Ruth chapter 1.
These took Moabite wives.
The name of one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth.
They lived there about ten years, and both Malon and Kilion died,
so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab,
for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited His people and given them food.
So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law,
and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.
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.
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.
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.
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 the barley harvest.
This is God's holy word.
But tonight we're going to start a new series in the book of Ruth.
And if you know anything about the book of Ruth,
you probably know the first thing you think about is Ruth as a love story,
a story between the love between a godly man called Boaz
and a poor immigrant woman called Ruth,
or maybe the love that Ruth has for her mother-in-law, Naomi.
Or maybe you think about the love that God shows towards his people
when he brings food back to a land that was suffering from famine.
But if you were an ancient Israelite, the very start of Ruth doesn't feel like a love story,
because the first few words are,
in the days when the judges ruled.
And when the book starts like this, this is an ominous sign.
And the book presumes that you know what this means.
So in our Bibles, Ruth comes just after the book of Judges.
And in the book of Judges, there was no king in Israel.
And these judges, these tribal clan leaders, were in charge of what happened.
And the book ends by saying everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
So what we see in the book of Judges is to come just before Ruth is turmoil
of some good leaders and some good things,
some horrific leaders and some horrific things,
almost in a cycle where people stray from God and things go wrong,
come back to God and things go right.
So if you're thinking about the days when the judges ruled,
you're thinking, wait a minute, there might be trouble ahead.
There wasn't a king.
People did whatever they wanted.
And a lot of the time, it was lawless disaster.
So this love story doesn't start once upon a time.
It starts with a big flashing neon danger sign.
And that's the threat that hangs over this story at the beginning.
But it does evolve into a story of love.
After the highs and lows of the book of Judges,
it reminds us that God through all is working.
Yahweh, I am, our God, is not missing when things go wrong.
That he is working through all these things to his glory and to our good.
He's the God of the big and the miraculous.
But he's also the God of the everyday.
He performs supernatural sign after supernatural sign.
But he also works in the lives of ordinary people to bring about extraordinary things.
So over the next four Sundays, we're going to take each chapter,
each of the four chapters one at a time.
And tonight in chapter one, we're going to step into this account which Cody read for us,
which is really, I think, an account of deep, honest suffering and apparent emptiness
where it seems as though God is missing,
but where in fact God is orchestrating all things to their ultimate fulfillment.
And the question for us is that wherever we are in life,
however we got here tonight, however we are feeling,
if we feel like we are far from God or we feel that God is not on our side,
when we think our situation can't get much worse,
God is in fact weaving together a plan when our faith is in him,
as hard as it is for us to see, to his glory and to our good.
So God's orchestrating all things, in all circumstances.
And we're going to look at three circumstances that we see in the book of Ruth,
Ruth chapter one tonight, three hard circumstances,
but we see that God is there.
When pleasantness becomes bitterness,
then we're going to think about when friendship costs everything.
And then finally, we're going to think about when it seems like there's no hope.
Okay, so first, when pleasantness becomes bitterness.
So our story begins, and my pronunciation is going to be different from Corey's,
with a man called Elimelech.
And Elimelech means my God is king.
We're going to see that names throughout the book of Ruth are pretty significant.
He lives in a town called Bethlehem.
And Bethlehem, maybe you know, means house of bread.
And remember, we're in the time of the judges, so it's moral and religious chaos.
And we shouldn't be surprised when we read there's a famine.
Because Jesus hasn't come.
God's people are living under his law.
They've not been obeying his law.
And they're under divine discipline.
So this man, God is my king, takes his family out of the land that God has gifted to his people,
this special promised land, and he takes them back east to where they've come from.
The man from the house of bread leaves the house of bread because there is no bread.
But in verse 3, already, Elimelech dies.
And he leaves his wife, Naomi, with her two sons.
And the name of the first son is Malon.
And the root word in Hebrew for his name is the same as the word for sick.
And the name of the second son is Kilion.
And the root word that can be derived from his name means something like comes to an end.
Both the sons marry local girls.
And then maybe given their names, sick boy and come to an end,
we shouldn't be surprised that they die as well.
Three verses and three deaths covers about a decade of time.
And the family that's left home looking for a better life has been blown apart by tragedy.
Naomi's lost all the men in her life.
