Would you turn in your Bibles to the story of Ruth as we look at chapter 1 Verse of 19 to 22 tonight the story of Ruth Dealing with disappointment is our topic tonight David wrote in the Psalms The Lord is my chosen portion in my cup You hold my lot The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places indeed I have a beautiful inheritance It's a lovely thought that under the providence of God the lines have fallen out to us in pleasant places, but That is not always and immediately the case There are times when the providence of God is hard Our Westminster confession of faith acknowledges that The most wise, righteous and gracious God does oftentimes leave for a season His own children to manifold temptations The corruptions of their own hearts To chastise them for their former sins or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts So that they may be humbled and And raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself And to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin and For sundry other just and holy ends We looked at William Cooper and talked about him last week in his wonderful him God moves in a mysterious way him about Providence He writes in that him ye fearful saints fresh courage take the clouds you so much dread Our big with mercy and shall break with blessings on your head Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace Behind a frowning providence. He hides a smiling face His purposes will ripen fast unfolding every hour The bud may have a bitter taste But sweet will be the flower There is a frowning providence. There is clouds above us that Cloudy aspect of the providence of God and there are bitter tastes in our mouth often times when God Sends us a providence that does not appear to be pleasant lines I've experienced myself. I'm sure everybody has But one time back in 1973 God sent a Greatly unpleasant providence into my life. I was a young lieutenant in the army and I was stationed at Fort Sheridan Illinois. I was a troop commander. I had students going through a school About 200 every 13 weeks and so as a second lieutenant I was filling the slot of a captain And one time in the February this month coming up of 1973 The surgeon general of the army came for what was called a grand inspection This was the number one ranking medical officer in the medical service corps of our army It was a big deal and he was to review our troops and our barracks and things and of course our captain wanted to make a great impression So I had everything just perfect and spik and span and I had drilled the troops for months in advance and everything was prepared and There's one little glitch The lieutenant Colonel who was the adjutant Commandant of the school told me to be at a certain place to meet the general and he was at another place So I hurried and I broke all the speed limits at Fort Sheridan and I made it to my office as The general and eight colonels were coming in the front door I came in the back and I greeted them and welcomed them and gave them a grand tour of our facility The surgeon general turned to my colonel and said I have never seen a sharper lieutenant and all my time in the military to which another Colonel who had wanted the commandant's job and was Embittered that he didn't get it. He said well general if he were my lieutenant he'd be on time when I came for inspection And what it started off as a great day quickly went south Within about 48 hours, I had been reassigned from that troop commander position to administrative job reassigned should be translated demoted and And in about three months or two months later I Was promoted the first lieutenant and I was offered an opportunity at the end of my time at Fort Sheridan to move to Germany and Be promoted to captain which I quickly turned down I Left the army with great bitterness The Colonel did try to make amends later on but it was too late too little too much I I refused to be involved in the army reserves I had no contact and have not to this day had any contact with my military friends. I Never talked to people about being the army I was extremely bitter That evening that all of this happened a captain invited me over to his house with his wife and children and he said You don't need to look back on this mic God has something else in store for you You need to put this behind you and move on I was too bitter to hear that But that little Christian captain was correct It wasn't until 1976 Three years later when I became a Christian That I began to realize that that bitter providence Got it used in a specific way to direct me. I often wonder my friends what my life would have been like I gone on and taken a captaincy and remained in the army and made the military a career What's even more scary is what would the military have been like had I made it a career? I wonder if I'd have moved to Memphis if I'd gone to Central Church or if I'd have met widely passed or if I'd been converted If I'd have married a girl from Jackson, Mississippi and had four children and gone into the ministry and been in the PCA and come here Some of you say well pastor of course you would that was God's sovereign plan for your life But I would remind you that there are two great mysteries that combined to shape our lives One is the great and sovereign determination of God and what we call predestination But the other are the causes and effects of our lives and our decisions and our failures and what we call providence The Westminster Confession says although in relation to the four knowledge and decree of God the first cause all things come to pass immutably and infallibly but By the same providence God orders them to fall out according to the nature of second causes either necessarily freely or contingently God in his ordinary providence makes use of means Yet it's free to work without and above and against them at his pleasure meaning that God is sovereign in his plan But he