Emptiness and Return

Pray for Kevin Titus - trache out tomorrow

Ruth 1:1 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.

So let’s begin by setting the scene and understanding the where, the when and the what of this book. The when is answered in the first seven words of the book. This historical record takes place during the days when the judges ruled. This was before the time of kings and was a period of time characterized by each person doing what they felt was best for them to do. Not in a negative way, but think capitalism with a looser hand on the wheel of law and order. If they felt it was good to do, they would do it. Perhaps they sang some Cheryl Crow as their anthem - “whatever makes you happy, it can’t be that bad”. But also, it can be that bad. But we won’t trail off there. We will see a prime example of this behavior in just a couple verses.

In verse two we learn the names of the family we find here in Judah, specifically in Bethlehem. We have Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons Mahlon and Chilion (keelyoan). They traveled to Moab because of the famine that had hit the land of Judah, leaving Bethlehem behind. Now, let’s connect some dots before we move on. They are leaving Bethlehem which literally means “the house of bread” because there is a famine and they need to go find some bread. Another dot to connect is the time and the place - they are in the day of judges, doing whatever they wish, yet they are from the town that would be the birthplace of the most prominent king in the history of Israel, David, followed just a handful of centuries later by the greatest king, Jesus Christ, under whose rule they will do as HE pleases, not as they please.

As a result of this famine, they sojourn, or travel as strangers, to the country of Moab. Moab was a descendent of Lot, a result of incest between Lot and one of his daughters. The Moabites were a pagan nation, their main god being Chemosh, another being Baal of Peor. During the period of the judges, Moab wasn’t just a pagan nation, but an enemy of Israel. For Elimelech to bring his family to Moab was already probably not a good idea, but what his sons did was probably worse. Pick it up in verse 3.

Ruth 1:3-5 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.

We don’t know how long after their arrival, nor do we know how it happened, but Naomi’s husband died and left her with her two sons. Now they are in a strange land without the person that brought them there. After their father died, the two sons chose to do something that fit with the time of the judges, but did not fit in with God’s law. Perhaps if their father were still alive he would have reminded them that as Hebrew men they are not to marry into pagan nations. But, in the time they were alive, it seemed good to them to go ahead and marry two Moabite women. But this scene is the beginning of the theme of this book - God is the God of redemption. He redeems not only what is wrong, but what has been done wrong. He redeems the good days and the bad days, the good choices and the bad choices. This doesn’t justify our bad choices, nor should it create in us a mindset that the consequences of our actions are not a right punishment. The redemption of these things is not to make us feel better about how badly we’ve done, but to reveal the glory of God to the world. And so what these men did was incredibly, undeniably wrong. They disobeyed the law of God. But through their disobedience comes the greatest redemption story of all time.

Of course, they didn’t get to see it. For whatever reason, they also died. And now after living in a strange land for 10 years, Naomi is left with no family than the pagans her sons brought into the household. Now what?

After some time, word reaches Moab that the Lord had visited his people in Judah and had brought food back to the land. The famine was over. Now rather than be a stranger in a strange land, Naomi decided it was time to go home where she could live out the rest of her life with her people. Initially she had brought her daughters along for the journey back home, but she thought it was best for them to stay in their own land, so after enough of the journey was complete, she tried to send them back. Let’s pick things up in verse 8.

Ruth 1:8–13 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.”

We have a dilemma here. Naomi is in a strange land now, but if her two daughters-in-law come with her back to the land of Judah, then they will be in a strange land. Naomi is going back because she now has no one, so she is returning to her family. Ruth and Orpah are probably still fairly young and may have a chance amongst their own people to start new lives, and we can kind of see that in Naomi’s thinking here. She says to them multiple times to go back to the home of their mothers, back to their own people. She wanted to give them what they needed for their commitment to her to be worthwhile, but she knew she couldn’t and she told them as much. She had no more sons, and she had no husband. In fact, she goes so far to say she is to old to even have a husband now. But even if she does find a husband, and if by some miracle she ends up having not one, but two sons for these two women, would they really wait until those boys grew up?

By all accounts it makes the most sense for Ruth and Orpah to stay amongst their people where they can find husbands than for them to go back with Naomi and join her in being homeless amongst her own people. At least amongst her people she would be fed and to some degree cared for, but only because they are her people. It wouldn’t be the same for a stranger, and especially for a Moabite. Ruth and Orpah may have received grace from Naomi after the disobedience of her sons in marrying them, but they probably wouldn’t have the same experience amongst the Hebrews and they almost certainly wouldn’t find a new husband. They would live out the rest of their days as widows.