So as well as the hurt and the pain that she's feeling as a wife and a mother,
in this highly patriarchal society, it also means that she's without a male protector, a male provider.
So to a large extent, Naomi is in a strange land.
She's destitute and she's highly vulnerable.
And this sets up the key question that the book of Ruth answers for us.
What's going to happen to Naomi?
Naomi.
So the idea of seed in the Old Testament is really important.
Both the seeds that you sow in the ground, in the land,
but also seed in terms of offspring.
People who are going to protect you in your old age,
carry on the family line, maintain your land.
Now Naomi's lost both kinds of seeds.
She's lost, she's no grain, and she's no offspring either.
So the harsh reality for Naomi is that she's probably facing a couple of pretty hard choices.
She can sell herself into slavery and work for her food.
Or she can pursue one of the few jobs that are available to women in this kind of culture,
which might include something like prostitution.
So her prospects are not very good.
And notice the narrator, he doesn't suggest that this is Naomi's fault,
that she deserves what she's got.
It doesn't explain either why God has chosen to do this.
And I think that silence actually speaks quite a lot, quite loudly for us,
because the Bible is ruthlessly honest about the fact that we live in a fallen world,
and that all around us, terrible things happen to people who we presume are innocent all the time.
In fact, the Bible's much better at dealing with grief than I think we are in modern Scotland today.
We so often feel like we have to downplay our sadness or our grief or our pain,
because we don't want to get a reputation as being the kind of person who complains.
Or maybe we feel like we need to look inside ourselves
and use our own strength to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,
reframe our problems maybe in a positive way,
think about them differently so we can work through them,
pull ourselves together.
You see, the Bible doesn't present those as good options
for how to deal with the loss of your husband,
the loss of your children,
or any other suffering or pain that you're going through.
In the midst of pain and suffering,
the Bible teaches us, to be honest,
it calls this lament,
true space for suffering,
and a God who cares deeply about hearing the words that you bring to him.
Every sad, confused,
even angry cry
that you deliver to our God.
About a third of the Psalms
are made up of lament,
and the writer pouring his heart out
over grief and anxiety,
loss, guilt.
Psalm 88, I think, is the perfect example of lament
because it shows us that God's not embarrassed by your pain.
He's not surprised by your suffering.
God never wants you to hold back
or keep inside the things that you're going through.
In Psalm 88,
it begins with darkness,
there's darkness in the middle,
and it ends with darkness.
And as we read it, as modern readers,
we keep looking for the but.
We're going, where's the turning point?
When's this guy going to stop
and say,
but it's okay, God,
you're going to save me.
But God, I'd remember your mercies.
See, in Psalm 88,
that but doesn't come.
It's purely an outpouring of sorrow to God.
But the key lesson
is that despite everything that's happened,
the writer is still coming to God.
Sometimes this is all that we can do.
Sometimes with groanings that don't even form words.
But God wants us to bring them to him.
And he hears us.
Lament says,
God, I don't understand what you're doing right now.
But I'm coming to you
because I've got nowhere else to go.
So Naomi has heard that there's bread in Judah.
So despite her loss and her sadness,
despite telling her daughter-in-law
that God's been bitter with her in verse 13,
and notice in verse 19,
she doesn't just say,
God's been bitter to me.
She changes her name to bitterness.
Mara means bitterness.
Naomi means pleasantness.
Mara means bitterness.
And she's changed her name.
She's not just saying,
God's done bitter things to me
or bitter things have happened to me.
She's saying,
bitter is who I am.
That's my identity now.
But despite that,
she has a promise of food back home.
A promise that God has been good to his people.
And she heads for home.
And as we carry on through the book of Ruth,
it becomes really clear
that Naomi's tragedy,
and it is a tragedy,
was not an interruption to God's plan.
It was part of it.
So no matter where you are tonight,
no matter how you got here,
whatever pain you're carrying,
God is not absent from that story.
And as hard as it is sometimes to hear,
he's working in it all.
And rather than being hard to hear,
that's a comfort,
because God has not left.
Often, as we're going to see
as we go through Ruth,
God's hand is only visible
with the benefit of hindsight
when we look back.
But as Naomi has a promise,
and she's holding on to this promise,
even in the midst of your suffering today,
you've got a promise too.
A promise of true restoration
that's available for everyone through Jesus.
Okay, second point.
