Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, everybody.
[00:00:03] The preferred response is, morning, Vern.
[00:00:06] There we go.
[00:00:08] Great to be with you. Today we are going to be talking about the Book of Ruth, which is the greatest book in the Bible, which is very subjective. So I'll say it this way, it is my favorite book of the Bible, and I hope that you will love it, too. So I'm really delighted to be with you and to unpack this beautiful story and show you all the things that I love about it. And this is a beautiful story, and people that are into literature, and especially ancient literature, would say that this is one of the most beautiful stories in all of ancient literature, Bible or not. And one scholar calls it a brilliant work of theological art, which is a great terminology, theological art.
[00:00:55] So it's four chapters, and. And when it was written, of course, there were no chapter numbers or verses.
[00:01:01] So now we've got these four chapters, which means we get a chapter per week over the next month.
[00:01:07] And my approach to it is that I'm going to preach this with you word by word, but we're going to do it as though it's the very first time that we've gone through the whole book. So you've probably read the Book of Ruth before. Some of you haven't. So this will be your first time through it.
[00:01:25] But as I go through it, we will not be talking about anything beyond what we're talking about that day in there. So we won't talk about things in chapter two, three, and four when we're just in chapter one. So we're going to be participants together as this story unfolds and as it progresses and it guides us through understanding who God is and understanding ourselves a little bit more. We're going to marvel at God's providence, and we are going to enjoy a very unusual romance in the Book of Ruth. I'm indebted to a whole bunch of authors on this, but especially a guy named Lawson Younger and a lady named Carolyn James. And then my theology professor, who really awakened me to the beauty of the Book of Ruth, a guy by the name of Dr. Allen. So there is today, in chapter one, there's a prologue, and then there's two scenes. And so we will start with the prologue that shows the price of rebellion. So we're going to get through all of chapter one. If you've got your Bible with you, invite you to join with me in the Book of Ruth, starting in verse one, in the days when the Judges ruled. And we have to stop there for a minute.
[00:02:37] So this is a very Important orienting phrase right here. Because the Book of Ruth is dropped into the time of the Judges. Now, the time of the Judges was a petition, particularly difficult time in all of human history.
[00:02:55] We can summarize it and understand the cause of what was so difficult when we go back a page. So if you go back one page in your Bible to the very end of Judges, you get to this very descriptive line. It's the very last verse that says, in those days, Israel had no king. And then this line right here, everyone did as he saw fit, or another translation. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
[00:03:24] That problem then is, as you know, a problem now.
[00:03:29] No rules, no structure, no guidelines, no wisdom, no authority, and definitely no submission.
[00:03:34] And the result of that is always cultural catastrophe, collapse.
[00:03:41] When everybody is making up their own truths, when everybody has their own truth, this is what happens. That describes what was going on in the Book of Judges where Ruth is dropped in.
[00:03:53] Some of the worst human rights abuses ever happen in the Book of Judges.
[00:03:59] One scholar says that when you're done reading the Book of Judges, you need to go take a shower.
[00:04:04] You just need to be cleansed from it. The last chapter in the Book of Judges is one of the worst chapters in all of the Bible. Don't read it now. It's too depressing. Let's stay in Ruth.
[00:04:15] But people just did whatever they wanted.
[00:04:20] And when that happens, the powerful prey on the weak and society begins to break down.
[00:04:27] But God is just too loving to not be involved. And so what we see is, is a repeated cycle in the Book of Judges. And that recycle is repeated over and over and over again because we are so slow to learn. So you'll notice here the cycle of the Book of Judges. Please look at the very top where we see that Israel loves and obeys and serves God. And there is shalom, there is peace, there is human flourishing. Then you go a little bit to the right, going clockwise, people lurch into sin, and particularly idolatry. Idolatry is when something other than God is ultimate in your life. And the idolatry in this era was really about demon worship.
[00:05:12] Third, God, Judges. So there's consequences.
[00:05:17] And with the judgment, there's a variety of ways in which judgment happens. But conquering enemies and death and famine and slavery.
