The Past, Present and the Future: Can You See It All?

Mention that director of our nursery program, Angie Lawhorn, would like to meet with all of the nursery workers and volunteers, immediately following service for a couple of minutes in the nursery.

Pray for the families involved in the El Paso shooting yesterday. (At least 20 killed and 26 injured.

Open with describing the events that took place in the 1st chapter of Ruth.

I am so blessed and honored to have one of my older sisters here this morning in the house with us. The last time that she was here, everyone got to witness Lisa’s water baptism. Who knows, maybe today, she and everyone else in the house, may get to witness people being baptised in the Holy Spirit! AMEN?!!!

Anyway, in talking about my sister, I wanted to mention of how, around 4 years ago, she got really into researching our family’s genealogy.

You know, with the advent of the internet and the computer age that we live in, the sky is the limit as to what you can research and find out about these days!

So, I was very intrigued and interested as she began to reveal to me the details about our family and our heritage and where and what we have came from; on both sides of our family!

It’s amazing as you begin to piece together details of your past and that of your lineage.

Probably one of the more k

And even when I could take a very introspective look at my family’s past and see who was who and where they came from, I still didn’t see anything that screamed out at me, “That is why you are the way you are and that is why you have become who you have become!”

In other words, my family’s history may have factored into my genetics and the way that I look and sound, but they most definitely don’t determine who I am as a person and why and what I have become today!

You know like finding out that you are

Do you understand what I am saying?

And this is the very thing that I want to share with you this morning.

Even though you can see your past and maybe your family’s past from generations back, you still cannot see your future and you are not bound to a future based upon the past.

Let’s do something really crazy this morning and let’s use details from the Bible as a reference point for the message! What do you say?

Let’s look back at the figures in the account of Ruth and within that first chapter that I just talked about.

Do you think that any of the characters involved in that opening chapter had a clue as to the future that awaited them, based upon the current circumstances they were in?

Take for instance Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth.

Do you think she could have possibly seen, or had a clue about her future, when she marries a guy with a name like, Elimelech?

Think about, as I have emphatically stated before, in the Jewish and middle eastern culture, the name given to someone, was very important and said a lot about them.

Elimelech’s name literally meant, “God is King”!

So, if you are an Israelite woman, living in Bethlehem and you marry a man with the name that means, “God is King”, wouldn’t you feel pretty good about your future within the promised land of Jehovah?!!

Do you think that Naomi would have ever guessed that she would end up moving into a gentile, pagan territory, because there was a great famine in the promised land, and in Bethlehem, the “house of bread” at that?!

I don’t think she saw that one coming!

And what about her two two sons and they future that they held?

Do you think that their names, the names which Naomi and Elimelech picked for them, should have shed any satirical light on their future?

The oldest son’s name was Mahlon, and his name meant, “Man Of Sickness”!

The younger son’s name was Kilion, and it meant, “to come to an end”!

So, when these two young men met their soon-to-be wives, do you think that these young ladies maybe had a question as to their futures with these men?

Act like you are Mahlon introducing yourself to Ruth.

“Hi, my name is Mahlon!”

“Hi Mahlon, my name is Ruth. Tell me, what does your name mean Mahlon?”

“Oh, well, it means, ‘Man of sickness!”

“Ooooooh, OK, ‘man of sickness’. That’s really nice!”

“Well, there was a great famine in our land and so we were

Do you see what I mean, even knowing this, do you really think that Ruth had a clue as to the future that lie before her?

Do you think that Naomi would have ever dreamt that her husband was going to die so suddenly and then within 10 years, both of her sons, who had married young ladies from a pagan nation, would die off and leave her stranded in this pagan nation, with these two pagan girls?

Probably not!

Only then to find out that the Lord God had restored the crops to the nation of Israel and that she could return to her homeland again!

When Naomi (which means “pleasant”), left Bethlehem, she was blessed with a full family and under the covering of a husband and a provider.

When, however, she found out that she was able to return home, she had, at that point, already lost her husband and both sons (which basically meant for a woman in that day and age and culture, that she was out of luck, out of a home possibly and out of provisions for a future), and thus, she was in a bad place!

For this reason, upon her return to Bethlehem and upon all of the local women coming to greet her, Naomi said that she had changed her name from Naomi (pleasant), to Mara (which meant “bitter”)!

She left a blessed and content woman and she returned a broken and empty and “bitter” woman!

Have any of you ever had circumstances in life, that just seemed to go from bad to worse and that left you feeling broken and empty and bitter?

Sure, I think that most of us can relate to this in some shape, form or fashion, right?

And the timing of the return of Naomi and her one daughter in law, Ruth, to Bethlehem, was impeccable! She returns to the “house of bread” (Bethlehem), right at the beginning of the barley harvest season, which would have also been right at the time of the Passover celebration in Israel.

