Walking in the Wilderness - Ruth 1:1-5 - January 20, 2013
Series: From Heartache to Hope – The Redemption of Ruth - #1
Some years ago I was given, as a gift, a copy of the New Testament. I truly appreciate the thought that went into that gift, and the heart with which it was given, but as I flipped through the pages of that Bible I found myself a little discouraged just the same. Now don’t misunderstand me here; there was nothing wrong with the Bible itself. It was beautifully bound, of a good size to fit in a pocket, useful to take with me when I did visitations or travelled, the only problem was, that being just the New Testament, I was missing out on a good portion of God’s word.
And that wouldn’t faze many people today – after all, it’s in the New Testament, that we find the record of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. But friends, if we aren’t getting into all of God’s word, then we are missing out on some of what God has chosen to reveal to us about Himself. There is a verse in the New Testament book of Romans that reads like this: “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.” (Romans 15:4, NIV84)
When Paul refers to “everything that was written in the past,” he’s speaking about the books that make up the Old Testament, and he’s saying that God has a purpose for us even in these books. They are there for our instruction, for our encouragement, and so that we might have hope in the present day. And so it was that awhile back we took a number of weeks and looked at the life and times of the prophet Elijah. This morning we are going to return to the Old Testament for a bit as we look at the life and times of another individual whose story may speak to where we are at today, and whose testimony out of the darkness of heartache and despair, may both encourage us, and bring forth new hope in our hearts as we see God at work.
We are going to look into the life and times of a woman named Ruth, and we find her story in the book that bears her name. So turn with me, if you will, to the book of Ruth, and we are going to begin reading in verse 1. If you’re not sure where to look, you’ll find the book of Ruth close to the beginning of your Bibles – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and then finally, the book of Ruth.
At just 85 verses, this book is one of the shorter books of Scripture. You can easily read it in less than 15 minutes. And I would encourage you to take the time to read through this book at least once a week during the course of this series. It’s a book that’s been called one of the most beautiful short stories ever written, and it is acknowledged as one of the greatest pieces of literature to find it’s way into our hearts – and this by those who are not necessarily people of faith.
However I want you to know too, that it’s more than just a story. It is God’s word to us today; Ruth, and all the others that we meet in the pages of this book, they were real men and real women, and this is the story of their lives. And we are going to discover that the streams of heartache and sorrow that run through their lives, are often reflected in our own as well. Even more importantly, we will discover that this is God’s story, and we will see His hand moving in history. And as such it is not just a story of heartache and sorrow, but it’s one of grace and redemption, of hope and new life. It is a story for us today, so let’s begin reading in verse 1 …
“In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. Now Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.” (Ruth 1:1–5, NIV84)
This was not a good time in the nation of Israel. These events took place in the days of the judges and those where days of apostasy and despair; years when God’s people, turned from God’s ways. And if you were to read through the book of Judges you would see a pattern emerge. First there is a spiritual falling away among the people. There is little to no interest in the things of God. They go on this way for a time, God giving them opportunities to return to Him, but the people persist in going their own way, and so God sends forth a foreign army to oppress His people. Under the harsh thumb of the oppressor, hearts begin to change, the people of Israel remember the Lord their God, and they began to call out to Him for help and deliverance. In response God raises up a savior for them, one who will lead them to victory over the oppressor. What follows is a time of spiritual renewal and interest in the things of God and there is a time of peace in the land. But then the deliverer that God has raised up, dies, and the cycle begins again with the people falling away, and turning their backs on the Lord.
The book of Judges closes with these words: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” (Judges 21:25, NIV84) That is the background then for Ruth’s story. Israel has no king, and everyone does what he sees fit; each one is a law unto himself and does what seems good to him, and God’s judgement has fallen on the land.
Now keep in mind that this is the “Promised Land.” This is the land to which God had led His people so many years before; a place of their own that was rich in all the life and produce that they would need. It is described as a land flowing with “milk and honey,” – but the milk and honey aren’t flowing anymore; instead there is famine.