uses the causes and effects of things in our life Our human choices our failures and our difficulties I'll tell you how bitter that was I've been in the ministry in preaching for 32 years and that's the first time I've shared that whole story with the congregation It's taken that long to get over it There are times When bitterness rises up in everybody's life Whether it's from disappointment with God or just may over circumstances or a deep wound from someone who maybe Didn't intend to hurt us, but then maybe did And the author of Hebrews Recognizes just how important this bitterness can be Listen to what he writes in chapter 12 verse 15 of Hebrews See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God That no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by it many become defiled The key phrase is That no one fails to obtain the grace of God literally it reads in the Greek See to it that no one's fall short of the grace of God And that no root of bitterness grow Causing trouble and defiling many people That is the spread of bitterness has an ability to taint That's how the word literally reads In the Hebrew where it originally comes from To taint many people And if you take nothing else away tonight, I want you to know this bitterness of soul Is the main reason people do not grow in grace They do not mature in holiness And they do not obtain spiritual joy We'll say that again bitterness of soul is the main reason people do not grow in grace Do not mature in holiness And do not obtain spiritual joy In our story tonight We come now to scene two There was an introduction of five verses in chapter one that kind of set the stage for the story And then a tragic Multiple death occurs a father and two sons leading to scene one Where three widows have to make a difficult decision Tonight we come to chapter one verses 19 to 22 Where Naomi is dealing with a root of bitterness And struggling for the safety and security of our own soul See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God And that no root of bitterness brings up And causes trouble defiling the many That's we're going to see tonight how God helps Ruth work through this root of bitterness So that she becomes a blessing to many people rather than a taint Here's the story Beginning in chapter one verse 19 So the two of them that is Naomi and Ruth So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem And when they came to Bethlehem the whole town was stirred because of them and the women said Is this Naomi She said to them Do not call me Naomi Call me mora For the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me And the Almighty has brought calamity upon me So Naomi returned and Ruth the Moabite her daughter and all with her Who returned from the country of Moab And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest I want you to see first of all This beloved reception that Naomi receives in her hometown So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem And when they came to Bethlehem the whole town was stirred because of them And the women said Is this Naomi Now Ruth and Naomi travel for about three days They had due west from the plains of Moab where they were living They crossed the Jordan River Gold was called the crest to an old city the ruins of a place called Jericho And it began the 19 mile ascent up to the top of the Judean Hills Where Jerusalem would be they would then turn south by southwest Passing by Jerusalem And as the crow flies six miles from Jerusalem are 8.7 miles by the road They would come to the little hamlet the suburb of Jerusalem called Bethlehem Total of about 35 or 40 miles Or journey of two or three days most likely made in a caravan We don't know What they talked about on the way But in his little book about Ruth and Esther called be committed warn wars be speculate She says the two widows probably visited the graves of their loved ones for the last time before leaving Moab Then they committed themselves to the Lord and set out to begin a new life It would be interesting to know what Naomi and Ruth talked about as they journeyed from Moab to Bethlehem Did Naomi give her daughter-in-law some basic instructions on the law of Moses Did Ruth ask questions about Jewish faith the Jewish people her new home in Bethlehem We wonder what kind of answers Nami would have given since she was a bitter woman With a faltering faith in the god of providence I wonder if Wears these being fair To call Naomi a bitter woman, but then again when you read ahead to verse 20 That's what she says She comes to the town And And the people are surprised to see her as a great stir the word means in Hebrew a great commotion The whole town of course, it's not very big the whole town of Bethlehem probably we'd fit on our campus back in those days And They greet Naomi Saying is this Naomi They were surprised that she was there because She looked different She'd left 10 years earlier with a husband and two little boys and adolescents She comes back now, no husband, no sons, older and haggard looking With a young Moabitis introduced as their daughter-in-law A pagan in the family Is this Naomi really is a question that It's not looking for an answer it's more of a statement It's more of a statement of surprise And Ruth and Naomi Are greeted by people who are glad that they're there But surprised that their condition You know When someone has a root of bitterness Everything is distorted If you're embittered at somebody You can't really see them accurately or treat them fairly If they tell a joke Then they're being insensitive or arrogant If they speak forthrightly into your life Then their portrayed is unkind If they show discretion or patience and hang back Then there be cool and aloof If they ignore something Then they're unfeeling or self-obsessed nothing they do And nothing they say Can seem positive to you And that includes God
