The Prodigal Family | Part 1
For the next several months we look into the Book of Ruth, a beautiful love story that highlights resilience and redemption, reminding us that in times of famine—whether literal or figurative—we must choose wisely where we plant our roots. We’ll also explore how decisions, especially those made by fathers and husbands, can ripple through generations, impacting not just our lives but those of our loved ones.
Checkout these other Family Fortress Ministries Podcasts:
TIME FOR THREE daily couples devotional: https://time-for-three.captivate.fm/listen
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Transcript
Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.
Speaker A:It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.
Speaker A:Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.
Speaker A:And now, here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.
Speaker B:I want you to turn in your Bible to the Book of Ruth.
Speaker B:Ruth is one of my favorite books in the Bible.
Speaker B:I love the Book of Ruth.
Speaker B:I can't help but think of the story of Benjamin Franklin, who was an ambassador to France and he would sometimes meet with this literary society as an ambassador of France, very agnostic society.
Speaker B:They would give selected turns of reading different things.
Speaker B:And it was his turn to do this on this particular time.
Speaker B:And he decided to read this love story that is the love story in the Book of Ruth.
Speaker B:He didn't tell them where it was or what he was reading or where it came from, but he decided to read this love story in the Book of Ruth.
Speaker B:And so he read it.
Speaker B:And when he finished, they said, that's the most beautiful love story that we've ever heard in all our life.
Speaker B:They said, you ought to get it published and give it worldwide distribution.
Speaker B:Benjamin Franklin said, it's already published and it already has worldwide distribution in the book that you so despise called the Holy Bible.
Speaker B:Certainly this is a beautiful, beautiful story, one of the most beautiful stories of redemption in the Bible today.
Speaker B:We're just going to cover the first seven verses and I hope you'll do, if you're old enough here to remember this, that is Paul Harvey, that you will get the rest of the story that he has.
Speaker B:I hope this afternoon or maybe this week, you'll go back and you'll read the rest of the Book of Ruth.
Speaker B:The other chapters here, there's only four chapters and I hope you'll take time to read that.
Speaker B:I think it will certainly be a great blessing to you.
Speaker B:So look with me in the Book of Ruth.
Speaker B:And we're going to start at verse one.
Speaker B:And I'm going to read now through verse seven.
Speaker B:Now, it came to pass in the days when the Judges ruled that there was a famine in the land.
Speaker B:And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.
Speaker B:The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons, Maon and Kilyon, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah.
Speaker B:And they came to the country of Moab and continued there.
Speaker B:And Elimelech Naomi's husband died, and she was left, and her two sons, and they took them wives of the women of Moab.
Speaker B:The name of the one was Orpah, the name of the other Ruth.
Speaker B:And they dwelled there about 10 years.
Speaker B:And Mahlon and Chilion died also, both of them.
Speaker B:And the woman was left of her two sons and her husband.
Speaker B:Then she arose with her daughters in law that she might return from the country of Moab.
Speaker B:For she had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread, wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her, and they went on their way to return unto the land of Judah.
Speaker B:Notice with me here this morning as we dive in and unpack these seven verses.
Speaker B:Ruth, chapter one.
Speaker B:The setting, really the setting and the context of this whole story.
Speaker B:It's very, very important we understand the setting of the story.
Speaker B:So look at it with me in verse one, and I'm kind of going to dissect these verses and kind of take them apart.
Speaker B:And we see in verse one, it tells us the context or the setting of the story.
Speaker B:In the book of Ruth, it said now, it came to pass in the days when the Judges ruled.
Speaker B:In the days when the Judges ruled.
Speaker B:You say, preacher, what kind of days were these days that the Judges ruled?
Speaker B:These were days where the children of Israel were steeped in sin.
Speaker B:These were days of dark departure and Israel's stubborn resistance against God.
Speaker B:I think to summarize it, the best we could look back, if you turn back to the last verse in the book of Judges, Judges, chapter 21 and verse 25, it describes these days, I think, very, very well.
Speaker B:In the last verse, it says, in those days there was no king in Israel.
Speaker B:And notice what it says at the end of verse 25.
Speaker B:Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Speaker B:Every man did what was right in their own eyes.
Speaker B:It doesn't say that every man did what was wrong in their own eyes, but every man did that which was what church right in their own eyes.
Speaker B:And let me stop and say we have no right to determine what is right.
Speaker B:The word of God determines what is right.
Speaker B:And when we do what is right in our own eyes, we get in big, big trouble.
Speaker B:And the Israelites were in big, big trouble because they were doing what was right in their own eyes.
Speaker B:I came across this statement several years by our then President Barack Obama, and I'm not trying to pick on him this morning, but it was A statement that kind of jumped off the page to me.
Speaker B:And I wrote it down when I heard it.
Speaker B:And he said this.
Speaker B:He says, time and again, we've been reminded of the difficulty of building a nation in which we are free to live and love as we see fit.
Speaker B:I thought the problem we've got in America today is we are living and loving as we see fit.
Speaker B:If we were living and loving as God sees fit, we wouldn't have the problems we have in America today.
Speaker B:But we have great problems in our country today because we were doing and we are doing what is right in our own eyes now, lest we get too lifted up with pride, lest we think that we are not that way, that we do not do what is right in our own eyes.
Speaker B:I came across a definition several years in a book I was reading by Jerry Bridges, and he was talking about ungodliness and defining what ungodliness was.
Speaker B:Now when I think of ungodliness, I think of those people who are doing these very wicked things that, quote, I don't do.
Speaker B:That is they're into, we might say, some type of abominable relationship.
Speaker B:They're extramarital relationships.
Speaker B:They're drunkards.
Speaker B:These kind of things that we may say we don't do.
Speaker B:We don't tend to think of ourselves as Christians normally as being ungodly.
Speaker B:But when he gave this definition, it really jumped off the page to me because he defined ungodliness this way.
Speaker B:He said, ungodliness is when you live your life without regard to God.
Speaker B:I thought, wow, that's convicting.
Speaker B:How many times during the day do I live my life?
Speaker B:Do I make decisions?
Speaker B:Do I do things without ever thinking about God when I make those decisions or do those things?
Speaker B:I think all of us, if we're honest, we'd say, preacher, there's not a day that doesn't go by that I probably at some point in that day in my week, I am living ungodly.
Speaker B:Because I'm not regarding God in my heart.
Speaker B:I'm not regarding God in my mind.
Speaker B:When I'm doing what I do or thinking what I'm thinking now.
Speaker B:When we do what is right in our own eyes, we're headed down a path of dark destruction.
Speaker B:And this is certainly the path that we see that the children of Israel were in.
Speaker B:They were on a path, dark destruction.
Speaker B:As we look in the Book of Judges where that they were disobeying God and God would judge them.
Speaker B:That is, God would cause something to happen to get their attention.
Speaker B:And then he would send a judge, a deliverer to bring them back to him, and hopefully they would confess and the repent of their sins.
Speaker B:And they went through cycles of this doing, this time where they were doing what was right in their own eyes.
Speaker B:But look in verse one again.
Speaker B:Notice it says now it came to pass in the days when the Judges ruled there was a famine in the land.
Speaker B:In this day when people were doing what was right in their own eyes.
Speaker B:The Bible says there was a famine in the land.
Speaker B:If you go back to Leviticus 26, don't turn there this morning.
Speaker B:But let me remind you, In Leviticus, chapter 26, you might want to read it later today.
Speaker B:God talks about his he says that you will find that God says, if you walk with me, if you obey me, that the rains will come down from heaven, the land will be fat and prosper.
Speaker B:He said, I'll bring peace to the land.
Speaker B:You'll never be warning of anything unless I come to give a test to you.
Speaker B:But if you sin against my law, if you turn away from me, the land will cease to produce.
