What Can God Do with Your Brokenness?: Ruth 1:1-22

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, Goodburen, good evening, good night, Hello, Hello, greetings, greetings, salutations. Yes, we come in peace. You know what else can eat you out? So, hey, we are the Bible Guys. We appreciate you tuning in, and we're asking that if you like us, share us with your friends on Facebook or send, you know, forward to somebody, Share with somebody. Yeah, give us five stars, leave a comment. Yeah, yeah, help us out in some way. Yes, that'd be great, not for. Our own sake, but rather for people who perhaps could benefit and hopefully. And it helps us too. We're grateful, so thank you. Well, Hey, we have a really important segment today, Chris. This is this is one of my favorite. If you think about the importance of this segment, super important. Yeah, it's it's it makes a difference, be as it matters. So Desiree wrote, we haven't tested Chris on his movie knowledge in a while. Yeah, so let's see how fast he can tell us what movie these quotes are from. The Fast is the part that makes me nervous. Our listeners will play along and if they beat him, they'll win a thousand points. So again, once again she's being extremely generous. Yes, just willy nilly handing out points now at this point, at this juncture in the in the gaily. So if you can beat Chris, you get a thousand points for every time you beat him. I have six six movie quotes, so that they have a potential, okay of winning six thousand points. In adding that which our longtime listeners know, the extreme value of the points were given away. Yes, so I'm mentally storm up preparing for this. Go ahead, here we go. Here's the first one. Yes, I am serious, and don't call me Shirley. Playing good ones. It's easy. Here's very easy. Okay. By the way, it was like nineteen seventy seven, so you have to be pretty old to catch that one. I'm just a regular guy with a regular job. I got nothing special about me. I'm just an average guy. I think that's Vince Vaughn who said that? Is it? Is it the breakup? Nope, but I do think it's Vince Vaughn. Say it again, please, I'm just a regular guy with a regular job. I got nothing special about me. I'm just an average guy. I can picture Vince. It's a movie classic. I could picture Vince Vaughn saying this. Maybe one of his most important characters. Oh is it? Is it? Dodgeball? Yes? Yes, I think you got it? You got it? Yes, But you were digging deep. Well I was. I was trying to think of all the classic Vince Vaughn movies. Yes, and uh, but for some reason, I was thinking serious movies. I was thinking, uh, the couple's retreat. I was thinking breakup. I don't know why. Okay, yeah, all. Right, well, hey, you left the door open for somebody a thousand points there. Somebody was screaming right now at the at the dodgeball. That's right. Okay, here's another one. So it's a short, short one. Okay, here we go. It's not a tumor. Oh, kindergarten cop. It's great. It's such a great. Okay. I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is for his gump. Okay, there you paused. Yeah, yeah, trying to fish. Yeah, people could got out after the last two. What love is there? You go. I'm in a glass case, glass case of emotion. Man, I'm in a glass case of emotion. It was one of the best lines of the whole thing. He's in the in the phone booth, yes, yes, yeah, and he drinks the milk and he goes milk was such a bad choice. It's running out his beard. It's so good. A queen is never late. Everyone else is simply early. Oh, Princess Diaris two. Yes, its just Diaries too. Because you looked at the Royal Engagement. Yes, you looked at me funny, so it wasn't really. Too Yes, it was according to Desiree, which she's never wrong. By the way. The Princess Diaries Too. Royal Engagement is where that court set up the door open for about three thousand points. I think so too. Yeah. I hope some of our listeners just really rack them up, save them. There's going to be a day, Yeah, there's gonna be a day when you're gonna bring your fifty thousand points in and cash them in for some amazing, amazing experiences. And you have to you have to prove. You have to prove. So you're keeping logs. Maybe maybe maybe send an email to Dez and ask for a receipt, Yeah, like a. Checking cheese print out for David. Give tickets. You're gonna get these big rolls of. Tickets to walk into our story. What can I get for fifty thousand points these chicklets? Right, not a handshake, but not including the erasers. That's a great that's a movie. That's a movie. Quote too, you worked it, You worked the chucky cheese I did? I did? Yeah? Yes, did you pass out prizes? No? I was? I was. I was the rat. You were chucky? Yeah, I was chucky. Yeah. And I was a cook too, and I worked the game room too and clean up. But I but I never I never did. I never did the prize. Did the prizes? No? Yeah, they know you'd be hooking all your friends up with prizes. So well, to be honest, I want a confession. I have a couple of seconds here. Okay, So back in the day before you used to put your tickets in a machine. Now they have a ticket machine counter that gobbles your tickets up right. Well, back in the day, you would bring them