We come now to the end of our series in the book of Ruth and the question that we should be asking ourselves is what's the main lesson of this book?

What is the truth that the writer of this story wants us

to take away when we're finished reading? And here's my suggestion in one sentence of what I think that main lesson is.

The life of the Godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there.

The life of the Godly is not an interstate highway in Nebraska.

It is a state road through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee.

There are rock slides and precipices and dark mists and bears and slippery curves and hairpin

turns that make you go backwards in order to go forwards. And all along this hazardous curvy way, there are signs.

And the signs say, the best is yet to come. And written at the bottom of every sign in his unmistakable

handwriting are the words, as I live, says the Lord.

The Book of Ruth is one of those signs along your curvy summer Blue Ridge State Road.

And it was written and I have chosen to preach upon it just because I thought that maybe here in the middle of the summer

Some of you have had some unusual setbacks some strange detours or some discouraging circumstances that would cause you to need to hear the message of this book.

My guess is that's all of us.

In all of your setbacks this summer, the message of this book is

God has been plotting for your joy and your glory, whether you've recognized it yet or not.

This book is just a series of setbacks, isn't it? Just one setback after the other, almost right up to the very end.

Let's review for a minute. Chapter 1, Naomi and her husband and her two sons are driven by the famine out of Judah.

They go to Moab and her husband dies.

Her sons marry Moabite women.

They're childless for 10 years.

And then the sons die and leave her with two daughters in law destitute.

...