Finding Refuge: Overcoming Pride in Times of Trouble

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“Send lambs from Sela as tribute to the ruler of the land. Send them through the desert to the mountain of beautiful Zion. The women of Moab are left like homeless birds at the shallow crossings of the Arnon River. “Help us,” they cry. “Defend us against our enemies. Protect us from their relentless attack. Do not betray us now that we have escaped. Let our refugees stay among you. Hide them from our enemies until the terror is past.” When oppression and destruction have ended and enemy raiders have disappeared, then God will establish one of David’s descendants as king. He will rule with mercy and truth. He will always do what is just and be eager to do what is right. We have heard about proud Moab—about its pride, arrogance, and rage. But all that boasting has disappeared.”
Isaiah 16:1-6 NLT

Isaiah chapters 15 and 16 paint a heartbreaking picture. Moab is devastated. Cities have been destroyed, people are weeping, refugees are fleeing, and families are desperately searching for safety. Throughout Isaiah 15 we repeatedly hear the language of grief, with mentions of weeping, crying, faint hearts and more.  It is a picture of people who have discovered that everything they trusted will be taken away. Yet amid this terrible situation, there appears to be an opportunity for refuge. Moab is encouraged to turn towards Zion. But there is a problem. Pride. In our verses today we read, “We have heard about proud Moab—about its pride and arrogance and rage”. Moab desperately needed help, but pride stood in its way.

There is an important spiritual lesson here for us pilgrims. Sometimes the greatest barrier between ourselves and the help that God can supply is not our weakness. It is our pride, and in it we say that we can manage, that we don’t need help from anyone. We say that we will sort this or that particular problem ourselves, and anyway, if all else fails, we will then turn to God. But faith says something very different: it tells the Lord that we need Him. However, we know that God offers us a place of refuge. Psalm 46:1, “God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble”. Matthew 11:28-30 NLT, “Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light””. But to come to Christ we must first admit that we need Him. We cannot receive grace while insisting that we are self-sufficient. We cannot find refuge while refusing to admit that we need shelter. We cannot experience the strength of God while pretending that we are strong enough on our own. The tragedy of Moab is that help was available, but pride stood in the way.

Perhaps today God is reminding us that we do not have to carry everything ourselves. We can come to Him, admitting our weaknesses, confessing our needs, and, of course, laying down our pride. And when we do, we discover that God is not waiting to condemn the humble heart. He is waiting to become our refuge. James wrote, “And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. … Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honour” (James 4:6-7, 10). 

Isaiah 16:4-5 reads, “Let our refugees stay among you. Hide them from our enemies until the terror is past. When oppression and destruction have ended and enemy raiders have disappeared, then God will establish one of David’s descendants as king. He will rule with mercy and truth. He will always do what is just and be eager to do what is right”. We pilgrims remember that, in all the mayhem of this turbulent time in history, Someone was coming to establish a Kingdom of mercy and truth, justice and righteousness. His name was, and is, Jesus, our wonderful Saviour. Unlike the Maobites, who had yet to experience the coming King, we know Him from His brief time on this earth. He came as a baby, subsequently living a life of austerity, but His love and compassion were limitless, and through the testimonies of His faithful disciples, we stand before Him, loved, saved and forgiven. We know Him. And we wait for His return, to complete the promise given so many years ago to a people suffering under foreign occupation. 

God is indeed “our refuge and strength”, but is our pride getting in the way? Are we preventing ourselves from entering into the refuge of rest that He promised? In all humility, we bow before Him today, confessing our pride and arrogance, and asking for forgiveness. Are we pilgrims facing into difficulties today, for which God has a solution, if only we would put aside our pride and embrace His provision?

Dear Lord, forgive us for the times when pride prevents us from admitting how much we need You. Help us to stop trusting in our own strengths and abilities. Teach us to come humbly into Your presence and to find our refuge, strength and security in You. Thank You that when we come to You, we know that we will never be turned away. Amen.

