God\'s Sovereignty in Adversity

God's Sovereignty in Times of Adversity
Read Ruth 1:1-13
“May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. May the Lord grant that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband.”

The book is widely regarded as a literary masterpiece. It is a story of unbearable sorrow and inexplicable growth. It is a story that speaks about the tragedy of sin and the triumph of God’s grace. Yet, in this small book, we find the hope of all humanity as the gracious work of God is illustrated for us in an objective and tangible way.

The story begins by giving us the historical setting. As we have seen before, the period of the judges was a time of judgment and discipline as the nation descended into moral and spiritual chaos. It was a time when God not only brought military defeat; he brought natural disaster to confront the nation with their sin. There is irony in the firsts first. The city known as the House of Bread (Beth—house, lehem—Bread) is now in a severe famine. It is a city without bread. There is also some foreshadowing in the names of the Characters first mentioned. Elimelech means “My God is King,” yet he abandons the place where his king dwells to go into the land of Moab, sworn enemies of Israel. By leaving the land of Israel, he shows the same lack of fidelity to God as king as the nation of Israel.   Mahlon comes from the word “To be sick,” while Chilion has the idea of “frailty and mortality.”  Thus, each name has an ominous foreshadowing of what would happen. On the other hand, Naomi, whose name means “pleasant,” desires to be called “Mara,” which means bitter. Yet, in the end, she will not see her circumstances as “bitter” and desire to be called “pleasant.”

The initial introduction of the book conveys circumstances that reveal a time of spiritual and physical famine. It was a time when God brought judgment upon the nation in the form of famine. Elimelech’s attempt to save the lives of his family by taking his family to Moab fails, for, in 10 years, he and his sons die. The only family members remaining were Naomi and her two Moabite daughters-in-law. While his family died in Moab, God gave bread to the people of Israel, so Naomi set her face to return to Israel. However, she tells her daughters-in-law to return to their family, for in her mind, Naomi thinks all hope is gone. All that is left is to pick up her marbles and go home. For Naomi, her life is a tragic tale where there is no hope for redemption and an indication that God has abandoned her. For Naomi, for her daughters-in-law to remain wither would be a sentence without a husband or family.

Naomi failed to realize that God is most active when he seems to be the most silent. What Naomi considered to be an indication of God’s judgment was, in fact, the outworking of God’s redemptive plan, not only for her but for the whole nation of Isreal. In this, we see the power of God's sovereign working. While using the famine to bring judgment upon the nation, God was also using the famine to orchestrate the events that would accomplish god’s ultimate redemptive plan for the whole nation.

When we are going through times of difficulty, we cannot see the end. We do not know the outcome. All we see is the present circumstances. Although it may seek as if God has abandoned us, we can trust that he is orchestrating the events to accomplish his eternal good. As Paul reminds us in Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good to them that love God.”  This does not mean that all things are good, but God can bring a positive result from a negative situation. Such is the power of a sovereign God.