Ruth 1:1-5: The Providence of God is at Work in Terrible Circumstances

Welcome

Church gathering August 16th

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Welcome, we are gathered to worship

The triune God

The one who reigns over all creation

The one who is always in control

Prayer

Song: Your love awakens me

Song: Living Hope

Song: Great is thy faithfulness

Introduction and Story

The struggle to reconcile divine control with human suffering and pain

It’s so natural for us to see the vast brokenness, darkness, pain, suffering, and sorrow around us and to ask, “where is God here?

This is a main barrier to people placing their faith in Jesus.

I understand this

Two years ago almost to this day, I had just lost my job, was trying desperately to sell a house we could no longer afford, and found out that we were going to have our baby girl Gwennie.

It was a season full of the pain of losing a church family we dearly loved, being let go from a job and losing our income, almost having our house taken from us, and wondering how we were going to provide for our family.

I spent a lot of sleepless nights crying out asking, “God, where are you!?”

And I have to confess there were dark moments when the answer to that question was not an answer of faith but of serious doubt

It’s natural for us to ask this question now in this season of pandemic, bitter political division, deep moral and philosophical divides in our country.

Ruth 1:1–5 ESV

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. 2 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. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, 5 and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

In the time when the judges ruled, there was a famine in Judah

Irony: Bethlehem has no bread

So "a certain man” takes his family and goes to “the fields of Moab”

This story is starting to sound reminiscent of Abraham

Genesis 12 - God calls Abraham to leave his country and go to the land of Canaan, where God will bless him and his family. Eventually, there is a famine in Canaan and Abraham flees to Egypt.

So this story might be the story of an awesome patriarch who weathers the storm of adversity with faith in God!

Even better, Elimelech’s name means “my God is king!”

But then Elimelech dies, and Naomi is left with her two sons

Her two sons marry Moabite women and they remain in Moab for ten years, until both of her sons die

So Naomi is left without her husband as well as her sons

This is turning out to be kind of a downer story, isn’t it?

But this story is not actually in the end about Elimelech, or Naomi, her sons, or even Ruth who the book is named after

This story is ultimately about God

This is a story about God’s PROVIDENCE

Providence literally means “foresight”

Humans judge and respond to things from the limitations of time and space

But God, who is not bound by time and space, sees the end from the beginning and orders all things according to his infinite wisdom

Providence means God reigns as king over all creation

God is always in control

But we do not always no the mode of God’s reign - meaning, we don’t necessarily know how it works all the time

The story of Ruth is going to give us some insights into how God is at work in his creation, but we don’t fully understand it

Providence means that God is bringing about his good purposes

The sovereignty and reign of God is not malicious, petty, or destructive in its ends

We see the fullest expression of God’s providential purposes in the gospel

Jesus is God’s “proof” that his purposes are ultimately for our good, even in the midst of profound suffering

So the story of Ruth is about God’s providence

It is a story of loss and sorrow

It is a story of fierce devotion and friendship

It is a story of romance and love

It is a story of faith and risk

But ultimately, and most importantly, it is a story about God

So that being said, what do we learn about God from the opening movement of this story?

I. Naomi’s terrible circumstances

In the days when the Judges ruled

A period of serious moral and spiritual corruption in Israel after the death of Moses and then Joshua

A time of "judges” = שֹׁפְטִים

Tribal chieftains, not judges in the courtroom sense but as rulers and governing chiefs

The basic pattern of judges

Israel rebels against God

God punishes Israel (according to the covenant promises in Deuteronomy 28)

Israel cries out to God for help

God raises up a judge to deliver Israel

But Judges is not just a book about a repetitive pattern; rather, it’s a downward spiral

GRAPHIC

The judges themselves become increasingly corrupt and faithless

The first judge, Othniel, seems ok

Barak is a faithless coward

Gideon is an idolater who tests God

Jephthah sacrifices his own daughter on an altar to God

Samson is a covenant breaking womanizer who doesn’t even actually deliver Israel

By Judges 17, for the last five chapters of Judges, there are in fact no judges

Israel has stopped bothering to cry out to God

The book ends with some of the most brutal, graphic depictions of moral depravity anywhere in the Bible

Idolatry, kidnapping, senseless murder of the innocent, sexual assault, civil war, slavery of their own people

