The Sorrow

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Hi, this is Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. Before we start today’s program, I want to take just a moment to share my heart about the events of the past few days here in the United States.

Whatever your political affiliation/leanings, by any measure, this has been a chaotic, contentious, and dark season for our country.

My own heart has been so heavy as I’ve watched the news reports and I've read many of the deeply-divided responses.

This is a time for God’s people to lament, to grieve over the deep-seated problems our nation is facing. These are problems that require divine intervention. That’s why this is a time for us to cry out to the Lord—to pray as we have never prayed before.

It’s no coincidence that in God’s providence, on today’s program we’re going to be looking at a horrendous, violent event that took place shortly after the birth of Christ. It involved a demonic attempt to snuff out the Light God had sent into the World. It resulted in the weeping and wailing of mothers and fathers whose precious little ones were viciously murdered. It was a tragic day.

But no powers of evil could sabotage God’s redemptive plan. You see, heaven rules. God was still on His throne that day, still working to accomplish His saving purposes in the world. And He is still on His throne today. That is why, regardless of what may be going on in our country, we can be people of hope.

I invite you to join me here next Monday here on Revive Our Hearts. We are going to preempt the program we had originally planned to air. I’m going to share some more thoughts on my heart about what is going on in our country, from a biblical perspective. I want to talk about how we as the people of God are called to respond in such times. I want to share how this could prove to be a season for great gospel opportunity. I hope you’ll join me on Monday and you'll encourage others to do so as well.

And now, before we continue with today’s Revive Our Hearts, would you join me in prayer?

Oh Father, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon You. That was the prayer of the people of God in the Old Testament, and it's our prayer today. So, Lord, give us wisdom; give us understanding. I pray, Lord, that we would not at this time point fingers at the sins of others, but that we would let You search our own hearts and show us where we may have contributed to the chaos and brokenness. 

We plead with You to intervene in our nation, to expose deception, to bring truth to light. Would you grant us humility, and would You grant us Your mercy. We pray, O Father, that Your kingdom would come and Your will would be done here on earth as it is in heaven. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. 

Dannah Gresh: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude, for January 8, 2021. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d like to skip the part of the Christmas story when Herod gave the order to kill all the male children in Bethlehem. Yet, through that tragedy and persecution, God was still working.

Nancy is going to show us the hope we have in Christ as she wraps up the series “Of Wise Men, Kings, and Providence.”

Nancy: On Friday, December 14, 2012, a twenty-year-old young man named Adam Lanza went on a killing spree. He did it in the town where he’d grown up, the town of Newtown, Connecticut. He began by murdering his mother in their home, and then he proceeded to break into a nearby elementary school, Sandy Hook, where he gunned down six teachers and administrators as well as twenty first graders. When the police arrived a few minutes after the shooting began, Lanza took his own life.

The horrific event was all anybody could talk about over those next days as it hit the news worldwide.

That Sunday morning, a group of 4th–6th grade children gathered for Sunday school, as they were accustomed to doing, at Newtown Bible Church. The lesson that day was on Matthew, chapter 2. This had been planned long before the shooting took place.

The teacher went through the first part of the passage, about the wise men traveling to see the newly born Messiah. Then he came to that part of the account where Herod was so angry about the reports of a newborn king that he ordered the slaughter of every male child under the age of two. And the teacher read this part of Matthew 2:

A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.

The teacher explained to that wide-eyed class of children, “Herod did an awful, awful thing.”

The children in that class saw the parallel immediately. One boy said, “That’s like what happened here.”

That first Christmas, that we celebrated just weeks ago now . . . We have such beauty and sweetness and glory surrounding the birth of Christ. Then we have the scene of the wise men who followed the star to worship the young Child, and they gave Him gifts. All the things we love about Christmas we see in these accounts. But all of this that we celebrate and rightfully enjoy would soon be followed by unimaginable sadness, sorrow, and, yes, a sword.

And, by the way, that had been prophesied to the mother of that Child, Mary, by the elderly Simeon as he held this infant child in the temple when she took Him for the dedication. Simeon said in Luke 2:34 that this Child would be “a sign that is opposed.” And he said, “A sword will pierce your heart.”