up to the desk and they would literally physically count them and then throw them in the trash can. So at the end of the end, there's like a five gallon trash can, right, So at the end of like the month, you would have this massive, massive trash can ten thousand tickets. So it was my job to take the trash out. So I bagged this up and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm like, there's like a like a bag with like all these tickets. You couldn't imagine how big this bag was. Now, I didn't have any intention of using them, but I just thought, I'm going to save these for like a prank or something. I actual, I promise I didn't, but I remember opening my trunk. I had a huge Chevelle, so massive trunk you fit like at least six bodies back there. And I opened it up the trunk and I threw this huge U trash bag full of tickets. Okay, and then I did it again, and then I did it again. I had three massive amounts of these tickets, and my goal was to play a prank on my youth pastor, to fill his office with these tickets. Right. And then all of a sudden, one day, as I was working in the game room, all of a sudden, a worker comes running into the game room and goes, did you hear? And I I said, what, there's this lady that has come in with buckets? And buckets and buckets and buckets of tickets and she just dumps them on the calendar and they're pre she actually counted them by one hundred, and she wrapped them up with electrical tape and she just dumps all these bricks down and she's like, she's buying out the entire store. She's like, everything expensive. I want that, I want that, I want that, and she literally cleared out the entire store. I'm like, what is going on. I'm like, really, yeah, she said, she's been saving up for like ten years. I'm like, are you kidding me? I turned the corner and it's my mom. My mom, without asking me, had gone into my trunk. You have such a weird life, Chris. Had seen these tickets. Your mom's hustling chucky. Yes, my mom who brought my two nieces, Erica and Ashley, and brought it there and said, honey, what do you want and just literally bought out you know, they had drones for like ten and tickets or whatever. And she's like, I want that, I want that, I want that. She brought up the entire store and she literally. Didn't even tell me wow. And then and then and then finally I was like, do not say that you're my relative. Do not say because I'll get fired immediately, right, And then Eric and Asher come up to me. They're like six years old, Uncle Chris. I'm like, do not do not come this way. Well, I think the lesson we learned there is that you probably never actually had a career in working for brinks trucks, taking up money, drop the money off at the at the banks, and stuff like that. I didn't intend to take it I just was keeping it in my trunk for a while. I was, I was, I was, I was not planning on using it. Okay, wow, yes, what a story there it is. There you go, there, you go, well, there you go. Okay, Well, through the stories of all the judges, and we're not finished with the Judges yet, but through the stories. We're finished the Book of Judges. Right right there is a kind of a moment where we pause and they tell the story of some people who lived during the time of the Judges. They're not judges, but the people who lived during a story. And it's one of the most beautiful stories. It's ultimately a picture of Jesus in our lives and a key relative of King David yes, and Jesus, so it's. Kind of neat. Here's what it says in the Book of Ruth, chapter one. It says, in the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem and Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him. The man's name was a Limelech, and his wife's name was Naomi. Their two sons were Malan and Killion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in the land of Judah, and when they reached Moab they settled there. Then Alimelech died and Naomi was left with her two sons. The two sons married Moabite women, one married a woman named Orpah and the other a woman named Ruth. But about ten years later, both Malan and Killian died. This left Naomi alone without her two sons or her husband. Then Naomi heard and Moab that the Lord had blessed us people in Judah by giving them good crops again. So Naomi and her daughters in law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland with her two daughters in law. She set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah. But on the way, Naomi said to her two daughters in law, go back to your mother's homes, and may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage. And then she kissed them goodbye, and they all broke down and wept. No, they said, we want to go with you to your people, but Naomi replied, why should you go on with me? Can I still give birth to other sons who would grow to be your husband's Nope, my daughters, return to your parents' homes, for I'm too old to marry again. And even if it were possible, and if I were to marry tonight and bear sons, then what would you wait for them to grow up and refuse to marry someone else. No, of course not, my daughters. Things are far more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord himself has raised his fist against me. And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother in law goodbye, but Ruth clung tightly to Naomi. Look, Naomi said her mother, your sister in law, has gone back to her people and to her gods. You should do the same. But Ruth replied, don't ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my god. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us. When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more. So the two of them continued on their journey. When they came to Bethlehem, the entire town was excited by their arrival. Is it really Naomi, the women asked, don't call me Naomi. She responded, instead, call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me home empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has caused me to suffer? The Almighty has sent such tragedy upon me. So Naomi returned from. Moe, I have accompanied by her daughter in law, Ruth, the young Moabite woman, and they arrived in Bethlehem in late spring at the beginning of the barley Harvest. Yeah, you're right about that. It is super beautiful. Yeah. You know when whenever I hear the story, I have a tendency to cry because the statement that has made in verse number sixteen. You know, wherever you go, I will go, wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people. You're got to be my god. Wherever you die, I will die and I'll be buried. I mean that is a statement there, buddy. Yeah, what loyalty? Yeah, and with love, right, and you know, just to be able to love somebody like that who started off not being your family. It is it is. I know that my mind always goes to movies, but it is every great movie scene ever, you know, where somebody says, go and you know, go and sacrifice your ship, you know, just go and you know, save yourselves. Right, abandoned ship. We're not going anywhere, captain, right, We're with you to the bitter end. That kind of thing. And h But this is this is even better because it's a true story. And I was noticing here that Moab is east of the Dead Sea and Bethlehem is west of the Dead sea and uh and and these two were actually sort of rivaled enemies and and so it says that they were called affray Lites. Was it Epthites from Bethlehem and uh? And I noticed that the Life Application Study Bible says the reason why they were called Eprithytes is because Frath was an earlier name for Bethlehem. Didn't know that. I didn't know that. Yeah. And it also said that the people of Moab oppressed the people of Bethlhem, which means that there was a tension between those two people, which means that the famine must have been quite severe in order for those people to have even been together in the first place. Yeah, wow, isn't that crazy? Yeah, there's a note here also that mentions that friendly relations with the Moabites were discouraged in Deuteronomy chapter two, but they probably weren't forbidden because the Mobiites lived outside of the Promised Land, right, so it would have been okay maybe legally to go, but practically they were Essentially they were antagonistic towards each other. Also, in the law, the Moabites were not allowed to worship in the tabernacle because they had made difficulty for the people of Israel. They were before they'd crossed over the Promised Land. And so this is a group that is not on best terms with God or with Israel. But it's interesting. The note says this. The note says, what's interesting is ironically it was Ruth, a Moabite whom God used as an example of genuine spiritual character. This shows just how bleak life had become an Israel during those days. An interesting. So this Mobiite woman, and I mentioned that this is going to be you know, the story of Ruth is a story of Jesus and in us. It's really a beautiful picture. Eventually Ruth becomes a part of Jesus family, which is really incredible. But she's a but she yeah, but she's a Moabite woman. And so it's a really incredible story. You know, it's it's an amazing thing when you think about the lineage of Jesus, and you would expect, you know, when when Jesus was born and when you know, what is it Matthew and is it Luke who lays up the lineages. Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke. You would expect when you read the lineage, Uh, you know, for that to be prepared, you know, and and and recorded so accurately. You would think that there'd be like a proud heritage, you know, with this great intention, with you know, spirituality and and you know, perfection and all these different things, you know, and they related to this righteous person, this righteous person and uh. And yet you have you know, uh, people in there that were you know, imperfect people. You had people in there that were you know, great people. But at the same time, they were you know, people who were absolutely wasn't Rayhab, wasn't Rahab included? Yeah, Rahab the harlot, right, So she's a harlot and she's included. So so you have these people who are you know, not necessarily defined by you know, living their entire lives with this you know, perfect reputation. Uh. And they're all in there. And then yeah, and a mobike named Ruth. Well, the thing that sets her apart and the thing that set Rahab apart