When friendship costs everything.
So from the setup
in this first five verses of the story,
we see that Naomi's,
the main character,
is going to be how,
what's going to happen to Naomi
is what we're going to get to in the end.
But Ruth's the heroine.
And verse six,
Naomi sets off for Bethlehem
with her two daughters-in-law,
Orpah and Ruth.
But after a little while,
she stops and she says,
you guys should go home
to your own families.
Verse eight says,
go, return each of you
to your mother's house.
May the Lord deal kindly with you
as you've dealt with the dead
and with me.
And that word,
kindly,
that Naomi uses here
is central
to the whole book of Ruth.
So in Hebrew,
it's the word hesed,
which is often translated
as steadfast love.
So an example of hesed love,
I think,
is in Genesis,
right at the end,
chapter 47,
where Jacob is living in Egypt.
He's there because of famine.
And he's coming to the end of his life
and he calls his son Joseph to him.
And he says to Joseph,
deal kindly with me.
When I die,
take me home
and bury me in my own land.
And that word kindly,
deal kindly with me,
is this same word hesed.
And one of the things
that makes this hesed
is a good example of hesed
is because Joseph knows
that there's no way
that he's going to be repaid
for the love that he shows.
Committed,
sacrificial,
faithful love
with no way
of getting anything back
in return.
And that's what Naomi says
that her daughters-in-law
have shown to her.
And not just to her,
but to her sons
and to their father-in-law
as well.
They've done everything
that could be expected
of them.
They've walked their
mother-in-law
to the edge
of the town.
They're free
of their commitments.
And so,
here we see a contrast
between the two women.
And I think
Orpah is a deliberate foil
for us to see
what Ruth is doing.
So,
Orpah goes home
and she goes home
to her family
and she goes home
to everything
that she knows.
And there's nothing
villainous
about what Orpah
has done.
She's not bad
for choosing
to do this.
She's done
the reasonable thing.
So,
Naomi's right.
She's not got
any more sons
to give to them.
And the idea
of having a replacement
son
for marriage
is something
we'll come to
later on in the book.
It's a provision
for widows
and for land.
We'll come back
to that.
But there's no future
for these women
in following Naomi.
The sensible thing
is exactly
what Orpah does.
But Ruth
is clingy.
So,
Ruth means
companion
or friend.
And she says
that she's
going to trust
Yahweh,
the God of Israel's
hesed.
She's going to
trust his faithful
love
and go further
by demonstrating
hesed,
faithful love
to Naomi,
her mother-in-law.
So,
like Joseph
with Jacob,
Ruth gives
her steadfast love
to Naomi
and says,
I'm going to
come with you
no matter what.
And in this
remarkable short
speech that Ruth
makes to Naomi,
one of the most
remarkable speeches
I think we have
in the whole Bible
is amazing.
In verses 16 and 17,
she says,
do not urge me
to leave you
or to return
from following you.
For where you go,
I will go.
Where you lodge,
I will lodge.
Your people
will be my people
and your God
will be 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.
So,
Ruth is making
a lifelong
commitment to Naomi.
Wherever we go
in life,
we're going together.
And see how
the phrases
that she uses
increases
in intensity
each time?
So,
she goes,
I'll go wherever
you go
and then she says,
I'll live
where you live
and she says,
I'll become
one of your people
and then she says,
I'll worship
your God
and she's not
just given up
the beauty of Edinburgh
for the mean streets
of Glasgow,
she's given up
her whole life
to follow Naomi
till death
do us part
and even beyond
death.
She says,
when I die,
I'll be buried
in your land
and we can miss
the significance
of this
as modern people
because we aren't
tied to land
in the way
that the people
were in the ancient
Near East.
So,
in the ancient
Near East
and pagan societies,
specific gods
were often
associated
with geographical
locations.
So,
when Ruth says
that,
I'll follow you
wherever you go
and I'll be buried
wherever you're buried,
she's giving herself
to Naomi
for life
and in the afterlife.
She's entrusting
herself
to Naomi's God,
Yahweh,
the God of Israel,
now
and for all
of eternity.
And then she swears
to it
by Yahweh as well.
So,
this is a truly
remarkable
surrender
to the God
of Israel
from somebody
who is a total
outsider,
somebody who wasn't
born into
this people,
who isn't from
this land,
who hasn't
experienced
the specific
blessings
that other people,
others of God's
people,
have experienced.
