A number of years ago I was in a barber shop and a highway patrolman was also there. He told an amusing story. It was about a highway patrolman in another state who had stopped a drunk driver. But while he was preparing to cite the drunk driver, a car accident occurred within walking distance. Feeling compelled to assist, he told the drunk drive to stay put while he attended to business.
The drunk driver decided this was his chance to make a clean get-away. And so he did. When he got home, he told his story to his wife. The he told her to lie if the police showed up, to say he had been home all night, and then went to bed.
Well, sure enough, the police did show up. His wife did as he instructed. Then the police asked to see the man’s car in his garage. When the garage door was opened, lo and behold, there was the patrolman’s car with the lights the still flashing.
I mention the story because it emphasizes what can happen when we make life decisions and fail to consider all the pertinent factors. The drunk obviously missed a few vital details that led to his arrest. And sometimes we miss some vital details with regard to what leads to success or failure in our own lives.
And the vital detail we often fail to take into account is the God factor. The Bible reveals that there is a God who loves us and wants to bless us. In Isaiah 30:18 God says to Israel, “Behold, I long to be gracious to you.” He longs to be gracious to us. But obviously, there are times that something holds Him back. And the reason for that, the Bible reveals, is that we fail to cooperate with His good plan for our lives.
This morning we’ve read the beginning of a wonderful little book in the Bible called the Book of Ruth. The book of Ruth in the first chapter introduces us to six different people who were seeking what we all seek—a better life, even the best life possible. From the outset, it’s obvious that three of these folks didn’t find the better life. Their lives ended tragically, before their time. The outcome of the life of a fourth, Orpah, isn’t revealed. But ultimately, the story has a very happy ending for the lives of the two women named Naomi and Ruth. Though there’s a tragic beginning, there will be a blessed ending. And what we’ll learn from this chapter, and this book is to Seek God’s Blessings God’s Way to Experience a Better life. Seek God’s Blessings God’s way to experience a better life.
As we’ve read from verse one, we’re told that the story takes place in the days when the judges ruled in Israel. It was the time immediately following Israel’s inheritance of the Promised Land and their conquest of the nations who had lived there previously. During that time there was no king in the land. Various political and spiritual leaders called judges ruled over the Land of Israel. And the time of the judges, detailed in the Book of Judges, was not Israel’s most glorious moment. In fact, the truth is, it was far from it. The statement made repeatedly through the Book of Judges and that concludes Judges is found at the end of that book, just across the page from Ruth 1, in Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
Now the significance of that statement is this: Everyone did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord, but rather they did what they thought was right in their own eyes. And the result was there were repeated cycles of famine and oppression by the enemies of Israel—every 30 or 40 years, just about every generation, was characterized by people who departed from the Lord’s ways and did what was right in their own eyes—they did their own thing, rather than the Lord’s thing.
And it was apparently during one of these times of the Lord’s discipline on Israel, when there was a famine in the land, that Elimilech and his family decided to make a move to Moab. A famine in the land back then in an agrarian economy is the equivalent of a recession in America today. The whole society was not doing well economically. And Elimelech was simply looking to improve his lot in life. He looked around and considered his options. He saw that the economy was bad in all of Israel. But just over the border, fifty or sixty miles to the east, in Moab, the economy was fine. And He concluded, based only on what was visible and horizontal, that the change that was required was simply a matter of a geographical move. If he moved from Israel where there was a famine, to Moab, where the economy was fine, he would improve both he and his family’s lot in life.
Now the book of Ruth makes absolutely no comment on why what happened happened. It just shares with us the facts of the matter. And the facts of the matter were these. Once the move had been completed, the family remained there. It’s apparent there was no plan to return to Israel if circumstances changed. The move was apparently permanent. And then Elimelech died. Naomi was then left with her two sons, who were at the age that they would marry, and they took two wives, both Moabites, and then after ten more years in Moab, they also died.
Wow, what a tragic course of events, for everyone involved! Now Naomi is a widow, bereaved three times over of her husband and her sons. And Ruth and Orpah are widows as well.
The question we ought to be asking ourselves is this: Was this all merely chance and happenstance? Did it just merely come about, by accident, that three men, all in the primes of their lives, died, and more than that, Mahlon and Chilion, as young husbands with young wives did not have any children? Is there any rhyme or reason for what happened here?