[00:05:24] Then because of those consequences and misery, people cry out to God in prayer and repentance. They confess their sins. They turn back to God. When they begin to do that, then God sends a judge. Judge is kind of like a king, but this is a Person who's a leader and an advocate. When that happens, that Judge leads the people back into salvation and deliverance and back into shalom. And then look, you're back up at the top. This happens seven times in the Book of Judges.
[00:05:54] With that in mind, back to verse one.
[00:05:58] In the days of the Judge, when the Judges ruled, there was a famine in the land.
[00:06:04] A famine in the land.
[00:06:07] So where are we in the cycle?
[00:06:11] We're in judgment, right? Remember, because the judgment included famine.
[00:06:17] Now, if there's famine in the land, if there's famine where you live, so no crops, no rain, things are horrible, not enough food.
[00:06:27] What might you be tempted to do?
[00:06:30] You might be tempted to move.
[00:06:33] 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.
[00:06:46] There is a famine in the land.
[00:06:48] It is a time of judgment.
[00:06:51] You might be tempted to move. But what should you do?
[00:06:56] You should repent.
[00:06:58] This is when you turn back to God. But what does this guy do?
[00:07:03] He leaves town, he leaves his land. And as a result of leaving the land, the cause of leaving the land is that he's rejecting God even more. He's actually leaving the promised land, the land that was gifted by God to Elimelech and his family. And he leads it, leaves it now.
[00:07:27] Moving to Moab was rebellion, a continuation of rebellion.
[00:07:35] Moving to Moab would be like if there's famine in the Gallatin and you move to Billings, that would be rebellious.
[00:07:46] Moab.
[00:07:48] Moab was the ancient enemy of Israel. And God warns Israel not to hang out with the Moabites because of their bad influence that are negative influence and steering and leading people away from God, from Yahweh, Now Moab, they were a nation of people that were a product of drunken incest.
[00:08:09] They worshiped the God Chemosh, a demon that required religious prostitution and child sacrifice.
[00:08:18] Psalm chapter 60 actually says that Moab is God's toilet.
[00:08:24] So this is not a good place.
[00:08:27] Moving to Moab was rebellion against God and lack of trust in God who.
[00:08:34] Who provides. It's a lack of trust in his provision even in a time of famine.
[00:08:40] Now, who is it that did this? Well, now we get to the names. And the names of the characters in the story of Ruth are remarkable.
[00:08:50] They contribute to the storyline, the narrative. The names are so remarkable that some scholars think that the names were made up. I don't think that. I think this is in the providence of God. And So in verse 2, we are introduced to our characters.
[00:09:08] The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name, Naomi. And the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah, and they went to Moab and lived there.
[00:09:24] The names in Hebrew are particularly important.
[00:09:28] So Elimelech, his name means my God is king.
[00:09:33] Naomi, her name means pleasantness or sweetness.
[00:09:39] Mahlon, his name means sickly. And Kilion's name means dying.
[00:09:45] Now, so imagine having a child, and you name the child, especially in Hebrew, based on some characteristics.
[00:09:54] That's why sometimes in Hebrew you see people's names getting changed because they take on new character. So Mahlon and Kilion, so the midwives, you know, help deliver the baby. And they look at the baby and go, oh, this one's not going to make it.
[00:10:07] Ooh, this one's sickly, this one's dying. Okay, Mahlon and Chilion, they were Ephrathite. Ephrathite means that this is their clan in Bethlehem. So everything in Hebrew in the Hebrew culture was about the clan.
[00:10:21] It was about keeping the clan together, building a legacy with the clan. It's your family. And Elimelech, when he moves to Moab, he is bailing out on that legacy. He is bailing out on his family. He's bailing out on the clan Bethlehem. You know Bethlehem because of its fame as the birthplace of Jesus.
[00:10:41] Bethlehem means house of bread.
[00:10:44] It was a center of agriculture, a A center of commerce, very fertile ground. So it was a farming community.
[00:10:52] Judah is kind of like the state. So Judah was the southern kingdom of Israel. And Judah actually means praise. And of course, Moab is God's toilet.
