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A Famine in the Land · Enjoying the Journey

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  The Book of Ruth begins in dark days, but even
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  in the darkness, God was at work. Through loss,
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  uncertainty, and unexpected turns, we discover a beautiful
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  story of grace, redemption, and hope. Join Scott
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  Pauley for this new study, The Gospel According to Ruth.
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  Light for Dark Days.
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  Very few of us have ever gone to bed hungry.
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  In fact, most of us have lived with such bounty and abundance
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  that the thought of starvation is the last thing on
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  our minds. And yet every day, every day in
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  our world, 963 million people
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  go hungry. Did you know that 21 children die
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  every minute from starvation?
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  Even in our world with so much prosperity and so much abundance,
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  there is still famine. There are still people going hungry.
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  Now you have to kind of put yourself in that mindset
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  that that is even a possibility to understand what
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  the family in the opening verses of the book of Ruth is
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  dealing with in this situation. It really makes no sense.
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  They leave their home, they leave their jobs, they leave everything familiar,
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  and they go 20 to 30 miles away into a
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  place that is known for wickedness and idolatry and immorality,
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  the land of Moab. Why would they do that? They're hungry.
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  They're, they're trying to meet legitimate needs in illegitimate
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  ways. Did you know there's always a tendency to do that? That when need
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  comes, it should drive us to the Lord. But instead,
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  so often people drift from God. They let their,
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  their circumstances become a wedge between them and God instead of a prod
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  to, to nudge them nearer to the Lord. I've always found it ironic
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  that the name Bethlehem means house of bread, and in the
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  famine, that's what they leave. They leave the house of bread to go down to
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  Moab to try to find something to eat. May I read
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  again the opening verse of Ruth? Ruth chapter 1, verse number 1, as we
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  begin our study. Now it came to pass in the days when
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  the judges ruled that there was a famine in
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  the land. Would you mark that phrase, a famine in the
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  land? This famine was found in the books of history.
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  This is the place of scripture that we're in now, these books
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  of history, and history is still being written. I think it's interesting that the book
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  opens with the word now. History is always being written in the now.
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  Someday someone will look back on this period and talk about
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  what we did and how we responded to God. What will our children say?
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  What will our grandchildren say? What will future generations say
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  of our decisions? Because our decisions have implications not just
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  for us but for the generations to follow. This famine not only
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  came in the books of history, but it came in very dark days in
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  Israel. Judges 21:25, we read in our last study,
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  there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his
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  own eyes. These were days of moral decay, of failed
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  leadership, and financial uncertainty. In every way,
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  it seems that the shadows have fallen over the nation of
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  Israel. May I just say, be careful what you do when when the lights go
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  out. God is always at work in the night seasons
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  of our life, but so often it's in the night seasons that we're tempted to
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  take matters into our own hands, to operate in fear instead of in faith,
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  to become fleshly. Now, this famine came not only
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  in the books of history and in dark days, but in the context of a
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  single family. I think it's very important that we remember that sometimes
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  folks are talking about the needs of a nation collectively, but nations are
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  made up of families individually. And this is an individual family
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  spotlighted for us by the Holy Spirit, and I love that because I think it
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  reminds us God is interested in individuals. God is interested in
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  you. God is interested in your family. And it's important
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  to see what is God doing in our home at this particular
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  time. Let me give you 2 or 3 thoughts today about the famine,
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  about the time of need and the time of necessity,
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  because you may have a famine of sorts in
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  your family, in your life, and it may not be that there's nothing in the
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  cupboard or nothing in the refrigerator. It may be something totally different.
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  But the reality is that famines do
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  come. 2 or 3 simple truths. Number one,
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  write down somewhere that famines come in different forms.
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  They may be physical, they may be Literally a famine of food.
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  That can happen, and we may yet face that in our own land.
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  We've been so spoiled that we never imagined
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  that could come. It can be a financial famine. It could be emotional
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  in nature. It could be spiritual. Remember the prophets talked
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  about a famine coming not of bread but of hearing
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  the word of the Lord? I believe we're living in that kind of famine right
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  now. We are living in a day When people are hungry
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  for something, they're, they're feeding— to borrow
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  the analogy of the prodigal son— on the husk that the swine did eat
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  and missing the bounty of the father's house. They're trying
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  to satisfy that hunger on the inside, and they're missing the
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  bread of the word of God and the truth of God. You know, we love
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  to see God at work in prosperity, but could God be
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  at work and the famine? Could God be using
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  the famine to draw us to himself? Stop giving
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  the devil credit for every famine. Famines come in different forms.
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  Number 2, famines come to good people. I would
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  challenge you, study your Bible, just do a little 30,000-foot flyover of
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  the scriptures, and you will find throughout the Old Testament that many of God's greatest
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  servants, most faithful people had famines of
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  their own. Abraham had a famine.
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  Isaac had a famine. Jacob had a famine.
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  Joseph— man, read Genesis chapter number 41. Did you
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  know that famine is mentioned 19 times in Joseph's life?
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  Think about that. If it had not been for the famine,
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  you would never have seen all of the, all of the
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  victory and blessing that God would bring through Joseph
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  back into that family and into the nation.
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  The prophet Elijah, you know, that man that called down the rain
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  and called down fire from heaven, he had a famine.
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  And his protégé, his successor, Elisha, had his
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  own famine. David, the man after God's own heart, had famines.
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  And let me ask you something: if Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph
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  and Elijah and Elisha and David had their famines,
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  why do we think we will not? Look,
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  God makes it to— the sun to shine on
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  the just and the unjust, the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
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  But why should we think, as Job said, that we can receive good from the
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  hand of the Lord and no evil is going to come into our lives?
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  No, famines come in different forms. Famines come to
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  good people. And famines come, number 3, for different reasons.
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  Sometimes it is indeed to get our attention.
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  God uses things, the disruptions of life.
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  It has been famously said that to change the future, you must disturb the
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  present. And sometimes God has to just get our attention.
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  You see that in scripture. Sometimes in Israel, God was using
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  a famine to deal with them because of their sin.
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  To awaken them. I mentioned the prodigal son a moment
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  ago. Remember, it was a famine that brought him to the end of himself and
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  in the end brought him back from the far country and back to the father's
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  house. God oftentimes uses famines in this way.
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  In Jeremiah's day, wayward Israel was brought back by
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  means of a famine. But I would also point out to you that sometimes
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  God is not only getting man's attention, but he is proving
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  himself in the lives of his people.
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  We'll talk more about this, but God is at work in the famine. You see,
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  in the famine, that's where you learn that you are not enough,
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  and men are not enough, and resources are not enough.
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  Praise the Lord, God is always enough.
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  Friends, you can't always explain the famine, but you can always trust this,
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  that the famine is not going to last forever,
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  but your God will. If you're in a
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  famine today, could I encourage you, don't go looking to meet the
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  needs on your own. Instead, look to Jesus fresh and new.
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  My God shall supply all your need according to his riches
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  in glory by Christ Jesus, even in the midst
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  of a famine.
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  Thank you for joining us for today's study. If you've enjoyed
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  this journey through Ruth, visit us at etj.bible
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  Until next time, keep following God's Word and and
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  finding Christ's joy.