50 cents for anyone who can tell me what book comes before or after the book of Ruth. The book of Ruth sits in a very interesting place in Biblical history. It is this tiny little book that sits between the dark ages of Israel during the period of the judges, when the nation was about as apostate and disobedient as it ever was, and on the other side we see the epic books about Israel’s kings in the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.
It appears that this little book was a small beacon of hope that would lead ultimately to Jesus through the line of King David. The three main characters are a bitter older Israelite widow who finds her way home, a redeemer, and a gentile woman who shows more faith than anyone. Warren Weirsbe calls this book a story in which a family makes a bad decision and exchanges one famine for three funerals.
If we look broadly at the story we will find that Naomi represents the apostate nation of Israel, Boaz the redeemer we will read about later, represents a Jesus figure, and Ruth represents the gentiles, who would show more faith than God’s own people and become part of God’s Kingdom. In four short chapters we see a symbolic story of the ultimate redemption of all nations that Jesus would bring through this gentile woman, the great grandmother of King David. Let’s read Act I…
Act 1 begins in the hated country of Moab during the time of the Judges. There was no King in Israel and this period of Israel’s history was marked by a disobedient time when everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Now before we go on, I just want to bring to our attention that this describes our nation very well. We have forgotten God, we want to do things the way we want to. There’s very little wrong or right. God wants to be our King but we refuse and would rather have judges or human leadership. We rely on government of all things, to solve our problems.
Many believe that the famine described in the book of Ruth was a judgment against the Nation that abandoned their true King. Even Bethlehem (which means house of bread) was not spared from this famine. This was a difficult time for all people, and this man Elimilech whose name ironically means “My God is king” had three possible choices in light of the famine that was in the land.
This is true of anytime we have difficulty in life. We can endure it, escape it, or enlist it.
If we try to endure it, our trials can become our master, and we have a tendency to become hard and bitter. If we try to escape it, we’ll probably miss the opportunity to see the purposes God wants to achieve in our lives and experience other consequences.
But if we learn to enlist our trials, they will become our servants instead of our masters and work for us. To enlist basically means to accept them and give them to God to work all things out for good. Let Him guide us through it. But Elimilech did what would be most of our first responses, he tried to escape the problem rather than turning to God. He did what he thought was right in his own eyes and he and his family paid a terrible price.
So what was so bad about moving his family to a place where their might be more food and financial prosperity, wouldn’t any father do that? Well, you have to remember that this was the time not long after the Israelites came back to the Promised Land from Egypt. God made promises to them if they would stay faithful to Him. They did not stay faithful so they forfeited his promises trying to do things on their own after it was God who got them there by unending miracles.
It was only about 50 miles around the Dead Sea to get to Moab, and Elimilech decided to walk by sight and not by faith. What are the chances the famine would be much better 50 miles away. The reason Moab was considered such enemies is because they were descendants of the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughter. They had also treated Israel very badly, even invading Israel and ruling over them for 18 years during the time of the judges. In fact in Psalm 108 God calls Moab his washpot or maybe for us garbage can. So they go from eating in the house of bread to eating out of the garbage can.
Elimilech’s family learned the hard way that you shouldn’t run from your problems (especially to the enemy), but you should turn to God in the midst of them. Not only did Elimilech die, but his son’s went against God’s will by marrying Moabite women. Interestingly Mahlon and Chilion were the names of the two sons, and they mean sickness and mortality. So it was the men, the leaders of the family who paid the ultimate price of their disobedience. They knew what God said, they didn’t have to guess.
Ironically the famine moved to Moab and ended in Judah, so chasing after the food, Naomi decides to go back to Bethlehem, but her motives were still out of whack. She tells her daughters in law to stay behind. Do you ever wonder why she did that? She said she wanted them to find husbands amoung their own people. She still sees the stuff of this life as more important than knowing the one true God.
It sounds like she might be caring for the welfare of her daughters and she obviously does love them, but it could also be that she was feeling sorry for herself, and I have a feeling she didn’t want to return with them because they were living proof that she had let their two sons marry Moabite women. Proverbs 28:13 says, “Whoever covers their sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses them and forsakes them will obtain mercy”. She still thought it was better for the girls to live as pagans worshipping idols, as long as they got married again, rather than to turn to God. Just like Israel, Naomi felt hard done by and abandoned by God but didn’t own up to her own behaviour and repent so that she could be blessed again. She was not a good witness and gave a poor testimony of her God.
Orpah went back, her faith was weak, but Ruth would not and Naomi stopped trying to convince her. I believe this was Ruth’s conversion to the true God when she said these famous words: “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 shall be my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.”
If you look closely at this you see that Ruth is completely dying to her old self, and while she makes this promise to Naomi it also sounds like she is making it to God. She is completely shedding all traces of who she was, and is fully devoting herself to live in the family of God. Orpah on the other hand went back to her people and her gods. The cost to follow Naomi and be a Moabite foreigner in that land would have been very great.
People want to make this about Ruth’s devotion to Naomi, which in a way it was. But at this point Ruth’s faith was stronger than Naomi’s and her devotion would actually lead to salvation for Naomi. I think a lesson there is that when we fully surrender to God, we can carry people to him just with our behaviour and obedience to him.
