“God Can Turn It Around”

“Then they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, ‘Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’ But Ruth said:

      ‘Entreat me not to leave you,
      Or to turn back from following after you;
      For wherever you go, I will go;
      And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
      Your people shall be my people,
      And your God, my God.’ (Ruth 1:14-16)

            As we can clearly see, the Moabites carried a very shameful past. A past that even today (2011) could destroy your possibilities of prospering forever. Basically, you have two seemly young ladies who felt that the way to keep their family’s existence going was by getting their father drunk and having sex with him. Genesis 19:31-36 tells us the story:

“Now the firstborn said to the younger, ‘Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us as is the custom of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.’ So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
 It happened on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, ‘Indeed I lay with my father last night; let us make him drink wine tonight also, and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.’ Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.’

            The bottom line is that the Moabites serve other gods; even as they were descendants of Abraham, also. Lot was actually Abraham’s nephew, but not a part of the promise given to Abraham. The amazing fact about this story is how God can take a shameful situation and turn it around for good. Ruth was to become the great king David’s grandmother, but also, she carried the amazing privilege of being a part of our Saviors genealogy.

            I am sure you have some shameful situation where you were directly or indirectly involved in something you hope the world will never know! I am sure that many have a past that is constantly hunting your present and stealing the wings of your future. I don’t know what it is! However, if, like Ruth, we abandon our gods and our worthless ways and go wholeheartedly after Jehovah He will turn things around for good. God wants to take us from shame to glory!