Ruth-Coming Home to God
Ruth 1:1-22
By Chad H. Ballard
Do you ever read romance novels? Not me. I hate that old mushy, gushy stuff.
I don’t even watch movies that are love story kind of stuff. I remember a several years ago there was a Clint Eastwood movie that came out called “The Bridges of Madison County”.
Now this was no “Dirty Harry”. Clint Eastwood played a landscape photographer who had come to take pictures of the old bridges in Madison County.
He met a woman, played by Merryl Streep, who was married and her husband had taken the kids to the livestock show at the State Fair. Some of you women wonder why men don’t do things like that more often, it’s because you like movies like this one.
See, while her husband was babysitting the kids, Merryl Streep and Clint Eastwood had an affair.
I HATED THIS MOVIE! All I could think about (while the women were going ga-ga about how romantic Eastwood was) was this woman’s poor old husband who was off trying to be a good dad to his kids. I was livid that people thought that lying, cheating, trashy affair was sweet.
Now I have to admit that Streep did decide to stay with her husband rather than to leave with Eastwood. She did eventually come back to doing the right thing.
This love story theme of doing the wrong thing before eventually getting it right sounds a lot like the story that we will be looking at today.
The Book of Ruth is God’s love story for us. It is a parallel to the love affair between Christ and His followers. But just like our own relationship with God before we accept Christ, the story gets off to a rather rocky start.
I. The RESULTS of Disobedience. Read vv. 1-2.
A. Now there is a lot that we can learn about the spiritual condition of this family in these 2 little verses.
1. First of all, this story occurs in the days when judges ruled in Israel. If you want to understand what kind of time this was, simply look back to the last verse of the book of Judges. It says, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
2. It was a time of lawlessness. People did what was right in their own eyes, without consideration of God’s commandments.
B. I want you to see something here. When we live without regard to what the Scripture teaches, eventually what is obviously contrary to God’s teachings starts to look okay to us.
1. Here’s an example. If you were to stop coming to church, you would probably feel guilty for a while because you know that the Bible teaches that we are to gather in God’s house to worship.
2. But your feeling of guilt will eventually subside and you get to the point that you don’t even realize that your missing something on Sunday. You can overcome your guilt.
3. But be careful, because when you spurn God’s law long enough, be it in church attendance or just in living according to the flesh or living rebelliously, God will send famine on the land.
4. Remember our text from last week. Deuteronomy 11:16-17 states: “beware that your hearts are not deceived, and that you do not turn away and serve other gods” (i.e. money, possessions, hobbies, fleshly lusts) “and worship them. Or the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its fruits; and you will perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.”
5. And that’s exactly what He did here. Now the story would end here if the people of Israel would have repented and turned back to God. We see it over and over again in the Old Testament. The Jews would sin, resulting in God’s judgment. The Jews would cry out to God and He would send a deliverer. And after a time of peace the cycle would start over.
C. But when the famine struck, which was God’s judgment, Elimelech did just what most of us do when we are faced with God’s discipline…HE RAN FROM IT! And what was worse, he ran to Moab.
1. Why was it worse that he ran to Moab? Deuteronomy 23:3 says, “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever…”
2. The Israelites were even forbidden to seek a treaty of friendship with these people.
3. Elimelech had just leaped from the frying pan into the fire. He had just fled from the discipline of God into the open arms of Satan! And look at what it got him!
D. Read vv. 3-5. Elimelech paid for his sin with his life. But he wasn’t the only one to pay a heavy price.
1. We see that Mahlon and Chilion got married after their father’s death and were married about 10 years and then they too died.
2. Exodus 20:5 tells us that God will “visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations…”
3. Mahlon and Chilion saw their father being disobedient to God’s laws for so long that they didn’t think anything of going so far as to marry Moabite women.
4. Folks, we don’t have to wonder why so many young people today never darken the door of a church. It’s because they’ve grown up seeing just how insincere their parent’s faith was and they don’t have time to waste on meaningless religion!
