Revive Our Hearts

Dannah Gresh: Do you ever feel like your family is just a mess? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says that doesn't disqualify you from telling a good story with your life.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: The past may seem to be hopeless, but when you figure Jesus into it, you now have a story of hope. No matter what your past, no matter what your baggage, no matter what your failures or your parents' failures or your grandparents' failures, you can be a part of a whole new family line that leads people to Jesus.

Dannah Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of *Adorned*. For February 3rd, 2026, I'm Dannah Gresh.

Nancy's in day two of this series, *Ruth: The Transforming Power of Redeeming Love*. If you've wrestled with being held bondage by a messy past or family history, I hope today's teaching will begin to set you free.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: As you think back over your story, your past, or your family line, do you ever wonder if some things that have taken place in your life or in your background might disqualify you to really be used by God? I know that some of you have felt that way because some of you have told me that as we've talked about your story, and you've wondered how could God ever take this mess of my past, this kind of family that I grew up in, these things that took place in my background or my parents or my grandparents? How could God ever make anything of value or worth out of my story?

In fact, all of us probably have things in our past, either our own lives or the lives of those in our family members, that we're not really proud of. In fact, we're ashamed of those things, and there are some things in all of our family lives that we would not particularly want others to know. If we were writing a book, a biography of the story of our lives, I don't know about you, but there are some things that I would want to leave out if I were telling all about my background. Now, we don't mind others knowing about good things in our family tree, about famous people in our background, but there are things in our family trees, our family lines, that we just assume others not be aware of.

The first paragraph of the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew, chapter one, is the family tree of Jesus. It's his background, the people who led up to Jesus coming to earth, and in this paragraph, we find the only reference to Ruth in the New Testament. We're beginning this week a study in the story of Ruth, and before we go to the story in the Old Testament, I want us to look in the New Testament and see where she fits into the family line of Jesus. So if you have your Bible, let me encourage you to open to Matthew, chapter one. I'm going to read the first paragraph. These parts of the Scripture are called genealogies, and sometimes we're tempted to skip over them, but actually, if we'll pause and dig in a little bit, we find that there's a lot of meaning and a lot of things that can encourage us in our walk with the Lord as we look at these family trees.

Matthew chapter one, verse one: "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ." This is Jesus' story. This is his family tree. This is his family line. And it may surprise you to know that there are some things in his family background that you and I might not have wanted to include if we had been telling our story. "This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac was the father of Jacob"—whose name, by the way, means deceiver, so that already tells you there's something a little shady in the background here. "Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon." You don't usually read over these portions, do you?

"Salmon, verse five, the father of Boaz, whose mother or ancestress was Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife." Now skip down to verse 16. A lot more names included in the paragraph in between, but then we come to the end of this portion, the end of this genealogy, and we read that "Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ." So Jesus forms the two bookends for this genealogy. It's his story, we read in verse one, and then we read in verse 16 he was born at the end of this line of individuals.

Now, why should we bother to read this story, to read this genealogy? Well, first of all, as we read this list of names, most of which we're not familiar with and some of which we can hardly pronounce, we're reminded of how important individuals are to God. That God has a heart for individual men and women. That they are preserved in God's Word. These names that don't mean a lot to us have been preserved in God's Word and are a part of his plan, his plan of redemption. That these individuals matter to God. And that says to me that my name matters to God, that your name matters to God, that God knows just where we fit into his eternal plan and purposes. And where we fit is important to God.

Then we see in this genealogy, this family tree, the importance not only of individuals to God, but the importance of women to God. Now, remember that this genealogy was written in a culture where women were considered inferior beings. And it was unusual in that day and age for women's names to be included in the genealogy because typically the family line was taken through the men. But we find in this story that God divinely inspired that five women should be included in this record. And notice what kind of women. Four of the five women were not Israelites. They were Gentiles, which is a picture of the grace of God, and it really foreshadows God's plan to bring Gentiles into his family. Not just Jews, but Gentiles were to be included in the work of Christ.

And then look at who these women were. In verse three, we read about Tamar, who was the mother of Perez and Zerah. Remember that Tamar, whose story is told in the book of Genesis, was the Canaanite daughter-in-law of Judah. Judah and Tamar had an incestuous relationship, and out of that union came Perez and Zerah. Perez was part of the line of Christ. God took this horrible story, applied his grace to it, and out of that family line came the Messiah.

Then we read in verse five about Rahab. Rahab, who was a Canaanite also, was a prostitute. She was a foreigner. Her life was a story of failure and disgrace, but God drew her into his family. God drew her to faith and to repentance and made this woman with this horrible past a part of the family line of Christ.

