Sermon Tone Analysis

Have you ever been in a situation that seemed hopeless, where the only way out was doing something that you knew was wrong, but there didn’t seem to be any other way?

Maybe you were struggling financially…and there was no way you were going to be able to pay your bills…unless you padded your expenses account, or fudged on your taxes, or took something from the cash drawer…

Or your spouse is giving you a hard time…and you’re starting to feel frustrated and angry…and you know you shouldn’t yell…you know you shouldn’t threaten…you know you shouldn’t push…but what else are you going to do...are you just going to let her win?...are you going to let her push you around?...are you going to let her talk to you that way in front of the kids?

isn’t doing something, even if it might be wrong,

better than doing nothing at all...and being swept away by the other person’s abuses?...

Or perhaps you were feeling really empty inside…and the only thing you had was the bottle or drugs…and you knew getting drunk or high wasn’t going to solve anything, and you knew you’d feel sick the next day…but you did it anyway…you just couldn’t find another option…

Perhaps that is you here this morning...Life is leaving you empty and you are struggling to find solutions

There seems to be no end to your emptiness…no answers on the immediate horizon…then what’s a person supposed to do?...

with that in mind, please open your Bible to the book of Ruth...

Staring a new series today entitled “There is Always Hope”… and Pastor Matthew and I pray the exposition of this book will encourage you and give you hope as you see God work in this historical narrative.

Read Ruth 1:1-15

Main Point: Hope Exists Even in the Emptiness of Life!

Let’s look for three keys to finding hope even when life leaves you feeling empty...

How can I have hope when life turns hard and leaves me feeling empty?

The first key is …

Don’t lose your hope by focusing on your circumstances.

What are the circumstances the narrator chooses to reveal to us?

Naomi’s circumstances — time of emptiness.

This book is named Ruth, but it is at least equally about a woman named Naomi…

You really could describe Naomi’s circumstances in one word — EMPTINESS

Famine – v 1

there’s a sad irony to that because we learn next that these people are from Bethlehem, which literally means “house of bread” … Judah… “praise”… so they are living in the house of bread and praise…sounds like a great place to live…

this is where the story of Ruth begins and ends… so at Christmas when we sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” think back to the events of Ruth…this is where it all starts.

yet there is a famine in the “house of Bread”…

Naomi, whose name meant “beautiful, pleasant, and good” along with her husband, Elimelech, whose name meant “my God is king” … indicating a devout commitment to the God of Israel… are living in a place of bread and praise but without bread and lacking of praise.

So Elimelech leads his family to move to Moab...

sojourn = carries the idea of a temporary, dependent status…to live in Moab until the famine was over…

instead of living by faith that God is His king, he took his family and decided to leave the land God had given their nation Israel and instead move to the land of Moab…along with their two sons Mahlon and Chilion…

Mahlon = sick — imagine carrying that mantra around with you your whole life...

Chilion = wasting away — again, every time they called him… “Hey wasting away, get in here.”

Now think of what Naomi whose name means beautiful has to deal with every time she goes to the shopping mall and hears the other women say something when she comes in... “I don’t know how she stays so beautiful having to care for her sickly boys”

That is Naomi’s life...

Let’s pause for a just a moment and consider what the writer is telling us...explain that in an historical narrative, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the writer (Narrator) selects details of the story for a reason…it was important to the narrator to give their readers the names because names meant something (this will come out again when the narrator chooses not to reveal a name)… the writer gives us details and leaves some out…everything was included and discarded for a reason…

so what is the purpose of what is said here…the narrator (writer) of the story wants you to know something about the character of the people involved in this story...

Elimelech and Naomi and their son’s stomachs were empty…they were struggling to consider how God can give Israel this land and now it wasn’t producing, so they made a decision that God wasn’t living up to his promise to provide here, so let’s go look for provisions elsewhere, until the situation here improves...but of course, that was only the beginning…

Travel to Moab (was at least 60-75 miles from Bethlehem and would have taken about 7-10 days to get there)— History of Moab = pick up the study guide to learn more about Moab…Moab was the son of Lot by his eldest daughter (Genesis 19:37)…(that ought to tell you something about this land).

In Numbers 22-25, we read of Balaam and Balak the king of Moab, and the talking mule, God cursed the land of Moab…in 2 Kings 3:26-27 the king of Moab offered his oldest son to their god as a burnt offering...so for sake of time let’s just understand that Moab is the land of the enemy…listen to what God says about Moab in Psalm 108:9 ““Moab is My washbowl; Over Edom I shall throw My shoe; Over Philistia I will shout aloud.””

…

so do you want to live in the Promised Land or the garbage can?

See, a God honoring Israelite should not want to live there under any circumstances…nor should their children want to marry Moabites…this was not someplace God wanted them to be...

look what happens next...

Elimelech dies – v 3

Now we’ve moved from an emptiness of the stomach to an emptiness of marriage...