A time when the all of the men were to come and participate with their families in this mandatory celebration/remembrance of what Yahweh had done in freeing the nation of Israel from bondage and slavery!

And here is Naomi, broken, without a covering (that is, without a husband any sons to carry on the name and assume the father’s land and inheritance). She was probably a wreck and the only thing that she was remembering at this point was the way that things used to be, before the famine hit the land and when she was still a wife and a mother of two sons and she was covered and protected and had a home and provisions!

You know how that feels don’t you, when it seems that everything good and decent and beautiful in your life has either been destroyed or stolen or hi-jacked?

And all that you can do, is wallow in the anguish and hurt and think of how things used to be! (START SINGING THE SONG, “THE WAY WE WERE”)

You know, truth be told, because we are in fact, such finite creatures, that is, we are bound in and by the constraints of time and space, we can only see a very limited piece of what is going on around us.

Even having the written Torah and the history of creation and the Exodus account and the Law, as directly given by God to Moses and Moses to the people of Israel, none of them really had a clue as to what God was doing and what His grand design was to look like for mankind.

Think about this for a minute:

Do you think that anyone, including Adam and Eve, truly had a clue what God meant or what His plan was going to look like for some future time period, when He said to the devil in , “I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; HE shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel”?

Cursed are you more than all cattle,

And more than every beast of the field;

No, no one really knew or understood, what that phrase meant and even hundreds and thousands of years later, when prophets spoke and gave some clarity as to the coming Messiah, the people were still in the dark as to what this meant and what it would look like.

On your belly you will goAnd dust you will eat All the days of your life; And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

And dust you will eat

This being evident by the fact that they didn’t realize or recognize Jesus once He was here and walking amongst the people.

Even when He was going to the cross, the people still didn’t make the connection between God’s promise to the devil about the ONE that would come from the seed of Eve and who would CRUSH the head of the enemy!

All the days of your life; And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Do you think that Abraham really understood the full meaning behind the covenantal agreement between he and God, when the Lord said, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice”?

15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Do you think that Abraham really understood the full meaning behind the covenantal agreement between he and God, when the Lord said, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice”?

Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

No, the realization of this didn’t come until after the fact, thousands of years later, as Paul mentions about it in , where he states, “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one,"And to your Seed,"who is Christ.”

He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

When God gave the Mosaic Law to the people of Israel and all of the celebrations and feasts and the sacrifices and tabernacle and temple implementations and the Aaronic priesthood and the amazing amounts of detail for each law and ordinance, do you think that anyone truly understood what they were for?

And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Did anyone pick up on the fact that all of the annual feasts were actually prophetic observances and timeline indicators and that each time the people partook of them, they were pointing, not to a season or a festival, but to a savior and a king?!

Did any of the priests or any of the prophets who were entrusted with the oracles of God, ever connect the blood of the passover lamb and the blood of sacrificial lamb that was sprinkled upon the mercy seat once a year on the Day of Atonement, to that of the Messiah and the One true Lamb of God?

Did any of the people of the nation of Israel, ever understand or make the connection as to why they had to depend, DAILY, upon God and feed upon the manna that God alone provided for them during their 40 years in the desert?

And that there was never a surplus of the manna, but rather, it was something that they HAD to pursue DAILY, for their physical sustenance!

Do you think that any of them at that time, ever made the connection, that their physical dependency upon God during the natural, physical wilderness time of their lives, was actually pointing to a future time and period, where the children of God would again be dependent upon Him, but not for the physical manna of the wilderness that they ate, but rather for the TRUE BREAD of Heaven.

And thus in our DAILY lives as well as in our spiritual wilderness times (our trying times that we go through), we would have to pursue and gather and feed our spirit and soul, not upon the manna of the past as they did, but rather upon the True Bread of Life that has come down from Heaven, which is Jesus the Christ!

As Jesus, Himself said in , “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world. I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”

You see, throughout the Bible and ever the since of the fall of mankind in the garden of Eden, God has been working and moving things in accordance to and in line with His perfect and sovereign will.

And because we are not God and we can only see in very finite periods of time, we can’t perceive and understand the mind and the thoughts of an infinite and omniscient creator!

The prophet Isaiah wrote, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”

The Psalmist wrote, "O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me...Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?"

John 3:17 NLT

God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

And again, in ,

Psalm 147:4–5 NASB95PARA

He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them. Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite.

Here is the point, we see and understand things in the world around us, based upon perception and evidence.

God exists outside of physical matter and time and space. He neither needs, nor wants us to PROVE His existence. He is a BIG God and He doesn’t need for you and I to prove who He is.

He’s already done that!

Rather, He wants us to have FAITH and believe that He is who His Word tells us that He is!

