God Brings His People Home

Ruth chapter 1.

Ruth 1 · chapter mention

These took Moabite wives.

The name of one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth.

They lived there about ten years, and both Malon and Kilion died,

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

Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab,

for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited His people and given them food.

So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law,

and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.

But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law,

Go, return each of you to her mother's house.

May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you, in the house of her husband.

Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept.

And they said to her, No, we will return with you to your people.

But Naomi said, Turn back, my daughters.

Why will you go with me?

Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?

Turn back, my daughters.

Go your way, for I am too old to have a husband.

If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons,

would you therefore wait till they were grown?

Would you therefore refrain from marrying?

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

Then they lifted up their voices and wept again.

And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

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

Return after your sister-in-law.

But Ruth said,

Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you.

For where you go, I will go.

And where you lodge, I will lodge.

Your people shall be my people and your God, my God.

Where you die, I will die.

And there will I be buried.

May the Lord do so to me.

And more also, if anything but death parts me from you.

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

So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem.

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

And the women said, Is this Naomi?

She said to them, Do not call me Naomi.

Call me Mara.

For the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.

I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty.

Why call me Naomi when the Lord has testified against me,

and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?

So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law with her,

who returned from the country of Moab.

And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

This is God's holy word.

But tonight we're going to start a new series in the book of Ruth.

And if you know anything about the book of Ruth,

you probably know the first thing you think about is Ruth as a love story,

a story between the love between a godly man called Boaz

and a poor immigrant woman called Ruth,

or maybe the love that Ruth has for her mother-in-law, Naomi.

Or maybe you think about the love that God shows towards his people

when he brings food back to a land that was suffering from famine.

But if you were an ancient Israelite, the very start of Ruth doesn't feel like a love story,

because the first few words are,

in the days when the judges ruled.

And when the book starts like this, this is an ominous sign.

And the book presumes that you know what this means.

So in our Bibles, Ruth comes just after the book of Judges.

And in the book of Judges, there was no king in Israel.

And these judges, these tribal clan leaders, were in charge of what happened.

And the book ends by saying everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

So what we see in the book of Judges is to come just before Ruth is turmoil

of some good leaders and some good things,

some horrific leaders and some horrific things,

almost in a cycle where people stray from God and things go wrong,

come back to God and things go right.

So if you're thinking about the days when the judges ruled,

you're thinking, wait a minute, there might be trouble ahead.

There wasn't a king.

People did whatever they wanted.

And a lot of the time, it was lawless disaster.

So this love story doesn't start once upon a time.

It starts with a big flashing neon danger sign.

And that's the threat that hangs over this story at the beginning.

But it does evolve into a story of love.

After the highs and lows of the book of Judges,

it reminds us that God through all is working.

Yahweh, I am, our God, is not missing when things go wrong.

That he is working through all these things to his glory and to our good.

He's the God of the big and the miraculous.

But he's also the God of the everyday.

He performs supernatural sign after supernatural sign.

But he also works in the lives of ordinary people to bring about extraordinary things.

So over the next four Sundays, we're going to take each chapter,

each of the four chapters one at a time.

And tonight in chapter one, we're going to step into this account which Cody read for us,

which is really, I think, an account of deep, honest suffering and apparent emptiness

where it seems as though God is missing,

but where in fact God is orchestrating all things to their ultimate fulfillment.

And the question for us is that wherever we are in life,

however we got here tonight, however we are feeling,

if we feel like we are far from God or we feel that God is not on our side,

when we think our situation can't get much worse,

God is in fact weaving together a plan when our faith is in him,

as hard as it is for us to see, to his glory and to our good.

So God's orchestrating all things, in all circumstances.

And we're going to look at three circumstances that we see in the book of Ruth,

Ruth chapter one tonight, three hard circumstances,

but we see that God is there.

When pleasantness becomes bitterness,

then we're going to think about when friendship costs everything.

And then finally, we're going to think about when it seems like there's no hope.

Okay, so first, when pleasantness becomes bitterness.

So our story begins, and my pronunciation is going to be different from Corey's,

with a man called Elimelech.

And Elimelech means my God is king.

We're going to see that names throughout the book of Ruth are pretty significant.

He lives in a town called Bethlehem.

And Bethlehem, maybe you know, means house of bread.

And remember, we're in the time of the judges, so it's moral and religious chaos.

And we shouldn't be surprised when we read there's a famine.

Because Jesus hasn't come.

God's people are living under his law.

They've not been obeying his law.

And they're under divine discipline.

