Good morning everyone, welcome to The Church Ministries Sunday Service, today will be our fourty third Service as we are approaching soon to our one year mark. The church has been building since August 27th, 2003 as we already have passed our one year mark on the internet, but our first Sunday Service was in December 2003. We all have been getting letters and emails from all over the world. And I wish to welcome everyone from every country all across the globe. We never thought we would get so many responses, and we praise God for all the search engines that have helped this church, making it so available to many. I wish we could be intimately closer to each and every home, apartment, village, or groups, or gatherings of Christian’s way deep into the jungle, forest, or desert somewhere in some distant land. We also know there are many groups deep within large cities sharing one computer with people explaining the Word amongst each other. We want to thank everyone for all their communication and feedback about The Church. We are just a part of the Body of Christ that is standing on bible truth and the Love and Fellowship of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our ambition still is to spread love throughout the world, and to share experiences of long suffering, so you do not have to go through the darkness alone. We are to amplify the Grace that God gives each and every one of us, and to share the history and prophecy of our beloved Jesus, and to contribute His teachings and His bread of life by way of the Holy Spirit, to all that want to live this life for God and reach into the next with eternal security. Our other outlook is to build faith through the knowledge of the scriptures with a deep devotion to please our Lord.
Dear Loving Father, We thank-you for hearing us, as we open another day of worship, we know it is hard to worship You without the singing and the playing of instruments, especially through a screen, but Father our Love and care is so open to You, that somehow we can express ourselves to You, with open hearts, with complete submission and praise, towards You. We want to be Your people and to follow Your regulations and Laws, to build a better bond of faith and friendship. We want to follow Your directions, and Your guidance in all that we say and do. We all want to be open to Your teachings, we know we can not get Your wisdom of importance from the world. That is why we gather together with other Christians to find learning within a combination of many groups of different hearts and minds, but with the same accord and focus to Love You in Spirit and in Truth. Please send the Spirit upon us all, please spread the anointing within all that read and hear this prayer and service dedicated to You and Your beloved Son. We need the Holy Spirit in us and around us, O’Lord. We all need you God, we can not do anything without You, even in this prayer we need You to lead us, and formulate the words that brings us to Your peace and Your grace. Please strengthen us this day, please heal all of us that need that special touch, please be close within us, and please be intimate with us. You are our God and our fortress; You are our all in all. Thank-You for listening to our cries of repentance, In Jesus Name, Amen
As we open the Book of Ruth we find this story of love, redemption, faith humility industry, the love of God and a principle point of layers leading to King David and to Jesus Christ. The fact is that Ruth was the great-grandmother of King David. We also find that the three main characters in this triangle relationship, point to the love between each other and the control of God, which we find a deeper meaning of the destiny and way of life throughout this book as a foothold to the way of a meaningful purpose of not running away from God when something bad strikes. Ruth’s name was derived from the Hebrew text meaning friendship. We also have to look at this book another way with a comparison of being also prophetic, looking at Ruth as being the Bride of Christ, and Boaz not just as the Kinsman-Redeemer in the story but also prophetically as Jesus Christ. Plus we have to look at Naomi not just a widow who became bitter, through all different tragedies, interwoven through the book but we also can look at her prophetically as the land of Israel. As the story unfolds we see a thin line of redemption running through the story with the hand of God working all things out for good to those who love him and turn to Him with the proper faith, prayer, and repentance, no matter what the circumstance. As the scene opens we understand the story falls into the timeline of just after the third chapter in Judges. We also are not sure of the author in this time frame which it was written we know the Judges falls somewhere in between 1400 B.C. and 1000 B.C. being Judges is about 400 years total, and the story of Ruth is about a ten year period setting near the beginning. Many scholars believe the book was written before the time of King David’s rein but we have to consider the genealogy at the end of the book having the name of King David listed. Others believe the book was written after Judges, and some also think that Samuel was the author, but there are evidences that say it was written after his death. What we can say the book of Ruth was a bridge in between the two books of Judges and Samuel. As we further look into the book of Ruth it takes place in a behind the scenes atmosphere of how the everyday people lived, while the wars and conquest go on and great leaders come and go, we find a normality of the common people interacting within all the turbulence of history. In summery of the book in many places we are feeding on simple agriculture, working and feeding on the land, a basic welfare system for the poor, simple labor and laws of land and family. It is a story about death and life, honor and dishonor, love and devotion, with care and compassion, families and marriages, a basic love story with the romance of redemption. The book of Ruth is a gentle story about King David’s great-grandmother and great-grandfather falling in love, and leading to the birthplace not to only King David, but the birthplace of the messiah. We also know that God is sending circumstances, because the nation of Israel was forsaking God and a famine was taking place, and some of the Hebrew culture were running further away, instead of turning to God, with submission, prayer, and redemption. Israel was rebelling against God, so God had to do what was just, trying to bring the nation closer to Him, and many became bitter, instead of having faith and becoming better. We also have facts that the book of Ruth could have been written earlier and that the names in the genealogy at the end were added by another person or scribe to include King David, this way the book could have been written right around the time frame of Judges and Samuel.
