0949 Ruth 1.1-22 Naomi's Bitterness of Soul - When God's Sovereignty Works Against You
Notes
Transcript
In life, it becomes so natural to apply the cause effect principle
This fellow said… When my wife caught me standing on the bathroom scales, sucking in my stomach, she laughed, "Ha! That's not going to help!"
I replied, "Sure, it does. It's the only way I can see the numbers.”
Of course, you can apply the cause & effect principle to this situation
The cause, you could say is too many Macca’s fries & the like - the effect is being overweight
This is not always the case but, usually, there is a co-relation - whether it’s what you eat or your genetic make up. There is a cause & effect
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This same cause & effect rationale is applied to all areas of life, right down from winning the Golden Casket, down to coincidences & accidents
Some people are very superstitious & always see Karma or cause & effect happening in life
In the Korean dramas I like to watch, they often portray a character assuming guilt for something that happens to a person because they may have altered what they were doing that day, that led to say an accident or whatever
Even though, you may not have caused the accident and even be on the other side of the city, since you diverted the person off what, otherwise, might have happened that day, had you not seen them, you’re at fault for them having an accident
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One of the serious theological weaknesses of Pentecostalism or of the Charismatic churches in general, is that they assume a cause & effect relationship in the spiritual realm
People might object to that blanket statement, however, you will find that the statement is predominantly true of these church’s, theologically
You may also think that we shouldn’t be criticising other churches - well yes we do need to, if it’s going to be affecting people’s lives & this issue certainly has an enormous impact on a person’s relationship with God if they think & interpret situations in life, wrongly
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In the realm of life, if you are living successfully as a Christian, theologically, you ought to be healthy & wealthy - is what some say
God will bless you with wealth & success as the effect, if you are living by faith & following Him, as the cause
But if you are experiencing “bad luck” or failure/hardships then, perhaps, there is a cause - you might not have enough faith
Okay, yes, not all churches of this persuasion would teach this - I understand that - however, many of them do, even if it’s subtle
Perhaps, it is not as strong as it was in the 70’s & 80’s but surely you remember the strong incentive that if you “give to us”, God will multiply your wealth - esp. as the TV evangelists would say - it’s just cause & effect
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This cause & effect doctrine is not exclusive to Christianity
It is prominent in the eastern cultures - when you think of Karma & the like, but it is also held to by western culture
Q. Why do people avoid walking under ladders?
It was always the way - there were certain things you didn’t do because it was believed to have brought bad luck
When life goes well, one would think that God or the gods have shined down on me because I must have done something right - like that song from the Sound of Music, “...for somewhere in my youth, or childhood, I must have done something good” - now with I’m with the rich, handsome guy
Yet, through negative events that happen in life, they may think they are jinked with bad luck or that God is punishing me or doesn’t care for me
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To dispel these myths once & for all, it is good to go back to the NT and the apostles teaching
Paul’s circumstances became an occasion for the false teachers to accuse him that he was not from God or of God
That his situations demonstrated that God was not with him
24 Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. 26 I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; 27 I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? 30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.
“Paul, the effects in your life are disastrous, therefore, the cause must be against you”
“Oh contraire” Paul would say - that he is sustained through these terrible situational effects is proof that Jesus is with him
7 Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! 8 Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
We can even go to his first epistle which shows the gravity of his terrible situations that exists- he knows & elaborates on what the world would think of him according to the circumstances he faced
11 To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless; 12 and we toil, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; 13 when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.
Q. What does this do to the cause & effect argument?
It clearly means that your situation does not, of necessity, mean that God is against you, that God doesn’t care for you, or that God is unconcerned about what is happening to you
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Q. Now, what would you say to Naomi’s case?
They run out of food in Bethlehem & are forced to travel to Moab to be able to live
Naomi’s husband dies there; her two sons end up, against the law, marrying Moabitess women; and her two sons, within a 10 yr period, end up dying there in Moab
Q. What are people to make, out what had happened?
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Naomi lacked faith, so she lost her husband & 2 sons who broke the Law by marrying Moabitess women
She must have some skeletons in the closet that we don’t know about?
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Remember Jesus’ disciples who asked Him a question
1 As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”
I mean someone must have done something wrong that he was born blind, right - cause & effect
Did his parents sin? Did the human fetus in the womb, sin, that he was born blind?