So this man, God is my king, takes his family out of the land that God has gifted to his people,

this special promised land, and he takes them back east to where they've come from.

The man from the house of bread leaves the house of bread because there is no bread.

But in verse 3, already, Elimelech dies.

And he leaves his wife, Naomi, with her two sons.

And the name of the first son is Malon.

And the root word in Hebrew for his name is the same as the word for sick.

And the name of the second son is Kilion.

And the root word that can be derived from his name means something like comes to an end.

Both the sons marry local girls.

And then maybe given their names, sick boy and come to an end,

we shouldn't be surprised that they die as well.

Three verses and three deaths covers about a decade of time.

And the family that's left home looking for a better life has been blown apart by tragedy.

Naomi's lost all the men in her life.

So as well as the hurt and the pain that she's feeling as a wife and a mother,

in this highly patriarchal society, it also means that she's without a male protector, a male provider.

So to a large extent, Naomi is in a strange land.

She's destitute and she's highly vulnerable.

And this sets up the key question that the book of Ruth answers for us.

What's going to happen to Naomi?

Naomi.

So the idea of seed in the Old Testament is really important.

Both the seeds that you sow in the ground, in the land,

but also seed in terms of offspring.

People who are going to protect you in your old age,

carry on the family line, maintain your land.

Now Naomi's lost both kinds of seeds.

She's lost, she's no grain, and she's no offspring either.

So the harsh reality for Naomi is that she's probably facing a couple of pretty hard choices.

She can sell herself into slavery and work for her food.

Or she can pursue one of the few jobs that are available to women in this kind of culture,

which might include something like prostitution.

So her prospects are not very good.

And notice the narrator, he doesn't suggest that this is Naomi's fault,

that she deserves what she's got.

It doesn't explain either why God has chosen to do this.

And I think that silence actually speaks quite a lot, quite loudly for us,

because the Bible is ruthlessly honest about the fact that we live in a fallen world,

and that all around us, terrible things happen to people who we presume are innocent all the time.

In fact, the Bible's much better at dealing with grief than I think we are in modern Scotland today.

We so often feel like we have to downplay our sadness or our grief or our pain,

because we don't want to get a reputation as being the kind of person who complains.

Or maybe we feel like we need to look inside ourselves

and use our own strength to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,

reframe our problems maybe in a positive way,

think about them differently so we can work through them,

pull ourselves together.

You see, the Bible doesn't present those as good options

for how to deal with the loss of your husband,

the loss of your children,

or any other suffering or pain that you're going through.

In the midst of pain and suffering,

the Bible teaches us, to be honest,

it calls this lament,

true space for suffering,

and a God who cares deeply about hearing the words that you bring to him.

Every sad, confused,

even angry cry

that you deliver to our God.

About a third of the Psalms

are made up of lament,

and the writer pouring his heart out

over grief and anxiety,

loss, guilt.

Psalm 88, I think, is the perfect example of lament

because it shows us that God's not embarrassed by your pain.

He's not surprised by your suffering.

God never wants you to hold back

or keep inside the things that you're going through.

In Psalm 88,

it begins with darkness,

there's darkness in the middle,

and it ends with darkness.

And as we read it, as modern readers,

we keep looking for the but.

We're going, where's the turning point?

When's this guy going to stop

and say,

but it's okay, God,

you're going to save me.

But God, I'd remember your mercies.

See, in Psalm 88,

that but doesn't come.

It's purely an outpouring of sorrow to God.

But the key lesson

is that despite everything that's happened,

the writer is still coming to God.

Sometimes this is all that we can do.

Sometimes with groanings that don't even form words.

But God wants us to bring them to him.

And he hears us.

Lament says,

God, I don't understand what you're doing right now.

But I'm coming to you

because I've got nowhere else to go.

So Naomi has heard that there's bread in Judah.

So despite her loss and her sadness,

despite telling her daughter-in-law

that God's been bitter with her in verse 13,

and notice in verse 19,

she doesn't just say,

God's been bitter to me.

She changes her name to bitterness.

Mara means bitterness.

Naomi means pleasantness.

Mara means bitterness.

And she's changed her name.

She's not just saying,

God's done bitter things to me

or bitter things have happened to me.

She's saying,

bitter is who I am.

That's my identity now.

But despite that,

she has a promise of food back home.

A promise that God has been good to his people.

And she heads for home.

And as we carry on through the book of Ruth,

it becomes really clear

that Naomi's tragedy,

and it is a tragedy,

was not an interruption to God's plan.

It was part of it.