was both of them chose the God of Israel. That's right, right, and and for her You're God will be my God, which is just really incredible. There's a note here Ruth was a Moabite, but that didn't stop her from worshiping the True God, nor did it stop God from accepting her worship and blessing her greatly, which is just a really you know, they're not the only the Jews, aren't the only people who loved God right, even though they were His chosen people. And so she comes to God and goes, hey, I want to worship the True God. And you know, so let's talk to us a little bit about It's kind of an odd thing that Naomi says. So Naomi turns to these young women. They're all all three widows. Naomi decides she's going to go back to Bethlehem, and the young women start off to go with them or go with her. It was an incredibly difficult life to be a widow with no husband. In those days. There was no social network. It's not like they had bank accounts. The social roles were very separate between men and women, and so the difficulty of living without having a man to protect and often to do the physical labor, it's hard, especially the older that you would get, the more difficult staying alive, was plowing, having to fight off the robbers, all those kinds of things, and so oftentimes single women would be abused by strong, bad men. So it would make sense that maybe three widows would cluster together and we'll work together, and we'll share the load and the financial responsibility together. That would make sense. But at the same time, Naomi looks at these two young women and say, You've got a lot of life ahead of you. I'm an old. Woman, I'm not likely to ever marry again, I'm probably barren, I'm never gonna have another child. So why don't you just go home? Just go home, meet some nice boy. I'm going to release you from any kind of responsibility you feel. I think that's a really noble thing that she's trying to do for these young women, because she could look at these two young women maybe as her soul safety net, right, and instead of taking advantage of them, she was willing to maybe suffer a little bit and let them go be free and try to build a life. And she loved them. Yeah, But she mentions the thing here, She says, what am I going to have more sons so that you can marry them? And that's a really creepy thing in our culture, our time today, really, So I'm gonna have a son. Now you're going to wait twenty years so you can marry him. That's kind of weird. But what she's referring to there is there was a custom in their day, a law among the Jews that a brother was responsible to take the widow of his brother into his home and provide for her and take care. That was the social thing. And so if you read that, and it seems weird what she's saying, she's not talking about pedophilia. She's talking about this law that required that a brother would provide for the widow of his own brother, right, right, that does you're talking about, And so she's being absurd. She's not suggesting it, she's being absurd about it. And she could have been in their absurdity not suggesting that they marry under his children, but like, but even even referring to a grown man, Hey, what are younna do? Way till he's thirty, right, which is what she's talking about, right, because. She's saying she's saying, it's absurd to even consider staying with me, because there's it doesn't make any sense. That's what she's really trying to say. Yeah, she's like saying, this is how absurd it is, right, right, that's that's what she's saying. And what it did is it kept a widow from living the rest of her life in poverty because this man would come in and with the wealth of the household, take care provide, he'd provide security and safety for her. And then also depending on whether he married her or not, this this kinsman redeemer thing, the lineage of the brother that died would not end either. Right, So that's it's it's just a it's an interesting thing, but it could be culturally, it can be a weird thing to read if you don't understand that part of it. So then I think it's just you know, Ruth goes, your God is gonna be my God. I'm going to live where you live. I'm not lee loyalty. There's not enough can be said about that kind of loyalty and commitment to another person. It's really phenomenal. But then the sadness that is in Naomi. She even changes her name when she gets home, and it goes, I just feel, you know, my life has been so hard. I left secure and I'm returning with nothing. I left with all my hopes and dreams and I'm coming back with nothing. And she kind of had lost sight. I think of all of the relationships that she had, the resources she had in her relationship with Ruth and with God, and you know, I think maybe some of our listeners have lived such a hard life and struggled with this bitterness. But God makes a really beautiful story out of this brokenness, and that's what we're going to see here. So hopefully, even if you feel like you're in a bitter time today, lean into God and God will provide as he does in the rest of the story. So I'm looking forward to unpacking the rest of it. Sounds great, all right, We'll see you next time, hopefully for that on the Bible, guys,