I can imagine Jesus shaking His head, “Oh, brother, you numbskulls”
3 Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
In other words, in life’s circumstances, in life’s situations, there are always times when God can be glorified whether in good or awful situations
This man’s blindness became an opportunity for Jesus to heal him & to bring the light of God’s kingdom into the world
39 And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”
There are always opportunities in every situation to say & do the things that reflect the kingdom of God & His values
Tough times in fact, become opportunities for a greater magnification of God, if we can accept this as truth - for which it is
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Now, whilst I won’t go into it in a big way, we do need to consider that certain cause & effect scenarios do take place
If you do drugs, you will damage yourself & others - without a doubt, cause & effect here will happen
If you live a promiscuous life, there is a good chance of venereal disease and/or pregnancy resulting - cause & effect
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I believe there were certain sins that God gave effect to in the early church as warnings to the church - the effects now in our present day, I believe are, mostly, being pushed forward to the day of judgement
For example, in the early church, Ananias & his wife Sapphira were struck dead on the spot for lying to Holy Spirit
Some in the Corinthian church were dying because they abused other less fortunate church members during the communal meal celebration
Jesus used the cause & effect principle, here, to teach the church of the seriousness of their sin & what God thinks about it
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So on the flip side, while people may sin & think little of it, since God is not dealing out judgement now, there will be a day of reckoning where we will have to give an account of ourselves to God
I’m not saying this to frighten you, but for us to understand better how God is working in this age
1. Call Me Mara, Not Naomi
1. Call Me Mara, Not Naomi
In this change of name, we see the pain that Naomi experienced & like every Jew, understood that her situation in life was of the Lord
Q. Is He punishing her? No, that is nonsense
Just a quick look at the opening chapters of Job should shut that down
20 She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
Naomi means “pleasantness, sweetness”
Mara means, “bitterness”
This says something of the struggles that Naomi experienced in her life
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Q. What could she have done differently?
Well, she didn’t have the benefit of hindsight to be able to know that things might not turn out well in Moab
I’m sure all the Jews that lived in Germany & the surrounding European nations would have loved to have the benefit of hindsight just before WW2 began
If they had, they would have all high-tailed it to the US
But who would have thought that the civilised 20th C. Europe would have witnessed such atrocious crimes/murders all because you belonged to a particular ethnicity
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Under Christianity, people are judged by who they are as individuals
The Jews were judged, by the fact, that they were Jews
Troublingly, we have entered again this same degrading ethos where people are being judged by whether they are white, black or a particular nationality
With the loss of Christianity in the West, the West is gravitating back to a tribalism mentality
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Naomi & her husband had to make the wisest choice that was available to them at the time
Either starve to death or go to a place that has food
We can’t condemn them for that
Joseph was betrayed by his brothers & was taken to Egypt which later became a source of food for all of Israel as they came down to Egypt to live with Joseph since the land of Israel had no food
In due time, however, they were enslaved by the Pharaohs while they were in Egypt
2. Naomi Gives Up
2. Naomi Gives Up
Naomi’s situation was just plain sad
She had lost her husband, then over a period of 10 yrs, she also lost her two sons - all her children
That may seem very sad that she lost the ones she loved
But it way worse than that
Your husband & your sons was a source of security for a woman
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Q. Who would plough & do the heavily weighted jobs that men with muscles could handle?
Q. Who would offer protection against other men who wanted to take advantage of Naomi?
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All Naomi had left was her daughter-in-laws
She could leach off them, I suppose
She could manipulate & threaten them to keep helping her, but Naomi has a heart
You might think by the way this text reads that she is telling them to go home to their families as she no longer wants them
But that is not the case either. No doubt, she was wanting them to stay with her
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However, these were still young women who did not even had children & children were the highest priority & calling for a woman
Q. What could Naomi do to provide opportunity for children for her daughters-in-laws: Ruth & Orpah?
Naomi, in her decision, to send her daughters-in-law back to their families was an unselfish one since they were young & still had their lives before them
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However, one daughter-in-law would not leave Naomi - she was a clingon
Ruth just refused to leave & refused under much pleading by Naomi
Ruth, then, accompanies her back to Bethlehem in Israel which is where Naomi & her husband previously lived