Speaker B:He said the land will get hard, the land will get parched, the land will get dry because you have turned your back on me, or you have begun to do things in your own eyes.
Speaker B:Friends, I believe that our country is in a time of deep famine.
Speaker B:I believe our country has been a land of plenty.
Speaker B:It was a land of prosperity, a land of peace, a land of great abundance.
Speaker B:But now we're land in turmoil.
Speaker B:We're a land in deep corruption.
Speaker B:We're a land that's no longer the breadbasket of the rest of the world anymore.
Speaker B:Friends, we're a land that's in desperate trouble and in dire need of revival.
Speaker B:When a famine comes.
Speaker B:Let me just remind you, when a famine comes to the people, to the land, like it did here in Israel, God doesn't just judge the ungodly and let the godly escape.
Speaker B:When a famine comes, it's judgment upon the ungodly.
Speaker B:But it's a test to the godly, a test to the godly.
Speaker B:And notice where it says this famine is.
Speaker B:It says it's in a place called the land, and the land is described there.
Speaker B:And every one of these words are very, very important to understand where this famine is.
Speaker B:It describes this land as Bethlehem, Judah.
Speaker B:Bethlehem Judah means a place of praise in the house of bread.
Speaker B:The land is a place of blessing.
Speaker B:Here's a famine in a place of blessing.
Speaker B:Here's a famine that has come in the house of bread, in the place of Praise Bethlehem, Judah.
Speaker B:But we see in verse one, there's a family in this place of blessing.
Speaker B:They decide to leave the place of blessing and they go somewhere.
Speaker B:It says there they went to sojourn in the country of Moab.
Speaker B:Now, where the land is a place of blessing.
Speaker B:The Bible describes Moab, or the country as a place of cursing away from God.
Speaker B:I remind you In Genesis, chapter 12 and verse one, God said, Now the Lord said unto Abram, get thee out of the what country?
Speaker B:Get out of the country, told Abram, and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show you.
Speaker B:Get out of where you are and go into the place of blessing, where the presence of God is.
Speaker B:Then I will show you.
Speaker B:I remind you the story of the prodigal Son in Luke where it talks about the Son leaving the place of blessing, that is the Father's house and the Father's abundance and the love of the Father and leaving and going out into a what church?
Speaker B:A far.
Speaker B:What country?
Speaker B:A place of cursing away from God.
Speaker B:So here's a family.
Speaker B:They're in the place of blessing.
Speaker B:They're in the land, and they leave.
Speaker B:And they go into a place of cursing away from God.
Speaker B:But notice that little word sojourn, too.
Speaker B:These are very important words to understand when God is saying to us here this morning.
Speaker B:And the word sojourn means to leave with the intent of returning back.
Speaker B:That is, they left to go to this place called Moab.
Speaker B:But they didn't intend to stay there.
Speaker B:They planned on coming back to Bethlehem, Judah.
Speaker B:But they went again to a place called Moab.
Speaker B:Now, I want to remind you here this morning about Moab, Moab, the people.
Speaker B:The Moabites are the result of an incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters.
Speaker B:When the Israelites crossed the river to go in the promised land, the Moabites rejected them.
Speaker B:They would not give them food, they would not give them water.
Speaker B:And God placed his judgment upon them.
Speaker B:The Moabites became afraid of the Israelites.
Speaker B:You might remember in Scripture, they went and they got the prophet Balaam and tried to get him to pronounce a curse upon the Israelites.
Speaker B:In fact, the Moabites also, they tried to get their women to go and seduce the Israelite men.
Speaker B:These were a very wicked people.
Speaker B:These were people who were far from God.
Speaker B:So God says, leave them alone.
Speaker B:Stay away from them.
Speaker B:Do not associate with them.
Speaker B:Make no alliance with them.
Speaker B:Because the Moabites, your enemies.
Speaker B:In the Psalms, God calls Moab his wash basin, or Moab we might say, is a place far, far away from God.
