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Ruth
1:1-22 “Now
it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in
the land. And a certain man of
Bethlehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and
his two sons. 2 And
the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and
the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of
Bethlehem-judah. And they came into the
country of Moab, and continued there. 3
And Elimelech Noami’s husband died; and
she was left, and her two boys. 4
And they took them wives of the women of
Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other
Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten
years. 5 And
Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two
sons and her husband. 6 Then
she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of
Moab: for she had heard in the country
of Moab how that the LORD
had visited his people in giving them bread. 7
Wherefore she went forth out of the
place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her; and they went on
the way to return unto the land of Judah. 8
And Naomi said unto her two daughters in
law, Go, return each to her mother’s house:
the LORD
deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me. 9
The LORD
grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her
husband. Then she kissed them; and they
lifted up their voice, and wept. 10
And they said unto her, Surely we will
return with thee unto thy people. 11
And Naomi said, Turn again, my
daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in
my womb, that they may be your husbands? 12
Turn again, my daughters, go your
way; for I am too old to have an husband.
If I should say, I have hope, if I should have an husband also
tonight, and should also bear sons; 13
would ye tarry for them till they were
grown? would ye stay for them from having husbands? nay, my daughters; for it
grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD
is gone out against me. 14 And
they lifted up their voice, and wept again:
and Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her. 15
And she said, Behold, they sister in law
is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law. 16
And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave
thee, or to return from following after thee: for wither thou goest, I will go; and where
thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall
be my people, and thy God my God: 17
Where thou diest, I will die, and there
will I be buried: the LORD
do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. 18
When she saw that she was stedfastly
minded to go with her, then she left speaking with her. 19
So they two went until they came to
Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when
they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they
said, Is this Naomi? 20 And
she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly
with me. 21 I
went out full, and the LORD
hath brought me home again empty: why then
call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD
hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me? 22
So Naomi returned, and Ruth the
Moabitess, her daughter in law, with her, which returned out of the country of
Moab: and they came to Bethlehem in the
beginning of barley harvest.” [the Wavesheaf
offering at Passover takes place at the beginning of the barley harvest.] Introduction [Audio
version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED642] “Ruth,
the Book of Ruth. Ruth building a bridge
between the Book of Judges, when there was no king in Israel, it says, and
every man was doing what was right in his own eyes, and the throne of David,
the monarchy being established. There is
a dispute about where exactly, when exactly this took place. It says “Now it came to pass in the days when
the judges ruled,” when the judges were judging, ah, many scholars place
this scene here in the Book of Ruth before Deborah and Barak, very early in the
Book of Judges. The Midrash, and I find
it hard to believe, the Midrash and Jewish history says that Ruth was the
daughter of Eglon, you remember Ehud and Eglon early in the Book of
Judges. But we have no Biblical basis
for that. Josephus said that Eli was
serving at the Tabernacle when these things took place, which still could be
fairly early in the Book of Judges, ah, certainly during the ministry of Samson
while Samuel was there at the Tabernacle.
The point is, we have come through this Book of Judges, those were very
difficult and dark days in the history of the nation, there was no king, there
was no leadership that was fitting and apropos for God’s people and all the
potential that they had, the potential of the nation. Every man was doing what was right in his own
eyes, and we know that was wickedness, it says, in the eyes of the LORD,
even though it was right in their eyes.
