Sermon Tone Analysis

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Introduction
Ben Patterson in his book entitled, “The Grand Essentials of Work and Worship,” tells the story of an S-4 submarine that was rammed by a ship off the coast of Massachusetts.
It sank immediately.
The entire crew was trapped in a prison house of death.
Every effort was made to rescue the crew, but all ultimately failed.
Near the end of the ordeal, a deep-sea diver, who was doing everything in his power to find a way for the crew’s release, thought he heard a tapping on the steel wall of the sunken sub.
He placed his helmet up against the side of the vessel and he realized it was the Morse Code.
He attached himself to the side and he spelled out in his mind the message being tapped from within: “Is…there…any…hope?”
·       Friendship, many of you have come into this place this morning, after having been rammed and find yourself in a sunken marriage, trapped in Holy matrimony.
Your heart is beating the Morse code asking, “Is there still hope for us?”
·       Some of you have sunken into financial bondage where your money is funny and your change is strange.
Your pay has decreased and the bills have increased.
While suffocating in debt you are wondering, “Is there any hope for me?”
·       Some of you have been rammed by life itself, you have sunken into sex, drugs, and alcohol.
For others, it might even be the pursuit of power, position, and pleasure.
And on the inside you are close to the edge, in your mind you are thinking that it is like a jungle sometime, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.
And you ask, “is there any hope?”
·        Some of you are silently sinking in situations and circumstances that you wouldn’t dare tell anyone.
Not by cell phone, via email, text messaging, but your body language is speaking loud and clear, you want to know, “is there still hope for me in this mess I am in.”
·       I know you say that you are blessed, and from head to toe you are dressed, but written all over your face is the truth, you are stressed.
Tired of being rammed; tired of feeling trapped; tired of fighting; tired of scraping and scratching just to survive; You want to know, “Is there still hope for me?”
You come to the right place God has the answer for you in this morning.
\\ IS THERE STILL HOPE FOR ME?
Ruth 1:1-22
MAIN IDEA:  GOD IS CONCERNED ABOUT YOU
            The text says that this happened in the days of the judges.
We know that as the last verse in the book of Judges tells us, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
This family lived in Bethlehem, which means “place of bread,” but there was a problem in Bethlehem, there was no harvest, therefore there was no bread.
A famine was in the land of Bethlehem.
So the text says, “a certain man,” named Elimelech decided that he was going to solve the problem by moving his family temporarily to Moab.
A place where false gods were worshipped and a people, according to Deut.
23 who were not welcome in the assembly of the Lord.
But Deut.
23 verse 6 also says that the Israelites where never to seek the peace and the prosperity of the Moabites.
So instead of seeking God’s guidance and obeying God’s commands, he took matters into his own hands.
Perhaps there were other families who did the same but the text does not tell us that and just because somebody else chooses to disobey God does not make it alright for you.
Elimelech whose name means, “my God is King,” decided that the king was out to lunch, he and his family was hungry, the place of bread was empty, so disobedience must be the right choice to make.
After all, if a man does not care for his own, he is worst than a infidel.
When you make a decision to disobey God, you have just placed your life, your hope, and all your dependence on someone or something other than the One who holds all things together by the power of His might.
You are outside the will of God.
That’s the position that Elimelech put his family in by moving to Moab.
They moved, they got settled in, he his wife and their two bouncing boys.
Everything seemed like it was going to be alright.
Then verse 3 says, Elimelech, Naomi’s husband died.
The one who is supposed to hold the house together; the one who is the provider and the protector of the family; the spiritual leader of the family, he is now dead.
I’m sure that they had a time of grieving and mourning but life went on.
For Naomi, there was still hope.
She still had her boys, who were obviously old enough to take care of her because the text says, they took wives.
But not just wives, Moabite women.
According to Deut.
7 they were not permitted to intermarry with the other nations.
The spiritual head is gone, the boys are at an age where they refuse to listen to the advice of their mother.
Plus, they have put in a position that is outside the will of God.
And often one bad decision breeds another.
But life goes on, their temporary stay has now turned into about ten years.
But then the text says, both Mahlon and Chilion also died.
The text did not just say they died but it says that they “also” died.
Which means that this was not suppose to happen.
We don’t know how old Elimelech was when he died but somehow it seemed expected by Naomi.
But never in her life did she expect to lose her baby bouncing boys.
This was her means of protection and provision, her source of care and comfort after losing her husband.
But more than all of that, this was the heritage of her husband’s name and now it is all gone.
No husband, no sons, just two daughter-in-laws.
All her hope is gone.
And the next 17 verses describe the hopelessness that Naomi feels.
Naomi is mad.
No Naomi is angry.
No Naomi is bitter.
Bitterness comes from something that has gone from the head to the heart and has been sitting there for a while because it is something that is difficult or distasteful and hard to accept.
Naomi is bitter toward her daughters-in-law.
Now preacher, how in the world due you get that from this text.
If you ask me, it seems that Naomi is concerned about them.
She strongly encourages them to return their mother’s house.
She releases them to take on a new husband.
She even says a prayer over them, verse 8, “May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.”
And she cries with them.
But they still want to go with Naomi.
Then it seems that Naomi is still concerned for them by getting them to see the situation rationally.
I have no more sons.
I’m too old to have another husband and even if I did, would you really wait for them to grow old enough to marry.
That makes sense to me preacher, so how can you say that Naomi is bitter toward her daughters-in-law.
Look back with me in verse 4.  It says that after, her sons had married these Moabite women that they lived there about ten years.
So, in ten years they had not produced an offspring, in particular a baby boy, to continue on the family heritage.
Naomi saw them as being useless to her.  That’s why Naomi was talking about her having children and not them.
They had not produced in ten years, so she saw them as more of a burden than a blessing.
They were a reminder of her pain.
They were a reminder of her disappointment.
They were a reminder of her hopelessness.
But Naomi is bitter toward God.
Now I am glad that Naomi does not respond like Job responded when he lost all his children and all his wealth.
Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Because while Job’s response is real, Naomi’s reaction to what has happen to her is just as real.
And there are people in the family of God that are on both extremes.
Those who respond by blessing God and those who respond by blaming God.
I’m so glad that God is big enough to handle both.
But the difference is, Job’s response is based upon belief and Naomi’s reaction is based upon perception.
What’s the difference?
I just told you.
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