I mean,
to this point,
with the words
that Naomi uses,
all that Ruth
really knows
of Yahweh
is that she is
punishing her
mother-in-law,
or she's judging
her mother-in-law,
and yet,
she binds
herself to him
through Naomi.
So,
we see
Ruth's
dedication
to Naomi,
utter dedication.
But I think
we have to
question
Naomi's
dedication
to her
daughters-in-law,
because she
tells them
to go back,
back to their
gods.
So,
I think we've
got maybe two
different possibilities
here.
Either Naomi
thought that
Orpah and
Ruth are not
the kind of
people who are
going to be
interested in
her God,
God.
Or she
thought that
the God of
Israel,
her God,
our God,
wouldn't be
interested in
them.
You might have
noticed that
throughout the
book so far,
Ruth is
referred to as
the Moabite.
So,
that's not to
distinguish her
from all the
other Ruths in
the book.
There's only one
Ruth in this
story.
But when my
God is king,
when Elimelech
left the
promised land,
he didn't just
go anywhere,
he went to
Moab,
which is
Israel's
ancient enemy.
And just
an example of
how far God's
hesed,
God's faithful
love extends,
is it extends
all the way
to this
territory,
where people
are enemies
of his
people.
As New
Testament
believers,
when we read
Matthew 28,
and the Great
Commission,
and Jesus
tells us to
go and make
disciples of
all nations,
I think the
question that we
have to ask
ourselves is,
who are the
Moabites in
our lives?
Who are the
people that we
live among that
we think are
just too
different from
the kind of
people that
would be
interested in
God?
Or who are
the people that
are so far
off, live
life so far
from what
is expected
of a Christian
that God
wouldn't be
interested in
them?
Do we try to
convince ourselves
maybe that
they're better
off in the
situation,
that they're
in?
Because we
feel uncomfortable
talking to
them about
the eternal,
about the
spiritual,
about faith.
Remember,
Corey told us
this morning
from James,
sharing the
gospel isn't
casting judgment
on people,
on the way
that they live
their lives.
It's a
mercy.
Apart from
God,
everybody is
destitute.
Everybody's
dying.
everybody's
living in a
strange land
with no
hope.
But God's
chesed,
his faithful
love,
brings sinners,
all sinners,
back home
when they put
their faith
in him.
and at the
same time,
if this
person that
you think
that God
might not be
interested in
is yourself,
if you think
God looks at
your life,
sees how far
you've gone,
the things that
you've done,
the lengths
that you've
gone to to get
away from him
perhaps,
and that he's
not going to be
interested in
you,
look at the
lengths God
goes to
to save
one widow
from Israel's
enemies.
No matter how
far away that
you think you
are,
know that God
is a God
who loves
enemies.
Okay,
thirdly,
and finally,
when it seems
as though all
hope is gone.
In the movie
Gladiator,
which is one of
my favorites,
Maximus is the
commander of the
Roman armies of
the north,
and he's been
winning battle
after battle,
and he's
amazing,
and his men
love him,
and the
Roman emperor
and the rulers,
they all think
he's amazing,
he's got all
their respect,
but despite all
his victories,
all his praise,
he can have his
pick of jobs
wherever he wants,
all Maximus
wants to do
is go home.
He just wants
to go home
to his wife,
to his son,
to his homestead,
and live a simple
life,
to live in peace,
but despite
everything,
when he leaves,
he gets back,
he finally gets
home,
and his wife
and his son
are dead.
The house is
still there,
but everything
that Maximus
had been dreaming
about while he
was in the battle
has gone.
All the things
that made it a
home don't exist
anymore.
The place that
he longed for
has become a
place of grief,
and that's kind
of what Bethlehem
has become like
for Naomi
when she goes
home.
So this is the
place that she
belongs,
but everything
that made it
at home
has been taken
away,
has gone.
She went out
full,
with a husband
and kids,
and she's come
back,
and her house
is empty.
Except she's
not empty.
Naomi couldn't
have timed
her return
to Bethlehem
any better
if she tried.
The story
started with
an ominous
warning signal
in the days
when the judges
ruled.
But chapter 1
ends with real
hope.
What might seem
like an almost
throwaway line,
they came to
Bethlehem at the
beginning of
barley harvest,
is a promise
fulfilled.
