Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Ruth 1:1-22

Theme: Ruth serves as a wonderful example of God's providential care of his people, and of his willingness to accept Gentiles who seek him.

Date: 08/14/2022 File Name: Ruth_01 Code: OT08-01

We’re going to begin a mini-series — just four sermons — through the Book of Ruth.

The story of Ruth tells of a young Moabite widow who, out of love for her widowed Israelite mother-in-law, abandoned her own culture, declaring, “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (1:16).

Though she was destitute and needing to rely on the kindness of others, Ruth’s disposition and character captured the attention of Boaz, a close relative of her deceased husband.

Boaz fulfilled the role of kinsman-redeemer and took Ruth as his wife.

The story of Ruth serves as a wonderful example of God’s providential care of his people, and of his willingness to accept all who seek him.

It’s also a great love story!

When Benjamin Franklin was the Ambassador to France, he occasionally attended the “Infidels Club” — a group of French philosophers who spent most of their time searching for and reading literary masterpieces.

They also made no bones about their disdain of the Scriptures and the things of God.

While Benjamin Franklin was not a Christian himself, he valued the Bible as literature.

On one occasion Franklin read the book of Ruth to the club — kind of.

Franklin wrote out the story of Ruth in his own handwriting, changing all the Hebrew names to French ones, and Biblical locations to French locations so it would not be recognized as a book of the Bible.

When he finished reading his story, his aristocratic listeners were unanimous in their praise.

They said it was one of the most beautiful short stories that they had ever heard, and demanded that he tell them where he had run across such a remarkable love story.

He took great delight in telling them that it came from the Bible, a book they all despised!

The Book of Ruth is more than just a Hebrew romance novel.

Romans 15:4 says, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Paul is referring here to the Old Testament, including the book of Ruth.

It is a wonderful Hebrew romance story, but, as we shall see over the coming weeks, it is so much more — it’s the story of God's providential care of His people, and of His willingness to accept all who seek Him.

Ruth’s Desperate Condition

Ruth’s Devoted Decision

Ruth’s Divine Provision

I. RUTH'S DESPERATE CONDITION

1. let me take a few minutes to give you the “back-story” to Ruth’s story

Her story begins with her father-in-law.

He is an Israelite, and his name was Elimelech.

He had a wife named Naomi.

Together they have two sons ... Mahlon and Chilion

They are living during the historical period of the Judges where, according to the last line of the Book of Judges we’re told, “In those days there was no king in Israel.

Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

(Judges 21:25, ESV)

Elimelech and Naomi are both from the city of Bethlehem, with means "the house of bread."

But because of Israel’s idolatry there is a famine in the land — there is no “bread” in the “house of bread”

They leave Israel with their two sons and went into the country of Moab — a small kingdom in the highlands just East of the Dead Sea — hoping there that they could escape the famine in Judah.

(The Moabites are what we would today call Israel’s kith and kin, tracing their ancestry to Abraham’s nephew, Lot)

While liivng in Moab Elimelech dies.

The two boys married Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth.

Sadly, within a decade of her husband’s death, both of her sons have also died, leaving Naomi and her two daughters-in-laws as widows.

They received word that the famine in Judah had ended and they make plans to return to Bethlehem.

2. this brings us to the life-event Ruth is now experiencing

a. there are three things to know about her life

A. RUTH LIVED A CURSED LIFE

1. Ruth was a woman under a curse, from a people under a curse

a. and why was she under a curse?

1) because she was a Moabitess

““No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD.

Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the LORD forever,” (Deuteronomy 23:3, ESV)

a) God is clear — no Moabite should ever be allowed into the family of Israel

2) why was there such a curse upon the people of Moab?

2. if you remember the story, Moab was the son of Lot through an incestuous relationship with his own daughter

a. by the time of the Judges the Moabites had become a thorn in the side of Israel

1) they were hated by Israel, and the Moabites returned that hatred in kind

ILLUS.

You might remember that it was the Moabite Kind, Balak who hired Balaam to curse Israel.

b. the Moabites were representative of all the pagan nations around Israel who hated God and hated the people of God

c. but Ruth loves her mother-in-law and becomes a convert to the One True God making Naomi’s God her God

3. why is this part of the story important?

a. Ruth represents all of us — we were once under the curse of God, but God received us when we came to Him in faith

“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

(Ephesians 2:11–13, ESV)

b. just as Ruth was a girl that had a curse upon her and was outside the household of Israel, and the commonwealth of God, all of us were once unsaved, and in the same condition

1) spiritually, we were under the curse

c. but like Ruth clung to Naomi and Naomi’s God became Ruth’s God, someone told us about the one true God, and in faith we now cling to Christ as our only hope, and when we did God became our True God and Father

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,” (Ephesians 2:19, ESV)

B. RUTH LIVED A CRUSHED LIFE

“and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.”

(Ruth 1:5, ESV)

1. at that time, to become a widow was a calamitous event

a. unless a woman had sons or grandsons to take care of her a widow either had to remarry relatively quickly, or be reduced to poverty and perhaps starvation

1) young women, like Ruth and Orpah, if they didn’t remarry soon, might be reduced to prostitution

b. with the death of Mahlon and Chilion these women’s lives are literally hanging in the balance

2. Ruth’s life is also filled with sorrow — her husband is dead, she’s been left childless

a. her life has just become very complicated and very quickly

b. her mother-in-law is strongly encouraging her to return to her own family

“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?

12 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, 13 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.””

(Ruth 1:11–13, ESV)

1) Naomi essentially tells her daughters-in-law, “I have nothing to offer you.

You need to go home to your families.”

3. sooner or later, this is true of every unsaved person

a. sooner-or-later everyone is crushed under the heel of Satan, sin, sorrow, and death!

C. RUTH LIVED A CONDEMNED LIFE

1. because of her circumstances, Ruth is condemned to a life of sorrow and a life of destitution

a. whatever inheritance her husband may have left, it all went to his nearest male relative — Ruth got nothing

b. and unless she is redeemed by a near kinsman of her deceased husband she is condemned to a life of poverty

2. outside of Christ, all men are as equally condemned just as Ruth was condemned by the death of he husband

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (John 3:18, ESV)

a. each of us has the mark of Adam upon us — because of Adam’s sin we will all die physically, but more seriously, because of Adam’s sin we all died spiritually in him

1) Adam forfeited the inheritance of sinlessness and immortality that initially belonged to all men

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—” (Romans 5:12, ESV)

b. in Adam each of has been condemned to spiritual poverty, physical death, and eternal perdition

3. like Ruth, we need a miraculous intervention if we are to survive

... Ruth’s life, after the death of her husband, is an illustration of the lost man’s predicament — his life is cursed, crushed and condemned