God’s Grace Through Ruth: A Moabite’s Legacy

Posted on by Adrian Clark

“This message came to me concerning Moab: In one night the town of Ar will be levelled, and the city of Kir will be destroyed.
Isaiah 15:1 NLT

King David conquered Moab, Israel’s neighbour, around 1040 BC, and that was how things stayed until soon after 853 BC when they successfully rebelled and remained a thorn in Israel’s side. In 583 BC they were conquered by the Babylonians and by 400 BC had been absorbed into the Nabataean empire and ceased to exist as a separate nation. Isaiah’s prophecy against Moab was probably written between 739 and 681 BC. The rest of chapters 15 and 16 provide an account of what was going to happen to Moab, an idolatrous nation that was, however, notable for its most famous person, Ruth. 

The Book of Ruth was possibly written by Samuel, as Jewish scholars claim, but it is not an unaminous conclusion. However, what we do know is that Ruth was King David’s great-grandmother (Matthew 1:5-6). The account of Ruth started in the time of the Judges, when a famine was present in Judah. “In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him. The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife was Naomi. Their two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in the land of Judah. And when they reached Moab, they settled there. Then Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. The two sons married Moabite women. One married a woman named Orpah, and the other a woman named Ruth. But about ten years later, both Mahlon and Kilion died. This left Naomi alone, without her two sons or her husband” (Ruth 1:1-5).

What happened in Moab was an absolute disaster, because there was no social safety net to look after widowed women. Naomi, a Jewish woman and now a widow, could not have survived on her own, so she decided to return to Bethlehem, taking her daughter-in-law, Ruth, with her. Through the Book of Ruth, we can see how God used a foreign woman at just the right time in the ancestral lineage that led to the birth of Jesus. Ruth was a woman of remarkable qualities, as we read in Ruth 1:16, “But Ruth replied, ‘Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. ‘ “ Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God”. Such devotion played out in the account of Ruth and her liaison with Boaz, through which a son arrived. “… And they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of David” (Ruth 4:17). Ruth was a Moabite (historically an outsider to Israel), yet God chose her to be in the genealogy of King David, and ultimately Jesus. This highlights that God’s grace extends to all nations, races, and backgrounds.

Is there anything that we pilgrims can learn from Isaiah 15 and the Book of Ruth? There would seem to be three themes that run through this period in Israel’s history, the first being God’s sovereign providence at just the right time and in just the right lives. Naomi experienced immense bitterness after losing her husband and sons, but God used Ruth’s humble actions in the fields of Boaz to turn their despair into joy. It reminds believers that God is orchestrating events behind the scenes, even during times of grief. Perhaps we pilgrims are going through a time of grief ourselves, when all seems so dark, and when the loss of a loved one is affecting us deeply. For all we know, God is working behind the scenes to produce an outcome that will change our lives and those of our families. Jesus said, “God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). 

A second theme concerns the loyalty Ruth showed to her mother-in-law. Instead of pursuing her own interests, Ruth showed profound devotion by leaving her homeland to serve Naomi. As we know, Jesus left the comfort of eternity with His Father in Heaven to come to this world, taking on the form and limitations of a man, an act of breathtaking loyalty marked by His care and compassion for the human race. Ruth’s action was an example of the loyalty we have to Jesus, something that marks both the early disciples and us pilgrims today. 

The third theme concerns Jesus being the ultimate Redeemer. In the Book of Ruth, Boaz acted as a “kinsman-redeemer” (a relative who saves and provides for a destitute family), and he served as a beautiful Old Testament illustration of Jesus, who rescued humanity by paying the ultimate price for our salvation. Jesus is the ultimate redeemer because He paid the debt for sin that humanity cannot afford, rescuing believers from spiritual bankruptcy and bringing them into God’s family. We pilgrims were in a lost and hopeless state, spiritually destitute and unable to provide for ourselves. There is no spiritual equivalent of a social security net. Churches or religion cannot help. There is only one remedy for sin, and that is through Jesus, and we pilgrims bow at His feet this morning, deeply grateful for all that he did for us on the cross at Calvary. 

Dear Lord Jesus. There are no words sufficient to express our deep thanks to You today. We praise and worship You, and will do so forever. Amen.