Then we read in verse five about Ruth, the third woman in this genealogy. We're going to be studying her life in great detail over these next days, but she too was a foreigner from the Moabites, a despised race. And yet God brought her into his family by grace and said, "You're going to be part of my plan. You're going to be part of the family line, part of the family tree of the Lord Jesus."

Verse six, we read about Bathsheba, who as you know, had an illicit relationship with King David. She was probably a foreigner also, a Hittite woman, not originally of the Jewish faith, but God put his hand on this woman and said, "I'm going to turn this negative story, this sinful story, this disgraceful story, into a story of grace." Through her line came the Messiah, came Christ.

Then, of course, we have the fifth woman, Mary, who was a Jewish woman and had a pure heart, but keep in mind that in that day when her story was known, there were undoubtedly those who thought that she had not been pure because she came to be with child before she and Joseph were married. So there were some reputation issues here, but God chose to include this woman as a matter of his grace in the family line of Christ.

Now, as I look at these women and also the stories of some of the men in this line who did not have really pure lives—we see David who was an adulterer, Jacob who was a deceiver, Judah who had this relationship with his daughter-in-law—and then we see the lives of these women, I see that God includes sinners and outcasts in his plan. That means that in God's plan, there is room for me. That means there's room for you. You say, "But you don't know my story. You don't know what I've done. You don't know what my parents did. You don't know what kind of family line I've come from."

I remember a woman saying to me a few weeks ago that beginning with, I think it was her grandfather, that there had been multiple generations of immorality, horrible perversion. She said, "If you knew my past, you couldn't think that there was really a place for me in God's plan." Well, God knows your past, and God knew these women, he knew these men, and he says there's room for sinners. There's grace for sinners to be included in my plan.

You know, it's interesting, several of these women had egregious failures. So did the men in this family line. But there's no reference to their failures in this genealogy. It's like God just includes their names but doesn't bother to tell us at this point here's all the things these people did that might have disqualified them. They've now been included by grace, and when grace is applied, I don't have that past anymore. I'm set free from the bondage and the shame and the guilt of that past. And it's all because of one person in this family tree. His name is Jesus. It's having his presence in your life, in your family tree, in your lineage, that turns disgrace to grace, that turns the ashes to beauty. So the story is really his story. It's all about him. It's not about me; it's about where he fits in here. And as a result, this becomes a message of hope.

The past may seem to be hopeless, but when you figure Jesus into it, you now have a story of hope. No matter what your past, no matter what your baggage, no matter what your failures or your parents' failures or your grandparents' failures, you can be a part of a whole new family line that leads people to Jesus. That's why these names are included here. The purpose was the Messiah, the coming of Christ into the world.

I think of how God took my parents, both with non-Christian family pasts and both with things in their family lines that were not pleasing to the Lord. But God rescued my dad, God rescued my mom, God brought them together, applied his grace, and helped them to start a whole new family line. And out of that family line, people are now coming to Jesus. That's what God wants to do with us, regardless of our past or our baggage.

You know what this says to me? It says that you and I need to stop using our past as an excuse for not being used by God. We need to stop using the family that we came from as an excuse for not having a fruitful walk with God. So many women that I meet today are basket cases, are dysfunctional, and the reason they say they are is because, "You don't know my parents. You don't know what my dad did. You don't know what my ex-husband did. You don't know what my grandparents did." And there's this sense of victimization: "I can't help the way that I am. My life can never be of any real value because of where I've been, where I've come from."

I read this first paragraph in the Gospel of Matthew, and I know that there is hope. That you can be free from your past. That the baggage and failures of your past can actually be stepping stones to greater freedom and fruitfulness in your walk with God. God can actually use the things that you've experienced in your past, the things that you've done or the things that were done to you over which you had no control. God can actually use those failures as means of grace, means of getting you to Jesus, and means of helping you point others to Jesus.

So think back on your family past. Think back about your family line. Some things you're ashamed of? Why don't you right now just say, "Lord, I thank you that you can turn ashes to beauty. And I trust you to use my past, my family line, in a way that will be redemptive and ultimately that will point people to Jesus."