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. Ruth 1:1 NIV
As we open this story as we said before it is during the time of Judges around the end of the third chapter. With a new estimate time frame, we gathered of 1380 to 1050, still falling around 1400 to 1000 B.C. as we estimated above. Also these were basically the dark years of Israel, it seems the people just did what they wanted to do and went about the land doing what they thought was right. In comparison like now even as we go through dark hours there is still people that fully love, and are guided by God, with devotion and the right choice to follow His direction. As we read on we come to the realization that both Ruth and Naomi are wonderful examples of commitment, honor, loyalty, and friendship. It was also a dark time of apostasy and oppression. The judges that ruled were God’s servants who brought about the teachings of God’s law and righteousness but the time was very dark with political immorality. Moab was located east of the Dead Sea and it had a grain filled plateau between the Dead Sea and the eastern desert on both sides of the Arnon River. Much of eastern Moab was step land of uncultivated wasteland, which was not profitable for farming, but it was good grazing territory. The trip was only to be a temporary one, (sojourn). The Moabites were descendants of Lot which was a bad situation, remember the story after Sodom and Gomorra Lot took his two daughters to Zoar which means ‘little”, then they went to the mountains to live in a cave. The two daughters I would assume, thought the whole world was in the realm of destruction and they wanted to continue on with the family. They got their father drunk and each of them were with their father, and they both had children. Moab sounds like the Hebrew term meaning “from father” and Ben-ammi means “son of my people.” Now as we understand the reason for the famine and what we should all do, we should come to repentance and seek the Lord’s face and pray, not run away as the family of Naomi ran off to a distant land that God was against in the first place.
Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. Gen 19:30 NIV
Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father. The firstborn bore a son, and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day. As for the younger, she also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi; he is the father of the sons of Ammon to this day. Gen.19:36-38 NASB
"But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
" Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Deut. 28:15-16 NASB
"If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2Chr.7:13-14 NASB
The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. Ruth 1:2 NIV
Here as we just reach verse two, there is lot of introduction to this book, but we have to set the stage or the acts for this wonderful love story. As we all know this family left Bethlehem which sits in a county so to speak, or land area or region of Ephratah so any one from this area would be called Ephrathites. Plus we know that Bethlehem was the birthplace to King David and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now Elimelech's name which means “God is King” or My God is King, Naomi's name meant “sweetness”, or “pleasant”, and they had two sons which I guess were never healthy or out going sons, because the name Mahlon which turned out to be Ruth’s husband meant “sickly” or “weakling”, and then the other son which was the husband to Orpah his name meant “failing”, or “wasting away”. Now we also know that the move was only supposed to be temporary but Elimelech did sell the land before they left and there is a lot of stipulations to land during this time period on how they can get the land back if and when they returned. We will get to all of that as we get deeper into the story. We also have to realize there must have been a heavy famine just to leave and not listen to God, and to live in a hostile area of Moab. It was one of those nations that oppressed Israel during the period of judges so there was some sort of hostility between the two nations. And we also know that Israel already defeated Moab but there were still many different unfriendly attitudes
Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, Ruth 1:3-4 NIV
Here in verse three we find that Naomi’s husband dies, and this is where the beginning of the bitterness of Naomi begins, now in verse 4 we come upon one of the greatest controversies about marrying Moabites. In all the text and notes of all the bibles I deal with and I use about five to study with, they all say it was alright to marry, now let us go a bit deeper.
