1st Midweek Advent Service, 2023

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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1st Midweek Advent Service, 2023

11:54

I would like to welcome you all to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. This is our first of four midweek

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Advent services. And for the series that I'll be doing this Advent, I'm gonna be preaching through the book of Ruth.

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Tonight we're gonna be looking at Ruth chapter one, Ruth chapter one, and just to kind of let you know what it is that you can expect.

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And the opening hymn is actually sung as the office hymn, so I'm gonna get to the front here shortly and we'll get started.

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And just so you know, psalm tone F, as in Frank, will be the psalm tone that we're gonna use today.

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And so we're gonna be using psalm 130, psalm tone F as in Frank, and we're following the order of Vespers on 229.

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So page 229 for Vespers, mark psalm 130, that's our psalm tonight, we'll be using

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F. Congregation, please rise.

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♪ O Lord open my lips ♪ ♪

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Make haste O God to deliver me ♪

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Psalm 130. ♪

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Out of the depths ♪ ♪

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O Lord hear my voice ♪ ♪

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If you O Lord should mark iniquities ♪ ♪

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But with you there is forgiveness ♪ ♪

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I wait for the Lord my soul waits ♪ ♪ My soul waits for the

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Lord more than the watchman ♪ ♪ For the morning ♪ ♪

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O Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord ♪ ♪ There is steadfast love and he will redeem

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Israel ♪ ♪

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Glory be to the Father and to the Son ♪ ♪

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And to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning ♪

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Amen. Hymn number 338, you may be seated.

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A reading from the book of Ruth chapter one. In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land.

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A man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

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The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi. And the names of his two sons were

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Machlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah.

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They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi died and she was left with her two sons.

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These took Moabite wives, the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about 10 years and both

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Machlon and Chilion died so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

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Then she rose with her daughters -in -law to return from the country of Moab for she heard in the fields of Moab that the

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Lord had visited his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters -in -law and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.

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But Naomi said to her two daughters -in -law, go return each of you to her mother's house.

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May the Lord deal kindly with you as he has dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband.

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And then she kissed them and they lifted up their voices and they wept and they said to her, no, we will return with you to your people.

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But Naomi said, turn back my daughters. Why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?

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Turn back my daughters, go your way. For I am too old to have a husband. And if I should have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown?

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Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters. For it is exceedingly bitter for me for your sake that the hand of the

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Lord has gone out against me. Then they lifted up their voices and wept again and Orpah kissed her mother -in -law and Ruth clung to her.

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And she said, see your sister -in -law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister -in -law.

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But Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go,

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I will go and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your

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God, my God. Where you die,

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I will die and there I will be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.

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And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

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So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them.

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And the women said, is this Naomi? She said to them, do not call me

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Naomi, call me Mara. For the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. I went away full and the

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Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me and the

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Almighty has brought calamity upon me? So Naomi returned and Ruth the

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Moabite, her daughter -in -law with her, who returned from the country of Moab and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

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Oh Lord, have mercy on us. Speak to God. We will continue now with the responsory.

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Just wanna make sure I've got the order correct. Behold, the days are coming, says the

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Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch.

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In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely.

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Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the

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Holy Spirit. In the name of Jesus.

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You know, sin is awful. In fact, sin leads to horrible consequences that are oftentimes legitimately terrible to endure and quite painful.

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It's physically painful, psychologically painful, spiritually painful and you're gonna note here, the wages of sin is death.

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This is most certainly true but God, it seems to be content to make sure that we're paid those wages in small incremental payments.

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It's almost like having an apartment of sin and God has seen fit to make sure we get paid the rent every single month.

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It's a little bit awful if you think about it. And so when we come to the story of Ruth and Naomi, it's important to note that this isn't a story that begins with faithful Israelites.

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In fact, far from it. I can legitimately say that Elimelech and Naomi have done something that is quite foolish.