Dannah Gresh: That's Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth offering hope to those of us with messy chapters in our past. If you relate, then be encouraged. In his mercy, God wants to use your story for good and for his glory. Nancy will be right back with part two of today's program, but before that, I want to remind you that you can dive even deeper. Our six-week study, *Ruth: Experiencing a Life Restored*, invites you to see God's hand in every chapter of your story, working a beautiful narrative of redemption. When you make a donation of any amount, we'd love to send you a copy to say thanks. Just visit reviveourhearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959 to give, and be sure to request *Ruth: Experiencing a Life Restored*.

Nancy will be right back with part two of today's program, but before that, I want to remind you that you can hear more about the book of Ruth through our *Women of the Bible* podcast and videocast. Erin Davis, Kristen Clark, Portia Collins, and other teachers you love sat down together to apply this book of the Bible to everyday life. It's incredible how much we can glean from Ruth's story as we navigate our own. We'll put a link to that *Women of the Bible* series in the transcript of today's episode. You can find that at reviveourhearts.com.

Okay, now here's Nancy with part two of today's program.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Do you ever struggle with how to live a godly life in the midst of an ungodly environment? An ungodly culture? Maybe you're the only believer in your family. Maybe in your workplace, you're the only one who has a commitment to the ways of God. How can you live as a godly woman in the midst of a culture that is going against the ways of God all the time? The story of Ruth gives us some wonderful insights into how to live a godly life in the midst of an ungodly environment.

Ruth chapter one, verse one. I want to read verses one and two of the first chapter to just give us something of the setting of this story. "In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah, and they went to Moab and lived there."

The first phrase of the first verse tells us something of the setting that this story falls into. It says this story took place in the days when the judges ruled. Now you've got your Bibles open, some of you, to the book of Ruth. What is the book that comes right before the book of Ruth? The book of Judges. This book falls right after the book of Judges and takes place during the same period of time.

The story of Ruth is really a microcosmic view of life focusing on one particular family during the period of the judges. And as you get to know this story, you'll agree with me, I think, that the story of Ruth is like a beautiful white pearl that is set against a very dark backdrop. Because you see, the days of the judges were the Dark Ages of Israel's history. Look back up in your Bible to the last verse of Judges chapter 21, the verse right before the book of Ruth starts. Judges 21:25. And what does it tell you was true in those days? "There was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

That's kind of the summary of the book of Judges. It's a summary of this era in which the story of Ruth takes place. This was a period of anarchy, of apathy, of moral and political decline. It's a permissive era; it's an era where people live irresponsibly. They just do whatever feels good with no regard for the laws of God, for the ways of God. This story took place 3,000 years ago. Does that sound like a description of the day in which we live? Things really haven't changed all that much.

This was a day when the heroes in the Jewish nation were the judges who often were men who were physically strong. They had military prowess, but they were morally and spiritually weak. Think of Samson, for example. I mean, he was a man with a lot of physical strength, but he was morally weak and corrupt. And that described the character of a lot of those who were in positions of leadership during those days.

If you go back to Judges chapter two—and some of you may want to turn there—I want to read a paragraph in that chapter that describes what it was like during the days of the judges. Judges chapter two, verse seven: "The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which he had done for Israel." This was the period of time when the Israelites saw the works of God. They saw God deliver the people out of slavery, out of Egypt. They saw the Exodus, they saw God's power taking them through the Red Sea and through the wilderness. They saw the power of God that took them into Canaan and conquered the foreign nations there. They saw God give them the land of Canaan. That was when Joshua was living and those who were his peers. As long as those men of God lived, the people followed God.

But then verse 10 tells us, Judges chapter two: "When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. And they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths."

This is a reference to the Canaanite gods. Canaan, as you know, was an agricultural economy, and in order for the people to be prosperous, two things had to be fertile: the land so they could have crops and their wives so they could have laborers to work the crops. The Canaanites' chief god was called Baal. That word means lord or owner, and the Canaanites believed that Baal, a false god, owned the land and that he controlled fertility. Ashtoreth, referred to in this passage, was believed to be Baal's female partner. Now, the Canaanites believed that the fertility of the land and of their wives was due to sexual activity between the gods. This is a very perverse religion. And so in order to get the gods to do in heaven what they wanted done on earth, the people would actually, to remind the gods, go up to places that were hills—actually called high places—and would perform on those hills the sexual acts that they wanted the gods to perform in heaven to make the land and the women fertile.

In time, the Jews became assimilated into this Canaanite culture and began to practice these very heathen, pagan aspects of worship. That passage in Judges goes on to tell us in verse 14 that "the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. So he delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity, as the Lord had said and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were greatly distressed." Now, this is a picture, a reminder that when we forsake God, when a culture goes its own way, that God is going to bring consequences. The goal of the consequences is always to restore us back to a place of worship and obedience to the true and living God. God's not trying to wipe his people out. God's disciplining them, he's chastening them for their good so that they will become once again his true followers.

