Ruth Part Two, The Journey Back Home
PPT1
We are studying the book of Ruth and I have entitled this series, "My Redeemer Lives"
A redeemer is one who restores the honor worth and dignity of a thing. It is one who frees from the consequences of sin. It is one who goes after something they consider of value and claims it as their own.
The potter in Jeremiah 18 was a redeemer. He took the piece of clay that was marred and turned it into a masterpiece. That is the message of the book of Ruth. I could well imagine Ruth thought she was under a curse. First life seemed to be pretty good, she married into a wealthy family and seemingly devout man whose name means, "My God is King." But then things started to go south on her, she has two children born with serious sicknesses, in her society that would be thought of as a punishment or an abandonment from God. Then her family is destroyed financially, then her husband dies, then her one son, and finally her last son dies. She winds up reduced to living off of the charity of others.
Others were blest, others were happy, she was under a curse from God. She had things happen in her life that in her mind could not be happening if God loved her. It wasn't just one event it was a whole series of them, that even though they were separated by years they constituted in her mind her life story. To avoid serious bouts of depression you need to learn to interrupt the chain of thoughts that would write in your mind the saddest book the world has ever read.
The wonderful thing about the book of Ruth is that by the end of her book she has made a discovery, and that discovery was that her Redeemer lives and was working even in the most horrible times of her life.
So that by the end of the book she could say:
If any one should ever write my life's story, for whatever reason there might be, You'd be there through each line of pain and sorrow. You're the greatest thing, that ever happened to me.
Your redeemer lives. He will make sense one day of every furrow on your brow. That is the reason the bible says in every thing give thanks, because He is working all things out for good.
PPT 2
De 8:16 Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;
Last week I mentioned that for Christians God has written a law into the fabric of our life that all things work together for good.
PPT 3
Ex 1:11 So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses.
Ex 1:13 And the Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously;
Ex 1:14 and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all [kinds] of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them.
You may have noticed verse 12 is missing, here it is:
PPT 4
Ex 1:12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.
If anyone should ever write my life's story for whatever reason there might be...
Ok lets look at our bible portion
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Ruth 1:1- 1:6
Ruth 1:1 Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons.
2 And 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, Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah. Now they entered the land of Moab and remained there.
3 Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died; and she was left with her two sons.
4 And they took for themselves Moabite women as wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. And they lived there about ten years.
5 Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died; and the woman was bereft of her two children and her husband.
6 ¶ Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the land of Moab, for she had heard in the land of Moab that the LORD had visited His people in giving them food.
Last week I preached that Elimilech and his family may have gone to Moab, something they shouldn't have done in the natural, because Moab was a cursed nation, simple because there was a special woman there by the name of Ruth that God wanted to get saved. Sometimes your water heater breaks down for no other reason than God wants you to minister to a plumber.
That is how we turned the story of Ruth last week. This week we want to turn it in a different direction. The bible is like a diamond it refracts light differently from different viewing angles.
So today I want to examine this text from this light. Elimilech and his family backslid going to Moab, and God used a one, two punch to get them back where they belonged. But some of the family didn't make it. In fact 3 of the 4 died outside of God's will.
I remind you of what we discovered last week that Hebrew names are actual words that become names.
Thou shalt call His name Jesus for He will save His people from their sins.
Thou shalt call His name God is salvation for He will save His people from their sins.
Names are words that have lost their meanings to us.
But originally names were words that we would find in a sentence.
For example adios means good-bye, but originally it was words in a sentence, "I commend you to God" over time it got shortened to "to God" and now it has lost its meaning and means good bye.
Good bye, by the way originally was a sentence that said, "God be with you."
American Indian names are like Jewish names. They aren't names like we think of them, they are words in a sentence that describe something about a person.
Sitting Bull (His real Indian name means slow)
Crazy Horse
Black Hawk (His Indian name means be a large black hawk)
Standing Bear
Hebrew names are exactly the same. We read a name Jews read words as if in a sentence. So when we read of Elimelech and Naomi going to sojourn in the land of Moab the Jews read
PPT 6
So the Hebrew actually says: My God is King, and Mrs. Pleasant, left the house of bread, and the land of praise to temporarily live in the pot God uses for washing dirty feet.
Bethlehem where they were from is the house of bread, Moab is the pot God uses for washing dirty feet. In the original language the contrast between the two dwelling places is incredible. The place outside of the will of God is the pot where dirty stinky feet go.