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It's sinful if you think about it. And as a result of it, they paid a very heavy price,

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Naomi being left holding the bag. And the problem is is that when her husband died, then her sons, now we've got a big problem.

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And that problem is the way property worked in ancient Israel, women couldn't own it.

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And as a result of it, she was in dire need of a redeemer, somebody who can redeem her property but that would require a marriage.

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And well, this is for the later part of the chapter. Let's just say that dried up old women having marriage proposals from young kinsmen redeemers is not really in the cards here, all right?

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That's just not what's gonna go on. So let me walk through this text and see if we can figure out what's going on. And along the way, we're going to note that in this first chapter,

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Ruth, the Moabite woman, is going to behave very much like Christ, wonderfully so.

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We have to keep this in mind. Types and shadows are the things we're looking for. We wanna bring this back to Christ.

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And of course, it's no coincidence that we're reading this story during Advent because after all, this does take place in Bethlehem.

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Hmm, that seems like a good venue for me if we're gonna be looking forward to the birth of Christ. So here's how the text reads.

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In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land and a man of Bethlehem and Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

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Now this requires you to have read other portions of scripture. If you read the book of the judges, boy, it's not a good book, okay?

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After the children of Israel get into the land of Israel, then Joshua dies and that generation dies.

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We are all over the map. Over and again, you hear this refrain through the book of judges. And again, the people of Israel did what was wicked in the eyes of the

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Lord and they worshiped the Baals. And so God sold them into slavery to the Moabites, to the

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Philistines, to the uptights, the ballet tights, and all the other tights out there, right? All that being said, this is how this goes.

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And then what happens is that the people of Israel cry out and say, God, we were wrong, have mercy on us.

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God sends a savior, a judge, a deliverer. They are rescued from slavery to these flea -bitten tribes.

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And then, well, the whole thing starts all over again. Over and over.

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Sounds a lot like my sanctification, by the way. It's just, it's not a straight line into glory.

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It seems to be like this, right? That's kind of the point. And so here, you can read between the lines a little bit by reading the cross references in the book of judges.

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And so in the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine. Well, you're gonna note, knowing your Mosaic covenant, knowing your book of Deuteronomy, you'll note that God did not promise the people of Israel famines.

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He promised them plenty. If, if they obeyed the commands of God.

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The fact that they were experiencing famine was God basically saying, are you guys gonna put those idols away or not?

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You're gonna keep worshiping Baal and listening to your neighbors, the

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Canaanites and all these other people and start worshiping their deities. If that's the case, well, guess what? I'm going to lock the sky up.

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Rain won't fall, crops won't grow. You're going to get hungry. And rather than go, you know,

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God is judging us exactly like he said he would judge us in the book of Deuteronomy for not being faithful and obeying his commands and worshiping only him.

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You know what we need to do? We need to repent. We need to put away our idols and worship Yahweh alone.

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So Elimelech and Naomi and their sons come up with a great idea.

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Let's leave the promised land and head to Moabite territory. And all the

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Norwegians said, oofta. Yeah, that's the correct liturgical response here. So you can see what's going on.

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This is not a good setup, all right? But you gotta note, God is going to allow them to experience the consequences of their sin and rather than repenting, fleeing the scene.

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And well, God's not gonna be content to leave all of them there. So the name of the man was

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Elimelech, and I apologize, this is a bit gratuitous, but every time I hear his name, I hear a song running through my head.

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Elimelech, Elimelech, Elimelech. You know the song, right? And so the name of the man was Elimelech and his wife,

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Naomi, and the names of the two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. And they were

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Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. Mm, sounds a lot like what's going on in that New Testament when we get there in just four weeks, right?

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So they went to the country of Moab and there they remained. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died.

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And she was left there with her two sons. And to make matters worse, her two sons took

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Moabite wives, which they're not supposed to do, all right? I don't care how hot the pagan chicks are, you're not supposed to marry the pagan chicks.

