Ruth 1

Why Ruth?

It’s November and many of you took the no social media October challenge with me…I went back on social media yesterday and I was like…I do not miss this…

So my hope is that while I will still be on social media..>As a pastor it really helps to connect with people personally…My habits around it will totally change.

I feel like not doing any social media for a month just freed me from a mental prison.

So today we are beginning a mini 4 week long series through the Biblical book of Ruth.

It is a tiny 4 chapter historical narrative found right after the book of Judges but right before the book of 1 Samuel.

What’s amazing is that this tiny little 4 chapter story in the Bible does some seriously heavy lifting.

I will say that its funny, I usually have a really strategic plan for everything I am going to teach but this November had been sitting blank in my preaching calendar for a while..>And I was telling my wife that I needed a November series its like the Lord had lead me to all these other series but November was just blank…

She just casually threw out the book of Ruth and all of the sudden I like Perked up and said YES! thats what I need to do;

Ruth is just this amazing story sits in the middle of some really important biblical history…SO I just want to get into it today because each week will be a full chapter

Ruth 1:1 NIV

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.

In the days when the judges ruled There was a famine in the land!

This actually becomes a really important line…

See in our bibles the book of Ruth is separate

But the only reason why there are separate is scroll length

Ruth is really the ending story of the book of Judges

The very first thing in the book of Judges is the death of Joshua

So if you are new to church let me give you the quick story here

Moses leads Israel out of Egypt to the promise land…

for 40 years they are in the desert

Moses dies and Joshua leads Israel into the promise land. They have all of these battles of conquest to take over the promise land and to establish God’s rule…

And Joshua leads these battles though the entire book of Joshua.

and then when we get into the book of Judges we see that Israel didn’t fully follow what God had led them to do

See in many cases Israel did not totally drive out the Canaanites

In many cases they intermarried and due to the intermarriage they began to accept the gods of the canaanites…

Biblical scholars tell us that one of the reasons why Israel was not supposed to intermary with the Canaanites was due to the high levels of sexually transmitted diseases among them.

But what they did is they allowed the Canaanites to inhabit the valleys while the Israelites went to the hillsides

Later in the book of Judges you will read stories about the Israelites going into the valleys and co-mingling with the locals…Usually having to do with drunkenness and what the bible calls engaging in revelry…Which was partying in a way that honors the local gods…It’s good old fashioned sex drugs and rock and roll…

It was absolutely abhorrent to what the Lord wanted for them.

So the book of judges becomes this interesting cycle of descending into evil and violence…

And when you read the book of Judges…Right in the beginning it tells you what is going to happen…

Judges 2 actually tells us about the whole structure of the book of Judges

Judges 2:8–19 NIV

Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress. Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands. Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

Ok I know we finished the worship series last week but sometimes once you see things in the Bible you can not unsee them…

When Judges says they Served the Baal and Ashtoreths Judges is saying they A’vad’d them..>They worked for the other gods and worshiped various God’s …It’s a reminder that these people are doing the opposite of what Adam and Eve were called to do in the garden

So this section of Judges tells us that Israel will just over and over again make the wrong choices and descend into the opposite of what God wanted for them….

Basically the entire rest of the book God raises up judges to lead his people…And the judges are sort of tribal chiefs

They protect Israel, raise armies and lead people

But then when they die, Israel descends into chaos again

If you were going to draw a picture to outline this book

The first two chapters would be introduction

Almost all the rest of the chapters would be this repeated pattern of God raising up a judge, Israel doing good then the judge dying and Israel doing evil…And the judges you have the first couple are like. okay morally but its like the next judge gets worse and worse and worse until you get to the judge samson…Who was the strong man with the hair….And by the way I think he was a skinny twig of a man otherwise why on earth would they spend so many chapters trying to figure out why this guy was so strong…

And Samson was completely immoral

and then the last two chapters of Judges are just so horrible that you might even wonder…Why are these in the Bible?