"When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.
"Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons.”For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. Deut.7:1-4 NASB
"Those of illegitimate birth and their descendants for ten generations may not be included in the assembly of the LORD.
"No Ammonites or Moabites, or any of their descendants for ten generations, may be included in the assembly of the LORD. These nations did not welcome you with food and water when you came out of Egypt. Instead, they tried to hire Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to curse you. (But the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam. He turned the intended curse into a blessing because the LORD your God loves you.) You must never, as long as you live, try to help the Ammonites or the Moabites in any way. Deut. 23:2-6 NLT
In those days I also saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, but the language of his own people. So I contended with them and cursed them and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. "Did not Solomon king of Israel sin regarding these things? Yet among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin. "Do we then hear about you that you have committed all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?" Neh. 13:23-27 NASB
As we gather all these scriptures together we can clearly see through the law of God, that marriages were forbidden and there is a lot of controversy within all the commentaries, plus the fact the Moabites did not help Israel when they left Egypt and weren’t hospitable and they tried to curse them with the hostile attempt of the hiring of Balaam. Moabites were not aloud to worship at the Tabernacle because they did not let the Israelites even to pass through their land during the Exodus. It is amazing all that is going on between the land of Israel and Moab, and God chose a woman, Ruth a Moabitess, to change things. And Ruth also ends up in the genealogy of Jesus in the book of Mathew.
both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. When she heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah. Ruth 1:5-7 NIV
This is a hard situation, Naomi’s sons die prematurely and we find three widows all together. Back in that day it was very hard for a widow to survive on their own, especially living in a strange land. This is where Naomi really gets bitter, she should not feel this way, but she was looking ahead and began to realize she really did not have any hope of a happy survival. Without here two son’s she had no chance or future of support, and she could not just go out and get a job like the widows of today. Now you had three widows together and Naomi wanted to go back to Judah. She has heard that things were going well for the harvesters, or the Lord provided food for them, “bread” or otherwise “house of bread”which is another name for Bethlehem. So she thought she would go there and make a go of it. So the three got ready to leave Moab and head for Judah and they began on the road that would lead them back, and Naomi started to think, and she figured her two daughters–in- law would have a better chance to stay and to go back to there own family’s from where they came from, because they both were from there. They were still young and she didn’t have any sons, and of course they could not wait for her to have any children for them to re-marry even if she had a son that day the two daughters would have to wait till the son was of proper age, to even keep the family line open and flowing.
Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go back, each of you, to your mother's home. May the LORD show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband."
Then she kissed them and they wept aloud and said to her, "We will go back with you to your people."
But Naomi said, "Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me-even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons- would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD's hand has gone out against me!" Ruth 1:8-13 NIV
There is a lot going on right now, which way should the two daughters go. Naomi is looking out for the both of them, and not really herself. Naomi would have a better chance of survival if the two daughters went with her as a family. There was always a chance that one or even both of them would re-marry and this way Naomi could again be apart of a family. So even though Naomi was getting very bitter, and was getting to old on top of it, plus she thought that the Lord was putting great pain upon her, she still was looking out for the two girls lives, and not her own. You also have to figure there was nothing worse than being a widow in the ancient world. Widows were pushed aside and ignored, they lived a life of poverty and many ended up in worse poverty as they grew even older. Plus God made special provisions for widows, any relative that was related to her husband could end up caring for her, but she knew she didn’t have any relatives in Moab, and she wasn’t even sure she had any that were alive in Israel. As we all know the law of the levirate marriage, she knew her husband did not have any brothers, if her husband did have a brother, it would be proper for the brother to marry her and take care of her. So she was in a bad corner of her life, all the laws that would help the widow were out of reach for now, but she still had that selfless attitude to have the two daughters stay in Moab. As the plot thickens we find out that Ruth is having second thoughts, and she realizes that she should go with Naomi, and the other daughter Orpah, ends up going back to Moab. Here now Ruth is making a stand, and giving up her life of security and a chance at having a new family in the area where she grew up, and it would be a lot easier for her in a land she was familiar with. But she had the right spirit and she chose to go with Naomi and to take care of her as she ventured into a foreign land.