But there’s one another problem that Naomi is having. She clearly loves these two women. She wants what is best for them and is doubly certain that what is best is to not be around her. Not only does she have nothing to give them, but she also says to them that she couldn’t handle inviting them into how the Lord has chosen to deal with her. As Naomi takes stock of her life, she recognizes something that feels a little odd, stated more directly in verse 20 - she says that the Lord has dealt bitterly with her. Very bitterly, in fact. To invite these two young women not only into what she knows would not go well for them, but also into that bitterness, was more than Naomi could handle.

What stands out to me is not Naomi’s opinion of what God has done, but how her view of God doesn’t seem to waiver. Her understanding of what God has done is that he has dealt bitterly with her, or that he has come against her, but she also doesn’t sit here blaming God for bad things happening in her life. Now, we sit here and we can see the whole story, and if you don’t know the whole story, here it is - Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David, the promised lineage of the Messiah. So when we see the dealings of God with Naomi that ordered all things into place to make that happen, we see God using the pain that Naomi is going through to orchestrate the greatest, most perfect joy. But Naomi doesn’t see that. And often times for us, when bad things happen we are left just asking God why he’s letting so many bad things happen do us, or maybe even accusing him of doing bad things to us. We convince ourselves that we are good enough to not let these things happen. Or maybe we think we are immune to bad things because of God and we aren’t prepared for it to happen. Outside the church there is the age old question, “how could a good God let these bad things happen?”, and it is a hard question to answer, though not impossible. And Naomi could easily be asking that question here, because she hasn’t found the answer yet. But at the very least she knows enough to know that God may continue to deal bitterly with her, though she is one of his children, and she doesn’t want her daughters to experience that with her. Better to go and live a happy, married life with their own people than suffer with Naomi.

So how do they respond? Continue in verse 14.

Ruth 1:14-15 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.”

However this all worked out, this was clearly an incredibly close relationship. If we’re being honest, there are some of us here that may be more likely to weep when we’re told our mother-in-law is coming for a visit rather than when she is leaving, though tears of joy may flow. For these three women, they loved each other. They wanted to be together. Naomi wanted them to go and enjoy their lives and start over where she couldn’t, but these women loved Naomi so much that all they wanted to do was be with her, and the idea of being apart was heartbreaking.

And now we see these women make two different decisions. Orpah chose to go back to her people, but it is also noted here that she went back to her gods. Now, I don’t want to spend a lot of time looking at the life that Orpah went back to, but it was far from a righteous life. The gods that the Moabites worshiped were gods they would sacrifice children to and perform all sorts of sexual sin in honor of. It was far from a good community to be a part of and a far cry from the life she could experience in the land of God’s people, because simply to be around God’s people invites others into the common grace of His blessings.

But Orpah decided, probably influenced some by Naomi’s pleading, that she couldn’t give up her old life. She was comfortable here, she knew it well, so she stayed where she was, with a depraved and lost nation.

While Orpah returns to the life she knows and is comfortable with, Ruth takes the opposite path. Read 16-18.

Ruth 1:16-18 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.

Ruth isn’t just leaving her land behind. She’s leaving her home, her people, her comfort, her death and burial plans, but most of all she is fully intent, because of her love for Naomi, to leave behind her false gods and embrace the God of Israel, the God of gods and Lord of lords, as Nebuchadnezzar would have said.

I want us to focus in on this statement I am going to make. This is our chief application and take away from chapter one, so if you go home with anything, go home with this:

REDEMPTION COMES THROUGH EMBRACING THE NEW LIFE, NOT IN KEEPING THE OLD ONE

Let’s unpack that a bit considering our text.

If Ruth makes the same decision as Orpah, this story ends at just one chapter and we are left wondering what the point of the book is. Obviously it doesn’t stop there, but consider what happens because the story keeps going. Ruth isn’t just some nobody, but by all accounts she’s supposed to be. She is a Moabite. She is an enemy of Israel and her life is anything but good and godly up until this point. The life she has lived is not one that gets her into heaven. But she doesn’t stay there.

Because of her love for Naomi, Ruth leaves everything about her old life. But she doesn’t just leave her old life behind, but embraces everything about Naomi’s life, including her God. Let’s spoil the story of the book and see how Ruth’s embrace of Naomi and the new life brought about redemption:

There are the most obvious stories - Ruth comes to a strange land and finds herself a husband and has some children. What could’ve and should’ve been a lonely life for her resulted in everything she could’ve hoped for. The Lord redeemed Ruth’s life.