That is the great danger of the root of bitterness When God Let's something happen to us We ask the question of theodicy Why does a good God let bad things happen to good people Of course We being the good people And whatever the answer is It won't satisfy us Because we're angry We're bitter And so this blessed reception Is met with a bitter response The bitterness of Naomi's soul In verses 20 and 21 She said to them Do not call me Naomi Although that's her name Call me Mara Which means bitterness Naomi means pleasant Mara means bitter Do not call me pleasant Call me bitter For the amity has dealt very bitterly with me I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me And the Almighty has brought calamity upon me Because God is dealt bitterly with me Meaning I went away full I had a husband and two sons and then two lovely daughters in a great future And all of a sudden in the span of a couple of years Three according to the text all of that is taken away And now I come back empty Withered, bereaved of two boys Absolute daughter-in-law broken, depressed With one dependent girl is my only position Why refer to me as pleasant Because I am bitter And it's God who did this to me God has dealt very bitterly with me The hand of the Lord has gone out against me The Lord has testified against me
Makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it? To have somebody speak with such complaints against God, but that But that Eugene Peterson says Is how this story is shaped It is built around the disappointment of Naomi with God Listen to what he says Naomi gets into the story by complaining She experiences lost Complained bitterly about it And had her complaint and unhappiness taken seriously by the storyteller Formulated into a complaint against the Lord No material could have seemed less promising As the raw data for a gospel story Than that which is provided in the first chapter of Ruth A famine, three deaths, three widows And anarchy When Naomi returned home to Bethlehem After a 10-year absence There was excitement And a readiness to rejoice at her homecoming But Naomi refused that welcome This is worded in such a way That Naomi is presented as a complainant against God This style of complaint Put in legal form was also represented by Jeremiah Who engaged in suit and counter-soup between God and the people And pressed a legal case against God in the face of the evidence that God had failed to be just and fair Though it seems impious and even blasphemous to some The plain fact is that such formalized complaints are often found in the Bible The pastor can help a person get into this story By assisting in the formulation of complaints Making out list of grievances Clarifying where God is failed to do his part And drawing up an indictment against him The pastor doesn't have to be on God's side Defending him There are times when the biblical basis is that of a plaintiff There are instances when pastors encourage complaint Knowing that not only is complaint tolerated by God But it can be the proper stance of a person who takes God Seriously Anyone who ascries pull sovereignty to adjust and merciful God May expect to encounter the problem of the Odyssey Why a good God allows bad things to happen And to wrestle with the problem is no sin Even when it leads to an attempt to put God on trial Petulant Jonah Ernest Jeremiah Persistent Joe Naomi stands in their company But by being taken seriously and not rejected or toned down or spiritualized They always complaint becomes part of the story In fact the center of it The emptiness of her life is woven into the plot And in the process is the occasion for demonstrating God's gracious Providence What we see here Display publicly A woman saying don't welcome me back I'll call me pleasant God has been mean to me Is quite frankly real You and I may not be free enough to say these things in public Although we might to a counselor to a spouse To a pastor But just the things we often feel Naomi Realizes the confluence in her life The flowing together of two streams of reality one Her responsibility And second God's actions Looking chapter one again, verse 13 As she talks about Her responsibility Would you therefore wait till they are grown these boys Would you therefore refrain from marrying no My daughters for it is exceedingly bitter to me For your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me Their Naomi seems to admit that she is justly being disciplined for unbiblical living for a decade But then she reverts to self-pity In verses 20 and 21 Do not call me pleasant Call me bitter for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty Why call me pleasant When the Lord has testified against me And the Almighty has brought calamity upon me This going back and forth between acknowledging her open responsibility and sin And feeling sorry for herself and being disappointed with God Is the beginning of the process of true repentance Sometimes you and I are impatient with people We expect as soon as difficulty comes in their life for them to respond openly and instantly to repent But it's usually not like that It's a process over time In Naomi's reaction is natural She is struggling with what she knows she did And what she is confident God is done And trying to make the two fit together and make sense There is something very false And very damaging About the way American evangelicals present God in his providence Keith Gettie talked about this when he was with us This past December When he had that seminary in the day he said that in his parents days when difficult things slammed into their lives It drove them back to church and back to God but today When difficult things happen in people's lives They get angry at God and leave the church and he said why He said he thinks it's because the way God is presented in the pulpit And especially in our shallow him the D And in our inauthentic worship people are unprepared For the realities of providence One of the famous American