Preparations for Redemption

Introduction

Preparations for redemption begin when we …

Reject what is good, true, and beautiful

Trust ourselves instead of God

Encounter adversity or crises

I. Reject What is Good, True, and Beautiful (Judges 2:10, 17:6, Ruth 1:1)

A. The Historical Background

Verse 1 tells us this account takes place in the days when the judges governed.

How did this happen?

Chronologically, Judges takes place after the first six books of Scripture (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua).

God had established His covenant with Israel.

Israel flourished under the direction of Joseph in Egypt.

When the people were later oppressed and put into slavery, God heard their cries and raised up Moses to lead His people out of Egypt.

God promised that His people would inherit the ‘promised land,’ but they complained and doubted. As a result, God sentenced the Israelites to 40 years in the wilderness until the unbelieving generation had died off.

Yet, God never left the people. He continued to move in their midst.

Deuteronomy 29:5–6 NASB95

5 “I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot. 6 “You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink, in order that you might know that I am the Lord your God.

Eventually, Israel would enter the ‘promised land,’ but they still refused to obey God. So, God promised the foreign peoples would become thorns in their sides.

How did a people who had seen God move so mightily come to actively rebel against Him?

The answer can be found in Judges 2:10:

Judges 2:10 NASB95

10 All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.

The people had failed equip the next generation.

Fathers had failed to assume their responsibility as spiritual leaders.

Parents had failed to strive for nothing more than to be a faithful link in the generational chain, passing down that which is good, true, and beautiful.

Children had no personal relationship with God. They were walking in the shadow of their parents’ faith.

What is the result?

The answer can be found in Judges 17:6:

Judges 17:6 NASB95

6 In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.

What were those days like?

Anarchy

The Times — violence and evil practices persisted

The Nation — a physical famine persisted

The People — a spiritual famine persisted

B. When a people reject God, the situation is not hopeless. Instead, God can use it as preparation for redemption.

When you read through Judges, you will see a common theme:

The people reject God (that which is good, true, and beautiful), serve other gods, and practice evil.

God delivers His people into the hands of their enemies.

The punishment becomes to great to bear.

The people cry out to God.

God raises up an individual who is faithfully different to rescue His people.

The people serve God in peace.

The cycle repeats.

Judges 2:16–19 NASB95

16 Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them. 17 Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do as their fathers. 18 When the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. 19 But it came about when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them; they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways.

The purpose wasn’t the punishment. The purpose was repentance and restoration. God wasn’t leaving His children alone, He was intimately involved in their lives in the most painful way.

Why?

Because God has a tremendous love for His disobedient children and a disobedient world.

Sometimes children wish that their parents would just leave them alone. They think they would rather have absent parents than to endure discipline.

But fear of discipline lasts only for a moment.

A child’s greatest fear is abandonment. A child’s greatest fear is having no one who loved them enough to intervene.

C. We serve a loving God who will always intervene. And even though His intervention is often painful, it is always with the loving purpose of preparing us for redemption.

II. Trust Ourselves Instead of God (Ruth 1:1-2, 4)

If God is perfect, then His will is perfect. So what happens when we go against His perfect will, when we trust ourselves instead of trusting God?

A. Famine

There is a famine in the land, both physical and spiritual.

Scripture tells us God uses famines as evidence that His people have sinned against Him.

It was because of the physical famine that Elimelech wanted to leave Israel. It was because of the spiritual famine in his own life that he actually did.

Left what God had given them — Bethlehem (House of Bread)

Escaped to a foreign land — the land of Moab, a people God specifically tells Israel to stay away from (Deut. 23)

Scripture tells us Elimelech sojourned there. In other words, they visited with the intention of returning.

Why?

Moab had lots of jobs, the economy was strong, better schools, better governing officials, etc.

The sons take Moabite wives — they departed from their faith being unequally yoked

Elimelech tried to solve his problems apart from God. He was trying to use a band-aid to heal a deeply infected body. If he was following God, he would have never led his family there in the first place.

B. When we trust ourselves instead of trusting God, the situation is not hopeless. Instead, God can use our poor choices as preparations for redemption.

We see examples of people trusting themselves instead of God all throughout Scripture

Abram lying about Sarai

Abraham and Hagar

Moses striking the rock instead of speaking to it

Elimelech and Moab

Jonah and Nineveh

Each of these situations was sinful. Each of these situations had consequences.

None of these situations prevented God from accomplishing His purpose and bringing glory and honor to Himself in the process.

God has a perfect will for your life.