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That's not how this works. So these good Israelite boys, they're not very good Israelite boys, they have the hots for the

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Moabite girls, and so they marry them. And the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other was

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Ruth. They lived there about 10 years. That's more than a sojourn, by the way.

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I've been here for 10 years, almost 10 years here in North Dakota, Minnesota, and it don't feel like no sojourn, you know?

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Because I ain't going anywhere anytime soon. 10 years is a long time. And both Mahlon and Chilion, they died so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

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This is disaster. This is the ancient equivalent of bankruptcy.

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We've got nothing. I own property, but I can't actually own it outright. I can't get to that asset.

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We are, well, no longer able to supply ourselves. We are completely poor, dependent upon charity of others at this point.

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So, then she rose with her daughters -in -law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that Yahweh had visited his people and given them food.

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Huh, interesting word, by the way, visited. Yahweh visited his people.

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Yeah, that's how it worked in the time of the judges, isn't it? Yahweh visited his people, sent a redeemer, sent a judge, delivered them.

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Which of the judges was it? It doesn't say. Was it Gideon? Was it Samson? Was it Barak?

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It doesn't say which it was. We're not exactly sure, but when you read the book of Judges, it invokes all of those names where you sit there and go, of course

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Yahweh visited his people, because when he punishes them, it's so that they will repent.

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And so, note here, having fled the scene and not repented up to this point, they've now missed the visitation of God, and they were completely in the wrong place.

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They were in Moab, rather than the Promised Land. So, she heard that Yahweh had visited his people and given them food, so she set out from that place where she was with her two daughters -in -law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.

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But, Naomi said to her two daughters -in -law, go, return each of you to her mother's house.

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May Yahweh deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me, and Yahweh grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband.

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Go, go back home, find a new husband, have a family, enjoy all of that stuff.

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So, she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices, and they all wept. This is what happens with women, they cry.

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So, they're all crying. This is a sad departure. And so, they said to her, no, we will return with you to your people.

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Really? Let's see if that's true. So, Naomi said, well, turn back, my daughters.

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Why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?

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Turn back, my daughters. Go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say

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I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown?

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Now, if you don't know what's going on here, why would she say something like this? Okay, Naomi, an older lady at this point, is basically saying, if I went back and had a husband and had sons, would you wait for them to become adults?

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Because the idea here is that this is how this worked, is that if Naomi did get married, then her son would then be required to marry one of the chicks.

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And then the other son would be required to marry the other one. And then produce offspring for the dead brothers.

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That's a requirement of the Torah. So, that's kind of a weird one, okay?

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It's kind of working this through. An 80, a lady, how old? She doesn't say, maybe she's 60.

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I don't know, it doesn't say. But she has a son at 60. And then these, and then Ruth and Orpah, how old are they?

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25? 30? A 50 -year -old woman marrying a 20 -year -old boy?

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You know, it's starting to get a little weird. And so, I think Orpah begins to come to her senses and go, yeah, maybe that's not what

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I'm signing up for, right, kind of explaining how that all goes down. So, would you therefore refrain from marrying?

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No, my daughters, it is exceedingly bitter for me to, for your sake, that the hand of Yahweh has gone out against me.

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So they lifted up their voices, they wept again. Orpah kissed her mother -in -law. Basically, you can say,

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Orpah kissed her mother -in -law. Goodbye, because now she leaves the story.

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But Ruth clung to her. And so, she said, see, your sister -in -law has gone back to her people.

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And listen to these words. And to her gods, return after your sister -in -law.

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What kind of awful advice is that? Listen, your sister's gone back to her family and to your deities that you worship in your family.

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Go with her, do the same. No Israelite's supposed to talk this way, right?

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No Israelite's supposed to talk this way because there is only one God. What kind of advice is this?

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You want me to go back and commit idolatry? You can kind of see where Naomi is.

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Not exactly the most pious lady, almost secular in her thinking. And so, you have to wonder if God is not working in her own repentance to see that there's more to life than meets the eye.