hymnewriters is a man named Ralph Hudson He wrote hymns in the late 80s During the age of Diel Moody and others and the evangelical crusades His tunes are known for a kind of a happy, go lucky Lilt to them When he's famous for is taking Historical old hymns and adding choruses to them and in my opinion ruining them He takes this wonderful hymn a last and did my savior bleed and adds this little chorus at the cross at the cross Where first saw the light and the burden of my sin rolled away It was there by faith. I received my sight And now I am happy all the day really Happy all the day Or one of his other hymns. I live for him. I live for him who died for me. How happy then my life shall be I live for him who died for me my savior and my God Well, that's that's what's all about You live for Jesus Christ and your life is happy all the day all the time all through life right Wrong wouldn't it be better if we sang the Psalter With the full continuum of human emotions and all the contingencies and difficulties and vicissitudes of life brought before God with honest emotion under a high view of God and a confidence in His grace That's what Naomi is struggling with with a root of bitterness This little verse Seeed with that no one fails to obtain the grace of God and though no root of bitterness spring up and caused trouble in By it many become defiled is not something the author of Hebrews invented I want you to turn back to the book of Deuteronomy because it's from Deuteronomy to the borrows that phrase that concept that verse And Deuteronomy chapter 29 There we see Moses warning the people about a root of bitterness brought on by Drifting or turning away from the Lord to the gods of the nations around them Deuteronomy chapter 29 verse 17 and 18 And you have seen their detestable things their idols of wooden stone of silver and gold which were among them Beware less there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God To go and serve the gods of those nations now listen beware Less there be any among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit That's how the Hebrew reads But the New Testament writers do not use the Hebrew Bible They inevitably use the Septuagint the Hebrew Bible translated into Greek Where this verse reads Less there be any among you man or woman or family or tribe whose heart is turned aside from the Lord your God Having gone to serve the gods of these nations less there be in you a root of bitterness or gall that springs up Now if we put Moses and the author of Hebrews together Here's how it reads Less there be among you a man or woman or family or tribe whose heart is turned away from the Lord your God Having gone off to serve the gods of these nations Less there be a new a root springing up with gall and bitterness See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that this root of bitterness springing up causes no trouble And by it many become defiled This is exactly This is precisely what happened to Naomi For what seemed to be a good financial and family decision She and a lime elect left Bethlehem left the people of the coveted and went aside from the Lord serving the gods of the other nations in fact allowing two young Moabitis girls pagans to marry into the family The result was the discipline of the Lord And a root of bitterness that was in danger of defiling not only Naomi's life Not only ruse but now the whole town and community of Bethlehem This is hardly Being happy all the day But this is the real story Simon Kistamaker says such a person causes trouble on God's people by disturbing the peace With his bitter words he deprives the believers of holiness Says the writer he defiles many The verb defiled actually conveys the idea of something that is colored by painting or staining it Avoid such bitterness. He says for it will taint your life Naomi here's the good part of the story Is beginning to experience the grace of God again and the work of spiritual renewal in her life She is we can tell from the story Beginning to take ownership of her sins and of God's just discipline She is acknowledging here and again previously in Moab the hand of God in her life After ignoring that hand for ten years She's being honest with God and knows about her fall from grace and her bitterness She's facing the truth of Deuteronomy 29 17 and 18 that she would have known so well As a little girl schooled in the mosaic law And there are two wonderful and positive indications that this story is going to turn in a happy direction One is her view of God and the second is her return to church I want you to look again At this third part of the story we had this this beloved reception and this bitterness in her soul and now the blessed turning to God In verses 21 and 22 actually beginning at the end of verse 20 Where she talks about God For the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me And they all mighty his brought calamity upon me I want you to notice how Naomi sees God in these two verses Because she refers to him by two titles each one of them used twice He is called both the Almighty Shaddai And Yahweh Jehovah the Lord One is a title ascribed To God in general L Shaddai God Almighty refers To God in general L E L is the word and Hebrew for God And Shaddai means omnipotent all mighty or all powerful or even sovereign God the sovereign and powerful one But Yahweh Or Jehovah as we add the vows and consonants to it Is the covenant name of God A God so sacred that would not be pronounced on the lips of the Hebrew people The God who met Moses at the burning bush and called himself Yahweh I am And who entered into a covenant with his people What's interesting is the way she talks about God She calls him Almighty Then twice the Lord and then again Almighty This is called friends of kiasmus It's a it's a literary structure Often used to concentrate attention on something It is when things of a similar order Rather than fall out