And in the middle of all of that, there is this great story of love and
redemption unfolding. Unseen in many
ways, in the background, happening in Bethlehem and then over in the area of
Moab, a handful of people involved in the process, and yet it would be the
lineage to David the king, this woman Ruth would be mentioned in Matthew
chapter 1 in the genealogy where you have Tamar and Rahab and Ruth and
Bathsheba, all Gentile women, none of them with good reputations, there in the
lineage of Immanuel, God with us, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the one who came
to walk among us, his great, great, great, great, great, great grandma was Ruth,
a Moabitess, not an Israelite woman. Two
books in the Bible named after women, one is the Book of Ruth, and the other is
the Book of Esther. They sit in an
interesting contrast in that Ruth was a Gentile woman who marries a Jewish man,
a kinsman redeemer, Boaz, and becomes the great grandmother of David the king
of Israel. Esther, in contrast, is a
Jewish woman who ends up marrying a Gentile king [Xerxes, who tried to conquer
Greece and failed miserably, see https://unityinchrist.com/ezra/ezra1.html],
and through her ministry preserves the nation of Israel [Judah, Israel, the ten
tribes had already been conquered and deported by the Assyrian Empire], and
Persia interesting. But this is a time,
much like our time, when we can look around, and the greater picture, the much
larger picture that we’re all exposed to, can be discouraging in some ways. We can look at what’s going on around us in
the world, we can look at what’s going on around us in our nation, morally,
ethically, politically, we can look and wonder what’s happening--and be assured
that at the same time, the plan of redemption is unfolding around us right
now. Everything we see in this nation,
everything we see happening in the world [and Russia just attacked the Ukraine
with 190,000 troops, with tanks, aircraft and naval units, and we’re now
scratching our heads wondering what’s gonna come of it] is relative to the plan
of redemption. Again, you know the very hard
thing for you and I, and we talked about this lately, is, you know our calling
now is to save Americans, not America, and that’s hard for us. [And most evangelicals have gotten off tract,
where they support political parties vehemently, in a vain attempt to save and
change America, and that’s not God’s way, see https://unityinchrist.com/topical%20studies/America-ModernRomans6.htm] It’s about the Kingdom of God, it’s not about
Washington, it’s not about Moscow, it’s about Jerusalem. It’s about the Messiah coming and
straightening out this world, and setting up his Kingdom. And we need to be praying in that direction,
and this plan of redemption that was unfolding at this point, is still unfolding
around us right now. Ruth, a Gentile
woman, remarkable the way she is lauded, this Book is placed in front of us,
particularly with Jewish prejudice in this ancient time, against Moabites and
Ammonites and so forth. This Book,
instead of discouraging Gentiles to come to the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, is an invitation for them to come.
It places a remarkable, remarkable picture in front of us, in fact in
Deuteronomy chapter 23 it tells us that no Moabite or Ammonite was allowed to
enter into the congregation of the LORD
until the tenth generation. They had to
be in Israel ten generations before they could worship, and we will find three
generations after this, David the king, who goes in himself and takes hold of
the horns of the altar at one point in time.
It is a remarkable story of God’s love, of God’s redemption, that is the
theme. Seventeen times in eighty-five
verses, and that’s what the Book has, at least in our English translation, 85
verses, 17 times we hear Jehovah [Yahweh], three times we hear Elohim, twice we
hear El-Shaddai, we hear Redeemer, Redeemed, kinsman-redeemer, redemption 20
times. So in 85 verses, we have
redemption over 20 times, we have the name of the LORD
20 times, and the idea is, the theme of this Book is that the LORD
is working redemption, as he is today.
You and I, we have to be optimists, you know, as we look at the world
around us today, because of who we believe in, because of what our expectation
is. And this Book introduces us in a
wonderful way to God’s thread of redemption, weaving its way through the
history of earth. Running
From Bad Circumstances Instead Of Toughing Them Out Here,
it says “Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there
was a famine in the land. And a certain
man of Bethlehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his
wife, and his two sons.” (verse 1)
There was a famine in the land, that was because they had turned to
idolatry, some were worshipping Baal, some were worshipping pagan gods, and God
had told them in Deuteronomy, ‘if you worship me and you stand before me,
the heavens will give their rain and the earth will be watered. You’re not dependent on the Nile River like
when you were in Egypt, you’re dependent on the rain of heaven, the former and
latter rain. But if you turn away and
you worship other gods, the heavens will become like brass.’ And here’s the interesting picture of
a man from Bethlehem, which means “house of bread,” him and his family are
facing a famine, and much like Abraham, they want to head out of town. [Comment:
In the Old Covenant, the Israelites were not promised divine salvation,
eternal life, like we are under the New Covenant. Instead, in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28
they were promised physical blessings for obedience, and physical curses for
disobedience, on both a personal and national level. Most New Covenant Christians don’t understand
this Biblical principle. The Old
Covenant never promised spiritual salvation & eternal life.] Now the famine is there as the chastening
hand of God. Here is the misconception,
right from the beginning, that is corrected by the end of the chapter. What Elimelech and his wife Noami, their
perspective is, ‘we’re going to lose everything, we’re gonna lose
everything. There’s a famine, we’ve got
to try to circumvent the problem and get somewhere where we can survive or
we’re gonna have nothing.’ Wrong
perspective, we’re going to see by the end of the chapter, they’ve got
everything in the wrong perspective there.