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And that what scripture says is true. Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, which clearly she seems to have forgotten a little bit here.

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Your sister -in -law has gone back to her people and to her gods, so return after your sister -in -law. But now,

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Ruth really comes through. And listen to these words. Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you.

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For where you go, I will go. And where you lodge, I will lodge.

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Your people shall be my people and your God my God. Now, here's an interesting thing.

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The way the sentences work out here, watch what happens.

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Where you go, I will go, future tense. Where you lodge, I will lodge, future tense.

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Your people shall be my people, future tense. And your

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God my God, not, future tense, confession of faith.

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Ruth already believes in Yahweh. We don't know how this happened, the text doesn't say.

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But by this statement, paying attention just to the grammar, one of these things is not like the other, right?

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So your people shall be my people, your God my God. Where you die, I will die. And there

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I will be buried. And may Yahweh do so to me and more also, if anything but death parts me from you.

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What a confession. It may Yahweh do so to me and more also, if anything but death parts me from you.

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That's her saying, I believe in Yahweh. I believe in Yahweh and because of that, if I did wicked,

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I would expect Yahweh to do more evil to me to cause more calamity to fall upon me if I do not remain faithful to stay with you.

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And here's where she exemplifies Christ. What does Christ say to us in the

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Great Commission? Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them all which I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age.

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That same faithfulness of Christ is exemplified here in Ruth. She is going to be with Naomi through thick and thin, through disaster and blessing.

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And this disaster has not turned her love away from her at all. Instead, like Christ, she steadfastly stays with Naomi.

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Naomi doesn't deserve this. Naomi has a lot of issues that have to be resolved here for sure. But when

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Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said, no more. Now, fascinating thing comes up next.

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They end up going back to Bethlehem. And here's where I have to kind of prepare you for what's going to happen.

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We are going to hear Naomi lament. You think of Lamentations, the book of Lamentations, that's a lament.

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Did you know that there are over 60 Psalms in the scripture that are Psalms of lament, where it legitimately sounds like people are either crying out to God in great pain, wondering where he is, or even kind of complaining to God about the bitterness of the circumstances that they find themselves in.

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How long, oh Lord, David says, will you forget me forever? How long must

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I cry tears into my pillow and you not act according to my prayers? Things like this.

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And so here's the important thing, is that we live in a day where unfortunately, American positivity has had a horrible impact on Christian doctrine, and I mean it in the worst possible way.

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I've been recently doing some study on the foundations, the roots, the origins of the

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Pentecostal movement, okay? And there's a wonderful, wonderful history written about it that takes us way back into American history.

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And you're gonna note something. In the early phases of American history, Americans were like insanely optimistic about their future.

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They believed that they had a manifest destiny to bring democracy to the entire

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Western Hemisphere, and they believed that they were gonna just roll across the country and conquer everybody for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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And this ended up having a huge, profound impact on theology, and whose theology did it impact the most?

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Of all people, John Wesley. John Wesley and the Methodists, they imbibed this positivity, and it's that theology that then gave birth, or it was the big chicken that laid the egg that became the

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Pentecostal movement. And within the Pentecostal movement, then you have today's modern day, name it and claim it, prosperity preachers.

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God wants you to be the head and not the tail. He's gonna give you prosperity and health and wealth, and you're gonna be the, oh yeah, the bee's knees and all this kind of stuff.

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And the one thing you cannot do, the mortal sin in those theological systems is to say anything with your mouth that is negative, right?

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Because in their way of thinking, your words create reality, right?

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Which is nonsense, that's witchcraft, okay? But I would note, if that were the case, then the story of the book of Ruth would end very differently than it ends.

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Because we're about to hear Naomi give the ultimate negative confession in the form of a lament.