Speaker B:So in a time of testing in the land of blessing, here's a family who leaves the place of God's presence because of a famine.
Speaker B:They go into a country called Moab, a place of cursing away from the presence of God.
Speaker B:I remind you of what it says in James chapter four and verse four.
Speaker B:It says, don't you know that friendship with the world or having a deep affection and longing for the things of this world is enmity with God.
Speaker B:And whosoever will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God?
Speaker B:How many professing Christians have moved outside the land, the place of blessing encamped in the world today, the place of Moab.
Speaker B:Under God's judgment, they have left the presence of God, the place of blessing, and went into a far country.
Speaker B:Now, I want you to notice here it says sojourn.
Speaker B:But they didn't just sojourn.
Speaker B:They remained there.
Speaker B:Look at verse 2.
Speaker B:At the end of verse 2 it says, and continued there.
Speaker B:At the end of verse four it says, and dwell there about ten years.
Speaker B:That is, they went and they took up residence there.
Speaker B:They began to camp there not just for a short time, but they began to live there for a long period of time.
Speaker B:That word dwell means to take up residence and actually live in address in a certain place.
Speaker B:So here's a family again.
Speaker B:They pick up out of the place a blessing out of the place called the land, the Bethlehem, Judah.
Speaker B:And they go into a place of cursing in a place called Moab, away from the presence of God, under the judgment of God.
Speaker B:And they plan to go there and come back.
Speaker B:But they didn't.
Speaker B:They continued there and they stayed in this place, away from God.
Speaker B:Now, I want to stop here and I want to give you a statement that I hope you will think about here today, because I think it applies to us all.
Speaker B:That is all addiction is predicated on sojourning.
Speaker B:All addiction is predicated on sojourning.
Speaker B:No man thinks, I'm going to go and I'm going to look on my computer or look in this magazine and just, I'm just going to do this one time.
Speaker B:He doesn't think, I'm going to keep doing this the rest of my life.
Speaker B:He thinks, I'll do this one time, then I won't do it anymore.
Speaker B:But he does it once and then he does it twice, and then he does it a third or fourth time.
Speaker B:Before long, he finds himself not sojourning.
Speaker B:He finds himself living in a place Away from God.
Speaker B:No person thinks, well, I just want to drink to become a drunkard.
Speaker B:They start drinking, and all of a sudden they drink more and more and more.
Speaker B:Now all of a sudden, they find themselves as a drunkard.
Speaker B:They lose their marriage, they lose their children.
Speaker B:They basically go down a path of dark destruction because they have left the presence of God and they have went and lived in a place away from God.
Speaker B:And now they find themselves in a place they never thought that they would ever be.
Speaker B:I can't tell you how many times I've had couples and different people come into my office for counseling.
Speaker B:And they would say something like this, preacher, I don't know how in the world I ever got here.
Speaker B:And I think to myself, the way you got here is you took that first step.
Speaker B:You took that first step.
Speaker B:You left the place of promise, you left the place of blessing, and you went into a place of cursing away from God.
Speaker B:All addiction is predicated on.
Speaker B:On sojourning.
Speaker B:We don't plan to stay over there, but we go there thinking, we're just going to do this once, we're just going to do this twice, and we'll come back.
Speaker B:Young people, I warn you here this morning, some of you are getting ready to graduate and go to college, go off somewhere.
Speaker B:It's very easy when you go to college, that you can go there.
Speaker B:And on Saturday night, you think to yourself, you know, I got an exam Monday.
Speaker B:God understands I need to study tomorrow morning.
Speaker B:I going to skip church tomorrow morning.
Speaker B:I'm not going to go to church tomorrow because I've got exams and I need to study.
Speaker B:And so the next morning, you skip church, you know, the next Saturday, it's a whole lot easier to skip church that second time.
Speaker B:And you'll find yourself, if you're not careful, after months of doing that, that you're never going to church anymore.