So it says they head to the land
of Moab “to sojourn” not to settle down, not to live, to sojourn,
they’re making an exception in their minds ‘Well we’re not going to stay
there, we’re just going to be there for awhile,’ they’re going to “sojourn
in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.” (verse 1c) Look, he’s completely focused on temporal
things. Moab, the LORD
says in Psalm 108, verse 9, ‘Is my washpot, it’s my garbage pail.’ They’re leaving “the house of bread”
to go to “the garbage pail.” That
doesn’t make any sense, does it? Instead
of trusting the LORD
who was governing over his own people, yes, he’s chastening them, but they’re
on their way now to Moab. Now that’s 60
miles, by the way, from Bethlehem to Moab, it’s no short journey. It introduces some of our characters in verse
2, “And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his
wife was Noami, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of
Bethlehem-judah. And they came into the
country of Moab, and continued there.” His name was Elimelech, which means
“my God is King,” he should have stayed where his God was King. The name of his wife is Naomi, which means
“pleasant.” The name of his two sons,
and I’m assuming they were born during the famine, because the first one, his
name is Mahlon which means “sickly”--what do you have to do to name a kid
that? It will tell us in chapter 4,
verse 10, that he is one of the two sons that marries Ruth. Mahlon means “sickly” and Chilion means
“pining or wearing away.” I like to call
them “sick and tired.” I think that’s
what happens, Elimelech and Naomi got sick and tired of what was going on in
Bethlehem, and they headed out, not the decision they should have made. They were Ephrathites, which tells us that their
family was from the area, it adds and aristocracy, the Holy Spirit’s telling us
something that’s very significant there, is that they’re a family that were
known in Ephrathah, again, “the place of bread,” that they’re known there,
they’re Ephrathites of Bethlehem-judah, “And they came into the country of
Moab, and continued there.” (verse 2c) And
now it just tells us there now, “And Elimelech Naomi’s husband died; and she
was left with sick and tired, her two sons.” He just dies.
The title “my God is King” always dies when it’s in territory it
shouldn’t be in. We can easily say that,
when we think “Jesus is my Lord,” and if we’re somewhere where we shouldn’t be,
and we’re sojourning there, we’re settling down there, that always seems to
die. Elimelech, he dies, she was left
with her two sons. “And they” the
two sons “took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was
Orpah,” and I’m going to say Oprah somewhere through this study, because I
just see it when I look at it, I’m concentrating, her name was Orpah, “and
the name of the other Ruth: and they
dwelled there about ten years.” (verse 4) both Moabite names, Orpah, ah
some translators say it means “neck,” it has the idea sometimes of being
stiffnecked, some say it means “fawn,” the idea is, the very obvious part of
the fawn is the neck. “Ruth” seems to
indicate “beauty.” The two sons, Chilion
married Fawn, and Mahlon married Ruth, Beauty.
Not forbidden, look, it’s interesting to go through it and have right
away people say ‘It was forbidden, they shouldn’t have done this.’ It’s not forbidden. In Deuteronomy chapter 7 it names the seven
Canaanite tribes inside the land, they were forbidden to marry any of
them. There is no exact prohibition for
marrying a Moabite or an Ammonite, they’re from Lot, it’s the same family. It did say that if they married a Moabite or
an Ammonite, Deuteronomy 23, that they [the Moabite or Ammonite spouse and
their children, obviously] couldn’t enter into the congregation of the LORD
until the tenth generation, but there was no strict prohibition. The prohibition should have been, of course, the
father’s gone at this point in time, whatever his influence could have been in
the lives of the sons, and it’s hard, because it seems he's compromised to some
degree, to leave the land, it’s for material gain that he’s left the land. The hard thing is, marrying an unbeliever,
we’re more specifically instructed in the New Testament, in 2nd
Corinthians chapter 6, that light and darkness have nothing in common, that
Belial and Christ have nothing in common, what things could we possibly have in
common, that marrying an unbeliever pulls us in a direction that we should
never go in. [2nd
Corinthians 6:14-15, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with
unrighteousness? and what communion hath
light with darkness. And what concord
hath Christ with Belial? or what part
hath he that believeth with an infidel?”
This obviously has a wider
application to fellowshipping with unbelievers, but includes the area of marriage
as well. Now most of us have unbelieving
family, and we’re not to cut them off, for the sake of being a good witness to
them, and witnessing to them about the Gospel of Christ. So in the New Testament, there’s a tension
here between fellowshipping with unbelievers and not fellowshipping with them.] Now that’s vastly different than from being
married and being saved, and then you have one saved, one partner saved and one
partner unbelieving, and we trust that God’s at work and we’re going to see great
things sometimes happen in that situation [and sometimes not]. But certainly, the concern here would have
been I’m sure on the part of Naomi, ‘Here are my sons, my husband’s gone,
marrying these unbelieving women from Moab.’
They married these two girls. The
Famine’s Gone, So Now After The Loss Of Her Husband And Two Sons, Naomi Heads
Home “And
Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two
sons and her husband.” (verse 5) Now, no grandkids indicated here, there’s no
Social Security system, there’s no welfare system. Now we have Naomi without a husband, without
sons, without any provision. The Talmud
says that the death of Mahlon and Chilion was for their disobedience marrying
Moabite women, I don’t know about that, they had a ten year period to turn
their hearts back towards home and get out of there, and it seems that they
persisted and persisted and persisted in an area they shouldn’t have been
in. Nonetheless, whatever the LORD
is doing here, they’re gone now, and now you have Noami left with Ruth and
Oprah, and Orpah, there’s just the three of them left. “Then she” in verse 6, Noami, “arose
with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the country of Moab how
that the LORD
had visited his people in giving them bread.” (verse 6) In the country
of Moab, news had gotten to her, how the LORD,
Jehovah [Yahweh] had visited his people in giving them bread, she hears there’s
bread in the house of bread once again, the famine is over, God is being
gracious, and she’s realizing that. In
some ways she’s taking more of a stand than Elimelech her husband did,
interesting. She’s determined, as she
hears, she’s looking around, she knows that she needs to get home, she knows it
in her heart. And she stands up and
she’s determined now, she knows that Jehovah [Yahweh], that’s our word there,
the LORD,
the covenant-keeping God has visited his people in a positive way, and now
there’s bread. “Wherefore she went
forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her;
and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah.” (verse 7) Now we don’t know if Noami’s just thinking ‘Are
they going to accompany me to the Jordan River, they’re going along with me, to
comfort me,’ and so forth. But you
have to understand, that their hearts are knit together. All three of them are widows, and there’s
something in that, that there is a bond that has formed between them. They all know the pain of losing their
husbands. And Noami to a greater degree,
she’s lost her husband and her sons. And
no doubt they have watched her, particularly Ruth, and instead of being bitter
at her God, she’s determined, she hears there’s bread again in Bethlehem, she’s
determined to go back where she believes that she belongs, where God is
visiting his people. And you can say all
kinds of things about your faith, but you know, when those circumstances come
and life is falling apart, and the circumstances don’t seem to be speaking
about God’s love at all, and at that point to hear someone speak about their
God as unchanging, as reliable, as gracious as no doubt they heard her say,
putting her hope in Jehovah, no doubt there’s something wonderful happening
between them. You know, you and I can
talk to, you know, when you lose someone, it does something in you. Many of you know that, what that does in your
heart. Again, I will always remember a
particular day that I was ministering to one of the women in our church who had
lost her husband, he had gotten cancer.
His attitude was ‘Ya, you go to that church, all those weirdos up
there, I was born Catholic, I’ll die Catholic, I’m not gonna go,’ so as he
got cancer, more folks from our church came, changed the screens, they brought
meals, they made sure the antifreeze in the car was ok, and slowly but surely,
he said “You know, when I get out of this bed, I’m going to that church,” he
said “I want to see who these people are, because they’re acting like
Christians ought to act.” Before he
passed away he got saved. That doesn’t
take the pain away, of a loss. And I was
there in the living room talking to her, and as I was talking to her, one of our
other widows who had just lost her husband several months before this came
in. And I thought I was doing a pretty
good job. But when she came in, they
both froze, and they looked at each other.
There were no words said, the tears just started to flow in both of
their eyes. And the one that just came
in put her arms around the other one and said, “I know, I know, I know,” she
did so much better than me. And there’s
something there in that, you know, 2nd Corinthians chapter 1,
we should be, all of us involved in that ministry, ‘The God of all
comfort, the Father of all mercies, who comforts us in our hour of affliction,
that we might be able to comfort others in their affliction with the same
comfort we were comforted with.’ So if you are an ex-druggie, and the Lord has
saved you and changed your life, there is no one better to minister to someone
in that lifestyle. If you are an
ex-alcoholic, there isn’t anyone better to minister to someone struggling with
that, if you’ve lost someone close, there, you know, you’re just equipped in a
particular way to do something there.
You’ve been in the mission field, you’re just equipped to talk to
someone whose also been in the mission field that struggles, all of these things
so important. And in this scene you have
these three widows together. How long
they were together we’re not told, but their hearts are knit together in great
emotional ways here at this point in time.
So, they look like all three of them are heading to Bethlehem-judah, I’m
sure that Naomi thinks ‘They’re being kind to me, they’re just going to walk
me part of the way to the border of the Land, to the Jordan River.’ Naomi
Tells Her Two Daughters-in-Law To Go Back To Moab & Their Families “And
Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother’s
house: the LORD
deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me.” (verse
8) she’s
asking God to bless them. ‘You’ve
been so gracious with me, in the loss of my husband and the loss of my sons,’ she’s
saying, ‘You’re young, go back to the homes of your parents, possibly you
will be able to remarry,’ “The LORD
grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her
husband. Then she kissed them; and they
lifted up their voice, and wept.” (verse 9)
“and find rest” and there is a key here, it isn’t the word “rest” that we
normally would think of, this is a word “menechah” it means “shelter,
asylum,” it specifically talks about “being under the rest of a husbands
covering.” It isn’t just resting in the
sense that we would think about it, it’s finding shelter, it’s finding asylum
under the roof of a husband. Because in
this culture, without a husband, a woman, a single woman was fair game to all
kinds of trouble. And she’s thinking ‘If
you go to Judah with me, you’re Moabites, you’re never gonna find a husband,
they’re going to look down on you, I know what’s going to happen, you need to
do this now, go back to your parent’s home, don’t go with me. And perhaps the LORD
will bless you, he’ll be gracious to you, and you will find “rest,” you’ll find
shelter, you’ll find a husband, each of you in the house of her husband.’ “Then she kissed them; and they lifted up
their voice, and wept.” You can see
the three of them there, weeping together.
It tells us several things, even though Noami didn’t agree, possibly
with the decision of her sons, she had endeared herself to these two young
women, she had cared for them, she had been the best mother-in-law in the
world. Some women would have a party of
if their mother-in-law was moving to another country, it’s just the truth. Ah, these three are standing there, they’re
weeping together, embracing one another, she had endeared herself, she was an
amazing woman, Naomi. “And they said
unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people. And Naomi said, Turn again, my
daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in
my womb, that they may be your husbands?” (verses 10-11) Notice now, “my daughters,” she’s owned
them. The tradition was that if there
was a living brother, that he then would take the wife of his deceased brother
to bear seed and so forth, and provide a home.
She says ‘At my age are there any more sons in my womb that they
may be your husbands?’ “And Naomi
said, Turn again, my daughters: why will
ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they
may be your husbands? Turn again, my
daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say, I have hope, if I
should have an husband also to night, and should also bear sons; would ye tarry
for them till they were grown? would ye
stay for them from having husbands? nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much
for your sakes that the hand of the LORD
is gone out against me.” (verses 11-13) Now I believe that at this point her
conscience is bothering her about having left Bethlehem in the first
place. Her perceptions are wrong, you
know, there is behind every, one author I read said, “behind every Divine frown
is a loving divine smile.” God
was not at all working against her, there is a plan that she could hardly dream
of that was at work right at this moment.
And look, the great thing, the thing I love about the Lord is he’s not
dependent on you getting everything right, he’s given us his Word. You know, that should be our guide through
this life. There are certain things that
are not in the Word, ‘Lord, should I move to Texas?’ Let me see, that’s in Hezekiah chapter 3,
it’s not in there. And then we feel it’s
like Marco Polo, we do this ‘Marco!’ and another says ‘Polo!’ ‘no,
but you’re getting warm.’ That’s not
the way it is. He wants to communicate,
he wants to speak, he wants to lead. The
truth is, there is Biblical truth that we should live in, should govern our
lives. There are times when we make
decisions, even with the best intentions, and they’re not exactly what the Lord
wants us to do. That doesn’t mean he stands there waiting for us, going ‘Oh
well, they’ll be back.’ No, he
superintends and he overrides, and he guides us. If you’ve raised children, you know there’s a
vast difference between them being rebellious and defiant, and them doing
something, maybe it isn’t the exact thing you want them to do, but you know
they’re doing it trying to please you.
There’s no hardness there. And
Naomi was wrong here, the hand of the LORD
was not against her, hadn’t gone out against her. God was going to take all of these
circumstances and work them, you’ll hear by the time we get to the last chapter,
remarkable things. She says ‘the LORD’s
hand has gone out against me.’ “And
they lifted up their voice, and wept again:
and Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her.” (verse 14) and Orpah goes, she leaves to go back to her
father’s house. And you can imagine what
it was for them to let go of each other at that moment, as she goes. “but Ruth clave unto her.” So, so Orpah at this point in time makes
the decision, it’s practical, she evidently not a believer, she makes the
choice, walking away from something that Ruth has taken hold of, for the sake
of practicality and temporal gain. Many
people, that’s where they turn away from the Lord, they get close enough to
where they perceive, to take a step forward and to trust the Lord might mean
this, it might mean relinquishing, it might mean giving the steering wheel to
him, it might mean, ‘I’m in this situation right now, to step forward and to
follow him may be to leave behind some worldly hope that I have.’ [When God was calling me, I had just been
trained as a towerman for the B&M Railroad, a good job, with tremendous job
security. God was calling me into a
Sabbath-keeping Church of God, and at the moment I had to make a decision, I
thought the Sabbath was Sunday, but that didn’t stop me, I told them I had to
have Sunday’s off to worship my Lord, God.
I was “let go,” essentially fired within a day. Two weeks later, God had me fully employed at
Legal Seafoods, in Inman Square, Cambridge Mass. for two or three wonderful
years as a seafood cook. Looking back, I
wouldn’t have traded that experience in that restaurant for anything in the
world. I didn’t hesitate, but many do,
and many never make that crucial step to accept the Lord into their lives. In a sense they don’t know what they’re
missing out on, even in the temporal.]
And that’s exactly what Orpah did at this point in time, she walked away
from something that eternity will have to speak of. Ruth
Utters One Of The Most Beautiful Passages Found In The History Of Mankind But
Ruth, it says ‘clave to Naomi.’
“And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her
people, and unto her gods: return thou
after thy sister in law.” (verse 15) and Ruth now comes out with one of the
most famous sayings in the history mankind.
It is one of the most beautiful short set of prose ever written under
the sun in human history, and every scholar, saved and unsaved agrees. There is not a wasted syllable, the whole
thing is so full and so poignant. “And
Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following
after thee: for wither thou goest, I
will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge:
thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will
I be buried: the LORD
do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”
(verses 16-17) and notice, “the LORD”
Jehovah [Yahweh], she takes an oath at the end of
this, ‘your hope is my hope.’ She
said some incredible things here. Naomi
said ‘Go back to your people and your gods,’ she said, ‘No,
your people will be my people, your God will be my God,’ she responds
to that. Because I believe she has
watched Naomi closely. Naomi has lost a
husband, and when Ruth still had Mahlon she watched, she watched her
mother-in-law, no doubt watched her pray in the morning, she watched her walk
alone, weeping. She listened to what
came out of her mouth, she heard something vastly different from the immoral
gods of Moab. I believe that, as her own
husband died and she felt the pain of being a widow, that she watched Naomi,
Naomi spoke volumes to her about a hope that she had, that Ruth did not have,
and that Orpah did not have. And I
believe that Ruth embraced that. I believe
Ruth somewhere experiences what we might call conversion, I believe Ruth walked
alone somewhere and said ‘If you are there, the God of Naomi, if you will be
my God, if you will give me hope, if you will speak to my heart,’ somewhere
in the process she took hold of that.
And listen, somehow, one author said “God speaks to us in our
laughter, but he screams at us in our sorrow.”
F.W. Boram said that “We make our decisions, and then they turn
around and make us.” We make our
decisions, and then they turn around and they make us. So Ruth here has made a decision. ‘What I see in you is more valuable
than staying in this land. What I see in
you right now is more than I ever had in my homeland, what I see of your faith
and your God reflected in your eyes is
something that I long for.’ And
beautifully she says to her “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to
return from following after thee: for
whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy
God my God: where thou diest, will I
die, and there will I be buried:” no
fear, no hesitation, “the LORD
do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”
(verses 16-17) interesting picture. Now Naomi, “When she saw that she was
stedfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.” (verse 18) And I believe that Naomi also saw something
in Ruth…she knew something real was cooking there. Verse 19, “So they two went until they
came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass,
when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and
they said, Is this Naomi?” It’s
not telling us that this is a 60-mile walk, this is probably four days. If they’re in the highlands of Moab, they’re
descending about over 4,000 feet down to the Dead Sea area, down to the Jordan
River, and then they’re ascending over 3,000 feet to come up to the area of
Bethlehem. This is a huge descent and a
huge ascent. But what was their
conversation like as they walked? They
were prey to robbers, they were trusting the LORD
in this time. What was their discussion
of faith? You know, I believe that Ruth
and Naomi were realizing at this point in time, there’s all kinds of
famines. And some of them are worse than
the famine of bread, what do we have left now, of family, the most practical
things? There’s all kinds of famines
that can come to us. And I think in some
ways, Naomi is struggling with the love of the LORD,
something she probably had felt her whole life, and now there’s kind of a
famine there, or ‘Are you doing this to me because I’ve done wrong? Is this you dealing with me harshly because
we never should have been in Moab in the first place?’ They’re realizing that in life there’s
all kinds of descents and there’s all kinds of ascending, there’s lots of ups
and downs. And what a four-day journey
this must have been, and I would have loved to have listened in on these
two. You know, because if it was me and
my son, we could walk four days without talking, he’d be happy as a lark, right
next to each other, [muffled laughter] slap each other. If I watch one of my daughters and my wife,
they’re walking, they just don’t stop talking, this would have been a whole MP3
set, this would have used up a lot of K on your computer to get this conversation
down, but I would have loved to have listened to it, these two gals walking
with each other. This is days here, “So
they two went until they came to Bethlehem.
And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city
was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?” (verse 19) now
this isn’t a big city in those days, “all of the city was moved about them,”
because you could see them coming from a distance. “and they said, Is this Naomi?” Now evidently she’s worn from grief, and I’ve
seen people age terribly from grief, from sorrow, she was worn no doubt. And the question “Is this Naomi?”
they hadn’t seen her for over 10 years. “We
Went Out Full, Now I’ve Returned Empty”--But Was She Really Empty? “And
she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly
with me.” (20)
Naomi, “pleasant,” Mara, which is “bitter.” “for the Almighty” El-Shaddai “hath
dealt very bitterly with me.” Now
she doesn’t use Jehovah [Yahweh] here, she uses “the Almighty,” and she has
this concept ‘We did what was wrong, we went in a wrong direction, we did
things we shouldn’t have done, and he’s Almighty, and he has dealt bitterly
with me, don’t call me Naomi, call me Mara.’ The center, kind of the whole study here,
look, “I went out full, and the LORD
hath brought me home again empty: why then
call ye me Naomi,” Pleasant, “seeing
the LORD
hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?” (verse 21) Coming home, no doubt, is intensifying the
grief, to familiar territory, maybe to where the place where they’d gotten
married, her and Elimelech, to where the boys had been born. Do you see what’s happened here? She said ‘We went out full, and I’ve
returned empty.’ That was not at
all the perspective they had, when they left to go to Moab, their perspective
was ‘We’re leaving empty, there’s nothing left, there’s famine, there’s
nothing, our material gain, our land, there’s no crops growing,’ their perspective
was, they were leaving empty. And now
she stands there without a husband, without her sons, she said ‘We left
full, we just didn’t know it, we just didn’t know it, and now we’ve come home
empty.’ My encouragement to you
would be, let me tell you something, we are on a Pilgrimage and we are passing
through this place, you just got here and you ain’t stayin’ long. And if you have family, you have a wife or a
husband that’s a believer, you have kids, you are full. Are they perfect? No.
They’re sinners saved by grace, just like the person in the mirror in
your house. And wives, your husband
wasn’t meant to satisfy everything in your life. In John’s Gospel chapter 4 we see the woman
at the well, and she’s empty, she’s still thirsty, Jesus perceives it. ‘I’ll give you something to drink and
when you drink of it, you’ll never thirst again, go get your husband.’ ‘I don’t have one,’ ‘You’re right, you don’t
have a husband, you had five, and the guy you’re living with now ain’t your
husband.’ You’d think after five
you’d realize ‘This ain’t what I’m looking for either, should have stayed
with the first one.’ Because now
she’s come to Jesus, and he says ‘I’m gonna give you something that is
gonna satisfy you,’ and the other thing he’s saying is ‘no human
man was meant to satisfy the deepest craving in your life, which is for God.’ Husbands, your wife is a gift, if you have a
believing wife, you’d better count your blessings, because I can tell you, any
time you want, story after story after story, of those who thought they were
empty until everything was gone, and realized ‘I was full, I was full. I had a home, I had a marriage, I had kids, I
was full, and now we’re empty.’ Reality
bites, thank goodness for your family, God’s given you kids, great, they’re
crazy, I raised four of them. I loved
it. I got grandkids, man, I love
provoking them [loud laughter], to faith and
bad works, they’re just so funny, the little one is just over two years
old now, and she has a vocabulary like a 30-year-old, the twins, and he’s just
vastly different, but I love to get them in trouble with their mom and dad, ‘If
you do that again!’ I’ll say, did you hear what they said ‘If you do
that again, you’re in big trouble, don’t laugh, don’t laugh,’ they’re
laughing, and they’re mad at me, it’s wonderful. And then they go home. I think they figured us into their food
budget, I think that’s true. [yup, yup,
but that’s another way I can help their families] What a delight. Listen to what this first chapter’s saying, ‘We
went out full,’ that’s not why they went to Moab, they had lost
perspective, they were in the Promised Land, they were in a place where because
God loves us, God chastens us, he deals with us. We can be in the place of blessing, and
things can dry up around us, there’s more than one kind of drought, and God can
be doing that deliberately to get our attention and to have us look at
something and see something, and that’s where they were. He was not going to forsake his people, and
he never does. But they left, and their
perspective was ‘We had nothing, that’s why we left.’ Now, with everything gone, God has so changed
their perspective, and she says ‘We went out full,’ and that
wasn’t how they felt when they left originally, “and the LORD
hath brought me home again empty” ‘who cares about bread, who cares about
the field, who cares about income, I had my husband and my kids, I had
everything, and the LORD has
brought me again empty.’ “why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the
LORD
hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me.” (verse 21)
that’s her perspective. Whatever truth
there might be in that, God dealing with us, as believers we know that he
chastens us, and the chastening of the Lord is not pleasant but it yields the
peaceable fruit of righteousness. David,
in Psalm 119 would say “Before I was afflicted I went
astray, but now have I kept thy Word, it is good for me that I have been
afflicted” it is past tense, he is looking back, “that I might
learn thy statutes, I know O LORD
that thy judgments are right and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me,” ‘LORD,
it woke me up, it made me lift up my head again, it produced fruit in my life,
it brought things back into perspective.’
