with your presence, so that the peace that passes all understanding will guard my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus.Your peace.
You know what I've been through, Lord?You see the heartache.You see all that I've been through.I just lay it at your feet, Jesus, and I pray.Help me, Lord.
Help me, Lord.
We look to you, we trust you and we thank you in Jesus name.And everybody said amen.