Notice in verse 1 they went to sojourn, but in verse two we already read they remained there.
PPT 7
Ruth 1:1 Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons.
2 And 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, Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah. Now they entered the land of Moab and remained there.
To sojourn is to dwell for a season, to be a stranger, with your true home somewhere else.
To remain is to choose for yourself a new home.
Whatever their original intentions were, once they made that wrong turn they came under the power of that decision. They went to sojourn, they were only going to miss church for a Sunday. Then it became two Sundays. Before they knew it, it was a year, they got very comfortable living in Moab.
When you get comfortable living in Moab God will pull out all the stops to speak to you.
PPT 8
Boys playing around will often have a conversation that goes something like this. I am going to whoop your tail. Oh yeah, you and what army? The first boy then holds up his fists one at a time and says, "First battalion, second battalion."
God has a first and second battalion when His people journey to Moab.
The first battalion is Conscience
This was the story in MYFOX Boston from Friday 15 April 2011
41 years after the murder of 15 year old John McCabe of Tewksbury, three suspects finally go before the judge.
60-year-old Walter Shelley, of Tewksbury, and 57 year old Michael Ferreira of Salem. New Hampshire are now charged with murder.
59-year-old Allan Edward Brown of Londonderry, New Hampshire charged with manslaughter.
McCabe's elderly parents looked on, knowing they never stopped pushing police to arrest their son's killers.
Bill McCabe, John's father, says, "No I never gave up. I kept calling I'm guessing I probably made a thousand calls in the last 41 and a half years."
Evelyn McCabe, John's mother, says, "I prayed every single night and I wear my medals every single day and I ask God. I think it had to be solved."
In September of 1969, McCabe's body was found in a vacant lot off Maple Street in Lowell. He'd been tied with rope linking his wrist ankles and neck. Adhesive tape covered his eyes and mouth.
He was strangled, police believe, trying to free himself.
Police say it was Brown who had an attack of conscience all this time later. He finally confessed to details known only to the killers after Lowell detectives revisited the case.
He had an attack of conscience. Interesting wording. God can and will use your conscience to ruin a party, to take your sleep away, to disturb your thoughts, to unsettle your boat, to trouble your waters, to foul your pleasures, to ruin your appetite. I wonder how many people have committed adultery but their conscience caused them to hate every minute of it. A trouble conscience is a sign of the love of God.
God will use your conscience and bring you back to the place your first left the road.
You may have left the road as recently as last night.
Let me explain what I mean by bringing you back to the place your first left the road:
Illus: You make a decision you turn your back on the Lord, and then you spend a season away from him. You eventually repent and come back to the Lord, well and good. Repentance is usually general not specific. There will still come a day where God will bring you back to the very spot you left the road, I know you repented in general but this is the very spot you left the road. This is the day this is the time this is the place. These are the thoughts that were going through your head. This is the error that opened the door to all the others. Face it, fess it, and forsake it.
PPT 9
In LOTR Frodo is stabbed with a sword and the wound is one from which it was said they did not know if he would ever fully recover from it.
The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, but it does not undo all that sin does to us.
God doesn't want you stabbed by the sword of an evil prince. So He uses your conscience as a tool to get you out of Moab, and to keep you from ever going back there.
God's second battalion is the fist of the good news.
PPT 10
Ru 1:6 ¶ Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread.
She had heard how the Lord had visited His people in giving them bread. This is the one two punch of law and grace. The law says you have done wrong, grace says I still want you to come home.
Ruth returned because she heard God was mercifully giving bread to people. People need to hear of the mercy of God, it will bring them home.
Naaman a Syrian general was a leper, an outcast, but he heard from a little Jewish girl that there was a prophet in Israel, and a God in Israel who heals leprosy. He journeyed far into a foreign land but there he had the longing of his soul satisfied.
The people of Samaria heard from a woman of ill repute of a prophet named Jesus who knew the secret faults in peoples lives and yet offered them living water that whosoever drank it would never thirst again.
With one hand God will smite your conscience, but with the other He will hold out bread that satisfies the sin sick soul.
So that people who left the house of God's bread and journeyed to the dirt pot and there found their consciences stirred and then heard of God who forgives, a God who welcomes home, a God who abundantly pardons, they could then sing with the greatest of saints
If anyone should every write my life's story...
Close:
1. You have left the road and you are not where you should be
2. God has smitten your conscience about something in your past. Thank Him.
3. God help me to tell people in Moab that there is bread available to fill the longing of their soul.
