When God’s Providence Is Hard

ORDER OF WORSHIP:

Welcome
Song of Praise “Blessed Be Your Name”
Call to Worship Psalm 91:1-6; 1
Song of Praise “O Worship The King”
Confession of Faith Psalm 57:1-2
Song of Praise “We Will Dwell”
Prayer of Adoration
Greet One Another
Ministry Spotlight
Reception of New Members Buddy & Crystal Morse
Prayer of Intercession
Giving of God’s Tithes and Our Offerings
Song of Preparation “It Is Done”
Scripture Reading Ruth 1:1-22
Sermon “Tracing God’s Providence: When God’s Providence Is Hard”
Prayer of Commitment
Song of Response “How Marvelous”
Benediction

SERMON NOTES:

I Corinthians 10:11

C.S. Lewis:

“I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of the chisel, which hurt us so much, are that which make us perfect.”

C.S. Lewis:

“The problem with reconciling human suffering with the existence of God who loves, is insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word ‘love.’”

1. THE  HAND OF GOD’S PROVIDIENCE

Judges 21:25

Joel Smith:

“Most Christians in America think and live like deists.  Deists believe that God made the world and everything in it, but He wound the universe up like an old clock and stepped back to let it run according to the natural laws He put in place. We don’t expect to encounter God on a daily basis.”

2 Kings 6:17

Charles Spurgeon:

“The Providence of God is the great protector of our life and usefulness, and under the divine care we are perfectly safe from danger.”

2. THE  THAT GOD USES IN PROVIDENCE

Paul Miller:

“In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of the House of Bread in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Who’s Your Daddy, (Mo means who and ab means father), he and his wife had two sons. The name of the man was My God is king and the name of his wife pleasant, and the names of the sons were Weak and Frail. They were Ephrathites from the House of Bread in Judah. They went into the country of Who’s Your Daddy and remained there. But My God is King, the husband of Pleasant, died, and she was left with her two sons. They took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years and both Weak and Frail died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.”

Ruth 1:20-21

Genesis 50:20

Mary Evans:

“Naomi describes to God a kind of sovereignty but it is a sovereignty without grace. It is an omnipotent power without compassion and it is a judicial will without mercy.”

Ruth 1:22

William Cowper:

“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.”

3. THE RESULTS OF GOD’S PROVIDENCE

Ruth 1: 16-17

Adele Berlin:

‘“Your people will be my people, and your God my God’ is a radical thought because it signals that Ruth is changing her identity in a world where that was almost inconceivable. The ancient world had no mechanism for religious conversion or change of citizenship; the very notion was unthinkable. Religion and peoplehood defined one’s ethnic identity, and this could no more be changed than the color of one’s skin.”

Romans 8:38-39

C.S. Lewis:

“Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause (the Devil’s cause) is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do our Enemy’s will (God’s will), looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”