Speaker B:And you find yourself in a place way over here where you never ever thought that you would be.
Speaker B:All addiction, folks, is predicated on sojourning.
Speaker B:But I want you to take a look at this family that moved there.
Speaker B:Because God gives us the names in this family, and he gives us a beautiful picture of this family.
Speaker B:Here's a father Elimelech.
Speaker B:Elimelech means God is my king.
Speaker B:Isn't that a great name to have?
Speaker B:My name is Elimelech.
Speaker B:That means God is my king.
Speaker B:So you shake hands and you say, I'm Elimelech.
Speaker B:You immediately think back in that day time.
Speaker B:You think, wow, that man's name is God is my king.
Speaker B:But he's married to somebody named Naomi.
Speaker B:I'm going to ask Debbie to stand up here with me for a second, so I want you to get the picture of this.
Speaker B:So here's Elimelech.
Speaker B:God is my king, and he's married to Naomi.
Speaker B:Naomi means pleasantness.
Speaker B:So here's God is my king married to pleasantness.
Speaker B:Isn't that a beautiful couple in the Bible?
Speaker B:So God says, here, Here's a picture.
Speaker B:Here you are, you're living in the land of promise.
Speaker B:You're living in the place of blessing.
Speaker B:You're living in the house of bread, in the place of praise.
Speaker B:God is my king, the father, pleasantness, the mother.
Speaker B:Then they have two sons.
Speaker B:One of them's name is Ma yon.
Speaker B:The other one's name is Kalyan.
Speaker B:Now, scholars have a lot of disagreement about what these names mean, but in studying this, I really believe that this is what they mean, because I think it pictures this family.
Speaker B:Ma yon means song or singing, and kilion means satisfaction.
Speaker B:Now think about this family for a second.
Speaker B:Here is God is my king, living with pleasantness.
Speaker B:There's a song to God in their heart, and they're satisfied in the presence of the Lord.
Speaker B:Living in the house of praise, House of bread, in the place of praise.
Speaker B:It calls them Ephrathites.
Speaker B:That means they are fruitful.
Speaker B:I mean, that's a beautiful picture of a Christian family.
Speaker B:A beautiful picture of a Christian family.
Speaker B:It's a picture of what life I believe in Jesus Christ is meant to be when it is lived where God wants it to be lived, that is in the place of blessing in the land.
Speaker B:And I believe this describes many of our families in our churches today.
Speaker B:We say.
Speaker B:Many families in our churches would say, you know, I would never.
Speaker B:I would never leave the place of blessing and go into a place called Moab, away from God.
Speaker B:And these.
Speaker B:Listen, I'm not talking about bad families.
Speaker B:I'm talking about families that are pictured like in scripture, right here, like this family.
Speaker B:God is my king, married to pleasantness, who have sons named song and satisfaction.
Speaker B:And they're living in a place of blessing.
Speaker B:But they come under the test of God.
Speaker B:A famine comes in the land, and they pick up and they move the land out of the presence of God and they go to a place away from God.
Speaker B:Now, fathers, listen to me this morning for a second.
Speaker B:Husbands, listen to me this morning for a second.
Speaker B:The decision that this father made didn't just affect him.
Speaker B:It affected his wife and his whole family.
Speaker B:It affected every one of them.
Speaker B:And the decisions we make as a husband.
Speaker B:The decisions we make as a father do not just affect us.
Speaker B:They affect our wife.
Speaker B:They affect our family.
Speaker B:And listen, they can affect our family for generations to come.
Speaker B:You have listened to the first part of a two part message by evangelist Sam Wood.
Speaker A:Thank you for joining the Fortifying youg Family podcast.
Speaker A:And if you feel encouraged by today's teaching, give us a follow so we can invite you back and share us on your socials so more marriages and families can be strengthened and fortified through the truths of God's Word.
Speaker A:Remember, fortifying your family starts with a strong belief in God's Word.