These chapters are full of idolatry, sexual violence, murder and then to cap it off…A man’s concubine is chopped up into 12 pieces and sent all over Israel

and the book of Judges just ends on this completely hopeless note

Judges 21:25 NIV

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.

There was no leadership…Everyone decided what was good in their own eyes

And right at the beginning of Ruth there is this reminder…It was the time of the Judges

So translation: EVERYTHING was messed up…It was bad and to top it all off there was a famine

And a man from Bethlehem took his wife and two sons and went to Moab…

So if you are reading Judges at this point and the next line you come to is this then you are probably thinking of course he did…

Of course an Israelite did what was right in his own eyes

And there is some interesting irony happening.

The Name Bethlehem means “House of Bread”

So this place house of bread could no longer provide for all the people in the land and they flee to Moab…

And this isn't totally uncommon, Abraham traveled both to Egypt and to the Hittites when there was a famine in the land

Ruth 1:2–5 NIV

The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. Now Elimelek, 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 had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

So there is a big question that comes up here. Is the journey to Moab an act of faith or unbelief?

Had they stopped believing that God would provide in the land that he had given them? Or was it an act of faith that God would provide over there?

The interesting thing is that in Israel’s history this is not the only time that there had been famines…

Abraham famously lived through a few Famines. and the Paradox of Abraham is that he is this man of incredible faith and yet does things that are lacking in faith

In Genesis 12 of Abraham went to Egypt…And there are a number of parallels to this story.

One of the reasons that we know that this was an act of unbelief is that Abraham told the Pharoah that his wife was actually his sister…

But one of the parallels that we see here is that Both Abraham and Elmelek we did not see them call on the lord for relief of the famine

Especially for Elmelek…He now has the benefit of so much history of God providing for his people…

When I go though a season of hopelessness do I rely on myself or call on the lord?

I mean is it all on you to fix, or do you begin to lay it out before the Lord who loves you to see what he will do?

Because you will go through famine

You will go though times when it seems like everything is falling apart

You will go through these moments all the time. It feels like you just can’t win

And in that moment what do you do? Do you try your best to fix it or do you surrender

All I know is that the older I get, the longer I walk with Jesus, the quicker I surrender…

Now I probably still have that initial anxiety…That initial freakout…

But sometimes I think that we go though these famines in life so that God can reveal himself to us…

So that we can lean on the Lord and he is like…yeah let me show you my power I love you!

Now as we go through the story…They go from famine to death…Naomi’s husband dies…Her two sons who are obligated to care for her as a widow both die…and now you have a trio of the least powerful people ever

You have a widow in a foreign land and two women from Moab.

The irony of the situation is that the

They escape famine only to find death

They go to Moab and you have to remember that the command to israel is to be fruitful and multiply…

They were not fruitful

They did not multiply

The fact that both sons were married for 10 years without children is supposed to be a metaphor for bareness.

The bareness of these women reveals the spiritual condition of all of Israel

Israel had become this empty people who had forgotten God

Let’s keep reading

Ruth 1:6–10 NIV

When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she 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 you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

So three women on a Journey in Bronze age Moab.

This is an even more intensified picture of no hope

Now not because I don't think women are strong…But because In this society when you have no man, you have no means to reproduce…which essentially means you have no future

Now there are three elements of grace to this

1. Naomi heard good news in the midst of her pain

2. Naomi heard that the Lord had come to the aid of his people…Now in Hebrew…It doesn't say come to the aid as much as it says “visited”

3. She talks about Israel receiving divine favor…Its almost a reminder that hey we are still in the time of the Judges…and these people must be doing good again rather than evil.

Now something that I love what Naomi says is may the Lord show you the same kindness that you showed me…The word for kindness now is Hesed. The word means loyal love and Hesed comes from the Lord. So she is recognizing that these women have something of Yahweh in them. They have the Hesed in them!

Here is what I wonder: Do people look at me and see the Hesed of the Lord?