Q. Did your ears prick up with the mention of Bethlehem?
You would be right in your thoughts, but we are getting ahead of ourselves
3. Ruth’s Noble Character
3. Ruth’s Noble Character
Q. What is the typical religion of the Moabites?
Before that, though, who are the Moabites
Abraham’s brother was Haran & Haran’s son was Lot
Lot, therefore, is Abraham’s nephew
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Lot’s firstborn son was named Moab from whom came the Moabites
They live just to the east of the lower part of the Dead Sea
This is where Ruth was born & was raised
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You would think that they believed in the God of Abraham - with the close family connection that Abraham had with Lot
But it was not to be, even after Sodom & Gomorrah, where Lot lived, you would have thought that Lot would have become a worshipper of Yahweh
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Either way, the Moabites were renowned for following Chemosh
A famous stone called the Moabite Stone was discovered in 1868 & it has some important information on it
It speaks of Omri, the father of King Ahab whose wife was Jezebel
Mesha is the throne name of the king of Moab, just as Pharoah is the throne name for the King of Egypt
“I am Mesha, son of Chemosh, king of Moab, the Dibonite. My father ruled over Moab thirty years, and I became king after my father. I made this high place for Chemosh in Qarḥoh as a high place of deliverance… Omri, the king of Israel, had oppressed Moab many days because Chemosh was angry with his land.”
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The god Chemosh was over Moab & was regarded by the prophets as a detestable god
7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon.
26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took with him 700 men who drew swords, to break through to the king of Edom; but they could not. 27 Then he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath against Israel, and they departed from him and returned to their own land.
He offered his oldest son in sacrifice to Chemosh
The last verse can be interpreted as “great wrath came upon Israel” in that they were angry & disgusted by the sacrifice of the oldest son
Interestingly, the Septuagint which is the Greek version of the OT, has the word “regret” - great regret came upon Israel & they withdrew
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Child sacrifice was practised in this day, but not as much as is practised by our own culture
Just as babies in the womb are now regarded, as a matter of law, as the mother’s property, children in these earlier times were sacrificed for the sake of pleasing the god - by living on in your children, you were giving up your future
Now my little throw away line about property might be upsetting to some, but it is the truth
People baulk at calling a child property, but what else can you term this situation?
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Some laws in Australia allow for the killing of a child in the womb up to birth & it not only permits it, but will help the woman out with it
Yet, if the woman wants the child, anyone who harms that child whether it be by accident or intent, then the law will come after that person
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Q. How can either life or death for the child, pivot on whether the mother wants her child or not?
Simple - imagine if the baby is an ageing mobile phone
If someone were to steal that phone, the law would come after that person, yet if the owner wants to get rid of that phone, one of the recycling companies might pay you a little for it, to either re-furbish it, or to recycle it’s parts
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No one thinks anything of doing that with a phone, yet, as far as law is concerned, babies are treated pretty much the same way
Q. How can this be? Because they are regarded as a woman’s property & not even the father has much of a say
When we drill down to the raw outcome, child sacrifice, is the end result - whether it’s about appeasing gods or about a resulting convenient life - children are thought of as property
It’s really Christianity that has stood against the abuse of children & affirmed their right to exist from conception
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There was another deity that went by the name Ashur or Astoreth
It was a female deity, a goddess of fertility
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What we need to understand is that Ruth was born into this situation & she was raised in this situation
These gods were what she was sold & had to be apart of
But Naomi must have been quite a lady
No doubt, Naomi had a big impact on an already noble character in Ruth
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Ruth refused to leave Naomi - she was with her for the long haul
Ruth made a choice - this is what I want you to see here
She made a choice that, in effect, caused her to turn her back on her people, her old lifestyle & her gods
She went against what we know, as the world, to follow Yahweh
16 But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back 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.
Now in saying this, she has bound herself to the God of Israel whom we know - His personal name revealed to Moses - Yahweh
17 “Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”
She is amazing lady who had an outstanding faithful & noble character who switched sides
She chose light over darkness - her faithfulness shines through her for she was one who doesn’t put her hand to the ploy & take it off
She shines of reliability, faithfulness, loyalty, steadfastness in love
She does right without considering what is best for her or what was “right in her eyes”
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To leave you with this one last thought which actually will propel us forward in the book of Ruth - is this...
22 So Naomi returned, and with her Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, who returned from the land of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.
They came to Bethlehem - who do we associate with Bethlehem - what family & what future outcome
We’ll get into that in the coming weeks as we look at what is happening here in the Ruth story