At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.
"Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her." Ruth 1:14-15 NIV
As in these two scriptures Naomi is telling Ruth to go with her sister-in-law, more or less explaining to her this is your finale chance at a new life. Why would you want to come with me, and give up your chance of getting another husband? Ruth wanted to take care of Naomi, and go with her. For some reason Ruth probably having the spirit of the Lord in her to give her the selfless attitude with strength and direction to say and feel the things she is about to say in verse 16 and 17. Next she is actually being saved by grace for the statement she is about to give. She must have had some sort of inner blessing by God Himself, just to come out with the words she is going to speak next.
But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." Ruth 1:16-17
Defiantly strong words, and from the heart. These words are probably the strongest expression of personal commitment by one human being to another found anywhere in scripture. These words reveal the genuine spiritual decision and the whole character of Ruth’s determination to do what is right. How this determination gives her a true blessing that lies ahead into the future. This also shows us that our God will welcome anyone from any race or any culture who wants to worship and love Him. This also is an affirmation of faith in the Lord, the God of Israel. The words also declare a commitment to the Lord. Plus she is not only expressing herself to adhere to Naomi, but to also to her land, her people and her God. Ruth was giving up all she had to follow the one true God, which this whole concept is a lot like the faith and attitude that Abraham had, forsaking his land and family to follow the one true God. Many have an importance and affection for Christ, yet some fall short of salvation because they do not give up other things for Him. They love Him and leave Him because they do not love Him enough, and they love other things in this vast world more than Him. Ruth is an element of the true grace of God, and we all can see it very plan.
When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. Ruth 1:18
Naomi realized this was a true declaration, and she was definitely moved herself, and she knew she meant it, and that her words came through her from the heavens. So she knew not to even change her mind, because the expressions that were spoken were definitely divine.
So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, "Can this be Naomi?"
"Don't call me Naomi, " she told them. "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me."
So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. Ruth 1:19-22 NIV
As we know Mara meant bitterness, she did not want to be called sweetness, she felt all this bitterness came from the Lord, but we all have to understand when she left she had a family a husband and secure, and when she returned she looked different and she was a widow, lost her sons, and poor. She wanted to express her pain and bitterness. She was forgetting the relationship she had with God and Ruth. She now was a woman in great despair, but we all know by God’s grace that everything will have a change, and all things do work out for good to those who love God. She did not reject God she just was broken and wanted others to see her brokenness. We can not let bitterness and disappointments blind us from the light of God, God always welcomes us with our honesty and our prayers and relationships, even though we are suffering through some trial, or affliction. We also know that divine afflictions change into blessings. God always has a plan, we may not see it, but the two women entered into Bethlehem, surrounded by barley and wheat fields ready for the harvest, and plentiful olive groves. Remember this was the birth place of David and our savior Jesus Christ, so it was evident that they came back there, and it was a part of God’s plan. This whole move was no accident for Ruth and Naomi, it led to the fulfillment of scripture.
Dear Loving Father, How much do we all love You? Our hope is in You. Our hearts are open to You. Pease help us with our mistakes, we are at times falling, and You are always there to pick us up. We go through all different tests, and still we all, at times, don’t accept them properly. Please Father we want to remain close, and to rest on You, and call upon You through all our circumstances. We know you have a plan for each and every one of us, please build our faith into Your light, so we can all see Your greatness and splendor. We all want to escape from this world of bitterness and hidden secrets. Please help us to unfold our confusion, direct our thinking, and continue to hold us with Your righteous right hand. Thank-you for this Service, thank-you for this gathering, and thank-you for giving us the work that You want us to do, to expand Your Glory to the rest of Your people, to give them knowledge and insight to Your grace and love. In Jesus Name, Amen and Amen.