So no matter where you are tonight,

no matter how you got here,

whatever pain you're carrying,

God is not absent from that story.

And as hard as it is sometimes to hear,

he's working in it all.

And rather than being hard to hear,

that's a comfort,

because God has not left.

Often, as we're going to see

as we go through Ruth,

God's hand is only visible

with the benefit of hindsight

when we look back.

But as Naomi has a promise,

and she's holding on to this promise,

even in the midst of your suffering today,

you've got a promise too.

A promise of true restoration

that's available for everyone through Jesus.

Okay, second point.

When friendship costs everything.

So from the setup

in this first five verses of the story,

we see that Naomi's,

the main character,

is going to be how,

what's going to happen to Naomi

is what we're going to get to in the end.

But Ruth's the heroine.

And verse six,

Naomi sets off for Bethlehem

with her two daughters-in-law,

Orpah and Ruth.

But after a little while,

she stops and she says,

you guys should go home

to your own families.

Verse eight says,

go, return each of you

to your mother's house.

May the Lord deal kindly with you

as you've dealt with the dead

and with me.

And that word,

kindly,

that Naomi uses here

is central

to the whole book of Ruth.

So in Hebrew,

it's the word hesed,

which is often translated

as steadfast love.

So an example of hesed love,

I think,

is in Genesis,

right at the end,

chapter 47,

where Jacob is living in Egypt.

He's there because of famine.

And he's coming to the end of his life

and he calls his son Joseph to him.

And he says to Joseph,

deal kindly with me.

When I die,

take me home

and bury me in my own land.

And that word kindly,

deal kindly with me,

is this same word hesed.

And one of the things

that makes this hesed

is a good example of hesed

is because Joseph knows

that there's no way

that he's going to be repaid

for the love that he shows.

Committed,

sacrificial,

faithful love

with no way

of getting anything back

in return.

And that's what Naomi says

that her daughters-in-law

have shown to her.

And not just to her,

but to her sons

and to their father-in-law

as well.

They've done everything

that could be expected

of them.

They've walked their

mother-in-law

to the edge

of the town.

They're free

of their commitments.

And so,

here we see a contrast

between the two women.

And I think

Orpah is a deliberate foil

for us to see

what Ruth is doing.

So,

Orpah goes home

and she goes home

to her family

and she goes home

to everything

that she knows.

And there's nothing

villainous

about what Orpah

has done.

She's not bad

for choosing

to do this.

She's done

the reasonable thing.

So,

Naomi's right.

She's not got

any more sons

to give to them.

And the idea

of having a replacement

son

for marriage

is something

we'll come to

later on in the book.

It's a provision

for widows

and for land.

We'll come back

to that.

But there's no future

for these women

in following Naomi.

The sensible thing

is exactly

what Orpah does.

But Ruth

is clingy.

So,

Ruth means

companion

or friend.

And she says

that she's

going to trust

Yahweh,

the God of Israel's

hesed.

She's going to

trust his faithful

love

and go further

by demonstrating

hesed,

faithful love

to Naomi,

her mother-in-law.

So,

like Joseph

with Jacob,

Ruth gives

her steadfast love

to Naomi

and says,

I'm going to

come with you

no matter what.

And in this

remarkable short

speech that Ruth

makes to Naomi,

one of the most

remarkable speeches

I think we have

in the whole Bible

is amazing.

In verses 16 and 17,

she says,

do not urge me

to leave you

or to return

from following you.

For where you go,

I will go.

Where you lodge,

I will lodge.

Your people

will be my people

and your God

will be my God.

Where you die,

I will die

and there will

I be buried.

May the Lord

do so to me

and more also

if anything but death

parts me from you.

So,

Ruth is making

a lifelong

commitment to Naomi.

Wherever we go

in life,

we're going together.

And see how

the phrases

that she uses

increases

in intensity

each time?

So,

she goes,

I'll go wherever

you go

and then she says,

I'll live

where you live

and she says,

I'll become

one of your people

and then she says,

I'll worship

your God

and she's not

just given up

the beauty of Edinburgh

for the mean streets

of Glasgow,

she's given up

her whole life

to follow Naomi

till death

do us part

and even beyond

death.

She says,

when I die,

I'll be buried

in your land

and we can miss

the significance

of this

as modern people

because we aren't

tied to land

in the way

that the people

were in the ancient

Near East.

So,

in the ancient

Near East

and pagan societies,

specific gods

were often

associated

with geographical

locations.

So,

when Ruth says

that,

I'll follow you

wherever you go

and I'll be buried

wherever you're buried,

she's giving herself

to Naomi

for life

and in the afterlife.

