Crisis - Ruth 1:1-6

Ruth 1:1-6 - Crisis

John Newton, one of my personal faith heroes, once wrote that his life goal was “to have a more entire submission to His will, and a more steadfast confidence in His Word, to trust Him and wait on Him, to see His hand and praise His name in every circumstance of life great and small…And why should we not trust Him at all times? Which part of our past experience can charge Him with unfaithfulness? Has He not done all things well? And is He not the same yesterday, today, and forever? O my soul, wait thou only upon Him.”

But sometimes, waiting on the Lord is hard, isn’t it? We live in a fallen world, and we are fallen creatures. The test of our faith is often measured by how we respond when we don’t get our own way, or when things don’t go the way we had hoped, or when crisis strikes. It is in those moments that our faith is tested that we truly learn what it means to wait on the Lord. Naomi is going to that sort of school in the book of Ruth, and we get to observe and learn as the hand of God navigates her life in a way that she could never have imagined.

Today, we set the stage for all the rest of God’s amazing work in the book of Ruth by examining three crises in six verses that reveal the hopelessness of the situation that Naomi is in. If we are to truly trust in God as our hope, we need to first examine how hopeless every other way is, and that is the lesson that Naomi had to learn the hard way.

Ruth 1:1-6

Ruth 1:1–6 ESV

In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion 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.

1. A Crisis of Disobedience

To really get a feel for what is going on in the lives of these people, we need to first get a feel for their situation. Verse 1 starts with a simple statement, that tells us an awful lot: “in the days when the judges ruled.” Now, if you haven’t really read the book of judges before, let me let you in on some things: it was a pretty horrible time in Israel. All of judges can be summed by one statement, in Judges 17:6

Judges 17:6 ESV

In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Israel had taken the land by the hand of God and through the leadership of Joshua, but when they got there, they did the literal opposite of what God prescribed in His law.

They were told to not adopt the pagan religious practices of the land, and they adopted them.

They were told to be careful to follow the law of Moses, and they forgot the law of Moses.

They were told to worship God rightly, and they did what was right in their own eyes.

In the whole book of Judges, it feels like every time God tells the people to go right, they go left, all the way to the end. I spent a good deal of time last year studying the book of Judges, and one of the passages that was most powerful for me, that truly brought the tragedy of the disobedience of Israel, to living color in my mind was in Judges 18. In Judges 18, Micah, a Danite, takes a few men, and his idol collection, and leads the tribe of Dan to take cities in ways that God did not prescribe. They had literally hired their own priests, which was forbidden. But in the midst of all this, you have this one little verse in Judges 18:30

Judges 18:30 ESV

And the people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land.

The grandson of Moses! The corruption is so bad, and sin has gotten so out of control that the grandson of the man who spoke with God and interceded for the people of God is now doing whatever is right in His own eyes. And that is at least part of what makes Judges the most painful to read book in the whole Bible. And it shows us exactly what happens when sin is left unchecked among the people of God. By Judges 19, the wickedness of the tribe of Benjamin is so bad that they repeat, step for step, the wickedness of Sodom in the time of Abraham.

It is against this dark backdrop that the story of Ruth takes place. A wicked place, full of wicked people, some of whom witnessed some of the greatest, most miraculous works that God has ever performed in order to get to a land of milk and honey.

Only, there isn’t any milk and honey. Look at the end of verse 1 - “there was a famine in the land.” Now, there are some very specific reasons for this.

Deuteronomy 28:15 ESV

“But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

What was one of these curses? Look at Deuteronomy 28:22-24

Deuteronomy 28:22–24 ESV

The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. And the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

This isn’t the first time they heard this either! Lev.26:18-20

Leviticus 26:18–20 ESV

And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins, and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

The writer of Ruth wants you to understand one thing: it should have come as no surprise that there was a famine in the land. The physical lack of food was a statement of a more dire spiritual reality - the people were wickedly disobedient!

Now, the people could have repented. They could have obeyed His Word and repented. They could have turned from their disobedience and done what God told them, and followed His law. But what we see in the life of this family, whose name we don’t even know yet, typifies the human response to sin: we run from God, and run from repentance, rather than running to it. The end of verse 1 gives us the story

“A man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.”

Now, you are supposed to read this and go “wait a minute! HE DID WHAT?!?!?”

It would have been unthinkable to have any connection to the Moabites. A people who worshipped the god Chemosh, the destroyer, who required human sacrifices and human blood in order to be appeased? Who was, according to the Moabites, the spiritual opponent of Yahweh? Those Moabites? The Moabites who ransacked Jewish cities and took no prisoners during the period of the judges? Those Moabites? They went there?!?! We are supposed to be totally flabbergasted that any Israelite would do such a thing! After years of oppression and conflict, they were not a well-liked group of people in Israel!

And so the story starts with a man from the city of Bethlehem, whose name means “house of bread” going to Moab, because the house of bread has no bread.