Naomi is looking at these two moabite women and sees their kindness…and the word that is used denotes that it is coming from the lord…

When people look at you do they experience the Hesed of the Lord?

Now it is along the road that Naomi turns to her daughters in law and has a conversation with them

Undoubtedly Naomi remembers what it is like to be a foreigner in a strange land

So maybe to spare her daughters in law the grief and the hardship of being Moabite widows in Israel she says, hey stay here..>Don’t be ridiculous…Your life will be so much easier here

But both of the women persist…We will go back with you to your people!

Ruth 1:11–14 NIV

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 turned against me!” At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

Now what is Naomi saying to her daughters in law?

There is a practice in Israel called Leverite marriage

See for Israel they anticipate something called the Year of Jubilee…That is when all debts are forgiven and all land is returned to its family ownership and Naomi is saying look according to leverite marriage practice I do not have another son who you can marry and give you a child…

According to tradition the brother is supposed to marry his widow sister-in law and give her a child and that child is seen as a child of the deceased man…The child would be seen as the dead husbands and therefore eligable to receive back property on the day of Jubilee

This was a very common practice.

So Naomi is like…Look I have no one else left to give you a future and even if I went and got remarried right now and had a baby today would you wait until they grew up to marry?

Then look at what Naomi says:

The Lord’s hand has turned against me”

Naomi’s disposition toward her life’s situation is exposed. Naomi is a bitter old woman who blames God for her crisis.

Naomi feels that she is the target of God’s overwhelming power and wrath

And honestly sometimes you go though some life and feel that way right?

She felt like:

The divine hand that had struck Egypt with plagues, destroyed a generation of Israelites in the desert , and punished the nation of Israel in the land of Canaan was now stretched out against her.

As readers we tend to idealize people in the Bible…We tend to read and think that they are good because they are in the Bible…

But this is showing the extent of her brokenness and bitterness

let’s face it. Naomi has plenty that she can take ownership of…She has plenty that she could repent from…

She could have said, Lord we are in this situation because we didn’t cry out to you

Lord we are in this foreign land literally against your rules!

And instead of repenting of her own sins, she accuses God of injustice toward her

And here is what I wonder its in your notes:

Am I more likely to repent of my own sins or accuse the Lord of injustice against me?

It’s so easy to sit here and point out all the things that Naomi does wrong but the truth is that we do this all the time don’t we.

And maybe you don’t accuse the lord of injustice…..but there are all these problems and they are all everyone else's fault!

You don’t face up and say Lord…Hi, It’s me, I’m the problem it’s me! It’s not them…I have done wrong…I

We are all innocent in our own minds

This is the echo of the book of Judges…In those days there was no king and eveyone did what was right in their own eyes!

Now finally after Naomi’s second speech we see that Orpah kisses her mother-in-law and respects her wishes…There is no hint in the text at all of one daughter inlaw being bad and the other being good. She honored her mother-in-law…She did what was asked of her

But Ruth clung to her mother in law…This is an echo of Genesis….

It is intended to show you Ruth’s commitment to Naomi

Just as Adam and eve clung to each other…

Ruth attached herself to Naomi

So then the argument shifts

Ruth 1:15–18 NIV

“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, and 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 even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

First let’s look at what Naomi says

Why would a faithful Israelite tell a moabite woman to go back to her gods? If Israel has the one true God…Why would Naomi say this?

This speech is evidence that Naomi is completely lost

She has gone the way of the rest of Israel.

Not in today’s text but in the rest of the story one of the things we are going to see is Naomi’s faith be re-kindled and grow again

But it is not Naomi’s speech that dominates It is Ruth’s

now before we break down Naomi’s faith filled speech there is a point i want to make:

Ruth only knew the Lord through the grid of Naomi’s imperfect faith

Do you get my point…Here at REC the thing that I want you to know over and over again is that One Matters to God…

And you might think look, I am an imperfect person…I am faithless half the time

But Ruth only knows the Lord through Naomi’s rapidly failing faith…And Ruth becomes this Hero in the Bible…

Imagine what God can do with your faith…

Imagine who God can tough through your life!