She's entrusting

herself

to Naomi's God,

Yahweh,

the God of Israel,

now

and for all

of eternity.

And then she swears

to it

by Yahweh as well.

So,

this is a truly

remarkable

surrender

to the God

of Israel

from somebody

who is a total

outsider,

somebody who wasn't

born into

this people,

who isn't from

this land,

who hasn't

experienced

the specific

blessings

that other people,

others of God's

people,

have experienced.

I mean,

to this point,

with the words

that Naomi uses,

all that Ruth

really knows

of Yahweh

is that she is

punishing her

mother-in-law,

or she's judging

her mother-in-law,

and yet,

she binds

herself to him

through Naomi.

So,

we see

Ruth's

dedication

to Naomi,

utter dedication.

But I think

we have to

question

Naomi's

dedication

to her

daughters-in-law,

because she

tells them

to go back,

back to their

gods.

So,

I think we've

got maybe two

different possibilities

here.

Either Naomi

thought that

Orpah and

Ruth are not

the kind of

people who are

going to be

interested in

her God,

God.

Or she

thought that

the God of

Israel,

her God,

our God,

wouldn't be

interested in

them.

You might have

noticed that

throughout the

book so far,

Ruth is

referred to as

the Moabite.

So,

that's not to

distinguish her

from all the

other Ruths in

the book.

There's only one

Ruth in this

story.

But when my

God is king,

when Elimelech

left the

promised land,

he didn't just

go anywhere,

he went to

Moab,

which is

Israel's

ancient enemy.

And just

an example of

how far God's

hesed,

God's faithful

love extends,

is it extends

all the way

to this

territory,

where people

are enemies

of his

people.

As New

Testament

believers,

when we read

Matthew 28,

and the Great

Commission,

and Jesus

tells us to

go and make

disciples of

all nations,

I think the

question that we

have to ask

ourselves is,

who are the

Moabites in

our lives?

Who are the

people that we

live among that

we think are

just too

different from

the kind of

people that

would be

interested in

God?

Or who are

the people that

are so far

off, live

life so far

from what

is expected

of a Christian

that God

wouldn't be

interested in

them?

Do we try to

convince ourselves

maybe that

they're better

off in the

situation,

that they're

in?

Because we

feel uncomfortable

talking to

them about

the eternal,

about the

spiritual,

about faith.

Remember,

Corey told us

this morning

from James,

sharing the

gospel isn't

casting judgment

on people,

on the way

that they live

their lives.

It's a

mercy.

Apart from

God,

everybody is

destitute.

Everybody's

dying.

everybody's

living in a

strange land

with no

hope.

But God's

chesed,

his faithful

love,

brings sinners,

all sinners,

back home

when they put

their faith

in him.

and at the

same time,

if this

person that

you think

that God

might not be

interested in

is yourself,

if you think

God looks at

your life,

sees how far

you've gone,

the things that

you've done,

the lengths

that you've

gone to to get

away from him

perhaps,

and that he's

not going to be

interested in

you,

look at the

lengths God

goes to

to save

one widow

from Israel's

enemies.

No matter how

far away that

you think you

are,

know that God

is a God

who loves

enemies.

Okay,

thirdly,

and finally,

when it seems

as though all

hope is gone.

In the movie

Gladiator,

which is one of

my favorites,

Maximus is the

commander of the

Roman armies of

the north,

and he's been

winning battle

after battle,

and he's

amazing,

and his men

love him,

and the

Roman emperor

and the rulers,

they all think

he's amazing,

he's got all

their respect,

but despite all

his victories,

all his praise,

he can have his

pick of jobs

wherever he wants,

all Maximus

wants to do

is go home.

He just wants

to go home

to his wife,

to his son,

to his homestead,

and live a simple

life,

to live in peace,

but despite

everything,

when he leaves,

he gets back,

he finally gets

home,

and his wife

and his son

are dead.

The house is

still there,

but everything

that Maximus

had been dreaming

about while he

was in the battle

has gone.

All the things

that made it a

home don't exist

anymore.

The place that

he longed for

has become a

place of grief,

and that's kind

of what Bethlehem

has become like

for Naomi

when she goes

home.

So this is the

place that she

belongs,

but everything

that made it

at home

has been taken

away,

has gone.

She went out

full,

with a husband

and kids,

and she's come

back,

and her house

is empty.

Except she's

not empty.

Naomi couldn't

have timed

her return

to Bethlehem

any better

if she tried.

The story

started with

an ominous

warning signal

in the days

when the judges

ruled.