The visit of the Magi was followed by a heart-wrenching scene. You almost never see this part of the story in Matthew 2 acted out in a Christmas play or sung about in a Christmas concert. We’d really rather skip this part. We wish it weren’t there. But it is there. We’re going to look at it today. It reminds us that in the midst of the darkness and evil in this world, the gospel shines through and offers hope.

Turn with me if you haven’t already, to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 2, as we come to this end of the series on the wise men, the Magi. I’ll begin reading again in verse 1 just to give us a context. If you’ve missed any of this series earlier this week, you can get that at ReviveOurHearts.com. Today we come to the close of that series.

Verse 1 of Matthew 2: 

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled (You’d think he would have been thrilled about the birth of this king. But, no, he was troubled.) and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, [because they knew the Old Testament Scriptures well. They were scholars, experts in the Word of God. They said,] “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet.”

And then in verse 6 you see the prophecy from Micah, chapter 5, that these men recited. They knew it well.

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. [Of course, we know later that he was trying to determine how old this child was by now because he had wicked designs in mind. And in order to carry those out, he wanted to know: “When did you first see this child—that is, how long ago was this child born?”] And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” 

After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.

And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (vv. 1–11)

They worshipped Him as the King that He was, the King that He is, and they offered Him these valuable treasures that signified, symbolized the identity and the work that this King had come to earth to bring about.

So now, the wise men who had come all this trek, maybe a thousand miles from their homeland . . . We’re not sure exactly where that was, maybe modern-day Iran or Iraq or Yemen. They had come this great long distance. They had followed by faith the star they had first seen. And then the star reappeared when they got to Jerusalem. It took them the six-mile trip to Bethlehem—which is nothing after you’ve come a thousand miles—and they found the Child that they had expected to see, that they had believed was the King of the Jews.

And now their mission is accomplished. They’ve done what they’d come to do. I assume that they expected at this point to return to Jerusalem to report to Herod, as he had instructed, and then to go back to their homeland. That’s the plan, the itinerary they had in mind. But I’m so glad that God writes the itineraries for our lives, and God was writing this one.

Verse 12 says that they didn’t do at all what we expected they would do. “Being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Now, these wise men, these Magi, had no way of knowing that Herod intended to destroy this Child as he had destroyed so many others who were a threat to his power. But God knew. God knows all things. God knows what is in the hearts of kings. Herod had said, “I want to come and worship this child.” But God knew that Herod was lying. God knew that Herod had murderous intent in his heart.

And so God redirected the Magi, the wise men, through this dream. Now, humanly speaking, I suppose, it was risky to defy the king’s order. Herod was a very powerful man. He was a violent man. He didn’t like to be second guessed. And he didn’t like to be one-upped. And he wanted to be in charge. He wanted to be in control.

So for them not to do what he said, do you not think that Herod had forces that he could have sent out to find these wise men? They had to count the cost, don’t you think? “If we don’t do what Herod said just because we’d had this dream, like, what if it was just something we ate last night?” But somehow they recognized God’s voice. They recognized His authority. And they decided, “We must obey God rather than men.” They obeyed the warning from God.

I see in this God’s sovereignty, God’s providence, God’s protection. As we see throughout the life of Christ, God is more powerful than Herod. God is more powerful than any enemy, any adversary who seeks to destroy Christ or His work. God is not helpless against these enemies.

We can’t see God, but we can see Herod. We can’t hear the voice of God. We can hear the voice of Herod. We can hear the king’s edicts. We can hear the laws and the things that are said by people in positions of influence and power in our nation and around the world. And sometimes that’s terrifying.

We don’t really know what their true intent is. But God knows. Once their true intent is known, sometimes we feel powerless or impotent to do anything about what they’re planning. But God . . . but God. Heaven rules. God is not helpless against the Herods of this world.

And whatever political party you may be fond of, wherever you may have voted in the last election or around the world, whatever the powers may be in your country as you’re listening to this, let me say, “Herod is not the ultimate king. God is King. Heaven rules.”

God is always in control of the situation—not just in our nations, but in your workplace. In your church, there may be somebody in authority in your church who is drunk with power and is not shepherding the people of God in a way that he ought to, and it’s disturbing to you. I want to tell you, “Pastor so-and-so is not in charge of the church. He’s an under-shepherd. Jesus is the Great Shepherd, the Supreme Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd.” God is always in charge.

