Even though the providence of God is sometimes very hard, in all his works, he is

purposing your happiness and your good. Even when life is at its toughest, do we

truly believe that God always has our happiness and good in mind? That's the

question that John Piper answers from the book of Ruth in this episode of

Light and Truth. This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church

on July 1st, 1984.

It's a story that shows how God moves in a mysterious way. It's a story for

people who wonder where God is when there are no dreams and no visions and no

prophets. It's a story for people who wonder where God is when tragedy after

tragedy attacks your faith. It's a story for people who wonder whether there is

any point in being a person of integrity in the hardest of all times when it

looks like you may as well join the crowd and throw away your integrity. And

it's a story for people who can't imagine that anything great could ever

come out of your ordinary life of faith. The book of judges in our English

Bible comes just before the book of Ruth and if you let your eyes go up to the

last verse of the book of judges, you can hear a theme statement about the kind of

time it was, the time of the judges, the time in which this story took place. It

says, in those days there was no king in Israel and every man did what was

right in his own eyes. It was a very, very dark time in Israel. You remember the

sequence of activities that people would sin and rebel against God. God would

send enemies against the people. The people would cry out to God, help us in his

mercy. God would send a judge, the judge would defeat the enemies and then in 80

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