Four times through these last four chapters we are told there is no king in Israel, and chapters 17-21 are bookended by the sentiment, “

This was a time of profound moral and spiritual decline in Israel

Famine

A famine was a natural disaster with massive ramifications for the ancient world

This is difficult for us to comprehend because few of us have ever really wrestled with the question of where our next meal will come from

It’s easy for us to take food for granted because generally our grocery stores are well stocked, food is readily available, and many beneficial programs exist in our society to make sure everyone gets their needed food

But in a day when there were no government programs, no grocery stores, no highway systems to facilitate supply chains, and no modern irrigation, a drought leading to famine was a serious problem

Particular to the Ancient Near East, Palestine has always had a peculiar rainfall, and times of drought are not uncommon

Droughts were often very strange in that conditions could vary widely over relatively small geographical areas

In a time without modern irrigation and the ability to transport water over large distances, a drought in one small area might not really affect agriculture in an area a relatively short distance away

This is why Elimelech decided to go to Moab - presumably, a shortage of rainfall or crops in Judah would not mean the same thing in Moab

So not only did Naomi live in a season of famine in Judah, but she experienced a complete uprooting of her life and a fleeing for her life to escape the famine

Death

First Elimelech

Then both of Naomi’s sons

Naomi “remains” - she is “left behind,” “left over”

Application

We live in a time in our country of great moral and spiritual decline

The lines of morality have become increasingly blurry, and that’s not just for non Christians

Barna Research Group released a report in 2017 about a wide ranging array of social and political issues in America and where we stand as a society and nation

One of their findings was that,

Christian morality is being ushered out of our social structures and off the cultural main stage, leaving a vacuum in its place—and the broader culture is attempting to fill that void. There is growing concern about the moral condition of the nation, even as many American adults admit they are uncertain about how to determine right from wrong, often opting to look within themselves rather than to any external, more traditional sources of authority. Barna has dubbed this new moral code, “The Morality of Self-Fulfillment” in which Americans value “finding themselves” as the highest good.

We live in a time when objective truth has been all but abandoned, and there is no longer anything left to guide the moral compass of our society

We are living right now in a time of natural disaster and crisis as the entire globe struggles to know how to deal with COVID-19

All around us we live with reminder of the frailty and weakness of our world

People are dying with no ability to hold a funeral for them

Many people are unable to connect with their loved ones on hospice or in nursing homes

Where is God?

II. God’s Providence and Elimelech’s Lack of Faith

Ruth is a beautiful story even in the midst of this terrible circumstance

But we aren’t going to spoil the rest of the story, so we’ll just leave it at that for now

But one key detail - God is only mentioned as actively doing something twice in Ruth - he ends the famine for Israel and he gives Ruth conception of a baby at the end of the story

But nonetheless the book invites us to consider how we might see God providentially at work even when it doesn’t seem obvious how that could be

God is providentially at work in the famine - he was faithful to his covenant to Israel, both on the good side and the bad

Deuteronomy 28:1-7 - blessings and curses

Deuteronomy 28:1–7 ESV

1 “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. 3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. 5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. 7 “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.

Specifically, famine as a curse Deuteronomy 28:23-24

Deuteronomy 28:23–24 ESV

23 And the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. 24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

God had promised to bless the Israelites if they obeyed and curse them if they disobeyed

He also promised to rescue and deliver them if they repented and returned to him

We see God’s relentless faithfulness all through the book of Judges

Even in the famine, God is in control working out his good purposes

God is providentially at work in Mahlon’s marriage to Ruth

As we will see, Ruth is a key character in this story, and without Mahlon just happening to marry Ruth, Naomi would be left truly alone and this story would not have happened

God is providentially at work in the death of Elimelech and Naomi’s sons

The death of Naomi’s family prompts her to return to Bethlehem with Ruth, and once again, the story of Ruth would not have happened had this not occurred

Elimelech may well have kept his family in Moab indefinitely

In this opening movement of Ruth, we don’t really see faith in God’s providence from anyone, but I think we do see a lack of faith

Elimelech’s lack of faith

Elimelech’s name means “my God is king”

When we are introduced to Elimelech, if we understand the meaning of his name we get the impression that he must be the main character, the hero, of the story

But did Elimelech live up to his namesake?

