07/03/2023 - THE HASTINESS OF DESTRUCTION

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Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the LORD had visited His people by giving them bread.  Ruth 1.6

The hastiness of some is the reason they are destroyed. They can’t receive bad news that they immediately set out for some place considered better for themselves and their family. This happened to a man from the land of Bethlehem – King David’s land – who got carried away by illusion and left for Moab, because in the House of Bread (Bethlehem) there was drought and there was prosperity in the country of the Moabites.

The best place is where God has placed you. Crisis don’t last forever, they come and go, but the desperate get desperate and don’t even pray to the Lord for guidance. Elimelech, the head of this family, his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, went to a place with a different language and customs, whose people did not worship the God of Israel, but a god invented by those who did not know the Most High!

As the days went by, we do not know why Elimelech became ill and did not resist. The two sons must have looked for work, and soon, they become older and married two Moabites. Their dreams were big, so they stayed there for almost ten years. However, Mahlon and Chilion also died. Where there is no faith in God, no one comes to the rescue. And Naomi was left alone, without hope!

Elimelech had a beautiful name (My God is real), but it didn’t help, and he passed away. Mahlon and Chilion, on the other hand, did not have pretty names, as they mean Sickness and Withering, respectively. We don’t know why their parents gave them these names. It seems that they named them this way after they became ill with no chance of healing.

Finally, the Good News arrived! Bethlehem was no longer the same, because the Lord visited His people and from then on there was bread in abundance. Naomi, which means Pleasant, saw the time had come to return to the House of Bread, where more than a thousand years later the Bread of Life Jesus would be born. She made her decision and told it to her daughters-in-law. After a brief discussion, the three widows prepared everything and set out.

When God visits our land, those who have stayed and endured the trial find themselves better off than those who ran away from the problems. No one should run away from anything that scares, because with faith in the Father, by using the Name that is above every name, they will succeed. The servants of the Lord have the faith that gives them the solution to their difficulties.

Naomi left with little, or almost nothing, along with her two daughters-in-law who took pity on her, and put them to the test (Ruth 1.8-18). Orpah, which means Neck, returned to Moab, but Ruth, which means Friendship, followed with her mother-in-law and was blessed, becoming the great-grandmother of King David and ancestor of the Lord Jesus!

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares