This morning, we're going to be looking at the story of Ruth. And you might remember some of the older members here that we did one of the first sermons or sermon series I did here as a pastor was on the book of Ruth. This morning, we're going to relook at the first chapter of Ruth, and we're going to watch this story and see how it unfolds where we see a God who is a God of powerful redemption, able to turn any situation into good, able to have His way, His plan unfold despite anyone's involvement, anyone's decision to frustrate that, even giving their best attempts to frustrate that plan. If you've ever found yourself in the deepest reaches of despair, where you've had moments of doubting that there could be a way out, the story of Ruth will give you hope in every situation, in every situation. If you're like me and you found yourself throwing a pity party every now and then, feeling sorry for yourself and through tears of entitlement asking God why, the story of Ruth is a story for you.
It gives perspective, this story, on how life can really be, that it really can be very, very hard. And wherever you find yourself this morning, in the deepest trenches of despair or in the moments of throwing yourself a great old pity party, or if you're experiencing kindness and the goodness of God and you can identify that in your life. Despite all of that, there is a story and a meaning to this morning's passage for you. So we're going to look through Ruth 1, and we're going to read the whole chapter. Please keep your Bibles open because we will be highlighting a few things and referring back to it often.
So we're going to go to Ruth chapter 1 in the Old Testament just after the book of Judges, and we're gonna read the whole chapter of Ruth 1. 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 name of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem and Judah, and they went to Moab and lived there. Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.
They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. With her two daughters-in-law, she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah. Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, go back, each of you, to your mother's home.
May the Lord show kindness to you as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband. Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud and said to her, we will go back with you to your people. But Naomi said, return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me?
Am I going to have any more sons who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters. I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me, even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons, would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them?
No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you because the Lord's hand has gone out against me. At this, they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. Look, said Naomi, your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods.
Go back with her. But Ruth replied, don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God, my God.
Where you die, I will die, and there, I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me. When Naomi realised that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. So the women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, can this be Naomi?
Don't call me Naomi, she told them. Call me Mara because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me.
The Lord Almighty has brought misfortune upon me. So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. So far, our reading. The story of Ruth begins with an ominous verse in verse one. The story throws us into the context of Israel.
It says during the time of the judges. Now if you know the story of Israel, if you know their history, you will know that the time of the judges was one of the darkest moments in the history of the nation of Israel. For three hundred years or so between the glory days of the Exodus of when Moses led his people out and God showed them a mighty miracle after mighty miracle, where God brought them out with a mighty hand, the Bible says. Between that moment where God brought them into the promised land and before the moment where God gave them a king, it was about three hundred years of being ruled by these tribal judges of the tribes of Israel. And we see, if we read the story of Judges, how there were these peaks and troughs of good judges like Gideon and terrible judges like Samson.
And the people wrestled continuously, constantly with idolatry, falling into worship the gods of this new country, this new culture that they had entered into in the promised land. Worshipping Baal, worshipping the fertility gods of the local people. And so in this dark time, we find the story of Ruth. And so we find this story wedged into this hopeless situation, and there was a big problem, it says in verse one. There was a famine.
Now we understand in most cases in the Old Testament, famine and drought was used by God to declare judgement on sin. God had promised in Deuteronomy 8 that if Israel would only love him and choose him to be their God and God alone, if they would worship him and serve him alone, that they would be blessed in this promised land, that they would be fruitful and increase in the land. But in Deuteronomy 8, it also said that if they would turn away from him and reject him, if they were to worship other gods, they would be handed over to their enemies, and their land would become plagued with natural disasters like famine and drought. And so what the writer of Ruth in chapter one verse one wants to explain, and what he wants us to understand, that in the time of the judges, as a result of unfaithfulness to God, there is no food in Bethlehem. The name Bethlehem means house of bread, and in the house of bread, there was no bread.
And in the midst of this famine, a man by the name of Elimelech and his wife Naomi decided to look for greener pastures in the land of Moab, their neighbour, the nation's neighbour. And during this time, in Moab, after they've immigrated, Elimelech dies. We don't know how he dies. The Bible remains silent on that. All it says is that he dies.
But for ten years, this family of mom, two sons scratch out a living, and during this time, Naomi's sons, Mahlon and Kilion, marry Moabite women, local women. But at the end of ten years, both their sons die also. And so Naomi now, an old woman without a husband, a provider, without sons to support her, is in a dire situation. And reflecting on these words, you can't help but feel just how serious, how desperate the situation is. Having moved to Moab to preserve their lives, the family of four is reduced to one.
This is not how the story was meant to be read. This is not how the story meant to unfold. You see, Elimelech made a mistake by going to Moab. Another thing that we have to understand, Naomi herself should never have let her husband make that decision. Right at the beginning of this story, we see the age old problem of humanity.
When life gets tough, where do we go? To God? We start making plans. Instead of having dealt with the underlying reason of this famine, which was idolatry, which was turning away from God, instead of dealing with the sin, what do they do? They say, let's go to Moab.
There's no food in Bethlehem. Let's make the wise logical decision and get out of here. We'll go to greener pastures. Nowhere does it mention that the people of Bethlehem, that Naomi and her husband threw themselves upon the mercy of God, sought repentance and forgiveness from God. A man named Elimelech made a plan for a better life, and it cost him and his family everything.
Can you see the heartbreaking irony? Elimelech went to Moab to live, but he died. Mahlon and Kilion should have had a better life, but they died. Naomi's life should have been full. They went to that place to have a full life, but now it was empty.
Instead of looking to God for their salvation, they looked to themselves and they found disaster. Fathers and husbands, I think there's a message and a lesson here for us, a truth for us in Scripture. As providers for our families, don't fall into the trap of thinking provision comes from economics. Provision does not come from more secure portfolios, nor a bigger pay cheque. Provision comes from the provider.
Provision comes from the provider. Don't look around for ways to feed your family. Look to the one who can give and who can take away. We mentioned it this morning in Psalm 24:1, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. Elimelech's unbelief left a heartbreaking wake of death and destruction behind him.
And that is the problem. But then we see the decision. In verse six, we see Naomi and her two daughters-in-law who have remained after this. Ruth and Orpah find out that God had come to the aid of the people in Bethlehem. There was food again in Bethlehem.
They heard about it along the grapevine. The famine there was over, and so they set out towards Bethlehem. But on the road, Naomi realises that it is crazy for these three women to go by themselves to this place. She has no way to feed them. She might be able to go to a family member there and be looked after, but she can't bring two other males to feed.
There is no way that she can provide for these two. She's a woman without a provider. She has no land to grow crops on. She has no sons to look after those crops. There was nothing for them in Bethlehem.
She says in verse 8, go back, each of you, to your mother's home. Go back to your families. And they cry, and they're emotional, and they say, no, we will not do that. We cannot do that. Let us go with you.
And she says again in verse 11, no, go home. And again, you can sense the sadness, the desperateness in this scene. Three women bound together by in the wake of severe deep pain. How could they be separated? They only had each other in this moment.
But the situation was dire. They were going to an unknown location with unknown variables. Wouldn't they be better off? Surely, they would be better off in a family environment where they could be supported. But again, we see Naomi's unwavering faith in this picture.
She is wrestling with this idea. The situation was dire. The outlook was bleak, but we don't see Naomi cry out to God. We don't see Naomi falling at the mercy of God for provision. Instead, she sees her earthly situation and as bleak as it was, she did not trust that God could provide.
In her doubting, she tells her daughters-in-law to do the logical thing, to do the wise thing, to go back to a support network and return home. Go back to your family, she tells Ruth and Orpah. And so it is understandable that Naomi would react in this way, isn't it? Because we've all experienced it. The moment we've become jaded by our own pain and suffering in those situations where sorrow just seems so permeated through our lives, it causes us to be so blind to anything that might be good or pure or hopeful.
In those moments, we become cynical of anything that may be helpful. We doubt every good intention of others. Naomi doubted the good intentions of her daughters. We even doubt the existence of a good God that we can go to to ask for protection and provision. But friends, God is good, and God is in control.
And we see how that is in this story. Before we get there though, you see in her pain, Naomi, not even thinking to stop, despite her pain, despite her unwise decision to go to Moab, going to God and asking for Him to provide. She doesn't believe it. She doesn't think it's possible. She can't see a way out of this terrible predicament.
And yet, she misses the fact of God's provision already, even up until that point. God didn't allow her husband and his sons to die, but He provided two gorgeous, beautiful, loyal daughters-in-law that He did not take, that would have gone to hell and back with her. She didn't see this. Now there may come a time where we experience pain that cannot be ignored. Pain that may be so overwhelming that it can take our eyes off the best hope, the best hope of God.
And it's right. We should mourn and we should grieve for things that should be grieved for. Our pain should never cause us, however, to stop looking for the hand of God working in our lives. When we get to a point where pain causes us to abandon God, where pain causes us to abandon God, well, heaven help us. We are truly lost.
There is no darker place. That is the point of suicide. That is the point of absolute, utter loneliness. At the request of Naomi, one of her daughters, Orpah does the humanly logical thing. She kisses her mother-in-law goodbye and goes back home.
But then we come to Ruth, who made a choice. And Orpah did what most people would do, and she goes back to a family that could provide for her. She goes back to a government that might provide Centrelink for her because she's a citizen there. But Ruth, in verse 14, clings to Naomi. Naomi goes on to say the unthinkable in the next verse in verse 15.
She says, go back to your people. Go back to your gods. Can you imagine that? Naomi is busy here with anti evangelism. She's de-evangelising her daughter.
Go back to your people, to your culture, go and worship the god Shamosh, the fertility god of the Moabites. Maybe he can go and help you. Imagine saying that to someone. You're in pain? Pray to Allah.
Maybe he can help. You need wisdom? You need guidance? Go to Buddha. Imagine doing that.
It's crazy. We see Naomi doing this in this scene. What is she thinking? Despite all of this, Ruth clings to Naomi and she says these famous words, where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.
Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God. In spite of the dire circumstances, in spite of the bleak outlook, in spite of Naomi's very lack of faith, Ruth believed. Naomi's unfaithfulness to God was contrasted with Ruth's faithfulness to Him. Naomi's willingness to break family ties was contrasted by Ruth's unwillingness to leave.
When Ruth was in trouble, she clung to her family. She clung to her God that she had come to know. And that is faithfulness, friends. And the irony again in this opening chapter is that Naomi, Jewess. Naomi, the one that knows Yahweh, the God of the covenant, sends her daughter away with a blessing to go and worship other gods.
But Ruth placed her trust in the Lord. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God. And the irony is that this woman that should have known better doesn't. And that this Moabite girl Ruth knows more about this God than Naomi does.
If you ever wanted an example of God's electing grace in the Bible, you look at this story. God calls His people. God knows each heart and He draws people for Himself according to His pleasure and His goodwill. That means we should never be certain of who God will or will not call. Ruth, the Moabites, the enemies of Israel, becomes a Christian, becomes a believer in God.
God calls Ruth from the Moabites, the depraved and the loathsome neighbours of Israel. Don't ever underestimate who God will call. That makes us think twice about that filthy mouth coworker in our office, doesn't it? That makes us think twice about that leather jacket wearing, nose ring having, drug addicted whatever whatever that comes into our shop. God may be calling them to your life for a reason.
Will you evangelise them? Will you invite them to know your God as you know him? Will you say nothing? Will you ignore it? Perhaps you may even be tempted to de-evangelise them.
But even then, we see in Ruth 1, despite our very worst mistakes, despite Naomi's de-evangelising, God calls who He calls to Himself for His glory. He is in control. And so Naomi, seeing that Ruth is determined to go with her, gives a long sigh and she trudges off back home along the path. Upon arrival in Bethlehem, the whole town is as though, is this Naomi? They said, she has aged.
She is gray. Life has been tough. Naomi gives this testimony and it is a false testimony. She says, don't call me Naomi anymore. Call me Mara.
Naomi, which means pleasant, sweetheart, now returns home as Mara, which means bitter. The Lord has made my life bitter, Naomi says. Now it was Naomi's opinion that God had sent them into this wilderness to die, to suffer, to perish. It was God's fault for bringing this grief upon them, and again we see her wrestling with an immature faith in this moment of grief. Yes.
Yes. God did allow for her husband and sons to die because nothing is outside of God's control but to insinuate that God had acted unfairly was not correct. We see the same unfaithfulness here as the unfaithfulness that caused her and Elimelech to pack up and move to Moab. The unfaithfulness to God that caused her to tell her daughters to go home and worship other gods. Naomi, we see again, does not understand the character of God.
The truth is that God did allow Elimelech and his family to move to Moab. He did allow for them to die, but it was also God's sovereign will that gave Ruth to Naomi despite her unfaithfulness. You see, God's plan was, and He had promised it, and He had made it known to them that they have to remain in his land, that they have to worship him, that they must repent of their sin, that they must be clean before him and worship him alone, and He would bless them. But that didn't happen, and the land was cursed. Great is thy faithfulness, even to thy promises of cursing.
God's plan and desire was for Naomi and Elimelech to remain in the land of Judah where He could bless their faithfulness despite the famine. Instead, they went to Moab to bless themselves, but despite that, God worked around it. What we need to realise is that there are two important truths which we must remember as Christians, and they must constantly be held in tension. The first is that God is sovereign, that He is powerful, that He is almighty and in control of everything. But the second, that He is good.
That He is good. If you hold onto one and ignore the other, you will have an unbalanced, flawed understanding of God. Naomi may have believed that God was sovereign and almighty, that He could take life, but she didn't think He was good. God had killed her husband and her sons. He had made her life bitter.
But friends, that is not who God is. That is not who God is. I had a story of a woman that spoke to her pastor after she was raped and said to him, it was God's will that I was raped. God had done this to teach me a lesson, the pastor said, no way. God does not rape people.
Sin does that. God doesn't murder people. Sin murders people. What I do love about Naomi is that at least she was honest. At least she called her situation bad because it was bad.
Sometimes in our pity parties, we might think like her, however. It was God who did this to me. It was God who caused me to lose a child. It was God who caused my marriage to break down. It was God who gave me this addiction.
You know that in this whole book of Ruth, however, 23 times the name of God, of Yahweh, is mentioned. 23 times. Right? God has talked about in some way. But only twice in this book is God shown to have direct influence in the story of what is going on here.
So 21 times, people talk about God, but twice we see God actually do His thing. What are they? Well, God's hand is not mentioned in Elimelech's death. God's name is not mentioned in the death of Naomi's sons, nor in the famine in the land. The two occurrences happen in this chapter, chapter 1:6, and at the end of the book in chapter 4:13.
This is what it says, 1:6, the Lord had come to the aid of His people by providing food for them. And then in 4:13, it says, then Boaz, who would be the future husband of Ruth, the redeemer kinsman, if you remember the story. Then Boaz went to Ruth his wife, and the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. Of all the times God has mentioned, God is mentioned to have had direct influence on the story of Ruth in two ways, by providing food and providing a child, hope. Naomi blamed God for being spiteful, but the story shows that God had mercy on his people despite their sin, and He gave them food again.
Naomi blamed God for making her empty, with no husband or sons to provide for her, but the story of Ruth goes on to show that God provided her a daughter-in-law that caused her to have a grandchild and to fill her up again. Despite Naomi's sin and her poor judgement, God redeems her situation, despite her best efforts to usurp it. That means, friends, that God is good. That His goodness is undeserved goodness, and undeserved goodness is grace. How's your perception of God this morning?
Are you tempted to think of God as fickle? Are you tempted to think that God is spiteful or vengeful? Friends, God is a God of goodness and grace, able to redeem every situation we find ourselves in. In verse 22, we come to the close of our chapter with the summary statement that Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite. Grace after grace.
They arrived in Bethlehem as what? As the barley harvest was beginning. They left with no food. They arrived as food is ready for them to eat. They arrive as the barley was ready to be harvested.
Naomi arrived at the beginning of the barley harvest. Why? What does this mean? It means hope. It means hope.
Naomi and Ruth returned to hope in a town called Bethlehem. The town, the city of bread, the place of bread, the house of bread, would now become the birthplace of the one who would call Himself the living bread, Jesus Christ. From Ruth and Boaz came Jesse and David, the king of Israel. From David, the king of Israel, came Jesus Christ, the Messiah. This is a God who redeems in any situation.
Despite our pity parties, despite our desperate, serious, badly bad circumstances. God is in control, but He is good as well. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this amazing story of Ruth and Boaz. And Father, we thank You that it is so honest and so real.
There is no unnecessary dignity in this. There is no sugarcoating of sin, Lord. It is a broken messy situation, Father, and we know so many of these situations around us. And yet we see Your hand, Your fatherly loving hand. Bring food, bring love, bring redemption, bring a baby.
Father, we thank You that we may know this God, God of Ruth and Naomi. And, Father, for whatever our situations are this morning, whatever we may face in the unknown future, Lord, may we never forget that You are the God of goodness. May we cling to You despite the pain. May we cling to You even when it hurts, even when there seems to be no hope. Father, give us a healthy fear of that moment where we walk away from You and the despair that that will bring.
Father, also pray for Your goodness in the land of the living, Father, that even for some of us who are going through hard times, that You will be merciful, that You will bring about Your goodness quickly, that You will ease our suffering and our burdens, Father, that You will be merciful and that we may thank You because of it. Father, in all situations, may Your name be glorified. May all fame and all thanks go to You, our God, our saviour, our redeemer. In Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.