You may have a husband who does not walk with God or is not walking with God in a particular manner. I was just talking with a woman on a break here who’s dealing with some challenging things in a marriage to a husband who is giving direction that doesn’t seem like it’s coming from God. Here’s a woman who wants to honor God. She wants to honor her husband. But it’s hard sometimes to know.

That’s why we need to be reminded that God is always in control of the situation. He’s always at work. He’s always accomplishing His purposes. And we see that again in the next verse, verse 13, of Matthew 2:

Now when the wise men had departed, [they’re going another way back to their home country] behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream . . .

Here’s another dream. The angels were busy around the time of Jesus’ birth—announcing the news and then protecting this Child who had been sent by the Father down to earth. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, 

Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.

And Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod [which, by the way, was not long afterward, perhaps just a few months]. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet [hundreds of years earlier, the book of Hosea, chapter 11], “Out of Egypt I called my son” (vv. 13–15).

Now, in the immediate context of that prophecy, it was referring back to the Exodus when the children of Israel, God called Israel “my son . . . let my people go.” God called His people Israel out of Egypt. But this verse in Hosea was also a prophetic passage and that was fulfilled in this moment when God said, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” God had to send His Son to Egypt to fulfill this prophecy, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

So you see here in spades the provision of God, the providence of God, the protection of God. God knew what Herod was about to do. And God sent His precious, beloved Son out of harm’s way before Herod issued this evil edict. And through the wise men who had brought these gifts, God provided this family of Jesus’ with the resources that they would need for the trip to Egypt.

God’s always going before. He’s always making provision. He’s protecting. He’s planning. He’ll do whatever He needs to do to let you know what you need to do in those circumstances.

Well, verse 16: 

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious [it was characteristic for what we know about Herod in history], and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men (vv. 16–17).

A horrendous, barbarous, cruel, diabolical, unimaginable act. Scholars think that in the small town of Bethlehem alone, there could have been twenty or thirty children massacred. And he killed children that age and under all throughout that region.

Charles Spurgeon says, 

Men will do anything to be rid of Jesus. They care not how many children, or men, or women, are destroyed, so that they can but resist his kingdom, and crush his holy cause in its infancy.

Herod wanted to get rid of Jesus. People still want to get rid of Jesus. And they care not how much havoc they have to cause, how much destruction they have to bring about. Listen, the abortion movement, now talking about infanticide, these are anti-Christ ideologies and movements. People don’t care about the babies. They care about getting rid of Christ and all His influence in our world.

Verse 17 tells us, “Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah.”

And now you have in verse 18 a quote from Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 15. It’s quoted here in the gospel of Matthew: 

A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more. (v. 18)

Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the patriarchs. She died in childbirth with her youngest child, and she was buried near Bethlehem. We read this in Genesis 35. And in the immediate context of Jeremiah 31, where this “voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children,” the immediate context, I think, was the mothers of Israel, symbolized in Rachel, who was a mother of Israel.

Jews in the Babylonian captivity caused great lament and wailing from mothers whose sons and children had been sent into captivity. That’s what would have been taking place in the day of Jeremiah. But this prophecy of Jeremiah also was looking ahead to this moment—the moment of the massacre of these children, these infants. It’s a poetic lament, as a mother, Rachel symbolizing all the mothers of the people of God, a mother grieving the loss of her children into captivity, and now again through Herod’s murderous act.

Motherhood was intended by God to be a joyful occasion as women embrace and hold tightly to and care for and protect their newborn children. Motherhood should be a happy thing. Being a new mother should be a happy time. Being a mother of a little child, as Mary was of Jesus, and as these mothers were of their little ones, should have been a happy time.

But now it becomes an occasion for great sadness and distress, as those babies are snatched out of their mothers’ arms and murdered. And these mothers represent mothers in every generation—Rachel represents mothers in every generation—who weep and who grieve as the enemy targets their children, their bodies, their minds, their hearts, their souls.

And we see that in so many ways in our culture how people are seeking to keep children from knowing Jesus and to warp their minds and to feed lies into their minds and to destroy them through all kinds of consequences of sin and sinful ways and addictions and all the mess in this world that is destroying children and young people. And mothers grieve this.

We have mothers in this room who are grieving the loss of a child or a grandchild to drugs or to alcohol or to sexual promiscuity or to ungodly ways of thinking. Your heart breaks. You want to hold your child, but maybe your child is no more.