And believing in who He is and what He is, changes our perception about this life that we now live!

“Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurs to God?” He just knows!

If I can wrap my mind around the fact that God knows everything (past present and future) and that because He knows everything, He learns nothing, then I can begin to trust Him more with my life.

And I can begin to know and believe that whatever may come my way God has already seen it and already planned accordingly for it, for my good; IF, I WILL LET HIM BE GOD and not try to take over and do things according to my extremely limited and utterly hopeless knowledge of this life that He has given to me!

He has already seen my life and your life and recorded everything about us, before we were ever born.

David wrote in ,

Psalm 139:16 NLT

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

Everything that He does, has an eternal purpose, whether we see and understand it, or not.

Just because we can’t see, or don’t understand all that He does, doesn’t change WHO and WHAT He is.

The realm of theoretical physics and quantum physics, holds to and believes in forces and laws, that are still, large and in part, unexplainable and yet they exist!

Science is slowly gathering evidence that this realm of nature is there, but as to how it works and what holds it all in place, they are scratching their heads about.

And yet I read, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together!”

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

So, just because we cannot see and understand something, does not mean that it doesn’t exist!

PAUSE AND LOOK AT THE AUDIENCE. Now, ask them if any of them saw or knew the thought that just went through my mind? Just because you didn’t see it, or hear it, or know it, doesn’t change or lessen the fact that it very much exists and that it is there. If I had been hooked up to machine that measures brain wave activity, then they would have been able to tell you that the thought had occurred. But even then, they wouldn’t know what it was........only that it had occurred!

So, I say everything that I have said and ask everything that I have asked, to try and stress the point that we cannot see and know how and why God moves and how and why He does things the way that He does. After the fact, we can sometimes see what God was doing, but that’s about it.

So, let’s look back again at Ruth and Naomi and that account. Do you think that Ruth, or Naomi, or Boaz (who comes into the picture in Ruth chapter 2), had a clue as to why God had put into place certain commands and ordinances in the Levitical law, centuries before they existed?

NO, they didn’t have a clue as to why God put certain laws into place. Laws like:

The law of GLEANING (Explain)

The Law of the Levirate Marriage (Explain)

The Law of the Kinsman- Redeemer (Explain)

Ruth and Naomi and Boaz didn’t have a clue that God had already seen and determined that these laws would be put into place and used to bring all three of these people together. And for the common purpose of producing a son, who would in turn, produce a son, who would also produce a son. And this third generation son, would become the one of whom Jesus Christ is listed as a direct descendant of and of whom his seat as a king, would never be left unfilled!

Explain about Ruth GLEANING and meeting Boaz.

Then explain how Naomi, knowing the law of the kinsman-redeemer and the levirate marriage, prompted Ruth to go and secretly meet with Boaz and seek his favor.

Next explain of Boaz going to the city gait and meeting the next, closest relative to Ruth’s former husband and of his working out the redeemer situation, using honesty and integrity in dealing with next-line-kin to Ruth.

I mention all of this about God and his omniscience and this account of the life of Ruth and Naomi and Boaz this morning to make a simple point.

God knows every little detail about your life. He has seen the decisions that you have made, both good and bad.

He is very well aware of your past mistakes and of the family that you have come from and of all of the circumstances that have led to this exact moment and time in your life.

Your being here this morning, or watching this message, is no mistake and no coincidence, just as it was no coincidence of the laws that God put into place to secure the future of Ruth and Boaz.

God has not forgotten about you and left you to chance and happenstance. He is very much aware of where you are RIGHT NOW in your life!

And God wants you to know that your past is not the determinant of your future!

We tend to gauge or predict future events, based upon historical facts and points in time. God however, is not in time and He is not bound to time, but make no mistake, God is ALWAYS on time!

If you will turn the past hurts and circumstances over to Him and trust Him with these things and allow Him to guide you, then your future will tell a very different story from the direction that it is currently heading!

Always remember that your current situation, is not your final destination!

says, “Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you. He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun. Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.”

Psalm 37:5–7 NLT

Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you. He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun. Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act. Don’t worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes.

Even if you are trusting in God and walking in His will for your life and things seem bad, remember that His ways are not your ways and that all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose!

Are you willing today to be like Ruth and step out in faith and say that even if you do not know or understand what it going on, that God is your God and you will do whatever He tell you to do in your life?

If you can say that this morning, then your future is going to take a different turn down the road. Because you will no longer be the driver, but God will! (Remember this also, God is never to be your co-pilot, He is to THE PILOT and you are the co-pilot!

If you will allow God to come in with His Holy Spirit and help you clean out all of the garbage in your life, then your tomorrow, will different than your today.

As one person said, “What was once my mess, in now my message!”