Our responsibility is to listen for what that will is.

What school does He want me to go to?

What career path does He want me to pursue?

What man or woman does He want me to marry?

What way does He want me to serve?

And we find we often don’t listen to God. We don’t trust that His way is good and perfect, so we forge our own path and it causes nothing but problems.

But God is able to take our imperfect (and often sinful) choices and shape His perfect will around them.

This doesn’t mean we should do whatever we want because God will work it all out in the end.

Romans 6:1–2 NASB95

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

Even if we don’t understand it, it’s far easier and better for us to listen to God from the beginning.

But when we sin in our walk with Him, recognize that God can use the consequences as preparations for redemption that brings glory and honor to His perfect might and power.

III. Encounter Adversity or Crises (Ruth 1:3, 5)

A. When unimaginable situations arise — a family in turmoil

Naomi felt the effects of famine, has been moved to a foreign land, her husband dies, both of her sons die, and she is not only left a widow, but a widow seemingly without hope.

When a woman’s husband died, the responsibility to care for her fell to the sons. But they both died too, and to top it all off neither of them had children.

She is now part of the lowest, most disadvantaged group of people, living in a foreign land with no family.

Why did this happen? Was it God’s judgement?

There is evidence in the text, and throughout Scripture, to suggest this was God’s judgement on Elimelech and his sons, but we don’t know for sure. Even if it was, who has to deal with the consequences presently? Naomi and her daughters-in-law!

In Naomi’s eyes, God has forsaken her. Ruth and Orpah probably feel similar. And so doubt, and a million questions, and the intense emotions of grief come crashing in.

Why are they dealing with this?

You may be asking similar questions:

I don’t understand the struggles I’m experiencing in my life.

I don’t understand the financial strain that seems to grip my family.

I don’t understand why a loved one was taken from me suddenly.

I don’t understand why my children whom I loved and tried to raise faithfully want nothing to do with me or with God.

Why is this happening, I don’t understand!

Neither do I. But what I do understand, and what I know to be true, is that in the midst of circumstances we can’t wrap our minds around, God is preparing for redemption.

Why

B. Because that is what our God is in the business of doing. When we face adversity or crises, we know that God uses those situations, no matter how dark they may seem, for the good of those who love Him.

Not all adversity and crises are orchestrated by God. But all adversity and crises are used by God for our good, and to demonstrate His unfailing love.

Romans 8:28 NASB95

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

How God chooses to do that, I cannot answer. We may never fully recognize it here in this life.

I have a friend who just lost her husband in a tragic accident. No way to prepare, completely unexpected.

I called her to pray with her and you know what the first thing out of her mouth was?

“I just want his funeral to be a testament of the life that is found only in Jesus Christ.”

Only someone with a hope firmly rooted in Jesus Christ could respond with peace like that in the midst of turmoil. Preparations for redemption.

Here is a woman who is certainly dealing with intense emotions. A woman who likely has many questions. A woman who is uncertain of what her future now holds. But a woman who understood that in the midst of adversity and crises, God could use her husband’s life as a testimony to her family and friends, preparing their hearts for redemption.

Conclusion

And here is the beauty of it all.

When people reject God, it grieves His heart. It grieves His heart to see the people He created go through pain of their own creation, but He allows it to prepare the way for redemption because He loves them and desires that no one should perish. If it means letting a nation reach rock bottom so that they have nowhere else to turn but to Him, He will allow it.

When His children, the people of Israel and Christians, follow their own will over His, it grieves His heart. It grieves His heart to see them make their life hard instead of simply trusting His process. But He can use our sinful actions and choices to prepare for redemption so that He can be glorified when His perfect plan is still fulfilled.

When God’s children, the people of Israel and Christians, experience the pain and suffering and trials of this world, it grieves His heart. But He allows it because He is able to work all things for the good of those who love Him, preparing for redemption.

Throughout the Book of Ruth, you will see God take an incestuous relationship, disobedient people, a widow, the lonely, a foreigner, the jobless, the homeless, the displaced, the hopeless, and many more sins and sufferings, to bring about preparations for the ultimate redemption: the person of Jesus Christ.

Will you allow yourself to be defined by the sin that once gripped your life?

Will you allow yourself to be defined by your disobedience?

Will you allow yourself to be defined by the sufferings you have experienced?

Or will you accept the way God has been preparing you for redemption?

Will you allow Him to perfectly redeem these areas of your life?

And will you allow Him to use you so that through your life, He may prepare the hearts of those around you for redemption?

Let’s pray.