Again, the Book of Ruth does not provide the rhyme or the reason. Naomi will soon say that the Lord’s hand has gone out against her, in verse 20. But we are left to wonder why things had gone so badly. But we shouldn’t wonder long. If we have been students of the Old Testament, and especially of the Covenant between Israel and their God, the result was actually predictable. Though God clearly wanted to bless Israel and had blessed Israel by bringing the nation into a land that flowed with milk and honey, His blessing upon Israel in the land was conditional upon their keeping the provisions of the covenant.
Now most of you, if you haven’t read the Old Testament, are familiar with the great movie, The Ten Commandments. You remember that great scene when Moses, played by Charlton Heston, ascends Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God. Those Ten Commandments represented the heart of the covenant between Israel and God. And God’s blessing upon Israel was dependent on Israel keeping those commandments, which represented the covenant. That’s evident from places like Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28-30, in which God promises to prosper Israel if it kept the covenant, but also promised not to bless them, even promised to curse them if they didn’t.
What had happened here is that Elimelech, and then his two sons, had forgotten to take the God-factor into account in their life choices. They had left out the major issue which could have brought about a better life for their families. They saw things only as they were horizontally. And so they had wrongly concluded that a better life could be found simply through a geographical move, wen the real issue was a spiritual move. In fact, by moving away from Israel, Elimelech had moved his family into a land characterized by idolatry and immorality, and a people who had deliberately tried to derail Israel spiritually some years earlier by tempting them to become involved in both immorality and idolatry. Elimelech was actually sacrificing his family’s spiritual welfare in the hopes of improving its financial standing. By moving to Moab, he was exposing his family to idolatry, and virtually guaranteeing that his sons would marry Moabites, and that his grandchildren, if there were any, would learn the ways of the idolatrous Moabites. He had actually taken his family from the land God had designated as the place of blessing, to a place that because of its commitment to sin, God could not bless. The solution to Israel’s problems, and Elimelech’s problem was not a geographical move. But a spiritual move—back to God. As God would later say to Israel in II Chronicles 7:13-14, “if there is a famine . . . if my people who are called by my name.
As Proverbs 14;12, puts it. There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is death.” Obviously, Elimelech and sons made a fatal error because they left God out of their decisions. Lesson #1 is this: if you want God’s blessings, if you want a better life, don’t forget the God-factor. It’s vital. He blesses when we cooperate with His plan, but He doesn’t when we don’t.
So first lesson this morning: Don’t forget the God-factor. When it comes to making life decisions, trying to find a better life, whatever you do don’t leave out the one factor that trumps every other factor. Don’t leave out the God factor. As the book of Proverbs, 3:5-6, puts it,
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways (decisions) acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 14:12 even goes so far as to say, “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is death.”
So a question to ask yourself as you’re seeking a better life or as you make decisions about the course of your life, is do you consider the God factor? Do you ask yourself what would please Him? Do you consult the Word of God, and make decisions based on God’s priorities for your spiritual welfare and the welfare of your family? If you do, you’re trusting in God and His wisdom. If you don’t, you could be making the same mistake Elimelech made. You could be leaning on your own understanding, apart from God.
As the tragic circumstances settle in on the three widows, it becomes apparent to Naomi, who is now the matriarch of the family, discovers that she now has some decisions to make. The move to Moab obviously hasn’t gone well. She has heard that the Lord has visited His people in Israel with food. So initially, she decides to return to Israel. She doesn’t seem very hopeful that things will be better, but if they’re going to be better, it’s going to be in Israel. It appears all three begin their journey to Israel when Naomi has second thoughts. Though the return to Israel might be better for her, she realizes that the prospects for the marriage of a Moabite woman, given the reputation of Moabites and their religion in Israel, were probably not so good. So she urges both Ruth and Orpah to return to Moab, to live among their own people and their own families there. This creates another very emotional crisis. Will they go with Naomi, or will they return? Both Orpah and Ruth cry loudly. Orpah gives Naomi a good-bye kiss, but Ruth clings to Naomi. And she delivers the all-time greatest statement of loyal and faithful love to both Naomi, and as it turns out, to Naomi’s God. Ruth replies to Naomi’s urging in verse 15: “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back 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 I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”
This is the turning point of the story. This is the turning point for both of these lives. Naomi is returning to the Lord and to the land of His blessing. And Ruth is forsaking all others, forsaking all else, forsaking the gods of the Moabites. She will be faithful to be Naomi and Naomi’s God for the rest of her life. If there’s going to be a better life, if there’s going to be any blessing, for both Ruth and Naomi, it’s now going to have to come from the Lord.