What other people know about God they see through the grid of your life! What do they see? Do they see God’s love, his Hessed? His generosity? His hope, his kindness?

And the cool thing about Ruth’s speech is that here is that it reveals something big

See Naomi will leave Israel with a rapidly declining faith but will return with Ruth, a moabite that is faithful

It is one of the things that God loves to do in the Bible…The people who are the most powerless end up being the hero’s of the story

The first shall be last and the last first

If God can’t find a faithful Israelite then he will raise up a moabite woman….

It hi lights that even though he wants to work with Israel the people of the covenant…If they won’t be faithful then he will shame them with their enemy being faithful. ‘

And the words that Ruth says are some of the most memorable of all scripture

With radical self-sacrifice she abandons every base of security that any person, let alone a poor widow, in that cultural context would have clung to: her native homeland, her own people, even her own gods.

Like any Near Easterner of her time, she realized that if she would commit herself to Naomi and go home with her, she must also commit herself to Naomi’s people (Israel) and to Naomi’s God (Yahweh).

Although some would interpret Ruth’s declaration as a sign of conversion, it is better viewed as an affirmation of a transfer of membership from the people of Moab to Israel and of allegiance from Chemosh to Yahweh

Ruth’s pledge involves four significant elements:

(1) an appeal to resist all pressures to break the relationship;

(2) a commitment to the other person for life;

(3) the adoption of the other person’s family and faith as one’s own and the abandonment of prior allegiances; and

(4) an awareness that God is a witness to all the promises we make

The faith of ruth leaves Naomi speechless

What is interesting is that this is used at weddings sometimes because for ages people have seen ruth’s commitment to her mother-in law as the pinnacle of all commitments in the bible

This was literally, Till death do us part!

So lets look in on what happens next:

Ruth 1:19–21 NIV

So the two 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 Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

So the whole town is stirred…There is a buzz around town at her coming back after a decade…With no men!

And the response of Naomi is don’t call me Naomi…Naomi means “The pleasant one”

She is not pleasant any more…The almighty has made her life bitter so she wants to be called Mara….because it means bitterness

See how she interprets her situation

I went away full but the Lord has brought me back empty

Naomi continues to put the blame of her life squarely on Yahweh

She is refusing to own up to anything in her life…

A refusal to repent of my own faithlessness will eventually leave me bitter

Have you ever been around someone who complains of their own circumstances but in the process blames everything and everyone else

They are like totally blind to the fact that the problem lies with them

And you are like….UMMMMM…Yeah its you!

This is Naomi…She doesn’t own a thing about her life…She doesn’t repent…

Just the Lord has done this to me….

But in the midst of all of this…

This is also a story of hope…

Ruth one is like the lowest point of Judges/ruth

Literally what happens in the last chapters of Judges is that a woman is killed, cut up into 12 pieces and her body parts sent all over israel to remind Israel that they have now entered a state of depravity…

Now you have Naomi and he husband and sons leave israel…Go to a pagan country then all the men die

Its like…will there ever be hope?

But you have this pagan woman walk out of Israel and say where you go, I will go…Your God will be my God…I will stand by you…Its the first time in 20+ chapters of the Bible that you even find a glimmer of hope…And the great thing about this book is that it just gets more hopefull

Response:

So I am not sure where you are at today

Just take any one of these fill-in the blanks and that could be your response…

Maybe you are walking through a season of hopelessness…This story is a reminder…Do noit rely on your own strength and your own knowledge but in every way rely on the Lord.

Maybe you are in a season of hopelessness and you blame everyone else…I just want to invite you to take a minute with the Lord and say, God’ its me! I keep on saying its everyone else’s fault but I need to own the fact that its me…Now lord Change me!

Maybe your not in that season of hopelessness and you simply need to be reminded that people look at your life and they know you go to church…that you are a Christian and so they will start discerning Christianity through the grid of your life

Communion

Prayer team