But the story doesn’t end there. It’s not finished. Verse 19: 

But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are [What’s the next word?] dead.” And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel (vv. 19–21).

This horrific passage begins with Herod attempting to put Jesus to death, and succeeding at putting many children to death, but that’s not where it ends. How does it end? “Herod died.” Those who sought the child’s life died.

We know that Herod died, not long after the birth of Christ, a humiliating, excruciatingly painful death. Scientists and doctors had discovered in recent years what it was that he probably died of. It was unmentionable diseases that afflicted his body, and he died a torturous death.

Herod had thought that his throne was safe because he had gotten rid of this newborn King. The truth was, the Baby was the one whose throne God kept safe from Herod. God always gets the final word. Jesus, and His followers, will ultimately outlive all who seek to destroy Him.

I see again in this passage how God protects and provides for His own, even through seasons of persecution and sadness. God’s protection, God’s providence, God’s provision doesn’t mean that God’s people won’t face danger. But it does mean that attacks against God’s people never catch God off guard. They never catch Him by surprise. It also means that we are never outside of God’s watchful attention and care.

The rage of Herod, his murder of the little ones in Bethlehem, Jesus’ exile to Egypt, before He’s two years of age, all of this reminds us of the horrific toll of sin in this world. And that is the very sin from which God’s Son came to save us. Jesus had to enter our sin-burdened world and our sorrow. He had to partake of our tears and our loss, even being exiled as an infant, in order to save us from sin’s dreadful consequences.

I’m going to tell you something here. I believe it’s true, but there’s no way I can explain this to you. In the end, even sorrow and wicked kings and mass murders and weeping mothers served God’s saving purposes. In the end all is well and all will be well.

Now, you may be thinking, Well, God saved the life of His Son in this instance, but what about all those other children whose lives were not spared? What about their mothers? What about their fathers? What about their brothers? Their sisters?

And this may be even more personal to you. You look around, and you see God acting on behalf of others who are in need, rescuing them from danger, but you’ve just been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, as one woman who’s been in touch with me recently has been who has four young children, stage 4 cancer. She’s not being spared, it doesn’t appear.

Or maybe you’ve just buried your nine-year-old special-needs child, as another dear friend of mine has done just recently. God spared others’ children, but not hers.

Or you fill-in-the-blank for your story, where it feels like God hasn’t protected, hasn’t provided. You don’t see His hand at work. Let me just say, this is mystery. We can’t know and see now what we will one day know and see fully.

But we do have to step back and take the bigger view, look at the bigger picture because, thirty-some years later, after this horrific event, Jewish leaders handed Jesus, the Son of God, over to the Roman governor who sentenced Him to death. And that time, God did not spare His Son. God gave Him up to death for you, for me, and for all the children and mothers and fathers in the world who had suffered the ravaging consequences of sin.

We don’t see the end of the story yet, but I want to assure you that God understands your sorrow and your tears. We read that prophecy from Jeremiah 31: “Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. [God hears your weeping. God sees your tears. God knows your sorrow and your heartache.] Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”

The Lord hears the voice of your cries. But, as a result of the death that God’s Son died—the death that we deserved for our sin—even in the midst of inexplicable, overwhelming sorrow, there is hope.

You know that verse I just read from Jeremiah 31 about the voice of lamentation and weeping, bitter weeping, she refuses to be comforted? The very next verse says this:

Thus says the Lord: “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own country” (vv. 16–17).

Now, I don’t know all of what that means for you or your situation, but I know that God’s Word declares in Jeremiah and declares all through the Scripture, there is hope for your future. Yes, now is a time of weeping and sorrow and uncontrollable grief—“she refuses to be comforted.”

I watched my mother in the loss, the death, of my brother in an automobile accident years ago. I watched her with this uncontrollable grief and sorrow losing a son. Many of you have been there.

But there is hope for your future. There’s a promise here, all through the Scripture, that the day is coming when all weeping and tears will be ended—forever. And the promise that that which the enemy has stolen and destroyed will one day be restored. “Your children shall come back.” There’s hope for your future.