[00:11:05] So you've got a guy whose name is my God is King, rebelling against that capital K king, and faithlessly leading his sweet wife, Naomi and his two sons, sick and dying, from the house of bread and praise, to the toilet.
[00:11:25] And so he dies.
[00:11:28] Verse three.
[00:11:30] Now, Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. You are to see in the story here that that death of Elimelech is of God's judgment. Naomi is now a widow. She is empty, but she's still got her two sons. That is good, but she gets emptier. Verse 4. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other, Ruth, so sick and dying, marry Moabite women, Women who are inclined to sacrifice their firstborn child to the demon God Chemosh.
[00:12:12] Orpah's name means neck.
[00:12:16] This is not Oprah, it's Orpah. Her name means neck. And more specifically, the beauty of the neck.
[00:12:25] And even more specifically, most likely the back of the neck.
[00:12:29] Now, this is in a culture that had a fascination with feet and ankles and face and neck, because there was no Instagram. And so people were covered up. Okay, so they wore robes, if you will. And so, you know, there was just a little bit that were exposed. And so apparently Orpah had a nice neck.
[00:12:52] Ruth, her name means friend, and she is probably good at it. We'll see.
[00:13:00] Continuing in verse four, they married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about 10 years, both Mahlon and Killian also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
[00:13:15] Now, notice in that verse that Naomi is the focus.
[00:13:20] So she is now left. It doesn't say, you know, about Ruth and Orpah becoming widows. It's about Naomi's loss.
[00:13:29] So Naomi's got no husband, and now she's got no sons.
[00:13:34] That means she's going to have no grandsons to care for her. So Naomi is likely going to starve to death or worse. So the staccato of death in the story emphasizes Naomi's aloneness and her emptiness. And so this prologue is about Naomi and her emptiness, her misery, her. Naomi's life is basically ruined now. Naomi could return to her father's house.
[00:14:04] Well, no, she couldn't, because he's likely dead.
[00:14:08] So she could remarry.
[00:14:10] But no, she's beyond childbearing years, so nobody's going to marry her.
[00:14:15] Well, she could get a job.
[00:14:18] No, she couldn't.
[00:14:20] So we have to understand how bleak this is for the girls and especially for Naomi. So, as you know, in the ancient world, it was better to be born a boy than a girl because it was a patriarchal world, a world controlled by men. And that's what happens, by the way, when strength is selfishly exploited.
[00:14:39] So a married woman is often seen as property. A single girl, not for very long. If your husband dies, you're exposed as you have no right to his property. And if you have no sons, therefore, to care for you, you're homeless. A widow was actually viewed culturally as cursed. And a woman who couldn't have children is even worse.
[00:15:02] She's actually blamed for not having the children, even if her husband's shooting blanks. But they would have no idea about that.
[00:15:11] If she can't have a boy, which continues the family name, remember the Clan name.
[00:15:17] Well, she's blamed for that. That's totally unfair because now we know that biologically it's the man that determines the sex of the baby. But in that culture he would just blame her and go get another wife.
[00:15:30] So a widow, especially a barren widow, was socially ostracized, reduced to poverty, vulnerable to abuse, and might turn to prostitution just to stay alive.
[00:15:43] All of it is unfair. Naomi is empty. So Naomi takes stock of her situation and she decides to take a flyer. Which brings us now to scene one, which is a desperate return.
[00:15:59] But we also get to see a literary masterpiece. Verse 6.
[00:16:02] When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters in law prepared to return home from there.
[00:16:17] Now where are we in the cycle of the judges?
[00:16:23] There's food in the land and maybe even blessing.
[00:16:29] We should go there.
[00:16:31] There's a return happening. There's repentance, right? Repentance just means return. It's stopped. Turn, go the other way.
[00:16:40] Leave Moab, go back to the promised land. This is where we are in the cycle. Verse 7. With her two daughters in law, she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah. Well, this is a 50 mile walk and it's three poor widows and that is very dangerous.
[00:17:04] But repentance can be kind of dangerous because of what you're leaving behind and where God is taking you next.