So how is it that this once abundant land is now devastated by famine and need? Long before, as the people were being led into the Promised Land God had warned them. He had said to them that if they followed His ways, and did what was right in His eyes, that He would watch over them and prosper them, but that if they persisted in sin there would be consequences to their choices. And He says to them that in that day, “I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.” (Leviticus 26:19–20, NIV84) In other words when famine fell upon the land of Israel it would be a sign of God’s judgment of their sins and the hardness of their hearts; it would be a call to them to repent and to return to Him that they might be forgiven, and the land made whole once again.
And so it is that the once prosperous land is prosperous no more. A famine has settled in and the godly and the ungodly alike are paying the price for the nation’s sin. This then is the situation when we meet Elimelech and his family. They live in Bethlehem in Judah and there’s a lot of irony in those names because “Bethlehem” is a name meaning, “House of Bread,” and “Judah,” means “Praise.” But as there has been no praise in Judah, no heart for God amongst the people, there is now no bread in the House of Bread.
Perhaps it is that you are experiencing a famine in your own life in these days. Not necessarily a famine of food and of water, but maybe for you it is a famine of hope, or of finances, or a famine of peace. Perhaps it is one of health or of faith. Maybe the sky above you is like iron, or the ground beneath you, like bronze, and God seems ever so distant or uncaring, and you find yourself like Elimelech, in the place of having to make a decision that stands to radically change the course of your life.
And men, perhaps we can relate a little bit to Elimelech this morning. Those of you who are husbands and fathers, or sole providers for your family, you will be able to understand in some way the pressure that Elimelech feels to take care of, and to provide for his family, because you’ve felt it too. Elimelech looks around him – there is no work to be had, there is no food in the market, the ground is hard and dry and cracked and the crops aren’t growing – and then he looks in his home and he sees the faces of his wife and his sons. And he sees that they are hurting too; the uncertainty and the desperation is there in their eyes. Now we don’t know a lot about his sons but we do learn something about them from their names. The name “Mahlon,” means “sickly” and the name “Kilion,” means “failing” – it could be that these sons of his struggled with poor health since the day they were born – and chances are that any health concerns would only be made worse by the famine that was afflicting the nation.
And so Elimelech has a choice to make, just as we do, when we find ourselves faced with a famine of sorts. Ultimately it’s a choice to walk by sight or to walk by faith. One commentator puts it this ways: “When trouble comes to our lives, we can do one of three things: endure it, escape it, or enlist it. If we only endure our trials, then trials become our master, and we have a tendency to become hard and bitter. If we try to escape our trials, then we will probably miss the purposes God wants to achieve in our lives. But if we learn to enlist our trials, they will become our servants instead of our masters and work for us; and God will work all things together for our good and His glory.” (Warren Wiersbe, Be Committed)
Friends, which one of those three describes your response to those times of famine in your own life? Do you grit your teeth and endure it, but all the while growing hard and bitter inside? That’s what Pharaoh did when he was in the place of decision – grew hardened and bitter towards God and the things of God’s kingdom.
Do you seek to escape it, to flee the famine that you’re facing, and to run away from God? That’s what Jonah tried to do when God sent him to call the people of Nineveh to repentance. He resisted God’s work in his life and as result brought misery and hardship, not just to his own self, but to all those around him as well.
Or do you seek to enlist your trials, to seek to understand what God is trying to teach you, to see His hand at work in and through these things, to allow Him to take the pain, the sorrow, the grief, the fear, and to bring something better out of them? That’s what Joseph did; sold into slavery, falsely accused of a horrendous crime and then imprisoned, his dreams for his life shattered and broken, yet never once did he turn his back on God, and the day eventually came when he was able to proclaim, “that which others had meant for evil, God had used for good.”