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And she is bittered in her soul. And you're gonna note this throughout the scriptures, and the scriptures teach us in the

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Psalms to do this. We see example after example after example of godly men venting their lamentation, voicing their pain, voicing their suffering, acknowledging the calamity that has befallen them or the people of Israel.

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And I would note, there's an entire book dedicated to this process called Lamentations, right?

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Now, I would note something here. I've never heard Joel Osteen preach on Lamentations, but I will not be asking

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David Lovey to do so because he'll twist it horribly, but that's the whole end of the story. Okay, and yes,

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I mentioned David Lovey in a sermon. Okay, all of that being said, listen to her words and take note.

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It is healthy, it is right, it is godly, and it is modeled for us to give voice to the difficulties, the suffering, and the pain that we are going through.

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That doesn't mean that when we do so we are always correct in what we say. And you'll note that when we do so, oftentimes

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God is silent, sitting by, standing by, waiting for us to kind of get it out because it's part of the mourning process of sin.

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It's part of the teaching process of being a disciple of Christ. Even Christ himself lamented in the garden and showed his lamentation when he said,

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Father, if it's possible, please let this cup pass from me. But again, not my will be done, your will be done, right?

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That's a lamentation. So the story goes on. So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem.

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Boy, that sounds a lot like a story we're gonna be reading shortly. Keep pointing it out because this is the whole point of this text.

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And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, is this

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Naomi? And she said to them, do not call me Naomi. Call me

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Mara. Now, a little bit of a note here. Naomi in Hebrew means pleasant, okay?

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Don't call me pleasant. My life is anything but that. She says instead, call me Mara. And this kind of invokes a little obscured portion of the book of Exodus.

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Remember when the children of Israel, they crossed the Red Sea. And they're starting now to head towards Mount Sinai.

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And the first thing they run into after the springs where they had the 70 palm trees, after that, they ran into a place called

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Mara, the Springs of Mara. And it's noted because the water in the

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Springs of Mara was bitter. It tasted terrible. And you sit there and go, why are we getting this detail?

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And Moses takes a piece of wood, chucks it into the Spring of Mara, and then the waters become sweet.

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And you scratch your head and go, huh? But then you read the church fathers. And the church fathers have a very interesting way of reading that text.

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They talk about the bitterness of sin and the consequences of sin. But the wood represents the wood of Christ's cross.

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And by his death and his resurrection, the bitterness of this life turns to the sweetness of the joys of eternity.

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Keep that in mind. So here she's invoking, and the word always is referencing itself.

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So when she says, call me Mara, you should sit there and go, oh, wait, that has something to do with that Exodus text, and it does.

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And then she says this, the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and Yahweh has brought me back empty.

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Is she saying anything false? No, she's speaking the truth. But you'll note that all the Joel Osteenites are going, no, don't say that.

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You're bringing down a negative confession upon your own head. You're cursing yourself with your words.

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Wrong, she's not. I went away full, and the

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Lord has brought me back empty. Now, you'll note, Ruth doesn't speak up at this point.

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Because you'll note that what she said was not true. She did not come back empty.

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She came back with a faithful daughter -in -law who loves her so much that she refused to be parted from her and she had repented of her worship of false gods and believes in Yahweh.

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And so, you'll note, Ruth's silence here actually speaks. Because rather than sit there and go, oh, that's it,

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I'm heading back, heading back to Moab. You're treating me like I'm, like chopped liver or something and liver's a terrible thing, just to make that clear, all right?

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And so, you say you came back empty, but you have me. You don't even think I'm, what is this, right?

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This is not how she's talking. By the way, strongly recommend that you do not argue with your spouse by using words like always or never.

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Avoid those things like the plague, right? If you say to your spouse, you never do this, lie.

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That's not true. Or you always blah, right, lie again. And you know, you hurt your spouse when you talk this way because you're not recognizing the good that they do.

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And in your pain and your anguish, you're over lamenting things, you've overcooked it. And so, your spouse could rightly say, what you're saying is not true.