And you know what’s interesting to me is that it is often the new convert that brings the old long time religious person with a stagnant faith, that is not really living it out in their lives, that has become jaded and distant from God, and this new convert leads them to repentance and back to life in the Lord.
They get back to Bethlehem and everyone is looking at them. Naomi plays her poor me card saying “hey don’t call me Naomi (which means pleasant), call me Mara (which means bitter). God almighty has dealt harshly with me, I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty”.
Notice it’s all poor me, God is against me. Did she really go away full? Sure she had her husband and her two sons, but her and her family were anything but full spiritually. She still doesn’t repent, she just feels sorry for herself and thinks that fullness comes from what you have in this life, rather than from God. Little did she know what she was really coming back with in Ruth. And what an insult to Ruth really. All I have is this Moabite woman which is basically nothing. Where’s the gratitude that this young woman chose her over everything else, and now she’s home and there’s food to eat once again.
It’s so hard for us to see God as so much better than even the people we love the most. That we can be grateful as Job was, even though we lose everything that we hold dear. But, if we have God we are never empty, and ultimately we have more than we could ever want or need. But we see God as the blesser and punisher. We’re happy with him when he’s giving us good things in life, but we can get bitter with him and blame him when things go badly. But how often do we look at our relationship with Him and our devotion to Him?
There was a Youth for Christ leader in the 1930’s who ended up getting martyred in China. There was a meeting where a bunch of them were asking for God to bless this ministry and that project. Then this Joseph Stam prayed, “Lord, we’ve asked you to bless all these things; but please Lord, make us blessable.”
What does God ask from us in order to be bless able? Simply that we trust him, that we believe his promises. We don’t have to be perfect, but in order to receive his blessings we must trust Him. When we run off to get the blessings by our own hands, he simply gives us the results of that rather than what He wants to give us which is so much better.
Do you think Ruth thought she would be accepted in Bethlehem, she would have more accurately thought she would be hated. Do you think she thought that she would ever get a husband in Israel? Not likely. But her devotion to Naomi, which was motivated by her trust of Naomi’s God over her own gods, allowed her to risk all of that.
You can just hear God crying so often, “Don’t run away from me, I just want to get your attention. Trust me and I will give you everything even though things may look bad now. I am God your Father and I have everything, no one else does. But I will only give you what you choose because I want you to be free, not obligated to me.”
Could it be though, that in His great desire for us he actually oversteps that free will he gives us and allows a problem in our life so that He can be the solution? He doesn’t just want to fix the problem he wants to have an intimate relationship with us. He might not solve the problem but if we get closer to him, that’s even better. Maybe he wants to frustrate our faith in the world and the flesh, so we will put our faith in Him.
God needs to do what he does for the love of all his people. Ruth had to come back with Naomi. She had to come back single. Was that God’s judgment, and was he cruel in allowing three men to die just to get their attention and fulfill his plan? Remember though biblically, that there’s no reason to believe that those men were lost forever.
The Bible makes it clear that all people who died before Jesus came had an opportunity in the grave to hear the Gospel. Those were faithful, though disobedient men, who are likely in heaven with Jesus now, or at least had the opportunity to be. So in the big picture that small tragedy here on earth is vastly overshadowed by the tragedy that would have been if Jesus had never been born through the line of Ruth.
So we have a choice. We can see all the killing and judgment that God did in the Old Testament and curse him as a cruel, power hungry God. We can look at disasters and tragedies like the fire in Brazil last week as confirmation that if there is a God he doesn’t really care about us.
Or we can try to get the big picture that he has, and see how his compassion for all mankind is worked through all of it. Again it boils down to trust. Can we trust that when there’s famine in our lives, God wants to use that for our good? Can we trust that even if he takes our children or other loved ones away, that he has a bigger, better plan than simply our individual happiness in this short life? He is the master of death and resurrection, but do we trust him even in death and loss?
Those are some huge questions that arise from this chapter in this little book tucked away in the Old Testament. Will we be bitter, or will we turn to Him and trust him even after our loss? We all need to ask ourselves hard questions. Will I look at my own devotion to God before passing judgment on Him and becoming bitter with him? Should I expect God’s blessing in my life? Have I removed him from the important parts of my life and replaced him with idols of my own desire? Turning to the world instead of Him.
The consequences of our own behaviour in a fallen world are simply a product of walking away from God. Because when we walk with God we don’t see anything as a tragedy. We see his sovereign hand in everything, and we trust that he is going to work it all out for a bigger good that we can’t even fathom.
He sits in heaven waiting and hoping that we will persevere through his plan so that he can show us the amazing nature of his great plan and his love. This will be all the sweeter when life deals us heavy blows. When God can sit us on his knee one day and show us why everything happened, what a loving purpose he had behind everything that he allowed.
Do you believe that? Do you trust him? Do you believe that he is so sovereign that you can relax in Him no matter what happens, because you trust him that much? I really believe that trials in our lives are a way to make us turn closer to him. At the time we might think he’s being cruel to allow this, but we have to trust that he has something in store for us that’s going to be better because of what he allowed. The closer we are to God, and the more we trust Him, probably the less he has to get our attention.
Next week we will see the results of Ruth’s trust and loyalty.