[00:17:14] Last summer, my daughter and son in law and my granddaughter Mary Lou, she didn't have any decision making power in this. They moved from North Idaho to North Carolina.
[00:17:28] So I helped them because I'm dad and grandpa. And so I got a, you know, a giant F350 dually and a 24 foot cargo trailer. And I drove from Billings to north Idaho and loaded up all of their stuff, all of their earthly belongings into this cargo trailer. Kyle, my son in law, was driving his truck, pulling.
[00:17:59] And so Kyle and I drove all the way across the country. Took us four days to get over to North Carolina.
[00:18:06] About halfway we were in some city somewhere in the United States, sort of southeast ish, and Kyle had gotten us an Airbnb. And so we drive to that and as we're driving by it, we see that there's no place to park on this road road that this house is on. So we go around the block and around the block, around the corner, there is room to park your rigs. And we've got considerable rigs right It's a truck pulling a car and then this big dually pulling a 24 foot cargo trailer. So we pull along the curb and I leave the keys in the ignition and keep it running, you know, And I open the door and I get out and Colin and I are going to talk about where we're parking. And this lady comes out of her house and she yells to me, turn the truck off. Get your keys and close the door and lock it.
[00:18:57] Oh, okay.
[00:19:01] And so Kyle goes over to talk to her. Well, these guys come out and start talking to me and I have a great conversation with him. And this guy's like, what are you doing? I tell him what we're doing and he says, well, you need a place to park all this. And I'm like, yeah, we do, because around the corner there's no place to park. He goes, well, look, you can park it here. He goes, my boss owns like six houses around here. And that house there, you could just park behind that one. Well, the house he's pointing out is a burned out husk of a house.
[00:19:26] So I'm like, well, okay, yeah, it looks like nobody's gonna be parking there, cause obviously nobody lives there. And so, yeah, this is gonna be great. I have the greatest conversation with this toothless man.
[00:19:36] And so Kyle comes over to me and he goes, get in the truck, let's go. I just booked a hotel.
[00:19:43] What? What? Why? What?
[00:19:45] Now my son in law, Kyle, he does executive protection. So he protects people that are.
[00:19:52] That people want to kill. So. And they usually want to kill them because they're rich and so that's why they have protection. So this is what my son in law does. And he, so he's always strapped, you know, and he's got, I think he's got an app on his phone where he can control a drone. You know, you can call in a drone strike. And so look, when you're wired that way, right, when you are a protector like that, well, everybody's suspicious, right? Always jumpy. Now me, one of my weaknesses is that I love people. And another weakness is I trust people. So I'm having great conversation with the toothless man.
[00:20:31] But Kyle comes over, he's like, we gotta go.
[00:20:33] It turns out that the toothless man's boss is the neighborhood meth dealer and he owns the six houses. And he burned down that husk of a house on purpose to get the insurance money. But before the insurance came in, he took all the copper out of the house. And the lady is telling Kyle, and Kyle is telling Me. If we park our rigs here, everything that you own in it will be gone by morning. I'm like, oh, toothless guy was so nice.
[00:21:07] I didn't know. Okay, so thankfully we have people like Kyle who have this protective gene in them and are suspicious of it. All of us, okay?
[00:21:20] Ruth and Naomi and Orpah, they don't have Kyle. They can't call in a drone strike. This is 50 miles in a very dangerous part of the world that they are going to travel on their way home. They don't on their way back. Okay, verse eight. Then Naomi said to her two daughters in law.
[00:21:43] She pauses.
[00:21:45] Go back, each of you to your mother's home.
[00:21:49] May the Lord show kindness to you as you have shown kindness to me.
[00:21:54] So on the road back, they just seems like they just get started going, Naomi starts to realize, I can't go back to Bethlehem with two demon worshiping Moabite widows.
[00:22:09] That's not going to go good for them.
[00:22:12] That won't be good in Israel.
[00:22:14] So you should just go home.
[00:22:16] And so she says, I'm your mother in law. You should go back to your mother because you don't want to hang out with a bitter old widow with two dead sons and it's not going to go well for you in Bethlehem.
