01| The Road to Moab | The Book of Ruth

Notes for

The Book of Ruth-1

The Road to Moab

 

Ruth is the story of one family that made a bad choice during a time of hardship, but this book shows us the goodness of God when we make good choices. 

 

Ruth 1:1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land.

 

Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

 

Ruth 1:2 So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

 

Step One: we start out with God’s blessing.

 

2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

 

Moab was cursed by God because of how they treated Israel, their worship of false gods, and immorality. 

 

Deuteronomy 23:3-4 “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever, because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.

 

The first decision that makes me spiral downward in life is when I am no longer grateful for what God has given me.

 

Genesis 3:1,4-5 He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" 

 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.  "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 

 

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every reasoning that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

 

Luke 15:25-32 "Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' 

 "The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!' 

 " 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' " 

 

Ungratefulness leads to the second decision downward: depression.  

 

Romans 1:21, 24 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts

 

Clinical definition of depression is anger turned inward.

 

Depression is an overload of evil thoughts.

 

This is the third decision down to Moab: poor choices.

 

Ruth 1:4 Now they took wives of the women of Moab: the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelt there about ten years.

 

Ruth 1:3-5 Then Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons. Now they took wives of the women of Moab: the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelt there about ten years. Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died; so the woman survived her two sons and her husband.

 

Mark 10:27 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.”

 

The first thing God is asking us to do this year is deal with the past and let the past stay in the past.

 

Phillipians 3:13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

 

Change your focus: Focus on what's left, not what's lost.

 

Find something to be thankful for.

 

Determine that no matter how difficult things become in life, you will always do the right thing.

 

Joshua 24:15 as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”


Ruth 1:16-17  But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”