That’s not where Naomi is in our
first chapter. Where she has come to
realizing, ‘Bad Move, Step One, shouldn’t have done that, I had
everything, how I wish we were back here with my husband, my sons, and maybe we
wouldn’t have any money, we’d be scraping by, but we had everything.’ Now she realizes that at this point in time,
she’s here brokenhearted, alone, little does she know what God has done, with
Ruth by her side. “So Naomi returned,
and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter in law, with her, which returned out of
the country of Moab: and they came to
Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest.” (verse 22) [Comment:
don’t know if this is significant, but Jewish scholars must notice this,
the beginning of the barley harvest happened on Passover, at the Wave Sheaf
offering.] things are green again,
things are lush, beginning of the barley harvest, April/May, no doubt shortly
after Passover, we don’t know during those days whether it was kept, what
happened, but something had happened to where God was now blessing his people again. Perhaps there had been one of those eras of
repentance, perhaps one of the judges had turned, one of the early judges had
turned, perhaps, Ehud, Othniel, perhaps it was one of those periods where
things had turned back, and there’s bread again in Bethlehem, in “the house of
bread.” My encouragement to you would
be, look, whatever’s happening around us, we can get very discouraged, looking
at the world that we live in today, I can.
[Comment: as I’m transcribing
this Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation has just gone to war again the
Ukraine, and the war is still raging.
For background history on all of that, see https://unityinchrist.com/topical%20studies/America-ModernRomans5.htm. But these are
scary times we live in, times which will bring on the prophesied Beast Empire
out of Europe. That is being set up, in
my opinion, by these very events, laying the groundwork for that evil empire to
come on the scene, just prior to the great 2nd coming of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, who will put an end to all the madness around us, the
coming worldwide genocide called World War III, or in Bible terminology the
great tribulation.] Look, there is God’s
unfolding plan of redemption around us everywhere, and if you pray, you’ll see
it in the news, you’ll see it around you in church, you’ll see it in the
sanctuary, you’ll see it, Gill called me and said just when their team came
back today, they were outside and they ended up talking to eight kids from the
neighbourhood and all of them prayed and received Christ, right as they were
coming back in. There’s a plan of
redemption working, we heard wonderful testimonies from communion last
Wednesday night, people’s lives touched supernaturally, changed, healed,
wonderful things happening here in the sanctuary this week, incredible
things. There is a stirring, God’s plan
of redemption is quietly, steadily unfolding around us, by the day, by the
hour, by the moment. And he’s coming,
Christ is coming, the Kinsman-Redeemer is on his way. And I encourage you, read into Ruth chapter
2, I don’t want to start it now, let’s have the musicians come, we’ll have to
sing an extra song, I don’t want to jump into it with five minutes left, so
read ahead into the 2nd chapter…read ahead in the Book of Ruth,
look, there’s only three chapters left, so read ‘em every other day, so you
know where we’re going, what we’re running into, so that it becomes familiar
territory. Let’s stand, let’s pray
together…[transcript of a connective expository sermon on Ruth 1:1-22, given by
Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue,
Philadelphia, PA 19116] related
links: Audio
version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED642
As
I’m transcribing this Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation has just gone to war
again the Ukraine, and as of this writing the war is still raging. For background history on all of that, and
where this is leading us prophetically, see https://unityinchrist.com/topical%20studies/America-ModernRomans5.htm |