But chapter 1

ends with real

hope.

What might seem

like an almost

throwaway line,

they came to

Bethlehem at the

beginning of

barley harvest,

is a promise

fulfilled.

The famine's

over,

there is once

again bread in

the house of

bread.

And it's also

a sign of

more to come.

So barley is

the first of

the crops that

are brought

in.

And that

means that

if barley is

the first crop

that's going

to be brought

in,

there's more

to come.

If there's

bread today,

there's going

to be more

bread,

more good

stuff to

follow in

the future.

But as

well as

that,

as well as

food,

Naomi also

has Ruth.

In verse

19,

the two of

them arrive

in Bethlehem

and the

whole town

is in

uproar,

it's in

a stir.

And the

women of

the town,

they say,

this can't

be Naomi,

is it?

So they

don't mention

at all the

young woman

that's with

her.

When Naomi

says that

she's come

back empty,

Ruth's invisible

to Naomi too.

But just as

we finish,

let's jump

back a little

bit to Naomi's

speech in

verse 16 and

17.

let's just

read those

amazing words

again.

Because Ruth

says,

do not urge

me to leave

you or to

return from

following you.

For where

you go,

I will go.

Where you

lodge,

I will lodge.

Your people

will be my

people and

your God,

my God.

Where you

die,

I will die

and there

will I be

buried.

May the

Lord do

so to me

and more

also of

anything but

death parts

me from

you.

What is

Ruth actually

saying here?

So she's

saying I'll

be with

you.

She's

saying I'll

go with

you.

She's

saying I

won't ever

leave you.

But she's

saying something

else as well.

She's saying

I'll take

your place.

Because Naomi

is a childless

widow with

no way of

saving herself

in a strange

land.

And Ruth

is saying I'll

be the

childless

widow in

a strange

land so

you can go

home.

I'll

substitute

myself

for you

because I

love you

to death.

So Naomi's

lost both

kinds of

seed.

She's

lost food

and she's

lost offspring.

One of

them has

been restored.

There's

food in

Bethlehem.

And in

this moment

Ruth is a

picture of

the other

kind of

seed that's

coming.

The great

ultimate

offspring.

of the

land of

Bethlehem.

Jesus.

The friend

who sticks

closer than

a loving

daughter-in-law.

The one

who chose

to put

himself into

exile to

save his

people.

People have

likened

Naomi's

story here

to the

prodigal

son.

So the

prodigal

son in

the New

Testament,

the parable

of Jesus

says,

goes out

into a

strange

land and

loses

everything.

Is

destitute

and is

dying.

Until he

remembers

his father's

house,

his bread

enough

and to

spare.

And he

returns

home.

And when

he gets

home,

his brother,

his jealous

older brother,

won't come

into the

feast because

he's jealous

of this

younger son

and what's

happening to

him.

But in

Jesus,

we've got an

older brother

as well.

He doesn't

just welcome

his home.

The older

brother,

our older

brother,

Jesus,

he went

out into

exile,

leaving all

the comforts

of home

to carry

you back

on his

shoulders.

And this

is what

Ruth is

pointing us

to.

Jesus,

who's from

the offspring

of Naomi,

who saw

us poor,

dying

sinners,

exiled in

a strange

land with

no way of

saving

ourselves,

and he

said,

I'll take

your place.

I'll take

your brokenness,

your suffering,

all your

pain,

your every

wrong turn,

your every

angry word,

your every

bad thought,

I'll take

them all the

way to

the cross.

I'll substitute

myself for

you so you

can come to

your true

home, to

your loving

God.

Jesus, who

the New

Testament calls

the bread of

life, he

came to

save us,

to heal us,

from all our

sufferings, and

to satisfy our

deepest desires

forever.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we

thank you that

when we were

far from you,

in a strange

place, lost,

starving, no

means of saving

ourselves, you

sent your son

Jesus to come

for us and

bring us home.

Now we thank

you that as we

journey through

life's challenges,

we're never truly

alone because we

have one who

sticks closer

than a brother,

closer than a

loving daughter-in-law

who will never

leave us, who

demonstrated that

chesed love to

us by laying

down his life

for ours.

Lord, thank you

that in Jesus you

reveal to us the

extent of your

love.

So tonight,

right now, we

can lay all our

hurts, our grief,

our sorrow before

you because we

know that you're

the one who can

offer us peace,

and who will

ultimately wipe

every tear from

every eye and

satisfy your deepest

desires.

We pray this in the

name of Jesus,

the bread of life.

Amen.

Amen.