The famine's
over,
there is once
again bread in
the house of
bread.
And it's also
a sign of
more to come.
So barley is
the first of
the crops that
are brought
in.
And that
means that
if barley is
the first crop
that's going
to be brought
in,
there's more
to come.
If there's
bread today,
there's going
to be more
bread,
more good
stuff to
follow in
the future.
But as
well as
that,
as well as
food,
Naomi also
has Ruth.
In verse
19,
the two of
them arrive
in Bethlehem
and the
whole town
is in
uproar,
it's in
a stir.
And the
women of
the town,
they say,
this can't
be Naomi,
is it?
So they
don't mention
at all the
young woman
that's with
her.
When Naomi
says that
she's come
back empty,
Ruth's invisible
to Naomi too.
But just as
we finish,
let's jump
back a little
bit to Naomi's
speech in
verse 16 and
17.
let's just
read those
amazing words
again.
Because Ruth
says,
do not urge
me to leave
you or to
return from
following you.
For where
you go,
I will go.
Where you
lodge,
I will lodge.
Your people
will 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 of
anything but
death parts
me from
you.
What is
Ruth actually
saying here?
So she's
saying I'll
be with
you.
She's
saying I'll
go with
you.
She's
saying I
won't ever
leave you.
But she's
saying something
else as well.
She's saying
I'll take
your place.
Because Naomi
is a childless
widow with
no way of
saving herself
in a strange
land.
And Ruth
is saying I'll
be the
childless
widow in
a strange
land so
you can go
home.
I'll
substitute
myself
for you
because I
love you
to death.
So Naomi's
lost both
kinds of
seed.
She's
lost food
and she's
lost offspring.
One of
them has
been restored.
There's
food in
Bethlehem.
And in
this moment
Ruth is a
picture of
the other
kind of
seed that's
coming.
The great
ultimate
offspring.
of the
land of
Bethlehem.
Jesus.
The friend
who sticks
closer than
a loving
daughter-in-law.
The one
who chose
to put
himself into
exile to
save his
people.
People have
likened
Naomi's
story here
to the
prodigal
son.
So the
prodigal
son in
the New
Testament,
the parable
of Jesus
says,
goes out
into a
strange
land and
loses
everything.
Is
destitute
and is
dying.
Until he
remembers
his father's
house,
his bread
enough
and to
spare.
And he
returns
home.
And when
he gets
home,
his brother,
his jealous
older brother,
won't come
into the
feast because
he's jealous
of this
younger son
and what's
happening to
him.
But in
Jesus,
we've got an
older brother
as well.
He doesn't
just welcome
his home.
The older
brother,
our older
brother,
Jesus,
he went
out into
exile,
leaving all
the comforts
of home
to carry
you back
on his
shoulders.
And this
is what
Ruth is
pointing us
to.
Jesus,
who's from
the offspring
of Naomi,
who saw
us poor,
dying
sinners,
exiled in
a strange
land with
no way of
saving
ourselves,
and he
said,
I'll take
your place.
I'll take
your brokenness,
your suffering,
all your
pain,
your every
wrong turn,
your every
angry word,
your every
bad thought,
I'll take
them all the
way to
the cross.
I'll substitute
myself for
you so you
can come to
your true
home, to
your loving
God.
Jesus, who
the New
Testament calls
the bread of
life, he
came to
save us,
to heal us,
from all our
sufferings, and
to satisfy our
deepest desires
forever.
Let's pray.
Lord God, we
thank you that
when we were
far from you,
in a strange
place, lost,
starving, no
means of saving
ourselves, you
sent your son
Jesus to come
for us and
bring us home.
Now we thank
you that as we
journey through
life's challenges,
we're never truly
alone because we
have one who
sticks closer
than a brother,
closer than a
loving daughter-in-law
who will never
leave us, who
demonstrated that
chesed love to
us by laying
down his life
for ours.
Lord, thank you
that in Jesus you
reveal to us the
extent of your
love.
So tonight,
right now, we
can lay all our
hurts, our grief,
our sorrow before
you because we
know that you're
the one who can
offer us peace,
and who will
ultimately wipe
every tear from
every eye and
satisfy your deepest
desires.
We pray this in the
name of Jesus,
the bread of life.
Amen.