5. And we see the results; generation after generation of kids who are lost because they never saw the EVIDENCE of Jesus in their parents lives.
II. Now let’s look at the RETURN of the Disobedient. Read vv. 6-7
A. Naomi was a woman all alone in a foreign country. Now back in these days, that was a terrible predicament to be in. So what was she to do?
1. Well it seems that back in Judah God had seen fit to end the famine. So Ruth decided to go back to her homeland.
2. Here’s what we need to see in this. We are often too quick to abandon God and His plan to try to make it on our own. Elimelech and his family were never any better off than they would have been in Judah. YOU CANNOT HIDE FROM GOD’S PUNISHMENT.
3. And just like we so often do, Naomi was knocked down and given a new perspective, and now she couldn’t wait to get back to where God wanted her in the first place.
B. But I want you to see something else too. Not only did Naomi, one of God’s people, want a part of what was happening in Judah, but so did Orpah and Ruth, her Moabite daughters-in-law.
1. We see in vv. 8-15 that Naomi, concerned for the best interest of these young women tried to convince them not to follow her. And while Orpah decided to stay in Moab, Ruth was determined to go to Judah. Look at what she said in vv. 16-18.
2. Here’s the application for you and me. WHEN GOD STARTS TO WORK, PEOPLE WILL WANT TO BE A PART OF IT!
3. Ruth had seen Naomi’s faith and her desire to return to her homeland. She knew that life had been hard for her so far in Moab, but she also had heard that God was at work in Judah.
4. Folks, when God starts to work a change in the lives of His people, those who don’t know Him will be drawn here to be a part of it!
5. If you really want to see people come to Christ, allow them to see the evidence of Christ’s work in your life.
III. Finally, let’s look for the REWARDS of Obedience. Read vv. 19-22
A. Did you notice that in v. 19 it said, “the city was excited because of them…” Life is like that isn’t it? There wasn’t any great homecoming for those who chose to stay with God and not to run off to Moab.
1. We do that don’t we? If a person comes to Christ that has always been a generally “good person”, we don’t get all excited.
2. But when the worst crook in town gets saved, we want to throw a celebration.
3. Jesus addressed that in Luke 15:7. He said, “…there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.”
4. That doesn’t make one person’s salvation anymore exciting than another’s. It simply means that we all need to realize how lost even the best of us were without Jesus Christ as our Savior!
B. But why did Naomi and Ruth decide to turn to God? Here it is: “They came to the point where they understood God was there for them when they came to the end of themselves.”
1. They could no longer rely on:
Their husbands
Their families
Their familiar surroundings
Their other “gods”
Their youth
Their material wealth (if they had any)
Or even themselves
2. Naomi says, “I went out full and the Lord has brought me home again empty.” She was emptied of herself.
3. All they could do is rely on God. And that was the very best decision they could have ever made.
4. We see that when they began to rely on God, people loved them and rejoiced about their return.
Conclusion
What would it take to make us come to the end of ourselves so that we can find the beginning of God?
Is it going to take a tragedy?
Is it going to take a heart attack?
Is it going to take the loss of a loved one?
Does the rug have to be pulled out from under us the way it was pulled out from under Ruth and Naomi for us to come to the end of ourselves?
You don’t need to wait for your health to fail to find God.
You don’t need to wait for a loved one to die to find God.
You don’t need to wait to get old before you find God.
As long as we are depending on ourselves, our spouses, our stocks, our popularity, our wealth, or our dreams for success …God isn’t likely to do much with us at all.
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.’” (Matt. 16:24)
“I have been crucified with Christ’ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal. 2:20)
“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.” (Phil. 3:7-8)
Ruth and Naomi came back to God at the beginning of a great harvest.
Would you come back to God today so that a harvest can begin here?
He doesn’t want part of you. He wants all of you; even the parts that you may have been keeping from Him.
Would you surrender your all to Jesus today?
PRAY