[00:22:29] And so she actually prays in this prayer. She uses the great Hebrew word chesed.
[00:22:37] And chesed is a thick word, it's fat, it's potent, such that in English we don't really have a single word that you can really use to translate chesed.
[00:22:52] Here it's translated kindness. Sometimes it's loving kindness, sometimes it's mercy. It refers to a love that is loyal or a covenant kind of keeping. Love. It's actually probably the most important word in the Old Testament describing God's character other than the description that we get from his name, Yahweh. She talks about showing chesed kindness to the dead, which sounds kind of weird. But what she's doing is saying, thank you for loving my sons.
[00:23:18] Thank you for showing covenantal and loyal love to them.
[00:23:23] She continues, verse 9. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.
[00:23:32] This is a huge prayer because without a husband in the ancient world, a woman is reduced to poverty and homelessness and hunger and social outcast and physical danger.
[00:23:44] And Naomi figures that even if they're barren, they have a better shot with their own race.
[00:23:52] So she's urging them to leave. Then she kissed them and they wept aloud and said to her, we will go Back with you to your people.
[00:24:03] These 25 year old women have huge love and respect for Naomi.
[00:24:08] You know, they're bonded because of trauma. I mean, it was three funerals.
[00:24:14] They will live and suffer together and protect one another.
[00:24:18] But Naomi is objecting. Verse 11. Naomi said, Return home, my daughters.
[00:24:24] Why would you come with me?
[00:24:26] Am I going to have any more sons who could become your husbands?
[00:24:31] Return home, my daughters. I am too old to have another husband.
[00:24:36] Even if I thought there was still hope for me, even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons, would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them?
[00:24:48] So three times here, she insists that they go back.
[00:24:53] They needed to remarry, and Naomi can't provide any sons for them to remarry.
[00:25:01] Now, what she's doing here is referencing what's called Levirate marriage. Levir in Hebrew would be brother in law. So Levirate marriage is not in our culture, but it was in theirs, and it was actually commanded in the Old Testament law.
[00:25:19] The way Levirate marriage works is the brother of the husband who dies without kids, who would marry the widow so that the dead guy would have an heir to keep the family name going so that the brother's name would not be forgotten.
[00:25:39] Follow that.
[00:25:42] So let's say Mahlon and Kilion had a brother.
[00:25:46] We'll call him Vern.
[00:25:49] So Mahlon and Kilion, sick and dying, have a brother named Vern, which means leafy bush.
[00:25:57] Okay, so that's me. So if my brothers then died and left a widow, but their widow didn't have kids yet, then I would be required to bring the widows into my home, marry them, bless them with children, and then the kid's name would not be mine. It would be my dead brother's name, Mahlon Achillean. Follow all that.
[00:26:27] It is a much bigger deal then than it was now, because you're keeping the family name and the clan and the legacy and the genealogy alive. It was also designed to protect women from a life of widowhood and emptiness, and to protect the name and the interests of the man who died, including the inheritance.
[00:26:45] So what Naomi is doing is saying the brother of Mahlon and Chilion would have to be born of Naomi. But Naomi doesn't have a husband, and likely she's beyond childbearing years.
[00:27:02] So what she's doing is saying, even if I did get remarried, and even if I did have sons, and. And even if you waited for them to become men, you wouldn't just be Moabites. You'd be cougars.
[00:27:22] So she's like, no chance I'm doing this to you. It's not going to happen.
[00:27:27] Verse 13.
[00:27:29] No, my daughters, it is more bitter for me than for you because the Lord's hand has gone out against me.
[00:27:37] So she's saying, there's three good reasons for you not to stay with me. I'm not going to produce a husband for you. I'm a bitter old widow and God hates me.
[00:27:50] Have you ever felt this way?
[00:27:53] She's in deep here.
[00:27:55] Now. It's not true that God hates her, but you know, this is what she feels and she's got some evidence to back it up.
[00:28:03] Things have been rough.
[00:28:05] Verse 14.
[00:28:07] At this they wept again.
[00:28:09] Then Orpah kissed her mother in law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.