In that culture, this loss would have been a huge devastation and extremely difficult because the husband was generally the sole provider outside the home…

so there’s the emptiness of the famine, and the emptiness of living in a foreign land so far away from family and friends…and now the emptiness of being a widow...

At this point, at least she has her sons to comfort her…perhaps they’ll marry…perhaps they will have children…at least then the family line can be continued and Naomi’s needs can be met…

And the sons do marry, Moabite women…one named Orpah (name means stubborn) and the other named Ruth (friendship)…and they lived together for ten years…without children…

Her sons die – v 5

So after 10 years in Moab, Unhealthy and Puny die…

Just when you think her life could not get any more empty…now their is an emptiness of heritage...

Humanly speaking, these were dark times for Naomi…and if we were placed in the same condition, we would naturally be asking why is this happening?.

We will see what Naomi says in just a moment...

Some have suggested that this family is being judged because they left the land of Israel and the provision of their God…there is no absolute confirmation of that idea in this text…

however, we do need to consider the small detail the writer says at the beginning of verse 1…

Israel’s circumstances – period of Judges

Judges 21:25 “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

The book of Judges is the story of Israel at one of its lowest points in history—it’s a record of division, cruelty, apostasy, civil war, and national disgrace.

no king – everyone did that which was right in their own eyes.

God had clearly told His people that there would be blessings on them as a nation for faithfulness and obedience, and cursing/consequences if they chose not to follow him…one example is the Song of Moses as he instructed the people about how to live in the promised land just before he died…

Deuteronomy 32:4-5 ““The Rock!

His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.

“They have acted corruptly toward Him, They are not His children, because of their defect; But are a perverse and crooked generation.”

Deuteronomy 32:24 “‘They will be wasted by famine, and consumed by plague And bitter destruction; And the teeth of beasts I will send upon them, With the venom of crawling things of the dust.”

The nation as a whole rebelled against God and experienced judgment as a result.

They are suffering as a result of living in a sin cursed world, and in their case as part of the Jewish nation…

Naomi and her family very well may be caught in the consequences of their nation’s, and especially their leaders’ disobedience to their God…

The reality is that happens to people like you and me all the time – suffering and emptiness as a result of living in a world that is under the curse of sin…it’s hard to have hope when life feels empty

Point here is that the situation is very grim and the natural thing to do is to focus on the situation and declare “Woe is me”.

Focusing on your circumstances causes you to lose your hope.

So to find hope what do you do…NOT what Naomi does

Which leads us to our second key...

Don’t search for hope in human solutions.

What Naomi did right.

Recognized God’s provisions – v 6.

There was a sincere recognition that God was behind the end of the famine...

visit = carries the idea of giving attention to something or someone…God gave attention to his people and ended the famine.

Showed concern for others – v 8.

She showed concern for her foreign daughters by telling them the truth of what life would be like for them in Israel.

She probably had a good relationship with these two ladies…after all they married her sons and had to deal with the Unhealthy and Puny for 10 years.

It is going to be costly for you to live in Bethlehem…the Israelites are not going to like you, they won’t want to associate with you, you’ll never be able to marry again, it would mean perpetual widowhood and poverty because Naomi had lost all her of her property.

“May the Lord deal kindly with you…”

The reason that is so important is because that is the first use of this book of one of the most important words in the OT…the word hesed which is translated here as “deal kindly with”…

It is a very hard word to translate because we don’t have a single word in our language to capture all the nuances of hesed…

Hesed = “deal kindly with you” = means faithfulness, loyalty, covenant love.

and that is the theme of this book…

will God choose to be faithful to His people?...

will God’s people be faithful to Him?

The point here is that the steps you take when life seems empty says a lot about what you really think of your God.

…what you think…what you do….where you place your hope…

and that was Naomi’s problem…she was as an individual, what Israel was as a nation…

she decided in her heart that God could not provide and therefore it was up to her to figure out a solution to her emptiness any way she could…

What Naomi did wrong

Chose a shallow substitute – v 9

...the solution to your emptiness lies in finding a man…

Specifically a man in Moab…regardless of whether he believes in God…regardless of whether there will be any kind of spiritual oneness…regardless of whether that’s what the Lord wants you to do…

Her thinking is revealed clearly here...God has deserted us and now we have to figure this out on our own.

we’re talking about the tendency when we’re feeling empty to come up with all sorts of solutions to the dilemma that do not stand the test of Scripture…

We believe the lie that emptiness can be truly filled apart from living for God…

is there any way in which that is true of you?...and I realize you might say, but PK, I feel so empty… I have so much pain going on in my life right now...I know and God knows that life this side of heaven can be empty, and challenging, and terrifying –

but beware the solutions that are also empty, the solutions that only provide a temporary relief from the emptiness…

Unless the God of heaven fills your emptiness, it is only a matter of time until life drains you and you are again left feeling empty.