Now, Elimelech’s decision here would have been pretty practical. Think about it this way: there isn’t any food in Bethlehem. There is plenty in Moab. You are looking to provide for your family. So what do you do? Well, if you are Elimelech, you make the practical decision and move your family away from God’s promised land.

And this is the real crisis of disobedience. To choose to do what is practical in our lives instead of what is biblical is no less disobedience than any other form of rank rebellion against God. You know, the longer I pastor, the more I am convinced that there are actually very, very few people who truly believe in the sufficiency of God’s Word. Instead, we most often try to prioritize our decision making by those decisions that make the most practical sense. The result of this is that when the Bible says one thing, but their “common sense” says another, they go with common sense. Or, even worse, they base decisions on feelings and experiences. This is a case of this. Elimelech should have led his family to stay, to be faithful, to repent and to trust God at His Word. Instead, Elimelech led his family in disobedience, and all of them are reaping what he has sown.

And here is the problem when we start making merely practical decisions: we never just make one. That practical decision, that is contrary to God’s Word, will give way to more decisions that are contrary to God’s Word, until eventually we are beset with a second crisis: a crisis of familiarity.

2. A Crisis of Familiarity

It is enough to simply disobey God’s Word, but very often we continue on in our path of disobedience.

In an individual life, spiritual decline happens incrementally. Little steps here and there. And there are a million stories where these individuals made decisions that seemed practical at the time, but were contrary to God’s Word.

In the life of a church, spiritual decline happens incrementally. Little steps here and there. I have seen a number of stories where churches began to worry far more about pragmatism than they did biblical truth, and it led to ruin.

This story incarnates this reality. When we concede the biblical for the sake of the practical, it is only going to get easier to do over time. In time, all our decisions will be first rooted in what seems like “common sense,” and then we may, from time to time, check in with the Bible to make sure it agrees with us.

The progression of what happened shows us a people who got comfortable in disobedience:

v. 1 - they “sojourned” in Moab. OK, so they’re just visiting Moab, not really staying there in this verse.

v. 2 - they “remained” there - The little stay in Moab for a couple of weeks, turns into a few months, which progresses to a much longer time as verse 4 tells us

v. 4 - they “lived there about 10 years.” This started as a sojourn. Have you ever had this experience? You start out with something that was only supposed to last a little while, and next thing you know you have been in that thing for years.

Johnny Cash released a song in the 70’s called “One Piece at a Time.” In it, he works for the Cadillac factory in Detroit, and he is envious of the fact that he will never own a Cadillac. So, he comes up with a plan and steals one car part a day until after about 20 years he has stolen all the parts he needed to build his own car! Of course, the car looks ridiculous, but listen to what Cash says in that song:

I've never considered myself a thief But GM wouldn't miss just one little piece Especially if I strung it out over several years

That’s exactly how sin works. One day, one little action, turns into a lifetime of sin if it is left unchecked! In the end, he didn’t just build a car; he built a thief too.

have seen this in my life:

Day 1 - I’m running a little late, so I’ll just do my personal devotions later

Later that day - it’s not in my afternoon routine so I forget about it.

Day 2 - that extra sleep felt pretty good, so I justify that an extra day won’t send me to hell.

Day 200 - I’m despondent, I feel distant from God, I am struggling to see what He is doing in my life, and I feel broken and broken-hearted. I lament “how did this happen?” Sin time.

Bad habits, and bad choices, are far easier to fall into than good ones. Good habits, good practices take effort, and patience, and discipline and time. Bad habits take breathing.

These folks didn’t plan on staying in Moab for 10 years, after all, these folks were no friends of the Israelites. But what happens?

We trust our own wisdom, instead of the wisdom of God’s Word - I know God tells me that I should live my life His way, but this way that I see is much easier than His way, and it just makes sense! Listen friend, it isn’t hard to walk on a wide path, is it? But where does that wide path head?

We find it hard to suffer for the sake of righteousness - Why would I willingly subject myself to suffering when I can choose an easier way and get what I think I need? When Jesus says that I should hunger and thirst for righteousness, surely he didn’t mean in a way that involves pain or, even worse, discomfort?

We create patterns and habits of pragmatism - Elimelech probably didn’t plan on staying in Moab for 10 years. But once we make that first decision, just like we said, it builds on itself and now we are stuck in these patterns we could have never imagined, and refusing to change because our sinful stubborn pride won’t allow us to move. and then, at some point, tragedy strikes

3. A Crisis of Tragedy

Now we can start to evaluate the heart of the story in these verses. I have seen this story happen so often that it feels very familiar to me, and maybe you have too.

First, little disobediences that are veiled as practical decisions send a person far from God.

Then, familiarity and habit keep them there, alone, separated from friends, or church family or, even worse, distant from God.

And then tragedy strikes, and they feel all alone. They have drifted so far away from the shore that they can’t even see where they used to be, it’s like a faint memory in their mind. And in a state of hopelessness, they ask “how did this happen? Why am I alone?”

Now we get to spend some time in this passage, looking at this family. And a great way to start looking at a Hebrew family is by looking at their names. The names of all the Hebrew people here show you what is happening in the story.

