the people do what appear good to their own eyes verse in ruth

"The Lord repay y'all for what you have done, and a full reward be given you past the Lord, the God of State of israel, under whose wings you take come up to take refuge!" Ruth 2:12

There are some architectural structures that cannot exist fully admired from a distance. At a distance we can only get a glimpse, merely in proximity nosotros tin can go a sense of the inventiveness and genius of the architect and the majesty and forcefulness of the structure. It is when standing nether some of these that nosotros are given a proper perspective of what has been accomplished.

Similarly, as Christians, it is but when we come to stand up beneath the sovereignty of God that we begin to understand and comprehend the immense majesty of God and His practiced and perfect will. Information technology is only when looking upwardly to God that we are given a proper perspective of our "size" - who nosotros are and what we do in the light of who God is and what He is doing.

The volume of Ruth helps requite united states of america such a perspective. It invites and draws us upwards close to the sovereignty of God. It beckons us to come rest and trust under the wings of God'south sovereignty.

JUDGES

The first verse of the book of the Ruth tells us that the story of Ruth takes place in the time of the Judges. The last verse in the book of Judges tells united states that during this fourth dimension in the history of Israel, "everyone did what was right in their own optics" (Judges 21:25). Here was a civilization in a day where anything went, where the only standard for doing anything was whether or non it seemed or felt right to the individual. It was a state absent-minded of the award and worship of God.

Only there was a household that was different, led by a man named Elimelech, which means "my God is king". His wife is Naomi, and together they live in, but then leave, a land where "everyone did what was right in their own eyes" -- a country seemingly absent of God. Then, "my God is King" dies, followed past the decease of Naomi's two sons. (Ruth 1:ane-5)

All effectually Naomi there is a lack of the boggling. There is an emptiness, a pain, a suffering, a dubiousness, a bitterness. There is an absenteeism of God. Or is there?

God is always before all. He is always backside the scenes. When all appears to exist lost; when all appears to exist spinning out of control; when all seems night; when all our prayers aren't answered; when all the miracles we hope for don't come; when all seems absent of God -- there, in the absence, is God.

We are a headline culture. Nosotros read headlines, not stories. The headlines help determine whether or non we will read further. But God writes stories. God draws His headlines out from His stories. Some stories are brusk, some are long. Some are riveting, some are ordinary. Ruth is a story, an ordinary story with an extraordinary ending. God is never absent.

RUTH

Over fourth dimension, Naomi returns to Bethlehem in State of israel (Ruth 1:19). She travels from absence to absenteeism, from emptiness to emptiness, except she has returned with God in disguise.

In the land "absent" of God, where everyone did what was right in their ain eyes, there was a story being written by the grace and mercy of God. The name of the story: Ruth. In contrast to a people pursuing their own desires, here was one who came to desire and to trust and take refuge in God. Like a pocket-sized bird nestling upward, close under the fly of the female parent bird, Ruth stands underneath and looks upwardly to God in the simplicity, however immensity of His sovereignty.

God is not absent subsequently all -- neither in the land of Israel nor in the life of Naomi. God is in disguise, working in unsuspected and surprising ways.

God is always doing something extraordinary through something ordinary. The ordinary things of life, like suffering and health, famine and enough, diligence and work, relationship and reputation, purity and sex, loyalty and integrity, are all ways through which God works. Those routines of life that we so oftentimes feel "stuck in" are not without purpose. God is "upwardly to something", always! God orchestrates all things personal and universal, the universal through the personal.

KINGS

The story of Ruth played a critical role betwixt the time periods of the judges and the kings -- between a time when "anybody did what was right in their ain optics" and Israel enervating a king for themselves and so they could exist similar all the other nations (1 Samuel 8:5).

Decades afterwards Ruth, nosotros read in i Samuel 8:7 of God speaking to the approximate and prophet Samuel regarding Israel'due south demand for a rex. God explicitly declares that Israel has rejected Him equally king, but gives Samuel permission to concord to their request. God is not absent, fifty-fifty in the midst of His people's rebellion. God is in disguise, even though He has been rejected.

In a short amount of time God will enhance up a king named David. But David will not announced out of nowhere. David has long been in the heed and heart of God. "A son has been built-in to Naomi." They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the begetter of David." (Ruth 4:17) Through the ordinary lives of Ruth and Boaz, God had been doing something boggling. While Ruth and Boaz went about matrimony and parenting, working and resting, getting upwards and going to bed -- living their ordinary lives -- God was doing something neither of them could ever take imagined. From them would come David, and from David would ultimately come Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God (Revelation 22:16).

God is always doing something tomorrow today, through faithful people and their actions. God always has a solution, an answer. There is always prove of God and His work and volition being done. Sometimes it is instant, sometimes it won't appear until decades or even centuries later. God accomplishes the daily and the eternal, the eternal through the daily.

A REDEEMER

In the end, Naomi saw the goodness and kindness of God towards her. What one time was a land and a dwelling house and a heart where it appeared God was absent, in reality, was a place where God was sovereignly and lovingly present. "Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his proper name be renowned in Israel!" (Ruth four:14).

As Christians, we must remember always that Jesus Christ is our neat Redeemer. He lives! In His sovereignty, God precluded all things from hindering, and enabled all things to work towards, the decease of Jesus Christ upon the cross (Acts 4:27). So long as we cling to that cross, then long as we await up to it, so long as we stand underneath it, so long every bit we live for information technology -- so long as we take refuge under the wings of God's sovereignty -- we can residual and trust that zero tin, nor e'er volition, terminate the want of God from being accomplished in and through us.

This mail service has been adapted from the sermon "Ruth: Under the wings of God'south sovereignty"

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Source: https://pastorjonev.typepad.com/jonathan-evans/2013/07/ruth-the-absence-of-god.html

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