[00:28:15] So neck goes home.
[00:28:17] There she goes. You can just see the beautiful back of her neck as she goes.
[00:28:24] No judgment.
[00:28:25] She actually chooses the sensible route. But it's sad because, you know, Ruth and Orpah have bonded. They're friends.
[00:28:35] But there's a contrast here, isn't there? Orpah left, but it says Ruth clung. That Hebrew word includes the idea of loyalty and deep affection. Ruth had loyalty and deep affection. For Naomi, this is not a small decision, because what Ruth is doing is leaving her father and her mother and her culture and her religion and her soccer team and her friends and her food.
[00:29:01] And she's going to join a whole new group, and it's the Naomi group and it's a bitter group.
[00:29:06] Now Ruth is doing this without thinking of getting another man. That's not why she's doing this.
[00:29:12] She's going to go to a whole other culture.
[00:29:16] Naomi is going to be in rough shape and so would Ruth, and maybe worse for Ruth.
[00:29:24] But Ruth is committed and submitted to Naomi. Remember, her name means friendship. She's doing it. Verse 15. Look, said Naomi, your sister in law. There goes nec is going back to her people and her gods go back with her.
[00:29:44] Naomi, bless her heart, actually really wants the best. For Ruth tells her to return, even though Chemos is a dumb deity.
[00:29:54] But this verse just sets up the next verses, which are actually world famous.
[00:30:00] So here we have one of the greatest stories in all of ancient literature. And within it is one of the most famous lines in all of literature anywhere. And so let's enjoy 16 and 17. But Ruth replied, don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay.
[00:30:21] Your people will be my people and your God, my God.
[00:30:26] Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me. Be it ever so severely, if anything, but death separates you and me.
[00:30:40] Dr. Allen says that this is one of the high points in all of the Bible.
[00:30:45] It is beautiful and potent, it's relational, it's emotional.
[00:30:51] And most importantly, this is actually Ruth's statement of what we call saving faith.
[00:31:00] This is actually her conversion experience. She actually uses the word Yahweh.
[00:31:07] What Ruth is doing is repenting.
[00:31:10] She is turning away from Chemosh and, and she's moving towards Yahweh. She's turning away from rebellion and toward trusting the God of the Bible.
[00:31:21] On this side of the cross.
[00:31:24] We would say she's becoming a Christian.
[00:31:26] And this is permanent.
[00:31:29] Ruth is not going to go back to Moab when Naomi dies. That's verse 17.
[00:31:34] She's going to stay after Naomi dies and she's going to be buried where Naomi is buried. She is committed for this life and for the life to come. This is a complete break with her past at a time when people didn't move.
[00:31:51] Ruth is moving and she's doing it because of her love and her loyalty to Naomi and her new found faith in Yahweh with God. And she's committed to Naomi. Even though Naomi is a little, you know, snippy.
[00:32:08] Naomi is a little difficult, but Ruth is so serious about it.
[00:32:13] She takes a very serious and common oath where she says, may God deal with me, be it ever so severely.
[00:32:23] Really the way to think about that is, and this is how they would have thought about it is may God send me to hell and turn up the fire if I don't follow through in what I say I'm going to do if I don't follow through.
[00:32:37] So Naomi goes, okay, let's roll. Girl's serious about this. Verse 18. When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. Ruth is a friend. Which brings us to our last scene, which is bitter with a dash of better verse. 19. So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred, but because of them. And the women exclaimed, can this be Naomi?
[00:33:06] So they leave toilet and they arrive at the house of Bread. And the women wonder, is this Naomi? Now question, why didn't they recognize Naomi?
[00:33:16] Well, it's been 10 years and three funerals and no grandchildren.
[00:33:24] And the desert is hard on a person.
[00:33:26] But you know what's worse?
[00:33:28] Grief.
[00:33:30] And you know what's worse than that?
[00:33:32] Anger at God and Bitterness, that's the kind of stuff that disfigures a person.
[00:33:40] And so Naomi has to explain. Verse 20. Don't call me Naomi, she told him. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter, as you might imagine. Mara means bitter.