Verse 16 says the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. "Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do so. And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them."

But then you see their cycles that took place in the book of Judges. God would deliver them, the people would obey God for a while, and then once again they would fall into a time of spiritual decline and disobedience and idolatry. Verse 19: "It came to pass when the judge was dead that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, by following other gods to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their own stubborn way."

Ruth chapter one, verse one tells us that this story takes place in those days. In the days when the judges lived. That's what Israel was going through. And when I read about those days, I'm so reminded of what we see when we turn on the news and we see what's happening in our culture, what's happening in our world. I talked last week with a woman who was telling me that she's the only believer in her very secular, worldly, pagan family. She told me that when she goes to family gatherings, she has to listen to all kinds of profanity, sexually explicit language, off-color stories and jokes and loose talk. She says, "How do I function in that kind of environment? They're my family. Do I just walk away? Do I tell them what they're saying is wrong? How do I interact with that kind of culture?"

Now, sad to say, those kinds of issues are not just out there in the world, but today we're finding that those kind of issues are taking place among the people of God. It's not only the Canaanites in those days, in the days of Ruth, who were worshipping false gods and being immoral and perverse. It was the Jews. It was the people of God. And so today we find it's not just those who don't profess to know Christ; it's inside the four walls of our churches that we find people living in ways that are so like the world.

In the days when the judges lived, days much like ours. I get letters, I get calls, I get messages from women sharing with me situations in their local churches, with those who are in Bible studies, with those who are considered mature godly believers, but who are laughing about sexually explicit material in movies, who are laughing about things that are worldly and sinful and not holy. And they say, "How do we function in that kind of environment?"

Well, as we unfold the story of Ruth over these next days, we're going to see there is a way that we really can live pure and godly lives and lives that influence the world around us, even though the world or the church around us may be very ungodly. What we see in the story of Ruth is the reality of God's presence even in the midst of a very corrupt world. That God has not gone to sleep. He's not AWOL. He is very much present, he's very much alive, and he's very much active. And we have in the book of Ruth a call to be different. To go against the flow. That's the story of Ruth. In the day when the judges lived, there was this woman who didn't know any better but to trust God. To obey God. To live a pure life even though hardly anyone else around her was. She said, "I'm going to trust God. I'm going to walk with God even in the midst of this culture."

I'm not saying it's easy, but this story gives me confidence that it is possible to walk with God in your workplace, in your family, in your world, in your church, even if no one else does. It's possible to walk with God. And our call really is to be shining lights in the darkness of the culture around us. To make a difference in these dark times. The verse that comes to my mind is Philippians chapter two, verse 15, where Paul says our goal is that you would be "blameless and harmless, the children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation." See, Paul's not saying come out and don't have any contact with the world. He's saying you're supposed to live right in the world, and in the midst of that crooked and perverse generation, you are to be the children of God, blameless, harmless, without fault, shining as lights in the world. It is possible. It can be done. And God's purpose and heart for our lives as women, though we may be very isolated, though we may be very alone in the convictions that we have about following the Word and the ways of God, God's heart is that our lives would create a light, would create a fragrance that would draw people to the truth, would draw people to the Messiah, even as Ruth's life did in the days of the judges.

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been offering some much-needed hope. We live in a dark world, just like Ruth did—one filled with temptations to conform, to fall into the sinful patterns we see all around us. Before his death, Jesus told his disciples, "In this world you will have trouble." It's true. Can you feel it? Trouble abounds, but that wasn't the end of Jesus' sentence. He said, "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world." All this brokenness finds its redemption in Jesus. When we're following him, our stories are transformed. We get to live differently. If you don't know this Jesus, but you want to, visit reviveourhearts.com/goodnews. There you'll be able to read more about Jesus. You'll also be invited to follow him and experience the freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness only he can offer.

The whole Bible is a story of redemption, and the book of Ruth offers us a beautiful portrait of our Redeemer's work. He loves to take our messy stories and make them beautiful instead. If you'd like to study God's redemption in the book of Ruth on your own, you can donate and request a copy of our six-week study, *Ruth: Experiencing a Life Restored*. We'd love to send that to you as our way of saying thanks for your gift of any amount. Just visit reviveourhearts.com to give, or you can call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Tomorrow Nancy's taking you even deeper into Ruth's story. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.