Oh Lord, now is the time of tears and sorrow and grief. We wish there wasn’t a passage like this in the Scripture. It’s so horrific. We can’t imagine the tears of those moms who had their babies ripped out of their arms. But thank You that You are a God who hears the cries and sees the tears and understands the heartache of mamas. You’re a God who cares and a God who did not spare His own Son, but freely gave Him up for us—for the Herods, for the religious leaders, for the wise men and us. We’re all sinners desperately in need of a Savior.

You are a God who promises there is hope for your future. Through Christ, we believe it to be so. And so, with the wise men, we fall down before You. We worship by faith, even when we can’t see the star. We can’t see the outcome. We can’t see the hope. When we’re still, our eyes are so filled with tears we can hardly look up to heaven. We say, “Oh God, heaven rules, and we trust Your promises. We believe they’re true.”

And now we go into this new year, having no idea what all it will hold, but knowing You know. You are the God who has gone before us in Your providence to protect and to provide. And even if this year turns out to be another year like last year, we trust You. You are worthy of our praise. Heaven rules. We bless you, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: Even in the greatest sorrow, there is still hope. Nancy just reminded us that God is still on His throne, and we can put our faith in His promises.

She just finished a series called, “Of Wise Men, Kings, and Providence,” and you can listen to the past episodes or read the transcripts onReviveOurHearts.com. But one thing you can hear only here on the podcast is testimonies of the women who were sitting in the audience when Nancy delivered this teaching. Here’s a few of them:

Gayle Villalba: When you lose a child, you feel like you’re the only one. This was such a good reminder to me that so many have lost children, and God is still in control. If we didn’t know that God is sovereign and heaven rules, I don’t know how we’d bear it. So I’m just so thankful for that.

Nancy: Do you want to say just a little bit more Gayle, for those who don’t know you and your story?

Gayle: We lost our son five years ago in November, a week before your wedding, as a matter of fact, through a tragic death that should not have happened. But in the middle of the night, we found out at 3 in the morning. In the middle of the night, my husband said, “Okay. Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Is God just a little sovereign? Or is He all sovereign? And is He a good God?” And He was. And He is.

Nancy: I’ve watched you and Ed walk that journey and live that hope that’s in Christ in the midst of the most hopeless, painful circumstances.

Jean: One thing that I appreciate is that God will do whatever He needs to do to show you the way to follow Him. I appreciate that when you aren’t sure, when you’re unsure or whatever, that He will do whatever He needs to do. And the fact that we’re not out of His attention and care. In the end, all will be well, and all is well, is so true. Perspective really can generate the joy when you can keep the right perspective.

Nancy: This is not theory alone for many of us—all of us sitting in this room. I know some of you well enough to know that when you say things like Jean just said or what Gayle just said, it comes out of the laboratory of life, out of those weeping and wailing and grieving seasons, those dark seasons when you can’t see the stars and you can’t see the hope.

I think it’s really important for us to speak the truth to tether our own hearts even when it doesn’t feel like it’s true, but to counsel our hearts according to truth and remind ourselves of what God’s Word says even when everything seems to be screaming just the opposite.

Some of you are in a circumstance right now where it feels hopeless and dark, and it’s a time of loss and tears, or you’re reflecting back on that. Maybe through the holiday season those things have come even more prominently to mind. Maybe they’re the firsts that you’ve been observing—the first Thanksgiving without, the first Christmas with an empty seat at the table.

After a year of COVID, there have been losses—loss of life, loss of jobs, loss of income. And there’s sorrow. There’s loss. There’s pain. We feel this. If you don’t feel it personally, you will. And you have people around you who do.

But in the midst of all of this, we have these wise men who come and find Jesus and say, “You are the treasure above all. We’ll risk all. We’ll give up all.” They risked the distance. They risked the wrath of Herod. They give up their treasures to the Infant Child because He is worthy of our praise and of our worship.

He was as an infant, and He is now ascended on high, seated at the right hand of the Father. He’s worthy of our praise. And one day prayer will become praise, and faith will become sight, and tears and sorrow will be wiped away. We will see then what we can only believe by faith now.

I love that quote someone has said, “God’s will is exactly what we would choose if we knew what God knows.”

All of us at times have to do that. We have to say, “Lord, I choose by faith to believe that what is happening in my life right now is something that You’re going to redeem.” It may have been caused by your sin. It may have been caused by somebody else’s sin against you or somebody else’s sin against someone that you love. It’s a broken world. It’s a fallen world. It’s a sinful world.