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What I, I've done this, that, and the other thing. Why does this not count, right? But you'll note, this is where Naomi is.

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Bitter in soul, bitter in the sufferings, bitter in her loss. And she knows that the hand of Yahweh is the one that has been against her.

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And from her point of view in her pain and her suffering, she believes she has come back empty. That is not a slight against Ruth, and Ruth doesn't take it that way.

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Why call me Naomi, why call me pleasant when Yahweh has testified against me and the

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Almighty has brought calamity upon me? So Naomi returned and Ruth the

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Moabite, and she brought her daughter -in -law with her, who returned from the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

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But you're gonna note here, this is what a terrible start. This is, this is, there's so much problems here that need to be resolved, but this is your life and my life.

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We've all suffered great loss because of our sin. My sin, your sin.

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We've all experienced this kind of bitterness of soul in one degree or another, and may even in our future have much more bitterness ahead of us.

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We don't know the losses or the pain or the difficulties that lie ahead for tomorrow.

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That being the case, you'll note that it's okay to lament, but note then that Christ himself knows the bitterness of this life.

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He himself wept when he lost his dear friend Lazarus. He wept at his tomb.

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He wept at the loss. He wept at the devastation that sin has brought to each and every one of us.

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And his solution was to drink to the dregs the bitterness of God's wrath on the cross so that you and I can be forgiven and reconciled to God so that through Jesus, our bitterness in this life brought on ourselves by our own sin can be turned to the sweetness of the forgiveness of sins, his reconciliation with God, experiencing his mercy, receiving from him that inheritance that is given as a gift by grace through faith because of the great love that God has for us.

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Rather than the Almighty bringing calamity upon Naomi for the point of purposely bringing her to the bowels of hell, instead he has allowed calamity to befall her so that she is now prepared to receive the great gift of his mercy and provision.

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This is a good place to start. And so, brothers and sisters, as we begin our journey through Advent, a penitential season, let the bitterness of your sin come and feel it.

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Speak to God and tell him of the great pain and suffering you're in because of your sin.

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Cry out to him and cry, Lord, have mercy on me. I am a sinner.

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Let that bitterness of heart, knowing that you have transgressed God's holy law. And like Naomi, like Elimelech, like Mahlon and Hylion, we have deserved disaster because of our sin.

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But know this, that Christ has not determined that you experience his wrath.

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He has instead determined that you are to be forgiven, reconciled to him, and that the inheritance that we all collectively lost when our parents disobeyed

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God in that Garden of Eden, when they heard the voice of the serpent that said, did God really say?

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And then went on and ate from that fruit that was forbidden and caused us to lose the inheritance of paradise on earth.

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That note that God has determined to give that back to us. For Christ himself went to the cross and his cross then becomes now the tree of life.

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And he is leading us to that inheritance that will never tarnish, can never be stolen, will never blow away like the dust in the sands of the

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Sahara or anything like that, in a world without end. And so note, God is working through our suffering.

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As the scripture says, suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope.

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So in this opening chapter, Naomi may not see it yet, but she is not without hope.

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In fact, God is about to do something quite unexpected. In the name of Jesus, amen.

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We rise for the canticle. Let my prayer rise before you as incense and the lifting up of my hands.

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Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, amen.

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The Lord be with you. Hang on a second here. And with your spirit.

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Let us pray. Stir up your power, oh

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Lord, and come that by your protection, we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by your mighty deliverance.

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For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, amen.

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Direct us, oh Lord, in all of our doings with your most gracious favor. And further us with your continual help that in all of our works begun, continued, and ended in you.

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We may glorify your holy name and finally, by your mercy, obtain eternal salvation through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord, amen. Oh God, from whom come all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works.

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Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey your commandments, and also that we, being defended from the fear of our enemies may live in peace and quietness through Jesus Christ, your

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Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

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Amen. Let us bless the Lord. The grace of our

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Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the

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Holy Spirit be with you all.