We’re all faced with choices in life: Elimelech made the wrong choice. Remember the closing verse from the book of Judges, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit,” (Judges 21:25, NIV84) - that’s what Elimelech did – as he saw fit. His name means, “my God is King,” but by his actions he proves his own name to be false. He does what seems right in his own eyes – not God’s eyes - and he walks by sight – looking around him he sees hopelessness – and decides he needs to escape it. And so what does he do? He leaves the land of Promise and goes to live in the land of Moab. Now understand this: the Moabites were the enemies of God’s people! They had resisted God’s people at every turn and the Israelites were forbidden to have anything to do with them. (Joshua 23:7, 12) In Psalm 108 God calls Moab His, “washbasin,” – and the picture we’re being given in those words is a picture of a defeated, and humiliated nation, washing the feet of the soldiers of a victorious people. Moab was God’s washbasin if you will, and yet this is where Elimelech runs to with his family, in his time of need.
And here’s the problem: Elimelech is no longer walking by faith. He’s simply doing what seems right to him. God is no longer in the equation and so he leaves the land of Promise and goes to live in the land of the enemies of God’s people. It was a real turning away from the things of the Lord. No longer would he and his family be able to gather at the place of worship. No longer could they bring their offerings or participate in the worship of God as the Scriptures commanded. No longer could they join in the festivals as they remembered God’s provision in times past and His promises for times yet to come. Elimelech may have thought he was doing the right thing by his family, but in reality he had taken his eyes off of God, and in doing so he lost his way, and he, and his family, end up paying a steep price for wandering in the wilderness.
We pay a steep price when we lose sight of God and do what seems right in our own eyes, as well. Verse 1 says that Elimelech and his family went to live in Moab for just a little “while.” Like Elimelech we may go and live as the world for just “a while” – just till we get our feet back under us, just till the relationship we’re building with that special someone is stronger, just till we achieve our dreams, just till we reach our goals, just till we get our way, just till the kids come along, or just till the kids are out on their own. But like Elimelech we might just find that we never come back home. Elimelech, and his two sons – the very people he was trying to save by fleeing the Promised Land – all died living amongst God’s enemies.
And there are times when we go to Moab and then blame God when things fall apart. "Philip Yancey writes of being contacted by a television producer after the death of Princess Diana to appear on a show and explain how God could have possibly allowed such a tragic accident. 'Could it have had something to do with a drunk driver going 90 miles an hour in a narrow tunnel?,' he asked the producer. 'How, exactly, was God involved?'
"From this, Yancey reflected on the pervasive nature of the mindset that our actions are actually an indictment of God. Such as when boxer Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini killed a Korean boxer in a match, the athlete said in a press conference, 'Sometimes I wonder why God does the things He does.'
"In a letter to a Christian family therapist, a young woman told of dating a man and becoming pregnant. She wanted to know why God allowed that to happen to her.
"In her official confession, when South Carolina mother Susan Smith pushed her two sons into a lake to drown, she said that as she did it, she went running after the car as it sped down the ramp screaming, 'Oh God! Oh God, no! Why did You let this happen!'
"Yancey raises the decisive question by asking, 'What exactly was the role God played in a boxer pummeling his opponent, a teenager abandoning her virtue, or a mother drowning her children?' God let us choose, and we did; and our choices have brought continual pain and heartache and destruction. Our self-destructive bent has seemed to know no bounds." (Preaching Daily, Crosswalk.com, taken from James Emery White’s “Church and Culture” blog) And so this morning I would ask a similar question as Yancey asked: What exactly is the role that God plays when we turn our backs and run off to Moab?
See, the temptation facing Elimelech is the same that we are faced with again and again. It’s the temptation to place physical needs ahead of spiritual life. Physical needs are very, very real but we are never to meet that need by turning away from God. That’s where faith comes in. Scripture says that “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6, NIV84) For the “righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)
What does it mean to live by faith in time of need? Warren Wiersbe puts it this way, “How do you walk by faith? By claiming the promises of God and obeying the Word of God, in spite of what you see, how you feel, or what may happen. It means committing yourself to the Lord and relying wholly on Him to meet the need. When we live by faith, it glorifies God, witnesses to a lost world, and builds Christian character into our lives.” (Wiersbe, W. W. (1993). Be Committed. “Be” Commentary Series (14–15). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.)
