Sermon Tone Analysis

*Sunday 11th of March, 2007*

*9 & 11 am Services*

*Making Wise Decisions (Part 2): Ruth 1:6-22*

*Wodonga** District Baptist Church*

 

Introduction

When I was about ten years old my grandfather looked at me and in one of those special moments when wisdom is shared he said, *“Life’s a cinch by the inch, hard by the yard, walk don’t run.”*

I looked him in the eye and said, “What?”

Those words were wise about not running too fast trying to be somebody great.

Just deal with the things before you today well.

Wise advice for making wise decisions from my granddad.

My dad once said to me during exam time when I was obviously slacking off, “*If you don’t prepare to pass, be prepared to fail*.”

Wise words dad.

Some people have asked kids for advice on making wise decisions when it comes to love and marriage.

Pam whose 7 years old, when asked, “*/When is it okay to kiss someone?/*” responded, “*/When they’re rich./*”

To the same question, Howard, age 8 said, “*/The rule goes like this: if you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them.

It’s the right thing to do./*”

When asked, “*/Is it better to be single or married?/*”

Anita, 9 said, “*/It’s better for girls to be single but not for boys.

Boys need someone to clean up after them./*”

And finally when asked “*/How would you make a marriage work?/*” Ricky aged 10 said, “*/Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck./*”

Today we’re continuing to look at “Making Wise Decisions.”

This is part two in the series on the book of Ruth and last week we saw that the book started out with lots of meaning, “In the days when judges ruled.”

What a time that would have been.

Disunity, people turning away from God, everybody doing as they saw fit and total a general lack of godliness was the scene.

In Bethlehem (the house of bread) there was no bread, so Elimelech (My God is King) took his wife Naomi (Pleasant) with their two boys Mahlon and Kilion to Moab.

It seems here that Elimelech has said “Because there’s no bread in Bethlehem we’ll take things into our own hands, come out from God’s care and protection and move to a foreign land.”

He moved his family out from under God’s judgment and in the land of Moab things went bad to say the least.

Elimelech died and the two boys married Moabite women, which God had warned them against doing.

One married Orpah and one married Ruth.

Niether couples had any children for the ten years of their marriages and then both boys died, leaving Naomi, with no husband, no sons, in a foreign land with two daughters-in-law.

What a desperate situation.

For a widow, in these times, the future was bleak, but to be a widow without sons was far worse.

Yet for Naomi her situation was almost beyond belief for she was in a foreign land.

Have a look in verse 6, it's says “*/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.”

/*I don't know about you, but it wouldn't take me much thinking to actually go back.

And for Naomi, she had lost her husband, she had lost her two sons and all she had was two Moabitess girls.

So she says, “There’s food back there.

I'm going to die here, because no one is going to look after me.

I'm a foreigner in this place.

I am going to starve to death.

I might as well go back to my home, where at least maybe someone will take pity on me and because I've lost all my family and maybe someone will give me some food.

So Naomi makes decisions.

When it comes to making wise decisions Naomi is full of practical wisdom, she is logical, she looks at the situation as they appear and makes a decision based on that.

And this time is no exception.

She looks and she says, “Well I don't have anything here, my husband made the decision to leave in the first place, and look what has happened.

God is providing bread for his people again in Bethlehem, I'm going back home.”

Now this is the second thing that God wants to teach us about making wise decisions.

*God gave us brains to use them!*

He wants us to make decisions that are wise and thought out.

Here Naomi uses practical wisdom.

Look at your circumstances.

Is it obvious what God wants you to do?

Then do it.

If it seems pretty clear the decision that you are needing to make, don’t get too spiritual, or worked up about it.

Just do what seems wise.

Search the Scriptures, seek advice from wise counsel.

You might say, “Jonathan, it okay to say “Be wise” when you’ve been to Bible college and probably own a lot of Bibles and books.

How can I be wise?”

Wisdom comes from reading God’s Word daily.

Feeding on God’s Word makes you strong.

This year we’ve invited you to read through the Bible in a year and what a great experience it’s been for me.

SOAP has been a great way for me of reading God’s Word and hearing from Him and putting into practice the things I read and hear.

If you have a major decision to make and don’t know how to be wise, ask someone who is a committed Christian and who lives their lives feeding on God’s Word.

And as she walks along the road we see this vivid picture of a conversation taking place is told in graphic detail, so all of a sudden with just had so much information on the first few verses, now, the writer stops and gives us insight into a conversation that takes place on the road back to Bethlehem.

And look at Naomi’s logic, the way she talks to them.

Verse 8, they were going back and she says to the two girls, “*/Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home/*,” (don’t come with me, go back).

And she blesses them, and she says, “*/May the Lord show kindness to you.../*” What she’s saying is may God bless you in the land.

May you find security is some of the things she is saying.

May you actually go back to your mother’s house and find that they look after you there, may you find other husbands to marry you in the future, and may God really bless you as you stay here.

Naomi, doesn’t want to inflict upon them the pain and hopelessness that would come from staying with her.

She’s trying to save them from suffering.

They kiss, and they weep loudly in verse 9.  I think the girls really know, together, that this is what must happen.

They realise that this is for the best, so there’s the weeping and the kissing and they’re feeling pulled and grieved and they say no, “*/We will go back with you to your people/*.”

V10.

We’re going to return with you, we are going to stick with you.

Then, Naomi comes back and she starts to give them all the facts, all the logical reasons why they should leave her, she wants to let them know that it’s not good to come with her.

Look at them in verse 11, why, why go with me she says, I can’t bear you any sons any more, you think I’m going to give sons to you in my old age?

I’m too old, plus I don’t have a husband, there’s no one whose around for me to bear children with and look, even if I were to be married tonight and to have a son, and then are you going to wait for this son to grow up and be old enough for him to marry you?  Are you going to hang around for that long without marrying, waiting for me?

Even if you would wait, how can you wait that long?

She says turn, go back, go back its silly, its silly and with all her convincing, I can feel Orpah thinking she’s right, she’s right I’m not going to get married, I’m going back there to this foreign land, and she says, the final thing almost like the final blow, Naomi says this at the end of that section, she says “*/the Lord’s hand has gone out against me/*”, don’t stick with me, don’t you come near me, God hates me is basically what she’s saying.

Look what He’s done.

My husband’s gone, my two sons have gone, I’ve come to this land, and I’m lost.

Don’t hang around with me, God’s against me.

I don’t think she got it right, but that’s how she feels.

I think when you’re facing such grief you can think that God’s got it in for you.

Naomi, she didn’t decide to go to Moab, did she?

It was Elimelech who decided.

She just followed her husband along.

She didn’t have anything to do with all the rest that was happening.

Maybe some of you this morning can sit and think, “Boy, there’s been so many things that have gone wrong in my life,” and you might be tempted to think, God’s against me, God has got it for me.

Look back at my life, there’s been suffering after suffering.

Things have gone wrong; don’t hang around with me, God’s got it in for me.

I don’t know what your situations are.

I think sometimes people willingly turn against from God and they experience what it’s like not to be under God’s blessing.

And it may be that you’ve been openly sinning and that God is not blessing you in the way that He was.

Well stop sinning now.

Turn around, confess your sin and come back to God.

But you know, sometimes we experience suffering like the famine that Elimelech felt.

And it’s not your fault, in fact it might be somebody else’s fault that causes the suffering.

And at that time it is not that God’s against you at all, it is time to remain faithful to Him.