But in the darkness, the light of Christ shines and leads us home to the Father. There can be hope by faith that we will one day know by experience and firsthand sight. We will see Him. And that’s the hope we cling to in these dark, hard times.

Gladine: I appreciated how you shared that God goes before us always. He plans. He provides. He protects. It reminds me of Isaiah 42:16 where God says, “I will lead the blind in ways they do not see; along unfamiliar paths I will guide you. I will turn the darkness into light before you. I will make the rough places smooth. I will do these things. I will not forsake you.”

There are so many precious promises packed in that one verse. What you shared just reminds me of these comforts from the Lord because when these are paths we haven’t gone before, they’re unfamiliar paths, they can feel dark. We don’t know what’s going to happen. They can feel rough. But He says, “I will lead you. I will guide you. I will make those rough places smooth and turn that darkness into light.”

And the most precious thing is He says, “I will be with you.” There’s just so much to thank the Lord for. Thank you for sharing.

Nancy: What a precious promise—a precious constellation of promises. If you’re just listening to this and you’re not seeing Gladine, maybe you don’t know that she was reciting that verse by memory. And if you’re saying, “Where was that? I want to look it up. I need that promise!”

Isaiah chapter 42, verse 16. You find it and make it yours. Gladine has made it hers. It’s in her heart. She’s counseling herself with the promises of that passage. She’s receiving them by faith. You can do the same thing. Get that promise. Lay hold of it. Cling to it. When everything seems to be screaming just the opposite, counsel your heart according to the truth and the promises of God.

I could just tell, Gladine, as you were reading that passage, that you’ve had some experience needing those promises in some hard, dark places or paths—I don’t know if it’s now or in the past or in the future or all of the above—and that’s what God’s Word is. It’s a treasure. It’s a light to our path. It’s the star that God sends to lead us to Christ.

So what a beautiful illustration there of taking God’s promises as treasures that they are and making them yours by faith, saying, “If everything else in this world seems contrary to what I’m reading here, I’m going to believe what God has said. I’m going to make it mine.”

Beautiful. Thank you.

Dannah: Thank you, Gayle, Jean, and Gladine for sharing with us today.

Our theme for this month is “Feasting on the Bible.” This teaching from Nancy on the wise men is one way we’re doing just that.

Another way to get into the Word is through a Bible study. I’m so excited to tell you about our brand new study: Ruth: Experiencing a Life Restored. It’s the newest in the Women of the Bible series. As you walk through the book of Ruth, you’re going to see the theme of God’s restoration and His redeeming love woven throughout her story.

You can get a copy of Ruth: Experiencing a Life Restored” with your gift of any amount. Just visitwww.ReviveOurHearts.com to make your donation. (NOTE: Audio skips and Dannah repeats: You can get a copy of “Ruth” with your gift of any amount. Just visitwww.ReviveOurHearts.com to make your donation or call us at 1-800-569-5959, and be sure to ask for your copy of the “Ruth” study.

And don’t forget you can follow along through your study with the Ruth Women of the Bible podcast releasing Monday. That podcast is just one part of a new entire podcast family from Revive Our Hearts.

And I want to let you know about another brand new podcast featuring my friend Laura Booz. It’s called, Expect Something Beautiful. Take a listen.

Laura Booz: So I was heading out for a morning walk. I was heading down the driveway. And it was dawn, so it was still kind of dark. And there were these low lying clouds filling the air with a darkness. And I was walking down the driveway, I saw this gold piece of paper lying there. So I walked over and saw that it had words on it. I picked it up and read the words. You’re not going to believe what it said.

It said, “The end is near. Be extra vigilant.”

My heart was racing. I looked over my right shoulder. I looked over my left shoulder, thinking someone had planted that note on my driveway and this would be my last day on earth. To be quite honest, I wanted to run back into the house and hide under the covers.

Dannah: That’s Laura Booz in her new podcast with Revive Our Hearts. Catch the full episode at ReviveOurHearts.com and stay tuned for the new episodes releasing soon.

Next week we’re going to be joined by a wise woman and a dear friend of this ministry, Kelly Needham. She’ll be talking about her love for God’s Word and how you can foster the same thing in our heart. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to encourage you—there is hope in your sorrow. The program is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.