Naomi’s worst fears for Ruth coming with her were flipped on their head and instead Ruth realized every single thing that Naomi hoped she would have if she just stayed behind. The Lord redeemed Naomi’s fear.

Most significant of all is what is found in the last few verses of the book. Boaz and Ruth became parents to Obed. Obed fathered Jesse. Jesse fathered David, the king of Israel. And we know from there that the line of David brought about the birth of Jesus Christ. The Lord redeemed humanity.

If you turn to Matthew chapter 1, the gospel opens with the genealogy of Jesus. In this account, three women are named. Those three women are a prostitute, a pagan stranger, and an adulterer. And yet their pasts did not determine what God did to redeem their futures, culminating in the birth of Jesus Christ. Because Ruth chose to leave her old life behind and embrace the new life, she unknowingly found herself in the middle of the ultimate redemption story, but it even resulted in her own personal redemption. The genealogy of Jesus is proof that He is the God who redeems.

What is your redemption story? Have you been redeemed? Has the redemptive work of Christ on the cross in taking the penalty for your sin brought into eternal life with Him? Have you left the old you behind and embraced the new? Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that if anyone is IN Christ; meaning that if anyone has been saved by the redemptive work of Christ on the cross; meaning that you are now abiding in Christ and His word; meaning that you are following after Him as His disciple; meaning you have placed your faith and trust in Him; if anyone is IN Christ, he is a new creation. The old is no more because the new has come. The old is no more because the new is better. The old is no more because you can’t be redeemed while you bring the old with you.

If you’re not new, if you’re acting just like a regular old part of the world and you’re here today because church is a Sunday morning religious interruption to your regularly scheduled program, then you’re not redeemed.

If you are redeemed, but you’re not embracing the new and you’re trying to hold onto the old, then you might find yourself in a lot of trouble. You’re never going to sense that redemption, or you’re going to rely on it in a way that allows you to justify never having willingness to let the old self go and you’re going to pretend you’re fine.

The Christian life, the redeemed life, is only truly realized when the old life is left behind and the new life is embraced. Ruth wouldn’t have had the life she had if she didn’t leave everything behind. And we won’t have eternal life in Christ if we don’t do the same. He is the redeemer, we are the redeemed, so live like you’ve been redeemed.

Let’s close out the text.

Ruth 1:19–22 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 barley harvest.

While the town of Bethlehem recognized Naomi, they really didn’t know her anymore. As she said, she left full and returned empty. She left with a husband and two sons, but returned with only a daughter-in-law and probably a lot of stories of how her life only went wrong when she left the land of God’s people for the land of pagans. So she asks for a name change, going from Naomi, which means “the pleasant one” to Mara, which means “to be bitter”. A once pleasant woman was probably in the depths of depression. She knew who God was, but she also saw her life as God coming against her. She doesn’t question if anything in her life is the Lord’s doing, nor does she question why He is doing it, but she merely accepts it and leans into it.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been there before. We get so caught up in how bad things are getting that we lose sight of the hope we have in the redemption of all that has gone wrong. Naomi has accepted that she’s a widow, she has accepted that she will spend her days cared for as a widow, gleaning in the fields for food, and she’s completely lost sight of the hope of redemption. It is a dark day for Naomi. And yet it is the day where the redemption story begins. She may have returned empty, and Ruth is probably more empty than her at this stage, having lost not only her husband but also now leaving her home behind, but they’re both about to be full.

Closing

Are you empty today? Do you feel like you’re coming back with less than you left with? Maybe the first half of 2026 just wasn’t good and here you are now just hoping something will finally get better. We’ve all been in this place before. Wondering why all these things are happening to us, wondering why we might need to suffer so, wondering why we need to put up with nothing but bad things. Perhaps we should remember these words of Paul:

Romans 8:35–39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And just a few verses earlier:

Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

If you are empty, remember that it is the Lord that fills you up. If you feel distant, remember it is the Lord who draws near. If you are facing great trial, remember it is the Lord from whom nothing can separate you because He holds tightly. If each moment feels like suffering, remember it is the Lord who makes all things good. He will redeem it all.

If you are full today, I encourage you to be an encouragement to others. People need to remember that the Lord also deals mercifully with His people. That there are seasons that change, yet God remains the same in and through it all. People need to be reminded of that. It may not always feel helpful to them when they are down, but it is always necessary to remember and be reminded what is true.

If you are sitting in the old self, it is time to change. Redemption comes through embracing the new life, so come, be made new, and experience redemption.

For Ruth and Naomi, the story is only just starting. But for us, the end has already been written. If we are new, we are redeemed.