in a pattern Are reversed at the end A B B A A Almighty the beginning and the end of a view of God And B the God of the covenant in the middle Nayami is acknowledging two things That God Elshed God the Almighty The sovereign God of Providence has dealt in her life But so has the God of the covenant The God of predestination on the front and end of her life Her life running from beginning to end under his divine plan And in the middle the God of the covenant Working in her life tenderly through Providence Nayami Maybe for a long time who knows how long In the land of Moab would never have referred to God Elshedai As Jehovah For it would meet nothing to a Moabite Who knew nothing of God's covenant of grace with his people But here she does She acknowledges the sovereign predestining God And the covenantal providential God In his might he has disciplined her In his providential care He's going to do something for her There is a glimmer of hope That the covenant relationship between Nayomi and God is being renewed The God of grace and the God of glory Both are working in her life God of grace and God of glory On thy people poor thy power Crowned by an ancient church's story Bring its bud to glorious flower Grana's wisdom Grana's courage For the facing of this hour That's what Nayomi is beginning to see She's beginning to return to God As he really is Not the God she wants But the God who is And that's always the beginning of spiritual renewal To move away from our idolatous concepts about God God as we'd like to make him Moving into the fullness of who he really is Al Shaddai of the Almighty God the covenant keeping God of providence Secondly, Nayomi is going back to church To the Old Testament people of Israel In her hometown of Bethlehem Verse 22 So Nayomi returned and Ruth the Moabite Her daughter in law with her Who returned from the country of Moab And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest They went back to a place A place where they had heard in chapter 1 verse 6 that God had visited his people She returns to fellowship And to the faith that would help renew her No longer would she be living around people Who had no sympathy with her God No understanding of the covenant And no appreciation for the mosaic statutes She went back to people Who by their very presence just their fellowship And their faith would begin to build her up and lift her up When we are embittered When we are hurting What is our natural tendency What is it? It's to be alone It's like an animal wounded in the forest He runs away and hides and licks his wounds And he always dies alone And when we are in pain When we feel that God The one who should have loved this and taken care of his turned on us The best thing we can do Is to go back to church To be with people who are not struggling at that moment with the root of bitterness Who don't have a distorted view of God Who believe that God is the God of predestining grace And providential tenderness The worst thing we can do Is to be alone I worry sometimes folks I can say this because I don't think there is anybody Is there anybody in the balcony tonight Oh, there is a couple of people This doesn't apply to you Okay But sometimes I notice this Seriously when people are hurting You know what they do They move away from the pulpit I've often wondered it was my breath or my deodorant That was failing I don't know I just keep moving back And moving back And moving up and forth There's something about us that wants to put a distance between us and God Does that happen in England? Yeah, I mean it's You move away from something that is a source of pain God His word His covenant And that's the worst thing you can do When you're hurting you ought to be right here For two reasons I never used the people in the front row as an illustration And number two You see things more clearly The closer you get To the cross That's where Naomi is moving She doesn't realize it But she's moving closer And closer To the cross of Jesus Christ The whole story of Ruth Turns on these two focal points In scene two Her turn back toward the God of the covenant Back to God who really is Great and disciplining Loving and forgiving And back to the people of God back to the church Is the turning point of her life And it is at the cross of Jesus Christ That these things that Naomi feels Will eventually meet and converge in reality There is no person in this room Who is not known this root of bitterness at one time And there are not a few who may be struggling with it now What we don't need to do Is to blame other people who are neither sovereign nor saviour We don't need to pretend that we're a victim When much of what happens to us Is a result of the causes and effects in our own life and our decisions We don't need to expect to be happy all the time Because life doesn't work that way in a fallen world And we don't need to become defiled by a root of bitterness But trust in a sovereign and gracious God Who nine times out of ten Is going to meet us in a powerful way In the fellowship of his church If we work back From Hebrews 12-15 About the warning of a root of bitterness Here's what we find at the beginning of that chapter Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses Let us also lay aside every weight An encumbrance which so easily clings to us and sin And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us Fixing your eyes on Jesus the author and perfector of our faith Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising its shame and Decided at the right hand of the throne of God Consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself So that you may not grow weary or lose heart
You know what the cross tells us The cost tells us that we're not always going to be happy every day
That it's okay to complain against God My God My God why have you forsaken me