Elimelech - God is is my King; except, He wasn’t and so Elimelech went out to go his own way.

Naomi - means “pleasant.” They wen’t seeking a pleasant, full life away from God, and they ended up empty. And pleasant and God is my king had two sons, and their names shows you exactly what fruit they had borne from their disobedience.

Mahlon - literally means weak.

Chilion - literally means pining.

Though they tried to run from obedience to God’s Word, and from the consequences of their disobedience, they bore weak and pining sons.

And in five verses, and over 10 years, tragedy strikes this family in a way that can only be rivaled by Job’s story.

in verse 3 - Elimelech, Naomi’s Husband died - the spiral begins with the death of a spouse. CS Lewis walked through the death of his beloved wife, and commented that her death was “an amputation; her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.” I’ve been with spouses who are left behind. All your categories are shaken. All the things you may have been tempted to hope in, rocked. That pain alone can mar you for a lifetime. But it is made worse by the fact that now Naomi is left a widow in a foreign land. But, at least she has her sons right.

verse 5, her Sons die - unspeakable pain. There is no pain like losing a child. and Naomi has lost two. Her present hope was crushed, and her future hope erased. The children she raised, she trained, she lived with, that she saw marry and likely dreamed about their future, now gone. And on top of this, Naomi sits without any male to care for her and the two women. But at least they can hope for children, right?

but the text is noticeably absent of birth announcements. For 10 years, these two young couples were barren - day after day of gnawing emptiness. Present security has been taken, because there are no sons. And future security is taken, because there are no children. Hope and security, the two things they went after when they went to Moab, are now gone.

And Naomi is completely alone. She is older, at least by Hebrew standards, because she was old enough to have two grown sons who married, and lived there for 10 years. She has no husband, no sons, no kinsman.

The one, the greatest tragedy that our culture just doesn’t really have categories for is that this whole family line is on the verge of extinction. To lose the family name would have been the greatest tragedy of all. To be erased from the history of Israel. To have no one to carry on the family line. Truly, Naomi is at the very end of herself. She followed her husband, who acted disobediently and then carried on in that disobedience, and now she is alone, an older widow, with no children and no heir. There aren’t any good options for her. As a widow, there were no good ways for her to care for herself. Especially as a foreigner in Moab.

This is where going away from God heads, friends. It may seem pleasant at the time, but it leads to despair, hopelessness, to emptiness. And in 5 verses, we can see the sad estate that Naomi, and Orpah, and Ruth are all in. As an aside, if you think the decisions you make as a husband don’t matter, read these verses very carefully, my friends. We don’t have any indications that Naomi did anything wrong; she followed her husband, who led his whole family into destruction. Men, it is entirely possible for you to do this very same thing if you fail to truly depend on God.

We are supposed to get right here and say “good gracious! What hope is there in this story?” But we have been reading this for a few weeks now, so we all know that God is going to do something that no one in this story can possibly see! And it starts in Ruth 1:6

Ruth 1:6 ESV

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.

The Lord visits His people. The famine that they had run from has ended. There is really only one choice for Naomi, then. We will talk more about that next week. But first, there must be pain, and crisis, and tragedy.

Sometimes, to truly receive God’s help, we must first know, feel and experience our own helplessness. We must have our false hope and security taken away, so that we can learn of real security.

When CS Lewis walked through the deep grief of losing his wife, he commented “He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.” If God is in the middle of knocking down your house of cards, friends, take heart: God has visited His people.

What is Ruth 1:1-6 telling me to do?

Learn from this story!’

The only reason we would walk away from God’s path is if we believe we can craft a better one. Learn from old Elimelech here, and from the story of the OT; God’s way is the only good way! You notice here that it wasn’t that God visited His people in Moab, the place of disobedience, and gave them a pat on the back and said “there, there don’t worry about it.” God is a God of comfort, who comforts the afflicted. But He does so as we conform ourselves to Him, not vice versa. It’s the last line in the chorus of softly and tenderly “ye who are weary, come home.”

Are you living in disobedience? Repent and live in hope! God has visited His people!

Are you running farther and farther from God? Know where that road ends; turn back today! God has visited His people!

Are you wrestling through real-world tragedy, difficulty, brokenness? It isn’t wasted. God hears; God knows. Trust Him, and then watch Him do something amazing with it. God has visited His people.

Gospel: this whole book is truly a story of Jesus. These are the people that God would use to bring forth the redeemer - a disobedient, persistently running, broken folk. And they needed redemption. And in the midst of their rebellion, God visited His people.

Maybe you are at the end of yourself today. Jesus has come for folks just like this, and just like you. He can bring healing and hope, just like He will, and He does, right here. Would you trust Him! God has come to visit His people, and through this simple story, of simple people, we can be the recipients of eternal grace. All that you must do is run to Christ.

Non-christian: repent and believe. May we call out to God, even in our deepest sorrow and in times of our greatest difficulties. God has come to visit His people; all you must do is respond.

Benediction: Jude 24-25

Jude 24–25 ESV

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.