Now this is instructive for all of us. No matter who we are, no matter what we’ve been through, no matter how far or how long we’ve strayed, no matter how great the difficulties, we can return to God and His ways at any time. He forgives. He relents of calamity. He loves us and wants to bless us, and He will the moment we begin to cooperate with His plan. He would begin at this point to do so not only for Naomi, a Jew, one of those designated as God’s people. But He would even do so for a pagan, a former idolatry, one who would have been regarded as an unclean Gentile. It didn’t matter what her background, how her people had treated Israel in the past, how idolatrous or immoral her background or her people were. The Lord’s mercies are very great. So she turned to the Lord, and God turned to her, and eagerly with an aim to bless abundantly.
The message: Return to God’s ways, turn to God’s ways, it’s never too late for a turnaround.
James 4 tells us, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” And of course drawing near to God under the New Covenant, means drawing near through the Lord Jesus Christ. He has been revealed in the New Testament as the Son of God and the Savior of the World. He lived a perfect life, died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and rose again to prove it. He encourages us to trust in Him, to believe in Him for eternal life. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.” He also says, “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly” in John 10:10. In other words, He demonstrates the same mercy and love and desire to bless as his Heavenly Father, if we will only begin to trust in Him and His ways, rather than our ways.
As Ruth and Naomi are about to find out, if you want to turn your lives around, turn to the Lord, and to His people.
And so Ruth and Naomi make the trek back to Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem. It’s not merely a physical journey, but it has now become a spiritual journey. It represents Naomi’s return to the Lord and seeking blessing under His wings, and for Ruth, it represents her whole-hearted commitment to seek a better life under the Lord’s care.
As Naomi returns, there’s a stir within that small town of Bethlehem—all the city was stirred because of them, and the women said, “Is this Naomi?” They’re shocked at what has become of Naomi, that she has come back without her husband and two sons. Naomi is still struggling with the shock of what’s happened to her as well and expresses some bitterness over it by urging folks no longer to call her Naomi, which means pleasant, but Mara, which means bitter. She doesn’t sound very encouraged. But it’s the beginning of a new day.
That’s evident in verse 22: “So Naomi returned, and with her Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, who returned form the land of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.”
Obviously, Naomi is still struggling to get over what’s happened to her. She struggling to imagine that her life might turn around. But she’s taken the one step that she needs to take, and so has Ruth. In returning to Israel, they have also returned to the Lord and His people.
Now both barley and wheat in Israel were planted in the fall. Barley would ripen earlier and was harvested at the beginning of spring, which Biblically, in ancient times, constituted the beginning of the New Year for Israel. (Or course, Jews have changed the beginning of the year to the fall in our time.) But this was the beginning of a new year, and a new harvest, and it was also the beginning of a new life for Ruth and Naomi.
From this point on, as we will see in chapters 2-4, things just simply begin to fall in place for Ruth and Naomi, as they had not before. Seeming chance meetings, accidents, they all just simply work for their good and their welfare. There are no obvious miracles, but now the blessing of God will be upon them, with an entirely different outcome, and a much happier ending than they would have anticipated.
So, the lesson here is to depend on God for blessing. Seek a better life God’s way and God blesses. And that’s what the rest of this short book will be about. How God sovereignly, though seemingly, silently begins to bless them in ways that will lead to fulfillment and a far better life.
All because they began to take steps in the right direction. All because they were no longer doing what seemed best to them, but what seemed best to the Lord. All because they had turned to the Lord or returned to the Lord from doing their own thing.
And that the invitation that the Lord Jesus gives to all of us who may have been disappointed or even broken in some way. He says in Matthew 11:28-30: ““Come to Me, all [a]who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. 30 For My yoke is [b]easy and My burden is light.”
This morning let me encourage you to take the Lord Jesus up on His invitation. He loves you. He wants to bless you. He gave His life to pay the penalty for your sins. He promises eternal life and a better life if you’ll turn to Him. Why not begin to do so right now by praying this prayer with me.”
“Lord, thank you for your love and your desire to bless me. I now turn to you and seek your blessing your way. Show me how. I am now putting my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior from sin Now, I ask Him to make me and my life what He wants it to be.”