It's okay to be real before God and that God's providence That always has in the end are good Can look horrible on certain days David Atkinson writes about this he says in Christ's own person The fullest revelation of this truth becomes clear The New Testament discloses him as God's suffering servant As the Lamb of God on whom sins and pains of the whole world were laid In Jesus Christ and in particular in Christ's life laid down in the death of the cross God himself is entering into and sharing the depths of this world suffering in misery He takes on his own shoulders the responsibility for dealing with sin It is the awful tearing apart a fellow student of father and the son Focused in the cry of dereliction Where God shows his willingness in costly grace to be known in every human separation and pain He does hear every prayer which begins with my God my God why Furthermore It is amazing An amazing condescension That he invites us to place our sin and pain on him Even may we say to absorb our anger in himself Because God Can take it Naomi doesn't know anything about Jesus Christ
But she does know that this God of the covenant has promised a Messiah a special person who will come And save Israel from all of her sins She's going to find That as she moves on through this story and deeper into the providence of God That that program and plan is unfolding three people in this story will be saved all of them all of them from a root of bitterness An old woman named Naomi who lost everything it is asking God the why A young woman who will be saved in the root of bitterness of a pagan life That would never have heard the good news Had she not gone to Bethlehem a little girl named Ruth but he wrote the story And thirdly an aging man a good fellow Who would be saved from the bitterness of dying alone with no wife and no child lots of wealth But a loss of a legacy This man named Boaz will feel the sovereign gracious providential hand of God It is because of the cross That all of these things can take place That all of this healing Can unfold and all of this saving can be done and all of the bitterness can be turned into joy Turn to Matthew chapter 1 We know how the story of Ruth ends It ends in the birth of David The Great-great-grandson of Naomi and the great-grandson of Ruth David who is a type of Christ and whose son Several generations removed will be called the son of David Jesus Christ The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac the father of Jacob and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers And Judah the father of Perez and Zera by Tamar and Perez the father of Hezran and Hezran the father of Ram And Ram the father of Amenadab and Amenadab the father of nation and nation the father of Salman And Salman the father of Boaz by Rahab and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth and Obed the father of Jesse and Jesse the father of David the King And Jesus Christ the son of David It all fits together all of our lives somewhere along trace themselves back spiritually To what Naomi went through Through Ruth's redemption to a marriage to a baby to a savior And all of our disappointments in life all of the things that ruin our emotions That can make our souls bitter the threatened our families and our fellowship all these things can be pushed back or pushed forward wherever they need to be To that son of David on the cross Jesus said and I If I be lifted up from the earth I will draw all mankind To myself I will say to all mankind come Bring your bitterness and lay it on me bring all your brokenness and all of your sin and all of your Isolation and disassociation and all of your entrangement from God Ask this question that I ask why God if you forsaken me and find the answer That God was in Christ Reconcealing the world to himself
Elshadai Jehovah Jesus Christ Don't let the root of bitterness ruin your life and those around you take your bitterness and sin Take the brokenness and the questions and the we're all paying to Jesus Christ Lay it on him and then wait and see What God will do Let's pray Father, we often times when things slam into our life. It's difficult for us to see what part was our responsibility What was the sinful actions and the irresponsibility of other people And what were these difficult providences these ugly and And painful circumstances that in your sovereign wisdom you let come into our life Good thing is we don't have to figure that out We can take all these things and place them on Jesus Christ Who knows all things and as the hymnbrider says does all things well There are those of us tonight Lord who are Embittered in our souls because we have never come to know Christ The the failures and frustrations and the filament of years of living with Unconfessed and unremitted sins It's taking a toll upon us and tonight Father I invite those people in your name to place themselves in the hand of Jesus Christ to believe in him To rest and the assurance of his healing and restoring and Justifying grace. There are others Who as Christians have struggled perhaps for a few weeks maybe for several years With a difficult providence and it's causing them to lose their joy To be stalled in their holiness To fall short of the grace that you've given them I ask for liberty in the spirit for them tonight to lay these things on Christ and trust this frowning providence To end in a happy story We ask for faith and for fellowship The renewal of our commitment to your sovereign grace and And a restoring of our fellowship with others who believe the same So that in the company of the redeemed In the fellowship of the church and in the presence of Christ by the power of the sovereign spirit We might emerge from our bitterness Into the pleasant lines Into the joyful places The David The forefather of Christ talked about In his song And do this we would pray and ask That we might know you better and love you more And enter into the joy of our salvation through Jesus Christ In his name and for whose sake we do pray Amen