Hey may have believed that what he was doing was faithful and an act of obedience to God

To preserve his own life

To provide for his family

On the other hand, he is regarded in the Talmud (Jewish Commentary on Scripture) universally by the Rabbi’s as having made the wrong decision with a lack of faith

He ignored the sovereign providence of God in the midst of difficult circumstances

The famine in Israel should have caused people to repent of their sin, cast themselves on the mercy of God, cry out for deliverance, and wait for the blessing of God

If the Lord was truly king, the right posture would be to submit to him in humility and repentance.

This is Deuteronomy 28 teaching!

And if the people repented, God would lift the famine and bless his people

So Elimelech designed his own solution to the problems he faced rather than submitting to

By his actions, he was demonstrating a lack of faith in God as king and an ignorance of his reign

Application

It’s easy to criticize Elimelech for his decisions, but hind sight is always 20/20, isn’t it?

Elimelech likely believed his actions to be right and good - after all, he lived in the time of the judges, when Israel had no king and “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

People didn’t do what they thought was wrong; they did what they thought was right

The problem is, what I think or feel is right is not necessarily what is right

So how can we learn to see the providence of God and live under his reign?

Three things

Repentance

The clear reality of the famine in the days of the judges was that God was calling his people to return to him, to repent

We don’t have prophets today to specifically interpret world events in concrete ways - for example, that COVID is God’s punishment because America practices abortion - that’s bad logic and irresponsible biblical interpretation

However, we still should see crisis moments as moments where God is beckoning us to return to him, to repent

Sometimes, he shakes us up through wild circumstances to remind us of our need for him, our dependence on him

Seeking God

To know the heart and mind of God and his providential purposes, we have to seek him

Elimelech should have know what to do in a time of famine because it was clearly spelled out for the people of Israel in Deuteronomy 28 and 30

To gain understanding to live within God’s providential sovereignty, we have to seek him in prayer and scripture, two ancient and complimentary practices

Patience

Our tendency in difficult and painful circumstances is to just get out of them as quickly as possible

This is a natural reaction - when something hurts we try to alleviate the pain

But this impulse can cause us to chart our own course and design our own solutions to our problems rather than relying on God

Instead, we need to patiently wait for the blessing and guidance of God

Example: In our difficult season, we had to practice all of these

We sought to learn and understand where there were areas in our live where we needed to repent and align our lives more with God in dependence on him

We spent some serious time seeking God, crying out to him, reading, learning, growing in our faith

And ultimately, we had to be patient

It was a massive struggle in that season to not just design our own solutions and jump ahead of where God had us

We wanted to be in control, we wanted to chart our own course, and it required a great deal of humility and submission on our part to patiently wait for God

Out of our time through that season, I was studying the book of Ruth in one of my classes at Western Seminary

As a result of the journey we were on in that time, we named our daughter in part after this beautiful story in the Bible

Gwendolyn Ruth Burns

Because for all her life, Gwen will be God’s reminder to us that in his gracious, sovereign providence, he brings the most beautiful blessings out of the darkest of times

She is a reminder to us of God’s gracious providence in our life, a reminder that continually directs us back to the gospel

Conclusion: We trust God’s providence because of the gospel

God’s ultimate answer to our questions about where he is and how he can be in control in the midst of profound suffering is the incarnation of Jesus and his death on the cross.

Because ultimately, in the midst of the profound suffering intrinsic to the human condition, what we need is not some “answer,” some propositional truth statement that makes everything make sense to us - we need God.

Because in our suffering, God gives us more than an answer - he gives us himself. In the person of Jesus, God himself entered into and identified with the suffering of human beings, and he suffered the weight of every sin that has ever been committed, every ounce of evil, darkness, injustice, out of God’s great love for you.

God’s answer to human suffering and pain is himself - his suffering, his presence, his love, his grace.

And because Jesus absorbed the wrath of God for sin, it means two very important things for our future

Our sins are forgiven, we are reconciled to God, and we need not fear the judgment of God

We have great hope and patience for our future, because we will stand in the judgment of God as he restores all things, and we will live with Jesus forever and ever in his kingdom.

Because of this, because of the gospel, we are able to see God’s gracious providence in every season of life.

Transition to Communion

Communion

Song: Is he worthy

Dismissal