And folks, it’s in the time of need that our faith is put to the test. Jesus, speaking to the crowds said this: “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:31–33, NIV84) In your time of famine what will you be running after? You will, like Elimelech, be tempted to meet your need in the ways of the world, among God’s enemies, but our real need is to turn to God in that place of famine, to return to Him even, and to surrender all we have, all we are, and all we ever hope to be into His care.
Elimelech made his choice and his choice led his sons into sin. Once they were living in the land of their enemies they each met, and married, young Moabite women. At first glance that doesn’t seem so bad, but God had explicitly told His people not to intermarry with the nations around them. They may have called it “love,” but God called it “sin.” They may have thought it to be good and true and right, but God had declared it rebellion. And God’s heart was not for His people to be miserable; it was for their own wellbeing.
It’s the same today. A Christian should not be joined together in marriage with a non-Christian. This isn’t hardness in God’s heart; this is God’s desire for good things for His people. Anyone who, as a believer, enters into marriage with a non-believer, understands that there is a constant tension that they face and a loneliness that they have to endure. The tension being because the heart that seeks God will be at cross purposes with the heart that seeks the world. The very values that shape, direct, and guide the life of a child of faith will be at odds with those that govern the heart of a child of the world. The loneliness is experienced when you’re unable to pray together with the one person closer to you than anyone else, when you can’t read God’s word together, when there is no place to share what God has been teaching you and laying on your heart, no unity in the home and no joy of worshipping God, or serving in ministry with your spouse.
Sometimes two people meet and get married as unbelievers, but some time later, one or the other comes to faith and begins to live for God. And this is a wonderful thing and we praise God for it, but it is also a terribly difficult thing when only one begins to walk that journey of faith. We don’t know the exact situation in the homes of Elimelech’s sons but based on what we read in the ensuing verses we can make some educated guesses.
What we do know for sure is this: that in a time of great need a people claiming to live for God, left the land of Promise, the House of Bread in the place of praise, and fled into the a spiritual wilderness. They turned their back on God, if not in word, then in deed, as they chose to walk by sight rather than by faith. In doing so they experienced God’s discipline through the circumstances of their lives. They were given time to repent, to turn back, to return to the land of Promise and praise, but their sojourn in a foreign land became, not a brief stop, but a decade of wilderness wandering. The very things that they hoped to preserve by fleeing Bethlehem were visited upon them in the land of Moab. And those who are left, when all is said and done, are scarred by the experience. Naomi, whose name means pleasant, a little later on in this chapter, renames herself, “Mara,” meaning “bitter.” She is left in a foreign land, far from home, far from her people, far from her God, staring at three barren graves. Beside her stand her daughter-in-laws – daughters of Moab, but the only remnant she has of a lifetime of hopes and dreams.
Friends, in that time of famine, in that place of decision, do not do what seems right in your own eyes, but bring everything before the Lord! Let His Word, His will, His ways, His work, His kingdom determine the priorities of your home, your family, your very life. Determine today, before you ever enter into that time of famine, to do that which will honor the Lord. Be as Joshua, who proclaimed before all the people, “as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15, NIV84) For we will never draw closer to God by running from God. In our time of famine we will never find the hope or the deliverance that we are seeking outside of God’s kingdom and His will.
I confess that today’s verses have not been uplifting. The book of Ruth begins with trouble, misery and heartache. We see a people leaving the land of promise and praise; exchanging the things of God for the things of this world; and reaping the terrible consequences of their choices – choices that seemed good in the flesh, but which were in reality, tragic for both the flesh and the spirit. Let it be as a warning to us to not leave God out of the decisions we make, that paths we journey along, the life we’re living. And take heart, for even if you find yourself in the wilderness of Moab today, in a place of famine and running from God, it’s not yet too late. Elimelech and family could have returned home at any time and things may have turned out differently. Certainly they would have been running to God rather than from Him. If you’ve been running from God, know this: He is good and gracious and He has granted you a little more time. A little more time to repent and to return to Him. A little more time to come on home. And we will see this in the lives of Naomi and Ruth as we continue in our study next week.
Let’s pray …