[00:33:57] You see how the names just move the story along? Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara. Oh, I once was sweet, now I'm bitter. And why? Because God did it to me.
[00:34:11] Now, if he did or did not is not the point right here. She believes it and it makes it that much worse.
[00:34:19] God, who could have been her protector and blesser, has abandoned her in her mind. And it's worse. Verse 21. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.
[00:34:33] Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me. The Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.
[00:34:40] And now we come to what the scholars would call the literary thrust of the book, Ruth, emptiness and fullness.
[00:34:51] You see where she says I was full and now I'm empty.
[00:34:55] I was full. I had a husband and two sons and the promise of survival. Getting out of Bethlehem. Now I'm empty.
[00:35:01] Three funerals, one daughter in law gone forever, never will see her again. One socially, religiously, racially and deficient friend, the Moabitess.
[00:35:14] So what Naomi is doing is saying, I'm going to die hungry, lonely, afraid and damaged.
[00:35:20] I am not pleasant, I am not sweet. God has answered me and he has afflicted me and he has left me.
[00:35:28] I'm Mara. I'm bitter. And so it's so bad.
[00:35:34] Bitter is what I would write on my name tag if I get invited to a potluck supper, which I won't. So I'm just going to sit here and die a little more. And when away full, God brought me back empty. It's bleak, it's dark. She's in deep.
[00:35:53] And then the author summarizes and foreshadows a little hope.
[00:35:59] So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth, the Moabitess, her daughter in law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
[00:36:13] The barley harvest?
[00:36:16] Why is that significant?
[00:36:21] Barley is the first crop of the season to be harvested.
[00:36:26] Wheat would be a few weeks after that.
[00:36:30] What does the barley harvest tell you about the land?
[00:36:35] It is full.
[00:36:39] The land is full.
[00:36:42] In literature and filmmaking, this is what's called a foreshadowing.
[00:36:47] There's more coming.
[00:36:49] The land is full.
[00:36:50] But Naomi, she's still Mara. She's still empty, but the land is full.
[00:36:57] Repentance and return lead to blessing and. And flourishing. And fullness.
[00:37:06] Perhaps today you need to repent and return to fullness.
[00:37:12] I mean, you rebelled and you went to Moab for a while.
[00:37:16] You should come home.
[00:37:20] Perhaps you feel like God Almighty hasn't just left you, but has also afflicted you.
[00:37:28] And so you're a bit bitter these days and empty and angry at God.
[00:37:35] It's understandable.
[00:37:37] Naomi was in deep and sometimes it absolutely like feels like God has left you.
[00:37:44] Does anybody relate to this?
[00:37:46] I mean, I sure do.
[00:37:48] It feels like God has afflicted me. God has left me. What are you doing when you could be the blesser?
[00:37:57] But what the book of Ruth and what chapter one and what this very last verse does is it tells us this.
[00:38:04] You be encouraged because the land is full, because there is fullness for you. And God actually wants you to live a life of fullness. He wants that for you.
[00:38:22] And so I hope you come back next week as we go into chapter two and learn more about emptiness and especially fullness. Would you bow for prayer, please?
[00:38:35] You don't have to bow, but you know what I mean. So take a moment to pray. Would you just tell God some of your feelings and your thoughts. And if you've been to Moab and it's time to come home, this would be a great time to talk with him about that. If you feel like God has left you and you're feeling hopeless and you're feeling empty like Naomi, then this would be a time to ask God for fullness and blessing and to believe him for it.
[00:39:03] Heavenly Father, we want to say thank you for Ruth and not just the book, but the person.
[00:39:12] But we thank you for Naomi and the realistic way in which we can identify with her. We thank you for your love and mercy. We thank you for your good plan.
[00:39:25] We thank you for the promise of fullness.
[00:39:28] We thank you that even though we turn from you in rebellion, that you are there to help us come home.
[00:39:37] Thank you that you are a God of fullness and you want that for us.
[00:39:42] We trust you and we have much anticipation as you work out your beautiful plan in our lives in the way you did it for Ruth and for Naomi. Pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.
